Guild Wars 2

Maybe I’m speaking too soon, but I feel a CD increase on “Protect Me!” coming soon. 30s/24s for an AOE stun break with Taunt? I can hear the QQ before it even starts.

>=/

I’m more shocked “Sic ’Em!” didn’t get buffed or reworked in some way. It would have been nice to have it apply an AOE Reveal around the pet for a certain radius rather than be a stealth prevention upon activation.

Good changes all around, but something still urks me. Some lackluster traits still remained like Predator’s Instinct. Very small QoL change to Quickdraw being extended from 5s to 6s to cover Whirling Defense or having the buff activate on skill use instead of after cast completion.

I choked a bit while drinking coffee seeing “Throw Axe” from Warrior got an after-cast reduction of 0.5s while Ranger Axe still suffers greatly across all main-hand moves from after-casts. And some over-nerfed skills haven’t seen some sort of rework such as Lingering Light or Go For the Eyes.

What’s left now is Anet wanting to explore more possibilities for adding nature and pet stuff later on. Guess I’ll have to wait for the next balance update to see what changes come. Apologies for sounding like a whiner, but I kind of expected a bit more than just the shout reworks (which are great).

Edit: That Honed Axes buff. Most didn’t want the Ferocity, so they added 100 more…?

They might change staff so it will require correct pathing to trigger. Sort of like the change done to the blinking skills.

PUGs migrated from Dungeons to Raids. Can’t be helped. AP has been replaced with Insights and Dungeon Master substituted with The Eternal.

The fun times are back, boys ‘n’ girls! x)

He’s probably comparing auto-to-auto without augments. Which, isn’t a good thing to do anyways since (MH) Axe is a self-buff, condition, debuff/snare weapon. Why this conversation is arising again is beyond me.

Let’s stick on how MH Axe, and to an extend, OH Axe maybe improved upon other than treading through the same tracks. This also goes for Honed Axes since, you know, “synergy.”

Condition Axe/Torch build is fine. You should probably use the condition build for while soloing in the HoT zones as they are more forgiving and easier to tackle things while alone such as Hero Challenges and so forth.

Also, what you read about MH Axe around the forums is, for the most part, true. However, the fact is our PvE condition build relies heavily on Torch off-hand, and between Sword and Axe main hands, Axe is just the better option.

Krispera.5087:

Projectile speed, casting time and after casting time are pretty bad too. How many time I canceled the skills…

Pretty much this. MH Axe isn’t too far off from being what it aims to be. Small little QoL alterations to it would make a world of difference.

• Reduce cast time of Split Blade from ¾s to ½s.
• Reduce after-casts of Ricochet, Split Blade, and Winter’s Bite.
• Possibly up the Might duration on Ricochet from 3s to 5s.
• Cosmetically, prevent the off-hand weapon from disappearing while casting skills 1-3. (Robert Gee corrected this for Necromancers within 2 weeks.)

Other things to consider for it is the AOE effect on Winter’s Bite from Honed Axes becoming baseline with the weapon and maybe applying a condition on opponents Ricochet strikes IF the bounce strikes another foe. Similar to DH Longbow auto attack that applies Cripple to all enemies struck if the bounce strikes another foe. Make it a weapon that punishes opponents for grouping together.

That, and the Honed Axes trait could use a lot of fine-tuning as the only thing useful on it is the 20% cooldown reduction, which is a standard on weapon traits. The added Ferocity and effect that amplifies only 1 of a possible 5 axe move set is weak, and quite frankly doesn’t deserve to be a GM tier trait. My 2 cents.

Not sure if this is new or not. Heavy Bladed armor (at least for females) has a weird glitch where the top spine of the center-back blade extends and moves with the character’s position. Images shown below.

Not a fan of collections myself, but I have to admit, the specialization collections and others that were available saved me a lot of coin from having to craft ascended items, and even more time from having to wait for some RNG drop. Plus, new skins, regardless of the fact that I’ll never use them. Those I could appreciate more than the rest.

No way to change your alliance. You are going to have to create a new character or take another character that currently has no alliance and choose the Order of Whispers as that character’s faction.

Go for it.

Dedicated Healer.

When in an organized/competent group.

For when you have too much money AND have to raid with PUGs a lot.

Utilities are flexible, like using Glyph of Tides during VG or Spirit of Nature if/when your peeps down. Always adjust to tastes. Same goes for the second pet of choice.

