Guild Wars 2

kappa.2036:

What do you think guys? thanks again for the attention

First of all, good job putting your ideas together like this thumbs up

Secondly, this spec sure looks OP by picking the best ideas/abilities from other classes, mainly thieves and necromancers, then tweaking and combining them into this.

Personally, I’m not a fan of transformations at all, but many seems to like that idea, so I haven’t much to say about that.

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

increase the Fury duration from the trait from 3 seconds to 5 seconds and increase the chance on hit from 50% to 66%.

I’d rather see an ICD reduction, to make it even better for remorseless builds.

DerJoker.9081:

“Signet of the Wild
Passive: Heals you and your pet every second (I think its 86 per sec, or st)
Active: Receive 5 stacks stability, become lager (this is your "OUHA, hes up to something-button), your pet deals 25% more dmg. (From here its “new”) Your next 5 attacks will deal 25% more dmg and will be unblockable. (Maximum time you stay unblockable and do 25% more dmg: 10 seconds)

What do you think?

To keep it in line with all other ranger signets (with the exception of the bas7ard signet “Signet of Renewal”) all effects should apply to both ranger and pet, meaning if you get unblockable attacks, so should your pet.

- Traditional questlines (as an addition to the event system)
- Improvements to every skill and trait in the game, with special consideration to skills and traits that don’t see much use
- QoL changes across the board
- Ranger pet improvements (so much work to be done on this one)
- Reduce aftercasts on weapon skills

Also, check for dust on your heatsink and fan, and clean if necessary.

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Oh ok, there is no proof in his post, there is clearly a lack there of, and if we go with his argument, Anet has recently as in the last couple Quarters been quick to fix patch note and Tool Tip discrepancies. So the lack of then doing that points even further to it being a bug.

I agree with this, Anet have been quicker to fix these things than they used to be. Look, I’m not arguing for or against this being a bug or not, all I asked for was some official response on the matter.

For example:

jewishjoyride.4693:

FYI the unblockable portion is a confirmed bug. ANET did not allow rangers to use it during the most recent TOL.

I’d like to see the official info about this, if available. Don’t mistake my request for info as a for or against argument.

BlaqueFyre.5678:

OGDeadHead.8326:

BlaqueFyre.5678:

defending blatant bugs

I’ve missed the dev response to the SotW issue, and would like to read it. Please share a link, thanks.

How about the fact the unblockable is not listed, has never been listed in any patch notes? Or do you need something to clearly spell things out for you every step of the way?

I kindly repeat my request, since things like this have happend before – changes that got implemented but missed both patchnotes and tooltips to reflect the change. You can’t have been around long if you deny that. Please note I only ask for official clarification.

So how about it – a link to a dev responding about this? Or better yet, a dev stepping in here and settle this once and for all.

BlaqueFyre.5678:

defending blatant bugs

I’ve missed the dev response to the SotW issue, and would like to read it. Please share a link, thanks.

In GW2 pve, where the dangerous damage mostly comes in large chunks, you mostly only need burst healing, which CA covers pretty good.

The sustain healing, if needed, should be covered by your teams own healing skills. You do have many options to heal outside CA, with staff constantly pumping out small heals, regen, water fields, Spirit of Nature, Lingering Light (not that good, but it contributes), glyphs, Cultivated Synergy, pets like moas, Fern Hound (even Brown Bear for condi cleanse), Invigorating Bond.

You should be able to pump out tons of healing, but even then your fellow players need to actually play the game. Some encounters you won’t be able to facetank no matter the amount of healing you put out.

Good find. Dont expect them to fix the range, rather the tooltip…

Reduce blocks/reflects instead of introducing more and more counters to counters to counters…

Justine.6351:

I think MDG could be redone completely,
When you take more than 25% of your health in dmg within 3sec, deal +25% more dmg/condition dmg for the next 5sec. If your pet is dead, deal +25% dmg/condition dmg.

Very interesting. The goto trait for every ranger that hates their pets and mostly want to see them dead, lol!

anduriell.6280:

Predator’s Onslaught: When ranger hit a disabled or movement-impaired foe gain +5% damage for 8 seconds. This can be stacked up to 3 times.

At first I thought this was a nerf, because I didn’t read it right. Anyway, this would also still apply to the pet, right?

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

In casual stuff, axe (especially if you have a bit of boon duration) is probably better than sword

It is. Open world pve, axe is superior to sword in almost all aspects imho. Far easier to use, many times it will outdamage sword by a decent margin for a number of reasons, but most important being range and easier to hit more than one opponent with one autoattack.

Also, traited axe makes Winter’s bite incredibly good.

