Guild Wars 2

Most of these things have NO effect on PvE. Except the new gm trait, these changes are NOT PvE friendly. They are aimed at WvW and PvP exclusively.

If you see a ranger bring GS, LB or Axe mainhand to PvE, that ranger will be booted out of the group before it can even say what its secondary set is.

Ranger PvE performance is 99.9% sword mainhand. If sword mainhand is NOT buffed in damage, then NOTHING changes to PvE meta.

Axe mainhand has been a mixed success in WvW. Its a pain in the kitten to continuously swap targets to get as many bounces as possible, but it works and deals pretty OK damage if using Honed Axes. With might stacking, axe mainhand will be a mesmer/minion mancer/thieves guild/spirit ranger/turret engi killer.

Signet of Strength + Beastmasters Might + fortifying bond = potentially 5 stacks of might to the pet EVERY TWO SECONDS…. that means to stack a River Drake with 25 stacks of might before using its F2 breath attack takes 10 seconds (without using RAO)…. now, for those who KNOWS how hard that drake hits, you see my point. For those who DO NOT KNOW how hard it hits – it will easily land up to 4k damage on a single target without counting in bounces hitting two or more times. And that is a untraited pet (zero BM)…. Add 25 stacks of might and BAM, you get close to 6k pet burst, all it takes is some AA spam and a bit lazy F2 management.

I will laugh at mesmers. Seriously. Unless they equip some serious boon removal/steal….. Constant Axe throwing at pinky, bouncing off phantasms and stuff will give us ridiculous might.

I can already see Axe BM builds. If Intimidation training doesn’t have ICD, Eagle BM Ranger… kitten just got real

Rym.1469:

I will laugh at mesmers. Seriously. Unless they equip some serious boon removal/steal….. Constant Axe throwing at pinky, bouncing off phantasms and stuff will give us ridiculous might.

I can already see Axe BM builds. If Intimidation training doesn’t have ICD, Eagle BM Ranger… kitten just got real

I do feel bad for mesmers. Power ranger already destroys mesmer. Then again, new rapid fire + distortion reflect or feedback = a lot of damage in our own faces a lot faster…

Now I can finally drop Protect Me and get Signet of Stone. I’m still conflicted though, since Protect Me is also a stun breaker and has a shorter cooldown.

Signet of the Wild will be able to compete with Quickening Zephyr.
stability(8s), + 50% movement(8s) and 25% damage(8s) + passive healing is quite a lot of utility.
50% attack speed(6s) + stunbreaker (+GM traited fury) is still better for burst though.

Entangle is a great improvement, but I worry it’ll force rangers to become entangle bots in WvW, which means I can’t bring Rampage as One. It’ll also make runes which trigger on elite more useful.

I would have loved to see a bigger change to Hilt Bash, so it won’t be so hard to hit with it.

Actually a lot has changed for the PvE meta. The new MM GM trait is a pretty big damage increase. Also the Read the wind swap is a solid bonus to bosses you have to range (the few of them you do range).

The bigger boost, however , is not having to trait signets. Just having a SoS or SotW is a big boost in fractals for example. SotW+zephyr burst. Etc…

Holland.9351:

Now I can finally drop Protect Me and get Signet of Stone. I’m still conflicted though, since Protect Me is also a stun breaker and has a shorter cooldown.

Signet of the Wild will be able to compete with Quickening Zephyr.
stability(8s), + 50% movement(8s) and 25% damage(8s) + passive healing is quite a lot of utility.
50% attack speed(6s) + stunbreaker (+GM traited fury) is still better for burst though.

Entangle is a great improvement, but I worry it’ll force rangers to become entangle bots in WvW, which means I can’t bring Rampage as One. It’ll also make runes which trigger on elite more useful.

I would have loved to see a bigger change to Hilt Bash, so it won’t be so hard to hit with it.

Signet of Stone is not a stun breaker per say, but it works even when stunned.

Rym.1469:

I will laugh at mesmers. Seriously. Unless they equip some serious boon removal/steal….. Constant Axe throwing at pinky, bouncing off phantasms and stuff will give us ridiculous might.

I can already see Axe BM builds. If Intimidation training doesn’t have ICD, Eagle BM Ranger… kitten just got real

I’d hold off the “____ on class X will destroy class Y” till all the videos are out.

Prysin.8542:

Snip

Just to add fortifying bond donest give your pet a duplicate but a replica of the buff with its own time based on boon duration. So using an axe you will get long duration 25 stacks of might for your pet.

