Guild Wars 2

So we have dev confirmation that changes are coming. What do you think some of the changes will be?

Other than bug fixes, here’s some things I’m hoping for.

1. Out with Shouts, In with Pet-Specific Signets. This allows us to set a role to our pet. (Tank/Dmg/Support) that will buff up certain stats.
2. Spirits will give less of a buff, but it will be constant.
3. Old signets will be replaced with ranger-specific signets. Ones like more crit chance or more cond damage or something.

Bug fixes I’m looking forward to the most.

1. Pet-AI.
2. Sword issues.
3. Shortbow DPS issues
4. Quickness not working with Shortbow autoattack

I’d love to see:
1) Pet attack bugs be addressed ( F2s and moving targets )
2) Increase in pet survivability ( They get absolutely mashed in dungeons )
2) Useful spirit builds ( i.e. spirits don’t die when I fart and take forever to re-summon )
3) Longbow/GS damage revisited ( perhaps make them more “active” )
4) Useless utility skills re-worked ( mentioned by Mod )
5) I don’t want to be rooted while attacking with a 1h sword ( “I was going to roll out of that 1-shot, but I too intent on whacking this thing with my sword that I couldn’t move” )

I think that those are the biggies. I feel the offhands are in a pretty good place and if the QZ shortbow bug is fixed, that will be in a good place as well. Axe seems OK.

You might want tio consider how things relate to other items in game.

Shouts –
Long CD’s make condition removal on shout armor stones worthless
Passive benefits pretty to very weak
Overall benefit very low when combining passive to active potential and trait points to get active benefit for the range.
positioning ones lack any tactical or strategic advantage

For example consider the condition removal signet. Active benefit addition? anyone anyone?

Spirit buff is already low I’ve tested percentage uptime. Making them weaker unhelpful in the extreme. Making them killable signets is not the answer.

Longbow 1 is the first skill I thought of on weapon pacing…. It feels horrible in use and measures horrible in performance for various reasons including auto attack failure at range, hit rate etc….

Sword pacing – the 1 autoattack treadmill of unable to do anything.

Those seem to me the most likely weapon pacing issues to be addressed.

Shortbow remains a very effective weapon. But you need power and condition sacrificing durability to make it so. (This is a common issue with pet damage/selection as well). Ignore 1 and have half a pet.

andybmcc.8751:

I’d love to see:
1) Pet attack bugs be addressed ( F2s and moving targets )
2) Increase in pet survivability ( They get absolutely mashed in dungeons )
2) Useful spirit builds ( i.e. spirits don’t die when I fart and take forever to re-summon )
3) Longbow/GS damage revisited ( perhaps make them more “active” )
4) Useless utility skills re-worked ( mentioned by Mod )
5) I don’t want to be rooted while attacking with a 1h sword ( “I was going to roll out of that 1-shot, but I too intent on whacking this thing with my sword that I couldn’t move” )

I think that those are the biggies. I feel the offhands are in a pretty good place and if the QZ shortbow bug is fixed, that will be in a good place as well. Axe seems OK.

I couldnt agree more with this guy, exactly the same thing I want with maybe a few additional things such as more survivability via protect me, Id like my pet to live longer than say 2 secs iwth it up, and Id like it to break stuns, that would be great. Move the trap traits out of skirmishing too, makes no sense. Also increase the speed of arrows to match that of bullets, I literally am amazing at how fast bullets travel compared to arrows. Also if they make it so it takes a kitten load to kill my pet like giving him twice my health or w/e then Id be fine, if not make it so when my pet dies there is only a 15-20 sec wait before I can use him again, or make it so we get a buff that increases our damage by ALOT when he dies until he comes back up, or simply give us a incombat rez that takes 2-3 secs to get him back up.

Other than that I agree OHs are pretty dang good atm, and Im finally seeing a light at the end of the tunnel with a simple response from JP.

Great points. I agree with almost all besides “killable signet”. Only because you’d help your nearby allies as well.

WE are promised buffs/fixes so now lets put our heads together and theory craft when patch is coming out. WIll it be next week, or the week after?

