Guild Wars 2

BrotherBelial.3094:

DoogySnowStalker.2069:

Maybe… all of these years of neglect and nerfs are all part of something bigger? What if Anet plans to continuously worse as time goes until both professions are undesirable to the point no one plays them anymore so they have a reason to delete them and not worry about managing them in the future! :O

You don’t play WvW or sPvP do you. They are every where in those game modes. I should know. I play one.

Both classes are very good in 1v1 situations such as roaming in WvW or PVP, but what do they add to organized WvW and PvP? Ranger, you can supply AoE pressure from the backline; however, you can only wish to match the damage an Elementalist can give to an enemy zerg. Want to frontline, okay, you are very evasive, but what group utility do you offer? Warriors and Guardians can do the same thing, but better with heavy CC and group utility to help sustain the other frontliners with AoE heals and cleanses. Necros are easy targets in PvP since they can be easily trained down. In terms of team play, you only really have Lichform to help decide battles. WvW, you’re either fearwalling zergs or backlining with Wells to offer protection. We can go for a more supportive role, but require too much utility investment in comparison.

I am familiar with each class in each scene and realize their short comings in each one since they don’t offer much in either gametype. There are obviously players that still continue to play the class, for whatever reason they have to play it. I will still continue to play my Ranger because it is my main and first character, despite all of the neglect and nerfs. I am just disappointed with how Anet continues to ‘balance’ both classes when they are both in pretty poor spots among the other classes.

tairneanach.8427:

That is one of the worst conspiracy theories concerning gaming I’ve heard.

Obviously not meant to be taken seriously, lol. Just want to see how Anet would respond on both profession’s current state is in the game. Don’t really expect a reply back as well.

Maybe… all of these years of neglect and nerfs are all part of something bigger? What if Anet plans to continuously worsen both professions until both are undesirable to the point no one plays them anymore so they have a reason to delete them and not worry about managing them in the future! :O

Lomopop.7028:

DoogySnowStalker.2069:

Lomopop.7028:

Morwath.9817:

Lazze.9870:

We need the Robert Gee treatment. A dev that cares.

Disagree, I think Kui Calmon-Huang did pretty well.
We got more good changes than bad ones. Obviously Ranger requires a bit some more work, but it’s going in right direction.

Agree. I think the changes have added more depth to playing a Ranger. Quick draw and remorseless make combat more interesting, and the beast mastery traits gave our pets some excellent utility. I’d be happy to see more from Kui in the future.

I don’t understand how teaching a player to properly weapon swap adds depth to Ranger… Quick Draw, yes is a very good trait, allowing us to learn more burst potential with weapon combos and skill-chains; although, it seems to carry the same lesson of learning how to weapon swap. Remorseless is a very nice access to burst damage with the Ranger, but in turn we lose another damage multiplier possibly decreasing our overall DPS. With having Hunter’s Tactics changed from 10% damage increase while flanking to 10% crit chance, so in total a maximum of 20% damage modifiers we’ve lost due to the specialization update.

It adds more depth in the decision-making process. This is mostly the case with Quick Draw and the added utility of pets by traiting into BM. You can cancel cast F2 for a quick blind, but that locks you out of your full F2 CC for a few seconds, if you have Moment of Clarity traited you can double stun, etc. As you pointed out, it gives us a wider variety of skill chains which, for me, adds depth to the class.

As you also pointed out, we’ve lost some damage modifiers and I agree that this is a problem for us. However, the devs can buff weak weapons fairly easily. If instead of Quick Draw, Remorseless, etc., we got the old damage modifiers for traits, our class would have less depth and any fixes would take considerably more effort from the devs making it less likely to happen. That’s why I think these changes are a step in the right direction and I’m happy with them for the moment.

I think you’re right to be concerned about some of the things we’ve lost, and in the end, we’ve probably stayed pretty much the same. What we’ve gained, I think, is more interesting game play that is easier to buff if needed.

I just don’t understand why they have to balance the good and bad changes to where we remain practically the same. Why not give us an overhaul to allow us to compete with the other classes, similar how they did to Mesmer? Before, Mesmers were pretty powerful in PVP with their high burst potentianl, used in WVW for their portal tactics, and honestly only for the extra reflects and Time Warp in PVE. Now with the access to an insta cast daze, setting up kills in PVP is easier than before; very powerful in WVW with their daze field on staff and slow on Time Warp, being able to turn the tide of a zerg fight pretty easily now; and have received a major buff in PVE, escalating them to one of the Meta classes when they were previously one of the lower end of the DPS rankings. When I see this evidence of major class buffs, all I can ask is why didn’t we get an overhaul similar like this instead of changes that balance our good and bad changes to keep us the same? We aren’t in a good spot, so keeping us in the same spot, I just do not see the justification for it. We got a bunch of polished traits and access to pet utility, but we still lack something that justifies us being brought along for whatever we decide to play in.

