Guild Wars 2

NaturalPortman.9562:

BroScientist.9875:

Maybe I should have said 2x the total damage?

creatine is not natural

Umm…actually it is natural.

I think 25% is a great start to fixing things. I’m hoping they change the active effect as well. Or maybe just lower the cd by a good bit so it could be used more often. I personally think it just lacks imagination and something else should implemented completely. Maybe something like RaO since its sigil of the HUNT. Just not on an “elite” level obviously.

I don’t know why it’s not brought up more often but I think everyone knows the traits are a mess. Maybe it’s one of those “where do I start” scenarios because so much of it is bad. It’s more than just a skill or something. It’s the whole thing.

Sarlack.4096:

This had better not be another round of “Raise the expectations of the community only to crush them come patch day” …..

I hope they follow through, truth be told there are more issues other than Signet of the Hunt and Longbow speed that require addressing but after the nature of the last patches I will take ANYTHING positive directed at the class.

I agree. If those are the only 2 improvements it will still be better than the last 2 patches combined. I think the ranger community is in “believe it when we see it” mode due to what we saw with the last patch.

So maybe now I can try the longbow again. I haven’t used one of those since…

I think there are too many variables involved for this test to be valid. To me this doesn’t prove anything. Not trying to bash anyone, good on ya for trying to sort things out. I wonder if for this to be fair that no armor or runes or traits be used at all. Different setups are going to yield different results. I would think they should be stripped of everything but the weapon, pet included.

Solid Gold.9310:

Don’t matter where I put my trait point, nothing seems to make any difference to anything.

I know some will disagree. But I will agree with this because no matter how many different setups I try, I’m always left with a feeling of emptiness inside. Like, it made a difference, but I feel like there’s a huge lack of synergy. Every build feels odd, like we’re forcing broken things to try and work together.

Daemon.4295:

Apparently if you switched in and out of a certain trait, you could lay two instances of the same trap on top of each other without the first instance disappearing. Basically, if you weren’t aware of this bug and exploiting it then you won’t notice the fix.

Oh I see. So it was a trait issue. That seems like way too much work to lay 2 traps. I don’t know if it would be that much of an exploit then, unless they both went off. I guess you could lay them in different spots so that there was no way around the traps; but if we’re trap experts then hey, why not right?

I went the carrion route as well. You might miss some of the toughness but all that extra vitiality you now helps a lot with survival as well. I switched from a crit ranger which felt really squishy, with carrion, my ctits aren’t as high obviously, but my health is bit higher helping offset the squishy-ness.

I didn’t know this was a bug either. I don’t even know if it’s something that needed to be fixe either though. I’ve laid two of the same trap all the time, but once one is activated the other went away. For example, if I was kiting something and it missed the trap, I would lay another one after the cooldown expired. Once one of them was tripped the other disappeared. Not sure if was necessarily OP but whatever. They are fixing things that don’t matter IMO.

It’s probably just an animation glitch.

Funky.9762:

Trap duration and condition applied by trap duration are 2 different things. Traps apply damage in two ways.
1. Per pulse – several times during the trap duration ( can crit )
2. Conditions – on top of those pulses they apply conditions ( burning, poison, bleed, freezing ).
This trait affects point 2 you can test it on the golems in the mists.
drop a spike trap without the trait and see how long the bleeds last -> repeat with the trait

I don’t think I’ve ever seen any of my traps do any crit damage. I’m glad someone brought this up because I’ve always wondered if this was bugged but no one spoke much on it. I thought, well maybe it’s just me.

I think they took away the rez ability because too many people were complaining about rezzing the wrong person. What they should’ve done from the get go was just make the pet not instantly die, thus we’d not have to rez them as much.

xPraks.5096:

I kind of disagree with this one. By reviving the pet each time you use a heal you pretty much make your pet unable to die. It beats the whole purpose of pets having their own HP pool and you might as well make them immortal. The 60 second cool down makes you think before switching pets as a part of a tactic and not mindlessly switching pets to abuse the F2 skill.
That of course is only my personal opinion and my 2 cents on the suggestion since you asked.

I think I agree with much of what you say. But abusing the F2 skill would be hard to accomplish with their delayed activation. I do think 60 seconds is much too long given that most fights don’t last that long and pets die pretty quickly. I don’t think that letting heals revive pets is the best corrective action. Maybe just lowering the timers would help.

zetherin.8372:

Durzlla.6295:

Ok so previously we were able to Rez our pets if they died instea of for in us to switch giving us an option to get our other 50% or so of our damage

So I’m going to venture a guess and say that you think pets are 50% of the dps done by rangers and when the pet dies, the ranger is super weak??

