Guild Wars 2

The Vampiric Presence buff from Special Forces Training Area is bugged.

Applying the buff on myself doesn’t allow me to leech hp at all. The damage digits aren’t showing and I tried turning on the area damage on to see if it was just hidden, but the leech wasn’t happening.

Please look in to this. Thank you.

For me it only kicks me out if I left click on the CA form. Pressing F5 or any other keybind seems to work normally.

Ok this seems to only happen when I click the CA form button with my mouse instead of pressing F5 on the keyboard.

The mouse has no issues though, no double clicking or macros tied to it or anything. Ugh..

edit: I’ve always clicked the CA form and used F5 before the patch and it never kicked me out before, so I know that it’s not my hardware or anything.

edit 2: Was about to fill a bug report and post it on bug forums but looks like others have already been experiencing it as well.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQFAWn0rC1silsCuqAEtiFDBDerGWLrMBg1VDw511syaV4ZO-TxxGAB4pEk8HAwSK/aTHwQ7Poo6PAcBAIFgf7tA-e

I’m using the above build. Still can’t make heads or tails of this issue…

As per the title, after the patch I’ve been getting forced out of CA form randomly.

To troubleshoot I tried going in CA form and doing nothing, and after several seconds I would be forced out of it. Sometimes it happens 0.1sec after entering it. Sometimes it doesn’t happen at all.

Anyone getting this issue? I cannot for the life of me figure this out. I don’t see anyone else mentioning this…

Thanks for the post Mike, but I’m disappointed that it’ll be just 1 episode, with no ETA still as of yet.

Heals may have been op in pvp, but lets kitten pve/raids and affect them too.
And instead of decreasing heal numbers, lets kitten up a cd so they are forced fed some change in rotations. – Anet

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Kill_nightmare_spellbinders_before_skritt_are_enslaved_at_Joy's_End

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rescue_kidnapped_skritt_from_the_Nightmare_Court

Neither of the events above have started for well over 2 hours I’ve been sitting in that area in Brisban Wildlands.

I sent an ingame bug reporting as well with the ip address of the map.

Please look into this, or at least compensate me for my hours lost for this one trophy that I need for Sunrise vol. 1.

Salamander.2504:

kevvy.5081:

Mouse.3608:

How long does the guard effect last for?

6 seconds.

How much % damage is transferred to the pet, what is the radius, and does the ranger count as an ally? Is it still ground-targeted? (At work, thanks!)

50% to the pet. I tried it in PvE and the 95% damage reduction when not targeted by enemies doesn’t apply. Meaning they get full 50% of the damage you get, reduced further by their toughness(I’m assuming, because they do receive less damage than what I received).

Radius is 600, any allies including main that gets damaged receives 50% of the damage. It is no longer ground targeted…

Mouse.3608:

How long does the guard effect last for?

6 seconds.

Ancestral Grace – You cannot use this skill while jumping or in air now. I don’t mind a lot since it addresses mostly exploit usages but have to say I do miss it…

Shirk.6421:

I don’t know how hard this can be for ANet…

PvP/WvW/open world -> astral force regen works only when the target is really healed, not at full hp

dungeons/raids/fractals -> astral force regen additionaly works when the healed target is at full hp

I would like this as well. I need to be able to heal when I need to, not after I charge a useless mechanic that gates me from what I need to be when I need to be.

If Anet cannot implement a different iteration of the AF/CA system, then the current iteration must be split from PvP/WvW and PvE, and allow PvE version to charge when allies are at full hp. This would of course be overpowered in PvP so it can remain as it currently is.
Many balance issues can be so easily fixed if you Anet just split the balances. Stop being stingy with your shared balancing for all game modes, it’s not working. Because until then this balancing will never end and require more effort into it only to keep breaking another aspect in the game, like create a new FotM OP profession and a useless one. When will you realize this?

As for the CA form, I just want #1 and #2 to be more realistically useful than they are. It’s wrong to expect someone I want to heal continuously with #1 to sit still. Everyone in the raid is moving. They have to.

CA form #1 needs to be able to hit moving allies. Make it as a ground aoe channel like Ele’s meteor with or something like a Guard’s symbol that you lay on the ground and allies can stay in it if they want to and allow it to be spammable just like now with less healing per sec but matches the current healing amount with the whole duration. Make it last 3sec or something… thought this doesn’t completely address the issue since allies are still moving around, but it sounds better than what we currently have with which we can’t hit kitten.

CA form #2 needs to heal more when allies don’t have conditions. In it’s current state, the delayed activation and less healing makes #2 underused since we don’t need it for condition removal in Raid.

anduriell.6280:

You hit 3 targets, but if you move you will hit so many more in exchange for such a low damage it’s ok with me in a PvE sense.

This is very true. If you see a group of enemies and target the furthest one then move/strafe around, you’ll find that you’re hitting a lot of the targets.
It’s not Guard’s staff-like ability to tag, but if you move around a bit and occasionally swap targets(furthest one) while trying to catch as many enemies as you can then it will hit lots of targets with much ease. Staff is a weapon set that I not only enjoy as a Druid, but out of all the other weapon sets out there with other professions it is one of my favorite.

Lets just keep it civil all, Druid is viable and good – so is Tempest for different reasons. Druid can bring all sorts of buffs for the group and is an excellent burst healer and Tempest can heal whenever with Auramancer build with defensive buffs like protection for the group. I think we can all agree to that. It’s like apples and oranges, OP was just showing how viable Tempest is for the healing role instead of Druid. Whether if it was better or worse, that’s up to the reader and testers to decide.

I love learning about other viable classes though so I appreciate threads like this. Maybe there’s another(maybe even better) way to fill in a healer role. And it should be encouraged to be shared with others.

Personally I’ll use Druid because first of all I don’t like playing Elementalist as a personal reason even though I think I’ll be giving it a shot next time I’m raiding and mostly because I know Ranger and Druid skills like the back of my hand, that now it’s all become much like muscle reflex when I need to do something.

