Guild Wars 2

Expiatus.4210:

Ritualist Essence.9285:

Its a great buff to Power Rangers:
Rangers can now get 500 ferocity with any weapons or +680 with Axe equipped by using 2 traits + 1 passive signet. 1 trait gives 250 ferocity when you gain fury & fury now does 30%+ crit chance. Signet of the wild passive gives +180 ferocity & stack this with +250 ferocity from Axe offhand trait & its quite nice.
They can generate might just fine, new trait gives you might based on enemy health %, another trait now gives you might when ur pet does a crit hit. I tested it, in 2 seconds I had 9 stacks of might already from those two traits.

Just want to publicly thank you for pointing this out. I set up my ranger all zerk and the above and did Silverwastes just to try it out. It was fun commonly hitting with sword for up to 4K and Path of Scars for 5K. Long bow hit hard also but not as much was sword/axe due to traits.

It was fun though to just melt through stuff.

Ur welcome, Sword/Axe has been alot of fun since the patch, fun to be hitting like a truck with Ranger. I went with Zerker gear too, only my trinkets are ascended & will definately get a ascended zerker armor set for my Ranger soon.
For power ranger i’m currently using the core specs of beast/wild/marks, not sure which one i’ll swap for Soulbeast

Ritualist Essence.9285:

Expiatus.4210:

Ritualist Essence.9285:

Its a great buff to Power Rangers:
Rangers can now get 500 ferocity with any weapons or +680 with Axe equipped by using 2 traits + 1 passive signet. 1 trait gives 250 ferocity when you gain fury & fury now does 30%+ crit chance. Signet of the wild passive gives +180 ferocity & stack this with +250 ferocity from Axe offhand trait & its quite nice.
They can generate might just fine, new trait gives you might based on enemy health %, another trait now gives you might when ur pet does a crit hit. I tested it, in 2 seconds I had 9 stacks of might already from those two traits.

Just want to publicly thank you for pointing this out. I set up my ranger all zerk and the above and did Silverwastes just to try it out. It was fun commonly hitting with sword for up to 4K and Path of Scars for 5K. Long bow hit hard also but not as much was sword/axe due to traits.

It was fun though to just melt through stuff.

Ur welcome, Sword/Axe has been alot of fun since the patch, fun to be hitting like a truck with Ranger. I went with Zerker gear too, only my trinkets are ascended & will definately get a ascended zerker armor set for my Ranger soon.
For power ranger i’m currently using the core specs of beast/wild/marks, not sure which one i’ll swap for Soulbeast

These #’s higher than viper condi now?

Ritualist Essence.9285:

Its a great buff to Power Rangers:
Rangers can now get 500 ferocity with any weapons or +680 with Axe equipped by using 2 traits + 1 passive signet. 1 trait gives 250 ferocity when you gain fury & fury now does 30%+ crit chance. Signet of the wild passive gives +180 ferocity & stack this with +250 ferocity from Axe offhand trait & its quite nice.

It might open the door for some sort of hybrid viper equipment with some zerker mixed in, with ferocity from traits and signet build on soulbeast. Dunno enough about the spec to speculate, but that could potentially be the 5-way damage stats we’ve never seen before. I’m completely talking out of my kitten but it will be fun to look at.

Can’t quote the post atm but for full zerker, ficious quarry, spotter and truffle steak, I hit 90% crit chance, the flanking bonus from Hunter’s Tactics bumps it up to 100%. No need for assassin unless you don’t use the food or don’t trust the flanking bonus.

Will comment on the expertise trait when I’m home.

Fluffball.8307:

Ritualist Essence.9285:

Its a great buff to Power Rangers:
Rangers can now get 500 ferocity with any weapons or +680 with Axe equipped by using 2 traits + 1 passive signet. 1 trait gives 250 ferocity when you gain fury & fury now does 30%+ crit chance. Signet of the wild passive gives +180 ferocity & stack this with +250 ferocity from Axe offhand trait & its quite nice.

It might open the door for some sort of hybrid viper equipment with some zerker mixed in, with ferocity from traits and signet build on soulbeast. Dunno enough about the spec to speculate, but that could potentially be the 5-way damage stats we’ve never seen before. I’m completely talking out of my kitten but it will be fun to look at.

That will be interesting to see. I’ll have two more ascended armor sets to make then

I stated explicitly net total. You’re all wasting your own energy by defining the difference to yourself.

And it’s still factually the best opportunity cost cleanse prenerf for the Ranger. Just like I said, AS WELL AS one of the strongest burst cleanses.

