Guild Wars 2

http://pastebin.com/dmACCzwx

I found it posted in another section of forums and thought I’ll maybe also link it here for more ranger-centred discussion.
So what are your thougths?

Condibunkers are getting a nerf, more pet traits nobody ever uses, some fixes, minor buffs to traits, HaO heal remains crappy, but less.
There are three interesting changes however:
-Eagle Eye trait giving might on criticals. That’s not bad, but it will have 1 sec ICD for sure since Barrage+Rapid Fire would bump might stacks above 20+. That’s good, but still nobody serious uses LB
-L.Reflex removing movement imparing effects – that was exected like 1.5 year ago, but it finally takes place. Good, demanded change. Cool with that
-MoC giving +200% damage increase and stackable with SotH active for total of 250% damage increase. It is…weird. So +100% damage in total for Maul Yolocrit builds. Are we supposed to be kind of like Ranged thief, just without survability and praying for enemy to be just a bad player?
Strange feelings about that. Seems like ANet still ignores core issues of Bows and Rangers trying to use them, still not caring about changing our condi removal. Instead, we’re yolocrit or die.

Ah, and joke. Remorseless giving Open strike to pet also. But no pet stealths, except of jaguar. Troll

this topic will be deleted shortly hehe, i tried this already

anyways, I believe if these are the patch notes, than im starting my preparation on leveling a new alt, turning it into my main.

Not wasting any more time with this class
absolute farce

i read the full patch notes in the links, seem like some good changes, i really love the LR buff since i love that skill, is always in my bar, the only skill i like of rangers.

Right now i am using a thief, lot better with shortbow for farming but i hope good changes come to ranger to see if i come back to it.

Rym.1469:

http://pastebin.com/dmACCzwx

I found it posted in another section of forums and thought I’ll maybe also link it here for more ranger-centred discussion.
So what are your thougths?

Condibunkers are getting a nerf, more pet traits nobody ever uses, some fixes, minor buffs to traits, HaO heal remains crappy, but less.
There are three interesting changes however:
-Eagle Eye trait giving might on criticals. That’s not bad, but it will have 1 sec ICD for sure since Barrage+Rapid Fire would bump might stacks above 20+. That’s good, but still nobody serious uses LB
-L.Reflex removing movement imparing effects – that was exected like 1.5 year ago, but it finally takes place. Good, demanded change. Cool with that
-MoC giving +200% damage increase and stackable with SotH active for total of 250% damage increase. It is…weird. So +100% damage in total for Maul Yolocrit builds. Are we supposed to be kind of like Ranged thief, just without survability and praying for enemy to be just a bad player?
Strange feelings about that. Seems like ANet still ignores core issues of Bows and Rangers trying to use them, still not caring about changing our condi removal. Instead, we’re yolocrit or die.

Ah, and joke. Remorseless giving Open strike to pet also. But no pet stealths, except of jaguar. Troll

actually, that remorseless is less broken now. with guard, now any type of pet can reapply 5 stacks of vulnerability. jaguar is your best choice still if you want to go with this type of power stealth meta. you plus pet on opening would be 10 vulenerability plus hunter shot and jaguar stealth would make it 20 then put him on guard to make a full stack of 25, but the issue here is opening strike is only 6.5 secs long. not sure if they stack in duration?

now reason why they increase guard is because of this, if they didnt put it to 25 secs, your pet can permanently open strike and crit, I dont know the math for the damage, so i cant say if its good or not with these changes.

moment of clarity is still not that great but better now though IMO.

eagle eye is interesting, now if they only merge signet mastery with beastmasters might, now thats a good one, you can have perma might on a signet power build.

