Guild Wars 2

So, the Ranger Podcast on http://soacgaming.com/ is back up and running!! I plan on using this thread as the General “go to” thread for the podcast, so if you have any comments or ideas, or if you’d like to volunteer someone as a guest on it by all means post it here!!

The podcast will be every other (for the moment) Friday at 11am PST, after we get in the groove of things we’ll be making it every Friday, but for the moment it’ll be every other.

First things first though! Is there anything you guys specifically would want us to talk about? If there is totally let us know!!

EDIT: The Podcast will now be Sunday at 1pm PST, not Friday at 1pm PST, we hope that you will be there with us Live so you can give live feedback as we do the podcast!

RyuDragnier.9476:

Staff for Ranger would be awesome if it worked as group support. #1 could even be a 3-part attack that causes Weakness, Vulnerability, and Cripple. #5 though, give me an AoE condition cleanse/heal. Why? Because baby, if I’m rocking support, I want a good group condition heal for it.

I always hoped the ranger staff would have a skill where you created a wildgrowth that buffed allies who stood in it and debuffed enemies… IE allies got might, fury, and regen, enemies get hit with bleed, torment, poison.

Then again, that’s probably too strong xD

Dolt.2731:

Never said they were the least mobile… one of the least. Not sure what mesmers you have been playing against. Guards/ necs are supposed to be slow… are rangers lol? Furthermore, EVERY engi slots a kit, and most every engi takes speedy kits and if they don’t do that, then power shoes it is.

Mesmers are only mobile IN combat, if you’ve ever played a Mesmer you’d know that…. And rangers aren’t even close to being least mobile, they aren’t the most mobile sure, but they are very mobile both in and out of combat, it’s one of the reasons they’re played so much in WvW as a roamer…

I’ve never had an issue maintaining swiftness… ESPECIALLY when a fight starts, then it tends to become perma swiftness…

Also, rangers are far from the least mobile profession.

Mesmer, Guardian, Necro, and any non kit + speedy kit engi build are slow as hell, ESPECIALLY the first 2….

Also, I approve of the staff as a supporty weapon option, I’ve been wanting a staff on my ranger for kittening ever, it’s even more annoying when you realize Muddy terrain uses a staff casting animation to use the skill instead of “generic casting animation”

PS: we haven’t been nerfed for a while, so idk what you’re talking about.

Bambula.3649:

nope, thieves are not faster than warriors

Yes they are, they are THE most mobile profession in the game, warriors do not out maneuver thieves.

Soilder.3607:

Durzlla.6295:

tattoohead.3217:

You can hardly call Spirit of Nature “Changes” a nerf, it now does what the tool tip said it does and 320 HPS is still quite strong.

I don’t think they nerfed rangers at all, more like fixed some unintended bugs, one of them was beneficial. Spirit builds will literally not even see a difference.

360hps* and as the devs said currently it’s a 480 heal which is about 100 more healing per second than the warriors healing signet (you know that “OP” heal?) and it goes to your whole party AND it has a condi purge AND it has an AoE Rez, it’s kittening ridiculously strong…

As much as I agree with you in regards to the skill being too strong, lets not forget that it’s effects can be completely nullified in a matter of seconds if the spirit is killed.

It -can- but that thing is a bulky monster of a spirit and it takes a lot more effort to kill than it’s worth in any small scale fight, and in a team fight it literally takes the whole team, or at least a majority of the team, to take it out in a decent amount of time, and then If you’re a non spirit ranger, like myself, you simply stand away from your spirit and make them choose “it or me”.

Bonus points if you make them reveal their flank to kill it while ignoring you and your pet!

Niko Stark.8932:

I use a shortbow / longbow build. I made my own build and have tested it against others before. The shortbow being my main weapon as a condition ranger and the longbow is used as my opening weapon and finisher (stealth > KB > rapid fire; or just rapid fire). Yes, there are other weapons I could pair up with the shortbow for the condition build like an axe+torch combo but so far I’ve been far more effective in PVE/PVP using my current set up.

