Guild Wars 2

First off, there is already enough crying on the ranger forum, and I hope not to continue that while providing some genuine feedback in a competitive view. Battosai did extremely well considering the major topics that were addressed, but there just isn’t enough time to address everything, which is totally understandable.

My first and I think biggest point, which was addressed at the SoTG (but not mentioned in the regard that I’m going to) is how passive the ranger gameplay is, especially in regards to the pet mechanic. I think it needs to be bluntly stated that the competitive community doesn’t enjoy such a passive mechanic. Yes, this resulted in a nerf, but a nerf didn’t fix any build viability or performance issues for the class.

If anything, the pet mechanic is a much too passive (buggy too) and rewarding system for a game that succeeds on hinging so much of its competition on positioning, burst setup, and reactionary play. Having a pet running around, RNGing skills at people for a large portion of the rangers damage isn’t doing any justice.

Here’s some points:
-The pet holds way too much of the power potential for rangers who want to play a power spec. There really needs to be the option to choose (or it needs to all be forced to this) to use a purely utility pet so that the player can focus on outputting all of the damage themselves, while providing additional support (like boons) for groups through pets that are strong enough to warrant a potential focus from teams so that (theoretically) a pet can’t get off a group wide stability.

-Pets cannot be such a big part of the rangers DPS output. There are times (on ledges, for example) where that pet is useless, and the pet can represent up to 40% of the players damage (which is a problem within itself due to the pets RNG nature). Pets should really be made into almost a more burst like mechanic, where they have virtually zero sustained damage, but can be used to gain DPS in some way (think warrior burst skills or thief steal).

Basically, rangers suffer from both the skill floor being too low, and the ceiling being not much higher. Adjusting the pet to be better only leads to it being a less competitive and more passive alternative. What needs to happen is to have the class adjusted so that rangers can choose to make themselves the damage sources (by increasing damage coefficients and reducing pet damage), while utilizing the pet as additional damage on a cooldown (F2 skills are already in place).

tl;dr: There needs to be more involved play, and the passive attributes need to be adjusted (or removed) to allow for more counterplay.

The reason why Ranger in PvP is not suceeding? He lacks of efficient AoE-Damage (Trapper is too weak compared to other classes) and he has not as much of teamsupport as other classes have. Especially since Necro stepped into the spotlight.

+ I have to agree on above points.

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

The reason why Ranger in PvP is not suceeding? He lacks of efficient AoE-Damage (Trapper is too weak compared to other classes) and he has not as much of teamsupport as other classes have. Especially since Necro stepped into the spotlight.

Of course that’s true.

But more so I was trying to address why with every patch and SoTG, the ranger receives such little love, even with a representative who mains the class. The biggest factors to that seems to be how effective the passive mechanic given to the class is, and how low the skill floor for the class remains because all of the skills are fairly simplistic, including how the pet functions (in a call of duty game, the pet mechanic would be like the player aiming the gun, and then the gun firing itself until either what you were shooting at dies or you tell it to stop).

If introducing “complexity” is something the dev team is unwilling to explore due to inherent complications with how new players respond to the class, then the other alternative is to relegate the pet into being less sustained damage, but more potential play to it by giving it an important active function. This would also alleviate issues with build diversity by allowing the devs to up the damage coefficients on power weapons to compensate for the pet being more of a burst/utility role and less of a sustained damage while the ranger dodges around surviving tool (a paraphrase of how the meta was prepatch).

Hearing that they think trapper and spirits are somewhat fine as is in pvp, actually made me a little angry. While I agree that rangers are stuck going down the wilderness survival trait like is a complete must for survival, even if we didn’t have to I don’t think we can compare in damage.

There is no tradeoff right now it is almost complete survival traits, or don’t do well.

Also the talk about Retaliation and aoe and conditions, all of it needs to be toned down, there should be no we need to balance it talk, they are all too good. Hearing Cutie talk about what he brings to his team utility wise, Moa, portal and something else, the one thing the beast master did bring to the table was the leash range.

As a pvp ranger I did not feel well represented by Battosai, I mean he’s asking about how short bow effects wvw and pve. On a range of things that are important to a pvp ranger shortbow range is rather down the list.