But since people want to misrepresent arguments by comparing prepatch conditions to postpatch conditions and mistake their opinions for facts, it’s time for some math. So here, let’s create an analysis for pre and postpatch opportunity cost:

Some notes/explanations: base is the explanation of used utilities, conditions cleanses is the number of conditions cleanses in a 10 second period (we need to compare against best and worst case scenarios while retaining the concept that this is burst cleansing. Worst case scenario overlaps with post patch numbers, so prepatch will handle best case), number of utilities used is the number of utility slots used to achieve the total cleanses, traitlines is the number of actual trait families needs for the utilities to cleanse, traits are the number of actual traits selected for the case, runes is binary, will be a 1 if a runeset bonus is used to achieve condition cleansing.

We use condition cleanses as a positive number, and subtract the numbers to the right of it, before dividing by the number of elements to get the “score” of the case (cleanses – (utilities + traitlines + traits + runes) / 5), higher score = better opportunity cost. Better opportunity costs means more options to choose from which implies better resource management and more value per resource invested.

Sigils could been seen as constants, so we’re not going to include them because algebra (A < B and A + c < B + c where c is a constant is equivalent). Evasive Purity could be seen as a constant as well, but I’ll include it for the visual in a few cases and at a value of 2 cleanses.

The postpatch won’t contain any values that were included in the prepatch section and unchanged.

Why is this important? Choosing options with good cost values allow for more resources to be invested elsewhere in the build. Of course there is a positive correlation between the amount of investments being made towards doing a thing and how well that thing gets done, but every investment made is less resources you get to make elsewhere, so choosing the best opportunity costs leaves you with the most investment opportunity.

This is how you create versatile, multipurpose builds that are strong in multiple areas.

tl;dr Unsurprisingly, Signet of Renewal provides the best condition cleansing pre AND post patch for the opportunity cost. Druidic Clarity comes in second in most cases, also unsurprisingly, even tying Signet of Renewal in some extreme cases.

Maybe next time people should check their passionate arguments at the door and remember that their subjective opinions aren’t facts. Not liking something != it being bad.

Every time jcbroe posts, he says everything I feel except he’s coherent and makes sense. He’s like the ranger forum’s logic angel sitting on our shoulder.

anduriell.6280:

Only access to stability in one skill in the hole class.

Actually, we have two options, even though this one isn’t that great tbh:

Spirit of Nature + Nature’s Vengeance

Why do a lot of you keep staring at old passieve SoR instead of looking what kind of alternatives there are now? It’s like SoR was the only cleanse ranger had? While we had a ton of other cleanses and now we have even more. We have a 1000 options via other skills and traits to cleanse ourselves which are a million times better than old SoR, that 1 condi-clear every 10 secs. Really guys? Falling over that? I’m tempted to give 100 gold for the first person that can name 3 types of condi clears pre-patch we already had, and three new ones. Then we can all hold hands and sing a happy song!

Bast Bow.2958:

Why do a lot of you keep staring at old passieve SoR instead of looking what kind of alternatives there are now? It’s like SoR was the only cleanse ranger had? While we had a ton of other cleanses and now we have even more. We have a 1000 options via other skills and traits to cleanse ourselves which are a million times better than old SoR, that 1 condi-clear every 10 secs. Really guys? Falling over that? I’m tempted to give 100 gold for the first person that can name 3 types of condi clears pre-patch we already had, and three new ones. Then we can all hold hands and sing a happy song!

People have the bad habit to tunnel vision on one thing they consider a bad change and blow it way out of proportion, like the class is now destroyed because of it.

Bast Bow.2958:

Why do a lot of you keep staring at old passieve SoR instead of looking what kind of alternatives there are now?

Fair enough; nothing we can do now. But it’s customary for the forums to rage against perceived nerfs. And this IS a nerf in some ways, even if you prefer the new way.

Bast Bow.2958:

It’s like SoR was the only cleanse ranger had? While we had a ton of other cleanses and now we have even more. We have a 1000 options via other skills and traits to cleanse ourselves which are a million times better than old SoR, that 1 condi-clear every 10 secs. Really guys? Falling over that? I’m tempted to give 100 gold for the first person that can name 3 types of condi clears pre-patch we already had, and three new ones. Then we can all hold hands and sing a happy song!

SoR and EB changed (both for the worse IMO) and we didn’t gain anything. I relooked over the patch notes and didn’t see any new condi cleanses. Did we gain some I’m missing?

Edit: I am absolutely sure, I poured over the patch notes, we gained NO new condi removals. Your 100 gold offer is invalid.

took me a while to realize it and find the right builds, but Signets are very strong now. not only can u buff others, but we also easily gain +500 ferocity which is nuts. SoH is insanely strong. people will actually have to start using reflects now, or it’s pewpew-geddon.

Fluffball.8307:

Edit: I am absolutely sure, I poured over the patch notes, we gained NO new condi removals. Your 100 gold offer is invalid.

we gained two new instant condi wipes, with WK interacting with Zephyr’s Speed and Soften the Fall. if you trait WK, you can clear condis just by swapping pets, or casting any heal. SoR was also buffed with regards to condi removal. jcbroe did some math, read it.

mistsim.2748:

took me a while to realize it and find the right builds, but Signets are very strong now. not only can u buff others, but we also easily gain +500 ferocity which is nuts.

