Possible ranger buff incoming - Alacrity will become a boon

[Professor Sprout.1560]

Just as a heads-up, this was posted by the devs https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/26685/alacrity-time-for-a-change

This change has a number of dimensions to it that could be of relevance to Soulbeast builds, assuming no bugs or inconsistencies:

• Ranger pets will now have alacrity copied to them by Fortifying Bond. Of course there is a good chance that many or all pets will be bugged and not have their cooldowns reduced by alacrity, but if not this could be very helpful.
• In a similar vein alacrity will probably be added to the boon tables for "We Heal as One!", Elevated Bond and Essence of Speed. Provided the soulbeast has a way to generate alacrity on itself it should be able to recycle it using these abilities and keep it going for a very long time.
• Assuming no new sources of alacrity are added to the class this means either a Superior Sigil of Frenzy or a Siamoth's Consume Plasma skill. The latter is unreliable but has many other advantages; the former could give a 120% uptime with 100% boon duration and perfect kill timing.
• Bountiful Hunter is also going to give an extra 1% damage.

Any other effects of this change I have missed? Anyone other ranger-specific thoughts?

[DuckDuckBOOM.4097]

@Robert Gee.9246 said:

@Vermillion.4061 said:What about Frenzy Sigil which is used on almost every weapon in WvW, is that sigil going to be adjusted to?Yes, this sigil will be receiving a functionality change that causes it to give flat recharge reduction instead of alacrity.

Might be useful for some builds in PvE/WvW depending on how much recharge it gives but it won't be alacrity.

From a PvE side, I would call the alacrity changes an indirect buff to condi SB/ranger dps. While every class is going to lose DPS, the condi ranger/SB rotations don't get messed up the way other class rotations do with low alacrity uptime. It's also impossible to tell before the actual patch happens but regen is getting reworked and it's possible that Rev/FB combo becomes more prevalent for alacrity/quickness which pushes rangers towards SB+spirits instead of Druid in those comps.

Also just as a reminder, alacrity affects the CD of traits if those traits are specifically proccing skills with CD. It doesn't proc stuff like primal reflexes or striders defense. Overall, I don't see it directly affecting ranger much.

[Arheundel.6451]

The devs have already said that alacrity won't be distributed to other classes even after the change to boon, go read the thread

[Professor Sprout.1560]

@DuckDuckBOOM.4097 Ah, thanks for that info - he must have posted that after I went up the wooden hill =) That's unfortunate from the perspective of a boon manipulation soulbeast as it was the only potential source of mid-combat alacrity for rangers I could think of that doesn't rely on another player. If that sigil does stack with other cooldown-reducing effects however it could be useful for a support build.@"Arheundel.6451" I took that to mean that no skills or traits were to have their functionality changed to now grant alacrity in addition to other effects; but that effects which applied to "all boons" before the change would apply to "all boons" afterwards, with the content of that latter statement now including alacrity. Hence the mention of Contemplation of Purity (condition conversion) and Consume Plasma (grants all boons) in the first post. If you have a specific quote from the thread that controverts that assumption I would be glad to hear it, but skimming over it now I couldn't find one.

[Durzlla.6295]

The only way I see it really affecting ranger is if we either are given alacrity on something (I honestly doubt we will), or soul beast makes a way to abuse the hell out of consume plasma from siamoth paired with fresh reinforcement and the boon transfer trait in NM. Which I think would be a fun build, but I doubt it’d be something super broken, maybe just a new option if that.

[OGDeadHead.8326]

Since rangers can't provide this boon themselves (and no, consume plasma is a gimmick, as are the pets providing the plasma, don't even mention it), I wouldn't dream of calling this change a "possible ranger buff".

OP, the topic of this thread is misleading and a clickbait to say the least, and you should really consider changing it.

[Ardenwolfe.8590]

Ah well. I was hoping. :(

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

@"OGDeadHead.8326" said:Since rangers can't provide this boon themselves (and no, consume plasma is a gimmick, as are the pets providing the plasma, don't even mention it), I wouldn't dream of calling this change a "possible ranger buff".

OP, the topic of this thread is misleading and a clickbait to say the least, and you should really consider changing it.

If you go with a nature bond variant of the meta build, your pet will enjoy more alacrity than before. It is a small buff to Ranger. Emphasis on "small."