Guild Wars 2

Juvenile Nerd
F2= Divide by Zero

Juvenile Grenth

F2= Apocalypse – Everyone dies

Durzlla.6295:

Soilder.3607:

Durzlla.6295:

jcbroe.4329:

Exactly. I just miss this:

http://www.guildwars.com/gameplay/developer_updates/september_2012_skill_balances.php

And these types of update pages would get released about a week in advance, detailing the major changes and the skills being majorly toned for the change.

I guess it’s too much to ask the same guys that are doing a silly “Beginners PvP” guide to instead, go and get a list of the balance updates definitely going live, and then format them and post them, detailing why they were being made and what the goal is with these changes.

Sorry, I know I’m a little rant-ish, but I do feel like ANet is a little kid kicking me in the shins repeatedly sometimes.

Totally off topic… But I love that patch and am deeply upset GW1 didn’t get more patches like that after GW2 came out =(

There is no amount of money I would not pay for a new gw1 expansion.

There is for me, but that’s cause I’m a poor college student xD! That being said if ABSOLUTELY buy a new expansion for gW1 if it were made! Hell, if it were patched more I’d play it a lot more as well! I think they should do what EQ did and not totally abandon the first game when the second came out…. (Note: I’ve never played EQ I’ve just heard this is what they’ve done from people who claim to play it).

You may find this hard to believe, but everquests latest expansion, call of the forsaken
, came out two days ago.

Longbow is really good. Don’t listen to these fools. The only problem with it is the fact that its autoattack can be a bit weak in close range, but that doesn’t really matter cause we have #2 channeled for good dps, #3 for stealth which works great for a transition into #5. And then #4 is a solid knockback as well. And pretty much every skill except #5 is on a low cool down, even without traiting, so thats another plus.

Durzlla.6295:

jcbroe.4329:

Exactly. I just miss this:

http://www.guildwars.com/gameplay/developer_updates/september_2012_skill_balances.php

And these types of update pages would get released about a week in advance, detailing the major changes and the skills being majorly toned for the change.

I guess it’s too much to ask the same guys that are doing a silly “Beginners PvP” guide to instead, go and get a list of the balance updates definitely going live, and then format them and post them, detailing why they were being made and what the goal is with these changes.

Sorry, I know I’m a little rant-ish, but I do feel like ANet is a little kid kicking me in the shins repeatedly sometimes.

Totally off topic… But I love that patch and am deeply upset GW1 didn’t get more patches like that after GW2 came out =(

There is no amount of money I would not pay for a new gw1 expansion.

jcbroe.4329:

Exactly. I just miss this:

http://www.guildwars.com/gameplay/developer_updates/september_2012_skill_balances.php

And these types of update pages would get released about a week in advance, detailing the major changes and the skills being majorly toned for the change.

I guess it’s too much to ask the same guys that are doing a silly “Beginners PvP” guide to instead, go and get a list of the balance updates definitely going live, and then format them and post them, detailing why they were being made and what the goal is with these changes.

Sorry, I know I’m a little rant-ish, but I do feel like ANet is a little kid kicking me in the shins repeatedly sometimes.

Don’t you know mate? Casual players don’t have time for deep balance discussions.

I absolutely love the passive effect idea. The active, not so much. It would be easily telegraphed, however, since the skill shoots an extremely fast projectile, that might not matter much. But I love that passive effect.

Doctoris.2675:

Honed axes is weak as it is, but the 25% cd duration increase could make it very efficient for hybrid builds for axe.

Moment of clarity only activates on interrupt. I changed it to activate on every daze and stun, making it more reliable.

Vigorous renewal is a fair Nerf/buff. We hatve ridiculous vigor uptime from healing spring with this trait. Over 50% default and can reach over 100% with enough boon duration. That aside, the trait is too weak to take if you aren’t using hs. My change matches the thief trait and now allows for our trait to actually be useful if you aren’t using healing spring.

Circle of life isn’t even used because its just weak. Who in their minds would take that? At least having the pet sacrificed for a healing spring is somewhat viable. And the skill does not heal allies for the initial heal.

