Guild Wars 2

pets are not supposed to tank for you they are supposed to do damage with you. for your pet to take aggro they have to either do damage better than you or heal more often than you. one of the reasons rangers take so much aggro is through use of troll ungent healing you and your pet, same with any heal but troll ungent seems to grab the most. if you want your pet to “tank” for you find vitality toughness gear and spec 30 points in to BM tree that way your pet can do damage and you stay alive to heal it.

if you want the damage potential then be prepared to tank for your pet

Detahmaio.2014:

milo.6942:

The game is designed to have high risk/high reward builds available. GW1 was also like this. Millisecond reaction times were required, particularly of monks. This is not your typical mmo pvp combat. It’s true quickness like we have now did not exist in gw1, however its playstyle did exist, not only at the team level but also at individual.

Necro/ele don’t have high reward specs sorry.

i guess that depends on your version of high rewards both necros and eles have strong bunker specs that can be used to change the tide of the fight. Also necros are one of the strongest buff stripping /condition specs in the game, condition removal is useless against a good one. necros also are one of the few classes that can where a shamans amulet and still have 20k hp.

elementalists are only slightly below engineers in terms of CC, they are strong in regards to team support and can drastically negate alot of damage. they are probably the closest thing in the game to a true healing class and does that job extremely well.

as far as damage in the form of burst, if that is what you mean by high reward then perhaps you should try mesmer or thief or even warrior if that is what you are looking for.

in regards to the quickness discussion. quickness is truly powerful and while not all classes have it at least one class in particular actually needs it for effective on demand burst: the ranger. with all of the constant pet AI quirks, the pre release nerf to ranger weapon damage, and all around poor design of weapons skills. this class is mediocre at everything and the only thing that allows a spec outside of conditions/traps build is quickness. while i agree that quickness is over powered and dreadfully out of hand in classes like the thief which can spam any ability they want regardless of the damage done or even the warrior somewhat, removing quickness is only possible if the ranger gets some really really good buffs on the 15th. most of us in the ranger community are excited for the changes, however most arent thinking that this is going to be all of the changes we need.

while i see pistol whip or death blossom quickness being ridiculous, quickness for the most part is a well balanced ability. personally i believe most people have learned that warriors with 100blades spec is a very niche build, and is probably the only build new players are arguing about in regards to warriorquickness.

my solution remove the initiative system so that thieves wont be able to abuse quickness and instantly spam 4 pistolwhips in a row or whatever high damage attack they want. At the same time offer other classes the ability to use quickness as a utility, so they can use or not use it as they see fit.

Valdoron.7821:

Rangers must be pansies. All I see in Ranger forum are all these posts requesting new pet animals, pet names, and other pet crap. How about actually improving on some of the major aspects of Ranger skills, Pet skills, and weapons, etc? Seems more interesting of a subject to me. LOL

then you havent actually looked at the ranger forum, while pet names and pet types are important to us, i would say 90% of the posts on the ranger forums are complaining/requesting/offering suggesstions for the changes you are talking about

as well as the fact that pets are our PRIMARY CLASS MECHANIC so imagine a class forum talking alot about there primary class mechanic.

if necromancers are supposed to be the best vampire why the heck dont they sparkle in the daytime

the test is easy to see, if you take the 33% regen duration trait 10 points in the nature magic tree.

considering standing in the circle the entire time with no other sources of regen:

without said trait regen goes away 3 seconds after spring goes away

with the trait, you have approximately 9-10 seconds of regen after the circle goes away. giving the Ranger 100% up time on regen if he is able to stand in his spring for the full duration. (this could be improved with the boon duration 2 piece sets, as well as more points in nature magic)

as far as the projectile finisher question. the ranger or other person shooting a projectile through healing spring gets the regen. the flash icon will appear where the combo happens, but the person shooting the projectile will receive the boon.

stealth should be removed from MMOs in general…no stealth at all no stealth detection not escapes form a fight period…stealth is a garbage mechanic and has been since it was introduced in the MMO genre

i want non juvenile versions but with same stats. i want my pets to look like a threat. seriously bears are awesome but a ADULT MALE BEAR 7-10 FT tall pls i want this even if they have the same stats as the originals.

also a whale

why would you even want to face bad players to begin with. i have never understood this argument. once things get situated and rolling and brackets and matchmaking happens you should never fight 3-4 bad players anyway. which is why any argument in pvp about a system should consider equal skilled combat. if i 1 v 4 someone i might think about quitting the match and showing on the forums how OP that class is.

downed state is awesome. balancing it would be awesome. i personally think that every downed state should be a mix between the guardian and the ranger:

ALL players should down with the exact same HP and all armor values removed/all stats removed via traits and gear: say 7k “downed hp” and all stats as if the player was naked(remove all passive procs ie lightning strike/rockdog spawn/anything else that happens passively because of gear

All Players should have reduced Damage towards downed players and conditions should not affect downed players similar to the way destructible objects work(gates)

1. throw mud this must be seperate from stats should be a flat value across all classes regardless of spec/build/gear/what have you and scale with level. ie 2 damage at lvl 1 160 dmg at lvl 80

2. AOE interrupt either knock people back or just a regular interrupt with out knockback. this should hit all targets and affect them regardless of stealth stability mistform or whatever.

