Guild Wars 2

lethlora.1320:

rang·er [reyn-jer] Show IPA
noun
1.
forest ranger.
2.
one of a body of armed guards who patrol a region.
3.
( initial capital letter ) a U.S. soldier in World War II specially trained for making surprise raids and attacks in small groups. Compare commando ( def 1 ) .
4.
a soldier specially trained in the techniques of guerrilla warfare, especially in jungle terrain.
5.
a person who ranges or roves.

range  [reynj]  Show IPA noun, adjective, verb, ranged, rang·ing.
verb (used with object)
25.
to draw up or arrange (persons or things) in rows or lines or in a specific position, company, or group: The sergeant ranged the troops in columns of six across.
26.
to place or arrange systematically; set in order; dispose: The members of the cast were ranged in their proper places on stage.
27.
to place in a particular class; classify: They ranged themselves with the liberals.
28.
to make straight, level, or even, as lines of type.
29.
to pass over or through (an area or region) in all directions, as in exploring or searching: They ranged the entire countryside.
30.
to pasture (cattle) on a range.

last I checked MMOs did not define what words mean, but they might if you’re an average video gamer, evidently.

Video games, especially of the fantasy variety, actually DO define what words mean. That’s the entire point of them. Guild Wars 2’s tagline is “Enter a living, breathing fantasy world.” To put that in terms you and others like you who like to throw dictionary definitions out there will understand:
fantasy or phantasy (?fænt?s?)

— n , pl -sies
1. a. imagination unrestricted by reality
b. ( as modifier ): a fantasy world
2. a creation of the imagination, esp a weird or bizarre one
3. psychol
a. a series of pleasing mental images, usually serving to fulfil a need not gratified in reality
b. the activity of forming such images
4. a whimsical or far-fetched notion
5. an illusion, hallucination, or phantom
[/b]6. a highly elaborate imaginative design or creation [/b]
7. music fantasia fancy another word for development
8. a. literature having a large fantasy content
b. a prose or dramatic composition of this type
9. ( modifier ) of or relating to a competition, often in a newspaper, in which a participant selects players for an imaginary ideal team, and points are awarded according to the actual performances of the chosen players: fantasy football

By labeling itself a FANTASY, Area Net has given itself license to make words mean whatever they choose to make them mean. We are playing a game based in a world of their creation, and anything they say trumps what our earthly dictionaries say while playing in their world.

So, in conclusion, what Faux says is correct. Rangers are the masters of ranged combat by definition granted by ANet within this environment.

As a side point, there’s nothing in the dictionary definitions of a Ranger that would suggest that they should have a stable of animals following their commands or be able to commune with or control spirits of nature. Yet, in GW2 they do. No one takes issue with that… Also, a “Necromancer” by dictionary definition is one who communes with the dead in order to make predictions about the future. As far as I know, that’s a skill not currently in the Necro’s arsenal… Fantasy – taking liberty with reality.

I’d re-shape the list a bit so that each family had it’s own line if it were up to me… That way you don’t have families wrapping to the next line. It would take a bit more real estate top to bottom, but for organization and readability I think it would improve it even further.

Great idea in general. Pet window has always frustrated me with how cluttered it is. I thought it was just because I’m a bit obsessive about that kind of stuff though.

Lord Trejgon.2809:

but seriously I see nothing wrong with rangers class mechanics skills – NOTHING. it just need a little skill to make full potential.

You understand that our F2’s are controlled by the same mob AI that I can out-maneuver in a siege golem right? Go grab yourself a golem in WvW, walk up to any drake mob and see if it hits you with it’s AoE attack. You can even get out of the way without dodging. And did I mention you can do this in a siege golem?

Nothing wrong… Do you work for ANet by any chance?

Raiff.6742:

I have had no issues with my pet. Make sure it is on aggressive and if you want to make sure it attacks your target, click the crosshairs under the pet portrait. If there is another issue, I would put in a ticket via the game. As I said, I have had no pet issues (other than my Ranger saying “I choose you” when switching pets, too much Pokeman for me).

You live a charmed life indeed.

Tribio.8531:

Warrior =/= Pet

Ranger has a steeper learning curve than (oh yeah) thief for instance.. And this makes it an awesome profession.. Ok, if you can’t handle the micro management, get a profession without the pet..

