Guild Wars 2

Hi, I couldn’t find anything anything on the gw forums about this, only reddit and few other places. For a while now, I’ve noticed that during many boss fights (mostly world bosses, fractals, and raids) the camera will auto-zoom out for the fight. That’s fine, but unfortunately it keeps zooming in and out frequently as you enter/leave the instance area, like at Tequatl. It can get very dizzying if not just annoying. I’ve tried messing with all of the camera options including Field of view, Zoom sensitivity, and Collision sensitivity, but they have no effect. Could any player or dev explain why this happens and hopefully offer a way to either disable it or at least manage it? Thanks.

Hi, about two years ago I posted a thread on this topic (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/archive/suggestions/Improving-Ranger-Pet-Mechanics/first#post2461834), and I’d just like to reiterate/refine some of my ideas.

First of all, I’m not trying to say anything is “wrong” with Rangers or pets at the moment, this is merely my own opinion and ideas on another way pets COULD work in the game, in a way I’d personally find a lot more fun and engaging. I know there are a lot of people who enjoy rangers just the way they are, at any skill level. But ever since the game came out, I’ve struggled to really say I LOVE playing ranger because I haven’t felt a strong connection with my pet, which is what makes rangers so unique and exciting.

Here’s a short list of what confuses/irks me:

-I have very little control/input over my pet, primarily passive AI
-Each pet has 4 skills, yet we only control 1
-Pets are the core mechanic, but we’re limited to simple commands
-Rangers have no single skills/attacks performed in unison with their pets
-Ranger efficacy is linked/balanced with pets, yet pet efficacy/attributes feel very sub-par without at least one if not two trait lines devoted (Beast Mastery + Nature Magic)

By the way, I still like Rangers and they are definitely effective either solo or in groups, but I’ve noticed that a lot of the skills/traits/reasons why they work well in teams or solo are mostly based on party offense or heals, passive effects, and weapon or utility skill buffs, not the Pets it seems (PvP is an exception).

So here are some of the ideas and suggestions on how I might address these:

My Favorite Idea

Instead of making a sweeping change for all Ranger players, we could make something like a Pet Master an Elite Specialization, thus being optional and only taking effect when the trait line is active. Personally, I think that the current Pet commands (F1-4) could easily be diverted to other keybindings similar to Ctrl+ or Shift+ targeting commands we have now, while still keeping those visual buttons somewhere near the skill bar for those who want to click them instead. This could free up F1-3 for pet-oriented skills, possibly giving manual control over 2 more of the pet’s skills instead of just the one, and F4 remains pet swap. Now F5 could the new Elite Spec mechanic, much like druid. Either purely cooldown based or requiring some built-up resource, we could occasionally enter some kind of Beast Tamer mode. In this mode, our weapon skills would be replaced with Pet skills, and what’s more is that BOTH pets could be active during this time. Skills 1-5 could all be actions where the player and both pets all do something together as a team to really dominate enemies or provide utility for themselves and allies. It might be crazy to assign unique skills for combinations of pets, but even if it’s just 5 universal moves that would be very cool. 1 of the 5 skills being a combo skill based on your equipped pets (like thief slot 3 skills for dual-wielding) sounds enticing. Your pet team going on a rampage every now and then would get me sooo excited to play Ranger more.

OR

Another option would be to make “Pet” a utility slot skill similar to Engineer kits. Normally, the pet would move and attack just as it already does. But once the player toggles the Pet kit on, their weapon skill bar is replaced with Pet skills temporarily. These skills could either be the 4 skills already assigned to each pet in the game, or my preference would be to come up with “Dual” skills. These would all be skills where both the pet and the player do some attack/action simultaneously or one after another. These might be partially based on the pet race and the current weapon equipped, or something else. I really like the idea of feeling one with my pet, moving and attacking in unison, so this would definitely make me feel more connected. An example might be if I were wielding longbow, I could flip the Pet kit on and use a skill that knocks back my target, then the pet knocks them down immediately afterwards. And then use a skill where the pet taunts nearby enemies right as I throw a barrage at their spot while they keep them inside. Then I can toggle off the kit while I go back to my longbow or some other weapon, and sit back while my pet keeps going about their business as usual.

