Guild Wars 2

That would actually have been pretty cool as the main merge button. Having the merge happen at your pets location rather than on the player would be an interesting conditional shadowstep, especially after Smokescales Smoke Assault.

To balance this out you could make it so that players could only enter Beastmode if the current pet is still alive.

With this utility, there’s more reason to pop out of Beastmode (for the combat mobility) even after they allow us to swap pets whilst in Beastmode (fairly confident they’ll change it to allow us to at some point).

You should post this in the feedback thread since the devs are a little more likely to see it. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Feedback-Path-of-Fire-Elite-Specialization-Preview-August-18-20

StickerHappy.8052:

Thanks BUT they expect you to say it in 100 words or fewer? What would that help?

Saw a few comments pointing that out and almost every post just ignored the 100 word limit.

Hawken.7932:

So far, my experience with Soulbeast was very good, in most cases. I’m very bothered though with this suggestion that we NEED to have pet swapping in beast mode. It feels to me, after reading through all of these threads, like the vocal complaints of the “petless ranger” crowd, who just can’t seem to get out of the mindset that BM was not designed to be camped.

Gonna just copy/paste what I wrote in your thread about this.

It seems more like a group wants to be able to swap whilst in Beastmode and people like you are being irked by the thought of giving people that choice.
Letting people swap whilst in Beastmode doesn’t take away your gameplay style, it just adds more options in.
Really, who cares if someone camps Beastmode? People are going to do that regardless if Anet add the swap in or not. Adding it in just gives Soulbeast more of an appeal for other people.

Hawken.7932:

can’t seem to get out of the mindset that BM was not designed to be camped.

For this quote specifically, you’re misunderstanding what they said.

They said, “I’m hoping to see players realising it’s not JUST ‘ok I’m just gonna camp Beastmode’…”, meaning they want to see people go in and out but it’s okay to camp it as well. Never did they say they never want people to just camp it.

At around 1:10:56 if you want to hear the quote.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

nobody knows if ANet are reading this stuff, it may be all for nought.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Feedback-Path-of-Fire-Elite-Specialization-Preview-August-18-20

They made a feedback thread in the general page, someone already called them out for not just posting in each classes existing feedback threads.

Soulbeast:

• Some of the Beast skills really need less of a cast time, running black bear gives 2 damage immunities but are useless with the amount of stuns in the game. Too much planning ahead for an “Oh S****” button.
• Bear Stance could use less of a cast time, since there’s more condition builds in the game now with PoF coming, we’ll need this on demand. It’s currently interrupted too easily.
• One Wolf Pack could use a condition damaging effect
• Oppressive Superiority doesn’t need the health restraints. It’s a GM trait, give it some oomph.
• Give us the ability to swap pets whilst in Beastmode. There are situations where dropping out of Beastmode is a bad idea, being able to swap to use other skills would be helpful.
• Vulture Stance, Might above 50% health isn’t great since might is easily gained. Consider changing to Torment over 50% and Poison under 50%. Perhaps up the stance duration for a slight buff to condition builds.
• For a more extreme suggestion, take the conditions off the Dagger mainhand, buff the power coefficients and add conditions to mainhand Sword. Soulbeast feels more like a power spec, give its weapon power and give Sword a role in making core Ranger condition builds better.
• Make the Beastmode “fart effect” only appear for a few seconds upon entering Beastmode. If you(when*, wink wink) add pet swap within Beastmode then have the effect play again to warn opponents that you’ve pets/abilities.

Hawken.7932:

I don’t mind swapping in and out, as seems to irk so many of the “petless ranger” crowd. I actually feel this is just a mindset adjustment after having played for so many years with a pet.

It seems more like a group wants to be able to swap whilst in Beastmode and people like you are being irked by the thought of giving people that choice.

Letting people swap whilst in Beastmode doesn’t take away your gameplay style, it just adds more options in.

