As a ranger you should know that any buff at all is a good thing, specially on weapons we actually use.
I was expecting nerfs and “nothingness” (like an aquaman 2.0 patch) but we got actually nice buffs, I couldn’t be happier.True we are stronger, but this also means that anything related to actual WvW/GvG usefulness, sword root, pet issues, bloated trait lines, Sb/Axe purpose ect will pretty much have to wait another 6 months if not more.
I’m very happy with the changes but my joy is pretty dampened by the fact that so much will go unaddressed for such a long time…
Such is the life of the Ranger.
Rangers are not equal to Necromaners or Thieves. We have to wait in the back of the line like everyone else. Always at the back of the line….
Wow, thanks for all the responses, never thought this thread would last this long.
In summary it seems that my suggestion does work, has been done, but is a a work around to a feature/ability that longbow should have be default.So if longbow #1 was changed to regular shot>crippling>shot>power shot the longbow would be in a better place.
No, if anything they could scrap Rapid Fire and implement an “Ice Shot” ability that does damage, chills, and vulns and is used to keep them at bay, instead of rapid fire which just confused players into thinking it’s a damage increase.
A better idea. Kill two birds with one stone. The only question is whether to make it a channel or single shot.
Wow, thanks for all the responses, never thought this thread would last this long.
In summary it seems that my suggestion does work, has been done, but is a a work around to a feature/ability that longbow should have be default.
So if longbow #1 was changed to regular shot>crippling>shot>power shot the longbow would be in a better place.
@Super Riceman
-Is the torment/cripple applied in addition to the bleed or replacing it?
-Sorta agree with notion about Nature’s Voice, though is there anything useful that can be done for Guard?
@Levetty
-I agree that for ourselves, the survival skills are probably are best utilities, however, they don’t bring anything to the group except for Muddy Terrain. I tried to change that.
So now that pets are mostly fixed, next step on our path to salvation is our utilities.
So what follows is my attempt at improving them, in particular in the areas of synergy and group support.
Survival
-Lightning Reflexes – Grants vigor and stun break around you. 60s CD
-Quickening Zepyhr – Revert to not being able to heal when active. Also grants quickening zephyr to allies around you for 4s. Maybe drop the stun break. 90s CD
-Sharpening Stone – Maybe some other effect besides bleed like fury, torment, or
maybe extra damage to foes that are bleeding/have conditions on them.
Shouts
-Search & Rescue – Make this ability a buff on your pet that cancels if you give it any other order. While the buff is up, the pet gets 1s/s of swiftness and quickness.
-Protect Me/Guard – Merge these two into a ground target version of Phantasmal Defender. Or the pet takes all damage and gets regen and prot for the duration.
-Sic’Em – Some Vuln could be added in addition to or in place of pet damage boost. And AoE swiftness in addition to or in place of the pet speed boost.
Finally with the Free space from combining Protect Me/Guard, a new shout can be implemented. I’ve always wanted to see more stealth added to Rangers and the following shout is my attempt:
“Quietly Now”
You, your pet, and allies around you gain stealth for 6s of Stealth with a 180 radius. 60s CD.
Any opinions or thoughts?
Since longbow doesn’t have much in the way kiting tools, would sigil of ice be worth it to help in this? or is the 2/10 uptime not worth it?
Just thinking out loud, but maybe try x/x/x/30/30 and take SotF with either Natural Healing or the new GM.
Then you could use the last 10 for either lower survival CDs, get campaign’s might or something in marks.
Ranger still broken
Almost two years since release
Will things ever changeThat is completely rubbish. The ranger is now in a very good spot. Yes there is room for improvement, there is always room for improvement, but saying that rangers are rubbish shows that you have not even tested the class in a long long while. It is these kinds of comments are why i wish we had a “thumbs down” button.
I agree. Left the game to play Titanfall and cameback yesterday and the pets are “working” now. If ANet manages to make pets hit moving targets better and improve weapons/utilities by the end of the year Rangers would be perfect.
But I guess ALWAYS bitter, always bitter.
Fixed that for you.
Durz, that would be all well and good if Rangers were actually good. Most of us don’t think so. 0×2 is still 0.
“With Marksmanship’s new Read the Wind, your longbow arrows will fire at twice their base velocity, allowing for supreme accuracy at long range.”
Soo what’s the purpose of short bow now that long bows speed is increased x_x?
Arrow speed not firing speed. And it’s still a scrappy GM trait.
