Guild Wars 2

Hela! This topic is the part of the [iR] Redesigns – Main Discussions. Please have a look on it.

Since I’m playing Ranger in GW2 (had no taste to play thief after 6 years of playing GW1 Assassin…), I’ve decided to redesign this class.
We all know that we’re greatly underpowered, not as useful, not as effective, not welcome in high-end dungeons.

For first, we have to ask: Why?!

• Maybe because of botters: Then suspend the reported accounts after 10-25 Bot Reports.
• Or the statics of Ranger users are not high enough to care yet: Classism!

So let’s get started! Rules in short:

• Ranged attacks can’t be the reason of low DPS when most of the foes shadowstepping in your face, or ranged attacking with AOE spells
• The effectiveness of different race’s Rangers should be only in Style, not stats.
  ( Sylvari: Nature style. | Norn: Hunter style. | Human: Mixed Hunter/technical style. | Charr: Technical style. | Asura: Alchemy/Anomaly style. )
• Rangers are weaker warriors with more mobility, not hippies with pets!

After you decided not to like this design by the rules, check the changes:

D-P-S & Combat:

• Melee weapons are used to hack’n’slash foes in the move
• Ranged weapons are used to shoot foes in the move
  The base of this ideology is not to tank: Evade & Dodge meanwhile fighting.
  Traits should support dinamic moving, not standing still.
  Damages needs to be improved ofc.

PET Redesign:
I see these pets as helpful companions. They help in fight, buffing, debuffing, and when we seem to die, they saves us, like a true friend. This would be the main concept.

• They have to react very quick. No casting times on their attack skill or anything.
• Maximum 10% of total HP can be took in a single second, so they won’t die by one hit.
• Licking Wounds: Pet absorbes damage and heals, or even dragging us away from danger.
• PET’s buff skills ALWAYS received by the user, even if its out of its range.
• Every pat has 1 buff and 1 debuff to cotnrol.

Even the whole control needs a redesign here:

• F1: Attack / Return
• F2: Apply Condition
• F3: Apply Buff
• F4: Swap pet
• Attack Mode: PET attacks only and on time what we do (unless ordering it on another selected target with F1). Does not attacking any foe who hit us.
• Guard Mode: Absorbind gamages as long as they’re not ordered to attack (F1).

Examples for dual skill controlled pets:

• Black Eagle: Bleeding & Fury
• Grey Wolf: Fear & Might
• Black Bear: Vulnerability & Might
• Polar Bear: Chilled & Protection

RoyalPredator.9163:

PET Redesign:

• Maximum 5-10% of total HP can be took in a single second, so they won’t die by one hit.

Stopped reading riiiiiiiiiight there.
Yes, I want rangers to be good, yes, they need to be reworked, but giving pets permanent Protective Bond/Protective Spirit just isn’t the way at all.

Players can take 100% of their HP in a single hit, why shouldn’t pets?

Weapon skill changes of the Ranger:

Longbow:

• Long Range Shot: Faster casting, more damage than current
• Long Range Shot alternative: Hold fire to gain more DPS (500 to 1000) and range (1000 to 1500). Spamming the skill leads you shooting much faster with less damage (like shortbow autoattack)
• Rapid Fire: Longer casting (3s), but all 10 arrow hits in 1.5 second
• Hunter’s Shot: No changes.
• Point Blank Shot: Knowback when target is close, knowdown when its away. Interrupts.
• Barrage : No changes.

Shortbow

• Crossfire alternative: Shooting in Burst fire. 3 arrows fired in same time. Bit more DMG. Style.
• Poison Volley: Arrows autoaiming targets and bouncing between them with condition.
• Quick Shot: Gained Protection if arrow hits.
• Crippling Shot: No changes.
• Concussion Shot: No changes.

Greatsword

• Slash, Slice, Power Stab: More damage
• Maul: Knockdown w/ interrupt instead of bleeding
• Swoop: Cripple applied on foes
• Counterattack: No changes.
• Crippling Throw => BLEEDING
• Hilt Bash: No changes.

Ultility skills:
Two kind of Signets for Rangers.

Hunter Signets: Style for physical buffs.

• [Human foot icon] Chase: +25% Movement speed. Act: 1s Immobilize, then 5s cripple AOE.
• [Bear foot icon] Predator: +10% dmg for you and pet when endurance is full. Act: critical hits gain you non-stacking 3s fury for 30 sec.
  (Trait should goes no same but not full endurance, because it blocks dinamic fights)
• [Wolf teeth icon] Hunger: Regenerates HP. Act: Pet attacks stealing health for you for 10 seconds
• [E.E. icon] Eagle Eyes: Improving Precision. Act: Improving Toughness for 30 seconds.
• [Human hand icon] Survivalist: Improving Toughness. Act: Regenerating HP for 5-10 sec.

Spirit Signets: Style for magical buffs. These are spirits within you, and you can release them by activating the signet.

• Fire Spirit: 30% chance to cause burn on critical. Act: Summons a flame djinn for 60s that deals burning condition on foes.
• Air Spirit: 30% chance to interrupt on critical. Act: Summons a wind-like electric djinn for 60s that gives 5sec swiftness when you kill a foe.
• Earth Spirit: 30% chance to gain stability on critical. Act: Summons an Earth Golem for 60s that Knocks down foes on activation, then dealing little damages.
• Water Spirit: 30% chance to steal HP attack. Act: Summons a Water Djinn for 60s that steals HP for you.
• Celestial/Ethernal Spirit: +2% to all stats. Act: All Buffs for 5-10 seconds.

