Guild Wars 2

I highly doubt the culling issue can be fixed easily since it’s more like a game engine problem. Therefore, skill/trait change sounds more doable to fix the unbalanced situation right now especially in wvw.
Main complain comes from thief’s benefit/risk ratio which caused by stealth.
How about this way:
1, nerf all thief’s skills damage (e.g. 50%);
2, change trait skills and increase trait bonus (e.g. 200% if you max it to balance the skill damage nerf).
So if a thief want to get the deadly power to burst someone down quickly, then he has to go for high damage trait, but consequently he won’t get out of battle easily. It’s more like an assasin-like build — you die or I die.
And if thief want to get out of battle easily, then he shouldn’t have enough damage to take someone down. So it makes thief-like build — I come and go when ever I want, but what I do is just annoying you but not killing you.

I know CnD can be missed if you are blind.
But what if CnD vs Block ? You will do 0 damage for sure, but will it active stealth or not ?

Why ppl still complain about thief?
In MMO history there is NO success sample for stealth class to get well balanced.
It’s simply mission impossible due to its mechanism.
Thief can only be either TOP or BOTTOM. Right now thief is on top, but some day a certain patch comes, thief will become underdog. This is what happened in all MMOs and will happened in GW2 soon.

If you say sacrifice the contribution to battle against escape skills, I will agree.
But it’s nothing related to survivability. For survivability itself, it’s no matter 1vX or XvX. Thief or ele already give the best explanation of this word.

Konfuzfanten.6503:

CRrabbit.1284:

Survivability is not only related to toughness, HP and healing power, in fact in wvw mobility + steath offers much more survivability than VTH especially when u face multiple numbers. In this point, guardian is far from highest survivability in wvw. Ele, thief, mesmer, engi have better survivability than guardian.

Yes survivability is not only tgh, vita, healing, stealth or running away. Its also about how long you can keep a zerg one in place and survive: no one does that better then guardians(Tankcat engi can do something similar, but doesnt have the cc to back it up). WvW isnt about 1vsX fighting, its XvsX fighting. The guardian is not design to be a gung ho lone ranger, but a mass control class. And we pay for that ability in terms of range firepower and escape tools.

Lets say we kept a our current defensive abilities and then got a powerful 1200 ft range option or even more escape tools, how would you die? You would be then guy with the most avoidance skills, best armour, medium-high HPs, great heal abilities, multiple blinds, most cond removers, near perma swiftness AND then the ability to pewpew ppl at 1200 ft or instant escape combat? You cant see thats broken? I would call that game breaking.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

And you don’t see what’s severely wrong with that!?

No i dont, because i can see why we dont have those tools, and we are not the only class that sucks at getting away. Ask a necro or warrior about escape tools.

GC guardian with specter+focus, sword+torch might have a little chance if you can manage to land all your skills perfectly, but if not perfectly, prepare to deal with thief guild.
Guardian do need a better range weapon, or maybe staff 1 range increase to 900 (same as pistol), then guardian will have a better chance.

Teabaker.9524:

Though I still don’t think that a guard can win against a P/D-thief

Survivability is not only related to toughness, HP and healing power, in fact in wvw mobility + steath offers much more survivability than VTH especially when u face multiple numbers.
In this point, guardian is far from highest survivability in wvw. Ele, thief, mesmer, engi have better survivability than guardian.
Norn guardians have much better survivability than other races simply becoz of the snow leopard steath+charge.

Konfuzfanten.6503:

Hostility, let me ask you a question:
Do you think it would be fair for the class with the highest survivability in the game to get even more escape tools? And its not like we dont have escape, just dont have as many as other classes.

Thing is, if guardians wants more escape tools we will have to give up something else, since everything the class is balanced on a golden weight: if you want something you need to give something. So what skill(s) do you want to trade for an effective escape tool?

Then you could say that Guardians are underpowered and need a overall buff and then the devs, 80% of all guardians and all the other classes would laugh their kitten off.

Its like the lack of range options debat, yes we have kitteny range because we got over the top utility and survivability. If we gave up some of our utility/survivability the devs would properly gives us range and more escape tool since we then would need it.