Using an axe with point in nature magic WILL result in your pet sitting at 25stacks of might.

Holland.9351:

Entangle is a great improvement, but I worry it’ll force rangers to become entangle bots in WvW, which means I can’t bring Rampage as One. It’ll also make runes which trigger on elite more useful.

I would have loved to see a bigger change to Hilt Bash, so it won’t be so hard to hit with it.

Yes but now we ckittene wild signet for stability on a much shorter cool down. It’s a definite plus on all sides.

The only time where I would use RaO over wild would probably be when 2 map zergs clash but that is the exact wrong type of situation to use Entangle in so there’s not much of an issue that I can see.

kitten stands for can and use

A+ censorship Anet. Really swinging for the fence…

Chokolata.1870:

Actually a lot has changed for the PvE meta. The new MM GM trait is a pretty big damage increase. Also the Read the wind swap is a solid bonus to bosses you have to range (the few of them you do range).

The bigger boost, however , is not having to trait signets. Just having a SoS or SotW is a big boost in fractals for example. SotW+zephyr burst. Etc…

new PvE build will be something close to this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQJBMhc0KoVsgrKQ1iByDq1BQBjZHECOzivoARaA-TxxAABZp8DgHAgN7PoneAoPBAWq+DaKBJFgY7qA-e

Hyena pet is there cuz of 2x crippling leap. With this setup, you should have close to 100% cripple uptime, which equals 10% more ranger and 5% more pet DPS. Just enough to bring us close to, but not over, the DPS of most other classes. However, if other classes receive a few minor nerfs, then ranger will be more wanted even in top end PvE meta due to the unique group buffs it has.

Holland.9351:

Now I can finally drop Protect Me and get Signet of Stone. I’m still conflicted though, since Protect Me is also a stun breaker and has a shorter cooldown.

Signet of the Wild will be able to compete with Quickening Zephyr.
stability(8s), + 50% movement(8s) and 25% damage(8s) + passive healing is quite a lot of utility.
50% attack speed(6s) + stunbreaker (+GM traited fury) is still better for burst though.

Entangle is a great improvement, but I worry it’ll force rangers to become entangle bots in WvW, which means I can’t bring Rampage as One. It’ll also make runes which trigger on elite more useful.

I would have loved to see a bigger change to Hilt Bash, so it won’t be so hard to hit with it.

The entangle change is fully balanced. Sure we lose our super long duration stability, but in return we can now use signets without heavy investment. Meaning signet of the wild can now actually compete with Rampage as One. Sure, duration, fury, might stacking, swiftness – all better with RAO, but 25% raw damage + passive healing when not used = exceptionally good.

So while duration of stability is slightly less then half that of RaO, the untraited CD is half that of RaO, traited and it is actually just as much “uptime” as RaO.

Prysin.8542:

Most of these things have NO effect on PvE. Except the new gm trait, these changes are NOT PvE friendly. They are aimed at WvW and PvP exclusively.

If you see a ranger bring GS, LB or Axe mainhand to PvE, that ranger will be booted out of the group before it can even say what its secondary set is.

Ranger PvE performance is 99.9% sword mainhand. If sword mainhand is NOT buffed in damage, then NOTHING changes to PvE meta.

Axe mainhand has been a mixed success in WvW. Its a pain in the kitten to continuously swap targets to get as many bounces as possible, but it works and deals pretty OK damage if using Honed Axes. With might stacking, axe mainhand will be a mesmer/minion mancer/thieves guild/spirit ranger/turret engi killer.

Signet of Strength + Beastmasters Might + fortifying bond = potentially 5 stacks of might to the pet EVERY TWO SECONDS…. that means to stack a River Drake with 25 stacks of might before using its F2 breath attack takes 10 seconds (without using RAO)…. now, for those who KNOWS how hard that drake hits, you see my point. For those who DO NOT KNOW how hard it hits – it will easily land up to 4k damage on a single target without counting in bounces hitting two or more times. And that is a untraited pet (zero BM)…. Add 25 stacks of might and BAM, you get close to 6k pet burst, all it takes is some AA spam and a bit lazy F2 management.

Actually, sword damage has been buffed indirectly.

Predator’s onslaught will be procced by the cripple in Sword auto attack chain(2.5s cripple with 6 in Marksmanship over a 1.5s chain) and not by GS/LB. This combined with SoTW is a huge increase in damage.

