Guild Wars 2

Atleast for how it works currently. If you buy it ingame then its applied to your account automatically. I don’t know how it works outside of the in game store though.

I TPvP quite a bit but I mostly do it on just my ranger. Ive had pretty balanced setups lately. I win more than I lose most of the time but I also have occasional loss streaks. Id say the matchmaking is fine atleast from my perspective.

So I recently got overwolf in order to do some in game recording. However im having some issues with it.

The recording itself after the fact is extremely choppy. Even though I had no choppiness whatsoever while playing.

Whats interesting is that even though its choppy. The cursor movements are perfectly smooth. As if its separate from the rest of the recording. Also the audio seems to be perfectly fine as well

My computer as a little outdated. But is still well enough to run gw2 at medium quality at 50-60 fps in most places and 30 fps in zerg fights when im not recording.

The recording was at around 30 fps at 420p.

The recording is posted here if anyone wants visual info : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2qTLKooSc8&feature=youtu.be

Edit: haha just realized I forgot to actually ask.

If anyone has any suggestions on how to fix this issue. Please tell me. I really want to make some shout ranger gameplay videos. But as it is now there more of a pain to watch than there worth. I would really appreciate any advice.

The thing is. Atleast Lore wise ranger pets are considered constant companions. Almost like having a little brother or sister in a way. IRL I grew up with a black lab and he was more family to me than my normal family. I assume its something similar in this world.

Actually seeing a companion killed would probably devastate a ranger pretty hard. I doubt theyl be able to replace said companion at the drop of a hat.

What I see more likely though. Is the acquiring of a second companion in much the same way the player can.

On the other hand. The death of garm could very well push eir to give up her bow and take up the staff. It would change her outlook pretty heavily id have to assume. Whether she would turn around and charm a wyvern is a whole nother story though. If she does in this story ill probably be assuming shes under a HELL of a lot of mental stress and that shes suppressing certain emotions for the sake of the mission.

As far as rox is concerned. Didn’t frostbite only reach maturity fairly recently? If he was killed off now that would be…pretty kittened up. Again I find it more likely that the rox and frostbite will “bond” with a different animal and well see her running around with both during cutscenes and the like.

Birds: Spread Eagled/Hawkward/Cold Shoulder
Drakes: Sven/Wren/Len
Canines: Ankle Biter/Rianis/Clare
Cats: Cat/Scratch/Fever
Devourers: Soondead/Gonnabiteit
Smokescale: Nowyouseeme

Meant to be used as a duo
Fire Wyvern: Allyourbase
Lightning Wyvern: Arebelongtous

These are the names ive used so far u.u

Zealots.

A pure Power Percision Vitality amulet or Precision Power Vitality.

A Power Precision Healingpower Toughness amulet (like crusaders but with medium crit chance/healing and low toughness)

These would fill the niches for builds ive wanted to try up to this point but havnt had the base stats needed for them.

I guess I should put a more thorough post in the interest of honesty.

My opinion on the matter is pretty heavily colored from my past experiences in games.

I played a necromancer in EQ1. One of the things that made summoning classes in EQ1 so interesting to me was the fact that you needed reagents to cast your summons. (which in a way could be considered your class mechanic). For the necromancer that involved certain types of bones. Now you could either A. Get them from a reagent merchant or B. Get them from creatures of a certain type and level that dropped your required form of bone. I was always bad at managing money in games so B ended up being my primary method.

What this meant was i usually spent around 30 minutes a day gathering reagents. At the time this wasn’t really considered a grind from the community. It was simply a part of being a necromancer that was low on cash. But by todays standards im certain it would be considered a grind by a large percentage of the population (u.u).

I feel that similar experiences are causing a disconnect among the players in this thread. Many of us have different definitions for what grinding is. For me the first thing I ever considered a grind was the first time I did a deity quest line in one of the EQ games. This was a significant time investment that involved me doing rather difficult content often on my own. Which can be dangerous because necro pets weren’t as tanky as magician pets so I couldn’t mindlessly rely on them to pull/root for me.

I died dozens of times attempting the same step before finally getting it. In my eyes. That was a grind. Driving myself against a wall until the wall cracked or I became able to climb over it. But in todays standard thats the typical raiding experience. And its the kind of content many people desire.

So it’s an interesting convo from my perspective.

I can see the OP’s point. But at the same time part of me doesn’t recognize the subject matter as a “grind” so I can’t truly respect it u.u. So part of me is unsure how to react to the post.

Grinding. I don’t think it means what you think it means.

Typically people refer to grinding as repeatedly performing the same dull content over and over for minor rewards.

So far I havn’t seen evidence of any of that. For legendaries atleast it seems like youl have to perform a wide variety of actions to complete them. Infact that seems about as as far from a grind as it can get. As youl likely only perform an act a few times in order to get an individual piece. But youl need ALOT of different pieces in different places attained different ways. Thats not a grind as ive heard the word used in Every mmo ive played since EQ1

Dude…its going to be like..two or three weeks. This is a non issue. There probably doing the exact same thing there doing with raids for the same reason. Because masteries will be necessary to make the collections possible to achieve. Just as the raid bosses are balanced around certain masteries being attained.