Dante Dragonhand.2538:

I couldnt agree more with this guy, exactly the same thing I want with maybe a few additional things such as more survivability via protect me, Id like my pet to live longer than say 2 secs iwth it up, and Id like it to break stuns, that would be great. Move the trap traits out of skirmishing too, makes no sense. Also increase the speed of arrows to match that of bullets, I literally am amazing at how fast bullets travel compared to arrows. Also if they make it so it takes a kitten load to kill my pet like giving him twice my health or w/e then Id be fine, if not make it so when my pet dies there is only a 15-20 sec wait before I can use him again, or make it so we get a buff that increases our damage by ALOT when he dies until he comes back up, or simply give us a incombat rez that takes 2-3 secs to get him back up.

Other than that I agree OHs are pretty dang good atm, and Im finally seeing a light at the end of the tunnel with a simple response from JP.

You want to give your pet twice your health, reduce dead pet cooldown, and increase damage by A LOT until its revided? That would definetely make rangers OP.

I’m hoping for some awesome long bow buffs myself. I love the weapon, but it’s damage/speed is a bit subpar. I use the Shortbow and any buffs for that would be welcome as well.

And of course hopefully some issues with pets will be adressed.

What I’m hoping for;

- GS becoming a viable PvP weapon (such as improving damage scaling and making 1 GS ability potentially hit hard like hundred blades, kill shot, backstab, heartseeker)
- Pet AI improvements
- Better longbow utility
- Fixes to arrow obstruction
- Improving the active effects of all signets so that they can all benefit a Ranger which has specialized in Signet of the Beastmaster (Signet of Renewel/Signet of Hunt)
- Spirits will be invincible for their duration OR have significantly buffed effects
- Traps buffed
- Shouts either replaced or revised
- Lightning Reflexes becoming an all-around CC break + backwards dodge
- Improvements to downed state “lick wounds” which will set your pet to full health AND teleport them to your side

@Vermil Rockrim

You misread, I stated OR, I would like them to either make my pet have double my health and armor, OR lower its cd when dead to be like 15-20 secs, OR give us a 2-3 sec in combat pet rez, OR give us something that when pet dies we gain a 50% damage buff for idk, 45 secs or till your pet is alive and attacking. Reason for this is simple.

1. Pets die too kitten fast, having double my health and armor makes them much harder to kill while still surviving aoe.

1. I still want it to scale with our stats but having to wait a minute to swap pets out just for it to be insta gibbed and wait another minute is rediculous, especially since it makes up for a huge chunk of our damage. Any competent player would just throw out an aoe and kill it and laugh as ranger tickles him with his weapons.

1. A 2-3 sec combat rez lets us rez our pet instead of having to wait until the battle is over or for a minute to go by just to get 1 pet back.

1. I posted something that Id like to see implimented, maybe a tier 1 trait called rage of the master, that when your pet dies, ranger gains 50% damage bonus and possibly 25% health boost during the duration of the pet swap cd, this being because when your pet dies you lose out on CC and damage, and we are massively weakened. My raven does more damage than I do, and Im a glass cannon longbow ranger, my raven does at least 50% of my damage so when he dies and I swap to my trusty jaguar, and he dies then Im left with my longbow. The longbow doesnt hurt and since the projectiles are so slow you can sidestep them easily.

none of these fixes or buffs make ranger op, only if they did all of them. Id still like to see signet of the hunt work with rapid fire.

Healing stat changes.
-More benefit to regeneration from +healing

Troll Ungeuent to get benefit of 33% regeneration duration increase.

Regeneration tics to get a chance to proc on heal traits (30 ish)…

A blast finisher……

All these fields and no blast finisher…

^Agreed, agreed, agreed, maybe add a pet blast finisher or add a blast finisher on a weapon idk. Id like them to give us a new elite that maybe buffs our damage. Maybe a preperation, or bring back burning arrow.

A f2 ability if on a pet. Can’t seem to get my drake to get the job done.

I was thinking Axe 4(Power offhand), Torch 4(A condition offhand) GS(4) Keeping existing functions, or as part of the spirit improvements secondary effects. Ohhh Knockback plus blast finiher ……. drools…

Mainly a blast finisher.

My magic 8 ball told me Signets are most likely going to get some changes. Signet of the Hunt will be overhauled to match the buffs/reworks on the Thief counterparts. Signet of the Wild and Stone will have massive CD buffs.

I’m also willing to bet money on buffs to the Longbow and Greatsword. Spirits, too, will most likely get overhauls.

Despite needing the most work, I doubt shouts will get changed. Right now there’s not much that can be done to make them useful. I figure we’ll just suffer through them for a while longer until they get replaced/reworked.

