Guild Wars 2

Combat should be turn based like it was in the old days! Chess before reaction speed. Darn kids changed everything we created with their darn new technologies. (Pulls up socks to knees with sandals and goes back to complaining about government and prostates).

Yasha.5963:

Shiren.9532:

I think eagle eye is a horrible trait. The increased range on the shortbow definitely matters but on the longbow it hard marginal use in WvW and doesn’t really matter in PvE unless you want to lame world bosses by standing outside their maximum range. Currently Eagle Eye competes with both piercing arrows (fundamental for effective bow use in PvE) and Spotter (the most useful tool a ranger has to contribute to a group). It has even more competition if you use signets, one of the few viable power builds.

Allowing eagle eye to boost the shortbow range to it’s former not OP state would solve nothing because the 20 and 30 point traits in marksmanship are already loaded with some of the most important DPS traits a bow ranger has. Eagle Eye needs to be merged with Piercing Arrows or Quick Draw (or both) in addition working with a shortbow. All three combined would probably be too powerful, but all three on their own is underwhelming and bloats rangers with weak trait choices.

Yes, I totally agree with this, and I think given the huge nerfs to ranger it would make a lot of sense. It would make running a power/bow build much more attractive if those traits were merged.

You get more damage with extra range and stacking damage can work well. The range does allow better elevated perches in wvw esp in the new design. I agree we have too many key traits in our power line and not enough in others.

Agreed. They can play with any weapon they want, build, style. However, the ranger DID join a team, so there is some balance. If the team asks you to drop a healing spring on melee, you should. If the team asks you to get spirits in range, send your pet in etc., be a team player.

If the team kittenes and moans that you have the wrong gear, play style, pets, or color scheme, what the heck are they doing pugging?

I would trade all of the above for the following mechanic/s:

Long Draw Using the “range meter” of siege weapons, a ranger can increase the damage of each auto bow (short and long) attack by up to 200% but at a cost of cast time tbd how much time.
Condition:
1) Once you begin a Long Draw you are rooted until the shot hits the target and are subject to double damage.

This would be a “I saw you first” way of dropping enemy health quickly.

Single Focus: With your pet on GUARD, you can direct more focus to precise ranged shots and critical blows with melee weapons. All ranged weapons get a 50% more critical damage. All melee weapons get 50% more critical chance.
That isn’t quite 1:1 return on damage for the pet but it can be boosted by the right type of build (zerker etc) and signals.

a. It takes 10 seconds to get a pet “off guard”. You lose your single focus immediately.

What if dodge creating a couple second immunity to a pet? That could add some significant but not over the top help keeping the pet alive.

Range focused- High single focused damage at range
Susceptible to thieves
Elemental/Mesmer melter
Pet class
Moves a little faster than other classes in combat (keep away defense)
Squishy

Rangers should be a little bit faster than most races. We evade, we range and we move a little faster in most MMOs. Seems odd to me all the classes that get swiftness BESIDES rangers. Would love a 25% movement speed minor trait as well as using hunter’s shot (whether it hits or not shouldn’t matter if it goes on cooldown) to give pet and ranger swiftness.

I mean rangers should be able to escape a bit better.

I guess I can +1 this as an option. But if it became a situation where pets never got fixed and you had to play no pet, then I would -1000 it. At the end of the day, this was supposed to be a pet class. Would be disappointed if they didn’t fix the pets to make them work vs totally give up with this option. Yet, no pets might be better than the ones we have. So between what should be done and what could realistically be done. . . .

With a few modifications, this could work.

Make pets immune to damage when they are on Avoid Combat Mode.

IDEA: Pets only are at risk when you send them into combat. You can protect them from dying with a safe retreat BUT you lose their ability to fight for a period of time (cool down).

ISSUES/RESOLUTIONS:
1) Pets should no longer be able to “Attack My Target” when in “Avoid Combat” mode. This action should immediately place them into combat mode. In short, the journey to the character or mob you want Fluffy to attack should put pet in danger UNLESS you as the ranger are traveling to the mob/character and Fluffy is just following along. THEN, I think it is ok for the pet to get close without taking damage. They can just focus on killing you.

