Guild Wars 2

Shouts:
— “Guard!” does not apply the damage redirection buff if activated while in BeastMode.
— “Search and Rescue” does not teleport the ally to you, if activated while in BeastMode.

Beast Mastery:
—While in BeastMode, the traits: “Go For the Eyes”, “Wilting Strike”, and “Beastly Warden” apply their effects upon skill completion of F3. Non-BeastMode pet F2 skills apply them on start-up.

BeastMode F skills:
—Spiders’ “Poison Gas” uses center-of-camera aiming. (Using Action Camera as a work-around allows for accuracy, or pointing the camera straight down for point-blank usage.)

edited for clarity.

Durzlla.6295:

Irijia.6073:

Durzlla.6295:

Idk why everyone’s acting like the elite spec fusing with pets will make them not fix pets when it’ll literally only be ONE SPEC that avoids using the pet, it’s not like ranger and Druid are going to be able to shelf their pet and pretend it’s not there just because soul beast can (and even then we don’t know how long or frequently)

Experience. You know, like how they fixed vanilla pets by not fixing them and adding new, more powerful ones instead. Even though pets hit more reliably now, HoT pets are still tops in most scenarios, pigs are still not worth using because of their clunky special, and they will likely continue the trend of bandaid-ing the problems by throwing in more new pets instead of fixes.

Also, did they finally fix drakes and the fact that they only auto-attack which they broke back in the beginning of the year? This last question is a legitimate one as I stepped away from the game these past months after attempting to slog through the horrifically bad Living Story.

I mean they have been fixing the old pets… so slowly… oh so very kittening slowly… so given their current speed I think in another xpac they’ll finally have most of the pets (except pigs because for some reason Anet hates them) working.

And as for the drake… I don’t know, it seems like the kitten things break every other patch, I’ve come to the conclusion that the code for the Drake pets are just intertwined with every other aspect of the game.

Last time I checked on the drakes, non AA skill usage was poor. They would use Tail Swipe sometimes, but with no real discernible trigger for it. Sometimes they would use it on swap, some times they would not; sometimes they would use it on a mob with 1hp left, sometimes they would just AA it from 100-0.

As for Soulbeast, I will say the concept is interesting enough. Whether or not ANet can actually execute on the concept is the big question for me. Look at their execution of the ‘healer’ concept for Druid. To me, Druid was (and still is), a clunky mess that is held together more by stats than any sort of synergy or interesting gameplay.

Impressions of Rising Flames:
Found most of the main story and island boring to play.

It is a large map filled with random enemies (would have been nice if there were more GW1 throw-back mobs from that version of RoF), most of which are a non-factor unless you massively over-aggro. This leaves them as nothing more than an annoyance. Which leads to my boredom. They are not engaging to fight, but they hinder map movement none-the-less.

The big chunk of story between the prologue and final step felt like busywork. I felt like that section did little to advance the story.

Enjoyed the final step in the story chain as it was the only one I felt had any real challenge to it. Also enjoyed the prologue as it was entertaining.

The JP….
It is not difficult because it is complex, it is difficult(frustrating) because there is zero logic behind which geometry faces will allow you stand on them and which ones will punt you off. Outside of that, I felt the jp was well put together.

FogLeg.9354:

And how do you see it?

You see it mostly in the form of diminished EXP gains.
The event chains, especially in VB, are long enough that gold level participation starts exceeding some arbitrary EXP per time-frame metric. Assuming gold level participation, you’ll go from about 18k EXP per event to about 2-4k EXP per event.

Aomine.5012:

Klypto.1703:

Hey guys I figured out how to make them and what the problem is. The mix up is the wiki states it takes 1 armored scale but the actual thing is that its 5 leaf fossils. Herald one takes the rev rune and evergreen loadestone and 10 leaf fossils so its just half of the fossils to make the rev rune. I hope this satisfies the frustration we all have had about this rune

Edit: Oh almost forgot it wouldn’t work on my character that had leatherworking but I have a armorsmithing one at 400 and that character was able to make it but other part of the problem is that you need do it on armorsmith(atleast for me anyways).

The problem is the recipe of Rune of Revenant does not exist, and cannot be discovered.

Here you go:

You need a target. Then it applies Revealed to that target, and a status effect buff to your pet. If you issue any other commands to your pet, the Sic Em buff will be removed from the pet.

In all honesty, I’d like SB to become a pure direct damage +utility weapon, while Axe MH goes to complete condi.
Skill 1. Fast, smaller damage. Basically the opposite of LB 1, which is slower, heavier damage. Also, remove the bull-kitten fixed time delay. Quickness is no longer +100% activation speed.
Skill 2. Some sort of non-ground targetting AoE. Hits the target and splashes.
Skill 3. I kind of like this one.
Skill 4. Cripple is fine. I think it should immobilize if it hits someone already with cripple, though.
Skill 5. I like Conc Shot, but it could use a lower CD.

As for LoYF….
Just ditch the condi portion of it, and up the direct damage portion. Then, make it trigger on evade with a very small ICD.

Eval.2371:

Kitty.1502:

Eval the biggest issue with Rangers is that we are balanced around the pet. Our pet dies often really easily in pve or in pvp they don’t hit often enough. Pay attention to your pet when you pvp you will notice that they miss over half the time if not closer to 70% of the time against anyone who doesn’t stand still.

While I totally agree with you on this point, I don’t believe its within anets or the engines capacity to do much better than currently have. If they could I think they they would have already fixed many of our pet issues but have not. I would rather turn my attention to other areas that could actually be improved on.

It is within ANet’s capacity, they made the decision not to.
On AI: pets share AI with open-world mobs. I.E., the Juvenile Wolf uses the same AI as the Wolf mobs you run into in zones. ANet decided that improving the AI of pets to a point were they would be a genuine threat on their own would make the open-world mobs too difficult for novice players.
On better controls: ANet made the decision against them, with the reasoning that it would make Ranger too complex for new players and/or those with poor micro skills.

Shadelang.3012:

If you run guard. Do you use it for its intended functionality. Or to pop boons.

If you run sic em. do you give any other order to your pet for the duration. Because that prevents you from using this skill to its fullest.

If you run protect me. How can you justify a defensive skill that kills our class mechanic and even prevents capture point contribution when its competition SAVES our class mechanic as well as us and doesn’t interfere with capture point contribution.

If you use search and rescue. How often do you find your pet gets interupted/killed while attempting to rez. How often does it succesfully rez something in an area too risky for you to attempt that rez. Does it do it on its own. or with signet of stone or bark skin WITH rampage as one protecting it. How much investment does that rez take compared to other rez skills.

• Guard: I don’t use Guard as I don’t usually run shout builds. I’m not overly fond of its functionality, due to the pet often simply attacking targets that happen to be near the pet’s path of travel to the Guard location.
• Sic Em: I use it for revealed. I feel the damage/move buff is largely negated by the pet’s poor pathing and animation rooting. Also, because the damage/move buff is easily removed by accident.
• Protect Me: I don’t think I can justify taking this over any other stun break or SoS. Not only does it tend to nuke your pet, the pet is actually doing no damage while it is active. Not to mention it is range limited, as far as I know. So if your pet gets rooted and you run more than like 600 away, the effect breaks. Mostly because it nukes the pet, and being able to pet swap without the 1 min penalty is a pretty important thing.
• Search and Rescue: I don’t use it. The last time I ever used it was back when Fractals were new and S&R could rez dead players. I’ve always felt it had poor rez speed (this might have changed since then). I also dislike that it potentially gets my pet nuked. For a non-guaranteed rez skill (that also requires a living pet on activation), I’ve always felt the cooldown to be too long to bother with.

