Guild Wars 2

TL;DR: Invigorating bond is bad, needs more to make it viable/interesting

Howdy, Mainly I’m just wanting to talk about Invigorating bond (if you didn’t guess)

So after watching the stream yesterday, which I was overall really happy about (Quickdraw is my JAM), I was pretty disappointed to see that the Grandmaster trait “Invigorating Bond” didn’t get changed or replaced. I find it to be one of the Rangers worst grandmaster traits available sadly.

The concept is really cool and I like how there’s a few traits that trigger on your f2, but for Invigorating Bond to be included at all as a grandmaster it’s going to need some changes.

As it stands right now it heals for 1482+50% of your healing power. It has an internal cooldown of 20s in a 360 AoE.

So let’s say in a build focused on healing you’d have 1200 healing power. So once every 20s you heal for ~2k in a relatively small AoE. That’s 100 health per second. That’s less than regeneration’s base heal (or 1/4th of healing signet…). Admittedly to compare the two you would need 100% regen uptime, but on a ranger that is VERY easy to do, even on allies.

I feel like if you want to really make this a viable grandmaster without making it too strong it’s going to need a little bit more to it. I don’t think reducing the internal CD is the way to go, since there are certain pets who could REALLY abuse it if there was no internal CD (I’m looking at you 6s cooldown hawk f2 skill). In any situation I think the AoE should be increased to at least 600, since pretty frequently even midrange rangers are outside the healing effect when the effect goes off.

Perhaps tie a small HoT for the ranger to it while below a health threshold.

Or another option could be tie the +33% regeneration duration trait to this since that one got removed. Since the idea of this skill would be to support and it’s in a line that give warhorn 5 12s of regen it could synergize well.

Or have it make your pet apply 5s of vigor to allies and 3s of protection to itself.

Just some ideas. Any thoughts?

Invigorating Bond should not be a GM trait, period. It should be merged with Natural Healing in Beastmastery. Because, if a Ranger is going to take a trait that will give your pet a mini-Healing Signet and buff it’s Healing Power – Anet might as well toss all those eggs into that one basket and allow pet F2’s to heal as well.

As for a replacement GM trait, they should bring back Stability Training and rework it to where pet grants stability to itself and nearby allies when activated AND swapping pets is considered a Stun Break. THAT would be a worthy trait for the GM slot and give Rangers some group stability.

Well 2k healing isn’t anything to scoff at since its AoE, but I do feel like it’s fairly week for a GM trait. I’d like to see the ratio increased to be 100% of your healing power + your pets healing power that way baseline it’s kinda meh, but if you put all your eggs in one basket it’ll be well worth the effort.

I was absolutely shocked they said “no changes” when that came up.

Wondrous wall I like your suggestions, although that’s probably too much stability spam.

What if the AOE Stability was short like 2-3 seconds?

to summarize, there are several ways to solve this:

1. merge it with another
2. add additional utility to it (stability, prot, vigor, whatever)
3. remove ICD
4. or double the heal amount

I like the idea behind this trait. I like pets doing useful things with the F2. It just needs to be a lot stronger for a grandmaster.

A number of the traits they didn’t change are the ones no one ever takes…

Merge this with EB and leave it in NM.

Edit: What about if they did merge those and change the heal from (about) 1500 per 20s to; Empathic Bond – Your pet draws 3 conditions every 10s and heals allies everytime it draws a condition. Say 300 health per condition, which would be 1800 per 20s max.

Really the thing that drives me up the wall about Nature Magic is how boring Healer’s Celerity and Nature’s Wrath are. But I can see how some Grandmasters could use a bit of love.

I think I’d keep Invigorating Bond in Grandmaster, but fold Vigorous Training into it.

Then in Vigorous Training’s spot, I’d make a Master that increases the duration of the next Boon you/your pet apply by 50% when you/your pet receive Vigor. Lightning reflexes, Primal reflexes, and Invigorating Bond would all be Vigor sources for you, and Fortifying Bond would translate them to pet to allow it’s boons to increase.