Yup, I know it’s a hard thread to follow cuz everyone is all over the place. Ritualist Essence.9285 actually posted that its 680 fecrocity with an axe.

Fluffball.8307:

It might open the door for some sort of hybrid viper equipment with some zerker mixed in, with ferocity from traits and signet build on soulbeast. Dunno enough about the spec to speculate, but that could potentially be the 5-way damage stats we’ve never seen before. I’m completely talking out of my kitten but it will be fun to look at.

sure for pve maybe. however, there arent any viable pvp power builds that involve axes. maybe with Soulbeast.

I kind of get the impression the soulbeast is a DPS spec, so it may be relevant. I’m just theorycrafting here, we’ll have to see what happens.

My gut feeling is you’ll want a viper-esque amulet for PvP with soulbeast.

Edit: I’m specifically thinking as should be obvious from the quote, my main mode of WvW roaming. But who knows. Could be all sorts of fun options.

i think Soulbeast is gonna be nuts with signets. imagine having Vicious Quarry, SoW, Brutish Seals, Remorseless (all triggered on Fury) —> pop SoH --> unblockable Remorseless Worldly Leap with +500 ferocity. wtf.

Thank you Mistsim, seems you pointed 3 out.

Sorry fluffball, I was trying to make a point about the immense whining of rangers about the old passive SoR, while we got so much in return. About the 3 new condi clears, it wasn’t meant literally.

So we lost a passive 1 condi clear every 10 seconds. I’m really in awe people were so fond about it. How much condi’s can you get on a player in a few seconds? You don’t even have to have a condi-build up, let’s say at least 3 conditions, with whatever profession. I can not imagine that 1 condi clear every 10 seconds was a life saver for all of you. If it was, then I’m really wondering what you were playing against lol.

And then still. Yes, we lost that 1 condi clear every 10 seconds.

About that 1 condi clear every 10 seconds…

We have

skills
Healing Spring (traited)
CA seed of life
CA glyph of alignment
bear stance
dolyak stance

traits
druid clarity
verdant etching
natural stride (somewhat)
evasive purity
wilderness knowledge
empathic bond
shared anguish (somewhat)

Brown Bear Which possibly will be interesting again with Soulbeast, along with other tanky pets?

Hope I got them all.

So. That 1 condi clear every 10 seconds… Really?

And about all the whining, what did we get in return?

SoR: A reduced recharge from the active by 10 seconds. Recovering health constantly (proc CA?). Resistance for 2 seconds >>when pet takes conditions from allies to themselves<<.

Read patch notes for everything else we got in return. Look at SotH, remember what it was? Look at all the traits.

Soulbeast we got in return! Which is awesome, try making some builds with the new traits, beastmode, and the the stances. The options, combo’s are endless.

buff to power ranger Power ranger was very low on damage. We all asked for a buff to power rangers, and we got it.

PoF!!! And already in september! And we can play it this weekend! Everyone thought it was going to be released in like october, november.

And still some of you guys focus on what we lost, while we got so much in return, wow, just wow, guild wars 2 life must be very hard for you, always looking at it that way. Of course it’s good to keep Anet sharp, pointing out things that really need to be adjusted or improved, but I feel this is getting ridiculous. Be happy just a little, you can do it!

Bast Bow.2958:

…And still some of you guys focus on what we lost, while we got so much in return, wow, just wow, guild wars 2 life must be very hard for you, always looking at it that way. Of course it’s good to keep Anet sharp, pointing out things that really need to be adjusted or improved, but I feel this is getting ridiculous. Be happy just a little, you can do it!

Most of the changes that have been made to Ranger in the last patch were being asked for by this forum for years, some for half a decade so there is no need to be “grateful” for them, they should have been implemented long ago.

What those focusing on what we lost are dumbfounded about is why. Why did we have to trade something we loved for something we should have had already?

Feels like we’re arguing over nothing at this point.

I think we got a lot this update. I’m very happy. My condi removal have never been better taking survival skills, etc

It is still true that we had a very convinient condi removal which could be put into any build which we no longer have. Our between that and what they’ve done to EB, our condi removal is less diverse than it’s been in a long while (even if IMO it’s better now).

If you’re referring to me; I did math for opportunity cost on both pre and post patch across our numerous condition cleanses. I get irritated when people who neither have the apparent skill level (easily discernable based on the opinions they cling to) nor the math to be able to prove their point get on here dismissing respectable people while “loudly” restating their wrong opinions over and over again like a broken record, which is why I even chimed in in the first place; I don’t like seeing you guys who are warmly acquainted with me being attacked and dismissed even though you’re right.

