Ranger notes 12/11

RangerRight now, spirits are playing an important role in our difficult end-game content by providing unique enhancements. When a trait is equipped with Nature's Vengeance, spirits also serve as low-cost boon generators. In this update, we made select changes to Nature's Vengeance to reduce the boon output and to clean up the trait. Depending on how these changes work out, we may further adjust spirits in the future.

Additionally, soulbeasts are currently overperforming in competitive game modes, so we're lowering the power of some of the skills used in their builds. We also took this opportunity to enhance a few of their weaker stances.

Call of the Wild: This skill's fury duration has been split between game modes and will now use a 6-second duration in PvP while keeping its 10-second duration in other game modes.Bear Stance: This skill will now attempt to consume a condition before it heals.Moa Stance: The cooldown of this skill has been increased from 25 seconds to 40 seconds in PvP only.Dolyak Stance: This skill no longer applies retaliation. Instead, it now reduces incoming condition damage and physical damage by 33% for the duration of the stance in addition to its other effects.Griffon Stance: This skill is no longer instant and now evades for 1 second in addition to its current effects.Spirit Skills: Fixed a bug in which nature spirits could continue to apply effects to allies after they were defeated. The base health of spirits has been increased by 25%.Frost Spirit: The name of the spirit that is summoned by this skill has been changed from Spirit of Frost to Frost Spirit to be consistent with other ranger spirit names.Ambidexterity: Fixed a bug in which the bonus stats that this trait granted could be incorrectly applied.Nature's Vengeance: This trait no longer increases spirit health. Individual spirit bonuses have been updated as follows:

Storm Spirit: This spirit now grants fury for 1 second instead of swiftness for 3 seconds on each pulse while this trait is equipped.Frost Spirit: This spirit now grants might for 5 seconds for 1 stack instead of 3 seconds for 3 stacks while this trait is equipped.Spirit of Nature Renewal: Fixed a bug in which the stability granted by the spirit of nature hit fewer targets than intended.Water Spirit: The regeneration duration that this spirit grants has been reduced from 3 seconds to 2 seconds while this trait is equipped.Soften the Fall: Fixed a bug in which the muddy terrain that this trait creates could last much longer than the intended 10-second duration.

Wilderness Knowledge: The duration of fury that this trait grants has been split between game modes. It now grants 4 seconds of fury in PvP and WvW while keeping a 6-second duration in PvE.Winter's Bite: The duration of weakness that this skill grants has been split between game modes. It now inflicts 4 seconds of weakness in PvP and WvW while keeping a 10-second duration in PvE

undocumented changes:

dolyack now is on a 40 sec CD

Griffon stance also gives super speed and is on a 30 sec CD

Understandable nerfs, but alot of side buffs, if dolyack stance stacks with the protection trait omg, that's not too shabby.

Why no dagger buffs for PvP? Come on it's been over a year and dagger is still trash teir outside of pve autos

Bye druid raiding with you was fun but i guess fb and tempest is better boon casters now

Interesting they are starting to focus on Spirits now. I don't know though, I could never make spirits work in WvW. If they keep at it, it might become a good support for zerging.

More of a PvP nerf than a WvW and PvE balance. I still think pets need a major overhaul though. Canine with the ability to "smell" stealth characters would be a welcomed addition against Deadeyes in WvW.

@Laila Lightness.8742 said:Bye druid raiding with you was fun but i guess fb and tempest is better boon casters now

Druid will be fine, it's minor boon duration nerfs

@Eleazar.9478 said:

@Laila Lightness.8742 said:Bye druid raiding with you was fun but i guess fb and tempest is better boon casters now

Yes but not meta anymore since why have it then fb or tempest can compisate for chrono nerf. Druid only do might

@"Jake Orion.2049" said:Interesting they are starting to focus on Spirits now. I don't know though, I could never make spirits work in WvW. If they keep at it, it might become a good support for zerging.

More of a PvP nerf than a WvW and PvE balance. I still think pets need a major overhaul though. Canine with the ability to "smell" stealth characters would be a welcomed addition against Deadeyes in WvW.

slight boon duration Nerf but that dolyack stance looks attractive as fuck for wvw group play. And when traited with condition damage reduction and rune of the stars that's a 73% condtion damage decrease for the ranger when protection is up

Dolyak Stance buff was really NOT needed for Soulbeast. It's only buffing Boonbeast to god tier. Meanwhile, ''Guard!'' ...

As for Winter's Bite, it's really more of a bigger nerf to Core and Druid since it was applied by the pets. Soulbeast didn't need Pet to apply it.

