Guild Wars 2

After pointing some fixes to the pet that i think were well received i’d like to point out some changes to the trait lines so they become useful and less subpar and broken in a sense that nothing makes sense in them.
[rant time]
Although i guess the head developer (Irenio) is really bussy now with the Druid would be good some form of communication from the dev team to let us know if the ranger is being reworked/fixed so i can be at the same bout as other classes and not swimming behind while the other classes have a free bar in the cruiser.

The actual spite in this forums in manly because of the lack of communication from the Anet developers leading as always to not fix or apply all the wrong changes like is being happening from ever.
So to fix this Irenio and his team (if there is any) should get involved in this forums, so the people that has invested thousands of hours in their toons don’t feel insulted and despised. That’s a really bad PR if you ask me.
[/end of rant time]
let’s begin:

Marksmanship

• Alpha Training merged with minor Opening Strike.
• Steady Focus changed to master minor.
• New master trait to apply +20% cripple duration and vulnerability when you apply cripple. 1 stack for 5 seconds. This way sword AA would be able to apply max of 6 stacks.
• Lead the wind: Change to apply piercing to both bows so we aren’t forced in one trit line if we choose Shortbow. Attack speed increased to 30%. LB AA would be attacking every 1/2 second instead 3/4 second. Not much of a difference but enough to be appreciated.

Skirmishing

• strider’s deffense: Change to 25% chance of evade 1/2 second while executing a melee attack. We have only two melee weapons: Sword and GS. Sword don’t have any evades in the AA chain, this is needed to make the ranger to actually have a chance against any melee class.
• Light on your feet. Change to apply piercing to both bows. The on dodge mechanic is fancy not adequate for the game. You have to waste one of your precious dodges to get just an 10% extra dmg for the next attack. change to permanent +10% damage and 10% duration in conditions would be in order.
• Most dangerous game: Another fancy but very impractical trait. Average ranger has 18K HP half of that could be taken with one burst. Not suited for this game i could say. Also 9 stacks of might is simply bad.
  To keep the idea of As closed to the death as i am the dangerous i became this changes would be in order: up to 50% HP : 1stack might/ 15% damage reduction. Up to 25% HP : 2 stacks of might / 30% damage reduction.
  This way you have better chances to build the might and also an alternative to Bark Skin.
• Quick Draw: Increase the buff to 10 seconds so some skills can finish the casting (Axe#5)

Wilderness Survival

• Oakheart Salve: conditions are very strong now. Burning does 130/tick with 0 condition damage. Change to cast 50% healing troll unguent (450hp/sec – 5 seconds) boon when affected by bleeding, poison or burning. CD 15 seconds. This is to avoid to merge with regeneration what would undermine the effectiveness of the trait. Move this trait to master.
  Apply Resistance Boon for 5 seconds when affected by bleeding, poison or burning. ICD 15 seconds.
• Expertise training. change to duration increase 50%. Pets don’t do hard conditions (torment, confusion(only pink moa), burning) and this would help with some of the shortest conditions from them. In numbers Pink moa would get only 1 extra second of confusion.
• Refined Toxins : change to apply poison on crit same way as sharpened edges. 33% chance on crit. Change poison duration to 3 seconds. Move this trait to Adept.
• Empathic Bond shouldn’t be here. Here should be the Horned Axes.

Honed Axes change to Increase Attack in Axe up to 30%. Right now the axe is 1 second attack and Axe#2 has 2 seconds delay after the cast. The weapon feels clunky and unresponsive. Axe#3 attack changed to the same mechanic as Axe#1 hitting max of 3 targets applying chill to each one made baseline for the Axe.

Nature Magic

• Rejuvenation seems to be a filler minor. Should be scratched out.
• Bountiful hunter. Another fancy trait that actually is not that useful unless you play with a shout guardian or a dd ele. Ranger don’t drop many boons and all of them are short duration. Change to a flat +10% damage when you have boons on you. That way we will have an alternative to Marksmanship and don’t loose to much damage output.
• Instinctive Reaction. Change to 7% Vitality to Power like it was before. So tanky builds would stop being so extremely subpar. Also give an alternative play for rangers that don’t want to depend in constant boons.
• Vigorous Training take the place of Rejuvenation Minor. Instead of this bring back Spirits Unbound. Some rangers like the idea of immobile spirits most of them find them useless because of the poor active abilities range and their weak passive.
• Natures Vengeance: change the duration of the boon to 3 seconds.
  Killing the spirit trigger the active effect like included Spirit of Nature. One free rally every 2 minutes is not much, and even less with the debuffs applied when you are downed. This is basic for the spirits that we can not see how long have they left.

