Guild Wars 2

By categorizing ‘Heal as One’ and ‘Rampage as One’ as shouts, it’s pretty clear aNet wants to push more shout builds for ranger, but I still feel most of the shouts aren’t very optimized (the mix of effect and cooldown)

My suggestion would be for the ‘Resounding Timbre’ trait to actually give boons SPECIFIC to the shouts, instead of regen and swiftness for all of them (a bit like the un-traited Guardian Shouts)

Of course, that’d make the trait extremely powerful, so I’d highly suggest switching the Honed Axes trait with Resounding Timbre (also so that Zephyr’s Speed can’t be equipped with Resounding Timbre)

Here are some suggestions:

Heal as One – Regen & Resistance – Related to Healing and Surviving, Swiftness could still replace Resistance, as ‘running away’ is kinda linked to surviving

Sic ’Em – Fury & Swiftness or Quickness – Since quickness is now a boon, it’d fit extremely well with the offensive nature of this shout.

Protect Me – Protection & Retaliation or Resistance – Supportive/Defensive shout, of course won’t have that much of an effect on the player, but for the pet and allies. Resistance is still viable as condition damage ignores this skill (If I recall correctly)

Guard – Swiftness & Regen – Supportive shout, Swiftness is mostly for the player allies as when prepared, the pet stays statikittenil a foe approaches the guarding zone, so it’s swiftness is not always useful.

Search and Rescue – Stability & Resistance – Given the high CD and actual rezzing time, Stability and Resistance could be interesting for both players and the pet itself, so that it’s a near-uninterruptable rezzing. Most rezzing skills have a long cast time, but this skill has a long ‘activation’ time

Rampage as One – 1-3 stacks of Might & 2s Quickness – Giving a basic 1 to 3 stacks of might give an instant dmg bonus, and again, with Quickness becoming a boon, it somewhat fits with the ‘rampaging’ nature of the skill.

Other suggested alternatives, limit the shouts to 1 specific boon, but add (or modify existing) effects;

Taunt to ‘Protect Me!’ ; The pet stops attacking so it loses a bit of its fucntion, and it could focus the attention to himself – there is a new trait that taunts players when using F2 skills so that effect might not exactly be necessary either, but again, consider the high cooldown on this skill. Perhaps instead of absorbing ALL damage, it could be something like 50%? Signet of Stone is already a damage cancelling move, could add to the skill effects variety

1s Fear to ‘Search and Rescue’ ; I think this effect could be extremely interesting; the pet goes to an ally safely for a few secs, and it could potentially cancel finishing moves in PvP/WvW. Again, high cooldown (normal for a ressurection skill) but take into account the fact that it takes longer to ressurect with this ranger skill than other ressureciton skills.

I’d prefer our (utility) shouts just not suck rather than making a complicated trait that makes them worth using.

That’s not a criticism of your ideas. If some of those boons were baseline on the shouts they might actually be a viable option over survival skills, signets, or traps (which also require runes/traits to be useful right now but that’s another topic).

I gotta agree with Unspecified.

By the way, did they remove the cast time from the shouts that had it? Cause I refuse to use shouts that have cast times.

TheFantasticGman.9451:

I gotta agree with Unspecified.

By the way, did they remove the cast time from the shouts that had it? Cause I refuse to use shouts that have cast times.

Only “guard” has cast time ATM i think.

Hi i think S&R should be able to revive defeated players (no only downed ones).
And Guard and Sic’em should change the revealed effect to “detect stealth”. That means the pet will attack any stealthed enemy for the duration of the effect but this enemy will not be revealed.
That’s will cause this: you will know where the enemy is if you keep tabs on your pet. But some skills that need an active target won’t work.

anduriell.6280:

Hi i think S&R should be able to revive defeated players (no only downed ones).

It use to be able to res defeated players.

Even still, shouts aren’t good enough for PVE yet… well, for a non-beastmaster build anyway. I’d use Sic ’Em if it effected Ranger and Pet.

Excited about the synergy between this trait, Heal as One and Centaur runes.

Mmm. 26 seconds of swiftness every time I use my heal.

Agree with unspecified.

I am hoping for a complete overhaul of ranger shouts.

Same, some need a LOT of work, others just slight buffs. Either way, they are nowhere near at the level of untraited Warrior shouts.

Maybe add something related to conditions, as both guard and warrior shouts have at least a trait OR an effect related to them; Guards can trait them to convert a condi to a boon, and warriors have a shout that removes a condition -

Maybe add the effect to one of the shouts to Remove a Condi from you, but convert it to a boon and give it to your pet. I’m thinking, Protect Me?

‘Protect Me’
Instead of attacking, your pet will protect you by absorbing all damage you would take.
A condition is transferred to your pet and converted into a boon.
It’s still in the defensive/survival theme, and I want to make it clear; the transferred condition to the pet is the one converted to a boon, not on you but on the pet.

Also thinking of yet another twist based on another warrior shout, ‘Fear Me!’
Although instead of fearing from the player, it’ll fear from the pet.

‘Search and Rescue’
Your pet will seek out and revive a downed ally.
Apply Fear to enemies close to your pet for 2-3s.
Adds more utility to the shout, very interesting dynamic in WvW or PVP, can cancel a stomp, and the pet can safely get to an ally (for a few seconds, at least)

I always thought it’d be neat if Protect Me caused your pet to shadowstep to you and you both gain retaliation for the duration.

I suspect we’ll be seeing some changes to the four utility shouts.

Yeah, I think “PM” needs some boons for the pet, at least Protection for it and maybe retaliation for the Ranger. 6s of each is not OP since its a 60s CD.

Also, it needs to have the “prevent capture point” attribute removed. Stupid that Signet of Stone doesn’t have that and it’s just flat out better.

This is true.

Protect Me could apply a few seconds of Resistance to the ranger, as far as I remember you are still affected by Condition Damage, could add a bit more utility without completely reworking the skill

Or rework the skill completely and remove the damage transfer, but apply taunt to foes, targeting the pet and granting the pet Protection; The foes will be forced to attack the pet instead of you. Still a stun break, 50s CD, 4s of taunt.

Search and Rescue could be reworked in the way the cooldown works: If it fails to detect a downed ally, the cooldown is halved, so you can take advantage of the Resounding Timbre trait (swift and regen on shout) and Rune of the Trooper (remove condition on shout) It’ll still become a somewhat long cooldown even with traits, but reasonable, as if it fails to detect a downed ally, which is its only use, its basically like having no use at all.