Guild Wars 2

all changes below. traps and spirits are subject to most changes in the near future. i added my suggestions in brackets below, please add yours. please keep feedback focused. Let me know if i missed anything.

General:

1. Troll Unguent is now a survival skill.
(incredible. meaning we now get fury, condi removal, and CD reduction?!?)

2. HaO and Rampage are now shouts.
(they are pushing for a shout line. may be good only if all other shouts are buffed greatly, otherwise HaO and Rampage will remain the best shouts; RaO will synergize with beastmastery which makes sense)

3. Traps now have 0.5s arming time; all trap traits are now one master trait.
(absolutely not enough. traps need additional utility to make them useful, e.g. built in stun breakers, boons, stealth, etc. that is the problem with traps – no utility, no survivability)

4. Spirits reworked to be area denial skills, no longer move with ranger.
(very cool, especially with upcoming buffs to their passives, actives, and CD)

6. not sure where Healing Spring will go (joking about making it a trap)
(remove the spirit heal, make HS a spirit. solved.)

Marksmanship

Adept:

- Call of Wild cast when swapping pets: fury, might and swiftness + blast finisher; affected by WH traiting like +regen
(great strides toward making WH viable. love the double blast finish. my suggestion is to remove the might stack and make CoW remove 1 condi off allies. Hunter’s Call still needs fixing, either more damage, aoe effect, or additional utility like blind, cripple, etc.)

Master:

- Beastmaster’s Might – activating a signet refreshes opening strike and grants 3 might stacks to pet and ranger; -20% signet CD’s
- MoC is now master

Grandmaster

- Predator’s Onslaught: +10% dmg from pet and ranger against dazed and stunned opponents in addition to crippled, chilled and immob’d
(most of the time, the target wont be chilled, dazed, crippled, stunned, or immob’d; this is mostly due to the many cleanses that exist in game. therefore, when these condis are applied by ranger and pet, damage bonus needs to be greater; 10 —> 15-20 should do it to make the grandmaster competitive in pvp)

- Remorseless: opening strikes now deal +25% damage and is refreshed every time we gain fury (no ICD currently)

- RTW —> Lead the Wind (LTW) – same as RTW in addition to piercing arrows and -20% LB CD’s

Skirmishing

Adept:

- Sharpened Edges applies to ranger and pet
- Most Dangerous Game: when below 50% health, rangers gains +3 might (6s) every 3s, will be become grandmaster likely

(MDG could be a beautiful trait that encourages evasion, mobility, and adds excitement. unfortunately, it’s crippled by the short might duration and lack of utility. either add some utility to it, or buff the might stacking aspect of it. double the might duration to allow ranger to stack at least 9 might, then move it to grandmaster)

Master:

- Primal Reflexes: gain 5s vigor (10s CD) when successfully evading an attack
(when successfully evading an attack now means seeing the “evade” word on the screen)

- Trapper’s Expertise: all trap traits in one (will be moved to adept)
(as mentioned above, traps need utility. either for the ranger, or the group. also they shouldnt be dodgeable i.e. wasted by someone dodge rolling over them)

Grandmaster

- Quickdraw: when swapping weapons, next weapon skill used recharges 66% faster
(i love it. leave it, let us play with it. we need more game-changing skill like this one.)

- Light On Your Feet: +10% SB damage, 20% SB CD reduction, +10% condi duration; SB arrows pierce (may be moved to master)
(i’ve been wanting to love the SB since release; this would be decent if SB received a baseline buff; well with poison stacking in intensity, #2 might be a cool condi burst)

- Strider’s Defense: 20% sword skill recharge, 50% chance to destroy projectile while executing melee attack, +10% damage with sword
(without sword skill reworks, kind of useless; 1-1-1’ing with the sword is suicide, not because of projectiles, but because we get popped by other melee that do so much more damage in addition to bringing a lot of utility)

Wilderness Survival

- Bark Skin: now minor; ranger and pet take 50% less damage while above 90% HP

Adept:

- Ambidexterity: +150 condi damage while holding dagger or torch; -20% torch and dagger CD’s
- expertise Training: pets gain +250 condi damage and +20% condi duration

