Guild Wars 2

I’m affraid not. The most annoying npcs are always unkillable in this game. Just watch her to return to life turned into some demigod monster after getting washed in the blue goo drilled out in the last cutscene. Some of the story designers just love Scarlet.
Bet that the risen Scarlet will tame all elder dragons and the main plot will continue as a battle between her and queen Jennah, while these two will also start developing a lesbian love – hate romance.

Alice.8694:

Our heroes opt to imprison scarlet instead of killing her. The first chapter of the second season would see scarlet imprisoned in an impenetrably force-field within Rata-sum.

Not THAT again. Every time I finish the Mai Trin bossfight I’m furious that I can’t finish her for good. And to do the same mistake with such a boring character like Scarlett? Oh please no more emotionaly unstable egomaniac characters in power roles. [spoiler]And on the top of that Marjorje survives. kitten it. [/spoiler]

Mortifact.3102:

I’m starting to think Anet is just doing it because girl on girl is hot.

Well I believe that at least one of the writers want to “educate” us or something. And btw I’m ok with lesbian romances – but GOOD ONES. What they write for ANet (and not just the romances) is a flat and empty cliche, nothing more. And sorry, Faolain and Caithe were as hopeless as the whole Destiny Edge… I wonder if the story designers ever had a normal social human life – no real human beings can be such a bunch of annoying drama queens like the Destiny Edge.

Dulfy gives the following recipe for infused tempered spinal blades:

Infused version: 1 xxxx Tempered Spinal Blades + 10 Pile of Crystalline Dust + 1 Glob of Coagulated Mist Essence + 1 Gift of Ascension in Mystic Forge

Does it work on transmuted version, too? Or you can never infuse the spinal blades once transmuted?

Miss Pink Floyd.9730:

I just spent 5 gold on a recipe for Gift of Blades, If I had known that there would be such a ridiculous amount of gold to purchase the Elonian Leather, I never would have wasted my 5 gold on the Gift of Blades. Furthermore, my characters are at 400 crafting because of the ridiculous cost of getting them any higher, so I can’t refine my own Elonian Leather, not sure how much money I would save making my own anyway. The trading post wants 4.5 Gold per Elonian Leather piece! This is insane, I don’t know why I even bother with this game anymore. I am quite unhappy atm.

Well so you bought the bad stuff. Don’t worry it happens. It’s just a game. And the 5g is a full ac run so…

Specific Game Mode
PvX

Proposal Overview
Teach rangers how to dodge.

Goal of Proposal
Making ranger a mobile fighter – making the static bearbow strategy less rewarding.

Proposal Functionality
Add some utility to dodges in “thief style” like triggering a trap, confusion, pet bonus, swiftness, projectile reflection, regen, whatever, to make dodging (I dont mean dodging weapon skills, but evades with movement keys), close range, and mobile strategy rewarding for rangers.
Make rangers masters of evade and dodge.

Allie Murdock.8152:

1. Longbow: Reward max range and synergize with pet.
   1. Vulnerability instead of damage increase with range (s1), cripple (s2), immobilize (s3), knockdown (s5)
   2. Pet might (s3), swiftness (s2), regen (s5)
2. Shortbow: Condition Damage
   1. Burning (s3), Torment (s4), s3 should be s5 w/ leapback + confusion

But this does not make much sense, really.

If longbow is a long range weapon, it should be more about damage, and less about cc – an offensive weapon.
While shortbow, being a close range weapon, should be a kiting weapon – defensive – aoes and cc.

So it is the longbow what should have burning and torment, while shortbow should have cripple, imobilize and knockdown.

Also remember that most of the problems with rangers come from the “spoiled childhood” – a ranger while levelling learns that the most rewarding strategy is to stand at long range with a lb, out of danger, and pet tanks the mob somewhere far, far away. And synergy of lb with a pet makes this even more rewarding.

If the rangers should be a welcome team members (and PVE is about teaming, if I want to solo I dont need to play MMO) the most rewarding strategy must be rather something like “open with lb then actively cooperate with your pet to get the mob down” and by active cooperation I mean using team buffs, heals, skill synergies, etc. – the pet being the ranger’s team at the moment. Then when teaming with other players, rangers would use the team utility skills naturally and will be able to fight close to their companions and observe what is happening.

