Guild Wars 2

Seems like a condensing of traits is incoming for all classes due to Specializations, (looking at the water magic example given in blog),which I’m almost positive means that Longbow ranger will likely not have to trait so extensively to get proficient use out of our most popular weapon. Hazzah!

edit: also, all skills are getting a type (mortar becoming a kit) which alo means that RaO is likely to become a shout

I am not sure to understand how all of this will work. We will have access to 3 entire traits lines (3 GM traits), no more stats etc. It’s kind of scary. It’s a lot more changes than we expected.

they said stats would be lumped into the lvl 80 total and gear (mostly gear). This change will affect my build, but if they get it to work, i’d be happy with it.

It will be difficult to decide if i want to stay longbow ranger, or change to longbow druid (i hope thats possible, i might do it just to be different)

EDIT: in an interview, they did mention that heal as one would become a shout (not that it answers your thought for RaO)

Heal as One becoming a shout quote and source:

Ten Ton Hammer:
How much of a revision are existing skills getting for each profession? Are any and all up for improvement or revision and if so, to what degree do you think you’ve done this?

Jon:
It depends on the profession and it depends on the skill. We talked about some examples for instance where Mortar is turning into a kit. There are other examples like where Heal as One is becoming a shout. We’re also rebalancing some skills based on the way traits are changing. The goal of this is to make more viable builds and give more definition to professions.

Source- http://www.tentonhammer.com/news/guild-wars-2/guild-wars-2-heart-thorns-specializations-and-jon-peters-qa

I’m extra excited about them moving stats away from the trait points.

No longer will my power build be tempted to put more points in a traitline just for more power, precision, and/or ferocity.

No longer will my condition build be tempted to put more points in a traitline for condition damage or condition duration.

No longer will you want to put points into a traitline to be “less squishy” … unless it has actual traits that make you “less squishy”.

I’ve wanted this for a while but never thought they’d actually do it. I’m quite happy to see ArenaNet moving in this direction.

A decoupling of these two things is a good idea in my opinion.

I’m excited to see that Heal As One is becoming a Shout … I imagine people may also get their wish and Troll Unguent become a Survival skill … heck to the yes.

Nah ranger will be ultra bad

The stats was a part of all the builds (am going to loose 300 extra vitality). It will change everything, but am not afraid to change my gear to nearly get the same stats. My main concern is to know where condition duration and (mostly) boon duration will go.

THREE GM traits!
No stats on trait lines is awesome too!

Wow, can’t wait for this!

Imagine the builds…
LB/GS – RtW, MoC, Nature’s Voice. HaO, Sic Em, LR, SoS, RaO. Wow.
or condi SoTF with TU.
Double melee EB, SoTF, PO! or PO, SoTF & ZS with Intimidation training.

Mind. Blown.

As I said in the other thread … it will also likely benefit everyone that never many (if any) points into Beastmastery.

ArenaNet gave the example that Elementalist Attunement cooldowns would be reduced to a new baseline since they can’t reduce it via stats from traits any more. The same is likely to happen to Stats for Ranger pets since we won’t have access to Beastmastery stats. So now pets will be stronger than they were in any build that took less than 4 points in Beastmastery.

And no condi stats on power builds.. and vice versa.

Interesting times ahead. Not to mention whatever the druid stuff brings.

Having 3 grandmaster traits is a game changer. My zerker will now be able two take empathic bond or bark skin or heaven forbid zephr’s speed. Melee Ranger could have access to up to 12 of quickness (triggers indenpenantly as quickness doesn’t stack in duration).

This may have some limitations as it seems you wont be able to take to master traits like spotter and eagle eye , if you decide you didn’t need read the wind or any of the other gm traits.

We can hope that eagle eye is merged with something useful Like spotter.

On another not there is no such thing as a bad class. Just bad players or builds, and in some cases bad play style for your build.

Sebrent.3625:

I’m extra excited about them moving stats away from the trait points.

No longer will my power build be tempted to put more points in a traitline just for more power, precision, and/or ferocity.

