Guild Wars 2

My argument against Reveal is that tracking should be a regular utility skill on a reasonable cooldown.

I agree stealth is a ridiculous mechanic currently, as basically even the most aware and skilled player has a default hp deficit versus a thief. There is no counter other than senseless and repeated aoe in random directions.

A few professions need a stealth counter with a cd though, not just rangers, or we will be pigeon-holed. Ranger should definitely be one of the professions, as it fits perfectly with the profession. Engineer maybe too, some sort of vibration detector or sensor. Whatever, but thieves are currently cheesy and ruin the fun of a fight.

Yiyojin.3241:

Rangers are overpowered now.

Excuse me? That’s just a wrong and totally unprovable statement.

Rangers are the weakest link in GW2.

3 traps with decent placement does a really good job of telling you if/when a stealthed person is approaching. Marks on the necro accomplish much the same thing.

It’s not perfect but if your trap goes off, there is a guy there.

Couple of things in reply to various posters above:

1) The spirit elite is really good and helps against all builds; it removes conditions (counters condition thief/necro), it has a hot (good in all situations) it can revive you and allies (can be a game changer). Obviously this is millions of times better than this skill you have suggested that reveals people in stealth-especially if it is an elite.

2) Rangers have a unique mechanic -pets. These pets do not require weapon or utility slots.

3) I don’t see how Hunters in WoW or rangers in GW are anything like Aragorn from LoTR. If anything the main theme for this kind of class through mmos/rpgs and books/movies is an archer or beastmaster. The connection with bows and nature makes me think of elves if anything. At any rate its best just to drop such preconceived ideas and accept the games’ definition of the class.

4) Here is my suggestion for adding a mechanic that helps counter stealth without being OP’d, without making ranger some niche class, and which fits beautifully into the current ranger mechanic.

The suggestion is that ranger pets do not drop target on stealth and can follow and attack when stealthed enemy reappears. Also if a ranger puts their pet on guard/attack and has it next to him/her the pet should attack with their special ability immediately upon being ambushed by a stealthed player. Therefore if you have a wolf sitting next to you with its cds ready and a thief tries the backstab routine, the wolf should immediately knock down the thief.

This idea borrows from two sources. One is the mesmer pet which locks back onto enemy after they come out of stealth. The other is how wow pets work (spider+trap often saved me from rogue).

One more suggestion is a new trap that has the knockdown or stun effect + a dot. Actually this is probably the easiest to implement.

Here are the benefits of my idea over the ones suggested so far: 1) you don’t need to waste a skill slot to equip it, 2) it just moderately extends the core mechanics of the ranger as is, 3) the usefulness of the trap idea is not confined to countering stealth, 4) it doesn’t destroy the viability of stealth classes/abilities, 5) it is not some OP new skill, and 6) it gives rangers/team a tactical chance against stealth that can still be countered (stability/positioning).

no need to add freaking elite with long CD and short duration to reveal stealth. Rangers have pet, pets should be given the ability to autoattack stealthed players. Don’t come to me saying a canine class pet would not be able to do that. 1st, the ability will limited to a pet class, secondly, it will stop somehow the thieves sneaking in a corner between the rocks just waiting for people to leave the node. But hey, AI in the pets sucks, so don’t wait for such things xD

Traps effective way to reveal stealth? meh, a thieve with short-bow or steal in range can overcome pre-laid traps, stun u, back stab, heartseeker u, u name it, before u r dead or close to be dead, and even better, he won’t even feel the condition damage by the time he is done with u, and even better still, he can blind/stealth while downing u, so say bye bye to any counters.

as for the rest, u need to be a good ranger to at least even have change to play with a team in tournaments and stand ur ground vs stealth mechanics. teams don’t like classes that can’t stand up 1v1 vs thieves, as for ranger players, there is a few that can do so.

Yasha.5963:

3) I don’t see how Hunters in WoW or rangers in GW are anything like Aragorn from LoTR. If anything the main theme for this kind of class through mmos/rpgs and books/movies is an archer or beastmaster. The connection with bows and nature makes me think of elves if anything. At any rate its best just to drop such preconceived ideas and accept the games’ definition of the class.

