Guild Wars 2

Shimond.2478:

Kraggy.4169:

Which sucks hugely and is a nasty surprise for those who didn’t realise GW2 was a ‘forced grouping’ game at the point it matters.

If you’re so opposed to playing with others, why are you playing this game? It’s never been advertised as a single player game.

I don’t know, I like playing with others and I like dungeons a lot, but I kind of feel like I should have finished my personal story alone. You’re portrayed as the hero all throughout your personal story, you’re commander and second-in-chief, you fight off hordes of risen and other threats in Trahearne’s shadow… and right when your moment of glory finally comes, some random Asuras and a fat Norn step in and steal the show. Who are these people? Who invited them? Why are they raining on my parade?

I guess Anet wanted to be sure we all did at least one dungeon instance, but I might have kept the final slaying of Zhaitan as a solo instance. It’s a pretty big immersion breaker to have people that already know what they’re doing and what’s about to happen guide you through the last chapter of your personal story.

eisberg.2379:

Yeah, I really really wish they didn’t make those boxes another RNG gamble. I am not going to blow 5 days of dailies and more then likely then get something that is useless to me. Arenanet, RNG is not fun.

No, neither would I. Unless these boxes contain a chance at unique skins or items I doubt I’ll ever spend my laurels on them. Same goes for the crafting boxes, I’d rather keep my laurels for items I can’t purchase elsewhere, like ascended amulets and minis.

SilverWF.4789:

laokoko.7403:

I’m wearing full berserker.

I’m sure – that’s a reason…

I’m full berserker, but once you know what you’re doing the pillars aren’t a problem. You can even survive fairly long in path 2 bomb room kiting.

I’ve never come across this type of cheating myself, or at least not noticed it. For me the most logical explanation is that the ranger was not alone, and his buddy was throwing down AoE stealth or smoke fields while either cloaked or culled. I agree that a Ranger on his own can’t pull off that kind of stealth.

kesuh.3891:

Signet of Stone, pick a tanky pet->bears and arctodus and after the 6 seconds from Signet of stone runs out. pop the shout protect me. You actually got 12 seconds of recieving -0 in dmg.
Entangle as elite

weapons-> fire skill nr 5 barrage from longbow
or just equip greatsword and start swing around inside the dome and you can almost evade all of their attacks. just use the skill 1 on autoattack

Plenty of ideas to survive in there ^^

This, SoS + Protect Me + Lightning reflexes for extra evade (or ice trap to slow them down). Wolf for AoE fear. GS 4 block + GS 5 interrupt, swap to Sword + Dagger for multiple evades. It’s a little tricky, but with experience it gets a lot easier.

fellyn.5083:

Some people I’ve talked to are under the impression that the boxes contain precursor weapons (very small chance) and that the real intent for the boxes is to introduce a way to get more ectos into the system. It’s entirely likely the exotics you get from the boxes will be account bound like the ones in fractals.

At 2.5 laurels per rare or exotic, I don’t think the ectos are worth the cost. There are lots of other shinies to be had for my laurels, but not sure how others feel about this.

Blueshield.6291:

bpphantom.8243:

Warrior box will have heavy armors. Ele will have light, etc. They say that they contain Rare or Exotic.

That doesn’t explain why they’re class specific instead of armor-type specific. Unless ANet has departed from the “play your class your way” concept as is now telling us what stat combinations are correct for which classes…

The description says gear , not armor , so I assume you could get a rare or exotic weapon usable by your profession.

I also wanted to ask this, I’d be happy to pay gems to change my character names. Also, will we ever be able to change our account names for forum and guildwars2.com ?

I have to say, I’m kind of disappointed with the Pact weapon I trade that badge or whatever for, after I’ve completed my personal story. I really think it should be named, soulbound on acquire, limited to your first completion of personal story, and on par with the highest tier exotic weapons.

My quest to liberate Tyria from my awakening as a Sylvari seedling was epic, and my battle with Zhaitan was legendary. My renown across the lands has grown alongside my contribution to the common cause, as I proved my worth on the battlefield and commanded pact troops to stem the tides of risen that plagued our beautiful land. I have slain the evil dragon and brought peace to Tyria, my name will be sung by heralds and all shall know me on the battlefield as I wield the mighty (weaponname_here)…. Except there are hundreds of these weapons on the trading post, and either I transmute it or I’m stuck with a sub-par weapon. Doesn’t feel very special, does it?

