Guild Wars 2

NaturalPortman.9562:

Raege.1069:

I highly doubt they let us get rid of our unique class mechanic. But as I suggested in my suggestion thread I do think we should get a buff when our pet is dead. No other class has their unique mechanic die and become useless after all. Our pet dying is like Necro Death Shroud having 30 min CD or Elementalist attunements 5 min CD.

That’s actually not a bad idea for a grandmaster trait or something. 50% damage increase when pet is deceased.

Call it beastmasters rage
Angered by the death of your fallen companion your damage increases by 50% for 20 seconds and you gain stability.

or spirit of the beast
The spirit of your fallen companion infuses you granting 50% increased damage for 20 seconds and clearing all conditions…

Lines should be self explanatory…

Da Poolp.6809:

Everybody forget something with the GS, the #3 and #4 deals good damages too.
The #5 give to your pet +50% damage on his next attack too, the GS is the best melee weapon to burst.

On the other hand when you look at ways to increase pet damage. There is might stacking, speccing in beastmastery + MB trait stat boost, and specific traits that increase crit damage condition damage etc…

So sword 1 increases pet damage + ranger damage(Initial post is unclear if the damage numbers are pulled at 9 or 0 might stacks) while GS 5 adds the +50% every 25 seconds etc….

It’s pretty hard to analyze particularly with the variability of the pet snare benefit etc….

It would be very helpful if the combat log reported pet damage to us so we could do some full ranger damage envelope analysis. Condition damage reporting as well.

Panther Chameleon.8465:

Arrys.7145:

Panther Chameleon.8465:

Arrys.7145:

It would be really good if the item was placed in your hand. My understanding is the number of items (duration of items) has been adjusted downwards since release so you can effectively only have two briefly anyways.

As such it’s not really an effective group buff option and closing the loop to make it more effective for the ranger makes alot of sense.

Yes it does. Actually, you can create a surplus of skulls, feathers, or whatever out of combat by using the pet management window to switch between pigs. So, technically..you could give your entire team a really good buff. However, it doesn’t compare to instant cast group buffs of a guardian or mesmer.

I tested this pre patch adn while I had read posts of creating mass group buffs. I was able (by switching pets) to only have two active at any one moment with the sfirst fading @ 15-20 seconds after getting the second).

This was in tpvp in node defense mode seeing how many pre fight buffs I could get and maintain in place waiting to be assaulted. Clearly the ability to stack and reserve multiple powerful buffs would have been a nice advantage. it didn’t exist with the pigs I was interested in.

Perhaps in PvE it acts differently I’ll have to test that. I just assumed recognizing the inherent power of stacking 3-5 utility power level buffs for at will use would be that the skill had been appropriately adjusted to prevent that.

Idk if we are using the same method. I’m talking about swapping pets through the “Pet Management” window rather than swapping between two separate pigs. Basically, you set one pig for the first slot and a dog or other unrelated species in the second slot. Then, you use the F2 ability of the pig. Now, rather than switching pets go to the window and replace your first pig with another pig. Press f2. Replace that one back to your first pig and notice the F2 skill cooldown has been refreshed.

We were using a different method you still run into the 30ish second window however. Not that I timed every forageable’s duration. However that would let you cycle decently quickly to stack up the foragable you wanted.

Appreciate the clarification.

Panther Chameleon.8465:

Arrys.7145:

It would be really good if the item was placed in your hand. My understanding is the number of items (duration of items) has been adjusted downwards since release so you can effectively only have two briefly anyways.

As such it’s not really an effective group buff option and closing the loop to make it more effective for the ranger makes alot of sense.

Yes it does. Actually, you can create a surplus of skulls, feathers, or whatever out of combat by using the pet management window to switch between pigs. So, technically..you could give your entire team a really good buff. However, it doesn’t compare to instant cast group buffs of a guardian or mesmer.

I tested this pre patch adn while I had read posts of creating mass group buffs. I was able (by switching pets) to only have two active at any one moment with the sfirst fading @ 15-20 seconds after getting the second).

This was in tpvp in node defense mode seeing how many pre fight buffs I could get and maintain in place waiting to be assaulted. Clearly the ability to stack and reserve multiple powerful buffs would have been a nice advantage. it didn’t exist with the pigs I was interested in.

Perhaps in PvE it acts differently I’ll have to test that. I just assumed recognizing the inherent power of stacking 3-5 utility power level buffs for at will use would be that the skill had been appropriately adjusted to prevent that.

Cempa.5619:

faeral.7120:

it will only remove stacks upon water entry if you are not using an amphibious pet.

Lashtail is amphibious and the stacks get removed in water.

I personally haven’t tested that but if I was going to I’ld have my lashtail as a primary pet on both bars so hopefully a pet switch wasn’t triggered as occurring.

In TpVP masters bond works particulalry on the first map where the lords count as 5 points as do players.

Devourers work because you can rush the lord get 5 plus another 5 or 10 on the back cappers. Rush with the herd up to the back of the keep and engage from the platform using your devourer as a missile shield and get them to 20-25 MB on a good run team win. At which point you can roll out the back and float between defense offense with a pretty nasty pet.

Other maps lacking the free 5 from a lord MB can be less viable to stack as quickly. Generally I find it’s better to stick with the herd till you get the pet to 20-25 stacks. Map 1 just stacks up the kill potential in a very predictable manner. Of course you aren’t locked into MB for rounds 2 and 3.

NaturalPortman.9562:

Arrys.7145:

The way they changed the #4 block to work against ranged the GS is actually a very decent burn applicator on ranged enemies using the Runes of the guardian.

Proccing a 1 second burn on every block lets you export flame trap level damage abroad. Not great against slow attackers but against an unload, haste, rapid fire a pretty strong condition applying method.

That’s still way too situational, you will apply next to 0 conditions on a melee attacker as you are forced to kick them.

I tend to agree. Against melee attackers it was weak. Against ranged strong. But if you were using GS in a condition build it gives you another condition applicator of varying power. And stacking multiple @600 damage burns on a ranged attacker isn’t chicken feed when it comes to damage.

It would be really good if the item was placed in your hand. My understanding is the number of items (duration of items) has been adjusted downwards since release so you can effectively only have two briefly anyways.

