Guild Wars 2

In my opinion, the Action Camera actually improves the mobility of the sword, sure it might be a tad bit harder in to use the AC, although as long as you time and aim your attacks correctly the amount of tricks you can pull off are amazing (this is from a pvp/wvw perspective where mobility gets rewarded).

Even if you screw up sometimes, in the end you can say its because you did something wrong. Like, you didnt target properly, thats why you flew past your target.

Hopefully you will notice what you did wrong and will improve for the next time.

It seems to me that every skill which requires the slightest amount of skill or tricks to get the most out of it, that people run to the forums and start to ask for change because they do not want to deal with an intresting mechanic that requires thinking and adjusting from their side. Take the Smokescale as example from the past week, which thankfully got resolved for the better.

That raises a question though, what is the direction we want for the game? That everything will start consisting out of ‘’Smash your buttons and you’ll be allright’’ mechanics?

Now, That’d be toxic. ^^

Swagger.1459:

I guarantee the metrics of sword use and sword builds are low compared to other main weapons. The ranger sword attacks can still be remade unique while functioning better for end users. The ranger sword has been poorly designed and has been complained about since launch, so it’s time something is done about it. Considering hot introduces tons of new weapon skills, new traits, utilities… the least that could be done is a revisit to a mere 3 weapon skills.

Also, not trying to be rude, but the mere fact that players need to do all the gimmicky detargeting, camera tricks, turning off auto attack… while hoping for a “bit of luck” to make the sword work says a lot about the inherently poor design. You are trying to spin doctor a bad weapon by showing all the player created work arounds. How about we give the Revenant hammer the ranger sword treatment and let’s see how well it’s received by the players.

You guarantee? Well then, a complete stranger on the internet guarantees something, it should be true, right? =D

Anyway, I was just trying to make a point.. ^^
Even though the weapon has its shortcomings, and not being able to dodge while in auto attack chain can be annoying at times, i do not see it as bad weapon design, just different in the way that an auto attack is high risk high reward, usually you get a choice in such skills, like barrage or meteor shower. Having it on auto attack makes it less of a choice, seeing as you have to use the auto attack as your main damage source. But there are ways to play around it.

To me it does make sense, that when you start an attack, you should be forced to finish it, thereby requiring you to think if you actually want to start attacking or rather dodge. Sure in an action packed game like Guild Wars, at times that will get you killed because you made the wrong decision, however, that is the part about high risk high reward that makes the ranger sword fun to use.

The tricks that i mentioned about targetting and detargetting were merely to show OP that there is a lot of stuff that you can pull off with the sword, that would not be possible if they changed the mechanic of the sword.

The auto attack might be something people have been complaining about since launch, mainly because it is not as simple as to press 1 and just go afk, you have to pay attention and actually think of when you want to use which part of the chain. But is that really a bad thing? Is not the fun in playing a game having some kind of a skill cap at least if you want to have one? no one forces you to use sword, especially if you are refusing to use the tools that the game gives you to make the sword auto attack one of the best in the game.

I am not saying we should not be allowed to dodge during leaps, i would welcome that change, everyone would. However, i am saying that the mechanic behind the sword leaps should not be changed, and the OP did say that he would like the mechanic changed to something that allows you to move freely, thus removing the leaps, and in my opinion that is something that should not be touched.

Also, small addition, if you say ‘’not trying to be rude’’ it actually comes over as rude, more at least then if you just state your point without saying that sentence. ^^

Zenos Osgorma.2936:

i think Sword 2 could use a larger window before the Monarch’s Leap portion times out so many times i try to use this in a very tight spot where i need that extra 0.5 second to be a little more agressive or to down and escape.

Yes, that could be cool ^^ or just make it a flip switch kind of a thing, that you jump back, and untill you jump forward the jump backwards wont become available. It will never be implemented, but we should be allowed dreams right? ^^

Because having dreams has never killed rangers in Guild Wars before… right? … RIGHT?!

The sword auto attack is actually one of the coolest mechanics in the game. You can use it as a gap closer or to disengage if you detarget correctly and with a bit of luck it can track targets in stealth all the while having reasonable damage on every hit, considering you are playing as a ranger.

It is a typical high risk-high reward attack, that if you manage to master it you can do such amazing things with. It would really be fairly boring to have a sword auto attack like some other classes have, that only adds damage, and no additional gameplay mechanic. Especially because rangers rely mostly on their auto attacks for damage anyway (aside from greatsword and longbow 2 ofcourse).

