Traits i'd like to see back on ranger and more.

[anduriell.6280]

Checking the wiki i found a wiki page (Trait_Guide)  which contains the list of old traits and i realized there are some traits which in the current game could be beneficial to bring back to different traitlines. 

 

BeastMastery

This trait line currently has very little to do with the pet itself but the added stats makes the traitline mandatory for soulbeast. In the old system this traitline used not to give additional stats. 

As such additional stats and movement speed should be baseline to all pets and removed from the trait line. Movement speed too because even with the buff melee pets have a lot of problems to keep up with targets.  

The traitline would benefit also from bringing back previous review and balance of  the following traits Malicious Training, Carnivorous Appetite, Hide in Plain Sight(for pets only), Stability Training.

Also moving the following traits to Beasmastery Invigorating Bond, Empathic Bond. This traits should work also for the soulbeast as Stability training and Hide in Plain sight (if both traits are merged with a very short stealth just for the untag ) would help the dueling role of the soulbeast as the class lacks total access to stability when it should have a least a little bit more.  

 

Nature Magic

Ranger used to have access to ranged AoEs with Trapper's Expertise and Spirits Unbound. I'd like  that utility back. I do understand that throwable traps may not be on the table but mobile spirits could make a come back as baseline to spirits utility.  Using the druids Astral_Wisp design, the skill could have mechanics similar to Herald's Facet of Elements, where once they are summon they provide access to the ranged AOE active skill which would release them in the selected area. Different colors for the wisps would allow the enemies to deduce which is which. Reduce the radius to 600 and limit the passives  to 5 friendlies 

Clarion Bond should be moved to this traitline so it can have synergy with Windborne Notes as right now the 2 traits so the use of the warhorn is more fluid. 

 

Markmanship

This traitline feels clunky because it has GM traits like  Predator's Onslaught or  Remorseless and no consistent access to such conditions or boons from the traitline. Some rebalance of Beastmaster's Bond, Predator's Instinct and Pet's Prowess  could improve the traitline synergy. 

Also Spotter, Vicious Quarry and Furious Grip,  should be placed in this traitline as increased precision and additional ferocity benefits power builds better than condition builds. 

 

Skirmishing

This traitline is very clunky as well. It seems to be defined for condition damage with Sharpened Edges, Trapper's Expertise but it is mostly used for  Quick Draw or Vicious Quarry traits that has nothing to do with condition damage. 

A some sort of rebalanced Keen Edge, Taste for Danger and Intimidation Training would be very welcomed back into the traitline. 

Poison Master, Refined Toxins and Ambidexterity should be moved to this trait line as defining more the condition role of the traitline. 

 

Wilderness Survival

This traitline contains the best set of utilities there is so together with Beastmastery is a mandatory traitline. Which greatly limits the build variety of the class. 

As such after the move out of Poison Master, Refined Toxins, Ambidexterity and Empathic Bond the builds oportunities should be opened up. This traitline would benefit from more survivalist theme traits like Vigorous Renewal,  Circle of Life (with some improvement to  Healing_Spring like addtionaly pulse small heals), Steady Focus, Strength of Spirit, Nature's Protection and Bark Skin

 

Strider's Defense and Honed Axes could be moved to this traitline as those 2 traits and  the traitline have an strong synergy. 

 

Druid

Aside the general rework celestial avatar, Druid traitline could benefit from a trait to increase the radius and  the number of friendlies affected by the spirits passives. It would provide that missing link with the rest of the class. 

Baseline the Druid could have an small celestial spirit automatically call upon combat which could heal friendlies in a similar fashion as Lingering_Light used to work before the rework to heal friendlies. Some iCD upon death to work in a similar fashion as Function_Gyro so the mechanic can be countered. 

As such a trait to improve spirits such as moving Nature's Vengeance to this traitline would make the traitline to feel more rewarding. 

 

Thus celestial avatar would be only filled by direct outgoing heals (not self and not from boons neither from direct outgoing damage) and it would free the druid from workwarounds to be able to fill the bar by using signets, food or regeneration while bringing something useful to the team. 

 

Glyphs mechanics feel really dumb, they are essentially shouts. No interaction, no real counterplay. The dual mechanic is very unrewarding as the celestial avatar form is very short lived and most of the glyphs bring nothing additional to the core Celestial Avatar utilities. 

As such i would request all Glyphs to work with the Glyph_of_Unity tether mechanic whiled the cast would be changed to a not-rooting not-locking chanelling for the extend of the glyph duration, as tethering to friendlies or enemies depending on the Glyph. At that point it would apply the pulsing effects to the tethered. 

As example Glyph of Equality would  apply pulsing daze every second for duration of the short channeling and the enemies tethered just need to move away from the druid to break the connection. The druid would not be able to cast other skills as the chanelling for Glyph of the Stars works. 

