Guild Wars 2

If you’re gearing a character with exotic gear, look for named exotic gear first, like Devona’s, Shiro’s, etc. I think it’s Nika for medium berzerker gear, which is 2-3g per piece, compared to the craftable Berzerker’s Emblazoned gear, which is 15-20g per piece.

If you’re going for ascended gear, yeah, it’s a sizable increase to the previous prices.

Let’s be honest, is anyone looking forward to the AP Achievement Chests if they’re not the 5k ones with Gems or the ones with armor skins? The current loot is the following: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Achievement_Chest With bigger ones having more of the same crap. Apart from the Forge stones, there’s nothing really in those chests that makes me goes “wow”. Karma? Badges? Oh, wow, totally not swimming in that. 2-3 WvW consumables? What, did I just play an hour of WvW?

Even the Zenith Skins get dull after the first 5-6 you like/want, and the accountwide bonusses are weird, you get +1 of xp/gold/karma/MF, yet you get +2% gold every month for doing nothing but logging in.

Back when the PvP Wardrobe was added along with the Achievement chests, you got some skins from the chests, which either unlocked skins for PvP/Wardrobe or you could salvage and gamble for more skins. When the Wardrobe was reworked, this feature was removed, sadly.

The proposal is quite simple. Retroactively add Wardrobe Unlock tokens as a reward for the Achievement chests you get every 500 AP instead of the boosters/Gem Store Items. It’ll give players something to look forward to and reward longtime players with some nice skins.

Taking for example 1 for 500, 2 for 1000, 3 for 2500 and 5 from the 5k chests. That’d give you 20 unlocks per 5k points, or 120 unlocks for reaching 30k AP retroactively.

Johan Skold.4708:

SirJack.4760:

Going back to the 32-bit client doesn’t seem to be an option, as the client now states it can no longer detect a valid .dat file in the directory. Guess I’ll have to look up my backup and redownload the past few months…

Sorry that happened to you. We’ve tested going back and forth internally and never encountered that issue. Could you try repairing your files?

I used a previous dat-file and downloaded the last few patches. That seems to have fixed it, so I guess it was an issue with the .dat. 64-bit version still ruins my framerate though.

I downloaded the 64 bit client, which in turn caused the game to download some extra files. However, my FPS dropped from 70-80 to 5-10 (on Best Performance settings), which is unplayable.

Going back to the 32-bit client doesn’t seem to be an option, as the client now states it can no longer detect a valid .dat file in the directory. Guess I’ll have to look up my backup and redownload the past few months…

For info, W7 64-bit version with 8 GB Ram.

ANet, please have a look at the drops/reward cost and change things.
10 Blooms gets you an Essence of Luck for 50 Luck. This means, that as a reward for doing 10 events in half an hour, I still get to pay for a measly 50 luck.
I don’t know what events other people are used to doing, but usually when I’m doing something for half an hour, I get enough drops to salvage for 500 Luck.
Overall, the time it takes to get the higher rewards is ridiculous at the current rates.
In addition, the kind of behavior it promotes is detrimental to the new players, for whom this is their first major event. Not only did it come with a nice bugged start, now they get to enjoy the toxic side community and the loot complaints.

Except the people on my map just did. Although with only about a minute to spare.

I got the below mail from a GM as a reply on the ticket I made:

Hello <SirJack.4760>,

We’re sorry about what happened with the Portal to Maguuma, the email, and the most recent beta access. We’ve been investigating and learning from this issue to prevent future ones from happening and affecting players like yourself. Although it was not widespread, any impact is still important to us. Again, we apologize and do want to let you know that we’ll work on our future beta access events.

If you have any further questions or concerns regarding this, please don’t hesitate in letting us know.

Yup. Nothing. Good job on the guaranteed access.

+1 to the group that didn’t get a slot yet. I got no email either, but 2 Beta Portals on one of my characters.
Support wasn’t really that helpful either…

One thing to consider with the traps is why they’re hardly used on Rangers and Thieves now and learn from it. The issue with traps as they are now on them is that their damage is lackluster and their support is minimal.
Looking at the new DH Traps, the support seems to be improved and the damage looks decent at least. An issue it still shares with Ranger and Thief traps is that none of the traps are a stun breaker, which is a pretty needed part in most builds, especially PvP.
In addition, the recharge times seem to be fairly high, but without playing it, it’s hard to say if that’s balanced or not.

