Guild Wars 2

in base from the leaks in reddit.

Apparently we are getting a new somehow imbued ranger. Shame it seems we get dagger mainhand, although i would like more sword offhand as for aesthetics , never liked it when the daggers are all handled upside down.
Also dagger offhand is a horrible weapon…

What do you think?

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I like daggers as weapons. I played it a lot before HoT and would like to see some improvements. Maybe we get it if we get mainhand dagger.

Miellyn.6847:

Remove the link.

I like daggers as weapons. I played it a lot before HoT and would like to see some improvements. Maybe we get it if we get mainhand dagger.

I don’t know… maybe if they fix the ranger’s weapons skills in general… Otherwise i won’t keep my hopes up.

But yeah, vanilla ranger would need a deep overhaul to fix all the bugs and incoherences with the class before i even consider buying the new expac. I’m ashamed to admit i preordered hot, but after the big fiasco that is druid for me ( i despise raids ) im wary Anet is going to nerf the heel out of the new spec if is any good, because it has to be OP to cover for the completely useless ranger state.

Maybe ranger will get shapeshift finally

Sounds cool in theory but will have to see how it is implemented. Having a mainhand dagger is something I have subzero interest in, especially if it puts me in melee so I’m only interested in the new e-spec as far as how it may or may not complement the core specializations. If I can’t use it to augment ranged gameplay w/ a pet in a fun way, I’m going to be disappointed.

I’m really skeptical after the last round of elites…

I doubt that daggers will be any sort of competitive melee combat weapons, and the current dagger offhand is atrocious.

One can assume that the name “soul beast” implies that we will adapt buffs from various “spirit” pets (which was discussed long ago). I’m willing to be it will be another “build this resource to do a couple of cool things for 3.5 seconds on a 15 second lockout timer”, and the normal state will be subpar in combat.

Hope I’m wrong, but I doubt it considering what’s happened so far.

I’m very hyped about this leak. The new elite specs, elona (gw 1 yay!!!), mounts.. I’m thrilled.

Soulbeast reminds me a bit of this post: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/New-Ranger-Elite-Specialization-the-Stalker/first#post6460939

alain.1659:

Maybe ranger will get shapeshift finally

What’s sure is that if it’s a shapeshift c**p I’ll probably never use this e-spec. We’ve got way to many “transform” skill in this game and the sad thing is that the only one who is barely playable is the necromancer’s shroud.

Swagger.1459:

One can assume that the name “soul beast” implies that we will adapt buffs from various “spirit” pets (which was discussed long ago). I’m willing to be it will be another “build this resource to do a couple of cool things for 3.5 seconds on a 15 second lockout timer”, and the normal state will be subpar in combat.

I’d guess that the utilities are Stances, not shapeshift skills. Or Spectrals (because of name). Regarding F-Skills we might just lose the active pet attack and gain something in return. It is very unlikely that we get more than one new form.

Regarding Dagger… got to be condi MH. Otherwise it wouldn’t make much sense.

Xaylin.1860:

Swagger.1459:

One can assume that the name “soul beast” implies that we will adapt buffs from various “spirit” pets (which was discussed long ago). I’m willing to be it will be another “build this resource to do a couple of cool things for 3.5 seconds on a 15 second lockout timer”, and the normal state will be subpar in combat.

I’d guess that the utilities are Stances, not shapeshift skills. Or Spectrals (because of name). Regarding F-Skills we might just lose the active pet attack and gain something in return. It is very unlikely that we get more than one new form.

Regarding Dagger… got to be condi MH. Otherwise it wouldn’t make much sense.

Whatever it is, it’s probably going to be like a low budget thief with subpar damage output and wonky “spirit” pet mechanics. Core ranger will still be “not good” either.

Sorry, not trying to be rude, but we know how it goes around these ranger parts.

Swagger.1459:

Whatever it is, it’s probably going to be like a low budget thief with subpar damage output and wonky “spirit” pet mechanics. Core ranger will still be “not good” either.

Sorry, not trying to be rude, but we know how it goes around these ranger parts.

Sadly, this is most likely true in so many ways. If the new e-spec did offer competitive DPS, the coefficients and scaling on the dagger skills and new pets would have to be near dumb levels while taking into account those damage modifiers from Marksmanship.

