Guild Wars 2

Thanks for the responses guys
I really that the only solution to reduce de power imbalance between vanilla builds and current and future Elite Especializations that are to be added, i really hope a change like this comes some day.

Sadly, like foste said, new specializations added to the game are made intentionally more powerful than vanilla (and potentially HOT ones) with the only purpose of increasing sales.

But in the end, im confident that Anet wont be involved in such practices again, since they are a very respectable company and they know that such movements only create anger, elitism and racisim between the playerbase.

Hi guys

I was thinking for a while about the new concept Anet took on the Elite Specializations, and how vanilla trait lines doesen´t have one, this (oviously) created the (sligth) perception that vanilla is underpowered VS Elite Specs, so i came out with this wild idea, ill just share it with you to see what you think.

As introduction, quick review of main problems

Spec Ops = OP
Vanilla = UP

Why?

Elite Spec= Direct upgrade from vanilla because it adds stuff but doesn´t take stuff from you.

So, my solution is this

As you can remember, there is only 1 line where you can choose the Elite Spec, so i suggest turning the core vanilla line (The one that previusly improved profesion mechanic (IE. Beastmastery for Rangers)) into a Elite Spec.

What does this change do?

I´ll give you a example for ranger/druid, to clarify as much as possible.

Beastmaster: Choosing this line allows you to choose Two pets instead of one and use shouts.

Druid: Choosing this line allows you to use Staff, gylphs and gain Acces to Celestial Astral Form.

If you choose another non Elite line instead your name will be kept as Ranger.

Results

Ranger= Most probably not optimal
Beastmaster= Current Vanilla Ranger
Druid= Current Druid with no shouts and 1 pet only

Probably adding some buffs / nerfs to druid like the followiing:

1.Increase cooldown on Celestial Astral Form skills.

2.No longer requires full Meter to enter Celestial Astral Form (Lets say now minimun is 10%).

3.Nerfs to related traits like Druidic Clarity (3 conditions instead of full cleanase) and Celestial Shadow (probably removing super speed and leaving just stealth).

4.Increase Astral force gain from damage and healing (Probably even allowing it while in Celestial Astral Form).

5.On pet swap traits are activated when entering Celestial Astral Form.

6.Poison master applies buff to current pet when entering Celestial Astral Form and so on.

It would require more balancing of skills and traits to make up for this change, but you get what im trying to do with this.

Please tell me what you think im very open do discussion.

Hi guys

I know that recent patch had the idea of reducing overall sustain on all classes.

But i dont know why they increased the CD on this trait since its a ofensive/defensive (depending o use) trait that no one complained about.

Can any of you guys explain me why?

Ok there are may good ideas to change this trait, it just went for the easiest to do (just changing what skill you use), but if Anet wants to do a little proggraming, then any of what you suggested may be better tan jus changing to “Guard¡”.

Hi everyone
Since tuesday´s patch, three of our shouts were reworked, and looking on how the new “Search an rescue¡” Works, it seems counter intuitive to have a skill that makes your pet teleport a downed ally to you and start reviving it on a trait that triggers when you start reviving an ally, which is oviously next to you, so, because of this, i soggest the following:

The cooldown of the trait will be 30 seconds, just as the normal “Guard¡” shout is.

Now Allie´s Aid trait Instead of casting “Search an rescue¡” when reviving an ally, it will cast “Guard¡”

Doing this will reduce the direct damage you, the downed ally, and any other ally in a 600 radious of the downed ally take by 50%, which may increase the chances of survival of everyone (exept your pet which is absorving that damage), and also is definetly the least important of all i just mentioned.

The reasoning behind this is to prevent wasting the trait when you actually use “Search and rescue¡” to get an ally to you, and then start reviving it, casting “Search and rescue¡” again, basically wasting the trait because your ally is already next to you, and the pet is already reviving said ally.

Thats all, any feedback will be appreciated

Wouldn´t the new search and rescue make the trait that uses it when you begin ressing somebody useless?
Since it will draw pet to your location, which is the same place since you are on top of the downed person already.

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.

I am aware that there is more things tan just damage, there is also CC and support which are Anet´s supossed 3 pilars of combat in gw2

If we take into account only ranged pets, neither spiders nor devourers have any sort of support in forms of boons or healing,

In the CC departament, spiders have their throw web skill which imobilizes, and devourers have tail lash which knocks back

Spider´s CC skill is fine since its ranged and relatively fast proyectile, which may be in some builds, its higher than devourer damage, higher health and CC where a reason they were the only ranget pet picked by serius rangers, usually alongside a Wolf which had high CC availability.

Devourers on the other hand, offer nothing but tail lash in terms of CC, which is very unreliable due to high cast time and long cooldown, which leaves devourer almost like a damage only pet, that deals less damage tan its CC packed counterpart the spiders.

