Wondrouswall.7169

It's not needed, but at least it fits with the weapon. Meanwhile, having extended stun and daze durations has never been a top priority for shortbow users. The stun/daze is just there to disrupt. A better option is to have a trait in Skirmishing that grants a bonus or effect for disrupting an opponent rather than extending it. It fits in more with shortbow's style than a longer CC does. Edit: Like confusion which fits the name of SB5. Or extended cooldowns for interrupting an opponent. Anything really. Even a condition like slow.

Now, ask yourself this, what would extending daze/stuns to shortbow really do for it? Moment of Clarity is not the trait(s) to do this with. If you want to look at traits, look at the ones in Skirmishing and Wilderness Survival.

Rather than move a trait entirely, a compromise would to break it up. Keep Moment of Clarity in Marksmanship and move the extended stun and daze duration onto Two-Handed Mastery.

Create and balance towards competitive modes first, then tweak for PVE afterwards. Each mode has specific needs, but there should be no reason why a weapon that is viable against a boss with 1 million HP should be less viable against a player with 15k HP.

Where's the option to make changes to the balance team?

Some ideas seem okay, the others not so much. I'd prefer tweaking what's available. Albeit, many small tweaks.

Indeed, as pointed out long ago on the old forums. Oddly enough, something similar was done to Revenant's Hammer Bolt and it was labeled as a bug in the patch notes. So, I'm not sure what is Anet's stance on this currently. The staff isn't the same as it was before.

So, Thieves received Preparations and their Smokescreen was altered into a circle. Meanwhile, Sublime Conversion is still a wall but now grants regen rather than being a dome. But instead, regen is added to Druid, nearly 4 years after its release. And of the 3 utility skills on Staff that don't grant a boon, it's placed on the skill that benefits allies most when positioned to shield them from projectiles. Just dome it already and have regen pulse to allies within the dome while destroying projectiles. The janky sprinkle heals can f-ck off for all anyone cares.

For real. That was the biggest downside to the old sword. It had its nuances, but that con outweighed the pros heavily. If there was one thing I miss about the old sword, it was just the animations. They were flavorful and unique, from the twirls of the Asura and even that dropkick Norns would do. Current animations have no "oomph" to them, but at least it ain't as bad as Necro's axe auto.

If I could have the old animations back but without the leaps so I could dodge at any point, sure, but that won't happen. Just like how many Rangers want the 2nd hit in the auto chain to cleave up to 3 targets or a reduced cast time on Hornet's Sting so the evade can be accessed when it's needed to rather than having to predict. Screw the old animations if I could have those 2 changes for sword....

"Whirling Defense damage increased by 14% in PvE only."

Really, Anet? Even though the uniqueness of Ranger shouts were using the pet as part of supporting allies when Irenio went through the trouble of updating most of them to reflect this. Search & Rescue sending the pet to revive allies, Protect Me also breaking stuns for nearby allies while redirecting an attacker's focus to alleviate pressure, and Guard using the pet to redirect a portion of damage off allies wasn't bolstering allies? So, once again, instead of doing the right thing and putting in the work to revamp Strength of the Pack, Heal as One, and Sic 'Em to be in line with the design philosophy of bolstering allies while keeping the flavor of Ranger by incorporating the pet as part of delivering this support, you took the easy way out and re-categorized them while reducing build diversity. By the way, Stance sharing is a thing. Let that sink it. Such kittens.

What I can hope for... Cosmic Ray cast time reduced from 0.5s to 0.25s.Natural Convergence stability changed to apply 1 stack of stability (1s) on each pulse. Stability is shared with allies within range. The final pulse also heals allies within range. Healing: 1,000 (0.2) (from Cultivated Synergy).Cultivated Synergy changed to heal an ally when removing a condition. Healing: 596 (0.2) (from Lingering Light). Lingering Light blindness and self-heal on next strike after entering Celestial Form portion replaced with the ability to generate Astral Force while in Celestial Form (at reduced rates: 0.25% on hit & 0.50% on heal, 33% of Celestial Being's numbers).Trade-off changed to: Pet outgoing damage and condition damage -20% and Pet incoming damage and condition damage -20%. (Similar to the GW1 Hearty Pet evolution. The pet loses damage but is more resilient to damage.)It probably won't be enough to skyrocket its performance, but it's a start. :#

Nah. Anet will most likely change Sic 'Em to be like Warrior's ["On My Mark!"](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/%22On_My_Mark!%22 ""On My Mark!""). No point coming up and coding for something new when they can just copy/paste and be done with it, minus the ammo for an extra jab.

