Guild Wars 2

ArthurDent.9538:

I find it amusing that I find playing rev rougher than reaper, scrapper, druid, daredevil, tempest, and dragon hunter and not all that dangerous to play against yet it still does so well at the top level. I guess the class is just has a higher skill cap then people give it credit for.
The forums also seemed to echo this sentiment as most of the complaining was aimed at reaper, scrapper, and druid. However now that pro leagues have shown rev to still be very strong at top level play, I predict everyone will start crying for rev nerfs and cite these matches as evidence for imbalance rather than judging off of their own experiences.
The same thing happened with dragonhunter in reverse last season. At first it was the most op thing ever conceived according to the forums, then when proleage teams stopped using them, the forums took a 180 degree turn and complained about it being under powered.

At the higher MMR levels it’s been overly obvious that rev is broken for quite some time.

Best blocks in game, extremely powerful heal, extremely powerful attacks, great evasion. You bet, with a bit of skill this class will wreck or stalemate anything. It’s been a running joke in half the matches I’ve played. I don’t know what game you are playing…

Hm. I think we should also adjust certain class block duration as well. Or add more skills that can break through a lazy block. Blocking accomplishes the same thing as high toughness/vitality.

I don’t mind a 1-2s block, but some classes have enough time to sit down and start roasting marshmallows on a campfire while blocking.

Yeah, please add something. Like if you score 400, you don’t loose a pip.

Or, if the community thinks that’s too much then maybe reward bags with crafting materials or something. The higher you score, the more bags you get. This will also help PvP players be a little less poor. Best players in the game…worst gear :-)

Ashkew.6584:

In pvp i generally do what eurantien says. It means i give up the point but can keep it neutral. And really save interrupts for after deathshroud, played a fw games on necro and i noticed how kitten that moment is when you leave shroud and not being able to heal or do anything really

Yeah, I agree. I generally think Reaper is on the short end of the stick in a 1v1 against a decent Druid build and bit of skill. If you end up loosing this match-up it’s most likely because you made a mistake.

It’s always been highly risky to engage a Ranger 1v1. Even when we were hopelessly outclassed and under-powered.

Zatoichi.1049:

Seens like an Inferior version of menders shoutbow, which is a better counter to reaper than this

Oh nice, I’ll give menders shoutbow a try next time, and add it to the list. Mender’s seem like less of a hard counter and more of an ordinary meta style build though, right? A mistake or two and you are toast?

MSFone.3026:

I’m new; can you please explain how this is a hard counter? Is CAF and melandru runes enough condi clear/mitigation? Or is the large healthpool and perm regen enough to counter them? I think I get how it works, just want to be sure. Thanks

Yeah, it’s pretty much exactly how you said. The large health pool makes it so you can make quite a few mistakes and not suffer much. If two or more are focusing you at the same time, you have enough health to make a getaway or to revive an ally.

The shouts are nice because they give swiftness and regen which make it easier to kite them and charge CAF. A good reaper will constantly corrupt your boons, but you can just keep reapplying them.

Save CAF and your dodge rolls for when you get bombed. Save your dodge for if/when they get more than 8 stacks of poison on you. Other the that, just let your pets eat them, bounce them around with LB 4, and just keep pelting them with low powered attacks from a distance. Nothing sexy, but quite effective.

Your magnanimity is only surpassed by your humility.

You shall forevermore be known as Magnus The Humble Spooko!

OK, so I don’t know if it’s only me but every other night I queue up for PvP I find myself in odd condi-fest matches, with the opposing team carrying 2-3 Reapers. They scurry around like filthy pests!

It got so annoying I decided to custom craft this hard counter, pest remover (Reap-be-gone) for trolling pleasure, of course.

Has anyone else found a nice hard counter for these pests? Please share!

Zatoichi:
Mender’s Shoutbow

ronpierce.2760:

Because it’s awesome. Instead of caving though they should make these skills (Wal of Terror, Line of Warding, etc) “Unavoidable” and make its own classification of “evade-hate” (like when they introduced boon hate and so on). And put “unavoidable” on the tool tips so it’s more clear to expect you cannot roll through the magical force fields and stuff.

Yes, that would be awesome! They need to make pet taunt unavoidable again, as well. Everyone was so sad when then took that away… Yes, yes they were.

