Guild Wars 2

Anet wanted to decrease the amount of liquid gold flowing into the economy, and wanted to shift player focus to aspects that they plan on expanding in the future. I’m certainly not happy about it, but it is what it is.

Dawdler.8521:

PaxTheGreatOne.9472:

Heavy prefix automatically makes it only lootable in a 75+ map.. we do not have many centaurs in lvl 75+ unless you mean the centaurs in dry top, and they are FRIENDLY.

Does living story mob kills give bags? I honestly cant remember. I think there is a mission where you start slaughtering them because reasons.

As far as I can remember, they don’t drop loot.

ODB.6891:

thrag.9740:

I don’t like to kick. To me, there are 5 people in that instance. If your party wiped, every one of those people should ask themselves “what can I do to fix this”. My opinion is that dungeons are so easy, I should be able to carry any group through. Fractals are another story, I’m not good at them yet, and I need to be carried a bit. But if I think a fractal group is garbage, I prefer to leave the group. I don’t want to place blame on someone other than myself. To me, picking out a single person on your team, and kicking them is like saying “I need someone better than you to carry me”. I don’t agree with it, to me that’s not what a team is.

I also prefer to leave than kick. Less conflict involved. I admit, I currently do not join a group if there is a ranger or necro in it. If I see a ranger or necro join the group….I almost always drop group without a word and look for an appropriate group. If I’m in a fractal group and someone tries to pull a bait and switch…and switch to a ranger/necro…that is a situation where I will likely initiate a kick…especially if I watch the ranger and I see that bear pop out in combat. I’ll also drop group when I see group damage so low that it is taking 2-3 times the normal time to kill things…that bodes ill for the rest of the run…usually means 1 or more nomads in tow. I also bail when I see a mes camping GS or a guard camping staff. Camping range is just so bad in most fractals. The only exceptions are when its a fractal group under level 10 where I can pretty much solo it…no matter what the rest of the group does.

I will take a good necro or ranger over a bad any other class any day. That being said, I tend to watch rangers in my groups more closely because for SOME reason a lot of them I find are “omg this fern hound is so prettttyyyyy” kind of players.

As far as guards camping staff… I just don’t get it. It confuses me, tbh. The only times I use my staff in dungeons is TA (blossom clearing), or if I’m in a group that decides that might stacking is useless and I want to empower at the start of a fight. I didn’t even bother getting a good staff until recently because I simply don’t use it in combat unless it’s an open-world farming situation.

I was in an AC run once with a ranger who wanted to LB burrows while standing on top of them, an SB ranger, and a mesmer who autoattacked with GS (again, while on top of the burrow). Yup, super fun. -.-

I mained thief pre-update. Honestly, you just have to get adjusted to it. Some skills from bosses will one-shot you, but it does get better. Learn the tells of bosses, find ways to heal yourself (invigorating precision drool), and don’t be afraid to drop back to range if you HAVE to. You do less damage at range, but alive+less damage is better than dead.

Bottom line- thief is meant to be a high-risk, high-reward class. It’s difficult at first, but if you stick with it you will find yourself dying less and less.

I believe in you.

In my old guild I knew a family group that learned dungeons together. None of them had looked up guides and none of them had been through that dungeon before. They did them at-level as they unlocked them. It took them a while to get through each one, but they managed to complete it. They were new players, but they took the time to think about what was happening, and they’d look over their skills. I’ve had people tell me “Oh, I didn’t realize that x skill does y” when that information was clearly on their tool-tip. -.-

Honestly, I rarely kick. If someone is causing a major issue in a dungeon (ie- attitude, trolling, or just so awful at the game I’m not sure how they can do more than drool into their keyboard), then I’ll kick them. Otherwise, I’d rather just carry on.

Horus.9685:

ronpierce.2760:

http://i.imgur.com/xA8qvVk.png
http://i.imgur.com/96W2uJ4.jpg

The same staff that the new thief specialization back drop (datamined) is holding is in the files as an Ascended weapon, similarly to all the other elite specialization weapons thus far datamined.

Why fight it?

D: Whats that flower on your arm? Need that skin

The flower on her wrist is part of the TA medium armor glove skin. feels special for knowing something for once

Abe Kleine.3568:

Valkyrie.1794:

On my guardian, at 80 (standing in LA), no healing power or food, and only a 7% buff from WvW bonuses, my passive is 962. I’m not sure what I’m missing, but that seems pretty strong to me, at least from a party stand-point. The cast time is stupidly long, but for a full-party heal I won’t complain too much.