Master

- Oakheart Salve: -5% damage taken while regenning; regen when burning, poisoned or bleeding
- Peak Strength: pet and ranger deal +10% if health is above 90%

Grandmaster

- SotF + Sharpening stone proc when target gets below 75% now combined
- Poison Master: same as now, but poison as a general condition will stack increasing damage (not -healing)

Nature Magic

- grandmaster minor Lingering Magic boons applied by ranger and pet last longer; +20% and +50% respectively

Adept:

- bountiful Hunter: ranger and pet deal +1% damage per boon on them
- Nature’s Wrath: pet gains extra stats, ranger gains 10% healing converted to power
- Healer’s Celerity: now adds swiftness (no one will slot this)

Master

- Evasive Purity: now removes cripple as well (love it, leave it)
- Vigorous Training: same as before (applies to allies too) just moved to this tree now
- Windborne Notes: Call of the Wild now grants regen too, -20% WH CD’s.

Grandmaster

- Nature’s Vengeance: activated skills of spirits are larger and trigger when spirit is killed; spirits no longer move with ranger, period. 70% trigger chance is baseline; CD’s, passive and actives will get buffed

- Protective Ward: when ranger receives damage, nearby foes are weakened and pet gains 8s protection (12s ICD)

- Invigorating bond: no change (might be usable now if we grab Beastly Warden, making pet F2 an incredible game-changer)

Beastmastery

- master minor: Loud Whistle: F2 and swap recharge 20% faster
- grandmaster minor: +450 pet ferocity +30% pet speed

Adept:

- Resounding Timbre: shouts apply regen and swiftness to allies; reduces shout recharge

Master:

- Wilting Strike: pet F2’s cause weakness (occurs only once per target, unclear)
- Two-Handed Training: fury on hit 50% chance, -20% GS CD’s, +5% GS damage
- Natural Healing: pet gains regen and healing power

Grandmaster

- Beastly Warden: pet gets AOE taunt on F2 use, 15s CD; radius unknown
- Zephyr’s speed: now pet and ranger get quickness and 3 stacks of might
- Honed Axes: +150 ferocity, -20% axe CD, Winter’s Bite becomes aoe if axe is in MH

Changes all seem to range from ‘meh’ to just weird.

There are a LOT of helter skelter decisions in here. Take Ambidexterity. It apparently is replacing Offhand Training…but OH Axe gets ignored? Why would they trait lock specific offhand weapons?

Or Two-Handed Training…is this really in the BM line? What does it have to do with BM?

Instinctual Bond…why does this still exist?

Weird one…Beastly Warden…if it taunts and I use wolf fear F2…what happens?

Honed Axes…seems decent enough but why is it locked all the way into BM GM? So all condi/survival builds are going to have to go BM?

OH axe definitely need to be reworked, at least Whirling Defense. that’s probably on their to-do list.

the silly thing about ambidexterity is simply that they are trying to make us choose between buffing pet condis vs. our condis. which is silly, of course no one will choose Expertise Training, unless there is some major pathfinding and AI overhaul planned.

im glad axes have moved away from the skirmishing line. sword and SB are the prototypical skirmishing weapons imo. i think maxed skirmishing and wilderness survival lines look super cool. im thinking about a very survivable bleed/poison build with sb/s/d. throw in Evasive Purity and Protective Ward from Nature Magic.

for some reason, GS feels right with pets. but that’s just a feeling i have.

also remember that we’ll be able to max out 3 trees, meaning 3 GM’s. the main challenge will be making each master, adept and GM competitive with the other two in that same slot. right now, certain ones seem vastly superior, but it’s still early.

Builds appear to be pretty straight forward from what they’ve showed us.

