So I just did some testing on this and if pig F2 would be somewhat easier to use/reliable then this combo could be insane. The skull it spawns functions like warrior fear me with a short animation time (fear me has none) but the maximum fear duration is actually 4 seconds and it DOES stack with moment of clarity. You can actually hit a 6 seconds fear with that and remember that this is AoE and will propably fear 1-2 other targets as well.
This should be debunkering deluxe but yes … as I said right now pig F2 skills are just kittened to use. I hope arenanet changes something about that.
It also works for the bone (melee 2 -> 3 seconds stun) and Rock (Daze, I believe also 2 seconds base). The interaction is actually quite decent if it would be usable.
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I agree that the cooldown in comparison to damage and available counters is way too low for ths combo.
Those are such easy kills and unlike other classes don’t take long.
And exactly that is bad design. If you run a power build you get punished twice. The power scaling is worse than your autoattack (unless hitting all 5) and the condition part doesn’t do a lot either because you aren’t specced for conditions.
This is in general a huge design flaw of this game where you have to invest into specific stats. They think a skill that deals condition damage shouldn’t have good power scaling and vice versa. This is wrong and limits builds. Already having to decide which stats you want to get makes this unneccesary.
Right now these are designed that hitting all projectiles will result in about the same damage like hitting one autoattack. Why? They have a cooldown and getting up close should be somewhat rewarding. Exspecially in power builds using these skills feels very weak.
While level 1s or 5s indeed ruin the game ranks in generally don’t mean anything. I had games where our team on rank 20ish average was beating the 45ish enemy team 500:300.
i was wondering this as well. i can not think of any reason why 2 hander weapons only have 1 sigil. is there something i don’t know? Do all 2 handed weapons completely out class 1 handers? or is there some kind of hidden advantage of using a 2 hander?
if not then it seems like a very large over sight. 4 sigils when using 4 1-hander weapons compared to only 2 sigils when using 2 2-hander weapons can be a very large difference in a build.
5% dmg or 5% crit cannot cause a very large difference in a build…
All sigil internal CDs overlap, so it is pointless to have two sigils that have internal CDs (all the worthwhile ones) leaving only small ‘passives on the side’ to choose from, for the other slot…
It’s all in the wiki…
Excuse me but how do 2* +5% damage not cause a huge difference? Whenever you get a target on 10% hp it pretty much means you would have downed it.
Why run this when a BM ranger is just as effective yet way more survivabilty ?
BM rangers don’t have aoe. BM rangers don’t burst unless you’re willing to call an AI tied, pathing attack that takes a couple of seconds to deliver half a shatter’s damage “burst”.
Exactly. Also atleast 2 or 3 times every match we get the decap due to a well timed point blank shot (I have to admit though that you have to watch their buffbar and movement like crazy and need some experience to actually make it connect especially vs guardians). The builds are very much different and instead of asking why to run this instead of a BM it would be more appropriate if this could successfully take the spot of a backcapping thief or something like that.
The “getting focussed” argument might be legit. Right now it is still not happening at all but if a premade team on TS gives the shoutout “someone kill the dps ranger” I usually have to do the following:
- try to land my Pointblank Shot on them
- when they reached/startet hitting me pop my SoS
- during those 6 seconds they either decide to do something else or I see that they really want me
- I soon switch to GS and use GS4 when SoS effect ends, try to hilt bash them, do some autoattack chains to randomly evade their stuff, burn my endurance
- at some point I will just Swoop away and make them waste time
Right now this makes them waste atleast 20 seconds and at a 70% rate the person that decided to go for me actually gives up. Even if I die I am back to the action very fast due to Swoop/SotH. I am going to see how much longer it works.
Overall I would say if you are the kind of guy that would play a warrior at this level you might as well play this ranger. It is not top tier but you can do fine with it for a long time.
