Guild Wars 2

With the upcoming change to Signet of Stone, I worry a bit about the viability of the Protect Me utility skill. This thread is to gauge what other ranger players think about the situation and see if maybe this is something that should be brought to ANet’s attention.

Protect Me:
- Instead of attacking, your pet will protect you by absorbing all damage you would take.
- 60 second cool down.
- Breaks stun.

Signet of Stone:
- Passive: Improves toughness [180 points at level 80] for you and your pet.
- Active: [You and] your pet take no damage from incoming attacks.
- 80 second cool down.

Do you other ranger players feel like the lower cool down and the stun break justifies the use of Protect Me over Signet of Stone? Or will it be outclassed and obsoleted once the changes roll through? I feel the stun break is nice, but I don’t quite think that it is worth it at the cost of nuking your pet (as well as preventing it from attacking) when you could just use Signet of Stone to protect both yourself and the pet while you’re both still attacking (and get a bunch of passive toughness to boot.)

What do you think? Could Protect Me use a buff to keep it viable? What kind of buff would you give it?

Personally I don’t think it’d have to be anything huge. Maybe granting retaliation to you and your pet so that it could be used offensively as well as defensively (and it also fits the theme of your pet protecting you.)

In current form, everyone will just equip SoS with -20% cd 2 point MM trait. Not even worth a discussion.

What would make “Protect Me!” a good option and cool to use ? Let your pet strike back the attacker and give it protection + unbreakable by CCing the pet (Shared Anguish…).

absorbing all conditions for duration could be an option….

I’ll continue to use Protect Me, because I find it’s more useful to have 3 stun breakers when you’re trying to bunker/support than just having 2….

Not to mention I’ve got a brown bear for the AoE condi removal and the projectile interception, so putting his beefyness to use is hardly something I’m not gonna do…

However if I ever run a glass build and want the invuln I’m not even going to consider protect me.

It’s hard to say.

“Protect Me”
Pros:
No animation.
Stunbreak.
Shorter CD.

Cons:
Sometimes shouted out.
Pet can die.
Can’t cap nodes.
Signet of Stone
Pros:
Pet is still useful.
Pet doesn’t die.
Can cap nodes.

Cons:
Not a stunbreak
Longer CD.
Obvious you have it and that it was used.

I will probably swap to Signet of Stone because I hate it when my pet dies. But giving up the stun break and providing more counter play for my enemy will be tough. So as full zerker 6/6/2 I am not sure what I will use. But on any condi build I play, Signet of Stone will probably be on my bar and “Protect Me” won’t even be considered.

Or pet not taking damage at all. The pet not attacking is a trade off in itself

Signet of Stone is 100% reliable. It will always give 6s of invulnerability. The passive toughness is just icing on the cake.

Protect Me is unreliable because the pet can die, but it has a shorter cooldown and it’s a stun breaker, which has it’s advantages.

Remember, you can always use both… giving anywhere between 6s to 12s of invulnerability.

Not gonna lie, I probably won’t use Protect Me ever again and stand behind my position that shouts need some serious reworking to be viable (a “Shout” build literally only uses shouts as trait proc fodder and being tricky with Sic’ Em here and there).

Not that they are bad, they just suffer from the same issues that Signets suffer from, meaning that ignoring 1 of the 4 of them, the other 3 effect the pet only, and out of those effects, only Sic’ Em is in a good place. And Signets are getting the love they need, so it should be shouts turns after that.

Anyhow, disregarding all of that for a moment, in a full glass build in WvW (or even PvP), I would run SoR, SoS, and Protect Me. However, I probably will run 6/0/6/2/0 in WvW on a power build, so I’m going to run LR, SoS, and SoR.

That’s at this point though, I’m thinking of theorycrafting up a tankier sort of build once I get a feel for the improved longbow so I can feel out a good balance of offense and defense and build accordingly.

RAIL GUN RANGER !!!

Yeah, once the patch hits, unless Protect Me is buffed, I’m dropping it for Signet of Stone. Lightning Reflexes and Signet of the Hunt/Signet of Renewal will continue to be my other 2 utilities.

