Grandmaster trait where your projectiles can pass through reflects and projectile absorption.
Simply piercing through everything seems a little bit OP for me. But if we could pierce through everything but only dealing half the damage if we do so seems ok for me.
Why? It isn’t as if you can force enemies to line up and give you more than three to five hits (kitten ed censor) per arrow. On average, cleave hits more reliably due to enemies moving in clumps rather than lines.
The bow ranger had its problems in GW1 (in PVP it was all utility and no damage, whereas in PVE the opposite was true), but they did have some significant advantages: tough to kill, mobile, amazing condition removal, extremely effective at long distances (whether ‘effective’ is in terms of PVP disruption or PVE damage spikes). In GW2, though, you can’t wear the enemy down with sustained pressure and interrupts because everyone takes decent healing and there is no resource to run them out of. The interdependence of opposing players in GW1 also made rangers effective: if an assassin or elementalist decides to sacrifice healing and condition removal in favor of more damage and disruption, you can punish them for it using your more flexible build. In GW2, obviously, this doesn’t work. Just as troublesome is how they’ve treated condition removal; in GW1, warriors had arguably the worst condition removal while rangers had some of the best. Now, their positions are reversed, and look how things have changed. Rather than each having a place in a party, warriors are extremely popular and easy to use while rangers are difficult to use and unwanted in most parties.
The mechanic is broken beyond repair. I’d seriously like them to just give thieves longbows since they’re already down a weapon combination and it would appeal to every non-pet archer ranger in the game.
Absolutely. Besides, some world bosses are just painful to fight when your maximum range is 900.
you know, there is no-one forcing you to play the class if you do not like it…
I’m sick to death of people saying this. There is no class for fans of archery. There is no class in this game for fans of the GW1 ranger. Nobody is forcing me to play ranger, but since they also removed dervishes (my other favorite class) completely, I’m not sure exactly what the hell I’m supposed to do instead. It seems that there is no medium armored general combat class. Engineers are all about their kits, while thieves lack staying power and don’t even have a 1200 range weapon. Meanwhile, rangers, who should fit the playing style and aesthetic we prefer, are chained at the wrist to pets. Even if we play perfectly, 30% of our DPS can simply miss because of terrible AI. Want condition removal? Too kitten ed bad, because if your pet dies (from 1-hit-kill attacks meant to be dodged), you have pretty much none. That isn’t even mentioning how stupid it is that ranger condition removal (already harder to access than on other classes) just puts the conditions on the companion which represents about a third of your damage. On thief, I can remove conditions every time I stealth using a basic trait and always with sword 2; on ranger, you need a kitten ed grandmaster trait just to periodically move them to your pet! I want an archer with medium armor and no bugged, easily outmaneuvered AI pet with traits that work. GW1 had it, GW2 does not.
It would be nice if we had a successor to GW1 rangers. It seems like they destroyed everything good about them in the change to GW2. They should have stuck to their original idea and split rangers into 2 or 3 classes.
How about we triple ranger longbow damage and make it do maximum damage at all ranges, rather than just 1000+? Does that also sound good?
So just because one build has too much evasion, we’re going to Nerf nearly every single ranger build? Logic?
You just explained the logic yourself – when “nearly every single Ranger build” includes one trait, its pretty %#&@ing obvious that trait is overpowered for its cost.
The guardian version, vigorous precision, gives permanent vigor for the same investment. Why does a heavy class with strong condition removal have the better evasive trait?
Most GW1 preparations could be kept active all of the time, whereas thief venoms are just a buff for a few hits every now and then. However, I’ve heard theives can make some nice builds around them.
I just want my GW1 ranger back. There are always going to be situations where an AI companion is a disadvantage, especially one that can’t dodge. They really should make pets optional and implement preparations.