Lomopop.7028:

Morwath.9817:

Lazze.9870:

We need the Robert Gee treatment. A dev that cares.

Disagree, I think Kui Calmon-Huang did pretty well.
We got more good changes than bad ones. Obviously Ranger requires a bit some more work, but it’s going in right direction.

Agree. I think the changes have added more depth to playing a Ranger. Quick draw and remorseless make combat more interesting, and the beast mastery traits gave our pets some excellent utility. I’d be happy to see more from Kui in the future.

I don’t understand how teaching a player to properly weapon swap adds depth to Ranger… Quick Draw, yes is a very good trait, allowing us to learn more burst potential with weapon combos and skill-chains; although, it seems to carry the same lesson of learning how to weapon swap. Remorseless is a very nice access to burst damage with the Ranger, but in turn we lose another damage multiplier possibly decreasing our overall DPS. With having Hunter’s Tactics changed from 10% damage increase while flanking to 10% crit chance, so in total a maximum of 20% damage modifiers we’ve lost due to the specialization update.

I do find it awesome that we can actually access our Beast Mastery traitline without having to heavily invest into it, this I will agree adds more depth to Ranger since it actually utilizes our pets for more reason that simply being there and giving us some good utilities in the scenes where they be PVP, WVW, or PVE. Makes it more challenging while fighting a Ranger since you also have to be more aware about the pet rather than simply kiting it, but does that pet utility really benefit us in PVE? The pet utility is nice since it encourages Rangers to properly manage their pets rather than letting the pet die and swapping pets, but how much does our pet lose out on it for utilizing these utilities? This can very much vary on whether build a Ranger may be running, however let’s base this off of the metabuild to use as an example since it is believed to be the best damage output for Ranger. Our pet received a couple of damage multipliers, however how much does the pet damage benefit from this without a reliable source of might? Ranger DPS is split 70:30, and without a reliable might generation for the pet without Fortifying Bond and only reliable access being Strength of the Pack, how much is our pet DPS compared to before? Since our rotation involves more weapon swapping than sustain from sword helping grant might on auto with the old Companion’s Might we used to use, how much might is being supplied to the pet to help improve its damage? Since we utilize our new access to pet utility alot more to improve our personal DPS, it constantly resets our pets boons on swap. At most, they’ll receive 4 stacks of might with 15 seconds of fury on pet swap, but that still isn’t enough to compare to the boon management on the pet before. Without the might being supplied to the pet to improve its damage from before, how much is our overall DPS suffering due to the loss of pet damage? If we still had access to Fortifying bond through Beasty Mastery instead of Nature Magic, we might of have on par DPS with other classes, but sadly that isn’t the case; while we received alot of useful utilities, other classes have been given alot of damage modifiers in return.

That’s why I said before we can really believe we are in a better spot than before, or are we still in the same spot or even a worse one?

I did include that fact in what I typed, just look in the parenthese in the first paragraph :o

We got a bunch of polished traits, but even so nothing has changed for us at the moment. We gained access to a very strong burst potential with our new traits as well as improved survivalbitlity; our pet’s stats have been raised to accommodate the stat reworks due to the specialization trees not giving stats anymore (improved stats if we spec into BeastMastery as well, although the bonus 150 stats for reaching level 80 is bugged for the pets at the moment); and skills were reworked to help synergize more with our newly reworked traits. Although, we still don’t have any dedicate role where ever we are situated in.

For every role we can try to act as, another class can do the same but always better.

PVP, we are good at 1v1 fights, but lack in organized team play that another class can offer both. We can build for a more team oriented build, although other classes such as Guardian and Warrior can perform that role even better since they don’t need to sacrifice as much utilities as us. For dedicated skirmishing, another class can do just the same but better mobility like Thief or Mesmer.

WVW, same case, we are good at skirmishing with 1v1 fights, although lack a role in organised zerg fighting. We can either backline it with longbow and offer aoe pressure or decide to frontline with an evasive build involving greatsword and/or sword/X; although, an Elementalist can offer an even greater aoe pressure than we can wish for and Guardians and Warriors can offer more to a frontliner with better group utilities than us.

PVE, we offer two unique damage bonuses with group fury, however that is all we can really offer. Fury uptime agmonst a group is no problem now with how much fury access some classes have gained, both personal and group, so other classes can offer fury to self and group. Our unique group bonuses we offer do add to a group, but still shy in comparison to others; Warrior banners are vastly superior in comparison. We can offer a fire field to help stack might, although fire fields can be also managed more properly through an Elementalist an a Guardian somewhat. Also with every Warrior practically all running EA/PS, might isn’t an issue what so ever agmonst a group. With Remorseless and Quick Draw, we have a good access to vulnerbility, but Engis’ can easily supply full vulnerbility uptime by themselves. Not to mention every class has their own access to vulnerbility so usually the role of someone to stack vulnerbility isn’t truly needed.