3. i really wanted everyone to have a pet rez here but not everyone has a pet so i will equate it with guardian again an AOE burst heal centered on the downed player it should again scale with level for a flat amount regardless of healing power.

4. remains the same if someone ignores you that long you should be able to recover after awhile again this should not be affected by healing power and should be equal between all classes.

i would really really hate it if rangers got stealth, i choose ranger type classes because i do not like stealth mechanics and really think they have no place in MMOs in general. but i just thought i would voice my opinion here before all the OMG stealth would be awesome posts.

absolutely no stealth for rangers please

Ranger is more difficult to play well compared to a couple other classes(thief, guardian,warrior) but compared to elementalist or engineer ranger is pathetically uncomplicated.

what makes Rangers so “difficult” is that they dont really do anything well, i love my Ranger and i have tried many specs that when i use every utility, elite and weapon skill on both weapon sets i can do better than and average to below average player for every fight!

the truth is when yu go up against any other class if they are as good as you with a different class they can beat you 90% of the time since you jsut dont have the tools to beat them. i can make a bunker spec as a ranger and survive well in a 1v1 add another player and i am pretty much dead. as opposed to a guardian or elementalist which can /lol at me and my friends until there team arrives.

Guardian /Elementalist/engineer/necro/warrior can bunker better

i can make a power /crit glass cannon build and kill squishies really fast if they dont see me coming but with anyone that has any survivability at all heck even jsut a higher hp pool then i will die.

thief/warrior/engineer/mesmer can glass cannon better

i can make a support spec and keep myself and my team up against 1 maybe 2 people but when anyone with any brains comes in my team will drop as if i am not doing anything at all.

guardian/engineer/elementalist can support better

and finally conditions i can build a conditions spec that is almost actually really good. and its fun if you like axes and torch or dagger and traps with SB as well. but i am still not as good or as effective as other classes, to build this way i have to spec for high condition damage and all my utilites are traps so i have no survival utilites to use. so its like a glass cannon over time:) other classes can do the same thing with conditions and maintain a higher survivability than us

Necromancers/mesmers/thieves can condition better than us.

in summary every other class can do everything better than us easier and more effectively with more survival options while doing those things

another point is this conditions can still be applied to you but the damge will not be taken so if someone puts a long poison on you after you hit protect me or signet of stone, you will be fine for 6 seconds but if the poison is still on you, it will begin to start ticking damage.

as stated the retaliation is on the phantasms not the mesmer him self. as a fellow ranger i try very hard to make sure i am hitting the actual mesmer since any number of bad things can happen when you kill an illusion.

as far as evidence i can only provide personal experience with this game and others. you may be correct that combat is balanced for 5 players, i do not believe this to be the case.

the difference between GW2 and Rift or SWTOR or even WOW is that the maps in those games were larger it took far more time to cross from one side of the map to the other. the systems involved point defense were different, in those games players had to interact with doors or flags or what not to cap a point and a sneaky person could cap even if there were multiple defenders.

with the current map size and the way points are capped feels very crowded when there are more than 10 people on the map, it becomes challenging with 5 people on your team , with 8 its all about rush from point to point with out a thought to defense or anything. it only takes one person present to cap a point if it is undefended and its a challenge when it is defended for 1 or 2 people to take over that node. when there are 6 to 8 people roaming and taking points there is no challenge for the 6-8 the rush over anyone silly enough to defend. and if the other team happens to be at that node its TDM and it stops being about holding and keeping objectives and its just a zerg vs zerg.

in a 5 v 5 match it begins to be more about strategy and winning the game via points from node control and less about slaughtering the other team with high numbers. the maps are the exact same from tourney to hotjoin and the game completely changes from hot join to tournament style play because of this.

if people want large scale battles wvwvw is a very well designed place for it and the maps are huge! lots of room for mass battles and lots of objectives for those large battles. i feel the game has done a very good job designing both spvp and wv3. with bug fixes and minor class balance changes the game will be very good indeed. except for the 8v8 for hot joins.

Bishop i agree with you that more variety is a good thing, but to be fair wouldnt a ten v ten map be even more fun if it was a much larger map witha different style of play maybe even a death match mode? i dont know there are so many possibilities. i am only asking for the current matches to be changed to what they are truly balanced for. add new maps for this, add new map types, but make it balanced for the amount for players. i have seen videos of warsong gultch that was mentioned earlier inthe post, the map is HUGE! if they had maps that size then sure please make a 8v8 or ten v ten style play.

my goal here is to advocate balance for SPVP in regards to map size. this and only this. in the future sure add new maps for larger sized groups. heck maybe even change 8v8 to 5v5 the same day they add a new larger pvp map, made for larger groups. Make it balanced around the larger size groups. then you can appeal to both versions, but in my opinion the current maps are not balanced for 8v8 and just isnt fun.

i disagree i play mostly ranger and necros and a guardian from time to time, and i dont care what class i play, the maps are balanced for 5v5 and should never have more than that.

