Guild Wars 2

That nerf to point blank shot sounds too mild to change things (and doesn’t affect PvE balance, which is probably intentional), and if the devs say they’re out for the longbow (edit: oops, that not what they said), count on another nudge downwards in the future.

I find tanky condition or hybrid warrior builds good for solo PvE since the conditions last long, unlike on ranger, while the self-healing is as good as a ranger perma-regen builds.
For group PvE content like events though, ranger is the better class imo – good melee and way more direct damage at range.

The sPvP tier thread (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/SPVP-Tier-List) is interesting since it’s a poll rather than a discussion thread (which are are hard to get a feel from since some people are too vocal and skew the discussion).
Looks like people don’t believe in the supposed overpoweredness of rangers (current leading ratings are S(top) for ele,engi, A(above avg) for war, thief and B(avg) for ranger, guard, necro, mesmer).
Assuming the devs feel the same way, nerfs are at least 2 balance patches away: like, if they buff some aspect of the ranger too much in the next balance patch.

CntrlAltDefeat.1465:

Good balancing results in greater profession representation. It evens the playing field between what is ‘weak’ and what is ‘strong’. It provides a new lease of life on under played or ‘ugly’ professions builds. The last balance patch revitalized the ranger community. However with the last balance patch warrior’s reduced and thieve’s disappeared. There is no denying there is a huge increase in longbow rangers, and they are all running the exact same build and pets. This is not coincidence.

If it is not O.P , then why the 1000% increase in ranger longbow? If being played and found to be no more powerful or less viable than any thing else, why the persistence with seeing 2-3-4 per match, and at times per side? Even in lion’s arch you see them every where now. Again, it can’t be coincidence. The good things that happen to ranger also bought bad. It is being over played with little diversity and creating an “annoy” factpr…we all remember dhummfire and hambow..we all know where this is going to go.

Ranger is more common now because it was weaker before… Now the longbow builds are about as strong as thief and mesmer power builds, and stronger than similar warrior rifle builds (which didn’t get buffed enough).

If your talking hotjoin sPvP, I disagree about thieves disappearing. They are about as common as guardians, rangers, elementalists and necromancers in my matches. Mesmers and engineers are a bit more common, and warriors are less common.

Ranger longbow builds are quite diverse: both the skirmishing, wilderness survival and nature magic lines see use as the second maxed line after marksmanship, and there are, in rough terms, 3 decent heals, 8 utility skills and two elites to chose from.

I remember playing longbow ranger (60260 SotF) before the patch, most matchups were against me, but necromancers were the notable exception. I’ve run into much fewer sPvP necros after the balance patch. Getting charged by an axe-wielding necro is the only really threatening aspect of necros my ranger has encountered.

IMO
1. Warrior
2. Ranger
3. Guardian

I feel warrior is most of the times the strongest. Their weakness is lack of direct damage ranged weapons.
Ranger beats guardian in terms of out-of-combat movement speed, where guardian is forced to sacrifice more for speed buffs. Otherwise they’re similar in options (both can get decent regen, ranged attacks and melee cleave) and effectiveness (mostly comparing personal story effectiveness). Ranger is slightly harder to learn due to pet swapping&choice.

Playing ele makes the personal story so much harder. Mesmer… frustatingly hard to pick up. Thief sometimes makes content really easy (black powder), sometimes it’s as squishy as the ele.
Engineer feels a bit weaker on defense compared to ranger and engineer, and necromancer is sturdy but builds all tend to have some big hole in them in terms of being able to deal damage in all kinds of situations.

1. Ranger (so many impactful buffs, especially to longbow)
2. Engineer (yay flamethrower buffs!)
3. Guardian
4. Mesmer
5-8. the rest

Steinpilz.5078:

Does someone know about the upcoming ranger changes?
I want to develop a build for tPvP.

Here you go.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/September_2014_Feature_Pack/Balance_changes#Ranger_.5B3.5D
(if that was what you were asking)

Looked like blinding ashes reapplied blind on each burn tick. can’t be right… would be as problematic as current pre-nerf black powder.

Wonder why they didn’t make the elental active skill break the current action like they changed the ranger pet F2 to in order to feel less laggy.

Current pre-buff glyph of storms has decent effects in water and earth – nice to see similar strength in fire and air.

