Guild Wars 2

Melandru on the armor to reduce condition effects 25%. 1 second becomes .75 which is faster than a slow persons reaction time to hit a cleanse anyways. Spam dodge instead.

Play tanky aka 3000 defense.

If facing the right way KB, Daze block off a weapon. Evade if able.

Drop my own immobilize before dodging away(muddy terrain)

Accept that you don’t always survive.

My problem with the raven/Bird f2’s is their horrible range. The autoattack range is great good reliable damage. F2 range means it’s only really reliable on a dead stick in PvP WvW. Now there are lots of dead sticks but when you absolutely need that pets damage against a good opponent you won’t be landing it reliably at all unless you combo with an immobilizing ability.

PvE not a factor. So it’s a trade off great auto attack reliability with 300 range with worse f2 reliability. Or go with say a snow leopard, Lynx that is the opposite. the stability of auto damage is more valuable as damage overall.

Devourer and Spider pets depending if your power or condition help bypass some of your current problems.

As far as I can tell PET attacks largely mirror PvE enemies as I exploit my understanding of pet limatations on them constantly. If my observation is correct making attacks instant would change PvE game balance. Therefore I’ld recomend slightly raising the range of ranger pet attacks instead.

completely get where you are coming from.

Argo.7541:

I dont suggest that many improvements i read here. anyway thx getting more content for my kitten dreams ;D

But this my statement of expectation:
“Many signets, a shout or two, and spirits are all a bit lackluster. That is the first place to expect improvements."

What signets/shouts specific and what changes or improvement to expect

speculations?

As a matter of lack of diversity we all pretty much use warhorn offhand for the buffs swiftness might fury. However you do your stats it’s either speed + extra DPS in a tanky build or maximizing DPS/movement in a DPS build. I always find this need horribly limiting in build weapon choices.

So I expect other ways to get those buffs reliably on a 30 second CD timeframe. Shouts and signets being the logical place to accomplish this enabling offhand weapon diversity.

Spirits I think in beta they learned very well how dangerous fast self buffing could become. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a nullification type spirit added as well as changes that make them more survivable predictable. Maybe a limited nullification type. This would also move towards countering the prevalence of bunker builds which rely so heavily on boons and lack of ways to remove them. It doesn’t force magnify with oyur numbers but inversely on enemies.

I could see spirits adding endurance regen enhancement within their aoe effect. It’s a benefit capped by maximum pool potential (hard to overpower as a result).

I think we could see the spirits GTAO activated become added effects on our and our pets attack. So enabling a snare on weapon/pet attacks blind on the same etc…. Essentially an added buff of limited duration to the effect…

I could see adding combo field options off spirit actives. Perhaps a teleport back to a spirit, a blast finisher on a spirit active etc….(Lots of options for spirits really)

Signets I see CD lowering possible boon benefits plus existing effects.

Superior runes of infiltration at sub 10% health.

Combo field Smoke and a leap finisher. We can’t generate our own smoke field except underwater off the jellyfish,however. Fighting by an engineer thief could use their fields – smoke bomb, black powder etc.. .

The 33% regen boost works well with healing spring if you stay in the water field the entire duration.

The weapon best suited to doing that is the greatsword.

Protection buff on 20%+ health hit doesn’t really make sense to me in the vitality tree until I look at the lack of vitality on +heal gear.

Evading to remove poison blind is theoretically a good skill in a anti thief heal build relying on regen to extend health pool.

the minor traits are helpful as they share boons increase damage with boons grant regen. Regen itself really requires max heal to get you to the 300 a neighborhood section to play around with however.

So I think your impression of a possibly in a heavy heal build is a decent opinion.

Generally to go 30 I think it’s a spirit build getting 15-20 in it happens depending on build utility use, HP need and gear choices.

Well guard could count as node turning defense and turn a node. That would be a big PvP improvement. Leave a high toughness pet in the center run back at speed when it starts taking damage.

Use one of the built in snipers nests to do your ranged damage while your pet prevents node flipping.

Cause them to intercept damage on a percentage basis vs an all or nothing. option.

One could improve guard.

From what Jon Peters said, it sounds like the fixes are ready-to-go, but were withheld for outstanding reasons. I’d be surprised if the patch was more than a week or 2 away.

Actually from what he said, it sounds “some” planned changes are near ready. Held back due to risk (probably larger changes)

He gives us an idea we’ll see these changes.

