Guild Wars 2

I have yet to see the trait tree fully only partials from youtube videos so far, but my concern with soulbeast is with mobility and damage mitigation. If one were to go with condition removals from stances and entirely leave the shout system, is there a speed boost anywhere? Stances seem interesting but the cooldowns are too long for condi-cleanse effectiveness.

For a medium armor class, I have seen no evades, blocks, defy pain, stealth or aegis built in anywhere. I did see a stance for endurance return and regen, but I don’t think that will be enough to even counter current hard-hitting elites.

I don’t think that bunker healing is going to keep up with damage even though I did see some decent heals in stances (cd so long tho). Anet seems determined from the pvp aspect to make bunker less attractive. Melee dagger does not seem a viable option as of yet from the small glimpses I’ve seen.

Bast Bow.2958:

Aomine.5012:

I kinda knew it all along.

This balance patch will make non healing gear heal significantly less while with healing gear, you still heal less or just about the same.

Win-win situation on Anet’s part of gutting ranger down once more.

going full heal like full magi without food makes you at 1557 HP. With food even more, wouldn’t that make full magi more viable and not less or just about the same?

Unfortunately not….Full healing gear still heals less than before. Even if it was the same, it would be less than before simply because celestial avatar form up-time was nerfed by 50% which would thereby make an additional nerf to average-over-time condi cleanse and stealth as well.

I found having all the added AF generation not nearly as useful, because you just end up waiting on the cooldown as it goes….esp. when in group play. I did find that I probably need to invest in purity, cleansing sigils or soldier’s runes as well as utility stun breaks for additional means of condi clear and/or stun break since the 5 extra seconds can be seriously killer.

Didn’t I see you under a bridge recently?

OGDeadHead.8326:

Kam.4092:

They said long ago in the beginning, that every nerf would bring a buff. It depends if they buff us in a good way.

Exactly. Anet however tend to nerf hard, and then buff something that noone ever uses anyway, even after a minor “buff”.

Nerf example:
Nerf base healing in CA by 25%

Buff example:
Polar bear skill “Icy Roar” has gotten its chill duration increased by 33%. Sounds like massive buff right? In reality – up to 4 seconds from previous 3 seconds on a totally lackluster skill on a useless pet.

So, one thing goes into the nerf basket, and one thing in the buff basket, and all should be happy!

This is typical Anet balancing at its finest.

^ THIS

Plus, I might be a pessimist (hell I am), but it’s my guess that the nerf to base druid healing will effectively cancel out the buff to healing with gear of that nature. What I mean is that they might decrease base healing in celestial avatar by 25 percent but buff the effects of healing stats by the same 25 percent. Zerk gear would lose a quarter of its heal potential and clerics would stay exactly the same, because the buff would only neutralize the nerf. Heal gear is status quo and everybody else loses semi effective healing. No buff only nerf or no effect.

Ithilwen.1529:

Agreed, the circles need to be larger so DH isn’t so dominant on point.

I concur….

I don’t think the problem is guardians…they are supposed to be tanky and their damage is reasonable. The noticeable difference is the removal of bunker amulets so other classes can’t tank similarly. The other thing that is unmentioned here to my knowledge is the new maps especially have small pads for caps, so unlike say Khylo where there is possibility to be on a pad and not in a trap, that is not the case here. Mesmer and Necro wells as well as DH traps make contesting pts nearly impossible if you are not able to absorb damage for a duration.

They remove bunking for most, so classes that can still bunk truly stand out, since their blocks, heals and evades still function to that effect. As much Stronghold hate is out there, I think it lends itself to more diversity of builds since instead of trying hold points your focus is eliminating, protecting, and summoning targets. This is not a Stronghold promotion, but it makes me wonder if the devs should expand their pvp maps and concepts to more than just capture pts, dare I say run the flag or something like huttball? The skills in this game function the same for the most part in pvp and wvw, and the complaints against DH are not nearly as outspoken in wvw forums so is the class really so OP?

I think the problem is the structure of PvP.

draxynnic.3719:

kin korn karn.9023:

draxynnic.3719:

If we don’t complain, and just roll with the punches as you seem to be suggesting… then well, there’s no chance of anything happening.

The extent of the moaning is absurd.

“Anet should have told us sooner that the time was limited.” They did. Read the update notes.

They did. However, they changed the rules for the last two weeks, and that wasn’t communicated in advance.

“Let’s have a separate Q for each map.” Sure, now everyone suffers long-kitten Qs to benefit the achievement hunters who waited too long.

And waiting for 3 minutes then being stuck for 10 minutes or so on a map you don’t want to play is better?

Separate queues would mean that the people who want to play the maps can, and the people who don’t, for whatever reason, can play the other maps without de facto trolling the people who do want the beta maps.

And if you want shorter queues, just check all the boxes, just like it currently works with Stronghold.

