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Changes are actually better than expected


LughLongArm.5460

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Some initial thoughts regarding changes.

-GS 4 feels very good, I landed more counter attacks in 5 min of arena than I used to land after a long day of conquest pvp.The block now is a very reliable defense tool. After testing it, I no longer miss the evade(but I do kinda miss the throw animation).
GS auto-chain, I don't really bother with it(could be better if they replaced the evade with something offensive), and you can still repeat the last part of the chain. SO the change got nothing to do with it.

-Sword, not sure why but it feels more fun to use, but I was never a 1h sword player. IF played with a dagger and used correctly you can evade forever(even more than before due to the sting skill change). Also, tons of combos with fields.

It will be very annoying to fight rangers now with the new block and evade options.

-Dagger, I can really feel the difference in terms of pressure power.

The big change nobody talked about - quick draw is now working with channeled skills and will give you the reduction even if the channel is longer than the 5 sec you have to activate.So what it means, using GS 4 twice almost back to back, giving you 6 sec of block and 2 times the KB skill. This change alone could perhaps enable a bunker druid play-style.

I'm sure players will find many more uses and synergies with quick-draw now.

So overall, I think this patch is a win for rangers.

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So far i love the changes overall, sword and GS feel much better. That being said i'm definitely going to need to relearn muscle memory on sword 1h, and get used to dodging more on GS instead of just relying on the 1 skill.

Also, GS1 seems to give you a full dodge with 2 full auto chains which isn't that bad, still wish the 3rd attack was faster or had more hurt to it though.

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Longbow changes are definitely noticeable, but I did not practice the buff sniper shot set-up, so I can't comment on how much Sic Em', One Wolf Pack are affected.

I'm not disappointed in GS. Counterattack is performing better than expected. The trade-off evade lost for endurance is actually better to me when using quickness in the auto-chain. The bar fills relatively fast, and much faster than vigor could do on its own (plus it stacks with regen so more dodges which mean more prot. uptime vs the evade alone).

I'm not sold on the sword. It is not as bad as I suspected it would be, but the problems I foresaw are definitely there. When fighting PvE, the changes seem almost better than the original version, but when fighting reals, the on-demand loss of evades is noticeable when fighting competent players. From a WvW perspective, it's still not necessarily beneficial to jump toward your opponent even with the evade to follow (quickness helps a little). It has been successful on occasion, but I believe that might be a learning curve on their part, since the patch is so fresh. For Mesmer, Thief, and Engineer Monarch's leap has been pretty worthwhile. I mostly still recommend the leap into a smoke field in most cases beforehand or otherwise. I am too cautious or weary of attempting on a Dragonhunter, and for Warrior or Revenant, it's ill-advised, so the gated Serpent's Strike is still gated. Against warrior, I notice the loss of the 8 second reverse evade of Hornet Sting, but the refresh of Monarch's helps a little. The mobility to assure a reset is not easy with sword alone now and I find I might be pigeon-holed into birds (no pun intended) or canines/rock gazelle ever more so now.

Dagger is much improved and it is always nice to maintain poison. This said, I just find the other off-hands more useful at this point. This could be attributed to a lack of practice after not having used it since 2013, or the fact that I prefer a hit-and-run tactic to melee with my squishy ranger in today's crit-tacular game.

Ultimately, the world of Guild Wars 2 is still spinning for me at least. Hope everyone else finds something to work with in the new patch as well.

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I like some things, I dislike other things. The sword is definetely more fluid when running around in PvE, but that's not something I asked for. For WvW/PvP, a slightly easier available leap for stealth is nice, but the Hornet's Sting cooldown is too long and it still has that clunky activation time that comparable skills from other classes don't (they could arguably have added a stun to it aswell, which certainly fits the name of the skill) and Serpent's Strike being gated behind another skill is.. annoying at times. Overall less mobility for disengaging.

GS block is allright, Crippling Throw will be missed regardless. The auto is.. eh.. worse.

I think they AT LEAST should add some QoL by reducing the cast time on the GS auto and add 3 targets to the second attack in the sword autochain (which would have been a lot more useful than new skill icons that we only see for a split second).

Off-hand dagger has more pressure on top of what it has been used for, but it's not like its breaking its way into any builds (other than being a better alternative to torch - which arguably need some love too - in a PvE build, compared to what it was). Regardless, the fact that they added ammo to Crippling Talon a whole two years after we received a main hand dagger and other similar skills got the ammo treatment is just mind boggling.

Haven't tried bow yet, but I doubt the nerf to the minimum damage is gonna sit well. Nerf to maximum damage is something I just waited for them to do with all the whining about it.

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I think it fits the theme of the sword better if they chained serpent strike to hornets sting instead of the forward leap. It makes much more sense. Leaping into combat just to get the evade from the serpent strike makes the ranger vulnerable to control condis and knockdown. With this change, I don't mind having a longer cd for hornet's sting and maybe the longer cd could extend to having the serpent strike available for a longer duration. And they should have the forward leap recharge hornet's sting and not the other way around. If these changes are made, it would make the sword a really unique weapon and it would see much more use.

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I will need more testing but since they are so many positive opinions when my first one is not that good I will give my impressions.

Dagger :Not tested

Sword:Tested in PvE : Open World + Fractals : Outside of some specific bosses in raids I have almost always been using sword warhorn as a druid. It just does not work that well for me. Sword was a reliable way to stay in close combat. An emergency meant serpent strike and a slow boss strike meant Hornet sting then Monarch leap to go back in. Now I do not have serpent strike when I need it. I have not managed to use it correctly. When I need it the spell is hidden behind the leap. I do not want to use it off cd. Also if I Leap in, then Hornet sting away I am stuck far from the boss with serpent strike when I expected it to go back to monarch leap. So in sPvP to get away with a 2-3-2 you have to wait for the flip to get away (if you did not hit with 3 wait a bit more than 3s after the flip gets away, instantly otherwise) or hit with 3 to get 2-3-2(serpent)-2 or 2-2(serpent)-3-2.

GreatSword:Tested in PvE : Open World : Kind of boring. Nothing special, just that the endurance is small and you do not benefit too much from it.Tested in sPvP : The block and the flip are great. I am not used to the new way. A block, an attack, then use the counter as a dodge. The auto seemed meh. Not much to get from them.Edit : Something important is that if you hit 3 targets with the auto you get 15 endurance just like if you hit 1 (not that you are going to hit 3 people in sPvP anyway)

So far my first impressions are the same as what I guessed.

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