@killthehealer

im not a big fan of WoW and i didnt do any PVP in that game, but what i am saying is that the maps we currently have are balanced for 5v5, they arent balanced for 8v8 they are too small and the ease at traveling between nodes is too short to have more than 5 players on a team for it to be played as it was intended. this game also has a far better mode for people who like EPIC LARGE SCALE fights, this is called WVWVW. even in the name Structured PVP is a sense that it should rely more on tactics and point defense then zerging randomly.

i see your point but there has to be a SPVP map that is balanced around larger scale fights(increase of mapsize / different objective style) before that will become a fun style.

the simple truth is this hotjoins will continue to be zerg fests and completely ignore the issues that are plagueing it because they are going to focus more on TPVP. i agree with this and will support ANET but they jsut need to change those SPVP fights to 5v5 and alot more people will be happy if you like large scale fights go do WVWVW

you guys are making it way too complicated, change the hot join to 5v5 and alot of issues will be fixed. the other issue was stated in another post is to fix glory rewards and allow more glory for winning and less glory for zerging…those 2 things will allow for a more balanced and more fun hot join system. making it fun and easy for entry level pvpers to learn and practice. there are currently 40+ empty servers for hotjoins and the rest maybe half are not completely full…there will not be queue times if you just make it 5v5.

@Killhealers:

until the create new and different maps balanced around having more people, then that just wont happen and i am only saying this because the current maps are balanced for 5v5…it merely makes sense for the hot joins to be 5v5…

with the amount of empty servers, there is no reason to force new pvpers in to a tournament environment. just the word tournament is daunting for new players. its pretty bad that if new pvpers want a balanced experience they have to jump into tourneys at glory rank 1.

not to mention the experienced players are now forced to play against alot of inexperienced players and that isnt fun either, for either side. having three levels of pvp is a good thing. novice apprentice and master level pvp bracketing so to speak. the hot join if changed to 5v5 would be great for beginners and casuals to play on a whim, as the players become better and want a tougher challenge they go to the free tourneys, and once they feel confident with there team, on to the master level with paid tourneys. this system seems fair, rewarding and would be very very good.

i may not be a programmer but adjusting max players should be easy to do compared to trying to build a matchmaking system that was proposed. and i highly doubt there will be queue times at all, with the amount of empty servers around. if this change is made with the introduction of rented private servers this would make it even more manageable.

i say again simply change 8v8 to 5v5 modify glory rewards to promote winning games vs kill farming and then the system we have now will be really well done.

to be honest qucikness is the only thing that allows direct damage rangers any use at all, removing it might balance thieves and warriors but for rangers its pretty necessary. to remove quickness the incomng ranger buffs would have to put direct damage ranger builds on par with thieves and warriors, that way if they do remove quickness it wont destroy Rangers completely

Shieldbreaker.4012:

The point is to gain glory, not to win matches (except how winning affects your personal glory gain). This is different from tournaments where the point is to win. That seems to be the part that most people get hung up on, the mistaken belief that the goal is winning and that winning is incentivized. The goal is not to win, winning just gives you some glory which helps you achieve your real goal of personal glory gain. Think I’m wrong? I know you’ve seen people putting together tournament teams requiring Rank 20, or 30, or 80000, or whatever it’s at today. As long as people care about rank, then the goal of the random arenas is to gain rank and that’s it.

If glory is tied to winning matches and not individual actions then you get bots running 24/7, even if it’s just a small amount of the glory tied in that way.

If you want to win more glory, play in a manner that wins more glory. If you want to win matches, play with that goal in mind. If you want to just practice defending a node then take the most critical node and camp out.

If you want to play to win, join a tournament.

this is a horrible way to look at this, and this opinion here is why alot of folks stop Pvping altogether, i PvP to win no matter the game mode, i want to beat the other team. This is why ANet has to make playing to win more attractive than playing for glory. change the glor rewards so you get more glory for kills at points and increase the bonus for glory on the win would be a great way to start. regardless of the game mode

I dont mean remove hot join altogether, what i mean is with numerous Empty servers available why on earth are hot join matches still 8v8. i could imagine that it was originally to allow more players to play hot join matches without a queue time, but that obviously isnt an issue. the community will probably tell me to go play free tournaments, and that is valid. but with the game and SPVP in general being balanced around the top tier games and tournaments why make hot joins 8v8 ? i believe that if you make hot joins 5v5 you will see a decrease in zergs, a more suitable place to test builds, a more casual friendly environment and a way for entry level players to get there feet wet and see what structured PvP is all about.

if you have never played PVP or MMO PVP at all before and you joined the hot join matches, i believe that :

A: New player will be completely distraught and avoid PVP entirely

B: New player finds the zerg style highly enjoyable and creates and learns a build that performs very well in 8v8 zerg style. enters tournaments when he feels good enough and gets destroyed.