Taking the exact same “dual skill” concept, but instead of taking up a utility slot we could replace the current Pet active ability (F2) with the Pet skill kit toggle

Now I’ll just address my last point about Pet attributes and effects. Beastmastery and Nature Magic each offer several great pet boosts. However, we have to choose between using one or both of those instead of the other great buffs from Marksmanship and Skirmishing that many people go for which focus on our weapon skills and party boosts. Personally, I feel very strong when I use the latter two and I can see the effect on my group, but my Pet feels much less significant. Contrastingly, with Beastmastery and Nature Magic chosen along with the great passive or active pet buffs, I notice a considerable difference in damage for my pet, but my own character feels lacking compared to before. Perhaps that’s the crux of why I can’t seem to feel truly connected to my pet, interactive or not, since it feels like we can’t both reach our potential, only one or the other. Trait effects unlocked slowly as you level are great for progression, but end game It doesn’t feel good to me to have to choose between my pet or myself; why not both? There are some trait effects that I feel should be permanently applied to pets even without those trait lines, such as Fortifying Bond (sharing boons with our pets), Pack Alpha (boosts all attributes), Companion’s might (pets gain might when we crit), and Natural Healing (extra pet regen/heals). This might seem excessive, but again, the pet’s feel very lacking without any of these effects, to me anyway. Additionally, I think the remaining pet traits in Nature Magic could be worked into Beastmastery for a single trait line in order to make our pets truly shine.

I welcome any constructive feedback/suggestions/opinions, and again, these are only ideas that would make ME have a lot more fun playing Ranger and I’m curious if anyone else likes the sound of it. Thanks for reading!

I think this is great and I’d like to learn, appreciate the offer.

Even though I havent gotten into the raids yet, I’m a very experienced player with a good understanding and playtime on each class, extensive dungeon experience, and I’m well versed in group play with varying roles and team-oriented builds/playstyles. I’m very willing to adopt any build/role, and I understand class skills/mechanics quite well. It’s mostly just the raid itself I need to learn, but I learn fast.

I have at least ascended trinkets (minus accessories) and weapons on each class, some also with full/partial ascended armor. Here’s what I’m familiar with running:

Berserker Herald (Main) – Full Ascended, S/S + Hammer, can run any stance – very xp
Berserker Dragonhunter – Full Ascended, Hammer + LB, have used all weps – very xp
Berserker Reaper – 3/6 armor and rest all ascended, GS + Axe/Wh or focus – very xp
Berserker Berserker :P – GS + Axe/mace mostly, banners, etc – very xp

The rest of the classes I also have exotic/ascended gear and quite a bit of playtime in groups, just far less experience since the elite specs, but I can learn for sure

Let me know if you’re still available to teach

Suiki.5793:

Diessa Plateau, the tiger fight at the end of the JP… HP bars and such are up in the UI, but no tigers.

Apparently people have been sitting here for 5+ hours telling anyone doing the JP to stay out of range for 10mins to reset the event. But having someone actually stay away for 10mins is essentially impossible.

Same problem here. It’s Entry #13 of the collection at the Crimson Plateau. The collection marker is visible on the ground, and when interacted with the Champawat event triggers, but no tiger appears. Attempting to get people to leave the area to reset the event, or even swapping maps, doesn’t seem to change anything.

I may very well be wrong, but I interpreted this specialization system and new weapon type unlocking to have OPTIONS.

All the new weapons mentioned above are probably right, but I don’t think those will be the only new weapons available to each profession. I’d imagine, for the sake of variety and customization, there would be at least 2-3 different specialization paths for each profession, each one giving access to a different weapon, previously unusable to that class. The ones shown so far are only sneak-peaks, I’d hope.

While browsing my Facebook feed today, I saw the following screen-shotted advertisement for a browser game called “Knight’s Fable.”

Not only does the game itself seem dubious, but the artwork in the background is taken directly from Arenanet’s Guild Wars 2 artwork:

https://d3b4yo2b5lbfy.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/GuildWars2-04-1920x1080.jpg

Just thought I would pass this along, and here is a link if necessary (For Devs, I don’t recommend clicking):

https://www.facebook.com/dialog/oauth?client_id=503372209790016&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fapps.facebook.com%2Fknightsfable&state=9e51d22ddf377f329d14477b2c058aea&canvas=1&cookie=1&response_type=token&scope=user_friends

Hi.

I was one of the players who made their exotic Vine Back Piece before Dragon’s Reach pt. 2 was released. I too had my Cultivated Seed transformed into a Pet Seed.

Not realizing this, I began to work on both of the new back pieces simultaneously. I immediately clicked on the new Pet Seed and it directed me to Fractals of the Mists, where I bought the Mists stone. I combined that with a Clay Pot, Foxfire Clusters, and Bloodstone Dust as directed, to make the Mists Infused Clay Pot

After double clicking this, I turned my exotic Pet Seed into an ascended Pet Seedling.