Not like now, when it is mostly “omg my bear1 is dead, let me rep it with my bear2, omg both bears are dead and I’m HIT, let me cast healing spring, omg I’m dead how am I supposed to survive such an aoe (while standing on the same spot) oh what was that dodge you talk about, rangers don’t have such skill, ANet why do you make it so hard for rangers to survive???”

Specific Game Mode
PvX

Proposal Overview
improvement of sword skill 2

Goal of Proposal
better utility of sword skill 2

Proposal Functionality
Please consider modifying sword skill 2:
The Hornet sting is active only when there is a target at a melee distance, and in this case it is followed by Monarchs leap (nothing changed).
But if the targeted mob is not at melee range, the main hand sword skill 2 triggers Monarch leap instead, and ranger jumps to his target.

So the skill 2 works both as an attack skill and an escape skill, depending on circumstances.

You don’t get it, guys.
With an ammo introduction must come a higher damage for the ranged weapons. So yes you shoot money at your mob but it is still worth it. But this is how anything ranged works, and it makes a balance in a word where you mix melee and ranged.
Also, if you want to be at safe distance in combat, well you pay for it.

Consider introducing an ammo.

Ammo can be created by crafters, or looted from (ranged) mobs. Ammo comes in different qualities, better ammo gives conditions etc. and more damage. Must be carried in inventory. Once all ammo is spent, it is not possible to use ranged weapons anymore.

Some ascended back items can be unlimited (or limited ammount per day) source of the very basic ammo.

Increase ranged weapon damage so it is on par with melee weapons, or higher. Increase range of ranged weapons. Add a chance for a miss when attacking a very distant target.

Consider making flying mobs out of the melee weapons reach when airborne and not attacking by a melee attack. These mobs can be hit by a ranged weapon though, as long as they are in effective range.

Create a new class of game animals, who would normally flee from players, but can he hunted with ranged weapons (or using stealth). There animals have a guaranteed leather drop (i.e. leather “nodes”).

KarateKid.5648:

Anet nerfed…

Somebody please tell them that nerfing is certainly NOT the way to go.

Vol.7601:

Yes, people have been permanently banned for this,

Is that a joke? Did they really BAN people for farming stuff??? If this behaviour continues I guess I am leaving this game soon, there must be some serious control freak in the dev team if they really do that…

If they do not want people farming, there is an easy way – give them some better possibility.
This was discussed about a million times – since I can do my daily rich vein run this should also work for other mats. I like the idea of being rewarded by a real treasure of this game – the crafting materials – after doing something slightly challening (jumping puzzles, fighting stronger mobs). Why do I need to run around looking for wood nodes or mass killing mobs in hope that something might even drop next time is beyond my understanding…

Well yeah I can grind ac for money and buy the stuff but I hate doing it. If I want the mats, I want to go to harvest them and I want to have fun doing it.

Well outsourcing programmer – scripter work to cheap labor areas might seem like a money saving at first to some unexperienced managers, but in a long run? Not really…

A word of advice, dear devs. If you really want me to enjoy the game stop pushing me around. The people are right to be creative so stop trying to force them into your schemes, you will lose anyway. If you want to encourage anything, encourage the creativity in people.
All great games of past (and Python) were following the nice credo: “there are several ways how to do it”…

Most of the trait lines make players decide to go either max damage or support. Please consider to make some distinctive separation of damage traits and support traits, giving every class a damage and support line so every class can go max dps and also some support without sacrifying the dps traits.
Make dps mutualy exclusive with character personal defences (toughness, vitality, character only heal/condi removal skills).
This game has a lot unused support utility since people are more or less pushed into maximum damage builds (which is understandable, as the best defence is a good offence, but sad).

Yoh.8469:

Well, I wouldn’t go that far.
But what I would recommend is that the Longbow had 1500 range by default.

Because honestly, range is a joke in this game. Everyone is almost always in range of each other, and with the shear number of gap closers, you can’t even kite melee effectively. Makes you wonder what the bloody point is.
And that cripples this weapon, since you can’t maintain your distance.

Maybe it wouldn’t be so much of an issue if high ground advantage actually existed, where you had longer ranger the higher up you were, ala GW1.
But no, of course not, that would be interesting.

