Guild Wars 2

posthumecaver.6473:

This is a question for PVP/Balancing team.

What is the difference between Ancestral Grace (1200 range, heal, blast finisher, evade, damage) and Ride the Lightning (1200 range, damage) that one is on 12s CD and the other 40s.

Care to share the wisdom behind it?

…because Ele has lightning flash as a utility so Ele can teleport up cliffs then ride the lightning around. The mobility would be ridiculous if ride the lightning was on shorter cooldown. Ele also has four skill bars…

Druid cannot teleport at all.

I agree, Druid has been nerfed Enough! It’s time to stop!

Warhorn is actually really nice on Menders build in PvP. It was good before the patch and just got more useful. The trick is to trait it in NM. It has the following uses:

You can double blast the water field from Staff:

• St-5, St-3, weapon swap, WH-5

You can blast smoke scale smoke field with both weapon sets:

• F2, St-3, or WH-4

Or My favorite sneakiness:

• Use Glyph of Equailty to stun attacking enemy, St-3, or WH-5 the seed for light aura which gives retaliation when you are hit. (This is stronger than you might think as pet gets it as well) and most opponents love to spam attacks…

The Warhorn stacks might which makes natural convergence hit really hard. If you are on small point, Warhorn 4, Pop CA, Natural convergence, drop CA, auto attack with 1H Sw. You can even throw in a Lunar Impact before and/or after Natural Convergence if your opponent(s) decides to face tank you during it.

I still need conditions or offhand dagger to handle really good Rev’s, teefs, and chronomasters. Don’t leave home without a sharp dagger is all I can say.

I just wanted to pop in and say I am really enjoying the story, missions, and gameplay in LW3. The Storytelling is great. An epic full of mystery, adventure, and good old butt kicking. Thanks for polishing it so well.

The perfect way to relax and chill after a hard days work. Dim the lights, grab a cold drink, and explore bloodstone fen.

Darkside.7182:

I wanna ask you all if you disagree. Why you all druids keep using bristleback and smokescale if that pets are not OP?

Well, like everything HoT, HoT stuff is stronger than core… Don’t try to tell me you think any core builds are Meta PvP.

Some Druids use Lightning wyvern and I swapped out Bristleback just recently because it has been nerfed to wet noodles and Drake Chomp got buffed.

I don’t know, it’s now a really bad idea to face tank warriors, especially as a Druid. I feel like an endangered species against these. Run like hell or die!

Edit: I am talking about the good ones, not the noobs…

Well, this is a welcome change. I think it should be used with WH-4, or axe 2 for a little surprise burst. Still, it is a single condition that can be randi-cleansed…

I started a Thank You thread for this, but will post it here as well. Thank You! We have been freed from purgatory HotM!

ANet! Thank You!

This is a huge improvement, thank you for hearing us and taking the time to make this possible. Also, thank you for improving the ready up UI and adding feature for us to stay in party. This is a big boon for competitive soloers.

StickerHappy.8052:

USELESS THREAD

The biggest ranger feedback/rework thread only served 1 trait change which was enlargement.

I do not know bout you guys but I give up on the devs. So much potential of the game lost like falling sand, As fast as I pick it up, It runs away through my clutching hands.

Call me Elitist or Over Expecting, I do not care. All the changes in the notes can be done in 1 month. and yet we wait 4 months for it.

Sorry guys, we tried.

No legendary for you!

All joking aside, nice job with the thread. It seems the Devs were more concerned with too much survivability in PvP across the board. I think that was their target. Maybe next time we’ll get some of these. All is not lost!

FYI: The hunters call update was taken from one of these threads way back when. That exact feature was asked for.

Zenith.7301:

Archon.6480:

Zenith.7301:

Archon.6480:

Zenith.7301:

Archon.6480:

Zenith.7301:

I also don’t know what he means by burst, rangers have none of it outside rapidfire lol.

Max out might on you and your pet, swing away with sword, hit f2 on bb.

That’s not remotely burst. BB’s a godkitten long channel with obvious telegraph in a a meta full of reflects.

