Guild Wars 2

Our traits aren’t too bad and more skills and traits are soon to be added so I think some adjustments to our weapon skills would be a good place to start.

SWORD
Skill 1. Make the auto attack not root you in place, make it so it feels like the thief sword auto.
Skill 2. Personally I don’t mind this one but an improvement could be remove the roll backwards part. Make it so you just leap forward and maybe add the 1 second evade in there as well. This would make it more of a gap closer and less of a roll backward then forward for no reason.
Skill 3. Make it so it is easier to hit people with it. It is a good skill I just personally struggle to land the hit.

AXE
I find this weapon overall good except maybe allow players to move while using Whirling Defence (5) sort of like warriors but less damage.

GREATSWORD
Make it when you go for the Crippling Throw (skill 4 after block) you don’t get rooted in place. When you want to cripple someone so you can catch up, it doesn’t help when you can’t move.
Skill 2. Maul; GS is more of a power weapon not condition, so remove the bleed stacks and either make it hit more or give might to you and your pet. (or even make it a blast finisher?)

DAGGER
I find this weapon good, maybe increase the amount of bleed skill 5 puts on but otherwise all good.

TORCH
Make it so you can ground target Bonfire (skill 5), allowing us to throw it on enemies rather than run into a group fight and take damage.

SHORTBOW
Make the auto attack bleed no matter where you are standing. I just find it silly how we have to be behind the enemy in order to bleed them.

LONGBOW
Skill 1. Take away the distance changing damage thing. It should hit the same amount at 1500 range even when at 100 range.
Skill 2. Good the way it is but would now add 10 stacks of vulnerability on the first hit. (merged with old skill 3)
New Skill 3. Make this Barrage (previously skill 5) and make it so you can move while casting it.
Skill 4. Leave point blank shot as it is.
Skill 5. New Skill / I think this new skill should be like the warriors rifle f1 ability Kill Shot. You become immobile while using it, it takes 4 seconds to charge up to maximum power then you can shoot it. However long you hold it down though will determine its projectile speed and power, if you hold it down for the full 4 seconds it could hit say, 8k and if you hold it down for 1 second, 2-3k. Also for every second you charge up the skill it adds 2-3 seconds to the cooldown.

i like the suggestion for a new skill, but i’d rather merge current LB 2 and 3, then 3 and 4. Simply because adding vulerability/hit is more advantageous then knocking someone 2 miles away, just so the vulnerability will be almost gone once you start shooting the enemy.

Prysin.8542:

i like the suggestion for a new skill, but i’d rather merge current LB 2 and 3, then 3 and 4. Simply because adding vulerability/hit is more advantageous then knocking someone 2 miles away, just so the vulnerability will be almost gone once you start shooting the enemy.

Thats actually a good suggestion I’ll edit that in, thanks

Renner.2574:

Skill 2. Maul; GS is more of a power weapon not condition, so remove the bleed stacks and either make it hit more or give might to you and your pet. (or even make it a blast finisher?)

I would gladly sacrifice bleed on maul and get a blast finisher instead.

OGDeadHead.8326:

Renner.2574:

Skill 2. Maul; GS is more of a power weapon not condition, so remove the bleed stacks and either make it hit more or give might to you and your pet. (or even make it a blast finisher?)

I would gladly sacrifice bleed on maul and get a blast finisher instead.

My thoughts exactly, it already feels like a blast finisher, why not make it one.

I like that you mostly suggest small changes unlike so many others. That’s, in my opinion, the way to go when it comes to balance. A few of my thoughts:

- Sword: Just removing the rooting would make a world of difference already. I wouldn’t touch the other skills for now to first see how it plays out.

- GS: I have been dreaming of Maul as a blast finisher as well. You’d need to keep a close eye on Healing Spring though, since with the GS cooldown trait, you’d be able to have at least two Area Healing (Maul) and two Healing (Swoop) combos without problem. That’s +2k and +2k aoe heal. Still, it’d be an interesting way to support your group.

-SB: Bleeding would probably be toned down (e.g. 2sec duration) as a result.

-LB: I don’t think the skills would need to be moved around. Leave it as it is, combine #2 and #3 like you did, and have the new skill on #3.