C: New player goes to the forums researches and looks to see what is viable and what isnt. follows said advice and wants to practice in hot joins and gets destroyed, believing that the build has been nerfed or he just sucks, not realizing that the build would be perfectly good in tournaments.

this isnt a Post about casuals who are experienced although they are affected as well, this is about entry level PVP and what it teaches new players what Spvp is all about.

there will come a point where Spvp tournaments paid or free will become smaller and smaller as teams move on to other games over time, or simply get bored facing the same teams over and over. This will increase queue times longer and longer until they will just stop. the solution to this is to teach or provide a place where New players can learn.

hot join matches are the suggested place for this to occur but hot join matches are not even close to what tournament level of play is like. even IF a new player learns his class and many others, the zerg beats skill everytime. it becomes frustrating and ruins his experience. this essentially stops players from wanting to get better or maybe avoid PVP altogether. creating a smaller player base willing to go the extra mile and start his progression to tougher challenges.

AS a Strong PVPer from other games, I personally feel that new blood into the PvP community is required for a PVP community to flourish. with this current system in place it is a barrier and will diminish new, potentially strong PVPers from ever going further due to frustration.

Before my fellow PVPers say they can join free tournaments or they can join a PVP guild, imagine this:

you have never PVPed before, you finally have the courage to enter in this new environment completely different from PVE or any other game mode available, you know you need to learn and you know that it wont be easy. So a tournament isnt even in your mind as a place to learn. thats a higher level of competition than you are ready for. Why would a PvP guild want you if you dont know what you are doing yet?
these are the thoughts that most people associate with guilds. high end PVE guilds dont accept new players to high end PVE why would a PVP guild want a new PVPer.

so you are left with hot join.

the worst part about it, is that new players and most players in general do not go to the forums, they dont research, and they dont bother to learn any other way accept through in game methods(tutorial zones).

they wont read this post or any other post here.

Arena Net should change 8v8 to 5v5 to allow easier access for new players to learn, experiment and develop into stronger players. increasing the accessability of PVP and encouraging growth within the PVP community.

the serious problem with thieves is that no matter what the devs do to nerf them, as long as the initiative system exists there will always be a skill that does this, the nerfed back stab they nerfed heartseeker they nerfed pistol whip… now its dancing dagger or shadow assault or whetever else is completely spammable form of damage that with enough of a range or stealth advantage will hit 2 to 3 times before you have a chance to react. or even if you do have a chance to react the nature of it is that after i dodge roll twice and pop “protect me” or any other form of damage mitigation ability they can stealth, run away and do it again.

this doesnt even take into account rendering bugs or what not.i got hit by unload a crap ton of times within the space of 4 seconds…it doesnt matter…its not the abilities that need nerfing…remove the initiative system all together if i could spam my “5” ability 4 times rregardless of what weapon it would be disgustingly over powered. give theives cool downs to manage and i am pretty sure without reducing the damage out put of another thief ability that we would find that thieves are still capable of great burst but more balanced. they would have a 14 second cooldown (Avg) on dancing dagger.

the ability itself would be ok damage and have good utility but not be spammable. shadow assault would have a 24 second cd, again still do balanced damage have great utility but wouldnt make them almost untouchable for 10 seconds.

i believe the devs will be forced to either remove thieves damage on every single weapon attack into mediocrity as long as the initiative system exists.

the nature of a thief is to find the best damage ability and spam that one attack over an over until the target is dead or runaway /stealth if they are not dead this has got to be the most boring form of play in the game.

they have all of these other abilities that are pretty good, but if they dont spam an ability the damage potential is reduced significantly. so why would they use other abilities. its the nature of the class until they remove the initiative system and replace it with cooldowns.

I propose removing the initiative system, allowing steal to do damage and stealth you with out traits, and lower the cool down to 25 seconds. add traits that enhance steal even more. making steal the core mechanic to the thief and adding cooldowns to all weapon skills.

this i feel would be a great first step at balancing the damage potential and allowing for a more diverse play style for a thief

Numot.3965:

Weapon swapping encourages skilled play through opportunity cost. If you’re carrying around a weapon set for just 1 or 2 abilities and not how it complements your play/ build you take the risk of locking yourself out of important abilities. People need to get out of the old habit of hitting stuff on cool-down, and instead use abilities when you need to use something.

One should consider just what your other weapon set adds to your play, the options it gives, and how to fight effectively with it.

As for elementalist, I feel the cool-down of attunement swapping should be lowered a bit so people don’t feel so pressured to dump a lot of points in arcane.