As such it’s not really an effective group buff option and closing the loop to make it more effective for the ranger makes alot of sense.

Forzani.2584:

Spike/Viper worked. Time was extended by 2x on the secondary poison/bleed.
Flame trap didn’t change.

FLame trap is working right for me.

Definitely ticking 3 times unimproved and 6 improved.

Forzani.2584:

I am glad someone else has responded. I am very new to the game so thought maybe I was missing something so obvious when testing. I am surprised after reading many Rangers promoting a trap build and how well it works. I guess it wil work better when this trait works !

That trait definitely used to work. If it no longer is……..

I recall someone complaing about certain functions being moved to the 20 point talent, that makes them larger and ranged. Are you testing in conjunction with that talent active?

The way they changed the #4 block to work against ranged the GS is actually a very decent burn applicator on ranged enemies using the Runes of the guardian.

Proccing a 1 second burn on every block lets you export flame trap level damage abroad. Not great against slow attackers but against an unload, haste, rapid fire a pretty strong condition applying method.

Spider f2’s are really utility boosys not DPS. You can stack poison to 25+ seconds, stun + immobilize etc… Your results with them doesn’t surprise me.

Devourers are handy pets because the damage is relatively stable and they make good ranged shields due to high toughness (AKA you can hide behind them while shooting and be immune to non pierce ranged weapon DPS). They also when engaged at melee have a chance of having their burrow retreat skill up which will move them out of melee aoe without you controlling them.

I yearn for when we actually get pet damage in the combat log so we can figure these things out in real gameplay scenarios vs on static targets.

Boreal.9826:

Xsorus.2507:

Natural Healing – Pet 125/Player 142 (Healing doesn’t effect this, However Compassion Training Does, it’ll kick in and increase the player heal to 181)

Are you sure about this? I just tested it and Compassion Training had no effect on player regen from Natural Healing.

On my asura I get 133 and 169, however unlike prepatch when the 169 was all the time it seems to come only out of combat and even then not all the time anymore. Interesting.

Sarlack.4096:

Thanks Xsorus, sent you another PM. =)

natures healing from beastmastery is a flat value. 133 if you don’t have pet healing improved 166 if you do I think it is. Right in that area.

The signet starts at around 64 and goes in a max heal build to high 130’s or low 140’s.

Regenerations no plus healing around 154 or 145 to start and cap at right around 297 in tpvp healing gear options.

Easy way to test is just go to hotm and let the engineer beat on you as you adjust + heal values and by isolating which heals are active at each time.

arcaneclarity.5283:

Durzlla.6295:

arcaneclarity.5283:

Durzlla.6295:

Daemon.4295:

Durzlla.6295:

spirits amplify the groups power SIGNIFICANTLY MORE then any war banner can

But war banners are invincible, and can be picked up and repositioned by any character. Spirits are squishy and die as soon as they get targeted or AoE’d.

War banners also have an inferior buff compared to spirits, our defensive spirit makes everyone who gets the proc take 33.3% less damage for 4 seconds, no war banner can even come CLOSE to that lv of a buff, then our main offensive one causes 10% more damage, no war banner can do that (unless someone effected literally has no power/precision or condi damage)

Spirit pets only proc on a single person in the vicinity and it is completely random who gets it. Warriors also trait banners to do damage when summoned and grant regeneration. The ranger traits the spirits to move and have a little bit more health.

You clearly don’t use spirits… The ICD is per PERSON not per spirit, that means if I proc protection the thief next to me can also proc protection, however after its procced that person can’t get it again until 10s is up, and I’d hardly call it random….

<.< It’s random. You have a percentage chance to proc, once its procced on a person, no one has a chance to proc it again until the cool down is over.

Nope every person that is in the 900 radius of the spirit when it pulses gets a non strippable buff that enables them to have a chance to proc the spirits effect.

Unlike war banners the ranger can also move all three at once. But only if specced. Much like a warrior can have a larger radius 1200 but only when specced and the regen effect is powerful if traited.

spirits weakness is survivability.

Psychrome if you want to try something crazy shamans rune + jewel of choice, Guardians on armor toughness healing and proc a flame for 1 second on block and do a 0,0,30,10,30 – condition removal from traits + S reduction, take 5 sec protection on 20% damage(thief burst opener protection trigger in a 1kittenP build), and BM line as you choose.

BTW: Haven’t tested yet but think the protection proc for 5 sec on 20% crit is probably more valuable than 33% regen extension in low HP builds. Simply as it activate at need point and provides more than +500 HP on anything more than like 3K damage done to you in 5 seconds.

garethh.3518:

Arrys.7145:

It will with dwayna runes and a 12 second regen. Still well below 2 minutes to get ahead of 8k extra health. Pn the other hand I didn’t include an additional 13 seconds of the 30 BM heal at 133 hps which would also occur in the first 25 seconds.

This build will give you over 8k more in the first 25 seconds than the build you linked. It with a dwayna proc at second 1 could do it much earlier than that.

Not that I don’t agree it would be nice if healing power was stronger not bandaided with a 30 point BM trait.

I was comparing the bonus healing from healing power to vitality.
You are comparing the bonus healing from healing power + traits + runes just to vitality.
That won’t really get very far.

The 30 BM gives only your pet 125 health + 6% of healing power every 3s.
That’s terrible.
Like a 1/3 regen proc that scales half as well. Only on your pet.

Well vitality doesn’t leverage very well in builds other than potentially 10% to power. Healing on the other hand does leverage with traits and skills and utilities.

Ignoring that leveraging in an analysis of a specific build would be wrong.

garethh.3518:

Arrys.7145:

technically if you just count the heal from the SOTW and NH that equals = 133 and 138(from memory) per second or 271 HPS.

Add in regen for 12 seconds from the dwayna armor at 288 HPS every 30 seconds .

Plus around 115 HPS over the duration of a TU.

Dwayna Rune regen = 12X288= 3456
Utility + trait heal = 12X271= 3252
and
Added healing to TU =12 X 115= 1380

8008 extra healing in the first 25 seconds.

Basically in fights longer than 25 seconds this build starts to pull ahead on total HP at the expense of damage from the ranger.

