Swagger.1459 Posted February 28, 2019 Share Posted February 28, 2019 https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/69910/upcoming-balance-notes "Ranger In our last balance update, we made a few changes to Nature's Vengeance to tweak the boons provided by each spirit. In this update, we've applied major changes to the spirits themselves. Active spirit skills are generally not usable due to the high cost of sacrificing the spirit and the localized effect that the sacrifice causes. We are changing these active skills to teleport the spirit to the player's location before the spirit uses their skill. Additionally, we're removing the 100% health sacrifice. In exchange, spirits no longer have preset time durations for how long they can stay alive and instead lose health as they passively enhance allies. This is intended to provide a more dynamic gameplay experience than their current cast-on-recharge functionality. Of course, spirits can still be used in this manner, but proper use of the ranger's healing skills and more powerful active skills to reposition and attack with the spirits will yield stronger results. • Bear Stance: The duration of this skill has been split between game modes and increased from 4 seconds to 5 seconds in PvP only. • Dolyak Stance: The duration of this skill has been split between game modes and reduced from 6 seconds to 5 seconds in PvP only. • One Wolf Pack: The duration of this skill has been split between game modes and reduced from 8 seconds to 6 seconds in PvP only. The casting time of this skill has been reduced by about 0.5 seconds. • Leader of the Pack: The increased duration that this trait grants the ranger has been split between game modes and reduced from 150% to 120% in PvP only. • Spirits have been reworked as follows: When a spirit pulses its passive effect, it loses health equal to a percentage of its maximum health. (7.5% for nonelite spirits, 3% for elite spirits.) The effect radius of a spirit's active skill has been reduced from 1,000 to 600 for all spirits. Spirits now die automatically if the ranger moves away from the spirit beyond a range of 5,000. Spirits also die automatically if the ranger transitions between water travel and land travel. Fixed a bug that caused underwater spirits to use their unique skill when killed. • Spirit Active Skills: These skills no longer sacrifice the spirit and instead cause them to teleport to the ranger's location before the spirit uses their active skill. These skills now have a 0.25-second casting time. The recharge time for these skills remains at 20 seconds. • Water Spirit Active Skill—Aqua Surge: This skill no longer heals the spirit that casts it. • Spirit of Nature: This spirit no longer benefits from its own pulsing heal effect. Reduced the healing per second that this spirit grants to 101 at level 80, plus 3.5% of your healing power. • Spirit of Nature Active Skill—Nature's Renewal: Reduced the recharge time of this skill from 120 seconds to 40 seconds. Reduced the radius of the revive pulse and condition-cleansing effect from 600 to 240. Each ally revived by this spirit causes the spirit to lose 30% of its maximum health, but it can still revive up to 5 allies. Reduced the number of conditions that are removed from 5 to 3. • Storm Spirit: Reduced the duration of vulnerability that this skill applies to foes from 10 seconds to 6 seconds. • Storm Spirit Active Skill—Call Lightning: Reduced the duration of daze that this skill applies to foes from 3 seconds to 1 second. • Sun Spirit Active Skill—Solar Flare: Reduced the duration of blindness that this skill applies to foes from 8 seconds to 5 seconds, and reduced the duration of burning that is applied from 3 stacks for 5 seconds to 2 stacks for 4 seconds. Reduced the effect's size to more closely match its range. • Soften the Fall: Reduced the duration of immobilization that this trait applies to foes from 3 seconds to 1 second. Reduced the duration of crippling from 3 seconds to 2 seconds. Added a tool tip that shows the interval between pulses. • Muddy Terrain: Fixed a tool tip that showed an incorrect value for the intervals between this skill's pulses. • Ambidexterity: This trait is no longer split between game modes and now uses its highest stat value in all modes. • Bonfire: Increased the duration of burning that this skill applies from 2 seconds to 2.5 seconds. • Poison Master: Fixed a bug that caused this trait to fail if the ranger was in a downed state. Fixed a bug that prevented the effect applied by this trait from being removed when the ranger's pet's attack failed to hit. • Nature's Vengeance: This trait now reduces the passive health sacrifice from spirits by 33%. Additionally, boons granted by spirits are now applied when the spirit's active skill is used instead of being applied upon a set interval. • Boon durations have been increased as follows: Spirit of Nature now grants 3 seconds of stability. Water Spirit now grants 5 seconds of regeneration. Frost Spirit now grants 3 stacks of might for 8 seconds. Stone Spirit now grants 3 seconds of protection. Storm Spirit now grants 5 seconds of fury. Sun Spirit now grants 3 seconds of vigor." