Guild Wars 2

Come on, moving spirit trait!

Top Tier: Mesmer – Elementalist – Engineer

High Tier: Guardian – Revenant

Mid Tier: Ranger – Necromancer

Low Tier: Thief – Warrior

Thought I should make a tier list since haven’t seen any since the small patch (the meta seems a bit less bunky now).

The Top tier are classes that I have no problem if all 4 of my teammates are.
High tier are classes I have no problem with 2 members on, but 3 is a bit of a push.
Mid tier are classes I think it’s good to have 1 one, but 2 is uncomfortable.
Low tier are classes that you don’t want to see 1 in your team, and more than 1 would be a sure lost.

Here’s the thought process for those interested.

Chrono is no doubt the best class right now, might deserve its own tier
Ele is strong in offense, defense and sustain but kind of lack in utility (basically only good as bunker)
Scrapper is arguably stronger than ele but bring less defense for the team. 2 scrapper < 2 ele < 1 ele + 1 scrapper
Dragon Hunter bring unrivaled cc to the team and good ones can handle themselves vs any classes
Rev is overrated so they function exceptionally well as tank in this meta. Also bring a lot of boon and cc which make big difference at the start of the game.
Druid is pretty strong though only because of the blind spam. Would be higher if not for some counters (like simply kill the bristleback)
Reaper is not as strong as many claim it to be (although would be way higher if not for Diamond Skin). The only class they do exceptionally well against is Scrapper (thus I rank Scrapper lower than ele)
Daredevil is not as kittenome people claim imo. Though ranked bottom I think it’s still viable.
Warrior stand nowhere in the meta right now. Could be so much better if not for tons of chill and block, invu in the meta. Berserker do a lot of damage though (trying to push condi on zerker in pvp get nowhere imo).

Some of them would be better or worse with different builds and comp but I just imply that people were using the best builds for that match.

As someone who love using Axe. I gotta agree that the Axe AA damage is way too low. Probably the weakest AA in game? It would be nice to see raw damage buff for the AA.

The Might stack is really useless because Axe scale really poorly or you would get the Might stack from someone else. I would rather have it stack Vulnerability on targets. Same effect but synergy much better with condi.

As for the skills, they are fine but need some small tweak.

The Spitblade barely ever hit all 5 blades unless you stand right in the melee range (you can test vs the golem in hotm) and it’s even worse if you are moving. The hitbox on those thing need to be bigger.

Winter’s Bite could have Unblockable. God I wish Ranger have ANY thing unblockable. Or maybe Boon rip/convert. At the very least this could be Projectile finisher.

I haven’t been active lately but after patch, the Ruby climb has been pretty easy actually. So turn out a lot of Ruby were there because they rely on OP Rev and Chrono. I guess we Ranger get a head start here.

The only annoying one is Tempest but as long as your team know when to burst a tempest down, it shouldn’t be too hard.

Or bring along a Bristleback (also I do like to Wyvern for the knockdown vs rez meta currently, it’s buggy as kitten though). I do like Smokescale for its do everything purpose but in PvP Bristleback and Wyvern might be the deadly combo for all Ranger builds.

I am playing D/F auramancer and found Engi really hard to deal with. I wonder if anyone can give me some tips vs them?

I just reached Ruby as Ranger (Condi Survival) and I just notice that I haven’t seen any Ruby Ranger, beside 1 in premade (and imo, if you premade you should be in Ruby by now).

So any Ruby Ranger main out there? What build do you use? How do you feel about the climb so far?

Quick Draw is the most fun trait in game.

Do everything opposite of what Anet did so far. Energy regen slower (double the bar) but has a base regen. Healing, damage, regeneration and condition tick all contribute to make the regen fill faster.

And change the Avatar 1 to a long channel heal at pointed location. Tapping 1 is annoying when Anet server cannot hold itself.

I just tested around and yeah, I generate much more energy compare to builds using Healing Power now (or at least more steady). Felt bad for people who invested into Healing Power gears glad I just stick to my berserker and sinister gears.

This change is a step back!

I mean in every other games I have played the devs try to make the healer be more useful in term of support when they cannot heal (due to allies being at full health). A cool example would be the medic in TF2 with his over heal.