Plus:

- Whirl AOE attack on greatsword. Give some reason to melee rather than just pew pew with two bows or bow and axe.
- Better on demand condition removal esp for immobs.
- in/out of combat speed buff to allow builds without warhorn (esp for WvW), but also for PvE running.
- Improve rampage as one, maybe needs cd reduced & swiftness length increased. Rangers need some bar compression.
- Axe (yawns)

@DoomBunny.

Well they could make protect me better with a simply change, make it teleport your pet to your side, and make the pet take less damage during it, and let it break stuns. Boom a viable panic button for rangers. Inc viablity.

@roqoco

I have mixed feelings about Rampage as one, necros murder it, I think it should have a 60 sec cd since it doesnt make you op or anything, Id rather it give signet of rage effects, 5 stacks of might, swiftness, and stability, then Id be fine with the long kitten cd.

roqoco.4053:

Plus:
- in/out of combat speed buff to allow builds without warhorn (esp for WvW), but also for PvE running.

Yes! Give us trait (or improve the existing signet) to match the speed of Thieves and Elementalists. I am Ranger, I want to range outdoors without being outrun by some overpowered criminals or wimpy wizards!

You know the single thing I want? Spike trap, Frost Trap, or Healing Spring on dodge.

Lobo.1296:

All this speculation is great, but it sucks that my Ranger is gonna be shelved until the next patch. It could be months away.

From what Jon Peters said, it sounds like the fixes are ready-to-go, but were withheld for outstanding reasons. I’d be surprised if the patch was more than a week or 2 away.

From what Jon Peters said, it sounds like the fixes are ready-to-go, but were withheld for outstanding reasons. I’d be surprised if the patch was more than a week or 2 away. [/quote]

Yea, well you never know, paid tournys were supposed to come out also, so fingers crossed.

Red Jay.2516:

roqoco.4053:

Plus:
- in/out of combat speed buff to allow builds without warhorn (esp for WvW), but also for PvE running.

Yes! Give us trait (or improve the existing signet) to match the speed of Thieves and Elementalists. I am Ranger, I want to range outdoors without being outrun by some overpowered criminals or wimpy wizards!

From what Jon Peters said, it sounds like the fixes are ready-to-go, but were withheld for outstanding reasons. I’d be surprised if the patch was more than a week or 2 away.

Actually from what he said, it sounds “some” planned changes are near ready. Held back due to risk (probably larger changes)

He gives us an idea we’ll see these changes.

Utilities “first” weapon pacing…. second. Or in his words

“Many signets, a shout or two, and spirits are all a bit lackluster. That is the first place to expect improvements.

Second is trying to improve the feel/ pacing on some weapons."

Just to be more precise don’t expect evrything at once. Utilities top priority flowing down to weapons. And he certainly doesn’t promise all utility fixes at once this could be multiple patches over time…. Probably will be as that’s a way to minimize risk.

Some changes in the utility area are close and high risk is what I “know” from his comments. And that they have a workplan and have admitted problems I agree with as needing fixing. Timeline is much less certain overall.

Dante Dragonhand.2538:

@DoomBunny.

Well they could make protect me better with a simply change, make it teleport your pet to your side, and make the pet take less damage during it, and let it break stuns. Boom a viable panic button for rangers. Inc viablity.

Range removal for Protect Me and Signet of Renewal is highly likely to show up as a Quality of Life change.

That said, Protect Me is the only shout really worth taking. Guard and Search and Rescue are so far beyond situational there’s rarely a reason to take them. Sic ‘Em could work if it wasn’t competing with the other 4 or so Ranger DPS utilities. We only have 3 utility slots, and when you factor in necessities like Stun Breaks, bar space becomes very valuable. If I’m taking a DPS utility, I’m taking QZ hands down. Rarely will you ever take 2 or 3 DPS utilities, and when it gets to that, Sic ’Em is still trying to outperform Sharpening Stone, Signet of the Hunt, and Signet of the Wild.

I really wouldn’t be surprised if they were dropped entirely, save for Protect Me. I just can’t think of a way to make them useful outside of the situational niche they occupy.

Well guard could count as node turning defense and turn a node. That would be a big PvP improvement. Leave a high toughness pet in the center run back at speed when it starts taking damage.

Use one of the built in snipers nests to do your ranged damage while your pet prevents node flipping.

Cause them to intercept damage on a percentage basis vs an all or nothing. option.

One could improve guard.