I would say engi might have a chance if the thief insist on killing the engi but not running away.
Or maybe a HB warrior with throw bola.

Teabaker.9524:

Teabaker.9524:

D/P is counter to any melee atm (They can get killed easily by other thieves though). With number 3 we can get away from melee extremely easy (we even can even leave the hammer’s ring with it).

What counters P/D (any class/build)?

Your tanky enough to survive burst, and any prolonged fight will afford the p/d thief ample opportunity to either reset or disengage from the fight. Your dps is primarily auto spam, so you’ll rarely be initiative starved and retal/reflect isn’t a big concern asd you are not reliant on spike. Your large morale pool, regens, vigor, ports, aoe blinds on stealth, leaches and stealths would seem to afford you plenty of room to reset/flee anything (from a 1v1 perspective).

That’s exactly what I did, but then what? I even land might blow in between and immobilize him after he get out of the ring and use GS to get closer again, but again, then what? P/D 3 is spammable, he get away again instantly after immobilization. As I said by that way, I can only get 50% of his HP by using hammer.
My best bet is using glass canon build and land all atk skills in 2-3 sec while immobilization. But with GC gears/build, I doubt whether I can stand long enough to land the perfect combo especially if he send the theif guild out.

Bash.7291:

The trick is using judges at the same time as ring to teleport and instant lay down the ring. They will almost always run into it once because the attack is pretty much instant and puts a ring right infrot. Then use banish to knock them into the ring again, switch to gs and bind them, pull, and whirl. I admit alot of it depends on luck but honestly luck is the only way to kill them because of the insane amount of shadow steps.

After 2 weeks wvw with these 3 servers, here is my impression, objectively:

DB—pros: best population coverage overall especially asian/ocean time zone; huge casual wvw players base;
DB—cons: lack of organization, lack of commanders, as I mentioned above, DB has a lot of casual players (so called pugs), a large number of them are not experienced and don’t know what to do w/o commander’s lead. A simple fact is no matter how many DB has in certain map, as long as there is no commander, that map will look ugly. Most DB players are only familiar with following zerg, but small strategic assault team (which is very effective) is rare to see in DB.

DH—pros: best population coverage during NA prime time. My estimation(maybe not correct) is that DH might have equal number(or close) of DB+NSP all over 4 maps during NA prime time. Players are experienced , build + use sieges very well.
DH—cons: bad non-NA prime time coverage. Sometime over confident and fight unwisely, so the zerg is easy get into the unlimited scrimmage with other server(mainly DB) which make the target to be easy to predict and sometime be countered.

NSP—pros: best organization and strategy. Small assult team can be seen very often which is very effective. Zerg has great mobility and very clear aim.
NSP—cons: probably the worst population coverage among 3 servers. You can’t do much w/o enough numbers.

I have reported in bugs forum, if Anet paid enough attention on the posts there they should already know it.
I post here to remind ppl (especially in pvp), don’t use dodge roll when u get immobilized or when u cast some stationary skills. (for many ppl the primary reflection when being hitted hard is to use dodge roll, so if u have that habit, fix it, it only makes things worse) —- that’s my purpose.

Jornophelanthas.1475:

If you want this fixed, you would do better by describing the issue in the “Game Bugs” forum, and to not use sarcasm. And you should probably also write an in-game bug report with as many details as you can think of.

If you actually enjoy getting immobilized in this way, and wish to invite other people to entertain themselves in the same way, then I guess this thread is the perfect way to do that.

I guess you mean P/D thief. For upper two who suggested Hammer ring, Yes I did try that, and as Teabaker said, P/D can get out of the ring as wish. By using hammer I can’t even get 50% of his HP.
The best time I did is a perfect combo with specter 3, 2 plus focus4, 5 then switch to sword+torch 2 then land most of 3 and torch 4, it took thief’s HP down to ~20%, but he still ran away and came back short later.
A P/D thief is not glass canon at all, they can be as tough as us guardians.

Teabaker.9524:

D/P is counter to any melee atm (They can get killed easily by other thieves though). With number 3 we can get away from melee extremely easy (we even can even leave the hammer’s ring with it).

After many times of testing, finally I found this hidden combo in GW2:

Combo field: you can get combo field by 2 ways — 1, being immobilized; 2 using skills which requires stationary status during casting.