Sure if you auto attack without thinking, or have smart cast on, you are not able to dodge, same if you are in the middle of a leap, but that is a tradeoff that makes the mechanic fun, and not as mindless as say playing longbow. ^^

I certainly hope that the last thing that Anet changes in this game is the way how the ranger auto attack works..

And about the sword 2 ability, do not spam it on cooldown, but try to think how it could benifit you if you use it in a certain way. For example if someone is chasing you, dodge roll backwards through your oponent and press nr 2, you will now roll away from him, detarget while jumping back, turn with the about face button, and press nr2 again, now you have aproximately 1200 units away from your opponent in about 1,5 seconds, theres no need for the extra damage, well, maybe in pve, but in pvp its fine ^^

anduriell.6280:

With the rest of your comment i agree completely. But you shouldn’t be worried about all rangers becoming bearbow now. With the ranger is a natural progression from fully ranged to melee, just takes time and learning to do the change gradually because this class is so difficult to play well.

Well, seeing as you went from ‘’trying to make the ranger pure melee is like trying to make the guardian pure ranged. It will not work’’ to agreeing with my point, let me pass silently into the night again with the idea that my work here is done ^^

anduriell.6280:

1500 is the max range of the LB traited. Please keep it real, sometimes it looks like i’m talking to ppl didn’t play with a ranger ever.

You are right, and you have all the bearbows to prove it. LB is not good (i don’t even mean efficient, because actually is more a liability than a helpful weapon) for melee. That’s why i said: use LB (SB right now is too nerfed) and a melee set.

You can have it all with the ranger, that’s the beautiful thing about this class. You can use LB to kitten the foe and you get bored you can close range pretty quick with melee.
Sword does a lot of damage really quick. Combine with a dagger or torch.

Also we are supposed to have some evades to get far from the foe, the greatly discussed LB#4 (PBS) or Sw#2 for example. Shame the SW#1AA is broken rooting you to place, so you can’t call any other skill when executing SW#1-2(the longest of all 3 AA).

So, in your case you want to get into melee, you can hit for a few swings (we don’t have sustain to stay for long time in melee) and get away to swap to LB#4 and LB#2. You can have as many stats as you want, we don’t have enough sustain to keep a melee combat, and when you get away to heal you loose precious dps you could inflict there.

We do cripple with almost all weapons and some pets can immobilize/fear at demand.

To be as good class as the others to play we only need more sustain and fix the broken mechanics in skills, traits and pets. I don’t have this kind of problems with the guardian, really. But as i said, right now negating LB for the ranger is to loose a lot of utility and damage that weapon provide.

The range of a longbow is 1800 (estimated). Yes the tooltip states 1500, however projectiles fly a bit further. (you can check it yourself, move past 1500 range from your target, there will be a red bar below your skills once they are theoretically out of range. Shoot your arrow when you see the red bar. You will hit your target anyway. ‘’The projectile flies in a small arc and can actually hit targets outside of the maximum range.’’ < from the wiki.)

I would not lie to try and win a discussion, and please do not make it personal by saying that most people rarely play ranger aside from yourself when you are the one ill informed, why thank you. : )

Back on topic!

Notice that I never said using a longbow is a bad thing. My entire argument is just about people saying that the Rangers biggest asset is the longbow. That is not true. It all depends on the battle you are fighting. (if it is one where the fight has to be over in 10 seconds where you either win or lose, okay, longbow wins. in any other situation, it depends.)

Now back to the sustain argument you made; of course we do not have guardian or warrior like sustain when it comes to hp/second. But we have a lot of evades to make up for that.

A while ago I had a duel with a platinum rank guardian from the (IPro) Guild from desolation. It lasted 10-15 minutes, where he was using some kind of Mediation build, and i was running a ’’standard’’ melee ranger build. Neither of us could win in the end, we just gave up. But neither of us lost either. even though >both< of us were close to dying a few times. (can give more examples if needed.)

Yes, the fights will not be over in less then 10 seconds with melee weapons (unless you fight a squishy ranged character, like ironically enough, a longbow ranger). Is that a bad thing? are longer fights not more amusing?

Not having a longbow just is not as bad as you seem to think. With posts, stating that the longbow is the biggest asset and most efficient weapon, stated as a fact, people will quote that. Even though it depends on the situation..

And it is a shame, if people start to view the ranger as a longbow, while being a ranger actually has nothing to do with range, but has more to do with ‘’being one with nature’’.