Eh I would still take signet of the hunt over it unless sick em actually buffed damage by a worthy number, but it doesnt.

aside from the bugs, the key words/phrases were “lack of build diversity,” “sub par utility skills” and “feel/pacing” on weapons.

“lack of build diversity” means to me they will most likely not, for example, remold our signets to favor more popular buffs such as power or precision. that doesnt really diversify the profession. So when they do revisit signets, i would expect the unexpected.

I’m not sure what will happen to shouts, but a general complaint is that rangers dont have enough party support in dungeons and whatnot, so we may see shouts revisited to apply boons to allies, further supplamenting support builds that use warhorn.

In gw1 spirits were still pretty squishy, but had fantastic range. I believe they will focus more on the range, and perhaps only slightly address their squishyness. with a greater range you can simply put them in safer places.

I feel like pet attacks are difficult to address. Such changes have a high risk of causing significant balance concerns, and require a serious amount of programming and testing. The best thing they could do to get pets going in the right direction right now, is to reduce the amount of damage they take from AoE. I suspect they might address that first.

feel/pacing on weapons probably means a buff to longbow speed, unrooting the sword 1, and perhaps slightly adjusting the shortbows 2,4,5 so were not just spamming them when they are live. I’m not sure we will get a straight power buff on GS but perhaps a slight change in feel to make it more effective. Maybe all we really need to make GS more effective is a general change to the ranger profession.

on a side note, i too want trap traits moved away from the skirmishing line, and put into survival. it just makes much more sense.

Maybe, but I dont longbow will remain as weak as it is. Anything atm is a buff if its done properly.

1. 1200 trap range traited.
2. Fixed Quickening Zephyr speed w/ Shortbow.
3. Faster projectile travel speed for all arrows. Hopefully eventually a fix for “Obstructed!” on clear LOS shots, too.
4. Enhanced Pet AI – (Making contact on moving targets, not standing at a halt 10m in front of you, permanent stow pet, F2 skill response, staying passive when using F2 for buffs/condition removal only, pets should DPS objects we attack too – like quaggan nodes, weapon racks etc)
5. Poison on Shortbow turned into a single target volley with ricochet or ground targeted aoe.
6. Greatsword, Shortbow, Longbow DPS. Possibly shortbow bleeds regardless of angle, like a warriors rifle.
7. More effective condition removal and team support.
8. 1H sword bugs fixed.
9. Making lots of traits less useless. Opening Strike comes to mind at the top of that list..

EDIT: I forgot about Entangle being unaffected by condition damage (bleeds for 42 per tick regardless of cond. dmg even though tooltip shows it calculated with condition dmg..) Needs to be fixed.

I’m allowed to dream

Some good ideas going around… I havent seen this one on this thread yet so I’ll add it.

Sword, reverse monarchs leap so you leap first and leap backwards on the 2nd press.

I dont suggest that many improvements i read here. anyway thx getting more content for my kitten dreams ;D

But this my statement of expectation:
“Many signets, a shout or two, and spirits are all a bit lackluster. That is the first place to expect improvements."

What signets/shouts specific and what changes or improvement to expect

speculations?

My changes would be
1. faster animation on auto attack long bow and 1000 range bonus damage lowered to 900 with some type of range indicator. Everything else on longbow is fine to me.
2. all around damage increase on greatsword and the vulnerability idea by a previous poster to maul is great.
3. Instant animation attacks given to the basic attacks of pets.
4. Traps need to have a larger area of effect without talents imop.
5 Consolidate all training abilities in the beastmaster traits into one trait. And add some aoe survival traits for pets hard to use pets in wvwvw without some aoe protection.
6 Drakes and moas definetely need faster animation in there attacks and buffs
7 heal as one could use a buff i say keep the heal but add an effect to it like each time a pet attack hits for ten second you get a 450 heal etc.
8 Marksman traitcould use more damage increase traits engineers got a stand still crit chance increase rangers could use a stand still power/crit damage increase.
9 Opening strike needs to work in all ranges.
10 attack of opportunity should add a silence effect if not give it the 15 percent damage for five attacks effect thieves got.
11. Two handed traning should at least be ten percent damage increase
12 I would love to have a swiftness ability other then warhorn. I use double bow and it sucks not to have it I suggest tail wind usable out of combat also it will truly help rangers roam.

I guess the trap traits will be moved to Wilderness Survival.

