Guild Wars 2

People are defending Spirits?

• New Trait Tier 3 (Skirmishing): Trap’s do initial damage upon activating. (Such as the Ranger’s in AC Exp)
• New Trait Tier 3 (Marksmanship): Decreases the cast time of all Longbow skills by 15%

-Adjustments to the current Traits-

Trapper’s Expertise (Skirmishing)

• Trap skill’s use ground targeting (1000 Ranged) and are 50% larger (Currently, their range is 600, which feels too short)

Beastmaster’s Bond (Marksmanship)

• Gain fury and 10 might when your pet’s health reaches 50% (30 Second CD) (Currently, you only get 1 might, which is pathetic)

Beastmaster’s Signet (Marksmanship)

• Activating a Signet grants 8 might (Currently, you only get 1 might, which again is pathetic)

Companion’s Might (Skirmishing)

• Critical hits grant might to your pets (Increase the duration of the might applied to the pet to 10 seconds, as opposed to the 2 or so seconds it is now).

Master’s Bond (Beastmastery)

• Your pet has a bond with you that increases its attributes each time you kill a foe. When it is defeated, the bond is reset (Change it so you can swap your pet and still keep the bonus. Otherwise, this trait is completely contradicting it’s minor trait “Zephyr’s Speed”)

Martial Mastery (Wilderness Survival)

• Sword, greatsword, and spear skills recharge 20% faster and increases damage by 5%

Vigorous Spirits (Nature Magic)

• Spirits share the Ranger’s Vitality (as opposed to giving them twice as much health) and are immune to Area of Effects

Spiritual Knowledge (Nature Magic)

• Spirit bonuses have a 30% better chance of providing their benefits (as opposed to the 15% it is currently) and increases their buff range.

Agility Training (Skirmishing)

• “Return to Me” now makes the pet Shadowstep back to the Ranger. (as opposed to the 30% faster speed increase) 15 second Cooldown

Healer’s Clerity (Wilderness Survival)

• Grants regeneration to you and your ally when you revive someone (currently, it applies Swiftness).

Hide in Plain Sight (Wilderness Survival)

• Apply stealth (as opposed to camouflage) when you are dazed, knocked down, launched, pushed back, or stunned. This effect cannot trigger more than once every 30 seconds.

Enlargement (Nature Magic)

• Pets get enlarged when you reach 50% health (as opposed to the 25% it is now)

Instinctual Bond (Beastmastery)

• When you reach 25% health, your pet gains quickness for 5 seconds (currently, this only works when you are downed) 50 second cooldown.

Shared Anguish (Wilderness Survival)

• Incoming disabling conditions (stun, daze, knockback, knockdown, sink, float, fear, launch) are reflected back to the enemy instead 90 second cooldown (currently, it is transferred to your pet and why would we want that?)

Hate is kind of a strong word. They’re more along the lines of undesirable. Not to mention it’s really hard to come by an excellent Ranger (I feel that way about Thieves too).

Nobody is going to pick a Ranger over a Warrior, Mesmer, Guardian, Thief or Elementalist when it comes to Dungeons.

I agree. If there is Racial Armor then I think there should be Profession Armor as well.

Jazenn.7526:

Daemon.4295:

Chopps.5047:

snip

No, this is why people think the profession is broken:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poltQGmLu5M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iK-QnDSKys
How can there not be a general consensus on these issues after seeing stuff like this?

Before the Dec.14 patch which supposedly fixed both of these problems.

I get Obstructed and Out of Range (even though I’m well within range) all of the time still. It’s especially bad in Dungeons/Fractals and WvW.

Also, the Pet AI to hit moving targets was “improved” but not fixed by any means.

Xephier.1647:

we had 2 rangers

I found your problem.

I have 3 Support 80s I leveled and geared with Exotics/Ascended.

