Guild Wars 2

So,

• SoR lost it’s passive condi clear, one of our best sources.
• SotH got turned in to a crappy version of Warrior’s Signet of Might, but with a longer CD.
• SotW no longer grants stability, half our sources of it and no longer has the additional speed or damage on active. Immob on active is utterly useless considering how many sources of immob we already have. Passive regen for AF generation gone for ferocity…
• Brutish seals granting fury gives it synergy with Remorseless, but who really needs more Fury applications for allies? Nobody.

Overall, pretty terrible changes, imo.

For reals, who even thinks up these changes and how did it get signed off on, what was the justification or reasoning?

I like the SoR changes. Not so sure about the others. SotW passive is great but active is pretty meh. SoH I just don’t like. You can already get unblockable on Pet Swap with Clarion Bond, which is but better and less costly.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

So,

• SoR lost it’s passive condi clear, one of our best sources.
  “The active effect now grants resistance to your pet for 2 seconds when they take conditions from nearby allies to themselves” in conjunction with PoF Bear stance, I can see good options. Also, we have a ton of other condi clear options.
• SotH got turned in to a crappy version of Warrior’s Signet of Might, but with a longer CD.
  So you liked the old SotH better? Did you ever use that? I think it’s way better than what it was.
• SotW no longer grants stability, half our sources of it and no longer has the additional speed or damage on active. Immob on active is utterly useless considering how many sources of immob we already have. Passive regen for AF generation gone for ferocity…
  SoR has passive regen now. Check the new traits for new resistance or stability sources.
• Brutish seals granting fury gives it synergy with Remorseless, but who really needs more Fury applications for allies? Nobody.
  From a PvE end game perspective, rangers are less bound to tiger this way, which is nice for Soulbeast’s beastmode.

Overall, pretty terrible changes, imo.
I think otherwise

I really like what they did with SoR and SotW. However, I already have Soulbeast in mind where Bear Stance and Dolyak Stance will cover condition removal and stability.
For a core Ranger, yes some of the changes may suck.

I don’t like the active portion of SotW, but everything else about these changes are perfectly fine. Better than the pre-patch for the most part. Fury – and therefor Remorseless syngergy – is finally back too. It would have been decent if the fury just applied to us, are you really gonna make a point out of the fact that it applies to nearby allies too? As if that’s something bad? It clears up space for something else than clarion bond, for.. I don’t know.. the reworked SoS trait in the tier before it.

What I don’t get the most is why when you look at a majority of the other class changes, instead of simply changing the skills, they added to them, seems we can’t get one thing without something also being taken away. I literally read all the other changes and reading the Ranger changes has me scratching my head. We got a lot of nice things, but I just can’t see why some of these changes were made, they could have left the Might on Brutish Seals, they could have left the CD on SotH at 30s, it’s no better than Signet of Might at 30s.

Earix.5684:

I really like what they did with SoR and SotW. However, I already have Soulbeast in mind where Bear Stance and Dolyak Stance will cover condition removal and stability.
For a core Ranger, yes some of the changes may suck.

I think they suck most for Druid, for core these are phenomenal changes imo.
MM/WS/NM with signet of the hunt and Dura Rune gives insane Durability on top of great condi cleanse, Movement speed, an automatic SoS procc and unblockable dmg for yourself and pet.

Lazze.9870:

I don’t like the active portion of SotW, but everything else about these changes are perfectly fine. Better than the pre-patch for the most part. Fury – and therefor Remorseless syngergy – is finally back too. It would have been decent if the fury just applied to us, are you really gonna make a point out of the fact that it applies to nearby allies too? As if that’s something bad? It clears up space for something else than clarion bond, for.. I don’t know.. the reworked SoS trait in the tier before it.

It being Fury for allies is pretty bad, since we already have umpteen ways of applying fury and maintaining it perma on allies, as well as they also added 50% uptime of fury on pet swap with Vigorous Training. Stability would have been fantastic and make up for the removal of it from SotW, more fury is meh. Already enough of it for Remorseless builds, which I use more than anything else.

Cufufalating.8479:

You can already get unblockable on Pet Swap with Clarion Bond, which is but better and less costly.

Call of the Wild: Your pet becomes unblockable for a period of time.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

It being Fury for allies is pretty bad, since we already have umpteen ways of applying fury and maintaining it perma on allies, as well as they also added 50% uptime of fury on pet swap with Vigorous Training. Stability would have been fantastic and make up for the removal of it from SotW, more fury is meh. Already enough of it for Remorseless builds, which I use more than anything else.

No, it’s not bad, it makes up space for other things. I’m not gonna complain about it when they easily could have just given us fury for ourself and not our allies too, knowing Anet.

The Vigerous Training change is irrelevant to what I was saying. I personaly prefer the removal of condtions while dodging anyways. And yes, I’m saying irrelevant because while you might think I should look at the entire class, you might just aswell turn it around and say you might not even run Nature Magic in the first place. SotP lost its remorseless use (somewhat), Clarion Bond wont be taken if you’re running signets. Signet trait with fury is perfectly fine.

