Guild Wars 2

The things I saw, I liked. The way the devs presented themselves, their knowledge of the classes, etc. was much better this time as well.

With our current opinions of what they told us about, we need to take into account that they did not read the whole list to us.

Pet AI will be improved. We’ll see how much, but I’m sure any real improvement is welcome by all rangers.

More responsive F2 should also be welcome by all rangers. I think this could make some Ranger pets much more viable. There are some F2 skills that many of us would love if we could actually reliably hit them.

Tougher pets with more hitpoints too should also make all rangers happy. Our wolves might actually make it alive to the enemy to fear bomb them

I’m curious to see which, if any, of the Ranger’s signets got changes. The change to the Warrior’s signet of might (now +180 power passive instead of +90 and active is now “next 3 attacks are unblockable” instead of just “a few stacks of might”) has me quite curious about if any changes like that were done to any Ranger signets. As stated in the video, it is well-known that we Rangers have several signets that we just use the passive on and ignore the active.

Spirits getting “drastically more health” should also be welcomed as it will, at the very least, be a step in the right direction. One of the top gripes about them is that they die if looked at the wrong way (they have very sensitive feelings people! lol).

The higher traited chance for spirits to proc is quite nice as well. Going from 35% to 70% could be nice in making sure you proc it much sooner once the internal cooldown expires … assuming it still has the internal cooldown. However, I do agree with others who have voiced the thought that the 10s internal cooldown prevents this from being truly “good”. As such, I am hoping they removed or at least reduced the internal cooldowns on spirit buffs as well. Spirits already have the issue that the enemy can target and destroy them (or accidentally via AOE, bounces, cleave, etc.).

If spirits get enough hp to actually survive in WvW zerg fights reasonably well, Storm Spirit’s swiftness could be somewhat helpful. Stone is obviously helpful as people love to have protection. Sun providing more burning and Frost more damage could also be nice.

If spirits end up in a good place after this patch, we could see Rangers be even more desired in all areas of the game.

The mention about pet leashing has me somewhat concerned about the future as it’s one of the things about the ranger and pet classes in general that I really like. If something was done with that, I’d hope something similar was done to other classes summons as well (Mesmer illusions, Necro pets, how far Engineers can get from turrets before they disappear, Elementalist elementals, etc.). Maybe even things like Warrior banners … can’t just drop and leave it. But this is just my thoughts.

I’m honestly not very happy to see the “boon hate” introduced to Warriors. I personally think “boon hate” is a bad idea because of the scenarios it introduces to the game where a Warrior is annoyed that you removed their targets boons or you’re annoyed because your teammate gave you boons while a warrior is on you. But hey, I could be wrong and it could make giving/taking boons more of a decision which could be good.

Lastly, I like that they mentioned that this next month they are going to focus more on bugs than balance. There are some bugs that actually effect balance but really they reduce the “quality of life” of several classes. I also agree that it’s a good idea to give the community more than a month to have the meta “settle” in the various parts of the game.

I am afraid spirits health will still be sub par. Now if they were as hard to kill as a warriors banner then that would be something.

Bailey.6892:

I am afraid spirits health will still be sub par. Now if they were as hard to kill as a warriors banner then that would be something.

And by “as hard to kill” you mean impossible to kill, right? And mobile. And have effects which are active 100% of the time and also have no internal recharge all without being traited.

Yeah, if spirits were like that then perhaps they’d be useful. How does a physical object (a banner sticking out of the ground) not take any damage but a spirit (an ethereal, non-physical entity) does? I mean kitten at least allow me to chop a banner in half if I so wish.

Unholey.3264:

Bailey.6892:

I am afraid spirits health will still be sub par. Now if they were as hard to kill as a warriors banner then that would be something.

And by “as hard to kill” you mean impossible to kill, right? And mobile. And have effects which are active 100% of the time and also have no internal recharge all without being traited.

Yeah, if spirits were like that then perhaps they’d be useful. How does a physical object (a banner sticking out of the ground) not take any damage but a spirit (an ethereal, non-physical entity) does? I mean kitten at least allow me to chop a banner in half if I so wish.

I would be fine with the trait that allows the spirits to move to give them false life and a hit point pool. The non mobil spirits should be like the banners.

Unholey.3264:

Bailey.6892:

I am afraid spirits health will still be sub par. Now if they were as hard to kill as a warriors banner then that would be something.

And by “as hard to kill” you mean impossible to kill, right? And mobile. And have effects which are active 100% of the time and also have no internal recharge all without being traited.

Yeah, if spirits were like that then perhaps they’d be useful. How does a physical object (a banner sticking out of the ground) not take any damage but a spirit (an ethereal, non-physical entity) does? I mean kitten at least allow me to chop a banner in half if I so wish.

If you look at the designs of the spirits, there’s no cohesive vision as to what they want to achieve.

Let’s assume you’re melee. You spawn the the spirit, you’re putting it in harms way because it’s going to get slashed and cleaved.

Let’s assume you’re range, you spawn it max range of 1500, “out of harms way”, the secondary effect of chill, immoblize, shock, etc instantly becomes worthless.

You cannot keep asking for HP being added to the spirits either. Let’s say you give them 500k HP. What you’ll end up with is a bunch of rangers circle strafing it with traps and short bow and using it as meat shield.

