Guild Wars 2

First – thank you for making on thread for suggestions. Let’s hope for a sticky. I often make suggestions on various threads and I’m afraid they get lost in the din.

Pets: I couldn’t agree more. The pets not attack and moving at the same time is the single largest issue our class faces. I would pick my ranger back up if this were fixed today. With how mobile combat is supposed to be, this bug is the most glaring and frusterating.

I would also add that AoE damage – especially in dungeons is preventing rangers from using their pets, even ranged pets in most cases. Pets should initiate and avade or a block at low health to give rangers a chance to recall, switch or heal their pet. Additionally the VO “My pet is low!” should announce before the pet is actually dead. I find I spend more time looking at my pet’s health bar and less at the battlefield then I should – especially when Anet said they don’t want players watching lifebars as part of their profession.

Weapon Sets:
I’m going to go into a little more detail then you did, since this is one of the main draw of the class – Bows.
ShortBow:
Skill 1: Now that the SB speed was decreased, the bleed to be active regardless of position AND increase base damage while flanking. This would bring the SB more in line with other professions bleeding auto attack and still give the SB the niche – skirmish flanking asset that it has always had.
Skill 2: I would not change anything about this skill. It’s damage is good and the poison is a welcome condition
Skill 3: Add a pet swiftness to it. This way it can be used to distance ranger from target and allow the pet to better close a gap.
Skill 4: I wouldn’t change anything
Skill 5: This is the skill I think needs to be reworked. The stun/daze is a welcome means of control but since the damage is so low many rangers don’t use it unless to interupt. The damage should be increased so there is a risk/reward on when to use it, and when to save it for a clutch interupt. As it is right now, the ranger will always have it off cooldown.

SB is forced to spam 1 because there are no other skills that offer the same amount of damage. Increasing this skills damage would give us one go to nuke for the set. Also, in PvE, having a high damage ability attached to the stun skill would make up for the fact that most bosses are unstunable.

If increasing the damage is unbalanced, have the skill add confusion for additional condition damage or have the skill do more damage when it interupts to give the patient ranger a pay off for saving the skill.

Long Bow:
Skill1. Increase missle speed. This would make the easily dodgable or left-right-left juke move some people exploit less of an issue. This missle is the slowest and most projected skill in the game and since we get max damage at max range it adds to our damage loss. Furthermore, simple terrain can cause our arrows to be obstructed so increasing missle speed would make these issues less painful.

Increasing missle speed would be a DPS increase, but the arrows wouldn’t do more damage we would just do more per second. Making an unengaged Ranger a threat on the battle field. As it is now, a smart player can easily dodge the arrows and stay engaged in the fight.

Skill 2: I would increase the channel speed for the same obstructed, easily dodged arrows. A slight increase would (not more then 5%) would make dodged Rapid fires more easily to recover.

Make it easier to stop the channel. I hate that I have to activate another ability to stop the channel especially if a target is dead. The channel should stop when the target dies or when I press the button again.

Add increase damage or a cripple, immobilize or other condition to the final hit of the channel to give the ranger a pay off for getting through the whole cast. Again, it would make a ranger allowed to act as a sniper a threat and force teams strategy to counter the ranger. This is similiar to a rifle warrior – who if he is allowed to snipe from a battlefield will decimate another team.

Skill 3: Add a “draw” cast bar to hunter’s shot. Single click will not change the damage or effect of the skill. But a ranger can hold the button to draw the bow and release the button to release the arrow for increase damage and missle speed. This would fit the long bow “sniper” niche its supposed to have and give a ranger a high damage ability to go to if left alone.

Skill 4: I wouldn’t change anything
Skill 5: I wouldn’t change anything

Sword:
Skill 1: Remove the self root for the obvious reason.
Skill 2: Increase the active time of monarchs leap so rangers have more time to hold it as a gap closer.

Warhorn:
Skill 4: Add a blind to the damage

Utilities:
I won’t add much to you list since you have very good suggestions.

Matthew…the point is, the ranger won’t always be able to cripple or the target may be a lot faster that a cripple won’t slow down enough (like any Risen in Orr).

In PvP, smart players are using these attack animations to avoid damage all together. That video is the perfect demonstration of the root problem. Pets cant move and attack at the same time. Regardless of commands or cripples, it’s a huge problem.

My suggestions on how to Fix the LB:
Increasing the Longbow missle speed would go a long way in increasing the effectiveness. It would be a net DPS increase but the abilities wouldn’t need to do more damage. The problem with the “obstructed” issue we face with long bow is that even one missed auto attack arrow can be a huge loss in damage.

