Guild Wars 2

JonPeters.5630:

cafard.8953:

Not convinced by evade on Swoop. First, at what cost would it come? Increased cooldown? I’d rather keep swoop as is.

Then, the times when Swoop fails me in a defensive context, it’s not because it didn’t evade, it’s because it didn’t get me far enough because of a cripple or immobilize. In those cases, evade wouldn’t help. Sure, 1s of no damage, but after that, i’m still in the same spot of fiery death.

If you want to improve the defensive side of swoop, make it break cripple/immobilize (or convert them into swiftness, haha), or apply 1-3s of stability.

It would come at no cost to Swoop, it would come at the cost of updating the chain. Also the added benefit that you aren’t taking into account as this skill could now be part of your rotation and used when you see a big attack incoming to avoid it.

Good point.

JonPeters.5630:

Pets that delay F2 use isn’t some wait script we put into their skills it has to do with core AI behavior shared by all pets and creatures and how they decide tasks.

There’s a workaround (kind of) when it comes to pets F2. F3 then F2 usually makes the skill go off faster and more reliably.
Maybe you could add F3 to F2, so to speak, since F3 seems to cancel whatever the pet is doing more or less instantly.

Another thing about pets, when you swap them and instantly press F2, most pets will miss the F2 attack, especially when they’re boosted with quickness. Please improve pet responsiveness when they’re just swapped in so that they actually hit their F2. This is especially noticable with all drakes and pets that have some form of leap attack on their F2.

Rework porcine pets so that their forage skill works like thiefs steal – replace F2 with whatever the pig dug up!

JonPeters.5630:

meikodesign.6471:

JonPeters.5630:

Even though we wouldn’t do it now another shot at Greatsword to discuss

A) 1 chain NDA by giving Vigor.
B) Add evade to swoop…

Discuss?

Weakness, Might, Protection or Retalation instead of Vigor?
I thought you wanted to limit the Vigor spam.

We do want to but we also want this to be a weapon with some evasion capability on it, otherwise we would not have made the auto-attack on it evade in the first place.

Leave the evade on autoattack thank you very much. Feel free to boost the weapon as you please, but don’t remove the evade.

Suddenflame.2601:

I just press F1 on the target i want my pet to attack then choose the target i want to attack, and the pet continues attacking said target till target is out of range or dead no matter which stance my pet is in.

This. F2 however will make the pet attack my current target instead, which is fine by me. I don’t really understand the issue, care to elaborate?

Renner.2574:

Wouldn’t it be better if it was just an instant cast shout that just stealthed your pet and gave it protection. That way you could instantly react if your pet was about to take some serious damage.

It would be better by far, so +1 to you.

JonPeters.5630:

I just had a wacky idea that might make some aspects of MH sword less frustrating. I’ll test it out when I get in to work and report back.

Jon

I have an idea!

How about adding evade to all three parts of sword#1? Now that would be awesome!!!

…well, one can always dream, right?

Since it’s a boon, it should be affected by +boon duration. If it’s not, that would be a bug I guess.

Xsorus.2507:

The Evade on the Auto Attack is one of the reasons the weapon is pretty much are only weapon useful for Large Fights in World vs World.

Swoop Doesn’t need an evade, Its there for 2 purposes, Getting me to the Fight, and Getting me away from the Fight… an Evade will not help that..

This. You would be nerfing survivability of rangers by removing evade on GS#1. Evade on swoop – what for? I don’t need it, not sure anyone ever asked for it. It would not compensate loosing evade on #1.
This combined with the proposed nerf to Natural vigor seems to point, imho, that you’re trying to lower survivability of this class.

Evade on F3.

/Message Body length must at least be 15.

cafard.8953 – well said, +1.

Devs, you don’t always have to take away something in order to give.

*

Opening strikes:
Needs some trait merging. Move Remorseless to Grandmaster Minor.

Beastmaster’s bond:
The cooldown is waaay to long considering the tiny effects and the requirement needed. Too situational.

Active parts of signets should work on the ranger by default without having to trait for it. Too many signet traits.

*

Agility training:
Doesn’t make much of a difference at all because of the way pet works. Consider adding a faster attack rate to this trait instead.

*

Nature’s voice:
This trait is more or less dependent on Guard. Well that’s fine, but what do you use Guard for, other than to trigger this trait, honestly? You can no longer send pets up the wall in wvw, the only really useful and fun part of this skill.

I would suggest you change Guard to instant cast, and make it a pet buff only – skip the part of sending the pet away, no one uses it for that anyway, it’s akward, slow and annoying.

