Guild Wars 2

Not much has been said about the downed state.

Specific Game Mode
WvW (mode I play most)

Proposal Overview
Lick Wounds should work equally well with a living pet compared to a dead one.

Goal of Proposal
Lick Wounds should not punish you for having a living pet. The way it works now you are much better off if your pet is dead before you hit this skill. Dead pets are teleported, living pets currently have to walk. Dead pets are healed to full, living pets currently are not healed at all.

Proposal Functionality
Your pet is restored fully healed at your side to revive you.

Associated Risks
This would make a pretty reliable downed state skill in PvE even more so. People with half-dead pets would be brought up to the level of people with fully dead pets.

I think pet customization was thrown out because so many people insisted they should be able to collect all the pets and use all the pets. Then pet swapping was introduced to make the mechanic more active. The stay command was thrown out to make way for the F2 pet skill for more interactive play. We never did find out what most of the optional pet skills were.

We did find out that Devourers could slot a Blinding Cloud AoE attack (awesome), a tunneling attack that came up under the target, their tailspikes could be traited to pierce, and Whiptail Devourers could hurl a boulder to knock people down (still has that icon). The current devourers are quite blah in comparison.

Cats could pounce on foes to knock them down, snarl to weaken foes, I think one was a self heal…

Being able to choose your pets skills would indeed be very cool. I think they said there were 1,680 possible skill combinations on each species.

Profession mechanics are largely about managing a unique resource: Life-Force, Attunements, Adrenaline, Initiative, Etc. To be 100% effective with any profession you need to be able to manage its resource to good effect, even if you don’t trait for it.

Let me try to summarize the major issues with our profession’s unique resource

1. The difficulty of managing our pet’s red bar varies greatly across various game modes and situations… 1v1, 5v5, 60v60. – Some have suggested the resource should scale to the situation.
2. Even if we successfully manage it, the resource fails to perform in various situations (human enemies, slow f2 activation, one-hit bosses, aoe, zergs, tower walls). – The resource could be improved or expanded.
3. The effect our resource has varies by game-type, the same pets that grab agro and facetank open world PvE are completely ignored in pvp. The pet’s defenses could be made more of an asset in pvp
4. Failure to manage the pet results in a substantial penalty (loss of damage and utility which many people consider unacceptable). – The tools for managing the resource could be improved, the penalty for failure could be decreased, or the skills/traits that help could be easier to access.
5. Players refuse to use all the management tools. Some see recalling the pet or setting it on passive (to keep it alive until it can be healed) as unacceptable because it is a loss of dps. – The resource is perceived as too binary, seen as either 100% combat effective or worthless. The passive option could be improved or a third option could be introduced.
6. Rangers don’t get the full benefit of all their pet skills (when they hit) because that requires frequent swapping (which often means pet spends time running instead of doing dps). Instead swaps are often reserved simply for keeping the resource alive. – Some people see the pet swap mechanic as awkward.
7. Unlike other profession mechanics which are directly controlled by players, most of the pet functions are seen as separate and unconnected from the ranger. The pet could feel more like part of us.
8. The less you invest in the pet, the harder it is to manage. A beastmaster may not have to worry about his pet dying often, but an archer may struggle to keep a squishy pet alive with active swaps/heals/recalls and resort to just using a bear. Active pet management could benefit beastmasters more and be required by non-beastmasters less.
9. Some players who enjoy the ranger archetype do not want the pet to be their profession mechanic. Eric Flannum told them to play a different class, but they didn’t listen. There is still clear interest in being able to bowbear sans bear.

Aveneo.2068:

That’s a shame. Well, not the part about only owning 3 pets but the other things like only having one active pet, levelling (training) it and choosing its abilities sounds a lot more interesting. Sounds a bit like how pets behaved/evolved in GW1.

Yeah building your own pet sounded neat. You can see the old pet customization in action here (In German)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVvK7vqx-Vo&hd=1#t=0m17s

In addition to the skills the drakes have now, there was a passive regen skill, a shake that removed conditions, an evasion skill that made the drake back out of combat, and a roar that weakened enemies.

Aveneo.2068:

Also, have you guys ever considered removing the ‘Pet Swap’ and instead building the Ranger around having just a single pet? That way Pet Swap could become something like a Revive Pet channel effect in case the pet goes down.

I always found Pet Swap a rather awkward mechanic and I’d much prefer having to choose a single pet as my lifelong companion with the ability to revive it on occassion instead of pulling pets out of my quiver like I’m some kind of magician.

Early on you could only own 3 pets, only have one active at a time, couldn’t change pets in combat, you could level your active pet up to unlock more than its auto-attack, and then you could handpick which skills you wanted to put in those other pet skill slots with several pet skills that no longer exist.

They changed all that.

Allie Murdock.8152:

Angela Ranna.5638:

RoyHarmon.5398:

I think what he meant was that if you gave the ranger an appropriate stat boost only while the pet was stowed, then there would be no need to rebalance in the first place.

No, I think she got it. What she was saying was a straight stat boost would be hard to balance between pet vs non-pet vs other classes. On the other hand unique effects for stowing the pets (ie aspects) is more lateral power and thus easier to make competitive, each having its own niche.

