Guild Wars 2

Ill be honest despite making two rework threads on the subject I didn’t think shouts would get this kind of overhall. And so far I am pleased with just about everything I am seeing.

Guard gains a protect me like function as a support affect that ALSO buffs the ranger (which in turn buffs the pet if your taking nature magic) with a cooldown that Isn’t obscene.

Protect Me gains a UNIQUE functionality. as far as our defensive cooldowns go. Giving full shout rangers two defensive tools one of which is support based and the other a condition. AND a cooldown drop

and Search and Rescue gets a completely reworked functionality AND A MASSIVE COOLDOWN DROP.

All four shout utility cooldowns are now below 40 seconds. Meaning they will be fluid to use in a match and not one time only.

There new functionalities reward active play and careful timing instead of spamming on cooldown. They have varying levels of effectiveness based on situations but they will always do SOMETHING even if there major aspects are negated by enemy counterplay.

This is pretty much what I was hoping for since release.

Thank You. Looking forward to seeing more shout rangers running around.

Good hunting to yall.

I’m so impressed as well. At least on paper the shouts looks so interesting and amazing.
Also the CD is reduced to 30 seconds which actually is very good for it’s actual effects.
Guard-protect me-search and rescue are great.
Now i hope they can also look at sick’em and make it more useful against stealth professions or reduce it’s cooldown.

It’s a great change for sure. It may even make shouts meta…but with the necro changes, they’ll probably just eat through those boons, lol.

Haha necros are scary for sure. Though with the reduced aura uptime we can start using longbow again. So there is that. Fewer tempests means our biggest reason to not use longbow as a primary weapon is less prevalent.

Its really great, most especially “Guard”. Seems like a great utility to pop at those hairs-breadth moments.

Also if you run Resounding Timbre, you bring that 30s CD to 24s, which is super fluid considering what the shouts actually do now.

Decent changes Anet, hows about taking a look at dat der sword auto?

Does activating F1/F2/F3 cancel Guard like it used to with Protect Me?

How long does the new Protect Me taunt “buff/boon” stay on you after using it?

right now Mender’s Shout Soldier Druid is working well

I am NOT impressed with Guard change… tested it, it pretty much sucks. The old Guard was much, much better and allowed for better strategic placement of pets as well as increased their survivability by a ton. I do like the other shouts, but for me they have effectively ruined Guard. Will never find it’s way on my bar.

Nay of the Ether.8913:

I am NOT impressed with Guard change… tested it, it pretty much sucks. The old Guard was much, much better and allowed for better strategic placement of pets as well as increased their survivability by a ton. I do like the other shouts, but for me they have effectively ruined Guard. Will never find it’s way on my bar.

What didn’t you like about the new Guard?

More important, why would anyone like the old guard?

It’s going to take people a little while to realize you can’t use guard anywhere and expect to get good results. Use it in a 5v5 at the start of the game and your pet is clearly going to die. On the other hand, a 2v2 when the enemies come via a stealth gyro, maybe that saves your point. I can definitely see uses, although I’m not sure I’ll be taking it regularly.

Edit: I mused in another thread about combining guard and SoS. It feels like way too much to get it to work, but I wonder if that gets you mid at the start in this post-bunker meta. Probably not, but it’s something to try.

Old Guard + Heal as One gave perma swiftness and regen w/ resounding timbre. This had great synergy with wilderness trait that gives -5% incoming dmg while under regen -which was all the time. Now it will take 2x shouts + heal to get that.

Fluffball.8307:

More important, why would anyone like the old guard?

It’s going to take people a little while to realize you can’t use guard anywhere and expect to get good results. Use it in a 5v5 at the start of the game and your pet is clearly going to die. On the other hand, a 2v2 when the enemies come via a stealth gyro, maybe that saves your point. I can definitely see uses, although I’m not sure I’ll be taking it regularly.
.

Old Guard gave near perma regen and swiftness and allowed specific positioning of pets.