I consider burst windows to be no longer than 3 seconds and to be from skills that are hard to respond to.

BB’s channel finishes in the time it takes to complete a dodge roll. Same with smoke assualt.

Not really lol.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Smoke_Assault

2 seconds.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Spike_Barrage

2 seconds.

Where do you people pull this bullcrap from?

You are confusing cast time with channel time. What I said is true, you can completely dodge both of those skills.

These are channeled damage abilities! They don’t do the entirety of their damage until the channel is complete.

A single dodge won’t take up even half of the time this channel goes through.

You do realize that you can keep attacking while you command your pet and it acts in concurrence with you, right? You don’t have to stop attacking when you command your pet… You can even pre-cast your pet abilities while you swing at your foe.

I only ask because, if you know this, you should realize the pet cast time is irrelevant, while the channel time is very relevant. The channel for both of those skills to complete is around 1-1.5s. They are designed so a single dodge roll can completely avoid them, and likewise, deal all their damage in a short timeframe.

Eval.2371:

Guys, we got a buff!
QZ is 50 sec cd now…
Ranger is now saved. Were finally viable /s

Ooh that is interesting, that will be nice on power builds, for sure.

Crapgame.6519:

Wasn’t the Drake gutted once already? Now buffed again?

Or is that a different drake that I’m talking about from South Cove? It seemed strong, and I used it for a long while. Then poof, it goes byby.

I think they did a 33% damage reduction on the river drake f2 or something. I believe Chomp and tailswipe still hit hard, I need to test it…

I think they favor glassy boon stacking builds? Maybe Revenant and Mesmer can use those?

Zenith.7301:

Archon.6480:

Zenith.7301:

Archon.6480:

Zenith.7301:

I also don’t know what he means by burst, rangers have none of it outside rapidfire lol.

Max out might on you and your pet, swing away with sword, hit f2 on bb.

That’s not remotely burst. BB’s a godkitten long channel with obvious telegraph in a a meta full of reflects.

I consider burst windows to be no longer than 3 seconds and to be from skills that are hard to respond to.

BB’s channel finishes in the time it takes to complete a dodge roll. Same with smoke assualt.

Not really lol.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Smoke_Assault

2 seconds.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Spike_Barrage

2 seconds.

Where do you people pull this bullcrap from?

You are confusing cast time with channel time. What I said is true, you can completely dodge both of those skills.

Wondrouswall.7169:

OGDeadHead.8326:

The change to drakes are decent imho. Traited, Chomp are down to 8 seconds cd, and Tail Swipe down to 19,25 seconds cd. Drakes are still the go to pet when fighting multiple foes that are grouped together, and this patch did improve on that.

Isn’t that the odd thing, though. Drakes were already at a decent level and are still the go-to choice for a cleaving Pet.

Yeah, I was confused about this as well. I was thinking “oh, great we got nerfs and the pet buffs are horrid.” Now, I am not so sure. I am going to replace off hand dagger with warhorn and swap bristleback for Lightning Drake.

Warhorn was already very strong on Menders Druid, but with the changes to skill 4, we can now rip the armour clean off a foe. This will be great. Chomp and Tailswipe hit so very hard when the drake is fully might stacked. Drake-horn on Menders and traited in Nature Magic should be a nice build. I am excited to try this… I hope it out-weighs or matches our loss in sustainability.

The buffs to Mesmer, Guardian, and warrior scare me a little in 1v1 situations…

Zenith.7301:

Archon.6480:

Zenith.7301:

I also don’t know what he means by burst, rangers have none of it outside rapidfire lol.

Max out might on you and your pet, swing away with sword, hit f2 on bb.

That’s not remotely burst. BB’s a godkitten long channel with obvious telegraph in a a meta full of reflects.

I consider burst windows to be no longer than 3 seconds and to be from skills that are hard to respond to.

BB’s channel finishes in the time it takes to complete a dodge roll. Same with smoke assualt.

