Guild Wars 2

Spiders have pretty high HP. Their weakness is low armour, but since their death is only really an issue VS condition oponents that makes really no difference. To kill a spider with conditions before I can swap out again is a pretty challenging task and I cant say its ever been an issue even when people do (I admit very rarely) try it, especially since all the time and big CDs they have have to waste on it is free time for me to just kill them without much difficulty.

I can accept its not the be-all and end-all of traits, and taking it comes with some (very small) risk of your pet dying, and that it somewhat dictates your pet choice (hense why I have spiders over dogs), but to dismiss it as useless is no different to looking at Poison Master and saying its useless.

This thread is so far off topic and full on arbitrary opinions stated as facts its insane.

On a side note, Prysin, while I usually agree with you on most things I have to say I find it deeply ironic that you spend so long trying to defend Poison Master and go on about how people never listen to you and are so closed minded (which is true, people here are very closed minded), but you point blank refuse to accept EB at a good trait in WvW.

I’ve been running it as my sole condition clear for over a year in WvW and it works great. I dont think I have ever killed my spider with it, it doesnt ruin my spiders DPS, and I dont lose to condition builds any more often than I do to Direct Damage builds. Just because it doesnt work with your builds / playstyle doesnt mean its useless outside of sPvP. You may wish to reflect on your own close mindedness before waving it around at others.

Edit: Note meaning to start an arguement :P Like I said, I usually agree with you and like having you around on the forums.. just thought it was worth pointing out.

On my trap ranger I have no trouble with any sort of dagger thief. Sword thieves can be more challenging, but even then I expect to win unless they are very very good. Dont need to interupt stealth because sooner or later they will have to approach me, and traps give you plenty defence and warning to a thief coming at you.

To be honest I feel the damage increase to poisons is not really anything to be interested in, given the other traits you could have instead. I think the trait is actually more aimed at builds which may not be using sword/dagger/SB, to allow them to keep high poison uptime from the pet rather than themselves.

But back on point.. interesting build. I am not entirely convienced by it, especially with that armour, but maybe if you took bark skin… Hmm, could work.

Really depends on what profession they are against. Personally I have no trouble at all dualing warriors on my ranger, and even on my mesmer who I am very inexperienced with I can usually win, but generally beating warriors revolves around avoiding their big hits which rangers and mesmers are extremely good at. I imagine guardians and necromancers have a harder time of it.

I think a lot of times people just tend to panic and tyr to instantly heal / go defensive when they get backstabbed, when actually most of the time (though not always) its better to just fight back at that point. The theif has used their burst, almost certainly cant do as much damage as you can in a straight up head-to-head and cant stealth for a few seconds.

Obviously assuming you arent on the verge of death after a backstab, just fight back rather than heal.. you can heal when they inevitably stealth in a few moments time, but if all you are doing is getting backstabbed > playing defensive > they restleath before you start to attack back > repeat, you arent actually going to get anywhere.

Have to agree with coglin.. people just dont coutner conditions correctly in most cases.

They dont build in enough removal, and even if they do, they dont react correctly when fighting against condition builds. If you are vs a condition build and you have 3-4 of ANY condition on you, you need to treat that is if you just took a 5-8k crit from a direct damage build and back off (or do some form of defensive action), but people dont do that most of the time. People just blindly attack until they have 8 conditions with huge stacks on them before realising they are in trouble, and by then it is far FAR to late.

I’ve played condition builds a lot and know how they work, but in all my builds I also take relatively little condition removal which means I know what its like to have to deal with conditions myself. Its not any harder than dealing with a direct damage build, it just requires knowledge of how your opponent will try to get conditions on you and from that how to deal with it.

I’ve never played WoW, so obviously I cant make that comparison, but it does sound like you’re comparing apples and oranges. If you could strife at full speed and attack with a 180 degree angle it would be rediculously easy to prevent melee players from ever getting to you, which doesnt seem right to me.

I feel GW2 is pretty well setup to balance ranged vs melee in 1v1 situations, despite popular opinion being the opposite, because you can kite if you do it right, but at the same time you will never be able to kite indefinately because I cant imagine thats fun or anyone involved.

PvP gamemode being counter productive I’ll give you though.. thats the #1 reason I dislike PvP. Builds like hambow warriors only become so rediculous because of how you are forced to play on points and it does really crap ranger/thief/mesmer playstyles.