Evasive purity already is a grandmaster trait.

Enlargement sucks as it is because #1,it isn’t useful, #2, it activates when you’re too low hp, #3, pets are unreliable. In fact, this needs more of a boost.

Vigorous/stability training/mighty swap. Here’s the thing with this. First off mighty swap is no where near op so get that out of your head. Numero dos, stability and vigorous training need to be strong because we lack good support and they are not perfectly reliable traits. 4s stability and 8s vigor every 20/16s is very strong but not guarenteed. Pets will die and wiil die often, knocking that recharge to 60/48s. Good pet management needs to be rewarded strongly, which is what I’m trying to do. However, these durations can be reduced in spvp due to less aoe.

Intimidation training would help for cc spam with your pets if you’re into that. Couldn’t really think of a good buff to it.

Also mate, I didn’t make these changes expecting every single one to be added. I made most of them strong so anet can pick and choose which ones they find necessary.

Doctoris.2675:

snip

I’ll give you signet of renewal that’s pretty strong.

Signet of the Beastmaster only spreads passive effects of abilities to allies. Not active. 25% group movement speed is pretty much useless since swiftness can be acquired so easily. The group toughness is good. Cd removal not really as a guardian can do much better removal. That extra group regen,however, would be some great team support that the ranger somewhat lacks.

Arrow attacks should ALWAYS pierce. We have practically no aoe
Even with piercing attacks, we still have crap aoe as it requires targets to be perfectly lined up. Incendiary would be a great trait as it only effects targets in a 90* degree radius which is very, very small. Rarely do you have targets lined up, but often you do have them next to eachother. A 90* radius is only enough to get you two, maybe three if you’re lucky hits per shot. I don’t see that as being too strong at all.

Primal reflexes needs to be strong because its unreliable against targets with low precision. Its a gamble with a very strong out come in the right situation, or a practically useless outcome in the wrong one. Therefore it needs to be strong.

Whirling defense is pretty much good for just the retaliation. You’ll reflect two shots or so but any competent player will just watch you stand there like a fool. Not only that, but the skill itself deals low dps and has a long recharge. I think the skill is too weak and needs to be buffed so we can move and put on more pressure to our fore. And the skill itself only works intended if you’re fighting a ranged char, so it may just sit on your skill bar being unused if your target isn’t ranged.

Protect me really isn’t used. Unless you have a bear, which many people don’t use do to poor dps, or a drake, its pet suicide and also a 6s period during which your pet does not attack. Many people aren’t willing to drop a utility slot for it
My boost makes the skill much more viable because #1, its not nearly as suicidal to your pet, #2, you no longer loose a significant amount of your overall dps either. Signet of stone still retains its passive ability, and does not cause any damage to your. Even if protect me received my buffs, it could still very well kill your pet, just not as easily.

Maul is easily telegraphed and the change I listed for it will be coming. It was leaked a few weeks ago. Everytime I fight a Gs ranger, they NEVER land maul on me unless I’m stunned, so the skill definitely needs a boost.

I don’t really see a problem with guard. The skill sucks as it is unless traited. I figured since we only have two accesses to stability, and the skill says guard, it’d be good to have. Yea its a strong skill but then again we have some real kittenty utilities where many of them need to be traited.

Eh, I think shake it off should be three, you think two. Just a difference of opinions really.

Signet actives are NEVER used to affect just the pet. Its ridiculous that they need a 30 pt trait just to effect the ranger. Sure, they are strong as well, but they do have very long cast times to compliment that. That trait should never have been in the game.

Doctoris.2675:

Soilder.3607:

snip

There’s a difference between QoL improvements and hard numbers buffing, a lot of latter is occuring here. I’m not sure which of the three game modes this post has in focus, but for s/tPvP, these numbers are entirely too much and would wildly throw Rangers far ahead of all of the other classes. I’m not here to just bash your ideas though, but as you honestly believe these are fair changes, I honestly believe they are not, so I’ll lay out my reasoning for why I think some of these are not healthy for the game (and give you credit for ideas that I like as well).

