Survival of the Fittest is also kind of buggy with Lighting Reflex. The conditions are only removed at the end of the animation… so you take one more tick of bleed/burn/poison/torment and your evade is reduced because of cripple/frost.
I’m not sure about the Rabid Amulet because I have enough survivability right now and It will end in a loose in DPS but I can give it a try.
About Sharpening Stone, I use it as a condi burst or a condi clean depending on the situation.
In addition, Sharpening Stone has no cast time (in comparison of MT) and I think you can clean fear with it (I should try it again).
So with the new Rune of the Krait and with the new trait Survival of the fittest I tried to make a BleedMaster Build. http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNBlYDbkRlWWrZxgFqWEIIULDg5tVNwKBcnv3wXXyKiC-TZRFwAAuAAJOCADeIAp2fwaZAA
It’s quite effective (10 stacks in 3 hits with decent direct damage) and has a lot of survivability but I think it could be improved.
I’m not really happy with the Sigil of Blood on the S/Wh set and with the 2 first traits in the Nature Magic line. I also considerate to take a Dagger instead of the Warhorn…
Axe#1 needs love but the others skills are ok.
Why Axe#1? because in a 1vs1 situation it has a very low DPS and a very low attack speed => no pressure
Maybe they could remove the bounce and make it hits harder or they could make it like Splitblade but with only 3 axes and a smaller radius.
To improve the Axe in a global way, they could make Axe’s skills pierce.
I quite often get stuck and cannot move while using the shortbow. Its not a skill cast upon me. It just happens. If I switch to longbow it stays. The easiest way to break this is either to use SB skill #3, or wait for a quite long time. Its not unusual that u’r SB skill 3 is on CD and u’ll have to stand waiting (fending off whatever tries to eat u alive or slash u to pieces)… sometimes having a mob comming getting u meanwhile.
Also the SB #3. doesnt work all the timesd. It doesnt Always make u jump backwards at all. (even here without being affacted by any skills) U simply end up standing where u fired the skill.
Quite often the SB #3 graphic is jerky. U cast the skill (still unaffected by enemy skills), u see no movment untill all of a sudden “POFF” u jerk away a bit (not jumping but rather appearing a bit away).
Longbow
Longbow skill #4 Doesn’t Always push things away at all (things that are not immune to this/have stability).
Sometimes enemies poof right back in ur face after that u have pushed them away as soon as the animation sycle for LB #4 is over.
I agree with that. Every time that happens, I say to myself that it must be a lag issue… but maybe not.
So… when do you go to fix Entangle?
You made a hotfix for mesmer’s illusions but since more than one year, Rangers and Sylvaris have the same problem with vines.
A vine is associated to a target and if this target disapears the vine also disapear.
Or they could make trap more power based, this way traps’ll become better Skirmishing tools.
I’d like :
- they make a simple adept trait Trap Mastery that reduces recharge on traps (20%)
- they move Trap Potency in master part so with 20 points you could choose to make them last longer or use ground targeting.
You can’t dodge sharpening stone, it’s not the 5 next attacks period, it’s the 5 next attacks that hit and I disagree very strongly with you because it does bring alot of damage you have to consider it’s being used in conjunction with other conditions and highly likely more bleeds from other sources, like i said it makes you able to burst like a mofo with bleeds.
No, you can dodge it like venom skills. Yes, it’s an extra source of bleed but the last one I would personnally use because it doesn’t bring a lot of additional damage…
Maybe it’s good in WvW vs unprepared players and because you nearly always have all yours CD but in sPvP…
If traited to apply bleed 66% of the time on crits, first begin a Barrage, at the beginning of Barrage activate Sharpening Stone (which won’t interrupt your Barrage) and watch 15 – 20 stacks of bleed appear in the blink of an eye. For 25 stacks throw down a Spike Trap. For sustained bleed use a Hawk’s “Lacerating Slash.” Bleed for daaaaaaaaaaaaaays.
It used to be nice with Barrage but it was nerfed.
I use it for applying bleeds (duuh) it’s very good for bursting people down especially together with skills like splitblade or shortbow 2, I have no idea how anyone can call this skill useless I mean we have plenty useless kitten in both our traits and our utilities but this certainly isn’t one of them.
Even with an heavy condi build, it doesn’t bring a lot of additional damage.
Spike trap untraited is better even in a 1v1 situation, it’s an AOE and it’s unblockable.
If someone dodges your splitblade you loose your 5 stacks of Sharpening Stone.
But it’s not Ranger’s worst utility… Nothing can beat “Search and Rescue” and “Guard” untreated
If this is to happen, backstab damage and any other stealth attack need to be buffed by ~50%. High risk vs. high reward, anything else would just be a straight out nerf. You’re still in for that change?
So stealth attacks are risky now? lol
And btw I agree with OP. In every MMO, stealth is a very strong mechanism and if you compare GW2 with others games, GW2 is very stealth friendly… maybe too much.
I don’t think engies or rangers can hit the same raw numbers, but engies make up for it in other ways, and rangers have that whole pet thing sapping their damage.