Durzlla.6295:

Rym.1469:

Poison Master could be a cool trait if it would increase healing debuff to 66%. That would be actually very useful in PvP and maybe in some (future?) PvE scenarios. As it stands now, absolutely horrible and nothing interesting.

For other traits… D’oh I lost it when reading. A GM bugfix, GM poor-man’s RNG when most of the most dangerous skills are not even projectiles…. GM which will probably heal like a one Water Blast from Ele.

Last chance they have are some major, hidden for some reason, changes to weapons and utilities.

As it stands for now, that “Feature patch” adds nowhere as much as major patches in other MMOs.

There’s nothing fair or fun about having your healing reduced by 66% by a profession who can EASILY maintain +100% poison duration, as it is now it makes poison something dangerous to have on you (moreso than usual) and makes it so that no matter how much they cry, or beg, or plee, they will NEVER not be poisoned.

Have to agree with Durz, 66% is way too much. 50% is probably the most you could get away with.

I would instead prefer something like poison turns into weakness or bleeding when cleansed, rather than being cleansed altogether. That would be more interesting than its current 50% damage boost.

I would love to know what people define as “kiting”. In my experience rangers are amazing at it, probably only beaten by GS + Staff mesmers. There is no pure melee build I fear fighting when running my SB / S+D trap build for that exact reason. Warriors? A joke. Guardians? An annoying joke because of retal and cleansing but overall not dangerous. D+P thief? Can troll but not much else. D+D? Lol please. The only melee build which is even challenging is a well played sword thief, simply due to shadowstepping.

Kiting does not mean maintaining 900+ range the entire fight. It does not mean immobilize spamming so your target can never ever move like engineers do. All it really means is out manoeuvre your opponent so they are spending time chasing and playing your game rather than dictating how the fight goes like they want to. Being at 250 range for 30-50% of the fight is more than enough to give you the upper hand against a melee target, and rangers can do that pretty easily on certain builds.

So please, can we move away from the idea that rangers cant kite just because you cant equip a LB and expect that your target will never ever get to you.

Its not so much about the range and number of leaps that warriors have (although that is a part of it), but more about Dogged March and Mobile Strikes. Other classes can move fast too.. even a GS + S+WH ranger is hard to catch.. but the kicker is if they are caught in immobilise its a big problem for them. Warriors, on the other hand, and very very hard to slow down, even if you try to coutnerplay them correctly.

I cant imagine anything worse than having to specifically retrait and regear every time I see a new opponent.

Then the game really is just one giant rock-papper-scissors exercise, when noone willing to fight unless they go in with a clear build advantage.

Most of the fun of theory crafting and making your own builds to suit your needs is balancing what you need and what you can afford to drop.. planning for what you will do if you encounter certain classes or certain builds, working round your builds inherent weaknesses with good / creative play, etc. I see no fun in going “oh look an condi build, let me just go quickly reset this fight so I can equip every possible cleanse my class has”. Sure if you want to swap utilities / food on the fly go for it, nothing wrong with a bit of adjustment here and there, but to completely change builds so that every fight you are predestined to win? Meh, that doesnt sound fun, at all.

As I said on the topic in Prof Balance, I’d much prefer it to give Aegis + Protection on swapping to the melee weapon. Removes RNG and actually makes for an interesting and effective trait which can then be amplified with boon duration or Fortifying Bond if you do want to build that way, rather than just randomly blocking some attacks with no active play from the ranger and no possible counterplay for your opponent.

And it also nicely fits with with Skirmishing traitline theme which already gives Swiftness and Fury on weapon swapping.

Fluffball.8307:

Cufufalating.8479:

If you can kill someone in under 20 seconds they werent worth killing / recording, is really what I am saying, but its not a critisism to your play.

Almost all my kills are less than 20 seconds. If I get hit more than once I have to LR/sword 2/sword 2 out of there and try again.

Thats kinda my point though.

The point of a video is, usually, to show your skill. If all you do it press QZ then AA thats not showing skill, its showing their lack of it, even if it works on the majority of people in WvW (because lets be honest, most people in WvW are not build for nor experienced at 1v1s). Theres nothing video worthy about bursting down inexperienced players with one rotation.

