Guild Wars 2

so its hard to tell, but it looks like to main warrior, and rading over your post, it cant believe you have ever really tried to even play a ranger.

1.) you say rangers have reliable damage. Its just not true. Heres why: Our Pet.

-30% (roughly) of our damage comes from our pets. If you were a good player, or if you played a ranger, you would know how easy it is to kite their auto attacks and dodge there highly telegraphed F2 and main attacks. Not to mention, ranger pets die to cleave and Aoe so easily, we loose access to our class mechanic. Without a pet, the ranger is by far the weakest class in the game, and we are the only class that can loose our class mechanic due to damage.

If you read about the significant nerf to Beastly Warden (pet taunt) you would know just how much weaker it is now. I suggest you read up on that so u can understand how to counter it.

2. ) Then you say our auto attack baits dodges. How is that the fault of the ranger? it seems like the guy who is spamming dodges against the auto attack is the idiot in this situation. Good players know to dodge wolf knockdown, Point black shot, Hunters shot, and get in the rangers face. If you are so concerned about autos, have you ever considered using LoS?

3.) as a warrior (is that’s what you are, maybe you arent) you should not be complaining about rangers having tools that disengage, grant stability, grant invulnerability, etc. warriors have all that same stuff, but with heavy armor, and can still maintain those things with marauder equipped. What is unfair about having these things? theif has stealth, ele has its healing and immunities, Mesmer can teleport and stealth everywhere, guardians block everything, etc. We cant have damage mitigation tools because we have a ranged weapon?

3. Our quickness is one utility skill, Quickening Zephyr, on a 48 second cool down when traited. How is that “do it frequently?” Its not even a great skill in a competitive sense and only some rangers take it just to burst people. It offerslittle else outside of that. You make it seem like we just do it naturally.

And condi ranger….wow, its one of the worst condi specs in the game. Protip: dodge Entangle. That’s it. If you played Ranger condi prior to the patch you would know how much weaker it is now. We lost off-hand training and the way our traits are setup, we cannot really afford to take condi traits . Additionally, We cant stack burns, torment, or confusion. We can bleed decently, and poison like a mofo, but who cares?

and about ranger being noob friendly. When was the last time a noob ranger took you down? See lots of noob ranger teams winning matches in hotjoin? Unranked? Ranked? If they are, wow, I feel bad for u man.

Yeah, sorry man but this post kittenes me off, its just so friggen uninformed. You know nothing Jon Snow.

You say you want to see them get a rework, but your post is just a a nother not-so-clever b***ch post, and you couldnt give 2 kittens about ranger. Good day

so u guys just made an entire thread about giving access to a weapon swap button to eles for out of combat? in the Heart of Thornes forum. I dont even… its literally “H” + a click of the mouse, and H again. Every other class has to do that too.

Your proposal is literally one less button to press.

I would like it if I could trigger it manually at a certain range like zenos mentioned, in addition to triggering when hurt

- Eles have access to 20 different, wide-variety weapon skills with a single weapon equipped.
- Engies have access to up to 30 weapon skills equipped with kits.

All other class have 10 weapon skills (12 for warrior), and the only classes that can spam them are thief, and the soon to be revenant. So why would Ele for example need another set of 20 weapons skills?

When an Ele with 20 weapon skills asks for another weapon, to get 40 weapon skills, I cant help but ask, should then a Ranger be given 6 more weapons, for a total of 8 weapon swaps, you know, for the sake of this so-called “balance?” Its only fair, right?

In this thread:

D/P not OP
all other weapon sets underpowered

so theif must be a pretty kittenty class huh?

My Pet revamp/overhaul:

Step 1: Remove their auto attack. Give lost DPS back to ranger
Step 2: Make Pets unkillable. Pets stay by your side (within 360) unless commanded to do something.
Step 3: Make Ranger F1-4 a Command ability (CC, utility, attack, etc.), and remove the silly cast times. Similar to Engie F1-5 toolbelt. Make F5 an command to go to target location, or return to me after.

Example: Wolf

F1: Knockdown + damage
F2: Fear howl
F3: Guard (pet absorbs damage for 2 seconds)
F4: Terrifying Gaze (Blind and Weakness, unblockable)

Each pet would have 2 unique skills, and 2 type skills, so canine +canine would have a disadvantage of CDs.