Rigth now both spiders and devourers CC capabilities are completely overshadowed by the bristleback´s giant gap in terms of damage, both in raw power and reliability to hit moving targets due to faster and longer range proyectiles it shoots.

Maibe there could be a reason in terms of CC to choose spider over bristleback, but bristleback simply deals much, much more damage, and that its not rigth.

with the current state of the game´s balance, i honestly think that core rangers are fine, and druid / bristleback / the rest of the clases but warrior and tief need a considerable amount of nerfs to supress the power creep created by HOT´s release

Thanks for all responses,

I know many of you think that nerfing bristleback its not nesesary, but lets just compare it to other pets.

Basically, bristleback deals more damage than pigs, bears, moas, dogs, drakes, devourers and spiders, has longer range and faster proyectiles that can easily hit targets at a distance compared to other pets.

In other words its better in every posible way when tlking about ranged pets, and even in out damages some melee pets like the ones stated above.

That´s why i think it should have their power normalized to equal devurers and spiders, which at the end, will traslate in a 18% direct damage reduction aproximately. which is a considerable amount, but, in my opinion, nesesary.

It may not be as visible as the game is rigth now, but once the power creep brougth by HOT is taken care of, it will become more evident.

I know, i was thinkin the same when desingning that skill, but also, lets take into aconut tan the ‘shorter range’ of all the 3 ranged pet family is devourer, since it has the slowest proyectiles, not to mention that some of them (the whiptail devourer) have f2 that deal maximun damage at point blank range, so thats another reason i left it a s a burrow charge rather than a burrow retreat, basically because it maximizes damage on devourer, and makes sure the expotion is placed at its target rather than its current location.

Hi everyone, i just want to give you some information about two of our ranget pets, how they perform in combat, and some suggestions that may be done in order to make both equally viable in all game modes.

For a start, lets look at the stats:

Both pets have quite similar stats, wich are as follow:

Power: 1524 for devourer, 1868 for Bristleback
Presicion: 1524 both
Toughness: 2898 both
Vitality: 2211 (22110 Health in PvE, 15418 Health in PvP)
Condition damage: 1000 both

The rest of the stats are 0 for both pets

As you can see, the bristleback has a sligth edge in power in comparassion to devourers

Now lets look at the skills

Autoattack (skill1)

Devourer has twin barbs, which deals 526 damage (i dont know to what armor it is compared, but i supose it is on the same proportion as the bristleback´s damage numbers ), which shoots two pellets at a slow-medium speed, with a maximun range of 900, and 10% chance to apply poison for 6 seconds on each pellet.

On the other side, our friend the bristleback has spike shoot, which shoots a spike at your target, dealing 621 damage and has a 3/4 seconds cast time with 1200 maximun range

Taking casting time and damage numbers, bristleback deals 1.574144486692015 more direct damage than devourer. maybe the poison makes the diference a Little smaller, but i doubt its really worth considering taking condition removal and the RNG involved.

Now lets see the other skills:

Skill 2

Devourer has tail lash, which is a melee, single target knockback that deals around 750 damage, with a 1.25 seconds cast time and 20 seconds cooldown, hoestly, a extremely unreliable skill because of the melee range condition on a ranged pet, and the long cast time and cooldown for what it does.

On the other hand, bristleback has rain of spikes which shoots spikes to up to 3 targets, 3 at each one, each one causing bleed for 5 seconds, and dealing 828 damage, on a 1.75 seconds cast time wich has the potential of inflicting a total of 12 stacks of bleed for seconds, and dealing a total of 9936 damage, all that on a 18 seconds cooldown. Has no CC, but instead packs tons of damage potential on a shorter cooldown, and its more reliable than tail lash.

Skill 3

Our friend the bristleback has sharpen spines, that causes his 5 next attacks inflict 1 bleed for 5 seconds on a 30 seconds cooldown, with instant cast time. Useful for sure, but has only a moderate impact.

On the other side, devourer has devourer retreat, in which he does a 3.5 seconds animation in wich in burrows and retreats, evading 1.75 seconds of that time. Basically, its a useless skill, since the evade starts too late on the skill, and most of the time, its nessesary to retreat, or causes mobs to move away from your teams AOE, while it its not dealing damage.

Special (F2) skills

Our friend the bristleback has Spike barrage a 1200 range, relatively acurate, médium speed barrage of 16 spikes, wich together deal a monstrous amount of 6210 damage, on a 15 seconds cooldown, with a 3.75 seconds cast time.

