Guild Wars 2

Hohou.1508:

Archon.6480:

Hohou.1508:

Please, use frost spirit and spotter when being in dungeon group. It can be easy incorporated in your built. Please…

You can keep pewpewing with longbow, knockbacking everything and doing pitifull damage, just use spotter and frost spirit, pretty please…

Haha, sure… As long as you are playing your class specific meta, complete with party buffs, and can stay on your feet for more than 5s. Otherwise… I might just drop all my pet boons for healers clarity (to mop you off the floor) and swap frosty for protect me so
I don’t get downed while kneeling by your corpse…

To nail the last stake in the coffin, I’ll even swap out spotter for arrows shoot through targets if I detect low DPS allies. If you see skilled Rangers running non-meta it may have more to do with you being horribad.

Thank you for “polite and intelligent” reply.

But I actually havent seen skilled ranger WITHOUT spotter and frost spirit.

Your welcome, I was trying to be polite. The ranger meta does not work well with weak allies, so good Rangers will swap some of it out when paired with inexperienced teammates because it does not carry enough armor/utility for revives and such.

Make sure you, yourself, bring the right build into a dungeon and let your pug know your are aiming to be fast. I bet you would have a better experience and you would not need to QQ all the skilled Rangers on the forums for no good reason.

Hohou.1508:

You can keep pewpewing with longbow, knockbacking everything and doing pitifull damage, just use spotter and frost spirit, pretty please…

I would also like to thank you for your polite and intelligent thread.

Archon.6480:

Hohou.1508:

You can keep pewpewing with longbow, knockbacking everything and doing pitifull damage, just use spotter and frost spirit, pretty please…

I would also like to thank you for your polite and intelligent thread.

Longbow has high burts but low sustain dmg, compared to greatsword or sword. Closer you are to target, lower it is and in dungeon many times youre very close to target. Its unefficient against multiple targets. A many rangers use PBS when it goes off cd (same goes for other classes, yet KBs skills are most annoying). Those are facts.
If youre not that kind of ranger, I dont know why you take it so personaly and youre so bothered by this thread.

Izaya.2906:

I’ll give you the numbers now, 100 precision is roughly 4-5% critical chance depending on what precision you have, translating to 4-5% DPS boost, 100 ferocity is 5-6% DPS boost because 99% crit rate is already a given with a ranger and a warrior, that’s 9-11% DPS ranger boost you’re losing.

If 99% crit rate is already a given, then the extra 4%-5% crit chance from 100 precision is useless.

Furthermore, crit chance increases damage linearly. As a proportion (or a percentage) of your damage, the increase becomes smaller the higher your crit chance gets. By the time you get to 99% crit chance, an extra 1% crit chance only increases your damage by 0.503% (assuming your crits do double regular damage). Ferocity works similarly since we’re talking about a roughly 200% value at the high end. So your DPS estimate is high by a factor of 2.

Taking the best-case situation you’ve described (95% crit chance bumped up to 100% by an extra precision from Skirmishing), with a ranger outfitted with ascended berserker’s (210% crit damage with 3 Skirmishing, 216% crit damage with 5 Skirmishing) yields

1 + .95 * (2.10 – 1) = 2.045
1 + 1 * (2.16 – 1) = 2.16

2.16 / 2.045 = 1.056 = 5.6% damage increase from extra 2 points in Skirmishing.

Mathematically roughly half of that increase is from the extra precision (2.7%), half from the extra ferocity (2.9%) as I explained. And total damage increase is almost exactly half the 9%-11% you estimated. If your party is already capped at 100% crit chance, then the extra crit chance from Skirmishing is useless and you’re only getting the 2.9% extra damage from ferocity.

Oh I also forgot to post earlier, Bountiful Hunger isn’t mathematically a 10% boost in total DPS, your ranger makes up roughly 70-80% and pet makes up 20-30%, haven’t checked the actual number but lets be generous and give the pet 30%.

Correct. As you calculated, it’s a 5% boost. 5% for you and 5% for your pet does not add up to 10%. It’s 5% for both of you so 5% overall.

Rough estimations, no flanking:
Hunter’s Tactics : 70%(x 1.09) + 30%(x1) = 106.3% total DPS
Bountiful Hunter: 70%(x1.05)+ 30%(1.05) = 105% total DPS

Corrected values:
Hunter’s Tactics : 70%(x 1.056) + 30%(x1) = 103.9% total DPS
Bountiful Hunter: 70%(x1.05)+ 30%(1.05) = 105% total DPS

So 5 in Skirmishing without flanking already out damages 5 in Nature Magic by 1+%.