IMO :P

Should be changed to something like “Gain Aegis for 5s and protection for 3s when swapping to a melee weapon”.

That would help melee based rangers survivability and would be in keeping with the theme of the traitline (buffs of weapon swaps).

Blades of Sabatine.5639:

Don’t know much about you, but am not sure you can blink to a higher ground.

Like with all teleports, you can blink to higher ground as long as you could walk there without any jumps (with some other hiddens rules, such as it not working corrrectly when blinking up tower stairs).

But yeah, you can use blink to get up ledges. Its best to just go around trying to blink up places as you walk around an you learn where you can and cant do it.

And thats not even incuding the 2 other Signet traits you really want if you have opted to take SoB as your GM.

I havent been playing recently.. but I had been hoping to try adding Sigil of Ice to my SB (which already has Sigil of Earth on it). All that delicious chill could be a lot of fun.. but if not, then geomancy or torment would be pretty save bets.

LB is so special. It has now not 1 but 2 GM traits dedicated entirely and completely to making it a decent weapon. And they are both in the same trait line. Well played Anet.. Well played.

Look like fine traits to me. One of the things I find cool about eles is how they change in each attunment. Fire is a DPS attunement, water is healing, air has CC, and so forth. It makes it fun to fight them because you have to be aware when and why they will want to use each attunment and play accordingly (for example, you try to condition bomb after they leave water attunment). These traits are the same.. they force you to play defensively when they are attuned toearth because your DPS will be terrivle anyway, and same with fire.

They arent OP, they just mean a little more thought needs to be put into when you attack and when you play defensively, which is a good thing.

Your previous video was better, honestly. I like how you play but with videos its generally nicer to show fights vs tough opponents rather than people you just steamrolled over. I think only one person in the entire video actually fought back, which was the ele a few mins in, and in that one it was 2v1 in your favour anyway.

If you can kill someone in under 20 seconds they werent worth killing / recording, is really what I am saying, but its not a critisism to your play.

I was imagining this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vMAQRBHfxGyIjK1s2yCXrBi2DOZ+zzKYI3D/3JAUyoaC-zECBINDimqAm8IQEIg5QFRjtYqIasKZER1KlYkCYRpRA-w

Not all that different, just some focus on prec to get those on-crit bleeds going on, especially now that you can take geomancy + earth sigils together reliably. This also helps capitalise a bit of the fury from SoF. With both sword + WH I think the finishers justify HS, which together with SoF (and SoR in the 3rd utilitu slot if you want) should be able to cover conditions if you want to take barkskin. If not, can still choose EB if you prefer.

NM one looks nice, I can actually see how that could be used in real builds.

MS looks nice but since its another LB trait in MS… lol.

Skirm looks meh.

WS looks like a cool master trait, but a GM against EB and BS? Lol ok.

BM is hard to judge without numbers, but my gut feeling is it will be a disappointment.

Overall.. they given x/x/30/30/x builds more possibilities with the new NM trait (even though they are already some of the best builds ranger have), but not really done anything to help anyone else. Sounds… about what I would have expected.

I have to agree with everyone above… Some of them looks cool, but most will go unused.

MS: I think its pretty good, but since its yet ANOTHER longbow trait in MS its hard to take it seriously.

Skirm: Looks cool, but I am not sure who’d use it.

WS: Looks more like a master trait than a GM to me, and since its competing against EB and BS (arguably the rangers best 2 GM traits) I cant imagine anyone using this.

NM: Actually does looks nice. Probably my favourite option, though why the needed to put our new condi removal 30 points deep again is beyond me. Still, does looks good.

BM: might be good, hard to say till we know the numbers.

All in all though, I agree with Atherakhia that they seem to just have reinforced the typical ranger condi bunkers (x/0/30/30/x) by giving them a new source of condi removal. Now they can either have EB and SoF for epic cleansing, or reasonably take BS and SoF. Either way, they seem to have just made the bunker builds we already have stronger, rather than helped the less used / struggling builds (power, trapper, BM).

Looks like a decent trait to me, though I have to say the fact they are trying to fix LB rangers by adding yet another crucial trait to the MS line is laughable.

Also GL to anyone fighting a lockdown mesmer who cant cover their heal with stealth / stability. Its over before it starts.