“Let us play it in custom arenas.” Capricorn achieve arena pops up, everybody gets the title in 25 matches. (Sad thing is, I’m sure this sounds like heaven to you guys.)

Did anyone actually suggest that?

“Add Capricorn to Ranked.” As if Ranked didn’t have enough DH unbalance as it is. (Not talking about build balance, just the lame team comps in DH meta.)

I think this was aiming towards resolving the conflict between playing ranked and playing unranked for an achievement. Making it finish when the season did was a curious choice.

“Extend the time limit.” So what’s the point of setting a limit in the first place?

Good question. What was the point of setting a limit in the first place? Particularly if you’re going to change the rules before that limit expires?

The only reasonable gripe is that Coliseum was added and took over Capricorn’s pinned spot a couple weeks early. To be fair, though, players still have had ample time to finish the achieve many times over, and even now it’s not out of reach to finish it up.

This may come as a surprise to you, but sometimes people have peaks and troughs in the times they’re able to play. This can lead people to make decisions like, say “okay, this particular thing is available for three months, but there’s a month in there that I won’t be able to play much, so I’ll do a bit in the first month and finish it off in the third”. Having the rules changed so it’s significantly harder to get games does, as another poster stated, feel like getting the rug pulled out from under your feet.

I do think that Capricorn should get the pin back until the end of s4.

That would probably be sufficient for most people here. Still a pain compared to waiting until Oct 3 to release the new map, but that way you’d at least be able to cast a vote for the map you want each game, rather than it being two layers of RNG to get the map.

Well said… I agree completely and then some. The game to which I was an avid player is getting less and less of my time due to time-gated material and the loss of goals. I have been playing since launch, have maxed out my dailies and I am stuck with more than 1000 ap’s (acheivement points -30K) shy of finishing the achievement armor. I have done and finished most all of the general, story, dungeons, fractals and pvp achievements as well as a chunk of the wvw ones as well. I have played through seasonal features such as halloween and wintersday each and every time. I frequented the mini game activities as well. I am still far from the ap chest pieces and I earn maybe 10 pts a week at best with 1 ap here and there, and now there are very few achievement pts to earn that are left and those are now time sensitive.

I am an adult, I work more than 50 hours a week and maintain a household, I may not be the target audience, but there is increasingly less incentive or goal oriented play left in gw2, so I consider the new map a slap in the face. And yes, I will take some cheese to go with my whine.

Lol, hands down…. The Honey Badger

(warning cursing)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4r7wHMg5Yjg

Ty for feedback, I won’t give up on Guard just yet then…

Since the recent nerf of Guard, I have been wondering whether its usefulness is all but gone.

Pros:
* Damage mitigation now 33% (down from 50%) plus might stacks gained simultaneously
* As a shout with Resounding Timbre grants swiftness and regeneration
* As a shout with Superior Rune of Trooper can remove a condition
* Relatively short cool down 30 sec 24 w/ Resounding Timbre

Cons:
* The Damage mitigation is no more than protection but could kill your pet esp.
w/ multiple allies around as it benefits them as well.
* Others skills seem tempting despite a longer cool down. Signet of Stone100%
dmg mitigation same time of 6 sec and constant toughness (180 at lvl 80)
when not activated. Lightening Reflexes, Signet of Renewal, Protect Me (same
cool down and same benefits as shout, protection 4 sec. and taunt) and
Quickening Zephr all provide stun break whereas Guard does not.

Conclusion: Protect Me seems a logical replacement as it is superior in most every way; however, I used to carry both, and the question arises can Protect Me and Guard still work together and even stack, since Guard isn’t actually providing protection, or is it just a better choice to pick something else?

Thoughts please….

Ty Crapgame…posted here because WvW allows buffs and gear slightly different from PvE and PvP (Bloodlust for ex. ). So expecting the build to not be necessarily possible in other formats. Additionaly, the build would affect roamers like myself more so than a zerg or pt capture in PvP.

8/8/16 in WvW, faced a thief who I saw only once. Most I saw thereafter was the smoke circles every once in a while. It was a charr thief from Maguuma, who literally never broke stealth during the entire encounter other than when I saw him on the horizon. He was pure condi/traps. Moving or standing still all I heard was the backstab sound effect. and literally he would within a second lay 3 traps on top of me. I cleansed and gained stability and retreated to a held camp. Again smoke field sound effect and traps on top of me. The Npc guards there were taking damage but not aggroed or put into an attack stance, probably because there wasn’t any target. I hung around the camp trying to figure a way of attack but basically every 10 seconds trap spam condi-nuke. More of his server folk came I retreated back to my base camp the whole way getting condi-nuked.

Didn’t they nerf trap rune a bit back to avoid this scenario? And regardless how would he maintain stealth once traps are triggered? Or even still is this a loophole in the design or a hack?

