Guild Wars 2

Chokolata.1870:

I have zero problems with rangers not being able to do high end berserker GC builds . However , pets dying in one hit vs some bosses and them having a hard time hitting strafing players is something that absolutely has to be tweaked .
If my pet could land every second hit without me burning every single CC ability i have , i would be more then happy .

Muddy terrain is a nice utility that will help your pets land hits in a BM build. It has a ton of uptime too.

Literally 50%? Where’s Sebrent when you need him? He likes doing spreadsheets outside of work. I’d like to see the math on this.

Many players of many professions will swap utilities between fights. Sometimes you need more removal or maybe access to stability. Maybe you want to equip a ranged weapon for a particular boss.

Chimp.7946:

Link does not work. There is a hybrid build in that look simular.

The forum has some kind of program that tends to botch a direct link. Try copy/paste, see if that works? It might not :/

Regarding shapes, I never could tell my coffee cup from a donut.

Durzlla.6295:

Neb.4170:

Chopps.5047:

You ever use combo fields to help your group blast heal, stack might, or proc weakness on your foe? Devourers make great dungeon pets since you can proc an abundance of might with it’s dual attack and RaO. Have you tried that? You can even try fortifying bond to get even more might on the pet. What about muerellow? Everyone like applying weakness to a boss. Muddy terrain, spike trap, and frost trap turn out to be great choices for skipping trash and/or chilling a boss. Do you make use of these? How much do you let your pet tank the boss as opposed to calling it back? Heck, I’ve been playing since beta weekend and I still wouldn’t consider myself someone who’s mastered all the details of ranger. At one point I thought I had it all figured out. But then I realized there was more options, more things to study, and more things to test.

You’d sacrifice much more damage by using the Devourer Vs. Cat or Bird than a few more might stacks RaO would give you.

And yeah, using snares isn’t exactly some masterful strategy that should have taken you very long to figure out.

And you lose out on a lot of pet uptime + control from using a cat/bird over a wolf, see how this stuff works?

Well, sure Durz is right and you make a point. My take is that there’s trade offs in life.

When you pick devourer, you get a tougher pet that does less damage. But you also get a poison field and another utility slot in return, since now you don’t need signet of the wild so badly. Life, penalties, and the sad fact that nothing is free. You can still run a squishy for burst on swap, or a drake for blast finish on melee demand.

So you work together, with your team, to make up for your own shortcomings. And you tailor this to your friends, guild, and team.

Pets as they stand are controversial and I’d estimate that almost nobody believes they’re in a final form. Expect this game to evolve. But at the moment, take heart in the fact that with a little bit of work and practice, you too can successfully integrate ranger into a team. Don’t worry so much. Go out and do your thing. If you’re not having fun, if ranger is disappointing to you or not what you expected, there’s not much I can say to help you. Play some necro or thief and come back later?

All I know for sure is gw2 is a skill game and superior battlefield positioning, motion, and teamwork will always prevail.

You ever use combo fields to help your group blast heal, stack might, or proc weakness on your foe? Devourers make great dungeon pets since you can proc an abundance of might with it’s dual attack and RaO. Have you tried that? You can even try fortifying bond to get even more might on the pet. What about muerellow? Everyone like applying weakness to a boss. Muddy terrain, spike trap, and frost trap turn out to be great choices for skipping trash and/or chilling a boss. Do you make use of these? How much do you let your pet tank the boss as opposed to calling it back? Heck, I’ve been playing since beta weekend and I still wouldn’t consider myself someone who’s mastered all the details of ranger. At one point I thought I had it all figured out. But then I realized there was more options, more things to study, and more things to test.

Randulf.7614:

Chopps.5047:

At the risk of extreme backlash, might I suggest that it’s ok to lose? The chance of losing makes it thrilling. I like a challenge, don’t you? If you are still convinced you need more numbers, ally with another guild and get help on bounties. Make sure you understand each bosses mechanics and the best way to counter their defense. Happy hunting!

You are in part correct – I’d hate it to be like the Dragons where it’s a guaranteed win. But the bosses themselves aren’t the issue. I have no issues with their mechanics. The issue for small guilds is the finding of them. That is pure luck/numbers. Nothing else.

You mean the one in Gendarrin Fields?

At the risk of extreme backlash, might I suggest that it’s ok to lose? The chance of losing makes it thrilling. I like a challenge, don’t you? If you are still convinced you need more numbers, ally with another guild and get help on bounties. Make sure you understand each bosses mechanics and the best way to counter their defense. Happy hunting!

