Guild Wars 2

It’s already been proven they won’t buff pets any. They’ve nerfed them a few times because of player outrage…whether it be leash range nerf because rangers were using pets in PvP to hold points or general power nerfs because people were getting wrecked by pets in WvW.

The soul beast is really a test at what happens if pets go away altogether. It’s a pretty cheap way out, basically giving direct power to the player while eliminating the problem of pets dying super fast in group situations.

But yeah, no real huge recoding needed for pets. Just make them invulnerable, give them full leash range back, and give them their power back.

Ralkuth.1456:

GW2 has one of the lowest opportunity costs of re-rolling a new character/class so it’s not as if we are stuck with Ranger.

I’ve just been going back to other games and the Ranger in GW2 has the most options by far. Being able to switch to support, have proper Melee weapons, super easy pet management…

I think we’re projecting too much of what we want into the class instead of playing it as how it is now. Patches will push some aspects of the class to the forefront but that’s just the ebb and flow of it. I’d be quite bored if they didn’t switch it up for us once in a while.

It’s had its dark days in core, but even before this patch in PvP I would rate it a 7/10 and now as some top players like Frosty would put it, 9/10. It has fantastic sustain, burst heals, mobility, stealth, cleanses, and the only department it lacks in is damage, but it’s actually not all bad with a pet and some traits. Longbow is a control/burst weapon and sees much use in WvW and PvP, it’s a great weapon if you play to its strengths.

In PvE sure you can play Condi, but when I run with friends and they don’t mind it I pull out my Berserker gear.

The problem is we love ourselves too much and don’t love the class enough. Maybe change your thinking from how it doesn’t work for you, to how you can make it work?

I think you’ve answered that for everyone…play bunker druid. As that’s all the ‘top players’ in PvP are doing…bunker druid and hold points.

A one trick pony does not make a great class. All it does is get the class nerfed.

It has other negative effects, such as when SB comes out, no one is going to use it over bunker druid unless they like dying. Too much micromanagement for not enough gain; literally the only time to use it would be zerging in WvW so you don’t have the pet being a waste of space.

But yeah, ‘make it work’ is bound to annoy a lot of people. That’s just giving the dev team the excuse to leave barely functional (most of our weapons) to non-functional (spirits) things alone because we have basically become monks.

The problem with Ranger is no one knows what it is supposed to do. Range? Not by nerfing all our weapons to 900 besides the LB. Melee? Not without stability.

Do we dance around like thieves? Not without stealth on more than just LB #3 and evades on MH sword.

What we do know, is still do this day Anet fears the pets. Leash nerf, stat nerf, etc. Even with SB half of the merged skills are awful because according to Irenio it’d be ‘way too powerful’ to give us non-terrible skills.

I think masochist is a good word for Ranger players. For me personally it’s more Stockholm Syndrome as I’ve played the game and class so long I don’t want to give it up…despite it’d being awful in 9/10 game modes.

Are we really shoehorned into power druid for roaming? Basically, WS/BM/Druid?

I’m starting to think so, as any condition based build I try is awful. No sustain so sword is rather ineffective, axe is clunky, and too much projectile hate to try carrying a SB.

So we’re stuck with LB, and either GS or staff.

Yeah…toughness does nothing. Weakness and resistance do, and what are those? Oh, right boons / conditions. Go figure.

Yeah, spec is underwhelming as it isn’t really giving anything new in a sense. It’s simultaneously giving up on making pet AI better and giving us a QOL improvement not to rely on said AI.

Problem is, it adds even more micromanagement, which is the last thing we need.

Literally not possible to have more cleanse than the druid, thanks to the trait that clears like 10 conditions on you when you enter avatar form.

But yeah, if you are getting stomped by a glass LB/GS core ranger…I’m not sure we can help you.

Wondrouswall.7169:

Kind of surprised no one else caught the other tid-bit Irenio mentioned in the Guild Chat stream about why Anet won’t allow Ranger to have control over all of the pet skills by default: “Because it would be way too powerful.”

