Guild Wars 2

If the next patch had 10 new bullets for rangers and they could be any 10 buffs or bug fixes you wanted what would be the 10 things you hope come up? what are the 10 things you want to see focused on and changed the most, maybe if something comes up enough in this thread arenanet will consider it and change it. For me it would be:

-“Guard” now works similar to the necromancers flesh wurm allowing for a second skill after casting “I’ll save you” (or “backup” whatever you get the point) which teleports the user back to the area your pet is guarding.
-long bow projectile speed increased
-movement speed of all pets increased by 30%
-Rapid fire damage increased by 20%
-signet of the hunt now increases your speed by 20% and your pets next 4 attacks do 150% damage
-signet of the wild and signet of stone cooldowns reduced from 120 seconds to 90 seconds
-active effects of signets now effect both you and your pet but are less effective on the player. this means signet of stone grants you 3 seconds invulnerability, signet of the wild grants 5 seconds of stability and bonus damage, and signet of the hunt allows your next 2 attacks to do 150% damage
-pets with aoe or support skills no longer run to the target before casting them
-casting time and responsiveness of many pet skills has been improved
- spirit effects can now activate every 6 seconds instead of 10

ARENANET!!! please consider the reccomendations players post in this thread this is what your ranger community is asking for!! I challenge you to fix atleast 5 things posted in this thread for the next balance patch!! or atleast respond somewhere with what is going on with our beloved ranger and what we can expect to see and how soon please!!! and players if you really want rangers to be fixed go ahead and post what your top 10 things you would really like to see happen. I know its a fat chance and all but its worth trying so post away!!

Only ten bullets? Why not 100. It’s only fair.

YumCHA.8706:

Only ten bullets? Why not 100. It’s only fair.

It’s because, according to JonPeters, there will be alot of SUBSTANTIAL changes, clearly since they are going to be substantial, 100 is pushing it

/sarcasm
That was kind of the joke behind it.

We only deserve as much considering nothing important was fixed, except a minor tweak to one greatsword skill.

I don’t know what you mean, I can now use all my underwater skills as finishers…. you know, to complement all those amazing combo fields I have while swimming around.

In all seriousness: They tweaked two greatsword skills!

I’ll try
1.spirits are now immune to damage until they use their ability, the ability now takes 1.5 seconds to cast and the spirit can be attacked and interrupted during this time.

2. All pets base movement speed has been increased by 10% movement speed traits have been replaced by attack speed bonuses.

3. Pets take less damage from aoe attacks based on how many points in beast master a player allocates.

4.long bow shots travel 10% faster.

5. Long bow number 1 has a 33% chance to fire a second arrow that hits for 20% damage and causes vulnerability.

6. Shouts remove one condition.

7. Great sword 3 is now ground targeted and causes cripple like hammer warrior leap minus the stun.

8. Pets f1 ability can be swapped with the other attacks the pet posses, but the timers will not swap.

9. Stowing a pet will remove the pet toolbar and will give the Ranger a passive state buff based on the highest stat on the character sheet.

10 sword #2 is now a ground targeted leap that applies poison

Underwater battle is underrated. Most people prefer to fight on land. That’s a fact.

However in a PvE aspect, this doesn’t matter as diversity comes into play.

- Pet Boons/Conditions added to the UI

1: Ranger now take periodic damage that increases the further away from a body of water the Ranger gets.
2: Rangers foot armor has been removed from the game, to make up for this flippers have been added.
3: Rangers Signet of the Hunt speed has been increased to 25% but only while swimming.
4: Long bow damage and speed has been increased while the Ranger is submerged in water, unfortunately this weapon cannot be used while submerged.
5: Backpacks have been replace by scuba tanks for the Ranger profession.
6: Ranger pets can now hit moving targets, unfortunately do to time constraints and lack of staffing we could only correct this issue for shark pets.
7: Sunken ships have been added to all zones so the Ranger class can feel as if it has a use.
8: Rangers have been given a new ability called “Surrender” this ability will allow Rangers to immediately lose to Warriors.
9: Rangers have been given a 2 minute air immunity buff upon entering any zone, this will allow the Ranger time to get to the nearest body of water before imploding.
10: Rangers will now only receive experience for objectives completed while submerged.