Utilities “first” weapon pacing…. second. Or in his words

“Many signets, a shout or two, and spirits are all a bit lackluster. That is the first place to expect improvements.

Second is trying to improve the feel/ pacing on some weapons."

Just to be more precise don’t expect evrything at once. Utilities top priority flowing down to weapons. And he certainly doesn’t promise all utility fixes at once this could be multiple patches over time…. Probably will be as that’s a way to minimize risk.

Some changes in the utility area are close and high risk is what I “know” from his comments. And that they have a workplan and have admitted problems I agree with as needing fixing. Timeline is much less certain overall.

A f2 ability if on a pet. Can’t seem to get my drake to get the job done.

I was thinking Axe 4(Power offhand), Torch 4(A condition offhand) GS(4) Keeping existing functions, or as part of the spirit improvements secondary effects. Ohhh Knockback plus blast finiher ……. drools…

Mainly a blast finisher.

Healing stat changes.
-More benefit to regeneration from +healing

Troll Ungeuent to get benefit of 33% regeneration duration increase.

Regeneration tics to get a chance to proc on heal traits (30 ish)…

A blast finisher……

All these fields and no blast finisher…

Dante Dragonhand.2538:

I personally loved the looks of this trait but rarely used it. Looks like it could be great.

That was my feeling but when I built strong health I had low armor making the extra benefit still a 1 second elimination to burst classes. (Pvp not really a PvE factor)

When I had lower health I already built in massive toughness – incremental difference felt small again. Damage that bypasses toughness was a priority.

I end up preferring condition removal but that’s because I stay in radius of my pet and free a utility slot for a better stun break by doing so.

You might want tio consider how things relate to other items in game.

Shouts –
Long CD’s make condition removal on shout armor stones worthless
Passive benefits pretty to very weak
Overall benefit very low when combining passive to active potential and trait points to get active benefit for the range.
positioning ones lack any tactical or strategic advantage

For example consider the condition removal signet. Active benefit addition? anyone anyone?

Spirit buff is already low I’ve tested percentage uptime. Making them weaker unhelpful in the extreme. Making them killable signets is not the answer.

Longbow 1 is the first skill I thought of on weapon pacing…. It feels horrible in use and measures horrible in performance for various reasons including auto attack failure at range, hit rate etc….

Sword pacing – the 1 autoattack treadmill of unable to do anything.

Those seem to me the most likely weapon pacing issues to be addressed.

Shortbow remains a very effective weapon. But you need power and condition sacrificing durability to make it so. (This is a common issue with pet damage/selection as well). Ignore 1 and have half a pet.

Thats what 30% protection under 25% health. So 300 to 200 is the right difference.

To analyze benefit. Your health pool times .25 = 25% health pool. (25% health pool/x= 70/100) x= total damage to remove that 5000 health pool. total damage to remove health pool-25% health pool = effective additional HP.

so-

20,000 Health = 5000 (5000/x=70/100) = 70x= 500,000 x= 7142.85 ; 7142.85-5000 = 2142.85 effective additional HP.

To be fair if you took it you may well be doing a damage health low toughness build so

26,000 health = 6500 = (6500/x=70/100) = 70X= 650,000 = 9285.71 ; 9285.71 – 6500 = 2785.71 effective more health.

I’m sure there is a way to show the math easier. never was my strongsuit I do arithmitic.

Whew.

Weapon pace big issue. Functional utilities as well. Shouts definitely…Build diversity (Huge issue), spirits(Lots of issues) I’ve tried dozens to not get pigeonholed but as you clearly know they really don’t work. Very narrow range and options.

Too much work for one patch I suspect but good to know they are actually on the agenda.

Pool, something to note is you can swap your XI XII talents out of combat and after a brief period the pets become mobile immobile and you can have another talent active.

As all traits are swappable out of combat I believe this is intended not an exploit but who knows I’ve only used it in testing. This means by actively managing your traits you can hide stow in a buff radius your pets fight win turn them mobile to follow you as you move etc….

On places like the overlook at keep where stacking them up top if you have to go down in is needed this might be handy to know.

