Making ranger secondaries workable: fix expertise

Over a year ago I made a mo/ra so that I could be a "beast master", at
this point, this class combination isn't a winner. In general most
classes with /ra secondary arn't winners. While, it is very common to
see a /mo or /me or even /wa. The reason why you don't see ranger
secondaries is that the impact of expertise on Ranger skills is
just too profound.

I propose that expertise is made roughly 1/2 less effective
(maxing out at 36% instead of 65% effiency), but that energy
costs of affected skills is reduced and/or their effects
increased proportionally to maintain game ballance.

To explain this proposal, let's compare Experitse with what I think is
the "next best" primary, Divine Favor.

Assuming a monk with 10+1 divine favor and 11+2 healing prayers, Orson
heals for 63 plus extra healing of 35 for the divine favor bonus for a
combined total of 98 healing. Hence, the divine favor bonus accounts
for 36% of the healing. At 16 divine favor and 15 healing, the bonus
gets as high as 39%, but this is as good as it gets. For a great many
monk skills, the efficiency bonus is much less, consider skills like
heal party in which the bonus only affects the monk. Finally, this
bonus is limited to only monk spells (not to signets or mesmer enchants
cast by the monk, for example).

With with a Ranger, even at 8 expertise, 2en is saved on 5en skills,
giving a "low end" efficency bonus of 40%. It only gets better from
there: at 11 expertise, pin-down (15en) is 15-8/15 or 46% more efficient
and for things like dust trap (25en) expertise tops out at 65%
efficiency. What is even more enticing is that this bonus applies to
almost every energy-based Warrior, Assassin skills, and Ritualist spirit
invocation.

The net result of this is that using /ra for secondary profession is
almost impossible: a 10en ranger skill is roughly 30% less powerful than
a 10en skill in any other profession. As a result, using ranger skills
as a secondary is just a horrible deal. Further, over the past year or
so many Warrior skills have had to be "nerfed" a bit to prevent
expertise abuse: all while making them much less valueable to the
Warrior. Ranger primaries, atm, simply have the best of both worlds,
they can use most other profession's secondary classes... while most
other primaries really cannot use the ranger's.

To understand this better, imagine if fast casting were 3x faster than
it is now... but perhaps limited to only _mesmer_ skills. Then, all of
the mesmer skills, for game balance, would take an absolutely huge time
to cast... since after the fast casting bonus, they would be zippity
quick. In effect, this would render just about every /me secondary
combination a very poor idea. Speaking of fast casting, it should be
applied to rituals... as these are more spell-like things that require
concentration and ajility.

If this is not fixed... when factions is released, expect ra/as to be
better assassins than assassin primaries: good energy-based attack
skills will be nerfed (or not buffed as would be required) as they get
abused by ranger's expertise bonus. I even think that a ranger/ritualist
will be a better spirit spammer than a primary ritualist given tiger's
fury, quickening zephyr, and the massive energy reductions on costly
rituals.

My proposal is to *keep* the existing worked-out ballance between
ranger skills, and between ranger and other primary professions; all
while bringing expertise down in relative importance. Without this
change, you'd be stupid to run a primary /ra. For more game diversity
and more interesting class combinations, this is an important fix
and I'm anxiously waiting to hear it.

85% of ranger skills are 10-25 energy. How exactly do you expect that any of these skills be used by people with 32 energy if they can only save up to 5 energy on them?

How exactly is breaking ranger primaries going to help you be a better Mo/R beastmaster? The reason why many people don't use Mo/R is becuase it doesn't provide energy management. Pure Beastmastery is terrible at any rate. Even with 16 beast a wolf will only do 20-30 damage, even using skills.Unless you're just going to use your pet for interrupts and/or energy managment, the whole idea is pretty poor.

Again, I fail to see what Expertise has to do with /R being a "bad subclass choice". This obviously has nothing to do with anything. The whole arguement is totally unfounded.

First off, A Monk Beast Master? And you wonder why it's not effective?

With your way of thinking then Divine Favour would have to be nerfed too and all skills and spells would be changed to have some inherant healing to them. Or Strength toned down and every attack skill have inherant armor penetration. Etc Etc...

Expertise is fine just how it is. Ranger skills are meant to be best used with a Ranger Primary. If you tone down Expertise's effectiveness and lower the cost of Ranger skills then it would effectively lower the usefulness of the Ranger class.