Also with the pet control and confusing new players, why can’t you just select if you want control or not in options. I’ll tell you this I’m not good enough to use like 4 pet controls and all my skills, my micro is just not good enough for that that being said I wouldn’t object to those who can do that having the option to.

Here’s the thing, the pet mechanic is holding the class back, especially from a competitive aspect (passive damage with no skill necessary to use effectively).

With every patch (except the last), the pets have always remained at “this” level, while the ranger gets adjusted up/down. However, the actual effectiveness of the class hasn’t really changed at all with each patch (except the last again).
Finally, the pets get adjusted. What I’m attempting to reiterate is that the more pets get toned down sustained damage wise (and potentially taken in a different direction), the more potential it opens up for players to create more diverse builds, or have access to more competitive builds with play/counterplay aspects.

The thing that needed to be asked is whether or not that is the direction the class is headed for, whether or not they plan on elaborating on the aforementioned potential that gets opened up, and whether or not the devs are planning on making the active playstyle of rangers more elaborate (skill based, if you will), which would also result in more effective balance changes, because it should be easier to mess with numbers and values than it is the inherent function of mechanics.

I play ranger for WvW/PVE/PVP pretty frequently. I actually really enjoy my PVP time with the ranger. I know the pets I like using and I have adapted to the function of how the pets work. I plan on F2 not being an instant cast and I think more Rangers should do the same and stop asking Anet to make it instant. Would it be useful, sure it would, but it is not reality at the moment. Think of it as a channeling time, in compared to other class skills. If a Ranger is playing and demands that be done or the skills are no good… then change the way you play.

I don’t run a BM build, I don’t run a full berserker style build, I’m not a tank, I use SB/LB (seems like a minority there) and there have been plenty of times I walk into a 2v1 situation and win. There have also been times that I lose, but that should go without saying. It sure as heck isn’t from expecting F2 skills to be instant, but at the same time the pet plays a HUGE part in the strategy, and again I am not a BM. Knowing when you need to prolong a situation long enough to get the skill off is important to the play style in its current state. If you have no time, then that is not the skills fault, that is on the attacker and you can’t blame him/her for pressuring you.

I personally have found a build that works for me with MY play style. I do damage, I take points, I move around, I attack in RANGE and prep for the close quarters that is coming. Too many band wagoner’s jump into classes and go straight to traitting the most known builds but don’t take time to learn why they work. They have little to no personal play style invested into the build, it is just expected to work. Then we see people QQ about how the class needs so much help. Builds have give and take and that should never change. You want to be Berserk, fine, but plan on how to defend the burst. Want to tank, go for it, but know how to prolong till you get help.

One thing I wanted to say on a comment here; Ranger AOE is not too weak. A lot of other classes is just too strong. Trap builds seem a little more realistic to how AOE should function, rather than some classes’ best damage coming from AOE.

Sudden.8729:

I play ranger for WvW/PVE/PVP pretty frequently. I actually really enjoy my PVP time with the ranger. I know the pets I like using and I have adapted to the function of how the pets work. I plan on F2 not being an instant cast and I think more Rangers should do the same and stop asking Anet to make it instant. Would it be useful, sure it would, but it is not reality at the moment. Think of it as a channeling time, in compared to other class skills. If a Ranger is playing and demands that be done or the skills are no good… then change the way you play.

I don’t run a BM build, I don’t run a full berserker style build, I’m not a tank, I use SB/LB (seems like a minority there) and there have been plenty of times I walk into a 2v1 situation and win. There have also been times that I lose, but that should go without saying. It sure as heck isn’t from expecting F2 skills to be instant, but at the same time the pet plays a HUGE part in the strategy, and again I am not a BM. Knowing when you need to prolong a situation long enough to get the skill off is important to the play style in its current state. If you have no time, then that is not the skills fault, that is on the attacker and you can’t blame him/her for pressuring you.

