Ranger patch changes

[Axl.8924]

Ranger

The ranger is a potent damage dealer. We've seen that Soulbeast has extreme burst damage potential, and unfortunately in this case, this has helped create some very homogenous group compositions. In this patch, we're weakening "Sic 'Em!" when used by a Soulbeast by lowering the damage bonus to 25%, matching the current balancing for this skill in PvP and WvW. We're also increasing the cooldown of One Wolf Pack. However, while we do want to slightly lower the extreme burst damage moments from Soulbeast, we don't want to significantly lower its overall damage per second on longer encounters. To this end, we're also increasing the damage bonus granted by Furious Strength, providing an overall increase to sustained damage per second.

"Sic 'Em!": When used by a merged soulbeast, the damage bonus granted is now 25%. When used by any other ranger specialization, or an unmerged soulbeast, the damage bonus granted to the pet is 40%.

Soulbeast

One Wolf Pack: Increased cooldown from 60 seconds to 80 seconds in PvE only.

Furious Strength: Increased bonus damage from 7% to 10%.

Warhorn

Call of the Wild: Reduced animation aftercast time by approximately 0.5 seconds. The pet's next few attacks are no longer unblockable. This skill now dazes and weakens nearby enemies when cast. Daze duration is 2 seconds in PvE and WvW, and 1 second in PvP.

 

Thought?

[mistsim.2748]

Nothing changes much in any game mode. 

 

Like many others, I was actually hoping for a Druid REWORK lol. A fat block of text explaining how Druid has garbage design and how they are reworking it in many ways. But I guess it has niche builds in spvp and PvE, so it's seen in their eyes as "good enough". 

 

Maybe by 2025 Warhorn will become a viable weapon? They've been incrementally buffing it for years and years. What they don't understand is that LB and GS are OVERDESIGNED. They have too many good tools in one package, and they will ALWAYS be the best choices for power builds. GS 4 and LB 3 are basically god mode, an no offhand will ever match this utility. If Druid ever becomes a viable support spec WH could work maybe. But for decap druid in spvp, LB is absolutely essential for damage and utility. 

 

Right now I'm thinking GS/s/WH on core ranger, at least for pvp, might be interesting. 

Edited April 30, 2021 by mistsim.2748

[Abyssisis.3971]

Nerfing one wolf pack without fixing it the issue with soulbeast stances intervals. Fml

[aspirine.6852]

The sic m change was probably logical. 

[Leonidrex.5649]

it shows that not a single dev actually played soulbeast.
they legit think, its sustain DPS will be higher, which goes to show nothing was tested and they went " kitten it lets nerf it "
no the nerf wont mean much but its the principle of things, if people making changes dont know what the kitten they are doing things are only gonna get worse.

EDIT
they didnt say the damage bonus from 7% to 10% is pve only, so its a potential pvp slb buff
 

Edited April 30, 2021 by Leonidrex.5649

[mistsim.2748]

3 minutes ago, Leonidrex.5649 said:

it shows that not a single dev actually played soulbeast.
they legit think, its sustain DPS will be higher, which goes to show nothing was tested and they went " kitten it lets nerf it "
no the nerf wont mean much but its the principle of things, if people making changes dont know what the kitten they are doing things are only gonna get worse.

EDIT
they didnt say the damage bonus from 7% to 10% is pve only, so its a potential pvp slb buff
 

correct. SLB is just fine in pve. 

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

Soulbeast has high burst dps according to the devs, so let's buff it's dps in competitive play!

 

Anet balance in a nutshell. To be fair Holo got the same treatment.

[CETheLucid.3964]

Call of the Wild getting an AoE daze is pretty cool! Otherwise it's a lot of nothing. Sic' Em' nerf almost hurts but it's been a thing so long I'll accept it. I don't run it as much as I did. I don't even know why they nerfed One Wolf Pack but whatever. I'll take the Furious Strength buff.

🤷‍♂️

[WindBlade.8749]

Ranger is basicly dead now, at least the power variant, they nerfed his burst but psb only do that, burst at 90k damage and do nothing until the next burst, 3% is not enough at all to convert him from a burst class to a consistant dps, he just gonna join reaper dps average, except reaper have utility, survivability etc to compensate.

In fractals it's even worse with the nerf on breakbar exposure.

Even if it's was not the best i kinda like the current meta, there is some diversity on dps, you could take an ele, engi, ranger, guardian for dps and revenant, guardian, warrior for support (dps also for bs), which make about 7/9 class of the game, not perfect but there was some diversity on dps.

I also kinda like the rainbow sinergy we got, a sb give high burst and give burst to others dps with stance share, the weaver get the same burst as sb with the stance share and give fire field to increase the damgage of the sb and the bs and keep the might up with burst combo, the bs put banners to increase the dps of the others and give a lot of cc to the team (without speaking about support who give protect, stab etc..)

Now everything is gonna be cfb only with the buff of 100% damage for condi in fractals.

Support (with mirage and scrapper buff) gonna become more diverse that a good point but dps.....