The signet of earth active so needed that buff imo. happy

The arcing strike tooltips fits (by comparing with 100b final hit) with dealing the same damage as currently at >50% health and twice the damage at <50% health, for a damage coefficient of 2.6. Pretty close to the 3.0 damage coefficient of final thrust or eviscerate, but would mean only half (quite exactly) of the damage a full hundred blades does. Still a lot of damage, easily enough to offset the very minor nerfs on hundred blades and whirlwind attack.

9% more DPS from mace!

The new arching slice will be fun (final strike is enjoyable after all), though I wonder if they’ve buffed the greatsword a bit much.

The ones I can remember:
signet of might: 6s unblockable on active instead of 5 attacks
berserker stance -40% andrenaline (to ~3 bars)
whirlwind attack: -5% dmg
hundred blades: -5% dmg except on last hit
arcing slice: 5 targets, more dmg against <50% health enemies
whirling axe: +17% dmg, 15s recharge
bleeding shot renamed fierce shot: +20% dmg, no bleed, adren gain vs vulnerable target
adrenaline: lost also on miss with burst skill, starts degenerating immediately when leaving combat
rampage→ throw boulder: faster projectile
rampage: shorter incoming snare duration
signet of rage: more adrenaline, 5s shorter boons
impale: 8s torment down from 12s

Prysin.8542:

depends on build really, and that is what matters. If you play ONLY at base stats, you are doing it wrong.

Hmm, power weapons get ahead once I factor in higher stats (pretty random equipment with hybrid stats: power 1882, crit chance 31%, crit damage 157% condition damage 483 duration +30%) gives

2518(close),2845(mid),3413(long) dps for longbow
3594 dps for sword/axe
2349(front),3255(flank) for shortbow

Prysin.8542:

depends on build really, and that is what matters. If you play ONLY at base stats, you are doing it wrong.

Doesn’t affect the ratio between sword, greatsword and longbow as they’re power weapons, and the access to buff traits is similar (the greatsword ones are harder to slot though imo). But true, it means axe and shortbow only can compete with the power weapons if you run a hybrid or condition build.

Prysin.8542:

sword and LB will not compete for DPS because sword attacks faster (even with traits LB arent fast enough). Also, sword gives might to pet, thus pet damage rises (increasing average DPS by a lot), LB does not give ANY buffs to pets.

Longbow has damage coefficient 0.9, attack speed 1.0s, though the 0.7 coeffecient (post-patch) at mid-range is more like what you do in tough fights
Sword auto has damage cefficient 1.9, attack speed 1.8s
Rapid fire roughly doubles (at long range, post-patch) output and will be active ~20% of the time, [edit: because 2.5/(10+2.5)=0.2] if used on recharge, so it’s a 20% damage increase

So 0.7 * 0.8 + 2*0.9 = 0.96 for the longbow (more if you get in full-range shots [edit: 0.9*~1.2=1.08 if you stay at max range full time]) is not that far from the 1.9/1.8 = 1.06 from sword
Pet might can only be like 5-10% damage increase for the pet, it’s just 2-3 might stacks

Just felt like running the numbers to see how the relative strength of the weapons will change with the upcoming balance change

DPS at base stats, no crits or modifiers, but including vulnerability/might from attacks
I probably over coumt the effect from might because I start from low stats

Single-target:
greatsword auto+maul now: 295
greatsword auto+maul post-patch: 304
longbow auto+rapid fire now: 244(close),281,320(far)
longbow auto+rapid fire post-patch: 320(close),350,380(far)
axe auto+splitblade single-target now: 175 + 189(cond) = 362
axe auto+splitblade single-target post-patch: 192 + 199(cond) = 391
shortbow auto+poison volley frontal: 260 + 89(cond) = 349
shortbow auto+poison volley flanking: 260 + 231(cond) = 491
sword auto: 355 (excl pet might)
sword auto+path of scars: 373 (excl pet might)

AoE:
sword auto 3 targets: 841
sword auto+path of scars 3 targets: 900 (kind of unrealistic to consistently hit 3*2 times with path of scars though, even it it’ll get a speed buff)
axe auto+splitblade 3 targets now: 473 + 189(cond) = 662
axe auto+splitblade 3 targets post-patch: 618 + 219(cond) = 837
axe auto+splitblade+path of scars 3 targets now: 488 + 189(cond) = 677
axe auto+splitblade+path of scars 3 targets post-patch: 637 + 211(cond) = 848
axe auto+path of scars 3 targets now: 579
axe auto+path of scars 3 targets post-patch: 777
greatsword auto+maul 3 targets now: 885
greatsword auto+maul 3 targets post-patch: 912

