Guild Wars 2

UmbraNoctis.1907:

I think you overestimate the influence of food and buffs in WvW. Those things can’t carry trash builds or bad players.

Um, I believe 40% scale into condition builds can be called being carried.
I mean there’s no such thing in PvP. All you have are Trinket Stats and Traits which is numerically equal to everybody.

If you build your character – you build it without being able to exploit it. Plus I saw a nice number of people running consumable water field that cleanses (can’t recall the name atm). Where’s the part of it being fair to people who do not run around with 250 stacks of these?

Lord Trejgon.2809:

Puck.9612:

They also still don’t affect your allies when using trooper runes. GG anet.

well technically trooper rune set bonus says that shout remove conditions from AFFECTED allies – and since there is no ally beside you and your pet affected in the first place…..

Then technically Ranger isn’t affected either.
Guard and Sick’Em only affect your pet.

I really believe making them scale as a result of Resounding Timbre is only logical in terms of balance.

Firelysm.4967:

Sorry 32k what? damage? on Lv1 mob? I was doing 10k dmg to medium armor people, now i can’t deal more then 5k with axe off hand + opening strike.

lvl 50 fractals. Don’t remember which mob now.

Firelysm.4967:

Sorry mate, i did poop on ever d/d make it celestial or zerker, in WvW roaming they were not able to deal with rangers, we are talking about dealing with equally knowledgeable persons & both skilled. Ranger was able to outplay d/d always, with LB + S/A I never had problems with them.

NOTE: i don’t talk about pvp, because pvp is not 1v1. It’s jack ****, because if you can’t optimize your build to its finest, then this is not pvp, it’s casually poking in the eye. WvW is the real 1v1 environment to test fights of capability. And also we are talking fair fights 900 starting range, no ganking, open world.

WvW is completely different from PvP.
If you build everything around mobility (escapes) – you can never loose. So even if you are about to die – you can just escape and try again.

I see sPvP more skill-oriented than tactic-oriented (if we are talking about fights only). Which leads me to conclusion that d/d eles are better even at WvW since they have much better mobility.
They rock at PvP and WvW alike (even at duels). A skilled Ranger can beat one but will never have the upper hand.

Firelysm.4967:

We used to be the best 1v1 class, pre-traits changes, it was about skill. Post-trait changes are just meh, every thing is so unbalanced and over-buffed to oblivion while ranger got so many nerfs with traits changes, to be honest we had 80% nerfs on ranger and only 20% good things. At the moment ranger has nothing that i didn’t use pre-traits changes, i had even more! What we have now is taunt and quick draw camouflage a huge drastic nerf to ranger a little bit, it’s a fun mechanic but still not worth the nerf that we got.

d/d Eles were best 1v1 class.
Plus we only got buffs, not nerfs. Not sure where do you take your intel from.

@Firelysm
I don’t have any of the problems you describe.
I actually do Rapid Fires in organized groups (using NM traitline for more DPS from boons and boons shared onto pet) that hit for 32K.

Axe Training was the one that gave more ferocity – the one that was and still is as worthless as ever?
And with all due respect, I still hit for 10K with Path of Scars. I sincerely have no idea how we could have been nerfed with QuickDraw imrpovements.

Lazze.9870:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Put Brutish Seals into Enlargements spot, then make another trait that gives Vigor and activates SoS at 33% health to put into Master tier.

No thanks. There are enough of these braindead passive effects as it is. I’d rather have them reduce the amount of them, not adding.

Merge Enlargement with the Brutish Seals traits or introduce some synergy with opening strike like they were toying around with before the specialization patch.

I actually find Enlargement a valid choice for adept trait.
Brutish Seals on the other hand seem to lack something. I can’t tell what it is, but I haven’t really found much use of this trait. One I was thinking of was Full Signet LB/GS (or full melee) build (SotH with Maul is cool)… But then I realized I find better use of MoC in PvP overall.

Opening Strikes concerned – they need adjustments by themselves.
For example pet getting Opening Strikes whenever you do or getting Opening Strikes everytime you kill a foe (if you want to use your Killstreak XP booster you won’t refresh Opening Strike even once).
I can imagine some nice synergy with Brutish Seals SotH maul burst… But I’d like to hit 2 birds with 1 stone if Opening Strikes are concerned.

Fluffball.8307:

Tragic Positive.9356:

If I see a ranger using Signet of Stone or Renewal in PvE I call for a replacement straight away. And those are not rare.

I tend to run it for that dredge boss and I think it’s path 2 CM (sorry been over a year since I’ve run these regularly, run them like once every 3 months). In a PUG you can’t rely on condi clear and HS isn’t always enough for the party. You would kick me.

