Guild Wars 2

The ranger we have was the result of the merging of a beastmaster class and a marksman class.

With respect to the longbow specifically, I measured it before and after the 6/25 patch. The casting time is still 3/4 of a second, but the aftercast is now 1/4 of a second instead of 1/2, so the shot-to-shot time dropped by that same amount.

Pre-patch the longbow could fire 48 shots per minute, it can now fire 60 shots per minute. Because the arrows also now fly faster and hit more often, this should be at least a 25% increase in damage.

+1

Like the Army Rangers, or forest rangers. But we probably should be the best class to use a bow with – not that we should only use a bow.

Aardenwolfe is right, in order to get that amount of staying power, the ranger isn’t going to be putting out very much damage, except possibly from conditions. I think it plays into the ranger’s ability to be self-reliant. Besides, the regeneration boon can be stripped, and TU can be out-bursted (or interrupted, it’s got a very strong tell) without much trouble.

I would also like to know what direction or vision ANet has for rangers, and why they feel our (notoriously slow and unreliable) class mechanic necessitates such lackluster damage scaling on the ranger itself.

More specifically, I would like to know where ANet thinks we can be (or wants us to be) an equal or better choice to the more common options. Perhaps this “jack of all trades, master of none” sentiment is because a ranger’s strengths (staying alive, solo farming, split damage output, perhaps dueling and area denial) do not lie in areas that are in demand in WvW and dungeons, at least as they are played right now. I understand that this may be intended, but it makes those game types a bit of a struggle with this class.

Keyce.8137:

I’m personally curious to know why the longbow didn’t get an auto-attack damage buff, and what kind of builds they want players to try out after these changes.

The longbow used to fire 48 shots per minute, now it fires 60 shots per minute, with a higher arrow speed, so should land a greater percentage of those shots. That should equate to at least a 25% auto-attack damage buff.

Domino.1359:

Cool build; just tried it myself. Thanks for taking the time and experimenting after this latest patch.
Def. far from the usual bunker builds.

Has OP or anyone tried this with axe/warhorn or axe/axe?

Axe could be an alternative to the piercing shortbow for chained crits, especially if using Honed Axes (Skirmishing IX) for 10% extra axe crit damage. Of course it would only hit 3 at most, and fires much slower than the shortbow. My guess is that it could not stack might as high as the shortbow can.

You could try this by taking 5 points out of Marksmanship and dropping it in Skirmishing instead, which would give you 50 more precision (2.5% higher critical chance), 5% more critical damage, plus the 10% higher critical damage on axes.

ilr.9675:

Kinda wish he had a rear view mirror @ times like this, lol

You can bind a key to “Look Behind” for an instant rear view.

Since we have ranged axes, why not melee rifles? Really though, I’d love to have melee staff as an option.

I could see rangers using rifles if, as Dojo said on the previous page, they worked differently from warrior and engineer rifles, and were significantly different from our existing ranged weapons.

Perhaps if the rifle were re-imagined as a high powered dart gun, quiet and relatively slow, with more control than our other ranged weapons. Rangers already have access to bleed, chill, cripple, poison, and vulnerability with our ranged weapons, and burning with offhand torch. We have basically no access to blind, confusion, immobilization, or weakness – some of which might be a good niche for a dart gun. Especially if it had good synergy with conditions, perhaps even boon conversion or conditional effects, like short term stealth upon hitting a blinded target.

Probably won’t happen, but interesting to think about!

I’ve been reading everything here, and this thread is full of great ideas. First, thumbs up for displaying the pet health and boons/conditions, and for Aveneo’s suggestion for SoR.

The way I understand it, pets have the most problems in dungeons and WvW, but care needs to be taken not to make them (even more) overpowered in PvE. The big problem I see in dungeons is very powerful attacks that players are expected to avoid. The big problems I see in WvW are a mix of AOEs, the very high mobility of players, and in some cases the pet aiding the enemy (C&D).

If we are to be the “mini-me” class, then I want my pet to act like mini-me.

