Guild Wars 2

Ranger
“After many years, ranger pets have learned how to remember their own names, and you’ll no longer be required to rename a pet when you switch them out! In addition to some baseline improvements, our goal has been to improve base pet abilities during this update. With that said, there are definitely more pet changes that we’re looking forward to implementing in the future.”

Weapons

• Swoop: This skill will no longer be affected by movement-impairing conditions.
• Ricochet: The number of times the axe can bounce has been reduced from 2 to 1. Base damage has been increased by 40%.
• Hunter’s Call: The damage of this skill has been increased by 25%. This skill now applies 5 seconds of vulnerability each time it hits an enemy.

Utilities

• Strength of the Pack: Updated the skill facts to show the proper effect duration.
• Sharpening Stone: The recharge of this skill has been reduced from 45 seconds to 30 seconds. Bleeding duration has been increased from 6 seconds to 10 seconds. The number of attacks this skill applies has been increased from 5 to 6.
• Glyphs: All glyphs have been updated to properly set their cooldowns after use.
• Glyph of Rejuvenation: This glyph now heals the ranger’s pet.
• Water Spirit: Fixed a bug that prevented Water Spirit’s on-attack healing effect from scaling properly.
• Guard: Reduced the damage reduction from 50% to 33%.
• Druid—Glyphs: Fixed a bug that caused glyph abilities to have differing recharges between base form and celestial form.
• Quickening Zephyr: The cooldown of this skill has been reduced from 60 seconds to 50 seconds.

Pets

• Pets: Names for unequipped pets are now remembered between sessions.
• Spider Family—Poison Gas: The duration of this field has been increased from 1 second to 4 seconds, applying poison on each pulse. Poison application is now based off of an unblockable attack instead of applying directly through defense. Poison duration has been increased from 3 seconds to 4 seconds.
• Moa Family—Peck: The attack range of this skill has been increased from 130 to 170.
• Moa Family—Frenzied Attack: This attack now executes twice as fast as it previously did, allowing the creature to engage in combat faster. Increased the number of attacks from 3 to 4. Vulnerability now applies on each attack hit rather than directly applying it to the target through defense.
• Red Moa—Furious Screech: The aftercast of this pet skill has been reduced by 2 seconds, allowing the creature to engage in combat faster.
• Blue Moa—Protecting Screech: The aftercast of this pet skill has been reduced by 2 seconds, allowing the creature to engage in combat faster. The cooldown of this skill has been reduced from 30 seconds to 24 seconds.
• White Moa—Chilling Screech: The aftercast of this pet skill has been reduced by 2 seconds, allowing the creature to engage in combat faster. Chill duration has been increased from 3 seconds to 5 seconds. The cooldown has been reduced from 30 seconds to 24 seconds.
• Pink Moa—Dazing Screech: The aftercast of this pet skill has been reduced by 2 seconds, allowing the creature to engage in combat faster.
• Black Moa—Dazing Screech: This skill now dazes up to three times during the cast, at a 1 second interval. Daze duration has been reduced from 2 seconds to 1 second per hit.
• Pig—Forage: The recharge of all forage skills has been reduced from 40 seconds to 30 seconds.
• Pig—Maul: Bleeding stacks per hit have been increased from 1 to 2, for a total of 4 if both attacks hit.
• Pig—Brutal Charge: The recharge of this skill has been reduced from 40 seconds to 30 seconds.
• Feline Family—Maul: The recharge of this skill has been reduced from 20 seconds to 16 seconds.
• Drake—Tail Swipe: The recharge of this skill has been reduced from 30 seconds to 24 seconds.
• Drake—Chomp: The recharge of this skill has been reduced from 20 seconds to 10 seconds.
• Canine Family—Crippling Leap: The recharge of this skill has been reduced from 20 seconds to 10 seconds.
• Canine Family—Brutal Charge: The recharge of this skill has been reduced from 40 seconds to 30 seconds.

Traits

• Protective Ward: Increased the cooldown from 15 seconds to 18 seconds in PvP only. This trait will no longer apply weakness through block or evade.
• Beastly Warden: Increased the cooldown from 15 seconds to 20 seconds.
• Enlargement: This trait will no longer force players out of Celestial Avatar when triggered. The benefits of the trait will still apply.

