Guild Wars 2

After the nerf, the higher CD and the reduced ranged to half the skill went to unreliable to impossible to make it work.

I don’t really have clear if the range is from the pet position or the ranger position but in any case 600 is too short to be useful because we can’t send the pet where ever we want . The pet only goes were some enemy is.

The problem is that in the middle of a fight is a really a bad idea to swap to a ranged target when you have a melee guy eating your lungs. And also you have to select it manually if there is more than a couple in your screen.

Also if you are fighting a zerg in WvW most of the times your pet is going to be dead from random damage, even if you have it in passive and don’t attack with it. So you have to swap the pet but then you are too far from the downed.

I can work with the CD. I’d like it to be an elite so maybe SotP could become a shorted CD shout to give use some useful stability.

In any case i think the range of S&R i think it should go back to 1200 or even better: same range as the pet have. It’s enough that the pet has to go there and then we lost the dps from it while is ressing and we lose another utility from our bar for this support.

I used to use this shout in any game mode (PvE and WvW) and i found it useful some times, the pet simply ignored downed players or died before reaching the target, but now i can’t make it work when i needed.

The we’ll be making this a more tactical choice.. would be good if we could place the pet wherever we want. That’s not the case at this moment.

Do you guys like the new Search and Rescue? Can you make it work?

I think the range AND cooldown nerf were a bit over the top together, honestly. I mean, its strong (hence a warranted cooldown), but there was still counterplay with just bursting/CCing both the pet and the downed player with cleave/AoE. The lack of range also hinders smart play like using differences in elevation(Temple, Spirit Watch to an extent, Skyhammer) to save someone safer, even if it meant hopping out of a fight or taking them/being off of a point.

Oh well, it could have been nerfed harder, but its still -usable- for an “oh fug” situation if you can stay in range.

I think it should have been nerfed more. It should be ground targeted too or something. It’s even a trait? Silliness!

I’m keen to try it out. I was using it in PvE for times when people run into an area I can’t save them from. It was really good for saving people who didn’t have poison training in HoT. I’ve also used it non-stop for events like the Shatterer and the Blighting Towers. The longer cooldown may make it a bit less useful for me.

I don’t use Sand R but I think 900 range would have been sufficient.

Complete garbage and not worth a utility slot. Maybe it’s still capable of tricking up some 3 year olds but other than that…

Mokk.2397:

I don’t use Sand R but I think 900 range would have been sufficient.

Yeah. If they had to reduce the range, 900 would have been a lesser but okay reduction. 600 range isn’t enough when using a range pet; especially when all of them are 900+ range…

Yes, it’s buggy. I’ve been using it a lot in wvw since it got revamped, and very often there’s a downed player in range, my pet is near me, alive, yet nothing happens. But then another player gets downed and he’s teleported instantly to the pet. Go figure…

That said, for wvw purposes, i dropped it yesterday. The lower cooldown made it handy as a Resounding Timbre spam source when on the move, but more importantly, 1200 range was key to catching downed people in the ocean of red circles and deliver them safely near you during a zerg retreat.

In PvE i guess it doesn’t change much, people don’t go down too often and if they do, they’re generally close to each other. So i guess the nerf is based on sPvP. One day maybe we’ll get skills split across modes…

cafard.8953:

For wvw purposes, i dropped it. The lower cooldown made it handy as a Resounding Timbre spam source when on the move, but more importantly, 1200 range was key to catching downed people in the ocean of red circles and deliver them safely near you during a zerg retreat.

In PvE i guess it doesn’t change much, people don’t go down too often and if they do, they’re generally close to each other. So i guess the nerf is based on sPvP. One day maybe we’ll get skills split across modes…

yeah i meant in wvw, in pve there is not actual reason to carry this.
in pvp also is bad thou, the old range meant you could save your team mate at the cost maybe of the point.

As somebody suggested even making it ground target would be a nice addition so you could choose the area were the pet will try to rescue.

I don’t mind the increase in cooldown, pulling someone’s butt out of the fire should have a decent cooldown on it — but it’s always been an unreliable ability to trigger, and the 600 range doesn’t help that. If you pop the ability and are out of range, or if your pet is on passive in a big group fight to prevent it from dying you basically need to be on top of the person you’re trying to SnR for it to work. Kind of defeats the purpose, as they’re likely being bombed & stomped.