• Support Necro (My least favorite, but awesome in Dungeons)
• Support Guardian (Everyone loves a Support Guardian) – I find it easy to “tag mobs” or players with a Guardian because of my Symbols and Virtues in PVE. It’s more difficult to tag people in WvW though (with my play style, I’m not saying they’re bad, they’re actually really good), which is my biggest peeve about Guardians and why it’s my “go-to” Dungeon character.
• Support Elementalist (My favorite to play!) – I love this type of play style in WvW. I run with a small group of 5+ friends and I’ve saved many, many lives. It’s super easy to tag people on Keeps and such too. In PVE, I like to avoid anything Solo on this character because of my poor damage, so I really prefer this character in PVP only. She still works great in Dungeons though, but my Guardian is better at it in Dungeons.

Basically, I agree that if I’m healing people, reviving people, buffing people, reflecting damage, stopping damage and so forth, I should get credit. I don’t find it difficult to tag people/mobs, but it’s the simple principle of if I’m helping someone, I should get credit for what that person “tags”.

Supports are a really important role in this game and should be given more credit. I don’t want to hear that “No Trinity, No Heals, No Supports, ALL DEEPS” shenanigans because your groups lives will be made 100% easier if you have a Support in your group (whether it be Dungeons, WvW, Spvp or PVE).

@Chopps;
What do you think needs to be done to make Ranger’s better?

(“Better” meaning fixes, improvements, adjustments, etc)

No. I’d rather they add even MORE 80 content and new ideas/designs.

I want it to be like Guild Wars 1. Hit max level and have 9723984739284 things to do.

This post…is…what

>.> For the dodge daily, all you need to do is aggro an NPC and let him beat on you (don’t fight back) and dodge his attacks. Do that until you’re finished. Takes about 60 seconds depending on your vigor.

Rezzing counts for NPC’s too. I find the fastest way to do this is by doing events that involve NPC’s, the one’s in Orr are perfect. Otherwise WvW is the other fastest way.

Crafting? Make 10 balls of dough for Cooking. You buy the mats from the vendor and use Sticks of Butter. Only takes crafting Level 1 to do it.

Gathering? Just casually run up the coasts of Orr. You should be able to spot the 98239487234 Mithril Ores.

I mean, if you don’t have time for any of this, then that’s less than 30 minutes of playtime.

You don’t like Unicorns and flying rainbows!?

Oh, you mean the Heart of the Mists is more than just a free port to Lion’s Arch? :O

I think they limited the Laurel’s to PVE because if they didn’t then people would get a second source of Laurel’s by completing their PVP dailies. Depending on how many Laurel’s are rewarded by doing the Monthly, the item reward cost may not be “balanced” for that.

But yeah, maybe instead PVP Dailies should get their own currency and their own Reward Vendor like the Laurels, except have PVP goodies in them (in addition to the mini pets or whatever).

Sarrs.4831:

Nurse.1085:

snip

Will making the maps larger actually help to stop the zerg, though? I don’t understand the reasoning, here. Unless more waypoints are placed around the maps, it’ll take just as long for a defensive force to arrive as it will for the attacking zerg- It’ll be even worse because your response time is delayed, even.

This isn’t to say I wouldn’t like larger maps, but I don’t see how it’d solve this particular occurrence.

It wouldn’t 100% solve anything, but it’d greatly help. Everything is a stone’s throw away from each other. There’s no real thought process about it. You don’t have to split up because everyone can run as a large Zerg and cover the whole map.

I guess my theory if the maps were larger and the objectives were farther would be this :

If “The Zerg” is at Keep A on the North side of the map, and “The Smaller Guys (enemy)” are at Keep B on the South of the map, then “The Zerg” has a decision to make. Do they travel the great distance to defend and hope they make it in time? Do they split their Zerg, thus making them no longer a Zerg? Do they ignore it and continue to capture Keep A? Basically, by focusing all of their numbers on the North Side of the map, it has made them vulnerable on the South side. If they had more “healthy” sized groups that were strategically placed, Keep B could have been saved.

As it is right now, The Zerg can win Keep A and travel to Keep B and squash the little Ants trying to win something for themselves. Regardless of the order, The Zerg will always win. If the maps were larger, smaller groups scattered over the map would be more encouraged rather than feeling like a fruitless effort (since back capping is also a problem).

