Guild Wars 2

Hunting requires a lot of Preparation.

Each main hand Weapon has two Preparation skills you can select for the F5.

F5 becomes Preparation. Preparations charge up when out of combat (takes 5s) or in stealth (takes 3s) and can be charged up manually (2s channel). Preparations last for 30s. Preparations have no cooldown, they only need to be charged up manually or you need to be out of combat.

Long Bow Preparation;
Apply Poison: all longbow cooldown attacks now apply poison.
Combustive Arrows: Your arrows move slower and take longer to cast but now deal aoe damage and apply 3s of burning..

Shortbow Preparation:
Kindled Arrows: Your Shortbow cooldown attacks also apply burning.
Forked Arrows: Fire twice the amount of arrows on your cooldown abilities.

Sword Preparation:
Serpent’s Quickness: Reduced cooldown by 6% and increase attack speed by 15%
Serrated Edge: Cooldown Attacks apply bleed.

Axe: Apply Poison/
Boomerang Axes: All your Main-hand Axe attacks (including auto attack) arc back to you after you throw them.

GS: Apply Poison/
Cold Blade: Critical chance is increase by 10%. Critical hits from your cooldown attacks chill the target.

Hammer Preparation:
Spiked hammer: Your cooldown attacks also bleed the target
Blunted Weapon: Your cooldown attacks have a 50% chance to daze the target if they are attacking

HAMMER

1. Thump
2. Bunny Thumper – Unleash a hatchet of bunnies. Smash your hammer repeatedly in a mad frenzy to catch all the bunnies
3. Yeti Smash – Release a shockwave in front of you, that cripples targets it hits. Your pets next attack knocks down the target
4. Leg breaker – Immobilize your target by breaking his knee. Your pets next physical attack does 50% more damage.
5. Rhinos Charge – Charge at your target carrying them with you. Push back foes you brush past

The Hunter gives a new skill to each skill line:
Heal Skill:
Signet: Signet of the Faithful
Passive: Heal your pet 10% every x seconds
Active: Your pet gives its vitality to you. You heal for half the % your current pet (pet at 100% = 50% heal).

Survival skill: Conceal presence: You and your pet gain stealth

Signet: Archer’s Signet
Passive: Immune to blind.
Active: Increase condition duration by 50% for 10s. (stun break)

Shout: Finish’em
If your target is below 50%, your pets deals 50% more damage for 5s. If your target is downed your pet runs to the target and stomps them.

Trap: Bear Trap:
Immobilize target. If the immob ends or if they break out, they are crippled and bled.

Should the druid ever have the ability to also be a hunter here’s a glyph for that
Glyph:
Glyph of Diversion: Apply confusion and fear targets in 360 radius.

Spirit of Favourable Winds:
Summon a spirit that makes enemies move 10% slower and their attacks have a 200 shorter range. Allies move 10% faster and have 200 increased range.
Active: Knock all foes in the area back.

Elite:
Hunting Pack: Summon a random pack of Canines or Raptors to help you take down your foes.

Traits:
MINOR
- Gain access to All the hunter things
- Hunter’s companion: When you evade or dodge your pet gains 1s of signet of stone (doesnt stack in duration).
- Tranquilizer: Opening strikes apply 1s Daze and 5s of cripple. If using hammer, they are knocked down instead.(15s ICD)

ADEPT:
- Hunting Party: Allies in your party deal 10% more damage to targets that you are focusing on.
- Hunter’s Determination: Hitting crippled foes reduces the recharge of your hammer skills and your pet’s non-f2 skills by 3s. (10s CD)
- Trapped: Immobilized, chilled or knocked down foes take 10% more damage from you and your pet.

MASTER
- Hunters Defence: Lay down Bear trap when you start casting a preparation.
- Hunter’s Proficiency: When you use a survival skill, it heals you and your pet.
- Salted Wounds: If a foe is burning when you apply poison to them, you also apply torment.

GRANDMASTER
- Camouflage: Use Conceal presence when casting a preparation (you break stealth if you stop before the cast ends). Casting your Preparations in stealth takes 1s.
- Quickened Pulse: Gain quickness for 3s every 10s whilst a Preparation is active.
- Dangerous Prey: Your F5 applies both Preparations to your weapon.

Just a crazy idea for an Elite spec.

Usually these threads are… well, stupid, but I like the idea of a preparation buff as the F5. I sort of ignored your details, but the concept I can get behind; it’s almost like an ele attunement for our weapon sets.

I also wonder if the next elite spec is coming in the expansion they’ve said they’re been working on for a while. Hopefully it’s priced reasonably.

