Guild Wars 2

So fellas, how does the pet feel with an additional 150/300 stats now? Noticeable difference to damage and survival?

Also, has anyone tested if their crit chance goes up with additional stats and/or spotter now?

Yes, there is a noticeable difference to damage and survival. As for the precision stat working, I have yet to test it.

Natural Healing (when it works) + Signet of the Wild and Birds, I just /sit all day

Pets felt good before. They feel even better now. I think I only had 1 pet death all night? In pvp the extra 150 helped for sure.

Crit chance? Haven’t tested. I run with Snow Owl and River Drake. River Drake doesn’t crit often, and still doesn’t. Snow Owl obviously crits often.

I believe the bug for added precision from outside sources is still not fixed. I decided to test it out using what I had at disposal being the precision given from Pack Alpha and Spotter. Decided to try it out on two different types of animal species to help verify if it was applied. I recorded the data by adding a tally to count the number of times it would in 100 attacks for each trial.

Wolf
1 l 23
2 l 24
3 l 26
4 l 32
5 l 30

Cat
1 l 56
2 l 59
3 l 63
4 l 52
5 l 61

With the additional precision from Spotter and Pack Alpha, canines should be critting around 43.2% of the time and cats critting around 75.9% of the time. The averages are 27% for canines and 58.3% for cats, averages being closer to their baseline of 36.1% for canines and 68.8% for cats. If we don’t count any added precision from Pack Alpha, the crit chance would be 28.9% for canines and 61.7% for cats; which are numbers more close to their averages. The numbers from the trials are affected by RNG obviously, but I can’t help but doubt that the bug where any added precision applied to the pet doesn’t affect their crit chance was fixed…. If I am correct, only precision give through the level 80 boost and fury are the only things that increase our pets’ crit chance.

Sucks.

Everyone seems to only test our pets’ crit chance with maximum precision investment, yet you don’t investigate it at its minimum. The last time I performed precision testing trials, I found that our pets’ crit chance was significantly below the values you’d expect from a player.

Precision on our pets was working prepatch, however their precision calculation is different. I’ve yet to do any proper trials post patch though.

Its made a pretty big difference.

I’ve just been trolling Hot Join with a double melee regen cleric and I have hawks critting for 2×1500, while I soak up almost everything.

It might even be a legitimate point holder!

Sube Dai.8496:

Its made a pretty big difference.

I’ve just been trolling Hot Join with a double melee regen cleric and I have hawks critting for 2×1500, while I soak up almost everything.

It might even be a legitimate point holder!

I’m a big fan of Settler’s trapper. Beastly Warden functioning in downed state and the extra stats mean I can safely drop wolf and start throwing hawks at people. While the lack of knockback/fear is annoying, the torch radius increase is huge for point defence. I rigged a Mesmer portal with C4 and now I’m addicted to traps.

If our staff ends up a power weapon, I’m probably going to have Healing Spring on my bar just to justify a traited Spike Trap on a power build.

I honestly didn’t see much difference in WvW last night. The pets still die in less than 5 seconds in any large team fight.

HotHit.6783:

…I rigged a Mesmer portal with C4 and now I’m addicted to traps…

This is why traps need to be an Elite kit with a smoke trap.

Total portal counter. 5 traps with Trappers Expertise laid over a portal exit is a nasty surprise! But you cannot really play trapper effectively without some utility and stunbreak yourself, which sucks.

^ well thats WvW for you, generaly you want Nature magic in WvW Rather than Taunt if your going into Large fights.

or use Zyphers speed inplace of taunt too many Condi clears and Most WvW builds have enough stun breaks to push through necro wells and statics+ hammers so taunt isn’t going to do much.

on onther note:

I use nature magic for a reason and that is to let the pet get all those Zerg Buffs and i defo noticed last night in WvW my pet was tanking through a group of 10 people with necros and condi shatters , because i buffed it up with boons+regen+protection+Barkskin+applied weakness and protected it with Spike Trap to reduce melee damage while it Regenerated.

and onther note:

the 150 Extra Base should of been added when Ascened was released every other classes Mechanics Benifited from the Asceneded stat increase but pets did not , nor did they get any alterations for the new condi system.

so its a well Deserved stat boost, even if those whiners start complaining about pets being Overpowered again that is because we’ve speced into nature or beastmastery or both to Seriously buff the pet again Specailising with two trait lines and weapon sets that support the pet while increasing self survival.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

HotHit.6783:

…I rigged a Mesmer portal with C4 and now I’m addicted to traps…

This is why traps need to be an Elite kit with a smoke trap.

