Guild Wars 2

ItIsFinished.9462:

As a Ranger who only uses Longbow in certain situations(Zergs and Jumping Puzzles only). I don’t see the need to have Quick Draw traited. So now I see the comparison as this:

Traits: Shots Pierce

• Ranger Shortbow: 20 trait points and 1 Major Master Trait
  • 20 pts in Marksmanship
  • Piercing Arrows - All arrow attacks pierce targets.
• Engineer Pistol: 30 trait points, 1 Major Grandmaster Trait
  • 30 pts in Firearms
  • Coated Bullets - Pistol shots pierce.
• Warrior Rifle:20 trait points, 1 Major Master Trait
  • 20 pts in Arms
  • Crack Shot - Rifle and harpoon gun shots pierce. Rifle and harpoon gun skills recharge 20% faster.

Basically, in this scenario, the Ranger doesn’t get the short end of the stick IMHO.

You said that wrong though. This is the correct version if you only look at piercing shots:

Traits: Shots Pierce

• Ranger Shortbow: 20 trait points and 1 Major Master Trait
  • 20 pts in Marksmanship
  • Piercing Arrows - All arrow attacks pierce targets.
• Engineer Pistol: 30 trait points, 1 Major Grandmaster Trait
  • 30 pts in Firearms
  • Hair Trigger - Rifle, pistol, and harpoon gun skills recharge 20% faster.
  • Coated Bullets - Pistol shots pierce.
• Warrior Rifle:20 trait points, 1 Major Master Trait
  • 20 pts in Arms
  • Crack Shot - Rifle and harpoon gun shots pierce. Rifle and harpoon gun skills recharge 20% faster.

The engineer might need 10 more points to get piercing shots, but he can have the 20% cooldown reduction for the same amount of trait points, because it’s in the same trait line. For the Ranger to get that 20% reduction he has to spend 20 extra trait points.

I would propose to make the Ranger longbow have 1500 range by default. Then the Ranger still has to spend 40 points to get piercing arrows and 20% cooldown reduction, but at least it’s not 50 points to get all the longbow traits.

Yes I mostly use the longbow for its 1500 range, but I’m basically forced to put 50 trait points into it to grab all its benefits. 30 points in Marksmanship to get both the Master runes (1500 range and piercing arrows) and 20 points in Skirmishing to get 20% cooldown reduction.

Note, I have to go 30 points into Marksmanship, but not for any of the grandmaster runes. In fact, I can’t get any of the grandmaster runes, because I have to get two Master runes.

And then, when my build already has piercing arrows and 20% cooldown reduction for the shortbow, I’m basically forced to pair it with a shortbow. Not forced, but it would be pretty silly not to.

So that’s most of my build because I want to trait for the longbow. I only have 20 trait points left to spend on other things.

I’m not sure what a good solution would be. I do like how these traits also benefit the shortbow and the speargun. But that also means I have to use the longbow in combination with the shortbow and the speargun.

Yes I like using longbow with the range trait in WvW. It’s great to use while being part of a zerg or while standing on a wall.

I think pets are meant to take 40-50% of our dps, simply to reduce our potential damage at range in WvW. If we did 100% damage with the longbow, we might simply be too powerful. Hitting like a truck from 1500 range while safely hiding behind a wall of team-members. We have great survivability while being part of a zerg.

However, it’s really bad in situations where you’re alone in WvW, but that’s where the pet is supposed to come into play and be less worthless.

So, we have pets to reduce our potential ranged damage in WvW. If this is not by design, then it needs a fix. Otherwise, it’s simply working as intended. If you’re not using a traited longbow in WvW, then you need to use your pet.

And this is where the complaints come from. Because the pet isn’t useful enough to take 40-50% of our dps. It all boils down to it being a computer controlled entity with slow attack animations that roots them into place and bad pathing and it can be easily avoided along with most of the open world PvE content. In order for pets to live up to their 40-50% damage potential, they need to be significantly better than their PvE versions.