Defense:
sword+dagger evades: 9 evades per 32s
greatsword now: 14 evades/blocks per 32s
greatsword post-patch: 15 evades/blocks per 32s (swoop time is nearly as long as the autoattack, so the improvement is small)

Conclusions:
Longbow now will get to compete with sword and shortbow at single-target damage
With a occasional misses on sword and a fair bit of time at mid-range for longbow, they’ll do about the same damage (which is far from the case atm)
Axe edges near what sword and greatsword do in AoE damage

Lorelei.3918:

The longbow isn’t getting that big of a buff to overall dps. 10% more attack speed(with gm trait) and Rapid Fire doing same damage in half the time. Since they aren’t lowering Rapid Fire’s cooldown time or raising its base damage, its damage over time remains the same. It’s just a bit more bursty now. So if we’re talking a 20 second span of fight time, the actual felt damage over time difference is going to be 10% more, coming from the buffed RtW trait.

Also remember quickness is a percent function. A 4 second channel with quickness becomes 2 seconds. A 2 second channel becomes 1 second. So the difference this change makes when quickness is factored in is only 1 second.

It’s more than 10%: the reduced activation time gives you 2.5 more autoattacks per rapid fire usage. So if rapid fire does 10k damage and long range shot does 2k (made up numbers), kitten window which previously did 10k damage would with the buff do 14-16k damage.

Also, wouldn’t rapid fire be available every 12.5s instead of every 15s (unsure if that’s how cooldown work, think so) with an activation time decrease?

Quickness doesn’t work like that anymore, it reduces activation time by 1.5 times.

Awesome!

Getting to use those signet actives, and being able to pick any pet for the BM master traits, are nice ranger QoL changes.

Stunned by how much damage got added to the longbow. And so much for forgiving about range, which I like (felt lonesome to stay so far from other players in a fight all the time). Still not the versatility of the shortbow, so they retain different roles.

The new grandmaster trait gives melee rangers a bit more bite.

Signet+shout builds could be nice to try out.

Love the maul change, will be like the guardian sword where you can step back from melee opponents and still hit.

Wonder how my ranger will be able to survive against GC longbow opponents. Signet of Stone perhaps.

Did some calculations on longbow damage increase. Conclusion: 27-38% more damage (massive buff!) using the first two skills:

before, over 15s
long: 317*10 * 1.075(vuln) + 1320 * 1.05(vuln) = 4793.75
mid: 263*10 * 1.075(vuln) + 1320 * 1.05(vuln) = 4213.25
short: 211*10 * 1.075(vuln) + 1320 * 1.05(vuln) = 3654.25

after, over 14.9s (with RtW)
long: 317 * 14 * 1.06(vuln) + 1320 * 1.05(vuln) = 6090.28
mid: 263 * 1.07 * 14 * 1.06(vuln) + 1320 * 1.05(vuln) = 5562.1244
short: 211 * 1.17 * 14 * 1.06(vuln) + 1320 * 1.05(vuln) = 5049.5508

long: 6090.28/4793.75 = 1.270 times more damage
mid: 5562.1244/4213.25 = 1.320 times more damage
short: 5049.5508/3654.25 = 1.382 times more damage

edit: had forgotten the 7%/17% damage increase

Was something like this:

Read the wind: added faster attack speed (+10% for longbow, says other thread)
Strider’s defense: 20% projectile block
Signet: affects ranger untraited
Signet of the beastmaster: removed
New marksmanship grandmaster trait: +10% dmg for ranger, +5% for pet vs snared targets
Long range shot +17% dmg close range, +7% dmg mid-range
Rapid shot: halved activation time
Barrage 0.5s? shorter activation time
Power stab: more dmg
Maul: max 5 targets, increased range to 250?
Swoop: evade on the strike
Counterattack: less aftercast
Hilt bash: 1.5s daze/stun
Bear F2: added damage
Beastmaster master traits: work with all pets, not just select families
Ricochet: added 3s might per target
Entangle: 60s recharge, 5s duration

Brega.6920:

The Demagogue has been there since the game launched. The entire event chain which leads to fighting him is a throw back to a GW1 mission. You are just the most recent person to have found this area for the first time and posted about it on the forums.

