Ranger weapons that aren't linked to Marksmanship

So how would you be able to wield your two handed daggers and a focus for deadly?

Your right, assasins face the same problem,however let me think here, the skills you use (shadow/deadly arts) are in some way to improve your use of you dagger is it not, or to evade heal etc, but when it comes down to attack skills under shadow/deadly they are to improve the dagger.

The people that are saying that the animal is the weapon,(you asked for it yourself :P )
Make the pet be the one that when it attacks when you used a skill the affects him that you have the possible things that weapon with other weapons happen.
So : Pet attacks , i use poisonous bite , i get lucky and get the +1 beast mastery,my pet does 2 more dmg.

Seems people have totaly ignore the other 2 attributes when coming with the opinion that rangers are fine.
It has been said that pet is the BM weapon and i agree on that, and i also said the solution to that attribute,now lets talk about expertise and wilderness survival.

I'm wielding Firey Muffin of Fortitude. lol

anyway, that would be nice to have like a whip or somethin for beast mastery at least.

/signed

It'd be cool to have a 'familiar' for a weapon slot, and have certain beast attacks that apply to the familiar. This way the Beastmaster has a long range tool in the pet and a short range weapon in the familiar. I gotta reiterate though, cuz Anet has funny ideas, the Familiar takes up a -weapon- slot, not a skill slot.

This is my wildest idea ever.

As stated several times already...

Beast Master: Your PET is your weapon
Trapper: Your TRAPS are your weapons

But if you're so bent on using a bow, check this out...

Put 8 into Marks, then get a +1 Marks mask and put a Superior Marks rune in it. That lets you use a req 9 bow that can be easily acquired from a collector or crafter.

That leaves you with 163 attribute points to mess with. You can easily achieve rank 12 in Expertise and Beast Mastery/Wilderness Survival with only a couple more minor runes.

Try this:

Do not use a wand/staff/focus when you go out to an Explorable Area or Mission. You play an elementalist - your spells are your weapons.

Or go Air/Earth Elemental but use a Fire Staff. Same as a Ranger using a bow and focussing on anything other than Marksmanship.

To anyone who suggested whips: no no no no no. Don't ever suggest it again :O

I think there is no problem if there was an offhand item that required wilderness survival or beast mastery. A charm, an idol, a twig, I don't care. But you should be able to hold something that requires the attribute you are focusing on.

For example, when I play a pure healer, you are forced to take divine favour or smiting prayers if you want to do damage. There is no damage dealing item for healing prayers, fast casting, strength, anything that doesn't have a weapon associated with it. Rangers should be no different.

However they should have an offhand item, just like a healer can have a healing ankh req. healing prayers, or a warrior with a shield req. strength or tactics. And naturally these can have mods that people are asking for. There is no such offhand item for rangers, because they are always presumed to be attacking. Like I said, a pure healer is forced to take divine favour usually for the weapon, just like a ranger is forced to take marksmanship.

But what if... as everyone is saying.. the ranger uses his beast as his weapon? Can't he hold something in his hand that helps him? He doesn't have to attack with it. Same for wilderness survival. If you are out in the wilderness, surviving, you can still have something in your hand to help you. And since every other class gets an offhand item for their non-attacking attribute, I think a ranger should too.

Btw, stop suggesting whips

rangers have bows.....

warriors have swords AND axes AND hammers AND shields to choose from.

although, rangers do have all the different types of bow, which does add more variation, but there is no alternative for a ranger other than a bow, everyother class (except for the addition of assassins) has at least an option to weild 2 one-handed weapons or one two-handed weapon

/signed

I very much like the idea of crossbows linked to expertise. However, I think they should be like hammers - high damage, sloooow refire (it takes time to wind that crank back!)

I think the weapons linked to Beast Mastery and Wilderness Survival should be staves and rod/focus sets only.

Also, bow grips/staff wrappings of Beastmastery and Wilderness Suvival at the very least and probably also Expertise should be added (after all, mesmers and necromancers can get +1 to their primaries from some uncommon weapons/foci.) For the crossbows, it's a "crossbow stock" or something.

Example:

Poisonous Crossbow of Wilderness Survival
Piercing Dmg 19-35 (requires 9 Expertise)
Damage +15% (while health is over 50%)
Lengthens Poison duration on foes by 33%
Wildnerness Survival +1 (20% Chance while using skills)
Range: as Composite/Recurve
Refire Rate: 2.5-3.0 seconds (sloooow. Crossbows take time to load, much slower than grabbing an arrow from your quiver and nocking it.)
Two-handed

I'm of a mind that skills like Dual Shot and Barrage should not work with a crossbow. So some ranger skills will have to be relabeled as Bow/Crossbow attacks while some remain Bow only attacks. I see no need to add Crossbow specific attacks.