This is exactly what i am talking about, i am glad others out there prefer skill to random spamming

you guys arent really seeing the big picture are you…what you want to do is completely change every class just so you can spam abilities… you would have to absolutely rewrite every class especially thieves, the initiatve system would be the most overpowered system …far more than it already is…removing the cooldown on weapon swap is ridiculous and i hope to god it never happens

oh and regards to elementalists, removing the cd on attunement swapping would enable them to jsut use the swap as there main attack if traitied in to arcana deep enough they would also be able to give themselves perma might, regen, protection, and swiftness all the time. they may not even need to equip a weapon

well i guess as a ranger i have a different view pint on things i use all of my weapon abilites all the time, and without fail most of my DPS comes from my auto attack with both Sword and shortbow. there are alot of things that would need to be adjusted.

from personal experience rangers can get swiftness and fury on weapon swap in combat. so if i equip 2 shortbows i could possibly use 111 ~111~111~111~ to get unlimited fury unlimited swiftness and really take advantage of the system you propose.

my research on thieves also i believe they get initiative back on weapon swap again with this system all you have to do is spam your highest damaging attack swap spam attack again, i mean the game is completely built around swapping weapons/ atunements. i would be willing to bet that every single profession has one or multiple traits that would be used to manipulate the system.

i personally enjoy weapon swapping cooldown because it allows cooldowns to reset on my other weapon while maintaining a current flow of abilities.

of course i use all of my abilities on all of my weapons. so for me by the time i have used all of my abilities on a weapon set my swap is usually up.

i do not think that what you are really asking for is to remove a cooldown on weapon swap, what you really want is an improvement of certain weapons. as a ranger, and with my playstyle i choose weapons that compliment my play style and i use all of the abilities.

granted some abilities can be improved and buffed for more effectiveness, but if you are only ever swapping to a weapon for one ability than maybe its the weapon that needs changed not the cooldown.

what people should be asking for is please make these weapons more appealing so i dont use them for 1 ability and be mad about how bad the rest of the abilities are for 8 more seconds.

the cool down is there because if it was not there the game would be severely changed in regards to balance, playstyle of classes, and all around changes to different weapons.

while i agree that on my warrior some weapons arent appealing to me outside of one ability this doenst mean that Anet should change the cool down on weapon swap, this means that they should change the weapons abilities.

In regards to the point on wanting that interrupt available i believe careful use of interrupts should be something to learn, so you dont use it on just anything. it makes you want to save it for big attacks or stomps so you can rez a player. its a calculated choice instead of random spamming.

you can q up with your friend in free tournaments and it will autofill your group with other small groups/solo. TBH i also was not aware of this for along time until i accidentally qd solo without inviting my party.

turning off auto attack for sword 1 removes the root that prevents dodge.

Daevas.6943:

Please do not get rid of pets. I don’t know why so many people are having trouble with Rangers my ranger works just fine.

i also do not want to lose pets, however pets are not fine they are unresponsive with F2 alot of times and they have a very hard time chasing down moving targets especially in Spvp

the survival of DPS pets is really bad but the dogs or bears is pretty good.

I will say again never get rid of the pets…do not take away the pets. i love the idea of the pets just fix them. and to anyone saying to get rid of pets anytime i see a thread regarding this i will post this very same thing. i know why you want to get rid of the pet, but honestly if they actually fix the pet then it will actually make us pretty powerful.

if your pet is dead half the time you really need to learn to use F4 outside of bosses in dungeons i rarely ever see my pet actually die, they get close but troll ungent and a dog and it seems to survive forever, Pathing is my biggest complaint why cant they jump off a small ledge like i can why do they have to go all the way around in clock tower to get at an enemy i am fighting from the window cant they use the crates as stairs for godsakes

i also love the sword with horn and great sword too, sword root is gone if you jsut disable auto attack then sword is fine

i use krytan and wolf both have great survivability and the F2 are awesome CC fear and immobilize. the damage they do isnt as good as cats or birds but with the survivability and knockdowns it gives them an opportunity to actually do the damage:)

i will have to say that pigs are the most useless pet, the forage ability is “neat” but in a movement oriented game the pig may drop something for me but i have moved way to far to grab it or what not, id prefer an attack or a buff thats useful…personally i wish i could use my jelly fish on land. the heals it has are awesome and its F2 is just pure beauty

Munrock.3092:

Lots of good, elaborate justifications. The simple short answer is that a weapon that has skills only for getting close to clobber an enemy and then relentlessly clobbering an enemy until you die or your target dies doesn’t belong on a Ranger.