But meh, that’s just my opinion. It just seems like Zerging/Numbers is the way to go right now, which is sad, because the smaller skirmishes are the most fun imo.

I agree with the person who said to make the maps larger. My friends and I (who played DAOC) have always agreed that the WvW maps were too small. It makes it really easy to zerg, which has it’s time and place, but zerging is just so strong right now. It’s really hard for the smaller groups.

A lot of people I know are waiting for this WvW patch to make or break the game for them. I’ve burnt myself out on GW2’s PVE content, all I have left for myself is it’s WvW.

Jazenn.7526:

When it comes to spirits, they are fragile, yes very. The answer? Keep them alive or use their abilities. Its a challenge and some rangers can do it. Some can’t.

I’m trying to wrap my head around that statement. I can’t even recall the last time I saw a successful, confident Spirit Ranger roaming around, especially in Dungeons. Or maybe I have but his Spirits were off somewhere being dead.

The problem with the logic “it’s just because you need to learn to play” is that it doesn’t really apply here. Being an experienced and excellent Gamer does slightly help with their survival in sticky situations, which usually consists of calling your pet back, keeping it on passive, swapping and praying to the AOE Gods every 20 seconds, playing babysitter, etc. However there is a very noticeable, blatant, in-your-face flaw with Spirits and Pets, regardless of the player’s skill.

The current Pet/Spirit mechanics just don’t mesh well with the rest of the game’s Dungeon/Fractal/WvW combat. The challenge is not because it has an intentionally High Skill Cap gameplay, the challenge is because it is flawed. We’re using all the duct tape we can to get through it but something needs to be done on Anets end without a doubt.

If you’re referring to the Signet, Spirit, Weapon(s) and other fixes they promised in that post a long time ago, the answer is No.

The buff’s we received were made across the board to the other Professions as well (Projectiles and 25% Increased Signet Speed). In addition, our pet’s have an easier time hitting moving targets.

To be more clear, nothing was changed about us to make us dramatically different or better than we were before. We’ve taken “baby steps” at best and there hasn’t been any significant class balancing yet.

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

The problem with this quote is

• We’re not unparalleled. My Ranged DPS is not as strong as other classes. When the Warrior in my group is getting 20+ Kill Shots (while not being built for class cannon), a little piece of my Ranger dies.
• We’re crippled by our stable of “loyal pets.”
• Our Spirits mind as well not even exist in our lists of Utilities. Like our pets, they are dead on their back more often than not.

I personally am a fan of how Pet’s were handled in World of Warcraft. They’re fluid, you have access to a wide variety of commands, their special skills are fluid and painless to use, you can Trait them to be how you want them to be and most importantly, they’re not dead all of the time. They’re also fun to tame.

If a good chunk of my personal damage is being reduced because of my Pet, then I don’t want them to be a flimsy, lifeless corpse I drag around in Dungeons/WvW. They need to be an attachment of me. Not an irritating tumor on my side.

atheria.2837:

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

What was left out?

Why are we being treated like this?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Agadar.4931:

Different teams, Bro.

Yeah, there is only a total of 2 people working on Class Balances between all 8 professions. Words straight from a Dev’s mouth. :’[

I tried a Longbow / Spirit Support build once. Then I realized I was too far away for my team to receive my Buffs (because the range is horrible). Then they got one shot by God know’s what.

I prefer to NOT trait for Spirit’s to follow me in PVE. Whenever my pet is on passive during an intense AOE fight, chances are that pet is going to die. I’d rather go old-school GW1 style and stick it in the back, deep in a corner, and pray to the RNG God’s that nothing touches it.

But yeah, no matter how many times I’ve tried to make it work, they’re just too gimped through and through. I’d never take those poor innocent Spirits into a Fractal, I’d be guaranteeing their deaths.

They need to be like the Guardian’s Spirit Weapons. Invincible. Why? Because they’re SPIRITS!

Suddenflame.2601:

I said it in another post https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Ascended-amulets-and-ascended-items-overall/page/2#post1322969 this reason alone is why they havnt added Power/Healing Power/ Toughness into Ascended. Its way to easy if they did add it for a Regen warrior to actually become an unstoppable force With Signet of Rage and “For Great Justice” a warrior doesnt need to build Precision cause it is given to him.

