Guild Wars 2

mistsim.2748:

the change is overall better for the profession. .

An uncontrolled smoke field is not better than a controlled one.

As long as Anet won’t let us control more than one skill, utility skills like this should NOT be one of the skills that pets do automatically on a rotation. Especially not when its a combo field.

Seriously, who thought this swap was a good idea?

Why the kitten would I want a smokefield randomly put down on the ground, possibly interfering with other combo fields, instead of having an on demand smokefield from my F2?

Switch it back, and STOP making skills like this something we can’t control on our own.

kitten it.

Yawn………..

Justine.6351:

Well if your bear isn’t tanking properly that’s something anet should look at. One time I got focused and my devourer lived longer than me! Then my devourer turns and looks at me and says “effing rallybot…”.

The bear would tank you, by the looks of it.

Justine.6351:

You can do everything right and still lose.

That’s not the point, the point is that the ranger is arguably the weakest proffesion in scenarios like that, with no instant stability, few stunbreaks/unreliable stunbreaks, some times with long cooldowns, no ports, little stealth (prior to HoT), awful defensive passive traits (or lack of, rather, which I’m all for except that most other profession got a decent amount).

The evades alone doesn’t cut it, and then it becomes a question about fair balacing.

Justine.6351:

TWO people should be able to lockdown one player reguardless of stability. If they have enough cc ofcoarse. Certainly if you were not fighting back somewhat. If you let them free cast into you then lols, toast.

I suggest you instead ask about the given scenario, instead of assuming something as kittening stupid as “did you let them free cast, lols”.

No, it was a chase. I had covered distance from a fight I couldn’t win. Got stunlocked from ranged through stacks of stability after already dodging a couple of CC prior to it.

The point of the scenario wasn’t that I shouldn’t be able to be stunlocked by two players (of course you should), the point was that stunlocking a ranger that does everything right, even from range, in a given scenario is way easier than certain other professions.

That’s not a solution, it’s not even band-aid. It’s a band-aid trait that competes with taunt and quickness+might.

Winter’s Bite aoe baseline. Don’t know why they stuffed this into the trait in the first place, why not add this as a nice little buff to the actual weapon? And while we’re talking about adding stuff to traits, let’s not do the same mistake twice by adding Whirling Defense movement to a trait aswell. Make it baseline, it’s an underused weapon.

The trait itself should give +150 precision for each axe equipped and reduce recharge. Maybe increased attack speed aswell to make it a worthy grandmaster trait. It’s an obvious solution to an incredibly poor trait. Hmm, Anet?

I had two people chasing me on Foefire a couple of days ago, and not only did they break through the stability from SotP, they stunlocked me before the new stacks were readded.

Getting stunlocked with your both long stunbreaks on a long cooldown and with no instant stability is a death sentence as a ranger. The amount of evades doesn’t cut it, especially with skills like sword 2 having an annoying delay to it.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Since Confusion came out, I have always liked the idea of it on LR. Like, someone you immobilized and stunned is right there in front of you, you are about to burst them and they just disappear with a crack of lightning?! confused I also like the idea of it being super damaging if you are not paying attention, but also totally counterable by doing nothing for 2s. You could have 10 or even 15 stacks for 2s and at 2000+ condi damage only be a couple thousand damage. But, at the right moment it could be amazing.

I see your point, and not that I would mind confusion, but I will always favor anything that improves the ranger’s CC abilities and interrupts without tying it to pets. It’s the aspect of the ranger I miss the most from GW1.

As for its synergy with Ancient Seeds, the stun wouldn’t necessarily need to have that long of a duration. Just enough for you to fire of a projectile after the evade. Unless you put down a bonfire before using it

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Solandri.9640:

Lightning Reflexes is still bugged, right? It becomes disabled when you’re knocked back or stunned, defeating the purpose of it being a stun breaker.

If it were me, I would replace it with Confusion, something devastating if they are not observant, but counterable by paying attention, like 10+ stacks for 2s. Would be a nice addition to condi builds then too. Makes sense to me thematically also.