So if it had slightly longer range by default and some better distance making skills, I could see it become a very cat and mouse sort of weapon.
Say if Rapid fire also increase movement speed by 50% during it’s channel.

And say Hunter’s Shot crippled as well.
Barrage as many have asked for, should be able to be channeled while moving.
(actually turn it into a channel skill)

-
How about this for a trait as a replacement for Eagle Eye.
Channeling skills give you 50% movement speed for their duration.

Make Barrage and Whirling Defense mobile skills, and then I think you could get some pretty interesting results. Potentially overpowered results, but interesting.

I can’t see them implementing something like that. Imagine all the meleers whinning… and for a reason. But I can imagine to have the kiting support on the short ragne shortbow, plus the range and spike damage skills (with some stuns, knockbacks, or condis thrown in) on the longbow. So you use a longbow at a distance and finish with a shortbow whatever lives long enough to get close to you. And this is the very moment when you start running (using roots and slows as you go) as well.

What remains to be solved is how to make longbow useful in dungeons and stacking. I’m affraid that unless somebody comes with some smart idea, lb will remain useful for soloing only.

RoyalPredator.9163:

Bow is not a sniper rifle… its more like a “DMR”.
I would rage delete my account if the autoattack ROF gets even slower O.o

Yeah. You are right. However how many ppl including devs know what DMR means? Everybory knows what is a “sniper rifle”, though.

About the autoattack ROF, well I care more about the dps. That signet of fire would likely proc less often, thats right.

Specific Game Mode
All modes

Proposal Overview
Rework of bow skills

Goal of Proposal
Weapon specialization.

Proposal Functionality
As it is now, longbow seems to be designed more like a “sniper rifle” weapon type in mind, while shortbow reminds a SMG.
Please consider going further this way (as this makes a lot of sense). Make longbow a hard hitting, long range and single target weapon, while shortbow should me a close quarters defensive multiple target weapon.

Associated Risks
<What risks or problems can you foresee with this proposal which you would like to have assistance on from other members of the CDI>

Specific Game Mode
PvE

Proposal Overview
fixing pets, adding more team utility

Goal of Proposal
making rangers welcome in teamplay

Proposal Functionality

PETS
1. Sort pets into groups: healing pets, tanking pets, damage pets (these groups in fact exist already). Every group has a “signature functionality” as below.
Healing pets: avoid combat, and heal their master and/or the party members, never take aggro. This is in fact a HOT with an animal animation.
Damage pets: attack rangers target from flank or behind, aviod damage, never take aggro. This is in fact a DOT with an animal animation.
Tanking pets: always have aggro (as long as alive), turn mob away from rangers. This is pretty much the typical trinity tank, with one important exception – it will never lose aggro until dead or called back from combat.

Notes:
a) Mobs take the ranger responsible for actions of his healer and dps pets, i. e. dps pet attack (or healers heal) draws aggro on ranger. These two pet groups will also never affect mobs trajectory or position, unlike tanking pets, who work exactly the other way.

b) Non-healer pets are guaranteed to hit, they open with a charge / teleport / jump and land on the target mob (to avoid AI trajectory
problems), and their attacks will “glue” them to the target much like rangers sword 1 skill. An additional effect like short root, knockdown or slow might be added to make sure the pet will connect properly.

c) Pets have some additional abilities as a bonus to their main functionality.

d) concerning WvW or PvP, the non-tank pets might pretty much work as described above, the tank might make the ranger invulnerable as long as it lives and shall attack (well positions itself so it can be easily seen and attacked) rangers attacker – or draw the damage ranger takes to itself.

2. Pets are permanently stowable and will never respawn until rangers explicit command. When stowed, pets give ranger certain bonuses.
The simple way: just add a damage bonus about as high as an average pet damage (calculated over all pets).
The more complex way: add some bonuses to stats (and damage) based on pets stats and damage. Keep the pets action, centered on the ranger.

TEAM UTILITY
Add shouts (pleads to nature animal forces like the Norn spirits) with a party wide effect. All party members get the effect as long as they are close enough (in combat, under 1200 range etc.)

