The pet mechanic really didn’t work in GW1 either, to be perfectly honest. The only thing that “worked” was the part that you could use a secondary profession to cover up the flaws and not use a pet at all.
So, so wrong. You obviously never played a full BM build in GW1, if you did it was garbage. My Dire Wolf was doing 200+ damage per hit. Not a typo.
And mine always is when fully spec’d into beast mastery.
Only one of our statements can be true, and I know yours is not, that is unless your using the beloved brown bear, in which case, if your lucky, it may take 2-3. Or the other scenario where your pulling your pet in and out of battle, in which case your proving everyone’s point. The pet is ineffective when sitting by your side.
Impossible. Unless you have no clue what you are doing or are just plain lying. Use a different pet and learn to swap, they rarely get one shot, its always multiple hits.
“Seems” silly to me that you don’t know the differences between Ranger sword and Warrior Sword/GS….
…I can micromanage just fine and I could do it ever better if I had more control and customize options on the pet, but I don’t. Since I melee most the time and use melee pets that can’t dodge like I can, they die faster since if you press F3 they just stand next to you and get cleaved to death…
You on NA? Can you run lvl 50 fractal? Next time I’m home and running a 50 you can join in and see for yourself. Come, come! Melee Archdiviner with me
Errr, Ranger and War weapons have zero in common, why would you even suggest that? Point being, if you want to just AA damage things to death and not use a pet, why play ranger?
I play dungeons too and almost always use melee there, but my pets don’t die. Know why? I choose pets suitable to the situation (never bears) and swap on specific timing.
Meleeing Arch is stupid when you can just swap traits and LB him with a devourer pet (that NEVER dies there). Since that does very close to the same damage yet has little risk. Your own fault for making it harder than it needs to be.
You suggested playing Warrior instead which was silly because they are too different in weapon style to be considered remotely similar. One would only make such a stupid statement if they didn’t know they difference between playing a melee Ranger and melee Warrior. But it’s cool, bro. Have at it.
Your pets don’t die? Guess you’re using crap ranged pets. And yes, their DPS is bad and will always be bad.
Like I said, come do a level 50 fractal with me. I melee Archdiviner much of the time. Why? Because I can, even drunk. Can you not? I guess not… Can you even fractal 50, bro? And no, your LB + devour isn’t doing near the damage melee + jag is doing. Deal with it.
6 might is hardly a large benefit and it sure doesn’t make you Most Dangerous anything.
How many non-external, non-elite ways to stack might does ranger have?
We aren’t talking about a warrior or elementalist here. Ranger can’t constantly pump out 25 stacks of might.
That’s why in a party there’s a PS war or ele anyway… and why I won’t be using that trait no matter what lol especially not if it’s a GM.
Things won’t change. There will still be optimal builds for dungeons/fractals.
Things won’t change. There will still be meta builds for PVP.
Things won’t change. There will still be the best builds for WvW.
Which is easier to balance? A trait that competes against 5/9/12 other traits vs. a trait that competes against 2 other traits..
This way is a helluva lot easier to balance I imagine… which is why I think cost (monetary to the company) is the #1 reason for the trait revamp, not any of this lip service about “diversity” (because diversity has always been there). The less time Developers are spending on balancing the more money the company has to spend in other places or put into the profit bucket.
Don’t propose changes to skills you never use please.
I don’t use them because they’re crap.
If I could use guard to bunch mobs to cleave them down, Hell, I’d actually start using it.
If they just revert S&R to it’s former glory of being able to ress the dead-dead then I’d use it again.. Haven’t used it since they nerfed it to “work as intended”.
They could simply add the skill fact [Trap] so it gets reduced recharge and works with trapper runes. It doesn’t need to be throwing or arming type of trap lol.
What’s next, “healing spring needs to cause conditions for the double duration from trait! Or double regen!” ?
consider traps base line might be ground targeted < don’t you want Ranged Aoe Water field? xd its a good suggestion.
No. In what I do 95% of, which is Dungeons and Fractals, I need to just hit the button and it drops on me where I am, just like it does now. All that extra crap is just time wasted. When I hit 6 it’s because I need it right now, not 2+ seconds from now. I’ve played trapper ranger (but I ain’t bringing that build into a dungeon/fractal) and even with quick-cast it’s still takes forever before they hit the ground. It’s much faster to drop where you are. I’d like to use instant-cast but since the cursor is so freakin’ easy to lose track of on screen during combat, I can’t. Maybe if they improved visibility of the cursor…
Seems like this topic should’ve been tagged [PVP].. Although since they balance around PVP… I guess it’s appropriate. As I read y’all’s comments I have to constantly remind myself y’all are speaking from a PVP prospective… and since I care not for PVP just how my PVE game is affected by the PVP balancing, well, whatevs as the kids say now-a-days.