Total portal counter. 5 traps with Trappers Expertise laid over a portal exit is a nasty surprise! But you cannot really play trapper effectively without some utility and stunbreak yourself, which sucks.

i think we just need a Elite skill Trap:
Barbed wire
set up a Barbed trap which Barbs the ground for a Lenght of time when triggered
Wall Trap.
4 Bleeds(6secs) for each pass through.
1 immobilises (4secs) for each pass through

Explode the Barbed trap
6 bleeds to foes within 360Radius and blinds them with splinter shards which damage + 8secs of blind

Target limit 5

and Healing spring can be altered to condi remove 2 condi once per Regen pulse in addition to the trigger so the healing spring is a Safe haven for everyone wanting to recover.

I think an Elite trap kit would solve so many of Ranger’s lack of PvP Meta issues.

Sube Dai.8496:

Its made a pretty big difference.

I’ve just been trolling Hot Join with a double melee regen cleric and I have hawks critting for 2×1500, while I soak up almost everything.

It might even be a legitimate point holder!

I made a build and gave it to a Guildie similar running traited shouts with soldiers runes and once he is on a point it takes 2 or more to move him. We were in ranked and people were just leaving the point because the sustain was too much XD
Of course he’s better at it than I am since I main Mesmer he ranger.

Why would you even spec into BM if you are running with a zerg? Go MM, WS and NM.

i’m just glad some of these bugs are getting addressed, maybe anet is looking at these forums o.0

You know what I don’t get? Why there is total dev silence on the profession forums. Honestly if I was Ranger dev, I’d be on here most days letting people know what is going on, discussing balance etc. I’d make it a part of the work day. Seriously, any dev that did that would be just loved and idolised by many people (not the reason I would do it) and nothing but good would come from it. Sure, you would get QQ etc, but after a while you would be defended against all hecklers by the forum regulars for sure. Would be the envy of all professions. I was thinking about this the other day and came to the conclusion that it must really just be a job for them, otherwise, why not get involved with the discussion?

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

I think an Elite trap kit would solve so many of Ranger’s lack of PvP Meta issues.

Man… I want Dust trap so bad back for the Ranger.

Zenos Osgorma.2936:

so its a well Deserved stat boost, even if those whiners start complaining about pets being Overpowered again

Pets didn’t get any higher stats compared to what they could have before, IF you used to spec full into BM. Just a note.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

You know what I don’t get? Why there is total dev silence on the profession forums. Honestly if I was Ranger dev, I’d be on here most days letting people know what is going on, discussing balance etc. I’d make it a part of the work day. Seriously, any dev that did that would be just loved and idolised by many people (not the reason I would do it) and nothing but good would come from it. Sure, you would get QQ etc, but after a while you would be defended against all hecklers by the forum regulars for sure. Would be the envy of all professions. I was thinking about this the other day and came to the conclusion that it must really just be a job for them, otherwise, why not get involved with the discussion?

The answer would be that they are focused on HoT. Not that they had any presence before that. It just feels kittenty to create a forum and not spend any resources to hire people to talk to your player base.

Chicho Gosho.6507:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

You know what I don’t get? Why there is total dev silence on the profession forums. Honestly if I was Ranger dev, I’d be on here most days letting people know what is going on, discussing balance etc. I’d make it a part of the work day. Seriously, any dev that did that would be just loved and idolised by many people (not the reason I would do it) and nothing but good would come from it. Sure, you would get QQ etc, but after a while you would be defended against all hecklers by the forum regulars for sure. Would be the envy of all professions. I was thinking about this the other day and came to the conclusion that it must really just be a job for them, otherwise, why not get involved with the discussion?

