Guild Wars 2

nimble my kitten
It’s awkward and clunky. I use sword in spvp and it works alright. But I think it sword 2 gets interupted too easily due to the cast time. That little stutter step with the first press of 2 and then again with the 2nd leap (hate it). More time to use the 2nd leap, yes please.

I’d be much more comfortable with it if it worked as well as staff 3, a guards teleport, a thiefs steal or infilitrator strike

Sw 3 is awkward to use as well if you’re on a point you don’t want to step off of.

What a bore.

You necroed a 10 month old thread you started and you alone were bumping.

And you did it to say what? If anyone played your build would know how to play the new spec? Get out of here with that self promoting nonsense.

TLDR- You are looking for a website that will tell you Open World/Dungeon Builds and what classes work best in tandem.

No site does that directly but there gw2 forums, metabattle builds can be tweaked and reddit.

Here is a good thread from earlier this year on these forums

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/which-build-for-open-world

Here is a solid write up on Reddit

https://www.reddit.com/r/GuildWars2Builds/comments/4yqmf0/pve_some_open_world_builds_from_an_open_world/

Has your son found a class he likes to play? When he finds something he likes, you guys can duo easily.

Axl.8924

I dueled with a guardian in WVW and he constantly blocked my shouts and i couldn’t corrupt his boons, and he kept downing me, and it seemed like it was never down.
This seems massively overpowered and needs a nerf in my opinion

Brief look and you call for nerfs in all game modes.

If you came here to get help, ask for suggestions and stop asking for buffs and nerfs.

If you really like pvp and you want to be any good, you have hundreds of hours of pvp to look forward to.

Couple things
You are braver than me for posting a public gameplay vid.

Anything other than sbow would be better paired with lb.
The pets you chose could be better.
Utilities could be better.

The ugly (hilarious) and favorite part of the video when you shot yourself in the face with rapid fire.

StickerHappy.8052:

EnderzShadow.2506:

StickerHappy.8052:

@shadowpass

PM the build!!

@all

Here is the problem with ranger.. SoS is required. Now with condi classes running rampant, SoR is too.

So what do you have left?

A stun breaker.

And that’s it.

Majority of ranger builds would prolly have the same utilities. I just don’t see playing plat or higher without those..

In short..

We are pigeonholed into those..

Because every class has 3-5 meta builds….

No i mean look at this way..

I wanna theorycraft a build that is far away from the meta, if you PvP a lot, you would just have the face the fact that SoS and SoR are pretty much mandatory. It’s not bad design per se, it’s also the state of PvP.

Now if you get the Bear combo in Soulbeast, now you can free up a slot.

Aw, gotcha.
Theorycrafting away from the meta, yes please.

StickerHappy.8052:

Not to be mean but mistism speaks the truth, Druid has been top tier for ranger, even in tournies. Don’t you watch those?

Condi ranger has been great for PvE too..

BUT Rangers do need improvements but I don’t know about you, a lot of the people go overboard with their suggestions.

Of course a lot of people go overboard.

And then there are other people that think everything is fine and call everyone whiners. That’s not the truth.
Enter Mistism “Mainhand dagger is fine.” That’s not the truth either.

StickerHappy.8052:

@shadowpass

PM the build!!

@all

Here is the problem with ranger.. SoS is required. Now with condi classes running rampant, SoR is too.

So what do you have left?

A stun breaker.

And that’s it.

Majority of ranger builds would prolly have the same utilities. I just don’t see playing plat or higher without those..

In short..

We are pigeonholed into those..

Because every class has 3-5 meta builds….

Levetty.1279:

So how are people dealing with no stab and all the CC flying around?

Strength of the pack is used in builds mentioned.

Swagger.1459:

This would be very balanced because we have this in-game already and the devs are cool with it.

The Devs are cool with it on another class, the Thief.
A class that has its own advantages and disadvantages.

I’m thinking we just add a lot of heavy hitting skills, and some evades, and more movement skills and target tracking and some stealth skills… So something like this revised idea…

So,
-heavy hitting skills
-evades
-movement skills
-reflect
-target tracking
stealth
and stability

Dagger 1- Groundwork Gouge- Add target tracking. 3 targets.

