Guild Wars 2

Tbh guys, Astral Force (AF) should be maintainable simply by healing others. so if i jumped into it, I should see it slowly go down but… I should be able to build more AF by healing others, that way I am healing when it is needed and need to choose when to dip in and out otherwise my AF will be depleted for when i do need it. but in a prolonged fight, druids will falter due to the building of AF once it has gone is not fast enough.

Wondrouswall.7169:

Can’t (really) answer that because it’s just me and my experience. I have been playing in the new zones with all professions and their elite specs and been progressing through it much easier with other classes. Again, to each their own.

Ghostwind was asking for your opinion, not fact.

@Ghostwind, I’m in a similar predicament to yourself, (although not as many hours put in) I love the reaper but why run that when i can run a LB Ranger and take on all encounters. Ranger is a very good solo class and has since gained some group utility. so overall its just a very good class.

But my experience has taught me that sometimes others find it easier to play a class they are most at home with. My mate loves the elementalist, he survives insanely well on that, I die quite fast lol. but that story is the reverse on the ranger.

That said, in all MMOs i gravitate towards the medium armour not-a-lot-of-magic classes (i.e. Rogue/hunter in wow, thief/ranger in gw2, even in skyrim i made a bowmaster)

I think its all about the mindset of the player and how engrossed they get in the class’s identity.

In all fairness… the only “Nature” skill there is the #4 skill the others are not natural apart from the naming. I would have liked to have more druidic theme though, like the item thieves steal from us… wtf is that, I have never spawned a tree as a ranger or druid… that said… I’d rather that over one of the other abilites. e.g. it could grant regen or pulse heal friendlies and weaken enemies due to pulsing a spore like cloud out.

how about summoning bees to inflict poison on the target and remove condis from friendlies in the path

I kinda like the idea of #5 but its visuals are more light than nature. make a vine wall but make it have the spirits glow and transparency?

the #1 skill works, but i cant help but think that streaming a swarm of bees at the target is better…

a bit of a rant but hey…

To be honest Kleym, I don’t think pets should stop moving when attacking a moving target anyways regardless of F2 or own abilities. its the only downfall of pets in pvp if you want to be a beastmaster as the pets simply cannot land their attacks. Although the ranger has quite a few tools to help the pet in this regard i.e cripple, muddy terrain, stun, knock back, swiftness on pet.

I agree Charchar. +1 to you.

Been playing the daredevil exclusively so far. I love it. I played with the new elite in the mists and it does seem a bit lacklustre. Maybe adding an Endurance buff or refilling the initiative when used would be good and make it worth while in pve.

@Six.8051
A friend and I were duo-ing (not a word I know) some of the champions in the second map for the hero points… Daredevil used properly with the staff has a decent survivability. I was basicly the tank (in zerker gear) and he was the fire elementalist nuking the champ, we cleared about 4 by ourselves. sure i went down a couple of times when learning the boss’s moves. staff’s #1 skill is the best, use the others as tools for evading and interacting with fields.

Benjamin.8237:

Hi, welcome to the Ranger forums and PvP in general, it’s nice to see new people trying out Ranger!

First of all as far as the video quality goes, it looks decent, maybe you could add some light music or commentary but that isn’t really necessary.

On to the game play. I can see you’re only rank 19 and so I imagine the players you’re playing with are similar MMR wise. First of all, playing on Forest you should never really initiate on a boss kill because they can be stolen easily and should be used for clutch games. You also didn’t dodge the chieftain throw which knocked you towards him, if you didn’t have allies he could drop you quite low and force a signet of stone pop there. Also you spent the majority of the game in the longbow when you have an equally good greatsword to use for mobility and pressure, swap more! Also learn to cancel skills through weapon sheathing, you used a rapid fire several times which was completely obstructed through LOS and you’d be better off selecting another target and attacking them. I recommend taking signet of renewal over the signet of the wild too as the condi cleanse and AOE cleanse are very strong.

