Guild Wars 2

So lately because of the lack of content in HoT (difficult but extremely repetitive events that make you a chore to complete but with high chances to fail, thus to waste a full hour accomplishing nothing) i’m playing exclusively WvW.

I learn to disgust this game mode because all the oddities and bugs.

• Pls fix the invisible CC skills that lock you in place. Hunters ward should be nerfed because is the only CC skill that actually doesn’t allow you to escape/evade, but if you can’t even see the precast or the aftereffects (the walls) it become the invisible die.
  This could be applied to any effect like the walls that doesn’t show either.

• Pls fix the weird lag issues. In this video i’m playing fine until i fight this mesmer, then my lag get worse by the second until i have around 1-2 seconds lag. It happened twice in the same map against the same player so it is not an oddity. Because you aren’t using something like straight p2p communication between clients when fighting another player, right?
  https://youtu.be/ZWfom-csdSw

• Improve the loot and rewards in this game mode. The loot right now is right down embarrassing.

• Fix the siege weaponry. Why the Arrow Carts do so much damage? This make that if a zerg is defending a castle impossible to overcome. 5 arrow carts can kill anything. The siege shouldn’t do so much player damage and more focused in crowd control and to destroy/disable other siege, so the players can actually play instead spam 1.

• Why are the borderlands so big? Even being full map you need like a year to get from one corner to the other, so make really difficult to defend anything.

• Allow the players to use any TP from any Castle/keep they own. Being so big is an very annoying decision to lock the TP in the maps.

• In WvW we need means to gather cloth scraps. If you play with level 80 it is impossible to get other than silk, but the other scraps are much needed for crafting. The loot you get from defeating other players or lords is simply ridiculous low, and the gold (selling resources gathered in wvw) it is really low.
  Pls add a clothes node so we can get random scraps.

So it’s skill:

• range 1200
• 4 seconds CD
• Hit up to 5 target
• 3/4 second cast including aftercast and all.
• No animations or anything to know the hammer is coming or anything.

Still that skill does 9K damage in 3K armor toon.
The ranger’s strongest skill, the Longbow Rapid Fire can do around 7-8K in 2 1/2 seconds cast.
Can anybody explain to a druid player how is that reasonable?

Justine.6351:

FrouFrou.4958:

Someone got mad at Irenio for using LB knockback and he got kicked out of the party.

So the bear was OK or no?

none that have hot uses the brown bear anymore justine. he get around with the smokescale just barely fine

that trait is one of the traits we have right.
now please focus in the 600 other traits that are actually kinda useless.

jcbroe.4329:

I’m not really sure I understand your comment. Are you saying Ranger/Druid isn’t in a good spot?

Having functional builds at the top of every game mode doesn’t put us in a good spot?

Like, I legitimately don’t understand how people can think Ranger/Druid is not in a good spot. If there’s stuff you don’t like and that doesn’t sit well with how you would have preferred the elite spec to have been that hurts your gameplay experience, then that’s understandable, but say that instead of spreading misinformation.

you dont understand because you are disconnected from the reality.
druid is not even required for raids anymore, they arent asked for.
in ESL there is only 2 rangers from 80 players i’ve heard.

so no druid is not in a good spot and never was. we had an artificially induced boom because of the raids but as i predicted we arent needed anymore.
now stop the lie.

Justine.6351:

Full ascended Rampagers (staff is settlers)+ fury+ hunter’s tactics(10% crit flank) sharpened edges+ hidden barbs+ refined toxins+ 35% bleed+ 35% conditions+ sigil of earth/geomancy+ primal echoes+ ancient seeds+ piercing+ beam attack.

It’s dmg isn’t so obvious, its the accumulation of those things played right/ luck. Getting staff swap aoe bomb to hit is supremely important. I wouldn’t expect any stat set other than Rampagers to do any measurable dmg unfortunately.

actually this build makes so much sense. ill try it right away, but aren’t you too glassy for the condi tank builds abused in wvw?

Wondrouswall.7169:

You may have told, but I rarely read your dribble. The fault lies is that this elite was made for two separate niches with the normal and inverse versions. 600 tethering range isn’t bad at all considering most Glyphs are half of that range.

How it is currently bugged is an improvement on what it could be. If you haven’t caught the bug, the effects linger on targets even after they pass the range threshold. It’s better without the tethering, but if they insist on keeping it, extending the initial range to 600 is as best as one could hope for.

oh i know you do transversal reading on everything more extensive than a twit but you read Although that could be a reason you may miss so much in life.

like everything with the ranger the problem is not the glyph range by itself.
the problem is all of it: poor range, undesirable effects and short duration.