 

So yea good patch since reta was usless when you had it and annoying when an enemy had it.
Transforming a 100% ressistance to 33% like protect for power is logic nowday since back in the day there was no condi build.*

Tourment is nice since most of the mobs never move, it's better like that.

 

pretty good patch for PvE except the psb that got deleted from the game and the exposure nerf that gonna ruin fractal ......

Edited April 30, 2021 by WindBlade.8749

[quaniesan.8497]

They are generally out of touch, this has been the case for years.  I was bracing for a nerf on my necro, but these "developers" actually end up buffing the condis LOL  because when they see the condi storms from necros in pvp , they go "oh, dang, lets make it even worse " .   Thanks I guess. That's the only thing positive i got from the patch.  But it's sad for ranger yeh,  he's a fav alt of mine. 

[aymnad.9023]

copy paste from my post in the profession section : 

 

 

Ranger

Sicem and wolf pack : I have flashbacks of how ranger was in the 3 worst dps for years, without getting buff, and we had to wait for some players to make multiple variations and iterations to make it viable… Power ranger sustain dmage is and has always been bad. This small buff is not going to do anything for it. It seems too much.

Soulbeast merge skill supportive pets (spiritual reprieve) -> CHANGE THE BUFF !! The skill got so many nerfs and most people do not use it, with the cd and no more condi immunity it will not have much use.

Warhorn : not bad for supports, I would even say pretty good but still limited by the cd. It could be a minor nerf to the power core variant in pvp but I am not even sure. My attempt at a core ranger axe / warhorn, frost trap mid is going to like it X)

 

Edited April 30, 2021 by aymnad.9023

[Aaden Dante.7321]

I just love all the changes to Druid. I'm not really a raid or strikes player and I am just thrilled at the idea that druid is now viable outside of 10 toon content.

 

Oh...wait.

[AlexndrTheGreat.8310]

I could live with like, the Sic ‘Em nerf. If Anet feels they need to nerf SB burst for whatever reason, that would be the most logical way to do it. But nerfing that on top of OWP is ridiculous. SB’s damage profile is pretty much all burst.
 

Their sustained damage between bursts is really low and a 7->10% buff is not nearly enough to compensate for a 40%->25% burst window nerf, and a massive reduction in OWP usages during a fight (once per 1 minute vs once every 1.5 minutes), so not only is our burst now substantially lower, the amount of times we can do our big burst has also been reduced.

 

These changes feel like the directly targeted our performance in fractals while leaving no thought to other PvE content (imagine Anet thinking about raids, kekw). Condi SB, which was already a pretty middle-of-the-pack condi build (behind in benchmarks to every other class except Thief, Warrior, and Necro) was also nerfed. OWP is the go to Elite, and the buff to Furious Strength only effect power damage. These buffs seem way too heavy handed in one specific niche that the rest of SB is now going to suffer severely. All the above needs on top of the nerf to Exposed for power damage.

It seems like Anet is trying to shift fractals away from the “burst everything immediately” play style by gutting all the classes that are brought to them. Really just feels like a fundamental problem with fractals more than any issues with the classes. Bosses and mobs die so quickly because of how little health they have. The only way to make condi even maybe have a place is to nerf power so hard that it just won’t seem worth bringing over a Firebrand.

 

In Fractals, SB is mostly brought for the bonus it brings to other classes anyway. Classes like Guardian, Warrior, and Weaver can do more damage than SB’s during speed runs. The main reason we’re brought anyway is for OWP and Frost Spirit, the burst we provide is just a bonus on top.

 

Anet needs to seriously re-evaluate the majority of the changes they’re looking to make. Nerfing power Tempest for seemingly no reason, the Warrior “we don’t want to make Discipline mandatory” making Discipline mandatory in raids change, basically killing of Malyx and its entire identity, doing seemingly nothing to FB except buffing them in fractals, making Mirage some cheesy alternative to Chronomancer (the two specs being part of the same class? Why not give it to literally anyone else). All of these just seem like a mess.

[Dahkeus.8243]

I’m pretty shocked to see Soulbeast targeted for nerfs because of how good the burst was.  I mean, it’s definitely strong, but I don’t think it’s hurt overall balance of build diversity/composition flexibility.  At most, a shave to burst would have made more sense.  
 

Also very sad to see Druid untouched.  Lots of good changes in this patch, but not when it comes to ranger.

[LughLongArm.5460]

1)Is this the big pre-expansion balance patch like we had before HOT and POF? If so, it is very disappointing. Last expansion we got a trait overall which is needed more than ever after the big PVE/PVP spilt that deleted many of the existing traits.  
 

2)The thing that will effect ranger the most is probably  not the specific ranger changes, but rather the changes to condis, resistance, and retaliation. Some things to look up for :
 

-Resistance uptime is going to be increased, so builds that relies on immob for burst could be effected. 

-As far as I understand, poison debuff effect will not be effected by resistance nor from the new boon, so its a buff for poison builds. 

-Ranger have almost no access to retaliation ATM(axe 5, druid seed of life via light aura) and that's a shame due to the potencial synergy between the new boon and Second Skin. I hope they will twik some sources that give resistance ATM, to also give the new boon in addition. 