Disclaimer- PvE guardian.

The problem is the 10 second internal cooldown that is ruining the skill. A lot of signets have interesting and useful passive abilities that are just as useful as the active ability. With this signet, both the passive and the active are lack-luster and leave much to be desired. In WvW, PvP and even dungeons in PvE you lose health at an alarming rate… And having a passive 1k heal on a 10 seconds cooldown? Your dead before you get the heal. OR you delay your inevitable death by having 1k health left before you drop. I’ve been trying to run a heal guardian with this skill for days… It’s freakin awful

I see your point. I never run healing on my guard (all my 80’s are zerk… >.>), so I haven’t used it much in practice.

When I was map completing with my guardian I used a staff (for 3), Retreat, and Save Yourselves, and a GS. I wouldn’t recommend it if you’re wanting to fight anything more difficult than open world PvE mobs, but it did help the map completion go a bit faster.

On my guardian, at 80 (standing in LA), no healing power or food, and only a 7% buff from WvW bonuses, my passive is 962. I’m not sure what I’m missing, but that seems pretty strong to me, at least from a party stand-point. The cast time is stupidly long, but for a full-party heal I won’t complain too much.

Disclaimer- PvE guardian.

The cast time is a little odd for me, I’m not quite use to cast times on shouts, but I’ll adjust. I never used the old Tome of Wrath, and the only time I used Tome of Courage was an emergency heal for siege carriers in VW. I am absolutely in LOVE with the change to Wrath and Courage. 3 viable guardian elite skills? Is they sky falling?!? Are pigs flapping around the clouds? What is going on?!?

On a more serious note, I wouldn’t be surprised if it say some “balancing” in the future. I think a slight cooldown increase would be fair enough. This elite and the overhaul of traits (symbols, yes pls) is making me consider leaving my thief to main guardian.

On the point of linking AP to experience, I’ve found that sometimes it holds true, and sometimes it doesn’t. I’ve gone into dungeons with people that have twice the AP I do, and I end up teaching them the dungeon. I have also had people with AP lower than mine perform amazingly with their class. If I’m in a “casual” pug group, especially for a low level dungeon like AC I make sure to ask if everyone knows the path. If they don’t, I’ll teach them. From the “exp, 80’s, zerk” groups I’ve only seen a few kicks, and even one situation where an under-leveled person joined and we took them along anyway for lols.

Infenso.6329:

Valkyrie.1794:

Would it be wrong to point out that isn’t a pug? That is totally a french bulldog.

Shh don’t ruin the illusion that it was still cute and funny.

But… it is still cute and funny!

It’s not that I mind helping newer players. I actually love teaching and leading dungeon groups. What I do mind is when someone decides to bear-bow or nomad guard in the average dungeon and they think they’re “helping”.

On my (admittedly neglected) ranger the only time I use a bear is when I’m going to have to rely on “Protect Me” or “Search and Rescue”. That type of situation is very rare, but with most of my classes I find myself able to run my preferred full zerk less and less the more my party deviates from it.

Also, as a side note, unless it’s needed or asked for, please do not use LB 4. Just don’t, not in dungeons. So many newer rangers want to keep all their weapon skills on cooldown, and I’m tired of having to chase down a boss because they got knocked back. Other classes have knockbacks, and there are always players that use them at the wrong time, but for some reason I see it from rangers the most.

From what I’ve seen from the engineer’s I normally run dungeons with, they can do a bit of everything. I don’t find an engineer’s inability to play up every utility and bring all the DPS at the same time with any given build to be a major downside. Most classes have to swap weapons, utilities, or traits to make the most out of any given encounter.

As far as stealth, I’d prefer to have a thief, but it is REALLY nice to have an engi as an extra source, or as a replacement. You didn’t mention, but I do hope the guards weren’t trying to use empower instead of blasting your fire field. Empower is nice if there isn’t another option (such as the group not wanting to work together) but the duration compared to fire field+blast finisher might is just sad.

It might just be the way my normal dungeon group works, but we usually use our engineer’s flamethrower fire field. Between his normal blast finishers and my thief’s shortbow 2, we never miss out on full might stacks.

Would it be wrong to point out that isn’t a pug? That is totally a french bulldog.

OP- One thing I would recommend, which I’ve done, is turn off map and/or say chat. Keep your team chat up so you can see if your side is trying to communicate with you, but that way you won’t see the trolls on the other side.

I’ve encountered other players that try to throw the verbal abuse when I beat them, or when I loose against them. Personally, even when I rage at another player I never let them know it. I might scream at my computer, but I’ll never type it out.

