Guild Wars 2

Ehecatl.9172:

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.

BM is great for roaming, duelling, flipping camps, towers and given time, keeps.
That said, these changes will make doing every one of those so much easier.

You are assuming that Pet’s Prowess is NOT a base speed increase, which it probably isn’t, unfortunately. If it were, say +20% base, it would be much better.

SOrry If I missed this if someone said it already, but the OP’s write up of poison master is wrong I think;

Anyone else notice that the tooltip now says -66% healing? Sound like we get 50% damage increase ontop of the stacking damage increase, + double the – to healing ( I assume stacking on its own has no effect on the – healing, and it’s the trait that is doing that)

Sube Dai.8496:

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.

You won’t be perma protection at all since they nerfed it (they remove nature’s protection) and protective ward give protection to your pet only. You’ll have protection on dodge, nothing more.

Well, seems OP you are coming from a mostly PVP point of view. I like some of the changes but there’s still times I want to take two adept or two master traits since the adept traits in Wilderness Survival and Beast Mastery lines are underwhelming.

So, after these changes go through, If I decide I want a GM trait for longbow, I wont be able to select two hand training as a trait for GS? I’m I missing something here? Why?

LughLongArm.5460:

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.

I did, and it’s indeed a huge nerf (nobody fight high conditionners i guess) , they definitly need to move those two traits from the same slot. If they move EB to BM line, it can’t be a grand master trait, well it will be sad cuz the axe trait looks interesting. A master trait will be nice, it’s not such a great trait after all (but yeah, it make sens in this line i agree).

borya.2964:

LughLongArm.5460:

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.

I did, and it’s indeed a huge nerf (nobody fight high conditionners i guess) , they definitly need to move those two traits from the same slot. If they move EB to BM line, it can’t be a grand master trait, well it will be sad cuz the axe trait looks interesting. A master trait will be nice, it’s not such a great trait after all (but yeah, it make sens in this line i agree).

Ya i agree that now SOTF synergise with so meny skills, EB in comparison is meha trait and should be a master trait.

borya.2964:

protective ward give protection to your pet only.

Did they say that? the pic of the trait doesn’t mention pet only.

LughLongArm.5460:

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.

Yes I agree. Personally I think SotF and Invigorating bond should be swapped around.

Also they should change its name back to SotF again.

Levetty.1279:

borya.2964:

protective ward give protection to your pet only.

Did they say that? the pic of the trait doesn’t mention pet only.

LughLongArm.5460:

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.

Yes I agree. Personally I think SotF and Invigorating bond should be swapped around.

Also they should change its name back to SotF again.

I also agree with you, they completly pillaged the Nature Magic trait line, taking out both SOTF, the shout trait, the protection trait etc … The only reaso to take this trait line is for spirit builds, even the weakness trait is not unique, they gave us like 3 new ways to inflic weakness.

Levetty.1279:

borya.2964:

protective ward give protection to your pet only.

Did they say that? the pic of the trait doesn’t mention pet only.

Well, its pretty fuzzy right now. Also did someone notice that all our new off-hand weapons traits loose the increase range from the actual off hand training ? dagger and torch with no range anymore, really ?

Since Wilderness Knowledge affects Survival skills, I’d leave it in Wilderness Survival and swap EB with IB.

Is Poison Master’s new -66% healing not catching anybody’s attention? Or does nobody care because it competes with the new Sotf and EB? :o

Madisonlee.9641:

Is Poison Master’s new -66% healing not catching anybody’s attention? Or does nobody care because it competes with the new Sotf and EB? :o

From the ready up it wasnt clear if its a mistake in tooltip or not. If poison will stack in damage like they saied, and Poison Master stack 2 poison and -66% healing it will be insanly good with alot of builds , giving a good run for Sotf and completely kitten s EB.

SotF = Wilderness Knowledge?

I can’t watch the stream so if I missed it… Doesn’t say on Dulfy.net just says “Wilderness Knowledge + Sharpening Stone”.

Madisonlee.9641:

Is Poison Master’s new -66% healing not catching anybody’s attention? Or does nobody care because it competes with the new Sotf and EB? :o

It totally has my attention, especially now that poison may or may not stack Kappa. I would love to run Poison Ranger. Too bad I would have close to 0 condi removal, so SoR and Healing Spring to the rescue I guess.

Madisonlee.9641:

Is Poison Master’s new -66% healing not catching anybody’s attention? Or does nobody care because it competes with the new Sotf and EB? :o

Since it’s in competition between the only TWO traits wich help you to deal with conditions, yeah, it’s barely noticable to me.

They could merge EB with natural healing (decrease a bit the second one), it make sens to me : Pet gain natural regen and/or x healing and take periodically conditions from you. Let’s be honest if you merge the two traits the pet can deal with what, 2 or 3 stacks of bleed, i don’t see it op.

