Guild Wars 2

Smokescale is not balanced either.

Alekt.5803:

Most Elite specs and Heart of Thorns content are not balanced either.

Fixed that for you.

Without these pets druid would never kill anything unfortunately.

Eurantien.4632:

Without these pets druid would never kill anything unfortunately.

Finally someone who understands the real issue. GS, LB, and Sword all provide laughable damage in comparison to other power oriented classes, specs, and weapons. A more traditional condi spec would be the best bet without reliable pet damage which core GW2 pets have some serious issues with.

Is it so difficult move the pet damage to ranger and use f2 for utility only?

Eurantien.4632:

Without these pets druid would never kill anything unfortunately.

Without a druid those pets would do a good dps class alone.

double post

Eurantien.4632:

Without these pets druid would never kill anything unfortunately.

That is exactly the problem. You shouldn’t be able to kill anything while being as tanky as a druid.

Celestial Amulet is gone. Druid isn’t very tanky at all anymore.

Rangers are underpower since the beta even if we are the strongest class out of keyboard. Don’t change the new pets they are good and healthy for the game.

Eurantien.4632:

Without these pets druid would never kill anything unfortunately.

Try to equip Berserk or Marauder amulet. It really helps.

eh. I am not shure about that. Smokescale and bristleback feel very powerful. I am not playign druid but smokescale sometimes feels like a thief jumping on you….
I can handle druid, but i also can understand the complanis.

I am by no means against Ranger and their HoT exclusive pet, and never had trouble against them mostly in teamfights they are so squishy and can be easily targeted. what i found hilarious is, the Wyrm pet is currently underpowered/use perhaps some buff or tweak on this pet will solve the current problem, make it so Arena.net

i got a lot of complains about druid being to tanky and pet doing way to much damage for a tank build. So i took tiger, put on zerk amulet, used opening strike trait+signet of the hunt (75% extra damage on next attack) on tiger f2 (10k hit) and maul (9k hit).
I was glassy as hell, but guess what, still got rage whispers about to much damage and to much sustain and how i am bad and just facetank without brain.
Ppl only be satisfied with ranger when the class is destroyed and not to be found in pvp.

Ashkew.6584:

i got a lot of complains about druid being to tanky and pet doing way to much damage for a tank build. So i took tiger, put on zerk amulet, used opening strike trait+signet of the hunt (75% extra damage on next attack) on tiger f2 (10k hit) and maul (9k hit).
I was glassy as hell, but guess what, still got rage whispers about to much damage and to much sustain and how i am bad and just facetank without brain.
Ppl only be satisfied with ranger when the class is destroyed and not to be found in pvp.

That’s not it, people don’t want rangers destroyed. It’s just that most people only understand meta builds and associate said classes to meta builds. So when they see a ranger they just think it’s the meta build. They are smart enough to recognize some variants but knowledge is limited. For instance The amount of dragonhunters/longbow ranger that keep firing on my corrosive poison cloud (which is also my bristleback counter) is quite large.

Both ranger pets have lame mechanics. It’s not a balance issue though.

One piece of feedback from the sPvP community throughout gw2 release has been that people don’t like to see heavy damage output from ranger pets.

So really all we can do is restate the feedback from that good old BM meta period. That got fixed. Let’s do that then.

It would be nice to see actual ranger attacks with risk/reward mechanics (with damage compensating for pet nerf)

Phaeton.9582:

It would be nice to see actual ranger attacks with risk/reward mechanics (with damage compensating for pet nerf)

This would actually be nice, also risk/reward mechanics would be nice for most classes instead of spamwars

Just like i said in every ranger pet thread: i am fine with ranger pet doing damage if ranger actually has glass cannon amy equipped. It is however not OK for pet to do high dmg while druid is running tankier amulets~

Bottom line, i think pet should provide utility and not being main source of dmg.

They has noticeable damage when ignored, but some of us consider that there are some variety of Amulets to choose from. perhaps Stack more vitality or toughness as well as Passives stuff or wield a Shield.

ranger pets have lame mechanics.

Someone gets it

i think pet should provide utility and not being main source of dmg.

Isn’t that what Beastmastery is meant for?
i am curiously eager to see some Wyvern Ranger/Druid build sooner or later

Alekt.5803:

Smokescale is not balanced either.

