Guild Wars 2

First of I love my ranger and though I started with an Ele, I can honoustly say my ranger has become my main character and I start to enjoy playing it more and more despite some already discussed issues which i’m learning to play around and addept to at the moment.

I’m not asking for rifles to be simply added to the ranger class it needs to be implemented in a “logicall” way.

What I was thinking about is in a future release to split the ranger class into A “conservative” line and a “progressive” line. The first being what Anet wants it to be, a classic huntsman like ranger depending on pet teamwork using the weapons they have been using for hundreds of years Bow & sword mainy and perhaps focused more on crowd control and multiple target damage. The progressive ranger would be using Riffle and pistol mainly for more single target focused damage.

The progressive line embraces the new riffle and pistol technology and abandon the bow and other more traditional ranger weapons for them. It would still be pet focused, but use them in a different way. The conservative line pets would be the damage oriented ones, felines, bears, hounds and generally use the larger breeds of pets with the same skill set they have now. The progressive line would use pets much less for damage but more for conditions like blind, interrupt, confuse. Generally pets that “annoy” the hell out of an enemy and hinder rather then damage him.

The progressive line would be more of a skirmisher using the riffle to disrupt the enemy and joining the battle later with pistol and sword/dagger/horn. Basically much the same as late 1700, early 1800 skirmishers when more accurate bored riffles became available.

Skills should be significantly different off course and combat styles for “hand to hand” should also differ between both lines.

What would you think about this split in the ranger class. One thing I can see is this perhaps takes the ranger to close to the engineer class. Having never played an engineer I have no clue about that.

I don’t see any objection in the lore department. An Asura or a Charr in particular would have little to no problems at all with using this new technologie. I can imagine a Sylvari would have more problems adopting to it as a ranger. And also for humans it should not be a problem at all. A “ranger from the city” would have a lot less problems accepting new tech concepts then a “ranger from the countryside”

This is all just a thought I had, and far from perfect off course. But in general is this something you would like to see the ranger evolve to in GW 2. I’m happy with my ranger as is atm but I do think it’s kind off silly they cannot use riffles and pistols , however I do understand the why of it taking into account the rangers lore background.

There is a patch coming on April 30 with speculated (little confirmed) fixes for ranger. Ranger doesn’t need whole new trait lines or a permanent stowed/unstowed key. What it needs are bug fixes for pets, tooltip corrections, a re-ordering of major/minor/grandmaster traits as well as combining a few and giving a few new ones to replace the combined traits, and maybe a little work on weapon balance. Ranger needs adjustments to group support (spirits) and maybe a new slot skill and/or adjusted slot skills. They said they’re splitting pve, wvw, and spvp even more so I’m sure that will impact rangers in some way (quickness will come back in PvE, you watch).

You know, it’s not that your ideas are bad. It’s that it would take ranger in a completely different direction that would require almost starting over from scratch. If you were a programmer working for ANET, would you want to start completely over? You’re not just balancing current content, you have a full plate of work: new race balance (Tengu), new weapons, in addition to all the current balancing goals and objectives, which isn’t just ranger: other professions have bugs and problems too. It seems like they have a solid foundation already with ranger so the most effective choice is to build off that foundation.

To be completely honest, warriors are in much worse shape. No one wants them in pvp.

I agree with Chopps.

People who want massive sweeping changes are not fully thinking through the myriad of ramifications involved with such a large number of changes. Nor are they thinking about the immense amount of work. Then there’s the issue of all that work not really paying off and the Ranger community still griping.

I’ll stick with the slow but steady steps towards balance. I’d prefer they were faster, but it’s better than sweeping changes that seesaw.

If we want rangers with rifles, read the interview with Jonathan and Jon. They mention that they will likely first use existing weapons (rather than creating new types) when giving new weapons to classes due to the lower amount of work required. That is, they wouldn’t have to create new drops, recipes, skins, animations, legendaries, etc. for weapon types that already exist (simply look at all the types of greatsword if you don’t understand this).

Honestly, if we were to talk about existing weapons in the game that I’d want to use on my Ranger, in order of most wanted to least:

• OH Mace: so I have an interrupt when I use Sword or MH Axe
• Hammer: it’s a big hammer. I’m a Norn. It works. Also, I love seeing hammer warriors work.
• OH Sword: dual wield swords.
• MH Dagger: dual wield daggers.