If that elite would work as a SoS and the actual effect combined they could take the cd up to an elite Cd (60 seconds) and actually be useful.

linking the pet also would not work simply because the pets movement is too erratic.And it would be mostly useless in ranged pets like beastly warden is.

Also i dont like to be forced to use a “set”, like the “set” sos and glyph of unity.

You a fun power reaper to watch sir.
Now, the druid wasn’t very experienced as others pointed out.

But the most important thing: The damage from the staff was negligible. Come on Anet, give us a weapon we can use in combat for the love of melandru….

link your exact build so we can tear it apart please

put it in passive, the best you can get.
at least when attacked you wont get into combat. i think.
there is a keybind for that.

Wondrouswall.7169:

All I could ask for is the activation & tether range to be 600 so it isn’t as clunky to use. Maybe add a bonus on the final pulse to those still tethered like Necromancer’s Tainted Shackles. Daze foes for the normal and on the inverse a burst heal to allies still attached.

i told you so.
the concept is really wrong. simply because this kind of skill is not designed for the ranger.

• the range is really bad. with a dodge you break the link.
• the duration is a joke. 6 seconds is not long enough to be noticeable. and much less an elite.
• the effect is not good enough. that skill is to suicide yourself bombing the zerg, just is left to shout aluk akba when you cast it.

to be useful without the need to change the mechanics of the glyph it must transfer all the damage, so the druid get none while tethered and the targets get all the fun . last 6 seconds and has 600 range, for the love of god, has to be the ranger/druid the only class that must be the sidewheels for idiots to learn to fight in pvp?
you know you fight a druid and you know all its skills are crap or awfully telegraphed.

i have yet to see a ranger skill that does 9k single impact with no cast and 4 second CD and 1200 range like the rev hammer #2….

SqualZell.7813:

Justine.6351:

I do dmg with staff. You people crazy.

you can do more damage with… well pretty much anything else. I’m pretty sure a “broken skritt bottle” does more damage than the staff.

actually i tried with random things you find on the ground like planks, rocks or whatever and they do more damage than the staff by a big margin . i dont understand why a weapon that bring one kind of utility cant bring damage the mix.
the shortbow is supposed to be a condi weapon, although the condi is very lacklustre at least does double damage than staff.

just numbers: in full zerker the staff does around 400 damage per tick. 400 damage
the staff brings a very disgraceful healing and nothing else. no damage and no conditions.

Fluffball.8307:

Tragic Positive.9356:

There’s Zero value in healing from #1, #2 or #5 apart from building up Astral Bar.
None these healing values have ever helped anyone in my raid, in my PvP party, in open world or WvW survive.

Are you being sarcastic? Skill 5 is crazy powerful, especially in WvW where everyone uses projectiles in the pirate ship meta. Crazy powerful.

And 1 and 2 add up over time, it’s basically like having regen on you only it stacks with regen.

i’m not and i can tell you are so wrong.

healing from solar beam is excursively there to build up astral force. Period.
100 heal or 500 heal from astral wisp is trash when you must stay in melee range.
the 5 seconds wall will not save you or your team from anything, it simply doesn’t last enough to be noticeable.
and the healing from the wall is a joke, around 180 heal per arrow.

again i’d like the staff to be reworked to be an actual weapon and not just the mobility trash is right now.

the druid should be able to heal with any weapon same way as the water sigil. Once a second to heal same amount as solar beam up to 3 allies around the target, and the staff should become more as a weapon and less broomstick. The same the greatsword is an utility weapon the staff should do damage too.

Right now people use it exclusively because of the astral grace. And that’s all.

the wall should stay for longer or reduce the cd to 15 seconds (12 traited) (in case you want to avoid the eternal water field)

increase the base physical damage from the staff to the shortbow level.

solar beam and the astral wisp must be adjusted to be rewarding or useful. the art is amazing but the numbers are a disgrace. Solar beam to apply constant burning( 1 stack for 3 seconds) and wisp to apply blind and burn around the target would be cool.

the vines are simply so wrong…. just give us an 1200 ranged AoE 300 radius vines that apply roots up to 5 targets.

EvilZombie.6801:

anduriell.6280:

Leinhart.2981:

I don’t know if you noticed, but the amount of rangers/druids is amazing compared to the other classes.