Cant say I ever really got into bears, but I am sure you’re right. Since the primary use of bears isnt to do damage they also wont be so effected by their inability to reach the target, and extreme cleanses from the brown bear can only be a good thing.

I like EB, but it is the primary reason I run spiders now-a-days. I much prefer a dual wolf setup, but since I use EB and Traveler runes (so my pets get no speed boost anymore) I cant really justify using melee pets, because they are waay to unreliable in that state.

Spiders are nice because they bypass most of the problems.. by being ranged they dont need to move much, so they speed isnt important. And they also have extremely high vitality, meaning they can survive the conditions very well.

So anyway.. If you want to use EB, spiders are a great choice for you.

EB is the only condi removal I run on my builds, and the way I survive conditions really is patience. If you come up against a condition build (typically engis and necros are the ones to look out for) dont be a fool and run head first in and take their full condition bomb to the face, because you will lose. Typcially keeping your distance is the best defence (why I like the SB, it gives me that option), because engis depend on getting up close and glue+bomb+grenading you to death, but at mid-long range they actually cant do much. Avoid their pull, sidestep those slow moving grenade and they really have nothing on you.

Where was I going with this… Oh yeah.. Learning exactly how your opponents will try to apply coniditions will allow you to prevent them from doing it, thus allowing you to get by with less removal. Proactive play > Reactive play

Generally nice video

My only “negative” comments are you have a tendancy to waste SB3. You even use it a few times when your oponent is already down, or miles away from you facing the other direction. Not a major issue but maybe something to keep in mind, evades arent there to be used off CD.

Also you do you entangle too early. In this video it appears to work, but almost all decent players will have a mechanism to escape it (cleanse, blink, shadowstep, or just brute force kill the vines). If you use it too early in the fight they will have all their ultilities off CD and should (in theory) escape instantly, thus wasting your elite. Its usually more effective to really wait with it. For example vs a mesmer, dont use it unless they have already blinked in the last 10 seconds, try to use it on eles just as they come out of water attunement, etc etc. But generally, the later you use it in the fight the more chance it has of sticking and causing your opponent to panic. I always run entangle but use it in maybe 1/4 of the fights I have, because I keep it in reserve only for fights which I genuinely risk losing without it. I like having it there as the last trick up the sleave, but more often than not its not nesesary and its better to have it there for when you do really need it, rather than such using it because you can (same as with the SB3 evade).

But I dont mean to sound overly critical.. Its a nice video, well played, just some things (IMO) you could work on

A much faster animation wouldnt go amiss either…

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

I was always wondering about the “Your pet gains X boons on crit hit”. Why do I want to trait for my pet getting boons (30% of my damage) if other classes getting those boons for themselfes (100% of their damage).

Basicly just hit the nail on the head. Our pet doesnt give us anything extra or special, it just takes 30-40% of the stuff we should have and makes its harder to access.

Examples being… CC. Lots of people keep refering to GW1 and wanting to play the interupter style on a ranger. The truth is rangers have great CC, both hard and soft. The problem is its largely tied to canine pets which means its more awkward and unpredictable to use and isnt really possible to use to interupt something specifc (such as a heal) because the responce time/control is so bad.

Another example is boons.. ranger have a lot of access to boons and boon related traits, but they are almost all tied to pets (or worse only apply to pet). That would be fine if our boon potential was significantly better than other classes due to the extra effort we put in by having to go through an AI, but nope. We get the same, if no worse, as everyone else ontop of having to deal with the AI.

The biggest example of all being, of course, damage. Rangers should do full damage the same as every other class, with our class mechanic being a added extra. Elementalists dont only get 3 weapon skills to balance them have 4 weapon swaps, warriors dont have lame burst skills to make up for their class mechanic, engineers dont have reduced damage or weak utilities because they get 4 mini-utilties extra. Class mechanics are there to be small extras to ADD to the class, not something which has been removed from the class and then given back in a worse form, which is exactly what pet are.

Pets just are not an advantage because they dont offer benifits, they just offer things everyone else has in a more awkward way.

Your second idea is pretty neat, having a more visual indication of how much HP you stand to lose what the conditions of you.

In any case, I think most of the problem lies with sPvP as a game mode, rather than with specific builds. PvP completely encourages and rewards a bunker + area control/denial playstyle, which is exactly what most condition builds do. Its not really anything to do with the conditions themselves being OP, just that in that game mode that playstyle is OP.

