Guild Wars 2

There’re many weird and lackluster aspect for ranger’s traits compare to other classes with similar trait functions. The placement of those traits are pretty messed up too.
I’m going to list a few things that I found really weird when compare to other classes.

1. Piercing Arrow + Quick Draw:
Ok, let’s face it, these 2 traits really have no reason to waste 2 MASTER traits just to get the function that every other classes have. Warrior gets both -CD AND piercing with one ADAPT TRAIT, yet ranger needs TWO MASTERS? How does that make any sense?
Engineer’s rifle only has -CD because rifle pierces on default. Mesmer’s GS -CD gives bonus stat, and also has piercing on default. Thief only has piercing trait because their weapon skills have no CD, thus -CD is meaningless. Ele scepter pierces on default too.
Why is Ranger the only class that need to sacrifice so much just to do the same thing every other classes got it for granted?

Solution: Merge these traits and put it in Skirmishing master trait, just like Warrior.
(If you really can’t merge the trait because it may be OP, at least move piercing Arrow to Skirmishing adapt. There’s not a single trait really useful to Power ranger in Skirmishing adapt, which is super awkward)

2. Spotter: This trait putting in Power line makes absolutely no sense. Should move to Skirmishing Master. At least the Grand master slot for Skirmishing wouldn’t be completely useless in PVE now if spotter is in Skirmishing line.

3. Sharpened Edges: This trait needs to be a minor trait for all it worth. Most other classes has this type of trait in minor trait (33%~66% to cause x condition when crit)
2 sec bleed is not much consider you have to waste a slot for it.

4. Pet related traits in Skirmishing
Agility Training // Carnivorous Appetite:
Let’s face it, no-one in their right mind would take these traits in a Skirmish line. Their functions are too minimal and only affect pet. These traits need to merge with other traits, or give bonus to the ranger himself too.
(For example, Agility Training should increase ranger’s movement speed by 25% when pet is alive. Carnivorous Appetite should gain health to the ranger himself when pet hits.)

5. Strider’s Defense: This skill need to make it into a more reliable projectile reflector. Make it like range version of aegis and refresh every 10 seconds. (Also gain the affect immediately after swapping to a melee weapon)

6. Shared Anguish: 90 CD for just one CC prevention, which you can’t decide which CC, and your pet has to suffer because of it? How come Warrior gain a full stability, no consequence, and CD is the same? Engineer even got a 5 CD protection when CCed!
This skill either need to grant stability like Warrior does (maybe shorter duration), or shorten the CD significantly (30 seconds)

After 2.5 years of released, and many promises that Anet made to us ranger, these serious and obvious trait design flaws and oversights have never been look for.
How is this fair to ranger after you nerfed down almost all aspects of rangers in the older meta?

There’re more traits that have serious problems that I haven’t listed it.
I would add them accordingly when I have more ideas.
You guys can help me fill up some holes that I missed.

Also, try to keep this thread alive so developers may have a slight chance to look at it. Developers almost never visit Ranger’s forum. To be honest I really want to post this thread in PVP category because they read pvp forum alot, replying to a bunch of useless whine posts. However, I know I would be moved here anyway, but if there’s a slight chance to make developers see it, it may worth a try.

Spotter in marksmanship makes perfect sense.

1- These traits affect 2 weapon, not only one while warrior trait affect only riffle. Engineer have a trait that allow pistol to pierce (and only pistol) with no other feature. Thieves don’t have piercing traits, They do have a trait that give them a tiny chance of rebound after hitting a foe. I see no fair reason for this number 1.

2- Spotter in skirmish line… Honestly, who care? It’s fine where he is.

4- Pet related trait in skirmish. Sorry but you are hitting a very sensitive spot here. So let’s be blunt : Ranger, in GW2, is THE Pet profession. Which mean that you gotta take in account the pet. Me, as someone that actually use this profession with (and not against) the bound mechanism (Yes the whole pet feature), I am very very glad that skirmishing offer wonderfull buff for my pet who hit like a truck thanks to them.

6- You are looking at trait’s and classes that are totally different. But, in short : ranger have shared anguish (90 CD) AND Hide in plain sight (30 CD) that stealth you. Although I m pretty sur that warrior are jealous of this whole 8 seconds stability and damage boost that ranger gain when falling under 25% HP with the trait enlargement (60 CD).

My opinion : Although you’ve spotted Strider’s defense which is a so-so trait that still may help melee rangers in zerg v zerg situation, all you’ve said is pretty much nonsense. I would be a dev reading this, I would facepalm and sigh.

You’ve spotted the wrong design flaw. The fact that trap traits are in skirmishing (which is the Precision/ferocity line) is a flaw in design, they should be on the wilderness survival trait line. But, they don’t intend to change that.

The point is for you to really kitten the choices you have and if in some cases you come to a sense of “i need this trait, oh but that one is so good too, oh i have to compromise one of them”, that’s good game design, hard choices also makes them meaningful.

On the other hand if all the important traits are spoon fed to you, then we get the cookie cutter builds which everybody follows to be optimal. If there’s room for a discussion “… but that trait is better for this, this and that” – again that’s good game design.

