Guild Wars 2

Yeah the burnout is pretty noticeable for a lot of people right now. Who knows how the new year will be.

Also, Blackgate is on its what, 10th week in a row taking 1st?
As much as people don’t want to admit it, that does lead to lack of wvw participation as well. (From both the winning and losing sides).

JaredKincade.9761:

There’s more JQ in this thread posting than SOS.

Dude, there’s nothing else for us to do. One can only read so many magumma posts before subjecting themselves to semantic satiation. Besides, this thread has more drama.

This is just as boring for us on JQ as it is frustrating for you guys on Mag and TC. I don’t think you’ll find a single person who doesn’t want the 3 T1 servers to be in there own seperate league.

Dude I got a memo from the king of the internet.

In the past 3 days I have killed over 4000 magumma roamers on my level 21 hammer / scepter/torch guardian without dying.

It’s true because I posted about it on a forum and anyone who denies it is a clear troll that should go back to farming the krait event.

Raine.1394:

I dusted her off recently and tried a melee build S/F-GS and I just destroy stuff.

All those deadly sword / focus rangers.

I’m assuming you meant warhorn as it looks similar to a focus.

All the servers in this match-up have good players; they are called warriors.

I am staying on topic. I am stating what JQ wanted when we saw the matchups for season 1, and since this thread is technically about the server matchups in season 1, I am very much on topic. We wanted a victory for BG in week 1, a 2nd place for us, and a 3rd for SoR. That way week seven would be competitive. As it stands now though, threads like this galvanize hardcore animosity towards JQ against something we had no control over, and SoR played that into their favor and guaranteed themselves a season 1 gold.

Finally, I politely ask you to please stop trying to moderate threads. Allow the moderators to pass their own judgement on what is on and off topic.

I will now quote the forum rules for you:

“If you wish to report a post, use the Report Post button located on the post in question. Please, do not create a new forum thread linking to posts or threads that you feel should be moderated. Reported posts will be reviewed by the moderator staff and addressed as necessary.”

If you think I am off-topic please report my posts instead of violating one of the forum codes of conduct and posting about it in a thread.

Dude monsoon I am staying on topic. This entire thread is about jq vs bg vs sor and how the match-ups were determined and theories on victories. I am not harassing or making fun of you in any way, so don’t play that whole “my dad is gonna sue you” card.

In fact, trying to bait another poster into infractions is considered more report worthy then whatever I wrote in my above post.

Monsoon.2589:

Not an easy week at all whatsoever…

Lol Monsoon, no offense to your server, but Blackgate seriously blew it big time in week 1. You are all touting how smart you guys are and how you got 1st, but if you glance at the spreadsheet above you will see why JQ wanted a different outcome in week 1.

JQ wanted this result at the end of week 1: BG 1st, JQ 2nd, SoR 3rd. We knew you guys couldn’t handle SoR in any of your matchups, and handing SoR a 3rd place would of made it tougher for them to take first in league. Instead in all your brilliance you guys decided to hardcore 2v1 JQ after we caught up within 2k points of SoR and pretty much handed SoR league gold.

It’s funny though, because now that BG is losing hard to SoR in week 2, and actual spreadsheets have been posted with actual matchup results math, most people on BG have finally realized how badly they screwed up. SoR took you guys for a huge ride.

I feel ripped off; I came here expecting some seriously funny trolls.

Would be priceless and totally awesome if this very thread only had one reply for the entire match-up week, but that is currently impossible as I just posted something.

Enough with the 2v1 bickering, it has happened to all three servers this week; no single server can proclaim innocence in this regard.

The real problem is blobbing and what it’s done to T1. Instead of servers trying new things and splitting up forces, we are all so obsessed with winning league that we would rather blob around a map and lag it to oblivion. And for what? Bragging rights on a forum? A special finisher? Who knows and who cares, because it’s coming at the expense of actual enjoyment, and weeks of struggling to press auto-attack is not my idea of a good time.

This is great, we should roll with this.

1. Activated pet skills take several seconds to activate, if they even activate at all.
-Steps to reproduce: Press F2

Sic’Em is bugged at the moment as it’s supposed to apply a 600 radius AOE 6 second reveal centered around the ranger. J. Sharp personally told me he wanted it to act this way and you have to believe me because I never lie. He also told me you forgot sync up the ranger weapon buffs to perfoce and should hotfix the situation right away.

Lunchbox.9543:

It’s not hypocritical, it’s ironic.

Actually it is hypocritical of one profession to call another profession out for ganking unprepared people if said profession is by definition designed to gank the unprepared.