All I know is that for those of us who have been struggling with the current state of ranger and making it work anyway; it’s going to be like high-altitude training. We’ll be so used to getting results despite the flaws with the class, that any buff is going to make us feel REALLY strong.

I just hope the reaction from the rest of the playerbase isn’t too negative. People get used to looking down on weaker classes and expecting it to be an easy fight. If suddenly they start getting beat by rangers a LOT, it’s going to spark some QQ. We’ll have to wait and see I guess.

For what it’s worth, here are my ideas on useful fixes and tweaks to the ranger profession that I don’t think would overpower it.

1. Fix Pet auto-attack bug to hit moving targets
2. Fix Pet F2 response time
3. Fix Sword1 root
4. Increase LB max range un-traited (maintaining EagleEye trait for additional range)
5. Either increase LB1 base damage, or increase firing speed. Alternatively, reduce effects of LB distance penalty (it’s supposed to be a distance bonus…)
6. Increase GS1 base damage
7. Boost spirits’ health (or maybe make them invulnerable, reducing duration to 20s or less?)
8. Increase Signet of the Hunt passive effect to +20% movement speed. Replace active effect with 10s swiftness
9. Move Quick Draw trait to Marksmanship trait line

I too am willing to bet gold that pet bugs, Sword1 root, and LB damage output in some form will be addressed. Whatever they choose to do I’m sure ArenaNet have a better grasp on game balance than we do, and as far as I’m concerned they can take as long as they need to really fix up the Ranger’s game. I’d happily wait a few extra weeks for a single, comprehensive patch if it truly balanced the profession.

i always want to sto my pet
i suggest if stow pet, ranger have another ability to use
i dun think all ranger like that stupid pet

also, 10% passive movement speed is not enough for ranger
how can 10% do in the battle or running in the map??
should be 15% or more

thanks

Argo.7541:

I dont suggest that many improvements i read here. anyway thx getting more content for my kitten dreams ;D

But this my statement of expectation:
“Many signets, a shout or two, and spirits are all a bit lackluster. That is the first place to expect improvements."

What signets/shouts specific and what changes or improvement to expect

speculations?

As a matter of lack of diversity we all pretty much use warhorn offhand for the buffs swiftness might fury. However you do your stats it’s either speed + extra DPS in a tanky build or maximizing DPS/movement in a DPS build. I always find this need horribly limiting in build weapon choices.

So I expect other ways to get those buffs reliably on a 30 second CD timeframe. Shouts and signets being the logical place to accomplish this enabling offhand weapon diversity.

Spirits I think in beta they learned very well how dangerous fast self buffing could become. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a nullification type spirit added as well as changes that make them more survivable predictable. Maybe a limited nullification type. This would also move towards countering the prevalence of bunker builds which rely so heavily on boons and lack of ways to remove them. It doesn’t force magnify with oyur numbers but inversely on enemies.

I could see spirits adding endurance regen enhancement within their aoe effect. It’s a benefit capped by maximum pool potential (hard to overpower as a result).

I think we could see the spirits GTAO activated become added effects on our and our pets attack. So enabling a snare on weapon/pet attacks blind on the same etc…. Essentially an added buff of limited duration to the effect…

I could see adding combo field options off spirit actives. Perhaps a teleport back to a spirit, a blast finisher on a spirit active etc….(Lots of options for spirits really)

Signets I see CD lowering possible boon benefits plus existing effects.

Hmm, I think they are going to some very important, much needed improvements for the class. Based on prior direction in the class, I estimate the following changes will be made.

Spirit changes. Due to an animation glitch, that triggers after spirits go into and then out of stealth and look solid instead of like spirits, spirits will now follow you, they will just do so much slower than they used to. They will tell us it is only 7% slower, but it’ll actually be 20% slower.

Due to an error with arrows being effected by obstructed all the time, they will fix this problem… by ensuring that all ranger weapons are randomly and arbitrarily obstructed. Equal opportunity obstruction, ranged or melee both.

Due to sword skill rooting the wielder, and this being an annoying, uncontrolled weapon to fight with, they will make all ranger skills self root. Then we will just have to get used to it. Besides, it has been determined that attacking while moving is done too much already and isn’t fun. And this way it lets your slow spirits have a chance to catch up to you.

The issue with pets not attacking on the move. That is easily addressed with a quick bug fix. It was never intentional that pets could move at all in the first place. They are supposed to be completely stationary, like a cool pet looking trap.