But on topic I am guessing they are not sure what to do with the ranger traits at the moment the amount of didn’t change is kind of depressing when compared to the amount of effort they seem willing to dedicate to rebuilding the engineer.
Well, at least they did more to the Rangers… I mean, at least they didn’t Necro us.
I stopped reading as it was pointless to continue… then I continued anyway because reasons.
/sigh
It doesn’t matter, yo. It’s virtually unchanged 2+ year old content. I don’t understand why so many fret over changing it when Anet has shown they have no interest in changing it by disbanding the dungeon team and letting Robert H. go. That was proof enough right there that the people who pull the strings at Areanet do not want resources to go to old content. Living World is proof that the strings pulled directed sources (read: money) at new content. In the process we got a few new Fractals, but that is it as that was the most cost efficient way to make old content seem new again.
Not to mention, by the very nature of human begins all content will be trivialized/marginalized because we have the ability to learn. Period. That, at the core, is why content becomes easy. If you cannot understand that I have nothing for you… So, unless Areanet had a dedicated team to constantly changing dungeon content so that there wasn’t enough time to learn all the tells, etc… Nevermind, because it’s not going to happen.
You know, Frost Spirit’s effect lasts for a few seconds even after the spirit itself dies- as well as providing that damage bonus to all party members. If you don’t use the active skill, the cooldown is also only 20 seconds when it dies- you can force spirits to die by swapping skills out of combat.
I personally wouldn’t use QZ as a revive tool in Fractals because, especially at say, 50, reviving is extremely dangerous. Since QZ lowers your healing to yourself, it makes it even more so. If your group has that sot of trouble, it’s usually worth bringing nature spirit instead, in my opinion.
A place where condis get laid down would be the first boss of SE p3- the dude who applies a ton of bleed. Usually Healing Spring is enough for that though, since it pulses regen/condi clear for everyone, while SoR is a one time all clear. I like SoR for places where condis get applied periodically, such as Grawl Shaman boss’s burning.
SoW/QZ combo is definitely riskier in pugs that say, Lightning Reflexes/SoR, yeah.
Well, yeah, generally in 50s I don’t have to worry about reviving the downed. I’m referring to lower tiers, especially the 1st reward tier. In the higher ups I use QZ for bursting during SotW. It’s a nice chunk of DPS w/sword + cat.
I don’t mind putting down FS in certain spots but I don’t use it all the time. If I know it can stay alive longer than a few seconds then I’ll use it, but if there’s no way to get around AOE’s I don’t even bother… and even that lingering RNG chance.. Man, I hate RNG bonuses like that. I would love it if it was 100% and it would see a lot more time on my bar.
I’d love a healing signet… Not turning HS into a trap. I’d like a healing signet akin to the Guardian’s signet. HS turning to a trap doesn’t interest me because the super long cast time. If all traps are becoming ground target then you’d have to have instant-cast option on in the control options. I like having fast/quick-cast, but not instant. Then that arming time traps are getting doesn’t interest me either even if they are getting buffed (which I just assumed they are because adding artifical cast (read: arming) time is just stupid).
I like your analysis gman- I’m curious why you decided not to take frost spirit as default vs quickening zephyr?
They have confirmed that spirits are getting buffed, so that’s pretty good still.
It depends on the fight and the team I’m with. If I know that some of my team members are going to be going down more than they should I’ll take QZ over FS to get them up faster. A lot of places in Fractals the FS just doesn’t live long enough to be worth while for that RNG bonus. I’d be much more willing to take it if it wasn’t a effing RNG 75% but a guaranteed 100%. QZ is going to work 100%.
That’s a very good point that RaO is becoming a shout, so it’ll work with the shout cd trait. Down to 96 seconds…
But without fortifying bond from nature magic, RaO is a bit weaker. Still worth using though.
RaO, in my opinion, is still going to be the best elite we have for 99.99% of the situations in the game. Grawl Shaman at the end is the only time I run Entangle (or anything other than RaO). So even without Fortifying Bond I’m still going to use it.
I’d also suggest Wilderness Knowledge grandmaster in Wilderness Survival- Troll Unguent will only have 5 second downtime with the change to being a survival skill, as well as removing condis and giving fury. This will help with maintaining peak strength and scholar rune bonus. Like, that thing should be on autocast now.