-Light aura blast should really be changed to give AOE light aura, it could be nice addition to druild's tool kit with CA 2+3 combo. 

-retaliation removal is good news for ranger in WvW. 

Edited May 1, 2021 by LughLongArm.5460

[quaniesan.8497]

Not just the changes to rangers are bad.  Other classes have hardly any  praises. I have been also watching reactions to these changes and forum responses.  Super negative.  Probably one of the worst responses.  It does seem like the balance are done by  college interns and if they ever had experience with game balancing.  People wonder if they ever played the game.  Their evaluations and justifications of changes are out of touch, unrealistic and seems like they are actually playing a different game. For example "Berserker has been in a great place with strong support, power, and condition builds that are successful in all content."  LOL . Looks like this game's days are numbered at this rate

Edited May 1, 2021 by quaniesan.8497

[InsaneQR.7412]

I understand the changes and i like the warhorn daze.

But i also hope druid and the pets get some love in the future.

 

[anduriell.6280]

I am excited to check the changes out.  The removal of retal will make GM trait for longbow usable against zergs. 

 

Also want to see how the trait in markmanship which triggers Call of the Wild is reworked to reflect the changes to the skill. Aoe Daze and Weakness everytime the soubeast uses F5 may benefit the duelist build. 

 

[WindBlade.8749]

2 hours ago, quaniesan.8497 said:

Not just the changes to rangers are bad.  Other classes have hardly any  praises. I have been also watching reactions to these changes and forum responses.  Super negative.  Probably one of the worst responses.  It does seem like the balance are done by  college interns and if they ever had experience with game balancing.  People wonder if they ever played the game.  Their evaluations and justifications of changes are out of touch, unrealistic and seems like they are actually playing a different game. For example "Berserker has been in a great place with strong support, power, and condition builds that are successful in all content."  LOL . Looks like this game's days are numbered at this rate

well to be fair, in all PvE content he is a strong support who have a strong condi and strong power variant and baiscly mandatory and meta.... yes they play a different game that you if you play mostly pvp called pve, which is really different from pvp.

[Zyreva.1078]

I hope, Clarion Bond remains as it is now, because daze and weakness on pet swap (= instant/no counterplay) will be super obnoxious if not straight up op, due to the synergy with other marksmanship traits, and i worry they will end up killing the entire traitline with inevitable nerfs (as the devs don't tend to revert their mistakes and instead like to ruin something else).

[enkeny.6937]

warhorn change was a surprise, but it is not like, lesser call of the wild will gets the changes.
Sic' em nerf was coming, and we all know, instead of a rework, we will get the PvP version in global. 
Increase the Furious Strength is nice. Laughable, but nice.  (let it effect conditions to, please. in PvE)
One wolf pack... Compared to the other elite skills it was too potent. But that is because our elite skills for damage builds are weak or useless.

About druid: at least it is not worse.

Pets need a serious rework. Commands need a serious rework. Druid need some flexibility.
If ranger is the pet class for GW2, then why can I not make a pet build? 
If you want a damage build you MUST use soul beast. After the patch will it change? No, it is just you do less damage, but still need to use soul beast specialization.
 

[Impling.4170]

23 minutes ago, UmbraNoctis.1907 said:

I hope, Clarion Bond remains as it is now, because daze and weakness on pet swap (= instant/no counterplay) will be super obnoxious if not straight up op, due to the synergy with other marksmanship traits, and i worry they will end up killing the entire traitline with inevitable nerfs (as the devs don't tend to revert their mistakes and instead like to ruin something else).

 

Lol, funny to think of the instant cast daze spam from a staff / x/wh Druid build with Clarion Bond and Primal Echoes. 

 

Also, I sincerely hope that the 900 radius effect from CotW is NOT going to apply to the daze/weakness, and that is has something like a 240-360 radius on it. I am definitely excited for this change though. I like to run warhorn on my support Druid. Can't wait to try it out!

[Arheundel.6451]

People are forgetting that ranger has good access to resistance...plus they have Signet of Renewal...how is it supposed to work now? You'd kill yourself using it with soulbeast and you'd kill your pet using it with core and druid.....

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

7 hours ago, quaniesan.8497 said:

Not just the changes to rangers are bad.  Other classes have hardly any  praises. I have been also watching reactions to these changes and forum responses.  Super negative.  Probably one of the worst responses.  It does seem like the balance are done by  college interns and if they ever had experience with game balancing.  People wonder if they ever played the game.  Their evaluations and justifications of changes are out of touch, unrealistic and seems like they are actually playing a different game. For example "Berserker has been in a great place with strong support, power, and condition builds that are successful in all content."  LOL . Looks like this game's days are numbered at this rate

Oh the warrior side of the forums are having a field day with that statement.

[Leonidrex.5649]

1 hour ago, Arheundel.6451 said:

People are forgetting that ranger has good access to resistance...plus they have Signet of Renewal...how is it supposed to work now? You'd kill yourself using it with soulbeast and you'd kill your pet using it with core and druid.....

you put it on the pet, it dies. you merge with it. same way you always used it.
or you use it, and then swap the pet, the resistance it gave was never enough to make the pet survive any real condi-bombs