Guild Wars 2

It isn’t sPvP, he doesn’t really need huge amounts of survivability with two ranged weapons. LB4 knockback and Axe chill can help him keep distance, especially if he throws in muddy terrain or ice trap or entangle as CC skills. The main problem with this combo, as I mentioned above, is that Axe/Torch requires condition damage while LB needs power, prec, and crit damage to even come close to shortbow damage.

@OP: I wouldn’t worry too much about this right now. You’ll experiment with all the weapons as you level and can easily retrait for just a couple of silver, you don’t have to settle on a given playstyle until you hit 80 and start going for your full exotic kit.

Indoles.1467:

Tribio.8531:

If you read the skill description it says that your pet will use the active target? Drop target and try casting, no?
(not sure, to be honest, never actually use a pet skill by purpose without a target)

There still lies in a few issues I have noticed and would really want fixed. First, when no target is selected (unsure if pet is on passive or not), hitting F2 can still cause the pet to go after some random nearby target before casting and sometimes forget to cast and just begin auto attacking anyway. Second, sometimes you hit F2 and the pet cancels itself by moving. So, you have to keep hitting it at intervals so that you don’t accidentally cancel it when it is actually working but make sure it does go off because if you cancel it by hitting F2 twice quickly, you put the F2 on a 3-5s cooldown.

These two things are the biggest issue I currently have with pets. Sure, some PvE damage mitigation should be added, but I would like to see properly functioning pets first.

Edit: A common use for no target F2 casting would be moas in combat and canines when fleeing. Casting the wolf fear without a target usually causes it to stop and fear any approaching enemies the other direction, which is great for escaping.

Do you have autoattack on? Maybe that is why the pet is running to a random mob to execute F2?

The pet has to run to your target to execute the command because most of the pet abilities are cast directly on the target itself, so you can’t do away with that mechanism. All they really need to do is make the abilities instacast (or instacast at target), I wouldn’t mind my moa running off if he buffed me first and then ran into the fray.

Doable, but LB/Axe+Torch is not a good combo in terms of damage. You’re trying to work with the ranger weapon that benefits least from Condition Damage (LB), and the setup that relies most on condition damage (Axe and Torch), so one or the other will be under-par. If you plan on using traps, or condition damage in any way, then you’d be better off swapping the Longbow for the Shortbow as it bleeds whenever you flank and has poison on skill2.

So can anyone confirm whether Bloodthirst affects downed skill 1 and DS4?

Lil Puppy.5216:

Staff 3 (already has 240 radius) is the only one that I would say is bugged, greater marks should increase that one as well, but it just makes them all 240 radius. If greater marks doubles the radius of the others, it should double the radius of ALL of them.

Staff 3 has a radius of 120 untraited like all the other marks, it just happens to be the only mark that properly displays the 240 radius when traited, for some reason.

danikaix.4670:

Well guys its It’s about time we do something, bring this discussion outside this thread.

The balance team is doing a good job engaging the Spvp community, but ironically the profession section is completely ignored. Almost 4 months without a single word from them on the ranger forum I believe the other professions aren’t doing much better either.

We can do something to change this situation I created a Thread on the “general discussion” to raise awareness for this issue. Please stop by and share your point of view and opinion on the topic

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Community-Engagement-feedback/first#post1467426

I disagree that Anet needs to communicate more, look at the mess Jon Peters caused by promising changes we didn’t end up getting (the infamous Aquaman patch). The level of ranger-rage in this forum would probably be a lot lower if Anet had never commented on the state of the class to begin with.

Bran.7425:

Check the State of the Game video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0togRMEc_o. Trap ranger isn’t getting touched for now.

Actually they specifically say they want to “bring them down a little bit”, 52 minutes into the video.

