Guild Wars 2

1) Better Pet Mechanics and Responsiveness.
This is what defines us as a class, but the unresponsive nature, slow attack animations, finicky F2 abilities make them hard to use in Dungeons and sometimes useless in PvP. Their natural movement speed is to slow, the attack speed is slow, and it requires traits to resolve many of these things. Our pets should be fantastic out of the gate, with the option for us to focus on making them awesome; not start off mediocre and spend traits to fix them.

2) Our Melee main hand weapons leave alot to be desired. They focus on elusive game play or snare/pursuit, but we have other weapons to that allow for this while offering better or similar dps from ranged. Its very hard to create a build around these weapons as well. Great Swords just do very poor damage if compared to other classes.

3) Our Ranged Weapons are unbalanced. Let me explain.
SB Auto attack speed WAS nice, and does bleed (3 seconds) on flank. The rest of abilities are generally dps decreases, and offer control and situational items. This promotes a relatively passive form of gameplay which is fun (feels like a machine gun) but unengaging. I would like for our SB 2-4 to hit harder or have a bit more.
Longbow: It is a poor weapon i feel outside of specific situations. Longbow attack speed is very slow, and the damage tapering is a bit extreme on the auto attack.

Agree with points 1 and 2, disagree with point 3. Shortbow’s 2-5 abilities are fantastic. The fact that they hit less hard than our autoattack is a good thing, because it requires us to actually think about when we’re going to use them.

If they did comparable or better damage than Crossfire, you’d just spam everything on cooldown, which promotes less skillful play.

Aside from the accidental quickness nerf from today’s patch, Shortbow is pretty much perfect, imo. Definitely would like to see some damage buffs on Greatsword so we could have a viable melee spec again though.

Actually, what Rangers need is a new option to play without their pet and gain a different profession mechanic to compensate.

Pets will always seem lower in responsiveness and weaker as a whole.

• Because it demands you control two units at once to play your profession optimally, whereas other professions’ summons are simpler units that don’t demand a constant micro of their actions.

Example compensation (taking a shot at part of your problem #3):

• Lonely Composure: Not having a pet would cause your weapon-skill cast times to be reduced.

What Rangers really need is more cowbell.

I agree with the pet comments. I have considered using high dps pets because they need less control to be useful. I would love to use the f2 abilities of other types more frequently but it is so hard to get them to work at the right time…. It isn’t a skill thing…. Its just that pets are too easily undone by simple player movements. Dogs and wolf are prime example in beta you could switch and f2 every time…. Now it is terrible and they always run to target before using ability but if the target moves they just stop grr! Please fix this!

1) Stow Pet

2) Non-Pet build

Sorry, had to go there.

I for one love my pet. (It just needs some work) But having a pet that you can control makes for some pretty good plays. Like sicking my pet on a player I just downed so he cant heal up while I take down hes buddy, then finish them both off. That’s just one example off the top of my head and there’s more. Pets do need some work tho on mechanics and responsiveness. As of right now they’re kinda clunky. I do like the changes Anet has made on pets so far tho.

SB is fine. I thought it needed a nurf in the first place and glad it came.

LB needs either a faster auto attack or higher auto dps and I think it would be great. It has a good ability line up.

GS has great utility but needs a dps buff.

Sword and Dagger are great for evasive melee but there needs to be a bit of a dps buff again. Melee as a Ranger just isn’t rewarding enough.

Warhorn is all around a great off-hand.

Torch is ok imo. It needs something. There just doesn’t seem to be a reason to use Torch over Warhorn.

Axe. Well….I don’t really know what the kitten they can do with Axe. Haven’t played with it much because I don’t really like the play style.

And lol @ all the greats in this post.

Yea pets are getting better slowly. The F2 skill is more responsive than it was in the past.

And I still run longbow/shortbow for PvE and PvP.

I just love the skills on both those weapons. #4 on longbow is just so dang good. it is my fav.

“Actually, what Rangers need is a new option to play without their pet and gain a different profession mechanic to compensate.

Pets will always seem lower in responsiveness and weaker as a whole.

Because it demands you control two units at once to play your profession optimally, whereas other professions’ summons are simpler units that don’t demand a constant micro of their actions."

I dunno, I played DotA for years so this is not a problem at all for me, Pets feel pretty responsive on the F1/F3 keys, if I see champion Kol getting ready to smash with an AoE, I simply hit F3, and watch my pet run back to me, then send him back when the AoE is done with.

And I think alot of people complain about pets because they dont spec beast mastery, I have specced beast mastery and my pet is sick damage wise and tank wise. I use a drake/(Bird or dog or cat) combo of pet line up, and I do fine. In high stress situations your pet MAY die, but thats why you let it stay out till its got only a fraction of its life, then swap out to a new pet. Suddenly you dont have the death swap time penalty, and you have quickness and other fun stuff.

As for the SB nerfs, I dunno, I think you just gotta learn to cope. Everyone says they loved the bleed stacks, but since im power/pet attribute specced, I just used it for the speed, and ability to dodge kitten with well timed 3s, and it had alot of control such as a cripple AND a daze.

we need to learn how to use a staff and more nature magic. i dont feel the support being there. 3 spirits? is that all you got? i want to be able to play like a druid in other games with more nature magic

I think people forget about how much damage the pet does. If you don’t want a pet, roll a warrior. It’s the core mechanic of a Ranger. And if my bow doesn’t deal as much damage as a warrior’s it’s because I have a wolf gnawing on my target’s kitten Pick the right pet and you’re dealing extra bleeds or fear or poison or chill or…you get the idea. I agree with the OP, fix the core mechanic so its responsiveness makes things like Pink Moa’s F2 daze useful as an interupt.

Also, our spirits suck.

Seras.5702:

I think people forget about how much damage the pet does. If you don’t want a pet, roll a warrior. It’s the core mechanic of a Ranger.

Oh yeah! Pets are great for damage dealing!

…Except when the pet has to stop moving to attack a moving target. Or when they refuse to attack that object you’re shooting/beating on. Or when they delay their F2 ability because the game has their other attacks queued up in the background.

But if the target is standing perfectly still, and they decide its a good day to attack it, and when their other abilities aren’t in line waiting to bust a move, then yeah! Pets are great for damage dealing!

“That would definitely suit me. I hate having my pet on a target and then I switch to one that has run up to me, and instead of finishing off their target the pet runs to help me. So I have to switch back to the lower health target that has now followed my pet to me and then back to the other one. I’d love to be able to have my pet stay on a target that I send it to instead of attacking what I attack.”

You can do this. if you hit F1, the pet will lock on to what ever target you have selected regardless if you change or not. Pets are actually able to be controlled pretty well if you take the time to learn how to micro them.