Guild Wars 2

The only class that I hate seeing in Fractals is Ranger. And that’s probably because most rangers are awful and insist on going Bearbow.

Kilandros.2098:

The only class that I hate seeing in Fractals is Ranger. And that’s probably because most rangers are awful and insist on going Bearbow.

what’s wrong with bearbow?

Excalibur.9748:

Kilandros.2098:

The only class that I hate seeing in Fractals is Ranger. And that’s probably because most rangers are awful and insist on going Bearbow.

what’s wrong with bearbow?

Wow, ok, where to begin… I don’t have all day, so I’ll mention the big ones:

1. The DPS is bad. This is true of pretty much all Ranger builds thanks to pets being just awful, but the DPS here is particularly bad. Players should be meleeing for superior DPS whenever possible, and Bearbows are never anywhere near melee range.

2. They provide no support whatsoever. To be fair, the only support Rangers ever really bring anyway is Healing Spring—which is strong because it offers a Water Field and mass condi removal. But Bearbows are out of range of the group (the rest of the group is in melee range) so even if Bearbow is running HS, no one else but him gets the benefit.

Basically Bearbows are the worst build of the worst class. They contribute nothing.

To be fair, the only support Rangers ever really bring anyway is Healing Spring

Er, what? Rangers bring frost spirit, spotter, and party-wide fury and might stacking.

draconx.3102:

To be fair, the only support Rangers ever really bring anyway is Healing Spring

Er, what? Rangers bring frost spirit, spotter, and party-wide fury and might stacking.

Other classes bring those and bring them better.

MizuTsuki.5867:

Most ppl on 40+ using those professions know how to use them.. (Every now & then I get people sucks so bad in 48 runs…But..what can you do?)
The thing is that you cant take big things head on in PvE with light armor & more so in fractals… Those who understand that are pros at fractals… some who arent accustomed to this cause ppl to avoid such classes

I personally like my team composition made of 3 heavies & 2 classes from above.
I dont have anything to say about rangers since I dont see them very often.

this is where you are wrong… I had PUG thief in my 48 that didn’t know how to shadow refuge in dredge fractal. But, since me and my friends are nice people we let him stay. and my friend brought his thief, so the whole time we had 1 useless thief that died every 5 seconds ( no joke).

and don’t even get me started on rangers. how the hell do you die at 1500 range in fractal? …. I too also have a ranger at 48+ IT IS NOT HARD. use war horn to buff your team mate and healing spring when needed.

I don’t know why people still complain about Mesmer/Guardian/Warriors groups. It’s not about heavy armor, kitten . It is about efficiency. Mesmers bring reflects, time warp and mass invisibility when needed. Guardians bring reflects, buffs and healing. Warriors bring the best damage buffs with banners and they do great damage by themselves.
Necros bring nothing, rangers are bad (yea I know Brazil build and run one on my ranger, but this profession still sucks compared to others), and only a good thief is worth anything, but most of them camp shorbow being useless. Eles are awesome, but most people camp staff, because they can’t play melee. Don’t force people to play with something useless, because fractals are about your utility in the group.
But still I don’t think you will be kicked if playing something other than meta. Leaderboards won’t change anything for group setups, bad builds still will be played, and bad players still will be joining high level fractals. As long as poeple won’t care about being useful, nothing will change. You can force Anet to finally do something about it, I would be very glad to finally make use of my 8 characters in PVE, not 3.

Patrikan Habaton.2548:

5 ele’s is faceroll on scale 80 sooo trololo biggest Problem

can you tell me 2 things for an ele carrying the Group at lava shaman 50+?

1) how to remove shield stacks?
2) how to kill elementals fast to prevent other players dying?

thank you

i find easy surviving but for the dps part i have many issues….

Well i don’t play my Elementalist in Fractal and i don’t play a lot with the staff so i’m really not a expert. But i used to play in high level fractal with a good elementalist. (But he stopped playing now so its been a while since the last time i play with him).

Anyway, he made the Shaman really more easy. With his staff, he use Water skill 4 to slow down the shaman in his shield so only 1 or 2 people could burst his shield down easy while the rest of us DPS the elemental. Meteor shower was a good burst to drop elemental health and for the rest of the fight he was keeping the elemental group and away from us by using his cc. Frozen Ground in water, Gust and Static Field in air, and skill 4 and 5 in Earth. By the time he went through all of his cc, usually they are all dead and nobody died. At one point he was the last alive, 3 of us where dead and 1 down. He rush to him, rez him in mist form, let the other one deaggro with a spy kit and he kept the boss on him at the other side of the room while the other one rez the whole team. With my guardian i can do that if I have 1 person alive with me, but rezzing a downed guys before doing that, this is was awesome.

