Guild Wars 2

Hello,
As we see some healthy possible changes coming for Ranger class in following months, and as Devs ask for suggestions, I thought that I’ll compilate my thoughts from multiple threads into one. This thread will be expanded in future.

General
Ranger class is pretty unique as it is, because of Pet mechanic bounded to us. I find it very interesting and working in other MMOs as well.
Please be not surprised I take some suggestions from other games, as we shouldn’t ignore things that work and do not implement them somehow into game because they’re too “mainstream”
However couple things, especially about pet feel very cheesy, easy-mode and too much RNG/AI based for such dynamic game that pretends to be an e-sport qualified.
About pets: They should dodge at the same time ,as evade, as we do and we should be able to bind one more of their special abilities, like charge for Boars, Web for spiders, leap for Wolf etc…
1. First and main issue is AI based gameplay.
I do like the idea that we do our damage via both Character and Pet. However, as AI of NPCs isn’t that great, I can’t stand the fact that pet takes 40% of our damage, doing with it whatever it wants and acting not as part of class, but some random helper.
In my honest opinion, without speccing for pet, it should do about 15-25% of our damage and speccing, traiting for it it shouldn’t be more than 40-55% of total damage provided by class.
Why? Beacuse at the moment overall AI of the game is very passive. For ranger, it’s huge deal, because our pets tend to miss attack most of the times and if they do hit, sometimes they do much more damage than player himself and doesn’t even require him to be active, he can also run away, which is extremaly cheesy, unbalanced and unfair. It applies also for Mesmer Phantasms, and Necromancer Minions (where minions are minor problem as they don’t do that much damage)

Moving on, I’d like to introduce couple things, making Ranger play way less passive, more skillfull, interesting, smooth and balanced. They of course are lacking in design so feel free to adjust them, make suggestion, et cetera, et cetera…

I. Weapons
Keep in mind, damage should be adjusted after pet balance, as it stands above!
a) Longbow

After adding stealth, it got some improvement, however, it still sucks.

#1. Long Range Shot - Remove range requirement. Same damage for all ranges.
If you’re under effect of stealth, or targeted foe is immobilized, stunned or knocked down for more than 1 second, Long Range Shot shifts into:
Steady Shot (1.25/1.50 cast time) which does 250% normal Long Range Shot damage if moving and 325% normal damage if not moving during entire cast. If Steady Shot hits target which is no longer under effect of immobilize, stun or knockdown, it has 20% lesser critical chance and critical damage. Steady Shot has 5 seconds internal cooldown, during the cooldown you fire normal version of Long Range Shot.
Descreption: So, yeah… Range requirement may be cool on paper, but in dungeons and with meta where any class can close the gap in no time, multiple times, it just makes LB basic attack worse and worse. I think attack speed is kind of okay. Moving on to Steady Shot- it’s something that I feel many people were asking about. Let’s be realistic – people like high numbers, everyone likes. So here it comes, tricky way to implement it into the game without messing up with other Longbow skills. Skill which require either stealth or CC to proc and land. Remorseless trait with Steady Shot is obvious combo, as with 25 minor MM trait it’d guarantee crit with this skill whenever you attack from stealth, already implemented into Hunter’s Shot. Other way to perform Steady would be to CC your target. #1 would switch to Steady Shot right after you gain stealth from any source or target is under effect of things mentioned above. Keep in mind, damage is reduced if target breaks the effect and you get normal version of skill right after CC or stealth expires, however, you still perform casting skill if you start in before.
#2.Rapid Fire This skill is kind of nice, however, it shouldn’t follow target in stealth as other channelings shouldn’t. Cast time reduction by 1/2 second or 1 would be welcomed improvement.

#3.Hunter’s Shot Good as it is.