Also you'd be screwing with the already limited effectiveness of Expertise (since it doesnt work on spells) on secondaries. The only secondaries that Expertise helps are warriors and assassin and you want to mess with that?

Uhh name one.

Monk Beastmaster is the most idiotic build. A monk's job is to keep his team alive. *Pet dies* Oh crap I'm blacked out for 10 seconds, *team dies*, sorry my pet blacked me out.

plasmasword, a monk's job is not to keep the team alive, that is a healer's job, as a protector's job is to protect, and a smitter (yes there is a 4 attribute to monks) is to deal damage.
I do however agree that if you are operating as a healer or protection or even DF monk you should not have a pet with you.

However, cce, I seem to be missing the point to this thread. I don't see how expertise is broken. There are advantages and disadvantages to every combination - don't be too sure that R/A will become dominant over A/x simply because they naturally have reduced energy costs. Zealous daggers basically take the energy argument out of the works in that particular discussion.

Correct me if I'm wrong here, however expertise works only for skills classified as skills, I believe ritualist spirits will be "rituals" not skills, just like elementalists and mesmers have "spells". Fast casting btw, is limited to spells - they can't use it on other "skills".

Having played a ranger myself when I first started playing GW I know that despite expertise it is still easy to run out of energy. How this attribute is overpowered is really quite beyond me.

Unless you are going to buff your pet to tank for you in solo farming trips, I honestly think that having a monk beastmaster is not such a good idea. That isn't to say that Mo/R isn't a good idea - some combinations can work well. Of course having said that Pokeway runs with monk beastmasters of a sorrt, but this build derserves to stay in the arena where it belongs - I've yet to see it implemented well in PvE.

The title of your post should have been: "Make Marksmanship, Beastmastery and high energy Wilderness Survival skills (traps) workable on non-primary rangers".

rangers can be very good damage dealers, but their skills needed to do this can be quite expensive. without expertise, the only real option is the elementalists energy storage.

your argument for expertise could just as easily apply to ES. try make a mo/e fire nuker and see how far your 40-odd energy gets you.

the reason for these limitations is so that you make best use of your primary profession.

why do you think warriors only have 20 energy and 2 pips of regen? give them 4 regen and 40 base energy and suddenly every monk from here to cantha will be a wammo for the extra armour.

each class is buffed in one way to benefit it as a primary char, but gimped in another to ensure that using /X is not more viable than X/

Beastmastery doesn't even take alot of energy. All the pet skills cost 5-10, and one of them is energy managment.

Actually they do work... there is nothing wrong with them at all... You just have to be careful when you cast, but the same goes for any caster, elementalist to a lesser extent obviously. This is the point I fear the OP is missing. The primany attribute of the class is suppose to be individual to and benefit only that class. Expertise only benefits ranger primaries, if you want to use ranger secondary skills you have to pay the price for it.

I run a E/R in pve and pvp. She has her secondary changed every now and then depending on who I'm playing with and what we are doing, but generally she runs fire (or occassionally earth) and wilderness survival so that she can carry either greater conflagration or winter. Yes these spirits are more powerful if put up by a ranger and I don't carry them if I have one in the team, but ranger is a useful secondary when there is not, or you need a second set of spirits to make sure they stay up.

Our definitions of "work" are obviously very different.

I've actually done some UW trapping runs with my warrior. All you need is a staff and Energizing Winds :P

Expertise is fine the way it is. It is limited on what it saves energy on as Lady Lozza said. As a R/Mo you still have to spend the full points to cast healing, smiting and protection spell. A Mo/R isn't a bad combo if your team has another monk to do the healing and/or protection since (as been said here already) if your pet dies your blacked out. Other than that it's would make for a nice beast master. The monks get the same, if not more, energy as the ranger but with an extra energy regen and since most beast master skill are only 5 to 10 energy (as mentioned already) you shouldn't have an energy problem.

Beastmaster is a fine support role best done with a ranger primary and is a good setup in general despite what some think. Sagius you say you only get 20-30 damage with skills? I'm a Lvl 20 r/mo and have a lvl20 hearty stalker. With a minor rune of best mastery and maxed attributes in beast mastery I was able to do 80 damge with my pet using skills against a lvl24 troll. I've even reached 102 against an Ice Imp and I did this all just last night.

/not sighned; it's not a problem with expertise just bad casting.

Expertise affects binding rituals just like nature rituals.