Druid Form: You become one with nature and disappear off the face of Tyria.
I hope Nature Magic gets Druid Form: Disappear from the face of Tyria forever.
Do you have a suggestion on which topic you’d like to discuss while we wait for direction from ANet?
Shouts.
Mr. Cronacher mentioned them as “needing tweaks to make them more appealing”. That serves just fine as a topic starter in my book. We sort of collectively skimmed that, because they’re hard to talk about without getting the pet in order first.
But take a stab at it anyway.
I’d love to read porposals for shouts but I wouldn’t know where to start talking about those skills honestly.
They can be made to have two components, a pet buff and a party buff.
Sic’em Can hit them with 15vul or something
Protect Me can give the pet protection and redirect nearby damage to itself…etc
I’ll do a proper write up later
(edited by ChillyChinaman.6057)
I’m inclined to agree with OP at least to a certain degree. IMO fear, chill, cripple, immobilize should be classified as CC because of the way they behave and are used. By extension, “stun breaks” better classified as lock breakers, would need to be made slightly more prevalent to compensate.
This is off topic, but for the record I wanted to say that Ranger Entangle is a 150s Elite that can be dodged, teleported, cleansed, blinded? Also Eles and Engies can hard counter it with some traits. At least it provides a bit of area denial though.
Not that I believe the leak, at this point anyway, but it wouldn’t be the first time that ANet has gone back on their word. There’s the whole horizontal progression fiasco and more personally, the shortbow nerfs to fix animations and make longbow look better. That and past leaks have been spot on so there is a precedent for the to be at least partially correct.
I don’t see this being a viable method of reasonably reworking pets.
First off, if pets are supposed to provide support and control under your new system, while bother with the token 5%? You might as well go all in for the Ranger’s sake.
Stemming from the previous issue, your idea basically removes most of the DPS pets, ie Birds, Cats, and Drakes, from the game as they currently are.
In addition, if pets exist solely to provide boons and buff, why not just skip the middleman? Besides tanking, which the existence of high damage near OHKs and dodging invalidates, pets become nothing more than skills that enemy players can target and “kill.”
Finally, the amount of work seems completely beyond what ANet would dedicate to a part of the game that is not Living World or generating them revenue. I’m surprised the PvP is getting some attention next update.
I checked out your thread. Correct my if I’m wrong, but you idea is to turn pets into buff/control bots right? Why that does help out power builds, I don’t see it doing much beyond that.
If they retain the current AI, it’d be a crapshoot when their abilities go off. Simple abilities like casting heal or prot can easily be queued to activate when your/its health drops below a certain point.
However, what if you want to use it for a buddy? If their abilities can be cast by the Ranger, then why not just skip the middle man and make it like tool-bar utilities? And then, with ANet’s reluctance on giving Ranger more pet control, it’s unlikely to happen anyway.
Not to toot my own horn, and no one’s popped my balloon just yet, but I see my idea working with the current flawed system to be more easily implemented then the total overall you’re suggesting. Pets could be turned into a summoned creature. They can be generated as an allied spawn in front of your target with their first queued ability being their F2. And since they stick around, most of the current pet traits are left still working. As pets currently are, hitting F4 doesn’t actually swap your pet so much that it generates a new one. The only real difference is that a patch added in retention of the skill cooldowns.
What community?
There only people here are a few who can play ranger, many that has a hum about what works and even more that are noobs and whine endlessly.
There are ways to make the current pet mechanic AI work better. Those ideas were never received well because people always flame.
I think you’re taking my post a little to seriously. Just having some fun and talking to fellow rangers, good or bad. Also where do you think you and I fit on your continuum?
So first off, I have no real hope of this, or any meaningful positive change, being implemented in the forseeable future. This is just my way to vent/brainstorm ideas.
With that out of the way let the rant begin.
So ANet has made it clear that Rangers are the designated pet class and that pets are here to stay. I get that an accept it however, as we all know and ANet even admitted themselves, pet AI is bad. Really bad. So my idea is to turn pets into a hybrid between engineer tool-belt skills and mesmer summoned phantasms.
The F1-F4 pet commands could be replaced with selectable pets through the pet window like currently and similarly to tool-belt skills. However, in practice, they would behave more closely to phantasms.