Being a melee ranger is viable, play-able, efficient, has more CC and utility then having a longbow (not saying it is more or less viable though, depends on the situation). Compare GS + LB skill wise, the two things where the LB wins are damage and range. Using melee weapons is just a higher risk, for the same reward.

anduriell.6280:

No, i meant the best asset for the ranger is the bow. If you give that up you’ll loose efficiency. that’s ok if you want to have some fun and change play style but you will loose efficiency.

You are right, at 1800 range, melee weapons for ranger are not efficient in comparison to a longbow. however, if you with your melee weapons can get in the longbow rangers face and smash him to death while he desperately tries to gain some distance only for the melee ranger to close the gap again…

Then the longbow sounds a bit less efficient no? It all depends on the battle you decide to fight.

Imagine a longbow ranger against a melee ranger, 2 scenario’s:

1st one: say you are the ranger with the melee weapons, and you are terrified of the longbow rangers burst, and are not sure if you want to hard engage or not and you just wait, unsure of what to do, you lose. the longbow ranger will poke you down before you decide its a good idea to jump in, and once you reach him you are almost dead.

2nd one: if you decide to jump towards the guy with a longbow with the 3 gap closer skills you have (while having an insane amount of build in evades and stability, and a sword auto attack that follows your target even if they use lightning reflexes) and being able to stay in his face while smashing him to death, then the melee ranger can actually win, because even if the longbow ranger switches to his other weapon set, he is still traited for using a longbow, as opposed to the melee ranger, who just forced the battle to his terms.

Consider all this, how can you still state as a fact that a longbow is the best asset for rangers in the game, or you will lose efficiency?
Sword actually has higher DPS then a longbow and an auto attack that will chase targets as long as you manage to get the chain started. Greatsword has an evade on auto attack and with both of them you have gapclosers. Sure, you cannot stand and stay at 1800 range and and expect to do well with a sword and greatsword in your weapon sets against a ranged class, but does that make them less efficient then a longbow? no, they have gap closing skills that make up for that, and once you get close, it is really hard for ranged specs to defend themselves.

A melee ranger just gets rewarded for playing aggressive, as opposed to a longbow ranger where you get rewarded for staying back, out of trouble, and hope for the love of dear goodness grief, that your opponent is not getting to you fast enough, or that they are dead before they can reach you.

Rock, Paper, Scissors.

Is any of them less efficient?

anduriell.6280:

lol please, the other players where really really bad compared to the ranger, and even in that case he had a lot of trouble. Even the youtuber states that in the video.
That is what i always say. If you are very good and the other is a noob indeed you can use whatever you want.
That doesn’t mean is viable or playable.

Really?

‘’Ranger, that means ranged right? so if you go melee, you must suck!’’

Picture this:
The game is something like this: Rock – Paper – Scissors
Lets pretend that rock is the melee ranger.
Can rock beat scissors? Yes it can.
Does it still lose against paper? Yes it does.
Does that make Rock less viable then either paper or scissors? Not in the slightest.
You say however that rock sucks, great opinion, but do not state as a fact that its not viable or playable.

Its not like being full melee ranger has no counters, and neither does any other build in this game. That does not mean however that it cannot do well against some other specs. How often people make comments about rangers not being able to stand their ground against :insert class here: (warriors or guardians or aything) in melee, while some of us actually win most fights as a full melee ranger against them!

Just because the build does not display your view of the class (in other words, does not have a bow) you still cannot say that playing a full melee ranger is any less viable or playable then any other spec in the game. as long as the player can make it work.

And some of us, can make it work. even in high levels of PvP and WvW.
Does that really mean that everyone we play and win against as melee ranger sucks?

If that’s the case, better pick up that longbow then to pretend like we can actually have skill!
(Because if you win as melee ranger your opponent sucks and if you win as a longbow ranger you played well.)
/sarcasm

Full Melee Ranger roamer here ^^ (JOIN US!)

You could try something like this for your build:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNAR8YnEqQLL2LIWsAXLGwSoa3ABQBwqZdHtPwFnxRf8KC-T1xHAB9o8T5nAgP7P4luB/U/BgLCATKBJFwXTtA-w

It is nothing too fancy, and some might consider 80% boon duration overkill, but seeing you will be in melee all the time, the additional stability duration is really quite helpfull, you can have up to 50 consecutive seconds of stability, along with (almost) permanent protection / regeneration / swiftness / vigor uptime.

