Guild Wars 2

HeadCrowned.6834:

No, don’t make it AoE. We need a single-target burst or dps skill.

why not AoE that hits hard? like meteor shower, you both get the benefits that you want with 1 stone.

Justine.6351:

The Hunter’s Call skill is double cd reduced with its trait. -40% that is.

The warhorn has average skills that competes with dagger at best. It’s no competition for axe or torch though.

They would probably need to make Hunter’s Call, 5-no-target-required cast and add vulnerability or something.
Call of the Wild would probably need 8 stacks of might and cause 5sec of reveal to 5 enemies in the radius.

So while it’s skills function adequately, its hard to take the weapon who’s skills are trumped by madking runes and resounding timber.

8 stacks is too much lol. Just bring down the cd to 25 then add the reveal. The reveal is such a good idea too since we are rangers after all.

Hunter’s call is a little tricky, making it hit 5 targets will insta kill you with retal. How bout we put blind on it and make it AoE.? does retal go through blind?

Swagger.1459:

psizone.8437:

I reckon spiders should have their F2s become ground targeted attacks that the player can aim to give them more versatility, perhaps even doing the same with the Wyverns would make their F2s more appealing..

How about we greatly speed up all f2 attacks so they actually hit instead?

The problem is not the speed imo.

Look for example the Drake’s f2, even with quickness, if the target walks off the radius, it is cancelled.

They just need to retweak the f2s like make Drake’s f2s a bigger cone so that it can be cast without a target like 360 radius or even 480

Jungle stalker f2 should be made a leap like all the cats so you get the might faster, 3 seconds is such a long cast time and easily interruptable.

This is only some of the few examples.

UPDATE

• Here I’ll revisit the shortbow again. The recent buffs to it were great and all but it still does not make SB a competitive weapon. I love the utility that we have on this weapon and love the flanking mechanic as well so my changes will revolve around flanking and proper positioning.

Crossfire

• Fire an arrow the bleeds your target. Deal 50% more damage if you hit them from behind or from the side.

• Damage Damage: 196 (0.55)?
  Damage: 50% when flanking
  Bleeding (3s): 66 Damage
  Range: 900
  Combo Combo Finisher: Physical Projectile (20% chance)

Reasoning: There is so much cleanses in the game, putting Bleed on AA will just put it on par with Engie pistol. Since this is a hybrid weapon, dealing 50% damage on flank will still do its purpose rewarding proper positioning.

Poison Volley

• Fire a spread of five poison arrows. Create a poison field.

• Damage Damage (5x): 170 (0.5)?
  Pulses: 4
  Field Duration: 4s
  Radius: 240
  Combo Combo Field: Poison
  Range: 900
  Unblockable
  Poison (4s): 670 Damage, -33% Healing Effectiveness
  Targets per Arrow: 5
  Pierces
  Range: 900
  
  Reasoning: This is already a very good skill, since it pierces by default. just added a poison field so that we can also participate in downed cleaving (Traps are not very reliable since you need a target to actually proc them meaning you have to have someone ressing the target).

Quick Shot

• Fire a quick shot in an evasive retreat. Gain swiftness. This can be used while retreating. Gain quickness when flanking

• Damage Damage: 118 (0.4)?
  Swiftness (3s): 33% Movement Speed
  Quickness (2s): Skills and actions are 50% faster.
  Evade Evade: ½s
  Combo Combo Finisher: Physical Projectile
  Range: 900

Reasoning: I feel this skill should give you quickness regardless as this is a very good disengage skill, added quickness for a successful flank so you can use a heal or disengage right away.

Crippling Shot

• Fire an arrow that cripples your target. Your pet’s next three attacks inflict bleeding. Immobilize when flanking. Your pet gains superspeed when flanking

• Damage Damage: 118 (0.4)?
  Crippled (3s): -50% Movement Speed
  Superspeed (2s): 100% Movement Speed
  Bleeding (6s): 132 Damage
  Immobilize (2s): Unable to move.
  Combo Combo Finisher: Physical Projectile
  Range: 900

Reasoning: Granting the pet superspeed will make the most out of the cripple so you get the bleeds more reliably. Most people said torment is good on this but I heavily disagree, you are putting too much damaging conditions on a High Rate of Fire weapon. I also feel torment is counterproductive with cripple. Immobilize on the other hand, makes SB a better kiting weapon, and good for chasing down people. Immob + Superspeed on flank will get chasers for sure.

Concussion Shot

• Daze and Confuse your foe with an arrow. Stun them and Deal additional Confusion if you hit from behind or from the side.

• Damage Damage: 118 (0.4)?
  Confusion 3 stacks (4s): 50 Damage On Skill Use, 50 Damage
  Confusion 5 stacks (4s): 50 Damage On Skill Use, 50 Damage
  Daze: 2s
  Stun: 2s
  Combo Combo Finisher: Physical Projectile
  Range: 900

Reasoning: Confusion just fits the name perfectly, also we get that needed condition variety for rangers.

FINAL THOUGHTS: With these changes, I am pretty sure shortbow will be more appealing. It will become a true hybrid weapon. I matched the Damage and Damage Coefficient of the AA with the Thieve’s trick shot so Crossfire is getting a little buff.

I wish ranger and thief traps are as strong or as even useful as DH traps.

Tragic Positive.9356:

HeadCrowned.6834:

What needs immediate attention:
Axe #4, Warhorn #4 and Frost trap.

I might be off-track but …
… What’s wrong with Axe #4? I believe they improved it with the ground targeting. Is it worse than Axe #5?

Axe 4 is a skill shot, i am completely fine with it. 5 on the other hand should remove the rooted part.

To be fair, every trap we have needs a serious buff. but this is another topic all together.

But a more realistic approach to buffing is just asking to buff unused traits at this point.

You forgot to boost the AA coefficients man. All of the skills require atleast 30% more damage.

3 Stacks on Confusion on 5 if not flanking.

You should try playing SB and check your dmg stats in pvp. It is absolutely horrid.

Ross Biddle.2367:

coro.3176:

Yeah. There’s too much reflect out there. I’ve had to stop playing rifle engi because there’s always someone reflecting or blocking projectiles. It’s just not worth wasting a cooldown when the projectiles will be blocked/nullified, or worse, reflected.