When activated, they would summon the pet. If melee, it would appear within striking range of your target and if ranged at your side. Summoning the pet will activate their primary skill, most likely their F2 ability. After performing their ability, they will stick around for ~20s or until killed. During that time they would perform their basic Skill #1 auto attack. To avoid a petting zoo situation, Summoning a new pet would cancel the current one.
Since pets are basically going to be turned into utilities with a DoT tossed on the side, I think that damage can be shifted back toward the Ranger. If ANet insists, they can make is an 80/20% ratio to promote frequent use of the pet.
So what does the community feel about this?
Only Devs create the actual CDI topics. Everybody knows that which is why no one is jumping on these fake CDI threads.
By that logic we should all forget about there ever being a proper Dev created CDI for rangers since this one’s already been postponed twice.
In my opinion, they should do away pets as a permanently out component and instead make them similar to Mesmer phantasms that we select like Engie utilities.
Think it means that: For the duration of the active if you go down, you don’t have to wait for lick wounds to come off cooldown for your pet to pick you up and it does so at full health+quickness.
I don’t understand how the passive works
That passive works the way the trait already works.
What he said. Basically, you don’t have to go 30 in MM for signet actives to work on you. Or you can take Spotter and Eagle Eye together.
Think it means that: For the duration of the active if you go down, you don’t have to wait for lick wounds to come off cooldown for your pet to pick you up and it does so at full health+quickness.
Actual new skills seems unlikely, however, perhaps unique effects in terms of boons or conditions for each primary weapon.
For example: Shortbow can inflict confusion while longbow confers fury.
Elite Spirit is quite could and it also revives/cleanses.
Unless you need the stability from RaO I say go for SoN.
While your math seems right, this seems more like semantics than anything. As Jeremlloyd said if it’s taking you longer than 60s to finish a fight, you’re doing something wrong. Unless it’s PvP of some form.
Your suggestion won’t help the main problem with shouts. The same as signets, they just suck without traits and only become usable with them. Shouts are supposed to group buffs and support. As with many of things the Ranger has, shouts are a very selfish utility. It doesn’t even help the Ranger directly but by buffing the Pet. And we all know how useful Pets are…
In general heavies are king, clothes are decent, and leather is crap.
Thieves are only really good in WvW and hotjoin PvP. Meanwhile Ranger and Engie are mostly meh.
Mind linking or sharing the profession demographics data? I’m curious as to whether they align to the “meta” or not.
I’m inclined to agree with Durzlla here. We have roles we can play. Can others do those roles better? Probably. Is it a noticeable improvement? I think the answer is subjective. Bottom line, know your class in and out. Know that Rapid fire only puts out 1.3k + 38% scaling. Also know that 1H Sword not only provides DPS, but lock down as well, for you and your opponent. Finally, don’t forget your pet. Yeah they don’t listen half the time, but they’re there and are damage/utility is factored into them.
Don’t be offended please but while i know my class in and out a thief that that barely knows his wtf stomps me & that’s because of the broken stealth in this game.
He is so much more rewarded playing thief while i get punished for playing ranger sorry but i don’t call this balance.
Just wondering, are these thief occurrences in WvW from stealth? If that’s the case, I don’t think there’s much that can be done with out neutering the Thief class. Like you said, it’s mostly a problem with stealth and class design less so of a Ranger problem. As others have said, the real Ranger unique problem is the (mostly)non-functional Class mechanic we’re forced to lug around.
I’m inclined to agree with Durzlla here. We have roles we can play. Can others do those roles better? Probably. Is it a noticeable improvement? I think the answer is subjective. Bottom line, know your class in and out. Know that Rapid fire only puts out 1.3k + 38% scaling. Also know that 1H Sword not only provides DPS, but lock down as well, for you and your opponent. Finally, don’t forget your pet. Yeah they don’t listen half the time, but they’re there and are damage/utility is factored into them.
Maybe put it as a % chance to be a finisher like many projectiles? Also anyone with half a brain would lay down an AoE on top of your field to negate some of its benefits.
I think you just had a bad day. Most PvE content outside of dungeons is a joke.
The two forms of “power” damage that the ranger can output relies not on good scaling, but fast attacks. For melee that is the 1H sword which is almost as fast as the range option, the shortbow, at just under 2 shots/s. As such, Rangers can’t really burst people down but have pretty good sustain.
Yes 2 Spider Pets at the same time
that wouldn’t be overpowered at all
grin
It’s not like other classes can’t stun or immobilize lock either.