Step 4: Make movement speed for each pet type unique. This will compensate for some types having stronger F1-4
Step 5: Overhaul pet traits (mostly in beastmastery and nature magic) that involve pet attacks, defense, giving pets boons, and movement, give us something better in Their place, and consolidate still useful pet traits.
Result: Pets still have utility, do some damage (can still setup burst), and influence enemy positioning.
Downside: Pets cannot block line of sight.

For Roam/havoc/pvp

Skirmishing for Quickdraw
WS for Wilderness Knowledge
Beastmastery for Beastly Warden

for Zerg I tend to keep pet on passive and use Stalker and moa for backline buffs

Marks for LtW
WS for Wilderness knowledge
and either Beastmastery for shout reduction (RaO) or Nature magic for protective ward.

I was playing against a group with a venom share thief and hybrid medi-gaurd. They were brutal together.

Loony.3714:

First of all thank you OP everything about your post. I appreciate how well articulated it was.

Now then,

Zatoichi.1049:

i think the thing that really kittenes people off, is not the fact that the Mesmer does this or that, RAAAGE!!! Rather, is that so many Mesmer’s atm, straight up refuse to acknowledge even the slightest possibility that maybe, just maybe, they were over-buffed (or other classes were under buffed, which I feel is more the case)

This is what I have a problem with. I dont think most mesmers just refuse to admit things need to be tweaked slightly (which, lets be honest, they do). There are as many mesmers that scream against any nerfs as there are players who rage for them because they lost 1 encounter with a mesmer.

There have been at least 5 posts in the last week made by well known mesmers polling the community on how they would like our traits to be shaved down. Every single reasonable player acknowledges that things need to be nerfed, but still kept useful.

As with everything in life you just have to ignore the extremists on both sides. I don’t want to see PU watered down to what some people have suggested, but I do think it needs to be changed. There is a middle ground and if people keep arguing about if it needs to happen then we wont be prepared to give feedback when it happens.

Not trying to single out Mesmer’s my friend… every class does it when they are under the crosshairs. its a simple defense mechanism: get backed into the corner, bare your fangs. this is nothing new.

Nerf…shave. its the same thing at this point. Nerf doesn’t mean what it used to. Shave is the community friendly word for nerf now. PU and CS made power shatter a whole new monster, and that monster is really, really hairy.

ok heres my attempt

1: +8 to all stats
2: +5% condition duration
3: +12 to all stats
4: 25% chance to blind foes when struck. (20 sec ICD)
5: +16 to all stats
6: Create a rift at your location that cripples and pulls foes when activating an elite skill (45 second CD)

its tough cuz each legend is so different, hard to define the class itself in a single rune.

Exciton.8942:

Zatoichi.1049:

I have no gripe against Mesmers or those who play them, but the fact is, they were over-buffed. Sorry…it happens… its not your fault. Its not your fault. I have a Mesmer, played it, learned it, just don’t like it. But I do understand it, and I understand balance.

i think the thing that really kittenes people off, is not the fact that the Mesmer does this or that, RAAAGE!!! Rather, is that so many Mesmer’s atm, straight up refuse to acknowledge even the slightest possibility that maybe, just maybe, they were over-buffed (or other classes were under buffed, which I feel is more the case)

So… as long as you guys can PU and Burst Shatter with consecutive 1200 range invisible no-tell dazes, you better get used to getting the thief treatment from both the community, and ANET for a while.

I disagree. The problem is that there are too many ignorant whiners who way exaggerating things. They don’t want balance. They are just sour grapes.

Personally, I have been playing w/o PU, w/o CS. I have my fair share of deaths and beaten down in 1v1. But people still depict you as no-skill noob who plays an immortal class.

then you are not contributing to the problem. But saying “I don’t play the build” doesn’t invalidate other people claims, nor does it make the problematic build not exist. You are NOT playing the meta build which is truly wrecking people. If you were playing the meta build, you probably would be dying less and winning more, theres a reason its “meta”. In all seriousness, kudos if in fact you are doing well with your build though (not sarcasm).

Whether or not you like it, “whining,” as it is always put by people defending their class, is the first symptom of a potential imbalance. If you were ANET, and people were consistently “whining” about X,Y,Z, would you honestly not take a look at it? Something is causing it, and people certainly do not tend to whine about underpowered classes. Not a lot of “nerf ranger” threads out there…

yes, there are whiners out there, but a lot of the time, whiners are just the ones who say what everyone else is thinking. And not all people with these complaints are noobs who need to L2P. I know a few pro pvpers who share the same opinion as these whiners.

