Guild Wars 2

… shshsh…. you are inviting the “you are not good enough” crowd to go on about how you are.. well … not good enough.
See? The real good rangers will tell you all is well (which is not true and they know it) and the rest should remain silent cause… how dare you!

Just because it interests me…
Who is satisfied how “our” representative Allie represented A-Net in the Ranger CDI so far?
I think it is by far the worst CD topic I have witnessed.

One does not simply make a Ranger to play dungeons in GW2

… dudes … they made longbow a choice by nerfing the shortbow…
thats how it is and thats how it will be. Nothings gonna change that.

You dont really think they will nerf every profession until they do as kitten damage as the Ranger?

Yay we get another condition removal… so what?
Pets still suck

When did we hear about “the awesome ranger patch” last time? Was it Jon Peters?
What did we get?

yep…

The whole Petsystem in GW2 is creppes…
whoever thought the “switcheroo” of two animals is nice has no clue why people in general play “animal” pet classes …

And the whole CDI is going exactly as I thought it would go.
Allie seems to be a nice person, but honestly she is more then over her ears with the topic.

jcbroe.4329:

So is anybody else perplexed by how we’re supposed to present proposals, yet the devs insist on having conversations about different ideas they could possible implement and asking the community their opinion on them, which comes off as contradicting to the CDI and how it was made to seem to be a “present your suggestions in this format” thread?

Nah I am not… they have no clue what to do with the ranger…
The balance team plays whack a mole without knowing what the kitten the traits do at all…
Allie seems to be a nice one but the “Ranger Collective Development” thingy will be as all the other Ranger things… lots of talking and we will get a small buff here and a small nerf there and thats it.

The pittyful pet AI will never be fixed at all …
Ranger was the last class to be implemented and it shows…
the whole pet switch idea is borderline kitten (you actually get punished for switching pets with some of the traits in the supposed Beastmaster traitline)

I gave up on the rangersome time ago…. I just come to the forums with a small glimpse of hope…. but as always… it gets shot down really fast…

Nike.2631:

ARENANET’S RANGER DESIGN PHILOSOPHY:
THE BAD, THE UGLY, AND THE PETS

Allie Murdock.8152:

The Ranger is a resilient profession that excels at skirmishing by drawing from nature to support themselves as well as their allies. Alongside their pet, they have some of the best single target and sustained damage that will whittle their opponents down.

Lets take this point by point.

A Resilient Profession. The Ranger is a medium armor, medium hit point profession with poor native condition removal/conversion and with a major portion of its functionality partitioned into the hands of a flawed AI where it can be destroyed independently. They’re maybe not as bad off as Elementalists, but the reality is still they are bad at one of the things the Developers think they’re good at. Yes, Rangers can — though MASSIVE trait investment — cover these flaws in a few highly specialized builds, but as a default position for the profession as a whole this statement is so untrue as to be ludicrous.

Excellence in Skirmishing. If “skirmish” means something along the lines of “mobile conflict from range” …nobody is good at it. The underlying damage co-efficients for ranged attacks are brutally punitive and doubly abusive considering most melee attacks also cleave, while Rangers have to trait for piercing. Ranger’s have modest access to knockbacks, immobilizes, cripples, and swiftness — all completely overshadowed by melee-oriented opponents’ easy access to gap closers and CC removal/immunity. And when the fight does inevitably turn to melee, the Ranger’s ability to reestablish position is limited at best, hampered by poor counters to the CC melee-based professions routinely employ to ensure their attacks land.

Supporting Themselves and Their Allies. This may come as a surprise to anyone other than most people who play the game, but Rangers are not considered an amazing Support class. While Spotter, Frost Spirit, and some shared Fury skills are welcome contributions in the one-dimension world of “More DPS”, Ranger Support tends towards inadequate magnitude, long cooldowns, or effective ranges that directly conflict with their role as skirmishers.

Alongside their Pet. Most of the time our Pets simply are NOT along side us – They’re either throwing themselves into melee like maniacs or standing like statues waiting for death to come to them. And they don’t have to wait long, because the content designers’ first and final solution to creating challenge is splashing the landscape with mega-damage red circles that pets categorically fail to respond to.

