Guild Wars 2

Just some food for thought.

Trait overhaul – Marksmanship
(These suggestions all take into account a possible change that active effect of signets apply to the ranger instead of the pet, or to both the ranger and the pet)

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Minor traits:

Adept
Current: You have opening strike
Suggestion: You and your pet have opening strike

Master
Current: Pets have opening strike
Suggestion: When you swap pets, you and your pet regain opening strike

Grandmaster
Current: Opening strike always critical hits
Suggestion: Opening strike always critical hits, and you regain opening strike for you and your pet when you kill a foe.

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Major traits:

Steady focus
Current: Damage increases by 10% when endurance is full
Suggestion: No change

Malicious Training
Current: Increases duration for conditions applied by your pets by 50%
Suggestion: Increases duration for conditions applied by your pets by 100%

Keen Edge
Current: Use Sharpening Stone when your health reaches 75%
Suggestion: Use Sharpening Stone when your health reaches 50% and gain quickness, duration 3 seconds (internal cooldown 30 seconds)

Signet Mastery
Current: Signets recharge 20% faster
Suggestion: Signets recharge 25% faster. Activating a signet grants 2 stacks of might for 5 seconds for you and your pet.

Predator’s Instinct
Current: Apply cripple (for 2 seconds) to foes you hit when they are below 25% health (15-second cooldown).
Suggestion: Apply cripple (for 2 seconds) to foes you hit when they are below 25% health (15-second cooldown). You and your pet gain swiftness for 5 seconds.

Beastmaster’s Bond
Current: Gain fury and might (3 stacks) when your pet’s health reaches 25% (for 9 seconds)
Suggestion: Gain fury and might (3 stacks) when your pet’s health reaches 25% (for 15 seconds)

Spotter
Current: Increases precision of nearby allies by up to 70 points
Suggestion: Increases power and precision for you, your pet and nearby allies by up to 35 points

Piercing Arrows
Current: All arrow attacks pierce targets
Suggestion: All ranged weapon attacks pierce targets

Beastmaster’s Might
Current: Activating a signet grants might (1 stack for 5 seconds).
Suggestion: Activating a signet grants you and nearby allies aegis for 10 seconds.

Eagle Eye
Current: Increases longbow and harpoon gun range. Increases longbow and harpoon gun damage by 5%
Suggestion: Increases longbow and harpoon gun range. Increases projectile speed by 25%

Signet of the Beastmaster
Current: Active effects of signets also affect you.
Suggestion: All of your signets are recharged when you swap pets (internal cooldown 45 seconds)

Remorseless
Current: Regain Opening Strikes when you kill a foe.
Current: You and your pet adds en extra stack of vulnerability when using opening strike, and the effect lasts longer (10 seconds, up from 5)

Prepare to join my trait fixing ideas in the suggestion forums that I posted yesterday TT. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Condition-Trap-Ranger-Trait-suggestions/first#post985162
Minor Trait tweaks:
Master – that means every 16 (traited) or 20 seconds we apply a passive 10 stack of vulnerability that lasts for around 10 seconds itself. at least 50% uptime on a 10% bonus damage that self applies is much to powerful and belongs in a 5 point thief ability.

Major trait tweaks:
Eagle Eye – they are reworking projectile speed, wait for it.
Steady Focus – should be when endurance is not full or at least “when above 50%” as in PvP 100% endurance is never a possibility.
Keen’s Edge – would be too powerful, keep it as is
Signet of the beastmaster – Much too strong, also this would trigger off the first pet swap so using this would delay pet swapping and double signet use in a short period of time (like 12 seconds of damage immunity and double use of stability).

I really think signets should have been originally designed to affect the player by default without going 30 points into marksmanship and taking a grandmaster trait. No other class has 3 of their utilities have no effect on the player like this (as well as many shouts not aiding the player as well).

Miniside rant: A classes specific ability should be a suppliment to the class, not something that parasitically weakens the player, it should also not be something that can significantly strengthen a weaker player. Due to how many traits are thrown into a rangers class trees (in beastmastery and every other tree) rangers miss out on many other options for strengthening their character. I also think that the pet should scale with stats from the player as a nerf will become imminent when you can build tank with high dps pets. This also falls in line with pets complimenting the playstyle of the ranger.

