Guild Wars 2

Right now we have the option of taking EB and SotF traits which allow us to have adequate condi removal being on par with the other classes. With the current proposed changes, EB and SotF are merged into Wilderness Survival as both being GM traits. Basically becoming a nerf to our condi removal, making us decide on EB or SotF for our condi removal – giving up the option of Poison Master as well.

My suggestion:

• Remove Rending Attacks(completely useless trait) from the Beastmastery line
• Move EB to the Beastmastery line to replace Rending Attacks

This leaves us with an empty spot in the Wilderness Survival line. My next suggestion would be:

• Take Shared Anguish and move it up as a Grandmaster slot.
  • New Shared Anguish:
    • Incoming disabling conditions (stun, taunt, daze, knockback, pull, knockdown, sink, float, fear, or launched) are reduced by 66% and shared with your pet.

And last, we now need a new Master trait to take Shared Anguish’s spot:

• New trait – Stalker’s Pride
  • Serpent’s Strike and Stalker’s Strike now apply 2 stacks of poison.

This would allow us to have the same condi removal as before Hot’S patch.

I literally just said the same thing this morning lol

Am I the only one that thinks the rng of EB doesn’t qualify it to be a GM trait?

Clearly I agree. Hopefully this will get changed while they are still messing around with traits. Maybe they can take a look at combining healer’s clarity with trapper’s defense while they are at it (hint hint), or better yet give us a useful revive trait like reviving allies activates “search and rescue”.

My only problem with Empathic Bond going to the Beastmaster line is that it’s completely counter-intuitive to a beastmaster build. You do not WANT your pet to get loaded with conditions as the pet is a major source of utility and damage with that sort of playstyle. Empathic Bond saves the ranger in place of killing something the ranger invested an entire trait line into improving.

It needs to be changed to fit a beastmaster playstyle if it gets moved to Beastmastery.

I believe Anet is aiming to make the Ranger incredibly vulnerable to conditions or make us use the Druid specialisation so we can actively remove condis without survival of the fittest. Which honestly makes little sense to me from a flavour persepective. But that also makes our condition build stuck with no condition removal, so we lose all condi wars. It seems they want us to be a burst heavy profession (Maul, Opening Strike, Rapid Fire, Traps, Quickening Zephyr), even though our profession mechanic functions best in prolonged fights.

Your solution however, is terribly though out. Beastmastery is the line intended to be about actively controlling and using your animal companion to the maximum of their potential. Empathic Bond is for Rangers who want to kill their own pet to save their own skin, completely out of place in the Beastmastery line.

HotHit.6783:

But that also makes our condition build stuck with no condition removal, so we lose all condi wars.

Err no, the new SotF combined with troll unguent also being a survival skill and the passive proc sharpening stone trait getting rolled into SotF means a ton of cond clear. Add to that the fact that we can get 3 grandmasters overall, and the shout regen/swiftness trait becoming adept… Survival/cond/beastmaster builds will get the biggest buff in history of GW2 when this goes live. If druid ends up being about support/passive regen healing as well, oh maaan…. My favorite cheese build is getting an extra serving of mozzarella.

EDIT:
On topic of EB – it will still be used in trap builds and basically all other builds that didn’t use SotF in the first place.

If you put EB in the BM line, it has perfect synergy with Loud Whistle as it is a complete cleanse and heal every 15s. Only a fool would allow their pet to die from conditions transferred via EB, it would take forever. Just swap pets when they get under 25% health. Also gaining the advantage of Beastmasters Bond/Windborne Notes/Poison Master/Zephyr’s Speed, the on-swap traits.

There is nothing more important to a Beastmaster build than learning when to swap pets. Therefore EB is perfect for BM.

I like it, although I would merge HiPS and Shared for a GM.

HotHit.6783:

Your solution however, is terribly though out. Beastmastery is the line intended to be about actively controlling and using your animal companion to the maximum of their potential. Empathic Bond is for Rangers who want to kill their own pet to save their own skin, completely out of place in the Beastmastery line.

Just because EB lands in Beastmastery line, doesn’t mean you or anyone else needs to slot it. Problem solved.

I think it fits perfect there anyways. You can even make it so it removes 3 conditions every 10 seconds + grants reduced condition duration on your pets.

