Guild Wars 2

I love pet classes. I love the Ranger. I do not love their Beastmastery line. It doesn’t live up to its potential at all.

This rework is aimed at improving it to be more universally useful and to make it more interesting.

General Goals

Ensure that minor traits that are always beneficial to the Ranger.

Make traits more universal in general.

Condense traits to open slots for new traits.

Allow Rangers to scale better on gear. They currently have the worst gear-scaling of any class thanks to the way that pets scale.

Keep traits that are valuable to certain situations or builds, but move them to areas that fit their situational natures better.

Minor Traits

Loud Whistle (Adept or Master)
Reduces recharge on pet swapping by 20%.

Speed Training (Adept or Master)
Reduces cooldown on pet skills by 10%.
*Combination of Speed Training and Commanding Voice – now effects both passive skills and the f2 skill.

Master’s Bond (Grandmaster)
Your pet inherits 10% of your bonus stats.
*Only counts stats from your gear and trait lines. Does not count base stats, food, might stacks, or stat-bonus traits (such as Spotter).

Adept Majors

Mighty Swap
(Unchanged)

Shout Master
Now also grants your pet 3 stacks of Might for 5 seconds upon activation of a Shout.
(Buffed)

Nature’s Wrath
Gain 10% of your Healing Power as Power.
(Moved from Grandmaster Minor).

Instinctual Bond
(Moved from Adept Minor).

Scavenger
Your pet gains health when it hits a foe under 50% health.
(New)

Monkey See, Monkey Do
Your pet gains evasion when you dodge roll.
(New)

Master Majors

General
Intimidation Training, Stability Training, and Rending Attacks are now universal to all pets, as per the previewed upcoming Ranger changes.

Invigorating Bond
When you swap your pet or activate it’s F2 ability, grant Regeneration and Vigor to it and to allies in the area for 5 seconds.
*Based on Pet’s healing power.
(Reworked combination of Vigorous Training and Invigorating Bond to open up a new trait).

Grandmaster Majors

Zephyr’s Speed
(Unchanged)

Natural Healing
Tooltip clarified to specify that you also gain healing at the current rate of 133 every 3 seconds.

Beastmaster’s Might
Gain 5% of your pet’s stats.
*Based on their total stats from their base value plus beastmastery line bonus.
*Applied before Master’s Bond, and thus is not effected by it for balance reasons.
*Applied after traits such as Nature’s Wrath and Strength of Spirit, and thus does not fuel them for balance reasons.
(New)

Summary of Changes

Applied previewed upcoming Ranger changes.

Moved current Adept Minor to Adept Major. It isn’t entirely useless, but it is definitely a situational choice and, as such, should not be a Minor trait.

Moved current Grandmaster Minor to Adept Major. It’s a decent trait with a Zealot’s or Cleric’s build, but is hardly universal enough to be Minor-worthy. It shouldn’t be overpowered even with the swap to Adept status, as it isn’t exactly a superb trait.

Removed current Beastmaster’s Bond. It’s a situational gimmick that works against the rest of the trait line and simply isn’t a convenient trait to use. Created a new, more univeral, and better trait that accomplishes a similar purpose and utilized it as the new Grandmaster Minor.

Removed Compassion Training. It just isn’t useful for most pets and it’s role is served, in part, by the new Beastmaster’s Bond.

Condensed Invigorating Bond (Grandmaster Major) into Vigorous Training (Master Major) and reworked the effect for balance.

Added new Grandmaster trait for Rangers who wish to be more powerful and less reliant on their pet. This trait opens up a LOT of build variety, as different pet families will grant the Ranger different stat numbers.

Added trait that grants pets evasion on dodge roll. This will increase their survivability, if taken, and allow skilled Rangers to keep their pets up longer, especially in dungeons.

Added new Adept trait that heals pets when they attack low health foes. This should increase their survivability, if taken.

Buffed Shout Master somewhat in order to encourage Shout use.

I like this a lot. However, I do not see the need to changed too much of the line. Perhaps this could be more apropriate.

Instinctual bond – Convert 1 condition into a boon on pet swap. Currently it gives the pet quickness when you go into downed state

Shout mastery – Shouts give 3 might in an AoE on use as you have stated. But I find this too simplistic and uninteresting but wat the hell

F2 mastery and speed training merged into a single trait – new random trait added

Masters bond – instead of stacking, the pet inherits 10-15% of the ranger gear stats.

Invigorating bond – now works on pet swap and not on activation

Natures wrath – simply buffed, 10% off of healing power is too little. Perhaps 10% HP into both power and condition damage. Perhaps removed all together and replaced by a different trait.

As far as your trait of pet gaining dodge with a trait, i find it silly. It should be base with the pet gaining blur frames with every dodge and every weapon evade. But thats a story for another time