Guild Wars 2

Ranger Signets should affect the rangers and , if traited, pets.

I want to call some attention to Hide in Plain Sight while I can.

It gives 3 seconds of camouflage, which is like stealth that breaks if you move. 3 seconds is very short and you often break it instantly because you are moving.

Is there any chance to make this 3 seconds of stealth? This would allow some movement and it could combo with Remorseless, which resets Opening Strike. Currently Remorseless only works with Longbow Hunter’s Shot.

Otherwise, is it possible to make it like 10 seconds of camouflage? You can’t move after all.

A utility skill that provides long duration camouflage has been on my wish list since release. Are you willing to give Ranger more camouflage? Or otherwise, please make it stealth and let’s move on.

Zenith.7301:

The point is that due to the spread of the mainhand axe skill, with the exception of ricochet which is a weak power based skill, the mainhand axe is primarily a condition weapon.

Hm, Axe has not so much conditions. U have to fight in “melee” range to add a decent amount of bleedings.
Ricochet ist not so bad cause it´s a “conditionweapon” it is so bad cause if u have 2 targets. 1 will get hit twice. Add for example 1 or 2 Bleedings to this. This would stack rly fast, and rly dangerous for 1 target.
If this target dies. The dmg is low again. I don´t like this design, not for AA.

In my opinion. They should make 2 to ricochet. 1 Melee or range (no bounce, more dmg, possibel bleeding).
3 a leap (if 1 is melee), or a shout (petattack). Also i would make it to an “hybridweapon”.

That means some conditions (not too much) but it should be playable with conditions (defensive) or with rampager gear (or allstatmix) offensiv.

Chrispy.5641:

That GS Auto Attack can be pretty useful sometimes when you take it off of auto and time the evade (Crazy talk, I know!). Because most enemies in the game have a pretty long delay in their attacks, you can almost never get hit by anything if you time it right. Its I solo champions, and its how many rangers you see on youtube solo dungeon bosses.

And by doing this, your dmg is so freaking low, i wouldn´t care if u´re alive or dead. Better a Swordranger who can use WH5+Junglestalker and die after this.
Then a ranger wo is doing 0 dmg and is alive. Sry this argument is rly foolish.
U can do nearly everything solo even with the MH sword. Or “maxdps” GS Playstyle, which means, interrupt AA 3 as often as u can.

Definitly the best what u can do, is to remove this avoid. Add endurance per hit and/or a whirl finisher instead. Swiftness or vigor on swoop (and allies if possibel), cause 1100 range eavade rly can be too strong.

And increase dps as close as u can to sword/horn/dagger. Buy pushing AA 3. Im sure if this thing will hit hard, the “slow” animation will “feel” good to.

And player´s will have an active playstyle. And discision making.
Whirl+endurance, or should i do a little bit more dps by using Maul now?
Oh, swoop is up, and i (or an allie) have no vigor! “Swoop”

And last, a trait to get 5 sec weaponswitch (skirmishing 25 or grandmaster)…then rangers should be able to build strong powerbuilds without using so much signets.

Building on what Holland.9351 said about our serious lack of AoE damage….

Barrage is sub par compared to other AoE ranged attacks, such as the warrior longbow. The warrior longbow does fire damage and has a blast finisher in addition to the standard projectile finishers. They get blindness while we have a knockback and another attack that stealths us, and doesn’t always take us out of combat causing stealth to break instantly. Pin down does more damage with the bleeds and direct damage then Barrage. We do get poison which lowers healing, not quite as useful in pve as pvp assuming it doesn’t get removed.

Checking my L80 partial zerk warrior vs my L80 partial zerk Ranger I get these attack numbers.

Pin Down (warrior) 209 damage, 4,209 in bleeds, 1 immobilize for 3s , phys projectile finisher.
Barrage (ranger) 12x for 3,108 damage, 12 cripple for 1.75s. NOT a phys projectile finisher.

Fan of Fire (warrior) 3 arrows of fire, 672 damage per (2016 total), 2s burn for 816, phys proj finisher.
Poison Arrow (ranger) 5 arrows of poison, 320 damage per (1600 total), 2.25 sec poison for 1,291 damage. phys proj finisher.

Warriors also get Arcing Arrow a medium damage blast finisher on short recharge and smoldering arrrow which applies 5s blind also on a short recharge (10s and 15s respectively). Damage on shortbow poison arrow is almost the same as the warrior assuming all 3&5 arrows hit the same target. The immobilize on Pin Down is far more useful then the cripple on barrage.

Combo Fields:

We are also lacking in these areas along with finishers that aren’t physical projectiles. We get 1 blast finisher in warhorn on a long recharge and a whirl finisher on offhand axe with a long recharge. The rest is all physical projectile finishers.

Rangers can lay down a fire field with the torch and the fire trap and a cold field with the ice trap along with a water field.

• Why isn’t poison trap laying down a poison field?
• Why can’t muddy terrain add a smoke field (dust)?

Suggestions:

• Add poison field to poison trap
• Add smoke field to muddy terrain type skills maybe.
• Make barrage do more damage and add a blast finisher to it and to greatsword maul.
• Add whirl finisher to greatsword auto attack maybe.

This would open up diversity in rangers being able to create and use a variety of combo fields with finishers compared to our lack in this department also. People might start taking the trap skills.

urdriel.8496:

Ranger Signets should affect the rangers and , if traited, pets.