Really, who cares if someone camps Beastmode? People are going to do that regardless if Anet add the swap in or not. Adding it in just gives Soulbeast more of an appeal for other people.

HeadCrowned.6834:

The Bear stance is (our quite decent) new condi cleanse but the problem that arises is the lack of swiftness if you equip this heal. Also beastmode F2 or F3 (don’t remember) has some condi cleanse with Jacaranda. The fury trait is pretty good however.

Someone pointed out in another topic that if you run Beastmastery, the trait ’Pet’s Prowess’ applies to you in Beastmode. It gives you a flat 30% movement speed buff. Just don’t run with Signet of the Hunt because it overrides it with it’s 25% movement speed.

I dislike the long cast time on Bear Stance, it’s far too easily interrupted for our main condition cleanse on Soulbeast.

I suggest that we swap the current Beastmode F2 skills to the F1 position and give us access to each individual pets actual F2 skills whilst in Beastmode.

The pets F2 skills are more useful, more powerful and more interesting that what we have access to at the moment and I feel like having them in Beastmode would put us closer to being on par with other Elite specs in terms of usefulness.

For examples:

• Wyverns: Instead of having Tail Lash and Wing Buffet, we’d have Wing Buffet and Lightning Assault/Consuming Flame. This change would allow us to choose between power or conditions and buff each playstyle by a decent amount.

• Smokescale: Instead of Takedown and Smoke Assault, we’d have Smoke Assault and Smoke Cloud. Cooldowns can be adjusted but it’s a considerably more interesting ability.

The list can go on, but for times sake: We’d have access to more condition damage, more interesting power damaging abilities, more condition removal and more, well, everything.

Plus, it makes more sense. Currently some pets give abilities that don’t match their Archetypes. Fire Wyvern gives a condition damage buff but gives us access to a power move and a knockback.

I know it might be a lot of work, but I feel like it’s the right way to go.

Holland.9351:

Red Moa is my most used pet by far. Getting the F2 to hit me can be annoying however, even if he is on passive. So I was kind of hoping to get his F2 in Beastmode, but nope. Pretty sad.

Man, Soulbeast would be multiple steps closer to being on par with the other Elite specs if the individual pets F2 skills were included in the usable skills in Beastmode.

Agreed.

I’ll still pop out of Beastmode to use my pet at times, but I want to do it when I want to use my pet and not just to go back into Beastmode.

Cut/pasted from my comment on the feedback thread.

• Some of the Beast skills really need less of a cast time, running black bear gives 2 damage immunities but are useless with the amount of stuns in the game. Too much planning ahead for an “Oh S****” button.
• Bear Stance could use less of a cast time, since there’s more condition builds in the game now with PoF coming, we’ll need this on demand. It’s currently interrupted too easily.
• One Wolf Pack could use a condition damaging effect
• Oppressive Superiority doesn’t need the health restraints. It’s a GM trait, give it some oomph.
• Give us the ability to swap pets whilst in Beastmode. There are situations where dropping out of Beastmode is a bad idea, being able to swap to use other skills would be helpful.
• Vulture Stance, Might above 50% health isn’t great since might is easily gained. Consider changing to Torment over 50% and Poison under 50%. Perhaps up the stance duration for a slight buff to condition builds.
• Double Arc, let players get the poison damage on strike when in Beastmode.
• For a more extreme suggestion, take the conditions off the Dagger mainhand, buff the power coefficients and add conditions to mainhand Sword. Soulbeast feels more like a power spec, give its weapon power and give Sword a role in making core Ranger condition builds better.

I think they should take the conditions off the Dagger mainhand, buff the power coefficients and add conditions to mainhand Sword.

Soulbeast feels more like a power spec, dedicate its exclusive weapon to power and give Sword a role in making core Ranger condition builds better.

I don’t really mind if they change offhand Dagger but if they keep it the same, number 5 really needs to use the ammo system.

Yakez.7561:

Condi weapon with power traits. lol

This is pretty important.

