Guild Wars 2

Bump because Water Spirit is still bugged and now the Swiftness duration of Storm Spirit no longer scales with the player’s boon duration. Will update again when I test the rest of them.

Update: Good news. The other Spirits (Frost, Sun, Stone, and Nature) are still in working order. Storm Spirit’s Vulnerability also works, in terms of scaling with the applicant’s condition duration stat.

Better late then never.

Yes, it does.

Since the last patch, there were a fair amount of Quality of Life updates on the Ranger done. We had some reductions (Search & Rescue), but overall, job well done, Irenio & gang!

Now, comes the 2nd entry of the QoL list. Much shorter than the 1st one I made since a lot of those were implemented! Not completely altering the purpose of a skill or trait, but (more or less) improving it within its current form.

If you have one to add, post it below! Irenio and crew seem to be reading up and taking notes. Let’s begin:

Tail Wind, Furious Grip, and Quick Draw cooldown reduced from 9s to 8s.

“Search & Rescue!” changed to have ground-target casting. (Land version only)

Hornet’s Sting (Sword 2) reduced cast time and Crippling Thrust (Sword 1b) to cleave.

Sharing is Caring: More Traits Pets Can Use.
-Hunter’s Tactics: Allow the critical hit chance increase when attacking from behind or the side to affect the pet when it strikes targets from the flank.
-Poison Master: Allow the increased poison damage to affect poison applied by the pet.
-Hidden Barbs: Allow the increased bleeding damage to affect bleeding applied by the pet.
-Oakheart Salve: Allow the damage reduction when the pet has regeneration.

Astral Wisp & Vine Surge velocity increase.

Astral Wisp to pulse its effect instead of passing through allies.

Glyph of Rejuvenation’s player heal to also heal the pet.

Lower cooldowns of the core (Pre Heart of Thorns) Pets

Porcine Forage item to appear as the F2 rather than on the ground.

Underwater stuff
-Evasive Strike (Spear 1c) to move while casting.
-“Guard!” recent functionality to work underwater.
-Druid Glyphs to work underwater.

More accessible Opening Strikes
-Alpha Training minor merged into Opening Strike minor.
-Precise Strike moved down from Grandmaster minor to Master minor.
-Remorseless’ Gain an Opening Strike when you gain Fury as a Grandmaster minor.
-Remorseless makes Opening Strikes deal more damage and unblockable.

Steady Focus applies 5% damage per 50 endurance.
(suggested by Lazze)

Sharpening Stone is outdated.

Visible Boons, Buffs, and Conditions on our Pet

Keybind for Stow/Activate Button

Profession Mechanic Transformation Skill Previews
(suggested by Droog)

Edit: Added a more suggestions.

Zenos Osgorma.2936:

Poison master on f2 pet skill is somthing i can Agree with for simplicity but i also disagree as pets with Non-damage and non target f2s won’t be able to use poison master on f2.

Actually, if Anet changed it to work on Pet F2 like Wilting Strike, it would work on non-damaging pet F2 skills. The only issue would be if Anet can not screw up coding for it.

Wilting Strike, for example, works on non-damaging skills such as Fern Hounds F2. It’s also supposed to work for the Brown Bear and Smokescale F2 but is currently bugged.

In fact, there were even patch notes saying that it was corrected to work with Smokescale F2, but it broke again on the next patch. It also stopped working with the Brown Bear when they corrected its behavior of going towards an enemy when using its F2.

So, yeah. The F2 tweak for Poison Master on pets can be pretty straight-forward and nice… if Anet had it working/fixed any issues that occurred.

I dislike RNG traits. Why not follow a more active approach from Robert Gee’s line of thinking so there’s some predictability and chance to actively apply the daze?

“Gain a charge when you or your pet deal a critical strike. After 10 charges, your next strike dazes a foe for ¼s.”

It would scale better in group scenarios with cleave/aoe skills, and be flexible with low precision builds since they can use a high precision pet to gain charges.

The daze, from how I read it, only affects a single, so that limitation there works well enough so this trait isn’t too wild.

I like none of these suggestions. The fact that you excluded a rework for Predator’s Instinct and have more traits with more ICDs sickens me. Rather than interesting and balanced around active play so there can be no ICDs, these traits seem more hindering.

StickerHappy.8052:

Your refined toxins idea is very good. It’s good to have an ICD, it will condition bombing galore if there is no ICD present to keep it in check.

No. ICDs are killing the game. There are ways to prevent condition bombing like I suggested before. Ever try the new Deathly Chill? Rangers have a lot of Poison applications, but that limitation of 1 stack per application (aka ignores stacks of poison applied and applies only 1 stack from the trait) makes it, dare I say, balanced and overall, not hindered by an ICD.

