Guild Wars 2

First up apologies for the long post and, probably, bring up stuff that has been raked over several times.
However I have been playing a longbow ranger since launch (both PvE and PvP) and wanted to give the latest changes a chance before posting here with my suggestions for how to develop the Ranger further, it still feels very much like a work in progress.

The marksmanship traitline seems too heavy on the 2nd tier major traits, so there may be some argument for moving one to the 3rd tier or swapping one with Honed axes here’s my reasoning although I haven’t yet come up with a suggestion that won’t unbalance the traitline more.

As it is Remorseless doesn’t give as large a damage boost as Eagle Eye for high damage rangers, as in Power > 2,000 (not sure if it is the same for lower damage versions) which means that most longbow Rangers will still be using Piercing Arrows and Eagle Eye (or Spotter) as major traits and as Longbow is the only Ranger weapon to give invis Remorseless isn’t much use with other weapons.

Longbow changes
• Remove vulnerability from Rapid Fire
• Add vulnerability (10 stacks) to Hunters shot
• Chain Invis on hunters shot, with a locked target if the first shot hits
• 14sec cooldown from invis, 12sec from vulnerability

Adding invis to the longbow is a great improvement to the weapon, however moving vulnerablility has created a damage nerf for the reasons outlined above (Remorseless doesn’t give you enough of a damage bonus to use it instead of Eagle Eye), currently Hunters Shot is used as an escape or repositioning tool and therefore the pet swiftness is now wasted. Whereas previously it was your opening shot which combined with the pet swiftness could put down 20stacks of vulnerability immediately. Obviously this could be countered easily with Aegis but opening with Long shot and Hunters second would mean you only lost 5 stacks of vulnerability.

The problem with any ranged weapon is that there has to be a damage trade-off compared with melee weapons as the char is safer which means that a direct damage weapon like the longbow needs to another niche and the ability to enter combat with 20 stacks of vulnerability and keep 10 up almost constantly was it.

Issue my suggested change would create in a PvP setting is that the 2nd shot would be easier to dodge nullifying invis; the solution to this is that the second arrow becomes ‘Seeking’ on your target if the first arrow hits (although only if it is the same target).
Finally, the pre-cast on the longbow (except Hunters shot) seems longer than those on other weapons which seems the wrong way around since it makes them much easier to dodge.

Warhorn changes
• Add blind to Hunters Call

Reasoning: the Warhorn is either a charge call or a panic button a single target blind would make this skill really useful, rather than something to use while you’re waiting for the weapon swap cooldown or because you like the animation. It also makes sense as you’re not going to see much with a flock of birds buzzing around your head.

Greatsword changes
• 6 stacks of bleeding to Maul
• Remove the vulnerability
• Make Maul a blast finisher
Reasoning, the bleed gives condition rangers more choice and does more damage than vulnerability anyway. The vulnerability isn’t much use in a 1:1 situation while the blast finisher gives the skill an excellent team focus that would be lost by removing the vulnerability.
I’ve seen in other posts that suggest a blast finisher on this that the conditions are completely removed, do you think both would be OP?

Sword changes
I’ve only started using this recently and am really enjoying it now, with the only exception being that the middle chain on the number 1 skill blocks your dodge this has killed me a few times as sometimes the number 2 skill doesn’t go anywhere.

Torch, Axe, shortbow, Dagger – I can’t really suggest anything for these weapons as I don’t use them enough.

continued…

Pets changes
• F2 ability to activate quicker, this is different for different pets and I haven’t done much testing, but for instance it takes around 2secs to inflict chill on your opponent with a polar bear and 3 secs to stack might with a Jungle stalker these seem quite long lead in times.
• Toggle ability should include aggressive (roams attacking mobs), defensive (attacks mobs in melee range of you), passive (doesn’t attack any mobs & doesn’t attract agro)
• Improve the pet AI so they don’t just stand in AOE fields; I like the fact that if I dodge out my pet won’t take damage but if I’m already out of it they can be standing in it and there is nothing I can do to save them (pet swap may be on cooldown).
• Can we please have the ability to name each of the pet in our stable.

Skill Changes
Spirit and trap rangers are very popular at the moment, so their skill are probably fine but there doesn’t seem to be a way of creating a proper signet build, mostly because the healing signets are both the in the general skill section, if you look at Guardians, Warriors and Thieves by comparison they all have 4 signets and 1 healing signet.

So I would suggest that Signet of the Wild is moved to the healing skills with the active effect being moved to Signet of Stone. The new active effect of Signet of the Wild would be your pet becomes invulnerable (6secs) and heals 25%.

Then a new offensive Signet (Signet of the predator) could be created that increases Critical damage by 5% in passive whilst the active ability guarantees the next 3 attacks from your pet are unblockable and grants retaliation.
If nothing else it would make all those backstab thieves in WvW think twice.

Disclaimer
Anyway, I have tried to put the suggested changes and explain my reasoning behind it, my testing has been highly un-scientific and based on my play style so although I have tried to be objective and not make the Ranger too much more powerful (I don’t really think that damage is much of a problem) this may all be quite subjective.

