Guild Wars 2

Cynz.9437:

ok, but if this changes are implemented then thief AA puts 25 stacks of weakness on target and strips all boons, just to make it fair

and fyi, stealth has counters…quite few of them at that

OP, i dare you to roll a thief and fight any class w/o using stealth with common weapon set that relies on stealth…something tells me you won’t last long

I forgot to mention that I also play a thief and a mesmer.
I played all classes so far and learned how to use their different specs, I can roll either one when needed (most pvp players do the same).

I played a stealth built thief for a pretty long time, and then played s/d and s/p too.
in tpvp atm, stealth is almost exclusively used for reviving/stomping. d/p uses it for backstabs and they don’t stay in the fight long enough to care about survival – they hit and run.
In pvp s/d and s/p Thief are ridiculously OP, in 1v1 they only use Shadow Refuge as stealth and they don’t even rely on it in anyway.
Check out the 1v1 servers, if an s/d thief gets in, he won’t leave (you have to leave when you lose there).

for some reason you think that by giving a few underused skills(which means they don’t work well in the meta) very short ‘Revealed’ duration, all of the sudden you can’t stealth anymore.
I’ve just written a pretty long reply about this, and I guess you haven’t read the whole thing through.

You already apply ‘Revealed’ to yourself applying it again to you while you’re revealed, has little to no effect at all.
As you can’t be targeted while stealthed, half of my suggestions wouldn’t be able to reveal you.

Guys, keep in mind 2 things:
- completely redesigning skills (making new ones/removing old ones) is a TONS of work.
- Weapons/Classes/Builds are about ‘concept’. The longbow has its own concept of a slow yet powerful weapon, that reaches its maximum potential in long range. You can’t just make all ranged weapons into the same thing and ruin the concept.

Instead of completely redesigning our LB skills we should just have the dmg on #2 and @5 buffed-up, because at the moment they are very weak.
That’s it, no need to make into Warrior’s Rifle or Longbow.

Addressing the perma-revealed argument:

• Most classes mechanics/specs can be countered by a different mechanic/spec.
  - Poison counters healing.
  - Blindess counters one shots (example: d/p thief vs Rifle-Kill Shot warrior).
  - High mobility counter low mobility. (example: Fresh Air s/f Ele vs melee Warrior)l
  - CC counters lack of stability and stunbreakers. (Stunlock Warrior vs Terror Necro)l
  - Stability and stunbreakers counter CC. (Ranger with RaO vs Stunlock Warrior)l
  - Boon-removal counters Boon-dependant builds (s/d Thief vs Ranger with RaO)l
  - Condition spike counters lack of condi removal (Terror Necro vs Power Ranger).
  - Plenty of condition removal counters condition builds (Medit’ Guard vs Venom Thief)
  - Confusion and Retaliation counters channeling-spamming builds (PU mesmer vs s/p Thief)
  - Unblockable skills counter blocking skills.
  - Reflection counters projectiles-dependant builds (Mace/Sword Warrior vs Engi)
  - Stealth counters AI-dependent builds (d/p Thief vs GS Phantasm Mesmer)
  - Nothing counters stealth.

You see how pretty much everything in the game has a counter? but it’s not like everyone have access to boon removal/unblockable/reflection/stability/cond removal etc.
Every class has a few skills and traits that grants some of them. There are plenty of heavy boon-removal builds but heavy-boon builds are still very viable, they’re just balanced with boon-removal in mind. Same thing with unblockable.
When Signet of Strength (warrior signet) was changed (from granting 5 stacks of might to "your next kittens are unblockable) Guardians absolutely raged.
The forums were overloaded with Guardians claiming warriors will be able to get through all of their defenses and that guardians are going to be nerfed to the ground with this change.
But guess what, no warrior ever uses Signet of Strength, turns out timing it prefectly to get through a block is too much effort, and taking another utility is better.

