Guild Wars 2

I haven’t noticed a change, maybe, maybe not. I never really thought great sword did terrible DMG to begin with though. It’s not a warrior GS no, but I’ve never considered it as terrible as the naysayers say it is, who cried out after the nerf and refuse to use it now. It’s always been pretty decent, but you’ll get a higher yield from your SB and flanking on champ/vet mobs from the bleed ticks. For reg PvE mobs though it’s really w.e weapon you feel like.

OP, the class is what you make of it. I’ve always enjoyed range archetypes, the woodsman/archer/hunter themed character in games. But I’ll admit I got a little bored at 37 and just moved on to other toons(doesn’t help that I’m an altaholic). The general feeling I had was “meh” so I came back to my ranger. I was playing around today in harathi(the 40 zone with the huge centaur Zerg event)? And partook in the the big Zerg event there.

Previously, I was pretty much SB/Axe/horn and stuck with it. I had used other weapons, but not to much extent. Today I took a different approach and engaged myself in what I was doing and had a blast. I’ll give you a for instance, we went through the back part the the grub cave the kill the giant, and made it to the camp, but didn’t have enough people to hold off the centaurs, so we got pushed out into another camp. I told people it was going on and we ended up getting more to come and managed to push. But all the while, this time around I was adjusting my gameplay to what I was used to. For the zergy pulls I went GS/LB and QZ with a few traps/RaO. I would drop volley on a group, swoop in, drop traps and beat on stuff for a while, dodge out and switch back then pick off the few remainders. I had never really thought about, until I had played other classes, how see less the ranger could transition from ranged to mellee and back again, and once I realized this, I had great fun(not just in a “switch weapons” sense but actually charge in and quickly get out of a FUBAR zergfest).

After a few minutes of bouncing in and out of clusterkittens the Zerg pushes up the main centaur camp where the champion events take place, so I switch up my tactics and drop my traps for spirits and get out Healing spring, as well as taking GS out for SB. Keep in mind I’m lvl 37 doing a lvl ~42 event, so I think I saw more “glancing” than bleed DMG. But I still managed to gobble up all the aggro from the champion centaur and spent half of the fight in downed state because he would instantly start humping me again when I got ressed. That may not seem very “fun” but on lesser champions(ones without ranged one shot mechanics :|) I take enjoyment(and relief…) in being the guy who is controlling the pathing of a giant wrecking ball(as well as pride in being able so solo bleed cap), especially when I’m -5 lvls of the content…

I have done this event on other toons and its probably one of my favorites. And I haven’t had this much fun playing since launch. My overall points being OP, is that don’t be afraid of the hate, I enjoy necro too, even tho they are “so godawful” in the communities eyes. I use the GS and LB even though they “suck” or aren’t as “Strong” as other weapons. Everything has a niche, and you can cycle weapons/slot skills from fight to fight and still produce good results. Some are better, sure, but in PvE you will not be totally kittened based on choice, as long as you can play it. So, OP, if you so choose to use bear/bear and auto attack with SB from 1-80, yes you will get bored(like….I WAS!). But if you mix it up and change you style, you will have fun, and be constantly met with new moments of realization about your class and its abilities, leading you to better understand and craft future skill/trait mixups and combinations. This is true of any class though, So go with a S/D trap ranger if you want, or a GS/Axe/Torch Tank, Who cares! Just have fun and play around.

Implying score means anything in a match. Also implying that those matches didnt last forever allowing you to rack up said score. Also implying that your bleed ticks werent stealing alot of those kills at the last second and you actually did jack the whole time. Also implying that those were play now matches of any significant rank(lol 14). I solo defend ruins all day and get crap scores, but imkittensure contrbuting. Walk on a point with one second left till cap when 3 of your team mates killed off 4 to take it and you still get 10 points, what a real contributor.

Temper, why you no post your other screenshot where the ele on you team is 5 points behind you? Cuz then you wouldn’t be the 1/10 über troll you think you are perhaps?

http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fEEQJAoYhImibyx5gjDAkHnYiLhHKQQClCzA;TsAA2Cvo2yslAM7WutkbNE5UwkDA

The build I Use OP. If you want to consider possible synergies.