Runes

• Superior Rune of the Druid: Fixed a bug in which the fourth bonus would give the incorrect amount of vitality.
• Superior Rune of the Trooper/Soldier: Ranger shouts will now remove conditions from allies within a range of 600.

Notes

• Water Spirit’s tooltip remains broken, but the on-attack heal scaling with the player’s healing power is now working. It seems to have received an increase from 0.09 to 0.125.
• Storm Spirit’s pulsing Swiftness when traited with Nature’s Vengeance still does not scale with the player’s boon duration.
• Pink Moa’s F2 dazes and damages foes 3 times (for clarification). Not noted, but the daze duration was reduced from 2s to 1½s.
• Black Moa’s F2 did not receive an aftercast reduction. This now makes the Hall of Monuments Pet a straight downgrade rather than a cosmetic replacement for the Pink Moa.

Additional Notes for Water Spirit

• Passive on-hit heal scales with player’s healing power that activates it. Meaning if your allies have 0 healing power, they receive the base 805 heal – this includes the Pet.
• Passive on-hit heal scaling for the player (source) is 0.125 but for allies (non-source) the scaling is the old 0.09 coefficient.
• Passive on-hit heal scaling does not benefit from any outgoing heal % modifiers.
• Passive on-hit heals activated by others do not contribute to Astral Force generation, nor does it activate Live Vicariously or Natural Mender minor traits.
• Regeneration from Nature’s Vengeance scales with the player’s boon duration and healing power, and is affected by outgoing heal % modifiers.
• Tooltip is still busted for the Passive on-hit heal and does not update.
• Active initial self-heal is not affected by outgoing heal % modifiers for the player, but will apply to our Pet.
• Active Water Spirit heal is affected by the player’s healing power and outgoing heal % modifiers and will be applied to the player if they were to receive the heal.

Interesting thing to note:

Between the Pink and Black Moa, both will Daze and damage enemies 3x, but the Pink Moa has a 1½s Daze while the Black Moa (Hall of Monuments Pet) is a flat 1s Daze.

Also, the Black Moa has not received any aftercast reductions compared to the other Moas. Use for cosmetic purposes only, because the Pink Moa is statistically better.

Wondrouswall.7169:

Interesting thing to note:

Between the Pink and Black Moa, both will Daze and damage enemies 3x, but the Pink Moa has a 1½s Daze while the Black Moa (Hall of Monuments Pet) is a flat 1s Daze.

Well that is a better reason to use ole Flamingo Rex again.

Yep extremely dissapointing.
I don’t know if they really adressed the main problem with core pets: that can’t hit moving targets. While that isn’t addressed no amount of cd reduction will fix the pets.

Overall we received a lot of nerfs and bug fixes and none of the buffs or balances here the players asked for.

Really I don’t understand why the red post if later they don’t give a kitten.

Horrible changes.

Still no build diversity, 0 changes to traps, spirits.

Man that freaking thread did not have any changes at all.

This might be the last straw for me.

The only buff we got is: Ele’s got nerfed so druids are a bit better in PvP

Reduces the pig charge cooldown.
Doesn’t fix the fact that you can aim the pig straight down and it would still miss the planet Earth…

Welp…

Time to wait another 3-4 months.

The changes are basically marginal for everybody but Guardian.

Pets keep their names. I was really waiting for that. Guard nerfed: good job. No substantial changes whatsoever. Big fat zero imo.

Guys read the texts:

nerfed

Axe AA
Protective ward
Beastly warden
Shout Guard!

Practically they nerfed the ranger sustain. I guess they are not happy about Druid being a healer or something?

Mhmm.. No luck on short bow

No Shortbow buff
No glyph rework
Nothing to make warhorn useful or fix its terrible trait
No spirit buff
Axe nerf

Why even bother?

Zenith.7301:

The changes are basically marginal for everybody but Guardian.

