Guild Wars 2

Ubik.8315:

EvesDesire.2596:

I think there’s a simple solution to the druid problem.

Make pet stats scale with the player’s amulet. Simple as that. No more tanking and dpsing at the same time.

^ this

Except that would horribly inbalance the pets themselves unless we rework every single pet to have the exact same base stats AS WELL AS doing a full rework on almost every single pet attack in the game.

Otherwise you risk breaking the class in one way or the other far more than it has EVER been broken before.

If you want to start doing the match on everything feel free. I don’t expect anyone at anet to do it when they are already trying to rebalance pets with the CURRENT system (as evidenced by the last balance patch and probably the next one)

I hate to say it but blanket (all you have to do is this) statements just show that the people that make them dont actually understand how pets in this game work. Or that they didn’t bother fully thinking their suggestion through across the entire spiderweb of effects there decision will make.

Edit: Fixed some grammar issues. I am sure I missed some others.

If soul eater was changed to (grave digger occurs 30% faster) instead of life steal on gravedigger it would go alot better in pretty much all 3 game modes. Be a significant dps increase below 50%

and a pretty big usability buff everywhere else.

Just a thought. I feel like that would even give a decent competitive edge compared to decimate defenses.

Tomiyou.3790:

Erzian.5218:

Druid is already at the bottom when it comes to damage. I fail to understand why anyone would want them to lose even more damage.

I meant that they should be forced to pick some healing power stats in PvE to achieve the same healing, as currently you don’t need to do so to raid. PvP wise, 15% or 10% of base healing would be actually more like a 5% nerf as they get so much from their mender ammy.

Hmm but druid in pve largely isn’t brought for its healing. it has the healing (and some times hte tank AND healing) roll because its convenient. Not because its the best one. Its slotted for the damage buffs. Raids once you learn them actually require minimal party healing to recover from mistakes. Once you learn how to avoid the random damage most of the damage you receive you can sustain yourself through. Or you can have an ele pop into water during downtimes to top everyone off.

Its just that druid (rangers in general) has no real roll except to provide damage boosts to the party due to the fact that its outclassed in every other regard. In order to compensate for that there. Anything else it does is…secondary as far as the raid/group is concerned. Druids happen to be able to provide the basic healing required for a group to safely clear an encounter as WELL as the damage buffs it gives. Making it a logical choice.

Its kind of like how chronomancer is the tank. Its also a buffer. But it has the basic skills necessary to tank at the same time. Like the druid its damage is kittening awful. But it boosts the damage of the rest of the raid while also tanking despite the fact that compared to say a Cav reaper who can stack massive amounts of armor while doing more damage than a chronomancer as well as having RIDICULOUS amounts of raw damage reduction from traits and shrouds and very high self recovery (making it pretty much immune to most damage mechanics).

But a chronomancer is so much more convenient to take because like the druid you need to take one ANYWAY for its damage boosts.

So reducing its healing will force druids to take a little more healing power sure. But all your doing is forcing a bunch of raiders to spend money changing gear to a set they will never use on another character just so they can go back to providing the healing necessary to fulfill their roll in the raid without them holding up a spot something else could take. (Edit: another possibility is you force someone else to change there build to make up for the lost healing. Screwing over TWO people for the price of one.)

You won’t change anything as far as that goes. You’l just kitten alot of people off for no reason.

Likewise in WvW. Where ranger in general doesn’t have a roll ANYWAY. Except as a roamer and in some cases as an anti pick build.

I wouldn’t be opposed to the suggested healing nerf in PvP. (Though keep in mind a heal nerf THAT massive is very likely to push druid out of the meta. So you better hope they compensate for them in some other way or expect a fully understandable kitten storm) But in PvE and WvW? Just to force some people to swap gear? Its completely unnecessary and will just cause headaches for everyone involved. Its not like the tiny damage they get from being able to run zerk or sinister makes that big a difference when they spend much of their time casting non damaging skills ANYWAY just to provide damage boosts.

Tragic Positive.9356:

Lalainnia.3598:

Sic em is perfectly fine I have no idea why anyone would want to even change it let alone nerf it……

It’s lackluster.
Not really fine but has it’s uses in recreative role-play days.

Having the 10 sec reveal and 25 sec CD would be …
… Dunno.
People (thieves mainly) would rage, Rangers would rage for having their beloved ability changed (they did so even with Guard rework), everyone would rage and no one would use it anyway.

Nice idea, but no for me. Not worth.

Lackluster? This skill is one of the best shouts and largely what enabled me to hit legendary in season one on BASE ranger.

Its effect is really strong ever since it was fixed to no longer cancel. I don’t see any need to rework this at all.

Forget about the reveal. The damage bonus ALONE is great. Infact if it was just a reveal (aoe or otherwise) I wouldn’t even bother slotting it. Id go for another stunbreak or some other dps cooldown. But as it is right now it can be used on ANYTHING effectively. Want to break a dragonhunter quickly? Pet swap into bristleback stand on the other side of the dragonhunter so his blocks are hitting you and use sic em for 40% more damage to the bristleback f2 with quickness.

Chase down a fleeing target? Swap to smokescale or a wolf and use sic em instead of the attack command to send the pet chasing it down with 40% speed bonus so it starts its smoke assault/crippling leap doing very high damage. (BEFORE HOT I was able to get tail swipe on drake to reliably hit for over 10k in pvp)

Making this skill just a reveal would be pushing it so far into a tiny niche that you would be REMOVING it as a usable skill in most fights. Making it more of a risk to use than anything else.

Edit: Bah sorry for blowing up on this though. Just a part of me cant understand how people seem to thing this skill just doesn’t do anything useful. And changing it in the way described here would HEAVILY damage the build ive used to hit legendary each season. (With almost 0 benefit from the change itself)

As a very long time shout ranger I have to disagree with this change. Sic Em is a big part of what lets the playstyle work. Offering some much needed burst potential to the more dps oriented builds.

