Guild Wars 2

You are not understanding what people are calling weak. Compared to other classes, mesmer aoe farming is a joke. Guardians spin to win, necro’s aoe condition to win, warrior rolls his face on the keyboard to win. Ele spams fireballs. Engineer spams grenades. Thieves spam clusterbomb. Ranger uses barrage once.

Compared to those, Mesmer’s only real aoe damage is a 15 second Mind Wrack which is dependent on your clones and phantasms surviving. As well as chaos storm which just got nerfed.

Compared to other classes, Mesmer is awful at farming dynamic events, as well as aoe mob grinding.

I’m not saying its not possible, its just MUCH more difficult than other classes and far less rewarding compared to other classes.

For example, on my Guardian, I could pull 8 mobs, use binding blade to pick up the ranged and use whirling wrath and pick up loot. On my mesmer, I have to gather them up, LOS to pull them all together, make sure you keep up 3 clones, Mind Wrack. This gets them to about… 50%. Then you have to try not to die as you kite forever and spam Izerker or whatever else you can do.

Mesmer just isn’t practical, by the time we summon a clone to do aoe damage for us, all the other classes have wiped the mobs out.

This is not another thread to kitten and moan about the nerf. The fact is that is has happened.

What this thread is about is something all mesmer’s deserve to have addressed.

Why would Anet swing the nerf bat at us, when they won’t even take the time to fix our broken skills and most particularly, our broken recharge traits.

Maybe if they fixed the broken skills in the classes before nerfing others, they’d realize that it changes everything completely.

As it stands, Mesmers now have 20 second recharge rates on the majority of their phantasms, yet our traits are still broken?

Please..

MMAC claiming victory after the game is already dead? Its been less than two months bro. The game isn’t dead. Grow up.

This is a team game. Our server is kicking your kitten at the moment. Get over yourself.

Its not teaming up. Its called JQ vs. ET. HoD is a non-factor at the moment.

Rodarin, our server has received next to zero new guilds transferring is. As it stands, our community has banded together and coordinated our WvW efforts so that we aren’t all fighting over queue times at peak hour. Instead, we have some guilds who play during the day, some at night.

Its called being a good server. You treat your fellow guilds with respect. You coordinate with them as if you are all extensions of the same body.

Is it about having people in WvW at all hours? Yes.

The difference is having people that work as a team. People that respect each other and have one another’s backs.

Jade Quarry has this.

Does your server?

Seems like a lot of HoD members are upset that they lost their meal ticket. As it stands, JQ has been getting better and better, while HoD has been getting worse and worse (going by the Anet stats). With the so called “disbandment” of Titan Alliance because they “conquered” the game and were the BEST ALLIANCE FOR A WHOLE MONTH AND A HALF, obviously HoD stands no chance against JQ anymore.

I mean seriously, who brags to have conquered the game after just over a month, when your win differential is less and less every match up, and this last week you won by a mere 25k?

As far as I’m concerned, JQ has grown the most out of any of the top tier servers, they have stepped up their game and coordinated as a community. This is showing in their results, and they deserve to be #1.

As for you people laughing about them obsessing about the orbs… looks like they have all 3 now, and have a large lead now. Good job on those back-doors.

Where is the risk in a thief build that can blow up a target in 2 seconds and then stealth away?

Where is the risk in a warrior build that can blow someone up in 2 seconds and then be on equal footing with a second target?

Its not “high risk/high reward”, haste makes it, “one free kill” then a real fight for a second.

No, what I’m saying is that haste really only benefits glass cannon burst specs. It causes a lot of unnecessary imbalances in pvp because it synergizes with some classes and builds better than others.

Why give an ability to every class when it harms the pvp environment, when you can take it away from all classes, and bring more balance to the game?

Alright,

So my main point is that haste is an unnecessary ability in this game.

All it does is some classes the ability to have disgusting amounts of burst that really seems to be opposite of what ANet intended when creating PvP. I wanted to play this game when promised balanced fights where its not about skirmishes that last 2 seconds.

Then we have HASTE.

Haste + Pistol Whip = Silly amounts of damage in 4 seconds, including 3 separate stuns.

