Guild Wars 2

Well of Blood: give necromancer more finishers (100% chance finisher on staff 1 needs to happen) and the well is useable.

^ this couldn’t hurt.

- Corrosive poison cloud : Well I think this skill is in a good shape atm, it’s not wonderfull but if we had more usefull finisher (like suggested before) this skill would be perfectly fine.

- Signet of the undeath : Yeah, a reduced cast time could help this signet.

- Spectral grasp : I think this skill could be split in 2 (like guardian greatsword pull). It could be like that :

Spectral grasp : Instant. Curse the target. Cursed target is periodically chilled. Chill 2s every 2s. Last 6s. (with trait it would last 8s)
→ Spectral pull : cast time 1/2s. Pull the cursed target to you, gaining LF.

We can remove the silly projectile animation since the target will have a debuff that litterally say : “You should dodge otherwise he will pull you!”

I’d say that you should stick with zerk or rampager stats on the weapon.

Weapon type is up to your own taste. I personnally like a D/Wh for high LF generation and Sc/D for range fight.

Necromancer :
Master of corruption? you like danger ain’t you? honnestly, i’d say that path of corruption would be better.

Reaper :
Deathly chill? Not sure it’s worth your time. Reaper onslaught for the win.

Also, forget the survivability with the weapon, it’s abysmal at best.

For me the only reason for the ranger hate is and have always been their bad habit to use their knockback. And, I can say without any shame that the only player I’ve kicked in these 3 years of GW2 is a ranger to whom we specifically said not to use this skill at least 3 time in a row.

Outside of this peculiar skill, I’ve got nothing against the ranger. Maybe math say that they are suboptimal but they still got fire field and waterfield almost on demand. They still have unique buff for the party (frost spirit and spotter). And they still have a variety of usefull finisher. There is nothing more to ask.

A ranger can bring whatever’s needed in a party. A good ranger do not hinder it’s party with unnecessary hard CC. Sadly a bad ranger (and it’s the common ranger) will use unnecessary CC on cool down, breaking the team effort.

The worst ennemy of the ranger ain’t another profession, it’s himself. Point blank shot is why they are kicked 9 time out of 10.

NB.: If you look at the Necro, it’s sad but what he lack is the bare minimum usefull support that is needed in party. Reliable blast, reliable finisher or even simply, the ability to share a boon. A necromancer is just the guy that’s supported by it’s teammate, he does it’s average dps but that’s all.

If anything, reaper shroud is pretty good at conditions… Don’t see how you could be ineffective as a condi reaper.

From what I’ve done in the BW2, I can say that a rampager gear was pretty effective. I used a very poor build taking BM/SR/RP and I still had very decent condition damage. (well anyway, I’ve got a thing for rampager gear, I find it pleasant to play since the condition overhaul)

Well, I am also a very selfish player.

I looked at the reward and what was their cost, tried the 30 minute event and then decided that it was a waste of my precious time. So I do not help other to do the event, I do not help tyria against these mordrem since it’s simply boring and lack any decent reward.

The only thing is that if you wanna keep up with the PvE you need the Xpac. Otherwise, PvP and WvW will just work fine with the core game (Well, that’s what it look like atm).

For the question of the “fee”, we sure can rant as veteran players, since we do already buy the game. But on the other hand, we also spent 3 years without any expense playing to a game that could have had a monthly fee since there have been some incoming content. If you look at it, since launch you’ve only spent £1 per month (which is pretty cheap).

Though it’s still a hard hit to the PvE comunity…

How I imagine the druid?…

Well to be honest it’s a kinda hard question. I think the Druid will be define by how it will handle the ranger’s core mechanism. This obviously leave us with a lot of different possibilities :

1- F2 changes
Since ther is no more trait that work depending on the pet’s specie, it’s kinda safe to imagine that an Espec may change the fonctionnality of the F2 skill. This new skill could depend on :
- trait choice (I’ve already suggested a spec that’s inspired of the daredevil model)
- Pet’s specie (because why not grant to the druid a specific skill for each specie at the cost of a bit of controle over the only utility he can controle on a pet. It seem fair)

2- F4 change
Here it’s a bit tricky because traits still specifically say “on pet swap” so it’s unlikely that anything come out of a change on the pet swap.
Still, we can imagine a kind of “Shroud” mechanism for the pet at the cost of pet’s variety. You could then swap the attunment of the pet from flesh attunment to spirit attunment… well… let’s leave this kinda bad idea where they are…

3- introduction of an F5
I do not like the idea of an F5 mechanism, simply because it does not fit with existing traits. It would only be an artificially adapted raw addition to the ranger. I think the result would be pretty poor. On the other hand, this kind of addition open an unlimited number of possibilities (You could even make potion like panoramix!)

4- A change on pet’s access
I think this would be my favourite possibility. Losing the average pet we got to have access to a full new pet list specific to the druid/elite spec and with global effect that fit this elite spec. We could imagine that the druid have access to :
- a spirit version of each current specie (F2 skill being a brand new one with a kind of specific effect that would have the follow a patern defining the druid)
- Brand new pet each being link to an aspect of nature. (be it season, elemental or light/dark)

All of these are how I can imagine the druid at this point. There are countless possibilities and most likely some that I can’t even grasp at the moment. But honnestly I’d like to bet on the new pet list specific to the druid. These pets would probably be some moving buffing machine that would replace the lost unbound spirits with, obviously different effect and an easy balance since you can have only one pet at a time.

I think you didn’t get my point.

What I was trying to say is that whatever “buff” you would gain from sacrificing your pet (In this case raw stat increase), it would end up in something inbalanced and extremly frustrating for the ranger community.
On one point, rangers would simply press Anet to increase the number of stat given because “we hit like crap even with this!”. And on the other hand players would exploit this mechanism with “bundle”, ending this into an imbalanced meta.