Traits:
I’m still working on it, but one thing is for sure: They have to support evading/dodging, and everything that is dinamical.

Some skill changes:

• Lightning Reflexes: Evade with sliding backwards. Fully reloads dodge bar?
• Quickening Zephyr: Accept heals from other sources other than player itself.
  Would be nice if we can double-press it for longer but slower speed boost.

ANIMATION

• Dodges are on-foot slides
• Running with bow is same half-crouched like you stand still with them.

This game should need learn a lot from Vindictus’s KAI (Ranger/Archer).

Leaf.3156:

RoyalPredator.9163:

PET Redesign:

• Maximum 5-10% of total HP can be took in a single second, so they won’t die by one hit.

Stopped reading riiiiiiiiiight there.
Yes, I want rangers to be good, yes, they need to be reworked, but giving pets permanent Protective Bond/Protective Spirit just isn’t the way at all.

Players can take 100% of their HP in a single hit, why shouldn’t pets?

Players can dodge.

While I agree 100% protective spirit would probably be OP, I disagree with your reasoning.

Comparing pets to players is simply unfair – players have many tools to keep themselves alive including the essential dodge (it’s what GW2 combat and dungeon design was built around) and because pets don’t have this tool (which allows multiple classes to solo bosses and even entire dungeon paths off of the strength of dodge) they are not viable by comparison. Pets are given nothing to compensate for the lack of dodge in a game where dodging is core to success in combat. That’s a massive design flaw. Encounters were designed with dodges in mind, pets were not designed with dodges in mind, this is a problem.

Comparing players, with the ability to dodge, to pets, without the ability to dodge, is narrow minded.

You can give your pet protection for two seconds when you dodge. You can make your pet invisible. Aswell as invulnerable. You can swap to a new pet instanly removing all condtions and heal it to full and reset it’s skill. Yes it is really not fair to compare your pet to a player. To think of dodge as the only damage mitigation or the end all and be of stablity is really narrow minded

Serraphin Storm.2369:

You can give your pet protection for two seconds when you dodge. You can make your pet invisible. Aswell as invulnerable. You can swap to a new pet instanly removing all condtions and heal it to full and reset it’s skill. Yes it is really not fair to compare your pet to a player. To think of dodge as the only damage mitigation or the end all and be of stablity is really narrow minded

Is the suggestion that pets are fine as they are? Perhaps you’ve somehow missed the new thread where even the devs acknowledge that all of the above is inadequate?

Perhaps it is a form of the ’We’re fine, don’t nerf us anymore’ way of thinking.

Let me say that the Pets are part of our damage as a special ability.
Some basic damage, buff/debuff – and it looks nice on paper.
BUT. When you realise the pets just die within seconds, and swapping to secondary dies within 5 seconds while it wasn’t even able to shoot its skill (usually it takes 3-5 seconds to “think”, then it starts to run, and if not dies on the way, activating their skills takes another ~3-10 seconds), —- They’re useless.

I see these pets as helpful companions. They help in fight, buffing, debuffing, and when we seem to die, they saves us, like a true friend. This would be the main concept.

I’ve uploaded the first post with missing parts! Sry

“Meanwhile in Tyria…. the pet controls you.”

Yes pet could use some help but they are not totally useless and dont die if a monster looks at them. Alot of suggestion on how to make pets better are OP by themselves then when you add in all of the other things that you can use its rediculous.

The biggest ‘problem’ with this (or any other) Ranger redesign is the ‘fact’ that the Ranger needs to appeal to a very diverse crowd. Most likely the most diverse of all the professions, where you think the Ranger is not a tree and pet hugging hippy (like others think aswell), there is atleast a similar sized group that do think the Ranger should be a Tree and Pet hugging Hippy…

You have the more Tracking kind of Rangers, there are those that want more shamanistic kinds of rangers, there are those that want a Pet-Ranger tag team setup. And those that would just like to strap some bombs to their pets and send them off into a crowd while they blast away with their musket. And if i didn’t include ‘your’ style Ranger in this short summary (this adressed to whom ever may read this), then I am sorry, but see this as the ‘proof’ that the Ranger needs to adress so many different ideas of what a Ranger is, that it is hard to choose one over the other …

As a Ranger player I had many discussions already, and it is realy hard to please everyone in their ‘wish’ for the Ranger setup. I tried to do a more structured approach in this thread (external site): http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/7907-the-master-of-the-wild/page__st__2610#entry911995

And with that in mind i came to my own Ranger ‘Build’ in this thread: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Feedback:User/Arghore/GW2_Ranger

Both are quite extensive, and somewhat old, still most of it still applies (in my views) to the ranger. Though seeing some of it is old, some skills or effects are no longer viable as they are used by Racial effects (like vines for the sylvari). Some of the current skills are fine or better then suggestions and still follow the ‘theme’ laid out in the first post i linked.

So hmm yeah, i still think just changing something here and there isn’t the route to take. If one wants to realy change something then start ‘a new’, and re-use what fits the now clearer view of the Ranger and its intended purpose aswell as it’s flaws. And use the new analysis and goals to strengthen the profession. Balancing is a continious effort and sure some of the things can be solved by a +1 or -1 here and there, but ‘if’ there is a structural fault in the profession (not related to mechanics), then perhaps the start-out ruleset wasn’t good enough for what it intended to do … that is a learning process it’s no fault or mayor miss, the game evolved and what’s demanded from the profession evolved … there is only one thing to do, re-evaluate, start anew, and reuse what you can, to then fill in the blanks and improve.