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

It might not do a great job healing in zergs like some people want to do but there are other classes for those roles

Which is quite funny, or sad rather, since healing was more or less the sole purpose of the druid elite spec to begin with.

MidoriMarch.8067:

<snip>

Gz, you just won the internetz

Druid Clarity should be an easy fix. Rework it to remove one condition every second instead of all at once (been suggested before), or grant resistance while in CA and clear one condition every third second. Keep the stunbreak.

The alternative to bring a trait that reduces the cd, could be to add to the cd if you pick Celestial Shadow, if that trait really feels so strong. Or how about “while you are in stealth, you can’t gain any Astral Force” or perhaps a needs to be “While in stealth, CA cooldown is halted, and you can’t gain any AF”.

Both of these changes would reduce the spammable nature of these two traits, since if you implement the change to DC, you would want to stay in CA for longer to resist/clear more conditions (would be a buff and a nerf at the same time), and by halting the CA cd while stealthed would bring a natural 3 seconds added cd to the form if you choose to stay stealthed for the full duration.

In short, focus on bringing down the reasons to quickly just enter/leave CA, and bring more reasons to stay in the form and actually use the abilities provided.

Story should be optional. I would think there are at least a few more ppl out there that couldn’t care less about the “story”, and just want to play.

Duke Nukem.6783:

you should use the gw1 method of setting traps requiring the player to be out of combat

That’s not how it worked in GW1. You could set traps at anytime, but you were easily interrupted trying to do so.

Again, 15 sec cd is not ok. Do what you want with DC and CS, I don’t care, but get rid of that long cd from the already gated elite form which, may I remind you, gives you a 15 sec cd in a best case scenario.
While you’re at it, improve CA#1 kitten .

Try zooming in to 1st person view and see what happens.

Kovu.7560:

Personally I would’ve simply thrown an ICD on the stealth trait and left CA itself as it was. It would’ve nerfed those pesky roaming builds while not harming larger group healing specs — which desperately need some improvements. To encourage people wanting to play within CA I would also modify the condition removal trait to tick remove a condition every second while in CA instead of removing them all at once. Again, it would nerf the roaming specs while adding some sustain to group support builds.
But hey, I don’t decide this stuff.

~ Kovu

And what icd timer would you have put in there actually?

You see, having a trait with a different cd bound to a gated mechanic that by itself has its own cd, is perhaps the worst design decision you could ever make. As such, your solution is NOT a solution, and would in fact be even worse than what they (Anet) did.

Wondrouswall.7169:

15 second cooldown is all right.

Allow me to disagree – it’s not ok. Another year from now, when Anet nerfs it again and puts it at 20 sec cd, will we again say that’s all right?
The cd increase was a huge nerf, and it was over the top. A very blunt way to fix a “problem” with two specific traits, that made the whole elite spec suffer for it. Balancing at its worst.

Devata.6589:

Behellagh.1468:

But lack of traditional quests was a selling point, I just recently watched the Gamescon presentation from 2010. As for seamless zones, that’s a day 1 design decision on both the server and client side.

I know they tried to use it as a selling point and I think that was a mistake. If you look at how they announces the events (maybe also in that 2010 GamesCom presentation?) they talked about how it would make the world feel alive, how you had an impact on the world, how it would not be like events where you kill 5 of x and 5 of y.
Problem is that events did not manage to live up to that. With a traditional quest you even feel more like you made a change / you had an impact because it’s something that completed. When you talk to an NPC after you completed its quest, it will react different to you. The events are just happening again and again. As soon as you notice that events start to feel useless.

This is so true. I had really high hopes in regards to the event based quest system, however, it fell flat to the ground, and because of that, GW2 imho is the least interesting mmo ever released in this regard. There are other things that makes it a fun game, but dropping traditional quests was a big, big mistake.

Following a long questline in games like WoW, Vanguard or whatever, that took you all over the world, that was great fun, and I miss that a lot.

Edit: If anything, they could probably go “back” to the old quest based model for their next expansion, while also keeping events. It would feel new, and bring another purpose to the game.

It could at the very least deal splash damage in a radius around the enemy that got hit.

Specific scenario: Traited Winter’s Bite is absolutley wonderful in SW, since it helps immensely with keeping mobs clustered together to AOE down.

Eleazar.9478:

What I would like to see is honed axes be moved to ws and made condition damage and empathetic bond be moved to bm

Lol yeah, the pathetic bond!

I can agree that these traits should swap place. Empathic Bond however needs a buff to be worthy of GM status. Perhaps not so much when it comes to the condition “cleanse” itself, but less suffering for the pet somehow, or that the pet gets buffed for each condition it suffers from. Just… something.

I’ve been wanting this option since release.

