Guild Wars 2

Durzlla.6295:

Levetty.1279:

I don’t know where this myth that SPVP players are talented has come from considering the SPvP meta seems to be ‘go on forums and complain about all classes that aren’t yours, doubly so if class has pets’. Though they are very skilled at that I guess.

PvP players tend to be better than PvE players because if you kitten up in PvP, even just a tiny little bit like missing your cripple, it can be the difference between victory and defeat so PvPers tend to be a little better at the game as a whole.

Granted, this is only for competitive PvP players that are doing tournies regularly and are in it to win it, a hot join hero is gonna be about as good as your average zergling, and then there’s also some REALLY good PvE players too and etc.

Just by and large most PvPers tend to be better than most PvErs, but again there’s A LOT of different factors that play into it so don’t worry about it too much (like there being significantly less PvPers than PvE players).

You come to high level fractals or Arah/Aetherblade achiev/seed runs and manage not to get kicked within the first 10 minutes. Then you get to say PvP’ers are better.

It’s completely different skillsets.

Seriously i didnt want to be a kitten but WvW has minimun skill..I tried to watch some GvG and all i saw was a huge aoefest…..Ppl just spamming aoes and finishers, thats why they dont bring Rangers…..20 ppl spamming aoe and finishers at another 20 ppl is totally lame.
I dont mind enjoying it but dont tell me that this requires skills and synergy..Its not like if you miss a dodge, if you interupt a heal, its not like you actually watching what is happening…..
I dont even mention this skillfull door breaking……………

Obviously sPvP>WvW in skill terms

Dardamaniac.1295:

Seriously i didnt want to be a kitten but WvW has minimun skill..I tried to watch some GvG and all i saw was a huge aoefest…..Ppl just spamming aoes and finishers, thats why they dont bring Rangers…..20 ppl spamming aoe and finishers at another 20 ppl is totally lame.
I dont mind enjoying it but dont tell me that this requires skills and synergy..Its not like if you miss a dodge, if you interupt a heal, its not like you actually watching what is happening…..
I dont even mention this skillfull door breaking……………

Obviously sPvP>WvW in skill terms

I’d hate to burst your bubble but again, we’re trying to compare the skill level between checkers and tic tac toe. There’s not much synergy or skill required in take-and-hold style gameplay either. When this game offers real arenas and guild vs guild options (something you can only do in a WvW environment currently) we can start talking about how class synergy and individual skill starts to have a noticeable impact.

But to pretend there’s much skill involved with the current sPvP condifocused meta dominated by a handful of classes with no representation from the other half? come on….

kitten nic Touch.7960:

Taken from https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Dec-10th-Balance-Preview/first#post3133133

Ranger:
For the ranger, we’ve adjusted the placement of some traits so that rangers should have more build combinations. For example, by swapping Nature’s Vengeance and Spirits Unbound so that rangers can have spirits follow you in tier 2, players can now opt out of the higher damage output from spirits and still have options elsewhere. We also brought up some Marksmanship and a Skirmishing trait to make power specs more appealing. We feel like rangers also currently have too much endurance regeneration through traits. Due to this, we’ve made adjustments to Wilderness Survival traits, and we’ve also brought down the passive of Sun Spirit and the active effect for Storm Spirit.

Long Range Shot. Increased the damage at 500 range by 20%.
Long Range Shot. Increased the damage at 500-1000 range by 15%.
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.
Marksmanship VI – Beastmaster’s Bond. Decreased the cooldown from 90s to 60s.
Skirmishing XII – Moment of Clarity. Stun Duration increased from 50% to 100%.
Wilderness 5 Natural Vigor. Reduced the increased endurance regeneration from 50% to 25%.
Wilderness VIII – Oakheart Salve. Decreased the recharge of this trait from 20s->15s
Wilderness XII – Bark Skin Increased the damage reduction from 30% to 50%.
Nature Magic I – Circle of Life. Cleared up the text of this trait to clearly identify that it happens when downed, not defeated.
Nature Magic V – Strength of Spirit. Increased conversion from 5% to 7%
Nature Magic IX – Two Handed Training. Added the following functionality to this trait. Greatsword and Spear attacks have a chance to grant Fury on hit. 50% chance. 3s Fury. 10s cooldown.
Nature Magic X – Enlargement. This trait now uses Signet of the Wild to trigger. This reduces the cooldown to 60 seconds and allow it to interact with the Signet of the Beastmaster and Signet Mastery traits.
Nature Magic VII – Nature’s Vengeance. Moved to Grandmaster Tier.
Nature Magic XI – Spirits Unbound. Moved to Master Tier.
Beastmastery VI – Mighty Swap. The might from this trait is now applied to you and your pet.
Sun Spirit. Reduced the passive burning from 3s to 2s.
Storm Spirit. Reduced the damage from the Call Lightning skill by 33%

If they are going to take away endurance that makes me slower doesn’kitten Rangers are already the slowest toons in WvW in many cases especially when trying to follow a Warrior.

