Guild Wars 2

So if anyone from Arena Net actually ganders at this thread, here is how you fix rangers:

Pets:

• In PvE, pet’s no longer take AoE damage, pet’s only take AoE damage when their masters do (equal amount). This prevents pets from dying to any bosses AoE if the master gets out of the way.
• Improve pet AI, or allow micro-managing of ALL pet skills.
  -To add to this: Pet F2 skills should cancel out any skill the pet is currently using, and have priority.

Spirits:

• Spirits need an improved passive buff, increase all spirit duration’s by:
  -Frost Spirit: Increase damage on hit to 25%
  -Stone Spirit: Increase protection duration to 5 seconds, lower internal cooldown to 8 seconds. Activating this spirit breaks stun and grants all allies in the area Aegis for 10 seconds.
  -Sun Spirit: Change to; when allies attack they have an x% chance of granting might to themselves. Make it’s activation a Fire Field.
  -Storm Spirit: Change to; Allies have x% chance to blind foe when attacking, Make the internal cooldown 15 seconds. Swiftness is useless in dungeons, as other classes can provide much better support with it.
• Add a stunbreaker to the spirits line, earth spirit activation for example.
• Increase spirits ARMOR rating, not health. Health does nothing when they have no armor. Or make spirits like Warrior banners, unkillable/targetable.

Wilderness Survival Skills:

• Quickening Zephyr; reduce duration to 4 seconds, this skill now heals for you for only 50% while active, increase quickness speed to 75%.
• Lightning Reflexes; reduce cooldown to 30 seconds. Remove damage (it’s superfluous). At the end of the roll, grants all allies vigor for 5 seconds. Allow this skill to be used instantly while knocked down (I think this is a bug currently, it has a cooldown if you’re KD’d).

Weapons:

• Longbow; reduce cooldowns, increase flight speed of arrows, improve damage. There is no reason why Rapid Fire should hit for only 8k in a full berserker build (using the most DPS-oriented set) for a 5 second cast time. Auto attack can do better, assuming max range.
• Warhorn; lower Call of the Wild’s cooldown to 30 seconds. Increase all boons duration to 20 seconds (make it a longer cooldown “For Great Justice”).
• Warhorn; lower Hunter’s Call cooldown to 20 seconds, and inflict bleeding and blind to target (the blind only triggers on the initial hit, the bleed triggers every time damage is inflicted).
• Shortbow; improve bleed duriation on Crossfire or remove the flanking and lower the bleed duriation.
• Shortbow; make Poison Volley a ground-targetable AoE Poison Field (yes I realize poison field is the worst combo field, still an improvement).

Elites:

• Entangle; this is more of a “nerf,” but allow the roots to be more easily targetable.
• Rampage As One; lower cooldown to 80 seconds, allow it to change between pets on swap, increase might duration to 10 seconds.
• Spirit Of Nature; this spirit now moves with master regardless of trait. The spirit now passively revives DEAD allies (not instant revive). Activating the spirit is still the same, revives downed allies. Increase passive heal to 450 (I realize it is 480 now, it’s most likely a bug, tooltip says 320 is the supposed heal).

Now I will pitch an idea for another Elite Skill, this one will remove the pet from the ranger and add in stances. I really hate the fact that Arena Net decided to go all “naturey” with Rangers, as historically, rangers weren’t druids at all. They were considered to be scouts, wildmen, and sharpshooters who essentially lived near enemy encampments or scouted the road ahead. I am basing these skills off Stances from the original Guild Wars, as I’m saddened that there is a lack of them in GW2. These stances will go up top where the pet’s UI was.

Stances:

• Elite: Practiced Stance; the ranger recalls his pet and is granted stances in place. While in this mode rangers have their base stats increased by 100 each. Upon cancelling this skill the ranger is unable to call a pet for 90 seconds.

-Sniper’s Stance; for 10 seconds, increases the range of bow attacks by 300m, while in this stance you have an additional 10% chance of dealing a critical hit. 20 second cooldown.
-Tiger’s Fury; for 3 seconds you gain quickness and deal 10% additional damage, however you are unable to move. 20 second cooldown.
-Dodge; you gain swiftness for 5 seconds and evade all attacks, Dodge ends if you attack. 30 second cooldown.
-Nature’s Blessing; grants you and all allies regeneration for 5 seconds and removes a condition every second. 30 second cooldown.

These stances are pretty balanced, each having their own checks and balances, while still remaining playable and fair. You may also only have one stance active at a time (you can’t stack snipers and tiger’s fury for example).

P.S. Sill waiting on Linnes Zoo ;_;

I agree with most of the suggestions you made, although a few might be a bit over-powered. Pets/Spirits immune to AOE, improving Lightning Reflexes (should break immobilize IMO), Hunter’s Call applying some sort of condition (blind, confusion, bleeding), and longbow improvements are all things I would really like to see.

