Guild Wars 2

tld;dr: PvE ranger is, despite how it may have looked on the stream, in a great spot with the changes

Specialization with respect to PvE ranger
70% spirit effect baseline
Longbow speed and range baseline
Spirit passive/actives buffed?
Troll unguent

*Marksmanship: *

Adept:
Signet of the Wild when under 25%
Cripple under 50%
Blast finisher/buff when pet swapping in combat- on a 30 second cd

For PvE, the last trait is decent. The 30 second cooldown is really long, considering how often pets are swapped though. The blast finisher is okay as well.

Master
Signets grant might, next attack crits/5 vuln, recharge reduced 20%
Steady Focus
Moment of Clarity

Steady Focus is in this line, so we take that.

Grandmaster
Predator’s Onslaught
Refresh opening strike when you gain fury, OS deals 25% more damage
Attack Speed, Recharge Rate, piercing longbow

Predator’s Onslaught is still good.
New remorseless is… interesting. Good vulnerability stacking and the damage is nice. Needs math, but I believe unless you have a consistent outside fury source, it’s not as good as Onslaught.

Skirmishing
Adept
Bleed on Crit
stacking might under 50%
Create spike trap when reviving ally

None of these stand out. You’re going to be as close to full as possible to take advantage of scholar runes, so the stacking might doesn’t really have much use. Spike trap when reviving is pretty useless, since it’s a condi trap, and bleed is condi as well.

Suggestion would be something that gives fury to synergize with Remorseless.

Master
Gain vigor on evade
Spotter
Trap Trait.

Spotter! Yay.

Grandmaster
Quick Draw- 66% cooldown on weapon skill used after swap
Shortbow buff trait, 10% more damage when moving
Strider’s defense- 10% more sword damage, sword recharge

New Strider’s defense. Quick Draw might be tempting, but the sustained damage from sword beats it, especially if you’re running sword/axe/longbow. Camping longbow in melee range even after a double rapid fire isn’t good. There’s not much that sword/axe offers for quick draw either- double path of scars might seem good at first, but then you have to consider that it is also a CC- so it’s something you may want to save for the break bar. This is open to debate though. If you don’t use sword, quick draw is better.

Wilderness Survival
Bark skin as grandmaster baseline- take 50% less damage when above 90%
Adept
Fall Trait
Condi damage on torch/dagger, faster recharge
Pet condi up

Nothing stands out for power ranger- makes sense since this is the condi line.

Master
Oakheart salve- take 5% less damage while under regen, regen when condi’d
Peak Strength
Shared’ Anguish

Peak Strength is basically a bonus Scholar rune bonus. Very good to take.

Grandmaster
Emphatic bond
Wilderness Knowledge Survival stuff, condi clears.
Poison Master

Wilderness Knowledge would be the takeaway here- great synergy with troll unguent as a condi removal tool.

So what’s the build?
Wilderness Survival/Predator’s Onslaught (WildPred Ranger)
Marksmanship —-— 3/2/2
Gain a source of fury/might.
Skirmishing —-——— x/2/3
Gain +10% more sword damage, lose some pet damage.
Wilderness Survival x/2/2
Gain +10% damage , Condi clear/lower cd on Troll Unguent

Uses Sword/axe/longbow
Overall, despite my initial hesitation with some of the odd choices- (mostly the x traits in skirmishing/wilderness survival), PvE power Rangers do in fact come out pretty well on top with 2 new +10% damage bonuses, a tiny bit more team support, and some extra personal survivability. Looks good to me!

EDIT: Less obvious Beastmastery/Remorseless setup (BeastRem Ranger)
M 3/2/3
S x/2/3
B 1/2/2

Uses sword/horn/greatsword
Higher risk, and much harder to play, your focus would be to keep your pet alive and get as many opening strikes as possible. It may barely edge out the Wilderness Survival/Predator’s Onslaught build (WP Ranger), but that would really depend on the execution and situation. For example, if your pet dies, you lose out on damage for a long while. Dodging can mess up your rotation as well, but a very interesting build nonetheless.

