Guild Wars 2

Traits:
Across all trait trees, options that affect pets need to be re-thought dependant on what ultimately happens with pets. If pets become optional, change in effectiveness, or become an entirely new type of companion, pet enhancing traits need to be segregated into the BM tree.

Marksman:
The Marksman trait line was expected to receive major overhauls in the 6/25 patch, but what was received was underwhelming at best. Of all trait lines, this one has the most wrong with it. Adept level traits are all equally useful dependant on the direction of your build, but when it comes to Master and Grandmaster traits, there are really only 3 traits that anyone is interested in: Piercing Arrows, Eagle Eye and Signet of the Beastmaster.
- Spotter is, at best, an adept level trait, and even with the recent buff, no one placing points in this line would choose this over any of the other Master options.
- I haven’t talked to a single Ranger since launch that has found a place in their build for Remorseless. This is possibly the most underwhelming option at the Grandmaster level across any class.

No minor trait in the marksman line is very compelling either, especially Precise Strike at the Grandmaster level. By comparison, examine options available to other classes in the Power trait lines:
Ranger: Adept – First hit inflicts 5sec vulnerability, Master – Pets get same ability, Grand – First hit is a crit.
Thief: Adept – stealing inflicts 10 seconds poison, Master – Poison inflicts 4 seconds weakness, Grand – +10% damage when target has a condition.
Mesmer: Adept – 5 seconds vulnerability on interrupt, Master – Dazing inflicts 5 seconds vulnerability, Grand – +5% damage to inactive targets
Warrior: Adept – Damage foes at end of dodge roll, Master – Burst skills restore endurance, Grand – +3% Damage when endurance is not full.

In review, Rangers minor traits center around adding vulnerability at the beginning of a fight, and 25 point trait gives us a single guaranteed critical hit once per fight. In contrast Thieves gain access to 2 separate conditions for performing an act that they would perform once per fight generally and are not restricted to leaving combat in order to regain this ability, as well as application of vulnerability in conjunction with another condition they have nearly unlimited access to. Where Rangers receive a single guaranteed critical hit, thieves build on this by getting 10% damage boost for all targets carrying conditions. Mesmers gain the same 5 seconds of vulnerability at adept level, but rather than once in a fight they can apply it as often as they can interrupt. Warriors have damage at the end of a dodge roll, then a mechanism to allow them to dodge more often, plus a further damage bonus for dodging more often. These minor traits do not add up to any kind of balance – especially at the Grandmaster level.

Suggestions:
*Adept trait should apply vulnerability in conjunction with another condition or with an action that the Ranger normally performs – evades, interrupts etc on an internal cooldown.

• Minor Master trait should add blindness or cripple whenever vulnerability is applied.
  *Move Piercing Arrows to the 25 point GM trait
• Add Shortbow range increase to Eagle Eye
• Replace Spotter and Piercing Arrows with some kind of boon stripping or condition removal option linked to Bow attacks
• Replace Remorseless with a further option to cripple targets with Bow attacks.

Skirmishing:
Overall, Skirmishing trait line feels good, especially after the 6/25 patch – with the exception of Moment of Clarity, which really has no place in a Grandmaster section. By comparison, other classes gain up to 20% damage increases (mantra Mesmer), the ability to share attack buffs with allies (thief venomshare), or gain 4s quickness when attacking enemies at low health (warrior). A single attack with 50% additional damage doesn’t belong in the same sentence as those types of options and again does nothing to lend itself to endearing the Ranger class to groups.

Suggestion:
*Replace Moment of Clarity with an option that allows us to help our allies.
*Add the same 10% increased revive speed perk to Trappers Defense as was added to Healer’s Celerity.

Shortbow: The range reduction to 900 was something that no one in the Ranger community saw coming and the increase in damage on the 3-5 skills by 14% does absolutely nothing to pacify those who are opposed to this change. The damage from the 3-5 skills are practically irrelevant to most shortbow users as those skills are used to control your enemy.. they would be equally useful if they did not include a damage component at all. Additionally, the rangers already have a 900 range skirmishing range condition weapon in the Axe. Shortbow now crosses over with this option instead of providing a longer ranged condition based option. Right or wrong, the perception of the community is that the shortbow was altered specifically to make the longbow appear more attractive instead of addressing the reasons the longbow was not attractive directly.

Besides this debate, the shortbow is also the only ranged weapon in the Rangers arsenal that it has no option to increase range on via traits. Longbow and harpoon are taken care of by Eagle Eye, and Dagger, Torch, Axe and Warhorn are all blanketed by Offhand Training. What stings the most in the eyes of most shortbow Rangers is the fact that this weapon can now be out-ranged by any offhand weapon option, and the range decrease makes it much more difficult to use in WvW in attack/defense situations.

