Guild Wars 2

Think it works fine as it is… condition build tend to beat traditional bunkish builds which depend on high toughness, but can be very vulnerable to GC builds which have strong condition removal, because the fact that they have low armour means nothing and they can hit like a truck.

You’re right man, all ranger heals should be halved cause they heal pet too.

Thanks for your input.

Anthrage.2519:

I know no. My point is, it should be…I don’t believe it is intentional.

Probably is intentional. They continue to push to sPvP to be an esport, and for they they need a level of stability and complete balance which they wont get it they just keep throwing new stuff at it.

Like perplexity runes.. cant get those there, and if you could it would completely change things.

Pretty old but still worth a watch xD

Had a great night on the UW BL tonight, and I missed the first half of it even.

Lots of big fights, lots of capping, was all very good^^

And then bay at the end.. so close guys, so very close… but no

Nice try on our Bay this morning NaZ. What was that 8 golems on a paper gate? I blinked and the gate was down, bad luck for you I was right by the gate escorting a dolly as you portaled in to attack so we had time to get people in to defend.

Maybe next time

Reward people for doing WvW as much as you do for PvE so that people can play how they like for equal reward?

R U INSAIN!@!!!""?

There does seem to be a strange missmatch in our primetimes.. and UW does seem to stay online longer than the majority of GH guilds (mostly SLAY who seem to be on when I go to sleep and on still with the same people when I wake up xD).

Not a critisism, you gotta play when you gotta play, and this is actually the closest matchup going at the moment so.. cant be all that bad ^^

Think I am going to have to sleep on it :P Tough decision. Certainly like the addition of these runes though.. they present and interesting choice to all classes about sacrificing stats/effects for an extra utility slot or a speed boost which wasnt possible on their class before. Interesting interesting…

Xsorus.2507:

Popped these on my Trap Set.

Now I can run with speed and 3 Traps.

Really want to do the same, just not sure yet if I will survive the loss of like.. 250 condition damage.

Hmmm

It would be nice if they made the living story events more serious and lore based, rather than just bizzare, irrelevant and completely unessesary gimmicks.

The queens jubilee was a little better, and the trading bazzar was alright too, but they could and should take it much further and make events more tied to the lore.

Doesnt require much, if any, more work and would make them far more enjoyable and feel less like cheap marketing events.

For example.. Instead of making up a new enermy in the molten alliance, they could have just made us go north and fight minions of the ice dragons and defeat one of his champions in the end. Would have been exactly the same event just set in a different place with more purpose.

For what purpose exactly? As already said, it doesnt fit into the GW world and people only want it to make their character sexy, which isnt really a good enough reason to add such an out of place outfit.

Interesting… I so soo want to be able to use pig effectively.. I mean who doesnt! xD

Maltra.7890:

Cufufalating.8479:

How strange, I seem to run into XxX wherever I go :P

But from what I have seen they dont have anywhere near the numbers that FURY has so.. it wouldnt be much of a fight anyway :/

Although I will say they pack a punch for how many they do have.

Numbers… Do they care?

Not sure what you are asking, but nothing I was said was meant as an insult to you :P I am actually quite impressed by XxX.

All I was saying is that FURY have been looking forward to fighting you, but since they often run with 20+ people (and they are one of the better guilds on GH regardless of numbers), and -as far as I have seen- XxX usually has 10-15, I dont think you’d be able to give them the good fight they are hoping for.

But maybe I am wrong.. I didnt mean anything by it^^

This is honestly one nerf I personally wouldnt care much about.. I tried spirits in PvP and it was boring as hell. Idc if its our best build there, I see nothing fun in summoning 3 spirits and pew pew autoattack with a few randomly thrown in evades for lols.

The only slightly interesting part is the spirit which blinds, as that can be used for many interesting effects, but the others seem very much to be “use off cooldown”.

I used TU. I really love how it heals over time.. it means you can activate it right near the start of a fight and for the first 10 seconds you essensially take no damage, and the sooner you activate it the sooner it will be off CD again.