Again this is not really the profession, but the player behind it. Longbow Ranger seem to receive a lot of hate in fractal, but on of the best fractal player i know is a longbow ranger. At shaman he use his elite skill to root the boss when in his shield, then i use my Shield to protect his roots, giving us way enough time to kill all the elemental while the boss don’t move. In the mean time he was able to rapid fire, switch to shortbow and finish the boss’ shield by his own.

Thaddeus.4891:

…..

i don t think is agood idea ……
Unless you have someone in party to do your part…but since he said 5 elementalist is a faceroll, i d like to know how he manage the shield issue…..

I know that swirling wind is strong…..but recently even ice bow isn t helping against shield.

Maybe fiery GS…i didn t try.

You can always use lightning whip to get rid of the shield. Seeing as everyone should be auto attacking to remove the shield (channeled skills only remove 1 stack).

IMO and in my experience with FOTM any class/prof is capable of successfully running high levels. It is all about the player driving that class.

To box yourself into a certain group of builds or classes is actually limiting your own growth.

Enjoy your tiny little box.

I love the new LFG system because it helps me avoid fractal groups containing a necro, engi or a ranger.

necromancers are quite amazing in fractals actually . Power necro i mean

as a full zerk grenade engie fractal groups adore me.

so how do we counter this war/guard problem ??

hmmm what if now this is mind blowing. what if you form your own group and be the 1 who hosts the fractal and make it clear to every 1 so they don’t try to kick u :O

its like zomg wow omg moment for running groups

LordByron.8369:

Patrikan Habaton.2548:

5 ele’s is faceroll on scale 80 sooo trololo biggest Problem

can you tell me 2 things for an ele carrying the Group at lava shaman 50+?

1) how to remove shield stacks?
2) how to kill elementals fast to prevent other players dying?

thank you

i find easy surviving but for the dps part i have many issues….

-Focus off hand you get swirling winds (6 secs of protectile destroyed)
-Ice Bow 4 skill melts shield stacks.

Sir Morgan Malory.2069:

LordByron.8369:

Patrikan Habaton.2548:

5 ele’s is faceroll on scale 80 sooo trololo biggest Problem

can you tell me 2 things for an ele carrying the Group at lava shaman 50+?

1) how to remove shield stacks?
2) how to kill elementals fast to prevent other players dying?

thank you

i find easy surviving but for the dps part i have many issues….

-Focus off hand you get swirling winds (6 secs of protectile destroyed)
-Ice Bow 4 skill melts shield stacks.

focus offhand i know makes ele really strong in this fractal….
Yet recently seems that ice 4 doesn t remove so many stacks as before (ice 2 is still good but really risky)…. dunno if its a change or a bug happened to me.

I even got hit by an agony Arrow from a lava shaman shielded from 5 seconds -.- so i expect everything….

Yet remains the “elemental” part….focus ele is awful at dps.
So 5 of them would take ages to kill elmentals.

Sir Morgan Malory.2069:

-Ice Bow 4 skill melts shield stacks.

I would first test it before saying this. Most of gw2 population thinks smite is also okay for that yet it removes 0 stacks while shelter (yes, healing skill) removes 1. Usually aoe skills do not remove any stacks from him, only targetted ones do. But like I said, this needs to be tested before saying anything with 100% confidence.

LordByron.8369:

Yet remains the “elemental” part….focus ele is awful at dps.
So 5 of them would take ages to kill elmentals.

5 D/F eles would definitely kill them faster and safer than warrior and mesmer duo at scale 48.

I don t see your point aside an excuse to show your video….
You might want to read the conversation talking about “faceroll” eles, and carrying pugs.

None of them applies

LordByron.8369:

I don t see your point aside an excuse to show your video….
You might want to read the conversation talking about “faceroll” eles, and carrying pugs.

None of them applies

My point is basically that you would have told me that you wanted to see some kind of proof instead of talking. Look how I formatted that post, you do not have to click on that link, it still forms a proper sentence, unlike posting just a video. And video is not mine.