The only logical thing left to do is to make them invulnerable, like they should’ve been in the first place, that way you can spawn it in harms way whether you’re melee or range and have the secondary function actually be used. And giving a class where the attacks (i.e. pets) and utility could both be killed is just a bad idea.

Woops posted in the wrong thread kitten
What? DignorethisERP is considered an insult. ???

Those two guys get all animated and smile allot when talking about pvp and thieves, warriors and Eles, but when the topic of PVE and Rangers comes up, they lean back, take defensive body language positions, frown, and look really bored. Pretty easy to see what their bias is.

Even with these supposed buffs, spirits are still pitifully weak compared to other class utilities.

Someone please explain how this new pet AI is a good thing with a ranged pet? Your ranger targets a mob at the outer edge of a enemy zerg or mob zerg in a dungeon. With the new patch your ranged mob will now abandon pew pewing from range and run behind the target which also just happens to be the middle of the opposing zerg. Instant dead pet. It is obvious no one tested this outside of sPVP.

What is so hard about coding ranged pet AI to stay at maximum range from the target? Why do ranged pets always run up to melee range of targets? Trying to keep a pet alive now is the worst example of micro-mangement madness. So the solution basically to keep a pet alive is to not use it, a pet lounging at your side is mostly worthless.

When you have avid sPVP devs in charge of PVE balance, its now wonder Rangers are so foobar.

Lets wait and see how the pet AI works out…

given the track record of all the “fixings” the team did until now I am not really enthusiastic about it though…

but I will wait and see until after the patch…

Jalad Lantana.3027:

Someone please explain how this new pet AI is a good thing with a ranged pet?

The “hit them from the back” AI change only applies to melee pets. That was clearly stated in SotG. So actually watch it next time before you go on a long rant about how bad the change is, please.

Olaf Soul Can Haz.4689:

Jalad Lantana.3027:

Someone please explain how this new pet AI is a good thing with a ranged pet?

The “hit them from the back” AI change only applies to melee pets. That was clearly stated in SotG. So actually watch it next time before you go on a long rant about how bad the change is, please.

The rant is a valid one, we have all seen their skills in the past…so yea the ai will most likely blow chunks as their past attempts have.

What they did not address is if their new ai is going to screw the pooch in pvp and wvw if the pet is constantly trying to get behind the target it won’t be attacking. Would be nice if they are going to talk about something they cover all aspects.

Just one more reason why their should be a test server.

Bailey.6892:

Olaf Soul Can Haz.4689:

Jalad Lantana.3027:

Someone please explain how this new pet AI is a good thing with a ranged pet?

The “hit them from the back” AI change only applies to melee pets. That was clearly stated in SotG. So actually watch it next time before you go on a long rant about how bad the change is, please.

The rant is a valid one, we have all seen their skills in the past…so yea the ai will most likely blow chunks as their past attempts have.

What they did not address is if their new ai is going to screw the pooch in pvp and wvw if the pet is constantly trying to get behind the target it won’t be attacking. Would be nice if they are going to talk about something they cover all aspects.

Just one more reason why their should be a test server.

The whole point of SotG is to summarize what is going to happen next patch, not go into every single situation that is affected by every change. If they did that, it would be 5+ hours long…

Olaf Soul Can Haz.4689:

The whole point of SotG is to summarize what is going to happen next patch, not go into every single situation that is affected by every change. If they did that, it would be 5+ hours long…

NOOO
It’s not to summarize whats happening next patch.
Patch notes and dev blarbs in the forums work just fine for that.

What SotG is there for is so people can see the devs take on where the game is at at the moment, what they feel needs change along with how far the are in making it.
That can touch on patch notes, meaning the changes they are aiming for are being in part addressed in a the next few days, but should definitely for the most part stray from them.

What I seriously would have liked to hear them talk about is team comps, what rolls they feel each class can play, what cross class synergy they see as good/bad and what they are trying to do to expand or limit that.
They are sticking die hard to conquest so it better be the flaming focus of all their actions.

So I have it going on right now… watching it. It makes me super sad that Jon Sharp thinks that too much control over the pet is a bad thing. Because new people who don’t have the mental abilities to control a pet will abandon the class. Well, obviously they need a much more simple class to play. This isn’t a ranger class, it’s a Beast Master class. I really wish they’d stop calling it a Ranger. Especially since I’ve read that some devs (the name escapes me at the moment) mean that the pet is now-and-forever a part of the class never to be perma-stowed or made optional in any form and the warrior LB is better, i.e. condition damage and aoe, (my warrior is lvl 33 now and I like that LB a lot more) even though the Ranger is suppose to be the best RANGED class. If I could perma-stow the pet and get some buffs from it I would be in Heaven. If the pet AI can’t dodge hits or AoE it will be forever a handicap and not a boon.

I really like the play style and whatnot of the Beast Master, but I’m leveling up my warrior now and probably going to start on a Mesmer after that to play until the Pet AI is not a handicap anymore.

misterdevious.6482:

Around 15 minutes in they mention the haste skills are going to get buffed a bit, including Quickening Zephyr.

Shiren.9532:

I also didn’t hear anything about spirit survivability.

This is what I heard:

“the Spirits utility skills that have not had a whole lot of… um, we’ve done some improvements to their overall health, by… quite a bit, and then we improved, uh, the trait, that increases their proc rate by about double…”

I like the Ranger changes I’ve heard.