No longer will my condition build be tempted to put more points in a traitline for condition damage or condition duration.

No longer will you want to put points into a traitline to be “less squishy” … unless it has actual traits that make you “less squishy”.

I’ve wanted this for a while but never thought they’d actually do it. I’m quite happy to see ArenaNet moving in this direction.

A decoupling of these two things is a good idea in my opinion.

I’m excited to see that Heal As One is becoming a Shout … I imagine people may also get their wish and Troll Unguent become a Survival skill … heck to the yes.

Me too, I’m also abit scared that my beloved ascended celestial now will be lacking in damage and have “too much” vitality and healing power instead now that it can’t be boosted in the marksman line for instance. :o

as long as they dont take away my piercing arrows, I’ll be ok (they can graft it into the ranger if they want). Its always a great laugh when you can line up 2+ enemies and RF them. I’m sure I’ll have to change my build, but that should be fine since it will likely be much better (3 grandmaster traits).

If thats the case dont you just change cele rings for zerk?

More of an issue in spvp where we dont have that level of stat tweaking with the way amulets are now (ie no jewel).

Sandzibar.5134:

If thats the case dont you just change cele rings for zerk?

More of an issue in spvp where we dont have that level of stat tweaking with the way amulets are now (ie no jewel).

True I’m sure it’ll be fine, my current build was nicely boosted as it is though using celestial with focus on powerdamage and having relatively heavy bleeding damage as bonus, extra power and condition duration in marksman fit really well, on the other hand precision should be extra boosted for me then since I only went a short way into skirmishing for critbleeds, there might be so many new builds opening on the other hand so who cares at this point it’s too early to tell

I imagine they’ll keep the % difference in the stats the same as they increase the stats on gear to compensate for them not being on Specializations any more.

I would hold off the celebrations until we see what we get.

They are condensing traits and also turning them into base functionality but even the “we will probably break even, maybe” tone of the trait stat points post makes me think that all of our current functionality isn’t guranteed to make it in.

All of this seems like good news. This change is a nice breath of fresh air and a chance for everyone to take things into a new direction and opens up more opportunities to experiment. Can’t wait.

All look like great changes to me, although so much is changing I fully expect every build will need updating which will probably ruffle some feathers… But for me, I like change so I am looking forward to it

Oh wow, this is going to be exciting. THREE grandmaster traits?! Oh man… I could make a killer Longbow Beastmaster ranger with Read the Wind, Survival of the Fittest, and Zephyr’s Speed… Or a bunkery beastmaster with Nature’s Voice, Barkskin, and Natural Healing. Maybe something with Moment of Clarity too.

Trapper Rangers might finally have more trait variety. And I can only imagine what the druid traitline will give.

Im looking forward to .

LB , Sword+dagger , Predators onslaught , SoTF and Zephyr’s Speed again , if i can have this im not too worried about loosing out on those stats I (might have lost from the Trait lines)

Hard Fast CC spikes from both Ranger and Pet , Though im not sure where are the Pet stats going to go ? will the beastmastery Specialization be compensated or still give the pet extra stats while Specialized for beastmaster.

though i am looking forward to buffing my pet with the Fortifying Bond + Quickness Crits to stack new might quickly after a pet swap it’ll quickly bring the pet back up to fighting speed rather than taking ages to build up and by then you’d have to swap pets again, and the third grandmaster slot is perfect for Aggressive beastmasters.

This will make Power LB so much stronger. Can’t wait to try out All Zerker – RtW, Bark Skin, SoTF. With all the Survival skills.

Or Cele Hybrid LB-S/D, Keen Edge, Piercing, Remorseless, Sharpened Edges, Trappers Expertise,Trap Potency, Shared Anguish, HiPS & EB with all traps and trapper runes!

I just see the future of wvw (solo and small scale roaming) the only mod i play.

Anet had to reward the baddies for sure. With the lost of the stats, the squishiest will remain squishy while gaining more sustain from traits, like free cleans when they didn’t even bother to add some of those with their terrible meta build.

