Guild Wars 2

Probably start with something like this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNAV4fnE8Cd8ilsAusActgFDBLv6udHvNbgTQLgJAM6KdpkqNwsK-jFSFABspbgm9Hc4CAUlyvEOIA9pEEgnAQ/q/QGA/xA-w

I’ve always prefered trying to hybrid, and I fell in love with merging with Devourer’s when using a Shortbow. Having a knockback and another evade just makes the whole thing great fun.

I didn’t try using bonfire with Prelude Lash during the beta but I wish I had – sounds fun.

I fail to see the problem.

> You run a condi build
> He ran a cleanse heavy build
> You lost
> You switched to power build
> You won.

I mean.. It sounds like he was built to do 2 things well (hit hard and clease conditions) but was weak to direct damage. I’d say that’s good balancing right there.

A very neat idea actually. I’m sure there is some way it could be abused but I can’t think of it, but I like the idea!

I like them but I agree there should be one which can fit neatly into any build. They are all fairly niche.

My main issue is with the GM traits. The first one is just plain bad, and boring. The second one is only useful if you’re using several stances and are in a group, and so I end up taking the 3rd one which is alright (but certainly not great) and extremely boring.

I need a Stout devourer in my life. Please!

@borya

It’s just bad design and harms gameplay to make people press 3 buttons when it should just be 1.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t have the option of doing it by dropping BM, pet swapping, and then re-entering BM. You absolutely should be able to do that so you can proc pet-swap and enter BM traits. But not every build takes those, and they shouldn’t be forced through the motions.

As I keep saying.. Dropping out of BM can still, and maybe should, be the ideal rotation, but it should be done because it’s ideal and not because the mechanics force us to do it.

Sounds like a good time to make traps viable!

Agreed. It just feels clunky as Einlanzer said. I get that you’re supposed to going in and out of BM and that’s all great, but you shouldn’t HAVE to do it when what you actually want is your other SB skills.

If they want us to use pet on and off they need to make it worth doing (which is actually is IMO) rather than just forcing us to do it.

Like most others here I haven’t really been wow-ed by SB yet. I’m in WvW more or less just playing it like I was doing ranger before. A few things are nice – I like SotP granting us might, I like +7% damage from Fury. I am one of the crowd who never really liked pets so I enjoy not having one, though I’m not yet convienced it’s worth losing them (other than WvW zerging which I imagine it quite fun on SB, that’s next on my to-do list).

I still feel I need to take Skirm + WK which limits what else I can do.

One thing I love though in the Lashtail Devourer.. There’s something deeply enjoyable about using it with Shortbow and LR. Kite for dys with a knockback and and evade backwards and it is a lot of fun

Does make sense though I’d rather they didn’t haha. SoH is so nice for out of combat speed on LB build :O

Definately needed. When they reshuffled the traits and prevented trap builds taking Sharpened Edges it was already a real knock, and now it’s been nerfed I’d love to see this change.

This might be wishful thinking but I’m hoping the addition of Soulbeast might let traps see some more play. They aren’t terrible for condition builds (though still need much more to work on power builds) but the problem they’ve always had is they take up your utility slots which kills your survivabilty with the lack of stunbreaks, signets, etc.

Maybe we’ll be able to get some of that survivabilty from BM skills.

Spirits need a total rework, there’s just nothing interesting or good about them IMO, though I don’t know how I’d do them.

Increased range (back up where it used to be when traited) on the #4 would be nice.

The #5 needs a reduced cast time, increased travel speed and then either a small extra functionality or a seriously reduced CD.

I want to second that. I’ve moved away from LB build (which is what I’m assuming you’re refering to) back to my favoured SB, and I just love it.

I’m playing with MS, SK and WS and you can just throw on an unending stream of cripple, vulnerabilty with Remorseless and VQ. Make kiting really fun, and lesser muddy terrain certain helps!

It also is just so nice to be building builds again.. I can never decide what utlities to take, or even traitlines. Huge fun – I’m so happy.

The only thing that feels odd is I have nearly 100% crit chance so having a guarenteed 100% crit on Openning strike is pointless. Maybe I need to get how armour without precision.. hmmm…

Substance E.4852:

This is also not at all true for many pets. The wolf is classified as a condi pet for some reason and any BM specced for condition is going to be in BM mode as much as possible to take advantage of the condition boost and Primal Cry.

Same with bristleback, it’s better to camp in BM and only pop out to use spike barrage.

