August 23, Ranger changes, Updated

[Beddo.1907]

Ranger

Ranger Pets

Feline pets' autoattacks aren't affected by quickness, a long-standing issue that makes them subpar in group play. Meanwhile, the iboga is the most powerful pet in any PvE boss encounter because its base attack damage scales with number of conditions on the target. A release note from 2018 indicated that this was fixed, but the change didn't make it to the live game.

A recent fix to the calculated critical-hit-chance values in the pet stats UI caused pet critical-hit chances to appear to drop by 17.8%. This was a display issue only, and the text now reflects the real value.

We're using this as an opportunity to improve pet balance in PvE overall by delivering that long-delayed reduction to iboga damage while bringing all ranger pets' performance up by giving them a flat 17.8% critical-hit chance across the board.

Ranger pets and spirits will now also have a locked defiance bar in PvE, making them immune to crowd-control effects. This quality-of-life improvement will ensure that their skills are available for use when needed and that pets will perform more consistently in all PvE content.

All Ranger Pets

• (PvE only) All ranger pets' chance to critically hit has been increased by 17.8%.
• (PvE only) All ranger pets are now immune to crowd control when on a PvE map.

Feline Pet Family

• Slash (Autoattack): Now affected by quickness.

White Tiger

• Fixed a bug that caused a delay before this pet could act when summoned.
• Guardian's Roar: (All game modes) Casting time reduced from 1 second to 0.4 seconds in all game modes. (PvE only) Cooldown reduced from 30 seconds to 25 seconds.

Wallow

• Fixed a bug that caused a delay before this pet could act when summoned.

Phoenix

• Fixed a bug that caused a delay before this pet could act when summoned.

Siege Turtle

• Fixed a bug that caused a delay before this pet could act when summoned.

Iboga

• Consuming Bite: (Autoattack) Reduced the base damage of this skill by 33%. Reduced the damage per condition by 40%.

Ranger Skills

Spirits

• (PvE only) All ranger spirits are now immune to crowd control when on a PvE map.

Druid

• Solar Beam: This skill can now target allies. 
• Glyph of Equality (Celestial Avatar): Range increased from 300 to 360 in all game modes. Now applies 5 seconds of stability to allies in PvE only.

Improving Support Diversity

Firebrand and healing Mechanist are currently dominating group compositions. In this update, we're improving support-role diversity by adding stability and aegis to Tempest's shouts and giving Druids increased access to those boons as well.

We're also making targeted reductions to stability and might uptime on Firebrand and Mechanist builds to make room for other professions. Firebrand's high on-demand stability from Mantra of Liberation is too essential in Fractals of the Mists and other group content, while Mechanist's barrier and might upkeep are cementing it as a build that pairs together too well with a Quickbrand to meet a group's support needs.

In the immediate future, we want to make sure more builds can be used successfully. In future updates, we'll expand this further by shoring up more support and healing build options.

Edited August 23, 2022 by Beddo.1907

[Evenaardez.7913]

Overall decent changes, not enough stability though. CA 5 should also give pulsing stability to allies. Also there shouldn’t be any cast time on white tiger aegis.

[Mell.4873]

Yeah looks good over all, brings felines up to par with Iboga. It could mean that the felines are stronger in certain situations where Bleed damage from feline skills accounts for more damage. 

[Abyssisis.3971]

16 minutes ago, Mell.4873 said:

Yeah looks good over all, brings felines up to par with Iboga. It could mean that the felines are stronger in certain situations where Bleed damage from feline skills accounts for more damage. 

The patch will bring Iboga down to feline level…

[Levetty.1279]

I wish Ranger pets were half as good as Mech.

[Za Shaloc.3908]

That feeling when Glyph of Equality finally gets group stab application, but only in PvE. Pure sadness.

[Soilder.3607]

Lmao are you kidding me.

Druid: Improving Squad Viability - World vs. World - Guild Wars 2 Forums

 

Quote

 

Glyph of Equality (Celestial Avatar Version)

This skill will now grant stability (3 stacks, 4 seconds) in addition to its previous effects. A source of minor stability would be much appreciated in squads.

 

 

Seems they listen to our suggestions, just not for the game mode you requested them in. Please anet for the love of God extend that Glyph of Equality change to WvW as well. It would be so hopeful towards getting Druids in squads.

Edited August 13, 2022 by Soilder.3607

[Project exa.3204]

I support all these changes. Also pretty satisfied siege turtle is finally getting fixed, because it has decent viability for PvP. 
Only downside is the future nerf on felines when they realize their ridiculously high coefficient multipliers might make them a little overtuned soon.