We can fix the problem with shortbow working with quickness. We just reduce the non-quickness speed of the bow by adding another 200 ms, and leave the current quickness speed remain the same. That way the shortbow will properly benefit by quickness again and have its speed doubled by the buff.

Warhorn skill #5 has had its cd increased to 1 minute, and the length of its duration reduced to 5 seconds.

And one last quality of life change. There is a strong trend that many rangers are over using traps. This is effecting entirely too many rangers. Traps have been removed.

I simply believe rangers are on drugs or dreaming a lot. They are gonna make changes…yes. But if you expect them to change ranger class so much to the point of making it incredibly overpowered (because honestly, most of the changes i see on this thread are ridiculous funny to read) you can’t be more wrong.

Stuff you can expect, QZ working properly with shortbow…20% increased hp on spirits, 10% AoE damage reduction to pets, some traits changed here and there…but stuff that won’t ever be added is giving rangers crap like pets having twice the HP they have, attack while in movement and all sort of things like buffing shortbow (really, they nerfed it on purpose a few weeks ago and you expect them to buff it).

Nerf/buffs are usually sightly changes, they won’t affect the class directly that much unless it was already very overpowered.

IMO, if longbow is intended to be a sniper weapon, then it should give us extra damage when we’re standing still. Say Rapid Fire +20% damage when player is not moving.

Sleepy.2647:

I simply believe rangers are on drugs or dreaming a lot. They are gonna make changes…yes. But if you expect them to change ranger class so much to the point of making it incredibly overpowered (because honestly, most of the changes i see on this thread are ridiculous funny to read) you can’t be more wrong.

Stuff you can expect, QZ working properly with shortbow…20% increased hp on spirits, 10% AoE damage reduction to pets, some traits changed here and there…but stuff that won’t ever be added is giving rangers crap like pets having twice the HP they have, attack while in movement and all sort of things like buffing shortbow (really, they nerfed it on purpose a few weeks ago and you expect them to buff it).

Nerf/buffs are usually sightly changes, they won’t affect the class directly that much unless it was already very overpowered.

Nah, once you move away from benig a casual player you will see alot of these changes arent op at all but quite balanced. Obviously there are some in here who want god mode but alot of people just want bug fixes, more damage on weak weapons, faster arrows, ect… Im pretty sure the changes they make wont be that minor, just look at necros, they got buffed/fixed and now they are actually a threat, and everywhere! And they were possibly in worse shape than ranger was, are they perfect? No, but they are much more viable with multiple builds and very competent.

Xolosheep.1649:

IMO, if longbow is intended to be a sniper weapon, then it should give us extra damage when we’re standing still. Say Rapid Fire +20% damage when player is not moving.

Agreed, I think steady focus needs to be buffed a bit or changed somehow, that would be our sniper trait, hell I want them to combine piercing arrows with something anyways, why not combine it with steady focus and bring steady focus damage up too 20% when endurance is above 50%, then again it is a sniper trait so if they buff it at all Id be happy with it regardless.

@Sleepy: 100% agree that most of these suggestions are waaaaay OP, and I really hope that we don’t get them. I prefer a nicely balanced class that can compete with everyone – not a faceroll class.

Things I would like to see:

Small (10% – 15%) cooldown reduction on shouts with some very light associated ally buffs thrown in – maybe 2-3s of might, prot, etc. depending on the shout.

Significant cooldown reduction on most signets. I honestly would say at least 50%, but that may be unrealistic. Boost their passives by 10% – 15%, or affect both you and your pet on use w/o traiting. Maybe change the trait to allow passives to stick when activated like Eles have. All of that together would be too much, but some combination of those changes would bring signets in line with other profs.

Definitely boost the passive speed on SoH to somewhere around 20% – 25%. 10% is hardly noticeable and not worth the slot imo.

LB either 10%-ish reduction on cooldowns, or a 5%-ish increase in overall damage. I prefer a cooldown reduction as I like the utility of the LB skills more than I care about its raw damage output.

Unroot OH sword #1 – I think that one is pretty universal. Otherwise, sword feels pretty good to me.

Off-hands are pretty good for the most part. I would maybe add mobility to Whirling Defense, or give evade for the duration that you are rooted. Plus, reduce the duration in either case to balance.

Traps feel pretty good too. I would like to see a short (1s) immobilize or blind added to the poison trap. That one feels lackluster compared to the rest imo.