…so you used to have to purchase core GW2, then ANet developed the expansion and said “hey, since we now have the expansion, let’s give the core game away for free!”

…And you are mad about this? Really? Is this the twilight zone? Of course the expansion has neat new stuff. It would be boring if it didn’t. And of course the elite trait line is stronger than the core… It’s called ELITE for a reason!

Tragic and Heim accurately described the state of Ranger/Druid at the moment.

Even Core Ranger (without Druid) and shouts can now self might stack to 25 with Bristleback alone, Smokescale alone, or Guard. When were we ever able to do that?

RaO -> smokescale attack target -> a few auto attacks -> WHaO = 25 stacks, you & pet
RaO -> bristle back barrage (f2) -> a few auto attacks -> WHaO = 25 stacks of might
Run headlong into battle with pet -> guard -> WHaO = 25 stacks of might

Spotter, frost spirit, fire spirit, and glyph of kick kitten all give bonuses to party damage on top of the ideal scenario, where everyone in team has perma 25 might and fury. No one else can do this… So if you want to maximize group DPS… You must have a ranger or Druid.

It’s fine to have a thread about how you feel mistreated, but if you say anything other than: “HoT made Ranger a lot stronger than before, and desired in all content, as opposed to before, but I still feel robbed because X,” you are going to get resistance.

Edit: Rereading you original post, yes I still use core, and it is better with HoT, so no I don’t feel robbed at all.

… That’s funny because I have a really hard time when I get into a match with ESL and other high level PvP players. It’s all I can do to keep from getting nearly insta gibbed. I’ve only played about 3500 games or so…

Are you sure you are as good as you think you are?

Yeah, I can’t tell if slick shoes is broken or ranger. It knocks us out of our evasive skills. Kinda stupid. I remember when taunt was doing this and everyone screamed bloody murder. I am just not sure slick shoes is the problem. It might just be a combination of buggy ranger skills and this.

Regardless, slick shoes are one of the best “I win” buttons to use on a Ranger/Druid. We have about a 30% chance to escape it with our stun breakers and evades.

I don’t feel robbed at all. What is wrong with new pets and full zerker MM, BM, SK for PvE?

For PvP we can run condi Druid with mercenary amulet or sage amulet and SW/T, healer with Meanders amulet, and direct damage with crusader’s and GS.

Edit: also isn’t Druid more of a support role than healer in PVE? Yeah it heals, but has some of the best group support in the game, as well.

You have a good question, but I have to say it matters what you are trying to do. I find the kind of builds that are highly effective for solo open world content a little weak in group content.

The problem I see with GS and Druid, is that you really need Marksmanship, Skirmishing or Nature Magic, and Beastmastery to get the most out of GS in PvE. That doesn’t leave room for the Druid trait line. As soon as we add Druid, we weaken our ability to use GS in favor of having team support. At this point, it makes more sense to maximize our support role as we’ll end up creating more damage by buffing allies than we will do trying to be a hybrid GS/support damage dealer.

For solo open world roaming I pick the highest burst build I can imagine, so I can kill things in the time it takes to run to them. Using GS and Longbow. Nothing fancy, just max personal Burst, ignoring allies. Most things will be dead by the time you get to them.

For group content I use the following, but you could use GS if you like. Your weapons are more for looks. Damage comes mostly from allies and pets. The A/W could be replaced with GS, I suppose. It is mostly for call of the wild and winters bite. Use the auto attack to maintain pet’s might.

Ha, ha, this was true for me today! Reapers everywhere! I thought it was kind of fun, though. Good practice for a Druid…

Yeah, this has been possible for ranger for a very long time. He must have might stacked his pet to 25 stacks of might. The combination started with hilt bash, which interrupted you and activated Moment of Clarity for +50% damage.

He is using a Core Ranger BeastMaster build. Most likely Marksmanship, Nature Magic, and Beast Mastery. His MoC enabled maul only critical hit for 5k (which is low) so he put everything into his pet. Drake can hit just as hard. He probably also popped signet of the wild and signet of the hunt for the pet strike.

Yes, yes it is… Especially when you ignore the ranger and ally he is trying to revive. Here are some strategies you can use to make it less absurd:

1. Attack the Ranger (I know, I know, it’s nearly impossible to do)
2. Cleave
3. Drop AoE
4. Interrupt
5. Type the following into team chat: “focus Druid pls”
6. Go on forum and beg for Druid to be nerfed into oblivion, again.

