Guild Wars 2

source: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/profession-balance-goals-for-the-winter-2016-update/

Ranger
We’ll be looking into some of the ranger’s less used traits and increasing both defensive and offensive options while giving a few specialized traits a bit more allure. In the first quarterly update, we’ll also be improving the ranger’s shout utility category, giving them more unique utility. In the future, we’ll continue to explore ways to improve on the ranger’s ties to both their pets and nature. We’re still looking at the druid’s viability in group scenarios and will continue to monitor its overall effectiveness, making changes where necessary.

so for the text it seems Anet really read this forums, they will address the shouts at least, with future promises of review the pets, i guess it’s too much to overhaul all of it at once.

on the downside we lose the quick stomps, because Anet will normalize the speed to not to be affected by slow or quickness, a shame but if they can’t fix it i understand.

what do you think it will happen?

rennlc.7346:

anduriell.6280:

Anymoify.8132:

snip

snip

If you really think this is true (it’s not), then you should play a Thief yourself and see what players do against you. You’ll also see how stacking stealth diminishes the skills and initiative a Thief can use to fight players, and how limited Thief can be at winning fights without help (particularly against Druids). I think you think the grass is greener than it is.

I don’t mean the thief is OP, actually i think the actual thief mechanics are fine and don’t need a nerf.

Only thing i’m asking is how to counter this kind of build, at least have one real chance to do it so in normal conditions, not like i have my glyph of empowerment, signet of the wild, Sick’em, entangle, RF and bristle ready to burst down the thief in the 6 seconds i have that thief revealed (that’s all my skillbar…)

A real way to have a chance to counter stealth, a mechanic for each profession so this is not a build you know you can not win against.

Fluffball.8307:

We have the tools. Watch for BP and stop them. You can fear them, taunt them, knock them back, pull them in, knock them down, stun them, daze them. You can taunt them out of stealth. You can fear them out of SR. You can channel-follow them in stealth. Now add in the sic ’em you talked about and that thief is going to have a tough time.

You aren’t going to stop them with a single LB 4 any more than you’re going to stop a druid with a single backstab.

Actually the only one i could think if could work is taunt, but with such a short range and duration is not useful at all. The thief won’t be hitting the pet and even if for some miracle it get caught in the taunt, after 1 second (because it will need one second to hit) will be stealthed again.

Other conditions they can cleanse when they are in stealth. Skills give them break-stun + stealth, the heal cleanse impairing conditions + stealth.
So although the tools are there they are not designed to counter permanent stealth/invisibility.

It is true they won’t be doing much direct damage, this kind of builds go full condi, but is a battle you can not win because there is no counter. I am not asking for a nerf, i think the thief with the actual mechanics is very fine.
I am only asking for real mechanics to be able to counter, being the taunt to insta-reveal and have more access and range or whatever.

Anymoify.8132:

So he is stealthetd he is not doing any harm …. just leave him be …. Btw thiefs are great counter to pew pew rangers.

Perma-stealth Thieves are great countering almost anything. You can see in the video how 1 thief takes down 3 players in a moment and they can do nothing because there is no real counters to stealth/invisibility.

Shirk.6421:

Sorry to say it but that’s clearly an L2P issue. Even tanky builds can shred thiefs with the use of bristleback + rapidfire. Also you need to get a feeling about the duration of their stealth. There’s a ghost thief build around using traps and trapper runes but they can’t kill anything if you don’t try to chase them down, just move on.

This is not the point. Me as playing druid i have enough breakstuns, heals and condition clears to stand a thief. If the thief is tanky you can not take him down with an RF+Bristle unless you have the ideal conditions (max damage modifiers) that rarely happen in real world™.

In any case that doesn’t mean we have a meaningful way to counter those kind of builds. And we are lucky that we have a wonky utility, necros and eles have none so their only defense is to drop AoE and hope for the best.

That’s not skillful play, that’s luck. You can see in the video how that kind of builds where you can do nothing to counter is not fun to play against to. So my point stands.

So here is a video from some encounters in WvW. The thieves playing there use the permanent stealth build so is impossible to hit them.
Even if you are lucky enough to prevent the stealth with sick’em, 6 seconds is not even enough to be a counter for those builds.
You need at least 2 or 3 guys to be able to burst 1 thief down…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rri_lJzm3lc

The availability of revealed is really lacking in this game:
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Revealed

Which makes this kind of builds an easy choice to win most 1v1 or even 2v1. Not only against ranger, other professions have no means to counter this kind of builds.
With the permanent stealthed builds i think all professions in Gw2 need an actual mechanics to counter it, right now we are almost defenseless.