Shouts have several short time effects, like heal and regen, damage bonuses, protection bonuses, with an animal spirit animation on every affected character when invoked (animation is on as long as the effect is on so the party members know they were just buffed by the ranger). These work on party members if the ranger is in an party, or on 4 closest allies under the range of 600. There are no enemy targeted shouts.

Spirits as they are now shall be able to follow the ranger by default, untraited.

WEAPONS
Shortbow: change the 2 skill into a aoe centered on target with the same effect. Increase shortbow range.
1h sword: make kick animation in skill 1 interruptable by evade.
Longbow: add guaranteed crit to the next attack to skill 3

Longbow and a drake, Heal as one, signet of the hunt, and 30 in marksmanship. Shortbow or greatsword as a backup weapon. Oh and switch to sword and horn if you are soloing some group dps check…
However as a ranger you will be hated by most pug groups. So make a warrior, guardian or ele alt for dungeons and fractals.
Levelling a ranger is a faceroll, but once you are on level 80 your life ends.

Go ele if you want to be welcome in pug runs.

Barbarka.9362:

-Would you join a guild exclusively for Legit dungeon runs?
-All bosses would be fought as intended.

And how exactly should be the bosses fought? You think there is some only “proper” way and anything else is cheating or what do you mean?
Every dungeon newbie (let me guess, mostly rangers) start immediately whining about stacking being bad on forums. Well stacking is perfectly legit. Live with it.

Fluffball.8307:

Dungeons and fractals are the only part of the game.

I suppose you wanted to write “dungeons and fractals are NOT…”.
Well of course they are not. But this is where rangers have most problems. I’m talking the everpresent antiranger pug hate.
The change they need to do should actualy make rangers overpowered to beat the prejudice which makes people type “no rangers” in their LFM posts on finder.
Nobody can kick you off WvW zerg, and you can PVP as much as you like. But dungeons and fractals are off limits unless you team with guildmates who will be more tolerant than pug.

OP, are you saying you were owned by a ranger in PVP?

Happy to see that the patch notes are fake. Because nothing in the ranger section reflected the main problem, which is, that rangers are useless and therefore unwelcome in teams.

MasterKitty.8205:

On the contrary to the popular belief, I do not, nor will I ever think (until they truly are, ofc) that rangers are the worst class in the game.

Well think what you want but if you want to keep your “happy ranger” attitude, do not try to join pug parties. Mostly they will kick you right after seeing the ranger icon without even talking to you.

Since pets are more or less worthless in dungeons and fractals, how does this really help?

This is a bloody joke. How do they think is this supposed to make rangers welcome in teams again?

So Anet thinks that the pets are still a good source of damage and the AI works as intended. Nothing really surprising.

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

I do not want to get punished for my pet beeing killed. Also, if I’m downed, why the heck should my pet get punished? It’s not like our pet could kill an enemy to get us back up or even heal us (downed skill 3).
That’s a stupid idea.

No, it’s not a stupid idea.
The pet becomes your extension (as it should be) so letting it die shall hurt you… a lot. A true beastmaster must be one with his pet and shall keep the pet alive though the whole fight. When the pet dies it must be a significant loss, something you want to avoid.

Well, make the pets also optional. It’s nice to have an animal companion, but I would happily trade the pets as they are now for some significant damage boost plus some party utility.

It’s not really the trinity – I’m just using familiar terminology.
The “tank” is in fact nothing more than a party wide toughess / vitality buff plus a root, together with a fancy pet animation.
The “dps” is just a DOT with some bonuses.
The “healer” is just a HOT with some bonuses.
It’s very simple and it will work. No problems with tracking, aggro, etc. Also, it’s possible to implement with a minimum effort, since it is actualy a simplification of the current system.

Fun Daddy, what do you think is wrong with the aggro? Can you be more specific?

Sort pets into 3 main groups, tanks, healers and dps.

Generic: if a pet is killed, ranger takes considerable damage and stun. The pet suffers from the same effect when ranger is downed. OTOH every healing ranger performs affect the pet as well by default. Pet can be also healed by aoe or targeted heals of other team members.

Tanks attack target mob with a charge or teleport and are guaranteed to hit. They also turn target mob away from the ranger, immediatelly gain aggro, and hold aggro as long as alive or until commanded to return / replaced. They do almost no damage, can have retaliation, maybe regen, and stay at the target despite aoes etc.

