Guild Wars 2

Hey just wanted to throw in my 2 cents on this build and burning Guardians in general I guess. I’ve only ran this in hot join (probably wouldn’t work in more organized tpvp) and I’m by no means an expert at all, but I’ve been playing around with a bunch of different builds and classes this past week and I gotta say, this is one of the more powerful builds I have tried.

It has a lot of survivability and there are 5 ways to burn someone. Judges Intervention, Purging Flame, Shield of Wrath (on block), Zealots Flame, and Virtue of Justice. You don’t want to use all of them at the same time though, you have to wait till they use a cleanse before you apply another one. But you should be able to constantly keep them on fire. It’s kinda neat since Shield of Wrath and Purging Flame are both offensive and defensive skills in this case.

I use a sword instead of a second scepter though and with the number 2 and Judges Intervention that’s 2 blinks so it’s pretty easy to close the gap and keep up constant pressure.

Better yet, most of the ways you’ll be burning are aoe and the build actually does pretty well when outnumbered. Many times I’d get jumped by 2 or 3 enemies and notice that I’d often down someone who I wasn’t even aiming at just through the aoe burns.

I just returned to the game after about a year off, so like I said I’m not super knowledgeable about theory crafting. But this build is actually a lot of fun to play with and I seem to do pretty well with it. I was hesitant at first but I’m glad I gave it a shot.

No not at all, but if it must be added i’d prefer it to be extremely easy to attain. I’ve hit the cap on 2 classes and am getting closer to the third. I’ve played this game for over 1000 hours (and that’s with taking months off for a break)

I’ve done the hardcore 10+ hours a day in this game for a LONG time already. I worked hard doing tons of dungeon runs and buying different exotic weapons/armor/accessories. I should be able to just relax and play casually now without worrying about “falling behind” and have to spend countless more hours playing catch up.

Just wanted to add my support to this thread. I’ve always hated the idea of d/d on an Elementalist. If I wanted to use two daggers I’d play thief. I’m drawn to the idea of a ranged nuker using some sort of awesome staff as a weapon. The staff needs some serious love in my opinion.

I have recently come back from a break and felt like playing my ele. I was hoping that in my absence something would be done to improve the staff, so i’m kind of disappointed most eles are still regarding d/d as the best build (recent nerfs aside).

I feel the staff skills either need more damage or quicker execution, as it is right now the usefulness of the weapon besides being an annoyance to an enemy zerg (which is already situational) the staff is kind of meh.

jonk.8915:

@kanebrandyn, do you know how it feels to do a big one time event in 2-3 hours, then when you see guildies ping precs, and you can’t loot the chest cus you got dc’d..

That’s exactly my complaint with it. Really long event with a high chance of getting great rewards (the bag itself is amazing) and I get dc/ed right at the end.

I just hate the fact that I couldn’t even complete the event due to dc issues at the end, meanwhile I have a friend who completed the event twice, came in at the end of a third one and got all the rewards. He’s now quite happy with his 3 20 slotted bags and a friend of mine got a precursor as well.

I woke up early to do the last two “one time events”. The first being a cutscene and the second being a really laggy event. So this time I decided not to wake up super early to see the event and bam. It’s an event in which exotics/precursors/20 slotted bags were the reward…

Was kicked at the very end of the event, right after the boss karka died. Game crashed and when I loaded back in, the chest was gone.

This has really upset my friends and I. We are a consistent dungeon group and we all have multiple sets of dungeon/karma/crafted armor and weapons. We will most likely have absolutely no trouble getting any of the new gear but even we are upset about this.

It’s a matter of principle. Anet said there would be no gear progression, and that’s exactly what Ascended gear is. If it was just for new difficult to attain skins, I would be all for it. But it’s introducing a whole new tier of better items that everyone feels pressured into getting, just to stay relevant.

I have 2 80’s and there are a lot of people with more than me. They are both decked out in full exos, and I really don’t want to spend the time/cash/“tokens” upgrading their gear once again.

