Ranger Needs Faster Casting

[Gotejjeken.1267]

So, since they are looking at profession changes lately, how about we get some updated casting times for ranger?

Practically all of our healing skills are easily interruptible, along with soul beast pet skills like spiritual reprieve.  Spirits also take forever to use their actives, so have to cast those well in advance and outplay your enemy or you're just going to get interrupted out of it and the spirit destroyed.

Some weapon skills also have long aftercast times (i.e. sword); but this topic is mostly about the annoyance of a majority of our utilities being interruptible without any recourse (as we have little access to stability).  

Edited July 3, 2022 by Gotejjeken.1267

[RainbowTurtle.3542]

While I do understand some casting times, others make little to no sense.

 

Back when the game was new(er) and spirits had boons with NV other than alacrity, sure, I could see the casting time on them back then. But having the casting time now makes no sense with the way modern supports function such as firebrand, mechanist, or even in a way tempest with its shouts. Spirits have also strayed away from their original 'minion' design (following the player as an additional NPC summon like necro minions or elementalist elementals).

 

Signets and glyphs are both trash. Buff them. Please. Commands could use some work- sic em is useless outside of power soulbeast due to pets being useless, protect me is good, and that's... about it. We heal as one could lose its cast time and could just copy boons instead of creating a new instance of them. Search and rescue just needs a cooldown decrease. Guard is trash, rework it entirely, please. Strength of the pack definetly does not need a casting time- no direct effect.

 

Survival skills are OK. Entangle needs the casting time so it's not just an instant, powerful immob. Muddy terrain I can't see being good for the game if it lost a cast time, but ranger is also lower tier so it might just end up making ranger mid tier. 

 

Traps should either lose their 0.5s arming time to match the dragonhunter instant triggers or dragonhunter traps should gain arming time.

 

 

Cantrips are... a whole other can of worms.

[Kodama.6453]

9 hours ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

Practically all of our healing skills are easily interruptible

I don't see ranger heal skill cast times as really longer than these of other classes, tbh.

Only exception is water spirit. Since the spirit itself just pulses regeneration now, it really doesn't need to take 1 second to cast. On the other hand, it's active skill is just 1/4 seconds, which is really fast for a healing skill. So maybe they could change the cast of the spirit itself (and while we are at it, all other spirits as well) to 1/4 and then the water spirit active skill to 1/2?

[Gotejjeken.1267]

13 hours ago, Kodama.6453 said:

I don't see ranger heal skill cast times as really longer than these of other classes, tbh.

Only exception is water spirit. Since the spirit itself just pulses regeneration now, it really doesn't need to take 1 second to cast. On the other hand, it's active skill is just 1/4 seconds, which is really fast for a healing skill. So maybe they could change the cast of the spirit itself (and while we are at it, all other spirits as well) to 1/4 and then the water spirit active skill to 1/2?

 

Usually, other classes get something for longer heal times--reflecting or blocking projectiles (or entire attacks like guards' shelter).  Or other auxiliary effects like stealth with thiefs hide in shadows.   

Ranger gets nothing on any of its heals aside from the boon swapping of WHaO.  Which is fine IMO..if they'd shorten the casts just a tad.  

[Beddo.1907]

I still don't understand why spirits actives have cast time, while the spirits themselves also do their own cast animation before the slam.
This way your spirit actives have double delay before doing anything.

[RainbowTurtle.3542]

12 minutes ago, Beddo.1907 said:

I still don't understand why spirits actives have cast time, while the spirits themselves also do their own cast animation before the slam.
This way your spirit actives have double delay before doing anything.

Double the delay, without quickness. So an extra 1.5x.

[Kodama.6453]

4 hours ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

 

Usually, other classes get something for longer heal times--reflecting or blocking projectiles (or entire attacks like guards' shelter).  Or other auxiliary effects like stealth with thiefs hide in shadows.   

Ranger gets nothing on any of its heals aside from the boon swapping of WHaO.  Which is fine IMO..if they'd shorten the casts just a tad.  

Almost every healing skill of ranger has a cast time of 3/4 or below, which is very nornal for healing skills even without major additional effects.

