Guild Wars 2

Geekfox.4267:

Linnes.2678:

Two years later and I still don’t have my zoo, my poor animals.

The necromancer is strong in this one.

Needs to happen! I was actually going back to this thread since I needed OP’s pics haha.

Two years later and I still don’t have my zoo, my poor animals.

#216

IGN: Linnes

Blix.8021:

You aren’t being punished by having to wait a extra week for an item skin. Grow up

Except we don’t know for sure if it will be only a week or not. As was stated, some players haven’t even received their Season One rewards yet (myself included).

Looking at the new Chinese trailer video (and I assume it was in the English as well?) I noticed a scene in which a Sylvari was running across a bridge and holding what seemed to be a Halberd of some sort. This is not the general Staff run so I’m not sure what it is? I also noticed that a lot of conceptual art and backgrounds DO show characters holding spears.

Ouimette.5902:

Mark Katzbach.9084:

Feedback such as “fire this person” or “get better at writing” are not helpful or useful to us. If you wish to provide constructive criticism and feedback, I strongly recommend reading this thread which details how to give good, constructive feedback that is useful both to the development teams and in discussions here on the forums.

What the forum really benefits from is the CDI threads. I can’t know how often you want a gathered and constructive feedback thread but you should put them up more frequently just for different gametypes in the game such as WvW,PvP,PvE,Dungeons,LS and other things. I love those threads.

I second this, the CDI are great. We actually get to talk directly to the devs themselves instead of the -chance- that they might take a gander at our threads. We can get their personal opinion on the topics and if/how they plan on changing specific issues in the game. Honestly if I was in charge of a dev team I would make it a monthly goal to hold a CDI, LISTEN to the players, gather constructive criticism and then work on the game based on the general consensus.

Mark Katzbach.9084:

Feedback such as “fire this person” or “get better at writing” are not helpful or useful to us. If you wish to provide constructive criticism and feedback, I strongly recommend reading this thread which details how to give good, constructive feedback that is useful both to the development teams and in discussions here on the forums.

Which is why I went into my personal opinions on the matters in below responses to others.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Why the call for Angel to be fired??? Why single her out? She seems so nice, and I can’t imagine her writing would be considered so much worse than any of the other writers’.

Just seems an odd choice.

I think the guys opinion on Angel being singled out is that despite her being a nice person, she was responsible for Scarlet. Scarlet was a terrible character and the plot for the entire 18 months of Scarlet Hell was pretty bad overall. I agree about the writers in general though. The lore is so gutted from the original game I do not even consider GW2 in the same dimension as the original. GW1 had story-telling, deep backstory and rich history about the races, areas, and characters overall that it’s sad to see how little work actually went into story-telling in the game itself. I think that they needed to stick with the original concept of "enter “x” mission in an area, bring your friends if you want, and have actual objectives for you to complete. The personal story currently is basically just a “walk here, view a cutscene, kill some enemies, sometimes pull a lever or fire a cannon, view an ending cutscene.”

Vitus Dance.4509:

Linnes.2678:

THIS is what your players are thinking

Custard
Time travel
Time travelling custard
Not on the list but, based on your topic, just as relevant.

It was a generalized statement, not all players think this way, but there are a lot that do.

Jrunyon.3012:

Biased Survey. The people enjoying the game are playing the game, not posting on an unknown “board”. Mind posting a link?

Also, these changes will come in due time if the dev team sees fit to add them. If not? Find a different game that caters to your liking.

I enjoy playing the game, I’ve played it since BW1, since 3-day headstart, etc. I’ve gotten my legendaries, ascended armor, etc. I’m just saying that a lot of players do wish to see the game change for the better. I also honestly hate people who state “well if you don’t like it play another game.” It’s the most simple-minded retort anyone could ever use. Why would I buy the game, play it, and then move to another game just because I dislike certain aspects of it, especially an MMO which requires time and commitment to fully enjoy? No game is perfect, some games just try harder than others to attain goals that their players will enjoy in the longrun (temporary, gated content is not one of them).

The game needs work, especially in the story-telling area. Colin, along with the lead writer himself posted in the Living Story section of the forums that they’re taking in to account players feedback and are really looking to make changes with their writing in the future. Scarlet was a prime example of what not to do in a content-driven game. Explaining missing plotholes outside of the game via Facebook and Twitter? Terrible idea.

“MUH FEMINISM!”

Why can’t I have my male character look like a crossdresser then? Seriously…? There are plenty of options out there for female characters to dress appropriately.

So upon asking the question on a board “what would you like to see change with Arena Net?” here are some of the responses:

“If I could, I’d make it so legendaries could not only change stat spreads, but similar weapon types. So if you craft a Meteorlogicus, you would receive the scepter, but it’d be possible to switch it to other magic weapon types, like Meteorlogicus-Staff, or Meteorlogicus-Focus whenever you were out of combat. And doing so would slightly change the shape of the legendary to fit that weapon type.”

“The developer team fired and replaced my people who are actually competent.”

