Guild Wars 2

Hey guys, i just had some idea’s i think would make ranger a powerful support to allies in all game modes, just now i had a look at nature magic and it seems to me that for a boon based line it looks pretty weak, so here are a few idea’s i came up with that would boost the ranger to a whole new level in team based situations,

First off i looked at protective ward and thought it would make more sense if it was in wilderness survival as you gain protection on dodge in that line and protective ward would add protection and weakness on hit and would make bark skin a bit stronger as your foes attacks would be weakened for those who like to run melee so i think protective ward should be swapped with empathic bond and empathic bond should convert the conditions it takes from you into boons for the pet (i would do the same for signet of renewal),

Then i looked at the master traits and thought wow vigorous training looked pretty bad so i thought what if we replaced it with the new empathic bond and swapped evasive purity with bountiful hunter and increase the damage per boon to 2% but now you may be thinking what about the gap in the grandmaster traits, well this is what i came up with, (Fortifying Whistle: When you swap pets any boon currently on your pet is tranferred to you.) That takes care of the gap but what about invigorating bond, sure it has a heal but it doesn’t have anything to do with boons so i came up with this, (Invigorating Bond: Your pet heals allies and transfers any boons it has when executing a command [F2] ability.)

All of these changes i believe would make ranger a powerful support class and would make lingering magic stronger as right now there isn’t many pets that apply boons and the ranger is severely lacking in support as it is making it unwanted in most situations, i would also like to see a way for us to keep track of conditions and boons on our pets without having to click on them as they sometimes get lost in the fray.

I like where this is going, especially moving Protective Ward in Wilderness Survival as I have seen others suggest the same. Since the focus on this discussion is about the Nature Magic traitline, what are your thoughts if Windborne Notes were to function like the old Quick Breathing trait of Warrior, where you and nearby allies would have 1 condition converted into a boon within earshot (or range) of using Warhorn skills?

I’d agree with you but it would ruin my pvp build =(

@Wondrouswall.7169 The main purpose for Windborne Notes is to apply regen with call of the wild and recharge it faster so that is an excellent idea because if you took clarion bond you could have the same effect on pet swap.

@FrownyClown.8402 I suppose a number of builds would be affected but overall i think this would make us far more desirable in PvE and WvW which personally is what i am experienced in, in any case i think alot of builds were changed in the patch and gave us some nice options i’d just like to see our class become the best it can be.

Don’t need to do much to make rangers viable support.

1) Revert healing spring to the way it used to be, just give it reduced cooldown when traiting for traps.

2) Make spirits viable in combat. Their buffs need to move with the ranger, and they need to not be killed in fights. Does Spotter get killed in fights? No. And thats why it doesnt suck. My personal favorite idea is scrapping their current implementation and making them auras (just like spotter), with active effects that radiate from the ranger. The spirit itself can be kept around to symbolize the effect, changing colors to show whatever auras are active.

I’m sure there are other ways to accomplish that too, but the point is: If spirits are changed to be viable utilities in dungeons, WvW, etc, then the ranger all of a sudden becomes a class that provides high uptime of Damage, Protection, Swiftness, Burning procs, and Healing for the group. We are, and always have been, a quick change to spirits away from being a wanted member of every team.

As far as improving Natures Magic:

• Natures Vengeance (assuming the above changes happen to spirits) (in addition to current effects): Spirit cooldown reduce by 20%.
• Windborne Notes (in addition to current effects): Allies effected by regeneration from the Ranger lose a condition < like Ele cleansing water synergy with Warhorn, Rejuvination minor, Resounding Timbre, Oakheart salve>.
• Evasive Purity: Now effects a small area on dodge (similar to guardian heal-dodge, except we cleanse our normal cripple/blind/poison).
• Bountiful Hunter: Allies near you gain 2% damage per boon (maxes out at 3 boons for 6%).
• Search and Rescue: Base cooldown lowered to 40seconds (Obviously no one is going to take SnR over a real utility, but it makes Allies Aid a very strong teamplay choice, even against a buffed Bountiful Hunter).