I mean wow, the Avatar form is not even that strong anyway. Plus you want to be in Avatar form when your team need healing… So after healing your team with Avatar’s abilities you can’t even generate energy.

Is Druid being balanced by two different people? We got some updates that allow Druid to generate more energy ooc and then some updates just strip the way we can generate energy ooc.

Druid and Condi do have interesting synergy due to the tankiness and being able to lay trap while in Avatar form but I have found that:

1. The base condi without Druid is also pretty good, might be even better. The only thing Druid really offer is a stun break (condi cleanse is not even that needed)

2. Condi Druid isn’t any better vs normal Ranger. Which class has problem with Condi Druid that Ranger can’t already beat?

Warrior: pretty good vs Condi and Druid, especially without being able to blind spam like a real Druid.

Guardian: DH is overall way better than Condi Druid, unless you are playing vs an idiot who waste all traps on Stone

Rev: Sword is not amazing vs Ranger in general because of pet. Hammer on the other hand destroy trappers

Engi: really strong vs condi and ranger in general

Thief: base thief suck vs ranger. DD is pretty good vs ranger an trapper (just dodge and move vs traps)

Ranger: base druid fail vs condi. LB pew pew counter condi build

Mesmer: Shatter spam and well are both really good. Lockdown is also amazing

Necro: vastly depend on whether or not the necro know what build is he facing. Fairly balanced MU imo

Ele: strongly depend on whether or not the ele run Diamond Skin. If they do, you will be the most useless person on the team. Similar to engi, do extremely well vs condi druid.

I play condi on almost every classes an to be honest people lose vs condi mostly because a. they have no idea what to do vs condi and b. run a very greedy build.

If you really think Condi Druid is strong, give some other condi builds a try: Burn Guar (still cheesy af), Condi Mesmer (really strong with chrono), Necro (tons of different builds), Engi (super good), Berserker (guardian 0.5 but amusing in 1vs1), condi thief (go hunt anyone without condi cleanse with ease). The only one that I couldn’t make it work is ele and I still haven’t really figure condi on rev.

I really hate this skill because you basically have to ask someone else in the team to do your job of killing the enemy. Which is kind of dumb when considering the most fun part of Gw2 PvP is the small fight.

And for people who say, just deal like 2k damage (since who on earth run that trait without HP), most of the condi builds do not have the skill to do that much damage and tempest (the only one who run that) heal a lot.

Overall I find getting hit by LB4 from 5 Rangers feel more meaningful than this poorly designed trait.

Some of you are using Beastmastery and giving out the wrong cd number. Both Smoke Field and Smoke Assault cd are 20s, with Beastmastery are 16s.

Smoke Assault does less damage than some F2 now and the Field doesn’t feel like doing anything. Overall the change make the pet less fun to use now.

Felt like the nerf is way too hard. About 30-35% damage decrease for the pet as well as 2 Might if using WHaO. Since the pet cannot use the skill before engaged, the long distance blink is now useless.

On the other hand the Field is just a Smoke Field without any effect (unlike other pets). I at least hoped for a shorter cd.

The build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQRAnY8fnEqAVsilrAOsAUtgFGBDupeV7qNjraVIgpAc5CAlsi0A-TZRAABfcEAA4BAI4+DdcSAIrMAA

Alternative:

Viper + Rune of Kriat: Very strong damage but low HP and depend a lot of condi clear. Very fun to play with if you know enemy won’t have condi clear.

Glyph of Equality -> For additional condi clear and evasion. But the daze is quite useful in this build.

Sword’s Hydro Sigil can be replaced with Energy (for dodging Rev) or Superior Speed (quickness -> fire)

Overall damage: 300,000-500,000 condi damage. Normal damage is only roundly 100,000.

Rune of Scavenger is very useful since I think the life steal also count as some heal. The trap plays a big role here although for people who hate trap they can change slot with another stun break (and trait the dodge one)

Playstyle:
Melee focused so beware of long range attackers. The Druid trait actually make the long range less annoying for the condi build with the fast moving trait.
The stun break and remove condi when entering Avatar form is what really make this build shine over normal condi build. You are gonna play a very selfish druid and use the form to save your self most of the time. Blast over fire or light field is pretty useful as well but overall staying too long in CA is a bad idea.
Lastly Ancient Seed is very useful but very hard to set up. Mostly you will get it through pet’s knockdown, sometime with the stun break. Idk if it even work with trap though it say so in the description. I think it should even work on enemies stunned by allies. And the downstate is very strong as well.