Spirits. Uh…something. I am completely unfamiliar with them because they are totally non-functional as they are. Just make them gooder.

I may be the only one, but I would rather see the GS get a defensive buff since that seems to be its primary function. We need build diversity more than we need yet another damage option imo.

I realize that the damage output isn’t amazing, but I would rather balance that by decreasing the recharge on #4 and #5. Maybe add a couple more stacks of bleeding to #2, or increase the duration of the existing bleeds to add a bit more pressure to the weapon. Or swap bleeds for a blind, making it even tankier.

I know it’s not popular, but I really don’t think SB needs much love. I feel pretty competent using it, and it seems to have a fair balance of DoT and direct damage. If I were going to change anything on it, I would reduce the cooldown on #5. I like interrupts.

I may be very biased when it comes to longbow but 5% damage buff only? Really? I think it needs a much higher buff than that. But like I said maybe Im biased. Ill take anything atm too. Problem is even with 5% damage buff many people would think its a joke, it needs to be the long ranged version of warriors GS, maybe get rid of the long ranged shot penalty, or atleast reduce it by alot. I rarely stay at max range when players catch on to the sniper on the ledge. I do agree about shortbow tho, I think its fine.

But Im a simple sylvari, my wishlist for longbow is quite simple, fat damage boost, 1500 range untraited ( maybe slightly op, Id take shortbow range being dropped too 900 tho ) faster arrow velocity speed, less penalty damage drop on LRS, a trait to make hunters shot hit like thieves steal, or just make its damage better, and buff barrage, although I can live without this, I still feel barrage doesnt hit as hard as it should. Oh and make point blank shot do more damage the closer they are, so its current damage is when used at max range, when they get closer its dmage is increased by x amount.

Doubt any of this will happen but I can dream.

Change 1
A Longbow should have a slow Auto Attack with a high velocity projectile which hurts guite a lot.
So I think the attack speed as it is is fine.
The projectile velocity needs to be increased drastically as well as it’s damage. (10% damage / 50% velocity should do, we still have traits!)
Rest of the abilities are fine, But every skill could use the higher projectile velocity.

Also the “obstructed” bug needs to be fixed ofc.

Change 2
Pet should be able to hit moving targets, then they are fine.
For people who constantly whine about fast dieing pets: if you pick the glas cannon pet, you get the glas cannon pet! Take a wolve or something instead!

Change 3
GS Abilities are awesome and fun to play. Just the damage is to low. give us a buff here.

Change 4
1HSW Unroot – nuf said

No Pet Option (We can dream can’t we)

I don’t really think Longbow need really a buff in damage just in speed of projectile. I miss so much in WvW when a enemy runs right or left of me.

I disagree, before the shortbow nerf you could use QZ and spam crossfire and it would end up doing more damage than rapid fire during a QZ, that shouldnt happen, ever. Rapid fire used to actually hit hard but seeing it hit for 5-6k when every other class has a skill that can be spammed for 20k ( pistol whip ) or channeled or used once for 10-15k ( 100b, dragons tooth, backstab wct…) it gets annoying. I mean sure using barrage and rapid fire at the same time while pet is smacking them is nice damage, if all the arrows hit, and they stand in barrage, and pet doesnt die. But my problem comes when pet dies or is busy elsewhere and your trusty longow doesnt actually hit that hard. Idc if they removed alot of pet damage and put that towards increasing weapon damage, but I want to play an archer, which should be one of the most feared ranged classes, instead, people maybe fear my bird.

@Dante: I hear you. I kind of threw that 5% in there as a lazy solution. LB is pretty lackluster atm. To me though, it doesn’t seem like it’s really a raw damage issue. It’s too easy to dodge everything, and it’s just not as fun as the other weapons because of it.

That’s why I lean more toward a cooldown reduction. There is some amazing utility in there, but you seldom get to use it effectively unless you are at close range which obviously negates the purpose of the LB. At least having them available more frequently reduces the gamble a bit, and has the side effect of a DPS increase. Plus it would make your opponents think twice about closing the gap since, no matter what, it’s harder to escape the pew pew when you get in close. As it is now, you can just dance back and forth, wait for a LB ranger to exhaust his/her tricks, close to reduce #1’s effectiveness, and attack.

I also like your suggestion to speed up the shots, and give it some additional range too. That would make the knockback a lot more useful as an interrupt rather than just anti-melee, and also reduce the “sidestep my shots” gamble.