I think we need some trait-line improvements as well, but any of the simple improvements above would be great.

jwaz.1908:

I agree with most of the suggestions you made, although a few might be a bit over-powered. Pets/Spirits immune to AOE, improving Lightning Reflexes (should break immobilize IMO), Hunter’s Call applying some sort of condition (blind, confusion, bleeding), and longbow improvements are all things I would really like to see.

I think we need some trait-line improvements as well, but any of the simple improvements above would be great.

I agree that a couple may be overpowered, but when you think about it, warriors and guardians can literally do the EXACT same thing, and for the most part, with a balanced traitline. Because as it stands now, Rangers have literally no group support apart from torch fire field and Healing Spring water field.

“when the ranger dodges the pet also dodges” for me thats all we need for pet survivability, nothing that would require traiting either, as for something traited :“when the ranger gains evasion the pet also gains evasion” (eg. from weapon skills)

Doomslay.3504:

“when the ranger dodges the pet also dodges” for me thats all we need for pet survivability, nothing that would require traiting either, as for something traited :“when the ranger gains evasion the pet also gains evasion” (eg. from weapon skills)

The main problem with this, is that if you have an AoE circle next to your pet for example, but not next to you, are you going to want to waste a pet swap or a dodge on this? Take Subject Alpha for example on this. Sure, his dodges are easy for a single person, but once you start micro-managing yourself AND a pet, it’s gonna get rough. This being said, your pet is gonna die on Alpha anyways 80% of the time so it’s not like anything new is happening.

Doomslay.3504:

“when the ranger dodges the pet also dodges” for me thats all we need for pet survivability, nothing that would require traiting either, as for something traited :“when the ranger gains evasion the pet also gains evasion” (eg. from weapon skills)

This could be one solution to pets in dungeons, the only problem I have is that the ranger himself must waste his endurance, as well as constantly watch his pet (in a sea of particle effects).

I would much prefer if all pets were just immune to AOE, since many dungeon mobs and bosses have AOE abilities that 1 shot pets.

jwaz.1908:

Doomslay.3504:

“when the ranger dodges the pet also dodges” for me thats all we need for pet survivability, nothing that would require traiting either, as for something traited :“when the ranger gains evasion the pet also gains evasion” (eg. from weapon skills)

This could be one solution to pets in dungeons, the only problem I have is that the ranger himself must waste his endurance, as well as constantly watch his pet (in a sea of particle effects).

I would much prefer if all pets were just immune to AOE, since many dungeon mobs and bosses have AOE abilities that 1 shot pets.

But that would dumb down the class quite a bit since you wouldn’t have to worry about your pet anymore, I think the change I suggested would give some depth to pet management, and I dont think it would be that hard to watch your pet since most of the times you will be both in harm’s way, hence your dodging to save yourself will save your pet as well, but these are just my 2 cents

Linnes.2678:

Doomslay.3504:

“when the ranger dodges the pet also dodges” for me thats all we need for pet survivability, nothing that would require traiting either, as for something traited :“when the ranger gains evasion the pet also gains evasion” (eg. from weapon skills)

The main problem with this, is that if you have an AoE circle next to your pet for example, but not next to you, are you going to want to waste a pet swap or a dodge on this? Take Subject Alpha for example on this. Sure, his dodges are easy for a single person, but once you start micro-managing yourself AND a pet, it’s gonna get rough. This being said, your pet is gonna die on Alpha anyways 80% of the time so it’s not like anything new is happening.

In such case it really depends on whether the ranger is willing to sacrifice half his endurance, or keep it for himself and just swap pets, which like I said gives a bit more depth to pet management, I personally would since it would keep my damage output at its optimum, and hopefully I would still have enough endurance for myself, but it’s situational.

Doomslay.3504:

jwaz.1908:

Doomslay.3504:

“when the ranger dodges the pet also dodges” for me thats all we need for pet survivability, nothing that would require traiting either, as for something traited :“when the ranger gains evasion the pet also gains evasion” (eg. from weapon skills)

This could be one solution to pets in dungeons, the only problem I have is that the ranger himself must waste his endurance, as well as constantly watch his pet (in a sea of particle effects).

I would much prefer if all pets were just immune to AOE, since many dungeon mobs and bosses have AOE abilities that 1 shot pets.

But that would dumb down the class quite a bit since you wouldn’t have to worry about your pet anymore, I think the change I suggested would give some depth to pet management, and I dont think it would be that hard to watch your pet since most of the times you will be both in harm’s way, hence your dodging to save yourself will save your pet as well, but these are just my 2 cents

I agree with that you and your pet are most likely dodging at the same time, but I did state the changes would be for pve only, in which your pet has the hardest time dealing with survivability. Even a Brown bear with it’s 26k health STILL gets two or three shotted by most AoE attacks.

