Guild Wars 2

Guys, you need to understand that a lot of people have complained that the final dragon boss in the living story was too hard. People who shun jumping puzzles as too hard. Why do you think they would look at ranger realistically.

The full GC 6 6 2 0 0 can be used in SPvP if you are covered by your teammates. It is absolutely terrible in WvW as they can chase you freely and not defend nodes letting you pew pew freely.

There are hard counters in place. Reflects,blocks, evades, dodges, charges, teleports. You do not use these just to counter rangers. It is very useful against power necromancers as well. Hopefully more ranged builds will pop up as well as we were focused on melee and close quarters condition spam for 2 years now. IT IS GOOD FOR THE META TO SHIFT.

How reliable and usable are rangers in competitive aspects of the game??

In PvP it is still to be implemented into teams fully and spiriter got a huge boost with axe might stacking. The utility from Nature spirit is still huge.

In WvW the only thing that matters is the zerg. Roaming is trivial and a side activity. And as far as zerging goes: Warrior, Guardian, Elementalist and Necromancer.

PvE wise, we got personal dps but lost party utility. I would say Ele, guardian, warrior and thief come first. After that the ranger can maybe be the 5th member. MAYBE

So in essence, baddies who roam in a pretty irrelevant and innately imbalanced gamemode are complaining about a class build that has been SO BAD for 2 years now getting some teeth. WOW

It was brainlessly easy to win, so no real challenge. It was an easy heart in Metrica Province – easy to find and easy to do. Not sure why they removed it since it seems more in line with the dumbing down of the starter areas that occurred with this patch.

Hey guys, I decided to roam a little on my ranger and found some decent fights. Thought I’d share with you, hope you enjoy!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sX5O-zFcQDo

(I make some mistakes and some are not the greatest opponents, I know)

Virtute.8251:

ArchonWing.9480:

If Mag drops down to t3 next week and someone gets moved up, then no amount of tanking is going to save anyone. When one’s at the mercy of the RNG, they need to be able to deal with any worst possible scenario, and digging heads into the sand isn’t going to help anyone.

Third play-through for WvW tourneys, and people still don’t remember how the match making for it works.

The week prior to the first tournament match is not thrown away and ignored. Its results for glicko are calculated before the tournament week 1 match is configured.

The match results that are calculated on Sept. 12th will determine the leaderboard for league placement. That means Maguuma has 2 more end-of-match rating losses (not 1) before it is settled into Silver League for the tournament.

Maguuma will lose more glicko rating next week (Sept. 5-12) regardless of where it is placed for that match. The most likely outcome is that one of the servers below rank #6 today will be seeded as #6 for the tournament. The only random factor is selection of exactly which one, because their ratings are so near each other.

Not sure if you’re first sentence is directed at the person you quoted but you’re both saying the same thing.

There are five T3 servers right now: DB, CD, SBI, YB and DR.

If Mag drops down to fight in a match against T3 servers next week, then one of the above named T3 server is definitely going to Gold when ratings are calculated on Sept. 12th. Either one of the two servers facing Mag in that match next week or the T3 server who moved up to face FA and SoS. No amount of tanking will prevent it.

If Mag does not drop down next week then it is not as clear. It will depend on how bad Mag loses in its match and the T3/T4 matches and how they turn out.

Hey Guys,

It’s been a while scince my last Gw2 video but now i finally found some time to make a new one. I hope you will enjoy it. Here is the link!

You can find everything that you need to know in the description.

I actually use this build when commanding on JQ in WvW

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQJAqelsTpdr9ZxvLseNiaBF6MG1AI6Q2ls8pIA-T1RBABNfCACa/hyU+hoegGVCOq6PA8AACAgAcz2MAG6QH6QH6Q7mH9mH9mHtMAMbB-w

I find it to be a very flexible build. I use my group as my source for stability and those following my Pin to supply the swiftness and stability. Remember, this is a group oriented aspect of the game. Work with those around you to group with those who can offer what you lack and vice verse.

