Guild Wars 2

rangers desperately need some utilities to clear conditions and break stuns

right now the only condition cleanses the ranger has are all passive, and for stun breaks the ranger only really has two options.

-lightning reflexes, which is a great skill but can easily put you in a place you don’t want to be
-quickening zephyr, another great skill, but best not used for its stun break properties since you are effectively locked out of healing yourself for the next 6 seconds. plus it has a 60 second cooldown making it too valuable to waste.

Aaaaaa so many red posts!

If only one of them would mention our class mechanic that is more of a burden than an asset…

JonPeters.5630:

I just had a wacky idea that might make some aspects of MH sword less frustrating. I’ll test it out when I get in to work and report back.

Jon

i just came here to make a spammy comment on how great this new change of paradigm is!!! anet begins to listen to its gamers?! hell yeah, that’s the best “update” we’ve seen so far! pls keep up the great work!!!

I think Nature’s Voice should be usable with Sic ’em and not just Guard.
Changes could be somewhere along these lines:

Nature’s Voice
- swiftness increased from 10s to 15s
- regeneration increased from 10s to 15s

Guard:
- cast time removed
- cooldown increased from 15s to 20s

Sic ’em:
- no longer requires a target. It only gives the buff
- buff can’t be broken by other commands to the pet
- cooldown reduced from 40s to 25s
- 40% damage reduced to 25%
- 40% movement speed untoched

This way you can either use the defensive Guard in combination with Nature’s Voice or combine it with the offensive Sic ’em.

With the cast time removed from Guard it will be a lot less annoying to use.

With the target requirement removed from Sic ’em it can be used at any time to buff people around you, even when no targets are near. Sic ’Em also won’t send your pet everywhere like Guard currently does.

I just had a wacky idea that might make some aspects of MH sword less frustrating. I’ll test it out when I get in to work and report back.

Thank you kindly.
Even if it doesn’t pan out, I do want to commend you for taking another look at it in response to our feedback.

Ohhh. That’s a neat idea, Xsorus.
Hilt Bash stepping on Moment of Clarity’s toes has always been a bit odd. You could totally change it to something else. Though Aegis is probably pushing into Guardian territory. How would you feel about Protect?

Sarision.6347:

An above poster said:

“I realize the GS is an interesting defensive weapon but there’s really no reason for people to be afraid of it right now.”

The reason people are not afraid of it right now is because that evade is keeping the damage in check.

Is that what is keeping the damage is check? Are you sure? Maybe the damage is just flat out inadequate and A-net can buff that without removing the evade.

Malachi.1836:

The evade on the GS is one of the only things keeping power rangers relatively alive in front line fights in WvW. I dislike running conditions because of the passive use of cooldown play it brings. As such, the evade on the 1 allows me to control when i want to evade simply by removing the auto attack.

I would prefer the devs create better means of sustain than relying on passive mechanics.

Did you not read the end of his post? He can control when he evades. Control =/= Passive.

Vox Hollow.2736:

I just had a wacky idea that might make some aspects of MH sword less frustrating. I’ll test it out when I get in to work and report back.

Thank you kindly.
Even if it doesn’t pan out, I do want to commend you for taking another look at it in response to our feedback.

Ohhh. That’s a neat idea, Xsorus.
Hilt Bash stepping on Moment of Clarity’s toes has always been a bit odd. You could totally change it to something else. Though Aegis is probably pushing into Guardian territory. How would you feel about Protect?

I’ve got plenty of protect already every time I dodge.

JonPeters.5630:

I just had a wacky idea that might make some aspects of MH sword less frustrating. I’ll test it out when I get in to work and report back.

Jon

If you can pull this off, I’ll dust off my ranger and will sing your praise. Dare I say, I may be mistaken for a bard in such a task.

Hell, I might even roll a second ranger.

JonPeters.5630:

I just had a wacky idea that might make some aspects of MH sword less frustrating. I’ll test it out when I get in to work and report back.

Jon

Please make Moment of Clarity changes for dec 10 affect environmental weapon as well, and for that trait are you only really up-ing stun duration? not daze as well?

Vox Hollow.2736:

I just had a wacky idea that might make some aspects of MH sword less frustrating. I’ll test it out when I get in to work and report back.

Thank you kindly.
Even if it doesn’t pan out, I do want to commend you for taking another look at it in response to our feedback.

Ohhh. That’s a neat idea, Xsorus.
Hilt Bash stepping on Moment of Clarity’s toes has always been a bit odd. You could totally change it to something else. Though Aegis is probably pushing into Guardian territory. How would you feel about Protect?

protect would work also, couldn’t think of another good defensive thing besides it and aegis.

Xsorus.2507:

protect would work also, couldn’t think of another good defensive thing besides it and aegis.

Retaliation?

MH sword doesn’t bother me. I find it quite fun to try to time my dodges around the enemies attacks and the swords’ animation. No big deal. I wish the people who were upset about that were just as upset about our core mechanic that really is a problem. I have four other fully geared 80 lvl toons. Mesmer, Warrior, Guardian, and Thief. None of their F skills (class mechanics) feel broken like the Rangers. I’ve spent 1100 hours on the Ranger and a few hundred hours on each of the others. Enough to know that I need to play my Ranger a lot less and play my other classes, the Guardian in particular, much more. None of the problems the Ranger has are more pressing than the pet. Sure, they can work on the others too but the shear amount of work the class mechanic needs to make it useful in every situation…. Mind boggling. I don’t really post too much in the other class subforums because I don’t have a big gripe with them. Nothing on them feels broken like it does on my Ranger. I love playing my Ranger the most, though, even with the pet that doesn’t know it’s kitten from it’s nose. The play style is just fun. Which is why I care the most about it getting fixed and made great like it should be.

Also, a great many people think that stealth is the thiefs class mechanic, but is it initiative or is it steal? Depending on how you slice it the thief enjoys 2 or 3 class mechanics. I think it’s fair to ask for a 2nd one for the Ranger to replace the one that is painfully obvious doesn’t work as intended no matter how Devs try to spin it. Preparations from GW1 seems awesome. I never did play GW1. Seems like it would open up some more build diversity.

