Guild Wars 2

There are a couple if things that I would like to talk about, which have been most likely overlooked by not taking into account the power creep that has happened in the latest patch. Traits that have been borderline useful before the patch but are now fairly bad, albeit sometimes necessary to take.

EMPHATIC BOND

-Rangers condition removal has been pretty bad before the feature pack that has introduced Survival of the Fittest. After that, as far as PvP and to some extent WvW was concerned, the ranger could keep up against pure condition specs.

In the lastest patch, SotF (now wilderness knowledge/mastery) and EB share the same spot in the Wilderness tier. Which is ok to some extent because overcoming the ranger condition removal on utilities and weapon skill problem by traiting was indeed silly.

However, with the massive power creep that is the current condition situation, the pet just melts when emphatic bond activates. Thus I would like to suggest that it either be changed to:

-Converts 3 conditions from ranger into boons for the pet

or

-Every time EB pulses, the pet gains 3-4 seconds of resistance

SIGNET OF RENEWAL

-This patch has made serious progress into making a positive interaction between the ranger and the pet. Having said that, having a signet that for all intents and purposes kills the pet on activation, IF it decides to work due to a range restriction, is simply not good design and does not promote a positive attitude towards the pet. The pet should never be a dump of sorts. Thus I would suggest

-Signet of renewal no longer transfers conditions to the pet, it just clears them
I would either go as far as to suggest a CD reduction to the level of some other similar anti conditon abilities but that would probably imply removing the group effect.

WHIRLING DEFENSE

-This skill has been the laughing stalk of the community for ages. The concept of the skill is solid, but the problem is that it roots you in place. The engineer had a similar skill on the shield that got changed into being usable while moving. I know that the animation already exists and that it would be a pity of removing it, but I feel that this is a huge game play issue first and foremost. Thus I would suggest:

-After a brief channel the ranger creates an AOE dome, similar to feedback that pulses vulnerability to enemies and retaliation to allies for 4-5 seconds. Reflects projectiles.

SHARED ANGUISH

I have to say this, compared to other classes similar traits this one is utter crap. Without further ado, I suggest:

-Reduce the ICD to 45 seconds and add the Hide in Plain Sight functionality to the ranger

PROTECT ME

This should be used. It should compete with other utilities that let you sustain yourself. But it does not. It is the only defensive ability in the game that has a massive drawback. Not only does it come with a DPS penalty, but it also destroys your class mechanic. Thus I suggest:

-The pet no longer dies
-For the duration of the shout both you and the pet pulse 1 second of protection and resistance
-The pet, as it does right now, comes back to you and cannot attack
-Remains a stun breaker

PET VITALITY SCALING

I have noticed a long time ago that 300 points of vitality are not worth 3000 hit points for the pet. The pet gains 1500. This should be rectified as it is not intuitive. If by chance I am wrong on this one, please correct me.

Guys, thank you for reading. I hope you understand that this is talking about things that are either conceptually bad, or are simply never or rarely used. Please do not view this as an OMG BUFF RANGER LOLS.

I agree with almost everything but Protect Me.

It competes with Signet of the Stone only.
And here are the differences:

SotS:
~ 80 sec CD, lasts for 6 seconds, Works for both you and pet.
~ Can be traited for 20% reduced CD and 3 might on activation

Protect Me:
~ 60 sec CD, lasts 6 seconds, Transfers the damage to your pet and stops it’s damage. Works as a Stun Breaker and stops point contribution
~ Can be traited for 20% reduced CD, AoE Swiftness, AoE regen
~ Can be runed for AoE condition cleanse.

As you can see – the Drawbacks are there for a reason. Protect me doesn’t need a single change. It’s balanced and it saved me countless of times already post-update. It fits the purpose of tanky pets that became viable absolutely on the spot.
Can you imagine that your proposed changes would be combined with signet of the stone? 12 seconds of immortal Ranger is over the meta.

The Condition Transfer needs to be addressed. Not protect me.

About Shared Anguish… I’m not sure. We already have immense access to stun breakers, nice access to stability, almost highest access to evades and vigor, and Stuns Do Not counter us fully unlike other classes and we can counter-react via our pets, be it BeastMastery blind-weak-taunt on birds or fear on our Wolf.

Making us basically anti-CC classes is not the solution for PvP either.

so Natural Healing dont apply to ranger anymore ??

It’s rare that I agree with someone almost 100%.
But you get my support this time, OP.

Seriously hope the developers can consider these QoL.
They did some crazy changes to Mesmer and Engi, why can’t they do the same to ranger?