Edit: Youl need to play the game and gather masteries to get the legendary requirments anyway. I.E. the legendary crafting mastery?. There giving you time to get that before they unleash it.

Rezzet.3614:

ranger was probably running the cheesy instakiller pet build and i guess stealth attacks arent registered

The build your referring too hasn’t worked since the aquaman patch.

My birds. Spread Eagled and Hawkward.

Amineo.8951:

Shadelang.3012:

@ Amineo Or learn how to do the fight and bring a build that can cleanse itself and doesn’t get one shot by cannons. Cause ya know. Thats a thing.

Sometimes the AOE’s are invisible and you die of nothing, it’s apparently a CPU problem so… Yeah people should learn about building a better PC…

Err. Honestly if thats happening they should be filing bug reports with anet and getting support. Not finding out how to exploit the game.

If there computer doesn’t meet the minimum requirments that anet puts up. Then sorry but thats not the games fault. If there using outdated drivers. Thats there own kitten fault.

Again. I don’t feel theres any excuse for exploiting under any situation. Your purposely breaking the rules of the game that you agreed to when you first loaded it up last I checked.

So yeah. If this exploit gets fixed. I won’t have any pity for anyone involved.

Also. how large is the demographic of people your describing that have these cpu issues. I imagine its less than a percent or the forums would be CRAWLING with posts about it. And yet this is the first time ive ever even heard about this bug and I roam the forums pretty often (note that doesn’t mean I didn’t miss it of course. But youd think I would have atleast HEARD about it before)

@ Amineo Or learn how to do the fight and bring a build that can cleanse itself and doesn’t get one shot by cannons. Cause ya know. Thats a thing.

EdgarMTanaka.7291:

Overworld.9613:

As the title says, do finishers (the swishy glowy ball skill to finish off downed players) do anything meaningful?

In WvW I’ve been told they give a better chance at loot, but in PvP I’ve seen no change in score, and there’s no special loot to gain.
Admittedly I don’t have the largest experience with PvP and it could be a reflex players carry over from WvW into unranked, but with so many player’s builds and playstyles focused on surviving for a few moments more or escaping the combat scenario entirely with their downed skills my question stands thusly:

Is there a meaningful choice between choosing to using the context prompt finisher or continuing to attack the downed player until they die?

No, they don’t do anything special it is just visual and no they do not add more loot in WvW iether.

It depends on the situation if you should just attack your enemy to death of finish them off.

In WvW it doesn’t give more loot. But “bloodlust” buff will give your server an extra point for each shrine group you control. So up to 3 points per stomp. Doesn’t mean anything on the indiviudal level. But when you add in all the stomps through a day its moderately significant.

I can see it being used. But it heavily depends on the design of the encounter and the build you choose to bring.

Im a firm believe that one of the rangers highest strengths is our dps uptime. I.E. the amount of time we can always be doing x amount of damage to the boss despite whatever mechanics the boss is producing.

Even if its too lethal for us to be in melee. Typically we can have our pet in melee dpsing. Or similarly with ranged pets and us in melee. Or we can swap to a ranged weapon (say the longbow) and still deal decent dps from a distance.

The vale guardian has several situations where having a ranged weapon can be beneficial.

If you get teleported away you can keep dpsing with longbow. If you need to stack into a lighting surge you can do that while still doing high ranged dps and still having the pet in melee benefiting from boons that you can copy onto yourself with heal as one. If the boss spawns a seaker near the raid you can swap to longbow knock it pack but down barrage between it and you and keep doing damage to the boss through the pet.

The longbow is a very good tool for maintaining dps uptime or controlling mobs. And it does hit hard enough that you probably won’t fail the raid for swapping when its necessary. Between that and our pets. Rangers should have 100% damage uptime on the boss regardless of what happens during the fight. And frankly that should be the case for nearly every boss in the raid because of how our class is designed (pets not so bad when you think in these terms).

Compare that to say a full melee build. If that melee build gets hit by a teleport. Or has to move to a certain location outside of melee range. The only dps he generates will be through conditions or his pet. He himself will have less dps uptime.

Whether that balances out in the longbows favor is entirely up to the way the fight is designed. I feel a full melee setup will deal more POTENTIAL dps. But whether it deals more actual dps is up to how the fight is designed.

Note: Im not saying a longbow is better. From a purely dps standpoint a sword/axe combo is going to out dps it end of story. But from a control and dps uptime standpoint. The longbow has its place. Its just up to the ranger to use it properly and not 1 spam the entire kittening fight.

I don’t mind them supporting the group. However I feel it should be support through something the pet DOES. Something that should make an ally happy when they see the pet there. Not just some arbitrary boon thats randomly fired out of the pet. But a more tangable thing the pet actually does. Whether its crippling enemies that are near that ally making them easier to hit. Or actively healing that ally. Protecting it during an enemy burst. Or taunting enemies into an area so that there more easily managed.