I’d advice ANet to keep the change on L. Reflex and try again with other Ranger changes. That’s not the way, Dear Balancing Team

Problem with Openin Strike is that Vun is not a great thing. It’s just a condition, very easily, sometimes randomly removed. Once someone procs some passive or just waits in stealth/uses any condition cleanse(which are extremaly common in condi meta), your pressure goes down.
Carrying “Guard!” on your bar, just for some meh damage pet crit and short vun is not worth anything at all. It doesn’t work in PvE since other classes do it better, it doesn’t work in PvP with a reason above, it may work only if you want to Yolo-one shot someone or attack AFK/zergling player. Does nothing.
Btw, I never understood why this shout has that area requirement. I mean, nobody uses that shout to make his pet guard that area, but instead for buffing up pet or proccing regen trait. It’s total crap and shouldn’t be in the shout. Just make it to give pet these effects and over. If it’s meant to give you a slight more control over pet, it’s very poor excuse. Relocating your AI should be built-in.

Sword auto attack changes and more greatsword buffs. Can’t wait.

Really hope these are fake.

I mean.. what? What… !? A guard nerf.. really? A GUARD NERF. 25 second cooldown? Are you serious? The skill becomes effectively 100% useless if you just change the cool down and do nothing to accommodate for that.

Cause what, you think Nature’s Voice perma regen and perma swiftness is op? Are you kidding me? Other classes already have perma swiftness, and there are other BETTER ways to get perma regen involving dwayna runes.. passively proccing regeneration for that matter which you don’t even have to waste cast time to call up. That is actually a superior method to Guard perma.

I was one of the first to roll the setup with soldier’s runes when they made it viable, so much for that. It was never even “OP” anyways, but I guess we need to see more bunker nerfs on account of easy crappy condi spewing builds. Why not just put a similar reduction on ranger condition damage as you did to physical weapon damage if the one-two bunker condi builds and their similarly boring wield so cheaply?

Or better yet, why not just delete the ranger pets, permanently keep us at -30% weapon skill damage, and nerf our condition output by the same amount if you want us to suck that bad, ArenaNet?

For the love of Tyria stop riding the condi builds balls in every kitten change you make to this class. S/GS melee power was already hard to do while retaining any level of survivability, and now you’re going to render it defunct at the rate you’re going.

What the hell is your problem? These are pretty good changes! (except martial mastery)

Crossfire: This skill now correctly applies bleeding only when hitting from behind or from the side.
What??

Slash—Kick—Pounce: Improved functionality to allow players to cancel the skill chain with less difficulty.
There really wasn’t any problem with this if you turn off auto-attack.

“Guard”: This skill now has a recharge time of 25 seconds, up from 15 seconds.
There goes the awesome mobility. The skill should be remade into something else. I haven’t seen any ranger using this for it’s original effects. They always used it for regen and swiftness.

Skirmishing 5—Tail Wing: This trait now grants 9 seconds of swiftness, up from 5 seconds.
Good for kiting. Please do the same with furious grip!

Skirmishing IX—Honed Axes: This trait now reduces the recharge time on main hand axe skills by 20%.
Holy kitten this is awesome!

Wilderness Survival X—Martial Mastery: This trait no longer reduces recharge on greatsword and spear skills. This trait now grants 1 second of vigor when you successfully evade an attack with a sword skill.
If there isn’t any ICD, then it’s sweet. Otherwise, 1 sec vigor here and there won’t do much!

Wilderness Survival XII—Bark Skin: This trait now has a health threshold of 33%, up from 25%.
Empathic Bond is still superior. Except when you know who you will meet.

Beastmastery X—Ferocious Training: This new master tier trait replaces Vigorous Training. This trait now guarantees bird, moa and jellyfish pets to critically hit on every third hit.
This is so nice… I am serious. Every other Bird attack will crit. This trait basically increases Bird’s crit chance by 33%

On a side note, rangers were voted as the ones who need most help, but didn’t receive more fixes than other professions…. ???

Wilderness Survival X—Martial Mastery: This trait no longer reduces recharge on greatsword and spear skills. This trait now grants 1 second of vigor when you successfully evade an attack with a sword skill.

Like the changes but this…. wtf is this???? I like martial mastery on my gs, one of the things that makes gs work for me as the cool downs are too long otherwise. Not liking at all, change it back

solrik.6028:

What the hell is your problem? These are pretty good changes! (except martial mastery)

Crossfire: This skill now correctly applies bleeding only when hitting from behind or from the side.
What??

