Guild Wars 2

As in, they might be picking and choosing certain aspects, perhaps some guilds don’t meet that.

I know there’s more invites. I’m just curious.

Is it possible to get clarification on what type of guilds you are looking for for this kind of testing? (though I guess it would sway future applicants)

Just be nice to know if the app we put in is off the table or not, since we didn’t get one. Have guildies excited for a chance at it, hopefully we weren’t excluded or anything.

It’s always funny when the PvE achieve jumpers run into WvW for the first time.

That being said, we we’re doing the same thing with our PvE guild side of things, and were in each JP for less than 15 minutes max porting each other up. We initially were going to let people slide, but after killing one of ours we decided the the blood god needed more blood. Blame your own servermates if you want.

But yeah, Seed is mostly PvE, we’ve got a few WvW roamers, but that’s a really silly thing to base server ethics on.

Joonks.7501:

There are CC nodes around the world. Crying about stuff that isn’t even true.

Outside of the Labyrinth, compared to last year? Should I have emphasized “lacking the number of” for clarification?

The skins are really bad compared to last year, not to mention much less of them.

How is less, more fun?

They removed content like the MOBA-sPvP map, lack of CC nodes around the world (which is a joke considering the high price of cobs), Titles, and actual hard content (dumbed down clock tower that you can no longer play with friends), removed the rare drop skins from the bosses in the labrynthe, etc.

The achievement grind last year wasn’t too bad, but at least it had some notable ones like completing the clock tower.

It is really disappointing. I was looking forward to working towards skins this year, as I opened several thousand bags, prolly $30 +whatever gold I had of chests with keys, farmed the crap out of the dynamics events and instance, etc.

Being an altoholic, I can’t recall if I even had an 80 at that point, not to mention no gold to buy them on the TP (and the conversion rates were atrocious).

If people really feel superior because they got lucky with RNG hurrah for them. Since the other skins were still craft-able I assumed I could still get them when it came around again, owell seems negative experiences are all I’ve been taking away from GW2 lately.

The only prestige items in the game right now are Fractal Weapon skins. As you actually have to work AND get lucky to get those.

All an old BLC skin means, is that you either had a decent amount of money to spare during halloween last year, you bought a lot of keys, or got lucky. That’s it.

All the arguments for not bringing them back here for prestige, are rather insipid. Your ‘prestige’ is built on nothing.

So will he trade both Candy Corn and Zhaitaffy after Nov 11th?

I’m not in game yet, but I have a few questions regarding Mad King Chests and the skins that were available last year:
Ghastly Grinning Shield Skin
Scythe Staff Skin
Grinning Gourd Rifle Skin
Severed Dagger Skin

First-off, can you still get Mad King Chests?

If so, can you still get the skins from the Mad King Chest that were available last year?

I didn’t blow all my money on the Ghastly Shield/Scythe skins last year because it was all I had, thinking that I would have another chance this year (especially since you could still work towards some of them). Am I out of luck? With only 1 shield skin in supply, that would really suck.

It would be nice if we knew in advance if skins were one-time only. The lack of clarification on whether things return or not, is rather disheartening.

Wait what? Knockbacks were what made me love this map :/. Situational awareness was something new and much more fun.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Oh god no, please not more guild stuff. I hate that there is content which is doable for guilds only. Yeah, I can participate in a certain way, but won’t get the rewards.

I got away from games like WoW because I wanted to get away from this heavy organized playing on a schedule. No to large instanced group content, the open world direction is so much more fun to me than having to find a whole group of players who have the exact same timetable as I and actually the morale to stay a couple of hours in the game, just to complete content. I’m a family man now and can’t do this anymore. GW2 shouldn’t change it’s direction 180 now. Don’t make GW2 another Raid-game, there are enough others there already.

Tequatl was an awesome first step, there certainly are problems but I feel this is the direction that works for GW2.

I really wonder how many GW2 players are part of a larger guild because they want to, and not because they can only complete certain content that way for the rewards.

Yeah god forbid there’s different ways to play the game. Especially in an MMO where players are a resource, and Guilds already exist. Just because you don’t want it doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be considered or added. I didn’t care for Living Story, but I still enjoy other parts of the game, does that mean I think it should go away? No.