Brian.6435:

Quickening Screech is Aoe, it effects 5 nearby allies.

You didn’t understand what I wrote. So, let me reword it for you.

“Wouldn’t it be nice if Swiftness was replaced with Quickness?”

(Bump)

Document hasn’t been updated in awhile. Wondering if a new topic should be done. Friendly push to the front though before the 26th update.

I’ll chime in with this. If the Bristleback’s F2 is corrected to fire 15 shots instead of the current 20 ONLY, then I’m fine with that. However, if there is going to be a series of adjustments such as correcting the number of projectiles on Spike Barrage, increasing the cooldown, and/or damage reduction per projectile, then I want compensation.

Compensation in the form of Spike Shoot (auto) & Spike Barrage (F2) having a 20% chance to be a projectile finisher and Rain of Spike projectiles to become full-on projectile finishers.

It’s called, “Quickening Screech.” Wouldn’t it be nice if it gave AOE Quickness? Just sayin’.

Serraphin Storm.2369:

The auto leap stick isn’t lazy it come at a cost. Lazy is not finding a way for this cost to pay off for you. The suggested change would hurt ranger vs stealth classes.

Sword aa is the man up chain. It is one of the few time when a rangers full damage comes to bear. Stealth wont save your opponent (the proposed changes would do nothing one target stealths).

Those of you who play defensively can’t see it or understand. There is nothing more satisfying than being the predator. The animation that accompany your onslaught is just unbeatable.

I’m not a thief main or some other class. I main a Ranger since day one. I don’t enjoy the direction the ranger has gone with the druid (there are some nice things but the overall concept is disappointing). I own bolt so not only do I have time invested with this class but with this weapon as well.

Those of you who cant understand how people can defend the aa need to understand (understand not agree) both side before you suggest changes.

P.s
Leaps are not effected by slow and cripple super speed is.

It is when depending on the stick. Unlike the people that defend it, all I have seen in 3 years is “don’t change it because I like it.” No suggestions that might meet a compromise, or thinking outside the box.

No such thing as a “man-up” chain, either. That’s such a load of garbage said to cover a clunky and faulty design. The change hurts Rangers against stealth classes? The main set of skills that damage them are long channeled ones, not a half-second kick or a three-quarters pounce.

The ones that use sword defensively use it for the evade and escapes, meaning 2 & 3, not the auto. And when the auto is used to escape, it’s a double pounce, and that’s at a risk of not being able to break the animations for evades.

Those that defend the auto seem to be the ones that are in need to understand a flawed design and what it is. Since the beginning, there has only been 2 suggestions for sword 1; a) change the animations to standard, and b) find a way to code pounce to be broken out of to allow dodging.

If any Ranger that has been here since the beginning, suggestion A completely negates the uniqueness of Ranger sword in terms of the animation and style, while removing the utility of pursuing a target. Anet already had their hand at suggestion B and failed for 3 years at it.

These suggestions have been the closest medium to appeasing both sides for retaining most of the pursuit range and unique animations, while being able to freely move and dodge. So, the sword chain on 1b and 1c will now be affected by conditions. That’s a good thing some sort of counter-play would be introduced. Give and take.

Whatever, though. Peace.

enkeny.6937:

Hidden barbs are back!
but last time 33% was too big and now it is not? (but now we have more bleeding)
I’m confused.

Yeah, when it was presented during the AMA stream last year in September, it was advertised at 33%. They probably toned it down to 20% because they thought it might have been too much.

The increase is most likely due to Anet seeing that 20% wasn’t as potent as they may have thought. Besides, Hidden Barbs only increases the damage of our bleeds and only that, as apposed to other traits that increase the damage of a condition and offer something else such as Potent Poison, Poison Master, Amplified Wrath, or King of Fires.

Actually, the auto-leap and stick is rather lazy. Free and active movement while executing the attack is much better. Anyone that has played other classes with their “non-stick/leap” melee weapons already do this.

There’s even math presented if the Super Speed was added to cover the cast times. Seriously, anyone not wanting to trade a small range reduction on the kick and the automatic leap towards a target (rather than doing it manually) in trade for dodging, free movement, complete control, and max-range meleeing is rather… Meh.

Roman God of War.6953:

i dont think rangers are meant for sustained melee ranged, and cant you just use GS for that? (serious question havent experimented much on ranger)

Devs have said Rangers are meant for sustained damage. Our weapon skills were made for sustained damage, minus Maul on GS, the only burst-type the class has.

