Guild Wars 2

@Sube: I think that would break it the other way around and not solve it. From all the MMO’s I’ve played you could kill a ranger/hunter’s pet reducing the damage taken by the class as a whole.

The ranger was designed as a two part profession, where when fighting the ranger you have to not only worry about him but worry about his pet too. This is pretty evident with how most of our skills have combinations with the pet, where we do an attack and our pet does an attack. In theory this is pretty awesome, but it’s hindered by the fact that our pet is broken.

What I don’t mind seeing is a variation (actually quite similar to what you want), where pets are relegated to support/CC. Reduce the normal damage done by pets by lets say 90% and transfer that damage to the ranger while the pet is alive. For those that want the beastmaster playstyle with the pet doing most of the damage they could have a trait in the beastmastery line to split the damage done between both the ranger and the pet (50:50 or even more tilting towards the pet). This would require the pet to function in a very different way, meaning the F# buttons will need to change. Let me explain:

Aggressive/Defensive/Passive Toggle: Change the function to aggressive will target and attack who we are attacking, defensive will only attack if we are attacked, passive doesn’t attack at all.

F1: Changed from ordering the pet to attack target to using a Offensive skill
F2: Keep it as is but keep it to a Utility skill
F3: Change it to order the pet to use a Defensive skill
F4: Keep it as it is to switch between pets

The idea from this change is to give more direct power to the ranger to not rely on having our damage decided by AI while moving the pet into the CC/Buff/Debuffer role. This way we still retain pets, we get to control more of their skills without needing to add more F# buttons and it forces our opponents to think between taking the time to kill our pets to stop our CC/Support or to go straight for us and dealing with the CC and the Support our pet will bring with it. Also, it would be nice if pets defenses could get buffed with this. In the end invulnerability will not solve the issue nor will removing pets’ damage totally solve it either.

Another idea I had was that to make targeting someone (attacking in unison) cause a ranger only buff (focused target) causing us to deal more damage while the the pet dealing reduced damage but taking less damage itself.

The whole gear isn’t there, also if you’re gonna go for a spirit build then focus more around the spirits imo. Like Norjena said, in PvE unless you’re soloing around LB isn’t good so be sure to have another set.

Use the get quick link button at the bottom and link that link that you get here. The link you gave us isn’t working.

Bambula.3649:

Liyu.8591:

1. Don’t try out sword in fractals because the mechanics are clunky; do it somewhere else where dying won’t matter.

Wtf !?
I’ve done 79 and now 49 no problem..so you should practice more

I’m pretty sure he was referring to the OP about investing in a sword/warhorn. Investing in a set is good, something I myself still haven’t done but the sword needs practice if you haven’t used it much before (which shouldn’t be practiced with in FotM).

As far as I understand, there are 2 main issues with pets:

1- The pets not landing attacks which is a game-play mechanic issue.
2- The pets lag when using the f2 skill which is due to the AI.

First issue, is that pet attacks are sort of cast while not moving which means when the pet gets in range it’ll start casting but the target moves out of range making it miss. Having the attacks lunge will theoretically solve our problems, but like people were saying it’ll be extremely OP. I honestly don’t agree with that because from the very start out pets should be landing their attacks unless other players make the effort to dodge/evade/LoS them. If having our pets connect their attacks becomes an issue you can just balance the damage their attacks cause. Another solution would be to increase the attack cast time on pet attacks which would make it harder to evade but not impossible, but I’m sure they thought of that solution and it probably didn’t work.

The AI is the tricky part since our pets are basically NPC mobs that we have control over their F2 skill. What happens is that when you give your pet an action it first has to check with its queue of actions on the server and then allocate the action you want done. How this affects the F2 skill is that it checks for actions first on the server (causing some lag on the pet side) and then allocating the skill in the soonest possible spot in the queue (which is usually after wtv action its currently doing, causing more lag). This ends up with your pet just standing around waiting for the a response from the server (server gets the action and then reorders the queue then sends response to pet). A theoretical solution to this (I’m no programmer but I did some programming in college) would be having the F2 skill clear the queue of actions the pet does on the server and add the F2 skill at the start. Technically speaking here, clearing the queue should get rid of most of the lag at least and if it backfires then your pet might lag AFTER it gets the F2 skill off.

