Guild Wars 2

Yeah. It’s a good mix of new and old. Familiar and refreshing at the same time. Hope they keep doing maps like this.

Yeah, removing the additional aftercasts from the new animations so it matches the old ones (or maybe be a bit faster) would be nice.

I’m just at the point to where, when it comes to stuff like this, my expectations are reduced to on-the-ground fruit changes.

Miku.6297:

I don’t have one, but…. The new bowstring might make it totally worth it! We just have to wait and see..

Over all it really just depends on if you want the skin or not.

This. I wonder if the new bowstrings for the legendary bows still TBA. Hope they are coming with today’s update.

At this point, I just want Crippling Thrust to cleave 3 targets. If Anet can do that one QoL change to sword, I’ll pretty much be satisfied.

Swagger.1459:

Iirc, it was changed to prevent exploiting astral force generation due to bad design choices.

FTFY

I want to fill out the rest of the pet roster. A Frost Spider with F2 Chill, an Arid Devourer that fires projectiles that travel along the ground knocking back foes (like in SW), and a Parasite Devourer that life leeches foes on F2.

Not good pets, but at least most of the roster would have 5 of each.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

I don’t see how it would make ranger op, given how many core classes have way better condi cleanse options then ranger.

You can’t have that line of thought anymore, not since e-specs. Regardless of whether a player has the expansion or not, moving Survival of the Fittest into Wilderness Survival was a necessary evil when Druid was developed.

That move makes core Ranger stronger, sure, but it also strengthens Druid. The only changes that can be made are ones that detach itself empowering Druid, which is difficult in its own right.

Those 3 traits serve better under a rework. Regardless of how unrealistic or out-of-reach that may sound, it’s one that will ensure a healthier competition among their respective GM tiers.

Otherwise, Rangers and Druids will most-likely receive nerfs due to being able to slot Wilderness Survival, Empathic Bond, and Druidic Clarity – and Anet always nerfs in pairs.

We’re talking WS condition removal being reduced from 2 to 1 and possibly lowering the amount of conditions removed from DC from 13 to a lower number, or worse, losing 1 condition at 3s intervals while in Celestial Form as “compensation”.

Anet could care less if a core Ranger can slot only WS & EB.

Swapping the placement of these traits will not be considered a fix, as the traits themselves are still lackluster.

Guess I’m in the minority of wanting more flanking bonuses spread out among the rest of the skills. I’d even be fine now with bleeding on Crossfire by default, with the exception of it being reduced to 2s and an increase to 4s when flanking.

I now think giving Engineer a unique group buff might be the wrong way to go. I’d rather go back to an old suggestion Xyonon made before and have Engineer provide a unique debuff instead.

Maybe not in the Scrapper traitline as he noted for Expert Examination. Perhaps in an already universal traitline like Explosives. Have Thermobaric Detonation replace Glass Cannon, then place a new GM trait there that will be competitive with the others.

Possibly give Engineers a unique role in vulnerability as they were known for before vulnerability was spread out more, but as a unique debuff with an active upkeep. Something like:

Cracked Armor: Explosives apply Cracked Armor (5s) on foes.
Cracked Armor: 1% incoming damage. Stacks up to 5 times.

Wouldn’t increase the personal DPS of a condition engineer or a power, but it offers something unique. Would allow compositions with other engineers to be flexible around the GM slot and it’s enough of a damage bonus for others to take advantage of to have at least 1 slot reserved for an Engineer.

Eh, I just want debuffs to be meaningful again against foes with defiance bars. A compromise even, such as when the (blue) defiance bar is broken, cripple, chill, immobilize, and weakness affect the target only during the period it regenerates its break bar (orange).

At least then the debuffs would have impact again and it rewards those that successfully break a defiance bar since the regeneration period happens only after it is broken. As of now, those debuffs are reduced to minor defiance bar deterioration that overly simplifies them.

Jim Hunter.6821:

I was thinking of just making it an aoe reveal like the toolbelt skill for sneak gyro but your idea is pretty interesting. It should get a shorter cooldown if it remains single target though.

It could be an AOE reveal, but we would have to think of how Anet gut it. I can only assume if they did change it to an AOE, it would be something along the lines:

360 radius, 3s reveal, 30s cooldown, 30% pet buffs, and a ¾s cast time command animation. It would also be a double-edge sword since the reveal would then be placed around the pet’s position unlike now where it comes from us.