I’d love to see shouts from GW1 similar to Strike as One, Otyugh’s Cry, Predatory Bond, and/or Call of Protection, added to GW2. Those shouts actually helped your pet. SaO is probably my favorite ranger shout from GW1, though. I thought, and still think, the functionality of it was/is great.

mrstealth.6701:

evilunderling.9265:

Daniel Handler.4816:

I am not referring to optimal. I am referring to viable. If it is not possible for full thief raids to complete the entire thing, then something has gone wrong…

That doesn’t imply that anything has gone wrong at all.

Raids are meant to be hard — the norm for hardcore raids in other games is that you need to be able to do something like 90% of your theoretically attainable DPS to beat the enrage timer. GW2 should be quite a bit more lenient than that (after all, we will never have genuinely better gear to bring along), but not by that much if they’re to remain credible.

Every time you drop a profession in favour of stacking another profession, balance demands that you’re significantly worse off for doing so. If these are credible raids and the game is balanced, you should not be able to do that eight times over.

It means that something is very wrong because being able to do that is the core philosophy of the game. Being able to complete any content with whatever party composition you have. You take who you have, and don’t have to wait around because you lack a healer/etc.

If you have to sit around for an hour and wait for a druid or other player that is setup/geared as a dedicated healer, then Anet has completely thrown their core design philosophy out the window.

For dedicated healing to fit into the game’s design, it would need to be an option, not a requirement. Taking one dedicated healer instead of having lesser healing/defense support spread over several other party members. I think it’s doable, but it will be a difficult and delicate balance to make sure both options are equally viable.

And then you realize that the ‘anti-trinity’ experiment is largely a failed one that led to the rise, and perpetuation, of the zerker meta. Moving away from generalists toward specialists isn’t a bad thing. It creates a need for specs that would otherwise never be seen, because they simply aren’t wanted or needed in the current environment.

In no way does the addition of the Druid change anything. All the other classes already have viable heal specs. They all operate somewhat differently, and are better, and worse, in certain situations.

And why wouldn’t a full Thief raid be a thing? Venomshare is a viable, albeit unpopular, spec. The sustained healing it can provide is nothing to scoff at, neither is the party-wide damage boost.
If you meant to say you want a raid run to be viable with nothing but glass-cannon thieves, I’ll have to disagree. You should be able to run w/e profession you like, but you SHOULD have to use more than one shared spec. I do believe ANet has said that for raids, you need people to fill certain ROLES, not certain professions.

Assuming the small self heals from Live Vicariously build astral force, you’re looking at some insane generation. Cultivated Synergy + your heal would net you something close to 50% generation with 5 targets.

One thing I noticed was that the Lightning Wyvern’s F2 had little/no start up time. It was just F2 —> CHARGE!, vs something like a pig which is f2 > long wind up > clunky dash.

Zalladi.4652:

Of course, I’m not held at gunpoint to use the Druid, but I don’t see it being that viable anywhere else other than Raids and occasionally WvW zerg fights, whereas all other Elite Specializations…

I think it will see a fair bit of sPvP play. It is looking to bring a metric kitten ton of PBAoE CC.
For generic PvE….ehhhhh. I don’t know. It seriously depend on how much redbarring will be necessary.

I already have an apothecary set. Will probably just stick with that.

A couple thoughts.

Thieves are reliant on stealth because they are poorly designed, much like Assassins from GW1. DareDevil and s/s Shiro Revenant are basically what thieves SHOULD have been, with a bit of stealth added on for flavor.

On to stealth itself.
GW2’s implementation, at the moment, is very binary. It has no true soft counters, and one hard counter: revealed. I am all for adding soft counters to the stealth mechanic.

I was fond of some of the approaches SW:TOR used for stealth. Invisible at range, but you start ‘ghosting’ to partially visible if you run around close to your target while in their forward arc. Then, Snipers/Gunslingers got a passive that let them gradually build up this stacking buff that increased the range at which stealthed targets started ‘ghosting’ (only for the sniper though, and only while in cover).

While it’d probably kitten people off, I’d be ok with the Spotter trait being reworked into a stealth soft counter trait. It could possibly allow the ranger to see through stealth at short/mid ranges(900-ish ?), similar to what the OP’s ‘Spotted’ debuff does.

As for engi’s, I have a lvl 80 engi but I rarely play it. That said, the amount of reveal they are heaping onto the class is a bit absurd. I really don’t want engi (or any class) to become the ‘anti-stealth class’. That’s just kittenty design.

Holland.9351:

1) Sneak Gyro is an Elite skill
2) Scrapper is an Elite spec
3) Sic ‘em is a 2000 range single target instant 6s reveal without a single tell. Sneak Gyro is a 900 range point blank AoE 6s reveal with the gyro itself being a huge tell.
4) Traps can’t be thrown because all skills/weapons can only have 1 trait in their new system. They didn’t want the trait to change the behaviour of the skill. So they choose the non-throwable trap and the immobile spirit. Nothing to do with Dragonhunter or Scrapper.

Just a small correction:
Reveal is the F5 toolbelt skill, thus it works independently of whether the drone is deployed or not.

Puck.9612:

RevanCorana.8942:

Sickem could at the very least grant superspeed to your pet so that the dmg increase actually matters.

it grants them 40% movement speed…. do you mean grant them quickness so they attack faster?

Would either really matter? The pet still has to stop to cast all of its attacks. Not to mention any other effect/order you apply to your pet will simply clear “Sic ’Em!” anyways.

Wuselknusel.4082:

Don’t you also get all jittery in anticipation of our own dev post just for the Ranger?

Oh yes, I’m all sorts of excited for a dev to hype train the ever loving kitten out of Druid….
…..and then we get Aquaman Patch: Druid Edition.

This is my realistic expectation of druid.

Sarision.6347:

So if you interrupt it yourself, it goes full CD?

Depends on when you interrupt it. Most skills that have a cast/channel time also have a ‘start-up’ time. For instance, RF’s ‘start-up’ time is the short period from when the skill begins to activate and the first arrow attempts to fire. That’s your window of self-interrupt for RF if you want the reduced cooldown. Different skills have slightly different timings for when an interrupt will or will not put it on its shortened CD.

Durzlla.6295:

Id be happy if crippling shot made it so the ranger shot an arrow that applied torment and cripple 3s, and then your pets next 3 attacks also crippled.

I’m more a fan of: Cripple them. If they’re already crippled, immobilized them.

As a whole, I’d prefer if ANet just decided to make SB a direct-damage/utility weapon and moved the condi portion to MH Axe.

From what I could deduce:
Marks: Clarion Bond, ???(not MoC though), Remorseless
Skirm: Primal Reflexes (only one that makes sense to me), Spotter, Quick Draw
WS: Oakheart Salve, Shared Anguish, Wilderness Knowledge

Right side skills:
Troll Unguent, Lightning Reflexes, Quickening Zephyr, Signet of Stone, RaO.

