Guild Wars 2

I saw a thread like this in another profession’s forum and decided that we totally needed our own. I’m going to list them in order according to date and I will list changes that are simultaneously a buff/nerf. There are things listed that seem like bug fixes but since A-net has not specified them as being so I am going to keep them.

9/9/2012

Beastmastery Trait: Instinctual Bond – Now grants 5 seconds of quickness to the player’s pet and can only occur once every 50 seconds. (Did not have an ICD prior)

10/7/2012

Crossfire: Increased casting time by 40 milliseconds. This was done to fix some glitches in the animation that caused problems with this skill.

12/14/12

Shouts will now apply a buff to the ranger’s pet, to make the skills more visible. (Allows enemy players to know what skills you’ve used.)

Sick ’Em: Decreased the duration to 10 seconds. Increased the damage and move speed from 25% to 40%.

Splinter Shot: This skill is no longer able to fire at enemies behind the player.

2/26/2013

Guard: Pets will no longer guard areas that should be inaccessible to them. (Pets can longer run up and down the walls of enemy keeps to destroy siege equipment.)

Empathic Bond: Fixed a bug that wouldn’t apply transferred conditions to pets. This trait now transfers three conditions to the ranger’s pet every 10 seconds rather than all of them.

3/26/2013

General Nerf: Reduced quickness from 100% attack speed to 50%. (This nerf hit Rangers especially hard.)

4/30/2013

Tail Wind trait: Now has an internal cooldown of 9 seconds.

Furious Grip trait: Now has an internal cooldown of 9 seconds.

“Search and Rescue” skill:
Increased cooldown from 85 seconds to 180 seconds in PvP.
No longer revives defeated allies.

Lightning Breath skill (Drake Skill): Reduced cast time from 2.7 seconds to 1.5 seconds. The lightning from this attack no longer tracks targets. (No more stealth tracking.)

5/28/2013

Coral Shot skill: Projectile speed is no longer 75% of what it should have been. The bleeding on this skill now interacts correctly with the Eagle Eye trait, granting an extra stack of bleeding at maximum range. This skill can no longer be shot backward.

Feeding Frenzy skill: Projectile speed is no longer 75% of what it should have been. This skill can no longer be shot backward.

Mercy Shot skill: Projectile speed is no longer 75% of what it should have been. This skill can no longer be shot backward.

Pets now draw aggro from guards in WvW.

6/25/13

Pet leash range decreased to 2000 units.

Lightning Reflexes: The travel distance for this skill has been halved when underwater.

Man O’ War: The base recharge has been increased from 18 to 25.

Counterstrike: The base recharge has been increased from 15 to 20.

Crossfire: Decreased the range to 900.

Poison Volley: Decreased the range to 900.

Quick Shot: Decreased the range to 900. Increased the damage by 14%.

Crippling Shot: Decreased the range to 900. Increased the damage by 14%.

Concussion Shot: Decreased the range to 900. Increased the damage by 14%. Reduced the aftercast by .25 seconds.

Pets

Armor Fish: Bite: Reduced the damage by 50%.

Eagle: Lacerating Slash: Reduced the damage by 50%.

Raven: Blinding Slash: Reduced the damage by 34%.

Canine: Bite: Reduced the damage by 27%

Devourer: Twin Darts: Reduced the damage by 20%.

Drake: Bite: Reduced the damage by 27%.

Insect Swarm: This skill can no longer fire behind the drake.

Drake: Lightning Breath: Reduced the damage by 17%.

Feline: Maul: Reduced the damage by 50%.

Jaguar: Stalking: Critical chance increase while in stealth reduced to 25%.

Jellyfish Blue: Chilling Whirl: Decreased the damage by 33%.

Moa: Peck: Reduced the damage by 7%.

Pig: Jab: Reduced the damage by 25%.

Instinctual Bond: This trait has been swapped with Zephyr’s Speed. Quickness has been increased to 3 seconds. (Went from being a 5 point trait to a 30 point trait. Significantly reduced the effectiveness of Zerk rangers.)

*7/23/2013*

Maul: This skill now applies vulnerability instead of bleeding. (Decreased dps overall)

*9/3/2013*

All spirits can now be launched, knocked down, and knocked back.

Storm Spirit, Frost Spirit, Sun Spirit, Stone Spirit, and Spirit of Nature will now begin their recharge when the spirit dies instead of when the spirit is summoned. (Buff/Nerf)

Storm Spirit, Frost Spirit, Sun Spirit, and Stone Spirit: Recharge has been reduced from 60 seconds to 25 seconds. (This is a buff but I’m including to show why the previous change is a buff/nerf.)