10% in HP protection isn’t OP. Thats 10 seconds of living, when you have 60sec recharge.
It is an alternativ solution for the pets, because they die in a group/big event/dungeon in the moment they reach the enemy.

All we want currently is to be EQUAL to other professions.
We lack greatly in every kind at the moment and months before.

There is two thing I really find important:

• Major Damage boost
• Fast shooting Longbow autoattack (because targets dies in events before a shot can be fired with it. I don’t think it would be unacceptable, if they follow my design:
  Can be fast shooted like shortbow, but can be hold to improve DMG & Range)

Meanwhile the game has some serious design issue, I still suggest race professions being different in their style only, not their effectiveness.
ATM a Charr ranger is around ~15% more effective than a Human.

My chose (like many other’s) was Berserker, and I still wish to use it.
We found it very pathetic that a warrior or other professions can still make much more damage with less gear stats.

At least I can play my ranger as a pro, but the game keeps me (us) sabotaging.
There is nothing to learn. There are many to fix.

Ranger needs a petless build. Instead of a pet have buffs for each type of pet.
Rangers should have a tracking ability and some stealth skills too.

The problem with devs referring to pet is they’re only referring to agony resistance in most cases, which is great but as far as I’ve seen it , the devs seem to think they’re fine in pvp.

Ranger need a really efective Elite.

something like.

One with nature 45 sec CD

you become stealthed for 4 secs , and lost all your conditions, you can use Melandrus Wrath or Melandrus Will.

Melandrus Wrath (Long bow skill while stealthed WITH THIS ELITE)
X damage.

you knock back your opponent, and lost stealth.

Melandrus Will (Short Bow skill while stealthed WITH THIS SKILL)

X damage

You hit you foe with multiple arrows , each arrow can inflict a random condition, you lost stealth

Ryan.8367:

The problem with devs referring to pet is they’re only referring to agony resistance in most cases, which is great but as far as I’ve seen it , the devs seem to think they’re fine in pvp.

You should read the thread where a dev responded. You’ll be surprised how bad pets are.

Well, I don’t give a crap on the pets, like many of you. But still good to have it.
I see its unique design in plus 1-2 skill that we can use through pets, but if we don’t want them to hit hard, let us do that damage…

As I wrote in other [iR] topics, Elite skills should last long and recharge longer.
I mean, if we want to use Rampage as One, 20s is nothing. Let it go by 60 to 120s, then recharge it by 5 to 10 minutes. It will have weigh then, not just a spammable skill any more. And if gaining skillpoint by “leveling up”, instant recharge on skills like we had back in GW1.

Anyway, Charrs and Sylvari rangers has a lot advantage over Human rangers…
Pathetic.

Serraphin Storm.2369:

Yes pet could use some help but they are not totally useless and dont die if a monster looks at them.

Have you ever done a dungeon before using anything but bears? Stop talking.

I don’t see why certain people have to respond basically being anti-constructive. It’s a mindset the gives a game extremely stagnant gameplay and makes it much less fun, especially when people are already struggling to keep themselves involved with the game (which a lot of the community as a whole is, one way or the other).

Anyhow, to the list of things. A lot of them are different than what I think. A lot of them have to do with more than just rangers, like a trait and utility overhaul on the underused or near useless things in those categories.
But overall good detail and a lot of the stuff is agreeable without overly changing the gameplay too much from the style that the ranger currently has (except your suggestion about elites and cooldowns. It would completely destroy the pacing of PvP. If anything, current cooldowns on skills like Rampage as One need reductions to compensate for what they are actually providing, especially in comparison to other similar options on other classes like the Warrior elite signet with a 60s cooldown).

A piece of criticism though, the activation rate on the spirits should be universal and not just on crit. Having it on crit pigeonholes build diversity incredibly, and if anything build diversity is what every class in the game struggles with.

Frosty and Frosty Law Firm.4981:

Serraphin Storm.2369:

Yes pet could use some help but they are not totally useless and dont die if a monster looks at them.

Have you ever done a dungeon before using anything but bears? Stop talking.

I have, I use a Black Moa and a Fern Hound most the time, the Moa doesn’t understand what dying is until one of those Knights from TA decides he looks like a good target to blow his KD combo on, but hey, that means one of my very squishy allies that would’ve died from that even faster than my Moa, and may have actually went straight to DEFEATED didn’t eat it.

I’d suggest you stop using a 0BM cat/bird in dungeons, you’ll get more mileage, that or you only send your pet in at opportune times.

Try running with a high skilled glass canon friend, when they go in to deal damage that’s a good time to throw your bird/cat in, an then when they retreat pull your pet out. That’s what I do when my group actually needs damage and not control/support and it works wonderfully.

TL:DR learn to manage your pet.

Leaf.3156:

RoyalPredator.9163:

PET Redesign:

• Maximum 5-10% of total HP can be took in a single second, so they won’t die by one hit.

Stopped reading riiiiiiiiiight there.
Yes, I want rangers to be good, yes, they need to be reworked, but giving pets permanent Protective Bond/Protective Spirit just isn’t the way at all.

Players can take 100% of their HP in a single hit, why shouldn’t pets?

Especially in WvW, pets do not have a Human AI operator, so they can’t survive as long as the human controlled character can vs. other Human operated foes. Pets die just too quickly and attack much too slowly to be much of any use in WvW.