ItIsFinished.9462:

I think it fits perfect there anyways. You can even make it so it removes 3 conditions every 10 seconds + grants reduced condition duration on your pets.

I think though, since you get a pet swap every 15s, that it should be changed to transfer one condition every 3s instead of three every 10s. That way it would be, transfer 5 conditions, swap pets, repeat.

The main problem with eb in beastmasterbuilds are not the damaging conditions, but more every form of soft cc. If the pet is used mainly for utility/support, this might be not a big problem, but i would never take eb, if i want my pet to deal some damage.

I still like the idea of the pet applying one (or more) of the conditions on it on its next attack(s). Would really give a reason to take it over WK, as WK is a straight clear, and EB would be more of a transfer.

I honestly think anet is trying to kill EB as a skill but leave it there for newbies. It’s like “either be lazy and have this crappy condi removal, or be active and have a super buffed condi removal.”

Fluffball.8307:

I honestly think anet is trying to kill EB as a skill but leave it there for newbies. It’s like “either be lazy and have this crappy condi removal, or be active and have a super buffed condi removal.”

Surely that is not the case as it would pretty much destroy any build diversity, leaving us with only one really viable option for sPvP and WvW.

I agree, it’s a very poorly considered trait allocation they’ve got going on. I think/hope enough experienced rangers have pointed out they’re slaughtering build diversity that this will change even by the time druid is revealed.

So, does anyone think that the developers involved with design actually read the Ranger forums? Because there are lots of great ideas and concerns raised here, but it seems kinda pointless if they are not reading them ever.

If not, where do you raise these concerns? Perhaps we need to look at that and get together to let them know.

I would like to see merge of EB and IB with a signet thrown in for good measure.

Symbiotic Bond; Your pet has -25% condition duration and heals itself and allies in the area 300 health each time it gains a condition. You transfer 1 condition to your pet every 3 seconds. You use Signet of Renewal if your health drops below 25%.

OP? Seems pretty good to me. Just a thought.

One cool thing you could do with empathic bond is have your pet transfer all current conditions on itself to it’s target with F2, of course that would need a relatively large cd say 30s or similar would do I think we’d also need to have condis show on our petbar to be able to use this effectively or just transfer a single condition on hit with a shorter cd that would make it grandmaster worthy in my opinion.

Didn’t read through all of the comments, but I felt like stopping by to agree.
Mathematically the trait is quite weak.

Gotejjeken.1267:

I still like the idea of the pet applying one (or more) of the conditions on it on its next attack(s). Would really give a reason to take it over WK, as WK is a straight clear, and EB would be more of a transfer.

Yup. Just like Necromatic Corruption. They can even keep it at 3 conditions transferred every 10 seconds (in and out) since it will be just the 1 pet unlike Necros which can have up to 6 minions out at once (7 if you count Jagged Horrors).

Come on, Anet. Copy/Paste that trait into Empathic Bond for us!

Elorna.5329:

HotHit.6783:

But that also makes our condition build stuck with no condition removal, so we lose all condi wars.

Err no, the new SotF combined with troll unguent also being a survival skill and the passive proc sharpening stone trait getting rolled into SotF means a ton of cond clear. Add to that the fact that we can get 3 grandmasters overall, and the shout regen/swiftness trait becoming adept… Survival/cond/beastmaster builds will get the biggest buff in history of GW2 when this goes live. If druid ends up being about support/passive regen healing as well, oh maaan…. My favorite cheese build is getting an extra serving of mozzarella.

EDIT:
On topic of EB – it will still be used in trap builds and basically all other builds that didn’t use SotF in the first place.

No, I don’t think you get what I was saying there. Our condi build doesn’t exist with cleansing traits right now, because poison master is in the same trait tier as the cleansing traits. Poison Master works amazingly in a prolonged fight, but to make sure it’s a prolonged fight you need to be able to either flawlessly dodge all incoming condis or carry around plenty of condi cleanse.

The main reason I’m not awfully worried is because our condi builds don’t have all that many traits and the Druid could have the condition defence I’m looking for.

Err no, people either take EB or SotF in any sort of cond/survival build right now (some even both, but that’s rare). With renewal sig in SPvP being popular as well for the large cond stacks. Those afraid of lacking poison coverage go with krait runes, doom sigils, or both.