Thing is, few people want balance. Most people want their class to, if not dominate, at least be on top, and that’s why the current Mesmer is being defended by, you guessed it…Mesmers. You are finally meta, and you want to stay there, everyone understands that. Any potential challenge to your position is not going to be welcome. Every other meta class does it when they are in the crosshairs: Thieves did it before the perma-stealth nerf and the sword/dagger nerf, Eles did when D/D was gonna be dismantled with specializations (they won that one, and they continue to be OP) Warriors did it with post nerf Healing Signet, and before shout heal nerf. Engies did it before turrets got hit, hell some engies defended the Grenadier trait glitch. Defend, Defend, Defend! You guys are on top now, and you want to stay there. I think you mesmers all know that is not how this story will end though.

lol not really like Litany cuz Litany doesn’t steal health. If it did it would get used like crazy and guardian burst would be insane you wouldn’t be able to deal with it.

people complaining about a dps heal that you cast before the fight, wow…I can see the leech vampirism shiro builds already.

yeah quick draw was a great change. Probably the best of them, along with wilderness knowledge.
Clarion Bond had potential until it got nerfed, when it should have got buffed to provide more might, as should warhorn.
Beastly warden was a great concept to, but only works with a few pets and has crap range. Needs a buff.

just need to make traps baseline throwable again with wider radius, and improve off-hand range and effectiveness, give us some more condi pressure, one additional condi cleanse source outside WS, and buff pet health in pvp/wvw.

I have no gripe against Mesmers or those who play them, but the fact is, they were over-buffed. Sorry…it happens… its not your fault. Its not your fault. I have a Mesmer, played it, learned it, just don’t like it. But I do understand it, and I understand balance.

i think the thing that really kittenes people off, is not the fact that the Mesmer does this or that, RAAAGE!!! Rather, is that so many Mesmer’s atm, straight up refuse to acknowledge even the slightest possibility that maybe, just maybe, they were over-buffed (or other classes were under buffed, which I feel is more the case)

So… as long as you guys can PU and Burst Shatter with consecutive 1200 range invisible no-tell dazes, you better get used to getting the thief treatment from both the community, and ANET for a while.

I don’t see myself buying an expansion (any expansion) for $50. Im certainly not going to pre-order it. I don’t see $50 worth of content.

and packaging it with gw2 core just seems wrong. Throughout my years of buying mmos, expansions are normally 30-40, and combo packs are 50. Your just forcing a combo pack on us.

Random.4691:

TeuthidPurveyor.1970:

sebradle.7034:

Standing back and pew pewing is my subjective definition of lame when I play my thief/assassin class I want to be gibbing and evading people. When I play my ranger I want to be standing back and pew pewing.

This is what you don’t get. The point of elite specs isn’t to give people already playing that profession a pile of all the goodies they’ve been wanting. It’s to make that profession appealing to people who weren’t previously interested. It’s supposed to encourage alts and keep people playing in the same way that new professions would, but with massively less development cost in animations and art assets. If the Sniper feels nothing like a Thief, that’s totally fine. If someone who previously only played Ranger now makes a Thief, then that’s a win for the devs.

What you don’t seem to be getting is your entire argument is subjective. Say exactly what you just said except insert ANY weapon or ANY class.

Example: If the Monk feels nothing like a Thief, that’s totally fine. If someone who previously only played Guardian now makes a Thief, then that’s a win for the devs.

Maybe there are players out there that want to play thief and are hoping for a weapon that will make them not so fragile while keeping their utilities, better defence less dmg.

I’ll point this out once again too, 1200 sniper that can stealth, evade, shadow step (multiple time) and every other get out of jail free card a thief has is completely and utterly broken. Yes lets give people an unkillable, uncatchable, 1200 range class because I’m sure that’s healthy for the game …….

I have been saying this for a while too, and I completely agree with random’s assessment.