Well, I use renewal myself – AC P2 is a good example. I even stick my bear out there.
Because it’s useful at that specific situation.
If a ranger joins a party with those signets active that’s a clear alarm that something’s wrong. Similar feeling like a full signet Warrior.
SoS holds 80 second cooldown. That’s 2 uses of SotP with Resounding Timbre. Nope, I must be desperate if I consider that choice over Either Sick’Em, SotW or Frost Spirit for 80 seconds.
The only places where I do is Harpy Fractal StairWay laser dodging (I run through allowing everybody else run behind me safely) and CoF P3 the time bomb tunnel.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Are you guys sure that Resounding Timbre is better than Companion’s might?

Depends.
Sick’Em is a waste for thrash and if you manage to blow SotP on every single boss without the trait – clear companion might it is.

My party usually has close to perma swiftness uptime, and having your pet buffed to 25 might every SotP is more valuable for DPS.

But then again, Resounding Timbre makes life more comfortable. Maybe not more efficient, but definitely more comfortable.

Wondrouswall.7169:

Don’t get me wrong, Stability is a strong boon, but why I think it wouldn’t solve much is because the 50% health threshold is still there. The only Grandmaster trait in all of the professions to proc when we are below 50% health is on the Ranger. Just no.

The idea Heimskarl mentioned is absolutely worthy of a Grandmaster, though.

Zenos Osgorma.2936:

i know the devs were scared about the pet Reciving too much might

Yes, pet might end up with almost as much might as the Ranget itself <roll eyes>.
That’s why Nature’s Vengeance forces completely redundant synergy since it’s completely useless for anyone else your pet (they could have just made pet-unique buffs if that was the case).

Stripping Ranger of might and power due to PET is absurd.

Soilder.3607:

Yea, another GM trait that needs polish. Please address this A-net. The intention was good, but staying under 50% is never a good thing.

It makes our community sad that adept trait Enlargement beats a grandmaster trait Most Dangerous Game in every single possible concept.
It provides better offense design, utility, heck it even helps you retreat thanks to the 50% movement speed boost (similar to Super Speed but weaker effect).
Did I mention it even has a synergy with another trait (Brutish Seals) that further synergize with the same trait as MDG (fortifying bond) but better (you can immediately heal up with full effect lasting for 8 seconds)?

I felt similarly disgusted by comparing these as at the time when I heard this:
https://youtu.be/WPqYpcteqac?t=13106

Unholy Pillager.3791:

The problem with this is that this dissatisfaction has been expressed continually since the game came out. Ranger has never been in a particularly healthy place, as far as I can remember. They just haven’t been listening. Hell, they haven’t even bothered to fix the root and animation lock on the sword auto attack, despite promising to do something about that. They just changed their stance on that from ‘will be fixed’ to ‘working as intended’, without bothering to justify that. Many ranger players are just sick of being ignored, and of having promises broken, and the fact that Druid might not even get a single BWE (much less 2 or 3) isn’t helping matters. Ranger needs the most feedback and adjustment, not the least.

Well, from my experience, straightforward demanding for something so edgy as a complete skill category redesign will never result in an expected way.

I can completely agree with what you say but that’s not going to get this class anywhere (you yourself said that). Arena-Net doesn’t have such a high money income as other game companies and that’s mostly because they let you play a game for free after the purchase. Because of this – they can’t really afford to hire hundreds of new people, considering that Dungeon-crew hasn’t been to be seen for 2 years.

I know that what you say is true but with the dissatisfaction about Ranger class I don’t remember many solid realistic and complex topics saying how to fix the problem in one go.
We had several interesting ideas that were mentioned here and there but never put together. Most of them were only mentioned as a reply to the topic about something completely irrelevant to the change mentioned.
Proposing changes that Ranger community likes (and it can be seen in forums, which leads me to conclusion that these discussions do not help it) helps developers to see which ideas are worth taking time to consider.

If you feel like being so dissatisfied like all of us are – I believe starting a petition is a good way to go. Every one of us have their own way of doing things and since I was successful this way before – I’ll keep trying for the sake of all of us because that’s what I can do. I dare to say it’s still more than a vast majority of other players.
The changes I make serious thread about like these are those that players either proposed themselves improving them with time, or those that got really good feedback. Drastic changes like a complete redesign change people’s play-styles and those are usually against them (and you have to consider it when asking for changes).

@Mcrocha
Your examples are not really great.
What you are saying is
:Let’s assume that you can’t go into melee range (for some reason) and that multiple enemies are to be shot down.

Well I’ll naturally reply with
:Then let’s assume that those enemies are lined up and Longbow will deal far better DPS, won’t waste potential of any skill (like axe#2) and could target 2 more enemies.

Furthermore, I haven’t really been to any place or content where bringing Zerk Axe into main hand would fasten me up better than not. If there’s such a situation it’s gonna be 1 out of 5 which is a horrible example by itself. Not to mention you’d be able to handle the situation with Sword regardless.
Because if there are several enemies on range – you usually have a guardian to pull them to 1 place to promote Sword to axe again.

If your “let’s assume” argument involves range
my “let’s assume” argument would be having a warrior to stack them at melee.
Your promotion of Zerk Axe doesn’t have any logical value.