But, to try to keep things positive, this is a (hopefully) changed balance and design team. They keep insisting that they have learned mistakes from the last expansion and Jon Peters is gone.

So, maybe, just maybe, this e-spec might turn out decent (I’m keeping my hopes low) and a major trait overhaul might be done like last time to tighten up things (like replacing Most Dangerous Game and Predator’s Instinct). Oh, god. I hope they don’t try to build “synergy” in the new elite spec with those garbage traits…

Players that want to play a pet-less Ranger are going to be very happy with this one.

Xaylin.1860:

Regarding Dagger… got to be condi MH. Otherwise it wouldn’t make much sense.

Ehhh? Of course it would. Sword hits like a nuddle compared to other professions, axe has become almost a pure condi weapon.

Ranger dont have a decent damaging mainhand. The problem is that the ranger needs some changes to its core traits if direct damage builds are to be on par with other professions. Mind you it doesn’t have to be top damage, considering we got good team buffs on the side.

And from a PvP perspective, the elite spec needs some good surviveability tools for a melee weapon to work. The ranger (and the pet) is highly dependent on druid at the moment.

Lazze.9870:

Xaylin.1860:

Regarding Dagger… got to be condi MH. Otherwise it wouldn’t make much sense.

Ehhh? Of course it would. Sword hits like a nuddle compared to other professions, axe has become almost a pure condi weapon.

Ranger dont have a decent damaging mainhand. The problem is that the ranger needs some changes to its core traits if direct damage builds are to be on par with other professions. Mind you it doesn’t have to be top damage, considering we got good team buffs on the side.

That’s a totally different issue, though, which comes down to two things:

• Pet class – just look at Mesmers. Sword hits like a wet noodle, too.
• Sword / GS both being Power weapons but with rather strong defensive capabilities.

The obvious thing to do is buffing either one of those in the damage department – and probably reducing their defensive capabilities. Not saying that all Ranger traits are all right. But people are way too focussed on damage modifiers just because some classes happen to have a load of them.

Arguments for Dagger MH being condi:

• Axe / SB being mainly ranged
• Rangers not having any close combat condi weapon at all (Axe#2 aside)
• OH Dagger being condi (yeah… I know about MH/OH Axe… but how well did that work out for that weapon set and its trait?)
• Sword / GS being mainly power and therefore filling the close combat power slot despite the abyssmal DPS.

The alternative would be making either Sword MH or GS a condi weapon.

Xaylin.1860:

The alternative would be making either Sword MH or GS a condi weapon.

Heh. I’d love for them to pull that one (seriously) for Sword. It hits much slower since the animations were changed that they might as well make it a full condition melee weapon so Dagger can be DPS.

GS is definitely out since it started out as a semi-pathetic hybrid when Maul had bleeds on it. Then they put it through the PoP filter (Purity of Purpose); I doubt they’d ever move it back if they were to do either of the alternatives listed.

Condi Sword would work, no doubt. But just introducing a new weapon for this purpose and tuning numbers on the existing ones might be easier to do. We’ll see.

i just i would love anet to actually listen and try to share\discuss the aspects of the new spec or this class, as opposite to other classes Anet dev team seems completely lost when ranger is all about.

Khenzy.9348:

Players that want to play a pet-less Ranger are going to be very happy with this one.

No word on if it’s petless. Might wind up being an aspect sort of thing to overcome the fact that Rangers melt in melee. If it does wind up being petless, it will be interesting to see how they attempt to modify the rest of the Ranger trait lines without ruining the class (don’t have much faith in them accomplishing that, though).

Not a fan of dagger skins but it will be interesting to see where they go with it.

On one hand, thanks to its two defensive skills, Sword is probably always going to be limited in the dps department and even if it wasn’t it would just be a boring auto attack set.

On the other hand we don’t technically have a melee condi weapon but mh axe is basically used as a melee condi weapon in one of the better dps builds in the game and it is terrible as a ranged weapon.

In regards to what other weapons we could have got, what should have been our ranged aoe weapon was wasted on the disaster that was druid so that just leaves a hammer cc weapon for bunnythumper nostalgia.