Soilder.3607:

LB #1 – Damage reduction with range removed. Base damage stays at 1000+ level

For this, the autoattack damage value would be too high for a ranged weapon that can effectively reach 1500 range (the projectile goes for 1800). As with all classes, when making a choice between ranged weapons, if the 900 range and 1200 range versions offer the same base damage (disregarding skills 2-5, of which I believe Longbow is superior utility-wise regardless), players will always choose the longer ranged option. A problem is that shortbow offers almost the same direct damage on autoattack as a non-max range Longbow at the moment, but nobody would say the shortbow does too much direct damage, so nerfing the SB isn’t the answer. The damage value at 1000+ range is very good, but the caveat is who can effectively maintain 1000 range in a fight when so many classes have moment impair and gapclosers? I believe the approach should be splitting it into 2 rather than three and being more generous with the max range damage option. Something like 0-600 range offers the current medium damage and 600+ range plus offers the high damage option.

Barrage – This skill can now be cast while moving.

This is a very powerful skill already that offers a lot of area control for a period of time. Because of that, the counterplay would be interrupting the skill. It’s allowed to be so powerful in both AoE size, damage, and cripple right now because of all the counterplay offered. Allowing it to be cast on the move would force it to be accompanied by either lower numbers (which nobody wants) or a much long cooldown.

Hunter’s Call – Now applies one second of blind per hit. Can no longer be obstructed if target is behind an object after the skill has been used.

16 strikes of blind over multiple seconds that can’t be obstructed by line of sight? How on earth would that be balanced? Right now, the only multiple blind option bound to weapons is Black Powder by thieves, which has very easy counterplay in just walking out of the tiny, tiny AoE (and the large initiative cost). This is a skill that is, like many options suggested here, extremely potent as a shut-down skill with no counterplay.

All auto attacks will have their power scaling increased by 20%.

20% is really, really massive. As rangers, we have a lot of evasion utilities and very good healing options already. As kitten y as they can be and as much as I hate that their numbers are included in the final count, the damage output we have is good when adding in damage from pets, and they do get hits in over a fight. This would give us too much, especially considering how Rangers can put a good amount of damage down while approaching or skirting around a fight with either SB or LB.

The LB, even with its buffs, still has a slow attack speed. Slow enough that sword and great sword auto can easily out damage it. Should it be boosted as I said, it’d surpass Gs auto but still be behind sword. I believe this class should be the master of ranged damage and if you’ve tried running a power build, not full zerker, you’ll find that it is absolute garbage. These adjustments would definitely make the weapon strong enough to be where it should be. And if used as zerker, it would finally have a fair trade off in terms of large dps and low survivability. Our only survivability while running zerker is our evades. Meanwhile, classes like thief have stealth, mesmer does as well in addition to clones to body block. Guardians and eles can boon spam and heal like crazy while zerk. Warrior has that high health pool and heavy armor in addition to way too many stuns which can be offensive and defensive, depending how you look at it. All a zerk ranger can get is evasion.

Moving while barraging really doesn’t change much, just makes the skill feel better too cast. In fact it isn’t even necessary since we have stealth.

I’ll give you hunters call I didn’t realize it lasted for 16 seconds

And once again, that 20% boost only affects auto attacks. We NEED better power scaling. Ranger power builds are inferior to that of every other classes. Sure we have high survivabilty, but plenty of other classes have that while dishing out more direct damage than us.

I think it’s fine as it is. Those problems you mentioned with obstruction and random misses have to do with with all ranged weapons, not just hunter’s shot.

The only problem with the skill, if any, is that your pet can give away your position if you are retreating from battle. But then again, since the skill is on such a short cool down it’s kind of a fair price to pay.

SynfulChaot.3169:

Soilder.3607:

Are you joking? Most of my changes are QoL improvements. If they all did come true, which I don’t expect to happen and is not my intention, then the only thing that’d be even remotely op would be our vigor uptime. But even then, as I explained earlier, that uptime has the potential to be strong but also has the potential to be weak. Maybe you can claim the 20% increased power scaling op, but I think its completely justifiable over the fact that our pets are unreliable and the fact that we already have poor power scaling to begin with. And that power increase only effects auto attacks as well.

