Not A Single Topic On Patch

[Gotejjeken.1267]

Now that's telling.  

Anyway, to me, they are pushing power hard here.  Hammer improvements, UT 'resurrecting', and whatever they just did with Refined Toxins.

No, really.  What did they do to Refined Toxins? Natural Balance was apparently 'OP' so they...removed a large source of poison generation for the ranger and replaced it with...well Natural Balance.  Without the caveat of toying around with CA.  Convenient, I guess?

Then they removed the stab off Shared Anguish (while glossing over that in stream), because going back to no sources of stability is going to be super fun.  I love getting stunlocked as a ranger! Removing two condis on pet swap is 'fine' I guess--I'd say it misses the mark with the huge nerfs to healing spring, as clear on survival skill is still more useful than two clears every swap.

But yeah, healing spring.  Left field much? The pulse interval was awful before, so that's a good fix--but at the cost of 5 condis cleared? Bad way to say they hate Druid--as Soulbeast and Untamed aren't taking Healing Spring at all.  Same concept with Glyph of Stars--it's so easy to get interrupted out of (or self-cancel) and application rate so low, that it's nigh useless anyway.  I can tell you; I've been saved by a lot of elite skills while downed...but never by Glyph of Stars.  

Carnivore could be a good change depending on what the life steal amount is.  I don't think that will help with sPvP forum screaming about daze druid though.  In fact, that's what scares me a lot, because man do they love to mercilessly nerf Druid.

Anway, tldr; feeling is we're shifting from condi bunker to power bunker (with less condi clear).  That's, something alright.    

 

[Oahkahmewolf.6210]

Dude, I can't wait to see how busted my Daze druid build is with hammer. But this isn't a ideal change overall, there's so many underlying issues with ranger that I pefer getting fix then just aimlessly changing things on a whim.

I'd really kitten wish that the Anet employee would litterally take a 10min-maybe an hour. Disccuss with good group of ranger mains and ask

"what do you think is needs to get buffed, nerfed, fixed and looked over" or  "these are the underlying problems of X y and Z trait/ability/utility, how can we come to a compromise between the player perspective and the balancer perspective"

Give em a list, tell them how we feel about A ability, B utility. What ranger lack in certain spec and elite spec.

I feel like Spec are suppose to have a specific purpose or have a certain goal of design. At the moment I still am baffled with the stab loss and the fact they're adding Damage to Wilderness Survival seems very... odd for a defensive specific spec.

Not only that but, now you have the ability to cleave not just 2 condi from wilderness survival but 2 if you spec into beastmaster. 4 condi per pet swap switch, and then you have cleansing sigil which clears 3?

You can cleave total of 7 condi in one go if you really wanted to.

 

I personally don't like the heal spring nerf and glyph nerf, but I beleive they're doing this because of Zerg vs Zerg senario, due to when you stack enough of these... it pretty much always cleaves all the condi in one go. Now that they nerf that, I have a feeling Zergs are just gonna bring more of that in to deal with condi pressure.

Alas I'm still new for Gvg and Zerg fight, but even playing a bit of support druid I can sorta see why they nerfed it. Just they should of add something in place of that like resolution or Resistance pulsing or something like that imo. 

Edited February 17 by Oahkahmewolf.6210

[Oahkahmewolf.6210]

like example,

Wilderness survival is a defensive spec while having Condition amplification to some degree, while its nice to have some added healing and sustain while cleaving more condi... I would just rather had a better way of gaining stability then having to rely on specs like Soulbeast for reliable stability.

 

I still pretty mixed bagged about this upcoming patch notes and I really hope whoever in charge in ranger's balance should just ask us stuff. 

Edited February 17 by Oahkahmewolf.6210

[kharmin.7683]

1 hour ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

 

Anyway, to me, they are pushing power hard here.

 

 

I think that we knew this after MH sword was changed?  At least, I had the impression that things were shifting to power.  I guess the devs think that ranger players only want to play for DPS now.