I play thief and i never liked bow classes in any games so im not here to wine since i dont really care much…i just come here to say as thief and mesmer that Ranger class is really,really BAD.Its not focused on range (best build is axe and dagger),pets are more usefull for thiefs to use them as stealth cower then for rangers,new heal skill is just just a joke…,rangers are i think only class that has no condition clear or stability..at least when u play with bow as u should since its archer class right?And at the end i will just say that me as noob thief never lost from a ranger in WvW,i kill them more easy then i kill those npc’s that guards capture points.Anet really…game should have good balance and all classes should be equal…make range good class that mains long bow,give them some escape skill and fix those brain damaged pets.
lol even other classes get it more than some rangers here.
lol did that guy even check the wiki for info on rangers?
Nah, in the wiki you can read that rangers are goods with Bows, liars……
In wiki you can also see that we have a pet (Brown Bear) and a signet (Signet of Renewal) and a trait (EB) that all give condi cleanse, and that we have a signet (Signet of the Wild) and RAO to give us stability. all of which is viable with LB builds.
And how much of that is functional when our pet dies? They can’t dodge, so in many situations they will die no matter what. Then, we lose all of our condition removal and like 30% of our dps because of kittenty AI and the braindead class mechanic.
If you mean the Vision of regret becoming the main in domination control or energy drain build that litteraly killed people ill just answer mesmer was always the dev team favorite.
While i do agree interupt rangers in pvp where actualy usefull to keep the monkey shut down they werent much of a damaging build to actualy do REAL damage mainly because it was condition based. As rangers you had to run beast mastery or a defrent class weapon (aka ranger daggers and scythe) to deal true numbers. However in guild wars 2 most of the interupts are gone and bow rangers can no longuer spec a whole skill bar into interupt spells
Not VoR, I’m talking about the change to ‘purple elementalist’. In PvP, everyone was running E-Surge, other e-denial and wastrel’s/wastrel’s, both denying enemies their skills (disruption, sort of) and dealing tons of armor ignoring damage. Meanwhile, rangers get nerfed into one (effective, but still limiting) build because being able to interrupt and damage would be ‘overpowered’. Hell, at least interrupting takes skill…e-denial w/w mesmers just had to copy/paste the build and hit the buttons in the right order. Not to mention all the kitten I saw with E/P support/air spike builds. But no, it’s a team of rangers with a blockable, projectile-based spike that’s the real problem according to ANet.
GW 1 rangers? you mean the toucher or the scythe spammers? Most rangers in GW 1 didnt even use bow in the first place. I for myself was using spear shield with a beast mastery build (gota love seeing my bear tank duncan).
While they were limited in options, bow rangers in PvP were really good. Long range combined with good mobility, survivability, disruption, and condition spreading was useful in essentially any PvP arena you could think of. While the options were fewer in PvE, there were still some pretty good bow builds. Splinter barrage was effective, and some turret builds worked for single target damage (although they did suffer a hit when Asuran Scan was changed). I do think the nerfs across the board to bow damage in PvP was extremely stupid, especially given to what they did to Mesmers.
Pets should never have been the class mechanic in the first place. I said it right after ranger was revealed, and the past year has cemented this opinion pretty firmly in my mind. That they couldn’t be bothered to give GW1 rangers a place in this game says a lot.
I agree with Flytrap. ANet has gotten rid of most GW1 ranger options (and dervishes as well, which makes it even worse for me). They really need to make either pets that are uninvolved in combat which cannot be killed and give the ranger active and passive buffs, or else make pets optional and make preparations the class mechanic. Rangers have very little of what made them great in the first game: no strong disruption ability at medium-long range, a baffling lack of condition removal options, etc.
If they can’t fix rangers, they could at least add a new class which appeals to players who want a master of archery, but don’t want an arranged marriage with terrible AI.
No class should have a mechanic completely reliant on AI. That stance is neither silly nor unreasonable.
the ranger without the pet is like a warrior without the armour
My GW1 ranger rarely used a pet; never in PvP.
- Need a big damage buff in all weapons output that rivals warriors.
With the video evidence showing rangers soloing Lupi and other mobs faster then warriors can, and videos of damage parsed from the combat log confirming they can out DPS warriors, I question some of your comments.
The problem I see with that though, is that these max DPS situations are limited to very specific builds, with very specific weapons.