#4.Point Blank Shot Make it instant cast

#5.Barrage Rework. Now, fires two salavas of arrows, covering smaller area, 1/2 second cast time, arrows hit twice, each for about 150-175% of normal Long Range Shot damage, each tick cripple for 2 seconds. Base cooldown reduced to 12 seconds. If hits 3 or more targets, cooldown reduced to 6 seconds.
Descreption: Current Barrage may be cool sometimes, but it’s hard to land, troublesome in WvWvW due to Retaliation uptime, on long cooldown and not really viable in PvP unless shooting from afar + almost useless in 1v1 situations due to long cast. Short version is cool, more like ol’Barrage from GW1. Animation may be no problem, one of Eir’s fit fine.

b) Warhorn

#4Hunter’s Call Add blind effect. If used while stealthed, additionally Fear(1.5s) foes around you in 600 radius.

II. Pet Commands
Now, that’s something new. As I want to reduce pet’s passive damage, I’d like to have more control over it and be able to use it as a part of my class. That’s why I’d like to add Command effects to some Weapon skills, like swiftness buff on HS etc. That would greatly improve our pets in my opinion, make them more bounded to class. Let’s start!

1. (Longbow 3) Hunter’s Shot – Heket’s Rampage Your pet gains Swiftness (10 seconds)
2. (Longbow 4) Point Blank Shot – Predator’s Strike Your pet instantly performs attack, leaping to be in range, which does 100% normal damage and 10% more damage for each Vunerability stack target suffers from if target is under Crowd Control effect or not moving. If not, pet is knocked down for 1 second.
3. (Sword 3) Serpent’s Strike – Serpent’s Quickness Your pet get 2 seconds of quickness
4. (Dagger 4) Stalker’s Strike – Melandru’s Assault Your pet performs attack which does 50% normal damage. You and your pet gain health equal to damage done.
5. (Greatsword 5) Hilt Bash – Feral Agression Your’s pet next three attacks do 30% more damage and cleave/pierce.
6. (Greatsword 2) Maul – Magebane Strike Your’s pet next attack remove one boon.
7. (Torch 4) Throw Torch – Tiger’s Fury Your pet gains Fury (12 seconds).
8. (Warhorn 4) Hunter’s Call – Otyugh’s Cry Your pet’s next five attacks become unblockable
9. (Axe MH 3) Winter’s Bite – Scavanger Strike Your pet’s next attack inflict weakness and cleaves/pierces
10. (Axe OH 4) Path of Scars – Maim Your pet shadowsteps to your target, dazing it for 1/2 second.
11. (Shortbow 2) Poison Volley – Poisonous Bite Your pet’s next attack inflicts Poison (3 seconds). If target already suffers from that condition, applies 2 stacks of confusion instead( 3 seconds ).
12. (Shortbow 4) Crippling Shot – Lacerate Your pet’s next three attacks inflict bleeding and do 5% more damage for every bleeding stack target suffers from.
15. (Harpoon Gun 3 ) Feeding Frenzy – Bestial Fury Your pet gains Fury (7 seconds)
16. (Harpoon Gun 4 ) Mercy Shot – Brutal Strike Your pet’s next attack does 100% more damage if hit foe with less than 50% health.
17. (Spear 3) Dart – Headbutt Your pet’s next attack cleaves/pierces and dazes for 1 second.
18. (Spear 5) Man O’War – Strike As One Your next three attacks remove one condition from both you and your pet and one boon from target with each single strike.

That would be it for now, working on more stuff, including:
-Trait changes
-Pet special abilities changes
-QoL further changes

[Space for updates]

I still need to finish reading, but evading at the same time as the ranger does seems like big common sense to me. It’s not at all overrated, we should be able to make them dodge at least when we see a crucial need to, atm we’re powerless on keeping them alive even if we see a massive slow easily dodgeable hard hitting aoe that our pets will have to eat up, most we can do is call them back out of it and hope they catch up in time.

in principle, not bad but I’m afraid arenanet do not care what they write players

Just logged in to comment that adding some pet traits to certain weapon skills sounds like a very promising idea. I hope Anet takes that one into consideration as it makes the pet much more active for us instead of keeping us handicapped.

@felix Just to clarify, Pet Commands are not pet traits, they’re just pet’s part for our weapon skills.

I understood what you meant, and "traits" may not have been the right word to use. (I’m at work and was typing up a quick response.) As I said, though, I think it’s a very interesting and different, but VERY viable option to make pets more useful. Involving the pet with specific weapon attacks just adds to the theorycrafting side of things. Devs, you better be reading this one!