If I wanted to hear about what people “feel” about things I’d become a therapist, not get on the GW2 forums. Besides that, the title of this thread uses the word “think,” so that’s what I figured we were here to do.

Besides all that though.

Running those numbers, ignoring the obvious SoR result (when build crafting, starting with it as your cleanse leaves you the most options after making that selection to gear your build towards), it actually reaffirmed for me what a lot of people have never stopped saying; that Druid is a straight up add-on/upgrade to Ranger.

Looking at Soulbeast, mechanically that’s obviously true which is good because elite specs need to compete with each other, but now I’m incredibly worried about the rest of the traits.

As far as the patch goes, my initial impression was that I’d like to replace Beastmastery on the NM/BM/Druid PvP build but the HaO is so strong, especially against the current metagame, while TU really isn’t (if I wanted to go WS, but TU isn’t a strong enough up front heal with all the burst, and classes like thieves can just auto you through it and negate/beat it) and there is no traited Heal at all in Marksmanship, so where you’d want to use the new Lesser Call of the Wild to might share to the pet where you now can’t with BM, you lose a lot of Healing per Second by not having a traited heal.

MM/BM/Druid will probably be the way to go until expac in PvP, but even then it’s not something we can truly test the efficacy of until ANet bug fixes everything.

Which really is ultimately the annoying part of the patch, ANets spaghetti code being garbage and them clearly not testing or not caring about pushing all the broken things. As a programmer; if I pushed glaring user-end bugs out to my companies customers, my boss would kindly ask me to go back to school before I come back to work, or to just not come back at all.

I like your accounting of opportunity cost in terms of skills/traits/rune requirement, but you don’t seem to take account of the granularity of the cleanses (and therefore the potential cleanse waste). It’s obvious that in a 10s burst scenario full cleanses will be the obvious best performers, but that’s not the only scenario.

If you get 2 condis applied to you every 10s, that single full condi cleanse before a 50s cooldown is going to be less desirable than 4 separate dual condi cleanses.

In that context, the old SoR was very prone to wastefulness. You don’t control the single cleanse which might happen when not needed, and the full cleanse will rarely be used up to its theoretical maximum.

Not that it matters anyhow, it’s done already and we don’t have a say, but for the sake of comparing what’s left, I feel that granularity/potential waste should be accounted for.

I missed your former post with the numbers Jcbroe. I read it now. Since english isn’t my native language I’m having some trouble understanding everything you’re saying. I also don’t understand the index of your former post pointing out cleanses before patch and after patch, I don’t understand what you’re trying to say. Anyway, I did not mean to be disrespectful towards anyone, also the people which I should respect like you’re saying. And yes I’m mostly talking from a PvE-perspective, I usually tend to say that, I forgot now. There’s probably a lot of players I should respect which are far better than me, especially in PvP. Never meant to disrespect all of them mighty allknowing rangers.

Maybe best for me to lay low for a while on forums, seems I can’t handle all the saltiness while I see so many possiblities, I wasn’t specifically referring to you, I was referring to all the bitterness in this post while I see a ton of options. Off “feeling” all excited about what’s comming, bye! Good luck on “thinking”, sorry if I also misinterpreted the title o/

cafard.8953:

I like your accounting of opportunity cost in terms of skills/traits/rune requirement, but you don’t seem to take account of the granularity of the cleanses (and therefore the potential cleanse waste). It’s obvious that in a 10s burst scenario full cleanses will be the obvious best performers, but that’s not the only scenario.

If you get 2 condis applied to you every 10s, that single full condi cleanse before a 50s cooldown is going to be less desirable than 4 separate dual condi cleanses.

In that context, the old SoR was very prone to wastefulness. You don’t control the single cleanse which might happen when not needed, and the full cleanse will rarely be used up to its theoretical maximum.

Not that it matters anyhow, it’s done already and we don’t have a say, but for the sake of comparing what’s left, I feel that granularity/potential waste should be accounted for.

What you’d end up doing is taking the number of conditions cleanses divided by the cooldown. If you’re using more than one cleanse in the calculation you’d either want to use the longest cooldown as the time period to divide by while factoring in any condition cleanses that can be used more than once within that time period. Or you could find a common multiple of the cooldowns and divide by that.

Either way, that would be going full circle for me. I only calculated the burst because I was told (not that I agreed) that cleanses over time was the wrong way to calculate it since it isn’t a “realistic representation” and that SoR was “bad and useless.”

I wanted to prove that either way, that opinion of SoR is a misrepresentation. Which I believe I did.

Whether or not people are willing to accept facts or not is a different days dilemma though lol.