@Raven.9603 Your point on spirits reminds me of a post i made 10months ago about turning spirits into floating coloured orbs that pulse when they apply their buff and emits a flash when activated and their icons already look like orbs but someone told me they were part of an old theme from GW1 and thats why they look the way they do, anyway i never was really into the whole spirit thing my suggestion was just to help those who were, however i think my idea’s decribed above are still solid changes to make pets more useful than getting in a hit or two and limp around dead or for those who like to keep them on passive they would still provide some valuable support, it would encourage pet swapping before it dies in order to boost not only your own support but the support of your allies.

edit: i do think you are right though, if natures vengeance and spirits in general are improved it would give us another option for support by either using our pets for support or spirits as spirits would apply their boons more directly rather than boosting the boons applied by ourselves or allies.

i like the part about empathic bond not being in survival, that way we could go back to taking both of the major condi clears or (gasp) not be forced into survival. its a solid improvement to ranger just moving that.

what i dont see from your suggestion, is how this makes us a support? where are we giving boons, clearing debuffs, providing healing or other support to people other than ourselves? clearing condi’s on ourselves and gaining a bunch of boons makes us more self-sufficient, it doesn’t necessarily help the people around us though.

@Raven.9603 Well the idea behind it would be taking advantage of Fortifying Bond as all boons applied to you are given to your pet and with my version of Invigorating Bond you would “return the favor” so to speak by hitting F2 essentially boosting the support of yourself and nearby allies or if you prefer a more solo roaming/self serving style of play you can take my Fortifying Whistle tranferring the boons your pet converts from empathic bond or that you apply to the pet to yourself on pet swap boosting your own support,

If you take Wondrouswall’s version of Windborne Notes (converting 1 condi into a boon on each nearby ally with call of the wild) you could support your team that way everytime you cast call of the wild (clarion bond/warhorn 5), also with Windborne Notes and Resounding Timbre you would apply regen with call of the wild and all shouts and your pet already heals on F2 with invigorating bond but my version is just better, that’s about it.

edit: i forgot to mention that if Signet of Renewal was also changed to convert the condi’s your pet pull’s from nearby allies into boons you could then apply those boons to your team on F2 with my invigorating bond.

Imo if they simply fixed the spirits we would have great team support but now its very lacking thanks to that

@Redemer.2601 tbh i don’t think that would be enough as not everyone likes spirits including myself, they just don’t fit with my ranger/play style but they are in a bad way right now and i hope they do get fixed for those who do like em, what my idea’s are designed for is to give us strong support that teams will want and give us options in how we provide that support.

Hey guys, i just had some more idea’s i wanted to share and it’s to do with signets, first of all i think that signets should continue to apply their passive effect after activation as i find myself not activating them because i find the passives more useful than the active in most cases and i think they could be changed to provide some nice team support too so i think they should go something like this,

Signet of the Hunt: Passive: Grants 25% increased movement speed to you and your pet. Active: You and your pet and all nearby allies deal 10% more damage on your next 5 attacks. (this change would make it more useful for channeled and multi-hit attacks for you and your team) edit: by changing attack of opportunity it would also make moment of clarity an AoE damage boost on interupting a foe

Signet of the Wild: Passive: Grants health regeneration to you and your pet.
Active: You and your pet grow larger, dealing more damage and giving stability to you and your pet and all nearby allies. (now we have a strong source of stability that we can share)

Signet of Renewal: Passive: Cures a condition every ten seconds.
Active: Your pet pulls all conditions from nearby allies to itself and converts them into boons. (this is a strong signet as it is but kills the pet and this change ties into my changes as mentioned in my OP)

Signet of Stone: Passive: Improves toughness for you and your pet.
Active: You and your pet take no damage from attacks and grant protection to all nearby allies. You and your pet are still susceptible to conditions and control effects. (we take no damage and now can provide nice protection to our team).

I’m all for making Ranger a desirable class for team support, but boon share is horrible form of providing support – most classes than have strong boon share potential bring so much more to the table. (It should be assumed that, with the builds I mention, optimal trait/rune/etc selection is precedent.) Shout Guard brings condi removal, stability, and quickness RELIABLY. Having boon share revolve around an AI and through potentially multiple steps would be under-perform heavily. Also, boon share is simply outclassed by one’s ability to provide oneself with boons.

Sadly, unless Ranger’s Profession mechanic or multiple skills (and therefore traits) get reworked, Ranger won’t ever have a commanding presence in terms of team support. But this is where Druid is supposed to come in… hopefully.