Our por devourers have all 30 seconds F2 skill cooldowns, being the following:

Poison barbs: 1751 damage shotgun cone shot that apply 5 stacks of poison if all shots hit (basically point blank), 2.5 seconds cast time (long windup animation)

Rending barbs 2100 damage barrage of barbs that apply a total of 6 stacks of poison for 5 seconds 4 seconds cast time (probably 2 of the 4 seconds are pure windup)

Poison cloud 350 × 6 240 radius poison field bomb (shoots a Green ball that produces the field) each hit aplies poison for 4 seconds, 1 second cast time

IN SHORT, pros and cons of each pet

PROS

Bristleback

-More range
-More damage
-Shorter cooldowns
-All skills are useful in some situation

Devourer

-Poison cloud is a poison field
-Twin darts has 20% chance of proyectile finisher

COS

Bristleback

-No combo fields
-no combo dinisher

Devourer

-Really low damage compared to bristleback (and almost any other pet but moa and bear)
-1 badly designed skill (tail lash)
-1 totally useless skill (devourer retreat)
- Unrealiable damage (slow proyectiles and RNG poison on autoattack)
-High cooldowns on F2 skills
-Bad F2 skills (high windup and low damage????)

PROPOSED CHANGE

Bristleback
-Equalize power on bristleback and devourer to 1524, to reduce bristleback´s disproportionated damage

Devourer
-Increased cyclic rate of fire for devourer to match bristleback (probably just reduce its cast time to .75 seconds to match spike shoot)
-Instead of 10% of 6 seconds poison, now twin darts has 100% of 2 seconds poison
-Swap skill 2 and 3 of devourers (lash and retreat) with the following:
Upgrade Tail lash to Boulder shoot: “Use your tail to throw a Boulder that knocks back foes”
728 damage
5 targets maximun
240 radius
15 seconds cooldown
.75 cast time
900 range
Same speed and trayectory as a twin darts shoot

Upgrade devourer retreat to Borrow attack “Burrow towards your foe, evading attacks, creating a explotion of Sharp stones when you emerge”

728 damage
5 targets maximun
240 radius
15 seconds cooldown
1 second evade
Blast finisher
2 seconds cast time ( .75 to burrow, 1 on the move and .25 to come out (damage ocurs a 7 1.75 seconds mark))
600 range “must be in range to use it”

- Changes to F2 skills

Poison barbs:

-reduced cooldown to 10 seconds
-barbs now pierce and hit up to 5 targets
-reduced casting time from 2.5 to .75 seconds

Rending barbs

-reduced cooldown to 10 seconds
-reduced casting time from 4 to 2 seconds (removed windup, it will just start shooting rigth away)

Poison cloud

-reduced cooldown to 15 seconds

END

That way devourer will be the much more viable, offering some CC and higher ranged damage and utility, with may give them and advantage and a reason to pick them instead of bristleback / spider when it comes to ranged pets.

I really hope you agree with me, and that if some Anet Dev comes around here, it takes this changes seriously and maibe, if posible, apply them in game.

I can only imagine using rapid fire on a downed oponent while his Friends are reviving him, making them all eat 70% of the rapid fire and then point blank shot to interrupt anybody who is still trying to revive.

Im not saying its going to be OP, but definetly people will say its OP on the fórums if this happens.

I honestly think it has too long cooldown for what it does, thats why im trying to balance it around a shorter cooldown, which also creates more synergies from being a shout aside of just its base efects.

For the current Sic ´Em thats true, and you forgot to mention that if all stars dont aling and you dont manage to hit him with the reveal, you have to wait another 40 seconds to try again.

If you mean to my suggestion, it would actually be better in PvE, since it would basically :

Keep your pet with quickness uptime that goes from high(8 of every 15 seconds) to basically permanent quickness wich can be archieaved with:

(8+1.6(20% of 8 from nature magic) (3.6(20% of 3)2(from nature magic boon share trait).4(20% of 2))= 15.6 seconds of quickness every 16 seconds (pet swap timer with Beastmastery line).

So, if you have Sic´Em, Beastmastery with quikening Zephir and Nature magic line you basically have perma quickness on pet at all times, wich means literally +50% damage increase, at all times, compared to the current +40% damage for 10 seconds every 40 seconds, wich tanslates to a total of 10% damage increase, wich has absolutely no comparation to my suggestion.

True, for “protect me” it makes sense that it gets cancelled by comands since its suposed to stop attacking, but it makes no sense for Sic´Em
i also hope, wenhever they change Sic ´Em, that they balance it around a low cooldown to make it synergize with soldier runes / resounding timbre.

