Ranger traits vs other profs [that are similar but better]

Survival trait lines most important feature is that it gives condi cleanses. Couple that with a 20% reduced CD and fury upon activation that is the standard for most pvp/ wvw appeal. guardian similarly does that with meditation in Monks Focus with the bonus that it heals them and grants fury to them and allies.

So 4 utilities (quickening zephyr, lightning reflexes, muddy terrain, and sharpening stones) with 2 of them being CC breakers and instant, 1 heal as troll unguent, and 1 elite entangle. Lets look at the most used utilities: Quickening zephyr comes down to a 36 second CD, lightning reflexes becomes a 24 second CD. Okay not bad. Both cleanse 2 condis and give fury but Look at muddy terrain - the only benefit that skill gives you is from Soften the Fall passive otherwise you would never slot it. Sharpen blades is pretty much for condi builds and not a CC breaker but at a lower CD. Guardians most used utilities are most likely to be Judges Intervention (teleports you, puts a burn and at 36 seconds CD which cleanses 2 condis like Quickening Zephyr but lacks the heal), Contemplation of Purity at 32 seconds which converts condis to boons on top of the Monks Focus perks. When I look at the other utilities I can honestly say Smite Condition at a 16 second CD is impressive with damage to boot and much better than what Ranger provides.

Let’s look at the heals - 20 second CD for Troll Unguent with a 3/4 second cast time and could potentially cleanse off 4 conditions of coupled with Soften the Fall. A very nice pvp heal but needs space and time to recover the health usefully at the rate it regenerates at and risks being hampered by poison. Litany of Wrath from Guardians is also at a 20 second CD abut at a 1/4 second cast time and a larger burst heal with additional healing if you can land some nice damage after. Troll Heal works better against power dmg than it does against condi whilst imo Litany’s burst and after dmg heal could be more useful on both scenarios.

The elites. To be fair here I think both elites are balanced if not giving the edge to entangle, granted Renewed Focus resets the cool downs on guardians virtues...

Signets are also something shared with guardians, necros, thieves, mesmers, elementalist and also warriors, so let’s look at that - Rangers get 20% CD reduction and fury on activation. That would bring 3/4 of the signets for rangers down to 32 second CDs ( signet of stone, signet of the wild, and signet of the hunt), while signet of the renewal will be at 40 seconds. All of them except wild are instant but only stone and renewal see most of the pvp/wvw action and SotH as a gimmick build for unblockable for 6 seconds. My issue with reneweal is that 2 seconds of resistance on a 40 second traited CD is painful. No pulse resistance like warriors, or stronger passive like guardians. Just 2 seconds of resistance.Guardians grandmaster trait in Radiance gives 20% CD reduction as well, however it also grants gain improved passive effects, and share those passives with other allies when activated. Wow. That’s nice. I mean not to only mention that amongst ALL of the professions ranger has the least amount of signets - lacking heal and elite - that only 2 in those 4 are mainly used granted SotH is not too shabby but I digress. Mesmers have activating a signet grants them distortion and removes conditions. Signet recharge is also reduced. Pretty nice, very strong considering Mesmer signets are pretty strong. Necros have have improved passive effects. Gain the benefits of their equipped signet passives while in shroud. Signets recharge every second that you are in shroud once again.

Now I’m not saying the other mentioned professions should have their traits merged to match that with Ranger but what I’m asking is when you compare rangers shared effects/ traits that essentially do the same thing as other profs but not as good, it just really pigeon holes professions to certain utilities and trait lines preventing build diversity and really I mean interesting ways to play the game. Granted it might sound like I’m asking for one traitline or a utility to be able to handle everything and I’m not. I just see other profs and sigh and wish we had something that we can say is unique to us that is coveted by other professions. People laugh at our pets or will always say “smokescale won you that fight too OP nerf,”

Ranger has the appeal of fighting from range (duh) but imo what makes GW2 so alluring is the disregard to follow the normal tropes of fantasy yet still have them there for those that like it. The balls to be daring and be different with mounts or evens. I hate longbows and I abhor condition builds so If I want to play melee ranger then that’s my choice but I shouldn’t be only looking at survival to help me in pvp it gets so boring and not to mention predictable. If I want to to run full signets Ill be able to make it work against one enemy, maybe 2 if I’m a good player but 3? I’d like to see that. I made a post not too long ago about how the changes made to the beast mastery traitline made me restore my faith in the profession and I hope to see the changes we are all asking for and then some further along the rangers path.

I think signet of renewal should give resistance that scales with the amount of conditions you have, much like that demon rev skill.

While your suggestions arent bad, and ranger certanly has some skills that will not see the daylight ever (looking at you, muddy terrain.) I think overall it's in a pretty good spot. Yes, it's a shame you're forced to go wilderness survival if you want to survive the current meta, but the traitline is too good. Condie cleanses, protection, healing, increased endurance, stunbreak- it's one of my favourite traitlines. I used to be quite sceptical about survival skills, but again they are amongst the strongest in the rangers arsenal.