I personally have found a build that works for me with MY play style. I do damage, I take points, I move around, I attack in RANGE and prep for the close quarters that is coming. Too many band wagoner’s jump into classes and go straight to traitting the most known builds but don’t take time to learn why they work. They have little to no personal play style invested into the build, it is just expected to work. Then we see people QQ about how the class needs so much help. Builds have give and take and that should never change. You want to be Berserk, fine, but plan on how to defend the burst. Want to tank, go for it, but know how to prolong till you get help.

That works for you and that’s great. But it would be better for your power setup if your damage coefficients on your weapon skills weren’t split between your pet, so that the berserker build would be more effective.

I’m not saying that rangers are terrible or in a bad place at all with this, I’m saying that it seems obvious that the pet mechanic is a hard thing to balance around and instead of balancing the player around the pet, maybe the pet should be balanced around the player is all.

@RonPiece; Agreed, AoE in this game is absolutely too strong, and it boils down to situations where all other things equal, you take the class with the best AoE, because of how powerful it is. An AoE nerf was mentioned back in like Decembers SoTG but nothing was ever followed up on it, but it is a feature that is centric to imbalances within the game.

For the sake of the highlighting the specific purpose of the thread, I’m going to ask a question to help keep the thread constructive and maybe to enhance the understanding of what I’m trying to address.

In a game striving to be competitive, are passive mechanics, to the degree of a necessary AI controlled damage source, good or bad for high level competition?

Based off of the response to that question; are rangers in an acceptable place, able to perform multiple roles for a team, and not outperformed by anything else so that they offer a niche role for a team comp?

My opinion is that no, having passive elements in a game trying to be as competitive as possible is a very impeding element, and that because rangers, and ranger balance, is anchored around how the pet performs, instead of the pet being tailored to the player and the player controlling how they themselves can perform with or without the pet and still be effective; rangers are not in a good spot philosophy wise, as well as balance wise.

BUT, I’m curious to see what other people think, because I’m hoping to reach a consensus of some sort.

I like this discussion. It’s much more constructive than most.

I play the under represented power ranger (not full zerker, but lots of power/precision), and I would absolutely love it if there was some split between pets where we have our typical pets, and then our utility pets. Utility pets could give us back our DPS in full, but they would also allow me to give support to myself and my team which is something I REALLY want to do! I feel like there’s so little I can offer right now in terms of team support, but this would be absolutely wonderful. I hope Anet is reading this thread.

SafiMoyo.5130:

I like this discussion. It’s much more constructive than most.

I play the under represented power ranger (not full zerker, but lots of power/precision), and I would absolutely love it if there was some split between pets where we have our typical pets, and then our utility pets. Utility pets could give us back our DPS in full, but they would also allow me to give support to myself and my team which is something I REALLY want to do! I feel like there’s so little I can offer right now in terms of team support, but this would be absolutely wonderful. I hope Anet is reading this thread.

So do I lol.

Honestly my feeling is that the mechanics for Pets and Spirits, seem to me, ti be the reverse of what they should be. If you were to refine and swap their roles, I think it would be a far better manifestation of the two concepts.

So imagine, much as you have pet-related shouts, that pets become a like Utility skill – 4 general types, say Burst DPS, Condition, Heal and CC. A Ranger could then choose these or not, and have them at his disposal on demand – but not be literally chained to Pets. Traiting or other investment behind these skills would make them more effective, but not be as necessary to be effective as they are now.

This would represent a significant design change, as regards the Trait lines and such – but I think when you look at how much is in there that pertains to pets, and how little is really useful or desired… more direct system, less random manifestation, would be preferable I feel.

As for Spirits, these feel like how Pets should be used, as mentioned above. Really, you could pretty much maintain the art, or swap the roles and tweak the details, and arrive at something that seemed much better. As was said above, Pets are far too random in their manifestation, they are note nearly as uniformly useful as they need to be, and they in this unideal form account for too much of a Ranger’s damage potential. Deep alterations need to be made in my opinion.

Anthrage.2519:

Honestly my feeling is that the mechanics for Pets and Spirits, seem to me, ti be the reverse of what they should be. If you were to refine and swap their roles, I think it would be a far better manifestation of the two concepts.

So imagine, much as you have pet-related shouts, that pets become a like Utility skill – 4 general types, say Burst DPS, Condition, Heal and CC. A Ranger could then choose these or not, and have them at his disposal on demand – but not be literally chained to Pets. Traiting or other investment behind these skills would make them more effective, but not be as necessary to be effective as they are now.