The one, like me, who built for a bit less damage but a lot more sustain to face every situation will loose either damage or sustain, or both. All the cureent builds and stats are obselete, i don’t even see why i should keep playing till the HOT release.

I can understand why so many rangers are excited.

I’m already glad, I won’t lose damage anymore for not wanting to drop a ton of trait points into skirmishing… Survival of the Fittest longbow here.
But I’m still more hyped, how this change will affect my Teef.

You cannot possibly lose both damage and sustain with an extra GM trait.

There is no reason to care about stats whatsoever, since it affects everyone any changes are cancelled out.

All the current builds will be BETTER as any good builds only ever use three trait lines, so now you will do the same build, but get the extra Major and GM trait, making it even better. If the build used 4 trait lines and that is very rare, the trait you drop would be quite minor and not build defining, like an extra GM.

For examples; Frost Spotter will also get access to the GM in Skirmishing, an additional Major and a GM in Nature Magic.
Or EB/SoTF dual melee, now you can take Spotter/PO or Vigorous Training/Natural Healing too.

How can that not be awesome!?

Here are your choices. We have 10 flavors of ranger to choose from:

Marksmanship/Skirmishing/Wilderness Survival
Marksmanship/Skirmishing/Nature Magic
Marksmanship/Skirmishing/Beastmastery
Marksmanship/Wilderness Survival/Nature Magic
Marksmanship/Wilderness Survival/Beastmastery
Marksmanship/Nature Magic/Beastmastery
Skirmishing/Wilderness Survival/Nature Magic
Skirmishing/Wilderness Survival/Beastmastery
Skirmishing/Nature Magic/Beastmastery
Wilderness Survival/Nature Magic/Beastmastery

What’s closest to your current build and assuming you must take an adept, master, and grand master trait in each line what combos are you eyeing?

(Yes, we’ll know more after the stream tomorrow. This is just working with the knowns.)

….and we are still BEASTmasters… not RANGErs.

Jabronee.9465:

….and we are still BEASTmasters… not RANGErs.

You are not a beastMASTER unless you specialise with it. Rangers also have melee weapons, Ranging is not about attacking from RANGE.

And another ranger thread meanders into the bushes (and likely dies there) over mis-use of the profession’s name.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

How can that not be awesome!?

A lots of zerker builds, whatever the class, goes in a full line with + 300 vitality or + 300 toughness, boon duration etc. I can ‘t believe all the guys on the others sub-forum who just said that they chose their traits without thinking of the sats it adds, like they barely noticed how great is + 300 vitality (when you have none in your gear) when you’re roaming, seriously…

The lost of the stats won’t be compensated with two new master and grandmaster traits, so, maybe the squishies will have to be less squihy after all to be effective and add some other stats with gear.

I don’t see, really, any decent reason why a glass LB ranger should have access to protection on dodge, evasive purity, high swiftness with guard, heal shout traited etc. at 1500 range, this is kitten ridiculous.

How i am supposed to get a better build, since every other classes will have a better build ?

I think every body will have a hard time in wvw for a while after HOT release.

Base stats are being raised from 926 to 1000. So this mean you will have 74 extra points in Power, toughness, vitality and precision. So that almost 300 more then you have now when your butt naked.

Attribute point on weapons will be increase as well. Making up for most of the missing point.

Now here the killer part each profession’s attributes will have half of their functionality be baseline for that profession and when you chose that line you get the other half. For us rangers that means improved pet attributes ( as though we put 3 points in bm) without having to spec in the bm line.

So again how can that not be awesome

borya.2964:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

How can that not be awesome!?

A lots of zerker builds, whatever the class, goes in a full line with + 300 vitality or + 300 toughness, boon duration etc. I can ‘t believe all the guys on the others sub-forum who just said that they chose their traits without thinking of the sats it adds, like they barely noticed how great is + 300 vitality (when you have none in your gear) when you’re roaming, seriously…

The lost of the stats won’t be compensated with two new master and grandmaster traits, so, maybe the squishies will have to be less squihy after all to be effective and add some other stats with gear.