I was actually testing my build against zerker ranger builds and so far I’ve been able to kill them with ease. The only ones that give me trouble are spirit builds but I still win against them more than not.

Condi bunker rangers are stronger in 1v1s than spirit rangers and trappers are stronger still, if you can beat those on a regular occasion than it’s a good build, but if you’re struggling vs one of our weaker 1v1 builds then it’s likely fairly flawed….

Also, zerker ranger is a little more difficult to play than our other builds (not saying it awards much more) so unless they’re a REALLY good zerker ranger saying you beat a zerker ranger says little more than “I beat some zerker warrior in Hotjoin”

Sevans.4619:

Point Blank Shot is a 900 (1,200) range knockback (400-600) on a 15 (12) second cooldown. It doesn’t really get much better than that, so lowering the cooldown isn’t likely to happen. I have enough time to squeeze off an auto attack and a Hunter’s Shot before my enemy gets up, which I feel is plenty. Hunter’s Shot is going to let you create more space.

The best thing any dedicated longbow ranger can do for themselves is to take Quick Draw and Malicious Training with a jungle spider and either another spider, a wolf, or a drakehound. I prefer wolf, because it pushes enemies back when they get close and it opens their back for a PBS/Hunter’s Shot combo. Also, you might consider slotting Sigil of Ice for more mobility impairment.

It works wonder, I’ve been kiting pretty much every class other than Thief for a very, very long time and it really shines against Necromancers and Engineers who would otherwise eat you alive with conditions if they got close. Thieves just get in free because of shadowsteps, but thankfully having your own stealth and an ability that tracks stealthed enemies makes the longbow a very capable Thief killer.

So much this, also muddy terrain + barrage is the biggest “kitten you” in the game for someone trying to close the gap, especially if you’re like me and you run dual canines (one of which is a hyena) with sigils of ice and runes of speed.

It’s hilarious watching warriors TRY to close the gap, because as it turns out immob, cripple and chill all kitten up their leaps.

FUN FACT: muddy terrain used on a warrior mid leap immobilizes them and ignores their immob breaking trait since that only happens at the start of the leap.

DeadlySynz.3471:

Atherakhia.4086:

Everytime they have one of these things I leave more convinced that not a single developers plays this class and not a single one has the foggiest idea what they want this class to do.

For a high level discussion of what to expect over the next couple patches they couldn’t think of a single positive thing to say about the class? They couldn’t spend more than a minute discussing it? They still can’t show any enthusiasm when talking about it?

It was nice to hear them say big changes are on the horizon, but we’ve been hearing that for a very long time now.

I’ve played on about 7 different servers before landing on the one I’m on now. I’ve never seen someone from Anet playing a Ranger. I’ve seen them play every other class, but NEVER a Ranger. I suppose they know better.

I suppose the one positive thing out of that announcement is at least they are letting us know before hand about the nerfs instead of stealthing into a patch much like they did with the barrage damage reduction.

I’ve been playing on TC for a while, and I’ve only seen Anet staff playing ranger, and I mean ONLY, I’ve seen about 5 devs too (well Anet tags coulda been the same guy everytime for all I know).

I always ask if I could get an Anet tag for my fern hound and bear (not for myself) and they’ve never given me a straight answer lol.

wongdong.9162:

Durzlla.6295:

wongdong.9162:

Why did Warrior get most (also some of the best) of the bow skills from rangers from GW1? Warrior in GW1 had no bow skills unless it took 2nd profession Ranger. How many bow W/R did you see in GW1? I didn’t see many if any.

The ones they gave warriors were the ones that are essentially: 1) put bomb on arrow 2) fire arrow 3) ??? 4) profit.

Granted I still think those should’ve been ranger skills…. But w/e I get why they did it, they’re less skillful shots and more something any meat head could be trained to do with relative ease.

The ones that they gave warriors that I’m iffed about are Double shot, Pin Down and Arcing. Those skills on Ranger LB just make more sense to me. The current aa for Ranger LB just feels more like a warrior skill as it does more damage the further away the target is giving the warrior more motivation to switch to melee weapons as the target closes. That’s how i look at it as a Ranger anyway.