I always wondered how to pronounce ‘siamoth’. Does anyone know?

Durzlla.6295:

Geshque.1326:

Yeah. And Chopps still didn’t notice that your nick is Durzlla and not Durzilla xDD

lol i know a TON of people that call me Durzilla instead of Durzlla xD, like just about every guild i’ve been in xD

I’m just bad at typoing. :P I shall call you Sir Durz of the Longbow

KensaiZen.3740:

Chopps.5047:

jkctmc.8754:

Chopps.5047:

jkctmc.8754:

Chopps.5047:

jkctmc.8754:

Chopps.5047:

Part of the problem with solo’ing lupi is how much effort it is jk. Seriously, you basically need a party to help you get there and that’s asking a lot. The last way to solo your way there that I knew of was nerfed away after the portal gun nerf. After that, expect to spend 12 hours practicing or longer. Strife025 mentions practicing for 11 hours before feeling like he was good at it. 11 hours of practice doesn’t mean warrior is sooo good I don’t think, rather, it means Strife or (insert soloist’s name here) isn’t just playing the ultimate of professions or whatever you might believe—they’re well practiced.

Edit: fixed typo

You’re the PvE Ranger, so if you thought you could do it, you would. If nothing more than to be able to say; “in your face”. The fact you havn’t tried it speaks volumes. Rangers in my guild who have tried, and said it isn’t possible, and our Necromancer got pretty darn close. You can’t keep using that excuse.

My guildmates are waiting for the why, to their answer.

Did they practice for a dozen hours like strife025 claimed it took him? Not tk take anything away from strife, he’s a heck of a player. Have warriors in your guild put in the time to practice that and then do it?

The necromancer has put in roughly 12 hours, the Rangers gave up after 10. The Warriors see no need to do it since it has been proven a Warrior can do it. Our Mesmers have put in roughly 8 hours, but they’re not sure it is possible with the Mesmer either, and are losing interest. Our Guardians when asked, say; No, just no. Our guild leader has offered 1000g to the first class besides a Warrior who can do it.

You’re missing the point though, like usual.

A thousand gold you say? And you feel this challenge is skill independent? Interesting. Does anyone else feel like chiming in on this? Are you aware both theives and mesmers have demonstrated solos of Lupi and the videos are on youtube?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Giganticus-Lupicus-mesmer-solo

If it says bad link try copy/paste, hope that link works :p

1000 gold you say? Someone in your guild ought to practice and collect that bounty. Can I join your guild?

If you solo Lupi as a Ranger, I’ll give you the 1000 gold.

$_$ are you serious? Is this just me or any ranger out there? What are the terms, what’s the catch?

if you spend time analysing the attack pattern of lupicus you will be able to do it. Just a matter if you have the patience to spend so much time and effort on it. And who knows if he will even give you 1000g for real.

He’s got to be bluffing.

jkctmc.8754:

Chopps.5047:

jkctmc.8754:

Chopps.5047:

jkctmc.8754:

Chopps.5047:

Part of the problem with solo’ing lupi is how much effort it is jk. Seriously, you basically need a party to help you get there and that’s asking a lot. The last way to solo your way there that I knew of was nerfed away after the portal gun nerf. After that, expect to spend 12 hours practicing or longer. Strife025 mentions practicing for 11 hours before feeling like he was good at it. 11 hours of practice doesn’t mean warrior is sooo good I don’t think, rather, it means Strife or (insert soloist’s name here) isn’t just playing the ultimate of professions or whatever you might believe—they’re well practiced.

Edit: fixed typo

You’re the PvE Ranger, so if you thought you could do it, you would. If nothing more than to be able to say; “in your face”. The fact you havn’t tried it speaks volumes. Rangers in my guild who have tried, and said it isn’t possible, and our Necromancer got pretty darn close. You can’t keep using that excuse.

My guildmates are waiting for the why, to their answer.

Did they practice for a dozen hours like strife025 claimed it took him? Not tk take anything away from strife, he’s a heck of a player. Have warriors in your guild put in the time to practice that and then do it?

The necromancer has put in roughly 12 hours, the Rangers gave up after 10. The Warriors see no need to do it since it has been proven a Warrior can do it. Our Mesmers have put in roughly 8 hours, but they’re not sure it is possible with the Mesmer either, and are losing interest. Our Guardians when asked, say; No, just no. Our guild leader has offered 1000g to the first class besides a Warrior who can do it.