As it is, we don’t fit anywhere because any role that we fit in, another class can easily out perform us in said role. We can say we are in a better place now as it is, but in all honesty, nothing has changed. In the end, we were just given a shoe shine…

Do it! Just do it! Don’t let the Ranger remain a forgotten class. For years you’ve said tomorrow, just DO IT! Make Ranger a truly viable class! Just DO it! Some Rangers dream of being an actual good class, while you’re gonna realize and work hard at it! Nothing is impossible! We should be at the point of being good, and you’re not gonna stop there. No, what are you waiting for?! DO IT! JUST… DO IT! Yes you can! Just do it! If you want Ranger to be a desired class… Stop. Giving. Up.

With the June 23rd patch increasing the stats for pets by 150 towards power, precision, vitality, and toughness when the hit level 80, I personally viewed this as a form of pet growth for your animal companions through all the time you spent with them as you yourself grew yourself as a Ranger. After thinking more on the topic of pet growth, I was thinking of possibly having some more additions to the pet as well.

For those who went through the process of getting map completion, your animal companions stuck with you through the entire ordeal. Since the pet remained by your side throughout the experience, I was thinking of possibly showing the World completion star on our pets as well. Since our pets are a part of us, I see it deserving to the player to be able to show it off on our pets as well. The main reason I suggest the World completion star is because I recall a post where an Anet Dev was on their Necromancer, and all of your minions shared the Anet tag along side their bars as well.

Another way to signify pet growth would be to change the pet model for once they are full grown (once they hit level 80). This wouldn’t really affect the vast majority of the pets, although, it would definitely be easier to distinguish the Hawk from the Eagle. I do like how the Eagle looks like its juvenile self, since that was the way it was once you tamed them; although, there are very little differences between the Juvenile Hawk and Juvenile Eagle, they even share the exact same skills. So if possible, once our juvenile pets are fully grown, they then become an Elder pet; pets entering the Elder state would also be reminiscent of Guild Wars 1 as well, so a nice nostalgia factor as well.

This suggestion is obviously not needed, but would be a nice addition. Thank you for viewing/reviewing my post.

I hope this post gets recognized by the forum mods, I would very much appreciate an answer regarding this issue.

Actually, if the tests performed by the person from this post are true, https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Adding-precision-to-pets-is-bugged/first#post5133966, none of the pet traits work at the moment. We have to wait for feedback from Anet to confirm whether this is an actual issue or not.

Not too certain in replacing the warhorn to be honest; the extra AoE swiftness is nice, but you should be able to maintain perma swiftness with just spamming Guard. With the cooldown being reduced by traiting for lower shout cooldowns, Guard will have 13 seconds of swiftness and a cooldown of 12 seconds. I also believe the pull from Axe 4 outweighs the extra swiftness from warhorn because of how much more reliable of the Axe is when it comes to ccing and keeping Mai in the electric aoes, especially when you are able to use yourself as bait when she agros onto you. I wouldn’t mind the warhorn too much since it has a blast finisher with it, but since you decided to take Troll Unguent instead of Healing Spring makes the use of axe all the more better apposed to warhorn. The Nature Spirit’s passive healing and the active giving a 3-man rez and condi cleanse will definitely add to maintaining both the party and the Bear to keep ‘Ring Around the Bear Strategy™’. I personally would rather keep Entangle for the immobilize since you can’t always can’t control the agro enough to keep her in there. So since they both have their advantages, bringing either or is up to the person using the build. The Mercy Runes are a nice addition, although I don’t believe most people to completely change their gear choice for this build, since most of those for Mai tend to just change the traits around (I know some have extra sets of armor for more survivalbility, but people like me only crafted 1 set of ascended armor). I’ll edit the traits in the build I linked above an edit.

Yes, I’ve stated that this build was only intended for the sole purpose of Mai Trinn, so I have never used outside of it. I’m aware that this build could reach more of a support play style, although, I currently have it set to as it is since I I run Full Zerker in PVE content. I do believe the traits could definitely be better distributed, that’s why I said if you wish to, go ahead and modify it if you feel the need to (despite knowing Mai is more about surviving then dpsing, but it bugs the hell out of me to not see the traits take away too much from the Meta build.) The build in a whole isn’t intended to replace Warrior with rezzing, the build is to promote group survivalbility, not the idea of rez botting through the Bears. The added regen is indeed inferior to Guardian healing, but again, it is not the main focus of the build. The idea of the build is to constantly maintain a damage sponge for the group to relieve pressure and held kiting Mai to drain her shields to, making the Pug experience with Mai Trinn an easier overall experience. I don’t usually doubt other players, but there are times when the party I’ve joined does have difficulties staying up, so this is also to count for those situations. Thankyou for your reply and critisim

