Guild Wars 2

I just wanted to give my thanks for the pet buffs and other skill adjustments (like QZ cooldown reduction, WOO) that came for Ranger with this patch.

I was going to post this in the Ranger section, and I’m sure it will be moved there, but I first wanted to post it where others might see that there are some of us Rangers who aren’t ungrateful. Seems to me like hardly anyone is pleased with the changes but then again, they don’t seem to be pleased with anything.

Keep up the good work and thank you for giving my Ranger some much needed love (:

[EYE] from YB is a pretty hardcore PPT guild. So far all I see them do is taking advantage of other servers being busy while they flash build rams/catas to snipe fully upgraded stuff.

This past reset night they tried like 10 times to take our keep.

They need to be removed. The end. Confusion is an extremely potent condition when used with a heavy condition damage build. Fighting a Perplexity Mesmer or Thief leaves you three options; 1) Fight back and kill yourself because of Confusion, 2) don’t fight back and get killed by your opponent or 3) run like hell. Yes there are other powerful conditions and yes there are cleanses. But being able to passively apply a condition that kills you if you fight back seems a bit ridiculous to me. That’s basically saying “hey, if you hit me you kill yourself and if you don’t I kill you. What’s it gonna be?” Cheesy builds, runes, sigils, what ever don’t bother me. I can deal with things that carry players but these runes are in a category of their own and seriously need to go…

… Lol. People always assume that Thief is easy to play. Yes, the condition builds are easy to play. They are extremely forgiving. But there are plenty of builds available to all professions that are cheesy and easy to play. The condition builds available to Thief don’t use backstab. Backstab is a power build attack and power builds with Thieves are very un forgiving and require very active positioning.

I’m newer to Thief and I come from maining a Ranger for over a year. Thieves are lolz to fight when you learn how to deal with them. If they kill you after you’ve learned how to deal with them, you got outplayed. Deal with the fact that you can’t win against everyone and you’ll have a much better time. Thieves don’t need any more nerfs, they’re fine.

Also: Greatsword skill #4 Counterattack = block, Signet Of Stone = Invulnerability, “Protect Me!” Invulnerability, Juvenile Pig F2 command “Drink” become invulnerable. Rangers have plenty of invulns to deal with this kind of thing you just need to practice using them. The worst part is, all of what I’ve listed here can be used in the same build.

Pretty Pixie.8603:

By all means.

I wonder what the point would be though, it’s not like there’s a need for a safe environment for heterosexual people. We aren’t exactly persecuted, vilified and excluded.

Lets be honest here. If you’re born as a straight white male in the western world, you’ve generally won the lottery of life compared to anyone else.

For some people, it doesn’t matter if everything is going their way. If there’s something they don’t agree with happening in the world, or around them, even if it’s not directly effecting them, they have to eliminate it or impose themselves.

… Hitler comes to mind.

I almost forgot the days where I could send my pets up walls in WvW to kill people on siege! Those were the days…

Zorby.8236:

Yes, I was. I feed my ego by seeking the praise of forum lurkers who bring math and facts to the table any time someone challenges the meta with a different way of thinking. It’s like trying to convince a priest that evolution makes more sense.

No, I won’t bring video evidence because I literally do not care about proving it to the kind of arrogant f_cks that pollute these forums with their meta kitten and p_ss all over any one who tries to be helpful in a different way. I’m legitimately offended so many people can’t just go “hm, yeah, that makes sense. I should try this out, maybe it’ll be fun!” Because it’s not like this is a f_cking video game or anything where fun should actually be had.. But nerds with social disabilities and superiority complexes, like yourself, turn it in to a competition of who/what is better because the sinking void that is their reality threatens to consume them if they don’t assert themselves over people behind a computer screen. And please, tell me about how I’m wrong again because I’ll believe everything you have to say without video proof of how your life actually goes.

It’s actually sad how many people suck the fun out of this game by trying to suppress everyone only interested in appealing to the absolute elites who sleeplessly and mindlessly farm the same content constantly living under the shadow of a fear that someone will slow their dungeon content by 3.2seconds. Because those 3.2 seconds are minutes and seconds they’ll never get back that were so ruthlessly robbed from them by the ignorant commoners who play the game casually the way it was intended.