When I am not running on the front lines, I often use

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQFAUlsTptrlcxvLseNSeBN6rckkA6BEgFIqBC-T1BBABAcBAEa/BzU+loOAHVCSq6PB8AACAgAczbGAG6QH6QH6Q7mH9mH9mHtMAMbB-w

It allows me to only need to change out my weapon, a quick respec, and skill swap. Some regular engineers here may or may not agree with my build ideas, but the way I play, I thrive with these two and a few other builds.

ArchonWing.9480:

The key here is opportunity cost. People feel that warriors don’t need to sacrifice as much to gain something. I can’t talk about warriors or confirm this due to lack of experience, but I’ll just take your engineer example. Engineers CAN indeed clear conditions very well and certainly they can beat necros with a 409 build, but Guild Wars 2 is almost never about just 1v1 situations and I would think a hgh/409 build is significantly weaker in other matchups because you lose out on so much kit utility that is one of the strength of the engineer— some would argue you could just play another class at that point. You’re at the very least putting 4-6 in alchemy and sacrificing traits like backpack regen, invigorating speed, or protection injection. I doubt the expert engineers have simply ignored this choice.

If we compare to other classes that are worse off, we can see rangers that need to spend about 6 points just to have longbow not be useless, 6 to have signets actually work, and about 8 to have shouts be usable. Well, that’s not completely accurate at times, but if we look at what doesn’t work, such as rangers, you can see classes give up a lot to accomplish anything. A DPS guardian is made of glass and a bunker guardian pretty much has to invest almost everything in the lower 3 trees.

So I think that’s what people are complaining about that certain other classes have to pigeonhole themselves into something or more like many of the other classes are just badly designed.

Then again, I sometimes wonder in general if people have even played the class they complain about that much.

Actually, for warrior to make shouts worthwhile you need 6 points. They are quite lackluster, and even if you invest 8 points to get adren on shout, you still do not measure up to ranger shouts.

Its sad but look at it this way;
Max warrior shout heal (AOE) is ~9400 ish. To accomplish this the warrior needs to have AT LEAST 1200 healing power, and it needs the Lung Capacity Trait, Shake it Off trait and Invigorating Shouts trait. Thats 6 trait points. Now you are speccin into a fairly “passive” line, so you want to regain some DPS. Easiest way to do that is use Inspiring Shouts to allow rapid buildup of adrenaline for near instant bursts. While not a requirement, i will list “Inspiring shouts” as a “Very Valuable Trait” in relations to shouts.

The shouts themselves produce a very long lasting 3 stacks of might, which can reach 6 stacks cuz of duration vs skill CD. It also cleanses 1 (2 if trait trigger) AOE condition cleanses removing 1 condi pr shout activation and 10 stacks of vulnerability on the enemy.
The cost of this “utility/support” is 3x utility slots and 8 trait points.

Compare this with rangers that only need 6 points to gain a AOE regen of 310 hp/s @ ~1400 healing power. Stats that are easily avaliable to the ranger even with a clerics build.
Now, at the same time, the ranger can take Vigorous Spirits and Spirits Unbound. Allowing the ranger to also bring AOE Protection and AOE 10% damage.
This sounds all well, but we know that clerics is the “downfall of DPS”. Fear not. If the ranger bothers to, it can go 6 into beastmastery to get lower cooldowns on shouts (technically 4 points needed, but the shout heal is a GM so 8 points investment needed to unlock it), it can also get AOE vigor and AOE healing. The GM minor in BM line return 10% of healing power as raw power. Meaning 140 to the power stat.
In addition to this, a massive increase in pet DPS will further balance out the loss of DPS from using a supportive gear. Pulling the rangers DPS far beyond that of the warrior.

So in all regards, warrior shouts are underpowered… they require massive investments and even then, comparing them to rangers, they gain ~190 hp/s more healing (over a 20 second timeframe) But at the cost of 2 utility slots and a huge amount of damage.

In addition to this, nobody with their sanity intact will say ranger shouts are actually in a good spot. They got 2.5 decent shouts that has ZERO group value when not traited (sic’em is the 0.5 only cuz of revealed and DPS increase, but its a pain to use and CD is too long. Search and Rescue is a wasted utility slot after the overzealous nerf).

