Guild Wars 2

I dont think this is something they will fix, since it is not broken. The auto attack roots you deliberatly. (I think I read that somewhere, forgot where) You can still get out of the lock by switching weapons.

I thought of signet of renewal, but I think you pull conditions to yourself when you use the grandmaster trait?
And about healing power. Healing power won’t help you much, if you go for full Cleric Gear on weapons/runes/trinkets/armor. You will only heal for 1k more health on your heal. And if you drop a waterfield (Healing Spring) with all the Blast finishers, everyone gets full HP anyhow (also leaps heal in an area as well, don’t forget that when leaping into a fight from a combo field) I think that going for that extra 1k power, deals significantly more damage then the extra healing you would get from the healing power.
However, if you have the funds to go for sentinel armor, I would go for that.

I command on my guardian, but have thought about going for a tag on ranger. Ranger has big advantadge over the guardian with the easy acces fire and water field. (Healing Spring and Bonfire) This is amazing when you are in a teamspeak session with your zerg.

When you trait for signets you can have six seconds without taking damage with Signet of Stone. Don’t underuse this signet, do not use it as a stress button for when you ‘might’ die, probably better to use it when entering combat. When you equip “Protect Me!” you get another six seconds (or however much HP your pet has) of non-damage (use this right after you swap pets to get full use) It’s like having an additional 35k health when using Drakes.

And you should use Drakes, because their Tail Swipe is a blast finisher. When activated Drakes will always start with this attack, so swapping pets right after you activate Bonfire or Healing Spring gives you the Might or Health you need. They also deal major damage with their activated ability (Salamander Drake is just ridiculous) And with their 2k toughness and 3,5k vitality they last quite a while (also have an attack that will heal themselves)

And like every build suggested before, use a Greatsword. The auto-attack has a build-in evade, the Counter Attack is another 3 sec block against all ranged attacks. Best of all, what every commander should equip in my opinion, it has a leap. Leaps are much needed when commanding. It is important to stay alive, it is also of vital importance that you are the first person to charge in. They need a tag to follow, so you should always be first. The leap gives you the mobility to jump into combat so the zerg know where you need to go, it also gives you (once you get handy) to jump out of combat. So you can regather your zerg and use healingspring to heal up and start over again. The Maul and Hiltbash are your weapons against siege users (together with the leap) Jump to a siege user and smack him down including the siege. Greatsword is a fantastic weapon for a commander.

As for your second set. Warhorn or Torch both have a good purpose. A 8 second firefield allows your entire zerg to find and use their blast, making it easy to have 15-25 stacks of might on every player. Throw Torch is not quite as usefull. The warhorn has a Blast finisher that gives might/fury/swiftness. Which is always good for a zerg. But again, Hunter’s Call is an attack that is useless for commanding.

For your main hand. If you are confident in your Sword skills, I would use the sword. But being rooted with your auto-attack is dangerous if you want to get out. But the sword has an attack that evades and a leap out of combat, wich are two usefull skills. If you opt for the Axe you deal more damage to more opponents. If you want lootbags and are not confident in your Sword skills you should find this a good option. It also gives you the oppertunity to attack Canons and Oils.

Bows just wont do. You need to be at the frontlines. Off-hand Dagger or Axe isn’t really valuable for zerging either. The Axe will root you on the spot, wich you dont want. And the dagger has no extra benefit beyond the evade.

For traits I would go: 6/0/6/2/0 http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNAR8fnMqQtgWxCOsAXLGYQoWPAxbA0uFO2k119mxPh86B-TVCDAB/o8LG1kittenAY1+DiobYBlgT8EAKz830XAAA-w

If you have troubles with the lack of condition removal, you can equip armor with Rune of Melandru and have some anti-condition food as well. I just like the extra option of stability. This is probably far from perfect (not tested as commander) But then again you need to play alot to find out what works best, these are just theories.
Good luck!

mango.9267:

I agree that red is good if weakest server is still strong enough to be able to cap SM occasionally. However, it often is not.

Weakest server is often too weak to cap SM.

Everyone can capture SMC, even the weakest of servers. Keeping SMC is a diffrent story.

I got a kill on a fluke. I was losing badly against a guardian and used Spectral Walk to run away. When I jumped of the cliff (near Overlook keep) the guardian used the sword leap. I teleported back from where I started the spectral walk. The guardian forgot to cancel the leap and fell off the cliff.

I agree that red is the worst corner to have. Although I would not want to see the strongest server on the red corner.