[aymnad.9023]

Really mixt feelings about the WS changes. It removes great options and brings new cool ideas. I just have a hard time seeing them in action

• Shared anguish -> ranger still a punching bag whenever there are cc builds. 95% of the community is still clueless about this. I still see “broken because you have your stunbreacks” showing how little they understand matchups such as war vs ranger (and how double standards work).
• Empathic Bond -> ok change but also does the same as Wilderness knowledge + Zephyrs speed. To make the most out of this you might still need beastmastery anyway
• Survival Instincts -> Sounds really cool. I guess it will be 5% max because there is oakheart Salve on the same traitline. It replaces Refined toxin a good but situational trait.
• Carnivore : Happy charr ranger here! On a serious note I still need to see in action. I will play maces slb and try hammer untamed again but my expectations are low.

 

I have not been this unhappy for a long time about a druid patch. I was playing heal druid some games to prepare for maces. I can get >400k healing if I am lucky but it is still bad.

Here is my long rant.

• Hard to mitigate damage -> protection is mostly on glyphs but you will not be playing more than elite + another one. The trait also had to compete with self defense (gone next patch replaced by trait no build will use) or stealth. I have been messing with protective ward (druid can allow some tanky pets to survive) + lyhr to bring dmg reduction
• Hard to survive and sustain: Once in CA you chase your allies and mostly try to survive yourself. Once you are out of CA what do you do? Try to survive too. Healing + surviving is actually hard to combine with support on druid. Support still locked behind cd + energy

Lets look at the changes

• Grace of the land : I know the alac changes apply to every profession. But an unused trait is now even weaker. At least scourge was able to pump it constantly
• Glyph of the stars: To be honest it makes sense to be 60s. Nerfing it at the same time? Get out of there….
• Healing spring :  Less duration so less combo. This is a PvE nerf but it looks ok? Still a bit weak for a small static aoe in close combat (compare ele staff water 5). Now in PvP this skill has a 1s delay between pressing my heal key and getting the trap to trigger. 1 s to wait to get 1 condi clear? Yikes. back when druid released I was playing it even if it had 1 dispell and everyone else was running Troll Unguent. Even if it is a static aoe it still is has more potential than a spirit (imo because I tried the spirit build on metabattle and did not like it) or glyph that will put either you or your allies at risk. Back to the same old issues + being worse for every other build using it (would you like 6 condi clear in 7s or 5 in 6s? Worst for short, mid and long durations)

 

You know what were the best support options in druid's history?

• Ancient seeds : yup. Still was and will be the best option support ranger ever had in PvP. Allows an ally to escape or locks an enemy or forces support resources, does not need CA
• Lingering light with blind + heal: Extra damage mitigation

I love how healbreaker is already more reliable than healdruid and will soon put it to shame. Instant 600 dispell + healing... Firebrand is also good with all the buffs it got.

What niche do you want for healdruid? Cc more accessible on ele and firebrand. Healing is more accessible on those 3 too. Damage mitigation is more accessible on core guard and firebrand and tempest has unique effects.  Aoe support are larger on ele and healbreaker. Spells are faster on them. It is easier to survive.

 

 

Edit : I completely forgot talking about hammer / untamed changes after the druid fiasco.

• hammer buffs look good but without testing it is hard to tell if it will feel better
• Ambush not triggering with auto enable is a great QoL I asked a long time ago
• Tp with quickness is most likely not going to make it competitive

Edited February 17 by aymnad.9023
the more I think about druid vs others the more I add...

[Arheundel.6451]

12 minutes ago, kharmin.7683 said:

I think that we knew this after MH sword was changed?  At least, I had the impression that things were shifting to power.  I guess the devs think that ranger players only want to play for DPS now.