In PvE and dungeons, my pets don’t have much problem landing their attacks, but in WvW this is a serious issue. Unless I’m wrong, most melee attacks in the game can either be used while moving, or jump quickly toward the target. Giving melee pets the ability to attack on the move, and ranged pets faster projectiles could help solve this. I realise there is a rather severe animation blending problem, as bipedal players can play a running animation while swinging their weapon, but blending a cat running with a reared-up slash would need some serious work. I’m sure most of us would rather have stupid looking animations for a while than useless pets. Also, I think melee pets should at least try to attack from behind, to help avoid cleaves and PBAOEs.

As for powerful attacks and AOEs, it’s very true that we can’t always see what sort of danger our pet may be in, especially at range. Giving pets their own endurance bar, affected by vigor, and some sort of on-hit high-damage mitigation could help fix this. I still think pets should at least have swiftness while recalling, and possibly a 1 second aegis or distortion, even if this comes out of their endurance bar. If pet AI cannot predict when it will be hit by a large attack in order to activate its protection, then I’d suggest that it work somewhat like Nature’s Protection (mitigation on powerful hit). That is, if a pet would take more than maybe 20% damage in a single strike, use half of its endurance bar to mitigate it in some way, either via an instant-breaking aegis, distortion, or something similar. (Having the percentage low enough to sometimes trigger on C&D would be nice, too ) This could even be pet-species specific, perhaps aegis for bears, distortion and stealth for cats, evade for dogs, tunnel for spiders and devourers, you get the idea.

Neither of these would be particularly strong in PvE, as mobs don’t move as much as players so their attacks already hit often, and there would usually not be enough spike damage to trigger a pet’s mitigation (excepting champion encounters, where this would be a huge help). Condition removal on pets, healing them, and swapping would remain important. An enemy focusing on a pet, just as focusing on a player, should still put them in danger.

Thank you Robert – the radio silence here was becoming deafening.

First, some of the suggestions made that concern me: “make attack/return a single toggle key” and “F1 switches to attack mode, F3 switches to passive mode”.
Misterdevious pointed this one out. Right now, our commands are fairly “panic proof”. F1 always attacks, F2 always uses a special, F3 always returns, no matter how much you mash them. Particularly in hectic situations like WvW and some dungeons, it is impossible to target accurately, and to tell if or what your pet is attacking. F1 or F3 being an attack/return toggle could make this unnecessarily state-dependent. Pets being generally slow to react compounds the problem, and invites repeated pressing. I know I’m not the only one who presses the same button repeatedly in these situations.
As for F1 and F3 switching modes automatically, I can’t be the only one who likes being able to remain in passive mode, tell my pet to go kill one thing, and then immediately come back when done. I also like being able to remain in attack mode, and use F3 to tell my pet to keep out of the fight for a bit. I do still think the mode switch needs a keybind (F5 perhaps).

Things that bite me, and my perspectives on possible solutions:

Slow reactions on F2 and F3.
No real further explanation needed here, but I’m glad it’s got some attention already.

Pets limping around dead in combat with no way to help them.
I suggest F2 on downed pets becomes a channeled heal.
The 60 second swap is punishing because it often cannot be avoided even with skillful play. F1 and F3 are also useless when the pet is dead, but F3 is likely to be hit just as the pet dies, and could inadvertently begin a channel. F2 is usually a more considered choice. This could let a ranger take a few seconds out of doing damage to get the rest of their abilities and damage back. It would also avoid the interact-key heal problems from the beta weekends.

Attacking pets dying to avoidable attacks…
I suggest F3 evasion/distortion/aegis…
This is a two-parter. Locking pet dodge to player dodge would be simple, but most times I want only myself or only the pet to dodge. At range, F3 can sometimes help, but in melee, F3 does very little as the pet remains in the fray. A second or two of evasion/distortion/aegis instantly upon hitting F3 (with a cooldown/endurance limit) would augment the purpose people use that key for in the first place, and would give time for the pet to get moving. I definitely agree with those who don’t want more buttons, so giving F3 the dual purpose of running to me and avoiding certain doom is my preferred solution.

