Guild Wars 2

Specific Game Mode: PvE

Focus: pets, spirits, traits, and weapons.

Most of what I would want to see changed or improved has been said by others, but I will state them nonetheless.

Pets
I feel a lot of aoe damage is lost because our melee pets do not cleave (except for the drakes). I think this is odd. I also dislike having to switch for drakes for the sole purpose of doing more aoe dmg when, for instance, the leopard and red moa are much better for the whole party due to the boons they provide. Since pets are supposed to do 30% of our total dps, I think it is not unreasonable to ask for melee pets to cleave so that they actually do 30% of our total dps.

As others have said, pets are too important to the ranger to be that squishy. They can’t dodge and eat a lot of (aoe) dmg, and they tend to face-tank the mob(s). I think some sort of aoe protection would help our pets to survive better. I would also like our non-tanky pets to automatically position themselves behind the target they are attacking. This way, they will avoid a lot of dmg simply because they do not eat every auto attack anymore. Tanky pets such as bears (and perhaps also drakes) should stay as they are.

Spirits
While I like the look of the various spirits, I agree with other posters that they clutter and take up too much space. They also, just like pets, die quickly in fights with lots of aoe dmg. The idea of aspects was brought up in relation to pets, but I feel they would be perfect for spirits instead. When summoning a spirit, the ranger could fuse with it and gain its power/aspect. This could be made visible by some type of aura/glow (although this should not make rangers who use 3 or more spirits too rainbowy).
When activating the second skill (cold snap, quicksand) the effect should surround the ranger, in the same way it currently surrounds the spirits.

The spirit thus becomes an aura/aspect of the ranger the moment he/she summons it.

Traits
About the traits. At the moment, too many traits are needed to make bows, and to a lesser extent traps, competitive/useful. This hurts the variety of builds players can make who like to play with bows/traps.

The trait “Honed/Axes” seems to suggest the main hand axe is a weapon meant for power builds, but the damage it does is currently way too low. They are also mainly used in conditions builds.
If rangers are meant to be resilient, they really do need some better condition removal capabilities.
Since they don’t, emphatic bond is almost mandatory for all builds.

Weapons
Last, I would like to see our weapons to become more distinct from each other. For example, the sword and great sword are both melee and power weapons, and the shortbow and axe main hand are too similar as well. In addition, the axe main hand is in need of a damage boost to make it useful for power builds.