Guild Wars 2

Thought for some fun I would go through and make tooltips for all the ideas I had for improving the core traits before the Druid traits are announced. Wanted to work in some more trait synergy and symbiosis with the pet. Enjoy.

What I like about the ideas:

• Smart mergers of traits that reflect a lot of what Anet was going for with “One-Stop Shop” traits. These include Opening Strikes & Alpha Training minors in Marksmanship and Sharpened Edges & Hidden Barbs majors in Skirmishing.
• Steady Focus is a minor trait. As reflected with Engineer and other classes that have a damage buff involving Endurance (either retaining full or less than).
• Invigorating Bond converts conditions into Boons. Not sure about the quantity, but the idea is there.
• Utility added to Hunter’s Call in Windborne Notes. Many and for a long time Rangers have wanted extra utility added to Hunter’s Call, and a Blind was the most requested and least broken.
• Fortifying Bond moved to Beastmastery.
• Increased Radii for Go For the Eyes and Wilting Strike. I am automatically going to assume the same for Invigorating Bond and Beastly Warden, otherwise, you get a badge of “Dev’s Oversight.”
• The addition of Run as One and Predatory Bond. Extra points for referencing skills from the original Guild Wars. This goes the same for Tiger’s Fury and Predatory Bond.
• Plus 1 for all the other buffs like damage ones on Predator’s Instinct and Two-Handed Training, and other things littered across that I’ve seen, like the Stability added to Trapper’s Expertise that reflects Trapper’s Focus (at least, I think that was a GW1 reference you made there).

What I’m not sure about:

• Apply Poison. I know it’s just 1s of poison, but it can get really crazy with Quickness, Predatory Bond, and landing multiple hits while a target is on-top of ticking AOEs (ie: Bonfire or Traps). I hate internal cooldowns so the alternative is a % on hit and adjust duration to match.
• Whirling Defense can be used while moving tied to a trait. This is a personal stance on traits that add a unique effect to skills in general. I am one to rather see Winter’s Bite AOE and even a on-the-move Whirling Defense baseline (if it were to happen), but when you do a list of traits, you stick with traits. :P
• Poison Master is still jammed between condition removal traits. Yeah, this is another thing that’s a preference thing and not on how you did it. I’ve already went over this a few times in the past, so I’ll not rant here.

Nice work! Of course there would be some balancing, but I would really like these versions to be in the game!

I know that our traits should be slightly like this but even as a ranger, i also fight other rangers. From what i see all heroe rangers who doesn’t care of their pets and use GS to run would go Marksmanship, Skirmishing and WS with signets mostly.

- Why do you give them so much damage buffs for free ? Penetrating Stikes and Hunter’s Tactic are too strong and unjustified.
- Why do you give them access to retaliation ?
- Why do you give them boon share for free ?
- Why do you give them movement speed without sacrificing anything ?
- Apply Poison seems to be here to give them acces to poison… for free.
- Too much passive cleans, EB is too strong.

Also, NM lost half of its purpose (boon share) and the buffs are very shy, like Companion ’s might, while half of the traits remain useless.

borya.2964:

I know that our traits should be slightly like this but even as a ranger, i also fight other rangers. From what i see all heroe rangers who doesn’t care of their pets and use GS to run would go Marksmanship, Skirmishing and WS with signets mostly.

- Why do you give them so much damage buffs for free ? Penetrating Stikes and Hunter’s Tactic are too strong and unjustified.
- Why do you give them access to retaliation ?
- Why do you give them boon share for free ?
- Why do you give them movement speed without sacrificing anything ?
- Apply Poison seems to be here to give them acces to poison… for free.
- Too much passive cleans, EB is too strong.

Also, NM lost half of its purpose (boon share) and the buffs are very shy, like Companion ’s might, while half of the traits remain useless.

