Guild Wars 2

Hey there fellow rangers!

The State of the Game discussion is coming on Tuesday the 2nd July at 4:30 pm PST.
I will be joining Grouch, Zombify, Supcutie and the developer Jonathan Sharp discussing the recent patch and the effects it had on PvP in Guildwars 2!
Obviously i will not let this chance slip by and I’ll try to fit in as much ranger talk as possible!

The purpose of this thread is to gather suggestions, questions or feedback you guys want me/us to talk about during the State of the Game discussion.

Looking forward to your input guys!

Cheers!

I would ask what direction they see the ranger class going in as at the moment it seems very directionless.

Woohoo! Go batto!

Some things I’d like to know more of is the direction they are taking pets. They’ve mostly streamlined the pet damage, except for felines and birds. Why nerf nearly all the pets, hurting non-bm builds?

Also, there are 2 pretty interesting threads that came up today (on my phone so cant link). One is about trait changes, and the other is a complete analysis of the entire class. Can you get them to look at them and possibly make them comment?

:D

I’m personally curious to know why the longbow didn’t get an auto-attack damage buff, and what kind of builds they want players to try out after these changes.

Biggest questions on my mind:

1. Why the shortbow range nerf, and is there any chance of getting it reverted?
2. Is there any chance of us getting greater pet control options in the future? Options I’d like:
- Commands: stand here, stand here and don’t attack, guard here, attack nearest enemy (stance, map to guard/avoid combat rotation), avoid AoE (stance), lock on target, guard this ally,
- Ability to use other 3 pet abilities manually. Certain abilities like Quickening Screech, Tail Swipe, Poison Gas, and Harmonic Cry have inherent utility that often goes to waste because my pet is dumb.
3. Why not increase longbow base range? The longbow doesn’t even feel like a good weapon until you get the master trait.

I’d ask if ANet plans to split future balance patches between PvE, sPvP and WvW, because many of 25th changes (nerfs) may work in sPvP, but are awfull in PvE and WvW.

I would also like to know what direction or vision ANet has for rangers, and why they feel our (notoriously slow and unreliable) class mechanic necessitates such lackluster damage scaling on the ranger itself.

More specifically, I would like to know where ANet thinks we can be (or wants us to be) an equal or better choice to the more common options. Perhaps this “jack of all trades, master of none” sentiment is because a ranger’s strengths (staying alive, solo farming, split damage output, perhaps dueling and area denial) do not lie in areas that are in demand in WvW and dungeons, at least as they are played right now. I understand that this may be intended, but it makes those game types a bit of a struggle with this class.

Keyce.8137:

I’m personally curious to know why the longbow didn’t get an auto-attack damage buff, and what kind of builds they want players to try out after these changes.

The longbow used to fire 48 shots per minute, now it fires 60 shots per minute, with a higher arrow speed, so should land a greater percentage of those shots. That should equate to at least a 25% auto-attack damage buff.

For entertainment value you could just read out the topic “Do the Devs even…” which would make interesting listening…

There are a lot of unhappy Ranger players out there at the moment.

For my own part I say:

Reinstate the 1200 range for a shortbow or have some mechanism for doing so.

I quote my own post:

“The common suggestion for the increase of shortbow range from 900 back to 1200 to be achievable via traits is a sensible one. This may be by adding it to “Eagle Eye” or by the introduction of a specific shortbow trait – but in any case it would allow people to choose whether or not to invest in shortbow range or not.

Those investigating alternative builds and weapon combinations can continue to do so. Those who have invested effort in aquiring The Dreamer will at least have an opportunity to benfefit properly from their investment.

I would ask the community to unite behind this suggestion as the best way of having a chance of influencing the developers. All heated debate about the virtues of bows vs other weapons, what is meant by “Ranger” and how the real-life capabilites of shortbows compare with longbows would thankfully be rendered null & void.

Come on Arenanet – make your Ranger playing community happy."

Ask if they can spread out condition removal more instead of forcing it into a signle grandmaster trait making ranger vs condis good with it and kitten without it (→ hurting build variety).