If anyone does not think this is a problem, I propose a challenge: Post a video of yourself (with a projectile class) dueling a competent projectile-hate class, like scrapper or tempest and winning in a reasonable amount of time.

It can’t be done. If by some miracle you can actually kill a class with lots of projectile hate, I guarantee it’s because you’ve had to resort to lower damage non-projectile skills, or it’s taken you far too long waiting for their reflects/blocks to go on cooldown. In either case, you’d be better off not using projectiles.

Where Scrapper and Ele are concerned, it’s not the projectile hate thats the problem. Full power melee has a hell of a time taking these guys down in a reasonable amount of time.

So we do agree its a combination of both?

Cannabis Sativa Hollandica.2803:

Reflects are no problem.. to do damage in melee you got to face the aoes and deadly effects on close range. Magical damage isnt bursty enough to be dangerous on range like shatter mesmer still need to get up close to have effect. This leaves the long range projectiles wich need a counter to. Its not healthy for pvp If you have people easyshotting from a distance all the time. Trueshot ,Warrior killshot, or bezerker ranger need to have a counter like this to. It brings intresting mechanics for example safe stomping If you know the only thing that can stop you is a ranged cc projectiles at that moment. Or for disengaging
. i remember often having to dodge a projectile flying back. This brings more skill and less ez pew pew. Like someone sayd before a good build should have melee range options to. And if one is not able to dodge a reflected dh longbow arrow then one has a l2p issue.

This is coming from a player that plays all builds and professions including longbow dh.
Btw doesnt longbow’s unblockable skill goos trough reflects?

You cannot say this for ranger when every weapon it has has a lower damage coefficient than all classes.

GS on melee? Yea right.

Yes reflects are no problem, but when you get so much reflects AND DEAL DAMAGE AT THE SAME TIME? I do not think so.

borya.2964:

Tragic Positive.9356:

I personally think Signets might need a look-at, too.
If you check
Signet of the Hunt – the ability is horrible. Ranger as the master of multi-hitting of very low attacks has a bonus 50% damage on next attack – useless.
Signet of Renewal – flawed design. The only pet it works with is SmokeScale in it’s F2. Everything else is just a TnT explosion on your pet in case it works which it doesn’t most of the time because it has short range.
Signet of the Wild has way too weak passive. I don’t remember it making a difference.
Signet of Stone is … Fine, I guess. But having the CD halved just as duration would make it more appealing. Everyone can see you activated the skill, so they’ll just kill someone else instead and you have to wait 80 SECONDS (which is more than 2/3 our elite skills) to make enemies target someone else again (because they won’t waste any more cooldowns on you.)

Brutish seals : Activiting a signet grant might to you and your pet. Signets recharge faster. Maintain the passive effects of signets when you active them.

Honestly, i can’t see anything op here : few toughness ? a clean every 10 sec ? 25 % speed (withthe perma swiftness we can have or Natural stride) ? A pitiful regen (you need like 1200 healing power for the regen to tick like the boon with no healing power) ? It’s a good start to me.

SOTW need to be instant and break stun, nothing to explain here, really : break stun + stability (remove the growing thing from another age).

Brutish seals will be absolutely broken as a master trait + its not unique.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Written_in_Stone

Zenith.7301:

StickerHappy.8052:

UPDATE:

So me and Shadelang were talking about how rangers do not have boon hate (Again do not want any comparisons) But with the rampant boon farting other classes have (ele, revs, etc), we have no options to deal with them so I present these ideas to you.

Enlargement

Signet of the Wild is soo useless with this because: 1.) It’s on a high CD 2.) Has A long Cast time and 3.) It cancels Druid Form out.

Changes:

• If your target has 2 or more boons, Activate Signet of the Hunt.
  Your next attack and your pet’s next attack deal more damage.

• +15% damage on next attack. Attack of Opportunity (4s):
  15% increased damage lasts the entire 4 seconds
  30 second ICD

Reasoning: Again we do not have options to deal with boon farting meta. This effect also fits the MM DPS line and you can get the effect more frequently. So think of this effect not as a damage boost, but as a utility

Honed Axes

All of the traits effects do not make any sense since MH is a condi weapon while OH is a power weapon.

Changes:

• While wielding an axe, gain 2% Damage and Condition Damage for each boon your opponent has. Winter’s bite is now an AoE skill. Axe skills recharge faster.

• Attribute bonus: Damage and Condition Damage Increase 2%
  Number of Targets: 5
  Radius: 240
  Recharge Reduced: 20%

Reasoning: With this change, it benefits BOTH MH and OH on their respective roles. Another utility since we do not have boon strips or corrupts. This turns your axe into another utility weapon. Now with the change YOU DO NOT HAVE to have an axe in your MH since it also benefits you as an OH.

Why are we making traits that are only relevant in PvP? Your suggested change turns a mediocre trait that is used in neither format into a niche one that will still be rarely taken in spvp/wvw because the fact is very few people will ever run BM traitline so long as spotter and quickdraw remains on skirmishing.

There are very few circumstances outside a few fractal scales where mobs will have a bunch of boons.

I want universally useful traits, not ones for one format and ones for the other.

Maybe make opening strike trigger every 10 seconds while in combat and remove 3 boons when it triggers.

your suggestion is exactly the same way though. I could use your argument that mobs will not have a bunch of boons too, so removing boons will be useless in pve as well right?

But not everything revolves in PvE.

Traits with falling damage? Who uses them in PvP? See how you create your argument?

Shiren.9532:

StickerHappy.8052:

Ezrael.6859:

Main offenders being Tempest / Scrapper and Chronomancer.

• Tempest aurashare and Scrapper with the AoE toolbelt to cover entire groups.
• Ele / Mesmer with the ability to grant a lot of personal projectile reflection while their ranged power damage is just magical instant hitting with no similar counter. Mesmer GS / Ele Scepter.

Why do ranged power projectiles get such hate? No other type of damage source gets hard countered in this way where your outgoing damage is not only nullified but inflicted back at you.

Power melee doesn’t suffer from this unless you’re playing a Guardian.