PS: CC is not an option, the thief has too many stealth+breakstun to be useful. As you can see in the video even being immobilised by ancient seeds the thief simply have to wait until the revealed wears off.

What do you think? Shouldn’t Aney put more mechanics in game, not only for the ranger but other professions as well, to counter this kind of builds?

I’m having a lot of trouble with perma stealth builds that are the most common in wvw.
Those builds seem too op they can take out almost anyone in 1v1 and even 2v1. Here is a short i made with a couple of encounters to illustrate the problem i have.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rri_lJzm3lc

As you can see the thief does not stay revealed for more than a second so i can’t see anyway i could counter this kind of build.
Ranger has only one utility that can use every 40 seconds to prevent the stealth that last for 6 seconds. That’s not enough to be a counter for the permanent stealthed thief. Even other professions don’t have anything to counter stealth.
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Revealed

So… Is there any way i could counter this kind of build?

i’ve heard that the heal tempest is the new healer in raids and the druid is not needed anymore…

Wondrouswall.7169:

Use all Berserker’s stat gear. Slot a Sigil of Transference. Consume Delicious Rice Balls. If you need a little more healing, use Rune of the Monk. If you don’t, use Rune of the Scholar. Now, your staff will do higher (than usual) damage while healing nicely because of outgoing healing % modifiers instead of crap healing power stats.

still have in mind that the damage from the staff is aroud half the phisical damage the shortbow does.
you can go condi, but then you’ll be stuck with the subpar shortbow, the wonky axe or thw nightmarerish sword.

glyph in CAF its a waste. the only one that do something is Rejuvenation because you can heal a chunk of 6-8K at once.
but even then o wouldn’t advise to use it because you’ll lose your burst heal.
also you can heal that much with lunar impact+rejuvenating tides

yes although i have to say the idea of the changing glyphs did sound nice in practice its just unplayable. Why dont they use the CAF glyphs to rework the CAF skills and leave the glyphs in their normal state?

however the glyphs in general as i pointed out here long time ago have an horrible mechanic. They behave like a really short range shouts, without the synergy of the shouts.

As i pointed out in that thread would be a good idea to rework the glyphs as pulses. you activate the glyph and the pulse for some duration and that could solve all the issues with them

for example:
glyph of unity pulse once a second and tether you to up to 5 foes in range. if one of them leave the range or die, you will be tethered to another.
glyph of empowerment the same but with the boon to allies. the boon would be shorter to compensate.
glyph of aligment the same, pulsing effect. Although i would change the effect to poison and immobilise. just to make it fun, now it’s too bland.

glyphs of tides, rejuvenating and equality are fine although would be famtastic if they could get the pulses effect as well. just to make them interesting instead just shoot and forget. for example casting two pulses of tides could be amazing to help to ress a downed compadre. and also would reinforce the druid as a team player.

CAF could benefit for the CAF glyphs to change the skills that are not used.

• Natural Convergence gets the pull effect from tides. as i said an small pull pulse every second would make wonders to avoid being bursted down in melee when casting this skill
• Rejuvenating tides could use the equality effect. so team members that go out from the small 240 radius could still benefit from the healing.
• Lunar Impact could also break stun of allies.
• Seeds of life does the same as glyph of alignment. *Just please change the animation from a bursting pustule to something more appropriate, a flower growing or alike.
• Cosmic Ray could easily increase the healing of affected allies.

that way we still can use the normal glyphs that are actually usable. And if they pulse (more glyphs alike, something you carve so stay) instead work as a shout, even better.

If you use the ranger’s trait Zephir’s Speed to stomp once that the stomp has begun although the animation and the bar is accelerated the actual stomp it is not.
Example:
https://youtu.be/52itzu8_wvs

The stomp should happen when the bar is full instead when the light ball animation in the toon’s hand reach the floor.
This could affect any kind of quickness applied after the stomp is being initiated.

UBcktieDL.5318:

you are doing it wrong

you need to have quickness before you start stomping. Just look at the light during the stomp animation. That shows you the real progress of your stomp. So yeah, swap pet before you begin the stomp.

yeh i got that. But then there is a bug?

I mean if quickness does not accelerate the stomp if it is cast after the stomp began, shouldn’t it do any effect in the bar and animation?

The stomp should happen when the bar is full.. If not, what’s the point of it in the first place?

So i need your opinion and to know if this happens to anybody else.
I’m using a ranger with Zephir’s Speed trait. This trait gives you 3 seconds Quickness on pet swap.

So, i begin the stomp then swap pets, because it’s only 3 seconds, and although the animation and the bar accelerates the finisher doesn’t shows for a second.
And if i get CC’ed during that second the stomp is canceled.

I mean in this video for example i’m feared after the bar is full. Is that right? Or it’s simply that the necro called the fear before finishing the stomp?