They should actually make Empathic Bond remove 2 conditions instead of 3 but Signet of Renewal (which is accessible by everyone) remove 2 condtions instead of 1. Also they should lower the active cooldown and make it always transfer the condis of the ranger no matter if in range or not.

Just a start,
Opening Strikes being reworked to have a not kill dependent recharge in combat something like every so many seconds, with Remorseless redesigned to something like Opening Strikes grant you/your pet X stack(s) of might or an additional damage bonus against vulnerable targets, maybe both as it is a grand master trait.

Agree with most of above. My share:

• Longbow in small scale PvP. Do they plan to make it better for it?
• Ranger in groups. Any plans for some easy accessible group support, without making whole spec for it, and still being ‘meh’ compared to other classes?
• Pets. Any plans for new kind of pets? Like support ones, more ranged ones, etc.
• Bow trait merging. Why didn’t they merge some of: Eagle Eye, Piercing Arrows, Quick Draw?
• Overall dmg. Any plans to make ranger deal more dmg? After pet nerf, maybe ranger buff?

Three things I would like to know:

Is there anything major in the works following the discussion on pets between Robert Hrouda and the ranger community? Specifically, is there anything in the works regarding either increasing resistance to AoE pets have or giving pets the ability to dodge?

Is Anet working on any major solution to the issues pets still have with hitting moving targets?

Are there plans to finally eliminate root from sword 1 in the nearest future?

Now that pet damage has been lowered across the board, will they bring up the ranger’s skill power scaling to be on par with other classes? Maybe then Rangers can use something other than a trap or bunker build.

jubskie.3152:

Woohoo! Go batto!

Some things I’d like to know more of is the direction they are taking pets. They’ve mostly streamlined the pet damage, except for felines and birds. Why nerf nearly all the pets, hurting non-bm builds?

Also, there are 2 pretty interesting threads that came up today (on my phone so cant link). One is about trait changes, and the other is a complete analysis of the entire class. Can you get them to look at them and possibly make them comment?

:D

Think one of the topics you were referring to is https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Complete-Ranger-class-suggestions
It pretty much sums up everything. I think it works as a good referance for the SOTG discussion as well.

If it’s possible, I’d like to hear less about sPvP and more about WvW and PvE, since the roots of our problems are currently there. I’d like to know what Sharp thinks about WvW and rangers, what’s our purpose there? Are we supposed to be the class that gets left behind to man siege since we don’t bring much to the group play outside of binding roots and healing spring. Anet seems to favor zerging instead of small guild roaming style which sadly is a disadvantage for rangers as pets die fast in big combats/siege wars and pets don’t even get to deal much damage if at all now that pet dmg got nerfed and AI is as horrible as ever.

Just one: since the technology is there to split skills between game modes, why don’t the sPvP crowd get to enjoy its nerfs for itself?

I’m dead serious too. We are just not playing the same game. The whole 1v1 node bunker meta has no point in regards to random pve, dungeons or wvw. Balancing the skills for it has been and still is a predictable clusterkitten from update to update. It may even bad for the community feeling. Or am i alone in wanting to punch a sPvPer in the face after every ‘balance fix’?

F2 has way to much of a delay if they fixed the delay pets would be so much better.

Other pets would get used. This should be something that is asked.

When are they going to get one of us rangers on there to speak to Anet, cause I for one would love to be put on there. All the recent SOTG none of the players who spoke about the ranger had any real idea of what the core problems of the ranger class is they just TPvP, where as rangers are widely used in WvW and we are rather crap there.

My question is not a PvP question strictly speaking:

Does anyone care about the PvE State of the Ranger? Why hasn’t there been a split between PvE and PvP, e.g. for the Pet Damage. Why the Shortbow Range nerf.

But, alas, not really PvP questions. Yet, I feel the community wants these answered.

Battosai, thank you.

Here is a list of things to discuss, although the time you have available to represent rangers may or may not allow you to fully elaborate in them:

1- Ranger short bow nerf: what were the reasons to have nerfed an otherwise good weapon, and will they return it to it’s previous glory?

