Guild Wars 2

Judging by the release date of gw1 and the date of that patch: there are still 4 years of waiting to go. Sounds about right.

Do you mean pets don’t get healed anymore if they’re not in the circle?

Longbow Point Blank Shot cast time reduced from 3/4 to 1/4 and range increased to 1200.

Resulting in:
600 knockback at up to 200 range
500 knockback at up to 400 range
400 Knockback at up to 600 range
300 knockback at up to 800 range
200 knockback at up to 1000 range
100 knockback at up to 1200 range
knockdown at 1200+ range

Why:
The cast time is too long. A lot can happen in 3/4th of a second at a range of less than 600. And there is no reason to limit this skill to 600 range when this is a 1500 range weapon, except perhaps for the name of the skill. The limited range causes this skill to be very rarely used and the long cast time causes this skill to be very rarely useful. The longbow is lacking a way to keep the target at max range, like with a cripple or immobilize, so a knockdown at 1500 range would be a great option to have.

Another nice update to longbow would be:
Range of all Longbow and Harpoon gun skills increased to 1500 by default.
Eagle Eye trait changed from 5% to 10% damage and range increase removed.

Why: Longbow has nothing compared to the shortbow unless you trait into it. Give the longbow an advantage, even when you don’t trait into it. The ranger has problems with skills(spirits, traps, signets) and weapons(longbow) being very lackluster unless you trait into them.

from patch notes:
“Changed the way monsters react to players using stealth.”

Does anyone know in what way this has changed and if pets react the same way?

It doesn’t work in many situations. Same bug haunts Search & Rescue.

Agadar.4931:

If they’re going to do it the way Colin described, then a golden age for sword, greatsword, longbow, off-hand dagger, off-hand axe, spirits, signets, and shouts lies ahead.

surprise twist: They will use the data to nerf weapons and skills that are mostly used. “It’s not fun to use the same skills every time. We want people to try other builds as well”

also maybe add the trait that transfers boons to pet and the 33% regeneration trait together with healing spring.

I use Signet of Renewal. It’s a stun breaker and removes all your conditions (including immobilize). It also removes a condition every 10 seconds which is really useful (although I suppose people use the trait – which I don’t). And on top of that, it doesn’t jump you backwards back into the zerg. So no evade and no vigor and no damage, but who really needs those when it can’t break immobilize?

Looks alright. I have a slightly different build, which I use for WvW and PvE (including fractals level 20+) which you might like to see:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMUQJATVnIVkFcfFCWwaZAY9Yv+CsfgTODDZMlVdl1UB;ToAg0CnooyQlgKLVOqkUtiYYB
(I use Ruby Orbs instead of Runes of the Ranger)

My damage comes from traits, armor stats, runes and sigils.
My survivibility comes from 15 points in toughness trait line, passive bear pets using Protect Me and Signet of the hunt for speed and signet of renewel for conditions.

I basically have to stay at range at all times and dodge when needed. The 50% energy regen from traits allows me to dodge more often and allows me to keep the 10% damage buff from marksman 1 up most of the time.

Good positions to be are at the back of group battles and on top of walls. A great way to run through an enemy zerg into your tower is by using Rampage as One for the speed and stability, and dodge roll for the evades and the protection, and Protect Me for the extra health, and signet of renewal for immobilize/cripple/freeze. I rarely don’t make it into a tower alive. Try to stay out of view for as long as possible though.

For fractals I change Signet of the Hunt to Search and Rescue (remember my bear pets are on passive so available for both Protect Me and Search and Rescue most of the time), and I change my elite to Spirit of Nature. This suddenly gives me great utility for the team by reviving team mates. Spirit of Nature only works on downed allies, but can revive multiple at the same time quickly and it also provides a nice health regen afterwards. Search and Rescue works on both downed and dead allies. It’s a great utility to be able to revive a dead ally while continue-ing the battle. I think quickening zephir makes it even better, but I haven’t tried it.

The Norn and Asura racials are certainly the most useful. Norn have invisibility and the Asura have Pain Inverter. The Charr are alright I suppose, with their Fury shout.

The Sylvari used to be the best though. Grasping Vines used to be exactly like Entangle, but ground-targetted at 1200 range. It was perfect in combination with Barrage. But Anet nerfed the skill into the ground together with plenty of ranger skills. Now it’s single target only, and goes on cooldown if the target was out of range. I never use it. I guess it could still be really nice in WvW in a 1v1 in combination with Entangle though.