Some notes from a WvW perspective:

• Sadly, I found that running condi Soulbeast (or Ranger in general) is still massively underpowered compared to what other classes can spew out.
• Soulbeast is amazing on a power build. Running longbow with sword/axe and ‘One Wolf Pack’ feels great, not too powerful but packs a good punch.
• Some of the Beast skills really need less of a cast time, running black bear gives 2 damage immunities but are useless with the amount of stuns in the game. Too much planning ahead for an “Oh S****” button.
• Bear Stance could use less of a cast time, since there’s more condition builds in the game now with PoF coming, we’ll need this on demand. It’s currently interrupted too easily.
• One Wolf Pack could use a condition damaging effect
• Oppressive Superiority doesn’t need the health restraints. It’s a GM trait, give it some oomph.
• Give us the ability to swap pets whilst in Beastmode. There are situations where dropping out of Beastmode is a bad idea, being able to swap to use other skills would be helpful.
• Vulture Stance, Might above 50% health isn’t great since might is easily gained. Consider changing to Torment over 50% and Poison under 50%. Perhaps up the stance duration for a slight buff to condition builds.
• Double Arc, let players get the poison damage on strike when in Beastmode.
• For a more extreme suggestion, take the conditions off the Dagger mainhand, buff the power coefficients and add conditions to mainhand Sword. Soulbeast feels more like a power spec, give its weapon power and give Sword a role in making core Ranger condition builds better.

Miellyn.6847:

The grandmaster minor trait is supposed to give you 25% movement speed and some ferocity in beastmode.

Just edited my post, you’re right.

Seems like if you run Signet of the Hunt with BM traitline and in beastmode, you run slightly slower than if you run without it. I’m assuming Pets Prowess is giving you 30% rather than 25%.

Miellyn.6847:

It has 25% movement speed if you take beastmastery.

Had beastmastery running and saw no movement speed buff?

Edit: Just checked, you’re right. I must have changed trait lines before testing it.

A request from playing for a bit.

Can you add a 25% movement speed buff when in Beastmode? It feels much too slow to play with the close combat abilities unless you run a shout build or run with signet of the hunt. It’s a shame to have so many cool new abilities to not be able to use them because you need to use 1-2 slots for movement speed.

(Or, just make the +25% baseline for all classes because it’s so slow without it.)

I used to have a bit of fun with a similar build back when traps could be thrown but now that you have to place them you can’t set the traps out of the way of enemies making the stealth inconsistent.

rojoka.5976:

i fear our pets will getting nerfed further on with SB.
some pet skills will be heavily unbalanced at start as the pet skills are not meant to be used by the ranger when they were created. for example the jaguars’s F2 (6 seconds of stealth while you can still attack and get +25% crit chance and +25% crit damage) looks a bit op when used by a player especially in PvP.
the SB can add some nice options to ranger’s play, but it might hit the “normal” rangers when they start balancing everything around SB.

You won’t be able to use the stealth, cats give you Bite(F1) and Maul(F2) along with another ability based on the archetype of the pet, Jaguar is ‘Versitile’ so you get ‘Prelude Lash’ as an F3 ability.

Musha.4025:

And while in beastmode, you lose the pet and the 1524 power, the 2211 precision, the 1524 toughness, the 2211 vitality, and the 1000 condition dmg that you once had while that pet was at your side, which, getting back on point, was the concern for the initial discussion. How can this be an elite spec if you’re not upgraded by using it, like every other profession’s elite spec, but instead, DOWNgraded? Getting a few extra skills is not an upgrade equivalent to the other elite specs.

In WvW, pets don’t hit players nearly often enough so for that game mode at least, it’s an upgrade if you can get a buff to yourself and get a decent amount of skills to use that will hit more reliably.

That said, if Anet fix pets and make them considerably more reliable in the future, Soulbeast may lose a large part of its usefulness.