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dahkeus.8243 Posted February 28, 2019 Share Posted February 28, 2019 Seems like Spirit Beasts got handled pretty delicately, considering how strong they’ve been in PvP, but I won’t complain. Spirit rework sounds interesting and could be a lot more enjoyable to play, but I’ll have to try it to get a feel for how all the teleport vs decreased range stuff works out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eurantien.4632 Posted February 28, 2019 Share Posted February 28, 2019 Just to give everyone a heads up for boonbeast, Name: | Before: | With Trait: | On Allies: | Now: | With Trait: | On Allies: | Change:| Bear Stance: | 4s | 6s | 2s | 5s | 6s | 2.5s |No change for Allies, 1s buff for us| Dolyak Stance: | 6s | 9s | 3s | 5s | 6s | 2.5s | Nerf| Griffon Stance: | 6s | 9s | 3s | 6s | 7.2s | 3s | No change for Allies, nerf for us| Moa Stance: | 10s | 15s | 5s | 10s | 12s | 5s | No change for Allies, nerf for us| Vulture Stance: | This skill is garbage anyway| One Wolf Pack: | 8s | 12s | 4s | 6s | 7.2s | 3s | HUGE NERF| Overall: These are some pretty huge changes and at least for PvP, I don't think Leader of the Pack is even worth it anymore. Therefore, we get oppressive superiority. At that point, I think you have to start questioning hard which stances are really worth it. One Wolf Pack may not be anymore... absolutely brutal. Spirits MAYBE can be good but I think a large part comes down to if enemy players can still kill them or not. If they can, spirits will not be viable. If they cannot, maybe there will be something out there. All in all, pretty disappointing changes. One wolf pack was amazing and deserving of an elite skill. Now? I think it might be back to the days of wishing for that 4th utility slot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Substance E.4852 Posted February 28, 2019 Share Posted February 28, 2019 I don't understand why they're trying to make spirits more complicated than they need to be. Just give them individual life spans and leave it at that. This bleeding out mechanic feels like extra shit to randomly break at some point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prophet.1584 Posted February 28, 2019 Share Posted February 28, 2019 spirit changes will be interesting to work around in Pve, having to put them closer to the fight makes them more susceptible to dying. PvP and WvW builds remain relatively unchanged although i'll be slotting bear stance far more often now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shadelang.3012 Posted February 28, 2019 Share Posted February 28, 2019 If spirits can still be affected by ccs and damage then I cant justify using them in pvp or wvw. This is overall also a hard nerf in PvE. And as far as PvP and WvW goes, I cant think of anything a spirit ranger can provide that another class/build can't do better. And the COST of taking spirits for the ranger is massive, as they do almost nothing to help us deal with threats and come with huge penalties (Seriously what are you going to give up for a spirit buff... if your fighting large scale they are just gonna die or not have enough of an effect to matter and in small scale you really REALLY want a different cooldown on your bar....like any other cooldown) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miellyn.6847 Posted February 28, 2019 Share Posted February 28, 2019 Especially as the patch notes say that the active skill radius got reduced to 600. But only Spirit of Renewal even has 600 radius, the rest has only 240. So I guess the radius of the passive is massivily reduced. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Za Shaloc.3908 Posted February 28, 2019 Share Posted February 28, 2019 I hope they target Druid and glyphs soon. I love the overall design of Druid and would love for it to be a legitimate and respected support choice (in WvW). If they think support Druids can do too much damage because of the pets, I'd like for them to tweak Lingering Light to sacrifice the pet but enhance Celestial Avatar form. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Razor.9872 Posted February 28, 2019 Share Posted February 28, 2019 Waaaaaiiit wait wait. If I read this right, spirits will no longer pulse out boons? So no more near-perma regen from water spirit, protect from stone, or 3 might from frost? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anduriell.6280 Posted February 28, 2019 Share Posted February 28, 2019 Um i'm kind of conflicted with this change on the spirits: * The idea of "fire and forget" is implemented here it could actualy work. It respects the original desing but also remove the petting zoo. Remember those are skills with 20 secs CD. * Unfortunately the nerf in the active and passive effects remove the benefits this new mechanic brings. * I have yet to see how the teleport works, as if the spirit takes +2 sec ( animation 1 seconds - Aftercast animation another ~1 second ) to trigger the active maybe it will be killed just with the normal cleave . Please make the effect almost instant when the spirit is teleported to the ranger. If anybody at Anet read this: * increase the health pool massively of all the spirits or better yet make them immune to damage. 7,415 hp with actual powercreep is just one autoattack. One meteor will do 12K . As the life drain from applying boons is a percentage it will not impact the lifespan of the spirit. * Please consider leaving the pasive range as it was. It is true the spirit will have a shorter lifespan this way but we can get the use of the passive more often in WvW / PvP . 1000 radius is not big at all. * And revert the nerfs to Storm and Sun Spirits. Keep in mind that this skill is only viable for one use, after that it will be cleaved and killed easily. Or make them no-targetable and then all the nerfs and changes are fine. > @"Shadelang.3012" said: > If spirits can still be affected by ccs and damage then I cant justify using them in pvp or wvw. This is overall also a hard nerf in PvE. And as far as PvP and WvW goes, I cant think of anything a spirit ranger can provide that another class/build can't do better. And the COST of taking spirits for the ranger is massive, as they do almost nothing to help us deal with threats and come with huge penalties (Seriously what are you going to give up for a spirit buff... if your fighting large scale they are just gonna die or not have enough of an effect to matter and in small scale you really REALLY want a different cooldown on your bar....like any other cooldown) The elite may have some uses: Apply Stability and revive allies. But it all deppends in how the teleport is managed as others very well pointed out. If the skill still takes +2 seconds to fully activate there will be no use for them. Are the spirits actives disabled if the ranger is stunned ? Because if they are not, the elite could be an interesting source of stability for groups. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Infusion.7149 Posted February 28, 2019 Share Posted February 28, 2019 > @"Razor.9872" said: > Waaaaaiiit wait wait. If I read this right, spirits will no longer pulse out boons? So no more near-perma regen from water spirit, protect from stone, or 3 might from frost? Probably only when traited with Nature's Vengeance it will no longer have the passive. "Nature's Vengeance: This trait now reduces the passive health sacrifice from spirits by 33%. Additionally, boons granted by spirits are now applied when the spirit's active skill is used _instead_ of being applied upon a set interval." I might actually play druid ranger more often if the active skills work well , dropping some spirits is the most boring thing possible besides dropping banners. Spirit health is definitely a concern in WvW though if armor level is below 3000 let alone 2600. I don't foresee druid gaining acceptance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miellyn.6847 Posted February 28, 2019 Share Posted February 28, 2019 > @"anduriell.6280" said: > Um i'm kind of conflicted with this change on the spirits: > * The idea of "fire and forget" is implemented here it could actualy work. It respects the original desing but also remove the petting zoo. Remember those are skills with 20 secs CD. > * Unfortunately the nerf in the active and passive effects remove the benefits this new mechanic brings. > * I have yet to see how the teleport works, as if the spirit takes +2 sec ( animation 1 seconds - Aftercast animation another ~1 second ) to trigger the active maybe it will be killed just with the normal cleave . Please make the effect almost instant when the spirit is teleported to the ranger. > > If anybody at Anet read this: > * increase the health pool massively of all the spirits or better yet make them immune to damage. 7,415 hp with actual powercreep is just one autoattack. One meteor will do 12K . As the life drain from applying boons is a percentage it will not impact the lifespan of the spirit. > * Please consider leaving the pasive range as it was. It is true the spirit will have a shorter lifespan this way but we can get the use of the passive more often in WvW / PvP . 