Sic Em requires a target. But it enables you to HEAVILY punish that target based on your cooldown availability and pet choice. Losing that damage/mobility boost in favor of a gimmicky reveal that won’t matter in most forms of combat (completely pointless in PvE, Useless against MOST builds in PvP, that is too reliant of pet pathing and a whole new pet behavior (singling out a stealthed untargeted enemy and moving towards it in a game with movement skills and teleports)) isn’t the kind of reliability I pushed for in shouts for years.

Sic Em in its current form is a kitten good skill. It requires you to be fast against some builds yes. But the reward for using it skillfully is quite high. And it is able to function against non stealthed enemies also. Keeping it from becoming completely useless if your enemies just don’t use stealth to fight you.

Do you remember turret engineers? If they buff spirit weapons to a point where there good enough to use in a competitive build that fiasco is gonna happen all over again.

I LOVE my guardian and I love the idea of spirit weapons. But I really don’t wanna get turret engineered. And the community will lose there kitten if they even THINK an “AI” build is anywhere NEAR meta.

That aside. Taking spirit weapons makes the guardian himself pretty vulnerable to conditions. (if you invested into them trait wise and are using more than 1). So I feel it wouldnt be too far out there if they were immune to the effects of conditions themselves.

Outside of that. Id change the bow of truth so that its arrows applied resistance (3-4 second duration) in an aoe around the friendly “target” it hits instead of cleansing.

And its aoe healing barrage altered to do slightly less healing but to cleanse conditions in an aoe. This helps protect not only the guardian but the other spirit weapons as well. And this MIGHT be strong enough to be considered a heal skill.

Sword of justice I would love it if its aoe radius was increased and pulsed damage instead of firing it all in one burst.

Like lets say it slams into the ground and creates a symbol as long as its rooted (it should get 2 stacks of stability here) That pulses aoe vuln and damage.

If the hammer when it smashed into the ground created a circle that acted similar to hollowed ground. Pulsing stability to allies inside it.

The shield I feel is actually pretty good. Though I would reduce the cooldown on its command a bit more.

What these do is allows a guardian to act in a similar way to other guardian builds that currently exist. But in a completely different fashion. Sort of being able to pick and choose certain strengths while giving up another option that leaves it vulnerable.

You can have aoe damage, projectile destruction, and aoe stability and single target cc. But you don’t get cleanses.

You get Cleanses Stability and Projectile Destruction but you are lacking in pressure.

Just my own idea though.

3 games in an hour.

Average game lasts about 10 minutes.

You said the average que times was about 10 minutes.

Sounds like would be about an hour. 10 minute que time isn’t that strange during a games downtime. Which according to Mea (I don’t live in the EU) it VERY much is. So yeah 3 matches in an hour makes perfect sense. Even if the que time was only 4-5 minutes youd only be able to do 4. Five maybe if one of them was a complete roflstomp.

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

@ Those defending Druid; Swagger, Shadelang, RyuDragnier and others, what do you guys consider to be OP?

Giving examples, what are some things that you consider over tuned and in need of adjustments?

If youd like to discuss that in a relevant thread feel free to post one on the subject. But it has nothing to do with the OP and the discussion at hand except as an attempt at diverting the subject to something in your favor (its pretty obvious what your trying to do whether you see it as a bad thing or not).

If you want to make another thread of what druids percieve as being OP you can probably get dozens of responses from varying skill levels in the ranger forums if you post there. What youl probably find is that people think that whatever kills them is automatically OP. Becuase many people aren’t able to acknowledge that they might be less skilled than they think they are. Or because they aren’t willing to admit that they don’t know how the class/build there fighting works and there too embarrassed/prideful to actually try to watch what there opponent does and figure out HOW there skills work.

Pretty much exactly how MOST (not all but definitely the majority) of the posts in this thread sound.

Choppy.4183:

Balthazzarr.1349:

This all really cracks me up. Ranger/Druid … About the most rejected class by zergs but at least good for roaming apparently and you want nerfs…

Why wouldn’t you favour buffs to improve their value in zergs while supporting specific nerfs that deal with the specific issue identified as a problem in small scale wvw?

Maybe because that isn’t what anyone that agrees with the OP in this thread WANTS. They don’t give a kitten about druid. They just want it easier to kill. Thats it end of story. You havn’t seen ANY offers on how to improve the base druid/ranger to counteract the nerfs there demanding.

Why the hell should the people that disagree with them be any more reasonable? This entire thread is simply a better thought out QQ thread.

If I had seen even a TENTH of the people here screaming for nerfs on the druid making suggestions on how to help the builds they are more than happy to tear apart I would probably have been making more posts into this thread myself and actually enjoyed the discussion.

But the people demanding these nerfs don’t know anything about druid. They don’t know how it works. They don’t know how badly most of there “reasonable requests” will hurt the entire kitten CLASS. And as I have said before they simply don’t care.

DPS druids for example are ALREADY shafted by even slightly skilled revs. Who are capable of negating every form of a druids defense in order to be able.

Dps druids as apposed to bunker druids are also vulnerable to dragonhunters. Relying heavily on signet of stone incased they get pinned and preemptive strength of the pack use to prepare stability to deal with being pinballed.

DPS Druids have zero use in zergs (that another class can’t do more reliably). Something thats been recognized since DAY ONE OF THE GAME.

The changes suggested here simply makes those problems WORSE.

And has the OP and those agreeing with him even acknowledged this more than simple lip service? No.

There can’t be a balanced discussion here because one side doesn’t even have a real interest in the subject. They want what they want and who cares how much they damage in the process to get it.

This has happened before. And usually what happens in the end is a build gets completely ANNIHILATED from existence or an entire class gets irreperably damaged by it and it takes arena net months if not a year to fix the damage.

