These changes are ideas collected from the original post as well from other posts in the Ranger forum. Why it was posted here was to improve the chance of a forum mod of viewing this post since their activity on the profession forums isn’t all too known. Before introducing new features to a class, would be better to touch upon the already existing core profession before you begin to add any more to fix any already existing issues. If you agree or disagree with the changes proposed here, please leave a reply.
Pet Changes
1. Pets need their attack ranges increased to 250-300 for their auto attacks so they can compete with Polymorph Moa, Mesmer’s Elite skill, as demonstrated through this video. Our pets are meant to be an actual threat since they are an extension of us; however, as they are now at the moment, they are used mainly for utility and crowd control purposes. Possible cleave for our pets’ auto attacks would be appreciated as shown for the Polymorph Moa’s auto attack due to the lack of cleave for pet species outside of drakes.
2. Better control of our pets through more hotkeys given to control their skills for more of a skill factor when playing Ranger. Having to rely on the pet AI for all situations is rather terrible, especially for PvP and WvW. Ways for this to be implemented is to add two more hotkeys being F5 and F6, allowing us to have control over the other two pet skills: F1 Attack My Target, F2 already existing pet skill tied to the hotkey, F3 Return to Me, F4 secondary pet sill, F5 third pet skill, and F6 Swap Pets. Obviously reaching for F5 or F6 would be tedious, but if they were implemented we can switch the hotkey towards our personal binds. Having better control over our pets would vastly improve the gameplay for Ranger since we have actual control over our pet rather than leaving it up to the AI to decide to use their extra skills off of cooldown.
3. Pets should also receive an evade frame when we dodge to help with their survivalbility factor. They wouldn’t need to add in an animation, just make them receive the evade frame that we do when we dodge. A secondary bar could be placed under their health bar so we can view their current energy through the dodge meter, allowing us to tell when they are and not able to dodge. With the addition of the energy bar for dodging towards our pets would give an actual reason for vigor being given to the pet through Fortifying Bond. Having a dodge given towards the pet will help them survive in environments with alot of AoE pressure such as WvW and some situations in PvP and PvE.
4. Due to the limit of the pet AI, pets will sit in AoEs and end up dying in a quick time span. A buff should be given to them similar to Playing Favorites to help them survive in these cases such as WvW and PvE. This buff shouldn’t be applied to pets for PvP because they will then actually be considered ‘OP’.
5. A unique buff for Ranger needs to be given to the pet that shares group buffs such as Spotter and Empower Allies as well as stealth, spirits, banners, and auras so the pets receive these benefits as well. Our pets constantly lose out on these buffs during fights or skipping mobs with stealth due to the restrictions on these buffs only being given to 5 in-game entities. Due to the restrictions, players will be prioritized over the pet, so our pets will not receive these buffs in situations that have 5 or more players in a setting. You could increase the amount of entities that receive this buff, which would resolve the issue for dungeon parties and PvP. However, large scaling groups like world event bosses and WvW, our pets will continue to miss out on these buffs. That leaves removing the cap entirely, although that would break the game in for some situations. In organized world events like Triple Trouble, Silverwastes, and Tequatl; so long as someone is running these group utilities, everyone else can run personal DPS builds, making this already existing content easier than before.
Trait Changes
1. Fortifying Bond needs to either be moved into the Beast Mastery specialization by merging Pack Alpha and Pet’s Prowess and then moving Fortifying Bond into the now opened Minor Grandmaster trait, or making Fortifying Bond baseline.
2. Condition stats given through Expertise Training needs to be buffed to a reasonable amount. With the reworked condition formulas, the amount of damage our pet can give through conditions is rather weak.
3. Empathic Bond should be changed to where conditions pulled from the player are converted into boons onto the pet. This will vastly help the sustainability of the pet due to conditions melting pets when conditions are pulled to the pet.
4. Predator’s Instinct either needs a reduced cooldown, this trait underwhelming as it is in comparison to the other Major Adept traits.
5. Enlargment should be changed from proccing Signet of Stone instead of Signet of the Wild. This would help correlate with other traits such as Defy Pain.
6. Brutish Seals to also apply fury when activated. This would help synergize with Remorseless, giving us more self fury procs for Opening Strike.
7. Increase the bleeding duration for Sharpened Edges by 200% maximum, bleeding damage feigns in comparison to burning in both damage and accessibility. This shouldn’t also be just restricted to Ranger, Duelist’s Discipline for Mesmer as an example should also be buffed due to the low accessibility towards this condition.
8. The On Dodge buff given through Light on your Feet needs to be reworked, this buff sounds very nice on paper, but is pretty underwhelming.
9. Refined Toxins needs to have a lower threshold or no ICD, bringing a player below 90% health is no task at all outside of PvE.
10. Bark Skin needs to have its affect be reverted to its previous state. Again, bringing a player below 90% health is no task, and having it proc at a lower threshold would synergise with Most Dangerous Game.
11. Possibly move Wilderness Knowledge back into Nature Magic, we have very limited condition removal that doesn’t require sacrificing our utilities or our pet.
12. Nature’s Vengeance to allow spirits to move again and granting mobility towards our spirits, giving more of a reason to bring this trait for PvP and WvW, since the lack of mobility killed the Spirit Ranger build to be honest.
13. Windborne Notes to apply more useful utilities, such as condi removal and reveal on the warhorn 4 ability.
14. Move Honed Axes into a more fitting specialization line. Beast Mastery is meant to improve our pet’s abilities and performance, this trait doesn’t make sense belonging here.
Utility Changes
1. Quickening Zephyr to apply group quickness rather than a self buff, giving more group utility to Ranger. This would make it act more similar to GW1’s Quickening Zephyr as it was a group utility back then.
2. Spirits need an overhaul; give them back their mobility and change their pulsing boons to more useful boons. Example; Water Spirit pulses Resistance, Lightning Spirit pulses quickness, and Frost Spirit pulses fury. Change the duration and intervals of the boons so the pulsing fury from Frost Spirit won’t proc Remorseless as much as it would now with a 1 second interval; 3 second duration boon, 5 second interval. Increase channeling speed for spirit actives as well due to their slow cast time.
3. Signet of Renewal to apply a small amount of resistance towards the pet when this signet is activated. As it is, this may as well be a ‘Kill Pet’ Button due to the condi overload. Having a few seconds of resistance would allow the pet to possibly live through the conditions they are pulling to them.
4. Make it so that traps aren’t activated by ambient creatures. Due to the lack of AoE targeting on our traps now, we have to rely on set areas, that ambient creatures can disrupt.
Weapon Changes
1. The greatsword 4 skill Counterattack to act similar to Revenant’s Duelist’s Preparation so we are able to choose when to counterattack, rather than having it proc when something enters the range of the skill.