Lettuce.2945:

Lol. There is a ranger build that doesn’t use staff and you can go in AF every 10 secs with 4 secs left on the cele state icon if you leave it pretty early on after using 1 skill. Not going to tell you guys the build because it’s funny watching all of you QQ. AF is fine as it is. On ANY build. It should be your “oh kitten” button. Nothing more. Play the core ranger as intended with the perks of cele state. That’s how you should view it.

Says AF is fine, doesn’t say how because it’s funny to see us QQ. Tells us more about you than the state of AF itself. No it’s not fine. Prove to us otherwise. Until then that’s how I view it, regardless of your superior holier than thou attitude.

It can’t be an oh kitten skill, because for that to happen requires us to have been readily building up AF and they leaving as it is without using it for anything other than emergencies. Is that how you think CA form is meant to be? You’re rather full of it aren’t you

Lévis.5489:

Anet is so funny. Instead of balancing their classes before a league, they are balancing them after it.

Colin posted on Reddit earlier that Anet did intend for the HoT release to be the balancing prior to the league.

It just didn’t work out for us because they changed so many things post-HoT release that we really wanted a further balancing.

I’m OK with waiting but I really want them to have a look into AF system. Something not so unforgiving but keeps with their intended function, like allowing us to go into CA form(after it’s 10sec CD) with whatever AF bar we have and then place a multiplier to determine how effective the healing will be depending on the amount of AF bar we had when we went in the CA form. Of course the system will have to remember the static multiplier because the AF bar will be degenerating until we go out of the CA form. Or something like that.

12 sec ICD is very wrong. It’s not dependable or in any way reliable. No one is going to use a blind trait that only works every 12 seconds. The whole point of this trait was to allow us to occasionally blind trash mobs in PvE. It was still less effective than Thief’s blinds but still made it viable and usable.
If those PVP’ers were exploiting it with canines that somehow were able to spam it non-stop, then address that or make the ICD at 4 seconds because that was around the F2 CD that birds have with their F2 skill(4.75s traited) and hence made them most effective with this trait.

It’s very obvious that Anet was fine with using this trait with traited bird’s short F2 skills otherwise they would’ve increased the F2 CD or placed an ICD much earlier. Now after this patch they made it not workable even with birds.

Again, knee jerk reaction that led to a huge unjustified nerf, Anet.

I’d stick with Tiger and Bristleback. If you want more Condi focused pets, then Lynx and Bristleback. Drakes are of course your aoe alternatives.

On the topic of moving mobs in PvE, I’ll recommend to you OP(if you don’t know) to go do some PvE content to see if mobs are moving or stationary the majority of the time. You’ll find that they are more often than not, stationary.
If an enemy you’re targeting is moving all the time like that Chak Bracer(bad example since you can only kill it by depleting its Breakbar, but it was the only constantly moving mob I could think of) which is always moving about, it’s not like the 2 seconds of smoke assault is to write home about anyway because the Smokescale is still useless the rest of the time. Bristleback would be the ideal choice here of course, but if it comes down to Tiger/Felines vs Smokescale, you’ll find that Tiger/Felines is a better choice.

For all other mobs, which are stationary most of the time, Tiger wins hands down.
I’d start with Bristleback to open with F2(it’s now been fixed to attack in all elevation) then camp Tiger unless you want your pet to range or whatever to your personal choice.

But in all honesty, it’s up to you to choose. I sometimes like to keep Smokescale because I can stealth myself(poorly) while mapping especially in the Magus Falls(HoT content) with another friend of mine who can also blast the smoke field. I love DPS but hey sometimes I just do what I find is convenient for me. I find myself constantly changing pets depending on the content I’m playing. It’s good to have some personal idea which pet is best for every scenarios.

I dunno about 0 healing for us… Like others have said, it seems too punishing.

How about, say we’ll have 40% of the current healing numbers as base with just 10-15sec of CA cd.

AF will still be in place but instead, you can go into CA form even if it’s not full.
The amount of AF accrued through healing/damage will determine a healing multiplier, to maybe around max x2.5 of the base number. So in this scenario, entering CA form at max AF bar will give you the current healing numbers we see in the game(0.4 × 2.5 = 1.00).

This gives us incentive to max AF before going in. For the others that wants to use the CA skill synergy with traits like GotL or just want to heal due to an emergency, we can have the option to go in CA form with whatever AF bar at the cost of less healing.

I assumed there will be nerfs. So I’m not disappointed. Another quality balance patch by anet that didn’t balance any other professions(except reducing visual noise and updating skill facts) except only Rangers with 1 nerf and 2 bug fix.

Not to say that I’m not thankful for this, but it’s just that they left everything else left in the dust that are completely in ruins like spirits and AF generation.

Coupled with their silence, this only gives the ranger community and others to think of the worst case scenarios and theories like :
Anet has kittened up sense of priority with balancing
Can Anet show any less contempt and hatred against Rangers
Anet loves to throw stuff and leave it as it is see if it sticks

And all of this while they focus, invest time in and spend resources for this ESL bullkitten that is just a complete failure(2k views? in twitch vs 100k that other e-sport games pull) and balance the whole kittening game to this ESL spotlight including PvE that has absolutely no relevance to anything PvP related.

Everything is a mess. But hey, I didn’t have to change any of my Ranger/Druid build after this patch so I guess I should be so thankful.

I believe a DPS druid build(marks,skirm,druid) is the way to go as a secondary healer. For a main permanent healing role with healing stats, Tempest or Revenant does the job better imo.

First reason why main healing role with healing stats like cleric or w/e doesn’t fit druid, is because spike healing =/= reliable healing. I tend to stick with the #3, #4, #3 rotation in CA form using quickdraw trait, leave CA form and DPS for 10sec while building up AF. Most of you will agree that trying to use #1 is just a waste of time, rarely hits, is too small and just downright painful to use.