Please give us a PvP way to upgrade glorious armor in the mystic forge, to make it ascended, and then legendary using only PvP exclusive items and achievements. Mystic cores, claim tickets, shards of glory, Exclusive division cross thresholds, etc.

Also give us PvP infusions with agony resistance that are likewise attainable thorough PvP exclusive rewards.

PvP players are the most skilled in the game and have little to show for it… Not fair.

kin korn karn.9023:

Just for fun…

4 condi-reliant +1 support
-vs-
4 power-reliant +1 support

Who wins, and why?

OK, I pick Ele, Druid, Scrapper, Rev, and Teef and eventually push all 3 points. We win with mobility and healing.

Power Healing Bunker: Tempest
Power Healing Bruiser: Druid
Power Bruiser: Scrapper, DH
Power Damage: Rev, Thief
Condition Bunker: Reaper
Condition Bruiser: Warrior
Condition Damage: Mesmer

Seems balanced to me, though Druid seeds should remove 2 conditions, instead of one.

1. Revert ancient seeds nerf. It needs to remove 2 conditions. The way it stands, sustained condition output from other classes can’t be mitigated. Needs to have a better counter.

2. Shortbow is too weak damage wise. The extremely low range requires us to be on top of enemies and the attacks are simply too weak and have minimal utility. If longbow does high damage far away, Shortbow should do high(er) damage close up.

3. The weak ranged attacks that can only be used at close range don’t make sense? Maybe give the auto attack 3 parts. Something like cripple, bleed, poison. Especially if the plan is to keep the damage so low. Or have it be bleed, poison, and some finishing hit with high direct damage. Ruthless strike, 1000 base damage.

4. Skill 4 should be changed to be useful at close range, a melee attack of some sort. Face Smash or something that causes immobilize and/or confusion.

5. The weapon needs a blast finisher. Maybe have the arrow from skill 5 explode on impact.

EnderzShadow.2506:

Archon.6480:

Eh, Druid is very powerful and balanced in PvP right now. It plays the role of a bunkerish bruiser and is a master 1v1 class. Excels at both point blank skirmishing and ranged play (with staff). Has great mobility, high burst, high defense, good crowd control, and has the ability to escape combat.

Has never been on a more equal footing with other classes.

How do you 1v1 vaulting thieves or condi thieves who constantly reset fights?

What about condi mesmers? You can’t keep up with the condi they put out.

I disagree with your assessment.

Many classes can 1v1 the Druid down.

The nerfs just keep coming. Druids were in a good place the pvp tourney before last. But then pet dmg got nerfed repeatedly, the ability to condi cleanse got nerfed. I don;t know what else they did. But I played then, came back after 2 months working over the road and now…. eh, druids have been in a better place.

I didn’t say it was OP, I said it was balanced. It would be OP if no one can beat you. Condi Mesmer looses effectiveness at range, you have to back off a bit. You’ll almost always loose the capture point against a good one but can recap it, if you back off a bit. Mesmer will win ease if you face tank it. It is much stronger at close range. Just like warrior and necro.

Zenith.7301:

I also don’t know what he means by burst, rangers have none of it outside rapidfire lol.

Max out might on you and your pet, swing away with sword, hit f2 on bb.

Eh, Druid is very powerful and balanced in PvP right now. It plays the role of a bunkerish bruiser and is a master 1v1 class. Excels at both point blank skirmishing and ranged play (with staff). Has great mobility, high burst, high defense, good crowd control, and has the ability to escape combat.

Has never been on a more equal footing with other classes.

As far as PvE is concerned… You can’t really get max group damage without one. There is no substitute for Spotter, GotL, and GoEmp. The other four classes should be able to max out party might, fury, and vulnerability. Once this is done, the only way to get more DPS is to have a Druid. Druid also helps keep everyone perma 90%+ in health to maximize damage output from Scholar runes.

Ranger shark-in-the-wall revive was the best!

Nice to see this map return with little/no water.

