Gotta agree with Capuchinseven, SB & Sword are good weapon choices, but for any WvW & survivability you’re going to want to dump the axe offhand in favor of a dagger. Nobody will stand still long enough for your spinning axes to do much damage. And with dagger, you’ll gain 2 conditions, a cripple, and another evade. And as has been mentioned, Ranger survivability is all about evasion.
Your pet can be a wonderful ally, even for bunker-type Rangers. Throw a few traits into BM and you can spike with your pet (which is often ignored) while evading and crippling with your sword/dagger. Dog pets knockdown, which is great for control, and jaguars can crit spike quite well, taking an enemy by surprise. Popping “Protect Me!” will make you invulnerable and then a well timed pet swap will give you quickness (if traited) and keep your pet from dying too.
I like Ryoki’s idea of a pet with a short stability or aegis boon. That’d be hot, but we need a more responsive F2 for it to really shine. This would be a good ability for the “big” pet.
I’d like to see some more exotic pets, like crystalline animals as a result of the dragon corruption.
I’d like the Porcine Forage to be made less clunky, especially at range.
Actually Sorean, your fav pets have their place and are not bad. I love my Fern Hound too and I think a lot of people roll with one as an off-pet in open world PvE. And I don’t PvP but I think Wolf is an often-used pet due to its fear.
Love the porcine pets when in melee PvE. Their Foraged items are awesome, plus they are hearty & have a finisher attack. (Only wish their Foraged items weren’t so clunky to use and steal-able!)
Also love my Fern Hound. Trusty guy has been with me since the beginning & I love his F2.
Haven’t played lately (broken computer) but I can’t wait to try out all the Jaguar burstiness I’ve been reading about.
I don’t like the “pet should dodge when you dodge” solution. The pet should be a separate thing to the player, thats the strength of the Ranger; you are like two players in one professions. If the pet was forced to dodge at the same time as yourself, it would mean that whenever you needed to dodge, you would often interrupt the pets attack behavior, thereby lowering your own damage. And it would mean that you would be forced to spend your own endurance, whenever your pet was in danger. You can also already make the pet dodge by simply using F3 and F1.
A form of damage resistance for the pet is a much more elegant solution.
I like the idea of giving the pet Distortion when we dodge. This is helpful for aoe attacks that force us to evade, and lets our pets do the same thing. I wouldn’t want to force a pet dodge by using my own endurance, but I think Distortion on Ranger dodge + aoe damage reduction would nicely keep our pets alive more. Numbers in PvP would have to be tweaked so-as not to be OP, but in WvW & dungeons it’s quite necessary. I don’t mind my effectiveness being so reliant on my pet, as long as it isn’t dead half the time.
I don’t think any class can access every type of combo field. The fact is that Rangers can create a large variety of the fields, more than most professions in my experience. Fire, poison, water, smoke (underwater), even chaos. Our water field is the best in the game. Also, we don’t personally have a blast finisher, but one of our pets does (drake). Rangers are supposed to fully utilize our pets so having access to finishers and fields via our pets is fine imo.
90% aoe reduction
Stay behind me when out of combat
Quick response F2
Drake Chomp not heal enemy
Agony resistance
Gain distortion on Ranger dodge
Melee pets cleave (like all other melee attacks in GW2)
LOL..That’s Rich!! Another thing that will alienate rangers.
Ranger Drake Chomp heals enemies. Bring a ranger and make the dungeon run more difficult…lol
Drakes Heal Enemies
Jade Maw Targets Pets
Jellyfish used to be invulnerable when eating our pet in the underwater fractal
No Agony resistance in 10+ fractals for pets…pets are always dead, Ranger does kitten damage
Spirits Bite!
The Ranger profession offers 2 things: perma-pet and flexibility.
No other profession has a permanent pet and ours have a lot of functionality (CC, off-tank, kiting, burst, distraction, champion pulling, etc)
Flexibility: no, we can’t tank as well as guardians or dps as well as warriors or burst as well as thieves or escape as well as eles….but we can do all of those things. We have the flexibility to play however we want. Played smart, we can effectively melee and range, use our pet for big damage bursts, support allies w/ spirits & pets & horn, aoe and single target dps. We have a variety of combo fields and finishers.
So, want one profession that may not top dps charts or be the best insane bunker or crush everything 1v1, but can do all of those things quite well? Ranger.
Gotta think that a thread with 1000 posts and such consistent activity would warrant some sort of reaction from Anet….like actually addressing the known issues with Rangers and either fixing them or telling us blatantly to kitten off. The fact that we’re ignored is so……..<sigh>
As usual, a well written and well thought out assertion of the Guardian. I think a lot of your ideas for change are very good, considering none of them will change the overall feel of the Guardian or change combat basics; simply make traiting and weapon choice more diverse and viable.
