Guild Wars 2

Just a quick repost to official feedback thread.
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Some initial thoughts about the druid as a ranger specialization (from notepad):

Overall feelings: Mixed

Positive:

• It gives ranger(druid) a role as a healer. Question: Do we need a healer in GW2?
  • No challenging content in core game (dungeons, overworld, fractals?)
    -> not needed
  • guess: not needed for HOT overworld content
  • maybe needed for raids?
  • useful in WvW
  • might see use in PvP?

Negative:

• Glyphs in general seem lackluster, Glyph of the Tides seems fine
  • Suggestion: Remove Glyph of Empowerment. Move the 10% damage bonus for nearby allies to Signet of the Hunt activated effect and buff either duration, radius or intensity.
• Dismisses pet which was supposedly ranger core mechanic.
  • I thought specializations were meant to enhance or otherwise change the profession mechanic? Druid does absolutely nothing for the pet.
    Note: I don’t like the pet, I use it but don’t really want it or need it, but i believe Anet should figure out what they pet to be for the ranger and give us a clear message. Is pet the core mechanic or what?

Questions that I hope will be answered in beta:

• Is healer all druid can be? Poor synergy with rest of the profession?
• Can Celestial Avatar form be useful without healing gear? Should it be?
• Can enough astral force be gathered just from combat to have enough Celestial Avatar uptime? Is healing from staff a requirement to have enough astral force?
  • Suggestion for Celestial Being: Astral force should also be gathered from pet attacks.

Some thoughts about traits

• Grace of the Land:
  • Cleansing=100% damage reduction > 33% damage reduction from this trait
  • Cleansing is already potent with Seed of Life in Celestial Avatar form
• Natural Stride:
  • Competes against swiftness which isn’t a rare boon.
  • Makes swiftness feel useless when not movement-impaired.
  • Useful for solo roaming or overworld travel.
  • Useless around other people.
  • Suggestion: Grant vigor (2s) to nearby allies when receiving swiftness. OR Do something with the pet.
• Ancient Seeds:
  • Very strong but will not be fun to play against

Some initial thoughts about the druid as a ranger specialization (from notepad):

Overall feelings: Mixed

Positive:

• It gives ranger(druid) a role as a healer. Question: Do we need a healer in GW2?
  • No challenging content in core game (dungeons, fractals, overworld)
    -> not needed
  • guess: Not needed for HOT overworld content
  • maybe needed for raids?
  • useful in WvW
  • might see use in PvP?

Negative:

• Glyphs in general seem lackluster, Glyph of the Tides seems fine
  • Suggestion: Remove Glyph of Empowerment. Move the 10% damage bonus for nearby allies to Signet of the Hunt activated effect and buff either duration, radius or intensity.

• Dismisses pet which was supposedly ranger core mechanic.
  • I thought specializations were meant to enhance or otherwise change the profession mechanic? Druid does absolutely nothing for the pet.
    Note: I don’t like the pet, I use it but don’t really want it or need it, but i believe Anet should figure out what they pet to be for the ranger and give us a clear message. Is pet the core mechanic or what?

Questions that I hope will be answered in beta:

• Is healer all druid can be? Poor synergy with rest of the profession?
• Can Celestial Avatar form be useful without healing gear? Should it be?
• Can enough astral force be gathered just from combat to have enough Celestial Avatar uptime? Is healing from staff a requirement to have enough astral force?
  • Suggestion for Celestial Being: Astral force should also be gathered from pet attacks.

Agree with OP. Expected more from this celebration.

BrunoBRS.5178:

maybe a good time to bring back jewel slots? instead of adding even more stats to the amulet, let us slot in a jewel like we used to.

Eolirin.1830:

I’m going to second the need for a return to jewels to offset the loss of the ability to round out the amulet stats. Having the extra stats built into the amulets themselves like what happens with ascended gear would seriously bloat the amulet list, and being able to pick a set of +300 stats to add to the base amulet would give us all the build flexibility we need.

Another vote for jewels. Please give us some room for customization.

Even though I don’t necessarily find the new RF to be OP, I think it could use some tweaking to it’s opportunity cost. As it is currently, I find it easy, maybe too easy, to just use it whenever it’s off-cooldown and be both effective and safe doing so. While this isn’t the case at higher levels of PvP, I find it to be as valid tactic as any when playing hotjoins or roaming in WvW.

What I would like to see is a small movement-speed reduction while channeling the skill (10-20%). This would allow some room for the opponent to either back out of RF’s range or more easily make a rush towards the ranger. I imagine the optimal range to use the skill would then be at mid-long range where the target is too close to completely get out of the skill’s range (currently this can’t be done even at max range if both the ranger and opponent are moving at same speed and the opponent isn’t burning any dodges or cooldowns) and, at the same time, too far to just step behind the ranger.

Self-slowing would also make chasing an opponent with RF impossible which (in my opinion) while being entertaining to the chaser can also be very frustrating to the one trying to disengage. Also it looks kinda stupid to just steamroll forward while shooting a bunch of arrows without any effort.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Taushullu.6180:

• Suggestion: Anonymous Dev Accounts/Posts

I don’t like the idea that devs should risk their job by going behind their employer’s back. There needs to be found a solution which makes everyone happy. The teams aren’t that big and internally I think it’s probably quite clear who knows what and who works on what, so the risk seems quite high.

Interesting perspective. I didn’t mean it to be a tool for backstabbing . It doesn’t have to be anonymous internally just the post seen by the masses could have the name hidden.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

That doesn’t mean we haven’t been reading feedback. It does however mean we have lost our connection and honestly a lot of the team who care deeply about Arena and the community are to scared to post because let’s be honest forums in general can be quite toxic.

Many of them however play a lot, are in guilds and communicate in game where funnily enough due to ‘real time’ communication and less anonymity the conversations tend to be a lot less abrasive and more valuable to them.

I can see that posting on the forums can be a daunting task. People tend to be much harsher with their opinions on forums and that’s not going to change. Moderating can help but you cannot completely filter all toxic posts.

It’s admirable and very much appreciated that you talk to us using your real name and account. You are doing a great job! Keep on posting! But at the same time not everyone can do that (I couldn’t at least) and I don’t think they even have to.

• Suggestion: Anonymous Dev Accounts/Posts

For the most cases generic PvP Developer or WvW Developer or even a custom tag such as Developer of Awesome Content Type Z would be enough. People like me just want to see a red post acknowledging that the topic has been read, preferably by someone who is working on the area of the topic. I would also imagine it to be much more relaxed way to get feedback. Just make sure to include some signature that states that the post is not a promise of anything and you are good to go!

Very nice changes indeed! And no nerfs either… I’m estatic!

There’s still something little that bothers me:

• Ricochet: Now grants might (base 3 second duration) per hit.

I’m already struggling to find a situation where I would want to bring my shortbow over axe/dagger. After this change, I imagine those to be even less. They should consider reintroducing the 1200 range for shortbow or giving it some other edge over axe setups.

But nevertheless, I’m excited for these changes!

I personally like this change a lot, but I also understand the concerns many of the players have. You should consider making it more like the GW1 style district system where players could choose the shard they want to play on from a drop-down menu. I think it’s a better system overall and would be a great help to get the RP crowd and organized guilds (or just group of friends who want to have little privacy) on the same server.

3/5

We got 3 nice traits (WS, NM, BM) and 2 bad traits:

• Read the Wind – This trait is simply to fix longbow’s inability to hit targets at longer ranges. It’s not a worthless trait (I want my arrows to hit after all) but surely not GM tier trait in itself.
• Strider’s Defense – No matter how effective this trait might be, 15% proc chance is just pure RNG. Because of that I’ll never be choosing this trait, ever.