Wondrouswall.7169:

Yeah, the Pink and Black Moas are different. Statistically, you want the Pink Moa. Faster F2 cast time (by 2 seconds) with a ½s higher daze duration each pulse than the Black Moa’s F2.

Below is the most recent update on pet DPS. Numbers don’t include the recent updates, but the shorter cooldowns on some pets should only raise their DPS by a small amount.

http://guildwarshub.com/ranger-pet-dps-comparison/

No DPS numbers on moving targets though. There was an old thread that had test results, but Moas were not included.

Ty…looking at it seems pretty spot-on still from what I’ve seen playing w/ the different pets.

Nice vid.

@Bast Bow

I wasn’t intending this to be an issue or argument. The original poster set the tone with cynicism relating to Sharpening Stone, which I appreciated as it does relate to how I often feel about the overall treatment of the profession and the game since launch. In referencing your earlier statement, I was not intending it to annoy or prod, I was merely stating that attitudes vary depending on perspective. My experience was affected negatively, whereas I see others benefiting from the same situation. Am I bitter about it, probably, but what’s wrong with stating it in the forums.

Since when can we say we only got nerves if only our personal or best builds got affected by all the tweaks anet did? Since when is that? So if there would be 10 buffs and 1 nerf, and my personal build only got affected by that 1 nerf, I can QQ in the official forums the ranger only got nerfs? If you could please explain that to me?

I have a handful of candies in my hand, all different flavors, the current patch snatched away my most favorite flavored piece of candy. I still have candy that most likely I can enjoy, but others got my favorite flavor, whereas mine was taken away. And to play semantics, it wasn’t one but 3 parts of my build nerfed. It would hardly be noticeable if it were only one aspect, not to mention my build did not hinge on a single gimmick trait or skill, so its more like not just having a runny nose, but a sore throat and headache too.

Furthermore, what all you bitter and salty ones think you will actually achieve by QQ-ing so much while there are also things that have improved? What has been improved in the last few months? A lot, I would say. And yes I also agree there are still things that can be improved. You really think a dev-team would start listening to such a salty and bitter environment? The negativity towards the devs really amazes me. Would there be other ways to say what you think, like say in a constructive meaning or something, to point out what you think about the buffs and nerves?

I hope to achieve nothing, because thinking positive or thinking negatively, posting constructive feedback, ingenious ideas or the worst piece of shlock is meaningless. I have rode along on this ride as I have said since the beginning. If there is one thing I learned, it’s that the forums don’t influence what anet decides. Anet is a business, and business is not influenced by anything found on the forums. They are influenced by sales and online activity as it relates to sales. It makes sense.

The last major patch killed another build I used with the glyph nerfs, so my opinion is skewed. The patch before that removed apothecary amulets killing my pre-Heart of Thorns (HoT) beastmaster/condi build. More examples, the knee jerk 24 changes to Astral Form; the multiple nerfs of pets both before HoT and after when the root of ai problem has never been touched since day one (and no I am not a programmer- don’t know how difficult to redo- just frustrated that the dog won’t hunt monsieur); the shortbow nerf; and dating way back to the initial greatsword nerf. Even I have to admit there have been positive changes, definitely. The reworked longbow and shouts in an overall sense and my personal fave the offhand axe rework, but I’m old, once I find something I like I don’t like to shake it up too much. I get some things are seriously imbalanced, but anet in my opinion will often use a sledgehammer where a tack hammer would suffice. To be honest, I am a pessimist/ half empty kinda guy, because I haven’t seen much reason to think otherwise. I am not saying you should be like me. Truthfully I wish I were as positive as you are.

Or is this complete utter jibberish?

I know I am spouting jibberish, but kitten it makes me feel better and I’m not out to hurt anyone’s feelings or change the world. For the most part I’ve enjoyed playing GW2 as I did GW1, but balance patch means anything but…making everyone happy is impossible, the grass is always greener on the other side.

You may want to see either a optician or a psychologist.

http://study.com/academy/lesson/catharsis-in-psychology-theory-examples-definition.html

Bast Bow.2958:

Anduriell.

Seriously. How can you whine like this.

I’m gonna copy and paste all the ranger patch notes, and you can look at them again. And then tell us all again how we only got nerfs. You may want to see either a optician or a psychologist.

