Guild Wars 2

This build will work on every aspect of the game.

~BalougaPod

Thanks for posting this. I’ve been running something very similar and really enjoy it. Do you find protect me better that SoS?

Given its a stunbreak, has no tell, and a lower cd protect me is better because of how tanky bristle back and smoke scale are. Only drawback is point capture but you can cancel protect me so that shouldn’t be an issue. Of course this will all change on the 26th.

Eurantien.4632:

Given its a stunbreak, has no tell, and a lower cd protect me is better because of how tanky bristle back and smoke scale are. Only drawback is point capture but you can cancel protect me so that shouldn’t be an issue. Of course this will all change on the 26th.

What’s going to change?

Eurantien.4632:

Given its a stunbreak, has no tell, and a lower cd protect me is better because of how tanky bristle back and smoke scale are. Only drawback is point capture but you can cancel protect me so that shouldn’t be an issue. Of course this will all change on the 26th.

Prob shouldn’t forget to mention that it causes the pet to stop attacking for the duration. Its a pretty big effect of the skill. And having the pet attack again will cancel the damage transfer. Unless like you said they will change that on the 26th.

Popping protect me at the wrong time can cost you long term so its got a bit of a bigger learning curve than SoS. The upcoming taunt though is making it look pretty good atleast for 1v1s. SoS will (I Believe) still be the go to for team fights though I think though most rangers run druid for side node fighting so that isn’t something that comes up often I suppose.

I do personally like it more that SoS though because its “smoother” as far as in combat use goes. (really easy to dance in and out of protect me).

I like the nuance in the new PM. If you get taunted, you can’t complain because you did it to yourself. But even if the opponent doesn’t get themselves taunted you still basically get the effect of the old PM (no damage).

EnderzShadow.2506:

Eurantien.4632:

Given its a stunbreak, has no tell, and a lower cd protect me is better because of how tanky bristle back and smoke scale are. Only drawback is point capture but you can cancel protect me so that shouldn’t be an issue. Of course this will all change on the 26th.

What’s going to change?

Protect Me – Now will break stun on nearby allies, giving you protection and cause the next foe that attack you to be taunted by your pet.

Not sure if they’re adding these onto the old Protect me, or if this is what the new Protect me will be from now on.

bloodpyrope.8630:

EnderzShadow.2506:

Eurantien.4632:

Given its a stunbreak, has no tell, and a lower cd protect me is better because of how tanky bristle back and smoke scale are. Only drawback is point capture but you can cancel protect me so that shouldn’t be an issue. Of course this will all change on the 26th.

What’s going to change?

Protect Me – Now will break stun on nearby allies, giving you protection and cause the next foe that attack you to be taunted by your pet.

Not sure if they’re adding these onto the old Protect me, or if this is what the new Protect me will be from now on.

It SOUNDED like an addition. Usually when its a heavy rework they mention it. And I didn’t hear any of the wording theyv used to describe them in the past. However anythings possible >.<

Shadelang.3012:

bloodpyrope.8630:

EnderzShadow.2506:

Eurantien.4632:

Given its a stunbreak, has no tell, and a lower cd protect me is better because of how tanky bristle back and smoke scale are. Only drawback is point capture but you can cancel protect me so that shouldn’t be an issue. Of course this will all change on the 26th.

What’s going to change?

Protect Me – Now will break stun on nearby allies, giving you protection and cause the next foe that attack you to be taunted by your pet.

Not sure if they’re adding these onto the old Protect me, or if this is what the new Protect me will be from now on.

It SOUNDED like an addition. Usually when its a heavy rework they mention it. And I didn’t hear any of the wording theyv used to describe them in the past. However anythings possible >.<

I have a feeling it’s replacing the Shouts current function. Because giving the caster Protection is redundant if it negates all raw damage. Unless it works in such a way that the 33% damage reduction goes towards the reduction in the pets health as well.

Biklen.5490:

This build will work on every aspect of the game.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=of9v7e_1hkY

~BalougaPod

It looks pretty solid. I’m really curious to see how Protect Me and other Shout changes are going to affect our gameplay in the future.