Fluffball.8307:

Usually these threads are… well, stupid, but I like the idea of a preparation buff as the F5. I sort of ignored your details, but the concept I can get behind; it’s almost like an ele attunement for our weapon sets.

I also wonder if the next elite spec is coming in the expansion they’ve said they’re been working on for a while. Hopefully it’s priced reasonably.

Glad you like the concept. It’s stolen from GW1 where rangers couldn’t go without having some sort of preparation. My idea was actually developed to solve 1 issue, ranger aoe damage. Combustive Arrows was the answer and the hunter was born.

Ya preparations have been brought up a bunch before but this is the only idea for it I can remember liking. Just a simple buff choice for weapons that could potentially be build defining. Not that our opinions matter.

Well… sadly it’s another “let’s discard the pet” e-spec. I know that almost no ranger like the special mechanism associated to the ranger but I want to expect that Anet will finally make some effort and work with this mechanism instead of giving a shroud (druid) or burst skill (the hunter) to the ranger.

Note that 1 preparation per weapon is already more than enough.

Dadnir.5038:

Well… sadly it’s another “let’s discard the pet” e-spec. I know that almost no ranger like the special mechanism associated to the ranger but I want to expect that Anet will finally make some effort and work with this mechanism instead of giving a shroud (druid) or burst skill (the hunter) to the ranger.

Note that 1 preparation per weapon is already more than enough.

Where did you read in my post that your pet is discarded? If you actually read the traits, the pet is actually featured prominently. Or if you even read the hammer skills, you’ll see that the pet is also featured prominently….

Jeez man! At least read the bloody thing if you’re going to make assumptions!

I really like this! Also brings back good memories of Gw 1. Only thing I would not really like is a hammer. Really like the rest though

Hammer is cool. Don’t like the missing core utilities coming packed with an elite spec. kitten should be part of an update for all classes instead of locked behind an e-spec.

Preperations, bunny thumper….. man you are really making me want to play GW1 again.
I really like this idea, the thought of working all that poison into my crit bleed build is getting me a little turned on.

Dirame.8521:

Dadnir.5038:

Well… sadly it’s another “let’s discard the pet” e-spec. I know that almost no ranger like the special mechanism associated to the ranger but I want to expect that Anet will finally make some effort and work with this mechanism instead of giving a shroud (druid) or burst skill (the hunter) to the ranger.

Note that 1 preparation per weapon is already more than enough.

Where did you read in my post that your pet is discarded? If you actually read the traits, the pet is actually featured prominently. Or if you even read the hammer skills, you’ll see that the pet is also featured prominently….

Jeez man! At least read the bloody thing if you’re going to make assumptions!

Well then I’ll say it in another fashion :

You chose to keep the pet system as it is and add something else totally irrelevant to the pet in order to improve the petless gameplay mindset.

Your new mechanism buff weapon, nothing more, nothing less. It’s an ersatz of the warrior system like druid is an ersatz of the necromancer system. It’s bound to be unsatisfying since it leave all the flaw of the ranger’s mechanism as they are. The traits are a mess that try to support the pets via core ranger thing which do not promote in any way all the “new” thing that your elite spec give :

- Minor traits feature opening strike in a rather OP fashion (tranquilizer)
- Adept feature signet of stone (it’s good idea in itself but not on an Espec line)
- Anet dev try really hard to not have 2 traits featuring the same skillset. Hunter proficiency break this “law”.
- Your healing skill is OP. (Even more when double traited.)
- Spirit of favourable wind feel out of place. It doesn’t feel like a skill that we reliably could see in game. Beside… The ranger’s spirits tend to affect only allies and you would need to add an effect on the core trait affecting spirits.
… etc.

So, yeah, maybe I was wrong in the “let’s discard the pet” thingy but nothing here, absolutely nothing will really help the ranger to reconcile with it’s pet (Thought, ranger will love even more survival skill and marksmanship. And rangers that favour those 2 things usually want less pet and more personnal strenght.)

What rangers need is E-specs that reform their special mechanic the same way Reaper shroud reform the death shroud. We all know that the pets are bad the way they are now and Anet do not seem to make any effort to really correct this fact (Yeah the poor change they did on the last update were beyond disapointing). So if they do not want to correct the core system, at least they should introduce via E-spec systems that are not that bad. The healing necromancer that is the druid, I say no more please! A warrior like spec with “burst” like F5? please no. Where are we going?
Will someone propose an E-spec with a “shatter” pet in F5 that give a damage bonus when you sacrifice your pet?
Will someone propose a revenant like spec where you will gain a pet utility skill set that give you the terrible skills of our current pet to use?