I’m not sure if that’s specifically referring to stuff coming in this next patch or if it’s referring to stuff they’ve done in the past. I heard that to and he kind of trails off (the guy speaking seems to have trouble talking when put on the spot sometimes – either that or he’s not very familiar with the class because he had the same issue last SotG when talking about rangers) so I wasn’t clear if they are buffing their survivability this time around or if he was just reminding people of stuff they’ve done in the past.

Also, it was raising in the video by one of the guests that rangers don’t use their signet actives. Look on the wiki at signet cool downs. Rangers (and to a lesser extent, necromancers) have atrociously long cool downs on their signets. I have elites which recharge faster than my signets. If we were given more situational but weaker signets which much shorter cooldowns you would see more situational use of their actives. As it is, the cool downs are simply too long.

I do think the signets have too long of a cooldown for the active benefit. I run with Signet of the Hunt because I like the speed and it has a really short and useful cooldown. I can pop it a few times depending on the combat situation, and the tradeoff from passive to active works well – when I want some extra pet damage, I don’t need the speed boost. And it’s short enough that it’s handy and strategic.

I feel the same way with the Thief speed signet and it’s blind. Very handy tool to have at a decent time and passive cost.

Then I look at the other Ranger signets and I have to believe it’s a typo.

PsionicDingo.2065:

I do think the signets have too long of a cooldown for the active benefit. I run with Signet of the Hunt because I like the speed and it has a really short and useful cooldown. I can pop it a few times depending on the combat situation, and the tradeoff from passive to active works well – when I want some extra pet damage, I don’t need the speed boost. And it’s short enough that it’s handy and strategic.

I feel the same way with the Thief speed signet and it’s blind. Very handy tool to have at a decent time and passive cost.

Then I look at the other Ranger signets and I have to believe it’s a typo.

You don’t need to sacrifice your speed for pet damage buff. Active effect of SoH works around 16 min. So just precast it before fight and you will have pet attack stronger still enjoying the speed buff!

I know that trick, but I also like to pop it again if combat is chaining or something.

I have a pet question that I don’t think has been brought up yet, although I did not read every post in great detail…

Pets and dungeons don’t mix very well and they become a big pain in the butt for any group I’m in. A lot of bosses have skills that target a single player in the group. For example, the Jade Maw boss in fractals will often choose pets to place the skull icon on. Obviously my pet can’t pick up a crystal and toss it at the Maw like a player is supposed to. I can’t hide my pet in combat, so there is no way around this time sink for my group. Another example is the jelly fish boss in the Aquatic Ruins Fractal. My pet will sometimes get eaten, but can’t “fight” his way out. My only way around this is to switch pets, but if my swap is on cool down it’s pointless. So, I have to leave my pet on passive the entire fight, crippling my DPS.

I’m sure there are other situations like this I am not listing off the top of my head. Can we please consider changing these type of skills to not target pets?

Honestly the fact that they didn’t even think of the consequences of fight mechanics with the Ranger pet in mind show a definite lack of design unity.

Kilaelya.1420:

I have a pet question that I don’t think has been brought up yet, although I did not read every post in great detail…

Pets and dungeons don’t mix very well and they become a big pain in the butt for any group I’m in. A lot of bosses have skills that target a single player in the group. For example, the Jade Maw boss in fractals will often choose pets to place the skull icon on. Obviously my pet can’t pick up a crystal and toss it at the Maw like a player is supposed to. I can’t hide my pet in combat, so there is no way around this time sink for my group. Another example is the jelly fish boss in the Aquatic Ruins Fractal. My pet will sometimes get eaten, but can’t “fight” his way out. My only way around this is to switch pets, but if my swap is on cool down it’s pointless. So, I have to leave my pet on passive the entire fight, crippling my DPS.

I’m sure there are other situations like this I am not listing off the top of my head. Can we please consider changing these type of skills to not target pets?

Robert explained in some other topic earlier that the Jade Maw targetting is there to give your group some extra time to rescue your downed friends while your pet gets turned into a sausage. It has helped me and my group few times, but it gets rather irritating when my pet keeps on getting targetted several times in a row tho.

Jalad Lantana.3027:

Those two guys get all animated and smile allot when talking about pvp and thieves, warriors and Eles, but when the topic of PVE and Rangers comes up, they lean back, take defensive body language positions, frown, and look really bored. Pretty easy to see what their bias is.

Even with these supposed buffs, spirits are still pitifully weak compared to other class utilities.

Someone please explain how this new pet AI is a good thing with a ranged pet? Your ranger targets a mob at the outer edge of a enemy zerg or mob zerg in a dungeon. With the new patch your ranged mob will now abandon pew pewing from range and run behind the target which also just happens to be the middle of the opposing zerg. Instant dead pet. It is obvious no one tested this outside of sPVP.

What is so hard about coding ranged pet AI to stay at maximum range from the target? Why do ranged pets always run up to melee range of targets? Trying to keep a pet alive now is the worst example of micro-mangement madness. So the solution basically to keep a pet alive is to not use it, a pet lounging at your side is mostly worthless.