The skill description says “crack of lightning”, if there is anything thematically fitting to this skill, it would be a small aoe stun replacing the damage from it.

Synergy with both MoC and Ancient Seeds, in other words both condi and power builds.

If both these stances were introduced to the game at the same time, I’d bet more people would hate the “hammer” staff stance for their druid.

There are arguments for both stances, but I personally hate the melee stance. It might be the most awkward stance in the entire game. At least the stance makes some sense when you’re holding a hammer, but no one holds a staff like that for a longer period of time. No one. If they wanted a more wild look to it, it would be a better with an enitre new, third stance for the druid that they could also use for less “scholary” professions later.

Puck.9612:

Lazze.9870:

Bountiful Hunter would just be flat out better in this build.

depends on how selfish you want to be. Allies aid with quickness is pretty amazing.

Flat out better than Instinctive Reaction, which is what OP’s build is using. He gains nothing from that trait except three seconds of random quickness here and there, compared to a permanent 2-5 % damage boost.

Allies’ Aid is the obvious support option.

Bountiful Hunter would just be flat out better in this build.

The one to Rule.2593:

Are you seriously complaining? Guardians are getting shafted and rangers are getting the druid as an elite spec meaning they will be wanted in the new meta without a doubt

Do you even understand that this is a core ranger issue, and that this has nothing to do with the druid at all? That comparing the two elite specs is completely irrelevant? That this is a discussion about traps as streamlined utiliy skills among three professions? That the complaints exist because the DH traps are getting something that ranger/thief traps have been missing for three years?

No, you clearly don’t.

Ghotistyx.6942:

That point of view makes sense for someone who isn’t involved with software development

Save the bs.

The additional stuff they added to DH traps are a result of the beta weekends, not the three years of feedback prior to HoT.

Puck.9612:

Archon.6480:

Cristobal.8640:

LOL at rangers not having cleanse options on traps. Do you people not know what Healing Spring does?

Yes, it gets you killed.

I remember healing spring, that was the one where I could immediately put a water field directly under me while moving and use swoop to proc a leap finisher….. whatever happened to that?

Healing Spring was better as a heal for trappers before it was a trap.

It’s almost funny.

Ghotistyx.6942:

Skills like traps and Spirit Weapons weren’t considered good skills though. Other skills like Wells were considered good, but you can’t just copy and paste. So why not take what you’ve learned, make something new, and then apply that knowledge to what you made before? It’s the process of constant development. Nothing stays static, and you’re always improving. Development takes time, so sure, it’ll seem like it’s slow, but nothing is ever “done”.

This isn’t something they have been taking knowledge of over the past years, it’s done simply because they want the dragonhunter to look shiny and good after 3 beta weekends of complaining. It’s one of many selling points of the expansion, ranger and thief traps ain’t.

If they had learned anything from the past three years of ranger and thief feedback, the dragonhunter traps wouldn’t have to go through betas to get the additional stuff they have now – they would have simply implemented these things from the get-go.

Rangers (and thieves) may very well get updated traps after this, but the fact that they can’t just LISTEN to the players for once and implement these kind of changes earlier is getting extremely tiresome.

Ghotistyx.6942:

We’ve had similar discussion on the Guardian forums about Spirit Weapons and Gyros (add has been mentioned).

There’s an easy explanation.

Yeah, being that the devs have so poor communicaton with the players, that they won’t listen to our suggestions until there is a paid expansion they want us to buy.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Splinter_Shot

That should have been the auto. Simple and effective. I do like the additional effect that skill had in GW1, but tagging it on an autoattack is a bit too much.

More importantly, the weapon suffers from having an extremely boring playstyle. Any effective reworks that would change that is appreciated.

StickerHappy.8052:

False. Remorseless Duel Builds Are Viable.

Isn’t the irony obvious enough?

Juvenile everything.

Except the owl and the ravens. Coffee Time and Poe.

