WS and BM, traits a bit mixed?
You’re right. I get the impression, the more I look at how the traits are organized and sorted, that rangers reap the most benefits from stacking toughness and healing and vitality, but I’m probably at least technically wrong in that.
Looking through the new traits, there is a lot of nice stuff for Rangers to test, try and have fun with. But one seeming oddity has caught my attention.
Beast Mastery now has Two Handed Training (master) and Honed Axes (grand master). Meanwhile, Wilderness Survival has Expertise Training (adept), Shared Anguish (master) and Empathic Bond (Grand Master).
In a strict thematic sense, that seems a little strange. I didn’t realize GS skills were essential to pet training, especially with pet-centric traits throughout WS.
In a more game oriented sense, why has Ranger’s only two real reliable condition management traits been moved to the WS grandmaster position (again)? I thought part of the reason for creating the survival skill condi clear in NM was to end the huge reliance rangers had on WS to deal with conditions.
It feels like we have just been kicked back to a point where a Ranger needs to use WS, build bunker or die when conditions come their way.
In the past that wasn’t even so bad because WS had some nice traits for any build. But now the Master traits are all but useless for any power based build with the move of Two Handed Training and disappearance of Off-Hand training. Oakheart Salve looks okay in the adept slot, but that’s it.
Moreover, I just can’t see any synergy between Two-handed training or Axe Mastery and the rest of BM.
It’s very early after the patch, and there are probably things I am missing. What thoughts have you had on this?
What I know is that my “this is similar to your build” upon entering the new patch showed I am nerfed to death in ferocity and condition damage and I can’t figure out the new traiting system OR the new training system at all.
I am totally lost.
Expertise training I can’t really justify, as I’m still mad about our loss of malicious training and don’t really like any Wilderness Survival adepts. But the others are somewhat simple.
Two-Handed Training is the trait for the Greatsword and the Greatsword is a suprisingly good beastmaster’s weapon. Cripple, stun, attack of opportunity for your pet, vulnerability and the defensive prowess to survive while your partner does the heavy hitting. Sure, there’s an argument for sword being the better beastmaster weapon, but eh. I guess Beastmastery just got dumped it because they couldn’t fit the weapon trait somewhere else.
Mainhand axe is the ranged weapon of choice for Beastmaster builds that take Nature Magic. With three targets you can quickly rack up might stacks on your cat/bird/drake/dog and start dishing out tons of pain. The chill and off-hand cripple with dagger help immensely. It makes perfect sense for the axe trait to be in Beastmastery. It’d just help if the axe trait helped the axe do what it wants to do.
Shared Anguish and Empathic Bond are the easiest of these traits to explain their placement though. Just because the mechanics involve our pets, does not mean it synergises with investing our hopes and dreams on our pets. A Beastmaster who cripples, chills and launches their own beast probably won’t get very far. They can’t go in nature magic, because as the support line it runs into the same problems as Beastmaster. That leaves Marksmanship and Skirmishing, neither of which are particularly great choices when compared to our defensive specialisation.
“There, it’s dead and it’s never coming back!” – Famous last words
Expertise training I can’t really justify, as I’m still mad about our loss of malicious training and don’t really like any Wilderness Survival adepts. But the others are somewhat simple.
Two-Handed Training is the trait for the Greatsword and the Greatsword is a suprisingly good beastmaster’s weapon. Cripple, stun, attack of opportunity for your pet, vulnerability and the defensive prowess to survive while your partner does the heavy hitting. Sure, there’s an argument for sword being the better beastmaster weapon, but eh. I guess Beastmastery just got dumped it because they couldn’t fit the weapon trait somewhere else.
Mainhand axe is the ranged weapon of choice for Beastmaster builds that take Nature Magic. With three targets you can quickly rack up might stacks on your cat/bird/drake/dog and start dishing out tons of pain. The chill and off-hand cripple with dagger help immensely. It makes perfect sense for the axe trait to be in Beastmastery. It’d just help if the axe trait helped the axe do what it wants to do.
Shared Anguish and Empathic Bond are the easiest of these traits to explain their placement though. Just because the mechanics involve our pets, does not mean it synergises with investing our hopes and dreams on our pets. A Beastmaster who cripples, chills and launches their own beast probably won’t get very far. They can’t go in nature magic, because as the support line it runs into the same problems as Beastmaster. That leaves Marksmanship and Skirmishing, neither of which are particularly great choices when compared to our defensive specialisation.
All great points, and well considered.
I don’t like “makes a good BM weapon” now means that if you use that weapon and want the trait for it you must play BM, only a watered down BM because you took weapon traits. Like Shared Anguish, these traits would benefit a BM ranger better in another line.
Shared Anguish makes sense to not disable the buffed pet, although you could argue the way traits work it would make sense to have a defensively buffed pet take the disable for you. But overall you’re right on this one.
My main complaint/confusion still lies on seeing both of our condition management traits piled into WS, then the rest of our choices in WS gutted except for some condi builds.