I don’t think the passive effect should remain when activating a signet. That’s the mechanic of a signet and there needs to be a trade-off for activating it. However, as Ranger signets sit now, there’s generally no incentive to activate them. The passive effects are just right, but the activated abilities are too weak to jusitfy losing the passive bonuses while waiting for the CD.
Nah. I like the system as it is now. I understand a lot of people want a perma-stow option but that’s negating the profession mechanic entirely. It would be like playing Necro and never using DeathShroud. Regardless of whether you’ve traited into DS, it’s still a beneficial tool for various reasons.
The main reason it seems that players want a perma-stow option is to side-step the downside of a pet in certain circumstances. I say Anet just fixes those issues. Perma-stow in dungeons because pets are always dead right? Give pets aoe damage reduction and distortion upon Ranger dodge. Boom, problem solved. Fix the pet pathing so they don’t aggro the world unintentionally. Fix the F2 so it’s responsive. Fix the Passive function so that it recalls our pets to us quickly, possibly even shadowstepping to us. If it is a shadowstep, give it a small cooldown (no more than 10s) due to it being so awesome. Because of the aoe reduction & distortion I previously mentioned, this cooldown would be ok.
So instead of me attacking and my pet attacking (both of us dealing damage) you want me to dance and my pet to attack (only 1 damage dealer)? That means all an enemy has to do is CC me and I’m 100% useless cuz my pet apparently only does what I tell it to based on my weapon skills. This isn’t Pokemon.
Said it dozens of times before and I’ll say it again. Rangers in GW2 were designed from the beginning as a pet class. Big numbers from bow attacks will not happen. But combine them with yuor pets attacks and you’re looking good. You have an ally, something to off-tank for you, 2 attackers making it harder to block your coordinated attacks. It’s a fantastic strategy. The problem is not the concept, it’s the execution. Anet needs to improve pet AI, pet control, pet defense, and pet pathing. Then you’ll cease to hear the “i want to perma-stow” and instead hear “roar, rangers rule!”
I love the description of Ranger Anet gives us. And the Ranger concept is solid, it’s just the execution that needs work.
I’m fine with our pets dealing a sizeable portion of our damage, and I like their variety. But they die too easily for them to be such an important aspect of our gameplay.
LB needs to fire just a bit faster, pets need damage mitigation, spirits need damage mitigation, signets need slight boosts, pets need to stop running sooner. None of our issues require a class overhaul. I love Ranger and the gameplay. But a few tweaks here & there and we’re spot on perfect.
The problem with putting more emphasis on pets is that even more functionality and damage will be tied up in something that dies far too often. If something like this were implemented, Anet would have to also greatly reduce damage taken by pets in order to avoid gimping Rangers. As it is, I think the Ranger community feels pet damage reduction is necessary already.
I think spirits are fine in concept as is. However, they just need to follow rangers by default (or have their CDs reduced) and they too need massive damage taken reduction. I’d say make em unkillable, but since they just made Guardian spirit weapons targetable now, I highly doubt that’ll happen.
Sword deal amazing damage & sticks you to your target like glue. Downside: rooted and can’t dodge. Well I have a solution for you…and it’s built right into the weapon. Use #2 & #3. Those are your dodges. And they dodge while dealing damage, deal conditions, don’t use up endurance, and one’s a leap finisher.
So we get a weapon which sticks us to our crippled target automatically and we get 2 damage dealing dodge skills built in….what’s not to love???
As I understood it, you’d receive a skin and an empty backpack to apply the skin to if you didn’t already have one. So, for an 80 with an exotic backpack already, all you need is the skin. If you’re level 9 and haven’t yet acquired a backpack, now you have one to slap the skin on.
One thing I’ll add is that there are no tanks, dps, or healers in this game. You can certainly make yourself ‘tankier’ by stacking vitality & toughness, but every player is responsible (for the most part) with his/her own survival. So don’t gimp your damage output, because no profession can truly tank. Eventually, you’ll just die.
Chopping down a tree in a lvl 5 area is still going to yield the appropriate level 5 wood, since nothing with respect to your gathering is scaled down. Downscaling loot refers to that which is dropped by mobs. So a level 80 gathering in Metrica Province is gonna get crap materials, but kill that level 5 firefly and you’ll get some level 80 boots.
Someone go ahead and check out if there are any undocumented fixes please?
From what I’ve seen on the forums they nerfed our pet F2 cooldown so that when you use F2, swap pets, swap back to first pet, the F2 cooldown is not reset. So if it’s a long CD like Wolf’s howl, you gotta wait full duration.