Suggestion for RtW:

PET PROBLEMS & PROPOSED SOLUTIONS

(This is a list of pet problems (and solutions) I’m facing in different areas of the game. Many of these have already been discussed in this thread and I’ve borrowed the ones I like into this list. This is also me being lazy and not reading through all the posts.)

I – Pets’ inability to hit moving targets: (PvP/WvW)

• Pet movement speed should be increased by 15-20%.
• Default range of pet melee attacks should be increased to 250 from 130 units.

II – Pets dying instantly from one-shot mechanics: (PvE/WvW)

• Pets should gain invulnerability for 0,75s when you dodge roll.

III – Pets dying too fast when facing excessive AoEs/zerg: (WvW)

• Pets should have 70% damage reduction against AoE/cleave (unaffected by protection).
• Smart system that tracks incoming damage and applies reduction when pet takes damage from too many sources/too rapidly.
• I believe having a constant 70% AoE damage reduction would make the pet too strong in small scale battles.

IV – Pets do more harm than good in some cases: (PvE/Jumping puzzles)

• Allow pets to be “perma stowed”.

V – Insufficient pet controls: (PvX)

• F1: Attack My Target & Return to Me – toggle skill.
• F2: Pet unique skill – finally being fixed.
• F3: Pet family skill – this can be selected from the 3 remaining pet skills and also be left for AI to handle.
• F4: Pet Swap – no changes
• F5/Unspecified: Pet Stance – Aggressive/Guard/Avoid Combat. Aggressive – pet engages anyone who attacks ranger or ranger is attacking. Guard – pet engages the target ranger is attacking.
• F6/Unspecified: Pet Stow – perma stow

VI – Too many pet traits outside of Beastmastery: (PvX)

• Each trait line (excluding Beatmastery) should have only one strictly pet related “training” trait. For example:
  • Marksmanship – Malicious Training: Increases damage and duration of conditions applied by your pets. (+350 condition damage / +33% condition duration)
  • Skirmishing – Pet Prowess - no changes
  • Wilderness Survival – Stability Training: Pets grant stability to nearby allies on pet swap. (2s / 360 radius)
  • Nature Magic – Concentration Training: Pet healing attributes are increased. Boons applied by your pets last longer. (+350 healing power / 33% boon duration)

• Other pet traits in these trait lines should be replaced, moved to beastmastery, combined with other traits or reworked to apply their effects to ranger as well.

VII – Some beatmastery traits are limited to certain pet types: (PvX)

• Beastmastery master level traits should be extended to work on all pet types. Rebalancing and ICDs should be used where necessary.

VIII – Some traits and skills harm the pet: (PvX)

• These traits/skills should be either removed or reworked. For example:
  • Beastmaster’s Bond - applies protection (5s) to the pet.
  • Shared Anguish - Stability Training replaces this trait (see above).
  • Empathic Bond - reworked to remove conditions on pet swap instead of transferring them to pet.
  • Protect Me - pet gains protection and regeneration for 6s.
  • Signet of Renewal - see my signet suggestions here

BeardRex.6739:

Pets need an option for “dodge when I dodge”, which would require additional animation work too.

I agree that pets need something to negate one-shot mechanics (they are becoming quite common in LS after all). I would be more than happy with a trait that grants pet an aegis or blur whenever I dodge, though. No extra animation work to be done there. Also, if the pet would actually “dodge” an attack it would also lose valuable dps… I don’t want that. One of the few ranger’s strengths is that while you’re dodging around, your pet is still doing damage (at least it should be if it could keep up). It can be something very powerful to have, especially with bunkering builds.

As for the trait, I would suggest replacing Instinctual Bond with this:

• Companionship: Pet gains aegis for 2 seconds when you dodge roll.

Or alternatively, aegis could be simply added to already existing Companion’s Defense.

Taushullu.6180:

• Longbow could use a real burst skill. I’d suggest changing Rapid Fire to first fire 5 arrows rapidly (1½ second channel / 10s vulnerability per arrow) and then charge up a more powerful shot in the end (3/4 – 1s charge). Attack of Opportunity would synergize well with this last arrow.

After a second look at my suggestion about Rapid Fire… maybe it would be better as a sequence skill?

Game mode
PvX

Proposal overview
Rapid Fire reworked into a sequence skill

Goal of Proposal
Longbow is missing a burst skill, something that makes the weapon feel like the sniper-type of power weapon it’s supposed to be (that’s how I see it, at least). Rapid Fire-Punishing Shot sequence skill would fill this place nicely.

Proposal functionality

• First part of the sequence, Rapid Fire, would make the sustain consisting of shortened version of the skill we have now. Let’s say 5-8 arrows in 2-3 seconds each causing 10 seconds of vulnerability (About the same speed as we have currently, just a bit faster). You could move normally during the channel of this skill.
• Second part, Punishing Shot, would make the burst part. You would have about 2 seconds to activate this skill (like Monarch’s Leap). The damage would be about the same as 3-4 arrows of Rapid Fire combined. Activation time should be 3/4 or 1s during which you cannot move (opportunity cost). It could also have a secondary effect such as daze or stun (1s).

This is more of a bonus:

• Stealth tracking with Rapid Fire seems a little silly. I guess that this isn’t actually something that is intended but more of a “feature” that just happens to work for us. Maybe the skill should simply remove stealth (wouldn’t apply revealed) with each arrow. This might make it too powerful though, as your opponent cannot stealth at all during the channel.

Associated Risks
Punishing Shot needs a new animation which requires extra resources.

Prysin.8542:

Taushullu.6180:

• Longbow could use a real burst skill. I’d suggest changing Rapid Fire to first fire 5 arrows rapidly (1½ second channel / 10s vulnerability per arrow) and then charge up a more powerful shot in the end (3/4 – 1s charge). Attack of Opportunity would synergize well with this last arrow.

Kinda like a ranged version of 100b…. not a bad idea…. 5 super fast shots, then one charge-up that does tremendous damage.

Perhaps, instead of vulnerability, the first five arrows apply cripple to “set up” the final deadly shot. This way, normal movement is less likely to work, and you have to dodge to avoid not just press ADADADADADAD

I was thinking of vulnerability as it’s what we have currently. That’s also 5% more damage for the real punishment if all the arrows hit. But you’re right, cripple would work just as well.

And yes, the ADADADA sidestepping I’m facing in WvW is seriously annoying. They should just increase the longbow’s default arrow speed a bit or maybe add that to Eagle Eye or Piercing Arrows.

Chrispy.5641:

Heres a Signet idea from earlier in the thread that I posted. I tried to keep the burst potential there, while also adding group support capability, and expanding on our options for survival and condition removal. It quickly got buried in other posts, so it was never discussed after that post. Maybe you have an opinion on it?

Link:::
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Collaborative-Development-Ranger-Profession/3699949

The problem I see here (pretty much the same as what you’ve already said) is that Wild Strikes and Attack of Opportunity used together with SotB would result in too much damage from yourself, your pet and allies combined. Apart from that, I don’t have too much trouble with them.

Aridia.3042:

Taushullu.6180:

Here’s what I would like to see done to signets.