For conjure weapons, if you pick up FGS you can cast Entangle before activating SoTW you can get all those damage modifiers on your Rush.

Offhand axe 4 velocity buff is a good change for pve too.
GS buff also gives ranger better trash mob damage.

Enlargement just got buffed.
We can now achieve 40+ a of continuous stability (we can do this now but we don’t need to trait for it)
It was bad enough when you had a ranger auto attacking form a distance when you where fighting some one else, it now going to be unbearable
12s of inv with out traiting
6s of reveal yeehaaa

might stacking on pets with an axe is going to be great (companions might, mh axe signet of strength, fortifying bond) bye bye petting zoos. it will make honed axes a little more inviting too

I consider entanglement a big buff, don’t for get the extra condi removals from it. I never liked it before as you need to hope that you opponent had use there cleanse before using other wise it was wasted.

to many options to think about my mind is going in to over load

pitty we are going to have to wait 2-3 months for this

You know what’s funny?

Signet of the Beastmaster used to be an Adept trait in beta.
Then at release (or shortly after) it was moved to Grandmaster.
Now it’s not even going to need a trait anymore.

any ideas when they’ll upload this ready up episode 18 to youtube? I kinda wanna see the ranger gameplay again…

Do you actually get a 50% speed bonus from SotW and the current SotB? I thought that was for the pet only. It doesn’t feel like you move any faster, although you turn giant so it might be an optical illusion.

Bryzy.2719:

any ideas when they’ll upload this ready up episode 18 to youtube? I kinda wanna see the ranger gameplay again…

just go to twitch.tv/guildwars2/profile then look under past broadcasts.

or click this link here; http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2/b/551141178

sic em will wreck thiefs and mesmers

engineer gets smth like that as well

its nice to see getting anti stealth stuff

Will Ricochet changes REALLY make a difference? 3s might is nothing…

Fluffball.8307:

Do you actually get a 50% speed bonus from SotW and the current SotB? I thought that was for the pet only. It doesn’t feel like you move any faster, although you turn giant so it might be an optical illusion.

just tested i don’t thinks so, it looks when you pop it you keep moving at the same pace and your pet it trying not to run ahead. this in in ooc.

Kain Francois.4328:

Will Ricochet changes REALLY make a difference? 3s might is nothing…

thought its 5 s, and if it bounces 3 times, or does it bounce twice?

3-4 might /one usage

it could maybe, not sure, make celestial rangers viable by mightstacking w it then lb 2right away, condi on axe, burst on longbow

Kain Francois.4328:

Will Ricochet changes REALLY make a difference? 3s might is nothing…

with boon duration, say from the NM line and some of runes it would be 4s, it would proc 10’s on you pet with fortifying bond. in a fight where there is more then one opponent you may be able to maintain 4ish stacks on you self and 10ish on you pet.

Casey.9687:

Well after 5,022 hours on ranger and this is all ranger gets? is the buffs to the same kitten weapons they have been buffing for a about a year. No love to traps? no love to shortbow? No active stability that isnt on a huge recharge? Guess its time to hang up this silly game

Don’t expect everything at once – you need to buff part by part, so players really play it and test it out. If you buff everything at once they simply skip to the “best” until they got bored and start on different things and realize that other builds are great too. So …. it’s better like this.

My problem with Ricochet in PvE: 1h sword already applies a buch of might to pet.

Is this really enough to bring it to use, or is this the new Flamethrower Juggernaut?

Rym.1469:

I will laugh at mesmers. Seriously. Unless they equip some serious boon removal/steal….. Constant Axe throwing at pinky, bouncing off phantasms and stuff will give us ridiculous might.

I can already see Axe BM builds. If Intimidation training doesn’t have ICD, Eagle BM Ranger… kitten just got real

It doesn’t have an ICD

If you’d been watching my Beastmaster builds for a while, you’d see i switched over to a spider with this + Malicious Training a long time ago.

Its also why i used the Poison Spider, It was hit 3 times with its poison, Each one of those set off Cripple….The other Spider was the Weakness One, because it hit twice with its F2.

Anyway, The Poison Spider alone could apply 21 seconds of Cripple by himself.

The Signet of Beastmaster change is nice, This opens up Signet Builds for Power users a lot better as they don’t have to waste a trait on that.

It also finally gives Beastmaster Ranger a viable Stability for stomping.

