Guild Wars 2

Map design is nice. Less Waypoints are punishing in a good way and mob density seems appropriate. Map currency (Winter Berries) are easy to come by, not too easy but enough to where they can be farmed consistently unlike Blood Rubes from Bloodstone Fen.

New enemies are the only mixed bag. The new moves are nice, varied, and density provides a decent – albeit artificial – challenge. My only gripe is the insane amount of homing projectiles the new mobs have.

It’s one thing for a projectile to make a slight adjustment to hit a moving player, and another when some are doing near 180 degree turns and still hitting a player with Super Speed that has moved out of its supposed trajectory.

• Consumables also apply to the pet.
• Tweak attribute ratios on pet families and a select few specific pets for greater competition in certain roles.
• Lower pet cooldowns slightly on the old pets or have BM reduce pet skill cooldowns by 33% instead of by 20%.
• Give pets base Ferocity and Healing Power (150, 300, 450, specifically) like how they did with Condition Damage to make some pets have a clearer focus.
• Keybinds for “Attack My Target” and “Return to Me” and F1 & F3 to be replaced with the other 2 pet skills (besides the auto-attack).

Rauderi.8706:

Donari.5237:

That is an unfortunate side effect of the scaling not really pulling higher levels down to map level, thanks to their better gear and full array of skills and traits, combined with the occasional “do 4 events in this starter map” daily.

You are most likely seeing that when level 80’s have a do-four-events daily; otherwise they don’t have much incentive to speed-roll the low level events.

This and beyond this.

ANet really needs to change that zone-specific daily to a regional daily so we’re not cramming tons of players into overwhelming the events.

For real. I miss the old times where it was simply “Shiverpeaks Event Completer” instead of map-specific locations. It still had people spread out into those regions without locking out players that don’t have higher level characters when the daily is a mid-high level zone.

HS is fine where it is, if you want to change any heal skill into a Signet, turn the Water Spirit into one. That thing is so useless it might as well become a passive icon.

Hmm… seems to be on the right track but not nearly there, Triss. Rather than on Swoop, what about altering the fury application on Two-Handed Training to be like multiple traits where half of it applies to a set of weapons while the other half – in this case, the fury, is more universal?

That said, what about:

Two-Handed Training: Greatsword and Spear skills recharge 20% faster and deal 5% more damage (same). Gain Fury (3s) when you Daze, Stun, Knockback, or Knockdown a foe with a weapon skill.

This way, it can sync up with Moment of Clarity and the Fury application can be more focused to increase the potency of Remorseless builds. On the flip side, it will only work when doing the above listed hard CCs with weapon skills.

That cuts out some Druid synergy with Celestial Form, Primal Echoes, and Glyph of Equality and Tides as those are transformation skills and utilities. This way, it does not empower Druid further, allowing core Ranger to stand on its own.

This also makes it exclusive to Two-Handed weapons with the exclusion of a Pull CC which links to off-hand Axe (Path of Scars). So, at least Longbow and Shortbow can now have some use and synergy with this trait on Point Blank Shot and Concussion Shot.

I might add this to the main list.

First time since his introduction, I’m all right with Braham. He’s been a useless meat shield since day 1 and was a flat, boring character with no character.

Now he’s angry, has some angst, is showing initiative, and has a reason for it besides “thing is happening so I need to do it”. Is the reason and his acting cliche or typical? You bet. But for the first time, he has conflict, a developing arc, motivation, and character.

It’s not the best writing, but it’s now getting interesting with characters and their interactions between each other due to this conflict.

Krispera.5087:

I agree for Crippling Talon and make it bounce to 2 targets with that. Distracting Daggers and Throw Bolas have them, why not this ? Since OH Dagger and Torch are in the same Trait, why not make Throw Torch ammo, too ? Trait would give ammo system to both.

I’m still baffled at the pass they have done to Spirit Weapons in Guardian. Not only they get an ammo system, they have a 900 range and a nice AoE. Can be traited to Burn too. 4 charges (traited) on Sword of Justice ? It’s a better (minus radius and fury) Procession of Blades, but at 900 range. Wow !