Slash—Kick—Pounce: Improved functionality to allow players to cancel the skill chain with less difficulty.
There really wasn’t any problem with this if you turn off auto-attack.

“Guard”: This skill now has a recharge time of 25 seconds, up from 15 seconds.
There goes the awesome mobility. The skill should be remade into something else. I haven’t seen any ranger using this for it’s original effects. They always used it for regen and swiftness.

Skirmishing 5—Tail Wing: This trait now grants 9 seconds of swiftness, up from 5 seconds.
Good for kiting. Please do the same with furious grip!

Skirmishing IX—Honed Axes: This trait now reduces the recharge time on main hand axe skills by 20%.
Holy kitten this is awesome!

Wilderness Survival X—Martial Mastery: This trait no longer reduces recharge on greatsword and spear skills. This trait now grants 1 second of vigor when you successfully evade an attack with a sword skill.
If there isn’t any ICD, then it’s sweet. Otherwise, 1 sec vigor here and there won’t do much!

Wilderness Survival XII—Bark Skin: This trait now has a health threshold of 33%, up from 25%.
Empathic Bond is still superior. Except when you know who you will meet.

Beastmastery X—Ferocious Training: This new master tier trait replaces Vigorous Training. This trait now guarantees bird, moa and jellyfish pets to critically hit on every third hit.
This is so nice… I am serious. Every other Bird attack will crit. This trait basically increases Bird’s crit chance by 33%

On a side note, rangers were voted as the ones who need most help, but didn’t receive more fixes than other professions…. ???

Guard synergizes brilliantly in this condition infested environment when players equip themselves with 6 soldier runes, especially if they have Protect me or some other shout packed with it. BTW Some of us are* actually trying to make our pets work*, and supporting them with permanent protection and regeneration via guard plays into this.

And again, I guarantee this nerf was an account of the cheesy, crappy PvP builds rolling with spirit AA buff/condi spam kite tactics. For us POWER BUILDS, we have to expose ourselves to damage in order to do damage, we can’t just throw 10 stacks of cheese and go evade mode while our opponents get whittled down without us doing anything but kiting and stacking condi. In risk vs. reward philosphy, we still need a certain amount of survivability to not die to the hits we’re exposed to when we launch physical attack combos and chains.

I guess this is what I get for playing full melee on a class that is perceived to be a ranged one, but again this is a Travesty. No blinds, no stealth, no aegis. The more nerfs we see to range survivability on account of condi builds, the more physical melee ranger builds get destroyed.

Sorry, Kilger, but I love more active traits like this.
Even if it’s fake I think this trait is a great idea, and traits that encourage more active play was honestly one of the things I was going to bring up during CDI.

Moar, Moar, I say!

I wonder when they are gonna fix stats for pets? Now when you increase for example duration for ranger, it shows that it increases for pet too, but it is not.

Vox Hollow.2736:

Sorry, Kilger, but I love more active traits like this.
Even if it’s fake I think this trait is a great idea, and traits that encourage more active play was honestly one of the things I was going to bring up during CDI.

Moar, Moar, I say!

Well its going to kill GS for me, maybe I need a change anyway. Pretty useless on GS, you cant really control the evade well.

edit: actually makes me pretty sure theres something not right here.

Kilger.5490:

Vox Hollow.2736:

Sorry, Kilger, but I love more active traits like this.
Even if it’s fake I think this trait is a great idea, and traits that encourage more active play was honestly one of the things I was going to bring up during CDI.

Moar, Moar, I say!

Well its going to kill GS for me, maybe I need a change anyway. Pretty useless on GS, you cant really control the evade well.

Have to agree with this. Pretty crappy change. Because you can’t control auto attack chain, so you can’t really control that chain. So it’s more passive than active play tbh.

I’m thinking its mis-printed… would make more sense for the cooldown to stay on spear and greatsword, while for sword (where the cooldown reduction wasnt worthwhile) they are giving a vigor buff.

Martial Mastery wouldn’t affect Greatsword anymore.

If this change happened Martial Mastery would read:
Reduced recharge on Sword by 20%. Grants 1 second of vigor when you successfully evade an attack with a sword skill.