1- Leading swipe – 3 targets.

1- Serpent Stab- Add evade. 3 targets.

FREE Skill from stealth (Just like Backstab)- “Nature Stab” aka Deadly Delivery- 1 target.

Dagger 2- Double Arc- 3 targets.

Dagger 3- Instinctive Edge- 3 targets. “Nature Step” (Just like Steal). Add evade. 10s stealth on hit. 1,200 range. This is the set-up skill for “Nature Stab”.

Dagger 4- Dagger Barrier- 5 targets. AoE damage. Bleeding. Reflects projectiles. Stability. 300 radius. You can move.

Dagger 5- Port-O-Potty- Create a “nature” portal and port to target. 300 radius. 5 target AoE “nature” damage explosion. 1,200 range port.

5- Port back to original spot.

…Perfection

Face stabbing from stealth
blowing up 5 targets via Dagger 5 Port of Potty Explosion (what kind of nature theme is that?) and it Triggers throw mud, which we all know isn’t mud right You just got dumped on by the port a potty explosion.
immediately porting back
and then evade everything

Did you ever stop to think that other people have to play this game with us?

Honestly, I would like to see your build in action.
I really would.

Vs all the other class ideas

The mayhem that would be. No one would know what was going on.
Complete madness and all contained on another server.

mistsim.2748:

I generally take zero stock in any “feedback” threads posted on these forums, especially as they relate to pvp.

Why is that?

mistsim.2748:

I never had problems reaching and competing at the highest mmr.

Oh, ok, amazing.

even on core ranger before HoT when whining was at its worst. and I did it with non-meta builds.

Very impressive.
Periods aren’t commas but I digress, please continue.

Druid was top dog for two years, and still whining persisted.

If there is a legitimate issue with the Ranger and someone mentions that issue with a hint of emotion, is that whining?

mistsim.2748:

the other thing I’ve observed is that too many people demand big, sweeping changes or total revamps of weapons, traits and utilities. This is completely unreasonable.

The thing I’ve observed is that some people are sadists and never have an issue with anything. Good for those people. They enjoy the Ranger the way it is.

Maybe you can help me, why would people like that even come to the forums?

It warms my heart to know one of us will always be content and remind the community at every turn.

I’ve been playing the game for a while myself, albeit casually and I still have some of the same issues.

Some things to consider,
-knowing your role in a team fight (supporting mid, +1’ing and back capping)

-kiting (and using terrain) MLG players do this extraordinarily well.

-Knowing what class specs are pointless to fight

If you can duel friends who play the classes you have trouble with, over and over again—-that is a huge help

If you aren’t embarassed to ask, you can go to the forums and simply ask how to beat them. Plenty of people do this and a lot of good advice is given.

There was an expansion since you were gone, Heart of Thorns. It introduced another Trait Line-Druid which can use staff and Druid skills, I’m sure you’ve seen these. z

Another expansion is coming soon. Currently we are in a odd period where they made some changes to the traits in anticipation of the coming expansion.

It looks like you stopped reading somewhere in the middle of the thread and are looking at those three specs. Ignore that—these 2 builds are mentioned later.

If you have Heart of Thorns the following 2 builds will work.

IF you don’t you could use the same builds with Longbow/Sword Warhorn and swap out druid for BM.

Any questions, I am sure that jc and frost could fill in the gaps

JC is running
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNBmYDbkQFKZx+VwhF4axykg1EAecTA4faRtp6U5ucZuSk+YA-TpxHQB+Y/BldQAS4FAQelBAwRA4bPAAA

^Support mid and back cap.

Frosty is running lb/staff (similar setup)
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJATWjEqQJL2vCOsAXLWmEsmAwjbCA/TLqPVnKXFIzVylSD-TpxHQByrMw3eAAnZ/B/dBAS4hAAAHBAA

Luclinraider.2317:

due to a malicious post of one hitting for 100k…

You jumped off the soapbox and landed on your feels.
It hurt and you’re mad.

I get it.

However, putting blame on one specific post is foolhardy.

Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497:

If you are new to thief, don’t bother with Zerker, use Valks or Marauders. Valks is what Anet apparently recommends when you use the 80 boost. And it is what I personally ran before the elite specs. If you do PvP, you can still duel a zerker thief on equal skill levels just fine. At that point it is mind games.

When you start going into elite specs, Marauders is friendlier than zerkers. Marauders is 8% less damage for thief, but 5k more HP, and higher precision (not that it matters on thief). It will allow you to afford a mistake, not trash your damage too badly if you do raids (90% of the time people won’t actually notice).

And when you get comfortable with thief, you can swap to zerkers. Though with Zerkers, you need to be on your A game. You can not afford a single hit in full zerks, because everything in the HoT expansion or the upcoming one will absolutely wreck your kitten.

My current build is full Marauders. I take Daredevil, Acrobatics because Deadly Arts isn’t very useful without poisons and your steal isn’t up often enough for the damage increase to be worth a kitten , Critical Strikes with invigorating precision, signet of malice, Signet of Agility, staff, and a ranged weapon of your choice. People will flame me for this build, saying I am bad. But the reason why I use this is…

A. EVERYTHING in the HoT expansion will ruin a Zerker thief’s day in one or two hits.
B. The time to kill difference for small and vets is not very significant between zerks and marauders.
C. My interconnection is spottier than a dipeptic hyena (averaging at 429ping, screw you AT&T for years as a crap ISP). So being able to afford being hit in the face in PvE, Raids, or PvP because my connection wouldn’t let me dodge it is good enough reason to take it.
D. Annnd again, while people will run a DPS meter on you, most will not know what numbers to actually expect.

I’ve also solo’ed Cairn with this build from 37%hp to zero.

The quality of your build is irrelevant because you didn’t post a build.

You mentioned 3 specializations and only listed the traits of one of those lines.

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/ is very easy to use and make builds.

ps- I hope you never give directions to people who are lost.

Zodiack.5637:

For WvW, planning to do mostly zerging until we’re both comfortable with our classes to eventually move towards roaming.

Zerging won’t help you get any more comfortable with your class for roaming.

It’s a completely different style of play.

If you both want to get comfortable with your class, then there is no better place to do that in than in spvp. It’s near constant action and will force you to get comfortable with the build you are running.

I’d also suggest Roaming right away—take some nearby camps, it’s easy and fun.

thought so thx

needs more letters to post my deepest gratitude

Eleazar.9478:

The only issue I’ve found with this build is when you get chained cc and are plus 1 by a rev who knows what he’s doing (using LF and MT instead of stone and quick zeph) (update plat now on a 11 game win streak too)

LF?

For duos in PvP, this was mentioned in another thread

Pvt Frosty.6973:

It really depends on the people you play with. Personally I often queue with dps (rev/thief) which means that someone who can hold 1v1s is the most complimentary, so I go for something like this most of the time: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJATWjEqQJL2vCOsAXLWmEsmAwjbCA/TLqPVnKXFIzVylSD-TpxHQByrMw3eAAnZ/B/dBAS4hAAAHBAA

MT does indeed slow the pace of the fight.

CC is good, more is better—for fun, I took the glyph of Tides+equality and entangle—add in the longbow-4= mayhem.

It’s not ideal, obviously, but the impact on mid was substantial.

Grats on top 20.

warhorn *cough favoritism *cough :o

sigil of agility on staff— I thought that sigil would get used by CA, or is that the point?

kappa.2036:

in a 5 v 5 premade, the class can be countered easily. A thief can just remove your stab with 1 skill.
A good player can block/evade your attacks after your stealth so he can get the point. Dps got nerfed hard and now is even more difficult to get a kill since our personal dps is bad and our pet skills are easily dodgeable (or reflectable if we use bristle).

Mind you I am not playing in full 5v5 premade matches.
A good thief, in Mid-Gold, can take me out of the group fights.

Pvt Frosty.6973:

Here’s mine from playing at higher levels and with coordinated players.

However, it has also had its sustain buffed by a full tonne. What this means is that druid does not lose any 1v1, in fact it does not even need to use celestial avatar form to sustain its 1v1s because the sustain even without it is just unreal. This also means, that where before you had to swap to and camp staff alot, now you can camp sword for longer, which increases your effective dps and point pressure significantly.

