Upcoming changes to Ranger

[subversiontwo.7501]

@"jcbroe.4329" said:For PvP and WvW:Was Firebrand nerfed? No.Was Scrapper nerfed? No.Was Tempest nerfed? No.Was Herald/Renegade nerfed? No.Was tanky sidenode monkey build A-Z nerfed? No.Was CF cooldown reverted or compensated for? No.Was stability or viable support outside of CF provided? No.Was Druid nerfed? Yes.

For PvE:Was Druid nerfed? Yes.Was anything else? No.Was the thing that makes Druid so highly desired in PvE content nerfed? No.

So yeah, I don't know what the point of this patch was supposed to be. It's nerfing a relatively unused class outside of PvE raids just to nerf it.

I mean, I've come to not expect much competence from the balance devs over the years but wow, at least TRY to do better.

JCbroe is entirely correct.

I noted the same thing in the recent WvW-themed thread. The issue with these changes is that they suggest that the balance team have no idea of where to take the Druid spec in various game modes. Most of the changes make absolutely no sense and the motivation given is completely nonsensical. I don't mind the pet nerf all too much myself (even if I can see where people are comming from when taking exception to it, because it too is not very well motivated) however replacing one glyph with another and citing "it was deemed too passive" is just ridiculous when they are replacing it with another glyph using the same mechanics. It is just worse and has less of a role.

Empowerment is the only glyph that isn't complete garbage. The other glyphs basically see no use for obvious reasons (they do things other abilities already do, only worse so there's hardly ever a reason to push those buttons). Stars looks more like an elite skill on paper but what exactly would you use it for? Where would you use it? It's not like it will magically make anything else the Druid does coveted in a scenario with overwhelming conditions. Again, it has no role, it makes no sense.

Instead they are just shaking up whatever roles the spec had with no appearant reason or goal. If the continued popularity in raids is the reason they could have adressed frost spirit instead of empowerment (and grace). In fact, as far as the mechanics go, it makes far more sense to swap the kind of things glyphs and spirits do as glyphs snappy nature caters more to quick offensive support and spirits bumbling nature suits slow defensive support. That may not fit into how they envision the Druid spec, however, if they now envision the spec as more of a healer again they have done a full 180 on that because they have absolutely slaughtered its comparative healing over the past few years. As a healer it is miles behind the other classes now and most of us have resigned to regard it as more of an offensive utility and support hybrid. Which they are now going after with the hack saw - first slashing access to those rare buffs by 50% and then by another 66%, leaving virtually nothing left.

[Eleazar.9478]

Jeez could they at least revert the nerfs then, theyve made druid painfull to play. I miss my old hot shout druid. well theyve deff made beastmaster a required pick now for druid.

[Lynnie.7213]

The change on pet stats is straight up dumb. Sorry there isn't other word for that. Its nerfing an already handcapped spec in pvp even more and now its going to affect WvW and PvE as well. It's like they are pushing people to buy PoF expansion.

[Pirindolo.9427]

Trade-off is just a funny expression for the third time in a row druid nerf. What they want is forcing people to demand other healing/support classes, specially in fractals.

[LughLongArm.5460]

If A.net would have had presented a full blown trade-off rework for the whole Elite Specializations system, It would have been OK with me. Sure, giving core ranger some identity could have been Nice. Having druid with weakened pets and soulbeast with access to one pet only while all the other professions receiving same treatment, could have been very interesting. It also creates room for future Elite Specializations. Such a change have to be part of a massive balance change, re-working bad and outdated mechanics, you cannot do this in a vacuum. I think that out of the few examples they gave for Elite Specializations with no "trade -offs", druid is the only one actually getting a direct mechanical nerf. Even their examples for non- trade-offs Elite Specializations vs trade-offs Elite Specializations seems very basic and shallow. DH for example, replaces virtues with new skills, so we have a "trade-off"? OFC not, the DH new skills also include the old virtues powers with additional effects. So where is the trade-off? All the Elite Specializations were designed to be stronger compared to core Specializations so there is a place for an hidden trade-off in every Elite Specialization compared to core Specialization.

I also don't understand how they could have reviewed glyphs, putting them " in line with design standard" with such a little change. Glyphs were under used since day one, after POF most of them are completely obsolete. Also the passive doesn't make much sense now, Remove a condi while the elite glyph removes all condies? Seems like they barley thought about it. They even managed to nerf "glyph Alignment" , why? We already have the immob+bleed combo from so many sources, the problem with most glyphs was always the casting time, everything about glyphs and VE is so delayed. This should not have been part of gw2 in 2019. The game is too chaotic and fast paced for something like that to be effective.

Missed opportunity, very disappointing.

[Lazze.9870]

@"LughLongArm.5460" said:DH for example, replaces virtues with new skills, so we have a "trade-off"? OFC not, the DH new skills also include the old virtues powers with additional effects. So where is the trade-off?

