Guild Wars 2

Lil Puppy.5216:

A tiny change in one of these areas of color:
Hue
Saturation
Lightness

And an appropriate new name!
Welcome to design

Thank you!

I don’t understand what’s new or different about these dyes. Could someone please explain why and how the enameled dyes are different?

Hi all. This is the build I’ve been working with in WvW. It’s incredibly glassy, but I’ve had a lot of fun using it. It’s not actually terrible from my experience. I’ve seen similar builds on here, but none of them ever seemed to go in depth to traits ’n stuff.

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/ranger/?6.5|1.1n.h2.0.0.0|7.1g.h2.7.1g.h4.0.0.0|1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.a7.0.0.0.0.0.0|2s.e13.2s.e13.3s.e16.1g.67.1g.67.1g.67|u49b.u195.a3.0.0|3b.2|4j.4r.4q.4p.0|e

Basically, pop your damage signets and hit them with Path of Scars. Switch to greatsword and hit them with Maul, which I usually follow up with a Hilt Bash. Past here, it’s really whatever you feel like doing. Greatsword and axe/axe are very defensively oriented weapons, but with this build they can kick out some substantial damage as well. If they use projectiles, it’s fun to use Whirling Defense, but if they’re melee it might be wise to switch to greatsword. Besides the initial attack, this build isn’t very rigid.

Does anyone have any constructive criticism or questions?

Overkillengine.6084:

Sevans.4619:

Word on the street is that they’re adding a Longbow that looks like a giant arm and bicep and it fires frozen burritos.

I heard it was made of steaks and shot bacon.

I thought about making a man-meat joke… Nah, too easy.

Arenanet could learn a lot from the WoW pet system. Hiding rare, hard to capture pets all over the world? That’s a hell of a lot more entertaining than what we have now.

What I, personally, find so terribly bothersome about Scarlet, and in fact Living Story updates in general, is that they’ve been woefully predictable and poorly developed for the most part.

The Aetherblades came first and, honestly, the sky pirate motif was pretty cool; however, that doesn’t change the fact that they were still a mostly one track, poorly developed new militant group. There wasn’t really any build up to them, they just sort of suddenly burst onto the scene and were immediately important. At least the Molten Alliance had the whole buildup with the fire and ice events.

Then we had the Queen’s jubilee. Can anyone honestly say they didn’t predict that the robots would malfunction? We just fought a group of technomagical pirates… It was pretty clear from the beginning of that update how it would play out. We were, however, introduced to Scarlet. Like the Aetherblades, she just burst onto the scene with little to no buildup, and was suddenly in the limelight.

I don’t think I really even need to go into the toxic alliance. Yet ANOTHER militant group that Scarlet has somehow coerced into working together. How is she managing to convince these hostile groups to align with each other? Why is she so powerful/manipulative? To have it all explained during the course of the events or at the end of them is unsatisfying to me. It seems better to lay foundation for the character before she becomes the central figure in the game, not after.

This comic illustrates how Rangers used to be, before the spirits had their traits combined and they became viable again.

Rangers are OP? Not really. People don’t like the fact that Rangers aren’t a free kill anymore. Nothing was buffed with the spirits besides the storm spirit’s activated ability. We could apply practically permanent burning and poison before, had condition removal traits before, had enormous amounts of evades before, and had protection buffs before too.

You want to kill a spirit Ranger? TAKE OUT THE kitten SPIRITS. The build revolves entirely on spirits and without them we are, obviously, much weaker. AoE them down, they aren’t actually that durable.

Or use immobilization and stuns. Based on the build, the Ranger will either have 1 or 0 stunbreaks, most commonly the latter.

I suppose I’m just venting. I’m becoming greatly annoyed by all the people claiming that I’m Fotm or OP because I use spirits.

Today, for the first time, I tried to join WvW with my guild. However, for some reason, I was unable to. The guild leader told me I was on “Kaineng”, even though I’m on the Darkhaven server.

Can anyone tell me what happened?

So I just played my Ranger for the first time in a while. When I quit, they were almost entirely useless. Is this still the case, for PvE anyways?