Lettuce.2945:

Marksmanship is NOT viable. A dumb ranger goes marksmanship. And that’s the truth. You can duel me on your weak marksman build versus my version and bam, the superiority of my build will be clearer to you.

Obviously. Remorseless builds aren’t viable duel builds at all.

Lettuce.2945:

You’re just one of those players incapable of thinking for themselves. Just a meta bandwagon hopper who has no idea that there’s superior builds out there. You sadden me. Your kind saddens me.

Either he is running a non-meta build with MM, or he is on the metabandwagon using the WS/NM/BM build. Make up your mind already.

vespers.1759:

The only one I can think of off the top of my head is the Berzerker Abomination in Arah. Condi is better vs. heavy armor but there doesn’t seem to be too much of that around.

It doesn’t need that much of a build up to compete.

vespers.1759:

Yes I know but he specifically mentioned condi removal in the OP. for PVE I wouldn’t run any condis since zerker is better.

If I were to run a PVE condi build I might take poison master I guess? Not sure as I’ve never run one.

Zerker isn’t better, it’s situational. Condi ranger can out-dps zerker rangers in the right scenarios, but it is dependent on expensive food to match the dps and long enough fights for the build up to be worth it.

vespers.1759:

Perhaps I was unclear on OP’s goals. I thought this was a build for PvP/WvW he wanted. For PVE you shouldn’t be touching poison master with a 1 million foot pole.

It’s the other way around. The condi removal options are rarely necessary for a pve condi build.

Shirk.6421:

I have a very big problem with how the devs see pets in this game. In my opinion, pets shouldn’t be able to recieve boons, but every boon granted to the ranger should be copied 1 to 1 to the pet. This way, pets can’t “consume” boons. If you WH 5 in your whole group, the pet shouldn’t need to steal the boons from one member, but instead just being granted it anyway because I get the boons. Same goes for resounding timbre. The range is so small, that when your pet is a bit away, it isn’t granted the swiftness/regen – where the hell is the logic in this?

This is basically what I would have wanted if they were to go further than the road than simply making FB baseline.

Sevans.4619:

Doesn’t make sense for it to be baseline. I think this goes for most baseline requests, though. If it really needs explaining, I don’t think it deserves to be baseline.

Longbow buff didn’t need explaining, just a change to the tooltip for range and boom-bam, that’s just how the weapon works and it makes sense. If your pets are receiving partial copies of your boons, then you need to tell the player why and it’s not really all that intuitive that a minion just gets your buffs (doesn’t happen for other classes.)

Those are my thoughts on baseline buffs.

The explaining can be done via updating the pet UI, which sorely needs an update anyway, and by making the boons simply copy one by one and ditch the set durations from the trait completely. It’s rather easy to make this change “make sense” from an UI standpoint. And as far as class balance goes, it makes perfect sense aswell.

Secondly, the pet is a class mechanic first and foremost, not a “minion”. Anet shouldn’t treat the pet class of the game as if the mechanic was a mere minion, enough with the self-defeating mentality.

Simply making Fortifying Bond baseline solves the problems that excist, making it so that the pet shares boons back to the ranger is an unnecessary buff in my opinion.

Given the ranger trackrecord, I kinda doubt they would buff it further if they by any chance made the functionality baseline in the first place..

Lome.8239:

I feel like it’s a very strong incentive to take the Nature Magic tree, so whatever would replace it would need to be absolutely amazing.

Which is one of the reasons it should be baseline or moved to BM in the first place, it’s a minor stashed away in a specialization line that shouldn’t have pet buffing as its main incentive to pick that line, even when that buffing is through boons via our boon specialization.

It somewhat reminds of me Illusionary Persona and shatter mesmers having to pick the Ilusion line, except Fortifying Bond affects you no matter what build you’re running.

Nature Magic has other traits that could be “umped” up a bit to make it on par with other lines. Like making Evasive Purity aoe to cleanse allies, like fixing spirits so the spirit trait becomes relevant, like introducing an interesting replacement for FB etc.

