I’ll just highlight the main improvements for berserker rangers in today’s patch and let you all discuss. I don’t know whether it’s quite enough to resurrect my berserker build, but I’ll certainly dust off my CoF gear and give it a whirl.
- Lightning Reflexes skill: Reduced cooldown from 45 seconds to 40 seconds.
I don’t use LR much but I know a lot of berserker rangers do for the extra evade.
-Signet of Stone skill:
Reduced cooldown from 120 seconds to 80 seconds.
Increased passive toughness by 100%.
The extra toughness is nice, but the 33% reduction in SoS cooldown is a little more exciting.
- Signet of the Wild skill: Reduced cooldown from 120 seconds to 60 seconds and duration from 12 seconds to 8 seconds.
Very nice, +25% damage for you and your pet every 60 seconds. Cooldown time halved.
- Quickening Zephyr skill:
Increased duration by 1 second.
Players are now healed at 50% effectiveness (increased from 0%) when under the effects of this skill.
The two extra seconds (+1 in the original patch, +1 today) IMO compensates a fair bit for the quickness nerf. QZ now does 50% less damage (150% attack speed vs 200%) but lasts 50% longer (6 sec vs 4 sec). It’s not quite the same, QZ was a lot stronger before the nerf, but it’s definitely better now.
- Pet buffs
Pets should survive a little longer now, even with only 5 points in BM. This doesn’t affect me personally too much, but I imagine some people might have added points in the BM tree just to make their pets survive that much longer.
So what do you ex-berserkers think, are these changes enough to make you consider picking up your power-crit builds again?
I agree with this. Still not burst, but it is pretty hard hitting. If no one beats me to it, I’m gonna test out QZ, SotW, and SotH with berzerker gear in the HoM.
I think it is a great day for most beast-master builds running out there in wvw, the health increases on the pets is very significant. To add to that, I have a feeling drakes are going to be used a whole lot more in wvw now (health almost doubled). As far as my beserker build goes, every skill I used after the update (LR, SOTW, SOS) were buffed. I might actually swap out LR for QZ after the additional 1 second update.
In the long run, my beserker build relied on being able to use qz to unleash my skills in as short a period as possible. After the last update, I could no longer even perform lb #4,3,2, combo before QZ would run out. The reduction in signet times were great, and I think the beserker lb ranger in zergs will be more powerful than ever, I am just interested in seeing if a roaming ranger can be successful again.
I find the notion that whether one build is viable is misleading. A wooden stick is viable in the hands of Tiger Woods, for example. Instead, you should focus on whether you do well with it with your playstyle. Then, figure out how that ties into what your team is doing. And most of all: experiment. You will find many misinformed opinions on the forums in terms of build viability.
By the way…no mention on Protect Me with buffed pets????
I find the notion that whether one build is viable is misleading. A wooden stick is viable in the hands of Tiger Woods, for example. Instead, you should focus on whether you do well with it with your playstyle. Then, figure out how that ties into what your team is doing. And most of all: experiment. You will find many misinformed opinions on the forums in terms of build viability.
By the way…no mention on Protect Me with buffed pets????
I didn’t mention Protect Me here because this post is specifically targeted at berserker rangers, many of whom (myself included) opted to play around with other builds after the quickness nerf. A berserker doesn’t need protect me, traited SoS is a lot better and running both is overkill.
The survivability buffs are great for PvP, where Rangers were fine.
The pet buffs are great for all PvE builds (especially BM), but they do nothing for berserker builds.
In PvE, rangers still bring sub-par damage with no buff to a berserker build. However, spirits may be a viable utility to make them worth taking now.
imho the signents werent a huge buff, SoTW i would have liked to see the passive health regen buffed like all the other passive signents that got buffed for other classes, and signent of stone, people use that? maybe its just me, because i never ever use that lol i like protect me more because i dont have to waste a trait point getting beastmaster signent. also for WVW i find most classes relatively easy, with the exception of bask thieves, even through the GS and protect me they still just pump too much damage for me to deal with, i usually run LR, protect me, and SoTH with entangling roots once i can get away from them and catch them off guard whilst they are heartseeker spamming its a lot better. but as for the signents, eh. i like the pet health a lot more which means my tank will have more hp to soak up.
and rangers are a nice dps in dungeons, in arah p2 i can get the last boss down a quarter of the way with out all zerker gear using a LB and S/D i have to pop cds and stuff but who doesent? and spirits….never liked them, probably never will, i miss the old mechanic from gw1 and the spirits just seem to draw super aggro all the time for me atleast.
Would like to point out SoS got a >300% buff on passive bonus toughness (not 100%) as it used to only grant 35 toughness to the player and 120 to the pet while it now grants 180 to both. At least I think I’m right.
