Guild Wars 2

It’s a dagger. If it’s the traitline image being referred to, don’t look at the image and guess. The first trait on each one of those leaks has a weapon symbol. For the Ranger’s, it’s the one below. The sword weapon symbol is diagonal.

nicknamenick.2437:

No HUGE kitten in it

I disagree. There’s a Charr in it. ;^)

Predator’s Cunning could be better by changing it from “Steal life when you apply poison.” to “Steal life when you strike a poisoned foe.”

Thanks all for the comments! Let’s all hope a more organized Pet Management window can be delivered by the time Heart of Thorns is released! I also made some alterations (thanks for the feedback) to the menus for fun.

Please note that any elements in these images I posted that are not in the original game (such as the dolphin) are stuff I added for fun and maybe out of a small hope that it will be added in the future. Enjoy!

Edit: Anyone else think the Rainbow Jellyfish could use a different icon?

Honeymoon phase is over. The base condition damage boost to pets is fantastic, but let’s take a further look at the 5 new pets Rangers & Druids will be able to charm in Heart of Thorns and some concerns about them.

The Smokescale
Not enough information.

The Tiger
This one seems rather safe to assume it will share the same stats as the rest of the Feline family. Though the F2 ability is not currently known, it can’t be too shabby. There is not much concern here for this pet.

The Bristleback
A ranged pet that deals in both condition and physical damage attacks. The Bristleback seems to be of its own species as it currently has a unique point:ratio distribution.

[Stat Breakdown]

• Power (Above Average): Most pets have a common power stat of 1524 at level 80 without Beastmastery. The Bristleback sits at 1718, slightly below Canines and Drakes.
• Precision (Below Average): Most pets have a common precision stat of 1524 at level 80 without Beastmastery. The Bristleback sits at 1374, slightly better than Porcine which has the lowest precision of all the pet families at 1180.
• Toughness (Above Average): Drakes, Canines, Porcine, and Bears have a toughness stat of 2211 at level 80 without Beastmastery while Devourers have the highest toughness of 2898. The Bristleback sits at 2748. Not bad.
• Vitality (Lowest): Most pets have a common vitality stat of 2211 at level 80 without Beastmastery. The Bristleback sits at 2061, leaving it as the lowest (known) vitality pet.

[Concerns]
The F2 ability is weak. 30s cooldown that applies 5s of Bleeding on the next 5 attacks. The Bleeding duration could use a significant boost to make this worthwhile, like a 100% duration boost.

It’s tanky but the low vitality leaves it in a bad spot. Possibly bump it up to the average vitality stat of 2211 or increase the toughness further to make it extremely resilient to direct damage while keeping the trade off of being highly susceptible to conditions.

Finally, uniform the range of all its skills. Currently, one of its skills, Rain of Spikes, is a 600 range AOE. Not sure about the AI in terms of when this pet will use this skill, but if its anything like the Devourer Tail Swipe knockback, I don’t want to see these guys step out of their 1200 range only to step in closer to the fight (and possible AOEs) just to launch this skill and remain within 600 range.

The Wyverns
The 3rd newest pet family addition coming with Heart of Thorns. These winged baddies sport their own unique point:ratio distribution as well, but only with Vitality. With unique and useful F2 abilities for the Electric and Flame Wyvern, they are sure to be a hit, or will they?

[Stat Breakdown]

• Power (Above Average): The Wyverns have a power stat equal to Drakes and Canines of 1868 at level 80 without Beastmastery.
• Precision (Average): Most pets have a common precision stat of 1524 at level 80 without Beastmastery. The Wyverns share this stat similarity.
• Toughness (Above Average): Drakes, Moas, Porcine, and Bears have a toughness stat of 2211 at level 80 without Beastmastery. The Wyverns share this stat similarity.
• Vitality (Above Average): Most pets have a common vitality stat of 2211 at level 80 without Beastmastery. The Wyverns sit at 2898, just between the average (2211) and the second highest (3585).

[Concerns]
Attacks are too slow. Cast time for the auto attack is 2s long. It hits twice, but the long cast time and the animation lock that follows it where the Wyvern forces itself to reset its position before starting the next attack (Bears suffer from this, too) significantly gimps the damage of these bad kitten creatures.