While the pets are highly unreliable in some modes of play (PvE), their shortcomings aren’t quite so glaring in others (PvP). This led to the current situation where we, in PvE, are nerfed for design decisions in PvP.

Pets can be relied upon to a much greater degree in PvP. In fact they are and that is a major reason why rangers are firmly in the PvP meta. In PvP as the ranger pet can and does deal significant damage buffing the rangers damage further, while highly requested and helpful in PvE, would make the ranger too powerful in PvP.

The only way a power gain to rangers directly would make sense and not be OP is to simultaneously nerf pet damage output. While that would not be noticed by many PvE players, it has the potential to greatly impact the meta for rangers in all game modes for those that are skilled with the class.

Rangers are only in the pvp meta because of spirits. When was the last time a power based ranger build was requested? God kitten never. This is why we need better power scaling. That, or every cd build in the game, including ours, needs to be nerfed because of the cd meta.

Seriously, 20% increased power to only the auto-attacks isn’t as bad as it sounds. Running 30/30/10/0/0 with zerker ammy and full runes of the ogre, that means great sword auto would deal 602, 602, 711

Sword would be 600, 600, 697

SB would be, 398.

LB would be, 525, 680, 940

And axe would be 498

Spirit health reduced by 50% in spvp.

Spirit attacks can only be used once every summon.

Doctoris.2675:

These changes are still very, very much going to push Rangers very deep into the OP category in s/tPvP. Immensely so. It’s still very much just a wet dream’s mix of update notes for the class. I’d like QoL improvements to Ranger as well, but if you’re expecting even a fraction of something like this in the next patch, you’re going to be very, very disappointed.

Are you joking? Most of my changes are QoL improvements. If they all did come true, which I don’t expect to happen and is not my intention, then the only thing that’d be even remotely op would be our vigor uptime. But even then, as I explained earlier, that uptime has the potential to be strong but also has the potential to be weak. Maybe you can claim the 20% increased power scaling op, but I think its completely justifiable over the fact that our pets are unreliable and the fact that we already have poor power scaling to begin with. And that power increase only effects auto attacks as well.

Getting out of entangle is pretty easy. You can teleport out, use an invulnerability skill, evade the skill intially, cure conditions (immob is a cd), if you have any evades on your utility bar or weapon skills you can use them and the roots will miss a pulse, letting you go free. The last time I fought someone who was unable to escape entangle was a longgg time ago. The skill doesn’t need to be nerfed.

Indoles.1467:

LB #1 – Damage reduction with range removed. Base damage stays at 1000+ level.

All auto attacks will have their power scaling increased by 20%. (Especially if this pertains to longbow as well.)

Protect Me- Changed to, for 6 seconds, all damage you would take is redirected to your pet. That damage is reduced by 50%. Breaks stuns. (Pet no longer stops attacking during the duration of the skill.) (Kind of makes Signet of Stone worthless.)

Guard – Casting time removed. Changed to, you and your pet gain protection for 6s and stability for 6s. Recharge increased to 25 seconds. Breaks stuns. (If traited this is a 20s cd 6s stability and protection. That’s pretty strong.)

Primal reflexes – Changed to, You gain 10 seconds of vigor when hit by a critical hit. 20s ICD (50% vigor up time potentially from a single trait.)

Vigorous Renewal – No longer pulses with healing spring. Vigor granted increased to 10s. (If you use Troll Unguent or Heal as One this will give you crazy vigor up time.)

Mighty Swap – Changed to, grants 3 stacks of might for 10s to you, your pet, and nearby allies when swapping pets.
Stability training – Changed to, grants 4 seconds of stability to you, your pet, and nearby allies when swapping pets.
Vigorous Training – Changed to, grants 8 seconds of vigor to you, your pet, and nearby allies when swapping pets. (All of these are crazy strong. Remember this has a potential 16s cd, which would mean 50% up time on vigor, 25% on stability, and 62.5% on 3 stacks of might.)

