Guild Wars 2

Honed Axes – Axe In main hand increases condition duration by 10%. Axe in Offhand increases ferocity by 250.

There, fixed.

While pets are always the number 1 issue with ranger, there are also some synergy problems that do not allow lean builds to prosper.

Take condition builds for instance:
- trap traits conflict with sharpened edges, you have to pick one or the other
- traps offer no utility and thus you are forced into things that is not a condition build essentially
- Wilderness survival has 2 condition traits that should essentially be 1 trait

To be honest, we should probably take a page from the Dragon Hunter trap book on how to make trap offer utility alongside damage, yet still not be overpowered. This would go hand in hand with some trait re alignment in the Skirmishing line:

Skirmishing traits:
- Sharpened edges made an adept minor
- Hidden barbs made into a master minor
- Hunters tactics changed into 10% extra crit chance on bleeding foes instead of when flanking
- Furious grip and tailwind merged into a single trait at the master level
- Striders defense moved to adept tier
- New trait : Preparedness – drop a spike trap when CCed.

Trap changes:
- every trap will offer some utility and/or boon alongside its current effects
- Flame trap pulses 5 seconds of 2 stacks of might
- Spike trap is a Stun break, cast time removed. CD reduced from 45 seconds to 35 seconds
- Frost trap CD reduced to 25 seconds. Pulses 1s of resistance and protection on activation
- Vipers nest pulses 2 seconds of fury.

This, or something similar, would close off traps as a valid utility group. They have been left alone for so long and have significantly fallen off in terms of viability. Dragon hunter traps are amazing in concept, and it really does not matter whether DH are OP or UP.

There shortbow not being good is only partially related to the weapon itself. A weapon needs to be a part of a wider set of things that make up a build. Shortbow is a hybrid/condition weapon, and as far as PvP goes, the condi ranger is very bad.

The skirmishing line has poor trait distribution to support condition trapper builds as sharpened edges and trap mastery compete against each other. The shorbow trait is pretty bad itself. The traps offer no utility and thus will never be taken.

What I would propose, alongside tightening up some of the SB abilities:

- make sharpened edges an adept minor trait
- make hidden barbs a master minor trait and buff it to : bleeding damage and duration is increased by 33%
- change hunter tactics requirements to: 10% extra critical chance vs bleeding foes

Then:

- tailwind and furious grip changed into a major master trait
- Sword trait moved into adept tier
- New Master major re-added – Circle of life: cast a healing spring when hit below 25% hit points

Finally:

- Fire trap adds 3-5 stacks of might in an AoE when activated
- Vipers nest applies fury when activated
- Frost trap is a stun breaker, applies 3 seconds of protection and cast time removed
- Spike trap transfers 3 conditions when activated

Well it is an even fight unless you have to keep a point caped or decaped.

Well this makes fighting a necromancer in a 1v1 at the start impossible

It was the first day of a season that calculates matches based on leaque divisions. Ofc you are gonna get trashed by better players in the first couple of days until people spread out a bit.

I am having fun every day, even though I sometimes get kittened off about random players in Unranked due to season lockout. But starting today the fun starts going exponential again.

PvP is a massive improvement from season 1.

Lets agree to disagree then.

We have all seen how good Druid revive is against a coordinated team at the top level of play. Stop saying that its unstoppable….. because it is not.

@Ithilwen:

I really do not understand what you are referring to. As far as chronomancer goes only the absolute broken things were nerfed.

1) The shield block was by far the best shield block in the game before the nerf to duration
2) Alacrity did way to much to the point it was mandatory in any game mode, even though it is just a minor trait slot. Do not even try to say that IT is the mechanic, the F5 is, alacrity is just a very nice perk
3) The blurr well was nerfed to be in line with other invulnerability skills allowing decap.

I really do not think that mesmer is in a bad spot as because it lacks X Y or Z. Simply the some of the other classes are too strong at the moment. And it has been said time and time again that now we need shaves and not power creep.