Ehecatl.9172:

If Sic ’Em also reset the pet rotation it would be a far stronger skill as well. On demand use of Tail Swipe with the damage multiplier means a drake could be pushing out 6-9K damage. It would also make it possible to set up with Remorseless and other boosts making the landing of a pet burst far more reliable.

It also makes sense that telling your pet to chase down their target would cause the pet to lead with their strongest hit.

agreed. It of course won’t bypass there internal cooldowns. But if it reliably activated key attacks. We would be given needed control that at the moment is lacking for a true beast mastery focused playstyle.

Scrimschaw.5784:

Shadelang.3012:

As long as people have new ideas ill try to keep the thread going.

@ Heimskarl. The idea of a petapult skill is definetly one I like. And I really hope anet one day adds it in. But the nature of the games combat leads me to believe they won’t. Also that would involve completely removing the original guard skill and creating an entirely new one. Im not sure thats feasable. And if it is. It’s functionality seems to fit sic em more readily as Scrimschaw said

@ Scrimschaw Keep in mind that any additions to guard or protect me will probably affect there cooldown if there just straight additions (judging by past experience). Though I suppose its possible they may leave the cooldowns as is if the skills base is as under performing or situational as these can be.

But with something as massively powerful as aoe protection or taunt. I find it likely that atleast 5-10 seconds would be added to the cooldown…if not more.

Part of what makes guard nice in its current functionality is you can readily pop it to “force” the pet to use one of its special abilities. As guard resets its attack patterns (or seems to) This is great with canines as it encourages it to use either of its hard hitting abilities. Now of course this still isn’t enough to encourage its use in the majority of gameplay. But it does allow for some interesting play. With the longer cooldowns people that have been using guard regularly will lose the frequent access to this.

The idea of aoe boons for shouts is interesting. But things that affect the party in that manner typicaly have much longer cooldowns than guard does. The end result is actually the possibility of guard being BETTER at doing this than those other utilities with longer cooldowns. Which would mean guard would have to be balanced accordingly back down.

How would you have it actually function so that its useful. But still balanced.

I would like “Sic ’Em!” to replace Guard as a low-CD, spammable skill that can work as a reset for pets. The pet targeting function of “Guard!” IMO should be a base function of pets (for example, the f1 acting as a ground-targeted skill if no enemies are selected, or locking the pet on a target when one is selected. Yes, this might be a terrible idea, but I did just come up with it on the fly :P) If Guard is changed so it ONLY causes the pet to taunt in an AoE, and provides Aegis or Protection on the ranger, I would expect the cooldown to be about 30s (24 when traited). Because Taunt is no longer unblockable/unevadeable, I wouldn’t go much higher than 35s base. Should it apply Aegis or Protection on allies as well, I would expect the cooldown to be about 40 seconds base, the same as Guardian’s “Retreat!” (which also applies swiftness on allies).

I think “Protect Me!” would be interesting as a lower-cooldown skill that doesn’t tread on Signet of Stone’s toes (I also would like to see a stunbreak on SoS if “Protect Me!” is changed). If keeping the same cooldown…perhaps having the pet leap at the target + knockdown/immobilize/daze/etc. (won’t lie, I would love to see a pet teleport skill too), applying…hmm, stunbreak + 2-3s stealth and superspeed on the ranger? A simple protection/aegis on the ranger? Something that won’t nuke my poor pet would be great.

On a shallow note: I dislike the icons of ranger shouts. I wish they all matched the theme of “We Heal as One!” and “Strength of the Pack!” (which I frequently call “We Rampage as One!” in my head.)

The idea of sic em becoming hte low cooldown shout is interesting. as it would also assist in allaying some of its issues without requiring a true rework. Though that would be the easy way out it would do the job in a sense. I imagine that would cause the reveal to be nerfed in duration. But if we have it more often then it becomes a semi skill shot skill instead of a blanket debuff. I wouldn’t be opposed to that.

So if sic ems cooldown was say. 15-20 seconds when traited. It could be used fairly reliably in combat. Meaning the pet would be able to reliably use its damage boost. Because even if you canceled it. It will probably be back in 10ish seconds. (again this is the easy way out) I would guess that the reveal would drop to 3 seconds in duration. Long enough to interfere with a restealth. But not so long as to deprive a thief of an entire shadow refuge once every 20 seconds haha.

I will say however. That GW1 has ALOT of incredible pet based skills that I wish were in gw2 as shouts haha. “Strike as One” is just one of them.

As long as people have new ideas ill try to keep the thread going.

@ Heimskarl. The idea of a petapult skill is definetly one I like. And I really hope anet one day adds it in. But the nature of the games combat leads me to believe they won’t. Also that would involve completely removing the original guard skill and creating an entirely new one. Im not sure thats feasable. And if it is. It’s functionality seems to fit sic em more readily as Scrimschaw said

@ Scrimschaw Keep in mind that any additions to guard or protect me will probably affect there cooldown if there just straight additions (judging by past experience). Though I suppose its possible they may leave the cooldowns as is if the skills base is as under performing or situational as these can be.