I don’t agree with that statement but I do agree that the timer seems really long. But it shouldn’t be reduced if the pet dies.

Edit I think the pet should be buffed in PvE but nothing should change in PvP

I think the statement is true depending on what pet you use. If you are using an eagle or raven or something like that then they do quite a bit of damage. My eagle crits for much more than I do and his F2 ability recharges quickly. So in situations yes, the pet is crucial to damage output depending on your build and whatnot.

Yes, buffs are coming. Kind of like Jesus’ second coming. And Jesus might just be here before the patch.

Kam.8109:

JonPeters. I send him to his death every chance I get.

HAHA! Best name ever!!!!!!!!!!

I’m going with no….I thought it was a DPS profession when I bought the game. And I was wrong.

They’re ok. The problem is that there aren’t multiple viable builds. Support is lackluster due to spirits being extremely weak and unreliable. Going with a pet synergy build is ok except the pets AI is horrible and their F2 takes 2-5 seconds to activate. Speccing DPS is difficult as the pets actually do a good bit of damage but die too quickly. DPS’ing by yourself is a little weak. I’ve played with multiple weapon combos and the sword seems to be one of the better DPS weapons, BUT, you’re rooted in place, so kiss your mobility goodbye. Being specced for condition damage might be the most viable build we have. I used it before and had some fun with it. I’m trying glass cannon right now and we’ll see how that goes. I think I’ve used the longbow once too. I don’t want to sound like a hater or anything, but things could be much better. And I think most rangers aren’t screaming, “Give us tons of DPS!!” I think they just want multiple viable builds that are as effective as any other profession.

By the way, I mostly play PVE and dungeons as well. Rangers have lots of potential. We thought we had nowhere to go but up, but after the last patch, that’s questionable as well.

So what what you all are saying is, I should roll a thief. I might just do that.

YumCHA.8706:

Electro

Even the idea of just plain setting them off by your own character stepping on the trigger or whatever would be odd because you’d imagine that whoever triggers it is going to get hurt, as is the nature of a trap.

This is a game. Realism would be silly and it’d make the game more difficult than it needs to be.

I have to agree with yumcha. I do see the argument the other person is trying to make but then again, we have to remember this is a fantasy game. If realism were an issue this game would be much much different.

I haven’t played other classes so please excuse me if I’m way off and correct me. But doesn’t the warrior or ele get some kind of combo field that they throw down? I know, they aren’t “traps” but what about that guy that’s using the long bow. You’re telling me he has to run into the battle, lay the trap and then run back to optimal distance in order to just try and set up a combo field? That would be completely inefficient.

I guess it could take more coordination and timing, but that seems a bit much just for setting up a combo field. I am condition/trap specc’d so I have the trapper’s expertise trait. But, like Iggy said, the range isn’t all that great. If we’ve got a plenty of DPS near the target, why shouldn’t I just be able to lay down a combo field for the sake of being support if there are multiple people playing a ranged character. Like I say, it’s just a thought. I don’t see how it’d make the mechanics much different and it wouldn’t be OP. If anything I see it being more of a support function.

I have been wondering something and I haven’t really heard anyone talk about it much. If I miss a thread somewhere just point it out and I’ll go read it. Anyways, I was wondering if anyone else thought that it would be good if we could detonate our traps without having a mob step through it? For example, say I’m running a dungeon and I don’t necessarily want to “trap” a mob, but I want to set up a combo field. Would it be feasible to have a way to detonate these at a strategic location versus where ever you can find a mob? Thanks, I’m just wondering if anyone else has thought about this.

You didn’t really explain how it was OP. like someone else said, you played smart and won. Why would want to be nerfed anyways? Winning one group battle does not equal OP anyways.

Well, here’s my 2 cents. I’m condition/trap specced as well. I’m always swapping traps depending on what I’m doing. I do a lot of PvE so when I’m going solo I will equip the flame trap, spike trap, and frost trap. I used to used the venom trap all the time but I find the effects of frost trap to be much more beneficial. Also, I usually run eagle/owl as their dps is awesome while they also apply bleed conditions.