UPDATED THE LIST WITH A FEW MORE SKILL IDEAS***

Bumpity bump.
/15char

If this is all for PvE then I can’t comment since I don’t participate.

Hopefully you don’t want any of this applied to WvW ….the only “fix” I want in WvW is to not get nerfed. …which I fear might happen.

Forzani.2584:

If this is all for PvE then I can’t comment since I don’t participate.

Hopefully you don’t want any of this applied to WvW ….the only “fix” I want in WvW is to not get nerfed. …which I fear might happen.

Rangers main problem IS in PvE… we’re borderline useless. PvP rangers are still pretty balanced though. As for WvW, you might as well just become an arrow cart.

Hawk/eagle “Lacerating Slash” needs to be nerfed very slightly and then switched with “Quickening Screech,” making “Quickening Screech” the hawk/eagle special on-command ability.

-Frost Spirit: Increase damage on hit to 25%
-Too large of an increase.
-Stone Spirit: Increase protection duration to 5 seconds, lower internal cooldown to 8 seconds. Activating this spirit breaks stun and grants all allies in the area Aegis for 10 seconds.
-Protection is really strong, this will grant a possibility of over 50% uptime of protection for anyone without 900m of the pet, that is overpowered.
-Sun Spirit: Change to; when allies attack they have an x% chance of granting might to themselves. Make it’s activation a Fire Field.
This is a nerf, the burn is gives is huge and also applies to pets and other friendly NPCs
-Storm Spirit: Change to; Allies have x% chance to blind foe when attacking, Make the internal cooldown 15 seconds. Swiftness is useless in dungeons, as other classes can provide much better support with it.
Blind is something that needs timing to be useful, especially with a 15s cooldown this is a very weak ability

I actually think spirits are in a reasonable place with their actives and passives, the problem lies within their supporting traits, the mostly do not help so I suggest the following:

• A Trait that allows you to fire the spirit actives from a distance (like throw trap), which also lowers activation time of the ability (2s for a tiny aoe on the spirit that has weak strength?) while keeping the spirit rez on the 2s build up.
• A Trait that allows you to pick up spirits (similar to engies and turrets) to reposition them.
• A Trait which lowers the proc cooldown duration.
• A defined radius affect for the buff area visible to allies (not enemies)
  This would allow you to place them out of harms way, you won’t have to deal with huge health issues for the pets and you can be rewarded for placing them smartly. I think it is a fair deal, because right now you either make them impossible to deal with 1v1 or you make them useless in a team fight for which they were designed.

• Lightning Reflexes; reduce cooldown to 30 seconds. Remove damage (it’s superfluous). At the end of the roll, grants all allies vigor for 5 seconds. Allow this skill to be used instantly while knocked down (I think this is a bug currently, it has a cooldown if you’re KD’d).
  No, Lightning reflexes cooldown is still very low for a stun break and also has an attached evade with vigor. You cannot give it that vigor buff, it is unwarranted. It is already taken by every single BM Ranger which is the most player Ranger profession in sPvP and this will make it even stronger. So no this is a bad idea. I think the problem you are having is you cannot stun break a knockBACK until you hit the ground, I don’t know if that is operating properly at all but its a common thing shared by all stun breaks.

• Warhorn; lower Call of the Wild’s cooldown to 30 seconds. Increase all boons duration to 20 seconds (make it a longer cooldown “For Great Justice”).
  Warhorn is sufficiently Strong, not needed.
• Warhorn; lower Hunter’s Call cooldown to 20 seconds, and inflict bleeding and blind to target (the blind only triggers on the initial hit, the bleed triggers every time damage is inflicted).
  Warhorn is not a condition weapon, in fact hunter’s call was one of the reasons why they put a CD on earth runes, I don’t think they are going to give it auto bleed procs now, it would be OP, Also for the damage it does in power builds it falls in line with what condi weapons do in condition spec.
• Shortbow changes.
  No

Elites:

• Rampage As One; lower cooldown to 80 seconds, allow it to change between pets on swap, increase might duration to 10 seconds.
  Just wanted to highlight my agreement on this one
• Spirit Of Nature; this spirit now moves with master regardless of trait. The spirit now passively revives DEAD allies (not instant revive). Activating the spirit is still the same, revives downed allies. Increase passive heal to 450 (I realize it is 480 now, it’s most likely a bug, tooltip says 320 is the supposed heal).
  Any Spirit moving with the master is a bad idea, refer to earlier spirit ideas.

