Guild Wars 2

Ranger:
We’re going to be fixing a bug with Spirit of Nature that caused it to have an incorrect healing power value. We’re also looking at adding combo fields to existing abilities to allow for more play through different combo finishers.
Spirit of Nature: Reduced the healing per second while summoned from 480 to 320.
Viper’s Nest: This ability is now a poison combo field.
(Added) Keen Edge: This trait is now classified as a Survival Skill.

Hey guys these are the changes posted on the proffession balance forum for Rangers.
These are on top of the signet and rune changes already discussed. I kinda thought there would be more, but what do I know about class balancing anyway.

That Keen Edge addition today is interesting as it’s a trait that triggers a utility. They seem to be implying the CD on the traits activation may be getting linked to the CD reduction benefit perhaps? Only reason I can think to link the trait as a survival skill.

The Keen Edge trait being under Survival Skills should mean it gets CD reduction from the Survival Skill CDR trait. It’s something a lot of people have been asking to get fixed.
Viper’s Nest becoming a combo field was also something that people were asking for, this should bring some nice uses for that skill now.

Still waiting for those “amazing” things they talked about in the stream. Maybe that word does not mean the same thing to me as it does the developers.

Poison field will help balance out the loss of survivability from the switch from 0-0-30-30-0 to 0-30-30-0-0 quite nicely.

We will then be able to leap weakness onto power classes, which should give perma weakness with axe and sword.

It isn’t amazing though. Just nice.

(sigh) still waiting…

Ryan.9387:

Poison field will help balance out the loss of survivability from the switch from 0-0-30-30-0 to 0-30-30-0-0 quite nicely.

We will then be able to leap weakness onto power classes, which should give perma weakness with axe and sword.

It isn’t amazing though. Just nice.

Would be nice buff, but they first need to fix Poison Field bug where it doesn’t proc weakness on the target but says it does on your screen.

Did they drop the whole “you can dodge while autoattacking with sword” thing or does this not count as a part of the balance patch?

kokiman.2364:

Did they drop the whole “you can dodge while autoattacking with sword” thing or does this not count as a part of the balance patch?

Yes, but JonPeters said it might not make it for the next balance patch. :-)

Apologies, been away for a few days – so might’ve missed the, if any, discussion – and! I don’t want to sound like a whinging basterd, but…

That’s it?

the real problem is:

-ranger need always 30 points to have a good cleanse in pvp/wvw
-ranger is the only class of this game whose signets need to be traited for self use.
-ranger pets MUST SCALE with ranger stats.
-30% of ranger damage rely on pets, and pets AI is BAD,so, against a good player, you lose 30% of your damage.

Mortec.5684:

Apologies, been away for a few days – so might’ve missed the, if any, discussion – and! I don’t want to sound like a whinging basterd, but…

That’s it?

Probably not – the patch in months away. Its just stuff they are pretty certain of/already been done I think.

Cufufalating.8479:

Probably not – the patch in months away. Its just stuff they are pretty certain of/already been done I think.

Well, I’d reckon – was just some early angst, hehe

What a surprise, after 1.5 years of being live they STILL haven’t addressed the core issues with rangers.

- bad pet AI therefore terrible DPS
- no dodge on sword auto
- terrible longbow skills
- still no role (healer, tank, support, DPS) in which the ranger can excel like the other professions

It’s like they don’t WANT rangers to be on a par with everything else.

Every time I see a ranger ask for pets scaling off our stats, I cry a little inside..Its like they don’t know they’re asking for basically a huge nerf to themselves.

Terravos.4059:

Every time I see a ranger ask for pets scaling off our stats, I cry a little inside..Its like they don’t know they’re asking for basically a huge nerf to themselves.

But now their pets 4 bleeds will tick for 100, yay!

Terravos.4059:

Every time I see a ranger ask for pets scaling off our stats, I cry a little inside..Its like they don’t know they’re asking for basically a huge nerf to themselves.

nerf? really??

if a ascended gear/weapon is supposed to have 5% more damage than exotics, ranger have a 5*0.7=3,5% damage, our skills have less damage due to our pets, if our pets dont scale with our stats we are focked (more focked)

urdriel.8496:

Terravos.4059:

Every time I see a ranger ask for pets scaling off our stats, I cry a little inside..Its like they don’t know they’re asking for basically a huge nerf to themselves.

nerf? really??

if a ascended gear/weapon is supposed to have 5% more damage than exotics, ranger have a 5*0.7=3,5% damage, our skills have less damage due to our pets, if our pets dont scale with our stats we are focked (more focked)

No, pet stat scaling to armor stat is bad. They need to bump the stats of pets across the board to compensate for the release of ascended gear.

