Guild Wars 2

ItIsFinished.9462:

With the introduction of new runes and sigils, has anyone come up with any new builds? Or improved upon a current build? I’m interested in the new Torment runes because they look to be viable for a crit/bleed build.

torment runes should be epic with the good old Apoth BM Bunker. But you gotta go melee.
Pop healing and Wolf F2 at the same time. watch em run to their death

Yeah, if you /bow and everything, you should really fight to downed state without resets. It’s too easy to get just enough distance to reset your own health bar without triggering the reset for their health bar, and that’s an unfair advantage in a proper duel.

Open world 1v1, anything goes.

Don’t run from a 1v1…ever. I will however check out if a zerg rolls over the hill :-P

Same, I roll a condi thief, if you see me drop ihouse, I’m lurking around you not running. As soon as my steal comes off ini and I calm myself for the lay out. I drop everything again.

Now if a zerg is coming I just book it, as a condi thief though I focus on flipping so you’d have to corner me before I commit to a fight. My priority is always to flip the camp.

WvW
If I have to reset a fight or shadow step/flee with stealth I consider it a loss. Only if I run though, Most of the time I prefer to stealth dance until I either win or die. Honestly I’d rather play a Sword/Pistol build without stealth but I don’t believe it is up to the standard of stealth builds so I continue playing stealth builds.

If I’m fighting a thief and he has to stealth and flee I definitely consider it a win.

Videos:

• Ranger Dazer Hybrid Build 2.0 Movie - Latest patch confusion/condition/hybrid build (build details inside)

Videos before Aug 21, 2013 patch:

• [Video] Post patch skirmishes
• 23k Maul and more / WvW Max Dmg Ranger Video

NOTE: The videos listed here were recorded before the June 25 Patch. They may or may not be possible anymore. They are still a good resource of what the ranger class was like before the patch and can be used as a basis for comparison to newer builds.

• [Vid] Solo Trap Ranger - Solo trap ranger roamin in WvW
• My first Ranger WvW video [LB/GS]
• Skirmish With a Longbow - LB/GS vid designed for 1v1 fights in WvW
• Capuchin monkey evasion/power/precision video - A group of videos displaying the dodging prowess of sword/dagger. Recommended watch if you’re interested in evasion tanking.
• Nature’s Wrath – Ranger burst vid - Video showcasing a full glass cannon ranger in WvW maximizing burst damage with a greatsword.
• Tupro: BM+Condi Video
• Technobabble Volume 2 – Daze Build
• kitten But Determined II Bow Ranger WvW Vid
• [Vid] Belthza – Solo WvW - contains a spirit wvw build! :o
• (Video) Exploits – WvW Melee BM Ranger
• Faux’s “RRR” Build – Videos
• Aodh Nitola [RIOT] – Solo WvW Commentary
• Maul Ranger - Semi-Glass Build that can hit up to 15k crits with maul

You know whats funny? I showed my wife this thread and she said, “That guy needs to learn how to play better. I don’t have much problem taking down a ranger on my mesmer.” I lol’d.

what dueling teaches you, specifically, is how to be aware of the maneuvers your opponents are making so that, during skirmishes in tPvP, you are an asset to your team because you are able to proactively attend to the unique skill queues of the opposing team.

while you can, over time, begin to distinguish these queues within the milieu, it is far more efficient (and, imo, advantageous) to discover these queues on a 1v1 scale so that your skill set becomes additive, rather than deconstructive (which is to say “deconstructing the skirmish”).

think of sports training, videos of skirmishes are used to single out individual strengths and weaknesses, so that the team improves from the ground up.

Oberon Vex.1389:

Also, for anyone confused: this spec is not glass cannon, please stop referring to it as such :/

I would say it is, your armor with this is very low the only diffrence is it has more health but that extra 5k health or what it was makes practically no diffrence without higher armor because it will just fly off you as soon as you get hit, and also the tone is a little harsh in here but just look past that because there are some flaws with this setup that people point out, sometimes balancing some stats is a good thing and some traits probably should be shifted to make it more survivable.

can you guys stop referring to these 30k kill shots? They were mostly caused by bugs with the piercing trait which have been fixed like 3-4 months ago already.