Zerk Snipe/Dungeoneering, 6/6/6/0/0
Condi 6/6/x/x/0 ~ 1v1/Bunker 6/6/0/6/0
WvW Frontline 0/0/6/6/6 (gs+axe/x)

Nothing all that exciting and nothing that feels very inspiring. It’s very unfortunate because I don’t see how a single elite spec line will change the dynamic of the Ranger in a way that it becomes interesting. Disinterest in the Ranger is also what the Devs showed us in the presentation.

it’s not that straight forward to me at all.. i mean, why not run a 0/6/6/6/0 frontliner instead to get Quickdraw and go double maul? or double Path of Scars? or even 6/0/6/6/0 to get more damage and incorporate the double WH blast finisher and Protective Ward?

i think you need to think about the synergies a little more. it’s too soon to tell. my first impressions are good, but i need to theorycraft for a few days before i can come up with serious suggestions.

my main issues now:
- doesnt sound like traps will be revamped significantly
- sword and strider’s defense still suck, SB buffs still underwhelming.
- will individual pets get revamped?

Seems that with only 2 points in Marks, 1 in WS, 4 in NM, and warhorn – you can have perma might, fury, swiftness, regen, and protection…

Yes please!

Biggest downer for me is the position of 2 handed training. Seriously WTF?

Please just give GS AA some love, and trait it in Skirmishing where it belongs.

mistsim.2748:

it’s not that straight forward to me at all.. i mean, why not run a 0/6/6/6/0 frontliner instead to get Quickdraw and go double maul? or double Path of Scars?

it’s too soon to tell. my first impressions are good, but i need to theorycraft for a few days before i can come up with serious suggestions.

That’s fair, and I could definitely see that working. It just doesn’t -feel- very interesting to me.

how about Light on Your Feet + Quickdraw +poison master? SB revival anyone?

Quickdraw feels like a big game-changer, almost like in Dota 2 when someone gets a Refresher Orb. I want it to feel that way because no other prof in gdub has that mechanic.

Don’t like Two-Handed training in Beastmaster and I don’t like Survival of the Fittest in wilderness survival as we are now back to having to trait wilderness survival for condi remove just like when we only had Empathic bond.

Also I really don’t like they changed Survival of the fittest’s name.

Levetty.1279:

Don’t like Two-Handed training in Beastmaster and I don’t like Survival of the Fittest in wilderness survival as we are now back to having to trait wilderness survival for condi remove just like when we only had Empathic bond.

Also I really don’t like they changed Survival of the fittest’s name.

Yeh that seems like an odd choice. Maybe they have done that for all classes though? Forcing condi removal on one line.

Thz.7569:

Zerk Snipe/Dungeoneering, 6/6/6/0/0
Condi 6/6/x/x/0 ~ 1v1/Bunker 6/6/0/6/0
WvW Frontline 0/0/6/6/6 (gs+axe/x)

Your condi is traited into a power line and your Bunker has no condi remove.

Here are some trait synergies I’m seeing that I’d like to bring into the light.

Oakheart Slave – gives regeneration but also -% damage when having regeneration
Combine with Windborn notes so that call of wild gives regen + Call of wild = perma regen and 5% reduced damage

Protective ward + Lingering Magic = 9.6 protection + 1 dodge every 12 secs is 2.25 prot + lingering magic = 2.7 Prot 9.6 + 2.7 =12.3 = perma prot

Remorseless combos
Weapon swapping for fury or switching pets for fury from call of wild.
Maul combo = hilt bash + moment of clarity + pet swap for fury and OS proc for 25% more damage = mega maul

Beastly warden for taunts + hunters tactics and shortbow pew pew for bleeds

Oakheart slave -5% damage + Resounding timbre ( regen from shouts )

Wilderness knowledge + remorsless

Anyone seeing any more? Right now I’m finding the most synergy with Oakheart salve, I’ll definitely be incorporating that.

If anything, it should have been easy to rebalance the Ranger traitlines:

Marks: Bows, GS, Direct Damage
Skirmishing: Axe (MH/OH), Sword, CC
WS: Traps, Condition Damage, Torch, Dagger
NM: Spirits, Shouts
BM: Pets

Spreading everything out like this is just so odd. Also they need to nix the idea of pets having their own stats and make them scale with the ranger. As mentioned, no one is choosing buffing their pet over themselves, and there are a lot of wasted traits around this.

Or just make it so that Fortifying Bond shares EVERYTHING (including stats).

Man Wilderness Survival is insane, pretty much a staple in all PvP builds.

Dat Wilderness Knowledge.

Looks like this thread appeared while I was typing.