@Anet: with all the exotic weapons on the market, wouldn’t it be a lot cooler for everyone if this pact weapon was a true icon of our defeat of Zhaitan? You guys did an amazing job with the personal story, it would be nice if we had something to remember it by once it’s done.

PS: Ideally players should obtain this weapon in Arah and use it to slay Zhaitan, but I know that ain’t gonna happen I’d have had Trahearne die in the final battle (or become severely injured) and leave the player Caladbolg, which he uses to lay the killing blow on Zhaitan and can transmute to his weapon of choice in the mystic forge.

Arsenic Touch.7960:

Sarcasmic.6741:

Guys guys guys, we all know the rate of fire is on the longbow is going to be treated like it was on the shortbow, and fixed to correct an animation bug.

Yeah, that non existent animation bug that got anet a lot of grief after weeks of silence on the issue they finally admitted that they nerfed it because it promoted “1” spamming and they say that’s not fun gameplay, though they never explained why they lied in the first place. Oh well.

Anet seems to prioritize intra-class balance over inter-class balance, so while they felt the shortbow needed nerfing to make all ranger weapons equally appealing, the player base felt like an already poor PvP class was seeing its most viable weapon nerfed. That was a pretty maddening fix if you were into sPvP, with all the issues we have the last thing anyone wanted was a shortbow nerf.

I’d rather they worked on not losing pet names when swapped out of rotation, personally. Talk about losing immersion…

SilverWF.4789:

Arsenic Touch.7960:

Channeled attacks do not do the damage pop up per hit, the last number that comes up is the total damage the entire skill has done, which is a stupid mechanic. Either it should not pop up damage until it’s done, or it should show the actual damage of the hits.

God, I think all know that ><

Author, look at the combat log instead of screen.

Actually lots of people don’t know that, the question gets asked pretty frequently in this forum. I agree, it would be a lot more intuitive if single shot damage was displayed, and total damage only at the end.

somsom.5201:

Daemon.4295:

Yeah forget it, I run full berserker and wanted Quiver of Swift Flight too, but no flavor item short of a legendary can be worth 60 gold to me. The stats on that quiver just aren’t exceptional enough to justify that kind of expense, for my bank account at least

Use your noggin bro: get the backpiece with stats you want, make the cheapest quiver(AFAIR ~10-15g), transmute.

Voila, quiver with the stats you want AND the look you want w/o spending 50-60g.

That said, 50-60g is CHEAP. I’ve seen a lot of “too bad for WvW players like myself” comments…yea that doesn’t work, because I WvW TOO and I have one. Spend an hour a day doing CoF p1+p2, salvage the tokens, and you will end up with an easy 3-4g. Throw in another dungeon or so on top and you’re probably near 5g. That’s less than 2 weeks to get the quiver with stats you want(w/o having to transmute).

Not that hard.

Well duh. I got my Endless Quiver yesterday (the cheapest) and will transmute it if I come across any better backpiece, I ruled out the berserker version as soon as I calculated the cost for all that powerful blood.

Two weeks of solid gold grind is indeed ‘hard’ in my book, that’s some serious time spend that I could have put towards other stuff (a legendary, gear for alts, even RL!). For an item that only gives me 1% more crit damage than what I’m already wearing, it just ain’t worth it. I was able to easily afford the Endless Quiver just with the gold I had on my character and banked ectos, so it was a no-brainer really.

There are various ways a ranger can stealth: Hide in Plain sight, Rune of Inflitration, Smoke combo fields, AoE stealth from another profession (maybe his buddy was stealthed and you missed him?), one of the foraged items (feathers I think)… plus culling I think there’s also a Norn racial skill that lets you cloak, but I’m not sure about that.

LB 2 damage is only marginally higher than LB 1 damage at max range, although if you have high crit rate and on-crit sigils you’ll likely be activating your sigil more often. Its real utility is for spiking as you move out to max range, as it doesn’t suffer from the distance penalty and is significantly stronger than LB1 at close range.

Healix.5819:

Daemon.4295:

What’s the auto-upgrade mechanic? What can it upgrade to, nothing has higher stats than legendaries at the moment.

When ascended weapons are released, legendaries will be automatically upgraded to have ascended level stats. They have not announced what will happen to legendaries that have been transmuted however.

Do we know when they’re releasing Ascended weapons? I sure wouldn’t risk nerfing my legendary until ascended weaps were already out and I knew for sure this would work. Craziness!!

Yeah forget it, I run full berserker and wanted Quiver of Swift Flight too, but no flavor item short of a legendary can be worth 60 gold to me. The stats on that quiver just aren’t exceptional enough to justify that kind of expense, for my bank account at least

What’s the auto-upgrade mechanic? What can it upgrade to, nothing has higher stats than legendaries at the moment.

