Guild Wars 2

Sure but frost trap is up twice as long and is unblockable; surely that’s not second rate? Well of darkness is better for aie blind but, heck, sun spirit can do that with about the same CD (perpares to get attacked for suggesting spirits and flees).

Solar flare: 6s blind 25s CD to 60 s CD depending on time of death of spirit.

Whoever ate salsa.

Grant aoe vigor (moa swap with vigorous training/ vigorous renewal+healing spring) and fury (warhorn and red moa) as well as frost trap (unblockable) and muddy terrain (long duration cripple pulses with immo. on first hit) because I count that as group contribution. I’m curious to see what others think but from what I understand, ranger has great access to aoe fury compared to others, as well as aoe vigor.

Using brown bear with signet of renewal isn’t too bad TBH. Also, ranger pets create a natural 2v1 and more bodies means it’s harder to target your group and with “guard” you can order a pet through enemy traps for the benefit of the group. I don’t know, maybe none of this is what you consider helping a group? But, yeah, healing spring rocks.

Was it 3 birds?

Anyone who plays “fire and forget” ranger struggles with the profession.

covenn.7165:

SFShinigami.2015:

Don’t worry. SoR coverage will skyrocket in the next few weeks as schools begin letting out for summer.

Sweet, we can get our kids to play then.

You haven’t experienced gaming until someone’s 8 year old daughter caves your face in 1v1.

You sound like an experienced gamer.

CuddleStrike.8215:

Just sayinv we should all be like this….

But I like to eat

Arpheus.6918:

It was never 650 – at least not the last months. It was not nerfed by 50%. Confusion was nerfed. Retaliation was not nerfed at all. It’s as it was before the patch from 30. April.

The problem is not weak random zergs. It’s guild zergs who know what they do. They will stack might + retal on the zerg.
It is bad design if one single skill kills you by a passive damage retaliation. I cannot stop the skill, dodging won’t work, blocking won’t work. There is absolutely nothing I can do except not using my strongest AoE skill.
There is two ways to stop this: ICD or make barrage instead of 12×5 hits (60 hits for retal) 3×5 huge hits. That way I wouldn’t get myself killed but people would complain by getting hit by huge AoE numbers. On the other hand it would be the same as meteor shower. Few huge hits which don’t get you killed by retal.

Engineer has the same problem with many weak hits.
ICD is the only real solution to this. 0.5 sec CD means you can still get hit by 700 damage per second. That is good damage and should be strong enough for retal.

Frost trap or muddy terrain > barrage (ftfy)

wipol.1528:

ArcTheFallen.7682:

Hey,

In my pursuit of mastering all professions in sPvP, I have recently started using the ranger and I want to be a trap master however, during my practice joins last night, I noticed some issues surviving, so I have a some questions:

1. Which trait gives you the most access to vigor?
2. Which traitline gives you the best survivability?
3. What is the most reliable way to remove conditions?
4. Are there any notable combo field based moves we can create?

Unfortunately I want to go 30 in the 2nd traitline, so I just wanted to pick the best defensive traitline to make up for it.

1) Put 5 points in WS for +50% vigor regen, if you put 10 points you can also choose “Vigorous Renewal” as Major Trait that gives you vigor when using a heal skill

2) WS – Vigor Regen, Protection on Dodge, etc..

3) You can use Empathic Bond, but you need to put 30 points in WS. Otherwise you can use “Signet of Renewal”. Healing Spring also remove condition at each pulse, but you need to stay in the field.

4) Leap (Sword/GS) with water field (Healing Spring) and with fire field (Fire Trap, Bonfire)

Yay! I forgot to mention all the finishers like leaps and stuff. Good advice!

1) 5 in WS for Natural Vigor (faster regen rate passive) / Vigorous renewal (aoe pulses in healing spring if you want) / vigorous training (vigor on bird or moa swap)

2) Wilderness survival gives best survivability under most circumstances but nature magic could be closer if evasive purity was aoe removal on dodge and/or spirits get more popular (this is my opinion others may disagree)

3) Healing spring is, probably, the easiest skill to access for removal…but it has no stun break! So signet of renewal becomes an option and/or lightening reflexes + HS

4) noteable fields include Healing Spring water field 50% uptime with vigor pulses (if traited) and condi removal, frost trap (ice), poison fields from pets spiders, venom sac from porcine, or muerellow, (finish for weakness), Bonfire (torch) or fire trap (blast for might), and also an ethereal field from porcine (throw gunk) that’s needs a longer active time (imo), and my fingers hurt. Does anyone else want to cover underwater?