New Guard kills the pet quickly and once it dies or you use another shout you lose its effect. If you want a reliable damage reduction Utility then Signet of Stone outclasses it vastly. It’s like a poor imitation of the Engineers Gyro that risks losing your pet.

Guard + HaO still gives perma swiftness/regen, even with 0 boon duration.

Between HaO, RaO, and traits you very rarely find yourself without swiftness and regen anyway. If there any teammates around, it’s pretty much a given you have those boons. I’m not going to worry about it.

For solo roaming in WvW, the new guard is definitely a more effective skill than the old perma regen build. Now you get perma regen plus damage reduction.

Agreed. I was a little skeptical about losing permanent swiftness and regeneration, but HaO gives an easy work around. The new Guard is truly amazing.

Perma swiftness and regen is still super easy to apply. And the “positioning” of the old guard worked only outside of combat. If you look up any of my old shout rework threads I believe I mentioned that around half a dozen times in each one haha. The old Guard didn’t properly function since the leash range was reduced.

Guard only kills the pet quickly if your not paying attention. Its not a 5v5 skill. its a 2v2-3v3 skill designed to protect someone in close proximity hense the 600 range limit. It also functions in 1v1s.

This guard is superior in that it can actually DO something that matters directly. Not as an accidental by product (In the last 3 years I mostly used guard to stealth pets in order to make sure there first attack (things like knockdowns on canines) landed… other than that though it was for the condi cleanse from trooper runes).

It takes skill to use. And thats a GOOD thing because it has a low cooldown and has the potential to swing small scale fights. Or even localized portions of large scale fights.

Just like the new protect me while not as IMMEDIATELY strong is better in that no matter the situation it will always do something that helps. Even if its just applying protection on demand and an aoe stunbreak on a 34 second cooldown. For those two id take the skill even without the taunt. The potential to taunt a thief off me is just a bonus.

Search and Rescue is good…nough said. Hell I may even take it in raids when im with a pug group seeing as someone always dies in the lightning fields. A 1200 range yoink is good for those situations.

Sic Em has been good ever since they fixed it canceling.

Actually thats the best part. NONE OF THEM BLOODY CANCEL EACHOTHER.

I think they should add some fury for the Ranger to Sic Em, make the reveal aoe round the Ranger/pet/both and lower the CD to 30 secs then our shouts will be in a very good spot.

Shadelang.3012:

Ill be honest despite making two rework threads on the subject I didn’t think shouts would get this kind of overhall. And so far I am pleased with just about everything I am seeing.

Guard gains a protect me like function as a support affect that ALSO buffs the ranger (which in turn buffs the pet if your taking nature magic) with a cooldown that Isn’t obscene.

Protect Me gains a UNIQUE functionality. as far as our defensive cooldowns go. Giving full shout rangers two defensive tools one of which is support based and the other a condition. AND a cooldown drop

and Search and Rescue gets a completely reworked functionality AND A MASSIVE COOLDOWN DROP.

All four shout utility cooldowns are now below 40 seconds. Meaning they will be fluid to use in a match and not one time only.

There new functionalities reward active play and careful timing instead of spamming on cooldown. They have varying levels of effectiveness based on situations but they will always do SOMETHING even if there major aspects are negated by enemy counterplay.

This is pretty much what I was hoping for since release.

Thank You. Looking forward to seeing more shout rangers running around.

Good hunting to yall.

I love it as well.
Atm I am paying with 3 shouts (heal, protect me and the elite) and the Rune of the soldier too, for condition cleanse.

I am most happy with protect me.

Yashuoa.9527:

Shadelang.3012:

Ill be honest despite making two rework threads on the subject I didn’t think shouts would get this kind of overhall. And so far I am pleased with just about everything I am seeing.

Guard gains a protect me like function as a support affect that ALSO buffs the ranger (which in turn buffs the pet if your taking nature magic) with a cooldown that Isn’t obscene.