2) Pets could be switched to “Avoid Combat” to avoid dying. Ok with me. They won’t be doing damage. There should be a cooldown between modes of say 5-10 seconds to avoid rapid back and forth switching. Cool down should be linked to pet swapping time.

3) In PvE, you have to make sure the pet doesn’t stay aggroed when in immune mode. That would be game busting (even though I hate PvE). So “Avoid Combat” would need to make the mob completely ignore the pet and attack YOU. I’ll let PvEers add any potential exploits that need fixed.

4) F2 skills. You either say “ok to allowing F2 skills to be used while pet is immune”, OR “F2 skills can’t be used in Avoid Combat Mode” OR “Only if an F2 skill damages an enemy does it put the pet into Guard mode”. Remember, you can’t send the pet in (unless it is following you) in “Avoid Combat” mode (see rule #1). I fully support making F2 skills usable while in immune mode (if doable from coding). The enemy would have to come to me or I would have to go to it. Fluffy can’t “Attack My Target” without going into “Guard” mode.

Thoughts?

Thefantasticg. I understand. And then there is the issue of balancing spvp, wvw, and PvE. After all, this game was built on a pvp model. So DPS balancing at a 1:1 ratio more or less would kill pet usage. That would be overkill.

I really think they are going to need to figure out quick and dirty steps to make pets more playable. The trouble in part is how you make them less broken in say PvE may make them too powerful in PvP. That is a classic problem this game faces.

1. LB to 1500
2. SB to 1200
3. Pets Take 1/3 AE when not in combat with enemy (e.g. includes moving to enemy)
4. Longer duration for ranger conditions than most other classes (traps, traits, weapons)
5. Review of weapons in following order:
a. Longbow
b. Axe
c. Shortbow

They are not working as well as intended.

The perma stow option could work if it was not a 1:1 ratio. Make it that and my guess is you would have too much damage and, at the very least, too little incentive to play with pets out. If it was 1/2 of the 40% (or whatever ANET holds the number to be) of the total damage that could work much better.

We won’t be given an option to have our cake and eat it too. The buffs proposed require trade offs. They are not insubstantial benefits as a whole. Nor do they solve all problems. But they are a simple buff with a simple explanation. Those are the most likely.

It is critical for ANET to be able to explain to the rest of the player base a concise reason for the change. Nothing is more concise than moving ranges to standardized 900/1200/1500. This will have consequences.

I am fully aware that Offhand Training improves AOE and this is the critical element for one ability Torch 5. Unintended consequence but one worth the changes proposed. One could ask that Offhand move to improving duration of boons/effects instead of range/AOE or maybe ask for AOE + improved duration. Simple would be duration only.

I am also fully aware that this would limit Swoop (not by much) and offhand slow down a fleeing target stuff (but your bow would do that better now). Trade offs have to have some pain.

Let’s play a little game. Rank the following changes from -10 OMG that would kill my class to 10 OMG that would be awesome. 0 is meh doesn’t do a thing.

1. Traited Traps go to 900 (5 most rangers. 7 Trap rangers)
2. SB goes to 1200 (7)
3. LB goes to 1500 (9)
4. Swoop to 900 (-5 if you melee this is the longest range closer)
5. Offhand goes to 900 with no trait to improve (-2 because now you have great bow range. Only impacts pure melee rangers for them it is situation and only -4)

On whole the positives outweigh the negatives substantially in my personal opinion. All other opinions welcome.

Rangers suffer from not being able to “box” the ranges of their combined SKILLS and WEAPON SKILLS into 3 options that have consistency around playstyle and weapon choice.