Arekai.5698:

You can get a quiver but only through the treadmill dungeon with over 5000 ectos involved.

????

Quivers take 50 ectos, the only thing you need from a dungeon is 1 vial of condensed mists essence, which drops from fractal level 1.

Mystic Forge ingredients

250 T6 mats (specific mat depends on the stats you want)
50 Glob of Ectoplasm
240 Philosopher’s Stone
1 Vial of Condensed Mists Essence

Not cheap, but doable. I’m forging my quiver today.

Boomstin.3460:

deepwinter.9015:

Boomstin.3460:

Too bad for us who want to avoid the horrible flavor dungeons don’t even have a way to get a quiver skin.
Or is there?

Mystic Forge. See my post to the Wikis above.

Edit: In fact, that’s the only way to get a quiver skin – no dungeons required!

Hmm, seems all those need a Vial of Condensed Mists Essence for the forge which i thought is account bound or did i miss something?

Yes, but that’s all you need from dungeons. I got my vial of condensed mists within 5 fractal runs, although I haven’t seen one since. The real issue is the cost of materials, the berserker version costs upwards of 50 gold in mats.

@deepwinter: you forgot these two…

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bowyer's_Delight
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sights_Be_True

I’m not sure I understand your post, if you transmute a legendary you will lose either its stats or its appearance won’t you? Can you keep both stats and appearance from one item when transmuting? I never tried.

Wow, you should get an award or something. I vote to give this guy a free quaggan backpack, 5 lvl 80s with infused rings is impressive.

Anyway I second your post, so long as laurels and laurel gear are character bound.

Calae.1738:

There are 4 of them.

-Increase Magic Find by 20%
-Increase Gold Find by 20%
-Increase Karma gained by 15%
-Increased Experience gained by 20%

Did you guys run out of ideas of something? Here I’ll help you out…

-Increased Movement Speed by 15%
-Increased all Weapon Range by 5%
-Increased Velocity of Projectiles by 10%
-Increased Endurance Regeneration by 20%

This has to be one of the worst suggestions I’ve seen in this forum. 15% movement speed buff from an infusion??? What should the stat boosting infusions be, +1000 ? (Just to put this into perspective, they’re actually +4 to a single stat)

Shiren.9532:

No, they only needed one infusion. Increased gold find 20%. With four ascended items thats 80% more gold, with the run of scavenging that’s 95% more gold, with omnomberry bars that’s 135% more gold. Kill the spider queen in AC for 10 silver (14 with food). After this you can get more than 23 silver per boss kill in dungeons with this infusion.

Do you honeslty think anyone is going to want to run anything but gold find?

Unless it has some hidden cap that the game doesn’t show yet (which is likely, cause ArenaNet loves not telling us stuff until after we’ve wasted our resources) this will either be quickly changed or it will cause crazy inflation.

Isn’t 20% MF way more profitable at high levels than 20% gold find? I get the vast majority of my gold in fractals runs from drops, not coin.

Spent over half an hour on this and didn’t get my daily cause I couldn’t get past 20%, but I think I see what we were doing wrong now. We didn’t realize it had to be a damaging combo field, so I kept dropping water and ice and WTFing when we didn’t get the combo kill.

PS: Turning off autoattack and only using 100% combo finishers is probably a good idea

I didn’t know you could just do 4 of 6, that’s a great idea and solves the problem. You can just skip whatever activity you really don’t like doing. Good call Anet, hope to see that feature soon

Combo was yesterday’s daily, everyone had it up until… 17 minutes ago when it reset Healer and Dodge are new dailies.

Firstly, let me just say AWESOME job on this last patch ArenaNet! Great stuff!!!!!

However, please please remove the crafting daily. I absolutely loathe crafting in any MMO, and I don’t think we non-crafters should be forced to spend time, coin, and mats on an activity we find essentially boring.

I have nothing against crafting, crafters, or GW2’s implementation of crafting, I just really don’t like it myself, and don’t want to have to do it for my daily. Anyone else feel the same?

Meryt.9823:

IMO a lot of the dis-satisfied Rangers in GW2 are people who have played Ranger/Archer in other games where they are 1 shot monsters; whereas in GW2 it can be hard work to down a player, let alone finish them.