The best single target and sustained damage. This is probably true, and yet… So what? Success in nearly all encounters hinges on AoE damage or spikes. “Sustained damage” is the “I have nothing better to offer” form of damage ALL professions deliver when they aren’t doing something USEFUL. Being good at standing there hacking on a billion HP World Boss is not something to be proud of. With this statement the Ranger has been defined as the ‘supreme master of mediocrity’.

Lets Whittle our Opponents! The final piece of the philosophy neatly sums up everything that is WRONG with the Ranger profession – a class that must employ mediocre damage to slowly take tiny cuts out of their opponents, while leveraging mediocre survivability, exerting mediocre positional control, contributing mediocre support skills, and saddled with a less than mediocre class mechanic.

The Real Outcome. Its not that the final result is unplayable. You can still go and indulge in basic abnegation out on the landscape. Its that that Rangers are boring and dull, responding poorly to the slightest difficulty when compared to other professions.

All that… I never could write it as good as Nike (not an english native here) so I just quote and rep her… +1 (x1000)

Proposal
Change the description of the Ranger on the main page (Rangers rely on a keen eye, a steady hand, and the power of nature itself. Unparalleled archers, rangers are capable of bringing down foes from a distance with their bows. With traps, nature spirits, and a stable of loyal pets at their command, rangers can adapt to any situation)
to
“The Ranger is a resilient profession that excels at skirmishing by drawing from nature to support themselves as well as their allies. Alongside their pet, they have some of the best single target and sustained damage that will whittle their opponents down.”

Goal of Proposal
You are not misleading your community that the Rangers is any good with bows.

jcbroe.4329:

The Spiral King.2483:

Fluffball.8307:

Oh god, I fear for our class just glancing over these “complete overhauls” people are suggesting without having a thorough understand of a ranger. Must have faith in devs, must have faith in devs, must have faith in devs.

A lot of them do seem really, really bad. Hopefully Durzlla/jcbroe/Chrispy/whoever else will pitch in.

Personally I was hoping for a response from the devs saying what they’ve already taken away from the Ranger Balance thread in the Profession Balance subforum. I’ll eventually make a post in the thread with actual ideas, as I have some that I have discussed in private with another player I respect that has proposed his changes to the devs in private communication before.

But I might make it interesting and post my own thoughts too at some point. If they don’t ever respond directly to me about what they have already taken way from previous efforts of the community to collaborate and present ideas, then I’m going to at least wait until there are a few more dev responses so I can see just exactly how they are going to treat the CDI.

Because at this point it just looks like the devs saying “yeah, we don’t want to read through all of the threads of suggestions, so repost them here please.” While I understand time constraints and having to take the time to read through every suggestion and hunt down threads, that is the exact reason why I made the thread that I made in the Profession Balance subforum to begin with, so that the ranger community would have a place to discuss the class as a whole and as specifically as possible.

It definitely isn’t a pride thing or any sort of nonsense like that, I just don’t appreciate the idea at this point that as a community we took the time to have in depth discussions and come to a general agreement about things that need to be balanced, and then have to spend our time and effort copying and pasting from one thread to another when the thread with all the information they could ever need for a CDI already exists in one thread.

All they have to do is respond and tell us what they took away from that thread so we can actually make some progress and not just be saying the same things over and over again.

But I will get around to it eventually guys, I promise

I think that is a smart move jc.
I read all the things written in the post and I am more then worried (not for me, I stopped playing this game after the last Ranger changes).
Really not sure if they get it at all (not most of the players and definitly not the devs)
I dont see a bright future for the class in this game.
They even changed the Rangers description from “unparalleled Archers” to “hard hitting, one target skirmishers” or somesuch kitten

I hope your post will make a difference

In my humble opinion I think there is no way they can turn this ship around…
the whole Ranger special ability around the pet is a wreck.

The animals should be your companions – yet they need to be switched around like crazy… they dont remember their names (why should they? They get switched around so often even I wouldn´t remember the name of the guy calling me ;-) )

They dont scale with you or your equipment…
their (our) traits are a mess… there even is a trait that resets if you switch your pet – switching beeing “the thing” in our petmechanics

I dont want to start with the AI or the poorly emplemented pathing.

so where do we start? Anet is not willing to change the mechanic… they stated as much.

Everything they can and probably will do ist building around a faulty mechanic and tweak a little bit here and a little bit there….

