Guild Wars 2

I don’t see how an argument can be made that Arrowcarts aren’t a bit over-balanced. Regular ones pulse for 1k-2k per tick, while superiors hit for 3k-4k. If you build enough of them, it’s essentially impossible to take a tower/keep with anything but a catapult or trebuchet. Even so, with range being increased to 3500 (that’s 100 less range than a catapult at full power), there are exceptionally few places to hide where an arrowcart cannot hit you. Combine this with people abusing LoS hacks to increase their range (they do exist; I know several people who have tested them out in WvW to try and figure out how the enemy zergs were hitting us with the more… creative AC placements) and you’ve got a serious problem.

I do think that ACs needed to be buffed. Previously, you could stand in 3+ ACs and not feel a thing. However, I don’t think that giving ACs a minimum of an 8% damage boost, and then introducing a trait line that further boosts its damage, was the right course of action.

Case-in-point: KN golem rushed Mag BL’s garrison last night. Inner watergate was at 50% with either 2 or 3 golems on it, we flashbuilt a few ACs, and the KN zerg was dead by the time the gate finally broke.

Therane.3846:

Boonprot.6274:

JudgeD.5673:

Than you want to be in EB, Boonprot. That’s where RE usually goes. Our “official” WvW time is coming up in the next hour.

Most of the good players and guilds on Maguuma avoid EB like the plague. That’s where our pubbies go.

Really?

You talk about leaving EB to the “pubbies” as if its menial work, as if it is a lost cause or unimportant. If it is a lost cause, it is because of people such as yourself. Our section in EB is as important as our land in our own BL.

How do ever expect our server to grow if you ignore the “pubbies”?

You are making your guild look bad.

EB is where the players from small guilds and those who don’t WvW often go. It’s also where our karma train tends to live. I never said it wasn’t important, it’s actually quite the opposite. What I did say, however, is that a lot of the WvW guilds forego EB for the borderlands. Mostly because it’s easier to organize and coordinate guildies, and also because there’s less of a chance of getting a queue.

Also, my hat’s off to Duke who’s been doing a fantastic job commanding in EB today and yesterday.

JudgeD.5673:

Than you want to be in EB, Boonprot. That’s where RE usually goes. Our “official” WvW time is coming up in the next hour.

Most of the good players and guilds on Maguuma avoid EB like the plague. That’s where our pubbies go.

JudgeD.5673:

Caephire.5238:

JudgeD.5673:

That is a credit to Cmmdr Ethersin, however much he may deny it. He’s developed his own open field fight style that reminds me of Jang. We have several other good cmmdrs in RE as well. YMMV though….

Might it be the same Commander Ethersin that’s being talked about in the Mapchat below? The one who uses his bedroom voice to whisper battle commands in your ear? If so, then yes, I believe he effectively commanded that evening.

I LOLed at that. For those of you who don’t know, Ethersin is one of our prize cmmdrs. I doubt he thinks so. Still the results speak for themselves. I hope PYRO is ready for RE later this evening.

PYRO is always up for some fun. Especially the delicious bag-related kind. From both sides, of course.

Still open on YB

Omaris Mortuus Est.2738:

Apparently there are 2 ways people are doing this, exploiting a feature in SAB and using it in WvW somehow. and second someone has said you can use multiple monitors which allows you to target further into keeps.

The first is exploiting and the monitor one is unfair, ultiple monitors are supposed to give a greater field of view, not allow you to better line of sight which is clearly an unfair advantage.

As to your first point, the camera bug doesn’t disappear unless you restart your client. So, you can enter different maps, different instances, etc… and still be able to abuse the camera size. The second will always be present, but I don’t see a way of resolving it, to be honest. Any way you look at it, you’ll be penalizing players who have multiple monitors. There’s also another way of getting the improved LoS through more unsavoury means, but it’s obviously difficult to prove and catch.

Edit: I’ve also definitely noticed more “broken” arrow cart use since the SAB was implemented, so I would venture that most of the abuse is from SAB bugged cameras, as opposed to multi-monitor setups.

If you want to talk about broken, complain about the people abusing the Super Adventure Box camera bug. ACs sitting behind the walls being able to hit people way outside the keep/tower ftw?

ghtchill.7613:

I expect a staff necro will need bigger bags as well?

There isn’t a bag big enough, my friend. Had to empty all 100 slots of my necro’s inventory a total of 9 times last night in Kaineng BL. I was only in there for 3.5-4 hours, too.

Kaineng BL in Garrison is magical right now.