And yeah, this ^

The one thing about aspects is that they would seem to not work with pet traits and skills (Empathic Bond for example). How hard would it be to balance aspects that temporarily remove the pet versus a passive pet kept near you that provided support skills? Aspects could be cool, temporarily merging pet and player, and could temporarily remove all the pet problems, but having pets that provide support effects in passive mode would appear to be a solution with fewer conflicts with the traits and skills we already have.

Here’s my post from a few pages back on a way that pets could be used as non-combat support: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Collaborative-Development-Ranger-Profession/3749922

Remember…

Spirits pulse their buffs 3 more times after they die, so if the fight doesn’t move much, someone will still have the frost spirit buff up to 15 seconds into the 20s cooldown. Death is not the end of the spirit.

If different players are in proximity to the spirit every 3 seconds, the spirit does more. If no one moves and the spirit is buffing the same people over and over, it is giving them a chance to proc that they can’t use because they are already on cooldown (except frost).

I imagine a future where Rangers are wanted in WvW because of their ability to track… but how would it work?

• Red Dots on the minimap (Rangers could sense enemies.)
• Red Dots on the minimap when using a skill (Rangers could check for enemies.)
• Rangers see visible footprints and/or red dot on minimap when enemies stealth (Rangers could follow stealthed foes.)
• Crippling Shot grants a Debuff called “Tracked,” and while that debuff is active the target appears as a red dot on the minimap and leaves visible footprints while stealthed. (Shortbow Rangers could track a single target).

And how much would it upset PvP balance?

Allie Murdock.8152:

Also, I don’t want this thread to be entirely about pets. We’ve seen a ton of great feedback about them, and I would like to hear more about utilities that need help (and aren’t viable unless spec’d into) as I haven’t seen as much on that front!

Thanks all

Sic ‘Em could be reworked to function with F2 attacks (currently F2 immediately removes the Sic ’Em Buff). The Sic ’Em Buff is also sometimes removed when the pet reaches the target (bug). I’m sure there are still people out there that hit Sic ’em for bonus damage and then hit their f2… and not get any bonus damage.

Specific Game Mode
WvW

Proposal Overview
Allow us to replace any of the pet’s 3 automatic skills with specific utility/support alternatives. (Optional Route: change the pet’s skills automatically to utility/support versions when set to passive).

Goal of Proposal
Increase value of pets in group situations, instant death situations, and situations involving WvW walls.. Increase value of certain pet families. Give more default utility to pets for rangers who do not spec into pet damage or pet survivability. Add pet customization/personalization. Allow the pet to be a source of strength for the ranger (kinda like The Crow.)

Proposal Functionality
Create one alternative skill for each of the 3 automatic pet family skills. Allow us to customize the pet skill bar by toggling between the regular skill and the new support skill.

For example:

• We could choose whether we want the bear to auto-attack or whether we want it to periodically absorb a condition from the ranger.
• We could choose whether we want the bear to bite or whether we want it to roar to grant might to allies when enemies get in a certain range.
• We could choose whether we want the bear to Defy Pain or whether we want it to roar to grant stability to allies when its health hits 75%.

These optional skills could be designed to be weaker in strength than the regular skills if necessary.

Associated Risks
Time to create new pet skills. Balance issues galore. Our profession mechanic gets even more complicated. Strange interaction with some pet traits and skills. Having to reconfigure these skills each time you change your pet loadout (we already have to rename them.) The concerns some people have about community reaction to perma-stow might also apply to passive-buffing pets.

Everquest had rangers, shamans, druids, and beast lords… this game only has one magical-nature-themed-pet-archer-class. We’re all in the same boat, the boat is leaking, and we need to stop arguing about what name is painted on the hull.

xallever.1874:

More Flavourful Ranger
Since you guys have been talking about making Ranger more flavoured, suddenly I thought about the idea of having the Ranger’s skills change according to the pet a bit like how the Elementalist’s skill changes when in a different attunement.

Creating a ton of new skills won’t happen. Even one new skill per pet family per weaponset would probably be too much (but it would be very cool.) A simpler way would be to allow the pet to influence our next attack.

Just as we can grant 50% bonus damage to our pet with Hilt Bash, a dog might do the same for us when it uses its Knockdown attack.

Just as we can grant swiftness to our pet with Hunter’s Shot, a bear might grant us stability when it uses its Defy Pain skill.

For the rest, take the longest cooldown non-f2 pet skills and figure out a good way for that pet family to directly benefit us, even when we are nowhere near it.

Aidenwolf.5964:

misterdevious.6482:

My personal preference is beastmaster first, druid second, wildman/woodsman third, archer fourth and it is quite clear that many people have those archetypes in the opposite order.

Had they named the class beast masters you’d be spot on. But we’re rangers which means we’re archers before pet handlers. My ranger in GW barely used her pet, but always had a bow.

My Ranger in GW used to teleport a Flamingo into battle to set everyone on fire. To each his own. In some early dev commentary they said that if the pet was optional it couldn’t be very powerful, and the pet had to be at a certain strength to be something that the enemy couldn’t just ignore. But buggy pathing and immobile melee attacks made the pet something that could be avoided which is practically the same.