It looks like you’re using empathetic bond over survival of the fittest and when you’re using two survival skills you may find it’s better to take the on demand cleanse rather than the passive, also remember to swap your pets before they die and recall them out of AOE!

I can’t comment too much on your rotations as the enemy team took a strong liking to fighting off point throughout the entire game which is rather odd, I’m guessing their new in that regards. Keep playing Ranger and keep improving though, nice to see people in PvP!

Thank you for the tips. I have videos uploaded and scheduled until the end of July,I will however take note of your suggestions going forward. From Matches 8 to 11, I use Longbow/shortbow which I understand is a bit weird, however it seems to work quite well for me. I kept my current talents which are 6,4,0,4,0 taking Signet mastery, Piercing arrows, Read the wind in Marks, sharpened edges(not sure what else is best) and quick draw in skirmishing. and in Nature Magic, Strength of spirit and Nature’s protection.

You mentioned grabbing survival of the fittest, and dropping signet of the wild for renewal. I love both Read The Wind and Quick Draw traits and cant bare to lose them. Any advice?

I agree I do need to switch more often but I feel that I run the risk of being kited if I switch to a greatsword. but in my LB/SB videos I switch way more often.
I am slowly getting used to calling my pet back when I need them. I have switched the raven out for the Panther (he deals a silly amount of damage) but kept the wolf as his howl has saved me quite a lot.

Also a very very good point about sheathing my weapon to stop the attack. will bind that now!

Hi fellow rangers!

I have started my YouTube channel which primarily focuses on Rangers in PvP.
My current format is that I will release a whole unedited match each week (Friday 9pm GMT) so anyone complaining that we are overpowered or under-powered can see what I class as a match. Every 5th video that gets released I will montage the 5 into a kills video for that Saturday (hopefully with music, if I can get some royalty free). I’ll be doing Ranger Tricks and Tips videos basically on how to maximise your contribution to a team, this will contain elements from matches shown or other matches.

My background is that I have recently come back to GW2 from a break. I played Ranger,Thief and Mesmer but my first love was the Ranger (played since pre-beta). So my hope is that you will notice a increase in skill as the videos go on.

Anyways please have a look and let me know what you think.
https://www.youtube.com/user/noxincendia/videos
p.s. I currently have content ready all the way until the end of July!

Thanks,
Zeoli

I would like to see unloads DMG be increased or more bullets…
Also see #2 skill changed to something like a reverse heartseeker however this would have to then be swapped for #4 to prevent p/d becoming stupidly op. But then nerf d/p cause #4 is a very good skill in this set.

To analyse p/p we need to see the weakness which is lack of defense and lack of punching power. Maybe creating a skill that gives both defense and offense.
Vulnerability lasting longer would increase the overall p/p DMG. Now maybe attaching a defensive to it would help… Weakness anyone?

This skill would then reduce incoming DMG (beats blind as blind only affects the 1st attack of whatever skill) and increase the damage against them. Current length of vulnerability means you only really get a chance to hit unload once or twice for 6k each and that can be dodged.

@OP,
Ignore the haters. Time is money == money is time.
Congratulations on this. I too am about to embark on making my dual incinerator dream a reality, might earn one and buy the other…. Eventually

I experimented with spirits a while back in a melee build, only two problems,
1. They die too fast.
2. The functionality doesn’t out weigh them being killed in 2 secs.
Would rather see them as a aura as suggested above because currently they are effectively killable signets.
Or of not auras then have them as they are but increase their health to mimic the ranger’s but when they get hit they increase their chance to proc up to 100% for 5 secs then it drops back down.
I love the concept of them i really do but they really are boring and need to be traited to be useful which is a state they should be in before traited and traited just adds a flavour to it.
Spirits by default should have all the traits applied to it as a buff and replace current traits with…
1. Invigorating Spirit – When a spirit dies the ranger are healed for X health
2. Vengeful Spirit – When spirits are hit they are angered and become vengeful which cause them to attack the target (each spirit has its own attack, sun=burning, earth=cripple, frost=vulnerability, air=damage)
3. Spiritmaster – spirits no longer have a recharge but the cast time has been extended to 4 secs

I experimented with spirits a while back in a melee build, only two problems,
1. They die too fast.
2. The functionality doesn’t out weigh them being killed in 2 secs.