Daddydeath.9371:

not whining but having a discussion, i play on few classes and build, condition build thief, condition build necro, dd ele, and burst shatter mesmer, none of them stood a chance

How can you possibly lose to a trap ranger with a condition necro? Necros eat trapper rangers for breakfast, you can run through traps and throw the conditions right back in our face with staff 4, dagger 4, and Plague Signet, not to mention all the standard condition wipes necros have access to. Any class with decent condition wiping can shrug off traps, but necros can actually use them against the ranger. This isn’t a specific counter-build either, we’re talking basic weapon skills on the two most common necro weapons. Mesmer and Ele should also have a fairly easy time, it’s only thieves that hate trapper rangers because they can’t get in for the easy-mode backstab without taking damage.

Rislo.6293:

Hey Rangers,
I’m having a hard time finding anything useful in these forums for what I am asking. I’m posting in the Thief forum about this same thing.
I’m just curious as to how a Ranger fares for dungeons?
And I have no particular role in mind and I dont know what their forte might be in dungeons, but I dont mind playing support at all, because I know not enough people do it.
But I’m torn between the two classes and I really have no interest as of yet in Pvp/WvW…and finding thief dungeon stuff I’ve had no luck yet either. So I’m basically asking for some info/thoughts and advice from some experienced Rangers about dungeon pros or cons concerning the Ranger class. Thanks in advance

I’d say it largely depends on your build. A BM ranger doesn’t do as well in dungeons because your pet is either dying, or constantly yo-yoing in and out as you try to keep it alive, so it’s losing a ton of dps. A support ranger is useful with Healing Spring, pet AoE buffs, Warhorn buff, etc. Maybe not as useful as other support classes, but still useful. Trap builds are IMO very good in dungeons and perhaps underrated here, you can damage multiple trash mobs, keep up consistent condition damage on bosses, and you can drop three different combo fields with low cooldowns (water, fire, ice). Power/Crit builds are tough to keep alive but they give you good DPS output. You do have the tools to stay alive (invulnerability from Protect Me and traited Signet of Stone, 50% extra endurance regen with 5 points in Wilderness Survival, evades from weapon skills and lightning reflexes), but it takes a bit of experience and skill to pull this build off in the tougher dungeons.

Atherakhia.4086:

While these things are good, the class actually has good skills and elite options that trying to fit in things like leopard form and pain inverter will be difficult and institutionally useful.

If you were a Elementalist for example, then Norn is a given because the class has absolutely crap elite skills. If you were an engineer than Asura is a given because they have few good active skills.

Particularly utilities, there are just so many better ranger utilities than racials. QZ, LR, traps, defensive utilities like Protect Me and traited SoS, SoH for speed or SoR for wiping conditions, Muddy Terrain… The only racial utilities I might use with any consistency are Charr battle roar (with a berserker build), and Charr hidden pistol in place of Lightning Reflexes (lower cooldown). I’ve never actually tried them though, my only Charr is low level.

Blackbird.4382:

I made a Sylvari. Recently got it to lvl 80 and have partially completed Exotic gear. Now I understand that Pain Inverter is one of our best abilities and it’s exclusive to Osuras. If money is no object, as I could craft an Osura to 80 in a few hours, so I’m only out a few gold, should I remake my Ranger now before I invest more in an inferior race? Or is PI not that big a deal?

Go with whichever you like better, it’s pretty crazy to level an alt to 80 just for one racial skill you probably won’t end up using. You could level a different class instead, or save that gold for legendaries and other stuff.

Pain Inverter isn’t all that special anyway, I honestly think Sylvari Take Root is better, particularly for a ranger. Pain Inverter doesn’t absorb damage, it simply hits opponents for mediocre damage any time they use a spell. Take Root on the other hand gives you 3 seconds of total invulnerability, multiple decoys in PvE, a decent pulling mechanism in PvE, and an additional source of damage. I know I’m comparing an elite to a utility, but I run with Take Root on my ranger quite a lot whereas I would rarely slot Pain Inverter, though I do use it with other classes.

Jubei.5923:

ps: sorry to state the obvious again but I feel it needs to be said out loud to you devs so that you don’t stuff up GW3 – Never, ever make anything a core element of any profession/class. Even if pets worked properly and fantastically, what if I didn’t want to use a pet? Now you’re stuck with a profession that is forced to use a broken mechanic as part of its core functionality. Well done. To whom do I mail this nobel prize to?