You mathed wrong.
You aren’t counting the bonus healing from heal power. You are counting the total extra healing.
Yes, a spec can heal 8k extra health every 25~s.
No, 800 heal power will not give you 8k more healing every 25s.

Signet of the wild had its bonus healing from healing power terribly nerfed a while ago (I think its at roughly 7% of healing power bonus a sec) which is 56~ extra health a second. and healing skills tend to give roughly the healing power in bonus health. That means troll ungent gives about 800 more health every 25s. Having 800 healing power makes regen tick for 100 more health, if you get 6~ seconds of regen from the heal skill every 25s, thats 700 more health. If you get the 13~ seconds of regen from the random proc every 45~s, the total is roughly 7k bonus health every 50 seconds.

Or 8k in roughly a minute.
So if encounters tend to last more than a minute, then healing power beats out vitality.

The interesting thing I actually saw was that healing power buffs your pets health regen from the signet roughly 4 times more than the players, which is kind of cool.

It will with dwayna runes and a 12 second regen. Still well below 2 minutes to get ahead of 8k extra health. Pn the other hand I didn’t include an additional 13 seconds of the 30 BM heal at 133 hps which would also occur in the first 25 seconds.

This build will give you over 8k more in the first 25 seconds than the build you linked. It with a dwayna proc at second 1 could do it much earlier than that.

Not that I don’t agree it would be nice if healing power was stronger not bandaided with a 30 point BM trait.

garethh.3518:

*healing power doesn’t scale healing very well. It will probably take you 2-3 minutes in combat to make up that 798 healing power into 8k life (what would be 798 vitality).

technically if you just count the heal from the SOTW and NH that equals = 133 and 138(from memory) per second or 271 HPS.

Add in regen for 12 seconds from the dwayna armor at 288 HPS every 30 seconds .

Plus around 115 HPS over the duration of a TU.

Dwayna Rune regen = 12X288= 3456
Utility + trait heal = 12X271= 3252
and
Added healing to TU =12 X 115= 1380

8008 extra healing in the first 25 seconds.

Basically in fights longer than 25 seconds this build starts to pull ahead on total HP at the expense of damage from the ranger.

ranged attackers you block, melee attacks you pushback is I believe the difference you are seeing.

Sun spirit is I believe a 3.25 second condition. 3 ticks of flame damage. This modifies by your condition damage, your pet procs it at a flat damage. If you consider your pets proc plus yours an unimproved sun spirit procs the flame damage of an unimproved flame trap for you plus 3 tics at like (220ish or 320ish) forget which or if pet condition damage improved (250ish 350ish).

Stone spirit – roughly 3 seconds with my experience with boon icon delay it may be 4. You essentially get 7 for the full duration of the spirit or roughly 35% protection uptime over 60 seconds. Sometimes only 6 when at 35% proc chance.

Storm spirit – My testing with this is you essentially have 100% swiftness uptime due to 10 second boon duration. 70 seconds at 50% proc rate consistently 60 seconds at 35% proc rate consistently. Essentially the buff hangover and weapon attack rates let you get 1 more proc after the spirit dies.

Frost spirit – 10% additional damage potential on every attack which is a flat +5% damage improved(I tested with a balnced SB and was getting multiple proc strings with the damage increase in a row). If you like me stack to +damage in going for a DPS build having this out can put my base damage at +45% on a hit it triggers on. +10% from skirmishing line(Behind beside), +10% thief armorings(Behing flanking), +10% endurance full(marksmanship) +5% longbow, + 10% frost spirit. I like improving baseline to proc larger crits. Likewise because it’s a flat 10% it isn’t modified by the weapon modifiers and skill modifiers on weapon attacks. AKA a warriors power banner will give my warrior just over 6% plus damage every hit on the bow but it was like +4% on GS and +2% on some specific skills.

one of the advantages of this game is you aren’t married to ungeunt or healing spring. You can switch. Running up to a group fight your warrior and thief are in switch to spring drop it and let them combo off it. Nothing prevents this in this game.

However a pure healing spring focused build for many of the weakness reasons psychrome identified probably differs from psychromes build slightly.

You want 15 points in nature magic so you proc your regen to your pet if the pet isn’t in the spring(if it is regen stacks for large durations on it). The 5 in skirmishing still works to proc swiftness to your pet on swap(damage uptime). And you probably switch away from full dwayna as you only need the +20% regen duration. 4 sanctuary for a 10 second retaliation proc which also goes to the pet and vitality is my preference. At which point my knight gem on the amulet likely becomes a precision gem but may not. The extra 10 seconds of regen that stacks on duration really isn’t a priority.

Healing spring has advantages against heavy condition opponents or a group fight particularly if your teammates have blast finishers.

Ungeunt in my experience is better 1v1. Total healing difference relatively small it’s more front loaded but lacks condition removal multiple vigor procs.

spirit buff chances show below the boon line. This means they can’t be removed. The protection boon when it procs can be as can the flame condition from sun.

Spirit of natures healing method was already covered.

Frost spirits proc chance is not on a 10 second ICD it’s every attack roughly a 900 radius of the spirit to get the below boon line proc chance which cycles over 5 seconds.

Durzlla.6295:

WildmanUK.8531:

It seems from what people are saying above the +50% duration is working on the spirit procs so making the stone spirit buff last 3 secs rather than 1.5 etc but not working for the pet F2 buffs? My blue moas protection buff reads 5 secs on the tooltip (boosted from points in nature magic). But with or without the trait to boost by 50% it always ticks down for 5 secs rather than it getting boosted to 7.5s. Currently with my build the +50% boon duration from pets talent is useless to me and has been swapped out until its fixed.

If anything you would have thought the main pet would be treated as a pet and the spirit not as it has its own traits.

On a similar top ie tank build rather than that trait:

I am currently just using all gear with Knight prefix for Power/Precision/Toughness.

Even with just my chest exotic and the rest of my armor lvl 80 greens, and a yellow greatsword, my armour is 2900 ish.

Since someone posted 3k is a decent cut off point would I now be best to mix up Knight and Valkyrie gear to get the extra vitality? or is there a better set to go for for Vit?

This is correct, pets do not get your boon duration because they are a seperate entity from you, they have their own stats and etc, unlike a MM/Mesmer illusion, your pets only contribution from you are from traits, this is why if you go 30pts in BM and then go with all D stats your pet still rocks people.

