Guild Wars 2

I guess mini pets are the next best option since only Birds are relatively small. Unless you made your Asura max height/size, then I guess Pigs, Dogs, and the like of medium-sized pets would be fine.

A bump for old bugs for the new year.

I’m not too crazy about Nature’s Vengeance (yet) in Raid builds. Not until boon duration is fixed for Frost Spirit. I’d rather take something like GussJr has with Invigorating Bond + Fern Hound, which is something I’ll change to out of curiosity.

You’re not going to be able to find an exotic backpiece on the trading post. Instead, craft a lv78 backpiece from any of the crafting professions and select Berserker’s stats, then attach a lv65 rare jewel in there (Brilliant Embellished Ruby). The stats are 2 points higher for the main stat than a lv80 exotic backpiece with an Exquisite Jewel in it, plus, it comes with an infusion slot.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Back_item#Crafting

The Berserker’s exotic earring is on the list you linked as " Ruby Orichalcum Earring."

Stick with your Berserker’s gear. Cleric’s has issues with grabbing aggro depending on your team, Magi provides nice healing but you’re hits are flea bites, and Zealot is overrated and expensive.

Slap Monk runes on your Berserker’s armor, put Sigil of Transference on your Staff, and use Delicious Rice Balls for more outgoing Healing. Those 3 extra sources of +10% outgoing heals + the 20% you already (and easily) obtain from Natural Mender minor trait in the Druid line is sufficient enough to compensate for the lack of healing power.

And before you think Sigil of Transference is pricey, buying 1 (or even 2) sigils is cheaper than trying to make or convert an entire set of armor/weapons for Zealot’s, especially the former.

Well, it’s fixed now.

Anthrage.2519:

As a MH Axe user, I’d have to say no to making Winter’s Bite an AoE skill by default – this would reduce it’s range, and a 900-unit range movement speed debuff

I call call skritt kitten on this one. I don’t see how it reduces the range of Winter’s Bite at all. The trait just makes it explode on impact and doesn’t even change the physics of the projectile (meaning it can still land on targets beyond the indicated 900 range).

Toyed around with something very close, except I had Doom instead of Leeching on my SB for swap. Always been a fan of the Poison Master Ranger, at least Druid opened up some options.

No. The only time a rune increases condition damage is when specified, which the Ranger rune does not.

Only pets you’ll ever need going out of your way for in PvE: Tiger, Lynx, Stalker, River Drake, Marsh Drake, Bristleback, and maybe the Smokescale & Jaguar to an extent.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_pet_locations

I’d like to see a fine-tuning of Vine Surge to work like Revenant’s Inspiring Reinforcement. In that sense, have the vines fire out in 7 cascading sections as it currently does, then after the final section has occurred, the entire trail becomes a single path of vines that pulses the 1½s immobilize for 3s.

It’s already slow and hard to hit on a skirmishing basis, so it might as well be punishing for those caught in it. Keep the damage and condition cleanse on the cascading effects and the immobilize on the AOE pulses though.

The threshold isn’t such a huge deal at all. If you want to rid of the threshold, propose a tie to something other than giving a free cripple on hit every 10 seconds. Or bring back the trait where pet [F2] commands apply cripple and add it onto Predator’s Instinct.

Either way, the cripple is there as a thematic component of the Marksmanship traitline. Weak or not, it’s to snare opponents. Also, Heim is playing HoT. He’s been posting in the HoT subforum recently, mostly about the rarity of Freshwater Pearls.

5 seconds of Cripple with the ICD reduced to 15 seconds would be fine. What would make it not tremendously garbage is an added interval for each target it would proc on like the Mesmer trait [Ineptitude].

That doesn’t just apply to Predator’s Instinct, however, as many traits on all professions need to have an interval and match Ineptitude. Not all, but many.

Breakbars
Best: Everyone can contribute to create a 5-second stun on a boss without Ice Bow.
Worst: All soft CC and some debuff effects are not applied in the slightest.