Unrelated Reply: My math was off in my calculation above because I thought Pounce (1c) on sword was a ½s cast time, but it’s ¾s. That said, Super Speed adjusted to ¾s attached to it while moving forward covers the same distance as the current Pounce (430).

So, with Super Speed attached to both 1b & 1c, the chase-down ability/range only ends up being a 10% reduction on a full chain, or 24% reduction for Kick (1b – 300 to 230). Not a bad trade-off for all pros mentioned above.

Brian.6435:

What is the reasoning behind this 36 second recharge?

The launch and the fact it’s an AOE launch.

Believe it or not, yes. There are some Rangers out there that play so casually but still want to kill stuff slightly faster than with a Bear. I’ve seen it so many times in-game it’s not even funny.

Also, no where did I, nor do I promote the playstyle of Bearbow. This data is more-or-less for the lazy Ranger that wants a DPS pet instead of the Brown Bear, which in my opinion, is at the very least a good thing.

Lastly, that data has Smokescale as 2nd. The bleeds on its auto and self-might from its Smoke Assault is obviously why it was able to kill faster than the others, but again, this data is for the lazy Ranger wanting a DPS pet instead tanking Bears.

For the rest of us that play Rangers above Bearbow’ism, this data can be ignored.

• Consumables also apply to the pet.
• Tweak attribute ratios on pet families and a select few specific pets for greater competition in certain roles.
• Lower pet cooldowns slightly on the old pets or have BM reduce pet skill cooldowns by 33% instead of by 20%.
• Give pets base Ferocity and Healing Power (150, 300, 450, specifically) like how they did with Condition Damage to make some pets have a clearer focus.
• Keybinds for “Attack My Target” and “Return to Me” and F1 & F3 to be replaced with the other 2 pet skills (besides the auto-attack).

I don’t think anyone would use it anyways unless they did WvW as some sort of role or just grabbing Allies’ Aid if they slotted NM. Anet has always been very cautious of cooldowns. It wouldn’t surprise me if all the shout cooldowns did not change with the update due to added utility.

I know some people might be expecting some to be reduced, but I highly doubt it, and if some were, the reductions would be very small like my example for S&R above. If it happens to be a base of 60s, all good, but I’m pretty sure if Irenio decided to lower the shouts to something like PM (45s) S&R (60s) Sic ‘Em (30) let’s say as an example, the other devs would be breathing down his neck about it.

Too bad most Rangers don’t know about the Bristleback burst. It seems counter-intuitive, so I’m not surprised. Use a ranged pet in melee? Nah.

Data from OP seems all right to use. This data seems to be for all the lazy, open-world Rangers out there. “What pet(s) does the most damage without me having to do any pet management whatsoever?” data (aka never pressing F1-F3 and sometimes F4).

OGDeadHead.8326:

Heibi.4251:

If you look at the major buffs the thief is getting you have to wonder if ANeT loves thieves. Thieves are gonna one shot even more players after Jan 26.

Anet thinks that’s what people want to see, so coming meta have a fair chance of becoming the worst one shotting meta ever.

It’s all for the eSports. x)

Probably one of the few suggestions you (the OP) have made I can agree with. Not some of these suggestions, but all. There are buffs and nerfs, and all seem fair while the slight changes have enough impact on how LB would be used.

I dare say… +1.

I’m probably reading things wrong but I see more concern for S&R than Protect Me. So far, my concern is what was told about the Taunt aspect of the shout seems as though it may be limited to just the next target that strikes the player.

On a 1v1 basis, that’s fine, but I would hope it will be able to Taunt each foe that strikes the player at least once during the duration of the Shout, rather than just a single enemy, especially in group-fight scenarios.

The AOE stun break is icing on the cake to the change.

I was hoping for a full preview release of balance changes so they could get some more feedback, insight, whatever from the community. That way before the 26th, minor tweaks can happen rather than waiting for the 26th to find out, and then another 3 months before more minor tweaks happen.

Also, Karl looks like he hasn’t slept in a week. Even though I’m not the hugest fan of his, he looks like he needs another vacation. Kudos, though for the hard work.

anduriell.6280:

They will have to adjust the trait Allie’s Aid however.

Yeah, but at the same time, I don’t know. I guess Allie’s Aid trait would be useful in terms of multiple downed allies within the area. You start reviving an ally and there’s another downed ally a bit further away, your pet teleports them to you and revives them, so a 2-for-1?

