Why bother with the blindness trait in a PvE build when you’re giving up on the new and improved Companion’s Might to do so? Something a guardian, thief or even ele can do just as well or better without messing with their build? Hell why even consider taking birds at all, cats will always be better against stationary targets, or drakes for bigger trash mobs?
Blind = Damage mitigation. Can you please show me any other class skill that can put up kitten AoE blind every 4.75s? I can’t find one. The 4.75s recharge on the Hawk F2 is the reason for taking it, that and it does the most DPS of all pets due to that low recharge. Remember too that you not only get Blind, but Weakness if the blind is used up immediately. It is a lot of damage mitigation, one of the main reasons Guards are brought along.
Having that much blind isn’t needed and even if it is, pistol offhand on thief can keep it up permanently. Gsword 3, traited f1 on guard can keep it up enough for the trash mob to be dead or almost dead by the time you need any other protection. And if a certain trash group is absolutely unmanageable without blind – glyph of storms on earth attunement can do the same for eles. Having weakness on an AoE f2 from a drake with the help of any of the aforementioned blinds from other professions seems like more than enough. For boss fights both of those conditions are weak anyway.
The greatest freedom is the freedom not to get involved.
Having that much blind isn’t needed and even if it is, pistol offhand on thief can keep it up permanently. Gsword 3, traited f1 on guard can keep it up enough for the trash mob to be dead or almost dead by the time you need any other protection. And if a certain trash group is absolutely unmanageable without blind – glyph of storms on earth attunement can do the same for eles. Having weakness on an AoE f2 from a drake with the help of any of the aforementioned blinds from other professions seems like more than enough. For boss fights both of those conditions are weak anyway.
I don’t get your point.
Is it that Ranger now brings to the table what multiple other classes can do combined, leaving more room for pure DPS? Because that is what I am thinking.
Thief wasn’t and won’t be losing out on a ton of DPS for using a single or even 2 blind fields during a trash fight, guardian isn’t losing anything at all, ele was losing vuln stacks from air attuned glyph, but those are plentiful anyway. Compared to losing free might on the pet, which will become even more important now that fortifying bond can’t be taken together with Companion’s might is a pretty big deal. Especially when you combine that with the fact that fury will be pretty much nonexistent on pets after the patch, making jaguars even bigger than they already are for single target damage and drakes still being the only real option for bigger groups, I just don’t see a single blind trait being a good enough reason to replace any of those two with an eagle/hawk.
The greatest freedom is the freedom not to get involved.
You know Hawk has the same stats as a Jaguar yeah? Also, the Hawk F2 does the most DPS of all pets. With BM and GFTE, the Hawk will have as much toughness as the Drake and take very little damage due to the blind and weakness.
The Ranger can lose out on some DPS so it can serve as the group toolbox, allowing the other characters to focus on pure DPS, since it can do all the other roles except might stacking which a PS war will take.
This is the possibility, whether or not people choose to play it is another story.
You know Hawk has the same stats as a Jaguar yeah? Also, the Hawk F2 does the most DPS of all pets. With BM and GFTE, the Hawk will have as much toughness as the Drake and take very little damage due to the blind and weakness.
The Ranger can lose out on some DPS so it can serve as the group toolbox, allowing the other characters to focus on pure DPS, since it can do all the other roles except might stacking which a PS war will take.
This is the possibility, whether or not people choose to play it is another story.
The birds use the swiftness skill which is a loss of dps, birds also don’t get a free crit chance increase which, as I mentioned earlier, is even more important now due to the lack of fury from fortifying bond. And any bleeds you get out of the F2 are hindered by the lack of bleeding and, to a lesser extent, lack of vuln that you lose from not taking Companion’s might and jaguar. In fact, taking an eagle might end up being competitive and closing out the gap on the jaguar only because of Companion’s might to help it out with the bleeds during the F2 CD.
So, to be most efficient in the upcoming “quickness swap” patch one would have to go double drakes for trash and trade them out for hawk/jaguar in boss battles. Traits would be companion’s might/wilting strike/zephyrs speed for both setups. As far as being the toolbox for trash fights, both thieves and guardians are already not sacrificing much to keep trash mobs permanently or almost permanently blinded, having a ranger help out if the group feels the need for it is ok but I’m not convinced it’s ever anything but overkill. Plus you’ll have your drakes to apply some weakness on top of their blinds while actually cleaving with their auto attacks and tail swipes unlike the bird or cat.
The greatest freedom is the freedom not to get involved.
Not sure about a Hawk/Jaguar setup on bosses. Even with might and companion’s might “bleed on crit” proc, it seems better to sub in a Lynx running double cats instead. At least with Rending Pounce it can used smartly to have it leap through a useful field like Ice or Water and there’s no DPS loss due to Quickening Screech.
Well I was thinking about that too, but the sheer amount of frequency you can use the hawk f2 might make it ok as that second pet. But anyways, I’ll bow down to math analysis once it’s out, I always just have general ideas and “feelings” on how things might go, if people actually good with math prove otherwise I won’t complain.
EDIT:
There’s also a thing that might make NM a strong/equal option – the new guardian elite shout, depending on the casting time of that and adding a slightly longer quickening zephyr due to the final minor in NM, might give similar uptime on quickness, and better boon distribution on the pet, making a single pet swapped only if it’s about to die a possible play style.
The greatest freedom is the freedom not to get involved.