“For the dev team to actually listen to playerbase and not go Full Obama and promise things he can’t keep at launch.”

“Dev team to not automatically remove posts on the forum that even slightly degrade NCsoft, running the forums like an internment camp.”

“endgame other than grinding rifts/shards/whatever? No proper dungeons like in WoW?”

“Break the armor type barrier for wardrobe so you can mix kitten up and be speshul.
A really really really big and hard jumping puzzle with no checkpoints and it’s easy to fall and die with a really good reward. The entrance changes location every 12 hours, it’s a small portal that can appear in any cave or enclosed area in the game, or maybe at the end of any regular jumping puzzle.
Pls Colin”

“I want them to do what they are suppose to do with all those promise AND FIRE ANGEL MCCOY!”

“I want them to fullfill the kittening manifesto and stop making temporary content only. New dungeon every 4-6 weeks pls. You can progress the story with the new dungeon story mode for all I care, I just want new content I can play multiple times and new armor & weapon skin, even if they are just recolors of older sets ie. peacemaker weps in orange or something”

“There should be a set of legendaries that are actually legendary.
Like say, a reward for being the first 10 or 100 or even 1 to complete some really big really hard jumping puzzle or the first team to beat the first raid they introduce, or SOMETHING.
Just something unique ;_;”

“Actual persistent content added?”

“Mounts (either as just means of travel, environmental weapons, whole new combat system, etc.)
Parkour system
Naval battle system
New, permanent story content and dungeons
Weapon proliferation
new weapons (fists for all classes, scythes, polearms)
Seasonal content rotation in the open world
Repeatable story content based on our personal story
Persistent new content
New races
Elona and Cantha
Elder Dragons
Better writing
Devteam that listens and either can tell us what’s possible and not and not make promises it can’t keep
The list goes on. To say the least, this game’s left a lot to be desired.”

“There isn’t enough space in a post to list them.”

This was all added within the first 10 minutes of asking, I think just based off the negative answers in such a short time frame can really reflect upon the game itself. To a new player the game may look great, and may seemingly have endless content, but to players who have devoted a year and a half, it’s been a bumpy and disappointing ride. Yes you’re making right steps towards the future, but these are things that SHOULD HAVE been implemented at launch, as you claimed they would be. THIS is what your players are thinking Arena Net, THIS is what we want to see done. Stop looking through rose-colored glasses at your game and actually take the time to listen to the player base.

It’s just more money grabbing really…“oh we’re gonna put in expensive items in the box in hopes that more people will buy them, and if you already got one previously, at least you know that they’re obtainable! So try again!”

They should have then updated them with the patch =\

I like how you made them tradeable, however I feel that not making the older (pre-update ones) still account bound is a little unfair. Currently they are selling on the TP for roughly 350-400g, even if the only ones became tradeable the prices still would probably settle at around 100g (after day one hype is gone).

thefantasticg.3984:

Not going to happen.

Besides, hammer is a heavy class weapon (just like greatsword)

You realize Rangers have access to Greatsword right?

raptor.1064:

Sanctus.8350:

You paid for the collector’s edition, you received the collector’s edition. How is this any different than me (paid for the normal edition, received the normal edition) asking for the legacy armors too?

if it was added to the normal edition package you should

the biggest problem is the deluxe edition had awful benefits with it, and people totally deserve extra stuff for what they paid for it

Pretty much this. I bought the DD edition and the bonuses are absolutely trash from it. The terrible elite is NOT worth the extra $20, the minipet isn’t even tradeable, and lol… the Hero’s Band is about as useful as a penny to the US debt. If the Golem Banker was permanent it would definitely be worth it, but alas it’s not.

Collector’s Edition DID have some really nice stuff to it I admit, however there were very limited quantities of it (the stores near me had ALL sold out of CE pre-orders since they went up), and honestly if you looked at the values of items (Rytlock figurine, artbook, etc) the values definitely did not equate to the $180 it was worth.

Now if you look at the FFXIV CE for example you’re getting an in-game mount, armor skin for a chocobo, a terrible helmet (equiv. to the Hero’s Band), an artbook (hardcover), exclusive box art, a minipet (rytlock mini), a movie disc, in-game soundtrack, and an art card set. This costs only $80 and has been sold out since pre-orders went up.

Honestly, it really doesn’t matter though if Arena Net gives us anything or not, and they know it. They’ve got our money, it doesn’t matter if we quit or not, they lose literally nothing.

I feel it is a bit unfair to people who bought the game, especially DD/CE, to not get these armor sets just because we were early to the party. I realize they can be bought in-game (via cash-shop), but that’s not the point. You already pretty much gave us a big middle finger in terms of birthday rewards and now you’re jipping out loyal customers again. The money pandering is just pathetic at this point.

Oh well, guess I’ll be heading to Eorza for a bit, cya when some new updates come. That is one good thing about the game currently, it’s F2P.

Taym.8326:

I would in fact enjoy things if there was greater potential to be shown for playing ranger at a higher skill level like manual pet control etc.