Noone runs around shouting direct damage is OP because its the only thing worth using in PvE, because its not OP, its just that gamemode is broken to only reward one playstyle which is best fullfilled by direct damage.

When I roam in WvW I find a delightful mix of everything. Thieves and warriors usually (but not always) are direct damage, engis are usually condition based, mesmer can be either, guardians tend to bunker or go full DPS, rangers can be either, eles are usually direct damage… I feel the game works well in WvW roaming because most things can work and no one playstyle dominates.

So personally I would prefer ANet fixes PvE and PvP (or adds new game modes) to allow more playstyles to work, rather than going around breaking things which are not actually broken.

Bah who wants to main an OP class :P

I love my mesmer, but I fully admit I play it when I feel the need to just go kitten because I can log on there, go into WvW in full berserker and kitten slap 90% of the people I come across without even trying, and the remaining 10% (pretty much just theives) have little chance to stop me escaping if I notice the danger they pose quickly enough.

Its fun, sure, but if I want a real fight… The kind that I can feel proud of and know that I didnt win by just zerker ganking, or because I can condi overload him with 3 abilities, or because my build just rocks their scissors, but because I genuinely outplayed them… Ranger. Every time ranger

Jocksy.3415:

Your statement “Precision is not a bad stat for Traps, Crit Damage is.” is interesting, but I really don’t see how precision works with traps? None of these two stats do anaything for traps, as far as I know…

Traps can crit, which in turns means they can proc On-Crit effects, and since the Bleed On Crit trait is very handily in the same traitline as the trap traits, along with the Precision stat, it becones of the very few ranger trait setups which actually synergise together well, because suddenly with 1-2 traps pulsing, you attacking (probably with Sigil of Earth and often times a SB) you can lay down 10+ bleeds pretty much out of nowhere on rediclously low CD, not to mention the potential AoE element of the on-crit bleeds.

I’ve used pretty much every trap build I can concieve with dire, carrion, rabid, celestial, even apothecary for a bit, and for me nothing comes close to a rabid or celestial setup, because those on-crits are where its at.

I dont really udnerstand Anet tbh. How can they post up loads of CDIs to discuss the way forward for the game with players and then claim they are too busy to participate?

This isnt blaming Allie personally, I am sure she is busy beyond her control, but how is it they have NOONE who can come on the forums to speak to us for days on end? In a game I used to play there were people whos whole and entire job was to be on the forums to communicate with players. Fix their problems, answer their questions, read their feedback, etc etc. If you had a good thread with a lot of comments they was no question that they would come and take an interest in it and post a reply.

But to have a discussion thread they themselves created and then not take part in? Thats really taking the kitten.

I hate to be “that guy” telling you to L2P, since I know nothing about you really, but looking at that screenie he managed to hit you with an entire AA chain inbetween BS and CnD. He also hit you what, 8-10 times? To be honest it sounds like that fight lasted a good 5-6 seconds (since he had to wait at least 3 between the first BS and CnD), and you’re telling me that that wasnt enough time for you to even heal?

Something doesnt sound right, it sounds like you got basilisk venomed and didnt use a stunbreaker.

I agree with you Jocksy

I enjoy outplaying opponents by watching what they are doing and having the tools on my ranger to avoid / counter what they are doing. I dont use many on my weapon skills, LR or my elite in many fights, simply because I use them when needed not because they are off CD, and in most fights LR and elite are not needed.

Contrast this to when I am on my mesmer.. and its very much a case of “spam ALL the things because thats how I get max DPS”. That fine, sure, and I get that some people find that more enjoyable than AA being your max DPS, but for me I enjoy having skilsl that I dont use. Skill that are there for counter play if/when I need them, not skilsl that are to be used in some pre-determined rotation which is the same every single time.

Best is very subjective and really depends on what their opponents build is.

For example, I litterally cannot remember the last time a d/p thief beat me on my trap build (which is what I always use), simply because as soon as they stealth I put traps at my feet. They cant approach without triggering the traps, making it pittifully easy to dodge BS and they are the ones ending up on the back foot taking all those conditions. Even if they work out what I am doing and evade into the traps to avoid some of the damage, the traps still trigger and allow me to avoid BS, which is where most of a d/p thieves power comes from.

