Gotejjeken.1267

Posted this in balance topic but the Iboga change is ridiculous. Reducing its base and per condition damage and then indirectly compensating by randomly buffing precision across the board---but only buffing in PvE. So, Iboga is just nerfed in WvW/sPvP for literally zero logical reason. They also predicated the entire thing based on damage versus bosses, which only Untamed would even use pets as part of DPS vs bosses; problem here is with the iboga nerf the untamed build benching 42k or whatever on Snowcrows is probably going to go down to match the Soulbeast one at ~35-36k for a LOT more APM. So, it's pointless to take Untamed again. It's just sad when almost the entirety of the notes are random bugfixes that have been delayed by anywhere from four years for this Iboga nerf to nearly six months after expansion release for the Eod pets.

Yeah, that Iboga change is BAD. It's also one of the few things that seemingly applies over all game modes, which is going to hurt a hell of a lot in competitive modes, because it's literally a straight nerf. Or actually double nerf, as base damage is nerf, and also per condition. I don't understand the compensation for this either, just giving pets a flat precision increase does nothing for pets with low crit chance / ferocity to begin with. Even looking at Iboga, upping the crit chance for it doesn't balance the huge damage output reductions it's getting. Not to mention the compensation doesn't even apply for anything but PvE, so in competitive Iboga is literally getting nerfed with zero compensation. I hate to be blunt but I really wonder if any dev over there has ever taken a course in logic as this is beyond baffling.

Soulbeast one needs to stay or be a toggle IMO. Unlike untamed it actually looks decent on a variety of different things. Sort of hard to display in still image but this is my current char with the effect: https://imgur.com/a/Wx628Pr

I want an Aataxe. Also agree with pet drops not being actual drops because finding those kitten's in an open area is a nightmare. Do lol though when the enemy picks it up too, I've only had that happen I think once with the pig's plasma. And agree with F2's not always causing combat. I'd love to set something passive and use say smoke field and not have the smoke scale immediately ignore the passive command and go die...

Agreed; duel anything in WvW though screams meme (no offense), as only time I've heard of duel identical weapon set working is raid 'rotations'. For the topic though, I agree with almost always a need to put the F1 on auto, unless its useful like smokescale KD. I'd probably just put smoke assault on auto though as no longer care when to really time it for gap closer since you can do that with unleashed F1. But there are cases for auto-attack pet skills, I'm not sure I agree they have anything to do with skill ceiling / floor, because some pet attacks are just so low impact that micromanaging them is useless (i.e. everything feline outside the F2s).

Dagger works decently enough on boonbeast in WvW; quickness trait is very good there with instinctive engage. I think the tldr; of this thread is that anet broke a lot of synergies for soulbeast by altering OWP the way they did, and per usual there is no compensation because they adjusted some coefficients to make certain ranger weapons not as bad. I'd say before worrying about how to rework soulbeast further it'd be a good idea to see if they are going to carry these changes to competitive or focus on some other area for the next balance patch. As right now I'm almost tempted to say I'd rather the massive damage increase of splitblade over having normally functioning OWP, but hard to really say that without trying it. Too bad there is no trying it, they just sort of do things and the community deals with it.

Yes, with recent banner rework, spirits also need a large rework. If spirits are destructible banners, then they need to be able to be moved at will and need to yield far better pulsing boons. Almost like a tri-toggle: 1. Spirit spawns 2. Shadow step for movement 3. Within small window of 2, spirit active effect / alacrity; this is the thing that goes on CD for 20s Pulsing around the ranger was great and probably will make them unusable now in WvW, etc. but if they go down that route then they should just be gyros. Think the astral wisp from Druid but around the ranger itself, each color coded to know what one is on the ranger. Then just make the actives localized to the ranger.

Which is just more confusion as to what the axe is supposed to be. We're also going down a big split between PvE and competitive when it comes to builds, as axe isn't even in the same ballpark for competitive. Also, You are comparing OH axe to MH axe lol--which in competitive OH axe is the one with decent damage (from whirling defense) and CC (which never hits anything that isn't a stationary golem). MH axe is 'fine' but is essentially used either on condi builds or for might stacking, where now in PvE it can be obviously used on power. Also not sure what's with the random GS inclusion...?

Depends on what you mean by functionality. For additional boons I don't have an example (sure there has been one though); but for basic functionality One Wolf Pack - Guild Wars 2 Wiki (GW2W) would like a word 😂.

I talk from competitive only (and strictly from WvW), could care less about PvE or sPvP. Only glyphs taken in WvW are equality and stars--adding stability to stars fixes all of its issues with getting CC'd out of it. I don't know what else to say about equality, but if you are replacing it you are doing a disservice; it's an instant interrupt for 5 people around you--I can't tell you the number of times this skill alone has turned fights. So buff the other glyphs, change them--do whatever. Just add stability to stars, leave equality alone, and leave alac on spirits.