I’ve been begging for a better pet micro-management system since beta, but based on how ranger is looking now, it might be a VERY LONG time before we get that. GW1 had a “good” approach to it with pet skills being on the actual skill bar, though at the cost of precious slots, however it was countered with usually positive buffs to the master themselves.

Gasoline.2570:

So sad how young/middle aged men are begging to spend real life money for swimsuit skins on their female characters on a videogame…

What has this world turned into?

Except that I only have male characters? You jump to conclusion far too quickly, it’s almost like you’re still unsure of your sexuality.

And as was stated in this thread, why would I not pay $10-$15 a month on a hobby? It’s a subscriptionless game, I played Aion back when it was released up until it went F2P, Hell I even played Runescape when I was a kid, and I played FLYFF which was essentially P2W, GW2 is mediocre in comparison to subscription games in terms of their costs.

Thanks for the “nude” beach Arena Net, I guess you don’t like money enough to put in Swimsuits but you sure as hell jumped on the RNG boxes.

Taym.8326:

I was referring to your proposal for. Decreasing the duration while making it 100% proc is a nerf due to how easy it is to accomplish. You stand much to far away from the target with a skirmishing weapon, (yes the shortbow is skirmishing) in this range back attacks are literally one sidestep. The 15% arc from middle body to land the flanking is so simple, the only thing that makes sense is if you stand max range away from everyone. This also covers the poison volley change you wanted since you want a field which you can land at a large range and literally 1/2 the poison potential of the ability.

Except for making the shortbow a close range weapon will get you destroyed by most melee classes (despite the regen, toughness, and health pool), who are also trying to flank you due to basic area control. It’s not nearly as simple as you state it, and I even tested this last night in duels. In no way is it a “simple strafe/sidestep.” The hitbox is literally that, a box, four sides.

For reference, I’ve drawn a diagram of the acceptable areas for you actually hit to trigger the effect. There is only a SLIGHT intersection in the front and sides for you to hit, as shown by the green circles.

Taym.8326:

Shortened

My biggest concern for your argument is that you didn’t fully read what I stated for shortbow: Either A.) Increase the bleed duration or B.) Remove the necessity for flanking and lower the bleed duration. Flanking is only useful on distracted enemies (meaning in pve you’re not going to get it off nearly as much) and in pvp a majority of the time the enemy is going to be facing you, especially in a 1v1.

I really think you’re missing the point where I was referring to pve rangers and not pvp. I have stated multiple times in this thread that pvp-wise, ranger’s are in a good place. You do realize that Arena Net HAS the capability to split the playstyles, yet they’re too kitten lazy to do it (I’m looking at you Izzy).

Also, I have played as a regen trap ranger in tpvp since beta. BM’s are pointless in tpvp where rangers excel at the annoyance role. Sure if you wanna join minigame hotjoin spvp, go for it, you can use the pre-made cookie-cutter build and still get kills.

I don’t understand, now this is my personal opinion, why Izzy got the job as the lead balancer in GW2 when he did such a poor job in GW1 that they shelfed him, it makes no sense.

Disastro.4086:

Linnes.2678:

Every class has access to vigor already, again this is just adding more utility.

Just FYI necros have no access to vigor at all.

“What is boon stealing, Pat?”

You’re right though, by no normal means they have access to it. However they make up for the lowered dodge rate by having a higher base health.

Lighter.5631:

yes and we should reduce the cast time of hundred blade

warriors please go haha.

Straegen.2938:

Spirits should not take any damage and be on a timer similar to banners rather than have HP. Replace the spirit HP trait with a trait that extends the spirit timer. This would make them more group friendly.

Pets need to dodge when the owner does. I also think pets should have a guard owner state where the pet will attack anyone within melee range of the ranger in addition to attack and passive states. Frequently I just want my pet to guard me without having to micro manage.

Pet Attack/Passive switch needs its own key bind.

To add to this, when putting a pet away, attacking should not take out the pet.

Taym.8326:

-Frost Spirit: Increase damage on hit to 25%
-Too large of an increase.
-Stone Spirit: Increase protection duration to 5 seconds, lower internal cooldown to 8 seconds. Activating this spirit breaks stun and grants all allies in the area Aegis for 10 seconds.
-Protection is really strong, this will grant a possibility of over 50% uptime of protection for anyone without 900m of the pet, that is overpowered.
-Sun Spirit: Change to; when allies attack they have an x% chance of granting might to themselves. Make it’s activation a Fire Field.
This is a nerf, the burn is gives is huge and also applies to pets and other friendly NPCs
-Storm Spirit: Change to; Allies have x% chance to blind foe when attacking, Make the internal cooldown 15 seconds. Swiftness is useless in dungeons, as other classes can provide much better support with it.
Blind is something that needs timing to be useful, especially with a 15s cooldown this is a very weak ability

On Frost Spirit: You do know with the internal cooldown and proc chance that the damage increase is only 3-7% as it stands right now (untraited and traited). That’s garbage, there is no notable increase at all with it.