The chances are if you fight a Ranger and ignore the Bristleback and smokescale you will get trashed. I don’t know what else to say. If you face tank a reaper you will also get trashed. If you fight a scrapper and don’t kite at the right time you will get scrapped.

Hey Dojo/Everyone, thanks for the thread. Dojo, your build is fun! :-)

You inspired me to try with what I normally run and I’ve been having a good time. Here’s my inspired variation.

I swapped Carrion with Mercenary Amulet, Thorns with Krait, and Poison Trap with Fire Trap and sunk in Glyph of unity. This way you can poison and bleed them with the elite. The idea up is to hit them with poison, fire, and bleed evenly. Thanks for the post, I am having fun with this! Just pelt them from a distance with staff and burst at close range.

Healing Spring is a bug! It was awesome before everyone begged it be turned into a trap. I really think it’s been trashy ever since, won’t touch it with a 10ft pole.

This is what I see when I read your post…

Jourdelune.7456:

Well I played versus a comp hosting two druid rezzer….We tried to counter druids on ledge…. GASM was playing the comp…. Double Druid Rezzer is Cheeze…

Enough said. GASM kicked your butt so you want the classes they were running nerfed. I doubt very much dual Druid will be the meta… Especially with scrapers, reapers, and thieves being so strong at the moment. I think a team would do well to have one Druid, two is weak.

Imagine the kitten storm if they would have used two scrappers!

Oh, wow! OP you should really invest in a G600 gaming mouse. It has 12 buttons on the side and 6 on the top. This way you can keybind all your skills including target, untarget, stow and draw weapon. I play Druid, and don’t think I could survive without it. How do you untarget to leap away and control your pet without using mouse?

@AshinDreidon, Thanks! Yeah, Agility is working really well on GS! Nearly guarantees a critical Maul. :-) I did the same thing as you last season, really focusing on celestial with sw/t.

You are spot on about conditions, however I am finding that the combination of shouts, soldier runes, and especially Druidic Clarity are enough to save my tail. I find that if I go into CA too early and blow Druidic Clarity, I’ll usually loose against a Condi reaper.

I think the trick is to build AF early on and save Druidic clarity until you get condi bombed. You can use your shouts and Glyphs to casually remove conditions while building AF. Once I’ve blown Druidic clarity, I try not to stay in CA too long, a few lunar impact/seed combos (232323) then go back to staff to rebuild AF. The staff sigils help to rebuild AF fast.

The title of this thread would seem to indicate a lack of understanding. This is a L2P issue. Retaliation is easily countered.

Yes! And THEN let’s replace every map with Foe….Fiiiiireeee! WooHoo! It will be like being stuck in purgatory forever!

As an avid Druid, I can tell you it is pretty much suicide to try and support. Defense is too low. The only thing to do is to smash the teeth out of your opponents before they can down you. It is an all out slaughter fest at the moment. We’ll see if things settle down in a bit, but right now there is not even a point in holding a point. Bodies everywhere, smash, bash, crush, break their bones!!!

I like it, though! With a bit of skill, you can crush unskilled opponents. I would say the meta is a mix of max damage builds and high damage bruiser builds.

Evan Lesh.3295:

I fully expect higher-skilled players to swap more, but that is a much smaller portion of the player-base.

Yes, higher skilled players will be able to play more classes, and will understand the game mechanics well enough to estimate when a class swap will give an advantage. The point where this becomes unfair is when higher skilled players understand the mechanics well enough to make a class swap which is extremely detrimental to the opposing team. This greatly puts less experienced players at a disadvantage. I think we greatly underestimate how often this occurs.

An important question i: Would all high-skilled players be OK with profession locking if we could ensure no stacking?

OK, that’s a trick question! :-) Of course you could find 1 high skilled player that would not be OK with it! I, and I think many others, would be more than OK with profession locking if we could ensure no staking.

Players that mastered their classes would know how to make adjustments, within their class, to counter the opposing team’s composition. Besides, it is very frustrating to see three thieves on the opposing team, change your build to counter direct damage, then have 2 of them switch to reaper 16s prior to match start. How is that fair? By the time you see what happened, it’s too late. GG.