I can’t even remember the last time I used Protect Me, if ever…

Shout’s in general need some love

Well it at least it seems that pretty much everyone is on the same page with this issue. Thanks for the feedback thus far.

How would you buff Protect Me so that it isn’t obsolete but also doesn’t over-shadow Signet of Stone?

The stun break is still going to make protect me useful, I imagine. Maybe they’ll add a blast finisher to all the shouts. If there was a trait that made pet damage go up as its health went down, that could make things interesting.

Sevans.4619:

Well it at least it seems that pretty much everyone is on the same page with this issue. Thanks for the feedback thus far.

How would you buff Protect Me so that it isn’t obsolete but also doesn’t over-shadow Signet of Stone?

As part of my suggested shouts revamp:

I’d have Protect Me become ground targeted. Description: “For the next 6 seconds, your pet becomes completely inactive and invulnerable, and absorbs 10% of the damage that would be taken by allies in the area (600 radius).”

So basically, if that’s unclear, you let your pet redirect 10% of any damage allies are taking in the area to itself.

Yeah, the problem is Protect Me (and ranger shouts in general) are really weak.

If I were designing it from scratch, I actually would’ve reversed Protect Me and Signet of Stone. I would’ve made the signet have a passive which automatically transfers 10%-20% of all damage you take to your pet (exact amount to be determined by play testing for balance). Active is a stun break. This helps counter the “ignore the pet in PvP” strategem which makes it tougher to balance PvP with PvE. Even if a PvPer ignores the pet, the pet is still helping you by tanking some damage. (The pet’s attacks are not helping since we’ve already established that ranger damage is reduced to compensate for the pet’s damage.)

The shout would be 6s of invulnerability, or 4s invulnerability + stun break to match the warrior Endure Pain, or 3s AOE invulnerability (ostensibly to also protect the pet, but other players can share if they’re in range).

I’d never even consider using Protect Me anyway, since I run a Beastmaster build and having my pet not attacking while also running a greater risk of dying is not worth it at all. Especially not compared to the Signet which would protect both me AND my pet and let us both attack as normal.

I’d ditch Protect Me altogether and make a new shout, personally. Its pretty counter-intuitive to the whole idea of a pet build as it is, and with the Signet changes its going to be pretty redundant on top of that (moreso than it already was). Sure, there are a few differences here and there, and Protect Me could get a buff to further differentiate it, but no matter what changes they make its always going to be somewhat redundant. I don’t see the need for 2 defensive invincibility-type abilities.

As for ideas of what to replace it with… perhaps some kind of battle cry that would instantly recharge all of your pet’s skills (F2 as well as the pets 2 auto-abilities), as well as being a Stun Break for both the Ranger and the pet. That would fit the role of a Shout, being pet-centric and giving you a little extra pet utility by proxy of the fact that pets tend to use their skills on-cooldown to some extent.

AdziH.2360:

absorbing all conditions for duration could be an option….

there’s a signet for that, might work well in combination with the shout.

Personally, I don’t feel like an entire shout redesign or skill replacement is the proper thing to aim for here. That’s not to say that I think that shouts don’t need a lot of help, but that’s not what this is about.

Protect Me is currently useful (at least, as a WvW roamer.) I am afraid its usefulness will be worn out once the Signet of Stone change rolls through. Now I know that most pleas for class balance fall on deaf ears, but maybe — just maybe — it’ll get noticed because it’s a case of a sort of skill redundancy. “Why pick Skill A when Skill B does the same function but better?”

I guess I am interested in seeing player solutions for making Protect Me a competitive skill when compared to the upcoming Signet of Stone. Small changes that will make it significant even with the existence of SoS without entirely changing its functionality.

On my tanky ranger build I use both and the signet that gives passive health regen plus its an extra stability. Sigil of purity and sigil of generosity + runes of water or grove.

I could see Protect Me! renamed into “Protect Us!”, working like “Shelter” ritualist ghost.

“Protect Us!”
Your pet stops attacking and starts to actively protect you and your allies (600 radius). Targets affected by this ability cannot lose more than 10% of their total health from a single attack. For every prevention, pet loses X health + 20% of orginal prevented damage

Also, make Pet&Player Toughness, Protection, Ice Armor, Barkskin etc. lower the damage your pet takes.