Improvements would be (in order of preference):

1. Make traited traps 900 vs 600.
2. Move SB to 1200 so it doesn’t share with axes and offhands (which is a little odd that I can trait a torch to go farther than a shortbow)
3. Increase LB to 1500 in general. (They acknowledge the weapon needs help). Ranger needs to be able to play keep away or decide when and where to fight (with all the swoops and evades to stay safe)
4. Move trait (Eagle Eye) that is 5% increase in range and damage to 5% increase in damage and 5% increase in crit chance.
5. Lower Swoop to 900 (it is not a bow so should fall in the lower range category)
6. Standardize all off hand ranges to 900 (most are) and limit the ability to increase them thru traits.
7. Change Off Hand Training to do 5% more damage as a replacement for range.

In short, all range for rangers should be based on 900 (non bow)/1200 (short bow)/1500 (long bow).

Thoughts?

Not showing that Concentration increases duration at all “boons applied by your pets last longer” Not according to my watch

And even if the red moa isn’t getting my stats, the tooltip says 19 3/4 secs of fury. It provides 13.

Tooltip shows that with full pts in nature a red moa should provide 19 3/4 sec of fury (given bonus to duration I guess). It provides 13.

Adding the skill pet boons last longer does nothing.

Known problem?

I guess I simply like bows. I also have a bit more berserker in me than bunker. Pets are fun for the utility but I tend not to want to rely on them for my damage.

Trying to balance the fact one weapon is a bit more condition focused and the other more power/crit. I guess I could go axe/offhand range but I just hate to be in melee. And frankly, I really like the LB generally because of the range so it would be SB or Axe/offhand and that doesn’t help my condition v power problem. Old farts need more time to react you know!

30/25/15 or 30/20/20 seem my “go to” builds. I do like the attack of opportunity ability but it isn’t worth the protection or extra WS trait I find. If I liked a GS it would be.

Likewise, I constantly am debating whether to use the berserker amulet in spvp or the rabid one for more condition damage vs crit damage. SB conditions. LB power. Sigh.

Anyone have an idea for spvp. I can modify it for wvw. Don’t do much PvE except to get laurels for ascended gear frankly.

Look guys. Spirits were not and still are not the only way to play a ranger. Fact is, for many, the changes changed little. In some ways, they help the non-spirit meta ranger. I can see slotting a single untraited spirit on a 25 sec timer for the quick boost. So, I’m finding that I slot (or at least am playing around with) one spirit. I cast them before a fight and try to get the bonus (burning, damage, etc). I just wish I could self-destruct a spirit to trigger the 25 second timer for multiple fast fights.

We are resilient because we have to be, not because we chose to be. There lies the problem. We are truly underpowered with a few people learning to make due. . . despite. . . the weakness. Is it playable? Sure. Is it enjoyable going up the steep learning curve to get there? Maybe/Maybe not. Is it a bit ridiculous? Absolutely.
Should we mock those who are frustrated? No more than mocking those who hate sitting in traffic while a very few actually enjoy the extra time listening to the radio and unwinding. Aye there is the rub.

Ok maybe this is not going to be implemented but when they adjust weapon damage will they think of how rangers only get 60% of total damage from weapons?

That really is all they need to do and adjust based on that.

What amazed me is how close the professions are. The least played Mesmer and Engineer are only a third smaller than the highest created class Warrior.

I wish they did the graphic in number of hours played on each class that would be far more significant.

How do you determine what is in a line? At the point in which the shot is taken? When it “travels”? I get the idea behind it, but how do you actually do the calculation given all the movement?

PB Shot with no cooldown would be overpowered. Lower I could see.
My biggest complaint with LB is the timing of the auto attack. For SB, there should be more benefit for position.

LB: The closer you are the faster the attack should be. After all, it does less damage.

For short bow, you should change the duration of the bleed. In front X seconds. Flank 1.5X. Rear 2X.

I think it is a bit easier. Barrage should do more damage the closer you are (the reverse of long range shot). That would make it interesting.

This should be one of those which is easy to fix. Just increase the rate. Inch it up until it is right or take it up and back it off if you get it wrong. Should be easy not to break anything!