Personally, micro management is not an issue. I’ve spent months asking for a better pet interface and full control over pet abilities. I’ve played pet classes in various games going back almost 15 years, so the L2P card is not appropriate in this instance.

In this specific case warrior does indeed equal pet because we are talking specifically about a class mechanic – an F key skill. In the Ranger class, we are given a variety of F2 skills based on what pet we choose. In the Warriors case he is given an F1 skill based on which weapon he chooses. Suggesting that we perform 2 additional actions to effectively use the special ability is a real and fair comparison. If we see an opportunity to use that skill, we should be able to use it, just as the warrior does with Burst, the thief does with Steal, and so fort. No one else has to fight attack queueing and sloppy AI in order to benefit from something that defines their class. Neither should we.

Tribio.8531:

It’s true that there are still some issues with the F2 activation (lots of QQ threads about it), so no idea why you needed to make another thread about it?

We’ve tried for almost a year to have our pet mechanics brought up to par with that approach. So far, nothing. I say the more threads the merrier at this point. Flood the freaking message board. Maybe it gets more attention, maybe it doesn’t. What we’ve been doing up until now clearly hasn’t registered how unhappy many of us are on their radar, so maybe we try spam?

Tribio.8531:

tmlo.1586:

So where is problem? I see way too often that my pet just won’t attack my target. It just roams around and doesn’t attack.

1) F3 will make your pet stop attacking and start getting back to you (read: attack queue cleared)
2) F1 on your target: new attack queue started

Micro-management for the win..

In a game of active combat where timing is everything, performing 3 actions in order to reap the benefits of one is a severe handicap and again emphasizes just how poorly done this pet system really is. It is not on level playing field with other class mechanics.

To illustrate: If a warrior had to press F3 to clear his current attack queue, press F1 to re-start auto attack, and then F2 to use his burst skill, the skill would almost always be delivered late when the moment of opportunity had passed.

It works for a second on anyone who doesn’t see it coming… no one is actually caught in it for full duration though. It’s amazing against mobs who have no idea they can dodge it, and who do not bother to attack the vintes. Against players it’s sad how easy it is to avoid and escape. It really should be un-destroyable if not dodged, and being that it is an elite skill I would argue that it shouldn’t be escapable either. It’s certainly not on par with other elite skills for effectiveness.

Melandrus Flower.1206:

I think you’re really wrong at that specific part and I think it is what most people underestimate. This mechanic excels in multi targeting/tasking, which no other profession can do it with the level of control we can.

On issue:
My pet and I are separate units of which I both have control (I present you: the ranger mechanic!).

If this were actually true, then pets wouldn’t be an issue. In reality, you have less control over your pet in this game than in any other game that has had a pet class in the history of the MMORPG genre – and that is not an exaggeration, I’ve played a crap ton of pet classes over the past 15 years. If we actually had control over our pets actions, and they responded immediately to our commands then these threads and complaints would all go away.

Tywele.7812:

What I really want is an interface where I can see which boons and conditions my pet has. Right now it is nearly impossible to know while in combat.

Their failure to provide proper interfaces is like a running joke in this game. The party interface is very primitive as well, and the fact that commanders have no raid or multi-party interface is downright archaic. Going back to games in the late 90’s we already had the ability to see multiple parties organized in proper fashion… I’d expect that to be a baseline of functionality for something that costs 100 gold. But I digress. The same games also had pet interfaces to see buffs, full control over pet actions and, you know, pets that could actually follow and hit their target without being confused by basic terrain…

Durzlla.6295:

And here’s the quote, from the December 14th Patch notes:

“The ranger class combines its own innate abilities with the skills of their pets. We’ve balanced the class around the idea that you always have a pet with you to aid in any fight….”

LOL, that’s priceless. Thanks

Wolf and dog more often than not, sometimes fern hound… Their knockdowns are reasonably reliable, and wolf fear is good to have to buy time when downed.

When running with guild raids when knockdowns aren’t as useful I sometimes use bears, drakes, moas, but they are generally on passive and then just used for specific actions that can be controlled to the best of my ability.