Never meant to say he would have anything to do with updates. He makes it easier to find the location though. It’s the swirling circle behind him and its thorn framing I find intriguing, since it matches the teaser pictures better than Fort Vandal.

There’s a zone portal-looking circle in Aurora’s Remains in Brisban Wildlands, surrounded by big thorny vines, guarded by a Chanmpion Demagogue and blocked by twigs. Might it lead somewhere soon?

Edit: on a second visit, the twigs (event completed I suppose) are gone and nothing behind but spiders. My bad. It’s a spell effect connected the the champion.

Used to be snow leopard against constantly running enemies, otherwise jaguar if traited (+30% damage on critical) or lynx without that trait. Presumably still true.

So, take on those I compete with like a dog in Yukon and with a howl, or learn to use Swoop properly and fly like an eagle to safety then turn my arrows on my pursuer. I’ll try that/thanks!

I’m trying a (not-so-original) build with read the wind, survival of the fittest, 3 survival utility skills and berserker amulet. Wondering what weapon set (other than the longbow) goes with that. I tried greatsword but didn’t get kills in sPvP with it, outside of longbow sniping. Then tried sword/axe which got kills, but whirling axe is a bit suicidal to use and the pull is great when it works but rarely does. Does any of the off-hands work better? Should I take something else than sword?

I use them all, none of them are really bad. Roughly ranked below by my preference in open PvE.

Shortbow – doesn’t excel at anything, but is a good general purpose weapon, with decent damage and good defense. probably my most equipped weapon in PvE.
Sword – high damage (but risky) choice, works with any build
Axe MH – good condition damage. combines nicely with traps for lots of AoE
Longbow – for power builds, lets you snipe in PvP and at bosses. and at events with lots of target swapping.
Greatsword – for power builds, does ok in survival-of the fittest builds (easy to slot twohanded training), but otherwise the damage is rather a lot lower than sword.

Dagger OH – the evade is great
Torch – adds good damage to condition builds
Axe OH – useful for the pull in PvE where you can find enemies that stand still
Warhorn – if you have no other source of fury for the sword. and for traveling if you can’t get a +25% speed buff from elsewhere (but just swapping in/out signet of the hunt in PvE is better imo)

WilliCalifornia.1837:

You didn’t add the 5 stack of 5% vulnerability?.

oops, forgot to.

Sarision.6347:

Chrispy, you might want to recalculate because the autoattack animation is 1.8 seconds for sword and 2.56 for GS according to the wiki.

I get 33% higher damage for sword/wh over greatsword when I plug in those numbers

ord auto: 2188 / 2.56 = 855
maul additional dps: (1875 – 855*0.75)/6.75 = 183
=> GS dps: 855 + 183 = 1038

sword auto: 2375 / 1.8 = 1319
hornet/monarch additional dps: (2125 – 1319*1.75)/9.25 = -20
serpent sting additional dps: (1379 – 1319*1)/16 = 4
hunter’s call additional dps: (612 – 1319*1.5)/26.5 = -52
call of the wild (fury: +10% dps, might +1.5% dps) additional dps: ((1.1*1.015-1)*1319*15 – 1319*0.5)/30 = 55
=> sword dps: 1319 + 4 + 55 = 1378

greatsword evade uptime (power stab is a 0.75s or 1s evade?):
autoattack: 1/2.56 = 0.39
maul: (0-0.39*0.75)/6.75 = -0.04
autoattack: 0.75/2.56 = 0.29
maul: (0-0.29*0.75)/6.75 = -0.03
=> GS evades: 26% or 35%

sword evade uptime
both hornet/monarch keeps you away from enemy: 1.75/9.25 = 0.19
only hornet: 1/9.25 = 0.11
serpent sting: 1/16 = 0.06
=> sword evades: 17% or 25%

the numbers look so much better for the sword….

My opinion on what pets are worth bringing (general PvE) when you don’t choose a pet for looks/roleplaying.

Cats: Lynx, Snow Leopard, Jaguar

Birds: Raven, White Raven

Drakes: March Drake, River Drake

Dogs: all of them

Spiders: all of them

Dogs and spiders are good support pets that keep the mobs away from you or keep them from running. Spiders do less damage and control than dogs, but sometimes you need to keep your pet at a distance. Wolf and fern hound give you as good or better support (hard CC or heal) as a moa, but without giving up as much damage.