You’re missing the point though, like usual.

A thousand gold you say? And you feel this challenge is skill independent? Interesting. Does anyone else feel like chiming in on this? Are you aware both theives and mesmers have demonstrated solos of Lupi and the videos are on youtube?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Giganticus-Lupicus-mesmer-solo

If it says bad link try copy/paste, hope that link works :p

1000 gold you say? Someone in your guild ought to practice and collect that bounty. Can I join your guild?

If you solo Lupi as a Ranger, I’ll give you the 1000 gold.

$_$ are you serious? Is this just me or any ranger out there? What are the terms, what’s the catch?

Zenith.7301:

Chopps.5047:

jkctmc.8754:

Chopps.5047:

jkctmc.8754:

Chopps.5047:

Part of the problem with solo’ing lupi is how much effort it is jk. Seriously, you basically need a party to help you get there and that’s asking a lot. The last way to solo your way there that I knew of was nerfed away after the portal gun nerf. After that, expect to spend 12 hours practicing or longer. Strife025 mentions practicing for 11 hours before feeling like he was good at it. 11 hours of practice doesn’t mean warrior is sooo good I don’t think, rather, it means Strife or (insert soloist’s name here) isn’t just playing the ultimate of professions or whatever you might believe—they’re well practiced.

Edit: fixed typo

You’re the PvE Ranger, so if you thought you could do it, you would. If nothing more than to be able to say; “in your face”. The fact you havn’t tried it speaks volumes. Rangers in my guild who have tried, and said it isn’t possible, and our Necromancer got pretty darn close. You can’t keep using that excuse.

My guildmates are waiting for the why, to their answer.

Did they practice for a dozen hours like strife025 claimed it took him? Not tk take anything away from strife, he’s a heck of a player. Have warriors in your guild put in the time to practice that and then do it?

The necromancer has put in roughly 12 hours, the Rangers gave up after 10. The Warriors see no need to do it since it has been proven a Warrior can do it. Our Mesmers have put in roughly 8 hours, but they’re not sure it is possible with the Mesmer either, and are losing interest. Our Guardians when asked, say; No, just no. Our guild leader has offered 1000g to the first class besides a Warrior who can do it.

You’re missing the point though, like usual.

A thousand gold you say? And you feel this challenge is skill independent? Interesting. Does anyone else feel like chiming in on this? Are you aware both theives and mesmers have demonstrated solos of Lupi and the videos are on youtube?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Giganticus-Lupicus-mesmer-solo

If it says bad link try copy/paste, hope that link works :p

1000 gold you say? Someone in your guild ought to practice and collect that bounty. Can I join your guild?

It’s worth mentioning both mesmer and thief took significantly longer to do so.

Even more for the guardian who also showed how to do it (he used scepter, not melee).

Lupicus is fairly doable solo if you have ither a blink, immunities, or stability you can cycle in between his domes. Otherwise you need swiftness/speed increase and leaps to kite him.

The problem I’d see with the ranger solo is the lack of stability (you only have it on a long cd elite), and that they made the new lupicus immune to snares so the ranger can’t kite at pahse 3 so lupi won’t cast the dome on him. Granted, I think if you stay close enough to lupi he doesn’t cast the dome?

Either way, it would easily take a ranger about double or triple the clear time of a warrior or thief, and still considerably more than a mesmer.

The ranger has just terrible damage even when the pet can stay alive, because the highest numbers you’ll see on any ranger ability is a 17k rapid fire channel while other GC classes can do much more than that consistently than the ranger can+his pet. Most pets with 30 points at BM do around 8-9k crits in the best of circumstances having to use 60-120 second cooldowns, while classes like the mesmer and thief and warrior can do similar or larger bursts of damage far more consistently and their sustained matches or exceeds the ranger’s.

Despite that I still think the ranger is not as bad off as the necro. At least the ranger is wanted in fractals for search and rescue on jade maw. Nobody wants a necro for anything.

That’s interesting. I will have to toss up the idea that the time doesn’t matter when you solo. Why? Because in a group setting, things will shake out differently. Suddenly not everyone can wear full zerk and doge every attack because boss aggro is broken so often you never know where the attacks come from. Suddenly those utilties like search and rescue become options, as your group iterates on methods to efficiently beat the boss, getting better over time and eventually trying to work up to full zerk, if they can handle it. In my book, It’s more of a “whether you can do it pr not” thing because someone will always come by with a faster time and a new benchmark.

