Guild Wars 2

Ranger Feedback & Suggestion Summary

Display of collected data from English (EU & NA),German and French fan page forums, as well as related summaries on social networks
This compendiums main purpose is, to point out various concerns – as well as issues – related to the ranger profession for developers. 1 Copy posted on Suggestions, 1 on the Ranger profession Forum.

legend:
’tech’…: script or coding issue
’req’…: open community question on related topic
’sug’…: community suggestion on topic (in condensed form)
’glitch’…: possible abusive malfunctions
’inf’…: general definition for readers, phrased to grasp the explained issue

Topic Listing:

• 1) Weapon Skills (Hotkey 1-5)
• 2) Utility Skills (Hotkey 6-0)
• 3) Traits
• 4) Pets

1) Weapon Skills (Hotkey 1-5)

• I. Sword
• II. Off-hand Axe
• III. Warhorn
• IV. Longbow
• V. Spear (Aquatic)

I. Sword
Hotkey Skill 1 (Slash – Kick – Pounce)
’inf’:
Ranger’s main hand sword attack has the player called ‘sword lock’ flaw, with auto cast activated the 1 ability will lock the player in melee range unable to move/ strafe away as long as his target is alive.
This occurs because the game will always start the ranged movement of ‘Kick’ and ‘Pounce’ regardless of the distance to the rangers target. Though the player is blocked by the targets hitbox, the animation time spend on those jumps ‘roots’ the player, turning the general mobile sword theme into a weird static gameplay.
Currently the only way to avoid sword lock is to de activate auto cast and manually activate every 1 attack
/’inf’
’sug’
Implementing a range filter on the ability, to avoid the gap closing movement if the target is within melee range
/’sug’

Hotkey Skill 3 (Serpent’s Strike)
’inf’
Since Serpent’s Strike is also an evasive move it has a long animation while tumbling around your target.
If the target is even slightly moving left or right during the attack animation, the ability fails to connect, even if the target remains within ‘melee’ range.
/’inf’
’sug’
Add a homing component to the strikes final animation. (turning towards the target at the end of the animation)
Or to avoid redesigning the existing animation, turn the final strike into a ‘melee’ aoe.
/’sug’

II. Off-hand Axe
Hotkey Skill 5 (Whirling Defense)
’inf’
Whirling Defense also kown as ‘whirling roots’ is rooting the player during the animation
/’inf’
’sug’
Add the ability to move while casting whirling defense
/’sug’

III. Warhorn
Hotkey 4 Hunter’s Call
’inf’
a)Hunter’s Call has a graphic issue – called ‘Griffon Storm’ (or giant birds of doom from hell) changing the size of the Hawks based on the targets scaling.
Especially on veteran lightning elementals the hawks turn into small dragons – turning the attack into a ridiculous sight.
b) Despite the animation of descending hawks hunter’s call acts like a projectile attack, there are raging birds picking on your targets face, yet the player receives ‘obscured’ messages if he breaks line of sight.
/’inf’
’tech’
a) Revisit the animation scaling, on certain npcs: Lightning Elementals, Giants, Ettins, Trebuchets
/’tech’
’sug’
b) Removing the line of sight req on following attacks (post the 1. Hit)
/’sug’

Hotkey 5 Call of the Wild
’inf’
Call of the Wild received a reasonable range nerf during the Beta weekends. A wide range fury and might buff is a little over the top, yet the swiftness buff is now inferior to similar buffs through professions (and even our own pets)
/’inf’
’sug’
Changing the range of the swiftness buff from Call of the Wild back to 1200
/’sug’

IV. Longbow
’inf’
A lot of summaries comparing longbow and shortbow exist around the web, regardless of one (longbow) being a power weapon and the other being a condition weapon
Summed up – their dps performance is equal. On favourable conditions. (maximum range vs flanking bonus)
Yet the longbow has a flaw on long range – quite contradictory indeed.
Longbows arrows animation is slow enough for targets to evade the shots simply by moving/strafing even without swiftness buffs or ‘dodge rolls’
/’inf’
’sug’
Speeding up the missile speed of longbow Arrows
/’sug’

