Guild Wars 2

Recently I observe a lot of hate towards this recent addition to the ranger class. People think because something is new it is easier to ask for nerfs than adapt to the existance of the skill. I want to discuss if a nerf is needed and if so how significant.

Utility skills of this kind don’t exist much. They are mostly unrelated to the overall build strength but add a high amount of utility to the team by slotting them. This sometimes allows them to make a class competitive that is otherwise hard to fit into a team.

Mesmer Portal

• Team utility: evacuate potentially the whole team, evacuate downed eles, reposition, cover two points
• Player utility: disengage, portal stomp, use it to evade enemy attack during a fight with a low range portal
• Cooldown: 72 seconds

Search and Rescue

• Team utility: move a single downed ally to a better position for rezzing, rezz him at a higher speed
• Player utility: 8 seconds of regeneration (shouts already cause 10 seconds of regeneration any since they are almost always traited)
• Cooldown: 45 seconds, 36 seconds traited

Conclusion
Portal is the stronger skill but has twice the cooldown. Search and rescue cooldown should propably be slightly increased since it is almost always traited and a bit too low then. The functionality should propably be kept in place. A range reduction from 1200 to 1000 could be discussed. Another posibility is removing the initial teleport and forcing the pet to run to the downed ally before it teleports him back. This would be a very significant nerf though that has to be tested first.

I like the function of SnR. It is strong but can still have some counterplay(pressuring off-point ranger).

If it still proves to be too strong in high-level play, i think a cd increase should probably be enough.

Portal is actually quite strong in itself as well. It is actually kinda mandatory on mesmer utility bar which shows how strong it is. But given that mesmer will be completely out of meta for next 4 months. I don’t think it needs a nerf at the point.

I just can’t appreciate how it requires way too much skill to counter this mostly skill-less skill. Unless you’re an Elementalist in range with Comet or a Revenant with Phase Traversal and Surge of the Mists or Temporal Rift ready to go, “Search and Rescue!” near maximum range is a basically guaranteed revive.

Don’t compare skills in a vacuum, how strong one skill is compared to a similar skill of another profession barely matters. The only thing that makes sense to compare is the two optimal builds that take these skills and compare their strength. And with that in mind Druid is top tier while Mesmer is basically thrash tier, the same tier as warrior. Also, Mesmer was designed with and balanced around portal, search and rescue how it is now is just something Anet slapped onto Druid without any second thought.

As Maxodon said, you can’t compare them in a vacuum. You need to look at other aspects like state of the class, role it plays and how the skills fit into the current team comp/meta.

Example: Back when DD ele was the be all, end all and we had a quintuple and quadruple ele comp, the addition of 1 thief to the team allowed the use of merciful ambush with vapour form. This was called OP and had little counterplay as the stealthed ele and thief could effectively guarantee a rez by repositioning away from cleave.

Now? Is anyone complaining about this with ele out of most teams? Nope. Did anyone complain when diamond skin ele was one of the few classes in the meta? Nope. Nothing changed to the skill or it’s interaction with vapour form, what did change is they’re not paired together anymore and a lot of people dropping SA line.

This is an attempt to stave off a nerf for ranger. Really? you compare S&R to Portal? Really? The reality is that portal can be strong.. in a well coordinated team on voice.

In everyday solo queue it’s almost useless because organizing a PUG to use such a tool is pretty difficult. No it’s in no way an equivalent.

S&R works quite well for a solo player and requires no real coordination. Portal requires an organized and disciplined team to use well. Without that, other utilities are a much better choice.

In my opinion while you usually indeed have to look at the whole build this does not apply to these skills. They should be rated individually, usually they don’t add anything to a build specifically.

Also Ithilwen, I back up my post with hard facts but ofc someone has to make it into a childish “my class, your class” discussion. Going with your argument I don’t see why I should sacrifice a precious utility skill slot to revive some guy I don’t know in soloqueue.

I think there is quite a big amount of classes that can counter the teleport. 1200 range is not the world, often it will be lower or the ranger risks the skill failing. It is really only hard to counter on maps like khylo with clocktower.

Skill have an in range/out of range indicator.

What hard facts do you refer to? Since you refer to “hard facts,” what facts lead you to argue that S&R specifically should be evaluated differently from other skills?

If you don’t know why you would want to revive “some guy” on your team… well I suggest you practice PvP a lot more.

I would also point out that quickness rezzing ( which allowed a higher success rate on rezzing teammates just kitten &R does ) was a major nerf target in the last patch.

That alone would seem to be evidence for the need to nerf S&R.

I see you didn’t even play ranger and try this skill. It has no range indicator especially since people suspect the range actually counts from the pets position.