Vox Hollow.2736:

Martial Mastery wouldn’t affect Greatsword anymore.

If this change happened Martial Mastery would read:
Reduced recharge on Sword by 20%. Grants 1 second of vigor when you successfully evade an attack with a sword skill.

ahaha got it, they moved cooldown to the nature magic GS trait… i actually wanted this

It made no sense where it was since GS does no condi damage anymore.

This must be fake. Not even Anet would increasing the threshold of Barkskin to 33%…..right?

Kilger.5490:

Wilderness Survival X—Martial Mastery: This trait no longer reduces recharge on greatsword and spear skills. This trait now grants 1 second of vigor when you successfully evade an attack with a sword skill.

Like the changes but this…. wtf is this???? I like martial mastery on my gs, one of the things that makes gs work for me as the cool downs are too long otherwise. Not liking at all, change it back

Nature Magic IX—Two-Handed Training: This trait now reduces the recharge time on greatsword and spear skills by 20% in addition to its current effects.

Yes, they seem to have moved the 2h reduction to nature magic. Overall I think these are great patch notes for ranger if true. The only thing that concerns is the Guard change, but more because Guard simply cannot stand on its own legs with the current functionality.

I’m not sure about the new pet trait. Do Moas hit moving targets better? If yes, this is a nice change. If not it doesn’t sound like something I would want to take. 0 points in BM birds have 50% crit chance without any fury. What is the point in giving them a crit every 3rd attack?

I seriously, seriously hope these are fake patch notes.

However on many previous occasions pastebin has given fairly accurate leaked patch notes so I’m feeling a bit apprehensive.

If real, then Anet have addressed almost none of the core issues (bad LB skills, role of the pet, lagged F2 skills, poor mainhand axe skills etc), and given us gimmicky “buffs” that will go no way to improving how the ranger is perceived as a profession.

On the other hand, the Ranger CDI thread has only been put up relatively recently, so let’s hope these are only early patch notes that don’t take into account the work they should be putting into the Ranger after the poll results.

Rym.1469:

-Eagle Eye trait giving might on criticals. That’s not bad, but it will have 1 sec ICD for sure since Barrage+Rapid Fire would bump might stacks above 20+. That’s good, but still nobody serious uses LB

Guardian staff #4 says hi… 33% chance on crit for 10 seconds each? How exactly would you get 20+ stacks with barrage AND rapid fire? Buring 2 cooldowns for a chance on stacking might. Yeah, no thanks. It would be nice with fortifying bond, except you go 15 into NM, so less points into MM, Skirmishing or BM. Not sure what the plan is here. 50% would sound better, but I take Eagle eye anyways when I use LB.

Sword AutoAttack Chain – It’s about time they addressed these terrible mechanics.

Heal as One – Possibly one of the most boring healing skills in the game gets a buff. Hooray?

Lightning Reflexes – This change was way, way, way overdue.

Keen Edge – Good change since this condi dmg skill didn’t belong in a power tree. Still, why aren’t traps under a condi tree??

Eagle Eye – Good if this is in addition to the current effects. However, the internal cooldown (if any) will determine how much of a difference this makes.

Honed Axes – Good change.

Moment of Clarity – Good change since this skill encourages skillful timing of stuns/dazes and use of burst skills.

Martial Mastery – Good that they moved the GS stuff, but I don’t think 1 sec vigor on sword evade will make this worth taking.

Bark Skin – Good change…although I’m not sure how well this will fit into a viable build.

Two-Hand Training – Good change if this is combined with the current effect.

Bottom Line
Overall, there’s lots of small good changes, but I don’t think this will make much of a difference in the current meta. It’s possible a GS stun/burst build may become viable, but I foresee spirit rangers still being the go-to for any team willing to take a ranger in sPvP. I doubt power rangers will be as viable as ANet said they would be. In WvW, rangers will still be the weakest link. In PvE, there aren’t any big changes, but at least using a Sword build won’t be as painful.

Well on one hand, these are not “Post-CDI changes” so if it’s lackluster, it’s to be expected.