EDIT:
Another important aspect for this build is map layout. Currently playing on Forest I do the same start every match. Guardian + x goes mid and I go the longway to be able to attack from this edge above on keep and support they guys actually fighting on the point. If I see 2+ enemies on the point I decide to do a fully boosted Barrage into Rapid Fire (pop signet of the wild which also helps against getting pulled down and I currently even experiment with red moa for the 15 sec fury). This is extreme pressure on the point and together with laying down my Spirit of Nature makes this initial fight a win most of the time. If someone goes for me I can actually knock dem down with Point Blank shot. So using layout is another way of becoming “hard to focuss” while doing top DPS and this works on many maps. On some more, on some less.
Played like this you become a grenade kit engi that can be faster at locations where you want him and instead of getting countered by thieves hardcounters them.
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SoS is a 64 sec cd with trait. You’ll be getting nuked much more often than that. You have no teleports like thief or ele or mesmer, or stealth to drop targets from focus fire. While your SoS is on cd you have 180 less toughness on a glass cannon spec.
All your burst cooldowns are still upwards of 45+ seconds, and when your signets are not up you are doing crappy burst/damage compared to other builds. You sacrifice tons of survivability in order to only benefit half of the damage equation, since your pet is the other half of your damage and does not benefit from that gear change that just cost you a lot of survival.
A counterattack every 15 seconds isn’t going to save you from group focus fire while signet of stone is on cd.
You don’t get focussed all that often to be honest because you operate on range. And the tools you have are usually enough to disengage in a way that they waste a ot of time if they want you down.
Burst cooldown on 45 seconds? What do you mean with that? While boosting your damage to the maximum by activating everything is fun this isn’t necessary at all. Your weapon skills hit like a truck by themself on low cooldowns.
Again all my knowledge comes from actually playing this build over 100+ matches now and it works surprisingly well.
Maybe using sword + dagger instead of GS would help increase your survivability? The 2,3 and 4 skills offer extra evades. If you time those well with dodges, you can stay up against focus fire much better.
The survivability is about the same with the evades. The way you play the build GS somehow works better for most situations, it is hard to explain. For example when you barrage a point from offpoint if you start taking too much damage the biggest part of it will still be ranged and the blocking works well. And while you have to be careful of when to actually go into melee hiltbash, maul and the GS autoattack chain outdps sword+x. Especially with Moment of Clarity.
The biggest problem I see people having with this build is that in their mind they directly compare it to bm/trappers and how it would perform in the same situations. The thing is that it plays completly different and is closer to thieves or warrior. You shouldn’t even come into these situations. When you dps a point you are actually most comparable to a direct DPS version of a grenade engi.
Again I would especially be interested if someone actually tested it in turney matches. This isn’t so much about discussin the theory behind it.
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So I think it is at the edge to being really viable. I am playing it at ~ rank 650 right now exclusively solo queuing. This is not high but I have the feeling with a coordinated team the build just becomes better. I run a LB/GS spec with 30-30-5-0-5.
Pros:
- huge DPS that can be applied in AoE at a rather safe distance (Barrage hits for up to 10k in a huge circle)
- thief hunting (Rapid Fire can nuke them hard and there is little they can do about it) while being relatively safe to their burst with traited SoS
- relatively high survivability for a berserker build (signet passives, invulnerability on decent cooldown) which makes you decent in 1on1s (very dependent on the matchup though)
- ability to debunker points in biggerfights and with knockbacks/ccs that other ranger builds lack
- very mobile (Swoop, Signet of the Hunt)
Cons:
- no good condition removal due to lack of Empathic Bond, having disengage when facing condition specs and fight on max range at best
- while stability with Signet of the Wild you cannot rezz or stomp with it
- loses 1on1s versus strong 1on1 classes (exspecially conditions)
- dependent on actual bunkers that put their body on the point so you can barrage the kitten out of enemies that try to get them down there
Another point is that I have the feeling right now people dont expect the build when they see a Ranger which gives kind of an advantage. Once it would be more known it could be easier to outplay (waiting for SoS pop, etc)
So did anyone run something like that in 5on5 turneys? I lack a real team and propably that wont change in the future either so I would like to know if anyone else has experimented with that.
If engineers are not reapplying conditions more often than every 48-60 seconds, you face terrible engineers.