1st step? Remove the pet as an option. Granted I’m not spec’d in beastmastery but my pets die fast, to fast to matter much in WvWvW.

I’ve been doing a fair amount of the hot join sPvP lately running a BM variant and the thing I struggle with the most is breaking immobilized. Warrior immobilize followed by 100 blades and mesmer iLeap followed by blurred frenzy are things I have not figured out how to deal with. The better mesmers and warriors are all very well aware of this. Someone suggested Signet of Stone, but I don’t think I can pick up Signet of the Beastmaster w/o seriously messing up the BM build.

Since any reasonably specced team would have at least some immobilizes, a ranger should have some way of countering this w/o resorting to a grandmaster trait. Having LR break immobilize as well as stun seems like the obvious choice to me. Then again, perhaps I am overlooking something.

Renner.2574:

LONGBOW
Skill 4. Leave point blank shot as it is.

No, give it the same range as the other skills (1200 and 1500), but give it a knockdown instead of a knockback beyond the current max range.

I’ve already suggested this 10 times in the past year, but I’m going to keep mentioning it until it’s in the game.

NargofWoV.4267:

1st step? Remove the pet as an option.

No. G T F O O H.

NargofWoV.4267:

1st step? Remove the pet as an option. Granted I’m not spec’d in beastmastery but my pets die fast, to fast to matter much in WvWvW.

That should be a 30 point marksmanship/skirmishing trait, let’s hope they add it.

The first step to improving the ranger is by giving the ranger all his power and reducing it on the pet appropriately.
Step two is to allow us to buff the pet through traits and through advanced settings in the pet menu. At the cost of the stats of the ranger perhaps. But this is step 2, first get step 1 sorted.

Why? Because it’s the core problem of the ranger. If the pet does not deliver, the Ranger is handicapped. If the pet is dead, the ranger is handicapped. handicapped. Yes, handicapped. This should not happen. A dead pet should be an inconvenience, not a handicap. A class mechanic should never be able to become a handicap, but it is. It is a handicap by default. The class mechanic actually has to deliver to prevent the class from being handicapped. If this is not the main core issue, then I don’t know what is.

1) Keep the Sword exactly as it is! My reasoning for this is that Anet gave us two different skills on the sword that involves you jumping backwards and rolling around all over the place to evade attacks. If you haven’t learned how to use those, then you probably have no business using the sword in PvP or WvW
(And for advanced players : to escape a fight really fast, use skill 2, then lightning reflexes, then turn around (you can use a hotkey to turn around instantly), and start running. If you are stunned, then use Lightning reflexes first since it breaks stun. You will be way ahead of your attackers this way. During two of those steps, you are evading just about everything, and you haven’t even dodged yet (plus, LR gives you 10s of Vigor for extra dodging!))

2) Keep the Greatsword exactly as it is, even the rooting that occurs with Crippling Throw! My reasoning for this is that Anet gave you a skill that makes you travel foward very fast, and it recharges every 12 seconds. Plus there are more than enough ways for a Ranger to cripple or stop an enemy’s movement while giving chase.
(It involves using your pets and traps, or switching to the longbow or shortbow and applying cripple that way, then switching back to the greatsword when you can)

3) Don’t Touch the Longbow, and definitely don’t mess with its increased damage with Range. My reasoning for this is that when you are at maximum range, with a fully loaded Zerker build, you can do atleast 3500-4500 damage with your auto attack, if you go with applying your 20 stacks of vulnerability (10 from you, 5 from opening strike, 5 from the pet’s opening strike), and with buffs and might, you can do over 9,000 damage. I’ve done it before. You can also auto attack with the longbow roughly every second. Do you think its fair to hit someone for 9,001 damage every second at point blank range without doing anything on an autoattack? You can also use rapid fire, and I have clocked myself at doing around 15,000 damage with it, at any range. And even a moderate damage build would be able to deal a thousand damage a second at point blank range if the longbow were changed. This is far too imbalanced, and even combining skills 2 and 3 would be way to imbalanced.