Mystic Clovers made today (for daily) no longer stack with the ones from before.

Mystic Coins. Makes snowflakes. Isn’t wort it in the slightest.

But they are back.
http://i.imgur.com/KanshP2.jpg

Buy Candy Wrapped from the TP, receive a chance to win one randomly. Yay?

Belgium
21:00 (GMT +1)
Jade Quarry
Massive, massive lagspikes during world events.

Basically, any world events where a zerg shows up, which is every single one of them, becomes unplayable. There’s not even a problem otherwise, but when the events start, the lag is HUGE. So, I get the experience of helping host a Teq event but none of the rewards…

Before anyone asks, it isn’t my CPU/GPU either, 60 fps with all graphics turned to lowest.

Sungak Alkandenes.1369:

SirJack.4760:

Also, for Elementalists:
F1 (Fire): Unlocked by default
F2 (Water): Level 4
F3 (Air): Forgot, but it was 12-13 I think
F4 (Earth): Level 20 and still locked.

At least you have nearly all the Attunements by 12-13. I’m surprised that Earth has not unlocked yet, given the remaining progression. Perhaps 25-30?

My L12 Mesmer still only has the first Shatter. Unfortunately the wiki has not been updated with the current level unlocks for these. I’m in no hurry with those though – I barely use them at this point, so hiding other Shatter options may have been a good idea.

According to the list at the start of the thread, 24 unlocks the final F4 skill. Still, for Eles, this is a quarter of their basic weapon skills that is locked until then.

For Mesmers, Shatter skills are nice, but there are builds that don’t need them, and most Shatter builds need Traits to be decent, so there’s an argument there to lock them away for a while.

Warriors and Thieves have full access to their class skill at level 4 (only F1).
For Necros, this means no Death Shroud until that level though.

Engies will have access to F4, but since the final support slot is at 35, it’s technically locked until then.

Guardians have their Virtues at 22, which is also kinda late.

Ranger Pet commands are locked until 22 as well, Pet Swap until 24, and according to videos, they don’t have access to Pet Management either at the start.

rapthorne.7345:

that’s pretty absurd. so I’m going to miss out on 15 SP? :/

11 I think. At 13, you unlock the first support skill and get one skill for free.
14,15,16,17,18,19,20 are condensed in a single package of 8 skill points, so 1 “free”.

You got 9 skillpoints whereas you would have gotten 20 before. You might get the rest at higher levels though.

You get skill points at a certain level. I got 8 at level 20.

You get a free aquabreather and underwater weapon at level 8.

Also, for Elementalists:
F1 (Fire): Unlocked by default
F2 (Water): Level 4
F3 (Air): Forgot, but it was 12-13 I think
F4 (Earth): Level 20 and still locked.

TBH, this needs to change as well. Attunements are an integral part of the Elementalist and they do not get Weapon Swap like all other classes except Engineer. Having to wait that long until you finally get all Attunements is pretty unacceptable. I’d say level 15 for Earth, but that’s still a bit too late in my opinion.

The same can be said about Ranger Pet skills if I’m looking at the list (and the video). No controls until level 22 and no swap until 24? Then suddenly, it’s expected they start using them?
I main a Ranger and I wouldn’t want one in my party after this if they bring shoddy Pet controls like that…

Proposal Overview
Roster Seperation by Ranks

Goal of Proposal
Provide overview for everyone in the Guild who is in what rank

Proposal Functionality
Current Roster lumps everyone together, indicating ranks only by a small symbol. Preferably, it would be easier to provide a segregation by rank, again similar to GW1’s Roster, but with the dynamics of GW2’s ranking system. This would make it easier for new members to identify the “officers” and “leaders” and make new members easier to identify for the current members.

Associated Risks
In general, maybe a full-blown Guild Menu GUI interface may be required, as other suggestions or plans at ANet may not be compatible with this. The main goal is clearer differentiation within the roster anyway.