*10/15/2013*

Healing Spring: Reduced the field duration to 10 seconds. It now pulses every 2 seconds instead of 3, so it will still provide the same amount of regeneration and condition removal, just in a more condensed time frame. (Nerf/Buff as it grants faster CD removal yet a decrease in the water field duration.)

Vigorous Renewal: This trait now grants vigor to the ranger and nearby allies when the Healing Spring skill is cast and not on every pulse.

*12/10/13*

Wilderness Survival 5—Natural Vigor: Reduced the increased endurance regeneration from 50% to 25%.

Sun Spirit: Reduced the passive burning from 3 seconds to 2 seconds.

Storm Spirit: Reduced the damage from the Call Lightning skill by 33%.

Reserved for the future

To be honest I raged about the healing spring nerf but as I have used it since, often as my only cleanse, I definitely appreciate the faster pulses. It sucks to be less useful in a zerg, but they hardly ever acknowledged a ranger’s water field anyway.

They call water, I throw down spring at the commanders feet, and get “Thanks Ele’s, that was a well timed water field.”

—__—

Substance E.4852:

To be honest I raged about the healing spring nerf but as I have used it since, often as my only cleanse, I definitely appreciate the faster pulses. It sucks to be less useful in a zerg, but they hardly ever acknowledged a ranger’s water field anyway.

They call water, I throw down spring at the commanders feet, and get “Thanks Ele’s, that was a well timed water field.”

—__—

My main problem with it wasn’t the duration decrease (which still kitten ed me off), but the loss of vigor pulsing which was one of our few powerful support options.

shortbow, quickness and pet damage got hit the hardest.

This thread is mainly pointless for anything else than causing more hate.

Why not have a “List of Buffs” while at it? That way, we would actually be able to see the quantity of both.

I think you missed the massive pet leash range nerf.

Also missed the LB’s barrage nerf by 50% or so. If I’m not mistaken, that happened the same time the shortbow was nerfed.

As for buffs.. there have been next to none. The only one I can possibly think of is the slight increase in the LB’s firing speed. Which of course doesn’t matter when people still side step your arrows.

I guess Anet just felt the Ranger and their pets were just to OP compared to things like the thief’s stealth.

solrik.6028:

This thread is mainly pointless for anything else than causing more hate.

Why not have a “List of Buffs” while at it? That way, we would actually be able to see the quantity of both.

My thoughts exactly.

DeadlySynz.3471:

Also missed the LB’s barrage nerf by 50% or so. If I’m not mistaken, that happened the same time the shortbow was nerfed.

As for buffs.. there have been next to none. The only one I can possibly think of is the slight increase in the LB’s firing speed. Which of course doesn’t matter when people still side step your arrows.

I guess Anet just felt the Ranger and their pets were just to OP compared to things like the thief’s stealth.

I had to look at all the patch notes to get these nerfs but I can tell you, we’ve had a fair amount of buffs.

The LB change, however, is not in any of the patch notes and I hear talk of it as being a silent nerf. I’m not going to list silent nerfs because I can’t be sure that they’re true.

cafard.8953:

I think you missed the massive pet leash range nerf.

I did but in the patch notes it’s listed as “Pet leash range increased to 2000 units” when it should be decrease. But I’m gonna get right on adding it in.

solrik.6028:

This thread is mainly pointless for anything else than causing more hate.

Why not have a “List of Buffs” while at it? That way, we would actually be able to see the quantity of both.

I’m only doing this because I thought it’d be nice to have all our post-release nerfs in one thread. And if I were to list the buffs, then I might as well rename this thread to “All Ranger Patch Notes.”

So they want vigor to be less accessible, what about stability? Still see a ton of it out there, to the detriment of many abilities.

solrik.6028:

This thread is mainly pointless for anything else than causing more hate.

Why not have a “List of Buffs” while at it? That way, we would actually be able to see the quantity of both.

Quantity doesn’t matter. What matters is the quality/impact. Have we gotten buffs? Sure, but almost none of them has had any real impact on build diversity or strength.

Our only strong pvp build is condition bunker and power builds still have next to no sustain making them nearly useless in small combat settings. They increased the strength of LB and Maul and the 1h sword is still our strongest weapon. We are going to get a huge buff to Bark skin but it will still hardly ever see play because 30wild means you take EB because Anet still hasn’t given us a viable alternative.

The Sb range and pet damage nerfs alone weakened the class by a lot and neither ever received any kind of compensation. Same with quickness on pet swap moved to gradmaster level for no real reason and replaced by a useless trait.

Soilder.3607:

DeadlySynz.3471:

Also missed the LB’s barrage nerf by 50% or so. If I’m not mistaken, that happened the same time the shortbow was nerfed.