Patrikan mentioned 5 eles and he is correct. 4 eles with aeromancer’s alacrity provide permanent projectile absorption which you can use even for blocking just an arrow. Which means that if you go S/F instead of D/F the only attack that can hurt you is firestorm.

I tried 3 eles with mesmer and necro and it was really easy, despite lacking any heavy or even medium profession.

Taku.6352:

Can’t wait for aetherblade and molten fractals with their anti ranger mechanics that make the whole class ability useless.

Wait… what? I pretty much soloed the Molten Facility most of the time on my ranger because other players don’t seem to know how to play and kept dying every two seconds (and I was able to keep my pets up for a decent amount of time too oddly enough… which baffles me to no end…)… Still doesn’t stop the ranger from being one of the most unwanted classes though

While we may have sub optimal… uh like everything… A ranger that knows what their doing and is allowed to do their thing can do pretty well (just expect it to take a while).

Unfortunately, the “stack and stay still in this corner” tactic limits rangers even further than normal…

Sollith.3502:

Taku.6352:

Can’t wait for aetherblade and molten fractals with their anti ranger mechanics that make the whole class ability useless.

Wait… what? I pretty much soloed the Molten Facility most of the time on my ranger because other players don’t seem to know how to play and kept dying every two seconds (and I was able to keep my pets up for a decent amount of time too oddly enough… which baffles me to no end…)… Still doesn’t stop the ranger from being one of the most unwanted classes though

While we may have sub optimal… uh like everything… A ranger that knows what their doing and is allowed to do their thing can do pretty well (just expect it to take a while).

Unfortunately, the “stack and stay still in this corner” tactic limits rangers even further than normal…

In MF it wasn’t so mich because of the AoEs, rather than the knockback/mobility of some mobs and bosses. But still the Firestorms AoEs wreak havoc on the pets because they have to beeline to the target instead of side stepping few meters.

Thaddeus.4891:

Well i don’t play my Elementalist in Fractal and i don’t play a lot with the staff so i’m really not a expert. But i used to play in high level fractal with a good elementalist. (But he stopped playing now so its been a while since the last time i play with him).

Anyway, he made the Shaman really more easy. With his staff, he use Water skill 4 to slow down the shaman in his shield so only 1 or 2 people could burst his shield down easy while the rest of us DPS the elemental. Meteor shower was a good burst to drop elemental health and for the rest of the fight he was keeping the elemental group and away from us by using his cc. Frozen Ground in water, Gust and Static Field in air, and skill 4 and 5 in Earth. By the time he went through all of his cc, usually they are all dead and nobody died. At one point he was the last alive, 3 of us where dead and 1 down. He rush to him, rez him in mist form, let the other one deaggro with a spy kit and he kept the boss on him at the other side of the room while the other one rez the whole team. With my guardian i can do that if I have 1 person alive with me, but rezzing a downed guys before doing that, this is was awesome.

Again this is not really the profession, but the player behind it. Longbow Ranger seem to receive a lot of hate in fractal, but on of the best fractal player i know is a longbow ranger. At shaman he use his elite skill to root the boss when in his shield, then i use my Shield to protect his roots, giving us way enough time to kill all the elemental while the boss don’t move. In the mean time he was able to rapid fire, switch to shortbow and finish the boss’ shield by his own.

Then have you noticed that has nothing to do with using longbow, but about using Entangle? A Sword ranger using Entangle in the same way would be even more efficient and thus, helpful for the team.

People are exaggerating the need for the old meta war,mes,guard groups, aslong as you have one guard the whole thing is a cakewalk. Hell my group 4 manned up to 72 before we got bored and it wasnt that difficult due to guard reflect,shield and ranger axe reflect.

One of the instabilities should be “disable reflect”

If you’re worried about these groups start your own party or better yet join a good guild.

Quickfoot Katana.8642:

Thaddeus.4891:

Well i don’t play my Elementalist in Fractal and i don’t play a lot with the staff so i’m really not a expert. But i used to play in high level fractal with a good elementalist. (But he stopped playing now so its been a while since the last time i play with him).

Anyway, he made the Shaman really more easy. With his staff, he use Water skill 4 to slow down the shaman in his shield so only 1 or 2 people could burst his shield down easy while the rest of us DPS the elemental. Meteor shower was a good burst to drop elemental health and for the rest of the fight he was keeping the elemental group and away from us by using his cc. Frozen Ground in water, Gust and Static Field in air, and skill 4 and 5 in Earth. By the time he went through all of his cc, usually they are all dead and nobody died. At one point he was the last alive, 3 of us where dead and 1 down. He rush to him, rez him in mist form, let the other one deaggro with a spy kit and he kept the boss on him at the other side of the room while the other one rez the whole team. With my guardian i can do that if I have 1 person alive with me, but rezzing a downed guys before doing that, this is was awesome.