Justine.6351:

Well best of luck to you people.
Saying it now, celestial shadow is going to be moved and/or changed. It’s as inevitable as the nerf to lunar impact was and people were calling me stupid for thinking AFG getting easier would result in CAF nerfs back at HoT launch.

Unfortunately what most people don’t realize is that a nerf to celestial shadow is gonna hurt dps druids more than it will EVER hurt bunker druids. (Not to say that I don’t think your right or that you yourself might not realize this. Also I agree that celestial shadow or druidic clarity are the highest likely targets. Likely involving an icd that makes them usable only every OTHER CA) But they don’t give a kitten about how much damage they actually cause to the class as a whole haha. Most of there “suggestions” Involve gutting a core part of what makes ALL ranger/druid builds viable. And they don’t CARE.

Funny I remember saying almost the exact thing warning people what there demands to nerf turret engineer would do. I didnt even LIKE the build but I knew what was gonna happen. Sure enough they don’t exist in any game mode in any format in any way anymore.

Same thing will end up happening here. Only this time its gonna hit alot more than just one build.

Edit: I hope im wrong though. And that if anet DOES start to aim the nerf bat in one direction or the other they find a way to compensate the builds that get caught in the crossfire. They have actually on occasion done quite well doing just that. I just hope its not a situation where they will want to “wait and see” for three months before applying said counter balancing.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Shadelang.3012:

Thats something thats been asked and suggested before. And I find it rather likely we may can an elite spec on that concept eventaully. I feel it would be cool atleast as far as I am concerned :P

Would this elite spec being coming around winter time?

No idea. I said that this kind of mechanic WOULD be in an elite spec. Not that the next elite spec will HAVE this mechanic. Elite specs will probably come with the next expansion. which will probably get some news about some time NEXT year.

Edit: Also I doubt it would be exactly as you described. Its more likely to be a simple shapeshifting mechanic rather than what you described.

As tragic said above something similar existed in another game. Namely world of warcraft for one. In the form of a spell called Eyes of the Beast.

This spell was actually eventually removed. Because it was largely pointless in all forms of content. There was NO situation where it was actually worth using it. And the risk involved of leaving your body behind was completely not worth it.

Even if they let us shapeshift INTO our pet it would have to be with MASSIVE damage bonuses to that form to make it even slightly worth it. Due to how our damage is currently calculated. But it could give us a viable dps oriented option. As strange as that may sound to some.

Its a cool concept. But the ability as you describe it right now would only have use in incredibly specific situations. And probably wouldnt be worth devoting an entire elite spec too.

Thats something thats been asked and suggested before. And I find it rather likely we may can an elite spec on that concept eventaully. I feel it would be cool atleast as far as I am concerned :P

Edited: I stand corrected. I wasn’t aware that was OCX prime time.

In that case its possible you were bugged. This happens to some people even during NA Prime.

One thing you can try is simply leaving and reentering the que. It resets your position apparently and may get you unstuck. But during that time slot you shouldnt excpect fast ques.

Next time it happens just try leaving and reentering the que and waiting another 10-15minutes. I hate to say it but thats probably what you can expect que wise.

“Grbrbld” “Wr Hreerl ar Wrn” “Brtert Mr” “Strblr Rb Rrr Prgl”

(sorry couldn’t resist)

Aye its an improvement. Especially in the current meta. Adding on to what ddoi said the old version could be stripped and corrupted INCREDIBLY easily. Basically turning off our elite skill. Now atleast it can hold up better in combat seeing as how there are MORE corrupts and boonsteals than there were in the past. Combine that change with the rest of the shouts being reworked (Including heal as one) and shouts in general for rangers are included in almost every build (atleast the heal skill and elite)

Hmm I dont know if theyd allow that. People complained about the previous thing they had like that "PvP Ranks’ and now it cant be show in wvw at ALL. Saying it causes screen clutter. And rather than have an option to simply not see them but still be able to display them for people that cared. They simply turned it off in WvW entirely.

I don’t really…see that it would actually be fair to the pvpers who lost the ability to show off THEIR achievments/progress in wvw if you could do the same in PvE and TPvP.

A Menu that would let you turn on or off other players ranks/mastery level/ and wvw rank(or titles) in ALL game modes I feel would be ideal here. It would let players see whatever they want while those that want to avoid screen clutter can turn it off.

Hmm. And have you thought about what you want them to change to fix the issue you percieve? At all?

Im serious. If you have an idea SPEAK about it. If not then all you have done is arbitrarily blame others for “making” a “disaster” that you yourself can’t find the solution to.

In your post you give us no information. You just arbitrarily declare something and then add NOTHING to it.

You complain about the matchups but offer ZERO comments on what you would LIKE to see. You say its dead and completely ignore the existence of other people who might actually enjoy the game still.

You obviously came here to vent. And I sympathize with you. But ultimately your post comes off as originating from a largely selfish point of view. You don’t attempt to start a discussion. You simply make statements. There isn’t anything anyone can DO with this post except either blindly agree or doing what I am doing now.

This is a forum. If you have a problem you can post it here and we can DISCUSS it. And try to find solutions to eliviate the issues that harm your experience. Will arena net take those ideas? I have no idea. Sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t.

But your post isn’t going to help ANYTHING the way it is now. I emplore you to come to this forum with the intent on having a discussion with the other players and maybe even with the devs themselves. Not just throwing your dislike at a faceless entity and expecting them to somehow have even the slightest idea what you want.

EnderzShadow.2506:

Shadelang.3012:

I still use this trait quite a bit as its a very reliable way to reach 25 stacks of might without taking MM or needing to burn your elite. Its also not bad to support your allies in a team fight if things get desperate though that requires quite a bit more situational awareness.

It can also let you go toe to toe with a melee warrior for a few seconds if your running sword axe. Which is often enough to bait out there ccs so you can get disengage and then reengage from range if you need to.

I also use it when I have stab up and wanna do a whirling defense right ontop of a dragonhunter. Which unless they pop a cooldown (letting you get out of trap range) will probably kill them.