I like most of what you said, but I think that it doesn’t address the problem with the sloppy AI of the pet itself. It has trouble tracking players – especially around uneven terrain – and it is easily confusable. For pets to work:

1 – They need to be able to follow and stick right on a target.

2 – Some cheating has to be built into the AI to make it more forgiving. Melee attacks and channeled skills have to be able to be performed while moving and the range has to be increased. It needs to be able to ignore elevation differences to a certain extent and also path up and down small inclines that are jumpable without going around them. They should also warp directly to the master when following off a cliff, or directly to their target when the target jumps off a cliff.

3 – We need an actual pet interface as in all other games with pet classes, not just a couple of F buttons to control it’s basic function. Saying it creates a steep learning curve is a total cop out. Did anyone ever quit playing pet classes in any other game because they had to learn a few more buttons? No. People who want to play a pet class WANT an involved gameplay style, that’s why they choose it. If it has been OK in all of the most successful MMO’s to date, I don’t see why GW2 can hide behind that logic.

4 – Pets need to do what we tell them to do immediately with no exceptions. Queued attacks and attacks in progress need to be interrupted and abandoned in favor of our commands. We know how they should be used, the AI doesn’t.

edit why is this message board so terrible at formatting? Come on ANet, can’t you even get a web forum right?

+1
The AI is the problem, and since pets use the same AI as mobs I find it very hard to believe that ANet is capable of overhauling pets without breaking the entire game. The pet AI, interface and function in general is worse than any other MMO I have played in 15 years. Add that to the fact that combat in this game is extremely active and involved, not fire-and-forget of the traditional MMO’s where an AI this poor would stand a chance, and it adds up to the AI making pets a liability in many cases. A class mechanic should NEVER be a liability, it should only ever be a benefit.

If I thought for one second that they could actually fix pets and make them as smart and responsive as any other game I’ve played a pet class in then it would be a solid -1 to the idea… but I don’t.

F2 deficiencies are linked to AI deficiencies. Our pets simply do not follow targets well enough, and when you add in queued attacks, lack of control over their other attacks, and no awareness of which F2 abilities would be valuable at what positions, it all adds up to a frustrating experience.

ChroNoS.6978:

I lol @ you thinking rangers(and their pets) are underpowered.

I don’t mean to sound arrogant, but I’d be hard pressed to find a 1v1 fight I’ll lose. Not that I mean my build is OP or anything(I was a full melee which did very well too, then they nerfed all the dps I got out of it so I made myself a decent trapper build) but seriously. We are far from under powered.

Juuuuust a L2P issue I’m afraid.

Personally, I don’t think pets are underpowered, per se. What I think is that they lack the ability to actually use this power. They can be easily tricked and manipulated and there is nothing built into them to be forgiving of the AI’s deficiencies.

I only had 10 minutes, so this is extremely quick and dirty, and I don’t have a friend on our opposing servers to come help me out, but if the pet AI can’t keep up with me – the pet’s master – how can I trust it to keep up when an enemy or enemies are on me?

And this isn’t even taking into consideration the fact that we can’t control its attack rotation and skills, nor can we interrupt what it randomly decides to do to do something more beneficial. The pet system is what fails us, not the pets power.

Learning to play isn’t what Rangers need to do , it’s what pets need to do.

Kjeldoran.3849:

No pet customization? Do you mean… to modify your pet appearance or skills?
In the first case this isn’t monster truck game so you can’t modify the body… in the second one… then consider that there are a lot of options… every pet with its abilities so you have only to chose. Also modify pet skills has no sense… do you imagine a pig launching lightining bolts… or an eagle with a fire breath… the only possible way to improve pet ability is to give us the possibility to choose between 3-4 similar attacks to use as f2 ability… but hey, will this change your opinion on ranger class?

There is a lot to do with rangers i know, everyone know, but just wait for devs to see what and how to do it.

I just want to point out that modifying pet skills is exactly what we were supposed to be able to do. In beta video footage by the developers we had customizable skill slots for our pets to give them very customized uses. For an unknown reason, this was removed prior to launch.

