Guild Wars 2

Actually the axe is my version of the set and forget weapon. Except I’m still relatively close to the mobs that I can die if I’m not careful. And by using birds with high DPS, the birds aren’t tanking for me. I’m the one tanking for them. LOL

I don’t play many dungeons because I’m just not interested in dealing with PUGs and I’m too busy in real life for guild schedules. But my main is a ranger and it rocks for PvE. I usually alternate between sword/warhorn and axe/warhorn. I use the eagle and hawk as pets. When I was leveling to 80, I soloed much of the content in Orr and never had trouble dying while running around I Orr. Even when I was chained and beat on for several seconds, I’d just pop my healing spring and wait it out. I can’t understand how Rangers could level to 80 just standing still, using longbows and bears. I played that way too until level 20 something, then I discovered the SB was uber. Then that got nerfed and I discovered how freaking awesome 1h sword was. I love it!

Solandri.9640:

It’s almost that simple. All they have to do is take the lines in the code that say:

if ranger.takes_damage() {pet.unstow()}
if ranger.attacks() {pet.unstow()}

And comment them out.

You have no idea how much effort it would take ANet to change the stow mechanic to a permanent stow. That said, I do agree that one way or another, they could certainly do it.

My vote is that they make it an setting. Perhaps a checkmark in the game options. Players could choose if pets stay stowed permanently until unstowed, or choose to keep the behavior as it is now. ANet could even keep the current behavior as the default setting, and give more experienced Rangers who want a permanent stow the option.

That’s what I’d love to see happen.

Serraphin Storm.2369:

It is very simple pet are as part of the ranger class as thier other weopans are. Untill they add a function that stows your weapon away in the same manner that you desire for pets this should not be add.

It is part of the class. If you would like to fight with a petless class create a warrior and cut your trait point by 40%. That will give you a close aproximation of a ranger without his pet.

I don’t agree:

1. Weapons don’t have AI. They don’t get in the way nor do they do anything absent you pushing buttons on your keyboard. Weapons also don’t slow you down when trying to run away, nor do the vast majority of them block your view during jumping puzzles.

2. Why do people always assume that everyone who wants a permanent stow pet option want to be able to roll petless Ranger builds? True, there are a number of people who keep asking for petless Rangers with a buff to Ranger damage when not using pets.

I personally do not agree with that, and I don’t think the OP does either. I think the OP is simply asking for the ability to stow the pet when needed, and have the pet stay stowed until manually unstowed.

3. If we can train and master wild animals, why on earth can’t they obey our commands to stay stowed until we say otherwise? If I take off all my armor and go into some area of the world where I take damage, my armor doesn’t suddenly snap on all by itself. If I choose to run around without any of the stats/buffs afforded by my armor, that’s probably very unwise, but it’s MY choice.

As a ranger, if I want to stow my pet, losing all the damage/defense/buffs provided by my pet in the process, that should also be MY choice.

Hopefully that makes sense.

We have nothing to offer in dungeons? That’s just wrong. Several times I’ve been in dungeons where the only reason there wasn’t a wipe and reset was: ME. I’m not even a hardcore player, yet many times I’m the last one standing, running around all crazy trying to survive solo against the boss until everyone else can run back from the waypoint, and I’m almost always successful at it.

Plus, there are times when 2-3 of the group are dead/downed, while me and the other 1-2 alive members finish off the boss. Maybe I don’t have super high DPS, but that’s not the end-all be-all of the game. Sometimes it’s invaluable to be able to do steady, consistent damage over time while staying alive more often than a lot of other professions. Remember, most other professions also love the glass canon style of build. In dungeons, often times they’re laying on their face watching me as I’m still standing and attacking.

I play PvE (including Orr DEs and dragons), dungeons, and WvWvW. I use birds and they’re generally awesome. The birds rarely die and do a lot of damage.

zargnath.9524:

@Qelris

I’m quite sure you can explore them even if they’re contested. or am I wrong?

Yes. You can explore and discover contested waypoints. You just can’t teleport to them.

Do you realize how loud that mining pick is when it strikes that ore?

Funny. At launch it was nothing but problems with every zone having overflow. Now it’s the opposite. We need a happy medium here. How about more incentives for level 80s to revisit lower zones, at least for the DEs? That would be a start.

