Overhaul of the survival ranger to have the condition sustain needed to stay on tag in WvW

anduriell.6280 · September 19, 2018

In my later threads i've touched the dps output (skirmish and marksmanship traitlines) and team Support with limited AoE in Nature Magic traitline.
Here i'd like to improve lightly the active sustain the ranger has improving an active gameplay and replace some passive effects.

Wilderness Survival.

Some reorganisation to enhance the role already has of condition clear + enhance the conditions applied.

Minor

Natural Defense: You and your pet gain protection when you dodge roll. You recover endurance more quickly.
Rugged Growth:
Oakheart Salve

Adept

Explorer Reflexes: ( ICD 20s) Falling damage is reduced (50%). Cast lesser lighting reflexes when taking falling damage or using a healing skill.
Refined Toxins (ICD 1s). When you hit an enemy affected by bleeding you inflict poison (3s)
Taste for Danger: The expertise gain is increased to 10% of vitality.

Master

Natural resistance. (ICD 5s) When affected by a movement imparing condition (Stun, Taunt, Daze, Cripple, Fear, Immobilize and Chilled) the ranger gain protection (5s)
Poison Master Removed the swap effect. Additionally poison duration is increased in 20%.
Ambidexterity

Grand Master

Wilderness Knowledge
Troll asimilation. The ranger and the pet take 20% less damage when under 50% hp. Cast lesser troll unguent under 25% health (20s ICD)
Bindweed coating: Stunning, dazing, knock down, or launch foes by the ranger or the pet cause them to immobilise (2s)

Survival Skills

Small changes to most skills to fit the theme of troll sustain and nature survival. Replaced Elite and Muddy terrain for better fitting skills to avoid overlapping with Skirmish traits to overlap.

Troll unguent. Base CD reduced to 20s.
- lesser version: Health per second: 600 (0.12) Duration 6 seconds.
Lightning Reflexes: Removed damage. CD reduced to 24s. Skill to have a directional arrow to choose the direction of the movement. Additionallythe skill apply stealth to the ranger 1s (to hide the direction of the movement) and at the end applies camouflage for 10s.
- lesser version: Removed the movement, the ranger to gain the camouflage(6s) when the effect triggers.
Quickening Zephyr. Removed the stun break from the skill. Increased base quickness to 8s.
Sharpening Stone. Reduced base CD to 24s.
Somnolent Scent : Area around the ranger pulses causing up to 3 foes around the ranger to Slow(2s)x6, cripple(4s)x6 and poison(6s)x6. Radius 300. Duration 6 seconds. CD 40s.

Elite:

Survival of teh Fittest. CD 60 secs. The ranger and the pet pulses resistance(3s)x3, fury(3s)x3 and quickness(3s)x3 for short time. Duration 9 seconds. This Elite skill is designed to help the ranger to do that push in specific situations.

Weapons.

Torch

Throw Torch . Increased the number of stacks to 3. Reduced duration to 5s.. The torch explore on hit (300 radius) causing up to 3 foes arounf the target to burn (1 stack 10s ) .

Dagger offhand.

Ovehaul to dagger so it provides the utility needed for an offhand weapon.

Parrying ( CD 15s) Block and counter a melee attack with a feint which stuns foes. Works in a similar way to Counterattack.
- Will breaker : Stun(2s) and poison(8s) your foe. It can use the animation from Stalker's Strike
Stalker's Strike: (CD 20s) Teleport to your target and apply cripple and bleed to nearby foes.

Further notes

Traits which interact directly with the pet (emphatic bond, Shared Anguish) are moved to Beastmastery as it better fits the traitline thus distributing the sustain in different areas.
Ancient seeds is removed the Druid traitline and is reworked as a less powerful but easier to trigger. Ancient seeds is a unfun effect which would go from completely useless effect (almost all classes) to extremely overpowered effect which destroy some classes (necro, rangers..) . This way it can be trigger more often (no CD) but the effect is contained in one short application of immobilise. It keeps the original uses ( to land burst after a knocback) still is not as destructive as a pulsing immobilise is for some classes.
Entangle is present in the elite spirit skill, which gain from the ranged AoE effect which the active provides.

I think overall this changes would make the ranger better suited to stay on tag in WvW. Those aren't extreme changes but those are aimed to improve the survivability in some specific situations where conditions are the issue.

Brastmastery traitline will be focused in power damage sustain using the pet as balancing mechanic.

I would ask you to kindly keep in mind this overhaul makes sense if all the other changes are applied as well, as it serves to better define the role of the traitline.

So what do you think about this text wall? Do you think all the changes posted would make the ranger a more rewarding class to play without breaking the balance?

kappa.2036 · September 20, 2018

In all honesty, you can try to buff ranger's sustain how much you want, but the class will still be useless. The CLASS MECHANIC is not suited for WvW zerg: Pets have almost 0 group utilities and die istantly. Also, the weapons are all garbage, zero group utilities or aoe damage.

Trust me, you just have to wait a new E-spec completely focused around AoEs, like an hammer spec with a new AoE damage/support mechanic.

anduriell.6280 · September 21, 2018

@kappa.2036 said:
In all honesty, you can try to buff ranger's sustain how much you want, but the class will still be useless. The CLASS MECHANIC is not suited for WvW zerg: Pets have almost 0 group utilities and die istantly. Also, the weapons are all garbage, zero group utilities or aoe damage.

Trust me, you just have to wait a new E-spec completely focused around AoEs, like an hammer spec with a new AoE damage/support mechanic.

I greet you honestly but i don't share your opinion.

Basically because you can put all the AoEs you want in a new e-spec and still will have all the issues the core ranger. There is so much you can change a class with just one trait line and a set of utilities.

First core has to be updated to actual times, this class hasn't got enough changes to keep up with the times. Which affects very negatively to the e-specs, pushing them to be or overpowered to compensate for the lack of usability of the core ranger or vastly underwhelming when their broken mechanics are corrected.

As such the idea of this changes is not to make Core ranger a must in WvW, but to be acceptable in pug squads. The same as Core Guardian, nobody would choose Core guardian over Firebrand, but still Core is acceptable.

The changes are aimed to push the ranger to have uses in WvW other than sideline +1 roamer . Using E-Specs should be the defining point where the utility bring by those make the druid or soulbeast desired to have.

About the pets i'll upload another thread about what ideas i have to improve the usability of those without too much core code or UI changing, which Anet representatives pointed out is very difficult, like to show the pet like a party member. But that thread will be loong as there is too much ground to cover.

KR