Haste + Hundred Blades = Crazy amounts of damage that finishes after 2 seconds, ususally resulting in the target being under 25% hp.

Time Warp = Although I play Mesmer, Time Warp is unbalanced. An ability that gives all teammates haste for 10 seconds? Is that a joke?

The complaints and cries for nerfs to individual classes is generally a result of an abuse of HASTE. It’s not the individual abilities that are OP, because they don’t do enough damage before the target player can react.

With HASTE up, any player can spam a hard hitting channeled ability and get it off before the target can react.

Overall, I just don’t think haste is necessary. Every class has it, so why not just remove it from every class? You’ll see more balanced PvP in which all classes have a chance at surviving over 2 seconds. (I’m looking at you elementalists!) You can say dodge, you can say “STUN BREAK”, but I say, when someone uses Haste with a channeled ability, most of the time you’re dead before you can react.

Its an unnecessary ability. Without it, Tyria has a brighter future.

My point is that I don’t think there should be an option for classes with a one combo win. You can take the best player in the world, and if he is out of endurance, and his stun breaks are on CD, any bad pistol whip spammer can kill him.

I have the same issue with the hundred blade combo.

I’m not saying you can’t win, all I’m saying is that it shouldn’t even be an option.

Regardless of if the person gets away, one pistol whip does about 7.5k damage. That’s FAR too much for one ability, especially when you have the ability to use it 3 times in a row.

You’re right, its a .5 second stun. What I meant was that by the time they’re unstunned, you can recast it and stun them again. By the end of the last cast, its been 4.5 seconds they’ve been completely inactive for.

Alright,

So before we get the “l2p” people freaking out, first let me say that I play thief, and I’m not complaining because I’ve been killed by it, but because I simply feel bad for killing others like this so easily, and it needs to be fixed.

Frankly, Pistol Whip with frenzy is ridiculous.

People can argue, but I can put 3 pistol whips back to back to back, in which the target is stunned for a total of 1.5 seconds while I put them out, but the real issue is that because its 3 separate stuns, they can’t escape in between .5 second stuns. In that time, I can 16k damage, plus the average 4k damage from steal.

That’s 20k damage in 4 seconds. While my target is stunned. And its AoE.

Sure, people can use a stun breaker, yet usually that only saves them from the last 1, maybe 1 and half pistol whips, by which time they’re already missing over half of their hp.

You could say dodge, but generally I open while in stealth so they never see me coming anyways.

Overall, this combination is just getting silly. I’m not saying pistol whip is OP by itself, but this combination is causing a lot of grief and needs to be balance somehow.

I would say take away the stun, but then pistol whip becomes useless by itself. I’d say decrease the damage, but then pistol whip is again useless by itself.

I don’t know what fix there is, but the ability to lockdown your enemy with 3 1.5 second stuns in a row, and do 20k damage is just a little over the edge.

I have since changed specs because its just not fair, and I don’t want to see builds like that in the game. There should never be an auto-win button.

My question isn’t on whether it should be changed (Because we can all admit this combination is ridiculous), but how?

The bow is meant to be an opener weapon. You use this when you’re not under pressure. With that said, there are many times when I will swap to my greatsword when I don’t need to be in melee, and run in.

In pve, I kill evenly with greasword/longbow, depending if I took agro from my pet, or if I’m aoe farming.

In pvp, I generally get my kills with the longbow, but I will go into melee if it is required.

Your stats that you want are Precision/Power/Crit Damage.

I personally love the #4 greatsword ability. The key time to use it is when you see a thief go stealth while you’re in combat with him. You know he’s going to attempt a backstab, and the channel on the #4 counterattack is as long as most of their stealths. They open, get knocked to kingdom come.

As for Muddy Terrain. Its a perfect getaway tool paired with the #3 greatsword. I’m not a huge fan of the 10% run speed signet as 10% in pvp is nothing. Especially with air ele’s running with 200% and thieves running like Usain Bolt. The trick with them is to stop them, not make you run faster.

As a Ranger, my main example is Lightning Reflexes.

The reason I use this ability is because it saves me from a lot of burst damage situations.