So, we came to visit DB LA but everyone was AFK

Calvin.5380:

deracs.1762:

Calvin.5380:

deracs.1762:

Thursday a.m. pretty much sums up T3 for the last 2 months. DB owns 95% of the maps, and yet they still have 30+ in EB, with 15+ siege, camping the spawn point. This is what T3 is right now, and is simply sad

You should login around 7-11PM EST, if possible. You’ll see lots of exciting, even matches during that time.

This was true for a while. Now sadly even this is no longer true. Logged into EB at 9pm EST last night and we had the outmanned buff. It used to be as you said, good fights, even numbers on a couple maps, but I think at least for YB people have just given up for now.
Going from the occasional EB que during our prime time to having the outmanned buff every night now, kind of tells the tale

What you state is sadly true.

Tip for Mags and Kain: Yak’s don’t like their yaks killed (I bet a few of them work for PETA!). If you wish to pick up a good fight, take a camp near their spawn and face their wrath!

PYRO took their EK yesterday, sieged it up, and farmed 40-50 of them for badges for about an hour or so. We only lost it because everyone had to go back to mag BL and defend. It’d be nice if YB and DB didn’t push our BL simultaneously every single night, but such is life.

2 omegas, omfg yes please

Vi Au.8341:

fun fact #…

KN is losing WM and many oceanic guild might follow!! so it might be SOS that bumps back up

Is it bad if I hope this happens? T3 isn’t as much fun with 4 T2 servers popping about.

kerona.3465:

Anyways, we have so many arch nemisises… (nemisi? nemisis?) It’s like we’re the Moriarty of Wuv Wuv. The Lord Voldemort of PvF.

Nemeses, yo.

Crushed I missed the peace march. Bloody exams :*(

i crey evry tiem

Gellor.6497:

Mag’s NA presence is really awesome so if an oceanic guild is looking for a new home, MAG would be a good place. We DB, are moving to T2, WM on KN is rumored to have disbanded(not sure, no idea) so they could use some people! MAG’s are well skilled and joy to talk to in game. Highly recommend

Last I heard, WM got hit with mass bans for, and here’s the shocker, botting.

Tier 3 is an interesting beast because of the population distribution. DB has a very numerous SEA presence with a relatively small NA population. On the other hand, YB and Mag have very large NA populations (YB’s peaks at about 8:00 PM EST or so). So, for the 8 hours of NA primetime, Mag usually has the highest PPT with YB and DB in second/third.

The biggest problem is the 8 hours of SEA primetime where DB’s oceanic crew are free to take entire maps without resistance. Mag and YB then wake up to maps filled with fully upgraded keeps and then have to spend all day preparing for NA primetime by turning everything to paper. Even then, Mag especially lacks the manpower to effectively hold anything, so the game turns into ensuring that the keeps and towers have been recently flipped.

The unfortunate part is that there is no effective way of balancing population in the tiers without negatively impacting an entire region’s worth of people. It’s easy to say that any timezone outside of NA should be compensated for the lack of NA players, but what about the hundreds of oceanics or euros that play during those times? For them, it’s primetime and it’s NA that undoes everything they’ve accomplished during their timeslots.

Now, most of this has just recently changed because DB has seen at least one guild transfer in with 70+ members. They’re now a Tier 2 server in terms of coverage, which means we have 4 Tier 2 servers with the requisite coverage periods. THAT is what isn’t going to be fun.

Here I thought tier destabilization was a thing of the past now that free transfers stopped. Guess I was wrong. Four tier 2 servers is nothing but detrimental.

Xephyron.4702:

I think DB won the match fair and square, let’s stop the arguing and continue the karma train. Everyone will be happy with more gold/karma.

Ew, karma trains are the root of all evil. They teach W3 newbies and pugs awful habits. It’s gotten to the point where, during specific times of day, commanders get mercilessly berated if they don’t karma train. People should stop.

Calvin.5380:

Not true, because we gain points during NA day time. Do you have proof?

I think my brain is bleeding right now.

Calvin.5380:

Martrim.1078:

Thanks for a great week [TG], we had some great fights.

@Calvin, stop with the PvF, u are making your server look bad

Coming from Mags, this doesn’t seem right. You guys are the PvF champs.

And leave forums aside, you are making your server look bad in the game by not utilizing your superior NA presence.

I say it again, if Yak’s had your NA presence, they’d have given us run for our money in this tier.

At first I thought you were just trolling, but I’m honestly starting to think you believe the crap you say. What I don’t get, is that Mag’s NA presence dominates DB’s soundly every single NA primetime. Mag has highest PPT, YB second, and DB trails in last.