Essentially if you have 30 points in the tree you can be mobile in transit and hide them in buff radius safer from harm at the node. Outside likely aoe zone, elevated from combat field etc… And take a melee combat trait like removing poison/blind while dodging. If you move far away then switch them to mobile they’ll arive in about 5 seconds(seems to be on the schedule they apply/reset their icon/boon)

Now in terms of effectiveness on average using a shortbow I get 18 seconds of protection for a 60 second spirit. That’s proccing it as often as possible on the golems with a 1 second attack SB. Or 33% protection less than a third of the time.

Now swiftness with a 10 second duration(What it tells me on the boon not fromtraits or armor) I’ll keep up 40-50 seconds if attacking constantly with a shortbow. One of the reasons I agree that spirit is valuable.

Do you realize how annoying this would make obstructed.

Yeah I deal with conditions differently.

I can see how naming your pet in large scrums would help. Simply because I always do a name glance on target and switch off obvious pets in non called target scenarios. 1v1 don’t see how it would be helpful. In that instance any name would likely work.

Ok here are some I like (I prefer survivability).

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQNBjODbEoqvuxSyi1OQ0ekJzjJmiDxoni0reA;TsAA1CooMyYkwIrROjkGt+YQymEA

Can use with a SB as well But I like the KB of longbow combined into a barrage then an armor debuff and Rapid Fire.

Axe/Warhorn is a must for the crit bonus (Nullification procs seem helpful for disrupting enemy defense and DPS). 50% endurance as well on the axe for the dodge roll on switch from longbow. (Longbow gets the KB to create safe space.

Runes of melandru – extra toughness and does good reducing 1 second CC stuns to irrelevance.

Can put 20 instead in marks over crit choosing extra LB range or pierce. I like the 5 seconds of fury and swiftness on weapon swap.

You can also change profile slightly by changing the Jewel from a Knight for vitality to A soldiers or Bezerkers while keeping the Soldier amulet. Likewise you can shift the armor runes to my preference citadel when adding power.

When you set up defending a node go for one of the snipers niches so they have to close with you. When they eventually do they find your durable.

I prefer lashtail devourer and Snow leopard. (both can attack from snipers nests(A leap and ranged) Both hit hard (Leopard crits much better.) I am known to switch pets on the fly however.

Avoid +heal marginal benefit is far to low.

Durable trap dropper builds can also be fun but technically I enjoy the longbow style more.

You can play a similar higher DPS style 3200 mainly from power attack but you become massively squishioer and thieves who pull you or steal to you hurt alot.

Troll Unguent in my experience is by far the best heal for hotjoin tournaments and SPvP. The reasons for this are as follows.

1) You can activate it instantly on engagement (making it’s slighlty longer CD irrelevant. Flows better with early active dodge to manage endurance recharge as well)
2) It heals for more than either other heal and lets you stay completely mobile.
3) I run in 2800-3000 armor builds same attack and 21K health. (The above build is lower on defense but has the toughness benefit if you can keep the spirits alive)
4.) People give up and switch targets if they aren’t noticably damaging you quickly early. And it’s heal per second creates that impression.
5) Because you are using your heal on engagement early then potentially again late it isn’t an obvious disrupt scenario.

I’ve messed aorund with all the heals extensively. get much better results with unguent in durability builds.

tofus.4751:

Even with the “bugs” the Ranger Axe is my favorite weapon in the game. That beeing said it would be great if they fixed the following:

1. It didn’t hit yellow / neutral enemies.
2. It shouldn’t autoattack anything close after using Warhorn#5 (but Im guessing that is a Warhorn bug and happens with Sword MH as well?)

yellow enemies are great exp especially the innocent fuzzy bunny types;).

in SpVP I find axe/warhorn a must. Why I need to get max toughness power and health on other items leaving crit low. Have to deal with burst thief warrior potential.

So Axe/warhorn becomes a must to augment power and crit. Thankfully it’s available.

In PvE there isn’t a game I’ve played in 15 plus years of gaming where pve that isn’t true for ranger archetypes. To gain reward there must be risk.

PvE as a ranger in this game is simplicity.

Barrage – traited spider – frost trap, muddy terrain etc… Knockback…. of course that would be making pve alot more complex than it is.

PvP map wise anet has done a much better than average job of creating snipers nests with limited access points our 20 second duration traps can cover.

AI isn’t that horrible.

In fact people would find pets 100% better if all Anet did was increase the range of each attack by 50%.

People choose wolves for CC wolf 1 is what 140 range. make it 280 wolf auto hits when chasing reliably.

