Lamentations of a GW1 ranger; the class is still missing something...

[Arkham Creed.7358]

First and foremost; this is obviously all subjective opinion and your mileage may vary, as the saying goes.

 

I've been playing GW2 since the pre-release betas, been following its development for years before that, and played GW1 for years before that. So it should go without saying that I have a deep fondness for this series, and one of the reasons why is the ranger class. Currently I main a revenant, but that is less because I like the class more, rather it is because I feel the ranger in GW2 is still missing a few key elements of the original class that really made it stand out from the crowd.

 

In GW2 the ranger, for all the interesting elements of GW2 combat, really feels like any other generic hunter/archer class from one of a hundred other MMOs. At least to me. I've been contemplating why for years, and now I think I've finally settled on the two main things it is missing to me. Note first however that I am not one of those players who started complaining when it was revealed that rangers would all be beastmasters in GW2; beastmaster was actually one of my two preferred builds in GW1, so far from being unhappy I was excited. This seemed to imply that I could actually play BOTH my favored builds at the same time. Sadly this was not the case, as that one most important element I wanted has still yet to appear in GW2.

 

Firstly though, a minor thing relating to being a beastmaster. Simply put; I miss the Zaishen Menagerie. Exploring the world and collecting pets is just so much more engaging when you can go to a physical space in the world and see your collecting milling around and living their lives. Showing off rare or hard to get pets to friends within these grounds was also a joy. A minor thing, and I get why it was dropped and will likely never return, but still, I miss it.

 

The main thing however has to be the preparation skill type. Those who know what those skills did will likely argue that something mechanically like them does appear in the game, thief venom are in my opinion the closest thing to actual preparation skills, but the new ranger stances are also a close approximation. However both of these skill types fall flat. They feel like shadows of what a preparation was, and are not worthy replacements to me.

 

For one stances are too short and reactionary. You use them during a battle, and they last only a few seconds so you have to set up the right situation to use them. This is actually the opposite of a preparation. The whole point is a skill you use BEFORE a battle, something that lasts long enough that you can actually prepare them ahead of time and then use them tactically. In this regard mantra skills are actually closer to preparations, so perhaps mantra cast time with the "ammo" system would be the best way to go (prepare the skill ahead of time, then you can "trigger" it a limited number of times rapidly as you attack, giving total control over when and where each effect is used), or to use the limited number of attacks of a venom skill. Another difference is their effects. Preparations did more than just add a condition to an attack or the like. There certainly were some that had such minor effects, but others were game changers. Transforming single target attacks into AoEs, punishing blocking foes with conditions, preventing yourself from being interrupted, and even an AoE persistent area interrupt. Just adding one of these skills on your bar could define a build, and two or three defined a playstyle that so far no class in GW2, not even the ranger, can provide. To illustrate my point I'm going to list a few GW2 versions of classic preparation skills. I don't have a heal in mind, but the other slots are filled.

 

Utility slot: Seeking Arrows; ranged attacks hone in on targets, melee strikes have increased critical chance.

 

Utility Slot: Ignite Arrows; your next few attacks deal minor damage around each target struck.

 

Utility Slot: Melandru's (or Druid's) Arrows; attacks deal extra damage based on the number of boons on the target.

 

Utility Slot: Apply Poison; this is a low level intro to the skill type. Just adds poison or torment to attacks.

 

Utility Slot: Trapper's Focus; a game changer. Restores the ground targeted function to trap skills for a few moments. I'd make this an elite, except it requires skills of another type to function.

 

Elite Slot: Choking Gas; your next attack spreads a smoke combo field that pulses daze to foes within, interrupting actions.

 

Those are just my thoughts on the matter. But you get the point I'm sure; these were not subtle bonus effects that lasted less than ten seconds forcing you to use them in the heat of battle. These skills were flashy, with striking visual effects, significant impact in battle, took a relatively long time to cast, and lasted long enough that you could set them ahead of time for a calculated ambush. They were a proactive tactical skill, not a reactive one. And I miss them, they defined how I played ranger, and what ranger was to me. And I really hope we see their return with an elite spec sooner rather than later.

[Aleksander Suburb.4287]

The main thing I'm missing from a gw2 ranger (except playing without a pet) are the interruption skills. They were really cool and were used in different tactics. But in gw2 there is no mana management, no real "interruption" just cc overloads and skills are activated in 0,5 s or instantly. In addition, after years I don't know what the enemy is doing. You have a chance to get it, if you read the combat log after you died.

This game has nearly no tactic, just use meta build + meta skill/dodge rotation.

[InsaneQR.7412]

Preperations would be fantastic as a trait unique mechanic that has different preperations with different effects and refreshing conditions all tied to minors. Similar to Opening Strike but dor every specialization plus 1 per elite spec.