Eurantien.4632:

Shortbow is the worst weapon.

Ha, ha. Agreed.

Want to make it better?

1. Increase Range
2. Increase Direct damage
3. Make skill 4 or 5 unblockable.
4. Change effects so they are not situational on the enemy running away from or ignoring you.

nearlight.3064:

Basically lower the damage on deathly chill by a small amount, down by about 100 per tick and maybe make some of the new boon corruption skills conditional on having boons, like the boon removal and damage mod on Mesmer sword auto. Maybe have the scepter auto only poison if there are no boobs on the target. I think stuff like that would be fair.

Yes! And if the target has big boobs, they should should get poison and torment!

Oh my gosh, you little whiney babies think the ANet programmers should work for free? They have to feed their children and keep the heat on. One $30.00 expansion in 3 or 4 years? Get a life. You should consider it a donation for them being so nice. Enough said.

Did you ever try anything like this against reapers? Your pets will do quite a bit more damage and now you’ll have on demand condition removal whenever you need it. If you watch reapers closely, you’ll notice they bomb you with all kids of crap conditions, but actually kill you with poison. This way you can dodge roll the poison off, on demand, and have Glyph of Equality for an extra stun break.

Here is what I currently run, btw. It’s hard to tell how viable it is going to be though. I’ve been having a difficult time getting into good matches.

Sevans.4619:

Is there any reason to pick core ranger over druid? Have you guys figured it out? Does it really seem to make core ranger obsolete in every way or am I missing something?

Nope. Druid > Core Ranger.

Zintrothen.1056:

I just recently started playing Druid. Here’s my setup: http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJARWnUqAlsi9sA2CCctgFMBrZZNACAP3gGQkDum2TLql480A-TJBHwAFeCAAuEALLD0b/BA

Now being inexperienced, I don’t know how to survive very well, especially when getting stunlocked by DH traps, or pressured by a good thief or condi bombed by a reaper.

So let’s say SotP is on CD and CA isn’t fully charged. How could I survive those 3 classes?

Also, are there any reasons to take Signet of Stone over the knockback glyph with its 80 second CD? I understand 6 seconds of power damage immunity is awesome, but the glyph traited offers an AoE blind, small heal and of course the knockback.

So what I can do?

Hey there, I think you would have more survivability with GS and Staff if you switch your amulet and replace WS with MM. I can understand your choices. It looks like you want to have a strong bursty heal and good defense. I think a good offense is the best defense in this meta. With MM you will have longer daze and stun and skill 5 on your GS will be more devastating, along with Lunar Impact and CA skill 5.

WS, prior to power creep, was a must have but opponents hand out hard CC like it is candy now. The chances are Shared Anguish will get eaten by some insignificant AoE spammed daze or short stun you don’t care about. It will also be difficult to keep bark skin active with low health pool. The effects of Companions Defense have also been reduced with the removal of energy sigil (ok they didn’t remove it, but the nerf is so severe they might as well have done so), and the massive boon corrupt being handed out will most likely gobble it up.

You will do more damage with Crusader Amulet and have better defense. The added toughness will do more for you than the healing power, which scales poorly. Also, Maul will be significantly improved with the critical damage increase which will benefit from your intelligence sigil.

Good luck, and have fun!

Hey my fellow torch lovers. Just wanted to pop in and say this amulet is working quite well in the few games I’ve had. You might want to give it a try with Sw/T, and Staff.

I used the standard pets and NM, BM, Druid. Find an amulet that gives some healing, some fancy sigils, and you should be good to go.

There are lies, kitten lies, then statistics!

Ha, ha, ha! This achievement was so painful. I waited to get to legendary before trying the 3rd class. I can really only play Ranger, and Mesmer well.

My first thought was to try tempest… Big mistake. One of my teammates got so mad after that match he asked everyone to report me. “No one can do THAT bad!” I beg to differ. Try playing a class you’ve never touched before, the first time in Legendary league.

Yeah, so after that, I rolled a DH. :-)

Shirlias.8104:

yeah so excited.
no more elementalist and thief will be out of meta cause dragonhunters

Yes, well, if they don’t tone down DH traps the game will digress into an insta kill meta, so everyone will be using ranged and PBAoE insta-death attacks. There will be no point in trying to hold a point. Just kill your opponents before they kill you. DH would be able to decap a whole team in a few seconds flat.

