Ideas for One-Handed Weapon & Off-hand for Rangers

I would really like to see some type of one-handed weapon for rangers, something like a sling or "field knife" (single dagger). either of which could have 7-17 max damage and use the wilderness survival attribute.
The sling would have short bow range with a ~1.75s attack rate and ~0.5s flight time, and the field knife a 1.33s attack rate. My first thoughts are that slings would have mainly interrupt and daze skills and the field knife would have skills to cause conditions such as bleeding, poison, disease, and cripple (obviously not all in one hit). Examples:

Blinding Stones: Sling Attack. Sling a stone at target foe and up to 2 other foes adjacent to your target. If these stones hit, they strike for +5 blunt damage and cuase Blindness for 5...10 seconds. This attack is unaffected by preparations.

Frozen Stones: Sling Attack. Sling a stone at target foe and up to 2 other foes adjacent to your target. If these stones hit, they strike for +2...14 cold damage. This attack is unaffected by preparations.

Distracting Stones: Sling Attack. If this attack hits, it interrupts target foe's action. If target foe is enchanted, up to 2 foes adjacent to your target are also interrupted. This attack is unaffected by preparations.

Tendon Slash: Knife Attack. If this attack hits, target foe is crippled for 3...9 seconds. This attack always strikes foe's feet.

Vein Slash: Knife Attack. If this attack hits, target foes begins bleeding for 5...17 seconds. This attack always strikes foe's arms.


To go along with this some sort of off-hand item would be needed, a mix of caster and melee, possibly using Beast Mastery and/or Expertise. Examples:

Leather Leash
Energy +5
Armor +10 for you and your pet (requires 9 Beast Mastery)
Health +20 (requires 9 Expertise)

Jeweled Collar
Energy +5
Armor +10 for you and your pet (requires 9 Beast Mastery)
Beast Mastery +1 (20% Chance when using skills)


This could also be considered for a thief/rogue type class, but i originally thought of it to put more focus on beast mastery and still be able to do a bit of damage yourself. Any feedback on this idea is appreciated.

Why not just let every class equip an offhand weapon in the other hand(while using one handed weapons of course) with some sort of damage penalty? I think it would be balanced considering you would be giving up the bonuses that come with a shield or spellcaster off-hand items.

Anet could do this in a balanced way, it is just a matter of coming up with a balanced penalty.

It's a little late to be adding a whole new set of dagger skills to Ranger.
And I don't see a rogue/thief having much of a pet/familiar/companion.
But I would love to see something like this in a new class.

You could do a battle mage class with a familiar, or some sort of magic user.

As you move around, your familiar perches on your shoulder.
Crow, Black Cat, pseudo-dragon, Imp, small monkey.

Weapon could include Ceremonial Knife, A sort of medium staff, or a special casting glove of some sort.

A sort of Raw magic user, push, pull, use of gravity.

Just a little brainstorming is all, no real serious ideas that should implimented ASAP, so please no flaming.

The word 'Ranger' come from the word 'range', but a sling does not fit a ranger, a bow or a crosbow do.

There are no shuriken or throwing daggers for assassins, no quarterstafs for monks, etc.
You can 'cover' one weapon type to look like another and have different type of damage, but they will use the same skills the classes already have. Like the Jitte, a blunt weapon that uses sword mastery damage. There could be two handed swords and axes using hammer mastery.
They could rename the Warrior atributes like this:
- Light weapon mastery.
- Heavy weapon mastery.
- Two handed weapon mastery.
That won't change the game, only the names and appearance of the kills and wepons, so that could be possible.

The only possible offhand Item for a ranger would be a quiver.

Main Entry: rang·er
Pronunciation: 'rAn-j&r
Function: noun
1 a : the keeper of a British royal park or forest b : FOREST RANGER
2 : one that ranges
3 a : one of a body of organized armed men who range over a region especially to enforce the law b : a soldier specially trained in close-range fighting and in raiding tactics




It's not about how they fight, it's about what they do, take care of a range of land. Maybe you're the one that doesn't really pay attention and think things through.

I'm a bit sick of the ignorant arguement that ranger = range= distance= arrows. it's faulty logic, and someone trying to sound credible while simply making something up to assert their own unfounded beliefs.


From Wikipedia:

Ranger may mean a keeper, guardian, or soldier who ranges over a region to protect the area or enforce the law ("range" meaning "travel around an area"). In Britain, the term has long been associated with a keeper of a royal forest or park. Likewise, in the US the term has meant a warden employed to maintain and protect a natural area, such as a government forest or park. Since at least the 18th Century, the term has had the military meaning of a commando or guerrilla soldier proficient in raids and ambushes. Sports teams have been avid in adopting the mystique of the name.