Maybe a nerf to people who run pets to be contrary to their builds. Either way though, an overall buff of 5% to all stats to compensate for ascended would be the easy way.

kiwituatara.6053:

urdriel.8496:

Terravos.4059:

Every time I see a ranger ask for pets scaling off our stats, I cry a little inside..Its like they don’t know they’re asking for basically a huge nerf to themselves.

nerf? really??

if a ascended gear/weapon is supposed to have 5% more damage than exotics, ranger have a 5*0.7=3,5% damage, our skills have less damage due to our pets, if our pets dont scale with our stats we are focked (more focked)

No, pet stat scaling to armor stat is bad. They need to bump the stats of pets across the board to compensate for the release of ascended gear.

they will do nothing, Anet said they will not fix pet IA because ranger pets IA is “bound” to normal mobs and they cant change the IA for all mobs of the game, so, we have a class whose mechanic is broken.

Mortec.5684:

Apologies, been away for a few days – so might’ve missed the, if any, discussion – and! I don’t want to sound like a whinging basterd, but…

That’s it?

It was stated in the patch preview thread that that wasn’t all that was being covered in the patch.

Edit: Added the quote from the patch preview thread

Karl McLain.5604:

Deathknight.3075:

I would like to know if Sigils that have ‘on crit % apply effect’ of two different types can be used together.

As for the thief, do people really use the with off hand empty it gets overwritten when you slot anything in the off hand slot when you use the main and secondary weapon slot. It would be nice if with off hand empty would get a skill for the 4th and 5th slot on the skill bar instead of a blank spots

For the first question: Sigils that have different effects can indeed be used together. Sigil of Fire can be used in conjunction with Sigil of Air.

As far as the ‘Offhand Empty’ skills go, these abilities were designed for new characters that have yet to gain an off-hand weapon and I wouldn’t count on these sets being changed anytime soon. Thanks for the suggestion though!

I added an edit in the original post explaining why the notes are being posted currently. I’ll post it here too:
“Most of these notes are simply a summary of what was discussed in the previous Ready Up stream, with a few tweaks based on feedback. This list of changes does not encompass all changes that will occur in the next feature build. We’ve got quite a few more things coming, but are unable to talk about them at this time. Soon.”

Thanks for the feedback all!

Also, another change that wasn’t in ready up but is new to the list:
Ranger:

• Keen Edge: This trait is now classified as a Survival Skill.

Bryzy.2719:

What a surprise, after 1.5 years of being live they STILL haven’t addressed the core issues with rangers.

- bad pet AI therefore terrible DPS
- no dodge on sword auto
- terrible longbow skills
- still no role (healer, tank, support, DPS) in which the ranger can excel like the other professions

It’s like they don’t WANT rangers to be on a par with everything else.

The thing is that basic attacks of the sword are not used by most ranger players the way it should be used. Firstly you should not keep it on auto attack, this alone will allow you to dodge whenever you want. And secondly, third basic attack move (if you de-target your enemy) is a gap closer/evasive move.

Watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbNuv4T8J1I

Sword as it is, imo, is an amazing weapon in good hands. It adds a new level of micro control that I hope is gonna stay and won’t become the usual AA close combat smashing thing. The evasive mechanic fits ranger’s character pretty well.

Who needs to learn sword micro when the autoattack is for a non viable stat setup.

dps is non viable as long as empatic bond exists in 30 wilderness.
I’d move it down to 10 pt tier, but then I’d also shuffle and change a lot of condi traits to prevent those builds from becomming OP.

Arrys.7145:

That Keen Edge addition today is interesting as it’s a trait that triggers a utility. They seem to be implying the CD on the traits activation may be getting linked to the CD reduction benefit perhaps? Only reason I can think to link the trait as a survival skill.

It already does, if you have a trait that used a skill, given X condition and have a trait that reduces the CD of said skill type it reduces the CD in the trait too.

It’s done this for a while, rangers just never had any traits that really used it.

Terravos.4059:

Every time I see a ranger ask for pets scaling off our stats, I cry a little inside..Its like they don’t know they’re asking for basically a huge nerf to themselves.

lol a nerf? theres no reason to nerf the ranger if the pet damage is improved. to assume theil nerf ranger to buff the pet is outright absurd. Pet needs scaling and ranger needs a buff its a win win if you get both!