…and to unavoidable AOEs in champion fights.
…and increased traited protection for pets on dodge.
The 33% protection on dodge is good, but not enough to save a pet from the instant-kill AOEs in dungeons that not even a recall will save them from. Requiring the player to use F3 and dodge themselves is a sub-optimal solution, as many have pointed out. Increasing the damage reduction on pets from protection (possibly at the expense of its duration) could go toward solving this.

Passive pets drawing unwanted aggro and moving into AOEs.
I suggest shorter passive leashing.
Whether the pet takes the long way around a rock, or runs 5 meters past you after you stop moving, pets in passive mode have an incredible knack for drawing aggro, or wandering into stray AOEs. Passive mode acting more like a “heel” command, and keeping the pet within GS range (for example) may help solve this problem. A pet in guard/aggressive/gregarious mode could still wander further away. A pet in passive/heel/shy mode would do its best to trail the ranger at a close distance, allowing the ranger to easily “drag” the pet out of danger zones.

Pets un-stowing when taking environmental damage.
I suggest giving stow a keybind (F3 while out of combat).
I understand the desire for trap and falling damage to drop to combat mode, but even falling short distances creates significantly more annoyance for rangers than it does for other classes while traveling (for me, clicking that tiny button after each fall). Giving stow a keybind would shrink this annoyance without having to separate combat and environmental damage conceptually. As stow has no purpose while in combat, and F3 has no purpose while out of combat, an additional press of F3 seems to be a good stow binding.

That post grew much larger than I was expecting… I’m just excited that someone is listening. Thanks for reading!

P.S. Ratty, I like your suggestions.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Might I suggest taking a tip from League of Legends on this one? They added a colorblind mode about a year ago that replaces the normally red and green rings with (IIRC) purple and blue respectively.

Actually, the default colors were blue and purple. Because the only difference between blue and purple is a little bit of red, they were VERY hard to tell apart. They changed it to bright blue and red. Also, the AOE markers and other team color elements are often not transparent, which helps a great deal.

This has been covered multiple times. I think the root cause of the annoyance is not that taking damage brings out the pet, but that taking environmental damage triggers combat mode, which brings out the pet.

Just because I fall too far or hit a trap doesn’t mean I am entering combat. And if it happens to be a fire trap, my pet instantly becomes toast…

This sounds like it would be an easy fix, but combat mode is what slows you down, and prevents you from regenerating huge amounts of health, so simply making environmental damage not trigger combat mode would have other gameplay issues.

Khisanth.2948:

Not so sure about that. There are a bunch of Zaishen Engineers in LA.

I just noticed those today, have they always been there? I seem to recall there were some NPCs in that courtyard west of Marriner, but didn’t recall them being Zaishen.

Catches the shine of the metal well, with some cropping it could be a good portrait. I’ll give you a 9 for the subject – you make that armor set look really good – and a 5 for composition/pose acknowledging that wasn’t really what you were aiming for.

I have to apologize for adding text (and pluralizing charr with an s), but after I saw this one while looking through my screenshots, I couldn’t resist doing this.

I have to agree that while the pre-written files for playing music in LotRO was pretty neat technically, and allowed accurate reproductions, I can’t say that I’d want to see it in GW2.

That said, I’d love to see more playable musical instruments like the bell.

(Please without attack sounds; though drawing a bell and yelling “Victory or death!” is worth a few chuckles.)

Exactly. The champion single-hit-kills, dungeon boss single-hits and AOEs, various things in WvWvW… there’s a long list of things that nuke pets too fast to react. And even if you do notice the tiny red bar going dark, it’s often not fast enough.

If the pet’s F2 would help it escape, the cast delay is too slow to actually save it.
If the pet’s being focused or is under AOE, F3 will often get it killed on the way back.
If the AOE or champ is inconsiderate enough to hit your pet when F4 is down, it dies.
Same goes for popping a heal.

I’m sure there are a lot of (difficult) things that could benefit pets, like a total AI rework so the pets aren’t too stupid to live. But failing that, a way to nurse Fluffy back to health would be great.

I guess I’ve made my case clear enough over these few posts, so I’ll just hope someone reads this. Thanks if you do, even if you don’t reply!