I don’t see, really, any decent reason why a glass LB ranger should have access to protection on dodge, evasive purity, high swiftness with guard, heal shout traited etc. at 1500 range, this is kitten ridiculous.

How i am supposed to get a better build, since every other classes will have a better build ?

I think every body will have a hard time in wvw for a while after HOT release.

Since the base character stats will go up by 70+ and those on armor will rise to compensate for the loss from trait lines, you just replace the chest and legs of your armor with Valkyrie instead of zerker and your rings as cavalier instead of zerk and you will have the same stats.

That’s how you compensate. You adapt. You’ll have the same stats and STILL get an extra major trait and GM.

The reason Ranger needs those things, is to compete with what the other classes will have. Take a look at how powerful a celestial ele will be specialising in fire, earth and water. Bulk AoE damage, immunity to conditions yet do lots of them, bulk healing and condi removal. We NEED it.

You get a better build because it is better. Its not less better based on what other professions have.

IKR, why is he even still here, just forget about GW2 and go play something else.

Currently I run 6/5/0/3/0 build, so 150 Vit is included there, but since I have the zerk/valk trinkets, those will get a bit of buff and we all will get the +74 stats in everything, I may end getting almost of even more Vit than before and for sure more power, and above all access to 3 full trait lines.
I think we’ll do fine, rangers have good quite GMs, our main problems was too many traits for to few things, since we’ll get traits merged that issue will be solved.

I hope they’re fixing shouts on ranger to be instant cast like on my guard and warrior.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Jabronee.9465:

….and we are still BEASTmasters… not RANGErs.

You are not a beastMASTER unless you specialise with it. Rangers also have melee weapons, Ranging is not about attacking from RANGE.

As long as the Ranger is forced with the Pet AI as it’s Profession mechanic it is a BeastMaster regardless if you trait into the Beast Mastery line…

Either way I’m waiting to see what the CC/Support Druid line (because given Jon Peter’s interview that’s what it is going to be) has in it, but I can guarantee you that my Ranger will still be a DPS Ranger. If the Druid trait line gets rid of the pet though I’ll go DPS traits and get some CC/Support traits as well from the Druid line.

What’s most interesting to me about it is how the consolidation of the traits is going to play out for all the classes, since I have all of the toons and do spend quite a bit of time now on my guard, warrior, ele, and engie.

It’s still a “wait and see” as far as how good/bad it will be for Rangers since we don’t know how each Specialization is going to look and how traits/abilities are going to be changed.

However, I think we all see the great potential that is currently there. The three grandmasters theorycrafting going on is some of my favorite. I too would love having Quickening Zephyr again with some of our other Grandmasters.

People underestimate having 3s Quickness on a 16s cooldown. That’s higher up-time than all other sources of Quickness, without a penalty attached to it, and without having to occupy a utility slot … and that’s comparing it to the sources of Quickness with 20% cooldown reduction on them. It’s even better than the untraited ones :-)

Zephyr’s Quickness on pet-swap is also nice for getting your canine to immediately pounce. It’s so fast.

Indeed. I think it might be a toss up between Power+Spirit build and Power+Beastmaster build to which one is going to output more DPS… Without knowing anymore than we do I’m leaning towards Power+BM be more DPS and Power+Spirit be more support.

That quickness is also quite nice for stomping/rezzing. Most people wouldn’t waste their Quickness utility on such a thing, but a Ranger that is going to be swapping their pet anyways often doesn’t think much of it. Heck, it’s a 16s cooldown.

well, it was obvious, but yeah, longbow traits all merged into one. plus I think pierce too if I remember correctly. With all the fury and remoslessness restacking, plus double rapid fire, and now all the defensive options a glass ranger can take, longbow ranger is gonna be even more of a kitten

LB , Predators onslaught , SotF , Beastmaster confirmed Im so happy ^^
the Pierce is restricted to that SB trait and the Lead the wind(thats its name in the stream before other people question)

Is also a grandmaster so you can’t have both 0,/

No need to QQ wait for the web copy and Get build crafting enjoy yourself because nothing is set in stone that is just what to expect from HoT.