The only exceptions are:

• WHaO, which, as you mentioned, has the boon copy mechanic attached to it
• Glyph of Rejuvenation in CA form, which is healing for an enormous amount in AOE
• Water Spirit if we count in the 1 second cast for the spirit itself, the actual skill that heals you has just 1/4 cast time

There are also very many examples of healing skills on other professions which have 1 second cast times or longer while also providing basically nothing else than healing or condi cleanse like ranger healing skills.

• Guardian: Receive the Light, Signet of Resolve
• Revenant: Soothing Stone, Selfless Spirit
• Warrior: Mending, Healing Signet, Natural Healing
• Engineer: Bandage Self
• Thief: Signet of Malice, Skelk Venom, Well of Gloom
• Elementalist: Ether Renewal, Glyph of Elemental Harmony, Wash the Pain Away!
• Mesmer: Ether Feast
• Necromancer: Consume Conditions, Signet of Vampirism, Blood Fiend (if we count the ridiculously high summon cast time), Well of Blood

Ranger healing skills are really not easier to interrupt than the healing skills of other classes, which was the statement I was refuting in the first place.

[Gotejjeken.1267]

3 hours ago, Kodama.6453 said:

Almost every healing skill of ranger has a cast time of 3/4 or below, which is very nornal for healing skills even without major additional effects.

The only exceptions are:

• WHaO, which, as you mentioned, has the boon copy mechanic attached to it
• Glyph of Rejuvenation in CA form, which is healing for an enormous amount in AOE
• Water Spirit if we count in the 1 second cast for the spirit itself, the actual skill that heals you has just 1/4 cast time

There are also very many examples of healing skills on other professions which have 1 second cast times or longer while also providing basically nothing else than healing or condi cleanse like ranger healing skills.

• Guardian: Receive the Light, Signet of Resolve
• Revenant: Soothing Stone, Selfless Spirit
• Warrior: Mending, Healing Signet, Natural Healing
• Engineer: Bandage Self
• Thief: Signet of Malice, Skelk Venom, Well of Gloom
• Elementalist: Ether Renewal, Glyph of Elemental Harmony, Wash the Pain Away!
• Mesmer: Ether Feast
• Necromancer: Consume Conditions, Signet of Vampirism, Blood Fiend (if we count the ridiculously high summon cast time), Well of Blood

Ranger healing skills are really not easier to interrupt than the healing skills of other classes, which was the statement I was refuting in the first place.

 

Don't want to get in the weeds with this, but just taking Signet of Resolve it has a base heal of 8,150 and removes 3 condis.  One of them passively every 5 sec and 2 active.  As a core skill.

Closest ranger has is healing spring for a core skill, with a base heal of nearly half at 4,920.  It'll clear two condis, and usually you have to trait it for it to be useful as otherwise the radius is super small.  You also have to stand in it, no passive clearing of condis so if get interrupted while using it no condi clear.  

My overall point is ranger skills in general are too lackluster to have such high casting times.  If they do have lower ones like bear stance, it's coupled with awful direct healing, so if you aren't getting hit with condis you just die.

[Kodama.6453]

2 hours ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

My overall point is ranger skills in general are too lackluster to have such high casting times.  If they do have lower ones like bear stance, it's coupled with awful direct healing, so if you aren't getting hit with condis you just die.

I  kinda agree with this point, but I think it is approaching the situation from the wrong direction.

You said in the original post that ranger healing skills are too easy to interrupt, which I don't agree with, since the cast times are not really longer than these of other classes.

The more prominent problem for me is that ranger healing skills feel too vanilla. Almost all of them are basically just "heal x amount of health, also have some condi cleanses".

Meanwhile other classes have very differing and interesting mechanics attached to their healing skills. Ranger healing skills all feel way more same-y in comparison, since they almost all do the same stuff, just in a slightly different way.

So Anet should probably rework some of the healing skills and make them more diverse in what they provide. Always just getting the same "heal and condi cleanse" feels bad in general. The only really interesting healing skill ranger got was now with perilous gift, which gives you a can't-die-mode for a period of time.