Unfortunately, it’s always been that way, at least since launch.

Panda.1967:

Unless they have changed it since the last time I was on my ranger… you can revive your downed pet rapidly by swapping active pets. Once the short cooldown for swapping ends you can swap back and it will be fully revived.

However, the ability to use a skill to revive them would be nice still.

If you swap out a living pet, the cooldown is 20 seconds. If the pet is downed, the swap cooldown becomes 60 seconds, basically forcing you to babysit the new pet in passive mode if you don’t want it to die the same way the first did, just so you can get your quick swap back.

Also disappointed in this – it deserves a fix.

What the topic says. When a pet is downed, its F2 ability (and F1 and F3 for that matter) is disabled. I suggest replacing a downed pet’s F2 with a short range channeled revive or heal.

In beta, downed pets could be revived just like players, and by anyone, resulting in many missed revives on players. To prevent this, the ability to manually revive pets at all was removed, in favor of an automatic revive that occurs extremely slowly while in combat.

Allowing the ranger to revive a downed pet faster with a swapped-in F2 ability would:
— prevent the aggravation of accidentally reviving a pet instead of a player,
— mitigate the issue of AOEs or boss instakills without risking AOE or other damage reduction balance problems,
— let rangers get their pet back if they are not being focused, without forcing their next swap to be 60 seconds or forcing them to leave combat mode entirely.

I could go on with scenarios and such, but I think this is mostly self-explanatory and would be a small but noticeable improvement in PvE, dungeons, and WvWvW.

Himei.5379:

Also, leap with healing spring is BOSS. Your party members will love you.

Unfortunately this isn’t true (I was disappointed when I learned this, too). Leap finishers have that nice visual splash, but they only affect you. Blast finishers are the ones that AoE allies.

I am glad to see guesting in some form.

But you need to remember that, when it comes to community, if something like this makes the RP community upset, then you’ve probably done something wrong.

RPers are some of the strongest community glue you can have in a game, and why I make TC my home, even though I don’t RP. This won’t affect me directly, but I definitely feel for the people who I am around every day, who will be affected by it.

Also, I would make gather nodes flagged globally per character, like chests. That solves overflow/guesting node-farming problems.

It would make my pet pop out when I’m trying to use a greatsword leap to jump past a mob, or while just goofing around with skills.

The real problem is that fall/JP damage counts as combat, and pets come out when the player “enters combat”. I understand applying the run speed reduction upon taking damage, but having the pet come out when it’s environmental damage that can’t be fought against is silly.

Bump, and definitely agreed. Personally, I rebound “hide HUD” to the Home key, so I have quick access to it for screenshots, but something more dynamic would be great.

Slightly colorblind here as well. I noticed the circles, but looking for them takes a huge amount of effort, unless they’re on a blue or exceptionally dark or bright floor, and even then I still miss them frequently.

I would make the lines much thicker, and add a second inner gradient ring that darkens the ground or shades it black for incoming attacks, and lightens or shades it white for friendly AOE. Contrast is the most important differentiator, and a larger area of color would be a great help, in addition to a color change for those who really can’t see red. Ideally, these colors should be configurable with a hue slider.

When the economy is fluid enough, it does. But perhaps gouging is the wrong word.

Auction houses are not conducive to a well balanced economy, since they only have sell orders. The trading post, as implemented with buy and sell orders, keeps prices realistic and prevents price gouging.

If you’re trading with someone you trust, CoD is unneeded. If you’re trading with someone you don’t trust, CoD will just create a second market and /mapchat spam and additional avenues for scams. Not worth it for the toxic trade atmosphere it can produce.

edit: the only time I would suggest enabling CoD mail would be if the TP is down for an extended period, but it’s definitely not needed.

The food in this game makes me want to cook, and I’ve heard many other players say the same thing.

I would purchase and use a recipe book containing preparable versions of the cooking recipes, and I bet others would too. (With some leeway for substitutions as necessary; moa are slightly extinct, for example, and I’m not sure where to find omnomberries…)

Does anyone else think this is a good idea?