Stability on Vigerous Training? Sure, wouldn’t mind. Not relevant to my point though.

Lazze.9870:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

It being Fury for allies is pretty bad, since we already have umpteen ways of applying fury and maintaining it perma on allies, as well as they also added 50% uptime of fury on pet swap with Vigorous Training. Stability would have been fantastic and make up for the removal of it from SotW, more fury is meh. Already enough of it for Remorseless builds, which I use more than anything else.

No, it’s not bad, it makes up space for other things. I’m not gonna complain about it when they easily could have just given us fury for ourself and not our allies too, knowing Anet.

The Vigerous Training change is irrelevant to what I was saying. I personaly prefer the removal of condtions while dodging anyways. And yes, I’m saying irrelevant because while you might think I should look at the entire class, you might just aswell turn it around and say you might not even run Nature Magic in the first place. SotP lost its remorseless use (somewhat), Clarion Bond wont be taken if you’re running signets. Signet trait with fury is perfectly fine.

Stability on Vigerous Training? Sure, wouldn’t mind. Not relevant to my point though.

When it could have easily been anything else that we cannot already provide for allies, it would be good. We already have several ways to grant long durations of Fury to allies and I don’t think we need two more short durations.

I’m not even sure what you are saying, because Vigorous Training is relevant, since it is also another way to apply fury to allies, the 6th way we now have. And yes, look at the whole class, what boons do we offer allies? Fury, Regen and Swiftness mostly. The same that tons of other classes bring themselves or as a share. I want Ranger to offer more than just Fury.

And perfectly fine? They could just have easily added the fury without removing the Might, then it would be “perfect”. So many other class traits just had functionality added to them, without removing the old effect. More allied fury at the expense of the long duration Might is just pointless.

And no, I was talking about Brutish Seals getting Stability on Signet use, not Vigorous Training.

Definitely like the changes. I mostly used Renewal and Stone, and the new regen of Renewal builds celestial force for better synergy with druid. Also, CD reduction is definitely welcome. Stone was unchanged. Signet of the Wild never really sat right with me before, hard to explain. I know some people liked this skill though. But the passive Ferocity could make a big difference, may be worth it now.

SoR I like, Sig of Hunt is great, the active is actually something I would WANT to take, and because it’s not on pet swap it means I can load up my pet with might and have them in position etc to lay down the hurt, and since I’m unblockable too I can root the enemy/hold them down for my pet to rip their face off.

Sig of the Wild has a great passive now, the active is… well, it’s not AWFUL, it’s a 4s Root, but we could just use muddy terrain for that, or entangle, or drake hound, or like 4 other sources on ranger for that… however the animation on the new active is fantastic, looks great, 10/10 on appearance, if only it were for a different skill.

And then signet of stone is as amazing as usual, nothing to see there.

Losing Stability for some brief limited immunity to damage is not a good tradeoff.

It’s not immunity to damage, it’s immobilize which is horrid. In open world it’s a total cheese: immobilize and go to sleep, nothing will survive it; in instanced content it’s pointless and in pvp it’s horrendous, immobilize and it gets instantly cleansed/cleaved away. Losing stability, a 25% damage increase and the avatar power generation from passive heal for ferocity (worse possible stat) and an immobilize (worse possible cc) feelsbadman. Not to mention that avatar power generation goes to the most popular choice for druids because they desperately needed it after shout regen nerf, maybe? Two wrongs don’t make a right. Guessing they didn’t want Soulbeast to have stability outside of Soulbeast. Other changes are actually good in one way or another, although the 4s immobilize on the 25% movement speed increase might have made more sense.

SotW should have been an elite as it was. Make Strength of the Pack! … might and fury, who needs more of that? … into what SotW used to be and while we’re at it let’s rework entangling roots down to 3s but with an unblockable/undodgeable/unbarriable 1.5s if the first is somehow removed. Entangling roots trait in Druid down to 15s CD without the 1.5s extra one and call it Lesser.

It’s kind of funny since the active for SotW is what some were asking for as a replacement for Vine Surge (staff 4).

I agree to an extent about some of the reworked signets. SoH is great and SoR seems all right for the most part. Signet of the Wild’s active doesn’t make sense as it’s passive is an offensive boost for you and the pet while the active is like an Entangle trap.

I wish they shifted the SotP effect of you and your pet grant each other might as the active to keep the new SotW offensively themed while retaining the new 40s cd.

Then the old SotW active as the new SotP effects with the 60s cooldown. Would get around having the initial boons being corrupted or ripped and making it a long cd might stacker. Losing swiftness and fury, retain the stability and have unique movement and damage buffs that can’t be removed. Plus, this update gave us a lot more fury sources.

Maybe make the immobilizing garden as the new animation for Seed of Life, and have the immobilization be a bonus when traited with Verdant Etchings so SoL snares and blinds foes when it ends. Spit-ballin’ on this one. The animation is really pleasant.