Yet, we still have point blank Traps that nobody use outside of instances and niche builds. I can see Traps receiving the ammo system, but only if they are throw-able. I mean, if an Engi can send a mortar at 1500 that do AoE pulsing poison and now the Guardian with his Spirit Weapons at 900 range…

Here we are, still struggling to send any kind of AoE at range that is not Barrage or non-damaging Muddy Terrain. At least the potato plant and the carnivore plant will give us that in BeastMode.

+1 to this. It would have been nice to have at least crippling talon (dagger 5) and throw torch (torch 4) have an ammo count of 2 and Ambidexterity to increase off-hand torch and dagger skills with ammo by +1 along with all of its current functions.

Traps could have used ammo, too. Even if it was tied to Trapper’s Expertise, I’d take being able to set off traps twice with a short interval on them over condition duration.

I’m on the fence on this one. It has never bothered me losing astral force upon death, and I can see how others would find it an inconvenience.

Maybe meet halfway and lose half of the remaining astral force when downed and lose it all when defeated? I don’t know.

That was an old iteration of Remorseless, the second one if I recall correctly, the first refreshed OS when the player killed a foe. Wouldn’t do much to change it back to on-stealth. That would limit it more than anything.

Better to mash up all the past conditions and load it up so Remorseless grants OS on stealth, on kill, and when gaining fury. That would help make up for the synergy loss with SotP nerf and open up things overall.

He’s probably comparing auto-to-auto without augments. Which, isn’t a good thing to do anyways since (MH) Axe is a self-buff, condition, debuff/snare weapon. Why this conversation is arising again is beyond me.

Let’s stick on how MH Axe, and to an extend, OH Axe maybe improved upon other than treading through the same tracks. This also goes for Honed Axes since, you know, “synergy.”

Depends on the pet. Drakes are and have been bugged since Feb, so they won’t use their other 2 moves regardless.

Puck.9612:

I think the indicator should appear on the rangers buff bar when taunt is ready to be used. Helps the ranger keep track of the internal cooldown and provides counterplay since the opponent can see the ranger has a taunt ready.

I suggested something like this before, similar with how Engineer’s have an icon for Streamlined Kits. Would be nice to have. Icons displayed are Beastly Warden and Invigorating Bond.

Obtena.7952:

For instance, you haven’t considered that doing so would lead to paralysis by analysis. I mean, if Anet took every change they made, then looked at how it affected ALL the other classes, then made decisions to proceed if something wasn’t ideal, nothing would ever get changed.

When you put it that way, that’s like how Anet does things already.

It was stated a few times on livestreams in the past that they also take into consideration perfect-case scenarios, which include how a change affects and is affected by other classes.

It’s a plus and a minus, but they do it. In the case of Elixir X, Plague, and Plaguelands; it’s more likely to be an oversight – which happens. It’ll either be removed or left alone as a forever-intended effect.

What I personally use in the Silverwastes

Only things to note:

• Swap out Muddy Terrain for Quickening Zephyr during Breach and Vinewrath
• Swap to Spiders/Devourers for bosses: Copper, Iron, Platinum, Beekeeper, Darkwing
• Bring a Spider/Devourer and a Bird for Gold & Silver, use the ranged pet during the roar and the DPS pet during the stun
• Swap to Drakes during Vinewrath Lane Defense and Mangler

Mangler Specific Build
During the phase when the Mangler retreats to the back of the room is the only time I use longbow, otherwise, I sword up and fill in the gaps between Guardian Walls and Mesmer Feedbacks with Whirling Defense.

Use Drake F2s to bounce around so they can damage the boss and nearby pustules. Also, pets are going to be stunned regardless if they are inside the Mangler’s shadow, so swap pets right after the stun.

Because Anet could not just simply classify it as a Trap and then leave it alone. They tend do that thing where they try to be creative and attempt to make a skill interesting, only to end up being clunky and/or lose functionality.

Before I add it to the list, I want to propose a quality of life question for Pets to you all.

