Guild Wars 2

So, my first gut instinct after reading the patch notes was to see Remorseless as an easy choice for any serious Longbow build. However, while it’s a good trait, the cost of taking this trait is pretty high since there are so many other good traits in the Marks tree:

Grandmaster Choices

Signet of the Beastmaster – With the last buff to signets, this is a pretty awesome talent. This is clearly superior if you want more defensive options, but depending which signets you use, it also may potentially increase your dps more than Remorseless does, especially if you already have a very high crit percentage.

Master Choices
(Even though you can get these in your Master trait slot, they are good enough to consider picking up one for your Master slot and one for your Grandmaster slot)

Eagle Eye – Again, depending on what your crit percentage is, this could potentially deal more dps than Remorseless would, although you lose the group benefit of vuln.

Spotter – One of the few ways a ranger can bring strong, useful group utility

Piercing Arrows – Depending on the situation, this can be the biggest dps increases that you can gain from traits. If the new vulnerability from Rapid Fire applies to each target hit, then this talent is even better than before.

Its not a good pick for most builds

Most Longbow builds wants Piercing Arrows and Eagle Eye (those builds have Shortbow as backup weapon)

the builds that use Greatsword and Maul for example will want Signet of the Beastmaster most of the time, as the damage increase from Signet of the Hunt/Signet of the Wild is far better then that Trait, and you get the added Signet of the Stone Defensive Ability.

Yeah, I didn’t realise it at first when reading the patch notes, but when altering my longbow build in the game I realised that longbow traits are all in the wrong place (aside from Quick Draw). You want Spotter for its group utility (especially in PvE) but Piercing Arrows is basically mandatory for any bow build in this game (in PvE anyway). This means you have to choose between Eagle Eye, Spotter and Piercing Arrows if you want to bring remorseless. As good as the new remorseless is, the cost of bringing it is incredibly high. I can live without Eagle Eye, but Spotter and Piercing Arrows are a huge loss (and this is after you already decide not to bring Signet of the Beast Master).

Is it normal to have pretty much all of a weapon’s traits loaded into one tier of the same tree? It does seem like they put a lot of thought into the kinds of traits longbow users want to use, they just buffed some bad ones but didn’t account for the losses. I’d like to see Piercing Arrows merged with Quick Draw so you can have functioning bows without losing a 20 point power trait. As much as I’d like to see Spotter (a precision trait) moved to the precision line, I don’t want it to compete with a 20% bow trait (especially if that trait gives Piercing Arrows in the future) so it probably works better in the Marksmanship line. You could always slot it in at 30 points in Skirmishing (cause the other 30 point traits are really not crit traits) but that would mean you are going 30/30.

Remorseless is basically designed around the Longbow now but unfortunately it doesn’t play well with important longbow traits so it’s kinda bad at it’s job (unless you PvP, in which case Spotter and Piercing Arrows are less necessary). Ranger traits always look like they are built around PvP with no concern for PvE.

Agree 100% Shiren.

It does open up other options for burst builds, then just using signets. But I feel like it’s too early to say.

I’m not a fan of Opening Strike, so I won’t be using it, though.

Well put, Shiren. I agree completely.

In particular, I like the idea of moving Remorseless to 30 Skirmishing. That would open up many, many more possibilities for build variety.

The marksmanship traitline always bugged me because theres so many traits you might want all for the same build. I mean if you want to do a berserker signet LB/GS build, which seems like a very natural mix too me, you’re essentially screwed because you need 2 adept traits, 3 master and 2 GM.

Personally I dont think Remorsless is worth it still unless you’re using the stealth as soon as it comes off CD, which I wouldnt be in more cases.

Remorseless should have been a kitten class mechanic, lol.

Going to play with it, but right now using LB to stealth then Maul.

I don’t think it’s worth it. Not because it’s terrible, but because there are MUCH better traits to pick for those 10 trait points.

It’s really not that great. 5x vulnerability for 5 seconds as well as a crit every 10-12 seconds, IF hunter’s shot hits, and IF you aren’t stuck in rapid fire or barrage while hunter’s shot is already off cooldown, and IF you wouldn’t have critted anyway.

That’s a lot of IFs for a grandmaster trait that gives a 5 second condition on a 10-12+ second timer.

Many adapt traits are generally better. I can only see Remorseless be somewhat useful in long PvE boss battles with a full party.

I think Remorseless should be default behaviour for Opening Strikes. And then make Remorseless into a real grandmaster trait.

Yea its not worth it…I feel remorseless would be more effective especially in pvp if it would make you regain opening strike after 15 crits or something…considering it is a grandmaster trait its doesn’t seem that great to me imo.

They should have tied it to pet swap making it a 20 (15 traited) sec cd that doesn’t require a specific weapon.