As for your second post regarding Signets:
You’re looking in the wrong place. Signets are in a good position, each have a definite use with normalized passives. The only thing I agree with is that Signet of Renewal shouldn’t kill one’s pet. Ranger is an especially greedy class. Weapons, Traits, and many slot Skills only benefit the Ranger/Pet. Shouts are primary offenders, even Search and Rescue is horrible because it revolves around AI. 3/4 utility Survival skills are greedy. Spirits got nerfed into the ground 6ft and sealed in a wooden coffin. Traps.

Ranger is already a powerful support. It’s just a different type of support. Not all classes are designed to support by providing buffs. If you want to play support, take your pew pew, find a high sniper perch away from the fight, and pressure the enemy from there. Your “support” is the dd you do to a target thats engaged by your teammates. Longbow is about using range and terrain to your advantage while doing high damage. Your teamates dont have to heal you or rez you cuz you are safely picking off the enemy before they know you’re there. If you spec right and play to support, you can be powerful support.
Again, it’s just a different type of support. Your teammates dont need heals or buffs if the stuff they’re fighting is dead.

I agree, i know we provide some powerful support in the form of long range, high dps, that is what i already do, i also provide perma swiftness/regen with high fury uptime and some might using resounding timbre, clarion bond and runes of the pack, i can also take down most builds 1v1 easily or run frontline and jump straight into the fray and survive because of how strong my build is, but i think we could do better as anyone can dps and most provide better support, i’d like to see our pets become more useful and be able to survive more than 5 seconds in a group because if my pet is supposed to account for 30ish % of my dps then i want it to provide reliable dps/support and it can’t do either if it’s dead, that is what i’m suggesting, other than my pet’s melting from empathic bond i am very happy with my ranger

@Karnac
Range is a double edged weapon.
It also means they cannot help you, neither can you help them with anything else than damage. And if damage is the only thing you bring – it should be higher than others.

The truth is that Ranger’s DPS is stable without any true burst – is easy to avoid and you have literally zero boon strip. Also, your pet cannot attack from 1500 range. Verdict: insufficient.

That being said – a pure-DPS specialization that cannot prevent stomps, help safe-stomp enemies or revive allies is a hard joke of a support you want to make him sound.

With the heart of thorns expansion arenanet are using the elite specializations to improve all classes in area’s they may be lacking, to make all classes more versatile and create more synergy between them and for good reason, balance is skewed so far off right now that rangers are the last choice for almost any group (or atleast we were, we may be slightly better off now since the patch) however i don’t think druid is going to give much if any support what so ever, infact i think staff is going to be mostly a control weapon (root’s, cripples) and maybe healing but won’t know for sure until it’s revealed, besides my idea’s would give us the ability to buff up our pet (such as when a commander call’s for empower) send our pets in along with the group, hit F2 and boom your team just got all the boons you stacked on your pet, next a condi class attacks you (because everyone goes for the ranger lol) so you swap pets and they begin stacking condi’s on you, but instead of your pet dieing in 2sec it clears 3 condi’s, turns them into boons and you hit F2 now you have boons to fight back with, thats just an example of how these changes would work and if they were made we may just see groups actually requesting rangers for a change.

Tragic Positive.9356:

@Karnac
Range is a double edged weapon.
It also means they cannot help you, neither can you help them with anything else than damage. And if damage is the only thing you bring – it should be higher than others.

The truth is that Ranger’s DPS is stable without any true burst – is easy to avoid and you have literally zero boon strip. Also, your pet cannot attack from 1500 range. Verdict: insufficient.

That being said – a pure-DPS specialization that cannot prevent stomps, help safe-stomp enemies or revive allies is a hard joke of a support you want to make him sound.

I agree with some of that
They really should have rangers do more damage at range. The problem is though, that they have to keep it balanced. Rangers would be OP if damaged is increase like it should be.
I still think the idea Anet has is for your damage to not be the highest damage. The range part is a factor. That warrior you’re pew pewing down has to disengage and come to you (or die). No other classess range should be able to reach a ranger with a bow IMO. What we give up in other areas is replaced by that dynamic.
I do think they could so better with pets and spirits though. Like you said, pet range should be just as long to supplement the ranged dps. Spirits should provide better support but that support should be to the rangers dps. In turn, he can better support the group.