Would rather see them as a aura as suggested above because currently they are effectively killable signets.

Or of not auras then have them as they are but increase their health to mimic the ranger’s but when they get hit they increase their chance to proc up to 100% for 5 secs then it drops back down.

I love the concept of them i really do but they really are boring and need to be traited to be useful which is a state they should be in before traited and traited just adds a flavour to it.

Spirits by default should have all the traits applied to it as a buff and replace current traits with…
1. Invigorating Spirit – When a spirit dies the ranger are healed for X health
2. Vengeful Spirit – When spirits are hit they are angered and become vengeful which cause them to attack the target (each spirit has its own attack, sun=burning, earth=cripple, frost=vulnerability, air=damage)
3. Spiritmaster – spirits no longer have a recharge but the cast time has been extended to 4 secs

wow, if only the ranger was that accurate on moving targets :P

I use p/p + s/d build with 0/30/0/15/25
I have about 77% crit chance and 55% crit dmg and 800 condi dmg.
Really fun, good in dungeons. At 50% of target health u get 45%ish dmg increase which puts your crits at 100% crit dmg and after fury 97% crit chance. Makes sword hit insanely hard and my pistols hit for about 9k. On top of that i drop caltrops on dodge so i can aoe bleed up to about 10 stacks and with the utility caltrops you get to 15 stacks aoe and cripples. Very fun

To be honest, if they do add more stat combinations I would like to see Precision as the major with Power and Vitality as minor. My P/P Thief needs more health.

Tbh, It kinda suggests that there will be a WvW cloaking device for smaller groups. Otherwise this would be targeting just thieves and mesmers which is singling out 2 of the 8 professions which I doubt they want. So yeh, I think they will have a cloaking device that maybe someone carries and stealths the rest of his group in a certain radius. To be honest, I’m not that worried, and you shouldn’t be… we haven’t heard it all… If they had announced mobile cloaking devices then there would be an uproar from everyone including thieves who think its a signature thing. Remember ANet giveth and ANet taketh away.

Actually the next nerf will be to p/p lol. Just joking… Or am i?

@senate, I love dual pistol builds. I built one yesterday to stack power/crit/condi/vit and focus more on debuffs, it works well in pve. I love the idea behind this build. I’ll have to try this and i love withdraw and pistols. However I will sacrifice some crit damage for more power and condition dmg.

Weird thing i found was my crits only dropped about 100 on average between stacking crit dmg and more power.

But awesome stuff, i love the trickery line and acrobat lines

If I am honest, I would like to be able to do damage while specing into Tricks and Acrobats as I believe these two lines to be the most interesting (not powerful, just interesting) Having thieves rely on stealth for survivability is silly as it forces us into Shadow Arts, then they nerf stealth… go figure. I have used Mug and it is nice, but again, I believe that relying on this one skills to burst is silly, it should compliment builds not be the basis.

Currently if you spec 10/30/30/0/0 you get more damage and survivability that any build that uses the majority of points in Tricks and Acrobats.

I love the notion of p/p and am getting into sword/dagger and Dagger/pistol (non-stealth variant) but I cannot give up the Shortbow. I like the idea of a mobile thief as opposed to a stealthed thief. But the traits for stealthing is just too strong, remove conditions, blind nearby and self heal.

Currently it would seem that Stealthing is too powerful to a point where you kitten yourself if you don’t take it. having alternatives to the stealth so we are able to pick some of the benefits we get in stealth but in other avenues like dodging removes a condition and leaves a condition field on the floor based on the condition that was stripped. That was just an example…

Additionally P/P needs A LOT of love. I love the feel of the set, but it just does so much less damage than other options. It is also the least slippery of out weapon sets. I would like to see the pistol #4 skill daze nearby enemies, move the player back half the distance of withdraw+ evade so it is a daze, dodge, gap creator. I got this idea from the engi rifle knock back which knocks the engi down and knocks the opponent back, seeing as its a pistol, overloading it with blackpowder would provide a kick to knock the thief back while dazing the target from the boom of the gun as opposed to the bullet.

additionally pistol #1 skill could scale with power better so that either a condition based user or a power based user can use this weapon to good effect based on what they choose to focus on.