You can get perma-CC’d, perma-poisoned, perma-blinded, perma-confusion, perma-boon-corrupted ATM. But builds with no stability are still viable, builds that rely on healing are still viable, builds that rely on 1-shots are still viable, channeling-spam builds are still viable, and boon-dependent builds are still viable.
I see no reason why players won’t be able to be perma-revealed. Even if the class mechanic depends on stealth. Ranger’s pets get instantly killed by aoe when fighting in numbers (even in small scale ones), same thing with Mesmer’s clones (That’s why Phantasm mesmer is not viable in tPvP).
Even though you would be able to be perma-revealed, you would also be able to prevent it. Half of my suggested changes are activate-on-hit, meaning you can dodge/avoid it.
You already apply revealed to yourself, so you don’t care if someone applies revealed to you right after you came out of it yourself (it would have almost no effect), you’d be able to waste the opponent’s revealers and keep using stealth successfully.

All of what I wrote now was addressed primarily to thieves, considering only PU mesmers rely on stealth. A lot of mesmers are either Shatters ones or simply don’t use torch, and only rely on “Decoy” and “Mass Invisibility” or actually don’t have stealth at all. I don’t know if you know it, but “Decoy” doesn’t handle with ‘Revealed’ it will always stealth you no matter what.
In tpvp there’s no perma-stealth builds, d/p uses short-term stealth to backstab and couldn’t care less about revealed, and other meta builds (s/p and s/d) only use Shadow Refuge to revive/stomp. So the revealed-skills would only be able to counter those.

Also, consider that if someone would want to use any of the suggested skills/traits he/she would have to give up on something else that’s also important. How many warriors do you see running around with “On My Mark”? even shout healers don’t normally use it. How many mesmers use Signet of Midnight, and how many Guardians take “Binding Jeopardy”?
Any one of the ‘Revealed’ skills/traits would have to replace something crucial. I doubt Bunker Guardians would use torch and that Terror Neros will completely trash their build and start walking around with a warhorn.

Maybe some of the numbers need to be abjusted (10s on sic em is too try-hard-anti-stealth) but the idea itself and most of the suggestions are pretty balanced.
Stealth builds would still exist and would still be very efficient.

frans.8092:

This title ….

I know xD

Kibazuka.1390:

Yes, but only serious ones, no weird joke pets.

it’s problematic because they’d like to save up serious pets to future releases.

you should sit around 50% crit chance.
With Spotter + perma Fury while in a group you don’t need anymore crit chance.
Full Berserker would be better, you can mix it a little if you want.

We have enough stealth builds in the game
The ranger class is an AI class, if you give it too much stealth it would very annoying to fight in pvp (staying in stealth while pet keeps doing dmg).

Let’s say ANet adds pet skins to the gem store (purely cosmetic options for present pets), would you buy them?
What skins would you like to see in the gem store?

A few fun skins I’d like to see & purchase:
- mechanical/steampunk Raven
- pink panther (to Stalker)
- maybe pooh the bear skin for Brown Bear xD

Guys, people hate rangers (in pvp) because when they think about Spirit Ranger, which is fairly tanky while dealing a lot of damage with AA spamming. They hated BM too because it was an AI bunker build (much like MM necro).
In PvE people hate rangers because they think about BearBow.

Stealth is currently over powered.
No one likes fighting stealth-builds because there simply nothing you can do about it. If a thief wants he can enter stealth and escape. Mesmers can be in stealth almost the entire fight while their phantasms keep bursting their target.

A lot of people suggest direct nerfs to stealth, and I think that’s actually not a good idea.
The game shouldn’t have a complicated system to nerf stealth (one of the game’s core feature is simplicity – limited amount of skills/boons/conditions to make the game easy to understand).
And it shouldn’t completely punish stealth builds into a point that thieves and mesmers are free-kills.

I suggest a different approach, which ANet already made the first step into.
Add anti-stealth skills. (not really adding new skills, just adding anti stealth to current under-used skills).
Players should be given tools that they can chose to take over others, in order to deal with stealth builds. Skills like “Sic’ Em!” (though they should be better because sic em is too weak).