That would also be Anet’s logic on why the radius would be 360 instead of 600, due to the pet being able to be in one place while the player was at another – notwithstanding pet issues.

Nah. I just want to be able to cast it without a target like Warrior’s “On My Mark!”. If a target is selected, the reveal is applied. If there’s no target selected, then the nearest target in range is revealed.

Keep the buff, otherwise, as Chrury mentioned, it would be a one-trick pony.

Dawdler.8521:

We have also noted the ~1800 range longbow ranger for 4 years and Anet has done nothing.

A Dev responded to that last year in the bugs sub-forum in the Ranger compilation bug thread. All of those arrow and lob projectiles (like Ele fireball and Rev hammer) can go extra distance due to the way they have their physics aka “working as intended.”

Bullets and other non-lob straight projectiles like rifles and even Necro staff auto will stop either at 1200 or just shy of it. Take that up with Anet in why bullets vanish and do not share the same physics. Mortar being an exception since it’s ground-targeted.

DutchRiders.2871:

3: Communicated my map was failing, left it and got kicked for abbondoning a promising map. With only 2 minutes left and south still on 80% ….

I’ve been kicked for this before. Though it varies depending on the commander. Seen some commanders that encourage abandoning failing maps to that degree while others want people to stick in failing maps until the event is over or else they kick.

Wouldn’t call that toxic, more like lack of communication on the commander’s part on their preference on failing maps, or if they did mention it, you missed reading it or should ask if unsure.

OGDeadHead.8326:

I’d classify this one as yet another bug.

I get the feeling since they are back to splitting PVE/PVP skills again, Anet will just label this as part of the split. Easier for them so they don’t have to bother with it.

Yes.

Justine means, have Beastly Warden work like Wilting Strike where it will Taunt an enemy up to once that is affected by its F2 skill for 1s as well as have the 240 radius.

Either way, the Pet will only be able to taunt an enemy once, but it allows pets that have single target F2s like Birds, Spiders, BB to be able to Taunt multiple foes due to the AOE and affect on F2.

They should make it like Wilting Strike and keep the 20s ICD, then it would be fine. If Anet wants to keep it as an AOE, then up the radius to 300 and call it a day.

Xyonon.3987:

-> super speed grants a damage boost (a high one since it’s hard to maintain, also affects condi dmg)

I like this idea. Maybe place this onto Applied Force and have the unique buff be applied when super speed is applied so it’s not overwritten as other classes have access to it?

Buff duration could be (and capped at) 10s so it would match the ICD on Shocking Speed and have extra application through Bypass Coating.

It’s somewhat addressed, but not all and there are inconsistencies. Take some Lightning Fields as an example: all of them (except Scrapper Hammer 5) have the new glowing circle and graphics, but some retain that lightning wall that is visual clutter.

Jim Hunter.6821:

This is a joke right?

Most likely not. I remember when Engineer wanted their Hobosacks to be done away with. Once the patch hit, there were individuals that preferred them and wanted them back. Not everyone prefers the same thing as another. Can you believe that?

I mean, they could change their names back to the default Juvenile version, but due to character limits, pets like the Lashtail Devourer or Krytan Drakehound can’t be manually reset.

Seems to be no way to reset Pet names to the default, Alaya.

Did some testing on Precision and Critical Hit Chance for Pets. Curiosity got the better of me and here are the results.

[LINK]

Updated it with more Pig results because… bacon.

OGDeadHead.8326:

However, I would think that Stalk, granting 25% increased crit chance, in combination with Fury and Spotter should place it way over 100% crit chance. Keyword here being should.

I’m not convinced crit chance is working as we think it should work when it comes to pets.

I’d love to see someone run a test, similar as the one OP did, with/without 100% uptime of fury applied to the pet, and compare the results. That would be quite interesting. If I get time to do it myself, I’ll post the results here.

I think we can all conclude critical chance for Pets is at least different from the Players. As for tests with the above mentioned buffs and without, I believe that means very little. If Pets had more varied Precision stats, sure, but there’s not enough variation to care.

The one thing that seems odd about Stalk for the Jaguar is that, with Spotter and Fury, it is very difficult for it to NOT be a non-critical strike. Results with Fury seem “normal”, though, it acts differently when using it and with an external source that boosts its Precision – unlike when traited with Beastmastery.