Ground targeting would solve some of that, even at the mitigated 600 range.

~ Kovu

its going to hurt LB/Gs druids as you’ll now have to swap to gs get into range use defences and all just to meet the 600 yards , if this 600 yards stays people may as well just use Staff or Axe+ offhand /Gs and be done with LB.

or don’t even bother with S&R slotted anymore run NM with Instincitive reactions on clerics , then swap in Guard in place of S&R but again as always rangers can’t have nice things without having to change ether the entire tree and the weapons/build plus loosing out on some major damage boosts aka marks/bm/druid so its ether pet or damage boosts from MM for the NM.

though i still think MM/BM/druid is still one of the best builds even without S&R.

Zenos Osgorma.2936:

its going to hurt LB/Gs druids as you’ll now have to swap to gs get into range use defences and all just to meet the 600 yards , if this 600 yards stays people may as well just use Staff or Axe+ offhand /Gs and be done with LB.

the problem there is that you are not rescuing anyone there. the same attacks are hitting you will hit the downed.

the nice thing about S&R is that you could pull someone out of harms way. now you cant and thats a crap.

in my case i used to get out the fight, use S&R, and then go back melee\medium range. So while my pet revived the downed the enemy was busy dealing with me.

anduriell.6280:

Zenos Osgorma.2936:

its going to hurt LB/Gs druids as you’ll now have to swap to gs get into range use defences and all just to meet the 600 yards , if this 600 yards stays people may as well just use Staff or Axe+ offhand /Gs and be done with LB.

the problem there is that you are not rescuing anyone there. the same attacks are hitting you will hit the downed.

the nice thing about S&R is that you could pull someone out of harms way. now you cant and thats a crap.

since its 600 yards and others got a boost in CC effects like warroirs 450yard Stomp with a stack of stability (it was needed for warroir as an improvement but now its makes S&R recovery much much more difficult and honestly too much risk for its worth at such a short range)

its become Res Or damage since if you res at 600 yards you’ll have to forgo damage focus on defence to finish the res , i may as well just Cleave/CC prevent the melee foes from doing the same trying to stop a res and res normaly with quickness on pet swapor glyph of tides + res/quickness.

needs to be 900yards or this version of S&R isn’t going to be used much at all anymore with ranged weapons it’ll only be useful if combined with Sos short range – melee builds.

i’d say most of the experienced rangers Agree it needs to be 900yards and casuals whined too much.

Well the skill was useful for 3 months… won’t be using it again in its current state.

It’s much worse in WvW where the main strength was being able to port a downed out of 10 red rings. They could have kept the 1200 range and made it 180 seconds and I still would have brought it in hairy situations.

It’s not as much of a loss now that Warriors are good again and thus banners will be dropping a lot once more along with the stab changes making it much easier to push through CC bombs, but it felt good to really bring that hard support that no other class could.

The CD increase was reasonable. 600 is over the top. Agree 900-1000 would make more sense and still leave this as a reasonably good ability. At 600, not sure it will make the cut over another ability which is a shame since it was nice to allow the ranger a pretty solid spot for support.

I wish it at least had some sort of range indicator so I knew if it will work or not. In the thick of battle it can be hard to judge your exact distance to the target of your ability, and this is one of the rare skills that can be activated even if it won’t effect anyone at all. Nothing sucks more than blowing a lengthy cooldown only to find you’re 601 range units from your target instead of 600.

Yeah, a range indicator would be nice..

anduriell.6280:

the problem there is that you are not rescuing anyone there. the same attacks are hitting you will hit the downed.

They should have renamed it to just “Search!”

seeingRed.8253:

Yeah, a range indicator would be nice..

Cut out a square of sticky tape, stick it over the skill icon and write “NOPE” on it. There you go, S&R range indicator. \o/

In the otherwise great buffs and all around goodies rangers got with this balance run, the S&R nerf was overkill.

The range shouldn’t have been changed at all IMO but if the range is going to be reduced so much, why on top of that, are you going to also nerf the CD?