The idea is great but the execution is just too finicky and difficult.

How could it work better as a mechanic?

Having to target the farthest away character is a pain in the rump.

Coders welcome. I couldn’t begin to give you a good idea on the mechanic except to say it doesn’t work well.

Upon reflection, tying pets to weapons would limit which combinations are used which is often more negative than positive.

On the other hand, adding stat bonuses to pets (or some form of bonus that doesn’t have to just be stat) would have real value.

Certainly, it could provide the benefit even if the pet were dead, but then the bonus amount would have to be somewhat lower.

OK, what are the right bonuses (by class of weapon, amount of bonus, type of bonus)?

I’d like to see:

1) Bears (X% increase in toughness)
2) Porcine (X% increase in magic find)
3) Birds (X% increase in critical chance)
4) Felines (X increase in conditional damage)
5) Spiders (X% increase in conditional duration)
6) Dogs (X% increase in Power)
7) Devourer (X% increase in critical damage)
8) Drakes (X% increase in vitality)
9) Didn’t do underwater pets

The trick is what is the X for each stat that would make us fairly compensated for a well intentioned but poorly executed pet AI?

To me:

1) Barrage should do more damage the closer you are to the target. The reverse of our first skill.
2) There should be no warning other than the ranger’s animation (no red circle way before the arrows hit which tells you to dodge roll quickly).
3) Expand the AOE area but decrease damage as you move from the point of target (based on radius to point of targeting).
4) Consider increasing cripple length in the smaller primary target zone (1/2 the radius). Keep cripple length for the secondary zone (outside 1/2 radius to point of targeting).

I’d much rather see pets that did more (e.g. picking a class added something to the ranger such as a weapon synergy or trait adjustment) than more pets.

I mean what role would the new pets play? Would they be a new class? If not a new class, what would they do differently (besides looking cool) that would compel or promote usage?

Aren’t most rangers in MMOs limited in AOE damage? In return, I find that they have very high direct range damage or greater range. Our problem is inherently our range is no better than anyone else’s (sure you can trait for a bit of it but it is not inherent) and we certainly don’t have the best range direct damage.

I still wonder why we had to reduce the range of the Short bow VERSUS increasing the range of the longbow. It certainly would be something if the LB started at 1500 (longer than anyone else) and could be traited for a bit higher. Not game breaking against real players. Might be in dungeons or PvE (I tend not to focus there so let me know).

Would they have to reduce the cooldown? I would worry about being too opportunistic within a fight. You can’t really bar switching in a fight (that is a core benefit we have) so. . . do you want someone able to pump up extra vitality at the last minute?

I think the cooldown of pets is just about right. For me, it would make a lot of pets that are suboptimal have a “second chance”.

What makes it have to be amazing? Degree of impact is a question of balance, but is the idea valid?

Link pet classes to specific weapons (bonus when your weapons aligns with pet) AND/OR have different pet classes provide stat buffs to the ranger tied to the pet class (e.g. birds could add critical damage and critical chance while bears would provide toughness and vitality etc).

Option 1. Link each weapon to a class of pet. Provide a damage benefit to that weapon for having a LIVING pet of the same kind out. (So when the pet dies, you lose the benefit).

That or you simply provide a stat benefit tied to each class of pet. For example, birds could give a boost to critical chance. Bears could give the user a toughness buff.

In short, either link weapon damage to pet choice (matching) or provide a stat benefit to the ranger for each different type of pet being out (e.g. gaining toughness for say a bear and critical chance/damage for a bird).

That would be the basis for a reasonably easy fix (getting the balance right might not be easy but doable). AND, it would synergize the pet with the ranger. It also would place a premium on pet management and keeping it alive (which may make passive mode viable more often).

Thoughts? Which makes more sense?

A slightly more interesting approach would be to have different classes of pets LINKED to different types of weapons. When you have a living pet (not a dead one) out of the LINKED variety, you get a damage modifier.