This would move long range shot from .5/.65/.9 to .6/.75/.9. The auto attack on greatsword is about .68 if you average it over time.

Atherakhia.4086:

Dardamaniac.1295:

Seriously i didnt want to be a kitten but WvW has minimun skill..I tried to watch some GvG and all i saw was a huge aoefest…..Ppl just spamming aoes and finishers, thats why they dont bring Rangers…..20 ppl spamming aoe and finishers at another 20 ppl is totally lame.
I dont mind enjoying it but dont tell me that this requires skills and synergy..Its not like if you miss a dodge, if you interupt a heal, its not like you actually watching what is happening…..
I dont even mention this skillfull door breaking……………

Obviously sPvP>WvW in skill terms

I’d hate to burst your bubble but again, we’re trying to compare the skill level between checkers and tic tac toe. There’s not much synergy or skill required in take-and-hold style gameplay either. When this game offers real arenas and guild vs guild options (something you can only do in a WvW environment currently) we can start talking about how class synergy and individual skill starts to have a noticeable impact.

But to pretend there’s much skill involved with the current sPvP condifocused meta dominated by a handful of classes with no representation from the other half? come on….

What i bolded is totally false..Theres a lot of synergy, you dont just walk around capping points..Not only synergy but full awarness of the map..Thats why soloq fails so hard..Ppl from WvW-pve keep attacking the far point.

Ive faced many times in sPvP WvW guys and i faced many times in WvW WvW heros..From my personal experience i can say this for sure..They suck….Zerging and 5+ fights makes you bad…You really dont have any impact in fights.
In a 20vs20, plz stop saying that every action you take matters so much….Plz. Its ok to like it, its ok to have fun but no…Dat aoe spamming aint skillfull.
I wont say that there arent any good WvW players, ofc they are…But in an average scale spvpers>WvWers…And im not saying in a 1v1 situations only, they have much better awareness of their class

about the great sword changes.
i really wouldn´t appreciate it if you take away the evade from the auto attack chain.
especially if you are going to cut the vigor down. at the moment its besides the block on 4 one of the only things that makes GS reliable in melee range. especially against large mops. if its going to be removed you would go down pretty fast while countering a larger number of foes or a boss that has longer attack chains.. i just payed attention to it totay in the tower of nightmares. my screen was spamming “evade” notes and i was soooo happy about that:)..

Dardamaniac.1295:

Atherakhia.4086:

Dardamaniac.1295:

Seriously i didnt want to be a kitten but WvW has minimun skill..I tried to watch some GvG and all i saw was a huge aoefest…..Ppl just spamming aoes and finishers, thats why they dont bring Rangers…..20 ppl spamming aoe and finishers at another 20 ppl is totally lame.
I dont mind enjoying it but dont tell me that this requires skills and synergy..Its not like if you miss a dodge, if you interupt a heal, its not like you actually watching what is happening…..
I dont even mention this skillfull door breaking……………

Obviously sPvP>WvW in skill terms

I’d hate to burst your bubble but again, we’re trying to compare the skill level between checkers and tic tac toe. There’s not much synergy or skill required in take-and-hold style gameplay either. When this game offers real arenas and guild vs guild options (something you can only do in a WvW environment currently) we can start talking about how class synergy and individual skill starts to have a noticeable impact.

But to pretend there’s much skill involved with the current sPvP condifocused meta dominated by a handful of classes with no representation from the other half? come on….

What i bolded is totally false..Theres a lot of synergy, you dont just walk around capping points..Not only synergy but full awarness of the map..Thats why soloq fails so hard..Ppl from WvW-pve keep attacking the far point.

Ive faced many times in sPvP WvW guys and i faced many times in WvW WvW heros..From my personal experience i can say this for sure..They suck….Zerging and 5+ fights makes you bad…You really dont have any impact in fights.
In a 20vs20, plz stop saying that every action you take matters so much….Plz. Its ok to like it, its ok to have fun but no…Dat aoe spamming aint skillfull.
I wont say that there arent any good WvW players, ofc they are…But in an average scale spvpers>WvWers…And im not saying in a 1v1 situations only, they have much better awareness of their class

Of course…

/me pats you on the head

Zenith.7301:

Durzlla.6295:

Levetty.1279:

I don’t know where this myth that SPVP players are talented has come from considering the SPvP meta seems to be ‘go on forums and complain about all classes that aren’t yours, doubly so if class has pets’. Though they are very skilled at that I guess.

PvP players tend to be better than PvE players because if you kitten up in PvP, even just a tiny little bit like missing your cripple, it can be the difference between victory and defeat so PvPers tend to be a little better at the game as a whole.

Granted, this is only for competitive PvP players that are doing tournies regularly and are in it to win it, a hot join hero is gonna be about as good as your average zergling, and then there’s also some REALLY good PvE players too and etc.

Just by and large most PvPers tend to be better than most PvErs, but again there’s A LOT of different factors that play into it so don’t worry about it too much (like there being significantly less PvPers than PvE players).

You come to high level fractals or Arah/Aetherblade achiev/seed runs and manage not to get kicked within the first 10 minutes. Then you get to say PvP’ers are better.

