Guild Wars 2

It pains me to see this every time.

But about 70% of Rangers I encounter in WvW will insist on shooting at a Thief who is Daggerstorming, killing themselves in the process.

It’s just so incredibly easy to avoid but most Rangers just seem to be really bad.

Anyway, here’s some free advice.

Edit: Maybe I should explain why. Daggerstorm reflects Projectiles back to where they came from. So anyone shooting at it with ranged weapons is going to be eating their own damage (including Ballistas).

Nayru.4537:

The only thing that is “really bad” is the combat system. In GW1 you could see the foe activating their skills, and the skill icon you take damage from came up on your screen.

GW2 has: “Sea of Sorrows Invader” and a combat tab with a wall of text.

Just one of the MANY reasons MANY players dislike the game and quit.

This. Compared to GW1, GW2 is just a flail fest.

Anyway more on topic, most of the time, Rangers find it hard to stop shooting due to the auto-attack. Does tapping escape stop you attacking in GW2?

Yes, and it also causes you to lose your target, and due to the large number of combatants in WvW, it can be nearly impossible to regain your target.

Yay.

This is good advice except cancelling auto-attack is finicky at the best of times. Escape will usually stop your auto but if you’re using a SB you already have 2-3 arrows in the air so you’re SoL on that and if you just used quickness you may have 5-6 arrows already in the air that you can’t cancel. Once you deselect it may reselect the target and go back to shooting as well which puts another 1-2 arrows in the air before you can cancel.

It also occurs that sometimes the game will switch your target because your old target goes off-screen (or just the edge of the screen) and then the game will auto acquire a new target which may be the daggerstorm thief.

I know there are options you can (de)select that alleviate some of these problems but they also create new problems when (de)selected.

i turn off auto attack for my weapons in pvp. you may end up wearing out your ‘1’ key, but you can choose to simply not attack this way.

In the same vein, has anyone ever gone out of a keep portal, dropped quickness, sharpening stone, and then LB #5 (barrage?), ducked back in the keep, and then suddenly take a wall of damage after you’re back inside?

I just don’t understand retaliation working on a skill like that. I know you can just say “MAAAAaaaaaaaaAAAAGIC!”, but it seems stupid to me. If I lay a trap and someone trips it with retaliation up, I simply shouldn’t take the damage.

Another alternative is to keep an axe/warhorn in your secondary slot and swap to that when they start spinning. You can use warhorn #4 on them without fear of damage reflecting, then get out of range and wait for the animation to finish. Also less likely to gib yourself with axes if you can’t get out of range/get autoattack to turn of.

Just turn away from the target…or press X.

What a silly insult generalizing the majority of Rangers to be ‘really bad’. For all you know they could be putting out the utmost devotion to win any battles, even against a thief, timing their skills to be used at the critical moment. With a thief, you can just spam its skills blindfolded and still win.

The effort used between a thief and ranger just to win is clearly noticeable. Fact is, thiefs have it easy and ranger’s don’t.

Why not just swap to sword/greatsword, they can’t dodge rll while daggerstorming.

if you don’t have a button bound to putting weapon away.. do that and use it to stop autoattacking.

YumCHA.8706:

What a silly insult generalizing the majority of Rangers to be ‘really bad’. For all you know they could be putting out the utmost devotion to win any battles, even against a thief, timing their skills to be used at the critical moment. With a thief, you can just spam its skills blindfolded and still win.

The effort used between a thief and ranger just to win is clearly noticeable. Fact is, thiefs have it easy and ranger’s don’t.

Haha it took me so long to realize this. Once my friend made a thief and I saw that it reflected projectiles I stopped shooting them. My favorite thing to do though is to use whirling defense while they use their daggerstorm.

I also rolled a thief just to see how its like in sPvP and the damage is just GINORMOUS,despite all that stat balances. 2 days of PvP with a thief and im facerolling every class, no matter their toughness, no matter their vitality. Every class is the same dificulty. A 3 second downed kill.

