Guild Wars 2

This is another patch that has a change for Warrior that should have also benefited the Ranger.

• “On My Mark!”: This skill now applies revealed for 4 seconds in addition to vulnerability.

Seriously? Could we please have “Sic ’Em!” work like “On My Mark!” without requiring a target and applying its effects on the nearest foe when no foe is targeted?

Seems like another suggestion for Ranger that the developers said, “Oh, that’s cool. Let’s buff the Warrior shout to be a better Ranger shout instead”.

On a side note, cool to see they added more flanking bonuses to the other shortbow skills. Unblockable Pet attacks on Call of the Wild is different but works. Buff to Maul is rather strange, but we’ll take what we can get at this point.

Not too crazy about the changes to Celestial Form changes, and I’m definitely not head-over-heals that they still left out a lot of other QoL changes that we wanted, such as addressing the aftercast and cleaving issue on sword’s auto attack.

RANGER
After a period of observation, the balance team will be changing the druid specialization’s nature somewhat. In this iteration, we’ll now be making healing types more healing-power based.

We’ve reduced base values of many healing abilities while substantially increasing the overall healing-power contribution. This patch will also upgrade the ranger’s short-bow weapon—a change we’ve been looking forward to doing for a long time.

Shouts

• “We Heal As One!”: The recharge time of this ability has been increased from 20 seconds to 25 seconds in PvP only.
• “Strength of the Pack!”: The recharge time of this ability has been increased from 60 seconds to 75 seconds. The voiceover will now play when the ability completes instead of midcast.

Weapons

• Maul: The recharge time of this ability has been reduced from 6 seconds to 4 seconds. Damage has been increased by about 10%.
• Quick Shot: Rangers will now gain swiftness regardless of whether they’ve hit their target. The recharge time of this skill has been reduced to 8 seconds.
• Crippling Shot: In addition to its existing functionality, this skill will now immobilize your foe for 1.5 seconds if you are behind them.
• Crossfire: This ability will now bleed foes for 1.5 seconds when they’re struck from the front.
• Poison Volley: This skill’s cooldown has been reduced to 8 seconds. Its poison effect will last 2 seconds longer when this skill is applied from behind your target.
• Call of the Wild: This ability now also causes a ranger’s pet to become unblockable for the next 4 seconds.
• Hunter’s Call: This skill’s cooldown has been reduced to 20 seconds.
• Ancestral Grace: The recharge time of this ability has been increased from 15 seconds to 18 seconds. Its base healing power per level has been reduced by 10%.
• Vine Surge: The velocity of the vines has been increased by 50%.

Druid

• Celestial Avatar: The recharge time of this ability has been increased from 10 seconds to 15 seconds in PvP and WvW.
• Cosmic Ray: The base healing power for this ability has been reduced by 50%. Healing-power contribution has been increased by 52%.
• Seed of Life: The base healing power for this ability has been reduced by 20%. Healing-power contribution has been increased by 33%.
• Lunar Impact: The base healing power for this ability has been reduced by 34%. Healing-power contribution has been increased by 63%.
• Rejuvenating Tides: The base healing power for this ability has been reduced by 20%. Healing-power contribution has been increased by 43%.

Bug Fixes

• “Search and Rescue!”: Fixed a bug that prevented the ability’s voiceover from playing.
• Lunar Impact: This ability’s tool tip has been updated to display its blast finisher effect.
• Lick Wounds: Fixed a bug that caused your pet to briefly blink away from you if it was attacking an enemy before you activated this skill.
• Sun Spirit: Fixed a bug that caused rangers to lose access to their Solar Flare skill in certain situations.

Unmentioned Changes

• Pink Moa’s Dazing Screech (F2) has been altered from 3 pulses of 1½s Daze to a single 2s Daze. Damage normalized with other Moas that have damaging F2 screeches.
• Lunar Impact cooldown increased from 7s to 8s.

New Bugs

• Crossfire does not apply the extended bleeding duration when attacking from the side or behind.
• Maul tooltip damage is incorrect when traited with Two-Handed Training.

The better question is, why do the breach and vinewrath champions still have the stability buff when they now have defiance bars. :/

Going with what Dirame said on suggestions rather than buffing mediocre skills, I’d like to see Med Kit’s 2-5 done in more interesting ways to mix things up while keeping some of the current aspects that (I think) are unique.