Weapons: Longbow(? sigils) and Greatsword (hydromancy/??)

Unknown runes

Pets: Wolf and Owl

Wondrouswall.7169:

We knew they were busy with the expansion already, but as Puck said, I would rather they focus on fixing issues instead of an expansion. I fear that once Heart of Thorns releases, they will again be focused on releasing Living World content to expand the rest of the story, leaving more bugs at the back burner along with adding new ones.

As much as I want them to take a solid 6 months or so just fixing bugs and not dealing with creating new content, there would be another cry-out from a portion of the community (like currently) about a content-drought. Can’t win them all, but props to the Devs for dealing with it the best they can.

I’d rather delay HoT if it meant basic game functionality was largely bug free. Tacking on an expansion that promises new mechanics is just asking to break things even further. I mean, the list of bugs introduced by the 6/23 update, and those that are still being found, is a bit absurd. Hell, I wish they’d pushed back the trait/utility overhaul by a month or two and actually done QA on it. I, for one, do not particularly enjoy playing BetaWars 2.

Considering Signet of Renewal’s CD and requirement to have a living pet, it could be a straight condi clear. It is very similar to “Save Yourselves!”, and not getting 7 boons from it would be the offset for SoR being a clear instead of a pull.

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

I’ve hit some of these compiled issues (like the 150 pet stats, some offhand range items and some pet traits not working while downed) and those should be getting addressed soon-ish.

We are working heavily on HoT and trying to get to these issues whenever time allows.

Bit saddened to hear HoT takes precedence over basic game functionality.

On topic:
Bug: Frost Trap has a 1 second delay between triggering and applying effects.

Alternatively, they can fix pet pathing in combat. Sweet lord is it horrid. I normally don’t really watch my pets path, just do a quick eyeball of ‘is the target in range of f2’ instead. Buuut, I was recently 1v1’ing a friend and I asked him to let the pet chase him around a bit. The pet literally followed the path he took, little zig-zags and everything. No attempt to take the shortest path to the target, just….followed along. It was kind of painful to watch.

Dirame.8521:

Hehe, unfortunately I don’t have access to those guys. From the sample size I’ve fought though, I’ve been able to either stalemate, kill or get killed after a long fight. So, from my testing, a more proficient player than I am, would be able to deal with the likes of Noscoc and Phantaram.

While I have no idea of your relative skill level, I’ll leave a story.

The year was 2013, quartz crystals and its accompanying Celestial gear had just been introduced to PvE/WvW. Cele d/d eles running +60% boon duration rune sets were all the rage. It sucked to fight them. Most were bad to middling and were carried by the build. While not top-tier myself, I decided to make a ranger build to kill all the bad to middling d/d eles. So, I made a chill-spam ranger with approx +90% chill duration. Bad d/d eles didn’t manage their condi removal wisely, got their CDs all sorts of messed up from chill, and then died. Good ones either killed me or recognized what I was doing and disengaged.
The moral of the story is: not all builds are viable at all skill levels.

On topic: The ‘meta’ as it is now sucks. We’ll see what it looks like if/when anet ever gets around to reducing the ridiculous amount of powercreep they introduced.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

All they really need to do is create a half dozen traits and improve/merge some of the others. I can’t see that it would take a huge amount of resources to improve Ranger traits, since most of the mechanics are already in the game, many of the traits we need improved would be cut-pastes of other class traits and the others are number changes to existing mechanics.

I don’t think the class needs a rework at all, mostly improvements. If they don’t improve a class to the point where it is usable in all game modes, then they have put it in the “too-hard-basket”.

They could have implemented all the changes needed with the trait re-work they already used the resources to do. I do think they lack the imagination really, look at the changes they made in comparison to other classes.

Outside of a full overhaul of the class: pets first, traits second
Having an actual fully supported and functioning class mechanic is paramount. Currently our traits/damage/whathaveyou are balanced around the pet actually succeeding at something other than being marginally better than useless. You can buff traits all you want, but they’d have to end up almost game-breakingly strong in order to compete with other classes once you factor in how pets are at the moment.

I’ll copy/paste something I put in another thread about pets:

1. Pet base movespeed increased to 25% more than player base movespeed. This is so they can actually catch targets that are running.
2. Pet basic attacks get a small lunge added to them. This is to make their attacks more fluid and able to hit moving targets.
3. Full control over their skills. Sometimes I don’t want an eagle deciding it is better to take 2 seconds to give AoE swiftness rather than just killing the target. Maybe I want a bear to use Defy Pain when I know a big hit is incoming, rather than wait till after the hit goes through and its hp tanks.
4. An F5 skill which would be a simple ground targeting ‘go here’ command.
5. Make pet attributes actually match the pet. You know what power/precision does for a spider or devourer? Not a whole hell of a lot. You know what would be nice on them? Condi damage.

Edit:
OT:
To whichever dev is working on ranger,
For the love of all that is: holy, unholy, and mundane; either make pets fully functioning and supported or replace them as our class mechanic.

Kodama.6453:

Shadow Phage.9084:

But on to trait lines.
Rangers really only have 4 right now anyways. Nature Magic and Wilderness Survival practically fulfill the same role. To me, Nature Magic feels like the dumping ground for traits that wouldn’t fit into BM and WS due to the limited number of traits allowed per line. Not to mention, if you try to minimize your dependance on pet AI right now, you most likely won’t be spec’ing into BM.

I understand how you feel about this (even if it is still possible to combine each trait line with another by getting benefit from them) but I really don’t think it is quite that simple. ^^

How about shout skills? A ranger using preparation as class mechanic can’t take them anymore because they only work if there is a pet with you. Signets will have an effect, but now just for the ranger (which would make some of them kinda weak and so we need a rework for this case too).

That’s what I mean, all professions depend that much on their skill mechanic, that you can’t just replace it by another one so easily. If you do, you have to rework ALL things that are going along with the mechanic.

I would be completely willing to fully support BM, but it requires things that Anet pretty much refuses to do.
1. Pet base movespeed increased to 25% more than player base movespeed
2. Pet basic attacks get a small lunge added to them. Combined with the movespeed, this will allow them to actually stay with and hit moving targets.
3. Full control over their skills. Sometimes I don’t want an eagle giving AoE swiftness. Maybe I want a bear to use Defy Pain when I know a big hit is incoming, rather than wait till after the hit goes through and its hp tanks.
4. An F5 skill which would be a simple ground targeting ‘go here’ command.
Combined these would make pets actually decent.

The only signet that really suffers without a pet is Signet of Renewal, which isn’t great anyways. You get an aoe condi clear….by condi nuking your pet. Given its long active CD, it could honestly work as a straight clear. Like:
Signet of Renewal:

• Passive: Remove 1 condition from you and your pet every 10 seconds.
• Active: Remove X conditions from you, your pet, and nearby allies.

