Guild Wars 2

Been playing Ranger since Pre-Searing and have always loved it. I had to stop playing GW2 for quite awhile because it just wasn’t fun anymore between getting lied to by a certain Dev and inability to play the way I wanted. All of these suggestions are things I’ve posted long ago before on an old account that were all ignored but I’m bored and have a slight urge to once again share my ideas. But mostly cuz im bored.

Personally the things I’d like to see are the following;

More efficient at extreme ranges. (i.e. 1,500 Longbow range).
– Make the same trait that increases the range simultaneously increase longbow projectile speed.
– Replace rapidfire with a skill like “Triple Shot” that instead of channeling arrow spam for 5s simply shoots 3 arrows at once (on the same path) all of which act as 100% finishers. This should do the same amount of damage as the previous rapidfire skill does as a total. The increase in DPS from not having to channel for so long should help offset often mentioned “low DPS of the longbow” while still keeping the average number of finishers one normally gets from it.

Extensive revamp of traits.
*Beastmastery;
– A number of Beastmaster traits can be merged. (species proficiency ones).
– Master’s Bond moved to Grandmaster line. It now only removes stacks upon defeat, map change, or removed from active queue(not one of the 4 active pet slots).
– Instinctual Bond moved to Master level.
– New Grandmaster level trait “Pet Awareness” gives pet attacks AoE radius. (about that of a sword swing)
– Natural Healing is now a Master level trait.
*Nature Magic;
– Grandmaster Trait “Spirits Unbound” added functionality, “Spirits become immune to AoE skills and effects. (Skills that bounce can still bounce to them.)”
– Grandmaster Trait “Evasive Purity” changed functionality to, “Dodging removes Blind and Poison. If you are still suffering from a condition regain some endurance.” (Like the thief trait that refills a bit of endurance “Feline Grace”.)
– Master trait “Two-Handed training” now affects all Two-handed weapons.
– Master trait “Spiritual Knowledge” added functionality, “…and reduces effect cooldown by 50%”
*Wilderness Survival;
– “Hide in Plain Sight” now negates the incoming control ability. Camouflage lasts 2 additional seconds. Recharge increase to 45s.
– Vigorous Renewal switched with “Primal Reflexes”.
– “Empathetic Bond” added functionality, “For each condition you transfer to your pet you grant it 2s of regeneration.”
*Skirmishing;
– Skirmishing now increases Precision and Condition Duration.
– “Companion’s Might” Now grants might for 5s instead of 1s.
*Marksmanship;
– Marksmanship now increases Power and Critical Damage.
– “Eagle Eye” added functionality, “…and increases projectile speed.”
– “Eagle Eye” removed functionality “Increases longbow and harpoon gun damage by 5%.”
– “Signet of the Beastmaster” added functionality, “Signets can be activated instantly. Signet of Stone now removes stun when activated from both you and your pet.”
– “Beastmaster’s Might” now applies 5 stacks of Might for 5s.

Alteration to Weapon skills.
– Sword skill chain #1 no longer prevents dodging while on auto-cast.
– Switched Cripple duration to “Hornet’s Sting” from “Monarch’s Leap”. Increased time allowed to use chain to 5s. Recharge increased 10s.
– Longbow skill #2 replaced with “Triple Shot”.
– Torch skill “Bonfire” is now ground targeted. Range 900. Range is not affected by “Off-Hand Training”. Still only the radius. Skillfact updated to read, “Set target area alight with your torch.” instead of “…ground around you…”.

Alteration to Healing skills.
– “Heal as One” now recharges 50% faster if only one of you is healed from it. (Just a thought I had)

Alteration to Utility skills.
– Search and Rescue now resurrects players at a normal rate. (Same as Player to Player resurrect.)
– “Protect Me” now breaks stun by transferring it to the pet along with damage.
– “Lightning Reflexes” now removes immobilization and can be used while Knock-downed.
– “Signet of the Wild” now properly allows characters to interact with objects, revive, finish opponents and use environmental weapons during the enlarge duration.
– Spirits now automatically use their abilities when a foe comes into range. (Spirit of Nature not affected)
– Spirits now begin recharging after being summoned. (Spirit of Nature not affected)

Elite Skill Changes;
– “Entangle” now applies it’s effects once every second instead of every 1.5s.