Khenzy.9348:

Players that want to play a pet-less Ranger are going to be very happy with this one.

Are you talking about the thief e-spec? The sharpshooter?

Xaylin.1860:

That’s a totally different issue, though, which comes down to two things:

It’s not a totaly different issue. You listing the reasons why our power weapons (and I’m perfectly aware why they both hit like nuddles) doesn’t change the fact that they do, and that the ranger still lacks a decent mainhand power weapon.

It’s not about damage modifiers, it’s about adjusting obvious flaws in the trait designs. Opening Strike as a mechanic is still flawed outside the use of a Remorseless build.

Xaylin.1860:

Arguments for Dagger MH being condi:

• Axe / SB being mainly ranged
• Rangers not having any close combat condi weapon at all (Axe#2 aside)
• OH Dagger being condi (yeah… I know about MH/OH Axe… but how well did that work out for that weapon set and its trait?)
• Sword / GS being mainly power and therefore filling the close combat power slot despite the abyssmal DPS.

The alternative would be making either Sword MH or GS a condi weapon.

Axe is as much closed combat as it is ranged, its bleed burst relies on you literally standing in your foe’s face. None of its attacks relies on range. You’re two first arguments are barely worth anything.

Bringing up how bad traits work with these weapons is irrelevant, the MH dagger will be an elite spec weapon and therefor non-reliant on old weapon traits.

Pointless trying to argue power over condi or vice versa. There are equal arguments for having both. However, as it stands, the ranger lacks a good power damage build. It doesn’t lack a condi build. And that fact applies to a certain extent to pvp aswell. It’s pretty clear by now that Anet doesn’t want to adress how they nerfed the damage of the sword, a weapon that was already quite average as far as damage goes.

For the record, I’m fine with either.

Lazze.9870:

Pointless trying to argue power over condi or vice versa. …

For the record, I’m fine with either.

You might consider some of my arguments invalid and you might disagree. Build-wise Rangers currently might lack a (meta) power build (although that mainly applies to Raids or bashing dummy golems…). But weapon-wise they rather need a condi close combat weapon.

From a developers perspective it is a bad choice to pile even more close combat power weapons on a class which already got two of those. So no, it wouldn’t make much sense unless they changed one of the existing ones. Of course, Dagger could still turn out to be power – I wouldn’t mind either. But it wouldn’t be too smart. Because roles of those weapons would overlap and one could become obsolete.

On a different note: Overperforming or meta builds are bad benchmarks when it comes to creating new specializations.

Irijia.6073:

Khenzy.9348:

Players that want to play a pet-less Ranger are going to be very happy with this one.

No word on if it’s petless. Might wind up being an aspect sort of thing to overcome the fact that Rangers melt in melee. If it does wind up being petless, it will be interesting to see how they attempt to modify the rest of the Ranger trait lines without ruining the class (don’t have much faith in them accomplishing that, though).

Regarding the leaks yesterday..
Spoiler alertActually, it was said in the massive leak thread that the new ranger will be petless, pets will be turned into stances or auras if you will. Based on what type of pet, you get a matching aura.

By the looks of the icons, seems each stance has a represented pet already (the heal has a bear, the elite a wolf, the other utilities are a bird, a moa, and 2 that I can’t make out).

Seems interesting enough, especially with a trait icon of a bunny rabbit, even though we’re getting a dagger (I still wanted a hammer). ;/

FrouFrou.4958:

Irijia.6073:

Khenzy.9348:

Players that want to play a pet-less Ranger are going to be very happy with this one.

No word on if it’s petless. Might wind up being an aspect sort of thing to overcome the fact that Rangers melt in melee. If it does wind up being petless, it will be interesting to see how they attempt to modify the rest of the Ranger trait lines without ruining the class (don’t have much faith in them accomplishing that, though).

Regarding the leaks yesterday..
Spoiler alertActually, it was said in the massive leak thread that the new ranger will be petless, pets will be turned into stances or auras if you will. Based on what type of pet, you get a matching aura.

Is that so? The comments I heard about that sounded like speculation but if it does come to fruition then I’ll probably give the expansion a miss then. I look forward to new things being added to my class but I’m not inclined to grind out an Elite tree that will require me to lose my pet to use it.