I’m not saying change you list, just that I find these would be highly unlikely and are very much high hopes.

We have bad power scaling and it needs to be improved. If pets were more dependable, then maybe not, but since they aren’t, increased power is necessary. Not only that, but power builds in general need to be stronger because of the cd meta were already in. LB auto attack, even with these boosts, would not be op because the weapons fires once every 1.10 seconds. Sword auto attack easily out damages it. And while you could argue that since sword is a melee weapon and deserves to have a higher damage output, I believe that this class should be a master of ranged damage and that our ranged weapons should out damage our melee ones. Even with this change, however, the lb wouldn’t outdamage the sword.

Signet of Stone would still be good for someone not wanting to risk the chance of pet death. Protect me would be used mainly for anyone running a very tanky pet, such as bear and drake.

You’re right about guard, I’m going to have to change that.

Primal reflexes is only really reliable if your target has high precision. If you’re fighting against anyone without it, the trait is pretty much useless. For this reason, it needs to be strong.

Vigorous renewal was changed to match the thief trait. Not only that, but it used to grant much more vigor if used with healing spring. My change allows it to be useful for anyone who doesn’t want to run healing spring.

Mighty swap is nowhere near overpowered. Other classes can maintain well over three stacks of perma might, while this three stacks has a max of 62.5% uptime only under the right circumstances.

The same goes for vigorous training and stability training. They should be strong because they do not have a guaranteed uptime. The pet can and will die often, knocking that recharge to 60s or 48s if traited. Good pet management needs to be rewarded strongly. Maybe this can be toned down for sPvP, but definitely not PvE and WvW.

Tom Cruise

He’d be my little boy toy.

Indoles.1467:

I find too many op and some don’t make much sense. Arrows explode and pierce? How can this happen?

Anyway, been leveling a warrior because they are obviously the favorite profession. It won’t be long before warriors are all you see in wvw and spvp. I wish I had high hopes for ranger.

Engineer already has exploding and piercing pistol shots. We have practically no strong AoE. And what traits do you find overpowered? I’ve done a lot of adjustment and everything seemed fair to me.

Taku.6352:

Full zerker geared warrior with self buffed 8 stacks of might can crit about 10k with the Arcing Arrow. And the F1 burst skill ticks for about 1,5k on the same spec.

That sounds way too high to me mate. I know the skill is strong but you’d need like a base damage of at least 3.5k to get hits that high.

Pet F2 responsiveness has been bad since launch. I am amazed a-net hasn’t fixed it yet.

just goes to show how much they don’t care about the ranger.

Remove ranged requirement on ranger longbow and leave its base damage at the 1000+ level. That’s what I want most.

Keyce.8137:

Evasive Purity: You can now dodge while immobilized.

-OR-

Evasive Purity: You can now dodge while immobilized. Cures all movement impairing effects on dodge. 20-30 second cooldown.

I think “movement impairing effects” include cripple, chilled, immobilized, and torment. The long cooldown compared to other classes’ “remove-X-condition-on-dodge” is to compensate for the very powerful cleanse it provides.

And is it just me, or was the Signet of the Beastmaster trait listed by the OP “passive effects of signets are now granted to allies,” or was it changed from “active effects of signets granted to allies”?

Because I think if it was just the passive effects, that would be fine by me. >_>;;

I changed Signet of the Beastmaster to only make the passive effects affect allies. Group invulnerability for 6’s kinda is op as well as group 60% damage increase with signet of the wild. But giving those passive effects in a group is kittening sweet. Aoe regen, aoe speed boost, aoe cd removal, aoe toughness..

I think evasive purity is better off being able to remove any two conditions, even if it’s ICD is 20. If it were all movement impairing effects, including immobilize and torment, plus the additional two conditions, then that’d be too strong imo.

Durzlla.6295:

Nope, Anet was dumb enough to make immobilize completely destroy the ranger… Worst part is I’m not even joking…

He’s right. If you can’t spam evade while immob you’re pretty much kittened.