The OP might be going a bit extreme with the 10%, but there needs to be something to help pets be a bit more viable against human controlled targets. Otherwise, pets remain with very little effectiveness and serve more as a nuisance versus a benefit(as it is now).

Well I wanted to stray away from criticizing as far as I could, because as Mr. Hrouda so aptly pointed out; even if it isn’t a feasible implementation, it could be the starting point to get ideas flowing that lead to a possible implementation.

However, my own opinion would be this in terms of the pet damage reduction, in situations where pets can get continually 1-shotted, it seems like a bandaid solution that wouldn’t hurt the dungeon game much. There are people that will argue all day that you need better micromanagement skills to get a better result.
These people aren’t wrong, but when a balance team is willing to nerf an autoattack speed on the grounds that it wasn’t fun (regardless of my stance on that, that’s done and over with), then the discussion of how intently you have to micromanage your pet and how that affects a persons gameplay experience deserves some merit.

However, adding this level of pet damage reduction would absolutely break spvp. With how good the consistent healing options are for pets, especially when traited, your pet would literally be able to bunker entire teams of people. It would end up being like a 55 monk from gw1. The same could be said for any situation in the game, but I primarily play pvp so I don’t feel my opinion would have much validity speaking on other things.

The issue with pets is that there is no fix for them that doesn’t break them in a different game mode. PvP requires pets to have much better pathing, or potentially having cleave attacks, or attacks to stick to targets better. But then PvE would be even easier for rangers to afk in while the pet solos everything in sight.

Suggesting an entire remake of the ranger pet, while it does present solutions to issues people are having, requires lots of time and effort and testing on a programmers part. So we really are stuck in the design. However, for the sake of anything it could add for Hrouda/another dev to take to a meeting, here is a thought I had for a complete redesign:
Pets are now untargetable and do not autoattack. Instead, they each have 3 options: 1 attack, 1 utility, 1 passive.
Obviously the effects of the passives and utilities can’t be too strong. I was thinking a direct correlation with what the game has with random attacks on specific pets, like birds giving swiftness for the passive, on an internal cooldown, and for the utilities, things like the cats might howl or the moas heal, with those respective cooldowns.
Then, each of those pets attacks is a pet specific attack, it could be a strike from stealth for damage, or a channeled ranged attack, or an AoE field at target location. These would be the F1s, F2s, and F3s respectively.

I realize my idea guts a lot of what I like about the pets, and what a lot of the community likes (or has learned to enjoy in their own way). However, it is just a starting point, and I suggest it because it still provides the feel of ranger working with pet and would still, idealistically, be a lot of the same gameplay (without a pet to draw aggro though). Basically, what my idea does is turn everything into more solid and constant variables that can be tweaked to be balanced easier across game modes, which is what the dev team appears to have the most problem with when making any sort of balance change at all.

If you look at the special class abilities, they’re mostly going for extra buff or conditions.
Best example is Mesmer Clones.

So, if they split it up, a berserker ranger can have a normal damage, and don’t have to care much about the pets. They’ll give a little damage and the buff+debuff.
=> Equal to Mesmers. Others like Engineer and Ele F1-4 skills are just changes, not real additional power in a short cut.
No big deal when the pet dies. a 10 sec protection isn’t much in WWW/PVE.
In sPVP- maybe. Depends on the situation. They can have bit less than 10% of HP protection there, skills are already designed to be splitted (which is a great feature!)
Anyway, they need to kill YOU, not your pet.

But if someone wishes to fight focusing on the Pet, chosing to be Beast Master is the way. Then they have to support their pets in the first place. Killing the pets will brake their effectiveness greatly, since they end up with not-so-dangerous damages.

I would agree on that if they make pet swap cooldowns in spvp much longer, but only when they don’t die this quickly.

Your way isn’t bad, I like it. But it will consume more time and effort from ArenaNet.
Anyhow, we need a lot more care right now, and all we can do is hope for their right decisions and posting our ideas for them.

How would you guys like the Longbow autoattack redesign?
(Fastshooting with basic dmg, holding button for more DMG and Range. I’m sure we gamers have side buttons on the mouse that we can use for skill uses.)
It is designed to be much more useable and effective, but not OP.

For the longbow all I really think needs to be done is an increased attack pace across the board, with a bump up in damage to change the damage coefficients on the wiki for long range shot by about +50 to +70 each. I feel that the pacing is the majority of the problem because the shots are so slow to refire and the attack animations and channeling on almost every attack slow, so it makes the attacks easier to predict and dodge, or easier to close the gap and then strafe a ranger so the longbow stops attacking people completely. This issue could also be helped by having a cripple or immobilize as well somewhere on one of the skills, or even on a trait for longbow crits to apply either of those conditions.

I’ve seen arguments thrown left and right about “it wouldn’t look right, bows don’t shoot like that.” These are the same people the wake up in the morning in real life and have to protect their farms from bandits and then level up and fight dragons apparently, since they are nitpicking about which aspects of the game to apply realism to.

I’m using both firearms, airsoft weapons and bows as a hobbi.
I know how fast can a bow fired… really fast. There is a Japanese champion who shoots insane O.o 20 arrow shot in ~26 seconds.

Combats don’t have to be realistic anyway, yes. Its a Fantasy game.
I would like to see when will someone do 100b with a greatsword, or shooting through a staff…

Exactly, I only mentioned the realism because scrolling through a few pages of the ranger forum that deal with the longbow topic, people make the “it isn’t realistic so I don’t like it” argument quite a bit, which just logically makes no sense considering the game they are playing. While I have an appreciation for realism myself, its on a game to game basis (as in, is it a realistic function within the atmosphere and universe that the game takes place in).
That being said, after watching the state of the game, I am hoping on March 26 rangers seem some utility love.