@"ChartFish.1308" said:I think signet of renewal should give resistance that scales with the amount of conditions you have, much like that demon rev skill.

While your suggestions arent bad, and ranger certanly has some skills that will not see the daylight ever (looking at you, muddy terrain.) I think overall it's in a pretty good spot. Yes, it's a shame you're forced to go wilderness survival if you want to survive the current meta, but the traitline is too good. Condie cleanses, protection, healing, increased endurance, stunbreak- it's one of my favourite traitlines. I used to be quite sceptical about survival skills, but again they are amongst the strongest in the rangers arsenal.

But thats the problem... Every build type has mandatory traits to reach its potential, but the Ranger simply needs too many traits, spread across too many trait lines, to effectively run a mixed build. I can best describe it as a Jack of All trades that does nothing but specialize; and the buildcraft clearly struggles with it. Druid made this insanely obvious, as the loss of one trait line dismantles power damage builds; and condi builds only suffer less due to some trait compression in Wilderness survival. Soulbeast works because it picks up the slack through the Beast mode mechanic and Stances having "trait functions" built in, but trying picking any pair of power weapon sets and see if you can get all of them traited correctly..... you ultimately can't. And again, Condi builds suffer less, because their traits are more compressed.

Ranger skills and traits are incredibly over complicated for what they do, and you're having to build rotations around skills that are functionally designed to be reactive and otherwise made to capitalize on moments of opportunity. You actively waste resources and skill effects to get damage bonuses, and most of those are incredibly short lived. The problem is that Ranger's peak damage output relies on the setup and execution of very specific chains of skills. And while these chains are devastating, the stark contrast of their performance outside of these chains heavily makes you question the design intent of the Ranger is. It can be a generalist or a specialist, but it can't actively transition between these states without the enemy (or allies) doing something specific to act as a catalyst. Its like trying to be a Thief, but not being able to setup your own Stealth attack.

Ranger is in a SERVICEABLE state, but its not a good state. And a great deal of that hinges on if its trait and skill conditions are being properly met by the environment.

@starlinvf.1358 said:

@"ChartFish.1308" said:Jack of All trades that does nothing but specialize; and the buildcraft clearly struggles with it. Druid made this insanely obvious, as the loss of one trait line dismantles power damage builds; and condi builds only suffer less due to some trait compression in Wilderness survival. Soulbeast works because it picks up the slack through the Beast mode mechanic and Stances having "trait functions" built in, but trying picking any pair of power weapon sets and see if you can get all of them traited correctly..... you ultimately can't. And again, Condi builds suffer less, because their traits are more compressed.

I agree with a lot with a lot of what you said. Especially where you actively waste resources and skills effects and how they specialize.

@skystorm.9280 said:So 4 utilities (quickening zephyr, lightning reflexes, muddy terrain, and sharpening stones) with 2 of them being CC breakers and instant, 1 heal as troll unguent, and 1 elite entangle. Lets look at the most used utilities: Quickening zephyr comes down to a 36 second CD, lightning reflexes becomes a 24 second CD. Okay not bad. Both cleanse 2 condis and give fury but Look at muddy terrain - the only benefit that skill gives you is from Soften the Fall passive otherwise you would never slot it. Sharpen blades is pretty much for condi builds and not a CC breaker but at a lower CD. Guardians most used utilities are most likely to be Judges Intervention (teleports you, puts a burn and at 36 seconds CD which cleanses 2 condis like Quickening Zephyr but lacks the heal), Contemplation of Purity at 32 seconds which converts condis to boons on top of the Monks Focus perks. When I look at the other utilities I can honestly say Smite Condition at a 16 second CD is impressive with damage to boot and much better than what Ranger provides.

Let’s look at the heals - 20 second CD for Troll Unguent with a 3/4 second cast time and could potentially cleanse off 4 conditions of coupled with Soften the Fall. A very nice pvp heal but needs space and time to recover the health usefully at the rate it regenerates at and risks being hampered by poison. Litany of Wrath from Guardians is also at a 20 second CD abut at a 1/4 second cast time and a larger burst heal with additional healing if you can land some nice damage after. Troll Heal works better against power dmg than it does against condi whilst imo Litany’s burst and after dmg heal could be more useful on both scenarios.

I never like when people try to do 1 to 1 comparisons like this on two different classes. For starters, JI doesn't clear 2 conditions as you claim. Valor also doesn't give protection on dodge role and heal you when you have protection. Guardian in general doesn't have poison to reduce other peoples healing while WS supplies it. The guardian build also actively wastes resources (their stunbreak, condi clear and heal from monk's focus) on opening burst so they have that problem too. Have you ever tried using signets on guardian? I think only PvE players use 1 for respective power or condi and rarely active or trait signets.