When you have avid sPVP devs in charge of PVE balance, its now wonder Rangers are so foobar.

the ai change they said is only for melee pet arche types

FrouFrou.4958:

Kilaelya.1420:

I have a pet question that I don’t think has been brought up yet, although I did not read every post in great detail…

Pets and dungeons don’t mix very well and they become a big pain in the butt for any group I’m in. A lot of bosses have skills that target a single player in the group. For example, the Jade Maw boss in fractals will often choose pets to place the skull icon on. Obviously my pet can’t pick up a crystal and toss it at the Maw like a player is supposed to. I can’t hide my pet in combat, so there is no way around this time sink for my group. Another example is the jelly fish boss in the Aquatic Ruins Fractal. My pet will sometimes get eaten, but can’t “fight” his way out. My only way around this is to switch pets, but if my swap is on cool down it’s pointless. So, I have to leave my pet on passive the entire fight, crippling my DPS.

I’m sure there are other situations like this I am not listing off the top of my head. Can we please consider changing these type of skills to not target pets?

Robert explained in some other topic earlier that the Jade Maw targetting is there to give your group some extra time to rescue your downed friends while your pet gets turned into a sausage. It has helped me and my group few times, but it gets rather irritating when my pet keeps on getting targetted several times in a row tho.

lol Robert did say that the targeting multiple times even while your pet is dead is a bug though at least. but yes sadly we cant do anything right now, hopefully we will get a button to make our pets dodge on things we see coming like that like a player can but right now your pet is boned when that skull appears and swap is on CD… hell it might even be boned 5 times in a row.

also side note of something that would be really cool, replace entangle with a spirit as an elite, something like Edge of Extinction from gw1, and have its active be similar to entangle but maybe like a 10 sec duration instead of the 20sec. would be a lot more useful since we would get the spirit effect and since most classes teleport out of entangle when used against them anyways. but hey something that cool wouldn’t be handed to the rangers though cause I mean common… we are rangers.

FrouFrou.4958:

Robert explained in some other topic earlier that the Jade Maw targetting is there to give your group some extra time to rescue your downed friends while your pet gets turned into a sausage. It has helped me and my group few times, but it gets rather irritating when my pet keeps on getting targetted several times in a row tho.

That seems weak to me. I’ve had a few pug groups complain about pets on Maw. It’s even worse when you get two rangers and/or mesmers in the same group. I guess I will try to explain to everyone that it’s an “intended feature”.

Dardamaniac.1295:

I geuss there will be a buff in singets,since they mentioned that they will buff every signet.
And some buff in pets toughness and vitality,as well at F2 skill casting time..
That was all….
I really dont want to complain about it but can someone tell me when will i be able to use other weapons exept Shortbow?

I wouldn’t hold my breath.

And while I’ve recently found greatsword sufficient for play, axe or longbow probably will still fail to fit your niche.

Bailey.6892:

I am afraid spirits health will still be sub par. Now if they were as hard to kill as a warriors banner then that would be something.

Haha, it’s funny because you can’t kill a flimsy bit of cloth on a stick and yet you can kill metaphysical spirits of nature.

Serraphin Storm.2369:

It comes down to what you think is important. For most of you it’s dps which is kind of funny since not being able to keep your pet alive reduces your dps by at least 40%.

You don’t need to call your pet back to use guard. Just use it at its current location. I for one I’m not a BM I dont have a single point in beast mastery since the quickness nerf and I am able to keep my pet alive.

For the most part keeping your pet alive gives you access to it’s f2 skill every 20-30 seconds depending on the pet. I dont know what build your guys are running but for me giving up one skill slot for two skills is worth it.

We havent even seen what kind of toughness and vitiality buff we are getting, yet we are alreadying dismissing it.

With each patch we Ranger are getting a little bit stronger. Some complain about the sb neft even till this day. I’m glad it was neft.

That nerf broke several builds that actually worked and we don’t have many to brag about to begin with. I had to respec my talents completely and switch weapons because I couldn’t pull off a combination with my pet and weapons that allowed me to, despite all odds, deal some respectable damage in PvP and save the lives of downed people in PvE.

We’ve got more than enough reason to complain about that. It was one of our few assets that actually worked.

Forgive me if I’m not entirely enthusiastic about this upcoming patch.

Criminal.5627:

the ai change they said is only for melee pet arche types

Given, as I have explained, that every ranged pet thinks running up to face tank the mob is a better idea than staying at range and pew-pewing, there is no behavioral difference between melee and ranged pets. Every pet thinks it is a melee pet.

More evidence these elitist sPVPers have never ever played a ranger or have a clue about how ranger pets behave.

Regarding mico-managing pets. These same devs that pooh pooh adding a keybind to add more control to pets, expect you to micro-manage you pet in combat. Keeping a pet alive against a champion means keeping it out of combat, so no damage lost there.

One simple change, changing ranged pets AI so they stay at range, would be a solid improvement.

Am I the only one frustrated with the hosts/guests of the SoTG due to how poorly they handled ranger questions YET AGAIN.

Every other class they get devs to explain things further or examine details more thoroughly in terms of positive changes for a class. For rangers, all the managed to squeak out was asking about nerfing pet leash range.

They didn’t ask about any changes that would increase build versatility, they didn’t ask about any changes that would increase weapon versatility. Yet at some point, it seemed every other profession had a question the pertained to asking those.

I’m just curious as to why rangers always have to suffer through the poorest state of the game representation. When things like our pets toughness and vitality get concerned responses from the hosts, it lets the ranger community know how tunnel-visioned these “top-tier” players are, and that their opinion on things doesn’t even always reflect the actual state of the metagame (for rangers. like maybe they would see less frustrating BMs that they don’t like, if there were other strong builds besides it and traps).

