Guild Wars 2

Can someone please explain why spike trap never procs Ancient Seed? so far this is my only complaint with the idea of using spike trap as most dazes 99% of the time proc the seed trait.

Its funny. I said a while back when everyone was looking at the changes that it would be horrendous, but everyone in the thread was busy sitting there saying “its fair”.

Really guys? do you enjoy what you got now?

I actually can’t say I agree with these changes. While the change to Grace of the land are pretty good, the rest stated don’t really seem good at all. In fact, the celestial Avatar actually form adjustments are very intrusive looking compared to even necromancer, and I should know because I play both extensively.

Why do I feel this way? well, most people should have noticed that the generation for attacks are now 3/4ths % and 1½% for healing. In all honesty, I feel that this along with the requirement to get full celestial AND THEN have a CD for 10 seconds exiting is actually worth less than the addition of being able to keep some astral. As is, this is very steep requirements, with very low generation across the board considering that ranger is not a class that has other generation methods outside these like necromancer does with utilities and high percentage attacks. Because of this, I feel that the CD needs to be removed along with upping the attack generation further.

The nerf to lingering light is also pretty rough, as it was a very strong generation tool, but now this further nerfs the celestial form capabilities and makes it into a ‘only combat’ skill that cant really be used easily on other healers in your party since its not always a time they will be attacking, making the ICD rough.

All in all, I feel that the changes to this outweighs any good changes that could have been done to the avatar form and the traits so far. This doesnt even include that we know nothing of the staff, which generally felt completely horrendous outside Ancestral grace and was basically used only to access the form, which is now even harder to access and even more gated than before.

If your choice was to make celestial form intrusive, then the job is perfect, but if thats not what it was and it was in search of balance, then the old functionality actually is heavily preferred.

Honestly, I have to say that druid on tankier zerkers (Cav zerk/Cele Zerk) was amazing not only because I could support others in my group, but I myself was for once not a class that was just CC’D down completely and then dusted off. the spec actually GAVE sustain, which is something that ranger has been lacking for a LONG time. Yes, I understand that healing power needs to be more effective, but if the nerf to base healing is too heavy handed, then something that made druid even more attractive than just supporting others is loss. In a way, I kind of understand why because some heals like 4 on astral are crazy strong, but I also understand that without it, dying in most encounters by Heralds is not only possible, but a given due to their CC capabilities and difficult to mitigate damage + catch potential.

So please, understand, Irenio. Yes, I believe healing power scaling should be upped, but mostly because it kills diversity if just going zerker/cav druid is a better option. I want both to exist, not lose my sustain that I first tasted and lose my spot in my group due to the significant heal or damage loss. as of the current state of base heals it was shaping up to be the most fun Ive ever had being on a group in WvW. Im not asking you to straight up not reduce some numbers, but please take into consideration those who enjoy a hybrid mix.

Damage wise, I can’t say im too excited about reaper, but in terms of feel it is an amazing experience. I hope that it will get to a point where reaper will be able to support by doing damage, but as right now I am still happy at the core functionality of reaper (outside the trait soul eater; cant say thats stellar).

Finally got to play reaper in beta. It has some things that needs adjusting, but most of what is listed is possible changes to increase the presence of it in PvE and PvP encounters when dealing with less than mass amounts.

Overview of the feel of Reaper
Reaper is, by far, a strange anomaly that is already having a hard time finding its place. Currently, with the new rendition of scrapper, I would state that Reaper skirts a situation where It CAN be very tanky compared to other classes and deal decent damage, but is not as sustainable as some of the elite specs. Combine this with the fact that the DPS it provides is not exactly stellar, its a step in the right direction, but hardly a class to be considered “supporting by providing DPS,” but has the traits to become very good in places with many enemies.

Greatsword

The weapon, after using it, feels akin to a secondary utility weapon more than a main damage/cleave weapon due to its speed. This issue is mostly that the animations still feel pretty slow, with only 4-5 being fast enough to compete, and Death spiral being almost there. Increase speed of Dusk strike would help this, along with increasing the damage on the 2nd auto. Being rather slower than other GSes is fine, but with the introduction of scrapper and daredevil, there is almost zero time that the auto attack is even able to hit with the first attack. I thought Death’s spiral would be difficult to hit because of speed, but due to its range and 6 hits, it can often hit even very mobile targets like daredevils atleast 4 times. Grasping darkness has an issue with not firing if the target is behind you , but functions correctly if they are anywhere near the frontal 180 degrees. Not sure if this has been noted or known bug, but I tried firing it also while standing still to make sure and still had issues. If a change to functionality needs to be made to fix this, I would rather just have a skill fact indicating this issue. More talk on Greatsword Issue in Soul Eater section.