On Earth Spirit: Again, as it stands now the current protection is not worth mentioning, considering that guardians can give their team protection by themselves, it’s not really a difference. Also, 80% of the mobs/bosses in this game are gigantic meat sacks, protection is only useful against that small 20% that actually dish out enormous damage (damage that just flips the bird to 3k armor).

On Sun Spirit: Might is in NO WAY a nerf. Might increases your overall DPS by a much larger amount than burning due to this simple fact: burning gets over-written. Look at it’s burn damage, it’s 980 over 3 seconds, At even 5 stacks of might you’re already increasing your damage output by a reasonable number, and it’s not shared amongst the team. The activation will provide burning AND a fire combo field (the second most valuable field, objectively first) to further increase might via blast finishers.

On Storm Spirit: So you’re saying that you’d rather take swiftness in a dungeon over blind, which is universally useful. Sure, it won’t be as good on champion/legendary mobs, but if you assume the average dungeon mob takes 10-20 seconds to kill, you’re going through the CD on it per mob, which IS good. Especially if you find yourself in multi-mob scenarios.

Taym.8326:

• Lightning Reflexes; reduce cooldown to 30 seconds. Remove damage (it’s superfluous). At the end of the roll, grants all allies vigor for 5 seconds. Allow this skill to be used instantly while knocked down (I think this is a bug currently, it has a cooldown if you’re KD’d).
  No, Lightning reflexes cooldown is still very low for a stun break and also has an attached evade with vigor. You cannot give it that vigor buff, it is unwarranted. It is already taken by every single BM Ranger which is the most player Ranger profession in sPvP and this will make it even stronger. So no this is a bad idea. I think the problem you are having is you cannot stun break a knockBACK until you hit the ground, I don’t know if that is operating properly at all but its a common thing shared by all stun breaks.

• Warhorn; lower Call of the Wild’s cooldown to 30 seconds. Increase all boons duration to 20 seconds (make it a longer cooldown “For Great Justice”).
  Warhorn is sufficiently Strong, not needed.
• Warhorn; lower Hunter’s Call cooldown to 20 seconds, and inflict bleeding and blind to target (the blind only triggers on the initial hit, the bleed triggers every time damage is inflicted).
  Warhorn is not a condition weapon, in fact hunter’s call was one of the reasons why they put a CD on earth runes, I don’t think they are going to give it auto bleed procs now, it would be OP, Also for the damage it does in power builds it falls in line with what condi weapons do in condition spec.
• Shortbow changes.
  No

On Lightning Reflex: 1.) Beast Masters are not the primary PvP ranger build, trappers are. 2) There are classes that have access to MUCH shorter and MUCH more used stunbreakers than LR. LR is our last decent stunbreaker. Every class has access to vigor already, again this is just adding more utility. LR in itself is stitutional to use, you can severely mess up point holding in tpvp if you use it on-point while the enemy is there. That being said, I use LR as it stands and will continue to do so.

On Hunter’s Call: It does not have to be a primary condition weapon for blind to have use. It would give it more utility as a melee weapon overall. 5 stacks of bleed, that trigger on hit (so assuming the enemy does not dodge), you’re looking at 3 stacks of bleed by the time the duration is up on the skill. As for pure damage on it, rangers fail to hit any “major” damage cap, our most prominent damage is on Maul, which is overshadowed by a lot of other classes’ skills.

On Shortbow: The changes I suggested are so minor that it really would not affect the overall gameplay of it. So what? I’m adding in a poison field, the worst field in the game, a field that thieves already have. It’s not going to overpower the bow at all, just give it more diversity.

Forzani.2584:

If this is all for PvE then I can’t comment since I don’t participate.

Hopefully you don’t want any of this applied to WvW ….the only “fix” I want in WvW is to not get nerfed. …which I fear might happen.

Rangers main problem IS in PvE… we’re borderline useless. PvP rangers are still pretty balanced though. As for WvW, you might as well just become an arrow cart.

WTB Arrow Carts in PvE, maybe my ranger will be useful? Hell I should just duct-tape an arrow cart to his back.

Bumpity bump.
/15char

I have now completed the ranger class, thank me later.

Pets:

• In PvE, pet’s no longer take AoE damage, pet’s only take AoE damage when their masters do (equal amount). This prevents pets from dying to any bosses AoE if the master gets out of the way.
• Improve pet AI, or allow micro-managing of ALL pet skills.
  -To add to this: Pet F2 skills should cancel out any skill the pet is currently using, and have priority.

Spirits:

• Spirits need an improved passive buff, increase all spirit duration’s by:
  -Frost Spirit: Increase damage on hit to 25%
  -Stone Spirit: Increase protection duration to 5 seconds, lower internal cooldown to 8 seconds. Activating this spirit breaks stun and grants all allies in the area Aegis for 10 seconds.
  -Sun Spirit: Change to; when allies attack they have an x% chance of granting might to themselves. Make it’s activation a Fire Field.
  -Storm Spirit: Change to; Allies have x% chance to blind foe when attacking, Make the internal cooldown 15 seconds. Swiftness is useless in dungeons, as other classes can provide much better support with it.
• Add a stunbreaker to the spirits line, earth spirit activation for example.
• Increase spirits ARMOR rating, not health. Health does nothing when they have no armor. Or make spirits like Warrior banners, unkillable/targetable.