Occasionally I swap to HS for group support but usually I leave that up to the ele’s (although in PvP I walways run HS).

How strange, I seem to run into XxX wherever I go :P

But from what I have seen they dont have anywhere near the numbers that FURY has so.. it wouldnt be much of a fight anyway :/

Although I will say they pack a punch for how many they do have.

Elcron.1208:

Cufufalating.8479:

Sounds cool but I am pretty sure all that would happen is a large guild would take each of the keeps, AC it to all hell and never leave it.

We’d be left with pretty sure the same problem.. the largest guild wins (which is really not different to the largest server winning).

I can’t think of a guild that can consistently field 20+ 24 hrs of the day. So at some point they are going to lose it.

In a way thats my point. Atm there are no guilds that can/do field people 24/7 because theres no gain in doing so, and just makes for an unessesarily big guild. But if the guilds rating/rank/influence/poins depended on it, you can bet mega guilds with 24/7 coverage would start appearing.

Sounds cool but I am pretty sure all that would happen is a large guild would take each of the keeps, AC it to all hell and never leave it.

We’d be left with pretty sure the same problem.. the largest guild wins (which is really not different to the largest server winning).

I played on WSR for a long time and transfered up to GH a few weeks ago. I know GH is only a mid-tier server, but its a big jump from WSR.

Roaming wise the skill level is more or less the same I find. WSR fought (mostly) lower population servers, so there were fewer people about most of the day and solo or duo roaming was more common, whereas in GH its far more common to encounter roaming groups than solo roamers.

Thats about the only difference I see.

Its funny really.. I’ve played other games where all people did was whine about the poor customer service and not being listened to, but looking back on it they did have dedicate devs who read every single forum every day and would reply to at least 2-3 threads every day.

That felt bad at the time, but now that I play GW and I see how little ANet interacts with us its put well into perspective. We’re lucky to see a Dev here once a month.

Interesting, but I want to see the part where you fight vs a condition build with barkskin, toughness and protection being your main defence.

I like the idea behind bark skin but you give up like 50% of rangers potential condition removal by using it.. so unless you are running HS and SoR, and probably condition reduction food too, you are going to be royally screwed by a necro or condition ranger.

Direwind.8409:

stealth should be removed when they attack and are blocked.

I’d agree with you on that part (and if an attack is evaded) but other than that.. seems fine. Annoying to fight against, but fine.

Alas I havent yet found time.. tomorrow! I will try! I hope… if work doesnt take too long… :P

What I like about my ranger and running traps is theres a very natural transition from being with my guild group fighting large battles to wondering off by myself to camp cap and scout.

No need to change build, no worry that I am built for zerging but cant 1v1 or the other way around because I can do both, you can move from one task to the next seamlessly and its a lot of fun, and how I like to play.

Sword is a good weapon. Doesnt really burst because theres no big hit attack like on the GS, but it has our highest DPS and the #1 chain. Its probably best on power builds but is often used on condition builds just because it gives 2 great evades and a leap finisher, and it generally just a great weapon for survival and driving your opponent mad.

Its only real downside is the #1 chain is a bit fiddly to get used to.. its meant to be easier if you take auto attack off, but even so you’ll find yourself stuck to your target sometimes and if you dont have a target selected you can find yourself flying straight through a group of enermies sometimes :P

And:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Whisper%27s_Secret_Sword

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ceremonial_Sabre

Honestly I am not a spirit expert. I’ve played them a little but I dont know the current popular builds.

I dont like your choice of amulet though. I understand you want to be a support player but none the less you will be expected to do some damage and I dont see that happening right now.

Personally I’d move your MS traits to WS, and swap the soldiers rune for Shamens.

This will give you some pretty good condition damage, a lot more armour, some good healing and you can trait your HS to give AoE vigor and increase your torches effectiveness for area denial.

You’ll lose some health, and lose spotter which I am guessing you wanted, but I think its worth it.