This is the list of skill tweaks I think we should have as a start:

Ranger
- Sic Em! (shout skill): The ‘Revealed’ duration should match the actual skill duration, which is 10s.
- Bonfire (torch skill #5): Apply (once) ‘Revealed’ for 5 seconds to nearby foes range.
- Hunter’s Shot (longbow skill #3): Apply ‘Revealed’ for 3 seconds to the target if it hits. by applying Stealth to self and keeping your target in sight it would serve better the concept of the skill.

Engineer
- Analyze (Utility Goggles’ tool belt skill): Apply ‘Revealed’ for 5s to the target.
- Rifled Turret Barrels (trait): Turrets’ active skills apply ‘Revealed’ for 3 seconds to the target if it hits. This might need an ICD of 10 seconds.

Guardian
- Zealot’s Flame (torch skill #4): Apply Revealed to nearby foes as long as the effect is maintained (it can be maintained for 3 seconds).
- Binding Jeopardy (trait): Also apply ‘Revealed’ for 3 seconds on immobilize (currently it only applies vulnerability.

Necromancer
- Banshee’s Wail(trait): Warhorn skills will also apply ‘Revealed’ if on hit.

Elementalist
- Lightning Surge(staff air attunement #2 skill): Apply ‘Revealed’ for 3 seconds to the target on hit.
- Lightning Flash(cantrip teleport skill): Apply ‘Revealed’ for 3 seconds to targets in the radius range(130).

Warrior
- “On My Mark!”(shout skill): Apply ‘Revealed’ for 3 seconds to the target.

Mesmer
- Signet of Midnight(signet skill): Also apply ‘Revealed’ for 3 seconds (on the active part of the signet).

Thief
- Shadow Trap(trap skill): when using Shadow Pursuit on the marked foe it also applies ‘Revealed’ for 3 seconds.

What do you guys think?

trunks.5249:

We have 1 good build for pvp (Spirit Ranger) which, FYI is only viable because of Spirit of Nature.
We have 2 good builds for WvW and both of them are roaming builds.
We’re not “good” in pvp we’re in a very bad place. Having only 1 build choice is the worst thing that can happen to a class.

thats not true i run an RRR build and i do great in pvp

[/quote]
warrior/engi/dps guardian can replace you and it would be better for the group, even spirit ranger would be better.

Belzebu.3912:

So you want a low cooldown, cond cleanse heal that apply stealth that can be traitable for even lower colldown? …
We already have a healing skill that cleanse conditions.

Many nerfs was not because of our community, we got nerfs because Anet balanced only looking at sPvP, where ranger are actually good, but doing that we got even worse at PvE and WvW.

We have 1 good build for pvp (Spirit Ranger) which, FYI is only viable because of Spirit of Nature.
We have 2 good builds for WvW and both of them are roaming builds.
We’re not “good” in pvp we’re in a very bad place. Having only 1 build choice is the worst thing that can happen to a class.

I do like the idea of a certain teleport effect with the pet but it could be “teleport to your pet and heal/cleanse/get boon/etc” or something similar.
Shapeshifting is more of a druidic feature rather than a ranger feature. Or at least that’s the way I see it.
Overall you’re in a good direction, keep up the suggestions.

Personally I just love skyhammer. I’m really glad every time I get it in soloQ. It’s a map with a sense of humor
It’s the only map in which 1 player can carry his whole team.
I think it’s a great map for spicing things up and just having fun.
However, I know that a lot of people dislike this map, and that’s why I vote for getting it out of the soloQ maps.
Honestly my most favorite map by far is Capricorn (cannon ftw!) but it wouldn’t make much sense doing tournaments in it, aquatic combat is not balanced.
In the same way Skyhammer isn’t balanced, with CC being the most important aspect.
It would be great just having Skyhammer in hotjoin, still fun, no one will cry

Answer: BecauseThere’s so much hate in the community towards the ranger class.
First it was the BM spec, now Spirits.
People have been flaming us for so long that Anet had to spend more time nerfing us rather than improving us.
The BM nerf patch cut down ALL builds damage. Then we got our only good minor trait slaughtered (50% passive endurance bonus to 25%).
Almost everything that has been done to nerf our “strong” builds just completely broke our already broken builds.
People shout “ranger OP! ranger easy to play!” while our glass cannon builds fall faster than ele’s.

