Guild Wars 2

It should remove conditions instead of giving away health.

The reason for this is Poison Master. I have a condi build that uses Poison Master. The problem is that Poison Master competes with valuable condi removal traits.

If Invigorating Bond removed Conditions, Poison master and Invigorating Bond would both be valuable traits.

runeblade.7514:

It should remove conditions instead of giving away health.

The reason for this is Poison Master. I have a condi build that uses Poison Master. The problem is that Poison Master competes with only potent condi removal traits.

If Invigorating Bond removed Conditions, Poison master and Invigorating Bond would both be valuable traits.

Fixt that part of yours.
Invigorating bond request for clearing conditions has been down for quite some time. A-net believe that the trait is strong. No one can tell how did they get to that conclusion, but no one can blame them. It’s their game, not ours.

Whether the game makes sense or a class is a handbrake in every environment is not a decision for us to make.

If you compare Invigorating Bond to Monks Focus or Vigorous Shouts and the CDs of their respective skills, it is so lack lustre, that it is pretty much impossible to use it over Protective Ward.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

If you compare Invigorating Bond to Monks Focus or Vigorous Shouts and the CDs of their respective skills, it is so lack lustre, that it is pretty much impossible to use it over Protective Ward.

I might consider to take it rarely in some situations if the heal was around 5K.
Now it’s stuck on pet abilities CD, you don’t see the CD, the CD is long, you can’t precisely control where will the heal be (pet positioning), the AoE is small and so is the heal amount.

I was even that blind to try and fit it into a build. And it was horrible, with all due respect. Whoever tries or wants to try and use it – just don’t. Save you and your team the time and pain of agonizing disgrace.

Tragic Positive.9356:

Invigorating bond request for clearing conditions has been down for quite some time. A-net believe that the trait is strong. No one can tell how did they get to that conclusion, but no one can blame them. It’s their game, not ours.

My criticism of the trait (and all traits tied to F2 for that matter) would be that how powerful it is depends on the pet’s F2 skill cooldown. So Anet probably balances it assuming you’re using a pet with a short F2 cooldown (i.e. hawk/eagle – 6 sec). Meaning it’s lackluster for most pets, and downright horrible for the pets with long F2 cooldowns.

It could make sense if the shorter F2 cooldowns were tied to less useful pet abilities. But arguably the hawk/eagle F2 (bleed) is the most useful and on a 6 sec cooldown, while the owl’s (chill) is least useful and on a 20 sec cooldown. They need to go through all the pet F2 skills and revise them so the cooldowns make more sense. As it is right now, there are about a half dozen pets which are used 97% of the time.

@Solandri
Not really. It has a 20 second internal cooldown. It’s effectiveness is only postponed, not wasted with a longer CD ability. The best to use is Sylvan Hound – cooldown of it is exactly 20 seconds (if running BM) and is a defensive, healing one.

i’d guess the only reason Anet made the trait this way was because of the Accumulative Heals you’d get with Furn wolf+ MoA , Healing spring or Shout Regens+rune condi clears ontop of the trait .

and that is quite a issue when it comes to Build Flexability having to take 1/2 or 3/4’s of that set up just to get the Trait to be Effective.

Even if it removes 1 condition every 20seconds in addition to what i listed.
a Shout ranger could marginly increase his Average condi removal to 2 condis every 20secs in addition to the other shouts.

having the 1 condi removal option for All nearby allies means you can change the pet away from Furnwolf or a MoA to a Feline for the leap (though the condi removal is at the end of the leap helping those incombat) with shouts ontop to provide the regen + 1 more condi removal.

i agree the Traits effects while using furn wolf+MoA ect what i listed above , is effective, though outside of that listed its not so good and could do with a party condi removal it also helps with pet Management while using EB or the pet killer SoR.

don’t remove the heal, if they wanna tack some condi removal onto it sure, but as is it’s pretty strong.

It’s not like we don’t have more condi removal other than those 2 traits…

Durzlla.6295:

don’t remove the heal, if they wanna tack some condi removal onto it sure, but as is it’s pretty strong.