Proposal Overview
Display the Guild Message of the Day upon Player login

Goal of Proposal
The current visibility of the Guild Message is less than optimal. Often, it includes some information for Guild Members on upcoming events, things that will be organised, general info, Forum information, etc… However, this is not very clear in the current format where it is (only partially!) shown in the Guild Menu. Changes are also not obvious (simple last updated on – by – would help.). This simple function was available in GW1 and has been greatly missed by my guild since.

Proposal Functionality
This functionality was present in GW1, I don’t know if automated messages like this are possible in the GW2 system.

Associated Risks
Eh, some players/Guilds might find it annoying. So probably a toggle for the Guild Leader.

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

@SirJack: Alright. I still think it needs a full blown tutorial, since the point with a lot of people not knowing what they are still stands… Most of them just click those messages away. And of course, that was part of what made the daily that bad too… But I remember seeing the question “What are combo fields?” pop up every minute or so.

Oh, I agree. The message that’s shown is very unclear. Think explaining combos in a tweet, limited to 140 characters. That’s about the info you get from that.

Unless I missed part of it, being a terrible player and all that.

Really though, they added a part where “dodge” is explained in every map, I would have expected the same for Combos, Conditions and certain effects like Critical Hits and Glancing Blows. I’m fairly sure most people don’t even know Weakness reduces Endurance regeneration by 50% for example, or the importance of cleansing posion before healing.

With the inclusion of a short dodge tutorial, I’d like to say “it’s a start”, but with all the changes they did, I doubt I’ll be taking another alt through the starter areas ever again. And even that, I’d rather have seen it as a Skill Challenge/Tutorial Instance where you have to successfully dodge a series of telegraphed attacks to get some reward. “Dodge though electric fence to get chest” is kinda weak as a tutorial.

The game gives you an information message on what combo fields are, roughly. I think it was level 18 or so.
No real tutorial, like say a bunch of different fields lying around and weapons to pick up to demonstrate the effects of projectile/leap/blast, cuz that’d be too obvious…

The problem with the combo achievement wasn’t doing the combo, it was that you needed to kill an enemy with a combo skill, which limited it to shooting projectiles through a field and hoping the conditions didn’t deal the fatal damage.

You get that for crafting the light, medium and heavy exotic sets.

Lilith Ajit.6173:

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

Do you guys think that there’s a middle ground between ultra hard and easy?

For example, I think we could clean up some of the issues with the Shatterer and just make it a more engaging experience. So rather than spending the entire fight hiding under his right paw he could, say, turn his head and attack that area? :] It doesn’t have to be hard, just a little more involved.

We tried to put in a few changes here and there when we added the new world boss timers. Reactions varied.

I think there is. Easy: Shatterer now. Medium: Marrionette Hard: Triple trouble.

I would prefer it that they do not make it too much like Marionette though. It was actually a very nicely done boss fight, but it was too dependent on individual skill during the champ phases. And the combined DPS of classes on platforms.

Shatterer would easily become slightly more difficult if during his “Crystal Hibernation” Phase, it required the zerg to take down all the Crystals to get back to the fight. Reduce healing speed, but don’t let it stop before all crystals are taken down. Basically, kind of like Shadow Behemoth, but more difficult and more punishing if the mob decides to just stand around and wait for the 4-5 players to close the portals.

Then ideally, you’d have the zerg split up between 2-3 points to get to the crystals faster. Harder mode: The Crystals must be taken down within 15s of each other or they regen.

Add some AoE crystal spike attacks hitting random players (see: Legendary Giant’s attack at around 20-30% HP, but less annoying), and you already have a more challenging fight than “stand at foot and press 1 to win”. There are already a lot of mechanic in the game at bosses that could improve this fight.

I’m against adding a ton of CC and Fear to the fight though, it’s annoying and doesn’t really add much to the difficulty besides bringing the 2-3 stunbreak/condition clease skills needed to not be permanently out of the fight. It only drags on the fight in the worst possible way.