This means that a) suddenly druid has a MUCH easier time dealing with thief and being outnumbered in general and b) druid loses no caps if played correctly (of course you cans till get knocked off point if you dont pay attention.

Yes, this is just my opinion and experiences may vary.

If you don’t use druid, what weapons are you using?

Do you think the same builds that work at higher levels perform as well in Non Coordinated teams?

While playing with a friend who is not a 1v1 class(necro) , I’ve compensated with my own unconventional utility choices.

anduriell.6280:

jcbroe.4329:

Serious question time since apparently this thread is going to keep going;

What build are you running in which a core range can completely negate your condi application?

S/D condi can easily out condi core ranger cleanses, 2 sword 2 lotus dodges and a core ranger blows virtually every removal option they have to completely negate damage ticks. Add in a venom and the fact that you can rinse and repeat a virtually infinite number of times and there’s no way you got out cleansed.

D/D or P/D? Well then yeah, you don’t have nearly enough condi application to deal with any class that decides they don’t like dying to condis.

Jcbroe i wouldn’t bother. This is clearly the weekly thread about a condi noob who got owned by a pewpew. I get a lot of those during the week, some sure may come here to complain. Anybody which plays with thief and even worst uses condi cheese does not deserve my time.

Like anyone from anet actually read this. Better luck in reddit.

Anduriell, How dare you sir! :P

JC is introducing reason and rational thinking to this fluster cluck of a discussion.
(which I appreciated btw)

Krispera, thanks for the solid comparison.

and a Typical reaction from the crowd…

Did anyone read the whole thing? (snowywondesr, fail? L2R.)

2 Trolls- Razor and Dahkeus. /sigh

The one guy that thinks everything is fine- Skuzz.

and Anduriell, I don’t disagree but dmn, you’re always ready to throw mud.

for everyone else that is even more casual than me,
!stop mentioning sbow in the same sentence as spvp!

Syktek.7912:

EnderzShadow.2506:

What is the burn build I’m getting hit with in pvp?

Depends on how suicidal the guardian is.

There’s base burn, DH burn that use Valor for meditation heals. And then there’s the guy running full damage that’ll nuke you before you realize he’s there.

I play dh off an on just to mix it up. It’s nice to see how the other side lives and dies :/

What is an example of a full burn dh?

Recently in team fights as a Druid, if the other team has a heavy condi base, I can’t even get remotely close to a DH or the stray wisp of fire burns my arz whole for 8k.

What is the burn build I’m getting hit with in pvp?

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Lain.5179:

Savvy.3258:

You’re basically giving someone an “I win” button and someone else a “Cancel I win” button, and it’s just a question of who has more. Horrid design choice.

This. Only ever this.

How can you call it an “I win” button if there is a “Cancel I win” button?

You can build around invulnerability, evasion, endurance regeneration and high armor to mitigate power too you know.

But which do you do? Well, you make sacrifices to come up with a well rounded build, or you focus on one particular area. But then each build will have it’s own counter.

It’s called play and counterplay.

That’s assuming all ‘play’ and ‘counterplay’ are equal.

In pvp-team fights of attrition (mid) the advantage is given to condi builds.

That’s balanced, but only if you’re the Guard

Sevans.4619:

A haiku to commemorate this thread:

Three three dodge dodge three
Death blossom, venom, thieve’s guild
Oh wait, he has cleanse

This is how all QQ threads should end, with a poem.

I can hit hard without druid and with druid. So that point is moot.

and it’s a maul. Don’t get hit by maul.

Xtinct.7031:

I’ve been recently coming across more and more of that yolo LB/GS core ranger build, and I am shocked to find out that at times it has more total cleanse than druid. How is a build that hits so freaking hard gonna be allow to have access to so much cleanse? This is sort of a slap in the face to the glass cannon concept.

What are you playing exactly?

Im not much of a pve’r. But you’re build is a little all over the place.

Do you have access to druid? (expansion)

Why are you using a trap heal instead of a shout heal (that would actually give you swiftness and regen)? (resounding timbre in Beast)

I thought quickness didn’t work on pets (zephyrs speed in Beast)

There are legitimate complaints.
There are legitimate bugs.