Can anybody else confirm if there is a delay when you stomp using this trait?

The video is really short.
https://youtu.be/52itzu8_wvs

The drawings are amazing..
How does the nevermore look with the laser beam from the Staff 1??

Personally i’ve thought the people teleporting around was just my connection, you see them fall and then back in the platform again.

In any case never bothered me that much, no more than players using a charr or fat norn to play the JP.
But i’m very happy that Aney is banhammering the cheaters. This will sanitize the game so it doesn’t get worst.

Time to go back to the JP i guess. I only have done the achievement 40 times

Tragic Positive.9356:

Aomine.5012:

My Glint Mallyx Rev often do 18k~20k x 2 damage on a target with a 2 sec CD.

My fully ascended zerk ranger never even come close. Bristleback is nice and all but it has a long cd too. Plus ranger trades ALOT of survivability for the dps while Rev keep
everything while doing top range dps.

Btw 7.5k dps in melee range is nothing. Cond Berserker is doing like 30k dps in raid group. Glint/Jiro Sword Rev is doing like 20k+ dps raid too. (With perma quickness from Chrono)

You really need to try more classes before you make the claim. I have all classes fully geared and FULLY ASCENDED on all of them.

I don’t think I do.
You missed the most important part. And that was a SELF PvP dummy dps test.
Without banners, 25 might or Food / nourishment.
Not a word about Raid DPS.
Raids are just one part of PvE. I can deal tripple damage on tequatl with Longbow. Does that count into this pointless “I’m the best” mindfest?

Moreover, seeing that you make a huge importance of cooldowns … Do you use DPS meter or do you assume the DPS by seeing the number?
With all due respect, 30K DPS in any kind of raid is a nonsense.
I’ve seen 34K ticks myself, but it has a long way to be called a damage per second.

With 30K DPS you could literally defeat Vale Guardian in 2 people and still manage the enrage in time. I’m sorry, but from here on I’ll call BS on your math.

You never counted cast times, after-cast or delay to match reality. Your DPS are assumptions. I’m sorry to disappoint.
You won’t convince me about DPS just because your ability has a 2 second cooldown.

dude, people are telling you are wrong, the dps from the longbow is not the highest by far.
There was a guild that did the math and before hot when we still had a chance still the dps output was very average.

i know you want to believe the pewpew ranger ia any good, but if in something was the ranger ever good was in condi damage. not the best but much better than pewpew ranger.

Tragic Positive.9356:

@anduriell
My Bristleback has 1600 DPS unbuffed against a PvP golem.
… Alone
… Without me blinking an eye.

If I was supposed to run double Longbow with Quickdraw using Barrage – I’d say I’d beat the hell out of Revenants on ranged DPS. I’m sorry, but these are facts.

I’ve seen so many people doing the math in idiot form of way.
With all sincerity, I’ve seen the top people claiming 14K dps on Hybrid Granadier Engies (and yes, they dare to call it condition). Anyone who took that build into testing on a PvP golem couldn’t go past around 6K DPS unbuffed. Even the top players or streamers. With the proper rotation.
I peaked my numbers with a Remorseless GS build to 7500 per second on a 2 million damage test.

I won’t believe any numbers until I make them myself. That’s what I learned here in forums.

i agree. PLEASE ANEY MAKE THE OTHER PETS AS THE SMOKESCALE AND THE BRISTLEBACK

guys again, dont know were you take those numbers…
zerker lb ranger does on average 2,5K crits.
jaguar does around 2k crits that could put us in the top tier, unfortunately is impossible to hit consistently a player with swiftness, and that if the pet isn’t dead before at the begin of the fight. gosh that thing that the pet has to put itself in the “right” spot to hit passing through the target instead attacking as soon as it reaches the target really grind my gears. I wouldn’t count any other damage from pet that is not an smokescale or the brittleback.

in this video rev hammer AA is doing around 2.7-3.5 crits. hammer 2 does the same damage as the RF but with not channelling.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9YLD08ervk

dragonhunters LB is the same:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CltZaG5tU7U
AA is doing around 3K, pure shot around 9K

so like seriously, its proven (i think some guild did the maths) that power ranger is not in the top dps even with the right rotation.

And that it is actually common knowledge.

So the actual smokescale is the example to every other pet the ranger have perfomance wise.
Can Aney make the other pets better so we can use them efficiently?
———————————

• Utility Shouts are placed in functions F1 to F4. Being:
  -> F1 : Attack my target, pet get +20% speed bonus while this command is active. This is to make the old pets to hit the target consistently
  -> F2 : Defend me: pet go back to the ranger and only attack if the ranger is attacked.
  -> F3 : Guard: Pet go to ranger location and guard that place attacking anything in range.
  -> F4: Search and Rescue: Pet goes to the closest downed player and try to revive him. Pet revive at 1/3 actual speed.