Guard for me is what takes a little of the risk away from high risk plays. Things you don’t necessarily want to burn signet of stone for. But that you need to do to secure a quick kill as opposed to a long drawn out fight.

This is for a DPS druid perspective though. From a menders druid PoV I could see guard as losing much of its flavor since a menders druids fights are USUALLY gonna be drawn out anyway. (unless the opponent makes a critical error very early in the fight)

are you having success with a offensive ranger build in spvp?

Ive reached legendary each season primarily through solo queing with the occasional due que here and there. The built can’t last on point as long but I find it more reliable for securing quick kills. Druid is actually very well designed to support a burst playstyle. (longbow sword/axe in this case)

The first season though I was able to do it without druid entirely. Success on a ranger is what you do with the tools it gives you.

I personaly have more of an impact on the match when I run marauder shout druid over menders defensive/support druid. Guard is a big part of what enables my playstyle to work effectively.

I still use this trait quite a bit as its a very reliable way to reach 25 stacks of might without taking MM or needing to burn your elite. Its also not bad to support your allies in a team fight if things get desperate though that requires quite a bit more situational awareness.

It can also let you go toe to toe with a melee warrior for a few seconds if your running sword axe. Which is often enough to bait out there ccs so you can get disengage and then reengage from range if you need to.

I also use it when I have stab up and wanna do a whirling defense right ontop of a dragonhunter. Which unless they pop a cooldown (letting you get out of trap range) will probably kill them.

Guard for me is what takes a little of the risk away from high risk plays. Things you don’t necessarily want to burn signet of stone for. But that you need to do to secure a quick kill as opposed to a long drawn out fight.

This is for a DPS druid perspective though. From a menders druid PoV I could see guard as losing much of its flavor since a menders druids fights are USUALLY gonna be drawn out anyway. (unless the opponent makes a critical error very early in the fight)

What are you talking about? If your in WvW the enemy probably popped the emergency waypoint that lets them teleport into the keep for a short time.

If your in PvE mobs spawn quite often in various locations during events. Infact they come from specific routes typically so that builds that use things like turrets, traps, banners, spirts etc… can set up in advance.

What you have said has NOTHING to do with anet “cheating”. Just you being salty because things apparently didnt go your way and I am assuming you died.

Your gonna have to provide ALOT more information if you want people to take you seriously with this kind of accusation.

Ranger

>= Necro. Depends on what cooldowns are up and if you have astral force up before hand. Without astral force the first 10 seconds of the fight can be hell.

>= Warrior Again depends on the situation but a druid has a better chance of kiting/whittling down a warrior to death than the other way around. A warrior the focuses on defense however can last pretty much forever. its when they attack that they leave themselves vulnerable to pet bursts.

=Thief. Equally skilled the ranger has advantage. But it can go down to the wire here on whether or not one side or the other gets hit by certain key combos. Against skilled thieves I typically end the fight without cooldowns left. Against bad thieves however its a one sided slaughter in favor of the ranger.

=Mesmer. If the duel is in a confined space the mesmer has the advantage. In open space with the ranger not needing to “guard” anything the ranger has the advantage and can take the long approach to the fight. Forcefully burning through one of the mesmers cooldowns after another.

<Rev. Rev has alot of the tools needed to survive rangers lower than average “burst” on decent enough coodowns he can cycle them effectively. And enough cc and damage to hit the ranger back harder. Its difficult for a ranger to maintain a gap against a skilled rev. Turning the fight into a form of cat and mouse with the ranger trying to deal enough damage inbetween defensive cooldowns until the revenant goes from offensive play to defensive. At this point the ranger can get the advantage.

<= Engineer (Scrapper). Scrapper has the tools necessary to shut down the rangers damage and sustain. And enough damage to hurt him. But not to the raw extent the rev does. The ranger can win this fight but it will be a long one and typically just not worth the time itl take and the risk involved. If this wasnt a duel but a match he should call for +1 or ignore that target until its vulnerable.

Other Rangers. Both dps oriented druids and support oriented druids have fairly equal chances of killing eachother. Whoever lands there cc combos more effectively and is the first to trap the other in roots for more than 2 seconds probably wins. The more aggressive ranger has the advantage here.

= Dragonhunter this is an interesting and obnoxious fight. Its very similar to fighting another druid with more predictable damage but significantly higher access to active defense and crowd control. This fight could easily stalemate until one side or the other lands that key combo when the other has nothing left to stop it. Ranger has more of an advantage at ranged combat as they can avoid popping traps if they use there bristlebacks instead of smokescales. This prevents the DH from getting there free massive heal from the smokescale UA ing through there heal trap. If the druid gets harpooned though and SoTP isnt active. It can be GG very quickly. The Druid has to play this matchup psuedo passively without going head to head with the DH. But the DH needs to force the druid into that intense close quarters fight. If he does then he has the advantage. In a kite out battle however with the druid freely positioning the DH between himself and his BB. The split damage sources can break through the DH’s active defense.

>Elementalist: In the current meta ele can be an easy kill for druid. Eles still deal significant damage when built for it but its incredibly highly telegraphed and relies very much on succesful CC combos to land. An ele playing defensively however can take a VERY long time to kill unless the ele makes a mistake and doesn’t cover a critical skill.

This is of course just my own experience.

axe off hand is pretty good. I wish path of scars had a slightly larger radius. (its super easy to miss if you have to lead your target even slightly and he flinches in one direction for a second). But all in all its good.

I don’t find myself using axe Main* hand pretty much ever. Though if it did a bit more power damage I probably would. Its status as a hybrid weapon makes me really leery of it in both power and condition builds.

Its possible arena net forgot that spectral wall has two affects. Or felt it was necessary sacrifice to bring the other walls into balance.