Feel free to correct me on my knowledge on how the pet AI works if I’m wrong, but that’s what I understood during the Dec 10th discussion.

Lexandro.1456:

Xukavi.4320:

Lexandro.1456:

Well we can at least agree that the channelling time needs reducing. Though on your point of a combo field, would it not be best to add a combo field to barrage instead? I mean since thats AoE a combo field would make sense right?

What kind of combo field would make sense being caused by arrows falling from the sky?

How about dark field? Its been said before in literature and history that a hail of arrows can darken the sky. Simply darken the AoE zone lighting for the barrage and voila!

Or what about a lightning field? Its a rarely used field (only ele). All it would take is a minor animation addition of a cloud or something with jazzy arrows falling and it would fit thematically.

Both are still facets of nature, for which the ranger is supposed to be its “champion” if you will.

Xukavi.4320:

Also, how can you thematically justify shooting arrows in succession with the last one exploding? I just don’t think it fits.

Me either which is why I did not suggest it nor support it when proposed. I don’t think it fits at all with a longbow user.

Well for the dark field, I get where you’re coming from. I always felt that dark fields were more associated with death and necromancy thought. Lightning field is an interesting idea I’ll give you that.

How about:

Add cripple to Rapid Fire and shorten the channel time to 3-3.5 seconds
Add an immobilize to the Point Blank Shot.
I know it’s supposed to be the Power Weapon for the Ranger but having those will help us keep our enemies at range.

Simplexity.1742:

Tribio.8531:

Trust me, every thread that I saw complaining about rangers made me wanna level mine up more, just to show that rangers aren’t useless/crap/low-DPS/… (pick some).

Ryan.9387:

Ranger is alright. If you ever want to pvp with it be ready to have to carry 1v1 fights all day. Allies will assume you will cap every side point while they mindlessly zerg mid.

In WvW you will do alright roaming, but in zergs you can either be meat in the zerg or you can sacrifice all damage to bring control skills.

PvE just go 100% dps with longbow, greatsword, sword, axe, and warhorn. They will cover you for every dungeon and boss you will fight. Groups should be chill with you if you bring drake, frost spirit, and spotter.

well I’ve always liked the ranger, I actually was leveling a ranger on the 3 day head start before the game fully released but my friend rolled a ranger too so i decided to just roll another class to give some diversity in our lil group lol.

but as far as pvp will come after I get geared in exotics or rare gear which will be easy anyways. but as far as those pets? Frost spirit idk what that even is lmao or a spotter. I have a drake already but its one from the charr starting place or w/e. I do have pretty much every weapon set in my bags just to level the skils up anyways. and in case i get bored playing with certain weapon sets.

Forst Spirit is a utility skill that grants us a chance on attacks to deal extra dmg. Spotter is a trait in Master Trait (2nd major trait) in the Marksmanship line that gives nearby allies 150 bonus precision during combat.

Durzlla.6295:

Idk what you’re talking about with pew pew builds not working well, my current tPvP build is a roaming pew pew build that utilizes CC and evasiveness as its defenses instead of tankyness…

Well, to be honest that part was more from a WvW standpoint since I don’t sPvP much. As far as I hear or know, in sPvP, bunker/condi builds are king.

Lexandro.1456:

Well we can at least agree that the channelling time needs reducing. Though on your point of a combo field, would it not be best to add a combo field to barrage instead? I mean since thats AoE a combo field would make sense right?

What kind of combo field would make sense being caused by arrows falling from the sky?

Also, how can you thematically justify shooting arrows in succession with the last one exploding? I just don’t think it fits.

Power all the way, leveling with a power build is a breeze. I’d recommend LB/GS or SB/GS since I found GS to have saved my life quite the few times especially against champions. That evade on the auto attack chain is really good.

For levelling just go full zerker stats and 30/30/ wtv else you want. That’s how I leveled up. You can definitely use Longbo/Shortbow setup no problem all the way to 80. I ran Longbow/Great sword most of my levels unless I came across a shortbow that was better than my longbow. Greatsword is really good for that evade on auto attack, I managed to solo a champion krait from a meta event using it. It helps in those tough situations where you pulled too much aggro. Def. most important thing is learning to control your pet and keeping it alive. Final advice though, if you stick with LB/SB combination know that at lvl 80 its not that viable of a set up.