The dps issue of the ranger does not lie in a lack of stat or a lack of raw damage bonus trait. The dps issue only come from the fact that weapon have lower coefficient to achieve a state of balance when you add the pet dps.

Is this a song?
If it is, to which kind of music would you pair it?
If it’s not, does the OP take drugs?

I like the idea.
Especially the focus Main hand. Although a true vampire would have 2 bloodseeker focus skin

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bloodseeker

New Legendary Weapons

I know you’re all dying for more information on new legendary weapons, but we’d like to delve into them more with a dedicated blog post in the future. For now, I’ll say that we’ve been working kitten new legendary weapons, the first handful of which will be introduced in Heart of Thorns, with more to come in subsequent updates. The methods by which you’ll craft these legendary weapons are similar to the existing system, but we’ve refined it into more of a journey, similar to precursor crafting. We also want to better preserve the prestige associated with crafting a legendary weapon, so the new legendary weapons, and their precursors, will not be tradable. Keep an eye out—we can’t wait to start showing them off when they’re ready

What’s important about the new precursor and legendary is in bold.

I would like to add just 1 argument against your suggestion.

With this sacrifice skill, you grant to the ranger 20% power/prec/tough/vit. which is a range of extra stat that goes from 300 pts per stat to up to 1000pt (bear vitality).
From a straight point of view, I’d say it’s okay. but let’s look at row effect :

Example :
I’m using a bear, I gain :
300 power
300 prec
460 tough
1000 vitality
I know have a zerk ranger that have as row stat in PvP :
2500 power
2200 precision
2500 armor
2000 vitality
I now sit at 35k HP and hit harder than any zerker out there. Further more, if I happen to use an elementalist conjure (let’s say frostbow) which damage aren’t balanced around the fact that I have a pet, I will outclass every other profession at using it and do around 10% more damage than them.

Now let’s talk about the real nasty things : Consumable.
We take the ogre sharpening stone and gain, as power 4% of vitality and 6% of toughness. which will roughly mean 200 more power. Let’s add some more food/might stack/runes/sigil/banner…
You sit at a power that excced 4k which is 25% more than any other profession.

Congratulation you achieve to attain the stat hard cap with just this sacrifice skill and your damage/survivability with conjure are unmatch in the game. New meta 1 thief, 2 ele and 2 druid. This is what we call imbalance.

There is a reason behind the fact that the ranger have lower overall damage value, it is because he have the pet as core mechanic. Giving more stats than other profession can achieve to the ranger would only lead to a broken state of the game because nobody will pass the chance to exploit these broken stat.

NB.: The same can be said about a row damage boost. There will always be an easy way to exploit this kind of broken mechanism.

How to Ventari in one lesson :
- engage range mob/player with any other legend.
- switch to Ventari.
- summon stone.
- use protective solace.
- kill the dumb range thing if it doesn’t use melee attack.
- If it use melee attack, change to your other legend.

That’s all you can do with ventari, I hope I was clear enough on the methodology.

A good feedback but I can’t agree on everything and you forgot Warhorn (I’m sure you have something to say about WH#4 ).
Maybe one day they will understand that the ranger need some work in the core mechanic area so that it become something helpfull instead of this thing that drag the ranger down atm.

Well, I’ll say it again : You are closing your eyes on the fact that’s they already rework the traits from each spec so that they fit with the elite spec they want to release.

The pet is an important part of the ranger, you simply can’t remove it or say “let’s tweak skills and traits so that we can merge it with us and they work fine”. It’s like :

- a mesmer that would say : “Let’s remove our shatter skills for an elite spec where we could become a phantasm, we could tweak some trait and skill when we use it”
- a guardian that would say : “let remove virtues so we could become a virtuous angel in an elite spec, we could tweak some trait and skill when we use it”
- a necromancer that would say : “Let’s remove the shroud and have some F1→F5 instead. Let’s tweak trait that hinder us for that.”
… etc.

The moment hey released the core specializations, it should have been obvious for everybody that every profession would stay stucked with their core mechanism or at least a variation of it. Your idea, even if it’s a neet idea would step to much on the core mechanism of the Ranger. It’s sad, frustrating, boring or whatever you can come up as a negative though but, the ranger will have to deal with a pet whatever elite spec they come up with.

They’ve got plenty of possibility to use as elite spec that doesn’t step on the core mechanism and the trait they decided to release for the core specializations.
- They can choose to give a whole set of generic spirit pets (same design than actual pet but with a spirit form and their own new skills on F2)
- They can choose to replace F2 by something linked with the elite specialization trait.
- They can choose to create elemental pets attuning yourself to the element of the pet you have.
… etc.
Basically, whatever come in mind but with an external pet that can physically hit your foe, have an access to F2 and F4, fit with the utility in there actual shape and does not leave behind any core trait. Otherwise it doesn’t meet the basic requirement for the core mechanism.

Let’s just say that this bug was already here since launch.
Let’s just say that this bug benefit to the base necromancer as well.
Let’s just remind you how good the necromancer has been viewed in spvp since launch.
…
Let’s just ignore this then, since it’s not gamebreaking.
Seriously, crying for a bug that’s been here for ages and never made the profession OP is a pathetic waste of time.

NB.: Simple thing that they can do with the existing engine would be to give all environment element the invulnerability buff. Which would result in no LF generation.

maddoctor.2738:

Knighthonor.4061:

Azure.8670:

First off, anet has nothing against the trinity. What they have always said is they want every class to be able to play multiple roles. You can have dps tank and support, just each class can do it and differently. That’s how they set it up and how it’s always been

Thats not how its alwayd been. Thats PR talk.
a thief cant tank no matter how they spec. They cant provide good healing no matter what they do.
same with mesmers in terms of support.