Wilderness Survival Skills:

• Quickening Zephyr; reduce duration to 4 seconds, this skill now heals for you for only 50% while active, increase quickness speed to 75%.
• Lightning Reflexes; reduce cooldown to 30 seconds. Remove damage (it’s superfluous). At the end of the roll, grants all allies vigor for 5 seconds. Allow this skill to be used instantly while knocked down (I think this is a bug currently, it has a cooldown if you’re KD’d).

Weapons:

• Longbow; reduce cooldowns, increase flight speed of arrows, improve damage. There is no reason why Rapid Fire should hit for only 8k in a full berserker build (using the most DPS-oriented set) for a 5 second cast time. Auto attack can do better, assuming max range.
• Warhorn; lower Call of the Wild’s cooldown to 30 seconds. Increase all boons duration to 20 seconds (make it a longer cooldown “For Great Justice”).
• Warhorn; lower Hunter’s Call cooldown to 20 seconds, and inflict bleeding and blind to target (the blind only triggers on the initial hit, the bleed triggers every time damage is inflicted).
• Shortbow; improve bleed duriation on Crossfire or remove the flanking and lower the bleed duriation.
• Shortbow; make Poison Volley a ground-targetable AoE Poison Field (yes I realize poison field is the worst combo field, still an improvement).

Elites:

• Entangle; this is more of a “nerf,” but allow the roots to be more easily targetable.
• Rampage As One; lower cooldown to 80 seconds, allow it to change between pets on swap, increase might duration to 10 seconds.
• Spirit Of Nature; this spirit now moves with master regardless of trait. The spirit now passively revives DEAD allies (not instant revive). Activating the spirit is still the same, revives downed allies. Increase passive heal to 450 (I realize it is 480 now, it’s most likely a bug, tooltip says 320 is the supposed heal).

Now I will pitch an idea for another Elite Skill, this one will remove the pet from the ranger and add in stances. I really hate the fact that Arena Net decided to go all “naturey” with Rangers, as historically, rangers weren’t druids at all. They were considered to be scouts, wildmen, and sharpshooters who essentially lived near enemy encampments or scouted the road ahead. I am basing these skills off Stances from the original Guild Wars, as I’m saddened that there is a lack of them in GW2. These stances will go up top where the pet’s UI was.

Stances:

• Elite: Practiced Stance; the ranger recalls his pet and is granted stances in place. While in this mode rangers have their base stats increased by 100 each. Upon cancelling this skill the ranger is unable to call a pet for 90 seconds.

-Sniper’s Stance; for 10 seconds, increases the range of bow attacks by 300m, while in this stance you have an additional 10% chance of dealing a critical hit. 20 second cooldown.
-Tiger’s Fury; for 3 seconds you gain quickness and deal 10% additional damage, however you are unable to move. 20 second cooldown.
-Dodge; you gain swiftness for 5 seconds and evade all attacks, Dodge ends if you attack. 30 second cooldown.
-Nature’s Blessing; grants you and all allies regeneration for 5 seconds and removes a condition every second. 30 second cooldown.

These stances are pretty balanced, each having their own checks and balances, while still remaining playable and fair. You may also only have one stance active at a time (you can’t stack snipers and tiger’s fury for example).

P.S. Sill waiting on Linnes Zoo ;_;

It wasn’t hidden, they stated it in the patch notes themselves. “100% increase in passive effects.” By the way, it was always 90.

Rangers as a ranged class… ha ha haaaaaaaaaa. Rangers do better with melee than with ranged currently. Longbow is borderline useless in terms of damage, and the devs themselves agree, and shortbow is pretty much pvp only at this point. Axes are are generally bad as well.

UPDATED THE LIST WITH A FEW MORE SKILL IDEAS***

Doomslay.3504:

jwaz.1908:

Doomslay.3504:

“when the ranger dodges the pet also dodges” for me thats all we need for pet survivability, nothing that would require traiting either, as for something traited :“when the ranger gains evasion the pet also gains evasion” (eg. from weapon skills)

This could be one solution to pets in dungeons, the only problem I have is that the ranger himself must waste his endurance, as well as constantly watch his pet (in a sea of particle effects).

I would much prefer if all pets were just immune to AOE, since many dungeon mobs and bosses have AOE abilities that 1 shot pets.

But that would dumb down the class quite a bit since you wouldn’t have to worry about your pet anymore, I think the change I suggested would give some depth to pet management, and I dont think it would be that hard to watch your pet since most of the times you will be both in harm’s way, hence your dodging to save yourself will save your pet as well, but these are just my 2 cents

I agree with that you and your pet are most likely dodging at the same time, but I did state the changes would be for pve only, in which your pet has the hardest time dealing with survivability. Even a Brown bear with it’s 26k health STILL gets two or three shotted by most AoE attacks.