Aragorn keeps cropping up because he was a ranger, yet he spent more time in melee with his sword than with a bow. The archer in LoTR’s lineup was Legolas who was ‘only’ an elven soldier like GW2’s warrior is. Ergo, trying to use the whole ‘rangers are ARCHERS ONLY FINALDESTINATION’ argument is Very Stupid, because even in the original source material this is not the case. You’re right about the beastmaster aspect though, as is possibly hinted at with the pet controls being your main mechanic and your primary attribute being in the Beastmaster line.

Lelouch.8452:

no need to add freaking elite with long CD and short duration to reveal stealth. Rangers have pet, pets should be given the ability to autoattack stealthed players. Don’t come to me saying a canine class pet would not be able to do that. 1st, the ability will limited to a pet class, secondly, it will stop somehow the thieves sneaking in a corner between the rocks just waiting for people to leave the node. But hey, AI in the pets sucks, so don’t wait for such things xD

Traps effective way to reveal stealth? meh, a thieve with short-bow or steal in range can overcome pre-laid traps, stun u, back stab, heartseeker u, u name it, before u r dead or close to be dead, and even better, he won’t even feel the condition damage by the time he is done with u, and even better still, he can blind/stealth while downing u, so say bye bye to any counters.

Allowing pets to attack players who are in stealth would be going overboard, despite the realism. Adding a knockdown trap, preferably with a dot, would be a counter to the situation you describe above.

Fellknight.4820:

So let me get this straight Thieves should get there stealth that makes them unique and has been the traditional role of there class. Which has also made them the most represented and played class in both tpvp and spvp.

But Rangers shouldn’t have track or reveal which has been there traditional role in MMO’s going back 15 years, without it making them the least played and represented class in tpvp and spvp. Sure makes alot of sense lol and your serious too!

Who gives a kitten about tradition? Tradition also dictates that we should have a tanker and a healer class. An idea should stand on its own merits in context and not just because “that’s the way it’s been.” Stealth in this game is so rare and such a short duration that making it revealable would make it pointless entirely. Games where stealth needs to be countered have stealth that lasts for super long durations or is just on until the person attacks.

Something is needed. There should be “some” risk to a stealthed Thief that he could possibly be revealed. Maybe the possiblity to be revealed only happens in a specific time period after the last time the Thief attacked someone.

The whole dance, stealth…unstealth …stealth etc etc while attacking among multiple people needs to go away.If you unstealth to attack someone, there should be some risk that you won’t be able to escape with stealth.

as per an earlier post that is the #1 frustration for the majority of players.

Edit : and it wouldn’t "pidgeonhole; the Ranger class. It would give them an option. IE if it was a pet, the pet would be weak, but be able to sniff out a recently stealthed character. Ranger choice to use it or not.

I’m with Fellknight on this one. I think Ranger’s should have a reveal of some sort and maybe guardians should have something similar.

When you said scout that really brought back memories as Shadowbane is still the best PVP system I’ve seen in an MMO yet. That said, the thing these games have that GW2 doesn’t is that the thief doesn’t have anytime/all the time stealth. Stealth in this game is much more limited than Shadowbane and WoW.

And remember, Shadowbane had Rangers, Huntresses, Scouts, and Warriors; all of which revolved around shooting with a box/xbow, and not all of them having full time pets and while many could track, only the scout could actually reveal.

The thing about Hunters in WoW were the pets were worthless. They were effectively DOTs with limited/no real value to the class. This is how they should be in this game too. Make them a little DOT that doesn’t amount to much of the ranger’s overall damage and give them some valuable group utility so the ranger can be brought along for pvp.

But I don’t feel this game needs a real reveal. Perhaps a “spidersense is tingling” indicator when the game knows a thief is within XX yards just to alert the ranger that he’s being watched but the thief is too good to be seen, but not so good that he hasn’t been found out.

Atherakhia.4086:

The thing about Hunters in WoW were the pets were worthless. They were effectively DOTs with limited/no real value to the class. This is how they should be in this game too. Make them a little DOT that doesn’t amount to much of the ranger’s overall damage and give them some valuable group utility so the ranger can be brought along for pvp.

Like how GW2 should have a dedicated healer, the warrior should be unable to fight in ranged combat, ect? You said it yourself, Hunter pets were worthless, yet they’re the ranger’s main class mechanic. So you want to make the ranger’s defining part of the class useless?
I respectfully disagree with that.