2) Healing Beacon: Fire a beacon into a foe that heals nearby allies for two pulses, then detonates, granting Regeneration (4s) and removes a damaging condition.
(600 range,180 radius)

3) Stimulant Field: Dispense a water field (3s) that heals allies, grants Fury (6s), and removes a debilitating condition (weakness, blind, vulnerability) on impact.
(600 range, 240 radius)

4) Acceleration Wave: Send out a cone of energy that heals allies, grants Swiftness (8s), and removes a movement-impending condition (cripple, chill, immobilize). (600 range)

5) Antidote Spray: Release a mist around yourself that heals you and nearby allies, grants Resistance (2s), and removes a controlling condition (taunt, fear, slow).
(300 radius, instant cast)

Plenty of changes, with few being meaningful and some as harsh as Anet’s design choices. I’d look more into reiterating AF generation and the traits. CAF skills themselves require only minor alterations.

You’re onto something swapping traits around. There’s another pair that I think should be interchanged, in order to have a tier provide the player with a difficult but meaningful choice.

Problem goes both ways. Stems from a flawed design and odd choices on top with player suggestions and implementing them.

Celestial Being has it’s own flaws, but what could anyone expect? It boiled down to damage and healing, without any scaling to give it a push/pull on flexibility and impact on the stats someone chose.

We had astral force generation on regeneration but also had other heal-over-time aspects such as Signet of the Wild, Natural Regeneration, Dolyak runes, and heath per second food count.

If anything, the majority of the issues lies with the developers’ choices. Because, in the end, regardless of what people suggest: Anet implements the changes how they see fit.

Zealots will be fine. Count in monk runes and rice balls and any Druid sits comfortably over 1200 healing power with modifiers. Even though I doubt Anet (a lot) on balancing, they can’t be that stupid to set the enhanced scaling to healing power near a higher threshold like 1500.

As for Instinctive Reaction, I wouldn’t count on that kitten-poor trait. Full ascended Zealots + runes and food and the additional strength is a bit over 5 stacks of Might. Bountiful Hunter nets better results.

Tragic Positive.9356:

Well…
… Their communication is awful.

Oh, don’t worry. I’m sure next year before the next expansion hits, they will be all open again to the feedback of the players, but only on expansion-specific content.

It’s just a shame that the work and tenacity they had leading up to the release of Heart of Thorns was not continued.

arnitheking.8427:

It’s the first thing they mentioned in the new forum post about upcoming changes. To compensate, it appears they will boost the effects of healing power on druid healing skills.

2nd time this is happening. Not surprising and not something I care about.

Just make a separate balance split for WvW already. You are further killing diversity and affecting multiple game modes with your “balance” updates.

Oh, you altered it to PvE. Personally, I wouldn’t worry too much about PvE nerfs. PvE always finds an optimal build after (any) changes and moves on.

No, it would not be too much. Granted, it all depends on perspective. Would be nice to have a bleed attached to it if the bounce hits a second target, like the cripple on DH longbow auto attack. It would compensate for the bounce reduction as the damage boost was not enough.

Giving this a bump. Due to the amount of +1s for a “Thumbs Up,” we might actually get 1 item on this list.

StickerHappy.8052:

Makes sense. Just wanna say tho, I wish our poison was unique like reaper’s chill before.

Yeah, but seeing how Anet botched that up, it would be another applying a condition also applies an additional condition trait.

And between Deathly Chill, which is the right way to go (no ICD) vs Venom Enchantment (20s ICD), the absolute crappiest way to design one of these traits – I’d rather not ask for them to give us one.

Soilder.3607:

I’m not sure if cultivated synergy will trigger the trait on you.

It won’t, because using your healing skill will automatically trigger it on yourself.

Edit: Nevermind. Tested it just now by using a heal before the 12s ICD was off so CS could activate afterwards. It does.

Also, applying regen also triggers Lingering Light (for those that didn’t know by now).

Only thing I’d ask for is lower the amount of needed to make a cured hardened leather section from 3 to 2. At least then the crafting cost can be a bit lower.

To be honest, I would have less of an issue with (core) Pets and their skills if they just had their precision formula match ours, the player.

From there, balance to taste.

Lynnie.7213:

I don’t know how should i proceed to get this to dev’s knowledge?

