Ranger/Druid/Soulbeast - Fix needed

Because I am tired of all post about how to nerf ranger, how to nerf druid or how to nerf that trait lines and this skill, I made this post where I please ask you to share your opinion/thoughts in that way that Anet will FIX and not nerf Ranger class and those 2 specializations.I hope ppl who don't play this class will refrain from commenting, because we don't need somone who hate rangers to explain us how to nerf the ranger.Thank you!

Without a doubt, Druid NEEDS to be nerfed. It has too much defense built into Avatar. It needs the same treatment as Ventari, good at healing others. Weaker at healing yourself. With all the stealth, mobility, full condi clear every 15seconds on top of its other condi removals. Will it be nerfed? Dunno. It does however NEED to be nerfed.

Soulbeast, i dunno. Feels quite solid to me. Some of the traits could do with tweaks and buffs.

Many pets need improvements to their survivability as the overall damage in the game has kept going up since its original release, yet all the standard pets still have their original survivability which makes most of them pretty useless.GS block should be adjusted to be on par with all the more recent block skills: Instead of automatically initiating a counter attack, it should continue to block until the block duration is over or the player decides to use the counterattack.Warhorn 4 should not be dodgeable at so many different occasions. Either the damage over time of it should be dodgeable or its application, but not both.Power builds could use a buff in terms of pve dps (e.g. more damage modifiers or give us back self-buffing maul when in beast mode).Soulbeast traits need to be reworked to have more synergy with the rest of the class. Core ranger is fine as it is and druid is too good anyway.

For Rangers in general, their PROFESSION MECHANIC, aka PETS, needs to have a re-haul.

For Core Ranger : Weapon Swap traits in Skirmishing and Opening Strike in Marksmanship need to change. Poison traits in WS need to be merged. A buff to Nature Magic would be nice (It feels meh).

Druid is in a good position, some traits are better than others, but I can find an use to all of them. Most useless ones are like the Staff trait, the + heal on Heal and blind on Heal.

SBeast needs lots of changes, because half of the traits are useless. Same with the pets skills in BeastMode. It needs animation shaving and buff to many many things.

Weapons that need to be looked at are : Dagger MH/OH, Axe MH/OH, Sword's leap, WH 4 and Torch's Throw Torch.Skills that need to be looked at are : Strength of the Pack, Spirit of Nature, Signet of the Wild ACTIVE, Spirits (out of Raids/Instances) and their crappy actives, then Traps in general.

@ArmageddonAsh.6430 said:Without a doubt, Druid NEEDS to be nerfed. It has too much defense built into Avatar. It needs the same treatment as Ventari, good at healing others. Weaker at healing yourself. With all the stealth, mobility, full condi clear every 15seconds on top of its other condi removals. Will it be nerfed? Dunno. It does however NEED to be nerfed.

Soulbeast, i dunno. Feels quite solid to me. Some of the traits could do with tweaks and buffs.

without a doubt I never seen you in a pvp match-My bad, got you mixed up with another Druid hater, nerf druid troll.

Soulbeast, solid? it does solid dmg. It's an all in approach. many believe Core is better for pvp. That doesn't make me feel amazing about it.

Druid is fairly strong for support but the dmg isn't very good.

Full condi clear every 15 secs? That's a clear exaggeration.On top of its condi removals-- which is what exactly? Signet of renewal--pet will pull 13 condis from you and teammates if its close enough (50sec cd)And what, 2 condis on heal?

Good, I wish it removed MORE condis.

In this current meta, I can be loaded up with condis, remove and IMMEDIATELY--not 1 sec goes by, and I have a full bar of fire and forget bull shit that is ruining this game.

@EnderzShadow.2506 said:without a doubt I never seen you in a pvp match.

Sorry, should have mentioned, from a WvW perspective.S/TPvP is boring. Too limiting on what builds you can use, the game mode (point capture) is boring and kinda sucks.

spvp boring?

I don't like Virtual jogging. Go on with your bad self in WvW with your sweat band and shorty shorts :P

And please, don't forget to Hydrate!

@EnderzShadow.2506 said:

@ArmageddonAsh.6430 said:Without a doubt, Druid NEEDS to be nerfed. It has too much defense built into Avatar. It needs the same treatment as Ventari, good at healing others. Weaker at healing yourself. With all the stealth, mobility, full condi clear every 15seconds on top of its other condi removals. Will it be nerfed? Dunno. It does however NEED to be nerfed.

Soulbeast, i dunno. Feels quite solid to me. Some of the traits could do with tweaks and buffs.