And it’s likely Lupi can be beaten on all professions. I’ve seen more difficult things done with less resources in the history of videogaming and with Lupi’s generous CD between attacks, I still maintain the belief that any player knowledgable or skillful enough can solo Lupi. Anyhow, enough forum writing for this week. I will see you all later! Happy hunting!

jkctmc.8754:

Chopps.5047:

jkctmc.8754:

Chopps.5047:

Part of the problem with solo’ing lupi is how much effort it is jk. Seriously, you basically need a party to help you get there and that’s asking a lot. The last way to solo your way there that I knew of was nerfed away after the portal gun nerf. After that, expect to spend 12 hours practicing or longer. Strife025 mentions practicing for 11 hours before feeling like he was good at it. 11 hours of practice doesn’t mean warrior is sooo good I don’t think, rather, it means Strife or (insert soloist’s name here) isn’t just playing the ultimate of professions or whatever you might believe—they’re well practiced.

Edit: fixed typo

You’re the PvE Ranger, so if you thought you could do it, you would. If nothing more than to be able to say; “in your face”. The fact you havn’t tried it speaks volumes. Rangers in my guild who have tried, and said it isn’t possible, and our Necromancer got pretty darn close. You can’t keep using that excuse.

My guildmates are waiting for the why, to their answer.

Did they practice for a dozen hours like strife025 claimed it took him? Not tk take anything away from strife, he’s a heck of a player. Have warriors in your guild put in the time to practice that and then do it?

The necromancer has put in roughly 12 hours, the Rangers gave up after 10. The Warriors see no need to do it since it has been proven a Warrior can do it. Our Mesmers have put in roughly 8 hours, but they’re not sure it is possible with the Mesmer either, and are losing interest. Our Guardians when asked, say; No, just no. Our guild leader has offered 1000g to the first class besides a Warrior who can do it.

You’re missing the point though, like usual.

A thousand gold you say? And you feel this challenge is skill independent? Interesting. Does anyone else feel like chiming in on this? Are you aware both theives and mesmers have demonstrated solos of Lupi and the videos are on youtube?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Giganticus-Lupicus-mesmer-solo

If it says bad link try copy/paste, hope that link works :p

1000 gold you say? Someone in your guild ought to practice and collect that bounty. Can I join your guild?

jkctmc.8754:

Chopps.5047:

Part of the problem with solo’ing lupi is how much effort it is jk. Seriously, you basically need a party to help you get there and that’s asking a lot. The last way to solo your way there that I knew of was nerfed away after the portal gun nerf. After that, expect to spend 12 hours practicing or longer. Strife025 mentions practicing for 11 hours before feeling like he was good at it. 11 hours of practice doesn’t mean warrior is sooo good I don’t think, rather, it means Strife or (insert soloist’s name here) isn’t just playing the ultimate of professions or whatever you might believe—they’re well practiced.

Edit: fixed typo

You’re the PvE Ranger, so if you thought you could do it, you would. If nothing more than to be able to say; “in your face”. The fact you havn’t tried it speaks volumes. Rangers in my guild who have tried, and said it isn’t possible, and our Necromancer got pretty darn close. You can’t keep using that excuse.

My guildmates are waiting for the why, to their answer.

Did they practice for a dozen hours like strife025 claimed it took him? Not tk take anything away from strife, he’s a heck of a player. Have warriors in your guild put in the time to practice that and then do it?

Sebrent, I’m going to extend the olive branch here. Thanks for posting this and you ought to make sure jub gets this on his compilation post. Rock on its solid work.

What, in your opinion Swiftpaw, makes warriors more effective? Not that I am debating you. I’m just trying to see, in general, how people play and view professions.

Part of the problem with solo’ing lupi is how much effort it is jk. Seriously, you basically need a party to help you get there and that’s asking a lot. The last way to solo your way there that I knew of was nerfed away after the portal gun nerf. After that, expect to spend 12 hours practicing or longer. Strife025 mentions practicing for 11 hours before feeling like he was good at it. 11 hours of practice doesn’t mean warrior is sooo good I don’t think, rather, it means Strife or (insert soloist’s name here) isn’t just playing the ultimate of professions or whatever you might believe—they’re well practiced.