It’s completely different skillsets.

I got every single Aether blade retreat achievement on a lv 40-50 staff ele in the equivalent of that levels zerker gear, I’ve almost finished everything in Arah (one path left more of a time commitment than everything, so far only boss we’ve wiped on was Melandru and even then it was stupid easy once I kited the gorillas around in another room), and speed clears are hardly a testament to skill, usually just builds that take advantage of the mechanics.

PS: I also killed Liadri

Durzlla.6295:

PvP players tend to be better than PvE players because if you kitten up in PvP, even just a tiny little bit like missing your cripple, it can be the difference between victory and defeat so PvPers tend to be a little better at the game as a whole.

I Disagree. I am not sure you can take one facet of the game and claim that because you are good at it, it makes you better than others also playing the game that are better versed in different skill sets.

we dont want wvw balance, we want profession balance! i want to play again with my ranger because my guildies asked me to come with it

I have a suggestion for natures voice. Instead of 360 range make it 600 range. 360 range is so small that it often won’t affect your team mates or your pet.
And if possible make it affect 5 people + your pet (always affect pet). As it is now it often happens that your pet won’t get the swiftness which is a real problem.

JonPeters.5630:

Summoned creature AI is a different can of worms that we aren’t opening for the same reason…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.

Jon,

I have up to reading above not agreed with any ranger players that wish to have the pet removed/stowed permanently. I also understand that it is ArenaNet’s stance that this will never happen. Now, seeing my hope misplaced, I have to respectfully ask: Given that our class mechanic, and (if I understand it correctly) a significant portion of our damage output, is not functioning correctly, why not?

Why can we not stow away our pets (which I love dearly—despite forgetting their names, but hardly ever see alive despite my best efforts) and get some damage compensation in return (if anything grander might be to difficult to do). I understand that it’s also about losing face, or admitting defeat/failure, but come on! As a low-hanging fruit, this will give you breathing room until you can fix pet/summon AI (if at all).

Yes, it will limit the use of some (admittedly misplaced) traits, a whole trait-line and some builds. However, conversely it will also open up a whole lot of builds that can now safely ignore any pet traits. Apart from ArenaNet’s hurt pride (I cannot quit say “hubris” although it feels like that some days) and some technical difficulties (which you have to go through with every balance change anyway) what hinders this?

I know, as a player, I am at liberty to re-roll my main class or quit the game entirely (ArenaNet is not entirely at fault for me choosing a ranger main 02/05/2013). I would prefer not to. Until we have not addressed (or worked around) the pet mechanics, any little “cosmetic” changes to our other traits and skills will not fix this class.

Respectfully,

Stowing pet´s will solve nothing.
Forget this stupid idea!
Pet´s do not only dmg, a lot of ranger support and cc is used by pet´s too.
Just stowing them away and have no problem´s anymore, is nothing then a dreambubble.

And a lot of Traits will be useless, u´ll need a complete overhaul through all 5 traitlines and alot of skills. That´s not a fast “fix it in 5minutes” thing.
Are u guys rly so close minded? I don´t want to believe it.

Norjena.5172:

Stowing pet´s will solve nothing.
Forget this stupid idea!
Pet´s do not only dmg, a lot of ranger support and cc is used by pet´s too.
Just stowing them away and have no problem´s anymore, is nothing then a dreambubble.

And a lot of Traits will be useless, u´ll need a complete overhaul through all 5 traitlines and alot of skills. That´s not a fast “fix it in 5minutes” thing.
Are u guys rly so close minded? I don´t want to believe it.

Norjena, the pet counts for at least 25% of our DPS, but the AI is so ineffective that it cannot dodge, so the odds of death for it so high that when it goes down, our class gets a massive condition. Condition’s name…“Pet down”. What does it do? Why it drops our DPS by at least 25%, and nullifies any and all traits dealing with the pet. Either way, our traits are useless, whether the pet was permastowed or dead.

If the percentage of our damage it did was 15% at the least (25% if you spec in full beastmastery) however…I don’t think you’d see any complaining from those who didn’t spec in beastmastery, since it’d be a nuisance…but we could still pull some things off. As of right now, the second the pet dies, we’ve been kitten horribly.

how about throwing in some oooo’s and aaaah’s for us rangers like everyone else has. rangers have nothing cool looking like flaming arrows or a lightning shot, or a burning bow when we gain fury etc. all we have is the boring pewpew white line as the arrow goes flying, and a weak pet that can heal allies BUT NOT OURSELVES when we are downed, which doesnt even make sense.

i have seen several tweaks to other players in this regard but i have never EVER seen anything for rangers since this game started. which leads me to believe a dev or two working on this doesnt like rangers and wants to leave them as lame as possible.

and if this dec 10th ranger update turns out like the so-called ‘big one’ for rangers a year ago, ill go find something else to do, because that will prove to me your devs truly do not listen to your players.

im kind of curious as to what caused your dev last year to say ‘rangers dont need a buff’, yet suddenly it looks here like theres a halfway decent one coming dec 10th. LATE, but coming.