As i pointed out, i was talking about WvW but....

Soulbeast is VERY good in WvW. Its not quite perfect yet, mostly due to having bugs and issues here and there but has the damage both melee and ranged, has stealth, mobility and good defenses. Good condi clears with its new heal combined with other traits.

Druid has INSANE damage when in WvW and has insane mobility, stealth, condi clear every 15seconds (well 13 but still. thats a clear as there are 13 conditions in the game) Druidic Clarity is ALWAYS taken. Who wouldnt take 13 condis removed AND a stun break on a 15second cool down. Weather you will actually get to use it every 15seconds, i would doubt. I guess it would depend on the build. The more allies you have. The more often you can use it. When solo for me at least its longer but mostly as just testing it out as you get much more of the energy for Avatar from healing, so i guess the more damage you and your pet take, the easier and quicker it would fill up. Also the less time you spend in it, the better. Which would again decrease the cool down between uses. So i guess it could be possible with enough practice and the right build. Defiantly possible if you're in a group.

When against Scourge, Soulbeast should win most fights. This again is WvW based. I have enough counters to Scourge - CC, mobility, Ranged burst, condition removal.

Soulbeast is okish Druid is overpowered

@ArmageddonAsh.6430 said:Soulbeast is VERY good in WvW. Its not quite perfect yet, mostly due to having bugs and issues here and there but has the damage both melee and ranged, has stealth, mobility and good defenses. Good condi clears with its new heal combined with other traits.

Let's say I am agree with you, that Soulbeast is very good in WvW if it is in a hand of a good player.

Druid has INSANE damage when in WvW and has insane mobility, stealth, condi clear every 15seconds (well 13 but still. thats a clear as there are 13 conditions in the game) Druidic Clarity is ALWAYS taken.

Druid has insane damage? From where did you get this ? Maybe you can say Soulbeast with berserker gear has an insane damage, but Druid ? Definitely not!Druid is a balanced class, with a lot of survivability, good damage, but is not a damage dealer, not like Soulbeast. Even so, please don't talk about Druid needs nerf, because he didn't. It is ok like it is now. I don't play Druid since PoF like I mentioned before, and even I meet druids in WvW and they are hard to kill because of disengage abilities, I still don't want to be nerfed, because they are ok with what they have now! If one thing will be nerfed they will become an unplayable specialization, and are many players who didn't bought PoF.

@jihm.2315 said:Soulbeast is okish Druid is overpoweredI killed every time any Druid with my Soulbeas ... I don't know from where did you get that Druid is overpowered. An OP class is one who can kill almost all classes (if not every classes) and in the same time can survive vs more than 2 enemies, like Spellbraker or Mirage.

@"ArmageddonAsh.6430" said:Soulbeast, i dunno. Feels quite solid to me. Some of the traits could do with tweaks and buffs.

Yeah, solid enough to be completely irrelevant. Core ranger beats it ten out of ten times. There are no matchups where a core ranger can't perform equally well. Except wvw trains I guess.

It needs buffs and tweaks, but those buffs and tweaks that are needed will put it considerly above how its currently performing. It will never be anything outside a niche spec in pvp enviroments until it gets petswap in beastmode. And before anyone tells me about "Bik's longbow soulbeast", the build is literally the soulbeast version of the years old WS/NM/BM build with more damage and less surviveability. If anyone that plays ranger didn't come up with a similiar build when testing soulbeast for the first time, it would astonish me.

@Lazze.9870 said:

@"ArmageddonAsh.6430" said:Soulbeast, i dunno. Feels quite solid to me. Some of the traits could do with tweaks and buffs.

Core ranger or vanila ranger will never beat (at least not atm) a Soulbeast. Since PoF I never saw 1 single vanila ranger to beat a Soulbeast.I don't believe there are still players who complain about Soulbeast since this specialization face any class more than well.Soulbeast don't need petswap in beastmode, not with this status/traits the Soulbeast have it now. Because this will be too OP. Do you realize what means now to have the ability to change pets in beastmode ? From Power to Defense in one second ? It's like you have the ability to change gear from Berserker+Scholar to Sentinel+Durability in one second.Don't get me wrong, I like the idea to swap in beastmode, just for this they must change a lot of things for Soulbeast, and I am not sure they will not broke in the end Soulbeast. I don't want this class to become OP so they will nerf so bad that will be unplayable, like happened with Necro before.

@Dragonzhunter.8506 said:

@Lazze.9870 said:

@"ArmageddonAsh.6430" said:Soulbeast, i dunno. Feels quite solid to me. Some of the traits could do with tweaks and buffs.