As well, I think your grossly over estimating warrior damage. Personally, I feel they need to adjust Axes, short bow, and long bow damage a bit, and great sword and MH sword are fine.
Notice, I said PvE is no problem. Lupi is PvE mob, and rangers are very good, if not perfect for PvE. Lupi is an AI that is easy to predict and rangers don’t have to take the close up damage that he and his minions can do, while the warrior must contend with being pointblank on target. I’ve soloed Lupi at least 3 or 4 times…I should’ve recorded it – if I had that set up. Kiting is the key to AI mobs.
Ranger vs Warrior: No matter the DPS difference in the beginning of the fight, once a warrior has closed the distance, and they do this very fast(as do many other classes), the ranger’s DPS means nothing. All the DPS you’ve done has hardly affected the warrior and he Hammers you down and keeps you down. Kiting doesn’t work very well on players, since they have ways to reach you and will use them at every opportunity.
On a side note:
Classes like elementalist, mesmer and necromancer should have a massive damage nerf with any and all melee weapons.
Elementalists are spell casters not fighters.
Necromancers deal in undead minions, disease and life force draining and are not fighters.
Mesmers are illusion masters and shouldn’t even be able to lift a great sword.
Some of it I agree with, but that last line was hilarious. In real life, even the most enormous two-handed swords didn’t hit more than 7 pounds or so.
I had a build back in guild wars 1 where I carried a staff and my whole skill bar was pet attacks. Why did A net not design the ranger so a strictly beast master build is possible in this game???
It wouldn’t be much use in pvp when you can’t bodyblock with collision. The enemy would walk right through the pet and kill you (the same way BM died in GW1 because you had to sacrifice ranger survival skills for pet attacks). We already have problems with keeping pets outside of enemy killzones in PvE without crippling dps so I’m not sure how well it would have worked.
The apparently had a BM in the works but scrapped it when they decided on the version of the game that we have now.
The problem is, against some enemies it’s almost impossible to get a single F2 skill off the entire fight due to the delay. Even worse, if an enemy interrupts your pet’s animation, it goes into full cooldown. That’s a very frustrating outcome when the skill should have been cast a good 5 seconds before the interruption occurred.
I had a build back in guild wars 1 where I carried a staff and my whole skill bar was pet attacks. Why did A net not design the ranger so a strictly beast master build is possible in this game???
Why didn’t they build the game so that I can use my old marksmanship/survival build without being shackled to a bug-ridden NPC? They basically alienated everyone at both ends of the spectrum.
The amount of insta-gib skills in this game turning it into a huge “run around like headless chicken and dodge, dodge, dodge”-fest is actually one of my bigger gripes with GW2, but it’s so omnipresent that you really have to either swallow it or find another game.
I’m fine with it, but my pet isn’t. WTF ANet, make the game around dodging then force me to use an NPC that can’t.
I was much more of a fan of GW1. But, of my 2 favorite classes (ranger and dervish), they got rid of 1 completely and did…things…terrible things…to the other. Also, they frequently NERF rangers, despite them being so weak in various aspects of the game, due to their failure to be trash-tier in sPvP as well. The least they could do is split it like they did in GW1…
I’ve wondered about this for a while myself. I’d love to see some rifles come in to play. or even X-bows.
Crossbows would be really out of place since we have guns. Crossbows and muskets had the same strengths and weaknesses; bows didn’t.
Doesn’t care what anyone says / posts on forums and waits for replies
It’s a unique class mechanic it’s fine. As others have said pick another class. Your pets aren’t breaking anything (apart from they may themselves be broken at times)
Alright, bottom line: STOP TELLING US TO PICK ANOTHER CLASS WHEN NO OTHER ARCHER THEMED CLASS EXISTS. I played ranger in GW1. I enjoyed ranger in GW1. Therefore, I decided to try it in GW2…huge disappointment. Pets weren’t amazing in the first game, but they weren’t nearly this bad. I still want a marksmanship/expertise/survival style character in GW2, and there isn’t one to be found.