600 range isn’t very forgiving. By comparison, a shortbow’s range is 900. 600 is (figuratively) nothing.

I’d propose giving the old range back and keeping the CD it has now. Maybe increase it ever so slightly if they feel it’s justified.

But not too much, lest the skill be fairly niche to unusable even then.

As it stands? The range itself is a deal killer. The CD ontop of that is just overkill. It’s pretty much returned to being useless.

Still? Everything else we got in this patch has been utterly fantastic.

I guess something had to give in exchange. Poor S&R. I’ll miss pulling peoples bacon out of the fire with my “useless” pet. ;(

TL;DR
Nah. Can’t work with it. RIP.

No. (This is a copy paste of what I said in my own thread).

The ‘crème de la crème’
• “Search and Rescue!”: The radius of this shout has been normalized and now affects a radius of 600, down from 1200. The recharge time of this skill has been increased from 45 seconds to 60 seconds. -

Yes, this skill was way too powerful for competitive player-vs-player. I’m not suggesting we go back to the old version either, but this is not the solution. The glory of SnR was that you could pull allies well out of danger (AoE and cleave) as well as current stomps. If a player was mid-cast through a stomp, and you were able to pull your ally from the brink and get them back up, IT WAS GLORIOUS. Now SnR has a MAXIMUM range of 600. Imagine, if you will, a line of: You, Stomping Enemy, and then your Downed Ally with the stomping enemy being between you and your ally. You haul your way out of your comfortable longbow, shortbow, or even axe range into a very close proximity of the enemy. The enemy starts stomping. You pull your ally all the way to you!…..and the enemy spins around mid-stomp and finishes your ally. Yea, this is the way the skill works now. This skill is now a “I hope my pet can help you stay alive while I cleave at whoever is trying to stomp you”. Rather than the “I’m going to pull you down the staircase, over this wall, behind this rock 1200 units away, res.” that we’ve all come to love. The statement “the radius…has been normalized” is quite irrelevant when ‘Sic ‘Em!’ has a range of 2,000 and SnR had a range of 1,200. There is no standard shout range. If anything this ‘range’ should be standardized at 900.

1200 range and a 90-120 cool down would have worked as well.

TheGrimm.5624:

1200 range and a 90-120 cool down would have worked as well.

Or better, no change at all for PvE/WvW, and whatever the mob requests for sPvP since it’s only a problem there.

cafard.8953:

TheGrimm.5624:

1200 range and a 90-120 cool down would have worked as well.

Or better, no change at all for PvE/WvW, and whatever the mob requests for sPvP since it’s only a problem there.

That would get confusing if they acted differently in different game modes.

900 range 70seconds (traited 54seconds)

TheGrimm.5624:

cafard.8953:

TheGrimm.5624:

1200 range and a 90-120 cool down would have worked as well.

Or better, no change at all for PvE/WvW, and whatever the mob requests for sPvP since it’s only a problem there.

That would get confusing if they acted differently in different game modes.

You mean like our pets already do?

I’ve been having a lot of problems with it in its current state. I wouldn’t mind the nerf…although I agree that 900 is where it should be….or the cool down increase, but I am also seeing a significant lag from when I cast it and I can’t count on it to bring the player to me. often times I can count to 3 before he shows up. Most of the time this means he has been stomped. I can think of one time where I cast it and thought oh I guess I was too far away and moved in closer. All of a sudden the player appeared at my feet. It was easily a 5 second delay as I was able to engage another player and begin skirmishing. Is anyone else seeing this? I’m curios if its my mind playing tricks on me or if it’s happening to others. For now I think I will slot it out as there are other skills I can use that are better.

Spvp is the reason for this change.

It’s about time the devs start separating skill between game modes…

It’s basically a skill that is going to go off every druid’s bar in PvP. It’s back to being a “dead, not ever used” skill.

Even in PvE it’s terrible now. Can’t pull people out of Slothasor’s poison cause they went too far, or can’t pull people out of the “lava fields” in Matthias, cause they are half way across the map…

I can still use it, but ANet went overboard on the Range reduction. It should be 900. Honestly, I don’t know why they make changes that are so drastic… Why 50%, why not shave it by 25% and see how that goes?