I haven’t tested much sPvP out myself but I can tell you that as you’ve stated realizing pew pew builds don’t float well in Tyria is a slap to the face. Try focusing more on being tanky with some dmg, this often comes down to playing tanky/condition dmg builds. I’m currently theorycrafting a tanky/BM build (which is quite standard BM i guess). It’s based on Power + Regen from shouts.

Unlike other classes we can’t really go full zerker and survive well enough.

The pet not hitting moving targets and being slow on f2 skill activation is not a bug per say. It’s a problem with the AI itself how it was implemented.

Aeri.5738:

what is a cmc? (15 stupid characters)

+1

Thanks apparently searching for pvp mystery coffers doesn’t count towards that

Sorry if this was asked somewhere else but I searched and nothing came up. What can you get out of the PvP Mystery Coffer?

Zone.1275:

Xukavi.4320:

I wouldn’t mind Living Story if they can solve two things:

Somehow make it relevant to the personal story.
Make the content permanent or at least accessible in one way or another.

The idea of doing the dungeons through the fractals was a good start.

Actually inside the Tower of Nightmares you had to fight a character based on your faction choice in the Personal Story in one of the instances, if I remember correctly.

That’s pretty awesome, but that’s like one out of the whole living story. More of that would be nice. Also what I generally meant was how does the Living Story continue on the end of Zhaitan and all that. As far as we knew, the upgraded Tequatil was gonna be explained according to the devs. So much stuff has happened with little to no link at all to what we had in the personal story.

I wouldn’t mind Living Story if they can solve two things:

Somehow make it relevant to the personal story.
Make the content permanent or at least accessible in one way or another.

The idea of doing the dungeons through the fractals was a good start.

Wallace MacBix.2089:

Xukavi.4320:

Am I the only one that didn’t quite understand the “feature only release” part? As far as I understood it means bundled content but its too general to understand what kinda content. I’m also hoping for new utilities, elites, traits and HOPEFULLY swappable weapon skills.

Realistically I assume it means the few things that didn’t make it into this year:

Craftable precursors
New legendary weapons/items

I hope gameplay wise it means more skills and traits, and yes I’m with you on swappable weapon skills. Content wise, it could be the start of the next “big” thing: another dragon, new zones, Cantha or Elona, etc. Possibly also the start of WvW season 2.

They did say they were gonna add more skills to the game. I hope they meant more than just healing skills, especially since some of them are really lackluster. I honestly haven’t been following the LS arc at all other than reading about it. It never really caught my attention. I do hope that it ends with Scarlet either waking up a new dragon or using the knowledge she found to reveal the 6th dragon. Who knows maybe even Bubbles will be finally revealed.

Am I the only one that didn’t quite understand the “feature only release” part? As far as I understood it means bundled content but its too general to understand what kinda content. I’m also hoping for new utilities, elites, traits and HOPEFULLY swappable weapon skills.

I’d say rename it to Power Shot (fits the idea more imo) and make it double the normal projectile speed. This could be our “burst” skill per say for long bow, provided that the CD isn’t too long. I honestly don’t like the idea of having a charge time on it but I get the idea behind needing it.

Doesn’t LR make you evade in the opposite direction of your target? In the case you were feared away from him and you used LR it would technically make you evade in the direction you were running.

felixdacat.3804:

Just got around to watching the PvP livestream from a couple days ago and something stood out to me. When discussing the engineer’s new heal, A.E.D., they stated that falling damage would still kill the engineer if A.E.D. is active. So there’s a difference between falling damage and combat damage. Now, if falling damage won’t trigger an engineer’s A.E.D., why must falling damage make my pet come out from stow?

Or maybe they just made it so that falling damage deliberately doesn’t trigger the skill?

Boomstin.3460:

Xukavi.4320:

They already came out and admitted that the pet is broken and not working as intended. Now they either need to fix it (which they stated would cause a total overhaul of AI in general which they’re avoiding) or do something about the profession mechanic.

