Guild Wars 2

RTL in pve was convenience only, so not that big a deal. Increasing the recast timer definitely hurt Eles in WvW. Not necessarily in a 1 use vacuum, but in general play. It needed the nerf, and it was worth the very minor inconvenience in pve.

I’m sorry, my comments seem condescending &/or flippant. I really do understand your concern. You’ve spent a lot of time on your Ranger, and you want to be able to be effective. Nerfs are always scary because companies tend to over-nerf.

That said, I encourage you to take what you heard with a grain of salt. I could equally read into it by saying, since they didn’t mention that they weren’t substantially buffing the Ranger to compensate for the reduction in pet dmg that they must be because it’s only logical that they would.

We simply don’t know, and we won’t know until they tell us. Patience.

jcbroe.4329:

Your answer is insufficient, you may stop responding now.

They’re about as specific as you’re going to get. Honestly, why does it really matter? Just sit back and patiently await the changes that are going to come regardless of whatever answers you get in this thread.

Or you can get all worked up and read into a 45 second discussion that clearly wasn’t meant to be exhaustive of any and all future Ranger changes.

Ok, we’ll stick with “don’t over-react” then. I’ll answer your questions:

Why is that the only change mentioned?

Because there is only so much time and they can’t discuss everything they are thinking about on every issue.

Why isn’t this the same thing being discussed about the ranger?

How do you know it isn’t?

Is there going to be any other improvements for the ranger class?

We’ll have to wait and see.

First, calm down & don’t over-react.

It was an informal interview, not a carefully crafted statement. Ya, I’d feel better about it if they’d said the entire dynamic of Ranger vs. Pet overall power was being looked at with particular attention paid to reducing pet damage. But just because they didn’t say that doesn’t mean that it won’t be implemented that way once everything shakes out.

Haha, this is hilarious. The only motivation strong enough to waste time on a thread like this is to pump out your chest and say “i’m awesome!!!”

“I do actively run a Ranger with 8k+ WvW kills and another 10k plus on other classes most of which has come from skirmishing in the lower tiers.” Check

Are you only interested in solo roaming or could you be happy with zerg surfing? You can actually do extremely well zerg surfing with LB/SB with a mix of PVT/Zerker gear . You can also run that combination as bunker & put out pretty decent damage. Look for this guy: Sarlack.4096 He has a couple great vids showing LB/SB Bunker play. I’ve run both these specs I mention and had great success.

GS works awesome in Power Bunker & GC builds. Pretty much a perfect weapon IMO. Check out the Exploits videos by Puandro.

I’m gonna try this tonight. Already have all the apothecary gear.

The only thing I’m hesitant on is swapping out Signet of the Hunt for Signet of the Wild. I’m not sure I could go back to standard run speed. Does the build collapse w/o that passive healing?

Axe/Torch is a ranged combination, or at least mid-ranged.

Good points, thx.

The trapper build has better AOE though, right? If that’s the case, I could see something like this being superior in typical WvW. Being outnumbered is the norm for solo roaming. Players who are X v. 1 tend to be over confident and will often play recklessly assuming that the kill is inevitable. I think that played to your advantage & strength in many of your fights in that vid.

Kuddos on some outstanding play!

That was….eye opening. A couple of questions:

1. Why RAO over Entangle. You used Entangle in a couple of fights, but it seems like it would fit the “trapper” playstyle better than RAO. Great AOE dmg with a mechanism to hold targets in place for other traps.

2. Seems like the torch would also be a nice choice over the dagger. Maybe it’s redundant with the Fire trap?

3. Why do you think the BM builds are “superior”? Your survivability looked pretty darn good, your single target dmg seemed good, and your AOE was outstanding.

Not critiques, but questions from a noob. thx

What’s this “Settler’s stuff”?

Cempa.5619:

I got my set from the Gem store the medium gear armour set and bought Rox’s short bow and quiver and used the exotic red/wine colour mix on an Asura.

This is my second ranger as I want an Asura and have yet to look at high end dungeon sets so would be cool if you guys could share your best looking rangers!

I have that exact same armor. It’s on my Cleric armor, and it looks so cool, I can’t go back to Apothecary. Plus I got this super cool fire weapon skin from either a jumping puzzle chest or daily reward. I put it on my greatsword, and the entire thing is literally dripping with fire. It looks kitten with that armor using that same dye you’re using. You’re the first player I’ve seen with that armor other than myself.