 

As PbAoE (Point blank AoE) centric utility skills it would be good if all Celestial Skills are also centered in the Druid, similar as Rejuvenating Tides and Natural Convergence work. It makes the form easier to understand and to manage. 

Natural Convergence is a big outlier in this form as it is an offensive skill in a form wich mainly support and makes to feel the class all over the place. This is my wish, but i would rework the skill to provide boons to allies instead being an offensive skill. 

Same cast and animation just in each pulse it provides stronger, better and bigger effects for friendlies around the Druid. 

 

While in Avatar  the druid has access to offesive utilities by using the pets or the new spirits with ranged AoEs. 

 

I would also rework the staff so when is equipped the Staff skills  target friendlies (other players or the pet)  instead enemies. And as natural and celestial thematic apply the burning of the stars to enemies which crosses the Solar Beam.  Astral Wisp would apply burning to the target and blinds to enemies crosing the wisp instead the damage +healing it does now.  The astral wisp could also have a HP bar similar to how the Binding_Roots works bringing  counterplay as well as more coherence and a feeling of completeness to the specialization.

 

Ancestral Grace would have all the effects removed. It would just serve as reposition / evading tool  with reduced CD and evades. And at last Vine Surge would cast the roots from Ancient Seeds in up to 5 enemies and deleted that trait from the druid traitline. There is no difference as a Barrage + Lunar Impact would entangle the same amount of targets. 

 

And reduce a bit the Daze spam in this class Primal Echoes could bring healing/ support  effects to some  Staff skills ( Aoe heal for Ancestral grace , Heal to Astral Wisp, Cleansing to Vine Surge....) instead the current daze. 

 

Soubeast

Soulbeasy is the last specialitacion of the class. Although it seems it was designed to be a duelist  hybrid class with the dagger mainhand the rest of the damage oportunities moved the class to a burst power damage. Although later is acceptable it makes the specialization unidimensional watering down the builds and oportunities. 

 

As a rework i would redesign the archetype system (Pet_Archetypes). From the removal of the second pet the mechanic seems extremely constraining as one pet does not bring enough utility and variety. 

 

As such i would move away from the archetype design and allow the Soulbeast to pick the archetype skill (by a GM trait or other means and could be renamed to Beastmode Skill) to work independently of the chosen pet. This would open the choices for the soulbeast as some pets are limited by the archetype they are linked too, which feels is being used as a way to punish some pets. 

 

As archetype mechanic is removed there is no more added stats added while in beast mode, to balance that i would do an small change to the Soulbeast Stances. 

I would add that Stances when equipped the Soulbeast would get some additional stats for short time after a merge/unmerge. For example Bear Stance while equipped in the skill bar could add some vitality . Moa Stance could add some precision and etcetera. 

 

That would add some additional value to stances as to have them equipped over other skills. 

 

Thus the Soulbeast will have synergy with traits which worked exclusively on the pet and the stances would provide addtional value to a merged soulbeast. The fact the additional stats would only work for short time after merging / unmerging would reduce that side effect of a soulbeast camping in beast mode. 

To avoid that the additional tool for all pet swap effects could be cast when merging and unmerging like Clarion Bond works currently. Unstoppable Union could benefit from this change too. 

 

Dagger Mainhand feels all over the place. The weapon is a condition based weapon similar to Shortbow while most of the utilities are power based and there is no many sources of conditions from the ranger. Short range, 2 target cap, very narrow cone of attack  does not help to the feeling

I personaly i would make the weapon to focus into power and Poison. I would remove all the other conditions from the weapon and increase the power damage. As such Groundwork Gouge, Leading Swipe not apply any conditions and better damage and  Deadly Delivery would only apply poison .  I would increase the targets to 3 and following the animation increase the cone of the skill AoE and increase the range to the sword Slash . In paper the numbers are the same but somehow the dagger fails to hit where the sword reaches maybe because the very narrow cone AoE. 

After this with less access to bleeding i would extend the effect from Predator's Cunning to activate also when bleeding is applied as means to add synergy to Skirmishing traitline and other weapons or skills. 

 

As a dueler or burst dealer Soulbeast needs also access to other tools not in other traitlines, Skills_that_remove_boons. To avoid buffing Core or Druid this utility should be placed in the Dagger and maybe some Soulbeast trait. 

I personally i would put such utility in Double_Arc as that weapon skill feels like a filler with no other function that to fill the slot #2. It doesn't apply anything than auto attacks can't and the later  may be even a damage decrease than the former.  The skill is a 2 step skill to rip one boon by each attack would feel  great. 

 

And this are more or less the changes i would like to see, this would open a lot of builds and make the ranger feel fresh. 

 

Some additional work like Leader of the Pack sharing 100% of the duration with friendlies or remove the piercing from Light on your Feet to transform all the Shortbow skills to work like Splinter_Shot and splatter around the target would make the ranger a more rewarding and rounder class to play with. Additionally a rework of command skills so the ranger would regain some control over the pet would be fantastic. 