Heres an easy low hanging fruit type idea that would satisfy a lot of people here:

Add a trait that buffs us for ranger pet type out (like elementalist attunement or warrior stance), and while traited, the pet is just a passive spirit which no longer takes orders and just follows ranger around. Plays to the pet theme and lets people play “without pet”.

My main concerns regarding the ranger are well described by the below post, specifically in the section covered by ‘ranger in high tier’ wvw play, I think this highlights also the concerns of many rangers. If a dev could take the time to look at this post and give us their feedback, it would be much appreciated:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Sentinel-Frontliner-Next-Level-WvW-Ranger

I understand how much devs care regarding keeping the classes balanced both in pvp, wvw and pve, however with the number of changes done to all professions throughout 2013, the ranger has found itself again in the gutter in terms of how it compares with other professions. So yes please help!

Whoever on the Living World team decided it was time for more mine fields that my pets blunder into and trigger with the new Tower content; thank you, just thank you.

I greatly appreciate the time you take to make the content enjoyable across all classes, and the eye for detail and mindfulness you take when you create content.

/sarcasm

“The Nightmare Within”.

More like “The Living Nightmare” for Rangers.

And more proof that content being added renders the pet utterly and totally useless.

jcbroe.4329:

Whoever on the Living World team decided it was time for more mine fields that my pets blunder into and trigger with the new Tower content; thank you, just thank you.

I greatly appreciate the time you take to make the content enjoyable across all classes, and the eye for detail and mindfulness you take when you create content.

/sarcasm

lol. I wish I had frap running sometimes. I was running in a straight line and my pet was trying its darndest to hit every single mine in the most obscure path imaginable.

The wells on that plant boss are also lolworthy since the pet can’t escape without swapping.

Solid Gold.9310:

“The Nightmare Within”.

More like “The Living Nightmare” for Rangers.

And more proof that content being added renders the pet utterly and totally useless.

…you guys run through the tower with your pets on aggressive? Set them on passive, stow them, and run with Signet of the Hunt. Don’t try to kill anything other than the group event bosses in you way, and get to the center so you can reach the next section. The entirety of surviving the tower is dependent on you playing smart and avoiding fights whenever possible. Basically, the equivalent of learning to survive in WvW and in Arah (where you have to dodge a LOT of mobs).

RyuDragnier.9476:

Solid Gold.9310:

“The Nightmare Within”.

More like “The Living Nightmare” for Rangers.

And more proof that content being added renders the pet utterly and totally useless.

…you guys run through the tower with your pets on aggressive? Set them on passive, stow them, and run with Signet of the Hunt. Don’t try to kill anything other than the group event bosses in you way, and get to the center so you can reach the next section. The entirety of surviving the tower is dependent on you playing smart and avoiding fights whenever possible. Basically, the equivalent of learning to survive in WvW and in Arah (where you have to dodge a LOT of mobs).

Who in the world has their pet on aggressive…

I have some suggestions regarding the changes being made and a suggestion regarding the issue with people not wanting pets (bear with me on this).

First off, I love the idea of taking off the evade on GS 1 and adding it to Swoop, now we can actually choose when to dodge skills as well as gap close. Here are some suggestions for GS also:

-Add maul as the 3rd attack on GS1 with balancing of numbers of course
-GS2 new attack: Hit your target removing x conditions, if the target is hit from the side/back conditions are applied to the target (this last part might be overkill)

What this allows is for us rangers to have the active condition removal we desperately need. If the condition transfer part is too powerful it could be a trait instead.

Second part and this is the one regarding the pets and will require substantial rework of the profession I admit.

Stowing your pet will remove your pet from play and it will not come back if you enter combat/are attacked (as it currently is). Instead your pet skills are replaced with Preparations Skills.

Preparations Skills – F1-F4 function as modes that you are in akin to elemental attunments.

F1- Incendiary Arrows : Your arrows have a % chance to cause an explosion in a small radius.

F2- Apply Poison: Your arrows have a % chance to inflict your target with poison.

F3- Marksmen’s Wager: Your arrows have a % chance to cause weakness.

F4- Read the Wind: Your arrows have a % chance of giving you quickness for Y sec.

The following restriction apply:

-You may only have one preparation active at any given time with a global CD switching between each.
-Calling on your pet will remove any benefits of Preparations
-Stowing your pet to activate Preparations will remove any benefits you have obtained from pets

Possible traits:

- Practiced Preparations: The % chance of your preparations proccing are increased to X%
- Well-Prepared (possible gradmaster trait): Activating a preparation adds an effect to the first attack done.

-F1: Burning Arrows: Your first attack will cause your target to Burn dealing X dmg
-F2: Choking Poison: Your first attack will daze your target for X sec
-F3: Marksmen’s Focus: Your first attack will immobilize your foe for X sec
-F4: Marskmen’s Expertise: Your first attack will apply swiftness for Y sec.
Each has a X CD before it can be used again.