But with something as massively powerful as aoe protection or taunt. I find it likely that atleast 5-10 seconds would be added to the cooldown…if not more.

Part of what makes guard nice in its current functionality is you can readily pop it to “force” the pet to use one of its special abilities. As guard resets its attack patterns (or seems to) This is great with canines as it encourages it to use either of its hard hitting abilities. Now of course this still isn’t enough to encourage its use in the majority of gameplay. But it does allow for some interesting play. With the longer cooldowns people that have been using guard regularly will lose the frequent access to this.

The idea of aoe boons for shouts is interesting. But things that affect the party in that manner typicaly have much longer cooldowns than guard does. The end result is actually the possibility of guard being BETTER at doing this than those other utilities with longer cooldowns. Which would mean guard would have to be balanced accordingly back down.

How would you have it actually function so that its useful. But still balanced.

Edit: What I mean is. How/where would the boons be deployed. At what range. And in what manner. Keep in mind the other skills that provide similar boon support in this game. And the nature of ranger shouts.

Wolfey.3407:

Popping in,
The developers are reading this still. They are not going to post anything until they are certain of any changes they are going to make.

The thread is not being ignored, just not being posted in at the moment. They don’t want to shoot them selves further in the foot by saying something and not following through with it 100%.

They also don’t want to start a chain reaction of: This class raged and got ton of responses from developers so now they hate ____ and ____. So now _ and _ rage and start expecting the same thing ranger go.

Again, It would be nice if they popped in and posted more; however, they are still reading this thread. (waits to get flamed).

Thank you for the head sup wolfey. We appreciate it. (well…most of us do id guess.)

Hunter.4783:

Shadelang.3012:

Is actually pretty kitten ed amazing. I was anticipating spending most of my time on druid and reaper. But I had an idea to use signets due to the ranged CC effects on them. And the synergy is actually pretty amazing. You can land ALOT of longbow 2s thanks to the CC procs on the signet actives. And the damage boosts go along way towards turning already hard hitting skills into nukes.

I was using a radiance/DH/virtues build. to reduce the cooldown on virtue of justices’ passive and make it aoe. I ended up making almost the entire build around the passive/active of the f1. And it works amazingly well in most cases. I have to reccomend giving it a shot.

Who are you using against im sorry. it sure as hell aint players. And it aint bosses.

Could it be…open world PVE solo content? You know any kind of trait/gear combination will outperform what u just described right?

Oh im using it against players alright haha. Ive been running it in pvp

The ranged cc is great for setting up bursts. And the easy access to dmg multipliers makes sure those bursts hurt. Its good for +1ning a fight or strafing someone in stronghold.

Is actually pretty kitten ed amazing. I was anticipating spending most of my time on druid and reaper. But I had an idea to use signets due to the ranged CC effects on them. And the synergy is actually pretty amazing. You can land ALOT of longbow 2s thanks to the CC procs on the signet actives. And the damage boosts go along way towards turning already hard hitting skills into nukes.

I was using a radiance/DH/virtues build. to reduce the cooldown on virtue of justices’ passive and make it aoe. I ended up making almost the entire build around the passive/active of the f1. And it works amazingly well in most cases. I have to reccomend giving it a shot.

mistsim.2748:

Shadelang.3012:

With around 800 healing power in a mostly zealots/assassin’s build I was able to keep people up pretty well in raids unless they got one shot by something. (im look at you wierd boss mechanic that we never did figure out before we got kicked)

of course, that’s because some of the abilities scale great. Astral Wisp isn’t one of em.

I would argue it doesn’t need to scale super well as I managed to get it to crit for 2k+ a few times. Its a decent chaser skill. I do wish it did SOMETHING to the enemy though. Vulnerability pulse?

With around 800 healing power in a mostly zealots/assassin’s build I was able to keep people up pretty well in raids unless they got one shot by something. (im look at you wierd boss mechanic that we never did figure out before we got kicked)

Mr Pin.6728:

Having played around a bit more in PvE and PvP I will add the biggest drawback to druid on a power builds is celestial form just feels so disconnected. I enter the form and want to do… something. But I can’kittens such an odd experience.

I found it to be pretty smooth in a zealots build. I can always go and heal people. And hte 5 does enough damage to be a threat. Not to mention the daze from 3is great for setting up bursts between you and the pet.

So far. Im loving running duel wyverns. The attacks are slow but very powerful. I often see my wyvern taking out healthy chunks of mobs health in the support/might building zealots build im using.

Staff. Im actually very happy with this. all around.

Celestial avatar. This form is giving my carpel tunnel when I heal for the raid fights. But the healing is strong. And works very well in that environment. I wish #2 had a slightly differnet functionality though. Or atleast a much larger effected radius. It can be difficult to land this skill in the dynamic fighting the first boss forced

I feel spirits should really be fleshed out to be our party support option. Frost/Sun/Earth/and even air spirits are actually quite decent at increasing party dps and survivability now. They just need to be shifted so that there capable of functioning in large scale engagements without being instantly smashed by accidental aoe or left behind by gw2s naturally fast paced combat.