Those three cats deal the most damage: snow leopard against moving mobs, lynx against less mobile mobs and jaguar when you use traits for critical damage. Stealth and chill are also good utility.

Drakes are tank pets, but deal some damage too. The cone attacks are hard to hit with, but march and river drakes have reliable F2 skills that give a strong burst of damage.

Birds don’t do as much damage as cats, and have little utility to them, so owls and hawks/eagles are mostly weaker versions of snow leopard and lynx. But the blinds from the raven can be really useful against big attacks.

Don’t know underwater, but devourers deal a lot of damage down there.

1. Ranger
2. Engineer
3. Elementalist

Rhyse.8179:

Snow leopard beat Owl? I’m surprised; all my test showed that birds have higher damage application on moving targets, on the order of 30% higher. Which matches up with your other numbers pretty well.

I’d love to see the numbers, because I’m surprised birds to so much worse than cats when I test them.

Rhyse.8179:

What’s special about the leopard?

The only cat with a snare. Cats are great for damage, and chill is a very useful condition, like when using a ranged weapon in PvE.

urdriel.8496:

4-6 more time to kill the target o.O, pets need a little more of attack range.

You should compare with Solandri’s numbers, those are against the heavy target golem, my other numbers were against the light. It’s more like 1.5x-2x, with spiders having the least disadvantage (only their AoE poison is prone to miss), pets with cripple/chill on attack (like dogs and owl) having medium advantage (chill/immobilize on howl doesn’t help though, the cast time makes it not help the pet) and the rest taking twice their time.

I didn’t try the pet movement trait.

I’m surprised snow leopard isn’t more popular.

Against the moving heavy target golem, in seconds to kill:
snow leopard 67
owl 73
lynx 92
forest spider 90
eagle 93
jungle spider 97
fern hound (no F2) 101
warthog (with F2 weapon used by ranger) 109
krytan drakehound >120
hyena 131
river drake 133
lashtail devourer 148

against the unmoving light target golem, when the ranger picks up and uses the F2 weapon:
boar bone 34
boar rock 34, 33
boar skull 37
warthog scale 26, 26, 26, 26
warthog gunk 32
warthog venom sac 31

Looks like a nice skill that opens up build options and provides fun given that the passive and active both look useful (including for the signets it buffs), and I like the “oh kitten” buttons that some other elites are.

I’d only use it with one or two signet utility skills though, because the active on signet of the hunt isn’t worth it, and antidote presumably isn’t affected.

I sense a trait rework coming up, as it makes both the grandmaster marksmanship trait and the minor beast mastery adept trait redundant, then probably other traits will change while they’re on it.

Xyonon.3987:

is this with F2 or without? (might kitty)

With F2 on all but pigs and dogs (which have utility F2 skills that lower dps).

Fomby.4295:

Nice. But I would like to see numbers on the moving golem.

I have a feeling dogs and spiders would suddenly rank a lot better.

(general PvE, don’t know about dungeons)
Spider deal more damage and have better CC. Devourers’ only advantage is staying alive longer because of the retreat skill.

WatchTheShow.7203:

What happened to the wolf?

Kills at the same speed as the other dog (fern hound).

Just another time-to-kill comparison. I haven’t seen a recent one, so here it goes.
The few one with commas between numbers (in seconds) are where I bothered with replicate timing.

light target golem, 10/30/30/0/0
lynx 14, 15
snow leopard 17
jaguar 17, 21
river drake 15 (2x lightning b/c bounce), 23 (1x lightning no bounce)
eagle 24, 23
raven 24
owl 26
marsh drake 28
fern hound 30
wolf 30, 33
cave spider 34
forest spider 35
white moa 35
red moa 37
lashtail devourer 41 (no tunneling or knockback), 54 (with tunneling and knockback)
warthog 44
arctodus 47

underwater, light target golem
jaguar 21
snow leopard 23
shark 24
whiptail devourer 26
blue jellyfish 35
salamander drake 40
armor fish 48
murellow 50

edit: added wolf

I just visited Belldron’s Guardholme in Lornar’s Pass and had a laugh at the character names there: Drukket, Berusad, Olut and Sima (meaning drunk (Danish), inebriated(Swedish), beer (Finnish) and mead (Finnish)).