Rangers don’t really need a complete redesign. There are parts of the Ranger that works fine, but simply needs improvement:

• Pets are fine as they are designed, they just need to have a better chance of hitting their target, and have something that helps them against AoE damage.
• The Ranger weapons are mostly fine. The greatsword and longbow needs faster attack speeds, main-hand axe needs to be a full condition damage weapon, and off-hand axe needs more utility.
• Healing, trap, survival, and elite -skills, works great. Spirits needs to be invulnerable, as they already have too many drawbacks, compared to a Warriors banners (spirits can die, their effects only has a chance to work, they can’t move unless you use the trait, and they need to be respawned more often). Signets needs to have more interesting active effects. And shouts needs to have more useful abilities.

The only thing that really needs a complete redesign is the Rangers traits:

• Pretty much all grandmaster traits are not worth getting. They desperately need to be reworked.
• The different adept, master, and grandmaster traits, needs to be better set up. Some adept traits are obviously superior to some master traits.
• Opening Strike is a very boring effect. Make it apply some boons as well, or just do something interesting.
• Having traps in skirmishing makes no sense at all. Traps are about conditions, not critical damage.
• Pet training traits in beastmastery are far too weak or situational. All the training traits should apply effects to all pets, not just a few species.
• The pet should be useful regardless of whether your use pet traits or not, as you need the pet no matter what build you are playing. Rangers shouldn’t feel like they need to apply trait points in beastmastery, for the pet to be good. The beastmastery trait line should be about applying effects to both yourself and your pet, instead of only the pet.
• Give the Ranger some more traits that affects nearby allies, instead of only the pet.

If a class like this needs a lot to change, and the basic design isn’t right by the opinion of too many, we’re right about to suggest a redesign – I think.

• Look at Spirits. They’re not working properly, and looking bad/halfdone.
  With my design, it will be awesome, but not OP. Same at Signets and other stuffs.
• Pets are terrible slow and 1 hit. We all know this. It isn’t a big deal to make them react quickly, reworking their way of attacking (continously), and giving them some kind of protection, after they’re controlled by an average stupid AI.
• Weapons aren’t fine, since they lack damages and attack speeds.
• Traps are designed for different conditions. Thats good. One crit-able DMG type would be good tho. I’m not using them, they’re not worth using in berserker style.
• Don’t force us to use Condition builds or to be support. Rangers are not support in the first place, but we need the possibility to be it. Lot of us chose Critical builds.

If some of us wishes to ignore pet damages, let us do the criticals anyway.
The damages changes without any reasons. I may hit a risen 2k with a greatsword, but after that, the same autoattacks dealing ~1.3k to 1.5k damages. No buff or condition applied. Was no opening strike. 103% !! Crit DMG
So what? Same with Longbow damages.

These are basic points that gives reason for a Redesign.
Why would we play a so called “Revolutionary MMO” with the old & bored fashion anyway?
As ArenaNet stated, every profession needs to be capeable of doing both support or solo damages.

Need signet for Elite skill.
Basic Signet active effect ranger+pet.
at Grand master traits 100%Passive/50%active from signet will share with your friend.

I like your Longbow idea it very good.

Licking Wounds: Pet absorbes damage and heals, or even dragging us away from danger.
Feel like true best friend concept for pet and ranger.

About spirit I have idea like this.

Then at grand master traits your friend got effect passive signet100% and 50% effect from active signet should be help
Signet of Renewal trans condition to all friend = win!!(LOL)
Nah just use same rule condi trans to pet is good but “break stun” effect to your friend too.

About spirit I guess

Basic spirit can “target place” not random pop up we can adjust them in good place for best effect and safe aera.

-Vigorous Spirits *2Hp and get Unshakable.
- Nature’s Vengeance Grand boon(per-type of spirt) on master aera and active effect when die.
-Spiritual Knowledge reduce20%cooldown on spirit skill / +15%better effect.
-Spirits Unbound *2aera aura from spirit and active skill from spirit can target by user.

If we design the pets as true friends, it sounds creepy to throw them all our condition.
Maybe it has to be… dunno.

The SPIRIT Signets would be like an inner-spirit that you can “free” by activating it.
Fantasy…

I’ve tried to focus on controlling the pet in avoid mode, where it only attacked the foes when I ordered to – it didn’t helped. Stucked at fights, F3 did not work all the time, then pet always died by AOE or random hit. There goes our dmg, bye bye!

F2call pet out of AoE but 1pixcel of my pet tail struck in AoE monster field and boom!! pet flow to sky…

Pathetic, isn’t it? It can resolved easy with the 10% of max hp dmg protection, whic can’t be called OP anyway…
But our QZ got nerfed, Rampage as One is 2/3 effective than a Signet of Rage, which has half the recharge and has passive effect also -.-’

Okay, I’ve tested the “new QZ”. ITS PATHETIC
50% attack speed can’t be even seen (maybe not even working), does not breaking stun (we’re mostly chained, not stunned!), and +1 sec of no heal.
BACKROLL IT BACK PLEASE

Very Thank you for this -.-’
One less useable ultiltiy skill. Hell Yeah!

Anyone has ideas to share?

Not much for nowday must see another next patch.
Dam summer study make me busy all week!!

About nerf QZ is ok feeling not half good or bad all class get all same nerf.
But OZ stom kitten emi bug our action finish but active stomp still follow slow than player action.