Before you yell and scream saying that’s too OP numbers can be changed and put in mind that a good portion of our dmg is not available still they will be stowed (pets).

Stowing & Calling on your pets will have a set CD

Edit: I apologize for the HUGE post.

Stowing pets for buffs/pets is never going to happen. Especially since they got renamed Venoms and we’re given to thieves.

Someone suggested giving rangers a token skill to replace f2 while pets are down. That seems much more likely.

Kilger.5490:

Heres an easy low hanging fruit type idea that would satisfy a lot of people here:

Add a trait that buffs us for ranger pet type out (like elementalist attunement or warrior stance), and while traited, the pet is just a passive spirit which no longer takes orders and just follows ranger around. Plays to the pet theme and lets people play “without pet”.

I like that idea. Create F5 to call upon Companion Spirit. Whichever pet type you have currently out creates a spirit image of them that follows you around and buffs you. Make them immune to damage have the buff reflect a portion or type of benefit they provide.

If you swapped pets or canceled the effect F5 would trigger a 60 second cool down.

ChillyChinaman.6057:

Stowing pets for buffs/pets is never going to happen. Especially since they got renamed Venoms and we’re given to thieves.

Someone suggested giving rangers a token skill to replace f2 while pets are down. That seems much more likely.

Well true that Thieves got a version of preparations but it still doesn’t quite capture the essence of it imo. Having an extra effect for a few attacks is diff than having a consistent effect with % chance of proccing. I know the pet idea is a definite long shot but I hope they could consider the GS idea.

Pets would work perfectly fine if they took no damage what so ever . Then it would be far more reliable and maximizing dps would not be dependant on on hit KO mechanics in the game . Everything else could be subjected to numbers change

Let me explain something. We lost a considerable damage percentage for an stupid and weak AI. You and your pet entering and leaving the combat mode together reducing their forward movement speed, increases the cooldown on swapping weapon sets, and prevents the character from changing his equipped items or skills. This can get you in trouble if you have trying to escape besides taking the logic of you use the pet as an object of distraction and give you time to change some trait, skill or weapon. Many of our skills and Traits involve “Pet Gain” and “Pet Deals” for AI that dies very easily. Our signets are ridiculous and spends trait with this to share active skill is unthinkable. GW2 on the Range is extremely attached to Pet up more than it should be. The Pet is a weak, stupid and without damage AI without sharing anything in return unless a Skill (F2) with a CD extremely high and that the vast majority is crap.

I love Ranger, was and is my number 1 class in other mmos but in GW2 i left it a little aside. Why? Doesn’t work, the mechanics of GW2 is far from GW1. We lost our firepower and our ability to defend themselves (Stance GW1), when he changed the game mechanics. The warrior skills with a Longbow are better and do more damage than the class made ??to play with Bow … I’m lying? Only you compare the skills, do not forget to see the “combustive Shot”. Where is our fire arrow? Many GW1 skills was transferred for other classes … Bow shot, double shot, Choking Gas, among others. There is a big gap between the Ranger GW1 and Ranger GW2, this class is no longer a Ranger but a Beastmaster. For me and I think for most people the good Ranger was playing with the bow but the horrible choices of skills associated with constant nerfs and a bad mechanics for Pet made ??me leave it aside.

Compare the sPvP with WvWvW is totally insane. The Ranger can even be good in sPvP but in WvWvW is sucks. The differences between the sets of sPvP and WvWvW is absurdly high so stop comparing them.

In WvWvW enemies will laugh in your face and will dance on their bodies. Especially if the enemy is one Thief, Warrior, Mesmer, Necro (conditions) or an Elementalist (d / d).

I believe the Ranger in GvG it will be a crap if it is selected to participate.

Below is the list of skills to the GW1 Ranger who does not know and see the difference.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/List_of_ranger_skills

You’d think the sheer amount of threads/posts related to giving us the option to opt out of using the pet would be an obivous flashing red light and siren. There’s been hundreds of suggestions not to get rid of pets completely but to make them optional. I still don’t understand the people who get offended by having the choice to use them or not. I guess those are the same people who want other people not to succeed in life if they aren’t. “If I’m having a bad day everybody else should to! It’s only fair!” Uh, no, Snowflake. The real world doesn’t work like that. We who love playing the Ranger but not the pet are quite a large portion of the Ranger player base (I say this referrencing the extremely large portion of posts/threads about making the pet optional since I’ve been on the forums). It’s a broken mechanic. If the lead game designer can admit that (which I never thought would happen) there is no reason not to believe they can put another band aid on it making the pet optional. As far as I see it this the best time to push for making pets optional and introducing Preparations or damage buff for stowing pet, for instance.

RyuDragnier.9476:

Solid Gold.9310:

“The Nightmare Within”.

More like “The Living Nightmare” for Rangers.

And more proof that content being added renders the pet utterly and totally useless.

…you guys run through the tower with your pets on aggressive? Set them on passive, stow them, and run with Signet of the Hunt. Don’t try to kill anything other than the group event bosses in you way, and get to the center so you can reach the next section. The entirety of surviving the tower is dependent on you playing smart and avoiding fights whenever possible. Basically, the equivalent of learning to survive in WvW and in Arah (where you have to dodge a LOT of mobs).

