Anet, it's time for a ranger rework. Please share your ideas and scrapbooks with us.

Because that has to come at some point... right? RIGHT?

But by the direction i see in the balance changes, Anet's lead team has another completely different idea of were the class should exceed and shine and my guess is me as a player I have no clue of what their thoughts are.

So i'd like for them to share what ideas are they considering (which doesn't mean will be implemented) to rework the class. So from them i may get an idea about how they think the class and each specialisation should shine in the game. And on the way they get some feedback from the veterans which still look in the forum from time to time.

Right now my I feel lost and for the amount of the streamers missing in twitch ( I've watch some of them moved on to WoW ) my educated guess is that the feeling is shared.

I don't really see the point to rework ranger. All specializations (core, hot, pof) have decent builds in all game modes, and all of them are fairly balanced.

I think ranger is fine as it is, we just need a rework on pets. And by rework i mean a "buff" to most pets damage, better utilities and AI.

@"Lynnie.7213" said:I think ranger is fine as it is, we just need a rework on pets. And by rework i mean a "buff" to most pets damage, better utilities and AI.

Basically an overhaul.Better F1 mechanic positioning and micro management systems would be neat too.

While I agree that ranger probably needs a rework, it continues to be a joke in wvw since launch outside of a few gank builds and is getting squeezed out of pvp again, I don't see it happening. Look at the latest patch. No real thought was given to the class, the dagger changes were token changes that had little practical effect and didn't open the weapons for viability in any mode outside of pve. They were there simply so the ranger didn't get a single nerf in the patch. Now keep this in mind and realize the real problem with the class is the class mechanic. traits don't work with all the pets and the developers have repeatedly nerfed any pet that was even slightly effective due to others classes bitching and moaning about AI in combat. Pets die in seconds in WvW and can barely track a moving target. Now tie it all together with recent dev comments about how they are reluctant to change any core class mechanic due to the inflexibility of the engine.

So basically what really needs to be addressed with the class won't be addressed due to the amount of work required to do so. This is compounded by a lack of enthusiasm for the class by the developers in general. Druid may see a revision but I doubt it due to the shift away from dedicated roles and druid was designed to fill a dedicated role. Honestly I feel that ranger would have been addressed by now if the developers were inclined to due so as its a class in desperate need of it on multiple levels and certainly more in need of a re design ahead of say mesmers. Seeing as it hasn't been I can only conclude it most likely won't be.

@Mr Pin.6728 said:certainly more in need of a re design ahead of say mesmers.

As somebody who actually plays both classes that is false. Ranger definitely needs a lot of work done to it but lying won't help with that. The rest of your post was right, stick to the facts.

Pet need overhual/rework? yes that it!!Ranger overhual/rework? Emmm...no,what point you need to do?

I love to see old pet spec on beastmaster traits paw10k per hit.and some weapon quality of life like old shotbow 1200range.Torch skill 4 add some armo/effect condition.

and fix bug around traits/tooltip.

@Levetty.1279 said:

@Mr Pin.6728 said:certainly more in need of a re design ahead of say mesmers.

I play both classes as well and it wasn't my intention to lie. I simply feel that the Mesmer was in a better place before its redesign then ranger. I also feel that the Mesmer redesign may have created more issues with the class. However, these are my personal opinions and I do agree with you that they may have been hyperbolic. I do apologize.

Y'all already know what I'm gonna say.... Dagger dagger dagger and dagger

Judging by their answers, I don't think Ranger is on their mind at all, it's an after thought. I mean, even one of them talked

Remove pets if the Ranger MAIN MECHANIC can't be fixed. It's dragging the Ranger, making so many traits completely useless and ineffective.