Conditions don’t suffer from reflection whether ranged or melee.

The reflection power-creep needs to be toned down or mechanically changed to be more skillful, more targeted skills like DH Deflecting Shot and less stuff like personal based 360 reflection, mindless no skill hard counters are bad.

It just happened recently too. RIP DH. RIP LB RANGERS.

Has longbow ranger ever been competitive outside of hotjoin and inexperienced matches? Like ever?

Did you watch the pro league? I am guessing not. Clearly you didn’t see LB druids there.

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

bigo.9037:

Justine.6351:

I won’t defend zerker vs rampager as the build has never been about the be all end all.

I will defend the sharpening stone over sos though.
Sos is a relic from 2012-2014. There is little to no reason to run it anymore short of not running wilderness or nature magic or beast mastery (shouts) or the signet trait.

The reason to run sharpening stone is beyond the 5 bleeds you can do at 2k range. Fury/condition removal and insta cast. Its utility in both defense and offense makes it a solid skill for the build.

As for condition removal, lol,
Bleeding
Poison
Torment
Cripple
Vulnerability
Immobilize

If someone purges that mess good for them, cause the bleeds don’t stop coming, and poison, torment, vulnerability are right behind it.

where does your torment come from again?
you will rarely have all these conditions on your enemy at the same time, so cleansing some of them at a time will be enough. its true the bleeds will keep getting reapplied but the dmg from the bleeds themselves just takes too long to be worth it.

i dont use SoS either cus the cooldown is way too long for only 6 seconds of physical immunity. i use SoW instead without popping it. i just let it stay passively to get my astral regen. it helps enough to be worth it imo, as celestial avatar = stun break, 100 % condi cleanse, heals and stealth. all this is possible every 10 seconds if you have enough astral regen.

OP isn’t trying to min/max or to be meta. She’s playing what she enjoys and showcasing how well she plays it.

She’s also already said that she understands a full Berserker build would be better.

As someone who very much enjoys using niche builds, I totally understand not caring about being 100% effective. As long as it’s fun to play and you’re comfortable with playing it, who cares. I still kill tons of people with niche builds and clearly OP does as well.

Is Justine a she?

Ezrael.6859:

Main offenders being Tempest / Scrapper and Chronomancer.

• Tempest aurashare and Scrapper with the AoE toolbelt to cover entire groups.
• Ele / Mesmer with the ability to grant a lot of personal projectile reflection while their ranged power damage is just magical instant hitting with no similar counter. Mesmer GS / Ele Scepter.

Why do ranged power projectiles get such hate? No other type of damage source gets hard countered in this way where your outgoing damage is not only nullified but inflicted back at you.

Power melee doesn’t suffer from this unless you’re playing a Guardian.

Conditions don’t suffer from reflection whether ranged or melee.

The reflection power-creep needs to be toned down or mechanically changed to be more skillful, more targeted skills like DH Deflecting Shot and less stuff like personal based 360 reflection, mindless no skill hard counters are bad.

It just happened recently too. RIP DH. RIP LB RANGERS.

UPDATE:

So me and Shadelang were talking about how rangers do not have boon hate (Again do not want any comparisons) But with the rampant boon farting other classes have (ele, revs, etc), we have no options to deal with them so I present these ideas to you.

Enlargement

Signet of the Wild is soo useless with this because: 1.) It’s on a high CD 2.) Has A long Cast time and 3.) It cancels Druid Form out.

Changes:

• If your target has 2 or more boons, Activate Signet of the Hunt.
  Your next attack and your pet’s next attack deal more damage.

• +15% damage on next attack. Attack of Opportunity (4s):
  15% increased damage lasts the entire 4 seconds
  30 second ICD

Reasoning: Again we do not have options to deal with boon farting meta. This effect also fits the MM DPS line and you can get the effect more frequently. So think of this effect not as a damage boost, but as a utility

Honed Axes

All of the traits effects do not make any sense since MH is a condi weapon while OH is a power weapon.

Changes:

• While wielding an axe, gain 2% Damage and Condition Damage for each boon your opponent has. Winter’s bite is now an AoE skill. Axe skills recharge faster.

• Attribute bonus: Damage and Condition Damage Increase 2%
  Number of Targets: 5
  Radius: 240
  Recharge Reduced: 20%

Reasoning: With this change, it benefits BOTH MH and OH on their respective roles. Another utility since we do not have boon strips or corrupts. This turns your axe into another utility weapon. Now with the change YOU DO NOT HAVE to have an axe in your MH since it also benefits you as an OH.

Tragic Positive.9356:

Zenith.7301:

Signet of Renewal needs to have its cd lowered to 30 seconds, and conditions cleared per 10 seconds be increased to 2. We have no good stunbreaks.

The shouts still need serious help, they’re all terrible.

You can’t really buff Signet of Renewal’s active by so much. You overbuffed it into oblivion. It’s an AoE full cleanse. And that by itself is a powerful tool. And there are other classes that don’t have this luxury on such a short cooldown. Similar counterparts are for the caster only.
We probably only have to make it more reliable and less counter-productive (like not sacrificing the pet for it as well as removing the range limiter for the caster but still having it for other targets)
The passive might welcome a buff. I’d personally welcome reduced the trigger to 5 seconds rather than having number increased. But that’s just methinks.

When it comes to shouts – I believe they are not necessarily bad. Protect Me and Guard are both viable ones. Protect Me is exactly the example of a wonderful low CD stunbreaker you are looking for. And an AoE, up to that. WHaO is also our best healing skill if you count it as a shout.

You still haven’t given me your ideas on Brutish, Honed Axes. I think Enlargement should be Signet of the hunt for 5 attacks. SIgnet of stone is nice but MM is a DPS line, it would be weird to put a Defense trait there.

Faux Play.6104:

I’ve started to play druid this season. I’m getting the hang of it, but would appreciate any advice on what I could do better:

match 1 504-(456-1) Loss
match 2 500-288 Loss
Match 3 495-475 Loss

Match 1.

All I can say is. ZERO ROTATION

You were double capped for the majority of the game.