That being said, I fight on or near point always so 4 out of 5 revives still work for me. You should slot the trait as well for faster revive as you will get beat hard now. I always try to direct people away from the Menders LB/Staff build as it is inferior in my humble opinion. If you use some variation of ROMs S2 build you should be able to survive on point and pull off revives with a bit of timing.

They really need to separate the skills and traits between PvP and PvE … I have asked for this numerous times. The only excuse I’ve seen is that it would be too time consuming. Granted that was over a year ago and we have a new game director so…..

I’m fine with a range nerf, with the right positioning you can still pull off clutch plays in PvP. With Stronghold, you can still be very annoying by standing off to the side and pulling the lord up to you for a quick res. The same thing can be done with the Lord on foe fire, just by standing a little in the back to rip the lord away from a stomp.

Wolfey.3407:

They really need to separate the skills and traits between PvP and PvE … I have asked for this numerous times. The only excuse I’ve seen is that it would be too time consuming. Granted that was over a year ago and we have a new game director so…..

I’m fine with a range nerf, with the right positioning you can still pull off clutch plays in PvP. With Stronghold, you can still be very annoying by standing off to the side and pulling the lord up to you for a quick res. The same thing can be done with the Lord on foe fire, just by standing a little in the back to rip the lord away from a stomp.

In the recent AMA there were discussions and I saved it to work on a professions and combat post that is still in the works…

>>>>>>>>>>

Question from DarkNecrid…

“Can you provide a succinct statement on why ArenaNet is against splitting skills between PvE/W3/PvP because I’m glad you guys are not doing it due to what happened in GW1 when ArenaNet did this (PvE become more wildly imbalanced with massive power creep on skills that became completely different from their former counterpart like Signet of Spirits, PvP was balanced about the same prior to it, class mechanics changed between both formats, added another huge barrier of entry into PvP which is a format that already has a huge barrier of entry which killed off the PvP population pretty fast etc) but a lot of people still seem to want it even though the Guild Wars 2 ArenaNet has spent time these past few years actually reverting the splits you guys did do around launch so you seem to be against it as well with little statement as to why?”

Answer from Isaiah Cartwright…

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/48zlyd/im_mike_obrien_here_with_gw2_dev_team_ama/d0nxtz4?context=10000

“We are not fully against it but it adds a lot of overhead to every balance and design decisions as you move forward. While it does give you another tool box it does lead to optimizing skills heavily for each game type which does make power creep. like Mike Z always says and Colin gets blamed for its on the table and it’s something we may use in the future but we do often find most issues are global issues that are just highlighted in one area.”

My thoughts about this…

Professions and combat are the most important aspects and experience for your customers…

>>>>>>>>>>

I don’t understand why there would be a need to split the skill at all. It’s an easy fix across the board. Give it back 1200 range and make the CD appropriate for the utility.

Maybe 900 with a more forgiving CD as a compromise. Splitting the skill for the various game modes isn’t necessary in this situation IMO.

CETheLucid.3964:

I don’t understand why there would be a need to split the skill at all. It’s an easy fix across the board. Give it back 1200 range and make the CD appropriate for the utility.

Maybe 900 with a more forgiving CD as a compromise. Splitting the skill for the various game modes isn’t necessary in this situation IMO.

Because it’s not just this skill. Most skills and traits in the game suffer from being tuned for either PvP or PvE, because what is needed for balance in each is different. In PvP, the professions need to be balanced AGAINST each other, whereas in PvE they need to be useful in all situations, so no class is left in the cold when doing fractals, dungeons, or raids. And this is a problem for all the professions as well. If you look at the reactions to any updates Anet does to profession mechanics, the reactions are almost always split along PvP and PvE lines.

Note: WvW I am not very familiar with. I would lump it in with PvP in terms of what skills it would get, since the same balance issues apply.

bearshaman.3421:

Note: WvW I am not very familiar with. I would lump it in with PvP in terms of what skills it would get, since the same balance issues apply.

Not really no. Take the pet leash range nerf as a case in point. That was due to sPvP points being close to each other, and it killed a lot of the beastmaster fun in roaming.