It’s understandable to get angry at the “toxic” players, and it’s especially frustrating if you always seem to see them in the game mode you enjoy most. Try to think of it this way, the time they’re spending trying to antagonize you is time they aren’t keeping their head in the match.

I would recommend trying to play with your guildmates, if possible. Personally, it’s easier for me to ignore the negativity that sometimes overcomes people in PvP if I have my guildies with me. Even if you are a bad player (not saying you are, but everyone starts out new at some point), it’s messed up for them to throw verbal abuse at you. You’re right, though, they are just trying to make themselves feel better. I agree that sPvP would be far better if we just focused on playing and were at least somewhat professional about it.

Jayden Ennok.3687:

Reminds me how one time when pugging with a guildie, he decided to do this without telling us and he forgot he was the opener >…>

Oh, those old days where if the opener left everyone got kicked out. I do not miss those days, not at all.

I really wish they would at least change the names on the non-account bound infusions so it’s easier to explain to people. I spent about 20 minutes on the wiki looking back and forth, taking notes, and then trying in game before I had it completely nailed down. Armor takes versatile, not the non-account bound infusions. Rings take versatile until you infuse them, then you can put in the non-account bound infusions. Backpieces are the same, and so on. It took me a while to figure out, and it can be confusing.

Meanwhile, about the new player experience… my new ele just wants earth attunement already, darnit!

Sebrent.3625:

Thanks for the input Valk. It’s nice to get some fresh perspective … though I disagree on your desire to trash your pet ;-) … if they let me have two, I’ll take yours :-)

I think Rangers are fine, as you said. I think people are just turned off because they see:

• Warrior/Ele/Guardian who are strongly placed in every meta
• Thief who is strongly placed in both PvE and sPvP
• Engineer who is strongly placed in the sPvP meta
• Mesmer who is sort of in PvE meta
• Necro is in WvW meta

So that leaves Ranger who currently isn’t part of any meta. We’re a great class, but we’d love to be great enough to be part of at least one of the metas :-) So ranger currently needs either:

• some changes to Ranger to help them become part of at least one meta
• or some changes need to occur elsewhere that shift at least one meta so that Rangers are a part of it.

Thankyfully we have a boatload of changes coming down the pipeline that may do both of these

You can have my pet! As long as I get my own damage back. I might be a bit of a control freak like that. Or… I don’t know… give my pet evade frames when I dodge or something.

It would be nice to see my old main come into meta. I don’t think it would take overmuch to get that to happen for PvE. If only we could get some DPS increase in PvE that wouldn’t cause people to Q.Q all over the floor in sPvP.

Even if Anet gave Rangers some serious buffing, it would take a while for them to be considered as part of a meta because most of the GW2 playerbase has this idea that the vast majority of Rangers are “noobs”. So, dear Rangers, you seem to be working uphill on both sides.

High level fractals tend to require more survivability, and a lot more skill. For dungeons in general, doing the most damage while increasing your party’s damage as much as possible is the best way to support your group. I main a full zerk thief, and I can easily melee (moving and dodging a lot, but still) without a problem as long as the rest of my group is pulling their weight as far as damage. Quite a few pug groups want that kind of efficiency.

Unfortunately, condition-based builds in dungeons tend to be considered sub-par because of the current condition cap. I love conditions, but I don’t use them because of that issue. When I do take my ranger into dungeons, I’ll admit I do run the meta. I open with the longbow, even when I’m in a stack, but as soon as I’m done with rapid fire I’m switching to either sword/axe or gs (gs does less damage than regular sword, but the autoattack chain isn’t a pain to break out of for a dodge).

As has been said before, Ranger doesn’t have to mean ranged. Melee on ranger can be incredibly fun. If you do get insta-kicked before they even see how you fight, it’s because far too many new rangers want to go double-bow. You know, the kind that say they hate SB because “3 makes me jump backwards off of cliffs Q.Q”. A well built and well played ranger can be very useful for a group. A poorly played ranger doesn’t know they’re poorly played and are a detriment.

I’m actually kind of baffled as to why you’re getting kicked so much from groups. If it was only the “requirements” some people put in LFG’s for dungeons, it might make more sense. As far as event groups, I really don’t understand.

I have seen some toxic pug dungeon groups, but most of the ones I end up joining aren’t. The worst groups I’ve seen are ones that kick people for not meeting requirements that weren’t even listed in the LFG. When that happens I drop the party, grab the person that was kicked, and run with them instead.