Isn’t that the point though? If it wasn’t generally “better” to be in BM mode then the whole Elite Spec would be dead. If it was better to have your pet out then be merged why would you even run Soulbeast? It’s early days but judging by the responces here they have nailed the balanace as some people think it looks amazing and some people think the stats are too low.

To me it makes a lot of sense. Wolf is a condi pet probably just because they’ve clearly tried to put one of every pet family in each architype (with a couple of exceptions). One of the canines had to be there, but you still have a good reason to leave BM if you value CC more than bleeds in a particular fight.

Likewise with Bristleback. If you’re playing a condi spec sure, you’ll want to be in BM a lot of the time – but if you meet someone who has a ton of condi removal you might decide it’s better to leave BM to boost your burst / direct damage with a pet.

It makes sense to me that being in BM is generally better to make the Soulbeast worth using (which what they want, ultimately), while still giving situational reasons to bring your pets out. I think they’ve done that well.

In the case of the Black Bear I don’t know what else you expected. It’s a useless pet currently. They could either make it’s BM version equally useless so it stayed in line with how it is now, or they could take the opportunity to make it good so people might actually use the pet. They chose the latter, which I believe is the correct choice.

Scholar is a pretty good option for LB Ranger TBH. It’s got the stats you want and a nice T6 buff for sniping / initiating.

Eagle / Ranger / (and for me Lyssa) are often used on rangers, but depending on your build you might well have 100% crit chance already meaning a precision rune will be wasted.

Rage is good. Possibly overkill on the fury duration since you’ll have perma fury anyway most likely, but the extra damage is nice.

Pack is also great / Ogre / Hoelbrak are good too.. really just look though the list https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rune

For you pet, maybe try spiders. They work well with LB builds as they are also ranged, give some immobilizes and tend to stay out of harms way.

Nice find. They look great!

Edit: We can now get 18s of damage immunity. I can taste the tears already.

Edit2: Drakes look great for zerging haha. Trailswipe for blast and big AoE, and Chomp for a 3k heal every 10s.

Edit3: Birds are just free mobilty on any build. Virtually perma swiftness and 10s 1200 leap!

Edit4: Melee builds in general I think will get a huge boost out of these.. so many leaps and CC it’s unreal. I’m so happy!

That’s actually worse than I could have imagined. Wow.

I’ve experienced no issues. I’ve seen people here talking about a staff skill as well, and I don’t have HoT, so maybe thats why? I’m not sure. But yeah, I haven’t had any issues.

Came here to say the same as ZhouX. All I’m wearing is celestial trinkets, 410 HP, and it heals 442 HP/S.

That’s the same average HP/S as TU. It means I get healed 1k every time I dodgeroll.

I like the change, but it will get nerfed for sure.

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).

I wonder if changing it to be something like “Ranger’s cannot be affected by conditions already on their pets” would work.

I don’t know. They obviously want the trait to be a pet-centric condition management trait, and that’s all I can think of that’s not just another “remove X conditions”.

It might make using your pet and getting it right in there a good tactic, and in the process buff tankier pets, and have interesting play with SoR. Or it might just be kitten

Having played Power Ranger in WvW all morning I have to say I’ve loved it. Wearing exotic/ascended berserkers I have 92% crit chance now with the Skirmishing traitline (102% when attacking from the side and behind) and despite my early missgivings SoH turns out to be great.

I’ve been using Rage Runes as well because you might as well go all in on the damage at this point. 10/10 would recomend.

I was happily swapping between SoH, SotW, SoS, LR, and QZ depending on the situation. All fantastic for the good old LB zerker. 11 seconds of no damage is a real game changer on such a glassy build – gives you plenty time get your escape skills off CD if you get caught out.

The only thing I couldn’t figure out is if TU now removes 4 condis with Lesser Muddy Terrain or still just 2.

I don’t have HoT, so no druid for me, but it was a really nice feeling when I realised I actually really wanted every single traitline.

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.

^That. The trait was use long before druids. With the addition of CA I guess they thought the trait was too good.

It’s probably best to wait and see what they’ve done, but I’d be very surprised if they copied boons across. I think the best we can hope for is a few decent traits being reworked to work on the Ranger when in BM.

Guess we shall see though!

Yes it seems clunky. Either Soul Beasts should only be allowed 1 pet or you should be able to swap from BM.

If it’s a balance thing, which it might be, then they should balance it a different way. Making something clunky and make players fight against their UI as a balancing tool is not good game design.

There’s also the question of weapon skills and utilities which intergrate with the Pet. Anyone know about them?