Stances:

• Elite: Practiced Stance; the ranger recalls his pet and is granted stances in place. While in this mode rangers have their base stats increased by 100 each. Upon cancelling this skill the ranger is unable to call a pet for 90 seconds.
  Problems with the stances you pitched, there is no condition bonus in there at all, Rangers do not need more dodge (Especially morseo since it is a bonus 16% uptime itself). I do like how you added in a way to haste stomp again without the utility.

Master’s Bond:

Riddle me this: I am “25 stack” bonded with my pet. We take a swim or we teleport to a new place. Suddenly, I am no longer bonded with the pet? Please fix this. The times I should lose “bond” is death or logging out.

Fixing the ranger is simple:

Make spirits on par with Warrior Banners

Make pets utility first, damage second (basically completely redo the F2s, make them insta-cast, lower cooldowns with interesting effects such as combofields, heals, multiple boons), and bring up the Rangers damage to compensate for diminished pets.

Gives pets endurance or link them to your endurance/dodges.

That downed skill that teleports the pet to you to heal you? Instead make it teleport to you and you gain full control of your pet, so you can do what you want with it while your body lays there, inc healing yourself reliably if you want.

Taym.8326:

• Lightning Reflexes; reduce cooldown to 30 seconds. Remove damage (it’s superfluous). At the end of the roll, grants all allies vigor for 5 seconds. Allow this skill to be used instantly while knocked down (I think this is a bug currently, it has a cooldown if you’re KD’d).
  No, Lightning reflexes cooldown is still very low for a stun break and also has an attached evade with vigor. You cannot give it that vigor buff, it is unwarranted. It is already taken by every single BM Ranger which is the most player Ranger profession in sPvP and this will make it even stronger. So no this is a bad idea. I think the problem you are having is you cannot stun break a knockBACK until you hit the ground, I don’t know if that is operating properly at all but its a common thing shared by all stun breaks.

• Warhorn; lower Call of the Wild’s cooldown to 30 seconds. Increase all boons duration to 20 seconds (make it a longer cooldown “For Great Justice”).
  Warhorn is sufficiently Strong, not needed.
• Warhorn; lower Hunter’s Call cooldown to 20 seconds, and inflict bleeding and blind to target (the blind only triggers on the initial hit, the bleed triggers every time damage is inflicted).
  Warhorn is not a condition weapon, in fact hunter’s call was one of the reasons why they put a CD on earth runes, I don’t think they are going to give it auto bleed procs now, it would be OP, Also for the damage it does in power builds it falls in line with what condi weapons do in condition spec.
• Shortbow changes.
  No

On Lightning Reflex: 1.) Beast Masters are not the primary PvP ranger build, trappers are. 2) There are classes that have access to MUCH shorter and MUCH more used stunbreakers than LR. LR is our last decent stunbreaker. Every class has access to vigor already, again this is just adding more utility. LR in itself is stitutional to use, you can severely mess up point holding in tpvp if you use it on-point while the enemy is there. That being said, I use LR as it stands and will continue to do so.

On Hunter’s Call: It does not have to be a primary condition weapon for blind to have use. It would give it more utility as a melee weapon overall. 5 stacks of bleed, that trigger on hit (so assuming the enemy does not dodge), you’re looking at 3 stacks of bleed by the time the duration is up on the skill. As for pure damage on it, rangers fail to hit any “major” damage cap, our most prominent damage is on Maul, which is overshadowed by a lot of other classes’ skills.

On Shortbow: The changes I suggested are so minor that it really would not affect the overall gameplay of it. So what? I’m adding in a poison field, the worst field in the game, a field that thieves already have. It’s not going to overpower the bow at all, just give it more diversity.

Taym.8326:

-Frost Spirit: Increase damage on hit to 25%
-Too large of an increase.
-Stone Spirit: Increase protection duration to 5 seconds, lower internal cooldown to 8 seconds. Activating this spirit breaks stun and grants all allies in the area Aegis for 10 seconds.
-Protection is really strong, this will grant a possibility of over 50% uptime of protection for anyone without 900m of the pet, that is overpowered.
-Sun Spirit: Change to; when allies attack they have an x% chance of granting might to themselves. Make it’s activation a Fire Field.
This is a nerf, the burn is gives is huge and also applies to pets and other friendly NPCs
-Storm Spirit: Change to; Allies have x% chance to blind foe when attacking, Make the internal cooldown 15 seconds. Swiftness is useless in dungeons, as other classes can provide much better support with it.
Blind is something that needs timing to be useful, especially with a 15s cooldown this is a very weak ability

On Frost Spirit: You do know with the internal cooldown and proc chance that the damage increase is only 3-7% as it stands right now (untraited and traited). That’s garbage, there is no notable increase at all with it.