I don't think Anet wants rangers to be anything more than Tower ranger with "yolo burst and run for the hill" sort of gameplay

[enkeny.6937]

Hammer:
Wild Swing upgrade may be interesting, but nothing interesting

Healing Spring: Different. Not better, not worse.Expect for competitive. reminder: we'll get another condi remove.  It's still remove the same condition in average in the first 5 sec. 

 Refined Toxins was never good next to Ambidexterity. After this we have a condition, power and a condition cleanse option. (instead of good condi, bad condi, stability)
Carnivore: (I still think Predatory Season would be better name): Predator's Cunning II.

Glyph of the Stars: not good... 6 * 8% = 48%, Isn't it too low for a resurrection skill?!
Natural Balance: Change the icon for a scale already :D Boon duration instead of damage reduction in PvE it is nice. The problem is: Condi alacrity druid has problem to ENTER celestial form because the bar is not filled. 

Unnatural Traversal: now we have the 3rd utility that gives quickness, 2 elite for stability, 2 trait that provide quickness.... yes, i think we'll get nerf soon. 

[Beddo.1907]

I usually do the patch post, but this time the stuff from patch already came up in a few last posts, so I didn't see the point.

[Gotejjeken.1267]

10 hours ago, Oahkahmewolf.6210 said:

Not only that but, now you have the ability to cleave not just 2 condi from wilderness survival but 2 if you spec into beastmaster. 4 condi per pet swap switch, and then you have cleansing sigil which clears 3?

You can cleave total of 7 condi in one go if you really wanted to.

Thinking this is the way it's going--as Marks/BM/X is pretty potent for power. 

8 hours ago, kharmin.7683 said:

I think that we knew this after MH sword was changed?  At least, I had the impression that things were shifting to power.  I guess the devs think that ranger players only want to play for DPS now.

Can definitley see the line of thought, but hard to tell for me. 

As MH Sword change was disguised as 'bringing up DPS builds in PvE', but really probably was the first step here.  Then they killed off Ancient Seeds, made Eclipse pretty weak (in competitive), indirectly nerfed Sharpening Stone (via leaving CD alone), and now got rid of Refined Toxins in favor of a power trait.  That's in addition to removing the Staff trait, nerfing DC from 13 to 3 condis, removing move speed from Natural Stride....  

They call immob / duel Druid a 'weird spec only a few people use', but then constantly nerf and base Druid balance around it.  Funny, isn't it?

[anduriell.6280]

I think the changes to the traits  are a nothing burger, it touches nothing of relevance for ranger builds. 
The changes to Healing spring seems like a big deal, it is not. Nobody would stay 10 seconds on that AoE during combat. 
 

The sleeper changes are done to hammer, if I am not mistaken the speed increase in auto attack chain is improved in half a second. And additional damage. And doubled AoE in the stun. 
 

I am not sure it is a good idea to make WS even more prevalent with added strike reduction to the already mandatory cleanses traitline. 

But again, anet devs would need to play with the ranger to see this stuff. 

[Beddo.1907]

2 minutes ago, anduriell.6280 said:

I think the changes to the traits  are a nothing burger, it touches nothing of relevance for ranger builds. 
The changes to Healing spring seems like a big deal, it is not. Nobody would stay 10 seconds on that AoE during combat. 

The sleeper changes are done to hammer, if I am not mistaken the speed increase in auto attack chain is improved in half a second. And additional damage. And doubled AoE in the stun. 

I am not sure it is a good idea to make WS even more prevalent with added strike reduction to the already mandatory cleanses traitline. 
 

Spring is honestly a buff, just because of what you've said. If you stay 10s in one spot, tick condi AoE will turn you into a puddle.
Hammer is not much, since the changes are minimal.
WS is just buffed for unga bunga power build.

The only thing that took a noticable hit was the meta zerg heal druid, with alac loss and weaker elite res. (which probably won't remove it from the spot honestly)

[anduriell.6280]

1 minute ago, Beddo.1907 said:

Spring is honestly a buff, just because of what you've said. If you stay 10s in one spot, tick condi AoE will turn you into a puddle.
Hammer is not much, since the changes are minimal.
WS is just buffed for unga bunga power build.