I think its fine if shouts are a bit selfish on the ranger. I feel there meant to be about the bond between the ranger and the pet. Not the pet and random busybody # 3159.

Of course my perspective is colored from years of playing pet classes. Generally pet classes in other games assist allies by having a prescence in places players can’t go. Which is a role shouts can fulfill. They just aren’t given the tools they need yet.

I see alot of people pushing to have protect me or guard become an aoe damage transfer to the pet. May I ask why? It just seems counter intuitive to have a skill that potentially disables the class mechanic that would only even be worth using with 2 or 3 pet families.

If we actually look at the amount of health pets have. And the amount of damage theyd be expected to absorb. Can we really say theyl have a significant impact in the majority of content. Especially in PvP and WvW. and quite likely in raids. It feels like the pets would die far too quickly to actually be useful. Leaving us without our class mechanic. Effectively blocking us from using the other shouts as well as our pets themselves.

You could argue (just cancel it before it dies) but that isn’t always going to be the case. Becuase we can’t predict crit damage. Niether can we predict if our fellow payers are going to use active mitigation to lower further the dmg the pet would take. It could die extremely quickly in many situations.

And even if we could cancel it intime. We would almost have to burn our heal skill to heal hte pet off or wed be forced to immediately pet swap. I don’t think a utility skill should force the person using it to commit to more actions. They should force the opponent to commit more actions to counter it.

So far I have been seeing two primary camps. Or trains of thought.

One seems to be the addition of boons or the manipulation of boons to the shouts.

The other seems to be more mechanical changes to the shouts. Changing there functionality to maek them more impactful.

On those trains of thought it feels like the first would have a more “generic” set of usefullness. It would make them closer to other classes shouts. With a slight twist due to there reliance on the pet

The other sticks to the concept of enhancing the pet to enable it to complete a very specific task. Tunnel visioning the pet on a certain goal for a period of time. Less boon support. But a more focused effort outside of boons.

Does that seem accurate to everyone else?

Ryan.9387:

Ranger needs stuff to help others. Here are my suggestions for shouts with the pet centric concept behind them left intact.

Sicem:
Add : “pet well transfer movement impeding conditions from itself and allies in the radius to its target. Conditions transferred per hit: 1 (priority: pet over ally)”

Search and Rescue:
The pet well run to the lowest health other ally (not the player). On arrival the pet will clear 3 conditions and will heal that ally for 4k and other allies in aoe for 2k. Has no effect without a target.

Protect me
The pet will move to the player. Upon arrival it will attack, removing stability, knocking down opponents, and applying weakness.

Guard:
The pet will guard an area. Allies within the area have 20% of incoming direct damage redirected to the pet.

On your opinion of guard I have to strongly advice against that. More suicide buttons for the pet is the last thing shouts need. A damage transfer between us and the pet is hard enough to control. If that was across five One zerk staff eles lava font could kill it pretty much instantly. even at 20%. I would if I could get rid of the current suicide button (protect me) as the idea of ordering your companion to kill itself just seems WRONG to me in a utility designed on improving its capabilities for short durations.

I am completely okay with guard becoming either an aoe support or control skill. Ive said this before. But an aoe damage transfer is asking for the core that these utilties are designed around to get spiked down by things outside our capability to interact with or otherwise mitigate.

Wanted to step in and thank everyone for staying on topic. Ive seen alot of different ideas from different playstyles/perspectives. Too many for me to create a proper grouping of. Some are horendously OP. Others seem to be a bit UP. But nearly all of them seem to be honest attempts to fix some of the core issues with these utilities. I havn’t been able to pay this thread as much attention as I would have liked in the last 14-16 hours or so but im trying to stay abreast of everything haha.

Theres alot of reading involved though.

One thing I would like to say however. In a few cases I see places where people diverge pretty heavily from the skills current theoretical role. If possible I would like to see them improved in ways that enable them to fulfill there current roles more effectively. As the ideas of the shouts themselves aren’t bad.

Note. This is just my opinion of course. And should have absolutely no bearing on your own decisions beyond that of any other random voice on the internet. But heres what I am hoping comes from this thread.

Guard:Becomes either an area support or denial skill. One that benefits allies from being near the affect. Or harms enemies for being near the affect.

Protect Me: Probably needs the biggest rework. Should be seperated from SoS in functionality so its not directly competing with a superior skill. Should be given its own method of protecting the ranger in a way that encourages its use in a shout build.

Sic Em: A “Chaser” skill and the closest to being in decent working condition in most game modes. Id like to see this receive mostly a mechanical change as its current form can be frustrating to use in many situations. Simply not having this cancel when you call back the pet or have it switch targets would do amazing things for this skill.

Search & Rescue. Arguably useful in VERY specific situations. Id like to see this skill have a broader range of uses OR turned into a RELIABLE rez skill. I would rather see this have some kind of direct support element to it.

So what we have reached so far.

Guard needs either an aoe denial or an aoe support component.