As far as the power of names… it makes total sense now for a Guardian to be able to use a Mace and for a Ranger not to. But if you didn’t call it a Mace but instead called it Club, then it would make more sense for a Ranger to be able to use it (clubs sound woody and natural) and it would be weird for a knightly guardian to use a primitive club. The thing is we already have clubs and they are classified as maces. And I want one. The Ogre rangers (beastmasters) have them. sniff

SkiTz.4590:

I don’t understand what makes it even sensible to have traits like “pets move faster” or pets do x, y ,z. in the skirmishing line. Like really? this trait literally might be used by 0.05% of the ranger player base

Theres literally 4-5 of these junk traits in every single line. And its such a waste. What on earth is the point of the beast master trait line? Literally every single trait line on ranger has beast-master traits in them….i don’t even.. just a big face palm..

If you want a melee pet to have a chance to hit moving players you want it to run faster… for example if you wanted to run axe/dagger, sword/torch w/traps… the agility training trait you complain about which is in skirmishing might be the only option for giving your pet needed pvp/wvw speed.

If all beastmaster traits were in the beastmaster line then you could only pick 3… not much variety, and the pet couldn’t get very powerful. Worse… if you wanted to do anything with your pet you would be forced to go into that line (which would be horrible). By spreading the traits out you can spec any way you want and still get some kind of benefit from your pets. The Mesmer pre/crit-damage line is similar… it has traits that generate clones and cause conditions with clones… not in the condition line and not in the illusion line. They have illusion/shatter traits all over. The pet is our profession mechanic so it is the same way.

My personal preference is beastmaster first, druid second, wildman/woodsman third, archer fourth and it is quite clear that many people have those archetypes in the opposite order.

After a spirit dies, it will pulse its buff 3 more times (in the area around their corpse) which means that you can have the Frost Spirit buff for up to 15s after the spirit dies if you stay near the corpse. Dead spirits are fine if the battle doesn’t move much.

Specific Game Mode
WvW

Proposal Overview
Introduce a new heal mechanic that causes the Ranger to be healed when the pet is hit, and the pet to be healed when the Ranger is hit. Add this as a short-term buff to Heal as One or add a new Healing skill Signet of Symbiosis. Or possibly replace Natural Healing with a Symbiosis grandmaster trait with this kind of effect.

Goal of Proposal
Make the survivability of tankier pets more of an asset in some game modes. Create a healing skill that incorporates the pet to the same degree we find in some other skills. Encourage rangers to think more about what is happening with their pet, because it now affects their own healing.

With a symbiotic heal, a tanky pet could provide reliable extra healing to a squishy ranger, or a tanky ranger provide reliable healing to a squishy pet. Having the extra healing be based “per hit” it could easily scale to accommodate zerg situations while not unbalancing 1v1 encounters. In many situations tanky pets that provide less than desirable dps could provide some reliable healing and thus be more worth taking.

Proposal Functionality
If changing Heal as One:
For 5 seconds after using Heal as One, the ranger is healed whenever the pet is hit, the pet is healed whenever the ranger is hit. This brings Heal as One more in line with Rampage as One.

If adding Signet of Symbiosis:
Passive: The ranger is healed whenever the pet is hit and the pet is healed whenever the ranger is hit.
Active: Heals both ranger and pet.

Counterplay: The ranger gets less healing if his pet dies.

Associated Risks
Could require a 1s per enemy cooldown for balance depending on size of the heal. The amount of healing gained could vary greatly by game-mode. Would further encourage rangers to split their builds… squishy pet with tanky ranger or vice versa. There may be a better active for signet of symbiosis because in current form it does not benefit from Signet of the Beastmaster.

Some of us like having powerful pets…

• Using Mad King Runes + Rampage as One to give our pets 25 stacks of might with a single keystroke. Fun.
• Using Fortifying Bond to funnel boons from our many allies onto our pets, as well as boons from Sigil of Luck, Sigil of Strength, Ghost Pepper Poppers, or Burning Aura.
• Using Bark Skin, Carnivorous Appetite, or Natural Healing to give the pet some extra needed survivability.
• Using Zealot or Magi gear that has more than one stat to improve the pet.

And I imagine that the rune and sigil revamp may open a few new possibilities… and future gear releases can have similar effect… and some content may contain new pets as well like the reef drake. Our profession mechanic is not only highly varied, but it is also expanding. It is disheartening to see people say “scrap it, give us 30% damage back.”

If the pet gets substantially improved, it will will probably make beastmasters OP in spvp… which will get beastmasters nerfed… and hurt us in WvW where we need the help. Try to avoid that.

If the moa is in a place where damage is being taken, that’s where the heal should be… wouldn’t make sense for the moa to heal in an area based on what the ranger was experiencing far away.

Terravos.4059:

Anyway i tried testing that Melee thing how since ya said it seems random.. and I really do think they won’t heal unless the bird drops in health..I let a mob pet beat on a mob while it beat on me, and i let it get me down to 1k health, not once did the Bird use the heal…the second I let it the bird tank (swapped gear) it would pop its health soon as it dropped in health

Yeah, being injured is a prerequisite for this skill, which I listed in my earlier post.

Terravos.4059:

Chances are if you’re in a zerg vs zerg situation with an untraited pet, esp a moa..its already dead.

and the really weird part about the Moa Heal, Its 240 radius….It requires the pet to be hurt not the player, and it don’t do it from what you’re saying in melee range (never noticed that)

I already suggested in an official proposal that the range be increased to 480 or 600. And moas will heal in melee range but in melee it seems random which skill they use so you don’t know when the heal will go off.