None of the trait changes will affect my Ranger or how I play except for the endurance regen nerf (that one hurts). I play dungeons and PVE. It’s all about mitigating damage through dodging and dealing as much damage as possible as fast as possible. I’m only going to trait what I think helps me to that goal. Dealing as much damage as possible means using sword+warhorn with jungle stalker (might)/red moa(fury) 2nd weapon doesn’t matter, but I usually (now-a-days) take longbow for the vul stacks then swap back to sword asap. I play all my toons to deal as much damage as possible as fast as possible because that’s the way the game is designed to be played.

JonPeters.5630:

Some ranger discussion.

Natural Vigor
Starting here because I think it requires the most discussion. This, simply put, was a wildly overpowered trait. I tell people not to compare one profession to another, but Engineer has this trait as a major grandmaster. It was simply too easy to put 5 points in this line and then be able to dodge every 6.67 seconds. As it stands after the change this still allows you to splash 5 points and dodge every 8 seconds. I don’t think this will ruin survivability, and I think by buff other traits further down this line it will encourge rangers who are looking to survive to go further into this trait line.

This is a huge blow to survivability – about 17% fewer dodges. Having played all the classes, and using a ranger as a main since release. that is dying about 15% more often. My ranger dodges more than any other character I have with 15 into that trait line already.

All rangers are looking to survive. Going deep into that trait line should be a bonus to survivability, not a requirement. Unless you’re boosting offense so we can kill everything that can hit us at any given time 17% faster, this is a bigger deal than you’re portraying it to be, especially for PvE content.

JonPeters.5630:

Power Rangers
One idea we talked about for Greatsword would be to take the evade off of the 3rd attack of the auto-chain and put it on swoop. This would give you a second on-demand defensive skill and instead we put something less timing based (for example a whirl finisher) on that third attack to empower it.

This is such a bad idea that I’m hoping it was suggested as something to use to scare us and then not do, so putting in the natural vigor change despite our objections seem better.

That evade is what makes it possible for Power/Precision rangers to use their greatsword in crowds, where it hits multiple opponents and lets them attack a boss when there are other mobs around. Evades/dodges are how power/precision rangers survive.

Please don’t make this the patch that forces people to put points into vitality/toughness like a fancy version of later-patch Daiblo 2 where life is all that matters for almost every class.

I’ll try to comment each point

Natural Vigor
Starting here because I think it requires the most discussion. This, simply put, was a wildly overpowered trait. I tell people not to compare one profession to another, but Engineer has this trait as a major grandmaster. It was simply too easy to put 5 points in this line and then be able to dodge every 6.67 seconds. As it stands after the change this still allows you to splash 5 points and dodge every 8 seconds. I don’t think this will ruin survivability, and I think by buff other traits further down this line it will encourge rangers who are looking to survive to go further into this trait line.

Jon, rangers are already going further into this traitline. Mesmers and guardians can have 100% vigor uptime for a 5 point trait wich is x2 times better than this. If you really don’t like this trait maybe you should consider to swap it with bark skin.

Spirits Unbound and Nature’s Voice
I think the biggest change of moving spirits unbound is it allows you to take this trait along with Nature’s Voice. Internally we have done some testing where you bring stone spirit, guard, and then still have a open third utility slot to make some truly good support ranger builds. Spirits have always had that feel and I think this brings that to the forefront.

More option for support are always welcome. Creating a sinergy with guard was a good decision, however i think guard should have a better function on its own without heavy trait investment, plus it’s the only shout with a casting time.

Power Rangers
No pun intended. As many have said these guys are in an interesting position. In some ways they can be very strong, but everytime I play my ranger this way it feel like it comes up a little bit short. I think this is because they are lacking a few things as either additional tools for greatsword or as utilities. Signets are the somewhat obvious utility choice but their effect is too varied to run a strong full signet build here. Conversely all traits associated with signets tend to increase in power the more you bring. What signets need is a good trait that synergizes with bringing a single signet, like Nature’s Voice does for shouts. This would let you bring maybe one or two signets and suppliment them with something else. One idea we talked about for Greatsword would be to take the evade off of the 3rd attack of the auto-chain and put it on swoop. This would give you a second on-demand defensive skill and instead we put something less timing based (for example a whirl finisher) on that third attack to empower it.

One of the things that make power rangers bad are the ranged weapons. They don’t cleave by default like the melee weapons; generally ranged weapons do less damage to justify the range advantage but here it has basically no value in pvp where you have to fight on points and is very easy to close the gap. melee weapons do more single target damage AND the cleave.
I think the change to the greatswod will make the weapon even worse. By moving the evade from the AA to swoop you are reducing the evading uptime of the weapon and the whirl finisher is not that strong to justify the loss. The evade on the auto opens up for some skillful plays but if you want to make more a on-demand dodge you could punt the evade on the second or first part of the chain.

Main-hand sword
I just want to clarify for good that main hand sword is currently working as intended. All movement skills cannot be interrupted by dodging and this is currently intentional. It has a very specific play style, and I would like it to remain. I understand that rangers want a one handed melee option that is more mobile, but that will have to wait, as I know there are a mix of players who also like how this weapon plays and I do not want to take away one of the more unique playstyles that we have and replace it with something that is fairly common.

Actually I like that playstyle even though is not very practical in pvp.

RWinter.1680:

Xsorus.2507:

protect would work also, couldn’t think of another good defensive thing besides it and aegis.

Retaliation?

Is no defensive. It only do some dmg not more.

Yea, please do NOT remove the evade from GS #1. Adding it to Swoop is just a flat-out bad idea for a number of reasons:
A) Swoop can be used offensively as a gap closer(which will basically waste the evade)
B) Swoop can be used defensively as a gap extender(escape, again another waste of the evade); I’d wager MOST Rangers use it for this
C) Swoop is already a fairly “unique” ability and doesn’t need yet another mechanic added to it

GS has become the defacto defensive weapon with it’s block, evade, and Swoop. Removing the evade from GS #1 will DRAMATICALLY change the weapon into a niche area, as the evade will go from being used often to being used only for escapes(honestly it will be wasted because we’re already using Swoop to gain distance in that situation).