If anything, WvW should be going back to the original vision: a glorious massive chaos where you get to play with all your imbalanced skills against plenty of other players.

cafard.8953:

bearshaman.3421:

Note: WvW I am not very familiar with. I would lump it in with PvP in terms of what skills it would get, since the same balance issues apply.

Not really no. Take the pet leash range nerf as a case in point. That was due to sPvP points being close to each other, and it killed a lot of the beastmaster fun in roaming.

If anything, WvW should be going back to the original vision: a glorious massive chaos where you get to play with all your imbalanced skills against plenty of other players.

So WvW could just use the PvE set of skills? I dunno, I won’t speak to that either way. Just know that PvE and PvP need to be split from each other.

bearshaman.3421:

cafard.8953:

bearshaman.3421:

Note: WvW I am not very familiar with. I would lump it in with PvP in terms of what skills it would get, since the same balance issues apply.

Not really no. Take the pet leash range nerf as a case in point. That was due to sPvP points being close to each other, and it killed a lot of the beastmaster fun in roaming.

If anything, WvW should be going back to the original vision: a glorious massive chaos where you get to play with all your imbalanced skills against plenty of other players.

So WvW could just use the PvE set of skills? I dunno, I won’t speak to that either way. Just know that PvE and PvP need to be split from each other.

I don’t agree. Not generally. Skill splitting should be a last resort and a temporary measure until a better solution/idea for the skill in terms of balance can come about.

S&R wasn’t so game breaking that it needed a split and in it’s current iteration, it’s garbage in all game modes.

It needed a nerf, CD wise. They went way too far with the range nerf on top of that though.

CETheLucid.3964:

bearshaman.3421:

cafard.8953:

bearshaman.3421:

Note: WvW I am not very familiar with. I would lump it in with PvP in terms of what skills it would get, since the same balance issues apply.

Not really no. Take the pet leash range nerf as a case in point. That was due to sPvP points being close to each other, and it killed a lot of the beastmaster fun in roaming.

If anything, WvW should be going back to the original vision: a glorious massive chaos where you get to play with all your imbalanced skills against plenty of other players.

So WvW could just use the PvE set of skills? I dunno, I won’t speak to that either way. Just know that PvE and PvP need to be split from each other.

I don’t agree. Not generally. Skill splitting should be a last resort and a temporary measure until a better solution/idea for the skill in terms of balance can come about.

S&R wasn’t so game breaking that it needed a split and in it’s current iteration, it’s garbage in all game modes.

It needed a nerf, CD wise. They went way too far with the range nerf on top of that though.

I have to disagree with you. Skills need to be balanced separately for each game mode or they end up being severely broken or subpar in certain modes.

Puck.9612:

CETheLucid.3964:

bearshaman.3421:

cafard.8953:

bearshaman.3421:

Note: WvW I am not very familiar with. I would lump it in with PvP in terms of what skills it would get, since the same balance issues apply.

Not really no. Take the pet leash range nerf as a case in point. That was due to sPvP points being close to each other, and it killed a lot of the beastmaster fun in roaming.

If anything, WvW should be going back to the original vision: a glorious massive chaos where you get to play with all your imbalanced skills against plenty of other players.

So WvW could just use the PvE set of skills? I dunno, I won’t speak to that either way. Just know that PvE and PvP need to be split from each other.

I don’t agree. Not generally. Skill splitting should be a last resort and a temporary measure until a better solution/idea for the skill in terms of balance can come about.

S&R wasn’t so game breaking that it needed a split and in it’s current iteration, it’s garbage in all game modes.

It needed a nerf, CD wise. They went way too far with the range nerf on top of that though.

I have to disagree with you. Skills need to be balanced separately for each game mode or they end up being severely broken or subpar in certain modes.

Pretty much what he said. Only the most generic of skills and traits are useful in both. Most you can tell are tuned more for pve or pvp, or at least have their usefulness in that game mode. And I am speaking generally, not just with SnR.

bearshaman.3421:

Puck.9612:

CETheLucid.3964:

bearshaman.3421:

cafard.8953:

bearshaman.3421:

Note: WvW I am not very familiar with. I would lump it in with PvP in terms of what skills it would get, since the same balance issues apply.