Protect Me gains a UNIQUE functionality. as far as our defensive cooldowns go. Giving full shout rangers two defensive tools one of which is support based and the other a condition. AND a cooldown drop

and Search and Rescue gets a completely reworked functionality AND A MASSIVE COOLDOWN DROP.

All four shout utility cooldowns are now below 40 seconds. Meaning they will be fluid to use in a match and not one time only.

There new functionalities reward active play and careful timing instead of spamming on cooldown. They have varying levels of effectiveness based on situations but they will always do SOMETHING even if there major aspects are negated by enemy counterplay.

This is pretty much what I was hoping for since release.

Thank You. Looking forward to seeing more shout rangers running around.

Good hunting to yall.

I love it as well.
Atm I am paying with 3 shouts (heal, protect me and the elite) and the Rune of the soldier too, for condition cleanse.

I am most happy with protect me.

Heheheh your already 60% of the way there. Just slot those last two shouts on ;P you know you want to.

Salamander.2504:

Nay of the Ether.8913:

I am NOT impressed with Guard change… tested it, it pretty much sucks. The old Guard was much, much better and allowed for better strategic placement of pets as well as increased their survivability by a ton. I do like the other shouts, but for me they have effectively ruined Guard. Will never find it’s way on my bar.

What didn’t you like about the new Guard?

new guard: long recharge, low uptime compared to old guard (which had 100% uptime); pet dies too quickly in even small engagements unless you take a snorefest tankbear which does nothing at all to help ranger’s image…; old guard: used to be able to get perma regen and swiftness on an instant cast skill along with very long protection for the pet (which you could share with heal as one); pet could be positioned outside danger zones (yes that worked in combat too, whoever said it didn’t had no idea what they were doing) and for ranged pets it was a must because they have this nasty habit of going melee; new guard pretty much no synergy with other skills like old guard had (in fact it has none…should you use another shout, this gets cancelled). it’s just yet another “eat damage, bunker metagarbage” type of skill. If they wanted to use something like this, they should have made it a spirit that eats incoming damage for allies and left old guard alone. Now don’t misunderstand me, the other shouts got some massive QoL improvements, but this one got hacked up and turned into a gimmicky kitten skill.

I love these changes. I’ve wanted to play a shout focused Beastmaster ranger since I made my charr ranger over a year ago. I tried so hard to make it work.

But now with druid, the stronger pets, and these shout changes my vision of a team support nature mage using shouts to command their beasts in battle seems viable!

Can’t wait to try them out.

Especially happy about the Guard change. A skill should be worth more than the boons the trait provides.

Nay of the Ether.8913:

Salamander.2504:

Nay of the Ether.8913:

I am NOT impressed with Guard change… tested it, it pretty much sucks. The old Guard was much, much better and allowed for better strategic placement of pets as well as increased their survivability by a ton. I do like the other shouts, but for me they have effectively ruined Guard. Will never find it’s way on my bar.

What didn’t you like about the new Guard?

new guard: long recharge, low uptime compared to old guard (which had 100% uptime); pet dies too quickly in even small engagements unless you take a snorefest tankbear which does nothing at all to help ranger’s image…; old guard: used to be able to get perma regen and swiftness on an instant cast skill along with very long protection for the pet (which you could share with heal as one); pet could be positioned outside danger zones (yes that worked in combat too, whoever said it didn’t had no idea what they were doing) and for ranged pets it was a must because they have this nasty habit of going melee; new guard pretty much no synergy with other skills like old guard had (in fact it has none…should you use another shout, this gets cancelled). it’s just yet another “eat damage, bunker metagarbage” type of skill. If they wanted to use something like this, they should have made it a spirit that eats incoming damage for allies and left old guard alone. Now don’t misunderstand me, the other shouts got some massive QoL improvements, but this one got hacked up and turned into a gimmicky kitten skill.

