Guild Wars 2

Sarcasm aside maybe a better solution would be to lower the base damage on crossfire have it apply bleed on strike and then have it do increased damage while ‘flanking’.

Ranger traits in general (my opinion anyway) are suffering from the fact that they were designed before the Traits were placed into Tier so now we have traits that are outright inferior to similar traits within and under the same Tier as other Profession.

Kiran.2705:

garethh.3518:

????

Balance isn’t about every class having the exact same thing as every other class.
If you want a bleed from anywhere weapon play an engi or ask for warrior condition dmg to finally be viable.

Balance isn’t about giving every class EXCEPT ONE the same thing either, so try again.

Think about how long it took them to put a Stun Break on Quickening Zephyr.
Perhaps that is exactly how Anet thinks balance works.

Manekk.6981:

I’m not so sure the 1,25s attack speed is a bug I think it is intended and the 0,75s tooltip is just old before they decided on this for balance reasons, longbow would do alot of damage with 0,75s attack speed.

Oh noes Ranger is doing damage. Can’t have that.

Lokheit.7943:

You’re a bit wrong in some points here.

Starting for the fact that while the weapon is the same, the same weapon on different professions is something completly different with the same skin. Take Axe as an example and compare it to Warrior or Necromancer (in fact Thief’s Shortbow fairest comparison would be to main hand Axe).

First of all, you use too often the “it’s spammable so it’s better” argument. Let me clarify something here:

Initiative is the Thief mechanic, and at the end is just a different approach to Cooldowns, with Pros and (unlike any other profession mechanic) Cons.

Initiative consists on “shared cooldown” between all weapon skills it has the following Pro:

- As you can keep using the same skill, you can focus on some aspect of the game and invest all your resources on that.

But it has many Cons:

- The Thief is THE ONLY PROFESSION IN THE GAME THAT CAN’T use all his weapon skills at once. There are not enough initiative points to do 2-3-4-5. While we can always use skill focusing on one aspect of the game, the “skill use rate” is inferior to other classes.

- The Thief is THE ONLY PROFESSION IN THE GAME THAT CAN’T benefit from switching to a new weapon for ready to use skills. While a D/D Elementalist will nuke you to death rotating his attunements and will have fresh recharged skills after completing a cycle, a Thief shares the cooldown of all his weapon skills IN BOTH SETS.

- When a skill just recharged for you and you use it, other skills will continue their recharge and they will keep comming over time. When a Thief blows his initiative and uses a skill that just recharged, it interrupts and resets the recharge for all of his skills.

Initiative is good for focusing your game when the situation asks for it, but it has cons and you should consider them before using that “better because spammable” argument

Now aditionally you made some wrong statements:

- First your shortbow has +300 range over us. That’s huge (a Thief can’t consistently attack someone over a WvW wall or from it with any weapon). As I said main hand Axe is a better comparison to Shortbow and it even got a bouncing auto-attack.

- The “massive AoE bleed” that you said… have you ever played Thief? It works as a melee shotgun. It can clean multiple PvE mobs and is useful for that in non dungeon PvE, but the projectile speed is as fast as a player without speed buffs. I often throw them and run to where they’re going to fall just for fun while I’m going from one place to another. If you’re detonating the bomb it’s basically effective at melee range and only against non moving targets, not as a 1200 range projectile.

In fact the beautiful part of this skill is that if you don’t detonate (not multiple bleeds and affecting a smaller area) it, it’s the best combo finisher in the game (and the best ally to Ranger’s long duration Water Field btw). But if you’re comparing damage against players, you can’t compare it with a 1200 range weapon (or with a 900 range as the effective range of it is melee).

Our Shortbow is a completly different weapon than your Shortbow. I’m not saying that yours are better or equal. As I said previously I think Ranger needs many buffs I’m not saying you can compete with Thief, but this is the wrong comparison as they’re for different stuff.

I love my Shortbow and I consider it the best Thief secondary (but not primary) weapon. It’s a great weapon for all the utility it has, but it’s the “worst” weapon to take as your primary option and build for it. This is precisely because Initiative absorbs cooldown from both sets, so generally you dont’ get benefit from switching weapons, so you keep a Shortbow on your second weapon set just for the utility it brings that you might need in different situations.

It’s not comparable to your Shortbow, no matter how UP your Shortbow might be at the moment (though from all the stuff Ranger has, your Shortbow isn’t a priority in the “get a buff urgently” list), the role is completly different.

First Initiative isn’t the thief’s only mechanic, did Steal get forgotten somehow. And to say that it is the only mechanic with Cons on the ranger forum is as close to polite provocation as I can think of.