People seem to argue that their "function being different" and the longer cooldown is enough of a "trade off", or "fundamental change" to core mechanics to leave it as is.

Which is obviously a load of crap.

[aymnad.9023]

Nature's Renewal : Ok. I wonder how it will be shown.Glyph of Empowerment/ Glyph of Unity : I rarely used Empowerment but am sad to see this buff go away. However with the other changes it might be a good decision. They probably removed it in favor of Glyph of Unity because people mostly use the frost/sun spirit (also this comes after the spirits Rework which allowed to move them). I really hope this will give more space for Unity now that it is no more an elite.Glyph of Rejuvenation : A welcome buff. It was always tearing me apart to be either useless for allies or for me.Glyph of Alignment: I do not have any opinion on this. The current and the future one are both good in different ways.Glyph of the Stars: Wow I like it ! I do not know the durations, cd and all, but it has everything the druid lacked compare to a firebrand (especially in pvp). Dispell, boons, condition resistance !Pack Alpha: GoodPoison Master: Sounds great. Some pets will be more usefull than others, there might be an icd but it is nice. (I hope it works for soulbeast skills)Druid pet : Kept it last because I do not have anything to add to other comments (but yes I do not get why 20% [sound huge] too).

Overall it seems good and I really want to test some changes.

[DuckDuckBOOM.4097]

@Lazze.9870 said:

@"LughLongArm.5460" said:DH for example, replaces virtues with new skills, so we have a "trade-off"? OFC not, the DH new skills also include the old virtues powers with additional effects. So where is the trade-off?

People seem to argue that their "function being different" and the longer cooldown is enough of a "trade off", or "fundamental change" to core mechanics to leave it as is.

Which is obviously a load of kitten.

It's not inherently a load of BS. If you look at meta battle, core guard > DH for conquest. This is in part due to instant cast virtues for instant retal --> crit chance. Instant cast means you can also spam them all at once while channeling another skill. Loosing the instant cast is a major trade off.

Is every class as balanced as the guardian variants? No. Is guard balance "perfect"? No. However, each guard elite spec plays differently than another and the 3 flavors of guardian actually have viable/optimal builds across all game modes. So I would argue that the function change and different CD is a viable way to do side grades properly.

For ranger, I think the 20% nerf to Druid pets was the wrong way to go about it. I think they should have added an F5 to core ranger the way they are adding F2 to only core Rev. Have that F5 control 1 more pet ability. So when playing core ranger, you have better control of your pet skills. When playing druid/SB, you lose some finesse over pet control by replacing F5. Smokescale for example: F2 is Smoke cloud. F5 would be Smoke assault. Druid/SB only control Smoke cloud F2.

[Omnicron.2467]

With all these nerfs I think I might just run Soulbeast with Frost Spirit and leave the healing to specs that are better at it anyway, I am pretty sure you can max might without a druid between a chrono and a warrior

[Euthymias.7984]

With all the talk of tradeoffs and such, I guess I'll just copy what I said in the other thread here about a possibility for (core) Rangers:

In a way, I'd like to see something like a customization option to turn (or buff) the pets into different Archetypes like their GW1 counterpart (Dire/Elder/Hearty) with a new command thats usable out of combat to give them a noticeable stat increase while being Core."Elder" is the default state of a Ranger's pet as they are now. Dire could increase their overall damage and attack rate/movement speed while giving them a slight defense reduction. Hearty could make them more durable at the cost of less damage (as particularly in PvP/WvW, the common complaint was about how fast they die to just random cleave/AoE). Naturally, Soulbeast/Druid would be defaulted to "Elder" (or just make Druid stuck with Hearty instead of cutting everything down by 20%.....) and not have any ability to change from that archetype like Core could.Its just an idea, but I think it would be pretty cool.

[Dami.5046]

All I can think of is the fact I stopped farming gear for my druid in favour of a potential new leggie. Just as well, really.

[EnderzShadow.2506]

@jcbroe.4329 said:For PvP and WvW:Was Firebrand nerfed? No.Was Scrapper nerfed? No.Was Tempest nerfed? No.Was Herald/Renegade nerfed? No.Was tanky sidenode monkey build A-Z nerfed? No.Was CF cooldown reverted or compensated for? No.Was stability or viable support outside of CF provided? No.Was Druid nerfed? Yes.

For PvE:Was Druid nerfed? Yes.Was anything else? No.Was the thing that makes Druid so highly desired in PvE content nerfed? No.

So yeah, I don't know what the point of this patch was supposed to be. It's nerfing a relatively unused class outside of PvE raids just to nerf it.

I mean, I've come to not expect much competence from the balance devs over the years but wow, at least TRY to do better.