If someone points to the Millenium records one more time I think I may go crazy. If you look at the update times, they’re updated during the SEA primetime, and not NA. Obviously, they cannot be accurately applied to NA primetime for this exact reason.

Efface.8460:

Boonprot.6274:

It must be hard being so abjectly mentally deficient. I sympathize, I truly do.

Uh oh, here comes the big boy words!

Over-ripped with elite!

y u bad4 guuuuuuuuuurl?

Maguuma:

Dualdagger

Best commander I’ve ever seen. Dualdagger 4lyfe.

kfarb.6732:

Calvin.5380:

I still think we haven’t seen the full might of Yak’s in the past 2 weeks. Maggies may be the elite server, but I think Yak’s can beat them if they both play to their full potential.

Any disagreements?

Yak’s Bend has an older playerbase so they have real-life responsibilities (work, family) to tend to and aren’t on as much. They also have a few folks taking college finals around this time. So, they haven’t been as active this week. I’m sure in due time they will rally the troops and come out swinging. They might even schedule a raid to try and overcome Maguuma.

And speaking as someone from Maguuma, I don’t think we’re elite, but I appreciate the compliment. “We always have something to learn!” is the attitude we carry into any fight.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA WHAT IS THIS.

Best logic I’ve ever seen.

Calvin.5380:

saiyr.3071:

Calvin.5380:

saiyr.3071:

Eh, it’s more that BP has a history. Not that anyone should care about that anymore either. I guess you must think highly of BP to equate them with DB though

We all think highly of each other. I feel sorry for you guys, if you don’t have the sort of camaraderie on your server.

Considering the relative stability of our server in WvW, I’d say our camaraderie is doing just fine, but thanks for your concern! Have a hug!

Hug back. And yep, your camaraderie showed through those deleted comments (from ex-Mag and current Mag players) on Maguuma recruitment thread

Ok then? My guild transferred from YB to Mag well over 3 months ago, and we’ve never looked back. The one thing that can be said about Mag, if nothing else, is that we have a great community.

Our volatility could probably be attributed most strongly to the bipolar nature of our pugs and randoms. We drop down and all of a sudden the randoms want to karma train through EB and the BLs. Then we go back up to Tier 3 and they disappear because none of them put in the effort to learn WvW strategy and gameplay.

Pretty sure the entire purpose of that thread was to convince people to not transfer to Maguuma so they wouldn’t ruin the community and force Mag up to a tier it didn’t belong in. So, I guess it’s negative if you’re not adept at sarcasm. Maybe you’re not? I don’t know.

PurpleBackpackAttack.1462:

saiyr.3071:

Yak’s Bend and Dragonbrand are going to double team us! I heard it from Sea of Sorrows!!!

Yeah right, DB bl getting Double teamed, by yaks and mag.
Fending off two 40+ man zergs inside our garison each hitting different gates. I’m pretty sure that’s the definition of double teaming, the cowards to afraid to fight server to server. I understand being jealous of our green power but seriously stop trying to be us, its not possible.

Sorry Mag you still belong in t4, and yaks you will never be green till DB goes to t2 or you go to t4.

lol ok then.

Poor Josh. Him and his team builds phenomenal content in the Halloween patch and gets lambasted because people are awful at the game and can’t jump. Then they puts out some incredible content in the Super Adventure Box and people are complaining yet again. I’ve never had so much fun in a game yet.

Sure, the Box isn’t canon GW2 content, but it’s a phenomenal bit of content that helps break up some of the more monotonous content of the game. Plus, it has a lot of room for expansion.

The fact that you don’t enjoy a piece of content doesn’t mean that the majority doesn’t enjoy it, as well. Hell, it seems that the majority of players do, in fact, enjoy this content. Just take a look around the forums. Guess you’re just here to whinge.

Ach, is it me or is it a bit disappointing that Dulfy posted a guide on how to get all of the hidden rooms? The last hidden room under that carpet took us FOREVER to find, but it was so satisfying once we did. Cheapens things a bit.

The tree in the water right at the spawn in Zone 1. Gotta climb it for a bauble at the top.

Every time I try to enable viewing emotes in my chat tab, my client crashes. Happened twice now, so I doubt it’s random.

Let me know if there’s any information needed from my end.

Myself and my guildies are also getting some wicked lag right now. DCing all over the place.

kartek.6428:

who r u?? i lyke mupit stahp

stahp pls, u r derailing thread.

Considering PvP matches only currently count for 5 influence a pop, this is definitely a valid mechanic. Not quite sure why something like this hasn’t already been implemented, to be honest.