It’s not like we don’t have more condi removal other than those 2 traits…

~Taking Bear for condi clear is basically sacrificing 20% of our DPS, 1 CC and offensive BM traits that won’t hit the target since bear won’t go into range to cast it.
~Taking Healing Spring is situational. It forces you to stay immobile, the clear is not instant, it’s bugged and you have to blow heal in order to cleanse.
~ Evasive purity goes on CD without cleansing more often then not.

It’s not like we don’t have other options to cleanse, but we still have literally no other reliable way to cleanse. The only 2 good traits have been merged into grandmaster in WS.

Screw this, I just realized …
… https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Restorative_Mantras
… Thank you Arena-Net for designing your stuff so well.

I’m out. If you’ll search for me I’ll be somewhere hand-knitting my bight.

Tragic Positive.9356:

Screw this, I just realized …
… https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Restorative_Mantras
… Thank you Arena-Net for designing your stuff so well.

I’m out. If you’ll search for me I’ll be somewhere hand-knitting my bight.

It would have been funny, except from the fact that I’m not even remotely surprised.

The Nature Magic line has so much wasted potential. Evasive Purity should be aoe cleanse, Windbourne Notes and warhorn needs some sort of overhaul all together, and two out of the three grandmaster traits are a joke. Protective Ward and partially the revive trait is about the only redeeming quality of this specialization. They overcap us with regen and call it a day – that’s about it when it comes to defensive ranger support capabilities.

If Anet don’t touch this spec when they’re done with their “balance monitoring post-patch”, then.. well. Then I’m laughing. If they only payed a percentage of the attention they pay to all the revenant suggestions on the forums these days.

Tragic Positive.9356:

Durzlla.6295:

don’t remove the heal, if they wanna tack some condi removal onto it sure, but as is it’s pretty strong.

It’s not like we don’t have more condi removal other than those 2 traits…

~Taking Bear for condi clear is basically sacrificing 20% of our DPS, 1 CC and offensive BM traits that won’t hit the target since bear won’t go into range to cast it.
~Taking Healing Spring is situational. It forces you to stay immobile, the clear is not instant, it’s bugged and you have to blow heal in order to cleanse.
~ Evasive purity goes on CD without cleansing more often then not.

It’s not like we don’t have other options to cleanse, but we still have literally no other reliable way to cleanse. The only 2 good traits have been merged into grandmaster in WS.

You’ve clearly never actually taken a brown bear before, the damage it deals is not that much lower, since it actually used its bite ability in realistic situations, and it DOES run into range when you use its F2 instead of staying back.

Also, evasive purity, and all other dodge roll condi cleanses, do NOT go on CD unless they remove at least one condition they say they’ll remove. This was changed quite a while ago, and if it doesn’t do this currently it’s due to a bug not the trait.

Not to mention there’s also signet of renewal, which is one of the best condi removals in the game.

Durzlla.6295:

Tragic Positive.9356:

Durzlla.6295:

don’t remove the heal, if they wanna tack some condi removal onto it sure, but as is it’s pretty strong.

It’s not like we don’t have more condi removal other than those 2 traits…

~Taking Bear for condi clear is basically sacrificing 20% of our DPS, 1 CC and offensive BM traits that won’t hit the target since bear won’t go into range to cast it.
~Taking Healing Spring is situational. It forces you to stay immobile, the clear is not instant, it’s bugged and you have to blow heal in order to cleanse.
~ Evasive purity goes on CD without cleansing more often then not.

It’s not like we don’t have other options to cleanse, but we still have literally no other reliable way to cleanse. The only 2 good traits have been merged into grandmaster in WS.

You’ve clearly never actually taken a brown bear before, the damage it deals is not that much lower, since it actually used its bite ability in realistic situations, and it DOES run into range when you use its F2 instead of staying back.

Also, evasive purity, and all other dodge roll condi cleanses, do NOT go on CD unless they remove at least one condition they say they’ll remove. This was changed quite a while ago, and if it doesn’t do this currently it’s due to a bug not the trait.

Not to mention there’s also signet of renewal, which is one of the best condi removals in the game.