2- Pet damage nerfs, usefulness of the pets, pet ai and pet issues in dungeons: The damage of the pets were not compensated by adding the damage to the ranger. it was an overall damage reduction to the ranger class as a whole. Some pets have now almost no use, like moa’s who were also unexplainably nerfed (did they ever hit hard in the first place?). The pet ai is as bad as ever, plus some pets just dont work (pigs’ stability just doesnt work). Will they ever evolve it to be a true partner or just change the pet concept to be a buff npc instead of sharing our damage? And pets in dungeons, they just don’t survive or provide enough damage/support to contribute to the team.

3- Ranger long bow: the improved speed is nice, but will they add better reasons to use a long bow, increase it’s damage and give it skills that can keep a target at max range?

4- Ranger traits and balance: These have been shuffled a lot, but compared to other classes it seems we need to invest so much more for abilities we used to have by default. Compared to other classes, we have benefitted the least from these changes. There are traits that, during the concept of battle, are strange and even unworthy. Healing spring on down, spike trap when reviving an ally, etc…

5- What direction will rangers take in the future? What do they envision us doing and their true opinions about the ranger’s current state. Are we the archers they hoped we would be? The ranger community is confused about the direction we are currently going at. We don’t provide much help in dungeons that other classes cannot do better. We are currently no longer the long distance killers we thought we would be and our damage compared to all classes is not impressive.

6- Have they ever considered on just re-imagining the ranger: a possibility of scrapping the current ranger and creating a new ranger class from ground up. This seems to be a solution to having a true long distance fighter without the current limitations.

Again, thanks Battosai.

I’d really like to know the devs vision for rangers and what they really see us as being for.

Most other classes have a clear purpose they are by far the best at, but rangers seem to lack that core purpose within a team. I’d love to know what purpose they want us to / think we do serve.

The “cheers” seems to apear a lot in what Battosai is writting..
Anyway i would like to ask em if they have any plans to add Longbow more aoe dmg,in the autohit maybe..Its a very offensive weapon to be used in other builds than Power-crit imo,but its lacking the aoe dmg that Mesmers Greatsword has for example..

Why was pets damage nerfed across all game modes to try and nerf one build in one game mode?

Is the Beastmasters problem was too much survivabilty on the Ranger with too much damage, why wasn’t pet damage nerfed and damage from Ranger’s skills increased so that Beastmaster builds will get nerfed while the weaker builds get a buff, instead of just killing the class.

When is something going to be done to at least provide some decent traits in the beast mastery line.

Why did you think it was a good idea to nerf shortbow to try and make Longbow look better? Now Rangers just have two kitten bows.

If Ranger’s have to have less damage to make up for the Pet, why does no other class get punished for having a class mechanic?

When are Ranger’s going to get some decent group support that doesn’t require 30 trait points?

When are Ranger’s going to get some great group support that does require 30 trait points?

Why aren’t ranger pets being considered when creating new content?

I’m referring to the latest Living Story instances. My pet couldn’t jump over/evade the Berserker’s shockwaves in Molten Facility, I groaned in frustration every time my pet activated a minefield in Canach’s Lair, and currently, Pets cannot jump to avoid the laser walls in Aetherblade Retreat.

The top things i’d say to ask would be:

1) What do you foresee the role of spirits to be in GW2? Do you intend on them to be more like GW1 where you place them down and guard them from the enemies due to their effect? Or do you want them to be tanky enough to sit in the fray and be used for their actives? Or do you intend on doing something else entirely?

2) You’ve said time and time again that Rangers are, and i quote, “The Ranged Class” and “The Best Ranged Users” which is true, but ranged is ALWAYS second rate to melee in terms of both damage and effect, is there any intentions on making rangers ranged abilities on par with their melee ones if they either spec for it or perform some gimicky thing? IE Longbow at max range, or SB from behind, Axe Double bounce ETC.

3) What do you foresee the role of pets doing in the future? Do you want them to be the really sturdy utility bringing ally? Or do you want them to be squishiers and have their DPS remain a big aspect of the ranger? Or do you want that role to vary on a pet by pet basis? Are there any plans on making both options available for each pet? IE Have a “Dire Bear” for DPS or a “Hearty Jaguar” for more supporty abilities?