Here, look:

Ranger
“After many years, ranger pets have learned how to remember their own names, and you’ll no longer be required to rename a pet when you switch them out! In addition to some baseline improvements, our goal has been to improve base pet abilities during this update. With that said, there are definitely more pet changes that we’re looking forward to implementing in the future.”
Weapons
Swoop: This skill will no longer be affected by movement-impairing conditions.
Ricochet: The number of times the axe can bounce has been reduced from 2 to 1. Base damage has been increased by 40%.
Hunter’s Call: The damage of this skill has been increased by 25%. This skill now applies 5 seconds of vulnerability each time it hits an enemy.
Utilities
Strength of the Pack: Updated the skill facts to show the proper effect duration.
Sharpening Stone: The recharge of this skill has been reduced from 45 seconds to 30 seconds. Bleeding duration has been increased from 6 seconds to 10 seconds. The number of attacks this skill applies has been increased from 5 to 6.
Glyphs: All glyphs have been updated to properly set their cooldowns after use.
Glyph of Rejuvenation: This glyph now heals the ranger’s pet.
Water Spirit: Fixed a bug that prevented Water Spirit’s on-attack healing effect from scaling properly.
Guard: Reduced the damage reduction from 50% to 33%.
Druid—Glyphs: Fixed a bug that caused glyph abilities to have differing recharges between base form and celestial form.
Quickening Zephyr: The cooldown of this skill has been reduced from 60 seconds to 50 seconds.
Pets
Pets: Names for unequipped pets are now remembered between sessions.
Spider Family—Poison Gas: The duration of this field has been increased from 1 second to 4 seconds, applying poison on each pulse. Poison application is now based off of an unblockable attack instead of applying directly through defense. Poison duration has been increased from 3 seconds to 4 seconds.
Moa Family—Peck: The attack range of this skill has been increased from 130 to 170.
Moa Family—Frenzied Attack: This attack now executes twice as fast as it previously did, allowing the creature to engage in combat faster. Increased the number of attacks from 3 to 4. Vulnerability now applies on each attack hit rather than directly applying it to the target through defense.
Red Moa—Furious Screech: The aftercast of this pet skill has been reduced by 2 seconds, allowing the creature to engage in combat faster.
Blue Moa—Protecting Screech: The aftercast of this pet skill has been reduced by 2 seconds, allowing the creature to engage in combat faster. The cooldown of this skill has been reduced from 30 seconds to 24 seconds.
White Moa—Chilling Screech: The aftercast of this pet skill has been reduced by 2 seconds, allowing the creature to engage in combat faster. Chill duration has been increased from 3 seconds to 5 seconds. The cooldown has been reduced from 30 seconds to 24 seconds.
Pink Moa—Dazing Screech: The aftercast of this pet skill has been reduced by 2 seconds, allowing the creature to engage in combat faster.
Black Moa—Dazing Screech: This skill now dazes up to three times during the cast, at a 1 second interval. Daze duration has been reduced from 2 seconds to 1 second per hit.
Pig—Forage: The recharge of all forage skills has been reduced from 40 seconds to 30 seconds.
Pig—Maul: Bleeding stacks per hit have been increased from 1 to 2, for a total of 4 if both attacks hit.
Pig—Brutal Charge: The recharge of this skill has been reduced from 40 seconds to 30 seconds.
Feline Family—Maul: The recharge of this skill has been reduced from 20 seconds to 16 seconds.
Drake—Tail Swipe: The recharge of this skill has been reduced from 30 seconds to 24 seconds.
Drake—Chomp: The recharge of this skill has been reduced from 20 seconds to 10 seconds.
Canine Family—Crippling Leap: The recharge of this skill has been reduced from 20 seconds to 10 seconds.
Canine Family—Brutal Charge: The recharge of this skill has been reduced from 40 seconds to 30 seconds.
Traits
Protective Ward: Increased the cooldown from 15 seconds to 18 seconds in PvP only. This trait will no longer apply weakness through block or evade.
Beastly Warden: Increased the cooldown from 15 seconds to 20 seconds.
Enlargement: This trait will no longer force players out of Celestial Avatar when triggered. The benefits of the trait will still apply.
Runes
Superior Rune of the Druid: Fixed a bug in which the fourth bonus would give the incorrect amount of vitality.
Superior Rune of the Trooper/Soldier: Ranger shouts will now remove conditions from allies within a range of 600.
Notes
Water Spirit’s tooltip remains broken, but the on-attack heal scaling with the player’s healing power is now working. It seems to have received an increase from 0.09 to 0.125.
Storm Spirit’s pulsing Swiftness when traited with Nature’s Vengeance still does not scale with the player’s boon duration.
Pink Moa’s F2 dazes and damages foes 3 times (for clarification). Not noted, but the daze duration was reduced from 2s to 1½s.
Black Moa’s F2 did not receive an aftercast reduction. This now makes the Hall of Monuments Pet a straight downgrade rather than a cosmetic replacement for the Pink Moa.