Defensive Tracker's Staff of Fortitude
Blunt Damage 6-28 (requires 9 Wilderness Survival)
Armor +5
Energy +10
Damage +15% (Armor -10 while attacking) (or any of the other damage bonus balancers)
Health +30
Two-handed, melee weapon (roughly axe attack speed)

Insightful Shepherd's Crook of Beast Mastery
(something) damage, 11-22 (req 9 Beast Mastery)
Energy +5
Energy +10
Damage +15% (while health is over 50%)
Beast Mastery +1 (20% chance while using skills)
Two-handed, ranged (like any other staff)

This one I'm not sure about the damage type. I would really hesitate to add another damage type, somebody said "nature damage" which is intriguing but would add another layer of complexity to things. I was intrigued that the assassin's "dancing daggers" do earth damage, maybe Anet kind of decided that earth damage makes sense for things that don't seem easily linked to the weapon in question?

Anyway, I think these changes would be nice and would bring the BM and WS lines into the fold with the other skill sets of the other professions that have that 1/5 chance of going to 17.

oh geez, whats the point of firing a bow if you dont even know how to use one. Expertise would inherently make you familiar with bows.... doesnt mean you know how to use one.

Concept wise? Marksmanship should only own bows. If you're trying to compare a warrior who has 3 weapons and a Ranger who has one... don't. Marksmanship teaches you how to use a bow. If you needed wilderness survival to use a particular bow... it doesnt make sense.

Rangers have many mechanics that other classes would love to have... Preparations, Pets, Traps. No other classes have either of those three. They cannot be removed, and rangers are the only class that can buff their own special mechanics.

If anything, they have too much, but they are balanced with all other classes, and so nothing needs to be added.

Excuse me for trying to show people how to use how to equip a bow and a pet effectively. Why don't you read more carefully? You'll have 12 in marks, expertise AND beast mastery (or wilderness survival). You're saying someone can't do that?

Your analogies don't make sense. A Ranger using a bow and utilizing Beast Mastery, Expertise and Marksmanship is more comparable to an Elementalist using a water wand and utilizing Fire Magic, Water Magic and Energy Storage. Who says you can't make a build like that? What's wrong with using Fire and Water magic skills together? Are you saying that I cannot make a dual element Elementalist?

Why don't you give it more thought before you post?

If you read my post a little more carefully - I put some thought into it.

I didn't say you couldn't go dual Elementalist. But if you went dual Elementalist then had to use a wand/staff from a third element that wasn't equipped on your skill bar would not be a very efficient use of your skills or attribute points.

Ranger primary is expertise - this should be as high as possible.
Running a Beast Master build - this should be 16.
Require some sort of healing - use Troll Unguent - this would be nice to have as high as possible as well.
Wait - I only have 1 weapon choice - bow. Unless I want to use a Candy Cane bow (no requirement, also no mods) I need to put some points into Marksmanship.

If a dual Elementalist - running Air/Earth has as his best wand (requirement 9 Fire Magic) - spreading your points across Air, Earth, Energy Storage, and Fire Magic would be very inefficient.

Again, doesn't make sense. You're throwing in 4 attributes on an elementalist when a ranger is only using 3. Who says Beast Mastery should be at 16? You also don't need a self heal unless you're soloing. Even then Ranger solo builds do not revolve around a pet. Also where is it written that a build cannot be effective with 12 in an attribute?

I try to show how to use a bow with a pet and all you can do is come up with half@$$ excuses as to why it can't work. You can keep at this all you want, I've made my point.

The whole point is that a ranger shouldn't have to put ANY points into marksmanship just to be able to effectively wield something.

Helios, you made your "point" by suggesting that a Beast Mastery ranger should use a Marksmanship mask AND a superior Marksmanship rune. That's effectively -75 hp and -1 att point in BM, just so you can take a bow and plink away at things from afar (not like it's going to be doing any significant damage anyway with 9 in the att, and no skills). That is arguably less effective than taking a low req nonmax or req-less bow in place of a max bow.

As for traps being a trapper's "weapon", that's just BS. As has already been said, that's exactly the same as saying that spells are an elementalists weapons; they still get to use focuses and wands, no matter what build they're running. There are even energy storage wands and focuses now...

Fine, last time I try to make a suggestion on these forums. Did I ever in any of my posts say that there shouldn't be a some sort of Beast Mastery weapon? I was just trying to offer a solution to the situation as it is. The way I see it, I'm gonna try to make the best of it.

BTW, I also never said you can't use a bow skill or 2. I also fixed my original post to show you can actually get 12 in all 3 of the attributes mentioned. But whatever, I honestly don't care what you all think anymore. I can play my Ranger this way just fine.

ALL classes need a heal self of some sort. His build suggested for Ranger was a 4-stat one. Marksmanship being the 4th one for which there were no points left.

U can compare that to strength/tactics from warriors.

If playing with sword/axe and therefore with a shield u always need to put 7-13 points in strength or tactics. That's more annoying than this ranger thing.

Warriors are forced to 2 attributes, rangers to 1.

It makes no sense, rangers main weapon is a bow, if they want to use another weapon they should pick the one that their second class uses - as it's the case with EVERY other class, rangers are not treated any worse than other classes in that way.

You can have a weapon that has a requirement from any of your primary profession's attributes - except Ranger!

Give us a bow that has a Beast Master requirement or Wilderness Survival requirement then. It's not the weapon that is the problem - it's the Marksmanship only requirement. I would like to try a pure Ranger build that doesn't force me to waste points in an attribute for which I have no skills on my skillbar just to use my weapon.