As annoying as druids are, I feel like the new pets doing decent damage is acceptable. The pets are one of the core mechanics of a ranger, before druid they were mostly for knock downs and stuff via wolf and let’s be honest, those pets were never reliable when it comes to killing which was another problem for ranger. It feels like a ranger should, a pet and player working together.

That being said, my issue with them is their versatility. The shoutbow build in particular benefits greatly from the removal of tanky amulets, longbow by itself hits very hard especially for having no ferocity. Bristleback does insane damage on the F skill. Comebine that with condi clears, good healing, access to stealth and you have probably one of the most adaptable professions in the current metagame.

Reapers are really good too, but they do have glaring flaws (kiting reaper shroud for example), druid feels like it can handle 1v1s and overall more situations.

DrDivine.5378:

longbow by itself hits very hard especially for having no ferocity.

Except this, very much this. Shove a mara ammy on a ranger and watch him wreck called targets. Longbow does GREAT damage on top of being one of the most versatile weapons in the game. Unfortunately ranger wasn’t really a profession that could ever jump on point and remain there for extended periods of time until drood came out. You were practically a squishier long range high damage output class that benefit from standing at the side lines and focusing people down while they were busy engaging other players, if you play ranger with that mindset you’ll do well, with or without druid. And given how nice guild wars 2 is in terms of attainable places and allows you to reach some crazy kitten spots from where you can pew pew (Khylo, and Legacy >.>) you can definitely be a royal pain. Seriously the kitten you can pull off at legacy is really nasty, and since some spots require jumping off a ledge to reach unless the target has some heavy ground targetted AoE damage they’ll have trouble pressuring you.

Eurantien.4632:

Without these pets druid would never kill anything unfortunately.

a bunker guardian never could kill anything either, so why should a healing elite spec that tanks/bunkers better than the guardian get so much damage?

Eurantien.4632:

Without these pets druid would never kill anything unfortunately.

Yes you would, if you actually went with damage instead of trying to be as tanky as possible and heal/buff your pet.

fumcheg.1936:

Eurantien.4632:

Without these pets druid would never kill anything unfortunately.

Try to equip Berserk or Marauder amulet. It really helps.

If you follow ESL, you would have known that Eura is playing his druid with marauder amulet so he kowns a thing or two about that.

That saied, bristleback is bugged and should be fixed. We have 2 major pets bugs ATM as far asi’m aware of. 1) bristleback F2 shoots 20 spikes instad of the 15 wrriten in the tooltip. 2)wiki says that pets getting the Moment of clarity buff even without that trait -https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Moment_of_Clarity
It can lead to big undeserved spikes.
smokescale damage is fine, no one is taking this pet for its damage, we have much better option in that field. We take it for its tankyness and utility.

But why would you take a dps ranger/druid, if other classes can fill this role much better because they have either more aoe/cleave dmg or better mobility + burst? Offensive ranger brings nothing special, which he could do better than other classes like thief, mesmer, dh, rev, …

Edit:

2)wiki says that pets getting the Moment of clarity buff even without that trait -https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Moment_of_Clarity
It can lead to big undeserved spikes.

Can’t confirm. Maybe this can happen under certain conditions, but definitely not on a regular basis. Wouldn’t be the first time, the wiki is wrong …
And smokescale and bristleback doesn’t even benefit that much from Attack of Opportunity buff because their main dmg comes from multiple hit attacks.

Darknicrofia.2604:

Eurantien.4632:

Without these pets druid would never kill anything unfortunately.

a bunker guardian never could kill anything either, so why should a healing elite spec that tanks/bunkers better than the guardian get so much damage?

Druid can’t tank better than a guardian. If it stays on point all the time it will likely die in a 1 v 1s. In a 2 v 2 situation and the focus turns onto the druid it CANNOT in anyway stay on point for more than a few seconds.

Petoox.6570:

Eurantien.4632:

Without these pets druid would never kill anything unfortunately.

Yes you would, if you actually went with damage instead of trying to be as tanky as possible and heal/buff your pet.

