Guild Wars 2

I suspect rabid SotF builds will be on a more even playing field with the upcoming changes. We deal damage through condition and precision based conditions for the most part. The mild nerf to might won’t touch us and the addition of torment sigils (precision based AoE condition) will help us, especially if you already use warhorn for bleed bombing.

Justin ODell.9517:

Try to look at it from the eyes of a beginner guys.

The NPCs award points, and give you a buff. Who wouldn’t want that?

It takes a higher level of understanding of the both the map and conquest mechanics to get that securing mid is important.

How would you guys suggest we go about teaching this to players?

Could we get a little tutorial window to pop up at the beginning of each match with a basic strategy and mechanics explanation for the map. It might seem obvious but a reminder to the effect of: “A captured position gains your team 1pt per second so you will quickly fall behind when the opposing team holds more points than you!”

I often find newer players chasing objectives or that annoying peck-and-run-like-bolt warrior around the map for a 5pt kill for 45 seconds, if you get the idea. Simply stating the obvious about the benefits of holding points would be helpful.

Hm. I think getting mid is more important in the beginning. The attribute point bonus might help win the fight for mid, if the beasty can be killed fast and the team compositions are right… I guess? I generally think it is too risky at start of match.

If you take beast at wrong time, it can mean a loss for your team, for sure. The best time to kill beastie is when when you know enemy can’t get to it, and you are not needed on point and are out of position close to beastie. It happens from time to time.

I think the best way to buff pets is with spotter and spirits. Boon sharing (3 in nature magic) seems to work well along with the traits in beastmastery. The other traits don’t appear to do anything.

I don’t mind getting placed against premades. I However, do not like being told I need to score 200 points to avoid getting -1 on the leaderboard. That’s just not fair. I enjoy playing solo or in small 2-3 man groups and don’t mind facing 4-5 man premades, but don’t like loosing rank because of it. It’s like rolling dice to see if you get leaderboard points. Like using mystic toilet to get a precursor. If you are going to stack odds against me, don’t also remove points. That’s mean!

Ha, ha. That was great.

Hm. I think you exaggerated a little. I play PvP because I like the challenge of trying to find builds to break the meta, whatever it might be. As the meta shifts, I try to shift to counter it. It’s not always easy, and I am not sure how well I do at it. But that’s what I do. I recommend trying the same.

The current meta is very hard to break because boom removal is so limited (especially on ranger class). Still, I think there are ways to thwart it, and am waiting, and hoping they will restore balance by giving more/better boon removal sigils, runes, and skills. Boons have always been “protected” for some reason. I don’t know why they removed the ability to target allies directly with skills and replaced it with the ability to passively buff allies with largely unremovable buffs. I still think it is a work in progress, and is getting better. It is still fun for me so that is why I PvP.

I dislike sore winners and sore losers along with everyone that trashes people for no reason. The modern fool thinks freedom of speech to say anything is good without realizing the dire consequences of inappropriate speech. The tongue carries death. Poorly spoken words have been responsible for so much pain and death throughout history. So be nicer folks!

Yeah, it would be nice to have some idea of the skill/rank of those you are playing with or against. It might prevent complete beginners from raging against experienced players when they mess up or don’t understand they are facing really skilled opponents.

As an example: I was placed in a sPvP match against TCG earlier in the Beta. When it started to go badly, one of our team started raging against us. Had no idea who we were facing. At the end of the match, I told him it was TCG we were facing, and he shoots back something like “I know, that’s no reason to play badly though.” Really? A bunch of scrubs with a hodgepodge of skills, classes and no communication should not get slaughtered in this scenario.

The disappointment could be avoided with more transparency.

Cynz.9437:

ah had something else in mind lol

It’s what computer scientists do: take ordinary words and turn them into something else! Think you know what the words: Spring, Hibernate, Java, and Struts mean? Ha, ha, ha. Bet you don’t!!!

shadowpass.4236:

I’m really not a big fan of longbow/sb at all.

But if you really wanted to, you could try something like this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQJATVjEq0yaBL2sQ1aABhadAMvZd7aIEaBWJQBraA-TZBBwAAeCAaOEAF3fAcZAIXAAA

At a minimum you will anger those you kill with it. :-)

In addition to reflects, those builds also carry retaliation and other skills that can mess up rapid ranged attacks in a variety of ways. Things like auras (fire) and skills that can stun you on hit. Longbow is ok to use, and the damage on full zerker spec can eat through anything, but really good players will get on top of you or mitigate your attack long enough for an ally to get on you.