I’ll be honest: removing the evade will force me to drop the weapon from my build(and likely kill my desire to play the class as a whole).

MisterEction.9382:

JonPeters.5630:

Power Rangers
One idea we talked about for Greatsword would be to take the evade off of the 3rd attack of the auto-chain and put it on swoop. This would give you a second on-demand defensive skill and instead we put something less timing based (for example a whirl finisher) on that third attack to empower it.

This is such a bad idea that I’m hoping it was suggested as something to use to scare us and then not do, so putting in the natural vigor change despite our objections seem better.

That evade is what makes it possible for Power/Precision rangers to use their greatsword in crowds, where it hits multiple opponents and lets them attack a boss when there are other mobs around. Evades/dodges are how power/precision rangers survive.

Please don’t make this the patch that forces people to put points into vitality/toughness like a fancy version of later-patch Daiblo 2 where life is all that matters for almost every class.

He pretty much retracted that statement as soon as he made it. While I agree that the evade is very valuable, it’s kind of a lazy approach to this class’ problem with melee combat. Not to mention GS #1 is less than productive as it is because the damage is just so low.

Really, and I’ve said it numerous times, more than anything else, this class needs more burst or AE before a power option will ever work. This class has little else than chaining #1 skills behind rapid fire or the often catastrophic option of swapping to GS in hopes a swoop+hilt+maul will finish someone off as you took who knows how long whittling someone down slowly with auto and rapid fire.

Even just one other skill to combo into would resolve a lot of the problems power Rangers face.

A trait to reduce the cooldown of weapon swaps seems the easiest solution given what we have to work with. If we weren’t tied to offhand axe or greatsword for 10 seconds after swapping we could make better use of our burst as we won’t be stuck with a completely lackluster weapon waiting for maul to come off cooldown.

Alternatively we could swap things around to make room for a burst skill. My preferred route to take is to remove spike trap (because it sucks), replace it with barrage (because it sucks), and give us a aimed shot skill. If spike trap were removed and barrage was changed to immobilize on the first wave it’s already more useful than spike trap was with 30 points invested in it. It’s also better than barrage is on our longbow.

A third method, assuming it’s possible, would be to change one of our lackluster signets (Signet of the Hunt) to offer a unique skill dependent on the weapon we have selected at the moment of activation similar to how the Glyphs work for the Elementalist with their various attunements.

Something like if the longbow is equipped, you gain some ranger equivilent to kill shot. If shortbow is equipped your next 3 shots cause burning. If you have a sword equipped you leap at your foe and impale them causing torment. If you have axe equipped your next 5 axe tosses will throw 2 axes.

Any of these options or any various other options to give this class some illusion of burst is all that’s needed to at least make power a legitimate option. It won’t really elevate Rangers in standing overall, but it would open up more options.

somsom.5201:

GS has become the defacto defensive weapon with it’s block, evade, and Swoop. Removing the evade from GS #1 will DRAMATICALLY change the weapon into a niche area,

It IS a niche weapon not more. Only for big events if u can´t evade (or u´re to lazy) or WvsW Zergs. That´s all.
Cause of the low dmg their is no reason to use it anyware else. Ok, possibel PvP because their is no other good “second weapon” choice since MH Axe is so bad.

U just see what u want to see.
Nature´s vigor nerf..would be ok if Mesmer and Guard 5 Points 100% Uptimevigor got Nerfs too.
Stop to say Warrior has Condi remove AND 50 nature´s vigor. Cause it´s impossibel and not compailable.
U just need 5, only 5, yes 5! Traitpoints in a tree that most of u pick anyway. It´s for free. For nothing.

Signet needs 1 Utilityslot. All are crying about warriors…endure pain, stability, bull charge and so on. This signet is blocking 1 of them. And that´s not all.
If the passiv is not used, they have no condition remove. If they use the Condition remove, they have no passive nature´s vigor.

Warhorn must be traitet or nned Boonduration runes to get Vigor to 100% uptime. Trait need´s 20 Points and a Majortrait, and a weapon (ok a good 1 but it´s a weapon, not 5 point´s for free). There can be a Shield/Mace/Sword for example. All 3 are good choices.

The only 2 things you rly can compare with nature´s vigor are vigorous precision and critical infusion. Both are in a lot of Builds free like nature´s vigor. But twice as strong and not nerfed.
And this is (and only this) is unfair. Engineers for example need 30 Points and a Mastertrait to get it or. 20 Point´s and 2 Mastertraits….this will get nerfed. But why Mesmers and Guards not?

And pls stop argumenting so much about the warrior. Pets are bad, warrior better here or here. Oh i want this because warrios does have it too! This will kill not even your class. It will kill the game. And it´s much easier to play a warrior….
Look at the ranger, think about it, what is needed to improve the ranger. And then post your Idea.

Norjena.5172:

Cause of the low dmg their is no reason to use it anyware else.

That’s why I don’t use it. Bring the DPS upto par with the mh sword and I’ll use it.

More active condition removals and improvement of utilities that would supplement glassy builds . Better power scaling too .

Norjena.5172:

And pls stop argumenting so much about the warrior. Pets are bad, warrior better here or here. Oh i want this because warrios does have it too! This will kill not even your class. It will kill the game. And it´s much easier to play a warrior….
Look at the ranger, think about it, what is needed to improve the ranger. And then post your Idea.

People compare every other class to the warrior because ArenaNet has stated that warriors are the perfectly balanced class. The class they’re happy with. The class they based all other classes off of. You can find blog posts and forum posts and interviews that state this.

So it’s time to compress Ranger traits like Warrior traits and bring the ranger up in all aspects to be on even footing/balance with the warrior, while keeping the core class basics the same (health, medium armor, etc..)

JonPeters.5630:

Evade on swoop was just an idea to give that build a second on demand defensive skill. It would certainly help close/escape as well because not being able to be bit while closing/escaping is going to improve your chances of doing so. Also gives you a reason to use that skill outside of those situations which would help with rotations IMO. That being said you are correct that removing evade from 1 is probably too harsh so this is a change that will probably have to wait a while for proper testing if it happens at all.

