Guild Wars 2

I suppose it’s not terrible if you have offhand mastery and can justify the trait with two sets for it to affect, but the warhorn by itself seems terribly underwhelming to me. The might is paltry, the swiftness is almost redundant, and we have decent access to fury already via traits/runes. The recharges for both of its skills make it functionally awkward to use because they’re just really long, making it fall off against powerful PvE monsters and skilled players in PvP.

As a relatively radical change, I would propose changing both skills.

Hunter’s Call: Now has a 20 second recharge; increased total damage by 10%

Call of the Wild: Now has a 25 second recharge; decreased duration of boons applied from 15 to 10 seconds

My reasoning is as follows:

As a weapon, the ranger’s warhorn has very little defensive utility if any, which can be boiled down to tracking stealthed foes by using Hunter’s Call before they stealth, since it has a long animation to deal its damage, and swiftness as an escape tool via Call of the Wild.

Hunter’s Call: This is an amazing tool for proccing on-hit/crit effects, but really isn’t stellar in any other regard. I want to increase its utility against opponents that utilize stealth, slightly increase its overall dps, and reward players who use it properly as a multi-hit trigger skill. I think the 10% damage increase would come second to simply decreasing recharge.

Call of the Wild: Simply put, the addition of a Blast finisher didn’t really address the fact that this skill’s recharge is too long for the fact that it takes up half of the skills on a weapon. I want to increase the utility of the blast finisher (remember that offhand mastery will still only take this to a 20 second recharge, and ranger’s have terrible access to blast finishers anyway) and increase CotW’s desirability to be activated regardless of whether you activate the finisher in a field. Despite the boon duration reduction, the CD reduction means you actually have more uptime on the boons it applies. The recharge reduction will also help the might application if you have torch as your offhand, and make sure that the skill is always available if you want to use it with Healing Spring.

Please note that I’m aware that this would be a huge buff to the weapon; it just seems so numerically unappealing when not traited that I usually can’t justify bringing it. Any critiques/other ideas are welcome, as I would like this to be a brainstorm thread.

Warhorn as a weapon isn’t actually a support weapon as such. Think of it as like a warrior, good self buffing capabilities with a DoT that crits a lot, but it’s mainly for damage. The 4 skill applies wonderful pressure on an opponent (remove LOS from it srsly) and the 5 skill….as you said it is lackluster. I would decrease the cooldown and leave the boons as they are tbh

Benjamin.8237:

Warhorn as a weapon isn’t actually a support weapon as such. Think of it as like a warrior, good self buffing capabilities with a DoT that crits a lot, but it’s mainly for damage. The 4 skill applies wonderful pressure on an opponent (remove LOS from it srsly) and the 5 skill….as you said it is lackluster. I would decrease the cooldown and leave the boons as they are tbh

Mainly for damage? Hunter’s Call has a 25 second cooldown and does slightly more damage than Maul, assuming it doesn’t get LoS’d and all the strikes hit. That’s a pretty measily damage increase when it equates to less than an auto attack chain and its only advantage is the range.

It really makes me wonder to see somebody is unsatisfied with warhorn-performance.

Maze.1902:

It really makes me wonder to see somebody is unsatisfied with warhorn-performance.

Has he tried using mainhand axe? That weapon is confused with itself.

Maze.1902:

It really makes me wonder to see somebody is unsatisfied with warhorn-performance.

Warhorn is an incredibly boring weapon with a support skill that has too long of a cooldown for what it gives. You could drop in the inconsequential 1might and shave of 5 seconds on the cooldown easily since the fury and swiftness are all that matter.

4 is highly situational since you not only have to maintain line of sight, you can’t even turn away from the person or the birds stop hitting. It’s not even worth using against a thief or mesmer since they cloak so often which disables the attack completely. This all presumes you will be using it against an NPC or a target with low armor since most people I hit with it in PVT barely take 2.5k damage total and I have 3300 attack with 48 and 47 crit chance and damage.

Substance E.4852:

Maze.1902:

It really makes me wonder to see somebody is unsatisfied with warhorn-performance.

Warhorn is an incredibly boring weapon with a support skill that has too long of a cooldown for what it gives. You could drop in the inconsequential 1might and shave of 5 seconds on the cooldown easily since the fury and swiftness are all that matter.

4 is highly situational since you not only have to maintain line of sight, you can’t even turn away from the person or the birds stop hitting. It’s not even worth using against a thief or mesmer since they cloak so often which disables the attack completely. This all presumes you will be using it against an NPC or a target with low armor since most people I hit with it in PVT barely take 2.5k damage total and I have 3300 attack with 48 and 47 crit chance and damage.

The birds still hit it’s target even if they stealth though, aslong as they are not running around a corner or similar that is.

Remove might on #5, lower cd OR apply 5 stacks of might and keep it as it is. Add blind to #4.

Damage needs to be on par with offhand axe to be useful in a power build.

it’s a supporting “weapon” and i’m using it as such.

i never join a party without it, because together with my red moa, i can buff the whole group with fury – nonstop. (that +1 might is also welcome – +6 might for the group in total, when having a jungle stalker out)

the ranger’s DPS isn’t on par with other classes, so i might as well do what i can.

fixing the sticky 1H Sword and the Greatbow should have top-priority for now.

Manekk.6981:

The birds still hit it’s target even if they stealth though, aslong as they are not running around a corner or similar that is.