Pistol #2 needs an aoe, maybe a trick shot like skill that applies poison cripple and vulnerability on alternative hits. so the skill would ricochet 3 times and hit the first with poison, 2nd with cripple and 3rd with vulnerability.
thoughts behind this is that in a group it would be beneficial for thief to keep switching targets to get the most out of the conditions all the while doing damage in an aoe like manner.

pistol#3, unless buffing the damage, touch this, you die.

pistol# 5, nice vs melee but very situational (unless you are D/P) would rather this be more of a survival tool vs ranged but we have smoke screen and daggerstorm for this. and the aoe smoke has its uses

Ok this was waaay longer than I anticipated… No trolling here, just love mobility thief over stealth. But at the end of the day, it really is horses for courses.

The way I see it is that we need another way of removing conditions outside of sword/x or stealth. The sword route forces us into that weapon set. The stealth route forces us to put 20 in shadow arts and a viable way of entering stealth. I would rather see the revealed debuff be changed to increase the damage taken for that duration instead of not allowing them to stealth and the condition removal on stealth be removed or changed to do something else. This would allow for a boost in overall Thief defense and condition removal.

Currently you can build for stealth to heal you, remove conditions, apply might, and be applied for when stealing. We don’t really have anything that rewards dodging or really playing with a focus on other mechanics that we have.

I see what you are saying and yeh not adding more stealth skills is cool. But seeing as stealth is used as both offensive and defensive, surely buffing non stealth thieves survivability would additionally buff stealth thieves who have stealth. So either have something that is unique to those weap sets (non stealth) in terms of defense or make stealth more of a get away/positional tool and up the defense for all thieves

Travlane.5948:

Zeoli.3402:

I’m guessing the gw1 blind didn’t get transferred directly because of the % chance of surviving a hit. However, the topic is essentially Thief Defense and therefore will write on this. Currently thieves essentially only feel survivable when they are able to stealth, this is because we cannot self heal a lot or mitigate damage. The thief is most comparable to a ele in terms survival tactics, but lacks the eles ability to self heal or increase armour. Should stealth be nerfed i’d rather see a stacking self debuff that makes me take more damage each time I exit stealth for whatever the reason. Now this allows us to play with increasing the thief’s innate ability to survive without buffing stealthing builds to god-like.

so you are saying thieves have good defense and need to take more dmg from going stealth more than once?

I’m not, I’m saying stealthing provides decent defense but the other builds of thief (yes there are builds that don’t utilise stealth) lack defense somewhat. However to buff those would also be to buff the stealthing build.

I’m guessing the gw1 blind didn’t get transferred directly because of the % chance of surviving a hit. However, the topic is essentially Thief Defense and therefore will write on this. Currently thieves essentially only feel survivable when they are able to stealth, this is because we cannot self heal a lot or mitigate damage. The thief is most comparable to a ele in terms survival tactics, but lacks the eles ability to self heal or increase armour. Should stealth be nerfed i’d rather see a stacking self debuff that makes me take more damage each time I exit stealth for whatever the reason. Now this allows us to play with increasing the thief’s innate ability to survive without buffing stealthing builds to god-like.

capuchinseven.8395:

Zeoli.3402:

Wondering if this build would allow a user to switch between LB and shortbow without the need to change gear. What about your Defensive stats?

Maybe, it wouldn’t be for me in WvW though so I couldn’t say for sure, but why not try it? The last time I ran double bows was in the first month of the game, sword has become too important for me and my play style is build around it now, even though the shortbow is my main damage weapon (sword lands heavy damage as well though, I can often hit for a 950+ critical from sword #1 on a soft target, pet swap Quickness makes that a blender of death).

