That is what was referrenced in the talking points about the upcoming balance patch that is supposed to focus on the Ranger… f2 responsiveness was one of three outlined if I remember correctly. Not new news, but who was actually doing the programming is the new news.
RNG is a bell curve. Better hope you’re on the right side.
Proposal Functionality
Move F4 from pet swap to setting Active or Passive guarding to F5
Discussion
Many ranged combat situations in game, along with going in and out of combat while evading enemies (also applies to dungeons) aggro that it is faster to press a macro’d button vs moving the cursor down to the control bar to switch from active to passive or vise-versa. This is mainly a QoL improvement that will drastically increase the playability of pets through increased management that is still approachable by the novice player.
Associated Risks
Five year old children might not be able to wrap their mind around the concept of using F1-F5 for the class mechanic vs. using just F1-F4.
RNG is a bell curve. Better hope you’re on the right side.
They are difficult up to the point that you learn the encounter. Then it doesn’t matter what class you play, honestly… But, after running a dungeon 10000 times, I want to do it as fast as possible and the Ranger is NOT what I pick for that. Hell, I don’t even want to learn the encounter on my Ranger because of the pet.
I can turn off the sound of player instruments. Of course, I would have stopped playing or, in the least, stopped going to LA if I couldn’t have turned them down/off.
He gets it. The ranger isn’t tied to his pet. If they remove the pet, they will just destroy the beastmaster aspect, not more.
Condition removal…. the ranger IS tied to its pet.
Well, there is the signet that passively removes one condition every 10 secs and there is HS. I don’t PVP so I don’t use Empathetic Bond… Not to mention how effed up is that to get rid of conditions on myself I have to give them to my “buddy” a.k.a. companion … That’d be like me having an STD then being told to get rid of it I have to give it to my wife. Man, that’s messed up.
RNG is a bell curve. Better hope you’re on the right side.
I’d like to remind everyone who thinks that the Devs don’t listen to the ranger community that the devs did merge spirit traits as asked, they reduced the aftercast on longbow as asked, they inceased the short range damage of longbow autoattack as asked, they added pull to Axe #4 as asked, they adjusted GS#4 second skill to be usable while moving as asked, they increased pet toughness/vitalitiy as asked. And a long while back they also reduced cooldowns on signets as asked (noone remembers 120 second cooldowns?). They don’t give us everything that we ask for, but don’t tell me that Devs don’t listen. That doesn’t make ranger in its current state allright by a long shot, but lets be clear on this.
And for those that think ranger doesn’t need a band-aid solutions, it needs an overhaul, pls look at what 1 buffed skill and 2 changed traits did to warriors.
Yeah, and there were bad changes changes as well like nerfing S&R and Shortbow range.
That being said you can read where I have stated multiple times in the Ranger subforum that I love my Ranger, I just hate (if not loathe) the pet. A Ranger without a pet is not a Warrior. I know. I have both. I have put at least a few hundred hours on my warrior. It is not a Ranger without a pet. If you think that it is I can only surmise that you have never rolled a Warrior… or thief for that matter as that’s just as different (although I do find D/D thief quite fun, just not AS fun as a s+wh ranger). The pet needs an overhaul, not the Ranger. I recently retraited away from the BM build (after trying it for a month after the last round of pet patches) because the pet still does many things I don’t want it to do… like run through red circles then stand in more. A melee ranger does not have the pet control options that a ranged ranger does. If I’m in melee with my 1h sword and I recall pet, guess where it goes? Yup. A few units away and just soaks up aoe or random hits. I’ll use ’em for the buff, which is why I run mostly stalker and red moa, and that is it.
RNG is a bell curve. Better hope you’re on the right side.
I would be fine with an ‘aspect’ system – it could be quite cool, in fact – but I feel like the resources that would need to go into it would be as well or better off going into the serious and intensive work needed to fix our existing stuff (pet AI, F2 skills, scaling, our vision not fitting the meta.) If they don’t have the time and money to do major coding stuff to fix what they already have for us, are they really going to have the time and money to make up a whole new system, new graphics and animations, new skills, etc. for what is, at the end of the day, a majority of players?
It’s important to us, obviously, because we’re rangers, but I guess I am skeptical that the Powers that Be will be willing to devote a ‘disproportionate’ amount of work on us when the benefit is (sort of) only to rangers rather than the game as a whole.