But please, comfort yourself with knowing you got me fired up. Because your accomplishments aren’t measured by their greatness but by the nerve of one’s rebuttal.

Proper Life Force management is the key to being a chore for people to kill.

First I’ll speak from the perspective of fighting a Necromancer rather than being it;

If a Necromancer is glowing green, do not attack him/her. He/she has activated a Spectral skill such as Spectral Armor or Spectral Walk which will grant them Life Force when they are struck. The more you attack them, essentially the more you are giving them “health”.

Don’t stay in melee range when a Necromancer is surrounded by Locusts. If they are using warhorn they will gain Life Force every time those Locusts hit you which again, is essentially giving them health.

If you have any form of CC, you’ll want to save it for interrupting the Necromancer’s heal since it has a long cast time, or interrupting their Death Shroud #4 channel “Life Transfer”.

If you apply any conditions to a Necromancer, you’re going to want to avoid Staff #4 and Dagger #4 if they are using either/both of these weapons. Having them hit you will remove the condition from the Necromancer and will instead apply it to you. Also, if you see them using Plague Signet, you’re going to want to be _VERY_careful about how/when you condition burst them (if you’re a condition build) because they can just throw it back in your face, top it off with a fear and lulz as you die from your own conditions.

When a Necromancer exists Death Shroud is the best time to lay on the deepz. Unless of course they are glowing green, or surrounded by Locusts… Are you starting to see how a Necro can be difficult to bring down? ~ You have a short frame of time to pressure the Necro while they are not in Death Shroud. Try to save major attacks for immediately after they exit.

Now, from the perspective of being a Necromancer;

You’re going to want to use your dodges sparingly. You are naturally tanky and have multiple skills which will benefit your Life Force if you are taking damage. So save dodges for avoiding key skills like a Warrior’s Earth Shaker or Eviscerate, a Guardian’s Whirling Wrath, a Ranger’s Rapid Fire, etc.

Spectral Walk/Armor will grant you stunbreaks but they also grant you Life Force. Spectral skills are very important for smaller scale stuff so you’re going to want those if you’re roaming/dueling, etc. ~ Don’t always try to save Spectral Walk/Armor specifically for stunbreaks unless you’re against an opponent where you’re going to need those stunbreaks such as versus a hammer Warrior. Otherwise, you’re going to want to activate Spectral skills to feed your Life Force.

Don’t camp Death Shroud for too long. If you’re a condition build, you’re not going to need to anyway. If you’re power, you may feel inclined to sit in it for long periods of time because of the huge damage spikes that Life Blast can deliver. Sitting in Death Shroud for too long however can end up meaning less overall damage and locks you out of utility that may prevent you from being killed/having your Life Force totally drained. Learn to manage your time between being in and being out of Death Shroud properly.

(Part ~ I)

So is no one upset about this but me?

A couple patches ago, they nerfed Pink Moa so that instead of three 1 second dazes, it now only applies one 2 second daze.

I don’t recall seeing any threads about this and as someone who, before the change, almost exclusively used Pink Moa in WvW and PvE, this kinda kittened me off.

I don’t know if it would be OP or not to be honest but I always thought Defy Pain should work differently from Endure Pain.

Such as this: “Chance to activate Endure Pain when struck by a critical hit.”
Duration: 2seconds
Cooldown: 20seconds.
Chance on it: 66%

Would be like a passive block similar to a Guardians but blocks all sources of incoming physical damage instead.

Yes people probably would pull some perv moves but in all seriousness how many people do you think would do it on a regular basis. I understand everyone is a bit of a pervert whether they want to admit it or not but give us a LITTLE credit :P. I don’t think hiding the chest piece is a necessary option but I would just like to say for the record that I really doubt you’d see a dramatic increase in half naked women. There are plenty of revealing sets as is and if you’ve ever gone to the beach at Southsun Cove the sudden removal of clothing makes you feel pretty awkward… Or maybe that’s just me but… I avoid that area. It just seems creepy whether it’s a male or female character to me.

Burning does not need a nerf… Specific professions need to have their access to it reduced and their durations adjusted. Otherwise professions like Necromancer will get yet another undeserved nerf by having their very limited access to burning become even more irrelevant.

Just because Guards, Ele’s and Engi’s can stack 8732482974293 burns doesn’t mean every other profession should suffer a nerf for something they can’t even do.

