Guild Wars 2

We are still locked into Wilderness survival for condition cleanses.
Can we get Empathic Bond swapped with Honed Axes which is in a traitline (BM) that has already another weapon trait?

And also Anet could change the ICD to cleanse 1 condition every 3 seconds for as long the pet stays alive so Ranger and by extension Druid can have some form of defence against the conditions bombs some builds can drop.

Yes the are other options that don’t work well like use Healing spring (long CD and static field) or Verdant Etching (delayed cleanse).

+99999999 for your post

I feel like those kind of condi bombs are something Druids are MEANT to be weak against tbh. Its part of what keeps druids from dominating team fights as condis are a reliable method of locking a druid down provided you spread the application out.

Also keep in mind what youd be losing in order to take the new empathic bond. The quickness on pet swap and the taunt are both major things in several builds. So builds that currently take both empathic bond and say quickness on pet swap would now have to give up whats ultimately a major aspect of there build.

Also doesn’t druid have some of the BEST anti condi methods in the entire class?

I gotta be honest, with druid out I don’t mind EB where it is. I think condi removal is in an outstanding place and we have quite a lot of options. Especially with the new shouts and soldier/trooper runes.

A lot has changed since the days of EB being our only condi cleanse on the entire class!

I think Empathic Bond should be removed entirely and a new trait of any kind should just take its place.

to be honest , i also think Eb is fine as is.

but Evasive Purity needs to remove some or 1 of the stronger Condis like Burn or Torment/confusion or even add bleeding to the current 3 (2 cripple+blind are control condis) it only gives 1 removal for a damaging condi Poison which is not often unless you fight a Necro, venom thief or ranger even then its a medium damage condi.

if it also removes burn or Bleeds also it would make a strong Source of condi clear which won’t get us killed so quickly as atm just using Evasive Purity alone isn’t enough you need Vigour to get Value.

since HS trait changed no longer giving AoE vigor because our pets now grant it(sucks mostly prefered HS vigour)

it just means you have to trait quite evasive in the first place to make Purity work without the evasive style its not worth even taking because we’d then have plenty of wilderness traits or EB , or even Druid now but have to use a Staff to regain condi removals.

evasive purity i think needs better Choices of condi removal just removing the damage condi poison isn’t enough and the blind part really only works if you Evade>attack with a sword + dagger.

The argument for keeping EB in the game is that it opens up condi removal for non-druid, non survival skill builds. I’m fine with that. Viable for competitive PvP? Not right now of course, but I’m sure it sees plenty of use in dueling builds or WvW roamers, etc. Places where you can be more creative.

Fluffball.8307:

I gotta be honest, with druid out I don’t mind EB where it is. I think condi removal is in an outstanding place and we have quite a lot of options. Especially with the new shouts and soldier/trooper runes.

A lot has changed since the days of EB being our only condi cleanse on the entire class!

Sure, but don’t you hate being segregated to a certain type of Rune?

I could be wrong but I always through runes and sigils are used to tune the class. Depending on the type of Druid you are running wouldn’t you like the option to run Runes of the Grove, Druid, Durability, or any other for that matter in sPvP or WvW?

It is a design flaw in my opinion when so many classes have condition damage. Why they couldn’t just let melee heavy classes do regular damage or bleeds and let casters do condition and be done with it. But no, now we have group stealth and condition bombs tied together with massive CC and crap on the ground that you have to avoid within 1 or 2 dodges…

No thanks. I’d prefer to tweak/tune with sigils and runes. Not forces to use only one or two. I know that isn’t what you meant but that is just how I sort of see it.

Crapgame.6519:

Sure, but don’t you hate being segregated to a certain type of Rune?

I could be wrong but I always through runes and sigils are used to tune the class. Depending on the type of Druid you are running wouldn’t you like the option to run Runes of the Grove, Druid, Durability, or any other for that matter in sPvP or WvW?

You do tweak with runes and sigils. With your druid example, you could run the typical glyph/clarity build and have excellent condi clear, or you could run a hybrid glyph/survival build, you could run a clarity/surival build, you could take shouts and trooper runes, you could take generosity and Lyssa runes, you could go full signet druid (??) and take EB…

Ranger, even before druid, had more condi clear than any other profession. The major complaint was that both of our grandmaster traits were in the same line. Now we have 2 trait lines with huge condi removal, plus quite a few skills, several runes, a couple sigils, and a pet. It’s not hard to find condi removal anymore.

Eurantien.4632:

I think Empathic Bond should be removed entirely and a new trait of any kind should just take its place.

This is my stance on the matter as well. We don’t need two condi management grandmasters in the same line, and Empathic Bond is too weak and too much of a handicap for our class mechanic to ever be taken over the other options.

Plus with druid we got a second line with decent condi management, and there’s still a bit more spread between Nature Magic and Skirmishing via Healing Spring.