Now tell us all again how we only got “nerfs and nerfs again for the ranger”

I cannot speak for Anduriel, but from my perspective it was all nerfs…I use Nature Magic (NM)/ Beastmastery (BM)/ Druid (D), I rely on shouts, might stacking and damage mitigation.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQRAnY8XnUqA1Ci9CCWsCctglOB7pFEqWYwr0Y6O15vFAKclMtwA-TpBEQBA4BA8gTAwALDkk9HqwBBIOHBAA

I like my offhand axe, its worked well for me in pvp and wvw. I use axe offhand for obvious reflection, but also vulnerability stacking, damage and blind when done in smoke field. It also synergizes with Strength of the Pack (SoP) for again might stacking. Path of scars is good for interrupts and a proc for Ancient Seeds. If I can’t use blind, but land a path of scars, I supplement Whirling Defense (Situational all the same) with Guard, which is now nerfed by 17% damage increase to user (and pet still takes the damage even though mitigation is merely Protection standard). I also rely on the grandmaster trait Protective Ward to assure I won’t be downed in multiple crits by thief formerly through the weakness aspect of the skill which is now removed (nerfed) making it 4 secs of protection every 15 seconds…sigh a pitiful gm trait, but still the only viable option in NM. Finally, I am close combat with my build for the most part. I stack might which brings me to Ricochet. Less hits = less might shared with pet = less might shared back to me through "We Heal as One." Unless I have SoP active, I cannot maintain my full stacks of might, so nerf. The hits may not have hit as hard, but if there are two targets the first target would be hit a second time anyway, granting more might for me and pet and at least the same amount of damage as this 40 percent increase.

As far as buffs for my specific build, you can mention the maul for felines if it connects (I use tiger mainly for perma fury), and the scenario where i only have one opponent, axe will do more damage for Ricochet. It won’t be long before everyone figures out that these new updated pets still can’t connect, and the devs probably put those changes in to fill in our column to match the length of the other profs ; ) . I’ve been playing since the start, I no longer care about pet names and the other updates are merely correcting what was broken- not buffs.

So its comes down to a matter of perspective…My build was significantly nerfed, maybe a pig/moa sharpening stone greatsword build is improved…(not implying you are using, merely wondering what build will get buffed as much as my build got nerfed?) So my bread and butter build I love is less effective. I have my ticket for the qq train if you will, but what’s wrong with being upset when the rug is path of scars from underneath you?

Sadrien.3470:

Zoef.2761:

Pets keep their names. I was really waiting for that. Guard nerfed: good job. No substantial changes whatsoever. Big fat zero imo.

Guard buffed to God mode….

Serious?….hope you are being sarcastic? Guard next to useless now….total nerf

morrolan.9608:

Clerics has been in since launch hasn’kitten Why is it suddenly too OP?

^ This
Apothecary and Soldier’s amulets original as well…
I also liked the minor tweaks with the add-ons from before so if you want more of this or that you could have a small amount through what amounted to an upgrade slots. For example, soldiers with a carrion upgrade. What was so wrong with the original system?

Talk about pin-point nerf to nature magic. Fortifying bond’s boon share in conjunction with resounding timbre traited “We Heal as one” is now neutered by ricochet’s nerf to 2 targets, a tremendous hit to the might stacking. Further down the line we have/had the only worthwhile grandmaster trait in nature magic nerfed to be no more than protection for 4 seconds every 15 seconds (seems more like an adept or master at best standing). It was one of my favorite skills against getting ganked by thieves outta nowhere. The first hit hurt no denying. Protection helps soak up some of the damage to come, but it was weakness that kept the 5k successive crits at bay, giving you a chance to react from backstabs or bo spams.

Additionally guard is often part of builds following the nature magic/ beastmaster setup so it’s nerf hurts as well. The might remains I suppose but 33% is just protection and you still have to sacrifice the health of your pet. As a consolation couldn’t they just make it protection, keep the might to your pet and call it a day. Why does there always have to be a trade off for rangers like with empathic bond and signet of renewal. 50% seemed reasonable, because you were sacrificing your pet.

At least I can now name my pet….to “Harmless” because even with buffs they still can’t connect.

Back to the #%^%^%$% drawing board I suppose. Build killed.

Thanks for the info. Stitch. I researched the wiki, and it’s exactly that. I guess that’s why they increased the reward (gold) for dailies, since there really is no reason for long time players to do them otherwise having already accumulated several thousand spirit shards. All the same, I hope they continuously add permanent achievement content, because I have been working quite a while toward the hellfire chest piece. Though I am a bit disappointed to learn this all the same, because I have already done so much of the permanent achievements and it makes it significantly more challenging to get the 30k needed for the chest piece skin.

For 2 days after completing the requirements for daily achievements, I did not receive the 10 pts. I got the shards and the 2 gold both times, but the achievement pts did not update. The hero panel summary shows the achievement earned. All aspects except achievement points seem to be working correctly. If at all useful, both day’s dailies were earned in wvw, and yes, I have reported in game as well. I was wondering if I am alone in this, or if it has happened to anyone else? Thanks.

Looks like no one else has mentioned yet the nerf to Bristleback in the form of Health/Vitality. It was labeled a bug, but regardless of how they wish to name what they changed, it effectively nerfs the tankability of the Bristleback by reducing the health bar to be the equivalent of a canine or feline. Not trolling, but you might benefit from knowing this before realizing your bristleback, which prior to the change rarely died is suddenly dead or on the fringe thereof.

