Guild Wars 2

As I’m theorycrafting for release, I’m beginning the realize the painful and frustrating truth: we don’t have enough viable stunbreakers.

Identifying the Problem

- have you seen what the chrono can do? If not, watch Helseth’s recent stream. Getting caught by a chrono, without a stun breaker now means certain death

- reapers: similar issue, it will be next to impossible going in melee range with these guys without multiple cleanses and stunbreakers

- others: d/d eles will remain very strong, hgh engies, standard interrupt mesmers, and scrappers. All builds with a ton of CC that should remain relevant.

Our Stunbreakers

1. LR: still a good option, but heavily dependent on WK gm
2. SoR: somewhat dependent on brutish seals due to its insanely long CD
3. Protect Me: extremely unreliable for its invuln function because even the strongest pets can’t deal with the focus burst damage coming in the xpac. The pet will die within 2 seconds after which our invuln will wear off. Its cd is way too high even traited
4. Qz: hands down our best stun breaker but very dependent on WK due to its long cd. Situational utility in Condi builds, but that’s a minor issue

Where Does This Leave Us?

We basically have two viable stunbreaks, both of which are strongly tied to Wilderness trait line. We will need at least 2 stun breaks to stay alive in the upcoming meta, especially if not slotting SoTP. With SoTP and SoS we could get away with 1 stun break. So right off the bat, we can’t really use glyphs and unless going for a trapper build, we’ll have to invest in WK. We need an invuln, and at least one stun break, so likely we wont be able to slot glyphs.

Trapper builds may allow us to get away with not using more than one stun break due to plentiful stealth, but the rest of the builds are locked into WK.

I concede that we can stack a lot of stab with SoTP and WHaO, but this leaves us vulnerable prior to loading up on stab, and dependent on shouts and BM. In turn, this leaves us without sufficient condi cleansing unless we go WK as well.

My favorite utility setup might just be WHaO/LR/QZ/SoS/SoTP which is what I’m running now.

Suggestions

Our utilities are in a dismal state. Devs should consider drastically reducing SoR and QZ Cd’s at the very least. Protect Me needs some sort of rework for sure.

At least one glyph must have a baseline stun break outside of avatar.

If Signet of Hunt had a stun break and a small Condi cleanse, it would be viable in power builds. Currently it’s not slottable.

There could be a trait to allow entering into avatar to break stun.

One trap must have a baseline stun break. Ideally Spike because its the most viable and most used.

Sprits require a large overhaul so I can’t even begin to comment here.

TLDR

We only have two viable stun breaks heavily dependent on one trait line. Being pigeon holed into WS heavily reduces our build variety. Disseminate more stun breaks across various utility lines, and reduce CD’s across the board.

Ranger has a nice variety of stun breaks. The survival ones are just “over tuned” atm and so dwarf the signet and shout. But really it comes down to using all the rangers short CD evades to not eat CC.

But I’m not a lvl 50 fractal person, high tier spvp master or living in Antarctica so what do I know.

Glass Hybrid Ranger against an Engi.
https://youtu.be/hgiDXzQBvbM
But Im sure the engi was the worst in games 3years history and was drunk and high too while being a clicker with a dead-battery-keyboard with missing keys.

I agree that there should be a stunbreak trap, but it has to be one that clearly tries to be defensive… however none of those traps try to do that..

I just can’t work traps and glyphs into any sort of viable build

LR is amazing, even w/o ws. With that out of the way, a smoke trap with a stun break would be great. Could tank inside it’s blind pulses or leap through it to gain stealth/ re-position.

But ranger not allowed nice thins

Spike Trap would make the perfect Stunbreak imo, breaks and counters at once. And at least one of the Glyphs needs one outside CAF, GotT would be a good candidate imo because it would be a break with counter (within range) as well.