Reaper Shroud
Reaper shroud’s only issue is the damage on the auto attack chain is lower than it really should be. This should be changed to be slightly higher. All the other skills feel right and outside small situations where Death’s charge is buggy in its damage application during charge, It feels like an overall good experience. However, it should be noted that it is possible to self interrupt terrify and lose it as an available skill to be used.

Shouts

After getting down through all the shouts, most of them feel very responsive with their cast times. “You are all weaklings” functionalty is awesome in some builds, but not so great in most builds that give might. I propose giving it a 1s Immob/slow to all enemies also along with weakness or possibly giving it another boon such as fury or retaliation. NCSY Would benefit from being the one non selfish shout by giving all allies in earshot the BASE unblockable amount of 2-4s. Rise I didnt get much work on, but the models look stellar. Suffer is perfect, do not change this. However, some issues about shouts will be listed in traits section. Chilled to the bone’s commit time for when it goes in CD is open enough that it can go on full CD via interruption. this needs to be fixed.

Traits

Alright, so Specifics are listed here.

Chilling Nova
Reduce CD to 7s, increase damage
As of right now, this trait is the closest that reaper will get to a PvE focused adapt trait that can function in PvP sometimes. Because of this, I feel that the CD should be reduced by 30-20% to make it more available.

Augury of Death
Transfer one damaging condition if a target hit is below 33-25% (only one , not per hit)
This is probably my favorite adapt trait out of all the ones listed. The Life steal amount felt pretty good for its usage, and goes well in the idea of constantly attacking someone’s defenses. Hard to say if it needs more, but wishful functionality change would be to have either the trait or a shout transfer one damaging condition if it hits a target below 33%.

Soul Eater

This trait feels very strange in general. Having life steal on gravedigger only is more lackluster than it looks on paper. Gravedigger is already a skill that is supposed to be harder to hit than others and benefits from CD reduction. Because of this, It excels in fights that are already won with many dead bodies, but is lackluster in other situations. an interesting functionality change or addition would be to give it a stacking buff that stacked up to 3 and gave a 1.5-2% attack speed increase each successful GS attack/gravedigger per stack, with the stacking having an ICD of 1s to prevent cleave hits from counting. It could have a conditional hp factor if needed. This could also help DPS related issues and speed issues on GS without making it available to everyone who chooses reaper along with providing some incentive to run it in PvP. This or revert the life steal to all parts of Greatsword. Its hard to say if this will be a good decision on any front, but as is soul eater is perfect for basically ‘consuming’ the life of already destroyed enemies for the next engagement, so If its purpose is mass enemy play, then it functions well.

Most of the others werent listed because they are functionally perfect in my eyes.

I dont mind if none of these changes are in, but some of them such as the Soul eater, Reaper shroud and GS Auto changes could help reaper in the long run once people are used to it and learn how to deal with it. However, simply changes to base Necro could help over changes to soul eater in favor of increased dps since dagger is not meant to be replaced with Greatsword. However, Its hard to not say that DPS on necro including reaper needs a buff, because as stated before, Its ‘support by doing damage’ aspect is not very easy to see anymore.

Well, it would make sense and offer a damage option.

I hope its not too late to give more feedback! I assume it isn’t?

Anyway, some extra notes that are more specialized compared to my initial thoughts. I will try to leave out stuff related to generation:

Final Impressions as a Zerk/Cav/cele druid

Overall, I feel the spec feels pretty nice in terms of being able to be a good part of a team outside just being DPS. In all honesty, while I still hope that healing power is upped for druid, I feel this is the one time in a long time where I felt like i could work with other players as a team and not as just some backdancer with a longbow. I am willing to slot more cele and possibly some cleric over cav in my zerk cav build if it means I can maintain some of this feeling.

Glyph/ utility Suggestions

So, I feel a good thing going forward is the consideration of stone signet as a stun break. While I understand it is still a good signet with good invuln, glyphs are difficult to take because of the required nature of signet of stone. This is fine if its left untouched, however.