Screen cap it in-game on the submit a bug prompt. Maybe go as far as posting this in the bugs sub-forum. If luck goes our way, it will be fixed next year before the next expansion releases. ;]

Water Spirit bugs:

• Passive on-hit heal scales with player’s healing power that activates it. Meaning if your allies have 0 healing power, they receive the base 805 heal – this includes the Pet. Before, it used to scale with the player’s healing power unless your ally had a higher healing power value, then it would scale with theirs instead.
• Passive on-hit heal scaling for the player (source) is 0.125 but for allies (non-source) the scaling is a 0.09 coefficient. Inconsistencies since Water Spirit was last updated.
• Passive on-hit heal scaling does not benefit from any outgoing heal % modifiers.
• Passive on-hit heals activated by others do not contribute to Astral Force generation, nor does it activate Live Vicariously or Natural Mender minor traits.
• Passive on-hit heals do not display healing indicators (green numbers) and are not listed in the combat log as they used to be.
• Tooltip is still busted for the Passive on-hit heal and does not update.

Storm Spirit bugs:

• Swiftness from Nature’s Vengeance still does not scale with the player’s boon duration.

DragoTheWise.7256:

I would use gadgets more if the Gadgeteer trait wasn’t so clunky.

Yeah, or maybe make it more active like Mesmer’s Persistence of Memory.
Gadgeteer: Using a Toolbelt skill recharges all Gadgets by 3 seconds.

Would fit into the overall theme of the Tools traitline of lowered toolbelt cooldowns and gaining a bonus for using toolbelt skills such as Optimized Activation and Static Discharge. Other traits such as Lock-On and Reactive Lenses can also see benefits in different ways.

Works just fine on my end. Pet is healed for 125hp/sec with healing (green) numbers popping on-screen.

StickerHappy.8052:

I hope we get all those you mentioned through patches too, stronger traps, stronger CCs.

You know..

Yeah. Then again, I hope this goes for all classes with missing heals and/or elites with current categories.

Really hoping Anet has another go with the trait system before the next expansion and introduces those missing utilities. Would be finally nice to have an elite trap (smoke trap or dust trap from GW1) and a healing signet.

Xyonon.3987:

I think gadgets should behave like signets

I love this aspect if Gadgets were to receive a rework from the ground-up much better.

Immunity to blindness as the passive for Utility Goggles, maybe Slick Shoes to be the utility version of +25% movement speed.

They could even use Bunker Down (without the bandage) or Takedown Round as the passive for Throw Mine, making room for new traits.

Most traps except Frost are fine. Little bit of DPS boost for 2 traps is all I want as I mostly go for low-hanging fruit tweaks.

As for Frost Trap, if I had my way, I’d have it encase foes in a block of ice on trigger for 1s. With that in place, people might look at it instead of Spike Trap for being a better snare and CC on a much lower cooldown.

Wouldn’t change the fact it still hits like a fluffy pillow, but it would turn peoples’ heads enough to give it a thought or glance to place it on their utility bar for a spin or two.

Yes, I’d like to see tweaks done to Gadgets so they can see more play. For starters, I’d like to see the Gadget recharge on Gadgeteer increased from 25% to 30% so gadgets can have more uptime.

Slick Shoes cooldown lowered from 40s to 35s. Then, change the condition removal on AED from damaging conditions to any conditions. Preferably, up to 5 conditions if you took lethal damage and add in removing 2 conditions on non-lethal heal.

Bast Bow.2958:

@wondrouswall. Care to explain? I’m curious

You seriously need an explanation on my response to “leave hammer for the brawn over brain classes”? You must not play Engineer.

Holland.9351:

I can’t find it, but it was a dev who said he liked sword leap and didn’t want to change it, but that they would look into giving Ranger dagger mainhand without the leap.

That was more than months ago. That was about 2 years ago, said by Jon Peters when he was still with the company during the Ranger CDI.

Yes, he’s saying go for Monk over Scholar and he’s referencing Zealot armor and weapons being expensive, not the trinkets unless you craft exotics.

If you want to go for Zealot trinkets from Bloodstone or Ember Bay, you only have 1 accessory to fill in, as you can attune or infuse a ring to bypass the “unique” restriction.

Take a Berserker accessory as the final trinket filler until the next map is released or you happen to acquire an ascended Zealot trinket through raids.

If you are worried about healing in PUG groups, do what Tragic recommended and slot Monk Runes, consume Delicious Rice Balls, and even using a Sigil of Transference.

All of those combined with Druid’s Natural Mender trait sets you at +50% outgoing healing modifiers. More than enough for PUG parties and beneficial for all group content such as raids.

I would say our lack of condition duration traits is an okay trade-off. Thieves have the damage and duration stacked in one trait, but their poison application is far less than what we have at our disposal.