• New utility shouts work both for the ranger and the pet:
  -> Sick’em works like the mastery nuhoc stealth detection. You and your pet will see invisible players and be able to attack them for a brief time (8 seconds?). Pet gets the 40% damage increase for 8 seconds.
  -> Guard will grant protection for you and your pet. Pet also get stealthed.
  -> Protect me. I don’t like the i give my damage to the pet. Instead the shout could be reworked to pet to any transfer any condition to the pet instead for 10 seconds. Reduce the CD of this shout to a third (30 seconds). Pet is not disabled while this effect is active.
  -> Search and Rescue: Pet will go to the ranger and apply constant healing for 10 seconds same fashion as the downed skill Lick Wounds. If the ranger goes down while this effect is active the pet enter automatically in that state, no need to wait for the CD.
  
  ———————————————————

To give more rewarding ranger-pet relations pets should have an pet trait line where the ranger can choose some aspects of the pets.
Traits in BM and NM that affect only the pets like Beastly Warden, Wilting Strike, Natural Healing, Go for the Eyes and Invigorating Bond should go to the Trait Line.

• Would be amazing if each pet family could have a different trait line with some different traits. For example spiders would not benefit from Beastly Warden or any short range trait.

New traits in BM should be like Companion’s Might or Zephir’s Speed, traits that benefit both ranger and pet.

Every family pet should have 4 kind of skills

• Basic Attack
• Defensive skill
• Burst damage skill
• Utility Skill.
  And allow the ranger to place which one of those he wants to have in the F2 placeholder.

I wouldn’t mind to be locked up in one pet at a time (not to be able to swap pets) if the pet system shows to be sturdy and make pets desirable enough. It would make every ranger even more different because you should choose which kind of pet you want/ game you play: tanky? DPS? ranged?
—————————————————-

Burtnik.5218:

Or more like… smokescale and bristle needs a nerf hammer to bring them in line with rest. Getting hit for 10k by a bristle f2 is not really what i consider balanced for 12/15 cd. On top of that the projectiles cannot be strafed and auto homing to target.. while druid runs in circle dazing and immo the kitten out of you. Autopilot really. No point discussing it futher with rangers so bye. And about that “pet can be killed” druid can go celestial and heal him without any problems. Theres a reason why druid is godtier 1v1.

So much wrong and ignorance in this comment i’m rolfing (yes i just invented that word).

Just one thing thought… Do you want our bristleback to have the same bugs as the open world ones? Shame on you. I think with that comment you already showed your true self. You have to be a really sore looser and bad player to think the ranger should have a buggier profession. And you should stop using Zerker if you have problems with one pet.

I will never get tired of repeating this: other pets need to became as useful as the smokescale. It’s not normal any player can just ignore the pet attacks while kittening the ranger.
Again the bristleback is too glassy for my taste. 16K hp pool is too low, were you see videos that a glass cannon reaper can do 8K crits with the basic attack.

Jump + spam Ancestral Grace ?
That is a real bug… although is linked to the funny linecasting.

Can Aney even fix that? The ele is being using it for ages nothing has happened.

Not for anything but isn’t that linecasting?
Doesn’t the ele do it all the time?
When Aney will fix the linecasting?

To fix this and any future spam linecasting i would make it so each player can blast any field once a second.
Problem solved

The leash is 2000 units. And it should become bigger, other professions don’t have leash range.
The minion Flesh Wurm has a virtual unlimited range, so if we set the pet in point should stay there even if the ranger is in the other corner of the map.

That’s why the actual utility shouts has to become commands we use with F1 to F4 and we have to get real shouts more in line of We heal as One or Strength of the Pack.
I should be able to leave my pet to defend a point and that pet must be something to be worried about if you are a glass cannon baddy.

And please could we stop with this forums posts were all the baddies from PvP come here to cry?

Just asking for this:

• Crossfire applies 1 stack of bleed for 4 seconds always
• If you hit with crossfire on the side or behind the ranger and the pet get 1 stack of might instead the bleed..
• Quick Shot gives 3 seconds of Super Speed instead Swiftness.
• Increase the cripple in Crippling shot to 8 seconds.

Blue Hare.8612:

Yes, it is verry risky to use as you roots yourself, I don’t really use it that often because of that. It has so much risk and as a druid you don’t really have that much follow up to the immobilize anyway so I feel it is not worth using. I usually use it when the enemy is focusing an ally.

Camping longbow seems to be working fine for him tho. If interested take a look at this for example. He is pretty good at kiting with LB. At least it is not boring to watch as there is lot of movement.

