Showing Posts For Tal Drakkan.3284:
(edited by Tal Drakkan.3284)
Removing restrictions: maybe increasing level cap
That would be terrible. I would have to regrind to gear for all my alts and buy tons of transmutation crystals…
they said before “it might be possible in future” so who knows
I’m really hoping that IF they do (which would be contrary to the idea of not having a gear treadmill and getting away from the traditional level grinds) that it will only be in a full expansion. With all of the gear people have grinded and infused it would be a nightmare to have to repeat that
Would it be possible to get a red post for some direction or to at least assure us that this CDI is still being watched by Someone???
Oh I’m sure anet is watching this thread…. the problem is they still don’t have one bit of information for the rangers…. they literally have no plan on how to save this broken class because they are NOT willing to do whats necessary to fix this class other than a few number tweaks and some minor skill/trait bandaid fixes….
Majority of the other classes will be happy with these number tweaks/small buffs…. but rangers are on a completely different level when it comes to how badly broken the class is thanks poor class design.
It will take an overhaul to fix this class and I’m sure right now anet devs are deciding whether or not they actually want to use their resources to fix this class or just put it aside again like the last 1.5 years. My hopes is they actually come on t his thread and respond with a massive summary on their proposed changes…. but I’m not holding my breath on it
At this rate I’d just like a red to post just to confirm they are reading this and maybe taking it to heart. We haven’t heard anything back in over a day and it’s been stated they don’t work on weekends (the fake patch notes debacle) so I’m just hoping we’ll get some input before Monday so people don’t completely give up hope
Specific Game Mode
Personally I’ve focused most on PvE although I try to stay current on WvW and PvP. This change would of course affect all three aspects of the game.
Proposal Overview
The option for players to avoid pets by embracing the “spirit” of the pet in a new way to add utility, control, and positional advantage while maintaining an actual pet for the “pet class” of GW2. Pets become damage immune mobile utility points and companions that provide positional advantage to benefit from the splitting of characters while no longer attacking and thus giving the ranger back control of all of their damage in situations when pets are not likely to survive. Furthermore, traiting into Beastmaster would have the ability to change pets to attack and take damage, but revert to their “passive utility” form when dead in order to assuage some of the pain from nigh unavoidable pet death in certain situations.
Goal of Proposal
The splitting of Ranger DPS between a pet which is liable to die due to lack of evasion and the limited value of a pet outside of it’s utilities (as evidence by bears being somewhat weak but staying alive through a fair amount). Furthermore, to help define a niche for the Ranger while potential maintaining its image as the pet class. Finally, to add more team utility to the Ranger that is lacking in active team utility (and possibly some active condition cleansing that Ranger’s really need).
Proposal Functionality
I propose that pets work to provide Crowd Control and/or Battlefield control more actively and consistently while moving all of the damage back to the Ranger.
The idea is for pets to provide 2 utilities (potentially 1 family ability and 1 pet specific ability) that the player has direct control over, while eliminating pets as a source of DPS. Pets would be fast-moving control delivery systems with a unique aesthetic while helping to develop the ranger’s niche as a battlefield controller. I propose that pets by default do not attack, however they cannot be targeted and are immune to damage (This would be changed by putting 20 or 30 points into beastmaster at which point the pet becomes what it is now and can attack and provide all of its current functionality). Proposed abilities would be an AoE cripple, immobilize, muddy terrain, poison field, boon strip, knock down, stun, blowback, impassible terrain, heal, water field, might, vulnerability, condition cleansing and possibly more. The idea is for pets to create a second point from which you can use area of effect abilities that is potentially outside of what their normal range would be for other classes in order to assist your party in controlling a fight. While in “astral form” (while not specced into BM) pets would replace F1 with their family specific ability and F3 with a ground targetted “stay put” command that is rescinded upon pressing the key again.
When specced into BM players lose control over the family specific skill (in order to get attack my target) and the “stay put” F3 turns back to “return to me” as it currently is. Speccing into BM would also make the pet targettable and it would act almost identically to how it currently does now, although some skills might be affected by skill rework for control. If a pet dies, rather than mandatory swap the pet goes into “astral form” and functions as a normal unspecced pet does until it’s death timer is up, or the ranger can swap pets as he does currently (if he swaps back before the death timer the pet will still be in astral form).
This change would give Rangers some position advantage (which should be something they get from having a pet) while allowing players to “play without a pet” by ignoring many of the AI issues but still keeping the feeling of the pet class. Furthermore, the pet could now be used to provide some much needed party utility by giving the Ranger control and by not forcing the ranger to split his damage when the pet is liable to die.
Associated Risks
Potential risks include reworking of skills that would affect current players (changing some pet skills) as well as some reworking of traits (which need to be done anyways). Some skills like Search and Rescue might be slightly overtuned if the pet cannot be killed and thus might need to be tweaked based upon whether the pet is in astral form or not (potentially reducing the rate of res or the amount rezzed etc). A fair amount of number tweaking would be required in order to properly balance the ranger and this might lead to FOTM swings (however if some of this is done at the same time as rebalancing of other classes it might not be so bad). Finally, some new animations would likely need to be added (although many can be reused and the pet model could be reused although it would probably need some sort of a recolor/modification to show that the pet was in astral form).
Thanks, and looking forward to any feedback this might get!