240 radius seems fine, as Guardian’s GM trait for their passive Virtue that sets foes on fire, as well as Berserker’s GM trait is 240. Same radius as most AOEs like traps, bombs, some sigils, and such.

FlOwMaKeRs.8623:

I’m sorry, but I think this game is very simple to me.

No need to be sorry. If that’s how you feel, that’s how you feel.

I can agree on the simplicity. Though it came with some benefits, it lost a lot of the quirks, customization, and amount of builds that could be had with the old trait system.

I wish they would at least go back to that format of being able to select Adept traits in the Master tier, and Adept and Master traits in the Grandmaster tier like before.

Granted, with a bit of tweaking to the traits again. Man, builds were a bit more unique and diverse back then. Ah, that was a good ’ole time before (at least for me).

I guess, sure. I’m still on the boat to have Remorseless provide the unblockable aspect as pet attacks are kind of… varied and mostly weak.

I’ll chime in once more because looking back on the first page, I think some interesting and streamlined things can be done to the poison traits you listed. I’m thinking instead:

Refined Toxins: Poison damage you apply is 25% stronger. You and your Pet apply poison when above 75% health (10s ICD).

Seeing how we have Hidden Barbs as a master trait, moving the increased poison damage down would be all right. Then we do a throwback with a mix of what you suggested and twist it as a unique debuff that anyone can contribute to as a Poison Master replacement.

Edge of Extinction: Cast Edge of Extinction (6s) on a foe when you apply Poison that matches or exceeds the threshold. Stack Threshold: 5. (20s ICD)
Edge of Extinction: When target foe is Poisoned, nearby foes are also Poisoned (4s).
(240 radius & 1s ICD)

As of now, there is only one unique group debuff and that’s Necromancer’s Vampiric Signet. I’d like to see more of these and a Wilderness Survival GM seems like a perfect fit, though, not exactly low-hanging fruit.

Would be great, not only with Refined Toxins, but also synergize with Short Bow, the Murellow, Spiders, Devourers, and anything poison related. 1s ICD on the effect, as well as a 20s ICD to cast it on a foe keeps it in check.

Being a unique debuff would also mean others can contribute to poisoning the target to spread out the poison to other enemies. So, it introduces to the Ranger a different support/team-oriented type of play.

I’d still like to see something done about Go For The Eyes. We were fine before without it, and after the nerf, we are still fine without it.

I’d like to have Wilting Strike replace Go For The Eyes and have a new master trait in BM that can build more synergy with Resounding Timbre, Beastly Warden, and “Protect Me!” with or without Resounding Timbre.

Feral Aggression: Cast “Sic ’Em!” when your Pet taunts a foe. ICD 40s and can be reduced with Resounding Timbre.

Your Pet taunts a foe by either means, and the Pet strikes harder and moves faster. Foe is revealed in case they break out of it, and if Resounding Timbre is taken, regen & swiftness.

As good as “Sic ’Em!” can be, it has a very niche use in roaming and 1v1 scenarios, working best against stealth classes, which only a third of the professions have long and multiple access to.

This would be a good way to bring, not only more synergy within the traitline, but give it a wider use in other builds and modes while strengthening the niche on single-target revealing. It’s long ICD also keeps it from being overpowering.

It’s still relevant. All of these discussions and suggestions are valid since nothing really changed.

Bast Bow.2958:

No hammer plz! Leave it to brawn over brain classes, which we are not

Engineers beg to differ.

Hope it’s a hammer and they flesh out and use that “Aspects” suggestion that looked as though it was going to be part of Druid before they scrapped it.

Dagger would be cool, too. I just don’t see the point of a DPS spec when that should be part of core Ranger in part with sword touch-ups and tweaks.

If it turns out to be a Dagger and a DPS spec, it will be just another power creep that addresses an issue with core Ranger instead of a side-grade. Something I hope Anet learned with their, “What we learned” post they made a few months ago.

Nefarius.9702:

what does “min/max damage” mean by the way?

Minimizing undesired stats, traits, and effects while maximizing desired ones. In the case of GW2’s PVE: Getting the most damage while providing all the necessary group support.

Results may vary depending on your group composition and encounter. Not the most elaborate explanation, as I’m sure someone can do it better, but that’s the essence of it.

StickerHappy.8052:

On the traps, if you wanna increase baseline durations it’s fine as long as you nerf Expertise training. That trait alone gives 66% condition duration on traps.

You hit a point on this one. I’ll update the main post for a 10% reduction on Trapper’s Expertise (from 60% to 50%).