Signet changes in 5 steps:

1. Signet passive effects affect both ranger and pet, active effects ranger only.
2. Signet of the Beastmaster merged with Signet Mastery. New effect:
   • Signet of the Beastmaster: Signets recharge 20% faster. Active effects of signets also affect your pets.
3. Beastmaster’s Might gets a more supporting role by granting might to nearby allies on signet activation (3 stacks for 15s / 600 radius).
4. New grandmaster trait to replace old SotB. New trait:
   • Primal Echoes: Active effects of signets also affect nearby allies. (Signet actives are (PvE: 50%, PvP: 33%) as effective on allies / 360 radius)
5. Few signet active effects need to be reworked.
   1. Signet of the Wild (active): Enlargement effect is removed and activation time reduced to 1/4s. Grants stability (8s) and breaks stun. 60s cd.
   2. Signet of Renewal (active): Removes all conditions from yourself (not from nearby allies) instead of transferring them to your pet. 60s cd.
   3. Signet of the Hunt (PvP active): Damage bonus changed to +30%.

If anyone is wondering about those percentages, this is what I was aiming for .

Primal Echoes (PvE) + Signet of the Hunt (PvE) = 25% damage bonus to allies.
Primal Echoes (PvP) + Signet of the Hunt (PvP) = 10% damage bonus to allies.

No idea how these changes would affect the current balance, though.

I like this except SoTH. The active damage is worthless unless you’re going for a cheesy double signet maul build. While it’s amusing, it should never be encouraged.

SoTH should give stealth camo when you stand motionless on something natural, and not man made. It’s good risk vs reward. Once you stealth, you can’t run away with speed and it fits the theme of the utility/class.

I’ve seen quite a few suggestions of changing the SotH active effect (Attack of Opportunity) into something more sustained or some other effect entirely. Currently I find it to work well with:

• Maul
• Counterattack
• Tail Swipe (drake)
• Swoop

It’s pretty obvious there aren’t too many possibilities out there. Still, rather than changing Attack of Opportunity into something entirely else, I’d like to see more skills from other weapons changed to benefit from it. Here’s 2 suggestions:

• Monarch’s leap has potential to become a burst skill as the skill itself is well telegraphed and visually looks like something that would hurt you. Simply increasing the damage coefficient would make this skill work better with Attack of Opportunity.
• Longbow could use a real burst skill. I’d suggest changing Rapid Fire to first fire 5 arrows rapidly (1½ second channel / 10s vulnerability per arrow) and then charge up a more powerful shot in the end (3/4 – 1s charge). Attack of Opportunity would synergize well with this last arrow.

These changes would make the Attack of Opportunity from SotH more useful but Moment of Clarity doesn’t work with them as you need to interrupt your target first. Thus, I’d like to see MoC modified a bit. (I’ve suggested this before in my trait suggestions list but once more.)

• Moment of Clarity: Gain Precise Strikes (your next 3 attacks crit) for you and your pet on interrupting a foe. Daze and stun durations you inflict last longer. (100%)

So one of the 2 sources of Attack of Opportunity would still get cut… oh well. The proposed Moment of Clarity would see it’s burst nerfed but sustain and number of skill combinations buffed. It would also have great synergy with “on crit” -effects. I think it’s a fair trade.

Roy Cronacher.1576:

We have also been discussing this internally and agree that it is awkward to be forced to take a trait in order to receive the active effects of signets. Obviously some balance work would need to be done on the signets as well as redesigning the trait. Definitely a good idea and something we are thinking about. =)

Here’s what I would like to see done to signets.

Signet changes in 5 steps:

1. Signet passive effects affect both ranger and pet, active effects ranger only.
2. Signet of the Beastmaster merged with Signet Mastery. New effect:
   • Signet of the Beastmaster: Signets recharge 20% faster. Active effects of signets also affect your pets.
3. Beastmaster’s Might gets a more supporting role by granting might to nearby allies on signet activation (3 stacks for 15s / 600 radius).
4. New grandmaster trait to replace old SotB. New trait:
   • Primal Echoes: Active effects of signets also affect nearby allies. (Signet actives are (PvE: 50%, PvP: 33%) as effective on allies / 360 radius)
5. Few signet active effects need to be reworked.
   1. Signet of the Wild (active): Enlargement effect is removed and activation time reduced to 1/4s. Grants stability (8s) and breaks stun. 60s cd.
   2. Signet of Renewal (active): Removes all conditions from yourself (not from nearby allies) instead of transferring them to your pet. 60s cd.
   3. Signet of the Hunt (PvP active): Damage bonus changed to +30%.

If anyone is wondering about those percentages, this is what I was aiming for .

Primal Echoes (PvE) + Signet of the Hunt (PvE) = 25% damage bonus to allies.
Primal Echoes (PvP) + Signet of the Hunt (PvP) = 10% damage bonus to allies.

No idea how these changes would affect the current balance, though.

I’ve updated many of the suggestions based on what’s been said in the ranger CDI thread… Check them out! I’m having some trouble with spirit traits as the proposed changes would make them too strong but otherwise I feel pretty happy with them as a whole (although power creep is still there). Feel free to share your own suggestions and/or feedback!

Allie Murdock.8152:

Many of you have suggested removing traps from the Skirmishing line. It seems the primary reason for this is because it is the crit line while traps are primarily focused on conditions.

Given the idea behind skirmishing (for Ranger, we expect them to be able to survive longer while whittling their opponent down), would it maybe make more sense to leave the traps there and perhaps swap the stats with a different line?

Going back to traps:

Another solution would be to simply increase the direct damage component of traps (could be anywhere between 50-200%) and making them scale better with current skirmishing stats that way. This would also make them more viable choice for power oriented builds.

Now for a related suggestion (actually a more detailed look of traps from my long list of trait suggestions from page 2)

Proposal overview
Trap Potency and Trapper’s Expertise swapping places.

Goal of Proposal
Trap Potency is a trait that is “must to have” if you are going for a trap build and it being a GM trait in a traitline, that doesn’t otherwise give benefits to conditions, isn’t helping. By lowering the trait to master level, players who prefer the more “traditional” way of trapping would get the damage bonus they need without getting too invested into skirmishing. Swapping these two traits and tweaking them a bit would also allow both traits to find a more comfortable place in the traitline.

Proposal functionality

• Base durations for traps would be increased by 50%. (to make them more viable even when used without traits.)
• Trap Potency would have it’s condition duration bonus lowered from 100% to 33% to reflect the previous change. Changed to master level from GM.
• Trapper’s Expertise would have it’s range increased to 900, moved to GM level and have additional effects added when triggering a trap (like with Spike Trap but extended to all traps.).
  • Spike Trap: immobilize (1s) & revealed (0s)
  • Flame Trap: blind (3s)
  • Frost Trap: knockdown (2s)
  • Viper’s Nest: bleeding (3 stacks for 5s)
• Cooldowns should be increased as traps are made more powerful.

Associated Risks

• Traps getting both more direct damage and increased functionality from Trapper’s Expertise might make them too strong.
• Possibility to combo Frost Trap for 4s kd might be too strong.

Game mode: PvE/PvP/WvW

Proposal overview:
Formatted list of trait suggestions focusing on:

• Compression of pet related traits.
• Reduction of “passive” traits & promotion of “active” traits.
• Changes to grandmaster traits.
• Changes to Opening Strike.
• Changes to condition removal.
• Synergy between traits.
• More fun!

Goal of proposal:
To create new builds and playstyles that make playing ranger more enjoyable and fun.

Proposal functionality:
The list is too long for this thread. Have a link instead.
Link to trait suggestions
(I know it’s a long read but I would appreciate it if you read it through.)

Note: The numbers presented are merely estimates and there is likely to be power creep involved in some of the traits. Also the passive effects of spirits needs to be reworked and I have yet to come up with a solution. Alternatively you can just skip the spirit trait suggestions.