If anyone knows Jon he is big time trolling.
Expect big things…

I don’t really get the point of this thread and a lot of the stuff said is really misleading. It is useless to compare certain things cross-class because balancing in terms of traits is done in the context of the mechanics, weapons, skills and stats of the class.

It just seems like you guys are nitpicking certain things other classes have better than the ranger, when in reality, you can also nitpick other traits that the ranger has better than other classes.

Like for example, lets compare Ranger utility heals to other classes heals. I am sure you will find that Ranger utility heals are better than most classes. 50% endurance regeneration with very little investment, only other class that really comes close to that is one of the thief traits that returns endurance. Look at invulnerability skills like Protect me, Elixir S, Endure Pain, Renewed Focus.

You need to look at the class holistically, in terms of what the devs intended the class to do, what roles can they fulfill, not in the cross-class comparison of traits and then balancing a class like that. That is just stupid. The answer to balance isn’t as much nerf as opposed to “is it a well designed class overall, are mechanics and designs of the class working as intended, does it offer build diversity”. That needs to be the overall goal, people can get so into the nitty-gritty that they fail to see the bigger picture.

People are under the logic that well “oh, warriors have both cooldown and piercing in one trait, then rangers should get that too”. While I can see the devs looking into that, but using that logic for balance is quite flawed. It is like saying, well thieves have stealth, so should Guardians and Necros. It works both ways, Rangers have things other classes wish they had and vice versa. You can’t have everything other classes have, welcome to the real world, some traits require bigger investments than others, get over it. Classes have traits and skills that other classes would kill to have.

Josh Foreman.8250:

It’s 1 in 50.

ITT: ANet tells us a drop rate, everyone is happy, and the virtual world economy doesn’t collapse. Seriously, go have a cup of coffee with John Smith and teach him your ways.

Create also a small statue in the middle of the room . By channeling for 5 sec activates <<sudden death>> mode . Staring a flame wave from the outside of the stadium to the inside , slowly , expanding 10% of the size of the stadium every 3-5 sec

Edit: Unblocable damage , so Engineers dont benefit from the 2x Elixir S

Vargs.6234:

Terkov.4138:

I’d never say ranger is weak or sth if I didn’t read forums. You know what I mean

I think this is actually really important, because you get a lot of people who say that they feel perfectly fine and useful on their rangers because they haven’t played anything else and don’t have the perspective necessary to see how much less effective they are. You go into a dungeon, you do do damage that seems pretty good by your own metrics, and get excited when you help out your team with healing spring. What you can’t really see is how much more everybody else is doing. How much less they have to sacrifice to be on par or exceed what you can offer.

Agree, but there is also opposite thing: ppl who never learned to play ranger and compare it to classes they know better or that are easier to play. I’m not saying ranger is “fine”, but it surely isn’t as broken, as some ppl say.

Myrmidian Eudoros.4671:

Khyras.8021:

Real men join solo, not with a team

No offense Khyras, but the sPvP in this game is team oriented and solo-que players cannot ever approach the skill cap as it requires coordination and comboing between teammates. Solo que can be fun, but if you want to truly maximize your sPvP ability and you only solo que, then you are doing it wrong.

to the OP:
gl hf

Hopefully you find your team. We all know the game needs more of them.

I was under the impression that playing with a team means simply creating a situation where you outnumber your oponent ( roamers) and subsequently taking a point or holding a point ( tanks) untill back up arrives to again outnumber your oponent. You actually use cross-class combos to gain the upper hand in team battles? commendable. Anyways, if they ever introduce solo queue and ladder we will see how much you are worth on individual level, ofc, if you even have guts to compete on solo ladder. Until then, i would say you presume too much. Better composition and voice com of your team does not make you a better player than me. No offense

Rangers have not been killed for me and I have 6 maxxed toons. After QZ became a stun breaker and started using sword/dagger and short bow (usually do sb/lb) I been loving the more evasion + unstopablility during one on ones. Plus been seeing a lot of rangers curb stomping thieves in one on one as of late in WvW. Rangers are far from dead.