@onyx

I never had sega mega drive but I did have commodore 64. I’m probably older than you.

Wikipedia: The text comes from the opening cutscene of the 1991 European Sega Mega Drive version of the video game Zero Wing¹ by Toaplan, which was poorly translated from the original Japanese version

I used it 3 times in molten facility last night to save team mates while I kept up DPS and boss aggro. You have to watch health bars. I hear your complaint but useless is a bit strong of a word so I had to post a counter example.

Yep, GG BG. I’ll see all you jokers tonight at reset.

pot.6805:

Chopps.5047:

MagiKarp.8201:

All your garrisons are belong to us.

Are you native English? Placing ‘are’ in the middle of that sentence is quite bizarre; I don’t think I’ve ever seen that non-native writing before. Are you from Antarctica or something?

It’s a videogame meme.

I knew I should have played games between gw2 and halo 2.

MagiKarp.8201:

All your garrisons are belong to us.

Are you native English? Placing ‘are’ in the middle of that sentence is quite bizarre; I don’t think I’ve ever seen that non-native writing before. Are you from Antarctica or something?

I know right? It’s almost as if there are groups of people who work together in teams.

But…I’m a ranger. Don’t you like us?

Hang on guys…pops popcorn

Ok, I’m good: just watching the insults fly. I love it.

“It’s not easy being green”

http://youtu.be/hpiIWMWWVco

Sebrent.3625:

This is what happens when your balance guy looks annoyed and defensive while talking about Rangers and like he’s about to drool when talking about Thieves. :-/

Thankfully, it’s not game-breaking and we’re in a good spot with our current viable builds.

It is difficult to speculate the origin of these body language things. They could be tired. They could be apprehensive due to the corrosive nature of these forums. They could be excited about giving thieves a new mechanic, after all, that is their thing: coming up with cool, viable mechanics. I wouldn’t read too much into that.

I think they did well considering their broadcasting experience and technical issues. I think the focus on the question of “how does ranger bring what others can’t” steered the conversation down several rabbit holes. I agree with sebrent that more focus on playstyle, builds, and stories about using ranger are more desirable. There were good moments for new players, I think, with focus in the pets kind of nice though.

Pedra.4381:

Chopps.5047:

Also, remember Signet of hunt’s effect lasts 15 minutes so pop it early if you enjoy that signet.

Not exactly 15 minutes, my man, but you knew that, right? (Pro tip)

When I use quotes I’m being sarcastic, lighten up. Maybe I should say “pro tip /s”?

Yes, it’s more like 16 minutes but I haven’t used SotB lately to actually see the buff on my own bar so I don’t really keep track. But with signet changes, SotB is looking good. Maybe I’ll try that once thieves start running more sword.

I like it. Happy hunting!

Sebrent.3625:

I’m somewhat worried about this against Sword + Dagger thieves. Now they can steal our regen which is a large part of our hp/sec.

After they use their flanking strike, they have 5 seconds to land their boon steal on you (which also hits hard), so you have to be much more careful.

Frost trap + run, but, ya, you’re right. Anti-boons are coming!

I hope not, geez, I just dropped 5 rank points for that.

Yep. Did you notice pathing improvements? Because I did.

I’ve ran a similar trait structure before…just make sure you have a boon up all the time to justify the last 5 in NM. With swords (my favorite) I recommend going for cleric’s gear and runes of dwyana for the regen boon. Consider oakheart salve instead of 20% fast WS recharge. Hounds are a good choice for this build but feel free to experiment. Frost trap is awesome…shh…that’s a “pro tip /s”. Here’s another one: Hilt Bash—even if you are at range, to buff your pet’s next attack. Also, remember Signet of hunt’s effect lasts 15 minutes so pop it early if you enjoy that signet.

On another note: I am LOVING the positive energy here on the ranger forums. <3

Dawdler.8521:

GhostHawks.6519:

did this patch make rangers any better?

No, it didnt remove the pet. Sorry.

