[Neraphym]

http://www.guildwars...essions/ranger/

Awesome. Rylkan, thoughts?

[Rylkan]

Neraphym, on 14 July 2010 - 10:47 PM, said:

http://www.guildwars...essions/ranger/

Awesome. Rylkan, thoughts?

Not really enough information out yet to say much one way or another. But, my first impressions are we rangers have taken on some of the assassin and ritualist roles. Looking at the number of professions, it's obvious some are going to get dropped, and reading the post, rangers will have a stronger presence in the spirit department. Why? Simply because they mention it. I could think of other things to mention, but by bringing that up, it seems likely. As for the assassin bit, that's based on the serpent's strike which is very much a quick sneaky hit kind of thing. More along the lines of a sin.

I don't mind either of these, but it's certainly different. Personally, I am not as much of a beast master, so the heavy emphasis on that is a bit worrisome, but hopefully it will not be a must have sort of thing. And who knows, it could be more fun in 2 than the current version.

The weapons are nice. Bows are obvious, but the other ones could turn out to be useful.

I also love the video for spread shot. But mostly because of the new idea of having environment affect skills. So let's say an elementalist dropped a firestorm, and now my barrage fired through that becomes a burning barrage. And let's say you mark of rodgort someone. I am loving the idea of using the environment, and character placement, to do different things.

But ultimately, we all must agree, WHIRLING DEFENSE LOOKS COOL AS ALL HECK!

[[ And I'm somehow the guild ranger now, aren't I? ]]

[Neraphym]

You don't remember signing up for it, do you? Your character was level 5 drunk at the time.

As for the environment effects altering your arrows, I cannot wait to try that out. Spread-shot looks amazing with this. Also, I remember seeing the elementalist video with static field doing the same thing. One thing to note: it was the ranger who started that big fire pit of doom spell for her own arrows. I'm guessing multiclassing is still alive and well.

[Phieta]

Neraphym, on 15 July 2010 - 03:36 PM, said:

I'm guessing multiclassing is still alive and well.

Perhaps in some form, but I remember reading that there won't be secondary professions anymore.

Also, http://www.cad-comic...llies/20100715/

[JGJTan]

When I read that you guys'd get sharks I lol'd so much. That's honestly just too funny.

With that fire thingy, I reckon it was just like any other skill since it was started with a torch and anyone can start fires with torches... well... you'd hope so, anyway.

I'm just crying because there's no dedicated healer class... I mean, I know it's good for professions to be self-reliant and have their own self-heals *looks at Sparks* but oh man, if they don't have a freaking awesome support character who is just as cool, I will cry. And if they've decided to kill off my Mesmer, I will kill someone in return. Me + direct damage classes = terrible.

But yeah, Spread Shot looked freaking awesome.

[Rylkan]

Breathe tan man. I'm sure you'll find some classmto mesmerize us all with

[Goto]

A lot of people were thinking that the burningness in the Spread Shot video was Sun Spirit, but it has since been confirmed to be a torch skill.
Beast Mastery sounds fairly integral to the class, an interview with the devs had them saying that a Ranger couldn't really be at their best without it and that there are other classes which would fit the 'ranged attack' aspect of gw1 Rangers if you really don't like pets. That said, Beast Mastery in gw1 was pretty bad, seems like they'd need to buff it significantly so hopefully it should be all good. Another way of thinking about it is it's another way of increasing what you can do without taking up extra skill slots. Warriors will rely heavily on skill chains, combos linked to a single skill slot. Rangers seem like most of the pet attack and passive pet bonus style skills will be transferred to the pet themself (evolution levels and all that), freeing up your skill bar to do the kind of stuff you already enjoy doing. So you can be a Beast Master without devoting a third of your attribute points and skill slots to the role.


At this point I can't imagine they won't have either the Mesmer or something fairly similar to them. They were a pretty important (and relatively unique) part of the class dynamics in GW1, and with that new class trinity of Damage, Support, Control they're the obvious choice for Control. That said the mechanics of how they work will probably have to be adapted considerably, GW2 seems like more of an action oriented game and Mesmers in combat weren't very visually obvious with their enchantments and hexes and such. So they need a way to update the class to the new mechanics without changing the role or feel too substantially. I'm actually wondering if they'll turn it into a mid-armoured (adventurer) class alongside the Ranger, gain the ability to use some additional weapons (pistols perhaps?) and gain some rogue-like utilities. Actually what I really want is Illusion Magic that can actually affect the perceptions of players and other visually interesting effects along those lines, but I suspect it might be hard to balance.

Currently we know 1 of 3 Scholar classes, 1 of 3 Adventurer classes, and 1 of 2 Soldier classes. Necro is fairly likely to be confirmed as one is featured in Ghosts of Ascalon, and my guess is that the third Scholar class will be more of a Support type than a Control, perhaps taking some of the damage mitigation from the Monk. Mesmers might find a nice home in the less-squishy Adventurer set of classes though. All of this is pure speculation of course.