We'll see about that, because I just tried playing as a monk yesterday (with my ranger), I had 13 expertise and heal other was still 10 energy, orision was still 5 energy, and expertise description does say your attack skills, so I dont think they will work on ritualist spirits, because they are not called nature's rituals.
Correct me if I'm wrong.

The author is right, ranger skills are not meant to be used at their original cost, making secondary rangers useless.
I don't think this is a big deal though and I don't think it needs any fixing.

Also I don't think it would be bad if factions brought some nice Ranger / xx combinations, seeing as at the moment they are not very popular for GvG.

You're wrong. Heal Other and Orison are unaffected because they're spells. A binding ritual is not a spell. Anything that's not a spell is affected by Expertise.

Just so everyone knows exactly what expertise does and what it effects here it is.

As you can see it doesn't have any effect on spells and doesn't even have an effect on any skills that are not attack. As for Preps and traps, they are ranger specific skills. It also has no effect on rituals.

/not signed

Keep the Ranger skills where they are most useful - on a Ranger. Unless like a lot of players use the Ranger secondary for Troll Unguent, Quickening Zephyr and Serpent's Quickness.

If you're going to be putting 16 into Beastmastery and taking your level 20 pet - you had better be bringing some buffs and attacks for your pet!!! I'd be giving 4 or 5 slots to my pet at the least.

Actually ranger-rituals are affected by expertise. I don't know about ritualists though.

Same goes for troll unguent, which as far as I know isn't an attack skill, preparation or trap.

Then I suppose it does need a fix but only so the description fits with what it does.

unlike what EVERYONE else says, i really like the idea as it would make the game more fun and balanced, and i too have threated over the ra/as build there could be. I became and ele/ran just for th epet too, and i was quite pleased with Ferocious Strike {E} giving me a +4 energy bonus every 8 secs, seemed to almost remedy my fireballs and give me xtra energy for larger 25e spells. BUT when compared to a ranger gaining up to +8energy i feel pitiful especiialy when i have invested the same amount of point in BM as they have and the same amount in ES! plz change this Anet!

I'll post this again seeing as everyone seems to have missed it.

Ritualist binding rituals are affected by expertise.

Dude, that's how it's SUPPOSED to be. That's like saying you take a Monk secondary and complaining that your're not healing as well as a Monk because Divine Healing is giving Monks too much of an advantage in healing. Or complaining that you dont hit as hard as a Warrior primary with an axe when you're a non Warrior primary. It's just ridiculous what you're asking.

Why the hell do you expect to be as good a Beast Master as a Ranger when you're an Elementalist? It's called a secondary for a reason, meaning it's not your Primary focus in skills.

Have you ever heard of a boon-prot? I'd say at least 75% of my healing is generated from divine favour/DF based skills.

ok well im comparing ES to Expertise which is unfair, but you kinda missed my point. thats ok though. not really but ok.

i pose you with a question:
Who do you think SHOULD be better with energy management, and ele or a ranger?

(IMO ele, obviously)

Who do you think IS better with energy management?

(A ranger with expertise even though an ele could have the same points invested in ES)

Expertise = built in elemental attunement. just not for spells haha

To those who said pets cant do any dmg anyway, i quote '30-40 dmg even with skills' you are really rather mistaken. I can do 130+ with a pet skill. The biggest problem with pets is their inteligence imo. I agree that experitse seems to make up for the ranger high nrg skill usage, rather than be a bonus, and therefore rather impedes /R builds.

This idea would require a large overhall of the system. (I think)
Thats its biggest flaw.

The x/R has Wilderness Survival and thats about it. Though there are alternatives, (Ive had suprising success with a bow wielding interrupting elementalist and applying conditions with him too) they just aint as practical as a expertise ranger. So,... big deal.

To be honest I like your idea. (Make expertise less benefual and make ranger skills cheaper) It seems fair and logical, if only for the fact that non spell skills need to be balance with expertise. Plus, like you say, it would open a few doors for the ranger secondary.

I think its a good idea, but like a lot of good ideas that come and go, its asking for a lot.
Maybe when GuildWars 2 comes out...

I'm fine with it. Keep expertise the way it is; Its not like rangers are over powered. It can't be exploited either, even if you were ranger primary any secondary like warrior or assassin would be taking a low blow when compared to a an assassin or warrior primary.

You're going off topic. Elementalist's energy problems have nothing to do with Ranger Expertise. Keep Elementalist issues separate from other classes.

