[Autumn]

I don't think you can really touch flip shot without changing something else about ranger if I'm completely honest. I have a much longer proposal built up about this, but if you 2 turn flip shot and nerf it's range you effectively kill the class.

Also yes, retreat flight sucks.

Also, to be frank, if flip shot gets nerfed you'll just see ghost rangers do 2x hauntings in a turn. It won't actually fix the issue you're wanting it to. It'll just punish the already bad combinations of X-Ranger where X is not Hexer or Ghost.

2x hauntings a turn doesn't attack you at the same time is the difference here.

 Sure but it just spaces and makes it so that the enemy can't feasibly retaliate in that time. It just means they wait out the cooldown for flipshot by continuing to make space or even getting to the point where they can 1 + attack. All it does is inflate turn count feasibly speaking. 
I can show this in duels if you want. I have given it a try with flip shot being on a 2turn CD or 2 less range. The duel played out the same way just with 4 or 5 more turns added. The enemy could do even less when I played this way as well, since 1 shot + haunting + walk actually gives more range than going for attacks. It's also a lot more frustrating to deal with.

I'd also really like to point out this kills any archetype that isn't Hexer/Ranger or Ghost/Ranger. Ranger needs more pervasive changes than just nerfing flip shot.

In the past this has proved to be a problem with a few classes as well, its nothing new to specifically Ranger, as when Tali staves were meta often you'd just see mages kiting out of range of where anyone could feasibly reach and then have super momentum options in the form of creating a gemstone and casting their spell from it.

We've seen this back when Tamaki Shuriken was just the best bow for having 22 range, we saw this back when 1m mobility was far stronger than it was now. We see this when Magaisendo and Wretched Oil had global range, with global invocations taking their place next.

We see this currently with the absurd range of Bombs and Grenades as well as their reliability, but this is often overlooked due to the unpopular nature of this playstyle, I assure you it is not that fun to actually fight and still perpetuates the fire resist or die meta.

Range matters a lot as I'm sure you're aware, and as such many classes that should face a ranged tax really just don't. Bows do in a sense, but they're more out of awkwardness than anything else, with Crossbows and mutated weaponry really spelling out the actual threat of a weapon class being allowed to build exactly how it wants to and have the entire map as range.

In my post I favor the range nerf of Flip Shot more than larger cooldowns, as for if Ranger can only pair with ghost? Simply untrue, as long as dual wielding bows comes with the benefit of having Sarasha Gi anyways. There will never be a world where 'xd but ghost??? lmfao' is just the end all be all, and thinking so is simply closed minded to other possibilities and the under-appreciated strengths of other setups. Especially when it only takes 1 person thinking of how to run it to make it really strong, nobody thought VA/DH was strong until I optimized and ran it, nobody thought LB was strong until I optimized and ran it.

I don't believe in balancing the game around 1v1 duels specifically, I believe in balancing it for PvE, serious large scale teamfights and then 1v1s, where there are ways to tackle a topic in each individual manner sometimes, for example I think nerfing the range of Flip Shot from 7 to 4 or 5 would harm their 1v1 game more than a 3v3 game.