Its slightly unhealthy to offer glyph of equality as a stun break inside but not outside of druid. This also limits builds moreso than signet of stone as it is a valuable glyph but can’t be sloted in some cases. Glyph of alignment can easily also provide slow/poison to add more to viability. Glyph of Tides is really good, but needs its cast time removed or reduced. Glyph of Empowerment is not good at all; It seriously needs more worthwhile duration and percent. Empowerment on Celestial avatar also would benefit by offering out damage reduction on all sources for 6-7 seconds instead of outgoing healing, similar to protection but not as high in percent value. Glyph of Unity would benefit from this making it usable outside signet of stone.

Trait suggestions

Natural Mender
Increase outgoing healing, power and condition damage whenever you heal an ally (2%, 5, 15 respectively. 10 stack limit)
This offers a compromise to players who spec into druid seeking a hybrid of sorts, but still gives a reason to do the main portion of druid; healing.

Cultivated Synergy
using a Healing Skill heals allies around you and your pet along with cleansing one condition
good trait, needs extra reason to take over Druidic Clarity

Primal Echoes
Reduce Recharge on staff skills. Daze and poison nearby foes when you swap weapons
Offensive option while giving some negative effects to compete with druidic clarity and cultivated synergy.

Ancient Seeds
Striking a stunned, dazed, knocked down, or launched foe summons roots to entangle them.
Make the seeds apply poison instead of bleeding.

Lingering Light
Healing an ally creates a wisp that orbits you, heals allies it touches and also applies fury (2s).

While this is still very selfless, this offers the druid non healbar related support.

While this may not be much, it could push druid into a place where many will consider it for different reasons.

Honestly, I think its fine that people are asking for damage or control options on Druid. As is, the thing is very one dimensional and does its one job REALLY well. That said, the game isn’t about just doing your ONE JOB like other MMOs. People don’t take Eles just because they have might stacking capabilities. Its also for their damage and stun from Ice bow. Herald isn’t taken just because of its DPS, but because of its great uptime on boons such as prot and fury along with might.

Point is, you have to be able to stretch across multiple parts in this game to be worth it to a group and to be worth playing in general. This doesnt necessarily mean being the highest damage and highest healing, but being able to use all trait lines effectively to create a well-rounded build for the job you seek. As is, druid trait line can fufill mostly just support aspects, while Celestial avatar itself COULD shape to benefit the whole profession with some damage values added and extra effects. So yes, I think its fine to ask for damage, but it also needs some extra things done to the trait-line to open up more options to players. Im not saying they arent on the right track, but atleast two traits needed to be put in; something damage or self sustain related and something to focus on the actual main things to link it to ranger such as fury, quickness, or utilization of poison.

Its balanced. 33% is strong, but once you get hit by that random chill from a reaper fear, you are back to 0% and ready to be bursted on.

Honestly, I think that druid in itself is a scary specialization. Its super strong in support healing, but its offensive and non-healing support is lackluster, along with its damage being on the lower end. because of this, once people get the hang of Revenant, it will just be a pretty useless specialization outside this. So it really needs to be made LESS specialized unlike other specializations because right now, its such a complete package in healing that its not even really much synergy found outside with moment of clarity.

Alright. Took a bit for me to get some thoughts on druid down. Spent bit of time on druid for this weekend. Now, I will give a disclaimer; most of my play on druid was not complete healing; I stacked smaller amounts of healing power than most problably did, using various builds such as settler in PvP, Cele zerk with cleric in WvW, and also Zerk Knight Cav in WvW. So, I will say that right off the back, I am considering Druid in the stance most have told us to not, and I know Im going to get someone telling me thats not how its played. Sorry, but this is where most success came from, so please still listen and hear me out.

Druid Traitline

Overall, I can’t say that the trait line is too good, but not lackluster. I was expecting to be pidgeon-holed into Druidic clarity, but Cultivated Synergy isnt too bad for what its worth. Only thing I wish is for Cultivated Synergy to clear atleast one condi also in the area. I will discuss the other adapt later in staff section. All masters felt very strong for their usage as a healer, although Its hard to consider Celestial Shadow as its very powerful but I couldnt find much usage unless there was a rev or ele in the party already pumping swiftness. Heal as one before nerf could have done that job, but another story. Grandmasters are all good mostly, although ancient seed is a little iffy in damage. Would have been nice if the roots spawned by it poisoned instead of bleeding.

Staff

Staff has issues . First of all, I have to say that overall, Staff feels like a required take for druid simply because of how Astral force is generated. This isn’t good; If anything, I believe staff should be more utility than straight healing. It doesnt have to do insane damage or even really good damage, but have more meaningful options for usage outside just making someone’s HP go higher.