The Axe Change opens up some more interesting builds as well. …Greatsword Gets a 3 Second Rear Stun if you have Moment of Clarity, That’s incredibly nice….

And of course sic’em is really nice at 6 seconds now.

Prysin.8542:

Bryzy.2719:

any ideas when they’ll upload this ready up episode 18 to youtube? I kinda wanna see the ranger gameplay again…

just go to twitch.tv/guildwars2/profile then look under past broadcasts.

or click this link here; http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2/b/551141178

Ah of course… great thanks

I’m say 3 things.

WOW Axe is the new zerg weapon. 3 hits = 3 people = 3 stacks of might.
Great new might stacking weapon makes ranger viable. Very excited to theory craft this.

INCOME HIDDEN BUFF
Enlargement won’t needed to be traited. 25% more damage and stability is NICE!
This should be also HUGE in zergs

And predators onslaught will make Pve Meta go back to 30/25/0/15/0 because sword applies so much cripple

I Really hope this isn’t some bad joke Anet is playing on us, seems a bit too good to be true.

In any case I’m going to get to do some serious theory-crafting. So many new options for power rangers. What to I give up for SotW ??? I would also really like to use sic em as I hate permastealth thieves with a passion.

Tyvm Anet

Also just bought a fused longbow skin so I hope it can get some use with these changes. When are these changes expected to hit ???

Prysin.8542:

Most of these things have NO effect on PvE. Except the new gm trait, these changes are NOT PvE friendly. They are aimed at WvW and PvP exclusively.

It’s not like its “PvE unfriendly”. Those things that DO affect the PvE build will significally buff it. That is more than I was expecting from an patch aimed to balance pvp/wvw.

SotW untraited and more damage modifiers. I like it.

Prysin.8542:

new PvE build will be something close to this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQJBMhc0KoVsgrKQ1iByDq1BQBjZHECOzivoARaA-TxxAABZp8DgHAgN7PoneAoPBAWq+DaKBJFgY7qA-eYou

Maybe if you’re just running around in the open world.

In terms of dungeons, you’re missing out on two obvious damage modifiers, those being Steady Focus and Hunter’s tactic. 6/5/0/3/0 is more likely. The group as a whole will provide enough cripple and chill for the GM trait to proc in most scenarios (Predator’s Instinct instead of Steady Focus when needed).

As for your second paragraph, the ranger’s damage in an optimal group is already on par with “most” other classes.

Survival of the fittest with the new entangle and expertise training doesn’t sound that bad. And the fact that the BM traits are not linked to a certain pet family is actually quite good, same with the removal of signet of the beastmaster.

a squishy greatsword wielder ….what am I missing here?

jcbroe.4329:

I took the time to go through the entire video segment by segment and write down every single note, including taking notes directly off of the un-finalized tooltips.

Here are the notes from the preview. I am aware there are multiple thread about the preview already, but I wanted to put all the changes into one concise list:

Traits

• Signet of the Beastmaster has been removed. Signets now affect players by default.
• New Trait: Predator’s Onslaught: “You and your pet deal bonus damage to enemies suffering from movement impeding conditions. Player: 10% Pet: 5%”
• Read the Wind: In addition to its current effect, now also grants 10% increased attack speed with the longbow.
• Strider’s Defense: Increased block chance from 15% to 20%.
• Intimidation Training: “Activated abilities for pets cause cripple. This can only occur once on each target affected by abilities.”
• Rending Attacks: “Pets inflict bleed when they critically hit wit their basic attacks.”
• Stability Training: “Pets gain Stability when disabled.”

Weapons/Utilities

Longbow

• Long Range Shot: Lowest Range damage tier gets a 17% damage increase. Medium Range gets a 7% damage increase. Longest Range is unchanged.
• Rapid Fire: Reduced cast time to 2.5 (or 2 and 1/2) seconds.
• Barrage: Reduced cast time by .5 (or 1/2) seconds.

Greatsword

• Power Stab: Damage increased by 10%
• Maul: Now hits 5 targets. Increased radius from 150 to 220.
• Swoop: Now evades during the attack portion of the skill. Does not evade during the running portion.
• Counterattack: Reduced aftercast to be able to follow up better after successfully landing this skill.
• Hilt Bash: Daze and Stun durations are increased from 1 to 1.5 (or 1 and 1/2) seconds

Axe
Mainhand

• Ricochet: Now grants might (base 3 second duration) per hit.
  Offhand
• Path of Scars: Velocity increased by 25%

Utility/Elite

• Sic’ Em: Reveal duration increased from 3 seconds to 6 seconds
• Entangle: Recharge decreased from 150 seconds to 60 seconds. Duration of vines reduced from 20 seconds to 5 seconds.