The ONLY time I even run with my pet on Guard is in PvP matches, and only when I’m strictly a home point holder (meaning really only for 1v1s).

Yes, there are ways to play that minimize the frustration of the content that the pet does not aptly perform in. But if it causes players to sacrifice playable content in the process, then it is inherently bad design, is it not?

The point is that you shouldn’t have to stow your pet and avoid as much combat as possible, only fighting the “worthwhile” (this is subjective, who decides what fights are worthwhile or not) fights.

If you are going to design a game and give a class a forced pet mechanic, don’t design content that then creates a malicious environment specifically towards pets that doesn’t otherwise hinder any other classes success.

thefantasticg.3984:

You’d think the sheer amount of threads/posts related to giving us the option to opt out of using the pet would be an obivous flashing red light and siren. There’s been hundreds of suggestions not to get rid of pets completely but to make them optional. I still don’t understand the people who get offended by having the choice to use them or not. I guess those are the same people who want other people not to succeed in life if they aren’t. “If I’m having a bad day everybody else should to! It’s only fair!” Uh, no, Snowflake. The real world doesn’t work like that. We who love playing the Ranger but not the pet are quite a large portion of the Ranger player base (I say this referrencing the extremely large portion of posts/threads about making the pet optional since I’ve been on the forums). It’s a broken mechanic. If the lead game designer can admit that (which I never thought would happen) there is no reason not to believe they can put another band aid on it making the pet optional. As far as I see it this the best time to push for making pets optional and introducing Preparations or damage buff for stowing pet, for instance.

You would think that. But as we’ve seen with this “red light” syndrome, when almost an entire community is in agreement that there are either issues to iron out or tweaks to be made at least to make something more fluid (I’m referencing the MH sword), Devs can always come along a year later and say “look, actually, we like it and think it’s fine.”

I envision the same exact thing unfortunately. There is a fairly decent amount of people that want the pet mechanic reworked, another decent amount removed entirely, and even most of the people that love the mechanic would concede to allowing it to be optional as long is it doesn’t negatively affect their gameplay.

What’s probably going to happen? A dev will come along and say “actually, we like it, and we think it’s working fine.”

See, that is the difference, a Dev (the lead game designing Dev no less) said it isn’t working fine and needs a ton of resources to get it working right. The impossible has happened as far as I see it. Why let it stop there? Time for another improssible to happen and that’s making pets optional!

well lets be a little more creative here. stowing pet for extra damage is kinda dumb.

there needs to be an energy between ranger and pet. when pet dies, its spirit grants us a unique ability and extra damage. as the ranger does more damage himself, he fills up an energy bar that gradually brings the pet back to life.

for the record, the only dev that comes along and says “we like it, it’s gonna stay” is probably JP, because he calls the shots. this kind of attitude is holding the profession back, which is really sad.

JP is the same one that said it’s not working right, they’ve been using a band aid approach since beta, going to take a lot of resources to fix it, and they aren’t messing with it right now because of that.

I get what you’re saying that JP did acknowledge that things could be better and that they acknowledge that but that it would require resources and all at a later date, but the thing is, when is the right time?

Surely if they knew in beta that it was an issue, they would fix the issue before launch right?

If the devs truly thought that the main mechanic for a class isn’t working correctly, why isn’kitten major concern that is being worked on right now because of it? If the ranger population is truly as expansive as it shows, and the pets are acknowledged issues, then it is an issue that affects a large portion of the player base every single time they play the class.

Since it is too difficult too fix right now (and apparently isn’t even worth beginning to allocate resources towards), then the least that could be done is to make sure when introducing new content to the game that it is at least conducive to the current limitations of the mechanic.

But my point was, they couldn’t even do that with this last patch.

Acknowledging something is an issue is one thing, but it does not excuse being completely inconsiderate to the issue, especially when patching in new content with the same type of mechanics that a particular class already showed issues with in previous content releases.

CETheLucid.3964:

Shrimpkin.4851:

I’m new to MMOs and GW2 (only been playing for a little over 2 months) and I was never big into video games to begin with. I chose to be a Ranger, because after reading what all the classes do, it was the one that really appealed to me. I love this game. I’ve had a fantastic time learning as I go, exploring, and I’ve been lucky enough to make some friends who know the game and have helped me out with armor, builds, trait suggestions, you name it.

Whenever I was asked what I wanted from a build, my answer was always the same; “I want to survive the fight”. I thought I was downed or died too often, whether it was WvW or PvE. I got better armor, weapons, sigils, the whole nine yards and I was still dying. I was dodging to the best of my abilities, moving in circles, back and forth, and I was still dying. Keep in mind that until I started playing GW2, WASD were just letters on the keyboard to me. I have improved greatly, but I will never be on par with a lot of the players in this game.