I am sorry but…your wrong on several cases. Guard does NOT cancel if you use another shout. It USED to. It does no longer. Guard has just as much synergy as any other defensive skill. In that it gives you breathing room to use them.

This guard is about way more than just “eating damage”. It encourages you to watch not only your own health and your pets health but that of your alliess as well. You can single handedly take off 50% of the pressure from them for a short time as long as you use it well.

The old guard DID NOT WORK the way you seem to think it did. Pets ignored the positioning once they entered combat. This could be tested simply by LOSing ANY ranged pet. They moved out of the guard field. Hell they would move two thousand range out of the way.

You have alot of misinformation that makes me question whether or not you have ever actually tried to use them competitively before. I have. I did it. I know these skills inside and out in every game mode.

You are wrong on several points. Points you could test easily before saying but you didn’t do that. You seem determined to not see that you were wrong which is frankly embarrassing to see.

Guard did not reposition the pet in combat. It did not in the length of my memory in this game. The pet would get caught up in ANY other attack action (which simply casting guard automatically acted as)

Guard did not WORK as it said in the skill. It was bugged,broken,glitched whatever you want to call it.

I made entire THREADS on the subject. So don’t bloody tell me I don’t know what I am talking about. After I have spent over 3 years testing them.

Edit: and you know what? Even if it DID work it would still be inferior to the current version. Frankly I don’t think you have learned how to and not to use this skill. Which if you were actually a shout ranger you would have pretty kitten fast because the new guard follows similar rules to protect me. I have ALREADY used this skill in several matches and completely turned team fights around by pretty much turning there focus target into a bunker for 6 seconds.

I usually like to cast my heal while its active just to keep the pet up. Seeing as it also shares the might im getting from the pet absorbing damage it has kittening AMAZING synergy. So your wrong about THAT too.

Edit2: removed most of the caps. Just because im frustrated with poorly informed posts doesn’t mean everyone else should have to be frustrated reading mine.

Nice changes for ranger, but no changes at all for druid?

Fluffball.8307:

For solo roaming in WvW, the new guard is definitely a more effective skill than the old perma regen build. Now you get perma regen plus damage reduction.

I’ve tried using it but so far no idea if it is helping or hindering. Well, hinder may not be the proper wording. Used correctly is what I mean.

Shadelang.3012:

{snip}

First off, idk what I did to kitten you off so bad, but back off hero. I wasn’t even talking to you, I was responding to the question asked of me. Second, I have played and used that skill since before they even added the trait for swiftness and regen so I know it pretty well myself. The fact you never learned how to properly use it and prefer yet another lazy “eat damage” skill is not my problem. Third, don’t assume you know me, my skill, or basically anything about me unless you’re some kind of creepy stalker in which case you need to be reported. So climb down off that lofty ledge before you fall and hurt yourself or get a nosebleed

Nay of the Ether.8913:

Shadelang.3012:

{snip}

First off, idk what I did to kitten you off so bad, but back off hero. I wasn’t even talking to you, I was responding to the question asked of me. Second, I have played and used that skill since before they even added the trait for swiftness and regen so I know it pretty well myself. The fact you never learned how to properly use it and prefer yet another lazy “eat damage” skill is not my problem. Third, don’t assume you know me, my skill, or basically anything about me unless you’re some kind of creepy stalker in which case you need to be reported. So climb down off that lofty ledge before you fall and hurt yourself or get a nosebleed

Lol alright then. But if you have used that skill for that long you should KNOW that the pet easily abandons the designated guard area in combat. Meaning that you COULDN’T use the skill the way you were claiming you could. You could use it to set up the pet before you actually entered combat as long as no enemy approached the pet ahead of time. But you couldn’t actually use it to reposition the pet mid combat. It was actually impossible due to the fact that the skill set the pet to behave as if aggressive. Meaning it would automatically attack whoever you were in combat with. Meaning melee pets would chase them down. And ranged pets would start firing immediately from wherever they happened to be when you used the skill.