Guild Wars 2

This got nerfed. I know it did. It used to be a case of if you got the fire keep on the Desert BL you could grab an egg and become a hound of balthazar. This transformation would then give you a nice damage bonus against npc. So it made taking supply camps and what not alot easier. It was still very difficult to kill players with them if the enemy knew how they worked (you could easily kite them). They were really an ideal pug smasher type of feature for roamers and small groups to capitalize on.

Somewhere along the line though, their damage values were nerfed by about 250-500. And sigils/skill/weaponstats no longer seem to have an effect while using the transformation. For example if I had zerker gear on a Gs with sigil of air and fire, the sigil would apply to the hound’s attacks and the zerker gear would buff the damage values compared to defensive gear. Same thing for passive abilities. These all seem to have been removed though. That coupled with the damage nerf, really makes the transformation a niche feature. Its good for the constant stability, thats it. I can take camps faster and do more damage without the transformation currently…its a waste of time to use it.

Why do this? Is everything in WvW destined to be/become based solely on class combat (i.e. your base character that you bring to WvW is the only thing that makes a difference)? I saw so many great ideas in the DL BL when they were first released. Now they are shallow copies of the alpine ones but with all the problems of the original DL BL.

To be honest, this way makes more sense to me. It should be useful but not amazing—it is the first shrine unlock for Firekeep after all.

As a defensive specced player (usually) it still speeds up my camp clear times considerably.

Sviel.7493:

To be honest, this way makes more sense to me. It should be useful but not amazing—it is the first shrine unlock for Firekeep after all.

As a defensive specced player (usually) it still speeds up my camp clear times considerably.

That’s a fair deduction. Most defensive specced players aren’t solo players/roamers though, so I still argue that it should be reverted. Besides you get even MORE tank if they revert it, win-win. Plus there are sigils that could really help you even if you are running tank (cripple/chill). Besides, the fact that its now a niche feature that still benefits you but not others doesn’t really make it ‘fair’ or ‘right’. I never found it amazing to begin with. It only lasted a set period of time and was garbage in pvp against sustain/ranged kiters or anyone who knew how to counter. Alternatively, maybe the tiers need to be changed.
Lvl 1: +40% speed while walking on lava, no damage from lava
Lvl 2: activates fire turrets (same as before)
Lvl 3: unlocks the lava portals and hound of balthazar transformation (max 1-3 allowed at a time)