I don’t like how structured PvP has absolutely no effect on the real world, and i would like to see SOME kind of benefit to the actual game. I’m not suggesting we get massive sums of gold for doing sPvP, but something would be nice. The armor you use in the mists doesn’t even show up on your character selection screen; it’s like it doesn’t even exist.

I typically play a Guardian now in sPvP, and I’ve gotten prety good. I’m not saying I’m anywhere near the top tier players, but I can hold my own. Anyway, it’s like I have nothing to show for the time I’ve put in.

This isn’t a case of “Unique Snowflake Syndrome”. I don’t want some flashy title, rank, or weapon that I can rub people’s faces into, or something that sets me above other players. What I WOULD like, however, is the ability to gain experience points in sPvP.

I can see how receiving gold in sPvP could damage the economy of the game, but why can’t we get experience. Or even karma? Karma is useful, and it has no effect on the economy because of the way Arenanet designed it. I see no logical reason why getting experience in sPvP isn’t part of the game. I don’t want to get better in PvP, but then go to WvW and get obliterated by everyone because I’m only level one.

Can anyone point out a reason why gaining experience in sPvP could damage the game? You get it from WvW, crafting, dungeons, hearts, vistas, waypoints, exploration, and nearly everything in the game. Why not sPvP?

bhagwad.4281:

Aurum.8793:

Let me tell you why that’s bullkitten.

1.) You are wearing a berserker amulet, and you have 916 toughness, which is base toughness at level 80. You sir, are the squishiest of the squish. You shall be called squishy, and you shall be mine, and you shall be my squishy.

2.) As a person who avidly plays Thief backstab builds, I can honestly say you’re blowing this way out of proportion. In order to pull off a proper backstab, and take off a respectable chunk of your health without you instantly retaliating, I need four or five of my cooldowns up, including Steal. For every minute I’m in PvP, and I’m alone and not in a group, I will spend 5-10 seconds of that minute actually fighting. Because that 5-10 second window is the only chance that I have to burst without the threat of immediate and deadly retaliation. A proper backstab Thief is also very, very, very squishy, and we will melt immediately when exposed to small amounts of damage.

3.) We aren’t even the most OP thing in the game. As a shatter Mesmer, I’m sure you know this. Not only can Mind Wrack hit for upwards of 7000+ damage (plus it’s technically an AoE), you also have invisibility, invulnerability, teleportation, Phantasms, and Time Warp. If you INSIST on complaining about profession imbalance, take a serious look at yourself because you probably abuse one of the most unfair builds in the entire game, right beside backstab Thieves.

Good day to you, sir.

Again, it’s all about counters. A shatter mesmer has a counter. You move around and you can dodge them running to you. Many skilled players have avoided my shatters.

When someone steals+backstabs you starting from stealth, there IS no counter. Enjoy your backstab days while you can because you know it’s gonna be nerfed.

Nuffed said.

I actually doubt it’s going to be nerfed. But ok. If it is, I’ll just go back to Mesmer. Pretty much the same level of OP.

Let me tell you why that’s bullkitten.

1.) You are wearing a berserker amulet, and you have 916 toughness, which is base toughness at level 80. You sir, are the squishiest of the squish. You shall be called squishy, and you shall be mine, and you shall be my squishy.

2.) As a person who avidly plays Thief backstab builds, I can honestly say you’re blowing this way out of proportion. In order to pull off a proper backstab, and take off a respectable chunk of your health without you instantly retaliating, I need four or five of my cooldowns up, including Steal. For every minute I’m in PvP, and I’m alone and not in a group, I will spend 5-10 seconds of that minute actually fighting. Because that 5-10 second window is the only chance that I have to burst without the threat of immediate and deadly retaliation. A proper backstab Thief is also very, very, very squishy, and we will melt immediately when exposed to small amounts of damage.

3.) We aren’t even the most OP thing in the game. As a shatter Mesmer, I’m sure you know this. Not only can Mind Wrack hit for upwards of 7000+ damage (plus it’s technically an AoE), you also have invisibility, invulnerability, teleportation, Phantasms, and Time Warp. If you INSIST on complaining about profession imbalance, take a serious look at yourself because you probably abuse one of the most unfair builds in the entire game, right beside backstab Thieves.

Good day to you, sir.