While it seems logical to some to have pets dodge when the player dodges it really doesn’t suit a BM build where most of the damage is dealt by the pet and during that time the ranger is just trying to stay alive.

People ask for aoe reduction yet they never use guard which is a 33% reduction skill in addition to positioning. I wished it was a fkey skill. While some skills will one shot you coupling weakness (very underrated condition and protection is usually adequate to survive.

Granted our access to weakness is a bit limited. Maybe a trait that makes pets deal weakness when we dodge.

This is definitely a good way to add more pet functionality without skill bloat which is what the devs seem to be afraid of.

Serraphin Storm.2369:

While it seems logical to some to have pets dodge when the player dodges it really doesn’t suit a BM build where most of the damage is dealt by the pet and during that time the ranger is just trying to stay alive.

People ask for aoe reduction yet they never use guard which is a 33% reduction skill in addition to positioning. I wished it was a fkey skill. While some skills will one shot you coupling weakness (very underrated condition and protection is usually adequate to survive.

Granted our access to weakness is a bit limited. Maybe a trait that makes pets deal weakness when we dodge.

Rangers can have a crazy amount of weakness uptime. Black Bear and Main-hand Axe.

Aye. When I said limited I meant to the ax and B bear and drake.

Martheo.7215:

I still need to finish reading, but evading at the same time as the ranger does seems like big common sense to me. It’s not at all overrated, we should be able to make them dodge at least when we see a crucial need to, atm we’re powerless on keeping them alive even if we see a massive slow easily dodgeable hard hitting aoe that our pets will have to eat up, most we can do is call them back out of it and hope they catch up in time.

I disagree with the idea that pets dodge with the player. The reason is that in real life, pets don’t dodge. Have you ever been on a hunt with a small pack of dogs? I have, and I have never a dog (or hunting cat) ever dodge. In fact, it is actually hard to get a dog to disengage from a fight, a cat simply will not disengage period.

Rym.1469:

About pets: They should dodge at the same time ,as evade, as we do and we should be able to bind one more of their special abilities, like charge for Boars, Web for spiders, leap for Wolf etc…

1. First and main issue is AI based gameplay.
I do like the idea that we do our damage via both Character and Pet. However, as AI of NPCs isn’t that great, I can’t stand the fact that pet takes 40% of our damage, doing with it whatever it wants and acting not as part of class, but some random helper.
In my honest opinion, without speccing for pet, it should do about 15-25% of our damage and speccing, traiting for it it shouldn’t be more than 40-55% of total damage provided by class.
Why? Beacuse at the moment overall AI of the game is very passive. For ranger, it’s huge deal, because our pets tend to miss attack most of the times and if they do hit, sometimes they do much more damage than player himself and doesn’t even require him to be active, he can also run away, which is extremaly cheesy, unbalanced and unfair. It applies also for Mesmer Phantasms, and Necromancer Minions (where minions are minor problem as they don’t do that much damage)

Moving on, I’d like to introduce couple things, making Ranger play way less passive, more skillfull, interesting, smooth and balanced. They of course are lacking in design so feel free to adjust them, make suggestion, et cetera, et cetera…

a) Longbow
#1. Long Range Shot - Remove range requirement. Same damage for all ranges.
If you’re under effect of stealth, or targeted foe is immobilized, stunned or knocked down for more than 1 second, Long Range Shot shifts into:
Steady Shot (1.25/1.50 cast time) which does 250% normal Long Range Shot damage if moving and 325% normal damage if not moving during entire cast. If Steady Shot hits target which is no longer under effect of immobilize, stun or knockdown, it has 20% lesser critical chance and critical damage. Steady Shot has 5 seconds internal cooldown, during the cooldown you fire normal version of Long Range Shot.
So here it comes, tricky way to implement it into the game without messing up with other Longbow skills. Skill which require either stealth or CC to proc and land. Remorseless trait with Steady Shot is obvious combo, as with 25 minor MM trait it’d guarantee crit with this skill whenever you attack from stealth, already implemented into Hunter’s Shot. [/i]

(answers are per paragraph)

No, no and just no. In WvW, people do not attack the pet. They attack the ranger. Now think about what you said… Pet evade just makes the pet hit less because it evades when it doesn’t have to. It can be used as a tactic against rangers, waste the evades on pet and then attack the ranger. My suggestion is to place a 2s cooldown on “Return” and place a 1s evade on it.