I was going to play a Ranger Sylvari, because the Sylvari had an amazing racial skill called Grasping Vines, but then it got nerfed. It used to be a 1200 range area of effect root, so basically exactly like the Entangle Ranger Elite skill, but ground targetted at 1200 range. It had great synergy with the Ranger longbow Barrage skill. I decided to go with Sylvari anyway after the nerf, but now I never use that skill.

It’s also nice how the Sylvari have a very short history with almost unknown origins and it’s very out of the ordinary to play a plant. But the main reason is that sylvari and ranger seem to fit well together.

He’s clearly only talking about the longbow and shortbow, so no need to bring the other weapons into this discussion.

I like the longbow, apart from the short range on the knockback. As Pozmol said, the invulnerability and aoe are good skills. But I can definitely see your point concerning the shortbow. 1 poison arrow, 1 evade arrow, 1 cripple arrow, 1 daze arrow (and 1 bleed arrow I suppose). It could definitly use some creativeness, but it will never happen. It’s designed to spam 1, eventhough anet says this is not intended and not fun.

Pets should not cause the ranger (nor the enemy) to go into combat mode.

The very slow movement speed caused by entering combat is one of the most annoying game mechanics in the game. It’s double annoying for rangers because their pets cause them to stay in combat mode while the ranger is trying to escape.

This in turn causes me to want to put my pet on passive indefinitely. So I’ve been using a bear pet on passive for a few months now (especially in WvW). I use the passive bear pet in combination with Protect Me and Signet of Renewel to at least get some use out of having a passive pet.

So, either remove the movement speed reduction while in combat or at the very least make it impossible for any player-controlled pet on any class to cause any player (owner or enemy) to go into combat mode.

They’re bugged:
http://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/support/bugs/Ranger-laurel-box-giving-non-ranger-gear/first#post1366267

The things I recall by heart that affected me:
+25% passive movement speed on Signet of the Hunt (up from 10%)
Opening Strikes working properly now.

I think the placeholder models are a great improvement to WvW which was exactly what I’ve been waiting for.

I’d just like to be able to have it as an optional permanent game setting for WvW, so the game always and only ever tries to display the placeholders.

Because any improvement in game performance on my minimal settings machine would be great. I’m at 20 fps when there are no other players on my screen and at about 3 fps in the middle of a zerg battle.

Nurse.1085:

atheria.2837:

Makes me wonder who the beta testers were and why they had such an easy time from what I’ve read… what changed?

What was left out?

Why are we being treated like this?

From what I recall, Spirits were viable and really strong, but they were nerfed to the ground before release.

Greatsword was also more viable and hit like a truck, but was nerfed to the ground before release.

Shortbow’s auto attack use to be faster, but was nerfed by 1 or 2 months after release

Longbow’s Rapid Fire use to go on CD as soon as you began channeling, thus the CD was up faster and you could Rapid Fire more often. This may have been an overall across-the-board change for everyone though.

Pet’s use to be rezzable. You use to not be dependent on their 1 minute swap timer.

There’s a lot more I don’t know about. I played more with my Guardian than I did a Ranger.

Basically this. They nerfed Ranger into the ground during beta.

Spirit HP got halved (yes halved – so currently 4x (!!!) less health than the old traited versions) and they recieved internal cooldowns together with Runes and Sigils. Signet of the Beastmaster was also moved from Adapt to Grand Master level. So they destroyed Spirits and Signets themselves and then they called them lackluster a few months ago and still not much has changed except for the Signet of the Hunt which is now awesome.

In order for them to fix the class they have to REVERT the nerfs they did in Beta, but I think they are too proud to admit guilt on that.

I think there are changes coming, but I see they just keep making minor adjustments and not core changes which makes me not believe that anything will change.

1500+ range with trait on longbow is perfect for WvW.

Nurse.1085:

Holland.9351:

nerva.7940:

- long range sniping – done way better by GS mesmers and rifle warriors

This is what I do. Although I wouldn’t call it sniping. You’d need the 1500+ range trait for the longbow as well as piercing arrows and berserker gear + accessories.

No other class has as much range as the ranger.

Uhh, Engineer’s do.

Please explain.

nerva.7940:

- long range sniping – done way better by GS mesmers and rifle warriors

This is what I do. Although I wouldn’t call it sniping. You’d need the 1500+ range trait for the longbow as well as piercing arrows and berserker gear + accessories.

No other class has as much range as the ranger.

No, leave it as it is. It’s a good skill.