Edit: Would you mix in Berserker Accessories with your Crusader armor for other game modes? Also, why Rune of Resistance when Rune of Melandru also gives the same toughness/condi-duration reduction in addition to a bit of Vit and stun-duration reduction too? If you’re going with Resistance, you might as well carry Stone Signet, not only for the damage immunity, but the free Aegis on use (should still last 2 seconds after Stone ends)

(Not sure if it’ll also cast with Enlargement if you trait it in over Clarion where more Stability is desired, but that’s also something to consider if it does)

Biklen.5490:

This build will work on every aspect of the game.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=of9v7e_1hkY

~BalougaPod

Props to how well you’re doing. I enjoy how you explain things.

The Good-I love the tiger. I never really gave it enough of a chance before.
Lingering light is nice too. It adds more survivability and helps in group fights.

The bad-Signet of stone > Protect me. Protect me is a shorter cd and I really want to like protect me. But in combat with more than 1, the pet will die quickly.

You don’t really address this in your video, but in your video, your dueling.

Maybe it’s just a playstyle difference as you’ve mentioned you like to be very offensive/dps oriented.

Glyph of alignment is nice as it’s a mini gateway heal to bigger heals. But for me, sig of stone, equality and tides is where it’s at.

Want to keep chaining dmg onto someone, glyph of tides.
Want to knock someone off a point – Tides
Want to save a teammate from getting stomped-Tides.
Want to pull someone in to Natural Convergence-Tides.

Again, I’m thinking it’s a playstyle thing. You play lb Berserk druid and you tend to fight off the point, going for the kill, more than the point. I’m wondering if you play this build the same way.

Thoughts?

ItIsFinished.9462:

Shadelang.3012:

bloodpyrope.8630:

EnderzShadow.2506:

Eurantien.4632:

Given its a stunbreak, has no tell, and a lower cd protect me is better because of how tanky bristle back and smoke scale are. Only drawback is point capture but you can cancel protect me so that shouldn’t be an issue. Of course this will all change on the 26th.

What’s going to change?

Protect Me – Now will break stun on nearby allies, giving you protection and cause the next foe that attack you to be taunted by your pet.

Not sure if they’re adding these onto the old Protect me, or if this is what the new Protect me will be from now on.

It SOUNDED like an addition. Usually when its a heavy rework they mention it. And I didn’t hear any of the wording theyv used to describe them in the past. However anythings possible >.<

I have a feeling it’s replacing the Shouts current function. Because giving the caster Protection is redundant if it negates all raw damage. Unless it works in such a way that the 33% damage reduction goes towards the reduction in the pets health as well.

What your saying is true. Atm all damage taken by the pet is (Through Protect Me) “True” damage. Meaning it ignores all toughness and boons. Its just the pure raw damage you would have taken.

On that note if it becomes just protection, aoe stun break, and a taunt. It isn’t really a buff. Oh itl work better in certain circumstances. But it will also fail COMPLETELY in others. Won’t do anything against a condi reaper for example. Or even a warrior with stab. Or a thief that just used steal while you have rampage as one going. Theres alot of situations where the skill would actually have 0 benefit. So I kinda hope your wrong. Because it would push protect me into a rather tiny niche into who it is actually beneficial to use against.

Especially since the wording they used implied it would only taunt ONE person throughout the duration. It is kind of worrisome. Protection up time after all isn’t exactly anything rangers have had a problem with. Sure we don’t have it up 100% of the time. But we usually have it more than long enough barring boon strips and boon steals.

On that note. If it DOES work the way your saying. Then hopefully it will infact get rid of the “causing the pet to do NOTHING for 6 seconds” as well as getting a lower cooldown.

If its a replacement instead of an addition. And it still cancels upon giving the pet an order. Then Im going to have an issue with it haha.

Shadelang.3012:

ItIsFinished.9462:

Shadelang.3012:

bloodpyrope.8630:

EnderzShadow.2506:

Eurantien.4632:

Given its a stunbreak, has no tell, and a lower cd protect me is better because of how tanky bristle back and smoke scale are. Only drawback is point capture but you can cancel protect me so that shouldn’t be an issue. Of course this will all change on the 26th.

What’s going to change?

Protect Me – Now will break stun on nearby allies, giving you protection and cause the next foe that attack you to be taunted by your pet.

Not sure if they’re adding these onto the old Protect me, or if this is what the new Protect me will be from now on.

It SOUNDED like an addition. Usually when its a heavy rework they mention it. And I didn’t hear any of the wording theyv used to describe them in the past. However anythings possible >.<

I have a feeling it’s replacing the Shouts current function. Because giving the caster Protection is redundant if it negates all raw damage. Unless it works in such a way that the 33% damage reduction goes towards the reduction in the pets health as well.