Well, It is a matter of thinking this QZ “nerf” was a nerf, buff or modification at all.

• It was: 4 sec Quickness with 100% speed, no heal.
• It became 5 sec with 50% speed, no heal → nerf
• Then its 6 sec with 50% speed, 50% heal. → can’t decide. You can heal a bit now, thats good. But +2 sec from the original can make you unable to heal up as much as you would originaly.
  Its “ok” for now.

But we’re still waiting for something bigger buff package.
The Longbow really needs more speed and attention.

I have now completed the ranger class, thank me later.

Pets:

• In PvE, pet’s no longer take AoE damage, pet’s only take AoE damage when their masters do (equal amount). This prevents pets from dying to any bosses AoE if the master gets out of the way.
• Improve pet AI, or allow micro-managing of ALL pet skills.
  -To add to this: Pet F2 skills should cancel out any skill the pet is currently using, and have priority.

Spirits:

• Spirits need an improved passive buff, increase all spirit duration’s by:
  -Frost Spirit: Increase damage on hit to 25%
  -Stone Spirit: Increase protection duration to 5 seconds, lower internal cooldown to 8 seconds. Activating this spirit breaks stun and grants all allies in the area Aegis for 10 seconds.
  -Sun Spirit: Change to; when allies attack they have an x% chance of granting might to themselves. Make it’s activation a Fire Field.
  -Storm Spirit: Change to; Allies have x% chance to blind foe when attacking, Make the internal cooldown 15 seconds. Swiftness is useless in dungeons, as other classes can provide much better support with it.
• Add a stunbreaker to the spirits line, earth spirit activation for example.
• Increase spirits ARMOR rating, not health. Health does nothing when they have no armor. Or make spirits like Warrior banners, unkillable/targetable.

Wilderness Survival Skills:

• Quickening Zephyr; reduce duration to 4 seconds, this skill now heals for you for only 50% while active, increase quickness speed to 75%.
• Lightning Reflexes; reduce cooldown to 30 seconds. Remove damage (it’s superfluous). At the end of the roll, grants all allies vigor for 5 seconds. Allow this skill to be used instantly while knocked down (I think this is a bug currently, it has a cooldown if you’re KD’d).

Weapons:

• Longbow; reduce cooldowns, increase flight speed of arrows, improve damage. There is no reason why Rapid Fire should hit for only 8k in a full berserker build (using the most DPS-oriented set) for a 5 second cast time. Auto attack can do better, assuming max range.
• Warhorn; lower Call of the Wild’s cooldown to 30 seconds. Increase all boons duration to 20 seconds (make it a longer cooldown “For Great Justice”).
• Warhorn; lower Hunter’s Call cooldown to 20 seconds, and inflict bleeding and blind to target (the blind only triggers on the initial hit, the bleed triggers every time damage is inflicted).
• Shortbow; improve bleed duriation on Crossfire or remove the flanking and lower the bleed duriation.
• Shortbow; make Poison Volley a ground-targetable AoE Poison Field (yes I realize poison field is the worst combo field, still an improvement).

Elites:

• Entangle; this is more of a “nerf,” but allow the roots to be more easily targetable.
• Rampage As One; lower cooldown to 80 seconds, allow it to change between pets on swap, increase might duration to 10 seconds.
• Spirit Of Nature; this spirit now moves with master regardless of trait. The spirit now passively revives DEAD allies (not instant revive). Activating the spirit is still the same, revives downed allies. Increase passive heal to 450 (I realize it is 480 now, it’s most likely a bug, tooltip says 320 is the supposed heal).

Now I will pitch an idea for another Elite Skill, this one will remove the pet from the ranger and add in stances. I really hate the fact that Arena Net decided to go all “naturey” with Rangers, as historically, rangers weren’t druids at all. They were considered to be scouts, wildmen, and sharpshooters who essentially lived near enemy encampments or scouted the road ahead. I am basing these skills off Stances from the original Guild Wars, as I’m saddened that there is a lack of them in GW2. These stances will go up top where the pet’s UI was.

Stances:

• Elite: Practiced Stance; the ranger recalls his pet and is granted stances in place. While in this mode rangers have their base stats increased by 100 each. Upon cancelling this skill the ranger is unable to call a pet for 90 seconds.

-Sniper’s Stance; for 10 seconds, increases the range of bow attacks by 300m, while in this stance you have an additional 10% chance of dealing a critical hit. 20 second cooldown.
-Tiger’s Fury; for 3 seconds you gain quickness and deal 10% additional damage, however you are unable to move. 20 second cooldown.
-Dodge; you gain swiftness for 5 seconds and evade all attacks, Dodge ends if you attack. 30 second cooldown.
-Nature’s Blessing; grants you and all allies regeneration for 5 seconds and removes a condition every second. 30 second cooldown.

These stances are pretty balanced, each having their own checks and balances, while still remaining playable and fair. You may also only have one stance active at a time (you can’t stack snipers and tiger’s fury for example).

P.S. Sill waiting on Linnes Zoo ;_;

Leaf.3156:

RoyalPredator.9163:

PET Redesign:

• Maximum 5-10% of total HP can be took in a single second, so they won’t die by one hit.

Stopped reading riiiiiiiiiight there.
Yes, I want rangers to be good, yes, they need to be reworked, but giving pets permanent Protective Bond/Protective Spirit just isn’t the way at all.

Players can take 100% of their HP in a single hit, why shouldn’t pets?