Elite Specs
Best: New weapons, skills, and traits to play with.
Worst: Power creeps in most of them.

Masteries
Best: Gliding.
Worst: Most masteries feel unrewarding and made-up at the last minute. Progression of disciplines are shallow at best.

Raids
Best: Challenging PvE content.
Worst: Weekly cap and boss rewards are still littered with greens & blues.

Kind of agree. Gee seemed set to having something tied to Gravedigger. Personally, I would have liked a mix between beta and current Soul Eater trait, where the life leech was less but applied to all GS skills and the recharge reduction remained 20% without any gimmicks.

Thread derailed so badly, why even bother asking Irenio to look at main-hand axe. Who knows, maybe he’ll give it the “Gee” treatment and tweak it a bit. I’d really like to see what he would come up with if he did modify it.

If going as a Core Ranger, use a Power build for VG, as Condition Ranger falls short once entering the phases under 66% health in which your team has to move into safe zones. I recommend using this template [HERE] as a start.

Modify skills to fit the needs of the group, though. Drop Spirit of Nature for Entangle for Spark control if your group is fine on health but not for Spark management. Keep the Bristleback for consistent pet damage with the second pet varying.

Electric Wyvern if you (desperately) need the extra CC for VG break bar, if only minor additional CC is required, use a Pink Moa instead. The cooldown on Dazing Screech lines up with VG timing of his break bar/AOE phase which is about every 30 seconds or so. Extra heals from Harmonic Cry is also a plus.

If your group is fine with CC, use a Tiger or Lynx as the second pet. Use Tiger for additional fury for the melee team. If they don’t need help on Fury, use the Lynx instead. Use felines at the start of the fight only since the tank usually keeps VG stationed at a pillar. Once below 66%, use the Bristleback from then on for consistency.

If on the team for Green Circle, use Sword 2 to evade towards the circle to save you time having to run, assuming it’s a fair distance away. Positioning obviously important. Swap to longbow and use Quickdraw to your advantage on Longbow while at range and swap to S/A when heading back into melee range when able. Use PBS on Sparks between swaps.

If you are going to over-shoot distance of Hornet’s Sting when heading towards the Green circle, weapon swap mid-animation to cancel the evade to stop yourself. You’re going to be on Longbow anyways during that time.

There’s a lot more stuff but there’s some tips and etc. and so forth. Definitely sure there’s more stuff to contributing as a core Ranger on VG but that’s all I can think of off the top of my head.

InsaneQR.7412:

This trait should give us bonus condi dmg and duration if we are under the effect if swiftness or quickness(quickness gets bigger bonus), every time we EVADE an attack we get swiftness or quickness for a short duration. So the bonus triggers on sword, greatsword, dagger and all other evade skills the ranger has.

I kind of like this idea, except replace Quickness with Vigor to tie in more synergy with the Skirmishing traitline (ala Primal Reflex). Maybe +10% condition damage and duration while under the effects of Swiftness, and +20% while under the effects of Vigor.

I agree that MH Axe needs some work. Maybe buff the self-Might of Ricochet from 3s to 5s, make Winter’s Bite AOE by default, lower the cast time of Splitblade from ¾s to ½s for starts.

As for Ricochet, maybe add a condition on it so if the bounce strikes another target, all targets struck will be afflicted with 1 stack of bleeding. Very similar to Puncture Shot on the Dragonhunter Longbow, so that it punishes enemies for grouping up together.

You still don’t get it. Each pet class was made thematically different. Devourers are turret pets. Leave & forget as they can take care of themselves. They have defensive moves such as Tail Lash & Burrow as a self-defensive mechanism for when drawing aggro. Their cons outweigh the pros, but that’s how they were designed. Devourers are a pet strictly for debuff (RNG poison on auto) and distraction: nothing more.

What you are asking for, is to have a pet designed for offensive, direct damage pressure (Bristleback) that punishes enemies for coming too close to match a defensive, debuff pet that defends itself against nearby enemies. Think about your proposal again. It’s like asking for Drakes to be nerfed to match Wyverns.

