Guild Wars 2

So, if any of you were following the Dec 10 preview, you should know that one thing Jon Peters spoke about was improving the number of viable builds for all classes. Certain classes, such as the ele and thief, received huge buffs to their class mechanics, notably an increase in base initiative regeneration and an increase in base attunement recharge rate. I don’t expect any changes to our pet ai, but there are a number of things they could do to make certain builds more viable.

One problem we tend to have is that we must spend lots of trait points to make our utility viable. Spirit traits are already being addressed in the next patch, but they must’ve forgotten about traps, signet actives, and shouts. We also lack on demand condition removal. The only (somewhat) reliable form of condition removal we have is empathetic bond, which essentially requires us to put 30 points into wilderness survival to have it.

The signet problem is the simplest of them all. Signet builds have been buffed significantly since launch, and now have fair cooldowns and strong might stacking abilities. But unfortunately, to even make the build viable you need a grandmaster trait. I know it sounds crazy (sarcasm), but the trait needs to be removed and active effects of signets need to always affect us, similarly to every other class in the game. I know our actives are generally stronger than those of other classes as well, but we have long cool downs to make up for that.

The trap problem is pretty simple as well. Unless traited, traps are just weak. Three stacks of bleeding for five seconds and a meager two second cripple? No thanks. If traited, traps can be strong, especially is sPvP, but once again, this requires you to spend 30 points in skirmishing. There’s also a double irony here as traps, logically, should take time to prepare and are something used in a defensive scenario, being meant for your survival. But for whatever reason they’re been placed in the skirmishing line, a line meant for quick, offensive abilities. It would make sense for them to be moved in the WS line, but I think this is too much balancing for a-net to handle. Therefore, I’ve devised a simple solution which kills two birds in one stone. First, swap Trapper’s Defense with Trapper’s Expertise. This way, Trapper’s Expertise is now in the adept trait line. Then, swap the condition duration affect of Trap Potency with the radius increase of Trapper’s Expertise. Now, Trapper’s Expertise is in the adept, doubles condition durations of traps and gives them ground targeting, while Trap’s Potency increases trap radius and decreases recharge. Lastly, add an additional function to Trap Potency which causes it to transfer one of your conditions to an enemy when traps are activated. With this change, a mere 10 points is needed to make traps VIABLE. Not max them, but make them actually useable. It also gives traps rangers a reliable form of condition removal. Simple, effective, not OP.

Some of our weapons need an unfair amount of trait point usage to achieve maximum efficiency. Some of them also have their related traits in different trait lines (notably the LB and SB). Once again, there is a simple solution. Quick Draw NEEDS to be merged into Piercing arrows. The warrior has this exact god kitten trait with the rifle. It’s really annoying trying to make a longbow build when you need to spend FIFTY trait points to achieve all its kitten. Same goes for the short bow except it requires only forty. Why a trait that affects bows is not in the MARKSMANSHIP trait line, I do not know. But this is a change which seriously needs to happen. Fifty trait points is a complete joke. If we want to fully trait bows, then we should only need to spend 30 trait points in marksmanship. I don’t know what trait would replace quick draw should it be merged, but I know you guys can be creative, so it shouldn’t be too hard. I would’ve also suggested merging martial mastery with two handed training, but since the latter trait is getting a buff, we’ll have to see how that plays out.

