Guild Wars 2

In order to fix the core ranger I think the following issues need to be addressed along with potential fixes:

Pets:
Pets are the most vital aspect of the ranger that needs to be fixed. Most issues with balance and poor performance stems from the fact that a large portion of ranger is balanced around having a pet. Right now pets underperform in almost all areas.
-Improve pet AI and Pathing
-Improve hit rate of pets by increase melee from 130 to 260 range and improving the attack up to 180 degrees.
-Improve ranged pets by increase the velocity of their ranged attack
-Give pets a buff that decreases damage taken by AOE and Cleave by about 80%
-Increase pet responsiveness with controls
-Give us more control of the pet skills
-Allow us to properly stow pets, don’t auto pull the pet out after we stowed them. In some fights having a pet is a negative thing, such as in Jade Maw.

Spirits:
Spirits are good option in PvE they lack any significant value in PvP and WvW.
-Increase spirit survival, as of right now in most encounters they die way to fast.
-Allow Spirits to be mobile again through traits
-Make spirits take decreased damage from AOE and Cleave like pets
-Spirit of Nature this is just really bad redesign it to be helpful, could even see a lot of synergy with druid if done so

Shouts:
Shouts are our weakest skill set and are really hampered by the fact that they rely on pets. Pets in of themselves are not a good mechanic right now.
-“Sic em!” arguably the best shout skill it requires pre-emptive using to prevent stealth, instead using this skill should also knock anyone out of stealth
-“Protect Me!” this is just a much worse version than Signet of Stone, instead relying on a weak pet to take damage, maybe make this so if attacked within the 6 seconds the pet will disable the attacker for a set amount of time
-“Guard!” Where will this ever be useful? Pets again don’t’ do much, and the buffs are that great. This skill should be totally redesigned maybe teleport the ranger to the pet.
-“Search and Rescue” while this might have some application it should really do more than just raise someone, perhaps bring them back to full health after raising them?
-“We Heal as One!” maybe instead of boon share between the pet and ranger and then share those boons with the rest of the party.

Signets:
Signets in general I believe are in a healthy position though could use a few tweaks
-Signet of Stone decrease the CD from 80 seconds to 60 to be in line with other similar skills like endure pain.
-Signet of Renewal increase the ranger from 600 to 1800 to be in line with longbow type ranges

Survival:
These are kind of hit and miss.
-Sharpening Stone this is also a trait, with a 45 CD it only applies 5 stacks of bleeds over kittens meaning the chances of it hitting will be very low. Decrease the CD on this and increase the amount of bleeds to be in line with other skills.
-Muddy Terrain the tell for this skill is very obvious making it really easy to dodge, decrease the from ¾ to ¼ second
-Entangle elite skill that is very easy to dodge and easily to negate through condition removals and now dash type of attacks with a CD of 60 seconds this skill really is lacking. A good start will be to decrease the cast time from ¾ to ¼ and CD to 30 seconds. Or make it so the entangle follows the target and harasses the target with immobilization. Oh and the root is also killable, seems odd an elite is so easily dealt with.

Traps:
Traps in general need love for WvW and PvP purposes.
-Allow traps to be deployed at range

Weapons:
-Longbow animations are very easy to predict making most of the skills easily mitigated compared to other skills
-Longbow has a 2000 range when it should be 1725 with the 15% buffer zone on projectiles
-Sword is very unresponsive with attacks
-Shortbow make the auto attack always apply bleeding
-Greatsword while really only taken for its defensive capabilities increasing greatsword’s damage of slash, Maul and Swoop will give the weapon much needed burst ability.