Anything can happen in those 10sec and my teammates has needed healing in that time frame a lot of the time especially in 2nd phase after the first split. I just couldn’t do anything about it, except beam my staff around them and combo #5 and #3 with staff. It wasn’t very ideally acceptable in any perceivable manner. Healing roles needs to heal whenever. Druid is hands down the best for burst, but on going access to healing at any split moment is what’s going to win the battle, not a healing mode for brief few sec then DPS for 10sec. This sort of healer role that Druid is, is best fit for emergency/secondary healer imo.

Secondly this means that if I’m clerics then I’m wasting a majority of my time while outside of CA form. I’m not healing good or doing DPS well at all.

Then there’s the whole issue that having a full healing stat build is detrimental to the access of CA form since we need to heal as much as we can to build AF.

So a DPS spec’d druid is the way to go as a DPS role and a secondary oh kitten emergency healer that compliments the role of Tempest or Revenant healer imo.

A Condi druid is good too imo, just camp A/T, pump out regens with WHaO with shout traited and use CA form when u need to.

Overall point I want to make is that CA form is not 100% reliable as a main healing role – it’s viable sure, but it is easily outclassed by Tempest or Revenant in terms of reliability. I think it’s a great secondary role though that can perform it’s classic DPS role or Condi role very well.

EnderzShadow.2506:

kevvy.5081:

Condi ranger is very viable(I seem to use that word a bit too much around here lol), but only with axe/torch. There’s a reason you don’t see shortbow condi rangers in metabattle and other most recommended builds out there.
Just try it out for yourself with pvp golems. You’ll find that A/T condi is the best for ranger.

Fluff, you sure about that? He just referenced condi builds, a/t and pvp golems.

Testing out dps on pvp golems for pve purposes are legit. Or is that too hard for you to comprehend without posting derogatory naming on forums to ease your ego? You’re pathetic.

I’m doing ok with Druid atm. I didn’t think I would after so many nerfs, but I guess I’m just dealing with it. I sure do hope these bugs are fixed and changes made for a better AF/CA access system.

Knighthonor.4061:

I keep telling you ppl the developers cant talk right now on the forums because something big is planned to release.

Same thing happen leading up to HoT reveal.

blame their policy not the developer of the class.

I sure hope so.

Condi ranger is very viable(I seem to use that word a bit too much around here lol), but only with axe/torch. There’s a reason you don’t see shortbow condi rangers in metabattle and other most recommended builds out there.
Just try it out for yourself with pvp golems. You’ll find that A/T condi is the best for ranger.

Just a side note, druid has been taking nerfs after nerfs lately. It’s left many of us disappointed but some like me are still holding on. I suppose since condi rangers don’t use druid spec line, it doesn’t matter for you, but who knows what anet will do next.

I would suggest going Engi or War/Berserker as they can be built for nice condi builds.

We’ll keep voicing our thoughts. Something has to give.

I’m honestly ok with the 15sec duration and 10sec cooldown. I’d even be ok with 10sec duration as long as they keep the numbers where they are.
I just want them to rid the AF.

I’m not saying that stance is a bad idea, but it seems Anet wants Druid to be a bursty healer that goes in and out of burst healing mode.
Although the idea of Stance and a cooldown when out of it sounds nice, it’s probably not what Anet will go for. If they did, they would probably nerf the healing numbers to balance it being a ‘sustained healing role’ and then we’re left with a potentially washed up healer that is outperformed by ventari rev or ele, which it more or less currently already is.

But I won’t say no to a CA form stance if they do end up going that way and leave the healing numbers where they are It’s just nerfed healing numbers is what I’m afraid of.

Yea sorry mate but I honestly stopped reading after first few sentences.

Please use paragraphs because just like breathing and consuming, there should be compartmentalized points that you want to make in paragraphs. This helps the reader better understand your points individually, digest and move on to the next point. This allows us to form a complete visual understanding and coherent thought as to what the kitten you’re trying to say.

Tora.7214:

Good luck controling the tablet with a radius of 240 around to heal a raid that spreads and moves a lot, moving a lot yourself to dodge the blue warp aoes that appear at sword/staff range while keeping optimal dps at the same time

CA heals are 120,180, 360 and 240 respectively. The longer you stay in CA the less effective overall radii. And unlike Druid, the revenant can move freely and dps while just aiming #6 for placement and use #8 for bursts. Druid’s #4 in CA form is the most effective healing but requires proper positioning of the Druid. Good luck trying to use #1 or #2 effectively, because as you said, everyone is constantly moving around.

The revenant can keep the tablet on the boss or on you and others can know to move in when they have low hp, unlike druid where your allies wouldn’t know whether to move towards you or elsewhere and generally you would have to move towards them for #4. The tablet’s #6 is a quick movement for the tablet so moving it around is very effortless and is a big visual cue for both you and your teammates. Oh and when traited, it puts out 2-3sec of protection(3 with herald) around it.

Not trying to completely dismiss Druid’s healing, I’m just saying either methods are very viable but ideally I would argue that the tablet revenant provides better overall effectiveness of the healing role. Tomatoes and Tomahtoes I suppose so in the end those that like Druids will take Druids and others for others etc.

I personally had no issue keeping teammates up with my Druid, they only downed if they wandered off too far away. Just wanted to say the revenant is a very good alternative healing role… if not better

Lamuness.3570:

I actually have a question about heals. On a specialized build, do you think Rev heals better or Druids? I’ve heard mixed things about both and I’m not sure which I should take into HoT raids / dungeons.

Now, this is from purely self calculation methods I’ve done for myself, but without going too much into it(you can really test it yourself with pvp npc’s etc), a Ventari herald/rev has about 75% of the healing capability of Druid in a lengthy battle. This is the case with either zerk or cleric gears. I think most will agree to this number if they did some theory craft/testing themselves. I’m not gonna bother bringing up my numbers but feel free to disprove me if you have your own calculations.

