Guild Wars 2

Marksmanship

Adept Trait “Keen Edge” now reads as: Use Sharpening Stone when your foes health reaches 50%. The effect can only trigger once every 45 seconds.
Master Trait “Spotter” now increases precision of nearby allies up to +150.
Master Trait “Beastmaster’s Might” now reads: Activating a signet grats 3 stacks of might (15 seconds).

Skirmishing

The Adept Trait “Companion’s Might” reads: Critical hits grant 5 seconds of might to your pet.

Wilderness Survival

The Grandmaster Minor Trait “Peak Strength” now grants 10% extra damage when your health is above 90%.
The Adept Trait “Healer’s Celerity” now increases revive speed by 10% in addition to granting swiftness to you and your ally when you revive.

Nature Magic

The Adept Trait “Vigorous Spirits” now reads: Spirits have twice as much health. Spirit bonuses have a 35% better chance of providing their benefits.
The Grandmaster Trait “Evasive Purity” has been moved to a Master Trait.
New Grandmaster Trait “Nature’s Voice”: Shouts apply Regeneration (10 seconds) and Swiftness (10 seconds) to Allies. 360 degree radius.

Beastmastery

Adept Minor Trait “Zephyr’s Speed” has been removed for “Instinctual Bond” which reads: When you are downed, your pet gains quickness for 5 seconds. 50 second cooldown.
New Grandmaster Trait “Zephyr’s Speed”: You and your pet gain 3 seconds of quickness when you swap pets.

source: http://www.guildwars2hub.com/features/editorials/sky-pirates-tyria-traits-preview-part-one

zephyrs speed change isnt that nice, however i tried instinctual bond a few times (by mistake, mind you) and it isnt that bad of a skill.

however these two;
The Grandmaster Trait “Evasive Purity” has been moved to a Master Trait.
New Grandmaster Trait “Nature’s Voice”: Shouts apply Regeneration (10 seconds) and Swiftness (10 seconds) to Allies. 360 degree radius.

those gonna be nice.

positive comments are not allowed in this thread, reported!

p.s. j/k :P

They moved the quickness higher up to traitline give players a reason to still invest that deep into BM, despite the DPS loss from pets. Would be interesting to see if people will still go for it though (I’m still too attached to DD505 to do it :-s)

I like the changes on WS too. It didn’t need changes at all as its already a solid traitline. Just minor buffs to further solidify it.

The other changes were already listed in the leaked notes last week so I’m not gonna comment on those.

2 seconds of quickness was not enough for a stomp, 3 seconds are

Too bad there is a delay on pet actions after swapping, wasting most of the benefit of traits that buff pets on swap (not to mention they spawn at your location and will have to run to the target).

jubskie.3152:

They moved the quickness higher up to traitline give players a reason to still invest that deep into BM, despite the DPS loss from pets. Would be interesting to see if people will still go for it though (I’m still too attached to DD505 to do it :-s)

I like the changes on WS too. It didn’t need changes at all as its already a solid traitline. Just minor buffs to further solidify it.

The other changes were already listed in the leaked notes last week so I’m not gonna comment on those.

I won’t be investing 30pts into BM for any build anymore. Not worth it. Pretty much if you want to run a DPS build its going to have less to do with the pet more than ever before. As a DPS ranger (or any ranger build) the overall DPS is going to be lower after this patch which hurts in PVE and dungeons and make rangers less desirable for dungeons.

thefantasticg.3984:

jubskie.3152:

They moved the quickness higher up to traitline give players a reason to still invest that deep into BM, despite the DPS loss from pets. Would be interesting to see if people will still go for it though (I’m still too attached to DD505 to do it :-s)

I like the changes on WS too. It didn’t need changes at all as its already a solid traitline. Just minor buffs to further solidify it.

The other changes were already listed in the leaked notes last week so I’m not gonna comment on those.

I won’t be investing 30pts into BM for any build anymore. Not worth it. Pretty much if you want to run a DPS build its going to have less to do with the pet more than ever before. As a DPS ranger (or any ranger build) the overall DPS is going to be lower after this patch which hurts in PVE and dungeons and make rangers less desirable for dungeons.

It seems like the Companions Might Buff is the bone they’re throwing to us in return. unsure how useful but I have the points into skirmishing anyway so maybe it’ll be something..