EDIT 2: Beastmastery/Predator’s Onslaught BeastPred Ranger
M 3/2/2
S x/2/3
B 1/2/2

Uses sword/axe/greatsword

Plays like WP, except you swap your pet out all the time, and use greatsword instead of longbow. Very slightly higher dps with sword due to the quickness from Beastmastery, and a bit more pet dps, but you lose a lot of sustain, and if your pet dies, your dps drops hard.

Yup. PVE Rangers got a HUGE damage buff. The base traits will basically be:

Marksmanship: Beastmaster’s Bond, Steady Focus, and Predator’s Onslaught
Skirmishing: Sharpened Edges, Spotter, and Strider’s Defense
Wilderness Survival: Expertise Training, Peak Strength, and Wilderness Knowledge

Plus, Predator’s Onslaught got a minor buff, applying to targets dazed and stunned and the pet bonus damage is now merged with the Ranger’s at 10% instead of 5%. As you stated, with Bark Skin being reworked, it will help keep the bonus from Scholar Runes up more.

Strider’s defense also got a buff from a 20% chance to destroy projectiles with attacks to 50% chance. So, now we have added group support (even though it’s RNG) in projectile heavy fights besides Whirling Defense, as well as more damage while wielding a sword.

Yeah, the biggest thing we lose is sharing might with pets, although the damage buffs we get should make up for that- especially with the Onslaught +5% damage.

Indeed. The incoming buffs will help us keep doing damage for encounters (and future ones – I’m looking at you, Wyvern) where pets are almost guaranteed to die.

So we’re stuck with wilderness survival? I really didn’t want to take that trait line. Oh well…

Seeing how Nature Magic and Beastmastery was reworked, the benefits from the Wilderness traitline outweighs both of those, especially since Vigorous Spirits is now a base with Spirits, which was the main reason PVE Rangers even invested points into it.

Fortifying Bond still won’t share Stability, but now shares Quickness, which will become a boon when the update hits. So, sharing boons with your pet is a minor loss vs doing more damage and taking less damage while above 90% health on top of extra condition cleanse, fury, and reduced survival cooldowns since typical PVE Rangers take Quickening Zephyr.

However, a Ranger could also specialize into Beastmastery instead Wildness Survival and take the base traits of:

Companion’s Might, Wilting Strike, and Zephyr’s Speed.

With minor trait adjustments such as the Master Minor which reduces pet swap, skills, and pet F2 by 20% across the board, it will pair nicely with Wilting Strike which makes the pet F2 weaken targets that can help with difficult encounters and couples nicely with other pet F2 abilities.

Zephyr’s Speed has been merged with Mighty Swap for an added boost and has synergy with Beastmaster’s Bond in Marksmanship. Pet Prowess has been merged with Agility Training and made a Grandmaster Minor Trait. So, there appears to be an alternative.

Is there any chance the Call of the Wild cast with the Beastmaster’s Bond trait would benefit from the Wildborne Notes trait(-20% warhorn cooldown), since technically it’s a warhorn skill? Seems like that would have nice synergy for PvE…although Peak Strength+Bark Skin sounds pretty sweet as well.

I don’t think we can swap out of Wilderness Survival- the 20% bonus as well as essentially 50% more uptime on scholare runes is way too valuable. If you did try for Beastmastery for pet traits, the math for the returns from that is a lot weirder and depends on the encounter, but I don’t think it’ll beat or come close to Wilderness.

They did mention Call of The Wild from the bond trait would be affected by that trait- but there’s nature magic doesn’t have THAT many nice traits. You could try Bountiful Hunter and Windborne Notes, and that would be about what, 5% on average and you’d be buffed for longer… Maybe for pug groups? But even then, it is REALLY hard to beat Wilderness Survival. :P

I was a bit disappointed at first with Greatsword. It got shoved into Beastmastery tree and I don’t enjoy the sword so I wanted to stay GS.

However then I noticed it might not be so bad. Sword got another 10% damage buff which makes it look like they’re going to be just THAT much further ahead.

However, GS trait (besides now getting 20% recharge built into it) still does the Fury upkeep, this can go pretty well with Remorseless to keep a steady stream of Opening Strikes. Steady stream of Vuln if the group cant do it plus 25% damage on your next abilities. Problem, is it will USUALLY get wasted in an auto attack but more mauls is nice too.

