Guild Wars 2

Introduction – (TL:DR version)

I have been thinking of rolling a Ranger for a bit now. I keep talking to other players about the class and everytime I make this suggestion I seem to get a resounding “that would be awesome!”

So I thought I’ll throw the idea up here and see if it gains any traction in the community. I dont know if this has already been suggested, but I couldn’t find any posts on it so:

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What if Rangers were petless, and pets had to be traited for?

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The Classic Ranger – (My case for the change)

Most Rangers in the fantasy genres are petless (think LotR not WoW). What normally defines them is there ability to track and survive in hostile conditions, as well as a very keen senses and high combat agility balanced with an ability to use terrain and ingenuity to their advantage.

Rangers in my opinion are like a warrior and a thief rolled together with some unique skills that neither of them have.

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What about Pet Abilities? – (If I lose a pet, what do I get to replace it?)

When running solo, you can choose one of the new abilities listed below that is linked to your Ranger. The Ranger would also get a damage buff to compensate for the lose of DPS suffered by removing your pet.

If you have a pet, then the pet bar replaces it and you get the normal choices for your pet. With re-traiting you can always opt to play with a pet or without as preffered for the situation.

Ranger based abilities might include:

1. Tracking
   When this ability is activated, the Rangers current target leaves red dots on the mini map for the next 30secs. Just like the white dots that the player himself leaves.
   Whether the Ranger loses target or not, once activated the dots continue to appear until the ability expires. The dots fade at the same rate as the players dots (or maybe a bit faster depending on the cool down.)
   This would be an interesting ability against stealth classes, since you can’t see them, but you can see whether they have left the area and in what direction. You could even use it to track people in your own party!
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2. Alertness
   When this ability is used, stealthed creatures within a short to medium range become visible to the Ranger. Just like when an ally is stealthed. He cannot target the creature since it is still stealthed, but he can react AoEing, setting traps or running away.
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3. Bear Grylls
   A ranger using this ability is a master of survival. He can increase the duration of any food or maintainence oils by 50%.
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4. On the Hunt!
   Food and Maintenace Oils have thier durations halved but gain an increase in potency by 20%.
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5. Predatory Reflexes
   The Ranger gains a passive ability to avoid 100% of damage from a single attack on a 60sec cooldown. Like Aegis but it would count as a miss rather than a block.
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6. Roll with Punches
   The Ranger takes 5% less damage due to thier natural inclination to go limp when threatened! Ok that was a joke but you get the point.

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Have a Say

If you like the idea give it a +1, or if you hate it please say so. Throw in any other ideas you might have in.

Seems a lot of Ranger issues stem from thier pets. This isn’t a reason to remove pets, they just need to be refined and worked through. I just think there are other ways to define the Ranger beyond “he is a thief/warrior that cant hide or fight but he has a pet!”

I see a lot of love for this class but I don’t find many people are happy with it.

Pets have been a problem since beta. Yet we’re stuck with them, Anet seems to have zero intention of ever removing pets / allowing permanent stowing. It’s a forced handicap upon Rangers and it’ll unfortunately most likely never change until they truly care about the class.

Pets work well in spvp now but over half are useless. I don’t think they will ever address ranger problems in wvw

bear grylls hahaha

+1! I would absolutely love being able to be a petless ranger… Anet could give us more traps and allow us to spec as trappers..

Aardwolf.6085:

+1! I would absolutely love being able to be a petless ranger… Anet could give us more traps and allow us to spec as trappers..

But then Zaishen Challenge Trap Ranger Meta would be a thing again, and trap burst in WvW would down entire zergs! What would the world be like at that point?

This sound awesome. But the tracking would be kinda pointless in PvE. Mobs seldom flee in PvE.

Bauli.5398:

This sound awesome. But the tracking would be kinda pointless in PvE. Mobs seldom flee in PvE.

Yeah thats true, but there would be other abilities to choose from for PvE.

You could have an ability that lets you see the aggro range of mobs. Allowing you to lead your group through guantlets or sneaking up close to some monsters to revive someone without setting them off.

There are lots of alternatives if Anet was willing to allow the class to have pets as optional.

We are the pet class of this game. The trick is to figure out a way to make them work for everybody.

Kilger.5490:

We are the pet class of this game. The trick is to figure out a way to make them work for everybody.