TheFantasticGman.9451:

SotF = Wilderness Knowledge?

I can’t watch the stream so if I missed it… Doesn’t say on Dulfy.net just says “Wilderness Knowledge + Sharpening Stone”.

Yes it does – they combained Sotf with Sharpening Stone, called it “Wilderness Knowledge” and put it in Wilderness survival trait line as GM trait.

borya.2964:

Madisonlee.9641:

Is Poison Master’s new -66% healing not catching anybody’s attention? Or does nobody care because it competes with the new Sotf and EB? :o

Since it’s in competition between the only TWO traits wich help you to deal with conditions, yeah, it’s barely noticable to me.

They could merge EB with natural healing (decrease a bit the second one), it make sens to me : Pet gain natural regen and/or x healing and take periodically conditions from you. Let’s be honest if you merge the two traits the pet can deal with what, 2 or 3 stacks of bleed, i don’t see it op.

Even better, combaine it with Invigorating bond, we always wanted EB to be playable and not inconsistent stuped passive.

LughLongArm.5460:

borya.2964:

Madisonlee.9641:

Is Poison Master’s new -66% healing not catching anybody’s attention? Or does nobody care because it competes with the new Sotf and EB? :o

Since it’s in competition between the only TWO traits wich help you to deal with conditions, yeah, it’s barely noticable to me.

They could merge EB with natural healing (decrease a bit the second one), it make sens to me : Pet gain natural regen and/or x healing and take periodically conditions from you. Let’s be honest if you merge the two traits the pet can deal with what, 2 or 3 stacks of bleed, i don’t see it op.

Even better, combaine it with Invigorating bond, we always wanted EB to be playable and not inconsistent stuped passive.

Well, i don’t think it fit a fight that much, i always had a problem with traits that merge offensive and defensive skills in the same time (like SOTF with half offensive skills). If i want my wolf to fear, i don’t especially want him to remove conditions. And it become a bit op with bird (attack, bleed, heal and remove 3 conditions ?) or you have to increase the cooldown and make EB useless since you have something else to remember while figthing rather than : will i have EB on this F2 ?since how many sec i used it ?

I think he means maintain both functionalities. ie pet draws 3 conditions per 10s AND F2 skills on the pet heal in an area.

But I think EB could be combined with Natural Healing while removing the ranger portion of the healing and it would be very nice.

Ya they kinda going for that with the new taunt on F2 , weakness on F2, heal on F2(all defensive-semi defensive) , its good they encourage you to take pets with lower CD on F2 to max the benefit. If you invest so much into F2 its cool tha it will actually will be a game changer.

Well, condi regen BM bunker (0,0,6,6,6) will be very powerfull (think you will possibly run with two heals traited and two elites traited, swapping out of combat when you need) with great F2 i agree. I love my siamoth (play him since launch) and my wolf, but active clean is really too important to be assigned to my pet despite all my love.

LughLongArm.5460:

TheFantasticGman.9451:

SotF = Wilderness Knowledge?

I can’t watch the stream so if I missed it… Doesn’t say on Dulfy.net just says “Wilderness Knowledge + Sharpening Stone”.

Yes it does – they combained Sotf with Sharpening Stone, called it “Wilderness Knowledge” and put it in Wilderness survival trait line as GM trait.

Correct me if I’m wrong, as I haven’t used these traits in such a long time, but don’t you have to have Sharpening Stone on your Utility Bar for that GM trait to work? I won’t have access to the game for at least a few days or I’d check myself. IIRC, those traits that activated Utility Skills had to have the Utility Skill on the Skill Bar for them to work. Is that still true? Because if that is the still the case, I still will not use those traits because the Utility Skills themselves suck.

That was never the case afaik.

Cool.

I might give Wilderness Knowledge a shot then.

borya.2964:

Well, condi regen BM bunker (0,0,6,6,6) will be very powerfull (think you will possibly run with two heals traited and two elites traited, swapping out of combat when you need) with great F2 i agree. I love my siamoth (play him since launch) and my wolf, but active clean is really too important to be assigned to my pet despite all my love.

0,0,6,6,6 Sounds like a crazy condi unker build ^^ -

LughLongArm.5460:

Madisonlee.9641:

Is Poison Master’s new -66% healing not catching anybody’s attention? Or does nobody care because it competes with the new Sotf and EB? :o

From the ready up it wasnt clear if its a mistake in tooltip or not. If poison will stack in damage like they saied, and Poison Master stack 2 poison and -66% healing it will be insanly good with alot of builds , giving a good run for Sotf and completely kitten s EB.

