Guild Wars 2

When I wear mine around I’m still bothered by its lack of out of combat effects and the size of its puddles for a 2h weapon.

They’ll just release an expansion and people will come back, I do hope for competitive spvp improvements to occur way before that of course though so it reflects what it should have been at release.

They’re kinda like big hammers.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

We tried giving them reduced damage from AOE/attacks, and it opened up other problems – mainly that a team of 2 rangers could take on almost any boss in a dungeon by smart swapping of pets and letting the pet take aggro. It’s unfortunate, but we can’t just increase and decrease numbers until pets are perfect – we’ve tried really hard, but numbers are not going to fix pets without letting them break everything. We have to look deeper into mechanics, AI, player actions, and skills.
As much as they seem vestigial, the “attack” and “return” keybinds are really the only thing that can give the player any control, and they can be a bit unwieldy. I would recommend though that if you have never tried using those keybinds, try them out the next time you’re in a dungeon, your pet will thank you for it.
Also, I find that a ranged pet does better in dungeons. My typical pet setup for dungeons is Hyena (because having 2 knockdowns and another hyena is super good), and a Drake (almost any). I know this is contradictory to what I just said about ranged pets being good, but I use the keybinds a lot and that dramatically increases survivability when taking 2-3 hits is all you want the pet to do.
Spiders and devourers can be really good to bring because of the fact that they are ranged. Devourers have an escape from melee ability as well, and spiders have CC, which helps keep them alive while you reposition and pet-swap (or return) in a more favorable place. Tankier pets require more management, but once you get there and know how to use it (in combination with pet swap), you’ll find you’re not facing the death cooldown as often as before.
That and you can name your spiders “Cuddles” and your devourer “Citizen Snips” and get a good laugh out of people’s reactions.

I manage cats w/o them dying on lupi, I don’t really see how tanky pets require more management. I’d love to see more ranged pets added eventually though, I think we need bees that shoot their stingers (continuing with the bug/arachnid thingies = ranged theme). That and sharks with lasers attached to their frickin’ heads for underwater fights.

But really, the current ranged pets are rather limited on their stat types and I also find a lot of issues with pet swapping (as a beastmaster in melee range for sword) where the pet will not immediately target your target/attack after you swap. They basically waste the entirety of the quickness buff if you have the trait.

There are dungeons where pets just have no chance, like CoE p2/3 alpha. I know there are more but I can’t think of them at the moment. The thing is though, If you’re any good at pet management it’s normally not an issue in pretty much all normal cases.

I personally find the issue with ranger is that the weapons are all incredibly boring/slow/based entirely on autos.

If wvw offered any worthwhile rewards it might see a surge on Mag but even then most of our players are gone by 4am until 3pm est.

Maybe this is related to the issue?

Busy clarifying mesmer portals so mesmers don’t get upset, clarifying a lack of updates on fixes to a class isn’t as easy though.

JonPeters.5630:

No it just means that the entrance to a portal must be on the opposite side of a wall from the exit in order for players to portal past that wall. Used to be you could put both inside and then jump in from the outside without having to create a portal on the outside.

Meanwhile, in the ranger forum!

I feel sad every time I see this thread still on the front page. I hope the upcoming update has something at least.

I still prefer the more damage focused build with soldier runes, can easily build up sigil of accuracy stacks and swap to a weapon with a normal sigil after, used truffle ravioli/master’s maint oil but no accuracy stacks on. Prefer maining hammer obviously, I could see the benefits of going as high in vit/toughness as the build suggests in wvw since zergs can be pretty aggressive with culling surprise attacks now though.

Solandri.9640:

AjoraOaks.3659:

A pet’s f2 should not need to be spammed and commands should at least make the pet run STRAIGHT to you/at the enemy immediately.

Actually you want the pet to lead the enemy – run where the enemy is headed, not where it is right now. They already have this code for ranged attacks (if you shoot arrows at a moving target, you fire at where the target will be when the arrow reaches him). So it should be pretty simply to copy and paste it into the pet AI.

They also need to tweak the attack distance to take into account target movement and skill activation time. Right now most pets will chase, stop to attack, oops target moved out of range, resume chase, stop to attack, oops target moved out of range, repeat.