As for shouts. Ranger shouts are already contingent on your pet being alive for full functionality (read: everything but Sic ‘Em); some are borderline useless anyways, like Search and Rescue. While I’ll acknowledge that ranger shout builds can work, that is largely because Guard and WHaO have low CDs. Every other ranger shout is 40sec and up for base CD.
That said, not all utilities are useful depending on your spec. Take thief venoms for example. Basilisk is the only one that generally sees any play outside of venomshare builds.
Preparations will functionally serve as combined class mechanic and utility skills, similar to engineer toolbelt.

edit: changes to original posts:

• Longbow: Hunter’s Shot changed back to how it works now
• Shortbow: Splintering Shot changed to a straight on-hit AoE
• Sic Em: Mark target. Pet follows and attacks marked target, even through stealth. If the pet hits the marked target, the marked target becomes Revealed.
• Signet of Renewal: Signet of Renewal: passive: Cure a condition on you and your pet every 10 seconds. Active: Remove X conditions from you, your pet, and nearby allies.
• Steady Focus: 10% more damage if you haven’t used endurance in the last 4 seconds.
• Hunter’s Tactics: Deal 10% more damage while flanking
• Bark Skin: The next time you would take damage greater than 10% of your max HP, it is reduced to 10% of your max HP. ( 30 sec ICD) (also affects pet)
• Refined Toxins: Poison duration increased. Poison damage increased.

Expertise:

• Clarion Bond: Cast Call of the Wild on pet swap. (20 sec ICD) (added to adept tier)
  *Keen Eye: Critical Hits while under the effects of a Preparation deal more damage (moved to Master tier)
  *Crossfire: While attacking the same target, you and your pet’s attacks are unblockable (moved to Grandmaster tier)

Kodama.6453:

So you want ranger to become the only class which can choose one of two different class mechanics? I don’t think this will ever happen and it isn’t a good idea, because you are cutting build diversity of ranger by far with this one.

The five core specializations are meant to get combined as you wish, this isn’t able with your system because the line Beast Mastery becomes pointless if you are using preparations as class mechanic and the same for Expertise, if you are using pets as mechanic. I can see to get preparations as a new utility skill type in the future along with a new elite specialization.

I agree to a rework of the spirits, because they are really weak as they are now. They should give an unique buff to the team like frost spirit is already doing, because the other boon spreading spirits are boring and pointless because they have too many downsides for their benefit.

And btw: Crossfire isn’t just broken for a master trait, it would be even broken for a grandmaster. This would give your whole team permanent unblockable attacks. just ridiculous.

Yeah, Crossfire is…yeah. What about if I changed it to just your own attacks are unblockable if you and an ally share a target? (I’ll probably edit my rework to this)

But on to trait lines.
Rangers really only have 4 right now anyways. Nature Magic and Wilderness Survival practically fulfill the same role. To me, Nature Magic feels like the dumping ground for traits that wouldn’t fit into BM and WS due to the limited number of traits allowed per line. Not to mention, if you try to minimize your dependance on pet AI right now, you most likely won’t be spec’ing into BM.

@arenta
Search and Rescue is honestly a ‘meh’ skill. I couldn’t think of something else to put there though, at the time. Reviving fully dead, vs downed, players in combat is generally not a good idea nor is it fast. Honestly, to make Search and Rescue good I’d probably roll “Guard!” into it. Give the pet stealth and prot and send it on its way to rez someone.

Bunuka.3154:

Your change to Hunter’s Shot would ruin LBs survivability without the stealth. Besides that some of these changes are cool. I also dislike the change to rapid fire as it;d be very easy to counter in PvP

Current Hunter’s Shot’s stealth and Rapid Fire turn longbow into a mid to close range dueling weapon, instead of a long range one. Both RF and HS are largely inconsistent at long range vs targets that are aware of you, but get better as the distance closes. RF in particular is propping up LB at ranges you really shouldn’t be using a LB at. Ideally, Shortbow would fill the range zone that RF and HS are propping up LB in. That said, I’d be willing to leave HS alone, but not RF. I wanted LB to be a: longer range, slower attack, but individually harder hitting weapon. While SB would be a: closer range, faster attack, but individually softer hitting weapon.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Why include the traits if they are unchanged? Just post the ones you think need attention. imo, a lot of the ones you left unchanged are the ones that really need the change.

I included them because I ended up shuffling around quite a few traits and I wanted the trait lines to make sense if you’re familiar with those traits. For instance, my WS line has traits that are currently located in Wilderness Survival, Beast Mastery, Skirmishing, and Nature Magic.

Outside of the non-GM Marksmanship traits (yeah, I know they’re kind of bad), which ones do you think are in a bad spot?

Here’s my thoughts on the unchanged ones:

• Marks: Enlargement is pretty bad; Predator’s Instinct could use a lower ICD; Steady Focus isn’t good once you dodge, meaning its damage bonus is only good when you’re allowed to free fire; MoC is niche so I’ll allow it; Brutish Seals is a decent signet trait.
• Skirmishing: I think the minors are ok, maybe Hunter’s Tactics could be changed back to more damage while flanking; Primal Reflexes isn’t bad; Instinctive Reaction isn’t terrible; Quick Draw is very good; Protective Ward isn’t bad for tankier builds; ZS is solid.
• WS: minors are decent. Bark Skin is debatable, I’m not overly fond of any of the “while over 90% hp” traits for any class. They seem far too binary; Oakheart is a good trait; Soften the Fall is like every other fall trait except for Thieves’ which is in a GM trait; Trappers Expertise does what it needs to do; Evasive Purity is good; Refined Toxins – go see my thoughts on Bark Skin; WK is very good; Natural Healing is decent.
• BM: I thought they actually did a very good job on the BM line, post trait rework. I really have no complaints about that line as it is now. That said, while the traits are good, they don’t really fix the problems with pets, which is their inconsistency of damage application.
• Expertise: Spotter is…spotter. It is generally considered one of the only reasons to bring along a ranger in group settings right now.

Traits:

Marksmanship (direct damage/ranged/signet focused)
Minor traits:

• Opening Strike: First attack auto crits
• Pin Cushion: critical hits have an X% chance to cause vulnerability
• Long-Range Specialist: Deal X% more damage to targets more than 900 units away

Major:

• Adept:
  • Enlargement: unchanged
  • Predator’s Instinct: unchanged
  • Steady Focus: 10% more damage if you haven’t used endurance in the last 4 seconds.
• Master:
  • Brutish Seals: unchanged
  • Moment of Clarity: unchanged
  • Light on Your Feet: rework; on successful evade gain 10% damage increase for 4 seconds and 10 endurance (2 sec ICD on endurance gain)
• Grandmaster:
  • Lead the Wind: Now also affects Shortbow
  • Predator’s Onslaught: unchanged
  • Remorseless: unchanged

Skirmishing (melee/offhands focused)
Minor traits:

• Tail Wind: unchanged
• Furious Grip: unchanged
• Hunter’s Tactics: Deal 10% more damage while flanking

Major:

• Adept:
  • Primal Reflexes: unchanged
  • Instinctive Reaction: Critical Hits you suffer restore 5 endurance
  • Windborne Notes: cdr changed to 10%
• Master:
  • Ambidexterity: Offhand weapon skills have increased range/radius and have 20% cdr
  • Honed Axes: gain ferocity while wielding an axe in the offhand. 20% axe cdr
  • Blade Training: sword and greatsword skills have 20% cdr. Chance to gain fury on critical hit.
• Grandmaster:
  • Quick Draw: unchanged
  • Protective Ward: unchanged
  • Zephyr’s Speed: Gain quickness on weapon swap (9 sec ICD)