Thing is, although few will admit it, everyone wants their class to be on top and OP. If thief got this, they would have too much. There is a difference btween getting “more”, and getting “different” Only few classes deserve to get “more” than what they already have. Thief is not one of them, as they already have super high dps for pve, a strong role in pvp meta, and are the alpha predators when it comes to wvw roaming and ganking.

additionally, why would anet give thief a 1200 range repeatable invisible backstab? (cuz lets face it, that’s what a sniper exactly is and what thief’s seem to want), when thief is supposed to be high risk high reward class? what’s high risk about a 1200 (or more) range invisible headshot with teleports?

there is alot of talk of “Ninja” in this thread. “Ninja” is part of our world history, not GW world history. GW world has “Assassin” as a legitimate comparison

“assassins” can share characteristics of various asian cultures, as did cantha. So any historical proof that "ninjas"used “x” weapon, should not be used as a primary source of support that, whatever the theif spec will be, should or could get “x” weapon

Ninjas are popular, famous, known. anime and japanese culture carries significant weight in western audiences these days. so when people think of assassin-esque asian warrior, they think ninja, but news-flash, there are other types of asians besides japanese.

If you played factions, you know that cantha was an amalgamation of asian generalizations. So if in fact theif spec is martial arts based, martial staff is far from being a stretch. Rifle is less consistent with canthan flavor, but that doesnt mean much.

is staff what theif needs? who knows, but if theif does become a martial staff “assassin” and gets kits, how does that not sound awesome? do you guys know what kits are? a full set of kits gives and engineer access to up to 25 weapon skills. 2 being long range, (mortar and to the lesser extent, nades)

Theives want range, well guess what, you can easily achieve that through kits.

As far as the datamined artwork, thats not a rifle dumb dumbs. but that also doesnt technically proove anything, but evidence does suggest.

if teef wants a long range sniper with medium armor, i suggest you role a power ranger. long range single target, vulnerability, stealth, cc. Yeah, that role already exists.

Eurantien.4632:

Often I wish ranger had 3 weapon swaps… lb/gs/staff… PLEASE!

our new profession mechanic?

stow pet. get out weapon 3?

Mia Crazymike.1780:

Zatoichi.1049:

Condi:
- not being able to put out big burns like other classes, as well as no torment

Laugh out loud @ wanting to give everything to every profession.

why is this funny? look how abysmal torch is now. its literally a flaming torch and we still put out significantly low burning compared to guardian, ele, and engi, which get burning stacks for free practically. and Dont say bonfire cuz its trash atm. with burning being the new most power condi, we aren’t a great condi class if we cant dish it out. Plain and simple.

and wanting torment is somehow, silly? last time I checked warrior, necro, and mesmer all have torment, in addition to other powerful condis. its not that exclusive Rangers have poison with kittenty poison traits. woo. not like other classes can make poison right? certainly not simply by clicking on a little sigil called doom.

so what condi is ranger good at then? Bleed, the kittentiest condi atm.

additionally, we don’t have confusion, which is one of the most powerful condis in pvp. confusion and burning is what makes condi engi so friggin strong.

just make it what it was before patch. Was much better to be able to give team regen before match

RevanCorana.8942:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

EnderzShadow.2506:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

I actually think that the range increase is what they do not want. You shouldn’t really be able to throw a torch, dagger or axe further than you can shoot your SB. Thematically.

Bonfire, Whirling Defense, Hunter’s Call, CoTW and Stalkers Strike all need radius/range increase as baseline.

Throwing projectiles I can see staying at 900. Unless LoYF added +300 to SB range.

Thematically? That’s the best you’ve got?

/facepalm

/facepalm? That’s the best you’ve got?

Speaking generally and trying to imagine ANet’s position on the matter, yes, thematically. Considering they just removed the ability to throw traps because it didn’t fit thematically, I was speculating that they don’t want us to be able to throw an axe/torch/dagger further than we can shoot a bow. Makes sense.

Well shortbow needs to be 1200 range and bleed every hit without having the flank requirement but that’s another story. We’re ranger raaange that would be thematical to be able to shoot further away than thieves with the same weapon just like we do with longbow against warriors.
Anyway we need at least the extra radius for Bonfire and Whirling Defense

some say that sb needs to bleed from every angle. I believe that’s OP. with earth sigil and bleeding on crit, and pets bleeding attacks, in addition to krait rekd-tangle, we would have too strong of a hybrid bleed build.

sorry OT

EnderzShadow.2506:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

I actually think that the range increase is what they do not want. You shouldn’t really be able to throw a torch, dagger or axe further than you can shoot your SB. Thematically.

