As always, every quarter of a year i feel like writing a suggestion thread of my chest. This time i will make again a full on approach on every specialization (Core), and concentrate more on streamlining traitlines and improving lackluster traits than numbers. I do not look at skills or Elite Specs, i will do this in another thread. Traits that got no mentioning are fine IMO.Feel free for constructive critique and other suggestions. I myself will comment on my suggestions itself so you have some mutual understanding why i wrote it.

Start

MarksmanshipStraight forward dmg specialization which concentrates on quick kills, high dmg and ranged combat. I suggest improvements for better in line synergy (especially in the GMs) and some QoL and Improvements for more flexible playstyles.

Minors:Opening Strike:It does not effect the player when in beastmode. One option is to give the player double stacks of OS when in beastmode and the second one is that your pet gains OS when you leave beastmode. I am indifferent which one is the better, i personally like the encouragement to weave in and out of beastmode but i would also like to have a bonus dmg in Bmode.

Alpha Focus:Does no longer apply cripple with OS. But you gain OS when gaining Fury.

Adept:Stoneform:Split the ICD on this from PvE and PvP and reduce it for PvE. This is mainly for QoL purposes in PvE if stuff gets ugly without effecting PvP survivability.

Hunters Gaze:This trait is a less potent version of potent ally (pun not intended) and thus i think i entirely replace the current effect with that of potent ally .New Effect: You and your pet grant eachother might on critical hits.This would also synergize with precise strikes.

Clarion Bond:Good trait. I would like to see it in the NM line but to keep cross line synergy i let it stay. (You can comment on that if you want)

Master

Moment of Clarity:When you swap pets you dmg and daze foes arround you. Interuppting a foe gives an attack of opportunity.I shuffled the CC duration to predators onslaught and gave it an abbility to dish out a CC on itself to give it a standalone viability in addition to one of its previous effects.

Farsighted:This trait should not only be restricted to Projectiles.You now deal 7% increased dmg under the range threshold and 15% above. Still favors range weapinry but also gives benefits to melee combat.

GrandmasterCredits go to @Wondrouswall.7169 on the initial OS idea. I changed some things regarding Lead the Wind and Remorseless in comparison to his idea though.Predators Onslaught:OS cripples enemies. Do more dmg against disabled or movement impaired foes ( Includes: STun, Daze, KD, Launched, Chilled, Immob, Cripple and slow). Hard CC duration is increased.I swapped the MoC CC duration on this to give it more synergy on itself. Longer duration means longer dmg bonus.

Remorsseless:OS deals more dmg. Gain Increased Ferocity after landing an OS. This effect can stack up to a certain number.

Lead the Wind:Make piercing baseline. it only effects 2 skills if i am not mistaken (correct me if i'm wrong). So it is a nice QoL/Buff and gives this trait more room for flavor.OS gives Short duration of Quickness (This replaces the attack speed buff, it is not as potent but it effects all weapons). Regain OS when gaining stealth. LB CD is reduced.

Skirmishing:Hybrid Spec that focusses on crits, evades and weaponswap. I wanted to give this specialization more distinct lines and better distribution of traits so certain playstyles do not have to decide between 2 traits that focus on similar things. additionally i improved minors, because they seem pretty underwhelming.I will give it more anti CC capabbilities and concentrate on fats swift combat.

Minors:Tail WInd:Loses the swiftness on weaponswap.Whenever you gain swiftness you gain vigor. This will have self synergy with Furious grip and it will tie into other things.

Furious Grip:Adds swiftness when weaponswap. Fury stays.

Hunter tactics:Increase crit chance for a certain time after weaponswap.This encourages more weaponswaps and gives more control over the 10% crit increase. Duration matches that of Quickdraw or Furious Grip.

Adept:Sharpened Edges: Gets the effect of hidden barbs, hidden barbs is removed.