@ Justine
Why do you feel like you need to use passive aggressive sarcasm constantly? People’s opinions on different matters vary. That’s why we discuss them.

mistsim I think you hit on something in the other post with how to get around the lack of stun breakers and that is using Rune of the Trappers, but in this game as a bunker you can use them to put you in stealth to go into AF and heal up. I think this combo will be powerful and help us survive a great deal. In fact it might be powerful enough that we won’t need any more stun breaks then we already have for purposes of being a bunker. Though if ArenaNet does not want this type of bunker and a typical always in the open bunker than we will need better stun breaker options.

Dolt.2731:

LR is amazing, even w/o ws.

Without WK, SoR is a better choice imo, because it also comes with a Condi cleanse. But the cd is too steep.

Kitty.1502:

I think this combo will be powerful and help us survive a great deal. .

I’m worried about getting stunlocked in between evades, while out of stealth. A single interrupt mesmer could end this type of ranger with 2 consecutive stuns. Not to mention cc from multiple sources

mistsim.2748:

Dolt.2731:

LR is amazing, even w/o ws.

Without WK, SoR is a better choice imo, because it also comes with a Condi cleanse. But the cd is too steep.

WK is great for kiting as it not only breaks stun, but also removes roots and provide vigor which is great for our dodging abilities.

mistsim.2748:

I’m worried about getting stunlocked in between evades, while out of stealth. A single interrupt mesmer could end this type of ranger with 2 consecutive stuns. Not to mention cc from multiple sources

Honestly until we see other things fix that we desperately need, I think this is on low priority I am willing to accept this as one of our weakness if other areas are fixed and brought to standard. That is one of the biggest issues since we have so many things subpar its hard to determine what our class weaknesses should be/are at times.

Kitty.1502:

mistsim I think you hit on something in the other post with how to get around the lack of stun breakers and that is using Rune of the Trappers, but in this game as a bunker you can use them to put you in stealth to go into AF and heal up. I think this combo will be powerful and help us survive a great deal. In fact it might be powerful enough that we won’t need any more stun breaks then we already have for purposes of being a bunker. Though if ArenaNet does not want this type of bunker and a typical always in the open bunker than we will need better stun breaker options.

stealth to bunker would interact weird with capture point contribution/contest. I suppose with enough discipline someone could adjust to it.

Justine.6351:

Kitty.1502:

mistsim I think you hit on something in the other post with how to get around the lack of stun breakers and that is using Rune of the Trappers, but in this game as a bunker you can use them to put you in stealth to go into AF and heal up. I think this combo will be powerful and help us survive a great deal. In fact it might be powerful enough that we won’t need any more stun breaks then we already have for purposes of being a bunker. Though if ArenaNet does not want this type of bunker and a typical always in the open bunker than we will need better stun breaker options.

stealth to bunker would interact weird with capture point contribution/contest. I suppose with enough discipline someone could adjust to it.

Yes it could be weird but you only need 3 seconds to get back to full in AF, and you still have your traps dealing damage while you are in stealthed, so you heal to full then just drop out of AF and use weapons to hit so you drop out of stealth.

Lightning Reflexes is still bugged, right? It becomes disabled when you’re knocked back or stunned, defeating the purpose of it being a stun breaker.

Solandri.9640:

Lightning Reflexes is still bugged, right? It becomes disabled when you’re knocked back or stunned, defeating the purpose of it being a stun breaker.

Please don’t use my characters name for your curse words.

Solandri.9640:

Lightning Reflexes is still bugged, right? It becomes disabled when you’re knocked back or stunned, defeating the purpose of it being a stun breaker.

Correct. This has gotten me killed occasionally while entangled by other rangers.

Solandri.9640:

Lightning Reflexes is still bugged, right? It becomes disabled when you’re knocked back or stunned, defeating the purpose of it being a stun breaker.

I think that’s just display. I use it when hit by a long CC and it breaks.

Solandri.9640:

Lightning Reflexes is still bugged, right? It becomes disabled when you’re knocked back or stunned, defeating the purpose of it being a stun breaker.

And if you use it near someone with Shocking Aura, you get stunned again. Needs to have the damage removed.