Bonfire, Whirling Defense, Hunter’s Call, CoTW and Stalkers Strike all need radius/range increase as baseline.

Throwing projectiles I can see staying at 900. Unless LoYF added +300 to SB range.

Thematically? That’s the best you’ve got?

/facepalm

if you understood how anet thinks, then yes, thematically. What heim is saying correlates with the way anet thinks. Its the same reason they added an arming time to traps and took away the ability to throw them. It didn’t make sense on a flavor level. Anet has a history of favoring flavor over function with ranger

Karnac.2574:

mistsim.2748:

it depends where one’s MMR is, Karnac. certain builds just don’t work well against better players. but I do agree that we’re better off now than we were before patch, even relative to other professions except Mesmer, which shames everyone else atm.

im seeing a lot of ineffective power builds, people still trying to pew pew with LB and nothing else. these are the people complaining generally.

Good point. I guess i dont get it because I dont use Pew Pew LB builds. In fact, I am usually estatic when i see a LB ranger on the other team cuz i know I can whip him with no trouble (depending on what build im running).
I also agree to your point about mesmers. I loose to them more now after the patch but I only lost to very very good ones pre-patch. Now I have to run an axe/axe power build or trap build to deal with them and keep their illusions down.
I think all builds an classes have the same complaint when their main build gets nerfed. This game forces you to to adapt and be flexible but most people want to just mash buttons and watch stuff die.
I even adapt on the fly during matches, switching skills and traits and pets depending on whose on the other team or whose on the point i’m running up to take.

Pretty sure if u went up against eura and his pew pew u may not whip him

Power ranger is in a slightly better spot with the addition of the beastmastery line, quickdraw, and enhanced survivability options.

Unfortunatetly other builds took two steps back

Condi:
- not being able to put out big burns like other classes, as well as no torment
- lack of condi cleanse options
- no OH training
- not enough strong traits that encourage going condi

spirits:
- no mobile spirits replaced by the luaghably weak spirit boon trait, cuz anet hates the"petting zoo" concept

Traps:
- cant throw them anymore cuz when it comes to ranger, apparently flavor over function.
- Traps not appropriately buffed aside from spike
- still cant use trapper runes

Shouts:
-They still dont do anything useful

Hey thanks eura for this build, ive been stuckk too trying to find the right lb build, had been thinking about getting away froms marks cuz lead the wind didnt really offer much for me that i couldnt just get from quickdraw. ive been wrecking face with this one.

1. Spike trap with the lower cooldown is just beastly, especially for chaining together cc. It makes people panic, and lets i know when a theif is there
2. Spring is rediculous with regen stacking. Put it down at the start of match and give your team a minute of regen. great on point if u can afford to jump in for sec.
3. Traveler runes are a great choice for me that i had not thought of using.
4. I had been using wolf owl for beastly warden, and have switched to hound. Though i do like owls f2 burst, i dont like how they spend 2 seconds giving swiftness at the start of each fight. well see on this one though, they are borth good to me.

I don’t think its unreasonable to expect this to have a 20 sec ICD. were not breaking the game by getting/givingg fury and swiftness every 20 seconds (1 might doesn’t count for anything), common anet…

@ 30 seconds, your taking a lot of the skilled gameplay away from the trait. it will be pretty much impossible to time the blast with fields, especially in wvw, so its pretty much just a buff every 30 seconds now… maybe youll get lucky and happen to get it off while in a field…dumb

You guys gotta take another look and this undeserved ranger nerf.

if your gonna keep this the way it is, give call of the wild 3 might stacks instead.

longbow is much more viable in wvw now because of the extra survivability offered through NM and WS, in addition to Lead the Wind which gives our longbow everything it needs to be successful in large scale fights, and I cant help but think that’s what anet wanted out of the longbow buffs.

as for pvp, lb isn’t bad in the right hands, but I don’t think anet really ever wanted LB, and continues to not want to see it succeed.

Dont suggest making it sync up with pet swap, else anet will just change pet swap to 30 seconds. Fixed!

(1): +25 Healing
(2): When you block a foe’s attack, gain 1 second of regeneration
(actualy 2 seconds)
.(3): +50 Healing
(4): When you use a heal skill, gain aegis for 5 seconds. (Cooldown: 10s)
(5): +100 Healing
(6): When you block a foe’s attack, heal yourself. (Cooldown: 30s)
(this heal procs the #4 as well)

wiki says #6 heal is 3920 + 0.6. that’s not bad

seems like it could be cool with communal defenses?

