Guild Wars 2

Game mode: PvX

Proposal overview: Trait optimization

Goal of proposal: Placing traits in lines that make sense. Compacting some rather bland and weak traits with others.

Proposal functionality:

All traits that are strictly benefiting pet stats should be moved into the beastmastery line. This includes malicious training, compassion training, concentration training, expertise training, pet prowess and the pet speed buff.

Furthermore, 2 of each should be merged into one composite trait each aimed at buffing a single aspect of the pet.

-expertise and malicious training should be merged into a new trait called condition mastery that is primarily used for condition based pets

-compassion and concentration training should be merged into support mastery that is primarily used for support oriented pets

-pet prowess and speed buff should be merged into offense mastery that would be primarily used for physical DPS pets.

-F2 CD reduction trait and speed training should be merged into 1 trait speed training. It should affect both F2 and innate family skills by 20%

-Vigorous training and stability training should be merged into one trait. Stability training should be changed to give 3 seconds of stability in an AOE on pet swap

-Rending attacks and intimidation training should be merged into one trait. Rending attacks should proc a bleed on attack and not on crit, to allow it to work with other pets that do not have a high critical chance rate.

Risks:
It leaves the trait lines missing traits that need to be filled which would require additional work. However, if ever the aspect idea comes to life, it would be the perfect place to place aspect related traits,

Why they decided on living world in the first place is beyond me.

The 50 at each boss and buffing toughness was a really bad decision.
Also, people were complaining about zerging and we get more zerging.

ZERG WARS 2: the buggy edition

Actually the pet carries more then a DPS loss for the ranger. its also an utility loss and more importantly it reduces the effectiveness of traits because you are either buffing yourself, the 70% of the character, or the pet, the 30% of the character.

So in essence:
-DPS is split
-utility effectiveness is reduced
-trait effectiveness is reduced

Traps are perfectly fine in the Skirmishing line. Just move condition duration to that line and critical damage to marksmanship. This way you boost both traps and the opening strike mechanic

Dont worry, great things are coming for the Ranger in the near future…… LOL (this was sarcasm btw)

FemShep and Liara ftw!!! Jory and Kassy can go die in a ditch for all I care :p

This LS would have been good had it not been watered down so much.

30 25 0 15 0 is the DPS build.

20 25 0 25 0 is another DPS alternative.

30 0 25 15 0 for OH training if you are lacking a reflector class so you can take OH training and cover that role, usually in high lvl fractals

Yes, thats what i meant. The F3 now ports the pet back to you instead of it running back. It should cancel any action to increase responsiveness. Now saving the pet in dungeons is almost fully in your hands which is how it should be.

Game mode: all

Proposal overview: Increasing pet survivability with the tools that are already in the game

Proposal functionality:

1) Every ability, be it a weapon or utility skill, that gives evades now gives the exact duration of blur or a 5 second aegis to the pet.
This includes:
- Sword 2
- Sword 3
- Dagger 4
- Greatsword 1
- Lightning reflexes

2)Pet F command call back now teleports the pet to the ranger in a poof of leaves and smoke (like when summoning a spirit). This is to help rangers pull pets out of AOEs.

3)Pet PvE hitpoint buff is translated to WvW

Risks: Increased skill ceiling.

If you touch wilderness survival you will pretty much ruin every existing build. By swapping Marksmanship and Skirmishing stats you open more builds while leaving the old ones alive.

Well, they could move condition duration to skirmishing and critical damage to marksmanship.

Its a pew pew weapon but rapid fire is a DPS loss instead of a buff. Barrage immobility kills you and makes you unable to kite. Hunter shot working on hit can sometimes screw you over due to reflects and stealth the target.

The longbow is easy to fix:
-compress the Rapid fire into 2.5 seconds from 4.5 seconds, keep total damage the same
-hunter shot stealths on shot not on hit
-allow movement during barrage channel

There, I fixed it… tsk

Two days without a Red post….. WOW

Well, the ranger is the most controversial class in the game. Pretty much every arhetype does what its expected of it:
Warrior – smashes face
Guardian – classic paladin
Necro – AOE spells(curses) and optional minions
Elementalist – classic mage
you get the point by now…

The choice of merging two extremely popular role playing types into one single class and not giving any option of how you play it was an abysmal one. The Archer class is in every RPG as important as the Warrior and the Mage. These three make or break the game be it a computer or table top game. There are variations on the subject always, but in the end it comes back to these.

