Guild Wars 2

Not sure how I feel about the response regarding pets. We’ve been told that pets are a staple of our class and what makes us unique yet it’s broken and it’s not going to be looked at any time soon. Disappointing to say the least given the state of Rangers since release.

The GS Traits in Nature Magic should be moved to Skirmishing, since it focuses on dealing damage anyways.

Cheers for the duels last night on Gbl. Will be mostly roaming solo this week so hope to see you out there with my rainbow warrior lol

NvN.4321:

I flipped entire UW border with 3 guys only this morning.
I’ll emphasize this to avoid further confusion – 3 GUYS ONLY.
I saw only 2 UW invaders, trying to defend briar. After that – nothing.

I’m eager to hear excuse for this.

I know that might be new for you but have you ever heard of the concept of Real Life ? People who live by that might be sleeping on a saturday morning.

It´s really interesting that you think other servers have to excuse themselfes while you are doing stupid pve stuff on the map.

Seriously Jon. With all changes that you could make and you want to butcher the GS chain, which is the sole reason that a ranger can run around in a zerg in WvW (with his pet dead, obviously).

If you want to focus your attention on GS, you can either add some range to Hilt Bash, because it’s impossible to hit a moving target with it or you could buff the #1 chain damage a little bit, or simply give the Two-handed Training trait 10% damage instead of 5 because rangers are in dire need a melee option to do decent damage outside of the clunky sword (even if it’s working as intended and some people like it, it does not change the fact that is not easy to use).

And as many people have already said in this post, the main problem with power rangers is being pigeon holed into using lackluster traits in Skirmishing while Marksmanship is bloated with useful traits for an archer/power build.

It still boggles my mind that a ranger is still handicapped in WvW because we can’t use our pets effectively. In a keep siege/defense you can’t hit enemies with it so it’s a mere condition removal tool (because we are kind of forced into Empathic Bond) and in a large scale battle it dies instantly, so you don’t even have your condition removal available.

I really hope that you get someone with some insight of the core problems of the class and try to address them instead of tweaking numbers like health of spirits or pets like the last couple of patches.

I’m sorry if the post came as rude, but I’m kind of tired of waiting for a decent patch for power rangers.

JonPeters.5630:

As I stated, this change is a lot about low hanging fruit. The problem with ranger is things that are good we don’t want to overpower and the things that are not as good are difficult to change.

This, I think, more than anything else is a huge part of the problem.

You have had 1.5 years and more to pick at these low hanging fruit. You can keep doing that if you like be that will be pretty much like rearranging deck chairs on the titanic. The issues with this class more than any other class wont be fixed without some major work on all of pets, trait lines, and weapon skills.

A fairly large number of rangers have known this and asked for this for a very long time. I’m fairly certain other developers and yourself have been aware of it too. The tweaks are nice but in the end will always fall short and this is why whenever we have some nice ranger changes the prevalent attitude on the forums is “yes, but…”

On a side note I find that the repeated shortbow nerfs utterly inexplicable. The most recent range change was especially baffling. I understand some people think that flavourwise the SB shouldn’t fire as far as the long bow, but how much sense does it make for rangers to throw axes as far as they can shoot a bow?

I think a lot of the changes for this class, including the changes proposed for this patch, testify to a real lack of vision and direction for the ranger. It would be helpful if you were to restate what your vision for the class is (i.e., those lovely paragraphs that tell players what they can expect from a class when we create a new character) and refocus your balancing efforts to make sure this is true for the ranger.

I appreciate that you feel mainland sword leads to unique and high level play as it is, this is true. However, I am not convinced that this is still good for the game. MH sword for the ranger is the only weapon where a new player needs to go change settings in order not to fall to their death and/or leap into a new pack of enemies while on low health. Overall I think that speaks to an error in design.

It’s also the only weapon that keeps you from dodging in its auto attack chain. There are ways to get around that but those are kuldges to get around an issue with the attack chain to allow you to use an extremely important functionality in combat, the dodge.