What your saying is true. Atm all damage taken by the pet is (Through Protect Me) “True” damage. Meaning it ignores all toughness and boons. Its just the pure raw damage you would have taken.

On that note if it becomes just protection, aoe stun break, and a taunt. It isn’t really a buff. Oh itl work better in certain circumstances. But it will also fail COMPLETELY in others. Won’t do anything against a condi reaper for example. Or even a warrior with stab. Or a thief that just used steal while you have rampage as one going. Theres alot of situations where the skill would actually have 0 benefit. So I kinda hope your wrong. Because it would push protect me into a rather tiny niche into who it is actually beneficial to use against.

Especially since the wording they used implied it would only taunt ONE person throughout the duration. It is kind of worrisome. Protection up time after all isn’t exactly anything rangers have had a problem with. Sure we don’t have it up 100% of the time. But we usually have it more than long enough barring boon strips and boon steals.

On that note. If it DOES work the way your saying. Then hopefully it will infact get rid of the “causing the pet to do NOTHING for 6 seconds” as well as getting a lower cooldown.

If its a replacement instead of an addition. And it still cancels upon giving the pet an order. Then Im going to have an issue with it haha.

This spesific build actually lack protaction as it probably using MM/BM/DRUID , the updated protect me offers somthing different to SoS which still a viable option. The pet doing nothing and taking damage thing(and breaks on command) is very unreliable and doesnt stand heat of SPVP, i think the new version is much better and more consistent. In the examples you gave like “condi reapler” also the old protect me(or even SoS) wont help much, we have other condi defences., if anything the taunt will do more vs condi fights compared to the nothing of the old protect me did.

LughLongArm.5460:

Shadelang.3012:

ItIsFinished.9462:

Shadelang.3012:

bloodpyrope.8630:

EnderzShadow.2506:

Eurantien.4632:

Given its a stunbreak, has no tell, and a lower cd protect me is better because of how tanky bristle back and smoke scale are. Only drawback is point capture but you can cancel protect me so that shouldn’t be an issue. Of course this will all change on the 26th.

What’s going to change?

Protect Me – Now will break stun on nearby allies, giving you protection and cause the next foe that attack you to be taunted by your pet.

Not sure if they’re adding these onto the old Protect me, or if this is what the new Protect me will be from now on.

It SOUNDED like an addition. Usually when its a heavy rework they mention it. And I didn’t hear any of the wording theyv used to describe them in the past. However anythings possible >.<

I have a feeling it’s replacing the Shouts current function. Because giving the caster Protection is redundant if it negates all raw damage. Unless it works in such a way that the 33% damage reduction goes towards the reduction in the pets health as well.

What your saying is true. Atm all damage taken by the pet is (Through Protect Me) “True” damage. Meaning it ignores all toughness and boons. Its just the pure raw damage you would have taken.

On that note if it becomes just protection, aoe stun break, and a taunt. It isn’t really a buff. Oh itl work better in certain circumstances. But it will also fail COMPLETELY in others. Won’t do anything against a condi reaper for example. Or even a warrior with stab. Or a thief that just used steal while you have rampage as one going. Theres alot of situations where the skill would actually have 0 benefit. So I kinda hope your wrong. Because it would push protect me into a rather tiny niche into who it is actually beneficial to use against.

Especially since the wording they used implied it would only taunt ONE person throughout the duration. It is kind of worrisome. Protection up time after all isn’t exactly anything rangers have had a problem with. Sure we don’t have it up 100% of the time. But we usually have it more than long enough barring boon strips and boon steals.

On that note. If it DOES work the way your saying. Then hopefully it will infact get rid of the “causing the pet to do NOTHING for 6 seconds” as well as getting a lower cooldown.

If its a replacement instead of an addition. And it still cancels upon giving the pet an order. Then Im going to have an issue with it haha.

This spesific build actually lack protaction as it probably using MM/BM/DRUID , the updated protect me offers somthing different to SoS which still a viable option. The pet doing nothing and taking damage thing(and breaks on command) is very unreliable and doesnt stand heat of SPVP, i think the new version is much better and more consistent. In the examples you gave like “condi reapler” also the old protect me(or even SoS) wont help much, we have other condi defences., if anything the taunt will do more vs condi fights compared to the nothing of the old protect me did.

Like I said im not disagreeing entirely. And I do admit that the specific build in the OP would benefit from this is likely. Im thinking in more general terms across the ranger class.