MM necro again is a joke, because one round of traps, maybe with entangle for good measure, and every one of their minions is dead. Its really not even a close fight, ever.

On the other hand, builds which you dont even list in your top 10 like p/d condi thieves or GS power mesmers can be a real isse, because my build is best vs melee opponents and can lack pressure at long range, making ranged opponents much more of a challenge for me.

Durzlla.6295:

-snip-

So glad at least one person shares my opinion on the matter, and is able to explain it better than me.

Atherakhia.4086:

Cufufalating.8479:

I have to say I dont really agree with the anti-sustained DPS / anti-kiting sentiment most people here have.

Bursting is not something think works very well at a high level of play, and kiting (espeically for rangers) is extremely effective vs melee opponents. Kiting doesnt mean you keep 1000+ range perminantly, clearly that will never happen. All it means it you keep 200-300 range for a significant portion of a fight.

So yeah.. I would like to see rangers maintain a sustained damage role because I dont agree that its a bad/inefficient/boring/inherently wrong playstyle.

I honestly don’t understand…. what they have now is this supposed sustained DPS role. It doesn’t work. It isn’t fun. The creation of this very thread is proof of this. We didn’t need a CDI thread if the solution to the Ranger’s lack of fun and inefficient/bad/wrong sustained dps was simply to nerf 7 other classes.

The Ranger has A LOT wrong with it, but the worst thing is the class doesn’t work at its very core. There isn’t a single thing this class has that anyone wants. It needs something to elevate it to the point WvW will take notice of it.

Heck, power creep the [censored] out of it. Make it stand up with the other classes and then simply change power scaling so all classes take an enormous hit right off the top. Even that would be a better solution than to think that what hasn’t worked for the past 1.5 years will magically fix itself once pets can hit a moving target and traps are in a condi line.

You dont need to understand, and I never said ranger didnt have a lot wrong with it. But just because Ranger “won” the CDI vote doesnt mean everyone agrees with whats wrong with it and I feel its important to say that, in my opinion, I dont think that aspect of rangers needs fixing. Also, saying ranger isnt fun and has nothing anyone wants is clearly untrue, since ranger is the 2nd most popular profession. So clearly its either fun (most likely) or does have things people want.

And since you bring it up, I dont agree with moving traps either.

What I want to see fixed is pets and group support options, both of which I suggested a fix for in an eariler post, as well as reduced dependancy on Gm traits. Thats what would make me happy.

I have to say I dont really agree with the anti-sustained DPS / anti-kiting sentiment most people here have.

Bursting is not something think works very well at a high level of play, and kiting (espeically for rangers) is extremely effective vs melee opponents. Kiting doesnt mean you keep 1000+ range perminantly, clearly that will never happen. All it means it you keep 200-300 range for a significant portion of a fight.

So yeah.. I would like to see rangers maintain a sustained damage role because I dont agree that its a bad/inefficient/boring/inherently wrong playstyle.

So you want to balance the class what was voted (without a shadow of a doubt) the class that needs the most help, but you dont want to buff us to be on par with others because of power creep?

wat

Personally I’d prefer they reworked pets to work better, but that could just be me.

Regardless though I dont think they’d actually do it. They are just letting people blow off steam in the CDI, but ultimately they dont want to change the rangers core mechanics, just fix it up a bit.

Perhaps they should consider making pets work more like mesmer Phantasms.

By that I mean, have them attack much less often, but with stronger/harder to avoid attacks.

This could be done by removal the idea of pets permainanty attacking, and have them at all times stay on what is now passive mode. Remove all our pet controls (since there will be no such thing as they auto-attacking) except for stow, and make our F1-4 keys into four attacks our pet can do. There can be anything from AoE buffs/debuffs, damage, cc, whatever. By in the case of targeted attacks they should be fast, longrange charges (see iBerserker). There F keys would have CDs from 10-60 seconds, so they arent something that are meant to be spammed all day like like pets currently do with their AA.

Really I’d like like them to be more like phantasms/flesh golem, because neither of these have issues hitting their targets simply by virtue of them having big infrequent attacks which are fast moving, unlike pets now which just slowly wander about (or in the case of ranged pets fire slow moving projectiles which usually miss, unlike iDuelists).