Sorry about the ramble.

The low hanging furit approach is what you’ve been doing for 1.5 years and for this class, this will not work. Please please please stop doing that, roll up your selves and and get to work on the core issues.

after thinking about it i have come to the conclusion that the endurance trait nerf is tier1 BS . Why ? Ranger has no other defensive mechanisms other then dodge . Warrior has vigor , blocks , mobility , natural health and toughness , condition removals . Thief has stealth and a lot of dodgs . Mesmer has clones and stealth.. the list goes on .

The ranger only has endurance regen . Thats it . There is no natural sustain build like most classes have , only ranger has to go heavy into defense and HPower to get it . This is 1st class tunnel visioning from the devs right here . NO, JUST NO!!!

JonPeters.5630:

Even though we wouldn’t do it now another shot at Greatsword to discuss

A) 1 chain NDA by giving Vigor.
B) Add evade to swoop…

Discuss?

the problem with vigor and swoop evaid: we dont have any good aoe ranged weapon so we need to stay in front line with our only mobile melee weapon with the GS. we dont have heavy armor and/or massive heal as warriors, guardians. the perma dodge is one option but a bad one. we are not dealing dmg or buff our allis while dodging. warriors without power traits have the same dmg as power rangers. if we dodge more we lose dmg. pls keep this in mind. we need an elementalist like aoe/support or warrior like dps/armor/cc or something the mix of it. the dodge is only good for guardian because it heal mass and ele for effects.

Remember when GS’s auto attack was nerfed by 50% during BWE2? It is viewed as a defensive weapon since then, despite the fact that Anet keep buffing maul to an insane amount.

Also, some our traits need to be merged together.

*Piercing Arrow with either Eagle Eye or Quick Draw,
*Signet Mastery with Beastmaster’s might (Necro already have this, and it gives 3 might stacks instead of 1)
Etc.

Adding it to this thread just to be thorough:

Correct the Stow/Unstow Pet functionality to not work in combat and for stowed pets to STAY STOWED until we call for them.

Then replace Skirmish 5 (the minor trait) with:

Lone Wolf: While your pet is stowed, you gain +25% damage.

With all the GS talk going on, I wanted to stop by an add my $.02

Ranger GS has the most diverse skill bar of any weapon in the game. It is, without a doubt, my favorite single weapon on any class. It may be a touch weak in some areas (dps), but it has some very attractive features:
-An AOE autoattack with a very wide angle (180 deg).
-An extremely long range leap on short cooldown.
-A block combined with a strong counter.
-A near-instant on demand interrupt.

It would really be a shame to lose any of those features- although to be fair I don’t think anyone has suggested otherwise.

On the 1-evade: I use GS as an attrition weapon, with supplemental damage from pet and traps while I use the GS to control the fight. It’s unique among melee weapons in this ability. The 1-evade helps with this, simply by stopping a hit here or there and reducing total damage taken over a fight. And that’s not counting it’s potential with well timed dodges. I say keep it.

The weakest skill on the bar is probably Maul GASP!. Yes, it’s a great damage spike, but that’s all it is. It’s nothing more then a button you hit whenever it’s cooldown is up. If there’s any functionality that needs to be added to the weapon, I suggest putting it here. For example, replacing Vulnerability with a Blind would force you to chose between the DPS or saving it as a defense. Side note, I actually miss the Bleed on it. It synergized with a trap/crit/condi build and swapping it for Vuln made it significantly weaker.

The biggest problem with GS is that it’s a defensive weapon, and not the offensive smasher that most people think of with 2 handers. I actually like it for exactly that reason, but the perception of it is coloring peoples view of it’s balance. Also, as a defense/control weapon, it relies heavily on pets for it’s DPS. Conveniently, since you are the tank when using GS, it allows you to use a high DPS pet. Fixing the pet movement AI so they can apply their damage properly and making them stay alive in AOE will do more for the GS then anything you do to the GS itself.

Atherakhia.4086:

The frustration is now doubled because they know about the problem and can’t fix it in the forseeable future.