And yes, i do happen to run a shoutheal built warrior. It’s just sad to see the stark contrast between the two professions (ranger hitting for 6-800 + 1.3-2.6k pet AA vs warrior doing max 4k evis and 1200-1900 axe aa)

The problem I have with the skimpy armour is it’s nearly all about the boobs. I’d prefer to show a bit of thigh but noooope, gotta have silly trousers (looking at you, priory pants and conjurer pants). My favorite leg-showing leg armour is the light Heritage legs, shows a little bit of tasteful thigh. Second to that is the light Zodiac legs paired with a non-revealing chestpiece. I know there’s others that show leg but not nearly as many compared to the boob tops. Need more thigh highs please. I was very disappointed that the ancestral outfit had a huge boob window but no focus on the legs.

But getting back on topic, I agree, there should be some option for females to wear the male versions, as well as more skimpy versions for males :P
Equal skimpiness, for males and females, and for all the body parts, not just boobs.

Typically red=dead.

Generally I will not interfere with a 1v1 fight if it’s in the middle of nowhere, if they both stopped to fight there then that means they both wanted to fight. I’ll sometimes wait around to see if the ally dies, and then I’ll jump in with fears and res them, if they wanted help they just need to say it on TS.

Its funny though those 1v1 guys want an even fight and will cuss you out because you interfered, but then they will turn around and prey on people who clearly do not want to engage in a 1v1 fight, because guess what more than half the people you will run into in wvw are not specced for roaming but for groups.

To the duelers, respect is a two way street, if you don’t want people jumping into your fights then don’t jump on people who clearly do not want to engage you.

I main a Guardian and Heartseeker needs a buff not a nerf so that it’ll be spammed more. That way I can continue to laugh moreso than I do now as I proceed to obliterate said HS spammer.

Zatoichi.1049:

So, first place servers get 2 mistforged weapons, and 6th – 9th place servers enjoy the same pristige of a 2nd place server in the form of a mistoforged weapon? That makes perfect sense… Might as well just change the name of mistforged weapon to zenith part 2 and call it a day.

U are obviously a PvEr that’s gotten the Meta for the AP’s and the sweet sweet skin.Server ranking in the tournament is about prestige and bragging rights not about how many weapon skins u get,sheesh.

ofLegends.9853:

Why is it that people want things to be “harder”, so instead of making them harder for themselves, they want to impose on everyone else?

This is a great, succinct way of putting it. I see this central theme in all the worst threads. The core principle: they find something about themselves — something they have, or something they excel at — and design new mechanics around giving them a leg up on anyone who isn’t in their boat.

• If they have ample real-world cash to spare, they argue about how crucial it is for MMOs to have subscription fees to “maintain a better community,” or say things like “if you can’t afford $15/month, you shouldn’t be playing an MMO.”
• If they like to farm/grind and have tons of free time, they want to see any and all diminishing returns or time-gated content abolished, or they come up with ways for Legendaries to be even bigger and shinier.
• If they played Guild Wars 1, they brainstorm more and more rewards and accolades for people who completed Hall of Monuments achievements.
• If they are a highly-competitive “hardcore” player, they want higher difficulty, higher punishment for failure, WoW-style raids that 1% of players will ever complete, and the sacred right to kick anyone from their group if not in full zerker gear
• If they are part of a huge guild, they want to see WvW shut down for one day each week to make room for exclusive Guild VS Guild combat modes.

In most cases, there are constructive and positive ways to phrase what it is they really want. But too often, the core “idea” is essentially to make the game worse for those who aren’t in the OP’s position. I mean, even in this topic, the OP complained that the game wasn’t hard enough. So, what was the solution? Target those who are already struggling, and hassle them by wasting their time or taking their gold.

The following post was written by me and a friend. It is presented “as is”, and I’m not asking anyone to agree with us. In fact, if you are not going to read the whole thing, please don’t even bother answering. Our perceptions may be skewed at points, but they stem from our own gaming experience with Guild Wars 2, particularly as GW veterans.