I’m hopeful the damage disparity doesn’t get worse.

The problem with the GS fury trait is that it currently has a 10 second cooldown- however, beastmaster has a lot of other things like quickness and pet buffing that could give wilderness survival a run for its money.

With Remorseless and warhon, you have quite a few ways to apply fury, but in order to take advantage of Remorseless, the rotations would be insane. You’d basically be using Opening Strike just to buff your autoattacks. or Maul when you switch to greatsword. Perhaps if you switched to a fury generating rune instead of scholar that would help too.

You would really have to play around your opening strikes and try to make the most of them. You’d want them on Maul as much as possible, but if not on maul you’d want them on sword auto. And the quickness management from beastmastery would be nuts to add in as well.

And if you’re constantly swapping your pet on cooldown, even with all the buffs it’s getting, you’re going to lose some damage there.

You’d lose quite a bit of durability too though, although so far in PvE that hasn’t been an issue.

Also, If your pet dies, you’d lose out on damage from quickness and fury.

Yeah, I’d say Ranger (with the current specs) has 2 viable builds. Very interesting.

Ltomato.8649:

I don’t think we can swap out of Wilderness Survival- the 20% bonus as well as essentially 50% more uptime on scholare runes is way too valuable. If you did try for Beastmastery for pet traits, the math for the returns from that is a lot weirder and depends on the encounter, but I don’t think it’ll beat or come close to Wilderness.

Hmm, my napkin-math says the opposite might be true but I think we a) need final traits and b) proper math to get to a final decision.

Still, taking WS for a flat 10% dps boost and 6/48 quickness uptime, 6/48 fury uptime compared to beastmastery for 4/16 quickness uptime (25%!!!!) on you and pet, might on pets on crit, might on pets on swap, stronger pets, stronger pet crits, I think BM might come out on top.

25% uptime on quickness = 12.5% dps, which is about equal what you get from the whole of WS on its own, before you add everything else BM brings.

You can’t count troll unguent in the fury uptime calculations because unlike a mesmer’s signet we need it even if we evade every hit coming our way – even with all the runes and flat damage bonuses out there the pet is still a good chunk of our dps. (I wonder if traited TU cleanses condis on pet and gives them fury? that would be neat)

Possibly BM will be better in fractals and long fights where having living pets past the second swap matters, and WS for everything else.

Also, I wonder, now that we can take sword trait, PO and GS trait, if doing a sword/axe-greatsword rotation will not work out better than current meta sword/axe-lb with no rotation.

Since daze/stun now triggers Predator’s Onslaught, you have 2 skills in GS to trigger it on the 2 Mauls you can get off during a swap – hilt bash is 20sec traited.

You wouldn’t want to stay there any longer, but 2 PO-boosted mauls with the vuln upkeep might work out better, together with the 8/10 combined fury uptime on GS from Skirm and GS trait, plus the 5 seconds of fury when you swap back to sword.

On the one hand, we don’t have to lose on power/precision/ferocity to get traited GS, and on the other, sword is now even further away DPS wise, but being able to keep a fairly solid amount of vuln all the way through the fight might work out as better team-wide DPS.

I’ll leave those maths to the wizards who can do them as they’re frankly a bit beyond me.

My main concern is Beastmaster’s Bond. As it stands, the cooldown on Call of the Wild when you swap pets is affected with Windborne Notes (Nature Magic), but will it be affected by reduced pet swap cooldown – for those that would specialize into both Marksmanship and Beastmastery?

This can present a problem where pet swapping is 16 second cooldown but the trait proc is left at 30 seconds.

Wondrouswall, they mentioned on stream that the cooldown from Windborne would affect the cooldown of bond- that’s why they made it the warhorn skill. For synergy!
The problem with dropping Skirmishing for Nature Magic is that you lose Spotter and 10% damage on sword for 6 seconds off fury upkeep, which other classes can do as well.

Regarding beastmastery though, incoming mess!
Well, WS gives +10% as well as a bit less than 50% more uptime on scholar runes, depending on the encounter due to Bark Skin.