I love the Greatsword but I might try the sword/dagger and see how i get on. For pvp I like the Raven (blind) and either the hyena (double knockdown) or wolf(aoe Fear).
the fear is hard to time but is a godsend in allowing you to just unleash hell on your target.

capuchinseven.8395:

Zane.8471:

capuchinseven.8395:

Zane.8471:

low chance to hit? Yes. Low DPS? I cant see how 3000+ crits count as low DPS. What ranged weapon does higher DPS on Auto-attack?

But that is low DPS really. The low chance to hit keeps the DPS down, DPS is damage per second. 3000+ criticals is great but the DPS is let down by the low chance to hit.

well there has to be a downside to auto-attack damage this high. So Longbow is a situational weapon. Really nothing wrong with that except the fact that there are no secondary weapons to get some synergy with. Thats the REAL problem of this weapon.

I agree for the most part. I still feel it needs a sniper kill shot like attack but that’s just a personal thing.

The problem with something like this is that having one shot do so much damage means that the one shot can easily be blinded, dodged, evaded, blocked, out of range, body blocked, reflected and obstructed. and that would be most of your damage negated.

I currently run a Berserker Longbow/Greatsword Signet build (30/20/5/0/15) and my damage is through the roof! Running with a Bird and Spider I can CC, and bring the pain (bird crits for about 2k-4k) with the signets i use run speed, condition removal, and toughness and rampage as one for my elite.

I run dungeons with this build aswell and do WvW.
Although I am planning on scaling back on my Crit Damage and adding toughness and vit to help survive some nasty encounters.

I also run the build in sPvP and hold my own against burst warriors and thieves.
but as with all Glass Cannon builds if you get caught with your trousers down… its game over, the Greatsword is fantastic in this respect as it has a lot of evasion, a ranged block and melee knockback aswell as a daze/stun and a leap.

But when all is said and done, its up to you to decide if the profession is fun.

capuchinseven.8395:

Diehard.1432:

capuchinseven.8395:

With 2000 power, 50% chance to critical and 50% critical damage my shortbow hits for significant damage but with a high rate of fire in WvW. I can manage this with 1800 toughness.

I wouldn’t personally go back to my condition build.

Can you please link your build? This sounds like the build iam after

Sure, it’s the AM here so I’ll post it later or in a while if I get a chance.

My build is different but Nerva posted a thread that also uses a power/precision build you might want to take a look at it as well, he seems happy with power/precision shortbow as well.

I started mine from full condition damage, built up my critical chance to 50% and then slowly added more power till I found myself with 2000 power. I’m finding it very effective in WvW, even in 1v1 when I’m caught alone, the sheer number of criticals output by my shortbow at high speed is insane when coupled with our high evasion.

Wondering if this build would allow a user to switch between LB and shortbow without the need to change gear. What about your Defensive stats?

Warriors rifle’s Aimed Shot is another one “stolen” from the Guild Wars 1 Ranger. Longbows are not known for their accuracy but for their power. It seems funny that our #4 skill can apply enough force to knock someone back at close range but the #1 skill gains damage over distance. I would like to see the range changed to two tiers and on the closer tier the arrow by default pierces the target due to the force being applied. Failing that how about making the #1 attack a chain attack, 1+2 are what we have but 3 unleashes two arrows at 75% of the damage of a full range #1 shot and removes a boon (If the boon removal is too much then have it 100% combo finisher)

There is an underlying problem with Projectiles, this is that the trajectory is calculated when the shot is made and assumes that the target will continue to run in that direction. what I propose is that until a full 0.75 secs of running has been done by the target, the bow shots should not take the trajectory of the target into account. This will stop Double-back Quick Strafing from causing the arrows to miss. while this kinda annoying in PvP, it is also a way to exploit bosses such as the Golem bosses in SE, they are VERY easy when you know how to do this.

I would rather see them use their knockback first before retreat.