I’d like to see something else take it’s place. Maybe a good defensive grandmaster trait.

Ehecatl.9172:

Eurantien.4632:

I think Empathic Bond should be removed entirely and a new trait of any kind should just take its place.

This is my stance on the matter as well. We don’t need two condi management grandmasters in the same line, and Empathic Bond is too weak and too much of a handicap for our class mechanic to ever be taken over the other options.

That’s nice mentality dudes, coz I have druid I don’t need conditions cleanses, frek rangers they don’t matter Aney can delete them from game /s

We don’t need two cleanses traits in the same trait line the same we don’t need two weapon traits in the same traitline. But still we need those 2 traits for the no druid builds and also we need a trait to improve the axe although honed axes is not a good example of it.

Rangers could use the extra cleanse every 3 secs, and it has to be a GM in competition with beastly warden and zephyr speed so you have to choose wich build you want.

For the people that want better traits for defense or offense there are plenty of trash/filler traits that could be scrapped.

Also I think runes of the soldier still don’t work with shout heal and elite.

Shadelang.3012:

I feel like those kind of condi bombs are something Druids are MEANT to be weak against tbh.

also and I don’t know why you people keep saying that trash again and again, the game is not supossed to have hard counter classes Anet stated at the beginning they were looking for a game were you could not predict the end of a match just seeing the classes.
You are supposed to have tools to build you toon to be able to counter any class just not all at the same time.

But condi bombs are a hard counter for the ranger and moving that trait to bm could aleviate a bit the pressure.

Condi bombs are a hard counter to everything. Ranger probably has it the best out of everyone if you want to really counter conditions, but nobody can clear the condi stacks there are out there now.

I think ranger and necro are the only professions that can clear every single condition in the game at the same time two different ways, though? That’s pretty powerful.

Engi and guard might be able too, I’m not super familiar with all the other professions’ utilities.

Edit: Actually with transfers, I think necros can do it at least 3 ways.

Fluffball.8307:

I think ranger and necro are the only professions that can clear every single condition in the game at the same time two different ways, though? That’s pretty powerful.

Engi and guard might be able too, I’m not super familiar with all the other professions’ utilities.

Edit: Actually with transfers, I think necros can do it at least 3 ways.

Eles have diamond skin plus the normal cleanses they can slot.
Thieves cleanse condition in stealth every second and also have the skills for cleanses.

Rangers do have the worst cleanses access in the all game and this was confirmed by irenio when they showed the druid.
That’s why there is the trait that cleanse condition with the glyphs.

And that’s cool but the Base ranger is still locked in wilderness survival for the cleanses and that really limits the variety of builds.

We are talking engi or ele can keep in you 5k tick fire even evading their attacks or mesmer can constantly keep stacks of confusion.

In the druids having a cleanse every 3 seconds could free them to experiment with the other two traits. Because celestial shadow is very promissing trait but because the lack off cleanses we are locked in the other two.

Base ranger could slot Healing Spring and run a shout build with Runes of the Soldier/Trooper too. Take Evasive Purity in Nature Magic if you want to have ready access to poison and cripple cleanses. Or take the signet which is basically a bursty version of Empathic Bond.

Also, ranger cleanses blow revenant cleanses out of the water.

Ehecatl.9172:

Base ranger could slot Healing Spring and run a shout build with Runes of the Soldier/Trooper too. Take Evasive Purity in Nature Magic if you want to have ready access to poison and cripple cleanses. Or take the signet which is basically a bursty version of Empathic Bond.

Also, ranger cleanses blow revenant cleanses out of the water.

Again being locked in wilderness or be forced to use a concrete set of runes is not añ answer.

Heal spring is an static aoe cleanse in 30 seconds cd. Good for the team not good for you.
The signet cleanse 1 condition every ten seconds. Active will mostly kill your pet and has a 60 seconds cooldown.

Not enough cleanses for any condition build that can keep constant burning or confusion on you.
So again the core ranger need more choices than been locked in one concrete set:

• shouts with trooper
• survival with ws.

Fluffball.8307:

I gotta be honest, with druid out I don’t mind EB where it is. I think condi removal is in an outstanding place and we have quite a lot of options. Especially with the new shouts and soldier/trooper runes.

A lot has changed since the days of EB being our only condi cleanse on the entire class!

Druid + WS is a great combo to tackle conditions with. If you tack on NM for Evasive Purity you’re incredibly resilient.

But core ranger is still neglected when it comes to condition removal. The best you can really do is run all survival skills and grab evasive purity. It isn’t nothing, but it certainly isn’t a lot, especially if you come face to face with a dedicated condition spec.

EB needs to go. Skills and traits that harm the pet are bad and I’d prefer it if we didn’t have any of them. And if it is to be replaced I would hope it’s replacement is slotted into a different traitline than WS.