Terravos what you looking to play is called ’’warrior’’ :P

Dream on… pet will never be removed from ranger side

It is a nerf because you lose the power dmg pet with condi dmg specs.

Take a diamond skin ele and a shamans BM ranger. Since pets don’t scale off your stats your pet can eat through the diamond skin, which you could not do.

kyubi.3620:

Terravos.4059:

Every time I see a ranger ask for pets scaling off our stats, I cry a little inside..Its like they don’t know they’re asking for basically a huge nerf to themselves.

lol a nerf? theres no reason to nerf the ranger if the pet damage is improved. to assume theil nerf ranger to buff the pet is outright absurd. Pet needs scaling and ranger needs a buff its a win win if you get both!

Terravos what you looking to play is called ’’warrior’’ :P

Dream on… pet will never be removed from ranger side

Please think, Why do you think the condi bunkers work so well? stacking might, boonsharing with out cats who deal direct damage while we deal condition damage ourselves, even if this redicilously horrible request makes it trough, it will destroy what the ranger is about and make all the diffrent pets worthless becasue they’ll scale to your stats anyways. you’ll never kill a diamond skin ele or one of those condi ummunity below 25% engi’s again if that happens.

To OP, maybe there is more…. This is the balance part. Perhaps there is more than balancing to that patch….

kyubi.3620:

Terravos.4059:

Every time I see a ranger ask for pets scaling off our stats, I cry a little inside..Its like they don’t know they’re asking for basically a huge nerf to themselves.

lol a nerf? theres no reason to nerf the ranger if the pet damage is improved. to assume theil nerf ranger to buff the pet is outright absurd. Pet needs scaling and ranger needs a buff its a win win if you get both!

Terravos what you looking to play is called ’’warrior’’ :P

Dream on… pet will never be removed from ranger side

I’m honestly not even sure what you said in your post, as its complete dribble.

Scaling Ranger Pets off our stats would be silly..

Allow me to explain, Lets say you go full Berserker Gear, Now all your former tank pets are now squishy, all your former dps pets are now squishier… So you basically have a bunch of glassy pets that die instantly.

Lets say you go BM Bunker and have Condition Damage, Welp that just gets rid of Dogs for condition builds, as they have no viable condition damage, Cats lose a large portion of their direct damage to apply more bleeds that we already stack incredibly high so its not going to help that much. So pretty much every pet besides the ones that had maybe a bleed stack or two is now nerfed for Condition Builds.

now lets say you just want Rangers to get a DPS increase on their pets to make up for Ascended…

If the Ranger is Condition Based, They’re getting the same DPS boost as every other Condition Based Class, so they don’t need a DPS boost on their Pet

If they’re Power Based, While some portion of their damage is made up by having a pet in the first place, Power Based Rangers still get some benefit for taking ascended, So we’re talking maybe a 5% damage increase for a pet based off stats would be needed at most to bring them up on par. Not worth the trouble of completely breaking pets all together by making them scale off Ranger Stats

Ranger pet need to scale off of our gear not stats. So if I am running ascended zerker gear the stat isn’t important. However my pet should be given a bonus in all of it’s normal stats as those it was wearing ascended gear.

Since mobs all have different stats I don’t see how this would be hard to add. Piece of gear would add .10 to .25% boost to the pets normal stats based on the rarity of the gear to equal whatever % we are losing out on now for being gear with ascended or exotic.

Similar to how mobs scale with people just calculate vs the rangers gear.

I personally have always felt that combo fields on traps shouldn’t have been a thing in the first place (let alone being further implemented now). You can’t control when they are going to go off. You can only guess. As long as combo fields can overwrite other combo fields, it’s a bit of a nuisance when running traps might accidentally overwrite an ally’s field just because some red name runs in. It doesn’t happen often, but it does happen.

They should buff traps in some other way other than giving them combo fields and give us more attacks that apply those fields instead… attacks that apply direct targeting rather than utilizing an undetermined delay. Even adding a second skill option to traps that allows them to be manually triggered would help.

Faux Sheaux.6179:

I personally have always felt that combo fields on traps shouldn’t have been a thing in the first place (let alone being further implemented now). You can’t control when they are going to go off. You can only guess. As long as combo fields can overwrite other combo fields, it’s a bit of a nuisance when running traps might accidentally overwrite an ally’s field just because some red name runs in. It doesn’t happen often, but it does happen.

They should buff traps in some other way other than giving them combo fields

You pretty kitten right.