Maybe it’s just the time of day you’re on, or bad luck. I’m sorry that you’ve been having such trouble with groups, though.

LughLongArm.5460:

ZeftheWicked.3076:

Ah true, they didn’t reveal all revenant weapons. I suppose they now spread revenant into 3 reveals to buy time. One for ventari, one for shiro and one for glint.

Now if only i was a tiniest bit hyped about the revenant, unlike the actual druid…

Same here.
I hope next reveal will be druid if the the “Professions order page, theory” is true.
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/professions/

Ohhh. I never noticed that. It would be nice to be able to predict the next reveals, even if they keep taking breaks to show us things we care about less.

Though I would be sad about warrior elite spec getting revealed before engi… I want to know more about engi! :<

Guardian is essentially my main, and I will tell you that I hate spirit weapons.

Half of my time in PvP was on my necro, and I will tell you I’ve seen worse builds than the one in that video.

As far as Ranger in PvP, they seem pretty balanced to me. It’s a matter of having a good build and understanding the class and build. Make the most of what you have, and you’ll be fine. Even though I wish the crazy CC warriors would be balanced a bit, I think that the PvP game right now is fairly balanced. Taking on any class with any build comes down to skill. Yes, it’s possible to make a bad ranger build. It happens in PvE as well. A class can’t be considered the “worst” just because it takes skill and knowledge to make it work well.

That being said, if I was allowed to sacrifice my pet to the anet gods for some extra personal dps, I would actually use my ranger more in PvE.

Speaking of voice acting, I run a female norn guard, and when she shouts “Retreat” it really does sound like a command. It’s short and to the point. When I hear a female human guard “Retreat” it’s high pitched, drawn out, and sounds panicked.

Just a little difference between the voice acting that I always found hilarious.

Exciton.8942:

Valkyrie.1794:

In my time in PvP I’ve seen plenty of people leave a still-contested point to essentially chase the rabbits. That’s my cue to at least stand there until it’s ours so that we get points for the team. When a team spends too much time fighting off-point, or with the whole team distracted by a few enemy players running bunker builds, it’s a recipe for disaster. I think the key is to “actively” hold your points. When I’m in I’ll join the large fight that often happens at mid, but I make sure to keep an eye on home so that we don’t end up with an “oops, only have one point lol at least we killed these 2 people” situation.

Sometimes it might be a good idea to kill the enemy player before the capture.

Some players are also emphasizing on point capture way too much. Many times it is better for some one to stay off point and survive. I would say, 90% of situations, it is better to give up a point than to die.

Yes, in some situations it’s better to kill the enemy, but not always. Some players get too focused on killing. If I’m fighting to keep a point I’ll get off if that’s the only way for me to survive. It really does depend on the situation.

Overall, in my opinion, balance is key to winning. Too much focus on points makes you predictable, too much focus on killing will make you give up the cap points.

Harnel- Thanks, I haven’t tried drakes for quite a while, I’ll give them another try when I dust off my ranger again. I think as far as pet mechanic the largest issue is the AI tied to them. Even if Anet improves it, AI is always tricky and not quite “right”. They do have to walk a fine line between making them better and making them “OP”. Though they seem to be extremely cautious not to accidentally make them too strong.

MaXi.3642:

as you can see here

https://d3b4yo2b5lbfy.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/6ddd5HeroPanel_ScreenshotTraining4-590x447.jpg

reward tracks AREN’T only for specializations, they are for each specialization, elite specialization and skill type… this gives you imo enough options to skip some lines to get what you need, no reason to spend points in a skill line which you don’t use… or am I missing something?

I do agree with you, but some people want to unlock everything available to them, even if they’ll never use it. However, the people who do want to unlock everything should expect to have to work a little more for it.

On the note of not wanting to leave WvW, the majority of content in GW2 is in PvE. It’s a little unrealistic to expect Anet to let you completely ignore one of the major game modes.

Personally, I’m annoyed at the “buying” of LW, but only annoyed. I didn’t have to pay for this content, so that’s a bonus to me. However, I recently got my boyfriend into GW2 and we recently pooled our (in game) resources to get him the LW story because certain other content is linked to it. He can’t get the luminescent armor without the ascended accessories from the LW achievements, and he can’t work on Mawdrey without the story.

On the other hand, GW2 doesn’t have a montly fee attached, we get regular updates, Anet is pretty good about fixing what gets broken, we had a lot of living world content that was completely free to us, and the LW content we had to buy him wasn’t absolutely needed for him to enjoy the game. While it would have been nice for people who missed it to access it for free, I appreciate not having to play it in real time and that it was free for those who logged in during certain time spans.