How would you like to vs a Regen Warrior in WvW? 1v1 you better have a ton of conditions at easy disposal or else you wont be able to kill him. With Melandru runes Conditions lose their effectiveness as well due to massively decreased durations. “Shake it off” also reduces stacking effectiveness. Adding ascended Gear for this would mean a Regen warrior would be almost God like.

Then they could edit the variables of certain overpowered Regen’s and lower the percentage those Regen skills receive from Healing Power. Done.

Regardless, that’s not an excuse to remove traditional stat combinations and force player’s to use the new ones.

If anything, Anet needs to come forward with their reasoning and whether or not we should expect Healing Ascended in the future.

There NEEDS to be a healing option.

I don’t want to hear “there’s no trinity” or “they excluded it because people were looking for certain classes” ; That’s not a healing power issue, that’s a class balance issue.

Anet has barely touched class balancing. Anyone and everyone should have access to healing power, in addition to the other missing stats combos in the vendor. Removing Healing Power as an excuse to “balance” would be the most ghetto fix I’ve ever heard of. I have faith that is not the reason.

Besides, these stats such as Cleric were here before Ascended, Giver’s, or any other new stat combination. Thus, the older stat combinations should have been available by default for Ascended gear.

I’d suggest Tarnished Coast as the unofficial Guesting server as well (for NA) in general. Simply because we do have a lot of people out in the world already, so we have a solid foundation for visitors.

I love Giganticus Lupicus. All of the final bosses in Dungeon’s should have 3 phase mechanics like him! In fact, we need more bosses like him in general.

My sympathies go out to anyone who decides to pug this boss. I can see it getting pretty messy with a pick up group, especially an inexperienced one. Certain classes make this fight easier too, such as Guardians. Then again, that could be said about most Dungeons.

This is how the majority of other games do this. I mean, GW2 was the first MMO I’ve seen where it was acceptable to die, runback, die, runback without disengaging the boss/battle.

Even in GW1, if you died on a mission, you had to start over.

This is the best I could come up with for my Ranger’s look. It’s just a mixture of Cultural Armor, Whisper’s Armor and the Duelist chest piece. I even dished out too much gold to equip her with a Quiver back piece.

She looks a little too revealing for me and I’ve tried exploring different options, but there are not enough short length chest pieces. A game based on Cosmetics, but lacks a variety of cosmetics. -_- The irony. I would kill for some of the GW1 skins.

I’m sorry, but the majority of Medium/Leather armor in GW2 is not attractive and unflattering on Female characters. There are hardly any feminine options (I’m a woman, I don’t want thongs, I just want pretty and feminine.) There are too many trench coats.

Take a look at GW1 Armor sets : http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Ranger_armor
It feels like they went backwards with GW2’s armor design.

I will always support Raiding in GW2.

More importantly, I want challenging PVE content and epic boss battles. Not just a higher player cap. World Events/Dragons are simply Zerg fests and Dungeon’s give little to no challenge. I want real bosses, not bosses with over-simplified singular mechanics and high HP pools. /facedesk

Raid’s can be easily balanced to not force players to do them, but rather to lure player’s into them. Rewards such as Server/World First Achievs (for those who care), Achievs with “special (cosmetic) item” rewards (something for players to aim for after completing the Raid), Cosmetic Armor sets, Cosmetic Weapons, Capes, Backpacks, Titles, Cosmetic Mounts (such as the Witch’s broom), Ascended Accessories (another way to obtain them besides grinding Fractals) and so forth. Not to mention Karma/Money at the end completion.

That way, I can do what I want to do and PVPer’s can do what they want to do, with out being forced into doing something that PVPers don’t want to do in order to stay competitive (-cough-FOTM).

-shrugs- But I doubt it’ll ever happen.

That is why my original Guild quit awhile ago. They were all marvelous players that dedicated a lot of their time to gaming (30+ hours a week) and aimed to accomplish things “average” players could not. However, it began to dawn on them that this game was meant for Casuals that play for maybe 10 hours a week. It had nothing to do with gear, all my guild wanted was a challenge. Guild Wars 2 doesn’t have any difficult content, everything can be completed by everyone. No one is special, everyone is equal. It does come down to a grind, which to me has nothing to do with skill.