You are right, camping longbow will work most of the times. The damage in glass zerk is ok, 2.5K by hit, 8K for the RF and from a 1500 (1800 actually) range is very easy to melt any other player before they can reach you.. Those aren’t new news..
With that you will win many fights, as long as the other is a baddy. Doesn’t work that good against experienced players thought.

In any case that build is not fun at all to play. Effective yes and sadly Aney is forcing us to play like that because any other choice is simply very bad.
Now i’m asking in this forum post for making the Astral Form fun to play with, not just something you use for heal with lunar impact..

Blue Hare.8612:

It is 2k + 2k + 5k = 9k. The last hit is just 5k, if you look at the golem health it drops from full to near zero in seconds. With that you almost kill a thief

I have to call this BS… Unless the other thief was a glass cannon baddy it’s impossible you could have pinned down a thief with entangle + Natural Convergence.
They have many ways to get out of that as i seen it many times. Shadowstep, cleanses on stealth or tricks… impossible to pin them down with this.

Blue Hare.8612:

It is 2k + 2k + 5k = 9k. The last hit is just 5k, if you look at the golem health it drops from full to near zero in seconds. With that you almost kill a thief

And yes in PvE I can hit 200k crits on rabbits… my example was in PvP lobby. Anet has to balance skills PvP in mind as they don’t want to separate the gamemodes.

No idea how much it does in PvE, I have been running trap druid there

No well, that hit’s are on fractal bosses and raid bosses so no rabbits involved.
In PvE/WvW the damage is really bad compared to any other class. Not that should matter with the druid, that should be focused in heal and CC. I run a condi druid myself mainly because i’m a sucker for the shortbow (why the damage done with that weapon is insultingly low i’ll never understand)
The problem is that natural convergence:

• You take a lof of risk of get burst down in any game mode. PvE also.
• The damage and effects (reward) are really meh for the long CD skill it is (you can only cast it once while Astral Form + the Astral Form CD) and the long channeling rooting cast it has.

So if that thing about risk vs reward is real, this skill should be more fun to play for itself. Right now i see it really lacking.

I thought in this fun mechanics of damaging + immobilize wormholes. The objects are already there so why not to use them?

TR:DR btw that video the guy all he talks is camping with the longbow, kittening. That’s is the most boring and braindead way to play with this class… really.
I hope ranger can shake up that stigma .

Only 5K for a full glass zerker build?
Not to burst your bubble but i’m seeing here crits of 13K, base attack of the reaper is more than 5K.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eWmzB1MnLE

And that’s not the only video, you can see a lot of classes doing more than 5K crits.
5K crit in a full glass Zerker build with an elite skill that you can cast only every 40 seconds is really crap.

Although i get your point and why every druid should go for Zerker/Zealot instead of condi.

Talking about PvE of course.

Just i keep reading this motto all the time.
Well this does not apply for the ranger for sure.

Our skills that promote skillful play, the ones that force you to smart positioning or smart tactics are the worst designed in game, not only the ranger but in the all game.
Let’s review this:

• Sword: Sword AA locking you from the beginning. For the ranger melee is even more risk that for a warrior or guardian, we still get a weapon that lock you up in the AA chain and throw you off cliffs. And Serpent strike doesn’t hit the target most of the times.
• Greatsword: It has a very lacklustre damage and the only skill that do something, the maul, is the most telegraphed and slow skill in game.
• Most dangerous Game, this trait is supposed to promote Risk Vs Reward thing, still the trait is really badly design mostly getting you killed.
• Static Spirits, instead promote a dynamic and mobile game with the mobile spirits, so you can place the active skills were they are needed, they forced the place this spirit up that hill or corner that we know the boss/player can’t reach it and forget the actives.
• Shortbow, being a medium range weapon the damage is very lacklustre compared to the Longbow. And the longbow is not exactly a DPS weapon either.
• Axe main hand another medium range weapon that really pales compared to the long range weapons.

So as close a we get to the target, thus higher risk, the worst our skills and weapons choices get.

And this is just of the top of my hat, i’m sure there are so many more examples.
Could you think of more examples to call that motto BS?

So yeah, i love the graphic design of the druid, however all that buzz and the skills seems so lacklustre generally speaking. They do a lot of noise but no bang there. All rangers outside from raids think the Astral Form as an extra instead the specialization that it is really. Also they are all so plane, all are basically heals in different degrees, so boring i end up using always lunar impact and rejuvenating tides, not that you have time to do anything else thought….

If we are going to keep the weird Astral Force Thing we need more bang for the buck. Instead making the Astral form like a secondary self heal like we think the pets as a secondary damage source, Aney needs to apply more fun to the astral form. After all is our specialisation (not some extra).