Also, pet poison on F2 on affected foes works much better than just covering your conditions. If they changed it to function like Wilting Strikes, Hawks & Eagles can become fairly strong in 1v1 confrontations while other higher cooldown pets with an AOE can have their F2s become more potent.

There is very little problem with that rework. Not to mention, all pets have a condition damage stat. Sure, only some have a higher one, but poison a 2-for-1 condition. Bring it for both the damage and debuff and choose the pet accordingly. Why do I even have to mention this at this point is beyond me.

Serraphin Storm.2369:

This isn’t better, it fixes a problem that happened maybe 30% (including 1v1 situations) of the time and half of those could be fixed with positioning. Creating a bigger problem in 70% of encounters.

Numbers pulled right out of your kitten .

I agree with Tragic. Axe 4 is in a much better place now, Anet should focus on improving Staff 4 for the next patch while everyone gets used to Axe 4.

I’d rather have Poison Master just have the pet poison be applied on foes affected by their F2 skills, no ICD.

Refined Toxins changed to applying 1 stack of another damaging condition per application of poison, like the revamped Deathly Chill (Reaper). Either Torment or Bleed would be fine, and above all, no ICD.

After the recent patch, Anet made it pretty clear establishing main-hand axe is a hybrid weapon by adding bleed on Winter’s Bite. Not a power, not a straight up condition. It works better for condition, and the added ferocity pairs well with precision; a stat most hybrid and condition builds/gear stack up for additional damage.

At this point, no need to even question it now, unless more changes are to be made.

I don’t care about how a ranger is supposed to look wielding a sword. New animations aren’t my thing; take it and leave it as that.

Ryou.2398:

The sword animations arent as jumpy or animated but I really like the new one its still stylish and in theme with a ranger if you ask me, just more subtle.

Good that you like them. Of the 3 Rangers I had, I deleted my Asura as the new sword animations for them don’t even compare to the old ones they had. Other races are all right… I guess.

Right? I’m not too huge on the sword animations, but they did it. On the other hand, axe aftercasts, off-hand axe buffs, and shortbow buffs are nice. I can only assume the next phase is improving pets or nature aspects.

Cheers, Irenio!

New PoS is so good, I’m just going to assume every Ranger that doesn’t like it to get used to it. More control on the skill is so much better. But when devs look at feedback like this and see Rangers like it when they can’t control distance and direction for more interesting and skillful play on their skills, it’s no wonder they won’t give us more pet control. :P

Animation downgrade for Asura Rangers in my opinion.

OGDeadHead.8326

I sure as hell dont know where this “tracking stealthed targets” is coming from. Pure misinformation.

Kind of what FrownyClown stated. Personally, I never stocked much into that, but since some (like a very low %) did, it was on the list. Being able to manually move and swipe around with the new sword is personally better (for me) when targets go into stealth than the old.

^ #manbearpigmode rite der

Ah, dang. That reply was too quick, cafard, it messed up mine. Too lazy this mornin’ to quote Lev =/ Need some coffee…

I’ll toss my hat in and say I’m really hoping for a small tweak to allow 1b (Crippling Thrust) to strike up to 3 targets. Consider it, Irenio, please!

Mokk.2397:

I don’t use Sand R but I think 900 range would have been sufficient.

Yeah. If they had to reduce the range, 900 would have been a lesser but okay reduction. 600 range isn’t enough when using a range pet; especially when all of them are 900+ range…

It actually is an improvement. Give it time and get used to it as it has more player control now than before. Not to mention, we won’t lose the 2nd half of it as long as we aim it before a cliff or a wall and have faster access to the CC portion when distances are close.

mistsim.2748:

literally nobody asked for a ground-targeted #4

I asked for it. xP

Swagger.1459:

Path of Scars- I would suggest returning the old. The current design is not practical at all in pvp settings.

You can’t be serious. Not only can we manually control the distance for faster CC and avoiding it disappearing off cliffs and into walls, but we can fire it behind us as we are running away.

Justine.6351:

Whirling Axes is crazy dmg right now, but you will never guess what it still doesn’t combo with…quick draw…yeah I don’t even know how since they reduced its cast time.

Been able to consistently activate Quickdraw’s bonus now after the update. Must use it immediately after swapping weapons. 1s after and it can’t use it, so the window is not as lenient.

Fun facts ahead. Because I have so much interest and so little life, I went and compared the old sword with the new sword auto-attack animations. I will also list stuff we lost and stuff we gained.

You be the judge for yourself (obviously) if this change was more beneficial to you or less. All due to preferences and different modes Rangers of all types play in. Trying to keep this as non-bias as possible. [Cowers behind a shield] Oh, snap. Rangers can’t use shi-!!