- Penetrating Strikes is pretty much a copy of the Revenant minor trait, if you have 50% crit chance.
- Hunter’s Tactics is pretty much the same as before, both conditions are very easy to meet. Fury can be stripped.
- Why now have retaliation? It more suits a Ranger than a Warrior, especially when paired with vigor.
- Why not have boon share?
- Why wouldn’t you have movement speed?
- Apply poison can pretty much maintain 1 stack of poison. This trait alone would get Ranger into PvP meta as it would really counter D/D Cele. I really meant to add a 1s ICD on that too.
- EB merely has the timings changed to be 1/3s instead of 3/10s which makes it more reliable but not more powerful, overly. Also, since pets really do need a damage reduction from AoE and splash damage, it made sense to add it to EB for the synergy. The pet can still be focused, it just gains a reduction in the damage taken from EB conditions, and random AoE.
I just noticed I put conditions “removed” in the tooltip of EB when it should be “transferred”.

I for one believe that Fortifying Bond belongs in BM and not NM, hence my moving it there. But moving Companion’s might to NM means you still stack might on the pet and it stacks on you. What traits do you think are useless? I really cannot see any at all there that are not useful.

I actually love these, perhaps MoC is a bit OTT.

TBH, I usually don’t agree with Heim’s ideas. But will bump coz I actually like these this time

Though… I still don’t really like the effects of Brutish Seals and Most Dangerous Game

kiwituatara.6053:

TBH, I usually don’t agree with Heim’s ideas. But will bump coz I actually like these this time

Though… I still don’t really like the effects of Brutish Seals and Most Dangerous Game

Yeah, MDG is still a sore point for me too, I don’t really like the mechanic, but what would be good in its place? Too many ideas for that, so tried to just make it have synergy with Remorseless at least. It is actually designed to work very nicely with Enlargement, Brutish Seals and Remorseless for a very strong signet build.
Brutish Seals I wanted to give something extra too, since I moved the might to Enlargement for a really good signet build, not unlike cantrips for ele, but is that the right combination? What would you like to see on it?

I would love to see these changes, only if though… ;_;

I think that every pet should get 300 condition damage, healing power and ferocity by default., and another 150 of each if you spec into BM line. I would move the condition duration to wilting strike and remove expertise training altogether. Replace it with another trait.

Also rejuvenation is pretty bad. 5s of regeneration is just so bad. Perhaps it adds regeneration and your regeneration heals allies for x% more could be a good thing. Or even, % of your vitality is converted into healing power, and remove the buff from instinctual reaction* and instead of it, you get 5 might as well as quickness when you drop below the threshold.

I like what you did to the MM line.

Honed axes change is simply brilliant as it plays to both condition and power builds.

Windbourne notes change also is very good, except that I woud make blind on hit baseline for the WH 4. I would also buff the might stacks for the baseline ability from 1 to 3.

The spirit trait change also makes spirits relevant but also forces opponents to counterplay them by killing them.

Also I love it how you moved fortifying bond to BM and what you did to natures healing and how you implemented predatory bond, except I dislike the name. There is no bond in it, why not just name it carnivorous appetite?? Also is the +300 stats for pets a mistake? Because at the moment we gain 150 baseline and 150 while going into BM. Do you mean to make the total change to pet stats +450 ?

Yeah, after I found out that a jaguar is only responsible for 15% of a S/A Zerker Ranger’s damage, I figured they could do with a significant increase in stats. Like a 10% increase to the pet is only a 1.5% total increase in damage, so not all that significant. So I removed the +150 from pack alpha and added +300 to all on pets prowess, so they could have a total of 800 healing power and 800 condition damage with traits, that would actually make the fern hound (regen tick for 230, invigorating bond heals for 3220) and the condition pets work well imo. All the other stats would be +450, including the baseline +150 added, yes.

I love how you got rid of the pet-only traits from the other lines:

• Alpha Training
• Fortifying Bond

However, I don’t think Champion’s Might belongs in Nature Magic. It’s still a pet buffing trait, since pets hit a lot less often than the Ranger (and people would want to combine it with Fortifying Bond anyway).
Maybe Resounding Timbre should be in Nature Magic and Champion’s Might should stay as it was (a pet-only trait in Beastmastery). Or Predatory Bond should be removed and instead think of a new trait for Nature Magic.