Invigorating Bond is still kitten.

Then why not provide heal + remove condis? Imo with this change, it will be GM worthy. Also Increase the radius of the skill to 360.

StickerHappy.8052:

Then why not provide heal + remove condis? Imo with this change, it will be GM worthy. Also Increase the radius of the skill to 360.

Yup. Like most people have been saying for a while.

Durzlla.6295:

You’ve clearly never actually taken a brown bear before, the damage it deals is not that much lower, since it actually used its bite ability in realistic situations, and it DOES run into range when you use its F2 instead of staying back.

Also, evasive purity, and all other dodge roll condi cleanses, do NOT go on CD unless they remove at least one condition they say they’ll remove. This was changed quite a while ago, and if it doesn’t do this currently it’s due to a bug not the trait.

Not to mention there’s also signet of renewal, which is one of the best condi removals in the game.

Well yes I have. And I use it for my current PvP build. And I say that because I do use it. But I use it only because I need that extra condi removal and it does it’s job with Sun Spirit.
Plus I don’t really remember when the bear hit the Taunt, if it did it was not really credible – so I stopped using BM for that particular build.

Removing 1 blind instead of all 3 condis is as much as 66% wasted potential of the trait.
And to add to Signet of Renewal … It’s as good that it fails if your pet is attacking a target further away or dead (only 100% chance for it to work is swap to pet just to have it killed instantly).

Yes, all of those have those situational uses. Yes, they do. But I challenge you to be a man and tell me that you can count on those abilities when you need to. Not when you have the luck or you can afford to set your pet swap on 1 min CD.
That’s something that we have to deal with unlike any other class in this game.

Guys, guys, calm down. Dont be ridiculous..
Its the pet that makes it bad, not the trait itself.

Think about it how many uses can you find if the heal was from the Ranger.. Even if was triggered by f2 but was around Ranger

Tragic Positive.9356:

Durzlla.6295:

You’ve clearly never actually taken a brown bear before, the damage it deals is not that much lower, since it actually used its bite ability in realistic situations, and it DOES run into range when you use its F2 instead of staying back.

Also, evasive purity, and all other dodge roll condi cleanses, do NOT go on CD unless they remove at least one condition they say they’ll remove. This was changed quite a while ago, and if it doesn’t do this currently it’s due to a bug not the trait.

Not to mention there’s also signet of renewal, which is one of the best condi removals in the game.

Well yes I have. And I use it for my current PvP build. And I say that because I do use it. But I use it only because I need that extra condi removal and it does it’s job with Sun Spirit.
Plus I don’t really remember when the bear hit the Taunt, if it did it was not really credible – so I stopped using BM for that particular build.

Removing 1 blind instead of all 3 condis is as much as 66% wasted potential of the trait.
And to add to Signet of Renewal … It’s as good that it fails if your pet is attacking a target further away or dead (only 100% chance for it to work is swap to pet just to have it killed instantly).

Yes, all of those have those situational uses. Yes, they do. But I challenge you to be a man and tell me that you can count on those abilities when you need to. Not when you have the luck or you can afford to set your pet swap on 1 min CD.
That’s something that we have to deal with unlike any other class in this game.

I can count on them, because i’m not a bad player and i actually play around those mechanics instead of just crying that they’re not working when i don’t use them properly.

And Idk how Sig of Renewal will kill your pet as fast as you say it does unless you’re using like a cat, I run Protect Me! and have less issues with my pet dying in PvP, hell I can often count the amount of times my pet dies in an entire night of playing on one hand because i actually pay attention and swap my pet when it starts to get low instead of just tunnel visioning on the enemy.

My bear has never had an issue landing his taunt F2, nor have i ever had an issue benefiting from Invigorating Bond, because I actually pay attention to my pets position and i’ll move either him, or myself, into range in order to benefit from whatever effect I need.

Not sure about condition removal on IB. I’d rather see it convert a condition into a boon since NM trait tree is all about boons and support. On the side of balance, the heal would have to be reduced or removed as condition conversion is a powerful asset.