Here you are chained to the pet. You are barley able to control it and investing points into it does not really change your type of play. The pet is a bit tougher but it still does the same things as the untraited one. You are beastmaster first and foremost…. a very bad one at that.
The very design of the game does not allow you to play archer. The closest thing that comes to a ranged class is the rifle kill-shot warrior, but that is a one trick pony and not a viable style at all in the long run.
The missing third big pillar of any RPG , THE MEDIUM ARMOR NIMBLE ARCHER is missing and people have every right to be upset.

Conclusion: the closest thing to the archer is the ranger but you are chained to the ill working pet, you cannot really play bows, there is no real interaction between the ranger and said pet and there is no variance of play style of physical or spell damage, burst or sustain, AOE or single target. Everything is spammy low effect abilities over and over and over and over.

I find it rather insulting that people who main ranger do not experiment. I have spent over 400 gold transmuting, 1000s of dungeon tokens and have 2 legendaries on my ranger. I have tried everything from trapper, BM, spirit, dps, hell even bearbow for shts and giggles.

The ranger can work, but it works badly and is not reliable in some content like WVW and Living story.

The players are not at fault here. There was no developer interaction or discussion here. Only one developer ever posted and her posts were few and far in between. We had no positive discussion steering towards the things the developers want discussed. No wonder it was a random suggestion posting bonanza.

No developer response in the CDI today….. hmmm

at Durzilla: you do know that they nuked every single pet burst attack by 50%? right? that was a while ago when we lost 5 pt zephyr, and long leash. Buddy, there is no more dual raven f2!!! Using it is a loss of dps compared to just leaving the bird auto attacking

I actually expect the opposite, balance changes will be made to match the tool tips… usually in the form of nerfs.

I have been reading the CDI since it came out. The general theme is this:

-people post suggestions
-there is little discussion
-only one developer posts, who for the most part has no idea about the ranger class as far as I can tell
-the developer is only citing the same mantra over and over, which is completely different from the official ranger description
-at one point perma stow became a glimmer of hope and people focused on that, but not long after it was said, by the same developer who posted it, that it is a big maybe in the far future as ranger is THE PET CLASS (ranger pet changes to the AI will not happen any time soon, if ever, as has been stated by the main guys because it messes with general mob AI)
-we have absolutely no idea on what the official stance of the developers is and what changes they are considering

Conclusion:The CDI is a big PR stunt that will have no relevance in the long run. Anet will continue to do what they have been doing, which is purposely ignoring the design faults of the class and continuing to do low hanging fruit changes

I guarantee you, the next big patch will yet again bring a NET NERF to the ranger class without bringing any QOL improvements.

I am afraid to say that the devs have no concept for the ranger. They are throwing random changes out without any vision what so ever and then change the supposed philosophy to match the random changes.

They are also prepare to change the whole description and philosophy of the class but not the pet?
They were also quite generous with the nerfs: pet damage nuked, zephyr swap, EB,… But buffs? nooooo , power creep yo!

Quite honestly i would just take the ability to stow in combat, no buffs to the ranger needed. A boss does an AOE circle, i stow the pet, it passes i unstow it and its back to doing damage. Same for WvW, unstow cast f2, stow continue smashing.
It adds micro and another level of skill, why I am not able to do this is beyond me.

The whole CDI is pointless as we do not know what is their official stance on the class in detail. It feels as if shooting in the dark at best. We have the rather ironic citation of the ranger mantra that is very different from the description that made me purchase GW2 and roll a ranger in the first place.
We were brought to hope by the discussion of stowing pets in combat only to be told that its not a change that will be done any time soon if ever, because they want to exhaust all other changes to pet first (which will never happen btw, they had 2 years to do this).
I fear that, as someone else has said in this topic, the CDI is only a PR stunt and that nothing significant will change. The Ranger is not working properly. Most other classes do what they are designed to do, even if their balance is off. Ranger suffers core design problems and we are not seeing any indication of this being corrected any time soon.

I am amazed how this iteration of the ranger got through QA. Its main characteristic, ie the pet, is barely working. How can someone make a pet based class when the pets themselves are absolutely worthless is beyond me.

I need to ask again: What is it that we can expect in the coming months as far as Ranger changes go??