Simply increasing the range of the pet auto attack skills and in some cases f2 (Wolf again has a ranged f2 500 we find it functional as a result).

Attack speed of the pet is another factor however changing that increases DPS on stationary targets why I think expanding range is the best solution.

Birds auto attack should be a 600 range leap(non finisher) to enable obstacle flyover. Always anoyed when they go around. So I use a leopards f2 to ignore verticle terrain transit limitations instead of a bird.

Alot could really be fixed by range of pet attacks mode of pet attacks.

Adapt overcome consider it easy pulling and drop traps;).

Do get what you said the asura starting area with an axe was hilarious permanent aggro.

BlusterWolf.2103:

I agree with your idea that ranger weapons provide great kite ability, but kite ability doesnt mean control ability. I have encountered millions of times that my opponents just run away from me when they realize they are in a bad position against me, our ability to make someone stay is terrible, if we are control expert then Necro is control master while Mesmers are control god. Playing a ranger is like we have small missles while other class also have, but they have atomic bombs which we dont have. There are classes out there can keep you guessing and kill you even you guessed 1 time wrong, while we have to play a long chess game and find out we only have Pawns.

Perhaps more importantly in Spvp, Tpvp you are contesting fixed points with a circular radius. Kiting in a circle keeps you in range and linear kiting concedes the objective that wins the match. In the end to win you have to contest hold a point. That requires being able to push people off a point not rely on them to let you kite and kill them off it.

The goal isn’t to get kills it’s to win objectives. And kiting is of limited tactical benefit for most win objectives.

Fate.8673

-Mobility
This is what Warriors DON"T have. You dodge their bulls charge or stun break it? What do they do. They cry. They get kited. By YOU.
You can’t argue we don’t have the best mobility in the game. Thieves? They are good at engage/disengage. But during a fight? They are pretty limited at getting around. You can predict their movements in stealth or have them set off traps.

We have the most free dodges in the game.
1. Lightning Reflexes
2. Shortbow 3
3. Dagger 4
4. Sword 3
5. Sword 2
6. GS 1, yes, a LAND AUTO ATTACK with a free Evade. This is huge.
This is also without using endurance. This is without the easy accses to vigor on heal/crit we have or 50% natural permanent endurace regen.

Speaking of Greatsword. What an undervalued set. People still focus on “not enough damage.” The PET brings the damage. And the Greatsword brings you and your pet TO the fight.

Swoop is the biggest melee cap closer IN THE GAME. It is 1200 range. You Swoop into Muddy Terrain/Spike Trap/Ice Trap then come to be complaining about pets not hitting their target. Swoop+Pet Swap+Weapon swap to a more bursty weapon.

-Support
In addition to all this we have great support abilities. Traps themselves offer great support for other classes to combo. Control goes into being support. Now let’s talk about Healing Spring/Spirit of Nature. Healing Spring, again, being one of only TWO classes that can bring a water field which can=permanent regen to your PvE or PvP team. AoE healig on splash.
Spirit of Nature brings a Warbanner every THIRTY SECONDS, AND heals AND removes conditions. Yes it can die, but that is time you bought/your positioning. Someone should have to go out of position to kill it and you can exploit that with your CC.

YOu missed some mobility healing spring advantages if traited.

+50% endurance regen
Vigor on being crit
[Vigorous renewal] in conjunction with healing spring (AOE vigor for up to 18 seconds)

A new personal favorite of mine AOE vigor in conjunction with Healing spring for 10 points in Wilderness Survival. [Vigorous Renewal] When you cast the healing spring and every time the spring refreshes the regen(every 3.25 seconds) it’s regen it grants vigor of 3.25 as well. SO healing spring becomes 18 seconds of healing + 18 seconds vigor. Add in the 5 second talent on being crit and we can have vigor up for 23 of every 30 seconds on us. Using a greatsword makes it easier to stay inside the spring dodging edge to edge.

Our endurance and therefore active dodge potential plus our weapon evades is substantial.

While your at it you have to mention Intimidation training – cripple on canine and spider f2’s -

Canine f2’s
4 second chill – Doesn’t need another cripple
summon another hyena – target to get cripple must be in range of howl hyena’s also cripple anyways
2 fears of 2 seconds – 4 second snare minimizes distance target moves away.