I think menders amulet is actually more of a dps amulet than a “tanky as possible” amulet. But if we were to use a berzerker or marauder amulet druid could be ok 1 v 1 yet would get slaughtered by scrapper and revenant, would die instantly if surprised by a +, and would die nearly as instantly when focused in a 2 v 2. Sure you can stand off point but everything in this game has great mobility atm. Please, play zerker druid against pro league teams and see that going glassy just isn’t an option. If dps mesmer doesn’t work how do you expect dps druid to?

Granted, this game isn’t balanced around top tier and my experience and concern for this game is drawn from that. I know its been stated that balance isn’t around top tier, which I find unfortunate because yes, at lower tiers both of you are right. I bet druid seems like it can survive forever on point and can kill things by playing glass. At top tier play, it just doesn’t happen.

philheat.3956:

Is it so difficult move the pet damage to ranger and use f2 for utility only?

It really isn’t – and it would actually give the ranger some choices which pet they wanna pick. Right now, you can either pick bristle and smokescale, or sth. bad.

Just make Sword AA useful and not this weird thing it is now (just a normal AA-chain plz, like anyone else), give Staff and GS a bit more dps on AA and give Shortbow an overhaul, like guaranteed bleed on AA.

Then just tone down dmg of smoke and bristle by at least 20% and voilà!

PowerBottom.5796:

philheat.3956:

Is it so difficult move the pet damage to ranger and use f2 for utility only?

It really isn’t – and it would actually give the ranger some choices which pet they wanna pick. Right now, you can either pick bristle and smokescale, or sth. bad.

Just make Sword AA useful and not this weird thing it is now (just a normal AA-chain plz, like anyone else), give Staff and GS a bit more dps on AA and give Shortbow an overhaul, like guaranteed bleed on AA.

Then just tone down dmg of smoke and bristle by at least 20% and voilà!

These sound reasonable. The problem is that Anet is terrible at gathering feedback and even worse at the implementation of said suggestions. I just gave up, and trust me, I’ve made my fair share of ’em.

hint: They directly ask Pro-ESL players for feedback regarding balance. They only take our feedback from a ‘general player’s perception of what’s OP’. They don’t really actually take our suggestions into account.
_
Back on topic. We all have to consider that Pets are the main Ranger’s mechanic. It’s the only profession that can have its core mechanic disabled for a long period of time. It also usually works terribly the more people you have in a teamfight.

It’s not a matter of just nerfing the damage from pets, because then you remove druids from meta as they can’t really bunker a point even with the (now deleted) most tanky amulets. You can’t really nerf them without compensation in this case. But knowing Anet, I don’t have any hopes, hell, I don’t play anymore… I’ll come back when I percieve this game’s balance reaches what I’d consider a healthier state.

Ranger profession mechanic is viable for the first time in going on 4 years = community hissy fit.

Druid is not a BUNKER, its a healer .

the aim for druid is to sustain / outpace the opposing player with CC’s and pet damage (if applicable)
by doing so taking druid he gives up Almost all Might sources and Nature magic sources of defence .

hence why the New pets have better Utilities and the Bristle back don’t make me laugh HoT brought up lots more ways to block/reflect ect and guess what even heal through that burst damage.

just like any other class that can Double up on its damage E.g Beserker Warroir , DH good at Range and Melee both at the same time while Remaining Tough (hence the word Tough not Tanky)

the game has changed to Skill based CC vs Busting meta and those that can Sustain the fight better will win in the end but if the CC based style fails it would mean near death for a druid unless he goes Full on Heal/tank(but in this case a druid isn’t tanky its Evasive with blinds/dodges/vigour and healing to soak burst damage which you as a player must Maintain pressure (BURST doesn’t work against good Druids).

Time your CC for its Staff weapon or its CA form and presto its locked down lowing its healing output allowing you better control of the fight.

while pressured the druids only form of Soild damage comes from pets Built up with might which is shared to the druid if they use Heal as one.

this just means a Dead pet means a Nearly Useless Evasive/tank druid looses nearly all its Damage.

but on the other side of the coin is the Power CC Druid both Squishy targets takes a while to build Asteral force at the cost of having faster burst lower healing output.

Just like Rangers in GW 1 it was all about out playing the Rangers pet + ranger like a Juggling act and learning that is key for beating Good ranger players (EVEN if you think pets shouldn’t hit at all, the fact is the Druid/Ranger made sure the Pet can hit you)

Yin and Yan.