The Chosen Link.3247:

HPLT.7132:

Just wanted to get an answer if this is intended.

If you want to get an answer then why not change the thread title to something less provocative as “Ranger got nerfed?” and instead use something such as “BM Zephyr’s Speed Trait needs improvement”

Here you go. Just wanted to post that beofre going to lunch.

This might be a bit radical;
But what if instead of trying to come up with four button presses that finds a compromise between the ease of automation and the control of micromanagement, why don’t we use the Bundle feature of this game to create an actual gameplay distinction between Macromanagement and Micromanagement? That is to say; Your baseline pet would act and survive automatically with a certain competency level, but you’d have an option to go into a finer control scheme anytime you want.

Function Skills
F1 Toggle Attack, Return
– “Attack!”/Aggressive mode (pet is on aggro table, attacks anything that hurts the player or it, paths towards and starts attacking any enemy that is selected when you press it and prioritizes finishing it off before reacting to other threats)
- “Return!”/Passive mode (pet off aggro table, does not attack anything that hurts the player or it, paths back to the player).

F2 Individual Skill

F3 Micromanagement Bundle

F4 Swap

Pet AI:
- Pet AI uses Family Skill automatically as it currently does.
- Pet AI automatically moves out of Pulsing AOEs. In the Beta Weekends, AI was tested that had Enemy NPCs moving out of a player’s AOE. Grant this to the pet, but omit AOEs that don’t really present a high threat (omit ones within a certain HP threshold, or omit ones that only apply conditions.)

Micromanagement Bundle
Replaces your weapon skills with finer pet controls.

1 Family Skill 1

2 Family Skill 2

3 Pet Dodge

4 Location Toggle
- “Go!” – Gives a targeting reticule where the pet will move to stand.
- “Relax!” – Ends location mode

While in Location mode;
*The pet does not move at all. No pathing to any targets. F2 and Family Skills fire off at this location, even if they’ll miss.
*The pet is facing the direction the player is facing (much like how in the game right now, spinning your character in place after telling your pet to “Return” will cause your pet to spin in place).
*While traveling to the location the pet will not attack things on the way, even if F1 is toggled to “Attack/Aggressive”
*If Micromanagement Bundle is dropped, this is automatically toggled off.

5 Resurrect Pet
Ranged Channeled skill with an obvious visual indicator (like Mesmer Greatsword #1) and cooldown that only allows you to attempt it once per Swap.

Pet AI while using the Micromanagement Bundle;
- Pet Family skill automatic AI use is temporarily suspended.
- Pet no longer automatically moves out of AOE.

Not only does this handle pet management more like how our brains manage it with degrees of focus, but it makes better use of already existing pet survivability options by giving us control over family skills.

Ranger is broken as it is. Making pets effective is going to take a LOT more than number games (which, unfortunately, has most often been the majority of what ANet has done with regards to balancing professions and skills). I’m just going to drop pic related here for consideration. All of the skill specifics aren’t really fixed ideas, I just think that there should be two modes for the Ranger as it is. If you really want to make the pet meaningful and effective on the field, you’ll need more than 1 F-skill (IT’S SERIOUSLY JUST ONE SKILL—IT’S EFFECTIVELY THE WARRIOR) to bring out a pet’s potential.

You would need an entire skill set to really maximize a pet’s presence. It’s seriously a second body for the Ranger. I can’t believe that no designer has taken advantage of that.