The only thing that took a noticable hit was the meta zerg heal druid, with alac loss and weaker elite res. (which probably won't remove it from the spot honestly)

This is my feeling about how the ranger should be balanced about:

Alac it’s a thing should have never been creeped in into the Druid, it was a payoff because of the nerf to raid builds when grace of the land was nerfed. Druid should always been designed about the tether mechanic from some glyph for sustained support and CA for spike healing and less access to direct offensive effects but increase damage for friendly by baseline on the Druid traitline(like original designs for lingering light and grace of the land). 

if untamed would need to be reworked to have more impactful skills with much higher cooldowns (including hammer)  and much more resilience (tank capabilities)  for the player and the pet it would make sense for it to have personal access to alac instead quickness. Cantrips should have always been designed as team oriented skills instead whatever it is now so it gets a spot as tanks/bruiser with low spike damage and easy access to stunlocks. 
Ambushes  could be thematic  but those make sense to activate for untamed and the pet (the pets would need a generic ambush skill too) when they CC a target instead whatever mess is now. The specialization would need to be reworked from the ground up in any case. 
 

quickness should be a thing on soulbeast skills and traits for the player only, so the specialization removes so many multipliers (damage from BM and some skills)  and instead get access to quickness as means to keep the spike damage by many hits. That benefits the power and the condi side allowing the player to pick the build they would like to play instead being pigeonholed into strike. 

 

 

[aymnad.9023]

36 minutes ago, Beddo.1907 said:

Spring is honestly a buff, just because of what you've said. If you stay 10s in one spot, tick condi AoE will turn you into a puddle.
Hammer is not much, since the changes are minimal.
WS is just buffed for unga bunga power build.

The only thing that took a noticable hit was the meta zerg heal druid, with alac loss and weaker elite res. (which probably won't remove it from the spot honestly)

Spring is a massive nerf. No matter how you look at it. There is a delay between the animation and the trigger of the trap. You wait 1s before you start getting a cleanse. So now you wait 1s to cleanse 1 condition instead of 2.  After 3seconds you cleansed 3 instead of 4. After 5 you cleansed 5 instead of 6. And if you could stand longer into it well then this is even worst.

You cleanse conditions more often? Sure but you cleanse less meaning they have more time to deal damage or be reapplied meaning you do not cleanse the ones that are actually dangerous. You also cannot go in / out because the duration is lower which also means less opportunities to combo into the aoe.

Edited February 17 by aymnad.9023

[Beddo.1907]

2 minutes ago, anduriell.6280 said:

Alac it’s a thing should have never been creeped in into the Druid

We live in Quickness/Alac meta, so we had to get it for Druid to be even considered. Nothing can be done here right now.

4 minutes ago, anduriell.6280 said:

if untamed would need to be reworked to have more impactful skills with much higher cooldowns (including hammer)  and much more resilience (tank capabilities)  for the player and the pet it would make sense for it to have personal access to alac instead quickness. Cantrips should have always been designed as team oriented skills instead whatever it is now so it gets a spot as tanks/bruiser with low spike damage and easy access to stunlocks. 
Ambushes  could be thematic  but those make sense to activate for untamed and the pet (the pets would need a generic ambush skill too) when they CC a target instead whatever mess is now. The specialization would need to be reworked from the ground up in any case. 

Untamed should have been everything ranger missed. Team utility, boons strip, and stuff like that on a tanky base.
However in the end we kinda got nothing special. Multiple especs cut into chunks and shoved into a trenchcoat.
I agree with reworking the core of the spec and touching up on what can work from what we have.