EDIT: Actually I jsut noticed you were using a WH, not a torch, my bad. Hmm I am not sure really how well this is going to work out.. You’re going 110% into team support and nothing else.. I’ll let one of the more experienced sPvP players help you

You havent chosen your amulet so its a little difficult to say exactly what you’re going for but regardless, it looks like a very supportive build. Since you havent traited into WS your condition damage is going to suffer somewhat and your only real damage source is the pet which isnt maxed out either, and doesnt have traits from Skirmishing to assist it either.

Doesnt look bad, most builds like spirits can work well because you’re inevitably tanky with great team support, but that seems to be all you have going for you atm.

To be honest I think 10s is even pretty strong.

Most rune effects are on something silly like 45, which is too long, but being interupted it already a punishing thing, and many classes can trait to add extra effects to interupts already, and to then add 3 confusion onto that.. thats a big deal, and 10s isnt that long frankly.

I’d go with 15 I think.

For a tanky version try the condition/toughness/vitality ascended trinkets.

I know its cheating but with applied fortitude and world buffs I can be hitting 23k HP, 3000 armour, 650 healing and still 1700+ condition damage.

What suffers if your critical chance, so on crit sigils are not really possible with this build, but you sure as heck wont be going down easily.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-H;4wEFy-x2cEV-0;9V6Q;2TT9;237A36A2;3KNH4;2QitaQitap-kPkKJ6;2VMVRWWXa2g3m_010JF2m;9;9;9;9;9;5sL0;1V6s5q

Chill is the #1 underestimated condition in the game I find.. and rangers can do it pretty well with their pets.

I tried a “chill ranger” for a short time on my trap ranger, traiting 10/30/30, using frost trap, arctic wolf and polar bear (which give longer AoE chills, on a longer cooldown than your pets).

Was a lot of fun, chill shuts people down so effectively. I didnt stick with it 100%, moved back to undead runes and also tend to use dual wolves, but still, quite a lot of chill knocking around and its fun

Nothing wrong with disagreeing, carry on :P

I’d love to see a video of him commanding on a thief honestly. In the nicest possible way I think he probably commands well but contribute very little to the actual fighting, but regardless my point still stands.

A guild with 15 thieves as their frontline would be smashed to all hell by 15 warriors. Whether or not one commander thief can survive the clash or not, its the heavies behind him for are doing the work not him.

EDIT again: marks can be traited to be unblockable, and since yuor usually throwing traps/wells straight onto the group the invisibility before they go off only means anything on the first push.

I know that was Anets intention but honestly they failed, and its inevitable. To say a thif can be a frontline soldier as well as a warrior is objectively wrong. To say guardian to bring to AOE pain a necro can is objectively wrong.

Classes are better at different things and theres just no way round that unless you made all the classes boringly simular with the odd cosmetic change.

Rangers group support mechanic (spirits) doesnt scale well generally, and is better in medium size conflicts, and our AoE (traps) is strong now doubt, but we have only 3, some on 20+ s cooldowns. A necro can run 4 marks and 3 wells and shorter cooldowns.

I am certainly not denying rangers can bring some pain. I run traps and can do plenty damage when running with my guild, and I have no doubt 5 LB rangers would ruin people very quickly if they focused people down.

All I am really saying is when it comes right down to it, when you have a limited number of people you can pick (such as in a GvG), I dont see why a ranger would be picked.

For open WvW then sure, no harm is some people being rangers, the ice fields are great, the extra fire fields are great, you certainly contribute. But for 100% efficency I’d pick a well necro over a trap ranger or zerg vs zerg anyday.

EDIT: and interesting build.

Oh, so the medium armoured ranging class isnt the best for full on large scale battles? What a surprise.

Rangers are outstanding in sPvP, smaller scale battles and dualling, which is what the class is really designed for, its our niche and we excel there.

I wouldnt get too worked up about us not being welcome in GvG or serious zergs. As chopps has pointed out we can make ourselves useful but we wont ever be the best or 100% nessesary for the survival of the team in such situations because its not our niche.