After the update that will remain the same, except for SotF being superior than EB, which it arguably already is.

Yes it is weak and uninteresting. I would rather some form of it become baseline or moved down to master tier (where it still wouldn’t be taken over some survival master tiers).

Idea two would be for some new pets to be added that have an F2 that transfers conditions to the target (possibly healing your pet for each condition transfered). Make them Orrian so they are “corrupted pets” with large health bars and low power.

The prime candidate for this would be a corrupted bear as old Brownie already pulls conditions for you, so corrupted brownie would send them off. This would synergize with SoR and EB, give EB something to be maybe GM worthy with (though very specific), and allow for counterplay as anyone seeing a corrupted bear would know you intend to give their conditions back.

Elorna.5329:

Err no, people either take EB or SotF in any sort of cond/survival build right now (some even both, but that’s rare). With renewal sig in SPvP being popular as well for the large cond stacks. Those afraid of lacking poison coverage go with krait runes, doom sigils, or both.

After the update that will remain the same, except for SotF being superior than EB, which it arguably already is.

Errr, maybe? And you still will not be able to take Poison Master for sPvP or WvW. Which are the only places it is useful. They may as well just delete it because without condi removal traits you are dead, unless you run HS, SoR, brown bear (lame) and cleansing sigils, possibly not even enough cleansing then.

Thing is, poison right now isn’t stackable, so Poison master as a trait is only slightly better than just getting some rune/sigil to help out with the application. After it becomes a stacking condition, that in itself might make poison master compete with EB in trap builds and with SotF in other condition centric builds. Depends on the numbers really.

You can’t stack poison if you yourself are dead, due to conditions. Poison Master is worth taking right now with SoTF, purely because of the -33% to healing.

Hao and guard with trooper runes, renewal sig, weap swap removal sigil, random third utility skill (LR or muddy, or something from druid most likely), entangle, sword/torch, axe/dagger, poison master, it could work. Altho it all depends on the value of poison stacks, how high they can stack and comparison in damage and ease of application to bleed stacks.

Runes, 1 utility skill and two sigils for condi removal, or 1 GM trait. And it is still less condi removal than EB.

That is a LOT of your utility used up for condition removal, it is a LOT to sacrifice for Poison Master and the reason they should move EB somewhere else.

Ye it’s not a build I would use with the information we have right now, but that all might change if poison stacking becomes stronger than expected. We already saw the 4500 stacked burn, who knows what Anet will throw at us. Wait and see for the numbers, like they say those are always changing.

I’d think the idea of a poison master Post HoT , would be a bit like the Carrion SB burst condi build the one with SB , S+T with LR, SoS , and SoR.

though in this case you’d take 6 in BM just so you can keep one pet out at all times stack might up with the correct runes and sigils for might gain / condi clear on weapon swap 2 condis every 10secs is good and a SoR button to dump condis onto the pet > then swap it out , though in this case too Off-dagger might be better to have more evade time inside a healing spring to help relieve condi pressure off the pet.

if you slot Sigil of genorosity thats 3 condis every 10secs + poison master and BM pet damage.

thats one way i can see a Poison master BM working , trading off Damageing sigils for survival sigils like water or genorosity / purity.

the trade off for that to the pets is mostly a lot more consistant and deals damage every 3secs proberly more than fire/air sigil if the beasty pet crits when the pet is buffed up to the max.

i can’t wait to test it out in sPVP to see how much control of the target i’d have with the BM traits on this build taking Quickness is a must , Dump condis > pet swap > condi burst ftw.

Never liked EB as a condi removal trait anyway, too unreliable. With TU being a survival skill, i expect everyone will be speccing SotF anyway.

I think rangers have pretty crappy condition removal overall. I mean, all of our condi removal options comes with weird drawbacks.

• EB transfer conditions to the pet, and since the pet is part of us, that means we still suffer from conditions.
• SotF forces us to use utilities not because we want to use the utility, but rather to have it clear conditions. If we use the utility for the utility itself, we stand there without condition removal option
• Signet of Renewal (active) again puts conditions on the pet

So, one could argue we got it covered pretty well when clearing conditions, but at the same time we’re the only class that still suffers from them.