Yes please. As a ranger/hunter/pet based class player in every game, we need some changes to the ranger.

Commenting on some of the above changes.

Minor Traits – These are pretty poor now (vulnerability isn’t that great, and it doesn’t last long enough to make a big difference, compare to say Engineer vulnerability stacking) and the new ones wouldn’t really improve it that much, but I guess any change to these would be welcome.

Keen Edge would be overpowered. The Ranger already has the most quickness in the game, we don’t need more. Throwing this as a multi-skill trait is just ridiculous. Sharpening Stones is pretty weak though, and thus this trait is fairly weak so a buff would be welcome, but nothing too extreme.

Signet Mastery – This trait is already really good, one of our better traits for a signet build (I run Wild and Stone and use it). There is no need to buff it, much less in multiple ways.

Predator’s Instinct – Meh, still wouldn’t use it.

Spotter – Why? Buffing precision is fine. Warriors buff power.

Piercing Arrows – No, axes piercing would be weird, as it’s already an AoE weapon.

Beastmaster’s Might – This would become ridiculously OP with a signet build in a group situation.

Signet of the Beastmaster – Huge nerf to this skill. It’s one our most overpowered traits. We NEED this for a signet build. Why would I want to recharge useless actives that only effect my pet (with the exception of Stone maybe) as a trade off for actually receiving them myself? I’m relying on Wild and Stone actives right now in my build.

If anything our Marksmanship Trait Line doesn’t need much looking at. Our Nature Magic however….

Nice to see some discussion about the proposed changes, all I ever wanted really!

Now, a few comments on your comments!

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Taym:
The main reason for the suggestions when it comes to the opening strikes traits, is that these are mostly only really useful in regular pve vs trash mobs. It’s a decent opener in pvp, and worthless vs champion and boss mobs that have lots of health. A one trick thing, then if you’re specked with remorseless, you have en entire trait line that you have no use for at all really, when fighting tougher mobs. One/two opening strike(s) in a fight that lasts perhaps 5 minutes or more doesn’t really make much of a difference at all.

I agree on steady focus, when endurance is above 50% would be good.

Keen edge, I don’t think it would be overpowered. You don’t get it on demand since I believe you don’t normally try and get your health below 50% in the first place. See it as a “strike back” ability with a little more sting in it, compared to current implementation. Perhaps add quickness to the pet instead, but if so, it should last longer considering the limitations of pets.

Signet of the beastmaster could be very strong indeed with the suggested change. How about a longer internal cooldown, say 240 seconds?

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AIMonster:
I think you missed to read at the very beginning of my post, where I said “These suggestions all take into account a possible change that active effect of signets apply to the ranger instead of the pet, or to both the ranger and the pet”!

The suggestion to “Predator’s Instinct” was to allow for easier “catching up” to a fleeing target, which I guess is one of the main reason this skill exists? Or for that matter, making it easier to get away from your target, even though the former is probably more common reason to use it.

I agree on your comment on piercing arrows, so scrap that idea altogether!

Beastmaster’s Might, yeah probably op. How about aegis for you and your pet only?

Personally, and given the large split in the Ranger community on their opinion on pets, I’d like the see the trait trees used to encourage different styles of play for the ranger if we were going to legitimately have a real review of the traits.

The marks tree should focus on improving the ranged weapons and leave the pet options to the beast mastery tree.

Sharpening Stones is also not great. Why not make this thing make our critical damage increase by XX% for 10 seconds, or just increase critical strike chance by XX% for 10 seconds? The extra bleeds is not needed and is one of those things in PvE where once they’re up they’re fine and the trait is waste until movement issues come up but someone can usually keep it up.

Predatory Instincts is also kind of a waste, especially if you use short bow since you’re never using your skills anyway because it’s a loss of damage and you’re saving the cripple and daze for runners anyway. This is another place we could see something more fun and useful to make the marks tree feel more like a ranged support tree and less like BM lite. A critical strike will cause you to have a 25% chance to crit again for the next 10 seconds. Can only proc once every 10 seconds. Consumed on crit.