Musha.4025:

Other than the concept of the Soulbeast, which is AMAZINGLY cool, and playing something entirely new for the class, I’m very interested to hear more about how you think it will fit with your rangers. Could you please maybe elaborate a little?

Sure.

My main Ranger is my old roaming condi bunker build and since HoTs release it’s been somewhat useless in WvW since it’s defense and damage aren’t up to scratch against what others are using to roam. With Soulbeast I can finally get some condition based melee autoattacks to tide me over whilst waiting for longer cooldowns (I dislike Shortbow) and with beastmode I’ll have access to a fair few defensive utilities that will aid in my survivability (mainly black bear) and if I want, I can swap in some condition pets to increase my damage output. Plus, I like the look of Bear Stance and Dolyak Stance to help against conditions and stuns.

My second Ranger is an old zerker bearbow, still plenty fun to play but the pet is all but useless on him. Previously I went with Druid to increase his survivability but I think soulbeast will increase his staying power and damage with black bear and smokescale.

I’ll be leaving my third (boonshare) Ranger as a Druid since it works perfectly fine as is.

Durzlla.6295:

Elite specs are not upgrades, they’re a variation of the base class, the part of soulbeast that’s “elite” is being able to fuse with your pet and use some of their abilities at your own whim, as well as gaining access to MH dagger and stances.

I dunno, the first lot of Elite specs were almost always a direct upgrade to the base class.

I’m thinking they’re making the Elites upgrades but making sure each Elite is on even footing with each other.

On topic, Soulbeast looks like it’ll fit a few of my rangers nicely and shouldn’t disappoint.

Lazze.9870:

Well, duh? It’s is one out of three adept traits. It’s not a forced minor trait. And I’ve been emphasizing on the useage of boonshare builds the entire time.

The way your comment came off was that there was no reason to use the other traits since Fresh Reinforcement seems to add onto Fortifying Bond. I mentioned other builds as a sidenote, but stand by Live Fast as a better trait even for boonshare builds.

Lazze.9870:

I lean towards both of the two other traits, but they are both less effective than this trait in a boonshare build.

The reason Live Fast may be more effective is that Fresh Reinforcement only gives you a few seconds of each boon your pet has at the time whereas Live Fast gives you 2 guaranteed boons (both very useful for a boonshare build) for a longer duration than if you qualified to receive them from Fresh Reinforcement. Plus you’d still have the boons currently on your character.

Lazze.9870:

And why argue and complain about a skill that is perfectly fine and has its clear useage when pretty much all our grandmasters looks undertuned at the moment. You want stance cooldown reduction? That GM stance trait clearly got room for it.

I’ll be honest, it was mainly your “Do you even play Ranger?” comment, it lured me into posting my opinion on the traits. You’re right though, currently the GM traits are awful and hopefully they rethink them after next weeks beta event.

Khenzy.9348:

Pretty much. In terms of PvP, I’m a little mad the only decent condi removal from rangers comes from Wilderness Knowledge, Soulbeast as well as the other traitlines offer nothing in that regard. I’m slightly dissapointed.

Druid line gives a large condi cleanse on entering astral form when traited.

Soulbeast gives (that we know of):

• Bear Stance – up to 8 conditions over 4 seconds.
• Spiritual Reprieve (pet F3 in Beastmode) – gives a few seconds of Resistance on a 40s cooldown.
• Photosynthesize (pet F2 in Bestmode)- removes 2 conditions on 20s cooldown

If you run Soulbeast with Wilderness Survival we can have a fair whack of condition removal.

Lazze.9870:

Excuse me, but do you ranger at all?
We got one heal, one trait in nature magic and now one trait with soulbeast revolved around sharing boons with our class mechanic. “Too much”, lol. You got two other traits to chose between. This trait is PERFECT in combination with Nature Magic. Period.