Coffietire.2783:

For some reason, I am facing some performance issues in some spots on the map, specifically in the area around Sorrow’s Eclipse and the frozen lake surrounding it. Reducing the game’s resolution and toning down other graphics options does not seem to increase performance.

It’s not as bad under water and I have no performance problems around the rest of the map or the game in general (excluding crowded areas).

I’m, experiencing the same. Seems like the graphics aren’t fully optimized on this map in certain areas.

Ciscoduck.8423:

I was using solar beam (primarily)

Just put that staff on your back, grab your sword and melee the grubs with the abomination in melee range as well. This was one easy fight.

Wuselknusel.4082:

ArenaNet has said that they don’t want to tinker with the base mechanics of the game anymore

When did they say that?

The good: Design is as good as ever.

The bad: Yet another copy paste of the two previous maps. The core system is more or less the same. A major downgrade when it comes to quality compared to vanilla game in all aspects. Did you run out of new ideas?

Celestial.

/15 char

InsaneQR.7412:

Justine.6351:

You really want pets running out of aoe? They would never attack anything again lol.

Yeah thats not the what i mainly ment, pets get less dmg from aoe when not targetted eitherway, but they made a new AI for Enemies and i want new for pets.

Exactly what do you want? I don’t even consider our pets to actually have an ai at all, but that is more of a definition.
Do you want them do dodge attacks on their own? Do you want them to make better decisions on when they should use their skills, instead of on cooldown? Wouldn’t it be better if the player could decide when to use some of the skills, like Quickening Screech from birds, or Harmonic Cry from moas?

Other than that, I think that the only thing in regards to “ai” that needs to improve is their ability to land attacks, but I’m not sure I would place that under ai either.

According to the latest patch notes, Gaile Gray says that “The Winterberry Bush home instance node is now available to purchase for players who had previously purchased the Bloodstone node”

I dare not buy it, since the bug I’m talking about still isn’t fixed, and no word about it nor response to this thread.
Another bug that will last for months, even years, or what?

Skills are disapperaring from my skillbar from time to time, which is incredibly annoying. Makes me question the current devs on this game, since they seem to introduce new AND old bugs to the game every single update.
Feels like the quality is going down.

Bought the Petrified Wood node for my home instance, got the Bloodstone node instead.

Please fix this, tyvm.

I saw it, bought it, but got the Bloodstone node instead. Please fix.

UmbraNoctis.1907:

OGDeadHead.8326:

• Go for the Eyes, remove ICD […]

• Beastly Warden, remove ICD […]

You can’t remove the ICD from those traits without without changing how they proc instantly on F2 activation and not at the end of the cast , which would be a pretty huge nerf, because otherwise you could spam them by cancelling the F2 ability.

I like your suggestion about DC though.

Yeah, that’s an issue. All pet F2 skills should probably be normalized when it comes to cast times, thereby removing the ability to cancel F2 skills in the first place. The actual skill could/should be instant to cast, whereas the actual animation to finish could differ in some cases (even though quite a few of the animations needs to be sped up a lot).

Wondrouswall.7169:

Beastly Warden is one of those traits that would require an ICD unless the Hawk and Eagle F2s are changed. A 2s Taunt every 4¾s would be, well… something else.

OGDeadHead.8326:

• All F2 abilities changed to be on a 15 second cd, balance accordingly

Read my post above please.

Earix.5684:

Main question:
If Druidic Clarity and Celestial Shadow were the issue, why wouldn’t you add a 25/30 sec cooldown on these traits instead of on our main specialization mechanic?

Read answer below. Out of sync traits are horrible design, please don’t suggest this ever again tyvm.

Justine.6351:

The reason the didn’t/shouldn’t increase just the trait CD is because making them out of sync would be as annoying as it is with pet swap connected traits.

I think the main reason for increasing the cd of CA is because of druid clarity, much more than celestial shadow. I’ve suggested to change druid clarity to remove one condition/second spent i CA instead of all at once when you enter the form. This would encourage more time spent in the form, and would heavily reduce the ‘spammable’ way many players (ab)used the ability. You could even give druid clarity the ability to clear conditions on allies around you, removing 1 condition every x seconds in a radius around you, like Justine suggested some weeks ago, or that for each condition you clear with druid clarity, you heal allies around you x amount of health.