Again, at the TOP OF THE PAGE, it says, and i quote “These are unofficial patch notes – things may change with the live game.” I’m starting to think forum users don’t read things anymore…

Oh, I read it. I’m choosing to believe it. Trust me, I’m hoping I am wrong to the 10th degree.

I was expecting a lot more than this from the “biggest balance patch with massive trait reworkings”.

I mean, there’s some decent changes in there for sure, but…. its not really what I would call massive, and there are still a some lackluster traits out there (especially in Beastmastery and Nature Magic, unless Spirits themselves are getting boosted as well). No change to any of the restrictive and half-useless species-specific Master Beastmastery traits, no change to Master’s Bond to make it less contarary to everything else encouraging frequent pet swaps, no boost to Speed Training (every other cooldown trait is 20%, why is this one only 10%). A couple spirit traits are getting combined which is nice, but there’ll still be 3 of them, which is meh if spirits stay as-is. Was really hoping for a trait that would cut internal cooldown at least.

Especially in the face of nerfing pet damage, it would have been nice to have some traits that would help to offset that a bit more.

Durzlla is in denial. You can’t blame him, it’s probably a natural defense mechanism to prevent a nervous breakdown.

But honestly, some changes are really nice. I might like the leash change, because the pet tends to be out of my range from time to time and he walks too far to find his way around cliffs. Also some of our skills need the pet to be close-by or they won’t work (like Signet of Renewal). I also like all changes in the nature magic line. I’ll probably pick up Evasive Purity and the grandmaster trait might replace Signet of the Hunt and Runes of Dwayna. I don’t really care for any of the other traits, but some are nice.

The shortbow change I still hate. The reason I picked shortbow over axe was for its range. I don’t think there was any reason for this range change. They should have simply made the longbow 1500 range by default.

I also don’t like the pet damage nerfs. Mostly because they’re too big. They always used the excuse for their small balance patches that they didn’t want to play whack-a-mole and instead adjust things slowly. Sounds like it was just another lie. 50% is too far from a small change.

I have a plan for a build that noone seemed to have mentioned yet, but I’m going to wait for the official update first.

Holland, give me a break. No one is in denial. I happen to have the same opinion as Durz: wait and see, ruminate about the leak but don’t get overly negative about it.

This will hurt your eyes: Shortbow should be 600 range and so should axe, maybe. Count yourself lucky, if you ask me. Be happy with what you have because shortbow will still be one of the best weapons in the game—assuming the range reduction is true. Right now it’s just really good because you can use it effectively on point yet pressure so hard with it off point. Just my opinion though.

Durzlla.6295:

Again, at the TOP OF THE PAGE, it says, and i quote “These are unofficial patch notes – things may change with the live game.” I’m starting to think forum users don’t read things anymore…

You’ve got to admit, they are more than 90% believable though.

It’s that ambiguous “is the good worth the bad?” for rangers and a definitive overall buff for warriors. If it would have been anything else, THEN I wouldn’t believe it.

Yeah I don’t PvP. I only do WvW and PvE. It’s funny though how with off-hand training you can throw a torch further than you can shoot a shortbow. I think they have their ranges all wrong in this setup. Maybe if they had let Eagle Eye change the shortbow range from 900 to 1200 it would have been alright. But it’s still an out-of-the-blue nerf either way. It’s an Indefensible change in my book. Chopps and Durzlla surprise me.

Maybe the flaming shouldn’t start for another 24 hours. That’s all I’m saying. The official/unofficial drama is a waste of energy. Until the patch goes live, it isn’t affecting the game any.

GW2 IS NOT ONLY PVP . who gives a kitten about pvp balance, the mode in itself is irrelevant and very poorly designed . There are artificial limiters in the form of maximum available stats through amulets that is much lower then in WvW or PvE, and you are forced to fight on point .

OFC pets are stronger in PvP because of it and maybe they should be nerfed , but if this applies to the game as a whole rangers become weaker in game modes there were already poor in .

about sb – that 1200 range is nearly all that makes our SB better than thiefs sb.
but when our sb range would be reduced to thiefs sb range…
thief sb would be a way better because it would deal same or better dmg – but every atack is AoE – we are more single target.
anyway in this changes pointed here there is nothing about sb range :P

Holland.9351:

It’s an Indefensible change in my book. Chopps and Durzlla surprise me.