If it were me, I would replace it with Confusion, something devastating if they are not observant, but counterable by paying attention, like 10+ stacks for 2s. Would be a nice addition to condi builds then too. Makes sense to me thematically also.

The problems with ranger’s stunbreaks is, that they don’t let you escape if caught in the middle of things like slick shoes, gravity well, everything else with multiple cc in a short time frame, because you get cc’ed again right after stunbreaking (LR gets often interrupted – can happen even against thief with basi venom). Ranger is the only class with no stunbreak tied to a mechanic like teleport, invuln or stability, which prevents subsequently cc.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Solandri.9640:

Lightning Reflexes is still bugged, right? It becomes disabled when you’re knocked back or stunned, defeating the purpose of it being a stun breaker.

If it were me, I would replace it with Confusion, something devastating if they are not observant, but counterable by paying attention, like 10+ stacks for 2s. Would be a nice addition to condi builds then too. Makes sense to me thematically also.

The skill description says “crack of lightning”, if there is anything thematically fitting to this skill, it would be a small aoe stun replacing the damage from it.

Synergy with both MoC and Ancient Seeds, in other words both condi and power builds.

As far as signets go, I feel that SotW would make a good stunbreak. SotH should be remade into a stealth proc.

Protect me must not kill the pet and it should have similar functionality as Armor of Stone cantrip.

As far as traps go, Frost trap could be the defensive one, seeing how it lacks… well everything.

Lazze.9870:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Solandri.9640:

Lightning Reflexes is still bugged, right? It becomes disabled when you’re knocked back or stunned, defeating the purpose of it being a stun breaker.

If it were me, I would replace it with Confusion, something devastating if they are not observant, but counterable by paying attention, like 10+ stacks for 2s. Would be a nice addition to condi builds then too. Makes sense to me thematically also.

The skill description says “crack of lightning”, if there is anything thematically fitting to this skill, it would be a small aoe stun replacing the damage from it.

Synergy with both MoC and Ancient Seeds, in other words both condi and power builds.

That would be good too. But it would still need damage to work with Ancient Seeds, unless the stun/daze is long enough that you can evade back, recover and then deal damage while it is still up.

Since Confusion came out, I have always liked the idea of it on LR. Like, someone you immobilized and stunned is right there in front of you, you are about to burst them and they just disappear with a crack of lightning?! confused I also like the idea of it being super damaging if you are not paying attention, but also totally counterable by doing nothing for 2s. You could have 10 or even 15 stacks for 2s and at 2000+ condi damage only be a couple thousand damage. But, at the right moment it could be amazing.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Since Confusion came out, I have always liked the idea of it on LR. Like, someone you immobilized and stunned is right there in front of you, you are about to burst them and they just disappear with a crack of lightning?! confused I also like the idea of it being super damaging if you are not paying attention, but also totally counterable by doing nothing for 2s. You could have 10 or even 15 stacks for 2s and at 2000+ condi damage only be a couple thousand damage. But, at the right moment it could be amazing.

I see your point, and not that I would mind confusion, but I will always favor anything that improves the ranger’s CC abilities and interrupts without tying it to pets. It’s the aspect of the ranger I miss the most from GW1.

As for its synergy with Ancient Seeds, the stun wouldn’t necessarily need to have that long of a duration. Just enough for you to fire of a projectile after the evade. Unless you put down a bonfire before using it

Chokolata.1870:

As far as signets go, I feel that SotW would make a good stunbreak. SotH should be remade into a stealth proc.

Protect me must not kill the pet and it should have similar functionality as Armor of Stone cantrip.

As far as traps go, Frost trap could be the defensive one, seeing how it lacks… well everything.

yeah a stealth on signet of the HUNT would be really cool. I’m thinking 30sec long would be legit and balance ;-)

UmbraNoctis.1907:

The problems with ranger’s stunbreaks is, that they don’t let you escape if caught in the middle of things like slick shoes, gravity well, everything else with multiple cc in a short time frame, because you get cc’ed again right after stunbreaking (LR gets often interrupted – can happen even against thief with basi venom). Ranger is the only class with no stunbreak tied to a mechanic like teleport, invuln or stability, which prevents subsequently cc.