The only reason I would choose ventari herald over druid is that the herald does 100% dps all the time. Druid does near 0(pets and such) and then dps mode for 10sec. Grace of land helps make up for that but I would honestly choose to retain personal dps and have a reliable healing all the time, where as Druid is at best 5sec burst healing to 15sec continuous healing then 10sec regular dps mode. Burst or not, Druid’s healing to me is rather unreliable. But hey, imo and all that.

As shown from reddit posts, a healer is indeed needed but healing gear is not. This means the healer can take dps/condi gears so their dps does matter.
There’s also the question of not being able to charge AF fast enough which makes me want herald more than druid. A large proportion of AF generation now comes from your regen ticking on allies. If anyone else have regen output, then your reliable AF generation from regen is seriously kitten.

Druid’s healing is unmatched, that’s for sure. If it was completely 100% reliable. But it is locked behind a rather silly gating mechanism that if you fail to meet it(and I personally have experienced it in Raids I’ve participated in as Druid), then you can’t do any of that healing in the most optimal matter.

My point is, a ventari herald is more reliable than Druid. Atleast, in my honest opinion but many people in game whom I shared this with agreed for the most part so I know I’m not alone in this. 75% healing capability but it’s on 100% of the time and you get to do 100% dps all the time. Herald with s/? don’t need to use any other skills anyway because their autoattack does the best dps. So you can devote all your energy gen to ventari tablet skills and still have 100% dps. Easy play method too, unlike Druid where I’m dps’ing and suddenly in a healing mode then back.

Honestly if Druid’s AF force was reverted to prepatch or Anet rids the entire AF mechanism, it would probably better but even then you can’t go wrong with a ventari herald healer, if not better to go with.

Smoke Screen from flame turret doesn’t produce the smoke field or the blind.

Just tried this, but Smoke Screen from flame turret doesn’t produce the smoke field or the blind.

This would be a great QoL improvement for CA form, to allow the Druid to leave the form by either pressing weapon swap or F5.

Yes, just another thread on this topic but I want more of the Dev’s focus into this because unlike the smokescale debacle, this is just unworkable and worse in all regards. This has to change.

Your new iteration of the recent patch for Druid’s AF regen method is too harsh and is an unnecessary gating to a profession’s Elite spec. I can’t heal when I need to because I need to charge it up first by healing minuscule amounts on dying party members and that is just unproductive. A burst healing mode should be readily available when the Druid actually needs it. Maybe not in such a spammable way like it was before this last patch, but certainly not like now where it’s way too hard and downright impossible in certain scenarios.

I’m not asking you to change it back though. Please just revise it. Like get rid of AF completely and lock the CA form behind a cool down or get rid of the cool down and play with the idea of AF generating automatically.

I get that you wanted to promote an elite spec where it ‘builds up’ some kind of energy through active play and ‘unleash it’ through this CA form. But all kinds of iterations regarding Astral Force is just not working. It just isn’t, Anet. So scrap it. The Rangers are already choosing the Druid elite spec so that alone should be the investment that requires from us to use the CA form. If you think we were given too much access to it before the last patch, then increase the cool down, not the method of which we get the AF through silly jumping hoop-like conditions.

This auto-regen of AF or just a simple cool down method can also be seen as a some form of ‘energy build up’ as well, if the idea of passive AF generating is deemed too unexplainable for you.
" By spec’ing into Druid, the Ranger gains the ability to slowly generate an AF energy that allows the use of CA form after a certain period etc. "
Not really lore-driven or even a bit too silly game mechanic wise, but it works.

It doesn’t promote active game play to gain this energy but maybe that’s OK. Because all your iterations? They haven’t worked. Some were too powerful that made it look very cheesy. Some, like now, it’s too hard/impossible to generate them.

So I would like to propose that you not try to improve upon it, but just revise it in a simpler way that you can also balance more easily in the future by changing the mechanic into a simple cool down gated feature. Like Occam’s Razor… The simplest answer is usually correct and all.

Anet deletes the Druid elite specialization.

Either A or B alternatives would be preferable. Just a basic CD of maybe 15-20sec. At this point AF is just a harsh mechanic if not completely kitten.

For me, The CA form is best utilized when seeing someone near me take or begin taking huge hits and immediately using the pre-generated AF to go in to CA and start healing.

Now post-patch, we have about half a bar most of the time, someone takes a hit, wait for regen/staff AA/staff #2 to start building back up AF and then go in to CA mode. Except by that time they would most probably be downed or someone else like Elementalist or Ventari legend herald would have healed them back up. Isn’t the whole point of high spike healing from CA supposed to be best effective in these scenarios?

This doesn’t make sense Anet. It’s counter productive and devalues CA utilization. Oh and guess what, applying regen on party members that are already receiving regen from Herald can easily over take my regens and the AF stops generating that way. So to be honest, we were already having enough troubles keeping our AF bar up.

At this point, are we really taking it far by saying Anet really, really HATES Ranger/Druid? I mean I always see it here and there and just think ‘Haha, they’re kind of right but it’s still viable so I’m ok with it’. But I’m just… lost of words. Last 2 patches made kitten ing nerfs(albeit a good buff with regen synergy) for Druids only.

Weren’t most balance changes supposed to be accumulated together for a big patch as a whole along with other classes few weeks before ESL or whatever that thing is?

You really had to get these nerfs to Druids alone ASAP though huh Anet. Couldn’t wait til then, oh no you had to do it now because god kitten us.

I just laughed when I saw the patch note. OK Anet. You win. I’ll shop for another profession. Which one would you like me to use? Here I’ll bend over for you nice and low as well, might as well make everything easier for you.

Another vote for changing it back. Like others have said, if generating AF outside battle was the reason for this change, then you should prevent things like TU/regen generating AF outside battle too. No? Then why limit the staff? Makes no sense what so ever. Let us have Staff AA available again outside battle because now I feel like I’m holding a super kitten handicapped weapon that has a heavy deincentivizing feel to it. It’s annoying to see that red text saying I don’t have a target to use this skill. Seriously what the smeg?