The answer would be that they are focused on HoT. Not that they had any presence before that. It just feels kittenty to create a forum and not spend any resources to hire people to talk to your player base.

You don’t have to hire anyone. You already have people working on the game, so why not just tell the players what you are working on that week? It would literally take 10 minutes at the end of the day on a Friday. Not hard.

They are neither Blizzard or Wildstar devs. They have virtually said communicating to people on the forums is not part of their job, so they feel no compulsion to do so.

The only time they come out it’s when it’s time to hype and sell the game, they get their box sales after beta ends and retreat into hiding until the next commercial cycle.

This game doesn’t even have a public test realm. That should tell you how much they actually care about player feedback.

Zenith.7301:

This game doesn’t even have a public test realm. That should tell you how much they actually care about player feedback.

Not even feedback, just overall quality of the game. Every patch lately has had major issues. Let us not even get started talking about the train wreck golem rush event…

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

You don’t have to hire anyone. You already have people working on the game, so why not just tell the players what you are working on that week? It would literally take 10 minutes at the end of the day on a Friday. Not hard.

I worked in Game Design for a smaller company for two years, and am currently in school for Software Engineering; actually working on my own game engine in the BG as I write this. I say this so you’ll know what I say next is from experience:

Interacting with the community directly on a regular basis is the absolute dumbest thing a Developer can do.

In order to release a feature to the public, it needs to be cleared by the NDA. You also have to be careful how you explain the feature, since implementation is also NDA. Once you’ve got both of those taken care of, you have to write/record the update. Then the update has to be proofread, because Balthazar FORBID you have a typo, misspelling, error, mistake, or anything else the “community” can use to prove their superiority over you. Then, after you’ve got all of this cleared, cleaned, and ready to go – wasting time that you’re not spending doing the important parts of your job like coding/designing/testing/etc – something changes and that feature/bugfix/update/balance change/dye color/pixel on an ambient mob doesn’t get put in this update. Now you’re in for it!

To top it off, once the public freaks out over this they double down that you’re not responding to their outcry of vitriol.

While I am all for public releases of information, they need to be handled by the right parties. Not devs themselves.

My drakes have been shaking off hits from a scale 49 Legendary Archdiviner like they were nothing. It’s great seeing my pet survive a hit that downs warriors in one hit.

Well, its a possible 780 extra toughness if you spec for it in fractals.

Nachyochez.9758:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

You don’t have to hire anyone. You already have people working on the game, so why not just tell the players what you are working on that week? It would literally take 10 minutes at the end of the day on a Friday. Not hard.

I worked in Game Design for a smaller company for two years, and am currently in school for Software Engineering; actually working on my own game engine in the BG as I write this. I say this so you’ll know what I say next is from experience:

Opinion. With all do respect you have very little experience in the grand scheme of things so you probably should have stated it as an opinion rather than experience.

It doesn’t matter about who is talking to whom, they have a history of posting on various forums on the interwebz. Any of us who post or reply to bug type threads are nothing more than arm chair quarterbacks. We don’t work there so anything we say is nothing more than hearsay.

Chokolata.1870:

Why would you even spec into BM if you are running with a zerg? Go MM, WS and NM.

because the shout trait, grate sword trait and axe trait are great for melee ranger in zergs

HotHit.6783:

Precision on our pets was working prepatch, however their precision calculation is different. I’ve yet to do any proper trials post patch though.

The precision bug actually existed before the patch hit, and bit annoyed that it has yet to be fixed or addressed. Info here.

DoogySnowStalker.2069:

HotHit.6783:

Precision on our pets was working prepatch, however their precision calculation is different. I’ve yet to do any proper trials post patch though.

The precision bug actually existed before the patch hit, and bit annoyed that it has yet to be fixed or addressed. Info here.

That thread is wrong. Well, maybe not wrong, but definitely misinformed or inconclusive. For example, what’s the crit chance of a pig without the benefits of spotter and beastmastery?

A similar test was performed prepatch, you can find the results in this thread.