Fixed that for you. No, you don’t have to thank me.
RNG is a bell curve. Better hope you’re on the right side.
Everything seems to be pointed towards tweaking some skills and abilities to “fix” rangers. Its like throwing sand in the wind. A profession doesn’t get 90% voted as the most needing help, is a class often refused into various PvE groups, is outright banned in some wuv guilds, etc, just because it needs some tweaks.
The class needs a ground up rework. And a recognition that the Pet is 80% of the problem. Anything less means all this CDI effort will result in rangers being a slightly more tolerated, but still generally unwanted member of a group in most activities versus any other class.
I thought about it quite a bit but I can’t find better words to put it this in… more vulgar, yes, but not better.
RNG is a bell curve. Better hope you’re on the right side.
Well, you didn’t quantify it by saying just some people would be even lazier, you implied everyone would be by NOT saying only some people would be even more lazy… and you can tell the lazy ones right off the bat because they’re running around all bowbrownbear anyway, in which case they’d HAVE to be less lazy because they wouldn’t have a tank’ish pet to take the hits while they pew-pew from afar.
RNG is a bell curve. Better hope you’re on the right side.
So, we would be given the choice between running a type of preparations instead of pets? Well, I like where your idea is headed fo sho but not sure aobut the abilities you have outlined… It is somethign to work with though.
RNG is a bell curve. Better hope you’re on the right side.
Trait for regaining opening strike on enemy kill or gaining stealth if you’re not running a signet build. First I do Long Range Shot, Opening Strike Included, then, I do Hunter’s Shot to regain Opening Strike afterwards using Rapid Fire. 25stacks of Vulnerability = high damage.
Although having my signets effect me has a lot of great benefits, I only use one so I’d rather go with regaining my opening strike. If you decide to use this trait and the aforementioned chain of attacks, you can stack a lot of vuln and tick some pretty decent numbers.
25 stacks of vulnerability = 25% incoming damage.
Yeah, but by the time you are done channeling LB #2 your vul stacks are already coming off… which is why I still hate that change they have done.
RNG is a bell curve. Better hope you’re on the right side.
On one hand I think it’s kinda neat. We could dance in and out of aspect mode to gain buffs and protect our pet from big attacks. This could promote skillful play, but it could also promote even lazier play by just leaving a pet in aspect form.
Actually, leaving a pet in aspect form wouldn’t promote lazier play in myself and my guildies that once mained Rangers, but happier play..
RNG is a bell curve. Better hope you’re on the right side.
To be clear, I am not arguing that pets function properly or are as functional in PvX as other profession mechanics. If the developers can not get pets to a point were they are as dependable and functional as other profession mechanics, then they should pursue evolving the Ranger’s profession mechanic.
Great. They’ve already said they aren’t going to take on those big projects so it’s time to start pursuit of that evolution!
Your comparison is flawed. The complexity of balancing Initiative + Steal = the complexity of balancing Pets or any other whole profession mechanic. The complexity of balancing two ant hills is not equivalent to the complexity of balancing two mountains. We have to be realistic and honest here; this is not an instance where we can have our cake (Pets) and eat it too (perma-stow Pets for a permanent aspect buff).
To be fair I shot it off at the hip as to say I didn’t put a mountain’s worth of brainpower into thinking the comparison out. The point is valid that regardless of the amount of work involved you can have more than one class mechanic. No matter what course of action they are to take (except for the more band-aids course) it is going to be a “big project” requiring lots of resources so if it’s going to be done let’s make a many as possible happy with it
RNG is a bell curve. Better hope you’re on the right side.
Yeah, they did improve the longbow in a seperate patch (I think but not sure), but when they nerfed the shortbow range the Dev said it was specifically to make the longbow look better.
If they up’d it back to 1200 via EE I would only use the LB @ golem ii and claw of jormag. Every place else I’d go back to SB.
RNG is a bell curve. Better hope you’re on the right side.
The most important piece of information mentioned by any dev post in the CDI so far was actually the post about the intent to give rangers more options for condition removal outside of Empathic Bond, which is happening “soon.”
I guess you’re specifically referring to the “soon” part because it’s been said on at least one STOG months ago that I remember (pretty sure it was by a Mr. Sharp) that they were “working” on getting more active condition removal into the Ranger’s line up.