What about altering F1 (Attack My Target) to function additionally as the “Skill Re-Targeting” function in our Options/Combat menu?

Currently, if you press F1 when a Pet is channeling a skill, it interrupts it and either sets it on a 5-second cooldown if done before it is able to execute a skill, or full cooldown while it is executing a skill.

I feel as though this would be a great Quality of Life improvement for Pets to have F1 still act as marking and attacking a new target (current feature) but add on the ability to re-target enemies during skill use.

This will mean a couple of things. Leap moves such as found on Canine’s can be used more effectively if the player recognizes quickly that a target is out of the Pet’s move range.

The player will then be able to press F1 to a closer or another target while the Canine is channeling a pounce and no longer interrupt said action. The like could be said to Pets that use projectiles, such as Bristleback and River/Marsh Drake F2 abilities.

This would come in handy for enemies that have died mid-channel so the Pet can redirect the remaining projectiles at another target without wasting or disrupting the flow of combat.

Thoughts before it goes on the list?

Well, those questions do pose interesting theories. So much that I spent a better half-hour in Cursed Shore testing Water Spirit on those methods, and I have some fun facts, dire news, and a request. First off, the dire news & request, as they are one in the same.

I never tried testing Water Spirit since I made the opening post a month ago, unfortunately, whatever patch between then and now has seemed to have broken it further. I’m not calling it a bug until I can get others to test and confirm this also (in case its a fluke).

[Bad News]
Water Spirit passive buff applies to the pets but pets can no longer proc them on hits. I literally tried for 20 minutes in that half-hour once I started noticing an absence of the pets being able to take advantage of the passive heal effect in all 3 cases: healing number floaters (green numbers), combat log for incoming and outgoing healing (checked outgoing just in case), and pet health bar movement.

Also, the broken passive heal is broken slightly further. Before, it used to be a fixed amount regardless of healing power @ 915 for the passive heal, which was equal to 1220 healing power. Now, it’s been reduced down to 889. For reference on the scaling, that’s about 933 healing power assuming the 0.09 scaling it was once reported for having.

[The Request]
I want to see if other Rangers can get their pets and other class minions (such as Necromancer minions) to proc the passive effect.

Edit 2: I can’t seem to get the passive effect to even proc on NPCs like before. Might explain why pets are not able to take advantage of the passive… Going to do a bit more testing to see if there’s more broken… Hope I don’t find anymore.

I tried with all of the Heart of Thorns pets, Fern Hound, Jaguar, Hyena + summoned ally, Jungle Stalker, Wolf, and Brown Bear with 0 activation of the passive heal while keeping the pets on Avoid Combat and then placing them on Guard once their health was at 75% so the heal could be allowed to, well, heal. Exception with the Brown Bear as I waited only until it was at 90% health (that vitality stat).

[Fun Facts]

• Water Spirit passive effect is still broken, healing 889 regardless of the player’s or receiver’s healing power and outgoing healing % modifiers.
• The Initial Heal on Aqua Surge for the PET ONLY benefits from outgoing healing % modifiers.
• The Water Spirit Heal on Aqua Surge (the splash) scales with the player’s healing power but DOES NOT use outgoing healing % modifiers. I think that’s weird but it could be intended. Who knows, so I can’t call it either a bug or not since Water Spirit itself is bugged. At the moment, it just seems like inconsistency.

Edit: Please note that the other Spirit passive effects are still working with pets. So, worry not as only Water Spirit is bugging out with them. Also, more edits.

Posted this in the RANGER BUGS thread in the Bug sub-forum as well. Here is the list again of CONFIRMED bugs post 7/7 patch that still need to be addressed:

GENERAL

• Pets missing baseline 150 stat increase to Power, Precision, Toughness, and Vitality.
• Longbow skills receive full cooldowns when cancelled during the initial cast.
• “Hilt Bash” (Greatsword) actual range is 220 instead of 300 (tooltip).
• “Solar Flare” (Sun Spirit) activation time is faster than other Spirit actives.
• Resounding Timbre does not display bonus boons on “We Heal as One” tooltip.
• Resounding Timbre does not display bonus boons on “Strength of the Pack” tooltip.
• “Strength of the Pack” buff on the Pet uses Lightning Reflexes’ icon.
• Juvenile Marsh Drake selection image does not match the actual Pet.

