Guild Wars 2

Used a rifle for Ranger what would it look like?

If the next spec uses a rifle, i could see the ranger becoming a hunter, and they could get camouflage as a new mechanic. Camouflage would be the new f5 and would work by giving you a short duration of free stealth, and then giving the hunter a long duration of camouflage which gives the hunter stealth as long as they don’t move. Im not sure what traits or utilities it would have, but i could see it focused around ambushing and giving the hunter strong initiation, being more effective while the enemy is at high health.

As for the rifle skills themselves, i find we are in a bit of a bind. It is important for the hunter’s rifle to be mechanically distinct from the warriors rifle and the engineer’s rifle. The warrior uses the rifle as kind of an assult rifle, with some sniper like attacks. The engineer uses their rifle like a shotgun, with a few engineer-specific skills. With these 2 playstyles encompassing the main ways to use a gun, it is difficult to come up with something unique. Maybe we could use rifles like a bayonet, but with many rifle skins not normally having a knife on them it wouldn’t make alot of sense. Perhaps we could have rifle that worked strictly like a sniper rifle, but mechanically there really is only 1 skill that works like a sniper, namely a headshot, and warriors already have that. To make matters worse, i think that thief’s should also get access to a rifle, and that makes making something unique to both professions even more complicated.

Well looking at what Ranger needs it should be ranged AoE, which kind of works with rifle but I’m not sure would thematically fit in with the Ranger. Really staff should have been this but they kittened that up and there isn’t really another weapon.

Rifle skills that would fit in thematically with a Ranger elite spec would probably have too much overlap mechanically with Longbow.

Please change title to,

If next elite spec was rifle?

Clickbait titles are lame.

Levetty.1279:

Well looking at what Ranger needs it should be ranged AoE, which kind of works with rifle but I’m not sure would thematically fit in with the Ranger. Really staff should have been this but they kittened that up and there isn’t really another weapon.

Rifle skills that would fit in thematically with a Ranger elite spec would probably have too much overlap mechanically with Longbow.

^
Agreed, a riffle wouldn’t add anything new to the current ranger.

As to what it would look like… They would probably give a non conditional bleed to a boring auto attack (Just to bury even more the short bow) and give us a set of preparation that work like venom or sharpening stone. As for the new mechanic… Well… Let’s make the op happy and say that it will be an F5 skill that let the ranger enter stealth for a short duration. (It’s so bad it almost feel like a thief with a riffle and a pet)

I’m surprised no one has mentioned the “it doesn’t fit with ranger lore” yet. Personally I don’t see a rifle working very well as a sniper, it just doesn’t seem like it would fit thematically or mechanically. This may go against the grain, but I could be perfectly content without a new weapon with the elite. What I want is an elite spec that repurposes the longbow to function more like a greatbow. The combination of that, some stealth, maybe some better traps? Is what I would like. Maybe not traps exactly because obviously dragon hunter got that, but something similar.

It would look like a ripoff of WoW.

FYI camoflauge wouldn’t be a new mechanic, it would be reviving an old mechanic that ranger had back in the day (from a trait think). It wasn’t useful from what I remember but that was back in my early days of ranger and warrior/guardian was my main.

Secondly, I don’t want ANOTHER ranged weapon… We already have 2x bows, axe, and staff. What I really want is offhand sword or hammer (BUNNY THUMPER!!!)

For those who don’t know what bunny thumper was back in the day… It was a ranger running with warrior as secondary class with a big ole hammer… The goal was to spam knockdowns with your pet and your big hammer and punish anyone you caught. Think of hammer warrior but with more knockdowns, more sustain, and more punishment (and a giant rainbow phoenix!).

Another option would be a play on the old GW1 “Touch Rangers” where rangers could gain a life steal in melee range type play with strong damage and strong sustain… Or maybe we could finally get a condi spec that gives us access to torment, confusion, or something else we don’t already have access to (w/o a pet f2 that is) maybe scepter?

I hope the next Elite spec for ranger is like a ‘warden’ there is much lore in the game for it. not sure what the weapon would be though.

Probably not rifle though, ranger is supposed to be nature focused.. not sure if rifle would clash to much or not.