I get that they want a visual so other’s can see you’re in Beast Mode, but I’m not a huge fan of the aura either.

I am curious to see what you look like in Beast Mode with RaO active though, lol.

So far this all looks amazing to me. It might even be enough to tempt me back into playing after what must have been 2-3 years now!

This has been a well known fact since forever. The underlying truth is that the game is balanced around 5v5, and although WvW does get some specific balancing at it’s core the game is still a 5v5 game. And pets (and any other minions) scale badly beyond that.

We can still roam. We can still duel. Hell you can still zerg, be of some use and have a ton of fun while you’re at it. But the core problem will never ever go away.

Jim Hunter.6821:

SkyChef.5432:

Jim Hunter.6821:

SkyChef.5432:

We kinda saw him before he stealth. I was just surprised that he didn’t show up to finish our companion. I would.
I would look for him next time to see how a trap build could fight.

Well he either decided it’s best to get the hell out of there since he just blew all of his cooldowns, or he decided you all must be extremely new since 2 of you went down so easily to 1 condi bomb and he decided to be merciful.

Sure there is always 1st time for everything, including you. Read my sig to see if it applies to you. It must.

PS: I doubt you would understand its meaning & where it comes from. It doesn’t mean I’m saying you are stupid & assume too much w/ limited info provided, though.

Judging by the saltiness of your response I’m going to assume he didn’t leave due to cooldowns.

Ouch

Which is more or less what I’m doing JC, since I’ve not yet decided on HoT I don’t have access to most of the stuff in this build I just fiddled something simular together with the armour sets I already have to make this.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNAV8YnUqA1Ci9CCmsActgBKhyf8J4y7AYBSg/Hm1OuEnnG-TFCFABGqujVK/K4CAI3+DUqSgfKBB4BAkmuBSBE4UL-w

Doesn’t get up to 100% boon duration, but gets to 65% at the minute. Would rather have Durability or Leadership runes but right now that’s not possible, and clearly the lose of the druid line and all that brings changes the build quite a lot.. but I’m still finding it huge fun and am starting to win fights again which is always nice when you come back to a game and realise you’re terrible again haha. And it lets me use my favourite weapons. I just can’t get enough of SB+S/D, not matter what anyone says about them haha

I think it’s main problem is the lack of survivability and the need for close range to use #2. You’re only option is to pick up a Dagger to pair it with which does help, but still doesn’t give it any mobility.

Either #2 needs to be reworked to be effective at range, essentially making the axe a proper ranged condi weapon, or one of its still needs a total rework to give it mobility, or we need an offhand weapon with mobility (OH Sword )

Just came back to the game after year and a bit away, and I have to say this build makes me very tempted to finally buy HoT

Can see a few changes I’d make to suit myself better, but it does look a lot of fun, mostly because of the Quickness up time lol.

To be honest it was never a good idea by Anet to make a skill set viable through a Rune. Runes should be there to boost whatever setup you are going for, not required for it to work at all.

So in that sense.. probably better they nerf the Rune and give a buff directly to our traps to compensate, but since the buffing part of that plan very rarely happens… eh.

Maybe it should cripple instead of immobilise, but in return hit the affected player every second even if they move as long as they are still within the cast range of the Ranger.

We’d lose the immobilise, but we’ve get the bleeds and cripple much more reliably.

IDK, this skill has always been an issue. Hard to say what the solution is.

Unfortunately there is not much you can do. This sort of behaviour is common to all games I’ve ever played (and probably real life come to think of it), where there is a central herd mentality, usually based in truth but then overexaggerated by repetition, which people will use to attack anyone who differs from it and defend anyone who subscribes to it.

The only solution really is to find a community which does not subscribe to that herd mentality. This usually comes in the form of a guild or clan.

UmbraNoctis.1907:

It is possible to dodge/avoid traps. Not even that hard …

Doesn’t that apply to like… every skill in the entire game?

I mean seriously.. the only skill I think I can’t reliably avoid if I have the CDs available is the Pistol sneak attack, and that’s simply because it can be spammed from range over and over till it does hit.

Can say what you want about traps, I still think they are the funnest way to play the Ranger

I actually prefered the direction you were going in the original build. I don’t see a huge value in going into Druid without the staff (in this case). You’re giving up the standard condi-cleanses from WS to get an occational full cleanse, and with so few hard CC options I see minimal value in Ancient Seed. I’d rather just have BM or WS over Druid.