Wishful thinking indeed. Will be 4 years this October hoping Druid Glyphs work underwater. Eventually, the hope goes away.... :'(

Awesome! Can I be a triceratops? Although I still have CDs too, and vinyl albums, maybe that makes me more of a Trilobite. My thinking with music is pretty similar to some people aboves attitude to games (which is also my attitude to games). I want copies that are unlikely to vanish due to circumstances outside of my control. I make an exception for MMOs because you have to rely on a server to play, but other than that I try to avoid giving someone else control over when and how I can access 'my' games or music. I still have and play games from 25+ years ago. Sure some of the PC games require additional steps to run on modern PCs, but I can still play them (and the console games are actually easier than modern consoles, none of this nonsense with downloading it from the disc and updating, just ram the thing in and play). I'd be devastated if I relied on an external platform to grant me permission to play them (which is really all systems like Steam do - it's glorified DRM) and they suddenly decided some of my games are too old or not popular enough and they're taking them away. Or they had a falling out with the developers or whatever. (There's also rarer, but worse, problems like when Apple Music suddenly decided to "helpfully" replace all copies of songs in people's libraries with 'standardised' ones - one version of each song or album. Some people lost rare special editions of albums they'd paid extra for, collectors lost hundreds of live or rare versions, and some musicians lost their own demo tracks because a computer decided it knew better than they did what they wanted to listen to.) I'm a dinosaur, too! (For the same reasons and line of thinking.) Also why I purchase online games from GOG if it's available before any other platform service. Cheers, mate.

Not at all.

My apologies, it was not meant that way. Many games have been using timegates with microtransactions as of late, and to return to GW2 and see a timegate without microtransactions is jarring [to me]. Guess I'm cynical of the industry as a whole now. Some publishers/developers wouldn't bat an eyelash to the idea of adding a 10, 25, 50, or 100 Gem tag next to timegated occurrences just to test the waters.

Kind of weird to see them still using timegates without microtransactions to speed them up. From the other side of the fence, the grass is greener here. Regardless, no matter how it's used, it seems to end up rubbing a players the wrong way. (drops 2 cents in the penny tray)

I'm not so sure on that. I believe the traits and skills of core Ranger that already interact with the pet should be enough if core Rangers were to be given an F5 function such as Alpha Strike (mentioned above). The potency and potential is there. I'd imagine some measurements to be taken to make it a bit risky of having both pets out, sharing the same health pool during their time out together in order to keep the cooldown reasonable and the encounter manageable enough for opponents to deal with. Calling both pets out that benefit from traits such as Fortifying Bond, any effect given with F2 such as Invigorating Bond or the recent Poison Master, boosts from skills such as shouts and signets - it's all very powerful if applied to both pets simultaneously and would be a significant trade-off when slotting an elite spec. Having Soulbeast be a 1 pet spec and altering pet swap traits to work with F4 in general would indeed be lower hanging fruit. However, I'd argue that this deep into the game, Anet should stop reaching for lower hanging fruit when it comes to Ranger and reach higher. They've done it before on two occasions that I can think of, especially when Irenio first helmed Ranger during the Heart of Thorns release. The last chapter in this LS is done and released, which seems like a perfect time to work and introduce a core F5. The alternative is allow core Rangers complete control over their pet's skills, but they've said it before on a stream, "that would be overpowered". Not sure if that sentiment has changed since then considering all of the power creep.

It would boil down to the execution of it all. I think the idea of 1 pet could work, but there's a lot more that'll have to go into it other than modifying pet swap traits (most of which you listed). I'm more in the camp of core Ranger getting an F5 and something else done as a "trade off" with Druid, with some of Soulbeast's traits reworked (Eternal Bond to refresh Beastmode cooldown on pet swap, please!). The single pet thing might be better saved for another elite spec. At least then, the effort could be used to build a new elite spec with that idea in mind vs having to reconstruct most of a current elite spec.

Core F5 - summon the ranger's 2nd selected pet. Duration 30 secs / 120 sec cooldown. Smokescale and Gazelle/Bristleback? Hmmm.... https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Alpha_Strike I'd probably wouldn't want a large cooldown like that for an F5, as there are other ways to get around this, but that's beside the point. Adding an F5 to core Ranger would be the best route to go about it. A single pet would be a hefty drawback indeed, but there's always worse, like permanent merger when selecting the traitline. Then traits that activate with or while in Beastmode would shift over to activating on F2, and stuff like Fresh Reinforcement would be repurposed to a lame copy/paste of Revenant traits like, gain a certain boon on pet swap depending on the beast archetype. :# This option is likely on the table. The way it will be spun is players that wished for pet swap during Beastmode will finally get it, but at a cost. Careful what ya wish for.

Skritt gets my vote.

You know, like this idea a lot. In fact, I'd like to see this idea on Druid, too. They can even apply some of the other ideas I've read with this to compensate for the pet's AI in areas such as large scale battles. Soulbeast already revives the pet when exiting out of Beastmode, and limiting it down to a single pet is a huge trade off. With Druid, having a single pet would also be a trade off, and the pet could also revive but when entering Celestial Form. Pet swap traits can be altered to activate on F4 (in general) and beef up the heartiness and support of the pet while the Druid is in Celestial Form to ensure it can survive large scale scenarios. Oh, and remove the -20% stat reduction on pets with Druid if this route is taken. Wouldn't be a need for that with a single pet and all.

I suggest altering your suggestion, at the very least, so the interaction of Sic 'Em is reduced with Soulbeast but only in Beastmode like Attack of Opporunity. Otherwise, it also screws over the pet and further diminishes its effectiveness with builds/specs that might incorporate it outside of Soulbeast.