@Aeri: I’m with you on pets. Let them attack while moving, and they are just fine. I seldom have any issues with my pets because I’m constantly telling them what to do. Also I trait for frequent swapping so my pets are almost always fresh – unless I get sidetracked and stop micromanaging. That’s part of being a pet class though. You have two bodies to keep track of.

2 extra things i would like to see regarding pets. When we dodge, pets should evade too, its pretty dumb when I dodge a treb shot or something but my pet just takes it and flies off the screen. Also I would like to see downed pets get rallied when we kill something, it would really help their survivability without just giving them passive AoE reduction, which I think would make things too easy.

I personally would LOVE to see ranger pets straight up dropped.

IMHO Ranger is all about nature and knowing its surroundings, using them to his advantage, being sneaky (not thief sneaky but quick and able to gain position wile not standing out). Traps are spot on for a Ranger. Do not feel stealth should work to hide people from us as a Ranger who is in tune with his surroundings should notice. We should have more movement options and something to allow us to take cover wile we shoot would feel right in the idea of how a ranger would act. Shouts are not needed with no pet and what kind of ranger would go out shouting things in combat.. Spirits are bad and have nothing to do with a Ranger?… Want to give group utility for buffs? How about a protection kind of cover or set down things like an engi does that people can run over to get the heal or buff or traps that make circles that buff people inside them?

Where did this idea a Ranger has to be a pet profession come from? WoW?
Rangers used wolfs and bears and dogs to fight for them? Probably not, at most a hawk or falcon to communicate via letters the rest would give him away cause they are large or loud.

If they want rangers to have these pets so bad make them like the spirits of the animals we found and they just give a boon or remove a condition or defend us..

On topic as they are not going to drop the dumb pet or change anything about Ranger over all class design…

I venture to guess they improve long bow, fix 1 handed sword root, and don’t touch the other weps.

Probably wont touch our skill trees or heals

Will leave pets how they are

and change a signet or 2 a shout or 2 and make spirits suck just a little less

and why do I sound so negative?

Cause they want to make more builds usable. Which to me translates to no big changes just a few so you can try and offer more to a party in some other area then dps.

I really enjoy Ranger (hate the pet but the class looking past the pet is fun to me). I just do not think we are going to see any big profession altering change any time soon..

Prove me wrong please! I want to be wrong.. I have even started to finish upgrading what was left to upgrade on my Ranger’s gear. But I just refuse to get my hopes up too high and have them smashed in a good spirited attempt to make things better that fell short.

RummyTheMad.7290:

@Dante: I hear you. I kind of threw that 5% in there as a lazy solution. LB is pretty lackluster atm. To me though, it doesn’t seem like it’s really a raw damage issue. It’s too easy to dodge everything, and it’s just not as fun as the other weapons because of it.

That’s why I lean more toward a cooldown reduction. There is some amazing utility in there, but you seldom get to use it effectively unless you are at close range which obviously negates the purpose of the LB. At least having them available more frequently reduces the gamble a bit, and has the side effect of a DPS increase. Plus it would make your opponents think twice about closing the gap since, no matter what, it’s harder to escape the pew pew when you get in close. As it is now, you can just dance back and forth, wait for a LB ranger to exhaust his/her tricks, close to reduce #1’s effectiveness, and attack.

I also like your suggestion to speed up the shots, and give it some additional range too. That would make the knockback a lot more useful as an interrupt rather than just anti-melee, and also reduce the “sidestep my shots” gamble.

@Aeri: I’m with you on pets. Let them attack while moving, and they are just fine. I seldom have any issues with my pets because I’m constantly telling them what to do. Also I trait for frequent swapping so my pets are almost always fresh – unless I get sidetracked and stop micromanaging. That’s part of being a pet class though. You have two bodies to keep track of.

EH even when they dont dodge and all my arrows hit its mediocre at best. My rapid fire as a full GC barely gets above 6-7k, and thats the only real damage skill longbow has, it should have more options, atm you dodge rapid fire and its gg for longbow damage. Warriors GS is similar but the difference is they have like 3 other skills that hit for 5k+, barrage can do it if they stand in it, which wouldnt be bad if it rooted but it doesnt, hunters shot could use some damage, so could point blank or atleast some other form of damage on the longbow. Being a 1 trick pony makes it easy to counter. But yes shorter cd on the skills and faster projectiles would definitely help.