I think ANet really messed up when they gave us the new healing skill spirit. They probably thought “Hey, a lot of people use a spirit build, we should focus around what’s most popular”. But the problem is that it’s the most “popular” because it’s the only viable build.
I haven’t met even one ranger who enjoys playing it, since it encourages passive play, using AA shortbow more than you should.

A survival healing skill would fit better (you heal to survive… Duh..).
Something like “Heal for X amount and remove 3 conditions”.
Cool-down could be 16-20 seconds.
Any build atm can take 10 points in wilderness survival anyway so now instead of “Shared Anguish” we would just take “Wilderness Knowledge” (20% less cd on survival skills).
This would make specifically Power builds more viable, since they really active condi cleanse.
This heal could be named “Camouflage” and also apply stealth for 3 seconds (like the trait). Or just be named “Struggle to Survive”, “LOL we have condi cleanse”, etc..

:>

well why just 2?
but if I have to chose I’d say the same as you:
warrior (nerf) – just because of healing signet :P
ranger (buff) – dps builds like trapper and power ranger are too weak.

you got to be kidding me, I’m rank 52, if this is true I would have all my characters at 80 by now….

Sounds like a nice suggestion.

Well, I love entangle as it is now, if used wisely it will destroy your target, especially on a BM build because it will allow your pet to actually hit your target.
I’d agree for a change like 50% less bleed and immob duration and in exchange have it on a 90 seconds cd, considering how easy it is to get out of, 20 seconds is already a waste.

Grevender.9235:

telegraphed nukes

The “Fresh Air” (which is one of the most common ele builds in pvp) build has the least telegraphed – hardest to dodge burst.
All the scepter’s lightning skills are instant and have no travel time, so does the on-swap trait.
these skills are atleast 50% of an ele’s damage in a fight and they’re extremely hard to dodge because you can’t see them coming, there isn’t even a character animation to any of them.
the only telegraphed nuke is “Churning Earth”, even Pheonix is not very telegraphed, especially when used in short-range.

With a fresh air scepter/focus build ele’s have a pretty good damage/survivability ratio and it is one of the best 1v1 builds in-game (though mostly because of its ability to counter some OP builds like condi mesmer and condi warrior)

Well there are 2 ways to use the pet’s skill and actually make it work (with a good chance of it to work* xD)
1) use it when the pet is standing still.
2) click F2 like crazy in the middle of the fight (not at the beginning). At the beginning of the fight the pet usually has a priority on 1 of its regular skills so your active skill will be interrupted by the pet.

I don’t buy the consistent damage argument, because it’s consistent low damage.
just look at the DPS, it’s a joke. compare it to other raneged skills it’s not even close to match them.
not even talking about bows talking about general burst damage weapons.
If the channel time was 2 seconds then RF would have be amazing (twice as much dps)
or otherwise just have 2x the damage and keep the long channel time.
As of now zerker rangers are the joke of PvP. That’s just how it is. :\
I play power zerker very often in PvP despite it being incredibly weak and I have a good time. But when ever I play another zerker profession I have such an easier time dealing damage.
The big problem zerker ranger’s have is a lack of defensive abilities.

yeah s/d is way too strong. currently it’s the best 1v1 spec in the game.

The funny thing is that 10% isn’t even high, power rangers deal so little damage than it basically does nothing, it will still heal a lot less than Healing Signet.
But I think something like that should be a trait, and leave the signet as it is.
Changing the signet will nerf to the ground all roamer BM specs, which will be very bad to rangers since it’s one of the only viable specs in wvw.

I really don’t think it’s OP. yeah it’s a strong skill but it should be, considering axe #2 and #3 aren’t really impressive.
It’s really easy to dodge Eviscerate since it’s highly telegraphed, and yes, you’ll have to dodge the stuns\immobs the warrior will throw at you to guarantee the Eviscerate.

bro you’re insane, most of these elites are extremely Overpowered. Low recharge elites shouldn’t be that strong.