Don’t be intolerant to placate to only your priorities. You don’t have to do everything in the game that everyone else does.

I’ve spent thousands of hours (and lots of money -_-) in this game, playing from scratch with 9 chars (8 leveled up to 8, decked out in end-game gear); playing across all modes of the game; helping to Command our server out of the original Glicko Ghetto (forever ago), while helping to run and lead an averaged sized social guild that crosses playerbases from niche players to casual to hardcore.

From what I have seen personally, and from our guildies these are topics in need of discussion for each section:

General:
1. Guilds (General)
a) Guild Message/TOTD is hardly visible. Some way to make that more interactive (display on sign in or something?) would be amazing.
b) Guild Content is nearly nonexistant, all attempts so far have just been stop-gaps. Guild Missions were a great idea, but lacked sustainability (especially once maxed on merits).
c) Guild Halls/Housing would be a great way for our members to interact with each other in game when just socializing (which happens a lot for us).
d) Guild Event Organization such as a Guild Calendar or something in that vein.
e) Guild Limits are an issue for some guilds. (Both how many can be in one guild -500- and how many guilds you can be in -5-)
f) Guild Alliances! In a game that has WvW, World Bosses, and Guild Missions that can require large numbers of people how is this not already in the game? It would make organizing for the co-ordinated events so much easier.

2. Guilds (Leader/Officer perspective)
a) Guild Member Stats and Information – Beyond needing ways to track active guildies, better ways to keep tabs on alts, add notes and help get everyone involved would be great.
b) Quality of Life Management improvements that help from member management to better structured guild buffs functionality.
c) Something to do with our excess guild merits that doesn’t require us to use additional time/influence we are already using for current buffs. (We’re capped and they are pretty much useless)

3. Chat Functionality
a) Add in the ability to copy/paste, etc. basic chat stuff.
b) Create custom Chat Rooms with ownership and moderation.

PvE:
1. Hard Mode content to keep our hardcore players engaged within the guild, so it helps sustain the casuals/infrequenters.
2. Real Balance content – Ways to make it so zerker is not required for optimal efficiency. Make support/control/sturdier builds more necessary.
3. Permanent Content – temporary content with Living Story killed off interest for a lot of people, especially those that got behind and felt left out.
4. Raidlike Content – Something larger than 5man parties, but doesn’t require entire server organization. Difficult so that it takes weeks/etc of failing to work on something to understand and get better at it.
5. More Minigame/Offhand content to do when you are bored/disinterested in end-game farming or doing instances. (i.e. Polymock!, Southsun Survival, etc)
6. Better structured core game lore content. Living Story, strayed from most of the content people were curious about after the Personal Story stuff (i.e. bosses, dragons, ancient lore, stuff of epic nature, etc)

WvW:
1. World Experience and Alts have a hostile relationship right now. Improve that so people who play multiple characters aren’t inferior to those who only focus on one. (Account Bound WXP would be the way to go imo)
2. Small-man group play. Bloodlust was a great motivator for it, more map design and small goals with incentive.
3. Seperate Coordinated Large Group Content (currently called GvG’s) from WvW.
4. Fix Commander system. Squads have very negligible functionality right now. And there are better ways to portray different commanders on maps (Guild Commanders, Colored tag Commaders, etc).
5. Add more PvE Breakout type trigger events for dynamics events going on. Great idea, paltry follow through.
6. Give us much more incentive for defense.

sPvP:
1. More Game Modes – hands down, this biggest drawback.
2. Improve Custom Arenas – add holiday game modes, or something quirky and fun that doesn’t add glory/ranking that Guilds can do for fun. Also the custom-ability could be added to as well.
3. Adding in other missing stat types and runes, and balancing. More builds = more viability.
4. More focus so it draws people into the esports scene to help get a following.

I don’t often post suggestions in forums because of the toxic atmosphere, but with your interaction hopefully you get time to read through some of them and they get discussion flowing.

Thanks in advance.