This in turn will mean, with the above suggestions to increase the base duration of Flame and Spike Trap conditions, is a 20% and 28% duration buff, respectively. With Trapper’s Expertise lowered to 50%, it would still be a buff and the numbers would line up.

Currently, Irenio seems to have planned it so with 100% condition duration and Trapper’s Expertise, Flame and Spike Trap durations would be 8s and 20s.

I’d rather have these adjustments so the base Traps are stronger, which would result in Flame and Spike Trap with 100% condition duration and Trapper’s Expertise (reduced to 50%) at 9s of Burning and 24s of Bleeding.

Small increase to damage on 2 traps with drawbacks on the others. Viper’s Nest would lose 0.8s and Frost Trap 0.6s overall per pulse. Granted, this will just mean the numbers would be more even, with 12s on Viper, 9s on Frost, and 9s for Healing Spring (assuming 100% boon duration).

Nefarius.9702:

Is this really useful?

Only if you like to min/max. Otherwise, stick to your current Berserker setup. Damage difference is minimal to our already minimal damage output and not our primary role in a group.

Haven’t scanned all the pages, so apologies if it has already been listed.

Keybind for “Stow/Activate” Pet.

It’s weird, but you can save on experimentation by having either:

Full Berserker gear with Monk runes & consuming Delicious Rice Balls for additional outgoing healing % modifiers.

Or going cheap with Magi armor and weapons, and slotting Berserker trinkets so you can get a decent mix of damage and healing without breaking the bank doing Zealot.

Celestial will just be a waste of your materials and gold.

Not really QoL but I would like to suggest some small bumps in some of our boon and condition durations. Really small adjustments to even things out a bit.

• Flame Trap: Increase base Burning duration from 2½s to 3s.

After Engineers had their Fire Bomb duration increased from 3s to 4s, could we get the same treatment? Albeit, a smaller adjustment.

• Spike Trap: Increase base Bleeding duration from 6¼s to 8s.

Again, just a small bump in the bleeding duration. The added Launch from last year was great, and the increased cooldown was justified. Though, it can use a tiny push for the bleeds as its direct damage is very lackluster.

In trade, reduce the extended duration of Trapper’s Expertise from 60% to 50%. Viper’s Nest, Frost Trap, and Healing Spring with boon duration take a small hit, but all the numbers even out.

• Nature’s Vengeance: Increase base Vigor (Sun Spirit), Protection (Stone Spirit), and Stability (Spirit of Nature) from 1s to 1½s.

This is for those that gear towards 100% boon duration or in party compositions with a Herald using Facet of Nature. That way, these type of setups by gear, party composition, or a mixture of both, can provide 100% uptime on these boons.

• Pet F2 Conditions
  - Fire Breath (Salamander Drake): Increase base Burning from 1s per pulse to 1½s.
  - Frost Breath (Frost Drake): Increase base Chill from 1s per pulse to 1½s.
  - Consuming Flame (Fire Wyvern): Increase base Burning from 2s per pulse to 3s.

Another small increase, but the increases are to align up with Expertise Training. This would bump the Drake breaths to 2s per pulse and the Fire Wyvern’s Consuming Flame to 4s per pulse when traited.

+1. All small shifts and tweaks that make things better without huge revamps.

Well, at least they did a grouping. I would also prefer an alphabetized order of each pet for each species, but I’ll take what I can get.

Knew I forgot a couple of things. Adding in Stalker’s Strike missing off-hand training range and noted Predator’s Instinct.

Kinda wish Legendary effects (foot falls, auras, etc.) would persist on Engineers with a Kit equipped. That, and have the effects apply to all grenade skills instead of just barrage.

Levetty.1279:

Light on your Feet should go back to its orignal ‘when moving’.

You know what, I like that, too. The original concept for it during the specialization preview was much better. I’ll change it to that.

Tragic Positive.9356:

How come other classes do not have to? They hit harder, they are reliable and provide nice stuff.

Don’t forget that we are also the only profession that uses a main-hand sword that: a) cannot cleave up to 3 targets on all hits, and b) have longer initial cast times.

I just want the standard sword animations everyone else has and the Thief sword cast and after casts on every profession that uses main-hand sword.

Would be a bit dull on the animation-side of things, but I’m leaning towards performance now. We have enough things that look nice and under-perform.

I’d like that to be a sticky, but I doubt they would do it.

They could do with toning down the lighting, among other things, too. GW2 shading and lightning is a blight compared to what I’m used to now. (non-vanilla: left / vanilla: right)