From a PvP side of things (since I rarely pve)

I've come to expect the dev team to make changes to things that no one cares about.People that love rangers feel meh about changes. People that hate rangers are so unaffected they don't even notice anything changed.

Who wanted spirit changes? That didn't help Rangers in PvP

Now they nerfed druid pets? Why? Lore?They added one strong utility. Great...will the druid be competitive in PvP now?Druid will only get focused even more.

[LughLongArm.5460]

@EnderzShadow.2506 said:

@"jcbroe.4329" said:For PvP and WvW:Was Firebrand nerfed? No.Was Scrapper nerfed? No.Was Tempest nerfed? No.Was Herald/Renegade nerfed? No.Was tanky sidenode monkey build A-Z nerfed? No.Was CF cooldown reverted or compensated for? No.Was stability or viable support outside of CF provided? No.Was Druid nerfed? Yes.

For PvE:Was Druid nerfed? Yes.Was anything else? No.Was the thing that makes Druid so highly desired in PvE content nerfed? No.

So yeah, I don't know what the point of this patch was supposed to be. It's nerfing a relatively unused class outside of PvE raids just to nerf it.

I mean, I've come to not expect much competence from the balance devs over the years but wow, at least TRY to do better.

From a PvP side of things (since I rarely pve)

I've come to expect the dev team to make changes to things that no one cares about.People that love rangers feel meh about changes. People that hate rangers are so unaffected they don't even notice anything changed.

Who wanted spirit changes? That didn't help Rangers in PvP

Now they nerfed druid pets? Why? Lore?They added one strong utility. Great...will the druid be competitive in PvP now?Druid will only get focused even more.

Even if the new elite will be strong it probably will not benefit druid in many areas of the game. You pay a great toll for having a strong utility that benefit all allies(will it even work on the druid itself?). Expect very high CD(encouraging you to take VE) and short duration(up to 6 sec), so even if you could do a clutch maneuver in PvP team-fights, it probably will not add much to druid survivability. The fact that we now have 2 elites with direct interaction to downstate, is just a big sign declaring "spirit re-work was a complete failure". I just hate A.net method of putting something into the game without community testing or feedback and without any future followup after the changes go live. In their mind they fixed spirit now they fixed druid, Next....

[Nimon.7840]

@"DuckDuckBOOM.4097" said:GoE being gone hurts PvE Druid a bit, especially when FB/Rev is strong but oh well because that change helps the PvP side.

The new glyph of stars looks like it has real promise for both WvW and PvP. Condition immunity for your team that cannot be stripped (it's not resistance?) sounds amazing. Hopefully a decent CD/duration.

Well. In advance I'll say that I'm not a ranger main. But I don't think this is condition immunity:

"Glyph of the Stars: This new elite skill heals, prevents allies from being inflicted with conditions, and removes conditions already on allies at range. In celestial avatar form, it heals, prevents downed allies from losing health while being revived, and grants boons at range."

Unless the glyph removes all conditions you can still take condition damage, it just prevents new conditions from being applied.The celestial avatar form sounds a bit overpowered though. Prevents health-loss of downed allies and revives them??? Or does it just prevent them from loosing health while you press f in them? But reviving, healing, preventing health loss and granting boons. This has to be either only 3 targets or a very very long cooldown. And/or a very long casttime if I compare its effects to a warrior standard

What I'm super curious about is poison master because it has no real ICD at the moment. With the new function, does lacerating slash from an eagle or hawk give you a 6 (or 4.8) second CD on poison master? GftE has a 12 second ICD on blind but wilting strike doesn't have an ICD on weakness so there is precedent for both. If there is no ICD or a low ICD, this buffs condition ranger/druid a lot! The cost is of course no condition clear from WS on the PvP/WvW side. However, with glyphs being buffed, maybe it'll work out for a poison master/glyph druid.

[Brynioch.1873]

@jcbroe.4329 said:Was the thing that makes Druid so highly desired in PvE content nerfed? No.

This line is actually not quite correct. GoE was the last thing druids had going for them in PvE.Spirits can be brought by any ranger.Most builds don't require spotter anymore.Might is one of the easiest boons to come by.Healing is really bad.

Druids are dead in fractals and only have a real purpose in raids as a rezz bot with Nature spirit which isn't need it many groups.WvW was never alive for druids as a supporter and they are pretty bad in PvP too since quite some time.Let's hope Glyph of Stars is actually decent.

The pet nerf is actually fine. They just need to revert most nerfs of the last 3 years and get all pet skills (not Soulbeast, only the pet themselves) low base damage and good power scaling. That should work against complains in PvP.

But we are at a point where druid needs a rework like salvation gets this patch.