So:
- nerf chill damage and/or application for Reaper
- reduce Bristle F2 damage
- shave Shiro a bit, perhaps the on dodge endurance gain from 50 to 25-30
- reduce scrapper hammer damage coefficients a bit and tone down survivability a bit

Take it from there and see what happens.

Tone down Revenant a tad more and nerf reaper chill damage. Then reevaluate.

While I agree that the Bristle F2 needs to be fixed I really do not think anything else on the druid side needs to be nerfed.

Eles are fine now. What they need to nerf next is the Revenant and Necromancer.

One thing though. The decap druid and the res bot druid are two different builds.

What happens if you DC and then reconnect?

Take any of the non HoT pets and see if the damage is too much. Was it? Did not think so…

Why not get both when you cast?

Druid is the best thing to have happened to Ranger gameplay and viability vise.

Guys, you dont understand do you? Illusions, minions and pets all had PvP and WvW HP values in PvE as well for a very long time. But sometime in the past, due to overwhelming amounts of PvE issues where pets were useless, pet HP got buffed by 70%.

So, truth be told, PvP and WvW do not reduce HP, but PvE increases them from the proper values due to pets insta dying in the past.

Every single game is and should be balance for the very top of the playerbase. The logic is thus, it is extremely unlikely that one can improve much anymore and thus issues are caused by balance and not by a lack of skill cap. And even then there is a lot of room and only the most obvious issues are fixed.

Why would you balance for the low or mid end of the spectrum when most issues can be resolved by better play?

The PvP and WvW pet values are the intended proper values. The PvE variants got a HP buff somewhere along the way.

Druid did eat nerfs as far as i know. And that 10s CD for avatar form is in reality a 20s or so CD. The only way you might be able to use it on a 10s CD is to pop in and out right away WHILE healing a couple of allies during the astral force down time.

The only thing that needs to be fixed is the bristleback F2

Well, point of the mater is that in most elite specs you give up something to gain something, or you cannot use the elite mechanic at the same time as playing normally.

For example:

- Guardian gains different virtues and not a forth one
- Reaper gets new shroud skills but still has 5 of them
- Druid gains a toolkit like form that heals but cant deal damage while in it and it is heavily gated
- Ele can overload, but it is channeled and it comes at a hefty price of puting your attunment on CD
- scrapper gains a minor utility boost up from the engi with the stomp bot but I really do not think its such a big deal design vise

On the other hand you have pure upgrades:
- Mesmer F5
- thief extra dodge
- Revenant extra F2
- Warrior extra F2

Mind you, I am not talking about balance but just about design choices. But then again, If their goal actually was to balance elites against eachother considering that there will be more to come, perhaps a small power creep is acceptable.

But ideally one would want to have Cores equalized with elites as to open up more build options.

The druid has protection on as well as more hitpoints.

What the latest patch did was force ele to decide between heavy sustain/mitigation and damage. Celestial + might stacking offered both and it was kind of silly. Now you either support like mad or dish out hybrid damage at the cost of toughness and healing.

As far as staff goes, staff has always been a poor pvp weapon and was outshone by DD. Now its DF.

And as far as a DPS ele build goes, and this is true for pretty much any glass build, it will NEVER EVER BE VIABLE AS LONG AS THIEF IS META. You need heavy damage avoidance or stealth. Hell even mesmer suffers when thief shines. The only glass that can sustain vs a thief are scrapper and rev and that is due to both of those things and free stats from traits.

Didnt you hear? Ele is in the meta..

Scarlet wings backpieces need to be converted into glider skins.

Add a blurry field effect between the blades and a jet effect on the exhaust pipes.

What is this obsession with HoT being bad? Seriously. Despite all its faults, I have gotten my moneys worth when it comes to both HoT and GW2core.

Balance being terrible is a fact of life when it comes to Anet. If you expected anything else you were living in LaLa land. At least they are debugging like crazy now which is a major plus.