Dps they never gain aggro and position themselves at flanks / back of the mob who attacks ranger (or rangers party member). They always follow target and attack it (much like rangers sword#1), doing considerable damage. They actively try to avoid aoes and cone attacks. They can cc / condition the target mob.

Healers never get aggro like dps, and heal / revive ranger and his group. They always follow ranger and stay away form enemies. Lets assume for simplicity that their healing skills are always centered at the ranger (aoe) or affect all party members, and work at a solid distance. They always “hit”. Please avoid ground targeted aoe skills or cones (anything not centered on a character) since there can possibly be issues.
Healers can also cure conditions, give boons to the ranger and/or party, and revive downed or killed members.

Once ranger is killed or down, the pet skills are disabled. They pet may attempt to revive downed or killed ranger (healers having higher effectivity at that).
However when ranger is downed, a pet gets similar shock like ranger does, when pet dies.

Even non aggro pets are, of course, vulnerable, but unlike tank, they will never affect mob positioning.

All pets can be stowed permanently and they never reappear automatically until ranger decides.

EDIT: pets are affected by rangers stats.

vitali.1609:

Roll an easymode faceroll over the keyboard and win warrior, its the devs favorite class.

Exactly. I levelled up a warrior immediatelly after discovering rangers are outcasts in team play. With a zerk war, you are welcome (almost) everywhere.

However if you like to play rangers, you can still go ranger for some daily chores like dailies, harving, exploring, temples, almost everything solo. With a drake pet and lb/gs you can solo easy champs and/or some group events (CoE chain f.e.) without much trouble. But this is MMO and MMOs are about team PVE and PVP and you will have harder times at this, compared to other classes. The pet is more trouble than help in team PVE, and in PVP it’s almost useless.

vitali.1609:

nope, no permastow. need to be able to have a petless build…that would fix everything.

Not everything, but it would be a great improvement anyway.

QueenHysteria.1084:

Anyone that has played ranger type classes in an mmo can immediately tell just how poorly this class was developed in GW2. Ranger does no particular tasks well because specialization is impossible to achieve with the given trait layout and skill selections you have to choose from. [snip]

To make a long story short: pets are an utter failure at almost everything save tanking solo stationary mobs, and this will be hardly improved.
I dont think ANet can develop some good AI quickly and even if they can it will be way too expensive. And I doubt they would say “OK, we were wrong”, drop the whole pet idea, and make ranger a strong ranged dps.

Even if they make ranger a strong ranged dps, we are still screwed, because almost all teamwork is melee heavy. The team works best if stacked – the party support skills have way too limited range to allow loose formation.

vitali.1609:

Wondrouswall.7169:

There, there. Feel better after that wall of rant? Here, have a cookie. Oh, wait. You’re a Ranger, you don’t get one. Here’s something else.

LOL good stuff. Im debating rolling a warrior but not sure if I want to lvl/gear up another toon.

Warriors are good at everything and welcome everywhere. And levelling a toon and gearing up is so easy, namely if it is a warrior.

If a crosshair is on you, duck and cover.
Yeah, I like playing ranger, I do not log my ranger much recently, and if I do, it is for solo only.
And since the only way they can improve ranger is to do something with the pets (and this is hardly going to happen)… well bad luck.

So far we can buy only rings and back item for fractal relics. Give us more ascended items for fractal relics.
Considering the terrible low droprate of ascended chests, this would be fair – at least people know that if they will grind fotm long enough they will have something ascended for granted. Unlike the “lottery” we have atm.

Some people do not understand english at all, or just look for a “exp” groups to babysit them to the good loot.

People sometimes do not understand how fractals work, what is agony resistance, and namely what fractal levels mean. This leads to situations when level 30 character tries to join a fractal level 30 group or a fresh level 80 character with no ar tries to join a tier 3 group.

Please consider limiting access to higher tiers only to those whose reward level is already inside the selected tier. This might limit the unnecessary grief of players being rejected or kicked from fractal groups, and it would also give people some long term goal.

+1 for the Linux or SteamOS port.

Cat Has Ducks.1982:

Iris Ng.9845:

Sadly, I don’t pug Guards in higher levels of fractals. I most welcome thief (for the skip and stealth) and then war, since they can carry themselves.