This would represent a significant design change, as regards the Trait lines and such – but I think when you look at how much is in there that pertains to pets, and how little is really useful or desired… more direct system, less random manifestation, would be preferable I feel.

As for Spirits, these feel like how Pets should be used, as mentioned above. Really, you could pretty much maintain the art, or swap the roles and tweak the details, and arrive at something that seemed much better. As was said above, Pets are far too random in their manifestation, they are note nearly as uniformly useful as they need to be, and they in this unideal form account for too much of a Ranger’s damage potential. Deep alterations need to be made in my opinion.

Awesome, and I do like that idea a lot. Any system more robust than the current one that doesn’t anchor the player to the pet in a way the dictates having to compensate for how much of the damage the pet accounts for currently is a welcome change in my book.

I still think something is wrong in the base code if the test dummie for ranger still bugs out soon as he stomps someone..

how am I meant to feel about that as a ranger.. when the showcase of my class in the test field can’t even behave properly..

that was taken today..

so many good points of view here btw..

pet: useless in pvp
Weapons: ranger=short sword

Another great response on this topic, from a different thread:

As far as the ranger doing the lion’s share of the damage I am all for that. I think the ranger should do 100 percent of the damage and the pet should just be for utilities. Putting a huge amount of the damage we are supposed to be able to do as well as many of our utilities on a poorly coded AI pet that can’t hit moving targets, likes to bathe in aoe, has broken F2 abilities and gets insta-gibbed in WvW is not exactly my idea of “competitive” gameplay either.

i have try trapper ranger around last days again…
classic (0/30/30/10/0 and a new try which i think is stronger (20/20/30/0/0)

but jon just sry,
i cant agree you that trapper is still viable when i whant go the classic full condi dmg trapper…
(the one, where im able to ground target traps)

so there is no trapper ranger still viable…
i whant to play it rly again, but its to weak-.-

the 2 other condi classes do to well or the trapper ranger do not well enough…

im not main engi or main neco, but im much more stronger in a fast join pvp with them, then with my main class ranger when i try to go full condi trapper with him…
cant be true when he is still viable…

back to bunker guardian

I think BM ranger is still exceptionally strong. SO many evades. So much condi removal (with no effort required).

I would like to see emphatic bond trigger every 15 seconds and evades on sword/dagger being reduced but yet give rangers across the board buffs to make dps specs more viable.

Meh, I’d like to get rid of empathic bond completely and instead put equivalent removal on another skill such as heal as one. Also…why are you hating on ranger evades? It’s one of the few things rangers excel at. I’d say leave that where it is.

Lordrosicky.5813:

I think BM ranger is still exceptionally strong. SO many evades. So much condi removal (with no effort required).

I would like to see emphatic bond trigger every 15 seconds and evades on sword/dagger being reduced but yet give rangers across the board buffs to make dps specs more viable.

What I bolded is what I think the biggest issue with the class is; there are lots of mechanics that are much too passive.

I personally don’t see the evades being an issue though, because it falls in line with the evasive qualities of other medium and light armor classes, who have the ability to either dodge tank through a fight, engage and disengage easily, or control the fight through mobility. I actually think that the current level of sustain is the level of balance for classes like ranger/ele, and that other classes should be able to spec for similar sustain abilities with a fight, especially for classes like warrior and necro who don’t have many disengage abilities, although their offensive capabilities would have to be cut a bit in those specs to make sure their sustain doesn’t become too powerful.

As far as I’m concerned, being able to hold a point doesn’t make a class strong, considering that their are team fights and offnode fights, and other game modes besides PvP, and PvP balance trickles down and affects those other game modes. Being able to sit in one spot and not die is a very specialized role, and unlike Guardian, who is a preferred pointholder class but can spec for other damage and utility options just as efficiently with good success, rangers are really forced into a single specialized spec because none of their other specs are that efficient or viable.