Thats the way they did it before and thats the way they will do it in the future…

Do you remember when we complained that no one uses the shortbow over the longbow?
yeah…. they nerfed the shortbow to make the Longbow “an option”
and you really think that they will change anything drastic?

there is lots of good ranger players out there (Durzlla, jcbroe, etc… hell even I played the ranger not that bad (I played it since beta) and I dont think thats a good thing for the class… cause they play with that gimpy kitten of an excuse of a class so well that I dont think anything “big” will happen to the ranger (no offense guys, I think you rock…)

There never was a “miracle” patch in any mmo for any class I played…
and so far I dont think there will be one in this game…
but I give it up to you guys who still play and have fun …

For you I wish that there will be something great coming (but I dont have any faith in the devs any more)

AEFA.9035:

Mardermann.7468:

thats nice.
But remember the last time we got “that awesome update” ?
We became freaking aquaman…

And the whole animal companion system is still creppes…
But then I stopped playing this game after seeing the two “balance team pros” doing there video…
I knew then and there that this game (and the Ranger) is going nowhere…

you stop playing this game? With that much time in your hands you could be writing a book about the perfect MMO, instead of posting in GW2 forums.

Yeah AEFA.. I stopped playing the game… but I bought it so I am entitled to my opinion and I can state it here… cause I have an account. Blew your mind, didn´t it?

Dardamaniac.1295:

Dat aquaman patch left a scar..

Anyway its a step in the right direction, we cant deny this..Also it says the whole responsiveness not only the F2, they are using it as an example only.
Also they mention that it will be easier to command.

I know, i wont hold my breath about this..I geuss this improvements will be very minor.Like increasing pets speed for 5% or something.

Thats they way Anet delivers balance patches so far…
We receive the first pet improvements after half a year and we are receiving some new after 1 year and a half…Minor changes and very slow..

And we are talking about pets, the core mechanic of this class..Imagine when we will see improvements into shouts for example.

Have you seen the balance team last time? They didn´t even know where the traits are in the traitlines… thats how good they know the ranger class…

I think they have no clue how the Ranger works at all…. so they need a week to “look into it” – then they actually know what you guys are talking about.

The petsystem is a complete joke … and I dont think they really know that ^^

thats nice.
But remember the last time we got “that awesome update” ?
We became freaking aquaman…

And the whole animal companion system is still creppes…
But then I stopped playing this game after seeing the two “balance team pros” doing there video…
I knew then and there that this game (and the Ranger) is going nowhere…

Forzani.2584:

I understand the theory that the Ranger class has a companion. That if you don’t like that fact then you should play another class.

I made the Ranger my main because of the fact that its the petclass… but the system handles the pet not like a companion… it is like a throw away weapon…. “so you are low on health? I switch you out with one of the other no name pets I have in the list…” doesn´t sound like a companion to me…
the whole switch around system

the pets still forget their name … after how long? They not even have made it possible to give the two pet slots a “name” tag. Thats how important it is to Anet

The whole petsystem needs an overhaul if you ask me.
And I dont talk about the AI… that is …. well lets say substandard per se….

Durzlla.6295:

Mandatory pets aren’t BAD…..

Yes they are… just because you learned to play around the problems the pet have,
doesn´t mean that they are not bad.

I play the petclass in every mmo I played (started with UO) and I can name several older games with better pet mechanics and better AI ….
hell even Torchlight has more useful pets then the cräppy “switch the pet” system in GW 2

.. and I didnt even start with the AI or pathing or workarounds we were presented until now…

I dont play GW2 any more so I really dont care … but the time I played and mained a Ranger (and handled myself rather well with it) I was really impressed how a beautiful game like GW2 could allow such a stupid system like its petsystem into the game…

So yes Durzlla, we really know now that you are a top notch ranger… but call the petsystem as it is … BAD!!! badly thought out AND badly implemented….

1. Ranger
…
…
…
…
…
2. Necromancer
3. Engineer

Actually thats why I stopped playing the game alltogether….
Not knowing how to fix your own effing code?