Equal in power / stats is fine, in my opinion. That’s great in terms of gear and I applaud it (I actually dislike Ascended, they took a wrong turn with that). However it’s not great in terms of content. The fact is, none of this is challenging and everyone can do everything with minimal effort (Dungeons/Fractals/PVE/World Bosses/World Events). There’s no special difference between a “Hardcore” player and a “Casual” one (and no the difference does NOT have to do anything with gear stats).

To me, I don’t think any of these “Hardcore” types of player’s will be signing back on ever again (atleast the one’s that have given up so far). Assuming Anet does nothing to accommodate that type of player. Why? Because there’s nothing for them here. Fun game? Sure. But from my experience (and this goes for me too), when “hardcore” players play an MMO, they dedicate themselves to that MMO. I rarely casually jump between MMO’s, it just feels weird and I’d prefer to dedicate and focus myself onto one MMORPG in particular. Doesn’t mean I don’t play other video games, but there’s always that one special MMO you play. Anyways, that’s just my opinion.

PS: I don’t think Anet knows how to make difficult content, for some reason, I’ve gotten the impression that they think difficult equals more trash mobs, higher health pools and higher grinds. Which ever guy designed Gingaticus Lupicus, the only interesting and fun boss in this game, should have designed all of the other bosses as well. He actually has phases and keeps you on your toes.

The Gravestone’s that are scattered across Tyria are really interesting / funny to read. Oh, and the conversations NPC’s have.

Avatar.1923:

@ nurse

i really dont understand whats a hardcore player.
eventually youre gonna repeat content…

These are just light-hearted definitions.
“Casual” – Someone who plays games every now and then. Maybe a few hours a week.
“Hardcore” – Someone who devotes a significant amount of their time to playing games.

As for repeating content, I always do and that’s fine. The question is how often and for how long before I decide that I just can’t do it anymore. Turns out 5 months is my limit.

Avatar.1923:

watch out TESO.
everything else dont stand much of a chance imo.

And this.

The only solid content (for me) that will have any kind of longevity from this patch is WvW.

To me, GW2 has always been a casual-centric, it’s not really for “Hardcore” players (in my opinion). It’s more about finding ways to entertain yourself, and if you play a lot (like I do), that list of “things to do” dwindles quite quickly. In the end, you’re left with WvW.

I’ve been excited for GW2 for years, but it needs time to grow (just as GW1 did). Until it grows, I don’t think I can consider it my “main MMO” but rather an MMO I sign on to every now and then. GW1 made my head explode with content and things to do, so we’ll just have to see if GW2 follows up.

I’d consider myself a “hardcore” player and I feel as though I actually took my time in a game for once, but I’m still faster at completing content than an average-joe. So, I’m with you here.

I don’t get it. We all love our Ranger, that is why we are here. That is why we are toughing it out. However, pretending everything is O.K and we’ll “work around” our massive bug list and broken class mechanic is delusional. I mean, when Jon Peter’s said Longbow’s were fine the way they were. That’s….just…what?

These bugs aren’t about a lack of skill or a lack of Micro managing your pet. It’s straight up : “This is broken.” The lack of communication from the Dev team is the #1 reason why there is a cry of frustration from Rangers.

One time, a Dev posted that we’ll be getting fixes soon. By the next 2 patches, we got underwater buffs. -.-" We have no idea what their plans are anymore and when we can expect to see any progression.

And I don’t know about you guys, but when there’s a content patch, I immediately scroll down to the Ranger notes. My thoughts afterwords usually consist of massive disappointment and “Wait…really?”

It’s built up resentment, that is why these posts are mostly bitter. And maybe, just maybe, if we’re loud enough, the Dev’s will hear our tiny little cries for help.

I do love my Human Ranger, I love Archery, I love the feel of nature….but something’s not right here.