I wonder if it’s some kind of secret indoctrination they go through…as this mentality stems all the way back to the beginning. When pets were so powerful that they could solo dungeons for Rangers, etc.

It took them 5 years to get basic tech to allow functionality with the pet stowed, yet they think they actually made an AI that if if fully unleashed would be game breaking.

I really want to know what super powerful skills we’re missing out on here. As none of the pet F2’s qualify as that.

Did they nerf this or is it broken? My pet seems to melt now even with it, where before it was at least somewhat usable in a zerg / group situation…

I mean looking at the wiki changes it seems like a nerf (longer interval and no more healing power).

Forget the beast skill. Just give us F1-F3 with F4 being swap. Will people then camp beast mode? Probably. Will it matter? No, as we have two other specs with the pet.

Just. Make. It. 1200. Again.

For real, this would fix the weapon.

Shotgun is fine, as it’s a skirmish weapon so they’re going to be in your face. Poison Volley is actually the best skill on the thing because #3 is to short of a hop back and #4 and #5 are almost always blocked by some wonderful passive defense.

If you put it to 1200 you can actually run double bow.

Thing is, they could let us swap in beastmode and out of beastmode with same 10 second cooldown on exit and it’d still not be OP.

That is, make the pet swap timer distinct whether we are in or out of beastmode. I think it’s really the only thing saving the spec as the beast line isn’t good enough on its own.

Even with swap in beastmode, I don’t know how you would take it over Druid in WvW. Druid may do no damage but it at least allows us to run / stealth because we have no stability either.

With beastmode I was getting bounced around like a pinball because dolyak stance was busted and ramapage as one is a 75 sec CD.

So yeah, this isn’t an e spec. It’s a ‘hey we fixed core ranger like we should have 5 years ago…but to use it you actually have to become weaker’. Bleh.

I’m really hoping with dagger being MH we FINALLY get the offhand training functionality back for offhand dagger. The #4 skill is so, so awful without that extra range.

Please tell me this is a parody of something.

I dunno, but to be blunt…do half of you play ranger? I love the pet, I really do, but there is no way someone can tell me with a straight face that it’s better to have it out. That AI is ALWAYS a liability. Always.

I haven’t played more than 5 minutes on it, but can already see that even if it is undertuned it is mechanically far better than other options. So much better that this isn’t an elite at all, this is how the ranger was meant to be from the get go.

Not sure I get the fixation with applying these things on entering / exiting BM.

I mean, I get that BM kind of breaks a lot of ranger aspects, because most of our stuff is designed around giving the pet something. So if we ‘absorb’ the pet then half our traits go to waste.

But, some things like Twice as Vicious seem fine as is…because if that is on enter / exit then you take away other possibilities, like PBS or pet knockdown triggering it.

I bet it might have something to do with the pet swap mechanic itself. That is, if your pet dies and you enter / exit SB, do you really want to have to wait the 40+ seconds to enter again?

That is, weapon swap is always a constant timer of 10 seconds or whatever it is. Pet swap varies greatly on both pet status (alive vs. dead) and traiting (loud whistle).

Don’t want to be cynical, but it seems more a spec to please the ‘no pet’ crowd, rather than anything inspired.

Can tell by how excited they were to talk about the Weaver directly after, and the Mirage directly before.

Huh, none of the skills seem to grant stealth. Was hoping my Jaguar would be useful for something again.

So…I don’t know what to think.

I’m mainly (and by mainly pretty much 99% at this point) a WvW player. Looking at the SB I’m not sure how it’ll actually fare compared to the Druid.

It’s actually sad because Druid is a pretty boring deal in WvW…basically bunkering to have any hope of surviving the other classes. It’s obscenely evident by celestial shadow being in every build as well as managing the AF meter way more than any other mechanic (including the pet).

I basically see SB in WvW terms being ‘find the pet that gets you stealth’ and ‘find the pet that gets you sustain’. That’s about it. Can’t dare to use any other type without dying in 15 seconds flat.