That’s also a good point about swapping for poison application- with strider’s lowering sword cooldowns, you’ll be able to poison a lot more, but the extra poison doesn’t hurt, especially since poison is going to stack intensity vs duration it seems.
Not sure about Empathic bond though. Every ten seconds isn’t particularly reliable, and it’s usually easier to just slot in Signet of Renewal or Healing Spring if you know you’re going to be in a condi intense fight. Troll Unguent + WK will also remove a couple condis too on a longer cooldown sure, but Troll Unguent is also likely to outheal most damaging conditions.
It’ll depend on the situation/team composition. For PuG groups in a condi heavy environment I’ll know after a day or two which I’ll be more comfortable with. TU+WK+SoR or HS+SoR+EB is what I intend to try out for melee on Mai Trin. Right now what I do is SoR+HS when condis are incoming. How that Mai Trin melee turns out will tell me which will be the better for most situations as in Fractals I can’t think of another spot (besides Aetherblade Fractal, maybe?) off the top of my head where conditions get laid down by NPCs so much.
I know that once this poison change comes into a effect I’ll stop running 38s and just run 40s because people can’t help themselves when it comes to putting down poison.
•Resounding Timbre: Shouts apply regeneration and swiftness to allies. Reduce recharge on shouts. Regen 10 s, Swiftness 10 s. Recharge reduce 20 %. Radius 600. Moved from Beast mastery.
The hype at PAX South was generated way too early.
This is what did it for me. They started the hype train way too early. I wish they had choosen to go the route they did before by releasing a time table of when they planned on talking about certain aspects of the expansion. I think it was the Fractured Pack or the Feature Pack they did that for? I don’t remember exactly which one but it was great because I knew.
And knowing is half the battle…………………………………………………………
3: Experiences players in Guild Wars 2 should have a harder difficulty level and the newer lower. The higher your achievements points how more difficult the enemies shall be. The dungeons are scaled to the highest achievements point
Arrow, they’ve asked for feedback before on proposed changes but nearly nothing happened with that feedback. I’d go back and search for you but, no. A few things trickled in from the multiple CDIs. I remember each of those times that the balance patch notes were “leaked” and when the patch hit those leaked notes being pretty spot on. Again, I’ve had too much Wild Turkey 101 to go back and find it all for you but you can feel free to use the terrible search engine on this forum (or use Google to site search) to find the locked threads about the “leaked” balance patches.
According to that interview Jon Peters gave it’s going to be a CC/Support weapon, not DPS… So, I expect the Druid utilities & traits to also be CC/Support… So… Unless the Druid mechanic does something wonderful with the pet mechanic, like replace it with a not-pet mechanic, I won’t be using the Druid elite special at all.
10% damage is overrated.
I’d rather take Quick Hand for 8 second cd barrage for more Aoes.
In none dungeon situation, double RF is more useful than consistent 10% damage because mobs die fast.
Sure, 10% more damage is overrated if your goal is not to kill something.
Again, in open world PVE it doesn’t matter what you run, virtually anything is viable and works given enough time.
There’re reasons why in wvw or pvp ppl will willingly give-up 10% flat damage boost for something else. Because it doesn’t change the tide of the battle, and it only works best when you consistently dps something for a long period of time without them retaliating or running away. (Which happened to be the dungeon bosses)
In open world, it doesn’t take like 30~60 seconds to kill something yknow. 2 rf literally kills anything outdoor. Also 8 sec barrage is a better tag in general for most outdoor contents.
Honestly, 99% of what I do in open world anymore is WBT on 8/8 toons. Everything else I do is in Dungeons/Fractals. Mostly Fractals these days and that’s on 4/8 toons and currently building up my Engie to make it 5/8. And if I’m in open world to farm something I’m on my Guard with the loot stick since it is hands-down the best for tagging mobs for loot.
According to that interview Jon Peters gave it’s going to be a CC/Support weapon, not DPS… So, I expect the Druid utilities & traits to also be CC/Support… So… Unless the Druid mechanic does something wonderful with the pet mechanic, like replace it with a not-pet mechanic, I won’t be using the Druid elite special at all.
10% damage is overrated.
I’d rather take Quick Hand for 8 second cd barrage for more Aoes.
In none dungeon situation, double RF is more useful than consistent 10% damage because mobs die fast.
Sure, 10% more damage is overrated if your goal is not to kill something.
Again, in open world PVE it doesn’t matter what you run, virtually anything is viable and works given enough time.
They already confirmed that pet will still be druids class mechanic.