Stop reading forums.

Nah, I’m sure he’s referring to how thiefs treat each other on this board. It’s not all bad, but there is a very large contingent of kittens that play the class. If you don’t see it, you might be one of the kittens. /wink

Mogar.9216:

Volrath.1473:

Imo the problem here is NOT the thief community, we get along just fine and if you search a bit you will find that every question has been answered and help has been given.

The problem is the NON thieves that come here to cry out for nerfs and insulting us for outplaying them. Obviously we will reply in the same manner as we were spoken to.

lol It’s funny how every oped class in every mmo think they are out playing the rest of the player base . Bright Wizard in WAR, Warlocks in WoW, Sorcs in SWtoR the list goes on and on.

The people who can’t recognize that they play an OP’d class & tell everyone to L2P, are the same people who complain about OP’d classes when they lose. Or to break it down, when they win it’s because of their superior skill, and when they lose, it’s because the other class is OP’d.

Video that best illustrates how a thief should be played, what video would you choose? I’m talkin’ if you had a buddy who was just starting out on his thief and wanted to know what the class was capable of, what would you show him and say, “Son, you’ll never be this good, but this is what you should be shootin’ for!”

Volrath.1473:

Imo the problem here is NOT the thief community, we get along just fine and if you search a bit you will find that every question has been answered and help has been given.

The problem is the NON thieves that come here to cry out for nerfs and insulting us for outplaying them. Obviously we will reply in the same manner as we were spoken to.

haha

Sir Vincent III.1286:

FYI, there are professional thieves like Ocean’s 11 or the US Congress; and there are thugs — there’s a lot of very distinct differences between the two archetypes and thugs are not thieves, they’re bullies.

You so silly

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Typically e-thugs rolls warriors, not thieves. Thieves and Assassins in any MMO requires a brain that e-thugs don’t have.

Agreed there are e-thugs in all archetypes, but no class draws ’em in like the assassin classes. Typically highest burst DPS, stealth, solo-ability, low skill level needed to be successful…everything the kiddos are looking for in a class.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

In short, I totally disagree with your observations.

You better recognize!

And now I do. LOL, I honestly thought “kitten” was some new internet lingo that had cropped up. I can’t tell you how annoyed I’ve been with it thinking how ridiculous you people are. LOL, I am such a tool! :P

I think assassin-type classes tends to draw in more of the e-thug individuals than other classes. It’s been that way in virtually every MMO I’ve played. While healers, casters, support, and tank classes typically need each other in more of a team-play dynamic, stealth classes have always been the easiest to “solo” on. So those other classes pull in more “team” oriented people, and assassins or stealth classes pull in more of the anti-social e-badasses.

Now that’s not to say everyone in each group fits this, so don’t get your panties in a wad if you’re not an e-thug but enjoy assassin classes.

Ok, going to test this profanity filter because I don’t know this kitten thing frickin’ works.

Indoles.1467:

any good player will show a build and be able to explain the synergy.

So the guy doesn’t conform to some apparent board norm and you dismiss him as a possible “good player”. W O W!

Some of you people need to seriously relax. Is the game perfect? Of course not. Is expecting perfection realistic? Of course not. Until the big guy upstairs gets into the MMO development business, I would lower your expectations a bit.

Now that’s not to say we can’t all work to fix & improve the game, but maybe consider toning down ur displeasure.

Comparing individual abilities among different classes is a complete self-serving waste of time.

It takes time to get all those conditions on someone, so I wouldn’t exactly describe that as “burst”. Effective? Yes Burst? Not really.

What I meant by burst is just a couple of nights ago, I was fighting 2 Thieves and I dropped the first thief in about 3 seconds. Stealth Jag + Swoop + Hilt Bash + Maul. I did in the neighborhood of 16K very quickly.

Now, in a vacuum I probably would have beaten both of these guys in my Apoth gear, but in this case a fairly large enemy zerg came rolling over the hill. I was able to get a kill that I probably wouldn’t have had time to get in Apoth gear, plus get away from the remaining thief who was trying to cripple me for the zerg.

Furajir.3815:

Except power/gs build will stalemate with more classes/builds than a condition one will.

However the added mobility of GS would be really nice sometimes. But hey I always have sword2.