Tragic Positive.9356:

Archon.6480:

No, no, no. I am a Ranger and I am in here. I am saying if knockback bothers you, you are most likely a noob using an inferior build and play-style. Just to be clear…

Cleave is one of the most efficient ways to handle any situation, be it PvP or PvE. Knockback at a wrong situation can potentially end up in unnecessary 4 gap closer CDs of your team.

There are times where knockbacks are a harm to you and your party. This cannot be denied. If you cannot understand this simple fact – I wouldn’t dare pointing fingers at other people.

Sure, knockbacks can potentially cause problems, but I rarely see this happening in practice. In fractals and raids big foes have break bars and can’t be knocked back so there is no issue here. Little foes die so fast to sword auto attack/off hand axe who cares, right?

Noobs care because their “hard hitting” attacks miss. Their group dps is so low they really need those “hard hitting” attacks to hit. I mean seriously, for every misplaced Mesmer knockback I have path of scars, or arrows to mop up misplaced foe in fractions of a second.

These trolls complaining about the skill has nothing to do with PvE.

Warlord.9074:

every ranger in here is like other classes do it too so you can’t blame rangers for doing it lol. How many melee classes do you think knock back enemys they are trying to cleave. That argument is nonsense.

No, no, no. I am a Ranger and I am in here. I am saying if knockback bothers you, you are most likely a noob using an inferior build and play-style. Just to be clear…

Well, you need to purchase HoT as a prerequisite. Once that is done you need to equip the Druid trait line in your hero panel. If you do that you can access Celestial Avatar by using the F5 profession skill when you have charged enough CA by healing allies and damaging enemies.

If you purchased HoT and don’t see the Druid traitline, your game is corrupted and you should open a ticket with ANET. Good Luck!

Raine.1394:

I love the profession. I have a max level Ranger of each race and love playing them. But, I hate seeing a Ranger in any group I find myself in. Why? Because I can count on whenever using a hard hitting ability that depends on a target being there for it, the target will surely be removed by a Ranger. If there are multiple Rangers I can depend on them to successively move targets around the battle field. I might as well just auto-attack.

What about Point Blank Shot is so difficult to understand? It’s great when soloing and situationally in group play, but, generally, it should never be used in group play. Why do Rangers use it in their rotation. It’s something that’s annoying every time I play. I’d almost be willing to give it up personally because it seems it’s impossible for people to use properly and regularly has a detrimental effect on others. I guess it might be a good troll ability.

If you are worried about this, you need to up your game. Sorry, but Ranger has the lowest personal DPS in the game and can cut through PvE mobs like a hot knife through butter. If you are having trouble killing PvE trash because of LB knockbacks your build is too defensive. Try maxing your damage gear and accessories (max sinister, or berserker) and you wont have these issues anymore. Also, save your gap closers for the appropriate time.

It’s not the Ranger’s fault you are using a weak build/playstyle.

OriOri.8724:

I main mesmer and earlier today I was absolutely destroyed by a druid in my home BL. By the time I noticed him I didn’t even have time to get up a block before the attack hit. And I don’t know what attack it was, but it knocked me back off the capture point, stunned me, and immobilized me all at the same time. Whole fight took less than 2 seconds after that. Since it was my home BL, the only stunbreak I was carrying was blink which was on cooldown, I couldn’t even use a skill before I was wiped.

I don’t have a problem dying, but godkitten that happened so fast! I’ve fought tons of rangers that weren’t a problem. But what can I do to be more prepared and actually put up a fight towards druids? Or was this guy running some cheese build and I wouldn’t have had much of a chance anyway?

I don’t know much about WvW, but would suggest you have at least 2 stun breaks on hand, especially if you use one to travel. Anything can 100-0 you if you don’t have stun breaks in your build. Still, I think you got hit from behind with hilt bash or SB 5. That’s pretty much GG if you don’t have a stun-break and Ranger is full glass.

What keeps me from watching PvP on twitch?: Twitch, I hate it.

Please change to YouTube.

Also, the camera flops around too much. “Wait, what just happened!? Go back to Chaith man!”

Caed and Nyx are very good. I think it was more about their extreme skill and less about your teammates lack thereof.