The way I’m seeing the traits, if you’re running a Nature Magic boon build, you can choose Fresh Reinforcement for a few seconds of each boon (Doesn’t look like it copies but gives a few seconds of each boon the pet has. Can confirm this next week for sure) or you can go for Live Fast for extra fury and quickness then pop out of Beastmode and restack your usual boons with your pet whilst you wait for the Beastmode cooldown.

I’m leaning more towards Live Fast for the reliable quickness proc since on my boon Ranger I don’t exactly need an extra few seconds of each boon since I can reapply them quickly with shouts anyway.

Plus any build not using Shouts and boonshare would definitely run something other than Fresh Reinforcement.

Primal Cry might be a little weak considering the cooldown but it hits 5 enemies so it’s not the worst. I agree with a cooldown reduction or a few more bleed stacks.

Spiritual Reprieve is definitely not weak, it targets 5 allies and it’s a fairly decent heal considering it isn’t your main healing skill. A Little more resistance would be nice but we’re getting a fair bit of condition removal and evade skills so it may not be a huge deal in a fight.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

But you do not need an eSpec to do that, we already have it, if they wanted to give us more ranged DPS, they can adjust the LB skills and power scaling.

The problem with just upping damage on the base spec is that there would be nothing to stop people from running it with a defensive Elite spec and having the best of both worlds. Having a separate Elite spec for ranged dps makes balancing things easier.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Sarision.6347:

…As for rifle…I can’t see any roles it can fulfill that both bows can’t.

That’s because there isn’t one. Bows already cover everything necessary from range.

They could always add with different conditions as damage or stealth options, or add a different weapons altogether. The weapon didn’t really matter, what would be important is having an Elite spec focusing on boosting the potential of the base classes ranged dps.

Core specialisations will eventually die out once there are enough Elite specialisations available for each build type.

Currently we have:

• Druid – A tanky and/or healing support spec.
• Soulbeast – A pet focused spec based on absorbing/removing your pet.

We still need:

• A long range dps spec, probably with a rifle.
• A pet focused spec based on powering up your pets rather than removing them.

The idea of the Elites is you have a plus to whatever build you like to run. You can play as core Ranger but eventually you’ll want to go Ranger+ to make your build stronger and more specialised.

The problem is that the fewer Elite specs we have, the more limited the build options we have since the Elite specs are so much better. It’s a great system but Anet releasing only one Elite spec at the start severely limited build diversity, though that will start to become less of an issue once PoF releases.

Tl;dr: Core Ranger will eventually become completely unused out of pre-80 content once enough Elite specs are released and that’s not totally a bad thing.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

I’d just like to see some tuning on the current skills;

Stalkers Strike gets 500 range and ammo mechanic with a 2 charge.

Crippling Talon gets Torment for the pet on next 3 attacks, longer cripple and ammo mechanic with a 2 charge.

Agreed with Stalkers Strike range increase but I’d rather we didn’t get charges with it as having too many evades may bring the nerf-hammer down on us.

Crippling Talon with ammo would be great.

DemonSeed.3528:

Definitely needs updates, but on more glaring issues.

Definitely, but if we get this riled up over a small, relatively simple update, what will the forums be like if anything goes wrong during an important update?

I think they’ve said a few times that devs go back and forth on projects, it could well have been a non-WvW dev that did this update so it’s not like they did this instead of something else.

They’re definitely slow on the important stuff, and they focused on things that I disagreed with when they did that voting way back. However, I genuinely don’t know how difficult fixing the important issues is or how long it will take, so getting something whilst we wait for those things to get implemented is great.

Considering you can’t just log straight into WvW I have a feeling they just worded it poorly and you’ll be able to play the Elite specs anywhere just like the HoT Elite spec beta.

If that’s the case hopefully the ones that aren’t interested in WvW will realise that they spawn in PvE and go do what they usually do (raid, fractals etc).

Once the bugs are ironed out it will be a nice addition. I’ve been enjoying it a lot.