Then again, would be nice if IB was merged with Natural Healing in the BM traitline, as every trait that adds something to a pet’s [F2] command is focused in that line and that IB was once in as a GM trait.

Wondrouswall.7169:

Not sure about condition removal on IB. I’d rather see it convert a condition into a boon since NM trait tree is all about boons and support. On the side of balance, the heal would have to be reduced or removed as condition conversion is a powerful asset.

Then again, would be nice if IB was merged with Natural Healing in the BM traitline, as every trait that adds something to a pet’s [F2] command is focused in that line and that IB was once in as a GM trait.

Don’t forget that another major issue with this trait is the radius which is too small. It really needs to be buffed to atleast 360.

StickerHappy.8052:

Wondrouswall.7169:

Not sure about condition removal on IB. I’d rather see it convert a condition into a boon since NM trait tree is all about boons and support. On the side of balance, the heal would have to be reduced or removed as condition conversion is a powerful asset.

Then again, would be nice if IB was merged with Natural Healing in the BM traitline, as every trait that adds something to a pet’s [F2] command is focused in that line and that IB was once in as a GM trait.

Don’t forget that another major issue with this trait is the radius which is too small. It really needs to be buffed to atleast 360.

I agree that it converting conditions is a good idea, but I wouldn’t want it in BM, because then you couldn’t have all the F2 buffs on at once. Currently you can trait for blind, weakness, taunt and heal on F2 which is pretty great, if IB converted a condition to a boon as well, it would be fantastic imo.

Agree it needs to be at least 360 range.

Needs to have a 15s CD, same as BW.

I think NH needs its own buffs and not be merged with IB, you couldn’t have the condi conversion then, it would be too much for a single trait. NH needs to have the 125 removed and make it heal for 1.5% of health per second. 1.5% would be a good number and a large buff over 125 health/s, on a bear it would be roughly 750 hps, on a cat it would be roughly 225 hps.

I should have been more clear. I would not want both a condition conversion & Natural Healing merge. It would have to be one or the other, as in, condition conversion and stays in NM or merged as-is into NM. Even I understand we can’t have our cake and eat it.

Agreed that the range needs a buff as well. Possibly bump it to 600 instead of 360 to match Vigorous Training and the Fern Hound’s own [F2] since it benefits the most from IB.

Durzlla.6295:

I can count on them, because i’m not a bad player and i actually play around those mechanics instead of just crying that they’re not working when i don’t use them properly.

And Idk how Sig of Renewal will kill your pet as fast as you say it does unless you’re using like a cat, I run Protect Me! and have less issues with my pet dying in PvP, hell I can often count the amount of times my pet dies in an entire night of playing on one hand because i actually pay attention and swap my pet when it starts to get low instead of just tunnel visioning on the enemy.

My bear has never had an issue landing his taunt F2, nor have i ever had an issue benefiting from Invigorating Bond, because I actually pay attention to my pets position and i’ll move either him, or myself, into range in order to benefit from whatever effect I need.

So you never experienced a moment when your Signet Failed… Nor one when your bear didn’t apply the taunt …
… your pet never died in a fight …
… you find Invigorating Bond powerful …
… And you are fine postponing the use of signet by 2-4 seconds (being fully bombed) in order to get close to your pet.

And as far as I know you are running NM and BM.
With Signet of Renewal and Protect me.

With all due respect, I have literally no idea how can you outperform skilled players. I’m trying to find a build, but apart from one that is currently bugged and isn’t worth as much as I’d imagine (Shout build), I have no idea what could you possibly be running.

If you have to adapt everything you do according to your pet positioning, HP and cooldowns … That’s a one huge respect from my side.
I’m currently even having enough trouble landing my Taunts against thieves while using a Bird. The amount of those that do not counter it instantly is very close to a few percent.
So you either are playing against players where it doesn’t matter, or you are a Ranger that deserves a huge chunk of respect. Because playing a build like that and still managing to do it right and actually win is ridiculously scarce.