I can dream can’t I?
Discuss.

Well that confirms what I thought. Have fun.

Long bow needs conditions or stun or immobilize added along with a speed boost on #1 with normalizing the damage throughout the range.

Perma-stow pet giving ranger a buff.

Doesn’t take much to make me happy.

thefantasticg.3984:

Long bow needs conditions or stun or immobilize added along with a speed boost on #1 with normalizing the damage throughout the range.

Perma-stow pet giving ranger a buff.

Doesn’t take much to make me happy.

I would like to see the damage normalized but not at the cost of less damage at range. Honestly I would figure it doing more damage the closer a target got but that makes too much sense and might be a little harder to balance. I could live with the reduced damage if there was a decent one-handed melee weapon. I love sword but I’m just not a fan of 2/3 of the skills. As for having it do more conditions I feel that’s kinda of counter intuitive to the Longbow as a weapon. I feel if we got increased projectile speed and pets that could hit something slightly better it’d be just unneeded. Although that opens the door for talk about more skills like Sharpening Stone that applied different affects to your arrows like preparations in the last GW. (To put it simply; Thief’s Venoms). I think that’s definitely something worth discussing.

I think perma stow pet for a Ranger buff would not only be impossible to balance nicely but also rather anti-Ranger themed. If pet’s dodged when you dodged, hit targets reliably, and had good pathing we’d be golden in that subject. Just not liking the pet is a whole other story though.

I’m going to edit my post with a couple more ideas now though and thank you so much for your input.

Turns out main post was a lot closer to full length than I estimated. xD Here is what I was going to edit in as I forgot about the pet section.

Pet Changes;
– Improved pathing allowing them to follow as well as attack better.
– Pets gaining “Evade” status from dodges at the same time as the ranger.
– Ability to hit faster moving targets while in combat. (Targets with swiftness)

My logic is this:

Beast Master = Always has Pet and Very few weapons
Ranger = Wilderness Survival and Weapons

I also disagree with the longbow suggestion that it would be OP with any conditions. I use it now but strictly for its utilities then I swap back to whatever weapon I have.

thefantasticg.3984:

My logic is this:

Beast Master = Always has Pet and Very few weapons
Ranger = Wilderness Survival and Weapons

I also disagree with the longbow suggestion that it would be OP with any conditions. I use it now but strictly for its utilities then I swap back to whatever weapon I have.

I think you mistook “counter intuitive” or “unneeded” as meaning OP. I wasn’t suggesting that. I simply feel that the longbow’s main function is/should be pumping out damage. I also know that the more you add utility or conditions into the mix you start to lose damage as a balance. Longbow already has AoE Cripple, Knockback, Vulnerability, and pet swiftness. I feel like adding conditions to that might just start taking away from what it was intended to do and/or be so underdone it just becomes a non-factor. The change to the longbow I proposed increases DPS and reliability which are two things people commonly feel the weapon is missing. I can agree that the auto-attack feels rather underwhelming at times (if not all the time) but currently I have no suggestion to fix that other than the proposed trait fix.

Normalized damage sounds nice but I feel as if there should be a better solution. One I’ve been playing with is something like this;

Long Range Shot – Shoot your foe from long range. The farther the arrow flies, the more damage it does.
1000+ range: High Damage only
0-1000 range: Less damage but inflicts Weakness (1s)
0-500 range: Less damage but inflicts Vulnerability (5s)
Combo Finisher: Physical Projectile (20% chance)
Range: 1,200

This way you lose your direct damage but as your target gets closer you inflict Weakness lowering his evasive and damage abilities and as he gets even closer you then also increase the damage he takes from all sources as well.

What do you think?