Guild Wars 2

Expanding upon the concept of your idea, I think Legendary weapons should start out as Exotic Weapons that you craft or acquire somehow.

And then, as you suggest, as you fulfill certain objectives, you reach Checkpoints where the weapon “evolves”.

These objectives should not be about grinding nor wealth – they should be about skill and dedication.

I find it ridiculous that Orcs would ever be considered too “too cliche” for a game that uses Dwarves and Humans.

However, it would have to be explained why they didn’t show up yet.
Maybe they came from a distant land.

Challenge in GW2 needs to be about timing your skills well, not spamming them mindlessly.

ANet is going to extremes, however, wich is bad.

In GW1, NPCs had player skills (around 3-4 for normal enemies, and 5-6 for champions).
Usually their skills formed small combos that taught and inspired players to make their own combos.

In GW2, at least 9 out of 10 NPCs are balanced purely around damage and health, and Champions amplify these symptoms, with cheesy 1-shots and insane health.

ANet needs to move away from immunities and insane damage/health in PvE, and towards player-like effectiveness (give NPCs a healthy mix of damage, healing, defensive and control skills to make players have to time their skills well).

Nearest waypoint option isn’t a sollution because, as OP mentioned, it can get contested in the meanwhile and he gets killed.

I think being immune until you take action would be ideal.
As if you haven’t completely materialized.

I think ANet wouldn’t dye from implementing this.

Orichalcum Tool costs more than twice Mithril Tool and has a higher Level requirement.
What’s so wrong about giving Orichalcum Tool some advantage?

The goal here is precicely making it so that when using top tier tools on lower tier nodes, you don’t waste so much money… or inventory space to carry lower tier tools.

I hadn’t read your textiles suggestion, but now that I did I must say I love the concept behind it.
It would surely take some work to make it balanced with other gathering activities, but otherwise would make the game alot cooler.

There might be some Veteran/Champion Spiders in high level places guarding “huge gossamer silk webs”, wich would be equivalent to a rich orichalcum node.

Coal, Tin and Primordium should also be gatherable rather than purchased, to accomodate the mentality behind your suggestion.

Anything that makes us go out into the world rather than just browsing through countless vendor pages.

Blueshield.6291:

Account.9832:

Would probably make more sense to just make the limit per player (ex., 15 stacks per player, with no max limit).

I’m fairly certain that this would be considerably more effort than increasing the maximum stack size. I agree that stack size should be virtually unlimited against boss-type enemies – the short duration of conditions, even when duration is maximized by the player, prevents this from getting out of hand.

As I’ve said before, players really are uninformed.
Each stack in GW2 is an individual effect.
The damage and duration of each stack are tracked individually.
That’s why you see Bleed stacks going down and up during fight – because the older stacks fall off while newer stacks get applied.

If you apply 1x 2 second Bleed per second, you will always have 2 stacks of Bleed maximum, because before you can apply the 3rd, the 1st falls off.

I made a suggestion that is quite server-load-friendly in here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Sollution-Codition-Stacking-Boons/first

The minimum prices should enforce some profit.
200% of Vendor price should be the minimum value you can set in BLTP.
So if you can vendor an item for 99c, you should only be able to put it in BLTP for at least 1s98c.

Indeed. Spending 5+ minutes attacking a 2-shotting brick wall that ANet found funny to call Champions, and then getting a Fine (blue) item… is really making fun of the players.

In GW2, enemies are mostly balanced around huge health + huge damage.
In GW1, 99% of enemy skills were those available to players (wich is why we could capture them).
Each mob had a group of skills that gave him a small combo, wich made every enemy a different challenge to beat.

In GW1, you also had tons of ways to beat several enemies.
In GW2, kiting is the answer to 99% of the encounters.

Instead of leaving PvE as it is and splitting skills between PvP and PvE, ANet should be working to make enemies in PvE have behaviors and priorities closer to those players have in PvP.
- move while attacking
- move away from danger
- move out of your range (instead of going invulnerable) when enemy can’t reach you
- using protection/healing/condition removal skills, instead of relying purely on Health size
- using blind/aegis/block to force players to time skills rather than spam them

A gazillion ways ANet has to improve PvE experience to make it Fun AND Balanced.

FaRectification.5678:

OP, I believe you are a veteran, however if you’re going to turn this game into WoW, you might as well have the developers give you the Sword of Judgement at lvl 1 and just turn everything you see in front of you into dust in a matter of seconds.

