I’m an engineer main, but Ranger looks like a class that has a lot of promise, and I really want to get into it. Unfortunately, I’m not the biggest fan of being a healer, though the druid is really awesome. I’d rather have a more hunter feel, which I don’t really feel like I have with the base spec (feels more like an archer or soldier with a pet, depending on your weapon set).
My idea was to have a spec with low out of combat mobility, but based purely on chasing individual targets, using your pet to “track” enemies and get massive mobility.
Perhaps the new weapon would be an off-hand sword/axe/mace OR rifle. Off-hand weapon would be based on immobilizing enemies and perhaps single-target hard-CC. Rifle would not be sniper-like, but more for “hunting”. Two of the skills would revolve around crippling/knocking down your target. The other 3 would be skills which deal increased damage to enemies who are crippled/CC’d, or have bleed/poison stacks above a threshold (to make rifle useful with axe or shortbow). Trying to emphasize the hunter-theme here.
The new profession mechanic is “track”, which paints a target on one enemy. So long as your pet is alive you have increased running speed when heading TOWARD your target, and your attacks inflict cripple on them and deal 10% more physical and condition damage (so does your pet). No idea what the traits would look like, but one trait could be called “blood trail”, which reveals enemies when you apply a certain amount of bleed stacks to a stealthed enemy.
New utility skills would either by physicals, tricks, deceptions or venoms. To differentiate between thief venoms (which are passive buffs), ranger venoms would simply inflict poison + non-damaging effects (like reduced endurance or such) if it lands, while also leaping at the enemy target, and you must have an enemy target (except one venom can be an un-targeted leap, because there needs to be at least one stun-break, and requiring targets for a stun-break is just bad). I wanted ranger venoms to synergize with the Poison Master trait…yes I know that venoms and poisons are actually very different in real life.
Thief is getting much deserved buffs this week, but it should be remembered that once upon a time thief was required in competitive comps because of its unmatched mobility. This ranger spec was not meant to replace the thief’s role as an unrestricted burster/back-capper. It was meant to provide a different class with equal mobility under different conditions (this ranger spec MUST have a target, so he is more focused on preventing thieves from back-capping, or harassing people walking to/between points). Also the idea is that this build is less bursty, and more focused on sustained damage, and has no stealth.
A spec like this embraces what GW2 PvP needs…less AoE everywhere, and more tactical single-target gameplay. Also, the idea is that there is nothing passive about this spec. To get any bonus, you have to actually DO something successfully…so no kitten health threshold traits…
Anyway, for some reason I felt the need to post this here. Feel free to tear it to pieces, I think it’s cool.