GUFF.5692

After the rugged growth nerf in WvW I have been trying non WS builds with mixed success. It's currently a condi meta so I have been using Bear Stance almost exclusively. Backed up with healing power it's very powerful against condi spam. That also means Dolyak Stance and Second Skin are must haves along with good protection up time.

And that's where you are wrong. In order for your condis to do dmg you need sustain fo them to tick and fot you to reapply them. Meaning toughness and vitality.Go play wvw with sinister stats and tell me how it went. My main concern is the offensive stats. For condi it's only two compared to three for power. This allows condi builds to stack more toughness to inflate their sustain to much higher levels than a power build can achieve. Every class and build only has so large of a budget for stats from gear.

It's not like any other pet can replace that stealth, so even disregarding the replacement F2, it would guaranteed still be a top pick due to its combination of other skills and ability to stick to moving targets better than most other pets. I don't agree. I guarantee most rangers would lose a lot more of their fights without smokescale F2. It carries bad builds and bad rangers simply because there is not enough counter play in regards to stealth right now. Take smokescale F2 away and watch those rangers flop. Like I said before, they balance stealth like they should then no problem. They don't, then we still have a problem. You say you don't agree, but you're not bringing up any arguments to what I said at all. Smokescale is an excelent pet even without the F2, relatively to a lot of the garbage/one-trick-pony pets the class currently has. That's a fact. If those rangers would flop without the stealth, they would flop with most other pets aswell.I can counter take down and smoke assault because I can see them coming. I can dodge take down and can counter smoke assault with other weapon/utility skills. This is why I do not rate these pet skills above smoke cloud.

Yeah, I don't see this condi druid build going away anytime soon unless the devs really tackle condition damage/CC balancing issues. They also need to look at trailblazer stats and the fact condi dosen't need to stack three offensive stats like power does (power, precision and ferocity versus condition damage and expertise). However, one thing they could do now is to lower the "health" of the entangled vines allowing you a better chance hacking your way out of them. They were previously balanced when we had higher damage but after the huge damage nerfs they over perform.

It's not like any other pet can replace that stealth, so even disregarding the replacement F2, it would guaranteed still be a top pick due to its combination of other skills and ability to stick to moving targets better than most other pets. I don't agree. I guarantee most rangers would lose a lot more of their fights without smokescale F2. It carries bad builds and bad rangers simply because there is not enough counter play in regards to stealth right now. Take smokescale F2 away and watch those rangers flop. Like I said before, they balance stealth like they should then no problem. They don't, then we still have a problem. Not enough counterplay to stealth? You have auto reveals in WvW from sentries, towers, traps, etc. You have a lot of classes with reveals on skills, and literally one hit brings you out of stealth. I can sort of understand your argument on a thief that's able to rapidly re-apply stealth, however ranger???? You have a short stealth on longbow which is meant to reposition (reflect it and you get the stealth instead) and you got smoke scale. That's it. Unless you're also one of those people who think druid is OP which is... Just lmao at this point. I honestly can't believe how people like yourself think that removing smoke scale stealth would make the class fold in on itself. People take the smoke scale because it can stick to a moving target, it has CC, and its got decent sustain. That's true about the sentries, towers, traps, etc. However, one could argue their effectiveness (most fights I get in are away from towers chasing other roamers). I also think you can't use them in this argument since those are just band aids covering poor game design regarding stealth mechanics in a pvp setting, specifically WvW. Even in just the ranger profession there is not even close to parity as far as reveals are concerned when compared to stealth access while looking at both utilities and weapon skills. All we have is sic' em and the cool down is significantly longer than both smoke cloud and hunter's shot. Essentially, every 8 seconds you could stealth if you play it right on ranger especially with Soulbeast (with longbow equipped which is very common in WvW). Also remember, Sic' Em cannot be used after a target goes into stealth only before (must have target). It gets way worse with other professions/builds. Power druid is basically extinct in WvW. Can't remember the last time I fought one. They are pretty much all condi now. It is very annoying to fight their immob spam since the effectiveness of ancient seeds went way up after the huge damage nerfs to attacks (takes much longer to hack your way out of them now), especially auto attacks. You can still use the walk out trick but any druid worth a kitten will keep cripple and/or chilled on you preventing that tactic. That's why I am seeing gank groups running multiple condi druids.