But then again… Condition necro is fun too. And so is burst thief, and healing Guardian, burst engi, and condition ranger. It only there was an eight sided coin I could flip to determine which class I choose.

I like the Mesmer a lot, I just feel kind of… I don’t know… cheap I guess? Whenever I use mine.

I would honestly be happy if the armor we had equipped in the sPvP world was displayed on our characters on the log in screen.

Greetings comrades. I am a rank 29… Person. See, that’s the problem. Normally, someone woul name a different proffesion where I said person, but I can’t actually choose which proffesion I want to use. I don’t want to sound fanboyish, but I love all the classes, and I can’t choose a favorite. I’m definitely better at some proffesions than others, but it doesn’t really matter to me as long as I’m having fun.

I guess you guys can’t REALLY help me with this problem, as you don’t know my playstyle or preferences or anything, but I would appreciate suggestions. I want to get better, and I can’t do that if I’m constantly class hopping.

Thanks to all who take the time to reply!

Skyro.3108:

Hot join itself needs to go. It is simply a terrible idea and terribly implemented. Replace it with a matchmaking system comprised of solo queues. No more 8v8 zergs, no more uneven teams, no more team balancing, no more veterans stomping on new players. This will also essentially replace free tourneys, which is good as you don’t want to separate the player pool queuing unless you have to. Then adjust the rewards and recipe for creating tickets so that people can farm tickets in this new solo queue.

Leave paid queues for full teams, and keep the ticket/barrier to entry low.

Modify the hot join browser into the browser for custom servers. Add as much options for the players to adjust the game mechanics as possible (e.g. allow the ability to create dueling servers, deathmatch servers, etc.) and suddently GW2 becomes a thriving PvP community.

Why don’t you work for Anet? You’re my favorite.

According to WoWWiki, the Deserter debuff was added in patch 1.5.0, which was very early in the original game.

http://www.wowwiki.com/Deserter

If WoWWiki is accurate, which I think it is, the Deserter buff has existed nearly as long as the game itself.

Shanos.2459:

Deniara Devious.3948:

Shanos.2459:

Leadfoot.9071:

3) Penalize players who quit matches early

This is just a bad idea. In GW1 I played Alot of Random Areana.
Some days I spent more time not playing due to deserter penalty, cause every matchup we didnt have a monk and the oposing team did. and in that game having the monk was a free win.
So after awile of being denied the ability to play I lost interest and only played when I had absolutly nothing better to do.

dont punish players like there children standing in the corner for 15 min cause they were bad. If the player wants to leave let them, someone else might join to take there place or auto balance.
.

Well, what do you suggest instead?

Ragequitting rarely does good to team based game modes.

You could e.g. get a Mo/W to your team and it first looked “wow, now I finally got some good monk to my team” and then it turns out that the monk is waving his hammer, smiting and attacking the enemies first and dying in <10 seconds. Or W/E spamming flare and using meteor shower. LOL

Oh those days, back then pvp was fun!

Deniara Devious

lol this brings back memories.

but as far as what to do i dont know, I just know that punishing players for wanting to leave a match is bad buisness.
WoW never punished players for leaving a BG and it was all good, never disliked that system. ANet needs to learn a thing or 2 from them.

they should go buy a copy of WoW, level to 19 and go to Warsong Gulch.
Document everything they see and use that here.
better game type, better team system etc etc.

Lies and slander. You get a 15 minute penalty for leaving a battleground in WoW. But I agree with you; Anet could, and should, learn from this. Specfically this feature.

hooma.9642:

so u will always has ppl waiting… nope bad decision! just put the ppl in the next server with place.. so nobody will wait!

Yes, you always have people waiting, but I promsie you there are people out there that would trade the wait for fair, balanced teams. Let’s actually put this into practice. Let’s say you are a newly made, rank 1 PvPer. You random hotjoin, and get in immediately! All right, score! Let’s get to PvP.

Oh, you just got killed by a rank 45 because the random hotjoin is a terrible feature. Oh well, you’ll get the next one.

Well darn! Was that a rank 67 you just saw? You never even had a chance, he killed you before you could even turn.

Well, screw this, this is unfair. You leave, and hotjoin again. Instant queue pop, yay!