So quickness doesn’t outweigh WS so easily.

You’d also have to take Remorseless over PO I believe, so you lose that 10% in exchange for 25% bursts.

The next thing you have to look at is the potential rotation.

If you start with Greatsword, you Maul for 30% damage, then swap to sword, hit for 35% , swap pets, quickness hit for 35%, then warhorn, hit for 35%…. then hit for 24% until quickness runs out, weapon swap, where you Maul for 30%, and have to greatsword auto, maybe getting another 35% maul if you get lucky with RNG.

You also get more vulnerability from Remorseless, which I didn’t add in, since I’m assuming that vuln is being added by most members of the party.

And quickness damage doesn’t really stack directly with Remorseless damage since Remorseless damage is static and only activates under a condition- after a certain initial burst, it will fall off.

If you stay in greatsword, you lose out on damage from sword.

IF you take PO over Remorseless, and focus on quickness, you get about 22.5% overall with sword, plus pet stuff, except when you use greatsword, you deal 27.5% ish to a single target and 15% to others. Greatsword auto attack is nothing to write home about either so that’s kinda meh.
You’re also very dependent on your pet being alive, which can be a problem in longer fights.

BeastRem Ranger advantage would be initial burst over WildPred Ranger it seems, but WP ranger will likely win out on the sustained fights in dps with super Troll Unguents and Bark Skin maintaining Scholar and the +10%.

My main issue with BeastPred as opposed to BeastRem would be that it would be more difficult to get 100% uptime on PO because of greatsword- sure you’d have a good single target burst, but then you’d be stuck in sword doing less damage than WildPred… unless you add quickness in which case it’s about even… Peak Strength also affects the pet though, so that’s 10% more pet damage as well for wildpred… but the quickness affects the pet… but you have to swap the pet off cd which is downtime.

In my mind that’s really really close. like, 2% damage or so one way or the other. I’d rather just play the old style with WildPred, personally if it really is that close.

PS my math is REALLY REALLY BAD

BeastPred Sword: ~52.5%
scholar 10%
strider 10%
pred 10%
steady 10%
quick 12.5%

BeastRem Sword: ~42.5% + burst
quick 12.5%
scholar 10%
steady 10%
strider 10%
rem ?

WildPred Sword: ~50%
steady 10%
peak 10%
strider 10%
scholar 10%
pred 10%

So it looks like BeastPred barely wins overall- but BeastRem has a bigger initial burst, and WildPred is easier to sustain than BeastPred.

That’s fair enough I guess.

I run ranger runes because while I have no major issues staying alive in Fractals/Arah, keeping the 90% going is a chore for what works out as a decimal-percentage-point dps increase with a realistic ‘getting hit by stuff’ ratio.

My main beef is keeping the pet alive, and being able to swap them more often + having them be stronger will be a large QoL improvement.

Yeah, I think it’s a fair trade off for each way, until at least, the super pro theorycrafters point out that well, actually this one has x% more base damage because of math.

I don’t usually have trouble keeping my pet alive except in a few cases where it is impossible, but I also dislike constantly swapping off cooldown, ykno?

I think with Strider’s being part of the main build, and with Wilderness Survival’s buff to Troll Unguent, it’s going to be way easier to maintain scholar’s. You simply have more evades, dodges, and health. Troll Unguent goes down to 5 second downtime, sword dodge cooldown decreases, plus you get more vigor along with the 25% bonus end regen to maintain steady focus longer. WildPred might not end up being the highest DPS, but I really like that playstyle a lot- it’s basically current ranger.

Wondrouswall.7169:

then it’s a 24 second Pet Swap

Pet swapping has a base recharge of 20 seconds, and is 16 when traited.

Taverius.8645:

Wondrouswall.7169:

then it’s a 24 second Pet Swap

Pet swapping has a base recharge of 20 seconds, and is 16 when traited.

Thanks for the clarification. Sad since I play ranger and thought it was 30 base LOL kitten …

Greatsword is a nonstarter unless you’re fighting especially dangerous mobs to melee like Archdiviner or Mossman.

The fury on the trait is useless, in any organized group between the ele and warrior you’ll have permanent fury.