Here is where the two questionable shouts included in the build come into play, during the cannon phase. Not much players know of this due to low usage of the skill, but Search and Rescue is able to rez dead players. In order to execute this, you have to make sure that you use Search and Rescue BEFORE the downed player dies; if the character was being rezzed before, the pet will continue to follow through with the command until said person who is now being rezzed from the dead is finished. Search and Rescue is a life saver as well when Mai decides to play Baby Guard on a downed body, having a rez bot on the downed body gives you some time to deal with the situation until she moves or gets cced off; I do find the dead state pet rez to be a nice alternative to logging out since the pet usually restores 60-100% health when rezzing, shaving off alot of time compared to loading in and out of LA and then to wait to be rezzed by the Ellen. Guard is used during the cannon phase to stash your Bear in a corner; since it is stealthed, it will usually dodge the aoes. It won’t be guaranteed to not get hit since some players may run buy it while dodging the aoe spam or will just get unlocky with aoe placements; if the Bear is near death, switch pets and stash the next Beat again with Guard. The Guard shout is also a high uptime of protection for the Bears since the utility gives 11 seconds of protection with a 12 second cooldown, very spammable to keep that damage sponge tanking. Spamming of Guard Shout is heavily encouraged for the protection uptime, as well for the regen and swiftness given through Nature’s Voice.

Healing Spring
*Steady counter to condi pressure for both group and self
*Outgoing regen to group, self, and pet (max duration of 45 second regen, 2340 health)
*Source of vigor to group and self
*Water field for blasting (show me da Shortbow Thief!)

Search and Rescue
*Pet rez the dead to either full or 60-99% (situational based off of cannon aoes) to then be hard rezzed by allies later to avoid time used for Ellen rez
*Dedicated rez bot on downed player when Mai is playing Baby Guard

Signet of Stone
*To negate damage during the cannon phase when caught in a pinch, or any other situations involving Mai
*Use of utility to negate damage during pet rez on downed player
*Improvise self as bait drain shield stacks off of Mai, when the agro is shifted to you

Guard
*Using Guard during the cannon phase helps keep the pet alive since you can place it in a corner somewhere. Since it is stealthed, the odds of it dying are slimmer, helping you maintain the 100% damage sponge uptime; if it gets low on health, just pet swap and stash them in a corner again.
*Guard keeps a high protection uptime on pet since the boon duration will last 11 seconds with a 12 second cooldown

Pet Micromanagement
*Utilizing the F2 actives to help relieve damage dealt and condi pressure: weakness for close range encounters, idealy during when Mai has low or no shield stacks; condi cleanse to help maintain pet or to remove any condi stacks on allies
*Creating a situation where agro is in favor to the Bear by having players using it as a center point to help predict electric aoe
*Positioning and re-positioning when kiting Mai and during the cannon phase to prevent pet entering down state
*Rez botting to prevent player deaths and rez after death
*Maintaining each Bear’s life span with upkeep of regen, condi cleanse, and protection to keep ‘Ring Around the Bear Strategy™’ in action
*Uses Bear to body block Mai’s projectile attack that teleports her to you, proper placement of allies and self determines the probability of successful outcome

I really like this build because of the increase in Pet Micromanagement feels as if I have more personal control over the pet rather than the simple 3 commands we have at the moment with just F1-F3. This build is mainly meant for Pug Quality of Life, however, with an organized group it is even more effective with proper crowd control management; buddies and I always use this strategy for Mai and clean sweep the Boss Fractal in the end. It wasn’t mentioned before in the initial summary for the skills, but I decided to include the idea of using the bear to body block Mai’s shots in the Pet Micromanagement *’s since it is very useful but difficult to sustain due to constant shuffling of players, I felt it should be mention to a degree. The build mainly uses bow to help with kiting, but shouldn’t be fully relied on for everything; you should always be on sword/axe for the dps phase when Mai has no shield stacks and during the cannon phase for the extra dodges.

Thank you for both viewing and reviewing my post, and I look back to your feedback.

Before we go into this build, it is very heavy on Pet Micromanagement and this build does mainly utilize bear/bow. ‘Bear/bow, what the kitten are you thinking?,’ hear me out before you decide to cast aside this build. I will now answer and mention anything that I believe may come up.

*This build is meant to be for pug fractals, where coordination isn’t all too great
*I have only meant for this build to be used for Mai, so I do not have experience outside of it with this build
*This build is very heavy on pet micromanagement compared to the usual F1-F3 commands, so may seem a bit tedious to some
*Too much thought shouldn’t be put into the gained condition damage from Wilderness Survival, trait adjustment is to complement build
*This build was heavily modified from the Zerker/Ranger Rune set-up for Ranger, thus explains the similarity in gear between these two builds (feel free to modify to personal comfort, I only have 1 set up ascended armor for my Ranger, so yeah :T)
*This build is meant for all fractal levels, so lower leveled fractals, swapping out a for a drake with minor trait tweeking is viable

Now that is out of the way, I will now share the build so you can see what traits and skills are utilized.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-F;4wEVu-b2JDF-0;9k5R;3551;415A25B2;05cX0e;1zxrUzxrUm-FiIkoH;3HbH6IbI6JbJ62o-G-2ii

Some eyebrows have been raised, and that is too be expected. The mechanics to Mai are pretty easy really once you get the hang of it, so it ends up coming down to surviving through out the fight and the tedious cannon phases. That is the purpose of this build, to help promote group survivalbility and thus making the Mai Trinn Fractal easier to accomplish.