Wilderness Survival (condition manipulation/trap/survival focused)
Minor traits:

• Vigorous Rejuvenation: combination of Natural Vigor and Rejuvenation
• Defensive Dodge: Gain protection on dodge roll.
• Bark Skin: The next time you would take damage greater than 10% of your max HP, it is reduced to 10% of your max HP( 30 sec ICD) (also affects pet)

Major:

• Adept:
  • Oakheart Salve: unchanged
  • Soften the Fall: unchanged
  • Trapper’s Expertise: unchanged
• Master:
  • Evasive Purity: unchanged
  • Serrated Edges: Sharpened Edges + Hidden Barbs
  • Refined Toxins: Poison duration increased. Poison damage increased.
• Grandmaster:
  • Nature’s Vengeance: Also increases range of spirit passive effects
  • Wilderness Knowledge: unchanged
  • Natural Healing: unchanged (but bug fixed)

Beast Mastery(shout/pet focused)
Minor traits:

• Fortifying Bond: combined with Lingering Magic
• Pack Alpha: combined with Pet’s Prowess
• Loud Whistle: unchanged

Major:

• Adept:
  • Resounding Timbre: unchanged
  • Go for the Eyes: unchanged
  • Vigorous Training: unchanged
• Master:
  • Beastly Warden: unchanged, perhaps increased CD to offset moving it down a tier
  • Wilting Strike: unchanged
  • Shared Anguish: unchanged
• Grandmaster:
  • Invigorating Bond: unchanged
  • Predatory Bond: Your attacks heal your pet for X% of your damage and your pet heals you for X% if its damage
  • Empathic Bond: unchanged

Expertise (utility/preparation focused):
Minor traits:

• Prepared: Preparations have 10% cdr
• Expert’s Dexterity: Attack 5% faster while under the effects of a Preparation
• Expert’s Focus: activating a Preparation reduces active utility CDs by 1 second

Major:

• Adept:
  • Swift Preparations: Preparation cast time reduced by 50%
  • Prepared Hunter: Deal X% more damage while a Preparation is active
  • Clarion Bond: Cast Call of the Wild on pet swap. (20 sec ICD)
• Master:
  • Spotter (aura): unchanged
  • Meticulous Expert: Preparation effects (condition duration, trigger chance, and activation speedup) increased by 20%
  • Keen Eye: Critical Hits while under the effects of a Preparation deal more damage

• Grandmaster:
  • Always Prepared: Preparations last 2 seconds longer and have their recharge reduced by 10%
  • Crossfire: While attacking the same target, you and your pet’s attacks are unblockable
  • Party Preparations(small pun): Activating a Preparation copies it to nearby allies as well. (yes, I’m aware this is a venomous aura rip-off)

Basics: I was thinking about the ranger and being unhappy with what it does/where it is at. Simultaneously I felt like crap and couldn’t sleep. End result: this served as a distraction from feeling like crap. Fair warning: I’m partial to ranger; some of this will probably be OP. Its also super long. But yeah, if I could change the ranger, it’d end up something like this.
Leave feedback if you want.

Trait lines:

• Marksmanship
• Skirmishing
• Wilderness Survival
• Beast Mastery
• Expertise

Utility skill types:

• Shout, Signet, Spirit, Survival, Trap

Class Mechanic:
Preperations (6 sec duration, 1 sec cast, 32 sec cd, only 1 active at a time)
Down-state skill 3: Nature’s Revival: Summon a Spirit of Revival to heal you. (only available when using Preperations)
Alt class mechanic:
Pet (select by using menu on f1 skill; replaces Preperations if chosen)
Preperations:

• f1: Apply Poison: for 6 seconds, attacks cause X second(s) of poison
• f2: Disruptive Accuracy: for 6 seconds, critical hits have an X% chance to interrupt skills
• f3: Incendiary Materials: for 6 seconds, attacks cause X second(s) of burning
• f4: Rapid Fire: for 6 seconds, weapon skills activate/channel X% faster

===========
Weapons:
Longbow (range 1500):

• Long Range Shot: no change
• Full Draw: channel; deal more damage the longer the channel (3 stage, same time-frame as current Rapid Fire for full charge)
• Point Blank Shot: no change
• Hunter’s Shot: gain stealth on successful hit. (edit: changed back to stealth apply)
• Barrage: no change

Shortbow (range 1000):

• Needling Shot: basic damage skill. fast refire
• Splintering Shot: deal x damage to target and nearby targets. (edit: made my version not suck)
• Quickshot: no change
• Crippling Shot: cripple target. short immobilize if already crippled.
• Concussion Shot: no change

Greatsword:

• Counterattack: faster animation

Sword:

• no change

Dagger:

• no change

Torch:

• no change

Warhorn:

• no change

Axe (MH):

• Ricochet: bleed instead of might
• Splitblade: no change
• Winter’s Bite: no change

Axe (OH):

• no change

Utilities:
Shouts:

• “We Heal As One!” (heal); Heal you and your pet (if applicable). If your pet is downed, it revives with 10% hp.
• “Sic ’Em!”; Mark target. Pet follows and attacks marked target, even through stealth. If the pet hits the marked target, the marked target becomes Revealed.
• “Strike As One!”; For 8 seconds, the next time you hit with an attack, your pet shadowsteps to that enemy with an attack.
• “Protect Me!”; your pet moves to your side and gains protection; your pet absorbs incoming direct damage that you would otherwise take.
• “Search and Rescue!”; no functionality change; pet gains swiftness and increased revive speed
• “Strength of the Pack!” (elite): no change

Signets:

• Signet of Renewal: passive: Cure a condition on you and your pet every 10 seconds
  • active: Remove X conditions from you, your pet, and nearby allies.

Spirits (base passive range: 1200; With Nature’s Vengeance: 1800)(active effects sacrifice the spirit):

• Spirit of Renewal (heal): passive: conditions expire X% faster.
  • active: heal yourself while removing conditions
• Spirit of Extinction: passive: Creatures/players that die within range deal X% of their max HP in damage to other creatures/players in range that share a type
  • active: Deal X damage to nearby targets
• Spirit of Tranquility: passive: boons expire X% faster
  • active: Remove up to 5 boons from nearby targets
• Spirit of Predation: passive: heals are 10% less effective, steal life on hit.
  • active: Heal nearby allies and steal life from nearby targets
• Spirit of Permafrost: passive: players/npcs cannot be revived (note: this affects revival by allies by using resurrections effects such as Signet of Renewal, Battle Standard, and healing. Rally on kill still possible)
  • active: AoE chill field
• Spirit of Muddy Terrain (elite): passive: movement enhancing effects do not work. Leaps/charges/dashes have their range reduced to 150
  • active: AoE immobilize

Survival:

• Troll Unguent (heal); no change
• Lightning Reflexes: no longer deals damage; break stun, evades backwards, removes impairing effects (immobilize, cripple, chill, slow)
• Quickening Zephyr: no change
• Dodge: evade the next X attack(s)
• Antidote: remove poison and torment; gain regeneration
• Entangle (elite): change vines’ immobilazation from targetted applicaiton to untargetted PBAoE application.