There’s some issues with the pet’s attack command after swaps where the pet waits around and also for pathing where it’ll take the longest route possible at times. I’m not even thinking as far ahead as you are based on lack of response to ranger issues, I doubt even what is buggy will be fixed much less improved upon.

I don’t even wanna go into how closely pets follow, my pet runs away from me.

It was obviously a dodge so they didn’t have to give an answer.

A pet’s f2 should not need to be spammed and commands should at least make the pet run STRAIGHT to you/at the enemy immediately. A simple fix for lots of pet issues imo; just change the protection for pet trait into a 2 second invuln (no stacking) on your dodge that goes to the pet. There you go, an “evade” for pet… and I can’t think of a single reason that’d be unbalanced honestly. It makes your bond with your pet seem stronger and it sounds fun that your pet would technically dodge with you.

Izuna.5307:

I firsted started off in august when i got dawn from forge got a bunch more precursors which i ended up only making 4 legendaries but my final one i completed today sunrise which i completed frostfang a month ago

I think most people that really wanted legendary weapons only have 1-2, maybe 3. Grats on your 4th, I suggest spending more time in English class instead of crafting legendary weapons though.

they should probably remove the option to salvage a legendary item… I’m pretty sure no one wants to salvage their legendary items, ever.

I suggest never looking at these forums for advice on ranger, but if you really want advice… spec into your pet rather than your ranged, some people do things like 20/20/0/0/30 (bow dmg + pet) 0/25/15/0/30 (pet protection) or 0/20/20/30 or 0/30/20/0/20 etc etc.. lots of variations to fit your playstyle.

If you know how to manage your pet you’ll easily be much stronger. None of our ranged sets can even be compared to the dmg of pistol thief at the moment. Unload easily beats rapid fire + it can be spammed… and shortbow isn’t much to talk about.

Also
“3) Pets. Useful in support or to distract a boss. If he just soaks up a few hits that your Warrior or Guardian doesn’t have to take, he’s done his job. Also each pet has various special abilities that can be used in support or in attack.”

^ Is what people with useless bears in dungeons think. Your pet’s job is to do dmg, not to soak up dmg, they wouldn’t give rangers dmg equal to other classes + a pet, just think about it. Use a cat or a bird, birds have more vitality and the same precision as cats but cats are a better source of conditions on top of raw dmg for pve.

so basically improving pet AI was compared to being a crazy super powered warrior (the most oped class already) with 2 great swords?

Dantaeus Heardt.5730:

Hey soooo no word from Jon yet? How about some communication!

They usually don’t like communicating about upcoming class balancing/fixes. It’s odd but whatever they think makes their customer’s happy I guess. My best guess is that ranger has nothing coming up for it at the moment.

I like the patch so far, I think the problem is people really got attached to dying and getting up right away so they didn’t feel any shame for it. Now they’re down till they get picked up slowly and can feel like the burden they usually are. There are lots of ways to rez people safely on bosses but maybe the range, speed, traits for rezing, or utility of rez abilities should be improved so they aren’t so awful people won’t go near them. (at least for pve)

They’re obviously just building up suspense for a fix to aquatic pets, Aquaman won’t have anything on ranger.

Zenith.7301:

AjoraOaks.3659:

Keep in mind pets can really be very strong already though, I’m not sure about how balanced it would be really. My assumption is that they wanted the traits to be “sigils” for pets, letting pets use your stats would be good enough. Also, the 90% dmg reduction for aoe seems rather popular but I think it’d end up making pets set it and forget it which I don’t think is their plan for ranger honestly.

I use 0/30/10/0/30 for extra pet survivability/dmg/etc atm

Sometimes I think these posts come from people who roam 1v1 in WvW or spvp and feel strong because they’re a good dueling class.

I’m talking PvE, specifically dungeons, where AoE and frontloaded damage is king.

Nope, I spend most of my time online running dungeons. Arah, CoE, CoF, etc., CoE obviously doesn’t work well for hunters but I still don’t see them making pets nearly immune to aoe.

Keep in mind pets can really be very strong already though, I’m not sure about how balanced it would be really. My assumption is that they wanted the traits to be “sigils” for pets, letting pets use your stats would be good enough. Also, the 90% dmg reduction for aoe seems rather popular but I think it’d end up making pets set it and forget it which I don’t think is their plan for ranger honestly.