Serraphin Storm.2369:

Ranger pet need to scale off of our gear not stats. So if I am running ascended zerker gear the stat isn’t important. However my pet should be given a bonus in all of it’s normal stats as those it was wearing ascended gear.

Since mobs all have different stats I don’t see how this would be hard to add. Piece of gear would add .10 to .25% boost to the pets normal stats based on the rarity of the gear to equal whatever % we are losing out on now for being gear with ascended or exotic.

Similar to how mobs scale with people just calculate vs the rangers gear.

This.

Base it off the armour amount, or weapon damage, or perhaps get really inventive and check which of the 13/14 (2-handed/2 × 1-handed) equipment slots have ascended equipped and boost the pet’s stats by x/14 (or 13; or hell, make a 2-handed weapon count for two slots to make it easy).

Or flat increase all the stats of ranger pets, necro minions and engi turrets by 5%.

Or give those classes an equipment slot they can buy/craft for (pet collar, minion totem or turret wrench) even if it does introduce more grind.

Something has to be done, since apart from the other faults with our pets, rangers are being left behind by the power creep.

Terravos.4059:

Every time I see a ranger ask for pets scaling off our stats, I cry a little inside..Its like they don’t know they’re asking for basically a huge nerf to themselves.

Wouldn’t that depend on how they scaled? why would it necessarily be a huge nerf this could be done in a number of ways ¯\(?)/¯

Terravos.4059:

kyubi.3620:

Terravos.4059:

Every time I see a ranger ask for pets scaling off our stats, I cry a little inside..Its like they don’t know they’re asking for basically a huge nerf to themselves.

lol a nerf? theres no reason to nerf the ranger if the pet damage is improved. to assume theil nerf ranger to buff the pet is outright absurd. Pet needs scaling and ranger needs a buff its a win win if you get both!

Terravos what you looking to play is called ’’warrior’’ :P

Dream on… pet will never be removed from ranger side

I’m honestly not even sure what you said in your post, as its complete dribble.

Scaling Ranger Pets off our stats would be silly..

Allow me to explain, Lets say you go full Berserker Gear, Now all your former tank pets are now squishy, all your former dps pets are now squishier… So you basically have a bunch of glassy pets that die instantly.

Lets say you go BM Bunker and have Condition Damage, Welp that just gets rid of Dogs for condition builds, as they have no viable condition damage, Cats lose a large portion of their direct damage to apply more bleeds that we already stack incredibly high so its not going to help that much. So pretty much every pet besides the ones that had maybe a bleed stack or two is now nerfed for Condition Builds.

now lets say you just want Rangers to get a DPS increase on their pets to make up for Ascended…

If the Ranger is Condition Based, They’re getting the same DPS boost as every other Condition Based Class, so they don’t need a DPS boost on their Pet

If they’re Power Based, While some portion of their damage is made up by having a pet in the first place, Power Based Rangers still get some benefit for taking ascended, So we’re talking maybe a 5% damage increase for a pet based off stats would be needed at most to bring them up on par. Not worth the trouble of completely breaking pets all together by making them scale off Ranger Stats

By stat scaling i mean keeping the pet as the same stat as they are now with slightly weaker base damage and adding a bonus based on the ranger gear (lose 25% base damage gain 50% to 75% from equipement). This means your bear or your cat wont actualy loose this much in damage and rampager armor will actualy be a viable build! Same would go for zerker.

Now about about armor i dont think we should weaken the pet armor to match with an actual toughness boost from gear since tbh pets are so squishy close to every aoe kills them outright. Precision could be a + to its actual damage and so would be a bonus to health.

If you so scared however about your cat loosing power if you run condition damage then run rampager armor! This is clearly what the skirmish build was about all along why deny it by using carrion or shaman?

Someone said elsewhere that you choose pet depending on your build and the situation. Just so to remind you that dogs arent actualy condition pet anyway but that since you would run rampager he would STILL get the power to deal his damage.

5% is outright ridiculus, pets already hit like wet noodle you might as well call it a 1% bonus damage to our total stat! Its not about them behing on par or not with ascended gear its about them drowning the ranger with them with very sad damage and leeching a good 30% of the total damage from us, Back in the beta i could still have believed pet to deal 30% of the total ranger damage if not more now that pet damage have been nerfed to the ground thanks to bunker ranger its more like the ranger hit 60% of the dps other class do save for when he runs a brain dead auto attack sword build.