Finally, the bleed option on the 1 skill is also unnecessarily restricted when compared to similar options. Thief pistol 1 has the same range, cast time and base damage, but applies bleed from any direction and for 1 second longer than ranger shortbow (4s thief vs 3s ranger).

Suggestions:

• Damage increase to compensate for range decrease should have all gone to the 1 skill, or alternatively boosts to the conditions applied by the 3-5 skills could have been provided.
• Eagle Eye should also affect shortbow in the same way that it affects longbow, or a similar trait needs to be provided for the shortbow to be consistent with other Ranger ranged weapon options.
• Alternatively, reverse the range change because it made little sense to adjust a weapon that was functioning well for our class simply for the sake of changing it.
• Remove restrictions to bleed application from 1 skill.

Sword: Since day 1, sword has been an extremely effective but hard to use weapon in our arsenal. The leap component of the sword 1 attack chain makes using this weapon in conjunction with auto-target extremely frustrating and is the only weapon to suffer from this type of downside. Additionally, the telegraphed animation involved in the 3 skill makes the attack easy to spot and dodge, as well as limits the usefulness of the attack itself – many a ranger has died to this skill by using it too close to a cliff or crevice.

Suggestions:

• Remove the 3rd attack in the chain from the auto attack, or remove the leap component only, perhaps extend Cripple from the 2nd attack of the chain in it’s place. * For the 3 skill, remove the animation, replace the animation with a teleport to behind the enemy, or replace the evade component with an interrupt or a condition removal.

Axe: No complaints about the Axe main hand weapon, with recent adjustments to ricochet speed the Axe is one of the Rangers go-to weapons. The only complaint about Axe offhand is that Whirling Defense is interrupted by movement. Similar in concept to the Thiefs ‘spin to win’ elite skill, this limitation again feels like an unnecessary restriction placed on the Ranger class in order to differentiate via limitation (see LB & SB 1 skills).

Suggestion: Nothing really is needed, but it is an opportunity to enhance viability of Ranger in parties instead of being so self-centered. Remove movement limitation, decrease channel time and recast time to make it available more often but for shorter time periods in order to interact better with combo fields of a group.

Greatsword, Dagger, Warhorn and Torch are all great weapons. My only suggestion is to please not nerf them, and please consider adding Blast finisher components to Torch 4 and/or Warhorn 5.

Spirits
Combining traits in the 6/25 patch was a logical step in attempting to fix spirits, as was improving spirit health, range and ability effectiveness – all done in previous patches. But all of these attempted improvements only make the spirits situation improve in PvE settings. In PvP where spirits are large, obvious targets that suffer from all of the same detriments as the pet AI, no amount of improvement to their health will allow them to be usable when groups of players are colliding. Spirits are actually very similar in concept to the Mesmer’s illusion/clone/phantasm system in that buffed by traits they have very similar survivability prospects: they can each take a couple of hits before dissolving. Mesmer’s, though, have multiple ways to summon these elements into the game on each weapon as well as further access to them via skills. Rangers have access to spirits only via skills on long cool downs, and while 100% uptime is theoretically possible, in combat situations even 25% uptime in any area not protected by a wall is not realistic.

Referring back to the original description of the Ranger class on the main website, reliance on spirits is a defining core characteristic of the Ranger in the same way that clones are to a Mesmer. To date, no improvements to the mechanic have resulted in any desirable PvP build that includes spirits, and popularity in PvE even is still extremely limited. The fact that we are 9 months into the game and this mechanic is still not viable is akin to a Mesmer for all these months being limited to illusions because clone or phantasm skills had been ineffective since the launch of the game.

Proposed Solutions:
*Make Spirits immune to damage, last for much shorter periods of time and automatically follow the caster.
*Remove spirits completely and replace them with an entirely different idea.
*Change the concept of spirits to be something similar in concept to an elementalists attune to element function. Allow a single spirit to be in play at any given time, and have some kind of altering effect on weapon attacks perfomed by the Ranger dependant on the spirit active (Stone spirit allows attacks to randomly proc protection, Sun spirit randomly procs burning, Ice procs chill, Storm procs lightning). Traits enhance effects, allow multiple spirits to be active or allow for a potential secondary effect from each spirit)

Weapons:

Longbow: The animation speed and arrow flight improvements that were included in the 6/25 patch were a great help, but not a complete solution. Players can no longer avoid being hit simply by moving sideways while being fired at, however phantom obstruction issues still exist. Additionally, the functions of the longbow are not reasonably balanced when compared to other classes.