I’m amazed, and still furious, that we didn’t get pin down on the longbow, not to mention dual shot wasn’t even one of our bow skills….

That being said in totally fine with our longbow auto, it makes more sense for a ranger to deal more damage from range than it does for a warrior to do so…. Granted I still think it should be “your crit chance increases by x% when further away” because that makes a hell of a lot more sense than your attack doing more damage…

IE: you’re not in the thick of things so it’s easier to focus and find your mark than while your trying to dodge swords and that jazz

TurtleDragon.3108:

Durzlla.6295:

TurtleDragon.3108:

Durzlla.6295:

Chokolata.1870:

Sadly there is no tanking in this game, there is kill em supper fast so they do not kill us though

No, there IS tanking and there IS support, it’s just not meta atm, which Anet don’t like and as such they’re trying to bring support and tanky builds up and bring DPS down a little.

You can support with DPS builds just fine as long you get the idea out of your head that “Support” is only healing.

And there will never be true tanking without a real aggro system. The intricacies of the current one are largely unknown and dynamic to prevent a single person tanking for his team. If the the tank doesn’t hold aggro, then what is the point?

Support doesn’t mean healing, support has always, and will always mean buffing AND healing your allies and generally just making them able to stay in the fight longer as well as boosting their damage.

And you can tank kitten pretty easily in PvE, low health, high armor, or being a bear, tends to kitten off just about everything in the game and if you’re in, say clerics gear, you hit both those marks and have a ton of self healing allowing you to stay in there longer and kitten stuff off a lot. Also, just like in Gw1, hard CC tends to anger mobs (just like players) and if you spam that or are the only one using them you kitten things off and “peel” them from your allies. Granted this becomes harder to do if you’ve got 4 Melee zerkers there because once any of them gets hit by a stiff breeze they suddenly become target #1 to most AI.

Keep in mind, this is the GENERAL AI thought process, there are absolutely outliers, like the mages in the searing fractal, they don’t care about anything they shoot at everyone and don’t give a kitten about anything.

For PvE tanking think PvP tanking “how would I kitten a player off enough to focus me over a squishy?” Is generally what you wanna ask yourself…

Well, i’d argue that debuffing your enemies should also count as support because of the important of active mitigation in this game. A thief or warrior spamming blinds/weakness to protect their team counts as support in my books.

I feel healing-based support builds should never be meta or good, because it defeats the purpose of removing the trinity in the first place. You can’t heal through one shot moves, which is what this game’s PvE is based off of.

Edit: Fixed double negative.

Totally forgot to put “and debuffing” in my post lol, but yeah in most games I tend to play the “more aggressive” supports aka the ones who out up a ton of hots on allies and dots/debuffs on enemies, wish rangers had more weakness access… Might end up taking vipers nest if we get a poison field on that though!

Don’t make them stronger than other pets and make it more of a 750 for the set of them or just the ability to train them or w/e…

But I like the idea… Also don’t make each graveling a different family, they’d all be the same family but have different F2s

TurtleDragon.3108:

Durzlla.6295:

Chokolata.1870:

Sadly there is no tanking in this game, there is kill em supper fast so they do not kill us though

No, there IS tanking and there IS support, it’s just not meta atm, which Anet don’t like and as such they’re trying to bring support and tanky builds up and bring DPS down a little.

You can support with DPS builds just fine as long you get the idea out of your head that “Support” is only healing.

And there will never be true tanking without a real aggro system. The intricacies of the current one are largely unknown and dynamic to prevent a single person tanking for his team. If the the tank doesn’t hold aggro, then what is the point?

Support doesn’t mean healing, support has always, and will always mean buffing AND healing your allies and generally just making them able to stay in the fight longer as well as boosting their damage.

And you can tank kitten pretty easily in PvE, low health, high armor, or being a bear, tends to kitten off just about everything in the game and if you’re in, say clerics gear, you hit both those marks and have a ton of self healing allowing you to stay in there longer and kitten stuff off a lot. Also, just like in Gw1, hard CC tends to anger mobs (just like players) and if you spam that or are the only one using them you kitten things off and “peel” them from your allies. Granted this becomes harder to do if you’ve got 4 Melee zerkers there because once any of them gets hit by a stiff breeze they suddenly become target #1 to most AI.

