Guild Wars 2

Ok, I’m referring to this build, which people recently accused of being OP.

http://de.gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQRBMfdG2JlKQLLYJLgvgAXLYITo8Efxb8vGi8HvT2A4AKZFdB-TJhHwAb2fAwTAIwJBwYZAA

That new boon stacking build has glaring weaknesses that would not make it into any serious team:

1. Very minimal condition clear. (2 at max, all on long CD)

2. Poison cripples the survivability completely because regen gutted, HaO gutted.

3. One chill will render this build COMPLETELY useless. All synergy dies. Add that to first point and you see a huge problem in this build.

4. You’re leaving yourself in danger since most of the time your heal will be on CD because you waste it on boons.

5. Any boon removal / strips/ corruption will instantly kill this build. For the corruption one, you don’t even have tools to remove the converted conditions.

6. No slot to take damage immunity like Stone Signet -> vulnerable to burst.

7. The things that get doubled are only for yourself. Your support abilities don’t change that much for your team.

People should stop looking everything from surface and irrationally shout out OP this OP that. You’re using the most ideal situation against bad players who let you able to set up.

Plus 1, i totally agree it is not that big of a deal.

Now i understand why mods get merge-happy in this section…

Nobody claimed that that build you posted is op. The claim was that WHaO is op.

Mcrocha.3891:

Nobody claimed that that build you posted is op. The claim was that WHaO is op.

But this is the build that uses WHaO to its fullest?

Most people who claim it’s OP either are not rangers or are just too use to the weaker form of WHaO. Honestly, it needs this buff. It was ok with the last buff, but it still wasn’t THAT great. Almost every heal in this game has a special gimmick, but WHaO’s only gimmick was it heals you and your pet….that’s it. So now it has another purpose that makes it a lot more than a heal. It makes rangers all that more important and dangerous. Most people just don’t know how to deal with that idea.

idontnoso.9850:

Most people who claim it’s OP either are not rangers or are just too use to the weaker form of WHaO. Honestly, it needs this buff. It was ok with the last buff, but it still wasn’t THAT great. Almost every heal in this game has a special gimmick, but WHaO’s only gimmick was it heals you and your pet….that’s it. So now it has another purpose that makes it a lot more than a heal. It makes rangers all that more important and dangerous. Most people just don’t know how to deal with that idea.

Or they think its a good concept, but shouldn’t transfer 100% boon duration. This is more than a gimmick, it is broken.

It’s day 1 for the new toy. Let the dust calm and settle. Even I thought this would be powerful (but certainly not OP). Recall that Irenio wanted to introduce more niche builds for the Ranger class with the update.

This is it.

Ugh first the druid complaining and now we heal as one is op, yea yea everything is op when the op classes get nerfed, omg I cannot handle stealth its op because I refuse to change tactics and learn how to play with my groups. Reality check everyone should have classes they are weak to, you cannot perfectly balance all classes against each other that is why you group pvp people.

The biggest issue is:

This ability holds mechanic that Rangers needed baseline (pet boon share).
Plus they added a nice trick to make it working both ways.

It’s not OP in terms of balance. It’s OP in terms of competition with other heals available.

Tragic Positive.9356:

The biggest issue is:

This ability holds mechanic that Rangers needed baseline (pet boon share).
Plus they added a nice trick to make it working both ways.

It’s not OP in terms of balance. It’s OP in terms of competition with other heals available.

Agree with this. I’ve been running around trying a few different builds. I admit we’ve not had much play time with the new WHaO but I’m not yet finding it particularly OP as such.

Tragic Positive.9356:

It’s OP in terms of competition with other heals available.*

If anything, the new change brought it up with the other heals as TU and HS serve their own purpose depending on what a Ranger wants to accomplish depending on the setting.

It’s not OP in terms of competition with other heals available. It’s OP in terms of competition with making Water Spirit look bad. :P

I tried it in dungeons and was not overly impressed.