This is a modified from my Condi build that use Beastmastery (which is way stronger 1vs1) but I actually prefer this build now with its 33% perma speed boost and do slightly better in big fight.

On top of the big damage, annoying traps (especially those hold traps) and random long boons and heal, the daze is just way too much. If every maps are just big fields like Mid foefire then it wouldn’t be that bad but some locations are just silly when a Guar can daze half a dozen times… AoE. I don’t think there’s any class get access to that much aoe disable burst not to mention the power of the traps. And then there’s LB5. Just way too much close quarter control.

One of the first thing Anet should look at is the insanely low cast time of traps. I don’t see why such ridiculously powerful abilities do not give other players chances to counter play by looking at animation, interrupt or calculate timing like many other abilities.

Instant activation of daze on traps is way too strong. I suggest the trap dropping a dazing light with small delay activation to give other players a little visual feedback and a chance to react.

I feel like these kind of small tweak should benefit both side in term of skill and tone down the DH traps plaguing PvP atm.

It’s weak but not unplayable so if you are a fan of that, sure. Prepare to be disappointed by every patch though. I don’t recall Ranger ever get buffed without a follow up nerf and then we get random out of nowhere nerf and then more “bug fix” nerf.

Ranger’s pet does not scale with stat. They are Ranger’s skills. Like Engineer’s additional skills or Warrior’s F1, except does not get effected by stats unless you take the trait.

With that logic Necro and mesmer should get reduced stats when summon clones and minions.

Why not just… idk, hit the vines? It dies in few hits. Don’t tell me you guys just sit still until 5s wear off.

It’s not even that amazing, people just try Ancient Seeds out because of the nerf. Most complainers, surely do not play Ranger, have no idea that they can just AA can break the vine in 2 seconds. Yet they whine about 5s immobility.

If you aren’t playing Condi, Ancient Seeds suck. And if you are playing Condi, you should not run druid anyway.

The F2 cannot hit anything that’s not on the same level of height.

I tested on the NPC in Heart of the Mist, the Necromancer and Ranger and only a slop (barely to the knee of an asura) will make all the attacks hit the air, or ground.

The ability is very similar to Rapid Fire, I think it might not work as intended.

Since Anet was very quick at fixing Smokescale, I hope the dev will look at this soon.

1. Regen does not contribute with CA energy.

Which is silly considering it’s also a huge source of heal from Ranger. A Healing Spring without Druid spec can heal 60-80k for allies in a pvp match not to mention tons of other source like from traits (special mention to shouts), weapon, pets and skills (spirit).

2. Condition does not count toward CA energy.

And Ranger has a lot of access to conditions with and without full condition build. A lot of great weapons got trashed.

3. Pet/Spirit does nothing for CA.

There are some pets, spirits and traits that add heal to pets and they never see any use. Disappoint to see no synergy between pet and CA or at least between healing pet and Druid.

4. Staff is such a meh weapon.

It has no big impact but play a big role in CA generation so you cannot ever swap it out. Thus lead to a very boring passive playstyle. Meanwhile the best trait that make Ranger truly fun is Quick Draw (I wish it was a Minor trait so you can always have it) allows Ranger to be a very flexible and active class.

It’s not even about being weak or strong but along with the fact that Druid players rarely ever enter the Avatar form, Druid feels very disconnected compare to the dynamic playstyle of Ranger that I love.

I feel like all of above issues could be addressed and make Druid a much more fun class to play.
Make Regen and Condition partly count toward generation.
Pet/spirit heal contribute to generation.
Improve the impact of staff skills while increase the cd so good players won’t be forced into the weapon.

Plus a small suggestion: put Quick Draw icon to the buff tray so people can time it better in Avatar form.
Not critical but CA’s 1 an 2 (Cosmic Ray and Seed of Life) is very similar and the click to drop feel very unnecessary for two super low cd skills (not to mention very annoying for high ping users). I don’t see any reason for Cosmic Ray to be there as the Seed is already very good. I hope Cosmic Ray will be changed to something like a channel heal to be less clunky.
I’m not too happy with the current energy design of CA too but look like it’s being worked on.