-Long Ranged Shot (1 skill) is the only weapon skill that has minimum range restrictions. In PvE encounters where a mobs focus can be controlled either by proper use of a pet or by a partner, range restrictions can be accommodated. In PvP settings, this limitation pigeon holes the longbow into situational use.
Suggestion: Find a happy medium for damage and range, and apply it to the auto attack at all ranges OR add some kind of cripple effect to the attack so that range of target becomes more easily controlled.

-Barrage is extremely limited in usefulness by the fact that the ranger has to stay still while firing, and that the ones being attacked can move out of the circle as the first arrows are even raining down.
Suggestion: Replace the attack with something different, perhaps a single shot ground targeted AoE that includes a Blast finisher. Also, reduce cooldown.

Combo field contribution
Combo field interaction is basically a key component of group synergy – especially in WvW. Blast and Whirl finishers provide benefits or damaging effects to multiple targets and are thus suited to group play because it allows all members to benefit all others or attack all targets simultaneously. Physical Projectile and Leap finishers are single target and thus lend to solo, duo, single target style gameplay and encounters. Rangers have extensive access to the Physical Projectile finisher, but extremely limited access to others. On land, Rangers have 1 Whirl finisher available via Axe 5 and zero blast finishers. Via the Drake family, rangers are able to access a Blast finisher on land, but for reasons related to the pet system, this is unreliable. Pets have to be positioned correctly and be able to cast their skill in time in order to take advantage of the field – accomplishable when all parts of the equation are stationary, but extremely difficult and unreliable when all parts are in motion. More reliability can be attained in this respect by putting the pet on passive mode, but this sacrifices all other potential benefits of the pet simply for access to the blast finisher. And as in all other cases, even in that perfect case scenario, the pet still has to be alive in order to be effective.

Ranger is the ONLY class that has this limitation in combo field interaction and this is part of why Rangers have difficulty finding homes in group settings.

Combo field generation is a separate aspect of this equasion, and while Ranger has access to the best Water field of any class, this isn’t enough to make up for the lack of interaction options above. Fire and Ice fields generated by Traps are useful, but must be triggered in order to create a field. This adds an additional layer of complexity to the group while trying to interact with what the Ranger provides, and can be another reason for the group to choose another option in its place. Pet-wise, the Murellow’s Poison field is the only reliable access to combo fields provided because it is triggered by an F2 skill. Pets triggering other combo fields on their own is in fact more harmful than good because finishers can only interact with one field at a time. A pets AI driven field placement can block access to anther field that was strategically placed either individually or for interaction by a group.

Proposed solutions:
*Whirl finisher via Ace 5 is a great tool, but Rangers should have access to more diverse and group friendly finishers (specifically Blast finishers) either through skills or weapons. Ideal candidates are Warhorn, Torch, and Longbow. Access to Physical Projectile finishers via every weapon except the Sword and Torch is unnecessary overkill – especially Short and Longbow which each have 4 skills that access the same finisher. While it makes some sense that they do, it is not helpful to the overall usefulness and diversity of the class.

Moving targets: Pets do not reliably hit moving targets, NPC or PC. Stationary targets are more common in the PvE space, but mobs still move with aggro. In sPvP and WvW stationary targets are few and far between. Options to assist the pet – such as pet movement speed enhancing traits and skills – exist, but put the Ranger at a disadvantage by using them because they are forced to use up point and skill slots that could be used elsewhere in order to try to make up for a bad mechanic. Pet skills outside of the auto-attack are more prone to missing because they involve the pet stopping its movement in order to cast the skill, allowing players to easily move out of range even without dodging.

F2 skills: In PvE situations F2 skills are more reliable because mob movement is predictable and slow. When fighting players, these skills are easily avoidable because the pet stops moving to charge the skill, and casting time of 1 second is more than enough time to move out of range even without using their dodge roll. Additionally, pets do not stop whatever they are currently doing to respond to your call for them to use their F2 skill, if they are already queueing another attack, they complete this first before responding to your command. I don’t know about your dog, but my dog would get in a lot of trouble if I commanded her to do something and she ignored me to finish whatever it was she wanted to do first…

General skills: Pets have 4 skills (1 auto attack), but players only have the ability to manage the use of one of them. Many other skills are situationally useful, but are used by the pet at inappropriate times. Players have a better understanding of how and when their skills could be useful than the pet AI.

Pet stowing: Stowed pets return to the world the instant the player takes damage, including fall damage, making travelling with your pet hidden an exercise in micromanagement. During combat a pet cannot be stowed at all, leading to situations where the pet becomes detrimental to the process. In instances where the pet absolutely will die due to the situation presented (be it a dungeon mechanic, an arrow cart or an AoE minefield created by a zerg in WvW), it would be more advantageous for the pet simply not to exist and thus avoid the cooldown timers, or to be called to their master exactly when they are needed once the danger has passed.