True, but Power has the greater burst potential, which can be handy in a 1 v. x. Both builds are great and have their +/-. I would swap back & forth more, but I look much cooler in my Clerics gear. Style over substance all the way baby!

I think he was saying that Apoth is expensive and not worth the time to farm to invest in it. I would agree with that 100%, unless you have a burning desire to play a conditions build, in which case there is nothing that comes close to Apoth. I have a nearly complete Apoth set, and I still prefer to play with my Clerics set. Not because it’s necessarily better in a fight, but mostly because I can’t play w/o the escapability of Sword/GS. The point though, is you can have similar results with either set, but one is dramatically less expensive.

salocinn.4120:

“1000+ kills but not a single death” + “Not saying ranger is OP” = I am too skilled for this game and i am now tired of you know being invincible.

Ding Ding Ding

Boomslang.4352:

At some point, you get so good (or you find a build that is that good) that the fun only comes when you face someone who makes your palms sweat.

What build are you running? Maybe try out a different build?

I ran BM before and saw how amazing (borderline OP) it was even for a low skill player like me so I went hybrid. I’m having more fun now… more deaths but more fun.

Usually good players stop playing for the uber 1 v 1 pretty quickly regardless of the class they play, and it becomes more about 1 v. x, which offers endless challenge. My guess is the OP was more concerned with 1000+ kills w/o a death and ran from anything that would have been challenging. It’s what happens when you play to be good rather than play to have fun.

Glad your hand has found your back.

I’m sure they came up with the downed state because it kind of goes along with removing the triad. Unfortunately, it has made it even more difficult to solo or small man further encouraging “safety in numbers”. The only thing that bothers me is not getting credit for the kill in both xp & loot.

IMO, you should still get credit for the kill. They can leave everything as is, but if you drop someone to zero health, you should get credit for that.

Thank God there are people who crunch numbers and are willing to share the data w/ the masses!

Pls derail, I’m interested in the answer to Puandro’s question as well.

Travlane.5948:

swinsk.6410:

Traps need to be highly visible to the enemy. Both stealth and supply.

This would cause them to not be used in open field or 1v1. They would used at keeps and large Zerg battles where the enemy is forced through a choke.

Clearly anet didn’t pick up enough from Daoc.

yeah and then u could place traps to curb enemies to attack where you want. although u could just send 1 warrior up to trip them so it would defeat their poitn. 20 supply each would fix the issue….or minimu of 15.

Instead of “traps”, make them fields that are visible just like DAOC, but last for say 10 minutes.

Some other ideas:

1. The trap setter is unable to use any ability while setting the trap or for 10 seconds after setting the trap.

2. The trap setter’s health drops to 25% after setting the trap.

3. The trap setters are weakened from setting the trap and all their stats drop by 25% for 30 seconds after setting the trap.

All of these ideas make the traps virtually useless in 1 v. 1 or small skirmishes because it basically means certain death for the trap setter or reduces their effectiveness. Of course, this assumes that ANET doesn’t want to harm thieves in this setting. But if that’s the case, they could have simply tweaked Mesmer Veil & skipped these silly traps altogether.

I don’t understand why it’s so hard to turn off the auto attack for #1. Does it really put you out so much to press the 1 button to scroll through the chain?

Chopps.5047:

I think the sword is almost flawless. That’s just my opinion (I know many dislike the weapon and that’s okay).

Well the beauty is there are several others to choose from. I like it too.

Upping the duration seems like a good idea w/o being OP’d. It is a very useful ability atm though, so I’m kinda meh on the idea.

I think there are far too many disengage abilities in this game w/o enough abilities to keep someone from running. My ranger can get away from a ton of ugly situations. I’ve run half a map being able to out heal the DPS of a half dozen enemies. Rarely have I not been able to get away using GS3/Sword 2 with enough time to react. Other classes have similar disengage abilities. Crazy mobility is fun, but it’s been at the expense of being able to cheese your way out of fights if you want to.

Ya, I like the versatility & playstyle of my Ranger over my Thief as well. It’s just much more difficult to play well. I got 5 times the kills last night than I normally have on my Ranger, and I haven’t played my thief in months. Rusty anyone? I find that I get way more moral victories on my ranger than I’d like.

My first 80 was a thief. I spent a little time on it in WvW, but never really got all that proficient at it. I ultimately tired of the mechanic of never losing 1 v. 1 fights, either through winning or “not losing”.