None of those abilities need a 4-5 second snare(It seems to last a bit longer than the chill) I’ld argue a snare with the fear is counterproductive even I want them moving away as fast as possible.

Spiders -
2 2(s) stuns
Cave spider – it works for 2 attacks stacks the snare plus the venom
Forrest spider – can stack it 3 times to a 10ish second cripple also works for.

when a mid level trait is arguably only good for 2 of 8 possibilities it needs changing. And it’s on 30-45 second CD activation.

In regards to axe 4, I understand not being crazy about it being a projectile finisher. But in conjunction with a sword MH that put’s a leap, projectile and whirl finisher in a single weapon set.

I’ld much prefer it to be more like greatsword 4. A melee block (Flattened axe) to a release move axe smash blast finisher(Wish we had one of those) damage and short knockback;). This would give axe axe a bit of melee defense rock as a field trigerer in sword axe and be a very defensive set functional to power and condition builds. perhaps a bit op long fields and blast.

We are a class with alot of potential fields. Controllable ice fire and water rnd poison off pets. We need a controllable blast finisher somewhere. Please……

Naturemastr Artemos.4021:

@Arrys I think you might have something going with the spirit but I don’t think I really understand what you want it to do. Maybe you could explain it more? On the axe 4 skill, I don’t think being a combo finisher is a reason enough to have a skill. IMO Anet should add some more functionality to this skill, being a combo finisher would be a bonus (NOTE: this is nowhere near high priority compared to the other things that need to be fixed.)

Ok on the spirits their health was nerfed to the point a single weak AOE drops them 2 weak or 1 strong aoe if health doubled. (I literally tried running some tests with them in HOTM and they died so fast I couldn’t test if anything benefitted them) This makes using them mobile a wasted 30 point talent in most scenarios. You can tactically use them as turrets carefully placed, however(Buff ignores LOS). It also makes the GTAOE functions of them really not that good for a 60 second CD ability because they are single attack kills short radius even buffed and you really do need to hide them in low no traffic positions in a PvP context anyways. You can’t do a run through with them trailing and pop their specials they die. So understanding they apparently want them weak to damage they really aren’t designed well to the adjusted state at release. When they were more durable their proximity AOE effects had much more functionality.

So redesign at least some of their secondary abilities away from proximity based AOE. In PvP you all but have to hide them in stationary format to utilize their buffing capacity (which remains helpful especially as you can move into range get the buff chance move out and get the proc.) Or make the special’s different say converting a stone spirit granting an AOE buff chance to a 15 second protection on the ranger and pet as the added bonus. Group proc chance magnified potential strength or forget the group BUFF ME style.

Playing longbow in the sniper vein, I’m actually impressed at the viable snipers perches included on PvP maps near(In firing range) of nodes or critical transit junctures. However the objectives are node flipping at least for now that requires being in a small exposed circle. Exactly where the sniper role wants to be only briefly after killing to cancel the netralization. AKA sniper needs to leave perch cancel flip, finish kill. If one of the spirits had a limited summon you back ability it would be a very nice secondary ability to a sniper and make you somewhat more viable in node defense offense by enabling quicker transit on a limited availability basis back into the snipers perch instantly..

Such an ability would also have melee options for escape which is why I’ld say range limited so you are functionally on the screen of the opponent somewhere.

Other ways to improve them. Allow the traits which benefit pets to benefit them, signets as well(haven’t tested that myself so perhaps they do). This would open up the option of adding toughness and heals and increasing durability in the pet line possibly.

I will say the spirits buff chance magnified over a group or a mass summoned swarm remains impressive. So I don’t really think proc chance is a problem. More ways to make them survivable or reattuning the 30 point talent(Say to summon previously placed pets to your new location vs transiting with them).

If you hide them they are usable now but not in fully intended benefit.

I like longbow as well.

I’ld love a fumble or endurance regen penalty on the 1, slighlty faster activation time on the 4.

Use of longbow could be enhanced perhaps with added functionality in a utility, I’ld look at a spirit and a 45 second cd to recall to the spirit from within 1200 range. Essentially a tactical way to move up elevation gain range. Swoop is great but vertically challenged. maps actually have decent sniper nest placement, a quick way back in would be real handy. Node defense with a longbow innevitably means a reset jump down climb back contest switch at melee even.

Axe4 is a 100% projectile finisher, I think that is it’s purpose.

