Guild Wars 2

An easy way to bypass the luring problem in dungeons (beyond the “stop trying to speedrun and just kill the gits” ) is to actually send your pet in deliberately, if it’s melee. Let them get around the pet, and when you’ve got a little bit of distance, swap pets. The new pet appears next to you, and the mob loses aggro.

…what, you guys didn’t know about this? It’s hilarious pulling this stunt.

Atherakhia.4086:

Loki, this is a suggestion thread… I listed those issues because the suggested resolution to those problems is to move the damage away from the pet and move the utility and burst to the pet to compensate for moving the raw damage for the class to the ranger itself.

Which means a total redesign of how the class works, less than six months into the game being released. The big changes were in Alpha/Beta, and unless something is going utterly, horribly, catastrophically wrong with the class and nothing can fix it beyond a total remake of the class, there won’t be one.

The class isn’t broken either.

Beyond AI issues (some of which have apparently been worked on for tomorrow’s patch) the pet in itself is okay in almost all situations.

“But it doesn’t work in situation X or Y or Z!”
Nothing works in every sitation, and if it does it gets nerfed (see the bottom).
So is it because situation X/Y/Z is just not friendly to that sort of thing? Would engineer turrets or necromancer minions or ranger spirits suffer as badly there? Or is it a pet-only problem? Is it, not to put too finer point on it, miserably bad pet management from inexperienced players, or muppets who keep thinking the ranger is TeH 5|\|1PAR class of pwnage and resent having a pet in the first place?

Beause if the answer to those questions is “No, it’s just a problem with the pet itself” then fine, we need to sit down and think how that can be sorted without immediately going “(Bleep) it, LET’S UTTERLY REDO THE ENTIRE CLASS.” That should be the utterly Final Solution to a class mechanic’s problem.

I know I’m sounding like a patronising miserable git constantly pouring cold water on these ideas. I prefer to think of myself pouring cold realism. The ranger is never going to match the DPS of a warrior on it’s own. Asking/demanding/begging for it is as likely as a dedicated healer class being added and every class’ self heal being reduced in effectiveness accordingly.

Fact: In the beta weekends, the ranger could do enough damage to match warriors, allowing rangers to ignore their pets.
Fact: This meant other classes, especially the warrior, were undercut and made redundant, because with the pet and spirits and traps, the ranger was insanely versatile.
Fact: This was nerfed, and the pet was buffed to compensate, reinforcing the pet’s importance to the class.

It would need an internal cooldown (three or five seconds?) but I like that idea Deadhead.

I love it when people say “you can just make more bullets in the wild!”

You need moulds (easy enough to carry around or even make in situ) the metal itself (heavy) and facilities to melt the metal down, a smelter.

The fun bit is the smelter. Melting iron down requires ~ 1.4k degrees Celsius. For context, water freezes at 0 and boils at 100.

So if you’re going to melt iron you need a good fuel that produces heat. That essentially means, certainly in Tyria, coal or charcoal. The latter is more likely, it’s lighter and can be made in the field; it’s effectively wood with all the impurities burn away, leaving you with the carbon.
Charcoal requires it’s own furnace which takes at least a day to make and own set of skills as well. If you get it wrong, the charcoal… isn’t. Alternatively, you actually burn it, leaving ash.
Assuming you have the fuel, the forge has to be built (again, requiring a separate set of skills) the best part of a morning/afternoon to get up to heat, assuming you have the fuel and bellows to heat it up enough in the first place, which you’ll have to pump all the time unless you hitch it up to a machine powered by something like the flow of a river.

Alternatively you can run around with a bow with their larger, easier to replace arrows.

The arrowsheads are larger, can be sharped and refixed onto the shaft If things get really desperate you can always make the shaft of the arrow really sharp and go without a metal arrowhead at all.
The shafts are wood, and if you’re in the wilderness, where there will be trees. It’s simply a matter of finding the right tree, easy enough when you know what you’re looking for.
Feathers are needed for fletching, which is effectively any large bird. Even if you can’t find any, if you have some packed in advance it won’t really mean much (light as a feather?)
This is all using skills your predecessors have perfected over hundreds of years.

karma.8763:

I agree, like the warrior is master of all melee, the ranger should be master of all ranged.

Except the warrior is master of weapons in general, including ranged ones.

Atherakhia.4086:

The problem is the pet mechanics aren’t working in this game.
The problem is the class has no utility in PvE and it’s not being brought along.
The problem is the class has no utility or burst in PvP and can’t compete.
The problem is the class has such a horrible list of traits and powers to choose from.