Increase the missle speed would make these misses less painful. It would also make dodging the arrows less easy – right now the LB auto attack is the easiest missle to dodge because it’s slower than anything else. Compare the Skill 1 to the Warrior LB Skill 1 and you’ll see what I mean. The warriors arrows fly strait like a cross bow bolt with very little arc, the ranger arrow fires with a very high, very slow arc.

Also make hunter’s shot a “draw” ability (I’ve suggested this before). You can single tap hunter’s shot for the same damage and effect as it is now but you can hold the button for a castbar and you will increase the damage based on how long you held it (to a max). We often use this ability as our opener and this change would give it a litle more punch and play into the sniper feel the longbow is supposed to give us.

My suggestion for shortbow:
I made a big post last week, about the SB found here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Short-Bow-changes-making-it-better/first#post413665

with the animation fix to the shortbow I think adding the Eagle Eye trait in Marksman to include SB range and damage would help a lot of SB builds.

My suggestions on utilities:
Sigils: Give the active effects something far sexier – I would even go so far as to suggest that they should all operate as if we have the Signet of the Beastmaster trait. Right now there is no reason to click the sigils with their rediculus cooldowns and minor effects.

Increase runspeed of Signet of the Hunt. 10% speed is not enough for the mobile hunter that the Ranger is supposed to be. Even 15% would be better then what it is now.

Change, scrap or improve all of the shout utilities. With the exception of Protect me, they are all pretty bad and I never see them in any reasonable build. Sick ’Em might feature strongly in a few BM builds if pets could move and attack at the same time.

Get rid of the shouts or give them secondary – group effects that also effect the ranger to improve them and make a ranger more useful to a group.

Examples:
Protect me also gives AoE protection
Sick ’Em also gives AoE might/fury
Search and Rescue gives AoE regen
Guard Here reveals stealth in the area the pet is guarding.

These simple and small changes would make those terrible skills somewhat more appealing (but still pretty bad).

Spirits: Reduce the AoE damage they take or make them invulnverable and decrease their effectiveness or duration.

My suggestions on improving pets:
Make them attack and move at the same time.
Seriously.
Don’t work on anything else right now.
This is the biggest problem for rangers right now and if this were fixed today I would play my ranger again. Anet said they wouldn’t ship the game until pets were 100%. Well…they aren’t. I can even live with the long F2 cast times and delays if this were fixed.

Oh yeah. Fix the F2 delays and cast time. Have drake breath track their target and wolf howls and bear roars go off quickly or on the move.

Decrease AoE damage or have pets “evade” or block one attack at low health to give the ranger a chance to recall the pet. And one quibble about the VO “my pet is low” audio that my character shouts out…maybe have him do that before the pet is actually dead. Might help out a player that is watching the fight and not the pet bar.

I appreciate the message of the OP but the Ranger has so many problems that even in the hands of the most skilled, the ranger problems still shine.

Just look at our utilities compared to other classes. Other than traps – we have very little to offer a group with utilities and our sigils are easily the worst in the game. 10% run speed with a measly pet damage increase? They need to look at what works for the class…and there are a few things and truly tackle the major issues like:

Pets not attacking and moving
Spirits
Longbow Damage
Utilities
Broken/Bugged traits
AoE damage/Bosses to pets

Many of our traits can be consolodated and more useful ones could be added. First strike, as the primary minor utility spots in the marksman tree just needs to go away or actually work and Nature Magic needs a complete overhaul.

But yeah, I’ll L2P through all those issues, don’t worry.

Pets MUST be able to attack and move at the same time. Even if the F2 still has the horrible cast-time. I understand the F2 cast-time to a degree and it’s much better from early beta, but the attacking while moving is something that should be fixed before anything else.

/sign this petition

I can’t agree with you more Prev. I was hoping the Ranger would offer something we haven’t seen in other MMOs with a “hunter” style class but saddly it didn’t. The pet mechanic isn’t working as well as it does in other games (pet can’t attack and move at the same time). Until the pet fixes come in, or the skills are updated I’ll be playing my thief.

I’m not here to flame, but these posts aren’t generally helpful given the current state of the Ranger. Sure we have somethings going for us like early PvE is really easy for a Ranger.

But if you look at a wide variety of our builds, our skills, our utilities we just aren’t up to snuff. The reason many of us are posting the problems we are having with the class is because we Love the class and want it to work.

