Guild Wars 2

Ahh, yes. Ranger Sword #2, an attack that is… never really used to attack? That seems a bit off, doesn’kitten This skill is almost exclusively used as a way to create a gap or retreat from combat and that’s only half okay.

It makes sense for Hornet Sting to be about retreating; There’s a built in evade, you leap backwards, many of us have a bow on switch to keep up the pressure. Good. Nice. This works.

But what do we do for Monarch’s Leap? Well, we ‘about face’ and we leap even further back. This isn’t okay. The utility of removing ourselves even further from combat almost always outweighs the rewards of landing this attack, because landing this attack is hardly rewarding. I think this should be changed.

Currently Monarch’s Leap is a highly telegraphed, medium damage attack that applies a condition that we rack up on the same weapons auto-attack chain.

My suggested fix? Damage boost and the application of a condition that Rangers do not already have a ton of access to. How do we do this without making the skill overpowered yet still retaining the utility available with it? Well, here’s what I think:

Remove half of the damage of Hornet Sting and place it onto Monarch’s Leap, that way we get the utility of the evade with Hornet Sting, and we get more of a reward for actually using Monarch’s Leap as an attack. Change the application of cripple to weakness — a condition rangers have very little access to. Now we have to make a decision between distancing ourselves further, or hopping back into the fray with an attack that will output solid damage and a very useful condition. Sounds fun.

What they should do is reverse it so it’s leap-forward-leap-back, more like thief sword 2.

first: pls do not forget the leap finisher. this finisher is strong for the fact that we have access to water fields and fire fields. good timed we can jump two times threw our spring.

that we have low access to weakess is just wrong. with wintersbite we can apply almost perma weakness. then we have our pets like the one spider i forget the name with weakness and vuln. as f2 with 30s cd and the black bear with 13s weakness.

i would suggest to give the ranger access to torment.
and the time frame to use ML is too low.

sword #2 and #3 are fine and good how they work, plz never change this -

it would be okay if they work a bit on auto hit, but dont destroy our highest mobility weapon

To be fair, I did forget about Black Bear with its AoE weakness, but as far as weakness that the ranger applies, Winter’s Bite is the only option we have and it is attached to a weapon that is awful for power builds.

Torment is actually the second idea that I had for replacing the cripple. It would make the sword a lot more useful for condition builds. As of right now, it’s kind of shoe-horned in because we only have two one-handed main hand options. That said, I think condition rangers are in a good place right now and would really prefer to see work done to improve power rangers. Weakness on Monarch’s Leap would go a long way for that.

I didn’t forget about the leap finisher, but it’s still another issue of using a skill for everything other than attacking. You can leap through fields without a target.

I disagree with reversing the order of Hornet Sting and Monarch’s Leap. Having access to your evade move first is much more important, IMO.

Bambula.3649:

sword #2 and #3 are fine and good how they work, plz never change this -

it would be okay if they work a bit on auto hit, but dont destroy our highest mobility weapon

I am not asking for a functionality change, I am asking for an effectiveness change. Auto attack is fine and working as intended.

I would consider adding 1 or 2 stacks of Torment on the Leap attack.

Yeah, I don’t have a Problem with #2a or #2b attacks. I use #2a to get out of combat quickly, wait for the boss to nail its big attack, then use #2b to get back in it (or if I know someone is about to lay down a field). Works fine. To use #2b as an extended leap it has to be off of auto-attack and you have to whip the camera around to use it like that. No one I know uses it like that…

thefantasticg.3984:

Yeah, I don’t have a Problem with #2a or #2b attacks. I use #2a to get out of combat quickly, wait for the boss to nail its big attack, then use #2b to get back in it (or if I know someone is about to lay down a field). Works fine. To use #2b as an extended leap it has to be off of auto-attack and you have to whip the camera around to use it like that. No one I know uses it like that…

Every decent pvp and wvw player uses like that.

I don’t pvp or wvw, nearly ever. So, that would explain why I know no one that uses it like that.