Combo finisher: dodge roll

Combo effect: Permanent Immobilization. However, unfortunately, the effect only applys on YOURSELF.

Combo effect breaker: tele , jump etc.

So can we get more description and more details on next patch note since it has already been discovered ????

Just now fight with a P/D thief for almost 30+ mins in wvw. Can’t get him, his damage is far from take me down too. I don’t even need to dodge unless he use thief guild (like 10+ times). I was hitting the air in 75% time.
I know the culling issue sucks (in spvp, tpvp never have porblem with P/D thief), but it’s the reality and I doubt whether Anet can fix it in the short future. So we can only accept that.
So what might be a better way to really kill them? ( I tried almost all combinations of weapons, but none seemed worked agaisnt these P/D thieves) (D/D or S/D, S/P thieves are much easier to take since they have to do damage in melee range, but this P/D thief is just so annoying….)

You are wrong about engi. It’s true that good engi is too rare. In fact the top1 bunker is neither Guardian nor d/d ele but a good engi. I would say thief vs a good bunky engi = no chance at all.

ErlendR.6107:

First of all gomen english.
All these opinions are valid ONLY from 1 THIEF point of view and in 1VS1 PVP in wvw (more exactly just my opinion :P)
So:

Morfedel.4165:

Morfedel.4165:

And then a guildie told me about a video showing a single thief taking out 25 people at once… haven’t seen it yet, but plan to look it up soon.

This made me chuckle quite a bit. If this actually exists (which it most likely does not), it would not be indicative of the power of the class…but rather the wholesale ineptitude of the other players he/she was facing.

Totally agree.
Im a thief, i can tell i kill a lot and die a lot.
Im not a pro, just consider myself over the average.
OP is warrior, the only one, if the warrior player skill is average, i cant take him down in a 1vs1. Just spamin skills or with a greatsword i cant get close without receive a lot of dmg, with range weapon i cant do too much dmg, and he can escape from me, all this if he is a player over the average.
Mesmer 1vs1 is a tie for me, if the mesmer is a good player.
Elementalist is hard only against those who played well and have too much aoe with too much dmg. I saw just a couple of that kind.
Guardians i dont know …
Necros and Rangers need be buffed :S
Enginer is the one who need be buffed more than all :S:S:S

Not sure if the new guilds already started to participate wvw last night, but the fact is when I get in wvw ~7pm EST last night DB still held the 1st place in score and kept ~1/3 of the map (this never happened during last 2 weeks since that period of time is the weakest point for DB, DH usually control most of maps during that time). Also after checking all 4 maps, surprisingly, I only get outmannad buff at NSP BL(it was usually at 3 maps). I think the new blood not only bring more force but also bring more morale to DB which encouraged more PVE players (DB do have a super huge PVE base) to come to wvw when they see the possibility of having some fun here (this is almost a tradition in DB’s wvw history).

Very nice video!
For vs ranger part, I think if you use torch as off-hand instead shield, it won’t take you that long to get him down.

StugLyfe.2134:

I understand your frustration as it took me w while to find the build that works, IMO your entire post is incorrect here watch this……

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

Never tired ur build, but I used to run a heavy condition + survival build. It has its place in 1v1 and limited useful in 2v2 (depends on what prof you are against), but as long as 3 or more included, condition damage become more and more useless. (you either have no time build it up or the opponents have tons of way to get rid of it)

Arrys.7145:

CRrabbit.1284:

OK, just tried it, it does give wonderful survivability, but it also takes forever to kill someone.
Main problem is the axe, its damage/pace is just too low for pvp. (GS is OK but you can’t mainly rely on it) Shortbow is still the must-have weapon for ranger (except 1v1 situation), so sad ……

Yeah getting damage plus support ability is a big challenge. Perhaps something like this.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQRBHhx+1IRVmdXlcFolgYpQQ7vpQTm/poVs3VYUX80eTA;TwAgyCmoAycj4GLQOgkAt8YEweh5CA

Damage is from bleeding condition damage + fire. (I don’t usually play condition so haven’t tested this concept yet.)