Ranger condi removal doesn’t hold a candle to thief, ele, or guardian condi removal.
Thief removal is pretty abysmal dude, they have their heal, and that’s about the end of the list, don’t forget that we have healing spring which removes a condi every 3s for 15s, and the trait that removes 3 condis every 10s, and then we have TONS of regen to counteract them as well.
As for ele and guardian, they’re kinda supposed to be good at it, so idk why you think we should be on par with them, i’d say you’d better off be saying Necro, Ele, or Guardian, not thief, they’re pretty horrendous at removing them, i should know, i play a condi mes and engi it’s funny watching them squirm.
Thieves remove conditions with their heal and every time they enter stealth and every 3 seconds they remain in stealth. For every BP-HS combo they do they wipe off conditions. Shadowstep removes 3 conditions alongside being a double stun break.
Shadow step also has a 50s CD, and what causes them to lose a condi every time they enter stealth? I know about the 3s in stealth one.
That being said they’re still not -that- great at condi removal, they certainly can’t keep up with any of my condi profs and end up with a flag through their chest.
shrugs Rangers just seem like they’re much better at going against condis then thieves, especially seeing as how we don’t have the lowest possible health in the game, and as i said we actually have tons of health regen that mitigates a lot of what the condis can do.
Yes we are better but the single reason is that there is Empathic Bond which (and that is the point) pidgeon holes ranger into BM and Traps.
Would it be too OP if Natural Healing were to replace Zephyr’s speed?
Yes.
The AoE is nice but hard to make use of it. If you need a fast condition removal 60 seconds is kitten and so is the fact that you have to pet swap or it will do nothing because the pet is so far away. If your pet swap is on cd and your pet somewhere else you are – once again – kittened.
Some classes have a heal that removes 8 conditions (ele, but hey it is not that they even need it). Believe me when I say that ranger without Empathic bond is just lost versus conditions and best thing you can do is avoid fighting condition specs.
should be:
30% of burst damage ignore’s armor+protection+damage reduction.
God that would be kittened as well. Maybe just 30% chance that attacks are unblockable?
Um… we had 3 guys who apparently played warriors speaking for us, but no mention of brawn?
lol 1% ->0.1% with like 2 actual dmg burst skills? Dat scrub balancing. Poor warriors.
And because someone said engi toolbelt cd decrease was worse. Not at all, it is pretty kitten good and might only appear weak because there aren’t that many good toolbelt skills right now (for example because the turret ones are silly and gadgets suck).
I honestly would try to get more guests that actually have put a bit of thought into one specific class. I like Phanta and Zoose and they are great eles but yeah … ele hasn’t that many problems to begin with (so why 2 main eles in one show?). They propably would have to focuss a whole show on one class anyway to somewhat cover all flaws. Would like to see something like that though but OF COURSE arenanet doesn’t have the time for that. I actually feel sorry for Jon Sharp and everyone working on spvp.
#esport priority
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I dislike this whole bunker game mode. Go tanky get cond damage, stay on node forever. It’s also unfun to watch.
Actually that is much more a question of the mapdesign than the gamemode itself, especially with all the secondary offpoint objectives. It is neccessary to have a basic primary objective and most of the time it is best to keep it somehwat stationary to prevent endless kiting/dragging time which would be very easy in this game with stuff like stealth/huge leaps.
I think on temple of the silent storm for example, roaming becomes very important. Just having guardians sit on points won’t do all that much. Also they introduce more and more mechanics that can pressure people off points.
A lot of the people that compalin about the control point model played some hotjoins, tried to kill a bunker and failed and soon stopped to do sPvP. That is sad but the reason here is rather a wrong impression. The secondary objectives alone are powerful enough to change the flow of the map. They are basically different gamemodes by themselves and they already said they want to focuss on them even more. For example the new map has a huge cannon again and collapsing terrain. I can imagine having a relatively immobile guardian that can do nothing but not die might suck there.
May I ask how you deal with conditions with that?