This is just the kind of changes they come up with when the community is not given a say. We already knew the ranger class had no future if ArenaNet didn’t start listening to the ranger community, so our hopes were set on changes that may come in patches 3 months+ from now, rather than the next upcoming balance patch.

I do actually like the thought of Bark Skin buffs though, as its a direct competitor with Empathetic bond it NEEDS to be good. Still, how they perceived guard to be in need of a nerf is beyond me.

Rym.1469:

-MoC giving +200% damage increase and stackable with SotH active for total of 250% damage increase. It is…weird. So +100% damage in total for Maul Yolocrit builds. Are we supposed to be kind of like Ranged thief, just without survability and praying for enemy to be just a bad player?

Put sigil of impact in LB after 2 sigils can be slotted with sigil of force. PBS, SotH, Long range shot. Too bad PBS knocks people away from your pet, you could time it with their high hitting skills like leap on canines or tail swipe on drakes. Would be awesome.

Yea i think GS gameplay was hit, it was already meeeh to be honest. Only use for GS is probably in wvw for the fast traveling anyway. Another thing i didnt notice was the change to Guard, i dont use that trait or spec for it but no one used that utility for its ability, was all for the swiftness and healing which require 30 points in a tree, that sucks. Guard should read like give swiftness and healing since that is all its used for lol. Overall i see some good changes if true

Also the change to sword auto attack is good hopefully, well see.

I only recently saw good use of guard, almost perma protection on pets and timed F2s from stealth. I think it was in Chroinx’s video.

- Lightning Reflexes change, while past due, is excellent.
- Martial Mastery change is incredible if there’s no ICD. Might allow us to drop Vigorous Renewal or Primal Reflexes in some builds.
- Two-Handed Training – I like to see some traits condensed and made more useful, but I’m iffy on this. A lot of us can’t afford the 20 points in NM on greatsword builds.

Overall, this is good for us; Don’t forget we are getting a pet responsiveness fix as well, which is massive.

interrupt LB rangers will hit like trucks now

LR is getting a much needed immob cleanse. this is incredibly good given it’s low CD.

pet buffs are ok for spvp/roaming, but still nothing to address survivability

rest is very underwhelming and ranger weaknesses have not been addressed.

i see some potentials on this new moment of clarity..

A x/30/30/x/x Ranger with a zerker amulet, Empathetic bond, moment of clarity and a Greatsword can hit for about 3,5 k dmg with maul..
If we assume that Signet of Beastmastery becomes an elite skill you can pick signet of the hunt and deliver an 7k maul…

The changes feel good for me..

Skirmishing XII—Moment of Clarity: This trait now applies the Moment of Clarity effect to you and your pet on interrupt and now grants 200% damage on the next attack, up from 150%. This trait is now able to stack with the Attack of Opportunity effect for a total of 250% damage. This trait now has a recharge time of 10 seconds, up from 5 seconds.

This is impossible to happen. It means increase maul burst by 66%.
If Anet dare to do this, I bet every ranger will use a GS maul build and 1 hit kill anything, ANYTHING!
This gonna make ranger even a cheaper killer than the old BS thief before they got nerfed.

GS burst will be far more than that. You should be able to deliver 20-30k maul if you traited all for damage. Also don’t forget you can do this burst in stealth as BS thief did. But since you can 1 hit kill anything, why need survival?
IF this patch note is true, it will totally change the current 1v1 balance.

Dardamaniac.1295:

i see some potentials on this new moment of clarity..

A x/30/30/x/x Ranger with a zerker amulet, Empathetic bond, moment of clarity and a Greatsword can hit for about 3,5 k dmg with maul..
If we assume that Signet of Beastmastery becomes an elite skill you can pick signet of the hunt and deliver an 7k maul…

The changes feel good for me..

LB/GS is definitely looking very good. Heals as One, LR, two signets and signet elite.

concerns regarding survivability remain though. thieves and mesmers can output similar burst while constantly resetting fights when needed.

also where is our evade on Swoop? i thought that was an excellent idea for GS.

It’s a whole bunch of changes that don’t in their totality even remotely address the balance equilibrium whatsoever.