• Cosmic Ray (main heal skill) It’s too slow to cast when the heal arrive the target is not there anymore.
  Can’t you make it like a continuous beam with autocast? The animation can be like a continuous beam from the sky, like the actual one but that stay in place until we choose another ground target. That way we cast it, and our friendlies can get inside the beam to get the heals. It can heal/pulse every 1/2 second like now. Can you make this one to scale much better with healing attribute so it can become our main heal? No more clickfest pls Aney.

• Seeds of Life (condition cleanse), Could you change the animation to look more like a seed or a flower blossoming instead the bursting pustule it looks right now? Also the flower once it’s open can stay for a couple of seconds, pulse cleanse every second, healing and blind at the beginning. Thus my teammates can benefit from the cleanses, right now they have to first see it and then be really close.

• Lunar Impact (Condition Control): We already have too many healing skills, can this one heal for less and be more about CC like 2 second stun also? could you add come confusion there? No real changes, you still are locked for only 2 seconds, but should do wonders for the defiance bar in PVE.

• Rejuvenating Tides (AoE heal skill) Would be good if it doesn’t lock you out of using another skills, so we can blast our own water field if we need that extra healing. This skill also should work as AoE sublime conversion. Any projectile that get inside is converted to healing.

Biggest Fail:

• Natural Convergence (Elite Condition Control) Amazing graphic art but this skill is really lacklustre. You get burst down in melee every time to cast it and the result is really meh. Bad design everywhere.
  -> Aney you need to add the effect from the Champion Grawl High Shaman that one that pulls you a little every second. This is needed to avoid being bursted down in melee every time you cast it not that will avoid targets getting out from the area with a simple dodge but at least they’ll have to burst us down at range.
  -> Also instead cripple needs to apply chilled, that has more to do with the coldness of the space.
  -> The small wormholes that are created in the last pulse has to damage every second and apply the immobilize every second. So even in case the target escapes from the skill has to be aware from where they are to avoid contact. The damage has to be significant (1000/pulse?) so it forces environmental awareness and smart play.
  Be aware the wormholes are only created if someone is trapped in the last blast, so this skill actually forces the druid to be really smart and need a lot of group support (to keep the targets in place) to get most of it.

Tragic Positive.9356:

ZeftheWicked.3076:

…
Now call me crazy but isn’t smokescale an attacker pet? Where does all this tankyness come from and isn’t it high time it got nerfed?

I will call you crazy.
Smokescale is a tank pet. Therefore your argument is invalid.

It has less vitality in contrast to bears but they have a damaging ability in return.

^ this +1, please qqers from pvp that come here to rant about meeting a good player, just go back to your subforums.

in my opinion all pets should be brought at the same level as the smokescale.
i still see bristleback too squishy, its true the range + damage make it difficult to balance, but with the low toughness it needs more hp to stop dying at one shot.

The warmaster back need an item that seems bugged.
You have to kill the champion in Vedant brink when you unlock Itzel leadership (itzel 5 mastery).
I killed him, thing really difficult because there is no players to do that group event (that’s another thing that needs explanation….) and when it got it done there is no collection item.
What’s even worst: the progress bar is still there, although we killed him, so it can’t be called back to try again.

This kind of bugs make impossible to progress in the game…..

i have the same problem, but i only tried once.
That could explain why why can’t be seen any of those backs around…

Guys i’m talking about consumables, no permanent items. The reason of that is that the consumables must be renewed.
Also if you don’t want you don’t have to consume them, and you don’t have to read the tooltip on the icons of you teammates / foes.

Passive ads simply create selective blindness while if you consume the item is like clicking in an ad.

The fact is the companies needs money to run, server and employees are not free. And i do like more the idea of a no intrusive advertising like the one i propose than what Aney is doing now nerfing the rewards to push players to buy the expansion and buy gems with the credit card.

I mean, reaaaallllyyyy?
Now think for a second before you answer yeh perma swiftness is really cool
If that trait could be in the place of Druid Clarity then yes, i would say no doubt
But the point is you have to choose between Verdant etching and this one.

And Verdant Etching bring much more to the table than Natural Stride.

• Extra heal. Now wait. Extra delayed heal. That means you can build faster the hateful AF.
• Blind.
• Cleanse 2 conditions, although the delayed mechanic is weird is very helpful for your team.
• Reduced glyphs CD. Which is obviously very welcome.
  
  What does NS bring? a 7% speed difference to SoH and reduced crippling conditions?

Guys power with the staff is really cringeworthy.
Why don’t go full condi? Dire for tanky or Rabid to more glassy is fun. You can get some bleeds in there with a condi weapon, and even with the staff you can do some damage.