So, basically, not only can my small guild not even claim it’s own Guild Hall with it’s 2 or 3 people (family – pretty much the only people I can stand any more), but we have to get to guild level 40 and get an insane amount of materials – like completely impossible within the expected lifetime of this game (my kids will be through college before I was able to grind out all materials)- in order to fully experience the game.

I can relate and agree to your argument fully. I have so many times used Guild Wars as a form of escapism. I work in customer service and talk to people all day, I don’t hate people, but I don’t always want to have to socialize. Given the history of Guild Wars (gw1) and even Guild Wars 2 (gw2) originally, it was/is more than possible to solo content and earn any and all rewards offered. In gw1 they had heroes, so you had a full team at your disposal. I had/have a guild of one person with a guild hall on wizard’s island with all the upgrades. In gw2, you could originally immediately enter in practice servers and earn pvp xp and rewards to mix in mystic forge to gain skins. Some of the skins I have from Arah are from that alone. I have still not finished all paths for Arah and have been playing since launch, and now with the decreased rewards for dungeons and increased requirements for crafting, it seems unlikely that I will be able to ever reach or finish content rewards without a dedicated team. I am not against comaraderie, but one of the draws for me has been the option to just solo and still benefit.

-Map currencies – a bit on the grindy side. VB is fine, however why don’t we get the “keys” in AB and TD from progressing the meta and events? I’m fine with machetes in DS requiring the previous three currencies, but I don’t like having to buy the other two on top of needing currency for skins. You don’t need to buy Crowbars , Shovels in SW either (bandit keys are a non-factor since you get a lot more tokens), Zephyrite Lockpicks are sold, but even they have alternative ways of acquisition.

THIS ^

I have crowbars and airship parts out the wazoo…. I need ley line crystals which don’t seem to come from more than half the events in Tangled Depths. It is a total grind in my least favorite map that is difficult to navigate to say the least and gated behind events to a larger extent other than Dragon’s Stand. Despite the repetition of events and well traversed areas in Verdant Brink or even Silverwastes, I find it less tiresome and quite reasonable considering time/effort earning currencies for the exchanges.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Airship_Part
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ley_Line_Crystal

It is so much easier farming certain currencies more than others (note the difference in number of ways to obtain units between the two). I spent an hour in Tangled Depths doing mini events some of which were leading to the meta (which always seems to fail) and I earned 15 crystals. The crystals were from a grey chest drop from an event I don’t even remember participating in. There is to me no defined and definite way to even grind your way to some of the rewards.

I have a suspicion that druid will soon see a change (perhaps change back) to astral force (AF) generation. I love the current system and I believe it was enacted to account for the very reasonable critique that a healing spec should have heals at the ready for when they are needed, especially with the opening of raids and given the potential niche of druid in said raids. The cries of “OP” or “overtuned” may be a bit much, its hard to say since the last time ranger experienced anything close was beastmaster or pvp spirit build well over a year ago.

For a profession to be balanced, I believe it has to have a yin and yang sense to it rather than a “have your cake and eat it too” feel. I think I might have an approach which of course will anger some, may have been said prior, and/or may satisfy both ranger and other professions alike.

Instead of adjusting how AF is gained, I think base healing of celestial form abilities could be lowered, while the multiplier for healing power would then be increased. Berserker builds would lose some healing effectiveness, whereas healing specs would keep or gain healing effectiveness for all healing abilities respectively.

Thoughts?

I concur, I was happy to see the astral form generation perk, but sometimes things are found out the hard way. An example of this unannounced patch change would be lunar impact which was also a blast finisher and now does not seem to be. As of this post, wiki still has it included in the write-up. “http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Lunar_Impact” Though minor, I would still prefer to find out about such changes in the notes.

After using skills one and two on any morphed form after about 2 to 3 activations the brawl is discontinued. No KO no champion crown just resets… Anyone else?

Is it too soon to ask the developers to create a toggle or options menu feature to remove the frustration bar from the druid spec line. When I spec down the druid trait line, there is this annoying bar above my endurance pool that partially fills with every combat encounter as if it were intended to be there for some reason….

mulzi.8273:

Holland.9351:

Trap Ranger in WvW is actually pretty overpowered with trapper runes.

Thats just silly. A trapper ranger cannot fit a stun break into their build usually (unless they sac a trap). If they trait for traps/condi dam, they sacrifice condi clear and vice versa. Not to mention their pets are next to useless in a zerg in wvw.

They are decent, but no where near OP. When i’m roaming on mine, I can hold my own on 1v1 depending on who i’m fighting. But its no where near as ‘OP’ as my mesmer roaming. In a small havoc squad I can add to the team. In a large zerg he’s borderline useless.