Yeah stat increase is nice except it doesn’t appear to benefit things like condition damage when procced via utilities. I’m thinking the revised interface that shows condtion agony etc at 0 may be the first step in flowing through condition damage better. Either from the ranger or from increased BM spec.

Which would then have side benefits on things like the sun trap where pets proc a consistent flame damage that doesn’t improve with condition skill just the trait.

I’ve also wondered if the elite entangle isn’t effectively coded as a stationary minion/pet/turret and it may not be aprt of fixing it’s flat condition damage by creating a place to flow through condition bonus.

It just looks like the advance work for one of the enxt bullets to me.

Pet’s important.

Figuring out how to get your damage from your pet is IMHO critical to playing the class in any pvp context. And some pets are better than others.

Dogs have fears/roots/splits + KD – their f2 abilities have range to cover their delay in cast time. This makes them functional and disruptive. A reason they are a favorite.

Cat’s – have an incredible crit rate and a few of them have f2 leaps to get on a target or change elevation downward. You need to use traits or preferably a utility like muddy terrain weaponskill longbow barrage to keep their damage on a moving target reliably and they are squishy to melee aoe.

Birds – Have great damage uptime with their 300 range auto but can be hard to keep alive if you aren’t specced in beastmastery.

Drakes – great aoe damage potential but only the river drake has an easily usable f2 in PvP also tend to want a muddy terrain/barrage snare system to keep them on target.

Moa – meh – never put enough work but a buffing not DPS pet.

Spiders- their bolts are a little slow but they can add important debuff benefits stun and immobilize in 2 versions. Long duration poison(Which classes you mainly need it on unfortunately strip quickly) and immobilize in another.

devourers a tough ranged DPS pet that makes a pretty good arrow shield to stand behind again bolts are a little slow on a moving target.

Bears – tank condition stripping and I’ve seen a few rangers using them as really good ranged damage bulwarks.

Boars – Buff creators with a KD.

Psychrome.9281:

As a side note i thought interesting that my build seems to solve alot of the problems allowing the pet to do its damage properly like it should has anyone else noticed this?

it seems the rest of the community is still having issues with pets doing damage and dying alot …

I think some of the pet complaints are wvw. One of the advantages of Tpvp is the objectives are finite smaller areas (other than GY which I hate with a passion) and in a smaller combat zone there are multiple techniques one can use to maximize pet uptime on target partly because the target is forced into a fight on that area.

I still think all melee pets need a minimum 250 melee range because it is somewhat frustrating investing either traits or a utility slot to ensuring their damage uptime which is an absolute necessity currently for most pets.

Psychrome.9281:

@william Maia hey not a prob im glad you enjoy it !!

im actually thinking of grabbing the crit chance instead of speed increase since i am sold on the birds now… the up time of the birds is good with all the healing they get and i believe the swiftness they give themselves doesnt actually stack with the 30% speed increase i think it just over writes it (someone correct me if i am wrong). I will test some tomorrow and see if my pet stays on target well enough without the speed increase.

and i have swapped the dog trait for the bird trait which is giving me alot more uptime on vigor during swaps.

i tested the pact ability as was suggested and i just dont keep the same pet for very long, although it is great! if you can get all stacks on the pet… i swap way to often.

i am always swapping on cool down for vigor buff and for quickness so the bond is pretty useless for me although with another build it may actually end up being worth it !!

and Arrys is correct about making sure you dodge before healing so you can take advantage of the vigor. what i like to do is dodge heal lightning reflexes and dodge again.

its a nice long stretch of vigor and by the time all that is done you can probably dodge again right afterwards. which is ALOT of protection and damage avoidance. mean while your pet should be tearing the crap out of it.

the big bird advantage is 300 range on their autoattack….Don’t really need speed having that. But I believe you are also correct on the speed not stacking.

UnholyVicar.2056:

Played like a few hours of tournaments and I completed the monthly achievement already. While I appreciate this game has to be tailored to casual aswell as semi hardcore, it doesn’t really feel like an achievement if I can play a few tournaments and get every single monthly achievement.

For those who don’t know the exact achievements:

Monthly Kill Variety : 8 Unique Professions Killed
Monthly Rank Points: 1000 Rank Points Earned
Monthly Tournament Wins: 3 Tournament Matches Won
Monthly Wins 10 Matches Won

While the the first is OK, encourages you to actually fight other classes, the other three seem kinda lazy. 1000 rank points is 4-5 hotjoins, 3 tournament matches is 40-50 minutes assuming you win the tournament overall , and 10 matches is a maximum of 3 hours (basing this on tournament play not hotjoins). Even the most casual of casuals can get these so called ‘monthly achievements’ very easily.

Hey lets complain not enough people are queing and complain about a pavlovian repsonse system that lets people feel like they are accomplishing something…..

See the disconnect.

You see the system as one to reward effort. The system is clearly designed to promote the perception of attainable accomplishment keeping people queing.

Dante Dragonhand.2538:

I personally dont care about spirits, I want my sniper build to be viable. Id love arrows that actually hit what Im aiming at, believe it or not from the range we are shooting at people couldnt dodge arrows as easily as a side step, they moved too fast. So once they make them on par with bullets Ill be happy.

Frost spirit is a flat 3.5% to 5% DPS increase that magnifies your base damage attack by 10% when it triggers which of course flows through to crit and bonus crit damage. And properly positioned if you are in a somewhat secure static location it has 100% uptime. It can also proc multiple times in a row unlike other spirits.

Is there another ranger utility that can give you a flat 5% DPS boost? And randomly spike damage 10% over multiple attacks.

Quickening zephyr is double damage potential for 4 seconds of 48 seconds. If one assumed 500 DPS that’s 2000 extra damage out of a 24,000 total or a 8.3% DPS increase. It’s the only one I can think of. (Granted spikes help).

Granted it’s a snipers nest potential ability where defense comes from position.

And of course when they get to you it can proc a 5 second chill.

It shouldn’t be automatically discarded as a sniper option. Open field skirmishing not so hot.