Almost sure that ATM, core ranger is preferable to win a soulbeast 1v1, in PVP. In WvW soulbeast may take the lead but not by much.Regarding pet swap while in beast mode, I made a suggestion in the forums to give the option to swap once for each time you enter beastmode.

Soulbeast would be fine otherwise but pet swap is problematic since you need to exit beast mode and go on cooldown. I do agree there needs to be some cooldown but it would be better if you didn't need to exit beastmode. Or then maybe just give little heal after you exit otherwise it's pretty deadly in many cases. Also some soulbeast traits are somewhat less useful, not to mention some core traitlines could use a little convenience oomph in general.

Also soulbeast beast mode skills lack reasonable varierty. Imho there's just few pets you can use in convenient manner without too much micromanagement. Others either just lack dmg or utility or skills just don't work well together. To me it seems many pets, especially older ones, were just given random skills without much thought.

I tried core ranger in spvp and I'm pretty sure soulbeast has higher burst dmg, just because quickness/dmg traits/elite/beast combos. What is better depends on what you're doing i guess but i'm just personally disappointed at core ranger dmg (if you want any survivability)

@Dragonzhunter.8506 said:

@Lazze.9870 said:

@"ArmageddonAsh.6430" said:Soulbeast, i dunno. Feels quite solid to me. Some of the traits could do with tweaks and buffs.

I play core Ranger and wreck 99% (no not a solid statistic but this is the feeling of k/d) of soul beasts, even after I have just killed someone and on fun cool downs lol. Soul beast is terrible. And I am talking about wvw and pvp. When ever i see a soul beast i go straight for them because I know they will die in seconds.

Soul beast needs a complete rework, because it just doesnt seem to work. What you need to giveup from the core trait lines is just not worth it. I was extremely disappointed with soul beast.

@Dragonzhunter.8506 said:

I hope ppl who don't play this class will refrain from commenting, because we don't need somone who hate rangers to explain us how to nerf the ranger.

There are 9 Professions. I wasn't aware that we had to choose one and only one to play. That being said, wouldn't asking (profession) mains only be the worst request you could possibly have for a productive discussion? The bias would be (and historically has been) less than helpful.

@Turk.5460 said:

@Dragonzhunter.8506 said:

I hope ppl who don't play this class will refrain from commenting, because we don't need somone who hate rangers to explain us how to nerf the ranger.

I didn't read on any other class ppl asking to nerf their own class. Ofc you can play whatever you want, I have characters for all classes too, but my main is Ranger. I can go on Thief, Mesmer and Warrior (this is my second character after Ranger) forums and ask on multiple posts (like some of our rangers did on our forum) to nerf this class just because from my POV they are broken in some way. But I didn't, because is not my job to go there ... If I have problem with those class I can post here , on my main class forum. I don't know if you understand what I mean ... for me it's a little ... to ask Anet to nerf MY class ... (even, once again, from my POV Druid is not OP like the other 2-3 classes are)

@EDDIE WRECKER.1375 said:I play core Ranger and wreck 99% (no not a solid statistic but this is the feeling of k/d) of soul beasts, even after I have just killed someone and on fun cool downs lol. Soul beast is terrible. And I am talking about wvw and pvp. When ever i see a soul beast i go straight for them because I know they will die in seconds.

Soul beast needs a complete rework, because it just doesnt seem to work. What you need to giveup from the core trait lines is just not worth it. I was extremely disappointed with soul beast.

I don't know on what server you play wvw , but I never saw a Ranger to beat a Soulbeast, and if you wreck 99% I can tell you that I beat 100% of core Ranger ;) .Maybe for you Soulbeast didn't work, because it is hard for you to change from beastmode to normal mode, change pets then again change in beastmode, use those another 3 skills from pets, maybe that's why you feel that Soulbeast is terrible.Believe me or not, Soulbeast is one of the best class atm, I am not saying OP but best/good in wvw.

PS: if you manage to swap in time pets/beastmode you will have always more power and more survivability skills/stats than core Ranger.

Best roaming classes are thief and mirage which includes druid somehow but not because of the dps but because of the tankiness. Soulbeast is simply okeish because it does a little bit more dps than ranger and has access to doylak stance and sharing that stances and that's all. And that's the facts.

Still a revenant, firebrand and scourge are the classes mostly wanted in wvw, and in pvp is not much different.

