Guild Wars 2

I was looking at this trait and the description given in the skill bar and it feels a little lackluster. It is a 10% buff to you and a 5% buff to the pet. In theory it’s a 15% buff in total but if you look at traits other classes have it is pretty poor. Thieves get 10% against any condition or only 5 trait points, warriors get 10% against bleeding targets for only 5 points, guardians get 10% against burning for just 2. I think the 10% buff from predators onslaught should be raised to 15% to make it do more than the 5 point traits for other classes and equal it out to 20% which is comparable to other classes’ grandmasters.

Rangers have bonus damage on, full endurance, flanking, above 90% HP, with boon, and after update against cripple/immob/chill targets, and some builds can get 3 of the current 4 at the same time.
I’m not even counting specific weapon bonuses, like eagle eye, 2h training and honed axes.

As a Grand Master trait, investing enough points to have Predator’s Onslaught is mutually exclusive with a lot of the other +dmg traits. First off, if I’m bow focused, then Read the Wind is probably a better damage buff – so Predator’s is really geared towards melee skirmish builds.

If it’s a melee build, then I’m at least 4 deep in Wilderness for Martial Mastery, and a good chance that I’m 3+ deep in Skirmish (free swift & fury). 2/3/4/0/0ish…

I could go 6/4/4/0/0 – for the +20% with Endo and vs. Cripple…
Or I could go, 4/5/5/0/0 – for potentially +30%, Endo + Flanking + High-Health
+5% for boon is out of reach in terms of trait investment.

The extra power isn’t going to make up for a 10% damage, so perfect world straight damage build we’re probably better off not taking Predator’s since we can potentially get better return on opportunity cost.

It’s a little unique in that it blanket raises pet damage. Maybe if I was going for a Pet Might stacking build, I’d take it?

Read the Wind will not be a direct damage buff. Sure you will, theoretically, do 10% more damage, however Predators Onslaught adds another 5% to pet (remember, that furball is like 30% of your DPS, so whatever bonuses you sink into the pet matters, a lot)… So while RtW is 10% total boost, PO is 15%….

And with the extreme ease of maintaining cripple through barrage, its a no-brainer why you should take PO in PvE atleast. In PvP, RtW all the way.

Idk, with the new intimidation training plus like, idk, AN EAGLE could lead to a significant amount of damage increase + cripple duration…

Rangers have bonus damage on, full endurance, flanking, above 90% HP, with boon, and after update against cripple/immob/chill targets, and some builds can get 3 of the current 4 at the same time.
I’m not even counting specific weapon bonuses, like eagle eye, 2h training and honed axes.

I don’t think that’s working in our favor, exactly.
Those passive boosts don’t always play well with eachother.

I’ve never had much luck with Eagle Eye and Hunter’s Tactics, for instance, because the distance requirement of longbow makes keeping an opponent flanked more difficult. If I want to keep Peak Strength for longer than just the start of a fight, I eventually have to sacrifice Steady Focus. Hunter’s Tactics plays well with Shortbow, but, if you actually want to go down the condition line for the condition weapon you end up with Peak Strength, which makes way more sense with Longbow’s out-of-the-crossfire style weapon than it does a 900 range skirmishing one.

I look at ranger traits, and one of my major take-aways is: there is totally such a thing as too many +damage traits.

Predator’s Onslaught is legitimately a pretty well designed entry, but by and large, half that list could die in a fire tomorrow and I’d be happier for it. Heck, I’d doubleback to toss Strength of Spirit and Nature’s Wrath onto the pyre for good measure.

Well, he was comparing to other classes, and I just pointed that we also have plenty of options with many other requirements, each situation and build calls for a different approach.
With LB, endurance + boon + eagle eye looks great with hardly any down time, or instead of the boon bonus get the future RtW and with the attack speed you get even more benefit from the endurance + eagle eye.

Prysin.8542:

Read the Wind will not be a direct damage buff. Sure you will, theoretically, do 10% more damage, however Predators Onslaught adds another 5% to pet (remember, that furball is like 30% of your DPS, so whatever bonuses you sink into the pet matters, a lot)… So while RtW is 10% total boost, PO is 15%….

And with the extreme ease of maintaining cripple through barrage, its a no-brainer why you should take PO in PvE atleast. In PvP, RtW all the way.

Theorycrafting ftl. Wish we could jump on a test server and blow up some golems.

Taking into account the pet is 30% of your damage, the actual damage bonus provided by PO would be the weighted average of the two bonuses, not the sum. 10% Hero + 5% Pet = 8.5% total, not 15%.

Taking a 10% attack speed bonus would be a multiplier bonus on any other +dmg’s, rather than additive, so even if they are both “10%”, attack speed will have a bigger impact than a simple +dmg.

Seth.1308:

Prysin.8542:

Read the Wind will not be a direct damage buff. Sure you will, theoretically, do 10% more damage, however Predators Onslaught adds another 5% to pet (remember, that furball is like 30% of your DPS, so whatever bonuses you sink into the pet matters, a lot)… So while RtW is 10% total boost, PO is 15%….

And with the extreme ease of maintaining cripple through barrage, its a no-brainer why you should take PO in PvE atleast. In PvP, RtW all the way.

Theorycrafting ftl. Wish we could jump on a test server and blow up some golems.

Taking into account the pet is 30% of your damage, the actual damage bonus provided by PO would be the weighted average of the two bonuses, not the sum. 10% Hero + 5% Pet = 8.5% total, not 15%.

Taking a 10% attack speed bonus would be a multiplier bonus on any other +dmg’s, rather than additive, so even if they are both “10%”, attack speed will have a bigger impact than a simple +dmg.

Thank you for being correct with your math. You saved me some time.

Maybe something like this, replacing Signet of Beastmaster with Predator’s Onslaught.

The main benefit of P’O that I see is the +5% damage for pets. Build has the standard Frost/Spotter, plus Torch/Warhorn/Roar for might stacks. Pet should build up a nice stack of might on top of the +5%, and then Signet for another +25%. PvE obviously.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQRBHhx+1IjKlsWxirKctGIPQWXIQFudC5LbG/cysH-TxRGABA8EA2Z/hhU+lwJAosDCAgq/IlSQA-e

It is primarily a PvE dungeon trait. It is mutually exclusive with natures bounty or hunter tactics as you will take 2 of these 3. Steady aim is a given.

No one has mentioned the critical fact that “Read The Wind” only works on your longbow. " Predator’s Onslaught" works on both weapon sets. Not saying that it is better or worse, just saying you have to calculate the secondary weapon damage.

First off, it’s not a 15% total DPS increase, secondly we have other traits that give us X% damage increase if a criteria is met ie: steady focus and hunter’s tactics.

The reason it isn’t 15% total increase is because the pet and player share the damage. The pet is around 30% and the player is 70% ( lets just use those numbers for ease even if they aren’t 100% accurate)

30% = 0.3
0.3 × 0.05 = 0.015

70% = 0.7
0.7 × 0.1 = 0.07

0.07 + 0.015 = 0.085 = 8.5%

Therefore it’s only really an 8.5% TOTAL dps increase. So it’s actually less than what you thought, in turn strengthening your argument more. However, immob, chill, and cripple (especially) are very easy to apply when you play a ranger. If using the right pets and weapons/utilities it’s quite easy to maintain a near 100% uptime of those conditions.

I would like to see the following change made: If one of the three conditions is met then it’s 10% for player, 5% for pet.
If two conditions are met then its 15% for player and 10% for pet
If three, then 20% and 15% respectively. That way it adds a little bit more timing to it, you would want to save all your CC for one time to get maximum benefit.