On Earth Spirit: Again, as it stands now the current protection is not worth mentioning, considering that guardians can give their team protection by themselves, it’s not really a difference. Also, 80% of the mobs/bosses in this game are gigantic meat sacks, protection is only useful against that small 20% that actually dish out enormous damage (damage that just flips the bird to 3k armor).

On Sun Spirit: Might is in NO WAY a nerf. Might increases your overall DPS by a much larger amount than burning due to this simple fact: burning gets over-written. Look at it’s burn damage, it’s 980 over 3 seconds, At even 5 stacks of might you’re already increasing your damage output by a reasonable number, and it’s not shared amongst the team. The activation will provide burning AND a fire combo field (the second most valuable field, objectively first) to further increase might via blast finishers.

On Storm Spirit: So you’re saying that you’d rather take swiftness in a dungeon over blind, which is universally useful. Sure, it won’t be as good on champion/legendary mobs, but if you assume the average dungeon mob takes 10-20 seconds to kill, you’re going through the CD on it per mob, which IS good. Especially if you find yourself in multi-mob scenarios.

Taym.8326:

I actually think spirits are in a reasonable place with their actives and passives, the problem lies within their supporting traits, the mostly do not help so I suggest the following:

Make them less trait dependent, not more.

Straegen.2938:

Spirits should not take any damage and be on a timer similar to banners rather than have HP. Replace the spirit HP trait with a trait that extends the spirit timer. This would make them more group friendly.

Pets need to dodge when the owner does. I also think pets should have a guard owner state where the pet will attack anyone within melee range of the ranger in addition to attack and passive states. Frequently I just want my pet to guard me without having to micro manage.

Pet Attack/Passive switch needs its own key bind.

To add to this, when putting a pet away, attacking should not take out the pet.

yes and we should reduce the cast time of hundred blade

Lighter.5631:

yes and we should reduce the cast time of hundred blade

warriors please go haha.

Linnes.2678:

Every class has access to vigor already, again this is just adding more utility.

Just FYI necros have no access to vigor at all.

Disastro.4086:

Linnes.2678:

Every class has access to vigor already, again this is just adding more utility.

Just FYI necros have no access to vigor at all.

“What is boon stealing, Pat?”

You’re right though, by no normal means they have access to it. However they make up for the lowered dodge rate by having a higher base health.

Linnes.2678:

Now I will pitch an idea for another Elite Skill, this one will remove the pet from the ranger and add in stances. I really hate the fact that Arena Net decided to go all “naturey” with Rangers, as historically, rangers weren’t druids at all. They were considered to be scouts, wildmen, and sharpshooters who essentially lived near enemy encampments or scouted the road ahead. I am basing these skills off Stances from the original Guild Wars, as I’m saddened that there is a lack of them in GW2. These stances will go up top where the pet’s UI was.

Stances:

• Elite: Practiced Stance; the ranger recalls his pet and is granted stances in place. While in this mode rangers have their base stats increased by 100 each. Upon cancelling this skill the ranger is unable to call a pet for 90 seconds.

-Sniper’s Stance; for 10 seconds, increases the range of bow attacks by 300m, while in this stance you have an additional 10% chance of dealing a critical hit. 20 second cooldown.
-Tiger’s Fury; for 3 seconds you gain quickness and deal 10% additional damage, however you are unable to move. 20 second cooldown.
-Dodge; you gain swiftness for 5 seconds and evade all attacks, Dodge ends if you attack. 30 second cooldown.
-Nature’s Blessing; grants you and all allies regeneration for 5 seconds and removes a condition every second. 30 second cooldown.

These stances are pretty balanced, each having their own checks and balances, while still remaining playable and fair. You may also only have one stance active at a time (you can’t stack snipers and tiger’s fury for example).

P.S. Sill waiting on Linnes Zoo ;_;

While I like this, I think I would simply prefer the ability to “stow” a pet permanently (it doesn’t auto summon when you enter combat). While in this condition, the Ranger goes base stats appropriately to offset the lack of a pet. The pet is the one aspect of Ranger I like the least, and would love to have the option (so that those who enjoy pets can continue to do so) to run without one.

Fixing rangers? Stop balancing around PvP for one. (Seriously, in the last three hours, I’ve realised it’s the same about 25 posters posting about pvp in every single thread.)

1) Increase the longbow’s arrow flight speed.

2) Make Long Range Shot do static damage across it’s range. (and fix the animation so it actually IS 3/4s, instead of 1.5s)

3) Change the ranger:pet damage skew from 60:40 to 90:10 (Ideal would be making pets optional, but that’s not going to happen – so make them something you can ignore without gimping yourself unless you spec into BM)

4) Make spirits invulnerable. Change the trait that gives them more health into something that increases their range. (900-1200 range)

5) Change SoR active effect to “remove 3 conditions from you and your pet”. Remove the requirement of having a living companion to do this.