Also, we’ve been waiting to see what the devs are going to do about our severely handicapped pets for a year now. I’m not exactly on the edge of my seat waiting for an answer anymore…

They have some weird stuff going on with filtering for sure. You can’t say “that” and “its” together on the forum either because t – i – t – s can’t be in close proximity… :|

Aeros.2046:

Apparently so. Its such a shame to see expensive vehicles trashed by 15 year olds just getting their learners permit though. Back in my day, when an Omega appeared it meant srs bsns. Now every wippersnapper with more money then sense seems to have one in their inventory.

lol, that was me. I’m 33 though, so not quite just getting my learners. You should take an omega out for a spin yourself, soloing towers is pretty fun… I’d love to get a chance to try a keep one day, but it seems like that will probably never happen.

You shoulda just let me play around with the guardian and the necro. We were having good times. The necro was going to get stomped, but that guardian woulda had me all by himself over time, he healed for more damage than a golem can do. I actually brought the golem up to try hitting the treb that was attacking our tower at first, but I couldn’t get LOS, so I just hit the wall until someone came out to play.

If anyone’s up for some golem duels this week hit me up.

BP, you guys are no fun. Won’t let a guy in an omega just 1v1 a guardian in peace. It was even fun when the necro joined in for a little 2 on 1, but you just had to go call re-enforcements.

You pretty much ruined my life. I hate everyone now and I’m going to die a lonely person in my moms basement all because of you.

thefantasticg.3984:

Conix.4589:

If they got rid of pets all together, and just upped our damage, I’d be happy with that.

I’d bet my next pay check that at least 1,000 people who main rangers are waiting for this and would be very very happy with this. Myself included.

If all we got in trade of taking away the pet was upped damage I would be upset. The pet also serves as a source of utility. If it’s taken away completely we need access to the other things it does for us via another mechanism. The pet sucking robs us of a lot more than just damage output.

Quarktastic.1027:

Jellyfish have a water field and a smoke field.

Maybe I’m missing something but I don’t see a water field on either of my jellyfish pets? In any event the smoke field is again on an attack that we do not control. Unreliable and unpredictable combo field generation isn’t really much of a benefit…

Quarktastic.1027:

The reason rangers have so few blast finishers, is because we have the best variety of combo fields in the game. We have:

• Two fire fields
• A frost field
• A water field
• Several poison fields
• An ethereal field (two if we’re counting underwater skills)

The only fields we don’t have access to are light, dark, and smoke fields (except for one underwater smoke field).

That is a little bit misleading. The fields we directly have access to are:
- 1 Fire field via Torch 5
- 1 Water field via Healing Spring
- 2 Poison fields via Carrion Devourer and Murellow F2’s.

Indirectly we have 1 Fire and 1 Ice via traps, but these must be triggered by mob/player in order to activate and thus have much more limited use than a direct access field above. For example, backline support cannot use these to project through unless a mob or player walks over and triggers it, which would be a less than ideal situation for said backline support players.

All other fields generated by our pets are done on attacks we have absolutely no control over, which is more of a detriment than a benefit because they are placed in areas where they may or may not be useful and at times when we may or may not be in a position to interact with them. Additionally, they could interfere with other combo fields placed in the area for specifically required interaction – attacks can only interact with one field at a time, and they are not accessible at all when the pet is dead.

If we were to be the kings of combo field generation that would be great, but they would have to come without asterisks on so many of them in order to justify the limited finisher lineup we have. Remember, we have one blast finisher and one only – and that is only as of a month ago after a long hard campaign for this addition. It’s not like we had that out of the gate, we had to practically scream bloody murder just to get that small tiny sliver of useful group interaction.

Under water functionality is a completely separate conversation and can’t be included in our list. In fact, the only fields we have access to underwater are Ethereal and Poison, both via pet F2’s. All other combo field abilities and weapons are barred from use underwater.

30/20/20 or 30/25/15 is what I would suggest for any power based build. You need the WS tree for added toughness and the endurance regen + protection on dodge rolls to augment your damage mitigation. Gear choices boil down to how quick on your feet you are. Scale towards power if you find you survive very easily, scale towards toughness if you find you are dying too often.

And this makes sense to you? They give up survivability and utility for the ability to pump out pure damage, and that’s not enough of a sacrifice? They also have to sacrifice their ability to hit and actually DO that damage without further augmentation by us? That still falls in the bad design category man. If the damage is so high that they are forcefully restrained from using it then the damage is too high. The mechanic is not player friendly and doesn’t match the balance design of other abilities and their tradeoffs.