Support
Fury warhorn and Moa
AOE vigor 2 sources (Healing spring tic’s and swapping to the Moa) active dodge boost
Protection from the stone spirit, every 30 seconds from armor runes(also critically early in the fight – duration bonused to +20% duration + 30% with axe birds
10 Seconds of +175 power and condition from Jungle stalker
+70 Precision allies

Healing
Healing spring plus leaps into the healing spring or ally blast finishers in it.
Regeneration (AOE potential) from healing Spring (Bonused to +33% +20% + 10% duration = +66% duration)

Condition removal
Healing Spring
Spirit of Nature

Damage – stack bleeding fast (Bleeding duration increased 35%)
Sharpening stone at 75% health
Sharpening Stone
Bleed trap
Splitblade at pointblank 5 stacks
7 seconds bleeding on swapping to the sword.

Defensive damage – thief deterrent
Torch flame field

The jungle stalker is a DPS pet.

Assuming a bit of your survival potential comes from your allies but this should let you put out bleed damage plus your aoe buffing. relies more on active defense dodge well used sword 1 hand etc…

I’ld test it with different amulet systems – shaman, Carrion, and rabid

Based on stun break needs as well as condition removal could seriously consider swapping out the active sharpening stone for signet of renewal.

tome of courage save your kitten while escaping.

With new guilds DB will definitely do better but I doubt DB is rdy for the next tier yet.
DB will get more supports for NA prime time but the total NA population might be still less than what DH currently has(although not much). However, if you compare with the upper tier server (such as EB which has the lowest score in T4 now), you will really feel the word which is called “out-numbered”.

Inprognito.9487:

With the new guild DB will likely move up a tier after next week and get crushed. Hopefully not, but goodluck to you guys.

OK, just tried it, it does give wonderful survivability, but it also takes forever to kill someone.
Main problem is the axe, its damage/pace is just too low for pvp. (GS is OK but you can’t mainly rely on it) Shortbow is still the must-have weapon for ranger (except 1v1 situation), so sad ……

Arrys.7145:

Essentially you can get better with armor runes.

Are you talking about rune of earth ? I used to think about it, but finally decide to go for centaur since it can give perma swiftness not only to ranger self but also team. (it’s protection vs mobility , self vs team boon, so I choose swiftness)

Arrys.7145:

Your utilities are rational to a power damage build.

I guess you mean QZ? My opinion is QZ is 1/2 offensive 1/2 defensive depending on situation. I know signet which give inv is the best defensive utility but I don’t want to waste 30 on Marksman. Muddy in my oppinion is the best value utility skill ranger has due to its super long duration.

I agree with your point in spvp. But in tpvp + wvw , SoN is just a joke and RAO is not as useful as entangle. (for sometime RAO is needed, but overall Entangle is better)

Also the idea of using of Moa is to max the AOE heal + boon effect during n vs n fight.

garethh.3518:

For SPvP…

Wolf.
If you are planning on being a ranger you either have to run a wolf or bird.
It’s pretty much the only way to go (if you are just looking for what is effective).
The wolf’s aoe fear is just brutal for stopping stomps, landing stomps, helping an ally spike, stopping an enemy spike, getting that extra second to neutralize a BO…
It is BEAUTIFUL.
Oh, and it does good dmg and has good survivability and has a 2s knockdown…
Just rediculous pet…

Birds do really, really good consistent dmg. So if you plan on ever killing anything and don’t want a wolf, get a bird.

The best way to hunker down and take a hit as a ranger is to go with heal power and signet of the wild, troll ungent, empathetic bond and some vigor (for the protection on dodge roll procs). You can usually ditch the heal power for offense and be a decently survivable dps if you can play well enough. Oh and Greatsword is pretty mediocre for surviving, sword tends to work a dozen times better, it can kite more easily, get in melee more easily, has an on weapon evade and a poison… then you can grab dagger for another evade and long duration cripple, it is fantastic for stalling or staying in melee range.

Rampage as One or Spirit of Nature are much better support/survivability elites than entangle.