6) Pet AoE fix – give them the AI of the bandits in Queensdale – they regularly dodge from AoE on their own. If a pet had it’s own endurance bar, and this AI, it’d solve most of the pet/aoe issues.

Those changes alone would make me happy. Hell, 1,2 and 3 alone would make me happy enough to have to change my pants.

Linnes.2678:

“What is boon stealing, Pat?”

You’re right though, by no normal means they have access to it. However they make up for the lowered dodge rate by having a higher base health.

Necros do not boon steal. They can corrupt boons turning them into conditions. They do not receive any boons from the target. The only access they have vigor from is if a friendly player provides the buff.

The higher base health(warriors have same base health) really isn’t compensation the idea behind no vigor for necros is they can use death shroud to mitigate damage from the developers point of view as I believe this was stated before in one of the video interviews on gw2guru but that really is only a viable solution for certain builds with high life force generation it really is a problem for most builds not centered around LF generation. It’s one of those “it works on paper” things.

Sorry for the off-topic stuff.

I’m all for that elite. I love rangers in EVERY way cept pet… anything that allows me to stow it away all the time is fine byyyy me. Even if we have to lose an elite skill slot for it.

I listened to the State of the Game from April last night, and I heard them admit that Thief traits and other traits across other classes needed combining and reworking, so I hope that’s in the pipeline this summer.

Linnes.2678:

snip for 5000 chars

LR:
I do not know which level of PvP you play currently but about 95% of rangers that PvP are playing BM specs (on both NA and EU). The problem is the impact this will have for PvP, PvE can play with their own cooldown tweaks but this would make BM easier, more survivable and much more over the top. People already complain about their survivability and you want to bring their stun break down 20% in CD while also having access to a further 20% reduction from traits (24s stun break w/ evade, vigor and damage) That is completely overpowered.

Hunter’s Call:
It does not require a buff, in a power build it does almost the exact same damage as the big hits from rangers other weapons when they spec full condition without this buff. When you add on your intended changes there will be no contest, the earth runes in beta were give a CD because this ability made bleed stacking crazy, and now you would give it as a passive? no.

Shortbow:
Giving a decreased condition duration is a huge step which percentile wise hurts condition spec’d rangers (I know you are a power based ranger because you have tried to remove condi from everything on ranger). The arc is 30% from the front which is not difficult to do against NPCS, and gives some more interesting counterplay for rangers at distance making the shortbow a mid ranged weapon. When you say make it always proc bleeds you are dumbing down the profession and making it easier to play for everyone while lowering the ability of players to be better than another, it is a bad change.
Change two with the field is also a bad idea because rangers have access to an incredible amount of poison. When you place this on a field you will make people more comfortable with sitting at range and not mid-short range how most of the abilities on it were designed. I appreciate that they give you a 10s poison for properly using poison volley, taking a 3-5 second poison that will hit from range is another downgrade except for PvE that also stops people from performing at a higher level as the ability is now simple.

Linnes.2678:

snip for 5000 chars

Frost:
I didn’t say that frost did not need a boost, I just said that 25% is too much, and it applies aoe to the entire party (max 5). If you think about it logically 25% on some of the large hits that can happen in PvP would pretty much instant kill people. The game is not ready for that high of a buff, 7% to a party is plenty, if it was just one player I might agree that 25% is reasonable but it is not.

Earth Spirit:
4 seconds of protection on a 10 second cooldown is a massive uptime of protection to gain passively for a team. In PvE this might not seem like its that much of a big deal, in PvP any other class that could grant protection would immediately have an insane amount of protection.

Sun Spirit:
Might is an insane nerf, the damage granted by might to rangers is so insignificant when you compare it to the damage you can gain by burning. In a condition spec this is 600 per tick, which also is given to each pet, and a new one on pet swap. This can literally give the ranger a massive uptime on burns that is very hard to purge as it always goes back up again. Not only that but the entire team is applying it. This spirit is supposed to be a throw out to condition spec rangers, not modified to help Power, that is what the frost spirit is as 10% damage does not affect conditions.

Storm Spirit:
No I am saying I wouldn’t go in a dungeon at all in the first place. PvP where timing and such things matter throwing in random blinds which are highly situation dependant is not an ability that will ever be useful. I am not saying that swiftness is an amazing score for this spirit, but I am saying what you want is less useful than what it currently provides.

garethh.3518:

Make them less trait dependent, not more.