I would like the confirm this bug. I just ran a test myself in-game and it’s a very clear difference. The tooltip even changes between equiping and unequiping the trait.

I’ve always used Eagle Eye with my longbow and always found Point Blank Shot too slow. Now I know why. I hope this gets fixed very soon.

O wow, so that’s why!

I always found that skill so terribly slow.

edit:
Just ran some tests myself and it’s indeed true and not just a tooltip difference either. It’s a very big difference in cast delay.

The official bug topic is here:
http://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/support/bugs/Ranger-Eagle-Eye-trait-bugged/first#post1738799
It was burried on the 3rd or 4th page already before I replied to it.

Maybe Ranger pets should have a double range setting. One range at which they initiate their attack and another range for how far it reaches. So for example, melee pets could get an attack-range of 100 and a reach-range of 500. This should allow them to hit moving targets more easily without having to change the animations, nor their attack speed.

Maybe pets should have a double range setting. One range at which they initiate their attack and another range for how far it reaches. So for example, melee pets could get an attack-range of 100 and a reach-range of 500. This should allow them to hit moving targets more easily without having to change the animations, nor their attack speed.

It’s advice, not a rule.

The suggestions forum sticky is clearly asking for it and the bugs forum has red topics all over it, proving Anet is more closely watching it than the subforums.

jan.9745:

Are we still playing BETA?

Personally I do think we are still in open beta behind the scenes to some degree.

There are so many skills and traits that do not work or are weak or flat out worthless. Also many runes didn’t even give their benefits for months since release. There are also still many class issues, as the latest Engineer updates proved. Also, a ton of skill/trait tooltips are not telling the truth or are simply not providing enough information.

I think we’re looking at another year or two for all the class issues to have been ironed out. But there is certainly still potential.

Personally I think the quickness nerf was a good initial move, but only as a foundation to improve weapon skills in other ways. Which may take a few more months. They may first want to see what happens now that quickness has been nerfed and react to it accordingly. It wouldn’t surprise me to see improvements to the Ranger longbow soon.

I would definitely want this

Why would I be using another account?

If you read the sticky post on the suggestion forum:
http://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/suggestions/How-This-Sub-Forum-Works/first#post74613

You can clearly see that ANet want all suggestions to converge into that forum rather than to be spread out over all sub-forums.

Also, the bug forum is very actively watched by ANet, it would be a shame for a bug to go unnoticed because it was posted in a subforum. It’s probably at least as useful to send a bug report in-game by typing /bug.

All anger towards Robert Hrouda was completely misguided anyway. If however JonPeters showed up, I’d be really impressed.

Well I recently reinstalled my pc which caused the “post-effects” in video options to be on high by default… and I can confirm my tier 2 male sylvari medium chest armor had some glowing effect. It’s not there with post-effects turned off though.

Post bugs on the bugs forum:
http://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/support/bugs

Post suggestions on the suggestions forum:
http://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/suggestions

Post bugs on the bug forum:
http://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/support/bugs

On a side-note, put suggestions on the suggestion forum:
http://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/suggestions

I would like to make a few suggestions concerning the Ranger Longbow skills:

Long Range shot(1):
- attack speed increased
- projectile speed increased

This skill has a very slow feel to it. The attack speed needs to be increased.
The weapon still has a hard time hitting moving targets at max range. Which is strange, because this skill gets a damage penalty if you don’t shoot at max range. Currenly you can negate it still simply by moving and side-stepping. This skill should not miss if the target is simply moving around. Moving out of range, dodging, or using special skills should be the only way to avoid it. It may need some tracking ability or another increase in projectile speed, or both.

Rapid Fire(2):
- can now be stopped by using other skills.

The only way to stop using this chanelled skill is by pressing esc, which is very unhandy. I need to be able to stop it simply by using another skill. I think the same counts for Barrage(5), but you can stop using Barrage by moving.