Its late I’m tired

List should only be one bullet, everything else will fall into place very soon:

1. Mr. Peters has been forced to play a Ranger for a duration of no shorter than 1 month.

After this expect warriors to be nerfed into the ground and rangers to actually get something significant, whatever that means.

My list

I would remake Spirits to be like Spirit weapons. Immune to damage, high impact but without 100% uptime.

Pets move 30% faster and hit calculations are done at the start of the animation not the end. Pets gets AoE damage reduction.

Longbow shots move 30% faster and pierce as base.

Shouts reworked to affect the Pet and the Ranger. Obviously the bonuses will be lower.

I don’t have 10, but how about

Marksmanship

• Signet of the Beastmaster has been removed. Active signet effects will now affect rangers and their pet by default.
• NEW Read the Wind – Increases the projectile speed of all arrows by 50%.

trapline.8541:

3. Pets take less damage from aoe attacks based on how many points in beast master a player allocates.

4.long bow shots travel 10% faster.

3. Would be unfair to rangers who spec out of BM, cos the pet damage is STILL accounted for in the total ranger DPS. So this basically limits rangers in WvW/PvE (basically anything that’s NOT sPvP) to spec BM… Which is horrible, unless speccing out of BM gives an equivalent boost in my personal damage which is made up by having a dead pet at all times.

4. 10% is hardly fast enough, more like 50%. And I’m not even kidding.

aeroh.8930:

I don’t have 10, but how about

Marksmanship

• Signet of the Beastmaster has been removed. Active signet effects will now affect rangers and their pet by default.
• NEW Read the Wind – Increases the projectile speed of all arrows by 50%.

That was my exact thought about that. Like on the dot. You either seen me post it or great minds think alike. Either way sir nod shakes hand you are now legit. Seriously, that alone would help rangers sooo much. Such a simple fix, and read the wind would fit in better than signet of the beast master.

-One-handed sword root has been removed
-Pet AI improvements (when not commanded to attack, they try to avoid AOE circles)
-Greatsword attack speed has been increased by 10%
-Spirits are now immune to martial weapon damage unless activating their abilities
-Longbow projectile speed has been increased by 30%
-Longbow skill Rapid Fire casting time has been reduced to 3.5s from 5
-Barrage has been reworked, targets up to 6 players, cooldown has been reduced to 15 seconds, has 1 sec casting time, each arrow deals 25% more damage than a regular autoattack.
-You are no longer immobile while using whirling defense
-Crippling Talon now ricochets, damaging up to 3 foes
-Crippling Shot’s cripple duration has been increased to 5 seconds

++ Signet effects:
Signet of The Wild uses the same formula to calculate healing for both pet and the player
Signet of stone: Reduces incoming damage by 10%, activating it reduces incoming damage by 50% for both pet and player, cooldown has been reduced to 90seconds, duration has been increased to 10 seconds
Signet of the Hunt: increased movement speed bonus to 15%, activating it gives swfitness for 10 seconds.

@ Winch

No, just no. Signet effects you had sucked, whirling defense is good, longbow projectile should be increased 50% not 30% rapid fire and barrage I agree with, dont care about spirits. Pretty much the rest is fine, just not the signets.

aeroh.8930:

I don’t have 10, but how about

Marksmanship

• Signet of the Beastmaster has been removed. Active signet effects will now affect rangers and their pet by default.
• NEW Read the Wind – Increases the projectile speed of all arrows by 50%.

Hey! I love that signet idea. I also want signet of the wild to be buffed to a 20/25% speed increase.

Or, we can just add that new effect to signet of the wild and leave the speed 10%.

Keep posting guys!! Real reccomendations preferably. I know the last patch was a disapointment for rangers but whining non stop with no direction isn’t going to help, constantly pointing out how arenanet looks bad isn’t making you look any better. For those of you that have posted ideas elsewhere lets try to get one big thread together that Arenanet will actually look at.