Trappers expertise: Lay down a lesser spike trap when disabled. Traps have longer conditions and reduced CD.Move trappers expertise to Master tier. Lesser spike trap does half the bleeding, everything else stays the same, including ICD of 32s. It automatically reduce the lesser spike trap ICD because of the inherent trap Cd reduction (so base is actually 40s until you equip it.)The positionswap is mainly to prevent condi playstyles with traps to choose between sharpened edges and trappers expertise.

Primal Reflexes:Activate Lesser Lightning Refllexes if you get disabled. This will break stun. The vigor duration is halfed. ICD is 40s. ICD can be reduced with wilderness knowledge trait.Lesser Lightning Reflexes will not trigger an animation. It will have all other inherent effects of LR though.

NEW TRAIT:Energizing Wind:Gain endurance when weaponswapping.Basically a "free" sigil of energy. It compeeds with new primal reflexes trait, but this is intentional, because both are very potent in certain scenarios (mainly in competitive play). And it ties in with the weaponswap theme.

Master:Striders Defense:Always gives you quickness when evading an attack. Does not require a sword anymore to trigger the effect. Sword CD is redduced.

Hidden barbs:Removed and merged with sharpened edges. Trappers expertise is now on its place.

Grandmaster:Vicious Quarry:Also add condi dmg while having fury to its previous effects.This will make vicious quarry to "the" hybrid trait that can be used in condi or power builds that wont rely on heavy weaponswapping.

Light on your feet:This trait is overbloated with effects. Many should be made baseline.

-Piercing is now baseline. This effects Crossfire and Quickshot (maybe concussive shot too but it may be unbalanced). Poison volley pierces already on default so no change there either.-The bonus effects on flanking should be made baseline too. They are not that potent and they make SB to a more useful weapon.-This trait now gives a buff that increases condition duration and condi dmg everytime you evade an attack. The buff gives 20% condi duration and 20% more condi dmg.-SB CD is reduced.

Wilderness Survival:This traitline concentrates on conditions and defense. Many traits are very useful, but many are underusesd or just plain out blunt. Some QoL changes and improvements of less popular, effective traits. Also i wanted to remove pet punishing traits and replace them with more useful/ less egoistic traits and i tried to remove trait competition as good as possible. In addition to that i wanted to shift arround the condi cleanse abit to free up some playstyles.

Adept:

Oakheart Salve:Also decreases condi dmg.Both dmg reductions also applies to your pet.Just a small QoL change that effects all kinds of dmg and also gives it to your pet too.

Taste for danger:This trait does now gives expertise to the ranger depending on your pets health and your pet gains expertise from the condition dmg of the ranger. So you can build offensive and gain more expertise with high vitality pets instead of high vitality gear. Vitality boost stays.Percentage gained from is increased to 14% , so you gain more expertise from more tanky pets and pets gain more expertise from a condition dmg heavy ranger.If you are in Beastmode you will gain expertise depending on your health in beastmode. So you gain bonus expertise if you are merged with a Stout, Supportive or Versatile pet.

Master:Ambidexterity:Applying conditions to your enemy with your OH weapon gives you stacks of increased condition dmg (This does also effect WH and Axe skills and it gives stacks per condition, so a skill that applies multiple conditions will give multiple stacks at once.). Torch and Dagger skills have reduced recharge.Has applications in hybrid playstyles and has a more active component.

Shared anguish:Swapping pets breaks stun. ICD is double the normal petswap trait CD.This will give petswap some tactical meaning if you get CC heavily and removes the pet punishing.

Refined Toxins:Change into Poisoned Barbs.

NEW TRAIT:Poisoned Barbs:Hitting an enemy under 75% health activates Lesser Sharpening Stone. (Lesser SS has half the number of charges and half the Condition duration. ICD is 15s.)Sharpening stone now applies poison instead of bleeding.This is way more reliable than refined toxins and it has synergy with the survival GM.

Grandmaster:

Empathic Bond:Changed into Barkskin.

