Guild Wars 2

Sebrent.3625:

Let me be clear … I still want the traps to trigger when an opponent runs over them.

That’s fine, but the automatic trigger needs to be refined. One issue is when a Ranger wants the trap to trigger on an entire mob but only the one out in front gets the full effect. Personally, I’d like to see an automatic trigger radius of 90 while allowing for manual detonation.

I guess the alternative is instead of adding a stun break to Trapper’s Defense, there can be a trait that allows traps to interrupt foes (in some way) when activated to work defensively when you are disabled.

One issue is that if your opponent(s) are not within the trap area, you’re screwed when manually activating them. However, this adds a bit of play with guessing where the Ranger’s traps are and avoiding those areas for the enemy and staying on point or positioning back to a trap on ours to prevent bursts or disable them.

I must be the only one that thinks the “Winter’s Bite is an AOE” with Honed Axes should be baseline with the axe.

What would be nice is manual detonation of traps and the removal of automatic triggering (except with Trapper’s Defense). Then, have a trait that makes triggering a trap a stun breaker when disabled with an internal cooldown.

In the new specializations, they could lodge the stun break feature with Trapper’s Defense (if it isn’t merged). Would be golden.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

They could use the armorfish skills and everything, just swap the model. Can’t be that hard.

This is true, but like our friend the Juvenile Marsh Drake, he would be much cooler if he matched his picture

My bad, that was a mix up with what they said about Necromancer Wells and Guardian Consecrations losing their ground-targeting traits and becoming baseline. No actual confirmation from Anet whether this will apply to Ranger Traps, but it is a strong possibility it will be rolled in as well.

No, because it’s becoming baseline with all traps.

Nothing much that can be done with Windborne Notes. If anything, could work in an AOE condition with Hunter’s Call. I know others have suggested to add “x” condition to the bird swarm of Hunter’s Call (check other threads), but I feel that should be baseline to the skill.

Since Rangers have some new traits focused on weakness, I believe if Windborne Notes added an AOE weakness to Hunter’s Call on use, it would provide better utility, possibly forcing a single target to waste a dodge during the bird swarm while lowering the damage output and endurance regeneration of the target and surrounding foes. In PvE, it would serve to reduce high mob damage.

Adds a bit of use for both modes while adding some defense to a plain and rather offensive warhorn skill. Tack on Protective Ward, Wilting Strike, and possibly a Black Bear and there’s a 100% weakness Ranger somewhere in there.

I don’t know why someone would attack 50% slower with a flock of birds on their head. You’d think they would be swinging their weapon wildly to get them off – which leaves Taunt to be more suitable.

I don’t think they were serious when they kept mentioning the Bear. It came off (to me) playfully sarcastic, similar to when they addressed the change of ferocity and laughed when they mentioned people using Magi gear and how they were to become more viable.

jcbroe.4329:

Also, can we please get the might stacks up to 3 on warhorn 5? I mean, I already see perma-fury niches with certain traiting, but the single might stack has been bothering me since forever.

When Anet made Warhorn 5 a Blast Finisher, all hopes of it applying 3 stacks of might went out the window, because in their heads – that would be too much.

Agreed. When the pet dies, it should be dead on the floor, like so-

If they extend the Might duration, have it apply to you and your pet, and have MDG and Enlargement’s HP thresholds both be 50% – it could work and have a bit of synergy between the two.

Oh, you.

Problem with that is Anet plans to shift Most Dangerous Game into the GM tier with Quickdraw, so you can’t have both.

^ Yup.

/15chars

I’d like Hunter’s Call to have an AOE daze on cast. Not sure about what effect to add during the actual bird attacks but I’ll take anything at this point.

So, you miss our pet doing 5% damage on Predator’s Onslaught instead of the buff it got since now the ranger and pet will be doing 10% damage on movement-impending targets?

There has to be someone out there that opposes this… Oh, wait-

Speaking of Spirits, I’m kind of worried about them. They made the passive RNG effect baseline and buffed it by 5%, but there was no mention that their 100% health bonus from Vigorous Spirits was also a part of the baseline. I would probably stop using Frost Spirit if we only had the 75% chance for the bonus but their HP was static at 7,415.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Instinctual Bond should be combined with Circle of Life if anything, if it is added again. If those were merged and it would be a good minor trait in NM, swapping Fortifying Bond to Beastmastery.

^ This! Even though Circle of Life was not a good trait on its own, but if combined as a minor trait with Instinctual Bond, it can help make it a decent trait.