Yes that´s the point of wanting to change this shout´s revealing mechanic, because

-You must use it before your target goes in stealth
-Comanding anithing to your pet removes the damage and speed benefit

But the reason of having small radius is to prevent stealth clases from becoming angry at us saying “U have 1 utility that directly counters my buid”

So now there is the reason that “Dont enter stealth if you have our pet too close because if we want we will reveal you and you wont know what to do when that happens”

And also, the damage increased its no longer linked to a target because it just gives boons to the pet, which makes it more versatile and counterable because they can be removed/stolen/corrupted by many clases.

And with that new cooldown of 15 seconds, it will synergize better with soldiers of the soldier and resounding timbre.

That is a reason of why may thieves cry on actual Sic ´Em, because it has no tell.
But unless you are in wvw trying to kill a thief who is almost at max range of longbow, revealing him just so he cant shadow refuge or something like that, and on a more tan 2x the cooldown its not a very flexible skill.

With new Sic em, you can reveal multiple people who just used shadow refuge / mass invisivility, etc to revive a downed ally / scape and show them to your allies so they cna attack them, on people who is alredy on stealth.

Not to mention that in increases damage on pet more reliably tan current Sic´em, because it doesent gets cancelled by any of your skills.

Hi guys

I just want to share with you an idea about how to change Sic Em into a more useable skill.

Rigth now, Sic em does this:

-40/32(traited) seconds cooldown
-Reveals your target for 6 seconds
-Gives +40% speed and damage to your pet for 10 seconds
-Requires target
-Anything you do that involves pet (including using other shout save the added /renamed (heal and elite)ones) cancells the bonus damage/speed.

So has “some potential”, but a the end its underwhelming, so i want you to propose a new versión of the skill:

New Sic Em

-15/12(traited) seconds cooldown
-Reveals up to 5 targets for 3 seconds in a 240 radius around pet
-Grants 8 seconds of quickness and super speed to your pet
-Does not interrupt wathever the pet is doing

And thats it, relatively simple change but…
It will give us a lot of more useability to some pet mechanics like

-Search and rescue (intentionally granting quickness so it revives somebody faster).
-Long cast time skills for pets (such as drakes breath).

And some ranger mecanics like:

-Swap pets/Sic em for a quick reveal around you
-Condition removal from soldier runes that matches our “Guard” shout
-Swifness / regeneration upime that matches our “Guard” shout

And certain synergies like:

-Having nature´s magic line to increase quickness duration by 20% (to 9.6 secs)
-Having +boon duration runes/food to increase quickness duration by ?% (to ? secs)
-Using all boon duration aviable to increase quickness duration to 666 secs

And certain counterplays like:

-Striping / stealing quicknes for your own use
-Corrupting for the complete oposite effect

An thats it, do you think its a good change?, im open to opinions

PD: i would also like that superspeed is turned into a Boon, so its capable of +boon duration . And its corresponding counterplays

Are you sure?, last time i tested it just blocked 1 attack and did the counter no matter your attacker was close or far away.

Hi people

I just want to give a small suggestion to Anet Devs, in order to make underwater spear a Little more fluid in combat.

To do so, i propose the following changes to spear skills:

Evasive strike (last hit from spear skill 1 chain): This skill can now be used while moving

Counter Strike: This skill will now block incoming attacks unless hit by a foe in range of the counter hit (similar to greatsword counter attack).

Counter strike kick: Severely reduced aftercast of this skill (rigth now its like 2 seconds of aftercast)

Throw spear: This skill can now be used while moving, increased damage by 50% (this skill rigth now hits for about 2/3 of the first two hits of the auto attack, which is really low)

Man O War: This skill can now be used while moving.

Thats all i have to say, im open for your opinión.

Now that you say that, i think that the skill 2 effect was too power oriented, and since its the only axe condition damage skill it should increase condition damage output in some way, so i changed it to fire 2 extra axes for 2 extra stacks of bleeding, while keeping similar power damage output compared to my previous idea.

On path of scars im sure it would be more reliable my idea compared toyours, since the first knockbak would lock your target just enough for the second hit to come making it more cc heavy and reliable that your option of only increasing the speed of the axe and adding knockdown at the end.

Also, i dont think adding some or all of this chages into baseline would be a good idea, because thats how things become OP, and this changes are all very powerfull to be added into baseline just like that.

As some poeple have comented in previous post, since this last patch they have been experiencing super lag spikes (1500 – 2000 ping).

For me, ping has been arround 100- 600 always erratic, and thats very anoying since its always active (i have constant lag).

And my internet apears to be working fine

I hope this is from Anet`s side so they can fix this

Jus ta s the title says, rangers beastly warden`s trait aparently goes trougth evades and blinds (and blocks but thats normal) so i think thats a bug just in case the devs didnt notice it yet.

Hi everybody

I just want to know your opinion about this particular trait, which is one of the granmaster traits of the beastmastery line.