I would love to not be forced to use a pet. I don’t actually mind the idea of pets, but they are just too unreliable. I definitely don’t like the fact that they make up 45% of our damage, that’s way too much to rely on the AI.

Like others have said, Ranger HEAVILY relies on it’s class mechanic. The thing is the mechanic is holding us back. I would be much happier if they gave Rangers the 45% damage back, made pets do little to no damage and instead were only used for their utility, but could not be killed.

Or remove them all together. I know some people really like them (and it’s not like I hate them) but I highly doubt Anet is going to improve the AI at all. Put the power back in the players hands, don’t tie it down to something we can’t control.

People can adequately judge if Ranger is underpowered or not just by playing a few classes for awhile. I have an 80 Guardian and Ranger, and I played a decent bit of bunker ele in spvp. I also have a lower level Warrior alt.

It’s so obvious Ranger is lacking atm. Everything we do is subpar :/. Yeah, I know a lot of people complain that their class of choice is underpowered, but that doesn’t mean some of those complaints aren’t true.

I’m fully geared in exotics and so are my friends who I play with on a daily basis. The amount of damage my two Warrior friends do is ridiculous. Whether it’s melee or ranged, they have such high numbers it’s not even funny. My thief buddy’s cluster shot and bouncing arrows make my shortbow embarrassed, and they can do a ton of melee damage. My Guardian friend is set up in full tanky gear. He rarely ever dies, even in Arah explo paths. He is constantly giving boons to the party as well.

The guys I regularly play with are my friends so they would never admit it, but honestly i’m the weakest part of the team. Not because of my personal skill, but because I simply don’t put out the damage or support that the other classes can provide. My pet is usually dead or sitting by my side the whole time till I decide it’s time to pop their F2 utility (that takes a bit of time before even working). Guess that means my dps isn’t where it should be. Honestly I hate how pets work and I hate how I have to rely on the AI to make up the other 45% or whatever of my damage, but that’s a discussion for another time.

In WvW I just sit behind allies and fire away. I seem to do fairly well, but honestly I could do so much better with any other class. Don’t even get me started on the mists. The higher ladder class representation speaks for itself.

Rangers are “meh” at everything they do. I’m tired of hearing my friends talk about the crazy damage they do, the awesome support they bring, or how much of a beating they can take before going down. I love the Ranger class, but it’s in such a bad place right now.

I’m just glad I still have my 80 Guardian. I’m in the process of gearing him up right now and will probably be playing him from now on.

@ Incubus
The balance patch is the 15th I believe. Not sure what’s coming with it though.

Why are people defending the pets so much? They are obviously broken and weigh the ranger down so much. I get that pets are part of the class and I don’t want to see them gone completely (though I wouldn’t mind) but they definitely need to be reworked a bit.

I hate that I do like 45% less dps than I should because I’m supposed to rely on the AI to pick up the rest. Make pets more for utility, and give rangers back their damage output. Or fix the pets AI (unlikely).

Seriously? DD is a weapon utility skill. It’s for crippling people AND it bounces AND can be spammed. Does anyone really think it’s fair that they have an aoe cripple that also has that kind of damage output? Lol no. I wish the cripple on my shortbow as a ranger did that kind of damage or could cripple as many people.

Honestly I’m just tired of tickling enemies. I want to do damage. I don’t want to see massive numbers like a warrior or thief but seriously. I wish they would lower the damage pets can do (since they are so freakin unreliable anyway) and give us back the dps that is supposed to come from the pets.

It’s so hard playing with my friends who are equally geared, but so much more effective.

Thanks for the update Jon. I don’t mind waiting for the patch as long as the changes are actually substantial.

We are all kind of holding on for a big quality of life improvement. We want to see our favorite class be just as viable as the other classes out there. It’s pretty difficult playing with my warrior buddy who brags about his ridiculous damage in both pve and pvp, meanwhile I, even fully decked out in exotics, can only pull off like 1/15 of his damage.