So the pet needs some improvements, especially with regards to AI (I’m looking at you ‘likes to run waaaaaay ahead’ bug). I’ve never argued they don’t, what I’m arguing is they don’t need throwing away because they have problems with can most likely be patched out. I’d rather not see a repeat of other developers when an overall enjoyable thing is criticized. (If you want a specific example: Bioware with the vehicle sections or inventory system from Mass Effect I.)
The other three points aren’t even related to the pet: utility skills are pretty miserable but that’s hardly a secret, Anet themselves have said as much and we’re expecting a patch to buff them up tomorrow.
The traits are dodgy with either lacklustre abilities or bizarre placement (traps that rely on condition damage have trap related traits in the… critical chance/critical damage trait line? The best Beastmaster traits are not in the beastmaster trait line?)

Out of the four problems you list three are unrelated to the pet. You’re using it as a scapegoat when the biggest problem is actually with the ranger itself. There are currently a handful of utility skills that are worth bringing and some of those require traits to be worth it anyway. The traits themselves are all over the place.
Since only a handful of traits and utility skills are really useful, they’re the only ones that are ever seen, so only a handful of builds are really being seen. Gutting the pet system isn’t going to change that, and at worse would distract people from the main problem.

Avandor.5743:

But other classes have their own mechanism and they are given the coice to use them or not, the necro, the warrior, the thief, the elemetalist, etc… why force something onto the ranger ?

This is a point that no-one has really touched on. I’m not sure myself. I personally believe it’s because the pet – can – have a much bigger impact.

The Warrior’s adrenaline system is an extra attack. It’s a snazzy extra attack, and they can do useful things like an AoE stun or bleed spike or damage spike, but it’s also potentially negated quite easily. On the other hand, adrenaline is also easy to get.

Guardian’s got some buffs that they keep/sacrifice, however beyond the ‘every few hits you burn them’ they have a long cooldown, especially if activated. Activated at the right time they can make a difference (mass aegis for everyone just before a one-shot attack anyone?) but generally it’s few and far between.

Necromancers have an attrition style combat encouraged with the life meter, allowing you to slowly grind the target down while keeping most of your health (in theory). I suppose I should mention the undead minions too, even if they’re technically a utility and not the class skill: they are much squishier, but they’re also more disposable in general. After all, the Minion ones are kamikaze bombers.

Ranger… gets something that if it’s been traited for can quite happily maul a target (even several) to death on it’s own and usually survive a fairly nasty pummelling as well. It can revive fallen allies if you take the utility, allowing the ranger to continue attacking something else, keeping pressure up or vice versa. It can inflict conditions, snare, knockdown or buff the party. All the time. It’s a constant, powerful presence if you trait into it.
That’s personally why I think there’s such a discrepancy. The other classes can largely ignore the primary attribute (in terms of investing traits) while still finding it regularly useful. In contrast the ranger gets something that, if invested in, is a threat in it’s own right.

For the record, I didn’t even like the idea of hiding pets for screenshots. Because I knew the inevitable “Can we hide them in combat too” threads would follow, like this one. Hiding pets in combat means you lose the class feature, and damage and utility. So then after asking for hiding pets, people will start shouting for compensation (they’re already doing it) for hiding the pet in combat. The ranger’s a pet class. Deal with it or just go play something else.

hylar.2798:

Some great ideas here with a few seeming to be over the top ,but some realy stand out. Such as the aoe reduction in PVE . I play a beastmaster ranger with most of my focus on keeping my pet alive and dishing damage ( 25 in beastmastery).

I’d recommend you go the full 30 beastmastery. Natural Healing gives a fair amount of health to the pet every second, and if you pair it up with Signet of the Wild it can get over 200 health a second.

It’s also possible to fight without illusions or phantasms as a mesmer, without using your lifebar as a necromancer, or adrenaline (or adrenaline related traits/skills) as the warrior. Doesn’t mean it’s smart.

Dutch Master.7208:

We get it Loki. You take your beastmaster roleplay very seriously.

But you have to admit there are times when it is beneficial to stow the pet! At the VERY least there should be an option to stow pet and keep it stowed, without the possibility of it popping out when entering combat (or taking fall damage).

Its just plain silly that the pet is more trouble than its worth in the numerous situations listed previously in the thread.