(you can also switch the NR 12 trait in nature magic to the NR 13 trait, Survival of the fittest, and swap out ‘’Guard!’’ for Quickening Zephyr or Muddy Terrain, In case you don’t need the swiftness /regeneration, and rather have more burst / kite potential)

Your worst enemies are people that can either remove your boons or steal them, against everything else this is the best full melee build that I have used in wvw though.

It is a sustained damage build however, the only burst you have comes from signet of the wild (and Rampage as one combined with a drakes F2 ability for about 12 stacks of might for 8 seconds).

Rune of the water also has good scaling with troll urgent as heal skill, seeing as the 1st tick of troll urgent only applies after 1 second, and the rune of the water 6th bonus starts straight after your heal is done casting, meaning you heal for about 900-1000 before troll urgent starts kicking in.
(Rune alternatives are Earth, Ranger, Pack)

Mistakes you should avoid as ranger: if you ever pick up a longbow, remember that you can still weapon swap… too many rangers in wvw think that they should stay in longbow, even though someone is standing on top of them, hammering their faces in: it kills you… as a melee character you can definitely notice that those rangers are usually free lootbags…
Also, keep your pets on passive, and only tell them to attack (or set them on guard mode) if you know they are not going to run into a zerg or a lot of unnecessary damage, so many rangers not using their pets and just refusing to even try and care for them… so sad T_T (animal abuse!) and it rather limits your class to… well, something that does not do anything at all…

as far as pets go: consider using one wolf, and a drake for wvw (can also be a cat or bird however if you really like to).
Wolves are obviously one of the best CC pets, with the howl fear and the knockdown that they have, the drakehound also has immobilize on a rather short cooldown, and the fernhoud can apply some extra healing.
Drakes are really good because their F2 abilities in combination with Rampage as One allow for some decent might stacks to prepare the limited burst that you have. also, drakes have an auto attack that hits 3 enemies at once, and a blast finisher that occasionally hits up to 6k.
its better to use slightly tanky pets in wvw, because your pets are going to run into a lot of AoE, as well as taking conditions from you occasionally, so even though cats and birds have higher dps, they tend to die rather fast.. and a dead pet gives 0 dps..

as far as your looks go, check your wardrobe (at a bank or crafting station) and see if there are any armor sets that you like, no one can really help you with that : )

Hope that was helpfull!

:Eats popcorn while reading the conversation:

Warning: large block of text incoming =D (yes its a rant, im so sorry T_T)

On a more serious note:
Most people that play a competitive game search for ways to have easy wins.
The way to achieve that: play what has been buffed lately, or what is considered overpowered at that moment.

The buffs on the longbow caused a surge of players from other classes, to try out their dusty improved ranger, at the moment if you play like that it is really easy and a secure way to win. People are just not ready seeing a longbow ranger on every corner of pvp/wvw. So what happens? Everyone starts complaining that rangers are overpowered, because you did not slot a reflect, or that you are not used dealing with 5 longbow rangers at once that actually deal damage, because it never happened before.

If it were just the usual amount of rangers playing post patch, it would not be a problem, because we were not that many ^^ and even if we got a damage buff, who cares, there are not a lot of rangers there to cause trouble anyway, and if they are causing trouble, its an incident, and not a rule (as we have seen the past few days, longbow rangers are everywhere, so it is more a rule that they cause trouble at the moment) ^^

But because buffs attract people from other classes, you see the instant complaining that longbow rangers are overpowered just because they are everywhere and are killing you ^^ once you slot a reflect however, and manage to reach those berserker bearbow rangers in melee, they are going to be dead (personally having a blast the past few days running a full melee ranger with offhand axe, the bearbow’s drop like flies they do ^^ and I am not the only one that changed their builds just to see those new bearbow rangers suffer =D because for everything that makes them strong, most of them do not have that much experience using the longbow/ranger, so they generally just stand on range, and once you come close they panic and die).

Once people figure out how to counter the buffed or overpowered class, that class is going to be played less, people will then stop complaining because they will not encounter as many (considered) overpowered builds anymore, and everything will be back to where it used to be, just the people that stick to ranger are going to be a bit more viable then they were before ^^

The moral of the story: Stop whining, find a counter, use it, rangers will die like flies, ranger will be played less, and your problem thinking rangers are overpowered will be solved.