@Fomby.4295

Thats signet of the hunt, and no I agree it should be increased to 25% as well.

aeroh.8930:

I don’t have 10, but how about

Marksmanship

• Signet of the Beastmaster has been removed. Active signet effects will now affect rangers and their pet by default.
• NEW Read the Wind – Increases the projectile speed of all arrows by 50%.

I like this, but I think the Read the Wind at 50% would be too much; perhaps 20%, but they should also buff longbow auto attack speed by 15% in the patch.

@Tracker.6483

It wouldnt be too much, it would put arrows on par with bullets. It would be balanced, I think its perfect, been saying this for months. They did it to guardians scepter and it turned out perfectly.

1. “Lick Wounds” now fully heals the ranger’s pet regardless whether it was defeated, teleports it to your location, and grants it 1 second of invulnerability. Bug causing the pet to sometimes not revive the ranger is also fixed.
2. Auto-attack on ranged weapons now continues to fire regardless of range, so long as the targeted enemy remains within targetable distance.
3. Stowed Pets now remain stowed in combat, but the pet skill bar remains when your pet is stowed. Activating any pet skill will unstow your pet.
4. Spirits are now summoned within range 150 of the Ranger, down from 300. Additionally, they now have a natural 50% evasion.
5. Ranger weapon skills no longer root the ranger in place.
6. Greatsword skill “Swoop” now correctly hits targets at lower elevation than you.
7. Tooltip for the Harpoon Gun skill “Mercy Shot” now provides information about the levels of damage for various health values, as Thief skill “Heartseeker”
8. Greatsword skill “Counterattack” and Spear skill “Counterstrike” now automatically trigger their secondary effect of throwing the weapon if the channel completes without interruption.
9. Tooltips for skills that augment attributes of your pet, such as “Sick ’Em”, “Signet of the Hunt”, “Signet of Stone”, and “Signet of the Wild” now state the amount your pets’ attributes are augmented.
10. Tooltip for the Spear skill “Dart” now correctly includes granting swiftness to your pet.

I would be quite happy with all of the above, regardless of any actual buffs. If we’re talking ultimate Christmas wish here though, I’d ask for these:

11. New Skill: “Signet of Vigilance”. Passive effect: Flanking effects are not triggered on the ranger or pet. Activate to reveal stealthed units in 600 radius from your pet for 5s.
12. Pets now automatically revive 60 seconds after being downed, whether active or stowed. If a pet is stowed or swapped-out while downed, the timer until it revives counts down from the time it was downed, not the time it was swapped or stowed. Rangers may now swap-in downed pets to save their active ones, but the 20 second cooldown on swapping still applies.
13. Flying pets can actually fly, not just be really tall with invisible feet.

my 10 balance suggestions:

• Quickshot (Shortbow) provides a stun break
• Long Range Shot fire rate decreased to 1.0 from 1.25
• Barrage Cooldown to 25 seconds from 30
• slash (greatsword 1) does 40% more damage
• Pounce (Sword 1.3) will now have an added effect of an evade
• Monarch Leap will now be an evade
• Projectile speed increased (don’t know how fast it goes).
• you are now able to move while using whirlwind defense
• Hunter’s Call no longer requires line of sight
• all Spirits gain 25% more hp
  —-
  other fixes:

• Lightning Reflexes cool down is now 35 seconds from 45 seconds
• pets healing under search and rescue are invulnerable

Luriyu.6873:

• Hunter’s Call no longer requires line of sight

Ooh, good one. I would also add:

• If “Hunter’s Call” fails to trigger because the target is out of range, the cooldown is reduced to 3s instead of the full 25s

- Fired the 2 designers working on professions. Hired a full team with industry experience dedicated solely to profession balance.

That’s the only one I want at this point.

@Cakoluchiam.6901

Hunters call doesnt cancel if out of range, unless you mean you hit them with it and they run out of range to take no damage, but you can use it before you get into range of them and when you run into range it hits them.