My build has low toughness, but sports some decent healing, I’m trying to work in some more toughness to help with the burst classes, but we really have to sacrifice too much damage for me to see it working. But if you take a look, you’ll see that you have some decent healing/regen/vigor and pretty impressive might potential, and I usually walk around with 10-15 stacks on me at any given time.

As far as your build goes, seems viable, but seems to be lacking some oomph. I personally think the movement speed buff is useless, considering all our dagger abilities move us or have > than melee range. I don’t like that you invest points for cantraps and arcane though, they feel wasted to me, if you focus on one or the other you can get better bonuses, 1 stack of vulnerability is pretty under powered to consider using 5 points for it as well. I also like having a stun breaker and a shorter mist form, but that’s me.

Weapon swap Sigils are mandatory in my eyes, since we switch attunements so much. 5% damage is meh.

Your rotation should be more like.

Start in air, 4, 2 and 3, 5 (pass up on a flash cast stun shield/Weakness because why?)
Switch to fire, 3, 4, EW, 5.
Now you decide, more dmg? or do I need some Defense?
If dmg then Earth 2, 4, 5(use 3 when needed, but 4>5 is a good combo, a lot of people don’t understand, and usually eat Churning Earth, which is huge dmg).
If you need to recoup then get in water, use you’re shield when getting focused, heal up and PB chill to help you with the “OH KITTEN! switch into air and run away”.

These posts always make me smile. You know, that awkward smile when someone does something embarrassing and there’s really no other way to react but turn away, smile, and shake your head.

You can use and literal deffinition, or Arragon reference, or any dictionary to define something as a base value. I’m a human, I have a deffinition in a book. But does it sum me up in my entirety? No.

People don’t care about mellee weaponry on their toon, we all fully understand that every class has ranged and Mellee. We know, get over it. We do however care about sub-par options In that category. I’d rather have the necros DD at this point.

Regardless of anyone’s deffinition, “How too” park ranger hand book, military or otherwise. The classes in this game(with the exclusion of the new ones, and even then the Gaurdian retains qualities from GW 1 classes) retain similar class mechanics from their original design.

So since you like word association, let’s play. If I say GW1 Ranger, here’s what might come to mind:

1. Pets
2. Bows
3. Traps
4. Spirits (to a much lesser degree)

Now let’s assimilate more, what are 85% of our traits devoted too in GW2? Couldn’t be those 4 things could it?

Now if we aren’t “supposed” to use bows then why are they our strongest weapon? And why do our traits accommodate them more than any other weapon?

And the first 75% of your post is basically telling us how weapons don’t matter, it’s the idea of the class, then you say they can’t use a certain weapon(which by the way, that black powder point is wrong as already mentioned, I’ll add colonial Americans to the list of black powder using rangers)? Where’s you credibility noaw?

Not everything I this world is black and white, get your nose out of the books, use some rational thought and common sense and come over to the gray area, there’s plenty of room. If a “ranger” was a teleporting staff wielding Druid that shapeshifted and called the power of the cosmos to smite his enemies, I bet you’d still be using the same definitions to defend the class. And in case you don’t get it, class names have nothing to do with functionality. Like I said, it’s nice and cozy over here in the gray. That, or stop trying to justify a video game with IRL logic…

I’m fairly confident, that each stack of bleed registers independently as its own damage . This remains true until the 25 stack limit is reached, then any new stacks applied will essentially override the current weakest bleed damage.

Now after cap is reached, it seems that “weaker” bleeds add to the stacks duration, but where that damage goes or how it is calculated? I have no clue.

My best guess is that the 25 strongest bleeds are always present, and anything applied after simply maintains stacks. I want to test it by taking heavy cond. DMG gear to an event, then checking to see if I get bleed ticks, and if so, leaving, taking gear off/changing it and see if I still get bleed DMG ticks @ 25 stacks.

And OP when I get home I’ll link up my build and help contribute more, I think you’ll find some synergies and it might help you expand a little bit.

Might also have been the spirit of nature, which heals and removes conditions, the easy answer if you were hitting him for so little is.