Peters pretty much confirmed that healing wont be stacking, just the damage. it may have said otherwise on that tooltip. -66% to healing is extremely OP simply because we’ll be able to maintain perma poison on targets. I just want poison to do more damage, which we’re getting.

borya.2964:

Well, condi regen BM bunker (0,0,6,6,6) will be very powerfull (think you will possibly run with two heals traited and two elites traited, swapping out of combat when you need) with great F2 i agree. I love my siamoth (play him since launch) and my wolf, but active clean is really too important to be assigned to my pet despite all my love.

especially with all the Oakheart salve buffs.

also, they seem to be moving away from pet’s functionality being tied down to single target damage. this is good because they cant hit reliably. instead, F2’s will have more PBAOE effects that will more effectively hit multiple targets. the taunt, the weakness, the heal in addition to the actual F2 – that’s 4 functions in one button push. I like it.

jewishjoyride.4693:

Also, with these changes ranger gets elevated to god tier vuln stacking.

I’m thinking 6/0/6/0/6. Remorseless, Wilderness Knowledge and maxed pet line for 2-handed training and Beastly Warden. this way, ranger and pet are constantly applying vulnerability by refreshing opening strike. Mauls will always apply 10 stacks of vuln. both are tanky, pet is maxed, and ranger does huge damage with GS.

pick up Peak Strength for +10% damage and Expertise training for longer pet condis (e.g. fear, weakness, poison, bleeds).

Is it just me or does anyone not noticing the fact that Wilderness Knowledge also reduces CD? I think it + TU + LR should be enough condi removal for most builds. If you need more, then there’s MT, SoR, QZ, SS, and Entangle.

EB should be moved to BM so it gets synergy with Loud Whistle.

Sarision.6347:

Is it just me or does anyone not noticing the fact that Wilderness Knowledge also reduces CD? I think it + TU + LR should be enough condi removal for most builds. If you need more, then there’s MT, SoR, QZ, SS, and Entangle.

EB should be moved to BM so it gets synergy with Loud Whistle.

Ya, Wilderness Knowledge builds got condi removal covered, especially if entangke will keep on proc double the effect as it is now(double the fury and 4 condi removal).

I realy support your idea on moving EB to BM, senergise the trait with Loud Whistle sounds awesome.

I think they would be better off just swapping IB and EB. Moving EB to BM takes away too many other nice traits, whereas NM is quite weak GM wise.

borya.2964:

Levetty.1279:

borya.2964:

protective ward give protection to your pet only.

Did they say that? the pic of the trait doesn’t mention pet only.

Well, its pretty fuzzy right now. Also did someone notice that all our new off-hand weapons traits loose the increase range from the actual off hand training ? dagger and torch with no range anymore, really ?

I haven’t seen anywhere that it only gives protection to your pet.

That would also be inferior to the guard skill which already does this. I would be amazed if it doesn’t give protection to the ranger.

Peters said to the pet, tooltip said to the ranger.

regarding offhand range, that’s probably going to become baseline buff.

mistsim.2748:

Peters said to the pet, tooltip said to the ranger.

regarding offhand range, that’s probably going to become baseline buff.

That would be the new, worst gm trait that we have.

EB needs to be changed to a cleanse if it’s moved to Beastmastery. The fact it kills our pet makes it wildly undesirable for anyone who’s investing so heavily into Beastmastery.

Or we can remove EB entirely and just spread condition cleanses to some of our skills and utilities. That being said we don’t know what sort of skills, utilities, and traits are coming with the Druid elite specialization, so who knows?

Would have been nice if they had empathic bond also allow the pet to apply the transferred condition on attack similar to the minion trait from necromancer,

Yes, too much is in the WS line. If I’m investing into WS, I’m taking WK. Merging SoTF into the WS line is quite the nerf, as it prevents taking EB or Poison Master at the same time.

I do support EB being moved to BM, but not as a GM. 3 conditions every 10s to the pet is not GM.

Bran.7425:

Would have been nice if they had empathic bond also allow the pet to apply the transferred condition on attack similar to the minion trait from necromancer,

This would be far more amazing than anything Anet is capable of. Literally would make it GM worthy if the pet could transfer all three conditions on it on attack. Would also make taking wilderness knowledge less of a certainty, because you could transfer condis instead of cleanse them.

Gotejjeken.1267:

This would be far more amazing than anything Anet is capable of. Literally would make it GM worthy if the pet could transfer all three conditions on it on attack. Would also make taking wilderness knowledge less of a certainty, because you could transfer condis instead of cleanse them.

I was thinking one condition transfered per strike that make multiattack pets have synergy with the trait as well as with signet of renewal. A well placed drake lightning breath perhaps, devourers being a possible choice instead of spiders.