Yeha but they also admitted that they don’t care enough to fix the pets since it would take some effort/work. Rather just tinker around and randomly nerf and buff things in a fashion that makes no sense.

Well, of course. Which is in other words what I said between brackets. Causes to much hassle to fix so they’re avoiding it.

They already came out and admitted that the pet is broken and not working as intended. Now they either need to fix it (which they stated would cause a total overhaul of AI in general which they’re avoiding) or do something about the profession mechanic.

@runeblade: I’m not arguing that it should, I’m stating that that’s how it works atm. Imo it’s a flaw in the design of the game and it shouldn’t work that way.

@Soilder: Sure PvE is faceroll easy but with a game that supposedly emphasizes on mobility and action gameplay, having something like that doesn’t really bode well. I’d rather they just reduce the activation time of their skills so we’d have to be quick to try and dodge the skills.

The problem is that PvE mobs and pet AI are one and the same. For example, your suggestion on having cone skills follow players. Imagine if PvE mobs followed you with those cone skills, there wouldn’t be any way to avoid dmg (other than a dodge or a block) thru mobility. Since pet’s AI is shared with PvE mobs’s AI they’d have to split or do an overhaul with with how the AI works which is the problem in the first place that the devs have admitted to having. It’ll take too much time and work so they’re trying to band aid the problem

To make it simpler to understand, having a pet is exactly like having a PvE mob on your side. They act and think the same way as PvE mobs. When they designed the pets they basically took the PvE equivalent of pets and gave you some commands to use their skill and to have them attack or go back.

JonPeters.5630:

As I stated, this change is a lot about low hanging fruit. The problem with ranger is things that are good we don’t want to overpower and the things that are not as good are difficult to change. For example:

• Skirmish and Wilderness line could probably swap half of their traits.
• Beastmastery has basically one generic trait per tier and just needs to be more generalized.
• both primary ranged weapons are a mix of single target and AoE.
• Both marksmanship and skirmish lines lack traits to enable power rangers.

Despite those problems rangers have some great builds in PvE, PvP, and WvW. The core problem is diversity but it just so happens that rangers are not setup in a way that makes it easy to improve that diversity problem.

Too much typing for the bus, I’ll try and discuss more when I’m in.

Jon

P.S. I tried some stuff on MH sword but it was a marginal improvement at best. I’ll ping some programmers today about one other way we might handle it, but don’t hold your breath.

That was the whole reply that had anything to do with his update on the sword idea

@Shirk: Wise words, thanks! The reason i first got demotivated to keep playing ranger was how power builds were hard to work out in WvW coupled with using a longbow (which is my fav weapon). Longbow is pretty lackluster since almost every class has a way to gap close onto you and if they don’t (necros) they’ll just condi you to death with our subpar condi cleansing. I never liked the idea of a tanky ranger but after some time I got my head around it, but I still refuse playing pure condition specs. I did the same thing you did about the thief only I actually fully lvled mine to 80 and then went back to playing ranger and lvling other chars. Only way to beat a profession is to know what that profession can throw at you.

I’d suggest the same, make a new ranger just to get the hints done. I had the same issue with mesmer shatter skill hints not popping on my first try as a mesmer. I made a new one and it popped.

@Felix: I hadn’t though of an alternative for Sentinel but good call on the Dire armor. I technically should already be above 1k Condi Dmg thru the sigil alone at 25 stacks. But in the case of using that for food I switched to sigil of bloodlust instead. I liked the % bonuses on exuberence but I did think of runes of traveler for the speed (didn’t know of runes of speed). I think vitality is good, my aim was to have around a 24k-25k health pool with around 1600-1700 toughness.

About the Empathic Bond, I honestly stopped playing my ranger when the quickness nerf with the shortbow hit us. So I dunno how effective quickness can be and I’ve never actually tried Empathic Bond so i’m not sure on it’s effectiveness. Alternatives on my mind for quickness were SotW and SoR but I knew I didn’t have enough healing power to make SotW to make worth bringing, especially since there’s no SoB from marks traits to use the active on it. I wanted to have QZ in there in case I wanted “some” burst with either weapon. I’ll give it a go and if I find that I need better condition survival I’ll def run with SoR.

I just read in a diff thread, it’s confirmed that for now they won’t be available in the fractals. Makes me sad as I really want to make some sentinel’s gear.