Anyway, excited for Friday, but don’t see much changing here. Heck, one look at the Mesmer’s elite pretty much confirms what’s going to be stupid dominant for the next year. I normally dislike ‘class whining’, but man that looks way cooler than pretty much anything else.

Why can’t they make it work with loud whistle? Basically entering BM or exiting BM is the same as swapping pets.

So you could enter BM then upon exit the cooldown starts, after which you either swap pets like normal or enter BM again.

If you are in BM, can still ‘swap’, just have the meter go on cooldown. You can exit at any time but are stuck with that pet until the cooldown is done.

All depends on what you are doing…for roaming in WvW I vastly prefer core ranger over Druid.

Literally all the Druid line gets me is a big condi clear and an ‘oh crap’ stealth button….that’s it. Ancient Seeds is ok also, but most people walk right out of that.

There’s just so much more flexibility when I’m not worried about how to build up AF. Of course Druid is literally the healing spec so not really meant for roaming anyway…just the fact people were able to use it like that for the past 2 years is amazing.

From a WvW perspective, I just hope SoulBeast lets us use more than two weapons. With Druid you got Staff and LB.

Actually I dropped Druid and just went back to Core ranger because I hate being locked into staff so much. It does look like SoulBeast will augment the Core ranger more than replace it like Druid did.

You’d think this year would be extra special as it’s the 5th anniversary of the game. Hopefully they’re saving all the resources for that?

This one would have bee super easy though. Just bring back old LA for today only. It’d fit with the anniversary theme and the April fools theme.

It’s just build balance catching up. Take away trapper runes (so no more perma-stealth condi-thieves), make immob have more of an impact / resistance less of one. Take food away / oils away and nerf things like perplex / confusion to reasonable levels (to get rid of the condi spam).

Basically with HoT the counterplay is gone for a lot of classes. So everyone just runs ‘cancer’ builds and flips empty camps because that’s the most rewarding path.

With SB, you are going to come across some tough times in competitive play. Basically you have to build around a bleed / poison / quickness deal, pretty much like what Scoutsman said.

Problem is such a build conflicts with Druid, and Druid is one of our strongest traitlines. For Druid you probably should bring a staff (if anything for the mobility), because nothing builds AF like it.

If you do Staff / SB, you hybridize and lose a lot in the range for SB. That is, Staff / LB is probably better because of the invis on LB and the range of it.

I’ve played many builds over the years and almost all of them have SB. The problem is, none of them are that great…

This topic is the reason Anet hates us.

I don’t want entangle improvement to affect ancient seeds, and I’m afraid that’s what they would do. Entangle is actually fine on a survival build because of low CD and condition remove.

I agree muddy terrain needs work. Problem is it is hard to hit with in the first place, and pretty underwhelming.

Just a question, about how much power / precision? From the build editor looks like 2,600 power?

If you find Ancient Seeds OP, then you must find Entangle gamebreaking!

Oh wait, who takes Entangle for anything other than a condition clear?

For all those saying DC is the problem…how? DC isn’t enough to get us out of WK or BM + Trooper Runes. A condi clear every 15 seconds is fine, but you’d be long dead without some other form of clear as well.

I think the CD increase was to stop bunker druids from being able to stalemate an enemy for like 5 minutes at a time. Could have accomplished that with just the healing decrease IMO.

Reddit.

/topic

Yeah, BM is a bit overrated. With pet swap / ranged pets / ancient seeds pets don’t need to be really fast. I’d say if the pet is chasing someone on circles and not on swap cool down you are doing it wrong.

I do agree with baseline boon share. It’s in fact what rampage as one has always done.

Okay, so avoid the clones then but don’t kill them? That is, basically kite them and try to make the mesmer miss a shatter or just keep kiting.

I’ll try LB, I have been using SB + S/T as a condi build, but I think the SB is killing me when I get confusion on. It’s a shame as I’m way more used to being in the thick of things then at range.

LB just seems safer now that I’m thinking about it. I was really underrating hunter’s shot I guess.