Hawksbane.2783:

• 6 stacks of bleeding to Maul

i kind of like the idea of it crippling… and ive made my opinion on blast finisher on maul clear in the other two threads

Hawksbane.2783:

So I would suggest that Signet of the Wild is moved to the healing skills with the active effect being moved to Signet of Stone. The new active effect of Signet of the Wild would be your pet becomes invulnerable (6secs) and heals 25%.

sounds… interesting… but the passive heal would have to be substantially increased

I think swoop should have a CC of some sort. A knockdown would be great and make the most sense, but immobilize,chill, or cripple would be fine.

I like your signet idea.

I don’t care much about the blast finisher on maul, it’s a nice thought though. And I don’t understand the thought process on giving vulnerability on the hardest hitting attack, doesn’t it deal damage and then apply the condition?

all you want, is to make things go back how it was, and keep the changes that was introduced. This is not an evolution, it’s the complete opposite.

Hunters shot is perfect as is, longbow is near perfect, it needs the damage to be tuned up, and the kitten “damage at certain ranges” removed. It goes beyond all logic, that a weapon which is made for power, should have less power when in peoples faces, then when at 1500 range

Linguistically Inept & Fomby, the Ranger already has a lot of cripples and slow’s so I would be hesitant to add more, especially as the GS already has a stun.
I couldn’t undersand why they removed the bleeds though, especially as it would work well with Shapening Stone whereas the vulnerability can’t work with Remorseless properly.

Prysin not everything I suggested involved changing things back and those where I did I stated the reason why, it is generally because the changes Anet made moved the Ranger away from how he was designed to played both in terms of it’s own traits and skills and the way it works with other classes.

Remorseless is never going to be a good trait so long as you need the other trait to make signets useful. I’m sorry, but us requiring 30 pts in a tree to make the vast majority of our skills even warrant a slot on our bar is problem #1 with this class. You can either change the signets so they all impact the ranger alone or you can change the 15pt nature trait to give boons from the pet to the ranger. I couldn’t care less which option is chosen.

I also don’t really agree with your changes to the longbow. There’s no reason ANet can’t just change Rapid Shot to apply the full stack on one shot at the beginning of the cast. Just do that and change the channel time to 3.5 seconds instead of 4.5 seconds. As it is right now I’m not convinced the spell even grants much of a DPS bonus from using it because of the horrendously long channel duration.

Now as for Hunter’s shot, that change was completely random imo. I still haven’t a clue why they did it and it’s clear to me that they came up with the idea of the Remorseless trait before they came up with the idea of Hunter’s Shot. Now that we have it though, the skill isn’t as reliable as it should be. While CnD on the Thief requires hit or it will fail, the Thief also doesn’t have cooldowns on their abilities and it’s a melee range ability for a melee class. Hunter’s Shot needs to always stealth regardless of hit as having it obstructed is too large a hit to its reliability. I’d have sooner attached stealth to point blank shot but I understand they want the weapon to have 2 utility/defensive options.

Longbow’s auto attack also needs to be improved. The low range damage needs to be removed. The mid range damage should be from 0-900 range. The high end damage can either stay or make it so you gain a crit damage bonus on shots over 900 range. As it is right now, the shortbow’s auto attack is a better power weapon than longbows.

I do agree that Marksmanship is a very bloated tree and a lot of the traits need to be moved around or combined with others. I’m worried just combining some and introducing new ones will leave us in the same situation we’re in now though.

Atherakhia.4086:

I also don’t really agree with your changes to the longbow. There’s no reason ANet can’t just change Rapid Shot to apply the full stack on one shot at the beginning of the cast. Just do that and change the channel time to 3.5 seconds instead of 4.5 seconds. As it is right now I’m not convinced the spell even grants much of a DPS bonus from using it because of the horrendously long channel duration.

It takes ~0.5sec from button press to fire on Hunters Shot while all the others take ~1sec, and there is a clue in the name ‘Hunters Shot’ was designed as an aggressive opener; removing vuln and giving it invis has made it a defensive shot. Imagine though you open with 20 stacks of vulnerability and then promptly disappear, your opponent isn’t going to know what is happening next; you could swap to GS, swoop and stun or reposition and Rapid Shot with the full 20 stacks of vuln. That gives you a great offensive option as well as a decent defensive one.
Still maybe most people only play the longbow defensively which is why Anet are changing it.

Hawksbane.2783:

Linguistically Inept & Fomby, the Ranger already has a lot of cripples and slow’s so I would be hesitant to add more, especially as the GS already has a stun.
I couldn’t undersand why they removed the bleeds though, especially as it would work well with Shapening Stone whereas the vulnerability can’t work with Remorseless properly.

Prysin not everything I suggested involved changing things back and those where I did I stated the reason why, it is generally because the changes Anet made moved the Ranger away from how he was designed to played both in terms of it’s own traits and skills and the way it works with other classes.

It’s true, the ranger has a buttload of CC, mostly soft. But as a class that has your pet doing 40%-70% of your damage, and with bad pathing and not being able to move while attacking. I feel like we need all the cc’s possible.

sorry, but i think your suggestions not too good