Traits:
-Stead Focus is very niche, we should gain vigor when endurance isn’t full with ICD
-Predator’s Instinct lower the ICD from 30 to 15
-Vigorous Training feels under whelming for a T2 trait, maybe swiftness or another buff alongside to bring it in line with other traits of the same level
-Invigorating Bond why does this have an ICD? F2s already have a cool down it is also a grandmaster trait
-Nature’s Vengeance the increase health doesn’t help spirits much
-Natural Healing doesn’t do much for pets in almost any instance of the game, seems a pretty bad trait, even more so at the slot you have to take it
-Major Master with the slot and how many disables there are in the game why is this on a 60 ICD?

suggestions to make sword competitive

this is another thread about improving the CORE ranger profession. we all know how good sword is in pve, and defensively in pvp. sadly for competitive builds, the sword only really belongs on a condi bunker build as a defensive/mobility tool. these suggestions would make sword relevant in many builds, and much more interesting

- sword #1: keep more or less the same. add animation canceling if possible (we’ve talked about this before)

- Hornet’s Sting: as ranger rolls backward, he leaves a swarm of hornets behind him that pulses 2 stacks of torment for 3 seconds in an aoe. decrease the cast time of this even further

- Monarch’s Leap: simply make it a nuke that would scale well with power builds. it should be a leap that cleaves and its damage should be increased to about 4.5k+ crit on, lets say, marauder stats. at least. because it has a hefty cast animation, it’s very much dodgeable

- Serpent’s Sting: should cast poison in a cone

these changes would make sword a super viable weapon and not OP, on multiple builds.

improving shortbow

by infantrydiv.1620:

Shortbow is now one of the worst weapons in the game, attacking with shortbow in a team fight, you might as well not even be there, and you are almost guaranteed to take more damage than you deal (lmao).

1. Slow down the Shortbow auto , but give it a guaranteed bleed, increased power scaling AND torment if hitting from 180 degrees behind target, this would make it way better in team fights, in 1v1s it wouldn’t be that much better since the target can usually face you.

2. This skill is fine as is in my opinion

3. Make this a leap finisher.

4. Change the bleeds from pet into torment

5. Add conditional confusion to this, also reduce the cooldown by 5 seconds.

Another possible change is to take the axe auto attack and give it to shortbow with bleeds on it, then give axe a real condition melee chain.

Mistsim I really like all those suggestions!

warhorn

Call of the Wild is a decent skill now, especially when traited. Hunter’s Call is completely useless and hasn’t been touched since release. its damage modifier is too low and it has no utility.

either greatly increase Hunter’s Call damage and make it an aoe, or giving some sort of debuff that would significantly affect the target. we’ve suggested blinds, and I’m leaning toward boon stripping.

Axes

the problem with OH axe is mostly Whirling Defense. Path of Scars should probably have its velocity increased even more.

Whirling defense:
- it roots us
- the cast animation is too long
- it does paltry damage
- it has no utility other than reflecting projectiles
- the problem with using axes in general is that they don’t give us any evades, blocks or invulns. it’s super hard to make them work in a power build

Solution:

- greatly increase the damage modifier to scale MH axe better with power builds. that’s literally all you have to do. on a marauder build, ricochet should crit for at least 2k without any might.
- split blade is great, just make it scale with power. if someone eats all the projectiles, it should be like a shotgun. on marauder stats, split blade should hurt if unleashed point blank
- Winter’s Bite and Honed Axes trait should be baseline
- compress the Whirling Defense animation and damage into a 2 second cast. while channeling, give stability to the ranger. keep the vuln application and retal. this is all you have to do. the other option is to allow us to cast it while moving, but then you’d have to rework the animation.
- the other option (my favourite) is to decrease WD’s cast animation and allow it to strip boons

Kitty.1502:

Mistsim I really like all those suggestions!

np, lets just keep this thread going as a community so they have it all in one place. the core profession needs to be fixed once and for all

Shouts

and just in case the other thread dies, here is the best shout feedback

by ProtoMarcus.7649

Here you go! Big text!
_____________________
Ranger shouts are still in a rather bad place. Sure, WHaO and SotP are perfect, but they weren’t shouts initially. ‘Guard!’ is pretty much used for Regen and Swiftness but I guess its somewhat in a good place now. So we have 3 other shouts that have very low usefulness, even with traits and appropriate runes. Here are a few suggestions I’d like some Dev to read just to rethink Ranger Shouts.

First, I’d like to mention that unlike most other shouts, Ranger Shouts are extremely selfish; they offer next to no Team Utility (except when traited… Swift and Regen… Also ‘Search and Rescue’, let’s not even talk about it yet)

The announced change to ‘We Heal as One!’ was very promising, but apparently there was very little testing and it was not balanced but nerfed to the ground.

