Ranger patch changes

[Spec.1063]

Omg you guys are saying now that condi ranger will be better is that it? I'm a returning player, very casual .

2ys ago my gear was all viper, last week when I installed the game again I just changed to berserker.

I think at this point is better to start crafting a 2nd set instead of keep changing stats.

[Leonidrex.5649]

16 hours ago, Spec.1063 said:

Omg you guys are saying now that condi ranger will be better is that it? I'm a returning player, very casual .

2ys ago my gear was all viper, last week when I installed the game again I just changed to berserker.

I think at this point is better to start crafting a 2nd set instead of keep changing stats.

just do legendary, save yourself the trouble 

[LughLongArm.5460]

😞

Ranger

Marksmanship

• Clarion Bond: Lesser Call of the Wild no longer dazes targets.

[aymnad.9023]

I did a quick try on the golem. Maybe other professions will have it better after the patch (I still think holo and dh will be strong) but the changes do not look as bad as I thought. (you do feel the burst loss but the average dps looks good enough) 

 

Edit : golem benchmark can be deceptive because you need to be static during the burst 😕, I will play it more tonight

 

Edit 2 : without the arcdps update we all went for something else to have fun (mirage boon, quickness  support / tank engie, condi druid). I will try slb later this week

Edited May 11, 2021 by aymnad.9023
no arc update yet

[Gotejjeken.1267]

40 minutes ago, LughLongArm.5460 said:

😞

Ranger

Marksmanship

• Clarion Bond: Lesser Call of the Wild no longer dazes targets.

 

Yeah Lesser Call of the Wild is pretty bad, they just left the weakness component and added nothing else to it.  

 

On the other side, does this now mean that a SLB will have 99% condition immunity when running WS + OH Axe 5 for over 4 seconds if running boon beast? Add to that Dolyak Stance and Spiritual Reprieve and GL taking one out in WvW lol....

Edited May 11, 2021 by Gotejjeken.1267

[Leonidrex.5649]

soulbeast did not get 7% -> 10% dmg boost in pvp
F in the chat 😕

[anduriell.6280]

23 minutes ago, Leonidrex.5649 said:

soulbeast did not get 7% -> 10% dmg boost in pvp
F in the chat 😕

I just came here to shre the same sad news, with the boost done to other classes sustain, a glass cannon soulbeast now feels lesser. 

[Leonidrex.5649]

1 minute ago, anduriell.6280 said:

I just came here to shre the same sad news, with the boost done to other classes sustain, a glass cannon soulbeast now feels lesser. 

they are too busy buffing S+ tier holo
kekW

[Siabair.7612]

"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."

 

yeah... what about guardians... that's my thought...

[Abyssisis.3971]

2 hours ago, Siabair.7612 said:

"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."

 

yeah... what about guardians... that's my thought...

Guardian is anet pet class, this patch is a secret buff to them in the form of changing retaliation to resolution and giving them perma 33% condition damage reduction.

[MysteryDude.1572]

On the other hand immob druid got a slight buff, extra cc to proc the seeds , warnhorn

 

 

[Dragonzhunter.8506]

2 hours ago, MysteryDude.1572 said:

On the other hand immob druid got a slight buff, extra cc to proc the seeds , warnhorn

 

 

I thought the same, but Warhorn is a weapon used for buffing : Fury, Might, Swiftness, Unblockable, Regen and Blast. I don't know if you will sell all these just for a Daze. We don't know yet the Radius of this Daze, will be the same as it is now 900? If yes than maybe sometimes will worth it, otherwise ... 
We must keep in mind that proc the seeds can be done every 10 sec and for any cced enemy, even the cc was landed by us or by our party. Many times your Warhorn daze will do only the daze, because the roots were already trigged 1 to 9 sec ago by one of your party member.
We will see

[Xeon.5768]

On 4/30/2021 at 5:39 PM, AlexndrTheGreat.8310 said:

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.

You made a very good summary. Similar to what I replied in the thread "Follow Up to May 11 Balance Preview". 

 

My first reply at that time

"I will be mainly discussing about pwr slb here as an example, because it is the class that will receive a significant nerf dps-wise, compared to pwr weaver/holosmith/berserker. Looking into deeper, pwr slb is a meta class in fractals, similar to pwr Ren,  is almost always used in every speed clear benchmarked by SC/DT members inside fractals.  This is not only because slb has great personal burst potential with sic em and one wolf pack, but what’s really busted is the stance sharing through Leader of the Pack. Many of the speed kills are simply impossible if you decide to disable or reduce the effects of stance sharing (e.g. increasing the follow-up attack interval from 0.25 sec to 1 sec for allies), while still keeping sic em and one wolf pack for slb player as is. That being said, as Lizardguard suggested, it would make more sense to me to have a LIGHT touch on soulbeast's PERSONAL burst potential, while applying the nerf to stance sharing which slb grants to allies. This is the most effective way to prevent speed clear like 30 sec mama or 17 sec siax"

 

As you indicated, before the patch, soulbeast's dps is not even top in high end groups (outperformed by DH or weaver most of the time), in longer fights, it can be beaten by bs. At that time I even thought Sic Em should not be nerf-ed, unless they are willing to increase the sustained dps significantly to compensate the changes (clearly not just 3% as they did). Now with the nerf, it simply becomes no use in its dps either at its burst or sustained dmg. They didn't touch the stance sharing but nerf slb hard. This will not prevent speed clear because stance sharing is still there and doesnt affect as much in a speed clear that can be done in less than 30 sec. It is the fundamental problems of the fractal itself as you indicated that should be solved. I think the change to exposed state is the right direction but its not enough.