More I’m exasperated that people want the ranger, which ANET made no secret of being more pet orientated this time around (you’d think the class mechanic being the pet, and the unique trait line beastmastery would have tipped people off) to be a Warrior-lite class with eyecandy following them around. May as well go warrior with a minipet, you’d get the same result. It’s like playing the warrior and complaining it can’t stealth and backstab like a thief, or the guardian can’t summon illusions like a mesmer, then demanding that they do so.
But no, the ranger must be changed to play like a warrior, even though for the warrior to keep it’s role the ranger would have to be inferior. I remember the beta weekends where the ranger routinely stomped warriors into the floor without the pet, let alone when they used the pet as well.

Beneficial times for hiding? Beyond hiding for a screenshot I honestly can’t think of any off the top of my head. That’s not to say there’s never a good time to hide the pet, it’s simply that I can’t think of any specific ones right now.

Atherakhia.4086:

Should just make the best of both worlds.

Reduce the pets damage so it accounts for about 10% of the Rangers total damage.
Rebalance the Rangers damage so it does 105% of the damage of other top tier DPS classes to account for the impossibility of 100% active pet up-time.

These 2 things will then make the Ranger do about 95% of the damage of any other class without a pet active.

THEN you adjust the pet to provide the class’s utility and burst damage. You drastically improve the pets AE utility by debuffing enemies and drastically buffing party members. These buffs should either be unique, or combine numerous qualities of other buffs from other classes so a ranger is more enticing to a group. This way the Ranger is being brought for PvE for buffs and damage.

BlahblahblahmorestuffIcutforthesakeofpostlength

So unless I’ve misread, you want to make the ranger do more damage with it’s weapons, so matches the warrior in damage again, undermining the warrior as a class. Then you want to turn the ranger’s class mechanic into eyecandy that’s a mass buffer, like the guardian, or a mass debuffer, like the Mesmer/Necromancer, undermining possibly three other classes in game.

…No.

I sympathise it’s probably s a shock to suddenly discover the ranger is no longer an archer with some fire-and-forget damage sponge, and it’s a beastmaster class that actually needs to make use of the pet. The class isn’t to your tastes, so stop trying to turn it into something else and go play the warrior or guardian, which you apparently would enjoy far more.

Pochibella.8394:

Arenanet’s description of Rangers: “Rangers rely on a keen eye, a steady hand, and the power of nature itself. Unparalleled archers, rangers are capable of bringing down foes from a distance with their bows. With traps, nature spirits, and a stable of loyal pets at their command, rangers can adapt to any situation.”
It doesn’t emphasize that ranger’s are “the pet class”. It lists pets as one of the things that are in a ranger’s arsenal that can be used.

I see your quote and raise you this pre-release one:

The pet system sounds much more robust than the one in Guild Wars 1. Are pets only one of many options for the ranger, or is there a clear overall advantage for those rangers who have one?

Having a pet is an integral part of being a ranger in Guild Wars 2. It is possible for a ranger to fight without a pet but fighting with a pet is always more effective. If a player wants to play a ranged character without a pet then they will very likely find one of the other professions more appealing. Every profession in the game has some sort of ranged option, be it magic, a bow, or a firearm.

Bolding and italics mine, source here

Try a minipet then. A pet is for life, not just when you need it.

Xyvius.1679:

Loki.4871:

Xyvius.1679:

Not a huge fan of pets either.

So why are you playing the pet class?

In GW1, my main was a Ranger and I spent most of my time without the skill “Charm Animal” on my bar. Thus, I was just an archer without a pet. I don’t see how having the choice to lose the pet is such a big deal.

This was mine: OgMU8ELfzcS4G0GyS/G8GrM8gcGA

You want to run around with a longbow and get lots of big numbers when the arrows connect to make you feel good. I understand that, I like seeing my pet hit for big numbers.
What I’m saying is, the ranger is the ruddy pet class.
If you want to see big numbers when you hit someone with a weapon, go play warrior; that does more damage with the bow as it is designed to do.

Sollith.3502:

So, lets leave the negativity of the woes of our class behind for a moment and focus on something that could be cool.

I think this would be an epic trait for a Grandmaster Beastmastery Trait. It would allow you to have both pets active at the same time (of course the controls might have to change a bit; then again maybe that’s one of the downsides to balance the trait is that f2’s and stuff would be pet controlled instead of player controlled).

Anyways, rather than purely discussing viability (as it would most likely never be added to the game lol); How would YOU make this if it were up to you to design such a spec?