Edit: fixed typo

Theoretically, any party make up could clear a dungeon reasonably fast. I know what you’re getting at though Kensai, GC zerk warriors used to farming cof path 1 would be in for a wake up call when trying some other dungeons—everyone is, ya know? Doesn’t matter what profession. Things are hard the first time you try them, right?

Question: do any of you guys make use of combo fields in dungeons as part of successful team play? In particular, ranger combo fields? Why or why not? Sorry to ask again, I’m genuinely curious and didn’t want to be left behind, being buried under the posts of people with agendas/debates.

Is it the opinion of the community that 1v1 is very rock, paper, scissors esque? It seems professions are balanced around a party of 5, based on my casual observations.

Any of you guys make team use of ranger combo fields in dungeons? Why or why not?

Yeah, it seems a lot of people have this issue. Have you tried rebinding the F keys to, maybe, z, x, c, v? That’s helped me be able to call/send the pet. Do you call/send much? And what dungeons do you struggle with and where? Also, regarding team support, does your team make use of the other combo fields ranger has access to in your dungeon runs? Edit: there’s a big discussion on spirits going on right now in another popular thread so I won’t try to dilute this thread with that stuff.

Durzlla.6295:

Just going to throw this out there, but if you’re using off hand axe if you whirling defense in the etheral field with a target (the way whirls work is it will throw one bolt in a random direction and one at the target if you have one, other wise 2 go in random directions) and you can get up to 15 stacks of confusion if you DONT use quickness for whirling defense because whirls become MORE useful the longer they go. This is because bolts are thrown at time intervals not X move throws Y bolts.

Other than that, great post!!

Just to add to this, the bolts will continue flying even if the field goes down, if memory serves me right. Sebrent, you’re the designated fact checker. Go test it and come back and yell at me if I’m wrong, thanks.

Another idea for the short duration ethereal field is to leap out of the field or time a blast finisher on it with your team.

Coolest Attack Terrier?

I will leave, Sebrent, but you guys picked a fight with me. You don’t like me, right? I can tell by the way you talk. That’s cool. You’re all mathy and sciency and I’m not. I’m just a casual player, etc, was wrong about how spirits and spiders worked. Look man, I’m just a hairless chimp with a game he plays for fun. I had a question about spirits. And I had some success with a build Durz was brave enough to share with me and the community.

You know, Durz and I talked about him posting that original thread and we were really nervous about it. We knew most people would probably come on here and try to start some static or whatever and that’s fine. You can do that. It is a free forum, post your thoughts, etc.

At that time I had played this build to defeat a couple players in my guild I struggled beating 1v1 and I won. I was a little excited and just got the idea to use spiders moments before posting this thread. Spiders are squishy and I’m a dungeon head so I never really ran them much. And I misread the tooltip…but in battle I always saw that weakness up so I just assumed which is wrong. I admit that.

Oh, and get over yourself. Just my 2 cents

Ryan…sigh. I’ll put your angriness in quotes.

“This really makes no sense… Necros dont work in hotjoins? What does that even mean?”

Listen to Sitting on a Couch’s But of Corpse episode…what? Seven? They have someone there who played power necro in a high level tpvp environment. Power necro means glass cannon necro. The entire team supported him in killing his foes. My point was that glass cannon doesn’t work so well in hotjoin (for most professions). There’s not enough team work to make it viable—glass cannons need support— so you have to start thinking hybrid/bunker to work on a PUG.

GW2 is a team oriented and balanced game. You’d be surprised what is and isn’t viable at the highest levels. At the time, that particular player was the only person (he knew of and it’s a small community) who played power necro in tpvp (most others played condition/bunker necro).

“This right here, alone, shows how much you have no clue about rangers and dueling / combat in general.”

“Good players have counters for your kittenty setups and it’s not even a counter it’s just something I would do already anyway.”

“Chopps, like many of your other posts showing how much you have absolutely no clue how to fight good people this one is no different”

I’m not going to respond to that. I just felt it was mean and nasty enough to re-post so everyone could see who you really are deep down: an angry, nasty person cutting down whoever you can. Well you’re not going to ruin my day. Go dump your crap off on someone else, maybe you’ll ruin theirs.

Give me a break, it’s not that bad. You guys make me sound awful. I don’t have a ton of time to play lately, all I can do is sneak in forum posts. I’m not spreading misiformation either, that’s absurd. I was wrong about a couple things so what? I guess I’ll stop posting around here if ya’ll don’t want me around. People aren’t perfect ya know? I hope people cut you down and make you feel like crap when you mess something up. You deserve it. Anyhow, happy hunting!