Bast Bow.2958:

I missed your former post with the numbers Jcbroe. I read it now. Since english isn’t my native language I’m having some trouble understanding everything you’re saying. I also don’t understand the index of your former post pointing out cleanses before patch and after patch, I don’t understand what you’re trying to say. Anyway, I did not mean to be disrespectful towards anyone, also the people which I should respect like you’re saying. And yes I’m mostly talking from a PvE-perspective, I usually tend to say that, I forgot now. There’s probably a lot of players I should respect which are far better than me, especially in PvP. Never meant to disrespect all of them mighty allknowing rangers.

Maybe best for me to lay low for a while on forums, seems I can’t handle all the saltiness while I see so many possiblities, I wasn’t specifically referring to you, I was referring to all the bitterness in this post while I see a ton of options. Off “feeling” all excited about what’s comming, bye! Good luck on “thinking”, sorry if I also misinterpreted the title o/

Sorry, my tone doesn’t get carried well on the forums and I wasn’t referring to you, I was referring to the person who got me started to begin with because they thought their words were stronger than my numbers.

Also, I know who you are

You and I just haven’t communicated enough to know the tone of my typing, which in this case was purely informative with no intended malice.

Also because you’ve been around on the forums for some time, you’ll recognize a lot of these names of common posters. I haven’t been very active recently because of content drought and irl, but most of these guys know me from my forum guides/information posts and my community conversation topics (for anyone who remembers how we started our own gigantic community conversation that was longer and more effective than the actual CDI, before the CDI was a thing).

If you DO feel like I attacked you though, then I didn’t convey myself well, and I apologize.

For the chart: the bigger number on the very right column, the better your condition cleansing is for the amount of things being put into it to make it work.
The less things you put into, the more room you have in the rest of your build for building towards other/more things.

Oh! Then there was a misunderstanding. Sorry too.

I still don’t fully comprehend the chart, even after your explanation. Hope it’s because of the language, not my intellect, lol.

Anyway I want to keep my enthusiasm towards what’s comming, so won’t be reading forums as much for a little while. We’ll see in a few months how it goes. Hopefully the cleansing will be ok with soulbeast and everything what’s comming our way.

anduriell.6280:

i read the notes (as im in eu and i can’t play yet) and they seem mostly a massive nerf to the ranger survivavility:

• nerf bark skin
• nerf SoR
• Instinctive Reaction
• Natural Healing
• Companion’s Might
• Predator’s Instinct
• empathic bond

with various buffs i see them really meh except the one for SoH.

Is that all?
do we have just WS trait and survival utility to cleanse conditions?

No spirits? not traps?

Breaking more builds than ever before.

The ‘new’ changes are hurting us, and I believe those who made all the changes know it.

I can’t believe the new ‘elite’ compared to others…

Guess we’d better hope for better pets.

Hidden Dragon.7523:

I believe the only change i like is the Signet of Renewal. Everything else seems irrelevant (that is if you like to play WvW/PvP).

Most annoyingly:
Been playing Main ranger since GW1. Now this is the first time i felt like i don’t play Ranger, but a Domestic pet owner with a bow.

You’ve got to be kidding me on the response time of pets now. Three pet mechanics that completely got destroyed by this patch.

Petswap = 3-4 seconds delay before the pet actually does anything. Which immediately nullifies any of the on-pet-swap bonuses. Rendering the pet completely useless.

F1 Skill = it takes another second delay for the pet to move

Ancestral Grace = SUPER DUPER BAD, how would it be that a pet magically dissapears and reappears from using the druid’s staff ability. Also: you can’t cast any of your pets special abilities while using Ancestral Grace. Furthermore -> it even interupts your pet’s autonomous special attacks which really screws up the game for rangers right now.

ArenaNet, you have dissapointed me deeply. I hope and expect to see this changed back ASAP.

Ancestral Grace deleting our pet and making all skills unavailable is unacceptable.

Druid Staff is hard enough to trait to get anything out of, what a horrid thing to do.

Overall I feel this is a Great patch, the Marksmanship trait line seems way better for my playstyle.

And I feel that people over-estimate the old SotW. I personally wasn’t using it. I was running Survival LB Power build with SoS, QZ/SoR and Lightning Reflexe. Strengh of the Pack still give 10 stack for 8 sec. which is more than enough for me.

And we get a 6sec. of unblockable attack, am I the only one who feel this is good ?

The 3Sec. stowed pet is kinda weird and really bad, I agree…

Fluffball.8307:

I kind of get the impression the soulbeast is a DPS spec, so it may be relevant. I’m just theorycrafting here, we’ll have to see what happens.

My gut feeling is you’ll want a viper-esque amulet for PvP with soulbeast.

Edit: I’m specifically thinking as should be obvious from the quote, my main mode of WvW roaming. But who knows. Could be all sorts of fun options.

Don’t forget about the Griever stats being added, they’ll likely be adding a Griever amulet as well with the patch. There certainly could be more combos being added as well.

This balance patch was very helpful for me, I think. I ran a LB + S/A build using MM/WS/BM with survival skills.