1000 radius is not big at all. > * And revert the nerfs to Storm and Sun Spirits. Keep in mind that this skill is only viable for one use, after that it will be cleaved and killed easily. > > Or make them no-targetable and then all the nerfs and changes are fine. > Storm spirit is still pretty ridiculous with marksmenship if you can pull it off. 4.5s daze is just stupid. And dodging gets harder when it teleports. After a second reading I think the Aura is still 1000 and the range were you can cast the active skill got reduced from 1000 to 600. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anduriell.6280 Posted February 28, 2019 Share Posted February 28, 2019 > @"Miellyn.6847" said: > Storm spirit is still pretty ridiculous with marksmenship if you can pull it off. 4.5s daze is just stupid. And dodging gets harder when it teleports. > After a second reading I think the Aura is still 1000 and the range were you can cast the active skill got reduced from 1000 to 600. Um very well, i completely forgot about MoC. Unless Anet also removed the precast animation from the spirits we will be in this situation: * The player can still dodge the spirit skill as it will have the ~2 seconds precast animation. It not an instant skill unless Anet fix them. * Still we are talking about Daze which only prevents you from using skills. The target can still move and dodge accordingly (and break stun). * 4.5s seems excessive i agree, nerfing the daze to 2 seconds imo would be the sweet spot (3 seconds with the trait) . * Passive range is reduced to 600 which i think is not a good move. * Actives leash has a range of 5000. * Actives has a radius of 240. This changes are oriented to the competitive mode as raids do not need this change. I find them an step in a good direction still the nerfs kind of diminish all the improvements. As a sidenote: * also would be fantastic for the ICD of the passive skills to have the CD reduced to 3 seconds. The actual ICD of 10 seconds between applications is longer than the actual duration of the passive (6 seconds) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
InsaneQR.7412 Posted February 28, 2019 Share Posted February 28, 2019 Some ground targeting would be neat for Spirits otherwise it seems reasonable. Storm still needs an improvement though. Vuln is basically everywhere. Lightning dtrike would be nice and would make it the go to power spirit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zalani.9827 Posted February 28, 2019 Share Posted February 28, 2019 I’m just happy they didn’t mess with power ranger, I enjoy that spec a lot. Spirit changes are interesting? I like the fact that using the ability doesn’t kill the spirit but i’m not sure about the boon changes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LughLongArm.5460 Posted February 28, 2019 Share Posted February 28, 2019 Spirits change could be an indirect buff to druid, using its healing capabilities to sustain spirits. Interesting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bbop.9706 Posted February 28, 2019 Share Posted February 28, 2019 I am worried for Druid now! I've spent ages gearing mine up so i can start raids and fractals... Will druids still be needed as much after thos change?! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LughLongArm.5460 Posted February 28, 2019 Share Posted February 28, 2019 > @"bbop.9706" said: > I am worried for Druid now! I've spent ages gearing mine up so i can start raids and fractals... Will druids still be needed as much after thos change?! As far as I understand, not much has been changed as regard to spirits function as passive buffers, the base passive buffs of the spirits is the same, you just need to keep the spirits alive or re-summon them when they die(same thing you need to do now). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prophet.1584 Posted February 28, 2019 Share Posted February 28, 2019 > @"bbop.9706" said: > I am worried for Druid now! I've spent ages gearing mine up so i can start raids and fractals... Will druids still be needed as much after thos change?! There where no changes to GotL so no change to druids for fractals/raids Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eleazar.9478 Posted February 28, 2019 Share Posted February 28, 2019 > @"Shadelang.3012" said: > If spirits can still be affected by ccs and damage then I cant justify using them in pvp or wvw. This is overall also a hard nerf in PvE. And as far as PvP and WvW goes, I cant think of anything a spirit ranger can provide that another class/build can't do better. And the COST of taking spirits for the ranger is massive, as they do almost nothing to help us deal with threats and come with huge penalties (Seriously what are you going to give up for a spirit buff... if your fighting large