Greeting fellow rangers.
Like many of you here i have been playing a ranger since launch and i have very much enjoyed this class and it’s always been my go to character for enjoyment, the skill set is enjoyable and the weapons rather diverse.. although a little lack luster in some cases.
Still the one downside has always been how unique mechanics.. and that’s pets, having returned to GW recently after a long break.. i was excited to see what changes and fixs rangers got.. only to find pets were still as broken as ever.. and this last patch has only made things worse, by taking our already broken mechanic and weakening it.
Although we have been asking for a fix to pet survivable and AI.. or even more control, it seems to be a long term hope as i don’t think it’s within an easy time frame for the devs to fix pets in this manner.. but i may have come up with an easier solution.. that still keeps a unique pet mechanic to our class without the need to depend on them.
The general idea is to split pets into 3 new types and focus almost purely on their current F2 ability’s. These activate ability’s would work similarly to the warrior burst skills, either temporarily summoning our pet to perform them or “activating” our docile pet to go perform them. ( I put this in as an option for rangers that still would like to have a pet run alongside them ).
The pets would appear and perform their skill and then despawn or return to the ranger and become docile again until the next cast. The mechanic for the cooldown on these ability could be based on a simple timer.. or perhaps a new resource simaler to fury.. but working on damage taken rather then dealt, as the range gets in more danger.. the pets desire to come to his aid increases, thus lowering the cooldown of the f2 abilty so it’s ready to cast again sooner.
The new pet types.. or ability types would be split into 3 areas. -Burst skills-,-Crowd Control- and -Utility/Buffing-, i will list for you a few examples of each type of skill.
Burst Skills:
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(Pve burst)
Hyena: On activation the ranger summons a hyena at the targets location, the Hyena performs a summoning howl for 5 seconds summoning an ally every second that bites and damages your foe for a total of X-Damage(x15).
This would be what you might call a “Pve burst” skill, designed for a stationary foe that does not move so you’re able to get off the full damage. If used in pvp,the burst could be avoided by kiting the summoned hyenas or simply interrupting the howl of the “Alpha” hyena and breaking the spell. Due to it’s difficultly getting it off, this would be a high dps burst.
(Mixed burst)
Drake: On activation the ranger summons a X-Drake at the target location, unleashing a breath attack on all enemy’s caught in the cone.
This would work pretty much the same as current drakes activated ability, this type of ability would be both a pve and pvp ability best used for group damage.. but with some setup to keep your targets in place required. I used X-drake because the drake could either be chosen for the breath status effect.. or perhaps random depending on the zone you’re in(Really more of a lore idea, to call on the local wildlife ect)
(Quick burst)
Raven: On activation the ranger calls down a Raven/Flock of Ravens to deal a quick burst of damage to you foe and bleed them.
This is pretty much the current F2.. but with altered damage numbers, the idea of quick skills would be for pvp.. almost instant and easy to land.. but with lower damage numbers then some of the other burst skills that require more setup.