Guild Wars 2

Atherakhia.4086:

Could just make the attack command return as well.

If your pet is already attacking something and you tell it to attack a different target, it attacks that target. If your pet is already attacking something and you tell it to attack the same target, it returns.

You then can turn F3 into the secondary attacks.

This would probably work better in all honesty…

This would also allow them to “lock” the F3 and MAYBE F2 ability too to sorta help newer players ease into it, sorta like with ele.

Atherakhia.4086:

Could just make the attack command return as well.

If your pet is already attacking something and you tell it to attack a different target, it attacks that target. If your pet is already attacking something and you tell it to attack the same target, it returns.

You then can turn F3 into the secondary attacks.

I don’t know how many times us rangers have suggested this right here.

It just makes no sense that F1 and F3 need their own separate key. Just merge them into a toggle and open up the F3.

I would take any functionality on the F3 from another pet specific function to an on demand invulnerability (with cooldown) for the pet.

So yes, I think that at this point, if the devs respond to turning this into a toggle with the same “it might be too difficult for players” argument they used for more control over the pet, then I’m going to go and start pulling examples from Hello Kitty games, or Skylanders, to use an example as to how much they are drastically underestimating their player base.

Jcbroe don’t you dare underestimate Hello Kitty Island Adventure! Lol j/k, but yeah I agree, they really are underestimating their player base, look at Liadri, they estimated that barely anyone would be able to put her kitten in the ground, and then a much larger group were able to complete it ( granted still in the minority).

Lol.

I just really don’t get the line of thinking. Like, the game already has classes like engi and ele that require some more APM to use than other classes at times, and require you to track more skill functions than just the 5, due to either kits or attunements.

So then, when allowing for classes with that level of depth and complexity (depth isn’t being added because you need more APM, but because of the larger amount of skill rotations being created by giving players more functioning options to work with at a single time), why is there no middle ground between that and a faceroll warrior class?

It seems like an entire contradiction for a company to go “well, we wanted to make a class that has to micromanage an entire always-on entity in order to maximize damage and support capabilities. But we want it to be as easy as possible for the players so we’re adding as little player controlled functionality as possible.”

It just inherently limits the performance of the class. You can’t have both a class that requires micromanagement and a class that’s as easy to play as possible. You end up with exactly what the ranger class is; a class with very limited pet performance potential and oversimplified weapon functions.

So at least there’s a “beginner” class in the game that almost invites players to create alts because the class can be so limiting to, for lack of a better word, “veterans,” that they want to try out something that either “feels” more fun or that they know investing their time in is going to produce better results because that classes output is higher due to better risk/reward balance scaling (which is terribly implemented to begin with or otherwise faceroll HS warriors wouldn’t be dominant in every single piece of content in the game).

Every class should scale with a players abilities. There should be functionality that works well for new players or players that don’t possess a high APM but still want to enjoy the game, and then as options open up or players get more adept at the game, there should be higher skillfloor/APM demanding options that produce a higher output, not necessarily one that overwrites the other outputs, but one that can be either more supportive or damaging or etc with a higher skill/APM investment, or even just requiring more skill shots.

Same thing with the pet. Players should have the option to take their pet more and more out of autopilot over time, so that while the player has to manage more things, they can also have more on demand functionality than a person who leaves their pet on autopilot.

I wouldn’t mind more control over the pet, but it needs to be reasonable.

We don’t need excessive micro-management like having to manually move your pet every time it’s in an AoE. It should be able to deal with basic things like that by itself. What we need is more control over the skillful aspects of the pet, such as being able to save and use the canine’s knockdown manually.

Sadly the design of the pet doesn’t offer enough of that, and what it does offer would be unreliable if the player had manual control over it. Want to interrupt something with a knockdown? Wait a few seconds for your pet to reach the opponent and then actually use the skill. By then the opportunity has passed. And outside of 1-2 skills the player could get a good use out of (some pets don’t even have any), what would more manual control even have to offer?

If we want more skillful control over the pet then first it must become more reliable. It must be able to stick on the target and connect with its attacks otherwise you’re looking at a few seconds of delay and a good chance of missing on everything it does, skillful or not.

One of the core issues with the pet in my opinion is that it doesn’t synchronize well with the ranger and doesn’t serve any important or fulfilling role.

Its somewhat hard to explain, but using the thief and its mechanic as an example should make it clear:

The thief’s mechanic is about mobility and quick attacks. The replacement of cool-downs with an energy system allows them to continually use skills for greater burst damage and mobility, they have access to a lot of stealth and mobility tools which allow them to effectively disengage or pursue targets, and stealth combined with a unique in-stealth skill gives them a very strong first strike advantage as well as close gaps without taking damage.

So much of the thief fits in perfectly with their class mechanics and design, but the ranger seems to lack abilities that would fit in well with the pet, and likewise, the pet lacks what would fit in with the ability of the ranger. The ranger is what the thief would be like if stealth attacks and initiative were removed, leaving them with a lot of stealth and movement but little to compliment it.

The ranger needs more mechanics which compliment the pet, and the pet needs more that compliments the ability of the ranger. For instance, what if ricochet could bounce off your pet granting it might? What if the ranger could switch places with, or shadow step to, its pet?

I’m still under the opinion that Pets in this game were added kitten.

I think they just wanted an actual pet class in the game, and the Ranger was chosen, problem is they spent so much time in beta trying to get the bloody things to work with pathing that they didn’t actually spend anytime on the pet system in general.