False, pets do not stand for 40%. This has been tested multiple times, look it up. Also, dumping points in BM should not make the pet stand for more damage, but rather make it deal more damage without nerfing the ranger by it. The ranger can not run away while the pet is attacking the enemy if he wants to kill said enemy… Are you sure you know how things are standing?

You just came up with words to say there….

Steady shot? Really? Yeah, let’s make ranger more like a thief. Instead of doing something that is like something else, why not give the ranger something special? I.e. Bow skills transform into melee skills when targeted enemy is withing 300 range. Do the math and you will see how the “Ranger backstab” hits (pretty high on an enemy with 2500 armor).

Ah another one of these suggestion threads. Good stuff.

@solrik As I mentioned in my post, these ideas cannot be qualified as “balanced” and “well-thought” ones. You know, I’m just one person and may miss some particular cons of my ideas

As for pets dodging- I mean, it doesn’t have to be dodge, it can be evade, for example devouer evade skill etc. I adressed this thing mostly to PvE, but I see where it lacks in PvP design, however, it’s very simple change I think. Pet dodge on button seems great however, but probably requires even one more bind, putting it on return…. Dunno, maybe dodge on quick return click and pet returning to you when you hold the key?
P et damage- I didn’t mean that going BM should decrease player damage. I was talking about damage Overall, when you take total damage. Example: without going anything particular, I do 1k damage and my pet does 250. Going full BM, I do still around 1k damage and my pet now does around 1k damage too. Talking about running to survive – that’s the passive play I don’t like. You should have some counterplay vs. AI following you and dealing damage when your enemy runs away. It’d still do nice damage, but as pet commands are on your weapons and rely on utilities, you have to be active to do something!

As.for Steady Shot – LB desperatly needs some damage boos
and Steady isn’t a thief mechanic, it’s just something requiring more active play, dealing decent damage, but still with great room for counterplay. Also, would help a lot to increase our damage in PvE. Talking about LB going melee, weird idea. You’d have to rework everything for Bow, going for something like World of Warcraft had – under certain range hunter was switching to melee weapon. We dislike that and don’t need that. If you want to switch to melee, swap weapon

I haven’t read it all but i think i know what you’re saying. You want the pets to attack with you and dodge with you and let us customize more skills, like adding a F2,F3 and F4 which you can activate. I think so to, the current pet is just so weak and you have little control over it.

Sorry pet, if you don’t function with me, why would i want you as my pet? bad pet, no food for you for three whole days. If i could i would release all my pets into the wild.

I really like your pet command ideas. I think if more of the ranger’s skills had some pet related utility like that, they could afford to shift pets to a much more utility based role and increase the scaling on our weapons like we need.

However, you would really have to make each effect small if they’re going to be that common, to avoid pets becoming utility powerhouses and allowing rangers to just faceroll for damage.

Idd, pet abilities and numbers included in both weapon and pet commands are nothing serious, just pointing some direction and overall idea. I can’t really say proper math inb4 pet-player damage would be adjusted to state I mentioned. Glad you liked my suggestions. Working on traits atm, will release it today or tomorrow. Also, take a look at weapon suggestions, as I would like to hear opinions after them, it also applies to particular pet commands. Thanks

Martheo.7215:

I still need to finish reading, but evading at the same time as the ranger does seems like big common sense to me. It’s not at all overrated, we should be able to make them dodge at least when we see a crucial need to, atm we’re powerless on keeping them alive even if we see a massive slow easily dodgeable hard hitting aoe that our pets will have to eat up, most we can do is call them back out of it and hope they catch up in time.

I honestly think the devs that designed dungeons and boss AI took the lazy way out and made the mobs target every ally instead of every player with their AoE without thinking of why the boss shouldn’t target AI that can’t dodge. Minions and pets can’t dodge, what dev thinks it’s a good idea to have a boss mob that throws out AoEs (that are designed to punish players multiple times if they are near each other and fail to dodge) and include pets and minions in that list?