Ranger. They also probably have the most bugs and the worst Traits. For God’s sake, their class mechanic hardly functions and they’re crippled with out it. That’s just the tip of the iceberg.

When a person get’s rejected from a Fractal/Dungeon group because they are a Ranger and they’d prefer to have a Warrior/Guardian/Mesmer/Thief, something’s seriously wrong.

My sympathies go out to Necro’s and Engineer’s though. We’re getting held down by “The Mans” pet system.

In my opinion, I hope they add a “drop down” menu for the #1-5 weapon skills so you can choose which skills to put in the slot (like you can for utilities). Have the skills be based on the weapon type.

Example : #1 on a Longbow Ranger can be “Long Ranged Shot”, “Sniper Shot” or “Aimed Shot” – You pick one of those 3 skills from the drop down menu to be your #1 auto attack slot. Each slot has a different set of skills to choose from.

You basically “build” how you want your weapon to be.

Does that make sense at all? I’m not sure if I’m explaining it clearly enough. The point is, it’d give a lot of depth and variety to builds and your weapon selections. Instead of adding more weapon types and having a “locked” set of #1-5 skills, you’d have the option to “switch things around” like you can your Utilities.

Just throwing this in here.

The only reason I want GW2 to implement Raids (WITHOUT the gear grind) is because GW2 has the perfect system set up for it. 10 Man Raids could give guilds something to aim for and do together. It could drop prestigious looking armor and reward unique Titles and weapon skins. There could also be achievements. Not only that, but a Raid in GW2 wouldn’t become out dated, you’d have a steady growing amount of Raids that will always be desirable. A Raid released in July of 2013 will not be outdated by June of 2014.

Seems a shame that GW2 doesn’t take advantage of that. I’d love to have more difficult boss encounters with a controlled number of players (on a larger scale than Dungeons). If Tier 1 of difficulty is World Events, Tier 2 of difficulty is Explorable Dungeons, Tier 3 being Fractals, then Raids would be TIer 4 on the difficulty scale.

Lastly, there aren’t enough prestigious armor sets. The only thing I can think of is the Tier 3 Racial Armor, but that’s bought with money and not skill / team work. I want unique looking armor for doing awesome things, not how fat my wallet is. Though based on this update, I believe I saw icons for Armor sets as a reward for doing World Events. That’s a start, but World Events are so easy, if anything it’s just going to turn into a common grind. Not to mention if World Events are too hard, then zergs don’t want to do them. God, I wish GW2 had Raids. There’s nothing challenging in this game in terms of PVE.

/rant

I’d love to see some Longbow changes in addition to what the OP has already stated.

• Long Range Shot no longer has a distance requirement //OR// Long Range Shot’s distance requirement should be re-worked to be more forgiving in close combat. Right now, it hits like a wet noodle if you’re anything less than 1000 range.
• Long Range Shot’s cast time is reduced from 3/4 seconds to 1/2 second (or maybe even 1/4?)
• Rapid Fire’s channel time is reduced to 4 seconds, down from 5 seconds (does the same amount of damage as before, just a faster channel time…so that it’s actually “Rapid”) //OR// Increase the damage Rapid Fire does in order to justify it’s 5 second channel time.

PS: Anyone else find the irony of Spirits dying? I mean, they are spirits…. >.>

It’s gotten so bad that even I feel bad when I join Dungeons/Fractals on my Ranger. Like I honestly feel guilty for being there on her, not because I’m a bad player, but because I have 4 other useful 80s I could have joined with instead.

I have an 80 Thief, 80 Ele, 80 Guardian and an 80 Necro.

But I still enjoy the Ranger class above them all, maybe it’s because I do Archery in real life. I just greatly dislike what GW2 has done with them. They’re holding them back from being potentially awesome.

At one point in Beta, I said to myself “Ranger’s are in a pretty good spot, they’re really strong!” and they were. However, Anet nerfed us to the ground. TO THE GROUND! >:[ And continued to nerf us even after release, with minimal compensation or further fixes. So here we are.

Brett.4305:

I have never played WOW. One player had described the Hunter pets in that game as
behaving like a “living DoT.”

From a hunter, how much truth is there to that description?