I don’t think engi’s are overpowered, I think the’re in a great place atm.
Despite their advantages engi’s are week to conditions and CC and that’s what balances them.

The only problem with condition builds in pvp and wvw is that people don’t take enough condition removal traits/skills or simply cannot.

Guys, come on….
Necros counter warriors hard, any necro should beat most warrior build, specifically Hammer builds.
As long as you have Corrupt Boon you’re good to go vs them, remove their stab and swiftness and they’re dead.

It’s so funny seeing warriors cry about kitten.
“oh no my skills are not undodgable and now have animation oh no” give me a break, I use condi warr in PvP and it’s a beast. I have so much condi cleanse + 26k health, I definitely have more than enough cleanse to deal with everything, not to mention Berserker’s Stance.
It’s funny that you complain about not enough condi cleanse since we probably have the best self condi cleanse.
I use Mace for a very long time, I don’t even think the “nerf” actually nerfed it. Yes people can see it comnig now and that’s good, but having a cast time also means you can precast it and time it. I really don’t find it any harder to use the mace and it’s still incredibly powerful.
We have so much active and passive defenses combined with HUGE dps, we have nothing to complain about and we deserve more nerfs. Even the Devs admitted they overbuffed the warrior.
Deal with it. We’re OP.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/New-To-Rangers-Looking-for-guides-CLICK-ME/first
^ collection of ranger guides.

guys you srsrly have issues in unrestanding warriors.
first ovol, other classes have best healing skills, like shelter (cant intreput this) or withdraw (cant intreput this too) or even the necro heal that eats conditions. other classes get benefits from active healing and theyre happy.
secndly, warriors have much defenes from armor and living points so they already need a strong healz to be able to survive, otherwise theyre just defnsnive.
now hear good becuz this is most importitant:
warriors with healsig are weak to gettting alot of damage all the time + having posion and conditions all the time, if you do 3v1 to wariror he will die. noobs dont know that the besst way to win vs war is to bring many friends against him.
as a warrior if you do 1 mistake you can only do like 10 more mistakes and then youre DEAD.
so befor you say we so OP i say you should try one and see for yourslfe.
ok thax for readnig guys.

I’m not a friend of warriors, I’m a warrior myself. I’m just not trying to hide behind my kitten.
The Strength line actually synergizes well with a lot of different builds:
1) “Building Momentum” trait grants 50% of you endurance on using a burst skill – this trait is almost on the same level of “Fast Hands” of how gamechanging it is. All builds besides maybe GS/Rifle benefit a lot from this trait.
2) GS/axe/rifle all benefit from the +power, while GS and axe has some powerful traits there.
3) Mace (and even hammer) benefits from “Distracting Strikes”
4) Every dual wielding set benefits from “Dual Wielding” trait.
5) Longbow benefits from the condition duration, and coupled with "Building Momentum it’s now generating a lot of endurance very easily.

It’s not necessarily true that you add build diversity by moving useful skills down. Sometimes skills are too powerful for certain specs and that’s why they gotta say byebye.

Hambow has been nerf, with even more to come but it still makes absolutely no difference.
As long as Warriors equip Healing Signet and stay in the Defense trait line they’re going to be a sustain DPS beast. The goal is to drive them away from the Defense line or just punish them for staying there.
You can’t judge if Warrior is OP from a the position of a warrior, fighting other warriors as a warrior is fairly easy, when you use other specs you start crying about HealSig.

Liewec.2896:

i believe Anet’s spokeswoman Daenerys Targaryen already answered this.
“when the sun rises in the west and sets in the east. when the rivers run dry, and the mountains blow in the wind like leaves. then you shall have a new pvp mode.”

^ this.

I play a longbow ranger, but not in pve, I play it in pvp-hotjoin.
as much as it’s not viable in pve it’s even more useless in pvp :\
but it’s still really fun and that’s why I play it

Do you hate hambows?
Do you hate kitten?
If so, I have a suggestion that will blow your mind!