I typed out a more comprehensive list of the traits (all traits with full details like boon durations) over here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Traits-shown-in-the-04-24-AMA-typed-out/

Probably best to keep the discussion all here in this thread though so it’s not all spread out. I linked to this thread in a reply on the other thread (couldn’t edit the OP, I think I hit the character limit)

Glanced through, but Piercing Arrows split in two, and… my Eagle Eye…
:-(
And no ground-targeted/thrown traps?

Dark Saviour.9410:

Glanced through, but Piercing Arrows split in two, and… my Eagle Eye…
:-(
And no ground-targeted/thrown traps?

It sounds like Eagle eye might becoming base, apparently they said something about it while talking about Warriors.

piercing arrows is with LTW. not sure what happened to Eagle Eye >.<

^Heard it’s baseline, but Dulfy’s notes only state velocity from RtW.

The velocity from RtW is baseline, the attack speed is still part of the new Lead the Wind trait.

During the warrior segment they quickly mentioned that rangers would still have 1500 range on LB. They did not mention anything about the damage portion of Eagle Eye. I really hope it’s baseline.

I really didn’t like how they didn’t seem very engaged during the ranger segment at all.

going through this some more…few key items i like:

- i see Quickdraw becoming a new important prof mechanic that will open up a lot of builds, both power and condi

- Glassbows will no longer be glass; they will hit harder and be tankier

- Pet F2 may turn small scale fights around with Beastly Warden, Wilting Strike and Invigorating Bond all in one cast; i like that pets are getting more functionality through pbaoe’s instead of single target strikes.

- WH double blast finisher + regen – nice, but is it enough?

mistsim.2748:

6. not sure where Healing Spring will go (joking about making it a trap)

They joked about it because that’s what it was in GW1

Gotejjeken.1267:

Changes all seem to range from ‘meh’ to just weird.

There are a LOT of helter skelter decisions in here. Take Ambidexterity. It apparently is replacing Offhand Training…but OH Axe gets ignored? Why would they trait lock specific offhand weapons?

Or Two-Handed Training…is this really in the BM line? What does it have to do with BM?

Instinctual Bond…why does this still exist?

Weird one…Beastly Warden…if it taunts and I use wolf fear F2…what happens?

Honed Axes…seems decent enough but why is it locked all the way into BM GM? So all condi/survival builds are going to have to go BM?

It feels forced.

Instead of being able to see a better game with what we have, we are now being told the whole system is being scrapped – literally – for a brand new and much harder to get through, seemingly much easier to make mistakes and harder to back out of, traiting system that will make little sense to anyone who has any learning disability, such as adhd or Dyscalculia but you add both of these together and the game becomes a nightmare to re-learn. This isn’t what the “experts” think it is, it isn’t “concentration” it’s a literal inability to understand math concepts – the brain rejects them totally. I am blessed, I was left with English skills off the charts, but I believe I would gladly trade those skills for the ones that will make this game either possible or impossible to master or even try to come close to mastering.

The math of the thing is horrid for those of us in our society without the necessary math skills to “theorycraft” builds, needing to depend upon those who can and do much work, but now it seems we will be, once again, left hanging in the wind trying to struggle to figure out how to get what we need without benefit of a beaten path that is not insanely hard to follow.

Wrong choices – I already hate the “new” system from what I’ve seen and read about.

i just wanted to list out underwhelming traits followed by reasoning. highly opinionated but here we go:

Will not be picked under any circumstance in current form:

Wilderness Survival
- Soften the Fall: absolutely useless; MT is such a minor effect, it virtually does nothing to the flow of battle. all activate-on-fall-dmg traits are so, so situational and this one is by far the weakest; this trait will never get chosen

Beastmastery
– Natural Healing: unless we’re missing some information on major pet revamps, this will serve no purpose; also the number is way too low

Marks
- Predator’s Instinct: CD is too long, effect is too minor and other two adepts are much more interesting

Very situational requiring major rework:

Skirm
- Spike Trap: rezzing someone is usually suicide in an organized match; immob won’t protect from cleave!