The most recent patch let us swap our mistaken Pet Seed for the proper Cultivated Seed. However, since I’d already upgraded my Pet Seed into a Seedling, I CANNOT exchange mine with Azarr. The Cultivated Seed does not appear in his merchant list.

I’m sure I can’t be the only one who did this, either. I’m hoping an Arenanet member reads this and knows about this additional roadblock. Please let me know if anyone can help me progress.

Thanks a bunch

Onshidesigns.1069:

Time can also rot, decay and made wounds become infected.

I like it. I think an effect of the Time combo field could be that condition damage ticks twice as often, which would mean poison, bleed, or burning could overcharge, “rotting or infecting” enemies faster.

To everyone suggesting this class SHOULDN’T be a heavy, you’re obviously entitled to your opinion that maybe you personally would enjoy it more as a light class. However, here he’s layed out options for ranged/casting play styles as well with the longbow and scepter/focus combo. And those bow skills sound cool as hell. Just like the others, you can actually pretty effectively play any class as either ranged or close-quarters depending on your gear/weps/traits/utility setups, which is what makes the game so fun in the first place: diversity. With this guy, you could probably even do both in the same fight with weapon swapping. And light classes like a mesmer actually are pretty burst-dependent as well, so this new class sounds like it could have a nice balance of the hefty heavy mentality, but the finesse of a caster too. I’m all for it

Wow! This is the most in-depth, nearly completely fleshed out post I’ve seen yet. Love the class mechanic concept. I read posts from Anet during GW1 time about a possible chronomancer that never got implemented. Heh I imagine if you read that you said “I WILL MAKE THIS HAPPEN IF IT KILLS ME!” Great work man, I love some of the weapon setups. I would definitely play this a bit. Keep this kinda work up people

Also, it’s kinda sad how much negativity forward-thinking posts like this tend to get. The whole point is to think outside the box and create something that doesn’t exist within the current bounds of the game. And just about any skill or mechanic could be balanced number-wise with damage, cooldown time, etc. I’m sure people screamed that thieves, mesmers, and guards would be op either in beta or before creation, but hey they’re pretty evenly rock/paper/scissored now. I’m sure the same would happen for this one…

P.S. lord: the quotes you made up are hilarious and very fitting. Tick tick, you’re dead was my fav
How about a few more options for any race:
Asura – “Great Scott!”, “Too slow!”
Human – “Play time is over…”, “You’ve already lost”
Charr – “Feeding Time!”, “Relive the Foefire!”
Sylvari – “Just in Time!”, “The seasons guide me.”
Norn – “You’re too late…”, “A legend in the making.”

great Idea! As I was playing D3 as well, I kept thinking if I’d ever see this kind of thing in GW2. I’m not sure if Anet would go for creating skill variants for every skill in the game, although if they did, MAN would that be awesome I’d be all for it. Even if not, I’d still be ok with them maybe adding another weapon modification in addition to sigils that acted as a D3 rune or skill variant effect. This would affect all the skills related to that weapon in a potentially similar way, or a pre-set combination, which gives you a little less freedom but is still a good bit of options to work with, since you could mix main/offhand variants. This is definitely the kind of changes I’d like to see as well rather than gear, good post

Lovin the stuff I see so far in here

Gonna re-mention something I posted a while ago in response to theives not having any 1200 range weapon attacks anymore. To basically combine the whip and flail ideas that have already been mentioned, how about a Whipchain? I could see several classes well-suited to a long ranged wep like this, such as thief, mesmer, ele, maybe even necro or engi. It could have a decent amount of cc either in the form of stuns/daze, pulls either toward player, or player toward foe, and it could pierce all targets between you and target, hitting both on release and return, like the lightning whip. Anything like this I’d find super fun.

I also mentioned both a 1 AND 2-handed Melee spear, as well as a throwing spear.

Scythe is a MUST in my opinion, and in the same vein, I would love a longer range/wider spread melee weapon like a crescent blade that did maybe 450 range cleave damage and had some aoe as well as condition attacks. Plus if it were 1 handed, you could DUAL WIELD them

First of all, there is no one true fix to this or any other game.

To address your complaint of lacking a variety of specific, specialized play styles:

Actually, I’d be willing to bet the majority of people who play this game disagree with you. There are many things Anet has done to promote exactly what you’ve described here. The combination of varying gear/stat combinations, trait choices, utility skills, and weapon sets allows for an exponentially high variation is potential character setups, thus catering toward multiple play styles. The way Anet went about affording us with many optional play styles was to give each and every class tons of variety in everything above, so we could CHOOSE to pump everything towards offense, defense, or utility/support, or a combination of the three. Each class has unique mechanics, supporting that claim, and some intrinsically lend themselves much more to certain styles than others, which sounds like what you’re saying you don’t see, oddly enough.