The point is not to make the game easy, to the contrary, it’s to make the game as challenging as possible but still balanced for all skill levels.

Don’t you want to feel a sense of accomplishment when you achieve something? Sure, you’ll be let down from time to time, but that’s in the nature of things.

Is this post serious?
GW2 copies more stuff from Blizzard than GW1 ever did.
GW2 was not going to have levels whatsoever.
During beta ANet decided to put Lv80 (WoW Lich King) and Downleveling.
Then they put Gear quality tiers (WoW)
And before you say GW1 also had gear quality tiers, they did not increase item stats or bonuses, they just reduced the Attribute requirements and made the item more likely to drop with better prefix/suffix, wich were extractable to mix with any item of the same type.

GW2 loot is NOT about challenge.
It’s about super grind and/or super luck.
Mystic Forge… (Diablo Horadric Cube)
Magic Find… (Diablo)

In GW1 you had:
- Skin hunting
- Skill hunting
- Perfect mod hunting (+20% enchantment duration was worth 10x as much as +18%)

The items didn’t need to have 5 tiers of power to keep players entertained.
Why did ANet decide to change that?

GW1 was successful for so long.
Why did ANet have to convert to a WoWified progression system?

When I make an extensive, thought-out suggestion, and then the only thing you bother saying is “I personally don’t see anything wrong with the system as it is now in relating to this area.”, that is an attack. It’s making fun of my effort.
You aren’t giving examples, you aren’t presenting any argument.
You’re just dismissing what I wrote.

Plus, your opinion on the matter is only possible if you are not informed as to how Conditions really work.
If you choose to post against a constructive suggestion without informing yourself, you are asking to be attacked.

1 player does full direct damage; 10 players do full direct damage; 100 players do full direct damage.
1 player can stack 25 Bleed; 10 players can only stack 25 Bleed; 100 players can still only stack 25 Bleed.

How can you say there’s nothing wrong with the above?
- Condition damage isn’t stronger than direct damage
- Condition damage isn’t mitigated by Armor, but takes time to act
- Condition damage doesn’t crit and doesn’t get amplified by crit damage
- Condition damage can be removed halfway

If 3 players nuking 1 player with direct damage can kill it in seconds
What’s the big deal if condition damage could do almost the same?

I went to check how conditions work before making this thread.
I suggest others do the same before they reply.

A few other notes:
- Condition removal is also often Area based.
- a Guardian can pull a bunch of players around him, and then guardian+warrior spam whirling wrath + hundred blades in a massive AoE mayhem and destroy everything.

Essentially you’re still trying to dismiss simple facts with gimmicky examples.

Here’s an example of how the game currently is:
- Player A takes 5 seconds to stack 25 Bleed, and then enemy dies in 5 seconds due to Condition Damage (10 seconds total). Enemy can remove the conditions to prevent getting killed.
- Player B kills enemy in 8 seconds with direct damage due to crits and crit damage multiplier. Enemy can’t do anything about it once the damage has been dealt.

- 5 players take 1 second to stack 25 Bleed, and then enemy dies in 4 seconds due to Condition Damage plus mediocre direct damage. Enemy can remove the conditions to prevent getting killed.
- 5 players kill enemy in 2 seconds with direct damage due to crits and crit damage multiplier. Enemy can’t do anything about it once the damage has been dealt.

Unbinding a piece of equipment should be a Mystic Forge recipe that costs at least half the materials required to craft it (rounded up) plus Mystic Stone or something.
Essentially, it’d be like re-crafting it with a discount.
It should not be Gem or Gold-based.

On the first part, I think there needs to be an advantage in having higher tier tools, otherwise you might as well just have 1 type of them.

I disagree with the second part, too.
It’s nice having stuff to aim for.
Getting Iron when you can only use Copper, makes you that much more motivated to get your crafting to Iron.

I posted a sollution in the following thread:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Revamp-Gathering-Salvaging/first#post867266

It’s somewhat similar to this idea.

I made several suggestions in my thread regarding Combos.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Combo-Concepts/first#post868088

It involves a little more ideas than the one presented here.

I think benefitting from all combo fields by default might be a little overpowered.
But each individual skill could have a different capability to handle multi-combo fields.
Some skills could handle 2, others 3, others just 1.