Also, if you shoot an enemy that is actually at point blank range, the Knockback is just as effective to any melee attacker as several seconds of Stun, because they get knocked back, and then they have to travel back to you to keep attacking. Plus it has a 15 second recharge time, which makes it just as effective, if not more so than any skill in the game for stun or daze, if you learn how to use it right. Its even better if you get the trait that lets longbow skills recharge 20% faster (quickdraw).

Barrage is good with any build because of how long the cripple lasts, and I often use the longbow for that purpose, and it has helped me solo many group events and bosses, and control just about any WvW situation, even without any power or precision stats.

4) You don’t have to be behind anything to bleed them. You only have to be to the side, and not by even that much. Use your pet to pull the aggro (you have it for a reason), then run slightly to the side and fire away!

Sorry to be Troll-like, but, your suggestions Suck, and would not improve the Ranger class in any way. It would just make us more Thief / Warrior like, and I like not being either of them!

I would like to see torment added to the sword’s 2nd skill’s first attack. (the one with the beeeeez)

First step to improving the ranger is improving the pet AI. i Believe the difference it could make to our damage output would be insane. It would shut most of the pet haters up anyhow.

Does anyone have anything to say about Warhorn skills?
It keeps on boggling my mind why the 4th ability – Hunter’s Call does so extremely little damage. It’s a visually fantastic ability, yet what’s the point in visuals if you don’t ever use it?
Call of the Wild is good on the other hand, yet it doesn’t make warhorn worth carrying, does it? Would be great if it applied 3 stacks of might, so it wouldn’t be used only for the Fury buff?

Can we merge the arrow pierce trait and the longbow range trait? Pretty Please?

Making maul a blast finisher would be super rad too. Like the longbow ideas as well.

I think it’s funny that you want to change every weapon except the top crapfest that is the axe. I don’t think it will ever be good as a ranged weapon so I would very much like for it to get a revamp in the auto-attack to make it an actual melee chain that deals damage. Then maybe people could stop complaining about the sword as well.

The first step to improving the ranger is by giving the ranger all his power and reducing it on the pet appropriately.

This is short-sighted and wrong. Please consider the simple fact that making this change will eliminate build competition and make it unwise to run anything with a pet, reducing the effectiveness of the Ranger’s utility, support, and condition damage builds all for the sake of increased power, and therefor only a dps increase. This is a very selfish suggestion that does nothing to help solve the issue with pets and is not a step forward. Buffing the player does not fix the pet and means that players who want to use this mechanic are still handicapped.

Step two is to allow us to buff the pet through traits and through advanced settings in the pet menu. At the cost of the stats of the ranger perhaps.

You had previously suggested shifting stats off of the pet to the Ranger, however now you want to shift them back to the pet at the cost of attribute points and Ranger stats? That sounds awful. These two suggestions are directly contradicting each other.

We can already buff them through traits as well: 30% critical damage, 50% boon duration / condition duration, 350 healing power / condition damage and a 30% speed increase all from adept-level traits, not to mention might stacking via Companion’s Might, Master’s Bond and the unique effect from Beast Mastery. While it may not be the most desirable way to boost pet stats, it’s all we have. It would be better to condense these traits to make it have better synergy with pets. Boon duration & healing power and condition duration & damage should be combined in my opinion.

The issue with the pet is survival and the break down in communication between profession balance with dungeon design & balance, resulting in encounters that are ill-suited for pet classes. Molten Facility was atrocious and punishing towards pets, minions, and people with no endurance regeneration. Combined with unwieldy skills like “Guard” being required for protection in hard-hitting encounters, Rangers have to sacrifice skill slots and traits because the loss of their pet is a greater overall drop in their dps than trait and skill changes will ever be.

I have been dreaming of Maul as a blast finisher as well. You’d need to keep a close eye on Healing Spring though, since with the GS cooldown trait, you’d be able to have at least two Area Healing (Maul) and two Healing (Swoop) combos without problem. That’s +2k and +2k aoe heal. Still, it’d be an interesting way to support your group.

You would have two Swoops, two Mauls untraited and two Swoops, three Mauls traited. The finishers both have the same base (1320 blast, 1300 leap) but their coefficients are different. However, in order to reach a +2k blast finisher, you would require 3400 healing power. (1320 + (3400*0.2)) = 2000.