As for your own preference you said of a somewhat offensive support healer, here’s my suggestion given what already exists in the game:

Try an elementalist ASAP. If you prioritize the water and arcana trait lines, you can get some serious condition removal, party boon application, and effective heals going. If you use double daggers, you will find a ton of cc at your disposal, good damage, and if you add some healing power stats, supreme heals. Switching to staff will also let you do all of the above, at a range as well. You could be an all fire/crit/might ele, or create a balance by consistently swapping elements and keeping an eye on your friends as well as foes.

Also try out a guardian. They are more damage-heavy than an ele would be, and offer even more support such as condition/cc removal and party buffs. In fact that’s what they’re ALL ABOUT. You could be an all-out damage burn guardian, or a tanky support guardian.

If you try these and it still isn’t what you were looking for, then I’d agree with some fo the others who said you’re in the wrong game. Anet intentionally has setup the build variety the way they did, to let YOU choose how a character is played, not them. They have also explicitly stated during development and beta that they DON’T want to follow the typical MMO conventions, and don’t think a dedicated healer has any place in the type of game environment THEY want. At any rate, good luck.

Hey everyone.
I love many of the things the Anet team has implemented to promote variation in gameplay and relying on teammates and cooperation. Which is why I’m somewhat surprised there isn’t some mechanic already in place like what I’m about to describe, that many other games already have.

Right now, there aren’t very many barriers to filter out negative attitudes and harassment or lack of cooperation, other than the report function. Certainly one can send a report, but unless this happens quite frequently to the same person, it’s unlikely that anything may happen to the player as consequence.

I would think in order to deter negative attitude, and more importantly promote an encouraging, helpful, and cooperative atmosphere, there should be a way to honor or even reward players who do display these things. Positive reinforcement is far more effective than punishment, so why not have that as well? I’m thinking that just like the report option, have an honor option. You could do this the same as reporting with /report and what would be /honor respectively. To go a step further, you could even have a range of categories for why you’re honoring a player, such as friendliness, helpful, teamwork, leadership, etc. For PvP and/or WvW, you could even provide an enemy-related honor system such as valliant or honorable ooponent. And for those thinking it, yes this is exactly what League of Legends does, and does quite well in my opinion. Since this could very easily be exploited if spammed among guilds/friends, a way I thought of avoiding that could be that you could only honor any given player once per 24-hour period, coinciding with daily resets. Though, to promote this whole thing, they could certainly prompt you during or after certain events, such as:
Sieging Stonemist castle in WvW, finishing a dungeon path, completing a world event, receiving mail from another player, finishing a sPvP match, completing a guild mission, etc.

An “honor initiative” like this will not only promote players to do these things in order to receive honor from others, but the game system could also use this info to either reward players with honor chests just like achievement point chests, or simply provide achievement points by itself. Furthermore, if Anet were to implement an automatic party match-making system along with the upcoming Party Search function, one could choose to enter a party queue solo, for a dungeon or anything else, and the player would be matched with people of similar honor reputation. This would make you MORE likely to encounter people who show the same attitudes and performance you do, and LESS likely to partner up with those who don’t. Since this doesn’t affect gameplay itself, but merely promotes a healthy player environment, I don’t see why this couldn’t feasibly happen.

If anyone else likes this idea or something similar, and wants Anet to notice, please upvote this. Thanks for reading

Hey everyone. I’m sure I’m not the only one out there who’s disappointed that you can’t salvage any ascended items right now. Even though it’s only trinkets, it does take a good bit of time (10+ days) to earn rings or amulets through pristine relics or laurels, so time-wise they are quite valuable. Anet allows us to earn these as potential drops as well, but they are still pretty rare. And unfortunately, you rarely get the stats you WANT.

So here’s how I’d propose to make ascended trinkets salvagable, so you don’t fill the bank with useless ones or let them go to waste entirely. We already know that you can get mists essences by playing at different levels. So to follow with the idea of keeping any ascended-related items account bound, and therefore must still be earned and are impervious to trade fluctuations, how about we allow trinkets to be salvaged for mists essences?