*

Instinctual bond:
Buff or rework this trait completly. It would be good to have your pet “lick wounds” with quickness, but that’s not possible. Pretty much useless.

Master’s bond:
This trait goes against one of the core mechanics if you will with the ranger class – pet swapping. Desperately needs an overhaul – for many reasons.

Speed training:
Useless with only 10%.

Compassion training:
Needs a buff if you want anyone to ever take this skill. How about condition removal on pet swap?

Rending attacks, stability training and intimidation training:
Remove the pet specifics of these traits – open up for more build diversity – and yes, that includes pets (and having different types of pets).

Fortifying bond:
Drop the duration restrictions!

*

Also consider adding an evade mechanic on pet F3, would go a long way to allow us to get pets out of danger.

jonnis.2946:

Personally I use the main hand sword a lot in PvP, and do this mainly by disabling the auto attack, though I don’t feel its always necessary. For anyone irritated by not being able to dodge, just try it with the autoattack disabled and see how much you can improve when you control the leap movement.

…beating the dead horse some more

Even though there are some neat tricks you can do by disabling autoattack on sword#1, and also get more control over your character in the process, it still feels like a workaround to the issue most brought up with the sword – the inability to dodge during the certain parts of the chain.
Another workaround is to swap weapon and dodge. Should we really have to resort to workarounds?

“All movement skills cannot be interrupted by dodging and this is currently intentional”

Currently being the keyword here. For some QOL improvements, I hope you change your intentions some day.
No don’t change the behavior of sword#1 (I love it!), just allow dodge to override all skills (goes for all classes).

Fordel.3208:

Miflett.3472:

Once again, with all due respect:

I’m questioning just how collaborative all these changes are, when we bring up so so very many suggestions on the forums just to have one voice tell us how it’s not going to happen because it goes against some vision.

That’s the way I feel; no ill-harm meant to anyone. The whole process just seems so inflexible and predetermined.

You’ve learned the not-so-secret secret of MMO Development! Shhh

Despite all the talk about metrics and numbers and whatnot, a great great deal of class design is subjective and opinion based. It comes down to things like ‘flow’ and ‘feelings’. Ultimately, the only gut feelings that actually matter are ANET’s. Very specifically, whoever at ANET gets the final say on implementing changes to the game.

Every single MMO ever made has operated the same way in this regard. Design is not a democracy, not even remotely. Your best case scenario is that someone with actual power to change things agrees with your suggestion and/or isn’t afraid to “kill their own baby” when it comes to game ideas.

Like, I really really like that ANET is posting some justification on their class changes, I find the insight fascinating. Yet, if ANET thinks X is good for the game, it doesn’t matter how many of us might think X is bad. X is going to happen.

The only real agency players have is their ability to play/pay, or their choice not to. The rest is a lot of hope vs. whelp.

The 1h Sword thing is like the perfect example of that. It is what it is because that’s what ANET wants, the end. There’s no argument to be had anymore, the want it that way, done.

/shrug

Then again, why even bother asking for feedback in the first place? Just for show, or?

Chopps.5047:

what makes you assume it’s a priority for ANET to redesign how dodges and leaps interact?

Apparently it isn’t, what does that have to do with this request? If it isn’t a priority (which none of us here knows anything about), we should simply stop requesting it?

Thing is, by swapping weapons you can instantly break the animation of sword#1, which to me suggest that this isn’t really an issue because of the animation itself. Beacuse of this, I really see no reason why dodge wouldn’t allow the same thing.

Chopps.5047:

“Who said anything about removing the leap”. You guys did.

Not sure who you’re referring to here, but by the way you say this it would seem you think everyone that wants to be able to override the animation chain with a dodge also wants to remove the leap. If that’s the case, you’re wrong.

Chopps.5047:

But logic is so hard for you all to follow, I know. Thinking is hard. facepalm

Yeah right.

Dahkeus.8243:

Who says anything about getting rid of the leap? I just want to be able to break the animation for a dodge.

This.
It really is this simple. People playing the L2P card and thinking that by proposing this change we want to change sword#1 are seriously mistaken and ignorant.
I love sword#1, all I want is for dodge to be able to override it anytime. I can’t see any rangers not wanting this.

JonPeters.5630:

Ranger:

• Nature Magic X – Enlargement. This trait now uses Signet of the Wild to trigger. This reduces the cooldown to 60 seconds and allow it to interact with the Signet of the Beastmaster and Signet Mastery traits.

The change to this trait would be nice if you weren’t forced to go 30 deep into another traitline to make it useful. Please don’t make the signet traits mandatory to make this trait useful.

As for the signet traits, they could really use some trait-merging treatment tbh.