Core mesmer got tons of buffs:

• Arcane Thievery
• Mantra of Distraction
• Mantra of Resolve
• The Prestige
• Signet of Midnight
• Mirror Blade bounce
• Phantasmal Defender

You can’t say that everyone got marginal changes.

Ours is whack. Who uses Moa? and Pigs? Those changes alone could be 10 different changes to our class.

GG.

Spirits = Trash
Shortbow = Trash
Traps = Trash
Core Pets = Trash (Still can’t hit targets)
Core Traits = Most are Trash

… Asked Anet for less crapy AI on pets.

→ Anet answered by reduced cool down on pet AI skills. (No! God No!)
Is this hard to get rid of the ******* Quickening screech? Is this hard to allow us to prevent our pet from using those god**** skill that we absolutely don’t want them to use? That’s what the ranger badly need since release of the game!

Trully really disappointed. Nothing in this patch that really improve the pet. Only thing interesting are bug fix. That’s sad.

Hunter’s Call change is nice, so is the Sharpening Stone buff.

Shortbow continues to be garbage, as do Spirits. Nobody is going to use Moas/Drakes/Pigs, pets need a massive overhaul not incremental bumps that accomplish nothing (i.e. all pet melee autoattacks should have baseline 170 range, most F2’s need to be redone).

3 more months of things staying largely the same.

anduriell.6280:

Guys read the texts:

nerfed

Axe AA

Have yet to decide if I agree on this one…

StickerHappy.8052:

Zenith.7301:

The changes are basically marginal for everybody but Guardian.

Core mesmer got tons of buffs:

• Arcane Thievery
• Mantra of Distraction
• Mantra of Resolve
• The Prestige
• Signet of Midnight
• Mirror Blade bounce
• Phantasmal Defender

You can’t say that everyone got marginal changes.

Ours is whack. Who uses Moa? and Pigs? Those changes alone could be 10 different changes to our class.

GG.

Spirits = Trash
Shortbow = Trash
Traps = Trash
Core Pets = Trash (Still can’t hit targets)
Core Traits = Most are Trash

Who in hell uses any of those mesmer skills in raids or large scale WvW anyways? Those mesmer “buffs” are trash.

Nobody uses those phantasm utilities because illusions die as soon as they spawn in WvW.

In WvW you are forced to run blink+portal+veil, no space for mantras or useless phantasm utilities. In raids, you run 2 wells and signet of inspiration.

As I said, no one received any changes worth a kitten .

OGDeadHead.8326:

anduriell.6280:

Guys read the texts:

nerfed

Axe AA

Have yet to decide if I agree on this one…

Don’t take too long. Basically you are missing the return hit if there were 2 targets and that 40% extra will not make for it. Also you will get less might stacks when there are 2 targets or more.

Basically: when there is one target you will it 40% dmg. As soon as there are 2 you’ll be nerfed one full hit (40%40% <> 100%) and more importantly you will miss that extra might stack you benefit not only in power but in condi damage (axe 2 and axe 3)

anduriell.6280:

OGDeadHead.8326:

anduriell.6280:

Guys read the texts:

nerfed

Axe AA

Have yet to decide if I agree on this one…

Don’t take too long. Basically you are missing the return hit if there were 2 targets and that 40% extra will not make for it. Also you will get less might stacks when there are 2 targets or more.

Basically: when there is one target you will it 40% dmg. As soon as there are 2 you’ll be nerfed one full hit (40%40% <> 100%) and more importantly you will miss that extra might stack you benefit not only in power but in condi damage (axe 2 and axe 3)

Also it’s good to notice that what’s awfull in ranger’s weapon damage is the scaling not necessary the base damage. they didn’t touch the damage coefficient just the base damage… what a waste. Less might, less rebound and buff to condi spec with 40% damage increase on the AA tic of damage. (That’s hillarious)

OUTRAGEOUS!

My take: A big fat freaking whoop-de-doo. After litterally waiting a year, the only ’fix’ ANET managed to produce was a measly 5 minute fix from a programmer making pets retain their names. Thanks, ANET. I’m glad that classes that you deamed "We also looked to normalize elementalist damage and healing a bit more, as their overall potential to do both at the same time was considerably higher than was healthy for group compositions." received nearly all buffs and next to no nerfs. Way to go!