Don't get me wrong, I would love a signet and opening strike/MM rework on Ranger. It also feels bad that viper stance, which only does condition damage, is best in slot for PvE power SB. So I would love to have utility skills on ranger that actually do power damage. SotH and SotW would probably be great candidates for that. Every class has some kind of skill group that doesn't have a heal, 3 utilities and an elite. I think it would be cool if they did something crazy like make SotH or SotW an elite or heal and changed them. Frost trap could also use at least another 50% buff or duration increase. None of this requires looking at other classes though. Just looking at ranger itself and realizing some options are super weak. Also every build type on every class has mandatory traits.

My problem with the Ranger spec lines is...our stuff sucks without the trait to make it work right. You can't run any shout unless you are using beastmastery. You can't use any WS skill without WS. You can't run axe without beastmastery. You can't run warhorn without nature. We spend so much of our traitlines getting stuff to just be as good as everyone elses crap.

@DuckDuckBOOM.4097 said:

@skystorm.9280 said:So 4 utilities (quickening zephyr, lightning reflexes, muddy terrain, and sharpening stones) with 2 of them being CC breakers and instant, 1 heal as troll unguent, and 1 elite entangle. Lets look at the most used utilities: Quickening zephyr comes down to a 36 second CD, lightning reflexes becomes a 24 second CD. Okay not bad. Both cleanse 2 condis and give fury but Look at muddy terrain - the only benefit that skill gives you is from Soften the Fall passive otherwise you would never slot it. Sharpen blades is pretty much for condi builds and not a CC breaker but at a lower CD. Guardians most used utilities are most likely to be Judges Intervention (teleports you, puts a burn and at 36 seconds CD which cleanses 2 condis like Quickening Zephyr but lacks the heal), Contemplation of Purity at 32 seconds which converts condis to boons on top of the Monks Focus perks. When I look at the other utilities I can honestly say Smite Condition at a 16 second CD is impressive with damage to boot and much better than what Ranger provides.

Let’s look at the heals - 20 second CD for Troll Unguent with a 3/4 second cast time and could potentially cleanse off 4 conditions of coupled with Soften the Fall. A very nice pvp heal but needs space and time to recover the health usefully at the rate it regenerates at and risks being hampered by poison. Litany of Wrath from Guardians is also at a 20 second CD abut at a 1/4 second cast time and a larger burst heal with additional healing if you can land some nice damage after. Troll Heal works better against power dmg than it does against condi whilst imo Litany’s burst and after dmg heal could be more useful on both scenarios.

If you mean 1v1 as in only one prof to another I also mentioned that the other professions have sigils as well but to go through everyone of them is lengthy and I’m doing this on my phone :p I just picked guardian because they have 2 similarities that came to mind. I’m just comparing them side to side to show what they offer and how much they can work with - I want to show how much one lacks but is compensated by Cd time or more effects and also to show how much of a certain access one profession has to something. Mostly to explain why aome are currently performing better in pvp, raids and such, and I like doing that :) if you don’t well that’s okay ?? Sall good.

Having said that I strongly agree with what you said about viper stance, utility skills that do power damage, reworking opening strike and MM.

About guardian signets - I was floored when I saw how well a core guardian could run a roaming and small scale party in wvw with sigils. The 1200 knock down and revive party member sigils were a surprise and I have to give kudos to that team the held their ground and were tough to kill and that’s what I want to see more of; strange builds that can work but you won’t see so much diversity if the trait lines are rigid and only allow you to pick the same ones because the other traits and utilities are seldom/never used. Thanks for the comment man! Much love ❤️

@terrorshard.3854 said:My problem with the Ranger spec lines is...our stuff sucks without the trait to make it work right. You can't run any shout unless you are using beastmastery. You can't use any WS skill without WS. You can't run axe without beastmastery. You can't run warhorn without nature. We spend so much of our traitlines getting stuff to just be as good as everyone elses

So true ^ however I’d like to argue as devils advocate that while we can run NM with WS to get that nice protection synergy with SB we sacrifice weapon damage which we need to invest in to make our bursts do enough to secure a kill.

