Guild Wars 2

Another “Thumbs Up” thread for Ranger. Last time I recall one of these was for giving us the Off-Hand Training that was promised to us during a stream to be baseline and left out.

Here’s hoping we’ll get this revert on the smokester’s F2… soon™.

Curious now that I read the post again where Open-World PvE was specifically mentioned. If the decision were made to remove the degeneration of Astral Force, would this be across all modes or strictly PvE?

Cheers, and thanks, Irenio!

Good luck thinking that. Even Robert Gee mentioned he has to push for some of his proposals and changes to be approved as he is still not a Lead.

Jon Peters was the last Lead Game Designer, and after he left back in June, someone had to take his spot. I wouldn’t be surprised if that was Roy.

Using my Ranger as a spare character bank …again.

Wuselknusel.4082:

We have now our very own dev, so I’m positive, especially since HoT just launched and they need to keep track of the balance, that this thread will be read by the devs.

The issue here is someone is over Irenio’s pay-grade and has the final word. Doesn’t matter if Irenio reads it, promotes it, or comes up with an idea for Ranger that could/should/would have improved the class. He has no final say.

And… this is why more than 1 button for pet skills is vital. But hey, maybe they’ll get it right on GW3.

:^)

And with all those nice changes, Quick Draw still didn’t get that 1s extension on its duration so Whirling Defense can benefit from it without having to manually cancel it early.

Pretty much killed Druid for me. This class can’t seem to avoid “one step forward, two steps back” development choices.

Spirit of Nature: The healing from this minion now scales with 15% of its master’s healing power. The radius of effect increased from 240 to 1000 in order to match the radius of other spirit skills. Decreased the base heal value by about 35%.

Woo!!!!!

Woo!!!!!!

At least you got to convince them to let you stay. Try playing a Necro. Sometimes, the only response you get after typing “Hi” is, “You are not in a party.”

Would rather see the Jungle Stalker’s roar changed to a pounce that gives the current stacks of Might like the Tiger’s pounce that gives Fury. At least it would DPS and buff at the same time.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

I think rather than increase the damage on the AA, they should increase the speed. Slash and Slice have 1/2s activation times, I would just shave those down to 1/4s and see how it goes 1st. Adding a little something on the 1st two skills would be nice too, like vulnerability, cripple, might, something.

• All GS skills need an increase to the power scaling.
• Maul needs its cast time shaved to 1/2s and its bear animation started 1/4s after skill activation and add a blast finisher.
• Counterattack needs its kick separated from the block and made optional after any successful block.
• Hilt Bash needs its animation changed so it can be used on the move and correct the range. Make it a 450 range leap.

Totally agree. I said it before when the Reaper was announced and revealed. They thematically made their GS attacks slow than the usual GS moves (especially with the auto attack) to fit the hard-hitting monster type.

Since (so far) Rangers are the only medium armor class that can wield a GS and has a skirmishing theme about it, shaving down cast times for a some of the moves (AA, Maul, and the countering portion of Counterattack specifically) could be a more beneficial adjustment than a straight damage buff.

Cirian.8917:

Currently there’s no Zealot’s trinkets and I’m keen to see if there’ll be any in HoT.

So far, only exotic versions of Zealot trinkets available. Hoping Keeper’s are added later.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Exquisite_Watchwork_Sprocket

Cirian.8917:

Speaking of which, I wonder how the auto is going to fare with Action Camera. Anyone going to try that?

Probably the same or close to how it fares when using it with ICM: Clunky.

OGDeadHead.8326:

There are a bunch of traits that the devs needs to go over, for all classes. I really hope they will find time for that now after HoT release.

They said they would do balance patches 2 weeks before each PVP season, which would be about 4 balance patches per year after HoT (assuming once per season). I hope/expect traits will be looked at or just flat out replaced to keep the game a bit more fresh.

Ayalet.4970:

Sneak Peak Please ~ ea ea ea xD That sounds awesome, now the waiting game to see this New stance.

Sneak Peak

Lewis Burnell.2493:

No, I meant when you place a banner down you get a blue circle showing the radius of its buff. When you place a spirit, I’d like to see a similar circle showing the range of the buff.

Maybe it’s my graphics settings, but banners for me don’t show the blue circle unless you pick it up and use one of the AOE buffing skills.

Yes!!

Lewis Burnell.2493:

Can we get a radius on the Spirits like Banners?