Oh, and regardless of the details, I kill people with this build so whatever. Go fact check that one time. Get yourself some gear and try it in wvw instead of being obnoxiously right about details.

I’m glad you tested and did the heavy lifting for me. You don’t have to be mean. All I know is that in havoc and zerg I help the team win. It’s a way of playing and it’s kind of fun. I mentioned at the start of this thread that I’m basically just now getting around to testing and using spirits (as well as spiders since they seem squishy…or am I wrong about that too? Better fact check!). You really don’t have to be so pedantic. It’s this passive aggressive thing that kind of makes me want to not talk to you.

Is it just the normal non-crit attacks? Probably a dumb suggestion but it’s all I can think of.

Interesting perspective, thanks jk.

Ah, I see. I’m not sure. What weapons are you using when you see that kind of 341 tick?

What do you mean you don’t see anything justifying the numbers coming off? You mean a ranger thats burning your warrior down? Most of your stats come from the armor so maybe thats why your ranger doesn’t put off that condition damage? From my testing, my opinion is that 1000 condition damage is about where opponets really start to “feel” it.

jkctmc.8754:

Quit theorycrafting, and provide videos please. You two could run naked, with nothing traited, and claim it is good, just because.

Yes, and the moon is made of cheese. I’m hungry. Let’s climb a ladder and get some!

jkctmc.8754:

Chopps.5047:

Chopps.5047:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Weakening_Venom

It is applied to the arrow, read the tooltip. “Your next two attacks…” refers to you, the ranger, not the pet.

Edit: nope I’m wrong it is applied to the pet’s attack. Again, another misleading tooltip. I never noticed it before due to landing the spider’s hit simultaneously. My bad. Fix your tooltips ANeT. And make venom apply to the arrow! :p

You would have known this, if you actually had played this build like you said you did.

Ikittenerg with a long ranged weapon you could run naked, no armor, nothing, and collect badges.

Oh, great, the instigator is back. This thread is officially dead. You’re such a better player than me dude. I wish I was cool like you. Running around naked hitting like marshmellow’s and riding the coat tails of the zerg. That’s cool and fun!

misterdevious.6482:

TOO MUCH MISINFORMATION.

1. With Sun Spirit, each ally can cause 1 target to burn (10s cooldown). You CANNOT set a bunch of foes on fire with a single piercing arrow and Sun Spirit. You can do it with a piercing arrow and a fire field.
2. The boon duration of Stone and Storm Spirit is based on the ally proccing it, not your boon duration (Easily tested with Concentration Training).
3. Nature’s Vengeance does NOT extend the range to longbow range. You are lucky to hit 3 golems clustered together in the cluster section of the mists.
4. Some spirits seem to work with siege. You can set 1 enemy on fire with sun, and you can deal 10% more damage with storm, but you cannot proc Swiftness or Protection. So is it a bug that two of them work or a bug that two of them don’t? Probably a bug that some do, because attacks of opportunity, opening strikes, and sharpening stone do not work with siege. (Tested with Trebuchet vs golems in the mists… regular hit on a heavy golem was 3810, with Frost Spirit and Sun Spirit I could sometimes land 4191 hits and periodically apply 3 seconds of burning.)
5. Each hit on a target uses up one of your Sharpening Stones 5 attacks. A single use of the barrage skill will often use up all 5 hits.
6. Pets apply venom to their own attacks, not yours.

I don’t trust anything anyone says. I keep a stopwatch near my computer. If you don’t trust what I say, go test it yourself under controlled conditions.

Relax tough guy, we’ve already begun establishing these things. Why do you have to be so condescending? I’m sorry I was slightly wrong due to a confusing tooltip. :p

But I think I can explain the spirits. Protection is granted when you get hit, not the other way around. And it would be hard to test frost spirit because siege isn’t a constant damage attack, right? So you’d need an average over a long time or some kind of indicator that it has procs.

Ryan.8367:

“All those other great things that your profession can do and contribute to your team, the thief cannot.”

Actually thieves are pretty kitten good for team play , they provide smoke fields and are very good for downing enemies in skirmishes , and also hiding people to revive them in skirmishes. These 3 things alone probably make the thief better than even the ranger in team situations. Rangers get a healing spring, which by the way you would need something like a thief with bow to generate aoe heals or a guardian with hammer to heal for you.