My first suggestions are for that particular shout,

‘We Heal as One!’

The healing value, the traited regen and swiftness and the CD are perfect.
The boon copy effect is very interesting, but with the new flat duration, you can’t even ‘feel’ the boons. My suggestion is to tweak the flat durations:
•Quickness – From 2 to 4s
•Protection – From 2 to 4s
•Resistance – From 2 to 4s
•Fury – From 3 to 8s
•Stability – From 3 to 6s (it’s just 1 stack after all… A change that wasn’t mentioned as it would copy all stacks of stability before the sept 30 patch)
•Swiftness – From 3 to 8s
•Vigor – From 3 to 8s
•Aegis – From 5s to 8s
•Regeneration – from 5 to 8s
•Retaliation – 5s is perfect
•Might – For this one, either keep its 3 stacks limit but make it 15s or lower its duration to 8s but remove the stack limit.

I’ll mention it again, Ranger Shouts are very selfish, almost no team utility unlike 87.234% of the other shouts in the game. Warr can have a 100% 25 might upkeep, Guard has a CRAPLOAD of boons (to self AND team), Eles and Engies can stack an enormous amount of boons on self and allies… Rangers have nothing.

ALSO, by using WHaO to copy the boons, the ranger is crippling himself a bit, as it puts its healing skill on cooldown. High Risk, High Reward. It fits.

Now, by balancing the copied boons, this is when we can play with other Ranger Shouts -

‘Guard!’
It’s fine as it is. It is pretty much only used for the Regen+Swift Stacking, and for the pet’s survivability (protection is really nice for the pet)
By tweaking the base durations of the WHaO boon copy, it brings some nice survivability to the ranger aswell. a 4s Protection on the player is fair. With 30% boon duration, that extends to 5.2s of protection. Add ‘Protective Ward’ trait and you have a nice protection uptime.

‘Sic ’Em!’
Oh yeah this one.
First, you ABSOLUTELY need to make it so the effect stays after giving pet orders (F1/F2 etc). I mean really. The ‘Revealed’ effect is a nice touch, but it requires target. But still a nice touch.
Change ‘40% Attack Speed’ to 8s Quickness
That way, the effect stays when giving a pet order, and with WHaO, it’ll give the player some quickness as well.
Add 8s Fury to give some punch to the pet, and again, by giving a boon, the effect wouldn’t be cancelled by giving an order to the pet (and always the WHaO synergy)

‘Protect Me!’
This kills the pet.
Yes, the killing curse the killing shout.
Stun break is nice. Effect is interesting. Killing pet is not fun.
Either Reduce damage dealt to pet by 30-50% for the duration OR
•Add 6s of Protection to the Pet and
•Add 6s of Resistance to the Pet
More survivability to direct damage and condi damage, and again, with WHaO, some nice survival boons on player.
Other Suggestions:
•Add 2s taunt towards pet on a small radius – It can become a really nice evasive skill; Stun Break + Taunt from Pet or
•Any CC effect is transfered to the pet for the duration of the Shout – Much like the Shared Anguish Trait, but for like 6s. Again, very evasive skill.

‘Search and Rescue’
I’ve had more precursor drops than players using this shout. (Had zero precursor drop in 3+ years of play)
This one could use a bit of love.
•Lower base CD from 85s to 80s. That’s 68 to 64s traited. A nice uh… Little buff.
•Add 3 stacks of Stability to the Pet for 10s
•Add Aegis to pet for 10s
This will aid the pet in rushing to the ally without being too much interrupted. I really like this skill’s concept but… Yeah
And the boon copy from this shout would give some support to the ranger, 1 stack of stab + aegis for a few seconds.
Other Suggestions:
•Add a 2s Fear from the Pet – Oh man that would be super useful in cancelling stomps and would add more utility to the shout. a 2s Fear on a 80s CD.

‘Strength of the Pack!’
This one is in a solid place.
Maybe change base might from 8s to 10s ?
Change the graphical effect to falling leaves Autumn leaves (yellow, orange, red), it fits the nature theme, maybe!