Well that and the ascended kitten….
Grindy as hell this game and – for me – no fun at all anymore …

just keep skimming the forums from time to time to see if they do anything interesting with the Ranger….
But after the last patch I lost hope completely that someone competent is doing something with this class…

the whole of the rangers traitlines is a mess…
as is the petsystem
as are the weapons…

darn.. why was that my choice for my main class…

Thanks for the answers… now that I know that the pet will not be fixed (can not be fixed) anytime soon I can stop lurking the ranger forums…

Btw… the whole petsystem with swapping the pets once one is down is so far away from a beastmaster “the pet is my companion” idea – you really should fire the guy who invented it.

I think it would be okay for some kind of necromancer or summoner who gives a kitten about his servant… but for a petclass who should “care” about his “companion” I really dont get it…
But then the “companions” dont even remember their names so it goes both ways I guess…

Well… our “special” mechanic wont be fixed anytime soon guys… time to really switch to Warrior or Guardian I guess….

Kal Spiro.9745:

JonPeters.5630:

Main-hand sword
I just want to clarify for good that main hand sword is currently working as intended. All movement skills cannot be interrupted by dodging and this is currently intentional.

So the dodge lock that occurs for a full second after the end of the leap while literally not doing anything, no animation, no action, nothing, is working as intended?

Recently, so no better reason than to screw around and see if I could get the hang of the sword, after all, I started playing with it in between offshoots. I have participate in many of these sword debates in favor of major overhauls, but I totally understand that it’s unfair to change the weapon to please some people when there are others who like it as it is.

Step one is, turn off auto-attack. This is the only way to use Sword effectively. Then attack something. Attack, Kick, Leap. Leap finishes, there is no movement. Auto is off, so no follow up attack. Dodge. Nothing happens. This is working as intended and not a bug? Really? No other leap works like this. All other leaps allow you dodge immediately after the leap finishes, but not Sword chain 3. So are you absolutely certain this is working as intended?

He said so – it is so – ltp
It is working as intended (like the pets) ;-)
/ end sarcasm

Good questions… thats something I´d really love to know, cause at the moment I think all those tweaks and stuff really dont matter that much if the pet is not working as intended…

I dont get all those tweaks…

As long as the “defining” ability (Pet) is not working properly (and no – no matter how many “pet is fine, ltp” guys out there want to tell me how awesome it is – no it is not!)

It does not matter….
Nice tweak here and there – 7% more damage here, 25% less vigor there, I really dont care….

tell us what you consider to do with the really not working very well petsystem?

Or is that also “working as intended” – cause if so I would not have to wait for patch after patch… you could save me some time reading the ranger forums

pretty please with a quaggan on top…

Will he find all the traits …?
Will he excuse the less then exceptable pet AI?
Will he show us how good he is in WvW? (eh its pve only, sorry)
Only time will tell…

but then he always has the “ranger is good as is, ltp” crowd behind him, so all is good

I have Zero feeling that I “live” in a living world.
Lots of little junks with lots of folk who are interesting/semi interesting heroes…
Just I as a player dont feel like a hero…
it started with the abysmal written and also very badly voiced Trehaerne (cant even spell his name right and he does not deserve to be googled)
and all the events (except for the Roxx and Emoguy Norn dungeon) where not really that interesting.
The zephyre market was interesting because different…

Ireally hoped for more character / race driven storydevelopment
(I love Norn… why didnt you write something interesting connected to their lore?
Why are the animal spirits still missing… give us wolverine back or ox… (owl is dead I guess))
divide the living story teams into racial story teams and further the interesting story behind each of the races…
enough of all the little things and rather grindy reward things…. I really dont need a shiny gadget if the story is well written…
just sell that stuff on the bltc and be done with it…

there is always the “pro” players who have “no problem with the pet, ltp…”
dont believe them .. their pet is as kitten as yours…
they are just to rainbow eyed to except the fact that the Rangers F2 ability is the most kitten of all special abilities in game…

Go to the Norn starting Area
Go to the Snow Leopard shrine
Watch the Snow Leopards chase Rabbits (and try to kill them)
Laugh (and cry a bit)

Fix this Anet… just fix it…

… things like that they fix really quick ;-)

the fubar pet AI though or the subpar pathing the stupid as a toilet pets have though… well we “work” with them since beta….

so go figure

kudos to you sir…

I also always play the nature/pet/bow class in every mmo I have played… (if possible)
But for me that last patch did it actually.. I will leave my guild (well I am guildleader of a small/medium guild, so I kinda sign off my duties) and look for another game…

But more power to you and players like you… fight the good fight and have fun…

in case of a bossmob AoE your pet now dies in 1,71 seconds instead of 1.0….
yep big buff that…

/sarcasm end

Okay folks!

