Guild Wars 2

Psychrome, How often are you swapping pets with your build?

For rangers out there curious, Unless you don’t swap pets out (as in you use Masters Bond) don’t pick up Commanding Voice

If you’re swapping every 15 seconds, Your pets skills are automatically reset after each pet swap…So by swapping pets you have 15 Second Cooldown on all your abilities.

Meaning Lowering the timer on a 45 second fear is useless or a 25 second Regen. It won’t go below 15 Seconds.

Now me personally, I use Masters Bond in my first talent tree because i’m super lazy and don’t feel like changing to it everytime I want to PVE.

However the best talents for pet swaps is probably going to be Compassion Training (Slight increase on the Fern hounds Regen if you use that), Mighty Swap (It’s extra damage, not much but, It’s alright) and Shout Mastery (if you use shouts)

other Talents are useless for Pet Swapping (Speed Training might be alright, but it gives such a low amount it’s just not really worth using, if it was like 25-30% yea..)

@ Gareth i decided to try one of your suggesstions out. i swapped amulets to the soliders and i saw no change in my survivability. that being said i did like the extra cushion of HP against high burst specs, and gave a bit of room for error in case i was stunned or heal got interrupted. i am also going to try a build similar to my original with the empathic bond, it seems like every condition necro was after me today and i got fed up with it. with the new set up i will lose some HP from the nature tree and of course lose free regen:( but i am very nervous about running anything that puts extra damage on the pets.

do you know if there is a range on the ability as the tool tip doesnt specify. like the signet of renewal has a funky range on it. i also assume if my pet does die it wont take the conditions either.

garethh.3518:

Arrys.7145:

technically if you just count the heal from the SOTW and NH that equals = 133 and 138(from memory) per second or 271 HPS.

Add in regen for 12 seconds from the dwayna armor at 288 HPS every 30 seconds .

Plus around 115 HPS over the duration of a TU.

Dwayna Rune regen = 12X288= 3456
Utility + trait heal = 12X271= 3252
and
Added healing to TU =12 X 115= 1380

8008 extra healing in the first 25 seconds.

Basically in fights longer than 25 seconds this build starts to pull ahead on total HP at the expense of damage from the ranger.

You mathed wrong.
You aren’t counting the bonus healing from heal power. You are counting the total extra healing.
Yes, a spec can heal 8k extra health every 25~s.
No, 800 heal power will not give you 8k more healing every 25s.

Signet of the wild had its bonus healing from healing power terribly nerfed a while ago (I think its at roughly 7% of healing power bonus a sec) which is 56~ extra health a second. and healing skills tend to give roughly the healing power in bonus health. That means troll ungent gives about 800 more health every 25s. Having 800 healing power makes regen tick for 100 more health, if you get 6~ seconds of regen from the heal skill every 25s, thats 700 more health. If you get the 13~ seconds of regen from the random proc every 45~s, the total is roughly 7k bonus health every 50 seconds.

Or 8k in roughly a minute.
So if encounters tend to last more than a minute, then healing power beats out vitality.

The interesting thing I actually saw was that healing power buffs your pets health regen from the signet roughly 4 times more than the players, which is kind of cool.

It will with dwayna runes and a 12 second regen. Still well below 2 minutes to get ahead of 8k extra health. Pn the other hand I didn’t include an additional 13 seconds of the 30 BM heal at 133 hps which would also occur in the first 25 seconds.

This build will give you over 8k more in the first 25 seconds than the build you linked. It with a dwayna proc at second 1 could do it much earlier than that.

Not that I don’t agree it would be nice if healing power was stronger not bandaided with a 30 point BM trait.

i am really digging this talk about healing power vs vitality . in reality it coems down to this with soldiers on i have somewhere around
21k hp
troll ungent heals for 911 per second over 10 seconds=9110 hp every 25 seconds

signet heals for 91 per second

with the modified clerics amulet i use(with knights jewel)
16k hp
troll ungent 1006 hps over 10 seconds every 25 seconds

signet heals for 138hps

my toughness remains the same and my power goes up with soliders.
so its not even an 8k deficit we are talking about its merely a 5k deficit. im not a huge math guy so i am not sure how that effects your discussion. either way the lack of healing does come into play in some fights. with clerics amulet i found i was straight healing through a bunch of damage but with soliders i had the extra hp but i went through it too.

im going to make this simple for me and talk it out:

lets say i get hit for 1000 damage per second.

with clerics for the first ten seconds of the fight i am basically over healing the damage and my hp remains unchanged. afterwards for the next 15seconds i am healing 138hps(not including procs from dwaynas or traited free regen at 75%.) so for 15secodns assuming i just stand there and not dodge or block or evade. dude hits me for 15k damage leaving me with 3070hp (total HP-damage taken +total healing done from signet) left when heal comes back up.