Bristleback is too strong. The smokescale is not. As soon as you add a second entity to it the damage falls off significantly.

Also, all the comparisons with other ranger pets will always make bristle and smoke seem OP, because for PvP all of the other pets are simply…. bad. Thats why the wolf was used for the better part of 3 years

All the pets need a major overhaul. I feel like both Ranger and non-Ranger players would be happier if the pets were there to supplement the player, not be the main source of damage.

Supplying combo fields or applying condis like Immob or CC like knock down and Fear so that the Ranger can land its damage sounds good. Instead right now we have Rangers building to have as much sustain as possible and just supporting their pet as they decimate the target.

It’s not even about being OP or UP, it’s about making the class both fun to play and fun to play against. I want to fight other players, not brain-dead AI that are only good cause their attacks are dealing high damage while being able to just soak up hits. It’s all subjective but I’m pretty sure few players go “ahhh yay I LOVE fighting the pet!” or “I love having my pet be my main source of damage!”

BurrTheKing.8571:

All the pets need a major overhaul. I feel like both Ranger and non-Ranger players would be happier if the pets were there to supplement the player, not be the main source of damage.

Supplying combo fields or applying condis like Immob or CC like knock down and Fear so that the Ranger can land its damage sounds good. Instead right now we have Rangers building to have as much sustain as possible and just supporting their pet as they decimate the target.

It’s not even about being OP or UP, it’s about making the class both fun to play and fun to play against. I want to fight other players, not brain-dead AI that are only good cause their attacks are dealing high damage while being able to just soak up hits. It’s all subjective but I’m pretty sure few players go “ahhh yay I LOVE fighting the pet!” or “I love having my pet be my main source of damage!”

I agree with you in that the other pets need buffs, but I disagree that NONE of the pets should be viable damage sources. That’s the whole point of the beastmaster playstyle. To use your own weapon skills to set up your pet to deliver it’s burst successfully.

You aren’t fighting the pet’s AI. You’re fighting a pet that is being guided and supported by the player you’re fighting. The player has to manage the pet to keep it out of AoE fields and make sure it doesn’t go down by supporting it with heal skills and well timed pet swaps, as well as time the pet’s F2 with the ranger’s control effects to ensure the burst lands. It’s a very fun playstyle that the ranger profession was literally designed to accommodate.

Rather the support and control the other pets offer should be made to be competitive with the raw damage pets. Running a sustain build you could go with a damage pet to pressure enemies or a control pet to improve your ability to bunker, and running a glassy build you could take a damage pet for high burst potential or a control pet to compensate for your own lack of defense.

Increase pet variety to improve build diversity and potential choices, but don’t remove a playstyle entirely.

New pets are fine, the old one are underpowered. Guys as colin said, ranger weapon are not powerful as the other professions because of the pet damage ok. So why do you complain?
The berserk spe with the gunfire can do 12k damage with 3 sec cd.
The rogue just spam #1 dagger and can easily spam 6-7k each cyle.
The mesmer have a huge burst with shatter condi or direct.
We can discuss about reaper shroud (f1-f5) fear,chill, damage, burn, power, stun, poison,stab, field, finisher.
The scrapper/ dh f1-f5/F1/f3 are amazing too.
So why complain? It´s normal that the ranger f1-f4 have a utility too. If you want to nerf the pet damage, go up the weapon damage, and do say ranger pet dps with him.

The chances are if you fight a Ranger and ignore the Bristleback and smokescale you will get trashed. I don’t know what else to say. If you face tank a reaper you will also get trashed. If you fight a scrapper and don’t kite at the right time you will get scrapped.

Any type of AI driven damage that does the majority of the damage to kill needs to be removed from the game. It empowers the most detrimental aspect in the game while removing player skill.

GW2 has always had for some reason brain dead AI damage/gameplay. These ranger pets should go the way of turrets, phantasms, etc.

Thank you

I dont know what this obsession is about AI doing damage being bad? As long is not passive, i.e auto attacks doing most of the damage, its fine.

my only complaint about the bristle is that it takes up several spots in my post-death skills-that-did-the-most-damage report….

