Guild Wars 2

Chrispy.5641:

Yeah, because before and after that, the Ranger had absolutely no way to give themselves perma fury without that trait. Okay……

I’m just going to make a bunch of assumptions and humor you since you’re being slightly antagonistic with your tone.

Red Moa with Call of the Wild and RaO with Furious Grip? Sure, that’s okay Fury overload I suppose. Can’t deny, however, that being pigeonholed into use a Moa just for the sake of a boon is kinda’ pathetic considering you’d be losing general toolbox utilities like KD, Cripple or Fear from wolf, DPS from ravens, or blasts from drakes. Swapping weapons for the sake of earning fury is somewhat unideal – rangers aren’t warriors with Fast Hands who can dip in and our of weaponsets with 0 limitations. Stepping out of the Longbow weaponset just to earn fury via Furous Grip and using Call of the Wild prevents you from effectively taking advantage of the full fury durations once you dip back into longbow 10s later. The point being: having to swap out of the longbow weaponset in order to make the longbow viable is somewhat purpose-defeating.

At least with perma-fury with just wielding the longbow, you were able to sit on that weapon set and actually pose a threat for the long term. Most competitive rangers who take longbow typically take greatsword for blocks, disengage, additional rupt’ for Moment of Clarity, burst with Maul – it proports everything that the longbow lacks. There’s simply no room for the Warhorn in a Longbow build.

Save your Stalker Strike, Serpent’s Strike, and Quickshot for when you’re rooted by Illusionary Leap > Swap. In your game options, uncheck show all Enemy/NPC names and check Show Players. When the PU mesmer hops in and out of stealth, it’ll be easier to find the real one. if you change your options so you won’t need to retarget with T every time. And, of course, save dodges only for Izerker.

Lorelei.3918:

The simple brute force remedy is leave everything else as it is and increase Longbow damage to compensate. If Ranger is the squishiest, easiest kill in the max dps configuration…..it should also be the most deadly when left alone, pet or no pet.

This really stood out for me. It makes sense too, honestly. Power Rangers are the squishiest class in the game, requiring 6 points in respective lines to get mediocre condi-cleansing, damage immunity, or just general potency of utility/weapon skills. Given the extreme opportunity cost, it really does make sense that Rangers should hit like a truck with their Longbow. It kinda’ makes me regret not taking advantage of that perma-fury bug back when Two-Handed Training’s buff affected Eagle Eye… the damage was so great, and felt like the longbow was actually USABLE. Maybe that bug really wasn’t as crazy as people made it out to be?

And I’m delightfully reminded on why so many people I used to Tpvp with left the game a year ago.

Be mindful that Lightning Reflexes can be interrupted midway. Test this by using it into a Guardian’s Line of Warding or when a Mesmer Power Lock’s you. If LR is interrupted, you will not lose conditions from SoTF.

All the Spirits used to give boons pre-launch. Evasive Purity used to cleanse condis in a AoE. GS used to have a much larger damage coefficient. Signet of the Beastmaster used to be a minor trait.

Because Rangers were so strong in the betas, they were toned down quite a bit on release.

It’s been a massive improvement, I’m getting used to F4>42 with Ravens to blind stomp.

There ARE times, however, when the pet just idles by just like pre-patch. I don’t really know how to replicate it, but I assume it’s due to the aftercast delay of it’s current action.

Well you get more salvage items doing regions, plus Mystic Clovers.

But yeah I do admit the guaranteed exotic weapons from the Dungeon Tracks are pretty awesome.

I guess what it really nails down to is this: it’s just impossible to mathematically analyze someone’s potency in the game.

No really, it really is impossible.

You’re always going to find outliers. Always. Just because someone’s Rank 80 or Top 50 leaderboards really doesn’t mean a thing. The amount of time you invest into something may give you a greater CHANCE of excelling, but there is no direct causal link with time invested = good PvP experience. You could be running to same braindead regen+condi crap for the entirety of your life and never touched a volatile power build that dramatically depends on user-activated actives in order to succeed in team fights or duels.

I’ve seen plenty of competent R30-40s commit great fights, and were utterly embarrassed in seeing R80s just camp home point all match long.

The only true sure fire way of making sure a player is good is looking at them on individual basis. It’s complicated, sure, but it’s really the only way. Watch how they fight, how they move, where they go contingent on where allies are, etc etc. It can be anyone, any rank and any MMR rating.

Malediktus.9250:

Great another slap in the face for people who buy all the miniatures as they come out. I am never ever going to spend a single cent on gems again. I am fed up with anets business ethics.
I can only say: Games with monthly subcription ftw!

Except having miniatures isn’t required for your character to perform it’s day to day duties.

So no.

Honestly? I’m so deliriously happy that there ISN’T new content in the game for a while. It’s such a nice breather to just enjoy the game and not worry about being behind in some Living Story reward track or what not. Finally, I can sit back and enjoy the game.

Dunno’ if I’m a minority here, but I just feel like there’s so much I can do to refine my abilities as a player.

XGhoul was referring to the Quaggan Tonic bought from the Straights of Devastation. He was not talking about the Endless Quaggan Tonic from the Lion’s Arch Invasion you’re using, Browrain.