Thank you Irenio, much appreciated.

Anet really needs to look into CAF #1 and #2. I never use it, unless I make a brain fart and accidentally press them because of my ‘press 1 or 2 to win’ mentality.
I go in CAF, #3 4sec daze, #5 for further breakbar decrease and damage followed by another #3(thanks to Quick draw) and a #4 if I need to heal me or someone else in the general area. If someone needs more healing, I still don’t use #1 or #2. Maybe #2 if I really need a condition clear but even then I hate aiming it’s small aoe anywhere. #4 is the go to heal if I need something healed because of it’s big healing pulse and ease of use. This skill is working very well, and therefore so should #1 and #2 follow suit of #4(barring any other better methods).
If #1 and #2 were like #4 in that it was a pulsing aoe around me without having to aim it’s small aoe that most of the time never hits the allies I want to, that would be so great and I would definitely use them more.
At the current time their aoe is way too small. If Anet made a counter in their servers to count how many times Druids use #1 and #2 skills in CAF, I guesstimate that it would be abysmally small.

My suggestion would be to either :
- make #1 and #2 a pulsing heal or even just a once off heal around me in a big aoe like #4
- increase their aoe size and maybe decrease the healing if that requires balancing.
- change #1 to a wave skill in that you aim towards a place and it heals allies in that path like the way staff #4 works. I could work with that. Change #2 to pulse aoe, healing smaller and cleansing 1 cond each tick.

I get that using the lock ground target option is what Anet had in mind to be effectively used with CAF skills, but in the heat of the battle, trying to click on that ally is very hard and sometimes impossible to click in mass groups. This really needs looking at, Irenio.

Their aoe size currently is just too small and I can’t effectively aim at allies even if they are standing still.

mistsim.2748:

the Smoke Assault F2 is just more user-friendly. druids right now don’t need more utility. they need more damage if anything.

I won’t argue that it’s more easier to control by larger Ranger audience compared to having smoke field as F2, which mostly supplements outside battle use and requires combo finishers to make use of. (warning: another wall of text.. sorry)

I mean, Druid could use more DPS. Druids could also use more utilities. Of the two, I have to admit DPS is something I always have felt lacking for my Ranger to be on par with other professions. Barring perfect successfully hitting attacks by both me and the pet on a still standing enemy, my DPS tests on moving golems in HotM showed quite a big gap between moving and immobile golems, more than I can be comfortable with. And smokescale’s Assault is… second to none compared to any other pets skill to connect 100% to a moving target, be it active or passive.

Smoke Assault makes smokescale one of a kind. I can understand that not having it would be a terrible blow for a lot of the Rangers. Thankfully, Irenio may or may not change the numbers, but in the end, active as F2 or passive – we will have Smoke Assault for smokescale. It will still perform Smoke Assault at the start of the battle and whenever it is off cooldown. As a passive, Ranger players will loose the on demand use to finish off a staggering enemy to down them. Arguably, others could say ‘you can just camp another pet and switch to smokescale once you feel the need to spike an enemy down so it will use it’s smoke assault as passive skill since it will fire off first.’

On the other hand Smoke Cloud makes smokescale one of a kind too.
1) We can supplement(not replace Thief/Engi/Mesmers) smoke field for group stealth for whenever there is no better stealth applicators in the group outside of battle.
2) We can use smoke field for the smokescale when it’s taking heavy hits to mitigate both damage and conditions in battle.
In battle I can use it for projectile blinds, but it’s not something I will actually use it for to be honest.
Only reason to blast smoke field in battle will be to res a downed player like a Thief can do in a very time wasting kind of way, so that’s a no positive.
In verdict for smoke cloud, use for battle is to mitigate damage/conditions and nothing else. Use outside battle is for group stealthing assuming there’s no one better for it.

Now the additional problem is, Smoke Cloud as passive is very undesirable as spoken loudly in this thread. Having smokescale use Smoke Cloud at the beginning of the battle and every time it goes off cd is very annoying, further frustrating our already existent issue of pets not being able to attack a moving target well and wasting 2 seconds(1sec cast and has 1sec after cast from my test) every time it does that. Unlike smoke assault, smoke cloud has a very undesirable side effect under the pet’s AI care. Most importantly however, smoke cloud as passive skill prevents the Ranger from being able to use the smoke field whenever they want. To sum up, smoke cloud as passive in battle has absolutely no use at all. Having the pet use smoke cloud whenever and not when it needs to mitigate damage is a very incorrect use of the skill. I think this is a big issue.

So that’s why I think all things considered, Smoke Cloud will be better for F2. I seriously doubt Anet will finally allow us the use of broader pet skill control any time soon so with that in consideration, in competition of Smoke Assault and Smoke cloud for F2, I think Smoke Cloud has better reasons to be in F2.
For those that want Smoke Assault as on demand, you would still be able to ‘control’ it by camping a feline or whatever pet, then switching to smokescale in the decisive moment. I think that will work for both camps.

mistsim.2748:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

This is the main reason I wanted Smoke Cloud on the F2.

why? just get a thief.

Could say the same thing to you. Want DPS and shadowstep to your dying target to down them? Just get a Thief. Why play Ranger for that?

CA form is like necro’s death shroud in that it requires you to use certain skills(for us it’s more universal – any type of heal or damage), but for us we don’t have a second health bar, cannot go into CA form unless we have 100% AF filled and the AF bar is reduced to half when we go out prematurely.
Though I must admit trying to compare an elite mechanism to that of another class’s main profession skill is a bit reaching.

At this point, now that Astral force has CD I wonder if we really need to fill it up with heals/attacks just to use it. I would like to ask for either a natural regen of AF bar or just get rid of AF bar and let us pop into CA form every 10-15sec and re-adjust the depletion of the AF bar to 10/20% per sec when in CA form to balance it out.