Communal Defenses: Grant aegis to allies when you block an attack.

So Shelter (block for 2 seconds) get lots of regen, extra heal #6, give party members aegis. then get aegis at the end from #4

plus you can go focus mastery for focus 5 with mace?

I don’t normally get on to complain, heck, I rarely so, but I gotta say…

GG ANET, you guys royal kitten up the balance, and I cant even begin to fathom how long its gonna take you to -de-kittenhis. This long and this much work on balance for this?

and people thought the game wasnt balanced prior to the patch

insta death condi bombs, perma CCs, even more aoe spam, everything is nuking everything else, vulnerability making conditions stupidly OP, I can go on…

yep, im finding EB practically useless in this environment, outside of celestial shoutheal which im enjoying, and even in that its not great.

Will be upset if we don’t get a on demand condi cleanse when druid is revealed.

Chris Cleary.8017:

If you are still having problems, try adding this to your GW2 Shortcut Target:

-assetsrv 62.154.232.187:80

Here is a list of alternatives to also try:
194.25.94.170:80
174.35.71.9:80
151.249.90.199:80
93.188.135.37:80
62.154.232.194:80

You can do this by right clicking on your GW2 Shortcut and adding the above text to your Target field. For example your target should look like this:
“C:\Program Files (x86)\Guild Wars 2\Gw2.exe” -assetsrv 62.154.232.187:80

I don’t understand what this mean halp!

EDIT: NVMFigured it out!

I highly suspect Druid will get a condi cleanse mechanic, among other things, which will really change peoples approach to building their new ranger, so it might be best to just wait and see what kind of synergy may exist with these currently underwhelming traits and the new druid traits

Goldenrevolver.4371:

Sol.4310:

Ranger lacks team support

spotter, frost spirit, might, fury, vuln, condi cleanse, heals…
sry im a main necro so maybe thats why i stopped reading at that point

Spotter – yes
Frost spirit – yes and no, you should read about how spirits are changing
might – compared to warrior or ele? no
fury – see above
vuln – yes we are now best at that
condi cleanse – whaaaa? are you taking about healing spring?
heals – in only one very specific shout build, and our shouts aren’t great for support role, so will not see play in dungeons and not likely to see play in pvp as shouts in pvp are sub par outside of warrior

should work on evade. That way you could at least get the bonus from LR, #3, and dodge rolls.

+ 10% endurance regen on top of that would be nice too

can we wait to see druid specialization before we go crazy about what we do and don’t have?

wooot! called it! Thanks for listening ANET!

glad they kept the idea behind this trait but tweaked the numbers some!

Vampire Hunter! Duh.

Thief.

We already know a bit a bout druid, plus the thief traits were more nailed down than rangers

Being fully ascended makes a significant difference in wvw. the stat difference might seem small per individual, but it makes a difference when talking blobs, especially when you factor in the +5 wvw inscriptions.

Im a gaurdian. I dont particularly hate or want to hunt dragon, and i dont believe that all dragons are inherently evil and worth hunting.

however, i do want to use a longbow.

…sooooo they only way i can wield a longbow and shoot stuff is to change my characters core identity, ambitions, principles, and become a become a hunter of dragons

I liked the suggestion of Seeker as a more subtle, mature name that captures a similar feel.

although its painted well, I gotta say it just looks absurd…

Ehecatl.9172:

Zatoichi.1049:

@ Shade

Yeah I feel ya, BM focus players do have it tough, and I miss the old days of gw1 in that regard. but I think Anet has accepted, as you most likely acknowledge, along with the rest ranger community, the limitations of the pet as it relates to their code, and as a result, less and less players want focus placed on the pets because they are, as a result of the bad AI and coding, and lack of survivability in a evade-centric game, the biggest crutch of the ranger currently.

Perhaps this will change with the Druid though…

I will say this however, none of the changes listed in the thread would negatively impact the pet as all boons are shared with the pet through Fortifying Bond. If the rangers gets Protection, pet gets Protection.