Most people are just bad. That’s the honest truth.

Rangers can play a semi-decent niche role of AoE movement impairing conditions with Spike and Frost Trap, but I can’t recollect the last time I’ve seen a Tanky Condi Ranger run that. Traps work pretty well for group play, short cooldown aoes that slow enemy zerg movement and allow access to kills – works with the similar premise of how the Cripshot Ranger worked in GW1 GvG.

Doesn’t help that people are close minded either. On both facets of the spectrum.

Just run condis through Apothecary/Settlers/Dire with traps, Rangers in WvW have an extremely niche and limited role of aoe immob/freeze. Traps and such.

But I doubt you’d tag alot of players. Getting less loot sucks.

Nope, just Longbow.

The only thing I will say though:

New players, please don’t back pedal with the S key, and don’t keyboard turn.

Thanks.

Turn off your team, map and say chats. If you’re aware, you’ll never need to coordinate and know when to go close/ mid when your allies bars are fluctuating. Life’s too short to deal with people who brag about being good in a fantasy video game.

Afflicted Runes are neat too! Has less bleed duration but that 15% poison duration is handy.

I’m playing around with this in a trapper build atm. The lack of Empathic Bond hurts alot when focus fired, and the damage increase is negligible. To really see the pet poison shine would require speccing 3 in BM for Loud Whistle, which is somewhat difficult to do on a trapper or spirit build. Poison Master would have a noticeable affect if Poison’s damage stacked duration, but currently the way it works is just an extra Bleed stack…

Read the descriptions more carefully.

Purity’s effect can proc on any hit, crit or non-crit.

Generosity is crit exclusive.

There is a workaround for this, you know. Infuse one of your Rings of Red Death. Your one character can wear both the infused and uninfused version of the same ring.

It’s not a big deal so long as the 3 Stones > 1 Charge will sustain throughout the game’s longevity. I figure people will map complete and earn themselves charges, without dealing with the awful Gold > Gem ratio or real money.

They don’t care.

Hopefully not. I’m excited to see Vipers Nest see more play in trapper builds, poison fields could be handy for easy weakness.

A Ranger Anet dev appears in a low pop server!

There’s partial onus on the community to represent the Ranger in a brighter light. People adamant in using ranged options over superior melee options are all stuck up on the tanky pet + ranged design model that -could- work in other MMO’s, but just doesn’t apply in GW2 at all.

A Spotter, Frost Spirit, Zerker Sword Ranger in PvE is amazing. But, how many of those do you see on a regular basis?

No doubt, Rangers could use a hell of a lot of tweaking. You can’t deny, however, that players can choose to be useful or selfish. Most take the latter, and thus poorly represent all Rangers – even those who work hard to get where they are now.

Roy Cronacher.1576:

New Version: Superior Rune of Perplexity
(1) +25 Condition Damage
(2) 10% Confusion Duration
(3) +50 Condition Damage
(4)) 25% chance when struck to inflict 3 stacks of confusion for 5 seconds. 25s ICD
(5) +100 Condition Damage
(6) +20% confusion duration; when you interrupt a foe, cause 5 stacks of confusion for 8 seconds. 15s ICD.

lol

Yeah Black Widow + Jungle Spider is alot of fun with Malicious Training.

Idk though I still take DPS pets no matter what, pets just seem to melt regardless so I figure the more damage I deal before it dies, the better. Though I do see merits in AoE Immob from Drakehound, or fear from Wolf.

Still crap considering the trait only affects one of the worst weapon choices for the Ranger profession.

Kilger.5490:

1) “READ THE WIND” LONGBOW AUTO-ATTACK WILL NOW HIT TARGETS (already announced)
2) “MASTERY OF DODGE” DODGE WILL NOW WORK WHILE USING SWORD
3) “BASIC TRAINING” AXE WILL NOW DO APPRECIABLE DPS
4) “CHANCE IN HELL” PETS WILL NOW SURVIVE ZERG AOE 10% OF THE TIME
5) “OBEDIENCE SCHOOL” PET ATTACKS WILL NOW HIT TARGETS

The sad thing is that Anet is probably going to do something like this.

Even with Hawk/Eagle’s 6 second F2 ability, the healing trait would still be horrible choice to take if it ran off of your pet’s healing power.

Fern Hound is awful compared to the other canine choices. Use it’s F2 and then pet swap, and you’ll see why.

April fools.

If it’s not, well then I give up.

The same reason you see Risen in nearly every map. Not everyone finished the game/ experienced Kessex getting nuked. I assume these events would give people a taste of content.

The CDI thread just emanated into a secondary Ranger sub-forum. Hardly 5% of the people who posted there actually had their words in edgewise.

And what can we expect? Rangers are a mashup of two failed experiments (Beastmaster and Warden) in the early alphas of GW2. Even the developers can’t understand the role of the Ranger, simply because there is no role. They feel frustration of conceiving a profession imbued too deep into broken, poorly designed AI. And us players feel frustration of having been neglected on far too many fronts in the game.