This is how the bears comes into play. The purpose of this infamous pet is to use it for its real and only purpose really, to be a damage sponge due to its tanky stats. Each Bear adds to the parties group utilities with a condi clear from the Brown Bear and the Black Bear’s 10 second weakness debuff. Idealy, the weakness debuff should be used when Mai has low or no shield stacks at all, since you want the longest duration possible for your weakness debuff for when you go in for the dps phase; longer duration possible, easier time to melee during dps phase. Due to the time in between cannon phases and time to drain Mai’s shield stacks, you shouldn’t have to worry about the cooldown for Black Bear’s F2. With minor co-operation from the party by giving a small heads up, ‘Please stay near/behind the pet to kite Mai easier’, the bear shines amongst the other pet families. With proper play, this build is a full up-time Rock Elemental basically, so it greatly reduces the pressure given by Mai. Assuming everyone is co-operating (from my experience, I have had little cases where people didn’t listen to the tip, but there is always the outside factor of someone(s) not willing to co-operate), ridding Mai of her shield stacks is fairly easy due to the high agro control through the bear. Through the use of this agro control, kiting becomes alot easir and through the use of making the Bear a center point; where you all are staying near enough to help pin-point the next electric aoe placement. The Ranger placement is highly preferred to be behind the Bear so if the agro adjusts to you, either Longbow 3 or continue to kite her until she adjusts back onto the bear since NPCs will tend to agro on the nearest thing near them. Rinse and repeat this process to drain her shields and then force her into the cannon phase.

Properly timed crowd control skills; such as your Longbow 4, Axe 4, and Entangle (Axe 4 is generally better for ccing Mai because it is easier to position her with the pull apposed to the knockback on Longbow); greatly help in draining her shields by either forcing her into or keeping her withing the electric aoe placement. When the opportunity arrives, use yourself as bait to draw Mai into the aoe; this is a very effective way to keep her still since you can use Signet of Stone to negate the damage the aoe’s and Mai’s damage while you keep her still in the aoe. If you are experiencing condi overload, either waiting it out in Healing Spring or Brown Bear’s F2 will help relieve pressure; if you have a tolerable amount of condis, they should be pulled from pet through Empathetic bond since you want to save the F2 for when the group is suffering from condi overload. If you manage to lock down Mai through your agro control, you should plop Healing Spring under the Bear while it’s tanking for healing from the initial skill and regen, as well for the condi cleanse since Mai is gonna be stacking those condis on the focused Bear. Also, be sure to pet swap when either Bear gets low on health to avoid the 60sec cd to better maintain the damage sponge.

Here is where the two questionable shouts included in the build come into play, during the cannon phase. Not much players know of this due to low usage of the skill, but Search and Rescue is able to rez dead players. In order to execute this, you have to make sure that you use Search and Rescue BEFORE the downed player dies; if the character was being rezzed before, the pet will continue to follow through with the command until said person who is now being rezzed from the dead is finished. Search and Rescue is a life saver as well when Mai decides to play Baby Guard on a downed body, having a rez bot on the downed body gives you some time to deal with the situation until she moves or gets cced off; I do find the dead state pet rez to be a nice alternative to logging out since the pet usually restores 60-100% health when rezzing, shaving off alot of time compared to loading in and out of LA and then to wait to be rezzed by the Ellen. Guard is used during the cannon phase to stash your Bear in a corner; since it is stealthed, it will usually dodge the aoes. It won’t be guaranteed to not get hit since some players may run buy it while dodging the aoe spam or will just get unlocky with aoe placements; if the Bear is near death, switch pets and stash the next Beat again with Guard. The Guard shout is also a high uptime of protection for the Bears since the utility gives 11 seconds of protection with a 12 second cooldown, very spammable to keep that damage sponge tanking. Spamming of Guard Shout is heavily encouraged for the protection uptime, as well for the regen and swiftness given through Nature’s Voice.

Healing Spring
*Steady counter to condi pressure for both group and self
*Outgoing regen to group, self, and pet (max duration of 45 second regen, 2340 health)
*Source of vigor to group and self
*Water field for blasting (show me da Shortbow Thief!)

