Guild Wars 2

Well and this post i’ll give my opinion about some changes in the ranger skill system although there are already countless threads with very good ideas in it.
i’m including torment in some skills, It seems appropriate because it’s a condition that punish movement and the ranger apply a lot of cripple.

WEAPONS

• Sword :

Sword#1 AA chain locks the ranger in place. Should be changed to this chain in this order so the leap can be cast at the beginning as a gap closer.:
-Pounce. Leap 600. Only activate if there is a target selected otherwise it just do in place.
-Slash : range 130
-Kick: no a leap anymore. Range 130, can be cancelled.

Serpent’s Strike: This skill is very unreliable because the skill can not calculate correctly the path to the target due the terrain irregularities. I would change the path to do the roll in a straight line stopping the ranger behind the target and backstabbing it (the ranger turn around to hit the target so we can continue with the attack).

• Shortbow
  The main problem with the shortbow is the AA. Very low damage and condition pressure.

Shortbow#1 : Apply bleeding 3 stacks 1 second. If hit from behind or a side also apply Cripple (3 sec).

Shortbow#3: also Apply Weakness (3 sec). Should apply leap or blast to fields.

Shortbow#4: It does not apply cripple, apply Torment instead (3 seconds).
I don’t think this weapon should get a buff in direct damage because of the attack speed.

• Axe
  This weapon has a weird delay when casting any skill. It feels clunky and unresponsive.

Axe#1, Axe#2, Axe#3: Improve the attack speed in a 25% OR reduce the range to 600 and reduce the attack speed 50%.

Axe#3: It behaves like Axe#1, hit max of 3 targets applying chill in each of them.

Axe#4 : most of the times doesn’t finish the attack losing the second impact and the pull because of the terrain. Change the mechanic to behave like a normal projectile without the parable. If the engine is not prepared to do the boomerang effect, an easy way would make the axe projectile when get destroyed (end of it’s path or hit a wall or a player skill that destroys proyectiles) cast another axe that goes towards the ranger that push the foes to the ranger.

Axe#5 need the rooting effect to be removed.

• Longbow

Longbow#3 : needs to apply superspeed to the ranger 3 seconds.

Longbow#5 : Need to apply also vulnerability same way as cripple.

• Warhorn

Warhorn#4 need to apply blind 10 sec. Should apply blast.

SKILLS

• Spirits:
  the overnerf of the last balance patch was very aggressive with this skills. Now that we know Druid is not touching those we need to bring them up to the level of the rest of the skills.
• some players like them immobile, most of the players i think prefer them mobile. There should come back the trait of mobile spirits. More info where to put it in this thread
• The interval are too long for a 3 second boon/condition. Should be reduced to 6 seconds in all of them.
• It they can become mobile the active radius is ok. Otherwise the active effects should be changed because the area is too small to be useful.
• Spirit of the Nature : passive increased to 900 radius. Right now you have to be on top of the spirit which actually kills it.

• Shouts.
  Some to change to become commands where the pet get some improvements towards some situations. More info in this thread were i talk about improvements in the pet system to become a ranger’s tool instead a burden.

• Traps
• Frost Trap : Remove boons also. i would advise 3 boons removed when triggered.

• Survival
• Muddy terrain: Cripple effect removed. Remove the duration. Apply Immobilize 5 seconds, Torment 5 seconds.
• Sharpening Stone. Reduce 30 seconds CD. Apply next 5 attacks 1 stack of bleed, torment and poison. 1 stack 6 sec each.
• Quickening Zephir : Reduce CD to 45 seconds.
• Entangle: Apply stun 1 second and torment 1 stack 5 seconds.

I think you make some very good suggestions that both do not require a total overhaul of most of the current skills and are not overpowered but indeed improvements.

I think your best suggestion is the initial gap closer on the sword auto attack chain.
In contrast to that, I don’t think longbow and Survival skills need any further improvements currently, they already define the current ranger profession in all game modes. We should focus on the other abilities first.

Keep up the good work

Thank you!

I suggested the changes in LB because those 2 skills felt incomplete.
Lb#3 gives you stealth for 3 seconds, but without the superspeed you can’t position yourself.
LB#5 is a very long channeled skill that does very little damage. Vulnerability would be a addition to bring the damage up to normal level if the enemy stays in the area without actually unbalance the all lot..