-Eros of Ascalon

[RainbowTurtle.3542]

Glyph of Equality is about to become mandatory on stun capable fights, meaning we're basically going to be running water spirit, Frost Spirit (might uptime, I hate taking it because it's bad and 2 might on a GM trait isn't that unbalanced imo but anet does anet), stone spirit (protection uptime), GoE (stab, and nothing else), and then elite spirit/entangle or glyph of the stars for mechanics. Can't slot glyph of the tides for pushing if needed without a pretty major loss, prot, stab, or a decent amount of might. Can't slot glyph of unity for the same reason. Cmon anet, get with the program- fix spirits OR glyphs, don't try and do both at the same time. Ranger has enough trouble with support already, don't make druid have to be pulled in every which way in order to do what is the standard for supports when it's the only fully hardline support.

[Rysdude.3824]

The pets are getting fixed, whoot! I like the reduced cast time and recharge for the white tiger aegis as well.

[Mell.4873]

3 hours ago, Abyssisis.3971 said:

The patch will bring Iboga down to feline level…

But they also buffed the base critical change so it should even out. Well hopefully, I mean either way the DPS shouldn't drop to much even if we remove Iboga.

Edited August 13, 2022 by Mell.4873

[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.  

 

[Mell.4873]

30 minutes ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

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.  

There are plenty of reasons to take Untamed over Soulbeast even if they have the same DPS. I for one almost never die on Untamed due the lower cooldowns with Fervent Force. I can also output more controlling Conditions to lockdown and CC players.

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

7 hours ago, Evenaardez.7913 said:

Overall decent changes, not enough stability though. CA 5 should also give pulsing stability to allies. Also there shouldn’t be any cast time on white tiger aegis.

Glyph Of Equality is good place to put the Stab.

But it really should be at least 2 stacks of Stab for 5 to debatably possibly 10s, seeing as how the glyph is a 30s CD.

1 stack of Stab on 30s CD just isn't enough.

Lowering Ibolga damage was a stupid change though. At this point after all the rearrangements they've been doing, Ranger is barely hanging on in the benchmarks as is. It didn't need the chop to Ibolga damage. That's a massive amount of damage they ripped off that pet. Also effects competitive modes.

Edited August 13, 2022 by Trevor Boyer.6524

[InsaneQR.7412]

Finally they are adressing the faulty crit calculations and the quickness bug.

The defiance bar change makes me absolutely happy.

I still think spirits need tolbe mobile with a ground target active to be fully functional as a support skill.

Otherwise it looks at least like Anet is finally listening to stuff.

Iboge nerf for all game modes was unnecessary though. PvE would have been enough.

[aymnad.9023]

Some nice small changes / qol.

• Iboga : Need to check the numbers. It could still be decent in PvE but it does not say if this change made it to PvP! I was already regularly trying birds and phoenix in PvE.
• More crit chance will probably make me try more tanky pets from time to time (canine, drake).
• Pet bugfix are a classic but always welcome.
• White tiger : I always laughed or rolled my eyes when people said to pick this pet, now I could give it a try (not in PvP). Having a 1s cast time (with a long aftercast) on pets when they sometimes do not trigger their skills or wait >5s before using it when aegis is supposed to be a quick reaction was bad. (edit : I gave it another try tonight and the skill just does not go off when I want it to 😕)
• Spirits and pet immune to cc : a great quality of life! Strangely I am not that excited about it for pets when I should be. I cannot explain why. 
• Glyph of equality : I need to find which skill to drop in PvE because I am such a fan of healing spring (combo + dispell)… Wait, PvE only ooooooooooooooohhhh…

Edited August 13, 2022 by aymnad.9023

[Xenash.1245]

So to make players use other pets and to hopefully increase diversity, they're nerfing the Iboga? Not really trying to buff other pets at all, just nerfing the Iboga?

[MajinSoul.4512]

Nerfing Iboga is such a slap in the face when Mechanist exists. They should have buffed all the other pets to Iboga level, not the other way around ...

 

It's nice to finally have access to some stability on Druid but putting it on a glyph is very limiting considering you always need to run 3 spirits for alac uptime ... They should have put the stability on CA 5 and/or Spirit of Nature. Spirits being immune to CC is a welcome change although spirits still need some more love. Them being stationary really hurts their usability in many PvE scenarios.

 

Only took them half a year to fix the EoD pets ...