Beastmastery

• Empathic Bond should be in place of Honed Axes. So rangers can have an alternative to Wilderness Survival to cleanse conditions. Also this trait need to work like Necromacer’s Plage Sending. When the number of condition in the ranger are equal or greater than 2 up to 3 conditions are sent to the pet. Then enter in a Internal CoolDown of 10 seconds. This trair is being always too RNG to be actually useful. This way the rangers can have more control over it.

What do you think? Are those changes good? Do you see another could be applied?

anduriell.6280:

The actual spite in this forums in manly because of the lack of communication from the Anet developers leading as always to not fix or apply all the wrong changes like is being happening from ever.

To be fair, Irenio mentioned in the final POI that he was restricted from communicating to the players, having to keep silent even though he really wanted to communicate with us. After hearing him say that, my hunches were kind of confirmed. Carry on, though.

I stopped reading after I noticed Alpha Training was missing, therefore having ‘no changes’.

I really like your ideas but I wish people would stop trying to work with it. It was a dreadful idea of nnecros and it’s a dreadful idea on rangers. There is nothing redeemable about it, the whole idea is fatally flawed. Necros tried to work with it, too. It didn’t work.

Please, please, please, don’t try to fix it, just get rid. Replace it with a completely different idea. One that isn’t completely awful.

I don’t think much of these trait changes are that required.

I mean, most of them do not have a real purpose. And 90% of the mentioned are ones that do their job efficiently.
Don’t fix what is not broken.

If anything, traits that have been mentioned over and over again are the ones that need changes. And those are:
~Predator’s Instinct
~Strider’s Defense
~Most Dangerous Game
~Instinctive Reaction
~Invigorating Bond
~Honed Axes.
(~ probably a way for opening strikes to work more often than once per day if you are speed-farming. Sacrificing Remorseless for that is not cool)

Some of these need only slight changes. Some complete changes because of failed design. But currently these are the only ones that need attention.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

I stopped reading after I noticed Alpha Training was missing, therefore having ‘no changes’.

what is wrong with Alpha training? it’s a minor, a filler to be exact that could be merged with the Opening Strike minor, but what would you put in there?

While a couple of these I agree with I do think most of them serve their purpose well enough, but there is definately some issue with positioning.
Some just seem strange like Honed Axes but others, for instance having Trapper’s Expertise and Sharpened Edges in the same tier is really crippling.
Both of these traits are so important if you’re trying to do any competitive damage as a condi ranger and having to choose between them (especially in an adept tier) just feels painful. Especially when the you pick up Light On Your Feet with it’s fluff dodge buff as the grandmaster.

anduriell.6280:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

I stopped reading after I noticed Alpha Training was missing, therefore having ‘no changes’.

what is wrong with Alpha training? it’s a minor, a filler to be exact that could be merged with the Opening Strike minor, but what would you put in there?

It is a rubbish trait that is a total waste of a slot. Every trait that affects the Ranger should affect the pet too (otherwise its really only a 0.7:1 trait, not 1:1 like other classes). Merge it with Opening Strike, move Steady Focus to Master Minor and make a new Master tier trait that synergises with condi builds, something like extending the duration of cripple by 20% as well as applying vuln to crippled targets or something.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

anduriell.6280:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

I stopped reading after I noticed Alpha Training was missing, therefore having ‘no changes’.

what is wrong with Alpha training? it’s a minor, a filler to be exact that could be merged with the Opening Strike minor, but what would you put in there?

It is a rubbish trait that is a total waste of a slot. Every trait that affects the Ranger should affect the pet too (otherwise its really only a 0.7:1 trait, not 1:1 like other classes). Merge it with Opening Strike, move Steady Focus to Master Minor and make a new Master tier trait that synergises with condi builds, something like extending the duration of cripple by 20% as well as applying vuln to crippled targets or something.

