Guild Wars 2

Hello fellow Ranger comrades!

In favor of upcoming Druid and “stage presentation” it’s time for “another_ranger_rebalance_suggestions” thread!

Q: I dont want read all this wall of text! Give me pictures!
A: Sure!
Weapon Prepareparation skills and Shouts
Spirits
MARKSMANSHIP
SKIRMISHING
WILDERNESS SURVIVAL
NATURE MAGIC
BEASTMASTERY
Q:Ok i watch it. You overbuffed Ranger! Shame on you!
A: Somehow maybe yes, but man can dream.
Also look at this old traits! Ranger supposed to have trait for each pet family! And look what we have now! Thing’s are change, fellow Ranger!

Short story1:
I’m have main Ranger for full 3 years, from first open beta weekend. I really like profession mechanic and how professions feels and looks, but as you i’m tired of many clunky things.
I visited almost all major Ranger threads for this 3 years – glorious aquamen update, CDI, Spirit Ranger Meta, Rising of Pew-Pew with speed up RapidFire and dozens of single threads with “up %name! it’s bugged or horrible!”

Welp, let’s started tune thing’s up to good state:

Summing up ALL Ranger situation state since release and 09.21.15 in a list:

• PET CLASS MECHANIC FEELS NOT ENOUGH, WE A “RANGER” CLASS, ranger means rangmmmrrrgggllletc and so on.
• 50% SHOUTS BAD
• 50% TRAITS BAD
• TRAPS BAD CONCEPT AT ALL
• SPIRIT’S REALLY, REALLY BAD
• WE USE SAME PET FAMILIES EVERY TIME, 70% PETS NOT NEED
• AXE IS NOT CONDITION AND NOT DIRECT DAMAGE AT ALL
• SHORTBOW IS DEAD
• OUR GROUP BUFF VIABILITY IS "GIVE “SPOTTER”&“FROZEN SPIRIT” AND STAY AWAY OF BEARBOW THINGS, M8"
• THRENCHCOATS

Aaaaand that’s it. And up-our-damage-get-rid-of-pet suggestions.
Really, we dont need total overhaul our class (which i fear will be presented at PAX).
We just need some love! I even love my pet AI at it’s current state!
We come to good state at very small steps, let’s rush forward!

Shortstory2:
First thing that i was really enjoy on ranger was Shortbow 3. In time after release, that Shortbow was really viable range weapon.
Man, this thing concept is awesome. Retreating shot animation is my favorite.
Why i cant shoot it backward all day and night?
Spinning the idea, i come to sudden conclusion what ranger don’t need DAMAGE at weapons, he need MORE SKILLS at weapons and that skills must provide additional utility and damage. Man, open gw1 wiki, we have tons arrow skills, across pet. Also this things can be, you know, prepared.

So let me present for you, additional Ranger class mechanic:

• WEAPON PREPARATION SKILLS

How this thing can work?
As we know, gw2 uses system called Sequence skill, which:
…are skills which, once activated, change into another skill for additional effect…
…once activated, can have their second effect triggered at any time the player is able to do so…
And let’s take Thief, with additional class mechanic – Dual wield:
…They are weapon skills that are determined by the combination of main hand and off hand weapons that are currently equipped…

So let’s take this proposals to form the definition of Weapon Preparations:

Weapon Preparation – is a skill type exclusive to the ranger profession.

• Every mainhand and twohanded weapon have one preparation skill chain.
• Two preparation skills in preparation chain have own separate recharge time and stay active (prepared) even if position first chain skill is finish recharge or after weapon swap.
• To reset preparation chain, player can use same interface out of combat like changing Utility skills or reequip weapon via inventory weapon swap. Or simply use it and wait recharge time.

So, Ranger finally, once again prepare yourself to the next combat situation and have more skills to react!

Now, screens!
Weapon Prepareparation skills and Shouts

General Ranger changes:

• Fortifying Bond now baseline. No discuss, WE NEED IT.
• Spider and Devourer attack range raised to 1200
• All pets have 500 condition damage and 250 healing power baseline.
• 60s death penalty for dead pet is removed.
• Traps must throw, just like spice.
• All bugs are fixed.
• QOL: All f2 traits with integration of leaping f2 proc at the end of the leap.