[Beddo.1907]

Quick reminder that we have over a week before the patch, so we can grab pre nerf/buff pet performance for later feedback and we can also complain to anet about adjustments. 

[Lazze.9870]

17 hours ago, Beddo.1907 said:

Glyph of Equality (Celestial Avatar): Range increased from 300 to 360 in all game modes. Now applies 5 seconds of stability to allies in PvE only.

Whyyyyyyyy is this pve only. Bleh.

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

2 hours ago, MajinSoul.4512 said:

Nerfing Iboga is such a slap in the face when Mechanist exists. They should have buffed all the other pets to Iboga level, not the other way around ...

Agreed

Ranger is already barely hanging onto the benchmarks as is

[anduriell.6280]

If I am not mistaken the quickness bug happens in more families than felines alone, I don’t know if that was fixed preciously, it would be good if Anet at least addresses that.

The changes aren’t great just mediocre changes, they do nothing for the ranger gameplay. Druid is still not required but at least the dude who was whining about  for the small  radius for equality should be happy now. I wonder if he is one of the specials in the secret dev discords. Now at least you will be forced by the rest of the squad to deal with the 2 CDs from equality stab… so cool uh?

UnWanted still unEnjoyable it offers nothing over Druid or Core. Anet even didn’t considered ranger in the builds which needed improved damage. 
Druid still a boon bot very passive gameplay. Ranger still not wanted and generally despised in WvW in any shape or form. Still very mediocre in PvP,

no more build variety for the class as a whole: same 2 traitlines with very little impact in gameplay. 

A year after eod release: ranger is still depression.

[Gotejjeken.1267]

12 hours ago, Mell.4873 said:

There are plenty of reasons to take Untamed over Soulbeast even if they have the same DPS. I for one almost never die on Untamed due the lower cooldowns with Fervent Force. I can also output more controlling Conditions to lockdown and CC players.

 

Maybe in sPvP Untamed has some use over Soulbeast. 

I know for a fact Untamed is strictly worse in WvW because of the pet for large scale and small scale you need to essentially bring spirits to get FF to proc at any meaningful rate.  Since they nerfed those to only pulse around the spirit its not really worth it anymore when you can bring any other ranger spec and be same or better.  

For PvE I don't see why anyone would want to bring a higher APM rotation to get the same benefit as a lower one; and for open world / metas perma-merged soulbeast is still the way so you don't have to worry about pet dying to random AoEs.  

[Mell.4873]

3 hours ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

I know for a fact Untamed is strictly worse in WvW because of the pet for large scale and small scale you need to essentially bring spirits to get FF to proc at any meaningful rate.  

I personally use 2 Longbows and the lower cooldown from Quick Draw to either spam Point-Blank Shot for dueling or Barrage for Zergs. The damage is far more consistent than Soulbeast, not to mention the many accesses to super speed.

Generally speaking Fervent Force is pretty useless in PvP due to it being 2 seconds and not 4 seconds.

3 hours ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

For PvE I don't see why anyone would want to bring a higher APM rotation to get the same benefit as a lower one; and for open world / metas perma-merged soulbeast is still the way so you don't have to worry about pet dying to random AoEs.  

This is a misconception (i got tricked by this too). The pet generally doesn't take any damage unless they are being targeted or are siting in an AoE combo field. Cleave and other effects normally don't work on them.

Its kind of funny how op it is, I mean with the Festival of the Four Winds one of the bosses teleports you but not your pet for some reason.

[Zaret.1450]

ok if i may say something, think that in wvw were playing a beta, the aliances, restructuring, rewards, etc, its something that still needs some months to come, and probably the aliances and restructuring alone will make some changes in what is needed, also weapon numbers and trait changes that should come on October, what i mean is, having changes only in pve builds, and this changes that, better or worse are acurate in their direction, nerfing overpowered clases and giving power dps more options is a good thing and pve needed them, now for wvw.... yeah of course things like stabs and aegis are needed, but it would be better to get them after pve has trued them a bit and the situation in wvw is more stable with the new things to come.

Talking about ranger itself, pets getting more crit chance and a defiance bar are both things wvw need, pets die too easily in zerg play, also beast mastery should be where the trait to share boons should be, if not mybe making "we heal as one" have a passive effect, it shares boons with the pet, while active heals both you and your pet, while the untamed heal could make it so your pet while doesnt die till you die or smth, think that soulbeast has just one pet and has a more rogue pkaystile, fuse, use your burst and play kinda like a thief, while untamed is more bruiser.

Its a goid patch, nothing huge, but decent overall.