1 is by far the oddest skill ever to use, as you have to position yourself between the enemy and the ally you want to heal. This is difficult after a while and becomes “astral force generation skill” more than “heal”. It does need slight damage increase, but functionality change to do a small heal in area (like maybe 100-120 range) is needed more.

2 is strong, but the velocity needs to be increased slightly, or provide an additional effect such as fury for 1-3s for those who get healed by the wisp.

3 Just needs bugfixing; if you move too close, you stop a bit before the heal goes off making it best to use from far range. Damage would be nice, but a condition would be better such as burning the area for 1-2s.

4 feels very lackluster; the immob is short and is hard to wind up for the damage and conditions. This needs to be upped by 2-3s AT MOST.

5 Is good, but very difficult to consider over reflects if they are available. One shot being able to hit you for 1-3k and then only healing for 160~ isn’t great. Either heal for same amount as shot being fired, or up this amount to 350-500~ per hit.

Astral Form

Generating astral form in itself is both very difficult, and very easy. right now, the damage contribution to it is so low that its hard to not consider staff or troll unguent as a heal. In itself, the no CD but complete depletion of celestial avatar’s pool is rough in very little cases, and should atleast put you to 25-33% astral force or not deplete if you are bellow this threshold if you leave quickly for any reason, because otherwise you end up just camping it.

The healing output and damage output of Celestial Avatar is very good and nonexistent respectively. It should have some damage on the 1 in a form of a condition or small physical value along with making it so its worth casting it over the last 4 skills. 2 takes too long to burst and condi cleanse right now. Also requires an additional effect such as poison on burst. while 3 needs bug fixing to account for the daze increase from Moment of clarity (doesn’t matter if it feels great, 120% uptime on daze is cancerous). 4 needs its base values reduced slightly and regen added to it per pulse instead so it is not an insane frontloaded heal. 5 is difficult to use since you can’t move during it and overall feels odd compared to the rest of the kit because of it.

Glyphs

Overall, glyphs have the issue that base ranger pretty much always needs one stun break and signet of stone right now to survive anything considering it can be blinded, interrupted and harrassed pretty well. Because of this, many of the ones that are not instant cast feel lackluster, with Alignment, empowerment, and unity being the worst offenders. the fact that one of them is only a stunbreak while in Celestial avatar is also an issue. These can probably become better by making many of them instant cast, adding additional CC related conditions such as chill on tides for 1-2s and damaging conditions on alignment, or even a larger radi for most of them.

Overall

Druid fills a niche for making the ranger feel more valuable to the group, but not in the best way. in current content including WvW and PvP, Druid feels more like a “hand holder” for players who are less skilled at the game due to how defensive its support style is compared to offense. Things such as boon application, better CC and more additional damaging conditions would make it more of an overall better support/CC specialization, along with making the heal scaling better than it is currently. as is, the way that feels best to play is a pseudo healer damage dealer, with only staff being used to assist allies and camping your other weapon due to its lack of presence in offensive and CC nature. The idea of being a support was not done wrong, but leave you in a situation where you never want to leave astral form and go back to staff. As someone who loves ranger, Its hard to really be excited about druid as damage and sustain was both needed along with AOE, but as it is the specialization hold its on just because of the strength of the healing in celestial avatar is really great. But outside that, it needs work to feel less isolated from the rest of the class. With the way it is, you either feel like you have bad weapons setup for healing outside celestial, or you feel like you have a hard time utilizing celestial and the other traits due to how support related it is. Also, swap Natural Stride into a minor.

DaShi.1368:

Aomine.5012:

At this point it’s no longer about whether it’s a buff or nerf anymore.

It’s how Anet sees ranger.

No, it’s not. The trait was not acting as intended. I’m sorry that you feel that rangers need broken traits to be competitive, but Anet is going to fix these regardless of what class. Both guardians and engineers had traits disabled because they were not acting as intended. It has nothing to do with class preference, but instead appropriate game balance.

Let’s not forget that it is still a buff from Heal As One.

The trait description was exactly “You each gain a copy of each other’s boons”. It didn’t LIST durations being flat, it wasnt specifically MENTIONED to have a table during the live stream or even the patch notes.