Paper Animal.2471:

“2 Commendations are awarded to each individual who completes a guild event and can be traded for items from the new vendor in Lions Arch.” I will admit the article was vague on if you had to be IN the guild whose mission it was, or if it’s EVERYONE who participated in the guild event, even if you’re not in said guild. How is it irrelevant if you can join in with other guilds missions? You also said you don’t think it’s reasonable to have to wait several weeks to begin working towards the new ascended trinkets. I presume you are speaking about buying them with commendations. May I suggest going to the laurel vendor? 40 laurels and 50 globs of ecto will get you one of the new ascended accessories.

Currently, Ascended amulets can only be purchased with Laurels. Logically, if a player is going for the Ascended trinkets, then they would have spent laurels on the amulet first. Currently, the max number of Laurels anyone can have is, I believe, 12. 13 including today. I happened to miss 1 day of dailies and 2 of the reset laurels, so I’m at only 10 after today. You’re telling me that, instead of fixing an asininely broken mechanic, I should use the next 20 day’s worth of laurels (10 currently + 10 from the next monthly + 20 days and 50 ectos) on an accessory that I should have access to already? No. Stop justifying kitten poor implementations with even worse implementations.

Hell, even the price of the trinkets from the laurel vendor show that ANet is actively pushing for people to integrate into large guilds. 40 laurels and 50 ectos compared to 12 commendations and 5 gold. Incomparable. That’s almost 4 times as much money you’re spending when you go the laurel route, not to mention the opportunity cost of wasting all those laurels on a trinket.

DryHumour.1307:

Not to either support or contest any of the arguments made here, but remember that you can trade gold for influence (although this represents an opportunity cost, of course).

20g = 10k influence. That means you need to spend 140g (66.7k influence, 7 sets of 10k, roughly) to unlock bounties from scratch. Absurd.

Paper Animal.2471:

I see where smaller guilds are coming from but I can’t agree that Anet should reduce the influence costs by how many members a guild has so these smaller guilds are able to afford top tier rewards NOW. Being in a larger guild has its perks, one of them being they gain influence faster than a smaller guild and thus are able to unlock top tier perks (guild missions obviously being one of them). Someone please correct me if im wrong, but once a guild activates a guild mission in the world, other players are able to help this guild accomplish said active mission, correct? If you’re in a small 10 person guild band together and help a larger guild accomplish their mission. You’ll be gaining more influence because you’re guild mates are completing activities together, you’ll have some experience with the guild missions for when your guild is able to unlock them and kitten! you may even meet some awesome people you want to continue to play with. The guild whose mission you joined may even continue to invite your small guild out to help complete their missions. I don’t think smaller guilds are being ruled out, I think a lot of smaller guilds aren’t looking at the whole picture and just focusing on the fact they can’t have top tier rewards this instant.

No commendations. Probably token Karma and Silver (currency) rewards. In other words, it’s irrelevant right now if you can join in with other Guild Missions or not.

I also don’t think it’s reasonable for me to have to wait several weeks to even begin working on Ascended trinkets. Not reasonable in the slightest.

What an absurd and poorly-thought-out mechanic. Non-initiating guilds cannot get commendations and abhorrently restrictive influence and time costs mean it takes 460 build hours (19.167 days) and 66 700 influence to unlock Guild Bounties (the cheapest and initial mission type). So, as it stands, my guild has one of two choices. Start spam recruiting anyone and everyone to farm influence off of new/naive players, or join a Wal-Mart guild and leech off of their guild missions. Excuse me? ANet is better than this.

About a week ago I decided I hated my Asuran Guardian that I have had since headstart, and made a new Human Guardian. Don’t regret my decision one bit.

First screenshot is what I look like now, and the second is what I originally had as my armor combo, before I gave in and bought full T3. Kind of wish I didn’t re-skin over it, to be honest.

Keyce.8137:

This will be a difficult one. I’m normally used to playing for fun, but I’ll see what I can whip up off the top of my head.

I’d recommend SB and S/anything. Warhorn for extra fury, axe for whirl finisher/vuln on targets in melee with your rangers, or the dagger for the ranger’s own extra survivability with its dodge #4. Building high for ’zerker gear is probably the best way to go.

Generally, the ranger should be okay staying at a range with the shortbow, shooting things down at a range and generally out of danger. During boss fights, or fights where you normally use Time Warp by the mesmer, the ranger can swap to melee combat and use Rampage as One. The amount of might stacks you get from the elite, AND the third hit on the sword, means that the pet should quickly reach and maintain 25 stacks of might for the duration of Rampage as One.