Cleansing Ire itself isn’t really the problem, it’s its location. Being only a Master trait, in the Defense trait line is a big issue.
While high vitality is supposedly the first counter to condition damage, Cleansing Ire (the best warrior condition removal trait) is located in a toughtness/healing traitline. meaning that by investing 20 points in defense trait-line you’re more rewarded than by investing 30 points in tactics trait line (which is vitality/boon-duration).

That being said, this trait works best coupled with Hammer/Longbow builds, since they are most likely to get the cleansing effect.

Hammer and Longbow both have incredibly strong Burst Skills, arguably the best burst skills (tpvp-wise), A build that can take both “Burst Mastery” and “Cleansing Ire” is now a sustain beast with massive AOE pressure, considering how well those two work together. And on top of that you get “Merciless Hammer” trait which improve your dps even further.
by investing 30 points into Defense and 30 points into Discipline you have +300 toughtness, +300 healing power, +30% crit damage, reduced burst cd, Massive AOE pressure, and one of the best conditional removals possible.

This seems a lot too defensive for such a strong dps build.
The hambow relative traits seems to focused on those 2 trait-lines that work too well together.

Sorry for taking this long to get to the suggestion itself, but finally here it is:
Switch between “Cleansing Ire” (Master Defense trait) and “Berserker’s Might” (Grandmaster Strength Trait).

Berserker’s Might have a similar effect to Cleansing Ire, but doesn’t give you the crazy sustainability that Cleansing Ire does. This way the classic Hambow build will no longer be such an all around spec, it will be a lot more pressured by conditions.

But let’s say a warrior says “omg wtf I need cleasing ire to survive”.
Now warriors need 30 points in Strength, so they need to give up either Defense or Discipline.

1) A Strength/Discipline Hambow will have an extremely high DPS combined with smooth condition removal, bit it will lack the sustain of the current classic Hambow.

2) A Strength/Defense Hambow will have high sustain combined with decent dps, but it will lack the crit damage, reduced burst cd, Fast Hands trait, and Burst Mastery.

These two specs would still be viable and extremely effective, but will no longer be an all-around sustain beast.
This change would open up build diversity, Since Strength trait line synergies better with many different weapons, it doesn’t flavour a specific set.

tl;dr
Switch between Berserker’s Power (Grandmaster Strength trait) and Cleansing Ire (Master Defense trait) to balance the warrior’s current broken state (all is vain), and open up build diversity.

FYI I’m a warrior myself

Thanks for reading may lyssa kitten us all!

Sykper.6583:

…..Absolutely absurd, its like Deja Vu all over again. The same points and counter-points are being discussed, yet there is no ACTUAL constructive arguments that have not already been pointed out yet.

Let me give you guys the distinct reasons why they cannot nerf Healing Signet anymore than they will with the balance patch coming up: …

I only agree with you about that warrior’s other healing skills are too weak and don’t synergies well with most builds.
But honestly got many parts wrong.

1. Stability: warriors with Dolyak Sig. + Balanced Stance + Lyssa can have up to 23 seconds of stability, every 40(s)-60(s). That’s way too much.

2. Telegraphed Skills: I don’t thing warriors are so obvious and telegraphed, but let’s just say they are. Hambow warriors will waste your endurance with Combustive Shot and Auto attack (either longbow’s or hammer’s) Earthshaker from close range during a team fight isn’t easy to dodge, especially if you’re immobilized by the hammer (if traited) or Pin Down. The Fact that warriors will constantly have either Combustive Shot or Earthshaker at a time you can’t dodge or will simply immobilize you.

3. Warrior’s soft mitigation is Adrenal Health + High base defensive stats. while it’s not alot, warriors do have a huge amount of hard mitigation, having too much soft mitigation would make the warrior even more broken.

4. Berserker’s Stance isn’t situational at all. It’s always effective. Not only by being immune to condition damage, but being immune to condition CC like Fear, Blinding, Immobilize, Chill, Cripple. It’s always good because it will always make you more unstoppable.