Actually the frustration is finally over. Before we really didn’t know if they were able/planning to adress pet issues any time soon or not.
As the pet issues are too complex to fix for them and no improvements aren’t coming any time soon people can finally let go and play some of the other professions that arent broken to the core

Possible Greatsword improvements

Crippling Throw 1200 range up from 900. I mostly only use it to stop people who are running away, but 900 is kind of short range for that.

Hilt Bash Attack of Opportunity given to Ranger instead of pet (or to both). Maybe increase its range if that’s possible. Or maybe make it always stun and not require flanking and increase stun duration without Grandmaster trait.
Or a knockdown… yes I’d like that more than stun/daze. Just don’t make it a knockback.

Evade on Swoop is welcome, but not at the cost of it being removed from chain 3. It’s a good skill as-is though. It’s a Leap finisher and a gap closer and an escape tool.

Maul could use a Blast Finisher. I’m not a fan of using warhorn nor drakes, so I personally rather have it on Maul.

Yea, I did a Trait post a while back, I was working on a pet one… But I got lazy and didn’t finish it, But to give you an idea

This is just for bears

Bears

A. Brown Bears
Shake it Off – Cures 3 Conditions Now
Bite – Casts Regen on itself (No Change)
Slash – Applies 1 Vulnerability to the Target for 5 Seconds
Defy Pain – No Change

B. Black Bears
Enfeebling Roar – Strips 2 Boons from Targets in 600 Radius (20 Second Cooldown)
Bite – Steals 2 Boons from the Target (25 Second Cooldown)
Slash – Applies 1 Vulnerability Stack to the Target for 5 seconds
Defy Pain – Converts Conditions on itself into Random Boons (45 Second Cooldown)

C. Polar Bear
Icy Roar – Converted to Icy Charge, Now Bullrush’s the target leaving behind a Frost Field (Think Burning Speed from Elementalists, but Frost Instead), Chill Increased to 7 Seconds. (20 Second Cooldown)
Bite – Immobilizes the Target for 4 Seconds
Slash – Applies Cripple to the target for 3 Seconds.
Defy Pain – Changed to South Paw, Knocks the Target on the Ground for 3 Seconds. (30 Second Cooldown)

D. Arctodus
Rending Maul – Change to Protective Stance, Absorbs 15% of damage done to allies in the area for 8 seconds, 30 second Cooldown.
Bite – Changed to Intercept, Charges the Ranger and Takes the Next Hit intended for him.
Slash – Applies 1 Stack of Vulnerability to the target for 5 seconds.
Defy Pain – Changed to Bodyguard Splits damage between Ranger and the itself for 5 seconds – 30 Second Cooldown.

E. Murellow
Poison Cloud – Change to Sickly Aura – now transfers 2 conditions from itself to enemies in a 600 Yard Radius every 2 seconds for 10 Seconds. (25 Second Cooldown)
Bite – Now Applies Poison and Weakness for 10 seconds (25 Second Cooldown)
Slash – Applies 1 Stack of Bleed for 5 Seconds to the target
Defy Pain – Changed to Disease Prone – Converts Boons on itself into Conditions (25 Second Cooldown)

As you can see, I’ve Made Each Bear Unique and Have a specific thing they’re good at.

Brown Bears being the Standard Bear, Black Bear Being all about Boons, Polar Bear being all about CC, Arctodus be all about Protecting its master, and Murellow Being all about Spreading Conditions.