They did a great job with the 3 new shouts. Let’s hope they can deliver the same for all the rest of the useless and broken beyond any actual use stuff.

Guard = instant death for pet !

Yeah sure Protect me is now my favorite shout but hell no to guard

Yeah, cats and bristle instadie with guard.
But other tanky pets like the smoke or bears are more durable.

it has it’s uses as damage mitigation + might source. But i agree is not the best shout, still much better than the old design.

EvilZombie.6801:

staff skill #3 is only reason why i use the kitten staff its a good replacement for Greatsword !

Exactly.
The only uses for staff are:

• As harry potter’s Numbus 2000 to fly around.
• As tickle-tickle ranged weapon when all the reflections are up.

The damage is really a disgrace. Why can’t we have the broomstick to do some noticeable damage and also a mechanic so we are able to heal with any weapon?

I hate to be locked up in the staff or a couple of traitlines. I really hate it.

Leinhart.2981:

I don’t know if you noticed, but the amount of rangers/druids is amazing compared to the other classes.

I can assure you are wrong and that statement is false.
In PvE you can see as many Druids as any other class, basically because the concept of handling a pet lure a lot of noobs. In WvW or PvP you won’t be able to see many. At least when some skill begins to be required.

Druid is not strong. To say some class is strong you must compare it to other classes like tempest, scrapper or DH.
Those classes are strong. Druid brings more sustain but the average damage is the lowest in game because our damage is from the core ranger (DnT already proved that).

You are simply blinded because of the lights and sparks that class brings, but actually to win any combat you have to be so much better than the other player because as the OP already pointed out you are playing against the other player and your profession mechanics.

In equality of skill the other class will win most of the times. Simply because our pets are still simply a disgrace. And our weapons don’t do damage enough.

The need to be reworked to be able to be a reliable source of damage, or at least not to die from random AoE, even when in passive, when i don’t get even any damage.
And all the buggy traits and weapons… Useless skills that are not used for anything.

They did a great job with the 3 new shouts. Let’s hope they can deliver the same for all the rest of the useless and broken beyond any actual use stuff.

EvilZombie.6801:

i was chased by a warrior, the warrior is chased by my drake/cat… you see its a cycle warrior have hard time hitting me while my pet have hard time hitting him

so we ran ALOT ALOT of merry go-a-round until he gave up fighting me

seems legit to me

Do you have the video of it? It would be so much fun to watch it with Benny’s hill background music.

Prophet.1584:

Anet will never make spirits move again, asking for this over and over again will make this like the sword aa argument. mobile buffing spirits where too good so they made them stationary.

I agree mostly with you, but Anet should roll back the change.
Spirits weren’t that good because they were mobile but because before they used to apply the buffs more often (except the frost that did not change).

They made them stationary because the Herald was coming so they did not want the ranger to shadow the revenant in any way. And that’s all.

And the same as the sword we have to keep bringing this topic up as much as we can until Anet realised they did it wrong. Same as the sword is so fraking bugged we need the choice to make spirits mobile again.

Mouse.3608:

Aww man. I came in this thread hoping to steal someones shiny new broken beyond all belief condition build, and all I got was a build that was old news even when it was posted. :/

kitten you forums!

P.S. & On-Topic: Plz unnerf rune of the trapper, ty.

Man we are talking about ranger. If that build could exist and posted here it would be nerfed in next 20 minutes.
No. If you want condition i rekt you seriously just try DD. That nasty drop conditions like rain drops.

Pets are terribly slow. Any enemy with swiftness will be untouchable even for the HoT pets.
You try it with the smokescale and between smoke assaults will not be able to hit anything with +33% speed.
Not even traited with BM . Without it it won’t be able to hit any moving target with +25% (so everybody).

My pet can’t keep up with my druid. And that should say it all.

This is a joke. My pet should be able to hit enemies reliably (even with swiftness) when at least i treated it with BM , without the need to use one skill from the LB to be sure i can apply swiftness to it.

This is ridiculous.

• to generate AF you are locked in Staff. Regen ticks will not be able to fill your bar up fast enough if you are alone with your pet. And you only get AF is you heal. So if you are taking damage.
• Staff is a shameful weapon that do no damage.
• Other professions have many means to fill up their bars.
• We lose all our AF after dead.
• We need to fill up the full bar to be able to use CAF.
• We get full damage and have 0 output damage when in CAF. dead meat.
• the only skill in CAF that do damage root us for 3 seconds (pre and aftercast) while we are soaking in enemy damage.