NEW TRAIT:Barkskin: Gain toughness. Toughness now also reduces condition dmg for you and your pet. This has different formulas for PvE and PvP.(I know this could go wild, but thats why i would encourage a split)Its a straight up improvement on empathic bond. It increases survivability of both you and your pets and its emphasizing on anti condition function without letting your pet suffer.

Poisonmaster:Apply poison everytime you apply cripple. Poison dmg is increased.This is just a straight up buff because it was a horrible trait that was only taken for the increased poison dmg not for the effect itself.This way it has many synergies and applications with hybrid playstyles or non inherent condition weapons. It also improves dagger, sword and SB in condition applications.

Nature MagicI swapped some secondary effects arround that make more sense in other places. In addition to that there are improvements on more bald traits and more possibilities to cleanse condis so WS is not always mandatory for condi cleanse.

Minors:Rejuvination:Add Healing power is increased under the effects of Regeneration to its previous effects.Change the health threshold to be at 75% or higher.

Adept:Bountiful Hunter:Also does increase condition dmg per boon on you.This just opens the trait up for more flexibility.I.e. Condi and boon heavy playstyles.

Instinctive Reaction:Add the effect to remove a condition when you gain quickness to its previous effects. (Condi removen has small ICD, Like 5s)Remove the healing power from power aspect and move it to Invigorating Bond.Edit: Add ICD on COndi remove, otherwise it could be abused with OS changed leading wind trait. Still would be fantastic for Condi remove but not totally immune.

Master:Evasive Purity:Remove ICD. It does not need an ICD it is restricted from endurance itself.

Grandmaster:Natures vengeance:I will break a rule here because it is inherent difficult to talk about this trait without talking about spirits them selfs.I will only look at the spirit mechanic and not the specific effects.Spirits are a general utility skill type which includes the current guardian spirit weapons.Ranger spirits will work in a similar fashion. They have charges. They have an attack on cast.BUT: They still will have special spirit effects that will last for about 20s and affect 10ppl.Because of charges the buff can be refreshed. CD of spirits will be arround 20s.TRAIT: Spirits now leave behind a persisting field that pulses boons to allies. Spirits get an additional charge.Boons stay as they are. Health is removed. Range increase of the trait is now baseline.

Invigorating Bond:You and your pet gain healing power from your power in addition to its previous effects.Percentage gained is higher for the pet. @Wondrouswall.7169 pointed out why this is favorable for some less used pets.Reduce ICD to 10s. A 2.5K heal that sets your F2 on CD and only can be accessed a second time immediatly when petswapping is restrictive enough.The 10s ICD is just there to prevent abuse from the small CD of bird F2.Edit: Changed ICD from 0 to 10s.@Pterikdactyl.7630 pointed out the abusive possibility i oversaw.

Beastmastery:Its atm more on the power site, despite the fact it was the all arround utility traitline. I wanted to improve several things to give back this options. I shuffled arround some traits to give it a more balanced feel. In addition to that i wanted to give it kinda special feeling with the GM traits.This time i will list all traits how they will be ordered anew with my suggestion, even if they do not receive any changes.

Minors:Pack Alpha: Keeps effect.

Loud Whistle: Now also gives the ranger increased dmg if pet is above health threshold. this trait now works properly with soulbeast.

Pets Prowess: Now also gives the ranger increased movement speed and ferocity. Ferocity bonus is higher in soulbeast mode but not doubled.

Adept:Go for the eyes: Hits up to 5 Targets. Activate a Lesser Hunters Call on the Beastskill. Every enemy will be targeted by 1 bird and they will do less dmg ticks.(Hunters Call does Blind now, This is covered in my Skill Improvement Thread)

Honed Axes:Wintersbite AoE is now baseline. Base effect has changed.Gain precision per Axe wielded. Axe recharge is reduced.

Resounding Timbre: Keeps effect.

Master:Wilting Strike: Now also applies some stacks of slow and some dmg. More AoE and some crowd control.

Two Handed Training: Stays as is. Maybe improve dmg modifier abit.