For example, birds could be spotters for longbows. Short bows could work with devourers. Felines could be tied to swords. Bears and Porcines to Greatswords.

Hard to make it perfectly logical but you get the idea.

Again, it is one of those things that could give us a fast damage increase tied to our pet mechanic.

Bow damage should improve if you are standing still by a factor (all shots 1-5).
Makes “logical” sense (lining up target, applying more tension/control, etc).

Pick the factor you think best represents the amount of damage needed as an increase. Seriously, put a number down below. I say 25%.

The key is to simply have a “rooted” stance/button which engages this multiplier.

It could take say 1.5 seconds to get into the stance (concentration time) and during the time you are in the “stance” you should be more susceptible to taking damage (not really paying attention to defense) of double whatever the damage modifier winds up being. In my case of a 25% increase to damage, the ranger would take 50% more damage.

You could limit this to the autoattack only, but then I would suggest you would want a higher multiplier and run the risk of rangers being “set it and forget it” based one shot wonders.

It is a bit wonky. Ideally, it should do 1.5X healing if pet is “alive” or some factor of bonus.

Be great to see this in a full build editor.

Skirmishing/Wilderness Survival:

The first two fit (different bonuses on swap).
The third 10% more damage on flanking seems better suited to replace Peak Strength in Wilderness Survival.

Replace Peak Strength with Speed Shot. On swap, gain quickness. Now you would have swiftness, fury and quickness and could really put some initial burst up when you swap.

Nature:

Replace Bountiful Hunter with Skilled Healer (All Heal Skills recharge 20% faster).
Fits with other 2 protection based skills.

Beastmastery:

Instinctual Bond: Change to Difficult Target: 50% of all non-melee attacks miss pet (hard to hit or thick skinned).
Nature’s Wraith: Change to Wild Aggression: Pet and Ranger do X% more damage for first Y seconds of a fight. (Help me define the variables).

Opening Strike is a class defining trait in marksmanship but hardly “defining”.

Arguably, it should be the most powerful single strike in the game.

Idea:
Each passive trait gives 1X more damage (5,15,25) (to 3X not for pet though) addition to current effect.
Drains endurance 50% for the shot.
Single target big hit to really take a lot of damage off upfront at range.

Or

You help decide what would make opening strike that amazing first hit that balances our otherwise mediocre damage?

Well this would certainly help beastmaster based rangers.

There are also necessary fixes to other lines. We don’t want to be a “one line wonder”.

Compared to my ranger, necromancer is OP. Then again, compared to my ranger. . . .

Remember at the end of the day, creating software is one part technical implementation and what part creative vision. When a creative vision just doesn’t work in a live setting, it can be harder to “get back on track”. I think the ranger was extremely well intentioned with a lot of factors that just fell flat. Now it needs a strategic vision or roadmap to get back THAT DOES NOT require excessive resources and re-engineering. The elegant proof is what has been elusive to the ranger community and ANET.

However we got here, my question is what is the SIMPLEST solution to getting rangers to relative parity, fun and having a role in all major game play styles? That would help developers I suspect.

Spirits are weak because of the tradeoff value of utilizing 2 utility slots (at least) to make a spirit build work.

What if:

1) Spirits were bundled into pairs (Storm/Frost and Stone/Sun)? Or you pick different bundles?

2) What if you only needed one button to summon one of each spirit?

Assume all other factors about spirits remain the same (Hps, functionality etc).

What would make them enticing enough to reach the tipping point of using them?
Would you use them untraited (no movement, increased radius and increased chance to proc)?
Would such a move result in your changing your build to pick up spirit based traits?

The ranger is clearly supposed to receive a substantial portion of its damage from pets.
However, pets have proven unreliable and inconsistent in providing said damage given any number of factors including:
1) AI
2) Ability to Avoid and pathing (like AI)
3) Speed at which they die
4) Animation speed etc.

So what happens and would it go to far if rangers were allowed to have BOTH pets out at the same time (so swapping provides a second set of 2 pets)? In what situations would it be quite fair and in which would it be unfair?