I will say. We have no guarantees that it has actually been reworked to get rid of the clunkiness involved in using it. Ill be waiting till the 26th to make any final decisions on it. Assuming the new form is better isn’t something im willing to do until I can actually test it in combat myself. Im also not assuming its worse mind you.

As far as condi reapers go I was more worried about the taunt and protection uptime. However Condi reapers do typically run carrion making protect me useful for avoiding damage on certain skills with high base damage. You are correct that it doesn’t stop the condi damage. But it wasn’t exactly useless either lets be fair here. Misleading arguments gets us nowhere. However the new form a condi reaper can actually completely negate. Through stab and a boon corrupt.

But really its a moot point. What I was trying to get at was that the old version unless you misused it always did SOMETHING however minimal. The new version (If its a replacement instead of an addition) actually has a chance of doing nothing.

If you have read any of my posts in previous threads you will know I flat out agree with you that protect me needs to be reworked to no longer cancel and to allow the pet to attack. Thats a must have in my book. Your right that its quirky. I recenetly finished going from amber to legendary only using a Non Druid shout ranger build. I know exactly how this skill works and the situations in which it collapses.

Calling it unreliable however is false. It was perfectly reliable. It always did the exact same thing in a set of circumstances. Caused the pet to stop attacking for 6 seconds and transfers damage you would have taken to it. Is that a good thing? No. It needs change. But its not like the skill was bugged. It was just implemented poorly in relation to its competition and its place in the PvP scene. Did it have a higher learning curve than its competition? Oh HELL Yes. Knowing when to use it and not to use it (Will this hurt me more than help me in the long term) was massive and required you to recognize kitten near exactly how much damage you were about to take.

Also there isn’t actually any guarantee that its the old version or a new version. These changes still could quite possibly be an addition to. Making this convo pointless.

Also this has stepped pretty far away from the OP >.< sorry about that. If you want to continue this ill probably make a thread on the skill when its released based on my views after testing it out a bit.

I am very certain protect me will lose its old functionality.

It was always awkward how SoS was (mostly) a better protect me and they are changing that by making both skills more unique.

Personally I like that. Druid is actually able to stay on point vs many classes and current protect me always caused a decap which was annoying and made it unusable to me. I disagree that the taunt will be bad against stuff like condi necro. Taunt never really is about dmg negation but more about cc.

How does this build fare since the update? I’m looking for an all-purpose GS/Staff or LB/Staff build. The Mender build posted a few threads above seemed too brittle for me…

it’s still viable, i would personally drop the glyphs and run SoS, Protect Me and Guard. Durability runes are gone but you could run soldiers for cleanse, scrappers for more defense or some other toughness runes.

I change builds around in pvp a lot and have run something like this

I use a vriation of this build , Its not as strong as other meta druid builds but much more fun. I actually feel like a cheater everytime I use bristleback, and this build is giving me an excuse to take tiger over it.

LughLongArm.5460:

I use a vriation of this build , Its not as strong as other meta druid builds but much more fun. I actually feel like a cheater everytime I use bristleback, and this build is giving me an excuse to take tiger over it.

Can you elaborate on why you feel like a cheater? Only reason why I’m asking is over the weekend I got some SALT about my pet insta-gibbing them. I mean it was a thief, who was probably geared/traits for max zerk/dps, and I sustained through his burst and the smokescale got him. Figured I’d ask what you mean.

I don’t have the tiger, is that from HoT? I should probably find it but though it was difficult to get based on map population.

Crapgame.6519:

LughLongArm.5460:

I use a vriation of this build , Its not as strong as other meta druid builds but much more fun. I actually feel like a cheater everytime I use bristleback, and this build is giving me an excuse to take tiger over it.

Can you elaborate on why you feel like a cheater? Only reason why I’m asking is over the weekend I got some SALT about my pet insta-gibbing them. I mean it was a thief, who was probably geared/traits for max zerk/dps, and I sustained through his burst and the smokescale got him. Figured I’d ask what you mean.

I don’t have the tiger, is that from HoT? I should probably find it but though it was difficult to get based on map population.

I was reffering to bristleback only not smokescale . Bristleback has a known bug that makes its F2 shoot 20 porjactiles instad of 15. Also the dps of the pet is very high and can carry even the tankyest druid builds to almost insta kill an opponent with a lucky/well timed F2. I think smokescale is fine.