Check it out.

titanlectro.5029:

To farm orichalcum before, you had to:
- Keep track of where the nodes are after each patch.
- Work out a path through Orr where you could survive, move quickly, and not waste too much money on teleports.
- Learn how to survive while running through Orr (possibly even modifying your build for it).

^^^ This is easy, dull and repetitive.
Google location, move to area, ???, profit.

However this new node is different. All you have to do is:
- Distract a champion

^^^ This is just as easy, dull and repetitive
Google location, move to area, ???, profit.

Fixed.

Inkubus.7529:

Nurvus.2891:

It gives ANet MORE tools to balanced the game.

The more mechanics you put in it, more complicated it becomes for developers and exponentially increases chance to mess up things.

It is obvious they wanted very balanced game as in SPvP we have very limited gear to put on our toons. So it is easier to balance with less in the mechanics.

More doesn’t mean “better” and it is usually quality vs. quantity issue. Same goes with skills we were discussing already. I think this way we have more quality designed skills as it is now.

According to my resources, Heart seeker is nerfed after release – I wonder is this causing all this mana need?

Seriously?
You quote a single line of text from my post, yet managed to skip the 3 lines below it that answer all your questions:

Not all skills would need to cost Initiative.
Not all Thief skills would need a cooldown, and most would get tiny cooldowns like 2s or 3s.
But it’s a Tool worth using in order to balance the game and make skills feel more unique.

If ANet isn’t forced to use Initiative on every cooldown-based skill, nor cooldowns on every Initiative-based skill, how is that adding complexity?
They would have the OPTION to use 1 additional tool to help balance the skill for the right situation.

Sometimes a skill is not OP due to its cooldown – and changing the cooldown doesn’t fix it – but the combos it can be used in.
In that case, introducing Initiative fixes it.
The other skills that are fine wouldn’t need to be touched.

Sometimes a skill isn’t OP – the Initiative cost may be fair – but being able to spam it can be.
In that case, a small 2s or 3s cooldown fixes it.
The other skills that are fine wouldn’t need to be touched.

Inkubus.7529:

I still would like you to role elementalist and try that logic in Orr. Also, go to SPvP and fight thief with fire – good luck with that! Ele on fire with staff can cast fireball as fastest skill and it takes 1 sec CD, on scepter it has Flamestrike with 1,25 sec CD – in that time – how many hits thief can make to ele? Thiefs dagger abilities have no CD, have high damage output and thief has better armor. Also, thief can in 3 hits kill ele with just typing ability 2. Yes, I am good but usually thief can jump on you and as ele you have one choice – die. Now if we get mana on top of it, we are goner with this mechanic.

I bolded the part I’m replying to.
Your situation is invalid because we’re also suggesting Thief to get small cooldown.

In the end, Thief would no longer be able to spam 2.
Cooldown-based professions would no longer be able to unload ALL of their arsenal at once.

It gives ANet MORE tools to balanced the game.

Not all skills would need to cost Initiative.
Not all Thief skills would need a cooldown, and most would get tiny cooldowns like 2s or 3s.
But it’s a Tool worth using in order to balance the game and make skills feel more unique.

BrunoBRS.5178:

it… does? they patched that in a few months back.

also, not all melee weapons have arc AoE. thief daggers, for example, are single target.

But single target weapons get other perks.
Whip feels like an aoe weapon due to its animation.
Always irked me it didn’t hit multiple targets.

Haven’t touched my Elementalist for a while, will check it out again.

It’s short ranged, like Guardian Staff’s auto-attack.

I believe ANet may be tuning, manually or automatically, the drop chances for high end materials, according to their availability in the market.

If so, it’s a bad move.

@deltanium
1. See 2.
2. I think you may be going into theoretical extremes that do not occur in practice.
If you consider what players would do if my suggestion was implemented, you must also consider what they wouldn’t do.
First, if everyone is going to focus with a combo field to stack conditions, they will be mostly auto-attacking and simply won’t all be doing their usual rotation that applies their Bleed.
Second, are they all Condition users? Power users won’t be very threatening with conditions.
Third, a Combo Field focus has a huge problem: predictability. Anyone can save a condition removal/conversion and/or 50 Endurance to survive the Combo Field focus.

Suddenly you see all your effort go to waste, or even end up seeing your enemy with 25 stacks of Regeneration.

Plus, if there would be more focus on Condition builds, there would be less focus on power builds, and there would be more organized use of condition removal.