Roaming is an obvious situation where having 2 pets attack you would be difficult. In dungeons, WvW or even small groups, pets would still die fairly easily. OR at least, the consistency of the damage of pets would be lacking. And, frankly rangers and roaming seem to go hand in hand to me.

Scale of 1-10 how good/bad is this idea as it should be easier to implement?

Let me ask the question this way: What would throw the relative strength of spirits out of balance if they did not take physical/weapon damage (but took magical/spell damage)? Fits.

Or What would be unbalancing about allowing spirits to take NO damage but have a longer “reset” timer between usages? What would that balance of NO damage to reset timer need to be?

Part of the problem is that the ranger’s finishers don’t really seem to fit the roles we are boxed into. We just need more variety of something/anything and finishers is a start. I agree with the OP.

I don’t pretend that some of the ideas could be overkill (or they could be quite balanced) that is what ANET needs to work out with their data and analytics, but in the meantime, simple to implement ideas that MIGHT work are the best chance of getting something accomplished.

1. Balance changes are fine but not if I constantly am having to redo all my equipment. At some point, I get bored and quit playing or dread playing. Not fun.

Solution #1: Allow for the trading of “like” quality gear for different stats (including getting an enhancement token for a “like”. That way if a build like Zerker becomes less desirable for balancing purposes, the player is not penalized for changing.

2. Make pets more predictable. Nothing is more fun than things not working the way they are intended. Bugs suck.

Solution #2 Do something to make pets attack while moving more consistently. Even an over the top solution (not that we don’t need over the top help really) of increasing 360 range etc would at least not make us grind our teeth.

3. Fix Shortbow. It doesn’t like molehills.

Solution #3. No idea but at 1200 range it worked even when there was a slight elevation. Move it to 1200 at least temporarily if you can’t find a fix to the ever so frustrating obstructed bug.

4. Help us understand your vision for a ranger. We may disagree but at least we will understand. Confusion in customers is deadly.

Solution #4 Why not post a couple of builds developers anticipated as models. They don’t have to be ultra powerful, but how did you expect us to play the class. I suspect in doing so, it will help refine if traits, skills are out of place in lines/levels required.

5. Finishing is Fun.

Solution #5 We could use a bit more finishing variety. Good idea to allow for a blast finisher etc. on boards.

6. Ranger is missing a “defining moment” or set of “only me” skills

Solution #6 Next patch give the ranger something that really is “ours”. I keep thinking a ranger should be able to control the tempo of a fight. So things like adding cripple to a base attack of one weapon (longbow?) or blind to another (torch would seem logical) would be interesting. In short, what if the base attack of each weapon of the ranger created some “disability” (blind, weakness, vulnerability, cripple, etc) much like shortbow has bleed? You could add some restrictions (longbow only cripples at longer ranges etc). Then there is something a bit more unique about the ranger.

Sure we have pets but what do pets do that characters can’t? Too bad there were not pet specific conditions and boons that couldn’t be achieved by characters but that horse is out of the barn.

Therefore, I suggest our auto attacks do more than other characters. Relatively easy fix.

This also would address the issue of our sacrificing too much offense to get decent defense.

7. Matrix out the reason for taking a ranger in key situations WvW (zerg) WvW (small group), dungeons, spvp, tpvp. Did you come up with a compelling reason (not a superior but just a compelling or logical) reason. If you are frustrated creating the matrix, imagine players’ frustration.

Solution #7 Review a player generated matrix of potential roles for each scenario and gaps in our State of the Game discussion. Be prepared to discuss what can be done to provide proper roles if we provide such a document in advance of said State of the Game. Keep it to a small group/channel so it is productive and manageable.

We don’t need the TOP role, but a coherent one in each instance is critical to the fun factor. The cuteness of my birds and felines just not going to cut it with groups

Enough to chew on for now. My pet is hungry. Need to go feed her a thief.