Pet to Player damage ratio: Pets can account for up to 40% of the players damage output on a stationary target. Because of the many factors above though, those are situational and infrequent circumstances. More often than not, the pet is not in a position to effectively use it’s damage output or its skills to contribute to a fight or is dead and unable to contribute at all. Tying such a significant portion of the players contribution to a mechanic hampered by so many issues is a detriment to the entire class itself.

Proposed solutions:
*Pet AI could be ripped out and re-worked from the ground up to address the issues above.
*Pet could be an optional component to the build (ala GW1) so that it could be avoided completely in game modes where it is more of a detriment than benefit.
*Pets could gain larger and larger slices of the power damage ratio with points spent into the Beastmastery trait line
*Pets could be replaced entirely by a utility skill and passive buff type component such as is present in other classes (ala Guardain F1-3 abilities)
*Pets could be replaced by specific summoning skills that would summon pets temporarily to help the Ranger (ala Hellhound elite skill)

Let me preface this by saying that no one (or at least no one intelligent) is making any sweeping statements that imply that there are NO viable builds. But it also cannot be denied that Ranger in general is an outcast from the other 7 classes in the game. We are not welcome in many dungeon and fractal parties, we are not welcome in most organized WvW activities because we lack synergy with the group dynamics, and a powerful niche function that was available to us in sPvP has been altered quite dramatically. None of this is to say that the class is useless, that is simply a real current assessment of how our class is viewed by the general community. Rangers in supportive guilds, such as myself, would be able to get picked up by guild groups for any of the above activities without problem, but even in those instances it is because you are a known and liked guildie, not because you are being chosen for what your class brings to the table. Area Net may have ideas about what they think would be cool for the class, but what they think and what their customers want isn’t lining up. As a manager in a software company in charge of developing functionality and then gathering feedback on those developments from our customer base, I understand the frustration when you do something you think is great only to be screamed at by the people you did it for. But that’s reality. The only way to be successful is to eat your ego, listen to your customers, and alter your vision to more closely align with what they are asking for.

The June 25 balance patch was, by all accounts, meant to be a full pass at all trait lines of all professions for the purpose of promoting build diversity by fixing issues with broken traits, combining underpowered and often un-used traits in order to make them more viable, and replacing underpowered, unused and undesirable traits with more compelling options. No matter what your stance is on the specifics of the changes delivered to the Ranger class, I don’t know that there is any way that anyone could argue that those goals were met by this patch. While several previously effective builds still work with some tweaking and a bit more effort, fewer new builds have emerged than builds and play options that were eliminated. Fundamental aspects of the Ranger remain broken and unusable, un-useful and unused traits exist across all trait lines, the weapons that were adjusted were not completely fixed and brought into balance with other classes, and overall the state of the class has not changed significantly either in a positive or negative direction. In all, rangers gained some new aspects at cost of others, and overall lost more than they gained.

What I am going to attempt to do is address the whole Ranger class and highlight what people are unhappy about. There is a lot of hate and bitterness going on in the Ranger forums, and it’s not necessarily because we feel like this patch has broken our class, but because we had all been holding out hope that this was going to be THE PATCH that was finally going to fix the core issues that we have just been living with for the last 9 months. What we got instead completely sidestepped these issues and addressed very specific and minor problems associated with the class.

Game mechanics:

The pet system
Pet AI is subpar when compared to other games within the MMO space and no real improvements have been made since launch. In reality, pet pathing, AI and their ability to actually stick to moving targets was much better in Everquest – a 14 year old game – and others that came after it (WoW, EQ2, FFXI, and Vanguard to name a few). It’s really a bit mind boggling that in a modern MMO we are dealing with a problem like this… Major issues with the system include:

Pet movement/terrain interaction: Pets follow you around the world loyally, but have issues with terrain. Specifically, if you drop down even moderate elevation levels, even those that do not cause damage, rather than follow you your pet finds an alternate route that it finds acceptable. This is especially critical when in combat because your pet wanders off when you may need it. It’s also a detriment when trying to find a target because at times your pet will take long routes to the target because of minor terrain differences. Characters can jump, pets don’t seem to have the smarts to do the same. Downed state 3 skill is also affected by this in that the pet can still stand right next to you but be unable to interact with you if you are on an uneven surface.

Pet damage avoidance: Pets cannot dodge and have no intelligence built in to avoid ground targeted or area skills either when pathing to their target or during combat. Especially in PvP game types this makes the pet less effective because it will path directly through heavy damage areas in order to attempt to reach a target. If it survives, it reaches its target in a weakened state.