Really though, the issue with the bosses is more that when they’re changed, they are tuned too much toward either “boring as hell, stand on this spot” and “OMGWTFBBQ”. They should teach players how to play better and punish lazy behavior, but also leave some room for them to make an error. Golem Mk II is one of those fights that looks good, but is poorly executed.
The ground lightning is basically a one-shot kill if you didn’t notice it in time. To mitigate dealing with it, people just stand on boxes and be done with it. Fix the boxes and reduce the damage it deals so that people can’t simply stand in it but need to move/dodge out of it still. Or keep the damage, but make it more noticeable. At the very least, fix the boxes. Then players will at least have to move/dodge while fighting it, all the while learning standing in AoE is bad.

That’s the thing though, the achievement seem available for the account. With other achievements that had prerequests, it didn’t matter if you got them on an alt or not.

So, I was going through the story on an alt character, at the same time going for the extra achievements. However, it seems it doesn’t count. That seems odd to me, seeing how these achievements seem to promote replaying the story missions. Why wouldn’t you be able to do this with an alt?

Is this a bug or working as intended?

Flissy.4093:

Recently, hoards of players have reported that, even when throwing in 4×80 weapons they receive lower levels out (as low as 75). This could be deterring players from using the mystic forge in this way, hoping to sell their rewards on the TP, which would result in a lower supply of the weapons, aswell as a higher demand due to more people turning to the TP aswell as the mystic forge.

That could explain some recent price changes in the precursor market. Doesn’t answer OP, but thought it would be helpful to state.

Can confirm this. The Mystic Forge Pool when throwing in 4 level 80 rares is extended with sub-level 80 Rares and Exotics. 4 Level 80 Rare Axes got me a level 76 Exo Legionnaire’s Axe. As such, playing the Mystic Forge is a lot less appealing to people since both the chance to get a precursor is lower and the payout is considerably less since sub-level 80 gear doesn’t sell for a lot on the TP.

A lot less players using the MF means a lot less supply, and a much greater demand since you can copy-paste the skins since the patch. Especially Spark went up a lot because dual-wielding Incinerators looks better than just 1.

With Glory gone and the Achievement Chests no longer giving PvP Skins either, are any plans made to add something in place of these items?

The reason I’m asking is I got an Achievement chest today, and while the Glory Booster being gone was expected, I would have thought there’d be a chest to randomly give out some weapon/armor skins still, basically get some accountbound green (or why the hell not, rare) weapons with the same skin pool as the PvP chests, or even just unlocks.
While the skins were mostly a “nice extra” for me as a PvE player, it does sort of feel like PvP players get absolutely nothing from these achievement chests anymore. Badges, a blueprint, Mystic Stones, a Booster and a Gem Store item, that’s really it for now.

So, if anything is planned, it’d be nice to know we should store our chests rather than open them up already.

Quick question regarding the new dye System, will the Gift of Color for the Bifrost Legendary still require 250 Unidentified Dyes?
It seems a little excessive given the significantly reduced rate of acquisition. Since craftable dyes don’t count for this, this is a cost of either 125 Laurels or buying a lot from the gem store, which IMO is unbalanced against the crafting cost of other legendaries.

From Canal ward, head straight left until you see the bridge you can drop down to. Cross the bridge to get to the mountain part. There, it’s a bit jumping around to get to the Vista (and the Jumping Puzzle entrance). See the attached map.

LA Disco Nightclub. Requires minimal remodeling.

Allie Murdock.8152:

All fair points. It seems a lot of people feel the same way. I have made sure, and will continue to, point out that the community wants a class that is like Ranger (archer) without pets, or even with more reliable pets.

I get the biggest issue seems to revolve around pets. I’ve also seen a couple others (utilities not being viable unless spec’d into them, burst vs sustain, traps, spirit clutter, etc.).

Allie, would it -after all possible changes- be possible to still get a permastow for Pets even without a buff?