RNG is a bell curve. Better hope you’re on the right side.
I don’t trait at all to aid the pet, Diamond… so, YES!
Why don’t I do that? Well, not worth it. While I admit I rarely play WvW when I do I don’t bring my Ranger because of the not able to hit a moving target problem thus all those buffs to the pet are moot. In PVE I don’t bother because the pet dies to AOE at all the world boss events anyway because I’m not 30 deep in BM line anymore and can’t swap them out fast enough.
Bottomline short of more band-aids an actual solution is going to require “big project” time and resources to enact… so expect more band-aids and you won’t be disappointed
RNG is a bell curve. Better hope you’re on the right side.
Would help if you put PVP in your title so that people looking at the Ranger subforum who know about those kinds of builds will know what you’re looking for.
Ex:
[PVP] Ranger Swift Build Help
Thanks but i need that build for PVE now, just wondering about the skills i need to use and the weapons that are recommended.
Just for PVE? Yeah. Like ol’ boy up there said, Travelers Runes. Thats what I use… or your signet that improves speed. I got the Travelers Runes to free up the utility slot and improve damage… and if you’re using Travelers Runes you can just trait for power build.
RNG is a bell curve. Better hope you’re on the right side.
Also to anybody complaining about the pet being removed I don’t see where this proposal says that the pets are gone. If you want the pet then just don’t stow it away. nobody is forcing you to not use your pet, it just gives people that don’t want it a viable option.
This. I don’t know why people who get all kitten about “removing” pets keep reading “removing” instead of “option to not use” which is CLEARLY spelled out REPEATEDLY meaning they can still use the band-aided pet if they want to. There is no reason the reason of the sane population that still have a Ranger should be forced to use a band-aided class mechanic as well. That goes to the “If I have to suffer you should too.” mentality.
With all due respect to Arghore or anyone else describing a permastow plus aspect buff, what they write is irrelevant. Arenanet will not support a profession with two distinct, mutually exclusive and equally complex profession mechanics.
They should support it since they aren’t going to support properly fixing the class mechanic… It’s not far off from initiative and steal for the thief. They’re pretty much equally complex profession mechanics. I think the initiative mechanic might be about a hair more complex than the steal, but that’s it.
RNG is a bell curve. Better hope you’re on the right side.
Would help if you put PVP in your title so that people looking at the Ranger subforum who know about those kinds of builds will know what you’re looking for.
Ex:
[PVP] Ranger Swift Build Help
RNG is a bell curve. Better hope you’re on the right side.
For a game built around doing as much damage as possible as fast as possible in numerous encounters from PVE to Dungeons sustained is not perferrable.
Oh, and every class has “sustained damage” it is called “auto-attack” ….
however we can both agree that some professions suck harder at it then others.
Rangers got high AA DPS, with very fast attack speed. Coupled with pet (if you trust it to hit anything) and you get close to the same DPS as some of the other professions bursts do.
True, but the only high AA DPS my Ranger has is the AA on the sword. Axe and GS are not good. SB is good w/bleeds. LB is 1000+ is ok at best, the other two closer tiers are terrible AA DPS
RNG is a bell curve. Better hope you’re on the right side.
And secondly, because I’m imagining that the news that ‘everyone is getting nerfed to make rangers feel a bit better’ will go down like…well, the Hindenburg.
I can’t wait!!
RNG is a bell curve. Better hope you’re on the right side.
Also to anybody complaining about the pet being removed I don’t see where this proposal says that the pets are gone. If you want the pet then just don’t stow it away. nobody is forcing you to not use your pet, it just gives people that don’t want it a viable option.
This. I don’t know why people who get all kitten about “removing” pets keep reading “removing” instead of “option to not use” which is CLEARLY spelled out REPEATEDLY meaning they can still use the band-aided pet if they want to. There is no reason the reason of the sane population that still have a Ranger should be forced to use a band-aided class mechanic as well. That goes to the “If I have to suffer you should too.” mentality.
RNG is a bell curve. Better hope you’re on the right side.
None of them want the pet BECAUSE of the aggro’ing. Of course, that was fixed with some patches ago IF you keep your pet on passive… but there is NO EFFIN KEYBIND FOR ACTIVE/PASSIVE!!!