Pet pathing, HP, and responsiveness were all vastly improved. Ranger brings a good mix of healing, aoe vigor, survivability, aoe chill/cripple, yet powerful dps from the pet (or utility, your choice). Ranger is a solid wvw profession, no doubt. Rangers have a huge water field granting regen, condi removal, and aoe vigor each on 3 s pulses with 50% uptime. Run healing power and your zerg will love you.

I always thought the active should be a static field.

Maybe they have several builds developing in parallel and, let’s face it, configuration control is hard and occassionally—those simple undocumented fixes you do every day, well, one falls through the cracks of interfacing a new block of code with the “next” build?

Blinding them should make their next attack miss, not sure how that gets you killed?

Sword auto has two leap animations causing this. The behavior is desirable because it’s designed to stay on target, cripple, and give 3 stack might to pet. Your pet has a better time hitting crippled targets.

Turn off autotarget turn off autoattack. Someone, please make a ranger keybinding thread. I really don’t want to see the sword change guys, fix your keybindings.

I found that sometimes if you double tap F2 you go into a short CD instead of activating the skill.

Whoa I just realized you’re doing 0/0/30/10/30, Faux. I have been running 0/5/20/15/30 for fortifying bond, which I find much stronger. Also, to answer other questions, I have found this build great in open world pve—particularly southsun cove and orr. My playstyle involves crippling and chilling for my pets.

garethh.3518:

Bas.7406:

So there are no Power builds or beastmaster rangers ;P

You don’t know the class well do you?
No matter how they spec, ranger’s fill roughly 1~ role in TPvP and that’s stalling and small scale skirmishing… an utterly terrible class to make a team of.

It’d just be a game of necro zerging and ranger attempted backcapping.
Don’t see anything interesting in that.

It’s just for fun…

When did I say ranger is “optimal” (whatever that means) in pve? Quit putting words in my mouth. My message has always been the same:

i) gw2 is a skill game and regardless of profession/build/weapons, skill is a huge weighting factor in the equation of success

ii) I have maximum fun playing ranger, therefore I play it. I don’t care if a guardian has X, Y, or Z. I will still be standing over people with Whirling Defense, saving them from projectiles, or poisoning before a heal, weakening the “vigor” professions, laying combo fields, rezzing, and destroying enemies a mile away with my pet. Why? Because it’s fun.

I don’t have to bandwagon on guardians or elementalists because I don’t care about balance. Do you think two NBA teams in a playoffs match are “balanced”? Balanced according to what? You don’t need to average more height, have a better left hand, or a 5% better shooting rate. The only thing that matters if, given the tools you have, do you win or lose—in the context of a team. You can win as a team or lose as an individual in gw2. The choice is yours.

Thankfully, I play in a tolerant guild that “gets it”. We focus on teamwork and a ranger brings control: a unique mixture of healing and conditions and tons of utility by simply swapping pets. I like to run healing power with oakheart salve, vigorous renewal / healing spring, and frost trap (as well as muddy terrain). I like to dive in and out of combat. It’s awesome.

Asthalon.6875:

Another side to this is that Guard is now basically 66% uptime Protection on the Pet. Extending that to 100% really shouldn’t be too hard (not sure if +Boon Duration boosts it, it should though right?)

Nearly perma uptime with Shout Master traited (12 s CD for 11.5 second protection). I tested guard with sotw in southsun based on a suggestion by durzlla. Indeed, the bear can solo a couple karka, try it yourself.

Guard is undervalued. Protecting your pet is a big goal of ranger and it is not a waste of a utility slot by any means. Also, if you are getting ranged, gaurd the tanky pet and kite around it, using it as cover. With healing spring you’ll be just confortable dishing ranged damage while using the pet for cover. When in combat, it’s easy to use devourer for cover without even using guard, making devourer fantastic for many dungeon encounters. Yesterday, I hid behind my devourer, using it to absorb old tom’s poison bolts. You can still fire arrows or throw axes from behind it too.

Ranger has many quirky tactics like the one I just explained, making it extremely powerful in the hands of a practiced player.

I’m just guessing but guardians have low base health and will be facing more problems with boon builds in the future so…

covenn.7165:

Well that is quite disappointing. I was ok with many of the ‘nerfs’ to my class in regards to decreasing power level in some cases, but I wasn’t ok with ruining the flow of the game play for me. That and some bugs/poor design that are applying things when they shouldn’t and are most likely causing their changes to have the opposite of intended effects.