Can we get an active, appropriately pvp “tiered” player who actively plays ranger with at least a partial degree of knowledge about the class that people who main ranger have? Then we can give him some sort of metaphorical “taxation without representation” tag in the chat to appropriately summarize how under-represented or misrepresented the ranger community has been and actually have a person who mentions issues of build and weapon versatility.

You know, the same stuff that got discussed in at least some detail for every other class?

Jalad Lantana.3027:

Criminal.5627:

the ai change they said is only for melee pet arche types

Given, as I have explained, that every ranged pet thinks running up to face tank the mob is a better idea than staying at range and pew-pewing, there is no behavioral difference between melee and ranged pets. Every pet thinks it is a melee pet.

More evidence these elitist sPVPers have never ever played a ranger or have a clue about how ranger pets behave.

Regarding mico-managing pets. These same devs that pooh pooh adding a keybind to add more control to pets, expect you to micro-manage you pet in combat. Keeping a pet alive against a champion means keeping it out of combat, so no damage lost there.

One simple change, changing ranged pets AI so they stay at range, would be a solid improvement.

I’m pretty sure you should stop feeding your pets paint chips because my spiders (my go to PvP pet) have NEVER ran up to face tank anything, end of story. Now will they run away if something gets close? No way! Clickity and Clackity don’t give a kitten if its in melee like those pansy kitten devourers! But if you’re afraid the enemy is going to squish em just call em back most enemies ignore spiders because of their low toughness in PvE and their overall annoying ness in PvE (perma cripple/ ~20s immob chain how I love you).

I am annoyed that The State of the Game only has these sPvP players as guests. That is 1/3 of the game and they seem to know mostly (if not only) that part of the game.

Team Paradigm is also having quite a bit of presence on there each episode. It’d be nice to see people from different teams as well. I don’t see why that one consistently has 1-2 of the 2-3 guests each time.

I have nothing against Team Paradigm, but it’d be nice to hear from others. Otherwise we’re just hearing the inbreeding of ideas as we continue to get people from the same team discussing topics (similar to why most universities don’t hire PhDs they graduate).

Sebrent.3625:

I am annoyed that The State of the Game only has these sPvP players as guests. That is 1/3 of the game and they seem to know mostly (if not only) that part of the game.

Team Paradigm is also having quite a bit of presence on there each episode. It’d be nice to see people from different teams as well. I don’t see why that one consistently has 1-2 of the 2-3 guests each time.

I have nothing against Team Paradigm, but it’d be nice to hear from others. Otherwise we’re just hearing the inbreeding of ideas as we continue to get people from the same team discussing topics (similar to why most universities don’t hire PhDs they graduate).

Omg yes, get some WvW players in there!! I guess some PvE ones too but I could care less if PvE is balanced so long as I can do dungeons and that…

All that aside, I understand WHY they may e having only sPvP players, you know for the whole esport thing (better that aspect is balanced than others), but still if they’re having a 3 way split they should have a WvW player, a PvE and an sPvP player each time.

jcbroe.4329:

Am I the only one frustrated with the hosts/guests of the SoTG due to how poorly they handled ranger questions YET AGAIN.

Every other class they get devs to explain things further or examine details more thoroughly in terms of positive changes for a class. For rangers, all the managed to squeak out was asking about nerfing pet leash range.

They didn’t ask about any changes that would increase build versatility, they didn’t ask about any changes that would increase weapon versatility. Yet at some point, it seemed every other profession had a question the pertained to asking those.

I’m just curious as to why rangers always have to suffer through the poorest state of the game representation. When things like our pets toughness and vitality get concerned responses from the hosts, it lets the ranger community know how tunnel-visioned these “top-tier” players are, and that their opinion on things doesn’t even always reflect the actual state of the metagame (for rangers. like maybe they would see less frustrating BMs that they don’t like, if there were other strong builds besides it and traps).

Can we get an active, appropriately pvp “tiered” player who actively plays ranger with at least a partial degree of knowledge about the class that people who main ranger have? Then we can give him some sort of metaphorical “taxation without representation” tag in the chat to appropriately summarize how under-represented or misrepresented the ranger community has been and actually have a person who mentions issues of build and weapon versatility.

You know, the same stuff that got discussed in at least some detail for every other class?

Just a theory.

1. Not a lot of pros main rangers. It almost becomes a vicious cycle. No one asks questions so devs don’t really focus on the class. Devs don’t really focus on the class so no one mains them to have questions to be asked.

2. Rangers feel cheap and annoying when you play against them so there’s an inherent bias against them. Your best builds involve traps, which are invisible; and BM, which is a glorified bot with RNG. Not usual characteristics associated with “skill” in pubs or competitive settings.

I would like to say that the “RNG” on pets is not really RNG. They have a set script that they follow.

When skill A is off cooldown, they use it.
When skill B is off cooldown, they use it.
When you press F2, they use Skill C.
Otherwise, they auto-attack with skill D.

It just feels random because we don’t have control over it and our brains, especially in the middle of combat, make for very poor timers for tracking those pet cooldowns.

Go to an empty sPvP arena with a 100% tank friend and let your dog attack him/her constantly. Track the time between the knockdown and cripple.

Sebrent.3625:

I would like to say that the “RNG” on pets is not really RNG. They have a set script that they follow.