This thread makes me feel better. Now I know I’m not the only person who sucks at jumping puzzles. Because of that, I didn’t even try the clock tower one.

I did manage okay with the MK boss map. Yeah, I died a few times, bit it wasn’t too bad. The only really hard part was when you had to drop down to a small ledge that was hiding in the shadows of the larger rock you’re standing on. A member of my group had to point it out to me, otherwise I wouldn’t have ever saw it. Once you know it’s there, then you can see it, but honestly I never saw it on my own.

Probably doesn’t help that my gamma is all screwed up in windowed full screen mode (which I prefer in my dual monitor setup), since we can only adjust gamma in full screen mode. The dark parts of the game are too dark on my monitor at the default gamma setting.

Blizt – my point exactly.

Agreed, luck doesn’t equal difficulty. Luck does not equal achievement either. All this random crap means I couldn’t care less about trying to get a legendary. If I ever got a precursor drop, I’d brag about it all over map chat, then I’d sell the thing. I have zero interest in gambling for an in-game weapon.

On the other hand, if a legendary was something to achieve without the random gamble, I might be interested. In fact, as a more casual player, something like that could be the impetus for guys like me sticking with the game for years.

Oh well…

There’s YouTube videos for all the frustrating and hard to figure out exploration stuff. So if I can’t figure something out to the point of frustration, I search Google and watch one of the videos. You don’t even have to watch the whole thing. Just skip forward in the video to the clues you need.

No, everyone DID NOT get a full month to complete the October monthly achievement. One of the requirements was eating 150 candy corn, which wasn’t available until the Halloween content went live.

Just wanted to clear that up.

PS. A timer on the daily/monthly achievement page is a great idea.

This will be fixed in a future expansion. They’ll raise the level cap amd create a new end-game zone. The problem with everyone farming Cursed Shore will be solved. Everyone will farm the new end-game zone instead.

Rhyse – in all of my testing against the moving golem in HoM, using the stopwatch on my iPhone each time, the birds consistently killed it faster than any of the dogs could.

My ranger is traited 0/0/30/10/30 and wears a full set of exotic carrion emblazoned armor. I usually use raven, hawk or eagle pets.

I have no trouble running anywhere I want in Cursed Shore. I put my bird on passive and just hoof it. When I do get immobilized, I have enough toughness and vitality to survive. Also I have 2 seconds of protection on dodge so I use that situationally as needed, but usually I don’t have to unless I’ve agroed too many at once. I also use the signets in passive mode that provide healing and toughness. I have a lot of toughness.

I also have no problems killing things either. I have a lot of power and condition damage with my gear. I use sword/horn or shortbow for single targets and axe/horn for multiple targets. I never have any real issues and have soloed champions with his build. Not champions in Cursed Shore mind you, but still…

Anymore, about the only times I die in PvE are when falling from jumping puzzles.

Why are we voting on vsync? This is a silly thread. If you notice screen tearing and that bothers you, turn on vsync. If not, don’t worry about it. Problem solved.

I don’t see the point. What would be more interesting is to pick specific graphic settings, and have people compare how the exact same graphics settings perform on different hardware.

Jigg.6082:

That’s the weird thing…they keys on the keyboard work as expected.

Yeah, so it’s likely that SetPoint is messed up. Hence I’d try a reboot.

If that doesn’t fix it, perhaps you need to edit your GW2 profile and browse to the gw2.exe file again and save. I realize it’s already pointing to the correct location, but sometimes doing that “fixes” whatever went haywire with the profile.

Also, if it’s an overheating issue, you might need to open up the case and blow out the dust bunnies.

I have the G700 and mine still works fine too. Remember, in SetPoint you’re just mapping a keyboard key to a mouse button. That’s independent of the game. If GW2 was causing the issue, it would mean they were no longer allowing you to type keys on the keyboard, because after all, that’s all that GW2.exe sees when you press a mapped button on your mouse. You might just need to reboot to get SetPoint working properly again.

