Guild Wars 2

DeanBB.4268:

Why would the Home Salvage Station only be usable once/day? Why would it be limited at all?

My idea was that if you do not limit its uses per day, it makes items like the Copper-fed Salvage-o-Matic practically worthless, which, I’m sure, is not something ANet would be happy to do.

I have attempted to suggest items that are very useful but still somewhat balanced in comparison to the other items available in the store. Also, I think if you make it too convenient, it may seem like a mandatory purchase for many players, which is not fair to players who prefer not to invest in gems at all. But when given a choice, I would prefer unlimited uses, of course.

Cool, I’m glad you like our ideas. I agree the store should never offer items that provide straight-up bonuses to combat stats, or anything like that. But there’s still a lot of room for additional convenience items.

My girlfriend and I are big fans of some of the convenience items offered by the Black Lion Trading Company, especially things like the Copper-Fed Salvage-o-Matic. This permanent salvage kit saves you so much hassle with salvaging, we estimate it makes the game about ~10% more fun ^^

While playing, we thought of a few more of such convenience items we would love to see in the gem store. We wanted to share these ideas with you and see what you think.

Permanent Teleport to Friend Stone
Cost: 1000 Gems
Usage: Teleport to a friend anywhere in the world. Unlimited uses.
Cooldown: 10 minutes.

Home Instance Salvage Station
Cost: 1000 Gems
Usage: Salvage all junk, basic, fine and masterwork items in your bags with just a single click.
Cooldown: Usable once a day.

I plan to get at least a part of my defense from Flesh of the Master. I mostly want my character to shine when doing Heart of Thorns map exploration, hero challenges and events.

This is more or less the build I had in mind, though the gear is obviously undecided:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNBmWDbkhGaqxuawtGYvxRwQNj6dIHknQKUCxkOAKXA-TBSLABDs/oZgUzfleFAkQ9nFVCa6DBAElfAoDAA-e

I’m having a lot of leveling and exploring with a Necromancer using all basic minions and a staff. I know this build is a bit outdated compared to the current power reaper and minion master reaper builds out there, but I love its lazy ranged playstyle. I’m just wondering what gear to get for it when I hit 80.

I was thinking of getting either Rampager or Berserker. I want to get Viper eventually, but that takes some money and time.

Pros of Rampager:
- condition damage boosts the bleeds and poisons applied by Jagged Horrors, as well as bleeds applied through Barbed Precision.
- decent crit % to trigger Barbed Precision (if I take this trait)
- still some power for direct damage

Cons of Rampager:
- low power

Pro’s of Berserker:
- high power for high direct damage
- decent crit % to trigger Barbed Precision

Cons of Berserker:
- no condition damage to boost bleeds or poisons.

So which set should I get when I hit level 80?

PS: I tried power reaper on my other necromancer (level 80) and found it pretty cool. However, for this character I wanted to try something different. So please don’t respond with suggestions to go with a power reaper anyway because it’s better or something. I’m not interested in that.

Very cool, thanks for the responses. That suddenly makes crafting legendaries a lot more attractive to me Think I will go with a Legendary Tormented Longbow and a Twilight (one of the few skins I do like).

Is it possible to transmute a different skin onto a legendary item?

Also, does the item remain a legendary after it has been transmuted to look different? Can its stats still be changed outside of combat?

Background: I would love to make a legendary longbow, but the Kudzu skin really does not fit my color scheme. Call me crazy, but I would love a legendary Tormented Longbow.

I have been having a relatively easy time in Heart of Thorns content with this classic bear-bow build:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJATRjEqQ/KWwCWsAXLG2DqtJCgzuL4eYH+nvcf6UqlVXvF-ThCBABSoEMBzfA8EEwR9nAuEAYt/QK6CMS5nzHgA71gAA-e

This is a very easy to play build:
- Your pet tanks the target for you while you shoot it down from range. Oakheart salve heals both you and your pet.
- Signet of the Wild and Strength of the Pack grant Stability.
- Signet of Renewal, Shared Anguish and Empathic Bond get rid of a lot of annoying conditions.
- When you encounter an enemy with projectile reflect, or have to fight in close spaces, you switch to Greatsword, which does less damage but has an awesome auto-evade.
- Swap out your first pet for your second pet shortly before it dies (around 10% hp). This allows you to swap back to the first pet again sooner. Swapping pets in this way makes ensures you always have a tank up.

mtpelion.4562:

Gee, do you think that maybe the reason that there are so many Rangers using Longbows has anything to do with the fact that we have twice as many Longbow traits as any other weapon? I mean, it certainly gives the impression that maybe the Longbow is an important weapon, since it is listed so many times in the traits. Also, the description of the class as an “unparalleled archer” might contribute to that as well.

I’d wager that the majority of people who created Rangers did so to play an archer. Now that the longbow has been fixed so that it is useable, you’re going to see a LOT of Rangers dusting off their old bows and fighting from range.

This is exactly what I mean. Most of us who rolled ranger did so because they wanted to tame pets and shoot bows. This is the initial romance of the class, a romance that may not attract you personally, but that should nevertheless have a place in the game.

I think it is really sad how conflicted the messages are that this game sends off to new players wanting to play a ranger. First it tells them: yes, you can play this way, it works great, and look, here’s a pet to hold things at a distance. Come explore this wide open world where your imagination can run free and you can play any way you like.

Then, the community of the game forms the consensus that you can’t, in fact, play any way you like, because if you play certain builds, you are a de facto noob. And up to the most recent patch, they were kind of right.. the damage was kind of weak, not to mention the mechanical problems of staying at range (which means you easily miss out on might stacks and other important buffs).