I’d only care if they put extra effort into fixing the problems we have with the pets now so people who want pets and people who want to be petless because of the flaws our pets have can both be happy. If it winds up being uneven I’ll just save my money and play something else then.

FrouFrou.4958:

Irijia.6073:

Khenzy.9348:

Players that want to play a pet-less Ranger are going to be very happy with this one.

No word on if it’s petless. Might wind up being an aspect sort of thing to overcome the fact that Rangers melt in melee. If it does wind up being petless, it will be interesting to see how they attempt to modify the rest of the Ranger trait lines without ruining the class (don’t have much faith in them accomplishing that, though).

Regarding the leaks yesterday..
Spoiler alertActually, it was said in the massive leak thread that the new ranger will be petless, pets will be turned into stances or auras if you will. Based on what type of pet, you get a matching aura.

What a disaster. Guess I’ll have to wait two more years for an elite spec that builds on the things I like about the class instead of ignoring them or ruining them.

Xaylin.1860:

From a developers perspective it is a bad choice to pile even more close combat power weapons on a class which already got two of those. So no, it wouldn’t make much sense unless they changed one of the existing ones. Of course, Dagger could still turn out to be power – I wouldn’t mind either. But it wouldn’t be too smart. Because roles of those weapons would overlap and one could become obsolete.

On a different note: Overperforming or meta builds are bad benchmarks when it comes to creating new specializations.

Dude… from anyone’s perspective, they’ve made plenty of bad choices. Main-hand melee power dagger seems like one of the smarter things they could give this class.

Not to mention, meta builds and benchmarks are valuable data to consider. If any of the devs think otherwise, then that’s how we end up with shlte like Most Dangerous Game being a trait Robert Gee tossed away, being smartly placed in the adept tier (Irenio knew what was up), then confoundedly moved to a grandmaster by other devs that weren’t either of those two.

Wondrouswall.7169:

By the looks of the icons, seems each stance has a represented pet already (the heal has a bear, the elite a wolf, the other utilities are a bird, a moa, and 2 that I can’t make out).

Seems interesting enough, especially with a trait icon of a bunny rabbit, even though we’re getting a dagger (I still wanted a hammer). ;/

I wanted a hammer too, I was so disappointed!

@Irijia, the guy who made the comments was a core tester afaik, he posted few pictures as well but nothing to back up his ranger comments. I’m a bit sceptical as well since I trust the pictures more than comments, but as WW said above, the icons seems to implicate that way anyways.

alain.1659:

Maybe ranger will get shapeshift finally

Yeah the elite look.like it would be something in this direction.
Utilities look definetly like spectral skills and the class mechanic seems to have something to do with the pet. Maybe we get a petless ranger and you attune to different pet souls with petswap? I mean spectral skills build up lifeforce,maybe you can merge with your petsoul and you are one being for the duration of the “shroud”.

Always hated using a pet. If ranger becomes petless it’ll likely become my main

FrouFrou.4958:

Irijia.6073:

Khenzy.9348:

Players that want to play a pet-less Ranger are going to be very happy with this one.

No word on if it’s petless. Might wind up being an aspect sort of thing to overcome the fact that Rangers melt in melee. If it does wind up being petless, it will be interesting to see how they attempt to modify the rest of the Ranger trait lines without ruining the class (don’t have much faith in them accomplishing that, though).

Regarding the leaks yesterday..
Spoiler alertActually, it was said in the massive leak thread that the new ranger will be petless, pets will be turned into stances or auras if you will. Based on what type of pet, you get a matching aura.

It would be kinda sad and dumb if that is true. They’ve recently buffed pets across the board, and what would happen if a ranger equipped both Beastmastery and Soulbeast specializations? All the work they’d done on pets would be rendered pointless. A petless ranger would also invalidate several skills, and would require all of them to be reworked (lots of work) or made unavailable to the new e-spec (an e-spec that gives you LESS skills may not be attractive design). The idea of an e-spec being outright incompatible with core specs and skills makes me think this is unlikely, though not impossible.