What did you do? Stayed at mid. Noone decapped far. Thief was useless the entire game by being farmed by the mesmer.

Your thief was terrible yes, but do not be tunneled visioned and look at the map. From there you can adjust and rotate accordingly.

Another biggie, you could’ve won mid sooner, but no cleave. You were on staff when they were ressing someone. You couldve feared with wolf, safe stomped with elite, Cleaved with GS.

Guys I would like you to share your ideas on these traits too.

Enlargement Useless with druid form since it cancels it out. Long CD too.

Brutish Seals Only signet this benefits from is Signet of the hunt, everything else is High CD.

Honed Axes Another ill placed skill, Even if you make winter’s bite AoE, its not even noticeable. Ferocity for mainhand is useless too. Why would you need ferocity for a Condition Weapon?

All ideas are very much appreciated. thanks!

EDIT I didn’t know that Winter’s bite dealt 3 stacks of bleeding now? I remember it was only chill. So Honed Axes trait makes this an 8 second chill/bleed AoE bomb. Kinda looks strong but too bad it’s not ground targeted. 240 Radius is still decent though.

Simple solution: Team Up.

UnitedChaos.8364:

My opinions:
What we need:
1. Some form of unblockable trait/utility because of the stupidly overabundance of projectile denial.
2. A revisit to spirits. Since the nerf they’ve been completely useless. (I would even be happy removing these skills and replacing them with movement utilities such as lightning reflexes.)
3. An update to traps. Dragonhunter traps completely put ranger traps to shame
4. Obvious pet updates that have been posted, and posted, and posted, but ultimately ignored.
—Organized pet windows
—Base pets brought into line with HoT pets.
—30% base movement speed (not traited into beastmastery)
—Melee pets need to hit moving targets accurately, not move-stop-attack-miss-repeat.
—Pet names that last
—Pet F2 reworks (as mentioned above multiple times).
5. Directional arrows on Sword 2 (Monarch Leap and Hornet’s Sting) and Lightning Reflexes
6. Reworks to horrible traits/utilities like Refined Toxins, Poison Master, Sharpened Stones, and Invigorating Bond (as mentioned above and in OP). And especially Predator’s Instinct (Like, seriously, this is a joke of a trait.)
7. Verdant Etchings reverted back to 2 conditions cleansed. (If ele can have infinite cleanses so should the “dedicated healer class”, or, more seriously, other overpowered classes brought back in line).
8. General bugs and fixes like Staff 5 (Sublime Conversion) none of the healing projectiles hit you because they transform to healing bolts and arch over you at a stupidly slow rate.

Traps are my favorite, I can go into another whole topic bout it but I think what are trap needs is more impactful changes like CC and damage or utility. As it stands now, there is sooo much condition removal to make them worth it.

SB too is still underwhelming. It needs condition variety, not just bleeds.

The unblockable stuff is I very much agree with too, DH is in the same boat as us. I have no idea why Anet just kept giving classes Projectile Hate.

Tragic Positive.9356:

StickerHappy.8052:

Yes I HATE class comparisons but again, it is very evident that we are missing something here.

You need class comparison in order to bring balance into a game. The balance can never be perfect but you can always achieve a situation where it feels right.

You cannot compare individual skills. But you have to compare classes (their general contribution) if you don’t want a group of people feeling robbed.
And rangers have been treated extremely unjustified for a very long time. I’m glad we can all agree on that.

It’s not wrong to fight opinions with data.

Thank you for that. But yeah, I finally tried to play ranger in PvE, but man, every class out there melt mobs faster even if I am in FULL ZERK. it is really sad.

Now that you posted, any ideas for The GM axe trait? That one also needs to be looked at.

Btw the suggestion is open for anyone not just tragic.

Cynz.9437:

DH is nowhere as bad as thieves and wars were in s1/2. Revs/scrappers and eles to extend are just overtuned. If anything, they need a nerf.

Why do you always bring up thief? It is starting to get really old now.

Thieves have ALWAYS BEEN GREAT. Only reason they sucked in s1/2 are because of they are being overshadowed by revenants. THIEF IS NOT THE PROBLEM. We are on this victim game again. Yes thieves NEED BUILD DIVERSITY but to say they were in a bad spot like DH now? smh..

PS: Do not blame the state of thieves for getting flamed by players, WE ALL KNOW that 90% of the thief population do not know how to play your class effectively

@Topic

Coming from a ranger player here, I have no idea why there is sooooo much projectile hate in the game right now. Eles have multiple ways to get magnetic aura, Gale, etc. The Meta build has ALL of THOSE. Same with Engineers.

I would Say DH and Rangers need unblockable range attacks to compensate. Especially DHs, There is literally 0 reason to go DH if you are not gonna take LB, which is an EXCLUSIVE weapon set for an elite spec only to be nullified completely.

Zenith.7301:

Can Jungle Stalker’s might shout be a leap like the tiger instead? Make it a 15 sec cd 8 might stacks 15 sec duration, 1 sec cast time like the tiger’s leap.

Snow Leopard’s chill leap should be 5 seconds chill on a 10 sec cd. 30 seconds for 3 seconds of chill is pathetic.

Same goes for all these weak 30 sec cd pet skills.

On your other thread, I am simply agree with everything you said.

I was talking to Shadelang the other day, and you are right, gear progression right now has ZERO Effect on the ranger’s pets.

So in reality we are still missing 10% of ascended stats for our pets. That is not fair.

There is soooo much lost potential that is simply tied to our pets. No food/oils interaction either.

I am just horribly confused, rangers are not very competitive in the DPS department to begin with so buffing some aspects now would only make us competitive with other classes.

Yes I HATE class comparisons but again, it is very evident that we are missing something here.

anduriell.6280:

Wondrouswall.7169:

StickerHappy.8052:

Just curious would you still put this in WS where our 2 condition clears compete still?

I would still suggest EB remain in WS, yes. I know the majority is for EB to be in another traitline, so I’ll make the argument for it.

With EB still competing with WK, it can be an better alternative for builds that choose to not take Survival skills and have other means of conditions clears, yet still want other perks from selecting WS….