The weakest part about ranger power builds, or the thing they are lacking the most, especially with the underwhelming burst options outside of Greatsword, is the inability to remove protection/regen/stability/etc. If we had a reliable, consistent way of removing boons like protection, then even in their current state, power builds would immediately become more viable than they ever were.

It is why thief and mesmer burst builds are so strong; they have readily available means of removing protection so that they can guarantee their maximum damage output. Warriors not so much, but Healing Signet and good damage coefficients and stability access gives them ridiculous staying power in order to keep in an opponents face until they have an opportunity to deal their burst damage.

The other issue is Empathic Bond. No ranger player in their right mind is going to stop running Empathic Bond in PvP or small scale WvW because of the plethora of condition spam and the lack of valuable removal options outside of Empathic Bond.

Until either of these issues are addressed, ranger builds will stay largely unaffected unless the weapons get retooled.

Maybe they are hoping the greatsword wielding rangers will equip a sigil of nullifaction in that extra slot two-handed weapons are getting.

All and all I think we really need to have a talk with the developers on what the word “amazing” means. Then again I am almost amazed (mostly stating to get used to this level of explicit) at how bad these patch notes are so maybe my point is moot.

Don’t need that. Even if target has protection, you can still 1 hit kill him. The only counter boon is ages, but just let your pet hit him 1st.
From this, I don’t think this patch note is true, if it’s true it just mean Anet developer is stupid.
You know I would like see changes/buffs on ranger as everyone else expect, but not this way, it just simply bring a certain build cheap and OP but other still remain the same.

Bran.7425:

Maybe they are hoping the greatsword wielding rangers will equip a sigil of nullifaction in that extra slot two-handed weapons are getting.

All and all I think we really need to have a talk with the developers on what the word “amazing” means. Then again I am almost amazed (mostly stating to get used to this level of explicit) at how bad these patch notes are so maybe my point is moot.

Overall it looks good, but:

The “Guard” nerf is completely unnecessary, cmon Anet.

jcbroe.4329:

It’s a whole bunch of changes that don’t in their totality even remotely address the balance equilibrium whatsoever.

The weakest part about ranger power builds, or the thing they are lacking the most, especially with the underwhelming burst options outside of Greatsword, is the inability to remove protection/regen/stability/etc. If we had a reliable, consistent way of removing boons like protection, then even in their current state, power builds would immediately become more viable than they ever were.

It is why thief and mesmer burst builds are so strong; they have readily available means of removing protection so that they can guarantee their maximum damage output. Warriors not so much, but Healing Signet and good damage coefficients and stability access gives them ridiculous staying power in order to keep in an opponents face until they have an opportunity to deal their burst damage.

The other issue is Empathic Bond. No ranger player in their right mind is going to stop running Empathic Bond in PvP or small scale WvW because of the plethora of condition spam and the lack of valuable removal options outside of Empathic Bond.

Until either of these issues are addressed, ranger builds will stay largely unaffected unless the weapons get retooled.

It’s true, Empathic Bond will still dictate all viable ranger builds. How hard would it be to make shouts traitable to remove conditions or to add damaging condition removal to Heal as One? Sigh… Or have more Pet f2s remove conditions…

jcbroe.4329:

It’s a whole bunch of changes that don’t in their totality even remotely address the balance equilibrium whatsoever.

The weakest part about ranger power builds, or the thing they are lacking the most, especially with the underwhelming burst options outside of Greatsword, is the inability to remove protection/regen/stability/etc. If we had a reliable, consistent way of removing boons like protection, then even in their current state, power builds would immediately become more viable than they ever were.

It is why thief and mesmer burst builds are so strong; they have readily available means of removing protection so that they can guarantee their maximum damage output. Warriors not so much, but Healing Signet and good damage coefficients and stability access gives them ridiculous staying power in order to keep in an opponents face until they have an opportunity to deal their burst damage.

The other issue is Empathic Bond. No ranger player in their right mind is going to stop running Empathic Bond in PvP or small scale WvW because of the plethora of condition spam and the lack of valuable removal options outside of Empathic Bond.

Until either of these issues are addressed, ranger builds will stay largely unaffected unless the weapons get retooled.