Ranger signets should affect the ranger and the pet without being traited as the pet is so intrinsic to the class. The Grandmaster Trait should allow any activated signet to affect allies (5) around the ranger/pet.

Question for you JonPeters: Why isn’t passive/guard on a keybind?

This should have been on a keybind since beta. Seriously. It is literally an insane act of negligence that it is not.

JonPeters.5630:

meikodesign.6471:

JonPeters.5630:

Even though we wouldn’t do it now another shot at Greatsword to discuss

A) 1 chain NDA by giving Vigor.
B) Add evade to swoop…

Discuss?

Weakness, Might, Protection or Retalation instead of Vigor?
I thought you wanted to limit the Vigor spam.

We do want to but we also want this to be a weapon with some evasion capability on it, otherwise we would not have made the auto-attack on it evade in the first place.

I think that moving the evade out of the auto attack chain, would lower the great swords use in larger wvw fights, where it is very strong. whilst having an RNG evade in a 1v1/boss fight type situation is not as useful when you want to dodge a big hit. but in a large fight situation where you are taking a consistent amount of damage having a continual (passive) RNG evade will help you reduce your overall damage (especially with skill lag) then constantly having to blow you gap closer cool down.

we do have lots of other on demand evades already available to us; short bow, 1h sword, dagger, lighting reflexes, vigor traits.

I understand the you are trying to make play more active, but often in WvW passive is all that you can count on.

I would also like to thank-you for giving us the opportunity to review the changes before they are made, and for providing a description for what you are trying to achieve.

GS in zergs the best weapon? But still so bad compared to other classes that it doesn´t matter if u got a “nerf” here. Cause of this evade it´s worse in most other playstyles. Even WvsW smallscale.
Zerg´s are impossibel to balance, so they should not be used as an argument to keep a weapon from being used in most other cases.
GS or not, ranger´s are “bad” in zerg´s. If skillags are completly gone, then other, more complexe Meta´s could be build. And then rangers will be welcome.

Oh, and AA does suffer from skillags too, like your enemys. So it can´t be soo important. If it would be, a lot other builds were impossibel to play there, but they aren´t.

Holland.9351:

I want to call some attention to Hide in Plain Sight while I can.

It gives 3 seconds of camouflage, which is like stealth that breaks if you move. 3 seconds is very short and you often break it instantly because you are moving.

Is there any chance to make this 3 seconds of stealth? This would allow some movement and it could combo with Remorseless, which resets Opening Strike. Currently Remorseless only works with Longbow Hunter’s Shot.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hey now. Are you suggesting Ranger traits should offer synergy? Or even work at all?

Because that IS just crazy talk.

I mean, I guess this does something in PvE where mobs are as stupid as our pets, but when I’ve had it traited in WvW I’ve never met a player that didn’t know my sudden disappearance was in reality a SELF-IMMOBILZE.

Norjena.5172:

Chrispy.5641:

That GS Auto Attack can be pretty useful sometimes when you take it off of auto and time the evade (Crazy talk, I know!). Because most enemies in the game have a pretty long delay in their attacks, you can almost never get hit by anything if you time it right. Its I solo champions, and its how many rangers you see on youtube solo dungeon bosses.

And by doing this, your dmg is so freaking low, i wouldn´t care if u´re alive or dead. Better a Swordranger who can use WH5+Junglestalker and die after this.
Then a ranger wo is doing 0 dmg and is alive. Sry this argument is rly foolish.
U can do nearly everything solo even with the MH sword. Or “maxdps” GS Playstyle, which means, interrupt AA 3 as often as u can.

So what you’re saying is, abandon all other ways of thought. Become zealous, and gain an understanding of a borderline pathetic emphasis on DPS and only DPS, then I am playing the game right? Sorry, but I don’t do world record timed dungeon runs, so having a little more survivability is more important than your emphasis on DPS.

I did say it was a pain to time right though, so replacing it with something else (even something that adds more damage like retaliation) is better in the long term than leaving it as it is now.

Norjena.5172:

GS in zergs the best weapon?

I don’t remember saying that, but depending on how you want to play it’s a good choice because of the damage mitigation.

Norjena.5172:

Cause of this evade it´s worse in most other playstyles.

i think ‘most’ is strong word here. this would be a buff to 1v1 situation only at the price of a Nerf to many v many. we are already good at 1v1 and have many options. in most situation i don’t think it will make much difference.

Norjena.5172:

Zerg´s are impossibel to balance, so they should not be used as an argument to keep a weapon from being used in most other cases.

i do see why you would take from one to give to the other, especially when you already have options for that situation “1h sword or OH dagger”

Norjena.5172:

GS or not, ranger´s are “bad” in zerg´s

to say a ranger is bad so it’s ok to make them worse doesn’t make since to me.

First of all, Jon, thank you for talking to us. We may not say it, but it means a lot.

JonPeters.5630:

Even though we wouldn’t do it now another shot at Greatsword to discuss

A) 1 chain NDA by giving Vigor.
B) Add evade to swoop…

Discuss?