Jon

YESSSS disaster averted. Please do not ever change greatsword autoattack.

Yessss ply don´t increase Greatswords dmg! We need this defensive, otherwise it could be usefull outsides of “Zerg´s”…im scared!

Forget it to balance a Weapon or builds on masses of players…were PVT guys are pushing AA only because there are are too much lags. Forget it, it will never work. Never.
WvsW/RvsR zergs are not balanced, and they never will be. Not in GW2, not in all following games.

And outside of this, GS AA 3 is not more then “nice to have”….if im lazy. Not more. This weapon need´s dmg, at least 10% or 15%. And if u are in a Zerg, your not “good” or “equal” to others here. GS dmg is lower then Guard/Warr/Nec for example. And your Pet is dead anyway (or at range and doing low singeltarget dmg).
That means, even with our “best zerg” weapon we are worse then other professions.

It IS nothing more then a niche weapon.
It´s the same like…saying “LB is good” cause u can kick people from cliffs or to use barrage on stupid SR camping thiefs.

Whirlfinisher…why not? Whirls need a big improvement anyway. In about a year or two in will be funny and good! Ok maybe not xD.

15% more weapondmg, to get this u need about 25% more dmg on AA 3. Your “free” dogde is rly expansive…defensive weapon OK…but
Sword has 2 dogdes with a Dagger 3…is this now a defensive weapon too?
What with Axe or WH?
U can´t compare GS AA with Sword AA..u have to take a look on our offhand weapons too.
Now we have the Problem. If u increase GS dps, and still are dogding 1/4 or 1/5 of the time. It could be tricky.
If u don´t increase the dmg the GS will be still not viable outside of zergs. Cause their dmg is important too (and the benefit of this dogde many times smaller). U will use the GS cause u have only Bows or the rly weak MH Axe to assist your sword.
But is this good?
Personally i would take a look how whirl/projectil finishers can be buffed. More/bigger Bolts. Stackable effects (Poison Bolts in a poison field is not usefull…weakness is the explosions part…why not torment here?).

This time again, sry for my bad english. Possibel it´s horribel this time it´s late here and i have to go to sleep….

Holland.9351:

One of the major issues with Longbow is it requiring 50 trait points to grab its traits:
30 in Marksmanship for Piercing Arrows and Eagle Eye
20 in Skirmishing for Quick Draw

The Shortbow has the same problem:
20 in Marksmanship for Piercing Arrows
20 in Skirmishing for Quick Draw

Both Quick Draw and Piercing Arrows only affect the Longbow and the Shortbow. So both the Longbow and the Shortbow need to spend at least 40 trait points to get their relevant traits.

The solution is quite obvious if you see it:

Longbow Mastery (replaces Piercing Arrows – 20 point into Marksmanship)
Longbow arrows pierce and Longbow skills have 20% less cooldown

Shortbow Mastery (replaces Quick Draw – 20 points into Skirmishing)
Shortbow arrows pierce and Shortbow skills have 20% less cooldown

With this both the Shortbow and the Longbow only need 20 points to get piercing arrows and less cooldown on their skills instead of 40. Talk about improving build diversity!

With this change, If you still want to use both Longbow AND Shortbow together and want both to pierce AND have 20% less cooldown, then it’ll cost you 40 points. Which is exactly the same amount as before the change.

Currently the game basically tells you to go dual bow with how the Piercing Arrows and Quick Draw are set up.

I agree on this, people now need to waste 40 point in order to get pierce and 20%cd, while and warrior rifle 20%cd and pierce are in single trait, we are the RANGEr here, we should be the master of ranged weapon here, so i think we deserved it

JonPeters.5630:

I just had a wacky idea that might make some aspects of MH sword less frustrating. I’ll test it out when I get in to work and report back.

Jon

Sounds promising.

I love the leap but hate the inability to dodge/move at all during an auto cycle. Anything that makes this less of a problem is a major step in the right direction.

One thing I’d really like to see is a change for Offhand Axe 5. It’s a bit clunky to use as a reflect because of it’s high cooldown.

I think Offhand Axe 5 should be a ground targeted skill, you click on an area and the Ranger would roll(similar to lightning reflexes) to the area and then initiate the reflect bubble. I think this would improve the skill’s support tremendously.

For instance you see an ally about to eat a killshot, you instantly Offhand Axe 5 in between the warrior and your ally. Makes Rangers have more support in PVE as well.

I’m noticing that you’re following this thread pretty closely, Mr. Peters, so I’d really like for you to at least provide us with some insight pertaining to a commonly-discussed and controversial topic raised on these boards pertaining to the design and play goals of the ranger.

As it stands, the dependency on the pet is a huge turn-off for a lot of players seeking an archer-style class. Simply, the ranger isn’t viable as an archer in most formats due to the dependency on its pet. When the pet dies, the ranger loses a lot of its damage and utility due to these dependencies. Notably, it takes the ranger 67% longer to kill a target – assuming it doesn’t heal – when the pet is not in combat compared to when it is, or compared to other classes. That number is quite huge. The increases to LB damage is nice, however the difference is going to be negligible due to the fact LB damage is already so low to begin with.

The pet is definitely the class feature, but do you consider it an absolutely essential one? Build diversity is something that everyone wants more of, so do you think reworking the “stow pet” button to permanently store pets for a boon which increases damage significantly is a possibility? No ranger should want to send his pet into situations where he knows it will die, and hunting with a pet usually requires a lot of extra precautions so that the hunter doesn’t kill his own animal. The idea of the ranger being a lot less conservative without his pet nearby simply makes sense, and would appease a lot of people, even if it were a trait requiring deep investment.

Moreover, implementing a trait or something based along the lines of “vengeance” which massively increases damage dealt by the ranger when his pet dies (cancelled when a new one is brought out) could also be a possibility to keep the pet role there and keep its significance to the character intact. That said, I fear players may end up purposely trying to kill off their pets this way, then.

If you think that the ranger’s pet is something which absolutely has to stay, do you plan on allowing for players to take on the role of an archer in other ways in the future? As it stands, there really isn’t anything comparable in terms of both aesthetic style and play style, but the lack of freedom is something which really upsets a large portion of the community.