My take: Because of ANET’s lack of interest in the ranger community, it only seems fitting that they make this entire balance revolve around pet skills without actually addressing the pet’s ai, movement, line of sight, etc. That would make too much sense to fix the actually issues. It seems the entire ranger balance patch conversation went much like the following.

(15 minutes until Season 3 drops)
"Oooooh, we forgot about ranger again."
"Ah, that’s alright, Steve, just change some of the pet traits around and make it sound nice."
"Brilliant idea, Margret. Should I mention that things are also ’on the table for the future?"
"Of course! This wouldn’t be Guildwars2 if you didn’t!"

My take: What little fixes there were, were basically infinitesimal. Swoop has been broken since game launch. Ranger warhorn has also been lackluster since the dawn of man. The only real fix was transformations breaking CA form.

My take: Well it is typically ANET fashion. The ranger forums were the only forums with a "Buffs/Tweaks" thread to be constantly added to, and even commented on by a developer
’Great thread, thanks. Good feedback from OP and the subsequent posts.’
and then the subsequent patch not include A SINGLE ONE. I guess all these active thread posters were just blowing smoke out. Thanks, ANET.

My take: Not much more needed said

anduriell.6280:

OGDeadHead.8326:

anduriell.6280:

Guys read the texts:

nerfed

Axe AA

Have yet to decide if I agree on this one…

Don’t take too long. Basically you are missing the return hit if there were 2 targets and that 40% extra will not make for it. Also you will get less might stacks when there are 2 targets or more.

Basically: when there is one target you will it 40% dmg. As soon as there are 2 you’ll be nerfed one full hit (40%40% <> 100%) and more importantly you will miss that extra might stack you benefit not only in power but in condi damage (axe 2 and axe 3)

Yeah I know. It’s basically a buff vs a single target, and a nerf in all other situations.

I wish they would have gone this route instead:

33%→33%→33%
to
60%→20%→20%

Yay, condi longbow buff.

Aye, the changes that Rangers received were a mix between nerfs and quality of life adjustments. I guess those that were waiting 4 years for Pet names to save can rejoice. (A better late than never scenario.)

This is yet another patch where I guess we should “count our blessings", but the sum of these changes fall short.

Still nothing noteworthy?

Pathetic. I’m tired of being pigeonholed into using the same 2 builds per class to remain viable in the game.

“With that said, there are definitely more pet changes that we’re looking forward to implementing in the future.”

All the needed changes are always “in the future”. Hopeless.

Yup, a rage post. But it’s so kitten frustrating.

psizone.8437:

“With that said, there are definitely more pet changes that we’re looking forward to implementing in the future.”

All the needed changes are always “in the future”. Hopeless.

Indeed. I seriously got a sense of deja vu when I read that, lol!

I think I will join the mass of people spamming the chat with /upset and /sad.

Guardian’s had a similar post last year or so when a Dev came to town asking for ideas. Patch game, not a single idea from the thousand(s) of ideas. Nothing, nadda, not even a thank you…

Ironically I’m seeing the same exact thing within this forum. The pattern is scary but I guess I don’t expect much from a free to play game.

OGDeadHead.8326:

anduriell.6280:

OGDeadHead.8326:

anduriell.6280:

Guys read the texts:

nerfed

Axe AA

Have yet to decide if I agree on this one…

Don’t take too long. Basically you are missing the return hit if there were 2 targets and that 40% extra will not make for it. Also you will get less might stacks when there are 2 targets or more.

Basically: when there is one target you will it 40% dmg. As soon as there are 2 you’ll be nerfed one full hit (40%40% <> 100%) and more importantly you will miss that extra might stack you benefit not only in power but in condi damage (axe 2 and axe 3)

Yeah I know. It’s basically a buff vs a single target, and a nerf in all other situations.

I wish they would have gone this route instead:

33%->33%->33%
to
60%->20%->20%

It didn’t need a nerf, period lol.

In fact, a 40% buff is worthless with how little damage ricochet does to begin with.

These devs are clueless about DPS balance.