With every word typed i feel as if I am shooting a moving target in pitch black dark room that is fully sound proof.

If this is the developers mantra, then i have to say, YOU ARE SO WRONG ON THIS ONE!!!
Sustained damage is irrelevant in this game. It is all about the AOE burst be it PvE or PvP. No wonder the ranger works poorly in so many areas of the game if this is the design all tweaks go buy.

Guild wars 2, for better or for worse, is about min-maxing. PvE is about maxing out on damage dealt because you can completely sidestep any incoming damage by LoS stacking, reflecting or dodging.
Hybrid builds rarely work in competitive play, are absolutely frawned upon in PvE and are borderline useless in WvW. Maybe they can be used in solo WvW roaming, but that is niche as the server match ups that allow that kind of play are few and far in between. WvW is about the zerg.

I was very happy when this topic started and have posted a few sugestions myself. But i am very keen on seeing what are the developers changes and what are their EXACT plans that we can be expecting. It has been over a year since i have started playing GW2 and i want to know if i will be able to play my preferred fluff class properly in the near future or should i be looking for a new game that lets me.

ty, Vlad

I need to ask the devs: What is the maximum we can expect from this? Will any broader changes eligible to happen or should we expect only tweaks to the current framework??

I feel as if the answer to this might clear up a lot of clutter and steer this discussion into something the devs can use.

Or trap range should be default and you could choose a running and baiting style over a offensive trap spam throw style.

Why do traps have to be ONLY condition damage? Why not a hybrid.

What if the spike trap did a solid amount of physical damage? What if they all did solid damage? This would open up new avenues for power trapper builds, especially if a trait was added to cleanse/transfer conditions when traps activate!!!

No matter how good ones pet control is, there will still be game modes and situations where the pet is 100% useless or a massive burden. On the top of my head:
-WvW
-Aetherblade dungeon, now fractal
-Twilight arbor
-Arah
-Maw boss fight
-Dynamic molten duo boss fight
-Mai trin boss fight
-etc…

There are 2 ways to approach this. Perma stow or a massive pet survivability buff. WoW did it with a 75% damage taken reduction from AoE.

I would prefer the stow option with a minor buff when stowed. It lets people roleplay the classic archer arhetype that is missing from this game.

Game mode:
All

Proposal Overview:
Sight changes to the longbow abilities

Goal of Proposal:
Tweaking the longbow to be a more stable and usable weapon. At the moment its pretty bad for both PvE and PvP.

Proposal Functionality:

-compress rapid fire cast time from 4.5 seconds into 2.5 seconds. Keep the number of attacks, damage and vulnerability the same, just speed up the animation if possible

-hunter shot stealth should occur when the arrow is fired and not when it hits the target. This will allow a much more reliable escape mechanism in all game modes as it is completely negated by blocks or reflects.

-allow movement during barrage cast times

Associated risks:
Absolutely none what so ever. Nothing is being remade here. Old abilities are reused in a way that will allow consistency and reliability on use (barrage and hunters shot) or fixed as to not be a raw DPS drop (rapid fire)

Game Mode All

Proposal Overview
There is a large following of people who argue that forcing players onto the pet ruins their experience, but as it has been stated the ranger is THE pet class of the game. However, their argument is their inability to roleplay a medium armor archer class and it has merrit

Goal of Proposal
Enabling this play style by introducing an elite that is in line with the Nature magic theme.

Proposal functionality

-Introduce an elite called spirit form. This is a toggle ability with a small cooldown
-The pet is turned into a spirit aura around yourself
-You are allowed to swap pets and you keep all on swap effects
-You can use F2 abilities but they are centered on you, the pet is your cloak.
-All weapon effects that would buff the pet would buff the ranger instead, same for the traits albeit in a reduced effect, shouts are disabled

This might be a way to introduce a valid playstyle while keeping the core nature feel of the class. The player would use an elite slot for compressing his total utility into one entity but the draw back would be the loss of pet based dps. This would however allow pet survivability in clutch situations and WvW

Risks
Lots of number crunching.

Game Mode All

Proposal Overview
There is a significant lack of condition synergy between the ranger and the pet. Almost every interaction kills the pet. There is also a notable lack of active condition removal for the ranger that is killing power builds.

Goal of proposal
Making the ranger-pet interaction a positive one to not make the pet feel like a ball and chains in some game mods.