I don’t know if you’ve all noticed but I’ve made some changes to some skills that might’ve been op. I think these suggestions are all fair tbh. Some are powerful, I agree, but I don’t think they’re anywhere near ground breaking.

SynfulChaot.3169:

Razor.9872:

Just out of curiosity, could you point out which you think are OP? I want to see if I agree or if I can give a reason for it not to be. Or you could be right. Again, just curious.

Signet of the Beastmaster – Effect changed to, Signets active effects now affect nearby allies.
- Applying the active effects to the entire party would be quite broken as you could grant the entire party invuln, stability, and increased damage.

Piercing Arrows changed to Incendiary Arrows – Effect becomes, Arrows that hit targets explode and deal damage in a 90 degree radius. (They still pierce)
- Exploding piercing arrows? That could cause heavy, heavy group damage. Larger damage potential than any current AoE unless the explosion damage was negligible. Then what would the point be?

Honed Axes – Changed to, conditions dealt with axes last 50% longer.
- Probably a bit too long of an increase in duration.

Evasive purity – Changed to, remove two conditions when dodging. ICD of 10.
- Making dodges gain the ability to remove anything short of stun is a bit broken. Makes immobilize and fear impotent against rangers as valid CC without needing a skill.

Rending Attacks – Changed to, pets bleed on critical hits with their basic attacks.
- Probably make the bleed require a proc. Maybe 33%-50%? All hits causing bleed could add a lot of damage.

Stability training – Changed to, grants 5 seconds of stability to you, your pet, and nearby allies when swapping pets.
- Group 5 second stability on a 20 second timer? Or 16 seconds if traited for pet swap. That’s a bit too powerful. That’s even better than a guardian can do.

Vigorous Training – Changed to, grants 10 seconds of vigor to you, your pet, and nearby allies when swapping pets.
- Group 10 second vigor on a 20/16 second timer? That’s at least 50% uptime without any boon duration increase. You could solo perma-maintain vigor for the entire party nearly effortlessly. That’s … kinda crazy OP.

You’re right about the signet actives and evasive purity. Vigor and stability granted on pet swap I don’t think are op but I’ll tone them down a little.

Rending attacks is not op because only birds and felines have high crit percentage. And even then lets not forget how unreliable they are.

Honed axes is not op because you would only apply a 9 second bleed, 41/2 second chill, and 15 second weakness.

Neither is incendiary arrows because a 90 degree radius is very small and the ranger really needs more aoe as it is. It would not work with barrage, however.

+1

I’d like pets to be re-imagined. We get better power scaling and some buffs to our utilities and skills, our f1-4 become similar to the mesmers shatter skills, but different. For example, f1 would call in a wolf or something to knock down our opponent and deal good damage. F2 would call in a raven maybe to blind and apply bleeding or another cd to a foe. F3 would be like calling in a moa to grant aoe protection and fury. And F4 could summon a bear to tank all damage for you for a few seconds and cures cd’s on nearby allies.

Actually these may be a bit too similar to shatter skills, but you get my point.

The only thing ranger can do best imo is spam evade with s/d and then regen for insane health from TU, SoW, regeneration, and natural healing and mango pie consumables if you have them.

Healing Spring is getting buffed/nerfed, but mostly nerf imo. The only time you’ll be standing in that spring for the entire duration is if you’re on a point in spvp. Faster cd removal is nice, but we also lose the ability to grant vigor every pulse which = less evades. We also lose 33% duration on the waterfields so that means less finishers and all that crap. And since we’re already a pretty unwanted class when it comes to pve and wvw, this is bad. HS was pretty much our most unique feature, being 15 seconds long and all. And since it’s only 10 seconds now, we’ll be unwanted even more.

I know this game is currently in a cd meta, and rangers don’t scale well with power, but I wanna hear your opinions on ranger power builds (not zerker) and their effectiveness in spvp, wvw, and pve.