Search and rescue could work if it was an puling aoe heal with ground targeted functionality. (Pet runs to an area and pulses aoe healing for downed and living players). The idea of a weaker version of transfusion. The cooldown could be adjusted to keep in line with other support skills (either leaving it as it is or lowering it -.- Were trying to make this skill WANTED.)

Protect me needs a rework. The “im going to kill my pet” keeps it from even being a true invuln. The idea of a 50% transfer is still the best I can think of at this time. What if it was a tether between the ranger and the pet? That way it would have some visual sign for enemies in pvp/wvw to know its happening. In its current state protect me can be confusing. Edit: It was also mentioned that the adding of protection&resistance to this affect for the ranger/pet would help it in its current form.

Sic Em It seems like everyone agrees has is a good idea. However its mechanics can make it unwieldy to use. Or even downright frustrating if the fight dynamic changes and we have to cancel it.

Edit: Also please stay on topic. Don’t derail this thread just because a red post has commented. Please keep it to the core conversation.

On the topic of Search and Rescue. What if it was reworked to be a ground targted ability that hte pet would run into an area and pulse out aoe healing. That healing would have a similar affect to a weaker version of transfusion on the downed. But it would also affect those still standing.

Mcrocha.3891:

bloodpyrope.8630:

Shadelang.3012:

bloodpyrope.8630:

I heard long ago, rangers could use Guard to send pets up towers and stuff in WvW. Was this removed for a reason? Because being able to teleport a pet somewhere would be insanely useful and I might start using it just to instantly position my pet on a ledge or place I wouldn’t be able to access.

They wouldn’t even have to change the leash range.

That was changed a very long time ago. And yes. It was kittening hilarious and brokenly over powered. While it made for some of the funniest youtube videos. Many were glad to see it go.

Using guard to bypass the leash range would not cause it to teleport from my current understanding of its mechanics. Of so. Then thats something that would have to be fixed together with it.

So I wasn’t around then, but why was it insanely OP? From what I know, mesmers can summon their phantasms up towers to attack siege. Sure pets have more health than phantasms, but unless people start running all ranger zergs and teleporting pets up towers to stop defenders, I can’t imagine a situation where it’d break the game (but maybe I just have poor imagination).

I just think a shout that’s already ground targeted and involves sending a pet somewhere could be reworked to teleport the pet instead. I can think of a few situations where that’d be useful. Teleport pet on a ledge where enemy rangers are shooting, teleport pet to ledge that a downed thief just went to, etc.

I believe the reasoning was that pets could be used to take out siege that should have been otherwise safe from damage and thus not fair to defenders.

You could also use Signet of the wild. Sic em. and guard with a stealthed jaguar to kill 6-7 defenders before they even realized what was happening.

bloodpyrope.8630:

I heard long ago, rangers could use Guard to send pets up towers and stuff in WvW. Was this removed for a reason? Because being able to teleport a pet somewhere would be insanely useful and I might start using it just to instantly position my pet on a ledge or place I wouldn’t be able to access.

They wouldn’t even have to change the leash range.

That was changed a very long time ago. And yes. It was kittening hilarious and brokenly over powered. While it made for some of the funniest youtube videos. Many were glad to see it go.

Using guard to bypass the leash range would not cause it to teleport from my current understanding of its mechanics. Of so. Then thats something that would have to be fixed together with it.

Alright. Came back and read the new posts so im going to post my thoughts.

1: It seems people agree that guard needs to do SOMETHING in its area. Whether that be making the pet more dangerous to enemies inside it (The "Hunted’ concept I put forth earlier is an example of this.) or do something to protect allies in the area (I feel this would actually be too strong for its cooldown unless this is a damage transfer like protect me but in an aoe….which would royally kitten me off if that got implemented…Pretty much drakes and bears are the only pets you could use with guard for its functionality in that case)

So either an aoe support or aoe control aspect for those actively standing in the affect of guard. Likely to be shown on there debuff/buff bar

Protect me it seems those here for the most part agree this could use a rework. As its affects largely aren’t worth the tradeoff of having an inactive pet that is also downing cyanide pills.

Some argue that the lower cooldown and stunbreak warrant the less effective defensive measures. However I would argue that there should be away to make this defensive skill not potentially more harmful than helpful when your not running a bear.

Id put forth the concept of a 50/50 transfer between the ranger and his pet with boon support on the ranger and pet for the duration that would NOT interfere with the pets attack patterns. But there are also other good suggestions for reworks in this thread.

S&R Being largely ineffective due to the off chance your pet can get back and start rezzing an ally after being interrupted before that ally dies just doesn’t seem like a good enough reason to leave it as a largely ineffectual rez skill. I almost feel that this should just become a trait only and something else put in its place. Its fine as an adept trait. Not as a utility skill.

Sic Em I think we can agree is the most “functional” of our current shouts. Though if we were able to swap targets without canceling it I feel it would go a long way towards making it more useful.

EDIT: I still STRONGLY believe that guard (and only guard) should allow the pet to function outside of the leash range as long as its inside the aoe of the guard skill. That way it could actually be used to hinder enemies that come from a certain location for a short time.