The combination of three or four of the meta class/builds together shut down most ranger ranged attacks, including SB, because of the inordinate amount of condi cleanses (with shouts, etc) and boons. I’m not saying it is impossible to Burst these guys down, but I find going for the long drawn out fight more effective with this current meta.

If the meta switches out of celestial might stacking bunker builds, this might change. Look at the warrior shoutbow build, guardian altruistic healing builds, and d/f elem builds. These all deal out comparatively small amounts of damage, but have great utility and compliment each other nicely. Even if you knock one of these down with a burst you’ll never get the stomp in. Allies will be reviving in a second and have tons of abilities to deny stomping.

All this aside, LB does work well in most situations and you can master positioning and such to be very effective. The zerker builds are fine, but I think LB is best for its utility in more bunkerish style builds like those in the ranger-turret engie thread.

+1 love these builds.

The longbow one is sweet. I’ve been inspired and ended up with this variant. It lacks the cc potential of the longbow build, but has fully stacked might on pets and self for most encounters. Seems much stronger than turret, and d/d elem in 1v1s, and I’m not even that good with dagger yet. You can swap either pet for fire or lightning drake when facing turrets. I am not sure which is better.

I like the idea of blocking and giving nicknames. :-) Society is full of people who would run down a child in a wheelchair, get outta their car, then yell at the kid as he crawls back to his broken wheelchair—for scratching his Lexus’ bumper. The greatest deception in life is that most people are decent.

Justin ODell.9517:

laokoko.7403:

Is it in game already? Or it havn’t be patched in yet.

In game, but currently disabled.

Morwath.9817:

-3 on leaderboard, enjoy
even if you get 1 sec DC due to GW2 client badness

It’s -1 to -3 depending on your odds of victory.

Morwath.9817:

the best way to avoid ‘build wars’ would be to hide display whos in enemy team before it starts, so you could just adjust your own setup by picking synergies in your team and counter class stacking. If you hide whos in enemy team, people won’t be able to pick ‘counters’ and ‘build wars’ won’t happen.

I really like this idea, passing it along to the team.

+1 this is a great idea! It will also give solos a better shot against premades. Team composition is so important.

Zelulose.8695:

I’ve got a question. What is the strategy verses a five man turret engi team,…. or make that four with one venom share thief. (Thief can share venom’s to turrets or treb).

That’s easy! You just walk away from the turrets and avoid all 3 points because turret engie’s are meant to be OP on point. L2P noob!! :-)

All joking aside, the more difficult matchup is when there are two, one camping home and another on mid with 3 others. They have abysmal condition removal, but hambow, celestial elem, and medi guard eat conditions like candy so you’ll be screwed if the have, ahem, one of the other meta builds with them.

Wahoo Die Frands!

Amir.1570:

Easy answer, it’s because Ranger is most easy to play braindead class in the game. There’s nothing hard about spamming evades while having protection on dodge and then spam your attacks until your enemy runs out of dodges.

Braindead easy class, that’s why people hate it. If Ranger was as hard to play as Naga Siren macro managing then no one would be hating on this braindead class.

I really don’t think this is true. I find all flavors of ranger (beastmaster, Zerkbow, valk, celestial, rabid, etc) to be extremely difficult to play. 1 mistake and you and/or your allies are toast.

Ranger group support skills are so limited, we need to make them all count. Our meta opponents have seemingly unlimited health pools (hambow, shoutbow, celestial elem, celestial engie) or devastating spike damage (shatter mesmers, thief meta) and superb utility. Look at all the condition removal, healing, stunning, etc these meta builds bring to the field.

A really good ranger can burst opponents down quickly with either conditions or raw power, but the loss in utility is, most times, not worth the benefit. This may cause some animosity in tPvP from time to time. Most of the hate is unrelated to the game and just related to the character of the players who are filled with rage. Has nothing to do with ranger class, or guild wars. This is a problem with society and the heart of man, child, or woman.