Voila!

PvE PVT BEARBOW META for hard-hitting mobs, with Bear being a safeguard for zerk eles.

Protect me will kill your pet very quickly in WvW and dungeon, so I don’t see why they’re comparable. Plus in WvW zerg fight your pet will be dead most of the time so I’ll pick SotS all day post update.

“Protect Us!”: Call to Nature for her to shield you.

15 sec cd, Instant Cast 600 radius
Your pet gains
Aegis (1sec), pulses on the pet 5 times.
Nearby allies gain
Swiftness (10sec)
Aegis (3sec, does not pulse)

Why:
Fits theme of “protecting.”
Gives all rangers an interesting party focused shout, regardless of spec.
Short CD + Insta-cast allows NM to have a USEFUL skill for nature’s voice (plus cast time on an Aegis skill would be kinda pointless).
Pet-only pulsing effect of Aegis gives the pet an “evade” for 1-shot bull$#!& dungeon mechanics and ZvZ crashes. The pulsing effect is there because presumably we need to use it right before we dodge ourselves without the aegis on the pet being consumed by some bosses auto attack.

I have always hated Protect Me and any other trait/skill that harms my pet. It’s terrible synergy and I wish they had put more thought into it when designing it. The pet is our core mechanic and yet we have tools to cripple ourselves with? Personally, I try to keep myself alive as hard as I try to keep my pet alive, anything that’s going to hurt my pet isn’t worth it IMO.
The stunbreak is certainly a great aspect to Protect Me but again, I don’t think it’s a good idea to actively cripple yourself.

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

I have always hated Protect Me and any other trait/skill that harms my pet. It’s terrible synergy and I wish they had put more thought into it when designing it. The pet is our core mechanic and yet we have tools to cripple ourselves with?

That in and of itself isn’t a problem. It’d be fine if the ranger + pet damage/tanking equaled the other classes, and skills which damaged the pet allowed you to exceed what other classes could do. That would make the pet mechanic unique and advantageous in those situations where that particular skill was useful.

Instead they balanced it so that the the ranger + pet damage/tanking was equal to other classes when you use skills which damage the pet. It’s like giving elementalists a condition cleanse skill which prevents them from changing attunements for 10-30 sec. Or mesmers an invulnerability skill which prevents them from making any new clones/illusions for 20 sec, 60 sec if the damage they would’ve taken exceeds a certain threshold. Generally the class core mechanics are so much more powerful that these skills would almost never be used. (Unless you gave elementalists almost no other condition cleanses, which was pretty much the case with ranger until this year.)

A skill should never take a class core mechanic down unless using the skill allows that class to do something no other class can do. Instead they were giving rangers skills which debilitated the core mechanic, but other classes got “for free.”

Hmm… What if Protect Me got reworked so that your pet sticks close to your side, effectively making it passive, but:

1. Grants you and all party members Protection for 10 seconds.

2. Grants you (and only you) a pulse of Aegis (2s) every 2 seconds for 6 seconds.

As with the current version of the skill, PM ends early if the pet dies, you swap pets or you order it to attack.

Know what I want? A shout which gives our pets fury.

For X seconds, half damage you recieve is redirected to your pet. Your pet gains 20 seconds of fury.

Dolt.2731:

Shout’s in general need some love

Like making them actual shout for something other than the Trooper Runes. They feel very similar to the elementalist cantrips that for the most part work like shouts (Guard being the odd shout with a cast time), but are not shouts.

Kain Francois.4328:

Know what I want? A shout which gives our pets fury.

For X seconds, half damage you recieve is redirected to your pet. Your pet gains 20 seconds of fury.

Why the kitten would you want fury on protect me? If ANYTHING give it retal or protection so that’d either 1) deal more damage to the enemy that’s attacking you (if you had retal too it’d double dip for each attack) or 2) lessen the damage the pet would take.

I was thinking Protect Me should give 6s of protection(boon) to both the Ranger and the pet.

• The skill would be useful when the pet is dead or on low health.
• The protection will also increase the chances of the pet surviving the duration of the skill.

