(edited by neromir.8349)
Showing Posts For neromir.8349:
We recognize there are a number of issues with the pet AI and general functionality, so that is something that will come first. Rangers are first and foremost a pet class,
I’m not necessarily opposed to the idea of pets remaining the primary mechanic of the class, but in order for this to work, the pet must be fundamentally controllable by the player. Ideally the player would have a range of control options from course-grained to fine-grained, where if the player wants to, they can leave a bunch of things up to the AI, but if the player doesn’t want to, they can choose to micromanage the pet.
The fundamental issue is this: the AI is almost certainly going to be far worse at doing what I want it to do than I will be at making it do what I want it to do. Please provide me the capability to override the AI and make the pet follow my orders exactly as my character does. If you can do that, I have no problem with the pet. If that is not do-able, then we will probably continue to have issues with the Ranger underperforming other classes and being frustrating to play.
but they are also great skirmishers and some of the best sustained long range damage.
Again, not necessarily a problem in itself, but affected by other issues in the game: sustained damage currently means nothing in non-PvE. As a Ranger, I do not have the capability to either survive long enough for the sustained damage to matter, or to consistently position myself relative to my opponent for the sustained damage to matter. This is particularly true in WvW— in my experience (other than pitched zerg fights, like zerg vs poorly-manned tower), most engagements last a minute or less, at which point the outcome is decided because you’ve been closed on or most of your group has been downed. Sustained damage doesn’t really fit into that time-window because you’re already being overwhelmed by the time it comes into play. Please keep this in mind while considering this being one of the core ideas behind the class.
Specific Game Mode
WvW (I primarily play PvE, but am trying to get into WvW)
Proposal Overview
I feel that the Ranger is fairly strong in PvE, however, in WvW it seems to fall flat comparatively.
It was stated that the Ranger is intended to have some of the highest single target and sustained damage of any class; it does not seem to fit that at all, at least in WvW. This proposal aims to correct some of those issues while staying in step with the design philosophy of the class.
Goal of Proposal
To make the Ranger a stronger class in WvW, through improvement to the pet as well as make it actually behave in accordance with the stated design philosophy.
Firstly, in order to be an effective single-target damage dealer in WvW, burst damage is needed. That is fairly lacking. Sustained damage is, while nice, usually not effective in ending a fight before a target can escape or kill you. Alternatively, survivability and/or speed is needed to make the sustained damage aspect of the design work.
As it stands, pets are a major hindrance— they cannot be effectively sent to slow an enemy down (they cannot damage a moving target well) and are easily killed because they cannot dodge, particularly against AoE, making them an extreme liability in group combat. Given the design philosophy, one might expect that rangers could form an assassin-like squad and be used to take out key members of opposing worlds using their high range and damage to conduct faster strikes. Unfortunately, in practice, this isn’t do-able. Rangers mobility is dramatically affected by the pet— in order to slow a Ranger sufficiently to catch and kill him, all an opponent need do is attack the pet and the Ranger is instantly reduced to combat speed, making escape impossible or insuring the opponent’s own escape. Meanwhile, the pet is generally unable to retaliate due to targeting problems.
Proposal Functionality
The Ranger should be given additional burst capability. The longbow damage increase with range was a good step in the right direction, but it is problematic for a couple of reasons: A Ranger who has traited to increase his longbow range cannot auto-attack at maximum range— it constantly cancels, forcing you to manually press the button for each individual attack. Additionally, a Ranger at maximum range cannot participate in his group boons at all, further weakening him and making him an easy target. The long bow should have the traited max-range fixed, as well as doing maximum damage at all ranges allowing the Ranger to choose which range they wish to engage at, while applying other conditions at longer range (such as proposed by mtpelion.4562 on page 1)
The pet issues could be fixed by adjusting pet melee targeting range and increasing the Ranger’s control over the pet. Currently the only options for control are “attack my target”, “return to me (and do nothing until you receive another order)” or “don’t attack anything and stand around”. Adding a “guard me” option where a pet will attack opponents entering a certain range would be extremely useful in helping a Ranger survive, and perhaps allowing them to focus on a distant target while not leaving themselves completely defenseless. (Note: the Guard utility skill seems to be nice for this, although I never have the utility slots available to use it. This should not be required to use up a utility skill.)
It would also be useful to be able to set the guard range of the pet; something like telling it to stay within a particular radius of the player to facilitate tighter maneuvers. Perhaps ranges like “distant” (perhaps roughly the radius of Barrage; I have seen my pets sit at this range occasionally), “two body lengths (ish)”, and “sit on my foot”
Associated Risks
Increasing the Ranger’s single-target effectiveness will change the WvW landscape somewhat. I do not see this as a problem, since currently the Ranger is widely regarded as weakest in WvW (by a large margin), but there are some balancing concerns here.
Another note
This is for all modes: It would be nice if some long-standing issues were corrected with pets in general. In beta, pet names were remembered across change-outs (not swaps, but actually using the pet management menu to select different ones). This has never been brought back since beta, and along with general pet deficiencies, the pet mechanic feels like an afterthought to players. It would go a long way to helping that feeling if some of these problems were resolved.
(edited by neromir.8349)
This has been irritating me as well. I’d like to hear if this is planned to be fixed or “working as intended” as claimed by another player above (which frankly I find ridiculous, being a software developer myself).