Faux Sheaux.6179:

OGDeadHead.8326:

Dodge should override anything, ’nuff said.

It’d be nice if that were the case, but this is not something exclusive to the ranger class.

…and I don’t ask for this to be exclusive to rangers only. Dodging should get priority above every single ability in this game, simple as that. I don’t buy into the animation logic, in regards to rangers sword #1, swapping weapon will instantly break the chain and allow you to dodge or do whatever you want, so there are ways to deal with this. It’s just an oversight from the devs imho.
No, this is not another “L2P” issue, I’ve used and am using sword all the time, and have been since release. I know the drawbacks and what you can do to circumvent them.
It’s sloppy design, pure and simple, and one that apparently is easy to fix if the devs would just put their minds into it (weapon swap).
Leave sword 1 as is, but implement this:
Dodge > all other skills = fix. Thank you for reading.

Please allow spirits to move by default with the option to command them to stay if anyone actually needs that.

I’d like to ask about what’s in store for the future for this class, and what plans you have to improve pets, but I think that’s not quite the type of questions you were looking for here?

Ryan.8367 for president.

jcbroe & Eurantien – back to the drawing board guys.

Axe 1: Increase rate of fire by 25%, increase projecticle speed by the same amount.

Allow axe to bounce off of allies if there aren’t enough enemies around OR increase damage of first hit, decrease the others.

Dual moas would be best for more healing with this build, like Arpheus said.

Lord Kuru.3685:

OGDeadHead.8326:

Use TAB for normal targeting, and another key for closest target like I do, problem solved. I very much prefer the new way TAB-targeting works.

I do use a different key for closest target, and it’s not giving me closest target — it’s giving me the highest priority target (champs first). So maybe this is a bug, not a feature?

Hm, must try it out some more to see if I that’s how it works for me as well…

GrandmaFunk.3052:

Holy Whirlwind.2067:

Thanks Mathias, will try that. But can you set a keybind to deselect to quickly reset my tab targetting?

Esc is already bound for that =)

Esc is awkward to use for deselecting a target, binding a key to “Lock Autotarget” is the far better option imho.

Use TAB for normal targeting, and another key for closest target like I do, problem solved. I very much prefer the new way TAB-targeting works.

Go to Control Options, find “Lock Autotarget”. Select a key you want to use to drop your target – voila.

Yoh.8469:

An example of a bad healer is the Monk from GW1.
While you could do damage, between the limited skill slots and attribute points, you were forced to pick either great healing, or so-so damage. So in other words if you wanted to be a monk, you could only ever heal, and nothing else.

The two best healing classes in any game that I’ve played so far:

The bloodmage and the disciple classes in Vanguard. Go check them out if you haven’t already, truly rather unique concepts there imho.

Rym.1469:

Pigs would be amazing if Forage’d ability would be accessible on F2

This. Talk about QOL improvement. I really like the idea behind forage, but the actual gameplay mechanic behind it is so horrible it’s not even funny.

+1 op

All pets should have cleave attacks btw.

Wetpaw.3487:

OGDeadHead.8326:

Regarding Remorseless, now that it can be triggered by going into stealth, it would be nice to have the option to gain stealth by other means than the longbow (and the passive trait).
One thing could be to allow the jaguars F2 to affect the ranger also, as that would go well with the intentions to improve the support aspect of our pets as well. Just an idea.

Agree, hopefully we see this change coming soon. A grandmaster trait should have a few more uses then one ability on the longbow and 20 in Wilderness survival.

I always thought jaguar should have been a master & pet stealth, or possibly a group support AE stealth.

Just gave this another thought… maybe we should be careful what we wish for! If Anet were to implement a change like this to the jaguar, I’m pretty sure that they would also change the “stealth” (read: Stalk) ability of the jaguar, to only allow one attack from stealth, which would lead to a major dps loss from that pet. :/

Regarding Remorseless, now that it can be triggered by going into stealth, it would be nice to have the option to gain stealth by other means than the longbow (and the passive trait).
One thing could be to allow the jaguars F2 to affect the ranger also, as that would go well with the intentions to improve the support aspect of our pets as well. Just an idea.

Nice videos!

Suddenflame.2601:

If they allow pets to attack on the move they would also have to allow all other animals attack on the move just to be consistent.

Uhm, no?

Suddenflame.2601:

It would be unbalanced to have damage appear from 2 directions and 1 being unavoidable.

Yes, and not really what I’m asking for either. But instead of missing, what, maybe 80% of their attacks vs a moving target, it would be enough if they missed half of that, at most?

Suddenflame.2601:

Also to escape an AOE field you have to walk through it as well (unless you use a dodge).