Traps:

• Healing Spring (heal): change triggers to: <100% hp and/or condi present
• Flame Trap: no change
• Viper’s Nest: no change
• Spike Trap: lower cd
• Dust Trap: pulse blind and damage

Medicarejunkie.6032:

Is it just me, or is part of the nerf the fact that we are forced into the pet swap mechanic? When and where to swap pets for quickness is trickier to master than it first appears. You have to be more aware of your skills and your pet’s skills on cooldown, positioning of you, your pet, and your enemy or you could waste it. It also forces different pet combinations than pre patch. Pre patch I had my jaguar and a utility pet. The jaguar was out 95% of the time. But, now that its out almost 50/50, its a huge dps loss to put anything other than a cat as my second pet.

I’d say part of that is the terrible pet UI. If the pet UI had a little pop-up window that showed their skills and CDs, then there wouldn’t be nearly as much guesswork. Perhaps something similar to the Hero npc control panel from GW1. That panel would be AMAZING for pets. And also, yes the forced pet swap for effects traits are dumb. The fact that they have an ICD timer is also dumb. It strikes me as a lazy way of trying to add ‘interactivity’ to the ranger’s sub-par class mechanic.

idontnoso.9850:

Shadow Phage.9084:

I’d rather spirits do something interesting, besides give increased damage, give prot, give burn, give swiftness, etc.
Bring back things like:
Tranquility
Frozen Soil
Muddy Terrain
Predatory Season
and the pinnacle of amazing spirits….
Edge of Extinction

Tranquility: make boons expire faster
Frozen Soil: can’t revive downed/dead players
Muddy Terrain: no speed buffs
Predatory Season: reduced healing
EoE: don’t change a thing.

Those sound awesome but it seems that those abilities only benefit in a PvP/WvW based environment. As a result rangers will still remain non-beneficial in in a pve setting.

Plus if those abilities were given instead, spirits would need to get a major overhaul in terms of their health and toughness along with mobility vs. stagnancy because they would then become major targets by enemy players.

Most of them were indeed largely PvP-centric. Edge of Extinction, outside of a gimmick PvP team build, was mostly used in PvE for farming though. I admit, however, that even EoE might not do too well in GW2 PvE dungeons. This is largely due to the fact that EoE becomes useless against single targets, such as solitary bosses. On the other hand, if the boss spawned adds and the boss and adds shared a type (i.e. undead), then EoE would do a fair bit of work.
An example of EoE
What’s happening is the boss spawns adds that then blow up and die. Because they share a racial type with the boss, the boss takes damage when they die. EoE is doing a huge chunk of the damage to the boss.

Also, I didn’t list all the spirits though, namely because a bunch don’t translate well at all.
For instance, Greater Conflagration. In GW1, it changed all physical damage into elemental Fire damage. That does literally nothing in GW2. Direct damage in GW2 doesn’t have types and subtypes.

As for other spirits from GW1 that could find a PvE home (since that’s mostly about corner stacking and loading up on damage modifiers and burst damage):
Winnowing: Direct damage attacks would be increased by a flat amount.
Quickening Zephyr: would give Alacrity (the Chronomancer CDR effect)

As for health/toughness, GW1 spirits weren’t overly durable either. Instead they had an effect radius of, translated to GW2, about 2k – 2k5 units. And yes, they were targets because they were designed to radically warp a rather large area of the battlefield in some manner.

That said, those were just examples. While I would like to see some of them return, what I really want is for ranger spirits to be interesting. Something unique. Something that isn’t a translucent, colored, kill-able warrior banner.

I’d rather spirits do something interesting, besides give increased damage, give prot, give burn, give swiftness, etc.
Bring back things like:
Tranquility
Frozen Soil
Muddy Terrain
Predatory Season
and the pinnacle of amazing spirits….
Edge of Extinction

Tranquility: make boons expire faster
Frozen Soil: can’t revive downed/dead players
Muddy Terrain: no speed buffs
Predatory Season: reduced healing
EoE: don’t change a thing.

jcbroe.4329:

You’re right, and my opinion of the situation is summed up in my statements to Mohagi.

Sadly enough, every single one of the things you mentioned were nonexistant in GW1. Rangers weren’t forced to take pets, weapon skills, and even bows had decent cleave abilities (splinter barrage anyone?), and of course an entire set of pet skills, with active skills, enhancing skills, and complimentary effects between pet and player existed, with even an evolution system that specialized what unique way your pet interacted with combat (damage increased, health increased, etc).

I actually played interrupt ranger for a few years so long ago isn’t even relevant for most people, but it was an extremely high skill way to play the game competitively.

So seeing all these backward steps and my main profession dumbed all the way down to what it is has been one of my most frustrating experiences in gaming so far, and I don’t understand why ANet essentially ruined my favorite class of any game I’ve ever played.

So yeah, my experience has been ruined ever since they designed ranger in this game the way they did, before launch was ever even finalized lol.

Still, I blame the designers more than the balancers. If we had somebody like Robert Gee who had actually crafted this extensive class beginning all the way in GW1 and adapted, reinvented, and pushed for improvements the way it is evident that Robet Gee does, I don’t think the ranger community would be arguing itself out of a developmental pitfall to begin with.

Mesmer was my “second main” in GW1 though, and I can honestly say GW2 has left me little reason not to enjoy mesmer. Ranger…. Well, I enjoy what I can lol.

While I never played GW1 at a super high competitive level, Ranger was my favorite class, followed by, in no particular order, Assassin and Mesmer. Likewise, I’ve been rather disappointed with GW2 ranger as it barely even feels like an extension of the GW1 class.

Ranger went from the ‘team toolbox’ in GW1, to….largely useless in team situations.

Part of this I think stems from largely uninspired…everything. Take spirits for example. Spirits in GW2 are boring and uninspired (they’re a bad form of banners), while the spirits of GW1 had, in many cases, battlefield warping effects that weren’t so easily quantified as: more damage, more healing, more protection, etc. Spirits like Frozen Soil, Tranquility, Nature’s Renewal, Edge of Extinction, etc. could drastically warp a portion of the battlefield. GW2 spirits, not so much. And this trend continues for basically everything.

On topic:
Were rangers nerfed? Directly: not much. Things like having empathic bond and wilderness knowledge dumped into the same line hurts; Healing Spring being…not as good, hurts; ICDs added hurt. But none of these are very crippling on their own or even together, really.

Now, indirectly nerfed: very much so. Most classes, notably Mesmer, received large to massive buffs across the board, while ranger received few that can compare. This has left ranger in a relatively weak position simply because it roughly stayed the same while everything else got much better.

Further thoughts:
While I will acknowledge that the trait update wasn’t a balance patch, that doesn’t stop me from being annoyed at it essentially being an involuntary beta test. The last time I actually saw this amount of basic functionality being broken in a patch was actually ON a PTS for a game, and not the live servers. In addition, I find it somewhat disbelieve-able that someone didn’t think that stacking burning wouldn’t be a problem. Then again, I’m not overly surprised considering in GW1, the post-rework Lingering Curse was an abomination of overpoweredness; because who would ever think that having a: large AoE, high health degen, 30% heal reduction, low CD, low cast time, and low energy cost hex would be game unbalancing?