Good idea but needs a little more more:

Nature Magic
- Healer’s Celerity: decent idea, but revive speed needs to be something more significant at least; this will never get chosen as it’s too weak compared to other two adepts

Marks
- Predator’s Onslaught: in its current form, not very relevant for pvp. damage increase is too minor, conditions/states are too situational (rapidly cleansed, stun-broken, and other two GM’s are too strong in comparison); 15% damage buff would make this interesting

Skirm
- Strider’s Defense: this is a situational ability belonging in adept or master at best; 1-1-1’ing with sword is pretty suicidal as it gets us cleaved down quickly and all other profs are much stronger than us in melee; projectiles are least of our problems

Additional Note:
- the 3 Wilderness Survival GM’s are great, perfect example of us needing to make tough choices; but SotF and EB working together was never overpowered on the ranger and i dont understand why they are in the same line; EB needs to be moved to beastmastery

Gotejjeken.1267:

Changes all seem to range from ‘meh’ to just weird.

There are a LOT of helter skelter decisions in here. Take Ambidexterity. It apparently is replacing Offhand Training…but OH Axe gets ignored? Why would they trait lock specific offhand weapons?

Or Two-Handed Training…is this really in the BM line? What does it have to do with BM?

Instinctual Bond…why does this still exist?

Weird one…Beastly Warden…if it taunts and I use wolf fear F2…what happens?

Honed Axes…seems decent enough but why is it locked all the way into BM GM? So all condi/survival builds are going to have to go BM?

It feels forced.

Instead of being able to see a better game with what we have, we are now being told the whole system is being scrapped – literally – for a brand new and much harder to get through, seemingly much easier to make mistakes and harder to back out of.

The math of the thing is horrid for those of us in our society without the necessary math skills to “theorycraft” builds, needing to depend upon those who can and do much work, but now it seems we will be, once again, left hanging in the wind trying to struggle to figure out how to get what we need without benefit of a beaten path that is not insanely hard to follow.

Wrong choice – I already hate the “new” system from what I’ve seen and read about.

I think they should remove Healer’s Celerity, and just put the 10% revive speed in Trapper’s Defense. It’s like we’re getting 2 traits to do 1 thing

I can see some solid bunker/healing combinations here, but I still want to test this live before I comment further. I’m happy to see my shout/regeneration build is getting a huge boost.

Very happy.

Omg quickdraw. 3 mauls per weapon swap? Too nice. Also, with these changes ranger gets elevated to god tier vuln stacking.

The big thing i wanted to point out, and of course its possible it has already been mentioned, but everyone should read the description of wilting strikes in beastmastery. The wording is very interesting as it says the trait activates on an activated attack (going off memory, might not be exact wording). This is obviously in contrast to other traits that specify an f2. Are we finally getting more active control of our pets??

rpfohr.7048:

Here are some trait synergies I’m seeing that I’d like to bring into the light.

---

Oakheart Slave – gives regeneration but also -% damage when having regeneration
Combine with Windborn notes so that call of wild gives regen + Call of wild = perma regen and 5% reduced damage

---

Protective ward + Lingering Magic = 9.6 protection + 1 dodge every 12 secs is 2.25 prot + lingering magic = 2.7 Prot 9.6 + 2.7 =12.3 = perma prot

---

Remorseless combos
Weapon swapping for fury or switching pets for fury from call of wild.
Maul combo = hilt bash + moment of clarity + pet swap for fury and OS proc for 25% more damage = mega maul

---

Beastly warden for taunts + hunters tactics and shortbow pew pew for bleeds

---

Oakheart slave -5% damage + Resounding timbre ( regen from shouts )

---

Wilderness knowledge + remorsless

Anyone seeing any more? Right now I’m finding the most synergy with Oakheart salve, I’ll definitely be incorporating that.

Yeh bountiful hunter should work with beastmasters bond, windborne notes, and protective ward.

5 boons = another 5% damage.

So many damage modifiers…ranger pve damage will be very high.

honestly im a little concerned. Lots of skill activations tied to traits and then GM traits that give ridiculous number of benefits to both the regular skills AND said traits. That’s without all the ridiculous other traits.

I said before rapidfire/sic em update I was gonna be some op monster with lb. This update will pretty much close up any reservations I had about being in melee combat as zerker with traits like -50% dmg while above 90% hp. Lol poor lil glass thieves are so screwed.