The reason is quite simple. There are some points where I simply prefer not to have my pet pop out. Some examples are if you’re running through a crowded zone, it’s easier to do this solo. Other examples are Achievements. The recent LS has not one but two Achievements that can’t be obtained unless the pet is put on passive, one of them can still be lost if the pet decides to wander a bit. This isn’t the first LS to introduce a mechanic like that, Canach’s mines were similar.
Another mechanic that has seen popular reuse is the “Jump Waves” trick introduced in the Molten Alliance LS, reused several times, like with Tequatl. It’s quite simple, Pets currently can not/do not avoid obvious AoE Markings and can not jump attack patterns like that.
While for other classes, AI controlled minions are optional and most of the time easily replaced, continued use of mechanics like this that are “anti-pet” sometimes make us wonder if someone on the team tested the content with a Ranger.
Of course it would be best if Pet AI got buffed to avoid obvious markings like mines, announced AoE attacks and jumped all waves flawlessy, but let’s be realistic here and assume they can’t. The easiest solution I can think of to deal with these situations is either Permastow or untargetable, immortal pets. The latter might also be justifiable since Pets are essentially part of a Ranger’s DPS and it shouldn’t be possible to reduce the DPS of a single class so easily.

Kilaelya.1420:

My main is a ranger. The only class that HAS to have a pet in combat (it can’t be hidden). I swear I’ve dodged correctly for “No More Tricks, Scarlet”, but if my pet gets hit does that count against me? Like for the Canach mission?

I should probably just switch to a different character for this.

Ranger is indeed “not optimal” to get the achievements with. Even with your pet on passive the entire fight to get “In Tune”, if it strays too close to a lazer or the remains, you fail to get the achievement..

Kyvia.5961:

Autumn Frazee.3158:

No More Tricks, Scarlet

• This achievement requires a good deal of skill and awareness, make sure you are watching for the red telegraphs that show where the Holograms will fire next and make sure you do not run through any active scorch marks during the fight, good luck!

Oh, another note on this – from what I and players have ascertained, the Skylaser (forget the attacks name) in the final phase if you fail to kill all of her holograms also seems to void this achievement. If that is unintended, it should be looked into as well.

It doesn’t. I was hit repeatedly by this and still got the achievement. I wasn’t downed by it though.

I managed to get all achievements except the 6 Minutes one. They’re challenging, sure, but they are achievable. Here’s some tips:

Autumn Frazee.3158:

In Tune

• This achievement is also a tricky one, I would recommend you disable your auto attack so that you are precisely controlling when you hit the holograms. Necros, Rangers, Mesmers; watch your minions, pets, clones, and phantasms, their damage counts against you if you are not attuned. Engineers, your turrets fall under that category as well. For all professions, I would recommend crafting your build based solely on damage your character does and not use any summons or sources of outside damage. Again, attention is critical, always be aware of your current attunement and the attunement of the hologram you are fighting.

It should also be noted that casting a long lasting AoE field can screw this up too. If you cast it just before the buff runs out, the field damage WILL count as damaging the Hologram without the buff and thus you can’t get the achievement anymore.

For the “No More Tricks” achievement, what screws this up the most is the same issue as Warden 3 in the Marionette fight. If the people who port in engage the fight while people are still porting, The Hologram will start its attack pattern and thus lay down the first lazer beams, which hit the spawn spot. One way to avoid this is to DODGE into the Prime teleporter. You may get moved right next to the spawn spot and thus out of the way of the lazer.

I am hoping for a quick fix for the “no loot” issue for the Knights though. It’s pretty annoying not getting any loot and missing out on a lot of chances to get cores. Please also make sure that the chosen solution does not reward the people who AFK’d on the map, the AFK’ers in the Breachmaker are annoying enough as is.

Caelus.7139:

So how do we get cores now? Feed of people who are getting drops and accept the fact that people who can’t get them just can’t? Thanks Anet.

They still drop from the Scarlet chest. You know, the event that will be dead by tomorrow if Knights still don’t drop loot.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Truthfully, it’s tough for the Ranger CDI to go anywhere, because what the Ranger actually needs isn’t clear. Active condition cleansing is a start, but other than that…what?

Well for starters…

Better Signets and better Shouts, the current versions are lackluster and provide very little support, Signets needing to be traited to work on the rangers and the party support gained for investing 30 points for your shouts is pretty bad. Admittedly, both are confirmed as “being looked at”.

In terms of weapons, auto-attack on Sword is an obvious one. But the Power based weapons in general need to be looked at due to low multipliers (GS), terrible skills (LB) and ambiguous use (SB, Axe Main). It should be more clear which are Power, Condition and Hybrid weapons.