No! terrible idea that feature other professions mechanism should be banned. There is tons of room to improve the god d*** pet mechanism and there is tons of way to do it. Something that directly affect the ranger and do not touch the pet as a new feature mechanism do nothing in this regard.

Dadnir.5038:

What rangers need is E-specs that reform their special mechanic the same way Reaper shroud reform the death shroud.

Wait… Are you arguing that instead of anet fixing the pets on the core ranger the next specialization should change them entirely?
You really think it’s better for the game to make certain trait lines mandatory?

Okay so let’s take this one by one. If you want an E-spec that handles your pet more readily then this isn’t supposed to be that. This e-spec was NEVER meant to be about the pet, it was meant to deal with the Ranger’s lack of AoE damage (and I believe I said this in an earlier post) so with that in mind, you can’t come into a restaurant and ask for what they don’t serve. But I very well understand that it is your opinion that we should handle the pet thing first. That’s all well and good, but I feel it is more important to handle Ranger’s AoE damage first so…. opinions are like butts, we’ve all got one.

With that said let’s now reply to all the stuff you’ve said;

Dadnir.5038:

Your new mechanism buff weapon, nothing more, nothing less. It’s an ersatz of the warrior system like druid is an ersatz of the necromancer system.

Please explain how Preparations are an ersatz (don’t even know what this word means but I’m going to use it anyway) of the Warrior system? Seriously, which warrior skill, affects all his other cooldown abilities? Which warrior skill compares to Preparations? I checked, I don’t see any. And it’s not like I care if it’s similar to a Warrior thing, I’m just trying to let you know you may have gotten something mixed up.

Dadnir.5038:

It’s bound to be unsatisfying since it leave all the flaw of the ranger’s mechanism as they are. The traits are a mess that try to support the pets via core ranger thing which do not promote in any way all the “new” thing that your elite spec give :

- Minor traits feature opening strike in a rather OP fashion (tranquilizer)

Slap a 15s cooldown on it and it would be brought in line.

Dadnir.5038:

- Adept feature signet of stone (it’s good idea in itself but not on an Espec line)

Okay this is where you totally contradict yourself. In the rest of your post you say that I should be proposing an elite spec that helps fix pets in some way. THIS TRAIT HELPS PET SURVIVABILITY AND ITS IN THIS ELITE SPEC! But no, it can’t be in an elite spec all of a sudden. This makes it sound like you’re just trying your hardest to make everything I have said, sound wrong when the reality is, I have actually done some of the things you like.

Dadnir.5038:

- Anet dev try really hard to not have 2 traits featuring the same skillset. Hunter proficiency break this “law”.

Yea that’s why Guardian of 5 different block traits spread out between 3 different lines and Eles have aura traits spread out between 3 different lines. I mean, that law must be really hard to enforce if they can’t seem to keep track of when they break it.

Dadnir.5038:

- Your healing skill is OP. (Even more when double traited.)

When Guardians use the Valor line and they take 2-2-2 + the new heal trap, they cleanse 2 conditions and heal for 8k health.

I haven’t even mentioned healing numbers and you’re already saying the heal is OP. It may sound OP to you but trust me, in practice, it’s probably just alright. I already have a build that does a heal, restores 50% endurance and cleanses 2 conditions, it’s not that big a deal.

Dadnir.5038:

- Spirit of favourable wind feel out of place. It doesn’t feel like a skill that we reliably could see in game. Beside… The ranger’s spirits tend to affect only allies and you would need to add an effect on the core trait affecting spirits.
… etc.

If I conform to a paradigm, you tell me that I’m ersatz-ing, if I don’t conform to a paradigm, you complain that I’m not conforming. I made a spirit that directly affects enemies, enemies can kill it with AoE or by focusing it and it gives reliable CC, who cares if Anet hasn’t done it before? Is this not about giving them ideas? Or are you so happy about my elite spec that you think it can get made so I have to make sure I can please anet? If so then, thanks!

This thread sounds like a GW1 fanboy

Hammer makes no sense as a hunter weapon. You don’t bludgeon your pray to death. Hunters come from killing their prey for sport or to eat for survival. You don’t hammer them.

The preparations need to be flushed out far more. To Reliant stealth. Favors longbow too much. I don’t even think rooms of trapper give three seconds. It would just be another opening strikes. A one time per use ability. Not to mention preparations are pretty similar to venoms which the thief has.

Pistol or rifle a better fit the theme.