To get perma protection you need to sacrafice a skill slot to guard. You also need to ‘pre-emptive’ cast your WHaO, loosing the heal it yield (protection useless, if you dont get hit, so you cast before getting hit).

You already get permanent regen/swiftness easy, so those boons, getting longer has not much impact (trait: Resounding Timbre).

It prolongs Strength of the pack, that’s it. But you still wont have permanent might (not without might runes for sure, and even then). But to open burst like this, leave you very very vulnerable.

You loose a skill slot to flame trap (or any skill, like frost spirit, etc). Flame trap damage is kitten nice, now that burning stacks. I didn’t feel the extra might stacks, out damaged the flame trap + clever play of a (better balanced) skill setup.

Pet swap quickness is to short to waste WHaO on. Doenst improve gameplay that much.

Overall, I prefer actually other builds in dungeons, pve and wvw. Will test in pvp later, but I assume it’s similar.

This builds allows crazy opening burst. But the moment the enemy outsmarts you, survives it and fights back, you are more then death. A balanced build is better imo.

Guard and strength of pack (imo) are the niches of this skill. Otherwise i don’t see that much use in it (and both have downsides if you engage the combo).

Tragic Positive.9356:

The biggest issue is:

This ability holds mechanic that Rangers needed baseline (pet boon share).
Plus they added a nice trick to make it working both ways.

It’s not OP in terms of balance. It’s OP in terms of competition with other heals available.

Other ranger heals are still better on most specs. We still have mediocre condi clear out of SOTF which makes Troll Unguent a strong pick and same goes for Healing Spring.

Only builds that can really run WHAO are power builds that can keep up range to avoid most condi pressure. The most viable ranger spec right now (trapper) can not run WHAO at all at the moment.

I think the cry “OP!” was more of a reflex if anything.

Rangers have been SO used to not having boon generation on the same level as other professions that when we finally get a genuinely great skill that should have been baseline all along, it feels OP. I’ve been fighting a few condi thief builds, necros, guardians and I genuinely get only a marginal benefit in my current condi bunker build.

Guard is one of the worst skills in this game. I would never take it and waste a slot even with the new heal.

It’s a bit of a gimmick tbh. A nice gimmick no doubt! It’s pretty good in PVE and puts rangers right back into the dungeon runs undiscriminated. But I don’t think this will be overly used in pvp since you need to blow your heal for it which if you do prematurely just for boon duration means certain death. Also very few of these boons are transfered outside of you and your pet. It’s just basic stuff that rangers already had access to, so I don’t know what’s all the fuss about.

OMG someone else can stack boons FOR THEMSELVES just like ele does for entire party…

Zergs.9715:

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OMG someone else can stack boons FOR THEMSELVES just like ele does for entire party…

This pretty much sums it up.

I saw an Ele main in PVP forum crying about ranger able to stack protections lol. (By wasting heal skill and bring an worthless skill called Guard)

Aomine.5012:

Zergs.9715:

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OMG someone else can stack boons FOR THEMSELVES just like ele does for entire party…

This pretty much sums it up.

I saw an Ele main in PVP forum crying about ranger able to stack protections lol. (By wasting heal skill and bring kitteneless skill called Guard)

Ele is just salty, they generally think that if their profession isn’t godmode then it is garbage.

Bran.7425:

Aomine.5012:

Zergs.9715:

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OMG someone else can stack boons FOR THEMSELVES just like ele does for entire party…

This pretty much sums it up.

I saw an Ele main in PVP forum crying about ranger able to stack protections lol. (By wasting heal skill and bring kitteneless skill called Guard)

Ele is just salty, they generally think that if their profession isn’t godmode then it is garbage.

Correction ele and mesmers, and its funny because I play a mesmer and had no issues with this nerf at all in fact I more then agreed with it.

the build isn’t optimized very well, has some potential though, but you invest quite a bit into the heal as one-“gimmick” to get stuff that other classes have access to as well.