Any tips on how to fight? Lately it seems I have been facing variations that can spam a TON of clones in a short time period. How do I stop / inhibit the clone generation?

As I’ve tried kiting and I still get wrecked by confuse / torment if they miss the shatter.

Nuzt.7894:

I don’t understand why this needs to be such a process, lets use Anvil Rock as an example.
What is so extremely Difficult about putting (AR) at the end or around their name somewhere?

You have all those stupid symbols all over our names for one thing or another and you can’t just add an Abbreviation for a server?

Sometimes the best answer is the simplest answer, stop over thinking every little detail Anet.

This.

So you could have Player Name [Server Abbrv.] then below that Guild Name [Guild Abbrv.].

For capture it’d either still have to be the host world’s name I guess. It’s almost better to go with alliance names here since links change all the time. So yeah…like EoTM names I guess cries

Ranger isn’t fine. Anet doesn’t care. What’s new?

Vyriis.6258:

Gotejjeken.1267:

As someone running trapper runes in WvW, I have to disagree that they are ‘fine’. Not being throwable and not being instant hurt them a LOT.

I also disagree spirits are fine, I know of zero builds (non-PvE) that use them. It’d be nice if they’d make them useful as GW1 spirits were pretty awesome.

Guess you missed the part where I say that not all skills are going to be top tier for all game modes. Spirits are a PvE based skill. They do have a place in PvP, though not “meta”, in which they are effective. Now, yes, they do suffer uselessness in WvW but that’s mostly due to blob vs blob gameplay.

As for traps: You’re going to ask for spirits to be more like GW1 spirits while asking that traps not be anything like GW1 traps or even be “traps” for that matter. Traps are meant to be placed ahead of where your enemy is going to be in order to disrupt and ensnare them. Not throw them over walls like grenades. The traps we have are already better than what they were in GW1 as they only take half a second to place rather than the two seconds they took in GW1. Also they do about as much as they did when triggered in GW1, so there’s that as well.

Now as for my wording of “They are fine”. They are fine; not great, not horrible, but in that spot where they are still usable and effective in niche situations. Builds change from game type to game type and that’s the way it should be. Or you learn to use them effectively, unconventionally, in your game type. Just like in GW1, or any game for that matter, you can’t expect them to make every skill as good as it’s going to be in any game type for every game type. It’s just not going to happen.

Now is this me saying that they shouldn’t be improved a bit? No. But this is me saying that they aren’t as “lackluster” as the op is looking at them as being or that they are completely useless and need major reworkings. They are, as far as I can see, in a spot where they allow Rangers to be viable in all game modes using different builds.

Technically you can run anything and it will work. Spirits are in need of a rework, otherwise you’d see someone, somewhere making a build with them in it. Might not be on Metabattle, but someone would be doing it.

The last spirit ranger I saw at all in this game was when they could still move. That’s been what, a year and a half ago now?

Also, no I don’t want traps to work like GW1. GW2 is far more action based, which is why traditional traps are nonsense. My point with spirits was if they are going to make them stationary, at least make them useful like in GW1.

It is true a skill won’t always be useful in every mode, but some of our stuff like traps and spirits are either never worth it to take or almost never worth it to take. I’d put spirits at ‘never worth it’ as you can get much better performance elsewhere, and traps ‘almost never’ because trapper runes exist.

Not sure about this, especially since with LB you are already at 1500 range most times. On demand invisibility is a bit much considering LB is the only one with native stealth access to begin with.

I’d rather more stability access than stealth. Though they nerfed stability before (remember when RaO didn’t pulse and stab couldn’t be removed using CC?), so not sure they’ll do anything.

As someone running trapper runes in WvW, I have to disagree that they are ‘fine’. Not being throwable and not being instant hurt them a LOT.

I also disagree spirits are fine, I know of zero builds (non-PvE) that use them. It’d be nice if they’d make them useful as GW1 spirits were pretty awesome.