In Survival i found muddy terrain is mostly not used because the skill itself is not very useful and have a long Cd for its effects. Removing the cripple to apply tormen so becomes an offensive skill would improve it. Same as Sharpening stone, 45 secs for bleed, it fill really underwhelming skill. Almost a filler.

Applying bleed, torment and poison would make the skill useful to increment the condition pressure.
Same with entangle. It’s being used in PvP mostly because the other elites aren’t good in those scenarios. But actually entangle miss most of the time because the long cast + vines being dodgeable + vines not very strong.
The stun would help to land the effect + 1 stack of torment to punish the trapped in case the decided to run.

By this i don’t mean the survival or the longbow are bad, they are in much better place that the spirits for example but still this effects would help to improve the usability of the skills in contrast with their so long CDs. Feel more rewarding to use.

I see what you mean, you make good arguments and it is evident that you thought the skills through very well.

But, I still think the survival skills are in a pretty solid place, some of them maybe just need some CD adjustments. (for example I used Muddy terrain in WvW pretty often, works like a charm cutting through zergs)

And regarding Longbow skills, I do agree with you on longbow 5, but stealth on longbow 3 is already quite strong (although, swiftness for the Ranger also wouldnt hurt..)

Only things I can agree with:

• CD reduction on Sharpening Stone & Quickening Zephyr
• Shortbow auto attack applying bleed on hit & shortbow 3 being a possible leap.

That’s literally it.

Not even the removal of the rooting effect on Axe #5?
That is also a real big one if you would ask me..

Rinse.6094:

Not even the removal of the rooting effect on Axe #5?
That is also a real big one if you would ask me..

Sure. Change the animation to Whirling Axe and have it move. I’m fine with that. There was so many proposals I was bound to overlook something.

I have to agree with you in some points, espacially in the case of the sword skills.
But i go over all improvements i would do to all ranger skills.
It would be cool if the sword could grant might also to you and not just to your pet.
The first chain is okey but the leap is really annoying. But i think it would be better if the 2nd skill chain is changed together with the third. I thought about something like:
First the monarchs leap with some serpent animation and afterwards the second part of the chain is the serpent’s strike. Both apllying 2 stacks poison, the leap with a finisher and the serpentstrike like we know it.
And for the third skill i would prefer the Hornet sting alone, because its main purpose is to evade, and not do an evade to jump a second later into battle. Tweak it with applying slow to improve the movements of your foes a little better.

Now the axe mainhand skills. AA is fine, a little bit lackluster but fine. Splittblade is the same as ricochet, it would be cool if the thrown axes came back to you to apply a little bit more bleeds.
Wintersbite should be Aoe on default with ice field, this would give this weapon more utility and control and of course this way the trait for this should be replaced.

Axe offhand: Path of scars is fine, the behaviour of the projectile is weird as you said, this should be improved.
For axe 5 the root is understandable because of the animation but just replacing it with whirling axes is not the optimal solution. If they could improve the animation, so that you can move would be neat espacially it would give this offhand good utility in projectile defense.

Dagger Offhand: Now the most under used weapon of the ranger. First i would improve the stalker strike with a an attack all around you, this way you could apply poison all arround you ( you could tweak it with a litte poison field but thats just an option), the evade stays of course.
Now the second ability i would change entirely. I thought about something like a shadowstep like power. You throw the dagger and after the hit you port yourself to the enemy (with this shadowstep like leafy wind animation ^^’). The first hit applies weakness in a small area (3-5 targets) and after the port you apply a daze in the same area (good for engage battle).

Torch Offhand: CD are bit to high but the weaponskills are fine.

Shortbow: Increase the Bleedstacks of the AA (1 for hits you do from the side, 2 for hits from behind plus cripple)
Increase base dmg a little bit.
Poison volley ( is fine, but decrease the cone, the outer arrows never hits from middle distance)
Shortbow 3: add leap finisher
shortbow 4: you apply 3 stacks of torment to your enemy and your pet applies slow.
(this gives you a little bit more active role and the control of your enemy is still there)
shortbow 5: its fine, a knockdown when you hit from behind would be sweet. and the stun from the side as default.

longbow: I am fine with longbow but the 3 and the 5 need some tweaking.
The 3 could use some superspeed and it should also stealth your pet and take it out of combat, so you can reposition and attack from the shadows.
Barrage should get some kind of improvement, slow and cripple and 5 stacks of vuln on the initial hit for example.