The best thing about heal as one is IMHO the long quickness uptime, which you don’t even use without the zephyr speed.

The other amazing thing is that it’s very strong in teamfights, cuz your pet will get boons from allies (and you as well), so you basically simply get all boons in double duration without investing anything into it.

And tbh, taunt is probably still better than zephyr speed. ^^’

The thing I don’t understand is that the skill really didn’t need a buff, but whatever, I’ll take it.

Wow, somewhat the exact build i created earlier, feels like i been stalked .

But take soldier runes and itl be more condi clears.

Or if you want more might, use mad king runes.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQRAsf3YjUqQHL2sCusAVLG4EKfwHgD/fhRth7htSDgMW5kZVA-TJhHwAPLDA4kAE4JAMa/BA

Im using the healingskill for months now, so i dont have to change anything in my condiranger build for pvp. In every situation i have perma swiftness, perma regen and might between 14 and 25 constantly. Also my pet is runnig with 25 mightstacks, which also have most of the time quickness, which increased my damage on both enormous. Also protection is most of the time up. And i dont want to speak about teamfights. I have seen 20 seconds of protection on me.

pro:
perm. mightstacks between 14 and 25 —> 5 mightstacks for my group
perm. damage reduction 71% while above 90% hp, while under it still 38%
perm. regeneration --> low healing support for me and my teammates
perm. swiftness—> mobility for me and my group
high condition damage with burning, bleeding and poison
high access to dodges
poisonremove with dodge, one stunbreaker, 3 conditionremoves
petrezz
one aoe weakness to reduce incoming burstdamage

contra:
weak against high condition pressure because of low healthpool.
weak against long cc-chains

Why iam writing this? I love ranger, played most of my time in gw2 this class in pvp for the last 2 years, was hated for beeing not useful (was never true XD) and now even i have the fealing that this is too strong. Will we now be hated for beeing to strong?
The skill and traitinvestments for this permanent boons are really cheap. Natur magic + beastmastery together with “We heal as one”. Shall we really be reduced to this synergy for the next months?

Tried this out a bit in PVP, actually is a fun build. But it’s not the most Op.
I still like the power type builds more atm myself.

worminator.5174:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQRAsf3YjUqQHL2sCusAVLG4EKfwHgD/fhRth7htSDgMW5kZVA-TJhHwAPLDA4kAE4JAMa/BA

Im using the healingskill for months now, so i dont have to change anything in my condiranger build for pvp. In every situation i have perma swiftness, perma regen and might between 14 and 25 constantly. Also my pet is runnig with 25 mightstacks, which also have most of the time quickness, which increased my damage on both enormous. Also protection is most of the time up. And i dont want to speak about teamfights. I have seen 20 seconds of protection on me.

pro:
perm. mightstacks between 14 and 25 —> 5 mightstacks for my group
perm. damage reduction 71% while above 90% hp, while under it still 38%
perm. regeneration --> low healing support for me and my teammates
perm. swiftness—> mobility for me and my group
high condition damage with burning, bleeding and poison
high access to dodges
poisonremove with dodge, one stunbreaker, 3 conditionremoves
petrezz
one aoe weakness to reduce incoming burstdamage

contra:
weak against high condition pressure because of low healthpool.
weak against long cc-chains

Why iam writing this? I love ranger, played most of my time in gw2 this class in pvp for the last 2 years, was hated for beeing not useful (was never true XD) and now even i have the fealing that this is too strong. Will we now be hated for beeing to strong?
The skill and traitinvestments for this permanent boons are really cheap. Natur magic + beastmastery together with “We heal as one”. Shall we really be reduced to this synergy for the next months?

So now ranger have a taste of what Ele always can do, they feel too OP ?