So the skill actually did exactly what it stated it would do. In fact, Im not sure you even know what was going on completely in the background to create such setups like 50% quickness duration or perma fury as you didn’t even call it a SKILL but instead called it a TRAIT. So while I understand that you believe balance has been done, You also need to understand this was not an unintended buff; it was intentional, but sadly Anet either didn’t do enough testing on the inside end to remove the idea of it before the patch went live, or they didnt allow enough time to monitor how it affected the game as a whole.

and honestly, the most it did was cause an uproar on PvP forums and a consideration for a meta position that was never given in PvE. Most of the action on the field was business as usual; rangers trying out ballsy specs and getting their face pushed in by players who realized how silly it all was to waste valuable pet swap CDs and utility CDs like stun breaks and condi cleanses for 14s of quickness and maybe 6 might.

Its as if they thought of a good idea, implemented it, and then took it away because the situation, while very stupid in nature, produced happy people.

Bets placed on Druid? Nerfed before BWE3.

Im pretty sure wasting your stunbreak to get extra quickness on a pet is a risky trade to begin with. Taking the trait for quickness is even riskier. That think doesnt exactly have the best CD, you know.

I thought it was pretty strong too, but sadly the duration of the boons you get makes it a good buff, but not as overpowered as you would think. the Investment for some of the situations people are listing are rather large.

While I wont comment too much about the state of mesmer, I do find it hilarious that many of the statements made here was done by other classes in the past that people complained about. From warriors to Thieves to Eles… the train continues and has their own thoughts that they choose or choose not to agree with.

Just play ele. Geez.

I feel like we are at dhuumfire phase all over again, but atleast this one is easier to fix and not as braindead.

Everyone wants condi nerfed when the only problematic one is burning lol. Why else is everyone linking 20k burns and not high damaging bleeds or confusion? :^) Everyone fighting the wrong war when condis barely hold a stick to the insta burst and power damage everyone is pumping. Believe me, I played condi this patch and its WAYY better to just go power necro/war/engie or honestly mesmer anything.

Meanwhile, ranger slowly floats around in obscurity with minor buffs and a big bug change that thrust them back into ‘who is that guy?" tier. Once burning is nerfed, I cant imagine the ’bleed masters’ to have much else to use.

I dont usually rage in PvP, but I just couldnt take it anymore. Everyone is running that trait, and encouraging others to also… Its just silly and makes the game more unattractive than the mesmer buffs ever could. Grenadier needs to be fixed ASAP.

MailMail.6534:

I’m glad there’s no shortage of “Profession X is Ruining the Game” threads.

The only class that hasn’t been targeted post-patch in this regard is Ranger. Hmmm! Poor Rangers. Seems like they’re the new Mesmer.

More like ranger is the new ranger. Even when mesmers were considered ‘not meta’, seeing a ranger doing well in high tier tournys was like a spotting a UFO.

spoj.9672:

Just thought id bump this because ive worked some stuff out. Lich form uses 952.5 for its weapon power. Which means it has a coefficient of 1.9.

On a spite, soul reaping build in a fully buffed group this gives lich auto a total of 12,511.777 dps. When using dagger you have less crit chance so curses helps a lot. However even with 100% crit chance and berserker gear (not sure its even possible without sacrificing seaweed salad which would be a damage loss) dagger gives a total of 10,154.341 dps. Flesh golem gives about 882 dps. So Lich is always stronger than dagger. Which means its always worth taking Soul Reaping just for spectral mastery and the 5% modifier.

Too necro is still bad we still are bottom barrel of PvE. Rip the dream, amirite?

1) Power ranger, while pretty decent on the quickness front, feels lacking once you lose all the buffs from clarion and zephyrs. class feels very proc heavy right now on this front, so if you lose that + remorseless, your damage just seems lower on longbow moreso than before. Before the clarion patch, i could justify it because I was still a machine for boons fury and swiftness. Now, I have boons more on the personal front. This is not stellar, but not devastatingly ‘ranger is daed’ type thing.

2) Traps are both really bad and really good. on the positive front, viper’s nest and flame trap has enough duration and a low enough CD to make them both viable pickups for people using trapper runes or for a third utility in an already solidified build. The problem, however, still stands: getting the most out of them requires a trait that takes away your bleed crits, so you lose out on too much damage if you dont go for burning trap. You lose out on lots of survivability since right now, innate survivability means little to nothing. its active or nothing since DPS on warriors and necros have gotten slightly higher but also their survivability has. I dont believe they need nerfs as it was rare to see zerk warriors in the first place, but this shows that ranger is somehow left in a time machine by themselves, never changing. Also, spike trap is bad now. Yes, I understand the damage increase and knockdown makes it attractive, but the CD kills it completely. Don’t even get me started on healing spring.