I just tried this out. In some situations, it’s definitely better and on the right track. However, I got a little motion sickness from it. Let me explain…

I was playing in Sparkfly Fen at a DE near Aleem’s Waypoint. It’s preventing undead from opening up a tomb. Most of the fight, I was standing on the steps leading up to the tomb.

I got motion sickness because as I would rotate the camera around 360 degrees (the undead would spawn from all directions) the camera would snap closer to my character and a lower FoV instantly due to the normal camera issues when there’s uneven terrain or something “behind” the camera.

Because the FoV is now larger when the camera is behaving normally, when the camera would snap back and forth between the smaller “messed up camera” FoV and then this new much larger FoV, it’s a significantly larger zoom in/out that’s happening immediately. And based on how I was moving the camera around, it could happen several times back and forth within just a few seconds.

I’ve never noticeably had that specific issue cause motion sickness before, but I only played with the new FoV for the duration of that one DE and then logged. In those short 5 minutes, I got a little queasy.

I play WvWvW and my pets don’t instant die in aoe. Maybe you need a pet with more vitality. And sometimes, you have to press F3 to make your pet retreat. Just like you don’t stay in the aoe yourself, sometimes you have to take control and retreat your pet sometimes. And sometimes yes, your pet dies. Just like you see other human players dead too. Zergs especially are crazy that way.

If pets’ F2 abilities were instant cast, the rifle warriors would demand an instant cast kill shot. Other professions would want their “special” F-key avilities be instant cast too. Obviously that’s a bad idea.

Head to HoM and test which pets can hit the moving golem. Few can. Like if you use bears, they’re just targets that can’t hit kitten and are a waste, for example. Birds are the best against moving targets, do good DPS, have high vitality, and are hard to target in the zerg.

Why not try running a raven in WvWvW and use the F2 ability for high burst damage against your target that you immobilized or slowed with one of our numerous traps?

I just think its funny how “natural disasters” are hyped when they affect the northeast. If NYC gets 6 inches if snow it’s national headline news. Where I live, 6 inches of snow means get up early and get out the snowblower so you’re not late for work. LOL

I’m not saying a hurricane isn’t a big deal. But if it was possible for a hurricane to hit Nebraska, for example, it would be a 5 second mention halfway through the news, maybe.

Okay, I just ran some informal tests in the Mists.

First test was against the moving heavy golem. I stood in the same exact spot next to the pillar for each test, and pressed F2 to begin the attack as the golem was moving past the exact same point and same direction. I also had zero weapons equipped and didn’t use any skills or buffs.

Each test was as equal as I could get it. I pressed F2 as soon as it’s cooldown expired, so I used it multiple times, as much as I was able. Here’s the time to death in seconds:

Owl – 37
Lynx – 48
Eagle – 30
Raven – 32
Jaguar – 55
Wolf – 49
Hawk – 33
Snow Leopard – 36

I repeated the same tests against a stationary Medium Golem. Again, I stood in the exact same spot for each test. I started each attack with F2 and pressed F2 again as soon as it went off cooldown. Here’s the time to death in seconds:

Owl – 17
Lynx – 12
Eagle – 15
Raven – 15
Jaguar – 13
Wolf – 20
Hawk – 15
Snow Leopard – 14

Based on my testing, the eagle/hawk/raven are the best. They kill moving targets significantly faster than cats, and they’re only a couple seconds slower than cats on stationary targets. Cats are slightly faster against stationary targets, but seriously, even in PvE, how often are your targets completely stationary?

Plus, birds give a swiftness buff. In real battle, you’re going to also be attacking the target, and swiftness improves your DPS. None of the cats have a buff to your DPS.

If you were going to use a cat, looks like the Snow Leopard is the winner from the terms of time to death. It does better against moving targets because of it’s Icy Pounce which slows down the target enough for it to get more hits in.

PS. I tested several other pets, but they aren’t even worth mentioning. Most took well over 60 seconds to kill the moving target. Overall it was pathetic.

Also, remember that hawks/eagles have the same power stat as cats, the same precision stat as cats, the same toughness stat as cats, but TWICE the vitality of cats.

I tested my lynx versus my hawk against the moving golem in HoM. On average, the hawk killed the golem in about the same time it took the lynx just to get in a couple hits. I started both attacks by pressing F2. The lynx failed to properly hit the golem with its F2 ability, whereas the hawk always landed its F2 attack.