I agree that Sharpening Stone should apply to the pet – but as others have suggested for Rending Attacks – removing 1 boon on hit adds better utility than the pet bleed on crit. They could also retain a “on crit” effect by bringing back Carnivorous Appetite which is so much better than a bleed. So it could be:

Rending Attacks

• Pets gain health on critical hit.
• Pets remove 1 boon on hit (5 second cooldown).

Was the stack cap on Poison ever mentioned ?

They did mention during the livestream that if they did categorize HS as a trap, they would have to look at how it would function when they add the arming time to all traps since it will trigger on allies instead of foes. Would be kind of crazy tossing a healing spring but I’m game for it.

Mind. Blown. I completely forgot about Rending Attacks.

Edit: Added Rending Attacks to the suggestion list with credit to you both. Seriously, that’s a kittening simple but brilliant solution.

Unfortunately, (correct me if I’m wrong) Trapper runes are not available in PVP. And I want them in PVP

I’d rather see IB convert conditions into boons instead of a straight-up condition cleanse function added to the heal. Nature Magic seems to be all about support and providing boons. With a 20 second internal cooldown, it would fit NM to provide boons from conditions on allies while healing them and make it a worthy and powerful GM trait.

Disclaimer: The entire post has been edited in favor of what Heimskarl & naphack suggested.

It’s been mentioned many times that Ranger lacks a way to strip boons without resorting to external means. Below is a simple and brilliant suggestion offered by Heimskarl & naphack to give Rangers access to boon removal and give Rending Attacks more utility.

Add boon removal to Rending Attacks
Pet attacks remove a boon on hit with an internal cooldown of X seconds.

All in favor?

Exactly. If someone does take it, it’s going to be very niche and in limited use. It also makes sense having Healer’s Celerity merged into Trapper’s Defense for what you described – the swiftness applied to retreat fits the theme of skirmishing (to me).

Updated the list. Scratched out Spirits’ passive benefit % since it’s a baseline for the utility and a 5% increase from what we currently have with Vigorous Spirits. Master’s Bond has been removed from the list as well since they decided to thrash that trait.

Added Stability Training and Hide In Plain Sight to be reworked back into our traits and a merger of Healer’s Celerity and Trapper’s Defense into one trait. Both have to do with reviving allies, both are garbage, both deserve each other, and both do not deserve their own separate traits.

What if the AOE Stability was short like 2-3 seconds?

Invigorating Bond should not be a GM trait, period. It should be merged with Natural Healing in Beastmastery. Because, if a Ranger is going to take a trait that will give your pet a mini-Healing Signet and buff it’s Healing Power – Anet might as well toss all those eggs into that one basket and allow pet F2’s to heal as well.

As for a replacement GM trait, they should bring back Stability Training and rework it to where pet grants stability to itself and nearby allies when activated AND swapping pets is considered a Stun Break. THAT would be a worthy trait for the GM slot and give Rangers some group stability.

I’m concerned about the arming time as well. Though numbers were never officially stated, they did toss out ½ second, which would allow opponents more than enough time to react to the trap toss animation and shift away from that general direction.

I would prefer if Anet made traps to be manually detonated.

Yup. I’d like to see it HiPS merged with Shared Anguish, too. Both are nice traits that could serve even better together.

Well, I agree with you, Zenith on some of the minor traits. I thought for sure Opening Strike and Alpha Training minors would see a merge, same for Tail Wind and Furious Grip. Instinctual Bond is crap for a minor trait, but I believe Fortifying Bond should be moved to Beastmastery, as it makes the most sense there.

I do agree, Fortifying Bond should be a base mechanic for the Ranger. I’m just baffled that stability is still not shared.

Who cares about the math. With all those warriors spinning on axe during Time Warp, the confusion applied to bosses that attack once every minute is overkill!

This is true. It’s still early, so maybe they could change the health threshold to 75% as you said and maybe increase the might duration – possibly 3 stacks of might for 15 seconds so it can be truly the Most Dangerous… trait.

Taverius.8645:

Wondrouswall.7169:

then it’s a 24 second Pet Swap

Pet swapping has a base recharge of 20 seconds, and is 16 when traited.

Thanks for the clarification. Sad since I play ranger and thought it was 30 base LOL kitten …

I found it interesting that “Light On Your Feet” damage and condition duration increase will apply to any weapon while moving instead of solely shortbow. It’s a nice trait for Hybrid Rangers that avoid shortbow all together.