Well if something like this was implemented at all, i was talking about “in a future release” and/or the ranger slowly evolving in this direction. Since evolution usually takes a while i dont expect it tomorrow or the day after. ;-) perhaps by the end of next week would be nice ;-) but seriously, it will probably take a few years if they did it.

GW 1 started out with 6 professions and ended up with 10. 4 of those were also designed from scratch over the years. And i think you underestimate programmers, designing a new race is’nt that much work, basically new skins and adjusting existing skeletons, some new moves. Main problem is balance and you can only balance so much before release because there is no way to test what the idiots that buy your game will come up with ;-) once they start playing it ;-)

I’m a software tester so i’m fully aware of the amount of work it takes to develop and implement changes. Adding a simple textbox can take a week to build if your unlucky, another week to test and implement. Not even talking about building and testing whole new functionalities. But the amount of work is not the point at all. The game has to keep evolving and this idea is just perhaps one way it could evolve and would it be sooner be something like this instead of new classes?

Ah, fair enough. Rock on!

My thoughts on the weapons for the ranger is:

Long Bow for Ranged AOE – add more options for AOE damage
Rifle for Ranged Single Target
Short Bow for Ranged Condition – leave as is for now.

kasimmorathi.4963:

My thoughts on the weapons for the ranger is:

Long Bow for Ranged AOE – add more options for AOE damage
Rifle for Ranged Single Target
Short Bow for Ranged Condition – leave as is for now.

You must want more bags in dubs. :p

I don’t underestimate programmers. I am one. In fact, I’m one of the hated (but unfortunately necessary) “security guys” that makes QA look like Hello Pony and VPs ride them hard to fix things before they cost vast amounts of money and the make the company lose face for the next X years (getting root on a critical enterprise system will do that).

If you think a new race is just some skins, skeleton work, and animations then you are deluding yourself. There’s also voices, adjusting existing and future gear to fit on them, starting zone, city zone, starting intro, personal stories/quests. In fact, a new race in GW2 is quite a bit more difficult than in other MMOs due to those personal stories/quests adding just “another thing” to be done.

Additionally, now the overhead for every new piece of gear has increased as there is now another race it has to work with.

Now, I’m all for them evolving the ranger. If you’re talking about when they finally do expansions, great. Adding additional viable builds that make use of new weapons, skills, traits, etc. is something I’m all for. However, I’d like the original ranger to stay equally viable. I hope we never get as bad as elementalist is right now where it’s mostly “why not do 0/10/0/30/30 with daggers”. We almost got to that point, but not quite ;-)

Sebrent.3625:

I don’t underestimate programmers. I am one. In fact, I’m one of the hated (but unfortunately necessary) “security guys” that makes QA look like Hello Pony and VPs ride them hard to fix things before they cost vast amounts of money and the make the company lose face for the next X years (getting root on a critical enterprise system will do that).

If you think a new race is just some skins, skeleton work, and animations then you are deluding yourself. There’s also voices, adjusting existing and future gear to fit on them, starting zone, city zone, starting intro, personal stories/quests. In fact, a new race in GW2 is quite a bit more difficult than in other MMOs due to those personal stories/quests adding just “another thing” to be done.

Additionally, now the overhead for every new piece of gear has increased as there is now another race it has to work with.

---

Now, I’m all for them evolving the ranger. If you’re talking about when they finally do expansions, great. Adding additional viable builds that make use of new weapons, skills, traits, etc. is something I’m all for. However, I’d like the original ranger to stay equally viable. I hope we never get as bad as elementalist is right now where it’s mostly “why not do 0/10/0/30/30 with daggers”. We almost got to that point, but not quite ;-)

ignorance is a bliss…

elementalists are great in any other combo and builds… staff… scepter/dagger… dagger/dagger too… BUT what you described is so much OP that it is almost nonsense to NOT to go that way… and there are more than a couple very effective dagger/dagger builds….

that is clearly not the case with us… we have one and a half viable build(s) and they still lack big time in WvW…

comparing an elementalist effectiveness to a ranger (WvW biased) is just comparing apples with oranges…

I’d love to see Anet implement Javelins/Spears like the Paragons had in GW:Nightfall. I loved playing my Ranger/Paragon in Random Arenas and watching the other team ignore my pet as it killed their healer in a few shots (I specced full BM for RAs). I’m figuring IF they ever add new weapons, it’ll be in an expansion. And I hope they just add new weapons to existing professions and not add new professions(they already combined most of the GW professions to get the eight professions we have now, just missing the Nightfall weapons).