Edit: Oh, and they got rid of dervishes as well, so my second favorite GW1 class is also missing.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Longbow
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/ShortbowThieves and Warriors can use bows.
So we have a heavy tank that shoots fireballs, or a short-ranged character that puts bombs on his arrows. Compare these to archers in real life and in GW1.
Doesn’t care what anyone says / posts on forums and waits for replies
It’s a unique class mechanic it’s fine. As others have said pick another class. Your pets aren’t breaking anything (apart from they may themselves be broken at times)
Alright, bottom line: STOP TELLING US TO PICK ANOTHER CLASS WHEN NO OTHER ARCHER THEMED CLASS EXISTS. I played ranger in GW1. I enjoyed ranger in GW1. Therefore, I decided to try it in GW2…huge disappointment. Pets weren’t amazing in the first game, but they weren’t nearly this bad. I still want a marksmanship/expertise/survival style character in GW2, and there isn’t one to be found.
Edit: Oh, and they got rid of dervishes as well, so my second favorite GW1 class is also missing.
…
The main problem you lot face, is that you think this profession is meant to be everything it isn’t. A lot of you whine the DPS, compares it to the warrior. Well HELLOOOO the warrior is the DPS profession in this game. Then the others complain about us not having as good group utility as a guardian, well FACE IT, the guardian was designed to be a great teamplayer.. Then there is all the whining about thieves, well thieves are obviously designed to either screw you over or die trying. That’s actually what they do. Either they kill you, or they run away/die trying.
…Agreed, everyone else, well u all got ur views, but looks a lot like a l2p problem lol.
Did you just not read the responses to that? Every point the OP made has been refuted. It isn’t a learn to play issue, it’s a series of problems with both the design nd implementation of the ranger profession in this game. Pets are violations of everything that ArenaNet claimed to be building this game around. Plus, many people want to be a ranger archetype, but don’t want a pet. Go ahead, tell Guild Wars 1 rangers that we wasted our time and money.
Well, it was pretty much abandoned last time I checked…
GW1 did have plenty of things that only 1 profession could do well. For example, rangers were the only ones who could bring survivability, splitting ability, long range, interrupts and heavy health degeneration all on one bar in PvP. Expertise and the high cost of bow skills mean that a secondary profession couldn’t pull it off. After the dervish rework, they were similar in many ways…my PvP dervish build (before they nerfed the kitten out of onslaught) had good healing, toughness, mobility and, best of all, strong condition and hex removal. No other martial class could do that.
The major threat to the uniqueness of professions was the necromancer. In PvE, they could do any spellcaster’s role, often better than the primary class could, due to soul reaping.
Maybe if they gave us a new class for GW1 rangers that wasn’t shackled to a pet, I would agree with you, Noobie. But anyone who likes GW1 rangers-without pets-is simply kittened, according to ArenaNet. The fact that they got rid of the dervish play style as well was just icing on the cake for me, personally.
Optional pets should have been there from the start, especially given the focus of this game. ’Let’s make a combat system all about dodging, then balance one class around an AI companion that can’t dodge!’
I tried the other classes. No GW1 ranger and no dervish, so I really don’t see where to go from here.
How long has it been since they first acknowledged the pet problems and promised improvement? This is getting frustrating.
1. No amount of adaptation is going to make pets anything but a liability in certain areas; a liability that makes rangers objectively inferior to other professions in terms of DPS. Additionally, in regards to team play, rangers got the short end of the stick in a very big way. Most of our traits and skills synergize with our pets rather than our teammates, which makes rangers less useful in group play.
2. Stop using ‘of’ in place of ‘have’. It’s extremely irritating.
my 2 copper. I have been playing Ranger since release, so much I actually rolled a second one because my Azura was unsightly and I decided I needed a better carrier for a legendary if I was gonna spend the time on a piece. instead of a mini legendary due to the Azura model scale.
Heres a video of my Ranger in WvW with the current build, running Ranged Longbow bunker style build with condition damage and survival gear. Ranger for 2440 played hrs…
I can tell you, I am fully happy with the ranger AS IS. Pet is a lil bumbly, but saved my kitten in the 2v1 in this vid.