So yeah.

Ranger Shouts = Selfish compared to other professions’ shouts.
Ranger Shouts = Very very low utility except for 3 (of which 2 weren’t initially shouts)
Ranger Shouts = High Risk, Low Reward. Except the same 3.

In terms of balance, here’s a few notes.
•WARRIORS can mega stack mega might to the entire party. Also Banners. And all the boons. They also get burst heals instead of regen when traited.
•GUARDIANS can mega boon mega everything the entire party. Not only that, but their shout trait converts condis to boons, so even more boons.
•TEMPEST shouts grant a crapload of effects to the party, heals, auras, stun breaks…
•REAPER Shouts have more than just ONE effect, and have converts/corrupts
•RANGER offer next to no team utility unless traited. And even then they are awful. High CD, few effects, they put the pet on standby mode. At least make them useful for the Caster himself?

Thanks for reading!

I think it is important to note that until pet mechanic is fixed, all the other improvements will not fix the ranger. Pets are the most critical thing we need fixed in order to fix the core ranger experience.

Kitty.1502:

I think it is important to note that until pet mechanic is fixed, all the other improvements will not fix the ranger. Pets are the most critical thing we need fixed in order to fix the core ranger experience.

look at the new pets. they were beautifully designed, and all 4 will be immensely useful. now to your point, they need to go back to the old pets and give them that same treatment =)

for example, drakes should all have some version of their tail whip as the f2 to give us an on-demand blast finisher. feel free to decrease the damage.

mistsim.2748:

Kitty.1502:

I think it is important to note that until pet mechanic is fixed, all the other improvements will not fix the ranger. Pets are the most critical thing we need fixed in order to fix the core ranger experience.

look at the new pets. they were beautifully designed, and all 4 will be immensely useful. now to your point, they need to go back to the old pets and give them that same treatment =)

for example, drakes should all have some version of their tail whip as the f2 to give us an on-demand blast finisher. feel free to decrease the damage.

It isn’t about the new pets, they will have the same issues as the old pets (I do agree they look cool) pets miss most of the time in spvp, in fact good pvpers will dodge almost every attack a pet does. In PvE/WvW pets die way to fast to to AoE and Cleaves, we have 30% of our damage balanced in pets. Furthermore, we should have more control over pet actions.

To add on allowing more controls on pets and their skills, I would like to suggest the following (as it does not include overhauls).

• “Attack My Target” & “Return To Me” are keybind options.
• F1 & F3 are replaced with the other pet skills.

QoL stuff that would further augment pets and management.

• Stow/Activate Pet keybind option.
• Visible Pet Boons & Conditions on our UI.
• An organized selection panel. (shameless self-plug – see signature)
• More pets that can cleave.
• Foods and other consumables to also affect the pet.

how about a 66% aoe damage reduction in pve and WvW? I think WoW did something like this for hunters and it worked great. Pets should still take full damage from single target attacks and cleave, just not the ground targeted ones.

mistsim.2748:

how about a 66% aoe damage reduction in pve and WvW? I think WoW did something like this for hunters and it worked great. Pets should still take full damage from single target attacks and cleave, just not the ground targeted ones.

That is what I suggest, including an increase in their melee range and increase in their melee arc. These should help improve the rangers drastically.

mistsim.2748:

look at the new pets. they were beautifully designed, and all 4 will be immensely useful. now to your point, they need to go back to the old pets and give them that same

Beautiful, yes. Beautifully designed, not really. Take a look at the footage again when they showcased the new pets. There are obvious issues with them that hinder them when you look past the flash.

HERE were my concerns on them that was also posted in the Druid feedback. Not sure if Irenio read it, but it apparently went over most peoples’ heads because they can’t get over being able to charm dragons.

I agree with your suggestions, but they did listen to feedback at least somewhat.

the fire wyvern is invulnerable while in the air. the other one gives us a hard CC, which we only had on the wolf. and the smokescale’s smoke field would be huge for us. I certainly hope we can interact with that field. now that you mention it though, this sounds a bit too good to be true because it would give us an insane amount of stealth. one idea would be to simply give it a long CD, maybe 1 min.

mistsim.2748:

and the smokescale’s smoke field would be huge for us. I certainly hope we can interact with that field. now that you mention it though, this sounds a bit too good to be true because it would give us an insane amount of stealth. one idea would be to simply give it a long CD, maybe 1 min.