A. He had high toughness, so conditions would probably melt him, most toughness builds have a lower health pool. You can also get protection from your pets.
B. Kill the spirits, they are so weak it’s not even funny, and unlike a Gaurdians weapon spirits, can be killed. 10 seconds of your time is all it will take.

He was probably running a turtle-ish build with lots of tough/healing/boon duration. The ultimate counter would be to ignore him. Since he had so much invested in defense, he was probably nothing more than annoying when measuring his total threat. it’s what I do when I see tanky builds, just “shrug” and walk away, they don’t do much other than sponge.

So, every other class gets their weapon skills effected but not thieves?

Pretty much what the question states, I know it slows movement and diminishes leap range, but what about the skill recharge debuff? Half the skill bar has no CD.

Your sediments are understandable Knote, and on a semblence of a level I agree with you. However, there are quite a few problems with the implementation if it was in fact an intended change.

Our ranged weapons do give us a pretty modest ability to kite, probably better than almost every other proffession(axe included). BUT, our ranged weapons do however have stipulations on them that require more positioning than any other class, be it flanking on the SB, or the range DMG increase on the LB. With no pet aggro, while still possible via circle straifing, cold/barred trap and what have you, become more difficult.

Also, why have pets intended to tank, with tanky stats, that do less damage, if in fact you never wanted them to tank in the first place? inb4 “but they aren’t tanks! They are just more survivable!”

Can we go Mellee? Sure. Are our options at Mellee as good as other classes? Not even close. Sorry but a mediocre GS with a sword that stunlocks me onto a mob are in no way comparable to the mellee setups that other classes have. Because other classes have strong mellee options, they are not required to “kite” like we are. If you want to argue this, go try and face tank a vet event mob, solo, then hop on a war/Gaurd/Thief. We just aren’t as strong, period.

You said we should have to kite. As it is, we are the only class that really has too. Sure other classes have ranged abilities and can hold S and call it kiting if they want. But, and let me emphasize this —-in order for a ranger to use his ranged weapons at maximum potential, he must be mobile, be it flanking or creating range-— Now, other class can kite, but have a level of control(and lack of baggage) which allows them to use their ranged weapons effectively in a solo PvE environment… Our control? WAS our pet, now we’ve lost that element, and the other tools we have just arent up to snub(even if PvE mobs are keyboard turners, they still face rush).. An Ele, War, whatever, doesn’t need to be behind or at max range to be at their best. Dodge, pew pew, cripple, S, pew, is not sufficient when trying to flank constantly even with 2 “gasp” immos on a long CD.

Consider also, Necromancers and Mesmer. I haven’t had time to test it but I asked in chat and got a few responses, they didn’t seem to be having the same problem with minions/clones. I’ll be checking it out when I get home in the morning, but like I said I personally haven’t looked into it, if anyone can, feel free. But if that’s the case, why did only 1/3(excluding ele/thief for my lack of knowledge on how elementals/GoT behave) classes with “meat shields” get punished?

All that said, I’m all for an aggro nerf so that veteran mobs don’t stick to my bear all day long while I rip off 25 stacks of bleed and RaO to god tier pet DMG. But to have aggro non existed from the get go is just flat out wrong, and it in now way shape or form excentuates the mechanics that this class was founded on. This just all seems Katty-wompus.

I forgot to add about pets inability to attack moving targets. Also, for those of your who want to kite all day, No one told you that you had to send your pet In first, you could just run in guns blazing and rip all the aggro you wanted from the get go, but now that element of choice is gone. Nothing big, you know, just what this game was built around.

Well that sucks, hopefully not a “fix” and merely a bug.

So, I log on this morning and my little down loader goes and does his thing, so I go and get a cup of coffee and wait since I live in the sticks and my nets suckish. Then… I begin to play my Ranger… All excited to start a new zone, I head off and sick my brown bear on some unsuspecting Skritt… It runs straight for me; well that as weird. So I move on to the next mob, same thing. The next mob, same thing. I’m not even engaging mobs and they are attacking me, not my pet.

I’ve heard aggro mechanics change at higher levels so I go to Queensdale. The same thing. Not even shooting/attacking them myself, and they are COMPLETELY ignoring my pet. If they do engage my pet, it’s 1-2 arrows to rip them off.

:( ?