I agree, at least a short stability or immune needs to be added.

I shouldn’t have to use two utilities to accomplish one escape.
As it is now, I have to use QuickZeph in addition to LightReflex just to safely get away.

Removing the cast time and putting a Stunbreak on SoTW would be pretty kitten good too.

Perhaps the design of the ranger when it come to hard CC is being a profession that prevent itself from being CCed instead of a profession that react after being CCed.

Idea which is supported by :
- good amount of dodge and dodge on skill
- potential stability uptime (Sotw, spirit of nature traited, strengh of the pack, trait enlargment)

Thus outside the fact that there is still 4 stun breaker on balanced cool down when you look at other professions.

Now I agree that it sucks that the elite spec Druid have no breakstun nor stability but every profession/elite spec need counter play.

put stun break on entering celestial form

With the recent updates, some professions have ‘good, usefull skill’ utilities that stunbreak every 20 sec, c’mon, ranger ones are way to long cooldown. Being only to reduce 1 stun every 40-60 sec is to few. 30 sec is minimum (higher cooldown is to high).

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

With the recent updates, some professions have ‘good, usefull skill’ utilities that stunbreak every 20 sec, c’mon, ranger ones are way to long cooldown. Being only to reduce 1 stun every 40-60 sec is to few. 30 sec is minimum (higher cooldown is to high).

Shared Anguish should be on a 30 second CD min, if not a 20~25 sec CD to make it in line with similar trait CDs

I both agree and disagree. With the amount of evades we can have access to with the right weapon choices we don’t need amazing stunbreakers. Stalker’s Strike is on an 8second cooldown and it has a pretty long evade window, we even have evades on our greatsword AA which if you just spam the AA on slow attacking builds like hammer Warrior for example, you can basically avoid 50% of all their attacks without even using a dodge.

It would be nice to get a bit of a buff to something like QZ, reducing the cooldown maybe 5seconds seems reasonable to me, but otherwise we’re pretty alright as is. We can’t have a ton of low cooldown evades and lowcooldown stunbreaks or we wouldn’t even need stability anymore.

SOURCE: Evading through zergs in WvW for a solid 6seconds. SB, S/D, LR + dodges = 7 evades.

Every quickness giving utility is also a stun breaker. And every one has a 60s CD. Only QZ is slotted however, and that is not because it is good on its own. It is quite solid traited but we also do not have anything better to slot.

A solution would be to reduce QZ, Haste and Frenzy CDs from 60s to 40s.

That indeed would go a long way. Lightning reflex, has a lot of downsides. Often you don’t wanna move, want to move forward (not back), or can’t move at all (cliffside fractal). If it wasnt for that amazing stunbreak. And perhaps correctly balanced because of that.

Frost trap would be great as trap. I don’t see why it shouldnt be stunbreaker.

I’d personally love to see the new elite glyph have a stunbreak functionality added to it. In both forms. Break stun for counter pressure. Break stun to help your team manage pressure. That would be a better trade off then between the glyph and sotp. Do you go for stability? Or for a frequent stunbreak?

Chokolata.1870:

Every quickness giving utility is also a stun breaker. And every one has a 60s CD. Only QZ is slotted however, and that is not because it is good on its own. It is quite solid traited but we also do not have anything better to slot.

A solution would be to reduce QZ, Haste and Frenzy CDs from 60s to 40s.

Frenzy is used quite often in warrior GS/AS build and it is quite strong.
Quickness works really well with warrior.

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

With the amount of evades we can have access to with the right weapon choices we don’t need amazing stunbreakers.