WvW is a problem, but the far bigger problem is in high end PvE. They love to put in new content that forces you to have good situational awareness (which pets don’t), good positioning (which pets don’t), and well-timed blocking and dodging (see a pattern yet?). Hell, even in WvW, 2v1 was never the problem. Rangers do pretty well on their own. The problem is, their team play is kitten and in large groups pets die almost instantly (and then you’re down to 70% of your DPS, on a class with poor AoE performance in the best of situations).
Bottom line: if you want to claim that rangers are fine, at least address the areas in which they’re perceived as weak.
ChillyChinaman – Mostly likely you are right about using an existing trap, though given the mechanic exists for thief, it could be easily done I think if they wanted to.
- Introduce an advanced pet control system so people who take rangers seriously (I’m sure there is at least one) can have control over our forced mechanic.
Regarding things, ANet is on record saying they do not want to give rangers direct control over the Pet abilities as they feel it would be too difficult for people to manage. A statement I find absolutely crazy, but it is their official position.
Thanks for posting your 5 – hope we get more! ANet may not read this forum, but it is still worth we ourselves discussing it.
I’m still hoping for non-combat, untargetable/invulnerable pets that give passive and active buffs. After all, many areas are decidedly unfriendly toward minions and companions of any type, and it seems quite unbalanced that the only profession forced into a disadvantage from this is the ranger.
They’ve been admitting that rangers are the most in need of fixing for at least 9 months now. It looks to me like they might be unwilling to do what it takes to fix things (more or less complete overhaul of the pet system), but don’t want to admit that. I can understand if they don’t want to talk to the angry playerbase on this forum…but with the state they’ve left the ranger in, it is their job to do so.
They’ve promised major improvements for months now, and have yet to deliver. Now they’re censoring threads which criticize their abysmal performance in regards to fixing rangers. Censoring justified criticism is bad, but doing so without even talking to the playerbase about their concerns is just cowardly.
To any developer/ArenaNet employee who reads this: try open communication with the ranger community. Ignore the idiots who just want to attack, and try to hold civil conversations with those of us who want to be polite, yet feel more and more alienated and lied to with each passing month.
The pet system is a violation of everything you told us this game would be about. In a combat system based around dodging, blocking, and positioning, pets are the antithesis of these things. In a game where each class is supposed to be capable of performing any role, pets prevent rangers from being competitive team players and power DPS characters…the only roles that really matter in high end PVE. In a game meant to revolve around player skill rather than luck, we are forced to rely on AI that may or may not use its skills efficiently. You may well recommend that I try a different profession, but I already have; my favorites in the first Guild Wars were ranger and dervish and, in Guild Wars 2, both are dead.
Ranger specific:
-optional pets
—There are situations in which pets excel, and those in which they are useless…
-pet variety and personalization
—I should say viable pet variety. Try using a cat in the wrong place, and weep.
—Pets felt like companions, not tools to be used and replaced.
-functional pets
—How often did pets miss a target completely? Die in one shot from the environment?
Now, on to the rest of the game.
-Dervish
—Currently, we have no medium armored spellcaster
—Also, we lack a medium armor class suitable for drawn out melee combat sans pet
—Plus, scythes are an enormous part of Guild Wars culture now
—My Dhuum’s Soul Reaper is collecting dust and cobwebs!
-Ritualist
—Not my best class, but they chained up angry souls to use as minions. Awesome.
-PvE enemies who don’t have heavy regen when you shoot them from elevation
-Dyable weapons
-A better targeting system
Everytime I do a puzzle and get stuck in tight places with an that awful camera view, I ask this question. Why? Why? Why?
I am not asking for a “functional” 1st Person View like that in the upcoming Elder Scroll Online. I simply want a 1st Person View to explore and navigate tight spots when exploring the world and doing puzzles.
Is there any reason why ArenaNet would not give us this most simple yet most useful feature that requires minimum effort of their part? Do they simply enjoy torturing us…. torturing me?
