Guild Wars 2

These are just my opinions on how to change the ranger a bit. Instead of just complaining about how rangers are, I figure I would actually post some feedback about how I think the ranger should be. In my opinion, the ranger isn’t in a good state and needs some work. If anyone else wants to give their feedback please do so, but keep it clean and informative.
 
 
General

-Make pets F2 instant
-Fix pet tracking
-Pet drops aggro when he goes down
-Give pets a dodge that the player can control
-Reduce aoe damage to pets
-Reduce pet swap when your pet is fully down
 

Traits

-Swap Trapper’s Expertise(20;VIII) in Skirmishing with Martial Mastery(20;X) in Wilderness Survival.

-Swap Predator’s Instinct(20;V) in Marksmanship with Off-Hand Training(20;VII) in Wilderness Survival.

-Put Trap Potency(30;XI) from Skirmishing in Wilderness Survival.

I feel these changes fit with the stat upgrades that the trait lines give you, and that wilderness survival should be more focused on traps, while marksmanship and skirmishing be more focused on weapon damage.
 

Weapons
 
LongBow:

-Decrease Long Range Shot channel time slightly.

-Make Hunter’s Shot have a short cast time. If the Long Range Shot cast time is decreased, finding a spot to fire Hunter’s Shot will be a bit hard without interrupting your own cast.

-Remove the range at damage mechanic. This makes the weapon a bit too situational. It’s good at open world events, but in dungeons have little room at times.

-Fix barrage so that if you get interrupted the recharge is shorter. Or reduce the channel time/change the rate at which arrows fall so if you do get interrupted, you get more damage in. (Example video)
 
Shortbow:

-Possibly buff the auto attack damage.
-Chance the side/back bleed mechanic. Change it so it will apply a bleed every two attack. (Could prove to be overpowered)

I feel the shortbow need more verity to it. In most situations you’re spamming the auto attack and Poison Volley occasionally. The other abilities could serve purpose in open world events and dungeons, but I don’t find myself using them much.
 

Utilities

I hear the spirits need to be worked on, but I haven’t used them myself. If anyone has any feedback on some of the utilities, please reply.

predators instinct is adept (so 10?) and it fits marksmanship much more than offhand training (offhand training projectiles are… throw torch/crippling talon?… very marksmanship)

i agree with your other trait suggestions though

-Make pets F2 instant
i think they made some improvements to this at some point… i remember whilst levelling my ranger (first 80) i had to mash f2 and they still wouldnt do anything; now my jaguar stealths near instantly and raven blinds when it reaches its target

-Pet drops aggro when he goes down
why is this needed? so enemies dont come running to you after they kill your pet? i can see the use in certain dungeons (TA f>u path if your team isnt killing the spiders) but it just seems a bit lazy to me

-Give pets a dodge that the player can control
i would love a way to make my pet dodge… or as someone posted on another thread ‘when you dodge your pet gets evasion’

-Reduce aoe damage to pets
completely disagree, all we need is a pet dodge

-Reduce pet swap when your pet is fully down
swap it out before it dies? like a good ranger, if you let it die then you should be quite harshly punished
i like the range damage mechanic (although its unrealistic and could use a damage buff at 1000+ range; because enemies arent going to be staying in that window for long – especially with the slow attack speed)

i have a tendency to use quickness during barrage/rapid fire (with QZ/pet swap quickness/quicker pet swap recharge you can get a surprising amount of quickness) so getting interrupted is rarely a problem (although i dont Spvp much/at all on my ranger), and if it is; we have a long stability in rampage as one, why not pop it before barraging if you’re in danger of getting interrupted?

my ranger seems fine at most dungeons, skill damage isnt affected by range (with CD reduction trait i find myself using rapid fire/hunters shot (constant +10% damage is awesome ^^)/barrage if boxed in, or i switch to sword/warhorn and go ninja on them

i disagree with the shortbow damage buff (and if it is ever buffed then longbow – and pretty much every ranger weapon- will need a damage buff too), shortbow is a skirmishing weapon, quick shot helps you get into flanking position/evade damage, crippling shot means more bleeds (although from your pet) and concussive shot is for rare interrupts

edit
wow… long reply; sry for thw WoT ^^;