Durzlla.6295:

Arrys.7145:

Durzlla.6295:

WildmanUK.8531:

How would you get 10.5s of protection from Stone spirit it only gives like 1.25 secs of protection on the proc on a 10 sec CD?

mine gives me 1.5s because of boon duration, the spirit can trigger 7 times, therefore you can get ~10.5s of protection from spirit of stone… i never said you’d get it all at once, 10.5 seconds of 33.3% less damage REGARDLESS of it being all together or being spread out for 1min is still a TON of damage you’re reducing.

I think there are serious lag display issues I get the stone spirit protection buff for 3 seconds when I test it or 21 seconds total over a 65 second proc window.

And the blue MOA tooltip was corrected in the patch
•Protecting Screech: This skill now states the correct duration of 4 seconds.

Oh it’s 3 seconds? I was assuming the 1.5 seconds is correct… so if it’s 3 seconds with my 50% boon duration increase (it’s a little less then that but w/e close enough) it’ll be ~4.5 seconds of prot or 31.5s that’s about 50% up time on taking 1/3 less damage, that’s kittening amazing lol

Yes and on your pet with us transferring our boons to the pet I believe that would be nearly full coverage for your pet. Their 3 second proc plus your 4.5(assuming the +50% is working). Add in dodge rolls. I did notice on healing spring stacking my pet into the 30 second regen duration when they were in the spiring with me on regen.

I’ve also noticed recently that boon transfer distance from the ranger to pet seems to have been increasedf from my tests at release. Haven’t tested how far again or if that was a random third party impact.

And the +10% damage has no ICD. As long as you know how to place pets to keep them alive they do seem helpful.

1) Activated Spirit abilities trigger through the ranger at the rangers feet. (1500 range)
2) Spirits are considered (Pets) for application of trait and Signet benefits as well as empathy attribute point benefits to toughness and vitality.
3) Spider and Devourer range has been set to 1200
4) Melee pet range has been set to 250 minimum
5) Guard Shout makes pet immune to AOE damage
6) Longbow 1 projectile speed increased by 50% fire rate remains the same.
7) RaO has been made a shout enabling CD reduction benefits
8) Beastmasters Bond has been removed and Replaced with Ranger’s Resolve – 10% of power converted to vitality.
9) Agility Training has been replced by Skirmishers Stamina 10% of precision is converted to vitality
10) Signet of the Hunt’s speed boost increased to 20%

( would of course be controversial if the pet melee range attack enahncement and signet of the hunt changes weren’t made.)

This would make pets work well, Give glass cannons extra vit toughness options put RaO on a speccable benefit system and enable pet AOE invulnerability for PvE and RVR PvP in a fixed combat location.

Rune of thief +10% damage flanking or behind = love.

It gives you +10% skirmishing behind + 10% thief +10% when endurance full and covers a 180 degree arc. The battlement dance = alot of backs, the ebb and flow of a large conflict = alot of backs. Choke points equals flanking position options.

I’ld switch primal reflexes in for companions might.

I’ld add in at least 1 ranged pet arrow shield. A devourer. Because they take relatively stable positions they are easy to stand behind preventing anyone without piercing from damaging you. Guard as a talent can also turn a pet into a ranged damage bulwark for you in stand offs.

WildmanUK.8531:

I have just noticed something the spell effect that you gain from the screech stays on the moa for longer but not you, I have a feeling its bugged and only increasing the duration of the buff on the moa itself and not everyone else it buffs.

You are specced into fortifying bond. You are most likely measuring the boon you shared with your pet stacking with the boon the pet applied to itself.

Spirits are pretty darn powerful in a large group setting. I’ve seen ranger mesmer necro teams pwning people with them in tpvp.

In a wvw battlements scenario one spirit ranger can buff a whole lot of people due to the nature of the spirits buffing system. AKA proc a buff that has a chance to proc the boon/condition in a relatively large area while mobile. They are a talent that magnifies in power with recipients of the benefit.

I think the bigger thing holding spirits back is this large fight wvw potential than 1v1 dynamics. You can’t really analyze them as a 1v1 ability.

WildmanUK.8531:

Right I had the tank build setup at the weekend but the pet part I was theorycrafting from my desk at lunch while at work.

Now i’ve actually got home the tool tip for my blue moa protecting screech says 5 secs this is with our without concentration training trait. Also if I cast it and count it down its still always 5 secs where with the trait it should be 7.5s with the trait. This seems broken to me anyone else having this issue?

Also the tooltip for the health regen on my fern hound says 12.5 sec but its only lasting 8 again no change if I use the trait or not.

Pre patch I found no benefit from concentration training on Blue Moa so your result doesn’t surprise me. Didn’t test other skills as I was like you looking at maximizing protection.

Durzlla.6295:

If i were to change ANYTHING about spirits it wouldn’t be their durability, because spirits were NEVER durable, i -would- make it so that their effect was a pulse that hit everything in range of it (IE every second everyone gets protection/swiftness/burned/dealt damage) and then the active would apply a second effect to it as well so, cripple/additional damage/blind/chill it’d make them more interesting and would make their squishyness totally reasonable due to how strong they’d actually be should you not kill them, kinda like in the first game…

Durability or have their active effects proc through the feet of the ranger so when using them stationary you don’t have to stack the DPS on them killing them to get the secondary effect.

It would be very nice if traits and signet effects passive and active benefitted spirits as well as pets. Toughness/Invuln from signets, health regen, boon duration increase(Havent tested this last one)…..

Durzlla.6295:

Cakoluchiam.6901:

I actually really enjoyed my moving spirit build while adventuring or dungeoneering with a party, or running with a zerg in WvW, even before the buff. They probably still aren’t viable for PvP, but they’re comfortably low-maintenance for casual play.

They actually work pretty well in PvP, especially if you’re using a sun spirit with a mesmer/MM necro on your team, ESPECIALLY a mesmer because the CD is completely avoided with their clones because the ICD is per PERSON not per spirit (IE if i get the burning proc, my pet, and all my allies can still get the proc before my 10s are up)

PS: hyenas make the offensive spirits better, i still think stone spirit needs a bit of a buff though because of how ungodly squishy spirits are in general, maybe a 3s duration?

@OP: Spirits are viable, you just gotta be smart about them, i would HIGHLY recommend not using them with spirits unbound unless you’re going to be moving around a TON, and by movign around a ton i mean like chasing DEs moving, not during one fight moving.