The things that HoT did right:

- elites are great gameplay vise even if they are a noticable power creep
- complicated new maps
- non cakewalk meta events
- raids
- seasonal leagues even if the meta was horrid in the first season

The only relevant place for Staff DPS is in PvE, and quess what is used in raids as a main DPS weapon?

Thats right, staff ele… gee wizz, we never could see it coming.

You are comparing a reworked skill that was never used and pretty much worthless to non reworked useless stuff.

Point is, SnR is fine now. Now fix other res abilities.

I have met these guys in a soloQ games a few months back and we partied up for the next couple of games. Have been playing with them ever since. Nice guys, good players and a very cool guild.

Cant wait for season 2 to start!

Yep, a druid with SnR is a +1 spec as a healer, and not a burst. It is fine. The shoutbow itself is weaker then the glyph druid in direct combat.

Ele has some of the best traits in the game. Many damage modifiers and free procs and stat buffs. Furthermore, its weapon CD reduction traits are 33% compared to everyone elses 20% bar the engi toolkit.

The reason a burst spec does not work is that all of the utilities we have been using for the past 3 years are based on the assumption that ele would compensate low HP with all round amulets.

There is damage mitigation but no damage avoidance. The only real damage avoidance in the utilities is the arcane shield but its CD is simply too large.

If i were A-net I would be looking at arcane skills in order to fix some of the alternate gameplay style issues.

What I would fix is:

- Arcane shield CD reduced from 75 to 40 seconds. Arcane shield converts up to 3 conditions into boons
- Arcane blast removes up to 3 boons from the targets
- Arcane wave knocks down foes for 1.5 seconds
- Arcane power adds 1 second of slow to your attacks for the next 5 attacks.

I personally think that the Druid is the best thing to happen to guild wars as a whole. Finally we have a fully fledged healing class.

As to claims that it does not synergise with the pet, i call kitten. Astral form is filled out by healing, and having a pet amps up the energy bar. Furthermore, it increases the pets life expectancy significantly in PvP. Also, by playing a stun lock druid you are giving your pet opportunities to do damage.

As far as gameplay is concerned, Druid, Reaper, DH and tempest top the charts imho.

The current meta, due to power creep, is far more volatile after the removal of bunkers then the meta when banner was good. Hell, at one point rangers even used the spirit elite.

Point of the matter is, SnR is relatively stronger compared to other rev abilities, but that is because it has been reviewed and updated to be useful. Noone used the old SnR, it was simply worthless.
Also, due to power creep ressing one ally is not of a big deal as it was when bunkers were dominating. There are also plenty of ways to apply pressure from ranged or melee with stuns, cleaves, fears etc.

Lets look at other res skills now:
- reduce elite banner CD from 240 to 180 seconds
- reduce elemental glyph CD to something tolerable like 60ish seconds

etc.

Having a dedicated healing/support role is a good thing. And a ranger using SnR is exacticly that.

I dont know what this obsession is about AI doing damage being bad? As long is not passive, i.e auto attacks doing most of the damage, its fine.

Bristleback is too strong. The smokescale is not. As soon as you add a second entity to it the damage falls off significantly.

Also, all the comparisons with other ranger pets will always make bristle and smoke seem OP, because for PvP all of the other pets are simply…. bad. Thats why the wolf was used for the better part of 3 years

You really cant take SnR if you want to be a strong presence on point in combat. Think of it is a reverse thief +1. It is very useful in a +1 situation to heal up allies and semi spike with the buffed pet, but it cant really survive for long,

Paladin GS druid is so much stronger in side node fights.

Dragon hunter is fine. It is not weak and it sure as hell is not OP. It has great synergies with both melee and ranged weapon sets.

It is only 1200 range, so most professions can either get close enough to apply AOE pressure from ranged or shadow step to the downed party and cleave.

Perhaps the Ranger using Guard was what caused you to believe it was tanky? It transfers 50% of the damage taken to the pet.