If you want to include PvP into viability, no build at all would include Zerk Axe. Why? Because only a complete moron would hope that a weapon without any defensive ability, valuable utility or burst would be suitable for playing glass cannon.
ANet are people, too, so they have absolute right to go wrong at what they do. It’s our job as their clients to tell them straight if they screwed their decision up.

Justine.6351:

Yes More ideas out there and rehashed/debated is a good thing. Whether extensive or minor just putting it out there is a step. And accepting that your idea is not the end all be all is just as important. There is not a singular vision that matters other then anets.

Well, I’m just trying my best to do what I can and I’m saying what I’m saying because I already have experience in this field.

I was one of the few hardcore Hunter players back in WoW who gathered the intel and ideas from players addressing the company – and most of the ideas got implemented as precise as copy>paste.
That’s exactly what I’m trying to do here. I’m not doing it for my personal enjoyment, only. From an objective perspective – ANet is busy with HoT expansion and rebalancing the new specializations. They clearly won’t redesign a whole category of Ranger utilities 3 months after so many changes they made before HoT and asking that from them is not quite tactful, either.
They might, however, band-aid them if the community agrees that shouts are in a horrible state and need attention. If they become viable, okay, cool, awesome. After all – we wouldn’t really make them change their own vision of the game, we would stick with their ideas bringing balance feedback onto the table.
If they still suck after band-aids – there’s gonna be plenty of space to ask for a whole class-redesign as a reaction to failed creation into which you stuffed money and time. Petition of large-scale unhappiness with part of their product will not give us right to demand it – but will alarm their awareness of loss of potential customers – probably listening to what we have to say.

SemiProBBQ.8946:

There aren’t any scenarios where Axe will outdps sword there are situations where I would take a/a over s/a For example uncategorized fractal when you’re fighting shaman and ettin sotp+qz for 25 stacks of might almost instantly and swap to lb for double rapid fire. Just because it isn’t meta doesn’t mean it only has 1 useful skill and there aren’t situations where it can’t be used

This I can agree with.
But then again, you can’t summarize and generalize according to a single situational weapon use (that actually doesn’t even promote weapon – but your off-hand slot that benefits from Might from Axe).

Weapons should be balanced and improved in the way to fulfill their role and purpose. It’s wrong if a weapon has traits promoting stat combination that doesn’t have any single competitive place.

Unholy Pillager.3791:

So remove those aspects and give another effect to those skills. It isn’t as if anyone uses hunter’s shot for pet swiftness, anyway (as an example).

You believe ANet who considers visiting forums for a healthy player-developer interaction for feedback as a waste of time because HoT is coming will really re-create and change effects on every single weapon in the game ?

Don’t know about you but I’m a realist.

@Unholy Pillager
I agree on most of your points and I completely understand your point of view.
… The problem is, I’m not sure if they really can make pets useful. We have to take their limited personal into account, their lack if interest and lack of community-intel-trade…

And their beliefs that completely deny maths and logic.
For example, having a Pet Class is fine by me. Making it unreliable and uncontrollable, clunky and what not is not fine by me (thus the ideas I came up with, considering their interest in this class – thus no big but all useful changes)
Having a healing GM trait is fine by me. Being it far useless, uncontrollable, clunky and what not is not (invigorating bond).
Having the Pet sharing boons by it’s personal duration metric is fine by me. Having Weapons and Traits adjusted to ignore Ranger usefulness and promote the pet duration metric is absurd in my opinion.

And the stuff could go on.
The problem is that I know that Arena-Net has little interest in Ranger and promotes Elementalists and Warriors. I don’t see them implementing the drastic (but godly) changes.
Saying that they can do it is true. But after all – all of us could do it in their place if they hired us right? But we know it’s not gonna happen. Neither of those.

Justine.6351:

I considered invulnerable pet viable solution. What is a ranger without a pet (in this game).

I probably would have removed their dmg and left them as little utility bots. I’m not sure I would add any stats to ranger though.

Pretty lame way out. Certainly not the worst idea when you take into account all the [change required] threads.

Your idea about pets being pure utility slots without damage, and passing the damage onto the ranger was amazing (Ranger would need the DPS to compete in PvE). Not realistic, though.

There’s zero chance ANet’s gonna implement that change in this game. Maybe if Guild Wars 3 comes out (which I see probably in 4 years time) – that would be the only possibility of such radical changes being made.
Currently every single weapon buffs some part of pet’s attacks – which makes that proposal totally denied on the spot.

[Change Required] threads have all higher chances of becoming reality if developers happen to stick their noses in here.

Unholy Pillager.3791:

Where the hell did you get that idea? I want them to change pets to an optional, change the mechanic to preparations, and buff rangers so that they are competitive in sPvP. If they keep pets as permanent, not optional, they can’t make rangers competitive. This is because AI setups are not, and cannot be, balanced in this game. We see this with spirit weapons and we see it with minions. As long as rangers are forced to use pets, they cannot be balanced either.

I already provided (hopefully) reasonable solutions to all our pet ranger problems.