Overall, I think thief provides more utility than a ranger does for pvp team play , dunno about PVE. But that’s just me.

Rangers have blast finisher aoe heal in spring with drakes on swap fwiw, as well as access to two leaps via swords. We are rangers—adventurers! Masters of nature magic. We don’t need a stinking thief or guardian. But if you want to join me that’s cool I’m sure we could help each other in more ways than you think…(ideas for my wvw guild only sry :p)

Rangers are great in dungeons. With the right setup (30 BM and signet of wild) your cats can facetank for a while— [Guard] is also good for this because it gives protection to the pet, as well as the 2 sec protection on dodge roll trait. If you don’t like running that build because you have to swap too often / don’t want to make custom keybindings / don’t like so much pet micro, you can run devourers and Rampage as One which is a decent might stacking combo. Devourers are tough as nails and ranged.

With pets I will go nuts on my first pet right? I will push it to the edge. Sometimes I make a mistake and let the pet die. But I try to swap before that. So assuming I got off the swap, I immediately call the next pet back and keep it safe. I go ranged, I dodge, I kite. I use the pet if I have to. Once the Cd is low I go nuts with the pet again. You just don’t wan to lose both pets on CD and you really shouldn’t let this happen.

In the higher level Ascalonian fractal, rangers will use spirit of nature to revive NPCs, crucial to the success of the fight. Rangers will apply barrage cripple to advancing trash mobs and give a powerful freeze to the boss via frost trap. In the underwater fractal, rangers are fantastic because of great underwater power and healing. They’re great in TA for the healing spring 50% uptime (deadly poison removal), and the axe ricochet quickly and cleanly clears flowers.

But ya on that last cof boss, it’s not a bad idea to make use of signet of stone, signet of the wild, natural healing, etc. these things are all important whenever you face a foe with lots of big aoes, like Turmaine in CM or the Flame Effigy in CoF or Lupi in Arah.

Also I should note that pet pathing seems to have been improved such that pets do a better job standing on the ranger when nearby aoe attacks. There was never a documented change in patch notes though.

KensaiZen, thanks for writing such an informative post. I wish I could upvote you twice.

KensaiZen has some neat ideas about how to use ranger in an army. I think he’d bring some flavor to the show.

Semil.8279:

I assumed it would be the pet’s attack. Otherwise “Shoot a web and immobilize your foe” would mean I am shooting the web.

Having pets that could give you effects as an F2 would be interesting though.

Though I’d also like to be able to attach traps to my arrows and launch them into a zerg.

Or even command a spider pet to climb up a wall and shoot from the ceiling.

Not only interesting, that’s how it should function for some pets, like spiders and porcine. The environmental weapons we get from pigs are not fiery greatswords. Is it really worth the time to pick up gunk for an ethereal field you barely have time to leap through?

Also, you’re right about the usage of “your”—every one is in terms of the pet. No wonder I misunderstood “Shake it off” and always thought it was weird you had to be in range yet it clearly says “clear one condition from you and…”. Am I the only one who thinks its odd how the tooltips are? Like from the pet perspective? I mean it makes sense in a way but it’s really confusing because normally I think of, when someone says “you” to me, I think of refering to me. I don’t know. The fact is that the spider attacks land pretty cleanly or else I would have noticed this in battle.

You run what build works best for the team oriented goal in mind. For PUGs, bunker/trap works out a lot but you see a wider variety of playstyles in higher tier teams because they’ve worked it out such that everyone fulfills a particular role.

Chopps.5047:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Weakening_Venom

It is applied to the arrow, read the tooltip. “Your next two attacks…” refers to you, the ranger, not the pet.

Edit: nope I’m wrong it is applied to the pet’s attack. Again, another misleading tooltip. I never noticed it before due to landing the spider’s hit simultaneously. My bad. Fix your tooltips ANeT. And make venom apply to the arrow! :p

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Weakening_Venom

It is applied to the arrow, read the tooltip. “Your next two attacks…” refers to you, the ranger, not the pet. Edit: this is incorrect, it’s applied to the pet’s attack. Whoops!

Yeah kensaizen makes a great point. Barrage isn’t obstructed either so if you see a green AoE circle and you can cast, then you know for a fact those arrows will land, no matter if there’s a roof or not.