Since the patch, I switched BM for Skirmishing and the new Vicious Quarry GM, and I do a lot more damage while maintaining the same amount of survivability.

I really love traited HaO in combination with the improved Soften the Fall and Wilderness Knowledge. Can any other skill in the game bring this much?

- Heal
- Copy boons between ranger and pet
- Regeneration
- Swiftness
- Fury
- Clean two conditions
- Cripple
- Slow
- Immobilize

and if traited with Cultivated Synergy, another heal from both ranger and pet to allies.

Amazing with this combo, pure gold imho.

OGDeadHead.8326:

I really love traited HaO in combination with the improved Soften the Fall and Wilderness Knowledge. Can any other skill in the game bring this much?

- Heal
- Copy boons between ranger and pet
- Regeneration
- Swiftness
- Fury
- Clean two conditions
- Cripple
- Slow
- Immobilize

and if traited with Cultivated Synergy, another heal from both ranger and pet to allies.

Amazing with this combo, pure gold imho.

I agree, but i think that it should only trigger when in combat. I am already bored with this big brown muddy mark when i am only stacking swiftness out of combat.

cafard.8953:

I like your accounting of opportunity cost in terms of skills/traits/rune requirement, but you don’t seem to take account of the granularity of the cleanses (and therefore the potential cleanse waste).

Don’t try to to show him his obvious flaws, he doesn’t want to see them and only sees his perfect scenario where old SoR passive worked as a perfect cleanse every 10 seconds 100% of the time.

Fluffball.8307:

Bast Bow.2958:

It’s like SoR was the only cleanse ranger had? While we had a ton of other cleanses and now we have even more. We have a 1000 options via other skills and traits to cleanse ourselves which are a million times better than old SoR, that 1 condi-clear every 10 secs. Really guys? Falling over that? I’m tempted to give 100 gold for the first person that can name 3 types of condi clears pre-patch we already had, and three new ones. Then we can all hold hands and sing a happy song!

SoR and EB changed (both for the worse IMO) and we didn’t gain anything. I relooked over the patch notes and didn’t see any new condi cleanses. Did we gain some I’m missing?

Edit: I am absolutely sure, I poured over the patch notes, we gained NO new condi removals. Your 100 gold offer is invalid.

Again, going out of your way to purposely ignore the new sources of condi cleanse. As 500 people have already clearly pointed out in this thread. New zephyrs speed interaction with WS traits = 2 condi cleanses, new soften the fall interactions with any heal = 2 more new condi cleanses. TU now 4 potential condi cleanses. You’re willfully being obtuse at this point.

sevenDEADLY.5281:

Fluffball.8307:

Bast Bow.2958:

It’s like SoR was the only cleanse ranger had? While we had a ton of other cleanses and now we have even more. We have a 1000 options via other skills and traits to cleanse ourselves which are a million times better than old SoR, that 1 condi-clear every 10 secs. Really guys? Falling over that? I’m tempted to give 100 gold for the first person that can name 3 types of condi clears pre-patch we already had, and three new ones. Then we can all hold hands and sing a happy song!

SoR and EB changed (both for the worse IMO) and we didn’t gain anything. I relooked over the patch notes and didn’t see any new condi cleanses. Did we gain some I’m missing?

Edit: I am absolutely sure, I poured over the patch notes, we gained NO new condi removals. Your 100 gold offer is invalid.

Again, going out of your way to purposely ignore the new sources of condi cleanse. As 500 people have already clearly pointed out in this thread. New zephyrs speed interaction with WS traits = 2 condi cleanses, new soften the fall interactions with any heal = 2 more new condi cleanses. TU now 4 potential condi cleanses. You’re willfully being obtuse at this point.

Being a big fan of the WS line, I’m absolutely loving it right now. But let’s not get too carried away. That was the positive part of the update, now we have to wait for the nerfs before knowing what we’ve actually got left.

Between the WS buffs and the synergy between WS and pet swap the sustain is amazing. I’m loving it. Feels like I’ve gone back to my survival build from years ago, which was my favourite PvP build.

sevenDEADLY.5281:

cafard.8953:

I like your accounting of opportunity cost in terms of skills/traits/rune requirement, but you don’t seem to take account of the granularity of the cleanses (and therefore the potential cleanse waste).

Don’t try to to show him his obvious flaws, he doesn’t want to see them and only sees his perfect scenario where old SoR passive worked as a perfect cleanse every 10 seconds 100% of the time.

I did the calcs with the new SoR too, no passive removal.

2.4 opportunity cost to 0.8 on the WS + BM options you keep mentioning in their BEST CASE scenario.

You’re being willfully stupid at this point shrugs

I’ll take the infraction, but somebody clearly needs to let you know because you’re not self aware.

Edit:
You don’t even know what he’s saying, do you? All you did was scroll until you found something that responded to me that made you feel like your opinion was justified.