This would all also mean shouts would need to be reworked, sicne they wouldnt make much sense with the new pet mechanics, which means our shouts can be turned into more team support based utilities like shouts on other professions are. And before you know it pets are cool, useful, and rangers have group support.

I’d like to re-iterate the need for rangers to have reduced dependancy on GM traits.

With the exception of survival skills, there is no ultility choice which really works well without the corrisponding GM trait.

There are 1-2 individual exception like Signet of the Hunt doesnt need a trait, or Protect Me doesnt, but in general signets, traps, shouts and spirits are simply not usuable without a GM.

The memsmer build I use atm have not a single Major or Minor GM trait and its great. Thats how it should be.. GM traits should provide huge bonuses (like PU does on a mesmer) but not nessesarily be required in order to use utlities.

A ranged intereupt is of huge value in many situations, and the iDuelist is often a great asset because if its range. Often it wont get destroyed like other phantasms and you can get 2 sometimes all 3 out at the same time.

Also simply being ranged means it hits more often, unlike swordsman who I found spent a lot of time running around and very little time hitting.

King Amadaeus.8619:

Cufufalating.8479:

Well I still think the problem is the torch, not PU.

Thieves can stealth spam and also gain benifits form doing it (cleansing, healing, inititive) but people tolerate it because it can be countered by interupting BP+HS or evading CnD. Perma-stealth thieves are annoying, and if they are out to just troll instead of fight then theres not much you can do, but for the most part there is coutnerplay to thieves.

Mesmers, on the other hand, stealth without warning or possibility to prevent it, and from any range (unlike CnD). That is the problem. If Prestige worked like the rangers LB stealth or thieves CnD, with a cast time/requirement to hit the target I think a lot of the frustration of fighting PU mesmers would disappear, because through good play you could actually do something to counter them.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Blinding_Powder

10 second longer recharge granted that, but still pretty much used like a poor-mans stunbreaker by most thieves….and just used as “without warning or possibility to prevent” as torch stealths.

There nothing wrong with BP, just as theres nothing wrong with decoy. I am not saying all stealth everywhere must have a slow and obvious animation, I am just saying Presitage with its relative low CD and NO coutnerplay is too much.

Skills like SR or MI I think are great because they provide great benifit to the user but also have risks ascosiated with them (long cast time on MI, SR gives away the thief location and its possible to knock him out of it).

Skills like BP and Decoy are both fine because they are short stealths and are really panic buttons, there nothing wrong with that.

Viel is pretty weak, but its intended to be a group support utility so its not surprising or bad that its weak when only used for personal use.

As I already say, CnD is very dodgable (really it is, D/D thieves are the #1 easiest thief to fight when you have got the tactic down) and if it is missed/blocked/dodged it wastes a huge amout of inititive and usually forces a defensive utility out of the thief.

BP/HS is somewhat… questionable. I think we all know these thieves are trolly and a bit too much, but even then it does come at the cost of a lot of inititive and it is at least possible to interupt it (even if in practice its hard to execute).

Prestige, however, has no drawbackws. No counter play, no cost to the mesmer. Nothing. its just a free 4s stealth on a 24s CD (with traits, since this is the sort of mesmer we are discussing here) and IMO that is not right.

Well I still think the problem is the torch, not PU.

Thieves can stealth spam and also gain benifits form doing it (cleansing, healing, inititive) but people tolerate it because it can be countered by interupting BP+HS or evading CnD. Perma-stealth thieves are annoying, and if they are out to just troll instead of fight then theres not much you can do, but for the most part there is coutnerplay to thieves.

Mesmers, on the other hand, stealth without warning or possibility to prevent it, and from any range (unlike CnD). That is the problem. If Prestige worked like the rangers LB stealth or thieves CnD, with a cast time/requirement to hit the target I think a lot of the frustration of fighting PU mesmers would disappear, because through good play you could actually do something to counter them.

The furious grip one is a tool tip error. Its been that way for months, through several different patch notes (patches in which they made a special effort to fix trait tool tips).

Really shows how much attention they pay to ranger/patches in general, but what can you do.

I love meeting these necros when I am on my mesmer, because I usually have feedback equipped. So very entertaining..

I see more and more power necros roaming in WvW the last few weeks. It might just be conisidence, but it is something I have noticed (yet it still catches me off guard every time lol).