UTILITIES

• Healing Spring can be placed multiple times (up to 4).
• Healing Spring does not heal the Pet or allies.
• Healing Spring does not activate when used at full health and losing health while inside the trigger area. Player must exit then re-enter the trap area to activate.
• Water Spirit prevents point-capture contribution when active.
• “Sic ’Em” buff removed from the Pet after using F1-F3.

TRAITS

• Quick Draw does not apply to “Whirling Defense” (Axe) unless the cast is cancelled.
• Quick Draw reduces only base cooldowns by 66% and does not include other traits.
• Light On Your Feet actual buff duration is 3s instead of 4s (tooltip).
• Ambidexterity bonus +150 Condition Damage is negated upon teleporting or being teleported without receiving a loading screen.
• Nature’s Vengeance reduces Spirit passive chance down to 70% when traited.
• Natural Healing heals the pet 189hp every 3s instead of 125hp every 1s.
• Natural Healing does not show visible green number floaters on the Pet.
• Go For The Eyes does not apply to [F2] commands when the player is downed.
• Wilting Strike does not apply to [F2] commands when the player is downed.
• Wilting Strike does not apply to the Brown Bear [F2] command “Shake It Off.”
• Beastly Warden does not apply to [F2] commands when the player is downed.

Note¹: Quick Draw will not take into account traits that reduce weapon skill cooldowns such as Strider’s Defense, Two-Handed Training, Lead the Wind, and Axe Training. Tested and confirmed with each trait.

Note²: Whirling Defense will not receive the Quick Draw bonus even with Quickness applied.

Edited to update.

Update us when Rangers make it onto the Meta Team instead of being mentioned as a second-string replacements. Until then, we’ll keep the benches warm.

An Elder Dragon Chronomancer. Continuum Split to a healthier state, giving PVE players an endless fight. Want the reward chest? Bargain with me.

I’m still not sure why they can’t up the second auto attack in the chain to hit up to 3 targets and a reduced activation time for Hornet’s Sting. ½s to ¼s can make a difference between evading an attack and being struck by it.

Last I checked, GS vs a dual Sword Mesmer hits pretty hard.

Indeed, AI is far better than TaV. It has 2 procs and interacts with their burst mechanic.

TaV on the other hand, is one of those traits that’ll work only in 2/3 game modes, is weak, has a short duration, and no interaction with Soulbeast – just moves that disable and won’t activate if your pet disables a foe.

It’s a throwaway trait.

So, you may or may not be familiar with this heal and the previous threads I have made about how bugged it was since 8 months ago, but some things were fixed while other things are now… stranger. I was going to update the patch notes thread but this (kind of) deserves its own.

A run-down of how it performs as of this writing:

• Passive on-hit heal scales with player’s healing power that activates it. Meaning if your allies have 0 healing power, they receive the base 805 heal – this includes the Pet.
• Passive on-hit heal scaling for the player (source) is 0.125 but for allies (non-source) the scaling is the old 0.09 coefficient.
• Passive on-hit heal scaling does not benefit from any outgoing heal % modifiers.
• Passive on-hit heals activated by others do not contribute to Astral Force generation, nor does it activate Live Vicariously or Natural Mender minor traits.
• Regeneration from Nature’s Vengeance scales with the player’s boon duration and healing power, and is affected by outgoing heal % modifiers.
• Tooltip is still busted for the Passive on-hit heal and does not update.
• Active initial self-heal is not affected by outgoing heal % modifiers for the player, but will apply to our Pet.
• Active Water Spirit heal is affected by the player’s healing power and outgoing heal % modifiers and will be applied to the player if they were to receive the heal.

In short, if the passive on-hit activated by allies scaled with the highest healing power between you or them (like it used to before it was broken); activated Natural Mender, Live Vicariously, and contributed to generating Astral Force; then it would be decent rather than a niche.