I don’t see them fleshing out the system as well, since Most of the players in this game in the SPvP side seem to really dislike dealing with AI to the point where in past games if you dealt with a Pet class you killed its pet, while in this game the method seems to be Complain to the Devs till it gets nerfed

I laugh everytime I see an SPvP player talk about playing Camelot Unchained when it comes out, Since i’m pretty sure they’re going to slit their wrist soon as they run into a class like the Theurgist/Bonedancer/Animist of DAOC.

I think that, after reading through a lot more topics throughout the community, that we need to define, or redefine, balance for players to understand.

Balance is not a single build being able to beat every other class and every other build in the game. Skill can make that happen, but there should never be any build ever that has a weapon to deal with every situation as well as a defensive option for every offense.

What is balance then?

Balance is accomplished by guiding classes towards certain combat roles that can be performed and giving them competitive options in each role. Not competitive in the sense that multiple classes are accomplishing the same function, but in the sense that when creating a team composition, there are multiple classes that can fulfill a given role, but in a variety of different ways.

Roles are numerous, but in a very general sense, there is all out DPS, roaming/dueling, bunkering, and team support.

The game shouldn’t be so linear that only one build can do one role at a time (meaning a build should be able to have multiple roles) and stat allocation helps to make builds specialize in a direction that may not suit all of their available options, but ultimately, every class should have the option that when min/maxing, every role they can perform becomes equally competitive to every other class at that role, even if functionally, they are performing different (single target DPS versus cleave versus AoE, etc).

It was said in another thread but power rangers are actually balanced, ie. They can hit hard and die easy. Its warriors, thieves and mesmers that are unbalanced, since they have greater survivability even in full zerk.

Sube Dai.8496:

It was said in another thread but power rangers are actually balanced, ie. They can hit hard and die easy. Its warriors, thieves and mesmers that are unbalanced, since they have greater survivability even in full zerk.

And yet ANet disagrees as they’ve said repeatedy that Guardians and Warriors are where they want them and Mesmers need buffs.

Sube Dai.8496:

It was said in another thread but power rangers are actually balanced, ie. They can hit hard and die easy. Its warriors, thieves and mesmers that are unbalanced, since they have greater survivability even in full zerk.

The zerker ranger build I was running was in a similar position as thieves, if someone got ahold of you you kittening exploded, key word is IF you gotta be slippery.

Also, most people fail to realize that glassy builds on those OTHER profs are really squishy when they go 30/30/x/x/x, the thing is most their glassy builds do NOT go that glassy and actually have points to give them enough defenses to kill someone.

Also, rangers don’t burst ( they -can- but it’s pretty meh), our power builds just constantly shave off chunks of health which a lot of people view as “bad” because it’s not one giant number, which is wrong, it’s good, and imo better than burst because it’s nearly impossible to avoid the damage.

The more you know!!

Sube Dai.8496:

It was said in another thread but power rangers are actually balanced, ie. They can hit hard and die easy. Its warriors, thieves and mesmers that are unbalanced, since they have greater survivability even in full zerk.

Exactly.

Particularly though, I don’t believe that entire classes are imbalanced, but there are some repeat offenders throughout about half of the classes in the game.

Listing them:

• Healing Signet – Absolutely zero intuitive design. There is no reason to activate it, and because the heal is entirely passive, it offers no risk/reward gameplay and offers a very strong sustain heal with zero skill needed in order to make it successful. The active needs to be stronger, the passive needs to be much weaker, and then have a good scaling coefficient with healing power, and the cooldown needs to be reduced accordingly.

• 100% immunities – These are ridiculous. Nobody should ever be able to slot a trait or activate a skill and then just ignore damage or conditions entirely. If skills like this are actually needed in order for classes to be balanced, then the reality is that whatever environment that creates the need for immunities needs to be toned down so that having a “godmode” isn’t necessary for success.

• Stealth – Yes, it is a core mechanic that the thief class and certain mesmer builds hinge around, but the reality is that Stealth is a poor design, especially as spammable as it is, that allows for crazy amounts of fight resets and is completely uncounterable. Classes that have to rely on the mechanic for survival is also bad design, and these classes need to be balanced to have more sustain with no stealth, allowing the stealth mechanic to be toned down (missing a stealth attack still reveals, being hit in stealth reveals, 5 second minimum reveal period, maybe more).

• Stability access and excess CC – Certain classes are heavy offenders of having way too much control in a fight, and certain classes have too much Stability. Ideally, CC should be less spammable and be a “big” move, meaning it either needs to be a strong CC with weak damage to allow for the player to hold down the opponent and DPS them while CC’d, or it needs to be a weak CC with strong damage, meaning that it bursts hard and leaves the opponent vulnerable for enough of a time period to matter (they now can’t get their heal off in time, or it let’s a team mate burst on an opponent that would have otherwise required a setup, etc). Once this happens, Stability needs to be removed entirely, and immobilize needs to be drastically toned down to be as the other CC above is described.

I think that covers what I think are heavy offenders and/or what is poorly designed from that aspect, without pulling out a magnifying glass and examining every aspect of every class in the game.

Note that it is just my opinion though. The idea behind the topic is to extract general ideas about where rangers fit into how the game is balanced, and what can be worked on to make the Quality of Life and gameplay experience better. I’m only leaving this chunk here because this is personally where I would like to see part of the design philosophy for the game pushed, and I think it would overall be a better game that rangers would fit much better into and could be balanced into better than where the game currently is.