So, this trait has been brought up from time to time and with Irenio somewhat scouting the forums these days, I’d guess it is a good time to adress this trait again and perhaps keep the topic to the devs’ attention for a while. By that I mean my suggestion isn’t the definite solution to anything, to me its way more important to keep the devs aware about something I think most ranger players would like them to take a look at.

Some would probably argue that making it baseline would be to strong. That’s fair enough. To me the ranger already seem to be in a balanced state where this trait makes perfect sense as a baseline feature. It is a way better change for the ranger than the fiasco that was the WHaO buff and the subsuquent nerf, although at least they were on to something.

There is also the possibility to move it over to the Beastmastery specialization, which is arguably better than the current implementation, although I’d much rather see it made baseline.

As a replacement trait to Fortifying Bond, anything that enhances the support potential of this somewhat lacking traitline is fine in my book. On that note I wouldn’t mind something that makes the pet share its boon in a radius around it, but with obvious limitations to avoid a WHaO 2.0. It’s named Nature Magic, after all, perhaps make it feel like it aswell.

Share your thoughts and ideas and whatnot.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Lazze.9870:

cafard.8953:

I’m not sure who your “regular rangers” are who pick Moment of Clarity and equip a single daze, and a short one at that, but if they feel that’s a good deal, i’ve got a bridge to sell them.

Remorseless rangers that gets the benefit of the secondary effect aswell, attack of opportunity, obviously.

Or using a power build, not using full signets or not in PvE or is using LB/GS or dual melee. AoO is very powerful. It’s pretty great when you use PBS on someone, get an interrupt, and then the next LRS is an AoO, and it crits. If you had AA turned off, you could get a remorseless proc in there too.

Well, yeah, I rarely run Marksmanship in PvP without Remorseless, so that’s the same to me

cafard.8953:

I’m not sure who your “regular rangers” are who pick Moment of Clarity and equip a single daze, and a short one at that, but if they feel that’s a good deal, i’ve got a bridge to sell them.

Remorseless rangers that gets the benefit of the secondary effect aswell, attack of opportunity, obviously.

epoc.7941:

Lazze.9870:

epoc.7941:

and it was a question of because it was hidden of it was a bug or an intended function and if it was to display the skill bar (more for the sake of common knowledge thought the current community and new players).

Haha, “a question”.

If you wanna adress something you’re not certain about, dont’ open your thread with a post arguing as if it is broken and needs a fix. Just kittening ask if it is intended or not. Don’t go on a rant.

The thread does however point out a potential QoL change for rangers; adding pet UI in downstate.

Lol but it does need a fix I didn’t call for a nerf but a fix. Whether fixing it meant giving them the ui or removing the the function either way it resolves the question. It’s because of that some people might rage and rant about it. However my original statement of it being irritating still stands lol I just wanna finish killing you and cap my point

Your opening post was clearly worded as if this wasn’t an intended function and should be fixed, as in removed, from the game. You had no intentions to ask for an improved ranger downstate UI.

It’s irritating. I’ve asked around agree and everyone agrees that it’s actually not supposed to function in downstate yet no one has made a complaint about t and it is abused I’m pvp all the time.

Stop making a fool out of yourself. “lol”

epoc.7941:

and it was a question of because it was hidden of it was a bug or an intended function and if it was to display the skill bar (more for the sake of common knowledge thought the current community and new players).

Haha, “a question”.

If you wanna adress something you’re not certain about, dont’ open your thread with a post arguing as if it is broken and needs a fix. Just kittening ask if it is intended or not. Don’t go on a rant.

The thread does however point out a potential QoL change for rangers; adding pet UI in downstate.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

IKR

Yeah, that pet tooltip is ridiculous. Maybe that’s why our in-game tooltip hasn’t been updated to show all the trait effects yet – they know it looks like a plane crash.