I think it’s kitten generous to withstand even a shred of optimism one and a half years into this.

Oh great, someone finally got their head out of the gutters and realize Rangers are a decent skirmish class.

Too bad that doesn’t redeem the fact that we lack group utility, viable power options, and have the most handicapped profession mechanic in large encounters.

For being disciples of Melandru, it’s awkward to see that condition resilience hasn’t come around the Rangers’ corner yet…

Never run Axe/Torch in pvp. You will always need a weapon-based evade on each weaponset. The reason people run Axe/Dagger + Sword/Torch is to spread the evade cooldowns across each weaponset. Any smart player would take advantage of you if you ran A/T; they’d just wait for you to swap and immob/burst you down.

Shinjo.6092:

If killing the ranger’s pet is a valid counter to a ranger’s pet, then killing the thief is a valid counter to a thief.

I seriously hope you refine your retort. What a terrible comparison.

I heard GW2 was fun since you’d need to react actively to all the passives.

Haha.. wow. This really is impressive. I wonder if this kitten will get media attention at one point, monetizing in video games is going borderline criminal.

Iris Ng.9845:

Incoming xquared!!!

Yeah apart from the fact that Longbow Warriors provide more with fire fields and blast finishers and Scepter Dagger Eles provide tremendously more DPS and group utility, you seem to make a good point. You’re so clever!

…to go back on topic.

Well, I just feel like so many constructive criticisms were left completely unread. I can understand Anet being overwhelmed, but what do they expect? Their evident lack of industry level professional grade QA as evidenced by the numerous bugs presented in the release candidates of the living stories, complete and total callousness to the integrity of professions in certain gamemodes all due to the balance issues of sPvP…

I’m not really sure what to think. I want to be optimistic, but I really don’t think Allie knows what she’s doing. It seems like she cares about what’s wrong with Rangers, but at time it feels like she will only comply with certain ideas if they tickle her fancy like the Pet Aspects. Is thinking objectively something of a novelty in 2014 game development?

It certainly takes some skill to use on moving targets (you’d have to untarget and manually predict where the enemy will go). But yeah hands down, it certainly goes toe to toe with Maul’s burst potential. Greatsword + Sword/Axe is the most fun build to run.

24/7 Rifle Warriors.

24/7 Staff Guardians.

Staff Elementalists.

Permakit Flamethrower Engineers.

Scepter/Dagger Necromancers.

24/7 Greatsword Mesmers.

24/7 Shortbow Thieves.

If you have a problem with Bearbows, these should also concern you to the same degree.

Also, just because someone rolls a Warrior or Guardian doesn’t always guarantee decent results. And stop pretending you are when you run your kittenty play-your-own bullkitten.

Balancing an entire game composed of different formats of play on a SINGLE type of play?

I hated it in GW1, and I certainly despise it in GW2.

I take it Chrispy compared “Guard!” to Heal as One due to the Nature’s Voice trait granting Regen… but even then it’s a bit embarrassing to defend the design of a skill that garners little to no group utility considering Regen and Swiftness are some of the least coveted boons in the game that are, nearly, granted in such an arbitrary manner from professions like Elementalists and Guardians.

Bottomline is that Ranger shouts, collectively, need to have some group utility without investing 30 trait points. Like every other class with Shouts.

Yeah Zerker is the way to go for pretty much everything in PvE.

Problem with condi-pets is that they don’t scale off of your condi-dmg rating. You’d need to spec Malicious Training and Expertise Training in order to see “decent” damage, and even then it’s questionable considering you’re losing other valuable trait options (Beastmaster’s Bonds, namely).

Sword/Warhorn is, admittedly, annoying to play. My suggestion would be to only chew an enemy with Sword/Warhorn when you are safely flanking your foe, or weapon swap to Greatsword when you really need to dodge. There are several workarounds for the inability to dodge, like “Protect Me!” or Signet of Stone, but none really serve as a viable defense in the long run. Rangers need to be carried by Guardian’s Aegis from time to time, which is kinda’ shameful… but oh well. There’s a reason why we’re being considered for the CDI.

55. Pvp is fun.

Well of course your DPS is low, don’t use conditions in PvE.

20 in Marksmanship for Spotter and at least 10 in nature Magic for Frost Spirit’s 70% proc rate. The rest of the points are up to you. Have either Sword/Warhorn or Greatsword on at least one of your weapon sets. The role of the Ranger in PvE is buffing allies, and if you use Sword main-hand your damage is comparable to a Warrior, and you’ll give decent fury uptime with Call of the Wild.

Don’t use Axe main-hand in dungeons. That weapon is okay for Dynamic Events for tagging mobs with Honed Axes, but in a organized setup main-hand axe is the worst DPS option available to you. Stick to melee weapons; keep a longbow in your inventory during some esoteric encounters, but if your team is good enough you’ll probably never need it.

Your pet choices are strange too.

Lynx bleeds over Jungle Stalkers’ might stacks?
Reef Drake over River Drakes’ immense bouncing F2 lighting breath?

Or Anet could just give us back Dshot and our amazing midline capabilities from GW1 that made the Ranger class so fun to play.