3)Beastmaster specialization is sadly the way to go unless you go wilderness survival. While the new nerf to clarion bond MAY make nature magic seem like its worth taking, pet damage kind of trumps the horrendous majors in Nature magic. Actual beastmaster builds are functioning decently, but it was very sad to see that natural healing got nerfed as it used to heal the ranger also. Honed axes is both horrendous and interesting, making every default to beastly warden or zephyr’s speed. Axes for ranger is barely ever used for power in mainhand, so the fact that it increases it only for offhand axe makes it very silly. It should be increase ferocity on offhand axe and increase condition duration on while wielding main hand axe. This is more attractive and would make it a bigger competitor than it is now.

4)Nature magic in itself needs work. Instinctive reaction is bad simply because its a quickness when your health drops and it also has a horrendous conversion rate/ conversion period. If it was worth taking, it would be Power to healing power by 7%, not the other way around. The only attractive grandmaster also is Protective ward, which is sad because ATLEAST the other lines have one other good competitor. the line needs attention and probably needs more support for the team than it has, because right now it just seems to be wilderness survival’s less attractive younger brother. Spirit ranger is still dead, but atleast a few spirits are still useful such as PvE frost spirit and roaming sun spirit. the rest are completely worthless and making a build for them is making your team play 4v5

5) off-hand Weapons across the board have had themselves kicked in the face since their range traits are now missing. Torch, Axe offhand and even dagger all lost range they really needed with the splitting of their CDs from the old offhand training. This needs attention badly. I guess shortbow trait is good, but I still dont think shortbow is worth taking after using it which makes it funny since now the trait is taken without shortbows.

6) Probably the best thing to say about ranger right now is that skirmishing is pretty solid. I have a reason to take each trait in each tier (except strider’s defense) . Overall, all of the ranger builds I thought of sadly have a problem in adept spots for all the other lines (I feel like I have gone oakheart salve in 100% of builds with WS and I feel like Ive gone clarion bond 100% of marksman even with the nerf to it).

Class still needs some help, and it need to be in the damage area along with the support area. Its just lacking harshly there outside the standard DPS PvE build.

edit: i think ive said nerf 100 times about clarion bond. Its a bug fix, I know. But I only call it a nerf since its still a problem on the tonic front more so than the skill itself. I still dont like it, it should be on a 15s CD.

They should have made the CD similar to petswap CD, which is about 15-16 seconds. I understand they wanted to deal with the bug, but now i barely even want to take it as it makes it awkard to use.

To note, my perspective is from a Power necro who mostly does WvW and some PvE on other classes. Im not as knowledgeable as these other great and more known necromancers, but I figured I say a few things anyway.

1) DM specifically isnt a horrid line, but still falls flat compared to the other 4. It offers defense, yes, but its second minor (soul comprehension) is good on paper, but not interesting/stellar in practice. Maybe if Soul comprehension was looked at along with Reaper’s protection (which, while powerful, doesnt have a static effect to make people really want to take it period unless they have to) and unholy sanctuary, people may consider it over blood magic. Its still hard to sell this line to people even with great traits like deathly strength and corrupter’s fervor for non-MMs.

2. I havent tried condi specifically too long, but I have given my friend a condition build. from my perspective playing with him, it seems to be really good as a signet build and It felt so for the 40 seconds I ran it. Not horrid, but leaves a little to be desired considering that master line is full of traits that everyone wants and some of the traits feel a little lackluster now like chilling darkness and lingering curse (decent trait, but weakening shroud just feels good all over).

3)Corruption builds are still off the radar. With the way damage is right now, it seems to scary to be killing yourself to be even worth taking the trait either. While I think corrosive poison cloud itself and blood is power has gotten slightly better, the trait wont be taken probably ever. Besides that, playing power necro without soul reaping actually is not as bad as people would think with the changes.

4)Plague nerf is barely noticeable surprisingly for power necro compared to condition necro due to the fact that bleeds got nerfed all around, making us literally do less damage to ourselves than we heal for. Its strange to say this, but I think some fixes needs to be done to elites when terrormancers are considering lich and powermancers are considering plague. They may be strong, but the latter makes you vulnerable to yourself as condi while the former is too short and already too squishy as power. This may have already been said, but maybe fixing the cast times on lich other skills and moving some more power over to them?