Point Blank Shot(4):
- range increased to 1200 (1500 traited).
- causes a knockdown instead of knockback beyond the current max range.

It’s a shame how this skill on a long range weapon often goes unused because of its limited range. It would be great if it could do a knockdown instead of a knockback beyond the current max range.

Barrage(5):
- cooldown decreased by 10 seconds.

This is the Ranger’s only ranged AoE skill and the cooldown is too long if you’re in a situation where it’s the only thing you can use effectively. Even with the 20% reduction trait it’s far too long.

Robert Hrouda is the dungeon/fractal dev, so he’s probably busy reading posts on that forum and maybe tackling some new issues in that part of the game.

The agony resistance was really needed for fractals, so it’s a great update in that respect. Robert probably made it happen since his involvement in the Ranger forums. Which is great and we should all understand how valuable Robert is to us. Be sure to not even think anything negative about him, because it’s not in his power to balance skills. Also the fix to pet reviving must have been thanks to Robert’s involvement. Although I hear it’s not been fixed properly yet unfortunately.

Too bad the good parts of the update were quickly overshadowed by the nerfs Rangers received. It affected a lot of Rangers directly it seems. My build didn’t get buffed nor nerfed, so I’m not angry about the patch. My survivability must have increased by the nerf to quickness, so I should maybe be happy about it.

I liked the removal of culling from WvW and the ability to force use of light-weight player models, which made WvW so much more playable to me.

Aridia.3042:

Holland.9351:

The removal of culling from WvW is great. So I like this patch.

I never used any form of quickness so I can’t miss it, but I might give the greatsword a try now.

I still hope to see some longbow buffs because it’s still my favorite weapon because of 1500+ range and Barrage AoE. These changes would make me happy:
- Long Range shot(1) attack speed increased and projectile speed increased some more.
- Rapid Fire(2) can be stopped by using other skills.
- Point Blank Shot(4) range increased to 1200 (1500 traited). Causes a knockdown instead of knockback beyond the current max range.
- Barrage(5) cooldown decreased by 10 seconds.

How could LB be your favorite weapon if you’ve never used QZ with it?

Does not compute….

Haha, yeah, I didn’t really have room for it in my utility bar. I was using Protect Me, Signet of Renewal and Signet of the hunt. I needed all of those to run past zergs into towers. I think I may have missed out… but I was doing alright without it.

I could/should have used pet swap quickness probably, but I’m rarely close enough to stomp anything. And I was using 30-25-15-0-0, so I didn’t really want to give up piercing arrows, 10% damage while flanking, or the protection on dodge for it.

The removal of culling from WvW is great. So I like this patch.

I never used any form of quickness so I can’t miss it, but I might give the greatsword a try now.

I still hope to see some longbow buffs because it’s still my favorite weapon because of 1500+ range and Barrage AoE. These changes would make me happy:
- Long Range shot(1) attack speed increased and projectile speed increased some more.
- Rapid Fire(2) can be stopped by using other skills.
- Point Blank Shot(4) range increased to 1200 (1500 traited). Causes a knockdown instead of knockback beyond the current max range.
- Barrage(5) cooldown decreased by 10 seconds.

Traps are bugged though. They glitch to within 900 range of the ranger when they trigger, which causes the effect not to land at all (except for part of the spike trap).

I expect this:

We made some ranger changes this patch, but had to go back on them because of risk factor. There are some bugs being fixed and quality of life improvements coming in the next patch, as well as some other significant ranger improvements. I would Literally tell you but I think it would be considered a bit of a spoiler so you will have to be patient.

While we work hard to keep updates going on all professions, not very build us going to contain fixes for everyone due to the nature of software development. One problem with rangers is the lack of build diversity created by a number of sub par utility skills. Many signets, a shout or two, and spirits are all a bit lackluster. That is the first place to expect improvements. Second is trying to improve the feel/ pacing on some weapons.