Natural Healing:You and your pet gain now health regeneration. regeneration you apply last longer.Health regeneration is increased in beastmode but not doubled.

Grandmaster:Beastly Warden. Activate Lesser Protect me. Is not a stunbreak but has all its other effects. ICD stays at 20s.

Zephyrs Speed: Stays as is.

Potent Ally:Cast Lesser Signet of the Hunt if your or the attack of your pet gets blocked.

So beastmastery has synergy with other traitlines especially with its GM traits. It has a distinct CC line, a dmg line and a supportive line and cross linking options at the GM level.

END

I hope you had a joy reading these suggestions, i will do another thread for Soulbeast and Druid (including the skills of them) and one seperately for the ranger core skills.As i said above constructive critique is welcome and keep in mind these are all ideas and not a deathwish to balance. i made them out of flavor and for more gameplay engagement and not pure dmg or competitive use. i hope there is something for everyone.

I want Taste For Danger & Instinctive Reaction conversion bonuses split for the Pet so they receive 14% instead of 7%. After the Natural Healing and Expertise Training changes; condition-based pets have fallen greatly in DPS and healing power contribution is pitiful. At least with the values doubled for pets, they can gain some of their effectiveness back. Not as good as +33% condition duration/+300 condition damage or +450 healing power, but some.

It would also bolster the more lacking pets, such as Bears having the most condition duration from Taste for Danger, meaning some of the pets from that selection such as the Murellow and even Arctodus will have vastly improved condition durations. The same can be said for Canines and other pets with healing abilities if Instinctive Reaction were to get a 14% conversion for the pet. Since those pets have an above-average power stat, ones such as the Fern Hound, Jacaranda, and Drakes (Chomp) can benefit more and from Invigorating Bond.

For references, Instinctive Reaction with a 14% conversion would only yield 261 healing power for the pets with the highest power stat (Canines, Drakes, Wyvern, Jacaranda) and 336 healing power for the Shark. Taste For Danger would yield 20.6% condition duration for pets with average vitality (Felines, Birds, etc.) while higher vitality pets would gain more, such as Bears (46.2%) and Porcine/Moas/Drakes/Spiders (34.8%).

Love ut, though I would like proctective ear and evasive purity to apply to allies.

And for invograteing bond to be increased to 500

I think these are very well done. You have solid Ranger suggestions. In particular, I love your Poisoned Barb trait. Flavor-wise, poison is my favorite condition, and practically speaking, it would have some really nice synergy with Predator's Cunning.

The thing that immediately stands out to me is Invigorating Bond. That would give low-CD pets like hawk and eagle a pretty significant advantage, and that's honestly too much sustain. However, I like where you're going with it. It's very lackluster right now.

@Wondrouswall.7169 said:I want Taste For Danger & Instinctive Reaction conversion bonuses split for the Pet so they receive 14% instead of 7%. After the Natural Healing and Expertise Training changes; condition-based pets have fallen greatly in DPS and healing power contribution is pitiful. At least with the values doubled for pets, they can gain some of their effectiveness back. Not as good as +33% condition duration/+300 condition damage or +450 healing power, but some.

It would also bolster the more lacking pets, such as Bears having the most condition duration from Taste for Danger, meaning some of the pets from that selection such as the Murellow and even Arctodus will have vastly improved condition durations. The same can be said for Canines and other pets with healing abilities if Instinctive Reaction were to get a 14% conversion for the pet. Since those pets have an above-average power stat, ones such as the Fern Hound, Jacaranda, and Drakes (Chomp) can benefit more and from Invigorating Bond.

For references, Instinctive Reaction with a 14% conversion would only yield 261 healing power for the pets with the highest power stat (Canines, Drakes, Wyvern, Jacaranda) and 336 healing power for the Shark. Taste For Danger would yield 20.6% condition duration for pets with average vitality (Felines, Birds, etc.) while higher vitality pets would gain more, such as Bears (46.2%) and Porcine/Moas/Drakes/Spiders (34.8%).