There are not many good players queuing at legendary level so you can get teamed with not the best players. The matchmaking is odd at legendary anyhow.

I got put against one of my friends who was x4 legendary when I was t7 Diamond. So yeah, maybe not fair. (It was a good game, I think we lost 400ish points)

….because not Ranger or Mesmer! Amirite!? I am right.

I mean c’mon, S1 Ranger and Mesmer were more fun to fight. At least they could kill you. This thing just floats around, soaks up damage, and hits you in the head with lightning bolts over…and over….and over again.

Booooring.

I use it all the time in PvP, but I don’t think anyone else does. I’ve never seen another Druid use it!

It’s probably a little weak. I equip it when the enemy team does not have more than 1 rev and thief. If you use it in the meta bunker build you can also trait it in NM traitline. If the enemy has a necro, this is a bit risky but works well.

I use it to might stack pet and self and to get regen on allies to build AF fast. You can blast finish smokescale smoke and staff 5 water wall.

Skill 4 is interesting in that it hits several times over several seconds. It’s kind of like unloading with LB 2. If you time it with Rampage as One you can fully might stack your pet. Also, it hits over time so you can use it and instantly start cleaving with sword. The birds and your swings will be landing on foe at the same time. It adds nicely to damage spike,

Sooloo.1364:

Every single one of you just keep repeating that he is the problem, that he is the whole team. The other 4 are just decoration, he and his team are always up against 5 fully coordinated people and he himself needs to carry every single time because the other 4 people don’t matter. Am I reading this right?

No, you are not reading me right at all. I am saying Ithilwin’s MMR is tanked and she has accurately deduced that the system is stacking her on a weak team. The way to beat the system is to queue with some friends. This is equivalent to using one’s knowledge to overcome the system. I need to pay it forward anyway. FLIMPY rescued me from a 30 game loss streak last season Or did I rescue FLIMPY? I think we rescued each other.

Being good at GW is also about being smart, and making changes when necessary. Ithilwin likes to solo queue, I get that. To beat the system that will have to change for a while.

@Ithilwin

You are not trying hard enough. I seriously mean that.

You have used your intelligence to accurately understand enough of how the matchmaking system works to beat it, but you refuse to change yourself to overcome the system. Yes, if you are giving a presentation to hundreds of people you need to wear a suit. It’s just how it goes.

Several extremely skilled players have offered to queue with you and I’ll do the same. You just need to bite the carrot to achieve your goal. My only rule is no raging allowed, no matter what happens. My f2p account has an amber LB ranger who is itching to put arrows in a few opponents and would love to queue with an ele.

GW has always had a mental component to winning. If I wanted a game that was purely coordination based, I wouldn’t play GW. Half the fight is using your head. Use yours.

Eh, why continue in legendary when they just reset you every couple months. They should just start everyone where they left off last season or subtract one level. Legendary x2 goes to Legendary x1, Diamond to Ruby, etc.

It gets boring, grindy, and purgatory-esque to keep pushing if progress gets wiped out all the time…

Ellie.5913:

“Skill” has nothing to do with pvp in gw2 and most likely never will, whoever has the best premade wins or whoever has the best teammates thanks to high mmr wins, the rest are just here to be farming material for everyone else to use to get to the top. So if you really really REALLY want the wings just get into a good premade team some how, that’s about the only way you can win these days especially if your mmr is destroyed to the point that you get bots as teammates sometimes, which I have right before I quit ranked pvp.

You contradict yourself by saying: “skill has nothing to do with PvP in gw2,”
and: “if your mmr is destroyed to the point that you get bots as teammates” in the same paragraph.

If not skill, what is the difference between you and a “bot” teammate?

Ithilwen.1529:

I stand by my point: The fact is that I can go from a 20% win rate to winning 7 pips and a 4 win win streak simply by duo’ing and therebye being on the favored team.

That illustrates very clearly that the matchmaking is pre determining wins. Ergo, the current season does not reflect player skills.

It can’t, if I can show such a night and day difference in such a short time.