With that said, I get so frustrated when it doesn’t work how I feel it should.

My main complaint revolves around immobilizes. If i get immobilized by a Warrior who then puts me into a HB combo, I cannot get away, even though this ability should really allow you to do it. I think “Break Stun” should include any CC that holds you in place.

On top of that, it uses the CD on the ability, shows the animation, yet holds you in place still.

It totally depends on what your alternate weapon is going to be.

I posted my build which is a longbow/greatsword build. It is meant to be a ranged build, yet it has huge potential and a high skill cap in melee as well.

Title on it is “Greatsword/Longbow, The Ultimate Barrage”.

It has everything you need to know about that set-up, and feel free to post questions if you need anything.

To add one point that will be of help. If you are playing Longbow as your primary weapon, you MUST (and I cannot stress this enough), you MUST put 30 points in Marksmanship. This allows you to increase your longbow range.

You can argue about the other 40 points, but 30 in Marksmanship is a must.

Viladel.1837:

Fateless.6985:

I would like to just make a quick mention for people giving solutions of applying CC to the thief. I never even mentioned thief utility. I was only referring to heartseeker.

If you want to get technical with slowing them/stunning, whatever CC you wish.

They have stealth, shadowsteps, dazes, stuns, poisons. Everything you do to stop them, they’ll catch right up.

And your class does not have a full set of abilities to help deal with this as well?

Not when I used all my CD’s/endurance to survive the initial seven heartseekers.

Hey, so I didn’t know where else to post this as it didn’t seem to fit, so I figured I’d ask it here.

Is there a plan to have a post count or a +/- feature available in the future?

I know for myself that I will place more wait and pay more attention to a high + post than some others and it is a useful feature for quickly browsing topics.

And everyone likes to brag about having no life but having 20k+ posts on their GW2 account!

Vargs.6234:

This could be one of the most fun weapons in the game, but instead it is one of the most awkward and frustrating, alongside the engineer’s buggy flamethrower and tedious grenades. It’s not like you get a whole lot of other options for ranger melee either. Greastsword is the only other melee weapon and despite the name it isn’t especially great.

Just remove the animation lock. Considering that the chain cripples anyways it isn’t even useful for keeping on a target, while also making the weapon super unresponsive and extremely difficult to position yourself with.

Disagree. Greatsword for the ranger is the most useful greatsword in the game. Sure it doesn’t have as much flat damage as some of the other classes have with it, yet it has huge control and passive survivability. Not to mention the coolest gap closer in the game.

With that said. I do agree that they need to work on the sword a little. And give it some traits that apply to sword!

I would like to just make a quick mention for people giving solutions of applying CC to the thief. I never even mentioned thief utility. I was only referring to heartseeker.

If you want to get technical with slowing them/stunning, whatever CC you wish.

They have stealth, shadowsteps, dazes, stuns, poisons. Everything you do to stop them, they’ll catch right up.

Would read again. +1. Take note developers, this man is after your jobs.

While you’re giving me my quiver, annihilate at least half of the “pirate” looking gear in the game please. I thought it was awesome when I got my first hat and chest, then i realized from level 20-80, it all looked the same.

Besides… isn’t pirate outfits made of cloth?

Agreed Swick.

At least HB combo requires landing some sort of root before hitting HB.

I just want the spammability to be removed, or the +33% damage reduced.

Metsuro.2689:

Fateless.6985:

Metsuro.2689:

SpectacularYak.6518:

Metsuro.2689:

Anet is not telling us rezzing our pets is pointless in combat. They are telling us people whine to much trying to loot during combat. If rezzing our pets was pointless in combat we wouldn’t have to worry about it would we? They’d revive on swap like they used to in bwe1. But thats not the case is it?

ArenaNet

This is because you can either use F4 to swap pets which will bring that pet back alive or you can wait until you are out of combat at which point you pet will revive automatically.

We felt it was doing a disservice to Ranger players to incentivize them to spend a long time reviving their pet when it was a very inefficient thing to do and happened after combat anyway.

Anything else I can help you with today?