Sure none of the professions are perfect, and with the different modes of play (PvE, WvW, and sPvP/tPvP) we are seeing more and more of the professions shortcomings.

naphack.9346:

Scott.7163:

This thread is filled with some of the most ridiculous, game breaking and just plain over powered ideas I have ever seen. Then again I guess it is a “dream” update.

Personally I would like another blast finish that isn’t on our pet and something that would actually make me consider taking spirits. Oh and if pets could move and attack that would be awesome, even if it came with a slight damage reduction.

I find it funny, I am the only one till now who actually included some nerfs in the list
The best idea so far(by far) was the one to overhaul splitblade into one projectile which splits on impact.

I just love that idea. Need more skills like that anyway.

I just find it better to not give Anet any help with nerfs design they are good enough at it on their own.

I think main hand dagger could fit that role you are envisioning Einlanzer

Traits (Need looking at as they suffered a lot during the applying of Tiers during the beta weekends)

Markmanship.
Malicious Training added effect Pets condition grant the ranger X might for Y sec (balance numbers as needed)

Piercing Arrows merged in Quick Draw add harpoon gun to list.

Beastmaster’s Might Increase the stacks of might to either 3 for 10 seconds or 5 for 5 seconds on use.

Eagle Eye add shortbow to list.

Signet of the Beastmaster replace with a Written in Stone style trait.

Remorseless: change to Regain Opening Strikes every X second in combat.

Skirmishing (Remove Traps from the line to create more synergy)
Pet Prowess additional effect pet critical hit great the ranger Attack of Opportunity

Trapper Defense Replaced with Main Hand Training Lower the cool down on sword and main hand axe skills increases damage on them by 5%)

Trapper’s Expertise Replace with Off-hand Training from Wilderness Survival

Trap Potency Replaced with Evasive Purity From Nature Magic Strengthened to a proper grand master tier trait.

Moment of Clarity add the increase to stun/daze duration to the pet as well.

Wilderness Survival

Healer’s Celerity change swiftness to 2 or 3 seconds of quickness

Shared Anquish remove

Expertise Training: additional effect pets and ranger deal additional damage to target with conditions

Off-hand Training Replaced with Traper’s Expertise

Hide in Plain Sight change list to include sink and float.

Empathic Bond Remove the transfer of Condition just have it cure 3 randoms.

Bark Skin move to Nature Magic

Nature Magic
Circle of Life Replace death with Downed and add cool down as needed

Concentration Training added effect Ranger is healed a small amount from Pet granted boons or maybe place a boon hate bonus here.

Beastmastery
Zephyr’s Speed increase quickness to 3 seconds.
Master’s Bond have it scale with time the pet is out, perhaps have this add in the addition dependency on the pet for scaling
Shout Mastery renamed Companion Mastery reduce the recharge of Pet Skills
Compassion Training additional effect increase the Rangers damage X% while pet is at 90% or greater health.

Pets
General overhaul they need skill effect that effect the ranger the way ranger attacks like hilt bash effect pets. As well as some additional AoE survival, if only in the form of distortion on recall or something to that effect.
Change in the Porcine Family have the F2 on use be replaced with environmental weapon forage while spawning one on the ground as well.

Overall a bit less dependency on the pet for performance baseline (with increases built in to the beastmaster trait line).

Greatsword: shorten the cast time/animation length on hilt bash. Maybe add some addtional damage over all still feel a bit under performing. The ability to move while using crippling throw would be nice.

Longbow: Increase on rate of fire on Long Ranged Shot, maybe add a cripple into the it at certain ranges. Increase the range on Point Blank Shot. Perhaps lowering the cool down on barrage.

Shortbow (Some honesty on why it interact with quickness the way it does if not reverting ‘animation fix’) Crossfire decrease the base damage, remove the flanking for the bleed, add additional damage on a flank. Poison Volley, make it a smaller ground targeting field.

Sword: Hornet Sting have the proper evade effect also have it be a leap finisher. Serpent’s Strike extend the duration of the evade a bit to make the skill not so easy to line of a hit on from it animation finishing.

Axe: Ricochet have more terrain base bouncing available for single target usage. Split Blade: Redesign the skill to apply the 5 stack of bleed on the main target then split from them. Winter’s Bite, have it bounce to additional targets crippling them while still having the original effect on the main target. Path of Scars needs an additional effect, cripple, confusion or daze are good options. Whirling Defense allow movement while channeling.

Warhorn: Lower cool downs. Hunters Call add a blind/chance to blind on skill. Call of the Wild increased based range have it break immobilize.

Utility Skills: Shouts regrouped as Pet skills. Signet lower cooldowns, have them effect the ranger baseline.
Guard: make it worth a space on skill bar.

