Guild Wars 2

Gotejjeken.1267:

I still like the idea of the pet applying one (or more) of the conditions on it on its next attack(s). Would really give a reason to take it over WK, as WK is a straight clear, and EB would be more of a transfer.

Yup. Just like Necromatic Corruption. They can even keep it at 3 conditions transferred every 10 seconds (in and out) since it will be just the 1 pet unlike Necros which can have up to 6 minions out at once (7 if you count Jagged Horrors).

Come on, Anet. Copy/Paste that trait into Empathic Bond for us!

Toxsa.2701:

Or maybe fall out 3 environmental weapons at once. A bacon, a sausage, and a ham.
Your pig dies after using the active.

And after the pig dies, our Druids can say…

Kind of afraid of what Druids will get. Who knows? After all of this dreading, it might turn out to be really cool. If not, we can always stay a Ranger.

Also, if Druids get Mantras, there better be some cool lines that vary depending on the mantra AND pet. “Power. Torment. Bacon!” (with a pig)

A full list of pros and cons if it’s intended… Great.

I agree with you on adding back Nature’s Bounty into Rejuvenation. Currently and in the specializations, our “Gain Regeneration when struck below the 75%” is weaker than others, in both regeneration duration and features.

Pretty much with Gotejjeken said. Also, the devs noted that the radius increase from Trapper’s Expertise might become a baseline, so both are going to be equal (at least) on that front.

On the flip side between how traps work when traited for, guaranteed bleeds on hit for DH traps have me worried. Not sure who thought that was a good idea with 2 traps that can hit 10×. If it was on crit, then I wouldn’t mind so much.

At least Rangers can toss our traps (for what it’s worth) and can trait for lower cds on already decent cd traps vs long cds of DH traps that cannot be tossed or traited for faster access.

At least the competition isn’t as one-sided as WK and EB.

With the specialization traits revealed, the 2 traits for traps seem a bit lackluster. Trapper’s Expertise is good but Trapper’s Defense plain horrid. Here are a few suggestions to improve these traits and one trap in particular.

Trapper’s Expertise
Traps receive additional effects and conditions applied last twice as long. Additional effects are applied only once when the trap is triggered.

• Spike Trap – 1 second of Immobilize (remains the same)
• Flame Trap – 6 seconds of Blindness
• Frozen Trap – 3 seconds of Slow
• Viper’s Nest – 6 seconds of Torment
• Healing Spring – 2 seconds of Resistance +

Taking into account that Spike Trap currently gains 1 second of Immobilize when traited with Trapper’s Expertise, it would be beneficial to see this applied for the rest of the traps as well.

+If Healing Spring is categorized as trap, it’s additional effect can be to apply resistance on allies within the spring upon activation.

Trapper’s Defense
Create a Spike Trap when reviving an ally. Triggered traps reveal targets.

• Reveal: 3 seconds

Though Trapper’s Defense is currently weak and near useless, adding a bonus to have traps reveal targets when triggered would add more “defense” to the trait’s name.

Spike Trap

• 2 second knockdown added as a baseline

The added knockdown for Spike Trap is to be more reminiscent of its GW1 counterpart. This will of course work with Trapper’s Defense revive trap. (Seen this suggested many times on here and it makes sense.)

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Spike_Trap

Thoughts?

It just destroys it. Like firing into a Thief’s smokescreen, a projectile will just disappear.

Pretty much what I was thinking. I hope HS gets the trap category but functions the same was as it does now.

It’s design is more for handling a +1 pelting you at range in a sword fight anyways. It’s fine with a 50% chance with no ICD. All Anet has to do is make Whirling Defense moveable and we’re gold.

Ah, I see. Hrm, in that case, I’m all up for it. Especially for the Water spirit change into the signet. I cannot praise that idea enough because kitten is that thing useless as kitten in its current state.

Spirits are unique but pretty boring as well. You set them there and continue on as usual. I’d much rather see the Water Signet as Heimskarl proposed so Rangers can have something useful vs whatever Anet has planned (if any) for Water Spirit.

I like the Water Spirit suggestion to be similar to Signet of Malice, Spirit of Nature signet still seems rather weak. Personally, I liked Spirit of Nature’s ability to res downed allies and the passive group health regen.

Maybe change it to the passive bonus grants the pet to give the hp regen to nearby allies (but not itself) while it’s alive and/or the signet is not on cooldown. Would give the pet more significance to keep it alive or have it killed on the battlefield than +100 stats.

Maybe go as far as add a passive bonus for the ranger only, something with more support and what Anet is trying to push, like +10% outgoing heals so our healing spring and blasts are more effective.