If you order a moa to attack it will use its Harmonic Cry on demand if…

• Harmonic Cry is not on Cooldown
• It is outside of melee range of the target.
• It is within 1500 units of the target.
• It is injured 10% or more.

If you are in a zerg v zerg situation with untraited pets, 2 passive moas that stay alive can contribute far more than 2 other pets that die in 2 seconds. Something is better than nothing.

Edit: When in melee range, if the moa is injured the heal is one of the skills it uses but it seems kinda random when it decides to use it.

Questions:

1. If a 5-target AoE hits a bear instead of an elementalist… is that considered support?
2. If you stand behind a devourer and it blocks projectiles aimed at you… is that considered survivability?
3. If you swap between moas and they provide 8k aoe healing (1340×3pulsesx2moas) on a 40s cooldown, isn’t that equivalent to a second healing skill?
4. If a malicious spider hits with a web and a paralyzing venom followed by a pet swap and another web and the target is immobilized for a full 13.5 seconds… is that any good?
5. If you know the tricks that let you use your pet on demand to knockdown (dogs), blast (drakes), swiftness (birds), fear (shark), or heal (moas)… isn’t that useful?

Answers:

1. Doesn’t involve doing damage, doesn’t matter.
2. Doesn’t involve doing damage, doesn’t matter.
3. Doesn’t involve doing damage, doesn’t matter.
4. Doesn’t involve doing damage, doesn’t matter.
5. Doesn’t involve doing damage, doesn’t matter.

I like having an interesting toolbox and finding ways to work with it. Other people just seem to want numbers they can see.

Stat scaling based off of our gear could be a whole can of worms that ends up basically saying… if you want to run this kind of pet, you need to wear this kind of gear to get good scaling because of how weighting works. I’m kind of assuming that base stats would be adjusted down so that the overall scaled stats are not that much higher than what pets can achieve now through beastmastery. In the future, if you are wearing the wrong gear your pet could possibly have worse stats than it has now.

How can I even consider investing in ascended gear now if in the future my gear might suddenly be inappropriate for the pets I want to use? If I want to use all kinds of pets do I now need all kinds of gear to have decent pets? If certain stats are weighted to help certain pets more than others, that also affects skill choices…

Right now you can swap pets based on the situation but people don’t do it as much as they should because they have to rename their pet all the time and their pet may be tied to some traits. If pets are tied to your gear… ugh. If you bring one damage pet and one tanky pet, is one of them going to be terribad?

I have a sinking feeling that rangers in WvW are going to get the short end of the stick because the conditions there are so different.

Evasive Purity: I like evasive purity being able to remove poison specifically… when I go tanky much of my tankiness comes from passive and active regen boosted by Healing Power. Poison really hurts our ability to heal ourselves and our pet. Besides all the poison from players, we also have to deal with walls of treb poison.

Spirits attached to pet: It takes a massive investment to give pets in WvW any survivability in zergs, and if your utilities are spirit skills and half your traits are for spirits… your pet won’t have the survivability required even with a 30% aoe damage reduction… unless maybe if you only use bears or only keep your pet on passive the whole time. Right now I can use any pet I want with my pew-pew spirit support build and it doesn’t matter if it dies, I’m still doing decent damage and providing aoe support.

Tail Wind: 20% movement speed is not enough to do any good in WvW. Right now I often put 5 points in Skirmishing just to get periodic Swiftness for me and my pet and that is on top of always taking either Signet of the Hunt or Storm Spirit for 25-33%. This 20% idea would make the trait completely useless for people who need more, and we need more.

Sure the pet hitting more and being resistant to aoe attacks would help, they would also make pets something the enemy is less likely to avoid and something they are more likely to kill which cuts off our utility and our utility skills. At the end of the day the WvW crowd who have the hardest time keeping their pets alive will probably be the ones encouraged to use the stowed pet aura option if it happens. That’s not what I want.

Specific Game Mode
WvW

Proposal Overview
Increase utility/reliability of certain pet families by tweaking Forage and Harmonic Cry skills.

Goal of Proposal
1. Foraged objects need to be more reliable. They can fail to appear, someone else can grab, enemy can use, and you may not be able to find it in a zerg.

2. The Moa’s Harmonic Cry skill is a decent heal, but the aoe range is rather limited especially when our fighting style is so movement based. Increasing it would make the skill much more useful in large fights.

Proposal Functionality
Foraging would…

• Work more consistently when the pet is moving.
• Create an object that enemies could not pick up and use.
• Not summon eggs that grant initiative we can’t use.

Foraging might summon an object…

• In our hand (but we might auto-attack with it before we realize we have it).
• At our feet (but due to delay with f2 we might run past it).
• On the pet’s F2 skill, so that we could use it whenever we wanted (but no one could see it wielded and wielding a bone or skull is cool.)
• Any of these could be preferable to summoning an item far away that we can’t find.

If only one object appears, it would be nice if we could retain the ability to give it to allies.

Harmonic Cry: Area of Effect Circle increased to 480 or 600.

Associated Risks
When a pig forages an item now, it is obvious what happened. If a distant pet forages and an object magically appears at the ranger, it could be confusing. Moas become reliable group support, you might be asked to use a moa.

When people simply say “the pet,” I wonder how much was invested in that pet.

The default pets have 0 traits, 0 bonus stats, 0 condition damage, 0 movement speed buff, 0 regen, 0 pet utility skills, and 0 support from the ranger or the ranger’s gear.