Associated risks:

• Breaks the current PvP balance.
• Spirits would become too strong.
• Too much fun?

I’ve been working on some ranger trait suggestions for a while now and the leaked patchnotes (let them be real or not) wasn’t quite what I hoped for. I was planning on waiting and linking these suggestions to the ranger CDI thread, but as it got delayed (and delayed again), I’ll just link them here first. Check them out if you are interested!

Link to trait suggestions Warning: wall-of-text

Here’s a list of things I’ve tried to focus on with these suggestions:

• Compression of pet related traits.
• Reduction of “passive” traits & promotion of “active” traits.
• More impactful & supportive grandmaster traits.
• Changes to Opening Strike.
• Changes to condition removal.
• Synergy between traits.
• More fun!

Nature Magic:

Fortifying Bond – Change vigor to give swiftness (3s) and add stability (2s) to the list.

1. Circle of Life – Create a healing spring when you are downed. Increases revive speed. (10%)
2. Concentration Training – Pet healing attributes are increased. Boons applied by your pets last longer. (+350 healing power / 33% boon duration)
3. Nature’s Bounty – Regeneration you apply lasts longer. (33%)
4. Natural Stride – Cripple, chill, and immobilize durations are reduced (33%). Gain swiftness when you are affected by one of these conditions. (3s /10s cooldown)
5. Strength of a Spirit – Activated skills of spirits grant might to nearby allies. (3 stacks for 15s / 600 radius / 10s cooldown)
6. Nature’s Protection – Receive protection when you take damage greater than a percentage of your maximum health. (5s / 30s cooldown)
7. Spirits Unbound – Spirits can move and follow you. Spirits have increased health. (50%)
8. Evasive Purity – Dodging removes a condition from you and your pet. (10s cooldown)
9. Two-handed Mastery – Maul and Man-O-War are blast finishers. Blocking with greatsword and spear reflects projectiles.
10. Nature’s Resilience – Use Signet of the Wild when your health drops below 25%.
11. Nature’s Vengeance – Activated skills of spirits use ground targeting and trigger when the spirit is killed. (600 range)
12. Nature’s Voice – Shouts apply regeneration and swiftness to nearby allies. (10s / 600 radius)

Beastmastery:

Companionship – Pet gains aegis for 2 seconds when you dodge roll.
Loud Whistle – Pet swapping recharges 20% faster.
Natural Healing – Pets have natural health regeneration.

1. Speed Training – Reduces recharge on pet skills. (20%)
2. Master’s Bond – Your pet has a bond with you that increases its attributes…
   1. (PvE) – …each time you kill a foe. The bond is reset when pet is defeated.
   2. (PvP) – …periodically while in combat (1 stack every 3s). The bond is reset when pet is defeated or deactivated.
3. Shout Mastery – Reduces recharge of shouts. (20%)
4. Comfort Animal – Removes all conditions from your pet when using a heal skill. Resurrects pet if dead. (50% health)
5. Lacerate – Pet unique abilities (F2) remove a boon.
6. Mighty Swap – You and your pet gain might on pet swap. (3 stacks for 15s)
7. Rending Attacks – Pets have a chance to bleed with their basic attack. (50% / 5s)
8. Call of Haste – Pets move and activate their skills faster. (30%)
9. Intimidation Training – Pet unique abilities (F2) apply cripple. (5s / 15s cooldown)
10. Vigorous Training – Pets grant vigor to you and nearby allies when activated. (5s / 600 radius)
11. Zephyr’s Speed – You and your pet gain quickness when you swap pets. Pets have Opening Strike. (4s / OS recharges on pet swap)
12. Predatory Bond – Pet unique abilities (F2) heal you and your pet.

Skirmishing:

1. Pet Prowess – Pets do more damage on critical hits. (30%)
2. Sharpened Edges – Chance to cause bleeding on critical hits. (2s / 66% chance)
3. Trapper’s Defense – Create a Spike Trap while reviving an ally. Grant swiftness to yourself and your ally when you revive them. (15s)
4. Primal Reflexes – Gain fury when you successfully evade an attack. (3s / 10s cooldown)
5. Energizing Wind – Gain vigor whenever you gain swiftness. (3s / 5s cooldown)
6. Edge of Extinction – Increases damage by 25% while downed. Your pet gains quickness. (5s)
7. Trap Potency – Conditions caused by traps last 33% longer. Trap skills recharge 20% faster.
8. Honed Axes – You do 10% more critical damage for each axe you are wielding.
9. Serpent’s Quickness – Applies quickness when you successfully land Serpent’s Strike. (2s)
10. Run as One – You and your pet move 25% faster.
11. Trapper’s Expertise – Trap skills are 50% larger and use ground targeting. (900 range). When triggered…
    • Spike Trap: immobilizes (1s) & removes stealth (revealed 0s).
    • Flame Trap: blinds (3s).
    • Frost Trap: removes 2 boons.
    • Viper’s Nest: causes bleeding (3 stacks for 5s).
12. Moment of Clarity – Gain Precise Strikes (your next 3 attacks crit) for you and your pet on interrupting a foe. Daze and stun durations you inflict last longer. (100%)

Wilderness Survival:

1. Soften the Fall – Create Muddy Terrain when you take falling damage. You take less damage from falling. (50%)
2. Toxicity – Apply torment when you apply poison. (3 stacks for 5s / 15s cd)
3. Dust cloak – Blind nearby foes at the end of a dodge roll. (5s / 180 radius)
4. Vigorous Renewal – Gain vigor when using a heal skill. (5s)
5. Stability Training – Pets grant stability to nearby allies on pet swap. (2s / 360 radius / 30s cooldown)
6. Wilderness Knowledge – Reduces recharge on survival skills. (20%)
7. Off-Hand Training – Reduces recharge on off-hand skills. Off-hand skills have longer range. (20% / 20%)
8. Empathic Bond – Removes 2 conditions when you swap pets.
9. Dryder’s Defenses – Dazes nearby foes when you are disabled (stun, daze, knockdown, knockback, launch, float, sink, or fear). (2s / 360 radius / 45 second cd)
10. Martial Mastery – Reduces recharge on sword, greatsword, and spear skills. (20%)
11. Hide In Plain Sight – Gain stealth when using a heal skill. (3s)
12. Bark Skin – You and your pet take less damage while your health is below the threshold. (25% / 50% reduction)

Note: These suggestions aren’t properly balanced.

Areas I’ve tried to focus on with these suggestions:

• Compression of pet related traits.
• Reduction of “passive” traits & promotion of “active” traits.
• Changes to grandmaster traits.
• Changes to Opening Strike.
• Changes to condition removal.
• Synergy between traits.
• More fun!

Changes to skills (needed so that the following suggestions make sense):

• Greatsword (Maul): Increased damage. Increased vulnerability stacks to 8 and increased cd to 8s. (Two-handed training changes this into a blast finisher.)
• Signets: Passive effects affect both ranger and pet, active effects ranger only. (Signet of the Beastmaster applies active effects to pets.)
  1. Signet of the Wild (active) – Enlargement effect is removed and activation time reduced to 1/4s. This skill is now a stun break.
  2. Signet of Renewal (active) – Now removes all conditions from yourself (not from nearby allies) instead of transferring them to your pet.
• Traps: All condition durations and direct damage are increased by 50%. Cooldowns are also increased. (Trap Potency duration bonus changed to 33%, increased functionality from Trapper’s Expertise.)
• Spirits: Spirit base heath is increased by 33%. All passive effects now proc with 100% chance by default. (Vigorous Spirits is removed and 50% health bonus added to Spirits Unbound. Spirit passive effects need to be reworked and rebalanced.)
• New spirit functionality: Draw Spirit – If you move farther than 1000 units away from the spirit, spirit active skill changes to Draw Spirit which teleports the spirit to your location. Using this skill puts spirit active skill on 1s cooldown. (Currently untraited spirits feel clunky to use when not staying in place. This change is to bring up the basic functionality all spirits have in common.)