The list goes on.

Take a Pistol off-hand and Tank non-boss mobs by providing blind fields. In this way the Thief is actually one of the BEST tanks in the game
Use a double S/D set (with double energy sigils for overkill) and you can tank with a million evades.
As for healing, Shadow Refugee is an excellent ability to heal and save allies, actually it can save allies better than any actual heal skill in the game.
Blasting Water Fields with a Shortbow for extra healing for the entire party? Yes please!

Mesmers and Support… you haven’t heard of Time Wrap? Or blink + portal to get allies behind content.
Mesmers have nice Stealth too to support the party with stealth so they can bypass fights (very similar to a Thief)
Chronomancers get Alacrity which is another way to “support” the party.

What are you talking about?

Indeed combo are support.

I’d like to add to the support of the mesmers some mantra and a lot of traits which either heal up to 5 allies, cleanse their condition, grant them boons or debuff the ennemie. (I’m including the debuff thing because Anet seem to think that it’s part to the support)

In fact mesmer is a beast for support.

all of what you say, is like saying : new trait and new skills introduced. They most likely won’t create alternative shout and trait in the core ranger. That would be one hell of a work just for 1 elite spec.

Beside, they released the actual spec system with each elite spec in mind so, there are really few chance that an elite spec does not fit with the current core specializations.

I believe they said countless time that GW2 ain’t mean to not have any trinity, just that there isn’t any profession designed to have a dedicated rôle.

Simply put, through trait and gear, GW2 allow you to play whatever trinity role you wanna play. The only difference is that there aren’t any tank or healer which are replaced by controle and support.

God, the fact that passive defense are bad in PvE ain’t new… That’s one of the very reason why zerk is meta. On the other hand active defense rocks so there is a kind of balance.

Would be totally overpowered if the ranger were to be affected by pet’s trait. What do you do about shout?

- does guard grant you stealth and protection?
- does sick’em grant you 40% damage and 40% movement speed?
- does Search and rescue force you to go to the downed player and rez it?
- does protect me! protect you with your own body, resulting in no damage mitigation at all?
- Signet of renewal will pull allies condition on you, are you ok with that?
- vigorous training need a pet swap… sad, that make 1 trait out.
- Allies aid if you are already rezing your allies do you need the search and rescue thingy?
- Empathic bond, will you pull your own conditions to yourself?
- Clarion bond, how will it work?
- Alpha training become useless, you won’t take the first strike of your pet.
- Companion’s might free might and bleed on every crit… totally OP
- Pet’s prowess free movement speed and critical damage?

There are to many hindrance to that idea of yours, sorry.

Personal though on the new “rise” :
- Instant shout ! yeah good!
- lot of direct damage, could be lower (Really think that atm it’s to much)
- Shambling horror? Whatever, they ain’t gamebreaking even when they work. I think it’s perfect as an additionnal thing if you happen to run death nova, otherwise the impact is minimal.

So yeah, the shout seem in a good shape and will probably end up even better with a bit of balancing around the damage area and minion responsivness. (activating the damage absorbtion without having the minion attacking would just be perfect)

I personnaly used :

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQRBIhtG1JzmQ1mY7mg3NA9mYRbwmCAJgDQcEcDGCpGBpgGFA-TRxFgAoq/Yr8DQJYm+hv9HAA-e

BM/SR/RP
In PvE it give you almost to much sustain on top of more than enough damage. You just have to build LF and jump in RS as soon as you can. RS#2 and RS#4 are devastating, love them they are awesome.
I don’t like GS… the more I try to use it the more I don’t like it. I think it’s just bad affinity.

Well 40k when the wivern is stuned is pretty low… since damage are serverly uped chen the thing is stun.

I tried the GS and it’s disappointingly slow. There is now way it’s PvE worthy. The shroud rock, though. To be Okay, gravedigger would have to do 16k dps (which mean it’s damage divided by overall cast time and aftercast) when your are full buff. I don’t think it’s the case. (and even if it’s the case, it feel so slow, it’s unbearable)

Weird, I am full glass, ele, and i never ran into a problem with the snipers, sure i took alot of damage but i manage the encounter(unless i do not see the sniper targetting me among the horde of enemies then i might die while taking the bulk of the attack, but still not a problem), and as for the mist field problem you having, i just end up kiting/dodging them until the mist effect runs out and then they die like paper.

Yeah I felt the same, the ele elite spec seemed awfully handy against these enemy who melted in a few second.
I think people should try a bit some rampager gear against these mobs. Mordrems/toad feel terribly weak against condi damage and extremely rubbish against critical hits.

Tried it a bit to, but with the mind set of staying in an attunment. (Yeah I know it’s absolutely not ele like ). Took a set of rampager stat.

Here are my though :
Warhorn : There is a clear lack of reponsivness in this weapon, I was simply outruning every effect. In the end, be it with a scepter or a dagger the weapon didn’t fit me at all. (simply everything, be it skill CD, cast time or effect, was to slow).

Overload :
- Fire simply out perform any other attunment whirl finsher, burn, damage, might… honnestly eveb by doing only the “Beta PvE event”, everything melted in front.
- Water feltgood as a healing support, I think it’s in a good place atm.
- Air… felt disappointing. It didn’t felt like doing the attack interval shown. And limiting it to 3 foes felt even worst.
- Earth. I didn’t tried it so I won’t arg about it.

Shout :
I love them. Even the elite which doesn’t feel like an elite at all felt useful. To feel elite like rebound need to have a cut on it’s CD. Simply put, give it the CD of the traited gardian elite shout and we will be able to do something with this. Or let it affect more utilities per character (one simply ain’t enough for what’s done).