Irony is when the literal definition is the exact opposite or dissimilar to the figurative definition. I can use the perfect example found in a book called the lottery. Everyone reading the book thought that the winners of the lottery would be getting some sort of prize (the figurative definition of winning the lottery) when in actuality the winners of the lottery were stoned to death (the literal meaning of winning the lottery in the book).

Yeah but then everyone will just run condi builds as that will be the “best” way to take down bosses.

They really messed up and it was a huge oversight on their part by adding in two ways to deal damage (power and conditions) yet only giving one of those sources an extra way to boost it’s potential through precision and crit damage.

Honestly, at this point, the only way they could fix things is if they made toughness reduce condition damage, removed most if not all condition removals (should only have a few per class) let conditions crit and add a new stat called condition crit damage. Bam problem fixed. Two sources of damage dealing, both effected by toughness so pvp/wvw doesn’t become grossly imbalanced, and remove most classes condition removal abilities to balance the whole, power damage is negated by block and reflect and condition damage is negated by condition removal. Both would be effected by toughness obviously.

Chopps.5047:

Yeah, decklan, they don’t care about fast boss kills. You’re right, of course. It’s not like every zerker group is killing lupicus in 15seconds, first of all. But more to the point, ANET designed a pvp game then added PvE to it. There is no trinity. This is more like an action RPG game. If you get hit, you die. That’s pretty much how it’s designed.

I think it’s a design problem overall, ya know? How do we incorporate conditions and tanky gear and still make pve fun? I haven’t seen a convincing proposal on how to do this. So, basically, it’s always going to be this way as far as I can tell.

Yes but the potential is there. I actually think players learn more in a dungeon pve setting when they completely max out their damage potential and apply it correctly with the multitude of free support their class might bring (by free support I mean you don’t have to invest in any specific type of gear to make something like For Great Justice apply it’s effects) instead of running around and range kiting lupicus for 15 minutes while dodge rolling everything.

What is more skillful in your eyes?
1 – Max toughness/vitality mesmer face tanking lupicus and dodge rolling his life drain OR a max DPS mesmer throwing down feedback at the right time and reflecting the life drain back onto his face? I tend to favor the latter.

In fact, I don’t even know if a mesmer can still feedback the life drain. It’s been a long time since I ran arah and forgot if they changed any of Lupi’s mechanics.

RyuDragnier.9476:

Aetherblade portion of TA says “Hi”. Conditions, tanks, and support are incredibly useful there while straight up zerkers are less than effective.

When it first came out sure, people were still figuring out the mechanics, but right now it, along with the rest of the dungeons in the game, have fallen into the zerk trap.

Sparki and Slick – My group of friends and I literally stack both of these guys on top of eachother, drop a timewarp and go to town. We kill them before the fume stacks really even matter and the ooze has a very predictable attack animation that is easy to avoid. Zerker gear wins here outright.

Foreman Spur – Once again, predictable attacks, can down him very fast with a group of full zerkers. Zerker gear wins again on this fight.

Clockheart – No amount of tanking gear is going to save you from his kill shot. Also condition damage is bad when pulling as if you are a class that procs a burn (necro, engi) then the hologram generally dies before it gets anywhere near clockheart. Once again, dodge roll appropriately and DPS him down after exploding a hologram. Zerker gear once again wins out right.

So, with that said, I fail to see how Conditions, Tank, or Support are any better than a full group of five zerkers in any dungeon path anywhere; and that is just how the game is designed.

All professions have access to all of their utilities regardless of whether they spec for tank or condition or damage. Both a PVT Ranger and a Zerker Ranger can take frost spirit. Both A PVT warrior and a Zerker Warrior can take banners/shouts etc. Healing scales so poorly that it isn’t worth gearing for it (healing power), and when it did on a few skills (Engineers Elixir Gun) anet literally nerfed it in a month. Yes you heard it right, for one brief month there was actually a “cleric/healer” type profession in the game.

It’s almost as if they are extremely happy with 14 second Lupicus kills and 6 minute CM clears and new content just getting destroyed by groups of zerkers. If they wanted anything different they would make it so bosses couldn’t be critically hit, had unique mechanics with CC (for example what if one boss HAD to be blinded before a big move) had actual aggro tables and scaled healing power a lot better for support builds, but things like these just lead to balancing nightmares.

Just the simple change to healing power scaling would completely shift the entire pvp/wvw meta into unkillable healing bunkers where everyone would be required to slot sigil of doom and bring multiple sources of poison application.