Then you’ve apparently not been following these forums for very long.

Pet damage nerfs are on particular skills. Remember that each pet has four skills. For the most part, your pet damage will be relatively unchanged aside from maybe one hit every 40 seconds or so.

It’s really not the end of the world with beastmasters.

The page says that they’re unofficial.

Faux Sheaux.6179:

Pet damage nerfs are on particular skills. Remember that each pet has four skills. For the most part, your pet damage will be relatively unchanged aside from maybe one hit every 40 seconds or so.

It’s really not the end of the world with beastmasters.

Where do you even get this from? If we’re looking at the same leaked patch notes, this statement is very far from what these notes state.

All canines: bite, the basic attack that has no cd, reduced by ~ 30 percent.
All drakes: bite, basic attack, reduced by ~ 30 percent. No cd.
Armor fish: bite, the basic attack, reduced by 50 percent. No cd.
Pig: jab, basic attack, reduced by 25 percent. No cd.
Eagle: lacerating slash, reduced by 50 percent. Attack with a 6 sec cd.

The list goes on, the hardest hitting skills, such as maul, are nerfed hard (maul = 50 percent). The longest cd I’ve seen is 30 secs (lightning breath), all the rest is 20 or much, much less.

The skills that are nerfed hard include basic skills. You will lose 30 to 50 percent in pet DPS when using these pets.

Kojiden.8405:

The page says that they’re unofficial.

They aren’t so much “unofficial” as they are “unconfirmed.”

These are from a leak, if the leak is real then they are “official” but could be outdated.

We’ll see tomorrow.

Swapping that Beastmaster grandmaster trait that nobody ever used for the adept minor trait that most people liked is just sort of obnoxious. At least they left our other curiously good adept minor trait (in Wilderness Survival) alone.

I was hoping they’d buff the minor traits in Marksmanship. At least Spotter is pretty good now.

Combining the spirit health and proc chance traits into a single trait is a good start, but the main problem with spirits has never been their associated traits. The base spirit skills are too weak, and until those are fixed the traits will never be a compelling choice.

The new Nature’s Voice trait is somewhat interesting. I don’t like our shouts very much, but we can now get 100% swiftness uptime with Shout Master, Guard and just 20% boon duration, and that applies to people around us too. That’s tempting.

i dont mind the trait changes in beastmastery however, this means quickness stomps are back as 3 seconds is more then enough time for it

Stomping fast isn’t the problem.

Its the complete lack of Stability outside of an elite or 30 points in Marksman

Chokolata.1870:

i dont mind the trait changes in beastmastery however, this means quickness stomps are back as 3 seconds is more then enough time for it

In the process, sacrificing all PvE usefulness for a PvP-only feature.

thefantasticg.3984:

jubskie.3152:

They moved the quickness higher up to traitline give players a reason to still invest that deep into BM, despite the DPS loss from pets. Would be interesting to see if people will still go for it though (I’m still too attached to DD505 to do it :-s)

I like the changes on WS too. It didn’t need changes at all as its already a solid traitline. Just minor buffs to further solidify it.

The other changes were already listed in the leaked notes last week so I’m not gonna comment on those.

I won’t be investing 30pts into BM for any build anymore. Not worth it. Pretty much if you want to run a DPS build its going to have less to do with the pet more than ever before. As a DPS ranger (or any ranger build) the overall DPS is going to be lower after this patch which hurts in PVE and dungeons and make rangers less desirable for dungeons.

Pretty sure it’s going to be higher actually, for certain specs, a BM spec with companion’s might and jaguar will surely be higher dps than any BM before was, the petswap burst you had with a jaguar will be totally gone though.

Faux Sheaux.6179:

Pet damage nerfs are on particular skills. Remember that each pet has four skills. For the most part, your pet damage will be relatively unchanged aside from maybe one hit every 40 seconds or so.

It’s really not the end of the world with beastmasters.

For jaguars only , for devourer, wolf, drakes and others (pretty much all useful ones) their damage takes a huge hit and the overall dps will go down alot, raven is only the f2 burst but that was pretty much all that flopping idiot had going for him too

DarkWasp.7291:

Durzlla.6295:

Again, at the TOP OF THE PAGE, it says, and i quote “These are unofficial patch notes – things may change with the live game.” I’m starting to think forum users don’t read things anymore…

You’ve got to admit, they are more than 90% believable though.