I use 0/30/10/0/30 for extra pet survivability/dmg/etc atm

Very close to the build I’m currently using and with a jaguar, I’m playing around with 0/30/10/0/30, same things except I’ve been testing compassion training vs speed training vs master’s bond in beastmastery and I prefer agility training so I can roll with the hp regen signet and my pet won’t get juked as easily. I use 10 into survival for my survivability when I need dodges and I’ve been testing expertise training vs wilderness knowledge (always coupled with shout master). Shout master & wilderness knowledge are good choices for pve imo, coupled with the pet swap quickness you get quite a lot of burst dmg from the quickness spam in pve situations.

My other thoughts for personal builds were 0/30/5/15/20 or maybe 0/20/5/15/30

Best thing about using the jaguar is that it can completely sneak up to people in WvW at times because pets are ignored so often that they don’t expect it when it stealths and then suddenly they’re getting crit for 3-4k+ spam with quickness/sick’em.

Well there is a way, fortifying boons gives your boons to your pet, just I get the feeling you’re probably not in the beastmastery or nature traitline. Anyways though, just remember that if you ask for sigils (gonna leave runes out cause I have my doubts about that) to apply to anything other than main weapons expect that thing to get its dmg nerfed by 30% cough cough

Chopps.5047:

AjoraOaks.3659:

cipherus.7052:

I agree with Chopps here. I’ve been playing this class in my spare time since my Guardian has gotten dull, and I wanted to visit these forums for neat builds and tips but much to my dismay it’s only filled with constant whining and complaining.

It really just turns me off this class, despite the fact that I love my little ranger and his playstyle. I wish there was a separate subforum here for complaints and gripes about rangers.

I laughed when I read neat builds and tips… can continue blaming the people but I figure if the class didn’t have so many issues (especially with pets and then traits following that) you’d see less complaints about complaints and complaints about ranger. Considering how ranger is at the moment the reverse would work better, complaints being the main forum while they keep a lil sticky at top saying build ideas (sound familiar?).

I have many good builds, I just haven’t revealed them yet because the fact that no one uses ranger and no one believes in them works to the favor of my guild. But for the reason you stated I’ve been working to change that, although I’m not sure if that thread is a good place to go because there’s a lot of bad information in there. I will post a video in the near future explaining how to play this class.

In my opinion, the reason why people think it is broken is because it has one of the steepest learning curves in the game when it comes to dungeons or WvW. The reason is because ANET, rather than gimp pets by giving them AI (see necros), they give us the control. We are responsible for making the pet make good decisions. So now you have to control two characters.

Not only that, there’s differences like 30/30/10/0/0 not actually being, necessarily, the highest DPS build. This common glass cannon build (where pets die very, very easily) is a big reason why people have the misperception that pets are squishy.

I give the community another couple months to figure this out, particularly as people begin to level ranger after having mained something else.

Another thing that throws people off is the fact that if you use default keybindings, you’re going to have a bad day. More so than any other profession, using default keybindings will severely limit your potential as a ranger.

PS: As a teaser, I’ve had success with the following traitlines:

0/30/20/0/20

0/0/30/10/30

0/20/0/30/20

10/0/30/0/30

0/0/30/10/30

0/0/30/30/10

I’m sure I’m missing a few…I will elaborate on these later.

Pretty much what I went with when I began to play ranger again;
0/30/20/0/20, 0/30/10/0/30 and 0/30/5/15/20 although pets are still going to der de der around, not respond well to commands/f2 at times and not follow you closely etc. etc… there are methods to quickly remove a pet from danger using swaps but I still have negative impressions of ranger even with testing into various trait lines

Lunchbox.9543:

Scootabuser.4915

I don’t play hunters

I can tell you don’t play Rangers. I can also make the presumption that you don’t understand how the class works, beyond the argument that it is inferior to your Thief because you can kite something as well, or better, than a Ranger. That’s your opinion, and that’s fine. But I know my Ranger can take a punch, my Thief can’t. In this not-so-perfect world with lag, distractions, and interruptions, the inevitable conclusion is that you’re going to get hit. People will go down. Decisions have to be made. Risks are taken.

As for your DPS remarks, Rangers are a sustained, attrition-based class. We have no burst capability beyond Rapid Fire.
Our true power lies in conditions, I don’t know any other class that can maintain burning, poison and over 15 stacks bleeding on foes.
Let’s do the math here, using gear and traits that stack condition damage, a superior sigil to push it above 1500 condition damage, and using condition duration boosts. Weapons are Shortbow, Axe & Torch.