Anza, Speldan and Mendon are the main reason why it sucks to be red. The dolyaks take to long to bring supplies to their towers, this makes upgrading Anza and Mendon a horrible task. This is mostely due to Speldan. When speldan is contested and a commander opts to defend it. It is most likely flipped before they arrive (even by roamers) Also Overlook can be trebbed from Mendon (outer wall) but you can’t place a treb in Overlook that can hit gate or wall in Mendon.

When you have one scout in Ogrewatch you can see everything that will happen to Ogrewatch/Pangloss/Veloka. When you have an uncontested waypoint in Overlook it is easy to arrive in time to defend it. Even when it is contested you will probably have enough time to run from spawn. The distance between Pangloss and the two towers (and keep) is short, so short that Veloka is probably the fastest upgrading tower on EBG. And with one well placed trebuchet in Overlook you can defend both gates of Veloka and Ogrewatch. You can also use that trebuchet to retake those towers once they are lost. Because everything is so close by and easy to defend with propper siege, it is the perfect place for the weakest server to be. Except for Speldan ofcourse.
Also, being able to trebuchet Stonemist Castle is needed for the weakest server. It gives them the oppertunity to keep an enemy waypoint in SMC contested. If you keep trebbing the wall they either spend all their supply constantly repairing the wall or they opt to have this wall open at all times, wich makes SMC an one gate objective. (not only for red but also for green or blue) Ofcourse they can counter with their own trebuchets.

But imagine what would happen if the strongest server (one with alot of coverage) has the red corner. Having the strong triangle (Overlook/Veloka/Ogrewatch) means that the two towers cannot be captured unless you capture their Overlook first. It means that they can actually have people walking the dolly’s from Speldan and people defending Speldan against roamers. Meaning their keep will be the first with a waypoint. It also means that (if your arguments are correct and the strongest server will always win the counter-trebuchet-battle) only red can ever take SMC. And if red has SMC it is easy for them to keep Anza as well.

I think it is fair that the weakest server gets red, although I do see room for improvement (making the distance between speldan and the two towers shorter would be a start) And I would like to see the green keep being easier to take. I have never taken Lowlands by watergate nor have I ever felt the need to defend it, or have I seen anyone take the water gate. Water gate on Lowlands has no place to deploy siege rams, so you have to take it with golems. You can always see enemies taking the watergate when walking towards north outer gate. Basicly, watergate on Lowlands keep is useless. Also every tower in green corner can be trebbed from green keep. This makes it easy to defend the entire corner and easy to retake towers, without losing the points. (True, red has three towers you can treb from keep, but it belongs to the weakest server, one who needs the points most) Blue seems the best spot for the number two server. Which it is. So thats nice. But blue also has the easiest keep to take. Yes you can hit every spot from inner, but you have multiple spots that can hit both inner and outer walls, this makes it real easy to ninja it with some catapults.

I think that red should belong to the weakest server, only be boosted by a bit. And green corner should be nerved by a bit.

Also not being able to take SMC if you belong to the weakest server. I play on bronze league tier on EU (Blacktide) And even Underworld (a server with a whooping 14 players on all maps during reset or prime time) can take SMC against servers who have 40 man zerg on EBG. It is always possible to take the castle.

Really informative this thread. I have been roaming with ranger, but it is nice to see so many people having diffrent builds and good arguments for it. I realise that you are looking for a solo roaming build. But for me there is nothing more fun then having 2 rangers roaming (we have alot of people in my guild who like playing the ranger) When 2 rangers with the Remorseless trait you get 25 stacks of vulnerbility within 2 seconds. 25% extra damage is always handy. Not to mention shooting your enemy back and forth with Point Blank Shot is very funny.

As for solo roaming. I use the Melandru runes and the Lemon Grass Poultry Soup to get rid of my conditions. I’m not a big fan of using 1 or 2 traits plus a skill in removing my conditions. Greatsword is by far my favorite weapon for roaming because of the 3 seconds block (and if a thief will try to hit you with a heavy mellee attack, you deal lots of damage with knockback) Also the leap forward is a great advantadge while roaming. Leaping over obstacles, shortening your travel time by several seconds. Also a great escape trick. And greatsword deals amazing damage.

If you want to focus on taking down objectives very fast I suggest using Zephyr’s speed with some bird pets. You will deal alot of damage fast and often. (Quickening Zephyr for even more haste)

Tome of knowledge would be great. To be honest I would be glad if we could even exchange it for the Scroll of knowledge. Good idea, keep this thread alive!

