Guild Wars 2

Here are my proposed changes after playing this class avidly in both PvP and PvE:

SPIRITS
a. I believe Battosai mentioned a good idea in SotG: allow a toggle stay and follow button for spirits when you have Spirits Unbound equipped. This will improve the spirits “survivalbility” in both plays while not pushing them to OP status.
b. Increase the health pool and toughness in PvE only. This will also help deal with those massive AoE attacks in dungeons from bosses.

PETS
a. Increase health pool and toughness in PvE only. This will help during those tough boss fights that just annihilate pets with two hits.
b. Pets should dodge when players dodge. Now, I’m not asking for some fancy animation maybe just give them the evade but this will help in PvE dungeons tremendously. There’s many dungeon mechanics in which if you don’t dodge, you’re dead (Kholer) and pets fall victim to them all the time which hurt the ranger.

WEAPONS
I. Sword
a. Make sword’s auto non-rooting more like the GS in which you can attack and strafe around.

II. Longbow
a. Fix the range/dmg ratio because as of now it’s really hard to maintain range in both PvE and PvP. If players are able to get 1000 range between them and their target then they deserve a better damage buff because they are out of range from team buffs most of the time and it’s pretty hard to do that.
b. Consolidate Hunter’s Shot and Point Blank Shot; it just makes sense.
c. IDK what the new skill should be, maybe that can be discussed.

TRAITS
I. Skirmishing and Wilderness Survival
i. There are a couple of changes I think should be made to improve the flow of traits and game play.
a. Swap Trapper’s Expertise and Martial Mastery.
b. Swap Trap Potency with Bark Skin.

II. Beastmastery
a. The healing done to the player from Natural Healing should be affected by healing power.
b. Add swiftness buff to pet to Instinctual Bond. This will help pet actually get to a target quick enough to utilize the quickness buff.

UTILITIES
We are lacking active condition removal so to aide this I say:
a. Reduce the cool down of Signet of Renewal.
b. Protect Me should cleanse or transfer condi to pet or maybe Guard removes 1 condi.
c. Lightning Reflexes could perhaps remove a condi.

What I wonder is, if we have a trait that grants pets protection on dodge why not make it ageis?(just for pets)

What I wonder is, if we have a trait that grants pets protection on dodge why not make it ageis?(just for pets)

Both have their pro’s and con’s. Versus a single hit attack, aegis is superior, however against multiple hits from AoE fields, protection would reduce more over time. As the PvE game is heavily mired with AoE, protection serves more in my opinion.

I’m just gonna reply to the Weapons and Utilities part:
Sword: Yes, this should be fixed. It would “improve the feel of the weapon”, to borrow the words one of the devs who talked about potential longbow changes in SOTG.
Longbow:
1. You bring up a good point about being out of range of buffs, but your compensated by being out of range of most danger. I’ll admit though I’d rather have it be a constant damage, but that would change the way the weapon is used. I’d wait to see what other changes could be made to the weapon’s before changing the numbers, so that it isn’t made overpowered.
2 & 3. Basically I agree. Also mentioned in SOTG.

Utilities
A. Signet of Renewal: Perhaps reduce slightly so that when traited the cooldown goes down to 40 seconds. One of the issues with this skill is that it is also a stun breaker, and you can’t have those on too low a recharge.
B. I’m fine with Protect Me transferring a condition or two, or perhaps some other additional effect. As for Guard, I think it needs a new functionality. The main reason people seem to use it is to get the buffs from nature’s voice. The protection for your pet is good , but the stealth is not so useful except in very specific situations. The functionality could be changed so thakittens more than a use-on-recharge skill and can be used tactically.
C. Lightning Reflexes: Could (and perhaps should) get a remove crippled, chilled, and immobilized like the thief’s Roll for Initiative. The vigor duration and damage would be reduced slightly to compensate.

@Roy

100% agree with Lightning Reflexes.

@Peter
I personally like the sword as is. I like the leap that can keep you glued on target with the cripple. You can’t dodge while leaping, so I’d rather keep the leap.

@Tracker
I agree being glued to your target is great, what I’m asking for is to allow us move while attacking; so being able to move around and then still being able to execute the leap. Go and attack with a GS and move around you’ll see what I mean.

Honestly, my most hoped for change is probably that toggle spirit button and the survival buff.

Maybe we can discuss what they should include in longbow since they have already mentioned that they are consolidating skills in the SotG. What do you guys think should be added to LB to help it out?

Roy.7405:

C. Lightning Reflexes: remove crippled, chilled, and immobilized

YES! PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF ANET YES!

the lightning reflexes idea is great. Also something ive been thinking of for a long time is that guard creates a Smoke field . I think that would add a ton of viability to Rangers.

Imagine casting guard, then using s2 to leap through it for a few seconds of stealth. its just what we need to give us a little gusto. I also believe the blast finisher does a blind, which would be nice also and both go along with the “guard” idea.

What if pets had passives?

-Bird pets could go something like “Flight: This pet ignores terrain elevation”(Going up and down cliffs, walls, etc)

-Cats may have “Lethal Paws: Critical damage increased 20%”

-Canines “On the hunt: Basic attacks cripple when enemy’s health is below 33%”

-Bears “Defender: Every damage that exceeds X% of ranger’s hp in one hit is transferred to pet”

-Spiders "Venomous Nature: Basic attacks have X% to cause poison

This class is still just as awful as it has always been. But now even more so.

I especially loved the shortbow nerf. It is now effectively the same as axe mainhand, but much weaker in exchange for bleeds and no AE.

This class still doesn’t have a competetive power build leaving most to use condition builds (many of which don’t even use shortbow).

The class still has horrible skill choices that all help improve defense and leaving no real offensive options to choose from outside of condition damage from traps.

Pets still don’t scale with gear properly and they’re always on the chopping block for nerfs because of it.

Playing a ranger isn’t interactive at all because so much time is spent just auto-attacking and running in circles. It’s the reason people use longbow in my opinion. Longbow is a horrible weapon compared to short bow, but people use it because it’s more ‘fun’. It’s more fun because it’s skills actually ‘do’ something. Shortbow skills don’t make numbers pop up… you simply shoot a simple AE poison, a no damage daze, or snare.

Any change to put the range back in ranger at this point would be welcome. Anything that would make the class feel like you’re doing more than auto-attacking with it all day while you run in circles around the enemy would be great.