As I said I also don’t have the luxury of Empathic Bond and I run Healing Spring and just avoid condition heavy skirmishes the best I can. Signet of Renewal is just so bad. One condition every 10 seconds means a certain death if they apply a big stack of burning or confusion and it doesn’t even get removed by the RNG. The active is on a horribly high cooldown and when your pet isn’t in range all it does is even turn off the crappy every 10 second removal. If it actually is in range you kitten your pet damage and might even kill it. This skill is so bad compared to condi removal of other classes but yet we have to use it because we lack alternative options.
I would take a breaks stun and removes 3 conditions on 35 second cd over that at any time.
Well just changing the amulet (and some minor stuff) still means it is BM so those are only two builds imo. I am saying this way too often but imo we don’t have any decent condition removal beside Empathic Bond which forces every ranger into 30 Wilderness survival and already directs your stats towards armor and condition damage. So the logical step is letting your pet deal damage (30 into BM) or going for traps (30 skirmishing).
That is really all the “depth” we have currently when talking about build variety. I actually run a direct dmg longbow/GS ranger but I kind of feel like a warrior currently. Almost but just not there (and one reason is lack of decent condition removal).
And what really hurts me is that they nerf the class but don’t do anything about the underplayed stuff. Especially when telling people that pets deal too much damage it makes me mad how they seem to have forgotten about completly unused pets like pigs or moas due to horrible f2 handling (pigs) or ridiculous numbers on them (4sec protection on 40 seconds cooldown on blue Moa). Yes pets are propably a more complex topic and not that easy to “fix” in many aspects but they don’t even care about the obvious stuff. Low priorities are low!
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The ranger wasn’t commented on because SOTG is a PVP related venue, and right now outside of a Longbow power build or traps being really viable there are rangers on just about every team, and the BM ranger is incredibly powerful. It’s a bit crazy that you can send the drake to the center point and still be able to back cap, because the drake is kind of like a player all by himself.
Because of the issues that Necromancers and Warriors currently face in the tournaments, and it was very evident in the last tournament that when those two classes are focused they go down regardless of spec. This isn’t true of the ranger, and so they spent an extended time on the two classes that are poorly represented and really weak in the current state of tournament play.
While you have two viable builds, the Warrior and Necro have zero, Guardians have 2, Mesmers have 1 maybe 2, Elementalist have 2, and in fact I think everyone has 2 except the two classes they spent the most time talking about.
So you are currently in the same state as every other profession in terms of pvp and tournament play.
Which 2 do you mean? BM and Traps?
Snakes. Not sure how hard they would be to animate but they could be like cobras and spit poison (ranged/semi ranged pet).
Dolphins and Sea Turtles for ne underwater pets (already in the game).
White Tiger and Tropical Bird can be added easy to current felines/birds because already in the game as well.
Monkeys that throw bananas. F2 makes them drop a banana trap that makes people slip. :0
It will come down globally, or how do you propose pet damage be cut down only for BM bunkers but not for the rest?
They could actually change the BM bonus (currently +10 pet stats per point). I doubt it though. In general I would be fine with such a change. But I hate how they do this nerf but do nothing about the crappy pets nobody ever uses. Moas and pigs for example. Moas should add more vulnerability stacks and the heal should be more predictable to use for the player. Pig F2 is just horribly designed. It is not only random but also very awkward to use. Cast, hope it succeeds, pick up, cast. I mean wtf Arenanet … just add the random weapon to the player instantly or rework it completly.
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Yeah right.
Pigs, Bears, Moas, Devourers, Spiders and Canines all did waaaay to much dmg.
i have a crazy idea that idk if is a good one:
make elites not suck
sorry if i am a bit unconventional
thanks,
milo
With the development of the last 9 months I wonder what is more likely to solve the problem. Anyway even if they didn’t suck I would love having more options.
Would it be healthy for the game to have the elite slot optional so that you can chose to run 3 utilities + 1 elite or just 4 utilities? This is currently discussed on a reddit thread but I really would like to see this discussion here as well and how it would influence sPvP. Yes it would requite a lot of rebalancing but imo they are at a good spot where they could do such a change.