The most powerful pets benefit from most of the ranger’s traits, up to 4100 bonus stats (Beastmastery 300×4, Master’s Bond 200×4, Might 875×2, Trait 350×1), up to 1225 condition damage, +50% condition duration, 25-40% movement speed buff, massive regen, 3 pet-related utility skills, and full support from the ranger, and the ranger’s healing, precision, and boon duration gear. (Giving the pet 25 stacks of might can be done with a single key using the right build.)

I can keep pets alive in 30v30 zerg fights (map-blob vs map-blob is another story), but it requires building specifically for that purpose (a bit different from the most lethal pet) and making a compromise with my own safety. With the upcoming change to F2 activation, I may play this way more often.

• Should there be less difference between the min and max pets?
• Should it be easier to spec for a good pet?
• Should pets have more utility by default that isn’t heavily dependent on their stats?

DeceiverX.8361:

It’s just so anti-ranger, though. Locusts/Swarms are like the epitome of killing nature. That’s something which honestly belongs on a necromancer (and they already have Locust Swarm as a skill as well as another Insect-based skill).

1. The Ranger already has an insect theme incorporated in his sword skills.
2. The Ranger already has abilities to summon a flock of birds or a nest of snakes to attack.
3. Insects are pretty natural when removed from any nightmarish creepy-crawly associations.
4. In Everquest Druids had abilities like Stinging Swarm and Drones of Doom. In Magic the Gathering, Black and Green shared the insects, with Green having more options to spawn tons of bonus insect tokens (Living Hive for example).

Specific Game Mode
WvW (the mode I play most but would affect other modes)

Proposal Overview
A new Swarm/Insect family of pets that functions like a living aura (something like Locust Swarm) that can surround the player defensively or be sent with F2 to deal damage over time to a target.

Goal of Proposal
To create a compromise pet family which serves the same purpose of a pet without actually being an autonomous, named physical entity. Hopefully this could be an acceptable compromise for the people who don’t want a pet. Offer a nature-themed pet-aura that could be reliably useful in extreme situations where regular pets have difficulties.

Proposal Functionality
Unlike normal pets, these pets would be summoned into existence with the F2 skill. They would deteriorate over time and then dissipate. They could not be targeted or killed.

F2 Summon Hornets -> Hornet Swarm -> Recall

Summon Hornets: Summon a swarm of hornets to absorb 10% incoming damage and torment nearby foes.
Hornet Swarm: Send your swarm to furiously attack, damaging and tormenting your foe.
Recall: Your pet returns to you.

F2 Summon Monarchs -> Dazzling Flight -> Recall
Summon Monarchs: Summon a flight of monarchs to convert incoming conditions into boons (5% chance) and confuse nearby foes.
Dazzling Flight: Send a flight of butterflies to confuse your target.
Recall: Your pet returns to you.

Associated Risks
Tons of unanswered function questions.

• What should the uptime be on a swarm?
• Should there be a way for the target to remove the swarm like removing other PvE on your face effects?
• Should the swarm’s health deteriorate at the same rate while defending and attacking or should attacking drain faster?
• What other effects/skills might swarms share?
• What complications arise from not being a technical entity? Interactions with skills/traits. Not having a cute name. What else?
• When not summoned they could be considered perma-stowed. What issues would this cause in the game and in the community? Should the swarm be summoned automatically when hit?

Technical issues galore. It is still a nature aspect which some of the “archer not druid” players might still object to. Multiple rangers using swarms on the same target (particle overloading). Confusion because of control/behavior differences with traditional pets.

How would the anti-pet people feel about a new pet family that worked more like a Locust Swarm chain skill? I’m writing up a proposal.

• F2 would summon the swarm aura around you to defend you and hit nearby foes.
• Hitting F2 again would send the swarm to deal consistent damage over time to your target.
• Hitting it again would return the swarm to you.
• It could not be targeted, killed, or named, instead it would gradually lose health over time and disappear.

Synister.8629:

Game Mode:
PvX

Proposal Overview:
Zephyr’s Speed Beastmaster trait change.

Goal of Proposal:
To prevent the Ranger’s pet from wasting its quickness boon/buff.

Currently, the Ranger and pet acquire quickness immediately after pet swapping. This isn’t an issue for the Ranger, but the pet is a little slower to react. The quickness only lasts 3 seconds, so more often than not, the pet wastes the entire duration running to the target or standing around.

I propose that the quickness boon/buff be applied after swapping pets, but ONLY after attacking. This will allow the pet time to run to the desired target before initiating quickness.

Proposal Functionality:

Pet
Swapped in>runs to target>attacks>quickness procs

Perhaps creating a boon/buff icon similar to the Attack of Opportunity would be wise, to prevent exploiting the effect.

Does that make sense?

Associated Risks:
None.

I like the idea. Often using Zephyr feels like a waste because the damage you gain from your own skills comes at the cost of swapping the pet out of range of its target. I do notice pets sometimes just standing still for most of the Quickness duration.

Specific Game Mode
WvW

Proposal Overview
Change Speed Training to give you any speed boost that your pet receives.