Which they have failed at since beta and continue to fail at with this patch. I was hoping but after some hours of trial and error, they still aren’t good enough for me to pick over my warrior, guardian, or mesmer for dungeons.

I’m glad, however, they left my main hand sword untouched… but with the recent GM traits to warriors there’s more reason to take it over my Ranger.

Kilger.5490:

We are the pet class of this game. The trick is to figure out a way to make them work for everybody.

I don’t believe there has to be a “pet” class. And in this case, Rangers classically, don’t have to have a pet to be a ranger.

Pets are fine, but they should be optional according to how the player wants to play. GW2 is a game that promoted the fact that you could play the way you wanted to play. You could play as DPS or as support, ranged or melee… But for some reason Rangers are a “have to” class? Why? To fulfill an imaginary void? People like mounts too and Anet (wisely) left them out of the game.

Too me, it feels likeAnet Dev’s didn’t think about what truly makes a ranger. It feels like they just thought, World of Warcraft hunters, people like animals, lets re-make that. Sadly, that’s where much of the creativity for the class stopped.

I’m just trying to push the boundaries for the class a little more, since I don’t think it would be that hard for Anet to take a step like this and it would breath some more life into the class. The Hardest part would be balancing it. Which I assume would just be a matter of playing around with the numbers a bit.

(Forgive my ignorance, if any Anet Devs are reading this and thinking “Oh its not that easy, my friend!”)

haha Bear Grylls should be an Elite – Bear Grylls (20s) Eat mesmer spleen to become god mode, emitting 20 bazillion clones out your buttocks to do all your damage while you sit scratching yourself and eating a hamburger.

Thought so to since launch. Make it one of the choices you make when you first start your class or something, you know so that the choice there ACTUALLY MEANS ANYTHING. That way maybe my ranger will mean more to me then being something i play only due to the absence of “inter gear weight transmuting”. A side thought for how to make current pets better? How about their targeting is NOT broken when an enemy goes invis or teleports or whatever and will continue to attack them even WHILE they are invis, looking at you thiefs and mesmers.

My pets are still same crap at fight. Animations…

I agree with your idea of being petlesa but still being able to have a pet through traits for those that like them but, your ideas are more like traits or utility slot abilities not a class mechanic, a better idea (that suits the archetype of a class mechanic) could possibly be like an having the common guild wars animals as aspects that you activate. When activated you become “aspect of the bear” for example and gain a passive bonus to health or toughness or dmg reduction depending on what aspect you activate whilst also gaining access to an ability that ties in with the aspect which you can use while you are in that aspect like for aspect of the bear you can use an ability called toughened hide where you are immune to conditions and or damage or crits idk w/e for a small period of time. I think this would be cool and also represents a rangers affinity to nature and animals

GG, not THIS topic again! Sorry to the OP but, this topic has been done over and over since launch. To simply state it, no Tolkien didn’t invent the Ranger archetype. No, a Ranger shouldn’t be petless. If you want that, ask for another profession please.

Myst.9182:

Bauli.5398:

This sound awesome. But the tracking would be kinda pointless in PvE. Mobs seldom flee in PvE.

Yeah thats true, but there would be other abilities to choose from for PvE.

You could have an ability that lets you see the aggro range of mobs. Allowing you to lead your group through guantlets or sneaking up close to some monsters to revive someone without setting them off.

There are lots of alternatives if Anet was willing to allow the class to have pets as optional.

I’m sorry, but have you played in PvE? Why would anyone need or want this? The only place this would have any value is in Dungeons and everyone already knows how to do this without a Ranger. In the open world you just run past mobs because they don’t matter.

The alternative to pets is not a goofy utility mechanic that is only relevant in one of the three play types. It is Preparations. One of the best features of a Guild Wars Ranger to not propagate into Guild Wars 2.

I would actually love to see a translation of the Guild Wars Ranger that included several of the better preparations as the mechanic. F1-4 are each a different preparation. You run one and it runs for a while, but while it’s running you can’t use any of your other preparations. So while you have kindle arrow active you can’t use seeking arrow. All the old preparations are obviously relevant to bows, since that was the Ranger weapons, but they could set it up so that the preparations change like Warrior Bursts, dependent on the weapon you’re using. They could even go so far as to make F4 chance based on your offhand, instead of them all attached to your mainhand.

Then to really push the old Ranger theme home, Pets become skills. You use up a skill slot with a pet, and that slot does nothing but be a pet.