Wondrouswall.7169:

I should have been more clear. I would not want both a condition conversion & Natural Healing merge. It would have to be one or the other, as in, condition conversion and stays in NM or merged as-is into NM. Even I understand we can’t have our cake and eat it.

Agreed that the range needs a buff as well. Possibly bump it to 600 instead of 360 to match Vigorous Training and the Fern Hound’s own [F2] since it benefits the most from IB.

I wish they would just standardize all pet skills/traits to 600 range, its not like it is OP and would be a huge QoL for pet users, since they wouldn’t have to try and keep track of all the different ranges (240, 300, 360, 600) and miss one traited effect while others work.

Yeah, a standardized range of 600 for pets’ traits, skills, or both, is something that would be a nice QoL change for pets. The devs always say they experiment with playing around with these values, more so than ever with the Elite Specs.

Wonder if they will take another round in the future to look back again on the core specs…

I’ve started playing Invigorating bond with traps. Fern Hound and Brown Bear as pets :P IB isn’t game breakingly strong and certainly doesn’t lift ranger in to it’s own new bracket of support. It is however a nice little addition to our sustain and team sustain. Taking it on top of Healing Spring makes a celestial ammy feel as sustainy as a settler’s. With the previously mentioned pets you have a 4k heal on one f2 and a condi cleanse and 2.5k heal on the other. It’s really not too shabby.

Also, Brown Bear makes you way less reliant on Healing Spring for condi clears which makes you way less reliant on Signet of Renewal.

Here’s what I was playing for anyone interested. Weak traits. Weak pets. Weak weapon set. Won all night.

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQRAnY8fjMqQ/K2uCerAVLGcEK/z/gku/2Yto5AYyv8Te1jWB-TZhAwAcOBAAOIAdeCAe3fQcZAA

@jewishjoyride
It’s not like the sustain or heal it provides is bad.

But Protective Ward will mitigate twice / trice the amount of damage and much more frequently (and more trustworthy) than IB and does help even as a support option.
It simply doesn’t stand for it’s goal in it’s current functionality, since it’s impossible to gather your team in such a small radius and for personal use, well, there’s no discussion. Protective Ward all the way.

Tragic Positive.9356:

@jewishjoyride
It’s not like the sustain or heal it provides is bad.

But Protective Ward will mitigate twice / trice the amount of damage and much more frequently (and more trustworthy) than IB and does help even as a support option.
It simply doesn’t stand for it’s goal in it’s current functionality, since it’s impossible to gather your team in such a small radius and for personal use, well, there’s no discussion. Protective Ward all the way.

Couldn’t agree more.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Tragic Positive.9356:

@jewishjoyride
It’s not like the sustain or heal it provides is bad.

But Protective Ward will mitigate twice / trice the amount of damage and much more frequently (and more trustworthy) than IB and does help even as a support option.
It simply doesn’t stand for it’s goal in it’s current functionality, since it’s impossible to gather your team in such a small radius and for personal use, well, there’s no discussion. Protective Ward all the way.

Couldn’t agree more.

Protective Ward is nice. I have a couple gripes with it though. First there is an icd I can’t keep track of. Sure I could stare at my bar and watch for when a long duration protection procs, but then I’m gonna die anyway for other reasons. Secondly the weakness is only applied in a 240 radius. There are plenty of targets in a team fight that I would want the weakness on. Like the freecasting LB Ranger or Staff Ele. Or the Thief that knows how to SB. What about the Nades Engi? There are so many things that will kill you from beyond 240 range.

I dunno, maybe it’s just me but with the new Bark Skin, Protective Ward has always felt just a bit unnecessary. Bark Skin you can reset whenever you heal. No ICD. Massive Damage reduction for you and your pet.

Anyways I didn’t throw my 2 cents in to try and say that IB is perfect how it is and doesn’t need to change and every one who isn’t using it is obviously a scrub. The point I’m trying to make is that in it’s current state IB is useable. It IS a decent alternative to PW. It makes a difference. It will help you win fights and fill in a gap your build may have otherwise. Ranger is actually in a nice spot at the moment in terms of having a nice selection of traits that improve the utility of our class mechanic. I mean go ahead and buff it, I’ll be the last person to complain.