Why would you want to increase the CD of the Smokescale’s F2 when it’s on par in both duration and cooldown with the other utilities that provide a smoke field? It’s a 5-sec field on a 25-sec cooldown.

I would just give them actual ranged damage. Sure, ranger means forest keeper yada yada, but most people came from other MMORPGs mistook ranger as someone that masters ranged weaponry. Even in Anet’s description, ranger are bow masters:

Ranger does mean forest keeper, but it’s clear that Anet has intention to make them a long ranged attacker profession. Yet it doesn’t fit the typical archer archetype at all.

Yeah, newbie bearbows ruined your dungeons, who can’t blame them? Isn’t that how rangers are supposed to be played? Instead, we got ranger primarily melee with S/A, spotter, frost spirit. From my experience, Acrobat from Dragon Nest is the farthest thing away from the archer archetype, but at least they still use their bow to shoot.

Wondrouswall.7169:

mistsim.2748:

and the smokescale’s smoke field would be huge for us. I certainly hope we can interact with that field. now that you mention it though, this sounds a bit too good to be true because it would give us an insane amount of stealth. one idea would be to simply give it a long CD, maybe 1 min.

Why would you want to increase the CD of the Smokescale’s F2 when it’s on par in both duration and cooldown with the other utilities that provide a smoke field? It’s a 5-sec field on a 25-sec cooldown.

I don’t want to do that. but I’m just saying a smoke field on a 25s cd is very, very strong, given how many blast and leap finishers we have. the smoke field in itself is enough for me to pick the pet without caring much for its other abilities. it’s too good to be true.

mistsim.2748:

I don’t want to do that. but I’m just saying a smoke field on a 25s cd is very, very strong, given how many blast and leap finishers we have.

Really? Compared to Thief or an Engineer…

…Really…

Would be great if F3 allows us to position our pets like ventari tablet.

Then toggle pet passive/aggressive key can be used to command the pet to retreat or attack.

Then we would free up F1. Hmmm..

Just making a note that the reason Invigorating Bond had an ICD is because with the Beastmastery line and a hawk or eagle you could pump out 2.5k heals every 4 3/4 ish seconds. Some pet skill recharges are just too low for that not to have an ICD.

There are some pretty good ideas floating around in here. I like that especially some of mistsim suggestions.

Here is a list of changes in reguarding shouts that I was saving for a rainy day.

I think shouts really don’t do what they should with the exception of sickem. I also dont kinda like resounding timber either. Here how I would change/envision them.

Guard

Guard should be area denial. Be it for holding a point or stoping an advancement. Guard currently only serves to set up taunts or apply regen. Here is how I would change that:

Tooltip: You mark the ground and your pet actively guards an area. While your pet is in the area, it gains defensive boons and attempts to knock opponents out of the area.

• Removed stealth and protection for player
• Guard zone radius 600
• Denies cap
• Modified Pet gains retaliation in addition to protection while in the area
• Added Pet gains knockback attack(unblockable) ever two seconds while in the area.
• Pet attacks the target closets to the center of the guarded area. Retuns to center if there are opponents in its radius
• if the pet leaves the guarded area, guard is ended.
• Duration: 12 seconds.
• cooldown : 30 seconds

This allows the pet to defend an area by pushing targets out and not being allowed to be bursted while on its point. Additionally the guard has counterplay here, as the pet can be cc’d out of its defending area thus ending the skill. Rangers telling their pet to return or attack a target would also do the same if the pet left the guarded area

Protect Me

Protect me could be an awesome skill but currently it kills our main mechanic and we have a signet that does a similar job. I would alter the skills intention to be protect us allowing the skill to be used on allies and provide a heal functionality that rewards us both on the pet dying or managing to get through the skill duration.