Right the running out of range thing. If you hit the button while they’re in range and then they run out of range while it’s casting, it misses and you have full cooldown. It’s reasonable for projectile or sweeping attacks to have full cooldown when they miss because there’s a chance they might hit something else in-between you and the target, but Hunter’s Call has no such chance, so having them step out of range mid-channel shouldn’t deprive you of that skill for the full cooldown duration, especially when it’s the only damage-dealing attack on that weapon.

They are not listening, will not take your advice, have never taken anyone’s advice, and do not care about what you think of their changes. There are more willing recipients of your efforts than this company. The thought you guys put into these posts is not worth it. They don’t consider your opinions as valid.

I am not telling anyone to leave or quit or anything like that, but as far as being an advocate or putting time into trying to fix things… ANet just does not operate by taking this stuff under advisement. It’s time better directed elsewhere.

lets people vent regardless, it brings forward why people are angry and then provides data on the community. they probably won’t listen though.

as far as wvwvw goes, i’ve been pretty successfull. since the patch, fighting everyone else has gotten slightly harder in SPVP.

class forums are meant for collusion and sharing ideals to figure out the best numbers, and figuring out the best strategies to counter. but bad thing is, people who are successful at doing what they do rarely share, because once it begins to become part of the mainstay meta-game you’re already back to middle of the pack instead of the one’s leading it.

Tracker.6483:

aeroh.8930:

I don’t have 10, but how about

Marksmanship

• Signet of the Beastmaster has been removed. Active signet effects will now affect rangers and their pet by default.
• NEW Read the Wind – Increases the projectile speed of all arrows by 50%.

I like this, but I think the Read the Wind at 50% would be too much; perhaps 20%, but they should also buff longbow auto attack speed by 15% in the patch.

In GW1 we had a spirit that doubled our projectile speed

Completely destroy the current trait trees and remake them correctly.
Anet ranger design was garbage from the start. They were told a lot of this in alpha and refused to listen to any constructive criticism about a lot of there ‘creative’ design mechanics and it was to the point of blatantly ignoring anyone other than fanboys and yes-men.

@Samfisher.7942

Yes, called favorable winds. I used it in my dps build in fort aspenwood, but honestly Id rather have a trait like read the wind. Much better, and it would be even better if it added damage. I hope they impliment it tho, would make much more sense than signet of the beastmaster for the MM tree.

• All ranger pets have been removed. To compensate, ranger damage across all skills has been increased by 40%.

Lewis Burnell.2493:

• All ranger pets have been removed. To compensate, ranger damage across all skills has been increased by 40%.

Good one, I’d at least like the option for that.

Sick of my “pet”, I want it to go away.

• All rangers have been removed. To compensate, warrior damage across all skills has been increased by 40%.

Dante Dragonhand.2538:

@Samfisher.7942

Yes, called favorable winds. I used it in my dps build in fort aspenwood, but honestly Id rather have a trait like read the wind. Much better, and it would be even better if it added damage. I hope they impliment it tho, would make much more sense than signet of the beastmaster for the MM tree.

And trap trait on the Crit %/Damage line!

- new ability: “Melandru’s transformation” (elite, cd 240 secs)

Become your animal companion: The ranger becomes his animal companion, and receives the abilities of his companion. The animal companion becomes the ranger, and receives the abilities of the ranger.

If either the ranger or his companion dies, the bond is broken, and Melandru transfers the ranger’s spirit back into his former body. During this process, the ranger is unable to use any skills for 1 second (debuff).

There is a 20% chance that, instead, the ranger activates ability: “Melandru’s confusion” (elite, cd 240 secs):

Become a random class for 240 secs.

There is 5% chance that, instead, the ranger activates ability: “Melandru’s favored subjects” (elite, 240 secs):

Become a thief or a warrior for 240 secs.

This thread will be ignored or shut down.