All he’s saying is that I didn’t factor something into the calculations, but that wouldn’t skew the results to suddenly make you right lol. Every option is affected by the potential for waste, and even though the opportunity cost ratios would all change, you’d see results that still makes you and your ongoing crusade wrong.

Stop being dismissive and looking for an echo chamber, you don’t understand what you’re doing. Don’t piggyback off of other people’s unbiased, constructive responses in an attempt to work in your opinion that still isn’t factually supported by anything.

Take the time to educate yourself instead of wasting the effort to justify your incorrectness.

I honestly dislike the bark skin change as itdiscourages marauder longbow play, and further promotes hybridtankyheal.

@cafard;

Delving more into what the chart doesn’t cover, it’s also occurring to me now that I’ve had my morning coffee that if we consider the potential waste of cleanses not used, we’d also want to consider the potential waste of cleanses on Survival skills too, as well as factoring in functional waste, like usage cases where you’d be using a survival skill or shout or etc purely for the cleanse, and losing out on the rest of the function of the the skill itself.

I don’t even know how I’d begin to start calculating all that (I mean I do, I’d have to collect every single variable I’d be looking to track and probably have to do multiple cross comparisons, but realistically I work and have life to live lol).

I know you know what you’re talking about, I’ve seen your posts before. Any more elegant, less time consuming ways to track all the moving pieces?

I have my assumptions on what the results would be but I still don’t believe them without numbers backing them lol.

nacario.9417:

I honestly dislike the bark skin change as itdiscourages marauder longbow play, and further promotes hybridtankyheal.

Could always take instinctive reaction and gain some healing power based on your power.

Durzlla.6295:

nacario.9417:

I honestly dislike the bark skin change as itdiscourages marauder longbow play, and further promotes hybridtankyheal.

Could always take instinctive reaction and gain some healing power based on your power.

Yeah, I reckon throw in the Grove Runes with IR and you end up with 320 healing power and good coverage of Protection to fuel Rugged Growth, which is a decent gain. Can still play Marauder for sure.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Durzlla.6295:

nacario.9417:

I honestly dislike the bark skin change as itdiscourages marauder longbow play, and further promotes hybridtankyheal.

Could always take instinctive reaction and gain some healing power based on your power.

Yeah, I reckon throw in the Grove Runes with IR and you end up with 320 healing power and good coverage of Protection to fuel Rugged Growth, which is a decent gain. Can still play Marauder for sure.

Not to mention with runes of the grove if you’re using a LB that 6 set is disgustingly broken.

Durzlla.6295:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Durzlla.6295:

nacario.9417:

I honestly dislike the bark skin change as itdiscourages marauder longbow play, and further promotes hybridtankyheal.

Could always take instinctive reaction and gain some healing power based on your power.

Yeah, I reckon throw in the Grove Runes with IR and you end up with 320 healing power and good coverage of Protection to fuel Rugged Growth, which is a decent gain. Can still play Marauder for sure.

Not to mention with runes of the grove if you’re using a LB that 6 set is disgustingly broken.

It’s triggered on the attacker when you yourself are struck by that attacker.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Durzlla.6295:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Durzlla.6295:

nacario.9417:

I honestly dislike the bark skin change as itdiscourages marauder longbow play, and further promotes hybridtankyheal.

Could always take instinctive reaction and gain some healing power based on your power.

Yeah, I reckon throw in the Grove Runes with IR and you end up with 320 healing power and good coverage of Protection to fuel Rugged Growth, which is a decent gain. Can still play Marauder for sure.

Not to mention with runes of the grove if you’re using a LB that 6 set is disgustingly broken.

It’s triggered on the attacker when you yourself are struck by that attacker.

Whelp, just slot on LR and roll to kill range then xD

@jcbroe

Haha, that’s very flattering but I’m no expert. I barely play sPvP and spend most of my time in WvW or kitten ing in PvE with celestial stats because until I get a legendary armour, I can’t be bothered to min-max (apart from the infamous Bear Charge build but sadly, it’s well and truly dead now). So my views tend to be biased towards convenience and flexibility more than optimal effect. That’s why I find it interesting when people into the numbers game go wild, it gives me a peek at the game from another angle.

Regarding the wasted cleanses on skill use, I thought of it while I was typing the previous post. But wasn’t too sure how to go about it, and in the end, I thought that in a way, your opportunity cost is touching that already. The more traits/skills/runes you need to get your clear, the more ‘stuff’ you waste from your build (both ways: you waste your shout main effect if you proc it for a cleanse, or lose a cleanse if you proc it for its main). It works for big cleanses too, as going to celestial form to cleanse comes at the cost of your weapon skills, etc.

In that regards, the old SoR is probably the most economical thing we had as it was pretty standalone (bar eventual might on signet use and the required pet swap in case of heavy condi cleanse). So using it doesn’t impair anything else from your build, which the low opportunity cost reflects.