Id rename the thread to point out a possible bug. And make an in game report or try to record this happening so you can post a video in Reddit of the occurance. I do feel that this is unintended. Its supposed to stop after ten ENEMIES run through it. It says literally nothing about allies. If the two portions of this skill share a limit. Then this is really REALLY bad for the skill.

I will say this reminded me to rename my birds now that it sticks.

Spread Eagled and Hawkward are back!

My red and blue moa’s Frampt and Kaathe.

At the OP. Believe me I get it. Ive been maining ranger since day 1.

On that note however. I understand WHY he did it even though it was largely unnecessary (He could have just shunted you into a non frontline party)

I also want to main ranger in all three game modes. But atm I only main ranger in PvP as there are better options for my playstyle in PvE and WvW. I don’t like it and I probably never will. But its also just how it is.

I am currently running ranger for my guild because we need pick. And ranger passes in that battlefield. And it is the pick capable class that I play best.

But if the time comes where my guild leader tells me we dont need pick anymore I will probably be swapping to hammer rev or frontline reaper. As those are what fit my playstyle (primary damage dealers) and yet are still useful in the core component of our grp.

The reason people dislike you isnt so much that your a ranger. But that you COULD have been anything else. Atleast thats what I have gathered up to this point.

This is combined with the fact that ranger is typically the scapegoat class. A large number of new players find range comfortable as there first character and make it there first 80. Similar to warrior. But unlike warrior a new player on a ranger is more obvious. They stand out and so are noticed by people around them. This creates the feeling that a larger number of rangers are incompotent in comparison to other classes.

This combined with our reputation as Buff Bots in PvE. Accusations of being AI Driven in PvP. And the realization that we don’t have a single roll that another class cant ATLEAST match us in in WvW. And you start to see why players reactions to rangers tinges on disgust.

Again. I don’t like it. But I understand it. And due to how ranger is DESIGNED (We are a very self sustaining class (As in we can generate our own boons, defensive measures, and burst scenarios (including internal access to hard AND soft CC) without needing any help from other players) it is unlikely we will get the changes needed to change that image without another expansion. Druid made us the primary support class of PvE (both for healing AND damage buffing, equalled only by the chronomancer for buffing and ele for healing.) and a staple of raiding (even if we are absolutely pigeon holed into that roll likely forever now), as well as a reliable team mate in SPvP (ranger is extremely vulnerable to being focused and locked down. Druid helps quite a bit with that).

It is possible the next expansion will offer us something on a similar level for wvw (Though I personally hope it will be damage oriented. Explosive Rounds PLEASE)

Let me start this by saying I don’t want this to be a rage post. Simply to bring up an issue that’s appearing in wvw and how a similar situation was handled in the past.

From the title I’m sure yall have guess this is yet another post on the boonshare meta. Whats different about this is I would like to mention a few specifics. And something that might have been forgotten.

Namely. The boonshare meta at the moment uses a mesmers signet of inspiration to repeatedly copy boon to its party. THis enables the stacking of every boon in the game… INCLUDING quickness. to 2 minutes or higher. With a little help from a herald revenant.

This creates a frontline that with extreme levels of sustain. Near Glass levels of damage. And virtual immunity to corruptions. The prescence of a herald and a Mesmer in each party FAR out performs its rival mechanics. Boon Strip and Boon Corruption. To put it simply you can not corrupt fast enough to create a window of opportunity to break the zerg. The only method of beating these murderballs is to circle them repeatedly over the course of 10-15 minutes and slowly whittle down there outliers until you finaly reach the ever important mesmers tucked away inside.

The above is just meant as a description. Not a complaint. The following is what I want to bring up.

A similar level of boon generation has existed before. In the rangers Heal As One shout skill. For a very short time rangers were able to stack and maintain all boons permanently in a very specific build. However this was met with an outcry from the community and the shout was changed to its current form. Rightly so. Now it is still a strong skill. But does not create a massive amount of artificial strength like it did before.

Both setups run on similar concepts. However one was FAR less impactful in that it only affected the ranger and his pet. No one else. To put it simply an INCREDIBLY weaker version of this same mechanic was reduced for the sake of fair play.

And yet a far stronger version exists today in WvW. And has become the standard. Even guilds that don’t WANT to run this setup are being pressured to. Simply because of how much more effective it is than litteraly every other possible method of play. That’s the kind of behavior we expect from the endgame PvE community (whether that expectation is deserved or not).

My point is this. Limiting this mechanic in a similar fashion may be necessary.

IF however you feel that this mechanic is balanced and promotes skillfull play. I ask that you petition to have rangers Heal as One returned to its previous form. After all. 2 Minutes of quickness isn’t OP right? And atleast rangers are vulnerable to being corrupted unlike most frontline parties of today.

(Edited for accuracy: If I have made any mistakes in the above post please inform me. The general purpose of my post holds true I believe even if I have made a mistake. But in the spirit of accuracy I ask for corrections if necessary. Thank You)

Rym.1469:

Shadelang.3012:

I feel IF they change epidemic it will be to put a cap on the size of the stack that can transfer. So no more transfering 40 burning from a boss to adds and back again. Or burning through an entire swarm of small guys just by epidemicing off one mob.

It would still be a kitten good aoe nuke. But it would cap out how good it COULD be. And prevent the more extreme examples. (Every condi necro here has dreamed of eping all the condies on a keep/castle lord in wvw onto the zerg around it).

The cap is at 25 stacks per unique condition. They might give targets affected by Epidemic already a temporary debuff that would prevent them from being struck by Epidemic again within short amount of time.

Burning through an entire swarm of small guys is exactly what Epidemic is supposed to do. That’s not the direction for nerfs if they want to keep it fun and relevant.

Ah sorry I meant when multiple necros were involved. It is my fault there for not being specific. And I do see what you mean. A debuff that prevented a subject from being affected multiple times would do as you say and keep it as a sweeper skill. I wonder if they would make it so that you couldnt epi those condis back onto the ORIGINAL target like is so common in PvE.