I don’t understand why they just didn’t erase that trait and made Strider’s Defense affect both the sword and greatsword.

My real problem is losing boon sharing with the pet. It should be baseline not tied to nature magic. That trait is essential for extending aegis and protection so you can run double jaguars on fractals and make their upkeep in melee much better.

Also we’re still stuck with some truly horrendous minor traits. Opening Strikes is still bad for PvE rangers since they’ll never sacrifice Onslaught for Remorseless. Quickness to pet when we are downed, what kind of crap is that.

Meanwhile our endurance regen stays at 25% (which does not stack with vigor) while thieves just received vigor procs on evasion and 20% extra endurance regen from vigor.

Zenith.7301:

My real problem is losing boon sharing with the pet. It should be baseline not tied to nature magic. That trait is essential for extending aegis and protection so you can run double jaguars on fractals and make their upkeep in melee much better.

Wouldn’t taking Bark Skin or Natural Healing solve the same problem?

Well, I agree with you, Zenith on some of the minor traits. I thought for sure Opening Strike and Alpha Training minors would see a merge, same for Tail Wind and Furious Grip. Instinctual Bond is crap for a minor trait, but I believe Fortifying Bond should be moved to Beastmastery, as it makes the most sense there.

I do agree, Fortifying Bond should be a base mechanic for the Ranger. I’m just baffled that stability is still not shared.

Zenith.7301:

My real problem is losing boon sharing with the pet. It should be baseline not tied to nature magic. That trait is essential for extending aegis and protection so you can run double jaguars on fractals and make their upkeep in melee much better.

This is also the only concern I have with the new build. Keeping up high might stacks on the pet probably won’t be an issue due to might on crit/might on swap/quickness on swap being in the same line now, but pets will pretty much never have fury, protection or aegis without fortifying bond.

There’s the possibility of going into nature magic instead of beastmastery, but losing out on the swap quickness and might on crit is a pretty big deal (or alternatively losing out on peak strength from survival). Bountiful hunter would be a permanent 4-6% damage boost for you and the pet, which might help mitigate things, but does having fury/prot/aegis on the pet really warrant losing out on the new beastmastery goodness?

Overall having fortifying bond as baseline or as the first minor in beastmastery would’ve made more sense in general.

Even with Fortifying Bond, the uptime of fury is far too small. I agree, it needs to be swapped with Instinctual Bond, that makes so much more sense.

I agree with Zenith about the minors. There are just… depressingly bad to me.

I won’t be running a BM line in my build until HoT drops and I see that the AI is actually better. There’s too much good in WS line for me since I run scholar runes.

I agree with you guys about fortifying bond- Because of the boon effect cap of 5, fortifying bond is just so powerful.

However, with the damage from Survival and the quickness from Beastmastery, I’m pretty sure those will always be more beneficial than Nature Magic, since we no longer have to go in there for Spirit procs. Perhaps if you REALLY needed the 50% weakness uptime from Protective Ward, you could, but you do miss out on more than you gain now by going into nature magic.

Yeah, if they moved Primal Reflexes (Vigor on evade) to adept, that would work so much better- Nothing can compete with spotter for PvE, and none of the Adept Skirmishing traits are of any use in PvE either.

You’re really dependent on control from outside sources to help you and your pet stay alive if you go beastmastery, less so with surivival, since you have more sustain/protection, etc. And when the breakbar changes go through, that might be a problem.

Well it would help if shared anguish got the hard to catch treatment.

I mean, come on. Thief gets instant stunbreak+ full endurance bar from being CC’d every 30 seconds, but we rangers get a 60 sec cd that transfers cc onto the pet, hampering our utility or damage.

Same goes for empathetic bond, other classes just get their condition clears without killing their own class mechanics.

Make shared anguish just allow the pet to block an incoming CC without it being cc’d and give the ranger protection boon with a 30 sec cd.

That’s true, Zenith, but neither of those traits are tempting for PvE regardless, since in PvE, there’s more of a priority for offense as opposed to defense.

Yeah, I was just commenting on the part about outside control and sustain capabilities, there is no doubt right now that the meta build will not include nature magic.