I been dumbstruck by the warrior healing signet change ever since it was implemented, it seems so screamingly obvious to me it should have stayed at the 200h/s passive while increasing the activated heal rather than the kittened way it was done, it’s just crazy to me how anyone could have looked at it and thought this was the good way to change this healing skill I can’t think of any reason other than that was made too strong on purpose because nobody could make such a dumb move with balance in mind it even goes against their own vision that skills should rely more on players actively choosing when to use them rather than passive bonuses and yet they just bring in more passive kitten after saying it.

Manekk.6981:

I been dumbstruck by the warrior healing signet change ever since it was implemented, it seems so screamingly obvious to me it should have stayed at the 200h/s passive while increasing the activated heal rather than the kittened way it was done, it’s just crazy to me how anyone could have looked at it and thought this was the good way to change this healing skill I can’t think of any reason other than that was made too strong on purpose because nobody could make such a dumb move with balance in mind it even goes against their own vision that skills should rely more on players actively choosing when to use them rather than passive bonuses and yet they just bring in more passive kitten after saying it.

I’d argue the issue is more related to adrenal health moreso than healing signet. Move adrenal health to a dps oriented tree and you completely change the Warrior’s dynamic.

Aside from the mobility issue (change Rush to 900 and make Whirlwind the burst skill) and moving adrenal health to Strength I think the Warrior’s where it need to be. Or at the very least it would be on par with the Guardian class, something ANet keeps telling us is perfect.

A big, big problem I have with the ranger class is how thematically correct it feels.

For instance, stepping outside of the realm of numerical balance for a moment, Thieves feel like a thief should feel when you play one. You can jump in and out of combat almost seamlessly with stealths and evades and steals while in the meantime, jumping in for an assassination style big damage move every once in awhile. You have thief style traps and support, and the class just flows well overall.

The same can be said for classes like the warrior, which, to avoid going into long descriptions, feels like a heavy armored DPS’er, and the Guardian plays exactly how a heavy armor supporter should play.

Necro, Engi, Ele, and mesmer all play thematically correctly as well, Necro with attrition style gameplay, heavy conditions, minions, and lifestealing, Engi with pistols and rifles and gadgets/gizmos and potions, elementalists as an elemental spell caster, and mesmers with clones and moves based around deception and illusion, and shattering those illusions for better damage and support.

And….

Then we get to ranger. The class is just all over the place. Sure, we have bows. But the bows are very bland and just come off as generic ranged DPS with nothing really “unique” thematically as far as feel or visuals or mechanics go. Truthfully, the warrior rifle does “feel” thematically more like a ranger bow should than our actual bow choices, which are all basically just “shoot an arrow, shoot some more arrows, shoot some arrows in a cone, shoot them in an area.”

The melee weapons (and Axe and Dagger) actually fit the ranger as far as the beastmaster aspect goes. They play off of the pet well, and get you in with your pet to do help it with it’s DPS while you DPS, or allowing you to jump in and out and skirmish with an opponent while being evasive while the pet is doing damage.

That’s as far as it goes though. The utilities, aside from spirits and traps (the shouts try but they don’t do much as far as function and mechanics go), are all bland and really generic in nature and function, and don’t really support any unique theme that differentiates the class from any other class.

Really, the bow mechanic for this class is actually the thing that feels the most tacted on. Aside from the name Marksmanship and a single trait (Eagle Eye), there isn’t a single traitline that allows Rangers to truly specialize towards bows (bows can be enhanced, but those same enhancements effect all available weaponsets), and there are no utilities that help ranger players specialize towards using a bow.

However, there are multiple options that allow rangers to specialize towards skirmishing and/or supporting with traps and spirits and pet enhancing shouts and signets, with multiple traits that enhance melee options (Axe and Dagger included) and offhand options.

That is the ranger conundrum, so to speak. That the class shows off the use of bows and psychologically appeals to people who are looking for a ranged bow archetype, but then the game presents them thematically with the perfect Beastmaster class that has a very bland archery option with poor supplementary options for the playstyle.

Either the name needs changing to Beastmaster or the class needs an overall revamp to bring up bows to a place the has the same “feel” as the melee options from a gameplay enjoyment perspective, allowing players to truly have the option to play with an archer focus, and take supplementary utilities and traits that support players playing in a ranged archetype playstyle.

Until then, it is the only portion of any class that I personally have found to be amiss and not be thematically correct, or even fluid, for that class.

Been asking what the Ranger is supposed to do in this game for a year. Best of luck getting an answer.

Atherakhia.4086:

Manekk.6981:

I been dumbstruck by the warrior healing signet change ever since it was implemented, it seems so screamingly obvious to me it should have stayed at the 200h/s passive while increasing the activated heal rather than the kittened way it was done, it’s just crazy to me how anyone could have looked at it and thought this was the good way to change this healing skill I can’t think of any reason other than that was made too strong on purpose because nobody could make such a dumb move with balance in mind it even goes against their own vision that skills should rely more on players actively choosing when to use them rather than passive bonuses and yet they just bring in more passive kitten after saying it.

I’d argue the issue is more related to adrenal health moreso than healing signet. Move adrenal health to a dps oriented tree and you completely change the Warrior’s dynamic.

Aside from the mobility issue (change Rush to 900 and make Whirlwind the burst skill) and moving adrenal health to Strength I think the Warrior’s where it need to be. Or at the very least it would be on par with the Guardian class, something ANet keeps telling us is perfect.

The signet is over 400h/s adrenal health is roughly 100h/s or a little less on average, not exactly sure what you mean by this actually, you mean the super damage zerker warriors (granted they are not nearly the worst) needs more survivability???