Shouts are a fairly complex problem. Some of them sound useful on paper (Protect Me, Search and Rescue) but due to poor pet ai, they become useless. Sick em was recently buffed to be a counter to stealth, and I like the concept, but for whatever reason, if you change your pets target or call him back to you, he loses the damage and speed buff. So right there you can lose a forty second recharge utility due to merely pressing f1 or f3. Not only that, but there is NO point in taking this trait if you aren’t using a dps pet, such as a cat or bird. Search and Rescue was much better when it allowed pets to revive dead allies, but that was nerfed. It still sounds fairly useful, but once again pet ai compounds this problem. Using the skill sometimes results in your pet doing nothing. It also has an incredibly high cool down. Protect me can essentially be pet suicide if you’re pet isn’t tanky or if you aren’t bm, and that can leave us lacking a chunk of our dps. The answers to these problems do not lie within improving pet ai, since it is not on A-nets list of things to improve. It simply lies with making the skills much more useful, and no, perma regen and swiftness does not solve this problem. It simply made guard useful for spamming. Back on topic, shout improvement can be achieved in a number of ways. I think that first of all, search and rescue and guard should be scrapped completely. Guard’s function is entirely useless and search and rescue is extremely unreliable. Guard should be replaced with some skill that improves your survivability through boons or condition removal. It just needs a real function and not to be used for simply regen and swiftness spamming. Seriously, you guys know that that is it’s only function besides serving as an example of poor balancing. Search and Rescue can be replaced in any manner you want. I’ve got no suggestions for it other than the fact that it must go. Protect me is fine, but it really needs to not result in pet suicide. Not only that, but why must this skill stop our pets from attacking? So we become immune to damage, only to deal less damage for its duration and potentially a whole minute/twenty seconds? Meanwhile, classes like the mesmer and warrior can easily achieve damage immunity through skills and class mechanics without having to sacrifice. And lastly, if our pet is dead, every single one of these skills becomes useless. I’m going to end the shout section there, but you guys really need to improve them.

The last thing I want to talk about is also the most important thing I am going to talk about. Empathetic bond. It is our kittening lifeline in spvp and wvw. We are literally forced to go 30 points into wilderness survival because we lack condition removal. I know that other classes are also forced to 30 in certain trait lines such as the thief and ele, but they are getting buffed next patch so they won’t be as dependent in it. We need this buff too. Not only that, but if our pet dies, this trait becomes completely USELESS. a GRANDMASTER trait STOPS WORKING if our pets dies. This is a humongous no no. Our only forms of on demand condition removal are unreliable as well. Healing spring requires you to stand in its field for 10 seconds. Skilled players can knock you, AoE the field, fear you out etc… Recently it’s condition removal ability was buffed by condensing the time frame in which it removes conditions, but in turn it’s vigor pulsing was completely nerfed and so was the duration, which in turn left us with less dodges to avoid further conditions and less time to leap/blast the water field. Signet of the Wild’s reliability is ruined by no other than our pets. If our pet is dead or not within 600 range of us, the skill does nothing and goes on recharge. But if our pet is not dead and his/her swap is on recharge, you might as well kiss him/her goodbye as he/she recieves the conditions which were about to eat right through you. Let me show you how many other classes can remove all their conditions without any consequences.

Consume Conditions (Necro) – Removes all conditions, heals, and then heals for each one removed.

Ether Renewal (Ele) – Removes one condition per pulse and heals, 8 pulses over four seconds. Doesn’t remove all condition but removes more than our healing spring in a much shorter time span and has a recharge time of a mere 15 seconds,

Elixir C (Engi) – Converts all conditions into kittening BOONS. FORTY second recharge time.

Contemplation of Purity (Guard) – Converts all conditions into even more boons!

Signet of Stamina (War) – Aside from a wonderous 50% endurance regen (which we will no longer have), removes all conditions on a 45 second cooldown.

Honorable mention, Null Field (Mesmer) – Removes boons from enemies and conditions from allies. One per pulse, five second duration, 40 second cool down.

There you have it. Lot’s of classes can do what we can do way better than we can do it (not surprisingly…) Arenanet, there are a multitude of ways to fix this. Like I said earlier, replace some of our pointless utlilities with condition removal. Add condition removal to some of our traits. Just do SOMETHING. We’ve had a lot of the same problems since launch. You talk of wanting to improve our viability, so you go and buff useless traits so they become slightly less useless and then nerf some our more powerful abilities because why the kitten not. I’m voicing my concerns in one big kitten thread because I really am tired of having these issues. I’ll agree, other classes suffer them as well, but I firmly believe we have it the worst.