I Think more the predator when you think of the hunter. Constantly stalking and disappearing. Watching and waiting for the advantage in his relentless pursuit to kill

rpfohr.7048:

This thread sounds like a GW1 fanboy

Hammer makes no sense as a hunter weapon. You don’t bludgeon your pray to death. Hunters come from killing their prey for sport or to eat for survival. You don’t hammer them.

A one time per use ability. Not to mention preparations are pretty similar to venoms which the thief has.

Pistol or rifle a better fit the theme.

I Think more the predator when you think of the hunter. Constantly stalking and disappearing. Watching and waiting for the advantage in his relentless pursuit to kill

I appreciate your feedback but listen to yourself;

First you say:

The preparations need to be flushed out far more. To Reliant stealth.

Then you say:

I Think more the predator when you think of the hunter. Constantly stalking and disappearing.

First you say:

Favors longbow too much.

Then you suggest ranged weapons as the defining weapon:

rpfohr.7048:

Pistol or rifle a better fit the theme.

The reason why the spec favours the bow is because the bow is a hunting weapon. The Hammer in this e-spec is all about nostalgia, yes but that isn’t a bad thing. It’s just an aesthetic choice for the fun of it.

And if you were going to flesh out Preparations, what would you do? It would be good to know what you think Preparations are lacking.

rpfohr.7048:

A one time per use ability. Not to mention preparations are pretty similar to venoms which the thief has.

What makes you think that Preparations are a one time per use ability? They literally last for 30s and technically have a five seconds cooldown when out of combat or a 2s cooldown if you use stealth.

One thing really missing from all this GW1 nostalgia is the interrupt ranger. Maybe instead of dual shot on shortbow we could bring back choking gas that do aoe interrupts for 2 seconds around your target. Would come in pretty handy for breaking up zergs.

Jim Hunter.6821:

One thing really missing from all this GW1 nostalgia is the interrupt ranger. Maybe instead of dual shot on shortbow we could bring back choking gas that do aoe interrupts for 2 seconds around your target. Would come in pretty handy for breaking up zergs.

Would’ve done choking gas but I thought it would have to be a skill. Like the Ranger’s own Chaos storm. Also the Thief already has the patent on Choking gas as the name of a skill.

I was actually going to do something like Disrupting Accuracy but I thought, that would be OP and it’s best to let people do more active interrupts. But I did cave and make the Preparation for the Hammer have a 50% chance to daze targets that are casting a skill.

Dirame.8521:

Jim Hunter.6821:

One thing really missing from all this GW1 nostalgia is the interrupt ranger. Maybe instead of dual shot on shortbow we could bring back choking gas that do aoe interrupts for 2 seconds around your target. Would come in pretty handy for breaking up zergs.

Would’ve done choking gas but I thought it would have to be a skill. Like the Ranger’s own Chaos storm. Also the Thief already has the patent on Choking gas as the name of a skill.

I was actually going to do something like Disrupting Accuracy but I thought, that would be OP and it’s best to let people do more active interrupts. But I did cave and make the Preparation for the Hammer have a 50% chance to daze targets that are casting a skill.

Warriors already have the patent on dual shot. They can call it whatever they want.

The shortbow skills have a decent enough cooldown that you couldn’t straight up spam interrupts and be effective. It wouldn’t be a whole lot different than a mesmer or thief that builds for interrupting, plus shortbow would finally serve a purpose and stop being the kittentiest weapon in the game.

Jim Hunter.6821:

Dirame.8521:

Jim Hunter.6821:

One thing really missing from all this GW1 nostalgia is the interrupt ranger. Maybe instead of dual shot on shortbow we could bring back choking gas that do aoe interrupts for 2 seconds around your target. Would come in pretty handy for breaking up zergs.

Would’ve done choking gas but I thought it would have to be a skill. Like the Ranger’s own Chaos storm. Also the Thief already has the patent on Choking gas as the name of a skill.

I was actually going to do something like Disrupting Accuracy but I thought, that would be OP and it’s best to let people do more active interrupts. But I did cave and make the Preparation for the Hammer have a 50% chance to daze targets that are casting a skill.

Warriors already have the patent on dual shot. They can call it whatever they want.

The shortbow skills have a decent enough cooldown that you couldn’t straight up spam interrupts and be effective. It wouldn’t be a whole lot different than a mesmer or thief that builds for interrupting, plus shortbow would finally serve a purpose and stop being the kittentiest weapon in the game.

Oh yea, auto-attack! Totally forgot about that. I guess that’s what Mr. Dadnir was talking about when he said I was ersatz-ing.