Addressed in OP. That’s the skill’s only saving grace aside from its ability to proc on-hit stuff multiple times. It has terrible overall dps for its numbers vs recharge.

Benjamin.8237:

Maze.1902:

It really makes me wonder to see somebody is unsatisfied with warhorn-performance.

Has he tried using mainhand axe? That weapon is confused with itself.

Back when I actually tried to make new builds I tried mainhand axe with warhorn in the same set. Needless to say my damage was abysmal whether I tried power or condi.

Leuca.5732:

Benjamin.8237:

Maze.1902:

It really makes me wonder to see somebody is unsatisfied with warhorn-performance.

Has he tried using mainhand axe? That weapon is confused with itself.

Back when I actually tried to make new builds I tried mainhand axe with warhorn in the same set. Needless to say my damage was abysmal whether I tried power or condi.

Its a great condition weapon with bleed on crit. But if they buff the damage then there would be no need to use offhand axe either. Because the blast finisher on horn is arguable better than whirling defense.

Leuca.5732:

Manekk.6981:

The birds still hit it’s target even if they stealth though, aslong as they are not running around a corner or similar that is.

Addressed in OP. That’s the skill’s only saving grace aside from its ability to proc on-hit stuff multiple times. It has terrible overall dps for its numbers vs recharge.

Yeah it was just to the person I responded to, sounded like he thought the skill got canceled entirely on stealth.

Sube Dai.8496:

Leuca.5732:

Benjamin.8237:

Maze.1902:

It really makes me wonder to see somebody is unsatisfied with warhorn-performance.

Has he tried using mainhand axe? That weapon is confused with itself.

Back when I actually tried to make new builds I tried mainhand axe with warhorn in the same set. Needless to say my damage was abysmal whether I tried power or condi.

Its a great condition weapon with bleed on crit. But if they buff the damage then there would be no need to use offhand axe either. Because the blast finisher on horn is arguable better than whirling defense.

Neither Whirling Defense or Call of the Wild really deserve their recharges. And Hunter’s Call is only good for condition spike if your opponent can’t cleanse the non-staggered bleed application. Otherwise it’s got a minimum of 20 seconds in between uses, which is pretty bad for sustained damage, leaving you with a ranged weapon in your mainhand that requires melee range to do significant damage.

The blast finisher is why I like this weapon, and the buffs are a nice bonus. Skill 4 could prolly see a slight buff… but still, I’m pretty baffled to see this. Warhorn is one of my most used ohs as power. :o I only use axe more (for pure dps), but only when I want to see some selfish big numbers.

Although, I think your change to Call of the Wild might work out too, I dunno how much they balance it around the blast finisher though.

Warhorn is great. Just shave the CDs a bit.

faeral.7120:

Warhorn is great. Just shave the CDs a bit.

The damage does suck. Its only good because it hits 16 times.

Warhorn + max boon duration + boon duration food + RAO = infinite stacking fury.

Main hand axe btw is fantastic against 2 targets. In full celestial I’m doing 1.5kish per hit per target? So 3k against the first target and 1.5k on the second. That’s more than reasonable damage add the war horn 4 onto the first target and your looking at a great weapon set.

That’s what I thought… about boon duration + maybe CD recuding trait. It also affects allies, right(including your pet)? I still have a green warhorn super skin and want to use it.

Is the warhorn any better on other classes? I mean only 3 classes, only 2 skills. Warrior seems to have lower CD, Necro also a high CD.

Necro seems to only affect 1 target(the boons). Boring. And high CD. Warrior seems more interesting. Lower CD. Also affects allies. And a bit more defensive. But I think for Warrior there is too much other weapons to use so I might not use it there(still leveling that class).

I’d prefer if that damage skill at Ranger also was something defensive or boon or condition removal like with Warrior. Would be more interesting. Especially in small groups(where probably the 5 is interesting also because of the finisher). High CD on 5 might be needed because of the fury. But 4 could be lower. Really boring and low damage.

the #4 is a low dmg single target skill whit ling cd what easyli dodgeable. #5 is a not too strong buff skill whit an impossible long cd. that 1 might is totaly useless.
maybe if u change #4 to an aoe skill with a blind and lower the cd of #5 and give us a good main hand weapon… but untill that horn will be a buff befor combat and change set.

wauwi.9162:

fixing the sticky 1H Sword and the Greatbow should have top-priority for now.

Yes, we must fix the great bow…

In all seriousness, I think #5 needs to give at least three stacks of might to justify its cool down. And then #4 should be redesigned to be supportive and maybe remove conditions.

Amethyst Lure.5624:

The blast finisher is why I like this weapon, and the buffs are a nice bonus. Skill 4 could prolly see a slight buff… but still, I’m pretty baffled to see this. Warhorn is one of my most used ohs as power. :o I only use axe more (for pure dps), but only when I want to see some selfish big numbers.

Although, I think your change to Call of the Wild might work out too, I dunno how much they balance it around the blast finisher though.

Are you really that baffled? There’s enough fury/swiftness access across the board for Call of the Wild to be redundant as team support, and a blast finisher every 35 seconds unless traited is really unimpressive. It needs to be more relevant as a self-supporting skill without taking away from its team potential.

With the amount of AoE buffs people have in PvE, I’d rather take dagger as an offhand for a power build, and in PvE the cooldowns on warhorn just don’t cut it against skilled foes.