It does invalidate it by definition. It is no longer profession specific, that is the point of a profession specific skill. Unless they balance it across the board by sharing everyone elses skills, I’d rather they just give Mesmers a new skill that we can actually use outside of portalbombing in combat.

I’m curious if we get access to other professions Utility Skills for consistency. Kind of annoying to have a profession skill invalidated. Or rather, get rid of portal on Mesmers and give us something us equally as useful, but for combat.

Because three sets at 15% is 45%. Which is more than you can get with runes at the moment (which caps out at 40% in PvE and 30% in sPvP).

It makes more sense in sPvP since 15% is a rather large jump up from 30% and Altruism doesn’t exist in sPvP.

As for PvE it’s not needed and there’s no reason to make another unnecessary gap between two environments (sPvP and PvE). It’s just more exceptions they have to cross off as they make changes/additions in the future.

Bumping and +1’d. Really, this is mostly all stuff that should have been in game Day 1. ESPECIALLY with Guild Wars as a predecessor, what we have is pure retrogression, and not in a good way.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Anything with “guild” on it means that your guild will be helping out on purchasing any “guild” related items.

Lol, no. It doesn’t. All it means is it displays the emblem.

Just up front I have absolutely zero interest in this item, and I am not really considering getting it as I like the original design.

But comparatively to other guild vanity items, this is absurdly overpriced. Short of the guild leaders, the vast majority of the players interested in this item when chatting with my guild, were very casual players and 15G is an overwhelmingly large chunk of change for them.

If gold is really becoming a problem (i.e. excess), give us something worth our while.

No, the entire argument did not hinge on whether “looting bags” was considered a part of “playing”. The entire argument was how vague, incorrect, and quite frankly, stupid the response was, and the precedents that it set. I’m sorry you couldn’t garner that from my phrasing that was both sarcastic and satirical at times, but I promise, that was the implication.

How exactly, does being able to open hundreds/thousands of bag, or picking up bags on the ground make it not fair, or not fun for anyone else? It’s a QoL improvement ANet should have thought of well in advance if they didn’t want these kinds of actions taken.

penatbater.4710:

Actually, your complaint is the one that’s pedantic. Any action (or non-action) done in game, I consider playing. And I bet many people share my point of view. One fundamental flaw in that line of reasoning, is that it can very well be replaced with any other word, and then it’s silliness is revealed.
For example:
1.) …who the hell considers chatting playing?
2.) … who the hell considers making artsy guild logo designs playing?
3.) … who the hell considers changing armor colors playing?
4.) … who the hell considers waypointing (and charging for waypoints) playing?
…

I could go on all day.

So you cherry picked a single sentence as if that was the entire argument and ran with it? Bravo.

If you really couldn’t have caught the point in that statement, I’m not sure it’s worth debating it with you. Are you even really trying to? Or you are just trying to invalidate my post without response?

Pappy.2758:

Where do you read this as an argument against macros? This is clearly an argument against creating a macro that will repeatedly perform the same action every x seconds

Really again? That still doesn’t change the fact that you arguing for a situation that gives someone an unfair advantage, over … not getting carpal tunnel opening bags. Are you really trying to make those scenarios the same because the same kind of action is used?

That would be like saying anything I can do on TP is fair game because it’s there and in game, as opposed to “repeatable macro’s” that aren’t. (Except ANet disagrees, see godskull and xmas craftables plz.)

pulsecodesgnl.3470:

Clearly, that’s giving you an advantage while you aren’t even playing the game. And it should be a bannable offense (and it is), but to use that as an argument against macros, you would have to use the same logic for banning auto-casting skills, AoE-looting in general, and hell even Rangers. That’s not a very sound argument.

*sigh. Please read before posting. Or stop cherry picking if you did.

Pappy.2758:

This could be very easily exploited. My ranger can sit in ORR where a single mob spawns and have the pet take the mob down. with the autoloot, I can sit there all night, have my pet do all the killing and reap all the rewards.

How is this not exploiting?

… Let’s ignore the fact that afk’ing will time you out. Even if your pet bear attacks. (And assume you put the heal on auto-cast or something).

… Let’s also ignore the fact that in Orr you have to run to the mobs to pick up the loot which would require bot animation.