If my proposed changes get implemented – AI would not be a problem since pet would become 90% controllable in terms of survivability, positioning, skill management and trait activation positioning.
It would also raise Ranger Skill-Cap but also improve their performance by a huge margin.

All what you are trying to say is redundant since your idea would destroy 80% of weapons, traits and utility skills.
In reality, the whole problem now is that you are blinded by your “feelings” while ignoring the most logical and realistic suggestions already given.

Puck.9612:

Give mdg pulsing fury so it works with remorseless. I’d actually consider taking that over quick draw.

This.

Unholy Pillager.3791:

Actually, I would mostly want some mobility, plus I’m not enormously fond of guardian utilities and virtues. Besides, preferring longbow over other range weapon options (elementalist staff, for example) already is an aesthetic choice. If you really want to criticize me for making choices based on aesthetics, start there. Just be sure that you haven’t made any choices regarding favored professions for similar reasons.

For the record, though, I don’t like the way this game all but forces players to use short ranged weapons for most parts of the game. For example, sPvP and dungeons are both dominated almost exclusively by melee-range weapons.

The thing is you still don’t get how illogical those statements are.

You want more mobility – you said. Which Ranger doesn’t have, or has only as a melee fighter. The other thing is that you say you prefer Archers. And you are not a fan of guardian virtues… While Dragon Hunter is a specialization about Traps (And the Longbow that you seem to love so much).

Furthermore, you seem to like the Aesthetics, so much that you are willing to trade effectiveness for it. So since you are a fan of Longbow…
… How about playing the Ranger with a Longbow? Just suck up your feelings and accept the pet that is far more class-mechanic than a Longbow. Longbow is just one weapon of the many. Pet is an inseparable mechanic of the class itself.

You want Ranger (pet-class) to be pet-less because you don’t like Dragon-Hunter (pet-less Archer) specialization. Do you know how absurd that sounds?

This topic does not really have the correct name, because this change is not required.

It would ruin lots of usefulness of Pet Tanking in PvE (even high lvl fractals tanking Mai Trin) and some mechanics would get totally changed with this (protect me comes to mind).
Taunt would be useless without this (forcing to attack a target that can’t be attacked is a logical breadown in coding).

This change is not required. If possible, rename the topic to [Change Suggestion].
We don’t need immortal pets.

Unholy Pillager.3791:

DH longbow skills are spells. A better comparison would be if warrior was not part of the game, or ineffective, and you were trying to argue that guardian is pretty much the same thing. It isn’t close enough to satisfy many warrior players.

So the most important thing for you is the feeling, and not the efficiency or usefulness?
Aesthetics is the most important point of value?
Do I get it the right way?

OGDeadHead.8326:

Where’s the pet swap function?

I’ll admit that I left it out. My bad.

We still have the current “Pet Stance Change” button that is unique to our class within Key Bindings.

I currently set it on F3 (thinking that’s the bind from my mouse), not keeping my mind on that.
There’s still space in control options for pet swap button. I just made a mistake at this. Having it on F4 or F5 or as a special Key Bind is not really what’s the point here.

Well, if I believed there is a chance our shouts would become useful, I’d definitely go with my former list of Shout Changes that were:

• Search & Rescue: Your pet looks for the closest downed ally and brings him to you trying to revive him. 85 sec CD.
• Guard: Your pet guards an area. If an enemy enters this area, your pet will blink to the target and apply blind and cripple. Your pet gains stealth and protection. 15 sec CD.
• Protect Me: Your pet actively protects you from harm, taunting (2 sec) any foe that hits you for next 6 seconds. 3 sec ICD. 60 sec CD.
• Sick’Em: No change except movement converted into Super Speed.

Wuselknusel.4082:

Your F5 is redundant. Look at my F1 suggestion in the pet rework thread linked in my signature, to see a better version.

Yep, I admit.
But I still think ANet would drop it for too much coding. Your idea is better by far, hands down. I tried to keep the changes as simple and as least impacting the current functionality as possible.

@Justine
Icebow #4 and Meteor Shower are also a version of AI. The only difference is that it’s reliable and effective.
That’s why plenty of amazing ideas how to “improve the pet management” and “reduce the AI factor into player-control” were held.

If you think that ANet tried to balance the ranger, you should have at least went through the changes. They haven’t even tried to touch the AI factor and pet management at all – which are the concrete reasons to hold rangers down. (that I, accidentally addressed yesterday)

If you study hard enough to become a part of ANet developer teams – please feel free to make the Ranger competitive whichever way you feel like. By the time being, I’m afraid someone else will keep doing it their way.
If you do – I’d be more than glad to agree by saying “ok” to you, without having to worry that I sound like I ran out of arguments.