Please start thinking beyond “this is OP it needs nerf” before making complaints.

Condition Mes is extremely strong for it’s access to so many potent defensive skills, it’s high stealth uptime and it’s primary conditions (Torment and Confusion) which together, basically mean you cleanse them or you don’t move and you don’t attack.

A lot of people don’t bring proper condition management then claim that this build needs to be nerfed or it’s “cancer.” While it is a very strong build, I truly don’t think it’s OP if you’re prepared to fight it/know how to fight it. It’s going to be easier for the Mesmer to play than it’ll be for you to kill it but that’s why so many people enjoy playing it – it basically plays itself.

I’ve got no gripe with condition Mesmer because I’ve learned how to deal with them. If ever they have their condition removal and mobility buffed, then I’ll have an issue with them. Because at least right now, they’re slow so they’re easy to kite/run away from and they generally have terrible condition removal so you can kill them with only a few re-applied bleed stacks if you’re a condition build yourself.

Condi Mes is no threat to me on my standard pew pew Ranger because I know how to kite well. I’ve had more than a few of them rage whisper me probably feeling irrelevant that they got disowned by core Ranger with a bear pet.

EDIT: And for the record, I hate the build as much as anyone else. It’s frustrating to fight and you know they’re probably putting in half the effort that you are. I just feel that bringing proper condition management and either being good at kiting or being good at pressuring them kills them the same as anyone else. The truly OP roaming build right now is the boon stacking bunker Beastmaster Druid that’s constantly boon stacking, reseting fights and doing huge damage from the pet. It has it’s counters but it’s far more tanky than condi Mes, a lot more slippery, a lot better condition management and it’s weaknesses aren’t even that much of a weakness (CC) because of it’s low cooldown Stability/stunbreaks.

Wow… Just, wow… I’ve been a Conditionmancer for a long time but have recently overhauled my Ranger to be full condition damage and I literally cannot wrap my head around how hard it hits. With the build I’m currently using, and although I’ve been told the numbers aren’t correct the attack still hits very hard, “Bonfire” reads as 13k burning damage. I’ve got a poison/burning build lined up and every time I kill someone I sit there for a second like “LOOOOOL.” Has condition Ranger always been this ridiculously strong or is it a result of some kind of recent buff?

Ps. This is speaking from a WvW perspective where I have access to a lot of buffs.

Go big or go home – players deal siege damage and siege deals player damage.

Stack on gates and walls to melt them, no structure is safe.

Siege scales based on player stats, healer builds can get huge heals from treb #5 on zergs, glassy builds can one shot groups with cannons, etc.

Most people hate when Anet adds these gimmick weeks but I find them fun. Ridiculous or not, it’s a fun change of pace and it’s only temporary. I’d totally be fine with another trollish event that makes 75% of the playerbase angry because they can’t take a joke.

OP reminds me of one of those people that would say to a couple getting a bit hot and heavy in public to “get a room.” Ain’t against the law to grope some boob and get a bit frisky in public just like it isn’t against the terms of use to get a bit, in the words of Rachel Green, “erotically charged” with fellow RP’rs. I agree it might be a bit weird to see but seriously if it bothers you, turn off emotes or don’t read it. Just because the text is there doesn’t mean you have to read through it all just to think “that’s inappropriate.”

I actually enjoy reading RP conversations quite often as they’re usually very creative. Not saying everyone should enjoy what they have to say like myself, just that I find it actually interesting to read a lot of the time. I’ve seen some people say some pretty weird stuff from time to time but hey, if they’re in to that it’s not my business. As long as they don’t sound like a pedophile or something, all the power to them.

Or… Stay with me on this one… You could try not rolling in a group of 6 – 10 spawn camping?

This is like those players that send me hate whispers when I sit inside a supply camp and stare at them until they stupidly decide to fight me with all the NPC’s on my side, then they die. I didn’t make them do anything. I just sat there in a spot that was advantageous to me and they took the bait.

Don’t fight people near portals or better yet, don’t expect people to want to fight you at all when you have a group of friends behind you. Hope you were a part of the farm fest last night by the way. It was great cornering [QQ] in their spawn with my friends until you guys took a different exit. Doesn’t feel very nice does it.