Most glaring issues for me :

Ranger:

• OH Dagger : Crippling Talon, 2-3 targets, ammo, cooldown reduction.
• OH Torch : Throw Torch 180-260 radius burn, ammo, cooldown reduction.
• Un-split MH Axe 1, 2 and 3 : Come on, it been over 1 year now.
• Sword AA 2 cleaving : ???
• Sword 2 : Leap is annoying, just terrible work around to make it work.
• Opening Strikes : If not traited, then only works one time.
• Sharpened Edges is not worth a Major, all other professions are Minors.
• Empathic Bond : Just no.
• Fuse Tail Wind and Furious Grip, give another Minor to Skirmishing.
• Fuse Refined Toxins and Poison Master, because Thief Potent Poison is miles ahead.

Pets :

• Baseline Fortifying Bond.
• Baseline Pet-Evade on Ranger-Dodge.
• Baseline all Beastmastery Minors.
• Very bad pathing and hit, example : Rock Gazelle going on the other side of the planet and Electric Wyvern that always misses the launch.

Druid :Give a better identity and better skills to Druid Staff like they did with Guardian Staff.

• Staff 2 : Needs to be like Holy Strike of Guardian Staff.
• Staff 4 : Hefty 20 secs cooldown for such hard to aim, ineffective and slow casting skill. Radius is super small and Immobilize is short.
• Staff 5 : Make it a bubble like Defense Field (Bulwark Gyro Tool Belt)
• Primal Echoes is useless.
• Cultivated Synergy : Useless.
• Glyphs : Most of them are useless. Nobody take them, because they wanted to use the CA version. Except a few exceptions for Raids/Fractals, they are just useless.

Soulbeast :

• MH Dagger : Evade, faster strikes (make it look like a maniac with bloodlust).
• Plenty of ineffective BMode skills still in beta test after soon 1 year of PoF (example : Lots of Power coefficient being terrible, Bite from Cats hitting 1 target, Poison Gas from Spiders on 20 secs, etc.).
• Traits : Lack of a thematic with BMode and Soulbeast in general. It just feels everywhere and nowhere.
• Predator's Cunning should steal/damage on poisoned foes, not on every poison applications.
• Eternal Bond is super buggy.

Well, it was longer than I thought. Not hopeful to see changes in 3 months, but just putting it out there.

Honestly, the number one thing we need is to go through and rework every single pet family to bring them up to the smokescale's level of functionality and competence. Also reverting most of the pet nerfs for at least PVE.

It'll never happen, because PVPers hate getting outplayed by an AI, but it would be nice.

Please make ranger (in all specs) more viable in zerging for wvw. We're good in roaming atm, but there is still a lot of druid and SB hate when it comes to meta zerging.

@Levetty.1279 said:

@Mr Pin.6728 said:certainly more in need of a re design ahead of say mesmers.

Wait what? Mesmer got a nice phantasm rework and is the best core class atm. Thats the main reason why it is so good in this meta. High versatility, good defenses, good dmg and a WORKING class mechanic.Ranger has a class mechanic that is purely. AI related, a bad one at that and the utility of the pets suck. Atleast 90% of them.

Pets pets pets, for the love of god fix pets. 40+, most of them useless carbon copies, 1s to 1s 1/4ths casts times on F2, followed by 40-60s cooldowns.

Pets pets pets, fix pathing so that a pet with 30% movement speed can land attacks a player with 0.

Pets pets pets, fix quickness on pets. I dont care if it breaks animations, just let them be affected by quickness.

Pets pets pets, please allow them to evade when we do, because in current AOE spam they're dead in seconds unless you run soulbeast. The only profession mechanic you can outright delete, rendering several traits and skills useless.

Pets pets pets. Please just fix the pets.

@InsaneQR.7412 said:

@Levetty.1279 said:

@Mr Pin.6728 said:certainly more in need of a re design ahead of say mesmers.

@Levetty.1279 said:

@InsaneQR.7412 said:

@Levetty.1279 said:

@Mr Pin.6728 said:certainly more in need of a re design ahead of say mesmers.