The cast times need to be reduced and have something done about that animation lock at the end so it can start the next attack without having to reset its position. I suggest speeding up the cast time of the auto attack from 2s to 1s. Make the 1-2 punch combo a quick 1-2 punch combo. Retain the power since it hits only a single target, or lower the power slightly and have it cleave up to 3 targets. Preferably, the latter. More cleaving pets would be REALLY nice.

Tail Lash is slow as well, and there’s not nearly enough payoff to it. 1½s cast for a 6s cleaving Cripple doesn’t cut it with 130 range. I suggest taking the Drake Tail Swipe approach and extending the range to 225 so it can land more reliably and reduce the cast time down a notch to 1¼s (also equal to Drake Tail Swipe).

Wing Buffet. This skill is pretty nice, but can we have this be a cone AOE so it can affect multiple targets instead of just one?

Side Note: The Wyvern F2 commands are cool. No need to change them.

It’s perception and balancing. People usually have a mix of outdated and misinformed conceptions, while the developers have just an odd and seemingly disconnected sense of balance.

Take your above comment. It’s outdated and scope limited to PVE only without stating so. Now check out Eleazar’s responses: that’s someone who knows the current State of Ranger.

As for the developer side: Strength of the Pack, unnecessary nerfs to conditions, Druid heals reduced 3 times, and axe damage increases exclusive to PvP. But hey, we still have Most Dangerous Game?

Too hard to fix the glitch. Easier patch: “There are now invulnerable champion sharks in the water on the way towards the Mossman path.”

Quick question: Is there a reason this particular exotic backpiece doesn’t have an upgrade slot for gemstones, rubies, or otherwise? Seems odd.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

They could use the armorfish skills and everything, just swap the model. Can’t be that hard.

This is true, but like our friend the Juvenile Marsh Drake, he would be much cooler if he matched his picture

There is so much wrong here that I’m glad the Devs don’t often browse our forums.

keramatzmode.1906:

We live in 2017 where mounts trigger people in a videogame, to an extend you want a censorship because somehow you have personal problems with people using domesticated wildlife as a mode of transportation.

That is the world we live in. Remember the krytan floppy fish? And that was just a miniature.

Though I agree with the video, HOT wasn’t a failure. It did things both good and bad. Even now, as I am becoming jaded (again), I believe GW2 will be around for as long as GW1 has.

To me, it could have been more, and in HOT, things were changed, added and improved upon – which is a good sign. I bought the expansion and got a fair share of 4 months of stuff to do from it, so that was worth it.

The one thing in the video that resonated most with me was the ending in which I (personally) felt, too. Just a lot of “little things” that kept hindering me from having further enjoyment. To each their own, though, as everyone gets enjoyment from something that others may not.

InsaneQR.7412:

Striders defense should give us something like 1 stack of might every time you evade an attack (not an evasive roll), most dangerous game should give less might stacks but beginning at 90%. Light on your feet should give you a stackable buff when you evade an attack that improves condi dmg and duration. The duration of the stack should be reasonably long so you can benefit from it.

Eh, I’d rather those traits have more synergy with other traits in Skirmishing. Like I have been suggesting for awhile on those traits:

• Strider’s Defense moved to Grandmaster and changed so we get a buff that lasts 2s whenever we apply vigor to ourselves that makes all weapon skills destroy projectiles. Keep the cooldown reduction and add a 10% damage modifier while wielding a sword to make up for the aftercasts introduced with the new sword animations.
• Most Dangerous Game moved to Master and changed to give 1 stack of Might (5s) every second we have vigor. We can then start having a synergy combo of Primal Reflexes -> Most Dangerous Game -> Strider’s Defense with vigor as a common thread.
• Light On Your Feet changed to simply add +10% condition damage when we have Swiftness. It would be flexible with many condition builds across all modes, and has synergy within Skirmishing with Tail Wind minor and Evasive Shot on shortbow.

If we can have those changes, then Sharpened Edges can stay right where it is, even though its current iteration and spot doesn’t really bother me. I just want better synergy in Skirmishing.