Spellbreaker and Holosmisth and getting stronger as the users learn to use those classes. Both of them have a lot of immunity uptime and crazy damage output.

I'll explain why and what soulbeast needs to have fixed for any player which tries the last specialisation and thinks "this is an utterly trash"Soubeast needs pet swap in beastmode to trigger the traits which works with that, if does not suppose as an advantage as long as it keeps the usual CD as right now a dead pet has only 10 seconds CD (come in and out of beastmode).Also to make work all the bugged traits and skills which don't do anything when in beast more, and all the traits which trigger when using a beast ability should trigger when cast and not after the beast ability has finished.

Otherwise traits like beastly warden Or clarion bond which could be an amazing addition become completely useless. Here we are talking about basic mechanics which should always works because otherwise half traitline become useless.

After all that is fixed if the class still seems underpowered we can talk about dps.

Playing with Soulbeast in roaming is challenging and fun. If you are good you are a real threat, special when you are roaming with another 1-3 friends.Thief and Mirage are best roaming class when we talk solo roaming because they always run away, reset CD (they have low CD than any class, much lower than Soulbeast anyway) and then they comeback. They are not best because of the skill of the player but more because of invisibility ability, runing for long distance in a short period of time (in this way they get out of combat in 2 seconds) and lowest CD of skills. But still because of this they are OP.In a combat 1 vs 1 if a Soulbeast will have lower CD on skills, at least the same like thiefs and mesmers, then the situation of the fight will be other.

@Dragonzhunter.8506 said:

@EDDIE WRECKER.1375 said:I play core Ranger and wreck 99% (no not a solid statistic but this is the feeling of k/d) of soul beasts, even after I have just killed someone and on fun cool downs lol. Soul beast is terrible. And I am talking about wvw and pvp. When ever i see a soul beast i go straight for them because I know they will die in seconds.

Soul beast needs a complete rework, because it just doesnt seem to work. What you need to giveup from the core trait lines is just not worth it. I was extremely disappointed with soul beast.

Lol in wvw only huh?, so did you read my post? And there are more reasons for soul beast being bad than 'me being unable to click a button' way to waste a post bro.

Its clunky and ineffective. And they die quick in my experience. Suppose you are going to say 'bro your experience is incorrect' but it cant be because it is MY experience. Do me a favour and read, stop and think before posting next time lol. Not sure what server you are on, but it must only have soulbeasts on it.

@Dragonzhunter.8506 said:

Core ranger or vanila ranger will never beat (at least not atm) a Soulbeast. Since PoF I never saw 1 single vanila ranger to beat a Soulbeast.I don't believe there are still players who complain about Soulbeast since this specialization face any class more than well.Soulbeast don't need petswap in beastmode, not with this status/traits the Soulbeast have it now. Because this will be too OP. Do you realize what means now to have the ability to change pets in beastmode ? From Power to Defense in one second ? It's like you have the ability to change gear from Berserker+Scholar to Sentinel+Durability in one second.Don't get me wrong, I like the idea to swap in beastmode, just for this they must change a lot of things for Soulbeast, and I am not sure they will not broke in the end Soulbeast. I don't want this class to become OP so they will nerf so bad that will be unplayable, like happened with Necro before.

What a bunch of nonsense. Yes, a core ranger can beat a soulbeast. Easily. There is nothing about the soulbeast that makes it able to outplay a core ranger. That doesn't mean a soulbeast can't beat core ranger, but that is like saying one core ranger can beat another core ranger. Pointless. Most core rangers running around in wvw are complete noobs without access to elite specs at all. That's why you feel like you beat everyone of them. Any competetent ranger choosing to run a core build is at the very least going to give you a hard fight.

Zerker+scholar and sentinel+durability runes in one build? The cooldowns are too long and far between for that comparison to even be remotely true. And even if they weren't, it's an exaggeration if I ever heard one.

No, petswap in beastmode wouldn't be OP. It's the only thing that's gonna make this elite spec a solid elite spec, and not a mediocre one. Identical beastmode skills would share cooldowns, pet swap trait would share the cooldown. There wouldn't be a single balance problem implementing petswap in beastmode as long as they do small tweaks to it.

Edit: oh.. right. You're the same person that argued in favor of the viability of celestial rangers. And you roam around mostly with friends... I'm wasting my time.

@Lazze.9870 said:There is nothing about the soulbeast that makes it able to outplay a core ranger. That doesn't mean a soulbeast can't beat core ranger, but that is like saying one core ranger can beat another core ranger. Pointless. Most core rangers running around in wvw are complete noobs without access to elite specs at all. That's why you feel like you beat everyone of them. Any competetent ranger choosing to run a core build is at the very least going to give you a hard fight.