4a) Consume conditions is literally on a never take basis for me right now. Its very strange having only ‘decent’ condi clear and having to build for it in weapons, traits and utilities but I would rather stomach that then taking that horrid thing. literally heal to die 2 seconds later.

5) Unholy Fervor was killed instantly as a good trait once it stated “axe skills”. This seriously needs to stop. If they are going to make a trait like this exclusive to axe, they need to fix the weapon first because it still needs A LOT of help in the 1 and 2 area (mainly auto attack tbh). While vulnerability isnt a harsh requirement, the trait would have faired better in most peoples eyes if it was just vulnerable targets, even if it was only 7% damage increase instead of 10%. Spiteful spirit is still iffy but I can see the appeal of this one at least.

6)Dhuumfire is still crap. GG on low duration and low stacks. I would say try to increase its stats, but its obviously being balanced this way so that Reaper isn’t stupidly overpowered, so it may need to do something extra such as replacing life blast with plague blast (underwater skill for necro in DS. note cast time and skill fact)

I think one thing you could possibly try is using light conditions on them first to test and see if they have auto plague signet. 3 conditions and wait for them to attack, so maybe something like vuln, cripple and one bleed should do it. If they instantly fall off and onto you/a friend, congratulations, you now have 24 seconds to go nuts on them with CC and all. If you do see they have plague signet, then be wary and try and bait the condi transfers/boon rips. outside that, its honestly the toughest fight you will have in the game at the moment. In some cases, its just not worth the effort for an engineer.

Those are general things to be wary of; passive plague signet, signet of spite and normal plague signet can all ruin your day along with their dagger 4 (its fast, green and looks like a projectile but its has some blackness to it unlike life blast.) as condition.

Good for you. recognizing a problem and trying to fix it yourself shows effort. I know you show your concerns for how damage is, but atleast you are commenting AND trying things. Some people are running around with no condi cleanses and being angry they are dying to 10 stacks of burning without even considering picking up vital/condi cleanse. Its people like you who deserve a voice of an opinion, no matter how controversial it is.

I really feel like damage being high is both a good thing and bad thing. Some of us who play tankier specs are still able to survive using active abilities while others are dropping like flies. Yes, the damage is high, but everything needs adjusting period. Why push damage low enough that its way more viable to go celestial again? zerker damage should be good, just not so good that its redic. conditions should have decent damage, but not have a situation where you either bring burning or are doing nill to nothing. Tankiness should be a factor, but not to the point where we have shoutbow 2.0 basically passively carrying the games in solo queue so hard.

Im in favor of balance, but straight up nerfing damage across the board will take something that is starting to be entertaining again and making it redic (heck, even WvW is fun for once sometimes. thats really kitten new)

Ive been using it on celestial trapper with Jaguar pet a decent amount. Its nice since the F2 on it is instant

Odeezee.7362:

Loyo.8526:

All we want is 5s CD off our heal back and a reduction of vuln stacks. can’t even get that it feels like.

NOPE! i refuse to make concessions when other professions do not. change it to what it was before nothing less!!!!

That would be ideal, and we even stretching for that… Its saddening to cleave down our heal instead of leaving it as is and fixing up the other ones that are lackluster. people still angry about the nerf to well of blood so long ago.

All we want is 5s CD off our heal back and a reduction of vuln stacks. can’t even get that it feels like.

I dont understand how consume conditions can be nerfed while being the dominant via the spell typing of it into a corruption while shelter for guardians, which is also the top heal for them, is getting left unchanged due to it not adopting a “skill type” .

“Shelter will not be getting a skill category. It would probably need to be adjusted in someway if we did do it – and it’s fine where it is right now.” – Josh Davis 2015

The class may be different, the the polar opposite treatment of them is definitely showing. The class that was already on the ground continues to be pounded, while the other is left seemlessly more or less the same.

I can feel the frustration from the past years in relation to Necromancer. And I can also feel my heart sink slowly as I realize that the class will continue to be kicked down even further in the future. At this point, its the same concept of original necro: Give and take. Only the blows are so harsh, that standing is becoming increasingly difficult.

Gates did so well to try and help us become a better class, and through his efforts we gained many great things in blood magic. Too bad the base changes were lackluster and beat us down faster in the ground than we could attempt to stand. Maybe things will get better, but At this point, so many years of constant hurting only translates to the understanding of the inevitable.

Currently? necromancer isnt looking like a good contender. But I can say that Engineer is looking to receive a bunch more players into their family.