Goal of Proposal
Speed Training has always seemed a bit bland. Now, we don’t NEED to be faster but I believe many new builds could be created by changing this trait to offer a unique, collaborative movement speed trait for the ranger. I generally feel required to slot one mobility skill… Signet of the Hunt (most of the time), Storm Spirit (when traited for spirits), or Guard (when traited for Nature’s Voice). Melee pets need speed to hit players, and I need speed to travel, kite, chase, escape, and land melee attacks. I rarely build without any speed, and the most reliable speed comes from utility skills. By potentially freeing up a utility skill, it allows more choice for other skills. Even with what I have, I still have difficulty catching warriors and thieves when they disengage and a little extra burst at the right time might just be enough to continue the fight.

Proposal Functionality
Speed Training: Movement speed buffs on your pet also affect you. Ends when your pet dies.

As far as ranger-pet collaboration goes, much of it is one-way… you buff the pet. This trait would be like Empathic Bond, in that the pet is helping you. People who have asked for passive buffing from the pet should appreciate this trait.

Associated Risks
Rangers would be able to passively run at 30% speed (Agility Training), and Rangers would be able to travel at 40% movement speed in short bursts (Sic ‘em.) Longbow rangers could maintain permanent swiftness with use of Hunter’s Shot. Bowbears could see a rise in popularity. The combination of Sic ’Ems revealed debuff and 40% movement speed could affect ranger/thief encounter outcomes. That thing that happens when the pet is far away and it speeds up really fast to catch up to you could be potential technical issue. May need to be a master trait.

Yeah, Precision is good with AoE… more hits per second means more crits per second which means reliably triggering on-crit effects.

Specific Game Mode
WvW

Proposal Overview
Make shouts a more reliable and dependable skill choice. Make Nature’s Voice more than just the “Guard” spamming trait by adding specific ally buffs for each shout skill.

Goal of Proposal
Shouts are generally seen as unreliable. Your pet needs to be alive. Your pet needs to be healthy enough or it will die and waste the shout. The skill can be wasted if the target/ally goes down or rallies before the pet reaches it. Nature’s Voice is seen by many as serving only one purpose… to spam the Guard skill for Swiftness and Regen, and that is too singular a purpose for a grand master trait.

Proposal Functionality
Nature’s Voice: Shouts grant buffs to allies. Guard grants Swiftness and Regen. Protect Me grants Retaliation and Protection. Sic ’em Grants Fury and Might. Search and Rescue grants Stability and Stealth (or Camouflage).

Associated Risks
People taking and using shouts for the traited purpose rather than the original skill purpose (this already happens with Guard). Any additional shouts added will further complicate this trait. The loss of regen/swiftness from the other shouts may be felt by some players. Being able to stealth rez is quite a powerful ability in WvW.

I like

• having a profession mechanic that I get to customize.
• having a wide range of game mechanics to choose from, being a jack of all trades.
• having widely varied playstyles… melee tank, beastmaster, or pew-pew spirit support
• the mobile active melee combat.
• that I can take camps, towers, champions, and some dungeons alone.
• strategic thinking. (pet tanking & blocking projectiles, trap & spirit placement, cooperation)

Prysin.8542:

misterdevious.6482:

I see people repeatedly asking for rifles and staves. Am I the only one who wants a mace/club? Mace needs love. And it could have a blast finisher on its chain skill or skil 2 or 3!

I think a mace/club doesnt thematically fit the profile. One handed blunt weapons are more a muggers weapon, not a survivalist/hunters weapon.

I would however LOVE to see us getting a 2h Spear and another mainhand weapon, like Dagger, a whip, a mainhand focus (just an idea although i got no idea how it would work out for us)

Spear would be cool. The maces in the game are either very much a soldier’s weapon… metal, and indeed Warriors and Guardians can use them. The other maces are natural materials and spikey like you might see Ogres using. If any other class was to get access to maces, I think Ranger would be high on the list.

I see people repeatedly asking for rifles and staves. Am I the only one who wants a mace/club? Mace needs love. And it could have a blast finisher on its chain skill or skil 2 or 3!

Atherakhia.4086:

Perhaps we should move away from the burst and damage discussion while we wait for Allie to check in and discuss some of the other issues plagueing this class?

I think now would be a good time to discuss the issues with our utility skills and why many of them don’t seem worth taking until we’ve first invested well over 20 or 30 points in various trees.

Signets for example; their activated portions have no impact on the Ranger as a whole with only a few exceptions unless we first get Signet of the Beastmaster in the Marksmanship line. We have similar issues with Spike trap not being useful without 30points in Skirmishing. Spirits not being useful unless they’re mobile. Guard not having any functional use without Nature’s Voice.

I would rather them not mess up signets. Untraited Signet of the Hunt and Signet of the Wild provide a passive baseline of mobility and survivability for WvW. Many people use them for that.

I would rather them not mess up Guard either as I use it often. As I posted earlier in this thread, Guard 1. Gives protection and stealth to the pet which is very useful in keeping it alive in wvw fights… 2. Allows the pet to automatically attack targets in the area without the target having to interact with you first which means less time waiting and more time hitting… 3. Prevents the pet from leaving the specified area, which can be used strategically. While you man the ac on the second floor, your pet can be guarding down in the garrison circle.

Spirits. Frost spirit benefits the most from the 70% chance because it has no cooldown. Most of the others can trigger reliably during the 6s buff with only 35% chance. The elite spirit benefits the most from mobility, being able to drag it where healing and reviving is needed. The rest don’t need to move unless the fight is moving; just use the actives when the enemies get close. When the spirits die, they continue to pulse their buff 3 more times giving up to 15s of buffs post-death during the 20s cooldown. If you place a spirit someplace and the battle moves instantly, you wasted the spirit. If you place a spirit someplace and it melts instantly, you still buffed the area.