(Remember that the hawk is identical to the eagle.)

Bummer. This morning the Cathedral of Verdance is still contested. That’s rare on JQ.

Tonight farming Orr after the server reset for the new build, I got 9 yellows plus a ton of other loot.

As a ranger, I just use the axe #1 skill along with hawk/eagle pets. Don’t even bother targeting anything if you have the auto-target setting checkmarked in the game options. I use horn #5 and QZ for speed attack buffs whenever I can. I seem to get enough loot, especially in the DE at the south end of Penitent Path.

It’s harder to tag veterans in those DEs, so a good strategy could be to completely ignore them. That’s what I often do.

I don’t know what’s changed, but this week since the Halloween patch, it’s been even easier for me to tag mobs with my Ranger. They don’t instantly die at spawn like they used to. Also in the north Penitent Path DE, the mobs are no longer invulnerable all the way up to that single spot anymore. So you can actually run around and try to tag them a lot sooner, and not everyone can just sit and AOE spam one point anymore. So that makes it easier to try to tag for loot now too. I like it.

On JQ, I was just part of what seemed like a rather large zerg trying to defeat Melandru at Cathedral of Verdance (after the server reset for a new build). We kept at it for over an hour and never made any progress. We’d turn into animals and Melandru would completely regen back to full health before we could kill the acrolytes (or whatever they’re called). So it was a never ending loop.

I’ve helped with that event before, and it never seemed that hard before. Did something change with the way it works or with the difficulty level?

After an hour, people starting giving up and everyone bailed. I had to finally log myself.

PS. Before going after Melandru, I joined a separate zerg that was going after Grenth. I joined after the 4th or 5th attempt. The event failed about 10 or 11 times before the entire chain reset. Meanwhile, before even that, I was part of the DE zerg the eventually cleared the entrance to Arah and that was very easy with about the same amount of people as the other two.

On Tuesday night, I got 3 yellows in just an hour of farming those events. That’s more than I normally get. I assumed it was just random luck. Especially since I had less MF on me than I normally would.

A lot of people are saying “don’t do them if you don’t want to.” Maybe we do want to do them, but think they need to be improved.

Personally, I hate the camera. It starts having seizures randomly for who knows what reason.

Here’s an idea…

Instead of only being completely random based on a low chance per Mystic Forge attempt, also tie the precursor to game achievements. I’m sure some of the achievements would have to be changed to make this work, but basically, you have three chances to get a precursor:

1. Rare, random drop from killing veterans, champions, dragons, or bosses in WvE and Dungeons.

2. Dumb luck spinning the roulette wheel that Anet calls the Mystic Forge.

3. Complete all core GW2 achievements. So complete world exploration, killing 1,000 of every type of mob, completing all jumping puzzles, achieving specific rankings in PvP and WvWvW, having 250 of every crafting collectible, etc.

Basically, don’t change the way it already works. Just add a third, and extremely difficult and time consuming, but non-random path to achieve the precursor by completing EVERYTHING core in the game. Obviously, it would have to be only based on a certain core group of achievements, as I imagine Anet will be adding more stuff over time, and it’s not fair to make it a moving target.

I didn’t read this whole thread (too long) so maybe this has already been suggested. If so, then I agree.

I think we need to keep things in perspective. In Anet’s defense, this is the first time they’re having a holiday event, with a new game, and a new Gem Store which is the first time they’ve tried anything like it. So the best they can do is their best at the moment. Right? After each event, they’ll learn lessons and make improvements. Eventually, they’ll have these things down pat.

If you’re not happy with the way this event is being handled, don’t buy any Halloween stuff in the Gem Store. That sends a message loud and clear.

That all said, I dispute anyone that thinks Anet doesn’t care. Of course they care. Their jobs depend on them caring about the player base being happy. It’s inherently in their best interest to keep the majority of the player base happy, so that people continue playing the game and hopefully purchase future expansions. It’s in Anet’s interest to make sure most players are satisfied with their experiences in the Gem Store, so that those players are more likely to make purchases again. Etc. Think about it.