This was actually in the game originally, iirc, an early elite skill. Mentioned in an interview, it was dropped it because it made balance curl up in a foetal position in the corner crying after the skill was activated and finished with balance.

…still want it though. >.>

RyuDragnier.9476:

Loki.4871:

Pochibella.8394:

If people want to use the pet, great. If people don’t want to, how does it hurt someone else if we were given the option to put them away and keep them put away?

Because then you’re a poor man’s warrior, utterly inferior to one?

Sounds like you’re butthurt about something.

Hardly. The ranger is a poor man’s warrior, but the pet makes up for it in terms of damage. It also means damage is ‘modular’ in that if one is down there’s still damage being belted out, unlike a warrior who’s either hitting or not. There are different pets to encourage/synergize with different play-styles to the point even the same weapons and attribute points will work differently with the different pets. What does get me butthurt is people coming in, playing the beastmaster class like a warrior, then yelling
“Oh god this class is (bleep) and ANET are (bleep), make what is clearly designed to be a beastmaster class play like the warrior even though there’s already a class that does, called the warrior.”

Because the simple nasty fact is, while the classes can fufill various roles, some are still better at some roles than others. Specifically, the warrior is designed to be the one that’s best in a headbutting contest with only weapons. In beta 1 the ranger could beat the warrior while ignoring the pet, undermining the Warrior as a class. So they got ‘nerfed’ with damage being transferred from the ranger to the pet, further reinforcing the beastmaster aspect.

Gaiyeerishima Cat.1082:

Also, Loki, what exactly are you referring to?

Before the last patch, “Quality of life” updates were mentioned. Somehow this was interpreted as “We’re going to buff the socks off the longbow and let it match/beat a warrior with the longbow.”

So when general, erm, quality of life things like combo fields for the harpoon gun came around instead… I nearly put my palm through the back of my skull I face-palmed that hard.

The last time people convinced themselves that things were going to be done that were not even hinted at. If they exercise some common sense this time, it would be nice.

I’m hoping for the traits to make a bit more sense, shouts being more useful, and those utility skills to be more user-friendly.

Pochibella.8394:

If people want to use the pet, great. If people don’t want to, how does it hurt someone else if we were given the option to put them away and keep them put away?

Because then you’re a poor man’s warrior, utterly inferior to one?

RyuDragnier.9476:

^Except we want an archer, not a melee fighter.

Play warrior, spec for Longbow traits, job’s a good’un.

Adding mobility could be interesting, but I would perfer blocking melee instead. Of course, Whirling Defence lasts for a very long time for a defensive skill, reflects projectiles, deals damage and inflicts vulnerability. Compare it to something like the Warrior’s shield stance; 3 seconds block. If you want to do anything else you have to trait into it, and it still won’t last nearly as long.

Wasdclick.1764:

Loki.4871:

That doesn’t change my point: the ranger in guildwars II is not an archer class.

Rangers rely on a keen eye, a steady hand, and the power of nature itself. Unparalleled archers, rangers are capable of bringing down foes from a distance with their bows. With traps, nature spirits, and a stable of loyal pets at their command, rangers can adapt to any situation.

I can see where many people might think you’re wrong…

Yes, it’s not an archery only class… But archery is kind of a decently big thing. Only other class that uses a Longbow is Warrior, and the only other Shortbow user is the Thief. So as one of three archery capable classes, to want to play one as a Ranger is a reasonable request.

I still remember when rangers were described as “A jack of all trades and a master of them all”. I had this argument before over the semantics of the fluff description, I’ll happily repeat them; the ranger does far more ‘skill shot’ attacks, aiming at specific bodyparts, whereas the warrior’s more ‘Fire and hope it hits them somewhere really squishy’.

Wanting to play as the Ranger with a longbow is perfectly fine. Wanting to play as the beastmaster class and expecting it to be better with just the weapon than the class designed to rely on just the weapon to win fights?
Rangers could beat warriors in the first public beta without the pets, undermining the entire point of playing the warrior class. Guess what, the beastmaster aspect got played up (damage nerf to the ranger, buff to the pet.) Yelling “LET’S MATCH THE WARRIOR WITH WEAPON DAMAGE” is like going “LET’S BUFF UP EVERYONE LIKE GUARDIANS” or “LET’S STEALTH LIKE THIEVES”. That isn’t the Ranger’s thing, the ranger’s thing is the pet.

If you want to play like a warrior then just go play a warrior, you will be much happier.