By encouraging spending more time in CA, you at the same time are encouraged to use your CA abilities to support your teammates more, which I thought was the main idea behind the druid specialization.
15 seconds cd feels too punishing for this role imho, 10 was perfect if they would just balance the two things that they apparently deemed too powerful with CA. (Hmm, I wouldn’t say 10 seconds was perfect, the whole mechanic probably needs a redsign. Still, way better of course with 10 seconds cd compared to the 15 seconds we’re at now)

And while you’re at it, Anet, implement these changes as well:

• All F2 abilities changed to be on a 15 second cd, balance accordingly

• Make pet swap 15 second baseline, remove “Your pet swap gains recharge reduction” from Loud Whistle (replace with something else perhaps)

• Clarion Bond trigger on every pet swap, balance the special Call of the Wild bound to this trait accordingly

• Invigorating Bond, remove ICD (see first point above) – yes it WOULD allow you to use two heals back to back by using F2, swap to your other pet and use F2 again

• Go for the Eyes, remove ICD (see first point above) – yes it WOULD allow you to blind two times quickly by using F2, swap to your other pet and use F2 again

• Beastly Warden, remove ICD (see first point above) – yes it WOULD allow you to taunt two times quickly by using F2, swap to your other pet and use F2 again, balance taunt accordingly (this is the toughest to balance with this system by far – reducing the duration of the single taunt to 1 second wouldn’t go well with the GM trait status, while on the other hand 4 seconds of taunt would probably be op, not quite sure how to solve that in the best possible way for both scenarios)

In order to discourage pet swapping (and thereby the possible “F2 trait spamming”), Anet could bring back a version of the old Master’s Bond trait. Merge it with Loud Whistle trait for example.
Do you try to keep that single pet up for as long as possible to grant it Master’s Bond stacks, or do you sacrifice the potential for the pet to deal more damage by swapping pets more often, triggering on swap traits and using more F2 skills/traits triggering on F2?

Sorry for going off topic!

Just a question: As a front line druid in wvw zergs, trying to maximize outgoing healing, wouldn’t this be the rare occasion where Lingering Light would be a good option?

LughLongArm.5460:

Such a strange desighn… Just set quickdraw activation window to 4 sec and make it proce from the activation of a weapn skill and not the end of its duration.

Buisiness as usual in Anet land.

Nila.7813:

Terrible ideas. Please don’t implement.

Very constructive, way to go…

Care to say which ideas are terrible? For example; reduced aftercast on sword auto-attack chain is a terrible idea?

beatthedown.2651:

• Pets are slow and don’t hit anything without BM

They aren’t that much better off with BM in that regard tbh. Perma swiftness on pets is something they could implement baseline tomorrow (without needing BM), and it would be more of a QoL thing i PvE than any significant boost to non BM users in pvp/wvw.

foste.3098:

It would be too much of a power creep if they made the current version of fb baseline, i mean the pet would have 25 might all the time. The game needs less boon spamming in general as it is.
The only reasonable way to make fb baseline without breaking things is if it changes to ‘boons you apply to yourself are shared with your pet’ so that it is self contained so if you make a build about self stacking might or fury your pet inherits that quirk, and having a ele or rev next to you would not make things stupid.

That would be quite the nerf I think, so in that case I rather leave it as is.

LughLongArm.5460:

Dont like the idea of Fortify bond being basiline. It’s a massive unnecessary power crip and if anything this trait should be toned down togather with all the boon abuse tools across the board.

If the bolded part becomes a reality, then sure, but I’m afraid rangers will yet again be the ones suffering the most if they were to nerf boon (ab)use across the board.

DoogySnowStalker.2069:

Rangers have brought up the subject of making Fortifying Bond baseline many times, but as most suggestions taht are given to Anet, they are ignored.

Indeed.

Thing is, if Anet ever make FB baseline, they won’t do it without nerfing it in some way, that’s one thing you can be sure of.

Earix.5684:

Let’s face it, Druidic Clarity and Celestial Avatar were the main targets here. Then why wouldn’t they add a 15 sec internal cooldown to both these traits in WvW instead of nerfing the whole mechanic?

That would be an even more stupid move. Traits with their own, out of sync icds are really bad, so thank god they didn’t go that route.

abullenfla.9632:

Another important thing that’s not related to healing but alot of druids forget to do is to activate the fury ability from your tiger from time to time since you are the only reliable source to give fury after that the chrono can share the fury but even than you should use your pet occasionaly.

Wouldn’t the red moa be a ‘better’ option for druids working on maximizing their healing output? You get perma fury uptime just like the tiger (if going BM/NM) and you get another pretty decent, albeit uncontrollable, heal over time from Harmonic cry every 32 seconds. Furious Screech also has greater range compared to Furious Pounce, if that’s even worth to take into consideration? Invigorating Bond?

Lazze.9870:

The best change would be to reduce the cast time on the first skill. Make it as snappy as the evade on the thief staff.

Yeah. Or evade from the moment you press the button until you land them 400 units back, so you could, you know, actually use this skill to get away from danger by reaction instead of prediction.