Giving a +1 to the idea of activating Marks after casting them. Annoys me how they won’t proc on certain structures (like world bosses) and I would enjoy using that Blast Finisher and Regen when it’s needed.

Yeah, but then again, open world and a fair number of dungeons deal with inanimate objects that are still immune to condition damage. That annoyance starts to become a hindrance if one were to share similar preferences with the OP of just doing open-world and dungeons.

And even though condition Ranger can stack up conditions rather well with relatively short cooldowns, its mobility is low. GS/LB helps out a lot in those cases, especially when trying to make it to events where waypoints become contested.

jewishjoyride.4693:

Except that Staff auto has no functionality without a target. Literally the tip of your staff lights up.

Same as Mesmer GS. Just lights up and doesn’t deal damage unless there’s a target for the beam. Can’t gain AF on full health targets anyways, and can’t hit anything with no targets on Mesmer GS. Might as well lock Spatial Surge and watch the Mesmer players flip out.

This suggestion is for reducing and replacing the Bags of Luck rewards from the Login Rewards. Luck is not hard to come by and the amount of luck received would be no loss if it were reduced.

Expanding the Bags of Crafting Materials to 4 and having those replace the third column. As for the fifth column slot, there can still be a Bag of Luck (fine) on the first row. For the second row of the fifth column: a Toy Miniature Egg (masterwork) to keep things unique.

I think it would be a bit more rewarding and fun if people could get less luck, more crafting materials, and a random mini once every month.

God kitten it. It’s going to be a main-hand sword… I was really hoping they would go all bonkers with a main-hand shield so dual-wielding Shooshadoo would be possible.

Holosmith sounds kinda neat, though.

Yes, you can level in condition gear.

Rampager (precision/power-condition) or Rabid (condition/precision-toughness) is what you want while leveling. It’s cheap and does what you need it to.

If you don’t have access to Viper gear, use Sinister (condition/power-precision) once you’re level 80 or just stick to Rabid.

Noein.1685:

Anyone know if there will be an internal cooldown on the pet taunt on f2 trait or will it rely on pet ability cooldowns?

At the moment- 15 seconds.

Neural.1824:

I can’t think of one point in the past 4 years that Anet has ever changed the dye channels on any item they’ve released.

I can. The Wizard Hat.

Time to bring out the ol’ iron lung.

Ayalet.4970:

Sneak Peak Please ~ ea ea ea xD That sounds awesome, now the waiting game to see this New stance.

Sneak Peak

Changing a trait, and not the weapon, is not a way to make a weapon viable. Just rename your topic to a Light on Your Feet suggestion.

As far as I know, Spirits are treated the same way as Turrets, in which they scale from the player’s Condition Damage, Condition Duration, Boon Duration, Healing Power and considered a separate entity. The exception is Spirit of Nature, but that’s currently bugged and is supposed to scale with the player’s Healing Power.

I don’t think Anet would allow Moment of Clarity to work with Storm Spirit unless they shortened the duration of the active Daze. Would possibly be worried if it were to happen, seeing how they balance things out, they might chainsaw the initial daze just so it can have a 3s daze with MoC slotted.

Water Spirit for the Ranger is still bugged. It is now more broken than before.

• Passive healing effect and the Water Spirit active heal of Aqua Surge (the splash) is not effected by any outgoing healing % modifiers.
• Passive healing effect is no longer displays in the combat log or heal floating numbers when proc by allies.
• Passive healing no longer activates Lingering Light [Druid GM Trait] on allies.
• Passive healing does not activate Natural Mender or Live Vicariously [Druid minor Traits] for the Druid.
• Healing from the passive effect no longer scales with the player’s healing power and heals a static 863 health points.
• Tooltip for the passive effect heal does not update with the player’s healing power and is displayed incorrectly at a static 863 heal. This appears to be linked with the previously noted bug, however, it has been this way for several months with different static heals presented on different patches.

+ As of the 01-26-2016 patch, the passive heal was reduced to a static 915 and no longer scaled with the player’s healing power or outgoing healing % modifiers.
+ As of the 02-23-2016 patch, the passive heal was reduced to a static 889 and could no longer proc by affected allies.
+ As of the 03-08-2016 patch, the passive heal was reduced to a static 863. Allies can now proc the passive heal again but it does not register with the combat log and no longer activates Lingering Light on affected allies.