That doesn’t change my point: the ranger in guildwars II is not an archer class.

One hopes it’s addressed soon.

That’s the thing though; only a handful of places give me any hassle, and it’s usually specific enemies in specific situations.

Ascalon Catacombs is a bit of a faceroll. The only sticking points are the scavengers doing the knockdown lock Lt Kholer with his 360, and route 3’s howling lord with its Very Gernous arc of damage from the scream (270, maybe even 300, degrees)

For the first, you swap the pet out, end of problem.

For the second, you swap the pet out when/if it’s pulled in to the 360 attack. If you didn’t get pulled in, odds are the pet will spawn out of range, so you just need to press F3 for a moment before pressing F1. If you did get pulled in, hope you’ve got lightning reflexes or the condition removal signet and as you roll uot hit the swap. While the swapped pet will take damage, if you’ve got 30 beastmastery it will usually survive (albiet barely) a partial mauling from it (sounds tricky, but it’s actually quite easy when you have to do it). I’ve managed to fight him with a bird/spider combo never getting downed for the entire fight.

For the third, you grit your teeth in frustration and just focus on walloping it down.
—————————-
For the Cathedral of Flames is pretty basic, beyond the flamethrowers nothing sticks in my mind honestly.

Honour of the Waves, once again, beyond a few bosses with specific attacks (such as route 1’s 360 spin attack for melee pets) there’s again not much the pet isn’t okay with at 30 beastmaster.

The only ones I honestly find a pain are the ones with skills that oneshot a player and are hard to dodge as well.

Xyvius.1679:

Not a huge fan of pets either.

So why are you playing the pet class?

NaturalPortman.9562:

I swear the ranger thread is the biggest gong show I have ever visited / read. The class isn’t far behind the other classes in terms of effectiveness, the only thing the class needs is a few tweaks not a complete overwork of the class. Some people already know just how powerful the class would be if the pet hit enemies while moving, I even think that would make our damage creeping over the level of being overpowered. The ranger is in the state that any little change will make it extremely powerful or slightly underpowered, which is why it’s probably worrisome for the devs to make any drastic changes suddenly.

When you come to a beastmaster orientated class expecting an archer class with some eyecandy, that’s what happens. The class (especially some of the pet AI routines) need love but it could be worse. Could be necromancers with lots of traits that are bugged or don’t work at all.

Atherakhia.4086:

Wordswordswords

No. That’s a wannabe warrior with some vague buffs, like a wannabe guardian. The ranger could match warriors without the pets in the Beta. Guess what was the very first thing that got nerfed for rangers? Clue: something to do with undermining another class’ defining feature.

Irrelevant. My point still stands; this incarnation of Ranger isn’t designed to have the pet as eyecandy, and as such people should stop complaining on how to make the pet nothing more than that, and give feedback and constructive criticism as to how to make the pets better.

Atherakhia.4086:

You missed the point entirely.

So did you. GW2 is trying to go somewhere different to other mmorpgs. The warriors are actually good with all weapons instead of only melee, there is no dedicated healer. The elementalist and necromancer can (and with many builds, are actively encouraged) to wade into melee, something caster classes are usually encouraged to run a mile from.

So why should the Ranger be the usual mmorpg Yet Another Archer With Eyecandy Pet?

crazyhorse.5843:

Recently got into running dungeons and with all the aoe/ground targeted damage from bosses the pet is 100% useless.
I dont post much if at all in forums and im one of those guys that can adapt his game to be effective through class bugs/imbalance but this is really bad.
From what ive read the pet is the core mechanic and class defining feature of the ranger and it is not working in its current state.
I think giving playes the option to create a petless build if they choose would be a great idea.
In GW1 did you have the option of going without a pet?

sorry for bringing this up again if it was already covered in another post.

You could ignore the pet in GW1 and put 0 points (out of a maximum of 12, 16 with runes) or even bring it as pure eyecandy: you were a fool if you did, pet orienated builds were horrifically broken (in the overpowered sense). Your pet could hit harder than pretty much any other class in melee all the time instead of peak-and-trough damage output, had a shout that made all it’s attacks unblockable for 26 seconds (the recharge time of the shout was 30) and… well you get the idea. Of course, everyone was too busy trying to be Legolas to notice, so the ranger was underpowered underupdated and Hated Forever and the devs are meanies and so on. Because archery on it’s own sucked.