I guess at the end of the day, your numbers will end up reflecting the obvious in that case. That depending on whether you’re facing a big burst or regular conditions, the one-stop-shop cleanse or the spread around approach will perform better, with the caveat that the one-stop-shop will often fit in more builds. The old SoR was pretty neat in that regards, working a bit as both for the price of a single utility. While it was a bit too purpose-specific to my taste, it came handy at times when skipping WS. I find the new regen a bit meh.

@cafard;
Yeah, the regen in this case seems so Druid specific in it’s usefulness that it seems like it’ll end up being wasted for the most part other than thinking of it as passive damage mitigation (depending on the do you’re receiving it will at times outperform the passive toughness from SoS, and will always outperform against conditions in that direct comparison.

Maybe it’ll have some interaction with Soulbeast we don’t see. Just like I’m really hoping Soulbeast also has some additional interaction with all of the fury sources we now have.

I still can’t get over how economical Druid ends up being for utility. Even after all the nerfs, it really is still a straight up upgrade to base Ranger in basically every regard (if only we could take 4 traitlines, we’d have perfect trait setups for everything xD).

Now I’m just sitting here going “we have such a good baseline of features for ranger for things to interact with, please let Soulbeast have good traits” lol.

Actually from your description, I think you and I look at things very similarly lol. In a sense, I’m really only arguing that besides trying to prove that a utility is only “bad” based on opinion and not effect, that “optimizing” for full cleansing and synergy should actually be considered unoptimal build crafting when also looking for a versatile range of functions within a build. You’d want to pick the smallest investments with the most strength towards a particular thing until you satisfy your output at that thing while also trying to incorporate synergy in those choices with any other outputs you’d want to focus on using in the build.

So in a sense I guess I am a min/maxer, in that I want to maximize the amount of resources I have at my disposal and minimize waste through over investment or lack from under investment lol xD

Durzlla.6295:

nacario.9417:

I honestly dislike the bark skin change as itdiscourages marauder longbow play, and further promotes hybridtankyheal.

Could always take instinctive reaction and gain some healing power based on your power.

yeah its a good point but then we are locked in nature magic, and wilderness surv was good for its added utlity for longrange annoyance with poison every 5 sec, survival reduced cd+condi removal and u could now even get muddy terrain on heal (which now has pulsing slow for 10 sec onpoint). While this change opened up, it also closed some doors, but thats evolution i guess.

nacario.9417:

Durzlla.6295:

nacario.9417:

I honestly dislike the bark skin change as itdiscourages marauder longbow play, and further promotes hybridtankyheal.

Could always take instinctive reaction and gain some healing power based on your power.

yeah its a good point but then we are locked in nature magic, and wilderness surv was good for its added utlity for longrange annoyance with poison every 5 sec, survival reduced cd+condi removal and u could now even get muddy terrain on heal (which now has pulsing slow for 10 sec onpoint). While this change opened up, it also closed some doors, but thats evolution i guess.

I mean I still can’t bring myself to drop NM or BM to pick up anything new for my Druid, even though WS looks so good now with the muddy terrain heal.

I really think base ranger is in a fantastic spot for build diversity now though, looks like you won’t even need Druid to bunker, or you can be more of a bruiser at the very least without saving the damage that taking Druid forces.

Durzlla.6295:

nacario.9417:

Durzlla.6295:

nacario.9417:

I honestly dislike the bark skin change as itdiscourages marauder longbow play, and further promotes hybridtankyheal.

Could always take instinctive reaction and gain some healing power based on your power.

yeah its a good point but then we are locked in nature magic, and wilderness surv was good for its added utlity for longrange annoyance with poison every 5 sec, survival reduced cd+condi removal and u could now even get muddy terrain on heal (which now has pulsing slow for 10 sec onpoint). While this change opened up, it also closed some doors, but thats evolution i guess.

I mean I still can’t bring myself to drop NM or BM to pick up anything new for my Druid, even though WS looks so good now with the muddy terrain heal.

Feeling the same, really. I tried some of the new pew pew things in WvW now that they patched most of the bugs, but watching my pet aimlessly run in circles while not being able to hit most moving things is a bit depressing. I played with that traitline for so long I cannot understand how people can play without it, do you guys just ignore your pet completely and hope for the best?

FrouFrou.4958:

Feeling the same, really. I tried some of the new pew pew things in WvW now that they patched most of the bugs, but watching my pet aimlessly run in circles while not being able to hit most moving things is a bit depressing. I played with that traitline for so long I cannot understand how people can play without it, do you guys just ignore your pet completely and hope for the best?

In order to improve build diversity even further, two things is needed imho:

- Fortifying bond baseline
- Pet movement speed increase baseline

Also, for self sustain, you can’t really go wrong with BM/NM/WS, the buffs to WS alone makes it very possible to drop Druid.