Except this new game is 7 on 6. Your score is lagging 200 points behind, and you can’t really do anything because they have more people. They will, 8 times out of 10, win just because of their superior numbers. Wave goodbye to skill, and greet your new friend Mr. Graveyard camp.

Now, here’s scenario 2, with my suggested feature.

A newly made, rank 1 PvPer clicks the “join a game” button. He goes to to look at runes and armor, maybe buys things with his glory. Who knows? Lets say he looks at the auction house, or talks to his guild mates. Maybe he just sits there bored. He’s there for about two minutes, and the queue pops.

Suddenly, this new PvPer finds himself among other, low rank PvPers whom he actually has a chance against. He gets a few kills, and dies a few times, but stays the whole match and doesn’t ragequit. Wanna know why? Because it’s FAIR, and it’s fun. Sure, he had to wait longer, but in the end he didn’t damage the team more by leaving. In a few days he won’t even notice the queue time.

What’s fun about about being mercilesly ganked by uneven teams, or vastly greater opponents? It’s not, there’s no joy in it. I should know, I’m rank 27. I get paired with low ranks all the time and there’s simply no fun slaughtering legions of lowbies. They don’t know how to play, it’s like playing chess with a baby. I’m not belittling them, they’re just new to the game is all. I would gladly wait for people who are my own rank and are a challenge. I don’t want to go against 40s who are vastly better than me, because being destroyed is no fun either.

hooma.9642:

also nr2. its stupid.. there will always be a server where the rooster is not full. so u want that they dont can play?

Have… Have you played WoW before? The system works. In fact, it works very well. There are never any unfilled rosters (I sincerely hope you meant roster anyway, filling roosters would be unpleasent). This is because the match isn’t formed until the roster is FULL. Once the roster is full, your queue pops and you get to join. Short wait, full games, life is good. If you wait until the roster is full, then the roster will always be full.

Leadfoot.9071:

1) Don’t allow players to choose a server
2) Wait until there is a full roster of players and then start the game
3) Penalize players who quit matches early
4) Implement some sort of team balancing (by rank and by profession so that experience and profession is equally distributed across the teams)

This, this, a trillion times this. If there’s one thing WoW did right, it was definitely battle grounds.

I would also like to bring up the point of parties getting seperated in sPvP. I’m sure this has been discussed an innumerable amount of times, however I’m unaware as to why we can’t have this?

That’s very interesting Zone, I’ll have to look into delayed burst builds. Typically I charge in, guns blazing, and burst immediately. Now, I feel as though that’s highly predictable.

If you have gone into structured PvP in the past few weeks, then you have seen them. From what I gather, it is the only viable spec for an Elementalist to run at this time, but it is extremely annoying.

They come in your typical class varieties, ranging from glass cannon to bunker, but they have an inordinate amount of bulk compared to other classes. They are virtually unkillable in a 1v1 situation, and even 2v1 they can hold their own. They cannot be bursted down, as they merely pop mist form and wait the burst out, and they cannot be piled with conditions either, as they typically have Ether Renewal which cures conditions on each pulse, and they always almost have condition removal talents from the Water tree or even the fire cantrip. Even steady, constant damage isn’t of much use because they have two forms of regeneration up and protection. Even if you somehow manage to get their health down to dangerously low levels, they’ll just run away by using ride the lightning. They are like kittenroaches; extremely difficult to get rid of. On top of their extraordinary resilience, they also kick out quite a bit of damage, and have good CC to top it all off.

My question is, how can someone actually kill one of them? Ether Renewal has a very short cooldown, and having their Water Attunement regeneration + regular regeneration means they have a constant source of healing. I just don’t see how someone can kill one of them, short of getting some friends and piling them into oblivion. Does anyone have any tips?

So if you’ve been into PvP lately, you’ve probably noticed these sturdy Elementalist who are quite unkillable (myself being one of them). Although traits have a lot to do with it, as well as your utilities, one major factor to this is Ether Renewal, one of our healing skills.

I, personally, think it’s just too good. Not only can it be used while moving now, but it also removes 5-6 conditions (I can’t really count how many pulses there are) and heals you very well. It also has an extremely short cooldown of 15 seconds.

I suggest reducing the heal slightly per pulse, or increasing the cooldown by about 5 or 10 seconds. Other suggestions?