Again this is not really the profession, but the player behind it. Longbow Ranger seem to receive a lot of hate in fractal, but on of the best fractal player i know is a longbow ranger. At shaman he use his elite skill to root the boss when in his shield, then i use my Shield to protect his roots, giving us way enough time to kill all the elemental while the boss don’t move. In the mean time he was able to rapid fire, switch to shortbow and finish the boss’ shield by his own.

Then have you noticed that has nothing to do with using longbow, but about using Entangle? A Sword ranger using Entangle in the same way would be even more efficient and thus, helpful for the team.

lol The sad part about that is that players yell at you to “stay at range” for the Shaman Fight (even though I always do better at melee for that boss)…. but, yes; Entangle can be a ton of help for that boss.

Stack on the boss -> drop Entangle -> burst the bubble -> kill ads -> swap to wolf for fear (optional and only as needed for survival; I like to use it when a player goes down) -> reflects if you have offhand axe (I usually run over to a party member before using it and if there is a guard in the group, use it after their reflects).

While the ranger may be sub par due to a very underwhelming and under developed class mechanic that really should and could have been designed far better; for the most part I think a lot of the ranger prejudice out there comes from players not actually knowing enough about a class and narrow minded thinking. There are other perfectly viable options to stacking in a corner that work just as well (and while I wouldn’t want the devs to completely remove this tactic as it is perfectly viable and acceptable in my opinion in most cases, there should be some sort of mechanic against it as well that threatens players and at least makes them move from one stack to another to break groups up and make them think on their feet a little more).

Sollith.3502:

lol The sad part about that is that players yell at you to “stay at range” for the Shaman Fight (even though I always do better at melee for that boss)…. but, yes; Entangle can be a ton of help for that boss.

Stack on the boss -> drop Entangle -> burst the bubble -> kill ads -> swap to wolf for fear (optional and only as needed for survival; I like to use it when a player goes down) -> reflects if you have offhand axe (I usually run over to a party member before using it and if there is a guard in the group, use it after their reflects).

While the ranger may be sub par due to a very underwhelming and under developed class mechanic that really should and could have been designed far better; for the most part I think a lot of the ranger prejudice out there comes from players not actually knowing enough about a class and narrow minded thinking. There are other perfectly viable options to stacking in a corner that work just as well (and while I wouldn’t want the devs to completely remove this tactic as it is perfectly viable and acceptable in my opinion in most cases, there should be some sort of mechanic against it as well that threatens players and at least makes them move from one stack to another to break groups up and make them think on their feet a little more).

Meleeing that boss has even one advantage for the rest of the party that ranges. He will start using melee-only attacks so the rest of your fellowship can chill out in the back.

I have not tried it ever but I would like to see if traps are viable for slowing down the shaman (both for ranger and thief).

But seeing as anet claims that they reduced the difficulty of harder fractals “advanced” tactics might be not even necessary now and bearbows with p/p thieves could do it easily by chilling out in the back.

haviz.1340:

Meleeing that boss has even one advantage for the rest of the party that ranges. He will start using melee-only attacks so the rest of your fellowship can chill out in the back.

I have not tried it ever but I would like to see if traps are viable for slowing down the shaman (both for ranger and thief).

But seeing as anet claims that they reduced the difficulty of harder fractals “advanced” tactics might be not even necessary now and bearbows with p/p thieves could do it easily by chilling out in the back.

If you have a mesmer in party he will hate you for so many reason if only 1 melee…

Who care if he shoots less arrows ….you can avoid them….OR they get reflect by mez phantasms if you don t kill them staying melee….

LordByron.8369:

If you have a mesmer in party he will hate you for so many reason if only 1 melee…

Who care if he shoots less arrows ….you can avoid them….OR they get reflect by mez phantasms if you don t kill them staying melee….

I see your sarcasm detector is broken. But to properly respond, the only mesmer I play with melees him anyway.

i will still run fractal with my ele so np for me

haviz.1340:

LordByron.8369:

If you have a mesmer in party he will hate you for so many reason if only 1 melee…

Who care if he shoots less arrows ….you can avoid them….OR they get reflect by mez phantasms if you don t kill them staying melee….