The downside with pets is that there is currently no way to maintain boons on one pet when swapping to the other.

I avoid non-tanky pets because I don’t like waiting 60 seconds to swap pets if one falls before I can swap it. That usually means the one I have out is going to end up dying, just like the first one.

SynfulChaot has the right thinking for Healing Spring. The amount of utility it provides is just too much to pass up. It’s like building a self-sustaining guardian but not taking Altruistic Healing, except in the ranger’s case the heal benefits everyone and is a water field, which means other combo finishers will also be healing allies.

I will give a word of warning, however. Many people have complained of the sword’s unresponsiveness when auto-attacking with its #1 attack. I have not found much trouble (if any) with this weapon myself, but some players may need to adjust to how it functions.

/facepalm I really need to stop posting at 2 AM. Of course I meant Healing Spring. That’s my mistake. Why you wouldn’t choose both a party-wide heal AND a water field as your heal of choice is beyond me.

I’m also well aware you can’t match a Warrior’s DPS with a Ranger. Nothing can, really.

SynfulChaot.3169:

It is great that you have a guild that is filled with players that will change their builds to what you want, but you will not find that outside of guilds. I think it is better to let the people who play the class determine what they want to run instead of forcing them to spec within what someone else wants.

Noone is speaking of team builds. Or warrior, guardian, or mesmer builds. We are speaking of ranger (Ranger subforum, you know?). We all know that rangers are not as strong as those classes. We are speaking of maximizing what the ranger can do.

Apparently the vast majority of my OP is being misconstrued. I posted this thread for help with finding a build which would synergize best with our team comp. The reason why I mentioned the warrior bit was because that’s the role it will fill. Essentially a high DPS with a little bit of utility. Apparently it’s elitist of me to want to min/max and how dare I try to find a build that would work with our team comp. We’re a guild who is interested in speed clearing. Speed clearing requires you to run very specific builds with very specific consumables. The second anyone begins speaking about min/maxing, people seem to jump down their throats. There’s always going to be a spec that out-DPSs the others. Always.

At any rate, I think I’ve decided to tinker around with an SB/LB 30/30/5/0/5 build with the Red Moa/Jungle Stalker as pets. Troll Unguent with Quickening Zephyrs and most likely a couple of the spirits. Rampage As One for the elite.

Usually, going with a full Knight’s set provides a good base for many different builds. It provides high toughness for tankish builds, moderate power, and high precision. The high toughness allows you to use consumables to gain another 5% crit/100 power, depending on your spec. On top of that, you can use your accessories and weapons to direct your stats whichever way you want. Full berserker’s for a sturdier DPS role, mix of knight’s and berserker’s for a DPS-oriented tank, and full knight’s for full on tanking.

Personally, I run a 0/0/30/30/10 AH build with a mix of berserker ascended and knight’s accessories, with berserker’s weapons. 3k armor, 2800 attack, 48% crit, 15.5k HP, and 49% crit damage.

Solandri.9640:

I’m not sure why you’re prioritizing optimal over fun. This is a game, not warfare or a business. It’s supposed to be fun.

Who’s to say that we don’t derive fun from pushing our team build to the limits and speed clearing content? I personally find anything sub-optimal abhorrently dull. Heck, when I level a character to 80, I don’t bother playing that character in any content until they’re fully geared. I derive no fun from forcing others to carry me because of a sub-optimal build and gear combination. While I realize this isn’t a popular opinion, it’s no less valid than “I like playing 9/18/12/21/10 because it’s neat.”

Solandri.9640:

After playing the game for 3 months, I’ve concluded that Anet has for the most part done a very good job balancing the different ways you can build a character. There is no overall optimal build. There are builds which will do better in specific situations, but different builds will do better than them in different situations. If you have a particular situation you’re always finding yourself in (maybe you always do dungeons with the same 4 people), then you can come up with a build which has optimal synergy with their preferred skills.

The reason why I included our team build in the OP is because we do run specific builds, no matter who you are in the guild. The ranger build, then, has to obviously fit in with that mentality. I’d also like to comment that there is an exceedingly large difference between passable and optimal. ANet has implemented many passable build combinations, but very few optimal. It’s the nature of any game, really. It allows the “casuals” (I actually detest that term; I classify myself as a casual and yet I enjoy high-level PvE and WvW, the exact opposite to a traditional casual) to putter about with a “fun” build and somewhat contribute to the team.