Disclaimer: This is not a petition, it’s customer feedback.
Without further ado…

An Appeal for Less Time-wasting, More Relevant Content and Clearer Design Policies

Part 1

I don’t know whether other players share this perception, but Guild Wars 2 often makes me feel alienated by design policies that indirectly enforce grinding or otherwise pressure me to waste time on activities I’m not interested in. I only have a couple of hours per day for this game, so I would like to invest them on activities that are fun and fulfilling – but that also feel rewarding. Below, I will comment in detail about some of the issues that bother me the most about Guild Wars 2:

Stats dependent on item rarity: I know it’s unfair to compare GW 2 to GW 1, since they’re different games, but I had never expected 2 to be so farm-oriented – it stands in stark contrast with the first installment of the series! I feel like the root of the problem is that item rarity is associated with actual combat stats: this strongly compels players to go after equipment with the highest stats available. The result is an endless pursuit of grinding, which in turns pumps dangerously high amounts of money into the economy – which the design team has to manage by creating infamous money sinks and other frustrating changes to “slow things down”. Is it too late to revert this vicious cycle? Possibly, but things can surely be made better one step at a time.

Focus on the economy: Currently, many aspects of the game feel like money/time sinks. The tier system introduced in the April 2014 feature pack is a good example: you don’t have to spend gold to respec traits anymore, but now you have to spend it to learn them! (Unless you have enough patience to complete the incredibly long list of “quests” instead.) Another example: Fractals is a dungeon specifically designed for farming, yet it comes with a sink in the form of agony resistance infusions. This goes to show just how much the design is being influenced by ‘economic issues’, often at the expense of fun. Personally, I feel dragged into a different game called “Grind Wars”. In GW 1, I could choose not to be an active part of the economy and still have top-tier equipment (stat-wise), which enabled me to participate in anything I wanted. Sadly, in GW 2 this option doesn’t seem to exist. I find this hard to understand, considering the large amount of awesome content present in Guild Wars 2.

Transparency issues: There are patches very often, but to access the patch notes, one needs to login at the forums – I wonder how many players do that (I confess I only found that out after a nasty change caught me by surprise). Why not give more visibility to the changes you make? You have a news screen at the game loader, for Christ’s sake. It’s important to explain the rationale behind changes; this way, even if players don’t agree with you, they’ll at least understand where you’re coming from. For example, the official explanation given in the patch notes for dismantling the Queenslade farm train seemed like just a vague “front” and not at all related to the real reasons behind this decision. If you’re nerfing a drop rate or a farm route, explain that openly! Otherwise, you earn mistrust from players who, by not being let into the mindset and objective behind changes, can’t help but feel betrayed (especially when it comes to economics). Lack of a public and transparent design policy is a dangerous thing.

Techyo.6732:

thats great info, what do you think about gear? I have been considering knights on armor and zerker on trinkets etc. might give me a good balance so I have enough toughness to outlast some group wvw and enough damage to 1v1 easily.

Tbh, with a DPS meditation guard I find you almost have to go all in or it’s not even worth it. You’re gonna have a tiny health pool. That’s fine, but if you don’t have enough damage it can be an issue. TBH, if you want to go that playstyle, you’re better off just going full zerker. It’s gonna be almost impossible for you to 100-0 burst any enemies if you have knights trinkets. This is defensively bad, because if you don’t drop enough damage on your initial burst they’re just going to turn around and hit you back. A full zerker gaurdian will either drop them instantly with a full combo, or it will rattle their kitten and they wont be so quick to go all in on you. Basically what I’m saying is you need to be able to kill them before they kill you. You can’t outbrawl them in a fight because of your health pool, you NEED to be able to burst them down.

The toughness you get from the meditation trait line is pretty much all the toughness you need. Toughness WILL NOT keep you alive with this build, even with knights trinkets, it’s just not enough to be worth it. A meditation build relies on rotation of meditations and MOBILITY to stay alive. You don’t need toughness if they can’t hit you. That’s also why I recommend traveler runes on a zerker build. The movement speed not only keeps you alive, it makes it a hell of a lot easier to kill people too.
Also, flashing blade and JI will save your kitten .

Basically, if you’re choosing this playstyle, your stats are not going to keep you alive. Your skill rotation and movement will keep you alive. Don’t even worry about any defensive stats, just get as much power, prec, and crit damage as possible. You should be aiming for about 2.3k power, 220% crit damage, and 50% crit chance.