To my understanding the sentinel gear recipe (gossamer and orichalcum) was a drop reward for the molten alliance dungeon. It’s no longer available to get in any way. I was wondering if bringing back the molten alliance dungeon means they’ll be dropping again?

What about moving the vulnerability onto GS1 3rd AA and adding weakness to maul. Additional effect could be if maul hits from behind, remove some conditions off you. I’d suggest adding a kd on maul instead but I dunno how unbalanced that would be.

Tribio.8531:

Xukavi.4320:

Edit: So I watched the video, I don’t understand how it proves that the glass cannon LB ranger is viable as a roamer in WvW. I know that it works wonders PvE wise and on camps and guards, but my problem was with playing it against other players in WvW.

True, it isn’t showing much of fights against other players (just wasn’t so lucky to encounter any opposition at that moment), but the main activity of a roamer (solo/small group) is flipping camps/towers and take out some stragglers that come to defend..

I’ll have to keep my video capturing software running a bit more this weekend, hoping I’ll encounter some nice fights when roaming..

Well of course it is, apologies for not being clear. I know that roaming (solo or small group) is about taking the little but important things around the map (sentries, supply camps, neutral camps). But since I tend to either roam solo or duo with a warrior (who is terrabad and it ends up being solo anyways in fights) I was talking more about player fight encounters.

@Felix: I know why they’re not advised. I’ve tried it multiple times since that was what I was using to level up to 80 and as much as there was great damage, I’d barely survive to output it. I theorycrafted with Sentinel in mind but like you said it’s pretty expensive, especially since I wasn’t around during F&F to get the recipes so I have no way to craft them myself even if it was possible to do so now. So now I’ll have to look for an alternative. I’m thinking maybe Soldier gear cold work since Knight doesn’t offer vitality which I want. For stats I want high vitality with good toughness and a mix between power and condi dmg. I know it sounds like I want everything we have. One thing I don’t take into consideration is food though. Thanks for the reply.

So I watched the video, I don’t understand how it shows GC ranger LB viability in WvW against other players. I know it works wonders in camps and on guards.

@Trejon: I’m currently theorycrafting a sort of Hybrid/Tanky build to go I’ll hit the experimenting soon but the problem is gold for gear lol.

@Tribio: tyvm for the video, sadly I’m at work and won’t able to watch it till later tonight once I get to watching it I’ll glady discuss it with you.

Here’s the build: http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQNAV8YjAVN2VWSWoWCiVBB1ewp+jJWB+7UgK/XwjK-jkCB4MCy0CQ0HAkIw5cLjNTKQV1FRjVvATXiIq2joIa1A-w

Comments are appreciated.

Edit: So I watched the video, I don’t understand how it proves that the glass cannon LB ranger is viable as a roamer in WvW. I know that it works wonders PvE wise and on camps and guards, but my problem was with playing it against other players in WvW.

@felix: Thanks I’ll def look up the Sentinel gear recipe on the TP. I’ve been wanting to mess around with builds using that gear for a while but last I checked which was a few months back before Celestial was introduced the armor pieces were going for a hefy price. I’ve theory crafted before but that was like at the start of GW2’s lifetime and did have a tanky BM build before I heard anyone running it but I guess I didn’t follow up on tweaking it. I remember I was giving thieves a run for their lives tho, but that was in sPvP. When it comes to tweaking numbers on a build editor, usually without food where should numbers be around? Like in a power build power should be usually 2k+? What about condition dmg in a Condition build or a hybrid? Or do you just try a build and get the feel if you need more condition dmg or power?

@Ariet: My problem was usually that I’m a bit of an altholic but I always come back to Rangers in the end. I did make a thief and get him to 80 to get an idea of how the gameplay is but once I hit 80 I just didn’t feel it, so back to Ranger. I’m also with you that listening to advise shouldn’t mean blindly following it. In the end we’re all diff players with diff skills and diff play styles.

@kiwi: I’ve been running a glass cannon power Ranger for nearly all of my lifetime on GW2 and I hit the point where glass just doesn’t cut it. At least not with a GS/LB weaponset. Unless it’s zerging which is just totally a diff story but in roaming, you’re basically asking to be killed. Thanks a lot for listing those, been trying to find someone who’s good to watch for a while but I barely see any streamers on twitch and didn’t know names to check on youtube.