@"Krispera.5087" said:Dolyak Stance buff was really NOT needed for Soulbeast. It's only buffing Boonbeast to god tier.

Meanwhile, ''Guard!'' ...

Wasn't consume plasma nerfed heavily though? Or does this not play into BoonBeast?

@ZhouX.8742 said:

@"Krispera.5087" said:Dolyak Stance buff was really NOT needed for Soulbeast. It's only buffing Boonbeast to god tier.

Meanwhile,

''Guard!''

...

Not to my knowledge, but moa stance got the Nerf which is a big hit to boon beast

And dolyack stance buff gets rid of the passive damage for actual group support

@ZhouX.8742 said:

@"Krispera.5087" said:Dolyak Stance buff was really NOT needed for Soulbeast. It's only buffing Boonbeast to god tier.

Meanwhile,

''Guard!''

...

Consume Plasma: This skill has been split between PvP and other game modes, reducing protection from 10 seconds to 4 seconds, and stability from 5 seconds to 2 seconds.

Yes it has been nerfed, but giving 33% reduced Condi and Damage is only going to nullify it (9 secs duraction/40 secs cooldown). Instead, it's going to be unstrippeable. A good Boonbeast will react accordingly and will use Moa Stance at the right time to get the best boons duration. People were spamming Moa Stance without thinking, now it will only need just a little bit more management.

I can see people use Griffon Stance with that extra evade and endurance gain to get ezpz Protection on dodge.

In overall (with everything in consideration), I still think it's a small nerf to Boonbeast, but that will not change much.

@Laila Lightness.8742 said:

@Eleazar.9478 said:

@Laila Lightness.8742 said:Bye druid raiding with you was fun but i guess fb and tempest is better boon casters now

Wait, did I miss something? Where did tempest get more boons from? Just water/earth overloads now hit 10 ppl, but aurashare still only applies to 5.

Could see the Winter's Bite nerf coming from a mile away. Bummer, but expected.

Spirits "change" isnt gonna change anything. I think it even might be better now with a proper "support" build, and worse on a dps build that throws in some spirits to "assist" the druid. Stormspirit might be decent now in say, fractals and/or raids, maybe lets you replace warhorn with something else ((for the fury uptime))... (idk what...)

Soulbeast damage remainst the same, stances is a fair "change". just a slight nerf.

Soulbeast got away muuuuch better than what (some) people think Holosmith did :p

And about that firebrand/tempest replacing drood i think not, firebrand got quite a hefty increased CD on 2 tomes, and tempests didnt rly get much in way of support..

FYI griffon stance is bugged doesn't provide superspeed

OMG Griffon Stance buffs?!

I think the changes were fair and we should appreciate the fact that arenet used a small hammer and not a larger one like in other professions case this round

Reading thru the notes didn’t leave me with the “wtf just happened” face

griffon stance works, you get superspeed whenever you evade an attack, for 9 secs long

@Koen.1327 said:griffon stance works, you get superspeed whenever you evade an attack, for 9 secs long

Oh really thanks the tooltip wasn't clear

@Eleazar.9478 said:

@Koen.1327 said:griffon stance works, you get superspeed whenever you evade an attack, for 9 secs long

I feel like the tooltip reads superspeed and might on any evade, but testing shows superpseed only on evade while stance is active. Do allies get all these effects through trait?

@Tinnel.4369 said:

@Eleazar.9478 said:

@Koen.1327 said:griffon stance works, you get superspeed whenever you evade an attack, for 9 secs long

They should just like might have to tested it though

Spirit Skills: Fixed a bug in which nature spirits could continue to apply effects to allies after they were defeated. The base health of spirits has been increased by 25%.

Is this not big to anyone? Water spirit can no longer be popped instantly for regen. All spirits loses ¼ uptime. There's gonna be gaps where the dps of the group is lower now. You also can't pop the spirits a little earlier before moving between fractal spawns if you want to maintain their effects.

@Solnos.8045 said:Spirit Skills: Fixed a bug in which nature spirits could continue to apply effects to allies after they were defeated. The base health of spirits has been increased by 25%.

Is this not big to anyone? Water spirit can no longer be popped instantly for regen. All spirits loses ¼ uptime. There's gonna be gaps where the dps of the group is lower now. You also can't pop the spirits a little earlier before moving between fractal spawns if you want to maintain their effects.

Dont matter anymore

I don't get why they have to nerf 3 fury sources at the same time, but I guess it won't matter for most builds.