SOURCE: Evading through zergs in WvW for a solid 6seconds. SB, S/D, LR + dodges = 7 evades.

this is simply not true when playing against top mmr players. sorry to often use this line, but it’s true. in conquest, it’s easy to get stunlocked, and when youre actually focused down, it’s conceivable you will get spiked down 100-0 in seconds. so one stun breaker every 60 seconds just doesn’t cut it.

for what it does, LR needs a lower CD. yes, even lower. it would make sense to leave its CD as is if it had an offensive function, i.e. pbaoe mini stun or confusion like people mentioned. but it doesn’t.

for what it does, SoR also needs a baseline CD of 48s. this is just the bare minimum though.

Yeah, if there are skills like Mantra of Distraction, for example, then there should be serious counters to them, like short CD stunbreaks.

They have started adding short CD stun breakers. The berserker spec has one as does the daredevil.

I had two people chasing me on Foefire a couple of days ago, and not only did they break through the stability from SotP, they stunlocked me before the new stacks were readded.

Getting stunlocked with your both long stunbreaks on a long cooldown and with no instant stability is a death sentence as a ranger. The amount of evades doesn’t cut it, especially with skills like sword 2 having an annoying delay to it.

I think the current amount was somewhat balanced but I also thing with the addition of glyphes one of them should stunbreak in normal form. Daze one seems perfect for this job.

Lazze.9870:

I had two people chasing me on Foefire a couple of days ago, and not only did they break through the stability from SotP, they stunlocked me before the new stacks were readded.

Getting stunlocked with your both long stunbreaks on a long cooldown and with no instant stability is a death sentence as a ranger. The amount of evades doesn’t cut it, especially with skills like sword 2 having an annoying delay to it.

TWO people should be able to lockdown one player reguardless of stability. If they have enough cc ofcoarse. Certainly if you were not fighting back somewhat. If you let them free cast into you then lols, toast.

Justine.6351:

TWO people should be able to lockdown one player reguardless of stability. If they have enough cc ofcoarse. Certainly if you were not fighting back somewhat. If you let them free cast into you then lols, toast.

I suggest you instead ask about the given scenario, instead of assuming something as kittening stupid as “did you let them free cast, lols”.

No, it was a chase. I had covered distance from a fight I couldn’t win. Got stunlocked from ranged through stacks of stability after already dodging a couple of CC prior to it.

The point of the scenario wasn’t that I shouldn’t be able to be stunlocked by two players (of course you should), the point was that stunlocking a ranger that does everything right, even from range, in a given scenario is way easier than certain other professions.

Lazze.9870:

Justine.6351:

TWO people should be able to lockdown one player reguardless of stability. If they have enough cc ofcoarse. Certainly if you were not fighting back somewhat. If you let them free cast into you then lols, toast.

I suggest you instead ask about the given scenario, instead of assuming something as kittening stupid as “did you let them free cast, lols”.

No, it was a chase. I had covered distance from a fight I couldn’t win. Got stunlocked from ranged through stacks of stability after already dodging a couple of CC prior to it.

The point of the scenario wasn’t that I shouldn’t be able to be stunlocked by two players (hello, isn’t that obvious?), the point was that stunlocking a ranger that does everything right in a given scenario is way easier that certain other professions.

You can do everything right and still lose.

Justine.6351:

You can do everything right and still lose.

That’s not the point, the point is that the ranger is arguably the weakest proffesion in scenarios like that, with no instant stability, few stunbreaks/unreliable stunbreaks, some times with long cooldowns, no ports, little stealth (prior to HoT), awful defensive passive traits (or lack of, rather, which I’m all for except that most other profession got a decent amount).

The evades alone doesn’t cut it, and then it becomes a question about fair balacing.

Lazze.9870:

Justine.6351:

You can do everything right and still lose.

That’s not the point, the point is that the ranger is arguably the weakest proffesion in scenarios like that, with no instant stability, few stunbreaks/unreliable stunbreaks, some times with long cooldowns, no ports, little stealth (prior to HoT), awful defensive passive traits.

The evades alone doesn’t cut it, and then it becomes a question about fair balacing.

