Guild Wars 2

I made a Sylvari. Recently got it to lvl 80 and have partially completed Exotic gear. Now I understand that Pain Inverter is one of our best abilities and it’s exclusive to Osuras. If money is no object, as I could craft an Osura to 80 in a few hours, so I’m only out a few gold, should I remake my Ranger now before I invest more in an inferior race? Or is PI not that big a deal?

It’s best to go with what feels right and what you enjoy most. From what I see most Rangers are Norn. I’m Sylvari mainly because it’s a nature class so to me it fits well, also I’ll eventually want the Kudzo Longbow which also seems to fit with the Sylvari since it’s a flower bow. But I’ve never made an Asura so I can’t really comment on if PI is that big of a deal but I doubt it makes a huge difference

First off, it’s Asura, not Osura.

For some condi or partly-condi rangers, this is pretty decent skill : http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Pain_Inverter
Quite much that’s all.
Personally if it was possible, I’d change my all classes either to human or asura. JUST cause of thier look.
Sylvaris aren’t that interesting class. And asuras with bow are pretty cool to play. Another reason is that they are tiny.

tl;dr Pain Inverter doesn’t really fit with ranger profession as well as a mesmer or guardian.

i haven’t played asura but, AOEs have a target limit of 5, so a PBAOE that applies 3 stacks of 5 second confusion on 5 targets, on a ranger it pretty much doesn’t add anything, since you’re mostly ranged and pretty fragile close range.

If you want to make use of pain inverter i suggest you play mesmer since they have a trait that increases confusion duration by 33%, not to mention they pretty much rule the scene with confusion inflicting skills.

By far the best utility skill the sylvari has is the root skill, it’s a single target skill, 900 range, lasts 7 seconds (that’s 7 second of immobilize), it’s basically a single target entangle with less cooldown.

when it comes to elites i think the Asura win, the golem that you can jump in (i heard) is pretty nice.

The Norn and Asura racials are certainly the most useful. Norn have invisibility and the Asura have Pain Inverter. The Charr are alright I suppose, with their Fury shout.

The Sylvari used to be the best though. Grasping Vines used to be exactly like Entangle, but ground-targetted at 1200 range. It was perfect in combination with Barrage. But Anet nerfed the skill into the ground together with plenty of ranger skills. Now it’s single target only, and goes on cooldown if the target was out of range. I never use it. I guess it could still be really nice in WvW in a 1v1 in combination with Entangle though.

Pain Inverter is OP in WvW, so if you really want to min/max for WvW, then yes, go Asura. Outside of that, choose whatever you want. You can’t use Pain Inverter in SPvP and it’s not particularly great in PvE, so for those parts of the game, it doesn’t matter what race you choose.

Holland.9351:

The Norn and Asura racials are certainly the most useful. Norn have invisibility and the Asura have Pain Inverter. The Charr are alright I suppose, with their Fury shout.

The Sylvari used to be the best though. Grasping Vines used to be exactly like Entangle, but ground-targetted at 1200 range. It was perfect in combination with Barrage. But Anet nerfed the skill into the ground together with plenty of ranger skills. Now it’s single target only, and goes on cooldown if the target was out of range. I never use it. I guess it could still be really nice in WvW in a 1v1 in combination with Entangle though.

i think it’s quite nice with axe/warhorn and shortbow, especially useful if you’re a BM.

Blackbird.4382:

I made a Sylvari. Recently got it to lvl 80 and have partially completed Exotic gear. Now I understand that Pain Inverter is one of our best abilities and it’s exclusive to Osuras. If money is no object, as I could craft an Osura to 80 in a few hours, so I’m only out a few gold, should I remake my Ranger now before I invest more in an inferior race? Or is PI not that big a deal?

I wouldn’t worry about optimizing ranger by choosing certain races. Choose the one you like the best, not for the “effectiveness” of their skills. Rarely does a racial skill outclass profession skills, and even if they do its only in some situations. Pain inverter is not one of our best abilities, it is a racial skill designed to be less useful than a rangers utilities. You don’t need to be an Asuran to have a good ranger, not at all, not even close. That goes for any race.

Blackbird.4382:

I made a Sylvari. Recently got it to lvl 80 and have partially completed Exotic gear. Now I understand that Pain Inverter is one of our best abilities and it’s exclusive to Osuras. If money is no object, as I could craft an Osura to 80 in a few hours, so I’m only out a few gold, should I remake my Ranger now before I invest more in an inferior race? Or is PI not that big a deal?

Go with whichever you like better, it’s pretty crazy to level an alt to 80 just for one racial skill you probably won’t end up using. You could level a different class instead, or save that gold for legendaries and other stuff.

Pain Inverter isn’t all that special anyway, I honestly think Sylvari Take Root is better, particularly for a ranger. Pain Inverter doesn’t absorb damage, it simply hits opponents for mediocre damage any time they use a spell. Take Root on the other hand gives you 3 seconds of total invulnerability, multiple decoys in PvE, a decent pulling mechanism in PvE, and an additional source of damage. I know I’m comparing an elite to a utility, but I run with Take Root on my ranger quite a lot whereas I would rarely slot Pain Inverter, though I do use it with other classes.

While these things are good, the class actually has good skills and elite options that trying to fit in things like leopard form and pain inverter will be difficult and institutionally useful.

If you were a Elementalist for example, then Norn is a given because the class has absolutely crap elite skills. If you were an engineer than Asura is a given because they have few good active skills.

Atherakhia.4086:

While these things are good, the class actually has good skills and elite options that trying to fit in things like leopard form and pain inverter will be difficult and institutionally useful.

If you were a Elementalist for example, then Norn is a given because the class has absolutely crap elite skills. If you were an engineer than Asura is a given because they have few good active skills.

Particularly utilities, there are just so many better ranger utilities than racials. QZ, LR, traps, defensive utilities like Protect Me and traited SoS, SoH for speed or SoR for wiping conditions, Muddy Terrain… The only racial utilities I might use with any consistency are Charr battle roar (with a berserker build), and Charr hidden pistol in place of Lightning Reflexes (lower cooldown). I’ve never actually tried them though, my only Charr is low level.