Things are looking better with HoT, at least for SotF because now TU will also clear conditions if I have understood things correctly.
EB is def. in need of a buff though, to be worthy of GM status. Either that, or it should be moved down a tier (and possibly moved to another trait line).
I do like Heimskarls suggestion above, that would make it worthy of GM status.

Wasn’t evasive purity once a GM trait that did more? Maybe combine it with EB and make it GM again, something like “Remove cripple/poison/blind on dodge and transfer 2 conditions to your pet on dodge, 10s CD”.

I actually believe EB would be much better and quite reliable trait if you simply had
“Remove a condition from you and your pet every 3 (2,5?) seconds)”
There you go. Viable and if you pair it with evasive purity you have a nice condi cleanse. If you pair it with SotR you’ll be able to win against any of those pesky condi bombers … And yep, your team will love you twice as much if you take Healing Spring to all of that.

Tragic Positive.9356:

I actually believe EB would be much better and quite reliable trait if you simply had
“Remove a condition from you and your pet every 3 (2,5?) seconds)”
There you go. Viable and if you pair it with evasive purity you have a nice condi cleanse. If you pair it with SotR you’ll be able to win against any of those pesky condi bombers … And yep, your team will love you twice as much if you take Healing Spring to all of that.

It used to work similarly like that before they double-nerfed it.

Previous version is “Pet REMOVES all conditions every 10 secs.”

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

If you put EB in the BM line, it has perfect synergy with Loud Whistle as it is a complete cleanse and heal every 15s. Only a fool would allow their pet to die from conditions transferred via EB, it would take forever. Just swap pets when they get under 25% health. Also gaining the advantage of Beastmasters Bond/Windborne Notes/Poison Master/Zephyr’s Speed, the on-swap traits.

There is nothing more important to a Beastmaster build than learning when to swap pets. Therefore EB is perfect for BM.

I like it, although I would merge HiPS and Shared for a GM.

You may have a point if it weren’t for conditions like cripple, chill, weakness, blind, and eventually slow. Any of these conditions can royally wreck a pet’s effectiveness in combat, and Empathic Bond purposely pulls these same conditions off the ranger to the pet. If I’m running a beastmaster build I definitely do not want to increase the uptime of these conditions on my pet. Not to mention that every time I pet swap I have to re-apply my boons to the pet, meaning anything that makes me swap pets more frequently than I’d normally need to is wasting time and resources.

Now if it were merged with another trait and made into an active CLEANSE I’d be on board with the change. As is Beastmaster ranger’s only valid way to deal with conditions is either Healing Spring or Survival of the Fittest, with condi cleanse shout runes being a weaker variant of Survival of the Fittest. Rangers need more cleanses and less pet sacrificing.

Well, we do not need more cleanse now.
We will definitely need more when Heart of Thorns come to live.

Rangers are probably the only class without reliable on demand condi cleanse without having to invest for grandmaster traits, and even then that’s no cleanse. It’s a transfer. Of course there are builds that will gladly take this sacrifice, but viewing it objectively, not everyone is willing to do that (and most of the time can’t afford to).

When HoT comes up, rangers will definitely need better Cleansing options. Shouts (without rune) would be exactly the place I can imagine. And yep, I’d be fine with a slight nerf of a kind for a reliable cleanse that does not kill my own minion that I am forced to rely on by A-net themselves.

I have a sneaking suspicion that EB will be able to combo with traits introduced by the druid line.

If not, I don’t know that it isn’t GM worthy necessarily, I just feel that in general, its functionality going forward is a bit too archaic seeming.

I really think that it should be changed to be made part of the “pet swap” traits, and have it remove 3 conditions on pet swap (not transfer, remove), which obviously would be an interval nerf but a usability and reliability buff, and would add even more incentive to build for that particular playstyle, where as right now the idea of Empathic Bond kind of just hurts the ranger “forced pet” theme where we have to play with this AI entity, but have to make it less efficient with this trait in order to survive. Survival of the Fittest was thankfully a step forward, but even then, you can’t utilize that trait on every build, and your only other option is to decrease effective play for survival.

jcbroe.4329:

…I really think that it should be changed to be made part of the “pet swap” traits…

I have suggested they make it the same, but with 5 conditions on swap, that is only slightly better than currently and can be countered by killing the pet, fair imo.
Link to my suggestions