Birds also have access to swiftness, which they use at odd and unpredictable times because we have no control over them… that I suppose is a built in mechanic to counter their weakness of not hitting moving targets that in itself is also intentionally crippled by a bad design choice? Some birds and cats also have chill options as their F2 attack, which may or may not be used at the time when it would be useful due to delay and attack queuing.

This is also not to mention the fact that you can trick pets into pathing themselves out of combat for long periods of time no matter how fast or slow they are by using terrain.

I’m not a new Ranger Chopps, I have 1400 hours logged as well and I own gear with nearly every stat combo available. I build and re-build on a regular basis. More importantly, I’m not new to MMO’s. I’ve been playing them steadily since 1998. I also manage and interact with a software development team at work. I can recognize a poorly designed system when I see one.

And I’m not attacking you personally, you contribute a lot to these forums that I appreciate. I am firmly on the ‘this pet system is abysmal’ side of the fence though, and any comments trying to prop up this system as good is in the crosshairs. Our pet system needs help desperately, and the last thing we need are the vocal leaders of our class to be downplaying it’s flaws. As the OP validly points out, the farther we go down this road of “challenging content”, the more the flaws with our system are going to show up. Not to mention that they are already a hindrance in WvW where the players make the content very ‘challenging’ for the pet. We need options that will allow us to function at full capacity in all situations and we need them now.

Chopps.5047:

Certain pets don’t hit a moving target by design. Let’s take cats/birds for example. Without more run speed than their targets — without the ranger applying chills / cripples / crowd control — they struggle landing hits. Again, this is by design and meant to push you into a more active playstyle rather than letting the pet do all the work for you.

If you don’t like that playstyle, use dogs/spiders. Their attacks don’t depend on run speed. In fact, after the latest round of balance patches, spiders are very attractive.

That is such a cop out. Even with speed hitting moving targets is an issue, and the fact that you would have to augment your class defining ability to make it work – at all – is a major disadvantage. Play another mmo, any mmo. Pets stick to their targets like glue and have extended range on melee attacks to make up for any flakes in the AI. Pets also hit and move at the same time, and perform actions exactly when their masters tell them to, not whenever the hell they feel like it.

Why are you defending bad programming, making it sound like this is the way they meant for it to be? They took shortcuts and then built systems upon systems on top of what was designed poorly in the first place making it near impossible to change now without ripping it out and starting from scratch. That’s bad design and poor forethought. Trying to make out like it’s all roses isn’t helping anyone.

This is well said, I’ve been saying the same thing for a long time but you said it better.

Take a look at some simple stuff from an old MMO. (music sucks, not my video, sorry).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=5QgEpAKFu1o
Pet has no trouble hitting a moving target.
Or this game
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=_Lbg8uzc23Y
Pet sticks BEHIND the player at all times when moving out of combat. Doesn’t run off at all angles and get lost. Doesn’t twitch and jerk all over the place if the player takes one step forward. Also has no trouble hitting moving targets…

For a AAA MMO title that is several years newer than either of these games it’s shocking how bad and how primitive the pet system we have to deal with is. Even original Everquest beastlord of 2001 or whenever it was had better pet AI than what we deal with. The people that defend our pets are either playing their first MMO or are completely blind to the bad mechanics. ANet NEEDS to do something about our pets. Especially when taking into account what the OP brings up about advanced content. Even bringing pet AI up to par with these games would leave us at a disadvantage to what they design in PvE, and we haven’t even talked about WvW where they perform woefully against large forces and cut us off at the knees when facing situations where they can’t help us (attacking up and down from walls for instance).

I’m actually in almost the same camp as you. I hate our 1h sword. I like our axe very much. I LOVE our offhand weapons. I would love a different option to use with my 2nd offhand. Crossbow? Dagger main? I would take almost anything really…

Corngoeslive.4381:

Look at this video to see what I’m talking about. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAh1OHBI4uM&list=PLQjlCwEV3nuMDzq57AD4d5QCqi4319Qj-&index=10

Customizable pet ability slots… forgot about that. This reminds me of once upon a time in Vanguard beta when the sorcerer was one of the most interesting and promisingly customizable classes ever seen in an MMO. By launch it was a dumbed down wowmage clone, reason given was “learning curve was too steep”. Sounds kinda familiar. Why do great ideas get tossed because developers assume players aren’t willing to invest the time to wrap themselves around the concepts?