On the Guildwars 2:
If you want to use anything other than bears or devourers in a dungeon, you’re going to have to put points into beastmastery. Sad that you actually have to invest in something for it to work, but such is life in Tyria. I use 30 in a dungeon and beyond the “I KEEL U” oneshotting stuff you usually have time to swap the pets out before they’re downed, even the squishier ones. I’d say more but Rhaps pretty much covered all the fundementals. I’ll try and give an abridged though:

1. Put points into beastmastery, or you’re stuck with the tougher pets whether you like it or not.
2. Your pet is not an immortal fire-and-forget missile of damage over time. It will get attacked, it will get hurt.
3. Because of #2, you will need to keep half an eye on the health bar or the pet itself. Ideally both. Such is the price you have to pay for being able to easily split your DPS over targets.
4. Try not to swap pets for the heck of it. See #5 for why.
5. When you see That Wretched Thing winding up it’s aoe I keel u attack, switch the pet out if it’s going to get hit. If you’re pet swap’s on cooldown, press F3 and hope they get out in time.

Is it utterly foolproof? Well no, sometimes the pet just can’t dodge an attack and gets downed, which sucks. Hopefully something will be done for that, however saying the pets are ‘useless’ for any dungeon is utter rubbish. They are useful, you just have to pay attention to them and not treat them as a glorified minipet for you kitten.

Atherakhia.4086:

The thing about Hunters in WoW were the pets were worthless. They were effectively DOTs with limited/no real value to the class. This is how they should be in this game too. Make them a little DOT that doesn’t amount to much of the ranger’s overall damage and give them some valuable group utility so the ranger can be brought along for pvp.

Like how GW2 should have a dedicated healer, the warrior should be unable to fight in ranged combat, ect? You said it yourself, Hunter pets were worthless, yet they’re the ranger’s main class mechanic. So you want to make the ranger’s defining part of the class useless?
I respectfully disagree with that.

The traits are a quite all-over-the-place. The pet ones sort-of make sense, with powerful ‘base’ ones in beastmaster while other specific ones go into trees that reflect it (eg, critical damage goes in the critical tree) except for the fact many of the beastmaster ones are… crap. Simply.
It’s definitely the same with others; ones you would expect in the condition damage tree (Sharpened edges when you’re at 75% health for example) are in the… power tree.

MaRko.3165:

Some of the pets seem more ‘squishy’ then others. The tiger looks cool (I like the grawl) but it gets ‘mortally wounded’ fairly quickly. I’ve tried: dog, bear, spider and boar as well with various success/failure. They all seem squishy.

What gets me is the single hit damage or lack there of. With a 160-180 damage long bow I can hit a RAT and score a 300-500 hit however anything much larger it’s only 40-80. Most large targets end up taking a few dozen hits – unless you add in other attacks (horn) or defensive abilities (traps).

The simple fact is the pets are pretty squishy until you spend trait points on them, hence I reccomended you put points into them ASAP; 10 or even just 5 makes a difference and gives you an idea what they’re like when they aren’t neglected.
You’re right in your observations as well; different pets do different things. Bears are the most durable, Drakes hit multiple foes with their attack, the birds (non moas) are probably the best at damage, dogs are crowd control… you get the idea.

Yet again: rangers are designed to work with the pets. If you want to be a long ranged sniper style thing and do lots of ranged damage with a weapon only, go play warrior. You’ll save yourself some frustration.

You could spend 10 seconds trying to kill a two or thee enemies with aoe at risk of a healer negating it, or you could spend ten seconds killing two or three enemies one at a time with enough damage to largely negate healers in most situations. Personally, I preferred not to risk it.
Besides, pets didn’t get DP, and had an energy version of Final Thrust with a 5 second recharge to boot. And could be unblockable for 26 seconds (with a 30 second recharge shout)

Yasha.5963:

3) I don’t see how Hunters in WoW or rangers in GW are anything like Aragorn from LoTR. If anything the main theme for this kind of class through mmos/rpgs and books/movies is an archer or beastmaster. The connection with bows and nature makes me think of elves if anything. At any rate its best just to drop such preconceived ideas and accept the games’ definition of the class.

Aragorn keeps cropping up because he was a ranger, yet he spent more time in melee with his sword than with a bow. The archer in LoTR’s lineup was Legolas who was ‘only’ an elven soldier like GW2’s warrior is. Ergo, trying to use the whole ‘rangers are ARCHERS ONLY FINALDESTINATION’ argument is Very Stupid, because even in the original source material this is not the case. You’re right about the beastmaster aspect though, as is possibly hinted at with the pet controls being your main mechanic and your primary attribute being in the Beastmaster line.