Dastion.3106:

….
2) Makes 4 utilities for each Legend and a set of 4 neutral utilities. Glyphs would work perfectly for this.
….

Also, since the Revenant is seemingly a redesign of the Ritualist, Spirit Weapon skills could become legend neutral utilities. Most even translate well.
Offensive ones might look something like:
—Nightmare Weapon: Next X attacks are converted to life-steal.
—Splinter Weapon: Next X attacks also hit enemies near your target.
—Shadow Weapon: Next X attacks blind.
—Ghostly Weapon: Next X attacks are unblockable.

Then there are the more defensive/utility orientated ones, which could look like:
—Resilient Weapon: For X seconds, gain armor and Resistance if suffering from a condition.
—Spirit Light Weapon: For X seconds, heal on an interval.
—Weapon of Warding: Block the next X attacks.
—Weapon of Renewal: Your next X hits restore Y% energy.

I would keep the GW1 mechanic of only being able to have one active at a time though and also have them be a shorter duration than venoms, both for flavor reasons as well as to help differentiate them from venoms.

My thoughts after the weekend:

Needs weapon swap: With each weapon currently more-or-less tied to a legend, and the ability to take two legends, your weapon choice is only really viable with half your build. Staff is really only usable with Ventari, mace/axe shines with Mallyx, and hammer is just…there.

Needs more utilities per legend: Desperately needs this. The current 3 utilities for each legend leave a fair bit to be desired, choice wise. The current lack of options vastly limits the number of builds and also the quality of the builds available.

Legends:
—Mallyx: Still seems the most complete to me, by far. It is very similar to a corruption/curses necro. On that note, sometimes the 3+ condi trigger felt very difficult to reach, especially in group settings where AoE condi removal is prevalent.
—Jalis: Legend is meh. Its damage reduction largely depends on taunt and its 50e elite. The problem with that is that the taunt is really only available on a 50e cost utility, and when you get disabled (if you even take that trait.) It could really benefit from some form of further damage reduction. Perhaps reduced damage while under Retaliation (since the trait line seems to encourage retal), or the inclusion of prot outside of the prot-on-disable trait.
—Ventari: I don’t know what to really say about Ventari. It is basically nothing but healing. It seems a bit too hyper-focused. For instance, even Corruption (the condi/Mallyx line) has uses in a power build. Ventari seems to be ONLY about heals and condition removal. With the way it currently is, I can’t really see myself taking Salvation/Ventari over two other legends and Invocation. It really needs some other form of utility, similar to how Water Magic isn’t just solely focused on red-barring.

Weapons:
—Hammer: I find it still to be goofy. It is a ranged weapon, but lacks anything consistent to help keep targets at range (a la Point-Blank Shot, cripple, immob, etc.) It has a long cast time AoE KD with a big animation, and that’s about it. Splitting “Phase Smash” into a leap/return could help. Perhaps have Field of the Mists have a small, directionally focused, knock-back on wall spawn.
—Staff: I know it is a utility/healing weapon, but its damage is abysmal. It is still a weapon and thus should still be perceived as a threat, versus the foam noodle it currently is.
—Mace: I think it is in a decent spot. I felt there was some responsiveness issues with it, though. Nothing seemed to really queue properly after Searing Fissure for me. And speaking of Searing Fissure, I feel its cast time is far too long for what it does.
—Axe: I think this one is also in a decent spot.

Overall, I find the two biggest areas in need of improvement/inclusion to be additional legend utilities and the inclusion of weapon swaps.

Weapons:
Hammer: Its skill set says “ranged weapon” with emphasis on utility/control, but has nothing to keep enemies at/near its preferred range.

Mace/Axe: I actually liked this one the most. While some of the animations feel too long (burn field), I think its in a decent place as a condi set.

Staff: Its fun to play, but it is currently lacking in the damage department. The healing/utility it provides is largely offset by how much damage you take because of how long it takes to kill anything with it.

Legends and their associated trait lines:
Of the three available at the moment, I felt Mallyx was the best. It plays similarly to a corruption necro and its traits enable it as such.

Jalis legend felt….meh. I know it is supposed to be the ‘tanky’ support spec, but it is just…meh. While it wants to keep enemies at mid-range, it simply lacks the close range threat to discourage them from walking up and punching you in the spleen. Its damage reduction traits are also largely based around keeping enemies at the 600+ range or getting yourself CC’d. The former will be difficult to reliably achieve, while the latter isn’t necessarily a good thing.

Ventari legend: Honestly don’t know why this is basically a full heal spec. I don’t really see it even performing on par with a support Guardian or support Elementalist, as it is right now. To me, the trait line felt too invested in the Ventari utilities at the expense of being more broadly appealing to other specs that might just want some extra healing power/utility.

Aesthetics: really like them, from the mildly glowy (but not overboard) armor, to the skill animations.

Combat feels: For a heavy class, they feel ‘glassy’, even when geared towards tankier stats. Their damage also feels rather low. Some of this might be because since the trait update, I feel pretty much all the original classes are over-tuned when it comes to damage. Also, the current lack of (what I’ll assume to be) the direct damage legend and its associated weapon(s)/traits might be part of the feeling of a ‘lack of payout’ for going glassy.

circuitnerd.5863:

According to the news section it says “The Ultimate edition of the game includes all of the above in addition to 4,000 gems. The Ultimate edition will not be available as an upgrade and must be purchased as a full game package.”

Does this mean we cannot upgrade our current account with the Ultimate Edition and have to start with a completely new one?

No, you do not need a new account. It means you will not be able to upgrade a HoT Standard Edition or HoT Deluxe Edition to Ultimate Edition at a later date.

I’m curious as to who, if any, consider Mag their home. Don’t think I’ve ever actually seen an ANET tag on Mag.

RyuDragnier.9476:

Not a fan of most of your suggestions. Here’s how I look at how the LB should be changed.

#1: The range power thing needs to be dropped and instead changed to critical rate. Higher crit rate for the further away you are.

#2: Damage needs to be higher or the attack needs to be faster…possibly both.

#3: This move needs a 10-20% damage increase for the next 5 attacks attached to it along with the stealth. That makes it more useful to use even if you don’t need the stealth.

#4: This needs to be a charge-up attack like the snowball PvP slingshot. That way we have a burst move on this power weapon, plus it synergizes well with #3’s stealth.

#5: The only problem I see with this move is that you can’t use it while moving. Other than that, this is pretty solid (though I’d love to see bleeding on this as well~).

Hrm, I disgree with some of this.
#1: I think current LB 1 is fine. They could stand to even out the damages more so the weapon’s primary damage skill isn’t invalidated at sub-max range.

#2: Change to a charging burst-damage skill. Say, 2 second max charge. At max charge it would deal damage on par with other burst-damage skills. So probably in the 10k-12k damage range with a critical hit. That puts it roughly on par with Kill Shot, maybe a bit weaker.

#3: Needs something other than simply stealth and an interaction with Remorseless (if you even took that trait.) Damage amp, move speed buff, cripple/immobilize, bleeding(?); just needs something.