It’s a lot like Signet of Stone, but instead of having to get a grandmaster trait you have to use a bear pet. My Marksman traits are already spent on 1500 range and piercing arrows, so I use Protect Me instead of Signet of Stone. Protect Me is also on a much shorter cooldown (60 seconds).

In WvW my pet isn’t that useful anyway, so I gladly use it as a meatshield and it allows me to go full damage on my bow and use Protect Me to survive. Of course, range is my primary survival skill, but Protect Me really helps me escape. It’s also a great panic button if you are suddenly low on health, so you can cast your healing skill (I use Heal as One) in peace while the pet is protecting. I also use Signet of the Hunt, Signet of Renewal and Entangle to survive, but that’s another story.

I like barrage, I wouldn’t want to see it go. It’s possibly my favorite ranger skill. I thought the red circles were quite obvious. I’ve never had trouble with AOE skills directed at me. AOE skills give enough time to move out of the red circle, or they declare their arrival well in advance. The only people would would have trouble with AOE skills are those who decide not to move out of the red circles.

If barrage gets nerfed, it should definitely not be a channeled skill anymore and be allowed to be cast on the move.

I play on Piken Square and I’ve been enjoying T4 gameplay. When we were in T3, we had to fight against Elona Reach. It wasn’t fun because they walk around with zergs of 100 people. I understand Elona Reach should be T2, but still, I wouldn’t want to experience that again or to be forced to play it their way. My PC can’t handle such huge battles. Piken Square currently has an enjoyable zerg size and I hope it stays that way in T3.

I’ve always been able to jump straight into WvW on any map, except this week. This week there have been queues on every single WvW map. I actually did some PVE because the queues just wouldn’t end. It’s not fun to not be able to WvW when you want to. So, although I welcome the new players on Piken Square, I do dislike the queues.

I enjoy WvW when I make it passed the queue though. It’s all a bit one-sided at the moment unfortunately, but we’ll see how T3 goes next week. I might have to bail to Gandara if the zerg sizes are too big or the atmosphere becomes too competitive and strict. T4 is enjoyable and I hope T3 is just as much fun.

If there is one thing I would want to say to Gandara and Augury Rock: Stop camping the jumping puzzle! It’s simply annoying and kind of bad design by ANet. Piken Square does it too probably… but I don’t think nearly as much, because I rarely see one.

You have to put pet on passive mode. I did it last week and I made it.

However, I’m a strong advocate to have pets not come out of stow when taking falling damage.

Sparky Sights.9174:

Ah…. this again…

Right, time to destroy this yet again by mentioning Malyck the Sylvari from another tree, who strangely acts like the Sylvari from the grove (apart from the apparent lack of a dream) If what you think was true surely Malyck would act more like the nightmare court do.

Unless Malyck broke free/ fled / was banished from his own nightmare-court-type-tree

EUREKA!

pets should stay on target when someone cloaks, but they shouldn’t attack

Wow is that what the problem is? It sure is very annoying. Avathor, I completely agree with you, the character needs to auto-turn. Maybe I’m too used to other mmo’s auto-turning that I have to get used to it, but it sure it way too annoying. I’ve really been wondering what caused me to feel like a fish on dry land in close combat with my bows. Now I know what’s wrong.

Agadar.4931:

Glass cannon ranger is not worth it. It’s all glass and little cannon.

For longbow in WvW it is. 1500 range is amazing when you’re part of a group or on top of a wall. Also, barrage does a ton of damage.

If they catch you at close range or alone, you’re pretty much dead tho. But you learn where the longbow shines and which situations to avoid.

I’d say rangers are below par in terms of damage, but they’re above average in terms of range with the longbow trait. So you have to take advantage of that strength and go all-out damage and get things like “Protect me” with a passive bear pet and Signet of the Hunt for survivability (on top of out-ranging them). Maybe even Signet of Stone instead of getting Piercing Arrows. A combination of Signet of Stone and Rampage as One can allow you to run (and dodge) through an enemy zerg and into your own tower to start aoe-ing them from behind the door or on top of the wall.

Nah I feel more like having artillery support (Barrage) and an assault rifle(Rapid Fire). Not a bad feel. I love the 1500 range too much to use something other than longbow. To get any damage out of it I have to go full berserker glasscannon tho.

I find the animation time to be way too long. I want it to get the same animation as hunter’s shot and be instant cast. A lot happens in 0.5 seconds. The enemy could be nearly on the opposite side of you by the time it fires.

Yes, I’ve been doing it from the start. I use longbow with shortbow as backup.

