In this post I mentioned that some of you might feel that Ranger shouts should be more ‘selfish,’ in that they primarily focus on buffing the Ranger’s damage output. Additionally, most of you felt that “We Heal As One!” and “Strength to the Pack!” Were in a good place and that they didn’t need any new functionality.
With that in-mind, here is the next set of Shout Suggestions: Ranger Shouts
Guardian shouts apply boons. Warrior shouts grant sustain and damage increase, Tempest Shouts provide AoE damage and sustain, and Repear shouts provide AoE damage and control.
For the Ranger, I felt that a set of single target focused control/damage shouts would be best to compliment their traditional style. These shouts can be functional in a group fight, but they really shine when you are against a single target.
In this set, “Sic ’Em” and “Search & Rescue” Are the same as the Support set. I talked to several players who main Ranger, and they all said that one of the things Ranger’s needed most was a post-Stealth Reveal access. “Sic ’Em!” With a post-Stealth, AoE Reveal remains perfect for this. As for “Search & Rescue!” There aren’t many ways to make a revival skill control/damage oriented, so I chose to leave it as it was for the Support set, as the ally teleport at least provides some control on the battlefield, to go along with the other shouts.
“Protect Me!”
As I mentioned in my previous post, Rangers don’t need two invulnerability skills, and they don’t need one that only works with certain pets or utilities.
This change makes “Protect Me!” An actively defensive skill. When activated, for the next six second, enemies that attack you will be dazed for 1 second. It has an internal cooldown of two seconds, meaning enemies will have 1 second to pull back, stun-break, proc stability, etc. to counter this skill. This skill will be incredibly good at breaking Defiance Bars in PvE, as it will cause the opponent to break their own bar, especially since most PvE Enemies use large, multi-hit attacks and AoEs.
“Guard!”
“Guard!” Now has a very powerful knockdown affect that procs when a foe enters the area. It works similarly to an Elementalists’ Lightning Cage or a Guardian Ring of Warding. You can easily pass through it with Stability, but for a short duration, it’s very powerful, localized control. To reflect this, the Cooldown has been brought up by quite a bit, and the actual duration of the skill is much shorter.
I’d especially love to see this skill in, for instance, the Grawl Fractal, by placing the pet near one of the sacrifices as an emergency CC, in case you miss one of the Grawl.
I love hearing suggestions from all of you, on how to make things more balanced or more streamlined. The more of us that pitch in, the more likely Anet is to take notice of some of the issues that we are bringing up.