That’s because pet’s are a lazy regurgitation of NPC code, which is why our pets suck. Mesmer clones and phantasm’s have their own unique code, something that ANet should have done for pets and did not. Thus you get good clones/phantasm’s, while getting Stupid pets.
Also why melee trash mobs are so stupid and pointless since they can simply be outran.
Reasoning:
Marksmanship
All the minor traits+Remorseless could be condensed as well as signets. Also shortbow needed a little boost.
Skirmishing
Condensing some of the pet traits. Companion’s Might could also combine with Carnivorous Appetite. Traps while fine, could use some compression too.
Wilderness Survival
More Pet trait condensation
A boost to ol’Evasive Purity and some much needed active condition removal. It also synergizes a bit with Natural Vigor
Nature Magic
Makes useful spirits more accessible
Beastmastery
Mostly polish here
WARNING: This is long
Marksmanship
-Minor
Opening Strike – Combine current Opening Strike with Alpha Strike
Precise Strike
Remorseless
-Major
Combine Beastmaster’s Might with Signet Mastery
Eagle Eye – switch with SotBM – Also affects Shortbow and combined with QuickDraw
-1 Master & 1 GM traits free
Skirmishing
-Major
Combine Agility Training with Pet’s Prowess
Combine Trapper’s Expertise with Trap Potency
Increase base trap size
-1 Adept & 2 Master traits free
Wilderness Survival
-Major
Combine Expertise Training with Malicious Training
Add old version of Evasive Purity as Adept Trait
Nature Magic
-Major
Remove Vigorous Spirits and make it baseline
Make Spirits Unbound Adept
Remove Nature’s Vengeance and make it baseline
1 Master Minor,1 Master, & 1 GM free
Beastmastery
-Minor
Remove Instinctual Bond and replace with Loud Whistle
Add in Fortifying Bond as the master minor trait
-Major
Combine Speed Training with Commander Voice
Remove Master’s Bond
Remove Stability Training
Make Rending Attacks universal
Increase Zephyr’s Speed to kitten
-1 Minor, 2 Adepts, & 1 Master free
Something like reworking the f1-f4 slots to be low cool down summons of fragile pets whom perform a scripted set of abilities until either killed or dismissed (to reduce cool down even more). One gets killed? No biggie, summon the next. Then rework the pet traits to account for the more disposable pets.
You’d end up with something like a cross between Pokemon and a Phantasm Mesmer, and it would likely work better than reliance on a more static pet system in the current game mechanics.
Yes, I suggested this many times a while back. If they turned them into a cross between Engie tool-belt skills and Guard/Neco summons/minions it would be perfect. Select your 4 pets from the pet window like currently. Hit FX once to summon the pet. Hit the same one again to use the F2. The pets wouldn’t have a duration greater than about 30s with a 60s base cooldown.
Ascended, this for PvE/WvW?
For PvE just be sure to take 20 in Marks and NM for spirits and spotter, the rest should be fine with GS/LB.
For WvW zerging, take steady focus, piercing arrows and your choice of spotter or eagle eye.
Roaming, try that stun build.
If you want berzerker, go with one of the swords with shortbow secondary. It’s low damage, but the speed makes it a machine gun. Could try signets for SotW it Maul spike. GS/SB Attack of opportunity stun spamming is also decent, so I heard.
Blah blah blah, Rangers are terrible. Any class can do it better. I’m tired of seeing this posted over and over. I wish ANet would be a bit more heavy handed in their attempts to balance and shift the meta. At least that way we’d have something new to complain about. It’s been Spirits/Traps/BM forever now.
Durz, I think that’s because of the better scaling of Moa-fied skills compared to base skills.
The pet hits for roughly the same damage as when it’s a Moa as when it’s not, the only difference is that it lands all the attacks it uses.
Really? I was going off the wiki numbers since I’ve never gotten the chance to test it personally.
Durz, I think that’s because of the better scaling of Moa-fied skills compared to base skills.
Now they said that they will not be touching pet’s anymore.
“Stuff”
Edited, nvm I read another statement of yours that explains everything.
Why doesn’t ANet just change the AI universally then? It’s not like PvE is so hard anyway. Most folks just run past non-Orrian mobs as they chase them just out of reach.
That’s a pretty good idea. Taking taking over and repurposing that mostly usefull pet screen, that only Ranger have access to, would be a great start. Just change it to something similar to the old GW1 Hero bar and it’d be perfect.