And of course you have no idea what you are talking about. Being without a pet at all is better than taking less than 10 seconds mid fight to rez your pet? Just stop talking. You have no clue what you are talking about.

They dont want you rezzing in a single pull until the end. In a long drawn out fight against a boss or anything where you are stuck without a pet for a minute or more because they are both dead is a bad.

Knowing when to rez and when not to was something easy to learn.

Which again, goes back to my point about you knowing nothing.

Let’s say your pet dies. You switch pets and this puts pet swap on a 30 second CD. After that 30 seconds, you can swap back to your other pet which is alive. If you can’t keep your second pet alive for 30 seconds, you’re not doing very well. Secondly, it takes about 10-15 seconds to revive a dead pet while in combat. So technically if you only keep your second pet alive for 15 seconds, you’re in the same position if you tried to ressurect, except you get to dps instead of stand their defenseless.

You sound like an idiot, defending your position on ressurecting a dead pet in the middle of combat.

Doesn’t it sound silly to stop all your dps for 10 seconds, just to have you pet alive for 20 seconds?

Lets say your pet does 5k damage in 20 seconds. You do 10k damage in 20 seconds.

That’s a total of 15k damage in 20 seconds. Then you spend 10 seconds ressurecting your pet. 30 seconds you do 25k damage.

Now lets say you leave your pet dead. 15k damage in 20 seconds. Pet dies. PET SWAP. you do another 7.5k damage with your next pet in the following 10 seconds.

22.5k damage vs. 15k damage over 30 seconds. Hrm…

While a pet is a large portion of the overall damage, lets not forget that they have other things other than just damage. Healing, CC, Buffs, ability to rez others… Can’t do any of that if its… you know… Dead… Which is common in boss fights, or large group fights. Because pets, are useless. They cannot run but in a straight line and can never dodge from damage.

This is a completely different point than you were arguing earlier. If they’re so bad and useless, why would you waste your time reviving them in combat?

I’m giving up now, but next time, please argue the same point the whole way through.

Xavori.3768:

So you ran into a thief was was all about burst damage. A heartseeker thief is going to be pretty good against one target who doesn’t fight back. But then he’s out of initiative and is going to be pretty helpless against the second target.

I’m curious what you’d do if you ran into me. See, I never use heartseeker. At all. I’m a condition damage / mobility thief. I’m going to poison and bleed you to death while never letting you use any of your big attacks. Sure, I can’t rip into huge swathes of enemies ala the elementalists. I can’t set up an area to defend before turning myself into a fire breathing monstrosity ala the engineer. I can’t wade into the thick of battle hitting multiple enemies with every swing ala the warrior. There are a whole bunch of things I can’t do that other classes can.

But what I can do is really ruin the day of 1-3 people at the edge of a fight. I can run down anyone trying to escape. And, I can get out of almost any fight if things start to go badly.

Kinda weird how it worked out that each class is good at some things and not at others, eh?

I appreciate your point, and also appreciate that you can debate something without being mean. With that said, I don’t know if I can fully agree with your point on the heartseeker thief. As I said before, I don’t find the build you run OP. Its a solid viable pvp build. The issue I have is where you say “A heartseeker thief is going to be pretty good against one target who doesn’t fight back. But then he’s out of initiative and is going to be pretty helpless against the second target.”

First off, the target can’t fight back because he’s spending every CD and endurance he has just to survive/avoid the burst.

Second off, why should any class be able to burst down a target and then be good against a second target? A thief shouldn’t be able to blow up anyone the way they currently are.

There are multiple times where a thief pops on any given target at a node and wins the fight. I think this is fair. A thief should be the king of 1v1.

What I don’t find fair is that the opposing class never had a chance. They get nuked down and they lose the point. Its the same issue that was had with hundred blades warrior.

No class should be able to annihilate another class with one ability. There needs to be skill involved. And that skill shouldn’t just be a skillseeker.

Ya… I had the exact same issue. Once in a blue moon, I would see the 5 stacks of vulnerability applied by my pet, but that was always when I hadn’t stacked my own hunter’s shot or opening strike.

I hope they look into it and make it more solid, as well as apply our vulnerabilities to our 1500 range with Longbow (traited).