If Maul were to have a blast finisher, the cool down would have to be increased significantly. Between two drakes and three Mauls, you could get five finished off in one Healing Spring. I think this would be a case of the cure being worse than the disease and then the Greatsword would lose what little damage it has, or Healing Spring would changed and be weaker in any builds without the Greatsword.

Does anyone have anything to say about Warhorn skills?
It keeps on boggling my mind why the 4th ability – Hunter’s Call does so extremely little damage. It’s a visually fantastic ability, yet what’s the point in visuals if you don’t ever use it?

It’s only benefit I’ve ever found arises in the fact you can use skills while it is dealing damage. This is makes it a great choice to use to quickly build might stacks on a pet for Companion’s Might & Rampage as One or to trigger the bleeding from Sharpened Edges. These are not necessarily good, however, it does hit 16 times and therefor has the opportunity to trigger those effects multiple times, and you open yourself to reliable applications of fury to make the on-crit traits trigger more.

Lunchbox.9543:

I have been dreaming of Maul as a blast finisher as well. You’d need to keep a close eye on Healing Spring though, since with the GS cooldown trait, you’d be able to have at least two Area Healing (Maul) and two Healing (Swoop) combos without problem. That’s +2k and +2k aoe heal. Still, it’d be an interesting way to support your group.

You would have two Swoops, two Mauls untraited and two Swoops, three Mauls traited. The finishers both have the same base (1320 blast, 1300 leap) but their coefficients are different. However, in order to reach a +2k blast finisher, you would require 3400 healing power. (1320 + (3400*0.2)) = 2000.

If Maul were to have a blast finisher, the cool down would have to be increased significantly. Between two drakes and three Mauls, you could get five finished off in one Healing Spring. I think this would be a case of the cure being worse than the disease and then the Greatsword would lose what little damage it has, or Healing Spring would changed and be weaker in any builds without the Greatsword.

I should have been more precise: I meant 2k as a rough total of both finishers and not 2k per combo. Also, getting three Mauls off would be pretty tight timing-wise, I’m not certain the third strike would even go off in time taking casting time and aftercast into account. Still, it’s definitively something to look at.

There are already some blast finishers on low cooldowns out there, but giving a class both that and a water field is dangerous. However, it would be nice to have a single player-controlled blast finisher as a ranger and this skill seems fitting.

Lunchbox.9543:

The first step to improving the ranger is by giving the ranger all his power and reducing it on the pet appropriately.

This is short-sighted and wrong. Please consider the simple fact that making this change will eliminate build competition and make it unwise to run anything with a pet, reducing the effectiveness of the Ranger’s utility, support, and condition damage builds all for the sake of increased power, and therefor only a dps increase. This is a very selfish suggestion that does nothing to help solve the issue with pets and is not a step forward. Buffing the player does not fix the pet and means that players who want to use this mechanic are still handicapped..

Since Anet devs refuse to fix pets or can’t fix the pets, the proposed perma-stow is a great option. Until they get AOE reduction or the ability to dodge out of aoe (like a player can) they will remained in the broken state. To me it would be a great step forward. Jon Sharp has said in the Stog that giving more pet control options isn’t on the table (because it scares away people who are terrified by having too much control) and other devs have stated we are going to have our pets in combat whether we like it or not. So, yeah. Enjoy your broken class-defining mechanic.

Lot of people wants to see a complete overhaul of pets and their mechanics. It ain’t gonna happen though. Rangers will see a few token fixes here and there and a dev post every 4 months or so to play some time with the frustrated players.
There’s only 2 people working on the class balancing and fixes so they don’t simply have the resources to do much. Better just to play with the hand you are dealt with and try to have fun despite all the shortcoming of the profession or move on to greener pastures(where ever that may be)

Boomstin.3460:

Better just to play with the hand you are dealt with and try to have fun despite all the shortcoming of the profession or move on to greener pastures(where ever that may be)

That’s where the majority of us are at. Since I just sold my 3rd precursor I pulled from the forge I’m lvling my alts through crafting then going to do some map completion on each to learn how to play them. I’ve only played warrior and ranger, and I enjoy my ranger more. I’ll find out soon enough if the thief, Mes, or Guardian are more to my liking than the ranger.