I see your point there and i agree there could go some master trait that apply vulnerability when you apply cripple. Greatly synergize with the other traits in the trait line.

I agree with you Steady Focus could go to minor master because although is 10% extra damage is very situational and once you are in combat you can’t keep up the endurance.

Applejuicey.4159:

Some just seem strange like Honed Axes but others, for instance having Trapper’s Expertise and Sharpened Edges in the same tier is really crippling.

I think that’s designed in purpose to make the ranger to choose if you want to be trapper ranger or another type of condition build.
I think choices like this are cool the problem is that ranger has the rest of the trait lines completely messed up so losing one of those traits feels so crippling and underwhelming. That would change with this new traits where you could have different ways to build your ranger.
Then the pain will come from not to be able to have all of them at the same time, but that’s another tale.

Imho – you put ShortBOw to MM tree…
It’s Big mistake.

None of Condi/Hybrid Shortbow ranger will chose MM tree.
It brings Nothing for them.

MostDangerousGame don’t have to apply ANY might stacks!
MDG have to apply damage modifier, like Warriors have with +aditional condition damage from furry or stacking Crit damage from signets etc..
And it have to be so, that if PET’s HP goes below 50% it will become more powerful and will share power with you also. These will add more skillPlay… With these mechanic, you have to think… switch or heal your pet when it’s below 50%, or keep it on low, and get advantage with cost of pets death. and in additional these trait can give 200-300Vitality, same as guardians trait.

IF trait based on HP pool and force you keep on LOW, then it have to add passive HP pool, like it was with guardians.

Perhaps people could start posting these posts at already existings threads for once?

Tragic Positive.9356:

If anything, traits that have been mentioned over and over again are the ones that need changes. And those are:
~Predator’s Instinct
~Strider’s Defense
~Most Dangerous Game
~Instinctive Reaction
~Invigorating Bond
~Honed Axes.
(~ probably a way for opening strikes to work more often than once per day if you are speed-farming. Sacrificing Remorseless for that is not cool)

Was going to repeat myself, but quoting this is easier. About opening Strike, it is an easy fix. Merge the first two minors, move down the gm minor, add some kind of a refresh trait as gm without touching remorseless.

Done. Stop QQing about stuff that doesn’t matter. Like merging shortbow benefits into the longbow trait. Like, really? This probably tops your complaints about Troll Unguent.

Just i case Irenio read this thread and thinks the ideas here are good… Which changes would you apply to the trait Honed Axes?
I agree the trait right now is rubbish even more having in mind that compete in the same tier as the other grandmasters that are better designed and bring so much more to the table.

Trapper trait have to be merged with “sharpened Edge”.

anduriell.6280:

Which changes would you apply to the trait Honed Axes?

Would make Winter’s Bite AOE baseline for starters. Would also remove the Ferocity stat and change it to increase attack speed while wielding an axe (main or off-hand so it benefits all types of builds) by 15%. Keep it simple, straight-forward and effective.

Wondrouswall.7169:

anduriell.6280:

Which changes would you apply to the trait Honed Axes?

Would make Winter’s Bite AOE baseline for starters. Would also remove the Ferocity stat and change it to increase attack speed while wielding an axe (main or off-hand so it benefits all types of builds) by 15%. Keep it simple, straight-forward and effective.

Yep i agree. Actually make Axe#3 to have the same attack mechanic than Axe#1, but apply chill instead might i think is a better idea than AoE, I find AoE for this weapon boring and unappealing.
Attack speed should be increased more, like 20-50% because although the Axe is supposed to be 1/4 it has an aftercast animation that make it 1 full second being a really slow weapon. Same happens to Axe#2. The animation cause at least a delay of 1.5 second after you cast the skill.
Although i disagree about attack speed in both weapons, the increased attack speed should affect only AxE. Make sword faster could overbuff the DPS in the sword although is the highest already for the ranger.

Sword need fixing with the rooting AA and the Sword#3 missing most of the time but the damage is ok