This would let us get SOMETHING out of the unwanted stat rings we keep getting, going towards infusing other ones we do like. They could require you to use either a mystic, master, or even black lion salvage kit to retain anything, which they might find enticing since people might end up buying gems in the long run. And to balance it, you could use about the same setup that rares > ectos has right now:

Lets say for non-infused rings, you could get between 1-3 viles of condensed mists essence, while infused ones would grant 1-3 globs of coagulated mists essence. This way, if you get lucky and get 3, it has the same value as 1 of the higher rarity (3 globs = 1 shard). In addition to the mists essences, they could also salvage for some regular fractal relics as well, or even add a very rare chance to get a pristine relic instead.

I feel this is a reasonable way to make use of items we’re already getting but not using, while keeping it balanced and not boosting the reward dramatically. It still might take you ten days to salvage enough to infuse an item, but right now it’s pure luck if any mists essence drop, and I happen to be really unlucky in general.

What do you guys think? Do you have a better way you’d do something like this?

I think a really exciting thing they could do is RACIAL passives. Right now, race is pretty insignificant other than aesthetics because most racial skills stink and hardly anyone I know uses them. If they added passive effects, then it would actually mean something. And these could be done very balanced and lore-friendly.

For example, right now Norns have an elite skill for 4 primary spirit forms. I don’t know a single person who uses these instead of a class elite because they just aren’t good enough and have crazy long cooldowns. What if instead, you had 4 stances, each of the same spirits, that you could rotate between like ele’s attunements that would each grant a different effect, similar to the types of skills those elites already give you.

On the same note, Humans have elite God avatars. If they changed those to a passive that you could change when out of combat, maybe they could make some effect that’s not crazy by itself but could be a situational boost. This, or you could do something related to the charisma/personality lines that might grant unique effects.

In Sylvari character creation, you have to choose a day cycle that you were born during. What if you could alternate between those as well, granting varying effects?

In Charr creation, you choose an allegiance. If you could change that in and out of combat as well for a bonus, that would be pretty cool

The Asura might lend themselves toward brain power or invention related things. Haven’t really fleshed out anything, but hoping someone else who likes this idea comes up with something

What do you guys think?

Most classes already have passive abilities just like what you’ve described, usually achieved or augmented by traits. I like the concept you’re using though of classes having additional bonuses that rely on allies from other classes. Adds another element in the same regard as combo fields/finishers.

I keep hearing friends talk about pets and rangers. What do you guys think about this idea or anything else you’ve thought of?

I LOVE where you’re head’s at. I think they could go about this in a few ways. Either they could let you purchase skill animations for specific skills with skill points, karma, gems, something material like that. Or they could implement a “Profession Rank” system, kind of like WvW rank, in which you could progress and unlock alternate skill animations gradually. Or you could just program certain skills’ animations differently based on race. Personally I’d go for the progression/unlock route, but no matter what I’d totally into this idea

Hey Zardul and others, could u take a look at another concept for improving Pets?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Improving-Ranger-Pet-Mechanics/first#post2302396

Feedback appreciated

This is a harmless, silly and fun idea. I can see why maybe letting you name it ANYthing might be bad haha, but hey, what if you could “personalize” a weapon, like in Diablo. it could read “Wartna’s Twilgiht.”

Kal,

I’m glad you you seem to really like rangers and pets in their current state now, that’s great and I hope you keep enjoying it. However, things can ALWAYS be better. I threw this whole concept out there because, as Amarya said, myself and other ranger players currently don’t feel very connected to our pets at all, and their involvement in my play time, regardless of my skill, is barely present at best. If not exactly what I’ve laid out here, I think SOMETHING should change so that I have more control over my pet physically and can therefore feel like I’m really getting into it and working together with the pet. Even GW1 with its variety of pet skills allowed for this. Do you not agree that pets could play more of an active role somehow?

Thanks for the support guys. I’d love if an Anet member actually reads this

I like a lot of the ideas you guys posted above, including your original post Septemptus. Rather than commenting on them individually, I’ll just throw out a bunch of blanket statements lol.

Based on what I’ve learned about economics and market patterns, I think it’s safe for me to say that while GW2 has a virtual market, it very much follows the same basic rules of a real one.

Overall, it sounds like you want to implement rules and rewards that benefit those who play a wide variety of characters in a wide variety of situations the MOST. From a game enjoyment standpoint, that’d be fantastic. However, I sadly don’t think it’s realistic. As some others have said, in any game, there are the casual players, those who seek out many different adventures like yourself, and the hardcore grinders or moneymakers. Personally, I think a GREAT game should provide all of the above with opportunities to enjoy the game as much as possible, which would obviously vary from person to person. If someone has fun flipping items via the trade post to make tons of cash, I don’t see anything inherently wrong with that. At the same time, someone who only plays an hour a day, or less, can’t expect to find too many get-rich-quick schemes at their disposal. It’s those in the middle that need more options for making money, if they so choose.