I really do hope you take the time to address some of these concerns. I among many others feel in a constant state of love/hate when playing my ranger; I love the feel of the way you designed the archer, but hate being so tied down to my pet and made useless either when it dies or when I need to keep it out of combat so that it doesn’t. At least getting some answers concept-wise to help reassure if this is the right class for me would be amazing, for if there’s hope that the archer playstyle might exist somewhere in GW2, I’d definitely like to pursue it further.

DeceiverX.8361:

I’m noticing that you’re following this thread pretty closely, Mr. Peters, so I’d really like for you to at least provide us with some insight pertaining to a commonly-discussed and controversial topic raised on these boards pertaining to the design and play goals of the ranger.

As it stands, the dependency on the pet is a huge turn-off for a lot of players seeking an archer-style class. Simply, the ranger isn’t viable as an archer in most formats due to the dependency on its pet. When the pet dies, the ranger loses a lot of its damage and utility due to these dependencies. Notably, it takes the ranger 67% longer to kill a target – assuming it doesn’t heal – when the pet is not in combat compared to when it is, or compared to other classes. That number is quite huge. The increases to LB damage is nice, however the difference is going to be negligible due to the fact LB damage is already so low to begin with.

The pet is definitely the class feature, but do you consider it an absolutely essential one? Build diversity is something that everyone wants more of, so do you think reworking the “stow pet” button to permanently store pets for a boon which increases damage significantly is a possibility? No ranger should want to send his pet into situations where he knows it will die, and hunting with a pet usually requires a lot of extra precautions so that the hunter doesn’t kill his own animal. The idea of the ranger being a lot less conservative without his pet nearby simply makes sense, and would appease a lot of people, even if it were a trait requiring deep investment.

Moreover, implementing a trait or something based along the lines of “vengeance” which massively increases damage dealt by the ranger when his pet dies (cancelled when a new one is brought out) could also be a possibility to keep the pet role there and keep its significance to the character intact. That said, I fear players may end up purposely trying to kill off their pets this way, then.

If you think that the ranger’s pet is something which absolutely has to stay, do you plan on allowing for players to take on the role of an archer in other ways in the future? As it stands, there really isn’t anything comparable in terms of both aesthetic style and play style, but the lack of freedom is something which really upsets a large portion of the community.

I really do hope you take the time to address some of these concerns. I among many others feel in a constant state of love/hate when playing my ranger; I love the feel of the way you designed the archer, but hate being so tied down to my pet and made useless either when it dies or when I need to keep it out of combat so that it doesn’t. At least getting some answers concept-wise to help reassure if this is the right class for me would be amazing, for if there’s hope that the archer playstyle might exist somewhere in GW2, I’d definitely like to pursue it further.

coming from warhammer where the two pet classes, Squig herder (ranged) and White Lion (melee) had a tactic that increased their damage by 25% when they ran without a pet it would be nice to see something like this. Both classes also had tactics that revolved around the pet, one such as the “vengeance” you mentioned for the pet dying, ones for crit damage increase while using a pet etc. We are the pet class but I would just like to have the options I have seen in other games with the pet class. You want us to have “build diversity” this is a good way to create it. Give us the option to gain benefits from the use of a pet, CC, boons, etc, or the option to solo and have a base damage increase and a lack of CC and extra boons. You will see rangers in PvP who run the pets for the CC and ones in PvE who store them for the base damage.

Please please please give the shortbow some attention.

Honestly I would be happy if you just removed the flanking requirement for the bleed, it would at least be something….

Atherakhia.4086:

MisterEction.9382:

JonPeters.5630:

Power Rangers
One idea we talked about for Greatsword would be to take the evade off of the 3rd attack of the auto-chain and put it on swoop. This would give you a second on-demand defensive skill and instead we put something less timing based (for example a whirl finisher) on that third attack to empower it.

This is such a bad idea that I’m hoping it was suggested as something to use to scare us and then not do, so putting in the natural vigor change despite our objections seem better.

That evade is what makes it possible for Power/Precision rangers to use their greatsword in crowds, where it hits multiple opponents and lets them attack a boss when there are other mobs around. Evades/dodges are how power/precision rangers survive.

Please don’t make this the patch that forces people to put points into vitality/toughness like a fancy version of later-patch Daiblo 2 where life is all that matters for almost every class.

He pretty much retracted that statement as soon as he made it. While I agree that the evade is very valuable, it’s kind of a lazy approach to this class’ problem with melee combat. Not to mention GS #1 is less than productive as it is because the damage is just so low.

Really, and I’ve said it numerous times, more than anything else, this class needs more burst or AE before a power option will ever work. This class has little else than chaining #1 skills behind rapid fire or the often catastrophic option of swapping to GS in hopes a swoop+hilt+maul will finish someone off as you took who knows how long whittling someone down slowly with auto and rapid fire.

Even just one other skill to combo into would resolve a lot of the problems power Rangers face.

A trait to reduce the cooldown of weapon swaps seems the easiest solution given what we have to work with. If we weren’t tied to offhand axe or greatsword for 10 seconds after swapping we could make better use of our burst as we won’t be stuck with a completely lackluster weapon waiting for maul to come off cooldown.

Alternatively we could swap things around to make room for a burst skill. My preferred route to take is to remove spike trap (because it sucks),

A third method, assuming it’s possible, would be to change one of our lackluster signets (Signet of the Hunt) to offer a unique skill dependent on the weapon we have selected at the moment of activation similar to how the Glyphs work for the Elementalist with their various attunements.

S

Signet of the hunt is not a lackluster skill. It is our burst skill. Hit for 8k with a GS and then come back and say we have no burst skills. The problem people have is if they want to have “burst” they one have to build up a rotation of attacks and two they have to go far glassier than other classes. You either burst or you survive. Find your happy medium and stop trying to ask for everything. Signets need love, but its far more in the region of SotW and SoR end and not signet of the hunt.