Manekk.6981:

Atherakhia.4086:

Manekk.6981:

I been dumbstruck by the warrior healing signet change ever since it was implemented, it seems so screamingly obvious to me it should have stayed at the 200h/s passive while increasing the activated heal rather than the kittened way it was done, it’s just crazy to me how anyone could have looked at it and thought this was the good way to change this healing skill I can’t think of any reason other than that was made too strong on purpose because nobody could make such a dumb move with balance in mind it even goes against their own vision that skills should rely more on players actively choosing when to use them rather than passive bonuses and yet they just bring in more passive kitten after saying it.

I’d argue the issue is more related to adrenal health moreso than healing signet. Move adrenal health to a dps oriented tree and you completely change the Warrior’s dynamic.

Aside from the mobility issue (change Rush to 900 and make Whirlwind the burst skill) and moving adrenal health to Strength I think the Warrior’s where it need to be. Or at the very least it would be on par with the Guardian class, something ANet keeps telling us is perfect.

The signet is over 400h/s adrenal health is roughly 100h/s or a little less on average, not exactly sure what you mean by this actually, you mean the super damage zerker warriors (granted they are not nearly the worst) needs more survivability???

I’m saying that nearly every single Warrior in existence runs both signet and adrenal health and simply moving adrenal health will likely nerf the passive healing enough to fix the Warrior overall. Especially if you move it into a DPS tree, especially strength, something most Warriors never touch.

Adjusting the actual signet on the other hand isn’t so simple. Any nerf to the passive would need to be offset by a boost to the active (which is often the #1 complaint with the signet… it’s so good there’s no reason to activate it). But increasing the active portion is tricky because it would also likely need to come with a cooldown increase.

Adrenal Health is a better option imo. But this is the Ranger forum, so lets get back to complaining about them.

Atherakhia.4086:

Manekk.6981:

Atherakhia.4086:

Manekk.6981:

I been dumbstruck by the warrior healing signet change ever since it was implemented, it seems so screamingly obvious to me it should have stayed at the 200h/s passive while increasing the activated heal rather than the kittened way it was done, it’s just crazy to me how anyone could have looked at it and thought this was the good way to change this healing skill I can’t think of any reason other than that was made too strong on purpose because nobody could make such a dumb move with balance in mind it even goes against their own vision that skills should rely more on players actively choosing when to use them rather than passive bonuses and yet they just bring in more passive kitten after saying it.

I’d argue the issue is more related to adrenal health moreso than healing signet. Move adrenal health to a dps oriented tree and you completely change the Warrior’s dynamic.

Aside from the mobility issue (change Rush to 900 and make Whirlwind the burst skill) and moving adrenal health to Strength I think the Warrior’s where it need to be. Or at the very least it would be on par with the Guardian class, something ANet keeps telling us is perfect.

The signet is over 400h/s adrenal health is roughly 100h/s or a little less on average, not exactly sure what you mean by this actually, you mean the super damage zerker warriors (granted they are not nearly the worst) needs more survivability???

I’m saying that nearly every single Warrior in existence runs both signet and adrenal health and simply moving adrenal health will likely nerf the passive healing enough to fix the Warrior overall. Especially if you move it into a DPS tree, especially strength, something most Warriors never touch.

Adjusting the actual signet on the other hand isn’t so simple. Any nerf to the passive would need to be offset by a boost to the active (which is often the #1 complaint with the signet… it’s so good there’s no reason to activate it). But increasing the active portion is tricky because it would also likely need to come with a cooldown increase.

Adrenal Health is a better option imo. But this is the Ranger forum, so lets get back to complaining about them.

I don’t think anyone picks points in defence to get adrenal health it’s obviously a very nice bonus but they do it to get cleansing ire, I disagree with you on this I think it’s absolutely the signet passive that is too strong and it’s quite obvious to me anyway plus it seems totally wrong to move adrenal health to anywhere but in the defence tree, the active signet heal could be stronger though like I already said, and by reducing the passive you wouldn’t need to change cd at all less passive more active it doesn’t even have to be much but currently it’s 0 reason to use the active so it’s obviously unbalanced within itself.

Manekk.6981:

Atherakhia.4086:

Manekk.6981:

Atherakhia.4086:

Manekk.6981:

I been dumbstruck by the warrior healing signet change ever since it was implemented, it seems so screamingly obvious to me it should have stayed at the 200h/s passive while increasing the activated heal rather than the kittened way it was done, it’s just crazy to me how anyone could have looked at it and thought this was the good way to change this healing skill I can’t think of any reason other than that was made too strong on purpose because nobody could make such a dumb move with balance in mind it even goes against their own vision that skills should rely more on players actively choosing when to use them rather than passive bonuses and yet they just bring in more passive kitten after saying it.

I’d argue the issue is more related to adrenal health moreso than healing signet. Move adrenal health to a dps oriented tree and you completely change the Warrior’s dynamic.

Aside from the mobility issue (change Rush to 900 and make Whirlwind the burst skill) and moving adrenal health to Strength I think the Warrior’s where it need to be. Or at the very least it would be on par with the Guardian class, something ANet keeps telling us is perfect.

The signet is over 400h/s adrenal health is roughly 100h/s or a little less on average, not exactly sure what you mean by this actually, you mean the super damage zerker warriors (granted they are not nearly the worst) needs more survivability???

I’m saying that nearly every single Warrior in existence runs both signet and adrenal health and simply moving adrenal health will likely nerf the passive healing enough to fix the Warrior overall. Especially if you move it into a DPS tree, especially strength, something most Warriors never touch.