Change to active to automatically revive the pet and up to 3 nearby allies within X radius, granting X seconds of resistance for the player, pet, and nearby allies. Seeing how Mesmers have a signet that can replenish their shatters, the elite signet could act similar in instances where both pets have been defeated. Cooldown for these abilities should be upped though, like around 180 second mark.

Just hoping Guard gets the cast time removed.

Yes, cause clearly a 50% damage reduction, or upping RF’s cd and PBS cd to 25/30 without compensation is balance because of 1 type of build. Damage on a person that’s out of dodges, fighting something else, or didn’t see should be nerfed. Yes, totally 100% spot on!

Another nerf Ranger thread.

Longbow to Longbow, the Dragonhunter (I think) is more comparable to a shortbow Ranger. They way they can use LB resembles a skirmishing style and their traps also brings them along those same lines, especially the one with AOE reveal.

Loving the DH LB after seeing the ready-up. I kept thinking that some of those would have been nice for our SB. Their traits were also nice and some good synergy with other trait lines.

Not sure how it will compare with a LB Ranger directly, but I definitely like it more than SB Ranger.

Explain how offering that as an option is horrible?

It’s to give more control for players that want to send their pet in and control it’s dodge without having to use their own endurance for it to evade – typically for play styles where the Ranger is at a distance and sending the pet into a battle.

For simpler uses, the option so the pet dodges when the player does. Endurance bar on the pet so sharing/applying vigor to the pet can have an actual impact.

Though pet evades need and should happen, I’ll note that I can see distortion or even evade frames becoming abused with opponents unable to interrupt a pet’s F2, especially with new traits on the way such as Beastly Warden.

Animals such as felines and canines have evade animations established in game (use a tonic and have fun). While pets do not need an elaborate animation, a pet evade needs to act like a player dodge, canceling an animation and repositioning itself out of harms way. That’s my take on it, anyway.

Perhaps an alternative approach?

I hope so. I like playing my Necro, but it’s a selfish class and I’m hoping the specialization can bring a fair amount of group utility for all modes. Really excited to see what will be unveiled.

I’d tone it down to ¾ second to match the evasion of a dodge roll. Also, not sure why this would need to be a trait as it would fit better as a baseline for pets and be a significant QoL improvement for them.

Great… another one of these.

Read all of it and liked a few ideas, such as the Flame Turret firing like a flamethrower. QoL changes would have been fine, too.

Probably just me, but I’d be down for simpler changes like lowering the cooldowns on Thumper and Rocket Turret to 40 seconds, scaling additionally with power and precision, and being allowed to critically hit targets.

Gotejjeken.1267:

Poison master is in a really bad spot. Thematically it can’t really be moved, as its pretty much 100% survival themed.

So if we are going with the line of reasoning that anet did all this intentionally, then I really wonder what the plan for poison master is. Not to mention, is it really even GM strong? Why not just make it a master in BM? I mean, the pet is doing all of the application anyway, and anet isn’t opposed to throwing theme out the window…so…

Think the best thing to hope for Poison Master is to have it merged with Ambidexterity and have Anet make up another GM trait. PM would fit perfectly with that trait imo.

No, keep Wilderness Knowledge in Wilderness Survival. It makes sense and it should stay where it is. I would rather they beef up EB instead, something along the lines of Necromantic Corruption for Necromancers (see below).

Having pets just take conditions away from us is a passive and bad trait to begin with, if it had the additional function of transferring those taken conditions onto enemies, then it will be worth while when compared to WK and a significant improvement on a whole.

Blue cotton balls x3

Yep. It ain’t fair at all. Dragon Hunters will have access to blinding arrow shots, shots that destroy other projectiles (similar to what master archers can do), an AOE trap barrage on as a default weapon skill, and single-target shots that will most likely NOT depend on distance.

I know what I’ll be playing if I’m itching to use a bow x) Also, arrows are ethereal blue. Win and win.

- Waits for “Bow Bear vs Bow Guard” threads -

True, but the one thing that really irks me about the way Anet does transformations is that the player loses their heal and utility skills. I know it’s designed to be a trade-off, but the transformation (imo) has to be at least decent enough if I choose to remain in it.

Also, the one time I did play a Norn, I felt like a huge target in PvP rooms filled with Asura >_>

That’s the thing though, transformations have limited usefulness and only in certain modes/situations. In concerns for having a use in all modes, transformations so far lack that utility. Expectations for Anet making an awesome druid transformation is nonexistent due to what they’ve come up with so far.

Also, my Rangers are human and sylvari, no bear form charging or leopard stealth for me :P

runeblade.7514:

Engineer kits is pretty much transformation without the cosmetic change.