Doomslay.3504:

“when the ranger dodges the pet also dodges” for me thats all we need for pet survivability, nothing that would require traiting either, as for something traited :“when the ranger gains evasion the pet also gains evasion” (eg. from weapon skills)

The main problem with this, is that if you have an AoE circle next to your pet for example, but not next to you, are you going to want to waste a pet swap or a dodge on this? Take Subject Alpha for example on this. Sure, his dodges are easy for a single person, but once you start micro-managing yourself AND a pet, it’s gonna get rough. This being said, your pet is gonna die on Alpha anyways 80% of the time so it’s not like anything new is happening.

jwaz.1908:

I agree with most of the suggestions you made, although a few might be a bit over-powered. Pets/Spirits immune to AOE, improving Lightning Reflexes (should break immobilize IMO), Hunter’s Call applying some sort of condition (blind, confusion, bleeding), and longbow improvements are all things I would really like to see.

I think we need some trait-line improvements as well, but any of the simple improvements above would be great.

I agree that a couple may be overpowered, but when you think about it, warriors and guardians can literally do the EXACT same thing, and for the most part, with a balanced traitline. Because as it stands now, Rangers have literally no group support apart from torch fire field and Healing Spring water field.

stale.9785:

@Linnes

Hate to nitpick, but rapid fire hits for well over 10k, without going in for a ’zerker set. (I run PVT gear with runes of the ranger, and regularly see it hit 12-16k in wvwvw.)

I like the idea of sharing AoE damage with the ranger, as opposed to how it is now.
Instant F2 response would be golden.

You’re asking for too much love to hunter’s call as well.

Bleed duration on Crossfire is fine right now – just remove the flanking requirement. Like the AoE poison field though.

Spirits should be like banners – not targetable nor killable. Problem solved.

Rampage as one – I didn’t realise it didn’t last through pet swap – I’m good with the recharge, just add pet swap. (Do this for master’s bond as well – it should only end on pet death.)

I have never once seen Rapid Fire ever hit above 10k, apart from dragons which rely on power and have lowered defenses. This is me running roughly 3.2k attack power and 45% crit rate (the ideal rate).

Hunter’s Call really does need the buff though, all it is now is a more-stable, but lower damage Rapid Fire. It would also make it a very viable weapon for condition builds.

I like your idea about spirits being like banners, but they STILL need an improved effect. Look at Frost Spirit for example, the damage on is only a 3.5%-5% increased rate when you account for internal cooldown and trigger rates.

So if anyone from Arena Net actually ganders at this thread, here is how you fix rangers:

Pets:

• In PvE, pet’s no longer take AoE damage, pet’s only take AoE damage when their masters do (equal amount). This prevents pets from dying to any bosses AoE if the master gets out of the way.
• Improve pet AI, or allow micro-managing of ALL pet skills.
  -To add to this: Pet F2 skills should cancel out any skill the pet is currently using, and have priority.

Spirits:

• Spirits need an improved passive buff, increase all spirit duration’s by:
  -Frost Spirit: Increase damage on hit to 25%
  -Stone Spirit: Increase protection duration to 5 seconds, lower internal cooldown to 8 seconds. Activating this spirit breaks stun and grants all allies in the area Aegis for 10 seconds.
  -Sun Spirit: Change to; when allies attack they have an x% chance of granting might to themselves. Make it’s activation a Fire Field.
  -Storm Spirit: Change to; Allies have x% chance to blind foe when attacking, Make the internal cooldown 15 seconds. Swiftness is useless in dungeons, as other classes can provide much better support with it.
• Add a stunbreaker to the spirits line, earth spirit activation for example.
• Increase spirits ARMOR rating, not health. Health does nothing when they have no armor. Or make spirits like Warrior banners, unkillable/targetable.

Wilderness Survival Skills:

• Quickening Zephyr; reduce duration to 4 seconds, this skill now heals for you for only 50% while active, increase quickness speed to 75%.
• Lightning Reflexes; reduce cooldown to 30 seconds. Remove damage (it’s superfluous). At the end of the roll, grants all allies vigor for 5 seconds. Allow this skill to be used instantly while knocked down (I think this is a bug currently, it has a cooldown if you’re KD’d).

Weapons:

• Longbow; reduce cooldowns, increase flight speed of arrows, improve damage. There is no reason why Rapid Fire should hit for only 8k in a full berserker build (using the most DPS-oriented set) for a 5 second cast time. Auto attack can do better, assuming max range.
• Warhorn; lower Call of the Wild’s cooldown to 30 seconds. Increase all boons duration to 20 seconds (make it a longer cooldown “For Great Justice”).
• Warhorn; lower Hunter’s Call cooldown to 20 seconds, and inflict bleeding and blind to target (the blind only triggers on the initial hit, the bleed triggers every time damage is inflicted).
• Shortbow; improve bleed duriation on Crossfire or remove the flanking and lower the bleed duriation.
• Shortbow; make Poison Volley a ground-targetable AoE Poison Field (yes I realize poison field is the worst combo field, still an improvement).