Sadly, I figured as much. Hopefully they change it enough so that it doesn’t feel like the Ranger mechanic. Regardless, I still won’t be going into the Druid spec becasue of what Peters said of it being a CC/Support thing along with all the Elite Specializations (according to that MMOwhatever interview he gave)… Unless there’s 30%+ damage modifiers in it that are applicable to sword/GS… Then I could give up the WS line for it, but I doubt there’s going to be given what Peters said. Also, I made a Necro specifically for the Elite Specialization but… now… meh. I’ll wait and see before deleting the Necro.
This is the build I’ll be running for Fractals 1-50 and Dungeons:
Normal Utilities will be:
*TU or HS depending on fight
*QZ
*SotW
*Changes depending on fight
*RaO (will use Entangle for Grawl Fractal otherwise will stay on RaO)
1st Weapon Set:
*Sword+Axe or Sword+WH
2nd Weapon Set:
*LB or GS
Assuming QZ and SotW don’t change substantially I’ll still be running those on my bar pretty much all the time.
#Marksman
*Call of the Wild
*Steady Focus
*Predators Onslaught
Call of the Wild fer da boons. Steady Focus & Predators Onslaught for the obvious damage increase.
#Skrimishing
*Spike Trap or Sharpened Edges
*Spotter
*Strider’s Defense
Spike Trap for the cripple to activate Predators Onslaught (and the other two suck for melee) but after HoT drops I might switch over to Sharpened Edges. Spotter because duh. Strider’s Defense because sword 111111111111.
#Wilderness Survival
*Muddy Terrain
or
*Expertise Training
*Peak Strength
*Poison Master
or
*Empethic Bond
In Wilderness Surivial all the adept traits suck equally. I guess I’ll take Expertise Training most of the time as I can’t see when I’ll be running torch or dagger. Peak Strength for obvious damage modifier that plays nicely with Scholar Runes and Bark Skin. I’ll be running Empathetic Bond if I need extra condi removal or Poison Master if no one else is throwing down poison or if I need neither EB or PM, I’ll be running WS.
#Beast Mastery
*Resounding Timbre
*Two Handed Training
or
*Natural Healing
*Zephy’s Speed
Of course I’ll be testing out the Beast Mastery line once HoT drops since they say they’re improving the AI so much.. so… Resounding Timbre > Companion’s Might. Reducing the CD on RaO is worth it. If I’m running Sword+X I’ll be using Natural Healing, but I’m I’m running GS I’ll be using 2h Training… And Zephyr’s Speed is far-and-away better than the other two terribad GM traits in this line (although I still think ZS shouldn’t have been put in GM — that was just a grossly bad decision). All that being said I doubt I’ll run the BM line before HoT drops.
I play melee most of the time, either sword or GS. I use LB to open up the fight but after that it’s all melee if I can help it so I want to pick traits that are going to help in that regard. I’ll be running zerker gears so… I change my traits a lot according to the situation I’m going into so my build is never set in stone.
I personally never use gs anymore, but I know a lot of rangers out there cant use 1h.
I still use it from time to time when I know I’m going into a fight that I have to dodge more often than the sword animation will allow… but even in those situations I won’t be going into the BM line to get that 2h training trait.
“So you cant use an adept in a grandmaster slot…am I correct in that?”
Correct.
Why they did it? My personal opinion is they dumbed-downed the trait selection to make it easier to balance. Easier to balance = Less resources spent on it = Less money the company spends on Balancing = More profites for the company. Really that simple. Sure, they spent resources revamping it, but it’ll pale in comparison to the time/resources they’ll not spend in the future on traits/balancing. Net win for ANet’s profits. Not to mention it moves people towards the way ANet Devs want you to play their game… but I think that’s more of a bonus not the main why.
Whirling Defense is fun, but not much use. Maybe if there was some movement associated with it like if you leap around in random directions while using it.
Ugh, that’d be terrible for PVE… It definitely needs a DPS buff and radius buff. Don’t see you being able to move though with the animation as it is. They’d have to change it to look more like warrior axe #5, which I’m totally ok with if I get the DPS buff and not the radius buff, because then I could move around to compensate.
IMO the current scenario is that you can make 2000 different builds but only 4~5 are viable and most classes have 0~2 meta builds. After the update it seems we’ll have like 500 possible builds but 8~10 viable ones and 2~3 metas, that is a RISE in diversity for me.
If that’s your opinion then what is your definition of viable?