Agreed…not OP but they are fun.

And as of 9/2 I still encounter dungeon messages like the one below. (b4 criticisms fly-not my dungeon build)

^ From above….I use zerk build for dungeons…I just arrived in the picture. Not meaning to start an argument or discussion about my build in the picture please. Build in picture, I was playing around with in Silverwastes.

Don’t get me wrong this is not a QQ topic. I love my 2(did for racial skills) level 80 rangers, and I love playing ranger. What I don’t get is why the ranger is neglected/hated.
Why I feel this is so….

• The ranger npc in the mists practice/waiting area was replaced by a large rock formation (mountain).
• The pet AI and dozens of bugs not addressed in 3 years (ex. pet naming, sword rooting…etc.)
• When they do a fix we end up with skills like the current healing spring, and now swoop.
• The ranger is always the first targeted no matter what size group in wvw.
• The lack of high end competitive pvp players using ranger.
• And as of 9/2 I still encounter dungeon messages like the one below. (b4 criticisms fly-not my dungeon build)

Currently, the most common answers I have come across have been that whatever ranger does other profs. do better, the skill level of most players who play ranger are lacking, and anet has given up on the profession.

Then finally when researching and all hope seemed lost, I came upon this video and it made me remember what it’s all about. : )

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKjR6DhC-Yg pre-6/23 patch but fun all the same.

Whether it was missed or intentionally left out, I am unsure, but I thought there used to be a timer icon for using “Protect Me.” If at all possible, I would like to see the icon put above our skill bar to use to gaug e time duration. Perhaps it was left out because the full duration of the skill is not usually used due to the fact that you will normally have a dead pet at the end of it. I know signet of stone shows an active icon, so that is why I wonder.

Wish i saw this thread earlier…Rune of Soldier doesn’t trigger for “We heal as one.”

Rune of the Soldier is bugged when it comes to a specific shout in PvP. It seems to work for all ranger shouts in removing a condition as stated for the 6th rune, but it does not trigger when using “We heal as one.” I don’t know if this is intentional, but since the heal has been qualified as a shout, it functions well enough when traited in the BM tree, but it does not work as a shout for the rune. I did not test the PvE Rune of the Trooper to see if this is similar. Thoughts?

I agree something more is needed for condition removal. I think ProtoMarcus’ suggestions are reasonable and might possibly make Invigorating bond worth taking.
+1.

In certain circumstances there is not a way to avoid a pet’s demise. In fractals, I like spiders because of their ranged damage and they can occasionally immobilize and poison some enemies. In the case of Horriks cannons’, all pets will die. Allow the one pet death and when Mai returns pet swap for your secondary and keep at your side (if anything but a spider) and use them simply for utilities. Tankier pets such as drakes or ursans do well in dungeons and fractals as well. They can last quite a while in most circumstances if you swap them out regularly. In reference to stealthing, put your pet on passive and stow while not in combat. If you are hit or take damage your pet pops out, but should not aggro by attacking. It seems to work for me. Also note that with the last major update, the zerker ranger can deal significant damage even without its class mechanic. The pet deals some damage, but most of it’s use in this case is found in its F4 abilities.

I main ranger, and lick wounds is a noteworthy downed skill as people have stated. I have been spiked, or my pet has been killed while reviving and I am downed all the same. The skill’s heal is not dissimilar to an actual player healing. All pets can be killed easier than players or knocked away as well. I don’t think it’s necessarily an imbalance compared to a warrior’s #3 or the downed damage capability of a necro or traited downed thief. I almost feel like anet pushes ranger survival builds since spike damage is not constant with the class and ranger downed #3 fits that mentality.

I’ve also noticed a pet response lag similar to pre-patch on dogs more than anything. Don’t know when it returned, but just after patch…great…now…slow like before. I understand cast time of skills and if the pet is incapacitated, but this is not the case, and dogs are aoe not targetable f2 skills, so I feel it’s a good example of the skill lag return.

For the past 2 days while playing pvp, I’ve been troubled once more with pet F2 response times. Prior to this there was a noticeable improvement with the april 15th update. As of late, I feel it is necessary to continuously mash the keys to get the pet to react. Granted I understand delay if the pet is incapacitated for any reason and cast time considerations; however, this is not the case. I did not see much delay with spiders and drakes, but for whatever reason, cats and dogs seem to delay F2 skill activation similar to pre-patch. I have not tested additional pets, but I was curious if this is a known problem or if anyone else is experiencing similar delays.

Nice build/vid… Your build should even be better with new changes coming to lightening reflexes and (fingers-crossed) more immediate pet F2 execution.