Elites:

• Entangle; this is more of a “nerf,” but allow the roots to be more easily targetable.
• Rampage As One; lower cooldown to 80 seconds, allow it to change between pets on swap, increase might duration to 10 seconds.
• Spirit Of Nature; this spirit now moves with master regardless of trait. The spirit now passively revives DEAD allies (not instant revive). Activating the spirit is still the same, revives downed allies. Increase passive heal to 450 (I realize it is 480 now, it’s most likely a bug, tooltip says 320 is the supposed heal).

Now I will pitch an idea for another Elite Skill, this one will remove the pet from the ranger and add in stances. I really hate the fact that Arena Net decided to go all “naturey” with Rangers, as historically, rangers weren’t druids at all. They were considered to be scouts, wildmen, and sharpshooters who essentially lived near enemy encampments or scouted the road ahead. I am basing these skills off Stances from the original Guild Wars, as I’m saddened that there is a lack of them in GW2. These stances will go up top where the pet’s UI was.

Stances:

• Elite: Practiced Stance; the ranger recalls his pet and is granted stances in place. While in this mode rangers have their base stats increased by 100 each. Upon cancelling this skill the ranger is unable to call a pet for 90 seconds.

-Sniper’s Stance; for 10 seconds, increases the range of bow attacks by 300m, while in this stance you have an additional 10% chance of dealing a critical hit. 20 second cooldown.
-Tiger’s Fury; for 3 seconds you gain quickness and deal 10% additional damage, however you are unable to move. 20 second cooldown.
-Dodge; you gain swiftness for 5 seconds and evade all attacks, Dodge ends if you attack. 30 second cooldown.
-Nature’s Blessing; grants you and all allies regeneration for 5 seconds and removes a condition every second. 30 second cooldown.

These stances are pretty balanced, each having their own checks and balances, while still remaining playable and fair. You may also only have one stance active at a time (you can’t stack snipers and tiger’s fury for example).

P.S. Sill waiting on Linnes Zoo ;_;

So if anyone from Arena Net actually ganders at this thread, here is how you fix rangers:

Pets:
1. In PvE, pet’s no longer take AoE damage, pet’s only take AoE damage when their masters do (equal amount). This prevents pets from dying to any bosses AoE if the master gets out of the way.
2. Improve pet AI, or allow micro-managing of ALL pet skills.
-To add to this: Pet F2 skills should cancel out any skill the pet is currently using, and have priority.

Spirits:
1. Spirits need an improved passive buff, increase all spirit duration’s by (earth spirit’s protection at 5 seconds, etc).
-Frost Spirit: Increase damage on hit to 25%
-Stone Spirit: Increase protection duration to 5 seconds, lower internal cooldown to 6 seconds.
-Sun Spirit: Change to; when allies attack they have an x% chance of granting might to themselves. Make it’s activation a Fire Field.
-Storm Spirit: Change to; Allies have x% chance to blind foe when attacking, Make the internal cooldown 8 seconds.. Swiftness is useless in dungeons, as other classes can provide much better support with it.
2. Add a stunbreaker to the spirits line, earth spirit activation for example.
3. Increase spirits ARMOR rating, not health. Health does nothing when they have no armor.

Wilderness Survival Skills:
1. Quickening Zephyr; reduce duration to 4 seconds, this skill now heals for you for only 50% while active, increase quickness speed to 75%.
2. Lightning Reflex; reduce cooldown to 30 seconds. Remove damage (it’s superfluous). At the end of the roll, grants all allies vigor for 5 seconds. Allow this skill to be used instantly while knocked down (I think this is a bug currently, it has a cooldown if you’re KD’d).

Weapons:
1. Longbow; reduce cooldowns, increase flight speed of arrows, improve damage. There is no reason why Rapid Fire should hit for only 8k in a full berserker build (using the most DPS-oriented set) for a 5 second cast time. Auto attack can do better, assuming max range.
2. Warhorn; lower Call of the Wild’s cooldown to 30 seconds. Increase all boons duration to 20 seconds.
3. Warhorn; lower Hunter’s Call cooldown to 20 seconds, and inflict bleeding and blind to target.
4. Shortbow; improve bleed duriation on Crossfire.
5. Shortbow; make Poison Volley a ground-targetable AoE Poison Field (yes I realize poison field is the worst combo field, still an improvement).

Elites:
1. Entangle; this is more of a “nerf,” but allow the roots to be more easily targetable.
2. Rampage As One; lower cooldown to 80 seconds, allow it to change between pets on swap, increase might duration to 10 seconds.
3. Spirit Of Nature; this spirit now moves with master regardless of trait. The spirit now passively revives DEAD allies (not instant revive). Activating the spirit is still the same, revives downed allies. Increase passive heal to 450 (I realize it is 480 now, it’s most likely a bug, tooltip says 320 is the supposed heal).

rpwolverin.2563:

If you watched SOTG then you should have known that this was going to be a slow process they want to see how we do before doing anything else? Sounds to me like ur upset why not just play 1 of ur other 80’s until rangers are of ur liking. I personally love these changes sure its not OMG were EPIC now but its a step in the right direction I played my ranger b4 the patch and ill continue to play him…I suggest Linnes just needs to take a step back and enjoy the game

So you mean play on my gaurdian, the superior PvE class like I already am? Why should my ranger have had to suffer for months and months due to Arena Net’s lack in balancing abilities? Honestly, get a new dev team.