Exactly – unless you dodge.

Dee Jay.2460:

Stealth does not make Thieves disappear.

Tell that to my ranger pet – thieves have this core mechanic that totally and fully puts the rangers’ core mechanic out of the game.

Suddenflame.2601:

It is a design choice.

And a really, really crappy design choice it is, for a pet based class.

Anet could quite easily fix many of the issues with pets hitting moving targets. I’d say most of the issues are due to the eye-candy – having animations that looks cool, but are hilariously inefficient because of the fact that they are so incredibly slow to execute – just look at birds, the no#1 contenders for first place when it comes to “the pet that is the worst of all to hit moving targets” – just look at their animations for crying out loud!

For ranged pets, the only issue really is the slow projectile speeds they suffer from. Increase their projectile speed and they will probably be just fine/better.

As for survivability issues like aoe fields that pets have to run through when recalled from danger, that could easily be resolved as well by allowing pets to shadowstep back. Of course that would bring other [balancing]issues, but I’m sure there would be ways to balance that as well.

Anet could easily boost Companion’s Defense without making us overpowered in anyway, but could possibly help make a big difference for pet survivability.

Current Companion’s Defense:
You and your pet gain 2 seconds of protection when you dodge roll.

Suggestion:
You gain 2 seconds of protection when you dodge roll. Your pet gain 2 seconds of aegis. When aegis ends, your pet gains 2 seconds of protection.

Also, like Arpheus said, the trait really needs an overhaul anyway, so that the protection is applied AFTER the dodge, since we don’t need protection during a dodgeroll anyway. Like it is now, we only really get 1.25 seconds of protection ourselves.

My suggestion:

Change “Sic ’Em” to

Duration 15 seconds, lower cd to 30 seconds (untraited)
Damage increase 25%
Skip the reveal part, just make it so that by using this shout, the pet sees through stealth, and keeps on attacking the stealthed enemy.

felivear.1536:

Well, since my warrior’s name is Hotjoin Hero ….. I’m going to say…me?

+1

ArcTheFallen.7682:

runeblade.7514:

data.4093:

None of the repliers have used stealth against a mesmer or really any channeled/AI ability.

And you haven’t played a MM against a stealther.

You lose against thieves on a necro? Otherwise a thief just stealthing around isn’t going to do much.

But yeah I agree with the OP that AIs need to be looked at.

Apparently, you never played for example a ranger vs a cnd spamming thief, before they changed the ai some patches ago. Because before that ai-change, the kitten -slow pet wouldn’t get a single attack in on a cnd-spamming thief inbetween their stealthing.

Yeah let’s go back to that shall we, thieves? I guess you would just love that.

jportell.2197:

You guys are all essentially asking for mesmers to just roll over and scream “here i am here i am!”

I asking for some form of UI improvements to make targeting easier overall.

Oidmetala.8426:

just interesting how all of you forum masters have problems with max 4 spirits but at same time nobody of you cry about the mesmer illus :P

This, +1

The issue isn’t about the confusing part as much as the difficulties with actually being able to target what you want to target. With mesmers, even while it’s rather easy to locate the real one, tab-targeting is a pita to actually being able to target them, and so is mouse-targeting.

Mesmers gets the flaws of the UI to work in their favor way too much.

Argh, this again… “Pets dodge when you do” – HELL NO! If ppl can’t see the flaws with that, go back and think again. And again.

Daecollo.9578:

Natural Healing = 133 hp/s

Check your facts, good sir…

…oh wait, it was YOU again, Daecollo?!?

Crap. Fell for his trolling… again.

:(

Durzlla.6295:

kitten drop RaO for us Anet and just give us Moa Morph “pet becomes a Moa for 15s” boom, problem solved xD

Even though I see the irony, be careful what you wish for with these guys…

Or introduce trinkets of some sort for pets.

@Holland: The axe is just a perfect example of jack of all trades, master of none, so in that sense, it fits the ranger perfectly

I’d like to see attackspeed increased a lot, and possibly a boost in damage when the axe only hits a single target…

Castaliea.3156:

Read left to right: Felines, Bears, Drakes, etc.
They’re grouped by families just like you wanted. Just like how Utility skills are grouped by Type.

Only the underwater list…

Xsorus.2507:

I mean christ, Spirit Rangers are the most overpowered thing ever seen in SPvP right now according to the forums.

Let that sink it…Spirit Rangers…Are absolutely so overpowered…That Rangers need to be gutted because of it.

This is what Anet has been balancing the game around…That should frighten everyone on this forum….as it doesn’t bold well for this game.

Amen!