Condition Damage isn’t out of hand in PvP or W3.
Behind every condition there is also a bunch of people shooting and AoE’ing.
So the speed at wich you lose health is rarely due to conditions alone.

The skills with Projectile or Whirl finishers usually either (or both):
a) belong to mostly Power-oriented weapons
b) have 20% chance

Poisons already have decent durations even if you apply them solo, so making each player stack duration separately won’t be an issue regarding the intention to use poison as a means to prevent healing.

@Samoto
I’m sorry if it seems that way, but I’m just discussing the arguments I don’t agree with, and presenting my logic behind my thinking.
I don’t understand how that can be called attacking.

Or maybe you think I’m attacking them because you agree more with their idea than mine?

Do resets zone-wide.
Example:
- Queensdale needs a reset
- Create a new, reseted instance of Queensdale
- Tag the old instance as Overflow and queue (forced) players to join the new instance
- Players have until the queue gauge empties to do whatever they were doing, and then they’re automatically transfered.
- Tadaa!

There. Did it hurt?

It’s kinda silly it doesn’t already.
+1

@Runiir, condition damage already accounts for the fact it is not mitigated – it’s balanced around that.
Condition builds aren’t stronger than Power builds in solo play, or dungeons or anything, wich automatically means using them in a big group makes them underpowered.
They are avoidable by any means Power-based damage is avoided.
They are avoidable by means Power-based damage isn’t (removal/conversion).
They take time to act.

You know those 5 seconds it takes for you to die because you’ve got full conditions?
You would’ve died 3-5 seconds ago if it was raw damage instead.

I’ll say again in case anyone is missing – each stack has an individual duration. Stacks are constantly falling off while new stacks are applied.
That’s why you see the number of stacks go up and down all the time.
It’s not like WoW where effects reset their duration to max everytime you apply a new stack.

I think ANet didn’t change anything yet because:
a) they haven’t really found a sollution
b) don’t pay as much attention to forums as they should, even though they’re super fast at locking/moving Topics
c) as they aim for e-sport status, they are probably focusing their mechanics on sPvP where teams can organize themselves to minimize build conflicts, and this issue is not noticeable

@Iarkrad
The purpose of keeping individual stacks is to facilitate tracking who owns/contributed what
In addition, conditions update their damage as your stats change.
So if you gain Might, you will suddenly see a Condition you ALREADY applied ticking higher, and when you lose Might you will suddenly see the Condition tick lower.
How would you handle this if it was all one big messy stack?
If you make conditions use the stats you had when you apply them, it’ll only lead to the predictable WoW gameplay style: pop cooldowns, unload conditions, enemy cleanses them, you cry.

If your Flare is meant to be an “instant damage burst” for applying Burn/Poison over another Burn/Poison, it’s an interesting concept.
I could see it as a Trait or Trait Line bonus.

But for the sake of pure condition damage, a coherent, clean condition stacking system needs to be implemented.

Each player needs to own his own Stack and only update his own Stack.
Confusion and Bleed stack damage and weighted durations.
Burn and Poison stack duration.
No complications.

Invulnerability just needs to go.

When an enemy can’t reach you, it should move out of your reach. Fixed.

I think AoE warnings should have different textures as well as different colors.

White smooth line ( —-———— ) for friendly AoE.
Red jagged line ( /\/\/\/\/\ ) for hostile AoE.

Fishing only available through Gem store? No.

Fishing available to everyone? Yes.
The closer to Breath of Fire IV it is done, the better.
Check Youtube and you’ll know why.

You can’t deal with stuff you don’t recognize.
I’m afraid ANet may be unaware, and that these kinds of threads never reach them.

@Deltanium
A few major points you seem to have missed:

1. Poison and Burning only stack in duration, so it doesn’t really matter if it’s 1 or 10 people throwing Burning at you, you can use a condition removal 5 seconds later and all the combined effort goes to waste.
2. Combo Finisher: Projectile is either mostly used with weapons that focus on Power builds OR only has 20% chance, wich means you aren’t going to be doing crazy condition damage because of a 5-second Combo Field: Fire/Poison.
3. Currently, 5 players applying 2 seconds of Burn each result in 10 seconds of Burn
   With my idea, 5 players applying 2 seconds of Burn each result in 5 stacks of 2 seconds each. Both the damage and the durations stack individually.
   With my idea, if a player applies 2x 2 seconds of Burn, the duration stacks to 4, but the damage remains the same.