This isn’t a druid problem, it’s a ranger problem. Just look at the pet F2 traits/skills. It’s a compiled collection of mess.

I’m gonna put it simply, if the Druid is forced into healing gear to be usable, I’m done with it. It’s wasted potential and pretty much kills off most of the build ideas I had for it.

The more you emphasise the druid as a full healing spec, the more you devalue the core ranger. It’s the damage and control the druid potentially could have with a few minor tweaks that would have the most synergy with the core ranger.

Zenos Osgorma.2936:

Its perfectly Balanced already easly countered by Mobility CC , Cripples are common as muck and so is Chill now on Reaper plus other Non druid rangers have 10-20seconds(depending on condition durations) of Predators instinct for cripple .

Natures stride is not even up for Disscusion so Quit now.

How about you quit, instead of replying someone who doesn’t even disagree with you with a comment on how Natural Stride is balanced as it is.

Gav.1425:

Don’t be selfish. Balance is good for the entire game.

You just come off as a troll with this. It’s the ranger subforum, one of the professions that has suffered the most from bad balancing. Anyways, sure. Put it in line. Make Natural Stride permanent 25 %, not hindered by movement impairing conditions.

You’re asking how it is balanced. You already know the trade off. How about starting off the topic with a discussion about wether the trade off is balanced or not, instead of blatantly ask for nerfs as if the trait was just a flat out upgrade to other similar traits with no downside.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

It seems more ‘melee power over the top zerker wannabee builders’.

Pathetic.

Edit: and where does this bullkitten come from anyway? Natural Stride is just as much a defensive trait as it is offensive. It got nothing to do with “zerker builds”.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

But to the point if that is the only reason you are so ‘must be baseline’ about this trait, then split the swiftness and less movement impairing condition into to traits. Works for me. You get your -impairing effect minor trait, and swiftness becomes choice, no prob for me there.

The argument isn’t that Natural Stride must be baseline, the argument is that it is way more flexibly as a forced upon trait than Natural Mender is, and that it is the most fitting of already existing druid traits to be moved to a minor spot. The only reason I marked the movement condition part was because you argued as if that wasn’t a part of the trait in your first post.

Iavra.8510:

but seeing as how other professions seem to have a 4 second recharge half-way-across-the-world leap, I think it’s ok.

Heh http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ancestral_Grace

Yeah, even when morphing into a whisp, rangers still can’t travel vertically.

“Heh”.

Edit: as for Natural Stride, the trait is a direct throwback to the first game. 33 % movement speed, ended when enchanted or hexed.

And for the record, I agree with Heimskarl. Natural Mender is an annoying trait to be forced into.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

But taking druid for anything BUT healing, is a wrong choice.

The druid shouldn’t be forced into a healbot when it has a lot of potential to be so much more. It already have several tools for it.

And no offence, but all your arguments are pretty pointless. Natural Stride works with any build. No one is ever gonna complain about movement speed and reduced duration of movement conditions in any game mode regardless of what build they’re using. No one cares that boring runes like the centaur runes won’t do anything if they chose to pick the druid line.

I haven’t seen a single ranger that has been running these kinds of runes since they added Resounding Timbre, which has a place even in competetive builds. There are very few sacrifices to be made as it is.

And all this nonsense about minor changes like switching around a couple of traits is suddenly gonna change the entire feel of the specialization and make it too similiar to other professions? I got no words for it. Especially because a specialization forced into pure healing, like what you want it to be, would pretty much be the same as the existing Revenant Salvation line.

It’s a mesmer player complaining about putting stuff in line.

Shouldn’t there be a big red lamp blinking somewhere? Just apart from the fact that the trait is balanced as it is.

Would have been cooler if the staff wasn’t completely useless at keeping up condi pressure.

Oh My God.8423:

Well… perhaps if you factor pets into consideration, the Druid can heal on one side while simultaneously pets can do a lot of other things else where. So essentially a Druid can do whatever a Ranger does in its normal form. Then when the time is right, switch to Celestial Avatar form for some heal support. All the while the whichever pet is doing whichever pet does.