A few things:

• bristleback and smokescale are the only 2 pets on a completely different level, I would say atleast 80% better than the average and still 40% better than “decent” pets (dogs, birds, tiger)
• even bristle and smoke require traited beastmastery, without it dmg is only mediocre (and absolute garbage for other pets), stats like precision, power and ferocity amplify each other, the difference between traited and untraited pets is too high

What needs to be done:

• all the bad pets need buffs to their damage, survivabilty and utility
• beastmastery needs to be toned down, only +100 stats instead of +150 would be a good start
• this would already nerf smoke and bristle and it should be reevaluated if further nerfs are required or not

AegisFLCL.7623:

Eurantien.4632:

Without these pets druid would never kill anything unfortunately.

Finally someone who understands the real issue. GS, LB, and Sword all provide laughable damage in comparison to other power oriented classes, specs, and weapons. A more traditional condi spec would be the best bet without reliable pet damage which core GW2 pets have some serious issues with.

That’s why only the devs work on balanced, not some random gw2 player. Unlike the devs,they have no ideas how skills work or how it affect the other party,in this case your oponnents.

Dojo.1867:

A few things:

• bristleback and smokescale are the only 2 pets on a completely different level, I would say atleast 80% better than the average and still 40% better than “decent” pets (dogs, birds, tiger)
• even bristle and smoke require traited beastmastery, without it dmg is only mediocre (and absolute garbage for other pets), stats like precision, power and ferocity amplify each other, the difference between traited and untraited pets is too high

What needs to be done:

• all the bad pets need buffs to their damage, survivabilty and utility
• beastmastery needs to be toned down, only +100 stats instead of +150 would be a good start
• this would already nerf smoke and bristle and it should be reevaluated if further nerfs are required or not

Did you even read what others have said or are you just pushing your own agenda here?? A ranger just said without their pets they can’t kill stuff? So why should anet reduce the stats on their pets If anything anet should make it so that the pets have the same stats as the amulet; there is no need to change the traits.

/Yawn Bristle is good but not my Best DPS option, once again it’s my Drake…single hardest hitting attack I can set up. I can’t do (see image) with a Bristle. And I have a folder full of these, this is just the biggest. Edits for anonymity purposes. But that’s in a PVP match.

That’s an AE Attack BTW

Let’s say that the damage output ratio is like 40/60 for ranger/pet at the moment (only valid for Smokescale and Bristleback probably). The amount of qq that would result from the ratio being changed to 60/40 would be ridiculous.

qq from druids side?

kolompi.1287:

Eurantien.4632:

Without these pets druid would never kill anything unfortunately.

That is exactly the problem. You shouldn’t be able to kill anything while being as tanky as a druid.

Yep, this. Exactly this. I don’t mind having a class that can do damage and sustain but with Rampage as One, or whatever they call it now, a druid has access to a lot of cc, healing, damage and condition removal party wide. It would make sense that druid would be weaker at damage dealing but dps needs to come at a cost which quite frankly doesn’t exist. DPS should be coming from a weapon that scales with power/condition damage, not a pet which has its own scaling system.

I love coming to the PvP forums to read all the horrible grammar and “l2p” or “needs nerf” complaints. Always good for a larf.

Seriously though it’s maybe one in every 500 comments that actually have a valid complaint. The other 98% are just people frustrated at losing to something, refusing to understand it or relate to it and coming to the forums crying for nerfs.

Bristleback damage is high. It also just sits there like an Engineer turret and has extremely low health. It’s not like it’s difficult to watch where it’s shooting from or even to kill it if you want to go out of your way to do so. Also remember that it easily gets obstructed due to it’s F2 ability only being able to shoot on perfectly flat ground.

Think of it as a glass shortbow Ranger that doesn’t know how to dodge. It’ll die to a stiff breeze and will just keep pew pewing at you until you do something about it whether it be killing it or countering it.

I’ve told people before to just kill the pet and they laugh at me and mock me as if it is an absurd strategy, and they then proceed to complain about bow tanky druid is and how much damage it puts out.

I dunno man, you just can’t help some people.

Shaogin.2679:

I’ve told people before to just kill the pet and they laugh at me and mock me as if it is an absurd strategy, and they then proceed to complain about bow tanky druid is and how much damage it puts out.

I dunno man, you just can’t help some people.

Yeah Retaliation counters spike barrage.