Pets shouldn’t need a dodge when the ranger dodges functions, they shouldn’t be targeted by big dodge or die AoEs in the first place. It’s ridiculous fighting Tazza and seeing the pet targeted by her sword skill, or Jade Maw and staying out of combat because the pet slows the party down. Or fighting the Nightmare Tree on any path and because max range on a pet is 900, they can’t safely hit it (and won’t dodge the root spike which also targets them, quite often calling them back makes no difference and they die anyway). It’s just poor design in the first place that this is even a problem. The fact that your party has to worry about 6 AoEs instead of 5 is also unfair and causes pets to be a hindrance, not just disadvantaged. Pets shouldn’t be targeted by dodge or die AoEs.

Pets could have a passive effect that if they’re not the target of the ability, they take 50% less damage from cleaves/pierces/AoE effects.

I hadn’t thought about boons/condition removals integrated into skills, which seem like a great idea given that rangers have few on demand condition removals. I like your idea of siphoning health through Dagger 4, but I can also see that skill along with Sword 3 and Spear 5 as condition and/or boon transfer/strip skills because of their toxic-spirit-animal animations.

I think the blinks you suggested for Longbow 4 and OH Axe 4 are not inline with rangers or pets because blinking is a magical skill that seems foreign to a class that revolves around nature. I think a alternatives would be pet-applied immobilization: “hold him while he’s down!” mindset after using Longbow 4, and a combo-setup for holding the enemies in place for Axe 5.

If you don’t mind I’ll post my weapon-pet combos because it’s the same topic:
- Point blank shot: your pet’s next attack immobilizes for 2 seconds.
- Rapid fire: your pet’s next attack cripples for 4 seconds.
- Barrage: your pet’s next attack knocks down the target.
- Counterattack: your pet gains a stack of might for each blocked attack.
- Crippling throw: your pet gains swiftness for 10 seconds.
- Quick shot: your pet’s next attack cripples for 4 seconds.
- Crippling shot: your pet gains a stack of might for 5 seconds for each successful attack landed during the cripple.
- Concussion shot: your pet gains quickness for 5 seconds.
- Path of scars: your pet’s next attack immobilizes for 2 seconds.
- Whirling defense: your pet gains quickness for 5 seconds.
- Crippling talon: your pet gains swiftness for 10 seconds.
- Hunter’s call: call hawks to swarm and apply 3 stacks of confusion for 10 seconds and 1 second of blind for each successful attack from the swarm. your pet’s next attack does 50% more damage.
- Call of the wild: your pet gains quickness for 5 seconds.
- Counter throw: throw a tow line that pulls you to your foe and cripples them
- Coral shot: your pet gains quickness for 5 seconds.

I really like the skill names you created. Especially Magebane Strike because it sounds really menacing.

i never understood why, if we are so dependant on our pet that our weapons dont have better synergy with them. i agree with these ideas though some would need to be toned down. our weapon skills, though some already do, should give these kinds of “buffs” to our pets. this would also make up for the sort of lack of control we have over them.

on a side note, id love to see vigor boon give pets a distortion effect. that or refresh the non F2 pet skills.

What if dodge creating a couple second immunity to a pet? That could add some significant but not over the top help keeping the pet alive.

Yeah, one of the problems with the pet set up is also that is hard to combo with them, partly because rangers can’t 1) actively control the AI skills, 2) the f2 skill activation is often slow, and 3) there just isn’t that much synergy between pet skills and ranger weapons.

I would like to see more scope for say a pet triggering a field I can combo through, but on demand not just at some random time, and easier access to pet combo burst skills (which might make power/burst rangers more viable). Being able to jump through an ice field created by snow wolf’s f2 for example and get ice armor; the healing wolf creating a short water field heal etc.

Its so much easier for example to set up a high damage combo on my guardian or Mesmer than on ranger, and I have a much greater chance of my spike actually hitting without the randomness introduced by Ranger pets (Mesmer pets spike beautifully).

All pipe dreams. Sadly. But on the up side my warrior is 74 now.