assuming all of the same as above with soldiers amulet:
first 10 seconds i exactly heal for damage done
during the 15seconds of cooldown on heal i again take 15k damage but now i have 7365 hp left (same formula as above)

so when i take 1000 damage per second soliders wins out. but at 2000 damage per second i think it changes.

clerics: 16k hp
total healing during troll ungent 11440 during cooldown: 2070
over during the first ten seconds i take 8,5kittenage next 15 i take(this made me cry) 27930
AGAIN THIS DOES NOT INCLUDE BLOCKING, DODGING, PROTECTION, OR EXTRA HEALS FROM DWAYNAS

with soldiers:
21k HP

during troll ungent: 10002 during cd 1365

damage taken 9998 during heal. during cooldown 28635

clerics after ten seconds i have ~7500 health left
soldiers i have ~11000 health left

so it seems against burstier opponents clerics is more efficient but against steadier more balanced damage soldiers wins out.

either way i think within the scope of the current meta either works well and you can swap depending on your target environment. although with all the extra things this build provides these numbers drastically change.

but if my math and thinking are correct soldiers beats steady damage clerics beats burst.

Psychrome.9281:

but if my math and thinking are correct soldiers beats steady damage clerics beats burst.

Its a matter of number of heal skills you get off.
The higher the enemies dps is, the shorter you live so less time you have to use your healing abilities.
For you to get your worth out of the clerics amulet you have to be below full health, and so getting that extra healing from regen, that extra healing from the signet and on troll ungent, for a full minute.
If they are able to kill you before that, then you lost value.
Looking at enemy dps isn’t really a great way to go about it, quite simply the higher it is, the faster you die so less heals you get off so less healing power gives you health.

You should really think about running sword mainhand though, if you want to be really tanky, it’s about the best evasive kiting weapon in game
You can unclick the enemy after hornet’s sting then monarchs leap away again to keep stalling out for your pet/self-healing if you have to. That and the on weapon evade (serpent’s strike and stalker’s strike) can be used while immobilized making you nigh impossible to spike short of being CC’d (even then Lightning Reflexes and the wolf’s aoe fear* has your back).

But yeah the changes shouldn’t lose you survivability, having sword/dagger over greatsword alone should net you a fair deal, so does empathetic bond. They should make up for the lost healing power if you play sword well enough
But on the plus side you gain a pretty nasty spike that you pretty much always have up (pet swap gives 2s of QZ, the utility gives 4s of it, you and your pet attack twice as fast, both of you deal good dmg).

If you ran the cleric’s amulet on that sort of setup instead of knights you’d be extremely tanky, dodge heavy self healing is typically a good enough 1v1 or possibly 1v2 bunker sort of deal.
-* at best you want to start an encounter with some other pet up that isn’t the wolf, then if you get in trouble and need a fear in roughly 1~ second… you can swap pets to it (even while CC’d) and click its F2, it’ll pound it out doubly fast from the QZ on pet swap and run any dmg spike away

(as a sidenote though, what you were seeing with your numbers is the reason some people aren’t a fan of troll ungent. It heals for ridiculous amounts, especially with that regen proc. The thing is you have to let your health go almost to half to just get the full effect of the heal… then if someone interrupts it… you can be in deep, deep trouble. By the time you get the heal off again you don’t get the full health upfront which leaves you completely susceptible to a quick killing blow)

Arrys.7145:

It will with dwayna runes and a 12 second regen. Still well below 2 minutes to get ahead of 8k extra health. Pn the other hand I didn’t include an additional 13 seconds of the 30 BM heal at 133 hps which would also occur in the first 25 seconds.

This build will give you over 8k more in the first 25 seconds than the build you linked. It with a dwayna proc at second 1 could do it much earlier than that.

Not that I don’t agree it would be nice if healing power was stronger not bandaided with a 30 point BM trait.

I was comparing the bonus healing from healing power to vitality.
You are comparing the bonus healing from healing power + traits + runes just to vitality.
That won’t really get very far.