BTW, I agree with the recommendations of the OP.

This is true for the most part. Hunter pet’s rarely ever died, they had a lot of sustain. I think it’s due to a number of reasons :

• WoW pet’s can have talent points. Different talent points for different species of pets. Thus, you can build your pet to be however you want them to be. This also included new skills.
• Not sure if they have this anymore, but they also had a Pet Talent that would instantly resurrect your pet if it died (it had a cooldown on it).
• You had an option to heal and resurrect your pet
• WoW pet’s took less damage from AOE’s
• WoW pet’s were not prioritized in a lot of boss mechanics, unlike in Guild Wars 2. GW2 PVE will treat a Ranger’s pet as if they were a player, thus your pet is more inclined to die from things that are beyond their means of escaping.
• Buffs (or “boons”) were shared with your pet by default (you have to trait for it in GW2).
• Special skills from a WoW pet were instant and responsive.
• WoW pet’s have a variety of commands to use by default, but in GW2 you have to consume utility slots just to be able to control your pets in certain ways (IE: Stay, Guard, etc)

I really don’t care for World of Warcraft, but I really miss their pet system. Actually, WoW’s pet system is the best I’ve seen in an MMORPG. That’s the only good thing you’ll hear me say about that game lol.

Substance E.4852:

We used to be able to res the pet and then they took it away from us for reasons I still don’t fully understand to be honest. It even worked like player rezing so it would go faster the more people joined in on it. It used to be a pet would limp back to you in the zerg and be back out in a few seconds.

I remember that. I think they removed it because when you’d interact with objects or whatever (F), and you’d end up unintentionally interacting with your dead pet instead. Same with other players. They could try to pick you up from “downed” and instead of the interact button intelligently interacting with the Player, it’d just target the pet instead. That’d be my guess anyways, it ended up being a nuisance. Though I really think they should have compensated better than putting a 1 minute CD on our pet swap.

Meh, I don’t find WvW fun either. I want to love it, I really do, but there’s just too much missing right now. I mean, I love PVP; I’ve PVP’d in all of the MMO’s I’ve played for the past 7 years. I love how unpredictable it is, the rush of a kill, things like that. However, strangely enough, I greatly dislike Spvp and WvW in GW2. There’s just…something missing about them.

I think for me, WvW is missing personal goals, variety, smaller skirmishes and a sense of epicness. In the end, the maps feel too squished together and the environment and setup is very zerg-friendly. Another thing that bothers me is the anonymous feel of it all, there’s no sense of building a name for yourself and there’s no personal rewards or goals. In addition, I greatly dislike the “downed” state in WvW. It makes it hard to “snipe” kills, only to have them resurrected immediately (especially in Zergs). As for my last complaint, the battles don’t feel “epic” to me because they usually turn into a massive ranged trade off battle or a Siege fight. It feels less about my character and more about my supplies and the amount of people I’m with. Hmph. I have had some pretty awesome smaller skirmishes with friends in the past, but these situations are very few and far between. The Zerg always catches up.

On the upside, I’m really looking forward to their WvW patch.

We’re adding new features as well. We’ll introduce a system of prestige and advancement specifically designed for WvW. This will give players a progression path where they earn new WvW-only abilities and bonuses, and with them gain prestige and visible titles/recognition. Also, we’ll add a new motivation to the WvW domain that goes beyond the overall weekly score to give more short term reasons to be winning in WvW as well. We’ll discuss all these features in more detail as we get closer to release!

/rant

Just a few compiled ideas to make Pet’s more viable / survivable. I had to get this off my chest.