Currently, this trait is really inferior compared to the other two, zephir´s Speed and Beastly Warden, becaust this trait only gives like %10 critical damage and makes axe 3 explode on impact (only if it hits your target, doesnt explode if it hits the ground of a wall), and give a -%20 recharge time on axes wich is standard of weapon especific traits.

So, here is my idea

Rename trait because it will now affect both speargun and axes

DESCRIPTION: “Gain precision when wielding an axe or a speargun, axes or speargun skills recharge faster and have improved effects”

Both speargun and axe effects
+150 presicion
20% recharge reduction (stack with lead the wind for speargun????)

Axe effects

Ricochet: +1 bounces (so it bounces 3 times now)
Splitblade: +50% direct damage per axe and fires 2 extra axes (so it hits like 2 ricochets of direct damage now instead of 1 and deals increased condition damage)
Winter´s bite: explodes on impact (Just like now)
Path of scars: Knocks back on the first hit
Whirling defense: Increased radius and grants 5 seconds of 5 stacks of stability (this stability is removed as soon as you cancel the skill similar to old mortar)

Speargun effects

Splinter shot: Pierces (similar to engineers coated bullets trait that doesent exist now)
Coral shot: +900% damage (so its damage is similar to 1 hit of path of scars)
Feeding frenzy: Increased radius to 360
Mercy shot: Knocks back 300 units
Ink spray: Increased backwards distance by 50%

And thats it im eager to hear your opinions

Edit: switched aegis for stability and changed some others axe effects

I´ll bump this threat just in case Devs didnt notice it yet

Just as the title says, at least in PvP, both we heal as one and strength of the pack dont remove a condition when using soldier runes.

Just in case the devs havent noted it yet.

As the title says, since the update today on 31/03/2015, this skill has much longer aftercast than what it had before, and aparently some other skills that have the same animation have that problem too (on other topic anout throw gunk/ feather tuff), so this si definetly a bug.

The bad part about ranger is that its a weapon skill on 10 secs cooldown which is very problematic in pvp since i could throw an auto axe and a half in that extra aftercast they added now.

Also, it looks than the animation its correct, but the axe comes out like 1/2 sec after it did before, and also it takes longer to use skills again, like an entire second total delay added.

Other skills work perfectly so its not lag, and it happens always i use winter´s bite.

I hope this gets fixed as soon as possible.

I would definetly be my female charr ranger (which is the only character i play for months), because i would be fluffy and furry with a flufy tail and paws and all that stuff. I think i would sit at black citadel or other main city, hugging myself or something like that until i get bored and then i would play with my pets and eat bread (i think charr only eat meat but i dont think we cant eat bread).

And let people pet me if they want to.

Hi people

Since the expansion is coming in a not so near future, ill like to make some suggestions to help improve the gameplay inmerssion by adding this feature.

Even if theese are small changues and do not have an impact on gameplay, i would like that Anet included this new features for the expansion day.

1. When you gent your health to a level where the low health dialogs pop up, the posture of your character will change when walking /standing to one where it represents that he / she is either wounded or tired (similar to megaman X games), this only applies when walking / standing and not when doing skills, this is merely cosmetic tough its possible to see someone at low health in PvP withouth havint to target him, but its still a very small change.

2. When you get defeated, characters now close their eyes instead of layng there with their eyes open.

Thats all, it would require some effort but its not that hard and it will make the game look a litle bit more realistic.

Any opinions are welcome.

if its +100 for each equiped, that means you can use sword/axe and get +100 derocity, then that would be very useful (and probably should give 20% cooldown reduction on axe skills)

solrik.6028:

1. Why? It homes to it’s target…
2. PoS spike damage every 6 seconds? Too OP
3. The good thing with current Winter’s Bite is the chill and the full weakness up-time. Nerfing it’s chill to make it bounce will make the weapon more team-oriented, which might be either a bad or a good thing for people.
4. “Mostly fine” ? What is wrong? I’d widen the hitbox of the gliding axe

5. Please stop comparing whirling defense to whirling axe. Whirling defense Reflects, Retaliates, Inflicts vulnerability and deals damage, even that in higher radius. Whirling Axe does nothing besides dealing damage. Nerfing it’s damage and overall effect to enable moving will not make it better. Changing only the cooldown (5 seconds less?) would help tremendously.

1. Im 900% sure that ricochet doesn´t home its target whith home, i mean that if the targets blincks or teleports when the proyectile is already in the air, and he is still in range, the proyectile will hit him no matter what, you will se the tracer of the proyectile curving or changing direction, even going back depending on where the enemy teleported, some skills that do that are engineer´s hip shot, necromancer´s dagger #4 or mesmer´s staff #1 skill (and the current winter´s bite).