The reddit posts have been some of the worst. People saying things like
“It’s a specialization so it’s not for all game modes.” And then a bunch of other slowpokes jump on the bandwagon and agree. /yawn.

Wondrouswall.7169:

Kind of surprised no one else caught the other tid-bit Irenio mentioned in the Guild Chat stream about why Anet won’t allow Ranger to have control over all of the pet skills by default: “Because it would be way too powerful.”

Not surprised.

They were distracted by the crumbs that fell off the round table and landed on Ranger.

CETheLucid.3964:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

CETheLucid.3964:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Axe is 900, LB is 1500 so SB at 1200 would be mid way between. Also, makes sense thematically that you can shoot an arrow further than you can throw an axe.

Substance E.4852:

900 vs 1000 isn’t going to be noticeable.

At max range Shortbow already connects at 1000ish in the same way Longbow’s range is 1200 but it’s actual range is 1500.

Making Shortbow hard 1000 would be a decent change and make Shortbow connect at just about 1200. 1100ish.

It would be a good change and give Shortbow a little more range without making it another Longbow.

But longbow connects at 2000, I’d be happy to see 1200 range and the projectiles despawn at 1300.

Maybe at elevation advantage and even then you can reliably strafe them at 1500. Anything past 1200 is iffy.

If they gave us back 1200 on shortbow I wouldn’t complain but it’s not likely. I’m asking for a bone. You guys are asking for the Taj Mahal.

They’re not going to make Shortbow a different Longbow.

You won’t get either.

As for asking too much,
Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars

Ghotistyx.6942:

EnderzShadow.2506:

Ghotistyx.6942:

Marks/Beast/Soul with GS, Black and Brown bears. With proper traits and utilities, you’ve got around 2 large condi removals, 3 stun breaks, 2 sources stab, 5 invulns. Soulbeast is frontline material.

let me say this another way,
You managed to find one mediocre set of traits in one very specific form of gameplay.

I am happy for you.

The rest of the Ranger community in pve and pvp are scratching our heads.

While I hope all the issues are fixed, even if they were, the spec is truly uninspiring.

I think people just need to experiment more.

I was pretty underwhelmed by dagger and the whole condi aspect from Soulbeast (untraited shortbow immediately outperformed), but that makes it a prime target for some improvements if necessary. Pet merging is super-nice in most cases, but it does hurt to lose some traits entirely. Souldbeast will probably make its way into PvP before any meta-relevant PvE.

I have no disagreement with you. We are talking about different things.

When all classes are balanced, soulbeast will still be boring.

Have you played any of the other classes? Most of them are a blast!

Now tell me honestly, what part of soul beast was fun?

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Dojo.1867:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Dojo.1867:

Ralkuth.1456:

While Holosmith has a smooth transition into Photon Forge (lulburst) and always-available utilities that interact with the F-bar mechanic…

Soulbeast has to manage pet swap and beastmode separately and it’s extremely clunky. Not to mention most of the melded skills don’t have any meaningful impact, with the Beast abilities having awkward animation locks or extremely long CDs.

We might need a smoother mechanic. Don’t want to fight my UI while I’m fighting people already.

---

Off topic, is Condi the only way to go for Soulbeast?

Most likely I haven’t figured out how to boonstack/use pet traits like the spec suggest yet, maybe that’s the new way to play Ranger.

Cant talk much about PvE but power got a lot of tools. Improved Maul is amazing. Sic em is a crazy damage buff. Free quickness/fury. With all that increased melee damage I wonder if Paladin is the best PvP stats now for a power build.

You can pretty much guarantee 99.99% that Maul applying it’s own AoO strike and Sic Em @ +40% will be nerfed man, seriously.

Why? I think there is a chance it stays. I don’t think they will change Maul. Sic’em will propably be adapted toonly giving 30% or something like that to Soulbeast.

Rapid Fire will do 30k plus, easily.

No argument here, just curious, have you personally got 30k Rapid Fire on a Test Dummy?

I can do ridiculous dmg with GS—that’s a given and I could do that before the beta.
But I haven’t seen the same thing with RF.

