Guild Wars 2

Warhorn’s skill number 4, Hunter’s call, is so incredibly bad:

-Long cast time.
-Long Cooldown.
-Low damage.
-Very telegraphed.
-Easily dodgeable, LoSable, blockable, ‘blindable’, you name it.
-You get like 4 to 4,8k damage in return if the enemy has retaliation boon up.

Let’s be fair and say something good about it:

-It can be used while not facing your target, good while kiting (coupled with a sword most likely).

But… where are the rewards for such risks?
Why am I not seeing more Rangers complaining about such a ridiculously bad skill?

Call of the Wild is good, really good, I (and my entire party) can have perma swiftness and perma fury in combat with this thing and Runes of the Pack, it’s also a blast finisher; but it’s not reason enough for Hunter’s call being so bad. It really feels like an outdated beta skill, in fact, as someone that’s been playing this game since closed beta, it hasn’t been changed at all.

Proposal:

As its damage is gradual and overtime, just like a DoT skill (that gets affected immensenly by retaliation boon, lol) I propose its cast time to be significantly reduced to ¼ of a second, almost instant cast. Although it would still do poor damage overtime and get severly punished by retaliation, I would increase said damage by 20% or more or make it apply serveral stacks of vulnerability over its duration. Or maybe it removes 1 or 2 boons over its duration spreading out the love of boon removal to Rangers as well, with so many celestial might stackers nowadays, it could come in handy.

Let’s have a friendly discussion on how could we improve this particular skill or the Warhorn as a whole shall we?

Hunter’s call is good against Thiefs and mesmers, once you casted it you can keep track of the stealther.

I think the war horn is ment to be a support weapon, not the main source of damage but capable of support you and your allies, on the same weapon set you have a good counter to stealth, Swiftness/fury/might and a blast finisher.

I wouldn’t call it a good counter to stealth. If it’s meant to be an anti-stealth skill then it should cause Reveal.

I like the boon removal idea Khezy mentioned. We’ve got zero boon denial right now so it’d be a nice new mechanic, especially since it is so avoidable. 1 boon removed on first hit, another on last hit would give the target a choice to dodge the boon removal or eat it and save a dodge.

Horn only good for spike builds. #5 for boons, change weapon and smash. Its a slow, low dmg weapon without any special. Everybody always have swiftness, furry and 1 stack might is just lol. The birds are annoying but nothing else

it procs 17 times according to wiki, so sigils and 66% bleed on crit trait synergize ok with it. But the amount of damage is so low it always surprises me

itsok when stacked with other Skills, like bonfire, horn 4 swap>CC>RF>barrage with qz stacks some Amazing burst.

its just lacking somthing because all it does is Medium> high(not very high) damage.
it could do very well with a very short blind added to it then it could be used as a Kiting tool to avoid large single hit melee attacks.

It’s been ages since I’ve used it on anything other than ambient wildlife to get my WH kills up (at 3k! Wooo!)

I think if it applied a condition, and I don’t even care which one, it might find a use. A blind makes sense, since the target is engulfed in birds and feathers, and blind would instantly make the skill useful.

How about rework it all together and let it give you a forward rush that damages opponents in the path or stuns a targeted opponent. Call it hunters charge or something.

That would be Berserker’s Charge, Jim, if you’re running in and smacking people with a horn.

Fluffball.8307:

That would be Berserker’s Charge, Jim, if you’re running in and smacking people with a horn.

I was thinking more of fox hunters sounding off on their horn as they charged their prey but I love the idea of smacking someone with a horn

Never liked the skill for either pvp or pve.

In PvP, it does not go well with burst build since it has a long cast time, can be easily evaded or most of it at least, and if your enemy uses retaliation, you’re going to get all the damage from it.

In PvE it’s pretty much a waste of time, cause you would do more dps overall if you use sword auto attack instead of that.

So yeah I think the skill needs rework.

It is a flock of birds attacking your face after all. It really should do something like daze, blind, and/or cripple as well. Honestly, that’d fit into any build, condition or power. And it’d be nice with Moment of Clarity.

Jim Hunter.6821:

Fluffball.8307:

That would be Berserker’s Charge, Jim, if you’re running in and smacking people with a horn.

I was thinking more of fox hunters sounding off on their horn as they charged their prey but I love the idea of smacking someone with a horn

Tis totally offtopic but I must get this out of my chest. Why do you hunt Jim and what has Jim done so that he deserves to get hunted down?