Solandri.9640:

But if you’re asking for one build to rule them all, there is none.

The current fastest dungeon clearing composition is very warrior heavy with a guardian and mesmer for support. Therefore, if one were seeking to speed clear content the “one build to rule them all” would be a build which synergizes the best with this team. Therefore, this build does exist.

Just as a last addition, I’m not a fan of condition builds for a few reasons. First of all, they operate along the premise that they are the main (sole) applicator of conditions. This is utterly and fundamentally flawed because almost every single member of a party inadvertently applies conditions with their build. This essentially takes up space that could be used by the “buffed” conditions and wastes the condition build’s effectiveness. Second, their DPS shines only over lengthy fights. Considering almost every single dungeon path can be run in under 15-20 mins, with multiple being able to be completed in as little as 6 minutes, I don’t quite see where the lengthy fights are coming in. I’d be willing to bet that the flat DPS provided by a glass cannon is far superior to that provided by a condition-based player in such a circumstance. Especially in a team comp where you have 100% Fury uptime. Lastly, they synergize poorly with Time Warp. This may seem a but of an odd statement, but Time Warp is probably the single greatest skill you can bring into any engagement. It allows certain bosses to be burnt down in less than 30 seconds, allows for rapid pushing of bosses from one phase to the next, and allows for the quick burning of otherwise difficult pulls. That a condition-based build doesn’t synergize as well as a glassy build is exceedingly detrimental.

SynfulChaot.3169:

If you want to specialize in shortbow, I’d recommend condition damage over pure power as three of the shortbow attacks apply damaging conditions.

It’s not a matter of want, but what is optimal. I personally don’t like condition-based builds because I don’t find that anything dies slow enough to warrant them, but if that’s what the optimal ranger spec is to fit into the team build, then so be it. I also meant sword/torch, torch being for potential blast finisher abuse, not shortbow. That’s my bad.

EDIT:

I’ve been tinkering around and, correct me if I’m wrong, would the longbow be sub-optimal DPS to the shortbow when not at max range? If so, would a SB/LB or SB/(GS or Sword + Warhorn) build not be best? I’m thinking 30/30/x/x/x, potentially 5/0/5 or 10/0/0. The utility slots would probably be some combination of Spirits and Survival skills, depending on the encounter. Not sure about which pets, though. Probably have a better look at them tomorrow when it isn’t 2 AM.

I’ll preface this thread by saying that I’m not very well versed in Ranger builds or gameplay outside what you may encounter in WvW or sPvP. Even then, I only understand how I counter a ranger, and not its in-depth class mechanics. So, when faced with the question “what build should I run,” I was understandably unprepared.

Our guild currently runs the 2 Guard/2 War/1 Mes or 1 Guard/3 War/1 Mes meta in almost everything PvE-related. However, we do have a few members who main rangers and are interested in speed clearing content. I’m trying to find out what kind of build they should be working towards to fit into our team’s “paradigm.”

The guardians are a 0/0/30/30/10 AH build with consecrations/spirit weapon duration for reflect utility in fractals and misc dungeons. The warriors run variations on Axe/Axe + Greatsword or Axe/Mace with 10 invested into Arms for Vulnerability. Armor-wise, they run either a knight/berserker mix or full berserker. The mesmer is a full glass cannon with 20 into Inspiration for focus traits and is a phantasm build otherwise. Everyone runs Omnomberry Pies/Ghosts and everyone uses Skale Venom. As such, we have a permanent 20+ stacks of vuln going.

The ranger build would ideally replace one of the warrior slots, so it needs to have high DPS with as minimal a cost to survivability as possible. It’s not necessary for the ranger to be specced for any specific utility role, as that is covered adequately by consumables, the guardian(s), and the mesmer. That said, I’m not closed to anything extra that they can bring to the table, only that it’s pointless to focus on utility when it’s not necessary. To this end, I was originally spitballing an LB/sword+torch ranger high in crit/power to synergize both with Time Warp and consumable abuse. However, I also know that Trap Rangers seem to be the current FotM, and am wondering if perhaps a more condition-oriented build would be more beneficial.

Like I said, I’m not well-versed at all in Rangers, so I could be completely off-base with my suggestions here. Any and all correction/help would be immensely appreciated

Steve [Ecks] is rebuilding and recruiting players who are interested in dungeon/fractal content and speed clears thereof.