But as I have said before, it is a dedicated healing build where the ranger/druid uses a healing amulet, 1 utility and 2 major traits to get off a fast res every 40 seconds. And that is IF it positions properly so it does not get pressured instantly.

This is a far cry from what we have had in the last meta where mesmers would res people as an afterthought.

To summarize:
- the mender druid build suffers from the same problem as the paladin glyph druid, heavy condition spikes or pressure
- it lacks the SoS, and if it takes SoS it probably does not have SnR
- it has no toughness and besides guard and protective ward, it is very very vulnerable to physical damage
- it is not a bruiser and hence cannot sustain a 2v1 on point for more then a couple of seconds while guard is active and your astral force is up
- it is very evasive and has lots of stealth

Note: We are talking about the build Phantaram has used on his stream and is posted as Shoutbow on Metabattle?

Search and rescue trait has a 85 second CD. It can be reduced by 20% by the Resounding timbre trait.

Search and rescue shout has a 45 second CD which can be reduced by 20%. It is not a quickness res and it can be interrupted. The shout pulls an ally up from 1200 range and allows you and your pet to duo res him. One people cleaving can delay the res significantly. Res speed is affected by healing power, this is why you are baffled by the speed. The Ranger is most likely running the Menders amulet which makes him very glass and vulnerable to focus fire. It can run away perhaps but it cannot sustain vs 2 people for more then a couple of seconds.

Furthermore, you are basing your opinion on unranked play which is debatable in itself.

Bottom line is, this is the very first time we have seen a dedicated healing build in PvP. This is a good thing. This is not a bunker build that can sustain indefinitely vs multiple foes on point and res people as an afterthought. This is DEDICATED HEALING.

Wow, seriously? Are you being serious right now? Really?

I feel that Discipline is good enough to stand on its own without fast hands, but fast hands make it pretty much mandatory. Making fast hands baseline would open up so many build options imho.

Uh, as a Ranger main I must say that this particular builds weakness is heavy condition pressure. Fighting 2 condition spammers on point is never going to end well.

But whether conditions are running rampant again, we will see as soon as season two starts.

Perhaps utilizing healing spring might help? Even though I know that stacking might is the way to go via HaO and RaO. Just sayin.. less boons to corrupt and a condi removed every 2 seconds.

DH was made useless by the bunkers in season 1 due to all the damage mitigation and reflects. I think we will at least see some guardians in season 2 ESL. Also, DH virtues are better then core virtues by the Nth degree. Shorter CDs, far more utility. I mean, the F2 heals you for about 4k on a 25s CD.

Just wanted to post the critical few balance tweaks that need to happen in order to tone down the agreed upon over performing things in the game at the moment, or slightly up certain things to open new avenues of play.

Warrior:
- fast hands made baseline

Ranger:
- bristleback F2 damage reduced by 25-33% (by reducing the number of attacks from 20 to 15 as stated in the tooltip)

Necromancer/Reaper:
- chill damage reduced by 33%
- chill duration reduced by a tad, possibly Cold shoulder bonus reduced or removed
- match reaper shroud CDs to death shroud CDs
Engineer/Scrapper:
- rapid regeneration values reduced by 50%, scaling from healing power increased to compensate
- damage coefficients tweaked on hammer to bring it in line with other melee sets of other classes

Guardian/Dragon hunter:
- DH virtue CDs increased to match core Guardian virtue CDs
- true shot CD increased to 6 seconds

While there are other issues these are the biggest currently, in my opinion and in the opinion of a lot of players posting on this forum..

Thoughts?

Heh, no one is saying that having lots of utility on the hammer is an issue, they are saying that both utility AND damage on low CD weapon skills is.

@Manuhunell:

Even before the hammer, engi could only use 1 weapon set and it was still solid and in the meta most of the time. There is no problem if some of the skills on engineer weapons are pretty versatile, but it is another mater entirely if the weapon is way too dominant both compared to other classes weapon sets and the engineer weapon sets as well.

The hammer is simply too good at the moment.