TRAITS

Marksmanship:

Opening Strike – Cause vulnerability with your first strike when entering combat. Recharges when you kill a foe. (5 stacks for 5s / 10s cooldown in combat)
Remorseless – Regain Opening Strike on pet swap.
Precise Strike – Opening Strike always critical hits.

1. Steady Focus – Damage is increased when endurance is full. (10%)
2. Malicious Training – Increases damage and duration of conditions applied by your pets. (+350 condition damage / +33% condition duration)
3. Keen Edge – Use Sharpening Stone when you strike a foe below the health threshold. (45s cooldown)
4. Signet of the Beastmaster – Signets recharge 20% faster. Active effects of signets also affect your pets.
5. Predator’s Instinct – Opening Strike cripples. (4s / only affects ranger not pet)
6. Beastmaster’s Bond – Gain might and fury when your pet’s health drops below 50%. Pet gains protection. (3 stacks of might and fury for 10s / 5s protection / 60s cooldown, recharges on pet swap)
7. Spotter – Increases precision of nearby allies. (+150 precision / 600 radius)
8. Piercing Arrows – All arrow attacks pierce targets. Reduces recharge on short bow and longbow skills by 20%.
9. Beastmaster’s Might – Activating a signet grants might to you and nearby allies. (3 stacks for 15s / 600 radius)
10. Expert’s Dexterity – Ricochet bounces to one additional target.
11. Primal Echoes – Active effects of signets also affect nearby allies. (Signet actives are (PvE: 50%, PvP: 33%) as effective on allies / 360 radius)
12. Eagle Eye – Increases longbow, short bow and harpoon gun range (+ 300 range). Your projectiles deal more damage the farther they travel. (0-500: 0%, 500-1000: 5%, 1000+ range: 10%)

I did some testing with all the training traits and pet prowess after noticing Malicious Training didn’t always apply it’s effects to F2 skills after pet swap. Judging from the information on pet window there appears to be huge variance of when the pet gets it’s stat bonuses from the traits after pet swap (+350 hp showing from Compassion Training and so on) .

Never leaving combat and changing pets whenever possible, there was downtime up to 10 or even 20 seconds before pet got it’s buffs showing in the pet window. Judging from the owl’s chill duration this doesn’t seem to be just a tooltip bug either; the +50% condition duration from Malicious Training applied only after the stats from other traits had appeared on the pet window (I was running all 10/10/10/10/15 with all training traits equipped, gear stripped, battling heavy golems in the mists). Quick test with owl and eagle showed that also Pet Prowess was affected by this. Basic attack dealing ~900-950 per crit without any trait buffs showing and immediately shooting up to ~1100-1250 per crit when stats appeared on the pet window.

Can someone confirm me wrong, I hope I’m mistaken…

edit. It seems that the stats are more likely to show up right after either one of the birds uses Swoop or Quickening Screech. The bug doesn’t seem to be limited to just birds, though, I keep getting similar results with all pets.

Malicious Training (Marksmanship II). Shares the same problem as other training traits: only works when pet is in combat. Very annoying as it doesn’t apply it’s effects to pet’s first attack/skill when it engages combat. Also fails to apply it’s effects when using F2 right after swapping pets.

Pet unique skills (F2) makes pet attack your selected target after it has finished using the skill. Very annoying when using skills that aren’t direct attacks such as Moas’ F2 abilities or Mighty Roar.

After reading PolarLights’ thread about traits that double skill’s effectiveness (Bombsaway already touched the subject of fusing trait effects to normal traps earlier in this thread), I can’t help but to wonder how traps would feel with 50% more base condition duration. Here’s a small comparison:

• Spike Trap: bleed 5s -> 7.5s, cripple 2s -> 3s (+1s immobilize)
• Flame Trap: buring 1s -> 1.5s
• Frost Trap: chill 1s -> 1.5s
• Viper’s Nest: poison 3s -> 4½s

This would leave Trap Potency with +33% condition duration.

Very true. This is basically the reason why i find myself choosing certain skills over others. Always the same skills… so frustrating.

Cufufalating.8479:

Blind and confusion, twice the size of ordinary traps, 90s CD. Be so awesome

Confusion eh… I like the sound of that.

nagymbear.5280:

Imho the trait to be able to throw traps is really unnecessary. If you run into someone that is trying to kite you, you won’t be helped much by 600 range thrown traps.
…
What traps do need imo is stunbreaks.

With Trapper’s Expertise you can play rather offensively while still maintaining decent range to your opponent. I’ve never really tried it the other way around, playing with full melee build, but I would imagine there to be at least some advantages from Spike Trap’s immobilize. Overall, I find the trait to be quite a lot of fun.

It sucks that you can’t have a stunbreak when going all in with traps but I feel like that’s the price you have to pay. I also cannot find any connection between laying a trap and breaking stun so it would feel silly, to me at least.

urdriel.8496:

We need a REAL elite trap .

Agreed. Trap in the spirit of Smoke Trap or Dust Trap from GW1 seems to be completely missing from the game. Maybe we could have something like this:

• Smoke Trap: Set a trap that blinds foes. (Creates a smoke field when triggered (3-5s), 1-5 pulses, 40-60s cooldown, secondary effect?)

Secondary effect could be another condition, boons to allies, condition cleansing… But yes, absolutely, we should have an elite trap.

What if instead of removing the damage component, it would be a guaranteed critical hit? This way you could get some interesting combinations with on crit sigils.

Also agree on the skill removing slowing conditions.

faeral.7120:

give frost trap a damage component that scales with power. that would immediately open up 30/30/10 power trap builds.

This is something I could appreciate, in PvE/WvW at least.

Bombsaway.7198:

Traps should be the logical way to keep melee off you for a power build bow ranger.
We just need too darn many traits to make it work.

I would imagine this is what Frost Trap was made for. The trap scales only from condition duration which is conveniently located in our power tree. On the PvE mobs the skill works pretty well actually. You lay the trap, wait for it to tick few times and then push your foe back with Point Blank Shot leaving it with few seconds of chill. With Trap Potency you can easily leave your target with +5 seconds of chill after PBS. Quick followup with Rapid Fire/Hunter’s Shot also maintains the chill for few seconds longer without too much trouble.

The problems arise when we leave the PvE for more challenging environments of WvW and PvP. It becomes increasingly difficult to get the full benefits of untraited Frost Trap when your target can move and dodge as they please. Trap Potency can still make the skill successful but this is also where it becomes more or less a necessity. This was one of the reasons I would like to see the trait lowered from grandmaster to master level.

As a long time trap fanatic, I would like to share few thoughts of traps focusing on what’s wrong with them now and how they could be improved.

What I feel are wrong with traps:

• 2 traits that are pretty much required in every trap build. One master and one grandmaster trait.
• Traps are located in the “wrong” traitline meaning that they don’t benefit from the tree’s attribute bonuses.
• Low base damage from triggering the traps.