When i do NOT use spirits unbound my spirits just are significantly more effective, that being said i’d also say screw the Spiritual Knowledge trait because with the ICD it really is worthless.

I haven’t tested this post patch but you can switch into and out of spirits unbound while out of combat and the spirits respond.

So you can be defending a point and have your spirits well positioned and stationary. As soon as you are out of combat and moving to the next locale you can switch into spirits unbound and as they hit their 5 second refresh their chance to proc effect window they become mobile and come to you.

Likewise you can drop the trait and they lock in place.

The nature of their AOE field which procs a non debuffable proc chance onto you does make them very usable as stationary buff bots in a secure/safe location.

I’ve run into a few rangers using them with mesmer/necromancer teams. Fortunately I generally have a longbow equipped and barrage drops them but I notice my teammates tend to get pwnd while ignoring well placed spirits.

CRrabbit.1284:

this will also proc vigor boon to allow more dodging which procs more protection! —- are you sure about this ? coz the regeneration is not considered as “healing skill” although it will give you HP for sure.

It procs it when you activate the Ungeunt for 5 seconds.

Healing spring procs it when you cast it and on every regeneration refresh and it is an aoe so it also procs vigor on your allies if they get a regen refresh.

So yeah ungeunt gets you a 5 sec vigor buff just remember to have burned at least 1 dodge before triggering it to get your protection up and to have a endurance pool that benefits from the vigor.

Durzlla.6295:

WildmanUK.8531:

How would you get 10.5s of protection from Stone spirit it only gives like 1.25 secs of protection on the proc on a 10 sec CD?

mine gives me 1.5s because of boon duration, the spirit can trigger 7 times, therefore you can get ~10.5s of protection from spirit of stone… i never said you’d get it all at once, 10.5 seconds of 33.3% less damage REGARDLESS of it being all together or being spread out for 1min is still a TON of damage you’re reducing.

I think there are serious lag display issues I get the stone spirit protection buff for 3 seconds when I test it or 21 seconds total over a 65 second proc window.

And the blue MOA tooltip was corrected in the patch
•Protecting Screech: This skill now states the correct duration of 4 seconds.

The only thing i’ve confirmed it does is take the 30 BM heal on the ranger(not the pet) from 133 or 135(forget which) to 166. the pets is still at like 125.

It’s a good build I’ve been using similar variants with healing spring or ungeunt.

I take masters bond instead of improving my preferred pet species.

In terms of runes I’ll also vary those to a 4 and 2. 20% regen increase (for 30 second healing spring regens) and a 4 piece 10 second retaliation proc.

Last night I decided to do a max damage build and went with a 30/25/5/0/10 with thieves runes and a soldiers amulet plus precision jewel. running at 30% crit and 35% normal damage when flanking behind with masters bond to build up the pet. Not as survivable but it was putting out some good damage especiall on a rune sale elite burst.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMEQJARVjAVB2JWGWsWCi1j90nB1FwZcIG9KgDmlqB;ToAA1CqosyYlwKrVOrkWNK5UC

Was actually pretty fun as long as you worked with the group to get the pet to 25 MB before breaking out for solo work.

Durzlla.6295:

Ugh… so, yeah after playing post patch there is most certainly an ICD that either wasn’t there, or that i wasn’t experiencing earlier… so spirits essentially went from pretty good to “Eh” in about one change…

Anet take your “buff” back i want to be unhindered by your stupid ICD!

my notes from the pre patch test had me believing the CD at that time operated in 2 ways.

1.) no boon stacking
2.) only one proc chance per 5 second buff window from the field the spirit applies to you.

If that was the system I could see armor runes extending boon duration perhaps interacting in ways that enabled stacking.

Were you using any of those?

Dante Dragonhand.2538:

Casual players dont have important opinions. Play with good players and see the difference.

That is a valid point in that what you are essentially saying if I’m translating correctly is that if you were to turn this into an e-sport and want to maximize your teams victory chance a ranger option wouldn’t be on the team.

I consider that a true statement. But 99% of players lack the capacity to play at a truly competitive level even on a class that can perform there.

And if your a true hardcore player the current flavor class name is irrelevant it’s the ability to win that matters most you play the current class that gives you the best shot…. Just sayin.

You don’t whine how xyz class cause you really really like that archetype isn’t performing;). Archetype is irrelevant victories matter if your truly harcore.

Well if you can’t tell there is a large corp’s that hates pets. I myself avoided maximizing them for too long before working on how to utilize them. Once you accept the pet mechanic and work on integrating them warts and all there are some decent options.

Masters Bond people, it’s not just for PvE it works in Tpvp with high benefit. Thanks Durzlla for posting on that… I’m a tester and I had accepted the it’s a pve trait mantra. Wrong it’s even better in PvP I think.

Arguably 10 in beastmastery is a must. Doubt I’ll play another build without at least that. It really shines at 30 BM however. And if your delivering AOE damage you get to 25 stacks pretty fast. At which point you are a force of nature or your pet is.

Embrace the pet….You are balanced around it… And it has some pretty sweet options utility and damage.

Or embrace the traps….

Or I imagine in a shaman amulet build both is conceivable….

If you can’t embrace the pet or a pure condition build the class can be a bit frustrating ATM. I still can’t embrace condition something about SB 1 spam haste drop circles annoys me. Just don’t find playing it rewarding.

Class needs work and improvement but has some enjoyable options.

Durzlla.6295:

voidelysium.7285:

Durzlla.6295:

Tibbel.3450:

Zaith.9132:

• Improved the effect chance on ranger spirits to 35% base and 50% when traited.

The spirits have an internal cooldown of ten seconds. The effect can only be triggered once every ten seconds. If you attack 3 times, untraited, you are statistically promised the effect will trigger. The only way this buff helps is if you attack twice or less every ten seconds.

That’s not how probability works.
Here’s the chance you will get a proc given the number of times you attack (assuming a 35% proc chance each hit):

1. 35.0%
2. 57.8%
3. 72.5%
4. 82.1%
5. 88.4%
6. 92.5%
7. 95.1%
8. 96.8%
9. 97.9%
10. 98.7%

This may explain peoples “10 second internal CD” theory… 10 hits tend to take ~1sec each or so, but if you are both AoEing and using a skill that fires off shots faster then 1 second (IE barrage + rapid fire) you’ll get those 10 hits faster… anyone test that?