Also, say what you will about how good/bad pets are and have been throughout the game’s life, I got into this class cause I love having an animal companion. Would be sad if we had to sacrifice that just to play an e-spec that isn’t a raid healer…

I can see this going 4 ways.

1: The pet stays but pet swap is replaced by a toggle that causes the pet to go spirit form. Giving you an aura/buff based on the pet family you absorbed. Standard pet swap cooldown before you can bring it back. Your buffed. But you have fewer attacks/skills going out.

This maintains f2 and f4 reliant traits. As well as other effects that rely on the pet existing. This doesn’t sync well with utillity skills such as signets and shouts.

2: Similar to above. But instead of replacing the f4 it becomes the f5 like CA did. Using F5 absorbs the pet and suppresses the f4 until f5 is released.

This is the one that interferes the least with current builds and playstyles. Yet still offers bursts of the petless playstyle. Helping the ranger in pet problem areas such as WvW. (F5 during a clash giving a buff to the ranger and making it more melee train friendly. A buffed ranger running around Mauling enemy melee can do ALOT of damage)

This is I feel the most similar to druid. Where as druid takes away our weapon skills to use its abilities. This spirit beast f5 would take away our PET skills to make use of our new aura. A similar tradeoff for a similar affect.

This is what I am personally hoping for as a beast mastery focused ranger. But for those that wan’t permanent removal of the pet. This may not be their cup of tea. But would give them the option of at-least alleviating the issue in the biggest problem areas.

Possibility 3: The pet is completely removed upon taking the spirit beast. Or the toggleing of said ability is detrimental to the use of the pet. This would be a worst case scenario for me. As entire utility skills would become completely incompattible. As well as a complete traitline.

And from a logical standpoint this is also the least likely. On the other hand many people wish for this.

I can’t comment on this too much. This is so far from my playstyle that I can’t really give even semi educated predictions on this.

Except that the aura would have to be strong as HELL to justify this. Like brokenly strong. Think about what losing the pet means for PvP as well. Pet CC is a big part about what gets us out of trouble in PvP. So the aura would need to supress incoming CCs (both soft and hard) to a significant degree as well as providing a huge boost to our damage to justify taking. (think about the gimmicky 1 shot builds that still exist for rangers in hotjoin. Now imagine every spirit beast has that amount of damage normally+resistance to CC.)

Possibility 4: Anet completely surprises me and does none of the above. The spirit beast is nothing like what any of us think or any of the “leaks” indicate. And we get a suprise buttsecks of an elite spec that none of us have any idea what to do with and may be good or bad. “shrug”

Edit: As for the pets being useless. Outside of zerg fights your wrong. Provably wrong. (I say this not to be antagonizing. But merely to attempt to prevent an echo chamber affect. If I am asked to back this up I will. But an argument is not what I am trying to make out of this part. Pets have MAJOR issues in WvW zerg fights. But in all other game modes they have proven there usefulness. Both after and BEFORE the recent update to their attacks)

Shadelang.3012:

As for the pets being useless. Outside of zerg fights your wrong. Provably wrong. (I say this not to be antagonizing. But merely to attempt to prevent an echo chamber affect. If I am asked to back this up I will. But an argument is not what I am trying to make out of this part. Pets have MAJOR issues in WvW zerg fights. But in all other game modes they have proven there usefulness. Both after and BEFORE the recent update to their attacks)

Didn’t even mean to imply that I thought pets are useless. In fact I don’t think so. Edited the wording in my post to better reflect this.

If there is one thing you should’ve learned from the Druid, then it’s that ANet is very aware of the Rangers shortcomings and that they decided to not care at all. It really baffles me how the devs managed to sidestep everything the Ranger does (poorly) by designing the Druid to interface as little as possible with the core Ranger.

Actually dagger main hand is a great idea sword main hand as it is is not pure dps so if we’re going to direction of pure dps much better dagger main hand and you can amply axe off hand as well or dagger for the evade

In terms of core ranger, some parts would not be hard to balance. Getting an active F2 from the stance will proc traits. Going into/out of a stance procs pet swap. Others will feel very out of place unless they get a revamp in the process e.g. Signet of Renewal, Fortifying Bond, Empathic Bond, Beast mastery in general.