Suggestions:

• Instead of moving traps to Wilderness Survival and further tying them to condition damage, increase the base (direct) damage of traps. The correct number should be somewhere between 50%-100%. Doing this would allow traps to gain more benefits from the tree’s precision and critical damage thus making them an option to even some power builds. Viper’s Nest could be worked into a “power trap”.
• Have Trap Potency and Trapper’s Expertise swap places. Even with an increase to traps’ direct damage component, conditions remain at the core of these skills. By having Trap Potency as a master level trait, players who prefer the more “traditional” way of trapping (laying traps at your feet instead of throwing them) would gain the damage bonus they need without needing to use the additional 10 trait points. I would also believe Frost Trap to gain in popularity.
• Have the Spike Trap’s immobilize from Trapper’s Expertise apply without needing to trait for it. Simple yet powerful change which would enhance the skill’s basic functionality a lot.

With these few changes I could see myself running traps much more diversely than I do currently. But that’s just me. How do others think of traps? Feel free to share your own ideas in the comments.

Very ranger type of skill in that it requires you to trait for it in order to see any usage. 60 second stationary heal? + 20 second recharge on top of that? Something like this shouldn’t be unlocked until you’ve taken at least Spirits Unbound, Nature’s Vengeance and high healing power are also heavily recommended.

In my opinion, you should try to keep the Living Story as the driving force behind Living World. What I mean by this is that Living Story should direct our focus to specific areas of the game (much like how it does currently) ultimately leading to changes in the open world itself. Most significant change to current system would be that more time is given for each story step to play out. I don’t mean slower releases I mean longer storylines and more individual releases within them. You shouldn’t rush story, ever.

How this translates into releases is that anything major happening in the world is first introduced in living story instances. Lets say we have a Living World storyline involving the brand. To keep this short we fast forward to the point where we have a release that reworks Shatterer. When we first enter the zone we will be put into Story instance with Rox and Braham, for example. To flesh out things a little let’s say that we’ve given a mission to secure a supply line to the Steeleye Span. We start working our way through branded from the Span to nearby village. When we get to the village we might have to defend a packdolyak while the villagers pack the supplies. After defeating the larger wave of branded everything seems fine and we’re starting to move back to Span. Before we get to leave however, lighting clouds start to gather and from the clouds comes the Shatterer. This is the first time ever where we’ve seen Shatterer attacking something outside the brand and the NPCs also show their surprise yelling and screaming that this isn’t normal. So we gather the troops we can and start to fight back. As the leader of the pact me, the player, is given the task to lead this assault (together with Rox and Braham). And so we fight, shoot the dragon with cannons, dodge his deadly breath and force him to eventually retreat. But he won’t go peacefully. As he rises to the sky he wipes the village to the ground with his tail. Many die and my group is mortified by this sudden attack. After a while we get a messenger to told us that Shatterer is seen flying all around the Ascalon and we eventually leave the instance.

Now when we return to the open world the things we’ve learned from the story instance can be seen. Shatterer is attacking villages around Ascalon, branded are continuing their spread from the brand. Steeleye Span is desperately trying to fight back but is in constant need of supplies which are brought with caravans that need defending, the destroyed village from the instance remains destroyed in the open world and has some DEs happening around it. All over Ascalon villages are being reinforced so that something as horrible what had happened wouldn’t have to happen again.

The thing I’m trying to tell here is that even after the Living Story moves on, we are still left with the story instance. This instance holds everything we have to know about what have happened and making it replayable allows people who missed the event to still experience that. I think we should have more of these instances per release so that the story is properly fleshed out. In this context it would be nice to see another instance about Steeleye Span and maybe even something tying things back to older GW1 lore with an instance about Searing Crystal. Key here is that everything of importance (especially things that aren’t left behind when the story moves on) are told in these instances.

Some feedback regarding Living Story/World, nothing to do with the ongoing conversation:

I would like to see us getting back to longer storylines/arcs like Flame and Frost. Even if FF suffered greatly from it’s slow update cycle and it’s content per release ratio wasn’t too great, it was given enough time to sink in. I’m not talking about the release cadence or lasting effects to the world itself, just the overall length of the storyline felt appropriate. I think a coherent, well written story spanning over 2-3 months could re-ignite at least some of my interest towards the Living Story.

As it happens, I find the current living story feeling quite rushed. We’ve had this model where every month something new is introduced and 2 weeks after that we have to beat the crap out whatever it was. 2 weeks after we are given a new enemy to crush, again. Scarlet might be behind everything and we are just taking steps to defeat her, but it still doesn’t feel right. I’m hoping that after defeating Scarlet, we can have a story that makes more sense.

I don’t really have too much complaints about the individual releases after we’ve started doing the 2 week releases (given that I’m not criticizing the story itself). I like the 2 week release cadence and bugs haven’t been that much of a problem. 2 biggest complaints would be the lack of story content and the excessive amount of zerg content, greater focus on the lack of story content. I understand that voice acting can be a costly process, but I would like to see more instanced story content per release. Currently we get 1-2 instances per release, I would like to see 2-4.

“Why instanced content?”, you might ask. Well it’s because I’d also like to replay those instances and (to my understanding) it should be easier to just take a story instance and put it into some sort of system where I can replay it as I please. It could also be used to backtrack some of the events you’ve missed. I think something like this is mandatory if you want to truly devote yourself doing Living Story. I also prefer using instances as it allows me to experience the story at my own pace.

What comes to topics we’ve had for LS, I’m not a fan of anything we’ve seen in the past. Something new is created out of thin air and everything introduced lacks depth. It’s nothing like that really, just wanted to keep this short. This is just my opinion, but I think Living Story should use more of the old (even GW1 old) lore and build on that. No more alliances. Also dragons.

Little off topic but even if you would fix everything I’ve been complaining about by tomorrow, I don’t think Living Story can hold my interest for too much longer. I can’t help to see Living Story as nothing more than a filler content, something little to do when I’m waiting for the next big thing. I do play through all of them but it’s still just content maybe for 2-3 days and then I’m back waiting. I hope that ultimately Living Story leads to a release of an expansion. It doesn’t necessarily need to be a boxed expansion just something that holds as much content as one, delivered in a single, big chunk.

I know that I’m mostly just repeating what others have said before me and devs have already commented on this stuff. Just wanted to do it anyway, hope you don’t mind.

edited the original post to include AoE damage reduction.

I’d like to propose quite radical changes to Spirits. To start with:

• Spirits can now move without a trait. When summoned, spirits spawn behind the ranger on arc of circle with radius of 180 range units (same as Spirits Unbound just spawning behind the ranger). When ranger moves, the spirits start moving to their spawning positions behind the ranger.

The reason I chose to go with this model, was because I found it very frustrating to play spirits without having them move (ie. without taking Spirits Unbound) in dungeon environment.

Stationary spirits can work well in longer battles where I don’t have to worry about moving too much and my whole party stays nicely within the spirit’s range. Unfortunately it also means that their active skills are never going to be used as the mobs are too far away from the spirits and pulling the mobs closer usually gets them killed. So I normally go with the safer method of positioning spirits somewhere safe so that I could at least get their passive effects.

Unfortunately, your normal battle lasts only for few seconds and you quickly find your party moving outside the spirit’s range. Spirits Unbound negates this problem by making your spirits follow but the usage of active skills is still quite low as getting too close means death. By taking the Spirit’s Unbound you also have used 30 trait points to get that point (or 20 after December 10th patch). Spirits are the only utility my ranger has that requires such maneuvering to achieve quite basic usage.

Now, to get to the original suggestion, by allowing the spirits to move without needing to specifically trait for it helps a lot to achieve that basic usage. To improve it even further compared to the Spirits Unbound, spirits are now positioned behind the ranger which allows the ranger to get to that melee range and still manage to keep the spirits alive. I think this is also huge in terms of getting more active skills used without spirits dying.