Alright. going to sleep for now. Ill attempt to address any posts when I wake up.

borya.2964:

Shadelang.3012:

If you run guard. Do you use it for its intended functionality. Or to pop boons.

If you run sic em. do you give any other order to your pet for the duration. Because that prevents you from using this skill to its fullest.

If you run protect me. How can you justify a defensive skill that kills our class mechanic and even prevents capture point contribution when its competition SAVES our class mechanic as well as us and doesn’t interfere with capture point contribution.

If you use search and rescue. How often do you find your pet gets interupted/killed while attempting to rez. How often does it succesfully rez something in an area too risky for you to attempt that rez. Does it do it on its own. or with signet of stone or bark skin WITH rampage as one protecting it. How much investment does that rez take compared to other rez skills.

I am a roamer and WvWer, it’s the only thing i do in the game for 3 years.

1.) Guard never left my bar, it’s like LR, i just can do anything without it. I use it for the boons and the fonctions. The boons are on a short CD so it’s very useful against classes who can remove, steal, rip or corrupt. It’s my only source of mobility. The stealth for the pet is great and have good sinergy with Hunter’s Shot. Protection help with pet survivability and the command makes the pet management slightly easier.

2.) Sic em is not one of my primary skills, but since i have both survivals and shouts traited, i sometimes slot it when there are too much mesmers and thieves in the area.

3.) I don’t use it, i know that it doesn’t work very well but even if it could i wouldn’t use it, i don’t use any kind of invu skills, not my playstyle.

4.) I never use it. I love my class, but revive a mate is too important to be tied to the AI. Period.

I use SOTP very often, for stab ofc and cuz of the lyssa runes from my build. I never use WEAO, TO is way better to me. If i use several shouts i don’t have any problem in the chain of orders. It’s L2P issue.

So you use guard for its boons. Not for the stated functionality of actually have the pet guard an area.

You use sic em for the reveal. But not for its nature as a pursuit skill.

Despite not knowing from first hand you understand that protect me is sub par.

You also agree that S&R is unreliable.

All four of those are the issues this thread is attempting to fix. To alter the core four shouts in such a way that they are worth using for there own sake. And not for additional functionality that is tacked on as an afterthought.

There nature of canceling eachother can be worked around. After using a full compliment of shouts since release I know this by heart. However. Why are they the only utility in the game that acts this way. Why is this functionality necessary on already sub par mechanics.

Guys. I hate to say it but this isn’t the thread to discuss the Heal As One Change in depth. In order to lower the risk of this thread being merged I ask that you stay on the topic of the shout utility skills. Specifically the original four shouts and ways to improve them.

Mcrocha.3891:

^
I like area denial on Guard. Cool concept to have the pet do more damage in an area and say knockdown enemies who try to cross into the area or something.

I feel a knockback would be far too powerful. Especially on a skill with a low cooldown. However. A soft cc like cripple won’t spell instant death. But it WILL have the potential of further increasing your destructive power with synergy to traits like predator’s onslaught.

Ehecatl.9172:

I still feel Guard should be an area denial skill. You don’t send your pet to guard an area to get boons. That doesn’t make thematic sense.

Having the pet run to the area and then perform a launch or knockback on an enemy in the area would make a lot more sense. Have the pet knock enemies off the point while the ranger captures it so a beastmaster shout build can fill the role of a decapper would be interesting.

I’ve always felt like ranger shouts should function like the GW1 Beastmastery skills where you command your pet to perform an attack, allowing the pet to perform control effects/interrupts.

Whatever is done to Guard it SHOULD NOT be used as a way to crank out protection. A utility skill deserves to have more interesting functionality than that, and we already have Stone Spirit to produce that boon in large quantity for us.

Im semi back so ill go ahead and put my thoughts in. I agree guard should be area denial. It feels like that was the design. However at the same time the pet needs to be able to survive in order to deny that area. The idea of a cc while the pet is attacking of some kind. Or a damage boost to the pet while hes in that area. Is something.

How about when an enemy enters the area he gets a warning on his debuff bar called “Hunted” that reads: While in this area the creature hunting you deals increased damage. If the creature hits you from behind you are crippled for 5 seconds.

The damage increase would be 15-20%. This debuff with dissapear the second the player leaves the “guarded” area.

This would make guard a decent ambush skill. Enabling the pet to punish players that enter an area. While giving it a soft CC capability that would work well with predators onslaught.

Alright. I have to head out for a bit. But ill try to reply to any new posts as soon as I get back. For anyone reading this. PLEASE put for your opinions. Theres no such thing as a truly bad suggestion. Unfeasable maybe. But even those can lead to new ideas. Id really like to see these utiltiies become something REAL.

Gaile Gray.6029:

And this is a fantastic thread. Constructive, detailed, thoughtful, well expressed.

Thank you all.

Thank you for helping us remake it. It would have been alot harder without you helping to recconect everyone.

ProtoMarcus.7649:

Little Observation:

All Ranger Main-hand and Dual Handed Weapons have at least one skill that also applies an affect/skill to the pet

Except Staff as Druid. Is it by design or was it forgotten?