FrouFrou.4958:

Jim Hunter.6821:

Fluffball.8307:

That would be Berserker’s Charge, Jim, if you’re running in and smacking people with a horn.

I was thinking more of fox hunters sounding off on their horn as they charged their prey but I love the idea of smacking someone with a horn

Tis totally offtopic but I must get this out of my chest. Why do you hunt Jim and what has Jim done so that he deserves to get hunted down?

foxy bingo Adverts..

How about it causing blind? The birds will peck at their eyes and stuff.

FrouFrou.4958:

Jim Hunter.6821:

Fluffball.8307:

That would be Berserker’s Charge, Jim, if you’re running in and smacking people with a horn.

I was thinking more of fox hunters sounding off on their horn as they charged their prey but I love the idea of smacking someone with a horn

Tis totally offtopic but I must get this out of my chest. Why do you hunt Jim and what has Jim done so that he deserves to get hunted down?

That kitten knows what he did to deserve this.

Jim Hunter.6821:

FrouFrou.4958:

Jim Hunter.6821:

Fluffball.8307:

That would be Berserker’s Charge, Jim, if you’re running in and smacking people with a horn.

I was thinking more of fox hunters sounding off on their horn as they charged their prey but I love the idea of smacking someone with a horn

Tis totally offtopic but I must get this out of my chest. Why do you hunt Jim and what has Jim done so that he deserves to get hunted down?

That kitten knows what he did to deserve this.

Seeing that the skill was named after you I have another question! If I use Hunter’s Call, will you appear too or are all those birdy birds your minions seeking for revenge? Kind of like avengers, but in bird form. Hawkengers.

FrouFrou.4958:

Jim Hunter.6821:

FrouFrou.4958:

Jim Hunter.6821:

Fluffball.8307:

That would be Berserker’s Charge, Jim, if you’re running in and smacking people with a horn.

I was thinking more of fox hunters sounding off on their horn as they charged their prey but I love the idea of smacking someone with a horn

Tis totally offtopic but I must get this out of my chest. Why do you hunt Jim and what has Jim done so that he deserves to get hunted down?

That kitten knows what he did to deserve this.

Seeing that the skill was named after you I have another question! If I use Hunter’s Call, will you appear too or are all those birdy birds your minions seeking for revenge? Kind of like avengers, but in bird form. Hawkengers.

I will make a big spectacle by flying in and doing mediocre damage. It will be glorious!

I seriously don’t think I’ve used that skill since beta. It was hilarious back then though, a bunch of birds swarming people would freak them out. It really makes me wish this game was a fps.

ArchonWing.9480:

How about it causing blind? The birds will peck at their eyes and stuff.

That’d be my vote. And not just a single blind, but each bird causes 0.25 sec of blind. That way with it being re-applied every 0.25 sec, none of the target’s attacks can hit anything during the ~4 sec the birds are attacking. That would turn the skill into a combination damage / damage mitigation tool. Kind of a pseudo-stability (if they can’t hit you with a CC skill because they’re blinded, then it’s as good as stability against that one target).

The blind should be unblockable too (though the damage should be blockable). The blindness is caused by birds physically blocking your line of sight, not necessarily by them gouging your eyes.

Solandri.9640:

ArchonWing.9480:

How about it causing blind? The birds will peck at their eyes and stuff.

That’d be my vote. And not just a single blind, but each bird causes 0.25 sec of blind. That way with it being re-applied every 0.25 sec, none of the target’s attacks can hit anything during the ~4 sec the birds are attacking. That would turn the skill into a combination damage / damage mitigation tool. Kind of a pseudo-stability (if they can’t hit you with a CC skill because they’re blinded, then it’s as good as stability against that one target).

The blind should be unblockable too (though the damage should be blockable). The blindness is caused by birds physically blocking your line of sight, not necessarily by them gouging your eyes.

That’s a pretty cool suggestion actually, but the cast time still needs to be reduced imo.

It’s bad on it’s own but can be used very effectively in combination with other utilities, traits, sigils etc, adding bleeds on stealthed opponents, stacking might for your pet with either rampage as one or the trait in a few seconds I like it but as with many ranger skills it is severly lacking on it’s own unless you combine skills and traits correctly.

Month old bump ftw!

Solandri.9640:

ArchonWing.9480:

How about it causing blind? The birds will peck at their eyes and stuff.