This alone doesn’t help the spirits to survive when facing bosses with hard-hitting AoE attacks. I would also like to suggest that spirits are given AoE damage reduction in dungeons and other areas of the game where seemed appropriate.

To enhance spirit survivability even further, I’d like to see a supporting trait added:

• Spiritual Knowledge (Nature Magic master level): Active skills of spirits use ground targeting (600 units range) and trigger when the spirit is killed.

It’s basically Nature’s Vengeance reworked to also ground target. To counterbalance this change, active skills can no longer be traited to get any larger than the original 240 radius. With this trait, I can now finish my foe from afar, minimizing any threat to my beloved spirits.

But the changes are not yet done. Passive effects are changed to apply their effects with 100% chance, untraited. This is done because it rarely has any difference whether it was my first or third attack that caused the 3 second burning (or 2s after December 10th).

It was also done so that removal of Vigorous Spirits would be possible. I wanted to reduce the amount of traits needed to build a spirit oriented build as much as possible as well as to counterbalance the powerful change of integrating Spirits Unbound to basic spirit usage. With removal of both Vigorous Spirits and Spirits Unbound (and addition of Spiritual Knowledge) we now have 2 traits for spirits. With Nature’s Vengeance I would like to see something that changes how you normally play spirit build.

• Nature’s Vengeance (Nature Magic grandmaster level): Active skills of spirits create a combo field (3s) in addition to skills usual effect.

This is to bring more utility/support to ranger’s set of tools. To prevent spamming all fields at once, using a spirit active skill forces all spirit active skills (except elite) on 5-10s cooldown.

Quite long for a suggestion, but I can’t help to theorycraft every once in a while. I would like to hear more suggestions regarding spirits from the community. So, feel free comment and leave your own suggestions for spirit changes down below.

tl;dr: Spirits moving without traits, 100% chance passive effects, AoE damage reduction, removal of Spirits Unbound and Vigorous Spirits, ground targeting with traits, combo fields with traits, cd when using active skills.

Chopps.5047:

ANET buffs brown bear and make healing spring pulse faster: users think ANET does nothing for ranger condition removal

I didn’t mean it as Anet does nothing, just the proposed changes on dec 10 have nothing to do with condition cleansing. I may have worded that one badly.

And yes, I agree the changes to Healing Spring and brown bear’s Shake It Off do help. I’d just like to see the ranger to get to that point where we can drop and completely rework Emphatic Bond. That trait is just stupid strong for a passive trait and I think it’s sad so many ranger builds rely on it’s condition cleanse. (Or at least the builds I like to run). I may not have the right to complain (I never use brown bear afterall) but I think it’s nice to have different options for condition cleansing.

While I can agree with some of the proposed changes (new Predator’s Instinct looks pretty good, Mighty Swap is change for the better and spirit nerfs are needed), they do nothing to improve ranger’s poor (active) condition removal.

I would like to suggest fusing Healer’s Celerity (and Trapper’s Defense) with Circle of Life.

• Circle of Life: Create a healing spring while reviving an ally. (30-60s cd). Increases revive speed by 10%

This would open up an adept trait slot in Wilderness Survival which could be used to give ranger more active condition removal. New adept WS trait suggestion:

• Symbiotic Bond: Convert a condition from you and your pet into a random boon (5-10s) when you break stun.

edit: changed WS suggestion to match what I originally had in mind.

Opinions and suggestions regarding possible ranger changes:

1. Long Range Shot - Even if the proposed changes for this skill are for the better, it still doesn’t change the fact that you are actively crippling your damage output if not staying at max range (which isn’t optimal in many cases).
   Suggestion: Equalize damage on all ranges and make it add cripple (1s) when shooting at 1000+ range.
2. Predator’s Instinct - I like this one a lot. Nothing to change here.
3. Beastmaster’s Bond - This change does absolutely nothing as the effect already recharges when you swap pets.
   Suggestion: Make it add retaliation (5s) to the pet.
4. Moment of Clarity - I don’t really like this trait to begin with. Ranger has 2 skills that cause stun, Concussion Shot and Hilt Bash, both of which require flanking to actually inflict the one second stun. I guess the idea here is that the extra 1 second should help the pet to land it’s burst, but for the ranger itself it changes nothing as the only skill you want to use here is Maul or Swoop.
   Suggestion: complete rework – Remove a condition from you and nearby allies on interrupting a foe. You and your pet gain quickness (3s) on successful interrupt.
5. Natural Vigor - This and the old Zephyr’s Speed were the cornerstones of every ranger build. I’m sad to see this one go.
6. Oakheart Salve - Maybe an unnecessary buff to passive trait that is already quite good?
7. Bark skin - Rather than buffing another passive trait, I’d like to see a complete rework into something more active.
   Suggestion: New skill – Dryder’s Defense: You and all nearby allies gain protection (5s) when you use a stun break. You take 50% less damage while stunned.
8. Circle of life - I’d like to see this, Healer’s Celerity and Trapper’s Defense fused into one trait.
   Suggestion: New effect – Create a Healing Spring when reviving an ally (with appropriate cd). Increases revive speed by 10%.
9. Strength of Spirit - I never use this trait as the effects sound so boring.
10. Two Handed Training - I like the change on this one but it could still use little something something.
    Suggestion: Drop the damage bonus and add the following functionality; Blocking reflects projectiles while wielding a greatsword or spear.
11. Enlargement – Again a trait that I never use. No opinion.
12. Nature’s Vengeance / Spirit’s unbound – Good change. I’ve had this idea that the Nature’s Vengeance should be reworked into making spirit actives create combo fields (3s) but that requires some other changes to go with it.
13. Mighty Swap – More might for me! I like this change.
14. Sun Spirit – Good change but the visual effect remains quite flashy.
    Suggestion: Change Solar Flare’s effect into something smaller. It’s too big and bright.
15. Storm Spirit – Another good change but damage-only skills feel dull.
    Suggestion: I’d also like to see Call Lightning’s activation time reduced to quarter-second and making it stun nearby foes for 1 second.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Hey folks,
…
We still want to have some content that can happen each year, our holiday festivals, Super Adventure Box, Zephyr Sanctum, and the new Queens Gauntlet are all intended to be content that will regularly return. The goal of having these in our portfolio of event content that can occur again each year is they allow us the opportunity to easily build on something we’ve already completed as themes for some of our releases for year 2.
…

I can’t agree with this. IMO, only festivals (which are seasonal and therefore temporary by nature) should be something that come with on/off switch and the rest (SAB, Gauntlet, Labyrinthine Cliffs – Zephyr Sanctum can go but leave the map behind!) should be permanent additions to the game which get updated whenever appropriate (new levels to SAB, new bosses to Gauntlet, new events/storylines/areas to LC). Honestly, if SAB was still around, I would be in game playing it instead of writing this.

I made a suggestion regarding Opening Strike and Remorseless before, so I’ll just repost it here.

Minor Traits:
Adept – Opening Strike: Apply 5 stacks of vulnerability for 5 seconds with your first strike when entering combat. This effect recharges when you kill a foe (10 second cooldown) or reset combat.
Master – Remorseless: Regain Opening Strike when you gain stealth or use a heal skill. (Shares cooldown with Opening Strike.)
Grandmaster – Sundering Strike: You and your pet deal 5% more damage to vulnerable foes.