I named my eagle Murica and my Raven Poe.

I don’t want to be doomsaying or anything, but I have been noticing a sharp decline in the amount of chatter in Lion’s Arch regarding dungeons. Finding a group for any dungeon lately has become nearly impossible. While I may not be spending 30 minutes looking for healers or tanks, I am now spending 30 minutes looking for people to merely fill our groups.

I’m on Darkhaven, and it’s labeled as Very High population, but I’m simply not seeing it. It just seems like droves of players are leaving this game.

Are any of your worlds better, or is everyone in the same boat? I really like this game, and I don’t want to leave, but if I can’t find groups for dungeons I don’t see how I can keep playing.

They’re definitely making progress. Glad to see the changes on the melee pets.

At the risk of sounding like a stick in the mud, I would rather see them balance the weapons we currently have.

I do good damage, but I have accepted the fact that I cannot dps on my own. My build relies entirely on my pet. I do a little less than average damage for a Ranger, but in turn, my pet hits like a truck. I use cats, and they consistently hit for anywhere from 1600-2500, usually closer to the top end. Plus bleed damage, and quickness.

Until we get buffed, this is the best way I have found to dps. My build is something like 0/25/20/0/25.

Most builds I’ve seen with the axe are condition damage, and that’s not really the build I want. I want a more direct damage build, because I want a sword for one weapon switch, and a main hand axe for the other. Can the two synergize together with traits and everything, or is an axe a strictly condition weapon?

I personally have noticed less and less people on the Darkhaven server. It’s getting harder to get a dungeon group for… well, anything. A real shame too, I really like this game.

I really wish spears were land based weapons. I loved Polearms in WoW, and they had spears in the original guild wars as well.

Well, yes, we do have that sun spirit thing. But in order to get it… We would have to use a spirit. And spirits are awful.

I can’t speak for the hammers, I didn’t play Guild Wars very long. I don’t really think there is a reason why we couldn’t use them, as we can use greatswords as a physical weapon. They’re probably about the same weight.

But in Guardians and Warriors, the role of the hammer is typically crowd control, AoE damage, and defensive abilities. The greatsword already kind of does that. I’m not saying it couldn’t be done, but then it would be a whole different thing to balance.

I don’t think, ESPECIALLY at this point in the Ranger’s career, that it would be prudent to add it. They can’t balance what we already have.

Doesn’t some High Priestess in Orr say that Zhaitan killed Lyssa? What if they’re dead. We know gods can die, like with Abbadon.

I’m pretty sure this has probably been explained before, but the official statement given by Arenanet doesn’t really make sense to me. They say that it’s because other races don’t believe in human gods, and I assume for the vast majority of others races, that holds true.

Is there something preventing other races from worshipping human gods? Do the human gods only accept the prayers of humans? If that was true, and the human gods were racist, I could see why other races can’t be Dervishes.

But couldn’t a Charr worship a Human god if he really wanted to? Charr are usually atheist from what I’ve seen, but even among the Charr there are differences. Some are Flame Legion, and some are totally atheist. Why couldn’t it be possible for a Charr to worship a Human god?

It would be quite easy to implement, from my perspective. The first questions that asks about your class in character creation could ask you something like “Why did you start to worship the Human gods?”

Answers could be something like
1.) An avatar of the gods appeared to me as a child.
2.) I had a vision of the gods after being seriously wounded.
3.) I have always felt the hands of the gods guide my life.

This could conflict with the cold shoulder the gods have been giving the humans, though. Or perhaps, in a future update, the gods break their silence, and that is evidence enough of the god’s existence for the other races to begin worshipping them.

I’m sure my theories and stuff have lots of holes in them, so feel free to probe.

I know people use to give their Thief starting hood to their Rangers, but I don’t see how that’s possible, as the hoods are soulbound. Can anyone explain that to me?

Is poison volley useless even in a situation where you would be using AoE?

@Konig, Since that interview was in 2006, could it be possible that he was talking about the original Guild Wars only? Maybe there were no plans to bring him back in the original Guild Wars.

@Christos, Yes, I agree about the mural, but I don’t know if that explains why they lead us into Abbadon’s temple.

