Guild Wars 2

According to the “leaked” Ranger changes on reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1gr1nh/skill_traits_patch_notesleakedunconfirmed/

Companion’s Might – Critical hits grant might to your pets. (1 second duration)

“Leaked” change:

Companion’s Might: This trait now grants 5 seconds of might to your pet, up from 1 second.

Use with:

Concentration Training : Boons applied by your pets last longer. (50%)

This means with skills like Splitblade on the axe MH, we are bursting more than 5 stacks of might on a pet for quite a decent duration!

With axe OH, over the course of 5 seconds, you apply 12 stacks of might to your pet (+ vulnerability.) Provided you can correctly pull foes in a dungeon using the new Path of Scars change, then hitting merely 2 foes will give your pet 24 might! O_O

The “leaked” changes seem very bad at first sight, but I can see them being amazing in the longrun!

Thank you for sharing

Seems good , but how long does your pet stay alive for in dungeons regarding AoE / Targetted Dmg? I’m genuinely asking as I don’t PvE at all and I’ve always been told AoE’s are quite common in dungeons which completely destroys your pet.

I still can’t see Rangers becoming a “speedclear” class, but this does make them more viable as a whole.

Path of Scars is going to get rangers kicked out of groups. It’s a terrible pull skill. The only pulls people want are ones which are good for grouping up mobs. The guardian greatsword skill will gather mobs around him (in different directions) and pull them to him. This allows the party to hit them all with AoE and cleaves. The mesmer focus pull will pull enemies in range towards the location it is cast. This makes it easy to pull mobs into a wall and group them up so AoEs and cleaves will hit them. Path of Scars is a great DPS skill and now it has a use which will pull mobs away from a desired location (but not all mobs, just mobs in a line from the ranger) and to the ranger. Path of Scars is going to kitten off a lot of pugs who hate random pulls and a lot of rangers who want to avoid random pulls but want to make use of a great DPS skill.

I also find it highly unlikely that Companion’s Might won’t have an internal cooldown that will make it trivial (or will have one added shortly after the patch goes live), then again warriors don’t seem to have to deal with that garbage with their traits so rangers might catch a break there. Good luck keeping your pet alive to make use of those might “stacks”.

Ryan.8367:

Seems good , but how long does your pet stay alive for in dungeons regarding AoE / Targetted Dmg? I’m genuinely asking as I don’t PvE at all and I’ve always been told AoE’s are quite common in dungeons which completely destroys your pet.

Nope, not the case when you run bark skin + natural healing or bark skin + signet of the wild + BM points (at least 15). I like to run rampager armor with berserker trinkets when I run that build because you naturally get condition damage with the WS traitline and you can blast bonfire and flame trap for might.

Another option is to drop BM points entirely and run signet of the wild + ‘Guard’. Troll unguent and heal as one become more attractive the less points you put in BM. But with 30 in BM, you should be using healing spring. Healing spring is often better just hecause it’s a water field, even with 0 in BM. But sometimes you don’t know if you’ll be able to blast it easily (Lupicus, for example), so burst heals and big heals begin to look better. Every encounter is at your grasp with the right setup.

Also, when traited for shout reduction, guard is basically permanent stealth. You know how everyone cries and moans about ranger pets in the Jade Maw encounter? First of all, you’ll be glad you have them eating some lasers if crystals are scarce, but if you don’t want it eating lasers, use the jaguar and Guard (time the skills right—pet utility and shout—and pet is permanently stealthed and out of the way).

Believe me, it works. Try my flame and frost build with drakes. It’s pretty good. A good variation is using peircing arrows and replacing frost trap with signet of the wild. I think someone suggested that in that particular thread. And it works really well!

Shiren, Don’t be such a pessimist,
If you found yourself in a group utilizing that strategy, you’d simply mind your own position relative to the mobs. Who knows, you might even be able to corral some strays by positioning yourself next to the mobs and aiming for the straggler on the other side of them.

Chopps, Don’t be such an optimist,
There’s an awful lot of opportunity cost making investments to pet survivability that could be spent on greater damage. You have to ask at what point does something like that become self-defeating. Especially now that the reward for doing so is…notably less.

Lol i like the way you phrased that

I see what you’re saying. But realize you have a drake that blasts fire, water, and ice (if you want). You have good AoE and aura/might stacking abilities with sword/torch. I don’t think there’s many drawbacks because losing a cat is worse than playing a drake. Is that a problem? Maybe. Maybe the death penalty cooldown after swapping a dead pet should be removed for pets in dungeons? I don’t make the decisions here.