Adjusting the actual signet on the other hand isn’t so simple. Any nerf to the passive would need to be offset by a boost to the active (which is often the #1 complaint with the signet… it’s so good there’s no reason to activate it). But increasing the active portion is tricky because it would also likely need to come with a cooldown increase.

Adrenal Health is a better option imo. But this is the Ranger forum, so lets get back to complaining about them.

I don’t think anyone picks points in defence to get adrenal health it’s obviously a very nice bonus but they do it to get cleansing ire, I disagree with you on this I think it’s absolutely the signet passive that is too strong and it’s quite obvious to me anyway plus it seems totally wrong to move adrenal health to anywhere but in the defence tree, the active signet heal could be stronger though like I already said, and by reducing the passive you wouldn’t need to change cd at all less passive more active it doesn’t even have to be much but currently it’s 0 reason to use the active so it’s obviously unbalanced within itself.

I’ll just say I disagree so we can get back onto the Ranger topic. There are already half a dozen threads on healing signet on half as many forums so no need to discuss it here.

jcbroe.4329:

A big, big problem I have with the ranger class is how thematically correct it feels.

For instance, stepping outside of the realm of numerical balance for a moment, Thieves feel like a thief should feel when you play one. You can jump in and out of combat almost seamlessly with stealths and evades and steals while in the meantime, jumping in for an assassination style big damage move every once in awhile. You have thief style traps and support, and the class just flows well overall.

The same can be said for classes like the warrior, which, to avoid going into long descriptions, feels like a heavy armored DPS’er, and the Guardian plays exactly how a heavy armor supporter should play.

Necro, Engi, Ele, and mesmer all play thematically correctly as well, Necro with attrition style gameplay, heavy conditions, minions, and lifestealing, Engi with pistols and rifles and gadgets/gizmos and potions, elementalists as an elemental spell caster, and mesmers with clones and moves based around deception and illusion, and shattering those illusions for better damage and support.

And….

Then we get to ranger. The class is just all over the place. Sure, we have bows. But the bows are very bland and just come off as generic ranged DPS with nothing really “unique” thematically as far as feel or visuals or mechanics go. Truthfully, the warrior rifle does “feel” thematically more like a ranger bow should than our actual bow choices, which are all basically just “shoot an arrow, shoot some more arrows, shoot some arrows in a cone, shoot them in an area.”

The melee weapons (and Axe and Dagger) actually fit the ranger as far as the beastmaster aspect goes. They play off of the pet well, and get you in with your pet to do help it with it’s DPS while you DPS, or allowing you to jump in and out and skirmish with an opponent while being evasive while the pet is doing damage.

That’s as far as it goes though. The utilities, aside from spirits and traps (the shouts try but they don’t do much as far as function and mechanics go), are all bland and really generic in nature and function, and don’t really support any unique theme that differentiates the class from any other class.

Really, the bow mechanic for this class is actually the thing that feels the most tacted on. Aside from the name Marksmanship and a single trait (Eagle Eye), there isn’t a single traitline that allows Rangers to truly specialize towards bows (bows can be enhanced, but those same enhancements effect all available weaponsets), and there are no utilities that help ranger players specialize towards using a bow.

However, there are multiple options that allow rangers to specialize towards skirmishing and/or supporting with traps and spirits and pet enhancing shouts and signets, with multiple traits that enhance melee options (Axe and Dagger included) and offhand options.

That is the ranger conundrum, so to speak. That the class shows off the use of bows and psychologically appeals to people who are looking for a ranged bow archetype, but then the game presents them thematically with the perfect Beastmaster class that has a very bland archery option with poor supplementary options for the playstyle.

Either the name needs changing to Beastmaster or the class needs an overall revamp to bring up bows to a place the has the same “feel” as the melee options from a gameplay enjoyment perspective, allowing players to truly have the option to play with an archer focus, and take supplementary utilities and traits that support players playing in a ranged archetype playstyle.

Until then, it is the only portion of any class that I personally have found to be amiss and not be thematically correct, or even fluid, for that class.

That is a good point about the bows. There are a few unique things like piercing arrows + sun spirit for aoe burns. But something like preparations would work so much better, ie burning arrows or poison arrows. They should replace the crappy shouts with a utility that applies to all weapons. Its kind of already there with sharpening stone. They should just create a few more of those.

You can prepare both burning and poison arrows, as shown in the ranger combo table as well as healing and chilling arrows.

But the effects of combos (throughout the game) are really weak and need a big boost. Combos are how we are supposed to gain skill moves on top of our tiny number of skill slots, and how we are supposed to co-operate between classes since GW2 attempts to abolish the tank/healer/damage trinity.

Try Bonfire + Rapid Fire. This combo field was showcased as a key ranger skill at launch, and you can see it in this Anet video but if you try it, you’ll be lucky to get a single, insignificant burn. (And the fan-out skill shown in the video, perhaps shortbow 2, isn’t even a combo finisher!)

Yeh I’ve tried using combos in that way but as you say they are really weak. The durations are just way too short.

That is probably why ANET shied away from preparations though.

That’s a good point about combo fields. In their current state I don’t even pay much attention to combo fields and finishers on my ranger because they are rarely worth the effort or inconvenience unless your stacking with a group, except maybe blast finishers on a healing spring.

But just think about the potential the ranger has when it comes to combo fields and finishers. They could become king of combos so to speak, with both themselves and their pet being able to place and utilize fields. This would also help address the lack of synergy between the ranger and its pet, which I explained in my last post.