Also, that sword and bow look infinitely better than what we have today. What the heck happened?

Chopps.5047:

Lol

/15characters

I’m just curious, do you have this post macro’d? I think I’ve seen this in every thread you post in.

Castaliea.3156:

The whole Ranger class is designed counter-intuitive to all the other classes.

I agree. I’ve said a few times that the concept of the ranger as is built doesn’t work with the MO of GW2 and what you highlighted there is part of the reason. The other in my view is synergy. The game is designed around synergizing with the people you play with, but up until some very recent patches that have reversed the direction of a couple of our traits, we largely are built to synergize with an npc rather than our traits allowing us or our npc companion to better synergize with our allies. Wherever I see us offered a trait that betters a pet attack or better share what we do with our pet, I always wonder why it isn’t instead allowing our pet augment or aid our or our allies…

And then there is the AI of that npc, which boggles my mind how it can be worse than games I played over a decade ago.

It’s a good idea, although it’s not new. The unfortunate thing is that pets could be a lot better just with better AI. That’s not really fixable at this point though, and WvW clashes negate even the best pet AI I’ve seen in other games. Perma-stow would go a long way towards fixing it, but as Treeline said, it may be something we never see.

I like your ideas. As you said, they probably need some refinement but I like the direction. I especially like the direction you went with pets and spirits. I wish I had you to collaborate with when I wrote this: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Complete-Ranger-class-suggestions/first

Around the time I wrote that I and a few others were campaigning fairly hard for a usable blast finisher. I know we weren’t the first, but the fact that less than a month later we got one makes me think that they do listen to the well articulated thoughts. Keep going with this… maybe at some point someone over at ANet will take something away from someone’s post that will make us happier with pets and spirits. It’s sad to me that the 2 things that are supposed to define our class are what very many of the posters here view as our Achilles heel. I really hope they get addressed properly at some point because I would love for spirits to be as intertwined in our class mechanics as elementalist attunement is to them, as opposed to a few rarely used utilities.

dunnberry.2964:

Ehmry you seem to not realize that over a 3 week long stretch SBI grew to dislike us quite a bit too, hopefully will be a very interesting week and forums…I see eBay has found SBIs Eternal karma train too

Does this mean that “it’s not me, it’s you…” truly applies? BP must truly be an unlikable bunch.

Again, if you are by yourself and fighting 1v1, there’s not a lot of problems that will directly affect you. Rangers were actually nerfed because of their ability to frustrate people in sPvP with a particular 1v1 build. The complaints about the ranger comes in the more epic encounters this game has to offer where the mechanics we are given do not stack up well to human intelligence, mass ground targeted AoE and non standard game mechanics.

Might I suggest that if you plan on doing ZvZ and leading via commander tag that neither of these builds as is are exactly what you are going to need… Armor setup on either is good, but weapon choice and trait/slot skills are both geared towards single player and single target warfare. ZvZ is all about buff sharing and AoE. Group regen is a strong tool, but it can’t be your only contribution.

1. - Warhorn as of last patch gives us the only controllable blast finisher we have access to.
2. - Torch 5 is an awesome fire field to use when engaging your front liners with the enemy. As leader you will b at the front of the pack and thus in best position to command their use of it.
3. - Offhand training is a must for Warhorn blast timer reduction but also increases both Warhorn and Torch 4 range to 1200 which is ideal for finishing downed or downing fleeing players.
4. - Signet of the Hunt is not a good skill choice for a commander because you should always be running at the same speed as your army. If you can’t stack and share swiftness then you shouldn’t have it.
5. - Focusing points on the beast line helps pet survive and gives pet more tricks, but pet can only target one person at a time… could I suggest you consider ground targeted traps in their place for the additional combo fields for your front line fighters?

You could make either work, it’s just that if you focus more on helping your allies than helping your pet you will likely lead a more effective army.

When you look at the Ranger on it’s own – especially in normal PvE – it is a fun class that has some unique mechanics. When you contemplate the GW2 MO and reflect on how the Ranger is designed in comparison to other classes, that’s when you see the gaps.