… Let’s ALSO ignore the fact that no one has any idea what the definition of ‘exploiting’ is anymore.

Clearly, that’s giving you an advantage while you aren’t even playing the game. And it should be a bannable offense (and it is), but to use that as an argument against macros, you would have to use the same logic for banning auto-casting skills, AoE-looting in general, and hell even Rangers. That’s not a very sound argument.

ExTribble.7108:

It is clear. One key = 1 function. Pressing one key that equates to pressing F satisfies this. Pressing one key that spams F some number of times does not, as it’s functioning as pressing F more than once. If you want to (mis)interpret the rules to bend them in your favor, go ahead and take the risk. They’re actually very straightforward if you read them carefully. If it simplifies the matter for you, look at it like this: One keypress = one keypress.

And by the way, the edge does not have to be skill related. If you can open 20 stacks of material bags in (for example) 10 mins with such a macro, how is that not an advantage over someone who has to manually double-click for an hour straight to get the same result? Here’s a clue: it’s an unfair advantage.

Way to ignore the points and run with those red herrings.

I hope it’s a bug. I would love to have the trails on my daggers.

I notice the same sort of thing happens with some of the fractal weapons (as someone mentioned above). The trail goes on daggers, but it doesn’t on like the staff, scepter or focus, which is kinda lame.

JustTrogdor.7892:

Did I say anything about less valid? Nope. I just think you seem pretty angry over something very small. Anyway have fun with that. I’m going to login game and do some looting the good old fashion way.

I am annoyed by these actions, absolutely. I’ve put a lot of time and money into this game, to be concerned over and over again about my account and it’s status because of unclear answers and information. It is rather stressful thinking they could one day change their mind or take action on something you don’t even know you were doing wrong; and lose the hundreds, if not thousands of hours on a game you enjoy. I mean honestly, the majority of people with mice/keyboards that have build-in macro software aren’t even going to view the forums, so how would they know? (Macro’s are just one example, I’ve never used those myself. But I have played around with other things (market gaps and such) that they deemed banworthy afterwards).

And FWIW, I ‘loot the old way’ as well, mainly because I’m too lazy for creating a macro and AoE looting doesn’t work very often for me.

Viking Jorun.5413:

I think you guys are exceeding the horizontal limit when trying to portal vertically, to be honest. Jump off the tip of the highest point on the sanctum to the water beneath and portal back, it works just fine.

Yeah this ^. Just because you fall down doesn’t mean you aren’t moving a significant distance forward. If you want to best judge verticle stress limits, make sure you port using a Personal Waypoint on the map (alt-click I think?).

JustTrogdor.7892:

Why so worked up over something so minor?

Because misinformation and being unnecessarily condescending bugs me? What makes my post any less valid than any other?

Olba.5376:

You’re still doing something in their game. That is playing the game.

Since when was playing a game a question of “skill”?

They did put a cooldown on the AoE looting. So your indication isn’t necessarily valid when judged in light of the current evidence.

They have to be vague and subjective. Otherwise they pretty much end up with a “How To Automate Guild Wars 2” guidebook.

First, being hyper-literal gets you nowhere. If ANet is really concerned about who can open bags or pick them up faster than others then they need to get their priorities straight, that was the point, don’t be childish.

When you are talking about getting an ‘edge’ on other players, for when they are playing normally, that is entirely about the skill associated with a part of the game. Again, being hyper-literal is just detracting from the point.

So let us macro AoE-looting with the cooldown in mind. No one said the macro had to activate every single micro second. And if the cooldown is there anyway, it’s not going to matter is it?

No, they don’t have to vague and subjective, that’s a load of bull. Do you think app programmers with the API could get away with ‘vague and suggestive’ rules? No. Cliff is great about putting together specific information. Devon is great about listing specific information associated with WvW that he covers. Precendent has been established, Gaile has no reason to hide behind vague and subjective rules, and beyond that, to use them as obvious signs that someone is in the wrong.

At best that is deception.

Grimthagen.6019:

Nice strawman argument there.

Gaile said nothing about looting requiring skill, so extrapolating to that point and refuting it is pure fallacy.