You can use them without traits right now, all I was saying is that when you trait into them you see pretty much no benefit for doing it. If you smartly place your spirits they will stay alive and contribute in PvP, if you place them stupidly and without thought or just take Spirits unbound, they are going to die.

My suggestion for SB.

Crossfire: Lower its damage to as low as it can be and remove flaking.

Poison Volley: Replace it completely… Would like a skill that is single target, moderate damage and sets foes on fire for 3-5sec.

Quick Shot: Remove swiftness if it hit and replace it it by poisoning your target for 6sec.

Crippling Shot: This skill is a joke… 3sec cripple LOLOL wtf were they thinking… Increase cripple for at least 6sec and gives three stacks of bleeding for 6sec, CD increased to 13sec.

Concussion Shot: Be like Magic Bullet on mez pistol but doesn’t bounce which means a 2sec stun from no matter where you hit your target from.

Now we’re talking about a powerful RANGED weapon that reminds me of what were bows in gw1.

Disastro.4086:

Linnes.2678:

“What is boon stealing, Pat?”

You’re right though, by no normal means they have access to it. However they make up for the lowered dodge rate by having a higher base health.

Necros do not boon steal. They can corrupt boons turning them into conditions. They do not receive any boons from the target. The only access they have vigor from is if a friendly player provides the buff.

Actually, necros can change a certain condition into vigor. It’s either poison or bleed that turn into it, so while they DO have access to it, it’s dependent on their enemy using the right condition on them.

Taym.8326:

Shortened

My biggest concern for your argument is that you didn’t fully read what I stated for shortbow: Either A.) Increase the bleed duration or B.) Remove the necessity for flanking and lower the bleed duration. Flanking is only useful on distracted enemies (meaning in pve you’re not going to get it off nearly as much) and in pvp a majority of the time the enemy is going to be facing you, especially in a 1v1.

I really think you’re missing the point where I was referring to pve rangers and not pvp. I have stated multiple times in this thread that pvp-wise, ranger’s are in a good place. You do realize that Arena Net HAS the capability to split the playstyles, yet they’re too kitten lazy to do it (I’m looking at you Izzy).

Also, I have played as a regen trap ranger in tpvp since beta. BM’s are pointless in tpvp where rangers excel at the annoyance role. Sure if you wanna join minigame hotjoin spvp, go for it, you can use the pre-made cookie-cutter build and still get kills.

I don’t understand, now this is my personal opinion, why Izzy got the job as the lead balancer in GW2 when he did such a poor job in GW1 that they shelfed him, it makes no sense.

the way to fix ranger is to remove stealth mechanic from the game… seriously this is the only thing that causes rangers and thier pets from bugging up

Linnes.2678:

fully read what I stated for shortbow: Either A.) Increase the bleed duration or B) Remove the necessity for flanking and lower the bleed duration. Flanking is only useful on distracted enemies (meaning in pve you’re not going to get it off nearly as much) and in pvp a majority of the time the enemy is going to be facing you, especially in a 1v1.

Also, I have played as a regen trap ranger in tpvp since beta. BM’s are pointless in tpvp where rangers excel at the annoyance role. Sure if you wanna join minigame hotjoin spvp, go for it, you can use the pre-made cookie-cutter build and still get kills.

I was referring to your proposal for B). Decreasing the duration while making it 100% proc is a nerf due to how easy it is to accomplish. You stand much to far away from the target with a skirmishing weapon, (yes the shortbow is skirmishing) in this range back attacks are literally one sidestep. The 15% arc from middle body to land the flanking is so simple, the only thing that makes sense is if you stand max range away from everyone. This also covers the poison volley change you wanted since you want a field which you can land at a large range and literally 1/2 the poison potential of the ability.

BM’s are probably the strongest offnode character at the moment (Debatable with another class but no one brings that specific build). The reason why trap ranger has fallen out of favor has been because of the relative forgiveness of BM builds and your dps is practically automated. Granted a trap ranger can still offpoint and be almost as effective as BM but can also assist in group combat much more readily than ranger. In the upper tier of players most of them have decided upon using the safer offnode instead of a more versatile one. I don’t know what players you are being matched against but it sure doesn’t look like any of the competition I see. If you don’t believe me look at the Master’s of the Mists tournament, I think every ranger in that tournament was BM spec (and the same BM spec). But I suppose you are correct and it is the hotjoin selection.

Note: I would suggest being more clear on your intention with the title, such as “PvE Changes to fix Ranger”. That would stop people like me from bothering you (and save me reading time), and you can all high five each other in peace.