It’d also explain why with greatsword the effect procs the more people that are in melee range of me, more enemies, more hits per swing = more procs faster.

This is interesting, we’ve got several people who are seemingly unaffected by internal cooldowns. Perhaps this is a bug of some sort? I have tried for the past 20mins to get both the stone and frost spirits to proc quicker than 10s using quickening zephyr + petswap quickness. I traited to have 50% chance to proc and still, no dice.

I am a greatsword/shortbow user by nature but neither those nor the longbow procced buffs at a rate of less than 10 seconds between. Maybe your traits/runes on your armour are different and that’s what’s causing the bug?

It’s worth noting that there are two pieces of the ranger trait line that provide the same buffs as these spirits. Dodge rolls grant protection (15 in wilderness) and swapping weapons grants swiftness (5 in skirmishing). Perhaps these are affecting what you see as the cooldowns for the spirits?

I’d appreciate someone with the lower cooldowns to do some testing.

Maybe it’s because i use the nature’s vengeance trait, from every spirit build i’ve seen on these forums not a single one of them had that trait, yet that’s the only trait i have buffing my spirits…

The swifntess HAS to be from the spirit, that’s my only source of swiftness, the protection roll trait is plausible for that though, because i do have that trait.

Someone said earlier that they weren’t hitting a CD on the frost spirit though, so idk what to say about you hitting the 10 second ICD wall.

I’ll do some testing on this over the weekend, see if natures vengeance actually plays a roll in this.

EDIT: Wait, was this ICD added with the patch? Because i haven’t played very much since the patch hit, only like an hour and a half max, so that could be a huge factor.

I had used my test method pre and post patch. Overall number of boon procs remain consistent as a variable and I wasn’t focused at that time on the period between procs although it was there and using my test method patterns I also wasn’t seeing stacking. It does seem slighlty different. That is the 10 seconds is glaringly obvious now, don’t think I would have missed that level of consistency previously but might have.

I was going to test the GS multiple target theory tonight. I’ll add natures venegeance as a control variable after baselining hitting mutliple targets in 1 attack. I rarely use it and it definitely wasn’t in any test I ran previously.

Carcer.1256:

hi fellow rangers and thanks nerva for the inspiration. i’d really like to try this out so maybe someone can post a link to said build? what gear do you use?
thanks and happy huntin’

Ok here are a couple high survival pet DPS variants I like in Tpvp. (I don’t use SB other than as a switch in usually go for the extra crit of axe/warhorn) prefer the high heal power variants (clerics amulet) – can sub in more damage oriented amulets and change heal/survival method for yourself however(Valkyrie or soldier IMHO). Beastmastery is simply a viable line so you can do many variants off it succesfully. Using it is about learning to keep your pet on your target.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQNBhODbkoKxOwyxC0OQ0eoJLd+3D0Hr27KMqMu6jXVA;TsAgzCooEz0loLrYOxkitKZUymAA

A max durability build that self heals at 500+ HP per healing tics for 27-28 of 30 seconds(was 30 of 30 pre patch) and retaliation potential for 10 of 30 seconds. Your pet is your damage, you do change your 30 trait in WS based on opposing team. Lots of likely condition damagers on opposing team change barkskin to empathic bond.

River drake – Quite handy vs minion classes. AKA blows them up. You don’t pet swap alot. Blows up alot of classes actually.

Snow leopard – the snare plus you can leap them off ledges if your on the high ground. Lynx also for the leap and jaguar are also in my rotation.

Elite swaps between the spirit(You are a huge group healer in a cluster fight) to RAO blowing up a solo defended point.

Now you can also go more damage say 30/0/0/10/30 Also in a healing spring build or a soldiers build similar to above or 0/0/20/20/30 – max GS CD’s or maximize pet even more with a remote control option. a 0/20/5/15/30 – use the 20 to increase pet crit damage by 30% and pet speed consider using a valkyrie.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQNBhODbkoKxOwyxC0SQ0FwUcIF9eg+Y1e/hRlxVf8qC;TsAgzCooEz0loLrYOxkitKZUymAA

I have yet to find a FUBAR full beastmastery build. Just pick your survival method to damage envelope choose the runes armor to go with.

at least 20 in WS is very nice for the CD reduction on GS particularly with the changes(Hard to pass it up now that 4 is even more helpful). Amulet choices in my mind are soldiers, cleric or valkyrie’s with a secondary jewel change to preference. and armor as well. I could also see using a shamans ina condition build. Cleric maximizes my survivability and I control my target to maximize pet DPS uptime.

My builds are dependent on building up kills with the cluster before heading out for any solo work.

Yasha.5963:

How do you test for the internal CDs? I would like to do this as well, could you give me a methodology please?

I get a blanced bow from the weapon vendor in HOTM – fixed damage

Strip my gear – minimize damage – this results in only needing to switch targets once during the test minimizing non attack time.

I go to the large field of heavy golems not the three sets.

I unspec all traits except the spirit line.

I start shooting the golem then activate the single spirit I am testing(autoattack keeps me firing continuosly)

I count procs watch for stacking for the entire 65 second window I have a chance to proc the spirits effect. You can stopwatch from proc occuring (I just count one thousand 1 -2 etc at a regular pace in my head)

Using the same spirit I then run a set at 50%.

Because you are using a balanced bow that hits for exactly the same amount every time testing the frost spirit 10% damage is simply a matter of watching the combat log.

find your base damage with no spirit. Activate the spirit watch the damage strings and look for a 10% increase in your base damage. relatively quickly you will observe you are getting +10% damage hits in sequence not seperated by any internal CD gap.

Durzlla.6295:

@Arrys Hmmm, i guess i never noticed the CD because i normally run with Frost and Storm, and when i use burning it’s usually because i’m in a group of people (in which case between the 6+ of you it will never fall off).

And did you try it on multiple mobs? Because i know i’ve had protection and swiftness stacked up on me a lot (mostly swiftness because it lasts longer) but then again i normally charge into large groups of mobs greatsword swinging.

I was shooting golems. Didn’t get around to testing proc behavior while being attacked and shooting or with piercing bounce last night.