ItIsFinished.9462:

I think the best approach is to look at this from a logical stand point. We have to realize that our pet is 20-60% of our DPS, so it needs to be effective in its DPS distribution. So, logically, the pet needs to stay alive. Every situation will warrant a different method to managing your pet. So I propose a simple 4 choice config for our pets:

F2 click once ~ Attack/Single target mode
F2 click twice ~ Attack/Multiple target mode(aoe condition or boon)
F2 click thrice ~ Guard/Single target mode
F2 click fourth ~ Guard/Multiple target mode(aoe boon or condition)

F2 click fifth ~ Do not attack (currently implemented)

Basically, you can set your pet to be in 1 of 4 modes. Each pet would warrant specific skills depending on the pet and mode. So for example my Raven could have a whirlwind type aoe on Attack/Multiple target mode(aoe) that drops conditions and a Bear could have a boon type of aoe for the Attack/Multiple target mode(aoe) that way every pet could be used for every situation. I understand that would warrant quite a bit of work, but it would synergize the Ranger and their companions perfectly.

With that being said you wouldn’t have to change any UI elements. Just add a 5 mode toggle to F2. The 5th being a do not attack.

Edit:
I forgot to mention that when a pet is in a guard type stance there defense is raised so they can take more damage but at the same time they do less damage. And all pets have 4 types of attacks anyways, this would just allow the Ranger to proc those specific skills on demand instead of randomly.

Also this is good. Really good. It’s a little unwieldy (what if you wanted to switch from mode 1 all the way to 5 really quickly?), but it’s honestly the best one could do with the game engine as it is.

How about you give rangers back 100% of their personal dps and take it away from the pet? And then add a BM trait (or change an existing one) that reduces our personal dps and gives it to the pet.

If you think that trait wouldn’t be worth it, then why do we have it by default?

And then you hire someone to actively react to bot reports and goes to have a quick look. If he sees them warping all over the place, he bans them on the spot and then investigates to see if the acount was stolen and all that. You could even give some trusted players that power and let them listen in on the bot reports. They’d do it for free too.

I’ve recently started using Sword in sPvP and am having a blast worth it. Still tweaking the build.

I also have been using sword in dungeons because I play a tank/support build and am always in melee range, the sword/dagger is excellent for the free evades for so many bosses.

Chopps.5047:

In a lot of ways, I feel like sword is the premier ranger weapon, being equally viable in Pve, spvp, and wvw. I’ve found longbow to be the most limiting weapon.

I like this and think of ranger more in terms of Aragorn or Indiana Jones. For example, I’d love to see a whip weapon added (it could pull people in etc) but that’s just a pipe dream.

I feel like a lot of rangers struggle because they feel pidgeonholed into using longbow. Please, experiment! Get some masterwork gear if you’re not stacked with gold and just give it a try. I remember being 300 hours into ranger and almost switching professions until I started to roll with sword so I implore you all to try it.

If you’ve already tried it and just want to complain about rooting etc don’t post here. This isn’t a thread for people who refuse to practice or look up solutions (turn off autoattack and autotargeting, etc).

Oh what I would give and how many people I’d sac for a 1h whip to accompany my warhorn….

On topic now! I use the sword, but it’s my off set, I tend to stick to my axe/bow until I can no longer keep the gap open, then I drop the bow and pick up the blade and go to town!!

I don’t use that silly auto attack or auto targeting nonsense, so I enjoy the full amazingness that is the sword =D!

+1

A rare or a chance at an exotic for rewards(on top of the already present rewards) would be amazing and would likely bring back a number of players.

I agree that pvp rewards need an overhaul. I cannot fathom why they let ppl buy paid reward chests with tickets. I had been ranking up in hotjoin and had only done a handful of tourneys, and now like everyone else I have full paid pvp gear. It’s lame for those that really worked for it, and the rest of us have pretty much no incentive to continue to tourney. Especially with the current matchmaking flaws.

I’d play for gold, skins that are useable in pve/wvw, chests with rare/exotic pve gear. But right now there’s nothing in the current set of pvp rewards that I want.

Would a status bar for pets visible near their health bar be a reasonable request? Being able to see what conditions/boons/other buffs your pet has without having to click on them (as clicking on them mid-fight is not only usually difficult but takes time away from your own actions) would be wonderful.