So the only element required to be a ranger is to be acutely familiar with terrain, and use that familiarity to your advantage. Even the modern military definition includes the idea of ambushes (trapping skills in GW). Are US rangers all snipers and only snipers? I don't know, but i doubt it. I kind of like the idea of a ranger having a little "swiss army knife" focus item to assist with making traps. But I doubt it will ever happen. Never mind that most of the rangers i've seen in D&D were notorious for wielding two swords in close combat and bows when at range (not unlike that elf guy in LOTR). Whoever got their pewny brain fixated on the idea that rangers MUST always be limited to using bows because their name has the word Range in it... i just don't know what to say - mostly cause your perma blinders would never let you see anything you weren't already fixed on.

Ranger does not equal Archer... Ranger INCLUDES archer, but it isn't limited to it.

aeon, i don't think it's too late to add on to existing characters at all.

i would actually like to see the next installment of GW expand on the already available professions rather than create new ones.
things like what mithran mentioned (renaming attribs to include two-handed swords and axes).
also on that note, i personally would like to see chaos axes (and a chaos sword/hammer if they would add them deal CHAOS damamge.

Offhand:

A Quiver of Arrows with some sort of inherent mod.

Doesn't have to be a lot, but something like +5 Damage vs (Monster type) or something of that sort.

how would a ranger equip a quiver for an off-hand if they are firing a bow?

if you weren't using a bow, why would you want a quiver of arrows?

the idea was to get away from the "faulty logic" that rangers have to use bows/arrows

So, using a bow and a quiver is faulty logic?

Where do the arrows come from oh logical one?

How could they use a quiver? It's simple, they strap it on their back, reach to the opening and grab an arrow, then proceed to fire said arrow. Rinse and repeat as necessary.

How do they equip it? Wait, how exactly do you get your clothes on if you have to ask that?

The quiver makes perfect sense.
To suppliment the idea, Rangers could use also archery gloves or releasers.

/signed for the use of ranger specific off hands(quiver, glove, releaser), as they're one of two professions without the option to use 2 items. As for assassins, I would make 1 dagger in each hand(half the damage for each hand, compared to both in one hand now, would require skill balancing)

/signed for Rangers to have some weapons/offhands that require any of the other Ranger attribute lines.

Just give me something that has a Wilderness Survival requirement or Beast Mastery requirement.

why would it be called an offhand if he would have to put his bow away to use it...

well, the off hand slot can be made as ammunition slot for ranger. make it for quiver as mentioned above. make the quiver add something like 5-10dmg. make it consumable. make the quiver available as drops from monster and make it drop in a bunch of say 50. also make it purchasable at weaponsmith.

just a few idea...

I like the idea but I dont think you could add in a load of ranger skills just for this weapon, just have a wand equivalent, no extra attack skills but can attack without having to put points into marksmanship, a druid's/walking staff would be good for a ranger.

/signed (to the fact that rangers need other attibute weapons)

~A Leprechaun~

The only change I'd really want to Rangers would be a visible quiver. THAT would make me happy. Maybe GW2...

one of the ways we CAN do this, is to make all "bowstring" mods into quivers on the offhand slot, such as sundering, poisoneous, crippling, etc. and make the current bowstring mod to determine bow type, such as recurve bowstring, flatbow bowstring, etc.

Yeah, let's remove the senseless handle upgrade. Just replac it with a quiver, and put a quiver where the animations of models get the arrows from.

It would be nice to have a weapon of any kind based either on wilderness survival or expertise.
I would go for a crossbow based on expertise, they are mechanical and need less training than bows so that could fit.

When you have to have at least 9 in marksmanship to use your only weapon and a pretty high level in Wildeness survival to use the main healing.

Then 6 or 7 in expertise to help energy management, it doesnt leave a whole lot over for anything else.

They are supposed to be a jack of all trades master of none class so I guess thats the reasoning behind it.

i think further ....


all classes should have weapons for all attributes ...

Magician Classes have staffs for all attributes...

the warrior has 3 different weapons for 3 different atributes + 2 diffrent shield attributes

but:
but the Dervish has only 1 Attribute for his Weapon ...there are no scythes, that require mystic or earth/wind prayers ...

same with ranger, he has no bows, that require survival, beast mastery or expertise...

assasins the same, no daggers for criticals, shadow arts or deadly arts

and the paragon also ...has different shield attributes, but only 1 weapon attribute, no spears that require leadership or so


thats imo kinda sad and something, that should be changed maybe with next add on, that gives new weapons ...


its so sad, like assasins have only dumb borign Daggers and have no Shurikens as 2nd usable weapon type, so that they can be played also semi ranged pure without having to use weapons of other professions.
Shurikens would give the sin also a nice row of new skills.

changing this would give the player more freedom in creating more unique builds, that don#t have ever to rely on the typical standart weapon attribute ..., when each attributes would give the weapon other effects, when using that ttribute as weapon attribute, that would also improve each class in itself

Oh, no.

The 'martial' profession have only for the weapons, and for some attributes if their weapons are not two handed.

Caster classes are the ones with all attributes.