To many other needed Talents in the line to use remorseless

I agree with u Shiren, in the Marksmanship Tree we have to many good Options and in Skirmishing for Example Power/Crit ( Zerker ) Users we only have one Good Talent there for Bow Users -

Quickdraw

If u wanna go for LB now especially for WvW u need

30 Points into Marksmanship with

Steady Focus

Eagle Eye

Piercing Arrows

for Skirmishing i would take

Pets Prowess

Quick Draw

Remorseless or Spotter ( both Crit Talents not Power Talents )

But Ranger Trees need a overall rework

Move Trap Traits to our Wilderness Line ( no explain or? ^^ )

Move Material Mastery and Offhand Training to Skirmishing Line ( Because of Dmg Talents )

It’s not worth giving up the signet actives at least. Even then, I think there are too many uncontrollable variables between those Hunter shots to claim you now have a guaranteed crit every 12/10 seconds. In fact, that statement wouldn’t even be remotely accurate in practice. It also competes with trully competent traits and it’s mostly only useful for a single weapon, so all in all, it’s what seems to be an overrated Grandmaster trait not worth it’s current status. I hope I’m wrong though.

I’ld like to believe its how they want to see if stealth is a good fit for rangers or if stealth is a good fit for reactivating opening strikes. Look at torment being added to warriors.

Personally, I always used Remorseless over Piercing arrows in spvp.

Many of the maps are featuring vertical warfare, where a roaming gc ranger will typically shoot at foes from above or sometimes also below, so theres not much to pierce. If you use the terrain to your advantage, preventing melees from reaching you, you do not make good use of the piercing trait.
Typically my build was centered around bursting down a single target and then moving on to the next one and I found opening strike to be quite helpful in these situations. Having to open up without opening strike was rather bad, so I accepted the occasional phantasm/minion hit for reliably opening up with 20 stacks of vulnerability, followed by a huge spike. Piercing made the hits a bit more reliable, while remorseless made the kill(and followups) more certain, if the hits actually connected, so I chose remorseless over piercing, as it still helped in large fights by granting another opening strike after a kill to burst down the next target.
I always felt like piercing to be a waste on longbow builds outside of wvw.
On shortbow, however, I’d never run without it, if I could afford 20 points idown the strength line.

I would still love remorseless being a 15 point trait and the 15 point trait being merged with the baseline opening strike trait.

naphack.9346:

I would still love remorseless being a 15 point trait and the 15 point trait being merged with the baseline opening strike trait.

I feel like remorseless should be merged with precise strike. Or perhaps replace precise strike altogether. 100% crit+renewal every time you kill something or stealth, seems a bit too much for a single minor trait.

you mean, like, pull precise strike into remorseless and add another 25 pt trait?
Might work aswell :P

naphack.9346:

you mean, like, pull precise strike into remorseless and add another 25 pt trait?
Might work aswell :P

I mean like, make remorseless a 25 point trait, and give us a new grandmaster trait to replace it.

you said its too much for a minor trait, so lets just make it the other way round.

naphack.9346:

you said its too much for a minor trait, so lets just make it the other way round.

I said merging it with precise strike would be too much for a minor trait, but remorseless by itself seems perfect for a minor trait (see: renewed justice).

if u want to use longbow, yyou are forced to put 30 on marks and min 20 on skirmish. and still to much traits what we need. i hope they merge traits. opening strikes, signet traits, bow traits. we need to much to be in line. (and this is only one weapon. what about pet and other weapon? ) as a guardian i can trait on 2 handeds, shouts, heal and 1 trait my pick.
oh, and dont forget the +10% dmg if endurance is full, thats a must be. without that ranger dmg sck :p

You guys are confusing me… If you are all about DPS here wouldn’t you be running zerker gear? if you are, aren’t you using precision food? if you are, aren’t you using spotter? if you are, aren’t you using sword/warhorn? if you are, aren’t you using sigil of perception? if you are, aren’t you using rampage as one? if you are don’t you have 100% crit chance for 35 seconds? if you are in a dungeon don’t you have a warrior also tossing shouts out that give fury? 100% crit chance oooo…

fields of ruin i had 133% crit chance (redundant ins’t it? sadly crit dmg was nerfed to 22 from 100…)

- 1400 hours with ranger alone

It’s not worth it. I don’t even think it’d make my build if we were allowed four major traits from a single trait line.

I think my current line of thinking follows what a lot of others have said in that currently there is just too many other required traits for this to fly.

My solution is to look at the whole minor trait line. First of all the marksmanship line is the only one on any class where you have to get all 3 minors and the grandmaster major just to get decent play from the trait line, this seems to go directly against minor trait theory in that everyone other one is generally useful standalone. So to solve this I would as many have said merge the marksmanship minor adept and master into one, I was also thinking that remorseless should be an adept not grandmaster it doesn’t feel better than many adepts. This I think would also mean that splashing a small amount in marksmanship is possible, right now I see the line as go big or go home you never see 10 points in marksmanship.

Worth it? What am I going to do with 1 guaranteed crit?

Zorby.8236:

Worth it? What am I going to do with 1 guaranteed crit?

You ever seen the 23k maul video? It’s the valkyrie build.

Plus, in zergs, the rate at which enemies melt against our Strikeforce guild…I mean, basically, remoresless is really good in that situation, where you’re mowing down enemies.

But when roaming it didn’t work before, the valkryie longbow/greatsword build. But now there’s the option to crit again after stealth. With the new hunter’s shot, suddenly you get an edge in 1v1 you didn’t have before.

Source: I’ve been running valkryie builds in wvw and spvp for the last month.