Don’t expect too much from Robert Hrouda. Only see him as someone who is relaying issues to the developers who can do something about it.

The problem is that those other developers aren’t even remotely interested in coming here to discuss anything. Robert Hrouda is our only way of having issues come to their attention.

Don’t you dare take it out on Robert Hrouda if nothing comes of the Ranger in the next couple of years. It’s not his fault those other developers couldn’t care less to come here on their own.

I’ve thought of an alternative to reducing the 60s cooldown on dead pets:
Let pets automatically revive over time while in-combat.

Currently this only happens outside of combat. The only way to revive a pet in-combat is by swapping him with another pet.

I think most of the issues people have with pets would be resolved if the cooldown on a dead pet wasn’t as long as 60 seconds. Having the cooldown be 3 times longer because the pet died is rather harsh. Often a pet dies in 1 single hit in some encounters.

The chance of your second pet dying is also 3 times more likely because of the 3 times longer cooldown on being able to switch it out. Which means, the chance the second pet will give a 60s cooldown is also multiplied by 3.

So, permanent stow would help keep your second pet available for when you need it while the other pet is on his 60 second cooldown. Switching isn’t always available because of the cooldown, but the game still punishes you severely if the pet dies, even if the option to switch or stow are not available.

so, in conclusion:
- reduce dead pet cooldown considerably. Put it down to 40s at least, but probably down to 30s and possibly down to 20s (no extra penalty on top of having a dead pet).
- allow stow to be permanent in-combat while the pet is in “Avoid Combat” mode

Anything less than this won’t even come close to being a solution and will leave me unsatistied with this game and ANet as a whole. Stop telling us what’s best for us, give us permanent stow without a buff! Also, stop punishing us for pets dying when you give us 0 options to keep him alive. I’ve often had 2 dead pets on 60s cooldowns, eventhough they were both bear pets on passive mode and I was fighing at 1500+ range.

Boomstin.3460:

Holland.9351:

Robert Hrouda, would you please give us a summary of the notes you made? I believe most has been said, but maybe not.

Page 3 in this thread.

Oh thanks. I knew it, but I didn’t know he was updating it.

Robert Hrouda, would you please give us a summary of the notes you made? I believe most has been said, but maybe not.

kiwituatara.6053:

Hi Robert!
I think you may have missed my post on this thread. So I’ll add a picture this time.

Can we please have a pet UI upgrade? A numerical health bar (I just pasted my HP on to the pets HP bar, I know thats not the real number. And all the pets boons/condition/etc show up above the pet UI so we don’t have to click on our pets?

Thank you!

Let me just quote you because this is exactly what we need as well. It even looks good.

It’s also very true that all other classes have a choice to use their class mechanic or not and often only passively helps them. Ok a pet also passively helps us, sort of, but it can die and be disabled and be avoided, etc and we suffer a DPS loss simply for having it. I’m definitely leaning towards giving DPS back to the ranger and taking it away from the pet. I love the idea of a beastmaster that has a really buffed up pet that does most of the damage, but that should probably be made a trait. A trait that reduces the Ranger damage by 30% and gives the pet 40% more damage, or something along those lines. Maybe merge “Speed Training” with this, so it’s still accessible on a low level.

I’m very happy with Robert being actively involved, but I’m also very happy with the rest of the community making great posts.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Oh, and in regards to the Jade Maw targeting pets, I made the conscious decision to allow it to target non-players. I have the ability to change that, but I prefer not to on the grounds that there is some gameplay there. My pet has made the ultimate sacrifice quite a few times while we res’d a down party members, providing groups with a much needed window to help others up and recover. I know it can be a bit frustrating if everything is going great and you’re not having any problems, but I’d much rather the pet provide a moment of relief for those struggling. I am open to debate on the subject, but that is for threads over in the dungeon forum, not here

I too like it when Jade Maw targets a pet when we’re in trouble, but find it annoying when we’re not in trouble. I, again, think that this is another example where a permanent stow is required. If it doesn’t go well, leave the pet out, if it’s going smooth, stow the pet permanently.