A cooldown increase and range reduction would be enough to bring this skill in line

For the range reduction, to prevent accidentally wasting the skill, you could leave the activation range the same, but reduce the maximum distance the target can be teleported

Since everyone including the Devs especially read these, I want to keep this in mind before the thought of touching/ or EVEN ‘looking’ into SnR comes into a feasible thing: look at how many other classes has their own unique aspect to play with.. blinking, porting, shooting through the mist, ect.. most classes can and DO counter this skill effectively in from every which way! , interrupt, cc, blink, port whatever to the down target cleave, Not to mention losing a point possibly on an already losing fight since the person was down.. so please people put your thinking caps on before you start typing away at your keyboards and play a litter more, in fact I invite you to put yourself in the mentality of hmm how can i stop someone from resing if they got ported away ? (if max 1200) make a list! try it out! I’m willing to bet 9/10 of those thing you wrote down worked ..soo fyi please, please stop calling op on things you haven’t even spend a day figuring it out

Velimere.7685:

I just can’t appreciate how it requires way too much skill to counter this mostly skill-less skill. Unless you’re an Elementalist in range with Comet or a Revenant with Phase Traversal and Surge of the Mists or Temporal Rift ready to go, “Search and Rescue!” near maximum range is a basically guaranteed revive.

Steal, Judge’s Intervention, Blink, Shadow Step, Lightning Flash, Infiltrator’s Signet all can finish the job if you’re like in a mid-stomp, no?

Miles Smiles.8951:

Velimere.7685:

I just can’t appreciate how it requires way too much skill to counter this mostly skill-less skill. Unless you’re an Elementalist in range with Comet or a Revenant with Phase Traversal and Surge of the Mists or Temporal Rift ready to go, “Search and Rescue!” near maximum range is a basically guaranteed revive.

Steal, Judge’s Intervention, Blink, Shadow Step, Lightning Flash, Infiltrator’s Signet all can finish the job if you’re like in a mid-stomp, no?

Those skills are used regularly for various different reasons whereas “Search and Rescue!” is generally used for the purpose of reviving and downed ally. Lightning Flash is 900 range.

Why are you comparing portal to search and rescue? What next? You gonna compare plague signet to blink? Mesmer has illusion of life, compare that to rez utilities. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Illusion_of_Life vs. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Search_and_Rescue

I second the nerf though. Ranger already has amazing utilities on top of beastly pets finally, it doesn’t need the best rez in the game too (short cd 1200 range teleport pet help rez). Nerf it, rework it, develop things properly. Since when are pets wizards…?

People will always find something to cry about.

Search and Rescue is 100% fine and balanced.

Druids have garbage dps outside of (dodgeable) pet burst and get kitten on by decent revs/reapers despite their “amazing sustain”.

So, ANET intelligently gives them a utility skill to make them more desirable in teams.

Not many people play druid, so there is a lot of class envy going on right now.

Notice how no one is crying about function gyro despite it being ridiculously overpowered with a short CD.

Yep, a druid with SnR is a +1 spec as a healer, and not a burst. It is fine. The shoutbow itself is weaker then the glyph druid in direct combat.

Demonoid.1974:

Why are you comparing portal to search and rescue? What next? You gonna compare plague signet to blink? Mesmer has illusion of life, compare that to rez utilities. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Illusion_of_Life vs. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Search_and_Rescue

I second the nerf though. Ranger already has amazing utilities on top of beastly pets finally, it doesn’t need the best rez in the game too (short cd 1200 range teleport pet help rez). Nerf it, rework it, develop things properly. Since when are pets wizards…?

Yeah, this.

I don’t see the comparison with Portal. Illusion of Life makes more sense being a res skill and it has a ridiculously long cool down.

Pretty bad comparison. This is why its OP. its a 36 second cool down traited. Every other profession res skills are 2-3 minutes and none of them are as good. Except warrior banner and it has like a 3 minute recharge. Which arguable is better and not as good as teleporting someone away.

Should be compared to other res skills.

Sigent of Mercy
Cast time 3 3/4
CD 2 minutes and 30 seconds.

Glyph of Renewal
3 1/4 cast time 165 CD

Illusion of Life Doesn’t fully revive even. Its like Vengance. and its bugged.
1 1/4 cast 120 CD

Signet of Undeath
3 sec cast 3 minute CD

It’s OP ok. Don’t try to make threads and twist it.

Suggesting cd increase and other nerfs is trying to twist/hide OPness. Today I learned.

I wrote the kittening cooldown difference in the opening post myself because I think it has to be considered. People here are ridiculous bigots trying to push agendas for the classes they personally play and nothing else.

S&R is the druid tiecket for the high level PVP scene. Druid is very balance after you take away bristleback bugged F2 out if the equation.

You are comparing a reworked skill that was never used and pretty much worthless to non reworked useless stuff.

Point is, SnR is fine now. Now fix other res abilities.