• 84 + (1500*0.1) = 234 dps from poison
• 328 + (1500*.25) = 703 dps from burning
• 42.5 + (1500*.04) = 117.5 dps per stack of bleeding, or 1762.5 at 15 stacks

Grand total: 2699.5 dps*
Total with 25 stacks of Might: 3662 dps**

*this does not include damage from attack skills, pets, traits or utility skills or benefit of Might.
**Might calculated at level 80

MaRko.3165

To conclude, we are not universally hated or useless. If you feel that way play another class.

Engineer can do burning, poison, chill, blind, 15-20+ stacks of bleed, good aoe dmg, and 15-20 stacks of vulnerability with grenades… and yes rangers aren’t hated but they are basically the least desirable class right now.

2k isn’t heavy hitting, just saying.

Fixing F2 responsiveness (which is almost non-existent) and pet AI (pretty close to non-existent despite commands) should be more important than just about any additions or changes to current f2s/skills/signets.

I wouldn’t expect it, not even a vague idea lately what’s going on.

Toxyn.9608:

Our guild group does not skip anything that will award a chest, wonder bag, or karma. We do skip any trash possible because the time vs reward for it is terrible. If say, trash in dungeons dropped level-equivalent materials (T6 at level 80), you could bet your kitten we would crawl through and decimate everything.

Pretty much what I’ve suggested at some point, including the addition of a chance at wonder bags from random mobs. Going back to OP… path of least resistance, as you commonly hear, is obviously going to happen unless there’s rewards great enough to encourage killing and honestly I’m fine with some skipping but I really detest abusing boss AI/blind spots, well here’s hoping to some kind of fun revamps eventually.

cipherus.7052:

I agree with Chopps here. I’ve been playing this class in my spare time since my Guardian has gotten dull, and I wanted to visit these forums for neat builds and tips but much to my dismay it’s only filled with constant whining and complaining.

It really just turns me off this class, despite the fact that I love my little ranger and his playstyle. I wish there was a separate subforum here for complaints and gripes about rangers.

I laughed when I read neat builds and tips… can continue blaming the people but I figure if the class didn’t have so many issues (especially with pets and then traits following that) you’d see less complaints about complaints and complaints about ranger. Considering how ranger is at the moment the reverse would work better, complaints being the main forum while they keep a lil sticky at top saying build ideas (sound familiar?).

Casey.9687:

AjoraOaks.3659:

Their pathing is pretty awesome too.

this is sarcasm right?

Heavy sarcasm warning, yes.

Their pathing is pretty awesome too.

Turning into a forgotten class, well maybe something will show up soon but it’s been pretty disappointing and I haven’t wanted to finish my ranger when I could be playing other classes that have a better feel.

Malediktus.9250:

AjoraOaks.3659:

Malediktus.9250:

Juggernaut could be improved.

Pretty much, it could use a weapon trail or maybe they could work on the chromatic effect so it looks better in dungeons, I like the chromatic in some areas though.

Maybe better footsteps? The current ones are so small compared to the greatswords.
And chromatic effect should always stay when the weapon is equipped. My armor looks like kitten compared to when chrome effect is added.

Footsteps are one of the smallest despite being covered in our quicksilver, you’d think we’d make giant messy puddles everywhere we go….. there’s a bug I’ve been able to do where the juggernaut will make a “weapon trail” while I run. http://i.imgur.com/iyerJi9.jpg < that’s what I wanna see and not just cause it’s bugged

Malediktus.9250:

Juggernaut could be improved.

Pretty much, it could use a weapon trail or maybe they could work on the chromatic effect so it looks better in dungeons, I like the chromatic in some areas though.

I’m really hoping for one for the juggernaut, other than the armor effect (which turns you completely mud chromatic in most dungeons) you barely notice the legendary weapon itself.

randomfightfan.4091:

Are the Lupi circles going to get fixed any time soon? As it stands, the player can get wrecked by aoes while standing clearly outside of the circles. Why have ground aoe circles if they lie to the player?