Aura share :
Aura share from shout/overload seemed to work perfectly fine with npc while doing the LS part but didn’t work at all on other player while doing beta event. I changed some traits in the mean time so I think it could be a bug of trait combination, didn’t test enough to be sure.

Overall, the elite spec felt pretty strong (for the mindset and gameplay I intended to do).

Well, the herald is pretty solid from what I’ve tried. But, It would be a blast if the dev team could move the F2 thingy a bit higher. It hinder the choice of our legends as it is.

At least we do agree on the state of the pet

But while your answer to it is : “Less pet things please!”
My answer is : “Work on this screwed pet so that we finally like it please!”

Silverkey.2078:

Dadnir.5038:

Enrage mechanism are bad design… this will just strengthen the zerk meta. (I’m sure even a dev can understand that)

Hopefully, raid encounter will be designed around securing secondary objectives and not stupidly bashing a boss “as soon as you can”. We know that they can do some great things in this regard (Brill’s lair was a huge success and didn’t needed players to have a dps check).

If the encounters are designed around trash management and boss tanking while ally or players prepare an environemental mean to chunk at the boss HP, then, I believe, Every profession (necromancer included) will have it’s place in Raid. (On second though, enrage could be a periodic state where the boss destroy everything on the area, forcing player to build a new environmental thing to try and kill the boss. Well there are tons of possibilities that exclud brainless DPS and promote all kind of different gameplay. I mean, do you really think that hitting a giant foe with a sword that look like a toothpick for him is a good way to kill it?)

On the other hand, if it’s a DPS check encounter (like what we currently have in dungeon) then the actual meta will stay meta… nothing will change and necro, due to the area where he is lacking, will be pushed out of the roster (Like he already is).

Enrage mechanics make sense because:

• it ensures a full turtle party won’t work
• it adds to the difficulty (see world boss)

I guess the devs assume that a full turtle party is more likely than a full zerker, and this is probably true in the beginning. I sincerely hope full zerker will never work, but many people seem to disagree with me in the PvE forum…

I can’t agree with you. In GW2 passive defense are to crapy to be viable enough to ensure a turtle party.
Don’t get me wrong, or get the zerk meta wrong. The zerk meta is here not only because it’s the fastest way to clean dungeon, it’s here because the longer you drag a fight, the higher your chance to wipe (due to a lack of active defense).

A dev that would think and fear a “turtle strategy” wouldn’t know a bit of it’s own game.

NB.: Pasive defense are fine for PvP though.

Well, that’s a matter of point of view but for me. I don’t mind at all this 60s CD simply because I don’t plan to let my pet die but there are things that really hinder me :

- Lack of control on pet utility : Not being able to prevent some skills to be used can break you depending on your gamemode. Mainly skill like Quickening screech which is a burden that every bird share, Devourer retreat that can simply break all the positionning work you could do and Hard CC skills in general that usually need to be wisely used instead of on CD.

- The huge health pool of the pet : Which is not that hard to get rid of but extra difficult to sustain. They should have given the pet a damage reduction instead of these ******* health point!

- The horrendous design of some pet skills : Forage is the perfect example.

- The fact that pet move slower In combat while mobs aren’t affected. Totally illogical.

- The cast time on pet’s shout. Seriously the pet is slow enough without having to stop them when the cast a shout that ain’t even strong enough to be used.

- The inability of the pet to jump which make it inapt to reach some zone which are easy to reach as a ranger (Pathing issue)

- Linear pathing hindered by small pixel bug. (Pathing issue #2)

- Inability of the pet to perform a dodge. (would it be an heresy to give 1s blur buff to the pet whenever the ranger dodge? Come on don’t tell me it would be hard to do.)

- Why do Fortifying bound apply vigor on the pet?

- Food not affecting pet (They are supposed to be our weapon, they should at least benefit from it. It’s already a pain that our pet need to be overloaded with might to be a tiny bit effective)

- Pet interaction with spirit : spirit’s buff is hard caped to 5 I wouldn’t mind if the pet also received the buff from me but that’s not the case. And since the priority goes to player, the pet is always forgotten.

- The fact that shout work like command to the pet and that one command delete another. Which mean that you lose the benefit of sick’em by simply using F1.

… etc.

I can go on forever. Simply put, the pet is unreliable and frail in it’s current form. And this is all due to a bad design. It’s not a matter of core mechanism rework, it’s just QoL need. The ranger badly need to have more control over it’s pet and it would be hundred time better that it happen for the core profession and not occasionnally in elite spec.

NB.: In all honesty, I can say that the state of the ranger’s pet was better 2 years and a half ago, before the base damage nerf and the vit/toughness change.

But please, not pets, anything but pets.

I know your pain. The core mechanism of the ranger, the pet, is, in the actual state of the game, a huge issue. I don’t think that the concept is bad in itself (In fact I’m perfectly fine with the ranger being the “pet class”), but I do think that the implementation have to many flaw… Well… I won’t bore everybody with my long list of rant about the pet’s UI, skill design, AI… etc. (I can’t refrain myself to still ask the dev to at least give us the possibility to prevent our pet from using some of their utility skill. I hate you quickening screech! I hate youuuuuuuuuuuu!!!!)

On the other hand, the pet is still the core mechanism of the ranger. Something that you can’t get rid off. Actually (due to the dumb design off the pet) most ranger hate their core mechanism or, at best, try to ignore it. This is why I think the pet need help. The ranger and it’s pet need something that will reconcile them. And the obvious way to do that at the moment will pass, without a doubt, by specializations that should make the pet shine. (You won’t reconcile the ranger with it’s core mechanic by doing something that does not improve their relationship)

We could also imagine specializations that seclude themselves from the pet but, let’s admit it, when you look at the base profession, it would be bad design.