Current method works sure, but feels rather awkward by requiring correct positioning to use staff and filling AF up with damage takes too long :

Tested on 1 mob:
Greatsword : 1m 35s avg.
Sword : 1m 10s avg.
Longbow : 1m 2s avg.
Staff with pet in between beam : 17s avg.

All that to use CA skills for 15 seconds. Is it not a bit too unreliable?

If allowing access to CA form every 10-15sec without doing anything is too rewarding, then maybe adjust the digits around a little.
I do realize that they probably made this system in place so that staff is the weapon set that they had in mind to allow better and quicker access to AF generation for whatever reason they had. But honestly, I would use staff with or without CA form(not that I will, I love CA form) because it’s a very good weapon it self.
I think having a trait line in Druid should alone suffice for unrestricted access to CA form with just cool down to regulate it and if that is too rewarding, adjust the cool down/degen/heal numbers a little.

Tragic Positive.9356:

EDIT:
if they went for real reasons why to bring the Field Back I would definitely go with this:
“We need a pet with on-demand damage mitigation for pet-tanking options”
Yes – that is an amazing argument that clearly shows how having field on F2 is more useful because it gives something that Assault does not.

After a good night sleep, I can see there’s no point to being hotheaded, so I apologize to you and others if I made a huge wall of text that may have not been needed.

Having the field for mitigation purposes is also something I want as on demand under my control. Not In PvE or PvP but in WvW where I spend the rest of my time in. Assault has good 2 sec which is immediate, but the field lasts 5 sec although it would be most effective if the enemy or the smokescale doesn’t go outside of it.
Both sides have merit of course. But because I have further reasons as explained in posts before than that for the smoke field, that is what I want for my F2.

Smoke field in PvE and WvW have great uses, even if it means having me press K, swap pets, F2 and swap pets again. That’s not too hard for me and is a complete workable tool that’s not too hard to put off like it sounds.
Counter argument would be, why don’t I come in with my fully geared Thief or Engineer? Well, Ranger is my main atm. If I didn’t have smoke field, I’m still not going to change to Thief or Engineer for the sake of it if there are other Thief/Engis in the group I’m hanging out with. But if I did have a choice to apply that smoke field through my Ranger, even if there was a Thief/Engi, I can help augment any down time the Thief/Engi might experience because that is always possible. Having the option to provide a smoke field when no body has it or as a supplementary addition to what the group has, that is something I would love to be able to do.

If the group I’m with could really use some smoke fields and no one was a Thief or Engineer? I will swap of to one of mine because even if smokescale had smoke field as F2, the others do a better job of it, I won’t argue that because that’s the truth. Smoke fields in general are hugely desired over mesmer’s Veil and it would be a great option to have for the Ranger. Not because I value smoke field and would like Ranger to be able to perform as well as a Thief, but because I love playing Ranger and would like to be able to have the option to have a smoke field under my resume. That’s a completely selfless legit thing to want as a Ranger.

Tragic Positive.9356:

@kevvy
You skipped my against list that is written with same “bias” as for list. Mature pick only what fits them so they can argue…?

I did briefly go over that, but I am one of the smoke field voters. I was simply showing your flawed look to a side of your claim that you say is ‘fair’.

Having a smoke field for skips with 2 ooc blasts only means you need a highly organized party in order to make that skip happen (you need like… 7 blasts?). With such an organized group of people you can might as well get one thief since Ranger’s Pet ruins a lot of skipping if you catch combat. Mature people know that.

Need only 5 blasts. Highly organized? It requires a button or two to get off a blast. Mature people also know that rangers can also withdraw pet.

Comparing a subpar class mechanic to the superior version of other classes used for same purpose is just in place. You still want this change just to be inferior.

It’s not an inferior subpar class mechanic. It’s a smoke field. It’s not half a smoke field.

How about starting a thread about Seed of Life (CAF #2), too? Because by trying to cleanse people you are ruining potential water fields that may kill them.

Why don’t you? We’re making a case for a pet’s skill for F2 to be smoke field under manual control. If someone needs some blasting on water field, it doesn’t matter if CAF #2 has a light field for 1sec, the field underneath if it’s a water field will trigger healing blast. And that’s not even the point. I can control CAF #2. I want to control the pet’s smoke field. How are you not getting this?

We also need to fix Verdant Etching because that creates light field of the seeds even if you don’t want to cleanse and that needs to be corrected, too. “The logic”. I’ll wait if you’ll give the very same thing a blind eye if you are so serious about correction on every snowflake in the storm.

Now you’re going blatantly off topic. I can control my glyph usage anywhere, any time. This is not me giving a blind eye, this is you going off topic and calling it equally deserving of similar attitude towards.

About my twisting words paragraph. You made an excellent point! Give it the same priority as Moa’s heal is. Keep the burst F2. That’s ideal solution. Sadly – it would make you drop your idea that you defend so aggressively.

Another off topic remark. I don’t care that the assault is being a passive skill. I care that the smoke field is being a passive skill. Who cares about heal? You’re arguing the wrong thing here, try to understand that.

About 2 blasts – that’s a lot of sacrificed potential for 4 seconds worth of stealth (2 needed for cast times). Compare it to thief who can leap-field for long stealth strategies or disengages. A druid wouldn’t achieve much with 4 seconds and cannot build around it unlike thief. It may be useful but not anywhere near meta.

I won’t argue with that. I’m not saying Rangers should replace Thieves. I’m saying with access to smoke field, a ranger in party can act as a secondary stealth provider. You keep making this about just the ranger only. You’re just so shortsighted with that and keep saying that’s the basis of determining the effective use of smoke field under ranger’s care. It’s for everyone else as well. And that’s my point. I don’t give a kitten about smoke field that only my ranger will be able to blast. Who in their right mind will?

Okay, I learned that you are most probably one of those players who will try to beat raids with power of friendship. Where shortbow thieves can DPS and mesmers can play nomad tanks.
You are rejecting efficiency.