My fundamental problem with our class is that having a pet controlled by a very limited NPC AI severely handicaps us in any non-standard encounter. Building on this, GW2 is designed at I – t – s (apparently that gets transformed into akitten when not spaced…)core to encourage group play and synergy with other players. Our class is built from the ground up to synergize the player with the NPC that follows us around instead of the people around us. There have been a couple of steps over the recent patches to rectify that and give other people a reason to want us around, but at the core we still focus on sharing our power, damage and utility with an NPC – see the many traits and minor traits that augment pets at expense of giving us something that an ally can use.

Building on that, a good many Rangers play selfish builds, focusing all available options on what they can do to boost their own contribution. If you couple that with the inherent synergy with an NPC, you can see why people do not see value in bringing us along. That isn’t to say that there aren’t ways to synergize with players in our trait and skill choices, they are just very limited in scope, and the one trait line that was specifically intended to allow us to contribute something in a group setting – Spirits – simply does not work in any common WvW scenario.

Personally I’m waiting for one more patch in hopes that there are a few more significant changes to the Ranger. I’m not overly in love with the build I currently run, but it works well in WvW so I run it anyways. I’m just hoping something else opens up that I like more before I go all in.

nagymbear.5280:

Khayoss.2019:

I personally like the armor you buy in WvW with badges (minus helmet). I dye with Midnight Ice + Blood dyes and use those fiery gauntlets you get from the achievements chest.

The Whispers armor is also pretty rad in white IMO…

I think the hellfire gloves are a heavy skin.

They are indeed labelled as a heavy skin, but you are not prevented from applying them to a medium glove in transmutation and the result is a medium gauntlet.

On laptop, attached image is pretty low quality… but you get the idea.

I personally like the armor you buy in WvW with badges (minus helmet). I dye with Midnight Ice + Blood dyes and use those fiery gauntlets you get from the achievements chest.

The Whispers armor is also pretty rad in white IMO…

I still use shortbow while roaming as a skirmishing weapon, range reduction killed it for ZvZ use for me because piercing arrows lost a bunch of it’s effectiveness. ZvZ / GvG scenarios I am running sword/torch, axe/warhorn.

It’s a sad thing for me because what I really WANT to use is short bow + longbow…

Kal, that suggestion could actually fix pets for WvW with some tweaking… I have seen a few suggestions along this line over the past couple months and the more I think about it the more fond of it I become.

If pets on passive became invulnerable and provided a specific buff based on pet or family it could make up for what we lose by having the pet and allow us to be competitive in situations where the pet is not usable. If bears granted protection / stability augments, cats granted condition augmenting effects, dogs might or power augments, moas condition stripping and so on and so on, this could actually make up for the near 40% of our damage we lose by not being able to use it.

The actual passives would have to be very carefully thought out so as to not be overpowered, but my (and others) biggest argument against this whole pet system is how ineffective it is in any gameplay areas where the pet has to confront an intelligence or situation that is beyond the scope of standard mob AI. Sacrificing easily 1/3 of damage and utility to something you can’t use in many situations warrants some significant buffage on passive mode to make up for that sacrifice in my mind though… I just wouldn’t want to see something implemented that would push us over some ledge and result in re-tooling of all of our other mechanics to compensate.

Either way, I’d sure love to see full control of pet abilities… even as an option. EZmode by default, crazy-micro by option.

One wish: a pet system that actually works in WvW – including the ability to attack up to and down from walls with ranged or flying pets and the ability to move while attacking and hit moving targets who are not evading.

Some thoughts on Marksman trait line. Thread is a bit older and some points from posts in the chain have actually been implemented in this last patch so they can be scratched out… the trait line change suggestions still apply though:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Complete-Ranger-class-suggestions/first#post2305313

Khayoss.2019:

Marksman:
The Marksman trait line was expected to receive major overhauls in the 6/25 patch, but what was received was underwhelming at best. Of all trait lines, this one has the most wrong with it. Adept level traits are all equally useful dependant on the direction of your build, but when it comes to Master and Grandmaster traits, there are really only 3 traits that anyone is interested in: Piercing Arrows, Eagle Eye and Signet of the Beastmaster.
– Spotter is, at best, an adept level trait, and even with the recent buff, no one placing points in this line would choose this over any of the other Master options.
- I haven’t talked to a single Ranger since launch that has found a place in their build for Remorseless. This is possibly the most underwhelming option at the Grandmaster level across any class.