[anduriell.6280]

@Miellyn.6847 said:Let's hope Glyph of Stars is actually decent.This skill is a binary design: Or it is very good or it is trash. Itf it has decent Cd/duration ratio the skill how is being design it will be a game changer for WvW. For anyother game mode it will be completely unused because there is no point.

For the wording of the description my guess is :

• in normal mode cleanses the conditions and apply a buff so no new conditions can be applied.
• in avatar mode: it heals downed allies and those allies can not be cleaved.

Oversight wich the System team at Anet should have kept in mind.

• Removing the poison from the skill for an 1.5s immob i don't think it was a good change. The skill used to apply poison, cripple and weakness, Now it does only immob and bleeds, which in my opinion has made the glyph even worst.
• Druid get the weaker pet. Why is not the staff buffed in damage? We strenghed our magical magic so our staff should be stronger. Like at least a 20% buff in all damage/durations.

[Excursion.9752]

This is the second round of nerfs for the Druid in a row. Not going to go into it because I am too bitter.Map chat typically is overwhelmed with complaints about the druid over performing... < /sarcasm>Horrible just horrible....

[Durzlla.6295]

@anduriell.6280 said:

@Miellyn.6847 said:Let's hope Glyph of Stars is actually decent.This skill is a binary design: Or it is very good or it is trash. Itf it has decent Cd/duration ratio the skill how is being design it will be a game changer

for WvW

. For anyother game mode it will be completely unused because there is no point.

For the wording of the description my guess is :

• in normal mode cleanses the conditions and apply a buff so no new conditions can be applied.
• in avatar mode: it heals downed allies and those allies can not be cleaved.

Oversight wich the System team at Anet should have kept in mind.

• Removing the poison from the skill for an 1.5s immob i don't think it was a good change. The skill used to apply poison, cripple and
  weakness
  , Now it does only immob and bleeds, which in my opinion has made the glyph even worst.
• Druid get the weaker pet.
  Why is not the staff buffed in damage?
  We strenghed our magical magic so our staff should be stronger. Like at least a 20% buff in all damage/durations.

It sounds like the Glyph of stars heals everyone not just downed people, and I can see it being extremely good in PvP too depending on the numbers.

As for the two other points.

1) based on what they said it only change poison —> bleed for.... reasons? And cripple —-> immob which I’m actually happy about. It sounds like weakness is staying, and if that’s the case I think it’ll be a very good and versatile Glyph skill, especially since the CA version is a heal + Condi clear.

2) im hoping that they’re going to look and see how Druid fares after this change and then begin rolling back some of the nerfs that were caused from Druids having tons of support AND damage due to the pet. But then again I’m optimistic.

[EnderzShadow.2506]

@LughLongArm.5460 said:

@EnderzShadow.2506 said:

@"jcbroe.4329" said:For PvP and WvW:Was Firebrand nerfed? No.Was Scrapper nerfed? No.Was Tempest nerfed? No.Was Herald/Renegade nerfed? No.Was tanky sidenode monkey build A-Z nerfed? No.Was CF cooldown reverted or compensated for? No.Was stability or viable support outside of CF provided? No.Was Druid nerfed? Yes.

For PvE:Was Druid nerfed? Yes.Was anything else? No.Was the thing that makes Druid so highly desired in PvE content nerfed? No.

So yeah, I don't know what the point of this patch was supposed to be. It's nerfing a relatively unused class outside of PvE raids just to nerf it.

I mean, I've come to not expect much competence from the balance devs over the years but wow, at least TRY to do better.

From a PvP side of things (since I rarely pve)

I've come to expect the dev team to make changes to things that no one cares about.People that love rangers feel meh about changes. People that hate rangers are so unaffected they don't even notice anything changed.

Who wanted spirit changes? That didn't help Rangers in PvP

Now they nerfed druid pets? Why? Lore?They added one strong utility. Great...will the druid be competitive in PvP now?Druid will only get focused even more.

Even if the new elite will be strong it probably will not benefit druid in many areas of the game. You pay a great toll for having a strong utility that benefit all allies(will it even work on the druid itself?). Expect very high CD(encouraging you to take VE) and short duration(up to 6 sec), so even if you could do a clutch maneuver in PvP team-fights, it probably will not add much to druid survivability. The fact that we now have 2 elites with direct interaction to downstate, is just a big sign declaring "spirit re-work was a complete failure". I just hate A.net method of putting something into the game without community testing or feedback and without any future followup after the changes go live. In their mind they fixed spirit now they fixed druid, Next....

Sometimes they get it right...some times.

But lately it feels like they think the best way to make a race car faster, is by painting it red and tinting the windows.They don't even ask the driver. They just come along with , "Hey we have these AMAZING changes we KNOW you are going to love!"

Driver be like, "Uh, did you make changes to the tires like I mentioned to you? Did you look at that suspension issue I had last week? Did you even look at the motor?"--and they give no reply.