Then say efficiency. Efficiency does not mean successful play. Blasting smoke field outside a battle to skip past mobs – what the kitten does that have to do with dps? Why are you bringing DPS all over a sudden in the use of smoke field?

Doesn’t matter whether in game or outside. What am I successfully proving right now is that it doesn’t matter for you which is the right choice.

It does matter. Who blasts smoke field during battle? Who said that’s what we want?

Because your no.1 point of reasoning is having tanky pet in PvE where DPS is your goal (killing the target means succeed. Not knowing this is frankly sad).

What? Are you even reading properly? When have I ever said having a tanky pet in PvE fight? I don’t want that stupid kittening smokescale during fight. I want tiger and Jaguar. It’s you who keeps making your point about PvE revolving around the use of smokescale and it’s smoke field as F2 DURING battle. Succeed? In your last post you said having a smoke field is not success. Well having a smoke field has nothing to do with success or killing by what you said, so why are you linking the two? I never said I will use smoke field during a battle and somehow that helps me kill mobs. Please learn to read properly.

Good luck thinking you’re ‘successful’ with anything you’re saying, it only shows what a self-entitled king of the hill kind of person you are.

You’ll keep making up illogical arguments and eventually degrade into offending people about age or what not only to prove how much you want that Smoke Field. Spoiler: the same thing is being done in 2 threads but for F2 burst.

My arguments are solid, addressing each points and quite logical to even those with troubled minds. Saying that you are immature because of what you said has merit. You acted like a child. You get called on it. I don’t need to make my point by also saying that you are immature, but I said it because that’s what you were acting like.
I make points about smoke field with legit concerns. You keep twisting and saying that it’s wrong by using incorrect scenario that I never even mentioned. So yeah, talk kitten and you’ll be called out on those plain as simple.

Since I know it’s pointless – you don’t have to worry. I’m most probably not responding to this thread again.
I feel strange for trying to say that you guyz are right.

You never did, those that you think you did were only hid under scrutinized remarks such as ‘Utility that will never beat other classes’, ‘inferior’, ‘subpar’ amongst others. Don’t feel strange, we know you were making provoking biased points like a good troll you are.

Because the reasons why you want the smoke field are childish. Regardless of how correct it is to have Cloud on F2.

HAhahah… Wanting to blast outside of battle with party members is childish? Because that was my entire kittening point. Do stay away please troll.

Holland.9351:

I think pets should have been all about utility from the start, not about damage and it should have never reduced Ranger’s personal damage output, except maybe through a Beastmastery GM trait to make it a choice.

Like how Scrapper has a drone that goes around and removes conditions. Pretty “lame”, but fun and useful. Imagine pets going around and healing allies or giving out boons or taunting enemies. Applying cripple, daze, stun, poison, etc in an area around them, depending on which pet you have. All utility. Not much about damage or missing their target and running around like headless chickens.

I must say this is something I really agree on and want for all minions. Sorry if this is off topic.
For example, Phantasms that only offer utility for mesmers, instead of having a % of their damage. Phantasm that only applies cripple, reflects, cc, vuln, weakness. Something to augment a play style. Not to take up for dps purpose alone, and return all potential dps back to the mesmer.

Likewise for pets, no ‘30% of ranger’s dps’ but more about everything else. Most pets in this hypothesis would share same abilities of course since there’s only so much variety of utilities/cc that can be spread around the pets, which would make taming certain pets not so crucial to their specific skills and pretty much just as another pet skin.

This way there won’t be DPS contest between pets to determine which is to be used(like bringing anything other than feline to a dungeon won’t get you kicked), but rather a healthy diverse utility pet that we can bring to what ever content and not think about how it’s performing with it’s DPS. Just like Scrapper’s gyros.
Give them more available access to taunt for the lack of DPS to create agro in PvE content.
I know this still doesn’t address the moving target issues we have, but at least even in that scenario, loss of dps would cede to be an issue.

This would solve so many issues like that other thread we’re being hotheads about – smokescale’s F2.

Tigaseye.2047:

Apparently, it’s OK, from that POV.

I was told by a guildie (thank you!) that you don’t have to compete for them.

What happens is that, when you Charm one, the one you Charmed despawns for you, but not for other players/Rangers.

So, there should always be the same number available for everyone.

I don’t know about that. My personal experience was that when my other Ranger party member tamed an e wyvern in front of me, it disappeared for few seconds. This was at 20 seconds before the map was going to close by the way. My hand was sweating like a faucet. It does respawn, but no, it does disappear.

Tragic Positive.9356:

Currently the main reasoning for and against F2 Smoke Cloud:

• For
  PvE:
  Utility that will never beat other classes
  Prevention against random spoiling of one of the 72 other fields present in a fight.
  Prevention of auto-use for better DPS (that increases pet survival, so it’s debatable) while having much lower DPS and pet isn’t supposed to DPS anyways.
  PvP:
  Having on demand utility that you cannot make much use of as a ranger.

For someone advocating for fair views for each side, you’re pretty obviously biased for Assault as F2. But lemme correct the list for better unbiased neutral view :

- Utility that will never beat other classes <- You really want to start comparing a Profession’s pet’s utility, to another profession? What even is the point of this sentence? Come up with a better argument and don’t use belittling scrutinizing comments other players have made, it makes you look immature.
Correction: On demand 5sec smoke field for party/self to blast to skip mobs in dungeons/fracs/other pve content. On demand smoke field for projectile combo for blinds. If that’s not a perfectly usable utility in of itself, you’re having a laugh.

- Prevention against random spoiling of one of the 72 other fields present in a fight.
72?
Another immature patronizing comment with the number 72, but I’ll move on. If there is a chance of a mechanism to spoil a part of game play as an unintended side affect, then you can label it ‘random’ but what needs to be corrected, needs to be corrected. Why give it a blind eye?