They made Sharpening Stone like a Thief’s venoms (45s cd, 30s duration, n stacks) even if Rangers don’t have the ability to make it really viable. Moreover , imo, it’s less good than Thief’s venoms.
To improve it they could add an Unblockable effect to that skill => Bleed foes with your next five unblockable attacks
Both power builds and condi builds could take it that way.
It will be like Warrior’s Signet of Might (25s cd traitable btw) but with 6s Bleed and a longer cd
I personally have always felt that combo fields on traps shouldn’t have been a thing in the first place (let alone being further implemented now). You can’t control when they are going to go off. You can only guess. As long as combo fields can overwrite other combo fields, it’s a bit of a nuisance when running traps might accidentally overwrite an ally’s field just because some red name runs in. It doesn’t happen often, but it does happen.
They should buff traps in some other way other than giving them combo fields
Vines should not apply immobilisation but a special debuff so you really have to destroy them and they should not disappear when someone use stealth… and they should really unblockable
Maybe Entangle should pulse every 6s and recreate vines but with the same global duration of 20s so the last vines created will only stay 2s.
There’s still be a counterplay : Don’t stay in the red circle.
And it’ll not that OP because Combustive Shot nearly done the same damage on a 10s CD during a shorter duration.
With Berzerker Amuler :
Thank you!
If i am allowed to ask, what about the other points i made?
Would you leave them as they are now? And why?
What i am interested in is how the community thinks about the application of damaging condition through AA.
I am not a huge fan of how they act now …
e.g.
You have poison on your autoattack.
Enemy is low on health … tries to heal … you just need to autoattack to decrease his healing.
You have a short duration poison on your Cooldown based skills.
Enemy is low on health … tries to heal … you kept your poison ability for this moment and apply it at the right time.
You get awarded by not spamming all of your skills as soon as they are off cooldown.
Poison should act like a soft version of an heal interrupt … spam it randomly … minor or no effect at all …. use it at the right time … huge impact.
Best regards!
About the all Professsions part, I agree with the points 1.4, 1.5 because is cleary a step towards classes balance. 1.1 Autoattacks : I don’t think AA should be a damage build speciality. In the opposite, I think every class should have at least one weapon with a damaging condition application:l
=> Add a damaging condition on Guardian’s Sword or Mace
=> Change Ranger’s SB to apply bleed from every angle
Btw, there’s only one weapon with Poison on its AA and it’s on the 3rd parts of it’s chain.
1.2. Area of Effect Abilitys : Yes, there’s something to do with AOE but the reduction of the radius shouldn’t systematic. I think a good compromise should be found between the radius, the cd and the efficiency (damage and effects)
1.3. Immobilize : Before it was nearly useless now is too strong… maybe reduce some skills need a smaller immobilization duration.
About the Thief part I understand your first point but I don’t think Thiefs should have access to Proctection because that’s one of theirs few weaknesses and they’re already the king of Evade, Blink (or Shadowstep), Stealth and Blind.
Please remove them or change them to give stacks of might on you or vulnerability on your opponent. Condition damage based classes would profit from this because might increases the damage dealt through conditions aswell.
For example:
Old: You have a trait that gives you +10% dmg when your target has a damaging condition on them.
New: You gain 5 stacks of might for 1o seconds if you put a damaging condition on your target. 15 seconds cooldown. (You can keep it permanent if you invest in + boon duration)
I hope you understand what i try to achieve: Counterplay … your opponent has options to counter your increased dmg. He can rip off your boons, convert them into conditions or use a defensive cooldown to increase his defense.
1.5 Cooldown reduction:
Merge them and put them into different traitlines for a 20 point investment.
-20% CD on Melee Weapons, – 20% CD on Ranged Weapons (for Thief this would mean a increased initiative regeneration if you are wielding the right weapons)
- 20% CD on Utilitys Skills; -20% CD on Healing Skills, – 20% CD on Elite Skills;
1.6 Critical procs:
Change them to normal hit procs and decrease the proc chance.
Opens up a lot of options for non crit builds.
2. About Thief:
2.1 Iniative
Same initiative regeneration for all builds. Only increased by the cooldown reduction trait.
So it´s easier for the developers to calculate what a thief can do in a given timeframe compared to other classes.
i think evade skills should have a endurance cost from -15%-20% (its resource for evades so it have to cost some endurance)
would stop spam and would have fixed the bunker rangerz ages ago too
Great idea but it should be applied to any defense mechanism (like stealth, blink, shadowstep, etc) too. Otherwise it won’t be balanced because it’ll nerf Ranger more than any other classes;
I agree that “Signet of Nature” is not very well designed
Bunker players don’t use the active
Power players don’t use the passive
“Signet of the Hunt” needs a rework of his passive too. I think the 50% additional damage can be very powerfull and I don’t think Anet will increase Ranger’s coef damage with it like that.
“Signet of Stone” and" Signet of Renewal" are good but they can receive some love.