Unholy Pillager.3791:

That doesn’t fit the archer archetype that people are going for, so stop saying that. It makes you look like an idiot, and I’m getting sick of pointing that out. Most bow rangers in GW1 didn’t use the pet. Pets are at an even greater disadvantage in GW2 because they can’t dodge roll, sidestep or attack while moving and lack the situational awareness that a player has. I don’t want pets, I want an archer. I don’t want a spellcaster who happens to use a bow. ArenaNet’s insistence that rangers be ‘the pet class’ is keeping them out of dungeons and competitive PvP. The WTS happened recently, and I noticed that, out of all eight professions, only one was not represented there. Care to guess which one? Making ranger ‘the pet class’ would be like making necromancer ‘the minion class’. Minion mastery doesn’t work in many areas of the game, and neither do pets. The difference is, necromancers are not forced to be minion masters due to a stupid design decision and the stubbornness to keep that flaw no matter the cost.

I’m sorry to disappoint but the one who risks sounding like an idiot would not be me. After such a long time – you haven’t been able to soak up the obvious statements from which ANet some confirmed.

~ You are now playing Guild Wars 2.
~ Ranger in Guild Wars 2 is not the same as in Guild Wars 1.
~ Necromancer and Ranger minions cannot be compared. Necromancer has 1 traitline devoted to minons. Every single Ranger weapon and Traitline involve pets.
~ You are contradicting yourself saying that we are not pet-class while everything we have forces us to play with a pet.
~ It’s not about “what ANet does”… It’s about what they have been doing for 3 years, godkitten it.

You can’t expect that I’m going to treat you as anything else than a child if your only counter-argument against developers and me is: I want to play and Archer in a game that is not mine, supports melee combat and I want that especially on a class that was designed around something completely different
Now I want to be a unicorn. The very same argument as yours.
You want an Archer? Play one with a pet.

I made 4 freaking threads that would solve every freaking pet problem, so far, and the only thing you are capable of is complain how your dreams do not meet reality?
Yes, I’m being arrogant (but I can afford it). Your real life isn’t going to be easier with your attitude, either.

Justine.6351:

I did suggest. Not giving all shouts baseline boons. Give them unique mechanics and then add boons to a trait affecting shouts.

Traits/boons should add to a skill, not make it viable. If the addition of a boon is what makes it viable then the skill is likely trash in the first place.

Sir, with all due respect, you have no idea how Ranger development here works. If you want a class with completely different spells – play a different class.

That’s all there is to it. For the rest of us – will to find a realistic way to improve Ranger viability/versatility or usable build variety is important.
We didn’t come here to mock people for having realistic ideas like you do. Believing that 3 our utility skills will become something completely different is blindfolded.

Justine.6351:

warrior healing signet is 16sec cd(traited) with 6sec resilience. And that resilience is part of the signet, not trait tied.

In combat pet stow is not a fix, its another band aid. This is putting it politely.

You can’t compare classes’ abilities. Warrior’s healing abilities shouldn’t be the very same as Ranger’s. The classes work different and so does their abilities. The signet itself provides 1/3 heal of the Rangers. That argument is not really valid.

About the band aid… Well, every single Change Required topic proposes a band aid. That’s why the changes are required. Because the live versions are awful.

StickerHappy.8052:

You forgot to mention that pressing f1 again should call back your pet to come near you.

I was actually thinking about it for a while.
The problem with that is simple. If you sent your pet to attack a specific enemy, and you went for another – and decided you want to call your pet into action – it would require to needlessly click it 2 times.
Furthermore, if it was made as a toggle… It would be like an 80% resemblance to stances themselves.

While it would help at some cases – it would be unwanted at other.

In this proposed state – you can have pet set on passive – sending it in for attack like you can now with perfect functionality. If you decide you want the pet out of the harm – you send him to a specific place until you decide to send him back again – still amazing.
If you feel like it’s too complicated and you want it on less skill cap – you don’t call your pet back at all – you save him via Pet Stow proposed changes.

If you decide to have your pet on aggressive – you only need to send him on different targets (attack order only) and save him from harm (Hold Position only).

There are no cases where you’d need to recall your pet if you have set him on passive and you didn’t order him to attack.

Justine.6351:

Prophet.1584:

Heal as One – resistance please

Yeah resistence would be good change. Anyone using a “pet takes x conditions from you every x seconds” skill/trait would benefit greatly from this.

In fact if they went the boon route they could redo the shout trait.

Trait, each shout now adds a unique boon. Tailor the boon choice to the shout. Ofcoarse I would remove the swift/regeneration from all shouts.

I believe resistance is a boon too unique and powerful to be paired onto our 16 sec ability. If you see this from Developers perspective – it would tip the balance of the class by far.
The condition problem of the pet I tried to address with Pet Stow option. None of the Pet Problems stayed unaddressed with my Change Required topics, I believe.

I also tried to keep possibilities of Perma Regen builds (that people still might consider) with Heal as One and I avoided adding any overpowered mechanics to places that could be considered powerful or overpowered.
The changes I’m mentioning are all realistic changes that might end up considered by developer teams without any negative reactions. You can tell that Resistance on 16 second cooldown would be instantly blown by the community saying how OP it is.

Silverkey.2078:

Couldn’t we have : when the ranger dodges, the pet becomes invulnerable (like if he also dodged)? This could be easy way to protect our pet from a big attack.