Aomine.5012:

1. Piercing Arrow + Quick Draw:
Ok, let’s face it, these 2 traits really have no reason to waste 2 MASTER traits just to get the function that every other classes have. Warrior gets both -CD AND piercing with one ADAPT TRAIT, yet ranger needs TWO MASTERS? How does that make any sense?
Engineer’s rifle only has -CD because rifle pierces on default. Mesmer’s GS -CD gives bonus stat, and also has piercing on default. Thief only has piercing trait because their weapon skills have no CD, thus -CD is meaningless. Ele scepter pierces on default too.
Why is Ranger the only class that need to sacrifice so much just to do the same thing every other classes got it for granted?

Solution: Merge these traits and put it in Skirmishing master trait, just like Warrior.
(If you really can’t merge the trait because it may be OP, at least move piercing Arrow to Skirmishing adapt. There’s not a single trait really useful to Power ranger in Skirmishing adapt, which is super awkward)

You just made my 6×6xx LB/GS WvW build cry. At the moment, 6 points in MM get you Piercing Arrows and Eagle Eye. I’d hate to have to spend 8 points for the same result when i don’t care about Quick Draw.

Dadnir.5038:

1- These traits affect 2 weapon, not only one while warrior trait affect only riffle. Engineer have a trait that allow pistol to pierce (and only pistol) with no other feature. Thieves don’t have piercing traits, They do have a trait that give them a tiny chance of rebound after hitting a foe. I see no fair reason for this number 1.

2- Spotter in skirmish line… Honestly, who care? It’s fine where he is.

4- Pet related trait in skirmish. Sorry but you are hitting a very sensitive spot here. So let’s be blunt : Ranger, in GW2, is THE Pet profession. Which mean that you gotta take in account the pet. Me, as someone that actually use this profession with (and not against) the bound mechanism (Yes the whole pet feature), I am very very glad that skirmishing offer wonderfull buff for my pet who hit like a truck thanks to them.

6- You are looking at trait’s and classes that are totally different. But, in short : ranger have shared anguish (90 CD) AND Hide in plain sight (30 CD) that stealth you. Although I m pretty sur that warrior are jealous of this whole 8 seconds stability and damage boost that ranger gain when falling under 25% HP with the trait enlargement (60 CD).

My opinion : Although you’ve spotted Strider’s defense which is a so-so trait that still may help melee rangers in zerg v zerg situation, all you’ve said is pretty much nonsense. I would be a dev reading this, I would facepalm and sigh.

You’ve spotted the wrong design flaw. The fact that trap traits are in skirmishing (which is the Precision/ferocity line) is a flaw in design, they should be on the wilderness survival trait line. But, they don’t intend to change that.

1. Two weapons that you really can’t use together efficiently, since one is power and the other is condi. So, in an ACTUAL BUILD, it only affects one weapon, you just get tp choose which.

2. There are too many good traits in spotter, too few in skirmishing at the moment. Marksmanship has too many good traits competing for a slot in it, at least for longbow builds.

4. It would be kittening nice if GW1 players had a successor to the GW1 ranger, but we don’t. They force nearly all of our condition removal, blast finishers, fields, and other utility onto AI which has no understanding of combo fields and no ability to dodge or block, then they put in tons of ‘dodge or die’ mechanics in PvE to remove even the slim chance of the pet actually doing something right before it dies. You want GW1 rangers who ran bow without a pet to have no place in this game? Fine. But ostracizing that much of their player base doesn’t earn ArenaNet any points in my book.

6. That isn’t stealth. Any player who knows mechanics (in PvP, obviously) will know that you haven’t gone anywhere because you’re still ‘stealthed’ (camouflaged actually), and plant a ground targeted skill under you. Also, if pets are so kitten ed important, why does all of our condition ‘removal’ and shared anguish give it to our pets instead? As for stability, why would warriors be envious of it when they get far, FAR more stability than rangers do? They also get invulnerability, which rangers don’t (as far as I remember).

There’s also the fact that rangers get like 2 fields and one blast finisher on a 30s cd, while my engie gets 2 water fields, light, smoke, poison, and fire, with 4 blast finishers (ALL with <30s cd).

Overall our traits are probably worst from all classes in games when it comes to being uninteresting etc. Power ranger has highest customization from all spec which was in meta (currently is not). Only one line is mandatory to be honest rest is personal preference so that also says something. That is reason when I started Gw2 I have played Engineer because Ranger seemed to be dull in comparison to other chars. Even thought I always play ranger class in all mmo’s.
Currently love my Ranger because oh well I love the theme and style what I can do:)
SO yeah I am all for making our talents not necessary stronger but more interesting.

Dadnir.5038:

1- These traits affect 2 weapon, not only one while warrior trait affect only riffle. Engineer have a trait that allow pistol to pierce (and only pistol) with no other feature. Thieves don’t have piercing traits, They do have a trait that give them a tiny chance of rebound after hitting a foe. I see no fair reason for this number 1.

R: Engineer’s pistol is a small aoe weapon before it pierces. When it pierces, it pierce through everything + aoe. Thief’s bouncing is 50%, and also increase attack radius, and the bouncing range is 1050 if traited.

2- Spotter in skirmish line… Honestly, who care? It’s fine where he is.

R: Spotter is a trait that increases precision, yet why is it NOT in precision and ferocity line? Why does it have to stay in power line while Skirmishing has NOTHING to choose from?