Beastmastery

Major Traits
_______________
—Adept Traits—
Speed Training – This Trait has been combined with Commanding Voice
New Trait Added
Pet Cemetery – Whenever your pet dies, The ghost of said pet will now follow the target who killed him for 15 seconds in an unwavering rage.
Master’s Bond – This trait has been redesigned, Now increases the pet attribute by 1 for every second the pet is active in combat for a max of 25 stacks, Decays at 1 stack every 2 seconds outside of combat. Resets on Pets Death, or Pet Swap.
Shout Mastery – This trait has not changed.
Compassion Training – This trait has been combined with Carnivorous Training from Skirmishing Line, Now grants the pet health whenever it critical hits, This is based off the pet healing stat
Commanding Voice – This trait was combined with Speed Training, It now reduces pet cooldowns by 20%
Mighty Swap – This trait now grants the Ranger 3 Might stacks on swap along with the pet.
_________________
—Master Traits—
Rending Attacks – This Trait hasn’t been changed.
Stability Training – This trait has been removed.
New Trait Added
Psychedelic Truffle – The Enemies face now looks like a giant truffle to your Pig, The Pig Gains the ability to strip 2 boons from the target for 10 seconds on crit after using its (F2), 1 Boon goes to the Pet, the other goes to the Ranger.
Intimidation Training – This trait has been redesigned, Now causes the Spiders (F2) abilities to Cripple the Target, Now causes the Canines (F2) to cause 7 seconds of Weakness to all enemies hit by it. Bears (F2) ability now grants Aegis to all allies around it in a 360 radius for 5 seconds.
Vigorous Training – This trait has been redesigned Birds/Jellyfish Grant Vigor on Swap for 5 seconds, Moa’s (F2) Abilities are now Blast Finishers.
__________________
—Grandmaster Traits—
Zephyr’s Speed – This trait has not changed
Natural Healing – This trait has been redesigned it now applies to all allies in a 360 radius around the Ranger and Ranger Pet, The Ranger and Ranger pet no longer have a passive regen from this ability. To get the Regen from this ability, they must be within radius of one another.
_________________________

Minor Traits
Instinctual Bond – This trait instantly summons the pet to you on death, causes the pets next attack to daze for 1 second, grants the pet 3 seconds of quickness.
Loud Whistle – This trait has not changed
Nature’s Wrath – This trait has not changed.

Any chance Lightning Reflexes can break immob, maybe reduce the vigor a little bit? And could the cast time on Heal as One be reduced to 3/4s or at least 1s?

Nature Magic

Major Traits
____________
—Adept Traits—
Circle of Life – This trait has been redesigned, Causes a Healing Spring on the area of the death of the Ranger and the Ranger pet.
Concentration Training – This trait has not changed
Nature’s Bounty – This trait has not changed
Spiritual Knowledge – This trait has not changed
Strength of Spirit – This trait has not changed
Nature’s Protection – This trait has not changed
___________________
—Master Traits—
Nature’s Vengeance – This Trait now also causes the pet to leave a combo field based on which spirit died, Stone Spirit leaves a Smoke Field, Frost Spirit Leaves an Ice Field, Sun Spirit Leaves a Fire Field, Storm Spirit Leaves a Lightning Field.
Evasive Purity – This trait has not changed.
Two handed Training – This Trait now also grants Might for 5 seconds on critical hit attacks for Greatsword/Spear
Enlargement – This Trait has been removed
New Trait Added
Reflective Personality – Whenever you Block or Reflect an attack, You Enrage your pet causing it to grow in size, and grant fury/might for 5 seconds to those around it in a 360 radius. This has a 1 Second ICD.
_________________
—Grandmaster Traits—
Spirits Unbound – This trait has been redesigned, Spirits can now move freely, Whenever a spirit dies it removes 2 condition from allies in a 360 radius around it. This opens up Condition Removal for Spirits specs, and Makes Ranger spirits more useful for zerg fights when following the ranger. It also keeps with more Active Control.
Nature’s Voice – This trait has not changed.
______________________

Minor Traits
Rejuvenation – This trait has not changed.
Fortifying Bond – This trait has not changed.
Bountiful Hunter – This Trait has been redesigned, you and your pet now do 2% extra damage for each boon you have.