Mine is “viable = the ability to complete content” so… 2000 different builds and all are viable. I don’t know of one build that you can have and not complete any content in… in PVE at least. DOn’t konw for WVW or PVP. No matter what system is in place there is always going to be optimal/meta/best builds for different modes. This isn’t going to change that.
IMO, overall number of viable builds decreased signficantly. And there’ll be little to no change in the number of optimal/meta/best builds.
mrstealth, we are moving that way. Eventually we will have even less choice later, and not neccessarily with better choices.
Don’t forget Anet is a for-profit company. Not a non-profit organization. They have to/will cut cost in operations just like any other corporation that wants to stay in the profits for investors, and you know, stay solvent.
Your parallel is kind of weird: There’s no real ongoing support cost to not changing specs.
~~~
More importantly, there’s a proper middle ground, choice without too much choice.
It’s not weird at all if you understand it. This game is not built for hardcore players It’s built for casuals. Casual players perfer the path of least resistance. To make the game easier for casuals they’ll introduce less choice in traits overall and at the sametime making it easier on them to balance thus save the company money. It’s win-win.
According to that interview Jon Peters gave it’s going to be a CC/Support weapon, not DPS… So, I expect the Druid utilities & traits to also be CC/Support… So… Unless the Druid mechanic does something wonderful with the pet mechanic, like replace it with a not-pet mechanic, I won’t be using the Druid elite special at all.
10% damage is overrated.
I’d rather take Quick Hand for 8 second cd barrage for more Aoes.
In none dungeon situation, double RF is more useful than consistent 10% damage because mobs die fast.
Sure, 10% more damage is overrated if your goal is not to kill something.
Again, in open world PVE it doesn’t matter what you run, virtually anything is viable and works given enough time.
mrstealth, we are moving that way. Eventually we will have even less choice later, and not neccessarily with better choices.
Don’t forget Anet is a for-profit company. Not a non-profit organization. They have to/will cut cost in operations just like any other corporation that wants to stay in the profits for investors, and you know, stay solvent.
I don’t think we’ll get more frequent balance patches either. It’ll still be every 6 months or so we get a balance patch… unless something is literally broken in game (note: I don’t mean someone’s smelly opinion that the THEY it is broken). I think it was purely to make balancing easier on the Devs. That’s it.
Is it just me or are people forgetting the fact that all of the changes are not final?
Indeed. They aren’t final but anytime they’ve been shown ahead of time either through official channels or leaked, they remained largely unchanged. Even the ones Anet Devs came out to claim as faked, IIRC….
Overall in the end it’s going to be better for melee Rangers.
Normal Utilities will be:
*TU or HS
*QZ
*SotW
*Whatever
*RaO
1st Weapon Set:
*Sword+Axe or Sword+WH
2nd Weapon Set:
*LB or GS
Assuming QZ and SotW don’t change substantially I’ll still be running those on my bar.
#Marksman
*Predators Instinct
or
*Call of the Wild
—
*Steady Focus
*Predators Onslaught
Predators Instrinct to activate Predators Onslaught. Steady Focus for the obvious damage increase.
#Skrimishing
*Most Dangerous Game
*Spotter
*Strider’s Defense
or
*Light on Your Feet
Most Dangerous Game because it sucks the least out of those options. Spotter because duh. Striders or Light on Your Feet will change depending on the situation. Not to mention MDG and LoyF are getting switched. Probably just stick to Strider’s Def for GM then and pick up one of the other two for the adept.
#Wilderness Survival
*Muddy Terrain
or
*Expertise Training
*Peak Strength
*Poison Master
or
*Empethic Bond
In Wilderness Surivial all the adept traits suck equally. I guess I’ll take Expertise Training most of the time. I’ll be running Empathetic Bond if I need extra condi removal or Poison Master if no one else is throwing down poison.
#Beast Mastery
*Resounding Timbre
*Two Handed Training
or
*Natural Healing
*Zephy’s Speed
Of course I’ll be testing out the Beast Mastery line once HoT drops since they say they’re improving the AI so much.. so… Resounding Timbre > Companion’s Might. Reducing the CD on RaO is worth it. If I’m running Sword+X I’ll be using Natural Healing, but I’m I’m running GS I’ll be using 2h Training… And Zephyr’s Speed is far-and-away better than the other two terribad GM traits in this line (although I still think ZS shouldn’t have been put in GM — that was just a grossly bad decision). All that being said I doubt I’ll run the BM line before HoT drops.
I play melee most of the time, either sword or GS. I use LB to open up the fight but after that it’s all melee if I can help it so I want to pick traits that are going to help in that regard. I’ll be running zerker gears so…