It is not fair for players to be penalized for using the same type of condition damage, whether it’s Bleed, Poison, Burn or Confusion.

Spouting memes isn’t humour. It’s trying to be popular.
Alot of the posts are made out of spite or to inflate egos.

Where do I suggest that Warlock scales with other people’s condition stacking?

Burning is weak. The only advantage it has atm is the fact it is usually applied in short bursts, making condition removal less effective against it.

Conditions are penalized on all fronts due to an inexistant problem.
All the arguments against this idea rest on impossible theoretical scenarios.

In order for Combo Field: Fire to be “devastating”, there need to be alot of Condition users
If there are alot of Condition users, their combined output is inferior to the combined output of power users.
Builds that have Projectile Finisher: Projectile are usually Power based, wich means they contribute minimally.

Essentially, Combo Field: Fire and Combo Field: Poison would be exactly as devastating as they should – wich does NOT happen at the moment.

Currently, Combo Field: Fire/Poison is only useful Solo.

Posting again because the topic disappeared. Someone fix rhis please.

Er, you’re missing the point.
Each character getting 25 stacks would mean 625 stacks for 25 characters = server problems.

My idea is the cap is still 25, but each character gets ONE stack, and that stack updates its damage.

Great idea, to be honest.
+1

Anything that encourages exploration is a good idea.

Spencer.1386:

Nurvus your suggestion is a very good way to fix the current problem with condition stacking. I endorse this idea.

If only these kinds of constructive threads got my constructive criticism and ideas, ANet would actually get to see useful information.

Instead, we get loads of loads of complaint threads in the suggestions forum that serve absolutely no purpose here.

I think this wouldn’t take much work and would produce excellent results in the short and long term.
Any further comments?

Every change is an excuse for complaints.
There is no point worrying about that.

I bet less than 1% of the players check the forums, so what you see here does not represent what the playerbase thinks.

Yes, but barely.
You mostly only think when learning the skills.
Once you are comfortable with your build, you don’t really actively think anymore.
It comes naturally.

And the suggestion I made to add small cooldowns to Thieves and small Energy costs to other professions simply prevents Thieves from spamming the same freaking key until they run out of Initiative, and prevents other professions from rotating their whole arsenal from all their weapon skills x all their weapons/attunements for max burst.

I’ll put it in a different way:
- If everyone has Initiative, some cooldowns can be lowered because there won’t be the danger of too much burst.
- If Thieves have small cooldowns, they won’t be using Heartseeker Heartseeker Heartseeker Heartseeker, and must alternative skills a bit like the other professions, but will still feel different because you’ll still be able to do stuff like Heartseeker → skill → Heartseeker → skill; or Heartseeker → skill → skill → Heartseeker

I also think some of those suggestions don’t work in this setting,
The way players grind for gear and skins, makes losing gear to other players unacceptable in GW2.

Open world PvP is great to end bots, but also comes with alot of problems, most commonly known Griefing, wich you can bet would become the most practicioned activity in GW2, EVEN if consequences were introduced.

Placing Bounties would just make griefing worse.
It would be all about Rich players making Poor players fight each other for gold.

The Reputation system is a bad idea because it would make the choices you make to define your personality instead be made for the purpose of obtaining specific rewards.

Moderator edit: content against the CoC removed

Actually, right now you barely need to think.
You just need reflexes and little lag.

Thief already has Initiative, what they need is small cooldowns like you suggested.
It would not go back to square 1…

Initiative works exactly like GW1’s Energy.

If you add cooldowns to Thieves, they have Initiative (primary) + Cooldown (secondary).
If you add Initiative to the other professions, they have Cooldown (primary) + Initiative (secondary)

The gameplay would still be unique to each profession, but the extreme scenarios would be prevented.

If it takes multiple players to move the siege, it’s fine.

- First player to click Siege Weapon (Player #1) would control the direction.
- Subsequent players that click simply add speed to the movement, but the movement is decided by Player #1 (everyone that helps walks automatically in whatever direction Player #1 moves the siege)
- Players can be targetted while moving the siege
- Players can stop helping anytime by using movement/dodge commands.

That’s the thing, NinjaEd.
Thieves should get small cooldowns just to prevent skill spamming.
Other professions should get small Initiative costs just to prevent unloading their whole arsenal in a few seconds.
Example:
Use all skills from weapon #1 → use all skills from weapon #2 → repeat.
Use all Fire skills → use all Air skills → use all Earth skills → use all Water skills → repeat.