Sebrent.3625:

Chopps.5047:

It’s pretty fun loading arrows with burning, poison, weakness, vulnerability, sharpening stone bleeds and with a single barrage (from eagle eye range) I can easily drop half a dozen conditions on 5 people and they often hit the dirt shortly after. So it’s fun and actually really good ranged/ backline support for an army doing siege or a tower protecting the door. This build works for what it’s meant to do. I have obtained over 50 badges in just a couple hours of casual play in T1 so I’m not just trying to lie to you guys about ranged condition damage. It’s really good

I’m very curious how you’re applying all of those conditions on multiple people with a single barrage. Please make a video showing this.

Poison on barrage? I assume this is from weapon sigil which means you’re really only poisoning the first person your barrage hits.

Weakness on barrage?

Fire on barrage? I assume from sun spirit.

Bleeds on barrage? From sharpening stone, I’m pretty sure it will only bleed the first 5 hits, each hit consuming one “charge”. The rest of the bleeds would simply be from the Sharpened Edges trait (if you have it).

Vulnerability on Barrage? I assume from opening strike. This assumes you’re not already in combat and I’m pretty sure it only affects the first hit, not all hits of the barrage.

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Since the sun spirit burn is a “proc”, I’d think a faster firing weapon would be better. Only #2 and #5 on the longbow fire decently quickly to leverage this. The auto-attack is horrendously slow.

The poison comes from either spider venom or sigil of doom (I run doom on longbow with this build). The weakness/vulnerability is from spider venom for sure (weakening venom). The bleeds come from the Sharpening Stone slot skill and, if you’re below 75% health, the sharpening stone passove trait if you’ve chosen that. Yes, it’s first 5 hits. The sun spirit’s burn duration is such that it procs almost immediately and will stay up so long as you can keep arrows on the target (not as hard as you think).

If I’m going 1v1 and am worried about missing with longbow, I’ll make sure I land knockback then drop hunter’s shot then drop rapid fire. On a single or two targets you can (not lying) get half a dozen conditions on the target. If there’s lots of people jnder barrage, you will still drop half a dozen conditions, they will just be spread out and some, obviously, are limited by number of hits.

For sharpening stone, it is active for 30 seconds on a 45 s CD. So pop that as early as you can so it’s ready again when you need it. The spider venom is instantly applied to the arrow.

I would not lie to you. But I’m not making a video. Why? I know it works. Durz knows it works. Lots of people are testing and enjoying this build. There’s no reason to videotape it. I get no pay off. Taping and and stuff is a lot of work and for what? A forum dispute? I’ve done that before and I’m not doing it again. I have baubles to get and badges / tokens to earn. I have spvp levels to climbs and wvw rank. At the end of the day, if you don’t like spiders, run the origjnal durz build with hounds. The choice is yours.

Don’t forget weakness, durz, with spider weakening venom. Weakness makes endurance regenerate at a crawl, which will be great against any profession that utilizes vigor, like ranger or elementalist (learned that last bit on the But of Corpse podcast).

Lol gzoom. That’s for noobs, trolls, and the lazy. Hopefully people abusing it get banned.

Yep, Hicci is right. A good berserker thief is probably one of the best 1v1 builds in the game. It’s a nut I’d love to crack. I have a theory that because they

A) need to hit you for initiative
B) using all of their initiative on heartseeker (3 jumps) is roughly equivalent to one ranger Swoop in distance
C) berserker theif has low condition removal besides their autoattack

If you can dodge their attacks and prevent them from landing anything while chasing you through traps, I have a theory that they can be beaten. But this is unorthodox 1v1 and I personally have never defeated a good one. Your best bet is to outrun them when you see them.

For the record, durzilla’s sun spirit build lets me get them ito shadow refuge…that’s about as close to beating a good thief that I’ve ever come to in a 1v1 type situation.

Fear makes them unstealth and they can still be hit with conditions, AoEs, or cleaves when stealthed.

Bunker engineers, with all their nets and conditions, also cause me many problems 1v1 as a ranger.

It’s possibke that theives have another nerf coming but don’t count on that. PvP is a team game and you will do better playing together as a team. Hotjoin is like, you know, random team configurations etc, and that will always lose to a well coordinated team regardless of builds.

This post discusses how to maximize bag looting in WvW when fighting an enemy army or “when in the zerg”. This is important for world rank, badges, and heavy loot bags. Heavy loot bags are an important part of the supply of crystalline dust and other fine crafting materials. When you get them, open them for mats or just sell them for repair costs or profit.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/WvW-enemy-tagging-as-ranger/first#post1759438