Here’s a video of me and a guildmate running this type of build:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSls3ORlJRM

Don’t get it. Are you guys talking about… no still can’t think of something relevant here. Maybe, if you’re all talking about Boon Duration builds in WvW, then I can relate to your disappointment.
In any other case: My Guardian is still as essential to Dungeons and Fractals as before. Nothing has changed, absolutely nothing at all. I still run GS + Sw/F in Dungeons and Hammer + Sw/F or GS in Fractals. Staff stills sucks unless you really need the utility for a specific encounter, a shield is still an instant kick from the party and Scepter is still laughable due to its single target DPS and the fact that most people who use it are terrible and stand out of the blast finisher range.
For meta Guardians it’s still a great world to live in.

And I hope those mentioning AH and EM are talking WvW only. Don’t encourage the use of these skills in PvE, just like you shouldn’t tell anyone to bring a staff right from the start and camp that weapon. Of course playing Guardian seems boring if you’re trying very hard to be outright terrible.

ArchonWing.9480:

It’s pretty amusing since for some reason, because if you listen to enough people, necros aren’t allowed to kill people or something. If you do, it’s because you’re cheating.

I’ve started to grow tired of the “condition meta/op” rants. Let me first state I run both as condition and power necro, as well as other classes.

1) WvW is not, first and foremost, a 1v1 arena, and I seriously doubt 1v1 balance in WvW is high on the game designers’ priority list.

2) Conditions are strong in small fights, but that’s about it.

3) Of all the damage I receive in WvW, I don’t think half of it stems from conditions.

Now… I’ve had thieves surprising me out of nowhere, landing some devastating combinations and I’ve dueled thieves who knew how to counter necro:s. They get my respect and if we party up, it’s always on friendly terms.

I’ve also fought brash thieves with predictable movement, announcing their presence, happily walking in my marks/wells and trying to out-tank me. If I party up with them I know I’ll be called cheesy.

Who would you listen to?

I can tell similar tales about other encounters, but you get my drift. I don’t think I’ve ever been called cheesy by a seasoned roamer.

Edit: gramma

Mathematically, power is a better stat for increasing damage than crit rate or crit damage. Therefore any gear without power as a primary is inefficient, if maximum damage is your goal. Knight’s has other virtues since toughness may be desirable to you.

Hold on a sec here. People are trying to compare the loot systems of Diablo 3, an ARPG dungeon crawler focusing on vertical progression, with GW2, an MMORPG with ARPG elements focusing on horizontal progression?

What are you wanting from GW2 loot? For if they increase the loot drops of everything than everyone would have that item. This in turn means it loses its value in the long run.

This game has very little vertical progression and trying to compare Vanilla D3 and GW2 just doesn’t make much sense. In D3 the game is focused entirely on getting better gear. Also note even in D3 ROS doing harder content does not guarantee better gear. It increases the chance of getting it but does not guarantee it like some people were saying. GW2 doing harder content increases the chances of getting better gear. Killing a moa has a lot less chance at getting an precursor than killing a world boss.

Loot system wise GW2 is doing it correctly. Looking at everyone else ideas here would lead to economic ruin as it would devalue a huge amount of items (precursors and exotics).

I personally have never gotten a precursor from a drop and that’s to be expected. Precursors are meant to be rare drops like in D3 ROS to get a rare item (full set) it will take you awhile and are highly valued.

Your complaining about the loot system. Ok let us see you guys suggest a loot system that:

1. keeps the current method of rewarding everyone
2. without vertical progression
3. that provides non-abysmal loot without devaluing rare items.

amethyst.3264:

EFWinters.5421:

If you think Warrior is better than Guardian for WvW or that it will be after this update you must be bad at playing Guardian.

For anything else than 1v1 Guardian will still outclass Warrior, same as now.

You must be very pro playing as guardian. I would like to see your build of some of your video.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/external?l=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DibP7ovlhMLE

Kaineng can offer you nothing but peace and quiet.

Indeed, our EB lord frequently gets lonely and decides to join other servers.