Our name derives from the phonetic spelling of X, which was our legion on Old and New Israphel in Aion. The Steve portion comes from the nickname we gave to the add spawned by the Telepathy Controller boss in Dark Poeta. We farmed that instance so much pre-1.8 we decided that he needed a name. Steve was a natural choice. We’re a tight-knit group of players who have, in some cases, been playing together for 5+ years. Several of us were members of multiple guilds in the [SCAR] and [LOD] alliances for a considerable amount of time in GW1. Others draw their MMO beginnings from Rappelz and Runes of Magic. Yet others still from FPSs like Counter Strike and TF2.

X first rolled on Yaks Bend, and then decided to make the move to Maguuma for a change in community. Unfortunately, due to real life commitments and people returning to Aion, our guild has lost a significant number of its members. Ideally, we would like to become an extremely competitive guild focused on speed clearing and farming high-level PvE content. We’d like you to be part of our community, too. Here’s what we’re looking for in a recruit:

• A mesmer/guardian/warrior character. The builds we run in instances revolve around that current meta, and so it is greatly preferred (however not absolutely mandatory) that you have one of these three professions.
• The willingness to adjust gear and stat loadouts in order to fulfill specific party roles.
• Dungeon/Fractal experience not required, just the willingness to learn.
• The ability to listen to vent. Mics are not required, but listening is.

As a member of X, this is what we can offer you to help you become a better player:

• We offer advice on builds for all classes in game to optimize whatever playstyle you are going for.
• We have a core group of players always willing to lend a helping hand for leveling or if you need to farm an instance.
• We have an active vent server to hang out in with lots of odd personalities to talk to.
• We have free fashion advice for all applicants so they, too, can look fabulous at all times.

As I said, X is rebuilding. We ourselves aren’t particularly advanced in fractals, mostly due to lacking the member power to form groups for it. Furthermore, we went from having a fully upgraded guild on Yaks Bend and several tens of thousands of points to starting back from zero on Maguuma. We don’t have 24/7 buffs, nor do we have a large guild bank. However, what we can offer is the ability to grow and gear your character while learning dungeon content.

If you are interested, or have any questions, please feel free to PM me on the forums or in-game under the name Boonprot.6274. Other officers that can be reached are kartek.6428, Kaziks.9640, Muppet.6485, and UberNoob.2947.

I’m not a big fan of the Celestial line of stats because they’re so unfocused. When you make a build, you don’t toss a few points into everything to get the “best of all worlds,” now do you? No, you focus the build around 3 or 4 trait lines in order to hit certain key synergistic traits. Would you not want, then, to have a gear loadout that is equally focused? I should hope so. If you are interested in this amulet purely for the ability to use it with a large blanket of builds, then I still think you’re wrong. You should have different gear sets for different builds, if it is warranted. Not one set for all builds. Your character ends up being suboptimal in all ways.

Lastly, the Celestial items do indeed have more stat points than the regular items, but it’s absolutely irrelevant. 10 extra points distributed into 8 different stats has an influence so minimal that it is essentially nil.

My friend said this to me yesterday, and I think it’s the truest thing I’ve ever heard about GW2’s story:

“GW2’s story is basically helping a leaf find out what he wants to be when he grows up.”

I’ll be honest, I was kind of looking forwards to Maguuma being shot down to T8 because of Kaineng >.> I’m a horrible person, I know.

Oozo.7856:

Boonprot.6274:

dEjAhVu.4526:

kerona.3465:

fellyn.5083:

Yeah, only Kain is complaing about bugged queues…

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/Any-Tarnished-Coast-citizens-agree

Not that I think that counts as proof. But it would be nice if Anet let us see our position in the queue to help know if it’s at least moving. That would go a long way towards getting rid of that sort of complaint, I think.

Ask your WM buddies to log some bots off so you can get in next time.

Ugh… Let’s not start this again…. If you really believe they are botting report them. The rest of us don’t want to hear this garbage resurface.

Usually, I hate accusing others of botting or hacking, because it usually is caused by the accuser not being as fluent with game mechanics as the accused. However, there was some incredibly… suspicious (maybe not the best word) activity last night. Every so often we’d run into a WM zerg that stacks incredibly perfectly and moves in absolute coordination. There was no movement delay, no nothing. It was honestly like watching a flock of birds. What’s more, is that if you focused down or CCed the members at the front of the “flock”, the ones that were obviously leading the charge, the entire zerg ball stopped and died to CC/AoE.

There was such a startling dichotomy between these “zerg balls” and the legitimate WM zergs that I can’t help but think that there was something fishy going on.

From my observations, Team Legacy actually runs in a tighter pack than WM. WM players have posted movies. They aren’t botting, IMO. They are just very good at staying together on their driver.

