Guild Wars 2

Alright. So I decided to give it more testing before making my final verdict on the subject.

My conclusion at this point as this SOTP is only useful now as a mild dps buff.

The stability it "provides’ is more often than not a downside. The only reason to use this skill now is if your build is lacking in fury. Or your set up to make use of the might stacks it generates.

There are two VERY common classes that completely ignore your stability. Namely Reapers and Thieves (and to a lesser extent condi revs). And both of these actually gain benefits from taking this away from you (thieves get the stability and necros fear you)

Previously even if they did so the pulsing stacks prevented you from further punishment. They got there benefit and had an opening to attack you. But that opening closed.

Now it stays open. And you do a kitten ed good impression of a stake pounded into the ground as you are locked in place.

That leaves us with MAYBE two stunbreaks. One of which we have likely used before hand. And another we may still have off cooldown or we may have used it to cover the cast of strength of the pack.

Ranger is back to being one of the primary focus targets. Where before we had a fair chance IF WE DID THINGS WELL to slip away now we are much easier to eliminate.

Due to the lack of reliable stab I think youl find it common for us to be sent to the side nodes once again. We can contribute to team fights sure. But much more passively than we were before unless were in an organized group.

And on the side nodes we are a hell of a lot more vulnerable to being +1d. Our elite allowed us limited ability to fight back against a +1 by preventing us from being completely CC locked between two players. Now it does not.

Since Anet doesn’t have a history of rolling back changes of this degree we need to look for further alterations.

My recommendation’s

One: SOTP becomes instant cast and breaks stun. Same cooldown. Same current affects. Further nerfing would simply make this change pointless.

Second. SOTP gains a MUCH shorter cooldown. Like im talking 30-40 seconds when traited shorter. Same Current affects and boon durations. This makes it more likely we can use our elite again during the fight if we do somehow manage to survive the initial lockdown.

These changes are designed to reenable us to play aggressively. Cause as it is we are once again stuck being afraid of any of the copious amounts of boon hate in game.

I do NOT want to go back to the passive 1 spam off point playstyle. I was sick and tired of it before. And I am lothe to return to it.

Please seriosuly consider undoing this change. Or performing further reworks to return some of the reliability of this skill. Especially seeing as we have NOTHING else that can provide the same benefits. Atleast nothing even slightly worth using (signet of the wild)

Shadelang.3012:

One: SOTP becomes instant cast and breaks stun. Same cooldown. Same current affects. Further nerfing would simply make this change pointless.

Second. SOTP gains a MUCH shorter cooldown. Like im talking 30-40 seconds when traited shorter. Same Current affects and boon durations. This makes it more likely we can use our elite again during the fight if we do somehow manage to survive the initial lockdown.

1) Not bad idea, it would be more useful than it is now.

2) It was on a shorter cooldown before they increased its cooldown when it was on the pulsing version. They didn’t even bother to change the cooldown to 60s untraited like it was before. I agree, it should be even lower considering it’s just a minor buff.

It was also direct nerf to the pet burst/damage potential. To make things worse, they nerfed Smoke Assault of the Smokescale, which I mostly used Remorseless/SotP with.

I don’t really get how it was supposed to be hard to wait till SotP runs out (10 secs!) to do your CC ? Do people expect to always CC without looking what buff the target has ? Isn’t it the point of an ELITE to have great effects ? Now it is not elite worthy at all.

Other ’’transformation’’ such as Rampage and Lich Form didn’t even get their Stability pulsing removed, while they do something more special than give might on each attack…

No CONSISTENCY at all

Hi.

I think Anet just wanted to nerf the meta druid. “Balance” patch seems less for balance than change in meta. That is why shouts were nerfed in general. We no more get our easy AF generation and the elite is of few use defensively.

Strangely, I tried to shift with spirits of water and nature to get the regen and the pulsing stab (with traits). It is not as efficient as before, but the pulsing stab for the team is good. You lose WHAO and all the combos you could do with it, but AF regen can be pretty quick… if you can lend them.
I did not play enough to know what it can do. I am just sharing ideas.

Yeh those at aney should play seriously with the class in wvw to actually be able to do some effective changes.