Is it just me, or do city clothes look terrible on Sylvari? My main is a Sylvari male, and I hate how the city clothes look. I’d be tempted to buy some novelty Gem Store clothing items, but considering how terrible the original set looks, and how terrible the free opening week baseball cap looks… well… NO THANKS.

Here’s what needs to happen. Buying keys for real life money needs to guarantee at least one good/fun/useful item per chest. Go ahead and keep the low drop rate for the rare stuff. Just make it so that, if I spend my money in the gem store, I know that at the very least I’ll get some fun or useful stuff, with a chance of winning the lottery.

I think I might know why birds do better against moving targets. Watch them cast their attacks. Birds will fly to and past the enemy, then they turn around and attack. Other pets like the lynx or wolf will just run towards the target and when they get close enough, they stop to start the attack animation. It’s sadly funny because when they finally pounce, the golem had already moved on, so they’re slashing at thin air.

I think the fact that the birds will fly past the target, and then turn back, helps them land more hits on the move.

I tested several different pets on the golem that walks in circles around a pillar in HoM. I was actually surprised how bad most pets were at landing strikes. Most were lucky to get in a hit every 2 circles the golem made around the pillar.

However, birds were an entirely different story. My hawk and eagle both routinely killed the golem by the time it went around the pillar twice.

Most pets struggled to even just hit the golem once or twice in the same amount of time it took hawk or eagle to kill it.

The only times the birds weren’t hitting the golem was when they cast the quickness buff. Considering in actual combat, I’m also going to be attacking, that buff gives me a couple seconds of increased DPS, so it’s not really a problem.

I guess aside from ranged pets, our best bet for WvWvW pets may be birds. They hit moving targets the best of any melee pet. They have high vitality. And in a zerg, they’re harder to see and target compared to a big fat bear.

Last night in WvWvW, many enemy invaders would zero in on my ranger. It was fun when I had axe #4 off cooldown. I’d use that and my bird’s F2 and switch to my longbow #2 skill. Haha if they didn’t die, they couldn’t run away fast enough.

PS. I could pop a healing spring and both me and my bird would survive being in aoe while building siege weapons. It took 3-4 players usually to gang up on me to kill me. My bird usually only died after I forgot about it for a 1-2 minutes while attacking a gate. High vitality only goes so far against non-stop aoe. But it was not insta-death in aoe.

I’ve run with the bots for a few minutes before in Frostgorge. Hey, they were going where I wanted to go, killing what I needed to kill. What was I supposed to do?

The bots should really camp the DEs in Orr. They’d blend right in. We’re all bots there.

Boomstin.3460:

Yeah, please nerf ranger some more so i can learn to play better
Kudos for trying to find positive sides on bad situation though.

LOL, yeah. It would have been better to learn how to succeed using other weapons, etc., without the SB #1 skill nerf. Oh well…

@nerva – Okay. I’m glad your idea of what makes a good ranger only revolves around PvP and includes you degrading yourself with name calling. I’m quite sure the adult employees of ArenaNet are going to be swayed by your eloquent posts. LOL

Now you can have the last word if you want, because this really is my last reply to you. In fact, I might utilize the forum ignore feature for the very first time! You can reply with “who cares” or “good riddance” or whatever you want, because I won’t see it.

We have such few options for speed that I use Rampage as One. I like playing a BM build, so RoM is really good for buffing both me and my pet. Plus, when out of combat, it’s a nice source of speed when you have to run a greater distance.

I’m just going to go play the game and be happy. No point arguing with you guys about stuff that we have no control over anyway. Especially when some people (cough nerva cough) are going to start calling us noobs because we don’t play PvP, while others who do play PvP say they have found ways for Rangers and pets to be viable and effective in PvP. So I have to question who the noob is, but whatever. The thread is getting testy and I imagine a mod is going to step in. So for those who are being reasonable but disagree, we’ll just have to agree to disagree.

nerva.7940:

enough of these useless posts by noobs who havent even set foot into tpvp. listen, no one cares about rangers and PVE.

Wrong. I care about pets and PvE.

Preferring not to play PvP doesn’t mean someone is a noob. But saying that does indicate you’re a… EDIT: never mind, it’s not worth stooping to that level.

