Guild Wars 2

Hi, after the past year of playing Ranger mainly in PvP I’ve started to figure out where we lack. Now all the changes I’ve made in this balance is based on builds. By adding the smallest change can unlock massive amount of viable builds for the ranger. I know myself I’m sick of being limited to selected few Viable builds while playing PvP.

Here is detailed list of balance change’s I would make.

Elite

Spirit of Nature: Summon a spirit that gives nearby allies a 35% chance to gain regeneration on hit. Command the spirit to revive and cure conditions on nearby allies.
Regeneration: 6 seconds.
Duration: 60 seconds.

Healing

Heal as One: Heals yourself and your pet and removes 2 conditions.
Healing 6200.
Removes 2 conditions when active.

Utilities

Trap

- Base damage of all traps increased by 200.
- Frost Trap: Pulse damage, cooldown reduced to 25 seconds.

Signet

- Signet of the Renewal: Cooldown reduced to 50 seconds.

Shout

- Protect Me: Instead of attacking, your pet will protect you by absorbing all damage you would take for 6 seconds and pull all conditions from you and nearby allies.
- Search and Rescue: Your pet will seek out and revive a downed ally nearby while taking 20% less damage.
- Guard: Cooldown increased to 20 seconds.

Spirit

- Storm Spirit: Active skill, Call Lightning reduced to 2500 base damage.

Survival

- No Changes.

Trait Lines

Marksmanship

- Remorseless: Regain Opening Strike and remove Bleed, Poison & Burning whenever you kill or gain stealth.

Skirmishing

- Martial Mastery: Moved from Wilderness Survival.
- Bark Skin: Moved from Wilderness Survival. Bark Skin You and your pet take 30% less damage and deal 30% more damage when under 25% health.

Wilderness Survival

- Trapper’s Expertise: Moved from Skirmishing.
- Trap Potency: Moved from Skirmishing.

Nature Magic

- Nature’s Voice: Shouts heals 1000 scales with healing power and applies regeneration (10 seconds) and swiftness (10 seconds) to allies within a 360 radius.

Beastmastery

- Instinctual Bond: When you reach 10% Health Threshold, your pet gains quickness for 5 seconds. 50 second cooldown.

Weapons

Greatsword
– Maul: Range increased to 300.
– Hilt Bash: Base damage increased by 400.

Longbow
– Base damage increased by 200 on all attacks.
– Rapid Fire: Cast speed increased to 3 1/2 seconds.

Axe (Off-Hand)
– Whirling Defense: You can now move while skill is active.

Sword
– Serpent’s Strike: Cast time reduced to 1/2 second.

Warhorn
– Hunter’s Call: Call hawks to swarm your foe and apply’s Blindness for 5 second.

If these were implemented, I wouldn’t have a single thing left to say as far as improvements go; everything has been addressed.

+1 and I hope more people read, understand, and agree with the proposed changes (especially the devs).

Sol.4310:

- Protect Me: Instead of attacking, your pet will protect you by absorbing all damage you would take for 6 seconds and pull all conditions from you and nearby allies.

The pet will die even faster… “Protect Me” should be rename with “Die for me” ^^

Sol.4310:

Survival

- No Changes.

I’d like something more on LR (more damage or an immo removal or a 1s stun on target)

Except this 2 points i’m pretty ok with yours changes.

I really like the remorseless and LB change. Would make zerker LB/GS really powerful.

Why nerf instinctual bond? What has it done to deserve that?

nice ideas,
i dont like the idea of moving traits around
the idea of remorseless would be too OP for WvW in zerg fights for example
and with longbow #3 to loose every 9s (when skilled) all dmg conditions? that would be too powerful. maybe the Chance to loose one condition each time we gain stealth
the cast time of rapid fire would too long, the current is okay

+1 for axe offhand and warhorn
i think would be cool when the cast time of axe mainhand autoattack could be slightly shorter
and pounce of sword have an “leap finisher” Chance of 20%

Protect Me needs to also put protection on the pet to reduce the damage it takes. Especially if it will peel conditions which will further increase the damage it takes. Protect Me needs to function like Endure Pain and our Signet. I don’t know if the pet could take 6 seconds of damage from multiple sources AND conditions on top of it.

I’m also not seeing enough done to increase the value of a power based Ranger or anything to solve the grouping issues the class is currently faced with.

There’s still no reliable burst or good AE available to the class, so they can’t be brought for damage. There’s still no critical group buffs so they aren’t going to be brought for utility. There’s marginally more condition removal so a slight improvement to defense but still not enough to outshine anyone else.

Your hilt bash damage increase and maul adjustment are nice additions but without a trait to reduce the cooldown on weapon swaps, this burst chain is not reliable.

These are all great little subtle things that may buff the class in sPvP where it already does well. Not enough to help outside of sPvP.

The guard CD should not be increased. A natures voice build relies on the 12 sec cd (with -20% cd on shouts) to have permanent swiftness and regen.

I understand there will be people who disagree, there is reason behind all the idea’s I posted. Now none of them will ever see the light of day.

But before you knock something first take look at all skill changes and what current trait’s we have and design a build. You will then see what I’m aiming for.