Well you choose a class based on its core mechanics, in any game. If you don’t want a pet, don’t roll a ranger. The same goes for other classes with stealth, elemental attunements, death shroud, etc. ArenaNet, or any other game developer, will always have its own vision for each class and it’s up to you to decide whether you like that style of play.

awe extender.1908:

Uncategorized Fractal (Harpies platform):

• Greatsword is a must. Use block (#4) to keep the arrows and bolts away.

• Also if you have 10 p in WS you have to use Shared Anguish (III). Again keeps the bolts away from you.

The best thing for Harpies there is Rampage as One for stability, since the problem isn’t damage but them knocking you off ledges after fractal lvl 10. It’s also great for the windy ledges in the Colossus fractal.

Ok I see, thanks for the reply. Sorry but I’ve only following the necro forum for the past few days. You’d think they’d have gotten around to fixing this by now, in any case.

I just traited Greater Marks for the first time, and for some reason only Chillblain (staff 3) seems to increase in size. I even tried relogging, but it doesn’t seem to fix the issue. Untraited, the tooltips for all staff marks state a radius of 120. Traited, they remain 120, only chillblain increases to 240. Is this normal? I’ve swapped to 20% reduced staff cooldown for now.

capuchinseven.8395:

My pet has taken falling damage before, kinda stupid given it’s a bird.

LOL

Shortbow does more single target damage than any other weapon, but LB is better for AoE, simple as that. Personally I like opening with LB and then swapping to SB once i’ve blown LB skills and quickness.

My Sweet Lily.1952:

How about 30/30/5/0/5? I feel that I need the stats from Marks/Skirmishing and more endurance from WildSurvival and 2s quickness from Beastmastery. Or then 20/30/5/0/15. I would take 10% crit dmg over 100power (so not 30/20/…). This would buff the pet quite a bit and give more often quickness.
Main weapon Sb, ofcourse, secondary sword/horn.
Are these “viable” glasscannon specs?

Oh and nobody has said anything about which pet to take. Cats/birds… I believe in Jaguar. With RaO, Sick ’Em and QZ, while the Jaguar is stealthed and critting is amazing.

You can run either of those builds, reduced pet swap is very nice but you lose one of the Marksmanship majors, it’s up to you really. Two other good options are 20/30/15/0/5 and 20/30/10/0/10, depending on whether you’d rather have fury on weapon swap, 20% lower F2 cooldowns, or some other trait that might appeal to you. Both options give you Wilderness Knowledge and Zephyr’s Speed. WK is great in WvW because some of your most useful skills there are Survival skills (QZ, LR if you end up picking it, Muddy Terrain, Entangle). Muddy Terrain and Entangle are both excellent for snaring people, your allies will drop them in seconds. Personally I run WvW as a glass cannon with LB/GS, Healing Spring, Muddy Terrain, Signet of Hunt, QZ, and Entangle. I swap SoH out for other skills as soon as I enter combat, and I often swap Entangle for RaO in the open field.

Weapons are of course a question of preference, but I personally would never run melee with a glass cannon (I only use GS defensively to block and escape). Longbow is really great for attacking and defending towers and keeps, and along with SB is probably the hardest hitting weapon for a power/precision build. Sword hits pretty hard too, it’s just that it’s tough to stay alive with this build in melee range. Just my two cents

Durzlla.6295:

Daemon.4295:

I think it would be incredibly complex path finding to calculate your pet leaping off walls. Not to mention that you’d have to start calculating falling damage on pets too.

Well my pets have taken falling damage before… and died from it because my 50% fall damage trait doesn’t seem to help them out at all xD, so i don’t see how it’d be -that- hard. but then again, i’m no programmer.

How can your pet take falling damage? That’s like a mob taking falling damage, I may be mistaken but I’ve never seen that before.