Because it’s more important that players can’t skip things. I suggest invuln/block/gap closers (in this case for gaining distance) for Lupi’s random aoe, the circles still generally are “sorta” correct still though…

Slightly disappointed with the size for asurans, just cause we’re small doesn’t mean we carry little stuff! In other words, I think the backpack could be a lil bigger for Asurans.

Just noticed my quaggan backpack disappears temporarily on Asura whenever I do an emote, foo!

good point, I would figure back pieces would go chromatic as well. Managed to make the bug happen again pretty easily, here’s a screenshot of what it looks like while running around. http://i.imgur.com/iyerJi9.jpg I think it looks pretty good, even the moa likes it.

I noticed earlier that sometimes my juggernaut would have the quicksilver splash effect effect bug after I attacked and the drip/splashy quicksilver effect would continue to pour out as a sort of weapon trail as I ran. As I watched I noticed how much cooler it looked this way and I began to wonder why can’t this be the way it really looked normally.
Juggernaut is a really cool legendary but sometimes I don’t even feel the weapon itself looks very special at all compared to the twilight/sunrise/bifrost at least.

Anyways, just a suggestion, but I think a quicksilver weapon trail for running would add more appeal to the weapon.

I actually find mobs that offer the pouches with tokens/gold/karma in them worth the time, maybe it’d be nice if trash had a decent chance of dropping them as well?

TA trash mobs deserve to be skipped though, just…. meh, that whole dungeon isn’t fun overall. Knights are just overpowered in so many ways, even with retaliation + protect, they’ll just one shot anyone nearly.

Clocktower took me 10 tries, this one only took me 2… eh well, I think it was fun just too easy. If anything I’d say it was the snowflakes, hopping between them was way too easy. The candy canes probably are the hardest for some people, the presents exploding near the end and the snowballs might slow some people down enough to die. I can see some people having trouble in these places I guess.

Tatania.2704:

Wizardauz.3761:

morrolan.9608:

Ebay camping YB spawn point in maguuma BL, very classy move guys.

Thank you

I dont understand this move by EB. Are you being paid by Maguu to camp our spawn at their BL? It doesnt benefit you otherwise…

Why not go to their borderlands then?

Dolores.5471:

Bunzy.8674:

I wanted to let everyone know that I actually found 1 decent player on CD for the first time

Still looking for a magoooommaaaa one that can take down my ele.

Well, let’s be fair… if anyone were about to take you down on ele you’d hit your mist form run then go air attunement and hit 4 as fast as you can. But I’ve taken down lots of eles from CD so far anyways, mainly because their opening combo is so predictable… air > 4 > 5 earth > 4 > 5… well, that’s what those normal dumb d/d ele I see from CD try all the time anyways.

Raincrow.1840:

Archer.1658:

[Edit] you wipe every time when its equal numbers, don’t kid yourself. Lol

I’m starting to see why Mag and Ebay can’t get along. To many of you making posts like this, and showing no respect for the people you’re going up against.

As a CD player I see larger zergs wipe against our smaller groups all the time. It happens on every server.

Mag is very good with the siege weapons in the lords room / inner keep and CD tend to be very single goal minds, often pounding on the same spot for hours. It’s one of our flaws, but also one of our strengths in that we don’t give up easily.

But to come in here and make claims that we’re an “unskilled zerg server” is just silly. If we’re so unskilled and easliy wiped by smaller groups…. why don’t you have more points on the board?

So if you pound on something for hours and call it a flaw that means its not unskilled or zerg-like, interesting… well anyways… anything else interesting going on?

Maguuma fits what you’re looking for pretty well, at least in my opinion. I found it more fun to wvw on than other large servers. Anyways, hope you find some place that works for your guild.

I was rather disappointed with the lag/dc issues in general for the event, I think if Anet can’t handle bringing us the event without lag/bugs/dc issues then they should forget the whole one-time deal.

If this was such a large-scale issue they shouldn’t be working on a solution to do hand outs but rather just let people (considering oceanic time zones really got hurt by this especially) get a chance to do this event again and possibly ENJOY it. All they’d have to do is keep the zone active, re-run the event for a day every 2-3 hours or something, limit chest in some manner, maybe shorten that reinforcements phase, and watch people praise them for doing something that let everyone have a fair chance.

Well, it’s just a thought.

Honestly no clue how GW2 is making any money off their store at the moment, I feel like I wasted time looking at it usually.