But to contribute so an overzealous mod doesn’t have the reason to remove my post…

Abilities:

-Killshot added to Rangers.
-Long Range Shot damage increased by 500%.
-The sun is now a boss.
- ‘Hax’ added as Ranger signet, giving them a 125% Speed increase and Noclip.
-You can now move while hitting enemies with a sword! Wow!
-You can now name your pets permanently!
-We have fixed the shortbow speed graphics error. The shortbow now has no cooldown to any of it’s abilities.
-Improved the Pet AI. The Pet will now attempt to play with you in an adorable manner in the middle of combat.
-We figured that warrior damage wasn’t quite good enough to keep up with the Necromancers and Thieves out there, so we’ve buffed Warrior damage across the board. Warriors can now stealth and get ‘Hax’ as a passive signet.
-Added a new mechanic to balance the PvE vs. PvP Environment issues. All characters will have a signet that negates all PvE mob damage.

As I’ve been juggling between leveling my Ranger & my Guardian, I’d dedicate 100% to my Ranger if some major fixes came:

1. Increase pet speed so that melee attacks canhit moving targets
2. Make spirits invulnerable/non-targetable, buff their abilities, reduce CD or let them move with us w/o trait.
3. Increase LB arrow speed, buff its damage at close range.
4. Fix SB + QZ bug
5. Make our utilities a bit more interesting (subjective, I know)
6. Signets and Shouts are weak…fix that so we’re on par with other professions.
7. Fix Sword root problem with #1 attack chain
8. LB skills are boring & both bows are most effective spamming #1…that needs to be fixed. Make LBs sniper-esque weapons. Make SBs more dynamic than spamming #1 and running flanking circles.
9. Make pet F2 ability instant.
10. Re-order/condense/expand traits for a more logical syngery with weapons/builds/etc

While I love my Ranger, I’ve gotten so bored. The utilities are either lackluster or 1-dimensional and using combat is reduced to pet-tanking & #1 spamming. A lot of what needs to be done imo is to make the play-style more interesting/dynamic. Assuming our pets can be fixed, our damage is fine.

Aurum.8793:

I Hope they delete the class, and give us all Warriors of the equivalent level.

This is my top one bullet…I am through with the kittened ranger.

Fix the invulnerable/obstructed/evaded stuff, whatever small amount of damage I do is probably reduced to half the actual damage.

This will be totally biased towards my specific build buuuut here we go;

1) 25% Greatsword damage buff across the board

2) Greatsword Crippling Throw can be used while moving, damage increased by 300-400% (Seems to do 1/5th of damage of warrior counterpart)

3) Pets can now hit moving targets, move 10% faster

4) Lightning Reflexes now grants 3 seconds of stability and removes all conditions to guarentee that the ranger “evades back” as stated within the tooltip

5) Signet of Renewal and “Protect Me” now work regardless of the distance between the ranger and its pet

6) Active effects of Signet of Renewal and Signet of the Hunt have been modified to better utilize the Signet of the Beastmaster trait

7) Longbow + Shortbow arrows now follow the target (obstructed fix)

8) Longbow Damage has been increased by 15% across the board

9) Barrage damage has been increased by 50%

10) “Guard” will also detect and reveal stealthed enemies within the targeted area. Guard’s radius has been increased by 300% to suit this change.

@Samfisher.7942

Yea, some of this crap doesnt make sense. Especially considering that condis cant crit and traps should be in wilderness survival tree.

Personally for me, Signet of the Hunt needs to give 25% movement speed or its GTFO.

No reason for thieves to get 25% but not rangers

1) Activated Spirit abilities trigger through the ranger at the rangers feet. (1500 range)
2) Spirits are considered (Pets) for application of trait and Signet benefits as well as empathy attribute point benefits to toughness and vitality.
3) Spider and Devourer range has been set to 1200
4) Melee pet range has been set to 250 minimum
5) Guard Shout makes pet immune to AOE damage
6) Longbow 1 projectile speed increased by 50% fire rate remains the same.
7) RaO has been made a shout enabling CD reduction benefits
8) Beastmasters Bond has been removed and Replaced with Ranger’s Resolve – 10% of power converted to vitality.
9) Agility Training has been replced by Skirmishers Stamina 10% of precision is converted to vitality
10) Signet of the Hunt’s speed boost increased to 20%

( would of course be controversial if the pet melee range attack enahncement and signet of the hunt changes weren’t made.)