thank you for sharing your opinion. i personally disagree with it. i love the idea that Rangers can use a Great sword and if you spec correctly with GS in mind you can do very well with it. if this were another game where the ranger was built for long ranged combat only then sure you may have a point. however with a dynamic player controlled dodging mechanisms and evades and blocks built in to the weapon set it seems ideal for a Ranger

i personally would like to see bleed stacks removed form GS 2 and instead make it a knock down. i am pretty sure if you are serious about condition damage you will be using shortbow with axe/torch

drakken one comment on your build you have taken the increased range of long bow and blah blah underwater weapon, this does not affect your short bow. i suggest swapping it to piercing arrows as this will work with both long and short bow if you ever decide to switch to the long bow for different circumstances

Trollhammer.7439:

There is a fundamental issue with pets, that OP fails to comprehend. Pets are AI driven damage dealers. You can’t fix them to match player skill. They will either drag down good players or (if ANet makes them sufficiently smart) carry bad ones. There is no middle ground to that.
The only way to fix that is to get rid of either AI part or damage dealing (and as a result balance or ranger’s own skills around pet’s damage). Of course that would require complete mechanic redesign, so its not going to happen any time soon. Until then ranger will remain bland unimaginative mediocracy.

i have seen this in other posts and i disagree , not with your AI comments but the “bland mediocrity” statement, i believe small changes to remove cast times on pet abilities or increase range on pet melee attacks will make things that much better.

im not sure what or how you are speccing but i always swap pets when they are almost dead or actually on cooldown for quickness buff my pets rarely die in pvp unless i am about to die anyway…pet or not… i use dogs and spec 15 in to BM tree if that helps but im not sure why your pets are dying the issue is why can they hardly hit anything …

i personally hate ranged weapons for my ranger so for pve i use sword and horn/GS, for pvp its GS/SB right now until the improve sword damage. although sing target sword beats axe for me any day. imho axe torch and short bow are for condition specs while sword dagger and gs are for power builds. hate conditions but longbow is jsut silly and shortbow is the only ranged option that can do damage. axe is almost like short bow except axe is shorter range slower attack speed, and lacks utility of shortbow.

I appreciate what the OP and the others in this thread are trying to do, however in regards to this thread, this and many other suggesstions have already been suggessted and debated.

I know that Jon Sharp reads these forums if not everyday than a good portion of the time. they are working on ranger fixes, i am content on waiting to see what they do and after i see what they do and test extensively, i will again make suggesstions and report bugs.

I will make one point, i am VERY MUCH AGAINST removing damage from the pet and giving it to the ranger. this seems more of a band aid fix than anything. adjusting the cast time on pet abilities, adjusting the responsiveness of all pet abilities, and making the DPS pets a touch more survivable is what is needed. please allow my pet to jump off cliffs with me. let them stop when i stop and let them go when and how i go.

i prefer no matter how long it takes(within reason) to fix the problem. i dont want a reason to put my pet away and never bring him out. after all even if you give players the option to keep pet or leave pet out, without fixing the issues with the pet even die hard RPers will leave there pet at home when doing content outside of towns.

to a point i agree with Vox and pet damage should be avoidable, but it should not be completely negated. like a long bow arrow being able to be avoided just by pacing back and forth even while crippled, our pet seems to have the same problem at melee range not 1500 inches. i happen to agree with some others out there that the pet should be something players are AFRAID of. especially those who invest 30 points into BM tree.

And since i am adding stuff i really didnt mean to go into. i want to see a viable melee Power build on par with other professions. i want someone to be afraid of my sword or great sword and have to watch out for GS number 2 ( would love for it to be a knock down on par with my pets lol) heck you could even remove a;; damaging conditions from sword and great sword and make them all cripples and chills just increase the base damage on those attacks.

in short, make pets a viable threat, remove conditon damage from melee weapons make current conditions chill/cripple/knockdown(gs2), and increase damage on melee weapons(just a bit especially after fixing the pet)

removing ALL of the sharks will make capricron just another map where zerg mentality works for hot join. at least now the sharks really make you have to commit against a guarded ruins node. learning underwater combat abilities helped me improve alot better. as a matter of fact the only issue i see is that some builds become completely irrelavent underwater. anything like ranger traps or necro wells becomes useless as they are unavailable underwater. there are ways to work around this but its just a pain. thief 5 ability is the last over powered ability thieves have now and its probably time to fix that.

seriously the sharks are not that bad. almsot all underwater abilities are AOE and they melt so fast.

removing the sharks will once again discourage point defense in 8v8 matches for all maps. that is the only map where a person can actually hold a node long enough for friends to arrive in 8v8. if you are taking away the sharks, take away 8v8 as well make all spvp 5v5 like tournaments and it will be a great improvement over all. the amount of empty servers screams that 5v5 wouldnt change the availability of servers to join so i am still not sure why spvp is still 8v8.

a counter to portal any and all necro wells and marks, its hilarious to drop all my marks on the portal and watch them take massive damage and conditions as soon as they pop through. drop my wells as soon as i see the first one pop through and they all almost always take full duration of the wells pulses. same would work with thief and ranger traps i am sure.:)

i love the attacks on sword the only thing they need to change is to remove the root allow dodge to take priority over everything. the rest is fine.