A LARGE portion of that is needing to build around Empathic Bond for reliable condition removal (just like Eles need water traits). Because rangers offer more sustained damage than actual burst, they have slower kill times, meaning that a “burst” spec with no constant or consistent cleanse isn’t really viable because they can’t damage a tanky condi spec fast enough to win a fight, especially with virtually zero viable defense against it.

That being said, it all revolves around how badly the ranger profession suffers from being forced to use so many passive tools/abilities. I also strongly believe that the reason why rangers don’t have strong active tools is because the pet is too strong of a passive tool, and the devs until now (possibly) have been trying to balance the class around the pet, instead of reworking the pet and improving the abilities of the player.

I could be wrong about that, and like every other person on the forum, I would love a direct response on the matter, but as far as I can see, the pet is the main component of why tools that ranger players need or have requested have not come into full fruition; because the pet is a strong passive tool (not a competitive design /sigh) and giving the ranger player more active abilities to work with could put the class over the top with where the pet is currently at, which is why I’m suggesting a rework, to make the pet a more active tool (and possibly customizable role through traits), thereby changing the skill floor and ceiling, and allowing wiggle room for more changes to be given to rangers to give them a more active (and therefore competitive) playstyle, without changing the feel of the class.

Pardon my english in advance, i hope everyone will understand me.

(Values should be re adjusted)

Decrease again pet DMG on basic attacks by 50%

!Greatest change!

On the petbar : Look at every pet of the game : they all have 4 spells. Its EXACTLY the same principle for every of the 4 spells :

1-the one spell that you can control.
2-We will call it the basic attack, its a no cd spell that does dmg.
3-Burst dmg spell with CD. (sometimes utility)
4-Utility spell. (sometimes burst spell)

Actually we can control only ONE of the THREE attacks that would be intresting for us to manage.
If you look at all those spells closely you will see a lot of them brings really intresting things to the table : Combo fields, blast finishers, leap finishers, Knockbacks, stuns, Healing, Interrupts, immobilizations, HIGH burst with cd, Buffs.

—> Introduce these spells in the petbar so we can use them when we want and prevent the pet from using them randomly.

Reduce the cast time and the aftercast of all pet skills GREATLY to make them feel REALLY responsive. (exept the “basic attack”).

Beastmastery trait will now increase the effectiveness of every of the pet spells (including the basic attack) by reducing the cd and/or increasing the dmg of them, instead of increasing petstats.

Adjust the cd/effectiveness of those spells to balance them out.

Reduce by 100% the dmg of concussive shot, reduce its cd and delete the aftercast of it. To make it feel a lot more responsive.

Increase the dmg of some of the weapons skills to compensate the big loss of damage due to pet dmg nerf (Precise calculs has to be made).

Little to no traits change.

These changes would introduce :

New “plays”, less passive gameplay, a more risky rapid and agressive way of playing the ranger

Some of the “skilled interupt gameplay” we had in GW1 with concussive shot, GS and sword spells and new controlable and not random pet abilites to prevent rezings, heals, elites, core abilities.

More combos possible.

A managable burst capability with buffed weapon spells combinated with the burst pet ability.

Improved teamplay possibilities with moa AOE healing for exemple or the new cc chain’s/bursts this kind of changes will create.

/disscuss.

Ideas of that nature are exactly what I’m going for; more control over aspects of the gameplay, with harder to pull of combos/abilities being given a larger reward.

The class is in desperate need of an increase to the skill ceiling, even if it increases the skill floor too, and I’m sure that even if it does seem intimidating to new players, the increase of effectiveness of the class will be enough enticement on its own to keep from scaring new players off.

The problem with the pet AI is that it takes away all the potential of the ranger class. I main an engineer and i can easily say that the skill floor for rangers right now is terribly low, while the skill ceiling is simply unreacheable.

What i mean is that if you don’t care about your pet you get free damage, but if care about it and you want to time your skills and do combos, like using the drake blast finisher on fields, you simply can’t because the AI is unpredictable and you simply can’t track those CDs.

By giving us more control over the pets Anet would give us our stolen potencial and make us care more about the pet because they’d be part of our rotations. If they believe it would be overwhelming for new players then they could simply do it like the utility skills. You unlock the pet skills at the same time you unlock your utilities, and you give us a toggle to put them on auto attack. That will increase the rangers floor a bit and give them some more potencial play.