As a new update, Swiftness provided by Storm Spirit when traited with Nature’s Vengeance (Nature Magic, Grandmaster) no longer scales with the player’s boon duration as of the 04-19-2016 patch.

Edited after a bit more testing and to add Storm Spirit bug.

Kain Francois.4328:

If they could move they would be OP.

That’s a laugh. They weren’t OP before, and they wouldn’t be OP if they could move now, even with the current Nature’s Vengeance since they took off the active on-death.

I made a thread with concerns on some of the new pets. I highly recommend these points make the list. The pets look amazing, but stat, tooltip, and footage analysis has me worried that they might end up being cool to look at rather than useful.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/New-Pet-Concerns/first#post5531188

Kind of surprised no one else caught the other tid-bit Irenio mentioned in the Guild Chat stream about why Anet won’t allow Ranger to have control over all of the pet skills by default: “Because it would be way too powerful.”

Updated the data to reflect today’s patch that reduced the Smokescale’s Smoke Assault damage by -15%. New DPS are in the “()” so the comparisons are visible from before and after the patch.

Yeah, I wouldn’t count on Jacaranda and Iboga too much. Both of those will receive reductions.

Jaca’s lightning reminded me when people complained about being spiked down by Storm Spirit’s old active, back when it had higher damage and modifier.

Took Anet 2 days to nerf it after a complaint thread. I expect to see the Jaca follow the Gazelle in that manner.

Could warriors also benefit from these spots to build up adrenaline?

So, beyond the speculation and comparisons, the more important question is how would these stances work when shared and stacked. Will they be able to stack, and if so, how?

An example is 2 Soulbeasts using Bear Stance next to one another with the shared trait. Will it count as the players having both instances of Bear Stance running at the same time?

Meaning, for the first 2 seconds, they are losing 4 conditions per second and healing for each condition lost, then having just the single instance of Bear Stance apply for the final 2 seconds, losing 2 conditions per second, yada yada.

Or, will it increase the duration? So, then each Soulbeast that shares a stance with the same allied target has the effects last longer. In the above example of just 2 Soulbeasts, that would extend it to 6 seconds (4s + 2s shared). If so, is there a duration cap?

Or, the final, plausible outcome: stances won’t stack at all and/or refresh to their max duration – but depending on the source. Meaning, if I have Bear Stance and it drains down from 4s to 3s, then someone grants me Bear Stance, it caps at 4s or doesn’t apply at all.

Likewise with shared instances where if one Soulbeast grants an ally Bear Stance (2s), then I share that stance with that same ally 1 second later, it just caps at 2s. Something to think about when testing it during the beta coming up later.

Unless someone has footage showing how this works, please post it. I’m certain many of us would like to know. Also, apologies for using Bear Stance a lot, but (hopefully) you get the gist of it.

Doubt it. Every weapon change since launch from every major patch, update, and/or feature pack has been so minor that if Anet actually changed the sword auto, it would mean they finally grew some balls to flip off the players that like that stick ‘n’ leap without being able to dodge programming of theirs.

So, again. Doubt it.

From the Druid BWE3 Feedback Thread

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

The animations for staff are getting looked at.

I know what you mean. I saw the preview of Nevermore from Guild Chat. When Daredevil held it like a hammer, it looked… odd. Hope they change the idle to a caster-type animation, too.

Crossfire on Shortbow for Ranger is currently bugged, applying the front bleeding duration when attacking from the side or behind instead of the actual extended bleeding duration.

Nothing can be done. People would still join “serious” meta LFGs during dailies and leave if they want to. Just keep the LFGs active.

Had a good chance to test out some of these changes. To each their own on personal experiences and perspective, but the increased cooldown on Celestial Form, along with the reduced healing – though noticeable – isn’t as detrimental (to me).

Was messing around more with Warhorn, which, I have to admit – the unblockable feature (we asked for one) definitely makes Clarion Bond in Marksmanship attractive. Nature Magic users might want to pick up Windborne Notes for another regeneration source or just to double-up on the unblockable and shorter cooldowns.