Chopps.5047:

I’ve been saying it for months: guardian is OP. No one believes me. “but chopps we have a low health pool”. I don’t care about that, ya know? The fact is, it’s harder to get results with ranger in every game mode, especially pvp. “But chopps ranger spirit build is just cast spirits and spam crossbow”. Lol and wellomancer is just DROP WELLS LOL GG and warrior is just spam knockback and guardian gets every tool for everything, basically. Ok I’m exaggerating a little but the next question is 100% serious:

When will people realize stability is OP? When will people admit guardian is OP in pve and warrior is OP in both pve and pvp?

Engineer is the most op imo right now. They can bunker like a guardian and deal cd like a necro. The best part is they don’t even need to focus on a target, just run around and drop bombs/grenades (talking spvp)

This is a huge Nerf to pve/wvw’ers on a class that is considered the worst for those game types. How can you people be happy?

And you also can’t grant vigor on every pulse with healing spring, if the nerf turns out to be true.

Edit: And let it be known that it’s duration will be reduced to 10 seconds.

If these changes happen that’d be pretty sweet. But if the supposed healing spring nerf comes through I will never run support again.

Shiren.9532:

Those nerfs to Healing Spring are both unnecessary and very damaging to ranger support in dungeon teams. The long duration water field and the ability to boost melee vigour was one of the best tools a ranger could bring to get players to want them in a party.

Rangers so starved of desirable support options, hitting two of their bigger ones in PvE (and WvW) is such a stupid move. It won’t kill rangers in dungeons but a ranger are just getting further away from that slot in the party.

My staff ele has so much complexity in the boons it offers, the utility it offers and the support it can provide (water fields, blast finishers, control skills, condition removal) it was really nice for the ranger to boast the longest lasting water field in the game and be able to trait for vigour to prove that small bonus to the party to make the warriors happy the ranger dropped it. That really sucks if it makes it through.

Water fields are central to how the WvW meta works, zerg combat revolves around dropping water fields and using blast finishers. A 33% duration nerf to the best tool rangers brought to the WvW meta is going to lead to even more rangers desperately searching for a way to contribute to their server and coming up a full 5 seconds shorter.

I absolutely agree with you. You’ve no idea how frustrated I’ll be if this change comes true. I mean I literally cannot comprehend the logic behind this change. Our waterfield was literally the best thing our class has to offer, if not then maybe perma fury. We are seriously the most underpowered class in pve and wvw and yet they decide to Nerf our only unique advantage in the game.

I’m just very upset right now, maybe a little too upset…

The healing spring changes really kitten me off if they are true.. Our water field was so great not just because of cd removal but cause it lasted a whole god kitten 15 seconds. And now while I’m running support I can’t grant vigor on every pulse, which is another totally unneeded and uncalled for nerf.

Edit: If the vigor change causes me to grant vigor to myself and nearby allies for at least 15 seconds then I will be fine. And the Maul changes, while great, really don’t make up for our terrible power scaling.

DaShi.1368:

Yes, if ranger’s want more damage, then something has to be done about their healing. This is why the pets had to be nerfed. I’ve seen rangers tank full berserker warriors in WvW thanks to troll ungent.

I run full apothecary in WvW and the only reason I can tank anything is because of s/d. It has three built in evades in addition to lightning reflexes and 50% endurance regen. And while this gives me extreme survivability, it also takes a huge toll on my dps. I can’t really kill anyone because I deal so little damage. So while I may kite the kitten out of a stun lock warrior, he doesn’t have to worry about a thing since I can deal barely any damage to him.

Being tanky has a price.

Give swoop 10 vulnerability and maul 1’s knockdown if target is crippled.

Bumpin cause its the only viable ranger support build left imo.

Roy Cronacher.1576:

Vamp Rook.7835:

-All spirits can now be launched, knocked down, and knocked back.

This was a bug fix which now will allow more counter-play when fighting spirits.

Vamp Rook.7835:

-Storm Spirit, Frost Spirit, Sun Spirit, Stone Spirit, and Spirit of Nature will now begin their recharge when the spirit dies instead of when the spirit is summoned.

-Storm Spirit, Frost Spirit, Sun Spirit, and Stone Spirit: Recharge has been reduced from 60 seconds to 25 seconds.