This would make pets work well, Give glass cannons extra vit toughness options put RaO on a speccable benefit system and enable pet AOE invulnerability for PvE and RVR PvP in a fixed combat location.

1) Ranger spirits no longer take damage from aoe.
2) Ranger pets redone to be able to do damage while moving
3) Birds now do damage on par with sharks
4) Bears now can take damage on par with Armored Fish
5) Added new trait to power line that resets hunters shot when you cripple or immobilize a foe
6) Pets f2 ability is now more responsive and does the skill within 1 second of hitting it
7) Added new stance to precision traits that allows you to stow pet permanantly for a 10% increase in your own damage and 5% of toughness added to power.
8) Barrage cooldown resets when you switch to a different weapon
9) Added new utility skill, stealths for 4 seconds and adds swiftness for 8 seconds on a 25 sec cooldown called “scout ahead”
10) Signet of the hunt active now guarantees a crit on next 3 attacks.

While I won’t go into specifics, these are the main points I would like to see:

1. Some signets buffed and others reworked to make them on par with other classes’ signets;
2. Spirits made invulnerable and the hidden cooldown removed. Will now follow you without having to trait into them. The AoE effects either have a much shorter CD or cover a much larger area;
3. Some shouts buffed and others reworked to make them more viable;
4. Pet AI significantly improved, and they take much less damage from AoE. They can attack while moving, and the F2 skill is much more responsive;
5. Sword autoattack no longer roots you in place;
6. Traits are reworked to have more synergy and generally make more sense;

The other points are in my opinion mere bonusses.

7. More skills with animal effects (similar to Swoop, Maul, Man O’ War, etc);
8. More pets and pet diversity;
9. More synergy between ranger weapon skills and the pet (similar to how the sword autoattack gives the pet might, and the axe’s Winter’s Bite makes the pet’s next attack inflict Weakness);
10. The ability to permanently stow your pet (seriously, sometimes in dungeons you want to stow him away for a while to avoid unwanted aggro, and even in PvP you’ll want to stow him away to decrease the odds of being detected);

1. Shortbow’s quick shot now applies a knockback or cripple effect to the target.
Crippling shot cripple duration increased by 50%.
Concussion shot now has a 20 second cooldown.
Quickness now correctly applies 100% attack speed increase.

Signet of the hunt now has 25% Movement Speed, and 150% damage buff has a lower cooldown. Lower signet of renewal cooldown, Remove search and rescue and apply a F1 feature for revival, spirits now have more health and toughness, and better buffs, Sick em does what i says it does, lower cooldown on muddy terrain.

Traps now have longer effects, a 1 second chill is a joke.
Also, would be better if traps could be used several times. Like, use the same trap three times out of combat, to prepare for a battle.

Longbow’s damage normalized in all distances, but at 1000 range you have a damage bonus. Increased rapid fire and barrage damage.

Axe’s Winters Bite has an an 8 second cooldown. Hunter’s call cooldown reduced to 20 seconds.

10 points, eh? Ok then, I’ll give it a try.

~ Drake pets now use their special abilities correctly
~ Pets now retain their names even when swapped
~ Windup on all lengthy pet F2 abilities has been reduced by 50%, and pets will now continue to turn and aim at their target during the “charge” period
~ Fixed health totals on special pets (White Raven / Black Widow Spider / Rainbow Jellyfish) to be in line with their respective families
~ Fixed Spider family poison ball ability so that it no longer obscures ranged attacks
~ Pets now have a natural 30% AoE resistance which is boosted by an additional 1% for each point in Beastmastery
~ “Return to Me” now grants 5 seconds of Swiftness to the pet
~ Spirits are now 100% immune to AoE damage if the enemy is not targetting them directly
~ Sword auto-attack no longer roots you in place, but you will not leap / cripple if used while moving
~ Cooldown on all Shouts reduced by 25% (rounded to the nearest number divisible by 5)