Slow and steady changes…evaluate…rinse/repeat. Anet does a pretty good job with that. The only time I disagreed with a change they made was when they increased reveal for Thieves + fixed culling the same patch. Even though I hate Thieves you never want to do two changes to one thing (stealth). Makes it hard to evaluate fairly.

@Seyyah.6135: you obviously missed the point. The point wasn’t the power of the build. It was the viability of different builds for the class. Go look at the top complaints from the Elementalists. One of the top ones is a lack of viable builds because they have that one alpha build and a plethora of crap trait issues.

Not everyone who plays a class wants to use the same build or play it the exact same way. If that was the case, there would be no real point to trait points, etc. It’d also make the game quite boring.

Rangers should be masters of ranged and martial weapons. Blunt weapons should not be a ranger’s forte ideally (given we could use them in GW1, I was never a fan of it however)

Offhand Sword: Would love a parry like move, you evade all projectiles for its duration and dodge and counter the next melee attack. Last would be great like a channelled skill akin to blurred frenzy, or a heavy swipe attack that adds 5 bleeds.

Mainhand Dagger: 3 attack combo on 1, second adds multiple bleeds and third has an evade. 2 could be a leap finisher which grants an AoE Fury. Ankle biter, bouncing dagger attack, each target hit gets immobilized by the next attack.

Ranged options- I don’t think pistols would ever suit a ranger, we’re hunters, we wouldn’t use pistols. Rifles however fit us perfectly.
An ideal rifle set would be.
1-Eagle Eye- A charged shot, longer the shot is charged, the harder it hits. 1/4th charge the bullet pierces, 1/2 charge stacks 5 bleeds, full charge gain Fury and Might.
2-Strafing Shot- Fire a bullet, roll sideways and fire another bullet. Small evade. Pet gains Swiftness.
3-Drill Shot- Fires a piercing bullet that weakens targets. Perhaps a second part to the attack which makes the bullet splinter causing 3 bleeds in AoE of where it was exploded.
4-No Man’s Land- Targetted AoE, unload a volley of bullets in the area, adds vulnerability to everyone in the area.
5-Go For the Eyes- A powerful shot that blinds the target and next pet attack does 150% damage.

What I love about the ranger:
It’s a straightforward class, but complex.
There is 2 things, I hate about most classes: The skills are not well defined in most cases.

Most skills have side effects, especially when traited in some way, which are completely different from the actual purpose of the skills. While many may believe, this will serve to increase the complexity, it will in fact only water the class down to some sort of button masher. Press any key, it will save your kitten in some way, while dealing harm in some other way.
Rangers have well defined tools with well defined purposes. They are not as dull as the warrior, as they still have some sort of side effects, but they are in line with the general purpose of the skill.
Take sword/dagger: The skills all have a single purpose, sticking on a target and slowly killing it, but can be used creatively to do something else, when the need arises.
Longbow: Every skill has a well defined purpose. In case of autoattack, it may be a bit TOO well defined, as it sucks at anything but what it’s designed for, and even there could need a tweak, but you will never find yourself asking “should I use skill xy or skill yz”? The opponent gets closer, so you knock him back. BOOM. Simple as that.

That’s what’s so great about the ranger: You feel like you got some toolkit with fine tools and always have a tool which is perfect for the situation. None of all that “the skill does a, while it’s also good for b, but you really want to spam it, even without a target, because it gives you c”.

naphack.9346:

Rangers have well defined tools with well defined purposes. They are not as dull as the warrior, as they still have some sort of side effects, but they are in line with the general purpose of the skill.
Take sword/dagger: The skills all have a single purpose, sticking on a target and slowly killing it, but can be used creatively to do something else, when the need arises.
Longbow: Every skill has a well defined purpose. In case of autoattack, it may be a bit TOO well defined, as it sucks at anything but what it’s designed for, and even there could need a tweak, but you will never find yourself asking “should I use skill xy or skill yz”? The opponent gets closer, so you knock him back. BOOM. Simple as that.

That’s what’s so great about the ranger: You feel like you got some toolkit with fine tools and always have a tool which is perfect for the situation. None of all that “the skill does a, while it’s also good for b, but you really want to spam it, even without a target, because it gives you c”.

Precisely why I find myself coming back to my Ranger time and again. While there are some pet issues and weapon tweaks I wouldn’t mind, it’s just so playable without being bland (Warrior) or exhaustively complex at times (Ele).