No. Sorry, but the evade on GS auto-chain needs to stay. In open PvE it is amazing for tackling hard fights or just staying alive from a poor pull. In dungeons, WvW and PvP, it becomes a powerful – and unique to the playstyle – survival tool that we need. After I learned to turn off the auto-attack, the GS has quickly become more and more useful. A good payer turns this, as some put it, “RNG” to their own power.

I’m also against the evade on swoop simply because leaping over 1000 units and being unhittable, is simply overpowered. No way around it. Plus swoop has more utility than just gap closer/extender: it’s a leap, and works amazingly well with Healing Spring, or other fields if that tickles your fancy.

If you truly need and want to change the GS, then adding some damage or perhaps might would be the way to go. Say a successful block (one block per use of the skill) would give a few stacks, or maul does more damage if your opponent has boons? Kind of like mesmer’s sword chain.

Tklees.9052:

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.

Never played Warhammer, but that does sound very useful and like a good solution… and something the players have been saying for a long time, hint, hint.

Wolfey.3407:

Undertaker.7451:

Ranged topic;
- it seems you guys completly forgot shortbow while tweaking longbow, i dont mind its 900 range, but it would need some improvements too. ………

coments would be appreciated, special yours, Jon.

Please respond to this, it is sort of sad that after the nerf to short bow, it has been completely forgotten about (so it seems) there are a ton of awesome ideas around the forums to make this weapon better.

-Adding torment to one of the skills (crippling shot, concussion shot, and even poison volley are nice candidates for it)
-Adjusting the range to be a little longer
-Making Poison Volley an actual aoe skill (similar mechanic to barrage maybe 800 range to compensate)

Hi Jon,
I third this , as I think its a very valuable question / request and would be nice if you could answer the above question. As has already been said, we can forgo the 900m if this has to stay though a bit longer would be better ( although I feel its really punishing the weapon for Rangers).
The addition to make poison volley to have a poison cloud (not a fan of barrage as shortbow needs mobility), Skill 1 to bleed regardless of opponent position as the base damage is not really that great.

The addition of torment as say skill 5 would be a good starting point to give this weapon some good field use as the stun on shortbow is far too short to be of any real use. Torment for Rangers as a shortbow weapon skill ( not a 20% chance , I mean a 100% chance of torment on cue ) would be really good considering the Toxic Assassins in the recent Tower of Nightmares already have this function in bows. The second reason is as rangers have no real catch-up skill to speak of, the addition of torment would allow Rangers a standing chance in the open field against both thieves and those classes who simply have too much evade ( remember not all of us are PVPers, some of us are strong WvW players and it is in this world where the open field mechanic is where we really need to close the gaps ). Surely this would not a difficult mechanic to integrate?

Tklees.9052 said:
“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.”

I would be so happy if that happened… To store the pet and get a damage increase… OMFG. That would be incredibly awesome.

thefantasticg.3984:

Tklees.9052 said:
“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.”

I would be so happy if that happened… To store the pet and get a damage increase… OMFG. That would be incredibly awesome.

and the way it worked was that if the pet was summoned you lost the bonus damage but still had the tactic slotted so it was a wasted tactic while it was our but could stil benefit from the use of the pet then store it again. So for us it would be more of a grandmaster trait, something like:

Loner
While pet is stored you receive 20% increase damage.

Which if we go by the calculations is less than the 30% they say our pet gives us while alive but would be a nice option in a grandmaster tree to create options. Store the pet while fighting some zerg or a boss in a dungeon that aoes. Keep it out for small skirmishes and reslot a trait in the same tree. If Anet truly wants to give us options and diversity its all sitting right next to our pet.

I’d still take it. I’d take it and never run the pet again

Adding a little more variety to 1h Sword:
What if the #2 skill applied stealth when used? This would allow it to synergize with Remorseless, and allow the Ranger to play awesome mind games, where the enemy doesn’t know whether they’re safe or not when he stealths.

With all the GS talk going on, I wanted to stop by an add my $.02

Ranger GS has the most diverse skill bar of any weapon in the game. It is, without a doubt, my favorite single weapon on any class. It may be a touch weak in some areas (dps), but it has some very attractive features:
-An AOE autoattack with a very wide angle (180 deg).
-An extremely long range leap on short cooldown.
-A block combined with a strong counter.
-A near-instant on demand interrupt.

It would really be a shame to lose any of those features- although to be fair I don’t think anyone has suggested otherwise.

On the 1-evade: I use GS as an attrition weapon, with supplemental damage from pet and traps while I use the GS to control the fight. It’s unique among melee weapons in this ability. The 1-evade helps with this, simply by stopping a hit here or there and reducing total damage taken over a fight. And that’s not counting it’s potential with well timed dodges. I say keep it.

The weakest skill on the bar is probably Maul GASP!. Yes, it’s a great damage spike, but that’s all it is. It’s nothing more then a button you hit whenever it’s cooldown is up. If there’s any functionality that needs to be added to the weapon, I suggest putting it here. For example, replacing Vulnerability with a Blind would force you to chose between the DPS or saving it as a defense. Side note, I actually miss the Bleed on it. It synergized with a trap/crit/condi build and swapping it for Vuln made it significantly weaker.