You mean reduce the 1000 range of Spirits to 600 range like Banners or change “range” to “radius” on the tooltip description?

Steady Focus is more in-line as a GM minor when seeing other profession trait lines. Doesn’t mean much at 80, but level progression and all that jazz. Anyway, I wouldn’t mind seeing Alpha Training merged with Opening Strike, and possibly have the old trait that allowed Pet F2 to cause cripple back in the Master slot.

It fits the line with one cripple themed trait in each tier and Irenio won’t have to come up with something new a few days away from launch if he wants to shoe-horn this change in.

Already mobs in the current game that will shift aggro depending on the person doing the most healing or lowest health. I don’t expect Anet to do away with bosses and enemies that will shift priorities.

Already have mobs in HoT that can burst a full sentinel warrior in 5-strikes and the like. Anyone expecting a no-pressure experience in raids is (most likely) looking at the 1st raid encounter and thinking it will apply to most, if not all.

Prophet.1584:

95% of 20k = 1k, which may be a bit too high but they are looking at it. I figure it’ll get down to the 60-70% mark eventually.

Have to also remember that this is including all minions, pets, and etc. Even though pets have a much larger amount of health than turrets, illusions, and spirits, I would rather they tweak the band-aid of pet vitality in PVE instead of tweaking 95% lower because of pet vitality.

1k damage from a 20k hit maybe small when looking at a pet’s health, but an untraited spirit and most turrets have about 5-7k health. 1k is still a fair chunk of its health, and with spam-happy mobs and multiple shot AOEs, the 95% reduction is a pretty fair deal.

Agree to disagree. These threads on sword auto attack have some benefit of bringing up issues players may or may not have with the weapon. Jon Peters took his shot at trying to improve sword and had only marginal success.

I’ll call these threads useless when Irenio makes an attempt and is unable to allow dodging during the current chain without a complete rework.

Think you missed the section of Castaliea’s post after “tricks.” It’s true that every profession has weird little “tricks” that need to be learned, but Sword is not one of them: It’s a workaround.

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

This change reduces duration of conditions applied by 95% and the amount of direct damage by 95%.

Nice. Thanks for the quick reply! Keep up the fantastic job, man!

mistsim.2748:

-snip-

Not even sure why you quoted me and typed that reply. My question was simply asking if it would reduce condition damage like “Playing Favorites.” Whatever floats your boat, though.

I’m curious if the damage reduction is just for direct damage only. The Mistlock Instability, Playing Favorites, reduces both direct and condition damage. Will this act the same way?

Halan.7931:

Daredevil staff 3 is an instant roll backward, ranger sword 2 should work similarly.

We’ve wanted Sword 2 this way for years. Irenio’s our man. He can do it. Come on, Irenio. QoL for Sword. At least do this change.

salogel.1869:

Did some further testing comparing to ground targeted abilities … seems to be alot of variability in the range of projectile based attacks which made it harder to judge range. Shortbow and axe auto attack projectiles can hit at about 1200 range even though it says 900 range. the range of torch throw is even further … about 1500 range (same as lb#5) when it should be 1200. Crippling talon appears to have exactly 1200 range – same as the axe auto attack which confused me. Therefore I cant actually say for sure if this is the intentional range as some other projectile attacks also have the same range as stated.

Arrows and even (our) Axe have projectile physics that allow the shots to travel further than listed due to a “lobbing” (sort of speak) nature. On the other hand, Crippling Talon is a straight-forward projectile shot, similar to a rifle or pistol shot, so it gains no extra distance and has similar issues when dealing with targets on varying levels of terrain.

As far as I know, it’s intentional since it has been like this since day 1. If it travels in an arc, it is possible to hit beyond its noted range. If it travels in a straight line, than the distance is locked. Easy way of figuring out which shot can do what, though, not always guaranteed (beams such as Mesmer GS and Druid Staff auto attacks are exceptions to this).

Edit: Arc not arch.

3 years in the making, but better late than never, right? 95% is very generous. Hope it doesn’t get tweaked (down) too much in the future.

Holding down mouse 1 in the new mode is the equivalent of auto-casting. Letting it go makes you stop attacking, yes, but it does not cancel skills mid-channel, which is what sword needs to be able to dodge.

It’s just an alternative to the current workaround of turning off auto-cast on 1 for those that will use that camera mode.

salogel.1869:

• Crippling talon (dagger #5) only has 900 range – tooltip states 1200 range.