Well if your bear isn’t tanking properly that’s something anet should look at. One time I got focused and my devourer lived longer than me! Then my devourer turns and looks at me and says “effing rallybot…”.

Justine.6351:

Lazze.9870:

Justine.6351:

You can do everything right and still lose.

That’s not the point, the point is that the ranger is arguably the weakest proffesion in scenarios like that, with no instant stability, few stunbreaks/unreliable stunbreaks, some times with long cooldowns, no ports, little stealth (prior to HoT), awful defensive passive traits.

The evades alone doesn’t cut it, and then it becomes a question about fair balacing.

Well if your bear isn’t tanking properly that’s something anet should look at. One time I got focused and my devourer lived longer than me! Then my devourer turns and looks at me and says “effing rallybot…”.

Lel this guys got jokes. Peeps don’t realize that everyone else completely disregards what they say once they start getting into the l2p or slander realm in their comments.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Yeah, if there are skills like Mantra of Distraction, for example, then there should be serious counters to them, like short CD stunbreaks.

Well, in all honesty, the only counter to mantra of distraction is stability. Short CD stun break are as useless as long coold down stun break against this.

Justine.6351:

Well if your bear isn’t tanking properly that’s something anet should look at. One time I got focused and my devourer lived longer than me! Then my devourer turns and looks at me and says “effing rallybot…”.

The bear would tank you, by the looks of it.

Chokolata.1870:

They have started adding short CD stun breakers. The berserker spec has one as does the daredevil.

the core ranger needs low CD stun breaks as well. it just fits our skirmishing playstyle, and we need it badly.

Justine.6351:

Lazze.9870:

I had two people chasing me on Foefire a couple of days ago, and not only did they break through the stability from SotP, they stunlocked me before the new stacks were readded.

Getting stunlocked with your both long stunbreaks on a long cooldown and with no instant stability is a death sentence as a ranger. The amount of evades doesn’t cut it, especially with skills like sword 2 having an annoying delay to it.

TWO people should be able to lockdown one player reguardless of stability. If they have enough cc ofcoarse. Certainly if you were not fighting back somewhat. If you let them free cast into you then lols, toast.

I don’t agree that two people should be able to lockdown one player. This game was meant to be about player skill, not what class you are playing.

Sure, the odds should be against you if you are fighting out numbered, but if you have the skill, you should be able to outplay two people if you are better than them and the classes were balanced.

That means having counters to being locked down. Actually, it means that locking people down should not be possible.

What we need, is something with a functionality like Escape back… Stun break with stability, mobility and a short CD.

I said it before, but if skills like Mantra of Distraction exist, then stunbreakers with the same sort of CDs should also exist.

First stun breaks in general should always come with a base 1/2 second of stability. One of the most essential design necessities of an MMO is survival of one vs. many. Evades, blocks, invulnerability, stability (less so now, though), and movement skills all accomplish this, but stun breaks do not. When multiple players are pasting you with stuns you will not be able to use a skill to get stability, and a stun break you use will typically get immediately replaced by a new stun.

Second, LR is—as has been the history of Ranger skills—a great design with terrible execution (aka bugged). While I have used it consistently since they added the essential immobilization removal to it, it’s quite unreliable, because, as others have mentioned it sometimes goes on a short cool down when you get stunned, and because even though you are supposedly evading, you get interrupted and stunned quite often. All that said, it’s essential (and usually effective), because we have no better alternative.

Third, I’ve started used QZ preemptively for the super speed to keep distance from foes that might immobilize me at range, and it’s been very effective and keeping me from getting snare and overpowered when multiples are in pursuit.

My third utility is either SoS (most of the time), or SoR (when expecting heavy condis). SoR is very difficult to use for it’s condi removal though as it’s impossible to be close enough to your pet and do any sort of normal combat movement. SoR should be changed to clear your condis in addition to the pet’s aoe removal.

^u got it. lr/qz/sos is basically a must for me. trapper runes might change that tomorrow.