That’d be my vote. And not just a single blind, but each bird causes 0.25 sec of blind. That way with it being re-applied every 0.25 sec, none of the target’s attacks can hit anything during the ~4 sec the birds are attacking. That would turn the skill into a combination damage / damage mitigation tool. Kind of a pseudo-stability (if they can’t hit you with a CC skill because they’re blinded, then it’s as good as stability against that one target).

The blind should be unblockable too (though the damage should be blockable). The blindness is caused by birds physically blocking your line of sight, not necessarily by them gouging your eyes.

That is fantastic! I love this idea.
Add in a blast finisher effect and we are done!

Flitzie.6082:

Month old bump ftw!

Solandri.9640:

ArchonWing.9480:

How about it causing blind? The birds will peck at their eyes and stuff.

That’d be my vote. And not just a single blind, but each bird causes 0.25 sec of blind. That way with it being re-applied every 0.25 sec, none of the target’s attacks can hit anything during the ~4 sec the birds are attacking. That would turn the skill into a combination damage / damage mitigation tool. Kind of a pseudo-stability (if they can’t hit you with a CC skill because they’re blinded, then it’s as good as stability against that one target).

The blind should be unblockable too (though the damage should be blockable). The blindness is caused by birds physically blocking your line of sight, not necessarily by them gouging your eyes.

That is fantastic! I love this idea.
Add in a blast finisher effect and we are done!

The warhorn needs this Blind +1 Pus Kind acts like a Single target shield but not vs Aoes best of both worlds.

already have blast on warhorn 5 but that could ether do with a extra might stack on it + 2sec increase on that might.

or reduce the Warhorn 5’s cooldown to 30secs (untraited 35secs is still way too long for our only Weapon blast finisher) i wouldn’t mind paying some Fury or swiftness for this reduction since we have Ample fury and swiftness in many cases.

Its fine. I think this makes you “immune” to blind for its duration cause birds peck so fast. It works with sharpened edges. It gives a ranged attack to a sword mainhand.

The only acceptable change would maybe adding a short duration blind. Maybe 2-3sec.

Khenzy.9348:

Why am I not seeing more Rangers complaining about such a ridiculously bad skill?
…
Let’s have a friendly discussion on how could we improve this particular skill or the Warhorn as a whole shall we?

OK, you promised to be friendly, so here goes! I personally use that skill to demolish opponents in PvP. If they make it stronger, it won’t be fair to other classes. It’s lethality comes in the form of high precision condition builds. It hits harder than rapid fire (Ok slight exaggeration—but you get the idea) and most peeps don’t know it’s going to kill them. It can stack bleed so fast that opponents will die before the last bird hits if they don’t pull off a cleanse or dodge.

If you want it stronger, I won’t complain. Maybe each strike could have a 30% chance to inflict torment? That would be fun! I would feel tormented with a horde of birds clawing at my face!

Khenzy.9348:

-Long cast time.
-Long Cooldown.
-Low damage.

= useless.

Archon.6480:

OK, you promised to be friendly, so here goes! I personally use that skill to demolish opponents in PvP. If they make it stronger, it won’t be fair to other classes. It’s lethality comes in the form of high precision condition builds. It hits harder than rapid fire (Ok slight exaggeration—but you get the idea) and most peeps don’t know it’s going to kill them. It can stack bleed so fast that opponents will die before the last bird hits if they don’t pull off a cleanse or dodge.

Let’s imagine a ranger, 2 points in expertise, 6 in wilderness survival, rabid gear, rune of the krait, and sigil of agony (+20% bleed duration to reach a 3 seconds bleeding with sharpened edges).
You have a 40% crit chance, 60% with fury.
The skill hits 16 times.
If it crits, it makes the foe bleeds for 3 seconds, for a 339 total damage, on a 66% chance to activate.

-> The skill will crit in average 9.6 times.
-> Sharpened edges will activate in average 6.4 times.
-> The total bleed damage for the skill will be 2169.6. Add more or less 800 damage for the physical damage of the skill, and it goes a bit under 3k, for a 25 seconds cooldown.

Honestly, it’s weak. And it seems even weaker when compared to other off-hand weapons. Dagger has an evade, poison, and cripple, all on a relatively short CD. Torch has a 40% burn uptime with only the 4th skill. Sure, it’s a dps increase compared to the auto-attack, but it’s not strong, and if a ranger is using warhorn, it’s probably for the 5th skill.

I would also want something else added to the skill. Cripple/blind/whatever defensive condition to make warhorn a bit more usuable.