@Sebrent i dont want to argue about that but that is actually the state of rangers as of now… we are one trick pony… (again talking on the WvW basis) its not that we have multiple choices but one of those works astonishingly well like elementalists.

i have my ranger main and i have ele (actually i have all the classes leveled up and at least fully exotic geared for some time now… yeah… i am old and retired and have the time ) so i can honestly say that elementalist is the LAST class to ask for more. They have lots more than enough as is…

regards…

PS: i said it times and again but there is not one role / playstyle / weapon combo that i can say “hey my ranger can do this lots better”… that is my problem… whatever i do, the next guy with average knowledge of his class can do it better… even longbow – shortbow being our signature weapons.

But again that is how ranger is advertised by A-net and how i pictured it… i know we have two semi viable builds and i use them quite well… it still is not how i envisioned the ranger and how i am led to beleive by A-net…

I am happy for people enjoying their rangers… but i feel a little bit ripped off… thas just me, Grumpy old lad…

• We have more than two viable builds.

• How are rangers a one-trick pony? I listed more than one thing already.

• Longbow/Shortbow are not our signature weapons. No class has “signature weapons”. This is merely just an arbitrary label you’ve created and applied to these weapons
  • It has no meaning.

• While people get annoyed at pet AI, I’m often amused that I don’t see the same about Mesmer Phantasms. I’ve often had my Phantasmal Warlock (from staff) just stand there staring at the target, not attacking at all.
  • Seems most common on inanimate objects like tower/keep doors.

• While ranger’s class mechanic (pet) is not perfect due to its AI limitations, it isn’t the only classic mechanic with issues
  • Warrior has weapons whose burst skills are seen as pretty useless (hello greatsword). This largely incentivizes GSword warriors to not use burst skills and take traits that give bonuses for having adrenaline … that is, ignore your class mechanic because it sucks with this weapon.
  • Most elementalists barely even use their class mechanic (4 separate weapon bars) as they tend to prefer 1 to 2 attunements … many still aren’t comfortable with their weapon skills on the other 2 to 3 attunements (which is sad).
• Necromancer’s Death Shroud is much less useful to a condition necromancer as it only has one skill on a 15 second cooldown that does condition damage (only 3 bleeds for 5s).
• Mesmer’s Mind Wrack is much less useful in condition builds if you don’t trait for all shatters to inflict confusion and Cry of Frustration is much less useful in power builds if you don’t trait for it to give you retaliation
• Mesmer phantasms are direct damage … much less useful when you’re a condition build.
• Mesmer clones, phantasms, and on-clone death conditions are not affected by their +condition duration despite being attached to their weapon skills and there are no traits to increase them.

Our Ranger pet can be quite powerful with 0 points invested in it. It can do excellent damage even if you don’t have a single point in power/precision/crit damage. No one else can do that.

Make a Mesmer and run around in Cleric’s or Apothecary. You don’t have as many sources of healing, even if you do a Restorative Mantras build, and if you don’t have points in power/precision/crit damage, your phantasms aren’t going to hit very hard.

What you just described is the engineer class. He is the progressive ranger. He has no pet, and uses rifles as well as pistols. Try out the engineer and see what you think. You might like it better, or worse, but nonetheless you should to try it.

Sebrent.3625:

• We have more than two viable builds.

• How are rangers a one-trick pony? I listed more than one thing already.

• Longbow/Shortbow are not our signature weapons. No class has “signature weapons”. This is merely just an arbitrary label you’ve created and applied to these weapons
  • It has no meaning.

• While people get annoyed at pet AI, I’m often amused that I don’t see the same about Mesmer Phantasms. I’ve often had my Phantasmal Warlock (from staff) just stand there staring at the target, not attacking at all.
  • Seems most common on inanimate objects like tower/keep doors.

• While ranger’s class mechanic (pet) is not perfect due to its AI limitations, it isn’t the only classic mechanic with issues
  • Warrior has weapons whose burst skills are seen as pretty useless (hello greatsword). This largely incentivizes GSword warriors to not use burst skills and take traits that give bonuses for having adrenaline … that is, ignore your class mechanic because it sucks with this weapon.
  • Most elementalists barely even use their class mechanic (4 separate weapon bars) as they tend to prefer 1 to 2 attunements … many still aren’t comfortable with their weapon skills on the other 2 to 3 attunements (which is sad).
• Necromancer’s Death Shroud is much less useful to a condition necromancer as it only has one skill on a 15 second cooldown that does condition damage (only 3 bleeds for 5s).
• Mesmer’s Mind Wrack is much less useful in condition builds if you don’t trait for all shatters to inflict confusion and Cry of Frustration is much less useful in power builds if you don’t trait for it to give you retaliation
• Mesmer phantasms are direct damage … much less useful when you’re a condition build.
• Mesmer clones, phantasms, and on-clone death conditions are not affected by their +condition duration despite being attached to their weapon skills and there are no traits to increase them.