The problem I have though, is that you would have to put an internal cooldown on the interrupts so that they won’t be spammed back to back. And I don’t feel like doing that for something like a Preparation but that’s just my thought anyway.

Dirame.8521:

rpfohr.7048:

This thread sounds like a GW1 fanboy

Hammer makes no sense as a hunter weapon. You don’t bludgeon your pray to death. Hunters come from killing their prey for sport or to eat for survival. You don’t hammer them.

A one time per use ability. Not to mention preparations are pretty similar to venoms which the thief has.

Pistol or rifle a better fit the theme.

I Think more the predator when you think of the hunter. Constantly stalking and disappearing. Watching and waiting for the advantage in his relentless pursuit to kill

I appreciate your feedback but listen to yourself;

First you say:

The preparations need to be flushed out far more. To Reliant stealth.

Then you say:

I Think more the predator when you think of the hunter. Constantly stalking and disappearing.

First you say:

Favors longbow too much.

Then you suggest ranged weapons as the defining weapon:

rpfohr.7048:

Pistol or rifle a better fit the theme.

The reason why the spec favours the bow is because the bow is a hunting weapon. The Hammer in this e-spec is all about nostalgia, yes but that isn’t a bad thing. It’s just an aesthetic choice for the fun of it.

And if you were going to flesh out Preparations, what would you do? It would be good to know what you think Preparations are lacking.

rpfohr.7048:

A one time per use ability. Not to mention preparations are pretty similar to venoms which the thief has.

What makes you think that Preparations are a one time per use ability? They literally last for 30s and technically have a five seconds cooldown when out of combat or a 2s cooldown if you use stealth.

My post may seem like it is full of contradictions but it is only because I did not clearly enough indicate that I was juggling 2 separate idea’s in the same post.

To address your concerns……..The way the mechanic was set up in OP was you could only reset it by stealth and out of combat. Now we have a few ways to get stealth such as smokescale and trapper runes but its pretty obvious that LB3 is the go to here. This is why I feel it was to favoritism to LB.

The whole predator thing isn’t really related to your idea….it would be if I were to build my own elite spec around preparations. I DID like where you went with reseting pres through stealth. I just DIDN’T like how much it favored LB. I think a focus of the elite spec would have to find more stealth access to non LB builds.

On the matter of Hammer, I’d love a thumper build I just wouldn’t do it with this spec. Preparations are all about using that opening tactial advantage after you prepared. I think Bunny Thumper is its own theme. Just go ham on them. In my opinion the one thing ranger severely lacks is some solid melee CC. I think Hammer and Mace would both be fantastic. Hammer of course brings that nostalgia.

If I were to build a thumped sec I’d probably do it in a way so that I could Chain CC with my own pet. Hell I’d go to the max and give this spec the unique “Bunny Pet” which has an F2 ability on a 15 sec cool down that makes it so cute, it taunts all enemies the enemy for 1 second. And it would be instant cast!

The only way I could see these 2 working together is if the hammer had a focus on “picking up dust after impact on the ground to camoflauge the ranger” or make it a smoke field and then you would give it a leap finisher and blast finisher for good stealth. Maybe there are traits that can help out the other builds gain stealth if “certain conditions are met” pun intended.

I’m a gw1 fanboy myself…..but its easy to see another. I just felt like the idea was mashed together out of fanboyism rather than thought.

rpfohr.7048:

My post may seem like it is full of contradictions but it is only because I did not clearly enough indicate that I was juggling 2 separate idea’s in the same post.

To address your concerns……..The way the mechanic was set up in OP was you could only reset it by stealth and out of combat. Now we have a few ways to get stealth such as smokescale and trapper runes but its pretty obvious that LB3 is the go to here. This is why I feel it was to favoritism to LB.

The whole predator thing isn’t really related to your idea….it would be if I were to build my own elite spec around preparations. I DID like where you went with reseting pres through stealth. I just DIDN’T like how much it favored LB. I think a focus of the elite spec would have to find more stealth access to non LB builds.

If you read the traits and the skills, you’ll see Conceal Presense is a skill that gives you stealth, and Camouflage is a trait that stealths you when you activate a preparation. So all Weapons CAN access stealth in some way. It’s just their choice whether they want to or not.

And I get what you’re saying about the dust cloud thing. Makes sense. But this spec is already about CC, it’s about crippling your prey, so that you can keep up with it, it’s about tactically disabling your target so that your pet can handle the rest. The only thing that is bludgeoning about it, is the bunny thumper ability and that was designed because I wanted to have a laugh with myself. And the thought of seeing a ranger release a bunch of spirit bunnies only to smash them, is hilarious to me.