4) Are there any intentions on making Shortbow able to get back to its 1200 range by taking the trait Eagle Eye?

5) Is there any any way you could make Ranger pets immune to some of the mechanics in boss Fights? Using the new instance as an example, they die CONSTANTLY because they can’t climb boxes, or jump over shockwaves, they don’t avoid mines, ETC and become much more of a liability because of this.

I don’t really have any complaints, but I do have a few questions I would like asked.

1. Do they have any plans to introduce new pet types or pet skins (that maybe share traits with other pets).

2. Can they correct the path of scars so that it more reliably lands its pull against targets that may be slightly elevated or on a different height than the caster.

3. The condition removal signet either doesn’t always work, or has a maximum range between the caster and the pet. There are times where I use it when the pet is alive, and it doesn’t remove a single condition.

4. With the reduction of range on shortbow, can the bleed condition of being behind or beside the target removed? We are the only class that has this requirement on a ranged weapon. Warriors and thieves both can apply their bleeds from any position on a target.

5. Although longbow can be traited for 1500 range, there are numerous PVE encounters where mobs will go invulnerable, rendering this range useless because the ranger is out of range of the mob (even with other targets in range). Harpy fractal is notorious for this. This “feature” renders this trait fairly useless.

6. I still feel longbow needs a slight damage increase on shorter range attacks. Tested last night in full berzerker with 114% crit damage and 3200 attack damage, longbow crit attacks at max range were critting between 2k-4k, and rapid fire wakittenting around 12k – 15k. While I do agree that melee damage should be higher, we are still a good deal off the 40k hundred blades burst I have seen. I would think given comparable gear, at least half the burst of a warrior would be fair.

7. Directly following point 6, the GS damage should be returned back to a state similar to how it was in BETA. Since ROA and SPvP crit damage was toned down, the OP that was the melee ranger in beta was effectively nerfed without needing to adjust the GS scaling. As with the warrior, being in melee should offer some damage benefits, at the cost of increased exposure. Being able to hit for 5k on GS #2 is very nice, but the AA chain could use a 15% damage buff.

That is all I could think of, any of these could be valid questions. I don’t feel the ranger is in THAT bad of a place right now. Pets are still more a liability than an asset in many cases, and the new dungeon just exacerbates the problem.

My question and it is simple.

Is the path forward the one they’ve currently chosen, i.e., change the base line by nerfing a build to make others more powerful in comparison? In other words, are they going to continue down the path that they can get the balance results they want by changing people’s preceptions rather than making meaningful fixes (as one Developer alluded to in an earlier SOTG).

Question:
Currently, Opening Strikes is only useful as a first attack, afterwards it is not used at all until combat resets. What are your ideas to alter it so it can be used more often in combat?

I think a buff in longbow dmg will make it more useful.
GS is great
axe throws too slow
sb used to be good

O O O and also
Sword auto attack should allow us to dodge … it seems very clunky

Keyce.8137:

I’m personally curious to know why the longbow didn’t get an auto-attack damage buff, and what kind of builds they want players to try out after these changes.

Because it got 0,25s shaved off it’s autoattack making it do alot more dps with that alone?

The above lists are pretty good. I would ask them however, if they play ranger, and what their experience with it is. What gears/builds they tried, what worked, and of course where they see the weak points of the class.

cafard.8953:

Just one: since the technology is there to split skills between game modes, why don’t the sPvP crowd get to enjoy its nerfs for itself?

I’m dead serious too. We are just not playing the same game. The whole 1v1 node bunker meta has no point in regards to random pve, dungeons or wvw. Balancing the skills for it has been and still is a predictable clusterkitten from update to update. It may even bad for the community feeling. Or am i alone in wanting to punch a sPvPer in the face after every ‘balance fix’?

You are not alone, my fellow ranger. You are not alone.

Funny thing is, spvpers find a way around it and seem to be in the exact same state they were in before the patch, with the same amount (or lack thereof) variety, where as those of use playing the other games GW2 offers (pve, dungeons, wvw) have thrown up our hands or flipped a desk or two.