Those rules are pretty clear, especially when applied against that example. “Spamming F” is pretty far from “one key = one action”. The quoted person is either willfully misunderstanding or is simply not trying to understand the point.

If the concern is that a macro behaves faster than a normal player can play the game, giving someone an ‘edge’, skill is clearly involved. Stop using pop-“logical fallacy” arguments, especially if you don’t understand basic topic association.

anzenketh.3759:

The rules are not just in place to protect against cheating but to also prevent abuse. In this case if too many people do it it would cause a un-needed load on the server.

Prove that, to any degree. That an auto-loot macro would be ANY different than players running around in massive zergs constantly mashing the F key so they don’t miss any loot. At this point that’s a load of crap. Especially since actions are not communicated to the server is there is nothing to send (if that was the case it would be against the ToS to run any kind of program at the same time as GW2).

I’d be curious to know about how you tested that. Because I have seriously ported from the ground to the top of the Zephyr, as long as the ports are right above each other. I don’t recall the PoA Guild Puzzle being nearly that far up.

So I was reading through some dev posts and I noticed this gem from Gaile.

Gaile Gray.6028:

Gamadorn.2659:

So according to the link it IS allowed.
“Does this program allow someone to play faster, better, longer, or more accurately than someone who doesn’t use it?” – No.
“Does this program allow someone to ‘play’ when he/she is not at the computer?” – No
“Does this program allow the user to gain undeserved rewards?” – No.
Guild Wars 2 players are permitted to use macros as long as the macros are programmed with a 1 key for 1 function protocol. – It does as it would only spam the “F” key I believe….

I believe you’ve misunderstood if you think this is something we’d condone. How is auto-looting not automating gameplay? How is “spamming” the “F” key still one key for one action? How would use of this not give advantage when compared to the player who is individually picking up loot?
Certainly the “Does it allow the player to play faster?” question can be answered in the affirmative. Does it? Yes. That clearly indicates use of this is not suitable use. Consider carefully before giving credence to one individual’s interpretation of a very clear set of parameters.

So according to Gaile using a macro for auto-looting, opening loot; is considered “playing faster”. I’m sorry, but who in the hell considers looting and opening items playing? Seriously.

I understand it’s a necessary mechanic in the game because items going directly to the player’s bags is a burden on the server resources at the moment, but what “skill” is exactly involved in clicking the loot button hundreds of times, if not thousands?

I mean, should we really be trying to encourage the idea that picking up loot is something an object of ‘playing better’? Loot you have already worked for, earned, and then missed because of clunky game mechanics that can’t handle your rewards because of processing power.

Come on. This is just pedantic. And then to go as far as saying it’s clearly in violation is even more of a joke, the fact is, it’s not clear as not only the quoter misunderstood the rule, but I know a plethora of people that use those macro’s under the same logic. One action, one click. And yes, you can argue repeatable actions, but how exactly is that going to get abused if you allow it? (i.e. Ohnoes, I macro’d a jump so every time I hold down space bar, I jump infinitely, achieving …. absolutely nothing.)

If ANet is really dead set on making “looting” a skill played activity, why give us AoE looting at all? I mean hey, might as well put all loot bags inside a chest where you have to randomly guess a series of numbers (since ANet is so fond of RNG) to unlock it (and earn your reward, yet again).

If AoE looting is any indication of where they’d like to go, this would not be a big deal; and according to the players I know that use them to open the thousands of bags when they are burning karma items, or when running around in WvW in zergs it isn’t.

But based on this post, they are all in ‘ban-worthy’ territory right now.

Just stop this, not only is it not professional, it’s demeaning and when you treat a previous comment as if their response was obviously in the wrong it’s beyond condescending. Yes, Gaile is great for telling people off at times; clearly (yes, sarcasm here is intended) it goes overboard at times.

TL;DR Act professional, don’t hide behind vague rules and subjective interpretations, and be reasonable.

PS: Feel free to scan my account/gameplay data and see if I’ve ever used a macro to try and write off my criticism somehow. Because I haven’t.

ITT: People who have no idea what griefing is, versus PvP mechanics.

Jscull.2514:

I have fought every tier below 5 for a year now and can count the groups that give us a solid fight with both hands.