Pros:
- solves the problem of having to equip a stunbreaker and condi removal always and limiting your actual build options with that
- solves the problem of very varying efficiency of elites between classes with some having only one viable one or less
- more build variety and interaction with traits and bringing back some gw1 flavor
- just an option, you can still go for your old/current playstyle with 3 + 1
Cons:
- requires rebalancing because it opens up many new builds (which is propably anything but bad though)
- higher skillcap because you have to handle 4 low cooldown buttons instead of 3 (again you can just go for the elite in that case)
What is your opinion?
Well there also is Healing spring but that’s about it. Signet of Reneval removes 1 condi every 10 sec. The GM trait in 30 WS removes 3. Seriously? This is pretty much the reason why BM is the only truely viable spec right now. Needs a change.
They either have to add condition removal traits in some of the other lines or they have to add this aspect to more utility skills.
Suggestion 1: Your next five attacks are homing (if ranged), unblockable and cause bleeding. Your are also immune to blindness for this duration.
Suggestion 2: Your next five attack transfer a condition from you to your target. They also cause bleeding.
Which one do you like more? I think this would add some much needed utility to that skill. Imagine longbow maxrange shots that actually connect. A condition cleanse outside of 30 wilderness suvrival (aka BM specs) would also be nice.
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Most pet attacks seem to be double strikes. How did you consider this in your coefficients? Did you just combine both in that case?
Well I think for GW2 it makes sense to use stability to differ between both forms. Only daze would be an exception being prevented by stability but since it doesn’t affect movement at all I would consider it soft indeed.
In league of legends and other mobas immobilize is considered soft cc but so is silence which is equivalent to daze.
Nice podcast. Some cool info there.
Knockdown is hard cc. Soft cc refers to slows like chill and cripple and I would even say immobilize is soft because it doesn’t interrupt skills. Basically hard = interrupts, prevented by stability.
Oh and this was about the F2 because you cant really control the other skills. I thought that was obvious.
I also hate how offhand disappears when you throw your mainhand axe. This also was reported months ago. Nobody can tell me they are adressing enough people on sPvP with bugs like that.
Edit: I actually seems to be the same issue. The game wants to improve the throw axe animation by removing the axe from the hand for a certain amount of time but due to bad programming/whatever ot also removes the offhand weapon (that isn’t being thrown at all) and the backpiece.
I mean right now we have Moa that can daze but this feels really weak. Wolf is like the only real hard cc pet and on top of that AoE.
Sugestion:
White Tiger (alternatively Alpine Stalker)
- feline
- Overwhelming Pounce: 1 second Knockdown (alternatively Stun)
With 30 MM Signet of the Beastmaster I use them all the time. Even Signet of the Hunt can make a well placed Maul hit like a truck (activate right before it connects to decrease the chance that it will be wasted on a dodge).
Would still not use most of the for my pet only beside propably Signet of Stone andSignet of the Wild. I feel like Signet of the Hunt is pretty terrible on pets because most use split attacks that apply 2*x damage and only the first part will get the bonus. Also as some threads showed your pet not having swiftness for the next 20 seconds means a much higher disavantage usually in terms of DPS.
The thing really is that it won’t stack with any other sources of movementspeed so it will be close to wasted in the following situations:
- ranger runs Signet of the Hunt (this is already about 60% of all current builds I see)
- ranger has other sources of swiftness for the pet (longbow 3, warhorn, rampage as one)
- ranger is running in parties where swiftness has nearly 100% uptime anyways
- ranger runs a cc heavy buidl himself that pins down the enemy for the pet
- bird pets have inbuilt swiftness
So no I won’t use it. There might be a few builds/situations that really avoid swiftness totally somehow and there I might get it.
You only use longbow for Rapidfire and the knockback on mid/close range and you only autoattack if you want to stay on range for some other reason. Usually you really shouldn’t autoattack with it, rather cast Barrage and find the right time to reengage with GS.
Rapidfire Burst can be really deadly though if they burned their dodges. Or just if they are forced to get into your melee range it pretty much means that they either arrive with 0 endurance/blocks or with only 40-60% hp left dependent on their gear.