@Sleepy, You say that the Shortbow should be the number one weapon. I might be wrong, but I’ve always thought of the shortbow as a condition weapon because of the flanking bleed, and the poison volley. Does it also do well with direct damage?

I don’t know how to quote people so I’ll use @ signs.
@Curuniel, I find it unlikely that he has the most powerful artifacts. He may be the god of magic, but Grenth is the god of death and destruction. Dwayna is the leader of the gods and possibly the most poweful. Balthazar has probably refined the art of war to a science, so he probably has some nifty trinkets. Melandru is the oldest and wisest god, so it’s possible she has a few tricks up her sleeve too.

I would personally put my money on Grenth or Balthazar having the most destructive or powerful artifacts. While, as the god of magic, Abbadon assuredly has some very powerful artifacts, I haven’t seen any evidence that he is the most powerful.

@Xase, Margonites, I completely forgot about them! Margonites may be sterile, but I believe they can transform others into margonites, (I might be accidently making that up). But, as servants of Abbadon, if he’s still alive I’m sure they would be the ones to know. They seem to have been very quiet since the original Guild Wars… I wonder what they’re up to…

So basically direct damage builds are best for PvE. Drake pets are good for AoE, cats are best for single target, devourers for single target ranged.

For weapons and stats, I’m seeing Berserkers as best for damage. Weapons, it looks like Longbow, axe, or even possibly sword if you can do well with dodges. Maybe horn or dagger depending on what you want, but torch is bad since it relies on burn damage, which is rather poor when compared to other offhand abilities, as pointed out by Sleepy.

Traits I’m not to sure about yet. I know a lot of our damage comes from our pets, so having points in BM is understandable. But, if you want to be a glass cannon, wouldn’t it make sense to spec something like 30/30/0/0/10? That would maximize power, precision, critical damage, and would also give you the quickness thing when you changed pets.

But, on the other hand, the traits in those two lines are atrocious. One centers around Signets and the other Traps. Soooo…. here we are.

I know that Kormir absorbed his power, and he’s technically dead. But can a God truly die?

I mean, they could have completely eliminated him from GW2, but they include him in a few places, and at one point in your personal story, they force you to go through his temple in Orr.

There’s a mural in the Vizier’s Tower, which I suppose could have simply been done for continuity. But you don’t even see the Vizier’s Tower in the original Guild Wars, to my knowledge, so it could have been entirely left out.

Second, Zhaitan steals an ancient and powerful artifact or something from his temple. They could have very easily put this artifact in someone elses temple, there were five other gods who have temples in Orr, but they placed it in Abbadon’s temple.

They obviously put it there intentionally, but why? Why bring back any mention of Abbadon. Are they planning a comeback, somehow, or is this just to shroud him in intrigue and mystery?

I suppose… Technically this could work if it weren’t for the Sylvari. Sylvari are a playable race, so to make their leader a dragon would be a conflict of interest. Is the Pale Tree somehow linked to the dragons? That’s possible, but the Pale Tree cannot be a dragon, unless they make Sylvari an unplayable race.

To all the people saying I should reroll a warrior, I agree. I already have a 30 warrior, but leveling is such a pain, and I’ve already invested so much time in my Ranger. It would kill me to see all that go to waste.
@Nldixon, I thought any Sword combo was completely unviable due to the root effect?
@Mamourrir, Builds that rely on Master’s Bond take too much time to start up to be viable. While it works in open world PvE, most pets get obliterated by PvE dungeons. It takes too long to get the stacks, and they are too easily lost for it to be effective.

I don’t really know how to spec anymore. My damage seems mediocre no matter what. I’m willing to try any weapon combination, different pets, and any type of traits. Also, this is for PvE, dungeons and stuff.

Well… I’m sure I can’t say anythign that hasn’t already been said. I just want to voice my extreme disappointment with this patch. That’s all.

Sorry, but they’ve had plenty of time to fix all of this. If they are complaining about only having two people on staff to balance this game, then they should hire more people, or they will lose players. It’s REALLY that simple.

So after this latest… “upgrade” to the Ranger class, I have decided to switch. But I don’t really know what I should switch to. Anyone have any suggestions? What are you guys switching to?

Thanks for all the tips guys. I’m just glad to know it’s possible!