Commentary:

Shortbow:

• Range upped to 1100 – nerf to 900 hit’s it’s weapon very hard.
• 1 skill – if you hit people on back in mid-close range – you have your nice bleed stacks. But i remember how this weapon can rock with direct damage and limited bleed stack by staying at max mid range, like a longbow.
• 2 skill – simple small aoe arrow shot, which provide blind and nice poison to take care of ress people.
• 3 skill – preparation chain. Mostly defensive chain, via leapback retreating, good to break close weapon combo/longrange gap closers and etc.
  If we prepare and use 1->2, we can use only 1, evade, gain swiftness and continue use skills. If things go worse, again leap away and prevent next aggression by daze and confusion. 2->1 good to hold after swap from melee weapon, rapidly wash away to 240+240 range.
• 4 skill – now it’s good combo skill but torment last very shortly, so it’s best to burst in 1-2 second use for our multiattack-in-second skills, like Axe 2/Axe 4 pull/Warhorn 4/Spiders and Devourers 2-hits-per-one attack pets.
• 5 skill – long recharge time, 3/4s activation time, slow missle – but solid reward. It’s long range stun with, good potential direct damage and stun at mid range and huge surprise hit if it hit someone back.

Axe:

• 1 skill – it’s now applies Bear’s Mark on each target.
  A/A time for Axe – 1s, so it’s stacks in time on each affected target – 1 hit 3, 2 hit 3+3-1, 3 hit 3+3+3-1-2 = 6s of mark after 3 axe hit on same target. Any multiattack-in-second skills like Axe 2/Longbow 2/Warhorn 4 give us ton of stacked 3s duration might. Now it really burst our direct and condition damage for next seconds, if we achieve that huge stack of might.
• 2 skill – preparation chain. Hello, Poison Volley!
  Now, if we mark 1-2-3 targets and hit all them by our preparation chain – we have some really instant 25 might stacks – but for 3s (but our pet give it for 10s!) and it’s boost up our deadly condition damage combo.

Greatsword:

• 4 skill – preparation chain. Man, now we can hold throwing that nice two-handed sword, and don’t use it as range damage thing, destroying our hope of nice knock back. And here your overall damage bonus increase, if both skill hits! Start fights with 2->1, swap from longbow to 1->2 for block.

Sword:

• 2 skill – preparation chain. “Mom, can i start fight with gap closer? YES, SON!”
  Prepare 2->1 to engage fight, 1->2 afterswap to leave it. A/A can stay clunky as is, now i can leap forward immediately.

Longbow:

• 3 skill – sequence skill. Now we can pull some outstanding combo!
  “Guard” pet away, fight, shadow step away.
  Call pet to attack, give him swiftness – and if we hit from 1500 range – shadowstep to enemy, swap to melee/condition weapon and burst in face.
  Not work if your pet 90% of time close to you or around enemy what you don’t want see close, cuz that ele kill ya.
• 4 skill – preparation skill. Ranger very vulnerable to hard CC, like, incredibly (outside Rampage as One ofc).
  So, with 1->2 chain we can hit hard knockbacked enemy, deal extra hard shot (hello Moment of Clarity), or break stunchains to you – possible evade, use 1, rapidfire, enemy stand and go close with another stunning leap – 2 in face and stability eats control.
  2->1 good starting single shot burst at long range, if you have opportunity to do it.

Other Weapon skills stays as is – they nice. Buff Greatsword a/a by 10%

Shouts:

• “Sick Em” is FINE! It’s incredibly dps skill. Your wolf hit 9k if they land their leap knockback. 9,000 DAMAGE. Drake Tail swipe hit VERY spooky. Only problem with that skill, it’s bugs then you call pet to attack and do nothing. No need anything, it’s rock. Need only bugfix.
• “Guard” is fine. I saw some combo with longbow earlier and you figure out some more too, when i come close to new traits.
• “Strength of the pack!” obviously is fine. Good elite, good recharge, i like it.

General:

• “Protect Me’ – when pop up update with baseline Signet Mastery, it’s overshadowed by Signet of Stone. And with recent Elite specialization changes, our range skills can be pretty low and easily reflect/blocked.
  So, it’s now have short duration, short recharge, but also make for some short time our attack unblockable, if so our pet is not hitting, we hit very nice.

• “Search and Rescue” – for only defensive use it’s utility skill very weak, so why not add new mechanic, added in recent Scrapper specialization POI?
  Out of 3 possibilities, our pet res someone, finish someone, or just chase target VERY fast and start hit em hard.

Spirits
General – i saw this idea from someone in this forum, it’s really fits and she’s GREAT!