Pets

• Black Bear: Enfeebling Roar: Now delivers a strike for damage, no longer goes through evades or blocks.
• Polar Bear: Icy Roar: Now delivers a strike for damage, no longer goes through evades or Blocks.

This should be the complete list from the preview. I personally am ecstatic.

Predator’s Onslaught: “You and your pet deal bonus damage to enemies suffering from movement impeding conditions. Player: 10% Pet: 5%”

OH WUUUUTTTTT… they actually made the change LOLOLOL!!! so much ideas so much ideas.

Drok Kindleshot.1496:

a squishy greatsword wielder ….what am I missing here?

No need for a trait to use signets, anymore, maul hitting 5 targets instead of 3, and 10% damage increase on the third attack o the auto attack. Still far from putting a bandaids on the wounds that happened when Anet nerfed the GS’s auto attack by 50% during the BWEs.

My god, how the hell are you people so negative? These are some great kittening changes.

I can tell you right now if these become true, power ranger will be very, very viable for anything.

wtb

reasonable sword auto

jcbroe.4329:

Chrispy.5641:

Through all the shiny changed There was actually a dirty nerf or two….

Bear F2’s can be blocked now. Kind of needed to happen though.

Entangle cooldown was reduced by 60%, but skill effect was reduced by 75%.

Just wanted to throw that out there.

It’s a nerf and a buff. The other side of the buff is that on top of the recharge speed, traited, we now have a 48 second recharge elite that allows us to interact with the “on elite” runesets, which is a HUGE bonus.

HAHAHA yea. Rune of sunless will be a good alternative to rune of the nightmare now. 3-4s fear every 48s, you’re gonna stack an insane amount of bleeds from shortbow AA flank.

Also, does that mean Eagle Eye and Read the Wind damage modifiers stack? Thats crazy!

Tbh, I think they’ve gone overboard with these buffs. Brace yourselves for some ranger op qq threads in the future :O

Having leveled all of the classes and putting a fairly hefty time investment into 4 of them (Ranger, Thief, Engineer, Mesmer), I don’t think that the changes are overboard at all lol.

The changes do exactly what I thought power builds needed, which is needing more damage to offset having so many selfish utilities. Now, the ranger can compete damage wise with other damage/roamer classes to the extent that they can be heavier contenders for team slot positions.

That’s obviously just a generic analysis that doesn’t account for what any other classes could get and is definitely subject to change, but like, overall, and most importantly, power ranger will be more than just a joke to people looking at this preview alone lol.

kiwituatara.6053:

jcbroe.4329:

Chrispy.5641:

Through all the shiny changed There was actually a dirty nerf or two….

Bear F2’s can be blocked now. Kind of needed to happen though.

Entangle cooldown was reduced by 60%, but skill effect was reduced by 75%.

Just wanted to throw that out there.

It’s a nerf and a buff. The other side of the buff is that on top of the recharge speed, traited, we now have a 48 second recharge elite that allows us to interact with the “on elite” runesets, which is a HUGE bonus.

HAHAHA yea. Rune of sunless will be a good alternative to rune of the nightmare now. 3-4s fear every 48s, you’re gonna stack an insane amount of bleeds from shortbow AA flank.

Also, does that mean Eagle Eye and Read the Wind damage modifiers stack? Thats crazy!

Tbh, I think they’ve gone overboard with these buffs. Brace yourselves for some ranger op qq threads in the future :O

Get your cup/bottle/jar/bucket/tub/olympic swimming pool ready. Dem tears are going to be delicious!

They haven’t mentioned sword auto, so I wouldn’t expect any change…
And the balance pass comes at an “undisclosed time”… xd

jcbroe.4329:

The other side of the buff is that on top of the recharge speed, traited, we now have a 48 second recharge elite that allows us to interact with the “on elite” runesets, which is a HUGE bonus.

this this this.
outside of might on axe auto (will make hybrid/condi ranger much more interesting w/ strength or aristocracy runes), this is my favorite ranger “buff”

Sina.9208:

They haven’t mentioned sword auto, so I wouldn’t expect any change…
And the balance pass comes at an “undisclosed time”… xd

Well, assuming that every class is going to get one before the next patch and they are doing this podcast once every 2 weeks, that means we still have 6 weeks worth of podcasts to go.