To follow up on the F2 bug…

I thought of another example. If I equip the longbow and cast barrage, one of three things is going to happen:

1. I cast the full barrage skill by letting the yellow bar go all the way to the end.
2. An enemy does something that interrupts me from finishing the full cast.
3. I manually push another longbow skill, or switch to another weapon, in the middle of the barrage cast. Which interrupts that cast and cuts it off short.

Generally speaking, the same thing is true for all our weapon skills. If I’m auto-attacking with the shortbow and press the #2 skill, it stops auto-attacking and fires off a poison volley. That’s the way it works.

Our pets should respond the exact same way to us pushing any of the F-button skills. For example, if I press F2 and then press F3 before my pet can finish casting their shout, the pet should be interrupted from that and instantly try returning to me. If I press F1 and order my pet to attack a target, and the pet is busy casting one of it’s 1-3 skills when I push F2, the pet should be interrupted from their 1-3 skill and immediately start attempting to cast their F2 skill. And the pet’s F2 skill should only be interrupted by some type of CC on the pet, or by a dodge or something of that nature. Finally, in my opinion, the F2 ability SHOULD NOT be able to be defeated simply by pressing AWSDQE. Simply moving or running doesn’t prevent a warrior’s killshot from hitting me in the back of my head (unless I managed to run out of range), but interrupting the warrior during the cast, or a well timed dodge, does prevent that bullet from hitting me. I think pet’s F2 should work in a similar way, but pet’s 1-3 attacks should not hit moving targets as that would really change the game balance.

@Speno,

1. Yes, F2 response is buggy at times. To be positive, it’s way better than it used to be. It does still need improvements though, no arguments here. But I do think a lot of the time people complain about their F2 not working, thinking they should press F2 and nothing can stop it from casting. That’s not how the game mechanics work. The worst the F2 works for me is when my hawk decides to cast a swiftness buff right as I’m pressing F2. The F2 should interrupt whatever else they’re casting and immediately switch to casting the F2 if the pet is within range of the target, or the pet should immediately interrupt what they’re doing and start moving into range to cast F2 as soon as they are in range. I definitely agree with that.

2. Pets not attacking moving targets is not a bug. It’s a game balance decision by ArenaNet. I suspect it’s currently working exactly as intended. I would bet money that pets will never be able to fully attack moving targets (my birds often do attack moving targets, but most other melee pets have more trouble with it). Rangers will need to learn how to immobilize targets or utilize the immobilize done by teammates, as I really don’t see this changing anytime soon as it would significantly affect game balance.

3. Yes, this is a problem. But in no way is it a major issue affecting my gameplay. For me, it’s just an annoyance similar to the lack of a permanent pet stow option for jumping puzzles.

nldixon.8514:

Skolvikings, that’s what I’ve been saying for weeks! Glad you found a way to play your Ranger in an enjoyable and effective manner.

Being positive is wasted on the Ranger forums. Nobody wants to see the silver lining.

Sad but probably true.

Trollhammer.7439:

@Skolvikings You are trying to find positive side to things, but that just doesn’t work when you want to be competitive in an online game.

Fair enough. I don’t share that opinion, but it is a valid opinion. I’ll just follow up with:

1. Being positive is good for your health. Stress is not. This is a game after all, so it’s good to keep everything in perspective. Finding ways to be positive and have fun playing the game, despite changes or nerfs, is actually a really smart way to spend your free time.

2. Not everyone is trying to be competitive. This is not just a PvP game. Many people, myself included, are perfectly happy playing Guild Wars 2 for the PvE content and the occasional round of WvWvW.

3. Not everyone agrees that Rangers are no longer viable, even in PvP. I don’t play much sPvP or tPvP, but I’ve read enough threads of people trying to explain how they continue to do well in PvP even after the SB nerf.

At the end of the day, we all have different play styles, wants and needs. It’s a game and I’m having a ton of fun playing it as a Ranger. That’s all I wanted to share with this thread.

Best wishes to you and yours!

@saurus – you actually make a really good point. The nerf prompted you to try another profession, and it sounds like you’re enjoying it more than you did your ranger before the nerf. See? Another silver lining. Turning lemons into lemonade. All that stuff…