Yes and no. I like it that my pet pops back, but not always. Especially not from taking falling damage.

I propose to make the passive/active button available while the pet is stowed, so it will pop out when it’s on active, but it will never pop out if it’s on passive.

Beware of the in-game preview mode, as well as screenshots of bows online which use the preview screen (character screen), because they don’t show all parts of the bow.
The Warden longbow is a good example of this:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/File:Warden_Longbow.jpg
The blue fins won’t show up in preview mode.
Also, the Priory Historical longbow has that preview problem:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/File:Priory%27s_Historical_Longbow.jpg
The green part doesn’t show up in preview mode.

definitely working as intended as far as I know and believe.

I think if you take damage it should break stealth. Maybe let stealth give 1s of invulnerability and after 1s you get kicked out of stealth from taking damage. Stealth is by far the cheapest and easiest and most uncounterable skill in the game. But giving the only counter to rangers is not the way to go.

So I don’t really think Rangers need a new mechanic. They just need to revert some of the nerfs they did in beta or re-buff them in other ways. I’m looking at you spirits (health was halved and they received an internal cooldown) and signets (signet of beastmaster was changed from adept to grandmaster).

Rangers have a real problem with their default utility skills being “lackluster” if you don’t throw several traits at it, including some grandmaster traits. This is true for both Spirits and Signets. Signets have very long cooldowns and their active effect only affect the pet. Spirits are immobile by default, die literally in 1 hit, and have a very small range. Actually, spirits aren’t useful at all, even if you get all traits that could affect them (and there are 4 traits in 1 trait line for them, so you can only really get 3).

I do feel rangers are missing a way to use camouflage on demand. Currently it’s only available if you get a master trait and you get hit by a control skill and you don’t move. This trait should be changed to stealth so you can move and camouflage should be a utility skill. There really needs to be a general counter to stealth tho.

The ranger is the best long range class. It’s what rangers excel at: long range. You need to get the marksmanship X trait for it, but it’s there. Consistent damage at 1500+ range. I can’t think of anything I would rather play in WvW. You can even hit beyond 1500 range with Long Range Shot (very good name for it actually). The long range also allows rangers to simply go full glass cannon berserker with decent survivability through signet of the hunt, signet of stone and/or “protect me”(+bear pet on passive).

for spvp however… don’t do this.

PsionicDingo.2065:

My issue with Forage is it’s pretty pre-emptive. On my Thief I know what I’m going to get and I can plan my Steal and usage of the Stolen Item with the flow of combat.

With my pigs it’s more of a gamble and clunkier to use. It should be one or the other: random chance at the item but it goes in your hand, or guaranteed item but you still have to manually pick it up. Or something like that.

Exactly this.

For the thief, he knows in advance what he will get and his F1 button will change so he will instantly use the item if he presses F1 again.

For the Ranger, he has to press F2, then wait for the pig to do his animation, then walk to the pig, then pick up the item, which blocks all his main weapon skills (unlike the thief) and then he can use it. And it’s not even clear what the ranger will get when he pressed F2. Also, enemies can pick it up instead of just the ranger and his teammates.

So all in all, it’s horrible and not worth your time, except maybe to initiate combat with if you have a lot of time to play a game of chance to get the item you wanted.

For the thief it’s very powerful because it’s very usable and predictable. For the ranger it’s horrible and takes a lot of effort and micromanagement to get to work and then still it’s worse than the thief because the item is blocking all your weapon skills and you don’t know what you will get.

Traps moving towards the ranger when triggered and therefore not giving their effect.

The only use for traps at the moment is to use them while in melee combat. If you move a little distance away from the trap, it becomes useless (except spike trap I think).

A whole big chunk of possibly enjoyable ranger gameplay is disabled by this bug. I’d love to play with it, but then by laying traps in chokepoints in wvw and laugh from a distance. Currently that’s not possible unless you are standing nearly on top of them yourself as well.

If it currently works as intended however (I doubt it because it looks horrible), then traps should simply not trigger unless you are near enough for them to work.

Rangers really lack a camouflage utility/elite skill. A 20-point trait dependent on getting hit by a control skill isn’t enough. Rangers need camouflage on demand.

I’d love to see a long duration camouflage skill for rangers. You’d lose it if you move or use another skill tho. It should probably have an equally long duration cooldown. Or a short duration camouflage (~6 seconds) with a short cooldown (~30 seconds) would be nice as well.