As of now, it’s better than the bugged state it was in for the last 8 months, and still requires Nature’s Vengeance to have an effective presence.

There is just so much wrong with Porcines that the only major change that has to happen to them is Forage working life the Thief “Steal” mechanic. Just have the F2 flip for use when the player wants to.

You’re spot on about Consume Plasma not being updated with the Thief and the open-world version that players can find on the ground.

As for the Forage itself, the cooldown reduction is OK at best. It needs further refining than what I already mentioned above. We have 2 Porcines that can forage the same type of items and the Siamoth that forages 3 objects with 2 functioning the same.

Having the RNG items narrowed to 2 and tweaked so each Porcine can provide certain items focused towards a specific attribute would help tremendously. Seriously, updating the loot table can have a greater affect but it just wasn’t implemented.

An example of what focused-Foraging should be:

• Boars – CC items: Bone Crack or Skull Fear
• Pigs – Defensive items: Healing Seed or Drink (the Egg is half worthless since we don’t use initiative, unless you want to buff an enemy Thief – but as I suggested how Forage should work – kitten them)
• Siamoth – Unique items: Consume Plasma and Blinding Tuft (since Throw Feathers is the same, there is no need for it)
• Warthog – Condition items: Throw Gunk and Throw Scale (both items inflict multiple conditions with one being the only way Ranger can create an Ethereal field)

If Anet can rework Forage and the loot tables to that degree; they would be in a much higher place in terms of utility and effectiveness. Simple and smart tweaks that go a long way.

You know, all of this could have been avoided if they just took that left turn at Albuquerque.

You know what they should rename instead?

Not even sure if Irenio’s still around. He’s been rather silent since the smokescale change. Hope he didn’t end up like Hrouda and moved to creating temporary living story content, only to be eventually “let go.”

Yes, it’s not supposed to be affected by movement speed modifiers years ago during the leaps-n-dashes update. You might have found the reason why the range keeps breaking every other patch.

The Magma Elementals are fine. Challenging at first, yes, but they’re easy when you realize circling around them and using projectile denial or reflects renders them mostly harmless.

Even if it’s 2 or 1 plus mercenaries, use the terrain in Balthazaar’s region to your advantage: line of sight them behind pillars and move around it while getting shots in.

Condition cleanses are useful, and if you’re a Necromancer, slot condition transfers and tank their burning or the use the 10 stacks from the lava pools and send it onto them. The Magmas are decently challenging at most, but you need the know-how first.

Fortifying Bond: Ranger
- Balancing Issue
- Pets cannot dodge, Vigor needs to be replaced with Stability
- Pve, Pvp, WvW

I just wish CA 1 on-land came with a tiny bit of damage on it like the underwater version so I can proc sigil effects.

Don’t worry guys, I’m sure Anet is on it. Just look at their office space that is dedicated to the Engineer class!

Please don’t ask him to enlighten us. The guy can’t even follow the advice on his own signature.

Tragic Positive.9356:

How come other classes do not have to? They hit harder, they are reliable and provide nice stuff.

Don’t forget that we are also the only profession that uses a main-hand sword that: a) cannot cleave up to 3 targets on all hits, and b) have longer initial cast times.

I just want the standard sword animations everyone else has and the Thief sword cast and after casts on every profession that uses main-hand sword.

Would be a bit dull on the animation-side of things, but I’m leaning towards performance now. We have enough things that look nice and under-perform.

Most likely because of Soulbeast. Traits that affect pets work differently on it. We don’t know how or by how much. It’s safe to say they did this so they (Anet) had an easier time balancing that out.

The most likely case would be it just uses what the pet would have gained. With the traits how they currently are, there are less stats added to the SB elite.

If anything, note that the stat conversion of ET and IR are bugged currently. It converts 7% of the pet’s stats into whatever stat as it does for the player, but then deducts 10pts on the pet only for some weird reason.

It’s just 0.66% more condition duration or a smidgen amount of healing, I know, but a bug’s a bug.