First off, combo fields and finishers need a rework. The effect of many of the finishers and fields are insignificant and need to be buffed. Combo fields should be a significant part of the combat in all game aspects, not a tiny buff like they are for everything but zerg play.

Secondly, more skills need to create combo fields or be combo finishers. There are many skills that would make perfect sense being a combo finisher or field, such as with the greatsword were maul could be blast and the end of the auto-attack could be whirl, so why not give some of these skills finishers or fields?

The effects are either way too short, or way too weak at small scale. However when zerging fields are dropped and combo’d so often that the short duration doesn’t matter. That being the case I think they can afford to greatly increase them.

That would probably create more balance issues though with classes having different amounts of access to finishers and fields. Its definitely not low hanging fruit…

Most of the blast and leap finishers are too short (as in the effect they give) which really lessons them, projectile and whirls are pretty good for the most part.

Also, Combo fields are a big part, you can achieve a lot of stuff by taking advantage of fields instead of ignoring them, ESPECIALLY as a ranger who has access to just about every field in the game. Hell with the proper pets we actually outshine staff eles in terms of fields…

That being said, i fully agree that combo fields should be a much bigger part of the game.

EDIT: actually upon further inspection of the finishers (assuming the wiki is right) most of them are pretty dreaming strong…

Durzlla.6295:

Most of the blast and leap finishers are too short (as in the effect they give) which really lessons them, projectile and whirls are pretty good for the most part.

Also, Combo fields are a big part, you can achieve a lot of stuff by taking advantage of fields instead of ignoring them, ESPECIALLY as a ranger who has access to just about every field in the game. Hell with the proper pets we actually outshine staff eles in terms of fields…

That being said, i fully agree that combo fields should be a much bigger part of the game.

EDIT: actually upon further inspection of the finishers (assuming the wiki is right) most of them are pretty dreaming strong…

Apart from the heals, which ones do you think are strong Durz? The only fields we can reliably put down on demand (so excluding pets) are fire and water.

Water – ok heals are nice, but

Fire – its either burning arrows, which can be better done buy sun spirit, or area might but I think i’d rather use that for the heal if im using warhorn.

I don’t think that longbow is very useful for any of the projectile finishers rangers can create by themselves. Particularly, I find that most of the fields we can create serve condition or healing based gameplay the best.

Not that it is a bad thing, but again, it leaves the range of functionality throughout our builds very one dimensional.

If being able to blast in our fire fields was a little more on demand, and not dependent on a drake RNG’ing it or a long cooldown warhorn skill, it would be a different story.

But overall I think the the range of effectiveness of the projectile finishers we can create with bows through our own feels is very lackluster.

Sube Dai.8496:

Durzlla.6295:

Most of the blast and leap finishers are too short (as in the effect they give) which really lessons them, projectile and whirls are pretty good for the most part.

Also, Combo fields are a big part, you can achieve a lot of stuff by taking advantage of fields instead of ignoring them, ESPECIALLY as a ranger who has access to just about every field in the game. Hell with the proper pets we actually outshine staff eles in terms of fields…

That being said, i fully agree that combo fields should be a much bigger part of the game.

EDIT: actually upon further inspection of the finishers (assuming the wiki is right) most of them are pretty dreaming strong…

Apart from the heals, which ones do you think are strong Durz? The only fields we can reliably put down on demand (so excluding pets) are fire and water.

Water – ok heals are nice, but

Fire – its either burning arrows, which can be better done buy sun spirit, or area might but I think i’d rather use that for the heal if im using warhorn.

we can also, you know, leap through the fire field and get a fire aura which burns them and gives us might when hit…

Also, i’d say that ice would also be a reliable one since it’s just from a trap, and poison would also be reliable due to Murrellow being very good at putting it down in combat, and how long it lasts…

For frost it gives you access to frost aura (both aoe and on yourself) which reduces all damage taken by 10% and chills the enemy, which is just great if you’re being defensive. The poison one allows you to apply a lot of weakness, 8s on a leap and 5s on aoe blast.

5 seconds of fire/frost armour or 3 seconds of chaos…so what? I’ll just avoid you for 5 seconds…

Much more effective to use one of those leaps on healing spring for the heal.

I mean I’m happy to be proven wrong but can anyone honestly say that combos make the difference in a fight (at small scale)?

Atherakhia.4086:

Been asking what the Ranger is supposed to do in this game for a year. Best of luck getting an answer.

I think in one of the states of the game Karl said* something along the lines of “Rangers are the long-range masters and potent skirmishers.” So after that they lower the range on short bow to make long bow more appealing (not even their first change on that weapon).

Terravos.4059:

I’m still under the opinion that Pets in this game were added kitten.

I think they just wanted an actual pet class in the game, and the Ranger was chosen, problem is they spent so much time in beta trying to get the bloody things to work with pathing that they didn’t actually spend anytime on the pet system in general.

I don’t see them fleshing out the system as well, since Most of the players in this game in the SPvP side seem to really dislike dealing with AI to the point where in past games if you dealt with a Pet class you killed its pet, while in this game the method seems to be Complain to the Devs till it gets nerfed

I laugh everytime I see an SPvP player talk about playing Camelot Unchained when it comes out, Since i’m pretty sure they’re going to slit their wrist soon as they run into a class like the Theurgist/Bonedancer/Animist of DAOC.