As for buffs.. there have been next to none. The only one I can possibly think of is the slight increase in the LB’s firing speed. Which of course doesn’t matter when people still side step your arrows.

I guess Anet just felt the Ranger and their pets were just to OP compared to things like the thief’s stealth.

I had to look at all the patch notes to get these nerfs but I can tell you, we’ve had a fair amount of buffs.

The LB change, however, is not in any of the patch notes and I hear talk of it as being a silent nerf. I’m not going to list silent nerfs because I can’t be sure that they’re true.

cafard.8953:

I think you missed the massive pet leash range nerf.

I did but in the patch notes it’s listed as “Pet leash range increased to 2000 units” when it should be decrease. But I’m gonna get right on adding it in.

I can assure you the barrage damage nerf happened around the same time the shortbow got the boot. My barrages went from ticking 1900-2600 down to 800-1400. Many others have reported it as well. This was a silent nerf because it was never listed in the patch notes anywhere.

Soilder.3607:

cafard.8953:

I think you missed the massive pet leash range nerf.

I did but in the patch notes it’s listed as “Pet leash range increased to 2000 units” when it should be decrease. But I’m gonna get right on adding it in.

Yes i remember reading those patch notes indeed. Increased to 2000, haha.

6/25/13 was a very sad day….

I wonder if the shortbow range nerf was an animation fix?
Well,atleast they put it up in the patch notes unlike the -50% barrage damage reduction :P

Soilder.3607:

6/25/13

Pet leash range decreased to 2000 units.

Lightning Reflexes: The travel distance for this skill has been halved when underwater.

Man O’ War: The base recharge has been increased from 18 to 25.

Counterstrike: The base recharge has been increased from 15 to 20.

Crossfire: Decreased the range to 900.

Poison Volley: Decreased the range to 900.

Quick Shot: Decreased the range to 900. Increased the damage by 14%.

Crippling Shot: Decreased the range to 900. Increased the damage by 14%.

Concussion Shot: Decreased the range to 900. Increased the damage by 14%. Reduced the aftercast by .25 seconds.

Pets

Armor Fish: Bite: Reduced the damage by 50%.

Eagle: Lacerating Slash: Reduced the damage by 50%.

Raven: Blinding Slash: Reduced the damage by 34%.

Canine: Bite: Reduced the damage by 27%

Devourer: Twin Darts: Reduced the damage by 20%.

Drake: Bite: Reduced the damage by 27%.

Insect Swarm: This skill can no longer fire behind the drake.

Drake: Lightning Breath: Reduced the damage by 17%.

Feline: Maul: Reduced the damage by 50%.

Jaguar: Stalking: Critical chance increase while in stealth reduced to 25%.

Jellyfish Blue: Chilling Whirl: Decreased the damage by 33%.

Moa: Peck: Reduced the damage by 7%.

Pig: Jab: Reduced the damage by 25%.

Instinctual Bond: This trait has been swapped with Zephyr’s Speed. Quickness has been increased to 3 seconds. (Went from being a 5 point trait to a 30 point trait. Significantly reduced the effectiveness of Zerk rangers.)

This nerf is what changed the game for me with regards to my Ranger. That massive reduction in the damage output of pets made other classes a lot more viable to look at. Luckily I had been building a warrior, and I switched to levelling that instead. The increase in the DPS from the bows didn’t make up for what was lost with the pets, in my view.

Now we are told that effective DPS comes only from the rooting-sword. sigh

The stealth barrage nerf was one of the worst I have seen, used to be really good, now if I use it on 50 mobs crowded together on an invasion, I’m lucky if I hit one of them.

Who know’s maybe they don’t even know they did it, they seem to break a lot of stuff just trying to sort out other things, and then they won’t even comment on it, which is even more annoying, ie. the female running "bug

Might as well add the Nature Spirit getting an automatic 1 second delay on the activation of it’s ability when you summon it.

I used to be able to res a keep/tower lord in wvw with this now it’s dead before the skill is even available half the time.

Bump for new and returning players.

Most of these “nerfs” are bug fixes, so they weren’t really needs. Especially the ones that allowed us to shoot behind us.

I feel like a lot of those aren’t even nerfs… Like Sick’Em, oh boy!! 20s of 25% damage and movement speed so long as I don’t command him to do a single action….. So good…. So used (no it wasn’t).

Not to mention half the underwater ones were part of the patch that established is as Aquaman because it buffed us TO THE MOON but also fixed a bug with ALL ranged UW attacks where they didn’t check to see if you were facing the target and fired at them anyway.

Soilder.3607:

Reserved for the future

Now this is disheartening.

I lol’ed