You can argue about which way is technically right, but regardless, this change is a huge stealth nerf to the profession.
I agree you can’t compare waypoints, and hearthstones, and boats, and flight points. But you can compare walking directly out Stormwind’s front gate into the forest, turning left and walking straight through the forest to lake country without ever seeing a loading screen. In GW2, this type of travel would result in 2 loading screens to get out of the city and then walking into the next zone. Now, maybe the reason is because there’s too much visual data in GW2 to pre-load in the background, but it’d be nice if our persistent world didn’t have the same portals in & out that instanced GW had.
Cooking & Artificer are probably the 2 cheapest to level 1-400. Absolutely use crafting boosters. And if you’re in a guild that has those perks, use them too. When you’re crafting hundreds of items, every little bit of XP helps. I went from 2-16 fully leveling Cooking with crafting booster and guild perks.
Downscaling lets you play every lower zone regardless of your level and still have a challenge, instead of steamrolling thru old content 30 levels too high and being bored. I like the feature. Lets you finish an entire zone if you want and not feel like you should have left already & you’re not getting any XP.
You will however, not be quite as weak downleveled from say 50 -> 30 as a true level 30, because you’ll have more traits, more elites to choose from, better optimized gear that scales down but doesn’t quite bring you to the same level, which lets you flex your muscles a bit but not get bored.
The downscaling is done for 2 reasons: so that you can experience all of Tyria with a single character and so that you can help lower level friends/guildies, all without losing immersion and feeling bored.
While I generally don’t agree with the idea that “if they have we should too!” I do think that a class with almost no ranged options should have some kind of passive speed buff. Rangers & Thieves can keep it, it’s necessary for their survival. Warriors don’t need it. Eles…I guess it’s for survival? Guardians don’t need increased survivability but having a speed buff for staying in melee range would be nice. A trait for X seconds of swifteness when we crit or something that doesn’t involve using a skill.
Retreat + Save Yourselves + Staff #3 will get you very close to 100% uptime with no investment in traits or gear. So quick n’ easy swap out from travel to fight mode. +Boon duration food would probably get you to 100%.
I find the more defensive weapon choices to be mace, hammer, focus, & shield. Mace gives you straight healing & regen and hammer gives you protection and aoe cc.
For more offensive weapons I recommend 1h sword (single target), GS (aoe), & torch.
I liked to keep a set of each so for instance I’d have 1h sword/torch and then mace/focus to swap into if I needed the survivability. This works well at lower levels.
Guardians have a great selection of utilities so you should be able to take on a number of mobs at once with an aoe weapon and supplement with your shouts and signets.
Guardians don’t have the health pool Warriors do. What we do have are constant regen, blocks, & boons. These more than make up for less max hp, especially in a group setting where your shouts and boons help everyone.
I think it’s kinda crap that a thief’s bonus ability is better than that which any profession has and might even be built around. A thief should never have a better fear than a necro. That’s just sacriledge. And a 4sec daze that isn’t an elite or have a ridiculous CD? We should be so lucky.
I do however agree with making foraging similar to the thief’s steal ability. One problem I foresee however is that this would instantly make our bacon friends the best pets we have by far.
I can see that, but I suppose you could scale back the Porcine’s damage a little to compensate for their awesome Foraging abilities. It would make them great support pets rather than straight damage dealers. As it is, everyone uses Ravens & Jaguars cuz they deal the most damage. This would be an alternative to those who run support builds, or help to boost survivability.
I actually think it has to either move or have its range increased. It has such a long cast that we’re stuck whirling around at nothing if the baddie simply walks away. If it weren’t such a long channel I don’t think I’d care (like Guardian 1h sword channel).
PS: Use a warthog if you like fields, they can give you access to a poison field that lasts for kittening days and the rangers only etheral field, which if you whirling defense in (no quickness) with a target you’ll be able to apply up to 20 stacks of confusion onto that poor kitten.
I love my porcine pets and the warthog has some amazing items. The only problem is that while they work quite well in melee, at range they’re awkward to utilize. You’re counting on a melee teammate using the foraged item. Most of the time they don’t even know what the items are. I’d love to see a change in the Forage mechanic where, like Thief steal, after foraging our F2 becomes the ‘use item’ button. This would make combo fields from Porcine pets much more useable (and not dangerous in PvP).
I’m all for these ideas. Well, most of them. Definitely need more pizazz for our bow attacks so giving Concussive & Point Blank Shot blast finishers would be amazing. And Maul too; GS needs some loving.
I don’t think Rapid Fire needs 100% projectile, since you tend to get procs off of it anyhow. And Rapid Fire is the best damage dealing attack LB has so don’t nerf its damage output.
I’d like to see combo fields for all of our traps, not just fire.