Keep in mind, this is the GENERAL AI thought process, there are absolutely outliers, like the mages in the searing fractal, they don’t care about anything they shoot at everyone and don’t give a kitten about anything.

For PvE tanking think PvP tanking “how would I kitten a player off enough to focus me over a squishy?” Is generally what you wanna ask yourself…

Chokolata.1870:

Sadly there is no tanking in this game, there is kill em supper fast so they do not kill us though

No, there IS tanking and there IS support, it’s just not meta atm, which Anet don’t like and as such they’re trying to bring support and tanky builds up and bring DPS down a little.

wongdong.9162:

Why did Warrior get most (also some of the best) of the bow skills from rangers from GW1? Warrior in GW1 had no bow skills unless it took 2nd profession Ranger. How many bow W/R did you see in GW1? I didn’t see many if any.

The ones they gave warriors were the ones that are essentially: 1) put bomb on arrow 2) fire arrow 3) ??? 4) profit.

Granted I still think those should’ve been ranger skills…. But w/e I get why they did it, they’re less skillful shots and more something any meat head could be trained to do with relative ease.

Tricare.2946:

Durzlla.6295:

Tricare.2946:

Neoheart.2750:

nagymbear.5280:

Aridia.3042:

Anet has confirmed they want to remove bloodlust stacking when you unequip weapons,

Did they? I must have misse that. What I remember them saying was that you still won’t be able to gather corruption AND bloodlus stacks.

Yeah I re-watched it again last night. John makes it clear that no two identical sigils will stack together. This means say two energy crystals etc but also includes two stacking sigils. So it doesn’t matter if it stacks power, prec or condi NO two stacking sigils will work in tangent.

IF they have a cooldown, which the stacking sigils do not. So I’m 99% sure you will still be able to use 2 stacking sigil together.

Except that they explicitly said the 2 stacking sigils would not work together.

Except what he was talking about was 2 different (power and condition) stacking sigils will not work together.

Edit: yeah ignore me, I thought the original question was if you could still use 2 corruption and such.

Oh wait…. Can you double up on stacking ones again O.o? You could in beta and that was freaking glorious! I kinda hope you can now…

tattoohead.3217:

You can hardly call Spirit of Nature “Changes” a nerf, it now does what the tool tip said it does and 320 HPS is still quite strong.

I don’t think they nerfed rangers at all, more like fixed some unintended bugs, one of them was beneficial. Spirit builds will literally not even see a difference.

360hps* and as the devs said currently it’s a 480 heal which is about 100 more healing per second than the warriors healing signet (you know that “OP” heal?) and it goes to your whole party AND it has a condi purge AND it has an AoE Rez, it’s kittening ridiculously strong…

Tricare.2946:

Neoheart.2750:

nagymbear.5280:

Aridia.3042:

Anet has confirmed they want to remove bloodlust stacking when you unequip weapons,

Did they? I must have misse that. What I remember them saying was that you still won’t be able to gather corruption AND bloodlus stacks.

Yeah I re-watched it again last night. John makes it clear that no two identical sigils will stack together. This means say two energy crystals etc but also includes two stacking sigils. So it doesn’t matter if it stacks power, prec or condi NO two stacking sigils will work in tangent.

IF they have a cooldown, which the stacking sigils do not. So I’m 99% sure you will still be able to use 2 stacking sigil together.

Except that they explicitly said the 2 stacking sigils would not work together.

Archon.6480:

Aggrostemma.1703:

I was a bow-type ranger, but I love the GS now.

I am a ranger who gets into the heat of the battle with his two trusty pets, Mighty (stalker) and Condi (bear). They are there only to -if the time calls for it- give some motivation (might) or a few seconds of protection (50k HP bear with Protect me! is very handy). I’m the ranger, who engages from afar with a deadly hail of arrows, then leaps into the combat while encouraging his fellows with shouts. I’m a ranger who has no honour. Tricks and traps are all acceptable to bring down a foe. It needs honour to decide who has to die. After this decision was made the honour is not important anymore.