I have to disagree in some points..Prot is getting countered by vuln…Longbow and Greatsword have some good access to vuln..

And LR removes 3 very hurtfull conditions from Ranger in a good CD..Its will be ok for an “oh kitten” skill..

I have to see the dmg that the maul will make and its reliability, cause if its high enough im pretty sure that some ppl will glady ignore the cond removal

infantrydiv.1620:

Overall it looks good, but:

The “Guard” nerf is completely unnecessary, cmon Anet.

It negates some bunker regen builds (why have high healing if you cannot regen consistently). It would be nice if they buffed Signed of the Wild to be on-par with the warrior Healing Signet to compensate this nerf.

If SotW healed as well as Healing Signet and we still had access to a normal heal, we’d be unkillable in anything other than zerg situations.

Its funny how they keep buffing Bark Skin. Its already a fantastic trait and it always was… The problem is most ranger builds are forced into taking EB for condition removal. If they gave us better condition removal people would use Bark Skin.. but as it stands, they could buff is to be a perminant damage reduction and many many people still wouldnt use it.

Sevans.4619:

If SotW healed as well as Healing Signet and we still had access to a normal heal, we’d be unkillable in anything other than zerg situations.

If 5500 healing power was possible then Signet of the Wild would be just as strong, but as it stands to get Regeneration to that strength requires 2096 so…

But bring up warrior does nothing to help the discussion of ranger and the changes that we are, if past patch note leaks are to be believed, unavoidable.

Guard nerf really??? 25 seconds for a skill that is extremely buggy (ie the pet doesn’t guard and just stands still while the enemy sits in the guarded circle). You have to trait shouts give swiftness to even make it remotely useful. Its animation also takes forever and is easily interrupted. I have no clue what they are thinking. Terrible.

Just because this can’t be said enough:
Shout
A shout is a skill type that generally affects a wide area. Certain shouts give bonuses to allies while others can be used to debuff enemies. Shouts have an instant cast time and may be used during other skills.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shout

Guard 1 Activation time 15 Recharge time
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/%22Guard%22

So guard is shout with a activation time, not really a shout then.

LOL at these people whining about “guard” changes and pet behaviour after the skill. I bet you all fall in the 80% category. Every changes made to Ranger more than half are whiners, I suggest for you to role a warrior and get in with the warrior spin to win hambow train.

Rym.1469:

Ah, and joke. Remorseless giving Open strike to pet also. But no pet stealths, except of jaguar. Troll

Assuming the patch notes are true…
synergy with Guard is the reason.

People really don’t know their class.

apocalypso.4895:

Rym.1469:

Ah, and joke. Remorseless giving Open strike to pet also. But no pet stealths, except of jaguar. Troll

Assuming the patch notes are true…
synergy with Guard is the reason.

People really don’t know their class.

Ahhh… finally a real Ranger, you know theres only 20% of us remaining in game. Hypothetical high five.

jcbroe.4329:

It’s a whole bunch of changes that don’t in their totality even remotely address the balance equilibrium whatsoever.

The weakest part about ranger power builds, or the thing they are lacking the most, especially with the underwhelming burst options outside of Greatsword, is the inability to remove protection/regen/stability/etc. If we had a reliable, consistent way of removing boons like protection, then even in their current state, power builds would immediately become more viable than they ever were.

It is why thief and mesmer burst builds are so strong; they have readily available means of removing protection so that they can guarantee their maximum damage output. Warriors not so much, but Healing Signet and good damage coefficients and stability access gives them ridiculous staying power in order to keep in an opponents face until they have an opportunity to deal their burst damage.

The other issue is Empathic Bond. No ranger player in their right mind is going to stop running Empathic Bond in PvP or small scale WvW because of the plethora of condition spam and the lack of valuable removal options outside of Empathic Bond.

Until either of these issues are addressed, ranger builds will stay largely unaffected unless the weapons get retooled.

this basically.
key issues of the ranger class aren’t getting adressed at all.
main issue being active condition removal, also kinda want to see how reliable pet f2s are after the patch – this might just be a step into the right direction.