Lets disect this shall we? I play two Rangers, Trulee Scruptious, a zerker and Robin Hoods Mum, a Condi Ranger.
We’ll be looking into some of the ranger’s less used traits and increasing both defensive and offensive options while giving a few specialized traits a bit more allure.
Looks good. I took a look at other classes traits to compare and the Ranger ones just feel so weak, with no real competition within the trait lines. Our 33% bleed was nerfed to 20% with no mention during the new trait update last year, and yes I am going to bang on about losing the Sharpening stone trait that RHM used. To be fair, Trulee’s build is quite ok (Marksmanship 3-2-3, Skirmishing 1-1-1, Beastmastery 2-2-1) She gets Call of the Wild of Pet Swap, and Piercing Arrows with increase to damage through Markmanship, Skirmishing gives bleed on crit, party Ferocity, and reduced cooldown on weapon swap (primarily for Greatsword maul). Beastmastery gives might to pet on crit, reduced cooldown and damage increase for greatsword and taunt for the pet. Overall, a build I am happy with. Markmanship Major is my only trait that I ‘just pick one’.
I would like a few tweaks to them obviously – Call of the Wild dropped to 15 second recharge so it can proc off every pet on cooldown would be very nice rather than the 30 – dont forget it went from zero to 30, remove the ‘from behind or the side’ from the Grandmaster Minor in Skirmishing so its a constant +10% crit chance, and change the the taunt recharge to something more realistic – again it went from 0 to 15, meaning you can swap pets and taunt when you want to. I understand there was abuse to this (skill cancelling?) if so, make it 2 seconds…or better still remove the skill cancelling and return these back to 0. If something is tied to a swap (weapon or pet) then it should proc when you do the action otherwise you get the weird situation where you have 4 traits selected that at times do nothing as they are on cooldown.
I was going to make a comparison between classes and traits, then I wished I had not. The Ranger and Warrior both have a similar Grandmaster trait for the Greatsword – we get a 50% chance to proc Fury for 3 seconds on a 10 second cooldwon with +5% damage. They get 5 seconds of might on a critical with no cooldown and +10% damage. We both also get 20% recharge reduction. I know which one I prefer….
Now to Robin Hoods Mum. Hers is a little messy now and doesnt quite have the synergy that Trulee has. Her build (she is exclusively used for PVP) is Wilderness 2-1-2, Skirmishing 3-3-2 and beastmastery 1-1-1. She gets regen on burning and 5% reduced damage, Condition damage increase from weilding a torch, amd Survival skills grant Fury and remove conditions. Skirmishing aids traps, +20% bleed and makes Shortbow pierce and rechage quicker and also adds some condition damage on dodge. Beastmastery traits all make the pet stronger and taunt weakness blind and taunt.
Oakheart would be good if its cooldown was reduced to 5 rather than 10 – the rest is ok. For skirmishing, Sharpened Edges returned to its old ways would be nice but would need some tweaking as it was procing a survival skill which then proc’d Condi cleanse. Hidden Barbs back to 33% and Light on your feet to remove the ridiculous dodge requirements would be nice – a flat bonus to damage and duration. Beastmastery is ok.
There you go, not asking too much am I? No seriously, I am not. Devs should know how many builds classes have to an extent. Rangers are Power or Condi – my Condi is SB/Axe+Torch compared to the meta A+?/?+T but its still condi at heart. I have not looked at the Druid traits as I am simply not interested.
In the first quarterly update, we’ll also be improving the ranger’s shout utility category, giving them more unique utility
Trulee uses two Shouts, We Heal as One and Strength of the Pack. The others are all garbage so will need to have something pretty special done to them to make them viable. However, look at We Heal as One. That was a suprise (a nice one!) and has been greatfully recieved by all (eventually!) works better in a group naturally as boons picked up by your pet copy back. Strength of the pack needs something done to it – 60 second CD for 3 seconds of stability, Fury and Swiftness? 10 seconds of might that is not exactly defined on the tooltip – it says we grant might to each other, but then says it grants might to your pet….which is it? Even the wiki does not show how many stacks, but indicates its last 8 seconds. Again lets look at the Warior – A signet that has the same 60 seconds of cooldown. That gives 5 stacks of might for 25 seconds, along with Fury and Switftmess for 25 seconds. Thats not including the passive effect of increasing Adrenaline.
Sick em – I never got this one. If you suspect someones in the area – how can you target them (unless its an AOE, sorry, this is typed up during lunch at work) to reveal them? Why does it say on the tooltip that I cannot stealth? Protect me is straight forward, but with a CD of 60 means it probably is unused in favour of Signet of Stone that has a passive ability. Guard apparently used to work properly, but the leash distance was shortened and it became not so good. I would imagine most shouts are actually used to proc Resounding Timbre to do PvE runs for map completion or something.
Robin Hoods Mum uses no shouts, so wont see any benefit from this update I doubt.
In the future, we’ll continue to explore ways to improve on the ranger’s ties to both their pets and nature.
This jut outright annoys the hell out of me. This is our ENTIRE class ‘thing’ – having a pet. And the single thing that people want updated/looked at/fixed over all else, and its to be done in the future? Amend the pet UI to group pets. Someone has done this for you – credit them and implement it. Make F2 a skill we can pick from the creatures abilities. Update the useless pets to make them viable – or just make the pets skins and select the abilities we want – some Roleplayers will have a pig no matter what you do.
We’re still looking at the druid’s viability in group scenarios and will continue to monitor its overall effectiveness, making changes where necessary.
This means we dont have a clue. We buggered up your elite spec, thought that no one could be unhappy with a healer, then realised in a game that defied the trinity and does not seperate PVP from PvX means that everyone thinks the Druids are brokeh, while the Druids are shoehorned into healing and no-one wants them, much like their Ranger cousins.