Metsuro.2689:

SpectacularYak.6518:

Metsuro.2689:

Anet is not telling us rezzing our pets is pointless in combat. They are telling us people whine to much trying to loot during combat. If rezzing our pets was pointless in combat we wouldn’t have to worry about it would we? They’d revive on swap like they used to in bwe1. But thats not the case is it?

ArenaNet

This is because you can either use F4 to swap pets which will bring that pet back alive or you can wait until you are out of combat at which point you pet will revive automatically.

We felt it was doing a disservice to Ranger players to incentivize them to spend a long time reviving their pet when it was a very inefficient thing to do and happened after combat anyway.

Anything else I can help you with today?

And of course you have no idea what you are talking about. Being without a pet at all is better than taking less than 10 seconds mid fight to rez your pet? Just stop talking. You have no clue what you are talking about.

They dont want you rezzing in a single pull until the end. In a long drawn out fight against a boss or anything where you are stuck without a pet for a minute or more because they are both dead is a bad.

Knowing when to rez and when not to was something easy to learn.

Which again, goes back to my point about you knowing nothing.

Let’s say your pet dies. You switch pets and this puts pet swap on a 30 second CD. After that 30 seconds, you can swap back to your other pet which is alive. If you can’t keep your second pet alive for 30 seconds, you’re not doing very well. Secondly, it takes about 10-15 seconds to revive a dead pet while in combat. So technically if you only keep your second pet alive for 15 seconds, you’re in the same position if you tried to ressurect, except you get to dps instead of stand their defenseless.

You sound like an idiot, defending your position on ressurecting a dead pet in the middle of combat.

Doesn’t it sound silly to stop all your dps for 10 seconds, just to have you pet alive for 20 seconds?

Lets say your pet does 5k damage in 20 seconds. You do 10k damage in 20 seconds.

That’s a total of 15k damage in 20 seconds. Then you spend 10 seconds ressurecting your pet. 30 seconds you do 15k damage.

Now lets say you leave your pet dead. 15k damage in 20 seconds. Pet dies. PET SWAP. you do another 7.5k damage with your next pet in the following 10 seconds.

22.5k damage vs. 15k damage over 30 seconds. Hrm…

Hrm. I’ll try it again when I get home, but I tested it for hours last night trying to figure out, and I couldn’t get it for the life of me.

As I can’t test it right now as I’m not home. Can you get your pet’s opening strike to proc with yours and hunter’s shot?

My goal when opening is to get all 20 stacks on my target before unloading Barrage/Rapid Fire. But I rarely get it to 15, and never above.

The only time I get it to 20 is when I have traited for lower Longbow CD and I get a 2 second overlap on my Hunter’s Shot.

Whargoul.9613:

Fateless, a Thief does not have 21 int like you somehow seem to think. At most he has 15 with the Trickery line. You can dodge, blind, stun, daze, use swiftness, confusion, cripple… etc to counter. Like I said before, you should take a step back a re-evaluate how you’re trying to fight.

Unlike you seem to think, most burst thieves go into Trickery for the 15 initiative, and due to the initiative regeneration, by the time the thief has used all 15 initiative, they already have another 4, and by the time they use the next one, they have 3.

I’ve tested it multiple times.

I don’t know how many abilites you think classes have with that much CC, but I don’t know of many classes that can use stuns, dazes, slows, swiftness all at the same time.

And besides, I shouldn’t have to blow EVERY single CD that I have just to avoid your ONE ABILITY.

As much as I hate pets in general, I actually liked that we were able to use them as an F2 abuse button. I didn’t care to micro-manage them so if they died, they died, but at least I was given an extra ability that I could actually use.

That’s why I play Ranger in Gw2. We have the option to use their abilities to synergize with our own play. Its really annoying when I get myself killed because my Pet was stubborn and wouldn’t use their ability when I asked them to.

Wolfbrand.6523:

My main is an 80 thief, and I’ll be the first to admit that skillseeker needs tuning. I don’t think an initiative nerf is the way to go though. The most reasonable changes are as follows…

Reduce the leap range
Heartseeker works as a gap closer and finisher, while simultaneously being spammable. Its range doesn’t allow for targets to kite/CC for a breather.