For WvW standing on walls shooting down, you want a tall character, or you could simply get obstructed. I play a sylvari, but sometimes I wish I had picked norn or charr, eventho I picked the tallest sylvari possible. I do quite well shooting down, but I wouldn’t want my character to be any smaller. Take this into account before picking asura for its racial.

Yes long range shot fires really slow. It’s kind of boring/annoying when rapid fire is on cooldown and you have to watch long range shot fire very slowly.

The signet of the wild is perfect now. I much rather use signet of the wild than warhorn and/or elite skill or centaur runes, eventhough the movement speed is 7% less at least it’s constant. So I slashed “- swiftness buff utility skill.” from my wish list

It’s an amazing trait that works really well when fighting big groups. So great for WvW and PvE.

For WvW I tend to pick 1500 longbow range and the grandmaster signet trait instead, but I sometimes switch to 1500 range and piercing arrows if I’m at the back of a big group and fighting another big group in a stalemate.

edited my first post to include pets coming out of stow from falling damage. I love doing jumping puzzles, but then my pet is very distracting to me, so I like keeping him stowed. However, he keeps popping out when I take some falling damage and there isn’t even a keyboard shortcut to put him back in (no I don’t care about getting a shortcut for it, I just want him to stay stowed from falling damage).

Very nice update. Well done. The ones that I love most:
Signet of the Hunt: Increased the passive movement from 10% to 25%.
Increased the velocity of arrows fired from Short Bow and Longbow skills by 30%.
Opening Strikes: These now work at any range. (worked since last update, but still loving it)
Ranger melee pets now have improved melee attacks so they can hit moving targets more easily.

Sounds very promising I was worried the arrows would only get 10% increase and it wouldn’t be enough, but 30% sounds good. Signet of the Hunt will be in my bar for a while to come.

edited condition removal into first post.

Yes I have good hopes for the 25% movement speed. I hope I won’t even feel the need for the swiftness buff anymore.

Too bad the camouflage item doesn’t work in WvW

- camouflage utility or elite skill
Invisibility as long as you remain immobile and out of combat. Currently only available with a trait for a short duration when you get hit by a control skill. We should be able to use the skill while in combat to get out of combat. One of the major issues I have with being a ranger is being stuck in combat for what seems an eternity and it ruins any hope of escape since combat drastically reduces your movement speed. Being stuck in combat mode also ruins jumping puzzles sometimes (especially in WvW). It would be nice if the camouflage could last for a long time (more than a minute) and have the cooldown start when you become visible again.

- condition removal not requiring a pet
Most of our condition removal requires a pet to be both alive and near you. I would like these restrictions removed. It’s deadly to the pet and often the pet is out of range for bow users anyway.

- pets not coming out of stow from taking falling damage.
Possibly, not coming out of stow at all if set on passive mode. I personally like the pet coming out of stow when taking damage, but not when taking falling damage.

- swiftness buff utility skill.
No longer on my wishlist. Signet of the wild is sufficient.

Remember how ANet halved spirit HP shortly after release or during beta? I wonder what the reason for that was exactly. I think it might be because people could use them as meatshields and it might have made the ranger nearly unkillable. They also gave them an internal cooldown.

I think they should put their hp back to where it was, but make all projectile pierce through them by default.

Piercing arrows is great for PvE and WvW. Not so much for regular PvP.

Remorseless is best for PvE. I’d have to test it for WvW first, but I’d either have to give up my piercing arrows or my 1500 range, which I don’t want to do. It’s probably useless for regular PvP.

So:
for PvE: both good
for WvW: piercing arrows good, the other maybe if you use shortbow.
for PvP: both not good

I think both issues are by design.

There are always situations in pvp where someone is being attacked by arrows, but unable to attack the ranger because of terrain. So they might have made the ranger bows dumb-fire to give someone the ability to prevent the damage. I don’t really understand why ranged weapons of other classes don’t dumb-fire though. I think rifles also dumb fire, but their projectile speed is just way higher. Although it’s more realistic, it really does make a difference in gameplay.

As for pets, they simply use regular NPC AI. If they could improve pet AI, they would also improve NPC AI in PVE. It’s either not in their ability to improve it or it’s simply by design to give people a reason to move and strafe in PVE fights.

So in conclusion, both the pet and the bow issues are in the game to make people move around while fighting and not stand still like in other mmos. The problem for rangers is that this both effects them greatly.

I don’t see them improving or fixing either of these issues, except perhaps by increasing projectile speed to bring it closer to the rifle in chance to hit. And if you’re lucky, they might add a pet that has no attack animation and instantly hits its target, or a pet which gives passive buffs to the ranger.