While I’m all in favor of build diversity, I really want the ranger to at least be able to fulfill that role of ‘peerless archer’ excellently, as that is the iconic, central attraction of the class for me. If I wanted to splice skulls with a greatsword, I’d have rolled a warrior.

I realize many of the things I am saying here may sound like they are coming from the mouth of a total newb, but I am just trying to give voice to the opinions that I’m sure 90% of the rangers who are not, or barely active on this or any other GW2 forum share with me. Remember, most players in this game are newbies, and this was supposed to be a game where you could play as you like!

I fully agree with the OP that the longbow is an iconic weapon for the ranger, and as such, it should at least be among his better weapon options. I personally made a ranger as my first character because I wanted to use a bow, long before learning about any of the inherent problems with ranged weapons in this game, and long before learning how the community frowns upon the “bearbow” build. I think it’s really sad that, for the longest time, people would automatically assume you were a noob if you equipped a longbow on a ranger. Now, with the buff, they still think you are a noob, but now they actually hate you for being rewarded with great damage for your noobish playstyle.

I do agree with the complainers, however, that the current burst damage of Longbow #2 (Rapid Fire) is too high, which has an unbalancing effect on WvW, especially. I really hope that ANet will find a way to keep the longbow in the great state it is currently in terms of overall DPS, while simultaneously reducing the ‘one button kill’ potential (in WvW, especially) of Rapid Fire.

I agree, nerfing a weapon without actually nerfing its overall DPS may seem difficult, but here are my a couple of ways I would try to fix this situation:

1) Reduce the damage, but not the Vuln. stacks applied by Rapid Fire. Make it better than autoattack, but slightly reduce its potential to knock off at least half a health bar on a player not geared in PTV.

2) Further improve long-range shot, for example, by adding the projectile speed buff granted by Read the Wind as a baked-in passive, as it should have been all along! The way we are currently forced to choose among Read the Wind, Eagle Eye, Piercing Arrows and Spotter is just ridiculous anyway. Change Read the Wind to an attack speed increase – it is still valuable enough as that. A 10% attack speed = 10% DPS increase is more than enough value for a trait that is in a line most people want to invest heavily into anyways.

3) Slightly increase the regular attack speed or damage of Long-range shot, so that a larger portion of the Longbow’s DPS comes from this ability, rather than Rapid Fire. IMO, the problem people complain about in WvW is the incredible burst DPS of Rapid Fire, not the overall damage they receive in longer fights. By buffing Long-range shot ever so slightly, you may compensate for the damage we lose when you nerf Rapid Fire (which I am 95% certain ANet is planning to do). At the same time, the damage from Long-range shot is more steady than the extremely ‘spiky’ burst of Rapid Fire, and should therefore be easier to avoid or soak. WvW problem solved.

In short, I really hope that whatever nerfs ANet plans to perform on Rapid Fire will not reduce the Longbow back to a very weak weapon option for the ranger. The longbow is an iconic weapon for the ranger class and is the reason many players choose to play a ranger in the first place. Please do not destroy this.

For PvE players, Shortbow range reduction is just a huge quality of life nerf for no reason whatsoever. Thanks Anet.

That’s all it is. It’s bad, imo, but I think Shortbow will still be a better DPS weapon in PvE than Longbow. And as long as the sword/horn remains the strongest setup in PvE, I feel Anet hasn’t lived up to its promise of delivering a “master of ranged combat”.

I really like the staff, but it seems to me like its damage is very much based on bleeds and burning, making it fit better in a condition damage build than in a power (zerker) build. My main interest lies with group and solo PvE, so I want to build my mesmer for dungeons, fractals and world bosses.

Now the problem is, I am aware that cond. dmg builds are considered subpar by most endgame PvE’ers because conditions overwrite each other once you go over 25 stacks. I’m also aware that some of the strongest PvE damage builds for the mesmer are shatter builds using greatswords and zerker gear.

I like the staff because it allows you to kite so incredibly easily, which is very nice in any group without a tank. Since I’m in fairly crappy groups for the time being, I will often be playing without a tank. Moreover, I tend to be online a lot and tend to prefer running with guildies and friends over running PuGs, which means I spend a lot of time solo, doing events and such. All this makes me prefer the staff over the greatsword, while I still like the greatsword a lot.

Now my questions…

1) Should I go with a power build or with a condition damage build? (Considering I prefer the staff over the GS)?
2) Is it possible to make a power build that uses the staff or will I be severely gimping myself (I know the base damage of staff is very low)?
3) Is it perhaps a good idea to go for a power GS build and simply use the staff as secondary weapon?

Thanks for the responses. Still haven’t been able to make my decision, but at least I see there are a lot of options.

I will be hitting 80 soon, and my plan is to turn my ranger into a money maker / solo farming machine, in order to gather the gold needed to gear up my next characters. This will be my first lvl 80, planning Mesmer and Guardian after this (both still low level).

This is why I am wondering, what is the best farming build for rangers?

My question now is a somewhat unconventional one. Most people asking about PvE builds mean ‘best PvE build for dungeons/fractals’. What I am looking for instead is the best build for farming solo. Perhaps dungeons are a better way of making money, but I prefer to farm solo 90% of the time simply because it allows me to go afk or be distracted as much as I like, while still making gradual progress.

My own idea was to run with either 20/20/0/0/30 and have my pet tank (but I do not know if it can keep aggro when I am in decent gear) or to just go 30/30/5/0/5 and hope I can nuke down stuff before I have to kite it too much (I hate kiting when farming, it’s time wasted and it means brain can’t go afk).

Which of these builds do you think work best? Or is there another build I should consider? And what zone is best to farm, or doesn’t it matter much where I farm?

Also, is Explorer gear worth it, or should I just go Berserker on this toon (more drops vs more kills, the eternal question)?