Anyway, this is getting WAY off topic, so to summarize; Pure dps kills things faster and everything a boss tosses at you can be avoided by a simple dodge mechanic therefore it is more beneficial to go pure DPS in any dungeon in the game.

Have to wait and see how it will function.

I’m hoping it will be a short duration aoe centered around the pet that puts on 4 or more seconds of reveal. If it’s tied to the pet actually hitting the thief, then I think there are far too many ways to mess it up, making it an extremely risky utility to slot as it could be easily countered and wasted by the ranger.

Sanduskel.1850:

I don’t consider slang to be acceptable. Note that the approved usage as a noun is failure, and as an adjective is failed.

You might want to reword your sig to fall in line with your acceptable standards.

Really interesting build, do you think there is a version without celestial that would work?

Reason I’m asking is because I want to try out a build that utilizes both power and bleed damage for roaming and only have enough charged crystals for a few celestial pieces (Laurels aren’t really an option either as I’ve spent most of those as well).

Speaking of which, I really wish they removed the charged crystal requirement for celestial and just made it some other thing I could buy/farm.

Oh, for PvE just pick any server where your friends are, even if it’s empty, because twice a day you can guest transfer to a higher pop server to complete the harder events (like orr temples).

http://mos.millenium.org/na

Look at that matchups and decide which ones you think will be the most enjoyable. It will be expensive though as the higher pop servers cost a lot of gems to transfer to and you seem to be seeking more fights, not less.

Chopps, how does your build fair against a warrior with Mobile Strikes?

Chellanius.7526:

You missed my point, however, how many people use it is irrelevant. The point is it’s there and people are free to use it if they so choose.

If a thief decides he won’t use a sword to rip boons from guardians, does that mean he should get more other skills that do?

So you’re saying the only counter to stealth in the game should be a trap that costs badges and supply?

I’m talking about stealth here by the way, not the thief. Stealth as a boon or buff or whatever you want to call has zero counters, whether or not it’s OP is in the eye of the beholder, but everything in a game should have at least one counter.

Block is countered by unblockable skills (traps, marks, etc)
Control is countered by stun breaks
Condi’s are countered by condi removal
Power is countered by toughness
Stability is countered by boon stripping or immobilize

See where I’m going here?

Also, sic’em is a really bad skill in a pvp setting and even though it’s getting the reveal, still won’t be picked up by a lot of rangers.

Yes, that is true, however they recently said that the new patch on Oct 15th will have a wealth of tooltip updates.

Hopefully that will help new players adjust to the numerous mechanics of this game. For example, I am almost certain a new player would love to know the exact proc rate of sharpened edges instead of going to a wiki to look it up.

Ahh, my mistake, yeah don’t worry about skill points. You’ll get more of them then you know what to do with at level 80.

Plus there is the addition of the randomly dropped skill scrolls.

When was the last time you personally saw a stealth trap chell?

Most savvy commanders would rather spend the badges and supply on the supply trap, and even that is a super rare occurrence.

Stealth trap was created to primarily counter large groups that are entirely reliant on mass invis/veil; and even then it’s still used rarely.

You can reset your traits at any time for a negligible cost; I think it’s 2 silver at level 80. You only need gems in this game for vanity type items and non-combat type improvements like an extra bank/bag slot, or an infinite mining pick.

The three elite skills are

-Entangle (Aoe Immobilize and Bleed)
-Rampage as One (20 seconds of stability/fury/swiftness in addition to gaining might every time your pet lands a hit for the duration of the buff)
-Spirit of Nature (Passive pulsing healing while alive and an activated ress ability and condition cleanse)

Now are you talking about the specific racial elites and the mistfire wolf?

Just a quick question, how did WoW handle hunter pets in Alterac Valley? Please note, I only got a warlock to level 30 when that game originally came out, so I have no idea.

warriorjrd.8695:

Pet’s are another issue, but if you’re trying to use a pet for damage in wvw zerg, you’re using it wrong. Every single ranger who has ever played wvw and run in a zerg knows your pet gets insta nuked. So why would you rely on its damage? The best way to utilize a pet atm is use it purely for buffs, or conditons. Red moa= 15s fury. Sylvan hound=11 regen, blue moa=4s protection. Those are all AOE capped @ 5 players. I could continue but unfortunately this has a character limit.

I think this right here confirms why many people are frustrated with pets, as a lot of rangers would love to use their pets as an extra DPS source, yet this is currently either very difficult or near impossible to accomplish.

I think giving all the melee pets a 100+ yard range increase with their basic attacks would actually go a long way in WvW 1v1’s, however it might be a little too strong in sPvP.