Yeah someone mentioned that changing dyes effects finishers. I posted this topic in the general discussion section as well. It’s been like this since the feature patch and it’s quite frustrating.

Don’t call me on these because I’m not a high ranking PvP’er but I believe some of the weaknesses would go like this:

Engineer, as you’ve said, condition pressure. CC also works relatively well.

Necromancer, CC and high ranged pressure/focus fire. They have poor defensive scaling and cannot withstand multiple sources of damage for long. Almost no stability and very feeble ways to kite also mean that they’re forced to facetank CC. Hammer Warrior’s and lockdown Mesmers are their worst nightmare.

Mesmer, condition pressure, blinds and evasive targets. Mesmers are a pretty highly single target based profession. It’s difficult for them to fight things like Thieves because they’re constantly losing their target and they don’t have a lot of AOE’s or skills that don’t require a target to fight it.

Warrior, high poison uptime, blinds, kiting. Mostly slow moving and highly telegraphed attacks, easy to blind. A lot of Warriors (like 95% of them) use Healing Signet. Keeping poison stacked on them effectively removes their heal.

Elementalist, high chill uptime, high burst damage. Chills really mess with their attunements, makes it a lot more difficult for them to combo fields and thus reducing their might stacking and healing. With low base health, they often cannot outheal heavy impacts. On my full berserker Warrior Ele’s melt so fast they either have to run or kite really hard.

Thieves, CC, condition pressure, high damage. Like Ele’s, Thieves have low base health. High damaging attacks/builds usually make quick work of them unless they’re slippery enough to keep disengaging before they’re killed (which good ones are). They also rarely take more than one stunbreak and have no stability assuming they’re not using Dagger Storm so watch their dodges, bait out Shadowstep and CC will really mess them up. Conditions can also be a big issue for Thieves but it depends on their build, some have relatively good condition removal while others have almost none.

Guardians, unblockable attacks, boonstrips, kiting. Low base health but lots of blocks, if you have access to attacks/abilities that ignore blocks (think Warrior Signet Of Power), you should make quick work of a Guard. Kiting works in most cases as well but Guards have better gap closers than Warriors so it depends on how well you can kite. And boonstrips do well against mitigating their defenses. Although Guards stack boons quite well they don’t stack them quite as abundantly as Elementalists which makes it easier to strip them.

Rangers, killing their pets, reflects, condition bursts. A lot of a Ranger’s build can depend on it’s pet and even if it doesn’t, the pets damage is nothing to be scoffed at. A jaguar can crit upwards of 10k and in a lot of builds their condition removal is tied to the pet. Most Rangers use a lot of projectile attacks, reflects will send those attacks back to sender. And although Survival Ranger in particular has extremely good condition management, Rangers tend to only have good prolonged condition management. Meaning they can last in a fight for quite some time if you only apply a few conditions at a time but they have a hard time removing them in large sums.

UmbraNoctis.1907:

Sure, there is a lot of dmg reduction in the game, but there are lot’s of cleanses too. If people prefer to take toughness, protection and similar over cleanses or -condi duration, it is actually a sign, that direct dmg tends to be more dangerous without passive counters. You can’t compare power dmg vs target with lots of defense against power and condi dmg vs target with 0 condi defense. That’s obviously not a fair comparison.
Are some condi builds op? Sure. Are all condi builds op? No. Are some power builds op? Yes. So you can’t really nerf condis in general, let power builds untouched and call it balance.

This.

Especially the part about when people used to run anti-condition things and how no one does now.

I just want to state that I’ve been playing a vanilla condition Necromancer for 3 years. Without +Condition Duration food, even in full Trailblazers (mind you without +Duration runes), I feel like I’m losing out significantly on damage pressure without food. Which means even with Expertise, I still need more duration to be dangerous because of how easily people can shed conditions. In full Dire, which has no +Duration, I don’t think I’d be killing anything that had cleanses. It would basically be the equivalent of being in Soldiers at this point in the games life. Expertise is the condition version of Ferocity and you need it if you want to be dangerous against anyone who has cleanses.

Condition bunker Chrono is the problem and people not taking ample condition clears is the problem. Don’t blame conditions as a whole. Yes some could use reworking but again, stop trying to get them nerfed across the board just because you dislike them.