No Brainer right here since its basically still a “improves PvP” development question:

• WHEN IS ANET GOING TO START DOING MORE SKILL SPLITTING AGAIN ?

.

PS: this isn’t just a ranger’s rage question either… this also applies to Warrior being absolute worst in PvP but absolute best in PvE?? WHAT??? How’d that happen, that didn’t even happen in GW1. You’d had to have screwed up pretty badly somewhere for such a massive disparity like that to be the meta between both modes. :p …infact multiple classes are all suffering similar disparities here and they get worse with every patch

Holland.9351:

Now that pet damage has been lowered across the board, will they bring up the ranger’s skill power scaling to be on par with other classes? Maybe then Rangers can use something other than a trap or bunker build.

This is the question I’d like an answer to as well.

I’d also like to know, do they plan on revamping spirits so if killed they put down AoE fields for the party to use along with some damage to the enemies and a slight 3-5 second buff for allies near it? I’m wondering that because it would be very nice to know that a spirit can be useful in death.

• Are there plans to make rangers less dependent on unreliable npcs?
• Ask the Dev, “Do you believe the rangers are truly ‘unparalleled archers’? If so, why do they lack so much of the utility of other class bows such as combo finishers, combo fields, and AoEs?”

Hello Battosai. Thank you very much for appealing to the Ranger forum, I will make sure to check out SoTG!

My question:
1h Sword! Will we ever see a “fix” to 1h sword dodging?

pet survivability in dungeons and high level fractals . Microing reduces dps , or they can get 1 shotted easily even if microed well .

What did they hope to accomplish by an across the board decrease in overall ranger dps from a pve perspective based on pvp performance.

Will the rangers ever be able to stow their pet in dungeons? ie. Maw

Well, I’m not sure if spirits have been properly addressed yet so I think that is something that needs to be addressed.

I am also wondering, with the pet damage nerf, where that lost damage is going to be made up?

Please, do ask them if they are planning to improve pet pathfinding in order to fix their jaggy movement!

I think Khayoss has a good understanding of what’s wrong with the ranger class. He wrote it down in a thread (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Complete-Ranger-class-suggestions) without being overly dramatic but while still pointing out the major flaws. You should have a few good questions when you go through his thread, but for me the most important question you can ask is what role they have in mind for the ranger.

Why are traps in Skirmishing (the precision/crit damage line) when they aren’t crit based, they are condition based?

Warriors have traits like Crack Shot (Rifle and harpoon gun shots pierce. Rifle and harpoon gun skills recharge 20% faster.) and Forceful Greatsword (Gain might on a critical hit with a greatsword or spear. Greatsword and spear skill recharge 20% faster.) which combine cooldown reduction with secondary effects which create interesting builds. Rangers have to use two traits to perform the same thing, resulting in poor trait compression and bland build choices (and they have multiple traits that offer little value by comparison, Piercing Arrows, Quick Draw and Eagle eye are examples). I get that warriors are the master of weapons, but it would make sense for rangers to at least gain some kind of proficiency in bows (ranged DPS is already behind melee and is becoming increasingly worse, particularly in the case of the ranger)?

Comparatively, engineers have multiple ways to modify grenades (explosions) to have a variety of effects and support a variety of builds with the same weapon (burning, bleeding and vulnerability all traitable on grenades). Rangers have very limited and bland options to modify weapon attacks to become more powerful and create interesting builds (piercing arrows is almost necessary in PvE, bleed on crit is average, pet might on crit is powerful but relies on an unreliable mechanic). Are there plans to redo ranger traits to give greater trait compression when building for weapons as well as to give them access to more effects that aren’t already on the weapons (like necromancers got burning, engineers get burning, more bleeding and vulnerability)?

Will pets become better at hitting moving targets? For example, will pets be able to attack and move at the same time?

How much importance is placed on PvE when looking at class balance? Are ranged weapons kept intentionally weaker to prevent ranged spikes in sPvP regardless of the impact on PvE? Are pets only looked at in sPvP while survivability in group PvE is still a major issue? Why aren’t there more robust PvE only changes (like increasing the DPS of ranged weapons, dungeon specific pet survivability buffs)?