I would almost say that Stalk is a special case to Jaguar as it either: provides an unlisted bonus, an unintended bonus, or if Pets are supposed to use the same Precision formula as Players, it corrects its values during use. This assuming it has Spotter or even Banner of Discipline.

Take it with a grain of salt though as tests were done in an hour or so. That, and 4 years in, along with many other moves, are left with undefined tooltips and leaving the Players to figure things out because the devs themselves may or may not know or are unwilling to comment.

Durzlla.6295:

Over the course of 10 minutes of attacking a golem it has not failed to crit a single time while in stealth.

I’m pretty certain that the jaguar crits 100% of the time while stealthed, where out of stealth with fury it does not, which means that it’s certainly not sitting at like 80% crit chance normally.

The test for the crits when it was stealthed was done with no boons.

Before anyone takes “pretty certain” as certain: Stalk (or being stealthed) does not guarantee the Jaguar strikes to be 100% critical hits.

I was able to have it land non-critical strikes within the first minute. Tested more with Spotter, Beastmastery, Fury, and a combination with 1 or 2 of those not applied to the Pet.

OGDeadHead.8326:

Do you know the formula, and how much base crit chance the pets have (well, felines in this case) @ lvl 80?

Unfortunately, I do not. Spent a good hour this morning while having my coffee trying to at least ball-park it. Only Anet knows and if they state Pets are using the same precision formula as Players, I’m ready to call BS as tests prove otherwise.

Or maybe they do and are bugged. I recall in the old Ranger Bugs compilation thread last year where a handful of us were testing Pet precision. If it’s the case that Precision is bugged for Pets (and possibly all NPCs), then we are just SOL until a fix.

Jerus.4350:

Curious, when you apply buffs in the test areia through that console, do they transfer to your pet if you have the trait? or even without the trait?

If you are referring to Fortifying Bond, yes, the boons applied to you through the console will apply to the Pet. Though, there is an option to copy boons applied to you permanently to the Pet through the console so…

Pets benefit from Fury and additional precision (Spotter, Banner of Discipline), but their critical chance formula is different than ours. If we were to have matching precision with Felines, their formula leaves them with a lower critical hit chance.

Yeah, both of those could be tweaked a bit faster. If you cast Ancestral Grace right after Vine Surge, you can reach its end-point slightly faster than the vines. Then again, after saying that, Anet would probably nerf the travel speed of staff 3. In advance: my apologies.

:x

Haleydawn.3764:

Can we assume ALL legendary bowstrings (short and long bow) are being looked at for improvements? Since standard wire for a legendary is very odd.

^ This. I’m hoping they will update the other legendary bow strings, too.

I guess the increase in cooldown was all right. Though, I’d rather have it do more or another trait have something to do with a Pet gaining a bonus when taunting foes or against taunted foes.

Something besides, “here, this trait now makes the Pet’s F2 do something else.” A radius increase to 300 would also be nice. At least then Invigorating Bond and Beastly Warden would be able to sync up in both cooldown and range.

The build was [this] or something similar. Note that the DPS was under unrealistic scenarios.

It’s okay (to me). Split Blade and Winter’s Bite could use the shortbow treatment so the direct damages are not equal to less than the auto-attack.

I really wish they implemented a bleed on Ricochet and have it function like the DH Longbow auto-attack where it applies the bleed if the 2nd bounce hits.

Path of Scars could also use a radius increase as 90-radius is far too small. Other than that, it could be better with some minor tweaks.

Swagger.1459:

-stuff-

Again, man. Were told. 10 months later, things are different because their priorities changed.

Lawn Moa
Carrion Luggage
Sausage Lynx
Mike Hawk
Sharker Image
Bipolar Bear
Marshrellow Smores
Wyverne And Shirley
Bristleback Rider

Swagger.1459:

We were told that Druid would be able to “sustain zerg trains of 20-30 players”, but obviously the design is “garbage in zerging”…

Technically, Druids were able to sustain zerg trains. Then, Lingering Light’s design was changed, and then ICD heavily increased.

I wouldn’t quote Anet for anything they said in the past in terms of balance and profession design. They shift, nerf, and alter things every-so-often because they can’t decide on what they want a profession to be or which PVP complaint to cater to.

Other than that, Cosmic Ray resigned to be like Guardian Staff would be nice.

+1 to that and another +1 to an exclusive dye when you get the title.

https://pandateemo.github.io/YoloMouse/

YoloMouse is the program she is using. Anet’s cool with it.