The fact that they wanted to move it to a Master trait and Trapper’s Expertise to Adept means some builds can have our cake and eat it, too. On top of that, I could see a strategy of letting our conditions linger while under 50% hp with Most Dangerous Game and kiting our opponent while our conditions build up power. Yum

I believe skills that refresh boons at intervals will not count and it will refresh every time you receive fury – even if you already have it. Also, the tooltip during the POI indicated Remorseless will only refresh on the Ranger. Anet did not say otherwise, so there’s a chance it could be changed to apply to the pet as well, which will build better synergy between the player and the pet and with Fortifying Bond.

If they are rolling the stats into the pets, it would be nice. Would make sense and give Sharpened Edges and Rending Attacks more use since only birds and cats are the only ones with the precision to take advantage of it.

Other pets have roughly a 25% critical chance while porcine have an abysmal 10%. By rolling the stats in by default, it would beef up that by 15% across the board – assuming they just add 300 stat points to each attribute.

4 warriors spinning around with axe 5 during Time Warp – Best DPS ever! =D

/warcasm

What’s worse is that party had 2 warriors.

My main concern is Beastmaster’s Bond. As it stands, the cooldown on Call of the Wild when you swap pets is affected with Windborne Notes (Nature Magic), but will it be affected by reduced pet swap cooldown – for those that would specialize into both Marksmanship and Beastmastery?

This can present a problem where pet swapping is 16 second cooldown but the trait proc is left at 30 seconds.

Seeing how Nature Magic and Beastmastery was reworked, the benefits from the Wilderness traitline outweighs both of those, especially since Vigorous Spirits is now a base with Spirits, which was the main reason PVE Rangers even invested points into it.

Fortifying Bond still won’t share Stability, but now shares Quickness, which will become a boon when the update hits. So, sharing boons with your pet is a minor loss vs doing more damage and taking less damage while above 90% health on top of extra condition cleanse, fury, and reduced survival cooldowns since typical PVE Rangers take Quickening Zephyr.

However, a Ranger could also specialize into Beastmastery instead Wildness Survival and take the base traits of:

Companion’s Might, Wilting Strike, and Zephyr’s Speed.

With minor trait adjustments such as the Master Minor which reduces pet swap, skills, and pet F2 by 20% across the board, it will pair nicely with Wilting Strike which makes the pet F2 weaken targets that can help with difficult encounters and couples nicely with other pet F2 abilities.

Zephyr’s Speed has been merged with Mighty Swap for an added boost and has synergy with Beastmaster’s Bond in Marksmanship. Pet Prowess has been merged with Agility Training and made a Grandmaster Minor Trait. So, there appears to be an alternative.

I rewatched the broadcast and from what I caught, they wanted to:

• Move “Most Dangerous Game” from Adept to Grandmaster
• Move “Light On Your Feet” from Grandmaster to Master
• Move “Trapper’s Expertise” from Master to Adept

Indeed. The incoming buffs will help us keep doing damage for encounters (and future ones – I’m looking at you, Wyvern) where pets are almost guaranteed to die.

I really hope so too. After seeing the changes to the Beastmastery line, not much has improved. There’s some improvement, but not so much to where I (personally) can say that I would be selecting it as a specialization outside of a niche build.

Electro.4173:

Sadly, they seemed to be having a fit of delirious laughter during the Ranger segment so they didn’t seem to explain stuff quite as well as others.

Yup. Not to mention, there were a fair amount of minor of traits kept the same that had potential to be merged or functionality added. That starting segment where it was basically, “Ranger – No change!” <insert laughter>

Yup. PVE Rangers got a HUGE damage buff. The base traits will basically be:

Marksmanship: Beastmaster’s Bond, Steady Focus, and Predator’s Onslaught
Skirmishing: Sharpened Edges, Spotter, and Strider’s Defense
Wilderness Survival: Expertise Training, Peak Strength, and Wilderness Knowledge

Plus, Predator’s Onslaught got a minor buff, applying to targets dazed and stunned and the pet bonus damage is now merged with the Ranger’s at 10% instead of 5%. As you stated, with Bark Skin being reworked, it will help keep the bonus from Scholar Runes up more.

Strider’s defense also got a buff from a 20% chance to destroy projectiles with attacks to 50% chance. So, now we have added group support (even though it’s RNG) in projectile heavy fights besides Whirling Defense, as well as more damage while wielding a sword.