Our Ranger pet can be quite powerful with 0 points invested in it. It can do excellent damage even if you don’t have a single point in power/precision/crit damage. No one else can do that.

Make a Mesmer and run around in Cleric’s or Apothecary. You don’t have as many sources of healing, even if you do a Restorative Mantras build, and if you don’t have points in power/precision/crit damage, your phantasms aren’t going to hit very hard.

hmm… i see… you dont read what you see… you are one of those people… and all the information you give is the limitations of the player over the class… not the class itself… anyways i am done here… cant solve hallucinations…

again for you;

“Rangers rely on a keen eye, a steady hand, and the power of nature itself. Unparalleled archers, rangers are capable of bringing down foes from a distance with their bows….”

that seems pretty signature weapon definition to me…

regards

• You answered none of my questions with regard to your post

• What did I not read?
  • You said we’re a one trick pony … I asked how
  • You said there isn’t one role / playstyle / weapon combo that Ranger does the best which I didn’t answer simply because it doesn’t warrant it as I’ve already mentioned before things the Ranger does better than others.
  • You have a problem with the idea in your head that an average guy playing a non-Ranger can beat you on your Ranger … I also didn’t answer this as there is no real answer to it. You get beat and you think they are average. Perhaps you are bad at Ranger?
  • You complain about how anet advertised the Ranger class … though you obviously didn’t watch the videos which showed several non-bow skills.
    • “Necromancers feed on life force, which they can use to bring allies back from the brink” … where is that?
    • Elementalist: “What they lack in physical toughness, they make up in versatility and the ability to inflict massive damage in a single attack.” … lack toughness my butt, lol. Their protection and healing makes them plenty tough and the difference between light and heavy armor is not very big.
    • Warrior: “the longer warriors stay in a fight, the more dangerous they become.” … this better describes the Ranger. Most warriors get ground down as a fight progresses.

You’re simply getting hung up on your interpretation and initial thoughts about “what a Ranger is” and being too stubborn to move from it. There is a reason MMOs like GW2 have a notice that says the game content may change.

As far as me talking about “the limitations of the player over the class … not the class itself”

How is Death Shroud being less useful to a condition necro due to a lack of condition skills on its bar a limitation of the player?

How is mind wrack doing less damage for a condition mesmer a limitation of the player?

How is cry of frustration doing less damage for a direct damage mesmer a limitation of the player?

You can play dismissive all you want. The points stand.

i have no patience for your kind lad… but just to give you an example;

“You have a problem with the idea in your head that an average guy playing a non-Ranger can beat you on your Ranger … I also didn’t answer this as there is no real answer to it. You get beat and you think they are average. Perhaps you are bad at Ranger?”

i never said someone beat me on my ranger with another class… whereas i said; whatever i do with my ranger, any average player with another class can do it better.

all the other points and wall of words you did (and doing throughout the forums) does not require even an answer. and my example alone shows your reading skills is not the best skill you have…

i am really done now (man i start repeating myself… must be old age)

regards

I didn’t say someone beat you, I said someone could beat you. They are beating your healing. They are beating your damage. They are beating your utility. There are other forms of “being beat” than “killed in a game”. When I say “Alice beat Bob in the race” I don’t mean she went all Medieval on him and put him 6 feet under. When I say “Any average bbq enthusiasts can beat a fast food chef”, I also don’t mean kill.

• You still haven’t told me how a Ranger is a “one trick pony”
• I’ve already posted several times the many unique things only the Ranger has or the Ranger has the best of
• You have mentioned ArenaNet’s description of the Ranger multiple times now in defense of your feelings that the longbow and shortbow are their “signature weapons”
  • I showed you where descriptions of other classes don’t fit either
• You haven’t answered my question of how those various class mechanics not working well for various builds for those classes are “limitations of the player … not the class”.

Seyyah.6135:

all the other points and wall of words you did (and doing throughout the forums) does not require even an answer. and my example alone shows your reading skills is not the best skill you have…

Oh really? Scroll up on this post, please :-)
You may also want to check your grammar in this quote from you before dogging anyone about their reading skills.

As I said before…

You can play dismissive all you want. The points stand.