I disagree, I think the main cause of frustration is simply the notion that rangers are not functioning as ArenaNet intended, at least in PvP. Our core game mechanics, as defined by Anet (pet damage and arrow damage), are severely flawed when fighting intelligent players. You can’t help but think that critical issues with core mechanics should take precedence over lesser fixes and new content, hence all the raging in this forum every time other classes receive minor tweaks and adjustments and the ranger is overlooked.

Yeah it’s great, Zephyr’s Speed and Piercing Arrows are the only two traits I just can’t imagine living without.

Exactly! Nothing worse than seeing that options screen pop up when you’re trying to swoop for your life

Dang options screen, it’s so OP….

Majik.8521:

it doesn’t matter what a class is called . ranger, archer, woodsman, scout, beast master , hell you can call it a lumberjack for all i care. But in the world of GW2 the only thing that matters is how anet defines them.

This. It doesn’t matter how the “Ranger” plays in other games, or the conventional definition of the role, all that matters is Anet’s definition of the profession in GW2. And they botched it up.

In the interests of accuracy, I move to re-word the definition of Ranger as follows:

“Rangers rely on a keen eye, a steady hand, and the power of nature itself. Unparalleled Mediocre archers, rangers are capable of bringing down PvE foes from a distance with their bows. With traps in the wrong trait lines, ineffective nature spirits, and a stable of loyal dysfunctional pets at their command, rangers can adapt succumb to any situation.”

Joking of course, but sadly this does reflect the state of the ranger profession right now pretty accurately.

Xsorus.2507:

If you want to fight P/D thieves, simply use Superior Rune of Melandru + the – 40% Condition Duration Food.

This will drop Conditions by 65%, most P/D Thieves tend to stack Condition Duration for their bleeds, and I find that its really all their damage..So if you hit them with that, They tend to have trouble with with damage to finish you off.

At that point all it takes is for them to screw up at least once and you can kill them..however they could just simply run away from you and really nothing you can do.

Or just wipe the bleeds with brown bear, signet of renewal, healing spring, or emphatic bond.

Yasha.5963:

Not as good as the thief sword movement skill (unsurprisingly) but still good once you get used to it. In pvp it is very helpful for getting out of a jam. Trigger it to jump back, turn around and double click your screen to clear target then trigger the skill again to leap far forward (away from enemies). Use lightning reflexes before or after this and you should be setting up a good escape.

:O OMG, I never knew you could double click screen to cancel target. I always press Escape. This will make my life so much easier, thanks Yasha!

In a duel you should be able to beat a thief fairly easily, as you can pick your skills accordingly. Thief is all about burst, absorb it and you should win. Depends on your build, but I’d slot unguent, protect me, traited sos, qz, entangle. Wolf and drakehound. He did call you out OP, you pretty much have to fight him now.

Wow, I can’t believe you’d consider sinking so much time into another game just to get a white raven. Hawk and Eagle are better anyway, they can land two F2 attacks before pet swap cooldown.

That makes sense considering your high vitality, but don’t you think the quickness every 20 secs might add up to more damage overall than the 50-odd bonus to power? What’s your total vitality? Maybe it’s just me, but I love quickness

Idolicious.6091:

P.S. Please don’t tell me to disable auto-targeting. That is not a solution. Proper fixing of the skill is. I’m not going to disable auto-targeting just to make 1 skill work properly.

The Greatsword is clearly not your weapon of choice

Auto-targeting causes significant problems with various skills in the game, for multiple professions. I strongly suggest you turn this feature off. A perfect example for Rangers is GS3 (Swoop), one of the best escape skills in the game that DOES NOT WORK with auto-target enabled. I don’t use Sword due to the annoying root bug, but I believe the same holds true for the Monarch’s Leap escape on Sword2 (dash back with Hornet Sting, cancel target, rotate 180, dash again with Monarch’s Leap).

EDIT: Wrong choice of wording. It isn’t that auto-target causes problems, it’s just that turning it off is a clever way of turning gap closers into excellent escape skills. You can choose a direction of escape without being drawn to the closest target.

I like your build, except for the runes and 10 points in nature magic, why did you decide to put them there? I’d put 5 into BM and 5 into wilderness survival, in my book no ranger should ever give up quickness on pet swap. I definitely agree that you should go for traits that match your playstyle and compensate / complement with gear.

It’s a good post and you clearly put a lot of effort into it, but I have to say your combat scenario is totally unrealistic. Unless you’re fighting bots, 4 opponents would use gap closers and CCs and roflstomp you in seconds, no healing would even be necessary. At most you’d get off barrage (which they would easily avoid), LB2, LB4 knockback, and SB poison volley, then you’re toast. Not enough to down a squishy really, and unless you’re fighting complete noobs they’ll interrupt you anyway. I don’t mean to sound nasty, but what you’re describing is every LB ranger’s PvE combat sequence against mobs and unfortunately it rarely works against other players.