My weapons as of now are sword/warhorn and axe/torch. I swap between the two constantly. I’ve almost developed a rotation even. Usually I’m using horn’s 5 ability as much as possible. But I will use its 4 ability to tag the mob while I’m closing in on it. Those birds are awesome. Hit the eagles F2 to apply bleeds. Swap weaps and use the axes 3 to apply the chill, torches 4 skill to hit them with flame, axe’s 3 to apply bleeds. While i do this, I’m throwing the traps as they are key binded to my mouse. By this time I’m right next to the mob and I can swap weaps again to stab the mob in the face with the sword.

Usually they die before the full rotation is through. And I don’t do it exactly that way every time because of cool downs and such. But I’ve found that with this combination I can pretty much down anything in no time including most veterans.

I think the SB is a bit better for kiting, but if I’m in that situation then I will just change out the weapons and go about my business. No big deal. I think one of the keys to playing is to not think of anything as cookie cutter. I’m always reminding myself “don’t forget you can swap skills/weapons/traits.” I think gone are the days where we find a build and think, yep, this is the best way. Obviously there will be some build that optimal for whatever you are trying to do but hopefully you get the gist of what I’m trying to say.

I know we’re kind of broken atm, but with that said, ranger will truly be amazing once things are fixed. Hopefully…

I use dagger as well. I know what you mean though because while I was running axe/dagger people kep talking about the warhorn and the torch. Since then I’ve used them all and what I find interesting is that they are all very good depending in what you’re wanting to do and what type of playstyle you use. I personally think the dagger is great. If you like it, keep using it. Who cares if no ones talking about it. They’re probably too busy playing the game than griping on the forums anyways.

If we’re factoring in pet damage then they need to be a whole heck of a lot harder to kill. With the way the pet works, it’s like having a weapon that you can’t control and you might not have it for the whole fight. I haven’t played other professions but that’d be like them dropping their weapon halfway through a fight and having to duke it out for the rest of it. This is a mechanic that should be addressed. Like many have said, if the pet dies give a boon to the ranger to supplement the loss of damage. Automatic too, it doesn’t need to be some trait because after all, you’d still be on par with other professions. What would be OP about being on the same playing field as the others?

A lot of threads are calling 50% extreme, severe, ridiculous, and words to describe how disproportionate of an increase it would be. Assuming the Op’s data is fairly correct for this argument, 50% is not that exaggerated. If SB dps is 186 then plus 50% would be 279. On par with engineer. LB’s dps of 182 buffed by 50% is 273. Still on par with engineer. So, what’s so exaggerated about being on par with other professions? I’m not saying I agree or disagree with the OP, just that 50% isn’t as crazy as it appears.

Quiver should be at the bottom of the list of things to get fixed imo. Besides, I’m usually looking at my target and not my toon during a fight. If we get one that’s fine, I don’t really care either way. But if we get a quiver before some of the class issues get fixed I’ll be pissed. A quiver will not fix the ranger.

Haha, I don’t know either. I could ask your question to the ranger I saw using spirits. Maybe it was an accident. Like they facerolled their keyboard when their pet got one shotted and half their dps was gone.

Hmm, very interesting. So in a way, the cooldown acts like a diminishing return. With that said, if its an AoE buff, does that mean that 1 of 5 party members will have a 35% chance of doing whatever it is every 10-ish seconds? Not worth using if so. OR is everyone able to proc every so many seconds? That’s a big difference. Is it factoring in everyone’s shot as a total or the total or each individual? That might make a difference if everyone is using different attack speeds right? Hmmm…. You have me thinking sir lol.

Bugged? Perhaps, maybe that’s why the player base thinks they are broken while ANet thought they were fine. 30 ish shots seems like it should be a decent sample size, especially if you’re using that over and over and still getting the 2 procs. Maybe larger numbers would yield better or more accurate results? I’m not saying you’re wrong, just throwing that out there.

Well what I’ve been messing around with, weapon wise, is run with the sword/warhorn and axe/torch. And mind you I’ve been map clearing so this might be only good for PVE. I love being able to use warhorns 5 ability and get around quickly, use the 4 ability to initiate the fight. I’ll then swap weapons, use torch 4 ability. (This is all while from a distance.) The mob might be down at this point already, but if not, once I get closer ill lay down my fire trap and spike trap. Use the axes 2 to put on a few bleeds, and then it’s 3 to slow it down. Then I’ll swap weapons and finish them with the sword. That may seem a bit tedious, but I’ve found it to work pretty well for my condition build.

I am running all rampager gear at the moment. I might try some carrion, not sure. I think eventually I will just have multiple sets depending on what I want to do. I was also thinking of speccing just a bit of crit damage as well to bring it up, maybe try to find a nice compromise of both crit damage and condition damage.