I also feel the grandmaster trait is a bit weak, don’t you? I would rather see opening strike changed to provide fewer stacks or shorter duration but apply more often. Like 50% chance for your crits to provide it for example. Move grandmaster down and make it so opening strikes have 100% chance to crit and deal +50% crit damage. And make the grandmaster talent something like Shortbow has +10% chance to crit, Longbow has +10% crit damage, Axe crits regain vigor.

At least this way opening strike is more useful on longer encounters or against swarms where you may not leave combat often. Unless someone knows a trick to drop combat that I don’t?

Some of your traits seem fine though. I was under the impression spotter did increase our precision though? If it doesn’t, then that’s just stupid.

I was also surprised to see no ranged attacks open up with skill points. Why was everything traps and terrible spirits? But that’s for another thread I suppose.

OGDeadHead.8326:

Just some food for thought.

Trait overhaul – Marksmanship
(These suggestions all take into account a possible change that active effect of signets apply to the ranger instead of the pet, or to both the ranger and the pet)

*

Minor traits:

Adept
Current: You have opening strike
Suggestion: You and your pet have opening strike

Master
Current: Pets have opening strike
Suggestion: When you swap pets, you and your pet regain opening strike

Grandmaster
Current: Opening strike always critical hits
Suggestion: Opening strike always critical hits, and you regain opening strike for you and your pet when you kill a foe.

*

Major traits:

Steady focus
Current: Damage increases by 10% when endurance is full
Suggestion: No change

Malicious Training
Current: Increases duration for conditions applied by your pets by 50%
Suggestion: Increases duration for conditions applied by your pets by 100%
Kind of OP. So no.

Keen Edge
Current: Use Sharpening Stone when your health reaches 75%
Suggestion: Use Sharpening Stone when your health reaches 50% and gain quickness, duration 3 seconds (internal cooldown 30 seconds)
I feel like the quickness is unnecessary.

Signet Mastery
Current: Signets recharge 20% faster
Suggestion: Signets recharge 25% faster. Activating a signet grants 2 stacks of might for 5 seconds for you and your pet.
Reduce signet recharge back to 20% and we have a deal.

Predator’s Instinct
Current: Apply cripple (for 2 seconds) to foes you hit when they are below 25% health (15-second cooldown).
Suggestion: Apply cripple (for 2 seconds) to foes you hit when they are below 25% health (15-second cooldown). You and your pet gain swiftness for 5 seconds.
A longer cripple would work as well (~3s), but this works too.

Beastmaster’s Bond
Current: Gain fury and might (3 stacks) when your pet’s health reaches 25% (for 9 seconds)
Suggestion: Gain fury and might (3 stacks) when your pet’s health reaches 25% (for 15 seconds)
I feel that 9s is enough.

Spotter
Current: Increases precision of nearby allies by up to 70 points
Suggestion: Increases power and precision for you, your pet and nearby allies by up to 35 points
I don’t mind it the way it is, warriors give power. Why gives rangers a crappy version of both?

Piercing Arrows
Current: All arrow attacks pierce targets
Suggestion: All ranged weapon attacks pierce targets
Axes already bounce, the only thing I can think of that doesn’t already pierce with the trait is the Harpoon Gun

Beastmaster’s Might
Current: Activating a signet grants might (1 stack for 5 seconds).
Suggestion: Activating a signet grants you and nearby allies aegis for 10 seconds.
Interesting. I’ll agree that the current trait is terrible. This could world.

Eagle Eye
Current: Increases longbow and harpoon gun range. Increases longbow and harpoon gun damage by 5%
Suggestion: Increases longbow and harpoon gun range. Increases projectile speed by 25%
I suggested this a while back as a means to make up for the distance traveled; I agree.

Signet of the Beastmaster
Current: Active effects of signets also affect you.
Suggestion: All of your signets are recharged when you swap pets (internal cooldown 45 seconds)
This would ruin my signet build and demolish one of the few viable builds still remaining for the ranger.

Remorseless
Current: Regain Opening Strikes when you kill a foe.
Current: You and your pet adds en extra stack of vulnerability when using opening strike, and the effect lasts longer (10 seconds, up from 5)
I don’t quite understand, “extra stack of vulnerability”. We already apply 10 stacks through opening strike and 5 seconds is enough.