Some ideas are very nice and there are more synergies. But i can only shake my head about some traits:
Trapper’s Defense: Creates a Spike Trap while reviving an ally.
Healer’s Celerity: Grant swiftness (15s/18s) to yourself and your ally when you revive them. Increased revive speed.
Instinctual Bond: When you are downed your pet gains quickness (5s). (50s CD)
There are so cool reviving mechanics in other classes. Why are our mechanics so bad. OK the trap give us stealth with trapper rune, but that is it. I think a minimum is to merge Trapper’s Defense and Healer’s Celerity. Instinctual Bond is bad for alone, too. I would merge it with this both, too. Or if it will be too strong, just remove Instinctual Bond. Rangers don’t need a mechanic for down state. They are strong in downed state and have plenty of possibilities.

Soften the Fall: Create Muddy Terrain when you take falling damage. You take less damage (50%) from falling. (25s CD)
Just “why?”
Other classes have this as a bonus merged to another trait. I use it often in PvE, cause I like jumping puzzles and climbing. But that is a quality of life. It is absolutely worthless in fights. Maybe you can use it in the new WvW map with the cliffs, but that is all.

Bountiful Hunter: You and your pet deal more damage per boon you (1% per boon).
I’m not sure about this. I think it is per boon types, so you don’t get 25% extra damage while having 25 might stacks. But the ranger all alone don’t have as much stacks, that it will be good. And in big zergs it could become very strong in no time. I don’t think that will be the right direction.

Nature’s Vengeance: Activated skills of Spirits are larger (120 radius) and trigger when the spirit is killed.
Ok i can’t imagine what they will do with the spirits, but this as a grandmaster -.- The activated abilities must become something like a nuclear strike to choose this trait.

Beastmaster Specialization
We don’t need to talk about this. As long as the pet can’t hit an moving target, this traits are nearly all useless
Except:
Beastly Warden: Your pet taunts foes near them when executing a command (F2) ability. (15s CD)
This is the only chance to hit with your F2 skill. But i think it is not long enough for a drake-F2 :P

Two-Handed Training: Greatsword and spear damage is increased (5%) and those skills recharge faster (20%). Greatsword and spear attacks have a chance (50%) to grant fury (3s) on hit. (10s CD)
Honed Axes: Gain Ferocity (150) while wielding an axe in your main hand. Winter’s Bite is now AoE. Axe skills recharge faster (20%).
Why merging weapons into the beastmaster line? It could be a cool option, if you really use this line. But as I said, beastmaster-specialization is useless while pet can’t hit a moving target.

mistsim.2748:

EB needs to be moved to beastmastery

Yea, a trait, that hurts our pet, is definitely a good idea in beastmastery …

SotF should have stayed in NM. Being forced to take WS for condi remove seems stupid and lowers build diversitiy. I don’t understand this change.

They should switch SotF (or whatever this new trait is called) with Protective Ward.

Aleksander Suburb.4287:

Why merging weapons into the beastmaster line? It could be a cool option, if you really use this line. But as I said, beastmaster-specialization is useless while pet can’t hit a moving target.

Pet’s Prowess was merged with Agility Training and made a minor Beastmaster trait. That means your pet will be moving 30% faster.

This means that our pets, once we specialize in beastmastery, will be able to easily outrun player characters who don’t have swiftness and still keep up with those who do. This in turn means the pet will be able to land hits fairly consistently. Combine that with the ranger’s many, many slows and immobilizes and your pet shouldn’t have any problem hitting it’s target. So long as the ranger remains an active part of the combat and doesn’t try to let his pet solo, anyway.

I can get my pet to consistently hit players in PVP NOW without Agility Training. It’ll be far easier once these changes are made.

In all honesty most of the other classes have one trait to a specific off-hand weapon, but after almost 3 years remove off-hand training and make 3 traits for our off-hand weapons is just meh, so innovative…

At least do not put warhorn trait in the same slot that evasive purity (nice add with cripple) for god’sake.

Huge nerf to our cleans EB and SOTF are in the same slot. One GM trait ONLY to deals with conditions, really ?