A pet peeve of mine is the Moa protection buff not lasting 10 seconds but 4. a 10 second protection buff would be a great help to tanky builds and cannon builds. It needs fixing.

30/0/10/0/30 – LB/GS Also glass cannon but if the map has a hard to get to perch location you absolutely roast people if you get there first. Running condition removal muddy terrain(Securing the perch from quick closure to melee) and toughness signet. 6 seconds of GS wailing before leaping away.

Pets snow leopard(Ability to leap from perch to combat location without running around then stay on a snared target) and whatever utility DPS pet I want.

Several maps have very decent snipers nests in tactical locations that as long as you get in position first a ranger can use very well (Then knock a person off when they reach you). Fighting on top of nodes is however near instagib fatal. A High DPS pet getting haste for 5 seconds on your downed is actually effective death insurance in 1v1’s. Beware of thieves steal insta closing….

Rickshaw for tanky Mouse gave good advice. Not having my notes and going from memory I also had good luck ignoring toughness and going VIt/heal using crit proc heals. + spring+stacking regen as he/she suggests. Against non condition opponents troll ungent seemed to perform better switch just prior to the moment.

0/25/0/20/25(maybe those last two reversed, I’ld move 5 to endurance regen if redoing it anyways) – Cleric amulet or the power/precision/vitality I think it is. +heal doesn’t do a ton healing with crit procs worked better.

I found myself wishing the MOA’s protection really did last 10 seconds as advertized not 4. That plus the vigor buff in the pet line on summon would have been helpful in all tanky builds I messed around with.

If your going for a climb on a perch longbow build snow leopard lynx. Both can be f2 leapt into combat they won’t run to, or run to effectively depending. Both make good advantage of power, both attack real fast maximizing haste. Have short CD’s on specials.

In a melee tanking build a cave spiders 2 stacks of fumble is underrated and it’s ranged. Because lets face it stuns of 2 seconds are randomly interupts at best. minus endurance regen + fumble on the next 2 default attacks helpful.

Juvenile river drake over salamander watch the lightning bolt bounce-power builds. It by itself takes the light and medium golems to around 25-30% and the heavy to 40% in a single 30 second cd up to 600 range. Thats usable even with a 2.5 second cast. Granted thats my full power pet build.

Not a response to the change as SB was effective but boring and at worst remains boring but….

Tried Warrior – Nah
Engineer – Nah

Pretty much leaves thief or elementalist or I’ll just quit playing the game.

0/25/0/20/25 axe/axe to sword/horn or LB or SB – sanctuary armor / signet of renewal + frost trap + utility I’m in the mood for. endurance on MH weapon 3x might on offhand if applicable.

swiftness we can get multiple ways. 5 trait points on weapon swap in combat. Bird pet in combat.

The harder thing to replace is 15% crit plus might IMHO.

And of course swiftness options Horn, bird pet

And barrage Longbow 5 skill was missed as an aoe slow option.

mouse.1689:

Arrys.7145:

Range of transfer between ranger and pet or pet to/from ranger should be on the order of 1500 IMHO.

Not really sure why it requires a range at all, honestly. If your pet is alive (which isn’t always a given) you should be able to share whatever bonuses or abilities you have available. Does anyone think this would be abusable or overpowered in any way? It just seems like a basic quality of life issue.

Complete seperation from risk of the player is bad game design is the reason. So it must be within the distance a MOB will aggro or in a PvP environment mean the ranger is close enough to danger to be dropped removing the pet and vice versa. unlimited would be bad design.

Easiest thing is to go to the golems in HOTM and pull out pet after pet and observe it’s attack sequence f2 responsiveness on a target that poses zero risk. Once they are on CD the f2 seems very responsive to me on most pets. It’s when you try to F2 while they are in the middle of their CD abilitiy charge up where you seem to have problems.

barrage, muddy terrain, frost trap axe 3, etc…. Snare slow the target to keep the pet on it.

Certain f2’s like drakes you can only really get off on stationary summoned targets reliably(chain lightning use).

When choosing your pet look at the attack ranges. Short range with slow attack speeds don’t hit a human target to well.

Leaps 300+range etc…much more reliable.

And of course if it’s dominant damage matches your power or condition situation.