I don’t understand the people expressing negative thoughts about keen edge. Other than the splitblade bug this ability will apply 5 bleeds for 6 seconds each (+condi duration) which at a base level is 1500 damage, which is not bad at all. For a condition spec’d player this damage would increase to 4280 damage over 8 seconds. Although it may not be a strong ability for a straight power build it is a strong ability for the condi lines.

Taym.8326:

I don’t understand the people expressing negative thoughts about keen edge. Other than the splitblade bug this ability will apply 5 bleeds for 6 seconds each (+condi duration) which at a base level is 1500 damage, which is not bad at all. For a condition spec’d player this damage would increase to 4280 damage over 8 seconds. Although it may not be a strong ability for a straight power build it is a strong ability for the condi lines.

It’s a decent trait in it’s current form, but since the trait belongs in the pool of abilities that you have no real control over, that’s the reason for my suggested buff. How does it compare to steady focus in your opinion?

Steady focus
Current: Damage increases by 10% when endurance is full
Suggestion: No change
My Guess : +10% DMG when endu more50% and +15%DMG when endu100%

Keen Edge
Current: Use Sharpening Stone when your health reaches 75%
Suggestion: Use Sharpening Stone when your health reaches 50% and gain quickness, duration 3 seconds (internal cooldown 30 seconds)
My guess should fix Sharpening stone for 5sec of active skill any ATK will bleeding and after end effect you will got next 5Atk bleeding.

OGDeadHead.8326:

Just some food for thought.

Trait overhaul – Marksmanship
(These suggestions all take into account a possible change that active effect of signets apply to the ranger instead of the pet, or to both the ranger and the pet)

*

Minor traits:

Adept
Current: You have opening strike
Suggestion: You and your pet have opening strike

Master
Current: Pets have opening strike
Suggestion: When you swap pets, you and your pet regain opening strike

Grandmaster
Current: Opening strike always critical hits
Suggestion: Opening strike always critical hits, and you regain opening strike for you and your pet when you kill a foe.

I can definitely stand behind the minor trait changes. This would be an elegant way to address the major shortcoming of Opening Strike, which is that it becomes exponentially less worthwhile as the duration of your fight grows.

I like your general idea for the master trait, but instead of on pet swap, how about a percent chance on crit to refresh it? If combined with the grandmaster trait you could get lucky, you could apply 20% vulnerability on a target from you and your pet on your first 2 attacks. However, to offset this, there should be an internal cooldown.

OGDeadHead.8326:

Taym.8326:

I don’t understand the people expressing negative thoughts about keen edge. Other than the splitblade bug this ability will apply 5 bleeds for 6 seconds each (+condi duration) which at a base level is 1500 damage, which is not bad at all. For a condition spec’d player this damage would increase to 4280 damage over 8 seconds. Although it may not be a strong ability for a straight power build it is a strong ability for the condi lines.

It’s a decent trait in it’s current form, but since the trait belongs in the pool of abilities that you have no real control over, that’s the reason for my suggested buff. How does it compare to steady focus in your opinion?

In steady focus’ current form there is no reason to take it (for tpvp) as you will never have full endurance for more than a few seconds at the start of a fight. Whereas for the bleeds that is at least the promise of damage in either a power or condi build, the 10% damage also does not affect conditions meaning its only viable for power builds. From a power point of view I would say that both skills are not that attractive. Like I have said keen’s edge is nearly a 5k bump in damage for condition, if you add something like quickness to that it should belong in the thief tree for how OP it is. We should also remember that these abilities are in the first slot and should not be hugely powerful.

Silverkung.9127:

Steady focus
Current: Damage increases by 10% when endurance is full
Suggestion: No change
My Guess : +10% DMG when endu more50% and +15%DMG when endu100%

Keen Edge
Current: Use Sharpening Stone when your health reaches 75%
Suggestion: Use Sharpening Stone when your health reaches 50% and gain quickness, duration 3 seconds (internal cooldown 30 seconds)
My guess should fix Sharpening stone for 5sec of active skill any ATK will bleeding and after end effect you will got next 5Atk bleeding.

Omg yes!!

However for steady focus I’d say make it 50% should be 5% and 100% should be 15% mostly because otherwise I’d feel it’s to strong for an adept trait.