They nerfed nature ’s voice : 10 sec of swiftness and regen instead of 13 cuz it have been remove in BM (it totally destroy my power build). Nature magic is + 20 % boon duration, pretty huge nerf to boon duration.

There are some good ideas but why the revive traits are still here ? Who kitten care.

They are fed up with spirits, great.

I’ve seen some 6-6-6 builds, but the specs are a bit unclear to me. Does this mean, that you can trait only into 3 lines in the future and spend 18 intead of 14 when this is introduced? The Ready up didn’t talk about it (at least the parts I’ve seen so far).

Also don’t see why having two handed training being in BM is bad. Since they are separating traits from stats you can run a full zerker BM build if you so desire. Or better yet, an opening strike build, where your greatsword hits apply fury, which reset opening strike, and increase damage by 25%. Add in 100% crit on opening strike and you can do something with cavalier and valkyrie. You guys wanna go MM, SK, WS for the warding stuff? Too bad, you gonna have to make decisions I guess.

Edit, meant NM and Protective ward, not WS.

Sube Dai.8496:

Seems that with only 2 points in Marks, 1 in WS, 4 in NM, and warhorn – you can have perma might, fury, swiftness, regen, and protection…

Yes please!

Biggest downer for me is the position of 2 handed training. Seriously WTF?

Please just give GS AA some love, and trait it in Skirmishing where it belongs.

dont forget the new remoresless only refreshes on every Fury application not Duration extention so going perma boons might be a bad thing if you want a Remoreseless trait line.

So many options! I can’t even!

Zenos Osgorma.2936:

Sube Dai.8496:

Seems that with only 2 points in Marks, 1 in WS, 4 in NM, and warhorn – you can have perma might, fury, swiftness, regen, and protection…

Yes please!

Biggest downer for me is the position of 2 handed training. Seriously WTF?

Please just give GS AA some love, and trait it in Skirmishing where it belongs.

dont forget the new remoresless only refreshes on every Fury application not Duration extention so going perma boons might be a bad thing if you want a Remoreseless trait line.

That’s ok, predators is a good alternative.

So hang on, do you just pick 3 lines and have to go all the way to GM trait? In other words do you get 12 trait points or 3?

No one have a problem with Wilderness Survival being the only tait line with condi remove?
It kinda brings us the square one when all rangers had to take – Wilderness Survival for EB(before SOTF). Why not just move EB to BM trait line(makes sense)?
Ya i know new SotF +UT is amazing, but Wilderness Survival feels more as a “condi” build-regen trait line. ..
Dividing our condi removal traits to different trait lines opens up diversity, thats what happend with SOTF in the first place.

nagymbear.5280:

I’ve seen some 6-6-6 builds, but the specs are a bit unclear to me. Does this mean, that you can trait only into 3 lines in the future and spend 18 intead of 14 when this is introduced? The Ready up didn’t talk about it (at least the parts I’ve seen so far).

Yes it does. You can now pick 3 different trait lines but you must invest fully in thouse trait lines. No more – 2-4-2-4 builds, only -6-x-6-6-x .

It would have been nice if they did a bit more with the minors (was there any profession where they said didn’t change more often) it seem the majority of the effort went to find whys to make the opening strike line work through adjusting major traits rather than adjusting the minor line.

Also why two revive traits one to place a trap and the other for increased rate of revival. If they are looking to make the choices have more meaning they really need to address the blah one that seem to just linger around.

Ehecatl.9172:

Aleksander Suburb.4287:

Why merging weapons into the beastmaster line? It could be a cool option, if you really use this line. But as I said, beastmaster-specialization is useless while pet can’t hit a moving target.

Pet’s Prowess was merged with Agility Training and made a minor Beastmaster trait. That means your pet will be moving 30% faster.

This means that our pets, once we specialize in beastmastery, will be able to easily outrun player characters who don’t have swiftness and still keep up with those who do. This in turn means the pet will be able to land hits fairly consistently. Combine that with the ranger’s many, many slows and immobilizes and your pet shouldn’t have any problem hitting it’s target. So long as the ranger remains an active part of the combat and doesn’t try to let his pet solo, anyway.

I can get my pet to consistently hit players in PVP NOW without Agility Training. It’ll be far easier once these changes are made.