OrianZeta.1537:

Maybe there’s precedent for change in other games, but I’ve stuck around for ~7 years with this series… game-changers (profession-based) came, but few and not for the better. Some become OP while others were left to rot. To the last day I kept a line dropped on the official wiki, years after the last expansion and after many free content updates, the ranger update never came.

There were two big reasons for this. First, the difference in GW was that the ranger was actually good in PvP, though terribly antiquated in PvE. Secondly, what truly masked PvE skill-balancing were a secondary profession and PvE-only skills (if you’re not familiar, imagine if the Orders taught skills, and any class could slot them). The bar itself was so open it allowed for all kinds of nutty builds; now the profession needs to pull its full weight, it cannot outsource for its lack of viability. Improving one profession does not create opportunities for others.

Actually, rangers did get an update that made them horribly broken.
http://www.guildwars.com/gameplay/developer_updates/august_2009_skill_balances.php
Pets became stupidly broken in that update; one skill got +53 damage, a 21 second deep wound (reducing total health and recieved healnig by 20%) with a five second recharge and 5 energy cost. Then there was Scavenger’s Strike, a 5 energy attack that gave you up to 16 energy. You effectively had unlimited energy.
Those two skills alone made the pet (and by extension, the ranger) horrifically overpowered. You could often bruteforce through healers on hard mode.

Of course, since everyone and their dog (and going off the ragethreads in this forum, still do) want to be “teh snipar” and/or was too busy doing splinter+barrage to see lots of pretty numbers, it went unnoticed.

There’s also the more pertinent “obvious roles are currently filled”

Long ranged pew? Longbow.
Medium ranged? Shortbow
Short ranged/mass damage? Axe.

garethh.3518:

People realized ranger’s don’t play well when playing like warriors and so never should, at least with their current numbers.

Yes, playing like a warrior is best done by warriors. Gosh, who’d have thought…

If you hate the pet so much, stop playing ranger and play another class. It’s like complaining you don’t want to shadowstep/stealth as a thief, buff allies as a guardian, switch elements as an elementalist, use your life bar as a necro, use your toolbelt or toolkits as an engineer, illusions as a mesmer and then expect a buff for not doing so.

Think.9740:

slingblade.1437:

I’d rather just see Rangers be made the class that’s best with a bow, which is only logical. Until GW2 adds LotR Elves as a class, Rangers should be second to none when it comes to bows.

You refer to LotR but wasn’t Aragorn the Ranger?

Aragorn was the ranger, spent more time with a sword than a bow and Legolas was an elven soldier.

MaRko.3165:

I like playing Ranged players – in FPSers I like to snipe – the Ranger seemed perfect for my play style.

It’s not. You want long ranged killing with a weapon, play the warrior and crack out a rifle. You may want to consider an engineer for the autoattack and gadgets on the rifle, but the ranger is more melee/ranged mix with a big emphasis on the pet.

Again: the pet has a big emphasis. If you want to be eyecandy and you want to ignore it, treating it like some vague fire-and-forget-dots missile and expect to match a Warrior (designed to be the best when relying on a straightforward weapon-v-weapon headbutting contest with someone) you’re going to be disappointed. Just look at all the whine threads complaining about it.

IIRC 500 points of toughness halves your damage. It makes a hell of a difference.

Nuwen.7615:

but rangers are straight up ABUSED by the devs.

Like how how your post, and many people here, abuse the devs? Goodness’ sakes yes the ranger’s got problems and yes it would be very nice if they got sorted but screaming abuse at them ISN’T. HELPING.

Esrever.8613:

Loki.4871:

Esrever.8613:

pets die instantly in dungeons

Spec into beastmastery, don’t treat them as a fire and forget missile, and remember to use your F3/F4 buttons and they’re usually fine. This is from someone who melees with them by their side

pets die in 2-3 aoes from any boss. It doesn’t even matter how you control them because it takes them like 30 seconds to run back to you if you press the button.

Its gotten to a point where I just don’t care about my pet any more in dungeons.

Which is, assuming you’re not worrying on getting out of melee yourself, the point you hit the F4 button to swap the pet out and have the replacement by your side. I did say to make use of the F4 buttons.

Do that and, barring the git deciding to aoe spam on you, the pet should be fine.