Right now it seems they keep doing the changes with their feet.

Roots are deeper than that. They reduced the boons from Resounding Timbre because of lack-of-creativity. It makes every shout grant regeneration which powers up Druid – it was bound to be nerfed.

I’d go for none of those options proposed. Instead, remove the one-time stability, swiftness, and fury. Reduce the duration effect from 10s to 8s, cooldown to 60s, and have the effect grant might (8s), fury (3s), and stability (2s) when the player and the pet attacks to each other.

Just front load 3 boons onto the effect and base it off of player and pet performance so we can at least have some synergy back with Remorseless and extra stability application if the pet is able to land attacks.

Shorter cooldowns and stun breaks are nice, but if there’s no Remorseless synergy, then there’s no point. It might as well be converted into a Signet. Also, Resounding Timbre could use a change, too.

It’s lame for every shout to provide the same 2 boons. Having each one provide their own separate boon like Mesmer’s Bountiful Disillusionment would have been the better thing to do.

Heal as One – regen (6s), Protect Me – vigor (5s), Sic ’Em – fury (6s), Search & Rescue – protection (3s), Guard – retaliation (3s), and Rampage as One – quickness (5s). The trait should be more than just another fuel source for AF.

Wondrouswall.7169:

Roots are deeper than that. They reduced the boons from Resounding Timbre because of lack-of-creativity. It makes every shout grant regeneration which powers up Druid – it was bound to be nerfed.

I’d go for none of those options proposed. Instead, remove the one-time stability, swiftness, and fury. Reduce the duration effect from 10s to 8s, cooldown to 60s, and have the effect grant might (8s), fury (3s), and stability (2s) when the player and the pet attacks to each other.

Just front load 3 boons onto the effect and base it off of player and pet performance so we can at least have some synergy back with Remorseless and extra stability application if the pet is able to land attacks.

Shorter cooldowns and stun breaks are nice, but if there’s no Remorseless synergy, then there’s no point. It might as well be converted into a Signet. Also, Resounding Timbre could use a change, too.

It’s lame for every shout to provide the same 2 boons. Having each one provide their own separate boon like Mesmer’s Bountiful Disillusionment would have been the better thing to do.

Heal as One – regen (6s), Protect Me – vigor (5s), Sic ’Em – fury (6s), Search & Rescue – protection (3s), Guard – retaliation (3s), and Rampage as One – quickness (5s). The trait should be more than just another fuel source for AF.

what are you saying!! having to actually do some work in there!! blasphemy!!!

As i said a couple of times: SotP should become an utility skill and search and rescue the elite.

I like the idea of the applying the boons in the same way as might, it sounds good and interesting, but the CD should be halved to 45 seconds as now you rely on your pet to attack to be able to get 2 seconds of stability and you are nerfing the skill all around.

And S&R give back the range to 1200 and nerf CD to 75 seconds.

Wondrouswall.7169:

Roots are deeper than that. They reduced the boons from Resounding Timbre because of lack-of-creativity. It makes every shout grant regeneration which powers up Druid – it was bound to be nerfed.

I’d go for none of those options proposed. Instead, remove the one-time stability, swiftness, and fury. Reduce the duration effect from 10s to 8s, cooldown to 60s, and have the effect grant might (8s), fury (3s), and stability (2s) when the player and the pet attacks to each other.

Just front load 3 boons onto the effect and base it off of player and pet performance so we can at least have some synergy back with Remorseless and extra stability application if the pet is able to land attacks.

Shorter cooldowns and stun breaks are nice, but if there’s no Remorseless synergy, then there’s no point. It might as well be converted into a Signet. Also, Resounding Timbre could use a change, too.

It’s lame for every shout to provide the same 2 boons. Having each one provide their own separate boon like Mesmer’s Bountiful Disillusionment would have been the better thing to do.

Heal as One – regen (6s), Protect Me – vigor (5s), Sic ’Em – fury (6s), Search & Rescue – protection (3s), Guard – retaliation (3s), and Rampage as One – quickness (5s). The trait should be more than just another fuel source for AF.

Hmmm. I actually like this idea a hell of a lot more.