It's not like any other pet can replace that stealth, so even disregarding the replacement F2, it would guaranteed still be a top pick due to its combination of other skills and ability to stick to moving targets better than most other pets. I don't agree. I guarantee most rangers would lose a lot more of their fights without smokescale F2. It carries bad builds and bad rangers simply because there is not enough counter play in regards to stealth right now. Take smokescale F2 away and watch those rangers flop. Like I said before, they balance stealth like they should then no problem. They don't, then we still have a problem.

Hopefully soon and it would great if it would include: Stealth re-balanceCondition damage re-balanceCC Spam re-balanceBoon Spam deserves an honorable mention since more work could be done here. They seemed to hit on offensive boons last time with some defensive but maybe not enough...

So you think smoke assault don't take any part in players choice when they chose smokescale? I mean, a convenient gap closer that deal damage, grant up to 5 might and have an evade frame... I struggle to see any other pet skill in game that have as much value as this one, but if you think that the 5 second smoke field that do nothing more than being a smoke field is the issue... Sure, I'm ready to believe you... All in all, the combination of takedown, smoke assault and smoke cloud make the smokescale one of the best pet that you can use in game. It's true for core and druid because it give you a nice source of stealth and a pet that will reliably stick to your foe. It's even more true for soulbeast because, let's face it, no other pet give a skill that's even close to the combination of takedown and smoke assault in term of utility. (the closest thing is the merged devourer, with the equivalent of takedown and a skill that only have an evade of half the evade of smoke assault yet a CD barely lower than smoke assault. The skill kit is just that much better than other pets. From my point of view, the only thing that need a nerf is smoke assault and it's a nerf in term of utility. No more might on hit and reduce range to 450 from 750 to match revenant's unrelenting assault's range (apply to both pet skill and soulbeast beast skill). Yes, I think it is the main reason the majority of Rangers choose this pet. Ask yourself, if they took away smoke cloud from the pet would you still choose it? I would wager no. Stealth is simply way too powerful to overlook. It can be used for defensive purposes but also to set up devastating offensive tactics.

If the devs actually balance stealth in the next one or two balance patches then yes it does not deserve another nerf. However, if they don't then it most certainly does. Smokescale didn't even need any damage nerfs. It only needed adjustments to F2 (smoke cloud). This is the main reason smokescale over performs relative to all other pets.

Pretty much this. As long as ANET handles condition damage and power damage differently there will never be balance between the two in WvW and to a lesser extent sPvP. Stealth, Boon and CC Spam have also not been properly balanced. Only power has been "balanced". I really hope ANET brings these other areas in line in the next patch.

They nerfed the wrong things! Lol It wasn't the extra stats from beastmastery or even mauls/worldly impacts that were the main problem. The main problem with soulbeast in wvw is smokescale (stealth every 16s not counting long bow) and to a lesser extent boonbeast (nature magic/fresh reinforcement). Balance those two things and you would see rangers actually using other pets and other trait lines. These nerfs will not change much. Therefore, we will continue to see cries for more ranger nerfs which will inevitably happen (as others have pointed out).

If you are fighting a ranger in pvp it's still gonna be the ranger stealths every 12-16s game (aka whack a mole). Stealth wasn't nerfed and reveals weren't buffed so smokescale will be number one as always. Stout pets are getting a big nerf to their cooldown so their attractiveness will be even smaller than before. Bird mobility (swoop) is getting heavily nerfed. Their f2 has always been less useful for ranger since we have so many sources of swiftness already (becomes completely useless when merged with BM traitline).

Unless the stance nerfs to moa/doly are dropped or lessened I'm definitely leaning towards dropping stances altogether. Not worth it.

I feel like the gap between pets didn't get smaller but instead got larger. Smokescale nerfs seemed too light especially to smoke assault (it still does too much: blink, evade, damage and might stacking) while the nerfs to other pets seemed to great. Combine the above with the change to unstoppable union and Soulbeast will be even more annoying fight. The 1 pet only rule effectively means nothing if smokescale is still too good.

I think ranger is going to be extra pummeled by the nerf bat for this mega balance patch. The outcry against them on the wvw forums, reddit and in game has been immense.That said, I agree stealth needs some major work. Some smokescale adjustments are definitely in order. You know something is wrong when nearly every single ranger is using the same kitten pet.I think your longbow idea could work well. I would actually consider it somewhat of an upgrade since the reliability of hunter's shot is not as high as it could be.