First of all I didn't say a good player with core ranger will not give me a hard fight. Second Soulbeast traits and the abilities+stats from pets make him better than core ranger. I am playing on Seafarer's Rest server.

Zerker+scholar and sentinel+durability runes in one build? The cooldowns are too long and far between for that comparison to even be remotely true. And even if they weren't, it's an exaggeration if I ever heard one.

Maybe it is an exaggeration, but it is almost like that. I didn't say it is possible to have those runes and gear in one build, just will be like!If you use Smokescale and Brown Bear (or Jacaranda) practically you will go from knockdown+might/evade+wordly impact to3 sec of Defy Pain + 4.2 k Heal+3 sec of resistance ( 6.8 k Heal+regeneration+3 sec of resistance for Jacaranda) + 100 vitality and 25% increase healing. Don't tell me that will not be OP when you are in Smokescale Beastmode and when your hp drop, in 1 sec you change to Jacaranda and get 6.8k heal/3 sec resistance etc. or to Bear.For me, a main Soulbeast will be OK, but I am sure that other classes will yell that we must be nerfed.

No, petswap in beastmode wouldn't be OP. It's the only thing that's gonna make this elite spec a solid elite spec, and not a mediocre one. Identical beastmode skills would share cooldowns, pet swap trait would share the cooldown. There wouldn't be a single balance problem implementing petswap in beastmode as long as they do small tweaks to it.

Only 1 skill from pets in beastmode are identical ... so only 1 will share CD ... what we will do with the other 2 ? Yes it is easy for you to say small tweaks, but there are huge tweaks not small to balance all pets+their skills. You don't see that even now we don't have all pets balanced? Why ? Because is not easy to implement and balance 50 ! terrestrial pets and another 21 water pets. This means developers must work to balance another 71 pets x 3 skills only for Ranger! It's not like just a few numbers ... because every skill (or at least 71x2) are different, power/condi/healing and they scale different based on Ranger traits/armor/rune etc.If you really thought it's easy, then go and tell Anet how to do it, if you are IT guy.

Edit: oh.. right. You're the same person that argued in favor of the viability of celestial rangers. And you roam around mostly with friends... I'm wasting my time.

Yes, I am for NOT nerf the Druid and I don't understand you and other guys who want to nerf Druid (just because ...) but you are not concern about what pet swap in Beastmode (without any CD or something, because none of you specify nothing about) will do to Ranger.

Edit: GW2 is not a game about solo playing, and more than other game type World vs World is not about solo roaming (I don't talk about those classes with huge invisibility who hit and run all the time) ... that's why I play most of the time with friends. If you really think you are so powerful with your core/vanila ranger and if you think core ranger easily beat a soulbeast, I invite you on wvw to fight each other

@Lazze.9870 and @EDDIE WRECKER.1375 it's not strange that only you and few guys are complain about how weak is a Soulbeast vs Core Ranger? (in sPVP and WvW)

@"anduriell.6280" said:

Best roaming classes are thief and mirage which includes druid somehow but not because of the dps but because of the tankiness. Soulbeast is simply okeish because it does a little bit more dps than ranger and has access to doylak stance and sharing that stances and that's all. And that's the facts.

Still a revenant, firebrand and scourge are the classes mostly wanted in wvw, and in pvp is not much different.

Spellbreaker and Holosmisth and getting stronger as the users learn to use those classes. Both of them have a lot of immunity uptime and crazy damage output.

I'll explain why and what soulbeast needs to have fixed for any player which tries the last specialisation and thinks "this is an utterly trash"Soubeast needs pet swap in beastmode to trigger the traits which works with that, if does not suppose as an advantage as long as it keeps the usual CD as right now a dead pet has only 10 seconds CD (come in and out of beastmode).Also to make work all the bugged traits and skills which don't do anything when in beast more, and all the traits which trigger when using a beast ability should trigger when cast and not after the beast ability has finished.

Otherwise traits like beastly warden Or clarion bond which could be an amazing addition become completely useless. Here we are talking about basic mechanics which should always works because otherwise half traitline become useless.

After all that is fixed if the class still seems underpowered we can talk about dps.

This is good suggestion before pof was even released lots of players suggested the same. I think the problem why ANET can't implement them is because they probably don't have the technology to do them and programmers would have a hard time. It should work that's the common knowledge but it's harder to do in a programmers view. I THINK that's why it hasn't been done.