Predator’s Instrinct wow, sign me up. It’s a lot like Sigil of Incapacitation. But a lot better.

It’s good you gave an Opening Strike reset method to those who don’t pick Remorseless, but I think Precise Strike should give 100% crit chance and reset Opening Strike on Fury. Then Remorseless should give Opening Strike +25% damage and make it unblockable.

I think Apply Poison might be too strong. That’s basically permanent poison.

Run as One is nice, but it doesn’t say how much % it reduces with. I’m guessing it’s 25% and exactly the same as the new Chronomancer trait Time Marches On which is terribly overpowered. It has no drawback or condition for either of its powerful buffs. Chronomancer is going to be terribly OP, but that’s another topic. I think it’s asking too much, but apparently not.

Edited the tooltips, made some changes like suggested. Poison master is gone, added ICD and more damage to Apply Poison, then made new condi related GM for WS. I put Companion’s Might back in BM but added the attack speed increase (for synergy with…), then put Predatory Bond into NM, its thematically good now imo and super awesome! I think I want it more than anything else now haha

Any other ideas?

Instinctive Reaction is nice that it gives healing power based on power rather than the other way around. I might actually pick that.

Rejuvenation is nice too how it applies every second. However, would that kill the Ranger if he stood on a field that converted boons into conditions? That’s 10s of poison every second It’s also permanent regeneration, which is a bit much. It renders other sources of regeneration meaningless and it doesn’t need the boon duration from Lingering Magic. I kind of like the balance of the current version, except that the cooldown is too high and the health threshold too low. So I’d say:

• When hit below 75% health gain 5s regeneration with a 10s cooldown.

Predatory Bond I like that you changed it, but it doesn’t feel right:

• it still heavily involves the pet
• it has little synergy with the other minor traits
• not having it affect the Ranger is odd (is it a fix for combining with fortifying bond?)

Considering the minor trait, how about buffing Regeneration instead? For example:

• increases the healing effect of Reneration by 50%.
• while under the effect of Regeneration, you gain 350 healing power
• while under the effect of Regeneration, conditions applied to you have reduced damage by 20%.
• whenever you gain Regeneration, you also gain 2s retaliation.

Natural Stride is good, but it would make me choose between condition removal or 25% movement speed. I’d probably still be stuck with Signet of the Hunt or Traveller Runes. I think Run as One should get the 25% movement speed back, then Natural Stride can get the movement impeding conditions reduction. So:

• gain 2s resistance whenever you gain a condition (6s cooldown)
• movement impeding conditions have a 25% reduced duration

Run as One could probably up the duration reduction to 33% if you leave it like this. Otherwise, just give it the +25% movement speed (to the Ranger and his pet) and nothing else. It’s an adept trait after all.

Apply Poison still gives permanent poison with a bit of luck. How about 2s poison on 5s cooldown (without a health threshold) and +20% poison damage?

As in your spear elite spec thread, I like the gw1 references. I’d bet some of these traits already would have existed if Robert “GW1 Nostalgic” Gee did the ranger work.

You got some really great ideas. However, there are some things I think are imbalanced or just don’t make too much sense conceptually.

Marksmanship

Enlargement and Brutish Seals
I simply don’t get the change you made to those traits. It’s not that they are too strong or not convenient. But it doesn’t feel like Signets need this change. Also, I feel its conceptually flawed. Signets might grant Might right now, but Marksmanship isn’t about boons. Neither does Retaliation fit to the class in general.

Predators Instinct
The uptime of Cripple is waaaaaaaaaay to high on this one. There is no counterplay to it and it would be incredibly silly with Longbow.

Tigers Instinct
Conceptually belongs into Skirmishing.

Predators Onslaught
I know some people love damage modifiers but they are boring. I guess the duration increase is okay. But to you really want to make such a damage modifier even more important than it already is?