Thanks for correction, checked wiki, it’s bugged, only 3 sec instead of 10 sec in tooltip.
Then it’s not worth it. But Red Moa is still a good buy. Maybe 2nd pet switch to something else. (maybe white Moa for AOE chills)

Arrys.7145:

MOA protection buff is 4 seconds……

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQNBHhFakoqyOyyxC1SQ0ewJJhJOD+XovAXBRdxb7ZB;TsAA1CoomxMjYG7MuZkzs+YAx8DA

(copy & paste if it shows “bad link”)

So you will get 2.8k+ amor plus 23k HP with 3k+ atk, crit chance stay ~20% but you get perma fury (war horn+red moa) plus food / oil, you will have ~50%. Crit damage little bit low but if you want , you can sacrifice some T/V to get more.
You have lots of endurance recover (vigor, trait, sigils) so you will be a dodge roll king, also it will give you protection boon, plus blue moa enhanced protection (trait), you can have protection for at least 1/2 of time.
You have good cc (chill, daze, stun, immo, cripple, weakness, vul) and some condition (bleed).
You have QZ to do some burst damage (although not enough to take one down but it can be very useful when finish or rez) if you want.
Also your mobility is super too with perma swiftness and GS leap.

Over all, you should be hard to kill, and can give your team perma fury+swiftness and pretty long time protection. ( in my opinion these 3 are the most important boons)
Also your Moa will AOE heal 3k+ pretty often which will be another huge plus.

Mainly for pvp+wvw.

It looks good on the paper, havn’t tried yet. Wanna hear some advice/criticism before go for shopping.
Any suggestion ??

Just now wvw reset, everyone was teleport to LA(overflow), from DB there is like only 30-40 ppl. So it’s these 30-40 ppl who fight for DB over 4 maps during NA prime time and make our score not ugly. If your guild is moving to DB, it means you guys will double the population of DB’s NA prime time coverage. (DB used to have a strong NA prime time population months ago which can compete with current T1 servers, but not anymore) In fact what DB need now is just some NA time guilds.

SSnowman.3187:

My guild is looking to transfer to this tier. I was wondering if it would be welcomed as we’d prefer not to step on toes.

If you guys could describe who’s stronger during which time slot and your open world PvE/Dungeon population, that’d be greatly appreciated.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/Who-needs-40-US-Prime-time-players-for-WvW/first#post881652 is the thread I made which tells a little about what we’re looking for.

Oh and Queue time information during 8pm-12am EST for each server! Please don’t understate your queue times.

Ele no doubt. A well played ele is just impossible to kill. Even a mediocre ele can handle 1 v 10 situation pretty easily.
After today’s patch, ele becomes back the most OP class in every situation, pve, pvp, wvw etc.

I am shocked when I see this too.
Anet, it is a typo, isn’t it ?

after some testing, I think I got it.
If you keep using direction key (e.g. W, S, A or D) more than twice during immobilization. (for example you click W twice or W then D), you will be perm immobilized.
I tested it with friend in spvp, everytime I did that I got perm immobilized.

You get into this situation more often in PVP becoz you push the direction keys more often than in pve.
So the best way to avoid it is —-— don’t click direction key until the duration of immo expired, otherwise = Tragedy.

BTW, use dodge during immobilization also give you a high chance of perm-immobilization. ~50% chance. no idea why.

Both are tough, but in my feeling, bunker guardian is just HARD to kill, but there is always a way to get guardian down (just take longer time).
However, bunker ele is just IMPPOSIBLE to kill as long as he don’t really want to die. The worst case he just run away and come back again since no once can catch him.

It happened twice today. Mesmer jumped through the wall/gate and make portals.
this is really broken……..

Thanks, probably it’s that. But never seen him rez anyone coz we are 1v1 in open field. He is a bunker ele and I am a bunker guardian so it take pretty a while to get him down (didn’t count the timer but maybe long enough for its CD).

Vayra.3290:

Glyph of Renewal, if you use it in Fire attunement you get a 15 second self-ress. Though I think you have to actually res someone to get it to proc.

Not sure if someone else met such problem too:
Sometimes, after you get immolized (by mobs or by players), even after the duration of immobilization (usually 2 sec), you can’t move at all by just using the direction keys (e.g. W, S, A, D), you were perm immobilized there unless you use some skills (e.g. teleport or leap) to unlock that status.
It not happens all the time, but sometimes it happens pretty often.
Anyone else has same issue ????