It’s that ambiguous “is the good worth the bad?” for rangers and a definitive overall buff for warriors. If it would have been anything else, THEN I wouldn’t believe it.

Oh absolutely they’re believable, but they’re still unofficial, if those trait changes are accurate I’d do a backflip, I love all of them, however I’m not going to get overly excited (or upset at that pet nerf) until I see the official notes.

Holland.9351:

Durzlla is in denial. You can’t blame him, it’s probably a natural defense mechanism to prevent a nervous breakdown.

But honestly, some changes are really nice. I might like the leash change, because the pet tends to be out of my range from time to time and he walks too far to find his way around cliffs. Also some of our skills need the pet to be close-by or they won’t work (like Signet of Renewal). I also like all changes in the nature magic line. I’ll probably pick up Evasive Purity and the grandmaster trait might replace Signet of the Hunt and Runes of Dwayna. I don’t really care for any of the other traits, but some are nice.

The shortbow change I still hate. The reason I picked shortbow over axe was for its range. I don’t think there was any reason for this range change. They should have simply made the longbow 1500 range by default.

I also don’t like the pet damage nerfs. Mostly because they’re too big. They always used the excuse for their small balance patches that they didn’t want to play whack-a-mole and instead adjust things slowly. Sounds like it was just another lie. 50% is too far from a small change.

I have a plan for a build that noone seemed to have mentioned yet, but I’m going to wait for the official update first.

Hardly denial, I’m just not trusting of these “leaked” notes, they just seem off.

Manekk.6981:

Pretty sure it’s going to be higher actually, for certain specs, a BM spec with companion’s might and jaguar will surely be higher dps than any BM before was, the petswap burst you had with a jaguar will be totally gone though.

Really? How many might stacks are you going to build up in 5 seconds if they depend on crits? Less than 3 average with 50% crit and a 1sec attack speed, thats how many.

So, 2-3 stacks of might = 70-105 power for your pet.

Meanwhile, pets took damage nerfs in the 30-50% range. This also doesnt get into what traits you aren’t getting by being forced to take this trait (you’re not getting faster pet movement speed or bigger pet crits like you were before, for instance). It’s also not getting into what a huge difference Jaguar will be, dropping from 100% crit while stealthed to 25% crit while stealthed.

The pet nerfs for bunkers needed to happen, but without somehow transfering a dps buff to the non-bunker rangers to compensate, they are garbage.

Chokolata.1870:

GW2 IS NOT ONLY PVP . who gives a kitten about pvp balance, the mode in itself is irrelevant and very poorly designed .

A huge portion of the community cares about being competitive in pvp/wvw. pets weren’t being nerfed just because BM-bunker was good in spvp, they were being nerfed because by design bunkers should have low damage output and BM bunkers didnt. they did, however, take a really poor route to addressing the issue and nerfed all rangers hard for the sake of a few.

Raven.9603:

Manekk.6981:

Pretty sure it’s going to be higher actually, for certain specs, a BM spec with companion’s might and jaguar will surely be higher dps than any BM before was, the petswap burst you had with a jaguar will be totally gone though.

Really? How many might stacks are you going to build up in 5 seconds if they depend on crits? Less than 3 average with 50% crit and a 1sec attack speed, thats how many.

So, 2-3 stacks of might = 70-105 power for your pet.

Meanwhile, pets took damage nerfs in the 30-50% range. This also doesnt get into what traits you aren’t getting by being forced to take this trait (you’re not getting faster pet movement speed or bigger pet crits like you were before, for instance). It’s also not getting into what a huge difference Jaguar will be, dropping from 100% crit while stealthed to 25% crit while stealthed.

The pet nerfs for bunkers needed to happen, but without somehow transfering a dps buff to the non-bunker rangers to compensate, they are garbage.

It depends alot on how/when/where of course but yes I believe it will be a higher selfsustained dps with boonstacking, just quickly on companions might we don’t know if it will have an internal cd but I assume it won’t since nothing was mentioned, both sword and shortbow has 0,5s attacks on average not 1s, this means potentially 10mightstacks from the trait alone with sword it will be more since you also add 1might/s with the auto chain and then another 2 from warhorn and fortifying bond on average 6 with battle sigils heck add 5more from the jungle stalker if you like and so on, it’s entirely possible you could keep a jaguar with 15-20+ mightstacks permanently even without using rampage as one.