Ideally, the pet should on his own avoid AOEs…

That is one of the possibilities. The problem is that your pet chooses his positioning by itself – meaning from various AoEs you usually dodge-roll out but your pet stays in place.

With stowing you’d hit 2 birds with 1 stone.

OGDeadHead.8326:

I like the ideas that the shouts should have some effect on the ranger also.

I like the idea of taunt on protect me, as posted by Justine above.

I tagged onto the Protect Me Taunt train (not sure if I saw it or suggested it back then, probably the former) when it was up to date. And I am still the highest fan of that idea possible.

The problem is:
I’m just being absolutely realistic here, knowing what sounds like a real possibility for changes. Completely redesigning an ability is out of the question. We are Rangers, remember? Arena-Net believes Invigorating Bond is a useful GrandMaster trait that most likely competes with Mesmer’s Mantra Healing (adept).
Anything that involves more work than tweaks is out of the question.

borya.2964:

You’re right, my bad here, i was mistaken. But even if i said it was broken, i kind of like my mistake, this new trait could definitly bring some support too to the party.

Haha, yea, would be lovely. But we all know that’s not gonna happen.

I’m not sure if you misunderstood, borya.
That trait would only prevent boon removing when swapping pets. Pets could still be killed and if you didn’t swap the pets – they would have the very same buffs as the ones transferred onto your next pet. No double-applying.

Even that would feel like a fix and not really a buff to the Ranger. Right now you can stack 25 might on your pet and feel like “I could use 3 sec quickness right now” – resulting in stripping all of them reducing your DPS that way (since full buffed Pet would trade 25 might for 3 from the Zephyr Speed trait).

borya.2964:

Bryzy.2719:

Borya ^ makes a lot of redundant and menial points, would advise OP ignores them for the sake of keeping a useful thread on track.

The OP is able to know what he has to do or not. I am discussing and asking questions, mostly about something that is not clear to me. Who do you think you are ?

Borya is absolutely correctly on the right track here. I misspelled, or rather, said something completely different I wanted to say.
I’ll be correcting myself in a second.

EDIT:
The highlighted buffs were the ones meant to be shared. The stealth from Guard was supposed to keep only the pet.
All the changes I made I tried to keep their current functionality but make them more appealing and rewarding to be picked.

@Heimskarl
I agree on your point. I was mentioning exactly that some time ago but for these changes I didn’t really find it fitting thematically. Retaliation does not really protect you. It would be an amazing tool, but that we could achieve with off-hand Axe, too.
My points were strictly improving the former ideas of these skills without adding other uses.
For example, Sick’Em makes it harder for your enemy to escape from your pet, so handing it to ranger as well does not really change the goal or purpose of the skill.
Making Protect me a spiky armor – however – would. Aegis would actually protect you and your partners, which is still the same purpose, that’s why I went with that one.

Just as Durzlla says.
<sip>
Being ganked by 3 people would result in death regardless of situation if you thought about taking Bear just in order to use him for Protect Me as a Signet of Stone replacement.
None of those would make a difference. Only that Protect me could potentially save you for being a stun breaker.

People still won’t risk the bearbow for a Ranger that actually knows his stuff.
I wouldn’t myself.
If I see a ranger using Signet of Stone or Renewal in PvE I call for a replacement straight away. And those are not rare.

Every other player with 3-digit IQ already gives a chance to Frost Spotter Ranger into MetaZerk groups. Nothing is going to change at all.

Wondrouswall.7169:

Another +1 from me. Not sure what’s happened to you though. That’s 4 solid threads of proposed changes within the day. How much coffee did you have? Haha!

Well, that kind of happened. Lots.

In it’s current state, shouts are very lackluster.
Truth be told, they do not feel like worthwhile build-utilities at all.

When I was playing them they resembled like enhancements to current F1 and F3 abilities. In fact, I had to stop controlling my pet because I would have cancelled these abilities. In their current functionality, only Sick’Em and Protect me feel like real skills.
Guard is nothing but a Resounding Timbre trigger, Search & Rescue has way too long CD and Shout Build doesn’t really feel like fulfilling any role in particular since every build can do what Shout build does.

(I’d like to thank Wondrouswall.7169 for his Resounding Timbre boon idea that I tried to improve)
Proposed Changes:

• Sick’Em – Reveals your target and your pet’s damage is increased (40%)(6 sec). You and your pet receive Super Speed (4sec)
  Guard – Grants stealth <edit:to your pet> and protection (3sec) to you and your pet (5sec). Your pet’s next attack applies cripple. (Position Mechanic changed in https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Change-Required-Pet-Management/)
  Protect Me – Instead of Attacking, your pet will grant you Aegis (10sec) and absorb all direct damage you would take for 6 seconds
  Search & Rescue – Your pet tries to revive the closest downed ally and grants you stability (5stacks) (6sec).
  Heal as One – Heals you and your pet. You gain regeneration (10sec).