Protect Me have the pet take reduce damage while this skill is being used.

Search and Rescue Increase the rate of healing.

Sick’Em remove the interaction where F2 skill cancel the effect.

Signet of Renewal: Passive Removes a condition for You and your pet every ten seconds.

Signet of Stone: Passive Static Damage reduction (off topic give that to the Warrior one as well)

Signet of the Hunt Active: Replace the Attack of Opportunity effect with a 15% increase in damage to the next X attacks

Signet of the Wild: Reduce base healing and add healing power scaling.

Spirit: Decide what they are. Are they minion/turrets or are they banners. Then fix accordingly.

Lightning Reflexes: Have it break immobilize, remove the disabling of the skill while knock downed.

Sharpening Stone: Increase the bleed damage and duration (adjusting the cooldown as needed)

Traits in next post.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Maybe a trap ranger can get a bit bursty if they hit all 3 traps at once on a glass cannon, but Ranger to me isn’t a burst class – it’s a sustain and survive class.

Since you are the dungeon go to guy how is there so little content that rewards the “sustain and survive” play style over the burst? While burst remains the method of choice amount the guild wars 2 community the Ranger and other non bursty profession will have the stigmata of being lesser options.

Dub.1273:

Warriors are very useful everywhere, one guardian is very useful almost everywhere and one mesmer is useful almost everywhere. Situational Eles are very useful. Thieves are nice too but don’t bring much to the party in fights. Rangers, Engineers and Necros just suck. I’d rather go with an open spot than taking a ranger, anytime, everywhere.

So basically any profession that does damage in a more sustained or over time manner is useless in the meta’s opinion. Seems there needs to be some adjustment to either content or the profession if that is the case.

There lies the problem the general community of the game is going to always pick the fast method burst over sustained damage in the PvE, as there are not any fights that are designed to reward that design over the other option.

After playing around on some other profession and comparing them it came to my attention that the ranger weapon skills have odd damage synergy or more the lack there of. I have encountered that usually you can look at a profession’s weapons and go "That’s good for a condition build, but these are good for a power build’ but with the ranger 6 of the 9 non-aquatic weapons offer damaging conditions (7 of 11 with the aquatics included). Of the 3 non-condition damaging offering option are a two-handed weapon, and 2 offhand weapons.

I find myself carrying all the weapons I can use on my ranger and switching them around (like the pets I use) to make the best of a situation more so than just sticking with a primary set and trying to cover with the auxiliary set.

What about the rest of the community?

At least where traits are concerned I think a lot of the problem is that originally the traits were not tiered and as such some profession where able to get effect that were deemed imbalanced. However looking at the ranger traits in general the profession’s traits are not quite on par with those of other profession within the current tier system.

At least I had the impression that WvW has no plan on being balance and would in fact use the PvE rules for differences in skills that are already in play (like how confusion does less damage to players in PvP, not sure if that is the case)

Just a thought, I know that the developer are wanting the game to work the same (as much a possible) between the mode of play however it seems as of late all the balancing is focus on the sPvP and with little to no regard for how this effect the other modes of play.

Suggestion is simple take a look at skills and traits with the entire game in mind instead of a does this break sPvP style of balance.

Just pointing out that a lot of the Ranger/engineer/necromancer posts here get moved by the moderators just so…

So we’ve had another patch.
Back to guessing what can possible happen next.

Going for specifics here not just “more (in any of its spellings) nerfs”, if you think a nerf is coming what will it be?

I am still thinking that Natural Healing will be on the chopping block sooner or later.

Shouldn’t this be in the warrior forums?

Insert ‘aquaman’ comment here.

naphack.9346:

ItIsFinished.9462:

naphack.9346:

well, before, that one minor trait was capable of up to 13.33% overall damage increase (or 10% untraited) while also giving boosts to a ton of other actions.
I actually don’t see that much of a need to bring this 5 point(!) minor trait back to what it used to be. HOWEVER, there should be some sort of compensation for it. And I do not mean greatsword.

Buff spirits, fix sick ’em queue issues, fix some quirky pet ai behaviors, buff longbow #1 or the whole weapon while we are at it.
Then we are talking.

I disagree, they clearly stated that reducing quickness down to 50% to give enemys a chance to react, but at the same time increasing the duration to compensate. All other skills were compensated EXCEPT Zephyr’s Speed. My guess is it was overlooked and they will address it.

Did they compensate Time Warp?
Your point is invalid.

Time Warp is haste without a drawback, has longest duration, works on five people and was probably most of the reason for the haste nerf to begin with so… Not really feeling your pain there.