You’ll stack as many damage modifier traits as you can, so it’s still marksman ship and skirmishing with a choice of either wilderness survival or BM both of which have mixed choices (good pickings packaged with mediocre/terrible ones).

Just a pity that they further widened the gulf between sword and GS damage by not merging the trait for both of them and only giving the sword an actual damage boost.

I also have to comment that on the topic of pet switching for the warhorn trait, the last thing you want to do if your pet could gain might stacks is to switch it out for another pet.

I also think Call of the Wild should have always given 3 stacks of might instead of just 1.

What my build will looks like for dungeons:

Marksmanship:
Opening Strike
Alpha Training
Precise Strike

Beastmaster’s Bond + Steady Focus + Remorseless

Skirmishing:
Tail Wind
Furious Grip
Hunter’s Tactics

Sharpened Edges + Spotter + Quick Draw

Beastmaster:
Instinctual Bond
Loud Whistle
Pet’s Prowess

Companion’s Might + Two-Handed Training + Zephyr’s Speed

Use with GS/GS. Every 2 hits you gain fury which trigger Remorseless and gives you Opening Strike (+25% damage on next hit, 100% crit and inflicts 5 vuln). Swap Weapons for Fury + Swiftness + Sigil and to trigger Quick Draw, Maul just after that to get a 66% CD reduction for the next Maul. Swap pet for Haste + Blast finisher + Might/Fury/Swiftness.

The fun part is that you technically don’t need Precision since it’s wasted every 2 hits, but as far as I know there’s no armor with Power/Ferocity/Condi and I’m not sure the bleeding from Sharpened Edges could outdamage a normal crit with 80%+ chance (Fury is always up and you have Spotter).

It could outdamage a sword build (provided you always use high damage skills with Opening Strike), sadly the numbers are prone to change and with the madness Remorseless + Quick Draw will bring to PvP (Double boosted Mauls) it will probably be nerfed (either Quick Draw CD reduction lowered, Remorseless having an ICD or TH Training’s Fury chance reduced or changed to something else like Might).

The problem with your build is that the fury trigger on greatsword has a 10 second cooldown. Not only that, but you give up 2 +10% damage boosts for sword for a +25% on a long cooldown, and +5% damage on a weaker weapon.

So yeah, that 10 second cooldown on fury from greatsword is pretty limiting.
If you look at the considerations, I do outline this build, although we take sword and strider’s defense instead of Quick Draw. You end up with a really good burst, but you fall off in sustained damage.

It’s certainly viable though. There are just those issues coming from not really gaining that much from Remorselss due to fury cooldowns. And if you run Quick Draw, you fall off REALLY hard after your initial burst.

This is the build I’ll be running for Fractals 1-50 and Dungeons:

Normal Utilities will be:
*TU or HS depending on fight
*QZ
*SotW
*Changes depending on fight
*RaO (will use Entangle for Grawl Fractal otherwise will stay on RaO)

1st Weapon Set:
*Sword+Axe or Sword+WH

2nd Weapon Set:
*LB or GS

Assuming QZ and SotW don’t change substantially I’ll still be running those on my bar pretty much all the time.

#Marksman
*Call of the Wild
*Steady Focus
*Predators Onslaught

Call of the Wild fer da boons. Steady Focus & Predators Onslaught for the obvious damage increase.

#Skrimishing
*Spike Trap or Sharpened Edges
*Spotter
*Strider’s Defense

Spike Trap for the cripple to activate Predators Onslaught (and the other two suck for melee) but after HoT drops I might switch over to Sharpened Edges. Spotter because duh. Strider’s Defense because sword 111111111111.

#Wilderness Survival
*Muddy Terrain
or
*Expertise Training
*Peak Strength
*Poison Master
or
*Empethic Bond

In Wilderness Surivial all the adept traits suck equally. I guess I’ll take Expertise Training most of the time as I can’t see when I’ll be running torch or dagger. Peak Strength for obvious damage modifier that plays nicely with Scholar Runes and Bark Skin. I’ll be running Empathetic Bond if I need extra condi removal or Poison Master if no one else is throwing down poison or if I need neither EB or PM, I’ll be running WS.

