Guild Wars 2

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

have you seen the chronomancer lol

Yeah, I’d also say Druid is better, in a different way than core Ranger.

So, $60.00 for 3 years makes $20.00 per year. That’s about $1.66 per month. They also gave us 3 new maps for free, fractals for free, and the living world seasons 1 and 2 for free. It seems a bit unreasonable to be upset over $50.00 for the expansion…

Ah, yes. This is really nice. Good work!

infantrydiv.1620:

Currently Druid is stuck taking Staff, and usually Troll Unguent to effectively charge Celestial Avatar (especially now that it degenerates out of combat).

Staff charges Avatar exceptionally fast: You can get 9 hits of damage off a single staff auto in a group fight and multiple healing procs, this is just extremely fast compared to any other Ranger weapon. Troll Unguent for an unknown reason charges a very large portion of the bar all by itself.

My suggestion is that since Ranger, for whatever reason, has been given massive access to regen, both personal and Aoe, why don’t we take this regen and make it useful for Druid by allowing it to charge Celestial Avatar. Here’s the list of builds that it would synergize with:

-Spirits: Water Spirit, when traited, pulses AoE regen
-Traps: Healing Spring is a great source of AoE regen
-Shouts: Traited Shouts apply AoE regen
-Warhorn: Hunter’s Call applies AoE regen

And additionally, all these utilities are somewhat underused currently in PvP/WvW, meaning that this buff would basically affect builds that aren’t seeing a lot of use currently. The Ranger’s dominant utilities for PvP are currently signets/survival skills, so this buff wouldn’t make the strongest builds stronger but instead improve upon a number of less common utilities.

^ Really good idea! Then it would sync well with our other builds. It would also work well with Condi Bunker.

That was… Depressing. The best part is how it melts away in seconds after leaving battle.

No, I’ve been using core Ranger in PvE and really enjoying it. I can completely control the encounters. LB/GS With jungle kitty, bristleback, with traited WHaO and Rampage as One. So strong now with new aiming and retarget.

Just stay off Druid for now and use core Ranger. Druid great in PvP but aggravating in PVE, it seems. I just don’t see the point in PvE. Maybe in Raids?

Nike.2631:

I imagine Devs felt it was too strong during BWE3 and will be watching how it performs in the live game rather than on paper, with tuning to follow.

I don’t see it as a disaster that the Astral Power starts fresh on each fight — it makes it a tool for long fights and not for casual smashy.

I haven’t tried it yet, so can’t really comment. I was having so much fun with core Ranger this morning, I didn’t have time to try it. However, if it really is like so many are saying, I’ll say it is only useful if you live long enough to use it, which sounds like a feat in itself. This must be a mistake?

Yeah, I got up early in the morning, when the house was quiet, and finished the first two missions. Excellent job! That’s the most fun I’ve had since exploring Caledon forest the first time. Good job on the difficulty as well! Just right, really enjoyable!

I knew it was going to be nice, but you really exceeded my expectations, all around.

Pimsley.3681:

It’s weird. I’m not sure why that is. Teams with 2,3 or 4 rangers turn out more positively for me than otherwise. Once my solo pug attempted 5 rangers but that failed, lol.

No, no, Rangers are obviously underpo…. Hey, that’s me in the first screenshot! How did you get more points than me!?

Yeah, the right kind of rangers stack well. I find my little Esparie works best when paired with medi-gaurds, tanky dd Elems, and other Rangers. I actually have the hardest time with thieves and others that are so anxious to decap far that they leave you -1 in a good group fight.

I thought the only group to beat the Raid had two Druids and a bunch of engineers?

Kitty.1502:

Archon.6480:

We’ll just have to wait and see. They are reverting some of the changes to WHaO, so we should be able to self stack might on any of our pets to 25 stacks when we want to burst. I know it doesn’t seem like much, but most of our pets can hit for 6-10K with that much might and a little help from traits and such. That’s the same as a Mesmer shatter and we might have a higher up time on those kind of attacks…

really never understand why people like relying on a mechanic that barely hits >.>

Never said I like it. It’s just how it is. Part of being a Ranger.

Two reasons:

1. Because many of the Ranger’s skills boost the pet, and the pet even shares condition removal. If the pet became useless when the Ranger is downed, all the time spent buffing it would be even more of a waste.

2. Ranger weapon skills do less damage than other classes skills because the pet is there to make up the difference. If the pet became inactive when ranger is downed… Ranger would even be weaker.

They could balance it out by increasing ranger damage by about 30% across the board. I know many Rangers would rather have that…

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Just throwing this out there in case a dev is lurking around Needs coverage.