The learning curve for a thief is MUCH MUCH easier than a ranger. They don’t have to worry about a pet and all they need to do is focus in burst damage. It’s that simple. Mind you I’ve spent more time with a ranger (roughly 3 months) compared to 2 days of thief PvP.

The difference is staggering. It’s totally ridiculous.
The fact that a thief can handle 2-3 targets at once whilst a ranger can only handle 2 at maximum, is a broken PvP mechanic.

I would shiver at the thought of a thief’s potential in WvW with all that max gear stats.

My thief’s shortbow almost never gets ‘obstructed’…. Make my ranger jealous

Because thief’s shortbow corrects it’s course during flight. I’m not joking.

Basho.5936:

Because thief’s shortbow corrects it’s course during flight. I’m not joking.

I mainly play ranger, but started a thief after the sbow steal-nerf (pun intended). I agree completely, you can actually see where the thief shot follows your moving target, compared to a 1400 distant ranger (mind you, auto attacking doesn’t work even though you’re in range of 1500) which fires the arrow straight at the location the person was 1 second ago.

Basho.5936:

Because thief’s shortbow corrects it’s course during flight. I’m not joking.

I was wondering… I didn’t think it could just be my imagination.

I would always suggest this to people – play the class that kicks the crap out of you to learn how to counter it. However, after taking my own advice, I don’t know that there’s enough ways for you to counter a 1v1 thief who a) knows how to play and b) is spec’d to kill you. The number of gap closers and stuns available is absurd – coupled with high damage and targeting / culling technical issues, I don’t see there being a viable, consistent defense against a good thief.

So what what you all are saying is, I should roll a thief. I might just do that.

Pvp.2758:

OMG YES!!!! 90% of people who say Rangers suck, most likely spam 1 into a dagger storm. lmfao.

Honestly the game spams #1 for me. I just wish there was an easier way to stop auto attack without losing your target by mashing your ESC key. Currently I sheath my weapon which I have to mash a few times for it to take causing several shots to get off and reflect back into my face.

Qixilver.3784:

So what what you all are saying is, I should roll a thief. I might just do that.

I think I’m going to start one. I’m not holding my breath for these so called upcoming changes for Rangers. I just don’t see them fixing what NEEDS to be fixed. Most likely will adjust other parts of the ranger with an excuse “we want you using more abilities when you play.”

The amount of skills used for a ranger is literally everything, including utilities and elites and the pets (which is rather useless anyway). A thief? 2-3 skills and your dead within seconds.

Another fact about Ranger in PvP.

When a thief daggerstoms I barrage them. Unfortunately barrage is a fairly weak AoE but it is the best I can do.

It takes a second for me to realize the thief is daggerstorming and another second for me to disable auto attack. Also auto attack with LB likes to fire an extra arrow after you turn off auto atack.

Pressing ALT + 1 will halt your auto attack.

Press it again to commence.

Dee Jay.2460:

Pressing ALT + 1 will halt your auto attack.

Press it again to commence.

Reeeeeeaaaaallly?? This is very interesting.. I will have to look into this.

Edit: Doesn’t work. I don’t even see anything in the bindings that would do anything like this. The closes that comes to this is CTRL + Mouse 2 which toggles auto attack on/off and for that you need to click the button.

i dont have this problem honestly i have no idea what youre even talking about i pwn every1 that crosses my path in wvw and im lvl 60 well 64 now ^^ thieves run from me alot after they fail at ganking me

While I usually do stop attacking when daggerstorm comes out to play, I am finding it more and more difficult to remember to stop attacking. Lately I find myself staring in awe , mouth wide open, heart full of jealous rage, as the thief proceeds to hit everyone around him (veteran guards or players, it makes no difference) for at least half of their life.

Oh if only I could do that kind of damage to 1 thing that fast, I’d be a happy guy.

Nayru.4537:

The only thing that is “really bad” is the combat system. In GW1 you could see the foe activating their skills, and the skill icon you take damage from came up on your screen.

GW2 has: “Sea of Sorrows Invader” and a combat tab with a wall of text.