Search and Rescue
*Pet rez the dead to either full or 60-99% (situational based off of cannon aoes) to then be hard rezzed by allies later to avoid time used for Ellen rez
*Dedicated rez bot on downed player when Mai is playing Baby Guard

Signet of Stone
*To negate damage during the cannon phase when caught in a pinch, or any other situations involving Mai
*Use of utility to negate damage during pet rez on downed player
*Improvise self as bait drain shield stacks off of Mai, when the agro is shifted to you

Guard
*Using Guard during the cannon phase helps keep the pet alive since you can place it in a corner somewhere. Since it is stealthed, the odds of it dying are slimmer, helping you maintain the 100% damage sponge uptime; if it gets low on health, just pet swap and stash them in a corner again.
*Guard keeps a high protection uptime on pet since the boon duration will last 11 seconds with a 12second cooldown

Pet Micromanagement
*Utilizing the F2 actives to help relieve damage dealt and condi pressure: weakness for close range encounters, idealy during when Mai has low or no shield stacks; condi cleanse to help maintain pet or to remove any condi stacks on allies
*Creating a situation where agro is in favor to the Bear by having players using it as a center point to help predict electric aoe
*Positioning and re-positioning when kiting Mai and during the cannon phase to prevent pet entering down state
*Rez botting to prevent player deaths and rez after death
*Maintaining each Bear’s life span with upkeep of regen, condi cleanse, and protection to keep ‘Ring Around the Bear Strategy™’ in action
*Uses Bear to body block Mai’s projectile attack that teleports her to you, proper placement of allies and self determines the probability of successful outcome

I really like this build because of the increase in Pet Micromanagement feels as if I have more personal control over the pet rather than the simple 3 commands we have at the moment with just F1-F3. This build is mainly meant for Pug Quality of Life, however, with an organized group it is even more effective with proper crowd control management; buddies and I always use this strategy for Mai and clean sweep the Boss Fractal in the end. It wasn’t mentioned before in the initial summary for the skills, but I decided to include the idea of using the bear to body block Mai’s shots in the Pet Micromanagement *’s since it is very useful but difficult to sustain due to constant shuffling of players, I felt it should be mention to a degree. The build mainly uses bow to help with kiting, but shouldn’t be fully relied on for everything; you should always be on sword/axe for the dps phase when Mai has no shield stacks and during the cannon phase for the extra dodges.

Thank you for both viewing and reviewing my post, and I look back to your feedback.

Before we go into this build, it is very heavy on Pet Micromanagement and this build does mainly utilize bear/bow. ‘Bear/bow, what the kitten are you thinking?,’ hear me out before you decide to cast aside this build. I will now answer and mention anything that I believe may come up.

*This build is meant to be for pug fractals, where coordination isn’t all too great
*I have only meant for this build to be used for Mai, so I do not have experience outside of it with this build
*This build is very heavy on pet micromanagement compared to the usual F1-F3 commands, so may seem a bit tedious to some
*Too much thought shouldn’t be put into the gained condition damage from Wilderness Survival, trait adjustment is to complement build
*This build was heavily modified from the Zerker/Ranger Rune set-up for Ranger, thus explains the similarity in gear between these two builds (feel free to modify to personal comfort, I only have 1 set up ascended armor for my Ranger, so yeah :T)
*This build is meant for all fractal levels, so lower leveled fractals, swapping out a for a drake with minor trait tweeking is viable

Now that is out of the way, I will now share the build so you can see what traits and skills are utilized.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-F;4wEVu-b2JDF-0;9k5R;3551;415A25B2;05cX0e;1zxrUzxrUm-FiIkoH;3HbH6IbI6JbJ62o-G-2ii

Some eyebrows have been raised, and that is too be expected. The mechanics to Mai are pretty easy really once you get the hang of it, so it ends up coming down to surviving through out the fight and the tedious cannon phases. That is the purpose of this build, to help promote group survivalbility and thus making the Mai Trinn Fractal easier to accomplish.

This is how the bears comes into play. The purpose of this infamous pet is to use it for its real and only purpose really, to be a damage sponge due to its tanky stats. Each Bear adds to the parties group utilities with a condi clear from the Brown Bear and the Black Bear’s 10 second weakness debuff. Idealy, the weakness debuff should be used when Mai has low or no shield stacks at all, since you want the longest duration possible for your weakness debuff for when you go in for the dps phase; longer duration possible, easier time to melee during dps phase. Due to the time in between cannon phases and time to drain Mai’s shield stacks, you shouldn’t have to worry about the cooldown for Black Bear’s F2. With minor co-operation from the party by giving a small heads up, ‘Please stay near/behind the pet to kite Mai easier’, the bear shines amongst the other pet families. With proper play, this build is a full up-time Rock Elemental basically, so it greatly reduces the pressure given by Mai. Assuming everyone is co-operating (from my experience, I have had little cases where people didn’t listen to the tip, but there is always the outside factor of someone(s) not willing to co-operate), ridding Mai of her shield stacks is fairly easy due to the high agro control through the bear. Through the use of this agro control, kiting becomes alot easeir and through the use of making the Bear a center point; where you all are staying near enough to help pin-point the next electric aoe placement. The Ranger placement is highly preferred to be behind the Bear so if the agro adjusts to you, either Longbow 3 or continue to kite her until she adjusts back onto the bear since NPCs will tend to agro on the nearest thing near them. Rinse and repeat this process to drain her shields and then force her into the cannon phase.