Old vs New

What Was Gained

• The ability to freely move during the entire sword chain.
• The ability to dodge during and between chain strikes. #ImFree
• New sword animations. The 1st and 3rd strike look new. Actually, the 3rd strike looks like an axe auto attack found on Warrior, but with a twirl at the start. I play a Human Ranger, so your experience may vary due to race.
• 240ms worth of aftercasts; 120ms added onto the 2nd & 3rd strike! This is actually a bad one to be gained, but a gain nonetheless. Sadpandas be sad.

What Was Loss

• DPS reduction due to aftercasts. See above.
• Double Pounce trick.
• Gap-closers from 1b (Kick) and 1c (Pounce).
• Tracking targets going into stealth.
• Being able to stick on a target. Like it or not, it was a feature a percentage of Rangers favored, so it’s on this list.
• Old sword animations. For those that can’t remember, or never saw them, here is a link of a video I made per request of our local Ranger forum frequenter, Fluffball.
• Ranger Sword Chain Animations

What Remains

• Sword chain 1b still strikes only 1 target. C’mon, Anet. Really?
• Hornet’s Sting (Sword 2) cast time is still ½s. I’m tossing this one in here because it’s been a complaint since release!

Edit: Corrections made. Clarifications added on aftercasts.

Yeah. Shredder is still bad. More initial damage but, as it was stated, Gyros don’t inherit the player’s stats. Even worse, less duration on the field for even less combo whirls.

The whirl finishers were weak to begin with, but with less of them and no change the frequency of whirl finishers, they might as well just left it alone. Plus, it still has a cast time vs other Gyros (minus Sneak).

Makes me a sad Scrapanda

Khenzy.9348:

The change I’d make to Sword:

Hornet Sting has its cast time reduced to ¼s.

Sword only needs that, otherwise it’s a fine weapon now.

I’ll add that the new sword chain needs aftercasts reductions on the entire chain, especially 1b and 1c. We received a DPS loss due to the aftercasts that came with the new animations, and now it suffers from what mainhand Axe did previously (aftercasts).

Substance E.4852:

-It’s not slower, or if it is it’s only detectable via timing animation frames from what I can tell.
-Quickness does help, this is just flat out wrong to say.

Two points on this these:

• It actually is slower due to more aftercasts than the previous animation, resulting in a DPS loss.
• Quickness affects it, but because the aftercasts on the new chain, a Ranger still kills slower with it compared to the older chain.

I’m down with all these changes.

Edit: Not too happy about the DPS loss on new sword. Same cast times as before (½ ¼ ¾) but with more aftercasts. Even more disappointing is that the 2nd strike still only hits one target. Ugh…

Who?

Archon.6480:

The third animation looks slow enough to get a good whack of mistrust…

Not even sure how you could view it as slow as the entire chain appears to be the standard ½s strikes with lowered after-casts that were updated onto the Thief’s sword. Pounce being ¾s with a bit of an after-cast is slower.

And if it turns out to be all ½s sword casts, it kind of evens out in the end. ½s x 3 vs old sword ½s -> ¼s -> ¾s.

I thought they were going for a pro-wrestling thing. What, with the dropkick followed by a sword leap that hanged in the air so long it looked like a Norn was more likely to do an elbow drop on an opponent than smash a sword into their face. lol

Guess that’s why I’ll miss the old animations. I have only played Ranger on Humans & Asura. By far, I’ll miss the Asura sword animations the most. The Norn can go, though. :P

The use of Reddit is so frequent I’m kind of surprised there isn’t a Reddit link above the official website yet. Ya know, where “GuildWars2.com | Forums | Support | Wiki” is.

Have fun with the celebration. I’ll just be going over patch notes instead, no offense.

I’m not sure, but the thread discussing the new Legendary Shortbow and the limitations on classes, as well as its uses for those classes is being looked over. If I would have to guess a % on a rework, I would say 0%. Small buffs on the other hand, 10%.

Good point on bringing up non-damaging F2 skills. I would assume so, as this is shown by the Fern Hound and Brown Bear’s F2 working with Wilting Strike. Granted, Smokescale’s F2 is currently bugged with Wilting Strike, even though it was posted on an update patch to be corrected.

Edit: Interesting on increasing Poison duration applied, as well as buffing the Poison damage since it was formerly 50% before. Was the Thief Poison trait a factor in the reduction since theirs is +33% damage & duration?

All speculation, of course. Keep the discussion going!

So, I want to bring up half of the functionality of this trait. I would like to believe the increased Poison damage for us and our pet is fine, so the discussion on the pet applying Poison on its first strike after swapping pets is what I would like to hear from Rangers.

I, for one, am not a huge fan of this particular pet swap trait and feel that it should become a trait much like Wilting Strike. In that sense, the Poison should be applied when a pet executes their F2 and be applied to any target affected by a pet’s F2.