Just one of the MANY reasons MANY players dislike the game and quit.

You do know they removed skill activation bars so that instead of watching little red bars fill up you’d actually watch and learn your target’s animations instead, right?
If anything, it’s a massive improvement, as at least now your attention is focussed on the game itself rather than a series of progress bars.

Mungrul.9358:

Nayru.4537:

The only thing that is “really bad” is the combat system. In GW1 you could see the foe activating their skills, and the skill icon you take damage from came up on your screen.

GW2 has: “Sea of Sorrows Invader” and a combat tab with a wall of text.

Just one of the MANY reasons MANY players dislike the game and quit.

You do know they removed skill activation bars so that instead of watching little red bars fill up you’d actually watch and learn your target’s animations instead, right?
If anything, it’s a massive improvement, as at least now your attention is focussed on the game itself rather than a series of progress bars.

Depends. If it’s just you and your target or then sure, but when you start getting a lot of players on a target or some zerg vs. zerg then your target gets lost in all the other players AND skill effects/graphics.

I’m pretty sure you have been in one of those dynamic events fighting some champion where it’s nothing but a massive ball of light around the champion. If not then you need to get out more.

YumCHA.8706:

What a silly insult generalizing the majority of Rangers to be ‘really bad’. For all you know they could be putting out the utmost devotion to win any battles, even against a thief, timing their skills to be used at the critical moment. With a thief, you can just spam its skills blindfolded and still win.

The effort used between a thief and ranger just to win is clearly noticeable. Fact is, thiefs have it easy and ranger’s don’t.

I agree with this. It is insulting to suggest that, just because you see someone still shooting at a Thief, this is somehow a mark of a bad player. Others have mentioned the autoattack issue. Rapid Fire is another issue over which you have little control. The volley of arrows of Rapid Fire is not a bunch of #1’s with its own many quickness, where each shot is its own event and each individual arrow having its own target. When you start firing Rapid Fire, whatever you had targeted when you started is where the damage for every arrow goes. Even if you change to a different target during the animation, you continue firing at the original. Likewise, you cannot stop firing it. Once you trigger it, you are stuck in the animation until every arrow fires.

If you target a Thief and use Rapid Fire, especially if you use it with Quickening Zepher, then the Thief goes into his little ballet of death, there is precious little you can do even if you notice it early enough, which is not always easy since they typically do that little move while slicing through as many people as they can.

Personally, I am very quick to notice Thieves using that skill and to stop shooting as soon as I can. I am also patient enough to wait for the second they stop to unload on them if I can. But to suggest that, just because someone continues to shoot at someone who is in the middle of a crowd doing that move, possibly with a ton of other animations obscuring the screen, is some how bad is simply insulting. This is even more insulting considering the autoattack problems and that we have a skill like Rapid Fire that doesn’t stop shooting even if you change targets.

That said, yes, you do need to be aware of the signs of this and any other skill that reflects projectiles or does retaliation of some kind.

It has always been a pet peeve of mine in PvP to see people, especially light armor wears, run into a mass of people, have some kind of major effect on them, then run out unscathed. Warlocks in WoW, for instance, were able to run into a mass of people, cast an AoE fear scattering them, then run back to safety. Seeing Thieves wearing medium armor spin into a mass of people, doing massive damage, then stealthing before you can get a shot off at him after his spinning is done is another example.

Thus on my main, a level 80 Ranger, I get frustated because he can only sit back and watch, unable to shoot until the spinning is done, hoping that Barrage is not on cooldown and hoping that, if it is not, I can affect an area where he stealths off to. However, I get to smile on my alt, a Mesmer (level 26 when I first brought him into WvW and now level 48). Ever since I got my first Elite skill, I just love to see Thieves spin into range because, if they do, they will, in very short order, find themselves turned into a Moa, unable to continue spinning and unable to stealth.

Even if they are fast enough to recognize their peril and get away, I smile to myself imagining their smug anticipation of doing a lot of damage and stealthing away suddenly turning into “OMG!!!! I am a Moa!!!!” It does my heart good.