That sounds like an excellent suggestion to make. The way I see it, the simple changes are more likely to be implemented. And allowing pet passive/aggressive to be bound to a key would take like 60 seconds to fix.
I’ve been wondering for about … 13 months now that I have had my ranger WHY that does not have a keybind… I got my answer from John Sharp during that STOG when he said that having too much control over the pet would scare people away. I also think it was only F1-F4 are used for the class mechanics, and they just didn’t want to use F5 for the pure asethetics of keeping all 8 classes using only F1-F4.
RNG is a bell curve. Better hope you’re on the right side.
It’s been many many months since the first round of CDI. I doubt we’ll see anything in the next 6-12 months that actually makes it to reality… except.. maybe… AQUAMAN v2!!!
RNG is a bell curve. Better hope you’re on the right side.
I understand what you’re saying JC. I’m starting to wish they had multiple CDI threads about different aspects of the ranger then did what you’re suggesting.
To those asking how far we would redesign – I can’t really comment on this specifically, but I can say that you should share your ideas because sometimes they inspire things to happen. Does that make sense?
Wondrous gets it. Thats why I keep pointing out that the “big projects” won’t be taken on by Anet. That’s two devs now that have posted as much.
RNG is a bell curve. Better hope you’re on the right side.
Before things get out of hand, I want to address the aspect idea so we can move on. First of all, it’s a great idea, but there are many current issues with the profession that need to be addressed first. Our priorities to make the pet a more viable option will likely remain higher than giving an option to “permastow” the pet.
We recognize there are a number of issues with the pet AI and general functionality, so that is something that will come first. Rangers are first and foremost a pet class, but they are also great skirmishers and some of the best sustained long range damage.
I don’t want you to think we’re going to ignore the idea or the feedback around the pet, but it could very well be the case that fixing some of the major nagging issues with the pet would make it a more desirable aspect of the Ranger.
That said, if you would like to consider discussing the aspect idea, I ask that you start a thread outside of the CDI to brainstorm.
Thanks so much for all the great, constructive feedback everyone! Let’s keep it coming!
If rangers truly are seen as the Pet class of GW2 then the devs need to be devoting time to handing more active control of the pet to the player. Currently if you look at other classes that are able to summon minions we really only have maybe one more level of control compared to them. This biggest difference between us and them is that our pets are mandatory.
Please please please give us more active control of our pets abilities in combat. Current f keys could be redesigned. You could also more closely link weapon skills to pet behaviour/ability (some weapons already have this a little bit). You could do a combination of these 2 ideas (that would be really exciting). Or who knows how else you could solve the problem?
As long as the pet is 90% tied to an ai though Rangers will be seriously kitten.
That is exactly my point. We want to make sure we’ve done everything we can to make the pet desirable before we consider any options for those that don’t want to play with the pet as much.
Doing everything y’all can to make the pet desireable means rewriting the pet AI to be independent. If y’all aren’t welling to do everything that you can, then give us the option to opt out. Y’all have been tweaking with band-aids since launch and it seems the box is empty.
If I’ve said it once I’ve said it a thousand times that everything else wrong with the Ranger takes a back seat until the class mechanic is properly fixed.
RNG is a bell curve. Better hope you’re on the right side.
Fair enough Prysin but seen it in more than one case that a player who is great on a Ranger will be that much better on another class. I also didn’t I say it was guaranteed. I didn’t say every single person who has a Ranger right now will be that much better with other classes. I specifically refered to people who excel with a Ranger are much much much more likely to be much much much better with another class regardless of anything else. I was also basing it off of my and others that I play with personal experiences with Ranger and then playing other classes.
RNG is a bell curve. Better hope you’re on the right side.
Surgery isn’t going to happen. Jon Peters and Allie have said as much since they are “big projects” that aren’t going to be tackled. They are only taking suggestions right now. So, as I have said before, until they rewrite the entire code for pet AI independent of Mob AI the problems will presist. I, for one, would love to option out of pets into something they can get right from the get-go.
I don’t think any meaningful change necessarily has to come by way of altering AI. It would certainly help, but otherwise you’d just design around the problem. You just don’t try to make it do things it clearly has problems doing. (Like; if your pet can’t hit running players, then yeah, don’t make hitting players consistently one of the things it’s supposed to be good for.)