(hope there are more Norn NPCs out there with interesting Scandinavian names)

Female 5, Male 1 and 2

It’s a 3-5% (depending on stats) damage increase. Together with the +5% damage, it’s pretty close to those Guardian +10% weapon damage traits. I don’t see the problem.

Krugan.7901:

I have one big problem with this skill. The active portion of the spirit generally doesn’t use our stats.

That’s something positive in a way actually. Water Spirit will already depend a lot on Nature Magic for traits (like almost as much as Storm Spirit does, as they both have stronger actives than passives), so it’s good if it doesn’t rely on the healing Power portion of the line as well.

Calculations based on http://dulfy.net/2013/12/05/gw2-new-healing-skills-for-next-patch/ and the wiki (hope they use the same, base, stats…)

Water Spirit: 280 hps for the ranger, 130 hps for allies/pet (without adept trait), split between 240 range (80 hps) and 1000 range (50 hps)

Healing Spring: 230 hps for ranger/pet, 70 hps for allies at 240 range, condition removal

Troll Unguent: 330 hps for ranger/pet, none for allies

Heal as One: 310 hps for ranger/pet, none for allies

To me Water Spirit looks worth it if you can stay near the spirit (I guess that means has spirits unbound, I haven’t tried dual bows with spirits) and you’ve got an ally around. It’s hard to get condition removal in other ways than healing spring though-

Norjena.5172:

Most of this ideas won´t help.
1. Endurance per Hit on AA 3, possibel a whirl finisher too.
2. A few seconds vigor+swiftness on swoop (possibel for allies 2-3secs should be enough).

I wouldn’t want endurance gain/vigor on the greatsword. Dodging and then getting back in range is time you’re not attacking, so it turns the greatsword too much into a low-damage high-defense weapon, and breaks the in-your-face feeling, which is the wrong direction imo. Plus acrobatics during combats fits the thief’s dagger but not so much the ranger.

Removing the aa evade for an evade on swoop would make the weapon too weak.
Could be nice if the aa evade could be kept, but with a reduced activation time on power stab (which simultaneously reduces the evade time frame and increases dps, also gives the chain a smoother feeling) along with the addition of evade to swoop, would make the weapon more aggressive and active, with a bit less susttain but without trashing it like a too-big change (aa evade removal) risks doing.

I loved the warrior sword changes, so I’m exited to hear they’ll have it in mind when reworking the longbow. Hamstring felt like too much like another part of Savage Leap. Longbow has similar problems I feel with playstyle: Rapid Fire is just a way to dampen the damage fell-off at close range of the auto, and I’m using Hunter’s Shot on recharge since it’s not situational.

My suggestions:

1. Long Range Shot: does damage, if it hits at 900+ range it does +20% damage and causes 8s vulnerability.

Needs less severe damage fall-off with a removal of rapid fire. Vulnerability is nice as a feed-back ´too tell if you’re far enough, and the duration would make it simillar to the vulnerability coverage Hunter’s Shot gave.
Vulnerability is always useful, so I’d rather have it on auto-attack than to have it on 2-5 where I’d end up using that skill on recharge, which is what makes the current Hunter’s Shot boring.

2. Frost Arrow: Short recharge like 8s, causes 1.5s chill and gives the pet 4s swiftness and 4s aegis or protection, similar damage and activation time to long range shot’s max-range damage.

Because I find it harder to support my pet, both defensively and offensively, with longbow than with the other weapons, plus the longbow could use another skill to keep opponents at a distance.

3. Power Shot: 12s recharge, charge-up up to 3s, high damage, non-rooting.

A high cost – high reward skill could help break the monotony of long range shot spam, by forcing the ranger to look for the best opportunity to use it. And as a strong opener I’d give a chance for a bit of hit and run.

4. no change

5. bring down the recharge a little, I want more AoE out of my longbow.

I wish Renewed Justice was changed in a way that promotes fun over button mashing (e.g. have it prolong Justice’s burning, to work better with Radiant Power and Fiery Wrath, but add an internal recharge to the trait).

Shortbow is strong in more situations than longbow.
Wilderness survival for Soften the fall is good for reducing exploration mishaps.

Lynxes do plenty of bleeds, with maul, their F2 and the beastmastery trait. Their current downside is the long F2 activation time, but if that goes down…