Ghotistyx.6942:

Marks/Beast/Soul with GS, Black and Brown bears. With proper traits and utilities, you’ve got around 2 large condi removals, 3 stun breaks, 2 sources stab, 5 invulns. Soulbeast is frontline material.

let me say this another way,
You managed to find one mediocre set of traits in one very specific form of gameplay.

I am happy for you.

The rest of the Ranger community in pve and pvp are scratching our heads.

While I hope all the issues are fixed, even if they were, the spec is truly uninspiring.

BadSanta.6527:

Well, soul beast is much more of a pvp and wvw spec than a pve one.
I’m mostly pve and this is sad to hear. Honestly, the animations of soul beast are bad.

If it’s bad for you in pve, that is unfortunate.
Because it does not shine in pvp either.

DemiGodKlvus.2648:

so far hollowsmith is the only spec that was disappointing to me

You played soulbeast? lol…

maybe you’re a masochist.

FrouFrou.4958:

This has been reported few times already, there’s a video where Gazelle does 50k damage when buffed up and paired with Sic ’em. The guy skipped downed state and dropped dead on the spot.

If you look at the combat logs it performs charge 5 times.
Charge is supposed to hit 5 people and in the process of someone going down it hits the single target 5 times and those hits can crit.

To me, there are other problems that take priority.

Example, I watched ROM get two shot by a deadeye.

IllegalEcchi.6320:

when it happened that time i was, definetly not working as intended, go try it for yourself

If we were all talking in person, this would of been understood and we would of had a lovely convo, but sarcasm isn’t always detected in text.
Because I said, “As far as I’m concerned[<-a qualifier to what’s coming], working as intended.”

In other words, there is so much broken at the moment, I do not care.
Have you played pvp? It’s ridiculous.

I would expect this company to fix something like that, while leaving our class busted.
Would it surprise you?

Mhmm.

As far as I’m concerned, working as intended.

Did you test it vs multiple downed opponents? If it does that to all of them = OP.

If it only works on 1 target how is that any worse than thieves insta stomp, warriors quick stomp, or engineers stomp.

Will this get nerfed while they leave everything else completely underpowered?

You expect so little and you are happy with the nothing they give you.

I firmly believe you’ve all been psychologically conditioned.
#triggered

Anet hands you a piece of dog poop and you will give pros and cons.

Cons
“It’s brown, I don’t like brown. Not my favorite color”
“It smells bad”
“Flies, I hate flies.”

Upside
“It’s brown, hey some people love the color of brown!”
“It smells like poop but smell is subjective”
“I like bugs.”

Madisonlee.9641:

Switch to deer in combat, press sic’em+maul and watch charge do 20-30k on a squishy :x That’s enough for me, haha; but like I said they will -obviously- nerf it. So annoying.

Don’t need soulbeast to do this.

But the pets only come in xpac right?
$30 for 3 usable pets.

Last Warrior Lord.7248:

EnderzShadow.2506:

Pets good
Traits ok
Soul Fail

Thank you ANet for once again meeting low expectations.
It’s apparent, Rangers are not a priority.

Its funny cause all other classes got more stab and synergy from skills and traits while we go useless 4/5 stances which one only gives us 7 sec stab vs endless spam of boon removal. We got no evade from MH dagger, no block skills and etc. Core outperforms soulbeast atm. As a vet ranger I expected better. Guess druid got more viable now…

At some point, for whatever reason, Rangers were picked last.

Not mad, just disappointed.

If the xpac fixed every Ranger bug, I’m still blasé

tyinkz.7813:

dolyak actualy work on others tho when you share it it gives the boons just not on the ranger which is so weird

Working as intended. Buffs are for party members only.

Pets good
Traits ok
Soul Fail

Thank you ANet for once again meeting low expectations.
It’s apparent, Rangers are not a priority.

Hey, delete this and post your comment in the thread that was made specifically for bugs.

its 2 posts down

Debating whether I share the bug or let you rascals figure it out for yourself.

When it’s a gamebreaking bug that does unreasonable amounts of dmg….lots of lulz with me and a friend dueling eachother.