Boons are shared, but not their duration. The pet would only get 2 seconds of protection instead of eight seconds, which would dramatically decrease the amount of survivability this trait gives the pet. And as you said yourself, the pet’s ability to survive is already an issue. This trait could help keep the pet alive much longer while still providing solid defense for the ranger.

Personally I’d take this trait without getting eight seconds of protection for myself. I don’t need a trait to give me a near constant 33% damage reduction. The weakness application is more than enough to stop a thief from bursting me before I have a chance to defend myself, and this trait combined with Wilting Strike will give the ranger pretty high weakness uptime. Especially combined with mainhand axe.

ok so I was thinking the pet got 4 seconds of protection with fortifying bond, but it gets 2, and then does scale with boon duration (getting closer to 3 with minimal investment), but this is also the current version, which could see change potentially. Really, if you want closer perma protection on pet, you could just go additionally into WS, a fantastic trait line, for free dodge roll protection.

I also like the idea of pulsing 1 sec protection 4 times.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Tragic Positive.9356:

…..you can taunt enemies with 1 pet, then swap to wolf > and fear them away, which is going to be a nice and long lasting chain CC…

IKR, so good. Especially if you use the Canines, Hyena F2 to summon, swap to wolf for immediate KD, Summon Hyena KDs, Wolf F2, Swap back to hyena for KD, hyena F2 for hyena summon + taunt, hyena summon KD, hyena KD….. LOL

don’t they share the knockdown skill CDs?

Darkness.9732:

one question guys : If the druid specialization isn’ t great…will you buy the expansion?

every elite spec needs to be great other wise people wont buy it. Look at Chronomancer, huge game changing features, expect the same for every elite spec.

@ Shade

Yeah I feel ya, BM focus players do have it tough, and I miss the old days of gw1 in that regard. but I think Anet has accepted, as you most likely acknowledge, along with the rest ranger community, the limitations of the pet as it relates to their code, and as a result, less and less players want focus placed on the pets because they are, as a result of the bad AI and coding, and lack of survivability in a evade-centric game, the biggest crutch of the ranger currently.

Perhaps this will change with the Druid though…

I will say this however, none of the changes listed in the thread would negatively impact the pet as all boons are shared with the pet through Fortifying Bond. If the rangers gets Protection, pet gets Protection.

Shadelang.3012:

Hmm as someone hoping to invest in BM after this the protection to pet of natures ward is pretty nice. Ill be honest the weakness aoe from the ranger should work fine on MOST of the classes we actually have to be afraid of. Since there really isn’t anything besides other rangers we should have to worry about sniping us (inb4 rifle thief).

I don’t want to push for changes to early on before we actually get the trait. After all thats happened over the last month im worried theyl change it to be closer to what we desire and the internal cooldown will be increased or the durations will be massively reduced.

Id rather actually get my hands on and try this trait BEFORE we take it apart. Or else we run the risk of what we get in the end having less potential than what we already have. (OR it being massively overpowered becoming a mandatory trait for rangers and being used in literally every ranger build. Which would be obnoxious. Eles are already having to detox from there favorite traits. I don’t want that to happen to us.)

I see what your saying yes, but the general belief is that the trait that was shown during the live stream was not the final version, which is why we are discussing practical options for it. trying to provide balanced but good,GM worthy options for the devs just in case they are viewing.

and what we are afraid of depends on our current build, but in general we have to be afraid of mesmers and thieves for sure, in the case of Mesmer, they are ranged, and in the case of thief, they will cleanse it immediately through stealth with little investment.

if they leave it as is and let us “play test it” in game, people will cry nerf, ranger Op perma Protection weakness QQ, and then it will be nerfed into the ground harder than we could do prematurely.

so unless they want us to have close to perma-protection through nature magic line, here are three proposed alternatives to protective ward which I like:

when you receive damage you gain protection (4 seconds). Your pets next attack inflicts Weakness (6 seconds) to foes within the area. 12 sec ICD

…….

when you receive damage within range (600) you gain protection (4-6 seconds) and foes around you are inflicted with Weakness (6 sec) (close to current version)

……

When you receive damage, foes around your attacker are inflicted with Weakness (fixes the ranged issue). You gain Protection (4 sec).

Gotejjeken.1267:

Beastly warden synergy would be if we had some way to apply confusion.

I didn’t think about ranged attacks, that does pretty much negate the benefits. Might be better if they flipped it…protection to ranger and pets next X attacks inflict weakness.

that works for me