[Beddo.1907]

5 minutes ago, aymnad.9023 said:

Spring is a nerf. No matter how you look at it. There is a delay between the animation and the trigger of the trap. You wait 1s before you start getting a cleanse. So now you wait 1s to cleanse 1 condition instead of 2.  After 3seconds you cleansed 2 instead of 4. After 5 you cleansed 4 instead of 6.

You cleanse conditions more often? Sure but you cleanse less meaning they have more time to deal damage or be reapplied meaning you do not cleanse the ones that are actually dangerous.

On paper it's better when moving and worse when standing.
Obviously still have to test it out in practice to really compare it, since a lot of the time "on paper" doesn't work as well in practice.

[aymnad.9023]

4 minutes ago, Beddo.1907 said:

On paper it's better when moving and worse when standing.
Obviously still have to test it out in practice to really compare it, since a lot of the time "on paper" doesn't work as well in practice.

I am not sure I understand. What do you mean? I do not see change making it better for movement. It still looks like an aoe you drop on yourself and you need to wait.

What I meant is that before you would get a higher cleanse faster and if anything went wrong (like you said if you get aoe bombed) you could walk out, wait a few seconds and go back in to get cleanse / water combo.

[Beddo.1907]

8 minutes ago, aymnad.9023 said:

I am not sure I understand. What do you mean? I do not see change making it better for movement. It still looks like an aoe you drop on yourself and you need to wait.

What I meant is that before you would get a higher cleanse faster and if anything went wrong (like you said if you get aoe bombed) you could walk out, wait a few seconds and go back in to get cleanse / water combo.

Lower chance of missing procs. Also I'm talking about squad use as well.

[aymnad.9023]

16 minutes ago, Beddo.1907 said:

Lower chance of missing procs. Also I'm talking about squad use as well.

Oh ok. I do not really play WvW so I was thinking PvE / PvP where this is a huge nerf. It might be more consistent but if I have to guess 1 condi clear is not going to be impressive.

Edited February 17 by aymnad.9023

[anduriell.6280]

10 hours ago, aymnad.9023 said:

Oh ok. I do not really play WvW so I was thinking PvE / PvP where this is a huge nerf. It might be more consistent but if I have to guess 1 condi clear is not going to be impressive.

In pve the impact is not that great, unless specific situations you don’t need a 10 condition clear in 10 seconds. Not that it matter as pve is irrelevant for any kind of balance talk because you can do raids on green gear. 

in pvp probably is not that big of a nerf either: it is true the skill does less condi clears but you will see now how the skill works better to clear condi bombs. 

So I do think Bedo is on point here. Probably anet hasn’t done this because balance but because it is one of the few long lasting (10 seconds) pulsing AoE in game. 

[aymnad.9023]

14 minutes ago, anduriell.6280 said:

In pve the impact is not that great, unless specific situations you don’t need a 10 condition clear in 10 seconds. Not that it matter as pve is irrelevant for any kind of balance talk because you can do raids on green gear. 

I explained multiple times why it does matter. You have less opportunities to combo and in PvE it is better to have a constant dispell than a quick one.

Also read my first message :

Quote

Less duration so less combo. This is a PvE nerf but it looks ok? 

14 minutes ago, anduriell.6280 said:

in pvp probably is not that big of a nerf either: it is true the skill does less condi clears but you will see now how the skill works better to clear condi bombs. 

It is a MASSIVE NERF! How can you not see that? Either you did not play it enough or did not read my explanations on why it will matter. It is slower giving time for the enemy to reapply condi (making the 1 cleanse useless since you always remove the same one) meaning you take more damage, it cleanses less and gives you no opportunity to go in / out. Play it after the patch to tell me how good it feels (and not just 1 unranked game, go play 10-15 games)

 

 

Edited February 18 by aymnad.9023

[Arheundel.6451]

On 2/17/2024 at 8:59 AM, Oahkahmewolf.6210 said:

Dude, I can't wait to see how busted my Daze druid build is with hammer. But this isn't a ideal change overall, there's so many underlying issues with ranger that I pefer getting fix then just aimlessly changing things on a whim.