Then either:
A) You don’t WvW very much and the majority of the time is spent forum warring.
B) You are a mutant with way too many fingers of questionable purpose.
C) You have a perception filter preventing you from acknowledging the plethora of small man groups for fear of losing comparative kitten size.
D) You truly are the best of the best, might as well go home and cry to the world about how superior you are, because obviously they care more than we do.

No other options, the only possible conclusions here.

The filtering system in place, is clearly excessive. I haven’t seen updates in the old thread from devs for the last 6 months.

I realize you want to make this friendly for everyone, but honestly, when the word “kitten” makes things so obfuscated (which often happens); it’s really not friendly for anyone.

At this point you might as well remove the word “has” from the dictionary, any “s” word following results in a clusterkitten (<— yes intentional) of bad grammar and phrasing.

Is there some generic way to soften the filter just a bit?

LordKael.7260:

They only said they might have found the source, so it’s not clear at all if/when a fix will take place.

I loved you Kael, you were my sun and my moon.

No longer! The dust-sized pieces my heart hkittentered (seriously? they edited “has” “shattered”?) into will never repair. So now at every opportunity I will blow the particles into your eyes and blind you. Forever blinded, I don’t want your realistic news sir!

I noticed they made a dev post saying they finally (freaking ANet) found the bug with the Dolyaks on the Blue team for EB, and that they will be fixing it soon. Anyone lemme know if it is out yet?

Gaile Gray.6028:

After significant investigation, we were able to determine that a bug in the jumping puzzle itself was causing players to fall out of the intended boundaries of the puzzle. Due to this bug, there was an unintended side effect that caused false positives on an element of our malicious activity detection system.

This draws concern for me. Sunday night our guild had our Monthly Karma event (to burn karma, throw on buffs, and run around and zerg events), and we chose Malchors Leap. After going into the water on the far northwest end we unintentionally found a hole in the boundries of the wall and (curiosity taken hold of us, and the mindless minions following my Commander tag) we began to explore the boundaries of the map not normally available.

I haven’t attempted to log back in since, and haven’t heard about anyone being banned, but does this type of activity need to be avoided in fear of that result? Was there something specific this JP was looking for that rules out all the other nooks and crannies in the game that bug people inside areas they are not normally supposed to go?

One of my favorite things to do in games is to explore, getting on tops of mountains and buildings that are not easily/normally accessible. Should I not be doing that?

B – Belligerently
U – Up-posting
M – Mechanics of the Game
P – Problems

(dat 15 chars)

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Elementalist-Scepter-and-focus-skills-broken

Lol, this has been around forever. He is standing on top of the ledge near his base, which is still in range for the buff. Yeah, they should fix that, but ‘URGENT’ is a little overhyped.

Chopps.5047:

But I’m pretty sure feedback (reflection in general) was nerfed in dungeons a patch or two ago. :/
…
By the way, I disagree about micro’ing pets and DPS. Because when I call my pet back, I’m still landing hits with shortbow. Let’s think about what that means for a moment.

Let’s put it this way: Did you know that whenever I call my pet it’s the same time the people melee’ing dodge?

And I’m using a LOT of shortbow and really only find myself swapping for the warhorn buffs. And my pet isn’t just sitting there being a damage sponge. Versus a single target I can keep ~8 stacks of might on the pet and it is really contributing. For these reasons, I think you’re incorrect to state such a thing as “known fact”.

First off, reflection skills were only nerfed by large attacks, in fact the only nerf I can think of is to the Dredge Powersuit boss where his bombs don’t do damage to himself, you can still reflect them just fine though. And that was the point of my comment with Grawl, you don’t use the Feedback for damage, you use to reflect all the worm projectiles while you handle the shield.

Second, I started this game at launch as a Ranger, it was my first 80 (out of 7 currently). I have spent a lot of time building and playing with my Ranger, while I don’t use him much for PvE anymore because of efficiency issues, I still WvW/sPvP with him the most.