I’ll use the word coordination to describe what I’m trying to say.
In other games they don’t have CC that last forever with virtual little to no cooldown. So people need to actually coordinate their CC and support.
In this game every class have AOE CC with little or no cooldown, that’s why every monster have defiant, or cutdown CC by like 90% in dungeon.

Most CC skills are on long cooldown. Tremor on off-hand mace for warrior is 25 seconds, staggering blow on their hammer is 20 seconds, backbreaker is 30 seconds. Earthshaker is 8.75s but requires adrenaline to build up first. Mesmer magic bullet is I believe 25 seconds. Unless you include cripple, chill and immobilise under the CC umbrella – skills which apply those have faster cooldowns, yes, but chilling a static boss doesn’t do much whereas knocking them down before a major attack does. If CC had low cooldowns then if you watched the video I linked of COE, we would have been able to have just spammed it endlessly but it took people co-ordinating CCs to get it to be as consistent as that.

Not to mention, AOE etc. Every class have AOE. So if every class can do everything, there is no need to rely on each other etc.

Except … there is. Every class can’t do everything. Only warriors have banners, only rangers have frost spirit/spotter, only guardians and mesmers have ample access to group condition cleanse and reflect, only elementalists have access to fiery greatsword and fury stacking through blast finishers, only thieves have spammable access to stealth.

The reason why you see the group compositions in meta groups is because all of the classes synergise with each other. You have ranger and warriors for stat buffs, elementalist for might and fury stacking (enabling warriors to even drop for great justice since it just isn’t needed, plus they can switch to signet of might since they are getting extra precision via spotter). Mesmers, guards for reflects, aegis for prolonged fights, condition cleanse, and so forth. The reason these classes are chosen is for their great synergy with each other (and even then, it depends on the instance).

To sum up my frustration with this, I am having to agree with one half of the players in this thread by saying Holy trinity is by far more superior than what we have right now. It is currently a free for all, no roll, kill-kill-kill type of game which is much less fun then set rolls, and everyone having to excel to achieve a common goal.

But they’re not trying to achieve a common goal? The tank is trying to tank, the healer is trying to heal, the DPSers are trying to DPS. They all have three separate goals and are just trying to maximise their own rotation efficiency.

I believe that with this instance of gameplay that GW2 has created, it has crippled its ability to create any sort of difficult endgame, as obviously you cannot just burn raid bosses until they are dead, you have to pay attention to mechanics and work around that rather than going all out.

Guess what happens when you don’t pay attention to boss mechanics in this game? You die. Try Lupicus without paying attention. Alphard. What about full melee magecrusher while ignoring the mechanics? Melee hunter/crusher and ignore the mechanics? What about Nokk and Tazza? The first golem in SE p1? Kholer? Ghost Eater?

Try all of those without paying attention, they’ll smear your remains over the walls.

. Healers are far from being scarce in trinity games if you drift toward the endgam

And how many of those are playing healers because the content demands it rather than they enjoy it? I’ve seen a number of times people being frustrated because they had to make a healer so that their guild could raid.

I can’t honestly imagine anyone believing that Cleric and other defensive support roles are not desirable in MMOs.

Desirable to have but not desirable to play.

Seriously, there is hardly any skimpy male clothing. Females seem to get most of the revealing tops – why not Guys? It’s sexist. One of the more revealing male tops is probably the feathered top (but even then, the male feathered top has NOTHING on the bloobs that female zodiac tops have), yet it has long sleeves that really ruin it.

And while we’re at it, there should be a ‘Lord Faren’s Underwear’ skin. Seriously, I’d pay gems for that! Why hasn’t Anet made this already? It would sell like hotcakes. I’m sure many players would want skimpy beach-themed armor skins.

There should also be red/orange/yellow/green/blue/purple/pink flesh colored skins in the gemstore too (sylvari shouldn’t get ALL the skin colors, it’s extremely racist).

Edit: I’ve included a ton of pics below for comparison. My point is the amount of skin showing, or lack thereof, for the males.