The biggest problem with GS is that it’s a defensive weapon, and not the offensive smasher that most people think of with 2 handers. I actually like it for exactly that reason, but the perception of it is coloring peoples view of it’s balance. Also, as a defense/control weapon, it relies heavily on pets for it’s DPS. Conveniently, since you are the tank when using GS, it allows you to use a high DPS pet. Fixing the pet movement AI so they can apply their damage properly and making them stay alive in AOE will do more for the GS then anything you do to the GS itself.

Xsorus.2507:

JonPeters.5630:

Holland.9351:

JonPeters.5630:

Even though we wouldn’t do it now another shot at Greatsword to discuss

A) 1 chain NDA by giving Vigor.
B) Add evade to swoop…

Discuss?

Why do you want to change the Greatsword?
Does the evade have to go and you need to come up with an acceptable solution for it?

I don’t have to change it. I am hoping to improve it with changes without making it overpowered. I think right now one of the major problems, despite being good is that the evade on the chain is very hit or miss and feels very RNG when using it or fighting against it. I would rather put more of the skill of when to evade under player control to give this weapon more agency.

Ehh Jon….That Evade is incredibly important to Rangers in Massive Fights.

Most WvW fights consists of the game frankly lagging where the only thing you can actually use is the Auto attack, That Evade saves rangers a TON of damage….The changes you’re suggesting would make the weapon overall much weaker.

Again, Swoop is not a problem, Swoop is fine the way it is, If you want to actually improve the weapon, remove the damage bonus that overlaps with Moment of Clarity from the Hilt Bash, and add something else. That’d improve the weapon.

Don’t fix something that isn’t broken. Concentrate on broken things: 1 handed sword, pets, traits and the lack of build diversity, power scaling and whatnot but for the love of Oprah leave the evade in the autoattack combo as it is. It’s one of the few ways for me to survive when running with my guild – be it out in the open field or GvGs. I swoop in to drop my binding roots/healing spring, then use autoattack to either hit the people stuck on my roots or to help me escape the trouble I just had gotten myself into. If you removed the evade I’d be dead meat as a single evade on swoop wouldn’t save me there…

…However, I wouldn’t mind if you added a blastie on maul and increased the range for hilt bash.

The biggest issue with GS IMO is the way the #5 roots you, it’s just clunky. I think the #1 could be made cooler though, make the third chain that evades a spin attack that telegraphs to the player “hey, I’m evading!”, and make the #2->#3 chain timeout longer so you can “hold” the evade to better time it. GS #1 just needs some really nice polishing and not an overhaul.

I think it’s disingenuous to boil the desire for a heavier hitting greatsword down to ‘people are just having a perception problem’.

It’s true that Greatsword is usually the meatgrinder on other classes, and the role swap between it and Sword could potentially be a source of confusion. But, honestly, I’m just sick of my PvE melee options boiling down to being a cliffdiving sluggish oaf or the mob’s personal punkhawallah.

Re: Zenith, Killsmith – Yes, good points, hadn’t thought about it like that.

Also, thank you Jon Peters, for finally opening up some dialog on the ranger forums! It’s like an early Christmas present!

P.S. Would totally not mind if this was the norm rather than the exception, even if it only ever happened once per balance patch. Or even every other balance patch.

Rhyse.8179:

The biggest problem with GS is that it’s a defensive weapon, and not the offensive smasher that most people think of with 2 handers. I actually like it for exactly that reason, but the perception of it is coloring peoples view of it’s balance. Also, as a defense/control weapon, it relies heavily on pets for it’s DPS. Conveniently, since you are the tank when using GS, it allows you to use a high DPS pet. Fixing the pet movement AI so they can apply their damage properly and making them stay alive in AOE will do more for the GS then anything you do to the GS itself.

This person gets it.

Adding it to this thread just to be thorough:

Correct the Stow/Unstow Pet functionality to not work in combat and for stowed pets to STAY STOWED until we call for them.

Then replace Skirmish 5 (the minor trait) with:

Lone Wolf: While your pet is stowed, you gain +25% damage.

Remember when GS’s auto attack was nerfed by 50% during BWE2? It is viewed as a defensive weapon since then, despite the fact that Anet keep buffing maul to an insane amount.

Also, some our traits need to be merged together.

*Piercing Arrow with either Eagle Eye or Quick Draw,
*Signet Mastery with Beastmaster’s might (Necro already have this, and it gives 3 might stacks instead of 1)
Etc.

John,

For your greatsword discussion, I would advise moving the vulnerability from maul to the end of the GS chain, adding evade to swoop, and making maul deal bonus damage depending on the number of conditions on the enemy.

JonPeters.5630:

Even though we wouldn’t do it now another shot at Greatsword to discuss

A) 1 chain NDA by giving Vigor.
B) Add evade to swoop…

Discuss?

My god. Vigor on GS? Way better than the RNG evade. It’s hard to time the auto sequence evade on a crucial skill at times, it would be simply amazing to choose when to dodge.

DiamondMeteor.8345:

JonPeters.5630:

Even though we wouldn’t do it now another shot at Greatsword to discuss

A) 1 chain NDA by giving Vigor.
B) Add evade to swoop…

Discuss?

My god. Vigor on GS? Way better than the RNG evade. It’s hard to time the auto sequence evade on a crucial skill at times, it would be simply amazing to choose when to dodge.

Evade to swoop would make the GS have one of the best gap creators and escapes out of all the ranger weapon sets. This would be really welcome to longbow rangers, where more ways to create distance between you and the enemy are welcome.