Good point. I will put it in later on.And i forgot to mention the aknowledgement for you in the MM OS change. Its basically your idea i copied. I will put this in too.

@"Pterikdactyl.7630" said:I think these are very well done. You have solid Ranger suggestions. In particular, I love your Poisoned Barb trait. Flavor-wise, poison is my favorite condition, and practically speaking, it would have some really nice synergy with Predator's Cunning.

The thing that immediately stands out to me is Invigorating Bond. That would give low-CD pets like hawk and eagle a pretty significant advantage, and that's honestly too much sustain. However, I like where you're going with it. It's very lackluster right now.

If you look at the momentarely use of birds you will realise that this wouldnt be utterly unbalanced. Birds are good pets but very frail and atm mostly used in WvW in soulbeast builds for more mobility. 2.5-3k heal every 20s isnt that big of an issue and maybe would give them some additional use outside the current niche. The counter to this would basically be to kill the bird which is done pretty fast and in PvE it would give very interesting build possibilities.

Thank you for the appreciation btw it took about 5h to write,most if it was structuring and theory crafting. ^^

@InsaneQR.7412 said:

@"Pterikdactyl.7630" said:I think these are very well done. You have solid Ranger suggestions. In particular, I love your Poisoned Barb trait. Flavor-wise, poison is my favorite condition, and practically speaking, it would have some really nice synergy with Predator's Cunning.

The thing that immediately stands out to me is Invigorating Bond. That would give low-CD pets like hawk and eagle a pretty significant advantage, and that's honestly too much sustain. However, I like where you're going with it. It's very lackluster right now.

You're welcome :).

While I agree with you that they are an easy kill, it is not nearly as big of an issue when playing Soulbeast since all that needs to be done is merge to bring it back to health. I have been playing with owl in WvW and the only issue its low health brings up is if it's dead and I have to choose to either merge or swap pets. Don't get me wrong, I love the idea, but I think some sort of ICD would need to be instilled, even if it were something like 10 seconds per pet. Isn't the F2 CD on BM traited Hawk/Eagle 4.5s?

@"Pterikdactyl.7630" said:

@InsaneQR.7412 said:

@"Pterikdactyl.7630" said:I think these are very well done. You have solid Ranger suggestions. In particular, I love your Poisoned Barb trait. Flavor-wise, poison is my favorite condition, and practically speaking, it would have some really nice synergy with Predator's Cunning.

The thing that immediately stands out to me is Invigorating Bond. That would give low-CD pets like hawk and eagle a pretty significant advantage, and that's honestly too much sustain. However, I like where you're going with it. It's very lackluster right now.

Well yeah i forgot about the BM reduction and the Sb revive. My bad.Yeah 10s makes sense. I will edit the entry with the reasoning behind it.

Another comment: although I like the idea of having LR on stun, I could foresee this easily hurting more than helping. Not having much control over a moment-based effect could easily fuck you over (like near a ledge, running from a zerg, etc.). Perhaps the movement itself could be removed while still keeping the evade frame and the other LR effects?

@"Pterikdactyl.7630" said:Another comment: although I like the idea of having LR on stun, I could foresee this easily hurting more than helping. Not having much control over a moment-based effect could easily kitten you over (like near a ledge, running from a zerg, etc.). Perhaps the movement itself could be removed while still keeping the evade frame and the other LR effects?

I thought about the exact same thing some moments ago. An iteration of LR without an animation. Just an evade and stunbreak would be the idea. I just had the intention to put it in.

I just finished the comprehensive Skill Improvement Thread which is part 2 of my comprehensive Improvement Threads.I will make 2 additional parts. One for Elite Specs and one for Pets and class mechanic.

Update: I edited the "Go for the Eyes Trait" and gave it some synergy with WH.In addition to that i will also Cross Post the Skill Thread, if someone is interested.https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/28776/comprehensive-core-ranger-skill-improvements#latest