Heck, I run a cat versus crusher and do fine (bring lots of condi removal and call the cat back to you as you move behind the boss). I can solo crusher/hunter using a drake. It’s situational. But you’re right: without some things focused on pet survivability, you will find yourself hamstrung. This is the reason you see full berserker rangers running a bear (4800 vitality or so, right? Bears are insane uptime!) with master’s bond in dungeons. People have thought out different solutions to this problem but going full glass cannon with cats/birds is not one. At worst one might say it’s slightly less effective than more popular builds but I’ve solo’d sections in Arah with it before (no, I haven’t solo’d Lupi, but it’s not like it hasn’t been done before). And it’s full rampager with zerk trinkets. I run Bark skin and a signet, so what? That signet is bursty and has a shortened cooldown.

TL;DR
I’m not limiting my chance for more damage because—and you can test this yourself—the more you push it to the edge and run less defense, the more you risk hampering yourself for up to 1 minute due to death penalties. And they will come, as we all know, when you run glass. (bear is the ultimate defense with insane vitaltiy, or else some combination of bark skin / natural healing / “Guard” / SotW from which you can run drakes, dogs, or devourers and suffer few pet deaths).

Ryan.8367:

Seems good , but how long does your pet stay alive for in dungeons regarding AoE / Targetted Dmg? I’m genuinely asking as I don’t PvE at all and I’ve always been told AoE’s are quite common in dungeons which completely destroys your pet.

I don’t have a problem with AOE in dungeons, melee attacks are the bigger problem since they are hard to see coming most of the times and they can nuke your pets.

if those notes are correct, it shouldn’t be too hard to keep your pet up with guard + the new NM trait and basic situational awareness. I really hope these aren’t fake, so many things to try :P

It could be fantastic however are you sure the might from companion’s might is considered a boon applied BY the pet cause it takes your crits for might to be applied not the pet’s crits.

It would be amazing if the might stacks were applied to both Ranger and Pet. If Ranger + Pet DPS is supposed to be comparable to other classes’ DPS, how is stacking Might on one part of the DPS a good thing? It’s still worse than any other class stacking Might since that directly effects their entire damage output instead of only 10-30% of it, depending on the Pet.

But that’s a problem with Ranger being designed to not work together with the Pet and not the Trait I guess.

Companion Mights only looks amazing as it was subpar for its placement as a master trait, however Necromancer’s Signet traits (cool down reduction and might gain on us) are being merged. So it is just another of those "why wasn’t (insert ranger skill/trait/etc) like (insert otherwise similiar skill/trait/etc on another profession) from the start.

Need further proof how long did it take them to add a stun breaker to Quickening Zephyr to match the other quickness based non-elites and once again a balance is being passed along as a buff.

I’m happy with that minor buff on some skills, but really… they nerfing the stupid AI pets even more?!
I’ve said so… use pets for special abilities (buffs, conditions, etc), not for damage (if not traited)

Kain Francois.4328:

According to the “leaked” Ranger changes on reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1gr1nh/skill_traits_patch_notesleakedunconfirmed/

Companion’s Might – Critical hits grant might to your pets. (1 second duration)

“Leaked” change:

Companion’s Might: This trait now grants 5 seconds of might to your pet, up from 1 second.

Use with:

Concentration Training : Boons applied by your pets last longer. (50%)

This means with skills like Splitblade on the axe MH, we are bursting more than 5 stacks of might on a pet for quite a decent duration!

With axe OH, over the course of 5 seconds, you apply 12 stacks of might to your pet (+ vulnerability.) Provided you can correctly pull foes in a dungeon using the new Path of Scars change, then hitting merely 2 foes will give your pet 24 might! O_O

The “leaked” changes seem very bad at first sight, but I can see them being amazing in the longrun!

Unless i’m missing something…

Companion’s Might = YOU applying Might to your PET.

Concentration Training will not apply. Sorry dude.

As was pointed out, companion’s might only triggers from the ranger’s crit, not from the pet. The might also only applies to the pet, not the ranger.

Compassion training only improves the buffs applied by pets.

What we don’t know, however, is if the ranger’s boon duration affects the 5s might on pets.