• First – spirits provide they current sequence skill immediately after cast on target area in 600 range.
• After providing effect at area, spirit instantly summoned and stay’s on place, for next low time (10s), providing each second their effect to 5 targets in 1000 aoe.
• Base idea – if i cast it at enemy and ally in area – it’s 50% success, if hit ally, 70% if hit enemy and if my spirit live for next 3s and provide some useful effects once or two – it’s 90% success.
• So it’s like turret/banners with active nuke and aftercast, which may die, but they effect mostly used and delivered.

Spirits <- click!

• Water Spirit – i think it’s suppose to be AoE medium power heal, but with short cd, like Heal as One – strong self heal. Heal effect applies in 600 area around Ranger, spirit posteffect – grant regeneration on hit.
• Frost spirit – main function is same – 10% damage dispenser, with 20s uptime, but now it’s have active skill – first it’s blast area, then chill, 5 initial might for allies, also good for provide some slow for unexpected ambush of many enemies.
• Storm Spirit – multi-nuke in our utility slot. Again, first blast area in 600 range, grant vigor for allies, then short daze all enemy inside and then BAM, hit hard with power of storm. Good combo with “Moment of Clarity” and “Opening Strike”.
  Aftercast is spirit providing semi-long swiftness even with 1 hit.
• Sun Spirit – Again blast, then AoE Fire nuke with blind. All ally inside gain 1s of quickness, which always useful for activate long channels, and give fury, which also regain our Opening strike, if we have it. Aftercast spirit have more fire stacking support.
• Stone Spirit – Provide Protection support, spirit last only 5s, pulses 1s of Protection.
  Chain starts with Whirl, which fit sand theme more. All allies inside of target radius obtain 1 stack of stability, enemies take some cripple and torment pulses.
• Nature Spirit – Active 2s long cast provide waterfiled in area, blast on it, remove 5 conditions on each ally inside, revive downed allies and immobilize all enemies. Summoned Spirit of Nature start pulsing in 1000 radius condicleance and 320 hps for 5 targets, max duration – 40s. Does not affected by own pulses.
  Simply – Lord/Banner 2.0, everyone in pvp must kill him in moment.
  Drawback – long cd and activation time.

Some numbers still a are very high, lol, but you get the idea of Spirit Revamp.

Now let it go, let it go, and go to TraitLines:

MARKSMANSHIP <- click!

General:

• Traitline for Veryclose manly fights or Very Longrange not so manly pew-pew.
• Minors – Opening Strike whenever gain Fury now baseline for obvious reason.
  Why you take line, where 3 minor traits hit’s only once at start of the fight and don’t work at rest of the fight, until you don’t grab that GM trait? Nah, tune it down with damage and it fits nice.
• Adept traits:
  1 – For closerange fighting or longrange with chance to be hunted.
  More critpower for god of critpower, give more for your precious 25 Might Stacks. Better than 2 trait, when your power greater than 2300. And if you always critz.
  2 – For longrange fighting and soft control enemy.
  3 – To tune 15s recharge, same with our BM line, it provide lesser bonuses on time, but have general 5 targets support. And scales nice with one Nature Magic trait.
• Master traits
  1 – Unchanged, it’s trait is too good.
  2 – For keeping close distance or keeping/chasing at longrange distance. Have Proc inside of Traitline with Call of the Wind.
  3 – Same, it’s really good.
• Grandmaster traits.
  1 – We need apply better longtimed movement conditions. And our pets too.
  2 – Now this is a Dangerous Game. Very good addition to survivability in closerange/frontline Valkyrie stat build and with 1 master trait have some Might Sinergy.
  3 – Our longbow trait, slightly faster.

SKIRMISHING <- click!

General:

• Traitline for Swap, Swap and Swap. Also for condition apply and swift changing melee/mid range combat.
• Minors – Same as it was, only 7s recharge time , to fit Rune of Soldier and small bonus after swapping weapons or under effect of fury (which we always gain)
• Adept traits:
  1 – More evade, blocks more melee survivability.
  2 – General bleeding apply trait.
  3 – Before traps get completely rebalanced (clones, pets and anything can proc it) and be able to thrown nothing to discuss.
• Master traits
  1 – Good trait double good under fury.
  2 – If Ranger proc all bleeding on enemy, he stay’s empty for next recharging skills, this tune give more power to most spammable condition.
  3 – Tricky trait. At full endurance, you can dodge 2 times and swap 1 time in first 10 seconds, later you can proc this trait even lesser or waste on something what yu need now. But it gain some flexibility in stats, such as dodge – pop better heal or activate very long boon utility.
• Grandmaster traits.
  1 – Welcome to world of 100000 combo. Current preparation skill can be used twice after weaponswap and, you can still use other! next weapon skill with -66% recharge.
  Swap – Point Blank Shot – Rapidfire – Pointblankshot – Stability Shot – Rapidfire.
  Swap – Monarch Leap, Monarch Leap
  Maul – Hilt Bash – Maul – Crippling Throw, Crippling Throw
  Splitblade – Splitblade – Poison Volley, swap at Shortbow Crippling Shot and shot to death.
  2 – Close melee fight trait with nice blind on crits. I know about rule “1 weapon trait max each tier” but it fits here.
  3 – Shortbow tuned to deadly two target weapon and Longbow can be condition weapon! Also piercing on shortbow really not fit.
  Bonfire or firefield = Rapidfire with 10 stacks of burning!

WILDERNESS SURVIVAL <- click!

General:

• Traitline to being durable or flexible above 90% hp when being disabled or bursted by direct damage or light condition damage, also provides more condition damage&poison stacking. Not very good defence at low health.
• Minors – Same as it was, only 25% endurance regen, still it does not stack with vigor.
• Adept traits:
  1 – General condition damage trait for you and your pet.
  2 – Lesser condition durable trait and new Natural Magic Procs.
  3 – I always like old Hide in Plant trait, this also apply some Revealed functionality.
  If you suddenly bursted with disable opening, you reengage.
• Master traits
  1 – Off-hand training for all, except Warhorn.
  2 – Good trait for all people who like dodge around with all Ranger evades on weapons, and when caught by sudden stun still stay durable and don’t activate our Survival utility skills to often for defense.
  3 – With this trait we can deal with conditions outside of GM traits.
• Grandmaster traits.
  1 – Very good trait with condition damage from adept 1 and Devourer/Spider pets. Many, so many delicious lethal poison stacks and poison pressure!
  2 – Very good old trait slightly tuned down.
  3 – 2 base scenarios: you have ranged/passive pet (spirits)/allies and they stay around you, which give some good protection support, or you pet engage battle far away, to support other frontliners. And nice access to personal stability for you and your pet.

NATURE MAGIC <- click!

General:

• Traitline about healing, boons, boon support, regeneration and condiclears. Current one pretty boring.
• Minors – Almost all the same except new one, what clears condition from you and your pet when you or your pet aplly to yourself regeneration. Pet curing rate very good, what can help deal with condispam and bring new live to bears, moas and drakes with free access to regeneration via natural skills.
• Adept traits:
  1 – Standard downstate trait, add only old Healing Spring proc when downed. We know that if things will be going wrong (someone goes 100%), so we take this trait.
  2 – Very poor GM again became very good f2 adept skill. Our fat moa/drake/bear draw conditions from all around, survive in hard challenging content and slowly cleance drawned conditions via regeneration procs.
  3 – Now thing’s is tuned up – our drake’s/moa/spider’s/pig/s/bear’s have rickdiculous amount of vitality, so it’s upper their base power to solid 2k, so our tanky pets also hit pretty hard.
• Master traits
  1 – Basic healing power trait for you and your pet.
  2 – And now your bear/moa/drake/spider/pig with all their fatness can be accepted!
  6 stacks of might permanently, fury spikes every 6s and works for every 4.
  Only keep your pet alive and damaged below 90% health. Spider here at long range looks nice.
  3 – General spirit trait. Double spirit proc’s at it current rebalanced state is rock and slightly recharge reduce. Remember, they still very squishy.
• Grandmaster traits.
  1 – Good old one self anti burst protection trait.
  2 – Now it’s really good condition removal trait, what not melt your pet to death state.
  3 – Now Warhorn have really powerful boon access, also have sinergy with adept 3 on Marsmanship, with tuned down stats.

BEASTMASTERY <- click!