That being said, if worked right, there could be some real crazy synnergy with core Ranger.

Would also prefer Hammer as a weapon but that’s just me.

just quick update from reddit: still in testing but apparently mostly DPS and petless.

Taking some notes form an old CDI thread:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/cdi/Collaborative-Development-Ranger-Profession/page/10#post3688764

Something like when you stow the pet you gain the “aspect”, so rangers would get buffs based on the pet.

I hope they go for the perma-stow option. It is simpler and get rid of the pet when having it around is an annoyance (zerg versus zerg, exploring map, some pve instances).
And if they buff all the pets utility and reliability the pets wouldn’t need to be perma-stowed all the time.

My answer for most of the synergies and pets effect, when the pet is stowed the effect is applied to the ranger. example: Sb#3 makes the next ranger’s attacks also to cause bleeding. Protect me! would cause taunt towards the ranger, which if this is a DPS spec that is what the Soulbeast actually wants. Not very difficult to adapt.

And i hope sword off hand instead dagger mh.

Well there was tis thng that I posted that could also be “close” to this petless spec :

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/E-Spec-suggestion-Evoker/first#post6301815

Honnestly, at this point the best is to wait and see.

it looks like there will be dead horses… i ment mounts meybe u guys can conjure a mount :|

And what if we’ll hold dagger in two hands instead of one, thus making it 5 skills weapon? It may look stupid, but if you think about it, maybe it’s good idea?

If this were a shapeshift spec I think I’d finally take some actual interest in ranger.

cptaylor.2670:

If this were a shapeshift spec I think I’d finally take some actual interest in ranger.

one of the grand master traits seemed like a shapeshifting thing… Although i have to say, shapeshifting mechanic in this game has been a complete disaster, as the skills have been always a joke because they are useless or completely broken.

We will see if the new e spec will ever replace Druid in teams and raises but I’m skeptical

BadSanta.6527:

We will see if the new e spec will ever replace Druid in teams and raises but I’m skeptical

Well it doesnt have to. Maybe this will be a E-Spec best suited for WvW and open world.
The concept of an E-Spec is actually to fill missing roles. Druid will alwaysbe a good support, question is if the new E-specs of other classes will provide the same amount of support or not.

Just by looking at the leaked spec picture, the soulbeast is the one I am quite curious but also a bit worried about.

The utility skill icons seem to indicate the soulbeast is getting minion skills. I don’t know if that is really an interesting addition to ranger class as they already get pets.

Then it is interesting what special mechanics soulbeast will get. Will it be ranger 2.0 this time? We all know druid is one of the few elite specs that had little interaction with the core class. Maybe they will focus on the synergy with core spec this time.

Exciton.8942:

Just by looking at the leaked spec picture, the soulbeast is the one I am quite curious but also a bit worried about.

The utility skill icons seem to indicate the soulbeast is getting minion skills. I don’t know if that is really an interesting addition to ranger class as they already get pets.

Then it is interesting what special mechanics soulbeast will get. Will it be ranger 2.0 this time? We all know druid is one of the few elite specs that had little interaction with the core class. Maybe they will focus on the synergy with core spec this time.

I would have said that the new utilities could be spectral skills and we get some kind of shroud which merges the ranger with its pet.

On the otherhand maybe it will be the opposite of berserker. The berserker mode counts as a rage skill, maybe the minion skills count as pet swap and activation skills. This could give awesome synergy and a real beastmaster feeling. I am generally excited on this E-spec and probably gonna play it over druid.

Khenzy.9348:

Players that want to play a pet-less Ranger are going to be very happy with this one.

I’m guessing you were in CDI back in 2014 when we revamp Ranger skills? I have a feeling I know what Soulbeast meachanics would be like cause I’ve read a few suggestions back in 2014 about this.

I’ll remain from giving full judgement until we actually see it but I hope we don’t lose the pet completely.

It would require an entire rework of the profession and I highly doubt Anet is willing to devote the proper time just for an elite spec, not to mention the recent pet buffs.

The art looks amazing, just compare that to the druid skill wheel. I’m very hyped. I just hope they’ll implement their vision fully this time, and not go half way , like they did with the druid.