We made the improvements we had time to test. There are still more ranger improvements but when our time is limited we have to focus on things we know we can fix. Signets and shouts are still on the docket, and I suspect some of each of these will get some love in the next time around. As you can see a lot changed in this build for every profession and we have to test these changes as well.
I do still believe ranger is the profession in most need of improvement after this patch and we will continue to make those improvements. If we could fix everything at one time we would, but the reality is there are a limited # of hours to make changes.
I see a lot of talk about ranger weapons, but I don’t think that is the real problem. I think sword and longbow are both good weapons, which is why the changes take longer. The problems are deeper, in pets ability to hit moving targets, trait lines with not enough viable choices and skills that are often too specialized to really compliment the weapon builds. These aren’t things we can change overnight. The change to Greatsword block was in fact a very difficult change, but we made it because we knew it was the right thing to do.
There are >500 skills in this game, 480 traits, and 2 designers working on this. Even then often we are bottle necked by other issues. I’m not going to say we are not working on these things, nor can I say there are things we could have changed but just ran out of time on, but this was a patch that contained ranger improvements and it will not be the last one that does so. Maybe you want more than honesty but that is what I currently have to offer.
That quote is from Jon Peters. I don't main a ranger, so it doesn't bother me too much that they aren't going to be viable for another month or so. The problem that I'm having right now is that the class development is being taken care of by 2 developers, and they are clearly uninformed as to the nature of the game and what needs to be taken care of.
It's great that some abilities got nerfed in pvp but not in pve, but Jon Peters basically came out and said "Hey rangers, we know you guys have a bunch of shitty utilities and traits and that your weapon skills suck, and we're totally going to buff you this upcoming patch," and then they do the absolute opposite, and nerf all the traps, and do nothing to any weapon other than the Greatsword, which got minor buffs....
To me that doesn't really instill any type of hope that the development team knows what the fuck is going on with their own game. This comes on the back of what can constitute the beginnings of a gear treadmill and a lack of any foreseeable improvements to the huge issues in WvW (small maps, lack of map diversity and number, culling issues remain unfixed, the matching logarithm sucks, and badges still have better drop rates from guards than players because guards can't alt-f4 before they are fully downed). I'm quickly becoming disenchanted with the GW2 franchise. Very quickly.