Now, before the judgment crusade of “l2p noob try warrior and see for yourself” I can tell you that I main a warrior, and besides that I played every class as main at some point and have played all pvp specs in the game.

it’s funny that people say “warriors don’t have any other way of sustain”. Are you kittenning kidding me?
warriors have some of the best susatin options without HS:
1. Stances (berserker stanse and endure pain in particular).

2. Highest access to self stability in-game.

3. Adrenal Health.

4. Cleansing Ire.

5. Amazing CC skills such as “Skull Crack”, “Earthshaker”, “Pin Down”. (CC is both offensive and defensive, duh).

6. Easy access to lyss’s 6th effect via Signet of Rage.

7.Overall the best self condition removal/sustainability in-game: Berserker’s Stance, Signet of Stamina, Cleansing Ire, lyssa+Signet of Rage.

8.mace/sword or mace/shield combined with the “Missile Deflection” is incredibly defensive and also offensive. It counters projectile-focused specs to the ground.

And on top of all that, warriors have the highest base HP and one of the highest base toughtness. They’re already very sustained.
So enough with this “lol we’re glass don’t nerf pl0x”.

so what race did you pick?

what you suggested is too strong, and passive dodges isn’t something that gw2 would do.
honestly the problem is that it doesn’t clear movement impairing effects (immob/cripple/chill) and that it gets on a 1/2 sec cd when being CC’d.

Hey, I’ve seen some posts here about giving staves to rangers. I thought it might be cool if rangers would use staves as melee weapons. It could be a whirly melee-range weapon combined with some magical capabilities. I really don’t want to see another boring design like the guardian’s staff.
What do you guys think?

Thieves are the fastest/most mobile class in game….

it’s funny, spirit ranger’s pet has swiftness, protection, and burning every 10 seconds. And obviously the player is stronger with spirits too.
no reason to go BM, spirits makes both the player and the pet better.
#SpiritsAreStupidWhyAreTheyOurNatureMagicUtiltySkillS
#Honestly,SomeKindOfCoolNatureAttacksWouldBeAlotBetter
#WhyWouldWeWantRandomHologramsToFollowUs
#WeAlreadyHavePetsWeDon’tNeedMoreThingsFollowingUs

I understand what you mean, and you do have a point. But I think what you’re suggesting is basically easier counterplay, which we want to avoid.
As you become more experienced in PvP it gets easier for you to tell when someone’s going to dodge. You need to pay attention to how many times your foe dodged in a period of time to know if he/she can dodge again, you need to disguise your intention and be cunning to not let your foe dodge your big attacks.
Good players won’t just spam their important skills, they’re try to make their foe waste its endurance and be vulnerable.

I think the problem is that certain specs can dodge too much considering they also have other defense mechanisms while having extremely high DPS.

If you cut down the dodge mechanism you ruin one of gw2’s most unique feature – dynamic combat.

Here’s my handsome sylvari warrior “Lord Griften”

you guys are funny.
Burst and Poison are counters to any healing skill in the game. period.

1) Burst is weaker against HS, why? Because All calsses except of thieves have breaks between their big bursts. If your healing skill is on cooldown, you can be killed by 2 bursts that have a small break between (like 8-10 sec). But with HS on, you’ll be healed a significant amount during that break, making the burst less effective.

2) Poison is a lot better against burst heals, as you can get the whole 33% healing reduction with only a few seconds of poison. Let’s say you’re in a fight that lasts 30 seconds, you can either have Healing Surge or Healing Signet. Let’s say you’ve been poisoned for 10 seconds during the fight and did not cleanse it at all.

• Healing Signet should heal you for 30×400 = 12000 HP.
  But you’ve been poisoned, so during those 10 seconds you were
  only healed for 10×264 = 2640 hp. So the actual amount healed is a poor 10649 hp (already higher than Healing Surge’s full heal with no poison btw)

• Healing Surge can heal you a maximum amount of 10000 hp during those 30 seconds (1 activation) so, if you waited for the poison to end, you still didn’t heal more than HS, BUT if you healed during the poison (maybe because you had to.. due to burst pressure on you) you would only heal for 6666 hp.