Would you accept improvement on though and other traits/skill if it came with all the other professions gaining similar treatment?

The first one I can think of would be the Necromancers getting your 50% bleed duration?

But more to the point this is not solely a Warrior problem, but a general balance issue.

jubskie.3152:

I’ve tested Moment of Clarity with the Bone item from the boar, and it works for that

That’s about it though. It only affects a few skills, but it might be good for a stun focused build.

EDIT: it was from the boar, not the warthog

Thing with that is the boar F2 created the environmental weapon so you using it (while having the traits) is what gives it the increase duration not just the trait, so if anyone else uses the Bone it will have duration based on their stat/traits/gear

Forget baby steps Ranger seems to be set to snail’s pace.
If I recall somewhere there is a video were the developers talked about not playing wack-a-mole balancing and that no one likes for there profession to be nerfed (it may have been a second one video for the later).

Their own patch note where ranger is concerned from the BWE onward have shown that is not the case with ranger (Peter’s even joked/made light of the what they had done to the spirit based builds in the past in a State of the Game video) they have had a much heavier hand with ranger and it doesn’t seem to make any sense.

Are speed runs of dungeons part of working as intended or are they something that was unexpected and just easier to leave as is than rock the boat?

Is there any chance of either one toning down the high burst profession, giving less burst based profession access to burst builds, or improving the sustained damage to remove this overall perception (true or not) that burst is always better then sustained damage.

Blaeys.3102:

I think people are overreacting.

A few points -

1. According to the reports, it will be a new trait type, meaning not everyone will have it. You will have make a conscious decision to be a “boon buster.”

2. By selecting a trait that does this, you will, most likely, have to compromise some other aspect of your build – i.e. make a choice to be stronger in one aspect while weakening yourself in another.

3. The “improved damage per boon” is just one example. Another trait could just as easily be “gain 1 second of aegis for every boon on the enemy you hit” or “summon a jagged horror for every unique boon on your target.”

4. We haven’t even seen how this is going to be implemented yet. There is a lot they could do with this – and it will probably mean more choices for character builds, which is good thing. The reality is, we dont know.

As people might be overreacting the fact remains that they mentioned adding this design to both thief and warrior, who so far have received the better for most changes that have effected them so it will be more likely these trait will be built into as extra to traits rather than added choices.

If the spirits are to remain a source of augmentation for the ranger and his allies then they should not be attack-able provide a stat bonus if they are not going to lose the internal cooldown, maybe as mentioned before provide a combo field with active skill.

If they are going to remain attack-able then rework the spirit as a minion-esqe utility pseudo-pet and with the extra survivability that role demands.

Atherakhia.4086:

My argument is that things with very similar function all work differently. Look at Swoop, Ride the Lightning, and Rush. All have similar damage, range, and cooldown… except the Warrior is the only class in the game where their movement abilities are affected by movement impairing effects.

One of these things is not like the other…. To the point it’s not Rush, in fact it’s Ride the Lightning as far as I have experienced with movement impairing effect.

The cool downs on those really strong active effect come with more than negate the balance issue of signet on ranger without having to select a grandmaster trait to just get 3 of the 4 to act like normal signets.

Maybe the better solution is to just rename/retype the signets as well as the shout as they only function in the barest definition of skills in the shared type.

Durzlla.6295:

Daxxter.8920:

I never said anything about moving the trap traits either, I simply want them to move quick draw in the first tier of the skirmishing tree.

No weapon mastery trait for ranger is out of the second tree, and I don’t think any prof has one in the first tier, why would bows be any different? It’s FAR too strong to be a minor.

Necromancer’s and Engineers would say otherwise.

Maybe a better way to state it is Ranger is not designed to function well in the general perception of acceptable play or Burst damage is preferred in most aspects of the game.

I think he was going for if warrior was treated as ranger has been in past patches.

Wayfinder.8452:

Aslo please avoid bringing StoG related posts to this thread. StoG is all about PvP while this thread is about PvE.

I think the information presented in the State of the Game is relevant as they have stated that currently they are trying to keep as much transparency between game modes (PvE and PvP) so that it is easier to switch between modes and still understand what is going on.

Over the past few months it has become kind of a masochistic pleasure to speculate on what the patch could bring so here we go? (Only rule is no post just stating disappointment)

My guess (may the devs prove me wrong) is that Natural Healing (beast mastery grand master trait) will no long effect the ranger bring it in line with the tool tip text.

I think any of the topic discussed in this thread were not going to be even considered for at least a month so at least we have someone bring up the fact that there are problems.