-Prevention of auto-use for better DPS (that increases pet survival, so it’s debatable) while having much lower DPS and pet isn’t supposed to DPS anyways.

You’re twisting words.
Correction: Prevention of passive use by the pet for incorrect use of smoke field at the wrong time. IF some players want to use it in a PvE content and the smokescale is nearing it’s death, that is when we should be able to make it use smoke field. That is how it increases pet survival, not whenever it wants to use it. That’s not debatable at all, unless you’ve missed out on a point you were trying to make.

-Having on demand utility that you cannot make much use of as a ranger.
Again, for someone who’s saying both sides have legitimate concerns, you seem to twist words in your biased opinions that isn’t even the case without making a case for it. As a Ranger, I can blast it 3 times using warhorn #5, staff #3 and CA #3. If I don’t have Druid spec or unable to use CA form, I still have 2 blasts. I can projectile combo through it for blinds. Why does it have to be restricted to the Ranger only to determine it’s value? In trash skipping contents, I’m always with other party members who have plenty of blasts.

For I can tell this whole topic has been made a much worse drama than necessary. You will not be using the pet for PvE if you are playing to succeed and you make use of both scenarios equally in PvP. Why all the fuss about such a change?

Go boycott against kittened features like 5 new pets pushing 30 others into uselessness never to be used again. Or traits like Honed Axes (joke of a Grandmaster) or Predator’s Instinct.
Like… The important stuff!

If this whole thread seems overly dramatic for you, it says much about your numerous posts here that shows you take part in it.
We will not be using the pet for PvE if we’re playing to succeed? Succeed in what? What are we trying to succeed for? We want play with our own desires with smoke field to use whenever we want. There is no successful game play. I didn’t realize there was a correct successful method of playing GW2!

I and other players have made valid claims in wanting smoke field as our F2. You keep misinterpreting those information.

So we are angry about this and this IS important to us. Why don’t you go boycott whatever you want to that matches your level of ‘important’ stuff? Seriously your smug patronizing comments are so obliviously obvious that it’s clear you’re trolling with your pitiful remarks and labelling it ‘fair view of both sides’. Go away and take your high horse with you.

Tragic Positive.9356:

You don’t use semi-tanky pet for Dungeons, Fractals or Raids. You go for highest DPS since they take 95% less damage. Which leads me to Open World or WvW that I both agreed on.

No one said anything about using smokescale as part of the infight pet in dungeons/fracs/raids except you just then. But hey while you’re on that point, we use them for smoke field, and if desired let it use smoke assault because that’s the first skill they always use when it’s off cooldown, then swap and stay on feline rest of the way.

Once you take a pet with Toughness you risk aggroing and having him killed that results in loss of DPS.
Having Felines now results in higher DPS of both stats and Survival uptime.

You’re right. In fact, felines like Tiger has best DPS and it’s F2 is a leap and gives 10sec fury so it’ll connect as long as it’s in range which is a better use in PvP. Because after smokescale’s F2 spike DPS, it’s AA is weaker, has less crit chance and wastes 2-3 seconds every 16-20seconds when it uses smoke field. You put a whole lot of face value into that 4k burst in the right time and completely disregard the rest of the DPS that this pet is able to put out. It’s like saying ‘well look at this pet, it gives us a 4k on demand dps at ONLY the cost of half the dps of that of a feline, and that’s so useful!’. /smh

Another issue I had when I read through your reply.
… How does Smoke Cloud stop your pet from attacking for 3 seconds when it’s cast time is 3/4 seconds?

Everything else I agree on.

It casts it, then stays in it doing nothing for 1 second due to after action delay, which many pets have. I tested it and it’s about 2 seconds of inaction from the moment it uses smoke field at the start of the fight so maybe not 3. Then it has to move toward your moving opponent creating more delay. It’s a complete waste of time.

Lets talk about PvE, since that’s where you put your argument against the smoke field as F2. Why can’t the rangers have on demand 5sec smoke field? It’s completely viable, and in most cases, allow the ranger to effectively do most of the job that a Thief has to do, if there were no Thief/Engineer in the group. Not our job? Well, it’s not our job blasting Fire field yet that’s what most of us do pre-fight to help build might with or without ele/ps war. Your point of ineffective use of smoke field under control of Ranger vs. that of a Thief/Engineer doesn’t make it 100% useless. It’s a smoke field. Blast it for stealth with your party mates. It’s completely viable.

I won’t argue that the Assault maybe has it’s use as F2, but then the smoke field as passive has to go away or if it has to say, then smoke field has to be F2 because the pet is completely backwards in its current state.

Most of us Rangers having a source of smoke field however, is so valuable that we would rather have Assault take a backseat being a passive skill or nerfed to hell for all we care.

Hence all these posts. If its smoke cloud skill had a light field then we’d still rather have it as F2, because it’s still a waste of time under it’s passive AI care – but won’t also object to having it deleted as well. But we’re talking about a smoke field and we DO have a big use for it, which makes it worth fighting for to keep it as F2.

I got my tiger few days ago and finally e wyvern today, thanks to a nice fella who had that advanced gliding to reach that hero point where e wyverns were. Mind you, it was LITERALLY 10seconds before the map closed. I was pleading for anyone with advanced gliding to let me know for the whole 14 minutes(the map closes 15mins after the Mouth of Mordremoth dies btw). This has to change. Making it 30 mins should allow more time and possibly to invite someone you know that has advanced gliding, to come join the map and get it for you to tp/portal to.

On a positive note, pugs are getting much better and much quicker to learn and effectively do the Dragon’s Stand now. There’s a reddit post that I don’t have a link to, but long story short it is a ‘circle method’ regarding one big group going around killing the preservers while a group of 10-15 kills the pods at the beginning and spends the rest of the fight killing the boss. This was such an effective method that we finished that part of the event in less than 20minutes.

Don’t give up hopes yet, you’ll be able to get them very soon and keep trying and join those organized DS maps in LFG.