I thought there was something to do with the rings!
I suggested to my group to try kiting them through it but they noobed it up a fair amount.

azureai.9764:

Chupey.2397:

My main issues with AC now is that the Gravling Stalkers spend far too much time tunneling and have a weird few seconds of invuln after doing so.

Are you sure that was invuln and not evade? They get evasion bonuses now if they hit you after the pop out of the ground. I thought the Stalkers were great.

yeh I actually really liked that. It’s an interesting mechanic that punishes people for not dodging. Although its kinda hard to get my clones to get out of the way, and on top of that we had a necro testing out a minion build and a ranger in the group so that Stalker just after the Spider Queen was very very long, however very interesting mechanics.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

All new stuff in dungeons is going to be hard for the first few days. We see it all the time with new content – people fail and get knocked down when they aren’t used to that sort of thing, and they claim it is too difficult.
Give it a week or so for everyone to develop strategies, learn encounters, and build fundamentals, and they will claim it is too easy. Trust me when I say this, the numbers are punishing (but less than they were before), but knowing the mechanics will greatly mitigate the danger.

Its not just that, I was in a group that just gave up on the last boss cause getting to it was a nightmare, aoe knockbacks seem to stack with the knockdowns. I actually got 100% to 0% without having control of my character at all. I blew Decoy (wasted cause of the new change to stealth) and blink which didn’t help cause they were on me in seconds and I had no endurance cause somehow the scavengers can track you while underground….

At most we got the boss to 50%, I really don’t mind hard bosses. but when ALL your tokens hinge on killing that boss… it kinda makes it a fruitless search.

Maybe changing it so the 1st two bosses give 15 each and the last gives 30 because as far as I can tell… I didn’t get rewarded for the two hours I spent in there.

Each graveling skill is very interesting and awesome to fight… but combined… this would be OP in PvP and there would be a patch to fix it in hours.

maybe changing the gravelings so that they don’t leap and knock you down if there is a scavenger about. Cause if your the 1st on the scene, you get two knockdowns then the scavenger seems to knock you back…. then the scavengers knock you down again…

please don’t make it as easy as before, but i think this is a bit of an over kill, interesting, but definitely overkill.

Edit: talkin’ about path 1

This sounds good to me!

This level discrimination has got to stop!…
I will grab anyone whos willing to listen and play the game.
Additionally, somepeople hit 80 without ever seeing a single dungeon so that person will die alot more than a lvl 38 thief…

And having experience with thieves in dungeons (ran one myself for ages) I would offer tips to the lvling thief should he/she not know the finer points of a dungeon from a thief PoV (and yes, its a lot different to running a guard or a mesmer)

for me fun>lvl80MustHaveSmoothRun

Esplen.3940:

Chiriam.1549:

Yes, I think it’ll get fixed. But I hope they actually balance it instead of just fixing the bugs so that it can actually be used to capture skills properly. Now the useful component is the reflect and block. I thought it was supposed to be mainly a skillsteal

I feel like it would be a useful skill if it could, for the cooldown duration, let you cast the skill/projectile multiple times.

Would rather it block and catch multiple projectiles ready for release.
Rather than catch one projectile then trigger the block.
However the CD would need to be increased.

Think about reflecting a entire zergs worth of projectiles at one person. (Ok, maybe a projectile absorption limit)

To in total have it Block everything and absorb projectiles for 3 secs OR 7 projectiles (which ever limit it hits first). on a 30-45 sec CD.

Use or non-use of the Focus doesn’t determine a good Mesmer. Being valuable to your team does. I run GS + Staff in a shatter/condition build which I have made and use to great success. I buff others with might, fury, swiftness, debuff the target and also has a minimum of 10 stacks of bleeds. I also tend to focus more on indirect damage (4k confusion, retaliation, daze, feedback, ect) and therefore do not get upset when I don’t see less numbers. I just punish and deny damage to my party.

Instead of Exotic armour, I think it would be awesome to be able to dye your armour with Exotic dyes to enhance the visual effect of your hard earned armour.

a couple of examples could be the Sunrise/sunset/twilight skin could be applied as a dye to armour.