So stop talking down to me please as if I am unfamiliar on pet micro and basic “L2P” comments that keep appearing. Re-calling, and re-attacking with your pet takes much more time than player dodging, for one. Especially when you are recalling a pet from an AoE attack, there is no ‘instant’ juke with pets, so you have to accommodate with basic walking time for them.

Beyond that, as great as shortbow damage may seem to you, it’s still really weak in contrast to other professions (with pet), even other ranged professions (i.e. see Engineer, Mesmer, Rifle Warrior, even Necro). This is counter-intuitive to the idea of a profession that is even named, Ranger, built with a focus on bows and ranged weapons. ANet has established this backwards precedent since launch.

Ranger DPS is currently built around synchronization with a pet. Consistent, straight-forward max DPS with a ranged weapon (shortbow) and a damage spec’d pet, have been shown time and time again about how they pale in comparison to other classes damage-wise. For someone that seems so involved with the Ranger I’m surprised you haven’t seen any of those theorycrafting threads on the forums.

These changes may have made your build more viable, but when comparing to the capabilities and efficiency of other professions, that does not necessarily make them viable itself.

TL;DR Pet micro doesn’t compare to dodge, and it decreases your already weak-in-comparison DPS to other professions.

Kukchi.6173:

Your information about KING is wrong.

Feel free to correct me then, I heard you were one of the ones that went to PoPo and then formed your own, now you are in THCC?

My information was from KING members, not sure why they would purposely misinform me. Unless you are talking about split drama, but I didn’t want to bring that up.

Lol, all this confusion, Anet you might want to get everyone on the same page, along with the coders here :P.

Pretty inconsistent.

Chopps.5047:

QZ also melts the shield. Afaik ranger is the only profession that can easily solo the grawl boss shield without dying via entangle. But when I was told about that, I never knew if it was condition damage that I needed? Very interesting stuff indeed.

I don’t think you are very familiar with Mesmer or Thief lol. Any prof that can cripple/root and do a series of skills that result in several fast hitting attacks is going to laugh at the Grawl shield.

Not to mention that if a Mesmer throws up a Feedback, the shield will be down before it ends, and you (and the team inside Feedback) are wholly invulnerable until it ends because the only thing attacking you is the worms with ranged attacks.

Ranger does excel at Grawl, but I’ve found on most other FotM boss fights, you are having to micro your pet so much you lose way too much DPS in comparison to other profs.

Sicarine.3985:

Thank you, Chopps, for not bowing down to the massive amount of mindless ranger hate on the web. It surprises me how much ranger “discussion” dissolves into slamming pets and DPS off of conjecture (with a few hyperboles thrown in). I was running 25/25/0/20/0 before, but with this in mind I might redistribute 5 points from nature into wilderness for the endurance regen. Quick question. Do you think using knights instead of zerkers hurts crit damage too severely?

Can we not circle-jerk the OP, seriously…

He posted a build with some interesting claims and understandably there is a lot of criticism warranted. Especially with the precedents ANet has established with Rangers. There is no Ranger hate here, only people want more out of their profession or feel there should be ways to raise the profession on par with the rest of the professions for certain aspects of the game.

There’s no reason we need to turn this into a fundamentalist bi-partisan debate that goes nowhere. The build by the OP is appreciated by most people that have posted here.

As for your question directed at the OP, most people can answer this and I’m sure he would agree. Zerkers is going to make you most optimal, if you find you need a handicap, then you can use other pieces like Knight’s, but will lose out on a decent amount of damage with the loss of Crit Damage which is needed in this build, badly.

I have a really hard time believing you never have double deaths and can keep up comparable DPS to any other prof, I would be happy to be proved wrong though.

Mind providing a video or something of you going through 48 FotM?

jbondo.9817:

honestly after SF bashed on HoD and talked all sorts of stuff and spawn camped us for a week straight i have no sympathy for them, i think it’s just the funniest thing now that SF is god awful, hey maybe you guys shouldn’t rely on transfer guilds as much anymore?

Lol, too funny. Someone talking about transfers coming from HoD, did you forget why you fell into t8 in the first place? I would also love for you to provide some factual evidence of guilds transferring off our server, we’ve had 1 and it was only a few members that actually left (<5 members associated with WvW), the rest reformed.