Just to warn everybody. This build is still not quite there. On higher level play beastmaster builds are more flexible and overall still stronger especially in 1on1 situations against non glass cannons. However it can do some things BMs cannot do and it it just so much fun to play. The learning curve is very high though.
http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-Fg-o-BF0FFu-e2gDV-0;9F9E;1TT4-430A39B;7U-V0-NV0sV2DsV2D5Bb [paste in browser, this forum has very user unfriendly url functions and cencoring]
Features:
- if you learn the Hilt Bash interrupt into Maul combo you will be able to pull it off frequently critting for up to 8k on squishies and solid 4k on tanks
- sometimes using the active of Signet of the Hunt for a Power Maul is useful as well
- your other Burst is pet swap Rapid Fire which hits for about the same over 3-5 seconds, you will kill thiefs with it very often because they cannot avoid it with stealth
- open the Rapid Fire combo with a Point blank shot knockback so they cannot dodge/avoid atleast the initial shots
- 6 seconds of invulnerability every 64 seconds is decent to avoid bursts, together with GS chain evades and constant interrupts/knockbacks makes you very annoying to focuss
- if you still get low hp disengage with Swoop and GS block and switch to Longbow attacking until it makes sense to go melee again
- Divinity Runes and the passive effect of Signet of Stone make you more tanky than the usual Berserker builds exspecially with Troll Unguent
- permanent movementspeed buff and basic condition removal/stunbreak with signet of reneval because we lack 30 points wilderness survival
- wolf howl AND point blank shot are very good decapping tools and also help when fighting at other highpoints like the trebuchet position or spirit watch
- don’t underestimate the power of a berserker Barrage in bigger teamfights on control points, adds easy up to 20k dmg
Try it!
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Great. If I could change 2 things it would be slightly faster cast time of 5 and 4 throw. You have to hit those Mauls to deal damage. The leap and blocks are great. Real all in one weapon imo.
A slight nerf to sustain in general will help. More and more classes run clerics/shaman because you can usually drag the fight for a very long time.
Another option would be buffing burst or cc. Right now it is so easy to avoid big dmg or cc. I hope if they do something to BM ranger it won’t hurt berserker ranger because this one is just starting to maybe become viable with the recent signet (of stone) cooldown buff.
Structured Player vs Player is still not a priority for them at all. They just dont have many people work on it. If they put a full development team (like for the living story content) it would help the game so much more but no.
What we could have:
- 5 new utility skills for all classes or more released with the patches for both pve and pvp
- current point of balancing 4 months earlier
- 200% increase in number of viable builds (like direct dmg LB ranger, flamethrower engi, mace warrior)
- fixed core mechanics like pets or conditions in pve
- all sigils and runes actually working
- no useless skills
- more than 1 useful elite for every class
- better UI and other improvement like enemy skill channel bars to bring back the interrupt awesomeness of gw1
- multiple gamemodes like 1on1/2on2 arena
The only thing they didn’t disappoint me is new maps. Seems they have a guy doing these for some reason.
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Quality vid.
Really decent skill level.
Well i’m sure that will get nerfed soon Rangers aren’t allowed to do well in WvW..
Cry more.
Great vid. Enemies could have counterplayed with a few good dodges hard though.
Yes I am really torn between Marksmanship, Skirmishing, Wilderness Survival and Beastmastery now.
Marksmanship offers a great DPS increase with guaranteed crits and the signet build.
Skirmishing combines 2 offensive direct dmg stats in one line and has great minor traits. I still like moment of clarity even if it is not that strong for a grandmaster trait. Wish it would proc on pet interrupts aswell, it actually should.
Wilderness Survival still offers the most sustain and valid condition removal.
Beastmastery increases pet damage by 30% and makes them very tanky.
It is fun that the first 10 people here say it wouldn’t be possible. If you actually played the class to some extend you would know this. Instead the forum is full of people that claim that ranger is the weakest class and no builds are viable anywhere whatsoever. We have the best access to single attack/short duration % dmg buffs so with full glasscannon this is easy to do. I wouldn’t recommend going full glasscannon though.