Like the idea of the spec especially if it increases build diversity (for pvp and wvw anyway).

No new heal? Really want to see a ranger signet heal introduced at some point.
Something like
Signet of the Faithful
Passive: Heal your pet 10% every x seconds
Active: Your pet gives its vitality to you. You heal for half the % your current pet (pet at 100% = 50% heal). Your pet dies in the process. (not a single healing coefficient too be found, you want healing power? Go druid or a different heal!)

Also would love for some sort of AoE condi removal or resistance to be worked into the rangers next elite spec just because of the plethora of conditions atm.
e.g. A preparation for Hammer (or Greatsword) removes 1 condition from you, your pet and nearby allies on cooldown skill use. (or applies 1-2s of resistance).

Oh, and a pet centered elite spec would be good if they fix the existing pets (lackluster skills, bad overall damage/tracking, no dodge/evade of any kind).

I like the idea, especially how you handled preparations.

May I suggest to rename Dual Shot to Forked Arrow(s)?
Dual shot is ( already mentioned ) in use by ( I believe ) warriors, and Forked Arrow did something similar in Guild Wars 1.

Sword → Serpent’s Quickness : This one would need careful balancing because the ranger sword already has quite a few damage modifiers through traits and can easily be pushed over the edge. Perhaps either the CD reduction or the attack speedbonus, but not both?

After reading all these unique preparations I actually felt a bit disappointed when I saw Axe and Greatsword had some re-used ones instead of unique ones like the others.

Axe could perhaps do something with:

Body Throws, cooldown skills inflict vulnerability/
Debilitating Throws, cooldown attack-skills make the target lose endurance (5-10)?

Greatsword possibly:

Splintered hilt: foes near your target take damage when you use a cooldown attack skill?
Disrupting accuracy: Critical hits with cooldown attack-skills daze foes ( 1/4 s, just enough to interrupt)?

I also love the hammer as a new weapon, I do get the nostalgia feelings from my golden pvp bunny thumper days.
But have you considered to work the Guild Wars 1 bunny thumper build into the weapon skills?
something like for example this:

auto: bash, bash, twomp, every hit applies vulnerability, last hit applies (1s) cripple ( if you hit someone’s with a hammer they won’t walk away that easily).

2: Bunny thumper → hammer bash. Knockdown for 1(s), your pet’s next attack inflicts poison ( reverence to the rangers that ran poisonous bite back in the day)

3. Bestial Mauling → knock back target ( 250), summon (3) bunnies (3s) that apply (3s)bleeding with their attacks ( mostly novelty, but the thought you had with skill 2 about summoning bunnies made me laugh).

4. Brutal strike: Deal damage in a chain (3x), last hit dealing bonus damage if target is under 50% health. If under 50% health, your pet gains quickness.

5. * place any of your skill 3/4/5 here, they would all be great additions to a cc/control set).

I see you have opted to give each utility skill-line a single new skill instead of opting for an entirely new line?
I am unsure what I think of that, but it is creative, that is for sure!

The heal:
I feel this is doing way to much.
heal 50% of your health back ( more if coupled with your own hunter’s proficiency trait), a dodge (50% endurance), lose 3 ( 5 when you trait for wilderness knowledge) conditions AND swiftness?
Other heal skills need to be traited and still won’t get this much!

Conceal presence seems fine, dependant on the duration of the stealth.

Signet Of Sight…
I feel a bit conflicted.
The duration is fine, so is the recharge and stunbreak, but the effects..
They feel a bit uninspired.
Is there a way this could inherit some of the traits of the GW1 skill Archers signet?
Like when active it increases your condition duration by X for your next X attacks that inflict conditions, and passive decreases blind duration on you by X%?
While precision may seem like a cool buff, most rangers already bring spotter for this and this skill would have to compete with that trait ( and most likely lose).
This way it might have a niche imo.

Finish’em: In the line of thinking that spawned Search And Rescue. Sure, why not!
But perhaps think of something to make it useful in PvE as well, not much stomping to be done there.

Bear Trap and Glyph Of Diversion could perhaps use some small buff.

Spirit Of Favourable Winds: This feels…clunky…and unfun to me.
Perhaps something among the lines of enemies within range move 5% slower and have less range on ranged attacks ( like 200 range because the spirit makes the winds blow their projectiles back) and allies move 5% faster and have increased range on ranged abilities?

Hunting Pack: OH MY GOD I WANT THIS!
Seriously, this is pure gold, I cannot wait to spawn my own pack of pocket raptors.