This really needs a change. With the global reduction of damage, spirits just became usable, but this one is still very hard to place since the radius is so small and with Raid bosses likely to be moving around a lot, as can be seen with ValeGuard, 240 range is next to useless.

Can we get it made standard 1000 like the others? Even the active has a 900 radius with Nature’s Vengeance.

Yeah, this one is kinda funny. I haven’t used it since the radius was redunced to 240.

You just have to run into the AoE circle of doom surrounding your downed ally, stand there for a few seconds to cast the spirit, then activate the revive portion of the skill and hope that it activates before it gets blown up, you get blown up, or your friend succumbs to the circle of doom.

Yeah… no thanks. Maybe if you’re lucky it will revive you too, because you’ll probably be downed as well, by the time it activates!

We’ll just have to wait and see. They are reverting some of the changes to WHaO, so we should be able to self stack might on any of our pets to 25 stacks when we want to burst. I know it doesn’t seem like much, but most of our pets can hit for 6-10K with that much might and a little help from traits and such. That’s the same as a Mesmer shatter and we might have a higher up time on those kind of attacks…

I always use GS and LB against Arch Diviner…and throughout that whole fractal, actually. Watch for his insta-down attack then go to town with GS 2,3,4-4,2 and throw a 5 in there if you are behind him and his defiance is off… Otherwise, if you want to troll you team, save it for LB 4. Mua ha hah!

DaShi.1368:

Longer queues usually equal terrible games for me. However, now they are all terrible.

I think something changed in the last week. My queue has been popping in about 30s and I am ending up being teamed with newer players most of the time. Not sure what happened, I think something got messed up recently.

Protect Me and…Bird? Really?

You need to use Drakes or Spiders with Protect Me. Bear’s are kinda useless in PvP, so we won’t go there.

Wow! This is… really nice! I am surprised they did not make more of this new feature.

Hm… I sort of think the BIS for Ranger is celestial? Am I wrong? Not meta, but strongest nonetheless.

Justine.6351:

I don’t think a beam will generate without a target lock or soft targeting with action camera. Just like spatial surge requires a target to shoot a beam.

the action camera may seem new but from my perspective all it did was add a pip and lock the camera to that pip. Well obviously its better then just that but ya here is old 5min of me pewpewing without targeting and no UI.

https://youtu.be/QUoqXe8-iig

Well, if barns ever become lethal adversaries, we can try that. We are bound to hit their broad sides, every once in a while.

I sort of think Druids will be of little use in open world PvE and raids without being able to see the health bars above your allies heads (like we see the little red lines showing enemy health).

Rangers and Druids don’t have “skill rotations” where you mindlessly cycle through the skills in a set pattern. They are reactionary, for the most part. Sure you can equip a LB, swap to it, and rotate through 2,1-3,5,2,4 (or whatever you think is the highest damage rotation) every time. That is not going to work as well as using the right skills for the situation.

If a Druid is using anything other than Nomad’s armour, he is going to need to be dealing damage when all his allies are at full health, it will only make sense to swap to staff or the avatar when allies are taking heavy damage… otherwise you’ll be a useless waste of space when not healing… Toothless. If the game is designed in this way, there will be no need or use for Druids in any raid. Period. It looks to me like their healing is on par (maybe a little lower) than the old school Ritualist. And be sure, Ritualists could dish out some sweet damage too.

Cristobal.8640:

LOL at rangers not having cleanse options on traps. Do you people not know what Healing Spring does?

Yes, it gets you killed.

I kind of like the idea of being able to acquire experience and spending it the way I like to unlock new content and areas. There are many ways to get experience, so this will give each of us a different way to progress if we like. Sounds good to me.

Josh Davis.6015:

As mentioned on today’s GuildChat, we will indeed be adding a slew of new stat combos, runes, and sigils to sPvP with the launch of Heart of Thorns. A small example of what we’ll be adding are trapper runes and sinister stats, but there’s plenty more for you to discover on October 23.
…
-Grouch

Nice! That’s going to shake things up a bit. Sinister is going to be fun.

…or maybe we could toggle a setting that would show blood spurting from wounded allies. The closer to death the more blood until they look like someone in the Sword Battle in Kill Bill :-)

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

It means that if your pet has 5 stacks of might (durations don’t matter) and you have 10 stacks of might (durations continue to not matter) that when you hit WHAO you’ll gain 5 stacks of might for 10s and your pet will gain 10 stacks of might for 10 seconds.

Perfect! This means the infinite stacking stuff can’t happen and we’ll get a 10s duration to utilize our copied boons. That’s a nice amount of time to make use of the copied boons, for both the pet and player. Thanks!