Prysin.8542:

misterdevious.6482:

Another area where sustain damage is an issue is WvW tower defense. Holding still for a barrage will get you melted. Getting close enough to throw traps will get you pulled. You are lucky if you can get your Devourer up on the ledge to attack enemies. Against a reasonable number of enemies all this would be much less of an issue, but zergs are the name of the game.

You only get pulled if you don’t use stability. Not using stability even outside of 1v1 or frontline zerging is a error on the players side.

Also, why not build an AC? it is infinately better then what you can do with a bow, and that IS intentional.

Because I’m usually using a cannon or the oil. A tanky ranger with full oil mastery and empathic bond pet guarding safely inside can stay on that thing very well.

Anyone can use siege. When a wall is involved, that means people can run up, deal damage, and then go to safety. Burst takes people down, sustain just forces them to back up.

Another area where sustain damage is an issue is WvW tower defense. Holding still for a barrage will get you melted. Getting close enough to throw traps will get you pulled. You are lucky if you can get your Devourer up on the ledge to attack enemies. Against a reasonable number of enemies all this would be much less of an issue, but zergs are the name of the game.

Yoh.8469:

Burst DPS on the other hand can pack enough damage to kill players outright, and death is the ultimate debuff. No more healing, no more dodging, no damage. And then you can take you time recharging between fights.
The quicker you kill your target, the better off you are going to be. Every time.

In a January Ready Up episode they said that the crit-damage nerf that is coming up is a first step towards balancing roles. They specifically mentioned the current idea that the best way to support your allies was simply killing faster instead of controlling the enemy or supporting allies with skills. They plan to change that.

Right now the pet damage is like the opposite of Torment. 100% damage to targets that don’t move, and reduced damage the faster the target moves. Building heavily into the pet, my pets have killed players who didn’t move enough, but good players avoid the pet much of the time.

Allie Murdock.8152:

Yes, like I said about the sustained vs burst, it’s not necessarily fully functional in the game. This is one of those things that we would have to balance with bringing other classes down a bit as far as damage output. Burst damage needs to have risk involved, and we know that right now many classes don’t have that associated risk.

Glad to hear that. I would rather have the crazy broken builds brought into line instead of the ranger being given a crazy broken build so that it can compete.

Specific Game Mode
WvW

Proposal Overview
Make traps more viable in WvW and more interesting to use in general. Change Trapper’s Defense. Make traps something enemies actually worry about walking into and rangers want to use. Make traps distinct from targeted AoE spam.

Goal of Proposal

1. Rangers need something enemies will fear walking into.
2. WvW requires mobility and survivability (and your pet needs both in spades to hit human enemies). Traps cannot provide either right now. They need at least one.
3. Unlike Symbols, Marks, and Wells… traps only hurt enemies and are not all combo fields. Traps either need more utility or more lethality.
4. There are no healing or elite traps so traiting heavily for traps feels weak, especially in a line that does not improve conditions.
5. There are runes that affect shouts and signets, but not traps.
6. Traps are used less as traps, and more like spammable ranged attacks.
7. WvW often involves strategic pushes and feints and lots of waiting… traps should have a better place here.
8. Traps should be good enough that Commanders ask for them, and bemoan the fact when there is no ranger there to use them.

Proposal Functionality
Trapper’s Defense – Transfer one condition to a foe when a trap is triggered. 10s cooldown. (If the enemy puts a 10s confusion on you, Trap Potency could put a 20s confusion on them).

Like the Longbow that does more damage at range, traps should do more if the ranger plans ahead.

1. Flame Trap – Set a trap that burns foes. . For every 20s it remains on the ground, it gains additional burning (1 additional pulse per 20s, max 3).
2. Spike Trap – Set a trap that bleeds and cripples foes. For every 20s it remains on the ground, it gains immobilize (1s initial immobilize per 20s, max 3s).
3. Viper’s Nest – Set a trap that poisons foes. For every 20s it remains on the ground, it hits one additional target per pulse. (max 3 additional targets)
4. Frost Trap – Set a trap that chills foes. For every 20s it remains on the ground, the frost field increases in duration. (2 extra seconds, max 6s extra)

Encouraging thoughtful pre-placement with suggestions like these would separate trappers who can think and plan from those that just toss AoEs. These are merely examples… other factors like crit-chance, damage done, size… these could all be possibilities as well.

Elite Trap Ideas

1. Hornet’s Nest – Set a trap that torments and weakens foes. 20s duration 60s cooldown
2. Storm Trap – Set a trap that damages, blinds, and weakens foes. Lightning Strikes hit nearby foes. Launches foes trying to cross in or out of the whirling storm (like a gray dust storm graphic). 7s duration – Lightning Field. forty-five second cooldown

Superior Rune of the Trapper
1: +28 Condition Damage
2: +10% Condition Duration
3: +55 Condition Damage
4: You place a Spike Trap while reviving an ally (30s cooldown)
5: +100 Condition Damage
6: Placing a trap grants you Camouflage until you move or attack. (90s cooldown)

Associated Risks
Trapper’s Defense might seem more at home in the tanky WS line, but other trap traits are in Skirmishing so I think it could remain there. It might need to be swapped to Master Tier. I expect adding additional damage potential to traps could upset pvp and pve, but it may not even be enough in WvW to make traps worthwhile on its own. Elite skills and new rune sets might be expensive to acquire and make the only really viable trap builds an elite niche option which would be depressing. Better AoEs may affect dungeons more than anything else. The Storm Trap as described may very well be overpowered in spvp.