Traps in general could use a boost (Combo field for Poison/Spike Trap being literally the LEAST they can do…), while Spirits will likely receive a nerf from PvP, while still being too weak in PvE/WvW.

The problem is the issues with Pets outshine all of these. All these points have come up in the CDI, there has only been replies to few of them.

Try to Finish her, break away and dodge, dodge back in and use Finisher under Haste/Frenzy/QZ.
Alternatively, get hit by it and use a Stun Breaker to stick to her and use the finisher.

Allie Murdock.8152:

Hey all,

Sorry I haven’t had time to comment in here. I went through the past 10 or so pages and tried to grab some of the issues that have come up and address them. The balance team has been keeping up with the thread, but they haven’t had as much time lately to comment on specific ideas.

Re: “Shot down” ideas

• The only thing we are not open to is a real permastow option that would essentially take away the pet completely (ie an option that said always stow).
  • We kicked around the idea of giving the ranger an “aspect of _______” which we moved to a new thread because it is elaborate and should be a single topic in itself. The idea is that it would give the pet more utility with swapping/stowing, but it wouldn’t retire the pet completely.
    • We want to fix issues with the pet AI and general usability before we consider doing something to this extent.
• We acknowledged that Pet AI does need help, but we did not say we would not be doing this. You will see some changes in the coming feature patch that should help with the pet’s usability.

Re: Lack of participation

• I apologize that I had been absent from this thread for a few days. I had to produce Ready Up last week and a number of other things came up that took priority (including getting a virus that meant I left early for the week). Also, I don’t work on the weekends.
• Just because we’re not responding doesn’t mean we’re not reading.
  • Sometimes we just don’t get the time to respond, but we’ll try to get better about this.

Re: Fear that we will only work on pets

• Don’t stress about this. We wanted to look at the class as a whole with you. We didn’t make this thread specifically to get feedback on the pets. It just happens to be one of (if not the biggest) the top issues with Ranger right now.

To be honest, I’m surprised that until now, none of the Pet fixes from GW1 have been implemented/tried. A large portion of the problems we had then are the same as we have now.

- Pets died from AoE → General Pet damage reduction of 33%in PvE. I realise this may open the door for Bots, but without Dodge, they’re still too vulnerable to oneshot attacks in most high-end PvE.
- Pets can’t hit anyhing → 20% Speed boost at all times, the benefit of this exists as a trait and has been documented to improve Pet reliability considerably, but Traits should never be mandatory when it comes to simply making class mechanics work to even “acceptable” levels.
- Horrible, tank-an-AoE AI → Ability to flag a pet where you want at any time, along with Hero controls. This one may not be possible to implement easily, but this helped HUGELY in pet survival.
- Limited skillbar due to Charm/Rez/Heal Skills → You generally needed 3 skills just to make sure your pet did not always die and stayed dead. A similar issue occurs here, your Pet dies fast. You either bring a ton of defensive measures or use your heal to save your pet (leaving the Ranger vulnerable) or accept a net damage loss. Granted, this was worse in most GW1 builds since the pet was the main source of damage, but no mechanics exist to get your pet back in the field if both of them died. Your damage is down for a full minute unless you invested in BM.

This leaves us with 2 other issues:
- No dodge: Unless you make pets immune to attacks like Molten Berzerker Stomp, Flame Shaman Arrow or other high-damage, must-dodge attacks, no amount of damage reduction will ever help the Ranger in high-end PvE when these types of bosses appear.
- Pets die/blocked/Incapable of hitting, leaving the Ranger with a net loss of damage with nothing to compensate for. As a result, Ranger can never be a sustained damage class when it can not ensure that it can deliver reliable sustained damage. A move of (all) damage from Pet to Ranger is required for this, which in turn leaves pets lackluster and weak. This conflicting definition is your Ranger Class Philosophy and needs attention.

While other factors (Shouts, Signets, Traits, SB, Sword, LB, …wow, that’s a lot…) also need to be looked at, most of us feel fixing our class mechanic, the Pet would do a lot more for the class as a whole than band-aid fixes and retweaking some skills. The flaw lies not with the Ranger, it lies with the Pet. Fixing up the edges is a rather futile task if you have a weak basis. You can’t build castles on a swamp.