Wilderness Survival

Major Traits
______________
—Adept Traits—
Soften the Fall – This trait has not changed
Healer’s Celerity – This trait now grants 5 seconds of stability along with swiftness on reviving a target
Shared Anguish – This trait has been redesigned, This now grants the pet Aegis for 10 seconds whenever it receives cripple/chill/immobilize. This has a 30 second ICD.
Vigorous Renewal – This trait has not changed.
Expertise Training – This trait has been changed, Now increases the pets condition damage by 30 each time it applies a condition for a maximum of 25 stacks, This Decays at 1 second very 2 seconds outside of combat, This resets on Pet Swap or Pet Death.
Wilderness Knowledge – This trait has not changed.
__________________________
—Master Traits—
Offhand Training – This trait has not changed
Oakheart Slave – This trait has not changed
Hide in Plain Sight – This trait now allows you to move while Camouflaged, 30 second ICD still in effect.
Martial Mastery – This trait has not changed.
________________________
—Grandmaster Traits—
Empathetic Bond – This now transfer’s a condition to your pet whenever you evade an attack, This can only happen once every 2 seconds (So a bunch of people spamming attacks don’t instantly removal all conditions on you), This removes the Rangers more passive condition removal, and instead moves it towards a more active role. Things like Lightning Reflexes, Shortbow, Sword/Dagger become condition removal abilities.
Barkskin – This trait has not changed.
__________________

Minor Traits
Natural Vigor – this trait has not changed
Companion’s Defense – this trait has not changed
Peak Strength – This has been changed to 80% health.

Skirmishing

Major Traits
_______________________
—Adept Traits—
Pet Prowess – This Trait has not changed
Sharpened Edges – This trait has been increased to 2 seconds duration.
Trapper’s Defense – This Trait now also lays frost trap along with spiked trap
Primal Reflexes – This Trait has not changed
Companions Might – This Trait has not changed.
Agility Training – This Trait has not changed.
__________________
—Master Traits—
Carnivorous Appetite – This trait has been combined with Compassion Training in Beastmastery line.
New Trait Added
Excessive Baggage – You now drop a random trap at your location when you dodge, This has a 15 second ICD.
Trapper’s Expertise – This has been combined with Trap Potency
Honed Axes – This Trait now grants the Ranger 5 seconds of might on axe critical hits, increases axe critical damage by 10%. This opens up Axe/Axe Builds to multiple specs.
Quickdraw – This Trait has not changed
__________________________
—Grandmaster Traits—
Moment of Clarity – This Trait has been redesigned, Currently this trait is ok only if you’re Asura and have access to Technobabble, Making a Grantmaster trait reliant so much on a racial ability is silly. Keeping with granting Rangers more Active Condition removal this trait now removes 2 Conditions from the Ranger when he Interrupts a target. Dazes and Stun Duration are increased by 50%. This makes weapon attacks such as the longbow knockback, path of scars, shortbow and great sword dazes as active condition removals for the Ranger.
New Trait Added
Flight Control – This Trait has replaced Trap Potency which was combined with Trapper’s Expertise, This Trait increases Shortbow/Axe Mainhand range to 1200.
_________________________

Minor Traits
Tail Wind – This trait has not changed
Furious Grip – This trait has not changed
Hunter’s tactic – This trait has not changed

Going to add these to this post, maybe give you some ideas on Traits, this post was made a while back, and some of these wouldn’t work anymore.