It would still be an aoe weapon. But it would SERIOUSLY hurt condi necro’s burst dps on bosses with adds. (Even though it takes two necros to pull it off) That would REALLY suck for alot of raid compositions (where this trick is used most often). But it would make sense and fit how Arena.Net worded it. Kinda worried about that now.

I feel IF they change epidemic it will be to put a cap on the size of the stack that can transfer. So no more transfering 40 burning from a boss to adds and back again. Or burning through an entire swarm of small guys just by epidemicing off one mob.

It would still be a kitten good aoe nuke. But it would cap out how good it COULD be. And prevent the more extreme examples. (Every condi necro here has dreamed of eping all the condies on a keep/castle lord in wvw onto the zerg around it).

Honestly speaking as someone who side-mains a ranger (former ranger main but now split evenly between ranger and reaper) I can understand why you think this. But the thing is it also makes it very easy to see the thief and ranger coming. Or any class for that matter. As long as your watching can already take away a ranger or thiefs primary weapon. That suprise burst at the beggining of the engagement that forces you to pop cooldowns before your willing.

Does the terrain favor them here? Sure.

But in the rangers case lets stop and think about hte other maps. Many of which PUNISH a ranger using the longbow (which im gonna assume is what your complaining about because none of the other weapons make sense)

Forest of Nifhel for example has multiple los points at two of the points.

Legacy of foefire has some on both side nodes infact THESE points actually bug out the rangers pet. Punishing the ranger for BEING a ranger.

This is probably the ONLY actually open map.

Id think its okay just for the sake of something DIFFERENT right?

But even from a balancing perspective it doesnt seem like that massive an issue tbh. Most of what could be done here could be done on other maps. But on other maps it usually involved getting into PITA spots. Where here atleast you can chase the kittener down and kill him. Or force him to run so far away form the point that all he did was waste alot of time.

If longbow recieved something along hte lines of the auto attack being unblockable when striking your target from behind (allowing it to penetrate the sheer kittenload of active defense flying around in zergs) or when fired from max range. Then longbow would be useful as a pick weapon again.

Rangers by design atleast for now can’t be as good at melee as other classes in wvw environments. Our pets hurt us in large scale combat just as much as they help us in small scale combat.

So we can’t effectively be frontline. We can however be just behind the frontline in a healing staff build. But then we don’t contribute to damage where as a frontline ele would be able to do both. Thus a frontline ele will be preferred.

We can be good roamers. But as far as zerg v zerg combat goes? We don’t have a place.

In reply to the above I would say that damage increases wouldn’t actually do anything. We need tools to make our attacks more likely to land like the aforementioned unblockable. A glass bow has enough damage to hurt ANYONE it hits. But it has to actually HIT the target. And its so easy for our arrows to be intercepted/destroyed that there just isnt much point to further damage increases.

Ty for this change as well as the cooldown reduction on the pets. Ive actually started using wolves in pve and PvP again. Its good to see them critting thieves for 8-10k again,

Hmm not so much afraid of or hoping for. But this is kind of what I expect to see.

Some change to traits that power reapers are more likely to use than condi reapers to boost that playstyle. Possibly a less well known trait such as spiteful spirit.

Minor weapon tweaks. Nothing too heavy.

The built in time limit that exists in Rise minions is added to Jagged horror’s as well to stop organized groups from spawning 20 of them and maintaining them in raids and high level fractals.

Any other nerfs/buffs I feel will be indirect (I.E. x becomes better because y on another class got nerfed or buffed kind of thing)

It is very VERY bot resistant. But its probably impossible to make it bot free entirely.

I feel weakness would be fine IF it was less common. I will say as someone that typically plays power builds that weakness can be pretty kitten ing. Especially when fighting something that puts more dangerous conditions on you. You can’t afford to get rid of weakness if there pumping out confusion torment or burning while your immobilizing you.

But at the same time you can’t allow weakness to stay on you because the damage reduction COMBINED with the endurance regen reduction means that this one single condition not only makes hte fight last longer. But makes you less able to avoid the previously mentioned loads.

This also applies when fighting other POWER builds that produce alot of weakness. If you can’t get them off you. Your damage and sustain are nuked at the same time with one skill.

If weakness was less common. OR was considered a short duration ability. (Something you use to mitigate a burst. Or to set up a burst). Or had slightly reduced effects in both respects. I would be 100% behind it.

(Note there are exceptions here in my case. I don’t believe that theives should have access to alot of weakness, Or warriors, But Power necros for example are designed to SOAK damage for long periods of time. It makes sense in this way for them to have weakness at there disposal. Its an iffy balance issue I can’t even begin to really dip into. Weakness feels OP on some builds. But “normal” on others.

As it is. It acts as an enabler. Making a bad situation worse. Because in a bad situation you just can’t afford to deal with it. But weakness prevents you from escaping that situation at all.

(Note this is just from my experience in game. Not gonna claim to speak for anyone else.)

Saying solve hte lag issue is making it sound ALOT easier than it is. Stop and think about what that lag is for a minute and youl start to get the picture. I by no means do this for a living but I understand atleast that if they could fix this as easily as people THINK they can it would have been fixed a long time ago. Infact literally every mmo in the game would have fixed it by now. And as it is EVERY MMORPG has this issue in large scale combat. Without exception.

Its possible that there is NOT a solution with our current technology that is cost effective. (Doesn’t cost so much they would simply be losing money to do it. Which means it would be unsustainable.)

Your demanding something that might not even exist and thinking thats normal.

Im agreeing with Trevor here. Hes right in that you probably intruded on a duel server. Be very careful to read the titles of the servers you join if you are going to do custom arenas. Unranked arenas are a much safer bet. As people there are typically oriented more towards playing the conquest/stronghold game modes.

I mostly avoid queing to avoid the standard composition that tends to end up in that mode.