No protection pulse. Just add Fury to it and it becomes, at the very least, bearable to use and will have some synergy with Remorseless builds.

uri.6521:

Basically, bristleback deals more damage than pigs, bears, moas, dogs, drakes, devourers and spiders, has longer range and faster proyectiles that can easily hit targets at a distance compared to other pets.

This statement alone shows your analysis and knowledge of pets are shallow. There’s more to pets than just DPS. Go through your analysis again and use more than numbers before proposing changes, especially nerfs to the Bristleback – an offensive, ranged power-type pet that Rangers have been asking for a very long time.

There’s so much wrong here that I don’t even anymore with Rangers…

’Twas the day before Christmas,
and all through the building,
not a single dev was working,
and for Ranger no (s)hits were given.
For the ones reading forums,
to those that still care,
keep posting out of boredom,
’cause no one at ArenaNet is there.

It’s been done successfully before by other groups. The issue here is like everything else, it takes a certain type of person with high situational awareness and skill to do it, with the usual dose of coordination and understanding of the entire group. Typically, most people can’t cut it being both.

Sure, I’ll bite.

1) Change most traits for synergy.
2) Add key binds to standard pet commands and have F1-F4 become pet skills.
3) Organize the kittening pet selection panel layout…
4) Diversify pets to have varying point:ratio attribute distributions. So, for example, the Fern Hound would be the only canine to have higher toughness than the rest and default Healing Power.

(sigh)

Small bump before the holidays ^^

OGDeadHead.8326:

Anyone care to explain what “Number of Impacts: 7” actually means?

7 individual AOEs that can hit up to 3 targets each. Think of it like Revenant Hammer Coalescence of Ruin or Berserker’s Longbow Scorched Earth.

Edit: On topic, though. Vine Surge could use an improvement but not by much. Increased duration of the immobilization to 2-seconds is a start, but I’d also opt for a radius increase.

Currently, it’s 7 rectangular AOEs approx. 90 units wide x 160 units long w/6 10-unit gaps between each impact. A slight boost to the width from 90 to 120 would make this a bit easier to hit (I guess).

Doubt Druid will be pushed aside in raids. Sure, in those 5-man groups. Standard 10-man will at least have 1. Buffs are too good to pass up, in healing gear or not.

Sounds legit. People hacking away at 15K HP vines will definitely bring in more eSports views. Anet’s gonna love this idea.

Dude, at least we’re useful somewhere and accepted in most other modes. May not be better than other classes in terms of DPS, but what we bring to certain roles and support can be matched by no other.

For crying out loud, you have a Thief, which are hurting far more than Ranger is, especially in Raid content. Ever see Thief or Daredevil highly requested for Raids?

Think he’s counting the leap that applies cripple.

Fluffball.8307:

Wolf, it has 3 CCs (including the most “damaging” to breakbars, fear.)

This. Pair that with Beastly Warden, Wilting Strike, and Go For The Eyes, and most bars will drain quick.

anduriell.6280:

I would bring back:

• One trait to make them mobile and also to trigger the active ability when they die.
• Remove all those iCD they added. The spirit to pulse the buff to up 5 allies every 8 seconds. While the boon it active you have a chance of 70% to trigger the passive effect.
• Right now the passive effect trigger once every 10 seconds and what can i say, that’s sad.

So, you would bring back the brain-dead auto proc on death trait and nerf the % to trigger passives by 5%. Swell.

vespers.1759:

Cleric’s cripples the tank too so you’re better off with magis or even shamans

Also agree with this. Full Cleric’s tend to take the dual role of tank & healer, and most people are uncomfortable with handling both.

Crapgame.6519:

Bugged? Seriously?

Might as well be. It belongs to the Ranger afterall. :P

Will be moving to BDO, too. They do Ranger and even Beast Tamers (pet classes) better than Ranger. Not to mention mounting the pet and attacking while on it is pretty awesome. x)

Kind of makes me think that a discovery recipe should be added for combining Mother-of-Pearls into Freshwater Pearls to alleviate this issue.