In addition maybe a exotic dye channel to be applied to armour to add a hue/mist surrounding the armour much like how a mist surrounds the AC great-sword skin.

anyone for/against? and why? constructive posts please.

Ravbek.7938:

EDIT: I’ve tried all clones (staff, scepter,sword anyway) to see how high I can stack the bleeds with Sharper images and sword is the best because it has the higher hit rate, staff clones are good but they are slower and the standard bleed you get isn’t quite enough as it gives burning and vuln also, scepter was much slower but that might have been because they are slower to get out.

The GS clones hit three times per attack cycle, so therefore has the highest hit rate of any weapon.

To OP: The scepter to me is a more tanking weapon, where you are able to provide the target with more targets to hit, so on death traits are favourable. As well as being able to punish your target for attacking the clones you produce you can shatter them for interrupts and other effects. Additionally the “on death” traits affect the clone should they be destroyed by creating another clone at the 3 illusion cap.

All in all, the sword is a dps weapon no doubt about it. The scepter is more of a utility weapon which favours a more tankier playstyle and I can recommend trying scepter/sword for a tanky mesmer.

I guess it boils down to the MMO age old argument, Survivability vs Damage per Second. Does one burn bright and burn out fast like a firework? or does one burn dimmer but for longer like a candle. As we all know, there’s a place for fireworks and there’s a place for candles.

Ran SE story last night.
There was myself (thief)
Mesmer
Guardian
Necro

On the boss where he brings out 3 golems, each time and multiple times my team actually died. They were sloppy, stood too close to each other and attacted multiple hits downing them in seconds. Each time I was able to res them using our aoe stealth/heal, even safely res behind our smoke wall (keep forgetting names).
Then every 40secs I would give the group 10 secs of swiftness, fury and might.

If i’m honest, I got downed once.

I play a DD/SB thief in Knights gear/berserker trinkets/weaps
I deal decent dmg and don’t drop like a paper bag in the rain.

I was the sole reason we managed SE story with 4 people who had never done it before. (and I wanted my guildies to learn through mistakes rather than myself telling them every step) sure I told them a few bits here and there.

But i knew as a thief I could pick them back up and help them.

Thieves can get the scepters in AC p1 without agroing anything.

as for support I offer
AoE healing
dark field
smoke field
AoE stealth
whirl finisher
not getting downed myself
an extra two thieves for burst or damage mitigation (more targets for the boss to choose from = chance they will take a few hits)

Thieves make your lives easier, maybe not as direct or apparent as the guardian with boons, but with vulnerability and weakness.

Lofat.2406:

You shouldn’t have been harassing his Ram…

I lol’ed.

but yeh GC vs GC nothing to see here… they barely last a round… not interesting….

QQing about a GC Thief two shotting you (if you were at full health to start with…) when you hit him with a skill for 5k…. another one would have probs killed him.

frans.8092:

That wasn’t there when I read the original.
Anyway, when stealthed you’re visible to party-members.

Quoted for truth.

Kinda wish that they removed all the passive run speed increases from all classes.

• Make the out of combat run speed faster by 25%
• Make more interesting signet passives.

Don’t worry. Thieves will still be the most mobile class, with near 100% uptime on swiftness and an almost infinite number of shadowsteps/teleports.

This change would put everyone on a base run speed.

I use this http://bit.ly/Tkp1ow
Ignore the runes/trinket.

Based around Blind, and mobility. Using high number of hits and high init generation to self heal. also uses poison to weaken targets. Its kinda an all-round build.

mainly for pve/dungeons however it works in pvp, dont expect to be insta-killing other people, however do expect to be slippery and annoying.

I like this as it does not require stealth, however i can produce stealth using pistol #5 +dagger #2 or AoE stealth with pistol #5 and shortbow #2.

I would probs label this as a dps/support build.

(yes scorpion wire is amazing as it is a knockdown, pull and projectile finisher all in one)

Edit: i also use this in WvW… occupied around 20-30 people as they chased me around the map… lol

green plum.7514:

@Zeoli: excellent post!