Also, I gotta ask Heimskarl. Are you still in Antarctica or where ever unable to play? Or are you actually logging time on your Ranger regularly? I really appreciate the enthusiasm you’ve shown here on the forums but I think you gotta get in game, play, and get a feel for some of this stuff. Test these traits out for yourself and then form opinions based on that.

jewishjoyride.4693:

…Also, I gotta ask Heimskarl. Are you still in Antarctica or where ever unable to play? Or are you actually logging time on your Ranger regularly? I really appreciate the enthusiasm you’ve shown here on the forums but I think you gotta get in game, play, and get a feel for some of this stuff. Test these traits out for yourself and then form opinions based on that.

Yeah, still down here, won’t be able to play until December, unfortunately, but it’s worth it.

All just armchair theorising for me right now, and although I’d hate to form an opinion from a position of ignorance, in this case I must say that I much prefer to mitigate damage than to heal it.

If IB scaled with the Rangers Healing Power and had a larger range, it could be very good, but it only scales up by a maximum of 360 with Natural Healing and a 300 range is not great unless you are always in melee with the pet.

If you miss the heal due to range, you get nothing, at least with PW if the weakness misses due to range, you’ll still have the Protection, that and it’s up 25% more often.

Tragic Positive.9356:

Durzlla.6295:

I can count on them, because i’m not a bad player and i actually play around those mechanics instead of just crying that they’re not working when i don’t use them properly.

And Idk how Sig of Renewal will kill your pet as fast as you say it does unless you’re using like a cat, I run Protect Me! and have less issues with my pet dying in PvP, hell I can often count the amount of times my pet dies in an entire night of playing on one hand because i actually pay attention and swap my pet when it starts to get low instead of just tunnel visioning on the enemy.

My bear has never had an issue landing his taunt F2, nor have i ever had an issue benefiting from Invigorating Bond, because I actually pay attention to my pets position and i’ll move either him, or myself, into range in order to benefit from whatever effect I need.

So you never experienced a moment when your Signet Failed… Nor one when your bear didn’t apply the taunt …
… your pet never died in a fight …
… you find Invigorating Bond powerful …
… And you are fine postponing the use of signet by 2-4 seconds (being fully bombed) in order to get close to your pet.

And as far as I know you are running NM and BM.
With Signet of Renewal and Protect me.

With all due respect, I have literally no idea how can you outperform skilled players. I’m trying to find a build, but apart from one that is currently bugged and isn’t worth as much as I’d imagine (Shout build), I have no idea what could you possibly be running.

If you have to adapt everything you do according to your pet positioning, HP and cooldowns … That’s a one huge respect from my side.
I’m currently even having enough trouble landing my Taunts against thieves while using a Bird. The amount of those that do not counter it instantly is very close to a few percent.
So you either are playing against players where it doesn’t matter, or you are a Ranger that deserves a huge chunk of respect. Because playing a build like that and still managing to do it right and actually win is ridiculously scarce.

At the moment i’m running a shout build, and will F3 my pet back to me and then cast guard wherever i want my pet to go for the taunt because it’s just flat out easier, and i can use it to pull thieves out of stealth in their shadow refugees, and it completely negates having to rely on the clunky AI as much as possible.

That being said, even without guard i’ve never had an issue landing my taunts, i just wait until my bear is in range to land it, i know how big the circle is around him that it’ll work, and i normally wait until they’re a little ways into it than at the very edge to use it. (it normally interrupts my bears auto).

As for the signet, it’s not hard to use, if i’m running the signet i’ll stay in a spot where it’d be easy for my pet to get to me when i need the cleanse, or if i’m going against builds or teams where i know i’ll need it immediately i just wont send my pet in because the one CC they might get off wouldn’t be worth dying to a condi bomb.