Kain Francois.4328:

Hey guys. I’m a new Charr Ranger here. I previously mained a Warrior and got tired of Engineer. I found Ranger who so far felt like Warrior but still felt different enough to keep me entertained.

Don’t ignore the pet, and don’t expect to match the warrior’s DPS or the thief’s burst without it. Especially the warrior; that’s the ‘herpaderpa i keel u with big numbers’ class. The ranger is the “works with pets and/or spirits” class. My advice is play it up to level 25, making sure you put points into beastmaster first since some pets are Too Squishy without it imo, and then the extra 5 levels let you decide if you like the pet mechanic or not.
In dungeons you need to pay attention to the pets. Sometimes there’s the cheap AoE murderskills that the pet probably won’t survive, but beyond that so long as you don’t treat it as some fire-and-forget feathered/furry/scaled missile and pay attention to it should be okay.

To be very clear; this incarnation of ranger is not an archer class like it was in GW1. If you go in expecting to beat the Warrior, a class designed to be the best with weapons, using only your ranger with the pet for eyecandy, you’re going to set yourself up for heartache. The pet being the primary mechanic and the F keys should have tipped you off, but considering how many topics there are..

AC, HoTW and I think Orr dungeons have armour parts with these stats. So just get AC (since it’s easiest) and transmute to whatever you want, then you’re laughing.

Esrever.8613:

pets die instantly in dungeons

Spec into beastmastery, don’t treat them as a fire and forget missile, and remember to use your F3/F4 buttons and they’re usually fine. This is from someone who melees with them by their side

Aridia.3042:

Loki.4871:

What I am saying is the plonkers who were expecting the ranger to magically start outperforming the warrior in ranged combat (especially since the warrior is supposed to win in a 1v1 headbutting contest) set themselves up for disappointment.

That’s funny. I didn’t realize they were making a rock, paper, scissors game.

Or did you mean current state of the ranger is in is due to the fact devs play warrior so therefore they are “supposed to win” because they don’t like losing?

1v1, the ranger should lose. Thing is, with your animal companion it’s 2v1. The ranger should win with it’s animal companion if they’re skilled, but expecting to beat the warrior on your own is stupid. It’s akin to complaining the guardian is better at buffing teammates, and the ranger should match/be better.
Which is why the pets need improving, bugfixes need to be done, and things like spirits and utility skills need to be more viable. Currently everyone whining seems to be trying to play the ranger as a warrior; big surprise, the warrior is better at being a warrior. If utility skills are improved/changed and different playstyles are made viable for the ranger, suddenly you don’t have to waste time trying for that. It’s like the Necromancer isn’t really designed for raw damage (Warrior again), but a war of attrition. The ranger is not designed to beat the warrior in a headbutting contest, so it needs to win some other way. The only way it can do that is if it has better/alternate options than headbutting.

It became painfully clear to me by the time I hit level 15 in the BWEs; even a mere five points had made a massive difference to the pet.
Plus I came from GW1, which also had the pet performace tied to the beastmastery trait. At 0, it was a portable corpse and at 16 (maximum) it was as broken as SoS.

As for GW2, you know that if you bother to put points into beastmastery the pets become tougher, do good damage and you can heal yourself for much more? I have 30 beastmastery and not only do my pets (per hit) do more damage than me (got 10 power and full solidiers) regardless of crits, but seldom get oneshotted and I can heal myself for over half my health using Heal as One. The beastmaster trait line isn’t that bad.

Agadar.4931:

DaisyRogers.6837:

aPutridCorpse.8792:

So when is the next patch?
It’s been over a month since JonPeters posted here and he hasn’t come back since…

Honestly don’t blame him for not wanting to post anything with the juvenile tantrums thrown and the huge amount of personal attacks levied against him.

Honestly… what else would you expect?

Yeah, we shouldn’t be this mean to John. After all, all he did was promise us the world and give us nothing in the end.

Knowing Anet’s censorship, this post will be infracted in three… two… one…

He promised spirit buffs and general utility tweaks, aknoledging that the shouts and signets were too ropey at the moment especially.

I’m not saying I’m utterly thrilled with the update (I was hoping the shouts would get updated)

What I am saying is the plonkers who were expecting the ranger to magically start outperforming the warrior in ranged combat (especially since the warrior is supposed to win in a 1v1 headbutting contest) set themselves up for disappointment. No matter how you slice it, he never mentioned a buff to weapons at any point. I was quite surprised at the greatsword buffs because of it.