Skirmishing

Trappers Expertise
I personally think the Stunbreak on Trap activation is awesome. It thought of something similar way back when they made the CDI-thread. That being said, don’t put Stability on cast. It doesn’t fit thematically and its simply too much.

Most Dangerous Game
The additional pet damage is pretty redundant. The Might also doubles up with Companions Might. Fortifying Bond will just make it pretty silly. The easiest solution would be getting rid of the Might for your pet on this one and keeping the additional pet damage.

Wilderness Survival

Run as One
Not going to happen. Your last change even made it stronger than Time Marches On in combat and that is a Grandmaster trait. Yes, there is Dogged Marches. But come on… What about: 25% duration decrease. Additional 15% duration decrease while your pet is alive. No speed bonus. If you really want a passive speed bonus, put it on Light on your Feet (faster when equipping a ranged weapon).

Apply Poison
Just no. The application frequency is extremly high and the uptime is basically 100%. There is no counter to this and it doesn’t even require skillful play. Why not just go with the old Refined Toxins and make the secondary effect more potent (e.g. 50% instead of 33%)?

Empathic Bond
I get why you did it but the damage reduction on the pet doesn’t fit conceptually. It feels more appropriate for Beastly Warden. It also might be slightly too strong.

Natural Stride
This is a 33% immunity against conditions without doing anything. The uptime is too high and it’s too easy to access. I’d also argue that Nature Magic is a better spot for stuff like this. That being said: There is no point in having three anti-condition traits in one line on one tier. It overemphasizes WS for condition removal and doesn’t offer enough build diversity. Personally, I’d rather keep Poison Master.

Poison Master
Just add something here. For example: Become immune to the secondary effect of Poison. Poisons applied to your or your pet have a 20% shorter duration. Keep the active on swap effect.

Nature Magic

Rejuvination
Too easy too access. Not a fan.

Predatory Bond
There is no way this trait will ever be balanced. It would create boon-loops in group content and even with yourself when, for example, using Spirits. The effect would have to be limited to boons the pet actually applied itself. I also feel that passively providing boons should be a Spirit-thing, not something the pet does.

Vigorous Training
Retaliation… don’t feel like it’s appropriate.

Natures Vengeance
You’re a bit too optimistic with the boons the spirits are supposed to supply…

Invigorating Bond
Rangers don’t really convert conditions. What about removing 2 conditions and healing an additional amount per unique boon on your pet?

Beast Mastery

Two-Handed-Training
I don’t feel that the additional damage and speed is justified.

Honed Axes
Torn on this one. Because I really don’t want Warriors to get a reflect on Axe 5.

I was thinking instead of removing conditions invigorating bond could strip a few boons from opponents. I’m sure someone will say this doesn’t fit it thematically or whatever… I really don’t care, rangers need access to boon strip and that would be a decent mechanic/cooldown for it. Change the name if it bothers you.

I really like Honed Axes. It fixes the ferocity for main hand axe issue. Main hand axe is used in condition builds, while offhand axe is used for power builds. Nice touch on adding movement to Whirling Defense. That way, both main/off hands get an improved skill, promoting the trait for more builds.

@Heim

Include a range for IB.

If you can do utilities dude that would be great.

Signets need work. Shouts. traps. Everything. LOL

My aim with threads like this are to create discussion on our traits etc, but this time I intend on continually updating the tooltips until they are at a point where a majority of us like them all. I’ll take another look at them later on and change a few things around My original effort was quite rushed so I missed a lot of Ranges etc, will update. Keep the ideas and constructive criticism flowing!

Well, I think that making whirling defense a moving skill might be difficult. Alternatively the ranger could get 5s of protection and 2 stacks of stability during the channel.

In NV the extra boons applied by the spirits are too shor in duration. I would change teh frequency to 1 stack of 5secs every 5 secs,so the boons can be striped but you get the boon otherwise.
Also i would add the cast the active effect when killed. Add an internal ICD of 1 sec to the active skills from the spirits to avoid to be cast twice when the spirit are destroyed (by casting the active effect).