Only big one was Strength of the Pack cooldown increase. The ones that don’t take Beastmastery and use it are going to feel the effects from this change the most. I have a feeling that a majority of people that take it do slot Resounding Timbre, in which case, the 12s extra seconds is a lot and at the same time, minor.

I might be tin-foil-hatting this one, but the cooldown increase probably had a second purpose besides the SotP/WHaO/NM/BM template people were complaining about. It may have to do with foresight of taking Marksmanship now that Call of the Wild is more appealing. If more take Marksmanship, the obvious choices (now and once again) are Clarion Bond, Moment of Clarity, and Remorseless with the minor GS increase.

Feel free to agree to disagree, though note I’m still feeling out and testing these changes. I might have also gotten into the Anet Kool Aid as I’m starting to see what their (possible) reasoning is for these changes…

Dude, at least we’re useful somewhere and accepted in most other modes. May not be better than other classes in terms of DPS, but what we bring to certain roles and support can be matched by no other.

For crying out loud, you have a Thief, which are hurting far more than Ranger is, especially in Raid content. Ever see Thief or Daredevil highly requested for Raids?

Why didn’t they just adjust the hit-boxes of enemies in PVE to have a universal radius rather than nerf Meteor Shower? Or would that make too much sense? :/

foste.3098:

This will not solve the issue the core pets have which is they can’t hit anything that moves and their f2 skills can almost never hit because of horrid casts & aftercasts.

I agree that lower F2 cooldowns alone won’t solve the issues, but let’s go for small steps for now. A lot minor changes that can/will have a major impact when combined with others. At least then, it can be more obtainable vs a complete rework.

I personally would be fine with the standard 20% cooldown reduction. Yeah, those are uninspiring and boring as traits, but they are straight-forward and aren’t clunky while trying to be creative. Keep it simple.

Color me impressed with the announcement. I tuned in cynical and skeptical, and by the end, was pleasantly surprised.

It was a simple and straight-forward announcement. Each point told what we needed to know and provided enough details without being cryptic. No over-hyping – just “This is what we have been working on. Let us show you.”

It could have included something for PvP and WvW, but good stuff, overall. Different price packages are also a plus. I’m stoked for Path of Fire now. Just hope they don’t do anything that fans out the flames.

I’d like to see “Strength of the Pack!” done right. Rename it back to “Rampage as One!” and ditch the one-time stability, swiftness, and fury. Have the “Rampage as One!” effect altered so the player and their pet grant each other might (8s), fury (3s), and stability (2s) on attacks.

I want that Remorseless synergy back and better stability. Not this block of stability, and a compromise instead of returning to a pulsing one; since this will depend on the pet landing its attacks.

This current version irks the hell outta me.

Klonko.8341:

But you dont want to because it cancel the dmg too…

Yes, the dmg…

It’s underwhelming, yes. It improves 1 of 2 Warhorn skills and provides Regeneration that is lower duration than the ones provided on “Call of the Wild.”

Warhorn itself is underwhelming, so Windborne Notes and the weapon itself are both offenders in my book.

Nope. It’s perfect.

Still hoping they would adjust Meteor Shower in a smarter way. Like, removing the ICD all together and reducing the base damage and scaling equal to Fireball.

Great minds think (kind of) alike? What I posted before in previous topics.

• Reduce the range of Kick (1b) and Pounce (1c) to 130 range to allow free movement while executing the attack and dodging between casts of 1b & 1c.
• Add ¼s of Super Speed to Kick (1b) and ½s Super Speed to Pounce (1c) (equal amount for each cast time).

Taking into account movement speed while in combat with the cast time of the attack, assuming the player is moving forward during the entire chain, and including the attack range of each attack (130), Kick (1b) is reduced from 300 range down to 230 range while Pounce (1c) is reduced from 430 to 330.

Those 2 changes allows the current, unique animation to remain, while allowing free movement while executing the chain, max-melee range combat on sword, and the ability to dodge between casts of 1b & 1c, and retain about 80% (860 total current range vs 690 total new range) of the chain’s distance (chase-down ability/range).