Everyone seems a little flustered that we have to wait, but honestly we just want to be put in a good spot. Fixing us the right way even after a bit of time will be so much better than quickly throwing a band-aid on our problems.

Can’t wait for that patch, hoping to see good things ~

I was getting this problem quite a bit. It made something that was challenging literally unfair. Luckily I beat it after about 2 hours.

I loved the challenge, it made me feel good to actually complete it. Though I was getting that reset bug quite a few runs -_-

Did it once

Human
Ranger

This is great news, I’m really relieved to hear that at least something is going to be done to improve Rangers. I love the class and i’m glad I stuck with it even after the nerf, i’m looking forward to the changes. Thanks again for the communication :]

I’m hoping for some awesome long bow buffs myself. I love the weapon, but it’s damage/speed is a bit subpar. I use the Shortbow and any buffs for that would be welcome as well.

And of course hopefully some issues with pets will be adressed.

So I got my Ranger to level 80 a few days ago. I bought an exotic shortbow and accessories, all berserkers. I’m setup up for power, precision, and crit damage. In Pve it’s pretty easy to play. Dungeons require a few moments of twitchy sword evades and kiting but everything seems fine. WvW is a blast to me. Way more fun than my 80 Guardian by far. I’ve hit lowbies for 1.6k per auto attack and around 1-1.2k to 80 glass cannons. 80 defensive guys take about 500-800 per crit from me. I stay in the back and shoot. I often times do pretty well in 1v1 too.

But the mists…I have been playing a Ranger in the mists for awhile now. I’ve always done fairly well in both hot join and tournies. It wasn’t till I got geared up in PvE/WvW that I noticed how weak Rangers were in the mists, at least the build I was running anyway.

My normal character has 52% crit chance with around 84% crit damage.
My mist Ranger has 52% crit chance with only 53% crit damage.
That’s a pretty big difference and it is really noticeable.

I’m not sure how this affects the other Ranger builds, but mine was so much weaker. Honestly next time my guild wants to do a tourney, i’m going to tell them to find someone else.

I decided to level a Ranger despite the nerf simply because I love the class. I geared him out and I understand the class is a little subpar atm but i’m really hoping they fix some of the things that are wrong. Because on a clear competitive level, they are far behind the other classes.

Alright man thanks a ton! Glad to know others have made the same decision i’m about to make. Those crits sound lovely, can’t wait.

Hi there, i’m currently a level 60 Ranger and will be hitting 80 fairly soon. I have enough dungeon tokens (run by my 80 Guardian) to be almost a full set of CoF gear and enough gold to buy a few exotic weapons and accessories.

Thing is i’m not entirely sure which way I wanna go. I’ve tried both power/prec and condition damage in the mists and tbh I find that power/prec works a bit better for me. The auto attack with the SB just can’t stack enough bleeds to make condition damage worth it and the 2 skill on the SB is just kinda meh. I use traps a lot in PvE and love them. I like being able to burn down mobs with aoe burn, poison, and bleed damage. I havn’t really tried traps in the Mists except for the spike trap (for the cripple). Thing is I can’t really see not having Protect me or Quickening Zephyr (even with the nerf ) on my utility bar.

At the same time even though SB (or Rangers for that matter) doesn’t do a huge amount of damage or burst, they seem to have decent sustained dps. I can crit for about 900-1000 on class cannons and like 500-700 on tankier enemies. I seem to do fairly well in both hot join and tournaments.

I’ve read around the forums a bit and some seem to say that a condition/trap build is a good build for pvp while others would say that traps aren’t that great and the SB can’t stack as many bleeds as before since the nerf. Same thing with power/precision basically.

I know I said I do well with power/precision and crit damage, but I’d like to get some feedback before I use all my dungeon tokens on armor with stats that I might regret. I know Ranger is in a rough spot right now, but I love the class and it’s going to be my new main. So really i’m looking for your thoughts on the matter. Do you feel both types of builds are viable? Or do you think only 1 is a good way to go?