Marksman

Major Traits
__________________
—Adept Traits—
Steady Focus – This Trait needs no change
Malicious Training – This Trait needs no change
Keen Edges – After recent patch, this Trait is now perfect
Signet Mastery – This Trait has been combined with Beastmaster’s Might Trait
New Trait Added
Poison Tipped Arrow – Longbow/Shortbow now has a chance on crit to apply a 3 second Poison to the target
Predator’s Instinct – This has been changed to a 3 second immobilize when the target drops below 25% health.
Beastmaster’s Bond – This talent now also grants you 3 seconds of stability when your pet reaches 50% life.
_____________________
—Master Traits—
Spotter – This Trait no longer needs a change after the last patch
Piercing Arrows – This Trait has been combined with Eagle Eye Trait
New Trait Added
Horn Mastery – Hunter’s Call now Dazes the target for 2 seconds, Call of the Wild now grants 10 seconds of Retal to your pet.
Beastmaster’s Might – Has been combined with signet mastery trait, now grants 20% reduction in signet cooldowns along with the 3 stacks of might for 15 seconds.
Eagle Eye – Now grants shortbow/longbow/harpoon the ability to pierce target’s, increases Longbow/Harpoon Range, Increases Longbow/Harpoon damage.
______________________________
—Grandmaster Traits—
Signet of the Beastmaster – This Trait has been redesigned, Signets no longer require this trait to grant the active to the Ranger, This opens up Signet usage to other builds as currently most don’t even pop signets they have due to it only working on the pet. This Trait now Coverts 1 condition into 1 boon on the ranger, and 2 conditions into 2 boons on the Ranger Pet on Signet Use. This change gives the Ranger ranger more active condition removal instead of relying on passive condition removal.
Remorseless – This has been redesigned, Your pet now consumes a condition on itself every 5 seconds, Causes your pet to have a 15% chance to cleave on critical hits, Your pet now applies 5 stacks of Vulnerability on its next attack each time it consumes a Condition.
________________________

Minor Traits
Opening Strikes – Alpha Training has been combined with this trait.
Alpha Training – Your pets opening strike now grants 3 stacks of might to all who are 500 radius around him.
Precise Strike – This Trait has not changed

JonPeters.5630:

OGDeadHead.8326:

JonPeters.5630:

No because in order for the creatures to attack they are going to use animations. For example I’m not going to spit fire breath out of a drake without it using its fire spitting animation.

Add quickness to F2.

Quickness is not the problem. The problem is the server delay which would also have to wait for in order to get quickness applied.

Well something has to give. Players are suffering because you guys won’t allow the skills to function without the animation. What if you change the concept of the animations?

For example… Ranger hits F2. It puts a Howl buff on the Wolf for 1 second. After the buff fades, it AE fears and plays a animation of a wolf howl much in the same way when we use Horn #5?

You could do this with every attack. A drake head appears spitting fire/frost/lightning/rings. Owls could show a large owl swoop by with 2 slashes coming out etc. VEry ‘final fantasy’eque’.

Evade on swoop is a fantastic idea but it’s small beans… Our core mechanic is broken and half of our utilities are too situational

The vigor will not make up for the survivability loss of removing the evade. If yo nerf survival, you need to significantly bring up offense so we can kill before being burst down.

Also, swoop doesn’t need an evade. The problem of the greatsword is uptime on targets with swiftness or when you are snared. So give swoop either a swiftness proc or a 1 second root or a 6 second cripple.

The primary ranged weapons are not a mix of aoe and single target. They are 99% single target with a single long cd, low impact AoE. You can’t honestly call poison spread aoe with its miserable damage, and the same goes for barrage with a long cd and low damage compared to warrior longbow or ele staff.

And let’s be honest. What’s holding AI down on the priority list is spvpers burning hatred for AI. That’s fine and dandy, if you hadn’t been set on releasing a class whose design and mechanic is balanced around AI!

JonPeters.5630:

Even though we wouldn’t do it now another shot at Greatsword to discuss

A) 1 chain NDA by giving Vigor.
B) Add evade to swoop…

Discuss?

The removal of evade from the auto-attack chain would only create a weaker weapon without some significant changes, not just a boon, condition, or whirl finisher. One thing I can think of that it really needs, and that players have been asking for since release, is more damage.

The elephant in the room not being discussed here is how with the release of ascended items we are losing out on scali.g because pets at 80 were designed with exotic stats in mind. Now as warriors and every non minion class improves at full, we only improve at a fraction of that amoint since pets don’t sce with gear upgrades.

Man that would be awesome. And whacky!

JonPeters.5630:

I just had a wacky idea …

I just had a wacky idea also !

How about Anet re-building this profession from the ground up with proper traits, skills utilities and pet AI so it actually has a role in this game!!

Pretty wacky, eh??