Again, we could imagine specialization that introduce a mechanism that somewhat work at the sideline of the pet, without real interaction. But this would just be a buff, like Anet admiting that the pet don’t work as a core mechanism.

I believe that the dev want, with the elite specialization, to give new height to the core mechanisms of each profession. And I highly doubt that they will overlook the ranger’s pet.

NB.: I want so bad a way to prevent these kitten pet to use some of their own utilities skill… Please Anet, pretty please is this this hard to give us this much? We were able to do it in GW1, why not on GW2?

Enrage mechanism are bad design… this will just strengthen the zerk meta. (I’m sure even a dev can understand that)

Hopefully, raid encounter will be designed around securing secondary objectives and not stupidly bashing a boss “as soon as you can”. We know that they can do some great things in this regard (Brill’s lair was a huge success and didn’t needed players to have a dps check).

If the encounters are designed around trash management and boss tanking while ally or players prepare an environemental mean to chunk at the boss HP, then, I believe, Every profession (necromancer included) will have it’s place in Raid. (On second though, enrage could be a periodic state where the boss destroy everything on the area, forcing player to build a new environmental thing to try and kill the boss. Well there are tons of possibilities that exclud brainless DPS and promote all kind of different gameplay. I mean, do you really think that hitting a giant foe with a sword that look like a toothpick for him is a good way to kill it?)

On the other hand, if it’s a DPS check encounter (like what we currently have in dungeon) then the actual meta will stay meta… nothing will change and necro, due to the area where he is lacking, will be pushed out of the roster (Like he already is).

Holland.9351:

I hope they don’t involve the pet this heavily. That would just be disgusting.

Like I said, the idea this guess is not really to my liking. But I dare to say that right now what the ranger need are means that would force them to aknowledge the very existence of their unique mechanism : their pet.

In the end it probably mean that they will have to do things like what I guess. If you look at ranger’s skills you got : Shout (directly affecting), signet (affecting pets), spirits (wide range buff), trap (DD skill) and survival skill (which are very random skills without a solid thematic). In the elite spec utilities Anet tend to take each profession existing stuff and transform it into something that look alike but triggered by an other mechanism. That’s merely what I’ve done with the glyph.

I do think it’s interesting that you would pick Aspect with the grandmaster trait, like how Thief decides how his dodge is changed though grandmaster traits. However, the datamining seemed to suggest that you would be able to switch between aspects.

First of all, I will just say that the same datamining (datamined at the same time than the trait that let us think there will be a switch between different aspect) also said that Berserker would have Sacrificial skills. (And we all know that instead they obtain physi… … hum, sorry… Rage skills)

The mechanism I suggest in this guess suppose that the aspect work like aura/stance with a duration, a cool down and obviously cast time (since they seem to hate instant skill). I am then guessing that the wording (Your attunement swap are faster) mean that the cast time of this mechanism is reduced. I choose this for 5 reasons :
- First I am utterly skeptical that, by any mean possible, they will choose to remove the pet (even for an instant). This would be a huge waste of traits in the base profession traitline.
- Second, a F5 skill would be a pure addition that wouldn’t give any depth to the ranger/druid. Just a new feature with no synergy with existing traits.
- Third, putting aspect on F2 give it huge synergy with existing traits to the point that it would be totally broken (Yeah, I admit). (If you look closely at it, you can see that my guess for the Druid spec would become beyond OP supportwise if these aspect looked like attunment)
- Forth, Herald also have aspect. They are designed as skills that “fit” their own mechanisms but they aren’t mean to be permanent. I think this “pet stance” like mechanism fit the ranger mechanism in the same way Herald’s aspect fit the revenant mechanism. It take advantage of it without being a burden for the whole profession.
- Fifth, I felt it would be funny to give the ranger a trait patern that even the thief don’t like (while they certainly have one hell of a spec with the daredevil)

Now, I’d prefer to be wrong because even if I come up with this, it’s disturbing and it hurt a lot my hopes for an hypothetical rework of the spirit skills.

Disclaimer : these are only guesses And they does not really suit my taste but maybe some would like it. Most of this is based on patern shown in other elite specs and hint leaked on reddit

So the Druid :

The druid specificity come from aspect that work like stance for pets and may be activated by using [F2]. All 4 base pet skills are used automatically by your pet. There are 3 aspect tied to your traitline.

Staff :
The staff is a wise blend of hybrid skills designed to controle the flow of the fight. Expect loads of poison/bleed/cripple and a snare skill. Most likely there will be an “evade” skill as well.

Glyph :
Heal :
Glyph of growth : Cast a glyph on your pet that initially heal you and your pet. For X second, everytime your pet hit a foe he will also heal allie in radius for a small amount.

Utility :
Glyph of thorn : Cast a glyph on the ground, summoning a liana that will immobilize foes in it’s reach. Active skill of the summoned liana : Knockback foes in radius, dealing heavy damage.

Glyph of summer : Cast a glyph on your pet, allowing him to grant might to nearby allies for X seconds each time he hit a foe. Buff duration : X seconds.

Glyph of bark : Cast a glyph on your pet reducing damage taken by 50% for X seconds.

Glyph of winter : Cast a glyph on your pet, allowing him to chill foes that he hit. Buff duration : X seconds.

Elite :
Glyph of unity : Cast a glyph on yourself, merging yourself with the earth for a short duration to protect your allies from all incoming damage in radius.

Traits :
Minor :
Legacy of the druids : give you access to staff and glyphs. Your [F2] allow you now to grant an aspect to your pet.