All they balance for is their obnoxious MLG esports wannabe spvp format. PvE and WvW large scale fights be kitten ed.

Zenith.7301:

OGDeadHead.8326:

anduriell.6280:

OGDeadHead.8326:

anduriell.6280:

Guys read the texts:

nerfed

Axe AA

Have yet to decide if I agree on this one…

Don’t take too long. Basically you are missing the return hit if there were 2 targets and that 40% extra will not make for it. Also you will get less might stacks when there are 2 targets or more.

Basically: when there is one target you will it 40% dmg. As soon as there are 2 you’ll be nerfed one full hit (40%40% <> 100%) and more importantly you will miss that extra might stack you benefit not only in power but in condi damage (axe 2 and axe 3)

Yeah I know. It’s basically a buff vs a single target, and a nerf in all other situations.

I wish they would have gone this route instead:

33%->33%->33%
to
60%->20%->20%

It didn’t need a nerf, period lol.

In fact, a 40% buff is worthless with how little damage ricochet does to begin with.

These devs are clueless about DPS balance.

All they balance for is their obnoxious MLG esports wannabe spvp format. PvE and WvW large scale fights be kitten ed.

I never said it did. My original suggestion on how to change axe 1 was to bring more damage on the first attack, and less on the others in order to make it more viable vs single targets.

Fix:
Rune of the Trooper/Soldier: Ranger shouts will now remove conditions from allies within a range of 600.

Right, I’ll add that little bit on there.

This whole patchnote changed nearly nothing for better on anything I use in any game mode (and I play all of them).
Moa aftercasts? pig cds? Just… why?? They don’t change anything.
Wanna improve pets?
Give us a new keybind to control the pet better, that we could bind it to any other skill from the pet but the f2/auto.
We need to be able to control Quickening screech on birds, Tail Swipe on drakes, Brutal Charge on canines, and so on.
Then give them better AI, then give them more aa range, then give then faster aftercasts, then give them scaling on player gear quality, then buff their damage where needed, then, at last reduce their cooldowns.
Only changing the cds or aftercasts doesn’t accomplish anything.

Annoyed I still can’t play condi ranger effectively in PvP… Happy we didn’t eat any hard nerfs… Glad we got some bug fixes so my favorite power build is now properly viable in PvP…

Displeased by the fact anet buffed pets that haven’t seen use since launch instead of birds, cats, dogs, and spiders which have seen much use for years (maybe drakes too)…

All in all I’d have to say those fixes should have been done MONTHS ago, like 8 months ago… The pet changes mean absolutely nothing… The axe change pointless… The trait changes are blah… The only thing anet did right was fixing the runes & enlargement bugs…

The change to drakes are decent imho. Traited, Chomp are down to 8 seconds cd, and Tail Swipe down to 19,25 seconds cd. Drakes are still the go to pet when fighting multiple foes that are grouped together, and this patch did improve on that.
BTW, anyone knows exactly how much health drakes get from their Chomp attack?

Nerf short bow to range 900 way back when because people weren’t playing long bow. People point out that short bow is seriously inferior to axe and ask for range increase on short bow to 1200. ArenaNet nerfs axe… now two bad 900 range weapons…

Axe AA:

• If you have 1 target its a buff of 40%
• If you have two targets its a 30% nerf to Target One, and a 40% buff to Target Two
• Its a 7.6% total damage nerf at 2+ targets.

It fits even better as a hybrid/celestial stat weapon, despite the loss of that one might stack.

Eh, it’s no better or worse than any other class changes. We weren’t in a bad spot so we didn’t need major buffs to maintain relevant. We were super OP and so we didn’t get slammed with a nerf bat.

And to be fair, they did fix the major bugs with glyphs and enlargement kicking us out. And I’m pretty sure changing the pet skill cooldowns was something that people have asked for. I did request adjustments to moa, wyverns and bears. They managed to hit at least 1 of the three.

This is pretty standard as far as patches go.

OGDeadHead.8326:

The change to drakes are decent imho. Traited, Chomp are down to 8 seconds cd, and Tail Swipe down to 19,25 seconds cd. Drakes are still the go to pet when fighting multiple foes that are grouped together, and this patch did improve on that.