i disagree with the OP. IF i have a target selected it should always go to attack the target when i press F2. if i want the ability to fire off next to me instead of running to the target then all i need to do is deselect a target, it takes less than a second to do it . the fact that half the abilities(F2) do not make it run towards the target is frustrating and annoying . it should always get within range before executing the ability. as far as the buff options deselcting the target is so easy and i think that if you do not have a target selected then the pet should use its ability where ever it is currently.

this game is not like all the other games that you mentioned the gear difference is strictly your CHOICE, some would even say it is a freedom that you have. you can choose to be tougher or glassy. while i will agree that there are class imbalances the devs have slowly adjusted classes with minor tweaks to adjust things as opposed to game changing heavy handed nerfs .

to be fair those games havent died either, the servers are still active and they have a good fan base, while it is not huge like WoW i would wager that no MMO will ever have the same massive following that wow had. a game that is dead shuts its servers down. while i do do some free tourneys here and there i usually do SPVP and from what i see things are improving on a regular basis. thieves are pretty balanced right now and i hate all forms of stealth classes in every game. SPVP is bad right now because its 8v8 instead of 5v5 i would much prefer that all structured pvp weather its tourney or not be 5 v 5.

it seems you have an idea that for a game to be successful, it has to have 11 million accounts or whatever and that is simply not true. WoW was a genius at advertising and bringing in a huge player base to its game, it wasnt the first of its kind and it surely wasnt the best. what it did is take the MMO genre and advertise the hell out of it. Then they took alot of the good things from games that came before it and combined them. they blindly followed whatever the forums told them. setting a standard for all MMOs to come. so now game companies with delusions of creating the next world of warcraft insanity will try and mimic what they did only to fall short…because they are not WoW.

these game companies will never succeed not because the game isnt better or more balanced or even overall exactly the same as WoW it is because the moment is past. WoW popped alot of MMO cherries and after that nothing is ever going to be quite like it.

even WoW 2 wont garner the same level of numbers as the original.

and since you mentioned multiple times i will tell you this if you are talking about Spvp the gear is always the best …its your choice to build for survivability or glasscannon or mix in between its free you can change your build to suit your playstyle. while there are balance issues till most of them revolve around minor changes that they have so far and will in the future adjust moderately. if you are playing WvW i cant really comment since i dont do it, but i would imagine following a zerg doesnt really matter when it comes to gear.

any time to kill issue is more in the players hand than any game that i have played in GW2. my main is a Ranger, arguably the worst class in the game at competitive levels, but against a decently built thief i can beat them a good portion of the time. since i know my class really really well and i know thieves too since i have tried them out played with builds and learned there tricks.

i will tell you what i tell my friends who play when they get frustrated, whatever class is kicking your behind roll one up test out builds for them and see what hurts you as that class. then the next time you see a thief or whatever class it is you will know how to beat them and the limits of the profession.

there are good builds and bad builds and niche builds. hybrid set ups and glass cannon set ups. try them all see what fits your playstyle and see what does not. sure gear matters since it should always synergize with your build. but since you can get all the gear for free its not that big of a deal. its not like Rift where if you wanted 2 sets of gear you had to grind for months to get top tier gear for both sets, same with swtor. here you go to the vendor and “buy” it and you are done. test out insane builds if you want or whatever but it really does come down to playstyle+build+skill and knowledge. i can build a backstab thief and completely suck at it but sit me behind a tanky melee ranger and i can do wonders with it. i perfer the playstyle, i prefer the build.

class balance will come but they said in the very beginning, they are going to slowly take class balance for what it should be, logical, well thought out, tested, and tweaked. they are not going to so sweeping class changes like rift or swtor did. if you arent willing to wait for a good balance decision then go play world of warcraft since it is in your words “hanging in there”.

in a few months or even as long as next year when they have come really close to exact balance as they can get then you can come back bragging how you played this game from release and no one will know any better.

i think i am going to be sick, confusion damage /stacking is already insane enough as it is , adding duration to it would kill any class without alot of constant on demand condition removal

Niptease.8971:

It’s not forcing to people to change their classes. The PvP in this game allows you to do one 5 minute quest, and BAM, you are level 80 and able to join tournaments. The character attachment derived from spending countless hours of questing and grinding does not exist; simply, you choose a name and play.