Some pets seem to do well regardless of the above aka have good power damage and condition.

mouse.1689:

• One thing you didn’t mention which I think should be is that Signet of Renewal is both great and incredibly unreliable. It’s very useful against Pistol Engis and Necros, as well as any other condi-based build. Unfortunately, its active ability doesn’t work if your pet is out of range, and a lot of times, it seems like it just doesn’t work at all, even if the pet is in range and alive. If any devs are reading this, I strongly suggest removing the range requirement for this ability, and making it work reliably. It’s one of the Ranger’s only condition removal options, and right now it’s just completely unreliable.

I’ld add range of the transfer of mutliple traits sharing buffs, protection etc….

Tested a remote control pet build with spirits and realized buff transfer had a small range as well radius way too short. Range you can order your pet to attack from also to short.

Pretty much anything that shares a benefit to the pet based on what you do has a range that is limiting to it.

Range of transfer between ranger and pet or pet to/from ranger should be on the order of 1500 IMHO.

vangedas.7358:

Weapons
- Main-hand axe: overrated. I want to love this weapon, but it’s so underpowered. Auto-attack is bad for any 1v1, 2v2 situations which is what you’re gonna have as a ranger in tPvP. The bleed ability is weak for one reason, you need to be up-close. Sure the mechanic is right, but as a ranger you want to know your position. Chill is OK, I guess. Axes really need a good look. Traits suggest axes should be built on crit damage, however it doesn’t seem to work. As a condition based ranger there are better options.
- Off-hand axe: awesome. I was trying to make something around it and I am sure someone will. First ability is a bit underpowered, needs more damage somewhat like Engineer’s Throw Wrench. 2nd ability is amazing – a build around, works amazing with combo fields, kills anything that’s not paying attention. Sure, lock-in-place is annoying, but otherwise it would be way too strong. However, usable mainly for power builds, the vulnerability stacks + 1st ability are asking for it.

I messed aorund on a
10,15,5,10, 30 – Using a cleric amulet with a vitality gem in it and sword/offhand axe.

Essentially a stand in healing spring and fight build. If you stay in the spring zone at every 3.5 second tick you end up with a 12 second regeneration and only 3 seconds of no healing to your next spring. Other than a 33% increase on regen it was pure pet boost build.

Armor runes was the chance to proc retaliation every 30 seconds.

Standing in a healing spring you drop between whomever is getting shot by a ranger, engineer, thief warrior and throwing down axe 5 = sweetness. Lots of toughness/armor 2600ish atk Extra endurance on weapon swap. I was using cats pretty sure it will actually work better with canines traited to make melee range control much better.

Been working on finding something I like on it for awhile. Foresaking crit and vitality and embracing my pet as damage (they are welcome to stand back and shoot I can reflect after all), I may finally be getting close.

Of course against some classes axe 5 does nothing to their ranged making it situational.

I couldn’t agree more there is something to be built around offhand axe5 or should be. Untalented flame traps work as great get off me tools thanks to full condition rangers. Hard part is overcoming the stationary penalty. ergo the spring max heal power testing.

Silly butcher you have a flame trap or torch to BBQ as you slaughter the wildlife.

A warrior running at 90%+ crit (Buffed which you can maintain near constantly) using sword/horn – ranged Rifle seeming better than bow has very good survivability if using heal proc’s on the weapons. But it’s majority melee to ranged. Quite fun.

Warrior CD’s on thing’s I’ve played with I liked more. It is sort of frustrating having great finisher options and only 1 field that I found as a warrior.

I’ve sort of realized I was asking ranger to do things it isn’t necessarily set up for with current utility CD’s and am discovering more usable builds. Ohh how I wish one could save builds in HOTM.

What was that build I really enjoyed again……

On the bright side you can grab the warriors banner and use it’s blast finisher in your water field or fire field or frost field but mainly in your water field.

underwater the spirits seem to blend and survive well enough. Otherwise….

those thinking the warhorn 4 isn’t beneficial are somewhat missing a point. Even if you don’t spec(add sigils, I personally prefer blood to get life with a lifesteal back as I crit) to benefit it, it’s layered damage that you can trigger front end(Particularly when you get the jump) that delivers it’s damage in conjunction with SB or longbow.

So using a heavy golem as a test subject using warhorn 4 weapon swith sb(which autofires on switch) at my current power condition 2800+ mainly weapon dmg drops the golem in right around 10 seconds crit varies I’m running at 49 buffing up with fury to 69%.