V. Spear (Aquatic)
Swirling Strike
’inf’
Swirling strike is interrupted by Hotkey 1 attacks if autocast is activated
/’inf’
’tech’
Deactivate autocast while swirling strike is active (similar to whirling defense [axe offhand])
/’tech’

2) Utility Skills (Hotkey 6-0)

• I. Survival
• II. Signets
• III. Spirits
• IV. Shouts
• V. Heals

I. Survival
Sharpening Stone
’inf’
Sharpening stones bleeds are not applied on some debuff placing attacks (Axe: Splitblade; Shortbow: Poison Volley;) – even though the charges are consumed.
/’inf’
’tech’
Revisit debuff placer attacks, either to not consume charges from sharpening stone, or to properly apply sharpening stone – depending on what is intended
/’tech’

II. Signets
Signet of Renewal
’inf’
Transfers one condition to your pet every 10 seconds, while the debuff removal is necessary in a heavy condition environment, the fact remains that the rangers pet is a fair source of the rangers dps / support
/’inf’
’sug’
Instead of transferring a debuff, remove it entirely
Or
Also remove a debuff from the pet every 10 seconds
/’sug’

Signet of the Wild
’inf’
With the current pet system the gain of % more damage for a single hit is underwhelming
Pets have no big single hit attacks to profit from the damage increase (and neither has the ranger with traited signet of the beastmaster)
The buff is also consumed by any action, regardless whether the action is a damaging attack or not (both pet and ranger)
/’inf’
’sug’
Turning the buff from a single hit into a few seconds of increased damage (maybe decreasing the damage % for balancing reasons)
/’sug’
’tech’
Revisit the buff(on both pet and player), adding polls not to consume the buff on heal use, buff use, trap casts, signet use, shout use, summons and consume able use
/’tech’

III. Spirits
’inf’
Spirits were hit hard during the Beta weekends
The cooldown on proc rates of their auras are reasonable due the ridiculous stacking of protection and burning
The hp nerf along with the rather low radius on the spirit active skills turned them into one shot wonders in environments where they ‘re supposed to shine (as group support, WvW, Dungeons, Group Events, and also in Spvp)
Especially the active skills with their long cast animations are lack lustres, since any enemy in close range is threatening to kill the spirits with little effort.
/’inf’
’sug’
Reversing the hp nerf on spirits, even if their hp is traited they easily die, rendering the buffs obsolete.
Or
Turning Spirits into ‘spirits’ non target able zones, since they don’t attack this would bring them on par with banners
Also:
Speeding up the cast animation. It’s easy to run out of a spirits range (even with traited range).
/’sug’
’glitch’
Despite the used ability (summoned spirit) the utility slot may be swapped at any time out of combat as long as the spirits active effect is not on cooldown
This kills the spirit, though it’s expected to be not intended to swap abilities without waiting for their summon cooldown to finish
Example: Summon spirit of nature
Use active effect
Active effect cooldown is ready again
Switch elite skill to any other
Spirit of nature dies, swapped in elite skill is not on cooldown.
/’glitch’

IV. Shouts
’inf’
There is a lot of runting and complains about Shout’s – for various reasons
They’re removed during the Beta process.
Stated in interviews as they don’t fit the rangers theme, and were too boring as active abilities, and made their return mere days before the game launch, with little to no changes from the early beta state skills
/’inf’
’req’
Open Question: Why were the shouts re implemented ? with the same functionality prior stated as inferior for the planned class design?
/’req’
’sug’
Adding group wide effects / buffs to shouts
Example: group fury for X sec on sick em, group protection for X sec on protect me
/’sug’

Sick’Em
’inf’
Sick Em s bonus runspeed and damage are often lost within mere seconds, or tenths of seconds
Interrupted by certain pet abilities, as well as by player commands
/’inf’
’sug’
Create a (for player visible) buff on the pet with the ability’s duration
Or
Bring back the old non controllable functionality to ensure the full duration of Sick Em
/’sug’