I bet this will put us on back on par with the other boon stacking classes… I might have to rethink switching to Mesmer in HoT!

Svarty.8019:

velmeister.4187:

My simple question to ANET, why are you trying to create a grindfest in a game that simply does not need one?

Non-Grind Repeatable Content is the holy grail of gaming development. Parts of GW2 that fit into this:

• WvW
• PvP
• Fracdulls (with their increasing difficulty)
• New competitive league-table adventures, or whatever that stuff is (still not sure)

All of these things are being given a fresh lick of paint in HoT.

So Anet are addressing grind concerns, I think it’s wrong to suggest otherwise.

^ Agreed. It sounds like the new legendaries can be obtained by participating in the end game content. I think that is great. Makes them more legendary.

GrapeGatsby.6937:

It’s gold sink not sync.

ha, ha. Maybe it is. Gold Synchronization. You need to synchronize your mind with the thought of running from node to node and pressing the 1 button for 100s of hours a day (yes I know there is only 24 in a day). Or running some lame, easy to beat dungeon, over and over again. “Quick, quick, run to this corner and press 1 repeatedly.” No thanks.

On the other hand, I found the fractal back piece much more rewarding to make. Ecto was cheaper, back in the day, so the main cost was the relics.

Well, I can’t comment on all the classes. I’ve played Ranger for 3 years now and 2000 some odd games. Mesmer for about 50 games. I can deal out more than twice as much damage on Mesmer with both Maurader and Carrion amulets and have much better team utility, and survivability with instant stuns, dazes, teleports, portals, etc.

So yeah. Mesmer is ALOT easier than Ranger. In fact, everything is. I am switching out of the class because I am sick of being stuck with useless under-powered, slow, ineffective skills. I don’t know how all of you can say the most useless class is the “easiest” to play. Easiest to loose with, that’s for sure.

Did you ever consider the meta battle build you are using is abysmally weak to conditions?

OP: Condition builds have 2 stats already… damage and duration.

Josh Davis.6015:

Hmmm, new amulets. Aside from zealots, anything else you folks think would be interesting?

Yes, Please! For Druid and Core Ranger, alike:

Survivalist Amulet
+1050 Condition
+1050 Toughness
+560 Precision
+560 Healing

Rouge Amulet
+1050 Power
+1050 Condition
+560 Toughness
+560 Healing

Yeah, I found Druid rather useless in the Legendary Wyvern event. Half the time I was trying to heal people who already had 100% health. That’s just boring and annoying.

Ranger attacks skills and utilities follow a general pattern of being like other classes attacks skills and utilities, except they are weaker, slower, and less useful.

To the OP: What are Rangers supposed to run then? Our direct damage is so pitiful we’d be hopeless without fire damage. Even with fire damage I do 3 times as much damage on my Mesmer without even breaking a sweat. Ranger has the weakest direct damage imaginable. Just try running one and see if you break 250,000 in a match. Good luck!

Make em bleed! Maybe also give +1 gold for those who finish a match and -1 gold for those who disconnect and don’t reconnect! Give them a dishonor boon where their toon walks around farting and saying dumb things for an hour… So everyone knows their dishonor!

I like the idea of being able to get the materials to make a legendary by playing the game.

I LOATHE the idea of needing to acquire tons of Gold bound, expensive, materials to make one. After building Kudzo, I said “never again.” I hope the new legendary weapons don’t require us to buy 1000s of T6 materials… Please, lock the legendaries behind fractals, WvW, PvP, Dungeons, Open World Content, and Raids. Just don’t lock them behind a Gold sync. I don’t have time for the Gold Sync which I consider, extremely boring.

There are some really strong dual bow builds I’ve seen people run. I think they use Rampager or Sinister Amulet. That being said, I think the most enjoyable thing is to mix in either of the swords. I agree with Heim, to put everything into damage while leveling. Here are some other things you can try:

1. Use LB, and GS or SW/A (Keybind “Lock Auto-Target” and unselect Auto-Targeting)
* This way you can un-select target and use GS-3 or SW-2 to re-position.
2. Try Birds and Drakes for pets. Especially Snow Owl and River Drake.
3. Make sure to use Beastmastery for a while and get used to pet by allowing it to enter combat first. Also, keybind attack target and recal pet.

Good Luck, and welcome to the Ranger community.

Gotejjeken.1267:

I see. I may have to give that combination a try again. I mainly run SB + A/T despite a lot of people disliking the SB. S/W does sound like an interesting combination though.

