Guild Wars 2

You can’t possibly tell me you’ve used “Guard” or “Search and Rescue” in a build and had it work out for you.

Guard is used by some perma regen + swiftness shout build. But Search & Rescue sucks.

The support role that rangers can fill is strongly taken by a spirit ranger. No way regen + swiftness for your team can beat spirits. If this is a tank ranger build, why are you not using signets? Rangers tank the best through passive condi removal, regen, and tons of evades.

Guard alone help keep your pet alive with the 33% damage reduction it provides for you pet for 10 sec couple that with protection on dodge your pet could possible be with out protection for only 1 second ( or never if you have boon duration).

You don’t think it’s worth it to keep you pet alive then let both of your pets die with a 30 -40% reduction in your dps.

not to mention with the right build and traits you could provide regen for your party guard being one of the faster recharging shouts.
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Serraphin Storm.2369:

Guard alone help keep your pet alive with the 33% damage reduction it provides for you pet for 10 sec couple that with protection on dodge your pet could possible be with out protection for only 1 second ( or never if you have boon duration).

You don’t think it’s worth it to keep you pet alive then let both of your pets die with a 30 -40% reduction in your dps.

not to mention with the right build and traits you could provide regen for your party guard being one of the faster recharging shouts.
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I don’t agree with you for reasons points above have mentioned. Why delve 30 points into the nature’s magic line not to use spirits? Sure, guard gives your party perma regen and swiftness. Great. But spirits give your party (and pet) perma swiftness, high protection uptime, and a chance to burn foes with potent actives as well.

Cuz spirits can die and leave you with nothing?

I think they’re both absolutely terrible (Shouts and Spirits). That’s not to say they don’t have their uses but Nature’s Voice was a cheap band-aid to make Rangers pretend Shouts were useful because they were the the only utility line that didn’t have a magical 30 Point investment to make them not suck crap. We’re all about our utility skills. 30 points for this, 30 points for that, or 30 points for that one over there!

Here is a suggestion thread I made meant to bring the focus back to the weapons you pick and professions mechanic instead of 30 point investments for utility skills. Some of the ideas of course are rough but they serve as examples well enough.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Comprehensive-Ranger-Suggestions/first#post2550550

Guard was only useful when It allowed me to send my pets into Buildings..

Then again even if they changed it back it wouldn’t work cause they gutted all my Pets Damage.

Half of our utilities are entirely useless in pvp. Also the things u think are good, like muddy terrain, aren’t even working properly

Signets need a 30pt trait to be useful.
Spirits need a 30pt trait to be useful.
We have 3 traps that fill the same general function.
3 of the shouts are bad.
Bleeds on sharpening stone are hardly worth a skill slot.

What does that leave us with? Zephyr? Which was nerfed due to Warrior’s being op?

There is one difference between a spirit build and using guard for perma regen and swiftness.
For Natures Voice all you do is replace signet of the hunt (the passive 25% speed bonus) with guard which gives your pet perma regen, perma swiftness which is faster than 25%, perma protection, 10 sec of stealth + the ability to place the pet wherever you want like if you chase someone you can place it before you.
I don’t use natures voice anymore but it’s really decent especially since with all these buffs your pet is really tough and that makes Protect me decent especially with bears/drakes.
Besides guard you have two utility slots free for stuff you like like signet of renewal and Protect me for 2 stun breakers and great utility. With a spirit ranger you don’t have these. Especially in WvW spirits are dead almost immediately but with natures voice I was able to keep my bears and drakes alive even in zerg fights. Of course you have to be a bit careful but it works.

actually guard can be usefull but it requires some skill. lets say your near some cliffs and you have your wolf pet out, you use guard so make it stealth on a tactical position and than use its f2 skill to fear your opponent off the cliff. there’s also a movie somewhere on youtube about a ranger who does all his damage with his pet, he uses Guard to get his pet near the enemy and the pet just destroys the enemy in 2 or 3 hits.

I’ve found search and rescue very useful in dungeons. It’s frequently better for me to play my game, paying attention to my skills and dodges while the pet does a revive, than walk across to a red circle and kneel down to revive someone. It does work.

I was using guard when still running beastmaster….
search and rescue seemed for me as usefull in certain situation utility at the beggining of playing, but then ArenaNet ruined this (working only with downed not defeated allies and idiotic cooldown also with problematics of its launching – too many wasted beacuse pet was… somewhere and he haven’t target in reach)

Yes, I’ve used “Search and Rescue” in dungeons a lot. It allows you to revive very quickly, if both the pet and yourself are reviving one player. You can also revive two players at the same time, or send the pet to revive an ally, while you take aggro from a boss. However, it should be made to work with defeated players again. An 85 second recharge time, on a skill that only works on downed players, is a bit underpowered.

Kasama.8941:

However, it should be made to work with defeated players again. An 85 second recharge time, on a skill that only works on downed players, is a bit underpowered.

I suspect making it only work on downed players was their quick and dirty way of “fixing” it so the pet wouldn’t waste the skill reviving an NPC.