I’ve yet to doublecheck precision on pets post-patch, however, my findings prepatch stated in that thread, concluded that cats scaled with precision, but their crit chance was always lower than what you’d expect from a player with the same precision.

Well vitality is worth only 50% of what its worth to players. So, for instance, 100 vitality gives the pet 500 hp and not 1000.

Nachyochez.9758:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

You don’t have to hire anyone. You already have people working on the game, so why not just tell the players what you are working on that week? It would literally take 10 minutes at the end of the day on a Friday. Not hard.

I worked in Game Design for a smaller company for two years, and am currently in school for Software Engineering; actually working on my own game engine in the BG as I write this. I say this so you’ll know what I say next is from experience:

Interacting with the community directly on a regular basis is the absolute dumbest thing a Developer can do.

In order to release a feature to the public, it needs to be cleared by the NDA. You also have to be careful how you explain the feature, since implementation is also NDA. Once you’ve got both of those taken care of, you have to write/record the update. Then the update has to be proofread, because Balthazar FORBID you have a typo, misspelling, error, mistake, or anything else the “community” can use to prove their superiority over you. Then, after you’ve got all of this cleared, cleaned, and ready to go – wasting time that you’re not spending doing the important parts of your job like coding/designing/testing/etc – something changes and that feature/bugfix/update/balance change/dye color/pixel on an ambient mob doesn’t get put in this update. Now you’re in for it!

To top it off, once the public freaks out over this they double down that you’re not responding to their outcry of vitriol.

While I am all for public releases of information, they need to be handled by the right parties. Not devs themselves.

No one can sub for a communicating dev.

Here’s a secret: community reps are incompetent when it comes to communicating about the game.

Why? Because most community reps don’t play the game, or play it at a very casual level. How can a community rep offer insight or have an ongoing conversation with players about class design and balance?

Basically, if a community rep instead of a dev had to take care of communication, he would constantly have to relay comments/questions to the developer, and then relay a response to the community.

The problem with this is that communication worsens through a middle man. The community rep paraphrases questions and filters those which interest him personally. If it were a dev instead coming through a thread, your chances of having your question seen/answered increase, because at least the dev is aware of the full variety of opinions in a thread.

The best games have direct contact between developers and players. You see it in games with the best class balance standards, they have the largest dev/player interaction.

It helps keep the devs grounded because the developers love their gimmicks, which may not translate well in-game. Look at necromancers. Their dev is obsessed with making the Reaper a chill centric specialization with traits.

Turns out it doesn’t work, because necromancers have limited access to chill, with high cooldowns and low duration and a 20% duration increase trait isn’t gonna change that. Not to mention Chill is virtually useless in PvE.

Same goes for mesmer. Robert Gee is obsessed with placing shatter and interrupt themes/traits on the mesmer traitlines, and it turns out to be a pile of crap for PvE players where those two features are garbage.

Shatters because they actually lead to less sustained damage since mesmers have lower damage on autoattacks/abilities since they’re balanced around 3x phantasm uptime, which your shatter destroys.

Interrupts are similarly bad because the mesmer has infrequent access to it with considerable cooldowns, and most importantly the defiance mechanic of a mob means most interrupts will be ignored and not trigger their related effects, which have low uptime to begin with. A 8 sec vulnerability trait on interrupt is pretty bad when your lowest cd on interrupt is 10 seconds offhand sword sacrificing your block skill. The rest of your interrupts are much larger cooldowns, easily on the 20+ sec cd scale.

Then there is harmonious mantras, with a 4% (3% now after their idiotic nerf) damage stack per mantra charge that only lasts 8 seconds means a PvE mesmer needs to chain cast mantra of pain to even maintain 4 stacks and do nothing else.

Meanwhile a warrior uses a 3 bar burst skill every 10 seconds, which is easy to do and comes naturally in combat without sacrificing anything, and they get 100% uptime on a 20% damage buff on top of their big adrenaline hot (mesmer gets 15% and is only chaining mantra of pain, which is roughly weaker than autoattack spam and doesn’t allow the mesmer to use other skills).

Players keep the developers grounded to the reality of how the game is played, since players invest far more time testing and refining the classes than developers do.