Instead of giving us more controls over the pets, I’m firmly in the camp of making the ranger less dependent on the pet. Or in other words, balance the pet around the ranger instead of the ranger around the pet. Pets right now are a major passive mechanic, and everybody hates passive mechanics (remember GW1 Aegis).

To elaborate, pet damage should be nerfed to the ground, while ranger weapons skills buffed to match other professions. If anything the F2 should be the most damaging skill the pet has, and some F2s still need to be reworked (Blue Moa, Stalker, Pigs, etc.).

Ranger traits and utilities need to be tweaked as well, especially signets and condition removal. Signet actives need to focus on ranger first and then pet when traited, and the ranger needs more active condition removals than passives.

I’ll admit, I don’t really have a solution for spirits. What I have in mind is making them like their GW1 counterparts. Eliminate or halve that terrible ICD and increase the AoE to 2000 units. Lastly make the actives targetable within the AoE.

Sarision.6347:

Instead of giving us more controls over the pets, I’m firmly in the camp of making the ranger less dependent on the pet. Or in other words, balance the pet around the ranger instead of the ranger around the pet. Pets right now are a major passive mechanic, and everybody hates passive mechanics (remember GW1 Aegis).

To elaborate, pet damage should be nerfed to the ground, while ranger weapons skills buffed to match other professions. If anything the F2 should be the most damaging skill the pet has, and some F2s still need to be reworked (Blue Moa, Stalker, Pigs, etc.).

Ranger traits and utilities need to be tweaked as well, especially signets and condition removal. Signet actives need to focus on ranger first and then pet when traited, and the ranger needs more active condition removals than passives.

I’ll admit, I don’t really have a solution for spirits. What I have in mind is making them like their GW1 counterparts. Eliminate or halve that terrible ICD and increase the AoE to 2000 units. Lastly make the actives targetable within the AoE.

That’s actually my own solution set to the problem, I just didn’t want to put that out there in this thread because it would ultimately just turn into another “everybody post your fixes and what you want thread.” So instead, I decided I wanted to try to have a constructive conversation with the competitive community about whether or not they agreed that the design of the ranger pet was too passive.

So on a quick side note discussion about spirits, my idea would be to increase their default range to 900, 1200 by trait (600 to 900 for the elite). Rework their actives entirely, though I’m at a loss for that. My best solution is a utility function, like giving all allies protection, burning for the next x attacks, extra damage (or unblockable attacks) for the next x attacks, and swiftness, based off of which spirit does which passively (the elites active is fine as is). Then, I would change Spirits Unbound so that the range gets limited to 400 for the spirits, but when activated they get regen and protection for 20s. That way, the spirits are beefy if you are going to be in melee range so that can take a few more hits, but they can be counterplayed by boon removal, or simply beat down. Point is, it needs to be less penalizing for the user.
I think that would make them just about balanced for killable utilities that offer no direct damage.

Meh spirit ranger is OP gives your team protection and chance to burn every 10 seconds use flame trap for added aoe dmg with rabid amulet you deal a lot of condi dmg yet are still pretty tanky. Spirit of nature can Rez 3 times and can Rex your whole team. Water field healing spring is great when you get your team to blast through it I’ve been completely healed with blasts from teammates.

But I agree trapper lacks BM doesn’t offer anything to a team, and a power build is lack luster.

Ranger skill foor too high?
You say that a ranger can do 40% of his dmg just by letting his pet attack but at the same time you talk about a high skill floor? What other class can so easily put out 40% of his dmg? In addition ranger has many evades so it’s not like dodging once at the wrong time is going to mess you up too badly.
Anyway, I pretty much agree on all the other parts you mentioned – but not on a high skill floor.

when you try to play a glass cannon ranger (old trapper builds offensive)
then there is same skill floor like in every class. this 40% pet dmg is not interesting. its bad for such builds.

and when you play a bunker ranger then is there same skill floor like in every bunker build.
bunker guardian is for me more easy to survive 2 ppls as when i do my bunker ranger.
also bunker ele is same skill floor like bunker ranger.