LB ranger is largely shut down by Ele, and rev sustain. Without celestial, it will be back again… that spells doom for glassy DH.

Well, as a Ranger/Druid, I am excited for next season. I am a little sad to be loosing all the main amulets I use, especially celestial and settler. I am also hoping condi ranger and some form of burst ranger will become viable.

I think these changes will bring thief back into the mix, and that is great. They were always fun to duel, and it was a little sad to not have them around this season.

Rev will dominate if its defense is not also toned down, so I am hoping for this as well.

He is ESL, and plays for team PZ. I usually type “Java Not Cute!” Into map chat when I see him. He is very good, plays a lot, and is rather fun to play against. Nice guy. Ive seen him on Mesmer and, I think, Druid as well.

This should be obvious. You just recently went from Ruby to Diamond, and all of a sudden you are loosing matches. Maybe you are just playing against better players now.

Instead of the weird conspiracy theory were ANet is out to get you with faulty programming. Understand that one player making poor decisions at Diamond/Legendary league is more than enough to lead to a loss.

Sure, you will encounter players in these leagues that are not the greatest, but you may be one as well. Especially if you are going on 40 game loosing streaks. Maybe, evaluate what you are doing? Watch a few ESL matches, review MetaBattle, etc…

Well, I can’t speak much for Necro gameplay but he certainly dodged the wrong things.

He should save his dodges for the pet’s attack. You will loose against skill players if you random dodge the wrong skills. Even a skilled Theif will kill you, in this meta, if you random dodge.

I know English is not his first language, but he also curses too much to be taken serious. Curse words are a tool for people who can’t use better words to convey their thoughts. It usually means their thoughts are not very deep. This is a sad thing to watch.

The new meta will be even more difficult. Wrong/missed evasion will most certainly spell doom for most players and classes. This meta is a bit more forgiving.

Yeah, I would recommend celestial Armour. It is not for no reason they are removing it from PvP. Then you can get diversity out of changing your trinkets around. You can mix in sinister trinkets for condition focus, berserker for direct damage, more celestial for all around Druid kick#*%, and even soldier or carrion for more tankiness.

PvE heroes always say celestial sux, but they are clueless when it comes to fighting other people.

Ha ha, burn…. BURN you little piggies! Ranger fire good!

Shut up stoopid!

:-)

Ok, what amulet are they going to use? Please, post build for us. I’ve been playing ranger since launch and am having difficulty with this one.

I don’t think so. Druid is strong on all the amulets they removed. I really don’t see it shining much without evasion sigils and celestial. They left crusader amulet, so we may still be viable with GS and staff. But, we certainly won’t be game breaking… Especially with Marauder, DH will be king of that, and I think AoE death circles, in general, will rule the day. Wells, traps, etc…

Crinn.7864:

Archon.6480:

Crinn.7864:

Archon.6480:

I would be content, if they added this one. It is relatively weak to conditions (with no vitality) and doesn’t benefit much from critical hits. This would work well on Druid/Ranger.

Vitality has nothing to do with the effectiveness of conditions, at least no more or less than it does with the effectiveness of power.

A large vitality pool means you can live longer, loaded with more conditions, which gives you more time to cleanse or ignore and swallow them. This is obvious, no? Everything with low vitality pool has a weakness to conditions.

Vitality means you live longer vs everything, that doesn’t make it a counter. I’ll requote myself from another thread since I ain’t typing this again.

Oh but it does. By your own admission vitality counteracts the effects of condition damage. Please read the dictionary definition instead of redefining words to mean something they don’t. This, of course, assumes the purpose of condition damage is to make you not live…

No!

I understand the problems many have with it in PvE, but the weapon is designed for PvP where it ends up being a high damage weapon that sticks you to a fleeing/kiting opponent. It is nearly impossible to kite a Ranger when he pulls it on you. The long leap is the key to this working as intended.

Coupled with quickness 1h sword can cut opponents down very fast, and is quite difficult to escape from.

style.6173:

Duke of Thorin.7425:

Wow, this game becomes alot less fun when all your classes get destroyed in one fell swoop.

If you like bunker, play druid after the release. It is going to be the new bunker mesmer.

What amulet you think will be so good?