Guild Wars 2

Welcome, fellow Rangers! For the feb.17 CDI \ Ranger devTopic, here is my updated version for the ranger class mechanism. After 1600+ hours spent using the class as main, I find all of this to be a suitable replacement. The following modifications may seem radical for some, but I believe this kind of design is the way of this Next-Gen era coming up, and at least it really worth to imagine.
Please provide your feedback below, I would like to know everyone’s opinion who hasn’t been satisfied with the current state.
Let’s get started! Let’s see what the class descriptions says;
Rangers are flexible and durable – proficient with the bow, yet surgical with the sword. They rely on a keen eye, a steady hand, and the power of nature to slay their targets. Their loyal pets, which rangers tame and train, distract enemies while the rangers strike safely from a distance. As an adventurer profession, rangers wear medium armor. Rangers are masters of their natural surroundings, and use a versatile set of skills to hunt their enemies. The rangers are also accompanied by their trusted pets, fighting in unison with their own set of pet skills to pick off their enemies one by one. Their unique attribute provides a Pet Attribute Bonus.

[Flexibility]
For first, I would highlight the core component of this overhaul.
Thieves have nice initiative points, which basically just reloading mana.
Rangers may need something same special but unique; The best alternative seems like to have “Endurance” or “Stamina”, which works the same way as initiative points, but can be used for dodge multiple times. It can be 10 or 12 points, or a redesigned endurance bar, where our actions cost % percentages of our actions. It’s may 2 barrage, or 10 continuous dodges. At the end, we’ll be nearly in the same situation as thieves. They’re killers, we’re hunters. The only difference I see is that we supposed to kill beasts/monsters in the first place. + less dark style.

Longbow: Basic war tool

1. Long Range Shot – 0pt – Shoot your foe from long range (1400). Stable DPS. Casting time 0.10 – 0.75 depending how far your target is! The closer you are, the more risk you take, the more dmg you can deal.
   This is realistic, and would make a very nice challange for everyone. Stay behind safe and work normaly or deal with the risk of being killed but deal a little more because of ROF. It would also help hunters to not being primary hunted…
2. Rapid Fire – 4pt – Same as now, 1200 range. Only difference is to make it casting faster, so the applied vulnerability & damage can go more like Boom or Waste. Requires bit harder decision to risk, but also more rewarding and power representing.
3. Hunter’s Shot – 3pt – Complete change based on buffed Mercy Shot: Fire a shot that strikes for more damage the less health your target has. 5s protection if target has above 75% HP.
4. Point Blank Shot – Push back your foe with a point-blank shot. The closer they are, the farther it pushes them back. +5 sec of stealth applied. 10 sec if target hit from the behind.
5. Barrage – 5pt – No changes, I feel good as is.

Shortbow: Flexibility skirmishing on closer range

1. Crossfire – 0pt – No changes
2. Poison Volley – 4pt – Fire a spread of five poison arrows that bouncing. Time stacks on multiple hit, not intensity. It improves usage on less targets available.
3. Quick Fire – 3pt – Fire a quick shot in an evasive retreat. Gain swiftness if the shot hits. This can be used while retreating.
4. Cripping Shot – 3pt – No changes
5. Concussion Shot – 3pt – No changes

Greatsword: Mass skirmishing, brute force.

1. Slash, Slice, Power Stab – 0 pt – No changes. Bit more powerful animation I suggest.
2. Maul – 3pt – Now Applies Knockdown!
3. Swoop – 4pt – Evades on swooping, applies crippling.
4. Counter, Throw – 1+2pt – Throw applies knockdown. (logical)
5. Hilth Bash – 4pt – bit longer daze.

Sword: Elegant duelist style.

1. Slash, Kick, Pounce – 0pt – No more stick on target, but pounce still leaps some toward the target.
2. Hornet Stick, Monarch’s Leap – 3pt – No changes.
3. Serpent Strike – 3pt – No changes, but should be more mobile like swoop.
4. Dolyack Kick – 4pt – Kick your foe back a little. Interrupts.
5. Ground Marker – 4 pt – Stabbing the ground, applies random trap on your place.
6. NEW slot 4 & 5 skills are only is no offhand weapon equipped; more diversity & realistic combat.

Axe: Used for hard skirmishing, axes swing as daggers in the hands of a thief.

1. Richochet – 0pt – Now works like the Sword autoattack with minor changes. No idiotic throwspam lol!
2. Splitblade – 4pt – Works the same kitten Poison Volley, but bleeding.
3. Winter’s Bite – 3pt – No changes
4. +OFFHAND Path of Scars – 3pt – No changes
5. +OFFHAND Whirling Defense – 5p – No changes

Warhorn: Howl your might!