Protect Us

Tooltip: Instead of attacking your pet channels taking all damage for a target. At the end of the channel your pet heals both the target and the pet for half the amount of damage. If the pet dies, the target is healed the full amount of damage taken.

• capture prevention removed.
• channel duration 5 seconds.
• Stunbreaks target
• if no target is selected assumed self cast.
• can only target allies.

This allows our pet to protect any target not just our selves. It gives some play and use out of the fact that our pet may die for using the skill. Also it adds some counter play by allowing the pet to be interrupted.

Search and rescue

Currently this skill is lack luster because the pet can be cleaved or stunned out its cast.

Tooltip: your pet seeks out and revive allies.

• pet pulses every 3 seconds granting stability and agis on its self for every downed friendly in the area.
• max target 2 .
• Duration 15 seconds.

These changes allow the skill to actually function, the pet can res without being interrupted and will be more effective at not being cleaved down during the skill duration.

Sickem

I personally like sickem. The damage increase and stealth reveal are nice. I would suggest exactly what mistism has above.

We Heal as One

With the whole recent buff/nerf diabolical, I think the idea of coping boons to the pet is a great idea, but we have a trait that already does this in an unpopular line. I think this updated version of the heal could function alongside the trait or provide a much needed gap for those who do not go down nature magic.

• Removed copy duration caps.
• Copies boons from player to pet only.

This allows our pet to effectively be the sixth party member by getting the boons we have.

Resounding Timbre

Personally, the regen feels too passive and to long. While I like the swiftness I feel it is out of place as we already have tones of mobility. Currently I think ranger would add a lot more to a group if it had furry for the group and it would synergize well with remorseless.

Trait tootip: Shouts apply regen and furry to allies. Shouts reduced by 20%.

• Halved the regen duration but adjusted the regen amount to be 75% of the current.
• swiftness changed furry application.

mistsim.2748:

Wondrouswall.7169:

mistsim.2748:

and the smokescale’s smoke field would be huge for us. I certainly hope we can interact with that field. now that you mention it though, this sounds a bit too good to be true because it would give us an insane amount of stealth. one idea would be to simply give it a long CD, maybe 1 min.

Why would you want to increase the CD of the Smokescale’s F2 when it’s on par in both duration and cooldown with the other utilities that provide a smoke field? It’s a 5-sec field on a 25-sec cooldown.

I don’t want to do that. but I’m just saying a smoke field on a 25s cd is very, very strong, given how many blast and leap finishers we have. the smoke field in itself is enough for me to pick the pet without caring much for its other abilities. it’s too good to be true.

It’s actually a 20s cd (assuming BM wasn’t slotted, which it does not appear to be so from the trait review) as seen on the video reveal which could be 16s with BM line so it could be up pretty frequently.

Mcrocha.3891:

It’s actually a 20s cd (assuming BM wasn’t slotted, which it does not appear to be so from the trait review) as seen on the video reveal which could be 16s with BM line so it could be up pretty frequently.

Yes, I had to re-watch the footage out of curiosity. It seems Irenio had Marksmanship, Skirmishing, and Druid trait lines slotted throughout the stream: Even better that the base duration is 20s. >:)

Pets ARE the core of the class. Fix pets, you fix the class. Mostly. Shouts, etc, still need reworked, but pets are what’s holding us back.

Ever since GW1 (11 years now!) pets have not been able to move while attacking. They move to the target, stop, attack, then move again. Against a target that’s in motion, they will be constantly falling behind. This means they are constantly playing catch up. BM is basically mandatory now, cause taking the whole trait line is the only way to get the 30% pet run buff. Without that speed buff, pets spend so little time on target that you are losing nearly all of their DPS. That’s class destroying. Even with the buff, their DPS uptime is pitifully low. With 30 to 50% of our DPS trapped in the pet, this is unnacceptable. The class CAN NOT be balanced while this issue exists.

The bottom line is, pets MUST be fixed. Anet has said they can’t do it, that pets are tied to creature AI and that requires rewriting the whole game. In this case, they need to redesign the class so it doesn’t rely on the pet anymore. If the pet can’t be fixed, the Ranger needs a complete bottom to top rework. A pet class with a terrible pet is a terrible class.