This one is false, as I have tested the range on it in both PVP and PVE modes and was able to land a hit at max range. Screenshot below with shortbow screenshots as references to 900 range.

OGDeadHead.8326:

I think the solution, at least to sword#1, will come with the new camera mode

Doubt it.

(Kind of) Reminds of me of Rangers using Spirit of Nature in LV47 Fractals… Maybe cool to have.

mistsim.2748:

they will have to tone down the base damage, otherwise the f2 will do about 10k damage with all the might stacks, and the dps will be absolutely insane with quickness. the build includes the bristle =)

Really…? You want them to tone down the damage of an already weak pet based on the damage it might do fully buffed? Come the kitten on, people.

Yeah. kitten being able to break an animation to avoid damage. Evading while doing leaps is illogical. That’s like adding evade frames to a leap like Swoop or teleport skills like Unrelenting Assault. It’s…

Kain Francois.4328:

Keep the leap, but let us dodge during it.

Why not both?

Apparently, it has to do with how they code movement skills. However, weapon swapping can cancel the animation mid-channel. Now, if they could work in a bit of code so dodging does this, too…

Irenio, thank you and you are awesome. How’s those changes for the shouts pre-HaO/RaO coming along? No details necessary, but will they make it when HoT goes live?

I’m guessing when you say “main stat healing and a secondary stat toughness or vitality” you mean between Cleric’s and Magi’s?

If so, I would say it depends. If most raid bosses target the player with the highest toughness, being a Cleric Druid could be a double-edge sword.

On the flip side, going with Magi’s would mean in those encounters with bosses targeting the highest toughness player would ignore you, so no pressure or additional role.

All speculation with a sprinkle of preference if you want to control aggro while healing or not.

They could also make the bleeding from Crossfire default without having to flank. It’s a small adjustment that would give it a little more “oomph” in the condition department.

Add confusion to Concussion Shot when interrupting a target and maybe go as far as adding torment to Crippling Shot.

I’d hold off until the 23rd. If Irenio adds any conditions to the Druid, Apothecary would be a nice alternative to Cleric’s. If it remains direct damage & healing, then opt for Cleric’s, unless you have the coin, then invest into Zealot recipes if you haven’t already unlocked them from the Marionette event way back when.

From the Druid BWE3 Feedback Thread

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

The animations for staff are getting looked at.

I know what you mean. I saw the preview of Nevermore from Guild Chat. When Daredevil held it like a hammer, it looked… odd. Hope they change the idle to a caster-type animation, too.

Watched the recent Guild Chat featuring the action camera with the keybinds for it etc, but still no word on adding a keybind for our Stow/Activate Pet button?

Irenio, you (still) read the forums, right? Mind nudging the programmers about this? We received a keybind to toggle Guard/Avoid Combat after 3 years since launch, please, don’t make us wait another 3 years post Heart of Thorns launch for this.

PS: Our Bears /wave to you.

Between the two, Monk would be my preference. Although the boons are nice, they are brief, and both boons would be fairly common among 10 people – especially with The Herald.

1.) +25 Healing Power
2.) 5% Outgoing Healing Effectiveness.
3.) +50 healing power
4.) Heal nearby allies when activating a Glyph. (10s cooldown)
5.) +100 healing power
6.) 7% of Toughness is converted into Healing. Activating an Elite creates a Rejuvenating Tide.

Chokolata.1870:

It all depends on how it affects allies though. Does it affect 4 or 5 of them? I mean if it counts the Druid first and then 4 additional allies then it will be good, but if it does not count the Druid and it affects 5 allies, then it will be amazing.

It does say that allies affected by your Celestial skills will get the buff. So, it seems you can leave yourself out of it with skills 1-3 as long as you are not within the radius. Not sure about skills 4-5 since 4 affects you + allies and 5 damages enemies only.

Meh. Signets are themed selfish for just the Ranger and pet. I see no point of suggesting it to be Glyph of Empowerment 2.0.

Would rather it apply an attack of opportunity and stealth to both the ranger and the pet, then have the pet shadow step to a target if selected.

No. Still using the same pets for whatever build I’m using.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Can we get a cut and paste of this code into pets please?

No kidding… For years Rangers wanted pets to stick close rather than running off 600+ units in front of us after we have stopped or calling them back only for them to nudge a bit 400+ units away.

Irenio, apply this to our pets, too. QoL please.