To Jon
my thoughts on the up coming changes:

Marksmanship V – Predator’s Instinct. Increased the threshold from 25% to 50%. Increased the Cripple Duration from 2s to 10s. Increased the cooldown from 15s to 30s.

Cripple 10s x 1.10 = 11s up time with 30s CD

good changes but still not worth taking, in game gap closers in all classes would make cripple useless immobilize would be better than this. if im a power Ranger build i wouldnt trade Steady Focus over this. Signet build would never trade Signet mastery for this. Condition Rangers would never trade Keen Edge over this, and pet Rangers would prefer Malicious Training.

Marksmanship VI – Beastmaster’s Bond. Decreased the cooldown from 90s to 60s.

no one would still equip this trait, 10s fury + 3might for 10s on 60s ICD is not worth it, Id rather this change to: Beastmaster’s Bond. Gain fury + 3 might for 10s if your enemy has condition 30s ICD.

Skirmishing XII – Moment of Clarity. Stun Duration increased from 50% to 100%.

just wondering what is your definition of stun? also does this increases Forage items like crack skull, skull, throw rock etc?

speaking of Skirmishing please consider the following:

Swap. Primal Reflexes and Vigorous Renewal. I think if youre a Ranger putting points in Skirmishing, youre aiming for damage, not waiting to get damage by enemies to get your trait to benefit.

Swap. Trapper’s Defense and Healer’s Celerity. We all know traps shouldnt even be in Skirmishing.

Swap. Trap related traits, move it out of Skirmishing. This line does not make sense at all.

I do love the Greatsword approach that you are experimenting on, I think that giving evade on the whole duration of Swoop is a good idea, auto attack on GS 3 should be change to give 2s of might. It seems to me that the direction youre going with GS is pure physical damage, if so this make sense. instead of evade being a free cast every 1.5 secs? its only fair if its on CD.

1. skill on GS is good as is.
2. skill is great, though my only problem is the knockdown part. this seems to rarely happen to me or its very hard to trigger this knockdown.
3. skill to me I think should be change, Hilt Bash should be a knockdown instead of a daze. Stun if you hit from the back.

I just thought of an alternative to the merging of Quick Draw with Piercing Arrows.

1) Move Piercing Arrows down from Master to Adept

This will open up many new variations to bow users, for example:
Piercing Arrows + Eagle Eye + Remorseless
Piercing Arrows + Spotter + Remorseless
Piercing Arrows + Spotter + Eagle Eye
Piercing Arrows + Eagle Eye + Signet of the Beastmaster
I think you get the point.

It will reduce trait cost for Longbow from 50 to 40 (Quick Draw still costs 20), but people will probably still spend 50 points, because they can now also get another of: Remorseless, Spotter, Eagle Eye or Signet of the Beastmaster.

It will reduce Shortbow trait costs from 40 to 30, but again, people will be able to spend more points on relevant traits.

The newly buffed Predator’s Instinct can probably be moved up from Adept to Master. Noone has used it yet anyway.
_________________________________________________________
If you want to go one step further:
2) Move Quick Draw down from Master to Adept
This will further reduce the trait point requirement for Longbows from 40 to 30.
This will further reduce the trait point requirement for Shortbows from 30 to 20.
You could probably move Trapper’s Defense up from Adept to Master. Noone uses it anyway.
_________________________________________________________

These one or two minimal changes will have no possible downsides to anyone’s current build.

At least seriously consider moving Piercing Arrows down from Master to Adapt tier for the 10th of December.

I was wondering. Why did we get pets as our class mechanic instead of preparations? When most people think about Guild Wars 1 rangers, they think about preparations and interrupts.

So let’s discuss traits…
Marksmanship – Power line?
I Steady focus : 10% damage when endurance is full, great for a power/bow user
II Malicious Training : Increase duration for conditions applied by your pet, don’t know if it’s working but I don’t see the interest in the power line, should be moved to beastmaster one
III Keen edge : sharpening stone at 75% enemy hp, should be moved to wilderness survival
IV Signet Mastery : reduce recharge on signets, well signets are a pain even with the recharge on it, should already lower the cooldown on signet of stone (80 sec not traited – 64 traited) / signet of renewal (60 not traited – 48 traited) / signet of the wild (60 not traited – 48 traited)
Signet of the wild should be instant too
V Predator instinct : cripple foes at 25% hp, don’t really see the interest in it
VI Beastmaster bond : nice, but not when your two pets are disabled for 1 min (1 min pet disabled +90 internal cooldown it’s like an elite skill)
VII Spotter : Increase precision of nearby allies, could be moved to adept
VIII Piercing arrows : this one should be merged with other traits, like quickdraw or eagle eye
IX Beastmaster might : nice but since the cooldown on signets are monstruous, it’s quite useless
X Eagle eye : as other traits linked to longbow/sortbow, should be merged with another one trait
XI Signet of beastmaster : Active effect of signet affect you….we are the only class to have this thing…need to trait a signet to be active on us while our pet is mainly disabled? Make it more like active effect of signets affect up to 5 friends and BAM we gonna have a real utility in group fights !
XII Remorseless : honestly? Useless trait, never used it at all…

Passive traits :
Opening strike? Ok
Alpha training? Ok but still don’t understand why our core functionality need to be a passive trait again to be affected
Precise strike : Ok

JonPeters.5630:

Even though we wouldn’t do it now another shot at Greatsword to discuss

A) 1 chain NDA by giving Vigor.
B) Add evade to swoop…

Discuss?

the problem with vigor and swoop evaid: we dont have any good aoe ranged weapon so we need to stay in front line with our only mobile melee weapon with the GS. we dont have heavy armor and/or massive heal as warriors, guardians. the perma dodge is one option but a bad one. we are not dealing dmg or buff our allis while dodging. warriors without power traits have the same dmg as power rangers. if we dodge more we lose dmg. pls keep this in mind. we need an elementalist like aoe/support or warrior like dps/armor/cc or something the mix of it. the dodge is only good for guardian because it heal mass and ele for effects.

