Guild Wars 2

I’ve played this game since headstart and I’ve played a ranger for years in GW1, mainly because I like beastmaster classes, but as most people agree rangers in GW2 just feel redundant in groups where staying in group and stacking is key. I know this will not fix most of the stacking issues in high end PvE, but what would you guys say if :

Fortifying Bond

Any boon received by your pet is shared with the ranger if the pet is more than 650 units away from the ranger. (Boons applied by the ranger, their skills and traits are excluded)
Any boon received by the ranger is shared with their pet if the pet is less than 650 units away from the ranger.

Then we could have a master trait like this:

Alpha’s Roar

+20% Boon Duration (for the ranger only)
Any AoE boon applied by the ranger is reapplied in a small area (300?) around their pet if it is more than 650 units away from the ranger.

I like it. I definitely agree that the biggest shortfall of Ranger’s design atleast in PvE is that it can’t stack boons without jumping literally through hoops. And also that the “Combo” system in general is just TERRIBLE or too short-lived for the Ranger. In general, not nearly enough of its weapons even support Boon stacking from Combos that most other classes can do all day long without sacrificing choice in weaponry.

I get why they did it…. because it would “break” Conquest Mode even worse than Beastmaster did before that was nerfed. But this is a case where a PvE split was desperately needed while the Community-Dev talks completely failed us b/c the community itself failed to recognize it. All they cared about was Hating-the-Pet dependency and all the bugs that came with it

People are really hung up over the longbow thing.

I’d really like the engie’s rifle to be their best DPS weapon too because rifles are cool but that’s just the way things are. Something’s gotta be the best and someone’s not gonna be happy with whatever it is.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

People are really hung up over the longbow thing.

I’d really like the engie’s rifle to be their best DPS weapon too because rifles are cool but that’s just the way things are. Something’s gotta be the best and someone’s not gonna be happy with whatever it is.

I’ve played rangers long enough to not give a kitten about what is best and what is not. My point here was to make ranged weapons less subpar, check my signature if you want…

Sorry, if I offended you in any way.

I think this is a unique and elegant solution to the ranged Ranger dilemma.

I fully support the risk/reward trade-off with ranged in general, melee should always do more damage since theoretically the front lines are taking the lion’s share of the risk. That being said Ranger is a bit unique if you consider their pet is an extension and vital part of their effectiveness. With a melee pet 1/3 of the ranger is always in melee range regardless of where the Ranger stands.

If the Ranger’s pet is seen as simply another weapon the Ranger wields (whether melee or ranged) and 1/3 of their effectiveness it makes sense that if the Ranger risks putting their pet in melee range they should have at least 1/3 the benefits of other players fighting melee.

Obviously this dynamic would make the Ranger unique among other professions at range, as I believe it should be. Rangers should be the ‘archer’ profession in the game. Not the strongest melee but the strongest ranged profession, but only if it is strongly tied to skillful pet management and selection. Once the pet dies this synergy is broken, again as it should be.

I think Wayfinder’s idea is a really good one, and deserves to be looked at and discussed free from as much bias as possible.