I'd really kitten wish that the Anet employee would litterally take a 10min-maybe an hour. Disccuss with good group of ranger mains and ask

"what do you think is needs to get buffed, nerfed, fixed and looked over" or  "these are the underlying problems of X y and Z trait/ability/utility, how can we come to a compromise between the player perspective and the balancer perspective"

Give em a list, tell them how we feel about A ability, B utility. What ranger lack in certain spec and elite spec.

I feel like Spec are suppose to have a specific purpose or have a certain goal of design. At the moment I still am baffled with the stab loss and the fact they're adding Damage to Wilderness Survival seems very... odd for a defensive specific spec.

Not only that but, now you have the ability to cleave not just 2 condi from wilderness survival but 2 if you spec into beastmaster. 4 condi per pet swap switch, and then you have cleansing sigil which clears 3?

You can cleave total of 7 condi in one go if you really wanted to.

 

I personally don't like the heal spring nerf and glyph nerf, but I beleive they're doing this because of Zerg vs Zerg senario, due to when you stack enough of these... it pretty much always cleaves all the condi in one go. Now that they nerf that, I have a feeling Zergs are just gonna bring more of that in to deal with condi pressure.

Alas I'm still new for Gvg and Zerg fight, but even playing a bit of support druid I can sorta see why they nerfed it. Just they should of add something in place of that like resolution or Resistance pulsing or something like that imo. 

They haven't got a clue man....I don't even know if we play the same game with these devs or if they are too busy playing Guardian and Necro all day long

P.S Roaming is of no concern to Anet, they think more along the line of a frontline ranger wvw zerg gameplay, they don't expect pets to stay alive enough to make a difference there, so even if predicted the potential 7 condis clear every 15s with pets alive....it's irrelevant during zerg fights.

Now for roaming that 7 condi clear will be busted.....but again there are dozens of even more busted specs/trait combos for roaming so...just a drop of water in the ocean.

In PvP...maximum 5 x condi clear at launch...to be nerfed after few months, and knowing Anet there is a good chance those nerfs will be extended to wvw so yeah, ranger may end up worst than now along the line....been there seen that

Edited February 18 by Arheundel.6451

[Zyreva.1078]

On 2/17/2024 at 2:33 PM, enkeny.6937 said:

Refined Toxins was never good next to Ambidexterity.

Refind Toxins was by far the best trait in that tier, for most builds, power and condi alike, at least in WvW. Good poison uptime is a huge benefit in this very sustain heavy meta and the removal is a quite significant nerf.

WS has always been a decent defensive (and for condi builds also offensive) choice for many builds and didn't need (m)any changes. It fell out of the meta for power builds because of all the dmg nerfs and sustain buffs that made it harder and harder to kill stuff without going full glass. And removing poison certainly isn't going to help with that. Another example of random "improvements " by clearly clueless devs that end up making things worse. It looks like their glorious "pet improvement patch" all over again, that nerfed or outright killed a few decent pets and didn't improve anything of relevance.

Edited February 19 by Zyreva.1078

[Sandzibar.5134]

Yes. I understand pvp players saying refined toxin was essentially worthless (as their version is basically non functioning) but my soulbeast is going to miss it in WvW.

 

[Oahkahmewolf.6210]

15 hours ago, Sandzibar.5134 said:

Yes. I understand pvp players saying refined toxin was essentially worthless (as their version is basically non functioning) but my soulbeast is going to miss it in WvW.

 

I use it situational, I don't think its useless especially if you like stacking it with Doom Sigil you can decently stack poison up pretty fast.

I think the devs see it as a Doom alternative version which some rangers take for that very purpose over Shared Anguish. Even though they never inherently stated.

Edited February 20 by Oahkahmewolf.6210

[Beddo.1907]

Ref toxins was useful for reducing healing on non-condi builds and that's pretty much it for me.