Its no different to how warriors cry all day long on their forums about OP spirit rangers in sPvP. Thats our field and its where we dominate. Large WvW battles is where warrior and guardian dominate (with the support of backline players).

Dand.8231:

I actually really LIKE rampages 1-5 skills.

That being said…

Rampage gets rid of your adrenaline bar. As far as I see no traits that scale based on the adrenaline bar work while transformed.

Rampage doesn’t get bonuses to physical skill traits, because it’s a transformation and the skills provided are not considered anything specific.

Rampage has a long cooldown and only lasts around 20 seconds.

Rampage has no way to self heal, and you can’t use Adrenal Health to compensate for that because as I said before, the adrenaline bar and benefits from that go away.

Most of the skills that do damage have long cooldowns themselves. Meaning you’ll only use them once or twice per transformation.

The only good things I can think of for rampage is Stability, Swiftness, Running away potential (because that’s what hulk does when he’s rampaging) and the fact it makes you look bigger and you get awesome stompy footsteps.

So as I suggested earlier, what does everyone think about Rampage being a toggle on/off ability then, instead of a cooldown skill?

Remove stability (it gets stripped and overrides your existing stability anyways) and the wacky health bonuses, but continue to allow access to adrenaline, traits, an F1 burst skill, heal 6, and utility 7-9.

Essentially, it becomes a 1-5 skill replacement kit.

To be honest they could be boring and just make it like the rangers Ramgage as One. Give stability, swiftness and fury for 20s and gain adhrenaline 2x as fast (or something, to replace the fact that the rangers version gives might to pets on attacks).

I am not a warrior, but I have kitten ed around in sPvP with rampage and its so funny.

Most people dont even know what I am doing let alone what skills I have or what the hell to do against it.

Not saying its good but you can crush so many noobs with it because they have no clue what going on.. it was funny

You could try killing him before that skill comes available.

If its a 1v1 theres no excuse you failing to do this, and if its a team fight your team should easily able to outhit the pets heal or interupt the pet (and should have done so before the pet heal became available).

I tried this sort of thing about 2 months ago. Wasnt entirely the same, was largely PVT armour with a mixture of knights/berserker/PVT trinkets depending how it was going at the time.

I was mostly using GS because I actually find the damage pretty decent when you take into account mauls low CD and the larger cleave than the sword, but more importantly the evade on the #1 chain gives insane survivability when in the middle of a battle.

As chops already mentioned I actually did run traps for some time with this build to, I think I traited 0/30/30/10/0 if I am not mistaken. I used frost and fire traps for the fields and, since my condition damage wasnt great, frost seemed more appropriate than spike anyway. It was, I feel, pretty effective and I didnt suffer from lack of survivability, although I can see your desire for signets as well.. I never tried that.

Interested to see where this goes.. I want to try this again…

-writes it on my to-do list along with trying the woodsman build-

They really should have made it so that the actives affect the ranger by default, and can be traited to affect the pet as well… but thats a topic for another thread :P

I admit, I am tempted^^ Not played ranger outside of condition builds for a long time now because I find DD kinda meh in general, but actually this does look rather entertaining.

I’ll sleep on it and see if it passes :P

As said above, looks like a fairly normal regen BM (apothecary/settlers armour, dwayna runes and probably something like 0/0/30/10/30).

Pretty effective for almost no effort, especially since he was running all 3 signets (and never used their actives, not that I can blame him) and was running master bond on his jaguar so didnt want to change pets even.

Weaknesses include CC spam, sustained longrange attacks and opponents with strong cleansing who know how to kite a pet, but really its a bunker build so its never going to go down easily in a 1v1.

Sube Dai.8496:

jcbroe.4329:

Speaking PvP, EVERYBODY that runs with axe on condition builds runs Axe/Dagger and Sword/Torch over Axe/Torch Sword/Dagger. Mainly, its to have an evade on each weapon set, to be able to leap through torch’s fire field with the sword, and to be able to keep switching between weapons and doing DPS (as opposed to sword/dagger being a lower offense, higher defense set while axe/torch has virtually zero defense), while making Sigil of Geomancy very strong in condition builds and a worthwhile investment.