Irina.7418:

Archon.6480:

OK, you promised to be friendly, so here goes! I personally use that skill to demolish opponents in PvP. If they make it stronger, it won’t be fair to other classes. It’s lethality comes in the form of high precision condition builds. It hits harder than rapid fire (Ok slight exaggeration—but you get the idea) and most peeps don’t know it’s going to kill them. It can stack bleed so fast that opponents will die before the last bird hits if they don’t pull off a cleanse or dodge.

Let’s imagine a ranger, 2 points in expertise, 6 in wilderness survival, rabid gear, rune of the krait, and sigil of agony (+20% bleed duration to reach a 3 seconds bleeding with sharpened edges).
You have a 40% crit chance, 60% with fury.
The skill hits 16 times.
If it crits, it makes the foe bleeds for 3 seconds, for a 339 total damage, on a 66% chance to activate.

-> The skill will crit in average 9.6 times.
-> Sharpened edges will activate in average 6.4 times.
-> The total bleed damage for the skill will be 2169.6. Add more or less 800 damage for the physical damage of the skill, and it goes a bit under 3k, for a 25 seconds cooldown.

Honestly, it’s weak. And it seems even weaker when compared to other off-hand weapons. Dagger has an evade, poison, and cripple, all on a relatively short CD. Torch has a 40% burn uptime with only the 4th skill. Sure, it’s a dps increase compared to the auto-attack, but it’s not strong, and if a ranger is using warhorn, it’s probably for the 5th skill.

I would also want something else added to the skill. Cripple/blind/whatever defensive condition to make warhorn a bit more usuable.

If you take a sigil of earth and use it with sharpened edges when opponent is around 80-75% hp (to proc keen edges), its gonna stack 12-13 bleeds or so. Even if you are zerker, so many bleeds hurt:)

But yeah a 1 or 2-second pulse blind would be awesome

Add an evade and I’m in.

The ranger’s worst offhand skill by far.

Some people suggested blinds which I think is cool.

What I personally would do is:

- Make it hit 3 targets (240-300 radius around the primary target)
- Make it hit 4-5 times per target
- Apply blind on every 2nd hit
- Grant yourself 3 seconds of retaliation per enemy struck
- Reduce cast time to 1 second

I know its not the best suggestion, but its at least better than what we have now and the current version is just abysmal.

Pelopidas.2140:

Irina.7418:

Archon.6480:

OK, you promised to be friendly, so here goes! I personally use that skill to demolish opponents in PvP. If they make it stronger, it won’t be fair to other classes. It’s lethality comes in the form of high precision condition builds. It hits harder than rapid fire (Ok slight exaggeration—but you get the idea) and most peeps don’t know it’s going to kill them. It can stack bleed so fast that opponents will die before the last bird hits if they don’t pull off a cleanse or dodge.

Let’s imagine a ranger, 2 points in expertise, 6 in wilderness survival, rabid gear, rune of the krait, and sigil of agony (+20% bleed duration to reach a 3 seconds bleeding with sharpened edges).
You have a 40% crit chance, 60% with fury.
The skill hits 16 times.
If it crits, it makes the foe bleeds for 3 seconds, for a 339 total damage, on a 66% chance to activate.

-> The skill will crit in average 9.6 times.
-> Sharpened edges will activate in average 6.4 times.
-> The total bleed damage for the skill will be 2169.6. Add more or less 800 damage for the physical damage of the skill, and it goes a bit under 3k, for a 25 seconds cooldown.

Honestly, it’s weak. And it seems even weaker when compared to other off-hand weapons. Dagger has an evade, poison, and cripple, all on a relatively short CD. Torch has a 40% burn uptime with only the 4th skill. Sure, it’s a dps increase compared to the auto-attack, but it’s not strong, and if a ranger is using warhorn, it’s probably for the 5th skill.

I would also want something else added to the skill. Cripple/blind/whatever defensive condition to make warhorn a bit more usuable.

If you take a sigil of earth and use it with sharpened edges when opponent is around 80-75% hp (to proc keen edges), its gonna stack 12-13 bleeds or so. Even if you are zerker, so many bleeds hurt:)

But yeah a 1 or 2-second pulse blind would be awesome

Sigil of earth has a 2 sec cd. So i will proc on cd just by using autoatack. It´s not an argument for wh4.
The skills definitly needs a reword.
Lower cd/castime, more dmg and/or any conditions, boon remove whatever.

If they do this, i think they should lower wh5 cd aswell. Like warrior wh5, lower cd with lower boon duration is better. Because it´s a blast finisher.