Merging EB and IG would be money. A nice, competitive GM for sustain builds. Not OP

mistsim.2748:

Merging EB and IG would be money. A nice, competitive GM for sustain builds. Not OP

I also support the idea of of Merging EB and IB, but make the condi cleanse also on F2 and not passive. Ya its “less” cleans of passive but on demand cleans is much better than random passive.

They should really take one cleansing trait out of wilderness survival to support diversity.

I’d rather see IB convert conditions into boons instead of a straight-up condition cleanse function added to the heal. Nature Magic seems to be all about support and providing boons. With a 20 second internal cooldown, it would fit NM to provide boons from conditions on allies while healing them and make it a worthy and powerful GM trait.

Wondrouswall.7169:

I’d rather see IB convert conditions into boons instead of a straight-up condition cleanse function added to the heal. Nature Magic seems to be all about support and providing boons. With a 20 second internal cooldown, it would fit NM to provide boons from conditions on allies while healing them and make it a worthy and powerful GM trait.

Well, its a buff on a buff, I was looking for a way to make the merge beneficial but reasonable. OFC i cannot refuse for pet converting your condies to boons up from taking the condis and suffering from them.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Merge this with EB and leave it in NM.

Edit: What about if they did merge those and change the heal from (about) 1500 per 20s to; Empathic Bond – Your pet draws 3 conditions every 10s and heals allies everytime it draws a condition. Say 300 health per condition, which would be 1800 per 20s max.

I think they put EB with Wilderness Knowledge because they don’t like condi rangers and their massive condi removal.

runeblade.7514:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Merge this with EB and leave it in NM.

Edit: What about if they did merge those and change the heal from (about) 1500 per 20s to; Empathic Bond – Your pet draws 3 conditions every 10s and heals allies everytime it draws a condition. Say 300 health per condition, which would be 1800 per 20s max.

I think they put EB with Wilderness Knowledge because they don’t like condi rangers and their massive condi removal.

Its fine by me if they put EB+IB(merge trait) as GM in wilderness survival and the new SOTF as a GM in nature magic.

This way the new EB will compete with poison master(which looks very nice for condi builds) and the new SOTF will compete with the new GM defensive trait/spirits)

Wilderness Knowledge have 1 free room, i think they should create new trait to replace the old bark skin and to sinergise with enlargment and the new dangerous game(or something) trait. Could be – Bark skin also will trigger at 25% threshhold – can also be merged with hide in plain sight.

You do know that won’t change anything.

Condi rangers would still take Wilderness Knowledge and EB because massive condi removal + massive condi pressure. ANet don’t want that.

But unlike power, Condi rangers aren’t gonna get much more powerful than they currently are now, which is average.

LughLongArm.5460:

Wilderness Knowledge have 1 free room, i think they should create new trait to replace the old bark skin and to sinergise with enlargment and the new dangerous game(or something) trait. Could be – Bark skin also will trigger at 25% threshhold – can also be merged with hide in plain sight.

How about one that activates Signet of Stone AND Signet of Renewal at X% health?

TBH I use invigorating bond quite often and find it fairly useful. However I find its most useful in a zealots ranger build. Not a zerker ranger. ATM Zealot ranger has some issues (before you weren’t able to get enough defensive traits while still taking dps traits like read the wind and ALSO getting invigorating bond. ATM you end up 6xxx6 if you want to use longbow with it)

After this though with the velocity becoming baseline I may not take hte marksmanship line at all and go 00666 Zealot Longbow Ranger (atm zealot cant hold even a slight candle to zerker on the survivability scale because of hte trait investment needed to gain enough situational survivability to make use of that healing power. Post change however it WILL be possible. Making it a good set for general pvp activities and even PvE) with invigorating bond/bark skin/beastly warden. Turning my pet into a VERY useful health sponge against burst classes like theives and mesmers (all I have to do is time it right and BAM pet and I get healed pet peels for me and pet takes less damage through it making sure it survives the punishment) turning the pet f2s in very good oh kitten buttons.