So please, go on. Tell me more with all this wisdom you have. I personally enjoy HoD tears, especially with the claims that they were going to ‘shove us right back down to t8’ when we came into t7 and stomped all over them. But yes, do go on.

[PvP] did not leave SF, it was disbanded. The members went to several other guilds, and some tried to form an [eXo] guild (which didn’t last very long either).

The original founder of [KING] (who really didn’t have much to do with their presence in WvW in comparison with the members who were in their daily) came back after a break and took the guild itself, and a few members over to an EU server.

Seven Mirror is still on SF, just on a break at the moment. The majority of [KING] members either reformed in [STaR] or merged with [PoPo] (I’ve heard the members that went to [PoPo] broke off and did their own thing now as well).

[CoSA], [LORD], [LH], [SONG], [SoF], [ICE] and us are still here (and other groups I forgot to mention). The former in the list always had the bulk of players and they are still here.

The largest problem was us running into a coverage wall when we hit T6 that first and second week.

What a lot of people assume while we were in tier 8, is that we had an obscene amount of transfers or something that caused us to go up tiers. That wasn’t true. What happened, was a core formed around several prominent Commanders and leaders in WvW. It was insane how many PvE’ers and casuals we got invested in WvW and how well we got everyone to listen and work together, it was great.

These people put a LOT of time into WvW, spending the majority of the weekend after reset nights and primetime weekdays in WvW leading people around, not just commanding, but utilizing tactics and boosting morale that kept people engaged and interested. Then the fairweather’s started hopping in, inflating our numbers even further and after winning weeks on end, started to taint our community with trolling and flaming (amongst ourselves, and towards ET and FC).

Then ET and FC got the points boost, we hopped out of t8 and started the train upwards. Even though we had a coverage gap in t7, our prime time was enough to hold the gap, intimidate the opponents, and get some semblance of a night crewe.

Then came t6, our night crew was absolutely obliterated by IoJ. To the point they didn’t even come in anymore, and IoJ would steamroll our maps at night. This lead to a lot of people that normally paid for upgrades and defending, to fall away from those roles. This then lead to a point-gap we had trouble reaching. The core during prime time was still pushing strong though, and dominated during our timeslot enough to keep up with the loss of nearly every structure nightly.

Eventually though, the formation of the core in tier 8 and pushing hard through all of t6 to reach the point where we were at a coverage wall made a lot of people realize how burned out they had become. Core members started taking ‘breaks’ (I am guilty of this as well) which was the start of the cohesion kind of falling to pieces.

We still have a core, and a lot of great commanders, but it is much more social and casual, than it was in the past. Combine that with fairweathers who normally leave during non-winning streaks (which we had for so long), the PvE/casual members who are farming out new content, and a lot of the structure loosening up; we are in a definite lull.

I’m sure at some point we will recover/reunite, but at this point I’m not sure when that will be. Until then, fun fights when we have them.

TL;DR – We’re all still here, just on holiday or smth.

I don’t think you do high level fractals very much.

Boss Fights in FotM Summarized:
Aquatic Ruins – No worries here since he targets pets much less often now.
Cliffside – Both boss fights insta-nuke melee pets, and range pets you can swap but you lose a LOT of DPS keeping both you and the pet micro’d and out of range.
Snowblind – Another pretty much instant nuke, especially during his up-top phase. Sure you might be able to have your pet survive one quarter health round if you blow everything, but next round everything is on CD and it is dead.
Jade Sea – Maw, ‘nuff said.
Swampland – Both Oakheart and Mossman will absolutely destroy both ranged and melee pets instantly.
Dredge Fractal – Melee pets are insta-nuked. Ranged pets are actually pretty viable with Ice boss.
Grawl Fractal – Pet’s actually do okay here, oddly enough.
Asura Fractal – Insta-nuked with all the Agony bouncing around (pet’s have no innate dodge/reflect)

The only way I can see your pets surviving, is if you are manually indicating EACH of their auto-attacks. I.E Send pet after boss, attacks once, call back to side right after; rinse and repeat.

Which is great, they survive, but now you are doing less damage than a “staff support elementalist” in apothecary/healing gear.