2. Also, Splitblade´s damage isn´t reliable because you have to be very close to land the kittens, and you cant use stuff like sigils of inteligence to make them crit like with path of scars because it will use 3 hits and then the other 2 will not auto crit, and also the casting time of splitblade is longer than path of scars, and with the range it has to deal max damage, its almost a melee attack, and our GS#2 skill maul has higger damage and the same 6 seconds cooldown and the same casting time and can probably hit for max damage from more distance than splitblade, so i dont se where it could be overpowered.

3. I also knew that my change on winter´s bite would make it less powerful vs 1 target and better on team figths or vs enemy rangers or minion necros etc but that was just to make all the axe´s skills to be able to AOE.

4. And on path of scars, i think that the damage it deals, casting time and cooldown is too high to make it bigger, if you use axe/axe, i recomend you using skill #3 before using it, or use it as opener when your enemy less expects it.

5. Also, i just said that the animation is what would change on whirling defence that would match the animation of whirling axe, with the purpose of making it more suitable for moving, it will now have more aviability and more versatliity than the current whirling defense, and the cooldown reduction its not 5 seconds, its 10 seconds because currets whirling defense´s cooldown is 25 seconds which leaves a similar uptime but more separated in more skill uses.

Ok, taking into account your opinions and the low DPS this skill has, i edited the OP to include mobility and animation changes on whirling defense.

But that was much easier because its the typical block animation from gear shield / shield stance, that can already move since there is no animation on their feet, but whirling defence would be much harder because your feet move as part of the animation so making you walk while doing that would look weird and thei´ll have to modify the animation which is what would need work.

And that requires programming, which Anet won´t do easly

Hi everybody

For a start, i know that axe is sort of a hybrid damage weapon, but i still think it is sligthly underperforming compared to other specialized weapons such as short or longbow. Note that i dont mean with underperforming to the damage potential of the weapon, but underperforming on the reliability on landing that damage on the enemy on most part.

So here are the changes i propose to you in order to make axe more reliable and less frustrating in some cases to use.

1. Ricochet:
Proyectile speed increased by 50%

Reason: you´ll note that using this skill on moving targets misses most of time, mainly due to the axe´s low proyectile speed, and taking into acount that its not that sort of high risk – high reward skill (such as necromacer´s staff #1, which now that i remember just got buffed exactly like this), i think the low speed its unnesesary.

2. Splitblade:
Direct damage increased by 200%

Reason: This time, you´ll notice that this is actualy that kind of high risk – high reward skill (point blank and sligtly long cast time) and it deals, not counting the 30 ticks of bleed, the same damage as a single ricochet, so i think this damage increase will make it more rewarding witouth making it overpowered the damage it will now deal is aproximatedly 1.5 long range shot at max distance, or the same damage as 1 hit of path of scars.

3. Winter´s bite:
Increased speed by 50%
Chill diration decreased to 1 second
This skill is no longer teledirected to its target
This skill will now bounce 2 times like ricochet

Reason: This skill was mostly fine, but it was the only skill that couldn´t hit multiple targets, so i made a change to make it hit multiple targets, while decreasing the single target chill uptime and increasing direct damge potential, because having a skill that puts over 1 second of chill its overpowered and there is no class that has any skill that puts over 1 second of chill.

4. Path of scars No change

Reason: This skill is mostly fine, AOE, high damage potential, hard to land, decent cooldownt etc.

5 Whirling defense
Decreased duration to 3 seconds
Decreased cooldown to 15 seconds
Decreased hits to 3/5 of what it was (7.2 theoricaly)
Damage per hit unchanged
Animation changed to the same than warrior´s whirling axe or thieve´s dagger storm, while the outside bubble remains the same
This skill now can be used while moving

Reason: many times that you want to reflect something, you end up spining for a long period after you reflected said thing, and taking into account that you can´t move while casting this skill, you end up wasting the rest of the skill, this change will also increase retaliation uptime making it more meaningfull And because many people (included myself) think than being able to move whith this skill would make it more useful, and because the relative low DPS this skill has, it is fine to let the ranger be able to move while using this skill

SUM

Overall, the only skill that gets increased damage its splitblade while the rest are made more versatili and reliable.

¿Do you think its a good changue or not?, im open to discussion.

This si mine, im altmos sure that nobody here has more % as ranger

I tested it and im sure that these dont stack, i used swifness, sick em and SotH at the same time and made chieftain from heart of the mist hit my pet and then make it attack me, and my ped had a lot of trouble hitting him.
Pets are still definetly affected by cripple and chill etc, even whith all those buffs.
And also, im sure that pet compat speed si capped at +33%, so even sic em doesnt make pet go 40% faster, i thik in makes it go 33% faster and the remaining 7% is used to mitigate movement speed decreases, but it is still affected considerably.