Basically doing 22 damage a hit you have to switch targets once. My data set is far to big for random chance of a real bad luck string over 10 seconds happening over dozens of test runs consistently in the same way every time.

The question is does stone also have a seperate proc chance when the enemy hits you? Even if it doesn’t a utility that is 33% damage reduction for 35% of the time isn’t really weak if you are in a durability build that is hard to kill. If your a glass cannon the way it procs not to helpful.

It’s a really easy test to run in HOTM get a balanced sb strip down unspec everything but your spirit line and swap back and forth between 35% proc chance and 50% proc chance while in the field of heavy golems. (spec 20 in marks to test piercing effect hitting multiple targets) I haven’t run that test yet. It’s an interesting point will get around to it tonight.

Swiftness at 70 second uptime potential and +5% damage boost strikes me as an intersting option in a 20/0/0/20/30 Bow/GS bm killer pet build. Boon transfer distance seems to have been increased to our pet(at east in pvp). Noticed it pre patch with my predator drone cat using HS to send a regen from mine to the nearby lord fight. Still have to test that as it may have been another player doing an aoe heal at same timing as me.

Going to test it tonight and see how far I can transfer boons and spirit buffs to my remote controlled killers. If my experience above is accurate my remote control pet kill build will be viable and quite de4adly having swiftness and damage boost.

Durzlla.6295:

Quarktastic.1027:

Durzlla.6295:

There is so much wrong in this thread… and it’s very clear you do not use spirits if you think there is a 10 second internal CD…

GS got a huge buff, spirits got a huge buff, splinter shot got a massive buff (i can actually hurt things underwater with my 1 now!!) The 2 off hand things are buffs, CotW wasn’t getting the reduced CD or the increased area, now it does, throw torch would be able to miss if your target freaking crawled out of the way with how slow it went,now it lands a little better…

And then the last mass of underwater things i have no idea how those will help us… as far as i know there are no combo fields underwater…

It has been tested time and time again, and spirit effects do in fact, have a 10 second internal cooldown.

The greatsword buff was minor at best. Maul got a 40% damage increase. Great, it’s not like the greatsword’s auto attack needed more damage anyway. And now you can use a one shot block skill with a 20 second cooldown while moving.

Call of the Wild was a bug fix, not a buff. And throw torch didn’t need a speed buff at all. The increased speed doesn’t even help that much since the torch still travels slower than an arrow…and those can be dodged by dancing back and forth like an idiot.

As for the buff to our speargun…did we really need to deal more damage underwater? Is there even any meaningful underwater content to experience?

Um, the block now blocks ALL projectiles as long as it’s being channeled, so in other words you dont take damage until someone comes up and hits you with a melee attack, yup awful truly truly awful…

And i use spirits religiously and there is NO internal CD, i have NEVER had to wait 10 seconds inbetween procs, and another way i know that “tested stat” is bull kitten is because it used to be a 15s internal CD that was “tested” then it went to a 3 second “tested” internal cd then it was 5, there is NO internal CD.

Durzla, I tested spirits again in HOTM there is an @ 10 second internal CD on Stone, Sun, and Storm starting I beleive when the boon/condition procs. For stone and Sun because of the nature of the 5 second chance to proc field(65 seconds during which you can proc an effect) I was reliably getting 7 procs each spirit at regular intervals. They were reliably coming one thousand 10 after previous proc. Tests pre patch is was getting 5-6 at 35% chance.

Storm is Awesome as I was getting 70 seconds of swiftness uptime reliably(10 times in a row)…At 50% proc chance boon would drop and reproc instantly(10 second duration but never stacks). And at 50% chance if it didn’t have an internal CD the odds of that occurring over my test run are like buying a winning lottery ticket. Previously at 35% I could get 60 but more reliably 50 seconds of coverage.

Stone at 7 procs is a 33% damage reduction with an uptime over 35% of the time. Likely a bigger improvement for my pet that will have their own procs plus the flow through from my buffs. AKA 33% damage reduction 70% of the time. Didn’t engineer a pet buff stacking test yet however to confirm how transferred buffs stack. Might also mean an ability to stack swiftness on the pet infinitely which would be a nice damage increase.

Frost spirit definitely has no CD as I was getting combat log strings of 3 and 4 in a row +10% damage shots in both 35% and 50% mode with similar drought potential (SO at 50% a 5% damage boost.

Now maybe HOTM isn’t a perfect testing environment but I know of no other place to easily shoot targets for 60 seconds straight without interuption to conduct it. My test of stone also isn’t perfect as it didn’t measure if there is not only a proc chance when you attack but when your attacked.

Balanced bow HOTM strip down to do barely any damage shoot golems with the pets out….

I also ran into an annoying ranger using them in conjunction with a necro and mesmer….. THankfully I had gs/LB and dropped the spirits as a priority.

Sprit benefits aren’t insignificant on a 2 person team(you plus pet) but impacting a large number of attackers they are very powerful.

hard part is keeping them alive.

nerva.7940:

sorry guys ima let you finish, but GS/SB is the best weapon combo of all times. i roll with BM, marks, signets and about 1800 toughness. pet (when it hits) hits like a truck and sustain is awesome.

GS gives you amazing defense with 1 and 4, in addition to 5 chained with SB’s 5 for long stuns. GS 4 also links up with SB’s 4. these two weapons synergize.

yes, like yourselves, i felt like i got punched in the stomach today with this patch. but i do wanna keep playing my ranger, and this is the one positive i found. try it out. it’s a great alternative to yawn axe/torch/traps.

The build got a very nominal boost. Actually my pet bomb got negatively fixed slightly. Still dangerous. GS/ plus preference weapon in beastmastery builds was solid pre patch. It did get better.

The moving block is sweet as you can use it even better, stationary it was still powerful. Extra maul damage as well. Did reduce how I was stacking regen to perpetual coverage but overall tradeoffs positive for my build.

It was already a viable build pattern pre patch. Not OP but viable.

Yeah I had suspected it was bugged as well. Kinda wanted to make sure other people were seeing the change as well.

Mine wasn’t named after one of the most powerful conventional bombs ever for nothing.

It still does very good damage. Combo’d with a barrage overhead you’ll notice no difference in kill time from it.