And also; where did you get that idea in the first place?
As far as I can tell Allie is encouraging these sort of larger considerations like AI to be a part of the brainstorming.
Either way though, I don’t want this whole CDI to be able stowing the pets. There have been a lot of great ideas outside of this one that will help pets to be a more viable option. Perhaps just fixing some of the issues with the AI could be enough for people to feel better about the lack of permastow.
Jon Peters said it in the Dec 10th Ranger CDI and Allie has said in this Ranger CDI (unless the comments were deleted). I’m not going to go back and find it but you can feel free to look for it. I saw it. I read it. She refered to rewriting the pet AI specifically as a big project and looking specifically just for suggestions right now.
Was easier to find Allie’s post than I thought it would be as it was on page 1:
I know that im out of topic here and not using the format proposal and i apologize for it ,but before posting any ideas about the ranger and having into consideration that this will be read by some dev ,i will like to ask something :
Would you ever (or have you) considered the removal of the pet ,knowing how borked the ai is ,and as anet says ,it can not be reworked because its tied to mob ai?
Or would you consider split the class in to two, ranger/beastmaster ,and rework the pet ai from the ground.
Again sorry for the offtopic and thx for any possible answer.
Removing the pet was something that was discussed in initial design of the class, but it is such an integral part of the Ranger’s design and philosophy.
There might be some ways that we can redesign the pet and it’s AI, but those are big projects. For the time being, we are happy to take any suggestions regarding the pet.
RNG is a bell curve. Better hope you’re on the right side.
It just feels like more Bandaid Solutions, when I was really really hoping somebody would’ve paged the doctor and gone to surgery by now.
Surgery isn’t going to happen. Jon Peters and Allie have said as much since they are “big projects” that aren’t going to be tackled. They are only taking suggestions right now. So, as I have said before, until they rewrite the entire code for pet AI independent of Mob AI the problems will presist. I, for one, would love to option out of pets into something they can get right from the get-go.
RNG is a bell curve. Better hope you’re on the right side.
Lone Wolf: While your pet is stowed you gain a +25% bonus to Power and Condition Damage.
Change that to “Revert the damageloss caused by the pet” and I’m in.
Any earlier version of that proposal tried to do that with a straight damage buff, but that doesn’t actually work due to the differences in how Power-based and Condition damage are delivered. Plus pets are clearly intended to provide non-DPS contributions to Ranger gameplay, and “cashing them out for nothing but Deeps” loses some of that nuance.
The other thing that has to be acknowledge is that Aspects or Lone Wolf shouldn’t be better than… or even equal to… the advantages pets provide. They’re basically saying “I’ll pay a small loss in effectiveness to get rid of the annoyance of watching Fluffy die over, and over, and over…”
It should be a reluctant alternative, not the definitive solution to bad pet AI.
That last bolded line is where we will have to agree to disagree. It should be a definitive solution to a problem that they are not going to devote the resources neccessary to properly fix. Now, if it was at some point properly fixed then I could concede to your “should be” point.
RNG is a bell curve. Better hope you’re on the right side.
It’s not just the WvWers. Infact, I have heard in game the most from PVE/Dungeon runners who want to be deshackled from the pet… Probably because that’s what I do 99.99% of the time is why I hear mostly from PVE/Dungeon runners that want an option to be rid of the pet… None of them want the pet BECAUSE of the aggro’ing. Of course, that was fixed with some patches ago IF you keep your pet on passive… but there is NO EFFIN KEYBIND FOR ACTIVE/PASSIVE!!!
RNG is a bell curve. Better hope you’re on the right side.
Permastowing a pet really shouldn’t be the “solution” to clunky pet mechanics. The people who would prefer this over having the pet mechanics improved/reworked just shouldn’t play rangers, I guess.
That idea would actually be in lieu of a permastow. It would give Rangers a little more utility while not losing site of the concept of a Ranger.
Either way though, I don’t want this whole CDI to be able stowing the pets. There have been a lot of great ideas outside of this one that will help pets to be a more viable option. Perhaps just fixing some of the issues with the AI could be enough for people to feel better about the lack of permastow.
Short of a big project like giving its own code instead of it being based on general mob AI is the only way the AI issues can be truly fixed. You and Jon Peters have said it isn’t going to happen in the foreseeable future. Perma-stow = Aura Buff is a sensible option.