Boom, lawyered.
(healing signet is OP as ****)

More damage? Hell yeah.
More stealth? only a tiny bit more.

This is a great idea, thanks Prysin.
Before I’ll write down my wishlist I’d like to point out the major flaws in the ranger class:

• Most utility skills are not effective if not traited, this leads to very little build diversity.
• Weapon skills are too weak. Having a pet should be our advantage, reducing our own damage output because we have a pet makes no sense.
• Pets are unreliable, if you don’t have full Beastmastery your pet is weak both offensively and defensively. Also, the pet system is bugged (pet won’t use the F2 skill and it will go on full cd)
• Grandmasters aren’t strong as they should be, they’re extremely situational or utility-dependant.
• Rangers lack condition removal.

Griften’s Wishlist for Ranger changes in 2014:

Pet
1) Rework to the pet system that will allow another active pet skill and thus promote active play
2) More effective and impacting pet skills – longer range, higher dps, longer boon/condi durations, etc…
3) More group support / crowd control through pets, but without being required to heavily trait for it.
4) Better AI for the pets.
5) Increased vitality and toughness for all pets.

Weapons
1) Increase the dps of the Longbow skills. channel and cast times should remain the same to maintain the longbow’s concept, but there should be higher reward for being so slow.
2) Sword needs a rework. It’s not enjoyable to use, players like having control of their character, and it just feels too clunky. Using the auto chain in PvP usually leads to suicide.
3) Improved dps and reliability of the GS auto attack and skills.

Trait System
1) Marksmanship’s minor traits are too weak and requires a rework. The Marksmanship’s Grandmaster trait “Signet of the Beastmaster” should be reworked, the signets should always affect the player, the current signet system discourages build diversity.
2) Skirmishing’s major traits are too weak and do not support melee combat. It doesn’t feel like this trait line even has a concept since it has so many none raw damage supportive traits. Since sword has the highest dps out-put it would make sense that skirmishing (the highest dps out-put trait line) would support it.
3) Nature’s Voice – Regeneration and Swiftness is not that strong for a grandmaster trait, especially since the shouts themselves areso useless you’re pretty much sacrificing a utility skill for it.
4) Improved traits overall, other classes got major improvement to most of their weak traits. Ranger still have traits that only reduce weapon skills cool down, while every such trait of a Warrior also increases the damage out-put or adds something to the weapon.

Utility Skills
1) I want to see a “Camouflage” utility skill that breaks stun and applies stealth for 3 seconds.
2) The shouts, spirits, and signet utility skills should be effective even when not traited.
3) More utility skills.
4) Lightning Reflexes should remove movement-impairing effects… come on.

One last thing: I do think that spirits should be reworked. Instead of being summoned minions, they could be auras applied to the ranger. They could be displayed as spirit-like winds traveling around the player.

We didn’t always have such linear meta builds.
When something is under-powered, ANet usually over buffs it and makes it OP.
They have done this enough times that there are overly buffed specs and classes that dominate PvP at the moment.

We (power-based dps rangers) lack survivability, group support, CC, and surprise-surprise we lack dps….
We are the least damaging DPS spec in the game. And that’s because 30% of our damage is not improved by our stats and pretty much useless (our pet)
I tested out every dps spec there is on the ranger, and I came out with a pretty decent:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQNAsXTjAV91VWCWoWCili9s/uAOD+zInCU1pLWpEJ-TsAg0CnISSlkLJTSyksJNKY9x8DA
you can switch the sword/axe to GS though sword has a much higher dps.
you can also switch every one of the utility skills except Signet of Renewal (must have this if you don’t have the “Empathic Bond” trait)

oh and almost forgot: you really be team supportive as a dps ranger. if you really want to be some-what supportive use Spirit of nature as your elite skill, it’s still useful for desperate healing or reviving.