I think the key is “simultaneously” doing two things at two places. A Druid can switch between the Celestial Avatar form; one pet can switch to another. So there are quite a few things going on at the same time. So, Druid does have its uses.

(I know pet’s AI can be a bit of a problem. But that is an all together different topic best discuss elsewhere)

You could have been saying the same thing about the core ranger for three years, we all know very well that this isn’t a viable way to build a ranger, and that we’re far away from being able to utilize our pets to fullfill a very different role to our own without it ending up being subpar.

It would be better if pets could be more easily incorperated into our builds and strengthen our role, instead of acting as a subpar separate unit.

Natural Stride should be a minor. It would simultaneously solve the problem of wasting minor traits if you’re not a healbot.

This is gonna be a bit all over the place, but..

The avatar buildup has an abysmal synergy with other weapons than staff, and that’s an immediate turn-off. Which brings me on to my next point, the staff is too onesided. There is no “umph” to it. It’s needs some damage to it, and possibly some damaging conditions aswell. The port skill (staff #3) needs an evade and it lingers way too long before you actually get out of it. The vines on staff #4 could possible cover a larger area. Staff #5 is missing the “water field” in its tooltip, otherwise fine. Staff #2 could possibly damage neary foes aswell as healing allies?

The minor traits doesn’t really excite me at all, they’re too one sided for an elite spec that has the potential to be so much more than just a healbot. The first minor trait ties in with the poor avatar buildup without a staff. Most of the major traits are fine, but due to how restricted I am to how I build up the avatar, the traits related to it rarely feels rewarding. Also, Natural Stride should be a minor. It would simultaneously solve the problem of wasting minor traits if you’re not a healbot.

The Glyphs are.. okay-ish. The radius is way too small on all of them (but a small skill radius seem to be a recurring theme of the ranger…). Buff the radius for starters.

Due to the limited use of druid without a staff, I feel like the potential synergy with moment of clairty in marksmanship together with all the new dazes isn’t where it should be at. We got very few skills to properly punish someone for being dazed by a ranger with moment of clarity, and that’s especially the case when we’re forced into using the staff, which again has very little “ummph” to it.

Furthermore, there is a strong lack of boon applying for an elite spec that is leant towards a supporte role. And it needs an instant stability, some way or another.

As for new pets, the Wyverns are too slow, and the fire wyvern uses its F2 on location instead of attacking your target. The tiger should apply fury before it pounces. The bristleback and smokescale seemed fine (the bristleback enlargement bug was hilarious, keep it!).

Edit: I would like to +1 this:

Been running with Ancient Seeds and Shortbow, this combo gives me some troubles:

- Having it activate only on a dazed/stunned foe really gives you a very small window to hit the target again, with only 1s of daze/stun on Shortbow. At max range you will need to be on autoattack or spamming another skill to make sure you hit the target in time. Activating another skill midcast in your autoattack will usually mean you are too late. Perhaps bring the daze/stun duration from Concussion Shot up to par with Hilt Bash (1.5s)? Otherwise, increase the duration only when flanking to reward skillful positioning.

- Ancient Seeds lacks synergy with the pierce mechanic. It will go on cooldown immediatly after hitting a foe, which means Ancient Seeds is only applied to the first foe you hit. This punishes you for using the pierce mechanic (e.g. keeping enemies between you and your target).

- The immobilize triggers with a delay, too late to be reliable.

niconori.7235:

Lazze.9870:

niconori.7235:

And do we really need a second source of stability?

You wanna bound our only source of stability to an elite with an activation time? It’s bad enough not having instant stability.

Why not just kill off the class at that point.

What are you trying t say when sotw also has a cast time? having 2 stab source = same effect as instant cast stab? awesome logic.

No, I’m telling you only having one source of stability is a kittening dumb idea, and that it is bad enough that none of them are instacast.

Speaking of logic.