I don’t mean we should start with full AF, but at least fix first the disgrace that is the AF

You are using WS trait line. Grab some Survival skills (lighting reflexes) + Wildernes knowledge and Shared anguish and there you have an stun breaker + evade + some random counter CC.
You don’t need that extra Condi and the reduction is not really that noticeable.
Druidic Clarity instead Primal Echoes. The CC from Primal is really short range and all your weapons are ranged.

Set change Rabid for Dire. Your crit is very low however.
Torment and earth aren’t that good.
Go with water in Axe/torch so you can keep building up the AF.
Weapons Apothecary, you need more healing.

Traps poison and spike. Fire does a nice damage but the other two and more useful in PvP.

This build is for kitten, you can not sustain direct combat and use traps(healing spring) to disengage.
Try to CC your foes and keep them in the traps.
I would advise you to use sword instead Axe but both weapons are nasty bugged.

Eurantien.4632:

Empathic Bond has always been in Wilderness Survival.

You are right i corrected my error. In any case it does not invalidate the rest of the point.

As i said before this trait needs some changes:

• Buff for water spirit change to cleanse 1 condition every 3 seconds to affected allies. We have many other means to get regen. Not so many to cleanse.
• Vigorous training is moved as a minor in place of Fortifying bond. Fortifying bond is moved as a minor to BM that actually fits better.
• Trait to make spirits mobile and to cast the active when dead goes in place of Vigorous training.
• Water spirit active also cleanse up to 3 conditions to affected allies.
• All other buffs became 3 seconds boon applied every 3 seconds. 1 second application every 3 seconds is a disgrace. I said it at the beginning and i was right, maths do not lie.

First Empathic bond was originally in BM and should go back there. Also the trait is a trait that buff the ranger using it’s pet, and the trait line for that is supposed to be BM .
Second I agree that is a disgrace that the core ranger is forced to use WS just to have a chance at survival. With the amount of conditions there is right now, the ranger needs more means.
Third I agree Invigorating Bond is a really bad GM trait.

Changes i could suggest to clean the mess someone at Anet thought it would be a good balance:

• Empathic bond go to BM in place of honed axes. That trait goes to WS and is reworked to actually bring something on the table. The over 9000 fury won’t make the weapon more desirable because the axes as a weapon is a disgrace and because the trait is crap.
• Empathic Bond (i can not attribute this idea as mine) cleanse 1 condition every 3 seconds while the pet is alive.
• Bring back the trait to make the spirits mobile and cast the active when die in place of vigorous training.
• Vigorous training is moved as a minor in NM.
• Fortify bond is moved to BM as a minor (why this trait line keep having this random trait i don’t understand really).
• Nature’s vengeance change the boon for the water spirit, now it cleans 1 condition every 3 seconds to up to 5 allies in the radius of effect.
• Water Spirit active also cleanse up to 3 conditions up to affected allies.
• Invigorating bond is trashed. The new trait will reduce some conditions duration that affects the ranger and the pet.
• Increase radius up to 600 in the actives of each spirit.

The Water Spirit even being able to move would be underwhelming. The cleanse could make it usable. And casting the active when dead could make not to waste the skill all the time in WvW / PvP.

And please Aney, enough with the nerfs. First fix the ranger, and when everything more or less works then nerfs if is OP would be welcomed.

The REV hammer Coalescence of Ruin still does 9K by impact. 3K with the AA.

Edit: I stand corrected

The nerf is really bad. Bt if Anet actually fix the other pets and bring them to the level of smokescale or bristle i would be happy.

I do like more shots for less damage than otherwise. The reason is because if the target moves is easier to hit it with more impacts than if would be just 15.
I hope anet actually stablish 20 spikes like the actual tooltip.

Also i hope my pets to be able to survive random AoE when they are in passive. It is super annoying to see my pet miles away when i want it close.

It’s a damage based build, you should mix with some tank trinkets as i said.
Just go to gw2skills.net and play with the numbers.
Do not expect anybody to give you the winner build for the ranger (and now the druid) there is not because how the profession is so broken, ranger is one of the most difficult professions to play with as soon as the difficulty increases.

One of the best things from HoT was that made the players that used the rangers only for the fast farming is to make the task really difficult. Just have patience an keep practising and experimenting until you find a build you are comfortable with. You will see how HoT is really easy then.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Actually, imo, WvW is the only place this trait has any use, because you can get the effect onto many people at once, not everyone is going to be hitting a different target ofc, but that is a lot of blinds outgoing.