Properly timed crowd control skills; such as your Longbow 4, Axe 4, and Entangle (Axe 4 is generally better for ccing Mai because it is easier to position her with the pull apposed to the knockback on Longbow); greatly help in draining her shields by either forcing her into or keeping her withing the electric aoe placement. When the opportunity arrives, use yourself as bait to draw Mai into the aoe; this is a very effective way to keep her still since you can use Signet of Stone to negate the damage the aoe’s and Mai’s damage while you keep her still in the aoe. If you are experiencing condi overload, either waiting it out in Healing Spring or Brown Bear’s F2 will help relieve pressure; if you have a tolerable amount of condis, they should be pulled from pet through Empathetic bond since you want to save the F2 for when the group is suffering from condi overload. If you manage to lock down Mai through your agro control, you should plop Healing Spring under the Bear while it’s tanking for healing from the initial skill and regen, as well for the condi cleanse since Mai is gonna be stacking those condis on the focused Bear. Also, be sure to pet swap when either Bear gets low on health to avoid the 60sec cd to better maintain the damage sponge.

A thought that I had to help improve management over spirits is to add a way to force kill the spirit to put the utility on cooldown, rather than waiting for the full duration of 60 seconds to pass for the spirit to then be put on cooldown. There is already the alternative of switching the skill once out of combat; although, there will be situations to keep you in combat preventing you from switching out the utilities.

With the added management over spirits, it would be helpful towards dungeons by better managing the cooldown; better uptime on boss encounters by having them ready at the beginning of each enounter (idealy, assuming players kill their spirits after each boss fight.) It would benefit those who use spirits in PVP for instances where you succeed in defending or seizing a point from an enemy player. This would only really matter in situations where you wipe the enemy team at mid, but the quality of life given through the function would still be appreciated.

They way how this could be implemented without it interfering with the utility bar slot, would be similar to how you read the separate descriptions for the grandmaster trait Evasive Arcana in the Arcana Traitline for Elementalist (by clicking Mouse 2 on the hovered icon.) As it is, there is no function in-game when you right-click a slot on your utility bar, so this wouldn’t interfere with the active use on the spirit utility when the spirit is currently summoned. An easier way to implement the function with a know command would be with F5, with a reserved Spirit Icon on the Profession toolbar. Since Chronomancers are getting an fifth function for their toolbar, I would imagine that adding another hot key command wouldn’t be all too difficult to put in, assuming that Druid won’t receive any function that will reserve the F5 when information for the Specialization is released.

Thank you for your time and viewing and/or reviewing my post.

Fenrir, named after the monstrous wolf and son of Loki from Norse mythology

Ordika.9513:

Finally got a full lineup picture done

What is the helmet on your Char, Char Engi I presume?

I didn’t say in my post that once you buy the Fashion License all custom outfits saved would be unlimited, hence making it free; I said that there should be a limit so if you wished for more custom save slots, you would have to buy another Fashion License, similar to the Crafting License where if you wished to have more active crafting professions you would have to buy another. This way, they keep the revenue flowing rather than losing out entirely.

With the new wardrobe system being introduced back in April 2014, I’ve loved being able to mix and match armor pieces to create a large variety of outfits. However, creating several outfits and wanting to return to past outfits requires the usage of Transmutation Charges, so creating the problem of either grinding map completion or simply purchasing them with gems either through the Currency Exchange or by micro transactions through the Black Lion Trading Company. This being the only way to get Transmutation Charges, the time and effort to grind for them is rather tedious for wanting to be able to model multiple outfits that I’ve come to enjoy through my time playing Guild Wars 2.

Due to this, I am suggesting that a Fashion License to be introduced and be available to buy on the Black Lion Trading Company. The way how I imagined the Fashion License working is that any outfits that you wished to be saved, it would be saved to the Outfits tab inside the Hero Menu; so, if you wished to change to another saved outfit, it would function like any pre existing gem store outfit where it wouldn’t cost any Transmutation Charges. I’d imagine that the License wouldn’t be infinite on the amount of custom outfits you could save, so Anet could also apply it like the Crafting License where if you wished for more, you simply buy another.

Hope that my suggestion gets viewed and look forward to feedback.

Keep them coming

274 views, and only 3 submissions so far

Loving the two submissions so far, can’t wait to see what else will possibly be posted!