If we keep calling for changes to be removed instead of giving them a solid chance then WvW will get stale again. We need to have the game mode continue to update as the game progresses.

Stand The Wall.6987:

god I hope they dont

God I hope they do.

I reckon you’d be better off with something like this: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAqaWn8lClOhNOBGOBkmiFqiyLE+gSoLBCgDYO77+xH-T1RBQBL4IAoH9BXZ/R5HAOBAmRJYCV/5BPCASBUlyI-w

-Swapped Marauders stats in for increased survivability.

-Swapped shortbow for staff for the evades and great damage. Using two sets of ranged projectile weapons would leave you vulnerable to reflects.

-Shadowstep for the escape, condi removal and safe stomp.

-Channeled Vigor for the extra dodges and a decent heal.

-Impact Strike for the daze, launch and quick finisher.

-Trickery line for the better steal utility (boons, boon removal, daze,) more initiative and Lead Attacks, which is great for damage.

-Hard to Catch in Acro for the endurance regen and help against stun heavy classes.

-Brawler’s Tenacity for reduced cooldown heal and a little extra endurance.

-Bounding Dodger for increased damage and for stealthing with pistol 5.

Possible changes would be swapping Assassin’s Signet for Bandit’s Defense for the block and knockdown.

Xenesis.6389:

Dunno why they would close that thread when they said they would be looking at it the next few days especially when players get a chance to play them out.

Figures they wouldn’t answer anything to ghost thieves.

I expect the next q&a or ama to return to reddit next time.

Maybe the elementalist and mesmer players spamming complaints got to them?

They don’t tend to do well under pressure.

It’s a shame, there were some genuinely good questions there I was looking forward to seeing answered. I hope they take a good look through what was posted anyway.

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

We would really like to do some in-depth passes on underused utility types across most professions. We did not have time to do that for this update, sadly.

Is there any way that you guys can get the time to do so? Make Mike a coffee every morning for a week maybe?

I understand that you guys have a tonne of other stuff to work on but I worry that if you don’t have time to fix the underused stuff before the next Elite Specs release, they’ll be further pushed back and become harder to balance in the grand scheme of things.

Why buff trapper Thief without adding a physical damage modifier to prevent stealth spam whilst applying conditions? (WvW specifically)

Why no Engineer shield buff? The offhand pistol buff makes it even harder to justify using shield.

Ranger spike trap and lightning reflexes changes would be great in WvW, not just PvP.

Thank you for addressing the Ranger pets, so far so good with them, I haven’t had a chance to test them all out yet but it feels promising. Kudos on that!

Can you think about adding a damaging condition to either Ranger Sword or mainhand Axe? I’d like to do a little bit of damage whilst waiting on my cooldowns (WvW) [Edit: in addition to this, could the same be done for Guardian?]

Almost all of the classes have some skills or traits that are generally unused or underused (assuming you may have records of which skills are used most? Maybe not though) can we have a balance patch specifically for them? (Stuff like: Ranger spirits, making them mobile again. Consolodating Ranger pet traits into the Beastmastery line instead of having them in multiple traitlines. etc)

Thanks for taking the time to review feedback actively here, it’s much appreciated. My apologies for jumping straight into it there.

Draeyon.4392:

Please add the Lightning Reflexes and Spike Trap changes to PvE and WvW.
I actually have a build that I opt out of these 2 skills simply because of their CDs. Running a short CD venom/flame trap and the functionality of QZ just override any need/desire for those 2 skills.

Yupyup, I’d like this too.

They made a fair few great changes, updating Ranger pets was nice.

Buffing Thief traps was stupid without addressing the perma-stealth from trapper runes.

Not buffing Engineer shield but buffing offhand pistol makes it much harder to justify using shield, which is sad.

The worst part though is that they barely touched the unused or underused skills and traits in the game.

UmbraNoctis.1907:

Well, for burst dmg all you have to do is to look at your combat log …

I’m assuming dps meters would calculate the various attacks in a burst on the fly, otherwise, yeah that would be pretty pointless.