Traits:

On it’s trail: since it’s the first minor make sure the speedboost is not extremely big.

Tranquillizer: Would need an ICD to prevent abuse.

Hunting Party: would need an icon on the statusbar of the target so both allies and enemies know who is getting focused ( so counterplay can be a thing). Once again, careful balancing is needed, since we talk about ( probably) an unstrippable effect.

Hunters Companion is something pets need that is for sure. I would have loved to see this as a minor trait. Perhaps instead of On it’s Trail? Then you have a free trait spot for whatever you desire.

Hunter’s Defence: Ok.

Hunter’s Determination: Depends on the availability of cripple ( for example, it would be OP if combined with my own suggestion for a small cripple on the auto). 3s CD reduction does feel like quite a lot tho. Either a change or an ICD I think.

Salted Wounds:
I am confused at to what this does ( wording is a bit unclear to me)

Camouflage: Extremely strong when combined with other traits and skills.
Quickened Pulse: Since preparations have no CD, this would basically be free quickness 30% of the time without any investment besides picking this trait. I’m okay with giving ranger some more access to quickness, but I am unsure if this is the way to do it.

Hunter’s Proficiency: Depends on the amount of healing, would need an ICD most likely, and would have to exclude your healing skill probably.

These are my thoughts, I hope some of it can help you

Draeyon.4392:

Like the idea of the spec especially if it increases build diversity (for pvp and wvw anyway).

No new heal? Really want to see a ranger signet heal introduced at some point.
Something like
Signet of the Faithful
Passive: Heal your pet 10% every x seconds
Active: Your pet gives its vitality to you. You heal for half the % your current pet (pet at 100% = 50% heal). Your pet dies in the process. (not a single healing coefficient too be found, you want healing power? Go druid or a different heal!)

Sounds good to me but i’ll remove the pet dieing. Rather the heal will take a snap shot of the percentage your pet and halve it.

Draeyon.4392:

Oh, and a pet centered elite spec would be good if they fix the existing pets (lackluster skills, bad overall damage/tracking, no dodge/evade of any kind).

There’s a trait that I suggested above that deals directly with the “no dodge for pets” thing.

Wielder Of Magic.3950:

I like the idea, especially how you handled preparations.

May I suggest to rename Dual Shot to Forked Arrow(s)?
Dual shot is ( already mentioned ) in use by ( I believe ) warriors, and Forked Arrow did something similar in Guild Wars 1.

Good suggestion! Thanks!

Wielder Of Magic.3950:

Sword; Serpent’s Quickness : This one would need careful balancing because the ranger sword already has quite a few damage modifiers through traits and can easily be pushed over the edge. Perhaps either the CD reduction or the attack speedbonus, but not both?

One thing I came to realize after playing GW2 for so long is that increasing attack speed reduces evade frames. And having cooldown reduction helps alleviate that problem. I didn’t really create the Preparation with all that in mind though, but it seems I stumbled into a good idea somewhat, hehe.

That said though, I took your comment to heart and reduced the cooldown reduction to 6%.

Wielder Of Magic.3950:

After reading all these unique preparations I actually felt a bit disappointed when I saw Axe and Greatsword had some re-used ones instead of unique ones like the others.

Axe could perhaps do something with:

Body Throws, cooldown skills inflict vulnerability/
Debilitating Throws, cooldown attack-skills make the target lose endurance (5-10)?

Greatsword possibly:

Splintered hilt: foes near your target take damage when you use a cooldown attack skill?
Disrupting accuracy: Critical hits with cooldown attack-skills daze foes ( 1/4 s, just enough to interrupt)?

It’s hard coming up with Unique preparations that fit the Axe and the Greatsword specifically so I went for things that would be the most plausible. But now that you’re lit a fire under my butt, I’ve decided I’m going to rethink them.

Your suggestions aren’t singing to me though.

Wielder Of Magic.3950:

I also love the hammer as a new weapon, I do get the nostalgia feelings from my golden pvp bunny thumper days.
But have you considered to work the Guild Wars 1 bunny thumper build into the weapon skills?
something like for example this:

auto: bash, bash, twomp, every hit applies vulnerability, last hit applies (1s) cripple ( if you hit someone’s with a hammer they won’t walk away that easily).

2: Bunny thumper; hammer bash. Knockdown for 1(s), your pet’s next attack inflicts poison ( reverence to the rangers that ran poisonous bite back in the day)

3. Bestial Mauling; knock back target ( 250), summon (3) bunnies (3s) that apply (3s)bleeding with their attacks ( mostly novelty, but the thought you had with skill 2 about summoning bunnies made me laugh).