Strong presence : Grant protection when activating an aspect.

Refreshing presence : allies affected by an aspect periodically gain life.

Adept :
Ursine instinct : Cast brown bear’s Shake it off whenever you’ve got 3 or more condition on you. CD 25s.

Briar child : Staff skill recharge 20% faster.

Quickening winds : you move 25% faster.

Master :
Ursine resilience : whenever you are disabled cast Ursine’s defy pain. ICD kitten .

Canine’s leap : Leap that you perform may additionally knockdown your foe. ICD 40s.

Exhalted inscriptions : Aspect swap are faster. Glyph CD recharge for each target affected by your aspect.

Grandmaster :
Aspect of the bear : For 5s your pet share it’s toughness with allies around him -> grant : 500 toughness. Enemies affected are weakened -> reduce damage from affected ennemies by 10%.

Aspect of the Wolf : For 5s your pet share it’s power with allies around him -> grant : 250 power). Enemies affected are crippled -> reduced ennemies movement speed by 10%.

Aspect of the Eagle : For 5s your pet share it’s precision with allies around him -> grant : 500). Ennemies affected are vulnerable -> Ennemies take 10% more damage.

NB.: Out of the grandmasters traits most of them are placeholder. (Note that it felt right to give to the druid some of the skills used by pet through trait.) On second though, it felt interesting to see that you could create anoter specialization with a very similar partern but centered around other kind of pets.

In all honesty, there is no point in expecting from the druid something that the ranger can’t do.

(worst case scenario would associate a the so called aspect on GM traits “a la Daredevil”. Worst case scenario because it would set up the aspect as something that is time gated and could replace the [F2] ability… the more I think of this the less i like it…)

Most likely there will be :
- 3 trait for self survivability (because that’s very ranger like) → aspect of the bear
- 3 damage oriented traits → aspect of the cat
- and i bet that the last 3 would be on CC ability → aspect of the dog/wolf

As for the utility, they feel pretty easy to guess :
- Heal : Glyph of rejuvenation : grant health and something to you and your pet
- utility :
At least 1-2 glyph that pop out a spirit that will be sold as something really good but will be a spirit skill 2.0… (It will probably move and survive the active skill associated)
At least 1 glyph that command your pet to do something (because that feel like “ranger”)
At least 1 glyph that set out a magical trap (obviously it does not work with trappers rune but, it doesn’t have any activation time… this is replaced by a cast time)

Also I can see them trolling us using glyph to transform our pet into a buffing/debuffing machine… Basically what spirit do but better and centered around the pet. (Not that I don’t think that it would be cool but it would really shatter the few hope I still have for spirit skills)

What? But… the option is already here… Didn’t you knew? It’s called play a war or a thief.

The ranger is the pet profession of the game and will most probably remain as is since the traitline are full of pet traits. Beside, in dungeon ranger are mostly hated for their bad habit to push back foes. Passive mode is your friend.

I recall that for the toxic nightmare tower, I was in a minion master setup…

Sigh That was when the sustain granted by minions was trully OP. I loved it!
And then, just at the end of the tower event they introduced the vampiric signet and nerfed the sustain granted by minion and I dropped the MM build for something else.

Apart of that, I don’t really think that these signs are good news. Vampirism doesn’t work when there is nothing to beat. The most adapted to these harsh condition would obviously be warrior/Ele/guardian/Engi with ranger/herald/necromancer following closely… Suck to be mesmer/thief in this kind of environment.

Belzebu.3912:

Otterbro.1098:

This could work VERY well for the gw2 ranger I believe.
Take away the pet, increase damage (as the first minor in the druid line)
And then give us 2 “aspects” as our new proffesion mechanic, where you slot in your two pets of choise and you can activate their abilities yourself)
You could slot fern hound for extra heal, jaguar for a short stealth, eagle for some bleed.

I think it could work quite well, and would in my opinion fix a lot of the problems rangers have with pets

Explain how the traits/skills that affect the pet would work.
Shared Anguish and Empathic Bond would transfer the cond for yourself?
Fortifying Bond would give you 2x the boons?
All the stat bonuses from Beastmastery would go for the player?
SotP would give might 2x for yourself on attack?
What would “Guard!” do?
Among many other things.

I’m even more interested on how “protect me!” would fare.
“Guard” would obviously stealth you and grant you prot (someone said OP?)
“search and rescue” would force you to go rez someone down
“Sick’em” would make thief ask for nerf.

companion’s might when you critically hit you gain 5s might (no ICD) and apply 6s bleed (no ICD) (Gonna love this spec…)

I love these many other things . On a more serious note, they said and repeat that the pet would stay.

Would’ve like an “I am indifferent” option for lingering curse (because I truly don’t care )
Some of the question are hard to answer because :
- Sometime our relationship with certain of our mechanisms are more a love/hate one than just I dislike or I like.
- The necromancer’s specificities are strong in PvP and not better than garbage in PvE.

Robert Gee.9246:

From a design perspective, Mesmers are more about providing fields and less about activating them. It’s not just blast finishers, Mesmers lack reliable sources of many other finishers too. Necromancers fill a similar role. By contrast you might notice that Warriors have lots of finishers but not many fields.

We don’t always get this balance right

What’s amazing is that the mesmer still have 100 time more/better support tools than the necromancer and he dare say that :

Necromancers fill a similar role.

Well, I still think that the best solution is to make our super unreliable finisher into reliable finisher and give some value to our super unwanted field.
Let’s face it :

- Poison field give poison (something that is really easy to keep up) and weakness (also something that ain’t hard to keep up). A single thief with dagger mainhand can do the job of this field.