Seras.5702:

Po-Po-Po-Po-Porcine Power

Give the Porcine pets a try when fighting in melee range. Their foraged items are amazing if you can deal with the clunky mechanic. Since you & your pet will be fighting side by side (and porcine are pretty hearty) their F2 item will pop up next to you, easy to pick up. Study the items each Porcine forages, and use them according to your build. Can also really benefit teammates in dungeons, so long as they know what Foraged items are/do.

Pig – heals, invulnerability
Siamoth – conditions, ethereal field
Warthog – blind, stealth, boons
Boar – control, ethereal field

Warning: I don’t PvP, but I’ve heard that an enemy player can pick up Foraged items (who came up with that idea??). Use wisely if in PvP.

I don’t like Boar pets because you never know what you’re gonna get and can’t strategize, unlike with all the other pet F2s. For example when a thief steals, he knows exactly what skill he’s picking up so he can use that to his advantage better. I think it would be great if the piggy F2 items depended on terrain type.

I think it would be incredibly complex path finding to calculate your pet leaping off walls. Not to mention that you’d have to start calculating falling damage on pets too.

RapidSausage.4620:

so what about surviving tools?

lightning reflexes doesn’t always yield great results, and there isn’t exactly a blink or hard CC removed (immobilize, daze, stun) other than Lightning reflexes and healing spring, which aren’t always available on demand.

is it better for a glass cannon to take traited signet of stone or is it better to take Signet of the hunt and QZ and LF with 10 in WS?

Lightning Reflexes gives you 1 evade but it breaks stun, Traited SoS and Protect Me give you total invulnerability for 6 seconds, although the latter depends on your pet being alive. In WvW the problem is getting ganked by multiple enemies so SoS or Protect Me are probably preferable. Are you using a GS as secondary? Rampage as One (stability) + Traited SoS + GS swoop will make you very hard to kill.

Again though, if you don’t have quickness on pet swap you do not have a functional glass cannon build. It’s hard to pull off ranger glass cannon and quickness is the biggest thing you’ve got going for you, particularly in WvW with barrage and rapid fire.

Do the math, QZ gives you 4s of quickness every 60s (48 if traited). Zephyr’s Speed gives you 2s of quickness every 20s (16s if traited). So putting 10 points in WS for Wilderness Knowledge will give you 4 seconds of quickness (i.e. 1 barrage + rapid fire chain) every 48 seconds, whereas 5 points in BM will give you 10 seconds of quickness every 60 secs on 4 separate attacks (i.e. 1 Barrage + RF chain, 3 x Rapid Fire or Barrage).

EDIT: actually, if you cast at second 0 and second 48/60, you’re actually getting 8 secs quickness every 48 seconds, or 16 secs every 60. Roughly

I don’t care if he takes the elevator down, as long as he hits my target once he gets there!

Keyce.8137:

I don’t WvW on my ranger, and I personally am not a fan of the bows. SB is a good condition weapon, but I prefer flat damage. LB is really good for flat damage, but it really drops in strength when a target is running closer to your face.

Personally, I run S/D and GS as both my weapons for PvE and sPvP. I evade EVERYTHING.

SB flat damage is roughly on par with LB flat damage at max range for a power crit build, even without taking into account bleeds and poison. At short range it obviously does far more damage. The main reason people slot LB is barrage, it’s a good enough reason for me!

Bambula.3649:

y eagle eye is nice, but with sb you still do more dmg so you dont need it Oo

In WvW LB is way better for siege and defense, and eagle eye is really handy there.

Obsidian.1328:

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!

Ermm…how are Fractals not dungeons??

Actually, I noticed they don’t count towards monthly dungeon achievement for some reason.

All it has to do is run into range first, then activate ability and commence casting animation.

Dahkeus.8243:

Bambula.3649:

hmm i dont know for what 30 in marksman?
25/25/5/0/15 makes more sense for me cause of the 10% flanking, with this you get much extra dmg in the most situations

Yea, I honestly don’t think there are any really good traits worth taking 30 in Marks. The extra distance on LB is nice, but really the shortbow is where the damage is anyways.