Yeah but his expression despite the sarcastic undertone doesnt make it false when he says ranger that rangers could need more a redesign that mesmer.Mesmer is up to date so his commentary is definetly true. And i also agree with him that ranger was before the mesmer rework in greater rework need and still is. Ranger pets are the most outdated profession mechanic period. I dont talk druid, i dont talk soulbeast, i talk ranger core.A mechanic that has a situational utility, is AI driven and is punishable.

No, it doesn't need a rework at all (unless Opening Strike counts as a rework). It needs pet fixes and buffs to underused skills and traits.Soulbeast could be made full power to solidify its position as a viable power damage dealer, but it's allright at the moment. The dagger buffs actually made the dagger on par with sword when just bashing a golem with the MM BM SB power setup.

@"Krispera.5087" said:I mean, even one of them talked

when he was talking about Soulbeast... Which gets an MH Dagger with no projectile.

And he was obviously talking about pairing it the existing off-hand dagger.Which no one does in a serious enviroment (aka pvp or raids/fractals). That's the problem with that comment. Advertising how the ranger now can dual dagger, when the off hand is nothing but a glorified extra evade on your skillbar. Looking cool with dual wielding daggers is the only thing that setup got going for it.

I agree with a lot of you suggestion, but making the BM minor traits baseline is gonna ruin Soulbeast completely. Soulbeast is good because of BM.

@Lazze.9870 said:I agree with a lot of you suggestion, but making the BM minor traits baseline is gonna ruin Soulbeast completely. Soulbeast is good because of BM.

They should make those buffs to stats and movement speed into those uninspired boring Soulbeast Minors.

I'd take a rework of Opening Strike, I made a 4 minute combat video the other day and it didn't refresh once with kill one after another. For a whole line of minor traits to be useless for a period of time like that is unacceptable. And, you shouldn't need to trait Remorseless and create a build around them to make them useful.

• Opening Strike; You and your pet apply vulnerability and cripple on Opening Strikes.
• Alpha Training; Opening Strike is always a critical hit.
• Precise Strike; Opening Strike is refreshed if your struck target dies.
• Remorseless; Opening Strike deals 25% more damage and is refreshed whenever gaining Fury or Stealth.

@Krispera.5087 said:

@Lazze.9870 said:I agree with a lot of you suggestion, but making the BM minor traits baseline is gonna ruin Soulbeast completely. Soulbeast is good because of BM.

Soulbeast is meant to be a damage spec, regardless of how boring those minors are. Something like a 7 % modifier on a boon the class pretty much has permanent uptime of isn't bad.

Besides, how are stat boosts any more interesting than damage modifiers as minors?

@Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582 said:I'd take a rework of Opening Strike, I made a 4 minute combat video the other day and it didn't refresh once with kill one after another. For a whole line of minor traits to be useless for a period of time like that is unacceptable. And, you shouldn't need to trait Remorseless and create a build around them to make them useful.

• Opening Strike; You and your pet apply vulnerability and cripple on Opening Strikes.
• Alpha Training; Opening Strike is always a critical hit.
• Precise Strike; Opening Strike is refreshed if your struck target dies.
• Remorseless; Opening Strike deals 25% more damage and is refreshed whenever gaining Fury or Stealth.

Opening Strike; You and your pet apply vulnerability and cripple on Opening Strikes.Alpha Training; Opening Strike is always a critical hit.Precise Strike: Deal increased damage to foes inflicted by vulnerability.Remorseless: (keep as is)Lead the Wind: (keep as is) added: refresh opening strike on stealth (LB3#)Predator's Onslaught: (keep as is) added: refresh opening strike when hitting a foe inflicted by movement impending conditions (with an ICD)

Would give all the GMs a refresh reflected in how the traits are used. Predator's Onslaught simply has it to keep vuln stacks in a build that runs PO for the sustained damage (aka not making the minor traits useless in long pve fights).

@InsaneQR.7412 said:Yeah but his expression despite the sarcastic undertone doesnt make it false when he says ranger that rangers could need more a redesign that mesmer.Yeah, nobody is arguing Mesmer needs another rework and I think Ranger is the one that currently needs it the most.