Einlanzer.1627:

Mechanically it seems to be pretty well balanced, but I find it very annoying how rapidly the shots fire – both the sound effect and the visual are kind of grating. It’s also just inappropriate – nobody in their right mind would attempt to fire a bow that quickly. You’d sacrifice all control and precision in the process.

I would suggest slowing it down to where it’s only slightly faster than the Longbow’s autoattack and increasing the attack power and bleed duration to compensate.

It’s actually a lost art, for the most part. Ancient archers used a technique where they would draw 3-5 arrows at a time and fire them in quick succession, 1 after another at about the same speed as the SB auto. I think the current world champion has some videos. Quite amazing. LB autoattack? Well, haha…. That puts a machine gun to shame.

McWolfy.5924:

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

Archon.6480:

GS is very effective against them. Keep swinging when they stealth. I think I just got cursed out by a thief for that. Something like “kitten your kitten Arie!”

No it is not. GS is not even viable in ranked pvp. Ever player with a bit of brain can dodge maul. Then you’re useless untill it comes off cd again or swap weaps. I would not recoment GS for any reason. S/A or even S/D is far superior.

Stun or go invisible, fear, root, push to the wall etc… Btw you are right. I think maul is the best telegraphated skill in this game

Maul is easily dodged when you spam it.

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

Archon.6480:

GS is very effective against them. Keep swinging when they stealth. I think I just got cursed out by a thief for that. Something like “kitten your kitten Arie!”

No it is not. GS is not even viable in ranked pvp. Ever player with a bit of brain can dodge maul. Then you’re useless untill it comes off cd again or swap weaps. I would not recoment GS for any reason. S/A or even S/D is far superior.

No that’s clueless. 3 and double tap 4 does more than enough damage against thief. s/d and s/a work fine.

In PVE, ranger is meant to be played extremely aggressive. You are meant to charge your opponent ruthlessly. You will be constantly charging, dodging, pet swapping, weapon swapping, and repositioning yourself. If you are looking for passive play, it might not be the best choice as it takes a massive damage nerf if you play it casual. Love the class, myself. :-)

I think your condition damage is a little low for what you are trying to do. Maybe that is what is missing. I use something like this when I feel I am getting bored with meta. I think you base condition damage should be around 1,900.

Fight in the stack and blast/leap finish your fire field. Use birds to add 10 stacks of bleeding and release splitblade at PB range. I actually use sinister trinkets but the editor is not up to date. Enjoy!

GS is very effective against them. Keep swinging when they stealth. I think I just got cursed out by a thief for that. Something like “kitten your kitten Arie!”

No, no, you got it all wrong! The engie elite should drop a d/d elem which can zip around on the point spamming AoE for 60s. The Elem elite could drop an Asuran engineer on point which can run in circles dropping turrets for 60s! It would be swell!

Rednik.3809:

No, we need to sacrifice enjoyable game experience of 95% players to pat 5% of those who play in teams. Because esports.

The best part is they mix complete beginners into the solo queue against the teams. I think it is like you said, to boost exports ego. Why not only put level 80’s against premade teams, if you feel this is worthwhile. They’ll still have a huge communication advantage…

+1 I totally agree with this!

I find it amusing that you think win percentage has something to do with skill. ANet is playing with your ego. I almost exclusively run solo and can tell you it stacks the premades against beginners half the time. A premade full of Legendary champions stomping the snot out of a pug of mixed gladiator rank beginners is meaningless. They should only put premades against legendary champ level solo players. I can see the tears now. Yay, you scored 500-47 against someone who just walked through the portal. You so good! You should be on top of the leaderboard for hosing beginners.

ItIsFinished.9462:

+1

I approve of all these changes! ^

Especially Dust Trap, I want a smoke field!

This would be Christmas indeed! I approve as well. Can’t overstate the number of times a weapon swap would have saved my kitten!

No need to change SB, just equip a longbow in your condition build. It works better against elementalalists and cheesigineers. At least in the current meta.

All joking aside, it could use more condition output/utility. Skill 4 is rather uninteresting in current state. It should set opponent on fire or something.

Terkov.4138:

Gotejjeken.1267:

PBS needs to be changed to knockdown, not knockback.