4- Pet related trait in skirmish. Sorry but you are hitting a very sensitive spot here. So let’s be blunt : Ranger, in GW2, is THE Pet profession. Which mean that you gotta take in account the pet. Me, as someone that actually use this profession with (and not against) the bound mechanism (Yes the whole pet feature), I am very very glad that skirmishing offer wonderfull buff for my pet who hit like a truck thanks to them.

R: Some pet’s traits are more useful than others, but some of them are just too minimal to have any benefit. If people’s going to choose a pet choice, they’re choose something like Pet’s Prowess. My suggestion of fixing those minimal effect pet traits is to also grant some bonuses to the ranger himself, which is quite fair.

6- You are looking at trait’s and classes that are totally different. But, in short : ranger have shared anguish (90 CD) AND Hide in plain sight (30 CD) that stealth you. Although I m pretty sur that warrior are jealous of this whole 8 seconds stability and damage boost that ranger gain when falling under 25% HP with the trait enlargement (60 CD).

R: Don’t use other traits which requires multiple slots and waste multiple trait points to justify a trait being subpar compare to classes that have similar trait, doing similar function.

My opinion : Although you’ve spotted Strider’s defense which is a so-so trait that still may help melee rangers in zerg v zerg situation, all you’ve said is pretty much nonsense. I would be a dev reading this, I would facepalm and sigh.

R: This clearly show you know very little about the current problems ranger’s facing (6 traits in one line, while one line has nothing to choose from), as well as why some traits are never used. (Some of the pet’s trait which either need to do more things or help the ranger himself)

You’ve spotted the wrong design flaw. The fact that trap traits are in skirmishing (which is the Precision/ferocity line) is a flaw in design, they should be on the wilderness survival trait line. But, they don’t intend to change that.

Trap line is a tricky one. If they put them in other lines, there’d be too much competition in other lines too. The reason why it’s working now is only because Skirmishing has almost nothing good to choose from lol.

I’m pretty sure you don’t main a ranger, and you don’t care about ranger either.

And yet, no one even realized that we have a master trait that boosts Ferocity on a pure Condition based weapon. (yep, I’m talking about Honed Axes)
At a trait line for Zerk (Crit/Fero).

Strange how everyone is okay with that. I haven’t been for years. Now if we put that on a “in any hand” – that would be okay. The damage increase would still only be around 7% on a full Zerk Ranger – and the Ranger itself. Would also boost the melee damage only, not the Ranged which rookies still complain about.

Tragic Positive.9356:

And yet, no one even realized that we have a master trait that boosts Ferocity on a pure Condition based weapon. (yep, I’m talking about Honed Axes)

Path of Scars says hello.

Edit: ugh, forgot it required MH axe, silly me… This one seriously need addressing indeed…

I’ve been talking to some of the other Profession Podcasters and we are all 100% unanimous that the current Trait System for the professions is extremely lackluster and disorganized compared to the way the Revenants traits already appear to be.

In fact, the Revenant doesn’t seem to have any visible traits so far that match the current lackluster philosophy that some of them have (Spike Trap while Rezzing…..), so here’s to hoping that the expansion brings a reorganization to these traits.

We’ll probably also see a balance patch after PAX to get some of the new functionality groundwork laid (some dev comments hint at the stability change happening “soon”), so hopefully we some some specific direction with these traits start to be established then.

Well, to be honest, I do not main ranger, I play all classes equally and that’s probably why I see that what you say is flawed. I’m playing ranger since december 2012 and i’ve got a pretty good experience on it. Before the pet damage nerf, I was able to solo CoE with it. Proud? no I can’t now, it’s just out of my reach, I was carried by my pet.

The state of the ranger right now is that the ranger is way to dependent of the Longbow. See yourself, you want all longbow trait, you don’t want to chose. If i had to agree about something, it’s that there is way to many trait related to longbow, there is so much love to longbow in rangers traits it make me sick. The only balance in this, is that these traits aren’t spread in many traitline.

Other then that, here are the misconception :

- Axe/shortbow are condition weapon, I hope it’s a joke because at a moment they nerfed shortbow range due to player pewpewing in zerk with it and many complaint coming from cough cough PvPer. They are Hybrid weapon.

- Warrior have 2 access to stability : balance stance and dolyak signet. Rangers have 2 access to stability RaO and SotW

- Rangers have an invulnerability skill called signet of stone and they have this horrendous shout called “Protect me” wich work as a 60k HP shield if you got a bear.

- Warrior have a trait like spotter called “empower allies” that grant power to their allies. This trait is in the vitality/boon duration traitline. And they don’t whine about this fact.

- If we could get rid of all the useless trait for PvP, I’m sure WvW players and PvEer would be pretty sad. (like falling trait)

- The point in “Hide in Plain Sight”, is that it has a good synergy with “remorseless”.

So, just understand that it’s not that I don’t know about the current issue that the ranger is facing. It’s more that I can see things differently due to 2 years worth of experience playing all the classes. And I do care about all the classes. And, for what I know, “hide in plain sight” and “empathic bound” could be swap with the trap traits. Sure these are defensive traits but so is “primal reflexe”.

cafard.8953:

Aomine.5012:

1. Piercing Arrow + Quick Draw:
Ok, let’s face it, these 2 traits really have no reason to waste 2 MASTER traits just to get the function that every other classes have. Warrior gets both -CD AND piercing with one ADAPT TRAIT, yet ranger needs TWO MASTERS? How does that make any sense?
Engineer’s rifle only has -CD because rifle pierces on default. Mesmer’s GS -CD gives bonus stat, and also has piercing on default. Thief only has piercing trait because their weapon skills have no CD, thus -CD is meaningless. Ele scepter pierces on default too.
Why is Ranger the only class that need to sacrifice so much just to do the same thing every other classes got it for granted?