Since we have attention again

Specific Game Mode
PvX

Proposal Overview
Opening Strikes, a “core” mechanic in the Marksmanship like is fairly useless in general gameplay.

Goal of Proposal
Improve the Marksmanship line by moving more useful traits to Minor Traits.
Rework all Opening Strike traits into a single Master Grandmaster Tier Trait.
Rework Remorseless, it’s still too limited, even with the added Stealth, it only provides more use on a single weapon.

Proposal Functionality
Honestly, this will require more investigation and number crushing than I can note, so I’ll post my “Nice to have”:

Rework all Opening Strike traits into a single Master Grandmaster Tier Trait.
Rework Remorseless into a Trait that causes Vulnerability on Crit and increases crit chance against opponents with vulnerability
The Minor Traits:
Minor Adept: Steady Focus
Minor Master: Predator’s Instinct (reduce recharge? 30s is a lot)
Minor Grandmaster: Remorseless

This frees up place for 2 new Adept Tier traits. Some GW1 suggestions:
Read The Wind: Arrows travel 20% faster
Melandru’s Arrows: Your attacks cause Bleeding for 3s if the foe has a boon.
Glass Arrows: Blocked Arrows cause Bleeding

In addition, I’d merge Piercing Arrows and the 20% reduced recharge on Bow SkillsTrait from Skirmishing so it’s in-line with the Warrior Trait. Having to invest 40 Trait points for the same effect seems overkill.

Associated Risks
Ranger would get buffed. Which is bad?

Specific Game Mode
PvX

Proposal Overview
Actually review and apply the design philosophy of the Ranger and other classes

Goal of Proposal
The current design philosophy for the Ranger is inherently flawed in either it’s conception or execution and needs to be remedied.

Proposal Functionality
Let’s review the philosophy as it was posted shortly.
The Ranger is a resilient profession that excels at skirmishing by drawing from nature to support themselves as well as their allies. Alongside their pet, they have some of the best single target and sustained damage that will whittle their opponents down.

1) The words ‘Along with their pet’ already imply that the Ranger becomes a subpar profession as long as the Pet is either dead, immobile or neutralised in some way. This is a huge issue for the class in WvW, Dungeons, Fractals and World Events. In PvP and general roaming PvE, the pet can survive well enough, but that does not cut it. Many, many suggestions have been made with regards to this, ranging from permastow to Vit/Tough buffs. The issue I have with the design philosophy is that the Ranger by itself should be class balanced against the rest with the Pet balanced against the unique features other classes have. In the current implementation of the idea, the Pet either brings the ranger on par to other classes or provides a huge risk. Recent PvE LS instanced have illustrated several times how the Pet and its current flawed AI can be a large negative factor. It is an unreliable mechanic that impacts the DPS of the class too greatly for the limited control we have.

2) ‘Along with the Pet’, yet the Ranger/Pet interaction is not very nice. While the class should be promoted to keep the Pet alive as much as possible, several of our skills and traits negatively impact any bond we can have with the Pet. A review of these is needed to improve both Ranger and Pet survivability.

3) ‘Along with the Pet’, yet Pets and builds conflict. They do not gain from the armors and stats we wear. An easy example is the power scaling introduced with Ascended Weapons. A Warrior would do ~5% more damage with a Longbow. Rangers themselves gain the same, the pet gains nothing, and since Ranger + Pet should equal warrior, the items we use are curved down. I do not know what armor/damage scales Pets were balanced off, but since they gained no buff recently, I can only assume the current Best Available was not counted. It would be better if Pets gained their stats based on the player gear with certain factors scaling based on family. A Cat would complement the Zerker, while using a Bear with zerker would hinder the bear’s survivability but improve damage.

4) Nature based Party Support. Rangers have arguably the single worst party support in the game. Some would say Thieves are worse, but I value Shadow Refuge and their Boon steals a lot more. While the recent Spirit Buffs were nice, realistically, only 1 of them is actually useful in the current Meta. Shouts are only marginally useful and that’s only after you invest 30 Trait Points. They should be useful period. It’s also quite troubling that nearly all the Ranger support is based on a single trait line, and investing in that line is almost a necessity to get the Ranger Support at even minimum viability.