scale they are just gonna die or not have enough of an effect to matter and in small scale you really REALLY want a different cooldown on your bar....like any other cooldown) Hey man what do you think of this as a frontline beast since nature spirit can now be basically spammed like a banner at the rangers location every 40 seconds http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNBHhF6kSFojXsWQwhXgoFsUIYOxuYwPIv6udHvPdhZQA4EpftVA-jlyHAB9oMI89HaSJoyPBAAOFA+pGx36D+Rp37qs0uqAkCQPZaA-w I'm really thinking of this upcoming trait/skill change We are changing these active skills to teleport the spirit to the player's location before the spirit uses their skill. • Nature's Vengeance: This trait now reduces the passive health sacrifice from spirits by 33%. Additionally, boons granted by spirits are now applied when the spirit's active skill is used instead of being applied upon a set interval. • Spirit of Nature Active Skill—Nature's Renewal: Reduced the recharge time of this skill from 120 seconds to 40 seconds. Reduced the radius of the revive pulse and condition-cleansing effect from 600 to 240. Each ally revived by this spirit causes the spirit to lose 30% of its maximum health, but it can still revive up to 5 allies. Reduced the number of conditions that are removed from 5 to 3. • Boon durations have been increased as follows: Spirit of Nature now grants 3 seconds of stability. Idk may be something there Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Levetty.1279 Posted February 28, 2019 Share Posted February 28, 2019 Their refusal to unsplit axe is now a sick joke. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shadelang.3012 Posted February 28, 2019 Share Posted February 28, 2019 @"Eleazar.9478" it all depends. Its possible though (edited) It was mentioned before but people need to realize just how slow the animations on the spirits are. It takes a long time to get them up. Edited (I forgot that their animation time was sped up. So this isn't as big a deal as long as they aren't cc'd the second they arrive.) And were forgetting the biggest problem with wvw. The shear amount of AoE and CC spam. Spirits don't get stability. They don't get aegis. They don't get boons from other players unless there are less than 4 players in range. And what they DO get is completely uncontrollable. So heres my thing. Who cares how good the effect is if they don't go off. From what I am reading the only even slightly controllable way to use a spirit is INTENTIONALLY SUICIDE THEM for a natures vengeance proc assuming it still causes them to use their actives when they die. (Edit: Now that I remember that their animation times were sped up this isn't AS BAD. But its still a risk) So that would involve you summoning the elite and starting its wind up animation. Or having it PRE SUMMONED and hoping it doesn't get accidentally killed (Because remember they have to be within 600 range of your group to provide the passive buffs now) then when an ally goes down basically running ON TOP OF THE ALLY (Keep in mind the entire enemy team is going to be nuking that ally. And even traited your maximum spirit active range is 360 now) activating the spirit. And HOPING either it gets the cast off and isn't affected by slow, daze, stun, fear, launch, knockback OR it dies immediately and that its death casting animation is somehow fast enough to rez the ally before they pop. (Edit: This is still a risk. We hae more wiggle room than I originally thought, I feel that the elite is worth more consideration but you still need to sacrifice a grandmaster trait for it. But its possible) That.... Isn't reliable. Even if they couldn't be affected by enemy player skills they still wouldnt be reliable. Having a melee range aoe immobilize on stone spirit sounds nice right? No. You have to have it precast. AND then summon it. AND get through the animation. All for a short range immobilize that may or may not have any effect depending on if it gets cleansed instantly or they have resistance. (Edit: I don't feel like any of the spirits aside from the elite and MAYBE the heal will be worth using in WvW. The others just don't have affects that are worth counting on or that will have any significant impact on the fight) Same issue with frost spirit active... and with storm spirit active...and sun spirit. Even the elite and heal spirits are affected by this. (Edit: The heal and elite spirits are still worth testing though. My biggest concerns with the other spirits is there is too much of a risk of their actives actually doing nothing) How can I ask my group to let me take a frontline party spot for something that MIGHT work. (Edit: This is still a concern. Though with the elite acting as a stab source it may be worth looking at in a frontline damage/boon provider