I really hope that we can achieve something here.

I would love to have this thread for a Dev to participate and explain the reasoning for the patch and/or the plans for the ranger in the future.

So if you think that would actually be a good thing please tell them here…

I really would appreciate a Dev come in here and explain the reasoning (or plans) for the ranger in the future…

and I would hope its not one of those two dudes who did the preview of the patch, cause they dont have a clue about the ranger…

I really would…
really

actually we have two cool builds….

reroll a warrior as Lilius said, and

Reroll a Guardian – also a very good option

salute to you and other very crafty rangers…
you came up with a very good petsystem
but Anet is stuck with their borked one, so dont think they will change anything…

+1 and very well done Lordhelmos

no I dont appreciate the patch at all …
the so called balancing team is incompetent at best,
(or maybe they aren´t they just dont have a clue about whats the problem with the ranger so they wildly change things) as they have shown in the patch preview video (well they sure know their stuff with warrior or guardian.. thats true)

so speak for yourself

I DONT appreciate the latest balance patch
truth be told I feel a bit offended by it…

… but not that much because I bought Torchlight 2 and have some easygoing fun with that (and my honeybadger pet which is actually more helpful and fun in that game then any pet in GW2).

oh those they fix really quickly… ^^
Just not the things that would actually help us…

SynfulChaot.3169:

Mardermann.7468:

Levetty.1279:

So how long have Rangers been waiting to be fixed now? 8 years?

Where was the guy who was convinced that this patch would finally fix Rangers because some random rep said they would at Pax?

his/her name was Synful Chaot or somesuch and he was like “yes they are working on it – some xyz dev was promising me that at pax (or somewhere) …”
^^
well guess what…. snip
where are the # of weapon changes Mr Colin said would come with this patch?
7% more damage on Maul (and the small Vulnerability buff on a skill we should use AFTER we stacked the vuln on the enemy)?

Thats it? Really?

Disappointed is not the word I am searching here… the word would be kittened out and I would get banned for it I guess…

Yes. Her name is SynfulChaot, aka me. And no, I didn’t say it would ‘fix’ rangers. Just that we’d get some attention. Unfortunately we got less than I’d like as well, though at least we did get the pet health buff. Outside of that, Maul, and the fern hound regen, though, I’m disappointed as well. I just hope we get more pet improvements as they see the effect (or lack thereof) of the pet health buff.

And yes, I still main a ranger.

I didn´t want to sound it that mean, sorry. Just really disappointed again with the patch.

I also main a ranger …well since early beta (when we actually kicked kitten with a greatsword ;-) ) … and nothing since then convinced me really that they are working on the real problem.

To me it seems they dont even see where the problem is.
Its like someone lost a leg and they putting little patches on and say “there there” ^^

Well they disappointed me for the last time with this “patch” thats for sure…
I wish you luck and have fun with your subpar class in a game where the balance devs not even find the right trait when they are looking for it…

I still laugh at that two dudes (man to think they are in charge of the balance changes…. suddenly everything becomes very very clear)

again… sorry if I was rude
I hope you accept my apologies… have fun Syn….

None in the Dev team has a clue about rangers at all….
so why should they care?

Levetty.1279:

So how long have Rangers been waiting to be fixed now? 8 years?

Where was the guy who was convinced that this patch would finally fix Rangers because some random rep said they would at Pax?

his/her name was Synful Chaot or somesuch and he was like “yes they are working on it – some xyz dev was promising me that at pax (or somewhere) …”
^^
well guess what…. snip
where are the # of weapon changes Mr Colin said would come with this patch?
7% more damage on Maul (and the small Vulnerability buff on a skill we should use AFTER we stacked the vuln on the enemy)?

Thats it? Really?

Disappointed is not the word I am searching here… the word would be kittened out and I would get banned for it I guess…

I am right there with you Atherakhia …. right next to you…

Exactly as I thought…
Well – I am out of here… thanks for the fish
I am going to play Torchlight 2
There the pets actually make sense and are fun
(and you can have a honeybadger – you know you want to have a honeybadger too… ) ;-)

as long as they dont fix the completely moronic (yeah – there – I said it – MORONIC) petsystem I really dont care…

All the things they showed are very very very underwhelming to me.