Agree about survival skills for the most part. Only MT is truly useless and SS is…ok I guess. If you want high bleeds just use SB. Otherwise 6 stacks of bleeds is not going to hurt all that much (especially when opponents can cleanse pretty fast and it’s on a 30s cooldown).

How does condi LB work?

It might seem that way, but I really think the player base would have a fit if they truly designed skills around combat.

That is, you would have to have an actual target to use any weapon based movement skill. As if you want to be technical, that’s what say ranger GS #3 is for, closing a gap.

Most use it for running though. Unintended or not, ‘closer’ skills are much, much better for escaping than actual escape skills. Since they are native closing skills they are just way better overall (ex: GS #3 is way, way better than Sword #2).

Fluffball.8307:

I don’t view it as an out of combat movement boost, and I doubt any skill created in the game is really intended to be used as that. In combat, it’s always a speed boost.

Since I disagree with what you’re proposing, I’ll repeat a suggestion that has been made before. Have the directions be toggle-able, so if you always want, it goes forward/backward or forward/forward or whatever.

I don’t know if Anet would ever make something so customizable, but it’s the best way to not change something simply to annoy half the players and make the other half happy.

Also, ANY skill in the game? What is thief SB #5 used for other than gaining ground outside of combat?

When you say directional arrow, do you mean if you aren’t holding anything then default behavior, otherwise you can say hold forward to go forward?

If so, I can see that on the first move in the chain, however the second should always go forward so you can preserve the lateral moves.

I’d love for something like this on SB #3, as it’s great it provides swiftness but the leap backward means no ground gained outside of combat (i. e. running).

Literally this can all be solved with server tags. Then you know who everyone is and everyone can have their ‘server pride’.

Yeah the links change all the time, but as long as you know who is from what server then no identity lost.

I do love all the talk about identity and pride though when people have been mass transferring to the ‘best’ server for years. Nothing like having entire guilds leave a server on a whim, killing the WvW activity.

At least now, we are guaranteed activity and coverage. If you don’t want blobs, stay out of EBG. My server last link was hosted by NSP and we were in T2 for a week…didn’t see all that many blobs when I played. Was still able to solo cap camps like always.

Triple health doesn’t matter much when you are getting stealth or stability stomped.

SB has an evade back + swiftness, of course you won’t have too many problems staying alive.

Even if you go true melee (SB/X + GS), both swords and greatsword have enough kiting ability to keep you alive.

Basically, if one were to turn MH axe melee, it’d need some kind of escape / kite mechanism.

We can’t handle melee without one of two things:

1. Escape / kite ability
2. Stealth access

Rangers aren’t a heavy armor class, and going frontline is way more likely to end up in melting than it is success.

I guess the blast finisher on the above would give stealth access, but would also make taking smokescale mandatory forever.

anduriell.6280:

Lahmia.2193:

You do realise Condi druid is now the best condition dps in the game? And it includes Shortbow with axe/torch

When i read things like this i realise how delusional some are…

Now, back to the topic: For PVE fo vipers if you use the shortbow. SB is an hybrid weapon so you need to do as much power dps as condi to be effective. Otherwise the total amount of condition damage will not be enough. I’ve tested this already.

For WvW/PvP just don’t. We are locked into WS or a rune set to be able to cleanse conditions, without them you’ll melt against almost anything as everyone goes for it, with maybe the exception of engineers or thieves.
So because how this class is designed you need: precision, toughness, vitality and condition damage (plus some healing) and there is not any amorset that give you that, and the possible combinations just don’t work.

So for now just forget about condi druid for pvp/spvp.

Right, which is why you’d go condition ranger for pvp.

If anything, Druid is bad for most things now outside of very specific content. Even in PvE, I don’t know why anyone would take Druid outside of raiding as there is zero open world content where you need to pump out massive heals.

Make the score matter more. No one is going to hold a camp or escort a yak, etc. if the score doesn’t matter.

Also, reduce the AOE damage on top of walls. Pretty stupid the defenders can’t actually defend because of splash damage.