build.) So the stability sounds nice. But you have to precast it and then get through everything else to get that stab. And if you use it for stab you won't have it available for the rez if you need it. If you try for both its likely to either not work or get you killed even if it does. (Edit: This is still a risk. Alot can go wrong. But if it works you can swing a fight. I wonder if the rezzed ally will get the stab) Ill be testing this next Friday probably. Tuesday depends on whats going on that night. But I just don't have much hope because they havn't dealt with any of the core problems the spirits have besides their mobility (At least not according to the patch notes). And THAT came with hard nerfs to their actual usefulness overall with the possible exception of the elite. (Edit: This is still a concern) TL;DR. If the active skills are now instant cast. I.E we pop the button and the spirit INSTANTLY uses the ability on us. (NO WINDUP) its possible. But if not I just can't see it being worth taken over something else. And thats IF spirits aren't target-able (And nothing so far says they aren't still target-able.) (Edit: This is still a concern, but slightly mitigated by the above comments) Ill be honest. This patch annoys me. Scrapper basically got what we have asked for spirits for an extremely long time for their gyros. (Can't be targeted, follows the scrapper) This patch doesn't feel like a rework. It feels like a nerf for PvE disguised as one. (They require more micro in PvE now that they suicide over time... and last I checked spirits are still not counted as players as far as healing goes so they will be the LAST ones healed. Hope your overhealing your raid alot). (Edit: As someone mentions below the health drain is likely to be easily managed in PvE atleast.) Edit: I will say the elite spirit has potential as a stab source. But honestly thats the only one. And it involves giving up a MASSIVE amount of damage for the ranger. Edit 2: Would be great if the elite spirit active was an AOE Stunbreak. Could be used in a reactionary way then. (Leave it behind. Get stunned. Pop it for a stunbreak and stab for your party as well as to rez those who go down. Lets you save dolyak for later in the fight when cooldowns start to run out) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shadelang.3012 Posted February 28, 2019 Share Posted February 28, 2019 Edited my above comment with most recent thoughts on the subject. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DuckDuckBOOM.4097 Posted February 28, 2019 Share Posted February 28, 2019 7,415 base health x (0.075 x 0.67 (GM trait reduction) = spirits lose 373 health every 10 seconds? At least water, storm and stone apply their unique buff every 10 seconds. Sun and frost are weird interactions with no ICD or 8 second ICD on burn but the actual buff application is different. From a raid perspective, if the health pools don't change and you can still heal them, regular spirits are now permanent due to how easy it will be to heal them while teleporting them around as a boss moves. Just spam them every 20 seconds for the nature's vengeance boons to 10 ppl with 100% boon duration. EZ. The only real nerf to PvE raid Druid is the elite. ~300 health lost every second will be a bit harder to keep alive. It might not seem like much but remember that you allies have priority: you'll have to over heal your team for your heal to affect the spirit. Unlikely for regen to ever apply to your spirits in a 10 person group. More importantly, a small radius means certain raid strats will be impossible. I'm thinking Xera split specifically. For general use of just trying to heal people, I actually think it's a buff though as you can res multiple ppl individually as they go down instead of "set wipes" like Xera or greens at VG. Low health pool is good for PvE since it makes them easier to heal. However, for PvP and WvW, unless they change how spirits take damage, I still don't see them being useful at all with the exception of MM+Storm spirit 1 shot builds. That's still iffy though since it also requires NM. Condi ranger builds in PvE got a welcome buff although minor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eleazar.9478 Posted February 28, 2019 Share Posted February 28, 2019 > @"Shadelang.3012" said: Totally agree with your points, I'm just pen and papering stuff and hoping people can add or subtract from it, I mean this is going to be it probably for the at least the next 5 months given anets recent restructuring. (Color me supprised if they do stuff sooner) Other problems I see with this build is the reaper buff and pirateship meta but hey gotta try new things anyways. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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