Save for sword ranger prety much all build are unable to deal decent damage and sword ranger doesnt actualy use the pet this much in the first place, it just happen to buff it because its has conveniant traits in skirmish. If there was any other worthwhile trait not including pet sword ranger meta probably would not even be using the pet boost in the first place.

To make rampager build viable damage wise, and open a door to something else then the silly spirit build pet zoo in spvp pet needs to actualy be better then this.

Ryan.9387:

It is a nerf because you lose the power dmg pet with condi dmg specs.

Take a diamond skin ele and a shamans BM ranger. Since pets don’t scale off your stats your pet can eat through the diamond skin, which you could not do.

You could still have pets that have a base stat distribution like today and then get a percentage boost in some form based on your stats this way you loose nothing but gain a small bit of pet damage as you upgrade armor it would also make pets able to do decent condition damage based purely on your own armor instead of, well not at all as it is now (more or less)

pet already scale with condition damage… run a darn cat and give it the bleed on crit and its damage will be increased. Preventing pet power scaling and limiting its stat to condition damage is simply like saying that they want us to run condi bunk when using pet to begin with!

Well i happen to like glass cannon condition build and glass cannon physical build so running condi bunk is kind of out of my mind. + the fact bunkers are an issue in this game could be helped by making it impossible to Bunk Petburst anymore by using scaling.

kyubi.3620:

pet already scale with condition damage… run a darn cat and give it the bleed on crit and its damage will be increased. Preventing pet power scaling and limiting its stat to condition damage is simply like saying that they want us to run condi bunk when using pet to begin with!

Well i happen to like glass cannon condition build and glass cannon physical build so running condi bunk is kind of out of my mind. + the fact bunkers are an issue in this game could be helped by making it impossible to Bunk Petburst anymore by using scaling.

It doesn’t scale with condi damage, you can just give it 350 condi damage.

Can give it more condi damage with Companions Might rofl.

So you telling me the bleed damage bonus from tooltip is ALSO a bug right. Then great it means pet are 100% useless no mather what build you run.
With cat bleed scaling i couldve understood the cat behing somewhat viable as an assist for condition build. With no decent stat at all how can you expect the pet to even serve a purpose save for buffing (lol even that it cant do right because of buggy cast).

This just double the importance of adding pet stat scaling.

With wilderness 10 the pet bleed is around 66 per tick.

a total joke what will you kill with 66 per tick anyway??? Theid need to put that condition damage bonus to 1200 and make it a grandmaster trait for the pet to even be effective as a cond damage

kyubi.3620:

a total joke what will you kill with 66 per tick anyway??? Theid need to put that condition damage bonus to 1200 and make it a grandmaster trait for the pet to even be effective as a cond damage

Just to clarify, that is 1 single bleed a cat will put up more than that with the bleed trait obviously, not that it will be superimpressive but it’s certainly alot more than 66damage per second overall like it sounds by your post

Faux Sheaux.6179:

I personally have always felt that combo fields on traps shouldn’t have been a thing in the first place (let alone being further implemented now). You can’t control when they are going to go off. You can only guess. As long as combo fields can overwrite other combo fields, it’s a bit of a nuisance when running traps might accidentally overwrite an ally’s field just because some red name runs in. It doesn’t happen often, but it does happen.

They should buff traps in some other way other than giving them combo fields and give us more attacks that apply those fields instead… attacks that apply direct targeting rather than utilizing an undetermined delay. Even adding a second skill option to traps that allows them to be manually triggered would help.

They all need massively better direct damage scaling instead. I’d love them to be a good source of aoe spike damage (a thing virtually non-existant on the ranger) if I slot for the appropriate stats.

Bran.7425:

Still waiting for those “amazing” things they talked about in the stream. Maybe that word does not mean the same thing to me as it does the developers.

It could just mean “amazingly terrible”. When it comes to ANet devs and their patch talk, Orwell would be proud.

Terravos.4059:

Every time I see a ranger ask for pets scaling off our stats, I cry a little inside..Its like they don’t know they’re asking for basically a huge nerf to themselves.

While i agree on the pet scaling being a bad idea, i still don’t understand why ranger has to share his base dmg with his pet.

WvW wise you generaly have to choose between being a pseudo dmg dealer or being a beastmaster. if for the second case the pet having independant stats is a real asset, for the first case u will probably end using your pet on passive for buff.

So why the pet dmg bonus on the beastmastery line doesn’t scale differently, starting from very low dmg to end at actual dmg ? It would allow to level up the dmg coef on our weapon skills, without breaking balance