Because of this, I really think 20/25/10/0/15 is the way to go. The 5 in WS is great, but QZ is really big behind any glass cannon build and an extra 5 in WS will reduce the cd by 20%. Considering how good Lightning Reflexes and Muddy Terrain are for utility slots, it’s a solid investment all around, but even if you don’t take those, the 20% off of QZ alone makes it worthwhile.

Signet of the beastmaster with signet of stone can be a lifesaver for glass cannons, or you can swap it out for eagle eye, which is useful in pvp. At OP: I also keep 30 in marksmanship and skirmishing, but without 5 in Bm for quickness on pet swap you’re gimping your damage output. It’s a must-have trait for glasscannon, even more so than piercing arrows. Move 5 points from WS, I promise you won’t regret it!

So… you’re saying that a condition build can in fact kill trash mobs more quickly than a power build with wells? I’m finding that condition damage is puny at low levels, hence the idea to go with wells.

Regarding the other tips, I do my personal story until I become too low level to survive, then run around doing as many DEs as possible and hearts to level up, completing maps as I go along. Although to be honest the exp boost for completing a map is stupidly low, hardly more than a basic heart and far inferior to a chapter in my personal story. The only thing I don’t do is complete dailies on my necro, I save that for my main.

ampy.1387:

I love my SB/LB Ranger

I barely use anything else really since i dont do much PVP.

Yeah outside of PvP you can get away with running SB/LB practically anywhere. I find they mesh together better than you’d expect. In WvW I trade the SB for a GS though, better escape

Yeah I could do that, but I don’t have much gold set aside and I’d rather save up for going legendary, eventually. Besides I do want to play my way up, I just want to do it quickly.

capuchinseven.8395:

Daemon.4295:

Really? I didn’t know it dropped, I wouldn’t have crafted one if I had.

Sorry I wasn’t being clear. Not the bow, the vial that you need to make one, the rest you still need to buy.

Oh right I see, sorry for the misunderstanding. Yeah you can only get the vial off of drops, can’t buy it on TP so you have to farm fractals for a little bit to get that drop. Doesn’t take too long though, as you said they start dropping from fractal level 1.

kiwituatara.6053:

http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2guru/b/365009593
~50:00 (Anet Devs talking about builds)
I like how they talk about how they messed up spirit rangers. but havent come out with a solution to fix this~ for how many months now?
54:54 “I hear underwater rangers are pretty good.” I feel trolled

Wow, I hadn’t seen that. At about 59’ they start talking about class balance and they say “we’re being really careful to not over-destroy certain builds, like the ranger (in reference to trap builds) and the ele, we want to bring them down a little bit but we don’t want to whack-a-mole them either.” All we need now is a nerf to trap builds.

Really? I didn’t know it dropped, I wouldn’t have crafted one if I had.

Not to mention that the effect doesn’t activate til the animation completes.

ReinoudM.5931:

But why should they be so expensive? It should be that every Ranger got one. A simple one and a more complex flashy looking at higher levels!

Where else are the arrows coming from?!

And if that isn’t happening. Which one of the quivers is the cheapest?

Well if everyone had one it wouldn’t be worth wearing, I like that quivers aren’t so accessible.

Hi,

I’m looking to level my new necro to 80 as quickly as possible, I might take a bit of time off to experiment in WvW and sPvP, but essentially my goal is to get to 80 as soon as I can and re-spec. Looking at traits and skills, it seems to me that the fastest way to do this is a power build focused on wells. Would you mostly agree? What would be a recommended build for that, keeping in mind that I’ll reset all my trait points anyway once I hit 80?

At the moment I’m level 25, so no Elite yet. My game involves pulling as many mobs together as I can and dropping well of suffering, well of corruption, and Asura pain converter on them, as I basically run around trying to do as many hearts and events as possible. Anything I could be doing differently to level faster?

Thanks!