There is no reason for a team to get upset when their opposition subs a Mesmer in for the last tournament map. If everyone on your team is only capable of playing one profession well, that is their problem, and the other team should not be penalized. Do not limit yourself to only playing one profession. If you are, you are not playing at your full potential.

where you an i differ is a simple part, you feel that a person is not required to change but with the current situation they are…i do have an attachment to my main character although i have a few alts. i prefer my mains style of play. the issue is that its not a choice. to be successful, you HAVE to bring said classes, its not an option there is no versatility.

playing multiple classes is not a measure of my potential its a choice i can make that this game does very well, in allowing me to jump into pvp right away. im not upset that this happens i am upset that this is mandatory. you simply have no freedom of choice when it comes to certain maps at high level of play. sure i dont have an issue swapping to whatever my team needs, but i dont like that because of map mechanics i am pretty limited. either i force one of my friends/guildies to switch or i switch myself. or a final option, give up a huge advantage that most assuredly the other team will not give up.

just because it is easy to do doesn’t mean its right that i have to do it.

the heart of the matter is not whether they should stay or not. although i believe they should not be allowed. the real issue is why people are doing it. its been talked about on live streams and on these forums , that certain classes are just plain better for certain maps. this is just not right. its bad enough that there are some classes you dont bring to any map, but to swap from bunker to condition damage or from roamer to trebuchet defense, its just not right.

the easy answer is to cry and moan about class x ability is too necessary for this map or gives a huge advantage for this particular situation. but that never works, or if it does work it ends up being completely unpopular for people that play that class for the class not the one utility that gives it an advantage.

this isnt even about over all class balance. this is about maps, that when playing a specific class brings so much to the table as to be REQUIRED since it gives so much of an advantage. it doesnt increase strategy and coordination…it limits it. to have all of the advantages or maximize the chance of a team winning someone HAS to bring a specific class. if you do not bring that class and the other team does, its not even skill based any more. it sure as heck has nothing to do with choice. you have to bring that class or you face a severe disadvantage. if all class balance was equal and professions did not offer any “mandatory” advantages then no one would want to swap unless you were experimenting with a new class or a new build. it would be because you actually wanted to not because you had to. this to me is preferable to the situation we have now.

edited fora typo

i initially posted as a reply in another topic but as i finished i realized it should have a place all its own

in any of the tournaments free or paid… i believe a team should bring what ever class they signed the roster with. however the current system does point out and loudly, some professions just arent viable, or others are more viable for each map. with public streaming everywhere, it is shown that even the absolute best teams out there will swap in a different profession for certain maps.

this shows me that some professions have distinct advantages in certain maps, while others are less desirable for certain maps. this screams that there are imbalances, and takes away from personal playstyles.

some would argue the skill is in choosing the right class for the right job, similar to the team composition argument. this same person may argue that the person swapping toons should have a high amount of skill with multiple professions making them a very skilled player. in those cases i would tend to agree, but isnt a competitive game what we want. shouldnt we have to worry about all of the classes? instead of saying ok a ranger and a guardian walk onto a node, and the entire team focusses the guardian with ferocity and extreme prejudice and laugh at the ranger. or shouldnt it become a much harder choice like ok we take out the guardian but cc the ranger and get rid of that darn pet.

allowing certain professions to have advantages on some maps is in my opinion a bad thing. then allowing folks to bring said profession to the map, even mid tournament, for that specific map. a team should have to bring the tools they want at the beginning. however before making that change the advantages those classes bring to certain maps need to be removed. not only would it make a team focus more on playing the actual game, then playing the mechanics, it would still allow for team composition diversity.

choice is important in these games and with this community. removing profession specific advantages in certain maps, will improve the ability to bring a larger range of professions on a team. and removing the ability to change toons for a specific map will create a more balanced level of play. in my mind this leads to a better balanced game.

my only issue is toon swapping… in any of the tournaments free or paid… i believe a team should bring what ever class they signed the roster with. however the current system does point out and loudly, some professions just arent viable, or others are more viable for each map. with public streaming everywhere, it is shown that even the absolute best teams out there will swap in a different profession for certain maps.

this shows me that some professions have distinct advantages in certain maps, while others are less desirable for certain maps. this screams that there are imbalances, and takes away from personal playstyles.

some would argue the skill is in choosing the right class for the right job, similar to the team composition argument. this same person may argue that the person swapping toons should have a high amount of skill with multiple professions making them a very skilled player. in those cases i would tend to agree, but isnt a competitive game what we want. shouldnt we have to worry about all of the classes? instead of saying ok a ranger and a guardian walk onto a node, and the entire team focusses the guardian with ferocity and extreme prejudice and laugh at the ranger. or shouldnt it become a much harder choice like ok we take out the guardian but cc the ranger and get rid of that darn pet.

allowing certain professions to have advantages on some maps is in my opinion a bad thing. then allowing folks to bring said profession to the map, even mid tournament, for that specific map. a team should have to bring the tools they want at the beginning. however before making that change the advantages those classes bring to certain maps need to be removed. not only would it make a team focus more on playing the actual game, then playing the mechanics, it would still allow for team composition diversity.

choice is important in these games and with this community. removing profession specific advantages in certain maps, will improve the ability to bring a larger range of professions on a team. and removing the ability to change toons for a specific map will create a more balanced level of play. in my mind this leads to a better balanced game.

made me want to revisit my engineer as well! great video!!