That will put that last podcast date on September 5th, which is when both the ToL2 and Gamescom tournaments will have ended, meaning that the balance patch is more than likely going to be on Tuesday, September 9th, though it could be as late as the following week on the 16th.

It will almost definitely be within that time frame though. 6 month balance increments seems to be the “thing” as far as balance schedule goes.

Eurantien.4632:

Casey.9687:

Prysin.8542:

Casey.9687:

nagymbear.5280:

Casey.9687:

Well after 5,022 hours on ranger and this is all ranger gets?

Rly? Apart from all these changes being pretty sweet, there are quite a number of them too. Don’t be so negative. I think this opens up some build variety. There are a lot of possibilities if you look past the longbow changes.

Yay you zerg runners will finally be able to sit in your zergs and be helpful. It doesnt change anything for spvp ranger. They will still get destroyed. This isnt anything to celebrate. Wait till all the other class buffs and changes come out and ranger will be right back in its useless spot.

kk, then delete your ranger casey. Ive spoken with you ingame, and you are one of the thousands that relentlessly paint a black picture of this class, but still miraculously keep playing it.
Now for once, stop insulting every ranger player there is and do what you tell everyone else to do instead, your negativity is not helping a darn soul. These buffs are well deserved, they are needed. Most of them have been asked for since forever, and if you fail to grasp how much this means to the average ranger player, then i can only conclude that you are playing THE WRONG GAME.

Thank you ArenaNet, Thank you for listening to our wishes!
Not just myself, but most ranger players are HAPPY about these changes.

and 90% of all these ranger players are bad and have no idea what they are doing in spvp. So of course they will be happy when they dont really understand its not changing much for spvp

Only the zerg runners in WvW who can beat scrub players and the pve’rs are goin to celebrate these changes

You are either:
A. On a god tier level at sPvP ranger.
B. Horribly confused.
C. Didn’t see the future changes.
D. Close minded.

It’s not A.

These are great buffs for sPvP ranger.

Eh i was just in a kitteny mood. I think the changes are pretty good its just i’ve ran trapper since beta and traps havent been touched since beta weekend 3 and i also have The Dreamer and now i gotta put it away since Longbow will be the new viable bow to have and i was really hoping for SB buffs, so i got kittened at the updates cause none were what i wanted so i went on a childish rant.

Very nice changes indeed! And no nerfs either… I’m estatic!

There’s still something little that bothers me:

• Ricochet: Now grants might (base 3 second duration) per hit.

I’m already struggling to find a situation where I would want to bring my shortbow over axe/dagger. After this change, I imagine those to be even less. They should consider reintroducing the 1200 range for shortbow or giving it some other edge over axe setups.

But nevertheless, I’m excited for these changes!

There aren’t many reasons to use the Shortbow, unfortunately. The Shortbow projectile is “more reliable” at the extent of its range, more rapid, beating out the DPS of the axe autoattack (when comparing just autoattacks), and applies a damaging condition, which allows you to do condition damage pressure at range, albeit, you have to work with the flanking requirement.

I’ll have to wait until after the full patch drops, but seeing as how I don’t expect my jaw to be dropped any more times (unless they superbuff warrior or something), I’d have to say that post patch, we are still going to be looking at:

• Shortbow needing some love. Autoattack centric centric weapon that hits its maximum output the moment it starts attacking. Personally I would take the tradeoff of making the autoattack less strong DPS wise and buffing up some of the cooldowns to create a skill rotation that also potentially increases the DPS beyond the number achieved through autoattacking. Still, overall assessment is that currently the weapon feels like it leaves you a bit helpless at times with your offensive pressure and output and there is nothing you can possibly do about it.
• Traps. They aren’t weak, but they aren’t exactly strong either, and the amount of traiting they require and amount of utility space the take up makes the opportunity cost of taking a trap ranger over a class than can do all of the same things and more like an engineer is in a very bad spot. Traps need some sort of love either through their direct effects or giving them some additional effect to make them a competitive option against other condition applications.
• Skirmishing line. Power builds only use the passive boost, Quickdraw, minor traits, and Moment of Clarity. Every other single trait is BM related or just poor in general. The Adept tier doesn’t even really offer an option that directly helps power builds.