I can speak for builds with this weapon setup working in both PvP and WvW, and general PvE as long as you don’t mind playing something that a lot of the PvE crowd deems inefficient because it isn’t full berserkers.

Having bleeds/poison/evades on each set sounds good in theory but in practice I think it is better to have all the evades on one set, to function as a panic/survival option.

I find I often don’t need to switch from axe/torch(horn) for more conditions because the CDs are pretty low. But I do need to switch if the fight is going badly to get some evades and stay alive (queue bee gees).

Probably just a playstyle thing, but I think splitting dagger and sword over both sets make more sense. Otherwise what you find is when you are attacking you are going all in, but lacking poison, then when you get into trouble you swap to s/d which whilst great for evading has very very low attack power on a condition build, and it you arent pressuring our opponent they are going to heal up and continue to rain hell on you without issue.

For me I just prefer to not have to swap to a defensive set to evade and be able to apply pressure on both weapon sets.

So funny throwing crippling talon at 1200 range… takes like 3 seconds to travel that far xD

Scoobaniec.9561:

So what is that Abaddons?

Thats not hacking, its pretty easy to hit that spot by looking over the gate. It only becomes suspicious when people do it VS gates that dont have a gap above them, such as at keeps.

Axe/Dagger works great for any condition build.

Got great bleeding application, some really nice soft CC, a nice long evade and the #4 evade is actually very good at closing a small gap and setting up a #2 attack perfectly so all 5 axes hit.

I use wolves for roaming and bears for zerging. The bears F2 isnt even that bad in all honesty, and they are so cute and cuddley.. who can turn them down

physmat.8219:

Jericho.4598:

I look better! :-D Yay for mix-matching armor!

Whoa!! Do you mind telling me where you took 3rd and 4th pics? This place is STUNNING!

They are both inside one of the guild puzzles. I cant remember whakittens actually called off the top of my head, but its the one just south east of the black citadel.

Each team now has a unique, new, borderland.

The maps now have more interesting terrain (things like mountain passes, maybe sneaky JP back routes, etc).

Bridges/dams/walls can be build in certain locations (the same way towers are upgraded now).

Ahhh yes… That would be good.

This actually happened in bay last night… We’ we attacking at inner and I was chasing a thief out who’d been behind us.. he was just out a range and then got hit by lightning.. almost killed him and let me just get my shot off to furthre stun and kill him.

I must admit, I laughed. Poor guy :P

Durzlla.6295:

Cufufalating.8479:

I wanted to ask how other rangers deal with conditions.

In almost every build I’ve ever made my biggest weakness is always to strong condition builds (looking most at necro and p/d theives here).

So how to others deal with this? I always run Emphatic Bond but it doesnt cut it vs a condition heavy build, and healing spring I find hard to use given that you need to stay in it for 5-10 seconds to even make it worth it. SoR is again, I find, not that greakittens great for clearing a condition burst but after that… nothing.

So how do other rangers deal with a necro through 8 conditions on you in one go? Or to a theif perma stealthing and continually stacking bleeds?

Thief condi builds just kinda tickle in 1v1s… As for necro I run high vitality, poison off on dodge + Spring and try to blow them up with my pet before it gets out of hand, remember necros are designed to DOMINATE attrition fights, the counter to a necro is to blow them up ASAP.

Sounds like you’re playing a BM shout build? Hmm.. Ok. Not really my style, but still, good to know. Necros I do tend to just go full on and more often than not we both go down at the same time from conidtion overload, and then I win in downstate.. but thats not really a satisfactory outcome to my mind.

Care to elaborate on p/d theives? I run condition builds and when I encounter a p/d theif that traits to cleanse in stealth its just a near impossible battle. I have 1 stun on the shortbow, they stealth long before my pet ever gets to them and they just hide in stealth as long as they need to to shug off my conditions. Doesnt seem to be a way round it.

Feeling maybe I should try HS instead of TU, and try S/WH instead of A/D for the finishers.

Hmm