Thanks for reading mates.

Spot on with the trap suggestions. It’s ridiculous that we need a minimum of twenty points in a trait line to make our utilities worthwhile.

I’d also love to have more flow with some of our weapon skills. For example the longbow, everyone wants to change the fifth ability on it. I have two ideas for it;
A) Make it castable on the move and improve its damage, or pulse speed.
B) Remove the current skill and give it to us as a utility, “Call Barrage” is more feasible than firing one hundred arrows on our own anyway. Make the new 5 skill something that makes us feared on the battlefield rather than some quaggan stew. “Vital Strike” as I shall call it for the time being should be something well telegraphed like the warriors killshot. So it doesn’t become OP with our signets(150% damage anyone?)give it a 2 second charge or something, I just want a skill that hits like a brick and synergises. Imaging using the 4 to make room, stealthing with 3 to charge up a 7k single target ability.

Good ideas anyway, us rangers need some love. Especially our utilities, diversity and pets.

Edit: typed on a tablet, might of made some mistakes.

Benjamin.8237:

Spot on with the trap suggestions. It’s ridiculous that we need a minimum of twenty points in a trait line to make our utilities worthwhile.

I’d also love to have more flow with some of our weapon skills. For example the longbow, everyone wants to change the fifth ability on it. I have two ideas for it;
A) Make it castable on the move and improve its damage, or pulse speed.
B) Remove the current skill and give it to us as a utility, “Call Barrage” is more feasible than firing one hundred arrows on our own anyway. Make the new 5 skill something that makes us feared on the battlefield rather than some quaggan stew. “Vital Strike” as I shall call it for the time being should be something well telegraphed like the warriors killshot. So it doesn’t become OP with our signets(150% damage anyone?)give it a 2 second charge or something, I just want a skill that hits like a brick and synergises. Imaging using the 4 to make room, stealthing with 3 to charge up a 7k single target ability.

Good ideas anyway, us rangers need some love. Especially our utilities, diversity and pets.

Edit: typed on a tablet, might of made some mistakes.

Thanks for then support mate. But many of our utilities require 30 trait points to max them and make them viable instead of twenty. I think it would be sweet to give the LB a really high damage skill, and that points to replacing rapid fire if you ask me.

Soilder.3607:

Thanks for the support, but we actually need 30 trait points to make traps viable right now.

I was referring to other lines also, but I 100% agree that our need of 30 in lines to make traps viable, or to Condi cleanse is silly. Hopefully someone will see this…we can hope.

Simple changes to make Ranger viable (as a roaming class in wvw)
-Better and more shared utility with the pet – such as sharing stealth with the black panther’s F2. Give one of the bears an aggro F2 roar that forces enemy minions/phantasms/clones to attack it.
-Have traps transfer conditions.
-Some access to faster weapon swapping, either via traits, or on weapon abilities that would reset weapon swap cd.

Remove the death penalty of pet swapping. There is no reason why any class should have it’s entire profession mechanic disabled for a whole minute, ESPECIALLY considering how kittening lackluster is it. 20 seconds is discipline enough.

DiamondMeteor.8345:

Remove the death penalty of pet swapping. There is no reason why any class should have it’s entire profession mechanic disabled for a whole minute, ESPECIALLY considering how kittening lackluster is it. 20 seconds is discipline enough.

I understand the frustration but I’m only talking about increasing the viability of certain builds. Pet issues are a whole nother thing, and while I did mention them, that was only to show how their poor ai affects certain builds.

while i can agree to most of these issues, i disagree with some of your points. Namely, i disagree with the fact that we have a grandmaster trait that kills our pets, yet it is the only reliable condition removal we got.

I also disagree with the removal of guard, however, merging it at Protect me would be a nice move. Allowing for a % of damage being transfered from player to pet, or, on-demand aegis and protection for both ranger and pet (which would be incredibly useful in all aspects of the game)