4. Brutal strike: Deal damage in a chain (3x), last hit dealing bonus damage if target is under 50% health. If under 50% health, your pet gains quickness.

5. * place any of your skill 3/4/5 here, they would all be great additions to a cc/control set).

I would definitely not be opposed to this but I wanted to differentiate the Ranger from the Warrior when it comes to Hammer functionality. Cos’ the Warrior has a knockback and a knockdown, I wanted to do something different.

Wielder Of Magic.3950:

I see you have opted to give each utility skill-line a single new skill instead of opting for an entirely new line?
I am unsure what I think of that, but it is creative, that is for sure!

Yea I thought Hunter was so similar to Ranger that it would work better as an enhancement rather than a completely new thing.

Wielder Of Magic.3950:

The heal:
I feel this is doing way to much.
heal 50% of your health back ( more if coupled with your own hunter’s proficiency trait), a dodge (50% endurance), lose 3 ( 5 when you trait for wilderness knowledge) conditions AND swiftness?
Other heal skills need to be traited and still won’t get this much!

Yea that’s just me being bad at english when I type too fast (you might notice it in this post as well hehe). I actually meant to say; “Restore 50% endurance. Gain health.” So you don’t gain 50% health back, you get a scalable amount of health back. And I should change the condition removal to resistance ‘cos I was trying to imitate Melandru’s Resilience from GW1.

Wielder Of Magic.3950:

Signet Of Sight…
I feel a bit conflicted.
The duration is fine, so is the recharge and stunbreak, but the effects..
They feel a bit uninspired.
Is there a way this could inherit some of the traits of the GW1 skill Archers signet?
Like when active it increases your condition duration by X for your next X attacks that inflict conditions, and passive decreases blind duration on you by X%?
While precision may seem like a cool buff, most rangers already bring spotter for this and this skill would have to compete with that trait ( and most likely lose).
This way it might have a niche imo.

Haha, you know, I saw Archer’s Signet recently and I thought “Why the heck didn’t I type that instead!!” but yea, now that you mention it, I shall go ahead and change it.

Wielder Of Magic.3950:

Finish’em: In the line of thinking that spawned Search And Rescue. Sure, why not!
But perhaps think of something to make it useful in PvE as well, not much stomping to be done there.

Done and done.

Wielder Of Magic.3950:

Spirit Of Favourable Winds: This feels…clunky…and unfun to me.
Perhaps something among the lines of enemies within range move 5% slower and have less range on ranged attacks ( like 200 range because the spirit makes the winds blow their projectiles back) and allies move 5% faster and have increased range on ranged abilities?

I agree with this assessment.

Wielder Of Magic.3950:

Hunting Pack: OH MY GOD I WANT THIS!
Seriously, this is pure gold, I cannot wait to spawn my own pack of pocket raptors.

YAY! And guess what? I came up with this idea without even knowing pocket raptors existed… so I guess I was foreshadowing?

Wielder Of Magic.3950:

Traits:

On it’s trail: since it’s the first minor make sure the speedboost is not extremely big.

Tranquillizer: Would need an ICD to prevent abuse.

Hunting Party: would need an icon on the statusbar of the target so both allies and enemies know who is getting focused ( so counterplay can be a thing). Once again, careful balancing is needed, since we talk about ( probably) an unstrippable effect.

Hunters Companion is something pets need that is for sure. I would have loved to see this as a minor trait. Perhaps instead of On it’s Trail? Then you have a free trait spot for whatever you desire.

Hunter’s Defence: Ok.

Hunter’s Determination: Depends on the availability of cripple ( for example, it would be OP if combined with my own suggestion for a small cripple on the auto). 3s CD reduction does feel like quite a lot tho. Either a change or an ICD I think.

Advice taken.

Wielder Of Magic.3950:

Salted Wounds:
I am confused at to what this does ( wording is a bit unclear to me)

Camouflage: Extremely strong when combined with other traits and skills.
Quickened Pulse: Since preparations have no CD, this would basically be free quickness 30% of the time without any investment besides picking this trait. I’m okay with giving ranger some more access to quickness, but I am unsure if this is the way to do it.

Hunter’s Proficiency: Depends on the amount of healing, would need an ICD most likely, and would have to exclude your healing skill probably.

These are my thoughts, I hope some of it can help you

Let me rephrase Salted Wounds: If a foe is burning when you apply poison to them, you also apply torment. Hopefully that makes more sense.

Thanks for you thoughts man, they have been quite insightful. And you can check the original post to see the changes I’ve made.