You could go with a rampager spirit build…

0/20/20/30/0

stat for roughly 50-60% crit, 2.5-3k attack, 500-1k cond dmg.

Use axe/dagger/torch + Burning, Swiftness and Protection Spirit and RaO

Get might duration rune set and boom, 50% might duration.

Use your traits and spirits to buff your pet instead of BM points. Look at the synergy; 5% more dmg with boon and any boon you get is shared with your pet. So RaO will cause your pet to get a stack of might when you attack AND when it attacks…

You and your pet will have protection, swiftness and be doing constant burn damage, heavy bleeds and your pet will have tons of might. Very good aoe potential as well.

Only problem is its a spirit build. But my friend proved spirits are usable in wvw for roaming and for wall defense (not offense tho unless you’re on siege.).

Annnd just tested it and yeah, with that build and RaO alone, your pet will spike 25 stacks of might right away.

wow so u think the patch is amazing because you can use dat long cd elite to make up for pet dps nerf or give longer might to ~half your dmg potential… HAHAHAHA

or play another class and you can give might to the whole party instead????

qewqew.6591:

wow so u think the patch is amazing because you can use dat long cd elite to make up for pet dps nerf or give longer might to ~half your dmg potential… HAHAHAHA

Thank you for missing the point completely. Unless you play ranger, you shouldn’t try to correct others.

You also give a stack of might to your pet every cycle of the 1h Sword auto so that will speed it up even more.

what is your point? now you can give longer might to pet which is only x% of your dmg meanwhile others can stack might to benefit 100% of their dmg and other classes can even give might to WHOLE party for a long time now. i think you are missing the point. on top of this many pet dmg will be nerfed to begin with and you call these changes amazing?!?!?!?!?

howbout dont delude anet even more into thinking they doing great on ranger balancing? we need every thread to show ranger is in a bad place to get through to anet.

SirJack.4760:

It would be amazing if the might stacks were applied to both Ranger and Pet. If Ranger + Pet DPS is supposed to be comparable to other classes’ DPS, how is stacking Might on one part of the DPS a good thing? It’s still worse than any other class stacking Might since that directly effects their entire damage output instead of only 10-30% of it, depending on the Pet.

But that’s a problem with Ranger being designed to not work together with the Pet and not the Trait I guess.

Fortifying Bond: “Any boon you get is shared with your pet.”

The 15 pt trait in Nature would be nice if it worked both ways.

What all about pets die fast in dungeons. My pet (Jaguar) usually doesn’t die, and if low, just swap it.

I’m a bit amazed by people stating that these patch notes are good. They selectively choose the “OK” bits, but ignore the “we-will-nerf-the-already-subpar-ranger-DPS-to-the-ground” bits, which incidentally will render our “class mechanic” – pets – into a joke. Again.

We have one decent build, in which wonky unreliable pets feature as the shining star to partially make up for our subpar overall damage. Now, after this patch, we have 10 builds which all give less survivability and provide less DPS output overall.

This patch will be another nail into the coffin that is our class. Rangers in PvE? Don’t expect an invitation from the majority of players for dungeon groups. Dungeon mobs have a metroton of health, who cares about swiftness or regenaration; damage output is your no. 1 priority, it always has been in PvE. Do I agree with that attitude? Not in the least, I loathe it, for many different reasons. But I do understand that it follows as a result of sheer logic; why should other players have sympathy for a situation they didn’t create, and form a less effective group (including a ranger) as a result? If these notes are implemented “as is”, I won’t oppose the ranger-bashing any longer.

But hey, look at it from the bright side; leather squares will become even more worthless on the TP! (while the price of ore will go through the roof)

Hey Proto, you must use a ranged pet (that resists the urge to faceroll) because, for example, Alpha in COE p2/3 will totally own a melee pet within 10 secs. Good luck swapping out fast enough to keep that pet alive.

And I completely agree with Buttercup and qew

This will stack really nicely with the new Beastmasters might trait which will give 3 stacks of might for 15 seconds to you AND YOUR PET. And if you have Natures bounty it will give your pet 6 stack of might per signet use.

I get the feeling what Anet have done is try and nerf the bunker builds pet damage but provide DPS builds a way to boost pet damage through might stacks.

I was actually hoping that they would significantly improve things for the Nature Magic trait line, in order to help compensate for the changes that are affecting the current BM build. At least it seems that the changes are not to destroy, but to modify the current use of the ranger. Count me intrigued to see how this will really play out.