This would limit having an ICD on it like Go For The Eyes, Beastly Warden, or even Invigorating Bond since it would not be an AoE trait. One benefit to think of is low cooldown pets such as the Hawk & Eagle could benefit from this on a single-target application since their F2 can only strike one target.

Would do you all think? Is the Poison application for the pet good with you all on a pet swap, or would anyone else like to see this be applied to a Pet’s F2? If it were to be applied on a Pet’s F2, should the duration or the amount of Poison stacks be reduced due to a few low cooldown pets such as Birds and the Bristleback?

Discuss.

Lord knows I plan to do so. Update can’t come fast enough for me just because I want to see if anything else has changed besides the animations. I’ll admit that I would be kind of disappointed if the rest of sword’s kit wasn’t tweaked/modified.

That thread… On a separate, yet, related note. Since DH has 2 traps that are instant, why can’t we have our HS back to the way it once was? kitten you, Peters and your high-concept elite spec.

Here you go.

Ranger Sword Chain Animations

Because Anet could not just simply classify it as a Trap and then leave it alone. They tend do that thing where they try to be creative and attempt to make a skill interesting, only to end up being clunky and/or lose functionality.

Conncept.7638:

Yes if I break or change targets between the use of the melee skill and the leap, it can move to the side or angle away from a target, but that is NOT like the current ranger sword, which frequently leaps completely through targets you are locked on to or even jumps away from targets seemingly without any reason. Earth shields ability to break target mid combo can even be a huge boon in evading and positioning yourself and I wouldn’t’ change a thing about it.

3) I never stated its leap animation could be broken, as no leap animation in the entire game can be, but that’s never been a problem with the Earth Shield because it’s leap is practically instant, leaving almost no opportunity for you to miss an important dodge.

I’ll quote these 2 points as they are the only ones that need a reply.

The reason Earth Shield’s leap isn’t like Ranger’s Sword is because it consists of a single leap within the chain or skill. Ranger Sword is pretty unique, not only for the animation, but consisting of 2 leaps back-to-back.

It is the primary reason for easily being able to move around almost uncontrollably since it’s two skills that basically tells the player to move where they are facing. The only other skill to have multiple leaps chained together is Scrapper’s Hammer 3, but that skill has built-in fail-safes to lower the risk of moving around wildly than Sword.

Also, even though you never stated the leap animation can be broken, you didn’t have to, as that was one – if not the primary – complaint users had with Sword. If anything, what you posted about an easy and obvious sword fix could have simply boiled down to adding a ¾s evade on Pounce and reducing the range of Kick down to 130-150 to prevent it from automatically moving the user towards a target. Add super speed in there for good measure to have the reduced range be minimal.

At least then, it removes the double-leap hazard that makes the sword chain prone to leaping around and people would not have issues about breaking the animation to dodge since Pounce would have had an evasion built right into it. Best part would have been keeping the unique animation.

First off, let’s get all of the facts straight about Earth Shield.

1) It’s not 2 melee attacks followed by a gap closer. It’s a melee attack, then a gap closer which is around 300 range that also has an incorrect tooltip, followed by a projectile shield throw of 450 range.

2) During that 2nd strike, which is relatable to the current Ranger sword leap-type attack, it can send you flying through a target when directly center of a standard target hit-box and large world bosses with multiple and/or large hit-boxes.

I went in game to re-check this minutes ago, thinking maybe Anet had 1 melee attack over 150 range that’s a non-PBAoE coded differently as you implied; it is not. I was successful going through targets and flying off course with 2 executions if the first missed. It’s no different than any leap or leap-like skill.

3) Last, but not least, Earth Shield 1b also suffers from not being able to break the animation to dodge out of it other than weapon swap.

? Bugs on the Ranger, Bugs on the Forum, Don’t be a Stranger, Join the Consortium ?

Substance E.4852:

You can see the same effect during GS3 and Staff3.

FTFY

Just means things like swiftness and super speed will have more of an impact when using sword without the stick. It’s a fair trade off, all things considered.

Tried to suggest this multiple times before, except with enough super speed to cover the cast times of 1b & 1c. Distance loss would have been minimal, would have been affected by movement impending conditions, but could retain the unique animations and dodge.

On the flip side, I wouldn’t be surprised if they did not buff or change the sword auto (other than the animations) as it’s technically a small DPS buff. Video looks as though it’s using the Thief sword change with lower after-casts.

Since each strike appears to be the standard ½s cast and may be able to cleave multiple targets on the entire chain, I’m guessing the devs would leave it alone.

Even though underwater is neglected, it should be corrected. While they are at it, Glyphs to work underwater, too would be nice.

Just in case a Dev glances at this thread out of curiosity on reactions: How about reducing that cast time on sword 2 to go with this update?

Sad to see the old animations go. Hope the entire chain strikes up to 3 targets and the 2nd strike still applies cripple. Cheers for this change.