No, it doesn’t.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RW1TL98xnac

Yep you nailed it. This is the real reason all these QQers hate it. They don’t like getting killed by it. The game is so much more enjoyable when you don’t need to think about your environment and can just run up to every foe and mash all you buttons.

DaShi.1368:

If people have been using PBS to get it nerfed, then they’ve been trying since release. The poor use of PBS is not a new phenomenon.

Also, PBS does have a very short cooldown for its range than other knockbacks. The other knockbacks that have such a short cooldown also have some sort of drawback that makes them less appealing to spam. Overcharge shot has a much closer range and knocks the user back. Rifle Butt needs to be on top of the opponent to work, which is no place a rifle warrior should be to begin with. In their case, it makes sense to get opponents out of melee range. Rangers hit PBS from range when it is completely unhelpful for anyone.

I’ll agree, PBS is the best skill in the game. Because it is way too strong of a skill with no drawbacks. What’s worse is that it is so rarely needed that it’s more of a troll skill than anything else.

Please keep in mind your PvE woes mean nothing to those of us who enjoy playing against other players. Knockback is extremely useful in WvW and PvP. Any enemy worth stacking in PvE has defiance, and trash mobs…well….die so easily you couldn’t possibly be complaining about THAT! Come on!

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

Zorby.8236:

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

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

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

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

Ha, ha +1. :-)

All nonsense aside, thanks for sharing this build, it looks fun. And it has a really high damage output with all that might.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

@ Archon.6480
hmm a 5 seconds cooldown does seems better. but don’t you think prioritizing certain boons could be better?

Prioritizing boons would be better for me against—ahem, celestials—but would make it so they can’t “cover” the boons they want to keep with less important ones. I like the skill required to cover conditions, and think good players should have the option to do this for boons. What do you think?

If they made sigil of nullification a 5 second cooldown and added sizer’s weapon swap boon corruption sigil…I think we would be in good shape to counter builds that rely too heavily on might/boon stacking.

I am more interested in how to squeeze out 200 points against a skilled premade team. They almost always seem to wipe pug and keep it under 80 points. It’s a guaranteed -1 point each time your MMR gets high enough to have you slotted for death.

SheiyeSai.6037:

Ranger hate stems from people who frequently get rekt in pvp by rangers, so their only line of attack is to throw around claims of “most rangers = noobs” which is clearly a generalisation, and one that’s almost as dumb as “most black people = criminals”

I suspect this is true. I remember the hate started close to launch when the SB was destroying everyone in PvP with very fast arrows.

I think it should be left as is and the internal cooldown should be changed to 5s. It’s worthless in the current state because boons are so easily reapplied by the kind of builds we would use this against.

I suspect it would be too strong, but would love to have this, as the game needs more combo field opportunities. This might give us the edge we need against celestial d/d elementalists. I am pretty sure this change would put us on par with them.

Pros:

• Hard to use.
• Since it is very hard to use, its strongest builds are extremely strong.
• Community thinks ranger is weak so will run to you, like deer running to hunter.

Cons:

• Class severely punishes new players.
• Large Anti-Ranger, communist negativity (see LB knockback threads)
• Pets move a tad to slow, so require more attention than we would like to give them.

Make sure not to swap professions/characters. I am pretty sure that results in point loss in the new system. Nice run btw!

Aha! Good to know, thanks! I play a lot of PvP but never noticed dishonor. How do you see it?

Just curious… Is it cheating to switch characters right after map has been selected, but before the match officially starts, In ranked PvP?

Kilger.5490:

Here’s my solution, I’ve brought it up before:

If someone has the mob immobolized (fairly common in a large group) all knock back effects instead do a knockdown only.

-This benefits everyone. Even rangers will no longer have people knocked out of entangle.. or even by themselves seen it… I may have even done it myself
-It is also intuitive “if someone is tied down why can you push them?”
-Results are most of the positive (enemy stunned) without the negative (removing from aoe) of a push back. If an enemy is immob. already the range increase is not as critical.
- Not just anti-ranger profiling, all push backs (and pulls for that matter) are affected

Now you can blame the person complaining for not putting down an immobilize!