IMO, the current Marksmanship tree doesn’t offer any choice; you either build around Opening Strike(s) (30 points deep + Remorseless) or you don’t calculate them to have any effect on your build. The current Minor Traits have some “okay” effects, but with no other way to reapply them but to take Remorseless, I find it very hard to build around them. Basically, I’d like to be able to spec 5/15/25 points into the tree and not feel bad about it.

Updated my trait suggestions after the latest change to Remorseless. My opinion on “new” Marks GM trait?! Bad, bad, bad.

It’s better now than before, I give you that much, but Remorseless and the recently added Nature’s Voice both suffer greatly from one thing, they’re too one-dimensional. As I see it, there’s only one “real” way to use these traits; with Nature’s Voice use spam “Guard” for it’s low cooldown and with Remorseless you now spam Hunter’s Shot as it’s your only way to gain stealth (without relying on other professions Smoke fields, at least). If I take Remorseless, I am bound to bring Longbow as well, no exceptions. And this still doesn’t help with the problem that you must spend 30 points into Marksmanship tree and a GM trait to get any usage from it’s Minor traits. Only thing it does, is that it creates “forced” synergy with the Longbow to boost it’s usefulness (which it does well, mind you) neglecting all the other weapons. I just don’t like these sorts of GM traits.

So what did I change in my suggestions? I tried to fix what I just ranted about of course!

• Opening Strikes now recharge when you kill a foe or reset combat. To counterbalance this huge buff, I added 10 second ICD while in combat to control giving out too much vulnerability in PvE/ZergvsZerg.
• Remorseless (Master MINOR trait) causes OS to recharge on stealth (longbow ftw) AND when you use a heal skill. And again, to control chaining Hunter’s Shot and heal to achieve too much vulnerability, I made it share cooldown with the OS (10s).
• I also changed Splinter Weapon to proc when hitting foes from behind/flanking instead of proccing on criticals. That’s only because, quite simply, too many traits proc on critical hits. I also added different percentages to promote good positioning.

That’s it. Only 3 things changed this time. I’ll have to see how much longer I’ll keep doing this. As always, you can leave your suggestions/discuss about ranger traits.

jcbroe.4329:

By the way, my Remorseless suggestion was supposed to say 45 second cooldown. Seems the forum thought I was trying to used mixed 1337speak for butt -.-

Forum trolling it’s users. Madness, I tell you.

Ridiculous.5203:

I have a question and I think an error in the OP.

This is stated in the OP:
Signet of the Beastmaster: Passive effects of signets also affect your pet.

But it says ingame: Active effects of signets also affect you.
Which seems to be something different.

Was this changed or?

And my question, the spotter precision increase only applies on allies, or also on yourself?

In my suggestions signets are to be reworked so that when untraited their passive effects affect ranger only and active effects affect both ranger and pet. Basically their effects have been swapped compared to current signet effects (passives affect ranger+pet and actives pet only). This was done because I personally dislike the current system where you have to spend 30 trait points and GM trait only to have signets affect yourself, which is how they work on any other profession. This is also why Signet of the Beastmaster was reworked to give the passive effects to pets. Some active durations/intensities are likely to be toned down but I would rather deal with that instead of what we have now. Hope this clarifies things a bit.

edit: misread the actual question about Spotter, thx @elprimo for clarification.
Spotter increases the precision of nearby allies and yourself just as it does currently. Only thing changed was that this is now Adept instead of Master level trait.

jcbroe.4329:

Remorseless: Doubles duration of Vulnerability applied by Opening Strikes. Opening Strikes renews on a kitten cooldown.

I kinda like that effect. Might just need to borrow that if I’m in the mood to theorycraft some more traits. OS already recharges on a 30 second timer in my suggestion though, so I can’t just simply steal this. Nice suggestion.

Mcrocha.3891:

I don’t know those signet traits look deadly. A party of rangers could have 15 secs of no damage, 20 secs of 25% damage and long duration stability, and 5 full condi cleanses. Not to mention that they could all be running glass cannons and with all of this still have decent survivability. But hey a team of 5 guardians would basically be godlike so what the hell.

It might seem strong but there are some quite long cooldowns when it comes to Signets and the coordination required to actually achieve those numbers isn’t as easy as it seems. There’s skill chaining sure but there’s also positioning requirements as you need to be close to each other. And (theoratically) if signets were to be changed as proposed (passives affect ranger, actives affect ranger+pet) some signet durations/intensities would probably need to be cut down as you no longer need GM trait to get those effects for yourself. Also random stuns don’t necessarily count as interrupt. Just sharing some of my thoughts.

It appears I had made a huge oversight in my trait suggestions so I just had come back and fix that. Made a few other changes too. Here’s a short list:

• Trap-traits got moved back to Skirmishing! NO! YES! WHY! Because there was no alternatives. Every traitline is given 1 utility skill type to take care of. Marksmanship has signets, skirmishing has traps, WS has survival skills, NM has spirits (and shouts wtf!), BM has shouts + pet. So unless survival skills are reworked to better fit the Skirmishing tree, I don’t see traps being moved to WS.
• Predator’s Instict (Marks, adept) got it’s effect changed to immobilize + vulnerability because it seemed to fit the traitline lot better than cripple + weakness, imo. Vulnerability was added because otherwise I don’t see any usage for this trait in PvE.
• Primal Reflexes was removed and new trait was created to replace it: Scavenger Strike. Imo, Skirmishing had too many defensive traits (suggestions) on adept level, so I wanted to add some offensive suggestions there aswell.
• Beastial fury now procs on now removed Primal Reflexes’ effect.
• Moment of Clarity was reworked to remove a condition instead of giving attack of opportunity on interrupt because the old condition removal trait Cleansing Accuracy (removes conditions on crits) was replaced by Trap Potency.
• Old trait suggestion Dryder’s Defenses was resurrected to fill the GM trait opening Trap Potency left in WS.
• Some numbers were tweaked and alternatives added.

Guess that’s all. I’m still not happy with Remorseless so there might be some changes to that coming later. As always you can leave your own trait suggestions down below.

IMO, Remorseless just doesn’t have that Grandmaster Trait feel to it. I made a suggestion regarding Remorseless in my trait rework thread so I’ll just quote myself here.

Marksmanship:

Adept Minor Trait – Opening Strike: Apply 5 stacks of vulnerability for 10 seconds with your first strike when entering combat. This effect recharges every 60 seconds or when you reset combat.
Master Minor Trait – Remorseless: Regain Opening Strike when you kill a foe.
Grandmaster Minor Trait – Sundering Strike: You and your pet deal 5% more damage to vulnerable foes.

elprimo.4398:

Maybe not reveal them but what about chasing. therefore at least you would be able to teel if the thief ran away or is about to back stab you so atleast you have a window for dodging or something.

Interesting idea, but this would be even more powerful counter vs. thieves. I could just send my pet to track the thief and it would transmit his location to me AND all of my allies. You could effectively kill the thief just by following the pet and swinging the air. It’s a fitting suggestion to pet-related traits but I don’t believe anti-stealth traits like this are the answer to stealth-problems.

Laiboch.4380:

It would also be nice to have the option to not use a pet at all. Giving the Ranger an over all boost in damage.

As a veteran GW1 ranger, I can understand the frustration pets can cause, but I would like to remind everyone that Anet has made very clear statement that they want pets to be integral part of ranger. I can see permastow with no bonuses being a possibility at best, but no way we are going to get boosts from not using our profession mechanic. Sorry to be so blunt about it, but I would like to keep pets in the mix when theorizing about ranger traits.

And keep those trait suggestions rolling! Awesome to see some feedback from the ranger community!