Why can’t pets?..Because 50% of all rangers traits are either auto assigned, or designed around the pet. I would like to see you play your favourite class and get 50% of traits removed in a single hit on a A.I controlled companion that has poor targeting skills and very lack luster response to commands and micro managing, that can be confused if the foe runs around a rock or heaven forbid..dodge roll, that also won’t attack a target that is not running in a straight line, that is running slower than them with their back to them. The pet by anet design is an extension of the ranger them self. I personally just want to play and not even have a pet like in gw1. However anet has made it that a pet must always be present..regardless if you want one or not. Hope this answers your question as to why a ranger pet should not be allowed to die in a single hit.

CntrlAltDefeat.1465:

Leaf.3156:

RoyalPredator.9163:

PET Redesign:

• Maximum 5-10% of total HP can be took in a single second, so they won’t die by one hit.

Stopped reading riiiiiiiiiight there.
Yes, I want rangers to be good, yes, they need to be reworked, but giving pets permanent Protective Bond/Protective Spirit just isn’t the way at all.

Players can take 100% of their HP in a single hit, why shouldn’t pets?

Why can’t pets?..Because 50% of all rangers traits are either auto assigned, or designed around the pet. I would like to see you play your favourite class and get 50% of traits removed in a single hit on a A.I controlled companion that has poor targeting skills and very lack luster response to commands and micro managing, that can be confused if the foe runs around a rock or heaven forbid..dodge roll, that also won’t attack a target that is not running in a straight line, that is running slower than them with their back to them. The pet by anet design is an extension of the ranger them self. I personally just want to play and not even have a pet like in gw1. However anet has made it that a pet must always be present..regardless if you want one or not. Hope this answers your question as to why a ranger pet should not be allowed to die in a single hit.

Are you sure you aren’t a necromancer instead of a ranger?

Yeah, the class basically needs an overhaul.

Longbow: This needs to be reworked. The only cripple it provides is with Barrage. It’s easy to interupt or avoid so long as the person(s) you are trying to use it on are paying attention to you. It’s also on a 30sec CD.

Barrage should be a fire field instead of cripple.

Hunter’s Shot should cripple and Point Blank Shot should cause vulnerability.

Long Range Shot should do the same damage regardless of range but should have a longer range than skills 2 through 5.

Rapid Fire needs a damage boost. As it is, there is no change in dps between Rapid Fire and Long Range Shot when at full range. This is just wrong.

Traits

It’s true that too many of our traits are for our pets alone. It wouldn’t be nearly as bad if they had the same or smilar effect on the ranger as well. As well as our skills. We have to invest 30 pts in our power trait line in order for the active effects of our signets to work on us too! We have to trait into having boons we recieve get applied to the pet as well. If we send our pet in while we stay back with a bow, we are out of range of the pet’s F2 (ie Fern Hound’s regen howl) and that trait that gives our pet boons that we recieve is only a one way street.

Pets

They can be killed and yet we need them to be on par with the others. We lose them and we basically suffer a massive performance hit. It would be different if the pet allowed us to out perform the others while the pet is in the fight, since the increased performance comes at a cost of having to micro manage it or lose it. You can’t cc or kill a Guardian’s virtues.

I’d be content with 120% performance with the pet and only a 80% performance without. This way, we are sub par without the pet in the fight but we are above par with the pet in the fight. Any boons that the pet can provide (either itself or nearby party) should automatically benefit the ranger regardless of range.

Right now pets stop moving to attack. There is a cast time on these attacks which are represented by an animation. I’d much rather see (especially on their basic attack) no cast time but instead a CD represented by the same animation. Visually on screen, the pet’s behavior wouldn’t change. They would get in range, stop moving and swipe. The difference would be that the damage numbers would pop up before the swipe instead of after. This would also mean that a moving target can’t just move out of range during the cast time of the skill. In order for the opponent to kite your pet, they actually have to maintain distance which means actively cc’ing the pet as it should be.

Response time to commands. This is another issue that needs to be worked out. If I tell the pet to use its F2, it should stop what it’s doing (in other words the command should interupt the pet’s current action) and use the ability.

Pet pathing also needs to be improved. Why can’t my pet recognize the door way to towers and keeps? So my pet can actually run out. During siege defense, rangers are basically at a 40% performance hit (dps hit) you basically have to go out, tell your pet to attack and then go back in but now it will take you time to get back up on the wall and in that time, chances are your pet will almost be dead and you will have to swap. Birds should just be able to fly down from the wall since, well, they can fly.

Also, pets are treated poorly. If we are suppose to have a bond with our pets, then the mechanics does a poor job at allow us to bond with our pet. Constantly having to swap between the two selected pets, and swap between what our two active pets are going to be.

What if instead of the current pet selection/use system, we had the following. You select on the right which pet you want to use. On the left, where the currently selected pets go, you instead pick two out of the four stats you want to have a boost. Take a look at the pets and you will see that two out of the four are boosted. Swap pet then becomes a rez pet.

Maybe, just maybe, you can select the F2 ability. So the F2 ability gets that little arrow like our utility skills do when out of combat. These skills come with the pets as you tame them, so you unlock these skills for which ever pet you use by taming the pets that have these skills.

This way you can pick the pet that is most visually appealing to you and best suits the theme of your character. It gives the pet customization quality, and allows the player/ranger to have a bond with the particular pet. It would also help with the name reset issue. Instead of now where the pets are just used and abused.