Thank you.

I tested the spirit weapons yesterday even though they died relatively fast… they were affected by any buffs and any virtues that i shared. I would believe that a-net wants this to be more skill based and not fire and forget. However, trying to keep them alive is kinda hard with the health that they have.

The upside to this is that they make the AH build with a SW variation more formidable with you being able to protect and grant your weapons with buffs and therefore healing you.

Downside is that they die too quickly to be useful.

I would therefore propose the following:

• increase the health by 25%
• make the CD start when the weapon is summoned and not on death.
• (this is actually for all pets) reduce the AoE damage taken by 75%

I propose these simply so that the time invested in keeping them alive past their CD is rewarded.

This also gives other players in PvP initative to kill the most threatening one to them first. i.e kill hammer or the shield first and not just AoE the Guardian and you will kill the spirit weapons…

I would love to run with these now as they don’t feel like free damage, however, they feel like i’m wasting my time after a 1.5/2 sec summon they get killed and then a 30-80sec recharge for something that attacks/defends every 4-5 secs.

The activated skills of these are in my opinion amazing. (Bow could be reworked to target your target on activation).

Wondering if focusing on symbols to give passive healing and meditations for burst self healing would be a good idea?

something along the lines of
http://bit.ly/129nm98

Transcript of Dev Livestream 17th of Jan.

Philosophy for weapons/traits & class balance

• We want every single class to feel like they have multiple options to deal with every situations, this doesn’t mean every class will have the exact same options.

• We want every single class to deal situations in an unique manner – we keep “purity” in certain skills/traits i.e. only mesmers and thieves have stealth to deal with some situations. Not everyone have stealth but every class have a defensive mechanism they can use if they don’t stealth.

• We want to bring up all the weak weapons/traits on par with strong weapons/builds/traits in addition to reduce AoE effectiveness.

• A lot of classes have 1-2 good builds while some have 5-6 builds , we want to bring up all the classes to 5-6 good and viable builds

Link for the transcript!

And then they go and spoil it all by sayin’ somethin’ stupid like “Spirit weapons are aaatack-able…. aaatack-able” (couldn’t resist!).

I do understand that they want to take baby steps and see where the class stands as to what they feel is right to do as there are many options of buffing spirit weapons and don’t want to buff it unnecessarily. But maybe a little more health or just making them CC-able without making them attack-able would have been a much better route IMO.

Craptrain.7203:

Wasabi Kitty.8247:

rozcinana.7249:

I have never been asked to link my armor yet for a cof speed run group. If I was, I would probably leave. CoF farming groups can get pretty nasty.

i didn’t think full berserker gear was a must for cof speed runs anyway. my mesmer uses berserker weapons and valkyrie armor and i’ve done just fine on the many, many speed runs i’ve done there.

When it comes to a mesmer in CoF speed runs, no one really cares what kind of gear you use. As long as you can use timewarp, and portal through rocks, you’re good to go.

Not entirely true. As a mesmer I was kicked from a group (on the 4th run no less) because a warrior died on the first encounter. I was told it was my fault because I “should have pushed the mobs against the wall earlier”. So while mesmers might not kicked for gear, they do get kicked for other ridiculous things.

My Rules in dungeons are:

If you get killed, Its your own fault. (you have 2 dodges and other skills)
Skill>Gear (because a crafter who has never been inside a dungeon could craft the exotic gear)
Make a mistake… oh well we all have to learn and proceed together.

I built my guardian to last. I may not have the highest DPS… but at least I don’t have to run away or spend less time in a downed/dead state which actually means my overall damage done should be higher. I also support others by dodge rolling to them (and healing) CC and providing buffs when they need it the most. I have replaced other players who left due to the group dying on X boss… and we completed the dungeon and rather smoothly.

Really hate elitists who demand X gear…

I played the mesmer with the greatsword and never got the infinate range glitch.
And the reason they fire sidewards is cause the player is attacking its target while not facing them.

Besides, yes the sounds for them are annoying. But i still kinda like the graphic