Loki.4871:

Atherakhia.4086:

The thing about Hunters in WoW were the pets were worthless. They were effectively DOTs with limited/no real value to the class. This is how they should be in this game too. Make them a little DOT that doesn’t amount to much of the ranger’s overall damage and give them some valuable group utility so the ranger can be brought along for pvp.

Like how GW2 should have a dedicated healer, the warrior should be unable to fight in ranged combat, ect? You said it yourself, Hunter pets were worthless, yet they’re the ranger’s main class mechanic. So you want to make the ranger’s defining part of the class useless?
I respectfully disagree with that.

You missed the point entirely. Just because the pets damage is reduced to the point where the pet is effectively a DOT doesn’t instantly make it a useless mechanic to the class as a whole. It just makes it useless for damage. If you would have actually read the post, you would have seen the areas I suggested expanding the value of the pet to fill the other areas the class is sorely lacking.

For example:

Group Utility: Allow the pets to provide large AE buff/debuff zones so ranged casters would stand in a ranged pets aura/buff circle and melee could then get a similar buff circle and any mobs in the circle are debuffed.

PvP Utility: Allow a pet to consume bleeds, dazes, confuses, etc. that are applied by the range and convert that to very large damage. So say you put a bleed stack to 11 on a target. The pet would consume that 11 stack bleed and convert it to 500 damage per stack (numbers are only an example). And then you can seperate the pets into categories where some do huge burst by consuming these effects and others could convert a daze to a long duration root etc etc.

Atherakhia.4086:

You missed the point entirely.

So did you. GW2 is trying to go somewhere different to other mmorpgs. The warriors are actually good with all weapons instead of only melee, there is no dedicated healer. The elementalist and necromancer can (and with many builds, are actively encouraged) to wade into melee, something caster classes are usually encouraged to run a mile from.

So why should the Ranger be the usual mmorpg Yet Another Archer With Eyecandy Pet?

Because as much as you may want to deny it, certain trends don’t work for a reason and a pet class is one that has never worked in an MMO without first designing the whole MMO around them in the first place.

And don’t limit your experience to WoW. Many MMO’s in the past have allowed Warriors to do more than melee. Shadowbane for example had Warriors being the strongest archers outside of scouts.

And it should also be said that GW2 isn’t breaking any new ground either.

Irrelevant. My point still stands; this incarnation of Ranger isn’t designed to have the pet as eyecandy, and as such people should stop complaining on how to make the pet nothing more than that, and give feedback and constructive criticism as to how to make the pets better.

Loki.4871:

Irrelevant. My point still stands; this incarnation of Ranger isn’t designed to have the pet as eyecandy, and as such people should stop complaining on how to make the pet nothing more than that, and give feedback and constructive criticism as to how to make the pets better.

This, i personally would like it if our pets (and all mobs for that matter) could attack on the run, it’d immediately make the game more interesting over all, and would fix our pet problem, should the pets be to strong being able to hit while on the run just tweak the damage down.

As I said, I’m not arguing to make the pets eye candy…

I’m arguing to move them in a direction the game can currently support. Having them make up more than 5-10% of the class’s DPS simply isn’t ever going to work given the limitations of the game.

Instead, work within the boundries they’ve set.

Make it so AE’s do 95% less damage to pets so if someone wants to take out a pet, an honest effort must be spent to do so. This also allows the class more room for error in PVE as well.

Make pets move to the rear of targets so they’re out of the way of most of the AE’s anyway so they can further reduce their impact on other members of a party and instead can be controlled more reliably by the ranger alone.

That’s what it will take to at least make the pets a realistic option in PVE.

You then have the issues holding the ranger back from just getting invited to PvE and PvP: Utility and Burst.

Utility is easy as the pets currently have the group buffs they can provide. Make these more valuable and longer lasting. Example: Wolf Howl can place an AE marker on the ground. Allies inside do X% more damage while the boss does X% less. You can then divide the pets into Burst, Utility, and Defensive where they all do the same damage overall, but their “on use” actions are different.

For example:
Cats: Burst Type Pet – Consume ranger bleeds from target and deal 500 damage * # of bleeds. The amount should be balanced by the fact that a PvE ranger wouldn’t want to use it because the burst damage would still net less DPS than leaving the bleeds, but would be awesome in PvP.