No way! One of my favorite ways to kill Asuran engineers in sky hammer is to hit them with grasping vines, walk up to them, and BAM. Point blank shot to the face. They bounce right over the railing like a basket ball. Ha ha ha <evil grin>

The new matchmaking tries to keep you at a 50% win/loss ratio so will sometimes stack you against a premade or hopelessly outmatch your team (the kind where your allies are sporting dungeon master titles—and your opponents are all legendary champs). So expect to loose about half the time, even if you are amazing.

However, do your best to squeeze out as many points as you can. I got stacked against a top tier premade the other day and managed to squeeze out 35pts. Didn’t hurt rating at all. Just do your best when stacked against legendary teams. It’s a great way to practice against pros without worrying about getting penalized. Set your goal to be highest score bearer on your team or try to get 100 pts. Don’t get discouraged and give up…. Scoring 0 might hurt your rating and MMR.

Justin ODell.9517:

MarkPhilips.5169:

I’m ready to bet that in the final top100 there will be people with a really bad win ratio and a huge amount of matches played.

I don’t think this will happen, but if it does happen we can change the table so losing always takes away points. It’s only the narrow losses, or going up against a higher MMR and doing OK, that will let you stay neutral after a loss.

I think it is very important that narrow losses on evenly matched teams should not take away points. These are by far the most exciting matches where everyone (winners and losers) walk away with positive attitude, GGs flying everywhere. This will also encourage people to fight hard, even when things start to go south, to try to squeeze out a narrow loss. Great idea!

Ok, I hope this is not cheating, but I noticed early on the spinal blades were the cheapest ascended back item and you get to select the stats you want so I purchased a bunch of recipes. I farm blade shards by parking extra characters at the end of the jump puzzle and just log in and farm them once a day. Every once in a while the chest will drop 15.
Working on my 3rd spinal blade set now. I Hope this method will work for you.

Hey Sol, thanks for the build! I was looking for something like this. I think you should try fear wolf and river drake. Open with Wolf and swap to drake after you drop healing spring. He’ll open with blast finisher right next to you. He also has a unusual ability to land his attacks. Thanks again!

WilnerGW.3275:

Hey guys;

What you guys think are the power rangers(LB + GS or Sword/Focus) atm? I mean, after the buff to our LB, do u guys think its viable for SPVP? What are the harder profissions/builds for you guys to kill as a power ranger?

Im play a LB/GS Ranger 6/6/2/0/0 all berserker. Im enjoying it and it fees we have a good damage now. What you guys think?

Thx

Good questions. I think the 6/6/x/x/x style builds have a great spike and enough damage to power down any other build, assuming opposing players are relatively new and don’t know how to counter you. However, as the skill level of your opponents increase, you will find that they know how to mitigate most of your your spike, and will give you a tough fight. On the extreme end your opponents will identify your weakness and completely exploit your build.

The toughest ranger opponents run some form of a condi bunkerish survival build. Rabid, celestial, carrion, Sword, dagger, SB, axes. The toughest LB build is some form of celestial, I think. I’ve seen ItIsFinished use both so you can ask him nicely to share. I run a rabid bleed bomber because it exploits most of the current Meta including spikey LB builds.

High level players will identify and press glassy builds in a hard way and will have amazing dodging, blocking, and healing. You won’t be able to keep them off you long enough to kill. They will have a spike that can drop a zerker in 3 or 4s and much better survival. That being said, there is still a sizable group of ranked pvp players that can’t counter LB zerk at all. You’ll crush them, no problem.

This again? The skills are based around competitive play and will not be balanced so you can grind loot with less thought. You are posting on the ranger forum, so most of us are veterans who don’t consider PvE woes to be meaningful. We will never agree that diminishing or removing Knockback is a good idea.

Explain how it is no good or problematic in ranked PvP and we can have a discussion.

Um, yeah!? Faolain was right so kill all those filthy horses! Turn them beasts into burger meat!

tym.3791:

Thank you for you input fluffball. I am starting to think maybe it is time to change professions. I do have a 80 warrior that I have not had out in a very long time. Think I will dust him off, and see if I can solo a camp by myself. Seems like that may be the best way to see what works and what dosent for my play style.

Before you do that, give cavalier/Valkyrie stats a go with GS and intelligence sigil. I find this sort of build very effective and fun to play in Zerg. Something like 26600.

For PvP anything is plausible in the right build. Works well on tankier point defense pet builds like Prysin runs. The regen sort. You can even run both sword/axe and GS.