Guess rangers are used to being treated as 2nd class…

Defo no OP , its got draw backs that can kill a Player too many boons in a decent team with a necro they will be running corrupt boon and that doesn’t hard counter it kills the ranger using the Heal as one Boon combo , on top of that most of the pvp teams will have a mesmer (if he is running confusion) the set up for long duraiton quickness is a hard " do not attack counter" combined with the low condi removals its a recipe for death regardless of what class supports the necro.

on a plus side if you want perma fury, swiftness and about 6 might clarions>warhorn (important do clarions bond first then call of the wild) and copy the boons granted from fortifying bond will put you up to 3r + 6pet > 6r+12p > copy 12r+24pet , without the need to take up a lot of utility slots so on this point of view its not as bad as people think though it all comes down to the pet again with the correct Clarions>warhorn rotation without the pet these boon copy combinations are impossible .

if a player leaves the pet alone too long Knowing well that its a heal as one Ranger , the ranger only gets stronger the longer the pet lives and to solve the problem its simply kill the pet prevent any boons stacking up over a long period of time , "dealing with the source "

I kind of hope it doesn’t get nerfed just yet. I planned on running basically exactly this, almost to the dot, except, changing WS for Druid and trying to make use of Ancient Seeds for more condition pressure and control and better condition removal.

I still want to try it out once BWE3 hits.

Yeah…this can be really bad if you don’t want to transfer boons. I was using HaO for the burst heal aspect…but now I have to be careful when I use it?

There are drawbacks.

I think the build only seems OP because it is new, and no one is really equipped to handle it yet. Personally I took one look at that quickness and thought “bountiful theft”.

WHaO obviously needs a nerf. Doesn’t matter how much you defend it for sacrificing, it’s not that risky after all. It has to be brought down to some proper level.

I never thought I would see the day when people whined about pets getting an indirect buff…And it’s not even that much of a buff to pets…it’s just a stinking QoL! The pet is still kitten…it’s AI still stuck somewhere in the future and it’s body hasn’t caught up with it yet….and it’s basic mechanics are still perplexing at best. But “ZOMG let the pet get some boons…RANGER/DRUID OP NERF NAOW!” Like I said…never thought I’d see the day, yet here it is. People will boohoo about anything.

the cele might stacking build on the ranger is trash in my spvp bracket. little sustain, little condi cleanse, and we simply don’t have weapons that scale well with might. yes, quickness, yes 25 stacks of might. and do what with it? Call of the Wild still sucks, sword sucks, and pets are sometimes reliable at best.

for those serious about cele just play your standard cele bunker, and swap out TU for WHaO.

those of you calling WHaO OP and playing the above build, you’re not playing against good players.

there’s nothing interesting happening for the ranger until the druid rolls out.

I am not sure OP is the right word. It is bad for general balance.

For as long as it exists in its current state, balance updates and new skills/traits will need to be designed with it in mind.

That is bad.

You have to literally put all your eggs in one basket to be an op boon stacker. The best, most successful builds in this game have always been those that get the most strong stuff, without having to give up anything to get it.

The new WHAO is a nice thing. Worth taking in a build. Not worth building around.

just play the condi cele bunker, swap TU for WHaO. good spec, got better today.

Tried it in PvE dungeons, it’s not a real big difference. You still have to take marksmanship and skirmishing for good dps, otherwise you only get 20s quickness with less dmg.

If it becomes very very popular for Rangers to run boon stacking in PvP, more people will run Boon hate Necro/Reapers to blow Boongers up, which is going to happen anyway to counter D/D eles, in which case, people will see how easily Boongers are killed with a few condis and some decent counterplay. Meta changes and some other build becomes more popular. Balanced always wins out in the end against one trick ponies.

It’s still really weak to AOE area denial/conditions especially and boon removal/corruption.

As it stands, so far, I’d say it’s an unfortunate addition to the power creep just to fit in, and still has a defined weakness.

Personally, I find it sad that this can legitimately be justified, but it can. Just kind of goes to show how much of a mess things can be, lol.