- Dark field give poor siphon value (only good for exploiting bugs on things that would be invuln otherwise. And this is the kind of bug that’s corrected right away) and blind (honestly a waste for leap and blast).

Plus, the linked utilities (while effective in PvP situation) have a very little impact on PvE. It’s not like a mob will stop because a well is in front of him. A mob health pool is always bigger than a player’s health pool. (This negate the whole “area denial” argument which is perfect in PvP situation but useless in PvE)

NB.: I don’t say that the Necromancer’s tools are useless. They are great in PvP because PvP is balanced between similar value of health/damage. It’s just that in PvE the necromancer’s tools are in front of value that outclass them.

Papish.5806:

edit: and by 1-2 shot mechanics i mean very quick and often one shot mechanics because if they hit hard enough to two shot us, but only hit that hard every 10sec, we can easily soak the dmg with our ds and build up lf betwee next hit, or let it hit our hp, and enter ds and heal up to full while ds soaks the small attacks in the meantime.

just my 2cents

If DS was this good, you wouldn’t see video of thieve/ele/gardian/warrior soling dungeon but video of necro doing it.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

IMO here is what would be needed for necro to secure a role in most groups (as well as making other classes more useful too)

1. Ele needs to be nerfed. There is just no way around this. They provide the best support, the best damage, and the best survivability in the game (though survivability is a slightly different spec). No one class should be the best at everything. There is simply no reason not to take more eles. Need more healing, take an ele, need more damage, take the same ele, need more support, the extra ele can do that too!

I know that this is something that may feel needed by some people, but asking for a nerf to a class because it appear to be the best at everything is somewhat hard to digest.

Why do elementalist are above other profession? Simply because their combo field are above every other combo field and they can spam them permanently.
Why don’t we talk about making dark field or poison field worth it instead? There is a clear lack of balance between fire field and all other fields. If something have to be done it’s here!

2. Debuffing needs to be buffed significantly or boons nerfed significantly. I doubt they will nerf boons any further, so debuffing needs to be fixed. It seems they are working on a solution to this, but we don’t know what it is. Boss design could play a big role in this. If an enemy attacks the entire party at 2 times a second for low damage then weakness becomes very attractive. If a boss has an attack with a 60 second CD that auto kills 3 people and goes through active defenses then rezzing and chill become important.

I’m a bit puzzled on this. To put it simply imparing movement condition are mainly meant to prevent foe to flee. (which is rarely of use in a boss fight or in PvE)
Weakness is meant to reduce damage, sure but one hit ko mechanism just one hit and in this game mob hit harder the more you are. We already know how hard current mobs hit, I don’t think that in a 10 man raid, mob will just hit less (especially since they said that the content will be harder → mob in harder content hit harder, let’s face it). Just to say it, thieves with their elite spec will have the best defense in PvE content, because dodge beat every single traditional passive defence stat and this should stay as is.
Chill… chill will extend the CD of a skill… But what’s the best? Knowing exactly when this skill will happen or risking to chill the foe inconsistantly and not knowing when the skill will be used? Strategically the chill may become bothersome.

3. Necro damage needs to be brought up in line with other classes. In an organized raid everyone will have 25 stacks and might and the boss will always have 25 vuln. This isn’t something special that should mean necro gets less damage. Necro damage needs to be balanced around this fact, not around these assumed situations where necro is the only one with buffs. Sure we are a good self buffer, this is meaningless to raid balance.

I agree that betting on vulnerability is silly. Simply because every profession and it’s grandma can stack vuln easily. In a 10 man raid, vulnerability won’t be a bother. For might I shall remind you that shared might is capped to 5 allies which mean that you need might providers in each of the 2 parties (thing that may prevent taking a necromancer since he is so bad at sharing things). Otherwise, i’ll say it again and again : Necro damage are, ATM, balanced. By no mean they do need “more” dps, they need more synergy in teamplay.

4. Condition damage needs to be tweaked. The master of conditions is currently the worst condition class. This is mostly because burn is OP and bleed was nerfed. Reduce burn by 20-30% and increase bleed by the same amount. Finish with a scepter rework and necros become much better at conditions. Epidemic is great for multiple enemies, but most boss fights are against a single enemy which renders epidemic completely worthless. Possibly give epidemic an effect if it doesn’t hit any enemies besides the target (refresh condition durations or something).

Here it’s a no. Necro’s bleeds are sustain damage, good in long encounter while burns are burst damage, good for short encounter. The overall damage (even if it’s hard to admit it) is probably already balanced. Actually, I’d say that what necro need in regard of condition damage is a come back of some of it’s extra bleed that have been removed from some skills.

These 4 changes would allow necros, as well as some of the other less desirable classes to be competitive in raids and have a potential spot.

All this show is that you do damage after hunter shot with your sigil procing.
Personnally tried it : Out of 10 try never get revealed.

- I tried without doing anything after hunter shot.
- I tried and move
- I tried and jump
- I tried and dodge
- I tried with pet attacking
- I tried and then use non damaging utilities skill

Never get revealed until doing damage while in stealth. (even the poison from Poison master didn’t reveal me). Just get rid of sigil/rune that proc damage you won’t have this intended effect.

Only thing I know is that I higly doubt that the necromancer will shine by it’s survivability. The necromancer’s defence mechanism is good against small hit not against the kind of hit you encounter in PvE. To put it simply, a single elite mob (thing that commonly appear as soon as you are 10) will wreck your LF bar in 2 hit even if you’re built tanky.

I think, the real worth of the necromancer would only happen if the party had to face encounters in degeneration field (something that would look like a lot the first boss duo in TA aetherpath) since our worth as a support mostly come when you need a kind of sustain.