Nooo come on dude, having almost all out cleanses locked in one trait line really limits our build options and that’s common sense.
If I don’t want the perks from WS I’m still locked in it because you always need cleanses.

i like the suggestion about transfer a condition every 3 seconds but that GM should go to BM.

And to replace it in WS would be fantastic to have your suggestion: a GM that do this: for every condition on you, you and your pet take 2% less condition damage.
(Usually we have like 5-6 conditions at any time which could translate in 10-12% condition damage mitigation, some condition like stun or daze are too short lived and rare to make a difference)

Axe GM can be moved to Nature Magic And change the extra ferocity for something group support. (maybe merge it with invigorating bond so the axe apply have a chance to apply heals or something else on crits ) .

But please guys I want to have more freedom to make more builds. Right now I’m locked into WS or go full tank.

Actually rangers have more reliable condition removal options than mesmer now. Druidic clarity is a big one. Glyphs. Healing Spring. Those are outside of WS. We have signet of renewal too, other classes do not have this option imo.

Mesmers CANNOT survive the state of the game without Inspiration. Its different for us. We can go druid or go WS or both or just build around the other cleanses we have left.

If you move EB to NM or BM, you will just make those traitlines even more required.

Tipper.6973:

Haven’t had a chance to read every post yet, but I really think ANet needs to look at the pet abilities. So many of them are underwhelming with ridiculously long cooldowns.

Especially if pets are here to stay as a mandatory part of the class.

Read it all when you can. Also suggest some of your ideas on the pet so that I might include it on the original post.

As I’ve said, one big thing we lack is cleave. So far I know only Drakes are the only ones that cleave.

We also need more f2 utilities on the pet like the underwater reflect from the reef drake. I for one would like some pulls on the pet or stuns or anything else.

This just boggles me, there is nothing to do in PvP except for the leagues (which has been the same thing since season 1)

>No new maps?
>No new game modes?
>No new slight trait reworks or fixes or buffs atleast every week? (Even just 1 trait each profession)
>No new reward tracks?
> No pvp exclusive rewards?
>Same crap for treasure boxes and salvage galore?

Quarterly balance where the changes only amount to 2 weeks of balance?

I do not about you guys but I am playing since launch and you know it just gets very stale, there is nothing to do.

Same in PvE, Half of the legendaries get cancelled, No Living Story, etc. I am gonna bet Halloween and Wintersday will be recycled again this year.

Tragic Positive.9356:

StickerHappy.8052:

Completely get your point, but we have very good access to fury sources already to begin with. Necro and Mesmer don’t have that luxury. I mean I think we are better off with a different effect on top of the 25%

I just told you Necromancers have 100% crit chance without a single boon or crit chance… That 100% crit comes from traits alone.
And they don’t have the luxury?
Okay, I’m officially out. I lost this game. I’m a horrible person and now even a horrible teacher.

Stop being agressive. 50% crit chance is GM trait Unique to them. Fury is not. Fury is affected by boon duration too. Deathly perception is also on DS only. Fury is not dependent on criterias like Vuln stacking on Necro, threshold and slow on mesmer. All of those you need to trait them or requires a secondary option to proc or maintain.

You are comparing two different things. Traiting for a GM trait is not a luxury man. Fury on ranger on the other hand is accessible even WITHOUT traiting them (Tiger, WH, RaO, etc)

Fury also gives you 20% Without any criterias to maintain, you do not have to maintain stacks of vuln, slow, etc.

Please you are okay with conversing about some of the ideas, stop being so melodramatic and let us continue to be civil and creative here.

Your idea will give you 40% crit permanently with boon duration almost 40% damage with remorseless if you take Rune of Rage.

And you are telling me that is fine?

@all

ANyone tried this combo with condition damage? Does it increase the 682 tick with 0 condition damage exponentially?

Wondrouswall.7169:

StickerHappy.8052:

Just curious would you still put this in WS where our 2 condition clears compete still?

I would still suggest EB remain in WS, yes. I know the majority is for EB to be in another traitline, so I’ll make the argument for it.

With EB still competing with WK, it can be an better alternative for builds that choose to not take Survival skills and have other means of conditions clears, yet still want other perks from selecting WS.

It may not be as direct as taking survival skills + WK (on paper), but it opens up options with Signet of Renewal (both the passive & active) and a peculiar play-style of making sure the player is cleansing the conditions off the pet as well in order for it to gain unique conditions again for buff up-keep.

With that particular change, EB could compete both offensively and defensively, as I described before. Not so much love for Poison Master outside of PvE condition builds, but it would compete with that too on a more condition-based, offensive load-out.

That, in turn, brings in better competition among the 3 Gm traits for 2 different areas (defensive or offensive), provides an additional unique style of play, a different way to battle conditions, and synergy with other forms of condition cleanse with Signet/Marksmanship potential.

On the PvE side, could be very competitive with Poison Master during condition-heavy fights since the pet damage reductions also apply to condition durations.

So overall, EB gains higher effectiveness as a choice for multiple game modes, as well as builds. Thus, why I would still vouch for it (with this change) to remain in WS.

Wow, I have never looked at it that way.

Hey dude, I have been PvEing a lot (first time since launch) and I noticed what pets clearly lack.

Cleave.

Only a handful of pets do have this and they are horrid.

Do you think its better to have a cleave GM trait for pets?

Tragic Positive.9356:

StickerHappy.8052:

This would be so broken if you add 20% additional crit chance. That’s like 40% crit with fury.

Exactly. Where’s the harm? You sound like fury itself is broken (I’m technically only adding another exclusive fury to our kit). Necromancers already have 100% with 0 precision without fury. I know my ideas sound crazy but it seems like you guyz never compared anything to other classes in the entire life.
Not only that, but it would still ignore our DPS in PvE since we are already at 100% in our DPS build. Plus it would be as a compensation for loosing opening strikes from Fury.

I like Wondrouswalls idea about Empathic Bond. I once thought of having it changed into something like “Rabid” that transfers conditions back to enemies on hit/crit but that would just copy paste minion mancer. I like Empathic Bond’s version more for it’s theme.