I’m new to this class, but it seems to me Necros have a whole set of tools for removing conditions in both PvP and PvE. Even better, necros can transfer conditions, and off weapon skills!! You have a heal that wipes conditions and heals even more per condition, a staff skill that transfers conditions, a dagger skill that transfers conditions, a signet that transfers conditions, a well that converts conditions to boons, an elite that cures conditions (Lich 5), an adept trait that wipes 1 condition on DS, another adept trait that wipes 3 conditions on each kill, and a grandmaster trait that transfers conditions to minions every 10 seconds.

My main is a ranger, know what our condition removal options are? 1 heal, 1 signet, and a grandmaster trait. Oh, and the signet and grandmaster trait kill the ranger’s pet by transferring conditions to them. I’m finding all these options to transfer boons and conditions on necros pretty amazing, personally.

Thanks for the helpful comments. I originally rolled a necro to spec into condition damage, but I didn’t realize quite how effective the class can be in a support role.

I’m building around wells at the moment, as it seems like grouping mobs and dropping wells is a fast way to level. Once I hit 80 I’ll likely respec to a condition damage build oriented around corruption and epidemic, mainly for dungeon runs and maybe a bit of WvW. I haven’t really thought about sPvP yet, I’m just concentrating on leveling as quickly as possible at the moment.

xev.9476:

darb.9231:

. Yes….it has more control than SB. No…you don’t have to give up points in BM or WS to use it.

I love the longbow hate though…..that way people don’t know how to react when skirmishing with me because all they see are SB rangers!

Although I suggested a video, I was hoping you’d at least start to defend these sorts of claims. You keep posting assertions unaccompanied by any argument. How in the world does the LB have more control than the SB, for instance? SB has shorter CDs, an extra evade, poison to mitigate enemy healing, a cripple, and a daze/stun. LB has one knockback (with a long cast time) and a long CD AoE cripple that’s super easy to dodge.

Longbow control isn’t that far off shortbow’s, the real issue is the pitiful LB1 damage at short range. I can’t imagine using the longbow effectively for skirmishing unless you swap it very frequently with a backup weapon set, so I’m curious to see that video if he has time to make it.

Dude, SB is by far the most commonly used Ranger weapon in all areas of the game. Only in WvW zerging is it overshadowed by another weapon (LB).

PvP isn’t dead and worthless, it just needs a few key features like rankings, dueling, and spectator mode to be top notch, and Anet has already told us they’re working on these aspects.

Back to rangers, I wouldn’t expect to see the fixes we’ve been asking for in the next patches, Anet has been working hard on changes to WvW and PvP. But you never know! To be fair, the amount of fixes and the quality of new content we’ve seen in under 6 months is pretty impressive, at least in my opinion, so I’m willing to wait as long as it takes. I just hope that eventually the class gets the attention it needs.

I think they mentioned at some point that it had something to do with memory management? My understanding is that this feature was deliberately omitted, but I might be wrong about that. It would be nice if they could work out some form of solution anyway, heck I’d even pay gems for a permanent pet name. I’d also pay gems for a petting animation on idle, anything to build some sense of attachment to my pets.

Hi,

I just rolled a Necro the other day and am really enjoying the class, I’m still very low level, but it’s quickly become my favorite alt. I’ve been studying skills and traits and I have some questions about how some of these function, any advice from all you more experienced necros would be appreciated.

1. Furious Demise
Can I pop DS and leave immediately for 5 seconds of Fury, or do I have to remain in DS to maintain the boon?

2. Ritual of Protection
Do the protections stack duration if I drop multiple wells in sequence? This is important to me as I may focus on wells at lower levels.

3. Bloodthirst
Does this affect downed skill 1 and DS skill 4?
The wiki states that this trait is bugged and does not currently affect Vampiric Rituals and Vampiric Master. Is that still the case?

4. Transfusion
Am I reading this right, Life transfer will heal all nearby foes for 2628 per target at level 80?

5. Quickening Thirst
I assume this doesn’t stack with other speed buffs (Swiftness or Signet of Locust) ?
According to the wiki, there is a bug preventing offhand dagger from granting +10% movement speed, is that still occuring?