What’s sad is that the whole reason the necromancer is left behind ATM will probably be the same reason the necromancer will be left behind : The necromancer does not add anything to the party synergy. (In short : unreliable finisher and unwanted combo field)

[April’s fools elite spec Concept] The Termagant.

Weapon : Mace (Pretty sure Anet can skin us a Pastry roll)
Skill #1 : chain attack a la ranger’s sword (we badly need this bad design)
Skill #2 : a throwing skill
Skill #3 : a cloud of flour to blind enemy

Shroud : Termagant shroud
Shroud #1 : Life argument : chant a chain of words hurting your foes
Shroud #2 : “I’m coming with you!” : Teleport to your foe, stealing any movement boon.
Shroud #3 : “I’m going to visit you!” : Immobilize your foe in a state of panic (apply immobilize and fear)
Shroud #4 : Weakening tirade : Shout a non-sensical tirade damaging and weakening foes around you
Shroud #5 :

Utility type : mantra (that was the obvious choice!)
Heal :
Mantra of self-satisfaction → “See, I told you!” : grant life and a percantage of life force

Utilities : (Unique! you can use mantra charges while in Shroud!)
Mantra of pity → “Oh my back, oh…” : Self inflict weakness for 2s, blind and weaken your foe
Mantra of recollection → “When I was young…” : Grant yourself protection and corrupt 2 boons to your foe
Mantra of egoism → “Don’t touch this!” : Damage and stun your foe
Mantra of guilt → “What have I done…” : Drain a condition from nearby allie

Elite :
Mantra of reminiscence → “When you were younger…” : Summon a shadow of the past to damage and torment your foe.

Trait :
Adept :
Minor : Termagant soul : you can use mace and mantra. Also replace death shroud by the Termagant shroud.

To be continued

nekretaal.6485:

Spectral pull doesn’t benefit from the trait and isnt very strong & spectral wall isn’t a skill that should be used outside of World vs World.

So pure spectral builds aren’t a thing.

But there’s nothing wrong with taking Spectral Armor, spectral walk, lich form & Corrupt boon in Pvp (or the same three spectrals and well of suffering in pvE).

Vital persistence isn’t the must that everybody seems to say it is.

^this.

Vital persistence ain’t even half as good as people seem to think. I’ts just a flavor of the month thing.
Personnally, I’m still using a spectral build in WvW, I feel it tankyer and stronger than any well build.

Tragic Positive.9356:

runeblade.7514:

Dadnir.5038:

I don’t think they need buff. It’s bad design, they just need a rework.

They should just make them like “pet’s signet”. Granting pets a way to passively grant an area effect on allie when they hit a foe and allowing us to proc the active that would happen at the pet’s location. Yeah I ask for actual synergy between the ranger and it’s pet. I ask for a design that promote a good management of the ranger’s specific mechanism. I ask for something that should have been done from they start even if it stray from GW1 spirit’s skill.

I disagree.

Current Nature Spirits as a concept works. I am okay with them being immobile. I am okay with them granting boons. I am not okay with them being easy to kill. I am not okay with the 1 second boon. It is simply a numbers issue. Just raise the HP by 1000% and raise the boons uptime to 9 seconds.

This.

Spirits are fine as active bombs.
They are useless as passive steroids. I mean really, I had an effective build just because I used spirits for bombing people up. The same mechanism as a trap. But I had a passive boost for 13 more seconds. Which is – sadly – the only time that you don’t have to worry about your spirits.

So basically you say that changing the current mechanism that allow you to bomb with spirit into a mechanism that would allow you to bomb with your pet would make to much of a difference?

The Idea in itself is fun, however it lack the spirit of the necromancer and does not fit the patern on how elite specialization are made.

- The numbers are overkill. Things like “blood” and “agony” are totally overboard… At a second glance… The 10 skills in chant form would destroy anything.

- Absolutely no synergy with base profession traits.
1# shroud skill need to synergize with the numerous trait that affect it.
2# shroud skill need to synergize with the trait path of corruption which mean that it need at least a CD.
4# shroud skill need to synergize with transfusion, this should be a channeled skill at least.
I’ve seen that you attached these traits randomly to skills on 5-0 but, it’s not the way elite spec work from what we could see.

- Little to no respect of the “necromancer’s thematic”. Boon corruption/reaping, condi drain, focus on weakness/prot for defense, the masochistic mentallity… you simply lose them all and focus way to much on torment/burn.

- No diversity. The voodoo chanter is a glass condi and… that’s all… Way to much focus on condition.

- Totems does not provide the support a “necromancer” can provide. Torch #4 is overpowered. Beside, they feel out of place.

… etc.

Simply put, you are straying to much of the traditional necromancer and focusing to much on condition. However, I still think that the Idea is good, just the form is bad.

Here is how I’d change it :

Weapon : shield (or MH javelin Everybody would want a new weapon type IG)
Utilities : Mantra (It’s basically your chanting state skill 1-5)
Shroud : Chanter’s shroud
- Shroud #1: Lance
- Shroud #2: Petrifying words : Root your foe and grant you swiftness.
- Shroud #3: Terrific argument : mumble with a terrific voice fearing foes around you
- Shroud #4: Verse of consumption : Chant a verse that consume foes around you
- Shroud #5: Barbed enchantment : Enchant allies giving them a life stealing enchantement for a few second.

I don’t think they need buff. It’s bad design, they just need a rework.

They should just make them like “pet’s signet”. Granting pets a way to passively grant an area effect on allie when they hit a foe and allowing us to proc the active that would happen at the pet’s location. Yeah I ask for actual synergy between the ranger and it’s pet. I ask for a design that promote a good management of the ranger’s specific mechanism. I ask for something that should have been done from they start even if it stray from GW1 spirit’s skill.