And also, the effect doesnt cancells when you order your pet something when the skill is in effect, which mean that you can do pet f2 with increased damage.

In short, i still think my change is a buff.

The damage increase is 40% now on a 40 sec cooldown, i reduced both the damage and the cooldown to have the same damage increase over time.
But on the other side i dont see any movement speed nerf, since your pet has 99% chance in combat of having a movement speed condition, and by ignoring that, it can keep presure instead of just running crippled in circles for 10 seconds until the skill wears off.

Yeah and you are rigth, i only play ranger, i almost want to delete my other character sinche ranger is the only class i fell confortable playing.

I would like to give an opinion about how sic em shpuld be:

Instead of being a 1500 range instant reveal, it should be more powerful, but less unavoidable by making it like this:

Cooldown: 20 seconds
Cast time: .75 seconds (same as using necromancer´s staff #1 skill)
No longer requires target and doesnt end by any means other than running out of time
Duration: 10 seconds
Type: Shout
Description: Order your pet to focus on targets , making in ignore movement reducing conditions and deal more damage. Targets hit by your pet reveal targets for the duration of the skill.
Ignores: Cripple,Chill and imobilize
Damage increase: 20%
Revealed: 3 seconds (doesnt stack, it only refreshes if you are hit multiple times bofore the revealed expires).

This both makes the skill less frustrating for thieves that can avoid the pet and makes this skill more usefull against non thiefes because it makes your pet much harder to avoid because of the movmement speed conditions ignoring, makes it synergize better with natures voice becauce of the lower cooldown etc etc.

Paavotar.3971:

uri.6521:

They should make all classes to be able to swap weapons in 5 seconds, but it should have a cast time equal to stowing weapons and taking out the new ones (1 second aproximately), and make warrior´s fast hands trait make it instant (just as it is now).

As a side note, i think there shoud be not a single instant skill on this game, they should reduce the cooldown and increase the power of some skills like multiple mesmer and scepter elementalist skills or thief steal ad instant shadowsteps like shadowstep for example, but instead, those skills should be stronger by themselves.

This was actually interesting idea. We could consider weapon swapping as an interruptable skill. So if you see someone is trying to swap weapon, you can interrupt it and wreck their rotation up (weapon not changing and going to 3 seconds cooldown).

This would also mean you couldn’t swap your weapons while stunned and proc some of your on-swap sigils. Indeed an intersting idea in my opinion.

Exactly, giving weapon swap a casting time solves ant least 2 problems in one action, wich are:

1. Makes spamming skills 2 to 5 on some classes like elementalist and 3 kit engineer and more counterable and less spammy do to the constant swaping.

2. Makes counterable and less bursty on swap sigils like geomancy and frost, wich are widely used because of having no real tell because weapon swap is instant rigth now.

Also, i dislike instant skills because they have no tell so players can expoloit that, and the worst part si that the most powerfull skills may times are the fastest ones, like corrupt boon, death shroud #3, all shatters, rifle butt (ok this one not that much), overcharged shot staggering blow, point blank shot, smite condition, steal with mug, shadow shot, grenade barrage, pry bar magnetic inversion (the skill itself is really bad but enginers use this skill solely because its an instant knockbak), air blast, impale.

Also, i dont think there should be skills that have prolonged effect after being cast, this includes meteor shower, combustive shot, ice storm and barrage, combustive shot will get fixed on next patch, but i suggest cutting the cooldown by half, but making the casting times of this skills equal to the time the effects are on (like 8-10 seconds), and making them much more powerfull in power.

i coluld go on but you should get the point

I know that stun breakers are for panic situations, but with casting time i mean a really short one, and compensating this with lower cooldown, greater effects and stability when casting it.

At the end of the day, the point of this changes i have in mind is to change the mentality of the players to “¿What is off cooldown rigth now? or ¿Is my rotation ready?” to"What shoud i do next to counter him" and “What playstyle is better for this situation”

They should make all classes to be able to swap weapons in 5 seconds, but it should have a cast time equal to stowing weapons and taking out the new ones (1 second aproximately), and make warrior´s fast hands trait make it instant (just as it is now).

As a side note, i think there shoud be not a single instant skill on this game, they should reduce the cooldown and increase the power of some skills like multiple mesmer and scepter elementalist skills or thief steal ad instant shadowsteps like shadowstep for example, but instead, those skills should be stronger by themselves.

Maibe im trying to fix that problem on a very hard, and posibly OP way, so i think that the best and fastest solution would be just to move ferocity to wilderness survival and condition damage to skirmishing.