As for Spirits, if they created combo fields I’d say definitely only on activation of their skill, not passively. But I think you can only give all traps fields or spirits, not both. Both would be a little OP imo.
Troll Unguent is a fantastic selfish heal skill. Questing all by yourself, it’s great. But for DEs and WvW and Dungeons HS is just flat out better, especially if specced into it with traits & healing power. It lasts a while so you can flit in & out of it if you have to stay mobile, plus it removes conditions, and it’s a beast of a combo field. We’re pretty mobile with so you can Swoop into melee range, drop it, and SB jump-back out of range quickly giving your melee allies (who ususally have blast finishers) 15 secs of tankiness. I drop it every CD during DEs.
Totally agree with the OP. I remember the good ‘ol days of GW when massive group of B/P rangers went into dungeons looking for trouble. Ranger pets didn’t die from the slightest breeze from a boss or aoe attack. The Ranger is built right: a pet, some bows, some swords, and some great skills. Unfortunately, many of them don’t work right. The LB is weak & situational, the SB is a boring #1 spammer, the spirits are underpowered and more fragile than the pets, the pets have more bugs than I’ll mention here. The idea behind the Ranger is fantastic. I love it the most. But the execution leaves much to be desired.
I like the Stalker and Fern Hound when leveling solo. Their F2’s let me boost myself and regen if needed. I swap often so I don’t have any trouble with them dying.
My other favs:
Red Moa (fury)
Porcine pets (fun w/ melee specs)
Murellow (tanky but with poison field)
I noticed you didn’t mention Scepter in there. I think it’s important not to leave that out as the damage output can be pretty good, and it’s a great pulling tool.
Good point.
The Staff is another weapon that I find situational but very good. The might stacking/heal is outstanding in group play, despite being a channeled skill. The #1 skill is a great tool to tag mobs in DEs.
I know some players who are always hesitant to use their skills, and so end up not doing so because “what if I need it in a bit??”. Others pop them every time they’re up.
Back in my early WoW days I used to have this mentality of saving my best skills for when I really needed them. Eventually, I realized I just wasn’t ever using them. Now I use every skill, regardless of CD duration whenever I want them. Forget saving something that’s really fun to use. Even Elites. Use them.
Slot both, why pick only one? There is room for both in many situations.
Agreed. HtL has such a short CD that with it and SY and the passive Virtue regen you can keep them rolling on you very consistently. I use SY as often as I can not only as a defensive ability but as a buff for burning down targets. In group settings these are both sweet shouts.
With respect to weapons: I find it fun to keep 1 of every weapon type on hand while leveling. They’re all very viable and useful in certain situations.
Sword does an amazing job 1v1, giving you fast attacks for lotsa VoJ procs.
GS is your go-to for aoe in groups and during DEs.
I find hammer more fun than useful in PvE, it’s more a PvP weapon with all its control and protection. But smacking a guy back 30 feet sure is fun.
Your mace is your defensive weapon. It doesn’t deal the greatest damage, but the constant heals and low CD symbol will keep your regen rolling. Pair is with a focus and you’re nigh-unkillable.
There’s a lot of debate over which is a better defensive offhand, shield or focus. I prefer focus for leveling because it has a blind and lower CDs.
Torch is pure offense and if you trait/gear for +cond damage use this until you find yourself lacking in defense. I used it until about 40, at which point I found myself in need of at least some defense and swapped it for a focus.
Guardians have some of the best utilities in the game imo. 90% of them are quite useful, so telling you which to take it subjective. I used sword/torch till 40 which is very offensive, so I used defensive utilities to counter that. Your shouts are mad strong and will help not only you but any allies around too. I like “Hold The Line!” & “Save Yourselves!”. Signet of Judgement has a nice low CD so it can be used often, granting you reduced damage and ret&weak to quickly burn down attackers.
I am currently leveling a Guardian & Ranger, both around 60. What I’ve found is that the Guardian has more viable weapon variety than the Ranger. While limited to primarily melee fighting, each weapon is fun to use and can be built around with traits. Ranger weapons offer a nice combo of melee & range though.
Guardians are in a great place right now. They have lower health but have constant regen and can frequently block attacks and keep other boons rolling on themselves (and allies) to make up for that. In fact, I’d say no other profession is as much of an asset to allies as Guardians.
Ranger weapons are a little more lackluster, something you don’t really notice until you’ve been using the same 2 sets for 30 levels. I find melee as a Ranger extremely fun and sometimes run 2 melee sets specifically just to change things up.
Ranger pets are tons of fun, despite all the whiners that say otherwise. Exploring Tyria to tame them all was a great way to gain XP and see the world. Experiment with your pets to find the ones that work best for you.