#Beast Mastery
*Resounding Timbre
*Two Handed Training
or
*Natural Healing
*Zephy’s Speed

Of course I’ll be testing out the Beast Mastery line once HoT drops since they say they’re improving the AI so much.. so… Resounding Timbre > Companion’s Might. Reducing the CD on RaO is worth it. If I’m running Sword+X I’ll be using Natural Healing, but I’m I’m running GS I’ll be using 2h Training… And Zephyr’s Speed is far-and-away better than the other two terribad GM traits in this line (although I still think ZS shouldn’t have been put in GM — that was just a grossly bad decision). All that being said I doubt I’ll run the BM line before HoT drops.

I play melee most of the time, either sword or GS. I use LB to open up the fight but after that it’s all melee if I can help it so I want to pick traits that are going to help in that regard. I’ll be running zerker gears so… I change my traits a lot according to the situation I’m going into so my build is never set in stone.

I’m really hoping they halve the durations and recharge on RaO for HoT too, that would be fantastic.

I like your analysis gman- I’m curious why you decided not to take frost spirit as default vs quickening zephyr?

They have confirmed that spirits are getting buffed, so that’s pretty good still.

That’s a very good point that RaO is becoming a shout, so it’ll work with the shout cd trait. Down to 96 seconds…

But without fortifying bond from nature magic, RaO is a bit weaker. Still worth using though.

I’d also suggest Wilderness Knowledge grandmaster in Wilderness Survival- Troll Unguent will only have 5 second downtime with the change to being a survival skill, as well as removing condis and giving fury. This will help with maintaining peak strength and scholar rune bonus. Like, that thing should be on autocast now.

That’s also a good point about swapping for poison application- with strider’s lowering sword cooldowns, you’ll be able to poison a lot more, but the extra poison doesn’t hurt, especially since poison is going to stack intensity vs duration it seems.

Not sure about Empathic bond though. Every ten seconds isn’t particularly reliable, and it’s usually easier to just slot in Signet of Renewal or Healing Spring if you know you’re going to be in a condi intense fight. Troll Unguent + WK will also remove a couple condis too on a longer cooldown sure, but Troll Unguent is also likely to outheal most damaging conditions.

Ltomato.8649:

I like your analysis gman- I’m curious why you decided not to take frost spirit as default vs quickening zephyr?

They have confirmed that spirits are getting buffed, so that’s pretty good still.

It depends on the fight and the team I’m with. If I know that some of my team members are going to be going down more than they should I’ll take QZ over FS to get them up faster. A lot of places in Fractals the FS just doesn’t live long enough to be worth while for that RNG bonus. I’d be much more willing to take it if it wasn’t a effing RNG 75% but a guaranteed 100%. QZ is going to work 100%.

Ltomato.8649:

That’s a very good point that RaO is becoming a shout, so it’ll work with the shout cd trait. Down to 96 seconds…

But without fortifying bond from nature magic, RaO is a bit weaker. Still worth using though.

RaO, in my opinion, is still going to be the best elite we have for 99.99% of the situations in the game. Grawl Shaman at the end is the only time I run Entangle (or anything other than RaO). So even without Fortifying Bond I’m still going to use it.

Ltomato.8649:

I’d also suggest Wilderness Knowledge grandmaster in Wilderness Survival- Troll Unguent will only have 5 second downtime with the change to being a survival skill, as well as removing condis and giving fury. This will help with maintaining peak strength and scholar rune bonus. Like, that thing should be on autocast now.

That’s also a good point about swapping for poison application- with strider’s lowering sword cooldowns, you’ll be able to poison a lot more, but the extra poison doesn’t hurt, especially since poison is going to stack intensity vs duration it seems.

Not sure about Empathic bond though. Every ten seconds isn’t particularly reliable, and it’s usually easier to just slot in Signet of Renewal or Healing Spring if you know you’re going to be in a condi intense fight. Troll Unguent + WK will also remove a couple condis too on a longer cooldown sure, but Troll Unguent is also likely to outheal most damaging conditions.