There are so many situations where a permanent stow would be perfect. I’m not talking about giving the ranger a buff for stowing the pet.

Yes you want rangers to use the pet and they will, but sometimes they need to be put away at the player’s own discression. “Avoid Combat” should make stow permanent, while “Guard” should leave stow as it works now (but neither should react to falling damage)

edit: by the way, Jade Maw targets dead pets too

When will the next meeting take place and are there any other issues you want to discuss except pets?

You mean http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Vial_of_Condensed_Mists_Essence I suppose?

Yes, the higher the level the more likely you get such an item.

There is also http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Glob_of_Coagulated_Mists_Essence (can be salvaged into 3 Vials) and http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shard_of_Crystallized_Mists_Essence (can be salvaged into 3 globs).

I think most dropped for me in the 20+. I’ve got many more Shards than Globs or Vials. I think only 1 Vial dropped for me in the whole game.

But don’t solo fractals! Go to www.gw2lfg.com and look for a group of your level (or a few above). Also, play at least 1 even-numbered fractal level per day, as those give the daily reward after you defeated Jade Maw. I only play even numbered fractals. I even did a level 30 fractal to get from level 29 to 30.

If the pet didn’t take a chunk out of the Ranger’s personal DPS, noone would have a problem with dragging along dead pets in certain areas of the game.

Pets really need their theoretical DPS reduced and given back to the Ranger. Just give the Ranger pets the same theoretical DPS that Mesmer illusions/clones should provide. If that makes a 30 point BM Jaguar crit for 1k max, then so be it.

Yes, pets coming out of stow from falling/environmental damage makes the stow feature basically worthless. I like that the pet unstows when taking regular damage though. I just can’t imagine anyone wanting their pets to unstow when taking falling damage.

It would be nice to allow pets to never come out of stow when it’s in “Avoid Combat” mode, even when taking regular damage. No passive buff required either. Sometimes you just want your pet the stay unharmed for another part of the battle. Like stowing pets when the boss in the snow fractal moves to the ledge and uses all his area of effects all over the place.

Also, F1, F2, F3 and F4 shouldn’t be disabled while the pet is stowed, it should instead make the pet come out of stow and perform the command.

Stow also has an annoying cooldown of like 16 seconds, even when out of combat. Over-all I would like to see most pet cooldowns reduced drastically. 60s cooldown for a dead pet is far too long too. If it was reduced to 30s, people would complain less about dragging along dead pets in dungeons.

It’s a class mechanic, it shouldn’t be disabled most of the time. If it’s too easy to solo bosses with low cooldown pets, then let aggro on pets sometimes randomly transfer to the player. As if the mob suddenly realizes who the real enemy is.

Also, maybe this:
F1 – pet attacks target
F2 – pet skill
F3 – stow/unstow pet
F4 – swap pet

Pressing F3 twice would make the pet reappear by the ranger’s side. This is combination with permanent stow in “Avoid Combat” mode, would make it perfect.

Edit: swapping pets already has the exact same effect, except you end up with a different pet.

How about you give rangers back 100% of their personal dps and take it away from the pet? And then add a BM trait (or change an existing one) that reduces our personal dps and gives it to the pet.

If you think that trait wouldn’t be worth it, then why do we have it by default?

And then you hire someone to actively react to bot reports and goes to have a quick look. If he sees them warping all over the place, he bans them on the spot and then investigates to see if the acount was stolen and all that. You could even give some trusted players that power and let them listen in on the bot reports. They’d do it for free too.

I just would like to confirm that I would probabaly be very unsatisfied with a pet dodge button. I just did fractals and tried to imagine what it would be like, but to be honest, sometimes I don’t even know where my pet is; much less notice if it’s about to get hit. The pet dodge should be automatic or just a flat % damage reduction. Maybe a trait that gives pets aegis every 40 seconds (like the guardian has).