With inconsistency of pet attacks landing I would prefer current EB over that.

But I don’t want EB either, I want another on demand option. Remove 2 on pet swap would do the trick. That plus evasive purity and healing spring is all you would need.

New Bearbow:

Marks
Skirmishing
BM (Take Beastly Warden)
Arctodus + Brown Bear

Sube Dai.8496:

With inconsistency of pet attacks landing I would prefer current EB over that.

But I don’t want EB either, I want another on demand option. Remove 2 on pet swap would do the trick. That plus evasive purity and healing spring is all you would need.

Unfortunately, that sentiment is basically the problem* of the ranger in general. The problem is that unless they change their stance on the improvement of pets (which I am not sure if that will remain as they are willing to do a lot more work on the engineer so maybe their is a chance) the ranger will always be sub-par. The reason I suggested the additional way for the pet to get rid of condition is partially to help deal with the bad design choice of ‘your class mechanic’ suffers for the sake of a traits design. Empathic Bond is a grandmaster and that should mean something.

*The other part of the problem being perception, if the pet works at a level to be competitive and not just a detriment then there will be people who cry ‘easy mode/I win button’ or the keep AI (I hate that term for it by the way it is a behavior setting at best not an intelligence) out of pvp (the cries of petting zoo is annoying if the spirit could fight I could see the issue, but they were basically a weird banner that could be kill).

I just can’t believe my eyes O.o Just imagine such LB build: 6/0/6/0/6 – all LB traits, awesome condi removal and self heal with survi skills (+TU) and perma swiftness + regen with guard. Could include GS trait and 2 traits on pet swap: Call of the Wild and quickness ( + 3x might), giving us awesome burst with RF.

I mean… am I dreaming? It’ just too good! xD

I currently have 2 problems with this iteration First all of the condi removal is concentrated into wilderness survival which is really bad for build diversity. It means that almost all builds that run in WvW or SPvP will go to wilderness survival or risk just dying to condi builds. This is similar situation to the time before Survival of the Fittest was introduced, almost every build went into wilderness survival just for the condi removal. I would suggest moving Emphatic Bond into beastmastery traitline for two reasons: first, it makes no sense thematically in wilderness survival whereas it would fit beastmastery and secondly it would give more defensive trait for beastmastery grandmaster as Beastly Warden seems to fit more of a utility role. I do get it that it allows you to specialize heavily into condi removal but that’s no different from the current situation and ranger still isn’t as good as elementalist if they really want to focus on pure anti-condition builds.

Secondly Having weapon traits in Beastmastery seems very odd, as the specialization should be about your pet and synergy between you and your pet instead of just you. I get warhorn and somewhat the greatsword since you either summon animals or animal spirits but axe got neither of those qualities. The axe trait is cool but it just doesn’t fit the specialization. I would swap the Honed Axes with Emphatic Bond, which goes nicely with my first point and Honed Axes would fit wilderness survival better than beastmastry.

Overall I like the specialization system although I do think it needs tweaking, these were just the major changes I think have to be done (or atleast the Emphatic Bond swap) for there to be good amount of build diversity. I look forward to seeing the more finalized versions of these.

It would be crazy to move the condi removal traits to BM, you’d miss out on ZS which is an amazing trait, it would be much better off in NM which is weak GM wise.

I agree EB and SotF really shouldn’t be in the same line, but moving EB to the BM line seems a strange choice. The whole point of the BM line is the make the pet better, so why would you them put a trait which makes it quite a lot worse in there?

It’s fine how it is now. SotF in NM, EB is WS.

Cufufalating.8479:

It’s fine how it is now. SotF in NM, EB is WS.

Not really. How trait that is all about survival skills fits Nature Magic better than Wilderness Survival?

Terkov.4138:

Cufufalating.8479:

It’s fine how it is now. SotF in NM, EB is WS.

Not really. How trait that is all about survival skills fits Nature Magic better than Wilderness Survival?

I agree plus the fact that Cufu left WS with only two grandmaster traits and NM with 4.
EB need to be removed from the same slot that SOFT, everybody is ok with that, the hard part is to find a new competitive grandmaster trait for those who don’t use survival skills.

the problem in general with Wilderness Knowledge, is that no matter what line its in, is its really too good to pass up for the majority of builds – its staple-ish, even if you only take entangle and troll unguent. That means that if there are no other condition-cleansing traits in other lines (currently there aren’t), then the other GM traits that compete with WK will practically never be taken. That’s counter to what was supposedly is intended.

I understand they don’t want rangers to have condition immunity. With EB and WK together, yeah they do. With these new traits, having both makes them practically un-killable. Which is why if EB does move, it needs to change its functionality as well, so if both are taken together, its not OP.