 

 

My second reply at that time

"At the current patch, with a little effortless precast of Ashes of the Just (like 4 stacks pre-fight) at the mistlock, a single cFB (with no other FBs) can easily burst up to 90k on bosses like skorv in CM99 for example. This class is particularly favored in pugs, and can beat any other pwr classes in DPS, when the CC bar is slowly broken (which is mostly the case in daily pugs). In general T4 fractals, this class is even more overpowered on almost all the mini or main bosses (especially when there are a lot of adds to refresh tome 1), where the sustained burning dmg is just insane that no other pwr classes can catch up with it! 

This follow-up note regarding the rework of Ashes of the Just is still considered minimal to me, as compared to the 50% exposed state bonus increase from 50% to 100%. As a result, it is likely to encourage a new homogeneous comp (4 FBs + ren) inside the fractals, making its DPS opener easily hit 120-160k on many bosses, with a little precasting effort at the mistlock."

 

Now after the patch arrives, I tested my cfb on skorv again, and it can create 120k burning tick, when the exposed state happens while most of the burning stacks applied (torch 4 3 times, tome 1 skill 2 5 4 1 2 plus another torch 4). And yes, I just need precast 4 stacks of ashes at the mistlock in order to get this result. I am very unhappy with this result, given that how braindead this class can be, but can achieve even higher benchmark than pwr classes that require some serious working on precast of skills before entering combat, and plus the good organization of the group (i.e. static) about when to activate the boss or to take the portal.

Edited May 19, 2021 by Xeon.5768

[Lazze.9870]

On 5/2/2021 at 9:32 PM, Soilder.3607 said:

Immob Druid isn't meant to be a dedicated healer, nor is it supposed to replace a scrapper in a comp. It is taken in addition to a Scrapper + Firebrand to fill a support role. Not surprisingly, it's main role is to provide AoE immobs and supplemental healing/cleansing. It's strong, and that's why some guilds run it. It is not going to form the backbone of a comp, but it is quite good if taking 2-3. Glyph of Alignment is a great skill because you can use it outside of CA for immobing, or you can use it in CA for strong healing and cleansing. Signet of the Wild is usually taken too because you aren't going for full healing/cleansing cause you should already have a FB/Scrapper in your party.

 

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?POgAYZlNwWYbMO2JWsOpt1SeVDA-zRJYjhOAA-e

 

This is what I run when my guild asks for me to play Immob Druid. I made it quickly just to show skills/traits, so it's missing gear, which should be Ministrel's. I think it's the standard Immob Druid bar for what other guilds run. Vine Surge is supposed to be used with quickdraw too, which can give you a recharge of ~7s for it. This bar has plenty sources of immob, letting you immob nearly every ranged and melee push by your zerg. And it still brings decent healing/cleansing with all those immobs.

 

We didn't run Immob Druids last night but we ran 3x Immob Soulbeast and trapped nearly 5-10 enemies with every push (we have Chronos for stripping and pulling). Immob Druid would've done the same thing, but with heals instead of damage.

 

 

 

This. I run pretty much the same build in my guild. It's not meant to replace the backbone support (FB+Scrapper), it only compliments them in term of support. Permanently stowing pets would be nice, but you often get to stow it for stealth pushes anyways. From a WvW group play standpoint, replacing the entire pet mechanic with druid specific F skills would be even better, and as long as core and SB are good at roaming, dueling and pvp sidenoding, I'd take the tradeoff of druid being less effective at it. We don't need three different specs that are good at the same thing, the support spec should be tailored to work in team fights. Chances are the EoD spec will just be a 4th option to what ranger is already capable of doing, with a different spin on it.

[Dragana.1497]

May 25th update:

 

The reduction in the previous update to soulbeasts' damage via "Sic Em!" cut their overall damage output below the level we'd like to see from a competitive power DPS specialization. To that end, we're giving soulbeasts back a significant DPS effect in PvE content by increasing the power of the Furious Strength trait.

Soulbeast

• Furious Strength: Increased bonus strike damage from 10% to 15% in PvE only.  

 

Source: https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/topic/96122-game-update-notes-may-25-2021/?tab=comments#comment-1372996

 

Edited May 25, 2021 by Dragana.1497

[Kovu.7560]

Stop buffing Soulbeast multipliers and instead take a look at core ranger damage coefficients so that core ranger and druid can have some fun in the sun, too.
Just my thoughts.

~ Kovu

[Infusion.7149]

6 minutes ago, Kovu.7560 said:

Stop buffing Soulbeast multipliers and instead take a look at core ranger damage coefficients so that core ranger and druid can have some fun in the sun, too.
Just my thoughts.

~ Kovu

Yep, just buffing the 1 spam gameplay. Could have done so many other things but complainers want passives 😆

[InsaneQR.7412]

11 hours ago, Kovu.7560 said:

Stop buffing Soulbeast multipliers and instead take a look at core ranger damage coefficients so that core ranger and druid can have some fun in the sun, too.
Just my thoughts.

~ Kovu

Agreed. But i doubt big changes for core or druid can be made on short notice. Bringing SB DPS a bit is just changing a number. I am not happy that we didnt get more, but for now i can understand why. I hope this changes in the future.

[aymnad.9023]

I am happy to be wrong here and see a power damage buff 🙂. I still find it strange to rely that much on this trait.

The golem gave me some good numbers. I did not expect to get this much out of 5%.