Do...you even play ranger? Sure, let's kill build diversity by removing alacrity from spirits and moving it to...a glyph. That's great, 4s of alac on a glyph every, what 20 seconds? On an elite spec...so forcing people to ruin Druid to provide it? That's absurd. Also, altering Glyph of Equality is probably the worst idea I've heard in a long time--sure let's get rid of an instant daze or stunbreak for...lol, 'tethering'. Glyph of Stars needs to pulse stability around the ranger in addition to its other effects...that's it. That's all the changes glyphs need.

Banner of Tactics seems kind of insane--stability, superspeed, quickness (when traited) and pulsing resistance?! And getting all of that (sans quickness) without traiting for it? Can we at least get spirits to be immortal in WvW then? As 4s of Alac is great and all but seems super weak compared to these new banners...(and don't get me started on most of the pulsing effects, like vigor...).

Yeah, but on the flip side--ranger's carrying spirits around may be somewhat hilarious

Druid is a HoT spec tho.... Anyway, back in us 'legendary boomer weeb' days spirits used to be able to move when traited--that's something I'm sure a lot of us would like back. Mounting to despawn them is actually very useful in certain modes (i.e. WvW). But for now, just position them correctly so they aren't getting insta nuked and wait the 1/4 second to get your alac...

Yeah, it's very weird skill. I want to go with since it has a channel bar, it uses the same coefficient for each hit, so it may not be possible to separate damage in that manner. Which would be separate from the two physical hits it deals; basically the pull component only on one, or if you use sharpening stone it'll produce two bleeds.

Love to hear how 'blue thief' is below Soulbeast--and please don't start the argument with 'longbow' when ol' willy has 9000 ways to gap close...

Threads like this are why there is no ranger dev.

What you quoted was the preview 😃

Just go in competitive and get Moa'd. There's your beast RP 🙃

In PvE, probably. In WvW can still be useful on a roaming boonbeast.

I agree. Just taking a random ranger one in stonform, it was at 70 seconds for damage invulnerability at < 50%. That seems about right for something that lasts 2.5 seconds. Or shared anguish, that ignores a single CC out of thousands coming your way at any given time. That's the irony is the power creep in the game has magnified 10x through boon and condi spam, but these 'deleted' traits will never be reverted because then they'd have to adjust them to fit the current game, and no way that much work is being put in.

Yeah, think it's just backward now to me. Basically, I don't want to engage on a weapon with no defensive skills outside of kiting; which even means serpent strike, it was nice before just to use it as an evade without having to leap somewhere first (as the leap is easy to interrupt). I wouldn't mind the leap / engage being first if they add something to it defense-wise. Because at the moment the only reasonable defense is into smoke field, otherwise feel like you're going to have to switch off to gs or something if in melee range (speaking competitively). Essentially (pulling out the way WAY back machine here), I miss this: Not only was the game obviously far more balanced, sword just WORKED. For me at least. I loved the original iteration of the weapon =(.

Ah 1H Sword... I'll fight for the old way back because to me sword is primarily kiting weapon (like Staff). So, retreat => leap was very helpful because you could kite easily this way, either double retreat, or feigning retreat. Having serpent strike on a separate key was also useful because you didn't have to engage to do it--you could evade at any point. Finally, I liked the lock on effect (despite sometimes yeeting off cliffs), because it essentially allowed chasing without any extra skill usage, and also had very good damage potential. Now sword is pretty messed up, because you have to engage to do anything useful with it. Have to engage to get serpent strike and have to engage to get the CD on hornet sting. Problem is now the latent flaws are glaring. Hornet sting has always been bad, but before was less glaring to me as was just a toggle that had a more useful component, not an entirely separate skill. Making it a dedicated skill, it needs to do more. Damage on sword has always been bad as well, but with the sticky aspect it was useable--now it's bad because of how the animation works. Essentially tldr; sword originally was meant as a defensive weapon so there never should be an offensive leap as the first component of any skill; and if it has been changed to be offensive it needs offensive tools (like gs block). Since anet seems to want everyone to do everything, may be a case for Aegis somewhere here.

Use other dodge, kiting ability, or some kind of damage mitigation--I'd imagine should be easy for all but maybe non-harbinger necros. I think it is getting easier though as haven't seen many 1-shot Soulbeast in long time, and I had to switch to melee variant to get it to work because of the number of hate bubbles around.

So they're defending ganking noobs? Well, good thing WvW is play as you want I guess--but I'd have thought people would have learned to dodge by now 🙃