Wolves: Utility Type Pet – Howl demoralizing enemies and buffing allies.

Bears: Defensive Type Pet – Consume a Daze or Cripple effect and the pet will tackle the target rooting them in place for 10 seconds or until only 25% HP remains.

You get the idea. The pets are now baseline the same for damage, and that damage alone doesn’t impact the class that much as far as overall damage is concerned. Maybe 5-10% at an absolute max if you consider that a Ranger should be doing 105% damage of another DPS class because you have to account for pet inactivity/downtime.

You’ve given the ranger some utility for PvE because groups will no longer be penalized by wonky pet controls and the class is now bringing something valuable to the group. You’ve given the ranger some utility for PvP because the main things they’re lacking right now is finishers/burst and this is something that can be improved some by the pet (mindful that the above probably still wouldn’t be enough). And you haven’t killed the class because pets are still a very fundamental aspect of the class that everyone will still use 100% of the time, but they just aren’t expected to micromanage it to an ungodly level while still having the server/system still not do what you want it to half the time.

I think Rangers having some ability to see through stealth is a wonderful idea, and I say this as a Mesmer who slots three invisibility utilities.

Samitan.6192:

First off i might be a bit biased so forgive me for this and am happy to accept any constructive criticisms of my thoughts but as much as i hate stealth, making Ranger’s niche being the counter pretty much one other class out of eight is just lazy. I’m all for giving ranger’s a counter to it as they are survivors, pets are our unique thing so i think pets should be able to attack stealth enemies, make people actually fear pets, of course this does rely on their path finding being improved and being able to attack on the move.

In terms of giving the class as a whole a niche, now i will give a few examples of GW1 here but that’s because it is still guild wars and rangers were defined then:

First off, in GW1 ranger’s had more abilities than any to traverse terrain quickly, this should definitely return. We are Hunters we should should be able to see prey chase after it, snare it and kill it. I’m not saying that this will be a definite kill as that should depend on the skill of the hunter and prey involved, but we cannot be the best trackers if we are slower than other classes.

Secondly, in GW1 melee took second thoughts about attacking a ranger due to their ability to block and dodge attacks we kind of got this in terms of the sword and dagger and maybe lightning reflexes but i feel we need a bit more such as another block utility, (i noticed the rangers in the CM dungeon have one, was very jealous when i saw that). A lot of professions tend to have a core game mechanic linked with them as well; thiefs = stealth, warriors = high vitality, guardians = boons, i think we got evasion, or should have and yes we get the extra 50% with WS but i don’t think that’s quite on par with high health or lots of stealth so i think our endurance recovery rate needs to be increased further.

Finally, in GW1 rangers were effective at range because of their interrupts, now i know this is less of a game mechanic now, and the short-bow’s role is as a condition infliction weapon only needs to be improved stat wise but the fundamentals of it are fine. The longbow however, does need increased speed and damage but to set it apart from the warriors bow and rifles it needs to do things like inflict daze or stun, maybe even fear.

Finished, like i said i welcome constructive criticism.

Perfect, Prefect, PREFECT.

gw1 rangers curb stomp gw2 rangers.

Fellknight.4820:

Who said anything about WoW there is NO MMO that has stealth that didn’t give Ranger/Scout/Hunter class the ability to reveal and tell me what role ranger has in current pvp because they are the least represented class in tpvp or spvp atm.

War, Champions online, Rift…
The 3 grand MMOs I’ve played before this, neither gave a way to detect stealth.
Champions only gave a stat that let you have a better chance of revealing stealthed enemies near you.

Hard counters for stealth really aren’t necessary in any game, hard counters for anything aren’t necessary and are actually bad, at least imo.
But then again Anet already screwed up by making backstab a high dps ability… you don’t make extremely high dmg attacks unable to be reacted to in a game based on countering entirely threw abilities, not positioning. Backstab should have just been a weakness, cripple, bleed, vulnerability, might; something that is in some way counterable after the fact, but gives the thief a clear edge if not.

And rangers are low in representation because they are mildly -> extremely UP in the vast majority of things. One of their greater weaknesses are larger fights, and SPvP is all zerging so its a big kick in the pants for the majority of the ranger class…

I honestly don’t really have much hope for them fixing the class at this point, it has soooo many issues and with the devs slow and meticolous way of balancing… it probably will take half a year before they really become top tier viable in some niche way, or even good at SPvP.