By the way, I’m using eagle and owl as pets. So they are also taking down the mob as I am closing in on it. If I remember I will usually try to send in my eagle with its F2 ability. And almost every time I remember to initiate an attack with the eagle I get a swiftness buff.

As you can see there’s a lot of ways to do a condition build. It seems very hard to nail down that one best way to do something.

I would second something like this as well. It’s a bit tedious to equip them just to see what skills they use and what their stats are.

It does give me some great ideas. Thanks much! And I guess we’ll see how things change after our patch too.

I hear you. I was just thinking in general. The size would be an issue, but yes it would look awesome haha. I’m sure the pets would have to exist in the game as well.

These are some good ideas. I was thinking gorilla as well, that’d be sweet looking. How bout something like a rhino or an elephant as a type of tank? Maybe an an alligator or an octopus for the water. We have some cat choices, could we get a lion maybe? I’m sure there’s so many possibilities. I like the idea of having some that are rare and maybe difficult to acquire.

@Rottaran Owain.6789

I was wondering if you could elaborate on your build. I’ve been using a condition/trap build but with the SB. I feel like using a sword/horn or whatever would change my style of play. I would just be interested to see your setup, thanks! Also, would you concentrate on power/precision/condition dmg or power/vitality/cond dmg?

Ok, all I have to say is WOW to the sword/warhorn combo. I’ve been using SB/whatever I’m experimenting with. I’ve read about the sword combo and thought that’s cool, maybe al these people just PREFER it. I used it last night and holy cow, I felt like I was owning mobs. Mind you this is pve, but I felt like I was doing twice the damage at least. If you haven’t tried the sword/warhorn combo then I highly highly recommend it. The mobility did seem hindered, but I will say that I didn’t care at the time because I was mowing down mobs like crazy. I really didn’t need any mobility. At one point I thought, maybe I should roll a thief, this is too much fun.

With that said, I love my ranger though and I’m really getting the hang of using my pets. So here’s hoping the patch makes the SB and LB and any other weapons fun to play. As well as making other builds viable. Pets do a lot of damage but they really do die quickly. I like many others, keep all the weapons in my bag to try out different things to see what I like. I think I’m done looking.

I agree with the above poster. I’m finally getting used to using pets and all, but right now any theory crafting we do might be pointless with the pending updates.

It seems like if you have the right build/sigiles/etc., then the nature build might be viable. Well, I might not try it until the fixes come out. I love the idea of a support/healer type build, but with the state of the spirits I don’t think I can venture that route. Thanks for the feedback!

Not sure if its a bug but for me, when I hit F1 they just stand there sometimes and look at me like I’m stupid. It makes me feel like I’m not quite the beastmaster I thought I was lol. But I am hearing the whistle. Maybe the pet is not hearing it…?

Parvati.5780:

(sometimes causes death.) Other than that it’s fun.

Lol, I just that part was funny. Maybe that should be the tooltip for the swords 1 skill.

Nature Magic Trait Line

I know spirits are broken and I think I’ve seen them used about never. I am currently using a trap/condition type build, but I’m always thinking about trying other builds just to mess with and maybe have fun with because this is after all a game. But does anyone use anything from the Nature Magic trait line? I was doing some theory crafting and I don’t know if anything is useful in there with any build. Even if the spirits were viable, I am not sure if I’d spec anything in it. Spirits, if not broken, would be the only reason I could see going down this line. Maybe a healer type spec? Am I just missing something or what viable build uses this trait line? I’m basically just curious to see if anyone has found a useful way to use this, or if it’s just kind of busted for now.

Also, I did a quick search of the forums and found a bunch of “The traits should be…” and “what do you think of my changes…” Not a lot of, my NM build is awesome! Thanks for the feedback.

I heard it has to do with the lore of the ranger. Supposedly they didn’t want to use technology or something like that. But wouldn’t the invention of anything (i.e. bow and arrows) be considered technology? Then again the same could be said of Amish who use buggies which could be a form of technology. I guess it just depends on how you want to look at it.

I traited beastmaster and then used signet of the wild thinking, “I can’t wait to grow larger and do more damage!!!” But I don’t think I grew larger, and I’m not sure if I even did more damage. But yes, the answer is A. I like to use signet of stone depending on the situation. It’s good for dungeons and maybe even PVP.

I currently use axe/dagger. I’m having some fun with it and I can’t say how it is for PVP, I think it’s just fine for PVE. Im condition based and the two can stack some bleeds pretty well. I will have to try sword/dagger though.