There’s a shark in the waters of my Guild’s hall.

No thanks.

Hammer is cool. Don’t like the missing core utilities coming packed with an elite spec. kitten should be part of an update for all classes instead of locked behind an e-spec.

Storm Spirit

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

Water Spirit

• Passive on-hit heal tooltip is static and does not update with the player’s healing power.
• Passive on-hit heal has inconsistent scaling of 0.125 applied towards the player and 0.09 for allies.
• Passive on-hit heal scales with the healing power of the player that activates it instead of the highest healing power between the player and ally.

I want it to work, too, Bast. Unfortunately, it has to work properly first, and then altered so it does not require Nature’s Vengeance to be of use.

Since it’s still buggy, using it is a handicap.

No. Though one issue was addressed, another issue was presented that, regardless of the update, it remains where it was before. (aka “one step forward and one step back.”)

For those that have not read up on how it functions now, feel free to click on the link below (or wiki as I have updated it).

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Water-Spirit-Update-Notes/first#post6262027

Swagger.1459:

I’m thinking player targeted skills, targeted AoE skills and targeted AoE skills with after effects would serve this movement based game much better.

Axe main hand is an example of a good weapon for movement based combat. Axe off hand is not.

I prefer more player control and input compared to more auto-targeting and tab-targeting.

I’d rather it retain its current function with a small radius increase, and add what Zenith suggested. A knockdown, or at the very least a daze, on the outgoing strike so it is able to connect easier and setup MoC & Ancient Seeds better.

The alternative is, if it were to revert back to an auto-target, the projectile must be changed to a free-air projectile rather than traveling on the ground. In trade for losing directional control, the gain would be doing things such as pulling enemies from the top of keeps and cliffs.

Yeah, Brutal Charge has a huge downside. A 2½s wind-up with an overly-obvious visual tell. It could at least have 1s shaved off so by the time it’s ready to roll, whatever it was targeting isn’t halfway across the field.

A range increase would also help. Currently, it’s 300… Double that or increase it to 1200 like the Necromancer’s Golem Charge. It would gain a really fun niche in WvW zergs with Porcines mowing down a line of the opposition.

The ground-target control is top-notch, but the radius needs to be enlarged. Currently, its radius is a mere 90 radius while similar skills such as Revenant’s Envoy and Elementalist’s Phoenix has a 240 radius (though, these skills have an explosion effect).

An increase anywhere between 120 to 150 would make it perfect.

Yeah, the Pink and Black Moas are different. Statistically, you want the Pink Moa. Faster F2 cast time (by 2 seconds) with a ½s higher daze duration each pulse than the Black Moa’s F2.

Below is the most recent update on pet DPS. Numbers don’t include the recent updates, but the shorter cooldowns on some pets should only raise their DPS by a small amount.

http://guildwarshub.com/ranger-pet-dps-comparison/

No DPS numbers on moving targets though. There was an old thread that had test results, but Moas were not included.

There is just so much wrong with Porcines that the only major change that has to happen to them is Forage working life the Thief “Steal” mechanic. Just have the F2 flip for use when the player wants to.

You’re spot on about Consume Plasma not being updated with the Thief and the open-world version that players can find on the ground.

As for the Forage itself, the cooldown reduction is OK at best. It needs further refining than what I already mentioned above. We have 2 Porcines that can forage the same type of items and the Siamoth that forages 3 objects with 2 functioning the same.

Having the RNG items narrowed to 2 and tweaked so each Porcine can provide certain items focused towards a specific attribute would help tremendously. Seriously, updating the loot table can have a greater affect but it just wasn’t implemented.

An example of what focused-Foraging should be:

• Boars – CC items: Bone Crack or Skull Fear
• Pigs – Defensive items: Healing Seed or Drink (the Egg is half worthless since we don’t use initiative, unless you want to buff an enemy Thief – but as I suggested how Forage should work – kitten them)
• Siamoth – Unique items: Consume Plasma and Blinding Tuft (since Throw Feathers is the same, there is no need for it)
• Warthog – Condition items: Throw Gunk and Throw Scale (both items inflict multiple conditions with one being the only way Ranger can create an Ethereal field)

If Anet can rework Forage and the loot tables to that degree; they would be in a much higher place in terms of utility and effectiveness. Simple and smart tweaks that go a long way.