6. Speed of Shadows
I assume this also doesn’t stack with other speed buffs?

7. Master of Terror
More of a generic question on Fear here. I assume fear functions like other conditions, ‘ticking’ once per second and rounding down to a whole number of seconds? So in other words, 1.9s of Fear will cause your opponent to flee for 1 full second?

8. Foot in the Grave
Same doubt as with Furious Demise, do I have to remain in Death Shrowd to maintain the 3 seconds of stability?

9. Piercing
Do any weapon skills or downed skills pierce by default?

10. Marks
How long do these last without being triggered? Can I roam as far away from them as I like?

11. Unholy Feast (Axe 1.3)
Am I right that you can basically keep up perma-retaliation with the axe, in high density mob zones? If you run a power build this is pretty impressive, retaliation hits hard as it’s unaffected by armor. This point alone might lead me to trade out scepter for axe.

12. Dagger
On paper this weapon seems deadly, if you can pull off melee. Traited life siphoning and 3 seconds of immobilization (great for PvP and in conjunction with wells) in your main hand, 6 seconds of blind and chill (if you trait Chilling Darkness) and condition transfer in your off hand, plus a fairly large area of weakness and bleeding. Is it as good as it sounds, or am I missing something?

13. Epidemic
What is the duration of the conditions transferred, is it the original duration of the condition inflicted, or the remainder of the condition duration still up on the target?

14. Plague signet
Does it instantly transfer any condition an ally receives to me?
How does this work in PvE, does it pick up conditions from party members only?
Can I transfer immobilize and stun?

15. Signet of the Locust
According to the wiki, the active effect heals for 778. Is that per foe, in a 1200 radius?

16. Signet of Undeath
Does this revive downed players instantly?

EDIT: Forgot an important one…

17. Close to Death
Does this affect condition damage as well as direct damage? Will my bleeds and poison be doing 120% damage to anyone under 50% health?

I don’t mean to stray off topic here, but I really don’t understand how people can say there’s no end-game in GW2. World vs World is one big end game. Legendaries are end-game. sPvP you can do… forever really. I know fractals can be repetitive, but they’re a practically limitless challenge, and it’s an easy format for Anet to update with new maps. I’m level 80 decked out with full exotics, but I feel far from mastering all the aspects of this game, and all of its challenges. In fact, I feel like my first 79 levels were just an intro to the real guildwars2, which for me started at level 80.

vitigis.4160:

The only people that agrro the world unintentionally are the people that are not good at pet classes and simple micro management. Period. I can’t recall a single dungeon in which my pets aggro’d stuff unintentionally.

Yes, the pathing can be a lot better, but so can you.

Protip:

1) If your pet aggros the world, let it fight, run farther away, swap pet. Profit.
2) Stow your pet before running past mobs. If you are bad, or can’t dodge through aggro’d mobs and get hit, see rule #1.

+1. There’s really no excuse for your pet aggroing mobs in dungeons, I don’t recall it ever happening to me either. You don’t even have to stow it, all you have to do is put it on defensive and keep the normal safe distance from mobs. I don’t like the idea of the pet permastow at all, I do however agree with Bitsy that they should not hop out every time I take falling damage.

capuchinseven.8395:

I tried using heal as one last night, maybe it’s just me but I do much better with TU and the cooldown isn’t far off. It was nice to have the burst heal though.

As for greatsword, I’m never one to tell someone they are doing something wrong so I’ll just say PERSONALLY I just can’t get my head around greatsword, other than getting around the map nice and fast I find a single sword has better damage, better escape and better evasion and also has a better option choice with an off hand.

I find nothing funner than locking down a thief with a well place stun, swapping to sword and pet swapping zephyring my chain #1 the hell out of him with my pet being close enough to get the benefit of the zephyr because you’re in melee (great tactic that, lots of burst).