That’s a pretty hefty claim for something that’s been asked for since first beta. I’d wager it’s a bit more difficult than you’d think.
People are indeed waiting for it but please don’t say such silly things. It makes you look rather uninformed. It’s probably on the list of Quality of Life improvements that are steadily getting into the game now.
They had it in Guild Wars 1, where it served no purpose whatsoever. Now, when it would actually be useful, they leave it out. What the hell?
Bump. I would greatly appreciate it if Arena Net gave some indication that they care about this issue…
You failed to respond to a single point that I made. How does the F2 cooldown matter when they don’t use the skill immediately on activation; don’t (or rather, can’t) avoid the instant-death AoEs, traps, and attacks; and miss any target that isn’t standing completely still? More and more content is death to anyone who doesn’t dodge or position perfectly. Pets can’t do either. Is this not a major problem to you?
Edit: also, what about the people who love archery, but don’t want an AI companion? Are you (or Arena Net) going to tell them that they’ve wasted their time and money?
And by the way, spirits suck everywhere but sPvP, in my experience. Unlike banners, they give a chance of a boost rather than a reliable bonus, and unlike banners they can be destroyed easily by the AoE fields that inhabit dungeons and similar difficult areas.
(edited by Unholy Pillager.3791)
Even if we didn’t have pets, Power would still be subpar on the Ranger like it is most classes who don’t have Stealth or some Obscene Mechanic.
I meant that power seems to give a poor boost to ranger damage compared to other professions’ power-based builds, presumably because ~30% of our damage comes from the pet. Therefore, if we could opt not to use pets, they could allow us the normal boost from power when we go without pets.
Personally, I would like to see new, untargetable and invunerable pets with no damage output (just passive and active buffs). They would all give a damage boost to compensate for the lack of pet attacks, but the type of pet would determine the other effects, such as:
weasel – increased precision and endurance regeneration, F2 gives bonus damage and automatically crits
viper – condition damage and health regeneration, F2 gives next attack poison and cripple
badger – condition damage and toughness, F2 gives next attack bleeding
etc.
This would allow us to avoid using combat pets in situations which they are clearly incapable of handling.
I think they meant that spirit health was doubled.
They should have had wolverines in from the beginning…where the hell are they?
Of course. The problem is that, when it comes to team play, rangers have the short straw, and they don’t DPS nearly well enough to make up for that (power is kitten because of pets, after all).
Begging for newer, more powerful weapons…I’m guessing you aren’t a fan of Guild Wars 1?
I don’t care how they do it, but we need a way to avoid using pets that can be killed. The ANet team is leaning toward content that doesn’t work well with AI companions of any kind (possible exception: short-lived, expendable ones). Let me just respond to this post to make my point:
I know everyone wants a drastic overhaul.. But I can’t really think of one where I still feel like the ranger which I have been playing since gw1, which for me is the most important thing
Also..
+1
The pet mechanic makes the Ranger the worst overall class in the game. The Ranger’s pet excels in only two areas: small scale pvp and overworld pve, so I guess it’s fine if those are the only things you play. However, they keel over in dungeons, wvw zergs, and any difficult content that requires dodging.(1)They are perfectly fine in dungeons.. Adding damage/boons
(2)WVWzergs.. Right, it’s the same as thief/Mesmer. We are not the only profession that doesn’t add a lot inside a Zerg, don’t blame the pet for that(3)The part about the crucial dodging part is the only thing we can’t protect our pets from, aside from swapping to a devourer for instance. Still the downtime of the pet is not that high, just don’t swap if you know the second pet is going to die right away. And besides.. Such fights won’t last trough the whole process wether it being an event or dungeon. (Unless your fighting a giant.. Then you are forced to use a foul, spitting spider or something)
So basically.. You want to remove pets just because you have to swap to a ranged pet for one type of mob/mechanic
1. Not exactly. They are incapable of avoiding traps and sometimes aggro enemies at inconvenient times. Pets don’t position themselves as efficiently as human players do, so rangers have a distinct disadvantage in situations where positioning is crucial. Things like Aetherblade Retreat punish pet users, and only rangers are forced to use pets.