“Swap Predator’s Instinct(20;V) in Marksmanship with Off-Hand Training(20;VII) in Wilderness Survival.” is wrong, I forgot to edit that. I read Predator’s Instinct wrong, I thought for some reason it said it would apply cripple to a foe when you are below 25%. I meant to change this and find something else to possibly swap, but never did. I suggested Off-Hand Training be in marksman for the condition duration.

geat idea’s but let’s face it here. None of the staff have been on this section of forums for over 2 months. They are stay clear of the Ranger bugs and fixes that they know they need to fix

PvP only as I do not play anything else

Pet F2 Activation time should not be instant, but should be much more reasonable. Drakes should be looked at (the cone ones) will never hit in PvP as a near 3 second charge will cause even the worst of players to have moved out of position unintentionally. Perhaps what they need is F2 to bypass the queing system similar to how dodge’s work so there is no “pre-delay” before the ability.

Pet rez timer, should stay the same. I feel in its current state it punishes the ranger adequately for letting their pet die. However I feel the player should be able to rez their pet out of combat to speed things up a little (only the owner)

I disagree with your trait realignments as this would mean that any player using traps would no longer be able to take Empathetic Bond. I instead propose that the sub traits of Markmanship (Condition Duration) and Skirmishing (Critical Damage) be swapped in position to make skirmishing line a hybrid condi/crit line like it appears it was meant to be. This will also have minimal impact on existing builds both power and condi.

The Shortbow bleed mechanic is fine as it is, there is a 30 degree arc to the front of any mob or player that it will not trigger a bleed. What you propose is a major nerf to compotent condition shortbow players.

Sword auto attack ability number 2 (kick) stops the player from moving for no real reason.

Utilities:

Protect Me: Good in theory, however in practical PvP the pet will instantly die usually taking double damage from all attack due to splash mechanics (and he comes right beside you). It lasts one second longer than a warriors endure pain, but it is not reliable at all. I don’t mind the fact that using this ability stops the pet from attacking for the duration (-40% dps loss) but it also is designed to hurt the pet. There are too many negative effects associated with this ability.

Guard: Useless, pets cannot contest nodes… all this is is… cute.

Search and Rescue: Cannot determine target, it goes after the nearest dead person.

Sick Em: Underwhelming considering it relies on an AI

Spirits: Give short duration buff that does not cover the recharge of the ability. recharge of the ability takes place after the creature dies.

Quickening Zephyr: Is the only quickness ability that does not also break stun. but keeps similar attributes to the rest including same cooldown and a negative effect.

Sharpening Stone: Ticks are lost on each missed attack, and using either a splitblade or poison volley exhausts all the chargest but only places one bleed.

Signets: Should not have to have a 30 point trait in a power line to be useful.
wild: Pet stability is not useful
stone:Pet taking no damage is not useful
renewal:The best untraited signet, however this is dwarfed by empathetic bond so it is not very useful, it also has a very high chance to kill your pet.

Frost Trap: Does no damage and is a 5 second duration chill field on a 30(24) second cooldown. this usually only gets one tick (when spec’d a 2 second chill) on a player which is pretty much a waste of a utility slot. The only strength is when you can use a blast finish partner on it, however since rangers have no access to blast finishers it means you have to have someone hold your hand to use it properly. One leap only goes so far.

Fire Trap: Excellent trap low cooldown allows for many uses of fire shields with a leap finisher. Its low duration also keeps its waste in check.

Spike Trap: Cripple seems rather low duration, and its bonus to the trapping traits make the bleeding double its duration when it should double the amount of bleeds. Due to the amount of cleansing in game the bonus from trapping traits barely increases its effectiveness.

Viper’s Nest: Not up to par with spike and fire trap, not sure where they were going with this one as ranger has many sources of poison already. (poison volley ~ 10s – 9s CD, Serpent Strike ~7s – 15s CD, Stalker’s Strike ~10s – 10s CD)

Elites:
RaO:Decent ability, however due to the low amount of buffs a ranger has for itself it is easily stolen/corrupted. It is also a very obvious skill making countering it simple.
Entangle:Too many ways to escape an entangle, you can cleanse, use evades while in the roots, kill the roots, or any teleport. Not to mention that any knockbacks from allies remove people from this effect. It is also not easy to land on top of all of these drawbacks it is not where it should be in effectiveness.
Spirit of Nature:Spirit’s Rez is too obvious and pet does not have stability. the spirit also has a low HP pool.

These are my opinions only