Solution: Merge these traits and put it in Skirmishing master trait, just like Warrior.
(If you really can’t merge the trait because it may be OP, at least move piercing Arrow to Skirmishing adapt. There’s not a single trait really useful to Power ranger in Skirmishing adapt, which is super awkward)

You just made my 6×6xx LB/GS WvW build cry. At the moment, 6 points in MM get you Piercing Arrows and Eagle Eye. I’d hate to have to spend 8 points for the same result when i don’t care about Quick Draw.

Hey sir, you actually have 14 trait points to allocate instead of 12.
You can go for 4/4/6/0/0, keeping the same function while having way better stats and an additional -20% CD on bows.

Aomine.5012:

Hey sir, you actually have 14 trait points to allocate instead of 12.
You can go for 4/4/6/0/0, keeping the same function while having way better stats and an additional -20% CD on bows.

That misses out on piercing/RtW, which is a loss of functionality.

Dadnir.5038:

stuff

The longbow has so much support because an enormous part of the community is comprised of GW1 bow rangers (like me) who feel that they have no real place in GW2. For all the ‘love’, the longbow is still all but useless in sPvP and most dungeons.

Dadnir.5038:

Other then that, here are the misconception :

- Axe/shortbow are condition weapon, I hope it’s a joke because at a moment they nerfed shortbow range due to player pewpewing in zerk with it and many complaint coming from cough cough PvPer. They are Hybrid weapon.

…

… I disagree here.

It’s like saying that Engineer’s Rifle is a hybrid weapon…
… While we all know that it’s probably no.1 Zerk Weapon.

The fact that it deals both types of damage doesn’t mean that the best way to use it is celestial.
You can’t really claim that a Torch on Ranger is a hybrid weapon, just because it deals direct damage on application, too. The use of the weapon and it’s effectiveness by doing so makes it a “damage-type” oriented. Not the type of damage it deals.

The weapon specced into a stat that makes it FAR inferior to the other version (Power/Condi) is considered to be the other version.

Moreover, Signet of Stone nullifies only the direct damage. It’s not immortality. Also, “Protect Me” does not really soak up conditions either (and can soak up up to 29 707 HP – assuming we took a useless meat stick doing nothing). And Ranger has no immunity to conditions (has plenty of Cleanse if he traits for it, though… But if he traits for it, he has zero “Full cleanse” and can cleanse limited amount at a time only).

Tragic Positive.9356:

And Ranger has no immunity to conditions (has plenty of Cleanse if he traits for it, though… But if he traits for it, he has zero “Full cleanse” and can cleanse limited amount at a time only).

Signet of restoration is a full clense for you and your team.
On decent builds on a ranger you will lose 4 condis every 10s as long as your pet is alive and 1 every 10 if not. If there is anything you really need to remove you can use a survival skill.

Aomine.5012:

cafard.8953:

Aomine.5012:

1. Piercing Arrow + Quick Draw:
Ok, let’s face it, these 2 traits really have no reason to waste 2 MASTER traits just to get the function that every other classes have. Warrior gets both -CD AND piercing with one ADAPT TRAIT, yet ranger needs TWO MASTERS? How does that make any sense?
Engineer’s rifle only has -CD because rifle pierces on default. Mesmer’s GS -CD gives bonus stat, and also has piercing on default. Thief only has piercing trait because their weapon skills have no CD, thus -CD is meaningless. Ele scepter pierces on default too.
Why is Ranger the only class that need to sacrifice so much just to do the same thing every other classes got it for granted?

Solution: Merge these traits and put it in Skirmishing master trait, just like Warrior.
(If you really can’t merge the trait because it may be OP, at least move piercing Arrow to Skirmishing adapt. There’s not a single trait really useful to Power ranger in Skirmishing adapt, which is super awkward)

You just made my 6×6xx LB/GS WvW build cry. At the moment, 6 points in MM get you Piercing Arrows and Eagle Eye. I’d hate to have to spend 8 points for the same result when i don’t care about Quick Draw.

Hey sir, you actually have 14 trait points to allocate instead of 12.
You can go for 4/4/6/0/0, keeping the same function while having way better stats and an additional -20% CD on bows.

Yes, 14 points, hence 6×6xx rather than 60600, that’s 12 points required for the core traits (Piercing, Eagle Eye, Empathic Bond/Bark Skin), 3 traits to pick (1 in MM, 2 in WS), and 2 free points to throw in any other line for variety. I’d rather keep spending 6 points in Marksmanship for the longbow than 8 points across Marksmanship and Skirmishing. As for the -20%, well, it’d be nice, but them’s the breaks. Quickdraw’s current location means that if you pick every single extra damage LB trait (piercing, eagle eye, quickdraw), you’ve only got 4 points left and have to miss out on GM survival traits, which is a sensible compromise. Same as the dilemma of picking only 2 from Piercing, Eagle Eye and Read the Wind.