My only suggestion for it is that the buff could steal health instead of healing.

Astral Wisp does not blind. Before the “rework” this GM trait only healed.
Same as the staff skill.

Better to have a trait that we can use in some scenarios than a trait is useless like now. 1 blind every 12 seconds is not like really something worth in place of any other GM traits, although the other traits are pretty useless as well in WvW

Kyosji right now i’m using a maraurder build with some healing trinkets.
Go maraurder (you can buy the recipe at the master crafter) and play with the trinkets until you feel confortable with the healing/health/armor.

Shouts with trooper is a really solid build now with the new shouts (both of the short CD ones are for protection).

Now you have to play with the build and experiment.

All pets brought to the damage and utility of the bristleback and smokescale.
The other pets are the ginger child, nobody wants them anymore.

Please rework the pets. I would be happy if Anet brings less pets at the beginning but better designed. Later when they are redesigning the new ones they can bring them into the game.

So that, the old wisp i heal everyone around me was very cool and actually useful in WvW combat (and mostly anything else). Also helped the druid to become the actual healer and notice as a real healer.
Please bring it back like it was, with the internal ICD of 8 seconds for 8 seconds wisp.

So at least we can have a trait that can be of some use in WvW environment. We already established that the ancient seeds is a practical joke because it does not work, and the grace of the land is mostly focused for raids.

Also bring back the trait to add mobility to the spirits/to cast the actives when die/killed. We need them to travel with us in the new maps were you do not stop in one place not even when you are fighting another group.

Me like it.
However Anet already nerfed the amazing GM trait that did exactly that. So not happening.

Guys a little bit of sense of humor. The guy obviously forgot to use the /s(sarcasm) tag. Like Justine usually also forget.

I’m sorry Wondrouswall and Eval but i think you are wrong in some points, maybe because lately you don’t play much with the druid?

Natural convergence actually does decent damage and gives stab. This skill has a lot of uses, its great for break bars, can allow you to stomp, good group cc etc. I personally feel the risk is much worth the reward.

Natural convergence seems good in paper, but in the field is just a nightmare not worth using like ever.
The 2 seconds Stab is for the skill cast, before the stab is was simply a joke to try to use it. 1 seconds stab you can get if you cancel the skill at the perfect spot will not save you.
Number are in line of the skill Whirling Defense. So not that great. And you are rooted for 2 seconds while casting soaking in damage. So you most definitely will die if the other player is not a noob.
This skill doesn’t need much rework because i agree with you is mostly fine. But it needs to be more rewarding if you are going to stay in the middle of the zerg casting this, you have to see enemy players suffer.

the thing is staff hits 3 times in one second, so its about 900 dps at 2.2k power which is higher than sb, moving into lb and gs aa territory. It does pretty much the same as a long bow auto, but its way better for proc application.

Here i have to think you were joking or deeply confused.
Staff does damage to 3 enemies, 300 points each. Hit once a second (approximately) Shortbow does 600 damage up to 5 enemies.
Longbow does 1.2K damage up to 5 enemies.
Do not mistake targets with total damage, we have piercing in both bows. If the devs decide to give us a trait to make the staff better damage i agree, but at least to give us that choice. Right now the damage is just too weak if it wouldn’t for the AF nobody would use that weapon.

Wondrouswall.7169:

Only things I want is to use Solar Beam without a target and a small amount of damage added to Cosmic Ray so I can proc “on-hit” or “on-critical” sigils like the underwater counter-part.

Maybe a design change for the flower on Seeds of Life, but that’s a stretch at this point. The rest of the design is tolerable.

-1 though for more staff damage and sublime conversion duration increase. Staff provides plenty of sustain and utility that tacking on more damage, even equal to shortbow, not only makes the weapon imbalanced, but further lowers the value of other weapons like shortbow.

Sublime Conversion is a 5-second water field and projectile denial. That kind of duration increase of double+ for the cooldown is not balanced at all. Sheesh, people.

Do not get your hopes with the no target thing. Anet did it change the mechanic on purpose and i don’t think they will change it back. Probably because they did not want the CAF spam thing.

However staff needs better damage. At least in the line of the shortbow, right now it’s just a mobility stick. The heals from the skills expect Ancestral Grace are too weak for the lack of damage it has. Definitely we got the harry potter broom. A disgrace, nothing more.