GS: Its fine as it is

Warhorn: As you said, blind on 4.

Shouts: Improvements, so your pet gets more boons, for more boon sharing with WHAO
We heal as one (WHAO)→ Fine
Sick em→Just give your pet 10 stacks might, fury and quickness instead of a raw dmg boost.
Protect me→ Pet gains aegis, protection, regen and takes your dmg taken.
Guard→Defend: Gain stability and arround the pet is whirling blades sphere, that pushes enemies out of it and destroys projectiles ( something like the bubble of the guardian but arround your pet)
Search and Rescue→Rescue: Do a strong heal pulse arround your pet and yourself, downed allies within the radius were rescued. (The trait with search and rescue could get tweaked to wound licking instead of search and rescue in the tooltip)

Spirits: Spirits should apply Combat effects on you and pulse boons when traited. When you execute the spirit effect, there should be some kind of finisher or field. Plus some visual effect for the spirit radius would improve PvE life quality.
like above, eather they can walk or improve the radius.

Sun Spirit: Chance to apply Burn, pulses vigor when traited, blinds enemies and produce a light field.
Earth Spirit: Chances to apply bleed, pulses protection when traited, slow enemies and suck them towards the spirits location.
Storm spirit: Apply vuln, pulses swiftness and quickness (3s every 10s) when traited and rest as default.
Frost spirit: 10% Dmg boost ( i know we all love it), pulses might when traited and produces frostfield when destroyed/triggered.
Water spirit: Heal chance o hit, pulses regen when traited, leaves a water field and an explo-finisher (triggered itself of course)
Nature-Spirit: Condicleanse on Hit chance, pulses stability prevents downed allies from bleeding to death, rescues fallen allies and roots enemies in radius range (plus a little stun, so you can escape to heal up)

PETS!!!!:

Just screw the old UI and let us control all attack skills of our pet, except the auto attack. Let us manage the Stats of our Pets, so we can change the playstyle with them, just give them a stats cap and let us distribute them→more customisation and freedom and give us an ground targeted skill to give our pet an position order.
For behaviour: The attack this button is redundant, because we can choose a target and command a skill, like a weapon. Pets should be our extended combat arm.

soooo nooow im finished, thanks for reading

Whats some suggestions to Nature Magic?

Sword#1 AA chain locks the ranger in place. Should be changed to this chain in this order so the leap can be cast at the beginning as a gap closer.:
-Pounce. Leap 600. Only activate if there is a target selected otherwise it just do in place.
-Slash : range 130
-Kick: no a leap anymore. Range 130, can be cancelled.

Approved. IDK why it hasn’t gotten fixed yet.

these are excellent, realistic and reasonable suggestions +1

I would really like hornet’s sting (sword 2), to leave a trail of hornets that pulse 2x torment 3 times. a lot of our weapons have horrible condi output, and in the current meta s/t a/d just doesn’t cut it dps-wise.

but those SB buffs are an absolute must.

WH 4 suggestion I disagree with. it just needs a greater effect. if we go with the blinds, then it needs a 30% dps increase. id prefer to leave damage low and give it greater utility like boon stripping or another condi. OR an aoe effect like mad king runes.

mistsim.2748:

these are excellent, realistic and reasonable suggestions +1

I would really like hornet’s sting (sword 2), to leave a trail of hornets that pulse 2x torment 3 times. a lot of our weapons have horrible condi output, and in the current meta s/t a/d just doesn’t cut it dps-wise.

WH 4 suggestion I disagree with. it just needs a greater effect. if we go with the blinds, then it needs a 30% dps increase. id prefer to leave damage low and give it greater utility like boon stripping or another condi. OR an aoe effect like mad king runes.

The idea with the Hornet is really nice, it could also have a poison field to more synergy with the leap to apply weakness or with projektiles for poison.

The WH idea is nice, especcially the one with the AoE idea. Ithought about just hit 3-5 enemies with Hawks. But a blind affect would be still nice (dmg mitigation→WH support weapon)