Completely get your point, but we have very good access to fury sources already to begin with. Necro and Mesmer don’t have that luxury. I mean I think we are better off with a different effect on top of the 25%

Tragic Positive.9356:

Kaz.5430:

You only get Fury on weapon swap in you trait into Skirmishing, and you only get Fury on pet swap once every 30 seconds, and only if you’ve traited into Clarion Bond.

IMO it wouldn’t actually ‘kill’ Remorseless at all, so saying it doesn’t work isn’t really accurate, it would work just fine.

There would still be plenty of reason to trait Remorseless for the other Trait-based sources of Fury (e.g. Wilderness Knowledge, Two-Handed Training) which are more accessible sources of Fury anyway.

That said, I hadn’t considered those traits, which would make it a slightly superflous upgrade.

The only viable way to play remorseless was to go MM/SK/BM.
… As far as I know.

It’s not like your idea would hurt anyone …
… But it’s design feels wrong. It’s exactly the one that says “We buffed builds that no one played (outside of hotjoin and open world) while we ignored everything else that was important.”

But if we polished your idea a bit, by changing remorseless in one go – that would make sense. Something like:

• ~Remorseless: Gain 20% additional crit chance from Fury. Opening Strikes deal 30% more damage and can no longer be blocked.
  (no longer procs on fury)

And you could keep weapon swaps, pet swaps , pet F2 and what not as you suggested. Having Remorseless on Fury procs feels uncontrollable(group)/underpowered(solo) anyway. The idea feels out of logic in the 1st place
(If you increase your Crit Chance by 20% – you never needed those 20% because your next attack will crit – wasting the 20% you gained).

One way or another, these are already suggestions that most likely wouldn’t pass even the 1st round of approval at a development section of the company. Too much work and no logical explanation behind it.

This would be so broken if you add 20% additional crit chance. That’s like 40% crit with fury.

Wondrouswall.7169:

While you both go at it on Opening Strike minors, I’ll bring up Empathic Bond. There has been numerous suggestions before for this like the Pet just cleansing conditions from the Ranger, transferring conditions onto foes through various means, or even lowering the interval.

I’ll pitch this weird suggestion which takes elements from Scrapper’s Adaptive Armor trait and Necromancer’s Corrupter’s Fervor, but with a twist that play off the aspects of using the Pet as a condition meat-bag.

Show Spoiler

hide spoiler

Empathic Bond
Transfer 1 condition to your Pet every 3s. When your Pet is inflicted with a unique condition, gain Empathic Bond (10s).
Empathic Bond: You take 2% less condition damage and deal 2% more condition damage. Stacks up to 5 times.

Not really a low-hanging fruit suggestion, but it can be interesting to have a trade-off for dumping conditions onto your pet.

It can also bring out some interesting play, such as using Signet of Renewal’s active to gain 5 stacks immediately or cleansing conditions from your pet so they can gain certain conditions again in order to replenish stacks.

Those being said, EB can finally start to have some trait synergy with other lines due to combos. A bit in Marksmanship when using Signets and a bit more with condition-focused builds in Skirmishing.

Finally, competition within WS Gm tier can be more fierce while offering an alternate way to deal with conditions when compared to Wilderness Knowledge, as well as being a stronger option for builds that do not slot Survival utilities.

On the flip-side of things, it can be a competitive choice for more offensive condition builds between Poison Master (for being Poison focused) or EB as a way to increase the condition damage across multiple conditions, but at the risk of your Pet’s well-being.

Just tossin’ that out there.

Another great idea. I would even go as far to say reduce 2% condition damage for the pet also for each stack so as not to kill the pet with EB

Just curious would you still put this in WS where our 2 condition clears compete still?

Just wanna ask you guys what are your ideas to bring thief traps into line with DH

In this sense:

Stun breaker traps
Grants boons when triggered
Utility

Thanks!

Chaith.8256:

Listing all the things that the professions does in awe inspired way doesn’t make for a good argument

edit: like dang, berserker has stability and CC AND CONDITIONS

No offense though, what are the hard counters for scrappers?

Even metabattle says its TBD.

fishball.7204:

Berserker has high sustain, high stab, incredibly tanky, great damage, decent condition management, great CC.

I do not know about condition management now after the LB cleansing ire fix.

Shaogin.2679:

Exaggerate much? I mean sure Scrapper is messed up, but so are the other HoT meta builds. Sheesh.

Anyways, if we’re being realistic and not whining cause we lost to a Scrapper, the Hammer still needs to be toned down. It’s still too much survival and damage packed into one weapon. Gyros really aren’t an issue, not sure where all that hate is coming from.

Always better to shave off and see how it plays out, in the case of the Scrapper it is the Hammer that needs shaving.

And before someone claims I am just defending my profession, I am an Engineer, not some lame Scrapper thank you very much.

Which one tho?

Ele High heals and condi removal but hit like a wet noodle
Druid heals and pet damage but weak to cc and condition spam
Rev high damage high sustain but weak to conditions
Mesmer? Carrion is not as good anymore, super squish.
Necro? Weak to CC and focus fire
DH null
thief? same weakness as any thief build

Scrapper is, high stab, incredibly tanky, great damage, high sustain, decent condition management, high reflect uptime too.

Gyros and Final salvo, its connected, and you get the insane regen. Medic gyro is also instant.

Only one close to being overtuned is Ele imo. but still, ele does not do any damage.

Wondrouswall.7169:

Since pets and Beastmastery was mentioned, I would like to see that 10% pet damage while the player is above 90% health become replaced entirely with “pets attack 15% faster” on the Loud Whistle minor.

Small change with large impact since pets would be able to hit more reliably due to shorter cast times. In my opinion, I would rather my pets be able to hit a target and hit a target more times within a certain period than hitting harder because I’m at/near full health – only to miss a moving target.

That would also, to some degree, improve Wyverns’ slow attacks.

Another very good idea.

Tbh, I see so much 90% health thresholds for ranger, 90% is very hard to maintain esp in pvp vs decent opponents. Our pets too don’t dodge, do not have decreased AoE damage.

So I guess this only active if you choose to only use your pet for the f2 then recall it back again.

Only gripe about this is that it will be most likely required to go BM just to make pets halfway decent.

Tested. It does work.