Guard
’inf’
Guard state is supposed to last 180 seconds
Yet it breaks on various conditions:
Player moves (even within the cast range of guard mere player movement breaks guard)
Player jumps on a different platform
F commands like aoe buffs break Guard
Combat, while fighting targets in Guard area (probably some pet skills break guard)
/’inf’
’tech’
Revisit pet AI not to interrupt guard due functions like follow, or Skill use
/’tech’
’sug’
Periodical protection buffs for the pet while guarding not only the first few seconds
Preventing hostile players from taking control points (spvp) while a pet is guarding the area
Cosmetic: patrolling in guarding area
/’sug’

Search and Rescue
’inf’
Search and Rescue is not properly scaling with ‘in combat’ and out of combat resurrection
on some targets search and rescue is not scaling with targets max hp (constantly healing for 45 hp)
pet is sticky on resurrection target for the full duration regardless if other sources speed up the resurrection
(pet stuck on search and rescue for several mins while channeling resurrection on Traherne)
/’inf’
’sug’
Don’t involve / block the pet with search and rescue
Example: Summon a spirit raven to guide the spirits of the fallen back into their bodies – maybe raising the cooldown to match other resurrection utilities
/’sug’

V. Heals
Healing Spring
’inf’
If the ranger maintains stationary within the healing spring zone, it sometimes continues to provide regeneration buffs and dispel of debuffs once the spell expired
/’inf’
’tech’
Revisit the conditions for the reg aura and debuff remove aura, to end the effect properly once the spells duration expired
/’tech’

3) Traits

• I. Marksmanship
• II. Skirmishing
• III. Wilderness Survival
• IV. Nature Magic
• V. Beastmastery

I. Marksmanship
Opening Strike (Opening Strike; Alpha Training and Precise Strike)
’inf’
Opening strike is sometimes not applied with other debuff (vulnerability) placers
Opening strike is rebuffing every X seconds if the player is out of combat at this certain time interval
Not immediately once the player is out of combat (natural health regen kicking in)
Opening strikes 5 sec vulnerability is considered a weak trait for a power trait line, since the bonus is underwhelming on extended fights (group events, dungeons, WvW, spvp)
Since rangers have no single hard hitting attack the 1 100 % crit from precise Strike is considered a waste of trait points for a grand master trait
/’inf’
’tech’
Revisit opening strike with other vulnerability placers to stack properly
Revisit rebuff for opening strike buff (add trigger with out of combat regen)
/’tech’
’sug’
Add a flat damage bonus on vulnerable targets to Opening strike traits for consistent benefits of trait investment (maybe remove the amount of vulnerability stacks from opening strike to maintain balance)

Precise Strike: add a flat x sec of increased crit chance once the opening strike buff is consumed to fit the rangers multi hit attack theme – instead of one 100 % hit
/’sug’

Beastmaster’s Might
’inf’
Provides 5 sec of might on signet use, triggered by 1 30 sec 1 60 sec and 2 120 sec skills
/’inf’
’sug’
Extend the might duration to a reasonable amount
Let the pet profit from the trait as well
/’sug’

Signet of the Beastmaster
’inf’
Ranger signets active effect are focused around the pet. Ranger signets have a very long cooldown time, and this trait is supposed to be the reason for it
Through the trait is contra productive if used with signet of renewal
/’inf’
’sug’
Lower the cooldown on signets (Stone, Wild)– and only extend them to the current cooldowns if traited for signet of the beastmaster (Signet affect you as well as your pet, though signet of stone and signet of the wild’s cooldown are increased)
/’sug’
’req’
Are there any plans on a beneficial effect for signet of renewal, currently it looks like a kamikaze ability combined with signet of the beastmaster?
/’req’

II. Skirmishing
Companion’s Might
’inf’
Provides a 1 sec might buff to your bet for every crit, due the slow animations of pet attacks the bonus is inconsistent
/’inf’
’sug’
Extend the duration
Or
Add an internal cooldown and provide a reasonable amount of might stacks for the pet
/’sug’

Moment of Clarity
’inf’
?? – What the f…? and don’t know – don’t care
Those are most common responses – since most players don’t get the meaning of the trait
/’inf’
’req’
What is it supposed to do, what is it doing, is it doing something at all?
/’req’
’sug’
clarify the tooltip to make the trait less cryptic
/’sug’