Solandri.9640:

Kasama.8941:

However, it should be made to work with defeated players again. An 85 second recharge time, on a skill that only works on downed players, is a bit underpowered.

I suspect making it only work on downed players was their quick and dirty way of “fixing” it so the pet wouldn’t waste the skill reviving an NPC.

That’s cute, you think the pet doesn’t still revive NPCs…

And in all fairness if search and rescue worked like the other prof skills where, you know, it actually kittening rezzed people faster than a player, S&wouldn’t be so bad, at least make them rez as fast, if not faster than, a normal player to make it a better rez skill.

PS: Toss Elixir R, Illusion of Life, Glyph of Renewal, Sig of Undeath, and Sig of Mercy ALL have longer CDs than S&R (in PvE) and all accomplish roughly the same effect.

I could imagine that Search and Rescue and Guard are okay with casual players. It just doesn’t fit into any aspect of the game when you’re trying to min/max.

In dungeons you should just revive people yourself. The dps you lose from the 8 seconds of revival are partially made up by your pet still being in combat and by the utility skill you now have in QZ another trap, Spirit of Fire, etc.

In high level fractals is close to the same reasoning, with the addition here that your pet is dead most of the time so the skill doesn’t actually do anything. As far as I know no one wants supports in their group anyway.

In sPvP guard could be cute on some maps, but there really are better things you can do. Rangers excel at bunkering and now with the longbow update they can also do a bit of roaming. Ressurecting people is usually a split second matter and you would much rater be QZ rezing instead of Search and Rescue rezing. But you don’t get the chance to rez people that often due to stealthed, quickness, and stability stomps. Support classes were never good in constructed sPvP. But go have fun in hot joins by all means.

In WvW ranger fit very few roles already. If you look at a number of other WvW threads commanders ask what a ranger can bring to WvW and the answer was never Search and Rescue. In zerg fights you either win or lose and one extra rez will never make the difference here. In case the fight is close Spirits and traps are almost certainly going to have a bigger impact on the outcome of the battle. In small groups you really need the extra dps to take camps faster or fight other small groups.

Maybe if you’re trying out a joke build Guard and Search and Rescue are fine, but they fit nowhere in the meta and need to do a lot of work if they want to get in.

I like how they reduced the cooldown on guard so much, too.

S&R is on a too long cooldown and Guard is too static to use anywhere (make it so pet guards someone, for example takes % of damage, or conditions).

S&R on short (30 seconds) cooldown would be viable. Not OP in wvw/pve, because there’s nothing easier than killing a pet.

Nature’s voice bunker builds are strong with “Guard”. As far as search and rescue goes, with a bear traited for stability training, that’s actually really strong. Ressurection is an undervalued part of the meta right now. I’d say mercy rune ranger with healer’s celerity, compassion training, quickening zephyr, zephyr’s speed, spirit elite, trapper’s defense, and healing power stats is likely the best resurrector in gw2.

Chopps.5047:

Nature’s voice bunker builds are strong with “Guard”. As far as search and rescue goes, with a bear traited for stability training, that’s actually really strong. Ressurection is an undervalued part of the meta right now. I’d say mercy rune ranger with healer’s celerity, compassion training, quickening zephyr, zephyr’s speed, spirit elite, trapper’s defense, and healing power stats is likely the best resurrector in gw2.

and how exactly do you rez without stability? u cant rez with SoW signet, and RaO has a long CD.

the best rezzers in the game are: Warbanner and Shadow Refuge. so u got the wrong prof bud.

This combination used to be game changing in WvW before Anet patched it.

MatthausW.8473:

You can’t possibly tell me you’ve used “Guard” or “Search and Rescue” in a build and had it work out for you.

I really hope they add some more impactful utility skills like the guardian/mesmer have. Wall of reflection, Sanctuary, Feedback, Null zone etc.

Problem is; I have no enough skill slots and trait points to use my pet better.
I won’t rely my life on a very stupid AI and not-really-working pet spells.

I’ve tried Rescue and Guard at Gig. Lupicus, and not worked.
There are serious issues with distance logics –
(& also with targeting…)

mistsim.2748:

Chopps.5047:

Nature’s voice bunker builds are strong with “Guard”. As far as search and rescue goes, with a bear traited for stability training, that’s actually really strong. Ressurection is an undervalued part of the meta right now. I’d say mercy rune ranger with healer’s celerity, compassion training, quickening zephyr, zephyr’s speed, spirit elite, trapper’s defense, and healing power stats is likely the best resurrector in gw2.

and how exactly do you rez without stability? u cant rez with SoW signet, and RaO has a long CD.

the best rezzers in the game are: Warbanner and Shadow Refuge. so u got the wrong prof bud.

Every profession should have a strong way to rez, and search and rescue is not one of them. I MIGHT use it in sPvP if it had like a 15 second cooldown. But it’s far off for that

I don’t know.. both feel like a waste of a slot when there are better utilities to be used.

Search and Rescue has too high of a cool down for what it does because other players are often killed or ressed before the pet can even reach them far too often (or killed while being ressed by the pet lol).