-Spirit of Nature: Recharge has been reduced from 240 seconds to 180 seconds.

Previously you were able to pre-cast spirits before a fight so that when they would die you could instantly re-summon them. This made it feel like there was little to no counter play. Players could take the time to AOE them down simply to have to deal with another set of spirits. These changes were made so that there is a time window where the ranger will be without spirits once they die. Since the spirits now die after their duration, we had to reduce the recharge to compensate. In fights where they are dying often, the shorter recharge is a buff.

Vamp Rook.7835:

Solar Flare: Fixed a bug so this skill no longer applies a duplicate infinite duration blind.

This was a simple bug fix removing unintended functionality.

It takes four and a half god kitten seconds to cast three spirits. You try wasting four and a half seconds mid fight and see how well you end up.

Not only that, but have you ever addressed the fact that ALL your balance updates revolve around sPvP? How come every other class is more viable than the Ranger when it comes to WvW and PvE, and yet we still get nerfed? I’m not saying spirit rangers are useless now, but for once, please stop caring about the vocal minority.

Himei.5379:

Solandri.9640:

Note: After crunching the numbers, I agree the change to spirits is a slight buff overall. If your spirits were living their full duration it’s a nerf, but if they were dying frequently it’s a buff. So on balance it’s a slight buff. It sucks for me because I’d gotten rather proficient at tucking spirits away around corners, behind objects, and on different levels to make sure they survived their full 60 sec. Now my spirit uptime will be reduced, while the unskilled “plop the spirit down anywhere” playstyle will have their spirit uptime increased to match or nearly match mine.

Thank you for taking your time to think the new changes. This change was a buff. The moment I read the spirit changes, the first thought into my mind was “Oh, spirits got buffed” because I know the class pretty well (1500+ hours with 2 legendaries). Now that the math is out, hopefully it can make people see it also. This is a good change for spirit builds for wvw and pvp imo.

No, this is a nerf. It penalizes good players who were able to keep their spirits alive for their full duration. I frequently did the dungeons hotw, arah, cof p1, and SE and my spirits rarely died from aoe attacks unless I suicided them to get their actives. And yes, SOME bosses would inevitably kill them, but the majority of the time I kept them alive. For me, this is a nerf.

And I’m kitten ed as kitten because people already prefer guardian or ele over me.

Double posted by mistake.

Why can’t we just have pvp variants of skills? That would solve everything. It would literally solve EVERYTHING. I’m kittening kitten ed.

Wait is this a prediction or official?

Healing spring if I’m doing dungeons or in zergs. Troll unguent everywhere else.

I’m sorry to say mate but spirits really aren’t good for roaming. I mean, you’ve got no stun break, no speed boosts, you’re spirits will easily dir from aoe (but that shouldn’t be a problem since you’re roaming) The only mobility you have is from hornets sting/ monarchs leap.

Tywele.7812:

Concentration Training is not bugged. It’s just only working while the pet is attacking a target.

Yea I swapped it back in, didn’t realize it only worked while in combat.

I did some re-tests in combat and I found that it didn’t always work. Sometimes I’d get 22 seconds of fury and 15 of might, other times I wouldn’t. This trait is still bugged for me.

Hi, this trait is bugged and doesn’t work. I ran some tests with a red moa and jungle stalker and this is what happened.

Without training
Jungle stalkers F2= 5 stacks might for 10 seconds.

With training
Jungle stalkers F2= 5 stacks might for 10 seconds.

Without training
Red moas F2= Fury for 15 seconds.

With training
Red moas F2= Fury for 15 seconds.

Manekk.6981:

If it’s for dungeons wouldn’t frost spirit be ooddles better than sic ‘em? and what’s the purpose of 6 dwayna runes if you get regen from the shouts?

Frost spirit would only be useful if my teammates are power spec’d. If they aren’t, any damage boost I give is negligible; I don’t like a spirit that isn’t 100% reliable. But you’re right about the dwayna runes. I took them for the healing power but didn’t realize that runes of altruism are much better.