III. Wilderness Survival
Natural Vigor
’inf’
Since the passive is stacking with vigor buffs, it’s considered overpowered, especially for a adept trait
/’inf’
’sug’
Adjusting the passive reg increase
/’sug’

Companion’s Defense
’inf’
Supposed to buff the ranger 2 sec protection, yet the buff is applied with the start of the dodge animation (while any attack on the ranger is destined to be evaded anyway)
/‘inf
’sug’
Buff protection once the dodge roll is finished
/’sug’
Empathic Bond
’inf’
Same concerns as for signet of renewal, the pet is no optional part of the ranger It’s substantial , transferring debuff to the pet is not going to solve the problem
/’inf’
’sug’
Remove the condition entirely instead of transferring it
Or
Remove a condition from the pet as well
/’sug’

IV. Nature Magic
Fortifying Bond
’inf’
Only might buffs transfer properly to the rangers pet (100 % duration and stack amount)
depending on source duration
Regeneration is transferred 1-2 sec
Protection is transferred 1 sec
Fury is transferred 4 sec
Swiftness is transferred 5 sec
Retaliation is transferred 1 sec
Stability is transferred 50 % of duration
/’inf’
‘tech
Revisit syntax for this trait to transfer the buffs properly
/’tech’

Circle of Life
’inf’
Traits involving the player’s death are not convincing
/’inf’
’sug’
Add a cooldown to the trait and let it trigger on downed state
/’sug’

Nature’s Protection
’inf’
Is very restrictive
It requires a single hit to burst 20 % of players hp, provides 5 sec duration and has an internal cd
/’inf’
’sug’
Remove the internal cd, we won’t survive to many 20%+ hp hits anyway
/’sug’

Evasive Purity
’inf’
Was once a overpowered trait, now it’s underwhelming for a grand master trait.
It has some uses, especially in Orr due the army of undeads spreading poison, yet for spvp players would love to see bleed and burning removal returning
/’inf’
’sug’
Add burning and or bleed removal, with an internal cd
/’sug’

V. Beastmastery
Compassion Training
’inf’
Adds ~280 healing as a stat to pets (regen ticks increased by 36) turning regen from ~130 to 166 and moa bird healing from 1340×3 to 1398×3
Since the only way for players to profit from this trait are fern hounds aoe reg buffs (+360 hp healed) and moa birds (174 hp healed) the performance for a heal increase are more than underwhelming
(numbers for lvl 80 players)
/’inf’
’sug’
Instead of adding flat + healing, what seems to do not much for pet skills add a flat % increase in their base heal performance
/’sug’
Natural Healing
’inf’
Flat additional heal ticking for the same amount as regeneration, yet unaffected by +healing
/’inf’
’sug’
Let Natural Healing be affected by Rangers + healing
/’sug’

4. Pets

• I. Pet Skills
• II. Endgame Survivability

I. Pet Skills
’inf’
Pet F2 skills are not responsive during combat
The pet cancels the player initiated queue for f2 skills
This results in players spamming their f2 buttons to get their pet – maybe – to use it
Pet fails to target the players target for F2 Skills, simple firing straight ahead on no target
Pets are not turning towards their targets for F2 skills, they fire it on the position where the target ‘was’ once the cast animation started (with 3-5 sec cast times on certain pet skills this results in very frustrating situations)
If a target is out of range out of the pets field of view once the f2 cast is finished the skill is fired regardless of the invalid target, setting the skill on cd, without any effect (executing skill effect is cancelled by the pet)
Unlike certain NPC’s Pets are not able to cast attacks while moving.
/’inf’
’sug’
Force F2 use on player input – interrupt any other ability
let pets move while attacking, at least with their basic attack
let pets turn towards their targets during cast animations
/’sug’

Drakes:
’inf’
Drake Pets won’t use Tail swipe – regardless of the amount of hostile targets
Some Reports also state drakes also don’t use Chomp to heal themselves
/’inf’

Birds:
’inf’
Swoop is hitting the target twice, resulting in ridiculous damage spikes
/’inf’