No minor trait in the marksman line is very compelling either, especially Precise Strike at the Grandmaster level. By comparison, examine options available to other classes in the Power trait lines:
Ranger: Adept – First hit inflicts 5sec vulnerability, Master – Pets get same ability, Grand – First hit is a crit.
Thief: Adept – stealing inflicts 10 seconds poison, Master – Poison inflicts 4 seconds weakness, Grand – +10% damage when target has a condition.
Mesmer: Adept – 5 seconds vulnerability on interrupt, Master – Dazing inflicts 5 seconds vulnerability, Grand – +5% damage to inactive targets
Warrior: Adept – Damage foes at end of dodge roll, Master – Burst skills restore endurance, Grand – +3% Damage when endurance is not full.

In review, Rangers minor traits center around adding vulnerability at the beginning of a fight, and 25 point trait gives us a single guaranteed critical hit once per fight. In contrast Thieves gain access to 2 separate conditions for performing an act that they would perform once per fight generally and are not restricted to leaving combat in order to regain this ability, as well as application of vulnerability in conjunction with another condition they have nearly unlimited access to. Where Rangers receive a single guaranteed critical hit, thieves build on this by getting 10% damage boost for all targets carrying conditions. Mesmers gain the same 5 seconds of vulnerability at adept level, but rather than once in a fight they can apply it as often as they can interrupt. Warriors have damage at the end of a dodge roll, then a mechanism to allow them to dodge more often, plus a further damage bonus for dodging more often. These minor traits do not add up to any kind of balance – especially at the Grandmaster level.

Suggestions:
•Adept trait should apply vulnerability in conjunction with another condition or with an action that the Ranger normally performs – evades, interrupts etc on an internal cooldown.
•Minor Master trait should add blindness or cripple whenever vulnerability is applied.
•Move Piercing Arrows to the 25 point GM trait
•Add Shortbow range increase to Eagle Eye
•Replace Spotter and Piercing Arrows with some kind of boon stripping or condition removal option linked to Bow attacks
•Replace Remorseless with a further option to cripple targets with Bow attacks.

Kal Spiro.9745:

Sarision.6347:

They should simplify Long Range Shot to two coefficients: one for 0-1000 and one for 1000+.

And Rapid Fire needs cast compression.

How about, instead of a damage modifier they gave us a crit modifier? You always do the same damage, but past 1000 you get +X% crit chance/damage. Whichever

That would be much better

Skirmishing is a great line other than the fact that trap traits, a set of condition weapons, don’t belong in a precision line.

Marksman trait line, on the other hand, has severely underwhelming minor traits, and even with the change Remorseless is a step short of useless as a grandmaster trait. Opening strikes should be regained on kill inherently to put it on an even playing field with other classes power line minor traits. The fact that you have to use a grandmaster trait to make it half decent is absolutely absurd. Marksman needs the most work of any Ranger trait line.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Complete-Ranger-class-suggestions/first#post2305313

On Hunter’s Shot, can we trade pet gaining swiftness for YOU gaining swiftness? My pet does not need swiftness to help it when I go into stealth, I do to make my time in stealth most effective.

BP you were excellent hosts for pk earlier this evening. Thank you for allowing us to test some golem vs zerg mechanics.

dovrak.4376:

So rangers are kinda ranged thieves. Good way to balance.

We already had access to stealth via trait, this just gives one more way to stealth via a weapon. Our stealthing is not new, and it’s nowhere near on the level thieves can get. I cant believe people are so up in arms about this…. did they never notice rangers disappearing before?

Zenith.7301:

I also doubt you’ll still see many power builds run despite these changes in pvp for the single reason that ranger power builds have no way to deal with boon spam.

You’ll still be tickling guardians and eles and lyssa rune thieves with 10+ secs of prot.

I think you are probably right, but having said that I am going to at least dust off all the Power/Vit/Tough gear and try out a longbow power ranger build in WvW when this patch drops. Sure would love a Power/Toughness/Condition Damage set…