I play 99% PvE and dungeons so… I’d be thoroughly happy with the class if we could perma-stow pets and gain a buff, even as an elite skill (it would be the only elite skill I’d ever use and it would be used 100% of the time). Also, hotkeying guard/attack instead of having to mouse click it. If spirits were just like warrior banners that’d be splendid. If they made it so that my pet didn’t auto unstow itself and start attacking when I was attacked or got attacked… goes back again to Jon Sharp saying we shouldn’t have too much control over our forced-to-have pets… Maybe then I’d put my warrrior on the shelf and start taking my ranger back into dungeons, but not before then.

Taym.8326:

I was referring to your proposal for. Decreasing the duration while making it 100% proc is a nerf due to how easy it is to accomplish. You stand much to far away from the target with a skirmishing weapon, (yes the shortbow is skirmishing) in this range back attacks are literally one sidestep. The 15% arc from middle body to land the flanking is so simple, the only thing that makes sense is if you stand max range away from everyone. This also covers the poison volley change you wanted since you want a field which you can land at a large range and literally 1/2 the poison potential of the ability.

Except for making the shortbow a close range weapon will get you destroyed by most melee classes (despite the regen, toughness, and health pool), who are also trying to flank you due to basic area control. It’s not nearly as simple as you state it, and I even tested this last night in duels. In no way is it a “simple strafe/sidestep.” The hitbox is literally that, a box, four sides.

For reference, I’ve drawn a diagram of the acceptable areas for you actually hit to trigger the effect. There is only a SLIGHT intersection in the front and sides for you to hit, as shown by the green circles.

Linnes.2678:

Except for making the shortbow a close range weapon will get you destroyed by most melee classes (despite the regen, toughness, and health pool), who are also trying to flank you due to basic area control. It’s not nearly as simple as you state it, and I even tested this last night in duels. In no way is it a “simple strafe/sidestep.” The hitbox is literally that, a box, four sides.

For reference, I’ve drawn a diagram of the acceptable areas for you actually hit to trigger the effect. There is only a SLIGHT intersection in the front and sides for you to hit, as shown by the green circles.

Skirmishing does not mean melee. Skirmishing means varied ranges, sometimes close range some times mid range. In this case I am meaning this relationship of closing and retreating over and over to gain an advantage with the weapon, or have your opponent close the gap and you grab a damage advantage.

That hitbox is very accurate, I am actually happy you posted it. What you say is true if your target is completely stationary, but as you said the target will be actively trying to flank you, so if you just move counter to their movement you immediately gain flanking bleeds on the attacks. It is this intelligent movement that I do not wish to be removed from the game as it differentiates players by way of skill. I would in fact enjoy things if there was greater potential to be shown for playing ranger at a higher skill level like manual pet control etc.

Taym.8326:

I would in fact enjoy things if there was greater potential to be shown for playing ranger at a higher skill level like manual pet control etc.

I’ve been begging for a better pet micro-management system since beta, but based on how ranger is looking now, it might be a VERY LONG time before we get that. GW1 had a “good” approach to it with pet skills being on the actual skill bar, though at the cost of precious slots, however it was countered with usually positive buffs to the master themselves.

@Linnes

Mmm I suppose I generally agree with most. But your elite suggestion is pretty sucky. I can’t see those stances helping much, since they just don’t sound useful nor powerful enough.

The one thing a lot of Rangers are currently running for is the introduction of a stealth trait or utility. Camouflage seems to be the biggest hit so far (i.e. if you stand still for a certain period you gain stealth for a limited time, which is deactivated upon movement or skill use, and of course internal cooldowns). I would bring this into your suggestions. Robert Hrouda has expressed interest in this kind of idea.

Linnes.2678:

I’ve been begging for a better pet micro-management system since beta, but based on how ranger is looking now, it might be a VERY LONG time before we get that. GW1 had a “good” approach to it with pet skills being on the actual skill bar, though at the cost of precious slots, however it was countered with usually positive buffs to the master themselves.

I was thinking it more like the F2 of the pet goes into a kit which is basically pet commands, similar to engie kits. That way we don’t need to massively overhaul everything, BM requires some sort of button presses, and the speed at which you can do this also lowers damage lost of your character while doing it. The big thing about this would be a 5th possible attack for pets, as well as gaining the ability to use on swap sigils while not changing your main weapon. This would be a slight buff, but manual control would also cause a loss in dps from the ranger during the pet control stages so I would hope it balances out.

Just my thoughts though.

Taym.8326:

garethh.3518:

Make them less trait dependent, not more.

You can use them without traits right now, all I was saying is that when you trait into them you see pretty much no benefit for doing it. If you smartly place your spirits they will stay alive and contribute in PvP, if you place them stupidly and without thought or just take Spirits unbound, they are going to die.

Really?
Spirits… spirits without traits… viable in PvP…
>.<

Just for everyone’s sake, try not to comment assuredly over things you aren’t sure about…
Well good conversation.