I see your sarcasm detector is broken. But to properly respond, the only mesmer I play with melees him anyway.

Maybe the issue is your desire to attack people is so strong that prevent you to read….
My english is bad….but i don t think the difference between
5 melee
and
1 melee + 4 ranged

is difficult

Second case is wrong with a mesmer in party all the dps 1 gained from a single player stayng melee is ruined by the 70% loss of mesmer dps and support.

Mesmer dps is fine. 1h sword and ten points in illusions.

I had the quickest and easiest fotm run for some time last night. I had a necro and a ranger in the group.

Have I attacked anyone?

I just want it said that in the stream yesterday they said fotm was going to be easier for Necros/Rangers. Agony no longer applies to pets/minions.

i dont know how fractal will go, but 1 thing is sure i dont want that p\p tief build we have seen in the live stream last night in my run ahahaha

Morsus.5106:

I just want it said that in the stream yesterday they said fotm was going to be easier for Necros/Rangers. Agony no longer applies to pets/minions.

If people used bears that wouldn’t be a problem in the first place.

First of all i played all proffesions beside engi into the high fractals and i can tell u that any of the classes can be very usefull in fractals!!! I wont start explaining and giving examples because it will be a very long post.
You just need to do some reading learn the benefits of your class make the right build practice it and gg…
But since reflect is importent part then yes u kinda need a guardian/mesmer filler and since some1 has to absorb the dmg/aggro u also need heavy warrior/guardian.
BUT u still got plenty of room for any other class.
It also nice to have a strong aoe filler but the varity of classes for this role is pretty big.
And from scrolling alittle i seen threads about ranger being bad so ill say something at least about this class ^^.
First of all (and thank god to it!) fractals got many boss fights that cant be meleed ( or cant be fully meleed) and there ranged dps classes become handy.
Also ranger gives 10% more dmg to the group which is a strong buff in my book.
And all those fights where u do go melee? ranger got nice melee dps + ability to keep constant fury for the team.
Also having a good ranger on fire shaman fight can make things easier.
Can keep going this way for every class… hope u got the point.
So for conclusion : You can play anything and feel importent ( as long as you control it well ), so just ignore the silly casuals posts on the LFG tool and go do some pew pew.

Chokolata.1870:

necromancers are quite amazing in fractals actually . Power necro i mean

Do you mean the 30/25/0/0/15 power necro with dagger/warhorn?, yeah they are still far behind most other professions and brings no group support that matters, except maybe weakness for trash which can easily be done by anyone without using any extra traits, Power necros are decent at bosses, good at trash, most other professions are Good at Trash but Great/awesome at bosses.

Kresa.1859:

First of all (and thank god to it!) fractals got many boss fights that cant be meleed ( or cant be fully meleed) and there ranged dps classes become handy.

Which one?
Aquatic? meleed
Cliffside? meleed
Snowblind? meleed
Solid Ocean? tentacles and colossi are meleed, the rest of the time, we’re idle.
Swampland? meleed (I still have troubles with Mossman, but it’s ok)
Uncategorized? meleed
Underground Facility? meleed (but not with pugs)
Urban battleground? Granted, I still prefer to range it after the first agony burst.
Volcanic? meleed (but not with pugs)

I only mean the end fractal bosses. So I definitely wouldn’t say “many” bosses. If you want to include sub-bosses, every single one of them is meleed.

I have found 1 necro really speeds up fractals if the necro comes with the correct support. People used to be against me joining as a nercro until doing a run. Wells are the key. I can add 25 stacks of vunerability to an enemy group allowing zerkers to down enemies faster. Wells that perma blind meant no damage for short times, this was useful throughout the charr map, or at harpies, meant no knock downs. Wells that turned conditions into boons or removed boons were key throughout various fractals.

Would I want more than 1 thief or necro…no, but i find 1 of each pretty helpful, if they are competent, and by the time they hit 30 the majority seemed to be. If I had to pick a team of 5 unique classes, I would go: Necro, guardian, warrior, mesmer, thief.

Holy Whirlwind.2067:

I can add 25 stacks of vunerability to an enemy group allowing zerkers to down enemies faster.

25 stacks of vulnerability * 4 = 100% meaning because of you it’s like they have a Warrior. Necro’s, take note of this man, he’s a real hero.

In the end, any class is good if you know how to play

Time to get this topic closed