Two tempests. One Condi Reaper. and 2 of any other class.

The condi reaper can deny any other class the ability to cap and then immediately cap. (Talking about channeled mists) as well as providing powerful tools to deal with attacking players, doorbreakers.

Two tempests produce enough sustain to prevent any doorbreakers from dieing. Or they provide enough healing,cc and projectile deflection/destruction to deny most if not all lord kills. And if the lord goes down. They have the ability to invuln res. But typically the match isn’t going to last long enough for them to have to worry about that. As they are more than capable of keeping the original heavy doorbreaker team long enough to breach the enemy lord room.

I ran into this often enough that I jsut stopped wanting to que for stronghold. It wasn’t fun to play. I actually REALLY like the game mode. But with the games combat the way it is right now. I just can’t enjoy it. The “Meta” for stronghold isn’t fun to fight against. ESPECIALLY on an unorganized pug group that probably doesn’t have the focus fire necessary to deal with two tempests or two druids healing eachother as well as their allies.

Edit

Infact. My memories fighting those teams are bad enough that I would rather simply avoid the 4 good games I could have in that game mode just to keep myself out of that fifth incredibly awful one that sucks the fun out of an entire afternoon away from me.

My biggest concern with our dps options isn’t the actual damage of our weapons or our pets. We have the burst to nail someone. If it hits. My issue is that most of our damage is so EASILY negated. That what damage we have left doesn’t really matter.

Methods to make our sustained damage more reliable would make our damage builds MUCH more viable.

Our pets hitting more often, The ability to make our attacks unblockable in certain circumstances like when attacking from behind with specific weapons.

Without changes to make us more reliable as dpsers. All the survivability changes, all the damage boosts. It won’t be enough to bring our dps builds back into favor. And worse it will likely just further buff our druid builds.

“CLASS” balance is decent as most classes have a viable build. “BUILD” balance is kittening awful however. The difference between things like say Power Reaper and Condition Reaper is insane. Builds designed to do the same job are smashed by massively differing levels of counters.

Projectiles being incredibly unreliable atm is another example.

Odds are anet will attempt to make the build diversity a bit wider. Likely attempting to buff underdeveloped skills/weapons/lines. Or nerf the presence of certain mechanics that hard counter many other potentially viable builds.

At least that is my guess at the moment.

Lord Hammer Hand.4815:

so they added more pve maps not pvp… havent they learn from stronghold? we want less pve in our pvp maps.

You quite literally haven’t even SEEN the map yet and your already bashing it >.< kittening wow. If you have already decided your gonna hate it NOW based on a few lines of text then obviously nothing anet can do will change your mind.

I only hope youre more open minded than you seem here. Or I imagine well be dealing with ANOTHER wave of hateposts with 0 actual feedback built in to them.

As for less pve in our pvp maps. Legacy of Foefire is still the top voted pvp map in game. And it has more PvE in it than any other the other maps aside from stronghold.

The presence of pirates like this MIGHT make it interesting for certain classes. Revenant’s and DH’s might be able to use them for mobility. Necros for things like building life force,shredding conditions, and even doing mass transfers from epidemic.

Warriors may be able to start fights at max adrenaline depending on how the “mobs” are implemented. And thats assuming the pirates are target-able creatures. They may not be. But might be far closer to a mobile map mechanic.

There are a lot of ways they could be implemented just from sitting down and thinking about it for 30 seconds. Lets actually LOOK at the map before losing our minds.

In viper stats? No. Niether greatsword or dagger off anything to condition builds. And no condition geared build will use those weapons.

Its been a couple days since the last post so normally I wouldn’t post at this point. However seeing as this thread is still on the front page I feel this isn’t in danger of being considered “bumping”.

Ill keep it short. I want to thank everyone who has contributed to this thread and my previous thread (linked in the OP) for not only contributing but also for keeping the conversation relatively tame. And for also (in most cases) helping the thread stay legible* by keeping your posts simple to read.

Reapers GS works better when covered by the clutter of large scale combat that is definetly true. (Assuming you aren’t hit by repeated blind spam) But if that was the intention I feel that the GS should be reworked a little with that in mind. Having hte effect of nightfall for example be centered around the reaper AS he moves. A mobile and growing blind field would actually help alot and lend a GS reaper more weight in the front line as well as offer some more reliable defense.

Adding a boon strip to Grasping Darkness or making it unblockable without the use of Nothing Can Save You would both help alot in large scale fights. Where projectile destruction and stability is the norm.

As it is the GS tops out as “nice to have” in those situations IF you run a power build at all. Similar to how the longbow on a ranger is “nice” to have. but their is a reason druids base their builds around STAFF and not the longbow. Like the GS on reaper the longbow on ranger is also VERY easy to negate once your conscious of its existence.

This only becomes more of a problem the smaller scale you are. While the tell for grasping darkness can be hard to see once it IS seen then there is hardly any reason to get hit by it unless the user FORCED you to dodge some how. Which is hard for them to do when your at range because their gap closer is incredibly telegraphed, their in combat movement speed is atrocious, and unlike condition reaper power reapers simply don’t have an effective way of forcing an enemy to engage you at close range.

Power reapers are also much more vulnerable to boon strips and weakness then their condition counterparts. Which is part of the reason why Condi Reaper acts as a soft counter..possibly even a hard counter among equally skilled players… for power reaper.

They are also MORE vulnerable to resistance than their condition counterparts rather than less. Due to the fact that power reaper relies heavily on the use of vulnerability for a large portion of their damage (even NOT counting decimate defenses), the use of chill and cripple to keep the enemy in melee range, and the use of blind as a defensive mechanic (Power Reapers tend to spend more time in shroud). All of this while having fewer skills that can strip enough boons to eat through cover boons. Making whether or not you strip resistance off that berseker as much a matter of RNG as skill. Which is a pretty big deal when you want to land that gravedigger.