As Robert has stated he is not on the balance team (is it even a team, I was in the impression it was more of a duo, but I digress) so he can not really fail us anymore than any other person who enjoys playing ranger can.

When the other profession are facing the same type of ‘fixes’ back to back then maybe it would not seem that the developer are just focused on breaking down the ranger profession.

Right now the best thing the balance develops could do for community is just to give the Rangers a heads up on the fixes and the reasons behind them at least then it.

That being said I do in a kind of masochistic way enjoy the thread were there is speculation on were the next kick is coming.

As the title states this thread is for the discussion of grandmaster Ranger traits and how so of them do not really seem to fit the name or the expenditure required for unlocking them.

My top offenders would have to be:

Signet of the Beastmaster as it is a grandmaster trait that basically has a shared game mechanic work the same for Ranger as it does for the other profession that possess the skill type (read all but Engineer)

Remorseless effect on kill are generally weak in a lot of content as it requires getting out of combat and then back in.

What about you all which of these traits do you feel were designed below the par for grandmaster status and why?

On a final thought maybe the Ranger traits were not that out of line before the tier system of trait was added and as such were pigeonholed into categories that do not really reflect there strength of the trait.

Also just reviewed other than pistol which got 2 traits, dagger only has one, and sword is traitless. Duel wield skills have 2 traits as well.

Drawing Guy.3701:

Lol – ‘ranger range’ is 1200, traited to 1500. Even if thieves had their shorbow increased, they would still fall ‘short’ of Rangers.

Thieves are the only class in the entire game with no 1200 auto-attack range weapon (water doesn’t count) is a serious disadvantage (though Guardians pretty much also are). Ok, so thieves have cluster bomb (their one and only long range move)… which if you use at that range, takes seconds to reach the target negating any hope of it being a real DPS option. This means that they are very ineffective at helping attack people/siege on walls in WvW. Any ranged group tactics the thief doesn’t qualify for as he has 2/3rds the range of everyone else.

So I basically see two options:

1) Thief has a MASTER trait that currently gives only 5% damage. It’s completely pitiful, and justly not even remotely worth it vs other trait options. This could be boosted to increase Shortbow range to 1200 as well.

2) Give thieves a ‘sniper rifle’ or a ‘blow dart’ (if a new weapon is feasible – thrown options also come to mind, but those make sense to be limited to 600-900).

On the note of your master trait there are plenty of traits through out the profession that are weak compared to other similar traits look at Signet of Power (an adept) compared to Signet Power (necro master) and Beastmaster’s Might (Ranger master). I’d be careful what you ask for there because if they get to normalizing traits I have a feeling the thief community will be hurting a bit more for it than most.

Mostly I was curious if we will ever see gear that is Precision Major, Power and toughness minor and if so what would it be called?

What stat combo would you like to see?

Jaded.8591:

Thievies have ONE underwater elite skill.

enough said.

So does Guardian, Elementalist, and Necromancer so take that how you will.

Might be best to ask for double the critical damage/magic find on two handed as one handed weapon get double those stats.

Maybe it would be best if they just renamed all the signet (shouts as well) on ranger as a new type of skill as they do not follow the rule of the other signets, ie need a trait for the active to function on the character (but only on 3/4 of them) and all the shouts are just extra pet commands.

Title says it all.

Quarktastic.1027:

Obsidian.1328:

Bran.7425:

At one point or another we did have it and surprise it was taken away.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Antidote_Signet

LOL Did they really think that was overpowered? /facepalm

Removing all conditions on a 25 second (untraited) cooldown? I don’t know of any other class which has that much removal in a single skill.

Why would that matter in the long run there are plenty of design differences (skills/traits/etc) between the professions that are not balanced against what the other profession have/can do?

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Moddo.7105:

Is this first time pets has ever been discussed? If not could we get a list of things been there done that at meetings.

We talk about anything pertaining to game balance. Yes pets have been brought up before many times.

I don’t imagine we’ll post a transcript of topics. The things we talk about are best reflected by patch notes.

Still I think it might be beneficial for the community to see the some of the step involved in the changes (as of late most of the balancing fixes have been weakening to the profession stated as being in the need of most help) at least then the community has some insight into the whys.

PS (Kind of off-topic, but your PM is full so..) What is your stance on the speed run factor in the dungeons and the overall perception that only certain group makeups are going to work for that? Et. if the profession can not burst then it has no place in the group.

Not a clue I don’t think it made it to the beta weekends.

At one point or another we did have it and surprise it was taken away.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Antidote_Signet

Probably not going to happen. Check this video http://www.ign.com/videos/2013/02/18/guild-wars-2-the-past-present-and-future-up-at-noon (skip to 11:28 or so).