Because it has not been mentioned yet. Coloured commander tags. Not just because it looks more fun. You can assign the Blue-tag for defending and the Red-tag for attacking. Easier way to split pug zergs in Eternal Battlegrounds.

This idea might be just fun, not especially an improvement. But what if you could build barricades? The cost could be 10-15 supplies and it could be the lenght of an supplytrap. Set the timer on 10 minutes so it will not stay up for long amounts of time. Maybe even 2 types of barricades. Big ones and smal ones. You can jump over the small one, but it might break a blob/zerg.

Have a limit of the amount of flame rams that can be dropped to hit a door. I’ve seen 6 superior rams on one door. It makes no sense. Just have a maximum 4 per gate, logically there isn’t even room for 4 rams.

The siege timers are really difficult for low tier servers. The defensive siege will time out because there will be no one there. Perhaps it is possible to let the outnumbered buff hold the siege timer. When a server becomes outnumbered the timer would just stop at its current time and resume when the outnumbered buff dissapears.

As previously stated, there is to little of a reward for defending. What if your world gets points for surviving the assault timer? That way tapping a keep with a waypoint will result in a penalty. Ofcourse you can opt to take that penalty for the convience of taking 1 or 2 other towers while their waypoint is occupied. This way you can also add a world reward for taking a tower.

This maybe a little out there. But would it help if a tagged up commander can draw on the map? Might help with giving commands.

Hopefully a dev will look at this thread and read some suggestions. I think there are a couple of good ideas in this thread.

I just like to bump this thread.
It is really anoying to rename your pet everytime you swap out. In dungeons for example you might want a ranged pet for certain melee bosses, but a melee pet for other bosses. But having an awesome ranger character, with cool armor/name/looks/build, needs to have a cool pet name as well.
As a player who enjoys building a certain character (like a swashbuckling ranger or an adventurer) Having the cool pet is a must.
Also, sometimes, I won’t change to a pet better suited for my character or my build. Simply because I don’t want to rename my pet yet again. After the 200th time it just gets anoying. It is really cool that you have the option to choose out of 40 pets. But this ‘no saving pet names’ results in me only using 10-20% of those 40.
Every new update I hope, against better judgement, that Anet is fixing this inconvenience. This fix can’t be that hard!

1) Stealth.
2) Dolyak die too quickly,carry too little supply and move too slow.
3) Swiftness is a must.

1) Ranger Pets: Saving pet names on the ranger for every pet. Not just the ones you have equipped.
2) Living Stories.
3) Making account bound items merchable.

Good this topic got made. I would love to see my own made build shine somewhere.
I don’t think Anet is punishing you for making a build with toughness gear or that you can’t do some content with a healing build. But the more you advance in the game the less enjoyment you get out of those builds. Eventually you get to the point where some skills just don’t matter, so you exchange them for other skills, same goes for traits and gear. Until you are left with the most effeciënt way to succeed: Zerker gear with power/precision traits.
I did not think much of it at start but after reading this OP I learned why it turns out this way. Good job on pinpointing the cause of this.

As for further suggestions to improve peoples desire to design builds, some of these might sound extreme. But then again, brainstorming does not frown upon extremes.

Making endurance regeneration slower and making vigor more productive.
This suggestion will make the game less dodge dependant simply because it would be less effective. Unless you apply vigor. Which in my opinion is an underused boon. Because dodge is already that good without vigor.
This solution will make it so that fans of dodging can still dodge to their hearts content if they apply a strategic build with traits, skills and gear to make use of vigor.

Make power scale the same way as healing power does now.
Making the stat power less effective makes investing in power and critical damage less worthwhile. Ofcourse doing it this way makes it just so that every build is equally good as bad in any case. This doesn’t especially improve build-makers. It does, however, fix the notion that zerker is everything and the rest is just less.

Make people earn their endurance.
This one is a little out there. What if you regenerate endurance at a slower rate or not at all, but healing skills also replenish endurance? Or maybe some utility skills or gear (as it already does) This way the dodge is still very important, but it is also important to have skills to make sure you are able to dodge when it is time. The flaw is obviously some build that gives more endurance then is possible today and will make the game more dodge dependant.

And now a dungeon suggestion.
A room where there is a circle in the middle. This circle is a bit raised and you need the bodies of the undead to pile up on the circle, after a couple of bodies (lets say 25) the circle drops down and you will be able to continue.
This will be easier with pulls and pushes and therefore the ‘most’ efficient way. Luring is also possible, it will just take longer.