When skill A is off cooldown, they use it.
When skill B is off cooldown, they use it.
When you press F2, they use Skill C.
Otherwise, they auto-attack with skill D.

It just feels random because we don’t have control over it and our brains, especially in the middle of combat, make for very poor timers for tracking those pet cooldowns.

Go to an empty sPvP arena with a 100% tank friend and let your dog attack him/her constantly. Track the time between the knockdown and cripple.

You’re right, but it might as well be RNG since you cannot control anything aside from the opening move immediately after a swap. You can make your canine leap to start, that’s about it.

I disagree. You can rely on your pet to do one skill every X seconds and the other skill every Y seconds. That’s still much better than RNG.

Aridia.3042:

jcbroe.4329:

Am I the only one frustrated with the hosts/guests of the SoTG due to how poorly they handled ranger questions YET AGAIN.

Every other class they get devs to explain things further or examine details more thoroughly in terms of positive changes for a class. For rangers, all the managed to squeak out was asking about nerfing pet leash range.

They didn’t ask about any changes that would increase build versatility, they didn’t ask about any changes that would increase weapon versatility. Yet at some point, it seemed every other profession had a question the pertained to asking those.

I’m just curious as to why rangers always have to suffer through the poorest state of the game representation. When things like our pets toughness and vitality get concerned responses from the hosts, it lets the ranger community know how tunnel-visioned these “top-tier” players are, and that their opinion on things doesn’t even always reflect the actual state of the metagame (for rangers. like maybe they would see less frustrating BMs that they don’t like, if there were other strong builds besides it and traps).

Can we get an active, appropriately pvp “tiered” player who actively plays ranger with at least a partial degree of knowledge about the class that people who main ranger have? Then we can give him some sort of metaphorical “taxation without representation” tag in the chat to appropriately summarize how under-represented or misrepresented the ranger community has been and actually have a person who mentions issues of build and weapon versatility.

You know, the same stuff that got discussed in at least some detail for every other class?

Just a theory.

1. Not a lot of pros main rangers. It almost becomes a vicious cycle. No one asks questions so devs don’t really focus on the class. Devs don’t really focus on the class so no one mains them to have questions to be asked.

2. Rangers feel cheap and annoying when you play against them so there’s an inherent bias against them. Your best builds involve traps, which are invisible; and BM, which is a glorified bot with RNG. Not usual characteristics associated with “skill” in pubs or competitive settings.

Yeah I have to go with Sebrent when he says pets aren’t RNG, aside from crit which affects more than just pets (and pig F2).

Also, when you say the word trap, does it really sound like something that should be blatant and avoidable? It kind of undermines the philosophy of trap. Oh wait, there’s also engineers with Incendiary Powder who provide a much more constant on target bleed with Incendiary Powder AND poison if running pistol. So the only thing left to argue on “how powerful” traps are is spike trap, which is basically a glorified sigil of Geomancy with a longer cooldown, that’s unblockable if you walk into the area rangers just overhand threw a big obvious clump of whatever becomes a trap onto the ground and then begin circle strafing around it.

Necros were discussed with their marks in the state of the game, and they were wondering how they could make Marks even less avoidable (which would essentially be making them more like ranger traps).

Maybe it’s just me, but holy contradiction batman, I’m mindkittened!!!

Those wouldn’t be the only options if people actually talked about improving other options.

It’s a bit deeper than that.
Sometimes a pet won’t use a skill at all unless specific requirements on the battlefield are met (ex; Devourer Retreat, Moa Harmonic Cry).

…or I guess another way of thinking about it is that all pet Family Skills have a requirement for activation, it’s just these requirements can be as simple as ‘be in range + skill off cooldown’. So certain pets seem to operate like clockwork because their requirements are really easy to satisfy, while others are less so because they have more complicated ones.

Our profession mechanic is honestly one of the deeper ones in the game. It’s just kind of shame we’ve been so busy licking our wounds over being last pick, we haven’t put much of our collective intelligence into discovering it.

Vox Hollow.2736:

It’s a bit deeper than that.
Sometimes a pet won’t use a skill at all unless specific requirements on the battlefield are met (ex; Devourer Retreat, Moa Harmonic Cry).

…or I guess another way of thinking about it is that all pet Family Skills have a requirement for activation, it’s just these requirements can be as simple as ‘be in range + skill off cooldown’. So certain pets seem to operate like clockwork because their requirements are really easy to satisfy, while others are less so because they have more complicated ones.

Our profession mechanic is honestly one of the deeper ones in the game. It’s just kind of shame we’ve been so busy licking our wounds over being last pick, we haven’t put much of our collective intelligence into discovering it.

I wouldn’t say that’s true for everybody. I definitely agree there is depth to it.

But I find that from how I feel and what I read, there are quite a few people who are frustrated with how specific a lot of those pets skills are for activation requirement. Moas heal for instance, would be extremely powerful if players could control when and where the player used it by micromanaging (and might actually warrant a decrease in the amount it heals for in that situation).

However, those things are hard to control. Similar to getting drakes to use their blast finisher in one of the l many combo fields we can provide. Yes, there are situations where we can MAKE it happen, but I feel people want more control over when they can make it happen and how they can make it happen (throwing down healing spring for instance, then calling the drake to it and having it use its blast finisher in it).