atm the necro can kill bm ranger in 10 seconds with right combo.
and bunker ranger is most bad bunker for teamfights atm.
spirit ranger should also not best in teamfights, because aoe and bb spirits…

dont see much reasons atm to prefer any kind of ranger build in team instead any other class as player 5

tarcheg.4872:

Ranger skill foor too high?
You say that a ranger can do 40% of his dmg just by letting his pet attack but at the same time you talk about a high skill floor? What other class can so easily put out 40% of his dmg? In addition ranger has many evades so it’s not like dodging once at the wrong time is going to mess you up too badly.
Anyway, I pretty much agree on all the other parts you mentioned – but not on a high skill floor.

That’s actually my fault and a mistype lol. Don’t tear me apart on just that, it was a lot to write out and apparently I didn’t proofread it well enough. I’ll make the change to the OP, thanks for pointing that out.

fakeblood.2576:

Meh spirit ranger is OP gives your team protection and chance to burn every 10 seconds use flame trap for added aoe dmg with rabid amulet you deal a lot of condi dmg yet are still pretty tanky. Spirit of nature can Rez 3 times and can Rex your whole team. Water field healing spring is great when you get your team to blast through it I’ve been completely healed with blasts from teammates.

But I agree trapper lacks BM doesn’t offer anything to a team, and a power build is lack luster.

I didn’t say the buffs weren’t amazing, and my range change in my sidenote post may be overdoing it, agreed. However, I don’t think that changing Spirits Unbound to make spirits more survivable when they are following the ranger is all that bad of a change, as it shouldn’t penalize the user and force them into primarily ranged play because their build needs the spirits to be up in order to be useful, and it requires the user to sacrifice all potential utility usage out of those slots to take those spirits (which imo makes the balanced because a ranger can’t just go spirits AND traps, for instance).

I think the biggest thing about spirits is that their active effects (besides the elite) need to be reworked, because they are honestly terrible. Are my own ideas bulletproof? Absolutely not. But the active effects on all of the utility slots at this point may as well not even exist.

I agree that pets should be MOSTLY regulated to utility. This way if people still want a pet damage build, they can have at it.

I think out of all the species lets say there are eight.

2 should be offensive (cats / birds )
1 should be defensive (bears)
Everything else should be utility (Dogs, drakes, Spiders, Devourers ect….)

To give an example of utility I look to my trap ranger.

I set up with concussion shot then chain to a well timed Drake hound immobilize, allowing me to throw traps onto my target.

Currently I feel only K9’s provide enough utility. Perhaps this is just my playstyle though. Spiders have some potential too.
I feel Moa has utility but it isn’t good enough. If their utility durations were buffed, and there damage stayed as it stands or just a letter less, They would be where I’d like them.

I feel the rest of the pets arn’t there.

I feel the solution is to lower pet damage and increase direct damage coefficients as well as condition application on the condition weapon set.

A re-tweak of some F2’s to gain access to some utility.

And finally, a new pet class or two.
(Perhaps Apes with a donkey kong ground pound blast finish as an F2)
(Let them throw poop for blinding I don’t care. as long as it brings utility)

If Anet is unwilling to retool the F2’s then a new utility pet class is a must in my opinion.

In my opinion, 90% of the damage should be from the ranger for more active game play, and if people want to run a pet build, make the BM trait line scale betters better. This would allow for more viable build that don’t spec into defense.

I also feel that a lot of the moaning on the Ranger forms are over PvE and WvW gameplay being balance around sPvP. I feel that redistributing the damage back to the ranger would make them feel better when their pet is not dead in WvW

I agree with pets being more utility, and having the pet damage redistributed to the ranger, but I think that would limit pet selection too much.

Right now, there are very few pets I use purely for utility (canines, spiders), and some I seldom use, even if they have great potential for utility (any moa that isn’t red). That leaves so many pet families unwanted/unneeded. How much damage would you take away from felines/drakes without gimping the other non-DPS pets?

Personally, I really would like the option to manually cast pets and that would at least alleviate some of the “RNG”-ness of pets. To keep from overwhelming newer players, leave the option to leave them on autocast to let the pet use them whenever they want.