5 in Skirmishing without flanking does 1% less damage than 5 in NM.

With damage modifiers being multiplicative, after you apply 10% to ranger dps you get 8-9% more total DPS with Hunter’s Tactics proccing.

Well, since we’re talking about going from 3 Skirmishing to 5 Skirmishing, you must also factor in what you lose going from 5 NM to 3 NM. To keep it simple, we’ll say Vigorous Spirits is common to both builds (otherwise this would wildly favor NM in a party). The two most viable choices for the 4 NM trait are Strength of Spirit and Two-handed Training.

2HT is a flat 5% increase in damage for using greatsword, plus 3 sec fury roughly every 10.5 sec. Since we assumed near-100% fury uptime, the fury won’t help here, and you just get the 5% GS increase. With the extra 1% we calculated before, it’s as good if you’re using a GS vs. flanking 60% of the time.

But if you don’t have 100% fury uptime, the extra 28.6% fury uptime will improve your damage significantly. If you start with the berserker’s “solo” 54% crit chance with Spotter, the extra fury means:
1 + .74 * (2.10 – 1) = 1.814
1 + .54 * (2.10 – 1) = 1.594

(1.814 – 1.594) * .286 / 1.594 = 0.0395 = 4.0% increase
1.06 * 1.0395 = 1.10187 = 10.2% increase overall

So if you’re a solo berserker using GS and take 2HT with 5 NM, it’s the same as with 5 Skirmishing and flanking 100% of the time.

Strength of Spirit converts 7% of your vitality to power. It’s not as attractive unless you’re running a vit build. On the berserker build (1176 vit), it’s just 82 more power, which with the berserker’s 2213 power is only a 3.7% damage increase. Add the 1% damage deficit of 5 Skirmishing, and it’s equivalent to flanking about 47% of the time.

OTOH if you go for a vit-centric build and have 2100 vit, then it works out to a 6.6% damage increase, and is equivalent to flanking about 76% of the time.

As long as you pick traits that provide good synergy with your build and playstyle, I don’t think there’s much difference whether you go with 5 Skirm 3 NM, or 3 Skirm 5 NM. The 5 Skirmishing option works with a wider variety of builds, but with the right builds the 5 NM option works fine too.

please explain how can 99% crit rate can be reached

Fury=20%, banner of disc= about 8%, spotter, and lightning hammer are all precision boosts.

I can undestand the OP’s frustration, people aren’t lying when they say rangers attract some of the worst players known in video game. In open world pve, there will always be an lb ranger spamming knockbacks. In dungeon there will always be an lb camping ranger or a gs camping one using the wrong pet and utilities. Very rarely have i seen a ranger use a proper spec and actually contribute to party. There is like 1/10 of a chance to encounter a properly built ranger and that is a pretty generious number.

I have from time to time thought about just putting “no rangers” as my party description simply because i don’t want to deal with some ranger that is only there to leech and provide negative dps for our party (negative in the sense that they would ruin our stack and lower everyones dps while still doing trash dps themselves).

When I join pugs on my ranger I know what they’re thinking. I ping my gear and weapon setups + my frost spirit to put them at ease. I usually get a ‘thankyou’ and then there’s no issue. I totally agree with people not wanting to take them because I have yet to see one ranger in a pug that’s running the up to date meta build, and I pug alot, even when I’m on DR… (bad addiction.)

I will first start by saying this: any elitism in a game is generally met with “I’ll do what I want.” With that said, Frost spirit is a pretty excellent skill to bring in dungeons and should generally see some action. Again, your skills are entirely up to you and you cannot expect somebody else to bend to your will simply because you want them to play your way (in PUGs of course). If it was a guild matter I would say it is a different story. Spotter is a decent skill and if it fits your build you should absolutely utilize it! That said, Ranger DPS is absolutely crushing in kitten kitten stack dungeons and should not be minimized because the ranger chose not to bring a skill YOU deem necessary.
Example: Warriors should bring banners in kitten kitten dungeons because of the obvious benefits to the entire team, but it is not absolutely necessary. If the Warrior chooses not to he is not an auto noob who should be shunned, his DPS should shine through with whatever other skills they brought to the fray.