Expertise is only better energy management if you're using non spells. Energy Storage gives you more energy that you can use for any skill. You can't really compare the two attributes, they both have pros and cons. But you're taking one pro and comparing it to a con, which isnt a fair comparision at all.

I think people are overreacting to the proposal. It's not like */R would suddenly become overpowered if the skills were made a bit more affordable to non-Experts.

The real problem is the granularity of energy costs. A 10e cost can't be adjusted downwards except by halving it, and a 5e skill can only go down if it becomes a signet. So the proposal is basically unworkable, barring a basic change to energy costs in Guild Wars.

Overpowered? No. But it's asking for a secondary to be comparable to a primary. I mean should a secondary monk be as good as a primary monk? In some ways it should and some ways it shouldnt.

Right now it's pretty balanced. If you're using ranger skills and you're not a ranger primary, the tradeoff is the higher energy cost. That's fine. Just like how secondary monk skills will never heal as much as a primary monk with Divine Favour or warrior secondaries wont do as much damage as warrior primaries.

And if the OP's proposal were implemented... the tradeoff would still be the higher energy cost. It just wouldn't be quite as much higher.

Then why are there so many rangers out there running with necro drain hp skills?

You've just answered your own question, sir. Expertise affects non-spell skills. The necro hp skill that rangers run around with is a touch skill, not a spell. Therefore it is affected by Expertise.

one again someone has posted without reading my full comment...

i said it was unfair, but i am seriously considering ra primaries just for the expertise and then 12 in the second class such as a monk. They CAN get up to 32+12+5 max energy!!!! thats 49 energy with 3 pips regen.... i mean thats only 1 energy every 3 secs less than casters, they get amazing stances in expertise (like reflexes and stuff...) and any skill (Smiting is a big one has a few skills) would be easy with 14 expertise... the possibilites! and yet conformity rules over me again somehow... RANGERS = BOWS! uh buddy with 32 max energy and +3regen i think i can manage with some skills like meteor shower, especially since casters only get 30 energy start (but +4). BUT they get +10AL and +30 vs eles, ill take that over 1 pip wouldnt you? i think theres gunna bea revolution of rangers soon.... o what fun.

ya be mean about my thoughts w/e, but im serious if ppl actually figure out how amazing expertise is its a wasted class...

Trylo, you know Expertise doesn't work on spells, right?

yes i do, and i am making a pretty big stretch between them, but there are a few very usefull skills in each caster class that i would actually think about using (ie, Smite, Holy Strike, Bane Sig, Sig of Judgement, Dodge, Lightning Reflexes, Trolls, Rez) which would be a full expertise worthy skills!

or ya i know i am doing some funky things and stretchs!

Umm I really have no idea what point you're trying to prove....but why did you include Dodge, LR, and Trolls when you were referring to useful skills in CASTER classes?

EDIT: Ok I think you were talking about your skillbar right?

Also a few usuable caster skills that can be used under Expertise hardly makes it unfair. And yes you are making a realllly big stretch here.

And yeah, if you look at the necro touch skills, you'd realize that are listed as skills. Why else would Touch Rangers be usuable at all?

When it comes to the energy saving it is fine the way it is but when it comes to what it effects then there has to be change. First make it do what it says it does and nothing more nor less, second maybe change it so it only has an impact on ranger skills. Anyone that goes x/R should pick it for what it can offer. e/r, me/r, n/r and mo/r can use marksmanship and use a bow so they do more damage with a bow while they nuke, dominate, hex or heal/prot than they could with a staff. Of course this would come at a cost of not gaining the potential benefits a weapon suited to their primary profession. They could use beast mastery to get themselves a nice tank to help protect them. I use a W/R to use skills like apply poison to my sword and lightning reflexes to get the increase attack speed with 75% evation. Sure reflexes doesn't last as long without expertise but the bow has a much slower attack rate than a sword does anyway so it shouldn't last as long. Thats where the balance is.

Come on now, it's been mentioned here that it's not fair that expertise reduces the energy consumed for certain skills more than ele skills can reduce the amount of energy required to cast certain spells. Ele's energy saving skills + energy storage (giving triple the max energy of a ranger) + the 4 energy regen that rangers lack (only have three) is > expertise. However the ele spells cost more energy on average making the whole equation = .

Umm NO.

Dude, if you're using Lightning Reflexes on a warrior, you clearly have no clue at all. In fact, your whole post lacks logic or any sense with no argument to back it up. Please stop posting.