This would mean anywhere from 500-700 power and condition damage, remember that the jaguar will put up a good number of bleeds too, now that I can guarantee you will produce more damage than the 50% you lost from maul every 20s because that is all they really lost.

As for the nerf on stalk you’re totally thinking the wrong way about it, the black jaguar has 59% base critchance at 80 with 0 points in BM when you use stalk he will gain 25% critchance so that would mean the nerf in worst case scenario brought you from 100% to 84% that is a ridiculously high critchance already this nerf will do practically nothing and the more BM points you have the closer to 100% he will get too so on the contrary it’s not a huge diffrence but rather an abyssmally tiny one.

I am surprised they didn’t do more with the adept, master, and grandmaster traits in the Markmanship tree.

Opening Strike, Alpha Training, and Precise Strike look good on paper but are so bad in practice. If we are supposed to be the constant damage dealers they say we are shouldn’t we have traits that help us through-out the fight and not indicate a spike damage role which we can no longer even attempt to fill? We need some help in this area ANET. DD builds are still lacking against our Condi counterparts and the MM tree is one reason why (along with main stat mechanics).

GUFF.5692:

I am surprised they didn’t do more with the adept, master, and grandmaster traits in the Markmanship tree.

Opening Strike, Alpha Training, and Precise Strike look good on paper but are so bad in practice. If we are supposed to be the constant damage dealers they say we are shouldn’t we have traits that help us through-out the fight and not indicate a spike damage role which we can no longer even attempt to fill? We need some help in this area ANET. DD builds are still lacking against our Condi counterparts and the MM tree is one reason why (along with main stat mechanics).

I’ve been thinking about this and figured since they made Protect Me a viable shout, we won’t need traited SoS as much as before. This opens up the Marksmanship GM slot for Remorseless. Although a lot of testing has to be done to figure out if it’s a good pick.

I think the “360 degree radius” gives away that the notes aren’t real.

I find it hard to believe that a professional develeoper or community liaison would use such a redundent phrase.

However, random schmuck on the internet, absolutely!

Xsorus.2507:

Stomping fast isn’t the problem.

Its the complete lack of Stability outside of an elite or 30 points in Marksman

Agree

The only change I really like in the patch is Keen Edges Change.

i don’t think people realize how powerful that is.

I can apply a lot of Bleeds really fast with my Rampagers Setup…..

Open with Sharpening Stones up… Time they hit 50% it’ll pop again and you can apply 5 more…I can do 20-25 Stacks of Bleeds on people.

Only thing that will suck is when zerging it gets wasted

I’m actually excited about evasive purity being moved down a tier. I wanted to invest more into nature magic and I just might switch up my build for it! Granted spirits may not be where people want them to be, but if one of them becomes a stun breaker as one of the ‘leaked patch notes’ claims I may give them a whirl for funsies.

Hjulstad.6317:

Xsorus.2507:

Stomping fast isn’t the problem.

Its the complete lack of Stability outside of an elite or 30 points in Marksman

Agree

True, if you choose to go with Entangle instead of RaO elite the only other choice you have to get stability is the treated signet. I’ve always thought this is one of the most limiting thing of our profession and we all know stability is not an option in wvw.

If only they could make spirits more vaible in gvg and big organised fights in wvw…

Faux Sheaux.6179:

Pet damage nerfs are on particular skills. Remember that each pet has four skills. For the most part, your pet damage will be relatively unchanged aside from maybe one hit every 40 seconds or so.

It’s really not the end of the world with beastmasters.

Bite is an 8 second cooldown on the jaguar. A nice chunk of his burst and damage for PvE.

WvW’ers and spvpers will switch to ravens.

PvE people are SCREWED.

i dont think Cat bite was nerfed . Only Cat Maul . They nerfed bite from dogs and dragons

wolfyrik.2017:

I think the “360 degree radius” gives away that the notes aren’t real.

I find it hard to believe that a professional develeoper or community liaison would use such a redundent phrase.

However, random schmuck on the internet, absolutely!

You think far too highly of ANet. It doesn’t surprise me in the slightest.