I got tired of being killed, hunted down and jumped by groups in WvW. I now play PvE exclusively. I still feel I die too much, but at least I no longer have to suffer being laughed at or my corpse danced on in victory. (not everyone did this, but it was embarrasing for me to watch)

Like I said, new to all this and when one of my friends explained to me what the regen reduction would do in terms of survivability (for myself) my first thought was “I’m dead in the water”.

I can deal with my pet (weird as it is at times), the weapons I can deal with too as I wasn’t around when the other changes to them took place. I play B/B only after having tried other combinations. I can even deal with being slightly “squishy” in terms of armor. (love my pimp coat and hat)

But having my ability to get out of the line of fire cut in half? Come December 10th, I’ll be spending most of my time wandering around solo and avoiding group events. And ultimately having much less fun. I want to be able to help others in a fight, not become another corpse on the battlefield.

If they’re dancing on your corpse, you probably sufficiently rustled their jimmies to warrant the response. Well done!

It’s not going to be the biggest hit in the world. If you’re exclusively PvE, even less so.

Come the patch supplement the trait with stamina food and you’ll be at where we are today, if not a little over.

You’ll otherwise benefit from everything else which will be a buff. If you’re rocking a survivalist/bunker set up, Bark Skin will be right up your ally.

Bandaids on a severed limb. Any class can eat stamina food and get almost +50% end regen and that puts us right back in the harsh nerf category, where we don’t need to be.

Why aren’t we in the not nerfed category? Why aren’t we getting trait compression to be on par with most every other class? Why aren’t we getting good bandages for the broken pets (like aoe damage reduction to pets only from npc aoes). Why aren’t we getting traits moved to more logical trees? Tell me why.

Imaginos.3756:

Bandaids on a severed limb. Any class can eat stamina food and get almost +50% end regen and that puts us right back in the harsh nerf category, where we don’t need to be.

Why aren’t we in the not nerfed category? Why aren’t we getting trait compression to be on par with most every other class? Why aren’t we getting good bandages for the broken pets (like aoe damage reduction to pets only from npc aoes). Why aren’t we getting traits moved to more logical trees? Tell me why.

The lack of response from the dev that was posting here should answer that for you. Basically either they cant, or don’t want to mess with it.

So….. what I think

1. The development team does not have the capabilities of fixing this class without screwing the whole game up. Out of sight, out of mind.
2. The development team really does not care about the Ranger class compared to others. Warrior is a great example of that.
3. They honestly think the class is fine. Even though the Ranger the butt of jokes from WvW to PvE, the devs just shrug off every bit of criticism as a whine.

I base these opinions on lack of feedback regarding our mechanic, as well as the dev livestream with 2 devs that are obviously not familiar at all with the class. Have you noticed no dev response in how many days now?

Well the question holds? Since they admitted that pets are broken and will cause problems trying to fix them (read they aren’t “unfix able” but require more to fix than they can afford in terms of time and resources), why can’t they add a mechanic which is switchable with pets? imo you can’t add the idea of spirits that buff dmg or something as that just kills the aesthetic of the profession. We’re supposed to be the jack of trades and the beast master, not some spirit talker. We already have spirits which replaced the nature rituals in GW1. Pet spirits just don’t seem right.

If we look at the things that we are missing from rangers in GW1 we have stances and preparations missing. The only thing that i can see working as a class mechanic is preparations.

Reading through this one main thing keeps coming up: Broken mechanics of the pet and to allow the option to switch to another set of class mechanics instead.

Problem: Adding class mechanics would take just as much if not more work than trying to fix the AI. For there would be a large amount of testing needed to be done then weeding out all those bugs. If they were going to do this it would make more sense just to fix the AI in the first place cause it would require just the same amount of work.

There are two problems being faced as of now: The first is that the pet mechanic is somewhat broken (its been admitted by the dev) and it’ll take too much time and resources to fix. The second is that many people don’t like having pets in general. Some don’t like it bec pets are broken and unreliable. Some don’t like it bec they don’t want to have a pet like we didn’t have to have a pet in GW1. The first problem cannot be fixed any time soon according to the dev. The second problem can’t be fixed by just having the ability to stow away your pet even during combat bec that just kills your overall dmg. The option of having a diff class mechanic and switching between both will actually solve multiple problems, some which include:

1- Build diversity
2- Not needing to play with a pet
3- Adding a new skill cap to the ranger (utilizing both pets + preparations)

The mechanic i suggested is somewhat between elementalist’s and guardian’s class mechanic which is arguably why it’s weak in it being a new idea. But since it’s similar it shouldn’t be hard to modify these class mechanics into something new. Then again I’m not a game designer/programmer so I wouldn’t know.

Rangers got run over by a bus of bad mechanics and broke every bone in their bodies.

Devs make a post asking for ideas to bandaid the problem because sadly, rangers dont have insurance… but players waste the last 10 pages talking about fixing our bones with experimental surgery so that one day we can walk again like its actually gonna get done.

(stop asking for spinal surgery and hip replacements, lets just stick to getting some sweet stickers for our wheelchair)

Raven.9603:

Rangers got run over by a bus of bad mechanics and broke every bone in their bodies.