But because those conditions are so specific, it frustrates players who can see that we have access to these types of effects but the skills are too specific to get the full effect out of a lot of the cool things we have access to.

Along with the incompetence/ignorance you mentioned of course lol

Maybe I’m alone in this,

But I’m actually pretty satisfied with the level of control I have over things like Drake Tail Swipe, Boar Brutal Charge, Canine Brutal Charge, etc. Because the pet prioritizes these skills as a first action, you can depend on it happening when you Swap. I think it’s one of the more successful compromises between automation and micromanagement, it’s a good deal of control for no additional buttons to press.

Honestly, instead of direct micromanagement I’d like to see more pets get their more prominent family skills as a first-action, and clean it up a bit so pets don’t sometimes autoattack a few times before executing. I could only imagine the sorts of build shenanigans we could get up to if Devourer Tail Lash and Moa Harmonic Cry were like that.

Harmonic Cry is stupid easy to figure out if you use a Moa, I am one of those strange individuals that actually uses Moas (a lot).

The requirements for Harmonic Cry are:
1) Skill is off CD
2) There is an Ally injured enough that the entire heal will be useful
3) The ally referred to in 2 is within range.

OPTIONAL (only triggers if 2 and 3 are not present before this is met): 4) Moa is at 50% or lower health.

The #1 issue that makes moas “bad” is most people don’t know what the requirements for the heal are or the animation for the skill an as such can’t take advantage of it. I have used moas ALL THE TIME as a bunker to keep me in the game through their heal, I also use them with my glassy builds because they provide some great support.

What I am worried about is LB… With quickness nerf and Long range shot animation bug making it attack 1.25 sec per arrow instead of .75 sec this weapon is sub par. Quickness was awesome because you could speed up rapid fire and barrage. But ya they even said in march’s state of the game that LB “needed some love” and it of course didn’t receive any.
So, since they didn’t talk about LB this time should we assume that it will receive some love? oO

Sebrent.3625:

I would like to say that the “RNG” on pets is not really RNG. They have a set script that they follow.

When skill A is off cooldown, they use it.
When skill B is off cooldown, they use it.
When you press F2, they use Skill C.
Otherwise, they auto-attack with skill D.

It just feels random because we don’t have control over it and our brains, especially in the middle of combat, make for very poor timers for tracking those pet cooldowns.

Go to an empty sPvP arena with a 100% tank friend and let your dog attack him/her constantly. Track the time between the knockdown and cripple.

Related to what you said,

i personally have a big trouble in understanding why on earth my full potential is not at my disposal at all times… Every other class has…

so we share our damage/utilities with our pets… at least 40% of that comes from our pet… because of the crappy AI and unresponsive and limited controls bad/singleminded design (as of mostly designers seem to think the game evolves around sPvP) we mostly are playing with half of our potential.

so either give me my full potential available at all times, or implement something to other classes like: “oi mr warrior your greatsword is broken you need to wait 30 secs to use it again, oi mr mage you ran out of intelligence… you need to wait -n- seconds to wisen up and use all your spells!”

otherwise the class balance is a myth

jcbroe.4329:

Aridia.3042:

jcbroe.4329:

Am I the only one frustrated with the hosts/guests of the SoTG due to how poorly they handled ranger questions YET AGAIN.

Every other class they get devs to explain things further or examine details more thoroughly in terms of positive changes for a class. For rangers, all the managed to squeak out was asking about nerfing pet leash range.

They didn’t ask about any changes that would increase build versatility, they didn’t ask about any changes that would increase weapon versatility. Yet at some point, it seemed every other profession had a question the pertained to asking those.

I’m just curious as to why rangers always have to suffer through the poorest state of the game representation. When things like our pets toughness and vitality get concerned responses from the hosts, it lets the ranger community know how tunnel-visioned these “top-tier” players are, and that their opinion on things doesn’t even always reflect the actual state of the metagame (for rangers. like maybe they would see less frustrating BMs that they don’t like, if there were other strong builds besides it and traps).

Can we get an active, appropriately pvp “tiered” player who actively plays ranger with at least a partial degree of knowledge about the class that people who main ranger have? Then we can give him some sort of metaphorical “taxation without representation” tag in the chat to appropriately summarize how under-represented or misrepresented the ranger community has been and actually have a person who mentions issues of build and weapon versatility.

You know, the same stuff that got discussed in at least some detail for every other class?

Just a theory.

1. Not a lot of pros main rangers. It almost becomes a vicious cycle. No one asks questions so devs don’t really focus on the class. Devs don’t really focus on the class so no one mains them to have questions to be asked.

2. Rangers feel cheap and annoying when you play against them so there’s an inherent bias against them. Your best builds involve traps, which are invisible; and BM, which is a glorified bot with RNG. Not usual characteristics associated with “skill” in pubs or competitive settings.

Yeah I have to go with Sebrent when he says pets aren’t RNG, aside from crit which affects more than just pets (and pig F2).

Also, when you say the word trap, does it really sound like something that should be blatant and avoidable? It kind of undermines the philosophy of trap. Oh wait, there’s also engineers with Incendiary Powder who provide a much more constant on target bleed with Incendiary Powder AND poison if running pistol. So the only thing left to argue on “how powerful” traps are is spike trap, which is basically a glorified sigil of Geomancy with a longer cooldown, that’s unblockable if you walk into the area rangers just overhand threw a big obvious clump of whatever becomes a trap onto the ground and then begin circle strafing around it.