I think the druid should focus in conditions because the power damage is really bad iif you go for staff.
And it doesn’t worth to invest in healing at the moment.

I was going to write a long essay about how Aney is cutting down too much resources for example how winter JP has too few active instances, the rushed heart of thrones living season, the maps in Dragon Stand that close because reasons, the sudden drop in rewards that seems an sneaky way to force player to buy gems…

So here is a crazy idea about monetization without being too intrusive or annoy the F2P/B2P accounts.

• Sponsorship. Movies and TvShows do. Why not an MMO? And one that potentially could expose their product to millions of users all around the globe? I don’t mean only gaming products your sponsors for the esports events are but sponsors for any kind of product like drinks or other kind of products. A clean way to do that is to create a new merchant in Lions Arch that sells really cheap sponsored products.
• This products could apply unique buffs like the actual utility/food. To avoid affecting the market this buffs could accumulate with the exisiting buffs (like the magic find bonus) they don’t need to be strong but significative, just a 20% extra magic find or gold from monsters will do.
• change the effects for each product. This could be done the represent what the sponsor want to sell. Healthy product? the buff will have a chance to grant some health on crit. Energy drink? maybe fury or vigor. Memory bars? extra Xp for example.
• To avoid the market to plumber this products must be account bond on acquire.
• They should be cheap, a little less than a silver each.
• 30 minutes duration.
• They could be limited to an amount per day and account so you keep players returning to buy the new sponsored products.
• I would manage the sponsorship in a time limited fashion (weekly or monthly), to keep the merchant with just few items at a time to maximize the exposure and to increase revenue. Or you could charge even for item used at ads per click fashion.
• the name of the product could do reference to the sponsor like magic drink from XXXX and a fun text so players would entitled to read.
• the icon buffs could show the name of the utility/food product you used.
• no more than 2 buffs of this type should be active at any time.
• This product never ever must be enforced into players by being needed to complete a collection or because the buffs are too strong. Freedom to choose is the key.

For the rest of the forumers.. Do you think is this a good idea or bad? I mean in case they can use that extra cash to invest in the game.

Kain Francois.4328:

I am testing in PvP, but only getting about 4k bleed damage on average. Is this really worth using over Power in PvE?

if you need to use the staff to build af then yes. the damage with the staff will be still be terrible but youll do better damage because the bleeds.
if you dont use the staff then yes, go powa.

Justine.6351:

anyone trying to say axe is a power weapon because its aa compares to lb aa shouldn’t be saying anything.

at best its a hybrid weapon with sinister/rampager/celestial gear and that’s only when you have 2-3 targets to get the aa full potential.

^This.

Although i like the mechanic of the weapon, it gives a reason for the people to not stack, the axe needs an improvement. We need more skills in this department, the skills to get more stronger the more targets it hits.

Attack speed for me would be the best to hit at least every 1/2 second instead every 1 1/2 second like now. And the spill-blades to cast at least twice as fast as now, when the blades go out the target is already moved and far away. Axe 3 should become AoE by baseline and the trait Honed Axes needs a rework.

uri.6521:

Ok, maybe you are rigth, but devourers are still alomost never used in PvP / PvE / WvW, and there must be a reason that has to be adressed in some way.

So aney should buff devourers and by the way the rest of th vanilla pets.
We all agree the design of those pets is simply awful.

cafard.8953:

… or the trait could increase SB range back to 1200.

The range increase should be made baseline. Now that the LB has a range of 1500 there is no reason not to.

Tragic Positive.9356:

Wondrouswall.7169:

No protection pulse. Just add Fury to it and it becomes, at the very least, bearable to use and will have some synergy with Remorseless builds.

This.
It would promote extremely offensive builds (MM+SK is a ridiculously thin ice in PvP).

Rangers do not really have any real burst ability. Any ability dealing high damage is a multi-hitter. Even pets like bristleback or smokescale.

And last but not least – risking S/A + GS to maximize remorseless potential is a suicide in current CC meta.
When it comes to fury uptime – you are usually capped anyways.

There is absolutely nothing to worry about by this change, except people having fun with the build. Which I’d find a nice change.

Yup i haven’t thought in a fury proc every second to make sinergy with the remorseless trait. That sounds so much fun!!
Definitely Aney should listen this suggestions.