In my experience the problem with thief is not the stealth itself, but heartseeker been a leap.
If a thief open on me with steal they use their 45 second shadowstep to come close to me and it’s perfectly fine, and if I’m good enough i can dodge it to avoid the real opening when i see the black shape near me, and i can dodge again, and after that i can use quickshot (shortbow) /point blank shot (long bow) to take some distance, the problem is that they’ll be back in no time ‘cause their spammable main dps skill is a leap and i waste my endurance and a cd for nothing because if the thief eventually finish the initiative before I’m dead he just have to stealth again to let the initiative restore while following me without movement penality to reopen on me again with that kitten leap.
Another point I’d like a separation between mesmer stealth and the thief one, I can understand a mesmer, master of illusion granting plain invisibility. But i see no meaning in the thief in have an invisibility, they’re master of furtivity; the difference: in every game (videogame or paper GDR game) stealth has movement reduction, and can be seen without particular skill if the thief don’t come close carefully. Even if it would make easyer to fight I can leave alone the proximity detection, but I think the movement reduction ( and possibly the remove of the leap propriety from heartseeker) would make it more nice to fight against, sure the thief need a more discrete use of steal because it will become their only gapcloser (well there’s shadow shot from the pistol offhand but it’s a projectile and can be dodged/reflected/blocked while a leap even if dodged the gapcloser happen).
BTW I don’t really want an elite that reveal stealthers, kitten in many games scout classes are stealther themselves.
If I have to take some skill from GW1 that I misss on ranger i would pick:
- dust trap (and like the trap in gw1 make it blind every second for 5 second, sort of smoke bomb of engineer or well of darkness of necro nothing new, it would be better with a smoke field).
- some skill 75% dodge/block + various effect, I really love some kind of Whirling Defense, that may become block + retaliation.
- Disrupting Accuracy may be a little op(dazing on crit) but maybe a preparation like sharpening stone that apply confusion would be nice.

The interruper role from GW1 is lost, but another strong aspect of ranger in GW1 was the trapper build, dust trap+some other trap+defensive cd like whirling defense can make ranger become a decent bunker, probably with rabid gear.

Atamaz.4195:

The interruper role from GW1 is lost, but another strong aspect of ranger in GW1 was the trapper build, dust trap+some other trap+defensive cd like whirling defense can make ranger become a decent bunker, probably with rabid gear.

Yes, because those ideas would make the ranger decent in a group fight.
Right now they have no point in being in a larger fight short of throwing down an aoe rez spirit.

Atherakhia.4086:

Because as much as you may want to deny it, certain trends don’t work for a reason and a pet class is one that has never worked in an MMO without first designing the whole MMO around them in the first place.

And don’t limit your experience to WoW. Many MMO’s in the past have allowed Warriors to do more than melee. Shadowbane for example had Warriors being the strongest archers outside of scouts.

And it should also be said that GW2 isn’t breaking any new ground either.

Dual dagger interupt scouts worked quite well also. Ahh good memories.

Best scout was DAOC scout at release, however. Stealth long range massive damage….No stealth detect other than the standard stealth vs stealth check….Counter assassin skills added as gank potential reduced…

That DAOC Scout was nerfed in like 3 months though iirc.

And yea, my favorite in Shadowbane was the xbow warrior. It was absolutely amazing. Especially with a marksmanship trait. You could fire over castle walls and kill the defenders. Shadowbane, if it was stable at launch, could have been amazing.

Yiyojin.3241:

Rangers are overpowered now.

said no one….ever…

Atherakhia.4086:

That DAOC Scout was nerfed in like 3 months though iirc.

And yea, my favorite in Shadowbane was the xbow warrior. It was absolutely amazing. Especially with a marksmanship trait. You could fire over castle walls and kill the defenders. Shadowbane, if it was stable at launch, could have been amazing.

I don’t think Shadowbane ever got stable. Sb.exe……………., to bad.

Atherakhia.4086:

Wordswordswords

No. That’s a wannabe warrior with some vague buffs, like a wannabe guardian. The ranger could match warriors without the pets in the Beta. Guess what was the very first thing that got nerfed for rangers? Clue: something to do with undermining another class’ defining feature.