UmbraNoctis.1907:

Dps is pretty meaningless in WvW, why care about it?

I suppose it would matter to burst damage roamers like thieves and mesmers. Getting the most damage out of their initial burst would be worth some calculating.

Edit: Forgot I was in the Ranger section. It also might be interesting to calculate how much real damage we and our pets are doing.

Not sure if this is still valid, but I remember reading a reddit post comparing pet dps on the golems. (the dps chart is at the bottom)

http://guildwarshub.com/ranger-pet-dps-comparison/

And he uploaded some charts to imgur: http://imgur.com/a/hDoUm

Again, not sure how accurate they were/are and it’d be different in a real fight with boons, properly moving enemies etc, but it’s interesting to look at if nothing else.

Scorze.1056:

To make my point a little bit more clear on new skills, I want new skills in the existing skill categories, not new skill categories with new skills in them.

I’d rather they just updates the existing skills and traits and made them all viable and useful and add new Elite specs for newer skills and traits.

With your way you can use ‘new survival skill x’ (which boosts your tankiness) with, say, the Druid Elite spec (which is already pretty tanky), that could get pretty out of hand balance-wise.

On the other hand, they could add ‘new survival skill x’ to a new Elite spec, preventing it from use with the already tanky Druid spec, making it easier to balance and less likely to become broken.

Dawdler.8521:

Ah, dat reddit leak…

Engineer, now with more passive condi damage.

Because WvW really need more passives and more condi damage.

Well if it’s true, they’ll probably just change Pinpoint Distribution to adding a flat 150 condition damage so Engies personal condition damage won’t increase all that much (on average).

The group stat share passives are the only ones that don’t bother me too much, the “get hit once and become invincible and shoot fireballs out of your kitten ” passive traits bother me.

Zenith.7301:

Rev skills just need to have energy costs removed completely for weapons, keep energy costs just for utility skills.

Or just remove it entirely, it’s a boring mechanic. We have cooldowns to limit skill spam, we don’t need something else to hinder playing.

Being tied to specific utilities and not being able to customise much should be enough of a restriction.

Hey balance team, remember to have a last minute look at the “skills and traits almost nobody uses” section of your database and give them a going over.

It’d be lovely if we could use (viably) all of the skills and traits in the game to some extent.

Also, before you nerf ranger pets again, remember that it’s only specific builds that make them powerful, and feel free to buff the forgotten pets. Oh, and kindly swap Engie pistol 3 and 4 around so we can use both offhand pistol and shield depending on mood and need without giving up that burn dps.

I only wish they’d remember the game is an MMORPG with tonnes of skills and traits, maybe they’ll get round to changing a few of them so we can play some new builds.

Vagrant.7206:

Variations are highly discouraged given the current meta. It’s ultimately boring.

That’s how I feel, too.

But yeah, Engie probably has it worst.

Every class is in the same spot (to a certain extent).

We’re playing a game with hundreds or thousands of skill and trait variations per class and we’re stuck with 2-3 builds being used per class since a lot of the skills and traits are severely underpowered.

Anet need to properly revamp a lot of stuff to make build crafting more enjoyable and get some much needed variation back into the game.

It’s a little ironic that they added a new traitline, skills and a weapon per class and we’ve ended up with less builds being played than before they were added.

Straegen.2938:

I would try it but I don’t think it is functionally possible to completely eliminate direct damage as that is a trigger. Would be an interesting match if everyone had a permanent 80% direct damage reduction though.

It’s technically possible, they could just give everyone the effects of the Rangers Signet of Stone for the week, no power damage but still able to be stunned and take condition damage.

I’m against both ideas either way, gimmicks like this could only serve as an annoyance for one portion of the WvW playerbase. I’d much rather they spent their time fixing and updating the game mode and making an actual attempt at class and damage balances.