Sublime conversion is too short for the cooldown. They can make it last longer or reduce the CD, however 5 seconds wall and a rare punctual use as water field is too short for 25 seconds cooldown.
I don’t think many people use it as wall and more as a very situational water field to waste two skills for one combo heal.

The bursting pustules to make them actually usable should change to this:

• The cast change to a growing flower that blooms with 2 phases that last 3/4 second each.
• first phase when the skill is cast and instantly it blinds and cleanse 1 condition.
• Second phase when blooms it cleanse another condition and apply the heal.

So my teammates can actually see the skill and have time to get at least the heal and 1 cleanse, and also if i need the cleanse right away i need the skill to cleanse and the blind so i don’t have to wait a full second and a half to cleanse the conditions when i cast the glyphs or i cast the skill.

I know we already have many threads pointing the clunkiness of the AF, but i think is a good idea to remind this from time to time.
Right now the mechanics of the Astral Form is really undesirable and they don’t work as intended if its intention was to allow the druid to heal when needed.

I propose:

• When in CAF, Astral force is not drained by time but by skill instead. Different skills drain different amount of CAF in function to balance the uses.
• We may enter in CAF whenever is needed, not when the Astral Force bar is full. The cooldown of 10 seconds stays thou to avoid CAF spamming.
• And please, for the love of melandru, adjust the CAF skills to bring different utility between them. Is ok if all heal, but at least give me a reason to use cosmic ray, seeds of life or natural convergence , right now the reward/utility does not worth the risk.
• Entering the Astral Form is really clunky. It takes as much as 2 full seconds to be able to cast any CAF skill. Please increase the speed, it’s kinda confusing you have already the Astral form skills but hitting the button does nothing.

• This is an offtopic note but i still think that the staff needs some rework.
  -> Vines Surge is too slow/buggy to be of actually any use (and that i have to say that i can realialibly “catch” enemy players with it). Too short duration, to slow casting for the effect.
  -> The sublime conversion is still to short in duration for 25/20 seconds cooldown skill. Please could you extend the wall duration at least to 10 – 12 seconds so i can actually be used as defense?
  -> An increase of any kind of damage would be very welcome. Right now does in 2.2K power build the weapon does around 300 damage/hit. That is half the damage the shortbow does, and we all know the power damage from the shortbow is really bad. Please at least bring it to the shortbow level.

After the fantastic job done with the new shouts (please also adjust the old ones to be more in line of the new) , i have hopes you can actually adjust the Astral Form to make it more playable instead so

Actually Druid is what we were asking for before HoT. An elite that actually can sustain itself.

The only bad thing about the druid is that CAF is mostly healing and is kinda clunky to use. Some changes to the least used skills from CAF and the glyphs would make everyone happy.

@Tragic Positive.9356 Dude, it is true that a Druid with only 500-700 healing (still zerker) can occasionally burst heal a lot more than a tempest. However our lack of any other group utility makes the druid a little bit more than a healbot and that is not needed in this game, were everyone can sustain themselves more or less.
A good druid with very good luck can be the difference between group wipe or not. But it is also true the druid needs more QoL improvements to make the Astral Form less clunky and more useful. And more “on demand” thing.

Right now i don’t see the point of using any other skills than Rejuvenating tides and Lunar impact. Occasionally natural convergence when i end up in the middle of the enemy zerg and my commander is shouting to drop the bomb, although we all know it’s a suicidal move.

Still healing tempest bring more usefulness to the group plus a constant healing and that at the end is what matters.

Ehecatl.9172:

Base ranger could slot Healing Spring and run a shout build with Runes of the Soldier/Trooper too. Take Evasive Purity in Nature Magic if you want to have ready access to poison and cripple cleanses. Or take the signet which is basically a bursty version of Empathic Bond.

Also, ranger cleanses blow revenant cleanses out of the water.

Again being locked in wilderness or be forced to use a concrete set of runes is not añ answer.

Heal spring is an static aoe cleanse in 30 seconds cd. Good for the team not good for you.
The signet cleanse 1 condition every ten seconds. Active will mostly kill your pet and has a 60 seconds cooldown.

Not enough cleanses for any condition build that can keep constant burning or confusion on you.
So again the core ranger need more choices than been locked in one concrete set:

• shouts with trooper
• survival with ws.

Fluffball.8307:

I think ranger and necro are the only professions that can clear every single condition in the game at the same time two different ways, though? That’s pretty powerful.

Engi and guard might be able too, I’m not super familiar with all the other professions’ utilities.