Paz Shadow.9715:

Jw, what build are you running and what do you want to see fixed mainly? I enjoy beserker build, so the signet changes, qz time increase, lr time decrease, as well as canine f2 decreases is way better than what last update was for me :P

Basically the only viable build in PvE atm is traps and conditions. Unless you want to run crit/attack power rush down on most mobs, which does work, but your damage is still going to be nowhere near the same as any other classes. Rangers need GROUP SUPPORT, not self-buffs. For PvP I run standard regen trapper/semi-bunker.

Ursan.7846:

I find your definition of “nothing” very amusing.

It speaks the truth though, nothing worth any note in this patch, class is still garbage for any form of pve. I guess I’ll just keep working on my champion hunter title.

Pet AI is still trash despite what you stated in the SOTG, you added in internal cooldowns to skills that didn’t need it, Spirits are STILL trash and will die in a few hits, not to mention their passive effects are STILL garbage, and Search And Rescue, our literally only viable shout, is useless now. Signets, are still trash.

Quickening Zephyr buff is “decent” it’s still subpar, Lightning Reflxes I am happy about, and the reduced cast time on pet skills I am happy about.

Seriously Arena Net, get your kitten together. You’re giving us useless “buffs,” the class needs a rework, not tweaks.

Durzlla.6295:

People really should watch SOTG before complaining about nothing happening -_-’

Except the SOTG came out after this post, and not to mention: told us NOTHING.

WatchTheShow.7203:

Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.

Except for… we paid for Arena Net’s house, cars, food, children’s schooling, etc. by purchasing this game (mind you this is an overstatement, but the message is clear). We are customers they cannot afford to lose. If they ask us to shell out another $60 for an expansion, and if they’ve failed us already, they’re going to be losing out on a rather large sum of money. If NCsoft sees that they failed GW2, Arena Net will pretty much lose all it’s funding by them, and NCsoft will stick to being primarily a supplier of Asian content.

bigsal.7061:

Thats right, dont bite the hand that feeds you. Last time I checked we all had to pay for this game to play it so when we get aquaman patches and pet skin fixes the hand starts slappin.
Any of you guys see the nice warrior buffs coming in the patch? Thats right buffs.

This.

Rhaps.8540:

You should be kissing his kitten feet and treating him like a god in hope that he will come back to fix more stuff.

Arena Drone Count: 3

It’s his job to relay information to the dev team, I’m not going to kiss anyone’s kitten over something they’re being paid for. I only play my ranger in pvp, and it was my first class to 100% the globe with, gear, first character since beta, etc. I can’t even bother stepping into pve anymore with it… it’s just that terrible. What’s the point of pve’ing on anything other than a guardian or warrior nowadays? Clearly someone has to smack these devs with a reality check, they’re not giving us the information we want. Their SOTG today was just saddening, it was almost as bad as January’s.

Criminal.5627:

really any change in the skin for it is welcome please implement!

The real question is, who is going to actually go out of their way for underwater combat to even see it?

Jovel.5706:

Thanks for this Jon, that jellyfish does look nicer even without the glowy animation you speak of. Can’t wait to see it in action!

I sort of agree with the negative comments on this thread though, changing the appearance of this pretty jellyfish won’t make the ranger anymore viable in dungeons, but it does look a lot nicer on that image, great job

Show Spoiler

hide spoiler

Speaking of the old HoM, when will you folks be adding a final reward to the Hall of Monuments? ;P

Never

Zenith.7301:

Stop being toxic idiots. One may not be happy at how they’re handling the ranger, but THIS IS A GOOD THING.

I’m glad they’re paying attention to skin redundancy, and I approve of the change, except I wish the head didn’t lose it’s little peripheral hairs around the end of the head, but the idea of a glowing jellyfish is quite nice.

More distinctive pets is always nice.

Also, Jon, have you considered, pretty please, letting us tame green moas? It would look great for sylvari.

Arena Drone Count: 2

We’re not being “toxic idiots” we’re players who have been sticking with rangers since beta, players who have excuses to be genuinely upset about how Arena Net is handling this class. They’re treating it like an ugly stepchild compared to other classes, and the players are sick of it. So when we see them wasting time on these small details, and not actually giving us REAL information, of course we’re going to be p/o’d. Notice, this class is turning out to be just like GW1 rangers after a series of nerfs, having a small niche in pvp and being useless everywhere else.

Oh also, I forgot to mention making pets not completely moronic, at least give them Rockdog AI. Also Pet F2 skills SHOULD HAVE priority over any pet skills they’re currently using. It should cancel out their attack and be used immediately.

Also, are we getting “Linnes Zoo” any time soon?