It’s not like I don’t want to like it, I have a great skin on mine (hur), I love the mobility but I just can’t get it to work for me.

I find the opposite, GS works really well for me. Swoop is instant and I can see exactly where I’m going without having to rotate the camera. Block basically provides 3 secs of invulnerability, and 5 is like an evade with free interrupt. Sword, on the other hand, I have real difficulties playing with due to the root bug. No way am I turning off autoattack and mashing the 1-key just to use it.

Bredin.5368:

Sick ’em
As awge, I am running a WS+BM build for PVE, WvW and sPvP. With 10 in skirmish for the pet buff (either +30% run speed or +30% crit damage), the jag is a great burst tool. If you are careful, you can effective use this to pick off single target even during zergs. I’m beginning to think the +run speed is the best choice for the pet, since their biggest weakness is catching up to targets. What do others think?

Protect Me
This is really an amazing ability, especially in sPVP. I can get out of very sticky situations by hitting this and doing a quick pet switch before it dies. Highly underrated

Learn to use 1-h sword+dagger defensively
I’m still getting the hang of this, but you can really surprise people by pulling out the sword and dagger and doing 3 consecutive evades and then crippling. My advice is if you need to get out of bad situation and create some distance, use sword 2 to leap back then swap to SB and hit 3. Now you have some room to work with.

You can leap back with sword 2, press the key to rotate 180 degrees, and press sword 2 again to do a double leap away. You have to cancel your target first though, and disable auto-target.

Akisame.9508:

Daemon.4295:

eoloe.4379:

Rolling conditional traps build with SB/GS
The bags are raining.

SB + positioning + Piercing Arrows + Traps + Entangle = annahilating AOE for zergs.
And you are still very survivable with all of it.

Rangers are amazing for wvw. Barrage is not your only skill…

Yeah, does anyone else have as many CCs as we do? In WvW I have Entangle (AoE), Muddy terrain (AoE), and Spike Trap (mini-AoE) on my bar, plus QZ for Barrage. Nothing kills faster in WvW than immobilize and cripple.

I guess I’d agree that other classes have an advantage in roaming and 1v1, but on my server I seem to spend the majority of my time either zerging, or defending against zergs, and rangers are great for that.

I spend alot of time in zergs, either taking or defending forts and stuff. I have to disagree with you because the only way I can feel useful is behind an arrowcart or some other seige weapon. Main reason why is because of our poor damage. I know, use your pet, sorry, but when I’m up on a wall, my pet doesn’t do kitten! he just sits there and allows himself to be hit by arrows. Then when I try to get on the ledge of the wall so I can use defend for pet to run down below, I get pulled down by a thief and killed because the range on it sucks. In order to get the green circle, you have to step out onto the ledge, if not you only get the red circle, same as barrage. And it’s the same thing when storming a fort, your pet is useless, he does no damage, and because of this you are putting out ~40% less damage then you should be, which is ~40% less damage then everyone else is contributing. Bottom line, we are useless there. better off logging out instead of tieing up the que line to get into WvW by a class that can contribute to your server.

I think it depends on your build, I run full glass cannon in PvE just for WvW and it really works well with the longbow. I kill a surprising number of players with quickened barrages and signet of fire, and muddy terrain is fantastic for immobilizing brave fools while your allies spike them down. Plus you can slot Eagle Eye, which is more useful than you’d think.

Agadar.4931:

Daemon.4295:

I totally agree that trap traits should be moved to WS but I wouldn’t hold my breath for it, re-structuring trait lines is a complex task that can damage class balance across the game if done incorrectly. Are we even sure it wasn’t done intentionally to limit trap damage?

If that was the case they could’ve just nerfed trap damage instead of putting their corresponding traits in the wrong friggin tree.

For some reason this annoys me even more than our slow arrows, braindead pets, and the numerous other issues we have.

I’ve been thinking about this, and it occurred to me that if you could put 30 points into WS for max cond damage and trap traits, then you could put another 30 into BM for a full-out Beastmaster / Trapper. That would be a pretty OP build, really.