GeneralJimmy.2186:

Currently Gaurd and Sic em are bad skills. The Ai cant handle the Sic Em buff. Gaurd only serves as a trait trigger neither does any thing for the ranger or his team.

I often see people saying that Guard does nothing, but that is not true.

1. Guard gives protection and stealth to the pet. (The pet lives longer).
2. Guard defines an area around the pet where the pet will automatically attack enemies without them having to first interact with you or the pet. When its target dies, it immediately starts moving to another target in the area instead of immediately running back to you. This reduces the lag time between when you choose a target and when it starts moving to attack (Less waiting around & running back to you = more attacking = more efficient damage dealing).
3. Guard defines an area around the pet that it won’t leave… if enemies get too far away it will stop chasing that squirrel. The pet can be assigned to guard a relatively safer area… like the catapults in back, or guard the area near you while you pew-pew targets 1500 units away. It is ready to leap into action when an enemy approaches instead of being way off chasing your far targets in the heart of the aoe spam.
4. Guard allows you to leave the pet someplace… outside a tower gate or on the floor of garrison, while you run upstairs to use the oil or ac or ballista during the defense (as long as you don’t run too far in the process). With clever use, it allows you to use your pet in situations it would normally just be sitting useless near you.

Guard has a role in pet management.

Specific Game Mode
WvW

Proposal Overview
Add a visual element that makes the ranger’s own pet easier to locate on screen and on the minimap.

Goal of Proposal
Make it easier to manage and control the pet in large cluttered zerg fights where the pet is nearly impossible to see. Hopefully this would lead to better survivability, effectiveness, and teamwork.

Proposal Functionality
The visual element could be a distinct color for the displayed name and minimap dot. Or the visual element could be a paw icon, akin to the commander tag. Such an icon could be turned on or off in the options menu or the pet management window.

Associated Risks
Visual clutter. Possibility of visual element obscuring enemy. Other professions wanting special visual elements for their own summoned pets.

Grizzly Adams. ’Nuff said.

Take out 2 Skirmishing traits and go 2 more into nature magic. Take Vigorous Spirits and Spirits Unbound. For utilities take Storm Spirit and Frost Spirit.

Damage Bonus: You lose the 10% bonus damage while flanking, but have a 70% chance to do 10% bonus damage for the majority of the fight.

Mobility: You lose 25% run speed all the time, but gain perma-Swiftness during most fights, and you will also be buffing allies within range 1000 without having to swap to warhorn. And you will share swiftness periodically with your pet along with other buffs you gain from allies.

Stats: You do lose some power, precision, and crit-damage, but if you consider your nearby allies are doing 10% bonus damage on 70% of their hits for much of the fight… your damage contribution may have actually increased.

Image: People might still look at you as useless, but maybe not as selfish.

We don’t have an option to report cheaters or hackers or glitchers or exploiters or griefers.

What we clearly need is an option that would cover them all… the ability to report GAMERS because all of the above people are gaming the system to their own advantage. (expressing frustration through humor, not to be taken seriously.)

One of the reasons they are changing crit-damage to Ferocity is because of how crit-damage scales (broken).

At level 18 I upscaled to 110% crit-damage, 53% crit-chance, and nearly 2k toughness.

There’s a trick you can do with dog pets.

If a dog tries to attack when it is outside of melee range, but within range for its leap knockdown brutal charge attack, it will do its knockdown attack assuming it is not on cooldown.

When you swap pets, you should know exactly where your pet will appear. Pet 1 = front left of you. Pet 2 = front right of you. (Unless you are near a cliff or using other pets like spirits). Figure out where you want your pet to spawn and make a tiny adjustment to make it happen… With practice and good timing you can get one dog to knockdown then immobilize, then swap to a hyena that knocks down and summons another hyena which knocks down again.

It takes a lot of practice to use it on moving players reliably and it only works while he is still near you..

Part of what a Ranger brings is invisible… it does not show up on videos.

The bonus damage from Frost Spirit adds up really fast, but the total damage is never shown on screen. Instead it is diluted and spread out on allies who may not notice when they hit 10% harder because all of the fluctuations of might and vulnerability. People don’t notice that they are still getting buffed even after the spirit is dead.

If I healed a player for 4.5k, a green number would show up… or if I put an Aegis on him a Block would pop up, or if I blinded the enemy a Miss would show up. You can see all that on the screen. That is a meaningful contribution. But when 5 players and a bear are in an AoE together and the bear gets hit and one of the players does not… there is no notification that you helped that player. Unlike most players, the bear can have 30k+ health, defy pain, and a choice of massive regen, perma protection, or +50% damage reduction, and can be replaced every 16 seconds with a 100% full health replacement bear. Played right, pets can sponge a ton of damage that would otherwise hit players.

People don’t see that… they see a dead spirit and a pet doing pathetic damage. And if Rangers don’t know how their stuff works, they see the same thing everyone else does.