Revenant got slapped ''Opening Strike'' in Devastation :p (Expose Defenses) ! See, Devs can apply Ranger useless traits to other professions too... lol

More seriously... It's a fun thing to do. Let's see on the top of my mind, some of the obvious skills and traits (Let's not talk about all the other things, just obvious similarities) :

Skills :

• Shortbow Poison Volley (Do more Power damage on a Condi Weapon and never been split since the buff on April 19, 2016) vs Axe Splitblade (Hybrid Weapon, do LESS damage, is STILL split since June 20, 2017). Makes no sense :#
• Dagger 4 Crippling Talon (15 secs, no bounce) vs Thief's 4 Dancing Dagger (Spammable, 3 bounces).
• Shortbow 1 Crossfire (Need flanking for 3 secs Bleed) vs Revenant's 1 Shattershot (3 secs Bleed, higher Power damage, AoE).
• Torch 4 (Long burn, one stack) vs Guardian's 4 Torch (Shorter burn but 3 stacks, spammable with trait, 3x higher Power damage).
• Whirling Defense (Immobile, Reflect, long cooldown) vs Warrior's Whirling Axe (Mobile, higher Power damage, shorter cooldown).

I'm still salty they removed one bounce from Axe 1 Ricochet, then gave Thief's Shortbow 1 another bounce.

Traits :

• Sharpened Edges and Hidden Barbs are both Major. For Bleed, Warrior, Engi, Necro, they have minors, so it means they have less choices to do.

MAJOR Sharpened Edges 33% Chance = MINOR Sharpshooter ENGI 33% ChanceMINOR Serrated Steel ENGI = 33% DURATION INCREASEMINOR Bloodlust WARRIOR : Same 33% chance + 33% DURATION INCREASEMINOR Barbed Precision NECRO : Same 33% chance + 20% DURATION INCREASE

It means that MINOR TRAITS gives more than a MAJOR TRAIT (Sharpened Edges), which shouldn't happen to start with. The trait would have made sense if they didn't nerf from 66% to 33%, which makes it MAJOR worthy. Now it's not. IMO Skirmishing needs to some rework and fuse Tail Wind (Swiftness on Swap) and Furious Grip (Fury on Swap) together. Ranger has no Bleed duration trait, only Hidden Barbs that gives 33% more damage to Bleed.

• Poison Master (25% Poison Damage) vs Potent Poison (33% Poison Damage AND 33% Poison Duration). Thief is the real Poison Master, Ranger is the Poison Noob.
• Predator's Cunning (Only steal life when applying Poison) vs Focused Siphoning (Always if target has Vulnerability) + Assassin's Annihilation (Only while Flanking) vs Vampiric (Just need to hit) + Vampiric Presence (Just need to hit)

Again, like I said, all professions has different access to things and some stuffs are to give a thematic to them. It shouldn't stop us to compare what are look alike.

If look some skill is similar I like to talk about.

"Lighting reflexes" from ranger and "Rocket boots" from engineer.

Both with traits to Recharge reduced 20%

1Wilderness Knowledge Survival skills have reduced recharge, grant fury, and remove conditions.2Gadgeteer Gadget skills are overcharged and become more powerful. Overcharged gadgets have reduced charge.

come to look both skill similar to evade inc or get root.

It make "Rocket Boots" can use often.+with lower CD(total CD20sec/16sec with traits)+cure 3movement impairing+-with superspeed( with traits).+and have 2bullet.+can pick position forward.+Dmg when landing-(But not break stun).

andour "Lighting reflexes"+can break stun and cure immobilize.+Gain vigor.+Dmg at position.+-with cure2condi(if traits).+-have fury(with traits).-CD (30sec/24sec with traits).-No bullet.-Rollback only.

We should have nice about our "Lighting reflexes" have bullet to use?and we still ahve loooonger CD even have traits.

I think Lightning Reflexes is in a good spot and one of our best stun break. I don't think it's too comparable to Rocket Boots (If it was a Stun Break, then yes it is comparable), but Ranger does need to have Charges in its skills.

Lightning Reflexes is similar to Roll for Initiative and Riposting Shadow. Lightning Reflexes and Roll of Initiative is roughly the same, but Riposting Shadow is a much more loaded skill. One would argue that the high energy consumption makes it okay, which I would agree. In a situation a player only focused on doing Riposting Shadow (Which doesn't happen by the way), it can be used every 6 secs cooldown (30 energy / 5 energy per sec). It's still on a very short cooldown, food for thought.

@Krispera.5087 said:I think Lightning Reflexes is in a good spot and one of our best stun break. I don't think it's too comparable to Rocket Boots (If it was a Stun Break, then yes it is comparable), but Ranger does need to have Charges in its skills.

Lightning Reflexes is similar to Roll for Initiative and Riposting Shadow. Lightning Reflexes and Roll of Initiative is roughly the same, but Riposting Shadow is a much more loaded skill. One would argue that the high energy consumption makes it okay, which I would agree. In a situation a player only focused on doing Riposting Shadow (Which doesn't happen by the way), it can be used every 6 secs cooldown (30 energy / 5 energy per sec). It's still on a very short cooldown, food for thought.

I think its crap because its okayish at best unless you have WS slotted to upgrade it. Same with everything on ranger.

I mean lightning reflexes is in a really good spot for us giving the evade and break CC plus immobi but that damage it does is peanuts : /