Having spent the past couple of days playing a thief and a warrior…Ranger has some holes that need to be fixes and fixed quickly.

I wish there was a better ranged pet then the devourer and spiders…way to creepy for me to be into. Still, I often use the carrion devourer in dungeons just because I’m sick of having dead bear pets (they are supposed to be the beefy pets but die as quick as any other pet).

I’ve always wanted them to put in a buffing/debuffing ranged pet so we can have a pet that gives us direct combat bonuses as their primary responsibility other than as a weak meat shield or DoT.

Rachel Spahr.8307:

Oh, and if they don’t want us to spam skill 1 all the time, how about lowering the cool down of Poison Volley from 9 to 3 seconds. Damage and poison duration could be appropriately turned down.

Yeah that’s sort of the meat and cheese of my post. Anet said they don’t find spamming 1 as fun gameplay. I actually agree with them. The problem is we don’t have an alternative on the SB. Everything else does significantly less damage then the 1. Sure there’s a cripple and pet bleed on 4 and 5 dazes/stuns but the damage is too low for us to use for anything other than control. Those attacks are only going to be situational.

I’ll hit poison volley anytime it’s up in PvE because it’s damage. But in PvP I even hold off on using it until my target is low, to make their heals less effective. That means 2-5 I am often saving for when the situation calls to use them – never for the damage. That means 1 is my only real source of damage and it was hit with a 7% raw damage nerf (not counting bleed stacks here or flanking damage with traits, or crit effect sigils).

This is a problem built into the weapon. It’s too versatile and doesn’t do anything well by itself. Because of the damage reduction it really isn’t as effective as a primary weapon and instead is better paired with a more effective weapon. Like a trusty side arm you can pull out when you need a cripple or poison.

The problem though is we don’t really have a good set otherwise. Axe/torch or Axe/horn is probably about it. That’s a really problem in our weapon design that we just don’t have a lot of options that are A.) Fun and B.) Effective. or C.) Both. Short bow was C. and that’s why the Ranger community is so upset. It was a good set, and the built in flaws were offset by the fact that we had one ability that gave reliable damage.

Now, not so much and the ranger community is now trying to figure out what weapons to fall back on and finding it lacking. Or what utilities we can bring to bear to make up the difference and also getting frusterated looking at those. Maybe we can adjust our traits to make SB more effective…but our traits aren’t great either. Well we can always fall back on our super effective pet, who can’t attack and move at the same time.

This is the problem. We didn’t have much to begin with and for the SB to be adjusted downward without anything to fall back on, or without an equal balance upward in another set, trait, utility or mechanic we’re just left with another broken system.

Sorry about the rant. I really want to keep it positive and constructive but after scraping my pet up after every fight in a dungeon last night and not feeling like I was bringing anything to the group it’s hard to feel positive today.

Heck even if they weren’t precursors but weapons/armors with cool, different, unique skins dropped from rare, named mobs or boss mobs tied to event that would be a great idea.

+1 Sir!

xLiveLucidx.5071:

DUAxWolff.2759:

I do not want bleed always applied, I mean of course it would be nice, but it would make the ranger ridiculously over powered.

Like Rifle Warrior you mean?

And necro sceptre
And ele earth attuned sceptre
And Thief pistol
And engineer pistol
And Ranger harpoon gun (seriously!)
And warrior sword
and…

With the fix to our animation, the 1 skill should be normalized like every other classes auta attack bleed.

If anything they need to look at improving GS, not nerfing it.

To me, I don’t see anything else they can adjust downward for the Ranger. It’s all going to be improvements from here on out right?

Kasama.8941:

I think the problem is that people relied too much on shortbow spamming cake with quickness cream on top. And instead of trying to find a new build, it’s much easier to yell nerf. But when so many players complain about such a simply style of play getting taken away, then it’s a good indication that it was the right thing to do. It’s basically ArenaNets way of trying force a deeper build gameplay on the Ranger.

I don’t think anyone disagres with you, it’s just that SB is really the ranger’s only option when needing a competative weapon. Also, nerfing something like Pistol Whip which was not the only damage dealing ability in the set isn’t as severe as nerfing the ONLY damage ability for the set.

Nerfing Crossfire isn’t the issue, for me anyway, it’s nerfing it before giving us viable options outside of the SB. LB needs a lot of love, arrow obstruction needs to be fixed to make that weapon even semi-competative. GS is a joke for damage or utility, MH sword roots the ranger in place with autoattack and the leaps and serpant strikes often miss when they shouldn’t.