Here we go:

Summoned creature AI is a different can of worms that we aren’t opening for the same reason. Pets that delay F2 use isn’t some wait script we put into their skills it has to do with core AI behavior shared by all pets and creatures and how they decide tasks. Rewriting that has the risks of breaking millions of unknown things so we have up until now band aided the solution. It is something that needs addressing but won’t be addressed until we can kitten how and when we will test it.

It feels to me that over the coarse of the games development there have not been a single team continually working on ranger. So we then run into the hypothetical 2nd team hating what the original team designed, but in lacking the resources to rework the profession just pick a part they do like and focus entirely on it.

*State of the game link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCUvIrH2BlU not where to skip to it to hear the exact quote I can not really subject myself to that one again.

Bran.7425:

*State of the game link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCUvIrH2BlU not where to skip to it to here the exact quote I can not really subject myself to that one again.

5:25. Here you go http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=zCUvIrH2BlU#t=3324

Sube Dai.8496:

5 seconds of fire/frost armour or 3 seconds of chaos…so what? I’ll just avoid you for 5 seconds…

Much more effective to use one of those leaps on healing spring for the heal.

I mean I’m happy to be proven wrong but can anyone honestly say that combos make the difference in a fight (at small scale)?

Do you not realize how detrimental avoiding someone for 5s is? Especially since we are, you know, rangers and our sword auto will not allow you the mercy of avoiding us…

guys i think its time to face it…
Devs dont care about our overanalyzing..
Sure we have more knowledge cause we play this class everyday but the devs dont care if Ranger is fun or not, they just check numbers, they dont analyze anything at all….

See Spirit Rangers in spvp………Totally boring, totally frustating, everybody hates it, everyone complains about it.What the devs did?
Nothing, minor nerfs, minor buffs to alternative builds..Still spirits keep the Ranger in “pro”———> (i laugh everytime) teams so the numbers show that Rangers are fine in spvp….

So i have something to say to you..
Play other games, not a rage qq proposal…Just so you can relax as i did since i started facing the fact that GW2 gave everything it had and there are other games out there with more depth and were they care if their customers are actually having fun….

I think class will never be reworked. Dev just no need this, I think they understand that they cant do nothing to support this game at good level. I never saw such bad lvl of balance in other games. Anet understand that they will lose lion part of customers after new expansion of WoW and etc and they understand that it will take to much of resources to improve GW2, it just do not cost it so they ll try to get from game what they can without hard work to support the game. Anycase that is why this game have no monthly subscribtion. I am shure the game will be almost the same till it lose all fans like Warhammer AOR and other games that now R I P.
PS I ll just never buy anything from Anet and that was my lesson. I bought Guild War 2 and not World of warriors and assasins.

Durzlla.6295:

Do you not realize how detrimental avoiding someone for 5s is? Especially since we are, you know, rangers and our sword auto will not allow you the mercy of avoiding us…

Please take a look at this thread about that.

Guys, in order to keep the thread from becoming toxic, I just want to say this; regardless of whether the devs are or are not doing the job we would like them to do, and regardless of whether or not we are of the opinion that they care about the community’s concerns or not, it shouldn’t be used as an excuse to avoid adding constructive ideas to a discussion in favor of criticizing the devs in a not constructive way.

Sure, they may not ever make some people happy. No, actually, they will never make some people happy. But the very least we can do is collect our constructive ideas and present them in a way that is explanatory but also creates an opportunity to have an open dialogue with the developers about concerns with the game that we are having in the hopes that they follow up and connect with the community in a way that pushes the devs and the community towards a better understanding, at the very least.

All I’m saying is that it doesn’t hurt to keep putting ideas out and being constructive (in any thread, for any class). At least at the end of the day, we can show that we as players have a voice and we can choose to use that voice.

If the devs never respond, or never make the changes that make us happy, then at the very least, we get to walk away from the experience knowing that at the very least, we were the ones who tried to help and to try to do something, even if the devs do nothing.

With that in mind, I haven’t had much to update the list with, but I will update this thread with another summary soon, so there is some visibility as to what has been discussed and we can continue discussing about anything that can be added afterwards.

Also, thanks to everybody for their discussion (and continued discussion) on this thread. It has been very civil and constructive, so it is nice to see the community come together and be able to express thoughts and ideas in this manner.

Keep it up

Sube Dai.8496:

5 seconds of fire/frost armour or 3 seconds of chaos…so what? I’ll just avoid you for 5 seconds…

Much more effective to use one of those leaps on healing spring for the heal.

I mean I’m happy to be proven wrong but can anyone honestly say that combos make the difference in a fight (at small scale)?

The only time I have ever really seen someone actively use them is ele’s using frost armor to pretty much guarantee an escape from battle. Chaos is pretty powerful (like really) but is hard to apply due to the relative rarity of chaos fields.

We can pull it off with the F2 Porcine Gunk move but relying on RNG to win is just a bad idea.

Make acquiring a pet to require putting 5-10 points in the beastmastery trait line. Otherwise, you have no pet. Your damage is unscaled. Your utility skills are unbound so that almost all of them are no longer pet oriented and rely on the poor pet AI. This will let people who want the traditional pet class have a pet and people who want the traditional archer class to have an archer or a ranger who is very agile at dodging/applying conditions/setting traps and do competent damage.

Make putting 5-15 points in marksmenship give you “quiver” attunements, or some kind of “natural poison” attunment, similiar to elementalists/guardians that apply effects like weakness/poison/burning/chill once every 5 seconds.

And please let us use our pets secondary abilities on demand. One more keybinding won’t scare away gamers. Not having access, on demand , to my pet’s CC really irritates me, because Rangers lack CC, and we’re suppose to fill that role with our pet, but it’s very shoddy. That’s really at the core of all the issues wrong with the profession. We rely on our pets yet they are just unreliable.