Oh, and we should have an elite skill called camouflage. Removes movement imparing conditions (also breaks stun) and gives us invisibility for a couple seconds. I was thinking 10s on a 2min CD. It’s basically an escape skill.

Thank you for your feedback, fellow Ranger!

Hmm…. when will we have so awesome armors like this, instead of the current craps? :/

Royal Predator I liked your idea on the signets, maybe that can be locked in option . That is decided when you pick your storyline at the start of the game ( wolf, raven, bear and snow leopard) making whatever your choose the signet you will get. Making this more of an important decision. Another point that i believe was talked out in this thread is having no pets. Which I find pretty good idea but can be improved on.

Well my idea is having certain pets give you certain stats boost like fern hound will give you more healing power. Not too much but just a bit the real power is in being able to use thier abilities with your weapon. Let’s say ideally because i want ranger to have more healing skills. Barrage with longbow will also be an aoe Heal when you infuse you fernhound to yourself.

This can also increase the different looks of ranger, maybe like green arrows of something similar but ideally not since it would be a too many style choices. Infusing the bear will give your different body armor, birds will be hands, canine will be different legs, etc. It would be up to the developers to figure it out really. This would be a huge task on the redesign of the ranger because of the skill they would acquire from infusing pets into your armor. Also a huge balance issue, but if it comes down to that they could always lock a skill to a family tree so you get a certain skill only from a certain family of pets but the thing that would only change when picking between a fern hound and a wolf would be stats.

Anyways that’s my idea. Any feedback would be great.

really love the ideas in this thread. i am very thankful that anet stated that there is something utterly broken with this class. and i hope they are already working on a ranger overhaul.
i dont believe that simple changes to certain skills is going to do the job since 90% of the traits and utilities are not fun at all

not mentioning that longbow is the most useless weapon in the whole game.

Thank you the feedbacks!

Since the game designers @ Arenanet don’t want you to lock you at choses, it is logical to change your “style”/“decisions”. Personaly, I don’t want it to be locket neither, because it would limit the ability to adapt to the local conditions. It can be done perfectly only… who knows.
Nice ideas btw!

I’m more likely to see intelligence and animation upgrades on pets, because they look and act very cybernetic atm. Nothing I would call “revolutionary”, nor “new generation”. By time, hope they’ll make it properly.

I’m keeping to play with longbow (Azureflame), cuz I’ve found it more effective for AOE damages (for increasing my crap loot quantity), but its speed and damages disappointing me.
I have a shortbow also, but its not really useable with my critical damage build.
It needs lot of condition damage to take effect… and still not as fun (for me) to wait an enemy bleeding out. I play russian style, I believe in serious outnumbers and brute forces ^^

Not sure if I’ve mentioned before:
In WWW, Rangers should have different pets saved (like in sPVP).
It is… pathetic? to have so much effectiveness differences between pets…
What is a little bleeding compaired to 6 secs of drake daze?…

Well I main my Ranger since a very long time now and I have to disagree your statements. The Ranger is pretty balanced tho the only thing you need is positioning, timing and holding your enemy on range. This will work easily once you learned to play with the right pets. For example you can easily double root someone with the spider for 4 seconds in the WvW / PvE / Spvp , and 4 seconds is by far enough to nuke someone down if you play as a burst / dps ranger. You can also use the dog-type pets to knock your enemy down for 2 seconds. And also , the ranger has by far one of the best downstat skill set, one interrupt , a very strong heal (pet even gets revived this way) and a lot of bleeding stacks. Also , the ranger with the right traits does the highest amount of AoE damage ( even more than an elementalist ). So quit complaining about how unavailable the ranger is and learn to play properly with their class kit and mechanics. In my case I play with short and longbow (longbows damage on 1200-1500 range is like 3k each hit on players and with shortbow I just do like 2-3hits per second to enemies which are closer to me (I directly swap from long into shortbow if someone gets close). The Shortbow even has a skill where you can run away from some1 and make a shot backwards without being interrupted from running away (with like a second of evasion). The next part is that the ranger has a lot of mobility with the right kit (lightning reflexes gives you a free dodge with vigor so you can dodge like 4 times with it). The pet does a very high amount of damage even if you dont play beastmaster. So just quit complaining because the ranger isnt just a "press “X” button class to win". Just learn to manage the difficulties with disadvantages and advantages of a ranger. The funniest thing after all hearing like the longbow is so useless, just try to press zephyr once with the combo “3=>2=>5” and your enemy is to 100% dead unless he is interrupting you or a guardian. You can stack like 25 stacks of vulnerability instantly on initiating a shot and thats not epic? Well I mean having such complains from persons who probably dont have any clue about the ranger at all. And don’t forget that A-net will always approve if the big mass of community flames that something is imbalanced with a class. But thats just ridiculous because they did a perfect job on the ranger at all. If you ask me I do like 14k dmg with my Rapid Fire on longbow and AoEing with every shot I do “piercing arrow trait”. And reading that the ranger traits are not fun at all is also just hilarious.

Trolls are Not allowed Asukie. We have nao moar fuud!

My only suggestion for the Ranger class is that we have the option to “stow” our pets in fights without it bouncing out all the time. Even if put on passive, the AI for the pet is an issue. I want the option of my pet being permanently stowed without worrying about it causing issues if I want to play a portion of the game without it running with me.

Not much to ask, and I guess they’ll bring something with a nice marketing post.
I imagine pets with realistic animation, where they don’t turn in X degree to move.
Maybe a random way generator with a player-movement based vector should be programmed for them, and for all the NPCs & Foes.