Again, nice point to bring up, but I’m on the fence.

I believe the animations could remain the same since it seems the range has more effect on the actual skill than the animation itself. I could be wrong though since any developer response in the past that I can recall were very vague about it.

I’m not sure how it works over there, but there were a handful of skills in the past that used to root a character and were changed to be used while moving. Whatever behavior they used to apply to those skills before could possibly be applied to skills that force a character to stick.

That’s why I proposed the range to be reduced on 1b and 1c since it’s a hunch of range having some connection with thrusting a player towards a target. So far, the threshold seems to be 150 on a melee-oriented attack without a projectile attached to it for there to be no movement (1a & 1b of Guardian main-hand sword).

Again, it’s just a hunch. If the stick is truly tied to the animations of 1b & 1c, then I fully agree with your proposal of an animation change at that point, if sword were to be changed, that is.

I would have preferred like, 2s of Resistance when casting Search and Rescue instead. Paired with Resounding Timbre, it will just be even more Regeneration…

I agree with some of those, but I also agree that most of what you listed should be adjusted in some way. Some of my proposals:

• Predator’s Instinct: ICD and Cripple duration reduced by 50%. Interval added to match ICD so it can apply to multiple targets below the health threshold.
• Clarion Bond: Reduce boon durations and ICD by 50% to match pet swaps.
• Most Dangerous Game: Pulse Fury every 3s for Remorseless synergy.
• Light on Your Feet: Evading attacks also procs the bonus. Change bonus condition duration to condition damage.
• Natural Healing: Passive heal applies to the player as long as the pet is alive.
• Empathic Bond: 1 condition transferred every 3s.
• Strider’s Defense: Add +10% damage while wielding a sword. Change the chance to destroy projectiles to a 3s buff that has a 100% chance to destroy projectiles when you gain Vigor.
• Hidden Barbs, Hunter’s Tactics, Moment of Clarity, Oakheart Salve: Benefits also apply to the pet (ie: pet bleeds deal more dmg, increased crit chance when pet attacks from the flank, increased daze/stun durations, reduced damage while they have regeneration).
• Honed Axes: Replace ferocity with something else. Almost anything else.
• Quickdraw: Buff increased from 5s to 6s so we don’t have to cancel Whirling Defense to have it proc for it.

Minor changes I can think of off the top of my head.

Nope. It can be niche if it has synergy. Currently, there is very little/extremely weak synergy for MDG to be useful in its own niche. A bunch of traits procing under 50% hp also doesn’t count as synergy.

Every trait needs to be somewhat competitive within their respective tier while augmenting a person’s playstyle. MDG does nothing to be not only a decent GM status trait, but feels as though it was a shoe-horned idea, and then witnessed during the specialization patch in Sep, to be knee-jerked as more powerful than it is.

It was mentioned before that if Fury was added as a pulsing boon to it would make a significant difference and add towards a certain playstyle. To think it’s fine currently and saying that not every trait needs to be viable is exactly why there are unused traits that remain useless and/or have very little impact even towards niche builds.

Anyone else feel the cooldown for Search and Rescue should be lowered? Scrappers and their Function Gyro seem almost equal, with the exception it’s on a 20s cooldown with half the range (600) while ours is on a 85s/68s and will now gain the ability of the pet teleporting to a down ally with the 26th update.

I feel as though it could use a CD reduction down to 75s/60s.

Petting Zoos killed too many people in hot-joins. Can’t have potential customers on F2P accounts not buy the game because they kept losing to a bunch of moving ghost trees, let alone mailboxes with guns.

Eh, Predator’s Onslaught’s fine. It’s boring, but I’d rather it be a boring, straight-forward trait, than creative and sloppy. And Anet has been known to create unpractical traits while trying to be creative many of times before.

At this point, I’d probably go the route of previous suggestions I’ve seen people have and just marge Predator’s Instinct into Predator’s Onslaught just so it does something else for the sake of doing something else.

Great minds think (kind of) alike? What I posted before in previous topics.

• Reduce the range of Kick (1b) and Pounce (1c) to 130 range to allow free movement while executing the attack and dodging between casts of 1b & 1c.
• Add ¼s of Super Speed to Kick (1b) and ½s Super Speed to Pounce (1c) (equal amount for each cast time).

