Guild Wars 2

Take Root
Summon Druid Spirit
Hounds of Balthazar
Pain Inverter

I was curious if any one uses these any where and if they really help. I can see where each of these can have a great usage but I’m not sure if the numbers really pan out to make them work. If any one uses any of these on their ranger let me know how useful they were for you. thank you.

most racial skills are designed to be underpowered
– imo pain inverter is ok, gets better if your tanky and using a melee weapon
– never used hounds of balthzahar, but i heard it was actually really strong in the beta events, not sure where they stand now
– take root roots you in place, rangers dont like this
– never used druid spirit, heard it was underwhelming

on a side note i used radiation field for a while because it is easy access to a combo field, cooldown is just a little long.

I figured that is how it would be. My main idea was the hounds, having 3 doggies could be very useful. shame you can’t use in spvp to test out.

just to expand on Delevens comment…

Take Root Is a horrible skill for a character who relies heavily on dodges and constant movement. perhaps if your a longbow ranger letting your bear tank. but that’s about it. in any form of pvp environment you take damage for moving, it’s best for bunker plays for engineer’s, and guardians.

my main thoughts on the take root was that the invulnerable mixed with the turrets taking aggro would help pve and maybe dungeon. I just wasn’t sure it would work out that way in practice. I’m guessing not.

Take Root is AWESOME. You get three seconds of invincibility, plus you spawn four turrets that do a good amount of damage and apply bleeds. There is nothing bad about this ability.

Druid is indeed underwhelming.

Never used Hounds, but I know a lot of people enjoy it.

Pain Inverter is also amazing, especially against fast attacking enemies and stupid people.

[Edit: I take it back, there is one thing that’s bad about Take Root. In PvE it will pull EVERYTHING, even neutral mobs. Other than that…]

Hounds are indeed very useful. They’re a touch on the squishy side so don’t expect them to tank much. They do very nice damage, apply burns, and provide frequent leap finishers.

Hounds are useful when WvW roaming for capturing supply camps or sentries. They get some attention from NPC’s off of you for a while which is useful. Other than that, not much of a use in WvW. In PvE it can again be used when you are solo for taking some aggro off of you while you are fighting multiple targets.

I rarely use it in PvP though. Their damage isn’t that great against players and they tend to die fast. But they do cover you making you harder to target.

Edit: For the other racial skills can’t really comment. Only played as a human ranger.