If you want my honest opinion … it is good that a racial skill that put one race at a very big advantage for a condi build got nerfed.
.Ranger signet effects are far stronger compared to other classes because they were designed to do what they do for the pet.
No, they were designed to work for both when traited; it’s not like the developers intended the ability to only work on pets then the players created the signet of the beastmaster trait!
No but when they finished implementing the signet of the beastmaster they saw how much they kittened it up and were like “welp lets just double the cooldown on ranger signets”. I still remember bw1 and believe me. It went down exactly like that.
The difference here, again, is to trait Endure Pain you use Sure Footed. Sure Footed is a trash of a trait. It’s pathetic and I’d never bother with it for an extra second from EP or 2 sec from Balanced Stance. I never really used Frenzy or Berserker’s stance…
On the other hand, Signet of the Beastmaster is a good trait. You actually want it, possibly even need it for some builds as it can make a huge difference. Yeah, EP is a stun breaker, which is its only saving grace. You can still use Signet of Stone while stunned since it’s instant, so for the differences, Endure Pain is still pretty much inferior in every way (lol if you get CC’ed while in EP, what then? :P).
As someone already said, sure footed is far better than signet of the beast master, which is an awful trait in that you need it for signets to do what they do for every other class, and you have to invest 30 points to get it!!
And yes you can use signet of stone when stunned but that only negates their damage, with endure pain you can break the stun and actually attack them whilst they attempt to burst you – much more useful.
That is a very shallow approach. Ranger signet effects are far stronger compared to other classes because they were designed to do what they do for the pet. Signet of the Beasmaster now makes them so much stornger because it transfer this for a signet overly powerful effect to the ranger as well. Yes, you have to go all they way for it but atleast currently this isn’t a hard decision because most ranger utilties require you to go all the way (it is the same for traps). For a direct damage build there aren’t many other option anyway.
The difference here, again, is to trait Endure Pain you use Sure Footed. Sure Footed is a trash of a trait. It’s pathetic and I’d never bother with it for an extra second from EP or 2 sec from Balanced Stance. I never really used Frenzy or Berserker’s stance…
On the other hand, Signet of the Beastmaster is a good trait. You actually want it, possibly even need it for some builds as it can make a huge difference. Yeah, EP is a stun breaker, which is its only saving grace. You can still use Signet of Stone while stunned since it’s instant, so for the differences, Endure Pain is still pretty much inferior in every way (lol if you get CC’ed while in EP, what then? :P).
As someone already said, sure footed is far better than signet of the beast master, which is an awful trait in that you need it for signets to do what they do for every other class, and you have to invest 30 points to get it!!
And yes you can use signet of stone when stunned but that only negates their damage, with endure pain you can break the stun and actually attack them whilst they attempt to burst you – much more useful.
That is a very shallow approach. Ranger signet effects are far stronger compared to other classes because they were designed to do what they do for the pet. Signet of the Beasmaster now makes them so much stornger because it transfer this for a signet overly powerful effect to the ranger as well. Yes, you have to go all they way for it but atleast currently this isn’t a hard decision because most ranger utilties require you to go all the way (it is the same for traps).
What I fear is that they nerf it just because the Grandmaster trait is what it makes it insane. Would be totally the wrong move again. They need to tune down the gandmaster tait if they decide it is too strong because untraited it isn’t.
Maybe the grandmaster should increase the cooldown when getting it. I would also be fine with Endure Pain buffs though because warrior lacks sustain.
They were decent with the grandmaster trait already. Now they are decent without it and totally nuts with it.
- 8 seconds of +25% dmg and stability every 48 seconds
- prestacking signet of the hunts attack of opportunity makes your first attack hit for another +50% dmg and those will always crit
- this all applies to the pet aswell
I know what I will be running now in WvW. The imrovements I see from this patch is that signets and some wilderness survival are now viable utilities instead. Traps when traited. Spirits still bad. Shouts still awkward.