Isn’t that the odd thing, though. Drakes were already at a decent level and are still the go-to choice for a cleaving Pet. In fact, most of the pets that received a tweak were already top choices for their respective mode/situation. The exception here being Moas and Porcines. The downside is Wyverns are further down the totem poll.

Salamander Drake pulls ahead even further compared to the Fire Wyvern in terms of utility, damage, and damage against moving targets. Because we can’t control Wing Buffet unless Wyverns are kept on Passive until the break bar turns blue, Fire Wyvern’s CC ability becomes near redundant compared to a hard-hitting blast finisher.

On the break bar side, Pink & Black Moas are actually competitive with the Electric Wyvern because they can reliably hit a moving target with the range increase, and their CC is controllable, on the same cooldown, and has a lower chance of firing in the wrong direction.

This is on-top of an extra AOE heal and single-target vulnerability – 2 valuable things either Wyvern can’t do and at half the cast time. Anet has to get their sh(i)t together, because buffs to pets should be happening on a whole – to all of them – not just a select few.

Talk about pin-point nerf to nature magic. Fortifying bond’s boon share in conjunction with resounding timbre traited “We Heal as one” is now neutered by ricochet’s nerf to 2 targets, a tremendous hit to the might stacking. Further down the line we have/had the only worthwhile grandmaster trait in nature magic nerfed to be no more than protection for 4 seconds every 15 seconds (seems more like an adept or master at best standing). It was one of my favorite skills against getting ganked by thieves outta nowhere. The first hit hurt no denying. Protection helps soak up some of the damage to come, but it was weakness that kept the 5k successive crits at bay, giving you a chance to react from backstabs or bo spams.

Additionally guard is often part of builds following the nature magic/ beastmaster setup so it’s nerf hurts as well. The might remains I suppose but 33% is just protection and you still have to sacrifice the health of your pet. As a consolation couldn’t they just make it protection, keep the might to your pet and call it a day. Why does there always have to be a trade off for rangers like with empathic bond and signet of renewal. 50% seemed reasonable, because you were sacrificing your pet.

At least I can now name my pet….to “Harmless” because even with buffs they still can’t connect.

Back to the #%^%^%$% drawing board I suppose. Build killed.

Kilrik.6320:

Additionally guard is often part of builds following the nature magic/ beastmaster setup so it’s nerf hurts as well. The might remains I suppose but 33% is just protection and you still have to sacrifice the health of your pet. As a consolation couldn’t they just make it protection, keep the might to your pet and call it a day. Why does there always have to be a trade off for rangers like with empathic bond and signet of renewal. 50% seemed reasonable, because you were sacrificing your pet.

Not sure what format of play you are talking about but I will say from the primary meta I play, WvW, this is what I ran. NM/BM sustain with protection slotted…

What is even more ironic is that over the last couple of days this discussion came up about how they could tone down Druids and it always landed back on our sustain. Looks like we had some forethought. Wish I’d have that playing the lottery and not solely with GW2…

Crapgame.6519:

Kilrik.6320:

Additionally guard is often part of builds following the nature magic/ beastmaster setup so it’s nerf hurts as well. The might remains I suppose but 33% is just protection and you still have to sacrifice the health of your pet. As a consolation couldn’t they just make it protection, keep the might to your pet and call it a day. Why does there always have to be a trade off for rangers like with empathic bond and signet of renewal. 50% seemed reasonable, because you were sacrificing your pet.

Not sure what format of play you are talking about but I will say from the primary meta I play, WvW, this is what I ran. NM/BM sustain with protection slotted…

What is even more ironic is that over the last couple of days this discussion came up about how they could tone down Druids and it always landed back on our sustain. Looks like we had some forethought. Wish I’d have that playing the lottery and not solely with GW2…

The problem is they nerfed sustain without adding anything useful. People would be a lot less kittened off if the balanced patches actually… you know…. balanced the class.

Anet has a history of taking rangers useful stuff and nerfing the kitten out of it in the hopes we will decide to use the other kittenty stuff. But since they didn’t buff the stuff they wanted us using we are just left with multiple kittenty options.