Daemon.4295:

How do rangers have some of the best condition removal in the game? Most other classes have more options for condition removal, some even on weapon skills. Necros, Guardians, Mesmers, and Engineers can actually transfer conditions to opponents and/or convert them into boons. Rangers have only three options for condition removal, two of which kill your pet. It’s the only class in the game that suffers a penalty for wiping a condition, and a pretty severe one at that.

IMO Empathic Bond and Signet of Renewal should transfer conditions to your pet and convert them to boons, or at least heals.

Yes I agree with this, although the boons/heals aren’t needed.

It’s wrong that the ranger is the only profession that has to choose between 2 negative effects. It’s either the ranger or the pet has to suffer the conditions.

The conditions shouldn’t transfer to the pet and also shouldn’t require a pet. Rather it should say: “removes a condition from both the ranger and the pet”.

It also means we basically have no condition removal available for pets other than healing spring.

I also think distortion (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Distortion_%28effect%29) would make a perfect pet dodge. No extra animations required and it has the same effect as a dodge.

I’m not sure about putting both attack and return on the same button. Didn’t we have something like that during beta and it got changed?

So, how about:
F1 – pet attacks currently selected target
F2 – pet uses special skill
F3 – pet gains distortion + swiftness for a short duration and returns to the ranger
F4 – pet swap

I feel like I’m missing something… why don’t we just do this?

Also, the pet should gain distortion for a short duration when the ranger uses his dodge.

Robert Hrouda, you’re doing great, thanks a lot.

I was wondering if pet customization is going to be in the game at some point? As I see it, it would allow me to set the order in which the pets use their skills or even disable skills.

For example, I really liked the spider pets, especially with the trait that causes cripple on their F2 attack and their personal skill that immobilizes. However, they also have a personal skill that shoots an area of effect poison, which misses every time the battle is mobile. So basically 9 out of the 10 times he uses that skill it misses and the pet that should be doing cripple or immobilize is basically doing nothing for me. The animation is also long and slow, so it’s really frustrating to not have any control over it. I completely stopped using spiders because of it. If I could customize the skills, I would disable the poison or give it the lowest priority, so it wouldn’t be used unless all its other skills are on cooldown. It would be nice if he used the poison right after he used the immobilize skill, but that only randomly happens.

The pet menu is already in the game, it just needs the added customization functionality.

On a side note, it might also be nice to be able to give the F2 skill in control of the pet as well, but it’s not even remotely as important as being able to set priority to skills or disable them.

I know pets don’t even have their own names because of the amount of data it would cost, but I hope these priority settings won’t have to be sent to each client that comes near the pet.

I like most of what you’ve written down Robert Hrouda and I’m glad you returned here today to tell us about it.

The only thing I don’t like is the idea of having to micro-manage a dodge button for the pet and changing the pet interface. But I might be misunderstanding it.

I’ve just been thinking about what to do, but don’t have anything definitive. Here are some random brainstorm ideas anyway:
- pets instantly respawn at the player’s side when F3 is pressed. This could serve as the needed dodge button, but it would also solve the issue where the pet takes the scenic route when the player jumps off a ledge.
- pets in Avoid Combat mode can’t aggro mobs. This would allow you to remove the stow function and would also solve the issue where pets run too far ahead of the player and gets attacked. (edit: would be fun to see the pet run away from the mob when the pet enters the mob’s aggro range)
- on top of the pet-dodge button you suggested, it should also be automatically activated when the player dodges. I often dodge out of a red circle, but then my pet dies and I don’t like the idea of having to press 2 dodge buttons at the same time.

Have you tried the idea of reducing dead-pet-cooldown from 60s to 30s? Maybe even down to 20s, so it doesn’t matter whether the pet was dead or not.