Taking into account movement speed while in combat with the cast time of the attack, assuming the player is moving forward during the entire chain, and including the attack range of each attack (130), Kick (1b) is reduced from 300 range down to 230 range while Pounce (1c) is reduced from 430 to 330.

Those 2 changes allows the current, unique animation to remain, while allowing free movement while executing the chain, max-melee range combat on sword, and the ability to dodge between casts of 1b & 1c, and retain about 80% (860 total current range vs 690 total new range) of the chain’s distance (chase-down ability/range).

So, just as I thought. Minor boons added to some shouts, no changes on weak traits such as Most Dangerous Game, and utility skills like Sharpening Stone are left mediocre.

Protect Me! added Taunt is nice, though, but the description seems it will work on only the next target to attack you when it would be nice if it could affect multiple targets 1 time during the duration of the shout effect.

Maybe they will finally put to use the elite skill they made up for Ranger in the early stages with a new elite spec.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Alpha_Strike

So, a bit of testing seems the knockback is 300, but then counting the distance between the player and the target adds into that making Hilt Bash out of range (since the Counterattack kick itself has a 120-150 kick range).

That said, I’m now in favor of extending Hilt Bash’s range. Maybe to 400.

ItIsFinished.9462:

I think whats happening is Counterattack is knocking back foes around 350-360 distance.

Curiosity peaked. I never thought of the actual distance being greater than listed. I’ll check this out.

How the heck did Sharpening Stone NOT make that list?

Edit:

ItIsFinished.9462:

• Greatsword
  • Hilt Bash: Increase this skills range slightly so we can combo off of Counterattack

The knockback from Counterattack & range from Hilt Bash are both 300. Hilt Bash’s range was also corrected a month or two ago in a patch that allowed it to travel the actual 300 distance when before it was only 220.

Shot-in-the-dark guess.

Storm Spirit → Glyph of Equality → F5 → Lunar Impact → Lunar Impact → Dazing Screech → Lunar Impact → Call Lightning → Pet Swap → Lightning Assault → Glyph of Equality

That should be 30 seconds of chained Dazes, assuming Lightning Assault counts as 2s since it’s launch causes a knockdown animation in which mobs have to get up for. Lunar Impact casts back to back since it can proc Quickdraw.

I’d be happy if they increased the velocity of the auto attack projectile.

Kain Francois.4328:

Why not just buff Whirl Finishers to pulse an area?

I’m confused on this as well. It procs whirl finishers within a 180 radius of itself every ½s. Or do you mean let it follow the player around while doing its thing like other gyros?

Hmm. Probably right on that point. This curiosity was brought about mainly due to Water Spirit being listed as a viable selection in Raiding guides. I know it’s more for providing regeneration as boons for % modifiers on Heralds and generating Astral Force, but something about this heal always bothered me.

It wasn’t until now after testing I figured why some things felt off. More testing leads me to think that this change was done around the time Spirit of Nature was updated to scale with healing power.

Somewhere around that time, Water Spirit’s passive effect seems to no longer scale with the player’s healing power and seems to have its own attribute (around 1220, assuming the scaling is still 0.09). No way to prove it without confirmation from developers, but it’s a hunch.

Out of curiosity, I decided to mess around with the Water Spirit again on my 2nd Druid. Seems some things are a bit off and I would like to call in the aid of more Rangers to do a bit of testing before this heal is called “Busted.”

So far, from what I have been able to gather while testing it in Cursed Shore, are a few oddities (if you will). Here are some of my results:

• Tooltip healing amount of the passive effect does not change regardless of the player’s healing power. Image provided below with varying amounts of healing power at level 80.
• Healing amount of the passive effect does not change regardless of the player’s healing power. Combat log with varying healing power stats of 0 and 1575, with and without the Druid traitline (just in case) always provided the amount of 915 self-heal.

If anyone can test if outgoing healing modifiers work on the passive effect heal for allies, or is able to have varying results, please do so by providing screenshots, a bit of information of your healing power, any outgoing healing modifiers, and your allies’ healing power (just in case). A video is preferred if you do not mind going through the hassle of recording and uploading.

Getting around to uploading a video as this is going up to show the 915 heal on proc effect with varying healing power stats. I recall before healing power used to scale the tooltip before, but I’m unsure of when (if) this was broken.

laokoko.7403:

well, the customer always want cheaper item. I’m not sure what to say here.

There’s a bit more to it than that, but again, all speculation at this point. x)