Drastically decrease the 33%+ damage
D/D already has an amazing tool for sustained damage (Death Blossom), Heartseeker should function as our finisher, not our IWIN button. I wouldn’t even be opposed to buffing the <33% damage so that D/D plays as a condition/strategic build that has a go-to burst ability.

Increase its cast time
I occasionally use Heartseeker to travel faster around the map because of its leap/spamability. While doing this yesterday, I was sure that its cast time was increased. I think I was just hallucinating (or hopeful), but either way, I thought it was a great fix. By increasing its activation time, it cuts into the core of the problem — it has enormous burst when chained together in rapid succession. By making the move a bit slower, it allows for the same raw burst per cast, while fixing the issue that it hits too fast.

I believe one of these fixes would be reasonable while not fundamentally changing what Heartseeker is supposed to do.

I’m just glad that some of the thief population can admit to it being a little over the top. I’m not asking for the skill to be removed. Just curb the spamming, or at least lower the damage on +33% targets.

GummiBear.2756:

maybe blindness, or even better daze the thief?

How many blinds/dazes do you think people have?

By last count in an ideal situation where you have full endurance, the thief still has 5 heartseekers left, and that is without him even leaving combat to regenerate any.

Unless I’m a guardian with an infinite number of blinds, most classes benefit from one blind, or a daze, or a stun.

That still leaves me to deal with 4 heartseekers. On average, from full health, that pulls most classes beneath 50%, and if I was at 50%, I’m easily dead.

I just don’t think heartseeker should be an “auto-execute” button. And if it is, then the above 33% damage needs to be drastically reduced. I know that a heartseeker against a full HP elementalist still hits for a good 3-4k. Thats just silly.

This is actually the standard build my guildmates will be running with. It will be tweaked I’m sure, but it has huge potential and a high skillcap.

Pet’s totally depend on what you’re doing.

If you’re in WvW, pets die FAST. You’ll want either a range pet, or a passive pet to stick on your side for F2 abuse.

In sPvP, I prefer more CC pets, so I run with the Alpine Wolf and the Snow Leopard, both apply lengthy chills which is a 66% slow and 66% slow on ability recharge.

For WvW, I like Devourer’s and Spiders for range options, or Moa’s for the raid buffs if I’m with my guildmates.

In pve, depends on the encounter. Bears are good for tanking, cats for dps, spiders for range CC and dps, Moa’s for buffs…

Everything depends.

Whargoul.9613:

That’s easy Thedenofsin, don’t stand still like an idiot and let him beat on you. I understand you’re upset about heartseeker too – I saw your angry nerf post in the pvp thread.

Okay, so suppose I don’t just stand there.

I dodge twice (all endurance can give me), that leaves you with about 5 heartseekers before you’re out of initiative.

I can try to run away, yet due to heartseeker’s sticky nature, you literally jump to me and hit me every time, you don’t even have to be facing me. I can run through you, behind you, under you, over you, you always end up smacking me time after time.

I don’t buy your “just dodge it” attitude.

FRANKB.6591:

Greatsword. That 1.1k range leap is just sexy. And the blocking ability where you can kick your foe to Narnia is even sexier.

Nothing better than watching a warrior try to eviscerate you for a killing blow, just to see them get tossed a mile backwards when they finally make contact. Gotta love counterattack.

Hunter’s Shot with Opening Strike still does not proc 15 stacks of vulnerability at any range.

Strongfort.2451:

imgur.com/DKkdS

LOL. +1

Don’t get me wrong, I think heartseeker is a really cool ability. I just think that the “spamming” of it needs to be fixed somehow. It does huge damage and can be used every second 7 times in a row?

I think the easiest fix is to increase its initiative. It will force people to be more conservative with it.

Also, to people saying to get more skill because this game gives the ability to dodge and such.

In seven seconds, I get 2 dodges and that is IF I had full endurance to start the encounter. As I previously stated, the thief spamming heartseeker gets 7 attacks. On top of that, it auto-follows its target due to the sticky nature of the ability.