5) Sustained Damage vs Burst Damage. The latter is pretty much always better in the current meta. Rangers should have access to it as well. Discussed a lot already.

6) Sustained Damage and Kiting. While the GW1 Ranger could dominate small skirmishes using Hit and run tactics using cripples and conditions, the GW2 Ranger can not. Mostly because most classes have more than one way to deal with snares, but also because the snares on Rangers just aren’t that good and -to top it off- are relying on the whim of the Pet AI to be used. CC skills play an important factor in PvP and WvW, not so much in PvE because Defiant, having a more active control over them is needed to improve the very basis of sustained damage, namely you being alive to sustain it.

7) Nature class, worst active Condition cleansing options. Call me a nitpick on semantics, but a nature class could really use more and better active condition cleanse options.

8) No viable AoE damage support. If you look at other classes, they have at least some for of both single target and AoE weaponry. Ranger is pretty strictly tied down to single target weaponry. Barrage and Axe Auto are weak at best and do not provide the utility and support Warrior Longbow or Thief Shortbow have for example. A good AoE alternative is necessary in current WvW and PvE Zerg groups to be able to “roll with the crowd and swim in the loot”.

Associated Risks
Workload, lots and lots of workload.

P.S.: Not trying to sound to negative, or pessimistic, but given the responses so far, I’m suspecting the Ranger will still be main focus of the next Profession Balance CDI…possibly a few after.

My main is a Ranger.
I do not even bother attempting LS content with her, as it has never been properly tested with Pets in mind. Canach and his mines, Toxic Tower and now this. The Pet is effectively an unnecessary risk for 4/5 platforms.
- Champ 1: I’ve been on the platform where the champ was pushed with his back against the edge and stuck there because the pets blocked him there. I had to yell at the rangers for 30 straight seconds until they recalled their pet so we could kill it, if only barely.
- Champ 2: Pets don’t kite the boss on the mines well.
- Champ 3: Wandering pets trigger bombs, kill players.
- Champ 4: Only champ where you might be able to use a pet
- Champ 5: The optimal tactic is to stack and deal a ton of AoE damage. Unless you’re running Drake, you don’t have it on your pet. And Pets stack poorly.

Not to mention that the majority of the event is a DPS check and the best Ranger DPS weapon, the sword, is not that useful here because of the importance of good dodging.

If it works like Exotic weapons, then MAYBE you can salvage the Exotic Celestial Insignia from the Celestial armor and use it to make the Ascended armor. It sucks if you applied T3 cultural skins or something similar on it though.

Harper.4173:

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TLDR : has it been improved visually? Will it be? do you want it to be?

You can see the Medium Ascended armor in on of the screenshots, so no, they most likely have not been improved visually.

No active condition removal and unless you spec into Nature and bring Spirits Unbound, it’s another stationary Heal.

How is this supposed to be a good skill? Stationary heal spots are generally bad in Dungeons and WvW due to mobility being a key factor. Being forced into a defense oriented build isn’t going to help us get into groups either, and my experience with spirits is that they die faster than they can be useful.

With the ‘Pets take the owner’s AR’ change, Pets were effectively immune to agony, or at least as much as the Ranger was. So it doesn’t really matter much.

They’d still get oneshot by pretty much every boss in Fractals because of their high damage, same goes for roughly 50% of all other bosses in the game. I don’t see anything that’ll change that fact.

Pointing out the obvious here, you don’t solo Fractals, you’re usually in a team of 5.

How does first come, first served work in this situation?

If possible, I’d like an invite as well

Unless this subforum is for Tequatl Complaints Rising only…

So, Megadestroyer finally has a daily reward chest. YAY. Kudos for fixing that after, well, too many months really. However, there was another problem with this Boss event. The chest that spawns after the fight doesn’t drop Dragonite Ore, unlike every other boss chest in the game. I thought this would be fixed with this new boss update, alas.

I hope this will be fixed a bit faster, it’s a fun event to do, but the lack of loot kept people away for a long time, it should at least be comparable to other bosses.