Proposal functionality
Add some condition removal to existing abilities:

-Heal as one clears up to 3 conditions from the ranger and transfers them to pet as boons
-Lightning reflexes clears cripple, chilled and immobilized

-Protect me no longer kills the pet

-Instinctual bond (Beast master minor 5 trait) clears 1 condition on pet swap instead of giving the pet quickness on downed (useless effect atm)

-Carnivorous appetite changed in functionality: Pet attacks heal the ranger, rangers attacks heal the pet (numbers adjusted)

-Buff pet HP for WvW

-Sweep over weapon skills that give secondary effects to pet attacks; Winters bite is a good example with a noticable effect. We need more interactions like this on weapon sets

Risks
Time needed to find a sweet spot for some numbers, but generally you would be buffing/touching/tweaking stuff that is not used at the moment.

Can you please stop fixing dredge fractal skipps? Bring them back. This is the most tedious experience in the entire game and until you make it even remotely enjoyable, let us skip it and finish it quickly.

very angry costumer

its a free ranger signet of the wild :p

Actually according to these notes, warrior would be getting a small nerf. No regen on dodged march, 2 second nerf on Berserker stance and a small HS nerf.

I do not know about any of that because i did not even vote. However, the problem with the Elementalist is just a balance one, but the problem of the Ranger is that the classes mechanic does not work properly, and a lot of the utilities and traits are a mess.

I dont think we will get a CDI, i think they expected us to vote for ele or something

Pet bonuses from stats are different. If you go 30 into BM your pet gains extra 1500 hp not 3000

Faster cast times on F2 and 75% AOE damage reduction.

What does one do with these?

The problem with Wurm is that its open world content, which means that a bunch of newbies or griefers can come and ruin the event. This sort of content belongs in an instance as a clasic raid. Then guilds or teams can organize and do it without worry.

frostfang and rodgort

The big three things that are problematic with ranger, as agreed on by most players here, are:
1) some dubious traits and having to go 30 into a line to make something be usable
2) lack of active condition removal
3) pet unresponsiveness

1) Traits
-As far as traits go, we have a twofold problem here; First we have some pointless traits like Instinctual bond and horrible Opening strike minor traits that ties into Remorseless. Then we have the capital offenders, Signet of the Beastmaster and Trap Mastery. I would put Vigorous spirits in there as a badly designed trait, but as it stands now Spirits are fine, if a bit on the strong side.

My suggestions here would be tweak some of these traits to fill the gaping hole of Ranger-Pet interaction and active condition removal:

Opening strikes – Every 10th attack the ranger inflicts 10 stacks of vulnerability for X seconds

Alpha training – Pet does 10% extra damage to targets with vulnerability

Signet of the Beastmaster – Signet actives affect ranger by default. Signet active durations changed from 6s to 4s for stone and is a stun breaker, from 8s to 6s for Wild. Signet of the Hunt active changed from More damage to 4 seconds of stealth for ranger and pet. When traited signet duration effects increased by 25%

Both trap traits – GM trap condition duration increase given by default to all traps. Master trap AOE increase given by default to all traps. New single Master trap trait that gives 20% CD reduction and the ability to throw. New GM trait Skirmishers gambit – critical hits transfer 2 conditions to target, ICD of 15 seconds.

Carnivorous apetite – trait funcionality changed to: pet critical hits heal the ranger, ranger critical hits heal the pet.

Instinctual bond – convert 1 condition into a boon on pet swap

2) Active condition removal

- Having covered a part of the problem through traits there are a few more places to put condition removal on the utility bar

Heal as One – a major candidate for active condition removal as it is a very generic heal that is never used. Added 3 conditions removed on heal, same as Warrior Mending.

Lightning reflexes – Another offender that is not in line with other withdrawal skills. Added removal of cripple, immob and chilled on cast.

Protect me – No longer kills the pet. Losing a chunk of your dps and utility because of not attacking is a big enough drawback along with its quite big CD.

3) Pet reliability

-This is the tricky part as we do not have access to pet code or algorythms. The easy start would be to just considerably lower F2 cast times and take it from there. 3 seconds of Jungle stalker and devourer is hilarious

Actually, TA UP record was done with a mesmer which ported the party directly onto the spider :p

For curiosity’s sake, mind telling me what comp you consider an optimal one?