Mardermann.7468:

so anyone…
was that the magical ranger patch everyone expected?
Just asking…

I think the last patches have done a lot for Rangers. The GS block in motion is great, the 25% speed boost with signet of the hunt is great (10% was just silly), the quicker res time on Lick Wounds is fantastic (if only it worked on uneven terrain and didn’t start on cooldown), definitely steps forward in the right direction. Regarding projectile speed and pet damage in PvP, I haven’t noticed for myself whether Anet’s changes have really made a difference as I haven’t been doing much PvP lately. Anyone else care to comment? It seems the devs are at least attempting to address our biggest issues, which is already a huge leap forward in my book.

Holland.9351:

nerva.7940:

- long range sniping – done way better by GS mesmers and rifle warriors

This is what I do. Although I wouldn’t call it sniping. You’d need the 1500+ range trait for the longbow as well as piercing arrows and berserker gear + accessories.

No other class has as much range as the ranger.

Yeah technically with Eagle Eye you can fire from further away than any other class (with a LB). Unfortunately arrows rarely hit their mark at that distance, and Warrior and Thief outperform us in terms of damage output.

The problem with Condition damage is that it can be wiped so easily, and rarely can you get many flanking shots off on other players with your shortbow. Unless they’re in a big group, in which case you’ll do a lot more damage with a longbow anyway.

PS: With a GS + Rampage as One they will never “kill u easy”. Do as much berserker damage as you can from range, then switch to GS, throw on RaO, and Swoop off into the sunset

I also use Hawk/Eagle because of their low cooldown F2, I’d just really like to see an EAGLE instead of a Hawk clone in game, and a HAWK head for a pet icon instead of an Eagle head. This must be a bug, the two icons are 100% identical.

Dude…. fireballs underwater?

ophidic.1279:

Also, isn’t there a drop rate penalty applied just for staying in one area too long in an attempt to make people move around more?

Correct me if I’m wrong, but…

Can anyone confirm this?

Southsun Cove blood farming was never a secret. Frostgorge Sound blood farming was never a secret. Anyone that spends 2 minutes in google looking for a good spot to farm powerful blood will know about these two locations (+ Fractals). The only reason these areas aren’t swamped is that farming dungeons nets you more gold per hour and it’s a lot more fun. If you need the blood you should only be happy if the prices drop, if you’re just farming for gold then why aren’t you in Fractals or other dungeons? Unless you’re a botter of course

Does anyone know if it’s still possible to refer a friend for a free trial? I had one unused refer-a-friend from the Lost Shores event, but I guess it expired.

Lol, I’m prepared to accept my ranger’s role as Aquaman, but I refuse to wear scales and spandex!

@Ragequit: if your interpretation is correct and that dip is due to this post, then keep bumping my friend! Cheap powerful blood on the market? Yes please!

RageQuit.5687:

As the previous post got bumped the hell down, here’s a histogram of what happened as of this thread:

http://www.gw2spidy.com/item/24295

To be honest most people I know never went there because it’s boring.. But this is an incentive for them to do so.

That spike in cost of powerful blood is probably due to the new ascended gear though, not the existence of Southsun Cove (which should only drive the prices down). I know I for one am farming there to get powerful blood for a quiver.

Zenith.7301:

F2 activation needs to be instant or close to phantasm attack speed (0.25 sec). The pet must not be rooted for it.

Pet switching should spawn the pet AT the opponent, not at you. The cooldown should stay at 15 sec even on pet death.

Pets should have the 30% movement speed trait as baseline to make up for their poor uptime, since they don’t constantly remove cripples or chills from aoe.

Noooooo, pet switching has to happen right next to you for lick wounds when you go down. Also, pet swap is useful for grabbing them out of combat and AoE faster.

Renn.8241:

I have had trouble with other pets but my
Black and White Raven dont have the issue

It seems to me that birds suffer from this issue the least. They will home in on the target to execute their F2, so it’s fairly reliable. I have the biggest issues with pets that cast AoE like the Wolf, by the time they get their F2 off, my PvP targets are our of their range.

Anet really needs to work on this, I’m resorting more and more to just leaving my pet on defensive in WvW for the occasional buff or quick in-and-out F2 attack. It’s not like they hit much in combat anyway.