7-2= 5 heartseekers averaging even 3k damage (I’ve seen these as high as 6k when below 33%) is still 15k damage. That is enough to wipe out a full hp Guardian, elementalist and take every other class in the game down to below 25%.

Just seems like it needs some work. Don’t get upset because someone has realized that your class has one ability that needs tweaking. I didn’t call thief OP, I said one ability is broken.

Greatsword. It easily has the most kitten skins in the game.

Did I mention I can TURN INTO A BIRD AND FLY THROUGH THE AIR.

A BIRD.

To add to Yak’s impressive description, it also helps to trait into high Marksmanship and pick up “piercing arrows”. This allows your abilities to punch through multiple targets at once, so you can score multi-kills and tag more mobs with less work.

All in all.

Barrage.

Auto-attack the furthest mob in the group for max devastation.

Have a drink.

Collect moar loot.

SpectacularYak.6518:

Zeph.5740:

Whats even more odd, is that sometimes it stacks 3-4 bleeds on the target with the first hit instead of vulnerability.

That’s awesome.

If we can get that upgraded to burning I’ll endorse this bug completely.

Such low standards Yak. I will accept nothing less than 5 seconds of stun instead.

The AoE chill applied by the Alpine Wolf often takes about 5 seconds to actually go into effect from the time I hit F2 (20 times, because the first 19 did nothing), to the time I see the chill effect get applied to my opponent. This is extremely frusterating because the lack of responsiveness makes the pet ability unreliable in pvp, as well as when fighting veteran/champion mobs.

I have had the same issue with the leap from the snow leopard. Takes about 20 attempts to make him actually use the ability, and then takes about 5 seconds for him to actually leap at the enemy.

I’m aware that Anet wants to make the pets have an ability animation, but these animations are often affecting the reliability and usefulness of the pet simply because they take too long, or they apply their effect far too late.

For example. I open on a warrior with Barrage and my pet runs in. As the warrior leaves the pulsing aoe slow field, I want my pet to apply his chill. In the following 5 seconds, the warrior has used bolas, bull’s charge, hundred blades and eviscerate. As I die, I see chill applied.

Woopdee freaking doo.

When I tell my pet jump, I want him to jump, not stretch out, growl, think about why he should even listen, then jump. When I say attack, he attacks right away. When I say retreat, he retreats right away. Why when I say “USE YOUR ABILITY” does he take 5 seconds to decide to use it? I yell LEAP AT THE WARRIOR, I want him to be taking that warrior out immediately, not once the warrior is already on top of me.

So as the title goes, I find heartseeker to be a broken ability.

I don’t know what the dev’s were thinking, but thieves shouldn’t be able to spam this ability 6-7 times before they run out of initiative. I had the same problem with warriors in beta when their hundred blades was able to pour out such huge damage in a matter of seconds.

I do believe that classes should be able to build burst builds, but I think there needs to be a limit. My thief is able to do 7 heartseekers in 7 seconds, and on an elementalist, this amounts to (from full health), to a total of 24k damage.

I know that ele’s are squishy because they do big damage, but that doesn’t mean that a thief should be able to annihilate the average elementalist with four heartseekers.

I think to solve the issue, there needs to be a raise on the initiative cost, or there needs to be some sort of limit put on when and how often it can be used. (Like it can only be used when target is actually below 50%). I do believe that the thief should be able to put out the most single target damage quickly, but by making this ability so strong, so spammable, and so sticky (your target rarely escapes), it needs a nerf.

Never liked the spirit build in the first place. I love my greatsword/longbow build. I have huge control in combat and can win any 1 v 1. I make the perfect roamer and can defend any node or take any node.

I also noticed that opening strike does not stack with Hunter’s Shot (#3 longbow) if used at the same time. If you use Hunter’s Shot for the 10 vulnerability stacks at the same time you have opening strike, you should apply 15 stacks of vulnerability, but you only ever get 10. On the other hand, if I allow myself to shoot off an auto-attack shot first, it applies the opening strike 5 vulnerability, and then follow it with Hunter’s Shot. I get 15 stacks.

Broken?