They really should just make consume conditions NOT a corruption skill. I understand that they feel it would benefit in some way, but it should be give the shelter treatment, which was left untouched in favor of it NOT being nerfed since it was currently the top dog of heals for guardian. This is the same thing for us. Signet of vampirism can be made worth taking instead of this. The way this is being done really hurts the overall class moreso than even the lich form or plague change EVER could. It makes it worse when you factor in how impossible of a choice the master line is for curses is compared to the current Grandmaster. Its not even a meaningful choice, its more of a situation where I would rather give up and roll another class than deal with the master trait line of curses.

Please help consume conditions. Its bleeding and making mother necro sad. please, stop the pain. stop the pain….

If it makes you feel better, look at the rotting corpse that is ranger. poor thing didnt even get a chance in the limelight without being thrown in the dumpster in terms of overall fun and power damage.

The ranger dream is over. Warrior freedom is that way.

The animation is horrible, and If you wanted to fix such a thing, how about making the auto attack not as luckluster in damage to begin. Most people did the glitch because they were unhappy with it. Now everyone who uses it has lower DPS and a crappy animation due to this change. My Frostfang feels less and less worth using now.

edit: I should note that someone needs to go over the timing of Unholy Feast. even that feels slower.

Honestly, I dont feel there is anything wrong with carrion and sinister in terms of usage for a trapper mixed damage ranger. While that is said, Celestial is good also to plug in specific spots to basically get ‘free stats’, which is why I suggest not using it in every slot but in specific places.

However, trait wise it is rough using Marksman and trapper in the same go as the condi removal is needed for various situations such as possible cannons or condi thieves. The build I run for WvW these days pretty much can run longbow in place of one of its swords, but since its non traited Its more of a mid-range weapon than long range. That said, I always feel that the more power you have in a build, the less reason it is to take shortbow which is why I am linking said build of mines.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNAsYRjEq0ya7KmrQ1aABhaVA0uGS2WgkittenBbQBbqA-TVEFABopCxuKRKzEkAKBtSJUaaCU4BAIsKBVfIA8VHQTKJwe/BKVVBgzAASKHcRNgM0CQKAYGDA-w

While I understand the preference of SOR for removal, I find that simply having dodges saved and EB with stealth can work. Most rangers already get by with no removal, so this should work even with longbow attached. That and movement skills are heavily increased in the ground they cover when super speed is added, so taking dagger offhand with offhand training + Lightning reflexes makes you slippery in almost kittenous level.

For the argument on SOTH…. I honestly feel that having super speed via trap throws and swiftness via swapping to warhorn every few seconds is enough, especially now that you dont have to worry about your pet going berserk with the recent bug fix. Yes, Im aware it sounds silly to just throw traps willy nilly while traveling, but honestly they are on 12-16s CDs. So the worst that can happen is you see ticks from far away of a following thief while still maintaining your out of combat movement speed cause you are too far away for it to proc combat speed for yourself.

also, if you use traps and EB, consider lightning drake… its an odd choice but sometimes the blast finisher you get on first attack can help you get some might aka extra damage.

Having similar problems. My fps has been pretty close to the same, but my ping has ben skyrocketting to 1400+, making it impossible to play anything.

Please do or just fix Foot in the Grave. Right now, its insulting to have a grandmaster be not even a 10th as effective as a utility skill on Elementalist.

Im just playing my ranger nowadays. My frostfang has been on her for a few weeks now anyway so its whatever.

Just checked plague and it indeed doesnt give less toughness. or atleast doesnt work on hero panel

Im done with Necromancer for now anyway. this was just too much all at once. Every elite nerfed.

Hey. Atleast we didnt get nerfed too hard!

oh wait.

This still needs attention. badly. If you want to reduce the amount of tickets sent in about dungeon kicks after patch, Fixing frost spirit would help.

This needs to be addressed before the patch as it is very much a big part of the playstyle of PvE ranger. the complexity of PvE is already low, and not having frost spirit not only removes the complexity, but removes the class from many runs and slowly out of favor even after a supposes buff to the class.

Esplen.3940:

Now you know how us Mesmarz feel about the Sword3 “fixes”.

Pats Rangers on shoulder we’ll get through this…

thank god they are fixing that ‘fix’ in the next patch. meanwhile, undocumented change to ranger so close to patch day that was supposed to make ranger more viable that makes them less viable than they were as a whole. Sword 3 missing doesnt kill mesmer DPS spot like this does to ranger in dungeons.