Edited May 20, 2021 by anduriell.6280
formatting, delete of blank lines, correction of some sentences

[Sansar.1302]

Actually seam interesting

[Kodama.6453]

I disagree with so much stuff here that I have to revisit later to type it all out...

[jpierce.9540]

Really like the idea of getting spirits involved in Druid line so it feels like you are controlling the spirits of nature.   Wisps seem like a really cool idea.  Maybe have them swirl around the Druid pulsing certain effects (buffs/ debuffs)… and active using the opposite effect.  
 

staff definitely needs to be reworked. 
 

I almost wish scepter was played here.   I like the idea of a ranged weapon with worhorn other than the axe, it feels off to me.  

[Thornwolf.9721]

Seems cool, I like it.

[Gotejjeken.1267]

Trait / skill rework is pretty simple:

 

• Baseline pet stat increases from BM
• Add something to make commands work like shouts did to open up alternate playstyles outside of WS
• Add some sustain to Druid (at least on Glyph of Stars)
• Add boon support or something to NM to make it fit with the current state of the game

 

The other stuff I can't agree with.  Some random objections:

 

• Soulbeast has plenty of stability with Dolyak Stance, not sure why you'd need more
• Skirmishing is most definitely not just used for power builds--it lynchpins condi bleed builds
• The WS 'rework' does nothing to get people away from it
• Making Druid a healbot does absolutely zero to get people to use it
• Taking away Soulbeast stats in exchange for longer stances on merge/unmerge is a pretty big nerf--no one is going to randomly merge or unmerge for some crappy temporary stat boost (that can be stripped / corrupted)
• Making dagger into sword 2.0 isn't really doing anything; if anything dagger should be almost pure condi because ranger lacks that (and the offhand is pure condi)
• Not sure why you'd want to remove piercing from SB as poison volley pierces by default--we don't need more LOS stupidity by making the 'splinters' hit random walls and things around targets

Edited June 8, 2021 by Gotejjeken.1267

[Connla Dda.9407]

I would love to see Sharpened Edges back to 3s duration in PvP and WvW. Like it is in PvE now.

Pre 25.02.2020 nerf.

4 and a half year of punishment is enough already i assume?

 

[Sandzibar.5134]

Restore the duration unblockable on call of the wild, lesser call of the wild and unstoppable union.

Make boonball pin sniping great again.

 

[latlat.4516]

19 hours ago, Connla Dda.9407 said:

I would love to see Sharpened Edges back to 3s duration in PvP and WvW. Like it is in PvE now.

sir,

because of you I lost 1 hour of my time writing an answer to the OG post, before deleting it when I saw they were talking about ancient seed and checking the date.

 

Thank you.

[Lazze.9870]

On 6/8/2021 at 4:52 AM, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

Making Druid a healbot does absolutely zero to get people to use it

And it already is a healbot.

Whether it is PvP or WvW,  support druid falls favor because it's missing relevant boons, rez support, active defenses etc. Like recently when Anet gave scrapper a buttload of barrier and the ability stack loads of might and fury along with it's old kit that was already decent and the addition of shortbow which added more of everything above, druid immediately fell down to second tier secondary support for zergs - despite being a much better healer, which is why is still good to have one for overflow heals between all the parties.

At the same time they also remove alac from it. Which I agree with, but because renegade still has it (for whatever reason) people run variants of heal or cele ren in every party as a third support or a hybrid.

The only change I would do to support druid in WvW is to change Verdant Etching to provide resistance instead of protection. Druid lacks it compared to everyone else, and I'd argue it fits druid better than other classes in terms of flavor as well.

Edited August 25 by Lazze.9870

[Gotejjeken.1267]

4 hours ago, Lazze.9870 said:

And it already is a healbot.

Whether it is PvP or WvW,  support druid falls favor because it's missing relevant boons, rez support, active defenses etc. Like recently when Anet gave scrapper a buttload of barrier and the ability stack loads of might and fury along with it's old kit that was already decent and the addition of shortbow which added more of everything above, druid immediately fell down to second tier secondary support for zergs - despite being a much better healer, which is why is still good to have one for overflow heals between all the parties.

At the same time they also remove alac from it. Which I agree with, but because renegade still has it (for whatever reason) people run variants of heal or cele ren in every party as a third support or a hybrid.

The only change I would do to support druid in WvW is to change Verdant Etching to provide resistance instead of protection. Druid lacks it compared to everyone else, and I'd argue it fits druid better than other classes in terms of flavor as well.

3. Year. Necro.

[Liewec.2896]

some things i'd like,

i'd like Beast Mastery to make pets noticeably stronger (i'm thinking mechanicst mech strong)

i'd like Soul Beast green fart swirl removed (i can't believe they removed untamed permanent effect but left soulbeast?!)

i'd like a GM trait for Druid that isn't just celestial avatar.