In the same line of thought, I think Utility and Elite skills could use a small amount of Endurance, but Endurance could be higher (or regenerate slightly faster) to compensate.

Actually I did.
Just do the math and it explains itself.

1. snip
2. snip
3. Adjust Tool Durability
   The goal is to make gathering lower nodes less penalizing
   a) Give Tools 100 durability per Tier
   600 for Orichalcum
   b) Gathering Ore or Lumber Node of the Tool’s quality takes 1 durability per Tier
   6 for Orichalcum
   c) Gathering a Harvest Node of the Tool’s quality takes 2 durability per Tier
   2×6=12 for Omnomberry

1. Gathering Orichalcum Ore (Tier 6) with Orichalcum Tool (Tier 6) takes 6 Durability out of 600.
2. Gathering Copper Ore (Tier 1) with Orichalcum Tool (Tier 6) takes 1 Durability out of 600.
3. Gathering Copper Ore (Tier 1) with Copper Tool (Tier 1) takes 1 Durability out of 100.

Minor/Major/Superior Upgrades extracted from Karma equipment could become Soulbound or Account Bound. That’s not really an issue.

Please note that with my suggestion, you spend 2 Charges to get both the Upgrade and the Materials, or 1 Charge to get just the Upgrade.

I think it’d be fair to make the item Account Bound when you extract an Upgrade without destroying it – I’ll add it to the suggestion.

Are you seriously saying boosting your lower characters with Superior Upgrades instead of Major would be gamebreaking, in a game where leveling is incredibly fast?
Come on…
—-

Mystic Salvage Kit is the same as Master’s Salvage Kit, but has 250 charges instead of 25.
Disasembler 3BEK is the same as Fine Salvage Kit, but has 250 charges instead of 25.
Here are the differences between Salvage Kits atm:
Salvage Kit

I’ll include Mystic Salvage Kit and Disasembler 3BEK in the suggestion just in case |‘L’ |

Currently, the whole Gathering and Salvaging system is a mess…

• Gathering Tool icons look the same no matter the quality
  (Copper and Orichalcum Mining Pick look the same)
• Gathering Tools are soulbound account bound and can’t be sold to vendor nor salvaged.
• Gathering Tools are annoying to manage because you spend them in different quantities and end up with a surplus of Tools you don’t need.
• Gathering a node below your Tool quality is a waste.

My suggestions:

1. Make Gathering Tools salvageable
   Every now and then you get Tools from loot bags. Tools that are soulbound and you don’t need. You can’t do anything with them without wasting your time.
   a) Make Tools only yield 1 of the corresponding Ore/Wood
   - Orichalcum Tool yield 1 Orichalcum Ore OR 1 Ancient Wood Log.
   - The costs of the tools are high enough that there would NEVER be a point buying tools just to salvage them.
2. Introduce Whetstones/Repair Kits
   The goal is to make it so you just need to have 1 tool of each, and the inventory will be filled with Whetstones/Repair Kits
   a) Whetstone/Repair Kit is used to transfer durability from itself to the selected Gathering Tool
3. Adjust Tool Durability
   The goal is to make gathering lower nodes less penalizing
   a) Give Tools 100 durability per Tier
   600 for Orichalcum
   b) Gathering Ore or Lumber Node of the Tool’s quality takes 1 durability per Tier
   6 for Orichalcum
   c) Gathering a Harvest Node of the Tool’s quality takes 2 durability per Tier
   2×6=12 for Omnomberry
   d) Gathering a Node X tiers above the Tool’s quality takes X+1 times as much durability
   Gathering Orichalcum Ore with a Copper Tool would take (5+1)x6=36 durability
   e) Gathering a Node without sufficient Durability results in ruined material
4. GW1 Salvaging System
   GW1 salvaging and Upgrade system was alot better and encouraged experimenting.
   The current system encourages sticking to as few builds as possible because you always destroy the item you salvage.
   a) Crude Salvage Kits only extract raw materials
   like the Salvage Kit in GW1
   b) Basic Salvage Kits and above let you pick what to extract – raw materials or Upgrade – with 100% success
   like Expert, Superior and Perfect in GW1
   c) If you extract raw materials, item is always destroyed, and Upgrades are lost in the process
   d) If you extract an Upgrade, you have a X% chance to keep the rest of the item intact, but of the item is not bound, it becomes Soulbound (or at least Account Bound).
   - 20% for Basic Salvage Kit
   - 40% for Fine Salvage Kit / Disasembler 3BEK
   - 60% for Journeyman’s Salvage Kit
   - 80% for Master’s Salvage Kit / Mystic Salvage Kit
   - 100% for Black Lion Salvage Kit
   e) Chance to obtain a Rarer item remain the same
   - 10% for Basic Salvage Kit / Disasembler 3BEK
   - 15% for Fine Salvage Kit
   - 20% for Journeyman’s Salvage Kit
   - 25% for Master’s Salvage Kit / Mystic Salvage Kit
   - 50% for Black Lion Salvage Kit
5. (Optional) Introduce Fishing
   The goal is making the game more fun. There’s so much water, that it’s a shame you can’t fish.
   a) You’d have a 4th gathering Tool slot (Fishing Pole)
   b) Fishing Poles would have varying qualities and 2 Upgrade Slots: 1 for Fishing Line and 1 for Lure
   c) The Fishing Lines would have charges
   d) Lure would stack in your inventory but otherwise 1 unit consumed per Fish.
   e) There would be a minigame:
   - You have to tire the fish by managing the Fishing Line’s Tension against the fish’s Stamina.
   Breath of Fire IV has an awesome fishing mini-game, but it’s arguably too complex to be introduced in GW2, still, it’s an example worth following.
   - Outstanding success could result in keeping the Lure
   - Going above the max Tension results in breaking the Line
   - Going below the minimum Tension results in losing both the Lure and the Fish
   - If you use a T4 Pole with a T5 Line and try to catch a T5 fish, you damage the Pole
6. (Optional) Make Gathering more Interesting
   The goal is making gathering reward better those who try, and also make bots less efficient
   a) Make Mining similar to Minesweeper
   You’re trying to pick the stone away to get the Metal
   b) Make Logging about aligning Power & Accuracy
   You’re trying to chop the wood clean, not destroy it
   c) Make Harvesting about using 5 skills in the designated order
   Some plants are half-buried and you need to pull, cut, twist, etc, depending on the terrain and other variables
   d) Scoring higher:
   - yields more materials
   - has a better chance to obtain rare materials
   - (optional) has a chance to not use Durability

I think I included everything.
Let me know what you think.

I meant Drake special attacks don’t count because even if the special attack is ranged, the Drake is not.

I’m talking about full ranged pets (auto-attack + all of the pet skills = ranged)
Spiders are ranged indeed.
Would like to see more of them.

As for the modes, I think it’d be a nice alternative.
If Rangers are supposed to be about Pets, then I think the Pets should have more perks than they do now.
They feel very bland.

Only 1 special ability is meh.
Maybe they could get 1 or 2 extra special abilities, and in some cases one of the extra abilities could be a ranged mode toggle (monkeys throwing pebbles, for example, and drakes using elemental spit attacks).

Drake ranged activated abilities have nothing to do with this thread.
Their range isn’t great, they are slow to activate, and kind of suck to be honest.
I mean more pets with ranged – 900-1200 range – auto-attacks.

You can use Short bow or long bow while your pet melees.
Would be nice to be able to use melee weapon while the pet attacks from afar.

I don’t see what’d be so wrong with allowing pets to change modes, when you can change weapons yourself.
Please explain the “unbalance” in this.

I understand, but that only happens with Mana.
I agree Mana is a bad concept.

However, that’s not the case with GW1’s Energy, wich regenerates FAST just like GW2’s Initiative.

A fast moving resource establishes the average skill usage per second, while the cooldowns establish the potential skill usage per second (burst).

Cooldown + Energy/Initiative is vastly superior to Cooldown alone or Energy alone.
In GW1, ANet could design skills with low Energy cost but high cooldown, high energy cost but low cooldown, both high, both low, and everything in between.

They had more tools to balance skills than they do now.
So now they have a harder time balancing skills, and we all see that the game spiraled towards endless kiting.

I wonder, wouldn’t it be cool to have some more ranged pets for Rangers?
Like with a poison spit auto-attack or acid spit (poison+burn) or spike throw (bleed).

Some melee pets could have ranged mode:
- Monkey/Gorilla – Grab pebbles/rocks and throw them.
- Drake – Spit poison/fire/etc
- Hedgehog – throw needles xD