Tl;DR I feel the Greatsword is a well designed weapon with a few flaws. But I feel bigger flaws are present in the base POWER Reaper itself than the weapon and if those flaws were addressed the greatsword would be better in relation to general combat as well.

I actually made an obnoxiously long post about a build I have been running but decided to make it more compact for obvious reasons. I also came up with some ideas to improve said build but ill need to test them.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRMQNBhOD7kZTodTscTwaTgeTsgLYQXtAwBIuK+FDjUdh2wXA-TFSGQBSUJY50NAk9HOwFBAAPBgCqcIQq/QElcAA-w

Here is what I typically run for frontline reaper lately. My previous version had knights but I feel like sticking with soldiers and MAYBE mixing more marauders into the soldiers armor would be more beneficial overall. Vitality is a pretty good defense for us as long as were running blighters boon (gives us the ability to actually rebuild that health pool while maintaining pressure). IF you decided to run something like this id reccomend golden dumplings (might generation proc food with 0 cooldown) for synergy as well as Furious Maintanence Oils if you can make them.

Edit: The reason I go with power over condi reaper is that condi reaper can be heavily shut down if the enemy has multiple front line revenants. Making multiple condi reapers sub par as opposed to the unblockable damage of a frontline power reaper.

Nitrooo.1384:

So I"accidentally" salvaged my Reaper’s greatsword. Am I still able to gain the Dark Harvest, even if I don’t have a Reaper’s Greatsword anymore?

Yes. Its part of a collection once the collection has been progressed it does not revert.

Condi Berserker feels like it has just a bit too much of either sustain or damage for the amount of CC they can put out. Yes its telegraphed but their ARE only so many dodges you have access to. And not every class is going to have extra evades or blocks.

POWER berserker feels amazing to fight from my perspective. And some of the MOST intense fights for me. And when I fight one it actually feels like an even fight. He has his toolset and I have mine. Whereas when fighting the condi variant it feels like an uphill fight where I to “grind my skull” so to speak through various abilities the condi berserker has before I can start fighting him evenly. And then I have a limited time window to be effective before it starts up again. And if I DIDN’T kill him completely in that time window odds are ill have lost so much damage from dodging his key attacks or being cc’d by them that hel have recovered most if not all of his health.

Ryou.2398:

Shadelang.3012:

@Ryou GS is in an intresting place as far as PvE goes. If power reaper was meta gs and dagger would probably see equal use. The gs rotation is more involved than the dagger rotation (dagger is litteraly just auto attacking) but the GS rotation does similar damage (believe dagger is SLIGHTLY ahead). Below 50% however GS does more damage than dagger spam due to grave digger having 0 coolown. So its very useful for burning through the last half of bosses.

GS also provides an aoe blind field built in, vuln stacking if your party is low on vuln generation, and a multi target hard cc/pull that also chills (chilled targets deal less damage to a reaper).

Sweet thanks for the info, also how is axe doing? It seems kind of melee like to.

Axe is a mid range power weapon. But its actually pretty weak for what it does. It has one aoe boonstrip+cripple. One single target “burst” skill that builds life force quickly. And an auto attack that applies vulnerability. If you just need a ranged weapon set for whatever content your doing it serves the purpose. But it isn’t typically considered a primary weapon in its own right. Its generally used to supplement the weaknesses of another weapon set.

@Ryou GS is in an intresting place as far as PvE goes. If power reaper was meta gs and dagger would probably see equal use. The gs rotation is more involved than the dagger rotation (dagger is litteraly just auto attacking) but the GS rotation does similar damage (believe dagger is SLIGHTLY ahead). Below 50% however GS does more damage than dagger spam due to grave digger having 0 coolown. So its very useful for burning through the last half of bosses.

GS also provides an aoe blind field built in, vuln stacking if your party is low on vuln generation, and a multi target hard cc/pull that also chills (chilled targets deal less damage to a reaper).

Edit: The point is mute though because condi reaper is meta. Partly because of Epidemic. And partly because of exploitable jagged horror spawns. And GS is a power only weapon.

What I am saying is. you can play GS to a degree of success in PvE and WvW. You can even play it well in PvP. However for PvE the meta is condi. And for PvP the meta is condi. Niether of which use the GS.

GS reaper is actually more common than youd think. However it isn’t the most optimal. GS is more common in WvW and PvE however than PvP.

The valk reaper build for PvE for example TYPICALLY makes use of the GS though which way of use is more optimal has been up for debate. The weapon itself is solid.

In PvP the gs is in an interesting place. its incredibly dangerous…when it hits. GS attacks are slow meaning they are quite easy to dodge. So any build using GS wants to have a faster weapon option (reaper shroud,dagger, and axe) for example to swap to.. saving GS for either massive hits or when you want to FORCE someone to waste their dodges because you know they dont have anything left besides those. Which means giving up staff which is a prominent untility weapon in the common CONDI reaper build.

However by giving up staff a GS reaper gets some options the condi reaper typically doesn’t get to have. Whether that is a plus though for you is gonna be dependent on what playstyle you develop into.

As for how the reaper plays. The battle mage style might be more accurate on a power mesmer build. Which features the quick cast style that battle mage players in other rpgs might be more used to.

Reaper builds are more methodical. Based more on the concept of oppressing your opponent and taking away their strengths one by one. Bringing the opponent down to a level where you have the advantage so to speak. Its a turtle that makes everyone else around it smaller turtles which it then proceeds to smack in the face either by repeated condi applications or a few heavy hits in the nads.

Reaper has ALOT of chill. Your going to get all the chill you want. Minions can be applied to reaper builds but at the standard level of play aren’t required anywhere. You can be effective without them.

Reaper has some flashy effects. But they are often in darker colors or in flashes of white ice. Youd be surprised how massive some of hte reapers animations actually are when you stop and take a look at them all. Their just so muted people often dont notice them compared to the fiery walls of explosions from insert random ele #357.