Overall, with some particular exceptions like Honed Axes, i can’t say i’m too unhappy about our trait lines. Skirmishing is a bit awkward, but in fact, it works rather well as the trap line as putting them anywhere else would compromise a lot of nice line combinations.

First I’m talking about axe and shortbow.
If, you happen to look at axe auto attack what do you see? Only direct damage. Axe skill #2 damage and bleed, axe skill #3 damage and chill. Is this a condi weapon for you? Short bow is the same : auto if you are not flanking? Only direct damage. Then a poison skill and some direct damage utility skills. This is hardly a condition damage weapon. This is an hybrid weapon.

Celestial… Did I talk about that? No. Celestial work if you happen to have an easy way to apply yourself boons. But this is a totally different topic.

Did I talk about torch? No.

lol your argument on Signet of stone and “Protect me” are ridiculous. They are mitigation skill like defy pain. And excuse me but would you really want GW2 to be a game without trait and choice of trait? Without diversity?

Seriously, your saying that rangers are full of trait to cleanse himself passively and at the same time he can’t cleanse himself? Maybe signet of renewal ain’t good enough? Maybe healing spring ain’t a good healing skill? What would say a thief when you whine because you think you have limited access to condition cleanse?

Each profession have their strengh and their weakness. In regard of condition cleanse or damage mitigation, ranger is pretty well balanced.

NB : 29700 HP it’s way more than necro DS HP. Should we ask for them around 10k more HP in their LF pool to satisfy equality?

Sigmoid.7082:

Tragic Positive.9356:

And Ranger has no immunity to conditions (has plenty of Cleanse if he traits for it, though… But if he traits for it, he has zero “Full cleanse” and can cleanse limited amount at a time only).

Signet of restoration is a full clense for you and your team.
On decent builds on a ranger you will lose 4 condis every 10s as long as your pet is alive and 1 every 10 if not. If there is anything you really need to remove you can use a survival skill.

I really find it annoying that the conditions are just moved to the pet instead of cleansed or transferred to enemies.

Edit: and by “decent build” you mean “melee build”? Because from where I sit, it still looks like bow rangers are being hung out to dry, although with the massive advantages melee typically enjoys in this game that isn’t terribly surprising.

Dadnir.5038:

- Warrior have a trait like spotter called “empower allies” that grant power to their allies. This trait is in the vitality/boon duration traitline. And they don’t whine about this fact.

If that is the only thing they aren’t whining about I a surprise, It was the end of world for them when it went from Adept tier to master.

As a whole the ranger suffered quite a bit in the trait system with the exception of a few possible outlying traits most are too weak for their ranking and many feel like they were just trying to fill spaces on the trait line after designing so many for other (more polished professions).

All those traits that just add ‘secondary’ stat to the pets that is poorly done at best and a shortsighted mess quite possible due to the fact that the profession was cobbled together out the scraps of the canceled Warden and Archer.

Dadnir.5038:

Well, to be honest, I do not main ranger, I play all classes equally and that’s probably why I see that what you say is flawed. I’m playing ranger since december 2012 and i’ve got a pretty good experience on it. Before the pet damage nerf, I was able to solo CoE with it. Proud? no I can’t now, it’s just out of my reach, I was carried by my pet.

The state of the ranger right now is that the ranger is way to dependent of the Longbow. See yourself, you want all longbow trait, you don’t want to chose. If i had to agree about something, it’s that there is way to many trait related to longbow, there is so much love to longbow in rangers traits it make me sick. The only balance in this, is that these traits aren’t spread in many traitline.

Other then that, here are the misconception :

- Axe/shortbow are condition weapon, I hope it’s a joke because at a moment they nerfed shortbow range due to player pewpewing in zerk with it and many complaint coming from cough cough PvPer. They are Hybrid weapon.

- Warrior have 2 access to stability : balance stance and dolyak signet. Rangers have 2 access to stability RaO and SotW

- Rangers have an invulnerability skill called signet of stone and they have this horrendous shout called “Protect me” wich work as a 60k HP shield if you got a bear.

- Warrior have a trait like spotter called “empower allies” that grant power to their allies. This trait is in the vitality/boon duration traitline. And they don’t whine about this fact.

- If we could get rid of all the useless trait for PvP, I’m sure WvW players and PvEer would be pretty sad. (like falling trait)

- The point in “Hide in Plain Sight”, is that it has a good synergy with “remorseless”.
.

I have all classes lv80 for more than 2 years. I play all of them, and have pvp experience of all of them (None tournament 150 wins). Ranger is my first created character in GW2 since launch because I main a ranger since GW1 and finished EVERYTHING on a ranger. (Got GWAMM title for my ranger) I really want this class to be well.

We used to have other viable builds too, not just LB one. When SB and quickness is strong, trap is a viable build. When pet is strong, beastmaster is a viable build. When spirits are immune to condition and has 100% up time, spirit build is viable. Now we lose all of them, but finally have our original reason of playing ranger back: Using a LB to snipe people down. I stopped playing ranger for a long time after some major nerfs to all the viable builds ranger had, and finally came back after they fix the LB and add some interesting trait like survival the fittest.

Ok, back to your argument. The fixes I suggested are not exclusive to LB, it actually makes overall builds for other weapons more viable too compare to the currently messy trait line.