“Signet of Stone” is clearly not the better immunity skill… and with “Signet of Renewal”, sometime you have to waste a stun breaker to clean condis or the opposite…
Back to the topic, yes signets are in the power line but they should not be exclusive to power builds. Yes, that change could help power builds but it will nerf BM builds…
About utilities, I’d just like :
- The stun breaker from Signet of Renewal is moved to Signet of the Wild, because :
Right now, you have to waste a Stun breaker to clean conditions on you
It’ll synergize well with Signet of the Beastmaster in Signets based Power build.
- Traps become more power based with 3 damage/condi pulses each, because :
It’ll open diversity for trap build so you can go Condi/Trap or Power/Trap
- Spirits ’ actives don’t go full cd when the spirit is interrupted, because :
it’s not supposed to act like that…
Spirits become nearly useless against CC spam builds.
Their actives are already on pretty long cd.
I don’t think that’ll be OP, because you’ll still be able to interrupt Spirit of Nature rez.
- Sharpening Stone receive of buff. Right now, it’s a very weak utility, because :
even if I understand it can be used to condi burst someone (+ 600 DPS during 5s full condi geared)… that’s not a strong burst
- “Search and Rescue” is changed to an other shout because it’s bring nothing…
- “Guard” becomes a real shout ie. with no cast time, because :
it’s already easy to have perma regen/swiftness on a ranger so that won’t make it OP. Moreover I think these 13s on Nature’s Voice were choosen on purpose to achieve this perma regen/swiftness with “Guard” and Shout Master.
About your build :
- Do you really need Rending Attacks and Intimidation Training? Why not Vigorous Training, Mighty Swap or Natural Healing instead?
- You could maybe trade some Apothecary parts for Dire ones.
The problem with some of your suggestions is that they are comparing things apples to apples when it’s not the case. Should a trait to improve an offhand weapon cooldowns be the same as a guardian’s cooldowns of all two handed weapons? I don’t think so.
I agree, we should be able to evaluate a weapon or a couple of weapons to adjust the traits. But maybe we could adjust them with the nature of the bonus.
I still believe that a good base is a importante step to profession balance.
Additionally you have suggestions to increase thief dagger damage but decrease pistol damage? Those suggestions would make daggers even better and pistols even worse, when pistols need to be made much better than they currently are, and daggers are fine as is.
Imo, the source of this problem is not the traits but the weapons skills (damage coef).
And and I suggested two solutions each time.
As I play ranger and warrior, I looked at these two classes. And there are some lacks in your list. Because for example :
- there’s Ranger’s “Nature’s Protection” but there’s not Warrior’s “Furious Reaction” .
- there’s Ranger’s “Oakheart Salve” but there’s not Warrior’s “Dogged March”
- there’s Ranger’s “Primal Reflexes” but there’s not Warrior’s “Spiked Armor”
And I’ll add Warrior’s “Desperate Power” (Opposite of Ranger’s “Bark Skin”) and Warrior’s “Adrenal Health”
Adept/Major traits with 20% Recharge reduced without an extra bonus
Master/Major traits with 20% Recharge reduced with an extra bonus
Not nominal cases :
[Warrior]
Inspiring Banners Adept/Major
Recharge reduced: 20%
Range increase: 50%
=> Moved to Master/Major or Move the “Range increase” to Inspiring Battle Standard
[Necromancer]
Signet Mastery Adept/Major
Recharge reduced: 20%
3 Might : 10s
=> Moved to Master/Major or Remove the “3 Might”
Ritual Mastery Master/Major
Recharge reduced: 20%
=> Moved to Adept/Major or Add an extra bonus
Master of Corruption Master/Major
Recharge reduced: 20%
=> Moved to Adept/Major or Add an extra bonus
[Guardian]
Master of Consecrations Adept/Major
Recharge reduced: 20%
Duration increase: 20%
=> Moved to Master/Major or the “Duration increase” to Consecrated Ground (Consecrated Ground is moved to Master/Major)
[Thief]
Quick Venoms Master/Major
Recharge reduced: 20%
=> Moved to Adept/Major or Add an extra bonus (eg. can be merged with Venomous Strength)
Trickster Master/Major
Recharge reduced: 20%
=> Moved to Adept/Major or Add an extra bonus
[Ranger]
Trap Potency Grandmaster/Major
Recharge reduced: 20%
Duration increase: 100%
=> Moved to Master/Major
Balancing traits is not an easy task. I think a balanced base for traits should be defined before balancing more complex traits.
This base should allow an equality between class during the build decision making (eq. making the “Do I want to reduce the recharge of this skill type?” a N points question).
Traits are not balanced between classes and this doesn’t seem to be always intended.
Even if these differences seem to be minor they could advantage a classe more than an other during the build making process.
In order to defined a balanced base, “nominal cases” must be defined for each kind of traits. I guess something like that was made at the beginning but today there isn’t such a base.
To illustrate that, I will approach 4 kinds of traits :
Spirit ranger are not a AI build… it’s a passif/support/petting zoo build. Do you see the spirits moving by themself? Fighting by themself? No
Yeah spamming AA… Try spirit ranger and only use SB#1 in tournaments. I’m sure you’ll be great Personnaly I use all my weapon’s skills. Something must be wrong with me