Ok, so you might as well consider this pretty noobish of me to ask but how exactly do you learn to play the profession better. Ranger was my main and first profession to 80 and I had tons of fun but it eventually felt lackluster especially in WvW. Do you guys experiment a lot with diff builds? Do you try builds out in sPvP first or just make new gear and try out new stuff. Also a not so relative question how can you get your hands on Sentinel Gear if you weren’t around during the LS that allowed you to make it. Much help would be great especially since I’ve had no luck with finding any streamers for rangers and most vids are pretty outdated.

Sube Dai.8496:

Soilder.3607:

Xukavi.4320:

Raven.9603:

Rangers got run over by a bus of bad mechanics and broke every bone in their bodies.

Devs make a post asking for ideas to bandaid the problem because sadly, rangers dont have insurance… but players waste the last 10 pages talking about fixing our bones with experimental surgery so that one day we can walk again like its actually gonna get done.

(stop asking for spinal surgery and hip replacements, lets just stick to getting some sweet stickers for our wheelchair)

So by that logic we should give up on having a good working class mechanic and just try to buff other parts of the ranger?

“Summoned creature AI is a different can of worms that we aren’t opening for the same reason. Pets that delay F2 use isn’t some wait script we put into their skills it has to do with core AI behavior shared by all pets and creatures and how they decide tasks. Rewriting that has the risks of breaking millions of unknown things so we have up until now band aided the solution. It is something that needs addressing but won’t be addressed until we can kitten how and when we will test it.”

That is an actual post from JonPeters in this very thread confirming that pets are somewhat broken and highly unlikely to be fixed.

The most logical thing to do at this point is to buff things that are actually in control of the ranger.

They could take the F2 off the pet and make it a ranger skill, so that it activates instantly. IE, ranger applies stealth to the jaguar. Or ranger clears two conditions when bear is equipped. The pets should not have to cast them at all.

If I understood the problem with f2 skills correctly, having the ranger use the skill either won’t work or it won’t fix the solution. Let me explain:

1- If the ranger is the one casting the skill then the ranger will have the animation which also means I need to cancel any skills I’m currently using to cast my pet’s skill.
2- Pet animations are there so that other players can visually see when to be able to dodge or evade their attacks. This is an action oriented game after all.
3- The core problem lies with pets needing an animation for the above reason which in combination with using AA’s and skills gets queued and ends up taking time which leads to the delay. As long as the pet does an animation it will get queued which will cause delay in activation bec of being queued with other actions
4- If we are to say that the player will apply the debuff itself it can lead to unsync between the skill being shown by the pet and you applying it.
5- The only solution I can think of in this case is to have pets not do the skill or animation (which is useless imo) and have the ranger do it all but that would lead to you having to stop using any skills to use your pet skill (sounds awkward don’t it?)

Benjamin.8237:

Xukavi.4320:

Multiple pets out at the same time is not possible.

Hyena f2

Anyway, ranger is an excellent dueling class, don’t know where you heard otherwise. By the sounds of it is a boring bunker build which sadly is one of our few effective builds. Am I the only ranger who hates how our good builds are overly passive?

You’re right that f2 skill completely slipped my mind. Like i said I haven’t been on my ranger in ages. I guess the OP’s description felt more like hounds of balthazar than the Hyena f2

I’d like to edit a change I suggested about the great sword skills.

1. Replace evade on GS1 3rd strike with applying weakness
2. Maul removes x conditions from you on hit. If attack lands from target’s side or back, rends x boons off target
3. Swoop now has evade frames for the duration of the leap.
4. Stay as is
5. Stay as is

This would shift the Great Sword to the preferred defensive weapon as it was meant to be.

Multiple pets out at the same time is not possible. Possibly what you are referring to is the human elite skill hounds of balthazar. That would technically make it look like you summoned 3 dogs. I can’t help with the build honestly since I barely ever play my ranger anymore but I’d wager some tanky regen build.