If Druids get transformation while using Utility skills, it will be as useful as kits.

Nope. Kits are like weapons or bundles. Actual Anet transformations I’m referring to are the crap that is Tornado, Norn animal forms, and Avatar of Melandru. The only ones that are justified (imo) are the ones Necro have.

Thus, why I don’t want to see a transformation of any kind from Anet with the Druid class, since it might end up being a complete novelty and no where as useful as Engineer “bindles.”

Enemy gets interrupted, dodge immediately after the interruption. After an attack, hit twice on AA then Serpent’s Strike/normal dodge or hit once then Hornet’s Sting. Eventually, it becomes a rhythm game.

Random damage is random damage when fighting a mob, no way to avoid everything, but if you are fighting 1v1 against a boss, sword isn’t the main issue because enemy tells are slow, predictable, and can be learned.

I’m going to guess it’s the Charging Terragriffs that are the main cause of triggering Shared Anguish on you due to their charge. If so, know that the fire trail they leave behind destroys projectiles unless they are unblockable.

If it’s doing this all the time once SA is triggered then that sucks and hope it’s fixed.

Noein.1685:

Anyone know if there will be an internal cooldown on the pet taunt on f2 trait or will it rely on pet ability cooldowns?

At the moment- 15 seconds.

Probably just me, but I was hoping for all 300 points to be rolled into the pet’s baseline and when specializing in Beastmastery, our Juveniles grow in size into adults and we could select them to be glassier or tankier like in GW1.

Really felt an opportunity was lost here.

Only improvement to speak of is the shortbow trait “Light on Your Feet.” Though, it does not seem to improve it by much.

Slow is a going to be a new condition that makes animations and cast times, well, slower. Think, the opposite of quickness. Paired with chill, it would be a powerful addition to frost trap.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Slow

Rather than double stacks of the same condition, I’d suggest a second condition or cc like the knockdown idea on frost trap for when Trapper’s Expertise is taken. A blind with flame trap, knockdown on spike trap, slow on frost trap, and weakness with viper’s nest. Would make traps provide much more utility.

I hope Druids don’t get a transformation. The way Anet does transformations range from novelty to borderline useless.

Not sure I can entirely agree because of how much better the selection will be on a whole vs the few adept traits worth taking now in the sea of crap rarely taken ever.

Zorby.8236:

Because we already have dolphins underwater? Spirits are dolphins underwater. The elite one is a whale

Totally, because spirits are pets.

Personally, I wouldn’t mind the pet limping around be considered the “Downed” state. Disable F2 and let the thing be able to only auto-attack once every 5 seconds or so, give it a chance to rally if it or we, the Ranger, kills a target.

Once dead, I prefer that they keel over and stay put. Would not want to be able to res the pet while downed, though. I could see that being an annoyance when trying to revive a teammate and they are blocked by a limping pet.

Maybe have the downed health be half of its usual health pool and let it bleed out at the same rate as players. Tack on the 60 second pet swap penalty for swapping out a downed pet, too, so Rangers don’t get comfortable letting their pets bite the dust to begin with.

I do agree that if Stability Training was changed to affect nearby allies, there needs to be an internal cooldown on the trait beyond the default pet swap. If it was merged currently as it is, I think it would be fine.

With the unveiling of the Ranger specialization, traits were either improved, moved, made baseline, or merged, but there were also a handful that did not make the cut. A few of them were lackluster while others provided a fair amount of utility.

On there own, some were never selected, but if merged with other traits, they can be great assets. Here are a few suggestions to (hopefully) restore some of these traits by merging their functionality with others.

• Intimidation Training merged into Predator’s Instinct.
• Circle of Life merged into Instinctual Bond.
• Hide in Plain Sight merged into Shared Anguish.
• Stability Training merged into Vigorous Training.
• Carnivorous Appetite merged into Rending Attacks.
• Master’s Bond merged into Companion’s Might.
• Vigorous Renewal merged into Natural Vigor.

Thoughts?

Already picked mine out. Pact Fleet for my Sylvari and the Mystic Staff for my Human.

Would imagine the AOE to be similar to Sigil of Fire with a 240 radius at the target’s location. If not, probably a smaller one around 120-150, similar to some of the grenades on the Engineer.

StickerHappy.8052:

Good suggestions guys. But the thing is this still does not solve the problem of traps as a whole. Running full traps will leave you ineffecient, no stun breakers, etc.

Any suggestions for that problem?

None, really. Unless they expand on traits and allow one similar to Trapper’s Respite for Thieves. Possibly tweak it to lay down a trap when using a Survival skill since 2 of them are already stun breakers, Lightning Reflex being the one most taken.

Would save on taking ONE trap at least.