And i also agree with him that ranger was before the mesmer rework in greater rework need and still is. Ranger pets are the most outdated profession mechanic period. I dont talk druid, i dont talk soulbeast, i talk ranger core.The people who played both classes, the people who make the game and a cursory glance at the game mechanics disagree with you.

A mechanic that has a situational utility, is AI driven and is punishable.Throw in it works against the other class mechanics and dies when your target dies and you have Mesmer before the rework.

If your entire reason for why Anet should work on the Ranger is 'Mesmer got new toys that's not fair daddy Anet' Then you aren't going to get anywhere. Actually explain to them why it does and lets brainstorm some ideas.

@"Levetty.1279" said:

The people who played both classes, the people who make the game and a cursory glance at the game mechanics disagree with you.

I assume you thought that because mesmer got the rework first?Did you thought about the technical standpoint? So mesmer was easy to implement and thus was one of the first classes to be updated? It was even stated that ranger pets are a Titanic technical issue to overcome to rework them. And the point that: "The ppl who played both classes disagree with you" is not true. You are concluding from yourself to others which makes this argument invalid. I play both classes Mesmer was even my most played charr at some point. Anet did not state that mesmer was the first profession that "needed" the rework. They stated they disnt want to encourage passive gameplay anymore thus reworked phantasms. As far as i see pets hit the same mark, they are probably just to whack of a mess code wise and need way more time.

Throw in it works against the other class mechanics and dies when your target dies and you have Mesmer before the rework.

Phantasms were barely AI driven. They attacked over and over again the same target with the same skill. They were rather timer driven. Sure the design was quiete bad and especially in competitives this could suck, but mesmer had atleast other options like clone shatterer. So sure phantasms were bad and inactive but they were a part of mesmer class mechanics not the whole. And phantasms didnt got triple the CD when they died and you could resummon them very frequently upon death. When pets die you need to swap to still deal dmg with it (i am still talking pure core here no look at soulbeast) if you dont you wait an eternity, if you do you wait 1min.

If your entire reason for why Anet should work on the Ranger is 'Mesmer got new toys that's not fair daddy Anet' Then you aren't going to get anywhere. Actually explain to them why it does and lets brainstorm some ideas.

Thats again a red hering. You are implying that this would be my reasoning which it isnt. My argument is that ranger was in more dire need of a rework than mesmer was. So basically i oppose your opinion. I was not against the rework, far from that, i was very cheerful about that. I just argue that your expression that someones opinion is false because they oppose your opinion you categorize as fact is wrong. Sure we are both biased but claiming someone is wrong about facts because they oppose your opinion is not valid argumentation and claiming some reason your opposing argumenter wouöd imply is neither.

Now to brainstorming:

AI needs an overhaul. I am rather oblivious how to accomplish that.

To improve survivability: let pets evade when you evade. Cleanse when you cleanse. Heal when you heal (this is probably PvE only but we'll see)

To improve costumisation: Archetype and F2 skill should be choosable inside the pet family. This way you could mix and match skins, skills and stats the way you like.

To improve utility:Reduce cast times, overhaul skills, reduce CD, more CC, more cleanse, more fields, more finishers, more group buffs like venoms similar to thiefs etc.

To Improve Diversity and reliability: reduce the dmg pets do and give more to the ranger.Tanky pets should generate more aggro than the ranger so you can use them for tanking. Glassy pets should generate less so they live longer and can deal longer dmg.Improve runspeed on melee pets and targeting on all of them. Give melee pets more gap closers. All ranged pets should work on range (i. E tailswipe of devourer, AA of Jacaranda/Iboga need changes).Better interactions with traits and weaponskills. Like make the weaponskills that affects pets a new skill category that affects pets and are traitable etc.Better stat manipulation like an amulet system. Similar ro PvP buildcraft but only for pets.

Ok well keep crying that Ranger deserves a rework because Mesmer got one and see where that gets you. If you are lucky they might do another damage increase on Ice trap.