The 30 BM gives only your pet 125 health + 6% of healing power every 3s.
That’s terrible.
Like a 1/3 regen proc that scales half as well. Only on your pet.

i am surprised at the belief about troll ungent. it heals for more than heal as one and healing spring once you step out of the circle the heal can be stripped very easily. with troll ungent it cannot be stripped, and has no positional requirement. in a movement heavy game i would seriously look at getting away from having a heal(even as big as it is ) that requires you to stay in one spot for any duration.

to be fair i dont think you have to be down health to get the full effect of it i look at troll ungent as a precast ability before entering combat that will absorb that instant burst that most people put into there first few strikes, to end the fight quick. i use it before i am entering combat and right as it wears off i switch to GS for the block and then dodge auto attack for 2 cycles and interrupt usually about this time troll ungent is back up depending on the fight. but i guess that comes down to practice and skill with the class and weapon set to do well . ( i dont claim to be a badaxe but i think i am pretty ok)

i like the sword, in fact it is probably my favorite weapon, but even with my autoattack off of the sword eliminating the root issue, it still doesnt give me the utility of the GS. the 3 second block from counter attack which can also be a interrupt+knockback for solid damage is really really to good to pass up. swoop can be used as a gap closer or an escape without the irritation of monarchs leap and the maneuvering required to make it an escape.

also the bugginess of serpents strike not connecting with the target is annoying to me, although i love the animation and when it works its amazing! i think it comes down to personal choice. and honestly with the build either could be used.

either way i am trying empathic bond and either its working amazingly well or i havent been fighting any heavy condition builds so far. although the few conditions i do get are pretty much gone before i notice them (except caltrops…god i hate caltrops…apply more bleeds than an appropriate crossfire and can be dropped with a dodge…grrr)anyway i appreciate the discussion and i am going to be updating my build with permanent changes soon.

garethh.3518:

Arrys.7145:

It will with dwayna runes and a 12 second regen. Still well below 2 minutes to get ahead of 8k extra health. Pn the other hand I didn’t include an additional 13 seconds of the 30 BM heal at 133 hps which would also occur in the first 25 seconds.

This build will give you over 8k more in the first 25 seconds than the build you linked. It with a dwayna proc at second 1 could do it much earlier than that.

Not that I don’t agree it would be nice if healing power was stronger not bandaided with a 30 point BM trait.

I was comparing the bonus healing from healing power to vitality.
You are comparing the bonus healing from healing power + traits + runes just to vitality.
That won’t really get very far.

The 30 BM gives only your pet 125 health + 6% of healing power every 3s.
That’s terrible.
Like a 1/3 regen proc that scales half as well. Only on your pet.

Well vitality doesn’t leverage very well in builds other than potentially 10% to power. Healing on the other hand does leverage with traits and skills and utilities.

Ignoring that leveraging in an analysis of a specific build would be wrong.

Psychrome if you want to try something crazy shamans rune + jewel of choice, Guardians on armor toughness healing and proc a flame for 1 second on block and do a 0,0,30,10,30 – condition removal from traits + S reduction, take 5 sec protection on 20% damage(thief burst opener protection trigger in a 1kittenP build), and BM line as you choose.

BTW: Haven’t tested yet but think the protection proc for 5 sec on 20% crit is probably more valuable than 33% regen extension in low HP builds. Simply as it activate at need point and provides more than +500 HP on anything more than like 3K damage done to you in 5 seconds.

Psychrome.9281:

i am surprised at the belief about troll ungent… the 3 second block from counter attack which can also be a interrupt+knockback for solid damage is really really to good to pass up. swoop can be used as a gap closer or an escape without the irritation of monarchs leap and the maneuvering required to make it an escape. …

also the bugginess of serpents strike…

Serpent’s strike is for the evade not dmg, so its bugginess doesn’t really matter much (imo).
I’ve never liked GS, but yeah if you do, good for you

Using troll ungent at the start of a fight is just asking for overhealing. If you know who you are fighting and what they are doing and/or can keep good pressure on them (so they have to dps back) it’d be fine to do that.
But you do need the full 10~k healing from it and the 5s regen or else you are wasting health.
Especially on a class with allot of evades/dodge. Most of the time dodging a high dps attack is far better than taking and letting troll ungent heal it off.

It does heal for more than healing spring or heal as one, but yeah it is at a large downside, you actually start to see that bonus healing about 7~ seconds after using the skill so have to be alive for those 7 more seconds to actually net more health (which is the downside).

Arrys.7145:

Well vitality doesn’t leverage very well in builds other than potentially 10% to power. Healing on the other hand does leverage with traits and skills and utilities.

Ignoring that leveraging in an analysis of a specific build would be wrong.

Those traits/sigils/runes are going towards empathetic bond (far, far better defensively) and more offense to keep the spec as a threat.
Both are more important than more self healing at that point (at least imo).
A spec with only a pet to do any dmg, at least with pets how they are, is just asking for issues and annoyances all day.

I read that once you hit level 20 Fractals of the Mists, survivability is much more important than DPS, so I started looking for builds that focused on that more. Have you tried this in FotM yet?