Don’t even get me started on utilities, pets and spirits…You get the point. The change was deemed necessary by Anet – who am I to argue that? What I will argue is that they did it before they fixed other pretty glaring class problems.

I don’t want to shamelessly self promote, but, I put a post in the suggestions forum on how to make the SB better. I’d appreciate any constructive feedback. I hope Anet is listening to us and I think one post to offer suggestions will go a long way in helping here.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Short-Bow-changes-making-it-better

Strongfort.2451:

nldixon.8514:

Ranger does not mean someone who uses ranged weapons.

It refers to someone who travels or roams over large swaths of territory.

In GW2 is does indeed mean ranged. As above posters have already said “Unparalleled archers, rangers are capable of bringing down foes from a distance with their bows.” -according to Arenanet themselves.

When can I play that ranger?

With the recent 7% damage reduction to the short bow auto attack direct damage I wanted to take a second away from the main ranger thread and offer some constructive feedback and suggestions to make the weapon a little more viable in PvE and PvP.

Some of these suggestions I’ve offered before both here and on gw2 guru (I’m Fatalplus over there). So some of this may be old news. I’ve scrapped many of these suggestions after being able to play the SB at launch. I found the speed of the autoattack so good that any of these suggestions would have made it too good. Now that the auto attack is “fixed” I think we need to look back at some of the prelaunch suggestions.

1. Crossfire. Remove the flanking requirement for the bleed and either increase base damage or bleed duration when attack from the side. It makes no sense that other classes have a bleed built into many autoattack moves (including our own harpoon gun) and not have it built into the SB.

With the amazing attack speed prepatch – it made sense and did not feel like a penalty when I couldn’t get position. Now, it’s nearly impossible for a condition speced SB user to keep enough bleeds on a target to cause the kind of pressure it needs to be competative. Furthermore – increase damage or bleed duration when flanking would give a strategic edge in PvP and make a SB user a dangerous enemy to turn your back to.

This would also help PvE builds as getting flanking is sometimes unwise or impossible in a dungeon or in the MoB choked regions of Orr. Giving the bleed as standard would bring the SB in line with the necro sceptre, warrior rifle and engineer pistol to name a few.

2. Quickshot is a fun skill and very handy in PvP – I would suggest giving the speed buff to both ranger and pet or give it another buff. Right now, this skill is only used when needed to retreat in PvP or to evade a large attack in PvE. There is no reason to use it now since the damage is less than the auto attack. Giving it an additional effect may make it more useful even considering the low damage.

The skill often will take a ranger out of position so there should be another reason to use it when it’s not needed to retreat and make it a “go to” ability or at least included in a damage rotation.

Boons or Conditions that could be added to Quick Shot: Retalation (we currently have no way to gain this buff), confusion, speed to pet, stability. Even something as simple as increasing the pet’s next attack damage my 5% would make it enticing to use.

3. Increase Conc. Shots base damage. Using or not using an ability when it comes off of cool down should be a risk/reward. Right now, the ranger short bow does not have any of this. Autoattack is the ONLY way to apply regular damage. Poison volley is good when at point blank or when needing AoE but no one would call it a spike attack, and Crip shot gives the pets attacks a bleed – again nothing that makes the ability necessary to use when I don’t need to cripple – the bleed is just a nice bonus.

Adding an additional buff to Quick Shot and increasing the damage of Conc Shot would make the ranger weigh the benefit of using the ability now, or saving the effect for when it’s needed. Right now, the only reason to use conc shot is to intrupt a mob. If I’m fighting a boss, it stays off of cooldown since I do more damage with my auto attack.

Increasing the damage so Conc shot is our one nuke ability for the weapon will challenge a ranger to manage when to save it for a vital interupt or to use it to assist a team on a spike. Additionally, it will make the ability useful in PvE against boss mobs that are not effected by stun.

Increase castime or cooldown if necessary but giving the SB one skill that could offer a team some measure of spike damage would do much to bring this weapon in line with other classes abilities.

If increasing the damage is not possible or unbalanced through testing – perhaps just increasing the damage if it actually interupts would give a payoff to the ranger who uses it wisely.

Heck – even giving it confusion would help the ability out and give a boost to condition speced rangers.

Those are my suggestions for the Short Bow. The reason many of us Short Bow users are so worked up about the recent change to the SB 1 skill is because it’s the only way for us to apply reliable damage with the weapon – be it condition or direct. With any of these changes it may make the weapon more versitile, competative and fun. Keep suggestions constructive and positive and perhaps Anet will look at them and test them out. Cheers.