1. NEW Fear not this Night! – 4pt – AOE Grants Protection 10s up to 10 ally.
2. NEW Sunlight – 4pt – AOE Removes 2 condition up to 10 ally.
3. NEW Moonlight – 4pt – AOE Brakes stealth on foes up to 5 target.
4. Hunter’s Call – 4pt – Now Knocks down and Immobilizes or Blinds target.
5. Call of the Wild – 4pt – No changes
   First 3 skill only useable when have no mainhand weapon. Its PARTY SUPPORT.

Dagger: Every hunter has a survival knife.

1. Stalker’s Strike – 4pt – Throw to Cripple & Evade
2. NEW Bone Stab – 4pt – Strong stab that applies Torment

Torch: Spray fire instead of throwing it.

So with this new system and skills, we’re able to HUNT DOWN our targets, or just to provide fair help during fights. Projectile speed should be increased to prevent false misses, blocks should only work from a degree of angle.
Stealth breaks if took X% damage of base HP(These can go to other classes as well!)

[Durability]
How can we be the masters of Wilderness Survival? Our Flexibility offers a nice balance to take our risk. The Ultility skills we have should also support both our Flexibility and Durability in special ways. Above that the Base Stats should should be slightly improved & our Traits adjusted to sharpen the wanted weak or strongpoints. Changes;

• Lightning Reflexes: little Stun or Stealth instead of dmg.
• Quickening Zephyr: Signet with passive effect +10% quickness, +50% if activated. Reduced heal is ok, it is risky to be a russian roulette imo.
• Sharpening Stone: Buff on critical chance and critical dmg.
• Sun Spirit: Flame Djinn skin, activating summons, sub-skill absorbs it for self-buffing aura.
• Frost Spirit: Icebrood beast skin, activating summons, sub-skill absorbs it for self-buffing aura.
• Stone Spirit: Oakhearth skin, activating summons, sub-skill absorbs it for self-buffing aura.
• Storm Spirit: Storm Elemental skin, activating summons, sub-skill absorbs it for self-buffing aura.
• Rampage as One: Equaly long-powerful as Signet of Rage. Needs passive effect also.
• Throw Dirt: Dirt bleeds, really?? Let it be a rock with a chance to interrupt.
• Lick Wounds: Ability to move out of danger-zone!! Pets drag us out while invincible as many other classes… (pet may be damageable still if some says it would be OP meanwhile its just equal.)

• Stun Breaking skills or a fix trait should also reduce Immobilised.
• I would suggest to have more signet-like skills on buffs, including equipped Spirits.

NOTE: These are still need to run on recharge mech.
The pet-control skills should be imported to the basic pet useages…

(THIS POST RESERVED TO CONTINUE)

[Pets]

• AI: Apart from it being quite dumb from HC player’s perspective, and very easy to exploit meanwhile their only current “smartness” is their overpowered skills & buffs, I have a solution.
  It’s all about to make an illusion to them working. As suggested in the Game Mechanism,
  they should rely on unique skills with continuous animations, so we don’t see them stuck in progress.
• Tame: Since AOEs are creeping them out, its reasonable to make them fully or partially resistant. Then we need to reorder the possibilities: F1 = Attack/Return/Condition, F2 = Use skill, F3 = Return or Use skill, F4 = Swap.
  If Attack & Return both merged to F1, Buff/Harm also can be merged to F2 with the rules where is the pet, at us to help or at enemy to harm.

Pets may have no physical DMG at all, so we Rangers can manage with full, but it’s still unrealistic… However, it would be nice if our oponents gets the surprise packs comming from the pets. They’re nearly like the extensions of our arms/will, as catching foes.
The base stats may still be able to be locked, but at least their skills to use should be customizable to have the wanted pet and effect at the same time. It’s a true tame and train. So let’s say, a wolf can cause knockdown and fear, or it summons a pack. One is sure: Their buffs should ALWAYS effect us.
And they shouldn’t be juveniles…

[Adventurer]
It’s just about a proper visual design here;

• Animations are good, still should reflect more power & style
• Armor designs should be more realistic: Proper leather armors with metal reinforcements!

These details above are all “mind-calculated”, the adjusting of values are up to the balance team!
In hope GW2 still can be a real “Revolutionary MMO”, I take my efforts to practice my game designer skills, and then wait for your hopefully positive feedback that comes from your hearth.

I like some sugestions but not all, they lack sense

Hunter’s call should apply Blindness each second, not knockdown, makes more sense and would work great for pve/pvp

Also, barrage should have faster caster time, Ice bow “barrage” seems faster wich aint fair and we should be able to cast barrage on the move

We need this on the move for WvW and sPvP

Also, what about a new utility:

“Read the Wind”: Your projectiles do 25% extra damage and fly at double speed, 30s. Preparation 40s cd with half a second cast time

Think about it!