Meh, good changes for a zerker ranger, but not good enough imo. The quickness change just was too hard of a hit on the profession. We literally can’t burst without it, and if we can’t burst, we give our opponents more time to react. I might try it out again, but I just don’t think it’ll be worth it. The biggest con to running a zerker ranger was the lack of condi removal forcing you to run signet of renewal and that isn’t alleviated here.
(edited by Indoles.1467)
I find the notion that whether one build is viable is misleading. A wooden stick is viable in the hands of Tiger Woods, for example. Instead, you should focus on whether you do well with it with your playstyle. Then, figure out how that ties into what your team is doing. And most of all: experiment. You will find many misinformed opinions on the forums in terms of build viability.
By the way…no mention on Protect Me with buffed pets????
I didn’t mention Protect Me here because this post is specifically targeted at berserker rangers, many of whom (myself included) opted to play around with other builds after the quickness nerf. A berserker doesn’t need protect me, traited SoS is a lot better and running both is overkill.
Interesting…you should tell that to no life kripparian and see what he says considering he does just that (runs protect me). Why would you run both though? That’s an odd suggestion to say the least.
(edited by Chopps.5047)
SoS used to be 35 toughness for the ranger, 120 for the pet.
SoS used to be 35 toughness for the ranger, 120 for the pet.
You are correct! I looked through some old screenshots and confirmed it. Glad they finally made the passive existent.
i like protect me a lot more than SoS because it gives me a bunch more dps versus having a defensive trait and skill, i get an offensive traid, middle ground pet, and a defensive skill :/ just my reasoning behind that lol
I find the notion that whether one build is viable is misleading. A wooden stick is viable in the hands of Tiger Woods, for example. Instead, you should focus on whether you do well with it with your playstyle. Then, figure out how that ties into what your team is doing. And most of all: experiment. You will find many misinformed opinions on the forums in terms of build viability.
By the way…no mention on Protect Me with buffed pets????
I didn’t mention Protect Me here because this post is specifically targeted at berserker rangers, many of whom (myself included) opted to play around with other builds after the quickness nerf. A berserker doesn’t need protect me, traited SoS is a lot better and running both is overkill.
Interesting…you should tell that to no life kripparian and see what he says considering he does just that (runs protect me). Why would you run both though? That’s an odd suggestion to say the least.
I don’t know who that is, but signet of stone gives invulnerability to you and your pet, plus toughness. Protect me gives you invulnerability and kills your pet, and no toughness. The only reason to use protect me is if you don’t want to go 30 into marksmanship for SoB, and lots of berserkers make good use of that trait for signet of the wild and signet of the hunt as well. Again, this is a thread aimed at berserker rangers.
I think Indoles summed it up pretty well in the end, as nice as the lower cd’s and increased effects are for signets/skills, at the end of the day the old beserker ranger style was built around less time for the opponent to react and the old qz was a big hit to us. But the updates from this patch will probably make some old rangers pull out their beserker builds for another go
I think Indoles summed it up pretty well in the end, as nice as the lower cd’s and increased effects are for signets/skills, at the end of the day the old beserker ranger style was built around less time for the opponent to react and the old qz was a big hit to us. But the updates from this patch will probably make some old rangers pull out their beserker builds for another go
Oh there’s no doubt berserkers were stronger in PvP before the quickness nerf, even with the longer cooldowns on signets and shorter QZ duration. The question is just whether the new fixes have made berserkers playable again, which they weren’t initially after the nerf. I am finding that my berserker is stronger in PvE (slightly stronger at range, considerably stronger in melee with GS), but weaker in WvW (weaker at range, while the changes in melee are irrelevant as I only use GS to block and escape). This is because the mechanics of ranged and close combat change when you’re fighting intelligent human players.
Overall, I preferred the state of the berserker pre-quickness nerf but I can play berserker now. Thanks to the latest patch I once again find the longbow zerker to be the strongest option in a zerg v zerg scenario, while there are likely better options for all other PvP and PvE scenarios in terms of both damage output and survivability.
I find the notion that whether one build is viable is misleading. A wooden stick is viable in the hands of Tiger Woods, for example. Instead, you should focus on whether you do well with it with your playstyle. Then, figure out how that ties into what your team is doing. And most of all: experiment. You will find many misinformed opinions on the forums in terms of build viability.
By the way…no mention on Protect Me with buffed pets????
I didn’t mention Protect Me here because this post is specifically targeted at berserker rangers, many of whom (myself included) opted to play around with other builds after the quickness nerf. A berserker doesn’t need protect me, traited SoS is a lot better and running both is overkill.
Interesting…you should tell that to no life kripparian and see what he says considering he does just that (runs protect me). Why would you run both though? That’s an odd suggestion to say the least.
Kripp? Do you mean that ages old video on youtube or he is still playing?
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