Guild Wars 2

I enjoy playing my Ranger at long range with the longbow.

To support this play style, I usually go with traps (with the throwing trait to keep me at range) or spirits (with the trait to make them follow me). I find both skill sets nice for an archer, since with both I can keep distance while making use of my support skills all the time.

Now, after listening to the coming changes, I’m not sure how to choose my skills after the expansion. Traps are supposedly not being thrown anymore, and spirits are going to be static.

So, my question is:

Do you guys also think archer rangers are getting out of options when choosing their support skills (most are now melee/static)? And which skills you guys suggest for a long range play style after the expansion?

(talking about open world and PvE only here)

If I’m correct, the throwing part will be baseline for all traps.
I think someone of the devs said that.

But for that playstyle you seek:
Lightning Reflexes
Muddy Terrain
Signet of the hunt

Those are the best to keep enemies at distance. Also, take entangle as your elite.

Yeah, traps will be “throwable” by default, what will change is there will be an activation time.
Also yeah, spirits will be stationary but it will have changes to compensate that, we need to wait and see.
Archer will be a very viable option, specially that the current eagle eye and read the wind (just the speed part) will be default to LB, so with the few trait options the LB will be even better than it is now since more survivability/support options will be available.

We will have to see as they specifically said they didn’t want traps to be like ‘spells’ or ‘grenades’. So how (beyond as ’triggering/rigging/set up time after cast) they will do this to their own satisfaction is something we can only speculated on. It will likely to be a shared mechanic with thief (and anyone else saddled with traps as an added mechanic) I am not feeling optimistic on this as experience has shown not to set the bar very high.

Not to derail, but we have the only shouts with a casting time (which will change as heals will be gaining that category), yet they only kind of feel like shouts, yet they focus on how traps are too much like other mechanics in the game.

Our shouts have cast time because of how pet AI works on checking the player input and server side pet status.

Belzebu.3912:

Our shouts have cast time because of how pet AI works on checking the player input and server side pet status.

Which only makes them shout as they wanted them to fit in a shared category, kind of odd for RaO to be a ‘pet’ skill for so long. It seems to shows either lack of foresight or perhaps a change in the team (or the teams design focus).

I agree.
They are changing some skill types to fit under a category for mechanic sake, not that all skills fit 100% the type.
RaO as ‘pet’ and pretty much all our heals should have been under a category long ago, even though some doesn’t feel quite right like HaO as shout, but TU as survival looks amazing.

HaO as a shout is very good too, can get a 16s CD with 10s Regen/Swiftness plus many Runes with on heal effects have a 10s CD, so they can be utilised much more than usual too. Looking forward to trying them out. TU with 20s CD, giving fury and removing two conditions is going to be awesome too

It is good, but just doesn’t feel right imo.
Yeah, TU removing cond will make me move from HS, cond removal was pretty much the only reason I picked it over TU.

We might want to move the discussion of shouts to one of the threads about them as we are kind of derailing this one a bit.

Back on the subject with the amount of reflection they are adding the ‘archer’ focused ranger could be in a bit of a bad place, we could potentially need a unblockable proc/skill to help reduce the issues there.

As it stands to me projectiles kind of got the shaft (wasn’t trying for a pun, but there it is) when compared to the other mechanics of the game. They might need to consider making projectiles not subject to retaliation (if feel like the focus of death-by-a-thousand-cuts focus make retaliation more an issue as they do not want to give ranger boon strip)

I think Archer is in a good place with the changes, we get a lot more defense and Power LB has been buffed quite a bit.

Retaliation (on warriors now especially) is going to make it a lot harder to play Ranger though imo, classes like thief do not have to worry about it when doing burst damage, but all our good attacks are multi-hit and retaliation is much harder on us.

As for reflection, well, it will make Mesmers harder too, but there is GS for them

Tragic Positive.9356:

But for that playstyle you seek:
Lightning Reflexes
Muddy Terrain
Signet of the hunt

Those are the best to keep enemies at distance. Also, take entangle as your elite.

This, with drakehound/spider + wolf. My favorite LB setup by far (maybe using SoR instead of SotH). Even good players can wind up getting completely overwhelmed by the sheer obnoxious CC spam, which is not good when you’re up eating a full glass LB.

Archer in PvP scenario was never that great and now new reflection and retaliation options is making it worse, but in PvE archer seems like a good option even after the updates, at least with the info we have so far.

All signets, most wilderness survival skills, frost spirit, are all viable options.
Also we’ll be getting new utilities in the HoT like mesmer did. (Though I sincerely hope it’s not pet specific skill again…)

Fluffball.8307:

Tragic Positive.9356:

But for that playstyle you seek:
Lightning Reflexes
Muddy Terrain
Signet of the hunt

Those are the best to keep enemies at distance. Also, take entangle as your elite.

This, with drakehound/spider + wolf. My favorite LB setup by far (maybe using SoR instead of SotH). Even good players can wind up getting completely overwhelmed by the sheer obnoxious CC spam, which is not good when you’re up eating a full glass LB.

He’s talking about Open World and PvE

Oops. Well, still relevant if that’s the kind of playstyle you want. Dogs are surprisingly good for massively overaggroing in PvE. Sometimes I’ll take my WvW build into PvE to get a daily. Or if I manage to get myself in trouble against upgraded camps, wolf can give you some breathing room.

For wvw gameplay, I do not think the tower/keep wall long range kitten will change very much. Just hang out on the walls, look for scrims that are in your range and burst down low targets.