SB1 alone drops the same target at right around 11 seconds. The bigger difference is perceptual as I stopwatch from hitting the key. Perceptually to the target 69% crit birds to sb1 kills 2 seconds faster when you factor the 1 second bird activation time. In pvp that’s human response time and perceptually burstier by 2 seconds.

Horn 4 to barrage 3,2 on longbow kills perhaps .25 to .5 faster than horn 4 to SB at (all tests from behind of course) but at the point stopwatch activation may be the difference despite remapping my naga to do it 1 handed. Longbow is also ahrder as you have to time the cast animation break from 5 to 3 perfectly as well as the weapon switch to achieve equivalent results to SB while SB autoattack is essentially swap weapons with good timing. In PvP you also need to arrange for your pet to stun KD the target in the barrage zone etc if you use longbow… Stationary golems not being the best rw test subjects.

Layered damage is beneficial. And that’s without buffing up bird damage beyond having fury might up from warhorn 5 for all tests.

delayed damage abilities that add 2.4k on the front end before the enemy knows your there aren’t worthless. Our pets are also good fire and forget damage front end. Same principle different activation method.

Using sword is much more subjective but quite defensive. Against a fast attacker at 1200 condition damage the flame shield hits for 650ish against a slow attacker they maybe hit you twice, if your carrying a fire trap not a bad damage reflect briefly. Testing on the necromancer double daggers it procced well. Painful test to isolate damage. at 300 condition damage in a 2800 atk build doing 419 reflected back per hit. Not a horrible damage add using say protect me which it also procs through. Definite haste/100 blades defense/offense application properly timed. Or even against warhorn 4’s 16 small attacks. We have the field 2 ways and easily accesible leap finishers on the sword(s).

Danikat.8537:

It might also be that they are looking into it but some bugs are easier to identify/fix than others.

Or maybe shortbow+haste + traps is so easy people haven’t bugged our other skill, trait, pet bugs nearly enough in game.

You know when you have that wait my moa’s protection is lasting 4 seconds not 10 or 14 or whatever it is supposed to be moment (which has a small chance to occur when charming if you aren’t one of the whats broken lets test and /bug people.) Which of course then has you seeing if the extending boons talent works (It doesn’t(on the epts I tested)) so you bug that in game etc….

Switch to sword/axe axe.torch drop traps/flame fields and practice combo fielding at melee as well as dodge practice vigor trigger practice.

SB is so powerful on it’s autoattack you can kill/kite reds using GT CC to strip adds indefinitely for exp + bonus EXP hugeness. Yes it’s boring but easy.

Ranger playing melee with offhand varients is pretty enjoyable however as you do get to think.

TwiceDead.1963:

I’m not saying “Change the weapon patterns and get rid of the stupid jumping frenzy”!

I’m telling them to tweak it so that we can dodge anytime we want like any other class. Every other class i’ve played can dodge in the middle of an attack, effectively cancelling the attack and instead doing a dodge roll.

I’m all for keeping the weapon pattern, but the stupid LOCKED IN ANIMATION #¤&/ is what ticks me off since it doesn’t allow us to dodge roll on command!

The jumping frenzy on the one combined with it’s speed of autoattack is actually why you are locked in place on autoattack.

So yes you are.

Longbow can layer damage front end. Hard part is you have to keep the target in the barrage to do so(which can be really hard). (pet stun KD effects). Shortbow layers damage back end with bleed dots effortlessly.

Essentially max range barrage (when the animation finishes several flights of arrows still have to hit your target area. If you can keep your targt locked down there you can be hitting with the barrage damage plus other bow skills simultaneously. Perceptual damage burst really.

The lack of an inner CD was OP with things like warhorn 4. so the internal CD was necessary.

They could do several things to make them better. The trait that links them to your movement should link them to your defensive maneuvers as well. Weapon skill evades and dodge should make them invulnerable when you are in that phase. No need for the animation. Limitation is the CD’s on us using those skills already built in.

Our skill that translates all boons on the ranger to the rangers pet should have it’s transfer range extended greatly and transfer the spirit buffs to our pet enabling the ranger to be out of harms way with spirit buffing their pet.

It would be real nice if one of the traps/effects that is an active dropped a combo field. Swiftness and an electrical perhaps.

I will say if you run into a spirit ranger + mesmer + thief all using pet phantasm extra theif builds the force magnification of the spirit buffs is annoying.