I disagree, there is a huge difference in skill level between, Diamond/Legendary and Amber. I can destroy players in Amber with my f2p longbow ranger. That would never work against diamond or legendary league.

It’s fair to say matchmaking is clearly unfair at times, but it does separate players by skill. Lettuce is a very good player and was able to coordinate well with you and your allies. Nothing more. This just shows what we all know, a good player can make a difference. Yes, he is good so will get teamed up with players of like skill level (if there are any in sapphire) which makes his time easier.

That doesn’t mean his skill is of no consequence.

Answer: No, conditions are not too powerful. Condition barf, on the other hand, is too powerful—for how easy it is to pull off—and annoying… And rather brain dead.

*Condition Barf: Apply multiple (5-9) conditions within a second.

**There is not enough condi removal to handle this.

DH is a bit weak right now, in honesty. I think most DH players would agree to add a cast time to traps IF its vitality, damage, utility, and general survivability were improved.

^made me laugh out loud. My wife is looking at me funny, now…

Just report them and use the match as a practice session. I usually try to practice evasion and escapes in these matches. Don’t get angry at them, it’s like putting gasoline on the fire. Just report and ignore.

You can threaten to report them for match manipulation, then record them making fun of you. Then email ANet, they will get a partial ban. All communications are saved and backed up so they can see what everyone has said in chat.

OP, Congratulations, this is the worst idea I’ve ever seen posted in these forums.

Is it a mistake when all 5 of their players are standing on your home?

paShadoWn.5723:

In 3 3/4 downed “person” will be mauled to death with attacks not to mention stomped lol.

Ha ha, if you think that is bad look at the revive on Druid elite spirit. They’ll, have respawned before it activates.

The problem with celestial was that it was the best amulet and made it so you couldn’t really use other amulets. Ya know, no build diversity!

Now that celestial is gone, I have way more options on Druid. I can run Menders and… and… um, yes Menders and, ah, ah, hm. Bugger, there is still only one amulet to use.

One of the smaller karka, they are so cute and just about the right strength.
Wind Rider, they look cool.

BunjiKugashira.9754:

Don’t you think the rabbit pet would be a little bit too over powered?

Some of the suggestions would make nice minipets though. That way everyone can get one and not only the rangers. That gave me a new idea:

Ingame earnable minipets! You find a beetle, tame it somehow and get a new minipet.

Ha ha, the rabbit should have the same skills as the fractal one

I really think the other pets F2 abilities need to be turned into something useful. Each one should have something that make other players have a bad day. Think about it:

Smokescale = Oh my gosh nasty pet jumped me!
Bristleback = Dodge the rapid fire spike barrage!

These pets are neat because the opponents need to learn their mechanics. The other pets can mostly be ignored. Let’s change that:

Fern Hound = 600 Range: Resistance, Regen 5s
Wolf = 600 Range : Fear, Cripple 3s base
Drakehound = Immobolize, Slow 3s base
Ice Wolf = Chill, Weakness, 6s base
Triple leap range so they can connect with it. This will be the thing that makes them stand out. When they leap at you.

Black Moa = 600 Range AoE Boon Corruption (2 boons)
White Moa = 600 Range AoE Boon Removal (2 boon)
Pink Moa = 600 Range Apply 2 Random Boons
Blue Moa = 600 Range Convert 2 Conditions into Boons
Red Moa = 600 Range Copy 2 boons to Allies

Birds should give bird specific boon and swiftness on quickening screech.

Pigs should be changed to always forage the same item and it should be like swoop, on auto. The charge should be made the f2 active attack and it should be instant.
Boar = bones
Warthog = skulls
Siamoth = feathers
Pig = Ectoplasm

All drake attacks should be balls that bounce, and they should turn and track like Bristleback.

River Drake = lightning balls
Ice Drake = freezing orbs
Reef Drake = confusing orbs
Marsh Drake = poison orbs
Salamander Drake = burning orbs

Bears should create combo fields.

Spiders should each attack with a specific condition.

Cats should all move 25% faster and have increased leap distance. These are the pets that will stick to you like glue.