• Resounding Timbre – Shouts now grant swiftness and their buffs affect 5 players. Shout recharge reduced.
  (Fury shared for Strength of the Pack)

Shouts are currently in a weak spot, and having them improved in this way sounds like a good idea. They would promote pet management (which is a high-skill cap with shouts) and would make pets something else than F2 trigger in PvP.
These changes would affect Guard Regen spamming builds but I believe few players sill run this build and we are already overcapped on regen via various sources. Game-play of spamming a utility skill for regen is a bad design and shout builds had more survivability glued with proposed changes as a compensation.

I didn’t use Quickness as a sharing buff for SotP because that would clearly push Companion’s Might out of the question. Shouts should be a utility support oriented spells and we need to take the fact that this is a low-tier trait.
Super Speed used on Sick’Em is what I’m especially proud of. This mechanic would make Rangers wanted in PvP with shouts since it’s the only counter against Stealthers (thieves and mesmers) and would provide a valuable utility skill – super speed for party (we sacrifice Blind spam for this = fair). Mobility in PvP is needed – and Ranger has access to almost none. Plus, super speed doesn’t give Rangers any access to port mechanics but is exactly the sort of escape that fit their Archetype. Plus it wouldn’t be OP because Quickening Zephyr does exactly that and is a Stun Breaker. I made sure to only bring it to the same level.
With this change – Rangers would finally have a clear role in PvP – anti-Stealth fighters (because Sick’Em would finally become a viable choice) and might appear in competitive as a counter to stealth mechanic even though they lack everything else needed for that environment.

Another awesome mechanic hit by this change is synergy with Signet of the Renewal.
Currently – your pet is either dead or changed right after activation.

If you were able to stow the pet – the CD by saving your pet would go the same way but you would be able to choose which pet would you like to have. Whether keep the one bombed by signet and stow>call him back without condis, or simply swap the pet for a new one.

This is probably a tricky one to do but I believe it will not be hard to understand.
As a Pet-designed class, Ranger’s skill should be determined by his ability to manage his pet.
The sad truth is – we have close to zero control of our pet. The only thing we can control is whether it attacks at all, who it attacks and we have the luxury of controlling 1 of it’s abilities.

We can’t control their movement, we can’t control their DPS, we can’t control their utilities and we can’t control their survivability, either.
That – for a pet-class is horrible.

Proposed Changes:

• F1 – Current Attack
  F2 – Current Pet ability.
  F3 (changed) – Pet Longest CD ability (Knock for Devourers, Immobilize for Spiders)
  F4 – Current stance system
  F5 (new) – Hold Position (Guard-like – pet will passively occupy a certain spot, no CD)
  (I’m aware F5 is stolen from another MMO. It’s well designed, though. Who can blame them)
  Guard (Shout) – your pet receives stealth and protection and it’s next attack applies cripple (same CD)

With treatment to F5, we could control most of our traits and abilities. This wouldn’t buff rangers by any slightest spot since the only thing it does is promote use of all skill families for certain situations and environments while not giving access to anything we wouldn’t have today. The only thing it would achieve is differing Good Rangers from the bad ones.
The change to Guard is due to it’s position functionality being moved into F5. Other shouts need treatment, too. But that I will address in my next topic.

Currently, pets should be dealing roughly 30% of our DPS.
Which is only true without any buffs whatsoever. Once the Ranger gets buffed by boons and other effects – this part of DPS drops down by tons.

Pet should be a worthwhile part of our game-play regardless of environment. If it falls off and drags us down in competitive environment – such a mechanic is horribly designed.
Our pet needs a clear treatment of sharing every single buff on the Ranger. Period.

Ranger does not possess any powerful support, or better said, his support is not even close to Meta (Ele,Warrior,Guard). Other classes bring their support without even traiting for it, their support mechanics cannot be killed, do not have any cap at all and are easy to control.
There is literally no reason for Ranger not to be a high DPS class since his damage is hard to apply (pet control) and brings many drawbacks. All we need to be on par with DPS is our pet being useful apart from open world events.

Proposed Changes:

• Our pet is in unavoidable need of buffs and effects sharing from it’s master, food/stealth/boons included. Pets currently ruin any PvE skipping, make rangers hated in all environments and drag them down instead of promoting the unique side of the class.
  If ANet feels like being too busy with HoT, just make Fortifying bond baseline and replace the trait with “Boons from pet are transferred to the other when you swap pets”.

Also, this would stop the silly leach of 2 targets for the Ranger’s potential from 5-men boon limits.

Regardless of how ANet developers want to force us into using pets – they did literally nothing to keep their word.

In it’s current form – the pets die too often, don’t scale with DPS buffs, we can’t control their abilities and those we can are so absurdly hard to land that I sometimes feel like the unique class mechanic is a joke and I decided to live in the wrong universe.

One of the things that would promote using pets is being able to stow the pet in combat. This way our pet could be saved from harm without worrying about taking damage from AoE they can’t avoid with dodge (since we can’t control it’s position, thanks Anet).
Furthermore, this would allow Rangers participate in PvE skipping and PvP escapes (so pet won’t drag Stealth buff from people blocking the 5-men limit) which is, by the way, the most common reason why Rangers are hated.