A straight up Tier 4 vendor would only mean higher gold sinks, which is probably why Anet vouched against it. However, Anet could implement the acquisition as the OP suggested and it would be a win-win. New armor, provides optional quest content, and no hefty costs of gold.

I am probably going to be the minority on Skirmishing, as I believe it is one of the few traitlines across every profession that presents difficult but meaningful choices in traits.

I can’t agree with these Skirmishing changes as it allows the “you can have your cake and eat it” scenario to the point it presents additional power creeps.

As of now, the traits in each of their respective tiers can be selected to create a thematic synergy, while presenting a sacrifice and compromise in order to be meaningful.

Lastly, every group utility trait that applies bonuses to nearby allies is a master tier trait on every profession; Spotter will not be an exception.

It’s probably not a high priority on Anet’s list since it’s a tooltip error only. Damage still increases by 5% with THT.

Moas tend to use Harmonic Cry when you or the Moa falls below 75% health. The animation looks similar to their F2 screeches, but without the visual wind-up and cone.

There is an old Ranger trick referred to as, “Pocket Moa” where you would swap to a Moa pet when below the health threshold for an on-demand Harmonic Cry. Hope this helps.

They could always do a bit of skill swapping so it’s a win-win. Change the F2 on Pink/Black Moa to provide a boon like the other Moas (except White) – maybe something powerful like AOE Resistance (2s).

Then, give us a tamable Raptor with a Dazing Screech. All good from there.

Who knows, they might add in pet swap during Beastmode as long as people chime in on how clunky it is right now. Worked for Revenant getting a weapon swap after their beta.

I’m definitely for it now. I also want that darn Fresh Reinforcement as a minor and for it to go both ways. It seems really odd to lock that as an adept.

Zorpi.5904:

Add Fortifying Bond to rangers baseline.
Longer backwardjump on Quick Shot.
Switch Signet of the Hunt active from +50% dmg to 6sec of unblockable like warriors

I can’t recall the exact range of the backwards evade on Quick Shot. That’s something worth looking into still.

Plenty of us want Fortifying Bond baseline, but after years of asking and essentially being told “no,” I tend to leave that out.

I might open up another thread specifically on the Signet of Hunt suggestion to discuss more, or that could be done here. We just got a 4s unblockable for the Pet that can link between Marksmanship and Nature Magic.

Maybe not duration per-say, but what about – in general – Attack of Opportunity is unblockable? It is accessed by both Signet of the Hunt and Moment of Clarity. So, a +50% damage boost with you and your Pet’s next attack being unblockable.

Being on a single hit with a damage boost will definitely make both the Signet and Marksmanship even more appealing without adding too many unblockable buffs. Let’s ponder a bit on it.

No, you’re not crazy for having a 2nd Ranger for testing other builds with. I used to have a second Ranger for that as well. I then remade it as a Sylvari since Anet said something about having one with HoT…

Inb4 Two-Handed Training is renamed to so people would stop bringing this up.

I’m with Eleazar. Attack of Opportunity would be better off as an unblockable as it is a single attack with a +50% damage boost. Would make Moment of Clarity and Signet of the Hunt more attractive while keeping unblockable access limited.

I agree that Sharpening Stone should apply to the pet – but as others have suggested for Rending Attacks – removing 1 boon on hit adds better utility than the pet bleed on crit. They could also retain a “on crit” effect by bringing back Carnivorous Appetite which is so much better than a bleed. So it could be:

Rending Attacks

• Pets gain health on critical hit.
• Pets remove 1 boon on hit (5 second cooldown).

Well, some shouts work in Beastmode, others don’t.

Sic ’Em applies the buff to you, WHaO copies boons on yourself, SotP grants yourself might when you strike a foe, and Protect Me taunts the next foe that strikes you.

Search & Rescue and Guard do nothing at the moment.

Meta for Ranger didn’t move to Sinister. Both are viable, with Sinister being less flexible…

Us making a petition? Yeah, right. Most of us can’t even agree with each other. Remember the CDI? That went swell.