Reduce recast on signet of SoR, make it only cleanse conditions like warr signet of stamina and you have a great stun break, active cond cleanse and power build option for classes. You dont even have to overdo it. a 50 sec cast time without signet mastery and full trait lines is fine, then give those who want to specialize in the traits an incentive like casting removes 2 cond from nearby allies etc.

What youd get: remove 1 condition every 10 sec, active cleanse all conditions on self.
With grandmastery trait heal all conditions on self/pet 1-2 on surrounding allies from caster (can be modified based on overall balance)

Or better yet, make heal as one a viable heal by introducing a condition cleanse component for pet and caster. Thus making it a viable heal. Decrease overall heal HP to a lower component, decrease recast time to 15 seconds, heal 1 condition and decrease healing power scaling. This creates a better heal for power builds that removes poison without overpowering healing power spiking condition builds

=What youd get 15 sec recast heal base of 4750-5000 ( at a 333.3 base for healing based off second) and 1 condtion removal on cast HP scaling can remain as 1.0 or be decreased top 0.5 (this allows it to compete with troll unguent at a lower health return per second but at a higher gain for power builds).

my 5cent:

Marksmanship:

Opening Strike – add: cannot be blocked
Alpha Training – good as it is
Precise Strike – add: +50% crit dmg <- that will make Remorseless more viable

Skirmishing:

Honed Axes – Add a cool down reduction or a 4th bounce to ricochet. Axe is way to weak as it is now.

Wilderness Survival:

Shared Anquish – the cooldown is way to high. it does proc a single time in a fight and disables 40% of your damage for 2sec + the way the pet has to run back to its target. I would suggest to add stability for 2-3 sec on a 45 – 60 sec cooldown.

Nature Macig:

good as it is

Beastmastery:

Instinctual Bond – “when you are downed” traits are all absolute crap (sry) going down is not an option. instead you need something that prevents going down like: when you reach 20% life, your pets next attack will knock its target down. recharge 30 sec.

Master’s Bond – good as it is. the problem with this trait is that it does reset when you go swimming. change it for something like: 5% of your toughness and 3% of your vitality is transfered as power, precision, toughness and vitality to your pet. with 1800 toughness and 1400 vitality that makes permanent 132 stat points ( now it has 250 at max )

one more thing: axe mh has by far the weakest auto attack of all classes / weapons. in spvp most of the fights are vs 1 enemy. 2/3 of the weapons power is wasted there. why dont you add something like, when the weapon cant bounce to a second and/or third enemy, it bounces back to you and grants a random boon for 2 sec. or simply double the dmg again a single enemy.

Rangers are still in a bad place compared to other classes secondary ranged abilities.

Two recent examples: kill shot 17152 damage from a warrior using a secondary weapon while rapid fire (miss, miss, dodge/blocked/evaded) did around 7k damage, most of which was regenned out by the warrior’s passive healing.

Thief: 5 or 6 different conditions applied by SB in around 1 second including 6 stacks of torment. Meanwhile ranger SB takes about ten minutes to apply that sort of damage.

Pet damage on moving targets is still a joke- as I’m maining an engineer (having been forced by time gating/ranks being char bound) and used to play ranger I can avoid any damage from a pet completely.

Pets are useless when defending or attacking any structure in wvw (unless you just use passive- even then they tend to run off into the aoe or die anyway), so you are kitten there.

They need to separate wvw skills and cooldowns from pve and give rangers much better functionality, reduce or remove the cooldown on pet swap/down time, better condi removal, much better pet ai and much better chance for arrows to actually hit the target.

Ace.1726:

One thing I’d really like to see is a change for Offhand Axe 5. It’s a bit clunky to use as a reflect because of it’s high cooldown.

I think Offhand Axe 5 should be a ground targeted skill, you click on an area and the Ranger would roll(similar to lightning reflexes) to the area and then initiate the reflect bubble. I think this would improve the skill’s support tremendously.

This idea is rly nice! I love it. This could make axe offhand pretty strong.

Pet´s don´t remove them. Just try to improve the AI and some flat AoE dmg reductions were it´s needed (dungeons for example not PvP).
If people want an archer without pets, we have warriors engineers and thiefs, and possibel others in future.
More “pet including” weaponskills or “ranger including” Petskills can be funny. And help to make the rangers class mechanic more unique.

Hi, nice ideas all.

Im here for propose some ideas for the ranger condition and survey skill. They will never apply but just some ideas, that can be a base.

Sry for my english but you can understand me ofcourse.

Traps : Before my ideas i think traps arent very usefull and need up. Remove utilitaries traps and put a trap kit with 5 skill. remove traits VIII and XI from skirmishing. Traps are more larger withou traits. And for the rest an all in one traps traits or do something for dont maximize skirmishing if we want play traps.

arrow preparation kit : kit with 5 skill for some arrow preparation (fire poison cripple bleed chill). 5 next hit put the condition that we have choose. And that can be use with any ranger attack. Now we can remove sharpening stone. So add a trait for cooldown and condition duration arrow preparation can be good.

If we are honnest rangers arent really ask in WvW. Put these mechanics and up the utilty of our traps can give us a more utility in WvW, and especially our own utility. I dont understand that necro is a best trapper like us (chill and poison, damage with condition transfer, bleed with regen, and their awesome wells…) Cant believe that !!

So we have to create 3 new utilitaries now.

little ideas for util. :

1 – Dust jet – survey – 5 ennemies gain 5sec blind. 5 allies gain furor (5sec). combo finisher smoke. yes ennemies are blind with dust so you can critical him easy.

2 – We are a ranger not a thief ok but we are the nature we need a stealth utilitary. Leaf spray – survey – You, your pet and 5 allies gain stealth(5sec), protection (5sec) and break stun. Ok long bow now give stealth but i dont really use this..

3 – condition signet – signet – passive : increase your condition damage and condition duration. Active : 5 ennemies gain fire(2sec), poison(4sec), bleed(8sec).

And again if we are honnest who use “seed turret” utiliary? Personally this skill never have his place in my build, and will never have.. So we can change for a usefull utilitary.. I propose a big dream utilitary :p :

-Fusion of the beastmaster – shout – you and your pet are merged for 10 sec. you gain his statistics.. yes a dream^^

I dont want an op ranger, i want more mechanics and recover a true trapper and archer.