In my time in PvP I’ve seen plenty of people leave a still-contested point to essentially chase the rabbits. That’s my cue to at least stand there until it’s ours so that we get points for the team. When a team spends too much time fighting off-point, or with the whole team distracted by a few enemy players running bunker builds, it’s a recipe for disaster. I think the key is to “actively” hold your points. When I’m in I’ll join the large fight that often happens at mid, but I make sure to keep an eye on home so that we don’t end up with an “oops, only have one point lol at least we killed these 2 people” situation.

UnitedChaos.8364:

-When you first join and a ranger is on your team, do you automatically assume they are a power ranger until proved different?
-When you first join and there are multiple rangers on your team, do you automatically assume a loss?
-When you first join and your team lacks melee/support but has multiple rangers, do you wish they would swap classes?
-When playing as a ranger, are you often blamed for a loss even if you played well?
-When playing as a ranger, do other players call “gg” if they have rangers on their team?

- No, but my reaction is normally “Oh god, please tell me they aren’t afraid to do more than 1-2 on longbow”. My reaction there is probably worse, to be honest.

-No, but I do get worried we might not have enough build variety.

-Somewhat, but I play PvP more for fun than “wins”. I try to win, I hope we win, but I refuse to let myself get angry if we lose.

-Some times, but I usually ignore what goes on in team or map unless it pertains to taking/loosing a point. If they’re just pointing fingers, raging, or trolling, I try to let it go.

-I’m not sure, actually.

When I do take my ranger into PvP I use a condi/survival build. I’m still able to down people on it, but I’m also able to fight on a point. I tend to focus on taking and holding points, which I can’t do on a power ranger. Also, I’ve seen power rangers pew-pewing and thinking they’re amazing because they’re getting kills. On my condi ranger I quickly prove them wrong. When I close the gap on them, some power rangers can handle it, while others panic and hit all their skills to try to survive. I think some of the hate comes from the fact that it is easy to stand back and hit a few buttons, and the other players don’t know if you’re a bad ranger or a good one until someone closes the gap on you to test the rest of your abilities.

The fundamental problem with the overall class is that Rangers have a bit of almost everything, but not truly amazing at anything. Evading, perhaps. I mostly play PvE, and I’ve left my ranger behind. Honestly, if they gave my pet evades when I dodged, and fixed the sword auto-attack chain, I would consider going back to my ranger. In dungeons I always feel sub-par with my damage, even when considering my pet’s damage (yes, my ranger is full zerk).

On the note of them buffing spirits, they have already told us that they plan to make them stationary (removing the trait that lets them follow you) but will update their abilities/health/effects to compensate. I keep thinking about how in CoE against subject alpha my pet and my frost spirit died so quickly that I was left going “Well, guess I’ll just whack away and hope I can interrupt my sword’s attack to dodge in time”.

I hope with druid there is more party support (letting a druid ranger be a viable replacement to another support class in a dungeon) or an improvement in general utility or damage. I understand the Ranger’s personal DPS has to be lower because the pet also does damage, but when my pet’s die so quickly (I refuse to use bears unless I HAVE to have the extra survivability) it makes me feel like I’m bringing less to the table. That’s why I stopped using my ranger as my main. I’ll take rangers into dungeons with me all day long, but I personally fell out of love with playing one a while ago.

Most of the time people use stacking in dungeons to group enemies together for cleave, to keep a boss from using a certain attack that would otherwise be used (Kholer in AC will “evade” to people if they are not in melee range, making the fight longer), and to ensure that boons are shared with the whole group. The last reason is why I don’t mind stacking in some situations. My guildies and I will stack might for the group, which helps the overall DPS and increases the speed of the run. Most enemies that are stacked for can easily be fought “normally”, it is just quicker to shove your face in the corner and flail strategically at the enemy until they’re all dead.

I’ve used it plenty of times to “Retreat”… when I’m doing map completion and can’t be bothered to kill every enemy in my way.

It is kind of weird to be in combat and use it for the aegis and have my character shout out “Retreat!” while we’re still burning down the enemy. Certainly is something to think about.

While I’m nervous about how the changes will affect my various alts, I’m certainly waiting until we know for sure how they will be implemented before I start crying about it. I don’t like the current trait “unlocking” system (luckily my main was made before that change), but I’ve adapted to it. I think we all have, and even if we have to work a little more to get our toons back to where they were pre-update, it won’t be the end of the world.

Rangers aren’t particularly wanted in dungeons, might as well let them have this in PvP, right? lol