I really do like the feel of SB + A/T, so I can see why you run it. If you use S/W and A/T you can start by dropping bonfire→splitblade→weapon swap→warhorn to get your pet to 12 stacks of might. A few other things and you can have your little beastie at 25 in no time.

Substance E.4852:

A: People love to rag on the Ranger for absolutely everything. We just laugh it off with ironic parody.
B: LB cheese lets you operate at a much longer range than any other cheese and thus kittenes people off that much more. Getting 2v1’d is bad enough but getting 2v1’s when one of them is 1800 units away is much worse.

C: Getting 2v2 when one of them is 1800 units away is… funny.

I am not sure that LB is mandatory. I rarely use it. I can’t get past the dissonance caused by being too far from the pet and allies half the time. Allies Aid and most of our other useful skills have really short range radii. We sacrifice so much to be at range that I don’t think it is worth it.

Gotejjeken.1267:

Aidenwolf.5964:

Knighthonor.4061:

Neither LongBow or ShortBow should not be Mandatory for PvP imo.

I would like a balance option of weapons in SPvP.

Currently, the Bows beat out every weapon in SPvP for Ranger options.

My Condi build (which is borderline broken OP) never has and never will use bows. S/Wh A/D beats bows.

Just curious, why A/D over SB? Sure you can might stack with pet and have a chill, but axe attacks slow and doesn’t hit hard anyway..and stalker’s is currently kitten so you have to be super close to use it anyway.

A/D for fighting on point with pet with low precision build. Stalkers strike keeps you in fire field, close to pet, and on point. You can punish unfortunates who try to chase you off point with split blade and winters bite. I’m not saying SB is bad, but it doesn’t have much synergy with pet (the life of a ranger). And doesn’t seem to do much with low precision (Carrion or Settlers amulet).

ITheNormalPerson.9275:

He’s been there since around the start of BWE3.

and yes, it’s hard to tell if it’s their attempt to show that they want to involve ranger more, or a joke about how rangers are currently being played :P

I think it’s a joke.

This is working as intended. The pet is independent from the Ranger, and is his ally. Besides, just think of what would happen to you in real life if you knock someone to the ground while he is walking his pet German Shepard?

Most of us here wish the Ranger would have more utility to keep us from getting to downstate, of course. But this is how it is. Generally speaking, you have to beat both the Ranger and his pet. Don’t think you’ve “won” the fight because you simply knocked the Ranger over. Ranger and Pet share boons, damage, conditions, etc.

Other classes buff themselves and allies with their skills, while Rangers are forced to buff the pet, half the time. The fight isn’t over until you defeat both the Ranger and his pet. As an example, I put quite a bit of thought into might stacking my pet Drake (Buttercup). If you down me when he has 25 stacks of might and you are almost dead, you are not even close to winning that fight (unless you know what you are doing). This is how it is goes with Ranger.

I don’t keep up on the lore, but I always thought E was the real master of whispers. I know we are supposed to think Riel Darkwater is but… who is to say she is telling the truth?

Yeah, I run it in almost all my builds to secure stomps, but the delay is a real pain. The 1s delay sounds short, but is many times to long to wait when trying to stomp or revive. It would be a great improvement to make it insta cast like the other signets.

The other classes have some great instant tools to guarantee stomps…

Well, I certainly wouldn’t mind having great healing and a nice high damage spike here or there. I think Druid can give us this.

Zatoichi.1049:

I also agree in its current form Druid isn’t viable, but that can all change with a lot of work…(cough)

I disagree. It is viable in it’s current form but could use a little tweaking. I think the Ranger community gave some great feedback and am looking forward to seeing what happens.

I used the following Remorseless Druid in PvP and found it extremely effective. A few well planned dazes can set up some amazing combinations with MoC. Glyph of Equality is a fantastic addition. This build has nice advantages against DD Elems and Mesmers. Daze is a particularly nasty control effect for them to deal with.

lagrangewei.8516:

this week’s can of worms might not had been a big deal, now we had an “announced” launch date, I really can’t see how anyone can finish building the game, even with the initial “reduced” feature without working themselves to death in time of the (unrealistic) launch date.

can it be done?

Ha, Ha. I love this. I build software for a living and can tell you this is our mandate. Complete an inordinate amount of coding in too short a time-frame. It’s par for the course.

How do we get it done? Lots of overtime, and a good paycheck!

Nice Thread +1! Yes I can’t wait for the HoT release. It’s going to be great.

Honestly, they did a really great job with this. The artwork is beautiful and the world is so immersive. I also love the new music. PvE is going to be a great way to relax after a long days work.

Honestly, who cares that you don’t like it? Just don’t play it. No big deal. Why deprive everyone else because you don’t think it is ready? That’s just silly.