Necros were discussed with their marks in the state of the game, and they were wondering how they could make Marks even less avoidable (which would essentially be making them more like ranger traps).

Maybe it’s just me, but holy contradiction batman, I’m mindkittened!!!

Those wouldn’t be the only options if people actually talked about improving other options.

If you ever played any FPS, you can see the perception of the people I’m referring to. Just look at claymores. A lot of players don’t like them, because they feel it’s cheap, despite that you can see them and blow them up. Before BF3 came out, DICE posted frequently on the UK forums, and there were multiple threads asking claymores not to be included in the game.

Look at people’s reaction to snipers. Again, it’s “cheap” because people feel like they can’t fight back. It’s the same thing. Just because it’s realistic doesn’t mean people won’t be turned off by them when they’re on the receiving end of said weapons.

And really you guys are arguing semantics with the RNG comment. The point is what comes out of the pet is not controllable. Just because the underlying formula is not real RNG doesn’t change the fact that the output is basically RNG like. Sure you can keep track of the pet routine but are you going to? No one can when they play it because you’re watching your own toon so the outcome looks completely random. And by focusing on my description of it totally missed the point of the issue, that is pets introduce far too much randomness, imbalance and skill debasement into the meta. Things like that don’t translate well into the skill category on a competitive scene.

Sebrent.3625:

I disagree. You can rely on your pet to do one skill every X seconds and the other skill every Y seconds. That’s still much better than RNG.

Better than RNG but entirely like RNG when you play because you won’t know what routine it’s on.

Really, you’re gonna be able to watch your toon and your pet and your opponents in the same time and know it’s about to start on the 5th cycle of CC?

@Durzlla
Last time I tested Harmonic Cry, I could be drowning in a pool of my own blood and my Moa couldn’t care less, but the nanosecond the thing stubbed it’s toe it was all over that with the healy goodness.

Did they change it recently, or is there some kind of additional clause I’m not activating by messing around with openworld mobs?

Sebrent.3625:

I would like to say that the “RNG” on pets is not really RNG. They have a set script that they follow.

When skill A is off cooldown, they use it.
When skill B is off cooldown, they use it.
When you press F2, they use Skill C.
Otherwise, they auto-attack with skill D.

It just feels random because we don’t have control over it and our brains, especially in the middle of combat, make for very poor timers for tracking those pet cooldowns.

Go to an empty sPvP arena with a 100% tank friend and let your dog attack him/her constantly. Track the time between the knockdown and cripple.

Honestly, the problem isn’t whether you can control it or not control, but because you have no idea what the CD situation is unless you count in your mind internally.

My dogs, once I swap to them, will always do its KD first if the KD is not on CD. However, this will not happen if the KD is on CD.

Which is fine. I keep track of my Dog’s KDs, because it’s an incredibly important skill.

But it adds an extra level of….nuisance when playing my Ranger. I have to spend that much more effort to be absolutely efficient as compared to other classes.

I don’t mind too much, but a system like GW1’s hero skill tab would be incredibly useful. To give skilled players more control, but still allow for not-so-dextrous players the option to automate everything.

Honestly, the problem isn’t whether you can control it or not control, but because you have no idea what the CD situation is unless you count in your mind internally.

That’s a really good point.

I kind of wish there was a way to keep track of stowed and actives pet’s cooldowns. But what could they possibly do that wouldn’t be a UI nightmare?

Vox Hollow.2736:

Honestly, the problem isn’t whether you can control it or not control, but because you have no idea what the CD situation is unless you count in your mind internally.

That’s a really good point.

I kind of wish there was a way to tell. But what could they possibly do that wouldn’t be a UI nightmare?

You could have 4 glowing numbers ontop of your F skills to show you (like the number lights up when it’s in rotation to fire next and greyed out otherwise) but it would be silly to go down that route to show me the CD and not let me control it instead. Because by virtue of you showing it, it means you’re expecting me to count it to time it without being able to control when I fire, which is far more complex than just me using it.

They should just give me F5 to F8 and let me control an extra 4 skills instead. The complexity argument is bullocks. Ellies have 20 skills. We have a Ron Popeil set it and forget it bot. If anything, this class needs more complexity.

Vox Hollow.2736:

@Durzlla
Last time I tested Harmonic Cry, I could be drowning in a pool of my own blood and my Moa couldn’t care less, but the nanosecond the thing stubbed it’s toe it was all over that with the healy goodness.

Did they change it recently, or is there some kind of additional clause I’m not activating by messing around with openworld mobs?

Were you within range? Every single person I’ve heard complain about the skill simply doesn’t go near their Moa for the Moa to use the heal, I’ve never had an issue with my Moa healing me/my ally’s once I figured out how close I needed to be (it’s a little further than melee range from the Moa )

If any dev is reading this, while you’re dealing with the F2 issues, take a look at pets failing to AIM their F2s. Better responsiveness is very much appreciated but don’t overlook that we also have a big issue with F2’s firing off in the total wrong direction even with the enemy targeted—Drakes in particular.

After swaps if you press F2 the drake just fires the breath attack wherever it’s facing on swap in, and that’s never at the enemy. This occurs in other situations as well, it’s very clunky and just bad. Play around with it and see for yourself.

Make ALL pet attacks lock onto the enemy if there is one targeted!