Its only 682 poison damage at 7 stacks to be exact. 0 Condition damage

The tick goes down accordingly when the stacks go down.

psizone.8437:

*Merge ‘Poison Master’ with ‘Refined Toxins’ since they’re rather similar traits and neither screams “GM” to me.

*Move ‘Honed Axes’ to the Wilderness Survival line to replace ‘Poison Master’ and maybe give it a 5-10% damage bonus to Axe to buff its damage a bit. (moved since the trait didn’t have much synergy with the BM traitline)

*In the Beastmastery line, add a GM trait that provides a few seconds of Resistance on pet swap or pet F2, whichever seems more balanced. This would let us choose between condition defense, buffing you and your pets damage or a CC trait in that traitline.

*Make the damage bonus from ‘Two-handed Training’ baseline and add a modifier that gives your pet a small damage increase on a target you hit with a greatsword critical hit or the ‘Maul’ skill, whichever seems fairer.

*Make ’Pet’s Prowess’ baseline and replace it with ‘Fortifying Bond’. Make a new trait to replace the now empty Minor in Nature Magic

Although your changes intrigue me, it is really unrealistic to implement atleast now (speaking about Anet here) That’s why the changes I proposed are really so similar to what we have now, maybe just a change of line or letter in the code.

Having newer traits will be super hard to implement, they can’t even release LS3 for so long, and even cancelled the development of more than half of the new legendaries.

Not trying to be pessimistic, just being a little realistic here.

Wondrouswall.7169:

Well, HERE is always a decent start. Fits more into the “tweaks” bit of the thread, at least.

Is it okay to fuse your ideas here on one thread?

Keep the ideas and conversations flowing guys.

PLEASE LOOK AT THE OTHER PROPOSED TRAITS TOO.

You guys are looking at the traits that are still currently taken right now. It is much better to focus on underpowered ones so we open more build diversity

Please and Thank you~

Tragic Positive.9356:

borya.2964:

Tragic Positive.9356:

~I’ll add my personal candidate for Zephyr’s Speed. I don’t think you want to strip your pet of all the fury, quickness and might just to get that pitiful 3 second quickness and some random 3 might.
How about moving it to F2 ? Wouldn’t that feel a bazillion times better and more rewarding?

Such a weird logic. The actual ZS actually help you to reapply boons on the new pet, to begin a new rotation. With your change, you strip all the boons AND get nothing on pet swapping unless you use Clarion Bond. Plus i don’t want a radius on this trait, and you seems to forgot that pets have very differents CD on their F2. The pitiful 3 sec of quickness when swapping pet is primary made to buff you rather than your pet and proc the boon to land a Rapide Fire as an example. Swapping pet while the one you actually use have a lots of boon, to land a burst with ZS is a strategic choice. You have an active trait 100 % on control that you want to move in a radius with the F2 and all the pets issues we all know ?

You are kinda off-track, here. With F2 proposal not only you’d make pets F2 more appealing (Drakes, Bristle, other pets…) but you wouldn’t have to sacrifice any buff from pet at all.
Go through it again.

I think he meant is when you actually swap pets, so if you have a boosted boon infused pet 1, when you swap to pet 2, pet 2 will start with 0 buffs vs The current Zephyr grants 2 boons to pet 2 when you swap and not with 0. I think that’s what he meant.

borya.2964:

Tragic Positive.9356:

~I’ll add my personal candidate for Zephyr’s Speed. I don’t think you want to strip your pet of all the fury, quickness and might just to get that pitiful 3 second quickness and some random 3 might.
How about moving it to F2 ? Wouldn’t that feel a bazillion times better and more rewarding?

Such a weird logic. The actual ZS actually help you to reapply boons on the new pet, to begin a new rotation. With your change, you strip all the boons AND get nothing on pet swapping unless you use Clarion Bond. Plus i don’t want a radius on this trait, and you seems to forgot that pets have very differents CD on their F2. The pitiful 3 sec of quickness when swapping pet is primary made to buff you rather than your pet and proc the boon to land a Rapide Fire as an example. Swapping pet while the one you actually use have a lots of boon, to land a burst with ZS is a strategic choice. You have an active trait 100 % on control that you want to move in a radius with the F2 and all the pets issues we all know ?

Good point. so why not we all agree to make our pets f2 more reliable to hit so we won’t have to rely on this trait?

DoomKnightMax.6592:

I feel like buffing classes and traits is the wrong way to go about things. We already have issues with power creep, and 25 might self stacking classes are already a pain in the rear. It’s better to just nerf the living hell out of some (cough-condi-cough) play styles so that its not “one is better than the other”, but rather “one fits a situation better than another”.

To be fair that goes with just about everything.

#bringbackzerkmeta
#condigameplayencouragesbadplayers
#probablytriggeredfay

Depends dude. Like with my suggestion (although pyro shot it down) if there is something else for the trait to offer then we can make something with that. Condition transfer on a trait relieves the outmost reliance on Inspiration thus opening more builds.

Ross Biddle.2367:

StickerHappy.8052:

BeepBoopBop.5403:

Celine.6857:

BeepBoopBop.5403:

It shows the disgusting difference in skill Ithilwen has with an upper division player. She has been making threads throughout the seasons about how she is stuck because “MMR HELL!!!!” and how the game favors certain players, then she finally posted a video of her playing and its as bad as you can imagine. I very well know the game is not balanced on 1 v 1, but it will clearly show the skill gap. Anything in a 5 v 5 would just result in “ahhh my team was so bad why can’t I grind out games oh woe is me.”

It still doesn’t mean much though imo, because PvP is a team game and 1v1s don’t count for all the other things you need to focus on in a PvP match. It’ll show whether she can beat whoever in this 1v1 but that doesn’t really display what is happening in a match.

Where is this scrutinized video ?

Had to dig deep for this

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5CmlAUhxRY

My quick commentary: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/Here-s-MMR-Hell/page/2#post6073135

What’s the point? We all know she is disabled, how come you guys expect more from her? why not just support her or team up with her?

You guys are should have a more understandable persona esp with people in need.

You are skilled right? (atleast that’s what I would like to think) I bet you can carry her? or maybe not?