Thanks for reads and critics. Bye.

losmuertes.7285:

Please please please give the shortbow some attention.

Honestly I would be happy if you just removed the flanking requirement for the bleed, it would at least be something….

They gave the shorbow some attention a few months ago…they nerfed its range from 1200 to 900. I think they added a tiny drop of damage to all the non auto attacks, you know the stuff you rarely fire off till you need it, which of course didn’t really increase the bow damage at all.

Shorbows should be able to get its ranged extended like the longbow in the same trait. That trait should do something else also like give cooldown for both weapons too, to be on par with other classes, like the warrior.

Kikyo.6438:

Hi, nice ideas all.

Im here for propose some ideas for the ranger condition and survey skill. They will never apply but just some ideas, that can be a base.

Sry for my english but you can understand me ofcourse.

Traps : Before my ideas i think traps arent very usefull and need up. Remove utilitaries traps and put a trap kit with 5 skill. remove traits VIII and XI from skirmishing. Traps are more larger withou traits. And for the rest an all in one traps traits or do something for dont maximize skirmishing if we want play traps.

arrow preparation kit : kit with 5 skill for some arrow preparation (fire poison cripple bleed chill). 5 next hit put the condition that we have choose. And that can be use with any ranger attack. Now we can remove sharpening stone. So add a trait for cooldown and condition duration arrow preparation can be good.

If we are honnest rangers arent really ask in WvW. Put these mechanics and up the utilty of our traps can give us a more utility in WvW, and especially our own utility. I dont understand that necro is a best trapper like us (chill and poison, damage with condition transfer, bleed with regen, and their awesome wells…) Cant believe that !!

So we have to create 3 new utilitaries now.

little ideas for util. :

1 – Dust jet – survey – 5 ennemies gain 5sec blind. 5 allies gain furor (5sec). combo finisher smoke. yes ennemies are blind with dust so you can critical him easy.

2 – We are a ranger not a thief ok but we are the nature we need a stealth utilitary. Leaf spray – survey – You, your pet and 5 allies gain stealth(5sec), protection (5sec) and break stun. Ok long bow now give stealth but i dont really use this..

3 – condition signet – signet – passive : increase your condition damage and condition duration. Active : 5 ennemies gain fire(2sec), poison(4sec), bleed(8sec).

And again if we are honnest who use “seed turret” utiliary? Personally this skill never have his place in my build, and will never have.. So we can change for a usefull utilitary.. I propose a big dream utilitary :p :

-Fusion of the beastmaster – shout – you and your pet are merged for 10 sec. you gain his statistics.. yes a dream^^

I dont want an op ranger, i want more mechanics and recover a true trapper and archer.

Thanks for reads and critics. Bye.

- Traps are fine.

- Arrow preparation could be cool to use.

- Signet are more for power build, a condi build has already lots of survival.

- Seed turret is a racial skill, most racial skill are useless.

Malachi.1836:

Signet of the hunt is not a lackluster skill. It is our burst skill. Hit for 8k with a GS and then come back and say we have no burst skills. The problem people have is if they want to have “burst” they one have to build up a rotation of attacks and two they have to go far glassier than other classes. You either burst or you survive. Find your happy medium and stop trying to ask for everything. Signets need love, but its far more in the region of SotW and SoR end and not signet of the hunt.

I’m not advocating getting everything. Any 1 single thing to either give us more burst or make the burst we do provide more reliable would be enough. I don’t agree with you on SoH though. 50% more damage on a single attack isn’t that big a deal when we only have 2 real burst skills and one of them is incredibly easy to avoid.

JonPeters.5630:

I just had a wacky idea …

I just had a wacky idea also !

How about Anet re-building this profession from the ground up with proper traits, skills utilities and pet AI so it actually has a role in this game!!

Pretty wacky, eh??

Man that would be awesome. And whacky!

Ranger
Trait: Beastmastery
Some of the traits are completely useless. Not from a subjective point of view, but due to mechanisms working against eachother.
Eg. Intimidation Training:
Activated (F2) abilities for canines and spiders cause cripple.
Wolf with fear (F2) and Drakehound with immobilized (F2) does NOT synergies at all with Intimidation Training. What is the logic behind this?
Master’s Bond:
Almost all traits, skills and weapons encourage you to swap pets on a regular basis. On top of that, pets are highly susceptible to AOE damage (a well-known fact) due to lack of evade mechanisms. Which further forces you to swap pets regularly. Why would anyone invest in Master’s Bond when a swap resets all of the hard-earned stacks?
Imho, you should loose the stacks when pet is defeated or changed ( not to be misinterpreted with swap). Also, there should be separated stacks for the four (2 land, 2 water) chosen pets. Therefore you should be able to keep the stacks on all active pets as a reward for being a good beastmaster keeping your pets alive.

JonPeters.5630:

I just had a wacky idea that might make some aspects of MH sword less frustrating. I’ll test it out when I get in to work and report back.

Jon

So, how did that idea pan out? What was it to begin with?

Reposting here

Rangers " Unparalleled archers, rangers are capable of bringing down foes from a distance with their bows." this is to honor that and also help the class in general. "

Longbow

Long Range Shot
Now it has a chain with second attack giving cripple(3s), and a super fast third double shot (each hit 70% dmg of a normal hit), along with faster projectiles and lower cooldown between shots.

Rapid Fire
Lower cast time(2 1/2sec max), now grants stability during the cast, more condensed hits, 5 instead of 10, higher total damage (each hit atleast higher than max ranged auto attack) and higher cooldown, to like 45seconds untraited, it needs to feels like a powerfull bursty skill, not a “I’m bored of my auto attack, let’s use 2”.

Hunter’s Shot
Now pierce targets blocking and gives you 1sec quickness in addition to it’s current effects.

Point Blank Shot
This one should have like twice it’s current damage, faster projectile, a higher cooldown (25 sec) and 1 or 1 1/2 sec cast time instead of instant, in adition to the knockback. You could combo hunter’s shot/point blank/rapidfire efficiently.