I’ve also included a photoshopped version of my elementalist with a blue flesh skin (also wearing the zodiac top) and Lord Faren’s underwear – because I want a ‘Dr. Manhattan’ (From the Watchmen comic series) outfit for him one day. If only his underwear skin were available…

There is a startling sound while Guild Wars 2 is fully muted. It is like a random one drum beat or a scratch noise that comes every hour. Sometimes it echoes, too. It is very scary while listening to a podcast. I brought this up at the Bugs forum section but was hardly noticed.

Please take time and mute Guild Wars 2 and listen to a radio show or simply mute and play the game. Anyone will notice it. It is scary if you are living alone. It is making me anxious and paranoid. I have been hearing it only when I’m playing Guild Wars 2.

Please remove it, Arena Net.

~~~~~

Edited (2/23/2014):

Hi, everyone. I figured out what the noise is like. It is similar to the sound you hear from caves such as water drop, and it echoes.

~~~~~

Edited (2/25/2014):

Hi again. The sound is becoming frequent. To anyone curious, mute Guild Wars 2, and you will notice the flicking/echoing/stomping noise that comes every 5-20 minutes – but be warned it is kinda creepy.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQNAR8YjIVF2JWCWs2Bg1DC9bw2DNtETXBUvYlVqA-jEyAoLioZCEMVYIaZvioxWILiGreBTXSEV7xLiWtQACGDA-w

Incase TL;DR – Yes, it works, and it works well.

1. Why this build? I am 100% confident that it is the most efficient power build rangers have for roaming and small group play. I have been playing it since August and am only posting it because I actually am tired of all the negativity associated with power rangers.

2. But why? Because, you have near warrior levels of tankiness (24.3k hp, 3,158 armor) in addition to solid stability uptime and the ability to have insane opening strike bursts (expect 7-9k mauls when SoW and SoH are popped). And to top it off, mobility rivaling that of a thief (no joke, traited GS and sword make for nasty swoop —> hornet’s sting/monarch’s leap combos) all combined with 2751 power. I HAVE outrun shortbow thieves with this build and greatsword warriors, so don’t underestimate it because it’s power.

3. Why Heal as One? If you don’t want to use this skill and prefer TU, then go ahead and change it. In fact, you can modify this build as much as you’d like. The only reason I take HaO is for the higher vigor uptime.

4. Can you expand on your survivability? Aside from base stats, S/D offers a solid amount of evasion spam in addition to a good ability to escape. The greatsword is made unique not only by it’s three second block and low cooldown gap closer/creator, but because if you miss the evade portion of your auto-attack, you get to recast it immediately, allowing for a solid two seconds of evasion per auto chain. Condition removal is a bit weak, as are most ranger builds, but you just have to play smart when going up against a condition class. Keep in mind that most condition builds use ranged weapons, so use GS#3 liberally.

5. I might be sold, but I’m afraid to try a power build. Don’t be afraid kitten it. I do agree that rangers need buff, especially power rangers, but they are not free bags. This build has the sustainability you need in addition to the dps. +25% damage for 8 seconds and +50% on next hit is not something to laugh at. Sure, I may not be zerk, but god knows a zerk ranger won’t last a second when focused. And if I am focused, I can just run away like the pretend thief/war I am.

6. Do you have any hard-counters? Yes, there are a few. If you run into a P/D thief, do not fight him. It becomes a very long fight of attrition that he WILL win. Franky, it is very unfair. No spec should have such an amazing ability to kite. But thieves are kittening thieves so that’s that. At first glance, D/P specs may seem impossible considering their blind fields, but they are not a huge threat. Just watch your positioning and know when to interrupt. Dire Staff PU mesmers are very broken so don’t even bother as well. 3 Kit condition engi is a tough fight, and mostly comes down to keeping you pet alive as much as possible, otherwise you will lose that condition removal and possibly cede the fights. When he swaps nades/bombs, always hop out of melee range and block/kite.

7. Can I use this in soloq/tPvP? Yes, you actually can. It works decently well because, in a nutshell, it can bring good pressure while having extreme mobility in addition to the ability to bunk points. If you do go pvp, I highly suggest you swap out HaO for healing spring because on point fights guarantee you’ll stand in the field for most of it’s duration, not to mention the help it gives your team. I have played this build extensively in both soloq and tPvP. It is NOT the most efficient ranger build for pvp (spirits duh), but that doesn’t mean it’s unviable (things like condition ele are unviable).