I see many, many methods of doing so, but here are some ideas:

Provide an additional set of more specialized Daily rewards, that would give FAR greater monetary bonuses than the main one, or give some kind of token system like laurels that let you buy account-bound things ONLY in that way. I’m thinking like if you open a certain set of world chests that day, or finish all 3 explorable paths in a specific dungeon, or maybe something WvW related too. These could all be on rotation, like the Zaishen quests in GW1.

On the same note, I think the current Monthly achievements are way too easy, and don’t give a substantial reward whatsoever. That should definitely change.

The other option is to make more things token-based instead of straight money. I don’t think you should be able to just buy a legendary, or even a semi-legendary. There are also certain mystic forge recipes that are pretty much guaranteed profit in massive quantities, which furthers your complaint.

Definitely a fan of this idea overall. It would be great to be able to choose between more than just the current 5 skills per weapon, and on top of that to rearrange their position from 1-5 like you can utility skills. Maybe give each weapon ~8 skills in addition to your zero-cooldown auto-attack, of which you choose any 4 in any order?

Another way to add more variety skill-wise I think would be a flat-out Elite Skill overhaul. Sadly most of them, racial or otherwise, stink in my opinion. I’d love to see them make a wider selection of equally useful skills there. There’s also tons of major traits, mostly first tier, that deal with falling damage. Personally I don’t know a single person who ever uses those, so I’d be all for replacing those with new effects for each class

More food for thought, and again good idea

I’m posting this here, as well as the suggestions section, so all those ranger-lovers out there might be more likely to see this idea I’ve been thinking about for quite some time now regarding Rangers and pets. In theory, I’m a huge fan of using pets and the essence of what a ranger could be. However, I don’t think this comes across well through the way pets are currently implemented. I’d like to offer maybe the way I would go about it, trying to avoid the downfalls along the way and making things even more fun and effective.

First of all, I think it’s a big mistake that pets are MANDATORY. This not only
means that you don’t have a choice, but also that you’re damage and effectiveness is
somewhat split between you and your pet, requiring skilled use of pet mechanics to
reach your full potential. Now, that last part I think in essence is fine, but
forcing someone to use a pet who might care less really rubs some people the wrong
way.

So I thought, hey, Engineers have kits that take up a utility slot, and replace your
weapon skills while in use. BINGO! You could make “Pet” or something like that a
utility slot skill, thus making it OPTIONAL. Now, this would also mean that the
current F1-F4 skills for the Ranger-specific mechanics would have to change, but
there are plenty of lore-friendly Ranger-related ideas I could throw out for that.
Right now though, People generally only actually USE the F2 pet active skill, while
the pet itself occasionally uses the others. This seems like a big let-down; I’d
rather try to make pet combat a lot more interesting. My solution would be tag-
teaming DUAL skills. When you activate the pet kit, your 1-5 slot skills now become
new skills specific to the type of pet you have on. As for pet swapping, I wouldn’t
want to rob people of that, so we could keep the 5 slot skill “swap,” allowing you
to change to your second pet and gain a new set of 1-4 skills, still within the pet
kit. And if you made each skill a DUAL effect skill, meaning that both you AND your
pet do something when each skill is used, that would mean combat will be
interesting, you don’t have to micro manage your pet, or ignore it, and it could be
balanced in such a way that you can’t exploit pets for tanking purposes. On another note, since myself and many, many players seem to be so terribly frustrated by pets accidentally attracting aggro or causing unnecessarily long “in-combat” periods, this “kit” style skill would remove the pet instantly when it’s not in use, so you could easily keep it off while running around, or if it might cause a problem, in a dungeon for example.

With this setup, any Ranger COULD choose to either scrap pets entirely, or actually
use them exclusively, assuming the damage and skill effects were scaled and balanced
properly. In the same respect, this would make the beast mastery trait line for rangers a very viable route if they wanted to focus on pet combat rather than typical ranged weapons, traps, etc. I know this would make me want to play a Ranger a whole lot more, if not primarily.