Shrapnel.7249:

I will first start by saying this: any elitism in a game is generally met with “I’ll do what I want.” With that said, Frost spirit is a pretty excellent skill to bring in dungeons and should generally see some action. Again, your skills are entirely up to you and you cannot expect somebody else to bend to your will simply because you want them to play your way (in PUGs of course). If it was a guild matter I would say it is a different story. Spotter is a decent skill and if it fits your build you should absolutely utilize it! That said, Ranger DPS is absolutely crushing in kitten kitten stack dungeons and should not be minimized because the ranger chose not to bring a skill YOU deem necessary.
Example: Warriors should bring banners in kitten kitten dungeons because of the obvious benefits to the entire team, but it is not absolutely necessary. If the Warrior chooses not to he is not an auto noob who should be shunned, his DPS should shine through with whatever other skills they brought to the fray.

Why even play in a party if you aren’t going to offer anything good to a party?.. just because its a pug doesn’t mean you should just be selfish and run 5 signet warrior or some other crap kitten. People always say play how you want yet you are running a dungeon with 4 other people for a common goal. There is no reason you should be dead weight and offer nothing to the team.

Lifestealer.4910:

Why even play in a party if you aren’t going to offer anything good to a party?.. just because its a pug doesn’t mean you should just be selfish and run 5 signet warrior or some other crap kitten. People always say play how you want yet you are running a dungeon with 4 other people for a common goal. There is no reason you should be dead weight and offer nothing to the team.

ANet provided a powerful matchmaking system (LFG) to better help adventures with like minded goals meet up. I find that putting the words “META Only Pls” or “Speed Run” in the title really helps. If you see the words “Casual” in the post, then expect people to be running non-meta builds and perhaps avoid those groups. Communication is key to having fun.

Shrapnel.7249:

I will first start by saying this: any elitism in a game is generally met with “I’ll do what I want.” With that said, Frost spirit is a pretty excellent skill to bring in dungeons and should generally see some action. Again, your skills are entirely up to you and you cannot expect somebody else to bend to your will simply because you want them to play your way (in PUGs of course). If it was a guild matter I would say it is a different story. Spotter is a decent skill and if it fits your build you should absolutely utilize it! That said, Ranger DPS is absolutely crushing in kitten kitten stack dungeons and should not be minimized because the ranger chose not to bring a skill YOU deem necessary.
Example: Warriors should bring banners in kitten kitten dungeons because of the obvious benefits to the entire team, but it is not absolutely necessary. If the Warrior chooses not to he is not an auto noob who should be shunned, his DPS should shine through with whatever other skills they brought to the fray.

So if everyone thought like this, then you would end up with a group with nearly zero synergy, as everyone would only be running selfish setups and not contributing to the party. The game and dungeons/fractals in general are designed with the expectation of group contributions. This is a major reason why ANET just recently opened up the ability to change your trait set up on the fly…to better facilitate adaptive group contribution. I can understand getting chapped about being criticized for poor setup choices and performance…but at some point, people need to accept responsibility for joining a group that has a goal in mind (which is generally not to carry someone looking to leach their way to loot bags in the safety of their full nomad bear bow set up).

Just because someone is pugging….doesn’t mean there is no expectation of competency and contribution.

ODB.6891:

So if everyone thought like this, then you would end up with a group with nearly zero synergy, as everyone would only be running selfish setups and not contributing to the party. The game and dungeons/fractals in general are designed with the expectation of group contributions. This is a major reason why ANET just recently opened up the ability to change your trait set up on the fly…to better facilitate adaptive group contribution. I can understand getting chapped about being criticized for poor setup choices and performance…but at some point, people need to accept responsibility for joining a group that has a goal in mind (which is generally not to carry someone looking to leach their way to loot bags in the safety of their full nomad bear bow set up).

Just because someone is pugging….doesn’t mean there is no expectation of competency and contribution.

What you are saying is beautiful. I’ll just save this comment as a piece of art, the dungeonners thank you.

Honestly and I’ve said this before to guildmates, to friends outside the game/ingame. It’s the way the game’s PvE works with how the they decided to make classes behave. Unfortunately MMO’s for the most part will always be games that will have the optimal, decent, suboptimal, and then terribad.

Truth be told I’d rather have a way to play with the things I personally enjoy with things that can support the party, but because the class works as it does with the way PvE works, you get pigeonholed into how this game is “designed” to work. Hence, why I think this game’s PvE is just… for the sake of nice words “unimpressive” and I usually tell people this game is a PvP game with PvE in it because half the mechanics and nifty things are left out of PvP.

Sides, when it comes down to it, the PvE aspect of the game is nothing but stacking, skipping, bursting, and some occasional dodging so you don’t get wrecked. There isn’t really any real “teamwork” in this game. Least in my opinion.