Think “Low-Hanging Fruit” and then go even lower. Any suggestion for animation changes are a no-no, they don’t have/want to put in the time for it. Whatever changes for pet functionality or handling pet functionality (F1-4) scratch those ideas as well – that fruit is just too kitten high for them.

I do like some of your suggestions though such as Hunter’s Shot functioning like Mercy Shot. As for some other suggestions, I believe there were some threads about how Rangers would like to see Warhorn 4 inflict blindness and Maul become a Blast Finisher. I personally don’t like the knockdown suggestions for them except Throw from Greatsword counter, a knockdown from that seems right (matches Nightmare Court enemies that do the same).

As for your Axe suggestion on making it like sword (melee), I wanted something like this, too. Could be done if the sword attack animations were to be changed to the regular sword chain and the current sword animations to be moved on Axe, but then that opens up another can of worms for those that like how Axe 1 functions currently.

As for not being satisfied with the current state of Rangers, I’ve focused on using other classes when playing the game and use my Ranger to complete the daily. Love the class and don’t care for it all at the same time.

Wondrouswall.7169:

Think “Low-Hanging Fruit” and then go even lower. ….snip .

Exactly. So many people think they have a green light to give suggestions how to redesign the Ranger class. They put in a bunch of hours writing a novel explaining what could be done. ….Don’t waste your time. It aint gonna happen. Anet is not going to redesign anything or for that matter put all their resources into ONE class.

Any potential “fixes” are going to be small supplements to what Rangers already have. Think Warrior healing signet or adding Torment to offhand sword. That type of thing.

I think rangers like snipers should be able to stay stealthed while they move to set up ambushes for their team. Get rid of the pet or make it work exactly on time like a weapon.

What if pets didn’t attack at all. They just stood next to your feet and the ranger could use their abilities as their own f1-f4 kinda like a spirit.

Interesting ideas but alas I doubt a deep revamp is going to happen. I invite you to check “my own patch notes” series there. It’s a bunch of fixes apart from 1 new skill, and I see we share some ideas about the GS.

Sneakier.9460:

I like some sugestions but not all, they lack sense

Hunter’s call should apply Blindness each second, not knockdown, makes more sense and would work great for pve/pvp

Also, barrage should have faster caster time, Ice bow “barrage” seems faster wich aint fair and we should be able to cast barrage on the move

We need this on the move for WvW and sPvP

Also, what about a new utility:

“Read the Wind”: Your projectiles do 25% extra damage and fly at double speed, 30s. Preparation 40s cd with half a second cast time

Think about it!

Man do I miss Read the Wind.

I really want them to change greatsword a little. Increase slash, slice, power stab damage a little and change counter throw so that you can move while you are doing the knock back. Also maybe increase the range of hilt bash a little. For example even thief “dagger 1 skill” does more damage than the ranger “greatsword 1 skill”. When you counter throw someone you’re stuck in place until the animation finishes so sometimes it feels like I stunlock myself…

The ideas seem pretty sound. My concern though is this…

Thieves have 12 traits tied directly to their Initiative.
What 12 traits would you suggest be deleted or changed so our Stamina can be just as effective as the Thief equivalent if we want it to be?

Thank you for the feedbacks so far, shoot your opinion!

The Ultility skills are the responsible tools for out wished Dinamic Hunts.
Thieves may seem OP here, but its not an excuse to not have similar good skills to use.
Traits can also share the design about the new “mana”, but I’m not sure that we should really modify the system. Faster regen, chance to spend less, etc would be good points.
WIP!

The core of this overhaul is about the new Endurance/Stamina based weapon useage, so we would have these good skills but in reasonable and helpful format. WvW Thief rule is to scout, meanwhile We should do that, so we need more stealth. + to eliminate some kind of treat like siege users, etc.
Thieves may hunt down key foes like commanders, elementalits, guardians.
For hunting, we need to Catch things, knockdown interrupts & immobilise seems one of bests. It would even help to survive, meanwhile right now we’re the worst at it…
In big picture, we would be useful interrupters as was in GW1, so the Hunter will not become a Prey.

Yes its a Big task to do, but if we say that they just overrushed our beloved class, its the same work they just “skipped”. They CAN do it and with the support of YOU, it still has a chance to happen. I don’t think its such a risk to try out new ways, its what GW2 is about, right? Faith the Revolution!

!! Within days I’ll put in the reworked Ultility skills to the reserved post !!

P.s.: Some says Warhorn #4 needs Blind. I’ll add this to the list as an additional effect, looks like I’ve just missed it. + NEW solo weapon skills for SUPPORT, as long as no main weapon equipped.

Taushullu.6180:

I’ve been working on some ranger trait suggestions for a while now and the leaked patchnotes (let them be real or not) wasn’t quite what I hoped for. I was planning on waiting and linking these suggestions to the ranger CDI thread, but as it got delayed (and delayed again), I’ll just link them here first. Check them out if you are interested!