There’s now the discussion of “What will the new Ranger-specific F-button mechanic
be?” One thought I had is inspired by the way ele’s attunement swap. What if you had
maybe 3-4 different F-skills, all with the same cooldown times, that allowed you to
switch between stances. These could all have passive and/or next-attack effects, and
could be more effective depending on what role/style of play you’re doing at any
given time. These would NOT change your skills, seeing as you’d already have plenty
at your disposal, with or without a pet. Perhaps one could increase your attack
range, attack speed, or projectile speed, and then there would be 2-3 more with
totally separate effects, offensive or defensive. You could even make one of them
pet related. The other option could be, since Rangers are attuned to nature, to make
these stances related to certain creatures. Norn have the 4 main spirits they can
channel as an elite, so what if rangers had 4 different auras or umbras they could
alternate between to represent yet another 4 creatures or spirits? It’s things like
this, the combination of making sense lore-wise, making every aspect of combat fun
AND effective, and creating more diversity and creativity even within the same
profession, that would attract me and I hope many other people to play any class,
current or future. If anyone likes these ideas or has even further suggestions,
please do respond. Thanks again guys!

I fully endorse the idea of expanding ranger pets, cosmetically and functionally. I think with an upcoming expansion they probably will and should do this.

For all you ranger lovers out there, check out my current post for Pet re-work ideas
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Improving-Ranger-Pet-Mechanics/first#post2287909

Hey I have a current topic about a Ranger/Pet rework to make pets more involved, non-mandatory, and way more fun and effective overall, check it out

I think part of the problem is that the game needs more weapons period, in addition to giving the classes more available weapons to use. I said in another post that something like a whipchain would be very cool, and I can see the appeal to Thieves the most of all

Hey guys, I just made a new post about discussing some variability and utility with Burst skills, check it out This could give Warriors some of the uniqueness Biondo and others may be looking for.

In general when I play a character, I like to focus on stats like Power, Precision, Crit damage, tougness on my gear, but then compensate for the lack of defense with very defensive utility skills and probably either the toughness or vitality trait line. I understand that Warriors are inherently going to bring more Offense/Damage to the table than utility, but I think building adrenaline should allow us to be effective both offensively AND defensively. Here’s my proposal:

WHAT IF there were additional burst skills. For example, every burst skill I can think of is Damage/Offense oriented. Why not give options, like the Mesmer’s shatter skills, that we could use situationally, but would all share the same cooldown, all burn adrenaline, and be effected by any trait modifications. We could have one that maybe gives a “block next 3 attacks, and gain stability/protection for 5 seconds.” Another could be “Meditate in place for 3 seconds, taking 50% reduced damage and gaining 1 second of protection and regeneration for each attack hit during this time.” I’m thinking of certain actions that could give you some extra tankiness, mobility, block, or utility, rather than the straight burst damage there is now.

I did love the idea of an extra weapon slot I just read recently, but that might receive more shun than praise. Another possibility could be allowing warriors to use 2 two-handed weapons at the same time, kind of like a Diablo Barbarian. This would give you some extra skills to try out, but then again, expect to lose out on some survivability if you go this route, unless they allowed a major trait like weapon blocking

Let me know what you all think of this, thanks

I understand what you’re saying Biondo. However, I think some of your suggegtions, if ALL put together, could give Warriors an extreme advantage over some if not all other classes. I like your idea of added effects while using healing skills, without burning trait points on it. Then again, that would make Full Berserker gear characters still able to survive somewhat of a beating, and gear is a big part of the consideration for play style. I think removing burst skill cooldowns could result in even MORE all-out dps builds that focus solely on adrenaline building, making those overpowered potentially as well. And as for extra trait points, I don’t that’d be fair for any class, it’s part of the balancing that keeps, Warriors for example, level with the others. Warriors are already the preferred class for damage in any dungeon, as they probably should be, but buffing them so extreme in this way would probably mean bad news for the rest of the classes haha.

In general when I play a character, I like to focus on stats like Power, Precision, Crit damage, tougness on my gear, but then compensate for the lack of defense with very defensive utility skills and probably either the toughness or vitality trait line. Try looking up some good BALANCED warrior builds people have come up with, and see if you can incorporate some of the effects you were talking about.

On the other hand, I did love the idea of an extra weapon slot. Or another possibility could be allowing warriors to use 2 two-handed weapons at the same time, kind of like a Diablo Barbarian. This would give you some extra skills to try out, but then again, expect to lose out on some survivability if you go this route, unless they allowed a major trait like weapon blocking

Hey, great idea, been thinking the same thing for quite some time too. Here’s what I came up with that would be fun, practical, and lore-friendly:

I think a ~600 Range Melee Spear would be great, and if it were 1-handed, well then I’m sure plenty of GW1 paragon lovers would be instant fans. You could also do a throwing spear for the same reason. You could even make a 2-handed spear, more like a lance, that I could see being very fun. My personal vote would be a Scythe though, being a dervish lover, and wanting an option for a longer/wider range 2-handed Melee weapon available, say on a Guardian, Necro, Mesmer, etc. In that same regard, I think a ~300 range 1-handed melee crescent-style weapon would be great, and fun for something like a Thief, Ranger, Warrior, you name it. There’s also something like a Whipchain or tri-sectional staff that I think could totally be implemented, especially if they come with cc-oriented skills.