So basically these changes are forcing people to babysit objectives, micro manage siege, and basically do un-fun time wasting things instead of fighting players. Sounds like a pretty bad patch and will negatively impact our matchup.

Everyone complains about zerg balls and ANET is making zergs split up, it seems. So…nay still? I truly am glad I don’t work for anet. They simply can’t win, no matter how carefully they think things through.

Geshque.1326:

Well, there must be a reason why people think you are trolling, Chopps. But I want to believe it is that way, if not – the problem may be even worse.

I never insulted you. You need a SF hug! <3

Geshque.1326:

Chopps, anyone one this forum consider you serious for a while now. Just play the PVE, my man, and try to avoid this forums cause you’re bringing just 0 usefulness here.

It’s a free forum, I can do whatever I want so long as it’s within the ToS. If you don’t like my posts, don’t read them—problem solved.

Xsorus.2507:

Pedra.4381:

Chopps.5047:

Well, my man, you dont like slowing enemy for pet to use sick ’em and the cheese build you popularized was nerfed. That sucks.

Chopps, I’m just amazed (stunned actually) to see you admit that something was nerfed.

rofl, I’m kind of surprised he thinks it was a cheese build more ;o)

I just said cheesy because I feel like racial abilities are cheesy, that’s all. Why do people think I’m trolling when I speak my mind though? Bizarre

Magical Sky Daddy.7540:

covenn.7165:

I didn’t play last night, but how does everyone feel about the patch changes in context of our current match up?

Arrow Carts too op, lots of people are disappointed with this patch. Nerfed 2 of the most played classes so of course people are going to bummed out

Which is why I become proficient with underdog professions…keep bringing those buffs to rangers!

Magical Sky Daddy.7540:

Chopps.5047:

yawn

JQ sucks they just zerg and have numbers

BG sucks because X, Y, Z

SoR: pve players

Now that I’ve insulted everyone, can we all go back to giving each other props? Respect to TW and the Choo commander last night. Good luck and, as always: happy hunting!

Lol JQ sucks because we’re winning

BG sucks because SoR says they do

SoR just sucks

This is probably a better way to put it :P

You’re instigating!!!

Off topic: I was hoping this would be about future update / living story gives us a ticket for a helm, etc until a few months from now when we have an entire fused armor set!

yawn

JQ sucks they just zerg and have numbers

BG sucks because X, Y, Z

SoR: pve players

Now that I’ve insulted everyone, can we all go back to giving each other props? Respect to TW and the Choo commander last night. Good luck and, as always: happy hunting!

ZudetGambeous.9573:

This is boon redistribution, not boon stacking. Thieves can’t share boons, they can’t keep them up 100% and they can’t choose which boons they get.

Thieves are boon commies.

Here’s a quote I’ll paraphrase from a hot topic on the spvp forums: “Ranger can burst without line of sight with a stealthes glass cannon that’s harder to kill than a warrior, is near immortal underwater, and can still glass cannon burst with feline even though they themselves are bunkers. This is not fair.”

Just some perspective from others to perhaps open your mind.

<3

maddoctor.2738:

showatt.9413:

For the past 3 month Elem has been dominating and I really don’t understand how you could’ve missed that.

No they haven’t been dominating anything, ever since release. Warriors and Guardians have been dominating since release, with recently added Mesmers in there. That’s concerning 90% of this game, but apparently because Eles were powerful in the other 10% they required a nerf, right?

Flawed logic, but at least we get a clear idea as to how the balancing devs also work.

Oh, and I really don’t understand how you missed that.

I heard most people ranked in leaderboards ran ele? Sure it wasn’t efficient? A solid ele in spvp was terrifying.

Myrmidian Eudoros.4671:

Gallrvaghn.4921:

… why the buff on pets?!?! Buff on spirits, yeah they sure needed it. But pets?! They needed to be toned down actually.

One word answer: Zoophilia

Keep your head on a swivel to look out for birds, and if you see a Jaguar go stealth, then run like hell.

Ranger doesn’t need to be anywhere near you to kill you, is not dependent on LoS to burst you and is immortal underwater (not that UW combat matters at the moment). Seems perfectly fair to me. At least we know already where the nerf bat is going to crash down next patch.

Yeah, I main ranger and feel extremely strong. I don’t get all the QQ on the ranger forums.