The main annoying thing about pets dying in dungeons is that they’ll be stuck in a 60s cooldown, which is a very long time. And switching pets early doesn’t really help, because the next pet could easily be dead within the 20s cooldown on swap. And when the first pet dies, you’ll get a 60s cooldown. The next pet will die within that 60s timeframe for certain, so the next swap will be 60s cooldown again. Which results in being stuck in an infinite loop of 60s cooldown on pet swap once the first pet dies.

I don’t have any points in the BM line and I use two bear pets on “Avoid Combat” (so I can use Protect Me and Search & Rescue more reliably), but even those passive bears often die. I’m talking fractals mostly here I think.

There also isn’t another way to revive a pet than to swap. We used to be able to revive them by hand. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad it’s gone, but I think a reduced cooldown would certainly be in order.

I also read yesterday that there was a Signet in the alpha version of the game that revived the pet; or fully healed it and cured all its conditions. This might need to return as maybe a BM trait that does the same thing when you use a shout (followed by the execution of said shout skill). This would instantly make shouts way more reliable. I’m already looking forward to having my pet heal to full when I tell it to Protect Me or to Search & Rescue, because those skills often fail with a damaged pet. The trait would probabaly need an internal cooldown though.

And while we’re at it, fully heal the pet and remove its conditions with the “Lick Wounds” command (in downed state) as well, because that skill is more useful with a dead pet than with a living one.

Robert Hrouda you may have saved the day. It’s good to get some communication going to know what your view is on your game. These months of silence haven’t done much good at all.

Pets sharing AR with the ranger does sounds like the most logical solution. Good to know there is someone playing Ranger on the inside

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Rangers have their highs and lows like every other class. They have really good DPS, but they have to work at it a bit more than other classes like warrior or mesmer. It’s possible just not as easy.
As for ranger balance, we have frequent meetings about balance where we discuss that sort of stuff – I go to those meetings on behalf of dungeon content and to lend my experience with ranger knowledge.

I personally accept the tradeoff of damage for survivability (Can’t do damage if you’re dead). I tend to run a condition build using shortbow and sword\dagger, and focus on being supportive and holding aggro while keeping a steady output of DPS through conditions. Rangers have an incredible amount of evasion and damage mitigation if you are very focused and know when to use your skills and heals (prot on dodge roll, vigor on heals) means you can keep prot for when you mess up, and always have evasions ready. There are some very successful dungeon builds, but most of them aren’t DPS focused.
We’re working on ideas for making pets better in dungeons. There’s a list of reasons we can’t just tweak a number and call it good (it wouldn’t actually solve the problem), but it is something we are aware of and working on.
One of the things you have to think about, is how the game is played. If we buff rangers just for dungeons, than they are too strong for the open world. Considering I can solo most content in the open world by letting my pet tank, I feel ranger is very powerful outside of dungeons. We can’t have rangers that change based on PvP, open world, and dungeons because that gets too confusing for players and puts us on a slippery slope. Whatever we do to the ranger, it has to happen in both the open world and dungeons, so it requires more than just number tweaks. You see a lot of bots as rangers for that very reason – they are really strong open world classes, and buffing them for the sake of dungeons doesn’t work out to being a good fix.

Wow this is getting long. I should go to the class balance forums some time, lol. Sorry for the text wall!

Rangers are powerful in open world because the mob AI isn’t very smart. Only open world mobs simply allow the pets to tank. That’s the only reason pets are strong in open world. This doesn’t happen in basically every other situation in the game. And after reaching level 80, there isn’t much open world done. And getting us to do more open world combat is not the solution. Here are my suggestions:

- Pets should be immune to area effect damage (all pets of all classes), which is rarely used in open world combat anyway. You could let area effect damage daze/stun pets for the duration, but don’t let them take any damage from it. Especially in dungeons is area effect damage an instant-kill on pets (as well as on the player, but we can react instantly).

- Pets should be immune to agony or not even be targetted by it (all pets of all classes).

- Pets should STAY stowed when taking damage, but ONLY if the pet was set to “Avoid Combat” mode.