Proposed Changes:

• Pet Stow is now available in combat. Cannot be used if Pet Swap is on cooldown and if used in combat – triggers Pet Swap cooldown.

If ANet wills to keep their idea of pet-class without giving us tools that would promote it (they want Ranger to fight with pet but they refuse to give us tools to actively save the pet, be it dodges or pet positioning) – they need to give us tools to go around with it.

Nope.
Burning is the condition for DPS.

What we are considering is 3 splitpblades instead of 2 against 10sec CD bonfire.
Regardless of how you want to look at it – Sun Spirit + Fire Trap + Torch just blow bleeding apart.

Bleeds might only be an option if you are considering a hybrid build using Sharpened Edges and rune of the Mad King combination. That way pressing your entangle and Warhorn #4 may result in one glorious bleeding pressure that keep reapplying for some time, making cleanses less useful against you.

But that’s WvW.
In PvE, burning is far superior.

Well, I lately see that people are kind of blinded by meta.
I mean yes, it does help or what not…
But I had various Multi-Necro and Multi-Ranger runs that were absolutely fine in everything.

It is and always be the people. Of course some mechanics cannot be achieved by all classes… But I mean come on. I was able to get us in Harpy Fractal up to the highest point myself (Whirling Defense/GS block with QuickDraw), Stability from SotW and SotP…

And they kept ranging it till it was safe. People just have to use their head – and if they do – they might finish their Fractal even sooner than Meta-Head arrogant pugs that will try to melee kill harpies without a Mesmer blaming the others they didn’t bring one.

Maximum Potato.5923:

A fix for the sword root was hinted at over a year ago by ANet (A simple ’we’re working on it’, and we all know how that goes). That aside, I remember hearing the argument that the sword’s damage may have to be nerfed if the root was fixed. With how well it synnergises with our traits and the excellent utility it brings due to the availability of an off-hand, there’d be almost no reason to use Greatsword at all outside of PvP, since Longbow can outburst (RF+Barrage+RF) and Sword would be a flat out better melee choice.

Actually, Sword doesn’t really have that much of a DPS. I mean yes, it is our highest DPS source of weapon – but not really that strong when compared to meta (Ele,Warr,Thief) classes.

Breaking the Chain is nothing but a quality of life change in my opinion. Veteran Rangers already unbound the auto-key to prevent it’s clunky mechanic. It works just fine with manually controlling the hits. But it’s a pain.
Greatsword is not really a bad DPS weapon. It just needs the remorseless traitline treatment. If the upcoming content lasts for longer than 20 seconds – GS+S/A remorseless might as well become the way to go for rangers. I mean, the vuln uptime and damage is pretty solid when paired with Frost Spotter party buffs.

The damage is not really the issue with weapons. The pain to apply it is, though. That’s what the problem I hope will get addressed is about.
If the DPS gets addressed, I hope it will be through our pets survivability and mechanics reliability.

Maximum Potato.5923:

All I was trying to do was highlight a very niche use for the axe that I felt was overlooked. I won’t deny that this thread raises a lot of good points – our weapons are indeed in a sorry state of affairs, and Tragic is clearly passionate about the class. However, rather than doing what you did and politely informing me of inconsistencies in my argument, he opted to simply attack my intelligence. I feel that debating in that way only harms your points, and I’d rather not participate in a discussion where that is the way points are discussed.

I opted to attacking your awareness, that was not in the best shape.
Not intelligence. I am aware that I often sound arrogant.
I am sorry, if that helps, but I support the idea that people learn best the hard way.

But that’s because aggressive behavior fastens explanations up, if you don’t use it for mocking people. And even though I kept repeating that your example is wrong – you didn’t admit it. Going in circles wouldn’t help solve your lack of experience with Ranger Class – thus not moving anywhere with this thread either.
I don’t have any problem with explaining things, or teaching people, or making maths, analysis… And if I make a mistake I apologize and correct myself. But explaining facts to people who turn it down by assumptions – I do not really accept – because it makes it more difficult to teach others (who may take assumptions as facts).

Now objectively speaking – if I politely said: “Your example is wrong because numbers already say that axe deals far less damage than any other power weapon and deals condition damage only in melee – thus making it a primarily melee weapon”
Would you reply :“Thanks, I didn’t know that. I’ll look into it.”
Let’s be real. You most likely wouldn’t.

“People are wiser after the event” as the proverb says.
No harm done. I didn’t attack you. I just pointed out that your experience on Ranger class is still not perfect – which you can and will take hold of as the time goes, for sure.

Cheer up, fellow Ranger. We as a class have it far worse than this in the open. That’s why I can’t afford you being treated bad for playing ineffective weapon sets and I’ll do my best to help you guyz be wanted by community.
(edit: even if it means you’ll hate me for being straightforward. We wouldn’t really play much together if at all, so the risk is fair)