On top of all that. The Pet’s opening strike doesn’t proc unless the pet initiates combat before the ranger. To get all 20 stacks of vulnerability, you have to let your pet attack first, then auto-attack once, then Hunter’s Shot.

Broken moar?

Amen. Huge issue with Rangers. I hate pets to begin with, but when the only useful ability they give me doesn’t work when I need it to, I get really upset.

So… after the first few weeks of release and after lots of testing, here is my final version of the Ranger Greatsword/Longbow build. Aptly named the Barrage, it has huge damage, huge control and can be utilized in every style of play

Longbow/Greatsword (For sPvP and Solo Play)
The most common weapon set is Longbow/Greatsword. It is the most common, because it is the best build when looking at a utility/survivability/damage spec. Although there are other viable builds, Longbow/Greatsword gives some great advantages all around. This is a very strong build while levelling, as well as for sPvP.

Weapons and their abilities:

Longbow
#1 = Auto-attack. 1500 range (when traited). More damage the further from the target. Combo Finisher = Physical Projectile.
#2 = Rapid Fire. 1500 range (when traited). Shoot arrows rapidly at a target. Combo Finisher = Physical Projectile.
#3 = Hunter’s Shot. 1500 range (when traited). Gives pet swiftness and applies vulnerability to your enemy. Does low damage. Best used as an opener. Combo Finisher = Physical Projectile.
#4 = Point Blank Shot. 750 range (when traited). Pushes back your target. Pushback is further the closer the target is. Does high damage. Combo Finisher = Physical Projectile.
#5 = Barrage. 1500 range (when traited). Applies an aoe cripple for 12 seconds when fully casted. Does large dot aoe damage against targets in the field.

Greatsword
#1 = Auto-attack. 3 part attack, of which the 3rd swing evades while being cast.
#2 = Maul. High damage and applies 3 stacks of bleed which last just over 5 seconds.
#3 = Swoop. Charge. Does high damage. Combo Finisher = Leap.
#4 = Counterattack. If attacked while channeling, you knockback your enemy. Or you can activate the ability and throw your Greatsword and cripple your enemy. Combo Finisher = Physical Projectile.
#5 = Hilt-Bash. Low damage. Applies a 1 second daze to you target and your pet’s next attack does 50% more damage.If you hit your target from the side or back, they are stunned instead of dazed.

You utility skills should be:

Heal: Heal as One (solo play): Heal yourself and your pet. OR Healing Spring (team play). Aoe heal and regeneration field. Combo Field Water.

Muddy Terrain. Throw an aoe immobilize that lasts 2 seconds. The ground is then a pulsing aoe slow for 10 seconds.

Lightning Reflexes. Dodge backwards doing low damage to enemies. Gain Vigor for 10 seconds. Breaks Stun.

Quickening Zephyr. Double your attack speed and your pets attack speed for 4 seconds. Cannot be healed while under this effect.

Elite Skill: Rampage as One. Grants you and your pet Fury, Swiftness and Stability for 21 seconds. Critical hits by you and your pet apply might to their counterpart.

Weapon Sigils:

Sigil of Superior Air on your Longbow. Maximize your ranged damage.
Sigil of Superior Blood on your Greatsword. Adds survivability in melee range.

Gear Runes:

Superior Rune of the Eagle x 6.

Amulet:

Berserker’s Amulet.

Traits:

30 Points in Marksmanship. Pick up Steady Focus (I) Piercing Arrows (VIII) and Eagle Eye (X)
25 Points in Skirmishing. Pick up Pet’s Prowess (I) and Quick Draw (X)
10 Points in Wilderness. Pick up Wilderness Knowledge (VI)
5 Points in Nature Magic.

This build has incredible control. Ranger may not be the ideal class for 2v1’s or 3v1’s, but they really shine in 1v1’s. This build is designed to make use of Barrage. Its AoE slow and damage pulse is incredible for control and gives you time to get off your longbow abilities before being engaged in melee.

Swap to your greatsword and you have huge passive surviability, one of the longest gap closers in the game. A counterattack/ranged slow. Bleeds. And a daze.

Did I mention we have pets to boot?

This build is the master of being in control of an encounter.