Link to trait suggestions Warning: wall-of-text

Here’s a list of things I’ve tried to focus on with these suggestions:

• Compression of pet related traits.
• Reduction of “passive” traits & promotion of “active” traits.
• More impactful & supportive grandmaster traits.
• Changes to Opening Strike.
• Changes to condition removal.
• Synergy between traits.
• More fun!

Did any of you tought how cool it would be if like GOT’s "Warg"s / Necro Death Shroud, we could transfer ourselves onto our pet for more precise control, meanwhile the basics given normaly?

I still have hope on this kind of Ranger design.
By now I’m very sure that we need a deep rework.

In all honesty, I think most rangers would just be happy with a GM that caused fire fields to become smoke fields for a few seconds after the fire field ends. It’d certainly open the class up to some interesting mechanics.

“NEW slot 4 & 5 skills are only is no offhand weapon equipped; more diversity & realistic combat.”

I don’t like this. Just add a new weapon for offhand and give it those skills, like offhand sword. Without an offhand, you’re missing out on the stats that a second weapon provides. Stats of a 1h weapon, half those of a normal 2h weapon.

The biggest trouble I see at Rangers right now isn’t the pets or the skills/stats.
Its the crap AutoAim that prevents hitting fast targets like thieves. For that, we’re forced to use melee, and that doesn’t really help versus a 2 hit killer thief, which still exist strongly.

We have a crap 3s stealth which is unuseable at most of times, + due to pets who don’t get stealthed and will brake ours when they attack – they track us down easy.
Point Blank Shot is a really useable skill, but also fails because bad autoaim. As mentioned, PBS should have the Stealth as an additional buff, its very logical.
But until these skills goes to cooldown because our animations prevent to aim out of angle, we will always lose the opportunities…

@ Aden: We don’t need New weapon. Maybe more to use, like pistol, rifle and staff – but this way is a step toward real revolutionary designs which GW2 should offer.
In case you only equip 1 of one handed, the other slots are balanced to be equal to 2 equips. They doesn’t bring in mutch now anyway.

One of the best Ranger Feedback I’ve heard.

But what I find not necessary is the weapon like Warhorn Remake. What we need is not more options – but those options we have being reliable.

Many people might think I’ve been thinking about something crazy and unbalanced… But Read the Wind should be made BASELINE. We are RANGERS. We are the only class that use Longbow for steady DPS. We NEED IT TO BE RELIABLE.

That picture is hilarious. I’ve never seen anyone hold/draw a bow as wrong as the girl in the picture. How the hell can she aim with that furball on it?

solrik.6028:

That picture is hilarious. I’ve never seen anyone hold/draw a bow as wrong as the girl in the picture. How the hell can she aim with that furball on it?

Archer here. It’s called a flying anchor. If she’s shooting intuitive, the fluffball doesn’t bother her, she aims before drawing the bow back. The arrow just rests on the false side of the bow for the mediterranian style. flies away

That picture isn’t important, and put up just because it looks good.
What important here is, the core system to prevent CDs on weapons and fixing stats/styles/Logic.

1 Month at AN HQ while the team does exactly what I say so and we would have balanced Ranger. No risk here, my design doesn’t reduce anything, not even highly buffing to be OP. Even if that 0.1% chance of fail hits in, simple backroll to prev. state and the only thing “wasted” would be the cost of my fly tickets and my short living there.

This is Next-Generation now, none should copypaste the old mechanics where there are better ways…

The balance notes getting Rangers closer to this concept. We’re heading the right path!
We’ll have see the velocity of improvement tho.

As mentioned for you guys a lot; Never lose Hope

Patch happened, good direction IMO.
Read of the Wind is still weak, my opinion is to merge it with Eagle Eye to get a really logical trait, which is like; 1500 Range, ROF & Arrow velocity increase.

P.s.: Signet of the Hunt & Signet of the Wind’s activated DPS buff actualy decreases my dmg. LoL.

RoyalPredator.9163:

Patch happened, good direction IMO.
Read of the Wind is still weak, my opinion is to merge it with Eagle Eye to get a really logical trait, which is like; 1500 Range, ROF & Arrow velocity increase.

P.s.: Signet of the Hunt & Signet of the Wind’s activated DPS buff actualy decreases my dmg. LoL.

Yeh I’m struggling to find a build that needs the signets. SotF still seems the better option for power builds.

The main differences I am seeing so far is:

1. LB more viable
2. PvE dmg increased by Predators Onslaught
3. Beastmaster more viable from axe mainhand/fortifying bond

4. Signets has not helped much
5. Greatsword Buff un-noticeable

Guess we really need some interrutps and slowdowns.
This was a main role of us in GW1 tho :o