Invigorating bond is gonna be a big deal with that (buffs to NM line in the setup im planning on will go a long way to making it useful) especially with baseline pet cooldown reductions just for taking hte BM tree.

All in all is things like this (I couldn’t care less about the old builds. Im looking forward to trying completely new playstyles) cause me to be really happy about the way there changing things.

mistsim.2748:

But unlike power, Condi rangers aren’t gonna get much more powerful than they currently are now, which is average.

Condi rangers is far from average. Its a great build. Way better than Power ranger.

runeblade.7514:

mistsim.2748:

But unlike power, Condi rangers aren’t gonna get much more powerful than they currently are now, which is average.

Condi rangers is far from average. Its a great build. Way better than Power ranger.

In the grand scheme of the meta, Condi bunkers are painfully average outside of 1v1’s which are very rare while roaming or holding a point in pvp. It’s not even a competitive build compared to celestial roaming builds (shoutbow, rifle/kit, d/d). All cele builds are better in 2v1 or small skirmish scenarios, which dominate both wvw and pvp meta.

Well this conversation went in a completely different direction ^^;

mistsim.2748:

runeblade.7514:

mistsim.2748:

But unlike power, Condi rangers aren’t gonna get much more powerful than they currently are now, which is average.

Condi rangers is far from average. Its a great build. Way better than Power ranger.

In the grand scheme of the meta, Condi bunkers are painfully average outside of 1v1’s which are very rare while roaming or holding a point in pvp. It’s not even a competitive build compared to celestial roaming builds (shoutbow, rifle/kit, d/d). All cele builds are better in 2v1 or small skirmish scenarios, which dominate both wvw and pvp meta.

Condi bunkers aren’t painfully average. They have great condi pressure. 20+ bleed stacks would kill any player very quickly. And I’ve consistently kept 10+ bleed stacks easily by autoattacking. Those bleed stacks would make a necro jealous.

I’ve booted up my Condi ranger to see if Condi rangers got nerfed. But, all I see is that you’re wrong after I kept winning and saving the team from 1v1, 1v2, 2v3, 3v2, 4v4, 4v5, etc.

I killed shoutbows, I killed rifle/kit engis, I killed d/d

I think that you just don’t know how to play condi rangers.

builds that stack 20+ bleeds on a target are not competitive, and likely youre seeing success in a very “low tier” environment. im assuming youre talking about shortbow critz, because the meta condi bunker cant stack that many bleeds on a semi-competent player. any kind of rabid ammy build isn’t competitive. the only semi-competitive build involves the settler’s ammy; and even with a perfect splitblade + sharpening stone proc + geomancy we’re talking like 15-16 stacks only. but you can mask the bleeds with other condis and reapply them quickly. great against engies, less so against skilled shoutbows and d/d’s

I don’t know what build you are playing that conclude this. It isn’t condi ranger for sure.

The more I read what you type, the more I see that you have no idea what you are talking about. What I’ve played in the last few hours showed me that you are wrong.

With so many false statements, I really don’t think you would be convinced enough so that thread does not derailed.

This is a thread about invigorating bond, not condi rangers.

Make the base healing like 3k then we can talk.
Shout heal warrior heals for 1.5~2k hp per shout used, and now they even have -cd bound to it. How is that fair?

Because its tied to there utilities and not there class mechanic. Meaning it requires more base investment.

Shadelang.3012:

Because its tied to there utilities and not there class mechanic. Meaning it requires more base investment.

And this investment happened to be some of warrior’s most useful skills (The current meta shoutheal warrior lol). I wouldn’t call it an investment because each shouts have their respective functions which happened to be useful too.

Also “wasting” f2 to heal is a sacrifice and an investment too. We can’t use f2 as we please because we want to time the f2 usage at the best possible moment. I think 3~4k heal is legitimate. Otherwise move this trash trait to adapt category or no-one will pick it.