As the title says for this post, I’ve decided to create this topic to appeal to those who love to play Dress-up Wars 2 and then to see what they can come up with. Any character from a movie, cartoon, anime, tv show, etc. goes since the purpose of this thread is to bring out the creativity of the player. For my submission, I’ve decided to go with Archer from the Fate Stay Night series; for those who are confused with the outfit he is wearing, this is an side outfit that you can have Archer wear in the PSP game, Fate Extra CCC. Tried replicating his original outfit, but since I couldn’t get it to work due to dyes conflicting with each other and such, decided to go with an alt costume since it looks just as good. As you can see, the attempt at the in-game cosplay doesn’t have to be perfect, but as best as you can do. I look forward to the future replies and hope to see this thread catch on.

Forgot to include this as well, logging off and zoning out of the area does not solve the transform bug, so still preventing you from capturing creatures.

The renown heart ‘Help Paenula train the troops by fighting in the pit and capturing creatures’ located in Plains of Ashford is currently bugged limiting your ways of completing this renown heart. For some reason when you accept the rifle from Paenula, the fifth skill is bugged saying ‘Locked: You cannot use skills while transformed.’ so this prevents you to gain progress by capturing creatures in the surrounding area. The pit is also bugged not allowing you to to take on the challenges to gain progress for the renown heart either. Currently the only way I’ve found to be able to receive progress for this renown heart is to revive two NPCs that patrol the area, even with this method, it very much limits your renown heart progress completion. I hope this bug gets resolved soon for those players looking to complete their map completion.

I have tried submitting this into the suggestion sub-forum, but it didn’t allow me to, so sorry for posting it into the wrong section.

Due to the decreased drop rate of the fractal skins after the fractal update, I’d like this suggestion to be taken in consideration if possible. I was thinking of making it able to purchase fractal skins through the use of Pristine Fractal Relics. Obviously, if this were to be considered, the amount of Pristine Relics that are required wouldn’t be easy to obtain, but a difficult and fair amount. It would give them more value as of which most fractal frequenters have at least one of each ring and an excessive amount of them, to the point where people start to destroy them or vendor them to save bag and/or bank space. Due the the lesser need of using the Pristine Relics at this point, either people start stacking them to possibly using them later on or just consume them to save bag and/or bank space.

This would help not those of just the fractal frequenters, but that of the more casual gaming community and any in between if they also have made it a goal to get a fractal skin. With the new odds of a fractal skin dropping, getting the exact one you wish for is near to impossible. Also taking in the fact of rng playing out, there is a chance of you gaining a skin you already own, adding onto the lesser chance of getting said desired skin.

Thank you for any who may have read my post, and I hope this gains enough awareness to be taken into consideration.

Out of all my toons, this is the only real one that I have mix-and-matched with, and I like the look alot. I enjoy how my outfit matches my weapon, although may be difficult to tell by looking with the lighting. The Glacial Eye obviously stands out from the rest of the outfit, but I still wear it to represent my class and the name of the character, Glory Of The Snow. I believe the outfit looks to give off a more noble look, so I chose CM as the dungeon

Head: Glacial Eye
Shoulders: Stately Epaulets
Chest: Apostle Cassock(Rubric)
Gloves: Winged Gloves
Legging: Cabalist Legs
Boots: Feathered Boots

Pretty sure someone before me may have suggested the same thing, but if it has not been seen before, I believe that there should be a vendor introduced that allows you to purchase armor that is only accessible through finishing story missions. Reasons why I suggest this is because some story armor is only available through pvp and some story missions. Since it is this hard to obtain through pve, I think by having this vendor introduced would make alot of players happy. It would make us happy because it would make it easier for us players, us being the people who care about how their character looks, will be given another chance to obtain this armor. We can’t replay the story to receive the rewards again from that mission, so this limits us to a one-time chance to receiving this armor. So hopefully, if any forum moderators from Anet view this suggestion, they might take this into consideration due to the difficulty of being able to gain this specific armor.

Since the removal of the magic find gear, Explorer’s, the previous gear was replaced with Assassin’s; although, this is only applied to gear exotic and below though. I understand that the pre-existing magic find gear before the update that replaced Explorer’s allowed the owner to choose any desired stat to fill the empty slot that the magic find used to have. However, since that update, nothing has filled in the place of the the pre-existing gear like it has with lower tiered equipment. I, and probably many other players, would appreciate the possibility of releasing equipment with Assassin stats (Precision Main; power minor; critical damage minor). Hopefully this post reaches out far enough for one of the forum mods who over sees the forums and they take this suggestion into consideration. Thankyou for whoever took the time to read my post.

The problem seems to be fixed after I re-installed, although, I would of prefered not having to wait for 2 hours to re-install it

Hello to any who may read this, before the new build they were introducing today I have been having issues with the game launcher being able to launch Guild Wars 2 for me. I tried going to a waypoint when the game notified me that the new build would be introduced, during the moment I tried to waypoint it kicked me out to my desktop screen. I assumed that it did so because it was going to download it at that instance, because it has done that before. Although, I am still unable to get the game launcher to work correctly. It doesn’t try to download the new build, and skips to the auto-play. I am about to re-install in launcher, but if that doesn’t work I will make a post again to update my status. Thankyou if you reply to my post