Just wanted to add some of my recent thoughts about the greatsword.
We often talk about how the greatsword is a defensive weapon but when you look at the sword you realize it has the same defensive capabilities of the greatsword, infact most of use use this weapon for defensive purpose as offhand weapon. It has 2 built in evades, one of which is a gap creator/closer when used right, it has more flexibility because you can pair the main hand with the proper offhand: warhorn for group buffing and the blast finisher, dagger for an extra evade, torch for the fire field, axe for the cc and reflection and all of that while still maintaining more overall damage than the greatsword. Maybe we need to start to look at the gs not as a defensive weapon but as a sword with different playstyle.

I quote one of mine previous (here) topic about porcine pets which degenerated into a “i like turtle” thread but that can improve the usage of porcines:

mammasaura.5907:

With the recent patch, supportive pets got an improvement and the rnd factor on vital skills like toss elixir B/S removed.

Can be possible to take in consideration to remove the rnd factor in the forrage skll?
Porcines are supportive and the forrage skill hasn’t often a good response, even if triggered, f2 don’t always drop beacuse cancelled on casting, and the drop needs to be picked up and used, it’s not instant like any other skill.
99% of time I want seed pod, elixir of heros is a lucky strike, egg is more usefull if can be throwed to the enemy :P

Spoken about www and pve (maybe split for pvp), with the seed pod drop, it can help rangers to have a better place in a team composition during the combat or during the healing phase.
And…you can use porcine! (used since day 1 :P)

Thanks, hoping in a positive feedback, greetings

@Jon Peters

I thank you for finally admitting (after over a year …) that the ranger class mechanic is broken, and effectively beyond your technical capability to repair. It is evident this class was poorly designed, developed and implemented.

However, now your PR needs to place a disclaimer beside the ranger class description saying: “warning, pets not working as intended”…

So, what happens now??

In my view any discussion on ranger traits, skills, weapons, etc are moot since the unrepairable broken class mechanic is now the elephant in the room. In my view ranger pets should be removed from the game. We can then begin a meaningful discussion on how to move the ranger forward without the pet.

Regarding the ranger GS …
After playing a guardian, IMO the ranger GS is so terrible, it is beyond improvement of any sort and should be dropped entirely. Improve the remaining ranger weapons instead, or give rangers a class specific weapon in replacement, i.e a whip or morning star, if you want another melee weapon.

I would like to suggest some way of condition-cleansing for our pets. As it is now the only way to remove conditions from our pet is healing spring. For those who don’t use healing spring there is no way to remove conditions from our pets (except brown bear but I don’t want to use it).
Especially with the signet of renewal active and empathic bond the pet suffers from all these conditions and can easily die even in a 1v1. In a 1vX scenario the pet will be overloaded and die from the conditions it took away from the ranger and there is like nothing we can do about it.

I would suggest a few changes:
- Signet of renewal: Passive now removes one condition on the ranger and the pet all 10 seconds. It would be great if the conditions would also be removed from the pet on the active but I can understand the reasoning behind this skill as it is now. The pet takes all conditions of 5 targets on itself
- Evasive purity: This now also affects the pet. If the ranger dodges blind and poison is removed from the ranger and the pet. This would be a really great change since at least removing poison might give the pet a chance to survive all these nasty conditions if you build for high regeneration on pet. Also a new nice combo would be dodging before using the wolf F2 to make sure it is not blinded by a thief. How often did I want to fear the thief out of his shadow refuge but the wolf was blinded.
I would really love this change and it is not overpowered at all. It rewards thoughtful and active play.
- Heal as one: As many have suggested make it remove one or two conditions on the ranger and the pet when you use the heal. Maybe also reduce the cast time to 1 second

I’m hearing some suggestions to merge piercing arrows into QuickDraw and I really hope you do NOT do this. Keep all bow traits in the MARKSMANSHIP line, and merge quick draw into piercing arrows. There’s no need for us to have to go into two different traitlines for the same kittening weapons.