Edit: Actually with transfers, I think necros can do it at least 3 ways.

Eles have diamond skin plus the normal cleanses they can slot.
Thieves cleanse condition in stealth every second and also have the skills for cleanses.

Rangers do have the worst cleanses access in the all game and this was confirmed by irenio when they showed the druid.
That’s why there is the trait that cleanse condition with the glyphs.

And that’s cool but the Base ranger is still locked in wilderness survival for the cleanses and that really limits the variety of builds.

We are talking engi or ele can keep in you 5k tick fire even evading their attacks or mesmer can constantly keep stacks of confusion.

In the druids having a cleanse every 3 seconds could free them to experiment with the other two traits. Because celestial shadow is very promissing trait but because the lack off cleanses we are locked in the other two.

Ehecatl.9172:

Rangers have two great elites in Strength of the pack and Entangle.

Elementalists are the ones with terrible elites.

I already pointed you they are pretty bad and the reasons. You saying thing that are good because they are used coz you have to choose one is not a real reason.
Also eles can have pretty bad elites because compared to their other skills anything looks bad. So yeah there is that.

Justine.6351:

I’d wrather 1 good customizable pet over more lame ones.

I fully agree. I would like to have a good fully cotumizable pet, with the mechanics from the old shouts in our Fx than like now we have 2 very lame pets. That stay dead most of the time.

My pets although I have it in passive dies most of the time from random AoE that don’t hit me but are close. So yeah there is that.

I mean they are very bad in some way that make them undesirable to use.
first I would like to ask anet if possible to be able to select also a normal skill in the elite slot that could be a blast and make my life easier because we don’t have a signet and a trap, then I could equip something useful for my build instead something completely unrelevant.

Now let’s review the downside of every single elite:

• spirit of nature: nice concept. Unfortunately the lack of mobility, together with the lack of range in the active with the absurd long cd make this skill a little bit more than an occasional aoe heal in 3 mins cool down.
• strength of the pack: I use it only for the stab, because I have better means to get fury or might than a 60 second coll down skill for 9 seconds fury. Still not really worth it compared to the new shouts
• entangle : the roots mechanics is a disgrace. You may trap some noobs but will not work with anybody with more than a 100 hour of gameplay.
• glyph of equality : I use this one for the cleanse with verdant etching. The mechanic is very original and promising unfortunately the actual lack of range and any means of damage mitigation unless you waist another skill make you a little bit less than a suicide squad. You drop yourself in the middle of the zerg and hope for get downed 3 guys with the cost of your life.

So yeah, I could give some directions like the spirits to have the choice to be mobile and cast the active always when dying or the roots become unavoidable so you have to actually deal with the elite mechanic, but what do you think?

ProtoMarcus.7649:

TheydonBois.9208:

They also missed our elite shout for some reason. We Heal as one got a nice buff, then the rest get changed, but they leave our elite skill from the list, a THREE SECOND buff on a 60 sec cooldown. Compare that to Signet of Rage for the Warrior that gets almost the same things we do, bar stability but makes up for it with a passive, that lasts 8 times as long…

3 second buff? What?

It’s 3s, but that, THREE TIMES. So minimum 9s of swift, stab, fury, if you don’t have boon duration modifiers.

Then throw in Might.

Pet Attacks, might on you.
You attack, Might on Pet.

Use ‘We Heal as One’ and its 25 might in a snap. PLUS more duration for all the other boons (Swift, Fury, Stab) as WHaO ‘copies’ them.

Trait shouts, and you gain more swiftness, AND regen. And -20% CD

Warrior’s SoR has no ‘constant’ application, meaning it can be boon stripped completely. We have a few applications, so it won’t be stripped. Plus, we have stability, which is a very useful boon, and again, warriors get like 5 stacks of might, while we can get up to 25.

So in short, let’s pretend it’s TRAITED:

Might (8s, stacks anywhere from 1 to 25 depending on attack speed)
Fury 9s
Swiftness 19s (9s + Trait)
Stability 9s (3 stacks, that get ‘refreshed’ every 3s)
Regeneration 10s (Trait)

All that, on a 48s CD

‘Strength of the Pack’ is pretty darn solid

Dude your opinion is Based in what you’re reading on paper and that is not nice at all.
Strength of the pack seems solid it is very weak for the 60 seconds cool down. That shout it is only used for the 9 seconds stab and that’s it.

I would put the stab in any other shout like protect me or guard and change that shout to have the original mechanic in the beta of calling more pet allies to fight for you.