And maybe not for range, but a Fist weapon could be fun too.

Was this what you had in mind?

Hey, I liked this post a lot! Great ideas to breathe some fresh new life to the game and make it truly above the pack.

As for your pet mechanics section, I made a post recently that’s essentially totally revamping the way pets would be incorporated. If you could take a look and give some feedback I’d rly appreciate it. Thanks

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Improving-Ranger-Pet-Mechanics/first#post2276648

Hey guys, take a look at my recent post. Might be interested if you’re concerned about this

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Improving-Ranger-Pet-Mechanics/first#post2276648

Hi there Arenanet & players. I thought I’d post this idea I’ve been thinking about
for quite some time now regarding Rangers and pets. In theory, I’m a huge fan of
using pets and the essence of what a ranger could be. However, I don’t think this
comes across well through the way pets are currently implemented. I’d like to offer
maybe the way I would go about it, trying to avoid the downfalls along the way and
making things even more fun and effective.

First of all, I think it’s a big mistake that pets are MANDATORY. This not only
means that you don’t have a choice, but also that you’re damage and effectiveness is
somewhat split between you and your pet, requiring skilled use of pet mechanics to
reach your full potential. Now, that last part I think in essence is fine, but
forcing someone to use a pet who might care less really rubs some people the wrong
way.

So I thought, hey, Engineers have kits that take up a utility slot, and replace your
weapon skills while in use. BINGO! You could make “Pet” or something like that a
utility slot skill, thus making it OPTIONAL. Now, this would also mean that the
current F1-F4 skills for the Ranger-specific mechanics would have to change, but
there are plenty of lore-friendly Ranger-related ideas I could throw out for that.
Right now though, People generally only actually USE the F2 pet active skill, while
the pet itself occasionally uses the others. This seems like a big let-down; I’d
rather try to make pet combat a lot more interesting. My solution would be tag-
teaming DUAL skills. When you activate the pet kit, your 1-5 slot skills now become
new skills specific to the type of pet you have on. As for pet swapping, I wouldn’t
want to rob people of that, so we could keep the 5 slot skill “swap,” allowing you
to change to your second pet and gain a new set of 1-4 skills, still within the pet
kit. And if you made each skill a DUAL effect skill, meaning that both you AND your
pet do something when each skill is used, that would mean combat will be
interesting, you don’t have to micro manage your pet, or ignore it, and it could be
balanced in such a way that you can’t exploit pets for tanking purposes. On another note, since myself and many, many players seem to be so terribly frustrated by pets accidentally attracting aggro or causing unnecessarily long “in-combat” periods, this “kit” style skill would remove the pet instantly when it’s not in use, so you could easily keep it off while running around, or if it might cause a problem, in a dungeon for example.

With this setup, any Ranger COULD choose to either scrap pets entirely, or actually
use them exclusively, assuming the damage and skill effects were scaled and balanced
properly. In the same respect, this would make the beast mastery trait line for rangers a very viable route if they wanted to focus on pet combat rather than typical ranged weapons, traps, etc. I know this would make me want to play a Ranger a whole lot more, if not primarily.

There’s now the discussion of “What will the new Ranger-specific F-button mechanic
be?” One thought I had is inspired by the way ele’s attunement swap. What if you had
maybe 3-4 different F-skills, all with the same cooldown times, that allowed you to
switch between stances. These could all have passive and/or next-attack effects, and
could be more effective depending on what role/style of play you’re doing at any
given time. These would NOT change your skills, seeing as you’d already have plenty
at your disposal, with or without a pet. Perhaps one could increase your attack
range, attack speed, or projectile speed, and then there would be 2-3 more with
totally separate effects, offensive or defensive. You could even make one of them
pet related. The other option could be, since Rangers are attuned to nature, to make
these stances related to certain creatures. Norn have the 4 main spirits they can
channel as an elite, so what if rangers had 4 different auras or umbras they could
alternate between to represent yet another 4 creatures or spirits? It’s things like
this, the combination of making sense lore-wise, making every aspect of combat fun
AND effective, and creating more diversity and creativity even within the same
profession, that would attract me and I hope many other people to play any class,
current or future. If anyone likes these ideas or has even further suggestions,
please do respond. Thanks again guys!