Also, WM is a large guild. It’s going to have some bad players and some good players like any large guild.

Even then, there should be some lag in the zerg’s movement. What we witnessed last night was movement in perfect unison. There were no stragglers in the movement. They also performed the same strategy both times we ran into them in Danelon. I mean identically the same strategy. Push into the camp, take too much heat, run up on the ridge behind the camp itself, die.

ghtchill.7613:

Boonprot.6274:

dEjAhVu.4526:

kerona.3465:

fellyn.5083:

Yeah, only Kain is complaing about bugged queues…

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/Any-Tarnished-Coast-citizens-agree

Not that I think that counts as proof. But it would be nice if Anet let us see our position in the queue to help know if it’s at least moving. That would go a long way towards getting rid of that sort of complaint, I think.

Ask your WM buddies to log some bots off so you can get in next time.

Ugh… Let’s not start this again…. If you really believe they are botting report them. The rest of us don’t want to hear this garbage resurface.

Usually, I hate accusing others of botting or hacking, because it usually is caused by the accuser not being as fluent with game mechanics as the accused. However, there was some incredibly… suspicious (maybe not the best word) activity last night. Every so often we’d run into a WM zerg that stacks incredibly perfectly and moves in absolute coordination. There was no movement delay, no nothing. It was honestly like watching a flock of birds. What’s more, is that if you focused down or CCed the members at the front of the “flock”, the ones that were obviously leading the charge, the entire zerg ball stopped and died to CC/AoE.

There was such a startling dichotomy between these “zerg balls” and the legitimate WM zergs that I can’t help but think that there was something fishy going on.

Not ever having seen this myself, and I have seen WM in action obviously, I can’t really comment beyond saying what you’re describing does sound pretty weird…if that’s what you were actually seeing.

Like I said, I’m not one to call people out for hacking/botting, because I believe it shows a lack of knowledge concerning game mechanics. However, there was some really, really funky stuff happening last night.

brooks.1875:

ParaldaWind.4523:

dEjAhVu.4526:

kerona.3465:

fellyn.5083:

Yeah, only Kain is complaing about bugged queues…

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/Any-Tarnished-Coast-citizens-agree

Not that I think that counts as proof. But it would be nice if Anet let us see our position in the queue to help know if it’s at least moving. That would go a long way towards getting rid of that sort of complaint, I think.

Ask your WM buddies to log some bots off so you can get in next time.

Ugh… Let’s not start this again…. If you really believe they are botting report them. The rest of us don’t want to hear this garbage resurface.

They’re either botting or just terrible individual players… they only auto attack/heal, don’t interrupt stakes, never break off from the group to do objectives, and if they don’t wipe the enemy with their first push they wipe or take 15+ minutes to take a supply camp and give up and leave.

Any ground-targeted CC’s seem to wipe them pretty easily, too… static field, line of warding, ring of warding, marks, fears, anything. They just fall apart when they can’t move as a giant ball… Speaking of which, it’s incredibly surprising that they can stay so balled up especially when they’re in Korea. You’d figure that the network lag would be so variable from there that they would be unable to stay that close together without a follow command.

Just some observations.

So then you guys should have had no problem taking SM last night right?

Not the point. No one ever said ALL of WM was botting, just that there were a few zergs that were acting horribly suspiciously. WM had some legitimately scary-good zergs that seemed to pop up out of nowhere, and then there were the “flocks.”

dEjAhVu.4526:

kerona.3465:

fellyn.5083:

Yeah, only Kain is complaing about bugged queues…

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/Any-Tarnished-Coast-citizens-agree

Not that I think that counts as proof. But it would be nice if Anet let us see our position in the queue to help know if it’s at least moving. That would go a long way towards getting rid of that sort of complaint, I think.

Ask your WM buddies to log some bots off so you can get in next time.

Ugh… Let’s not start this again…. If you really believe they are botting report them. The rest of us don’t want to hear this garbage resurface.

Usually, I hate accusing others of botting or hacking, because it usually is caused by the accuser not being as fluent with game mechanics as the accused. However, there was some incredibly… suspicious (maybe not the best word) activity last night. Every so often we’d run into a WM zerg that stacks incredibly perfectly and moves in absolute coordination. There was no movement delay, no nothing. It was honestly like watching a flock of birds. What’s more, is that if you focused down or CCed the members at the front of the “flock”, the ones that were obviously leading the charge, the entire zerg ball stopped and died to CC/AoE.

There was such a startling dichotomy between these “zerg balls” and the legitimate WM zergs that I can’t help but think that there was something fishy going on.