I run a 30/0/30/10/0 power build using dual bows, and it already sucks as it is without shorter cool downs. It would suck even more without piercing arrows.

i want bleed back on maul !!! Vulnerability is pointless . Give maul bleeds back , and buff it to 5 stacks

Hi all

After near 1 year of ranger play i write on forum first time.
My opinion a bit different then what i see it here before.
I make a little list

1, Longbow still miss after 1200 range its a bit weird in WvW
2, Barrage how i see its useless when you cant shoot on more enemy and why we need to stop to use that skill? Better to replace for other aoe skill whats better and we can move that time
3,a, Anet always say pets and Ranger is one char but i never feel this. Im not feel this because most of traits not synergy with pets. Remorseless if i hide not give OS for pet but when a thief hide my pet still not earn the OS.
3,b, Other trait is Moment Of Clarity because when i make interrupt with fear or pet make a random one its not earn AoO and ranger to.
3,c, Other thing what i cant understand why pets stat not improved vs Ascend. Another thing where ranger loose DPS vs other classes is the Runes,Sigils,Foods and Nourishments. Before you ask it why? Its easy we not buffed fully with this stuffs. We got Power scale decrase on skills because of pets but if we use this items to boost up the Ranger pet earn 0% boost. If i need comapare with other class chek mesmer and there phantasm. Phantasm boosted by all stat when pets not earn anything. I dont want OP Pets just companse somehow this loss.
3,d, When phantasm just “illusions” what summoned down we cant throw it away our pets ( i dont want to put full passive or throw it). This is where i feel pet is not part of ranger. Because in a 5 Man grp they cant be buffed or healed when all team mate in same place. Basicly what i want say just dont count ranger pets for npc or player just let they earn the boons and heals.
4, The best what i see it to what to do with pets somewhere on forums. The guy talk it about to give trait for pets what a realy good idea. I think it about this a bit and we can put it out so many pet trait at ranger to give it to pets and we can earn in brand new traits. But only give it that ones what only boost pets.
5, Still need better control for pets and dont say pls because of “new players” cant add it. If they new in ranger class they dont loose anything but ppl who want more controll they can use it pets better.
6, Still need same stat table for pets like players and more option to make it more synergy with ranger.
7, After 1 year+ still cant understand why we got trap trait’s on crit/crit dmg line?
8, Why Ranger the only class who need put 30 point on traits to use there Signets? Just forget this and let Ranger use there signets without trait.
9, Need Totaly rework the Heal as One skill not so many ppl use it and most of player who use it ranger more then 1 month they DONT WANT TO USE.
10, This one a future whish. If you guys mostly replace pet trait and give it to pets to make there own traits got so many free place in BM to put Staff traits and more party support trait there :P (We got 16 trait for pets and 8 not in BM trait line)
11, Just another wish. After more then 1 year 1 new pet just nothing :/ pls give more pet
12,Pet skill animations just to long and most of active skill casted to slow and ofc mostly they got high CD
13,Impove the pets movement because they rarely can hit a good player who know how they move.
14,Signet of Renewal need higher range to use it.
15,PLS fix the water downed state ress bug. If you die under the water and you call your pet to ress you smt weird can be happen. Whene enemy kill your pet they still not stop to ress the Ranger.
16,Add more Water Pet

Sorry for the long list. Maybe i cant be correct evrywhere because English is not my main language but i still want let it hear my voice here :P

Dear Anet pls dont give any OP stuff for Rangers just let we same level with other classes.

As some above have already mentioned, let us be able to stow the pet and gain some added damage. The pet can be a real nuisance sometimes.

To Jon

Im just wondering, I play Guardian and Warrior with shout and it is instant cast specially Stand Your Ground on Guardian one of my favourite shouts in game. But why is it that Guard on Ranger has a cast time of at least 3/4 seconds?

Zarache.1985:

Another thing where ranger loose DPS vs other classes is the Runes,Sigils,Foods and Nourishments. Before you ask it why? Its easy we not buffed fully with this stuffs. We got Power scale decrase on skills because of pets but if we use this items to boost up the Ranger pet earn 0% boost.

That’s a good one. How about applying our consumables buffs to the pet? (food/oil)

Or for that matter, other buffs like the wvw Guard Defense buff, etc. All these buffs only have slightly above half the effect on ranger than what they give to other classes.

cafard.8953:

Zarache.1985:

Another thing where ranger loose DPS vs other classes is the Runes,Sigils,Foods and Nourishments. Before you ask it why? Its easy we not buffed fully with this stuffs. We got Power scale decrase on skills because of pets but if we use this items to boost up the Ranger pet earn 0% boost.

That’s a good one. How about applying our consumables buffs to the pet? (food/oil)

Or for that matter, other buffs like the wvw Guard Defense buff, etc. All these buffs only have slightly above half the effect on ranger than what they give to other classes.

Don’t forget ascended gear in general. We get less benefit from weapons/armors/accessories compared to other classes.

Taku.6352:

cafard.8953:

Zarache.1985:

Another thing where ranger loose DPS vs other classes is the Runes,Sigils,Foods and Nourishments. Before you ask it why? Its easy we not buffed fully with this stuffs. We got Power scale decrase on skills because of pets but if we use this items to boost up the Ranger pet earn 0% boost.

That’s a good one. How about applying our consumables buffs to the pet? (food/oil)

Or for that matter, other buffs like the wvw Guard Defense buff, etc. All these buffs only have slightly above half the effect on ranger than what they give to other classes.

Don’t forget ascended gear in general. We get less benefit from weapons/armors/accessories compared to other classes.