Basically, the changes just brought rangers on par with other classes. With the signet changes, rangers actually have more build diversity then ever before, and it was really unfair that rangers had to invest a grandmaster trait, in a power line with a useless minor trait set (looking at you opening strike) just to be able to use signets properly.
Now it actually is a choice which utilities you take, because there are more good options without forcing your traits in a path that really limits what you can do.

Imagine doing that for mesmers, making a grandmaster trait that all your signets affect your clones/phantasms unless you trait them to also work for you, the outrage…
And it was that way with every set of ranger utilities that they needed at least 2 mandatory traits actually be viable 3 of them being grandmaster ones:
Shouts, 6NM, 2BM – Survival, 6NM, 2WS – Spirits, 4(or 6)NM – Signets 6MM – Traps, 6sk
That is the heaviest investment of traits any class would have to do for cooldowns and to make their utilities actually viable or good, and it forced you to take 3 of each ’’set’’ of utilities, because the rest will not function as optimal because you could not trait for 2 utilities at the same time.
So it was needed, very, much so, to make the signet of the beastmaster working on the ranger by default. It at least solves part of the build problems rangers have been facing.

(Am a bit stunned however, that people are only complaining about longbow rangers, and not about the amount of condition mesmers that run around the past few days, but well ^^)

Well, you can say its unfair that pets can chase the real mesmer, okay i can see that being annoying..
But then again, is it fair that skills like ’’Sick’Em’’ do not reveal the mesmer for the entire duration when the mesmer uses decoy (or some other skills that apply stealth regardless of the reveal debuff)?
Or that mesmers do not get revealed when their phantasms deal damage?
Ow also, your shatter skills go to the real mesmer as well, as long as you activated them targetting the right one, doesnt that deserve a nerf then as well?

:insert a lot of unfair things in the game:

There are a lot of problems in the game, also with ranger pets (though there are less problems as most ‘’i want to be an archer without pet’’ people claim there are), but that the pets are chasing a target that you selected and pressed F1 for as long as as the target remains visible and attack them when they become visible again (because they can not track things in stealth) is not one of the problems..

Well, The advantage that Valkyries will give you in comparrison to Cavalier is an increase in power. However the additional HP will not really make that much impact on your defenses against a physical power damage opponent.
Assuming you ask for WvW:
I’d say if you want to go for offensive, you can use valkyrie, but berserker will do the trick in that case just as well because the 2,3k higher HP pool wont make that much of a difference.
For a higher survival rate, go for Cavalier, toughness will make for a better defense option then HP against physical damage, though in that case I suggest mixing it up with knights to increase the crit chance.

As for runes, Rune of the ranger will fit with either Valkyrie and Cavalier, seeing you can use the crit chance. If you have problems with fury uptime you could switch out greatsword for sword/warhorn seeing this is mainly a longbow build, so you can use the warhorn to buff up your crit chance before engaging an enemy.
Otherwise runes of the pack might be better then rune of rage in terms of damage and rune of rage if you just want the fury uptime.

Specific Game Mode
PvE (basically every game mode)

Proposal Overview
Increase the damage on weapons so that pets will become an addition to rangers

Goal of Proposal
Basically that the pets will be an addition to the ranger damage, for example if your pet uses a normal attack, and it hits, it should add to your damage, and not that the damage should be toned down to a 80% ranger 20% pet thing because your pet only has a chance to hit. All in all this would mean that if you attack something, your damage would be the same to other classes in raw damage, and that your pet allows you to really have that additional burst if it decides to actually hit an attack.

Proposal Functionality
Basically this would really give the pet a purpose, if it stays alive with its current AI (though improved AI, dont get me wrong, i would like to see it changed) we actually get a damage boost, and we dont suffer that much from our own damage, the damage that we really can control. it would make for that special feeling that you do deal damage on par, so you would be allowed in dungeons and stuff, so you can actually deal more sustained damage and control it way better, and just order your pet to attack for that extra burst, but if you think your pet will die, keep it beside you and dont suffer the damage loss from your pet not being able to do anything.

Associated Risks
Not really that much, in PvE the pet is usually dead quite fast even if you try and micro manage, with this change rangers can just decide that its a safe time to make your pet attack and have the damage, but if its not safe you can still dish out your regular damage. in wvw it would open up rangers having a chance against other classes in damage, even though our pet decides to die running blindly into aoe fiels

(also as a note on the side, as suggested before i agree with the lack of combo finishers like a blast finisher on greatsword 2, and the lack of active condition remove, think about lightning reflexes having movement CC remove or something, immobilize, crippled, chilled. or having heal as one function the same way as the warriors mending)