I am a ranger who stalks the land and uses everything for his advantage and accepts no rules. Rules are to protect the weak. But in the forest there is only one rule!

“The weak loses, the punishment is: death!
The strong wins, the reward is: may fight again!”

If the nature follows only this rule so must the ranger too.

…

I use 10/0/30/30/0 with GS as main, and whatever I need as a second… axe+horn or longbow. I like this playstyle and I think it fits into the “ranger” category. I never get blamed because of my pet or my bow (bearbow…). Basically I am the first who gets into the combat and usually the last one who drops

Yep. Ranger can tank like a guardian no problem. you will live longer too with protect me and (if you retrait a little) signet of stone. 12s of invulnerability is nice.

If you use the pig you also can get an Elixir of Heroes which gives you another 6s of invuln, or you could get a 2k heal or a mini healing spring (regen + condi removal + water field)

Electro.4173:

I really can’t fathom what kind of field they could possible give to Spike Trap unless they redesign the skill in some way. Its a bunch of spikes coming out of the ground, nothing about that even remotely seems field-like to me.

I could maybe see it create a blast finisher or something. Would be a stretch, but the force of the spikes creating a blast would make a little sense perhaps, and give traps some
interesting synergy with themselves. But a field? I just don’t see it.

Very short smoke field is what I can see (about 1-2s) would honestly give us a LOT of use tbh, pretty much could guarantee an escape

Whenever I go into Solo Q or Hotjoin while running a wolf I make sure to name him “Elder Wolf” if you don’t get the reference I’m not explaining it.

ItIsFinished.9462:

Tricare.2946:

-Talking about adding fields to traps, maybe.

Taken from GW2wiki: “Finishers can only interact with one initiator at a time. The finisher will trigger on the oldest initiator”

With that being said, having all our traps offer combo fields, every trapper will have to strategically throw his traps in order so that the first trap/or first trap triggered is the one he wants for his combo field. That can become very tricky.

Adding onto your post, it also opens up a whole can of worms for support options with ranger, for example a poison field gives access to weakness via blasts and leaps and could make traps pretty useful for non trap builds.

I mean I’ll run fire and frost trap in non trapper builds for the field alone, can’t say the same about viper and spike…

Only one is a nerf, the other one already does that and only one trap isn’t a field, so no change?

Terravos.4059:

Holland.9351:

If your pet is dead, this grandmaster trait will no longer remove conditions.

Umm, Its always worked this way, unlekittenanged recently in the patch that i don’t know about.

Its how a BM Bunker Ranger can kill a Shout Regen Ranger

That’s what I thought too…

Burnfall you should really publish some poems if you haven’t already….

On the other hand… Thieves and Warriors bows SUCK compared to the ranger bows, I mean for starters the thief bow is considered to be a “utility” weapon AKA if it’s your “main” weapon set you’re an idiot and are only gimping yourself. The warriors longbow falls into the same general place, sure it can deal some damage (it’s a warrior) but that damage is really easy to avoid, and it usually just comes down to “We take this so we can always use cleansing Ire”.

Rangers are still the best with ranged when their damage is combined with their pets, the flaw lies that ranged is just inferior to melee in every shape and form in PvE (PvP it’s fine because survivability maters there).

The more you know!!

But really, you should really become a poet… or a cult leader or something, very well written posts.

Fext.3614:

I agree. Rangers should be good with bows.

We are good with bows, it’s just that melee does more damage, end of story, than ranged does.

Only way to make bows better is to make melee less viable in PvE (that’s not unviable, that just means make it so you can’t have 100% uptime in melee range no matter how amazing you are).

Spooko.5436:

but the point is to provide support to your team as well, with the other shouts u r constantly giving them regen and clearing condis too, not just to focus on myself,

guard alone would be fine for myself, but that’s not going to help my grp very much, they need lots of cleanses and regens….