I’ve been playing pet based classes since the start of my experience in MMOs, a lot of which you had to cater to the pet AI a LOT more than you do in GW2 (you can’t even call the pet back so you have to know how to run out of range to break it off the target sort of bad), so playing with any flaws in the GW2 AI is ludicrously easy to do for me. All i can say is just watch your pets positioning and make sure you are positioned in a way where you can reliably get your pet to you when needed, or could get to your pet if needed for whatever procs they have.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

jewishjoyride.4693:

…Also, I gotta ask Heimskarl. Are you still in Antarctica or where ever unable to play? Or are you actually logging time on your Ranger regularly? I really appreciate the enthusiasm you’ve shown here on the forums but I think you gotta get in game, play, and get a feel for some of this stuff. Test these traits out for yourself and then form opinions based on that.

Yeah, still down here, won’t be able to play until December, unfortunately, but it’s worth it.

All just armchair theorising for me right now, and although I’d hate to form an opinion from a position of ignorance, in this case I must say that I much prefer to mitigate damage than to heal it.

If IB scaled with the Rangers Healing Power and had a larger range, it could be very good, but it only scales up by a maximum of 360 with Natural Healing and a 300 range is not great unless you are always in melee with the pet.

If you miss the heal due to range, you get nothing, at least with PW if the weakness misses due to range, you’ll still have the Protection, that and it’s up 25% more often.

I’m sure Antarctica is!!!! After playing a couple matches with Protective Ward again I really really found myself missing Invigorating Bond. The thing that absolutely sells it for me is that you can use this while you are cced. It’s a separate heal so when you desparately need that extra health to survive a focus you can get it. The bonus of the brown bear is that it works as a stun break as well in certain cases. Makes necro and ranger fights much easier as I can use my pet to break the fear, heal a little health and drop traps to make the advantage mine again.

@Durzlla
Yup, thanks for the insight. I have been running a similar shout build that made it just as easy as you say it is.
However, that’s the only build capable of doing so. And while we have it bugged, I’ll gently refrain from wasting it’s potential. It looked like close to being my cup of coffee, but for the time being I’m playing another build.

It’s still a problem, though, that there is currently only 1 build capable of doing so and we still are the only class to bear with this sort of game-play. Every other class just needs to press the button for the full effect without sacrificing anything.

@jewishjoyride
You have no idea how to track ICD of IB, either. There’s no count timer. But the 240 range is a 100% proc of weakness on targets that go backstab your neck. That’s a 100% chance unlike the heal proc of your IB.
Protective Ward has a bulletproof functionality (with some counter-play, of course) that makes perfect sense. IB is hard to control, weak (110 heal per second if you want to know) and limited to pet positioning, cooldown and life state.

@Tragic Positive

I personally have been enjoying the shout build the most, but I can definitely say that traps, spirits, and Survival builds also work extremely well (I haven’t played a hybrid or signet build enough to say anything on those).

That being said the play style of spirits and traps has changed completely from what it used to be, so it’ll take people quite some time to get used to the new play style. I think the only reason I caught onto it so quickly was because 2 of the traits that were removed (spirits unbound and throwing traps) were two traits I despised and went out of my way to not use even in the designated builds.

Spirits worked fine without spirits unbound, traps suffered from the lack of trap radius, however now that they’ve both been buffed they’re really strong, just have to adapt!

@Tragic Positive, the icd of Invigorating Bond is the same as the cd of pet swap when you don’t take beastmastery. It’s pretty easy to keep track of.

Would be best if Anet allowed a buff icon to show up on our UI when a pet trait is ready, like Engineer’s “Streamlined Kits.” Other traits are fine without it though, like Protective Ward. I don’t care to see if it’s active or not. Pet [F2] commands are handled by the player though, so knowing when Taunts or Heals are ready would be a nice QoL add-on.

jewishjoyride.4693:

@Tragic Positive, the icd of Invigorating Bond is the same as the cd of pet swap when you don’t take beastmastery. It’s pretty easy to keep track of.

And the CD of Protective Ward is the same as the one of an Snow Owl’s F2 ability if you run BM (because most of us do).
So yea, once a thief jumps on your face, you usually instantly use your pet’s ability on him to chill and burst him down.

It’s as easy to keep a track of it and as funny as it is to say that you should use “Pet Swap” for keeping a track of Invigorating bond.