Its a bit off topic. But I feel that hte healing it gives will also benefit the pet. so in a sense it still has synergy. But as far as boon creation goes. Yes your right.

Zenos Osgorma.2936:

Shadelang.3012:

Zenos Osgorma.2936:

I beleive Strenght of the Pack should effect Allies not in regards to timbre but as the core Mechanic .

Classes already have lots of fury and swiftness not to take away from timbres swiftness ect.

but to add some Team utilties make it so when you cast Strenght of the pack the party or 5 players recivive 3 Stability and the SotP pulse internvals if they are close enough acting just like the Natures vengence spirit boons/radius.

it will give players a reason to stack up on a ranger while in active combat to Benifit from the intervals of might/fury/swiftness and the one off Application of stability.

increase the cooldown by all means to 72seconds then when traited it’ll even out at 58seconds.

Hmm how would that change the dynamics for longbow rangers however. Also would boons still pulse on the pet. The increased cooldown may also be detrimental on the pvp side of things. However thats something Id want to test in game before making my decision on that atleast.

I’d say no since if it did Pulse from pet + ranger from having both pulse would again Scale boons too high, so only Ranger or Pet.

i’d say pet does the Pulse AoE that will work well with HaO + fortifying bond too even alone will work well , ether way Longbow rangers are not loosing out on anything they will still gain the current Sotp benifits.

its just a Straight up QoL addition for some team utility in a stability form or a focal point to converge on also gives a reason for ranger to be in a group for more than just spotter and frost.
but as its a strong boon so i don’t think a extra 10seconds of cooldown will effect the class in Pvp that much.

Haha youd be suprised how many times i barely survive fighting an engi or a lolpage warrior thanks to its current cooldown. I was more concerned that atleast as far as pvp/wvw goes your rarely close enough to other players in a power build for them to benefit from the stab. It would involve going melee. Which is near suicidal in a power based shout build. It would be doable for a condi build however.

ProtoMarcus.7649:

Opening strike is limited to the Marksmanship line though, and that would be CRAZY vulnerability -

Oh, pet applies vuln per hit for the next 10s / next 5 attacks?

Thats what I was thinking. Add some might onto that and the pet can actually set up for some decent damage.

ProtoMarcus.7649:

’Sic ’Em

Although now that I think of it just before typing it makes me think its pretty much Quickening Zephyr…

• 10s Quickness
• 10s SuperSpeed
• 8s Reveal (change from the old 6s)

…Yeah. Pet-Centric Quickening Zephyr with Reveal.

Alt Suggestions:

• Next 5 Pet hits apply Torment?
• Pet gains Fury?
• Next 5 Pet hits heals the pet?

For the alt suggestions. The pet gaining opening strike with each attack for the duration?

Edit: Id like to see pet based fury and might on this utility skill. Largely because fury and might dont dissapear when you swap targets. And if were going to try to make shouts a boon based utility. it would work better than this wierd psuedo/normally accidentally canceled/boon it has now.

ProtoMarcus.7649:

I almost feel like we should focus on one shout at a time ahahaha

Some what ifs – I’d like feedback

Search and Rescue

• Stealths the pet for 6-8s? _(Kinda redundant with ‘Guard!’ but could be a good way to safely let the pet head to downed ally)
• Applies Taunt towards the PLAYER (so the pet can safely get to destination undisturbed, dangerous for player but nice interrupt/diversion/stomp cancelling)
• Makes the pet knockdown enemies on its way to downed ally? (See: Trampler Centaurs/Stempeding Minotaurs)

Makes me notice; All professions have 1 revive-related skill, except the Revenant! Edit: And thief woops

The idea of the pet trampling players otw to the downed foe is interesting. Could be useful to interupt stomps. And if it taunted foes when it got TO the player it would make it a very powerful stomp denial tool. I don’t know about the stealth. I feel that should stay the stability that was mentioned earlier. As that affect is already duplicateable as you said with guard.

However. Adding hard CC like that to a shout makes me cringe a little bit. Im not certain how I feel about it. Especially when its as specific as this one is. However its very situational. S&R will fail to activate if there isnt a downed player nearby .So it could end up balanced through the rarity of its use. I have a feeling that would be a PITA to design though.

Zenos Osgorma.2936:

I beleive Strenght of the Pack should effect Allies not in regards to timbre but as the core Mechanic .

Classes already have lots of fury and swiftness not to take away from timbres swiftness ect.

but to add some Team utilties make it so when you cast Strenght of the pack the party or 5 players recivive 3 Stability and the SotP pulse internvals if they are close enough acting just like the Natures vengence spirit boons/radius.

it will give players a reason to stack up on a ranger while in active combat to Benifit from the intervals of might/fury/swiftness and the one off Application of stability.

increase the cooldown by all means to 72seconds then when traited it’ll even out at 58seconds.

Hmm how would that change the dynamics for longbow rangers however. Also would boons still pulse on the pet. The increased cooldown may also be detrimental on the pvp side of things. However thats something Id want to test in game before making my decision on that atleast.