But even then, I’m not sure it could compete with Signet of Stone, because the signet gives 100% damage reduction and protection only 33%. It’s also not going to get boon stripped. That said, using both Signet of Stone and Protect Me together could be great.

Another option would be that Protect Me:

• Instantly revives the pet
• Heals pet to 100% health
• Puts pet at Ranger’s side

Protect me should not kill the pet. The not attacking part should be more then enough of a penalty.

It will still be viable because it will potentially give you the longest invulnerability in the game when paired with SOS. Which imo makes it fine to be inferior to SOS, because you can use them together.

They should just change “Protect Me!” to a shout that gives an aoe protect buff ~10s in exchange for the pet not attacking for the duration with like 40s or so cooldown.

Gets rid of the double dip and provides solid team buffing that the ranger is sorely lacking.

Substance E.4852:

They should just change “Protect Me!” to a shout that gives an aoe protect buff ~10s in exchange for the pet not attacking for the duration with like 40s or so cooldown.

Gets rid of the double dip and provides solid team buffing that the ranger is sorely lacking.

And significantly nerfs the skill….

Durzlla.6295:

Substance E.4852:

They should just change “Protect Me!” to a shout that gives an aoe protect buff ~10s in exchange for the pet not attacking for the duration with like 40s or so cooldown.

Gets rid of the double dip and provides solid team buffing that the ranger is sorely lacking.

And significantly nerfs the skill….

Would it be a nerf? With NM and some protection focused runes, you could get it up to 16sec of protection. A little more if you’re willing to swallow the food. Plus at that point your dodges are giving you ~3 seconds of protection. Figure 2 dodges in that duration, now we’re up to 50% protection uptime. Throw in natures protection, thats another 8 seconds, for ~30secs of protection. Your protection runes probably proc protection too… Now we’re over 75% protection uptime and we havent even factored in shout mastery.

That’d be kitten, for us AND our groups. And there is enough boon strippers out there that it’d be fairly counterable.

Granted, the shout really needs to do more than just a single boon to make it worth while for people who don’t go down that rabbit hole. And I vehemently disagree with anything that forces my pet to stop attacking.

Raven.9603:

Durzlla.6295:

Substance E.4852:

They should just change “Protect Me!” to a shout that gives an aoe protect buff ~10s in exchange for the pet not attacking for the duration with like 40s or so cooldown.

Gets rid of the double dip and provides solid team buffing that the ranger is sorely lacking.

And significantly nerfs the skill….

Would it be a nerf? With NM and some protection focused runes, you could get it up to 16sec of protection. A little more if you’re willing to swallow the food. Plus at that point your dodges are giving you ~3 seconds of protection. Figure 2 dodges in that duration, now we’re up to 50% protection uptime. Throw in natures protection, thats another 8 seconds, for ~30secs of protection. Your protection runes probably proc protection too… Now we’re over 75% protection uptime and we havent even factored in shout mastery.

That’d be kitten, for us AND our groups. And there is enough boon strippers out there that it’d be fairly counterable.

Granted, the shout really needs to do more than just a single boon to make it worth while for people who don’t go down that rabbit hole. And I vehemently disagree with anything that forces my pet to stop attacking.

I’d like to see prot + another boon and it keep the stunbreaker status.

Durzlla.6295:

Substance E.4852:

They should just change “Protect Me!” to a shout that gives an aoe protect buff ~10s in exchange for the pet not attacking for the duration with like 40s or so cooldown.

Gets rid of the double dip and provides solid team buffing that the ranger is sorely lacking.

And significantly nerfs the skill….

It’s become redundant with the new SoS and we need team buffs. Just throwing out an idea to make us better in wvw where the pet’s more often then not dead anyway.

Maybe throw some stability in there as well for good measure.

“Protect Me” is great in combination with retaliation.
Sometimes when I use my shout build I take my murellow, use RaO, jump right in the enemy group, fire the F2 poison field, use “Protect Me” and Whirling defense. Before the pet dies I cleanse my conditions and pull myself out with the sword #2.

This woldn’t be as good with SoS. It works best right before a fight starts when the enemy is stacking might and the allies are pushing into enemy group in the moment you pull out safely.