OK today in wvw I met an ele who can do unlimited self rez.
I killed him 6 times in a roll, but every time he is down, he get up instantly and kept running without downing again.
I played ele too (although not lvl80 yet), I know the vapor form can give 3 sec rez but after 3 sec you down again, also 3x time u die instantly. But this is just not appled to this ele. He can keep rezing himself w/o down after 3 sec and not died after 3x time use.
Maybe some new trick I don’t know ????

I got just opposite feeling. Specter is much way better in wvw than spvp/tpvp.
All you need is the specter 2 once u see any enemy down among the zerg of enemy, he will die soon and also hurt anyone else who want to rez him. I got tons of kills by just spamming the specter 2 alone. Never mention how useful it is when u atking target on walls.

OneManArmy.5617:

Scepter is effective in sPvP and tPvP up to around 300range, very bad in WvW and good in PvE(Dungeons).

it’s impossible to make steath/burst profession balanced. They can only be either OP or UP, there is no middle stage for such class. At least it never happened in any MMO in history (at least by now no one can find out a way to balance such class)
However, instead, there are some successful sample to make relatively balanced theif like profession.
1, with limited steath ability and deadly burst, they can choose when ever to start the fight, but the only way to finish the fight is killing target(if the target not dead, they can’t escape, means either u die or I die), which make the profession assassin like;
2, with unlimited steath ability but not enough burst, they can choose whenever to start or escape, but hard to finish target by themselves alone, which make the profession scout like;
Unfortunately, now Anet give both 1+2 to theif, that’s why ppl complain about it.

I highly doubt that this so-called bug can be fixed in the short future.
For rendering issue itself, it’s a game engine problem, I even doubt that whether the game engine was developed by Anet alone. It’s almost a mission impossible to fix the rendering issue from game engine level.
So the best / easiest way is just doing the same as in spvp, but it’s clear that Anet didn’t want to do that , coz if they want, it should have already happened longtime ago.
I get a feeling that this issue won’t be fixed in pretty long time (maybe 1 yr?) until everyone just get use to it and accept that it’s just a part of the game.

this is a daily joke, am I right ?

Cleansing fire with sigil of ice + JI, ur target will be chilled 99%, then root + smite + torch 4, if not died yet, switch to GS 3, 5, 2 = no survivers unless your target has teleport skills.

I have about 3100+ power, 2600+ amor, 15k+ HP, 40%+ critical chance and 80+% critical damage. with food, oil plus sigil, I can maintain ~60% critical chance, also I am using rune of citadel which will give me another 20% critical for 36 sec every 60 sec, plus save urself, so in 3/4 of time I have ~80% critical chance and 80 critical damage, plus the might I got from EM and what ever, I almost have 3200+ atk all the time(yes as a guardian!), my hit is really painful.
So for me, sigil of perception will bring 12% more critical chance (which will be 15%+ damage), but bloodlust only give me about 8%, so I go for perception.
At the begining, I think I might be little bit squishy due to my only 2600 armor and 15k HP, but in fact it doesn’t really matter in wvw, the real way which save ur kitten is not the high armor and HP but the block and tons of healing. my feeling is 2600 armor and 15k HP is just inside the sweetpoint of survival.
I didn’t go virtue trait coz I think -CD to signet is more important.
I strongly recommand to bring a staff no matter what build u will use, it’s the best wvw weapon by all means especially when u follow the zerg, it not only make u almost unkillable but give ur teammate huge buff, staff 5 + WoR, u will be a flag who lead the battle.

What are your primary stats? Are virtues not worth specing on??

with 18k HP you probably won’t have 45% critical chance, maybe 30-40%, other stats will be easy to reach. Then if you use food, oil, sigil, runes, you still can maintain 50+% critical practically.

Darx.9842:

Ok. What about 18k hp? Would I be able to get the rest?

20k HP is the hardest part for guardian……

I use GS (sigil of perception) as my main too. The other set, I will use staff(sigil of fire) or specter(sigil of perception)/torch(sigil of ice) based on situation.
Trait goes for 0/10/30/30/0, also change between AH healing (while with zerg)/shout and meditation (less than 5 ppl roaming) based on situation.