Tyaen.5148:

Decklan.7540:

Tyaen.5148:

Decklan.7540:

What exactly are you referring to?

Quick, call the West Hollywood police.

What exactly are you talking about Tyaen?

I don’t know, what am I talking about?

This is getting quite interesting.

Tyaen.5148:

Decklan.7540:

What exactly are you referring to?

Quick, call the West Hollywood police.

What exactly are you talking about Tyaen?

Burl.9567:

I get so upset sometimes that I consider calling the police and making false statements. You ever get upset like that Decklan?

What exactly are you referring to?

Vash.9183:

I don’t know what you’re referring to as “the other time,” but any time I’ve talked to you on here, you disappeared. Or reported my posts. This is nothing but trolling, yet you act like you have so much to prove.

Vash, I think you need to understand that the moderation on this message board actually creates more trolling than it prevents. All you have to do is say something in a very subtle way that might offend someone in order to bait them out, then just report their reply.

It’s quite obvious that certain guilds are exceptional at this practice, and this thread on a whole is a perfect example of trolling getting out of hand thanks to absolute moderation instead of careful review.

Avenge.1478:

I’m at work but might I ask how we just captured JQs garrison going up against the JQ super stacked SEA? Looks like our SEA forces are putting in a fabulous effort so far.

Right now, anyone in JQ, SoR, or BG calling the other server stacked is pointless…

…and the arms race is still going strong.

If rangers are so terrible, then why do I still see a lot of them roaming in T1/T2 with full Apoc and getting plenty of kills?

I admit we have our problems, but we are not this in this absolutely terrible state that most people make us out as.

And I mean come on, at least we as a profession were a part of the fastest speed clear of CoF! That has to hold some weight somewhere!

Also, I hate to say it, but I’m really not liking the Dire stat combination so far. I think it’s like P/V/T gear. It’s great for zerging but I truly feel having passive regen helps more for small roaming. This is just my opinion though.

Also, like I said, before you invest in anything gear related, experiment in sPvP with a SHAMANS amulet and Signet of the Wild to see if you enjoy the passive healing playstyle.

Nothing is worse then buying/crafting all your gear only to realize you can’t stand playing the build or setup behind it.

I will say this though, experimenting with the Shamans trinket in spvp has made me want to slowly work towards a full set of Apocthecary gear for WvW (already have half of it crafted yes I’m one of those types with all 8 crafting professions maxed )

Can we change the discussion in this thread from mathematics to chaos theory?

There are so many things wrong with this post. If you are still losing to a thief as a ranger I don’t know what to say. We really do have all the utilities to beat them.

The only thieves that beat me are well-played ones, but that is because I am not a very good ranger. I have personally seen GREAT rangers defeat GREAT thieves on more than one occasion.

The only thing wrong with this class right now is the pet. Everyone will agree with that and every day we try to make anet listen. Other than that, this is a great class, with great builds that are really effective.

If you are talking about GvG, then all medium armor professions have a lot of problems right now with 20v20 or 10v10 matchups. Thieves and engineers struggle to find a role in a 10v10 or 20v20 too right now. I don’t GvG a lot so I do not know why that is a reason, but I think it’s because currently in the games state, the Heavy and Light professions bring far too much group utility when comapared to the Medium professions.

Rabid gear isn’t bad, in fact it’s pretty decent, but most roaming rangers I’ve encountered lately are running some sort of passive regen with healing power. Would you be willing to switch from rabid to apoc?

A lot of times in wvw it’s about outlasting and capitalizing on whoever makes the first mistake. I have seen a few successful full zerk rangers out there however, but if they don’t kill someone in their initial salvo I usually see them swooping away with their greatsword.

IMO, if you like traps and you like the shortbow, you should really try out some build variations with the Shamans Trinket in sPvP. The traditional apoc build is still sword/dagger/axe/torch as your four weapons, but I don’t want to tell you to not use the shortbow if you are having fun with it.

Also, I know you are committed to shortbow, but how committed are you to traps? I’ve seen a few spirit rangers in WvW utilizing the shortbow to great effect as it attacks are quite fast and can more easily proc the protection boon and burn condition with the sun and earth spirit.

With all that said, I know of one ranger who is a trapper who switched from rabid to apoc and got 6 travellers runes, then got rid of his signet of the hunt and slotted in signet of the wild. He enjoys it right now.

You could go axe/axe in dungeon and still do decent DPS but if you want to min/max then you want sword/warhorn.

In general, for dungeons stray away from condition damage gear. Condition damage is very underwhelming in dungeons and can actually lead to groups kicking you if you show up with full rabid or full rampagers.