- Using F1, F2, F3 should make the pet come out of stow and do the ordered command (even if “Avoid Combat” was on).

- Pets should not cause the user to enter combat mode, nor should it cause combat mode on the person being attacked by pets, nor should it cause combat mode on the person who attacks a pet, nor should pets themselves enter combat mode. (again, for all pets in the game for every class). Only direct player versus player or player versus mob damage should result in combat mode (both in giving and receiving). It’s probably not possible with how the game is coded though, considering falling damage causes combat mode too (as well as causing un-stowing).

I’d just like to know what was reverted back because of “risk factor”, which caused the Rangers to be left out of an update completely. I’d also like to know what details he kept quiet and called a “spoiler”.

The reason I play Ranger is because of the 1500+ range on the longbow (with piercing arrows) and the 25% passive movement speed. I initially picked Ranger because of the pets, but they aren’t that useful.

I know other classes are better at basically everything. I love the idea of playing a guardian that simply doesn’t die or a warrior with a high damage rifle, but neither has the 1500+ range. The range alone is why I still play my ranger and I wouldn’t trade it for anything else.

I just hope the class will improve over time. Although I fear it’s going to be several years to see some real improvement (if any at all). The 25% movement speed buff was great though, and I hope more like it will follow.

I think the Ranger is currently handicapped by the pets and there is no real strength in having them. I hope they improve on this severely or take the pet out of their damage calculations. Although, I feel the pet is meant to be there to take away the damage from the class with the longest attack range. Too much damage at the longest range can be really bad for gameplay, so it would be about as bad for gameplay as stealth and clones currently are.

Can a mod unsticky the ranger bug topic? The guy who made the topic hasn’t posted in 4 months, so he can’t update the list by removing fixed bugs and adding new ones. And because it’s out of date, it’s useless to the developers.

edit: all ranger bugs should probably be posted in the bug forum rather than here. The bug forum is rather active with anet employees, unlike the class forums.

on a related note: we need an indication to know who the “leader” is of an instance in the party menu. And the “leader” needs to be getting an extra confirmation, asking if he’s absolutely sure that he wants to end the instance for everybody.

Informer.5213:

Honestly? They removed all that? All of it sounds incredible.

I’m beginning to lose what little faith I still have in Anet.

No kidding. I was hoping they would put in some pet customization eventually (within a year or 2 at their rate), but to know that’s already in the past is hard to believe.

It’s probably removed for the same reason why we can’t name our pets properly: data size. Not a good enough reason for me. I need to be able to disable pet skills and set them at different priorities, but it sounds like I can completely forget about that if it didn’t even get through alpha.

In the Elemental Source battle in the snow fractal, a melee pet is unable to attack it. It just stands there doing nothing, even when ordered with F1.

We are very dependant on the pet. So much that it becomes a handicap rather than a strength.

The pet takes a certain amount of our base damage output simple because it’s there, so if there is a situation where the pet isn’t hitting the enemy, we lose a lot of damage output.

The problem is that the pet provides 0 damage output in way too many situations. Either because it’s dead and on 60s cooldown (PvE boss battles) or because it’s unable to reach the target (WvW siege) or unable to hit the target (sPvP).

The pet’s main strength is in helping us in non-boss PvE content, but it handicaps us in most other parts of the game.

They need to remove the 60s cooldown on switching out a dead pet for starters. It should always be 20s, no matter if it was dead or alive.

I did some testing earlier. Natural healing ticks on the player for 133 every 3 seconds. NOT every second. I don’t know if that’s how it’s always been or not.

It’s because the “Ranger Update” topic is still on the front page, which is good publicity. Most people don’t check the dates and most only read the first page full of praise and thanks to ANet.

Now if there were closed topics like “is this a Joke” (http://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/pvp/pvp/Is-this-a-joke/first) all over, then maybe they’d try harder.

I suggest people on the first page of “Ranger Update” to edit their post to their current reaction