No. If you’re going the Druid/Trapper route I think you’re gunning for team fights with so much AoE and Support available, which means I think it’s a very good trade to give up some of your DPS to take the staff and all it brings.

I’d go for something like this

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNAW3YjMqQ7KWuCusAVLWYEM4m6Vtr2Mu2AhAmCwlLAUyKGD-TZRAABsVGAgDCw0XAgOeCAvs/AA

Have to agree with Fluffball. You can make any weapon viable by buffing its AA to hell and back, but that’s a pretty poor way to go about game design.

I’d keep the positioning requirement (although maybe make it more rewarding – perhaps keep it causing bleeding from the sides and make it cause torment from the back) and then buff the other skills to provide a little more DPS.

If you’re going full healer you might as well just take 2 staves to proc Quick Draw and maybe Sigil of Renewal.

Probably not ideal overall.. but for full healer the LB, or any other weapon, is pointless.

Whoever designed these changes has been playing waaay to much DotA 2. But they look amazing, maybe even enough to make me come back and play :O

I should have been more clear.. I know how to attack without a target, it’s a pretty normal way of using a melee weapon. With the sword though don’t you just end up flying through your oppenent in a pretty unhelpful manner?

This has been brought up so many times. The underlying fact is that the “leaping” element of the attacks is both what makes the sword unique and what causes the problem.

They can’t (or at very least won’t) fix it without removing the unique functionallity, which many people don’t want.

Also I am curious, how the hell do you use it without a target?

No love for the Traps? Haven’t tried it, but I feel this might be the way to go.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJARRjMqQ3KWvCOsAXLG+DqtIWgAg/g8dD+04HG+UeVWWbF-TBSBAB6pLwS1fu4SAE0+DZp87MlgLcEAA4BAQKAmUaB-e

Here we have:
-AoE Chill, Poison and Cripple
-Spotter
-Double GS + Quickdraw + Remorseless + Intelligence. Should mean 3 Mauls every 10s, 2 which guarenteed crit and 1 which will be +25% damage. So plenty of damage.
-HS with CD reduction
-RaO with CD reduction
-Taunt plus some useful bear F2s

What it lack is:
-Range. But if you’re aiming for frontline thats OK.
-Condition cleansing you are fairly reliant on the group.
-No stunbreaker.

Maybe?

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNAsYTjEqQLLWwCOsAVLGIEqdHCgqun3VIG449djgRsE-TRRSwAMVCKV9Ha6DAs/AGlfkCgJlWA-e

The armour is hard to guess, it could be a mix of many things, but those general stats are fairly typical of a “not-full-tank not-full-zerker” build.

In terms of traits, they may have gone for Remorseless over Lead the Wind, but I am not sure how worth it that would be without a GS. Could be though.

For weaknesses I’d have to say conditions. They only have 3 cleansing skills, 2 on fairly long CDs (and that’s assuming they are using Wilderness Knowledge and not Poison Master, which is possible given what you said). Maybe they had Lyssa Runes to help with this? Who knows.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

snow.8097:

jcbroe.4329:

So yeah. I’ve played around with 6/6/6/0/0, 6/0/6/6/0, 0/6/6/6/0, 0/6/6/0/6, 0/0/6/6/6, and 6/0/6/0/6 and out of those, my favorites have been 6/0/6/6/0, 6/0/6/0/6, 0/6/6/6/0, and 0/0/6/6/6, respectively taking into account the order of the traitlines in the old system.

everyone else thought after this text, that we need a new naming for our line combos?
i mean we have 10 line combos until HoT, i think we should name them a bit

What would you name them that would be easier to learn and remember than just x/x/x/x/x?
__________________________________________________________________

Could just say MSW (Marksmenship, Skirmishing, Wilderness Survival). We’re lucky enough that none of our traitlines start with the same letter so… Couldn’t really be more clear.

I would point that that while removing 3 conditions on a 10s CD has it’s drawbacks, it does also have some positives when compared to 1 condition every 3s.

Most notably is that removing condition in “bulk” lets you get passed covering conditions and remove the ones that matter. If you’re only ever removing 1 condition at a time then all someone needs to do it equip a Sigil of Frailty (something I, and many others do on the SB) then you’re never going to actually cleanse any damaging conditions. They will keep applying Vulnerability on a 2s CD, you will keep cleansing the Vulnerability on a 3s CD, and they burning and the poison and the chill and possibily even the bleeding will never ever be cleansed.

So.. 3 conditions every 10s isn’t ideal for sure, but it does prevent that situation to some extent.