Any advice/thoughts would be appreciated, thanks!

I’m still continuing to play a Ranger as I personally love the class. I felt Ranger with a SB pre nerf was at least a viable build though. Now i’m seeing the effects of the “fix” in both pve and pvp. I would definitely prefer for the SB to go back to the way it was. Though I really don’t see how buffing the other skills would help out Ranger dps at all, unless the other skills themselves were changed completely.

I’m not here to complain, I just don’t understand why Anet would nerf a class that was pretty much just “okay” to begin with. Yet Thieves are still a nuisance and Warriors have been left pretty much untouched.

Most of the time I usually give Anet the benefit of the doubt. Even with some of their more “odd” choices. But wow. This is extremely upsetting. I main Guardian and really hate the lack of range especially in WvW. I hate having so much less HP than even light and medium armor professions. I was thinking about making an alt since i’m a little tired of Guardian tbh and then the GS nerf came and it solidified my decision.

Okay not a big deal, I want to make an Elementalist. Come to find out that pretty much the only viable build is to go super tanky support and do pretty much zero damage. I don’t like being confined to one build, so I decided to reroll ranger. I figured it would have the range I wanted and would be a fun class to play.

It actually was! I enjoyed playing ranger. Leveling and Spvp were really fun and I found myself doing pretty well with ranger after a while. Of course I pretty much only had the SB to use since that’s the only real damaging weapon the ranger has. But whatever, it was fine, it was fun, and most importantly it was working.

BAM! Nerf. Really? I can’t understand this. People are crying (and rightfully so) and thieves being op and they get 1 skills damage reduced. Whoopty do, they are still OP. Meanwhile Ele changes are things like “No longer attack opponents behind you”. Messing with the GS on Guardian (Main dps weapon) and now nerfing the SB on rangers (again, only viable form of dps). I can’t understand decisions like these. Thieves are sitting there still steamrolling people (and like 1/3 of the game is always thieves) and warrior is just sitting there untouched, yet classes that actually need help seem to be suffering even more from these “bug fixes”.

Fix it.

I agree with OP. The nerf is actually very noticeable. Especially with SB being pretty much the only viable weapon to use for damage. Like others have said, we didn’t notice the animation glitch, and tbh I wouldn’t care if I did. The decrease is significant.

Hi there, i’m from the Kaineng server. We are literally ranked last amongst the NA servers for WvW. We are always heavily outnumbered and in the rare occasion we get a decent sized group rolling along, an even bigger enemy group comes to swarm us. We have gotten used to it however, and have even come to enjoy the challenge. (See First pic)

Even so when we use our brains not brawn, we can actually accomplish some pretty cool things!

We did this once before on an even larger scale when we took Stonemist castle in the Eternal Battlegounds, but earlier today we took Shadaran Hills and kept it locked up for over an hour against greater numbers.

We held up in the Keep Lord room with a bunch of Ballistas and arrow carts. The only way for the enemy to come at us was through a narrow hallway. We had a rotation of Guardians using their Line of Warding and Wall of Reflection skills together to halt the enemy advance and stop projectiles from hitting us. Meanwhile, the siege weapons laid waste to anyone in their line of sight. (Second pic)

We held it for a good hour and a half before getting overwhelmed. It was a really fun battle and the other side wouldn’t give up at all. Even after we cleared them from the keep a couple times.

There were lots of people and guilds at the keep during the fight, I myself was there with some guildmates from The Kingswood Brotherhood [KWBH]. We try our best to get things done with what we can. Yesterday we had actually taken Shadaran single handedly and had taken 1/3 of Fergusons map. We are growing in numbers now and have about 130 members atm. I’m proud to say that KWBH is one of the most active and efficient guilds in Kaineng! We hope to continue to grow, and stand alongside the rest of Kaineng as the server continues to gain new players and we can’t wait to see what else Kaineng will be able to accomplish once our numbers rise a bit more.