I like the idea of ol’ gw1 dire/elder/hearty, or at least alter the specs of the existing pets. For example maybe brown bear has a higher attack power than the polar bear, which might be higher at condition damage etc… Current skin changes to justify a different F2 could just be the beginning. I also agree with the notion of not knowing what kind of damage is coming your way. Opponents should be familiar enough by what F2 to expect, leave the stats a mystery…

The build looks sturdy, but I am surprised that you give up any additional healing including signet of the wild. Based on your videos, you evade well enough to pull it off, yet I would still be curious how it fares then with thieves or mesmers with physical damage spikes. Condi-bomb necros and hambows will wonder what happened-lol!

Kilger.5490:

This change makes sense, since its an escape skill that doesnt work properly otherwise… and Engineers basically got this done with rocket boots, except in reverse since they got a stun break added while immob cure was already there.

Agreed. So many other classes have an immobilize remove or just get out of area (warrior trait, engi as mentioned above, mesmer goes without saying, thieves when enter stealth if traited, etc). We have Signet of Renewal (only works if pet nearby) and Empathic Bond if they tick (10 sec), healing spring which would still be about a half a second of immobilize. Using evasion still leaves you stuck in aoe effects inbetween activations. Even lightning reflexes isn’t instant. I wouldn’t mind a tweak to the skill, but it will probably always remain as it is.

I don’t believe I called it pathing here, but hitting a target is the problem I was mentioning. Perhaps animations could be sped up or skills could be made instant. I can swing a sword while moving, why can’t my pet. I understand the “100 Blades” concept, we have “Whirling Defense,” but not all skills are stationary, so why should it be any different for our pets. F2’s are stationary fine, but why are all the other skills performed by pets “stop and attack” style.

Additionally…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77D8fI2Ow4E

“All melee pet attacks now have a small leap component.

Also bring back manual revival of pets or allow your heal skill to revive pet at 50-60% health.

Finally pets have some kind of buff like the old Protective Spirit that prevents them from losing more than X% of their health from one attack."

I like the idea of old GW buffs and skills. I think they would help our pets significantly, and I don’t think they should be a huge programming nightmare, since they don’t touch much of our pathing issues. Unfortunately, I agree that the changes are very unlikely. Good ideas though.

I’ve had reasonable luck in pve with pets connecting with targets, but more and more in wvw and pvp, a great deal of disappointment with pets. Early on before beastmaster was the thing, people ignored pets and pet attacks connected. Now beyond the pet nerf, players have wised-up to realize the pet is nothing if all they do is run around using normal combat speed. My pet is either traited for speed, under the effects of swiftness, or signet of the hunt and it rarely connects with players who are simply moving. I can occasionally get a hit with stealth on jaguar or if the player is immobilized, stunned, knock-downed, or backing up. If the player stealths as thieves, mesmers, and engineers do, the pet is totally lost and resets its position. I’ve traited down the beastmaster line for quickness, which again is lost on pets due to half of the 3 seconds the pet resets position before attacking.

Too much damage is divided with the pet, when the pet rarely connects. I’ve mentioned and I believe others have as well, but for the reason of programming, why not speed up pets. In GW, pets naturally moved 25% faster (not saying ai was better but connecting wasn’t an issue because most skills required stopping to activate), why not give them risen speed, and instant activation of F-skills. That would satisfy me. Like most every other class when I hit F2 the skill happens. For example, if I hit F3 the pet shadowsteps back rather than turning and running through all aoe fields. If that were the case, I could be the “active” player many people say is the root of the pet problems. If I jump down a ledge, I F3 to recall then F1 to attack again, instead of waiting the for the pet to find a path down a hill or slope. People might mention the necro has to put up with the same ai problems, but the necro and others aren’t tied to a pet as their class attribute.

Found this video on youtube, which shows the moving target issue.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qk5DiFJAtWQ

Thank you all for the responses…The wiki page is lacking, so I am glad we have this forum.

Using a weapon on each hand allows for the use of two sigils or upgrade components. It is obvious that you can use two sigils from different families such as Always-On 5% damage (Sigil of Force) with 3 Stack Might on Weapon-Swap (Sigil of Battle). It is also well known at this time that you cannot double up with say 2 Sigils of Force for 10% damage increase, or have stacking Bloodlust and Corruption. My question is whether you can use two Sigils on Weapon swap anymore. In pvp I ran Sigil of Battle and Sigil of Energy and seemed to notice both trigger with swap. I don’t see that happening anymore, so I was wondering if it is a bug now, or if it’s not supposed allow both to trigger even though they are different bonuses.

akamon.2769:

hmm quick question, how do you know which “Hints” you are missing?

The question mark on the top left of your screen shows hints. Open up the window and all hints accomplished in each category will show a check mark. The percent complete will display for any sub-area not yet finished. For example under social, my window reads 66%, because it shows I am missing one of 3. Hope this helps. I am having trouble finishing hints as well. Though it’s not a bug with armor, instead it’s full mailbox. I’ve had 11/10 and it’s never triggered, so I am curious if the bug is bigger for hints than just one specific area.