I also dont like the 2 weekly updates

… dont feels like a “living” story to me somehow – more like a quick quick I have to do that if I want the reward – oh no rl happens and now the event is over….

but thats just my feeling and I am happy for everyone who likes it

SynfulChaot.3169:

Most of the rangers that complained then, and even still do now, do so because they either don’t want to the pet at all in the first place, or they’re unwilling to learn to utilize the pet properly. It is our mechanic, after all. Guardians that don’t learn to utilize their virtues don’t do as well. Elementalists that don’t learn to swap attunements don’t do as well. Why should rangers that don’t learn to utilize the pet do as well?

I always play the (animal) petclass in every mmo I play BECAUSE I love pets (and petclasses)

I learned the (kitten) petsystem GW2 offers… it is easily the most uninspired and useless petsystem i have encountered.

On top of that it works not really good (I often counted how long it takes until my F2 ability procs… a total joke)

And dont let me start on the pathfinding problems and the AI as such…

So yes… we now got that you are happy (well not really but kind of) with the petsystem… but not everyone is – as far as I can count for everytime you “defend” the kitten petsystem 3 guys post that they dont like it.

And I dont believe that they can “fix” the petsystem of the Ranger- it just isnt a good one….

It is bad in PVE (dungeons etc) it is even worse in WvW (I dont care about sPVP)

So there you have it … I played Ranger since beta – always hoped it gets better – but actually … I dont think they can fix it…
and no: giving pets in PvE 74% more HP wont change anything at all…

Scrap the petsystem and make a new one…

GW2 actually has the only Petsystem where I dont care about my pets at all..
why should I?
They die as soon as there is AoE and then I swap to another one (wow, really a companion)…

… and they dont even remember their names…
(not to mention that taming them is like picking a plant… go there press f thats it…

Serraphin Storm.2369:

M
Pet A.I is meant to be imperfect. Having a set it and forget it pet isn’t what being a guildwars 2 ranger is about. Ranger are suppose to work in tandem with their pet. Not one or the other doing all the work. Just as you are able to lose an attacker you should be able to lose the pet. If pet hit you with every strike or auto attack it would be unfair.

that is the most bullkitten excuse of a bad written code I have ever read (and I read it quite a lot of the “all is good” crowd)

dont get me wrong – I play the animal pet class in almost any mmo I have ever played (and I played a lot of them in my time) – but I have never witnessed a worse implemented petsystem then the one in GW2… (not to mention the AI which is substandard even compared to 10 y/o games (all imho of course)

I am not grumpy, I am not jaded – but neither do I look at everything with the rose tinted goggles… we where told over a half year ago that we would get fixes and a better AI etc etc… all we got was a not well thought out function (pet getting behind the mob when no aggro) and more nerfs (well not just nerfs – we are pretty good under water now)

I love GW2 … but I really hate what they did with the ranger…

But then I have 8 level 80s now and I rather enjoy my warrior and guardian…

So I will keep watching the ranger forums (smiling when reading from the “all is good” crowd) cause my ranger is still my main character…

I thought exactly the same thing as the OP mentioned….

the AI sucks because they dont have someone who can actually program a good one I think…
The Petsystem/AI in this game is the worst one I have played for quite some time.
It is beyond me how that could happen.
There is no bond to the ranger pet whatsoever (they dont even “remember” their name) – but it actually does not matter because you just switch them around anyways … and the AI… wow… whoever did it should consider changing his/her profession…

/rantoff

SynfulChaot.3169:

And i dont think that the increased health for pets is their solution by any means…. i think this is just a start or at least i hope so

Yeah. I think it’s just a start. Something to tide us over until the true pet fixes get found and implemented.[/quote]

You really, really think so?
the AI is complete garbage, you really think they do something like rewrite it?
I dont believe it one bit… I think thats it… we get some halfdone hitpoint raise and thats it…
We already got the “if the pet has no aggro it goes behind the mob” thing (losing damage watching the pet reposition itself with the kitten pathfinding it got is actually quite funny sometimes) – I think I dont want any more “fixes”, thanks you

No… it will not be raised…
level a guardian or a warrior and all will be good…