2. I’ll admit I don’t know too much about WvW; however, I do know that fighting without a pet is a significant (>25%) penalty to damage, as well as a penalty to support and cc. I honestly doubt that thieves and mesmers suffer that much in zergs.
3. There are ranged skills that can target pets and deal significant damage to them, aren’t there? I’ve had spiders and devourers die on me because they can’t dodge. I’ve had them trip traps because they apparently aren’t even aware of such things. Melee pets have even more problems. They rarely hit moving targets, they use their skills with abysmal timing, they take several seconds to respond to an F2 command, and you can’t call them back out of an AoE if you melee (of course, they often don’t respond quickly enough anyway), among other things. They’re just so…clumsy.
Besides, pets should be close companions in whom you’ve invested time and care…right now I feel a far closer connection to my longbow. I change it out less often, and it doesn’t forget its name when I do. They made pets seem extremely impersonal, even expendable. Oh, it’s a giant we’re fighting? Better put river drake and jaguar back in their crates and get out jungle spider and lashtail devourer. I hate it when people say ‘you have to use the right tool for the job’ in regards to ranger pets. A ranger’s pet is supposed to be a close, trusted friend and companion; not a tool to be used and returned to storage.
The design is absolutely at fault. The entire combat system of this game, from the ground up, emphasizes that dodging and blocking are, and will always be, far more important than toughness and healing. Positioning and movement are also extremely important. Despite this, pets have no dodging or blocking, their positioning is abysmal (hell, even GW1 AI, for all its faults, knew how to get out of AoE fields!), and they can’t hit moving targets. How can you possibly deny any of this with a straight face? And how can you muster the audacity to call someone else stupid when your grammar isn’t worthy of a sixth grader’s writing assignment?
You make the claim that rangers aren’t supposed to DPS. Did you forget what Arena Net has said, repeatedly, about class roles? Their stance is that, ideally, every class should be capable of performing any role if built for it. Thieves, if built right, can do strong team healing and AoE stealth. Elementalists can go burst damage…or they can stack boons and be extremely hard to kill…or they can go for healing and support. The problem is that rangers don’t have the team-based traits and skills that other classes have. Most of our traits affect our pets rather than allies. Most of our finishers are projectiles, which aren’t team-friendly. We have fewer reliable combo fields than other professions, and the ones we do have tend to have longer recharge times. And, on top of all of this, pets are nearly impossible to keep alive in many areas. We have less group support and interaction, and are often forced to fight in the tougher areas with a 30% damage penalty.
While Legolas isn’t exactly my dream character type, it is for many people. As Guild Wars 2 stands now, those people are being told that they have no place in this game. I’m being told that my Guild Wars 1 ranger has no successor in this game.
Mustelidae. The entire family is absent for no apparent reason.
I’m almost certain that Anet plans on expanding the current classes weapon and skill choices rather than adding new classes.
I can’t really even think of a class that isn’t close to the eight already in the game.
I just gave 2…
There are no classes they could add. They have all the necessary archetypes in the game. Adding any more classes would just be redundant and cause nothing but balance disparity. Any abilities the developers designs in the future will fit for at least one of the classes that are already in the game.
If anything, ArenaNet should design new weapon types and class skills that fill up holes and roles currently lacking.
They don’t have a purely martial class in light or medium armor. The only real archer is stuck with an AI companion that is less than worthless in many areas. There is no medium armored spellcaster. I could probably think of more, but those are the obvious ones to me.
I would like to see the dervish return as a medium-armored spellcaster that can sacrifice boons for other advantages: damage spikes, fields, heal spikes, etc. That would be more like the dervish I remember.
I would also like to see an archer archetype that isn’t shackled to a pet. I wouldn’t mind pets so much if they actually worked properly, but they don’t; in fact, their lack of intelligent positioning and inability to dodge are gaping holes in the entire foundation of the GW2 ranger profession.