CETheLucid.3964:

\http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Longbow
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shortbow

Thieves 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.[/quote]

Warrior:
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Dual_Shot
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dual_Shot
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Arcing_Shot
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Arcing_Arrow
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Pin_Down
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Pin_Down

Thief:
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Ignite_Arrows
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cluster_Bomb
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Choking_Gas
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Choking_Gas
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Tripwire
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Tripwire
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Apply_Poison
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Spider_Venom

Compares pretty well actually. You can build a very powerful marksman out of warrior and a preparations n’ traps oriented thief.

If you hate the pet mechanic so much, quit playing the ranger class.[/quote]

Ok, I might not have experience with warriors or bows on a warrior so I can’t comment on it. As for the Thief, I’m sorry but any thief will tell you that shortbow is not a dps weapon it’s used for either utility and mobility or stacking might with the arguably easiest spammable blast finisher. Closest to DPS would be tagging in zergs. Shortbow on Thief is by far no where close to being a marksman.

Serraphin Storm.2369:

Taking pets off the ranger would remove a lot of utility that the pets bring. Playing rangers simply as a archer is a bad idea. We now that range damage is inferior to melee. Some of you complain about the dps of the ranger yet you are willing to confine yourself to utilizing low dps weapon sets. Dps is not the measure of all things.

Pets account for 40% (according to what people are saying) of the Ranger profession’s total damage. If they ever go with removing the pets as a class mechanic by either replacing it with something else or providing an alternative solution, it would only make sense that in return they would have to transfer the damage provided by the pet into the ranger himself. That would technically render your point invalid as weapon sets will need to get buffed overall to account for the lost pet damage (damage transfer to ranger). I won’t even bring up Utility skill tweeks cuz that’s assuming a new mechanic will replace the pet utilities.

Raven.9603:

Xukavi.4320:

So by that logic we should give up on having a good working class mechanic and just try to buff other parts of the ranger?

By that logic we should recognize that the amount of times we are asked to give ideas for low hanging fruit are few and far between, and not squander them on pipe dreams.

every other game can make pets hit moving targets and make them survive parties, large scale fights and raids. if anet was good enough to do that they wouldve already, and that should re-emphasize the importance of sticking to ideas they can actually handle.

(i know, low blow anet, but your games been out for a year and pets are about as reliable as the sex drive of a 80 year old couple).

Which is why I’m saying change the class mechanic. It’s more work, yes, but at least it’s something they can do. Even if it’s a temporary thing. Replace pets with preparations till they can internally fix pet AI and then either merge both in something like the idea I posted or completely revert back to pet AI. I just think that replacing the pets totally till they fix it will add even more work cuz they’d have to replace all the traits and trait line regarding pets but if they add a mechanic is just adding some traits and not reworking the whole thing. This would also keep the BM builds around so we’re not taking builds to give diff builds.

Raven.9603:

Rangers got run over by a bus of bad mechanics and broke every bone in their bodies.

Devs make a post asking for ideas to bandaid the problem because sadly, rangers dont have insurance… but players waste the last 10 pages talking about fixing our bones with experimental surgery so that one day we can walk again like its actually gonna get done.

(stop asking for spinal surgery and hip replacements, lets just stick to getting some sweet stickers for our wheelchair)

So by that logic we should give up on having a good working class mechanic and just try to buff other parts of the ranger?

There are two problems being faced as of now: The first is that the pet mechanic is somewhat broken (its been admitted by the dev) and it’ll take too much time and resources to fix. The second is that many people don’t like having pets in general. Some don’t like it bec pets are broken and unreliable. Some don’t like it bec they don’t want to have a pet like we didn’t have to have a pet in GW1. The first problem cannot be fixed any time soon according to the dev. The second problem can’t be fixed by just having the ability to stow away your pet even during combat bec that just kills your overall dmg. The option of having a diff class mechanic and switching between both will actually solve multiple problems, some which include:

1- Build diversity
2- Not needing to play with a pet
3- Adding a new skill cap to the ranger (utilizing both pets + preparations)

The mechanic i suggested is somewhat between elementalist’s and guardian’s class mechanic which is arguably why it’s weak in it being a new idea. But since it’s similar it shouldn’t be hard to modify these class mechanics into something new. Then again I’m not a game designer/programmer so I wouldn’t know.