Spotter change benefits Sword and GS too because they can have better stats and minor traits from skirmishing, while finally have something to choose from skirmish line. The new strider defense also add some reliable method for those 2 weapons to counter some range specs.

The pet exclusive trait changed to affect the user as well, greatly enhances the versatility of the ranger. Anet already does that to our signet, so why not rework some of the traits that are exclusive to pets too? (Plus they already nerfed the pet enough so there wouldn’t be balance issue of some traits work on both pet and ranger.) Do you think anyone with decent knowledge of the game would EVER choose Carnivorous Appetite as their master trait if it only heals pet? I would better off just choose a more tanky pet to swap if I want my pet to survive longer. (Plus the healing amount is lucklaster too)

Shared Anguish itself is a really meh trait. You mentioned Synergy, but those synergy requires so many traits and slots to justify the usefulness.

For the stability that you mentioned, Warrior actually have 4, which 3 of them are instantaneous and also break stuns. Not only that, Doyak Stance grants passive bonus toughness, while balance stance grants swiftness too. The elite skill is also VERY strong (It hits very hard, reduces damage, grants stability, grants speed bonus, grants condition denial 33%).

Ranger’s stability requires you to precast it, and all of them have extremely long cool down. None of them are instantaneous, none of them break stuns, and the cast time is long.

I can make this post because I understand and experiences all classes already, and can see what’s wrong with ranger’s trait line compare to some of the other classes. I wouldn’t say all classes traits are fine, but instead of letting them rot, you should ask for fixes for other classes, instead of stopping ranger from being fixed just because other classes have rotten meats too.

Nearly all the pet traits and most of the 5th line are garbage.

I only wish for “Two-Handed Training” to be in “Skirmishing”, instead of “Nature Magic”.

Makes no sense to me as it is right now.

I still want to know why Fortifying Bond shares Vigor with our pet? It’s been like this since the beginning and it makes no freakin sense. Swap it for Stability al-freakin-ready.

Sigmoid.7082:

Tragic Positive.9356:

And Ranger has no immunity to conditions (has plenty of Cleanse if he traits for it, though… But if he traits for it, he has zero “Full cleanse” and can cleanse limited amount at a time only).

Signet of restoration is a full clense for you and your team.
On decent builds on a ranger you will lose 4 condis every 10s as long as your pet is alive and 1 every 10 if not. If there is anything you really need to remove you can use a survival skill.

If I’m correct, none of the viable builds traited for SotF include Signet of the Renewal. There’s no point in doing so. It’s a ridiculous overkill that way – and you’ll miss important utility or defense.

Moreover, decent Ranger builds you are talking about are condition / sustain based. From which almost none include SotF. Which makes the 4 condi cleanse every 10 seconds random (that is just awful and unreliable) and kind of forces the Ranger to go for the On-demand condi cleanse – which indeed is the SotR. Sadly – that will be the only real on-demand cleanse you’ll ever get – and will work only if your pet is within range (often requires a pet swap cooldown) and will kill the pet straight away.

Here I’ll mention that a full condi pressure ranger is still inferior to other Condi Bombing classes, Support Condi Ranger can either be a spirit Ranger or Regen Survival Ranger – that is vastly inferior to other supportive classes, especially the meta Eles, Guards and Engies.

From one perspective or another – Ranger has most of his abilities that sacrifice something for something (Traps are cool example – AoE condi pressure for any defense at all / Spirit Ranger – Support for lack of defense skills / Power Build – raw damage for anything else at all / Skills themselves usually sacrifice your pet, therefore sacrifice your damage and utility for soaking up damage like Protect me! or mentioned Signet of the Renewal / Plenty of abilities force you to swap your pet to be in range just to be effective = not allowing you to use others when you need them).

None of other classes suffer from such a design.
Prove me wrong.

Aomine.5012:

I can make this post because I understand and experiences all classes already, and can see what’s wrong with ranger’s trait line compare to some of the other classes. I wouldn’t say all classes traits are fine, but instead of letting them rot, you should ask for fixes for other classes, instead of stopping ranger from being fixed just because other classes have rotten meats too.

If it was true, your major concern on ranger would be that Longbow outshine every other weapon in this classe. And no, for the sake of diversity, you have to have some diversity for trait. It’s not because you think it’s garbage that nobody can transform any trait in a strengh for it’s build. The problem is that you are to involved in this while you should step back and look objectively.

When you say that GS and sword gain from spotter change, this is pure non sense they gain also power and condi duration from spotter in marksmanship which ain’t bad for the two of them.

Which class can have a passive 20% incoming range damage reduction (and you can add protection which is 33% damage reduction)? which class have a passive 50% damage reduction while under 25% health (again you can add protection to that)?

I don’t agree with most of the traits suggested by the OP that need rework. Most of those are fine imo. Things like agility training is actually a nice DPS increase for melee pets.

Just going to list some traits that I think are never used or not worth taking. I’m sure other classes have similar issues, hopefully Anet will address them before HoT. I’ve made my own suggestion for each trait listed, hope they’re reasonable suggestions.

Power line:
- Beastmaster’s Bond: Gain 3 stacks of might and fury for 10s when pet is at 50% health (60s internal cooldown).

Suggestion: Gain 3 stacks of might and fury for 10s when pet is at 75% health (20s internal cooldown).