Guardian is so versatile, the best way is not to stick on certain skill/weapon, max valor/honor(30) give us a good opportunity to switch between either AH or meditation.

I love torch, it’s very offensive weapon in wvw. torch 4 and 5 deals a lot of damage and most importantly they are hard to avoid. In my opinion torch 4+5 is the most reliable damage out-put of all guardian’s weapons.
And, torch is extremely good against dagger storm, both 4+5 won’t be reflected, and 5’s range is 400, it makes DS can’t hit u, but u can hit him all the time. 90% of time when a theif pop DS around me, he will be a dead meat. what you need to do is just torch 4+5, it will do at least 10k damage to them, then use what ever else (e.g. GS 2), u can finish him if they don’t stop and run away. (But in most case, they don’t run coz most thieves think they are safe while casting DS)

If so, use ranger = easier while u lvling in pve 1-80, use thief = harder; but after 80 it’s just opposite.

Konrad.6913:

Yeah i know that, but i prefer to do most of the leveling in pve and by crafting what i gather. Just to explore more of the game.

PVE is NOT the only way to lvl up (actrully PVE is the slowest). I power lvled my Guardian 1-80 by max crafting (cost u about 20g for mats) in half day and lvled my thief lv10-80 in wvw in just 3 days with tons of kills.
It all depends on what you want to focus after lv80. But right now, in either cases, thief is a better option.

I was told that EM might has internal cooldown ~1 sec, and I have to agree with that.
When I use Smite + cleansing fire(both very high frequency) together on target with 50% critical chance I can get 6 might at max.
Then after I got another 20% critical from fury ( totally 70%), I can still only get 6x might.
So +20% critical make no difference to EM, which makes me believe that internal cool down theory.

If I were you, I would use signet of stone instead of wild, use sword instead axe.
Practically, if you lucky enough, your 1st burst SB+QZ(most likely based on your build) can take 1/2 HP of your target. Don’t expect your pet can do any damage in a long range coz they never did.
Then if he run, you just have nothing to do unless you have pet with immo(so don’t start with birds). If he heals and come to you, you will be in danger now coz you can barely last few seconds too. switch to sword pop stone and melee him, switch your birds this time and its F2 (yes pet’s atk land much better if you melee) plus your 2nd burst with sword will give him a big surprise.
So in this case , you don’t need double stability but a true 6 sec invincibility.
Also axe is good for condition build, for your case, sword will be better.

Titan.1580:

Although all the negative Ranger posts don’t do much to cheer me up about my class, I am a very casual player and don’t have a lot of time to level alts.

That said, I am looking for a little help on rounding out this setup, mainly weapons and bar abilities. Here’s what I run so far. Armor is full set of CoF Power/Prec w/ full Rune of Ranger set. Accessories, Rings, etc are mostly Power/Prec/Tough.\

I’d also like some help on rotations. But any feedback on anything is welcome.

thanks

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQNBlODbkoKyuySxi1SAsesnfD2FwekIiM+FUwjE

Before I gave up my ranger, he has near 9k kills in wvw, not exactly same build as yours, but close. I also used SB as my main wp. I think I have enough experience to say it. Yes I can kill ppl here and there. I can make a ganking video to show ranger power too by only showing my killing moment, but so what? Every class can do that simply becoz editting video is sooooo selective. It can’t change the over all feeling that ranger is underpowered. As you can see from the video, most of players he was against were quite below average skill level in wvw (maybe it’s server difference, but most of players I played against played much better than that, at least they won’t focus on killing the pet but leave the ranger alone shooting them down), the only one with some average skills is the thief at last and he is not even lv80.

this will also proc vigor boon to allow more dodging which procs more protection! —- are you sure about this ? coz the regeneration is not considered as “healing skill” although it will give you HP for sure.

this video is kinda misleading, most players he was against were not lv80 (so most likely in crappy gears too), the only solid kill is VS that lv80 warrior, but you can always find some bad-skilled players even if they are lv80. At last the thief is not even lv80 too but give the ranger a real hard time, and once the lv80 ele came, fight ended quickly. I don’t think this video can change the fact that ranger sucks over all in pvp or wvw.