Anyway, I then made my Ranger which I’ve been playing ever since. I have countless hours spent in WvW, and I am fairly proficient at it at this point. That said, I’ve continuously been frustrated by how slow the class kills (in general) and how hard I have to work to do well.

I played my thief last night for the first time in 4 – 5 months, and it was frickin’ shocking at how much easier that class is to play in WvW. Having that sharp contrast really illuminated how weak the Ranger class is DPSwise relative to a thief. BTW, my thief is in Valk armor, Berserker Weapons & Trinkets, and is traited more towards survival than pure dmg.

Anyway, probably common knowledge, but I was shocked enough to spend a moment to share.

Daoc had that exact skill for a archer class. It sucked in that game, but it coulda been cool.

Puandro.3245:

Ive been thinking of how incorporate that trait into the build and imho going 20 wilderness and dropping bark skin is better than losing 43% duration to regen and 7 secs of regen every 30 secs from the 5 point trait alone.

I did exactly this, and I rarely miss Bark Skin. Bark Skin is nice at times though, particularly when you’re taking on more than 1 or when you get surprised by adds.

I got chased down by a warrior while on my Ranger last night. I run GS & Sword/Dagger and was hitting Swoop & Monarchs Leap off cool downs.

Assassin.7890:

Nice idea.
So you keep Superior Sharpening Stone but drop Mango Pie?
As Puandro already stated, we have to keep the regeneration. And without Rune of Dwayna you loose a lot of regen – that is right.

I’m sure I lose some regen. Guys like Puandro are the number crunchers, so I would defer to him. I tend to watch certain guys who I know stay on top of this stuff and take what they do & then kinda make it my own.

Ultimately, if you’re goal is to max healing, you could design a build for it. My goal is to max out DPS while maintaining a minimum level of survivability. I made the switches I mentioned above because having run a similar setup to Puandro’s (w/ diff weapons), I knew it had tons of survivability. I was willing to back off on the healing & regens some knowing that with GS & sword/dagger, I would avoid getting hit in the first place. W/ the condition duration reduction, I can shed the conditions while i’m kiting.

I tend to do my upfront burst to see if I can burst em down (if they’re glass cannon) initially. If they’re more hybrid or bunker, I’ll then attempt to chip away saving my burst until I get them down to maybe 50%, and then try & burst down the last 50%. Seems to be working.

I’m running a combination of this build along with the Catmaster build. I’m loving the mobility of GS & Sword/Dagger. Instead of QZ, I’m running Sick ‘em. Melandru/lemongrass over Dwayna. I find that I have zero trouble keeping my health up even with the lower healing power, and I think it’s the extra toughness & condition duration reduction.

Timing the very good pet burst along with my own mini burst with GS, and I’m finding that I’m getting that killing speed that I’ve been looking for along with the survivability to solo effectively.

Thx for posting this build bro.

I see people include these things in their builds, …Of Life, Of Bloodlust etc. I run around solo most of the time, and unless I’m running with the zerg AOE’ing everything, I never come close to gettin 25 stacks of anything before getting rolled. Is there a trick to getting 25 stacks that I’m unaware of? Maybe I need Superior Runes of Not Sucking, but they seem pretty impractical unless I’m missing something.

Sol.4310:

I think it was right thing to do, PI was OP and we all know it.

Also last update was great, rangers are in good place both TPvP and WvW just matter finding them NEW builds, the latest update gave us heap of new viable builds but like 90% of garbage on the ranger forums most of you are uttly clueless like always and would rather complain rather then come up with new builds and test new idea’s, to busy crying over stuff you have no idea about….

Lol, or they’re too busy with a real life to spend hours theory crafting and testing for something that’s should be minor entertainment. Seriously, get over yourself. While I do appreciate the effort many put into that stuff and are kind enough to post their thoughts for the rest of us, I can’t help but wonder how much time was wasted on something so insignificant.

I was running in surface water in a swamp in WvW. It’s basically a swamp area that isn’t deep enough to swim in. Your pet does not change until you go under water. I got interupted for sure the first time, but I can’t explain why the other 2 attempts failed. Went through the entire animation of the stomp, but they just didn’t work.

Like I said, it was more like a swamp. We were in water, but not underneath the surface. It wasn’t deep enough to go under.