Precision line:
- Striders Defense: 20% chance to destroy projectiles when meleeing.

Suggestion: Swapping weapons will reflect all incoming projectiles for 2s (9s internal cooldown).

- Honed Axe: +10% critical damage when mainhanding an axe.

Suggestion: +7% condition damage when mainhanding an axe.

- Trapper’s Defense: Create spike traps for 5s when reviving (10s internal cooldown).

Suggestion: Create 5s healing spring when reviving (15s internal cooldown).

Toughness line:
- Healer’s Celerity: +10% revive speed, 15s swiftness when reviving.

Suggestion: +10% revive speed, 5s of resistance to you and the downed (15s internal cooldown).

- Expertise Training: +350 condition damage for pets.

Suggestion: +500 condition damage for pets.

- Hide in Plain Sight: Gain 3s camouflage (breaks “stealth” if you move) when disabled (30s internal cooldown).

Suggestion: Gain 1s aegis when disabled (25s internal cooldown).

Vitality line:
- Enlargement: Active Signet of the Wild at 25% health or below (60s internal cooldown).

Suggestion: Active Signet of the Wild at 40% health or below (60s internal cooldown).

Healing line:
- Instinctual Bond: 5s quickness to pet when you down (50s internal cooldown).

Suggestion: +50% movement pet movement speed when you down (50s internal cooldown)

- Master’s Bond: Gain up to 25 stacks (+8 power, precision, toughness, vitality) for pets on kills, lose stacks when pet is swapped/dead.

Suggestion: Same, but stacks aren’t lost on swap/dead pet. Stacks are only lost when the ranger is downed/dead.

- Natural Healing: 125hp/s regen on pet, 133hp/3s on ranger. Can be increased by Compassion Training.

Suggestion: Gain 200 hp whenever you or your pet hits a target.

Tragic Positive.9356:

Sigmoid.7082:

Tragic Positive.9356:

And Ranger has no immunity to conditions (has plenty of Cleanse if he traits for it, though… But if he traits for it, he has zero “Full cleanse” and can cleanse limited amount at a time only).

Signet of restoration is a full clense for you and your team.
On decent builds on a ranger you will lose 4 condis every 10s as long as your pet is alive and 1 every 10 if not. If there is anything you really need to remove you can use a survival skill.

If I’m correct, none of the viable builds traited for SotF include Signet of the Renewal. There’s no point in doing so. It’s a ridiculous overkill that way – and you’ll miss important utility or defense.

Moreover, decent Ranger builds you are talking about are condition / sustain based. From which almost none include SotF. Which makes the 4 condi cleanse every 10 seconds random (that is just awful and unreliable) and kind of forces the Ranger to go for the On-demand condi cleanse – which indeed is the SotR. Sadly – that will be the only real on-demand cleanse you’ll ever get – and will work only if your pet is within range (often requires a pet swap cooldown) and will kill the pet straight away.

Here I’ll mention that a full condi pressure ranger is still inferior to other Condi Bombing classes, Support Condi Ranger can either be a spirit Ranger or Regen Survival Ranger – that is vastly inferior to other supportive classes, especially the meta Eles, Guards and Engies.

From one perspective or another – Ranger has most of his abilities that sacrifice something for something (Traps are cool example – AoE condi pressure for any defense at all / Spirit Ranger – Support for lack of defense skills / Power Build – raw damage for anything else at all / Skills themselves usually sacrifice your pet, therefore sacrifice your damage and utility for soaking up damage like Protect me! or mentioned Signet of the Renewal / Plenty of abilities force you to swap your pet to be in range just to be effective = not allowing you to use others when you need them).

None of other classes suffer from such a design.
Prove me wrong.

Most builds I have seen run reflexes, restoration and stone. Cause not only is it condi clear but also a stun break.
Must be just what I am seeing there but I know you can swap restoration for almost anything else.

I can agree with a load of traits being useless though.

Moving Piercing Arrows from Marksmanship to Skirmishing is a great idea. Not only would it have better synergy with Longbow in a 6/5/3/0/0 build (or any for that matter), but it would also work better with shortbow. It wouldn’t effect anyone using both Eagle Eye and Piercing Arrows either, as you could just trait 4/2/x/x/x instead of 6/x/x/x/x. It’s the same investment either way, and with the lack of Skirmishing traits it would be a great QoL buff.

As was said, even though it effects two weapons, both are hardly used in the same build. One is a power weapon and the other being a condition. Lowering it to an adept trait would be a non-issue.

Spotter, on the other hand, is fine where it is. It has it’s spot in the PvE meta where it is between Predator’s Onslaught and Steady Focus. Moving it to Skirmishing would unnecessarily change the meta where it has the most impact (in dungeon runs).

Shanks.2907:

Moving Piercing Arrows from Marksmanship to Skirmishing is a great idea. Not only would it have better synergy with Longbow in a 6/5/3/0/0 build (or any for that matter), but it would also work better with shortbow. It wouldn’t effect anyone using both Eagle Eye and Piercing Arrows either, as you could just trait 4/2/x/x/x instead of 6/x/x/x/x. It’s the same investment either way, and with the lack of Skirmishing traits it would be a great QoL buff.