Serraphin Storm.2369:

I don’t think range damage should be lower its just the way it is in Gw2. The Dev talked about it being risk vs reward. So any long time Gw2 player should know it really isn’t far to compare range vs melee. There are exceptions but its a general rule.

is it yet a thing that crap about the risk vs reward?
i thought it was we already realize that aney was using one of their marketing sentences:

• risk vs reward
• much sinergy
• such situational
• we want the players to be aware of their surroundings
• strategic positional

was only when they knew they were just about to crap all over the place (not only with the ranger, other classes as well, or even the event.. do you remember the mordrem invasion? same all same all)

so let’s forget from now on about this bs of self balancing, will we?
Axe doesnt work, needs rework. Lets first get it right, how we would love to play with. if its op Aney can tweak numbers later, they always do and always do it really fast.
but for the love of god, we should stop nerfing ourselves,

Quarktastic.1027:

Fluffball.8307:

It does double the duration on the pig forage items that the ranger uses, it doesn’t work on the wolf fear or other pet applied interrupts.

Edit: Just double checked that it still worked and it does. There has actually been a WvW gimmick build for a long time where you use a bunch of modifiers to stack the skull fear up to stupid durations (and in addition to it being well known, the whole thing is nullfied by a single condi removal, so it should be safe to talk about it.)

I tested MoC with foraged items during halloween. The durations weren’t affected at all.

thats right, MoC affects only stun and daze, no fear, and also only affect ranger skills, no items or other effects.

this is one of the few times i can say Irenio tried to fix the skill.
The idea is good but the design does not adjust to the reality of the game, nobody is willing to stay under half your hp to get at max 15 stacks of might.
unfortunately the ranger does not have many means to sustain might for himself.
my idea is:

• add an application of protection.

that means while the ranger is playing the most dangerous game we will be able to prolong the game by the protection.
This could allow some very interesting builds were it focus to small heals\regen instead a burst ones to top up as soon as possible so it can keep the might up.

the dodge mechanic is just awful. i have to waste a precious dodge to get some extra damage… I only use that trait for the piercing and recharge reduction but i dont use the dodge thing like ever.

Could we please get a flat extra condition duration in the shortbow skills? because only affects the conditions from the shortbow, could we get at least +50%?
i kniw sounds excesive but one of the problem of this weapon is the short conditions it applies. Bleed is a weak condition and only do some pressure if you can stack like +20 stacks.
fire is much stronger condition and other classes can stack 20 stacks easily really fast.

darksilklips.3165:

I’d really love to see the shortbow range returned to 1200. I know they originally lowered it to be less than the longbow, but they’ve since increased longbow to 1500… so…

yeah that could make easier to flank at least.
apply bleeds always and might(same as axe) if you flank would be a solution for the sb#1

there is the wonky mechanic for the rest of the skills though.

Serraphin Storm.2369:

Range damage is always inferior to melee. Yes in the back of my mind axe is melee but we know its not. Sword only wins when they stack. Yes in theory sword does more damage on multiple targets. The fact is in wvw and open world pve overall damage output will be high simply because you don’t have to waste time running target to target and will hit maximum targets a lot more often making up for the damage deficit.

thinking range damage should be lower than melee is simply wrong.
a well designed weapon has in mind speed, range and utility.

for example, player complain about the greatsword. i think greatsword AA is fine, it is an utility weapon, not a dps one. offers blocks, evades and mobility.
i would increase the damage in the maul though that skill is too telegraphed and slow casting to have the damage it actually has.

Axe mainhand being slower and shorter range than the longbow it does less damage overall. The animations are really weird, having some skills long aftercast other skill takes like 1 second to cast (like splitebade).
My choice would be without changing the actual damage just reduce by half the casting time that would make the weapon a real choice.

if Aney wont make it faster at least they should increase the power damage to be in line of Longbow max range. somehow make each hit to count for something.

just one note, this weapon would be fantastic to hit enemies on the walls in wvw. but with the actual speed and lack of damage the weapon is just not rewarding or useful

the bristleback is more in line with whta the ranger needs about the pets.
nerfing bristleback is not the solution, that idea is simply wrong.
the devourers and the rest of the pets im fact need to be brought in line with the smokescale and the bristleback.

• some combo finishers/fields in one of the pets skills to bring more game to the pets.
• i would put in every pet: one burst damage(condi or power), one defensive and one support\utility skill. plus the basic attack.
• i would allow the player to choose which of those three is the f2

if not possible to allow the player to choose the f2 i would put always the utility in f2. burst should be used as soon as its our of CD. defensive should be cast when the pet reach some hp limit.
utility is more difficult to decide when to use it, so i would leave it up to the player.

ranger needs rework to be able to finish targets in pvp, having the pet just for the burst is not a real solution is just copping the problem with a dirty fix.

no need. you go full condi with krait runes. viper, rampager or rabid.
traitline skimirsky with full bleeds.
skills and weapon whatever you like, your bleeds are going to come manly from the crits.

does MoC affect fear? last time i checked it only affected stun and daze… arent you confusing ranger with the necro?