It’s fair to point out things like this because if not, there’s no way to see what went wrong and comment on how to do it better. For example

https://youtu.be/k5CmlAUhxRY?t=669

Why stay to cap the point if you’re going to abandon it anyway? Then not watch the map for swords to which a person could have returned to hold the point. Of course if you didnt care to hold it, you shouldn’t have wasted time capping it in the first place.

This goes to the core of rotations and asking where you should be, and what you should be doing during a match. Simple things like these are the difference between winning and loosing a match. They’ll even cost you the game if hardcore pvp’rs have set out to carry said person to get their backpiece XD

Can we all just carry Ithilwen? Sure. That doesnt mean you can’t point out some simple things for him to think about while playing (some of us have PvP’d with Ithilwen back in the OMFG all mes team days too, btw ;D )

We can all go down to specifics or what not, but you guys are not understanding the very basic point here, She is disabled. No matter how much technicality we use here, nothing is gonna change. nothing. unless she gets a new hand (no offense meant here)

the best way is to team up with her on TS, and teach her from there. Nothing is gonna progress from these technicalities.

Also, dude, He is a she.

Vicky.4563:

You know, people charge for carrying. If she wants a carry, what is she willing to offer in return? I’m not a charity.

I typically admire the stoic types more, I’m more willing to help those who help themselves. I might be more sympathetic if she didn’t already have a reputation of being abusive towards her own teammates and enemies.

Which is apparently ok, because she’s disabled. So she gets a free pass when she’s rude, but other people aren’t allowed to be rude back.

The h? really charge? WOW. as if you guys are really THAT GOOD?

dude, are you disabled? If not, its best to understand why she is rude or anything. You will never understand that if you are or were never disabled in your life.

Coming from the health field here, you have no idea why people with illnesses act rude or whatever. It is hard to be in their shoes.

So you people without disabilities should be the bigger persons here. Is that really hard to do?

Wondrouswall.7169:

Invigorating Bond is all right. I’d go as far as increasing the radius to 600 and place 2s of Resistance with it. That’s about it.

As for traits that grant effects on pet swap on F2 instead, I personally would like to see that spread out on the rest of the other pet swap traits.

Attach a bit extra to Zephyr’s Speed to retain some flavor while altering it to give some team utility and reduce its effectiveness to balance it out.

Like what extra? can you show some of your ideas regarding the f2s. Would love to see it!

BeepBoopBop.5403:

Celine.6857:

BeepBoopBop.5403:

It shows the disgusting difference in skill Ithilwen has with an upper division player. She has been making threads throughout the seasons about how she is stuck because “MMR HELL!!!!” and how the game favors certain players, then she finally posted a video of her playing and its as bad as you can imagine. I very well know the game is not balanced on 1 v 1, but it will clearly show the skill gap. Anything in a 5 v 5 would just result in “ahhh my team was so bad why can’t I grind out games oh woe is me.”

It still doesn’t mean much though imo, because PvP is a team game and 1v1s don’t count for all the other things you need to focus on in a PvP match. It’ll show whether she can beat whoever in this 1v1 but that doesn’t really display what is happening in a match.

Where is this scrutinized video ?

Had to dig deep for this

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5CmlAUhxRY

My quick commentary: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/Here-s-MMR-Hell/page/2#post6073135

What’s the point? We all know she is disabled, how come you guys expect more from her? why not just support her or team up with her?

You guys are should have a more understandable persona esp with people in need.

You are skilled right? (atleast that’s what I would like to think) I bet you can carry her? or maybe not?

UmbraNoctis.1907:

I’m talking about Companion’s Might …

Oops sorry, maybe you are right. Maybe we should buff the base might duration tho?

Dude what about the other ideas i posted? no comment?

Shadelang.3012:

I like most of your ideas. The Zephyr’s speed change is something id be interesting in testing before committing to. But thats mostly because I have hte muscle memory for the pet swap heal as one combo down by now. But the ability to control it would be interesting.

Adding more duality (Putting the trigger effect on both ourselves AND our pet like on the predator’s instinct trait) is a good idea. We don’t have things like unblockable attacks because we have two damage sources. Enabling both damage sources to use our trait effects makes it more likely the “proc” wont pop on something like a block. Many of our traits would actually be useful if they were reliable.

The damage boost in nature magic is interesting. Not something I have really thought about before despite taking that trait often.

The invigorating bond change is nice. Though I would argue to increase the base healing effect instead of swapping the scaling. An alternate healing method for non menders druids makes it possible to focus less on druid itself.

If a base ranger could have another source of self recovery at the cost of a protection proc that seems like a fair trade.

Having more mechanics that only a druid will really benefit from won’t help our build diversity much.

Edit: I don’t use skirmishing enough to have a determined opinion on it. But the most dangerous game change to boons that have instead effect is appealing to me. Typically by the time your might stacks up high enough to be dangerous your pressured enough to be near death.

Zephyr’s Speed

Tragic mentioned this earlier and I do realize this a lot. For example, I love the jaguar F2, so a might stacked jaguar at 16 stacks is good but 25 is waay better so I want to add more stacks and quickness but This trait swaps the pet out and that built up buffs do not transfer to the next pet. I think it is such a waste. With the quickness proccing before the f2, all of our pets will have a shot at bursts, namely the drakes making our pets f2 more likely to hit.

Invigorating Bond

This trait has soooo much potential but 300 radius is crap. The reason I would like to scale this with our Healing power because Pets still do not have this stat, If the fern hound had a base healing power (or any pet), then yes let it scale better with it. But as it stands now, I think the easiest fix will just to be make it 1000 radius and scale with our healing power.

MDG

Dude, I completely agree. If you start with 0 might and proc this trait, It would only be dangerous if you reach 15+ stacks, you will be most likely get killed or forced to use a heal in order to make it worthwhile. With my changes, you get dangerous instantly after the proc, Quickness is very strong Fury too esp if you have NM or remorseless.

In 10 seconds, you also get 10 seconds worth of quickness, retal and fury. No ramp up time needed for these 3 buffs. Every moment during that time in those 10 seconds will make you deal more damage.

Another combo I was thinking was Signet of stone when you are low + Glyph of unity + retal.