You could trait 30% faster pets before and it hadn’t any effect. It runs faster to target, starts biting, slashing, whatever and the target was three miles away before the attack was finished.

Yes you can hit players consistently with pets, if they are afk.

Not anymore, cause they will split traits from stats. You still have power options in there in peak strength, SotF. Will WS be standard for roamers? Probably. But they don’t need to have Tougnhess and condi damage stats for going into WS. I’d say its more about survival now than conditions.

LughLongArm.5460:

nagymbear.5280:

I’ve seen some 6-6-6 builds, but the specs are a bit unclear to me. Does this mean, that you can trait only into 3 lines in the future and spend 18 intead of 14 when this is introduced? The Ready up didn’t talk about it (at least the parts I’ve seen so far).

Yes it does. You can now pick 3 different trait lines but you must invest fully in thouse trait lines. No more – 2-4-2-4 builds, only -6-x-6-6-x .

OK that actually makes it easier.

I’m thinking 4/0/4/4/0

Call of the wild
Oakheart Salve
Companion’s Defense
Wilderness Knowledge
Windborne Notes
Protective Ward

Perma might, swiftness, regen, fury, protection.

I’m digging the vigor on evaded attack though. That’s a nice touch. Sword dagger shortbow ranger with energy sigils…. yeah. Evades for days.

These changes are absolutely glorious for condition BM bunker builds.

Go WS, NM and BM

WS
Ambidexterity, since I run dagger and torch offhand, a nice buff.
Oakheart Salve, regen and 5% damage reduction when I have regen? Sure!
Wilderness Knowledge, with Trolls Unguent being a survival skill and lightning reflexes and entangle being on my bar most of the time, we’re going to be much more effective against the masses condi builds in WvW whilst not sacrificing anything.

NM
Natures Wrath, the power is meh for me, but the increase of pet stats for a BM build, ok!
Vigorous Training, looks nice, Vigor is always welcome.
Protective Ward, I’d think this will be nerfed before release but 8s of protection on a 12s cooldown is godly.

BM
Rending Attacks, extra condi pressure from pets.
Natural Healing, 2 of my current traits rolled into 1, nice.
Zephyr’s Speed, perma 3 stacks of might? Right!

IF these changes stay relatively the same, we’ll be a force to reckon with – assuming the other class changes don’t breed something horrific.

Somthing to consider about shouts ATM they overwrite eachother, if you use “potect me” and sice’m or gurd or f2, it cancel the effect. What would happend if we use “protect me” and “HAO”(kinda no brainer combo) or siece’m and RAO?

Sic’em shoud synergise with all actions and commands, “protect me” pets should keep on attacking(but eat the damage as it is now).

Agility trainig for almost free looks nice , but with all the aoe swiftess going around(shouts and call of the wild on pet swap) it realy does almost nothing. I think it should be like 10% bonus that scaks with other speed bonuses(including sice’m, sicem and swiftness doesnt stack).

Aleksander Suburb.4287:

You could trait 30% faster pets before and it hadn’t any effect. It runs faster to target, starts biting, slashing, whatever and the target was three miles away before the attack was finished.

Yes you can hit players consistently with pets, if they are afk.

You could, but you’d have to take it over Companion’s Might or Pet’s Prowess which are both much stronger traits for a BM build.

That isn’t actually true. Without Agility Training my pet can and does hit moving players, just not with any great frequency unless I supply it with swiftness or slow/immobilize the target. You can go to the Mists right now and test it if you don’t believe me. Send your pet to attack the moving golem and it will eventually kill it. Now try it again with Agility Training and your pet will be connecting nearly twice as often.

That is on it’s own, of course. Any slow effect will allow your pet to hit the enemy very consistently for it’s duration. That is how you play a beastmaster build. You set the enemy player up to get hit by the pet through careful use of positioning, slows, immobilizes, and other control skills.

Beastmaster is a perfectly viable playstyle, it’s just not meta because there isn’t much it can bring outside 1v1 dueling. A lot of these trait changes look like they’ll be able to address that by giving the beastmaster more support options while improving the build’s dueling power, which could make it a decent point defense build with some roaming capabilities. The pet traits definitely are not useless.