Wondrouswall.7169:

OGDeadHead.8326:

The change to drakes are decent imho. Traited, Chomp are down to 8 seconds cd, and Tail Swipe down to 19,25 seconds cd. Drakes are still the go to pet when fighting multiple foes that are grouped together, and this patch did improve on that.

Isn’t that the odd thing, though. Drakes were already at a decent level and are still the go-to choice for a cleaving Pet.

Yeah, I was confused about this as well. I was thinking “oh, great we got nerfs and the pet buffs are horrid.” Now, I am not so sure. I am going to replace off hand dagger with warhorn and swap bristleback for Lightning Drake.

Warhorn was already very strong on Menders Druid, but with the changes to skill 4, we can now rip the armour clean off a foe. This will be great. Chomp and Tailswipe hit so very hard when the drake is fully might stacked. Drake-horn on Menders and traited in Nature Magic should be a nice build. I am excited to try this… I hope it out-weighs or matches our loss in sustainability.

The buffs to Mesmer, Guardian, and warrior scare me a little in 1v1 situations…

Wasn’t the Drake gutted once already? Now buffed again?

Or is that a different drake that I’m talking about from South Cove? It seemed strong, and I used it for a long while. Then poof, it goes byby.

- Ricochet: The number of times the axe can bounce has been reduced from 2 to 1. Base damage has been increased by 40%.

I’m not how I feel about this one either. I loved playing with it on a zerker build. I was already cooking up a build for wvw, but a nerf to multiple target damage is throwing me off a bit.

- Swoop: This skill will no longer be affected by movement-impairing conditions.
- Hunter’s Call: The damage of this skill has been increased by 25%. This skill now applies 5 seconds of vulnerability each time it hits an enemy.

Both good things, can’t complain

- Guard: Reduced the damage reduction from 50% to 33%.

Guess I’m 100 percent not going to use this then, I barely used it in the first place.

- Water Spirit: Fixed a bug that prevented Water Spirit’s on-attack healing effect from scaling properly.

People use this? haha.

Overall the pet changes are welcomed, can’t complain about lower CDs. This is what they gave us so might as well make the best of it. Has ANET ever taken any suggestions from these forums? Pet Names? lol.

note: I asked an ANET employee if we could get a unnerf to axe with multi target in WvW a few mins ago at the Teq spot. He doesn’t make the decisions and I quote “Not my decision to make sadly”, so I think he feels our pain.

From testing pets in PvP, I think Pink Moa is decent with the changes especially combined with the Ancient Seeds trait. It’s much faster and alot more reliable, plus the pet does decent damage with the f2 already. Since the daze effect hits multiple times, you get ancient seeds really easily.

Maybe I’ll think of running Pink Moa with Bristleback for fun.

Oh. I get it. I see why they nerfed Guard now. It’s like they wanted to nerf sustain, so they just slashed every damage reduction trait across board. They hit mesmers, necros, and engies as well.

Guys, we got a buff!
QZ is 50 sec cd now…
Ranger is now saved. Were finally viable /s

Crapgame.6519:

Wasn’t the Drake gutted once already? Now buffed again?

Or is that a different drake that I’m talking about from South Cove? It seemed strong, and I used it for a long while. Then poof, it goes byby.

I think they nerfed the damage on River Drake way back.

Eval.2371:

Guys, we got a buff!
QZ is 50 sec cd now…
Ranger is now saved. Were finally viable /s

Did not notice that, thanks for pointing that out. Interesting, might give it a go in WvW, see how it goes.

Crapgame.6519:

Wasn’t the Drake gutted once already? Now buffed again?

Or is that a different drake that I’m talking about from South Cove? It seemed strong, and I used it for a long while. Then poof, it goes byby.

I think they did a 33% damage reduction on the river drake f2 or something. I believe Chomp and tailswipe still hit hard, I need to test it…

Eval.2371:

Guys, we got a buff!
QZ is 50 sec cd now…
Ranger is now saved. Were finally viable /s

Ooh that is interesting, that will be nice on power builds, for sure.