I really don’t have any major opinion left about anything at this point. I won’t be able to develop one until I get my hands on the new changes in game and see just how extensive they are (and feel) in game. I know I won’t be disappointed, but there are 6 other classes ANet will be balancing (presumably). Hard to weigh how strong our options have truly become against an unknown variable.

Against the current game though, seeing the new changes, I don’t think I’ll ever have another negative thing to say about the longbow. The Marksmanship line is pretty tricked out too it seems, though I don’t foresee anybody using Remorseless ever now, so the Opening Strike and Remorseless mechanic could still use tweaks. Still, we’ll essentially have 3 majorly useful traitlines, Marksmanship, Wilderness Survival, and Nature Magic, and builds that take advantage of both power and condition damage builds.

We’ll essentially have more options than we’ve ever had before. The only thing that can even stifle that remark is if ANet takes the next 6 classes and makes all of the Ranger changes look trivial in comparison to them.

Oh my. Aw yiss. My awesomesaw got some lovin’ <3

love the new sic’ em buff tho!

Casey.9687:

Eurantien.4632:

Casey.9687:

Prysin.8542:

Casey.9687:

nagymbear.5280:

Casey.9687:

Well after 5,022 hours on ranger and this is all ranger gets?

Rly? Apart from all these changes being pretty sweet, there are quite a number of them too. Don’t be so negative. I think this opens up some build variety. There are a lot of possibilities if you look past the longbow changes.

Yay you zerg runners will finally be able to sit in your zergs and be helpful. It doesnt change anything for spvp ranger. They will still get destroyed. This isnt anything to celebrate. Wait till all the other class buffs and changes come out and ranger will be right back in its useless spot.

kk, then delete your ranger casey. Ive spoken with you ingame, and you are one of the thousands that relentlessly paint a black picture of this class, but still miraculously keep playing it.
Now for once, stop insulting every ranger player there is and do what you tell everyone else to do instead, your negativity is not helping a darn soul. These buffs are well deserved, they are needed. Most of them have been asked for since forever, and if you fail to grasp how much this means to the average ranger player, then i can only conclude that you are playing THE WRONG GAME.

Thank you ArenaNet, Thank you for listening to our wishes!
Not just myself, but most ranger players are HAPPY about these changes.

and 90% of all these ranger players are bad and have no idea what they are doing in spvp. So of course they will be happy when they dont really understand its not changing much for spvp

Only the zerg runners in WvW who can beat scrub players and the pve’rs are goin to celebrate these changes

You are either:
A. On a god tier level at sPvP ranger.
B. Horribly confused.
C. Didn’t see the future changes.
D. Close minded.

It’s not A.

These are great buffs for sPvP ranger.

Eh i was just in a kitteny mood. I think the changes are pretty good its just i’ve ran trapper since beta and traps havent been touched since beta weekend 3 and i also have The Dreamer and now i gotta put it away since Longbow will be the new viable bow to have and i was really hoping for SB buffs, so i got kittened at the updates cause none were what i wanted so i went on a childish rant.

first off; trapper has had several improvements since beta, but mostly very minor ones.
Second off; LB was better then SB (if using power) ever since the first buff to base damage on AA. LB would beat out SB in terms of sheer DPS with the exception of celestial or gear containing condition damage. LB was ahead on damage, but only marginally so. If using rampagers or celestial, SB will still manage to churn out 150-200 damage/sec more (if bleeds are not removed).
third off; Power builds has been strong in PvP for a long time, even for rangers. It is a very high risk, very high reward build. If you refuse to acknowledge this fact and adapt accordingly, then that is by all means your problem, not a profession balance problem.
fourth off; trapper build DPS > any power build DPS by huge margins, even more so if you use poison master.

Average ranger power build DPS; 2200/sec (no buffs of sorts)
Average ranger trapper condi build (rampager) DPS; 2600-3900 (depends if enemy has reduced condi duration or not)

If only, if only Intimidation Training was now Adept Tier…. come on Anet, we’re so good for you!

Keep in mind, the way Entangle currently works and lasts, if someone manages to escape the immobilize but fails to destroy the vines, they can still be kited/pushed back into those vines and immobilized again.

The changes done to this skill are both a nerf (shorter-duration vines leading to less chance of re-immobilize) and a buff (being able to cast it more frequently in all modes of play).

Personally, I think it’s a decent buff for sPvP (I only do hotjoins here, don’t hate me!), allowing us to use the skill more frequently. And for WvW, when faced with small groups, or just to see what happens in big zergs.