Devs make a post asking for ideas to bandaid the problem because sadly, rangers dont have insurance… but players waste the last 10 pages talking about fixing our bones with experimental surgery so that one day we can walk again like its actually gonna get done.

(stop asking for spinal surgery and hip replacements, lets just stick to getting some sweet stickers for our wheelchair)

So by that logic we should give up on having a good working class mechanic and just try to buff other parts of the ranger?

Xukavi.4320:

Raven.9603:

Rangers got run over by a bus of bad mechanics and broke every bone in their bodies.

Devs make a post asking for ideas to bandaid the problem because sadly, rangers dont have insurance… but players waste the last 10 pages talking about fixing our bones with experimental surgery so that one day we can walk again like its actually gonna get done.

(stop asking for spinal surgery and hip replacements, lets just stick to getting some sweet stickers for our wheelchair)

So by that logic we should give up on having a good working class mechanic and just try to buff other parts of the ranger?

“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.”

That is an actual post from JonPeters in this very thread confirming that pets are somewhat broken and highly unlikely to be fixed.

The most logical thing to do at this point is to buff things that are actually in control of the ranger.

Xukavi.4320:

So by that logic we should give up on having a good working class mechanic and just try to buff other parts of the ranger?

By that logic we should recognize that the amount of times we are asked to give ideas for low hanging fruit are few and far between, and not squander them on pipe dreams.

every other game can make pets hit moving targets and make them survive parties, large scale fights and raids. if anet was good enough to do that they wouldve already, and that should re-emphasize the importance of sticking to ideas they can actually handle.

(i know, low blow anet, but your games been out for a year and pets are about as reliable as the sex drive of a 80 year old couple).

By the time pet AI is advanced enough, there will be a much newer game on the market.

For the time being, unless they give Ranger’s the capability to be independent of their pets, then this game has two classes which are strictly PvE only (and not even great for dungeons, but they do ok):

Thief and Ranger.

PvP is still loads of fun if you actually use one of six viable classes.

Just shelve your Rangers and your Thieves when you go do PvP.

They give you 5 character slots for a reason.

Suggestions i would like to give as far as some weapon changes and trait chances are concerned :

Marksmanship :

-Eagle eye affects longbow cooldowns by 20% as well as its current benefits

-Predators instinct , instead of a 10 second cripple , it could be a 3 second immobilize with a 15 second cooldown

Skirmishing :

-Sharpened edges bleed duration from 2 to 3 seconds

-Carnivorous apetite also affects rangers allowing them to lifesteal on crit , perhaps for a value between 150-200 hp

-Honed axes , critical hits with axes give 1 stack of might to allies for 5 seconds as well as the current effect .

-Quickdraw , reduces shortbow cooldowns , conditions inflicted by the shortbow last 50% longer

-Trapper master and grandmaster trait merged , trap condition duration and buffed AOE given by default . New composite trait gives cooldown reduction and throw range .

-New grandmaster trait * , Skirmishers gambit , critical hits transfer conditions , 2 per hit , ICD 10 seconds

Beastmastery :

-Instinctual bond * minor trait changed from pet quickness on downed to removes 1 condition on pet swap *

Weapon abilities :

-throw torch does a daze/knockdown for 1.5 seconds

-bonfire physical component buffed

-lightning reflexes removes immobilize , cripple , chilled

-Sharpening stones cooldown reduced from 45 seconds to 30

-Signet of the hunt cooldown reduced from 30 to 15 seconds

-Protect me does not kill the pet anymore , clears 2 conditions as well .

-Guard gives a 20% reduced incoming damage taken to allies within the circle , circle expanded slightly

Regarding the disappearance of Jon Peter from this thread.

Most likely he has been told by the higher-ups to stop posting. I suspect that publicly admitting the borked pet issues cannot/will not be fixed opened an internal can-of-worms at Anet. It makes whatever future tweaks Anet had planned for the class, and whatever suggestions we come up with, pretty insignificant and meaningless in light of this.

Anet steadfastly refuses to do what is necessary, they will not fix the broken pet mechanic, nor make it optional, nor delete it entirely for some other mechanic.

I suggested awhile back that the proper thing for Anet to now is to allow any account playing a ranger to be able to transfer all soubound kit, unlocked dyes, unused skill points, crafting professions, etc., to any other character. If Anet did this, I would delete my ranger in an instant, and I assume many others would a well.

Until then I am stuck with a class I stopped enjoying playing over 6 months ago.

why don’t you add more Traits?
wouldn’t this give you the opportunity to add trap traits to wilderness and sword traits to skirmishing… etc

it would give us more build diversity

like add 1 minor, 1 master , 1 grandmaster trait to each line.

wilderness could get the traps
skirminshing could get sword traits
beastmaster could get pet change traits ( enlargement)
marksmen could get shortbow traits

just a thought but if we are limited the only pick out of the traits we got atm it limits our builds.
logically adding an extra trait to each part of each line would give us different ways to play.

this could be given to all Classes not just Ranger. and would solve a few problems.