• Pet’s are not effected by Agony // OR // Pet’s get 100% of the Ranger’s Agony Resistance
• Pet’s are not effected by “unfair” Boss Mechanics such as the worms on Phase 1 on Giganticus Lupicus in Arah or The Big Boss’ laser eye beam in Fractals. (To add on this, sometime’s the Big Boss in Fractals will target your pet over and over and over, even when your pet is dead.)
• Pet’s take 60% less damage from AOE’s
• Pet’s receive a percentage of the Ranger’s stats (unsure of how much).
• Lower the pet swap CD on dead pets to 45 seconds (currently at 60 seconds)
• Give us an ability to resurrect our pets (EXAMPLE : A utility skill or something we can Trait for)
• Further improve on letting our pet’s attack moving targets (which I know is being worked on).
• Allow us to “Stow Pet” permanently if we choose to (To add on this idea, all Ranger’s can Stow their Pet’s permanently if they choose to, but let us spec for a Trait that will increase our damage while our pet is Stowed. Obviously put a CD on Stow Pet (IE: 45 seconds). This way, it gives player’s more breathing room and versatility with their builds and play style. People who want to use pet’s can use their pets, but people who don’t can trait for stowing their pet. Everyone wins!)
• Give us full access to our Pet’s bars. “Attack, F2, Follow” is not enough. Let us have access to our other pet’s abilities so we may use them when the Ranger want’s to use them, not when the pet “feels like it.”
• Make our Pet’s F2 skills instant or atleast close to instant. Some of the animations take far too long to cast and it makes it really clunky to use.

Feel free to add more ideas. Personally, my biggest pet peeve about pets is their lack of survivability in Dungeon’s and WvWvW.

Leveling is great on a Ranger. I’ve killed Champion’s accompanied by Veteran’s on numerous occasions while leveling.

Get into a dungeon though at 80, you’ll start realizing your classes flaws. The biggest eye sore is watching your pet die before the Swap CD is even up (and the poor pet is unable to make it out of the AOE damage before it’s too late, or your pet dies to unavoidable Agony in Fractals). And with your pet dead, a large percentage of your damage is gone, thus making you the weakest link in your party. The next is watching your arrow shots getting Obstructed for no reason. Lastly, when you realize your Search and Rescue doesn’t work 50% of the time and 60% of your utilities are garbage and impractical. Oh, and when you realize a big chunk of your traits are centered around your pet – that’s dead more often than not.

D: Sorry for raining on the parade. But hopefully over the next 3 months will bring Ranger buffs, balances and fixes.

Holland.9351:

nerva.7940:

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

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

No other class has as much range as the ranger.

Uhh, Engineer’s do.

Just for the record, all Rare armor from the Dungeon vendors look the same. Personally, I preview armor before I buy it. And by my logic, it wouldn’t make sense for them to give you “special looking armor” for 60 tokens. That’s 1 dungeon run.

PS: You’ll never get a refund. Their customer service is very strict on that. The only thing you’ll be getting is a lesson learned.

Poster, waiting to be a “player” again.
None of my friends are playing anymore after investing 1100+ hours per person (we’re a group of 5). We’re kind of waiting for the early patches this year to decide on whether or not we want to keep going. I love you GW2, but I don’t really have a reason to sign on anymore. I’m just….bored. I really wanted WvW to be awesome but for some reason, it’s been so neglected. I’m not even sure how much will change with the new update. Oh the zerging…

I agree with points #1 and #2, and part of #3 but the gear grind doesn’t fit into GW2. You can have Raids with out a gear grind, in fact, it would be genius.

I also want to point out that Dynamic Events do not even hold a candle to Raids. In fact, neither do Dungeons / Fractals. Not because of their 5 man design, but because of Anet’s idea of “difficult” isn’t actually difficult. For Example : When you reach higher level Fractals, they do NOT add more boss mechanics. Instead, they just add more trash mobs and make the Agony hit harder. So basically, you fight the same fights from #10 to #30, except with more trash and harder agony. Not new mechanics.

Basically, DE’s/Dungeons will never fit in the place of Raids. Not even the large Dragons fights. This is a very PVE Casual friendly game, which leaves “hardcore” people (& guilds such as mine) bored and unchallenged. I would love it if they added real, hard and team work oriented group content (without the gear grind), rather than zerg fests, but I highly doubt they ever will. :[

1146 Hours over 4 months.

Class Name : BARD

Role : It would be another Support type class such as the Guardian. Supporting it’s allies with various battle buffs through their song. They can also DPS of course. Maybe give various debuffs to their enemies through their attacks.

Armor : Medium Armor.