But on the other hand, two hande training is still very weak for a master trait in my opinion and they should be buffed it in some way (i use runes of the pack and those give me almost permanent fury (13/ 20 seconds) with 30 points in nature magic so for me the fury in that trait is not that good)

im not saying that the changes Anet proposed (save swop and hilt bash) should take effect over the ones im proposing here (practically all the bleed related changes). im mostly trying to buff two handed training, which is a really underused trait, so it now gives the greatsword a chance as an hibrid/ condition weapon,
These change im proposing are suposed do be made along with the anet proposed changes (save swop and hilt bash) instead of in place of them.

Im hearing all the complaints about the bleed overload, i just want to remember that on the second to last paragraph says that all that bleed wil come * Only when traite with two handed mastery* (Wich will also affect spear) , and also, the duration of the bleeds are considerably small so they wont be able to run a condition based build on its own, it

The reason of the bleed was just to try to make some use of the condition damage from using that line, in a more hibryd way, since the gs alone wont kill anybody.

Hi peolpe

I made this topic with intention of showing some faults that, in my personal opinion are being made on the proposed ranger changes that will occur in the patch in a very near future (2-3 months).

First of all, im not saying that the thanges proposed for the ranger are OP or unbalanced, but they are made in a way that doesnt synergize with the skills purpose themselves (in my opinion).

Greatsword

ill start with the greatsword changes, but before i just want to say that, while the traits that improve greatsword´s cooldown is in a line that grants condition damage, the greatsword by itself canot inflict any damaging condition, wich leaves (at least) those 200 condition damage completely wasted for that weapon, which is something that should be changed.

and now with the skills…

Slash / slice / power stab

Proposed solution: increase damage from power stab by 10%.
For a start, power stab is a skill that evades attacks, and thus, it should be the last skill that should be buffed in damage.

My solution:Make slash / slice inflict one stack 5 seconds of bleeding
This way, the condition damage from the traitline that gives the cooldown reduction wont be wasted, and its not a giant ammount of damage increase also (it could be reduced to up to 3 seconds if you consider 5 seconds to long) .

Maul

Proposed soultion: icreased targets to 5 and increased range to 230 (not 100% sure).
Not a bad idea to be honest.

My solution: Add 3 stacks of bleed of 6 seconds on top of the vulneravility (no range or targets increase).
Many people complained that the bleed was better than the vulnerability, and this way, both worlds could be in peace.

Swoop

Proposed soultion: grant evasion on the attack portion of the skill.
In my opinion, this is unnesesary, since the greasword already has a lot of defences and this would be overkill to me.

My solution: inflict one stack of bleed for 10 seconds instead of the evasion.
In my opinion, this skill doesnt need that much change, and just buffing it sligthly by adding 1 bleed would be optimal to me

Counter attack/ crippling throw

Proposed soultion: reduce aftercast when hitting an oponent with the kick
Not much to say here, a good change.

My solution: on top of that, add 1 stack for 10 seconds of bleed to crippling throw and 2 stacks for 10 seconds for counter attack kick.

Maibe this is unnesesary, but at the end ill tell you what to do with all that bleed

Hilt bash

Proposed soultion: increase stun/ daze duration to 1.5 secs (+50% duration).
This could be exploited by some moment of clarity builds to have the same duration as skull crack lvl 3, so i dont think masive stun durations are good for the game.

My solution: Reduce cooldown to 15 seconds, add one stack of bleed for 5 seconds
Plain and simple, just increase overall stun and daze duration over burst long stuns with long cooldowns, and the bleed im about to tell you what to do with it.

¿And what with all that bleed?

Simple, my final proposal is to keep the Anet proposed changes (exept for hilt bash and probably maul), but add that bleeding to the two handed training in natures magic traitline, so all that bleed will be only accesible if you have that trait.

What do you think, good, bad OP?, im waiting for your feedback (im to tired to do the rest of the proposed changes,so i just did greatsword for the moment.)

This is my build:

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-F77g-FCwEFt-a2ZDV-0;2Vt-d27F-8Y317;0TT9;419A57B2;0RR-66Rk0F-03F-034kx

This build is mainly power based and its based on being a balance of everything that one can do in pvp, WvW and PvE.

So the pros of this build

1. Very resilent to burst damage
2. Very resilent to condition damage
3. Deals decent damage if you can use sigils of inteligence wisely
4. Almost all skills are multi target
5. decent mobility
6. Decent support
7. Extreme amounts of active defence like dodges, blocks (can have up to 3 second constant evade without having to use endurance)

The cons of the build

1. Can’t handle more than 3 people for longer than a minute before having to run away

I hope you enjoy my build, since i have been running like this since they introduced the new shout traits and i have perfected this playstyle so i can literraly solo anything in PvP. But its up to you to know how to play this build.

Fynally!! Thanks Anet

The two images are the armor before and after this recent patch:

Here is my charr char, i use the same armor for both PvP and PvE / WvW