The ranger does not have much access to stab, the signet and the shout are in a very long cooldown. We could say CCs could be its hard counter.
However improve a bit that problem could be nice to make the profession more balanced sbecause other professions have more accessible to stab and insane amount of cc.

Anet seems to be serious about fixing. In the last patch notes they state that trooper runes cleanse with every shout opposite to before that didn’t work with the heal and the elite.

So we could assume that they are working in the weapons as well but Im pretty sure that will take more resources than rework 3 shouts. Most probably they can make new skills just clicking in the click&point IDE and changing the numbers there.

So let’s see if they actually can make weapons interesting because right now the only choice the ranger has is LB & GS or staff if you don’t mind having a very weak weapon.

Wondrouswall.7169:

Do you people even read what others write before you reply? kitten .

Edit: To answer the OP. As nice as it would for some buffs on our auto attacks, this patch, Rangers received more party-support via shout reworks while Thieves had their sustain between bursts increased.

Maybe wait until the next update to see where things such as sword, axe, or even greatsword go.

You have to admit that chunk from the OP without breaks is hard to read lol

However although I agree with th op at some level, we need some rework in most of the weapons I understand that could take actually more time for the Devs than simply cliking in their IDE what the new skill does.
I think to modify the weapons they maybe will need to play with the code and that takes more testing.

After those 3 fantastic new shouts and the very nice changes to some traits I choose to be hopefull

Prophet.1584:

it works well with lb/staff but gs is better as it provides some defense.

condi revs and necros are still ripping me apart in team fights, 1v1 it all depends on how good they are.

That’s because most probably you lack cleanses.

Thieves with the perma stealth and now the dmg buff in sword and dagger are going to be a problem for every single class except maybe the dh.

Ehecatl.9172:

Eurantien.4632:

I think Empathic Bond should be removed entirely and a new trait of any kind should just take its place.

This is my stance on the matter as well. We don’t need two condi management grandmasters in the same line, and Empathic Bond is too weak and too much of a handicap for our class mechanic to ever be taken over the other options.

That’s nice mentality dudes, coz I have druid I don’t need conditions cleanses, frek rangers they don’t matter Aney can delete them from game /s

We don’t need two cleanses traits in the same trait line the same we don’t need two weapon traits in the same traitline. But still we need those 2 traits for the no druid builds and also we need a trait to improve the axe although honed axes is not a good example of it.

Rangers could use the extra cleanse every 3 secs, and it has to be a GM in competition with beastly warden and zephyr speed so you have to choose wich build you want.

For the people that want better traits for defense or offense there are plenty of trash/filler traits that could be scrapped.

Also I think runes of the soldier still don’t work with shout heal and elite.

Shadelang.3012:

I feel like those kind of condi bombs are something Druids are MEANT to be weak against tbh.

also and I don’t know why you people keep saying that trash again and again, the game is not supossed to have hard counter classes Anet stated at the beginning they were looking for a game were you could not predict the end of a match just seeing the classes.
You are supposed to have tools to build you toon to be able to counter any class just not all at the same time.

But condi bombs are a hard counter for the ranger and moving that trait to bm could aleviate a bit the pressure.

We are still locked into Wilderness survival for condition cleanses.
Can we get Empathic Bond swapped with Honed Axes which is in a traitline (BM) that has already another weapon trait?

And also Anet could change the ICD to cleanse 1 condition every 3 seconds for as long the pet stays alive so Ranger and by extension Druid can have some form of defence against the conditions bombs some builds can drop.

Yes the are other options that don’t work well like use Healing spring (long CD and static field) or Verdant Etching (delayed cleanse).

I understand with the new druid skills this should be adjusted but this change made the ranger weapons useless.

• Concussion Shot : Still daze and stun 1 second. With the 50% extra it gets to 1.5 seconds that is actually bs. Please increase the stun and daze durations to 2 seconds each.

• Hilt bash is the same case.

Right now that trait has become completely useless for the rangers so please adjust properly and better sooner than later the daze durations from the weapons at least.

Anet, i really need to use a normal skill in the elite slot. I play druid and the new shouts are interesting but those are in the utility skills.
The ranger/druid elite are really unappealing so it would be good if we would be able to choose one utility skill instead an elite in that slot.

I think other professions would be much happier with this improvement also.

How would you make it? I mean protect me gives that 2 seconds taunt that can be amazing in 1v1, but in a group maybe guard? wouldn’t it kill the pet too fast?