Indeed, but this one is more difficult to reflect on the pet i guess, since the pet has its own “gear” stats through the points invested in the Beastmaster line. I don’t understand why pet stats were not increased on the day ascended weapons were introduced but there you go…

Consumables on the other hand are independent of gear and should really sit on top of that, like for the ranger. It would make the pet feel a bit more integral too, since one would start select food also in consideration of the pet needs.

after thinking about it i have come to the conclusion that the endurance trait nerf is tier1 BS . Why ? Ranger has no other defensive mechanisms other then dodge . Warrior has vigor , blocks , mobility , natural health and toughness , condition removals . Thief has stealth and a lot of dodgs . Mesmer has clones and stealth.. the list goes on .

The ranger only has endurance regen . Thats it . There is no natural sustain build like most classes have , only ranger has to go heavy into defense and HPower to get it . This is 1st class tunnel visioning from the devs right here . NO, JUST NO!!!

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

C’mon man, the sword MH auto is interesting but it’s not that bad, what is in need of help is the bows. They’re so simple & someone with one finger could play as good as a top tier player… NEED INTRICACY

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.

This, I think, more than anything else is a huge part of the problem.

You have had 1.5 years and more to pick at these low hanging fruit. You can keep doing that if you like be that will be pretty much like rearranging deck chairs on the titanic. The issues with this class more than any other class wont be fixed without some major work on all of pets, trait lines, and weapon skills.

A fairly large number of rangers have known this and asked for this for a very long time. I’m fairly certain other developers and yourself have been aware of it too. The tweaks are nice but in the end will always fall short and this is why whenever we have some nice ranger changes the prevalent attitude on the forums is “yes, but…”

On a side note I find that the repeated shortbow nerfs utterly inexplicable. The most recent range change was especially baffling. I understand some people think that flavourwise the SB shouldn’t fire as far as the long bow, but how much sense does it make for rangers to throw axes as far as they can shoot a bow?

I think a lot of the changes for this class, including the changes proposed for this patch, testify to a real lack of vision and direction for the ranger. It would be helpful if you were to restate what your vision for the class is (i.e., those lovely paragraphs that tell players what they can expect from a class when we create a new character) and refocus your balancing efforts to make sure this is true for the ranger.

I appreciate that you feel mainland sword leads to unique and high level play as it is, this is true. However, I am not convinced that this is still good for the game. MH sword for the ranger is the only weapon where a new player needs to go change settings in order not to fall to their death and/or leap into a new pack of enemies while on low health. Overall I think that speaks to an error in design.

It’s also the only weapon that keeps you from dodging in its auto attack chain. There are ways to get around that but those are kuldges to get around an issue with the attack chain to allow you to use an extremely important functionality in combat, the dodge.

Sorry about the ramble.

The low hanging furit approach is what you’ve been doing for 1.5 years and for this class, this will not work. Please please please stop doing that, roll up your selves and and get to work on the core issues.

Rhyse.8179:

The biggest problem with GS is that it’s a defensive weapon, and not the offensive smasher that most people think of with 2 handers. I actually like it for exactly that reason, but the perception of it is coloring peoples view of it’s balance. Also, as a defense/control weapon, it relies heavily on pets for it’s DPS. Conveniently, since you are the tank when using GS, it allows you to use a high DPS pet. Fixing the pet movement AI so they can apply their damage properly and making them stay alive in AOE will do more for the GS then anything you do to the GS itself.

The only problem with using a DPS pet and GS is that even with a power build and full berserker gear, you can’t get agro off of the pet because it’s out damaging you. Now, supposing the 60/40 split on damage is true, what does that say about the damage on GS?

Tyops.5894:

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.

This, I think, more than anything else is a huge part of the problem.

You have had 1.5 years and more to pick at these low hanging fruit. You can keep doing that if you like be that will be pretty much like rearranging deck chairs on the titanic. The issues with this class more than any other class wont be fixed without some major work on all of pets, trait lines, and weapon skills.

A fairly large number of rangers have known this and asked for this for a very long time. I’m fairly certain other developers and yourself have been aware of it too. The tweaks are nice but in the end will always fall short and this is why whenever we have some nice ranger changes the prevalent attitude on the forums is “yes, but…”

On a side note I find that the repeated shortbow nerfs utterly inexplicable. The most recent range change was especially baffling. I understand some people think that flavourwise the SB shouldn’t fire as far as the long bow, but how much sense does it make for rangers to throw axes as far as they can shoot a bow?

I think a lot of the changes for this class, including the changes proposed for this patch, testify to a real lack of vision and direction for the ranger. It would be helpful if you were to restate what your vision for the class is (i.e., those lovely paragraphs that tell players what they can expect from a class when we create a new character) and refocus your balancing efforts to make sure this is true for the ranger.

I appreciate that you feel mainland sword leads to unique and high level play as it is, this is true. However, I am not convinced that this is still good for the game. MH sword for the ranger is the only weapon where a new player needs to go change settings in order not to fall to their death and/or leap into a new pack of enemies while on low health. Overall I think that speaks to an error in design.

It’s also the only weapon that keeps you from dodging in its auto attack chain. There are ways to get around that but those are kuldges to get around an issue with the attack chain to allow you to use an extremely important functionality in combat, the dodge.

Sorry about the ramble.

The low hanging furit approach is what you’ve been doing for 1.5 years and for this class, this will not work. Please please please stop doing that, roll up your selves and and get to work on the core issues.

Great post. Accurate, strait forward, and reflects quite a few views of people who play/played this class.