Is the 1h sword loss of control on its auto attack “working as intended”? If so, are they aware of how unpopular it is with many people? Are any attempts being made to alleviate this issue?

Why was the shortbow nerfed when it wasn’t a problematic weapon (most competitive sPvP builds didn’t rely on it and it under performs in PvE)? If it was because of the longbow, why wasn’t the longbow made more appealing instead of nerfing the shortbow? The shortbow wasn’t even close to being the most powerful weapon in the game and it’s now received two major nerfs (crossfire attack speed and a 25% range reduction). It seems like the plan to make the longbow better is to make the shortbow worse.

Do the devs like opening strike and related traits? Will we ever see it replaced?

I would like to know what is their vision for a ranger now and how it has changed from what they envisaged when they first announced the ranger. What is the rangers defining aspect; much was made of that being the pet at range, skills like Alpha Strike, where you call in three pets at once, were much touted along with range being central to the design.

Do ANet still stand by that design goal or is the ranger to be something different now?

Although you had already pointed out it’s more for “PvP”, if it is still possible…

“What’s the maing focus/direction for GW2 (PvE, PvP or WvW), and the professions, for the next while?”

…And I pray they would refrain from using answers such as every-and-all things — adding salt to injury hurts, just my two cents.

I want to know what happened to their policy of not swinging down the nerf bat hard so as to destroy certain play styles?

Anyone?

chirp..chirp…chirp

All i want to hear is a non-shady answer on what they want rangers to excell in, and how they want that to be done. I dont want to hear some black and white answer just a general…
“i want rangers to be able to do ______ while also being able to _ and not being too over powered in the sense of _______.”

How do they see rangers and what will they do to project this idea?

A few things:

• Can someone please give a statement about what exactly the vision and role of the Ranger is supposed to be?
• Pet AI is the single most complained about aspect of the Ranger class. Do they recognize the issues with it (pathing, inability to avoid damage, delay in responding to F2 abilities, lack of control over the other 2 attacks they perform, inability to hit moving targets reliably) and are they actively trying to fix it? If not, are they considering other options to replace this mechanic with something that will allow Rangers to get full benefit out of their class mechanics?
• Spirits represent 1/5 of the ranger skill possibilities as well as several trait options, and yet is still not usable in any type of PvP situation. Combining traits and increasing health pools has not changed this. Are they considering other options to replace this system in a fashion that will allow Ranger to viably use this part of their class?
• Guild Wars 2 is conceptually based on the idea of grouping up easily and tackling ever increasingly difficult challenges as a big merry band. Rangers traits, skills and weapons (fields and finishers) are all focused on synergyzing with the pet companion instead of the people around them (with the exception of Spirits, which are not usable). This steers the class into a lone wolf role. Do the developers recognize the lack of group friendly options as a problem? If so, what are they doing about it? If not, what can we do to show them that their customer base is crying out for change in this direction?
• Do they take into account player feedback made through the Ranger and Suggestion boards? If so, can they kindly please become more visible in responding to posts made? Right now their community is feeling very left out in the dark and radio silence is not winning them any goodwill…

Now that the shortbow has lost its range advantage, are we going to see the flanking requirement removed from the auto attack bleed?

Ask them why my godkitten pet can’t hit targets with movement speed bonuses like +25% and swiftness.

Ask them why people can sidestep my slow kitten ranged pet projectiles.

Ask them why the damage is so garbage, why power builds have no way to deal with boons, and why the class needs to spec full toughness because without it it has no innate survival to support glass cannon specs.

Khayoss.2019:

• Do they take into account player feedback made through the Ranger and Suggestion boards? If so, can they kindly please become more visible in responding to posts made? Right now their community is feeling very left out in the dark and radio silence is not winning them any goodwill…

This is also very important! We need to know if they are taking into consideration the players voice here in the forums. i agree we can become somewhat violent but Im sure that they knew how players would react to changes way before they even got the job.