Great thread, jcbroe! Some ad hominems and such earlier, but a lot of substance overall.

I would like to reiterate just two points:
Trait Compression is Required

I play with signets on both my Ranger and Necro. It goes something like this:
Ranger, choose Adept – Signet Mastery, Master – Beastmaster’s Might and Grandmaster – Signet of the Beastmaster. This will give my Ranger reduced recharge on signets and activating a signet grants might, while sinking 30 points into the “Marksmanship” line.
Necromancer, choose Adept - Signet Mastery. This will give me exactly the same as on my Ranger, while allowing me to pick and choose from a Master or even Grandmaster trait if I even want to take the “Spite” line that far.

I play with longbow on both my Ranger and Warrior. It goes something like this:
Ranger, choose Master – Eagle Eye and Master – Quick Draw, burning 40 points in two separate lines to get reduced recharge on longbow skills, with increased range (300) and damage (5%).
Warrior, choose Adept – Stronger Bowstrings and Master – Burning Arrows, using only 20 points in one line to get reduced recharge on longbow skills, with increased range (20%; 200 to 240 depending on weapon skill used) and damage (when the target is burning; almost always available due to weapon skills).

Just two examples that I’m personally aware of, but they prove the point.

Utility Skills Need to be Reevaluated
I’ll use my Ranger vs. Necro example again. I only run two signets on each.

My Ranger’s SotH gives +25% speed on passive and a 50% damage increase for one attack of each my pet and Ranger when activated. SoS gives extra toughness on passive and 6 seconds of immunity to direct damage (only) on active.
My Necro’s SotL gives +25% speed on passive and does damage and heals from up to 5 targets in 1200 range on active. SoS gives extra power on passive and does damage and inflict bleeding, blindness, crippled, poison, vulnerability, and weakness on your foe on active.

That’s just an apples to apples comparison, ignoring the previous trait investment disparity. Which two sets of signets would you rather run?

I’m not going to touch on a third point: Pets, as they are (developer) admittedly broken beyond repair. There have been some very nice ideas on anything from band-aids to minor surgery, but with the mechanic being broken, I’m not confident the developers can (or want to) touch pets at all.

Beastmaster’s Might always confuses me, I run Signet Build on my thief for huge hits for the lawls every now and again.

Their Traits are much shorter cooldowns, making it far more viable.. and their actives work far better then it….Why would anyone waste all your passives/actives when ya don’t need to for 9 stacks of might i’ll never get…

Terravos.4059:

Beastmaster’s Might always confuses me, I run Signet Build on my thief for huge hits for the lawls every now and again.

Their Traits are much shorter cooldowns, making it far more viable.. and their actives work far better then it….Why would anyone waste all your passives/actives when ya don’t need to for 9 stacks of might i’ll never get…

It’s in the name, BEASTMASTERS, try a 20/0/0/20/30 build with DPS pets, you could give your pet 18stacks of might for 20s, in addition to the other effects of the signets, it gets pretty ridiculous and actually gets to the point where you can one shot people (squishies obviously)

There is now a class balance forum for us to post dialog (hopefully with ANet) but also the wider community as well. Jc, do you feel like summarizing some of the thoughts presented in this thread and starting a Ranger class thread over on that forum?

Definitely. I’ll be compiling my final list and doing a writeup. I was taking the day off of Guild Wars 2 to spend with my significant other before she heads back out of state for another long semester, but I’m working on it and will have a thread going there immediately.

Edit:

Pasted for my own purposes:

• Pet responsiveness
• Reliance on small handful of traits for every working build
• Pet survival not being balanced adequately for large scale engagements
• Utilities completely outclassing other utilities
• Weapons not having unique and competitive functions/roles versus content
• Pet class that harms pets, contradicting by design
• More functionality/gameplay options for pets
• Trait reorganization stressing hybridization over heavy investment
• Lack of immediately recognizable role for team compositions

Update: The thread has been added to the new forum. Let’s see how this goes. Feel free to add anything that I’ve missed over there, as there was a lot discussed. Also, it helps keep it bump’d

Update number 2: Links are always nice, aren’t they? https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Ranger-Balance-PvP-WvW-PvE-PvX/first#post3481020

A while back I have commented on this discussion with the promise to come back to it at a later moment. I have read the thread in part and decided to make another kind of post first. This is because the whole deal of balance has me pondering about implications of ‘balance’ and thus what balance should be or could be, and as a consequence what would be good/bad for GW2.

This thread has implications for this topic, but is a more ‘general balance’ discussion or rather, a more profound discussion on ‘what type of balance’ we are after. It also has implications on which kind of balance suggestions we should be asking for, and which kind of suggestions we can expect to be honoured.

Seeing I experienced the ranger community as respectful and thoughtful, I think I should link to this tread, also because it has some implications for the subject.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Balance-Diversity-vs-Equality-and-Choice/first#post3516297
please take some time to let the OP sink in, this isn’t the kind of ‘nerf this/buf that’ kind of discussion, but more of a ‘what is balance’ or ‘what do we want it to be’ thread. Very basic yet at the same time very deep and profound. Hopefully the thread can contribute to this discussion, and others, and make the result of the effort better, as well as make GW2 better.

Seeing I do not have the answers either, I will wait for the discussion to take off, and perhaps formalize to some conclusion, after which I think it will be easier to analyse the Ranger and make some justified suggestions for change.