RNG is a bell curve. Better hope you’re on the right side.
I, for one, have not said anything about eliminating them completely. I haven’t read that either. What I have read a lot of is giving the option to opt out of the pet for something else that capable of working as intended.
It’s already been stated in other CDI’s that fixing the pet to work as intended is just too big of a project to be taken on by Anet for the foreseeable future (again go look in the Dec 10th Ranger CDI for reference).
RNG is a bell curve. Better hope you’re on the right side.
1. Because as I have said the Ranger is just that fun to play. It is the most fun to play. It is why despite having fully geared lvl 80s of everything else but Necros I keep coming back to my Ranger if just to run world events for a little while.
2. The pet already doesn’t work as intended so the “spirit of the class” was never achieved.
3. I care. That’s how much I love the Ranger. I want this class to be better.
RNG is a bell curve. Better hope you’re on the right side.
As Orca pointed out, some people aren’t as fond of the pets. The idea of the buff would be to appease everyone. Also, what if stowing the pet and having an aspect gave the Ranger some kind of aura that communicated to others they are in that “aspect”? Would it still feel like the pet was a part of you if them being stowed affected your physical appearance?
If not, I don’t think the aspect idea would be a necessity for players. There are definitely things that need to be done to fix Ranger pets in general, and it’s something we are well aware of. If we fixed those things, but maybe also added in the aspect idea, I think we’d be in a spot where everyone would be pleased, no?
Just musing!
Some? No. Many many people. Just have a gander at how many threads have been created in the subforum about replacing them with something. If perma-stowing during combat = aura buff I am so hard for it that if I was anymore I would explode with infinite unicorn rainbows from every orifice.
RNG is a bell curve. Better hope you’re on the right side.
Many of you have suggested removing traps from the Skirmishing line. It seems the primary reason for this is because it is the crit line while traps are primarily focused on conditions.
Given the idea behind skirmishing (for Ranger, we expect them to be able to survive longer while whittling their opponent down), would it maybe make more sense to leave the traps there and perhaps swap the stats with a different line?
Or, would it make more sense to have more traits in the Skirmishing line that directly effect power builds so that there would be a larger range of options when choosing to invest in Skirmishing than just building for traps?
Take a look at the Fractal CDI thread, jc. I’m pretty sure thats what you envisioned for the Ranger CDI thread. Sadly, it didn’t go that way as the people running the prospective threads are just different.
Allie is trying but she just doesn’t play a Ranger… If she does I’d put my left hand on bets that she has less than 100 hours on one.
RNG is a bell curve. Better hope you’re on the right side.
Many of you have suggested removing traps from the Skirmishing line. It seems the primary reason for this is because it is the crit line while traps are primarily focused on conditions.
Given the idea behind skirmishing (for Ranger, we expect them to be able to survive longer while whittling their opponent down), would it maybe make more sense to leave the traps there and perhaps swap the stats with a different line?
Traps should be in wilderness survival. It only makes sense.
When Stowed, the ranger should gain the “Aspect of the [pet name]” effect, which provides unique buffs based on the pet family and specific pet.
mtpelion.4562, you have some really great ideas in your posts. I noticed your sentiments about Ranger pets right now are shared by a lot of the community here. The quote is an idea in particular struck me as interesting.
If we weren’t able to have an option to keep the pet permanently stowed, would having an option like you suggested make it feel better to toggle the pet? It seems like the kind of thing that you could develop a strategy around (pet could be out for one reason, then you switch it up to catch opponent off-guard).
The option to keep the per permanently stowed (read: perma-stowed during combat) needs to be in there. Personally I would be 100% happy with just being able to perma-stow my pet and going on about my business with zero changes, even better if we got a buff for perma-stowing them that made up for the DPS loss or gave it back to the Ranger since they are balanced DPS-wise with the pet having 100% up time. I know of 3 other Rangers in my guild who feel exactly the same. We have spoken at length about just wishing to have the perma-stow option, especially during fall damage when trying to do jumping puzzles.
I must request a hot keybind for toggling active/passive. That really really needs to be in there to help manage pets.
I must ask, are there any Devs who main Rangers? Who have put over 1000 hours into Rangers completing PVE, Dungeons, and WVW?
RNG is a bell curve. Better hope you’re on the right side.