You want power, precision, crit damage. This is called berserker gear. If you find yourself dieing too much, swap in a few pieces of valk gear. This is power, vitality, crit damage. You won’t need toughness. Many dungeon mechanics are meant to be AVOIDED not TANKED. High toughness does work with certain professions in dungeons (guardian for example) but not ranger.

Daecollo.9578:

It is almost the same as healing signet is now. In fact, Troll Unguent may heal for less, but its a lot better then healing signet due to the fact it also heals your pet as well as you.

Just chiming in here to say that this is one of the most ridiculous things I have ever read on a message board forum anywhere. In WvW, healing signet is one of the most ridiculous things ever, I’m sorry, but it’s true. An apoc warrior with healing signet literally has the healing ability of Troll Unguent passively up at all times.

You guys need to really stop knocking on the Ranger.
I have both a level 80 Ranger and a level 80 Engineer.

Here are pros and cons of both classes, starting with the Ranger since you all hate it so much.

Pros

- Essential in the meta-speed run dungeon comp which is three warriors, ranger, mesmer. The reason behind this is because you bring Spotter and Frost Spirit, two buffs which no other profession can really mimic, especially Frost Spirit, which when traited gives the entire party a 70 percent chance to do 10 percent more damage.

- Great mobility (Swoop, easy access to swiftness, if your lazy you can just slot Signet of the Hunt)

- Highly effective regen/condi builds that are in the top 3 for WvW roaming.

- Can easily farm lots of bags if you want by just going zerk gear and spamming piercing shot and rapid fire from the back line.

Cons

- Pet AI and pet in general is still something to be desired.

Now for the engineer.

Pros

- Lot’s of build diversity.

- Condi/Perplexity engineer is probably the top roamer in WvW right now.

- Easy access to perma-swiftness.

Cons

- You are locked into your build. Everyone here says, “oh engineer can do this, this, this, this and this” but what they fail to mention is the gear and trait requirements to do so.

- Clunky playstyle that will take a lot of practice to get used to. There’s a reason I, and many others in WvW relentlessly target engineers. It’s like a litmus test for most people. If you can kill them, then they are a free bag any time you see that person again. If they are not, and they kill you, then they are the .01 percent of the GW2 population that mastered the engineer and should be avoided at ALL COSTS.

- You have perma-swiftness but little else in terms of extra mobility unless you slot in rocket boots and elixir gun which is TWO utility slots.

So yeah, take it as you will. Yes I listed more cons then the ranger, but that is because OTHER THAN THE PET, the Ranger is a great profession. If you can learn to just think of your pet as a little bit of extra damage during a fight, you’ll be fine. If you expect your pet to be this mega-dps killing tanking machine you will be disappointed.

Basically, you have to ask yourself “Do I plan on mastering this class to it’s full potential or is it just going to be another alt?” If the answer is another alt, then just roll something else. The engineer punishes mistakes more than any other profession in the game, so much so, that if you are mediocre at the class you might as well just be a free bag in WvW or dead weight in a dungeon. In fact, I would rather take a ranger PET into a dungeon than an average engineer.

If they introduced GvG then you would see some serious changes/nerfs to some of the most popular professions that populate its meta (Warriors/Guardians/Ele’s).

To me, GvG is a special type of mode for three types of professions in the game, while the rest play second fiddle (unless you enjoy being a boon strip bot like a necro, a feedback bot like a mesmer or enjoy not even being included at all like every single medium armor profession).

The sad truth is, those that promote and call for GvG so much are the ones that are completely blinded by its complete lack of balance amongst the professions.

You want GvG? Be prepared for thousands upon thousands of “Nerf warrior/guardian/ele” threads to appear in your new sub-forum over night.

Also note, and this deserves it’s own post, that he is mainly asking for warriors/guardians/ele’s.

Just another GvG sheep guild that might last one month or so before it disbands or gets absorbed by an actual guild with principles.

Yes everyone is already well aware of the WvW melee train meta and how it doesn’t just omit rangers, but thieves and engineers as well. In fact, medium armor has little to no reason to participate in GvG right now, which is fine, as I don’t participate in GvG anyway.

What is hilarious is a lot of these “GvG” guilds lose to simple-meta practitioners all the time which is basically 12 warriors, 4 guardians, 4 ele’s as they can’t even grasp the more complex meta which is 8 warriors, 4 guardians, 2 ele’s, 2 necro, 2 mesmer let alone apply it in practice.

In short, we already know that medium armor professions are shunned in most GvG guilds, but thankfully it’s not, nor ever will be, an actual game mode.