Lastly, if you haven’t played power builds before, you have to give it some time. I am telling you, it is a very good spec. Some minor tips before you go 1. Remember to use double evades on GS auto when needed 2. Don’t be afraid to stop attacking and hop out of melee range if you need to recover 3. This build isn’t the usual regen bm ranger, keeping your pets alive is a tougher challenge 4. Always start a fight with the snow leopard, reason being, the best way to ensure that the wolf’s howl will go off is to call him in mid fight WHILE standing still, and then IMMEDIATELY pressing f2 after pressing f4 5. Certain builds will hardcounter an all melee spec, and when you lose to them, don’t get kittened off. Just understand that hard counters are hard counters and that all specs have them. 6. Lastly, only use maul when both Signet of the Wild and Signet of the Hunt are triggered, unless you have more than 24 seconds of swiftness. This is because losing that speed buff in combat and allowing your opponent to more easily kite/run from doesn’t make up for the damage increase. However, with both signets popped, it really is one hell of a hit (crit or not).

Well, that’s it mates. Good luck and have fun.

Edit: This photo’s outdated, I have 1000+ hours.

Quick Mouse.7635:

Are Hammer trains OP? No.
Are they effective against bad players and poorly organized groups? Yes.
Are there counter-hammer train group builds? Yes.

The problem is not the melee train, the problem is poor organization good group composition by your average pug group.

I think the bigger problem is the cost/benefit ratio of running a hammer train. While not necessarily OP hammer trains have too much impact for being so faceroll.

In the evolution of group skill, hammer train is just a half step past learning to stack.

Oozo.7856:

Boonprot.6274:

Oozo.7856:

I have little to no respect for guild groups that run with over 50% guardians and warriors. The higher that percentage, the less respect I have.

Just look at that ^

A group that runs 50% heavies is considered a balanced comp? LOL.

That awkward moment when, in WvW, there’s really only a frontline and a backline, meaning that 50% is balanced.

(PS if rangers were actually useful they could probably form part of a frontline, too. But they’re not so they can’t. Not to mention that engis have exceptionally limited usefulness, too.)

First, let me say that of these types of groups I think [Ark] is top level. So, when I say the things I say it is not to insult your guild.

The people that kitten me off are the people who are clearly bad players running with over15 people where over 70% of them are warriors and guardians. We have to fight these groups with less than ten players all the time. They often times have more warriors than we even have players.

They are horrible, but they get carried by bad game design: aoe cap, warbanners, hard rezzing, tank guardians and tank warriors using signets and healing shouts with a near impenetrable shield of cleansing.

It is not fun fighting these groups even when you win. It’s like pulling teeth.

And, even considering your composition: 8 out of 25 are guardians. That is nearly one third of your composition. There are 8 classes.

I think the issue stems more from two of the eight classes being more-or-less useless when it comes to organized group play. The dominance of guardians in a frontline is a symptom of a couple of things. First, stability is hard to come by for a lot of classes, so AoE stability via SYG is extremely important, especially considering the strength of hard cc. The second is that, since there’s no true healing in GW2, boons play a huge role in your comp’s sustain. Guardians are, by far, the best at providing retaliation, regeneration, protection, and might. Those are the four main boons that you want to maintain an almost 100% uptime with.

That said, there’s a real danger of over-investing into your frontline and a LOT of guilds fall into that trap. In my opinion, that’s where guilds transition into being a hammertrain.

If engis and rangers had better tools that suited organized group play you’d see a lot more diversity in your frontline. However, for the time being both are greatly outclassed by warriors and guardians.

Please add option to turn off leg/butt capes on armor. Make it a checkbox on our leg armor.

Far too many armor designs in this game have leg/butt capes. Instead of leg/butt capes, we like to be able to see our characters’ legs and backside from behind, especially since we see the back of our character a majority of the time during travel and combat.

This will help make more of the current armor designs actually desirable for purchase.

As you can see, our current armor choices for this are very limited…
http://argos-soft.net/GW2/ArmorGallery/