#4: I’m fine with it as is.

#5: Needs help. Its a soft control skill that requires your target(s) to already be under some form of control to be truly effective. Moving while cast would be nice, as would the damage/cripple application being instantaneous rather than delayed.

Just my thoughts on LB.

redslion.9675:

Ambrecombe.4398:

I was wondering, does this trait work with the Asura Technobable racial utility? It could potentialy become a 6sec daze with this trait. :P

From the videos I’ve seen, it does. Too bad I wanted to use it on spvp.XD

You might consider a Boar as a pet then. A point-blank fear is 6 seconds, the skull crack stun is 4 seconds, etc. A drawback though is that the Skull environment weapon has a very long CD after use (120 seconds or something.)

Its not a 10% critical damage reduction, its a net ~10% drop in DPS IF you are FULL zerker. Also, rangers are best played (my opinion) as a hybrid damage class; condi + direct damage.

A ranger’s damage isn’t that low relative to any other class once you factor the pet’s damage into the equation. While consistent pet hits can be problematic in PvP, in PvE this isn’t really an issue (only pet survival is.)

Whether or not it hurts our direct damage DPS more than another class’s depends entirely on how the change affects pets. If pets keep their current critical hit percentages, then rangers(as a class) will probably see a smaller drop in direct damage relative to other classes. If pet stats are affected, it will probably break even with other classes.This is due to how a ranger’s damage is split with their pet.

Neoheart.2750:

Its +50% damage which equals 1.5 or 150% damage. It can be confusing i know and there seems to be alot of this going around on the tooltips, it also adds to peoples confusion when they are aware that many of the tool tips are outright wrong in the first place.

You and your pet both receive the buff, so the next attack each of you deals is 50% stronger.

Its a bad trait imo and tbh there isn’t enough burst available to take full advantage of something like that. Also take the greatsword for example, #5 is a stun/daze (interupt) and it already applies the opportunity to your pet, they do not stack...

Depends on your pet and your build.

A signet zerker build can hit 10k+ with Maul. Path of Scars can hit something like 8k (initial hit) on a crit as well. While it is awkward as hell to do, Counterattack can hit big with signet buffs. Drake Tail Swipe can do over 8k on a crit.

Meanwhile, some don’t use it for the damage amp, but for the stun duration increase. Hilt Bash and Concussion Shot go to a potential 2 second stun each. Some take it further with the +stun duration sigils. Canines with the pet +condi duration trait are added into this. Some use the Boar’s Forage for the Skull Fear. MoC + condi duration buffs/sigils/runes can turn that into an 8+ second fear.

Bascially, you build around MoC.

RyuDragnier.9476:

Fluffball.8307:

RyuDragnier.9476:

Have you ever heard of Druids?

Sure, but GW2 rangers are up to this point basically 100% martial. If you were to redo the class like Diablo 2 and make them casters it would make sense. Also Sylvari could be elves. :-P

Actually, they have the nature part down (spirits, muddy terrain, healing spring) and the summonable animal allies. A staff would fit quite well, considering we’re the jack of all trades, master of none. EVERYBODY does things better than us, so why not get outclassed in magical things too?

^ This mostly.

A staff would be a decent addition. It fits thematically with the whole one-with-nature pseudo-caster rangers kind of are.

Also, wtb GW1 Muddy Terrain.

What? you have super-speed, perma-swift AND a move speed signet? All I gotta say to that is: Nope, walk slower now.

Actually, I’d like pretty much ALL of the GW1 ranger spirits. They were interesting.
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Nature_ritual Just LOOK at those. Obviously some do not translate well (Primal Echoes, Equinox, basically anything involving energy), but w/e.

digiowl.9620:

Shields across all professions have been a disappointment as a defensive tool.

Their recharges are so long that you are always better of just dodging (you can likely dodge 3-4 times in the space of one shield skill recharge).

Engineers for instance seems to treat it as a offensive weapon, stunning, dazing and providing yet another blast finisher.

I would love to trade dodge for a on demand block with a stamina cost based on incoming damage.

A block that is not a timed channel, but stays up as long as i keep the button pressed.

Thus if i block early i am not penalized by having the skill be useless for 30+ seconds.

While I’m all for more active defense, (I find a lot of defense in this game is utterly passive, which is odd considering how much of a crusade ANET went on to remove it in GW1), having a button that says “hold this down: prevent all damage indefinitely” is not the way to do it.

In addition, the thing about pre-casting a block skill and having it go wasted and then on CD is a GOOD THING. It encourages smart play. That said, the CDs on most of those skills is absurd. Short block durations on a short recharge would be MUCH better in my opinion. Something like a 1-2 second block on an 8-12 second CD. Short enough blocks that it encourage blocking important would-be hits, and a short enough CD that its not a useless skill slot after its active is finished. In addition, the window would hopefully be long enough that if you wasted it on small stuff, you would still get punished for it.

icewyrm.5038:

/snip

Con: If more than 5 fields were placed at once, you would need to manage this somehow – perhaps by hiding the less useful field options when more than 5 are present.

There might be other downsides I’m not thinking of at the moment, thoughts?

Who decides which field(s) is less useful, though?
The blast combo finishing effects are: AoE: Blind, Chaos Armor, Frost Armor, Might, Weakness, Stealth, Retaliation, Healing, and Swiftness. Each of those has a place in various situations.

Secondly, how will you decide where they go on the bar? Will they have fixed positions, or will it be whatever is active goes on the bar wherever? What decides the order? Will Might always be ahead of say, Swiftness? How would you make this easily and quickly readable/understandable? How long can the person hold the blast finisher ‘charge’ before it expires?

Thirdly, what if you don’t really care what the blast finisher is; you used that skill for a purpose other than blast finishing? Earthquake’s knockdown for example. Does the player then have to take extra time to finish the combo before moving into another skill, thus effectively reducing the number of actions they could take vs the disabled target(s)? What about classes/builds like Short Bow Thieves that have a spammable blast finisher?

For a prioritized list:
Just have everyone play Dragon Age: Origins and set up full, working, Tactics tables for everyone in the party. After that, making a combo finisher list(s) should be pretty easy.

Joking aside, I would prefer self-priority, or a priority list. If its a priority list, I’d like to be able to set up, per skill, which finisher has priority with a given field.

I.E: Maybe I’d like Dagger Storm to Whirl finish Dark>Smoke>Fire>etc.
But then I’d like Death Blossom to Whirl finish Smoke>Lightning>Ethereal>etc.

Hammerguard.9834:

Those were good times. The whole build was focused on the pet and the player was basically playing the pet.

Always was funny to just run around with a couple defense skills and auto attack while my Dire Crab mauled someone to death just as fast as a war could. Plus, the selection of pets was awesome. I loved my dire rat and crab. Not to mention the huge-kitten Rainbow Phoenix.

Manekk.6981:

Does this work at all now? it’s been a while since I was that far into the BM line but it must have been bugged for months if I remember correctly.

It works. Heals for about 131-133ish base going up to 178-181ish with Compassion Training (requires the pet to be in combat for the extra heal boost, though.) It is every 3 seconds, and you may or may not see the heal numbers popping up for the pet.