Armor Fish
’inf’
Stunning Rush’s cast animation moves the fish 600 away from its target then charging the prior starting position.
Hostile npcs are either following the fish, so the attack misses, or are targeting the player – same result
/’inf’
’sug’
Remove the pre charge back draft animation
/’sug’

II. Endgame Survivability
’inf’
Ranger pets are not optional; this is the very first lesson a player has to learn while progressing to master the profession
The pet is a huge factor on rangers performance, both support and also dps wise
Guild wars 2 is designed with the players ability to dodge out of attacks in mind, yet pets are unable to do so. They have to grin and bear with it.
For 1v1 pvp fights or solo pve this is no big deal and can be handled to a certain degree
Yet the game has more to offer than just solo gameplay
Spvp, Large Group Events, WvW and explorer mode Dungeons, the long term motivation in GW2
In other words a lot of AoE, tons of debuffs, and a lil pet whining, since it’s about to get his * kicked –again and again
Simply calling the pets back to the ranger won’t save the pet anymore in various scenarios
Some explorer route dungeons leave the players running on for dear life, tip toe ing between red circles everywhere – with the pets almost permanent dead.
Since the pet swap cooldown is 60 sec if the pet dies, this results in a huge deficit on rangers performance in group gameplay

There are many suggestions on how other games bypassed the pet problem, but most of them won’t fit in GW2’s system, without breaking the game balance
The game has collision detection, no single target and aoe attacks, a flat – % dmg from aoe is out of the question.
Bumping up pet survivability would turn them into dungeon tanks, this won’t fit the role concept of GW2
Tuning down pets and transferring the performance difference to the ranger is a possibility, yet it’s not on par with the profession design focusing a lot on pets.
/’inf’

’req’ Open question on dev’s plans how the rangers pet is supposed to fit into the games group gameplay?
/’req’

thank you for your time

The shortbow out damages the longbow in every instance, including if you stack power and crit.

arcaneclarity.5283:

The shortbow out damages the longbow in every instance, including if you stack power and crit.

You should probably go test before you take what someone else says and believe it.

Freky.1903:

arcaneclarity.5283:

The shortbow out damages the longbow in every instance, including if you stack power and crit.

You should probably go test before you take what someone else says and believe it.

I have dps tested it. Even at the longbow’s maximum range, the shortbow out damages it with power and crit.

I find even specking into full beastmastery , that pets still die to easily if it isn’t 1v1 or 1v2. I believe that our class is somewhat lacking in a lot of areas as most of the stuff we can use it just useless in most cases compared to the other classes. Also I think some of the traits don’t work properly either, I had posted a topic about it the other day here : https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Ranger-Traits-and-Rune-of-the-Centaur-not-properly-working/first#post120793

Freky, it has been tested, quite a bit, and it is true. The Short Bow consistently out damages the Longbow, regardless of range, and even with using Quickening Zephyr while wielding a Longbow. This is due to its putting up bleed on the target. You could get the Sharpening Stone trait, but then why not use the Short Bow with that and still out damage the Longbow.

The only time a Longbow does more damage than a Short Bow is if the target is immune to DoT’s, such as structures in WvW. Even then the damage difference is very small.

Sedlina.1097:

IV. Nature Magic
Fortifying Bond
’inf’
Only might buffs transfer properly to the rangers pet (100 % duration and stack amount)
depending on source duration
Regeneration is transferred 1-2 sec
Protection is transferred 1 sec
Fury is transferred 4 sec
Swiftness is transferred 5 sec
Retaliation is transferred 1 sec
Stability is transferred 50 % of duration
/’inf’
‘tech
Revisit syntax for this trait to transfer the buffs properly
/’tech’

This is entirely wrong please update this information.

I’ve tested this ability with Rune of Lyssa effects, Rampage as One and most player non-elite buffs.

Your numbers are intirely wrong, not a single number matches the real duration. The GW2 wiki has some estimates.
Stability doesn’t transfer from like 90% of the skills Rampage as One and Rune of Lyssa included.

You might want to add to the list the fact that any stability gained removes any prior stability.

Example Rampage as One grants 20s Stability.
Rune of Lyssa 6/6 grants 5 seconds of stability.
Rampage as One + Rune of Lyssa 6/6 grants 5 seconds of Stability.