Personally, I think they need to change search and rescue so that your pet can travel a much greater distance to a target and you know… actually “search” and “rescue” lol. If it could consistently “rescue” other players in your party or otherwise, then it might be useful, but as stated before it all too often that another player gets there first or the player in need of a “rescue” goes down, before the pet can even do anything and the skill just goes on a rather longish cool down…

Guard is much better now since they lowered the cool down on it, but that doesn’t mean it makes it really that worthwhile. It seems that most people argue the benefit of it, not actually being the skill itself, but being the trait that provides effects for using it. It could be any other skill that was classified as a “shout,” but rangers are rather limited in this department and paired with their lack of shouts and guard having a lower cool down than say S&R; it’s really a rangers only choice if they want to make efficient use of the trait (and not necessarily the skill itself lol). Something just seems wrong with that…

ranger does not have any real great utility skills, most of our utility in order for it needing to be great requires one or more traits usually grandmaster ones in order for it to be worth the CD on the skill, lets take a look at them real quick, traps suck if you don’t trait them, they are small only where you are standing and the conditions are relatively short, signets un-traited only affect your pet and if your pet is dead and you use it the signet is wasted ( signet of renewal is wasted/useless if you use it while traited and your pet is dead), spirits not traited stay in one location buffing a small area and die if there is a strong gust of wind, shouts most of them don’t work the ones that do have so little use that they are only worth bringing if you have nature’s voice trait to keep regen up.
only utility ranger has that is not dependent on traits are quacking zephyr and sharpening stone. every thing else can not be used effectively without changing traits around to make it so they can be used in more logical situations.

I am looking forward to the new skills and traits being added hoping we will get something that wont req us putting 30 points in traits to have a reason to use it. I hope you all are too.

other classes take grandmaster traits to make what they have do more or add stats/ conditions! we take grandmaster traits to make our utilities work and worth using them practically.

MatthausW.8473:

I really hope they add some more impactful utility skills like the guardian/mesmer have. Wall of reflection, Sanctuary, Feedback, Null zone etc.

Would be nice. Signets need 30 points to be used effectively. Spirits need 30 points to be used effectively. We have 3 traps that do roughly the same thing. We have 1 good pet move and we only consider that good because some of us don’t want 30pts in marks for signet. Zephyr was nerfed because haste was o/p for warriors. What’s left?

Give us Wall of Thorns… blocks projectiles and any players that touch it are immobalized. Could be fun.

mistsim.2748:

Chopps.5047:

Nature’s voice bunker builds are strong with "Guard". As far as search and rescue goes, with a bear traited for stability training, that’s actually really strong. Ressurection is an undervalued part of the meta right now. I’d say mercy rune ranger with healer’s celerity, compassion training, quickening zephyr, zephyr’s speed, spirit elite, trapper’s defense, and healing power stats is likely the best resurrector in gw2.

and how exactly do you rez without stability? u cant rez with SoW signet, and RaO has a long CD.

the best rezzers in the game are: Warbanner and Shadow Refuge. so u got the wrong prof bud.

You don’t understand how fast said ranger resurrects. Also, spirit elite is basically equivalent to war banner, for all intents and purposes. Also, I’m talking tpvp, I’m not sure how valuable rez is in wvw. It’s good but situational. In a Lord’s room battle, it could be clutch though.

We’re talking 20% faster rez speed with quickness on top of healing power and added toughness from mercy runes while rezzing. Spike trap when traited with trappers defense is more than enough defense. The bear has stability training anyways and you can take shared anguish. I think you need to test more. I have 2300 hours and 15 sets of exos for ranger. All I do is test. I don’t talk, I don’t theorize. I test ideas. Because 1 test is worth 1000 words.

mistsim.2748:

Chopps.5047:

Nature’s voice bunker builds are strong with “Guard”. As far as search and rescue goes, with a bear traited for stability training, that’s actually really strong. Ressurection is an undervalued part of the meta right now. I’d say mercy rune ranger with healer’s celerity, compassion training, quickening zephyr, zephyr’s speed, spirit elite, trapper’s defense, and healing power stats is likely the best resurrector in gw2.

and how exactly do you rez without stability? u cant rez with SoW signet, and RaO has a long CD.

the best rezzers in the game are: Warbanner and Shadow Refuge. so u got the wrong prof bud.

Well I use hunters shot and Rez while stealthed, with mercy runes, healers Clarity, and quickness it takes me significantly less time than 3 seconds to Rez someone (which is 50% health now thanks to the runes).

Btw Chopps Healing Power does NOTHING for rezzing so you’re better off just taking a wolf and black Moa and taking commanding voice instead so you can CC people trying to stomp or CC you. Also, spike trap (trappers defense) is WORTHLESS as a defensive Rez thing unless you have the grandmaster trait where it becomes “ok” because that cripple and bleed are NOT going to stop kitten. Now if it were say, Dust trap, that be absolutely amazing defense.

That being said, in my build set up when I start rezzing people my armor jumps up to ~3.5k, so I’m not all that worried about people trying to kill me while rezzing.