Am I hearing what I think I’m hearing. You forsake guards on your runs? If I ever run into you, I’ll be sure to remember this!

The problem with guards is that they are harder to play than warriors, and namely in pugs.

The best class for a pug is a dps full zerker warrior.

frans.8092:

Sneakier.9460:

“-You can’t deal the same amount of damage with your weapons like the other classes do because the pet also deals damage.”

Pets don’t share in the stat boost granted by foods, buffs and ascended gear. Inevitably the ranger will loose in that race.

But this is only the beginning – since the pet often has a problem to get to the target and hit it. And if it manages, it dies almost instantly. Now I’m talking anything stronger than common trash mobs. The pet for example will not evade or even move away to escape telegraphed danger – and any real animal is way better at that than humans.

I’m not an AI expert but I assume that making a good combat AI is far from easy and guys who know how to program such stuff are not working for computer games companies but for military. So the best and easiest solution is to buff the player controlled character and leave computer controlled character as something nice to have but not important.

Pwent.2639:

Rangers have strong builds it just takes time to learn them.

You can tweak a ranger up to be almost as good as an average thief or a warrior. But this is not the point. The point is, as I already said before, that an (under)average casual player on a ranger with a bow is as good as the same player on a warrior with melee weapons.

idk what other classes are you playing. I gave up my ranger for group playing as the OP did and I mostly use my 80ish warrior and guard for it. And I can confirm what the OP says. Having full zerker on all my lvl 80 chars including the guard and ascended weapons on war and ranger, and even the guard with her hammer seems to kill things faster than the ranger with cat pet. OTOH with gs and drake pet the ranger has almost as nice survivability as the guard. But yet again, almost – and not as strong group utility.
And I’m frequently frustrated by the pet AI.

This game has already a lot of workarounds so I wonder why don’t they add another one – any pet should open with an attack like the gs3, guaranteed to land at the target.

Sneakier.9460:

“-You can’t deal the same amount of damage with your weapons like the other classes do because the pet also deals damage.”

Yeah, I can imagine them saying that. Well then there is an easy solution, ANet: give me an option to trade pets for more damage. And I’m going for the damage, and namely straight raw damage over crits, conditions, whatever, every time. I want to be a viable (ranged) dps, and if possible, with a good group support.

Conditions are capped on 25 stacks…

Rangers are hated for a good reason – they are badly spoiled. During levelling, ranger gets used to use his scapegoats, um, sorry, pets, sending them to take all the damage and eventualy die, to be replaced by the second slotted scapegoat, while ranger stands far, far away just shooting his bow, rmoved from the fight.
And rangers try to behave exactly the same in groups. The group is just their scapegoat for them.
What is also bad – the scapegoat tactics works nice for soloing and normal mobs, where the rangers really can faceroll at the worst, but crumbles to dust when meeting anything even slightly more challenging.

So pets – and mob AI – are root of most of the rangers problem.
Mobs should prefer the higher threat which is not the bear, but the organ-grinder.

Ranger – pet relationship.
I hate to see pets as a mob punchbags. I personally love animals and I would never threat the real world animal friend of mine as the rangers misuse their pets ingame. Pets are way too expendable and rangers have no reason to try to keep their pets alive. And it was obviously the intent – we have enough skills where the pet suffers for his master. It is really not a pet, but a slave. So whoever wants to fix the ranger, he needs to start fixing the twisted ranger – pet relationship first.

Who is a ranger?
The origin of fantasy rangers is easy to backtrack. First fantasy rangers are modelled after Tolkien’s Aragorn and Tolkien’s rangers are simply a copy of colonial / american rangers from 18th century (anglo-french wars and independence wars). Just like the historical Robert Roger’s rangers.
Based on this, ranger is able survivalist, hunter and wilderness travel expert, a perfect skirmisher whose tactics is to outwit the regular army and perform a deadly strike from an unexpected angle. Nothing at all about pets.
So the easiest and most effective way would be to strip rangers of the pets, and make him the fundamental archer and an elite light infantryman with an unconventional and somehow dirty tactics in mind.

Let necros have their minions and be the pet class. Also the scapegoat user state of mind fits the necros better.

Needed a lot, +1