As was said, even though it effects two weapons, both are hardly used in the same build. One is a power weapon and the other being a condition. Lowering it to an adept trait would be a non-issue.

Spotter, on the other hand, is fine where it is. It has it’s spot in the PvE meta where it is between Predator’s Onslaught and Steady Focus. Moving it to Skirmishing would unnecessarily change the meta where it has the most impact (in dungeon runs).

The change that I suggested are not all biased toward benefiting ranger, but spotter being in Skirmish makes much more sense. I understand your concern of the marksmanship master trait having empty holes when spotter is moved, but skirmishing actually provides much better stats than power trait. (300 precision 300 velocity actually gives way more damage than 300 power, considering you already have high enough power through berzerker) It also opens up possibility of people choosing the Grandmaster trait of Skirmishing. It may not be the best set-up for PVE situation, but pvp-wise it has it’s uses. Perhaps moving two-hand training from nature/ wilderness survival to Marksmanship as compensation will make more sense.

Piercing arrow change only affect people who really want to make high damage AND being survival at the same time. Again, it encourages people to make choices, just like when EVERY LB traits are stuck in Power line before, you have to make alot of choices choosing between Eagle Eye, Piercing Arrow, Read the Wind, Spotter, and Predator Unslaught. Now you still have to make choices, but instead of having no choice to spec more than 2 of those, now you can have more of them, in return sacrificing your survivability for your choice, is actually the type of design that makes more sense.
Plus, do not forget Skirmish Line gives much higher DPS than Power line at the first place. People ignore it only because there’s no good traits to pick in Skirmishing

kiwituatara.6053:

I don’t agree with most of the traits suggested by the OP that need rework. Most of those are fine imo. Things like agility training is actually a nice DPS increase for melee pets.

Just going to list some traits that I think are never used or not worth taking. I’m sure other classes have similar issues, hopefully Anet will address them before HoT. I’ve made my own suggestion for each trait listed, hope they’re reasonable suggestions.

Power line:
- Beastmaster’s Bond: Gain 3 stacks of might and fury for 10s when pet is at 50% health (60s internal cooldown).

Suggestion: Gain 3 stacks of might and fury for 10s when pet is at 75% health (20s internal cooldown).

Precision line:
- Striders Defense: 20% chance to destroy projectiles when meleeing.

Suggestion: Swapping weapons will reflect all incoming projectiles for 2s (9s internal cooldown).

- Honed Axe: +10% critical damage when mainhanding an axe.

Suggestion: +7% condition damage when mainhanding an axe.

- Trapper’s Defense: Create spike traps for 5s when reviving (10s internal cooldown).

Suggestion: Create 5s healing spring when reviving (15s internal cooldown).

Toughness line:
- Healer’s Celerity: +10% revive speed, 15s swiftness when reviving.

Suggestion: +10% revive speed, 5s of resistance to you and the downed (15s internal cooldown).

- Expertise Training: +350 condition damage for pets.

Suggestion: +500 condition damage for pets.

- Hide in Plain Sight: Gain 3s camouflage (breaks “stealth” if you move) when disabled (30s internal cooldown).

Suggestion: Gain 1s aegis when disabled (25s internal cooldown).

Vitality line:
- Enlargement: Active Signet of the Wild at 25% health or below (60s internal cooldown).

Suggestion: Active Signet of the Wild at 40% health or below (60s internal cooldown).

Healing line:
- Instinctual Bond: 5s quickness to pet when you down (50s internal cooldown).

Suggestion: +50% movement pet movement speed when you down (50s internal cooldown)

- Master’s Bond: Gain up to 25 stacks (+8 power, precision, toughness, vitality) for pets on kills, lose stacks when pet is swapped/dead.

Suggestion: Same, but stacks aren’t lost on swap/dead pet. Stacks are only lost when the ranger is downed/dead.

- Natural Healing: 125hp/s regen on pet, 133hp/3s on ranger. Can be increased by Compassion Training.

Suggestion: Gain 200 hp whenever you or your pet hits a target.

I know there’re way more things that need to be fixed, yet I understand Anet wouldn’t focus on too many of them at the same time, so I only show a portion of some of the more common traits in 3 trait lines, so Anet can have a sense of priority when they look at the post.

For the pet related change that I mentioned, I already told you it’s not exclusive to pet or ranger, it should affect BOTH of them, like what our signets do. That will add way more value, and opens up much more possible builds to ranger, because currently you either go full pet or no pet (and full pet are nerfed to the degree that it’s not viable anymore). That’s why I suggest most of the pet traits need to have effect on both ranger and pet.

Bump abit.
If you have better suggestion for polishing and fixing the trait line,
feel free to post here

Aomine.5012:

The change that I suggested are not all biased toward benefiting ranger, but spotter being in Skirmish makes much more sense.

Spotter makes perfect sense where it is.

There are better alternatives if you wanna rearrange traits in mm and skirmishing. Mainly a rework of Eagle Eye, Read the Wind and the base velocity of the LB.

ranger traits atm are the best they’ve ever been. there are a few grandmasters that are entirely useless, and the BM line requires revamps. but for the most part, ranger utilities is where the work needs to happen. I believe 3 lines are entirely useless in pvp (shouts, traps, spirits). signets and survival work well enough.

on the bright side, from what colin said in one of the interviews, theyre improving the old prof content, in addition to the new specs, for hots.