General:

• Traitline about pet stats, more pet stats, greatsword and pet f2 utility.
• Minors – All the same
• Adept traits:
  1 – Old one, very good trait.
  2 – You never took it at GM, cuz other choices is better, now we will take it for permament 25 might for our pet. Oh, and for axe using of course!
  3 – Perfect old one trait, that fits at Ranger
• Master traits
  1 – In current state it’s only apply Weakness if f2 have direct damage. So adding direct damage to this skill make it usable for every pet, and with good power scaling power or 25 might pet stacks it can hit very hard. I think need 1/2 or 1s cast time or smtng for evade time.
  2 – Very good old trait. A/A via another +5% damage is saved.
  3 – Very good first year after release trait, what NEVER works. Now with pulse system it can be rally interesting and rewarding for nopetswapping.
• Grandmaster traits.
  1 – Taunt make Ranger very noticeable. Good as it state.
  2 – New trait for bunker-survival builds, based on old one, which great reduce very high hits.
  3 – Old one, nice and strong.

Conclusions:
I have no words to express how many builds i can make with this new tuned traits. Almost every possible weapon combination can have solid, good build.
No more useless pets – they are now rocks and save lives, even resurrect them!

Q: Ok i read whole thing, so that’s i’ve got for it?
A:Congratulations! Take this Skritt!

Final words:
I’m really enjoin doing this stuff (do it almost 3 days). I know some thing’s are broken, some don’t fit with Dev vision of Ranger, but i still hope for the best for Ranger in future. Piece!

P.S Obligatory shoutout to that_shaman and his cool tooltips site. Things gett’n easy with that_shaman! Thank you!

I don’t care to read wall of text but I will say that mainhand sword getting more conditions wouldn’t be bad. I know its “power” weapon but there isn’t a reason it can’t have condi/hybir option with the recent nerf to base condi dmg. Torment on hornet sting would be funny and fitting ;-)

Heck put confusion on the sword aa kick skill too ;-)

I went through most of it.

And plenty of the ideas are nice and theme fitting. I don’t believe ANet will make the effort to redo Ranger like this but if they get inspired by these changes and fix/improve at least some of our broken nature that would be great.

I want that druids passive was, that regeneration will Stack like bleed or other conditions

Some of those are really cool. Many of them are unneccessary complicated though and less would be more.

Less is more for sure, we don’t need everything revamped, and we definitely don’t need more damage. What we need is utility that isn’t pet based..specifically from traitlines outside of BM.

I actually prefer Nature Spirit the way it is, since it allows you to use it as a failsafe.
I like it when people are “Wtf, how did you rally” and I’ll be like:

Mmm I like your proposals a lot although it will required a full overhaul of the class and that will not happen.

• I like the idea of the torment.. Although is not a condition that fits the ranger thematically . Torment should be something that the necro should apply but not the ranger.
• The problem with spirits are so many… Make a minor trait in Nature magic to make spirits mobile if the player choose to. They cast the active effect when killed/expired (nature spirit also) . The grandmaster must apply the boon for 3 secs every 3 seconds.
• Emphatic Bond must be in BM trait line.
• Honed axes should be a master.
• two handed training in MS.
• Bark Skin should trigger when above 90% and below 30%.
• refined toxins should proc 2 sec poison on crit, same as sharpened edges.

The new made up traits are so overloaded it looks like a cross between complicated Mesmer traits mashed together with Elementalist/Tempest Karlology. Not really a fan.

Things I did like were some of the Spirit changes, but there was so much packed into them that the tooltips read like medical brochures. A lot of things left unchanged could have used a tweak for more diversity, but other than that, cheers for sharing your ideas.

Though I may not agree with some of it, maybe the Dev for Ranger will glance over this and take a note or two to improve something whenever that time comes.

My first impression is that all of this is way more complicated that it needs to be as far as traits go, didn’t read through the weapons or mechanic changes yet. Some of it kind of reminds me of those quirky mesmer traits.

We just need some adjustement and overhauling of a couple of really bad traits, make a refresh mechanic for opening strike as a minor trait that syngergizes with the line as a whole while keeping the Remorseless trait as it is, and make Fortifying Bond baseline.

Greatsword needs a Hilt Bash fix and autoattack buff. Swoop could be looked at after the “nerf” it got. Shortbow needs a fix. Both axes could use some love. The sword rooting and the cast time of the evade skills could need a second look.

That’s the kind of changes we can expect, if anything. A complete overhaul like this ain’t happening.

i want you in the balance team the anet one is a shame you cant do worst hahahaha

One time upvote this thread for visibility. Love Ranger’s forum activity!
Let’s digress from the endless WHAO threads!
Have fun with reading!
p.s. pls dont merge, this standalone overpowered Ranger tweaks.