Makai.3429:

Bring back key farming to its former glory and we’ll talk.

^

Likewise. Then again, if they did return Spirits Unbound, I wouldn’t mind them removing the health buff and increased active radius from Nature’s Vengeance as a trade off so they can delude the mobile petting zoo scenario.

Inb4 Two-Handed Training is renamed to so people would stop bringing this up.

I like how some are finding a use for the Wyverns. Maybe not the most universal pets, but they are, in my opinion, very close to being fully realized. Been using them more recently. A few minor tweaks here and there and they should be good to go.

InsaneQR.7412:

What would you change except the visuals?

Since you asked.

Trapper’s Expertise to apply different boons/debilitating conditions on each trap; Vigor (HS), Blind (Flame), Slow (Frost), Weakness (Viper’s), Immobilize (Spike).

Move Poison Master down to Master tier, move Refined Toxins up to Grandmaster and change it so when the player (no pet) applies poison, a single, short duration stack of torment is also applied. Makes poison builds stronger for a GM trait that could make weapons like SB more attractive.

Add laying down a Spike Trap when you break out of a stun to Hidden Barbs. Give it the same ICD of 45-seconds that Spike Trap has with the ability to lower it when taking Trapper’s Expertise. Gives options to run other traps/a stun breaker and has (actual) synergy with other utilities/traits/builds.

The Ranger trait “Companion’s Might” (Beastmastery/Adept tier) does not work with pets of the new species that were introduced in Heart of Thorns, specifically, Saurians (Bristleback & Smokescale) and Wyverns (Electric & Flame).

Did enough testing in both open-world PVE & PVP where these specific pets’ critical hits on basic (auto) attacks were not inflicting bleed on their targets.

As a side note: Only the new pet species (same as mentioned above) have their condition duration (Expertise) tooltips displaying the correct & adjusted duration when traiting for “Expertise Training.” Other pet species (including the new Tiger pet) do not reflect any change to condition durations in the tooltips.

The visual effects added onto the traps is the only thing I can get behind.

I would not like an idea like this until they organize the pet selection panel first. Otherwise, it’s just more pets in random spots cluttering up the screen.

Yeah. Even though Wyverns aren’t the best pets, I slot the E. Wyvern every now and then for break bars and the F. Wyvern for when I run conditions in open-world. They really just need minor buffs to make them shine.

Wyverns are bad and they could use improvements. Attack speeds and animations might be set in stone, but little things could be done for their [F2] commands that could make then a little bit worth while.

I’d be happy if they buffed the Fire Wyvern [Consuming Flames] to pulse a 2s blind and increase the radius from 300 to 360. That and have the Electric Wyvern [Lightning Assault] to create a lightning field trail rather than end with a singular lightning field AOE. Possibly have it tick for moderately-low damage.

cocowoushi.7150:

So I’m new to Ranger with a Druid aimed for healing (Skirmish, NM, Druid) and I’ve been practicing while doing the DS meta but I’m finding very often my Bristleback going down much faster than my Tiger. Constantly. I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong since Bristleback is ranged and I would assume out of direct damage more often.

That’s DS for ya. My guess might be since it stays stationary (for the most part), it leaves itself vulnerable to remaining in Sniper flame trail shots, Torment AOE fields, and M. Shadow Leaper poison fields.

Sniper trails seems to get my pets more-or-less because they are fired at another player’s position and my pet is in the line of fire. If it’s not that, then I don’t know.

Not even sure what an Alpine Stalker would have to make it unique from the Snow Leopard. Not downing the idea of having one available for taming. Probably not enough coffee to think of what its F2 could do (besides Chill) that would make it stand apart from the Snow Leopard while being thematically tied to the cold environment.

Green Moa would be cool. Wouldn’t mind taming a Yellow Moa, too. Have their F2 abilities apply boons Ranger is short on, such as AOE Resistance and Retaliation, respectively.