It’ll depend on the situation/team composition. For PuG groups in a condi heavy environment I’ll know after a day or two which I’ll be more comfortable with. TU+WK+SoR or HS+SoR+EB is what I intend to try out for melee on Mai Trin. Right now what I do is SoR+HS when condis are incoming. How that Mai Trin melee turns out will tell me which will be the better for most situations as in Fractals I can’t think of another spot (besides Aetherblade Fractal, maybe?) off the top of my head where conditions get laid down by NPCs so much.

I know that once this poison change comes into a effect I’ll stop running 38s and just run 40s because people can’t help themselves when it comes to putting down poison.

You know, Frost Spirit’s effect lasts for a few seconds even after the spirit itself dies- as well as providing that damage bonus to all party members. If you don’t use the active skill, the cooldown is also only 20 seconds when it dies- you can force spirits to die by swapping skills out of combat.

I personally wouldn’t use QZ as a revive tool in Fractals because, especially at say, 50, reviving is extremely dangerous. Since QZ lowers your healing to yourself, it makes it even more so. If your group has that sot of trouble, it’s usually worth bringing nature spirit instead, in my opinion.

A place where condis get laid down would be the first boss of SE p3- the dude who applies a ton of bleed. Usually Healing Spring is enough for that though, since it pulses regen/condi clear for everyone, while SoR is a one time all clear. I like SoR for places where condis get applied periodically, such as Grawl Shaman boss’s burning.

SoW/QZ combo is definitely riskier in pugs that say, Lightning Reflexes/SoR, yeah.

Ltomato.8649:

The problem with your build is that the fury trigger on greatsword has a 10 second cooldown. Not only that, but you give up 2 +10% damage boosts for sword for a +25% on a long cooldown, and +5% damage on a weaker weapon.

So yeah, that 10 second cooldown on fury from greatsword is pretty limiting.
If you look at the considerations, I do outline this build, although we take sword and strider’s defense instead of Quick Draw. You end up with a really good burst, but you fall off in sustained damage.

It’s certainly viable though. There are just those issues coming from not really gaining that much from Remorselss due to fury cooldowns. And if you run Quick Draw, you fall off REALLY hard after your initial burst.

You’re right, I didn’t see the 10s recharge, it might still be viable depending on the team, pets and what runes you’re using but there’s too much “if”. Might still be fun in the hand of skilled players in PvP/WvW.
So we’re stuck with Sword’s clunkiness for PvE…

Ltomato.8649:

You know, Frost Spirit’s effect lasts for a few seconds even after the spirit itself dies- as well as providing that damage bonus to all party members. If you don’t use the active skill, the cooldown is also only 20 seconds when it dies- you can force spirits to die by swapping skills out of combat.

I personally wouldn’t use QZ as a revive tool in Fractals because, especially at say, 50, reviving is extremely dangerous. Since QZ lowers your healing to yourself, it makes it even more so. If your group has that sot of trouble, it’s usually worth bringing nature spirit instead, in my opinion.

A place where condis get laid down would be the first boss of SE p3- the dude who applies a ton of bleed. Usually Healing Spring is enough for that though, since it pulses regen/condi clear for everyone, while SoR is a one time all clear. I like SoR for places where condis get applied periodically, such as Grawl Shaman boss’s burning.

SoW/QZ combo is definitely riskier in pugs that say, Lightning Reflexes/SoR, yeah.

Well, yeah, generally in 50s I don’t have to worry about reviving the downed. I’m referring to lower tiers, especially the 1st reward tier. In the higher ups I use QZ for bursting during SotW. It’s a nice chunk of DPS w/sword + cat.

I don’t mind putting down FS in certain spots but I don’t use it all the time. If I know it can stay alive longer than a few seconds then I’ll use it, but if there’s no way to get around AOE’s I don’t even bother… and even that lingering RNG chance.. Man, I hate RNG bonuses like that. I would love it if it was 100% and it would see a lot more time on my bar.

Speaking of Spirits, I’m kind of worried about them. They made the passive RNG effect baseline and buffed it by 5%, but there was no mention that their 100% health bonus from Vigorous Spirits was also a part of the baseline. I would probably stop using Frost Spirit if we only had the 75% chance for the bonus but their HP was static at 7,415.