Not really no. Take the pet leash range nerf as a case in point. That was due to sPvP points being close to each other, and it killed a lot of the beastmaster fun in roaming.

If anything, WvW should be going back to the original vision: a glorious massive chaos where you get to play with all your imbalanced skills against plenty of other players.

So WvW could just use the PvE set of skills? I dunno, I won’t speak to that either way. Just know that PvE and PvP need to be split from each other.

I don’t agree. Not generally. Skill splitting should be a last resort and a temporary measure until a better solution/idea for the skill in terms of balance can come about.

S&R wasn’t so game breaking that it needed a split and in it’s current iteration, it’s garbage in all game modes.

It needed a nerf, CD wise. They went way too far with the range nerf on top of that though.

I have to disagree with you. Skills need to be balanced separately for each game mode or they end up being severely broken or subpar in certain modes.

Pretty much what he said. Only the most generic of skills and traits are useful in both. Most you can tell are tuned more for pve or pvp, or at least have their usefulness in that game mode. And I am speaking generally, not just with SnR.

Agreeing to disagree.

I have to say this ability is NOT working. I have been trying to use it for the past several days and it has not worked even once. It used to but not any longer. So in my opinion, its worthless as it stands now.

Swagger.1459:

Wolfey.3407:

They really need to separate the skills and traits between PvP and PvE … I have asked for this numerous times. The only excuse I’ve seen is that it would be too time consuming. Granted that was over a year ago and we have a new game director so…..

I’m fine with a range nerf, with the right positioning you can still pull off clutch plays in PvP. With Stronghold, you can still be very annoying by standing off to the side and pulling the lord up to you for a quick res. The same thing can be done with the Lord on foe fire, just by standing a little in the back to rip the lord away from a stomp.

In the recent AMA there were discussions and I saved it to work on a professions and combat post that is still in the works…

>>>>>>>>>>

Question from DarkNecrid…

“Can you provide a succinct statement on why ArenaNet is against splitting skills between PvE/W3/PvP because I’m glad you guys are not doing it due to what happened in GW1 when ArenaNet did this (PvE become more wildly imbalanced with massive power creep on skills that became completely different from their former counterpart like Signet of Spirits, PvP was balanced about the same prior to it, class mechanics changed between both formats, added another huge barrier of entry into PvP which is a format that already has a huge barrier of entry which killed off the PvP population pretty fast etc) but a lot of people still seem to want it even though the Guild Wars 2 ArenaNet has spent time these past few years actually reverting the splits you guys did do around launch so you seem to be against it as well with little statement as to why?”

Answer from Isaiah Cartwright…

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/48zlyd/im_mike_obrien_here_with_gw2_dev_team_ama/d0nxtz4?context=10000

“We are not fully against it but it adds a lot of overhead to every balance and design decisions as you move forward. While it does give you another tool box it does lead to optimizing skills heavily for each game type which does make power creep. like Mike Z always says and Colin gets blamed for its on the table and it’s something we may use in the future but we do often find most issues are global issues that are just highlighted in one area.”

My thoughts about this…

Professions and combat are the most important aspects and experience for your customers…

>>>>>>>>>>

No clue why you aimed that at me, I don’t work for ANET. As it has been stated in numerous locations o.O I guess it was just an opportunity for you to spam?

Yeah, good bye good party assist, hello selfish ability. Its not making the cut. Gave it a week, its not good in this form. You pull people and the person about to stomp them just turns in mid air and stomps them anyway.

So…what new skill do we want to replace this ability with? Ideas? Pet runs around allies in 1200 foot range and drops med packs and anitdote potions? Saint Bernard animation maybe?

TheGrimm.5624:

Yeah, good bye good party assist, hello selfish ability. Its not making the cut. Gave it a week, its not good in this form. You pull people and the person about to stomp them just turns in mid air and stomps them anyway.

So…what new skill do we want to replace this ability with? Ideas? Pet runs around allies in 1200 foot range and drops med packs and anitdote potions? Saint Bernard animation maybe?

Replace it with “Protect Me.” Instant party-wide AoE stun break is so awesome used at the right moment.