Barrage
2 1/2 sec immobilize on first hit (the same duration as the cast, as this skill is supposed to keep people from reaching you, not the opposite like it is now), lower cooldown (20, 25sec).

Pets

When in combat, pets should have higher speed than players, even without any trait put in it vs a player with swiftness. Often I find myself hitting someone with a full rotation before my pet even reached them.
So my suggestion is to change the untraited pet speed up to 40/50% more than what it is now and give another functionality to the Agility Training 30% speed trait : When you enter in combat your pet gains super speed, (100% speed, lasts until hits the target). Sick Them would have this super speed added to it’s effects too, so you could catch faster a player that uses a movement skill during combat.

Increase overall range of melee pets attacks by atleast 100-170 so they could hit targets from 230-300 range (like birds auto attack Slash).

Improve reliability of pet skills, leaps and everything in general seems too easily avoidable.

Bears
Increase their overall damage considerably. Reduce Arctodus, Murrelow, Polar Bear and Black Bear f2 cast time to 3/4 sec down from 1 1/2. Increase the number of conditions removed from Brown Bear f2 to 3.

Cats
Reduce Jungle Stalker f2 to 1 1/2 sec cast time down from 3 sec.
Reduce Snow Leopard and Lynx f2 cast time to 3/4 sec down from 1 1/2sec.

Birds
Remove the Quickening Screech swiftness from birds and change it to fury (10s), reduce it’s cast time to 1/4 sec down from 3/4 sec (reason for this is they often start this animation instead of attacking your target as you expect and get left behind you if you leep at your target or just keep moving) .

Devourers
They need faster projectiles, and better active skills, just like underwater, Whiptail Devourer f2 should stun (1s), Lashtail Devourer f2 should have half (2s down from 4s) it’s cast time, and no bleeding.

Spiders
Also faster projectiles, much higher damage and lower duration for the immobilize on Entangling Web something like 1 1/2 sec down from 3 sec.

Moas
They need higher toughness and better range, specially for Frenzied Attack as they often miss this skill.

Drakes
Tail Swipe could use an aoe knockback, just like the npc ones do. Also lower cast times for their f2 abilities (3/4 sec down from 1 1/2 sec for the melee ones (burning, chill and confusion) and 1sec for ranged ones).

Dogs
Need higher damage overall.

Pigs
Their f2 Forage should apply the random booms automatically to you.

Beastmastery Traits
Move Loud Whistle to adept and Nature’s Wrath to master traits.
Rework the Instinctual Bond quickness on downed adept beastmaster trait, move it to grandmaster and change functionality to: Boons applied to your pet also affect you, then you will have might on third sword skill 1 auto attack, might from Companion’s Might, swiftness from 3 longbow, bleeds on next 3 attacks from shortbow 4, fury from harpoon gun 3, and Active effects from signets without traiting into Marksmanship.

Change the effect of Intimidation Traning from Cripple to Torment.

Utilities
Lightning Reflexes Now removes immobilize.
Signet of the Wild now instant cast.
Signet of Renewal Cd reduced to 30 sec, range from pet increased to 2000, so it doesn’t fail to activate it’s effects.
Protect Me Your pets gains an aura and run at your side, instead of just stopping.

My general suggestions for 10th december patch:

1) Switch position of Natural Vigor with Companion’s Defense

This way the old trait won’t be completely gone and traits like Companion’s Defense and Evasive Purity won’t be indirectly nerfed by the reduction in endurance regen. Because those traits trigger on dodge.
Natural Vigor will be much harder to get, but still be attainable in its current form.

2) Intimidation Training, Rending Attacks and Stability Training lose their pet familiy restriction

There is really no reason for these traits to be restricted to certain pet families. The traits only try to force Rangers into using 2 pets of the same family.
It has worked well for Vigorous Training last patch, which used to be restricted to birds and moas.

3) Merge Quick Draw and Piercing Arrows

Or otherwise two traits with the same effect, but one for Shortbow and the other for Longbow.
This way it will only cost 20 trait points instead of 40 for Longbow and Shortbow to pierce and have reduced cooldown.

what will u need to be a good ranger in wvw: stability and melee. our only good melee weapon now is GS. for stability u need to put 30 points on marks and use signet. after patch 30 points on nature for 1 more stability. but we need to spend 20 points on wilder for recharge! its more points what we can spend. other proffs need to put points in 1 line or 20-20 or 30-10 in 2 lines.

Would it be too powerful if remorseless gave you opening strike on weapon swap as well?

JonPeters.5630:

As I stated, this change is a lot about low hanging fruit. The problem with ranger is things that are good we don’t want to overpower and the things that are not as good are difficult to change. For example:

• Skirmish and Wilderness line could probably swap half of their traits.
• Beastmastery has basically one generic trait per tier and just needs to be more generalized.
• both primary ranged weapons are a mix of single target and AoE.
• Both marksmanship and skirmish lines lack traits to enable power rangers.

Despite those problems rangers have some great builds in PvE, PvP, and WvW. The core problem is diversity but it just so happens that rangers are not setup in a way that makes it easy to improve that diversity problem.

Too much typing for the bus, I’ll try and discuss more when I’m in.

Jon

P.S. I tried some stuff on MH sword but it was a marginal improvement at best. I’ll ping some programmers today about one other way we might handle it, but don’t hold your breath.

Why you keep avoiding the pet problems ?

- F2 reliability
- Spirits don’t trigger the skill if moving ( same as pet )

at least give us some hope that you will eventually fix this.

JonPeters.5630:

Summoned creature AI is a different can of worms that we aren’t opening for the same reason. Pets that delay F2 use isn’t some wait script we put into their skills it has to do with core AI behavior shared by all pets and creatures and how they decide tasks. Rewriting that has the risks of breaking millions of unknown things so we have up until now band aided the solution. It is something that needs addressing but won’t be addressed until we can kitten how and when we will test it.

The pet is broken then and won’t me fixed anytime soon, or ever…….

How about a Ranger that can just be like this then, as described by ArenaNet….

" Unparalleled archers, rangers are capable of bringing down foes from a distance with their bows. ".

Instead of us having to ditch our bows in favour of hand weapons and melee damage.