Would give ranger a real nice unique feel to it but it would require a whole rework to do that. So i doubt it will ever happen (although i am working on a hypothetical overhaul thread).

 

[starlinvf.1358]

> @"InsaneQR.7412" said:

> Preperations would be fantastic as a trait unique mechanic that has different preperations with different effects and refreshing conditions all tied to minors. Similar to Opening Strike but dor every specialization plus 1 per elite spec.

> Would give ranger a real nice unique feel to it but it would require a whole rework to do that. So i doubt it will ever happen (although i am working on a hypothetical overhaul thread).

>

 

They'd be too difficult to manage properly as traits. Preparations should had been closer to their core mechanics, if not their profession mechanic to work in tandem with their pet. The way I see it, Preparations should be like Stances, and able to changed mid-combat to fit different purposes. If pet management didn't require so much overhead, I would had suggested making that F1-3, with F4 being pet swap. That way Ranger can choose what preparation effects he wants in play, and apply it to both the player and the pet as a shared buff. Failing that, having each pet type associated with a different preparation type..... which is effectively what Soulbeast ended up doing with its passive bonuses. They could had even hybridized the idea by having the F buttons change the Pet AI's tactical behavior, and grant the Ranger a preparation that complimented it ( but can't happen with the kind of AI we have now)

 

Rangers in GW1 had a lot of Combat flexibility, and a significant focus on either selective control, or off-role support to fill in party gaps..... both of which were well supported by Expertise's cost reduction. Rangers in GW2 fail at this whole handedly, because their traits don't hybridize well, and all their group support options are passive. GW1 rangers were back liners, but in GW2 the disparity between ranged and melee skills puts rangers in a very awkward place. They're control skills are slow to activate and difficult to properly setup, most of their best skills only benefit themselves, those benefits can't compound to the levels of other classes, and the overall concept of a Skirmisher/Kitter is hampered by needing entire skills dedicated to range transition.

 

But what really kills the class is the Pre-planned rotations being built into the class, only to be limited by coefficients during balancing. So what we ended up with is a class that has to dedicate a lot of traits and skill slots to multipliers, learn a very specific rotation, having the target set up to meet a certain set of conditions, and the pay off be mediocre, or accomplished by another class at half the effort. They should be somewhere between Engineer and Thief....... combing the sustain damage for pressure, and the option to burst at moments of opportunity. While technically core ranger can do this, its insanely hard to captivate on since Opening Strike can be expended on auto attacks or pulse type skills. The simple change of having Opening strike trigger on active skill use (ie ignoring auto), would give the Ranger much more control on which skills get the damage bonus, and improving player agency in how its used. Give more ways to reset this mid-fight, and it could realistically resolve the problem of Ranger burst options without having to stack damage modifiers the way Soulbeast was forced to get its level of performance.

 

In fact, a lot of other conditional traits active effects (like Light on your Feet) could be made more relevant if the ranger just had better control on when it triggers. So far, half of them demand the ranger expend a resource to get a short damage bonus, and the bonus hardly makes a difference in practice. Theres just so many way to make Ranger easier to comprehend, or just boost pay outs for many of its high opportunity costs.

[Arkham Creed.7358]

Having given it some thought, here is what I've decided. To me the prefect system would have preparation skills functioning almost exactly like mantra skills. In that you have a long cast time skill that uses the ammo system to provde instant access to another effect. For example Ignite Arrows would take around three seconds to cast, and then would grant you two to three uses of "Incendiary Charges." These charges are instant cast, but unlike mantras don't do anything by themselves. Instead they pop a short duration buff that will make your next activated weapon skill (or trap if using my Trappers Focus idea from above) explode in a minor AOE. Explosive attacks are already in the game code; an engineer thing. So this is just an effect that boils down to "add explosive tag to the next skill" that you can pop two or three times for every use of Ignite Arrows.

 

This keeps the theme and playstyle in tact, as you still have to "prepare" something with your preparation skill. And the ammo system makes it feel more like you've actually rigged something up that took time, and is in limited supply. You would want to be very careful when and where you use that, and what skill you pair it with, so being able to instantly apply that effect to any skill you want, mid-cast if you want, without interrupting your own action is a must. Due to all this I think the mantra system is actually the perfect skeleton or framework to build the preparation skill type off of.

[InsaneQR.7412]

@"starlinvf.1358"

Similar mechanics to OS would be simple but effective and could be versatile.

Refreshments could be on heal, on elite, on stun, on pet swap, on F2, on weaponswap and so on.

They could apply conditions, remove boons, be unblockable, shadowstep your pet to your target etc.

Short refreshment, short effect, without overhauling the class mechanic per se.