Still drop the Oakheart salve for Vigorous Renewal, it’ll give both you, and your allies, vigor access whenever you use healing spring.

The Spiral King.2483:

I sure as hell picked the Ranger as my main because I love archers, and in GW1, the Ranger was THE archer, the only one with marksmanship. I made Kudzu, the legendary longbow, because I love bows. Anet apparently, does not love the idea of Ranger using bows effectively. In dungeons we get yelled at when we want to go ranged (poor design at work) and we have no way of reliably keeping our enemies at range in PvP and WvW. So yes, I carry that kittenty kitten sword around that I hate using, but feel forced to because it’s just so much more effective.

Muddy Terrain, Frost Trap, LR + LB with sigils of ice in it, good luck getting in Melee range of that ranger.

Add in a forest (or jungle? I forget which has the immob venom), and black widow if you never want them near you again

Spooko.5436:

also, easy to tank a thief, switch to s/d and evade their stuff and call/ping for help,

or switch to GS, use block, then spam 1 for evades =p

This is exactly what I was thinking…. Thieves are so stupid easy for bunker rangers to deal with because all you need to do is spam your evades through their burst and then just auto on the GS and let your regen tick you to full.

Not to mention you’ve got “Protect Me!” And a bear…

Drop Oakheart Salve and pick up Vigorous Renewal, you have PLENTY of regen to begin with, you really don’t need that one too, the vigor would be a lot more useful and it’s AoE since you’re using healing spring.

@TurtleDragon, i’m fine with full zerker guys running into WvW, i mean if they’re good players (which many of them are, i just have a bad habbit of never finding them in PvE) then they can be very useful pumping out a large amount of damage in both small skirmishes and in the safety of the zerg, if they’re bad then they’ll be bad either way and probably just try and DPS from the floor like in PvE.

And the problem is i don’t have a place to store my gear (my bank is already overflowing, and i mainly sPvP so i haven’t really had the funds most PvE players do to just buy another bank tab with gold), i could easily buy another set of gear and respec my traits, but i would have no where to put the old set, or the new set when i’m not using it so i just am making due with what i’ve got and am going with a tankyer support set.

@Neoheart Yes, i know i’m not dealing as much damage as them, that’s kinda the whole point, i don’t care about damage, i never have, and never will, it doesn’t matter what MMO i’m playing i’m going to go for the more supporty role whether it’s optimal or not. That being said it’s not like i’m not providing them with anything, i’m giving them perma swiftness (it helps them get out of circles without having to waste a dodge, not much else to use it for), perma regen, a waterfield, over 33% uptime on vigor (from me alone, likely much higher with others there), extremely fast and safe rezzes that put them at 50% of their healthbar instead of a measily 30%, a large uptime on protection, and perma fury.

And as i said, it’s not like i NEED the bear there, i’ve thrown him out of the fractal countless times because he was proving worthless in favor of a more useful pet like say a Melandru Stalker for the AoE 5stacks of might, or a red moa if we need more fury for some ungodly reason or maybe a spider or another canine for more support, there’s a lot of options.

As a zerker friend of mine said to me when i told him i was going to run clerics, “If taking a hit to your DPS means an increase for the group as a whole i see no reason for you not to do it.” and the way i see it, keeping the zerkers from taking a dirt nap has been doing great so far.

Only flaw with it being on the ranger and falling off when you go down is it loses a HUGE advantage, and that’s a fully buffed pet mauling your enemys face while you’re in downed state… keep in mind you have 5pts in BM so it’ll also have quickness…

I’d say if it is tied to the ranger make it so that it ONLY drops off if the pet is the one to die, not the ranger.

Neoheart.2750:

Durzlla.6295:

Veron.8645:

Durzlla.6295:

I run full clerics with a 0/0/20/20/30 build or something like that and I’ve been having little issue, I run a sword/horn and a longbow (primarily the bow) with Mercy Ruhes, LR, HS, SotH, Stone Spirit and Elite Spirit, my utilities get changed up every now and then but the general theme behind the build (tanky supporter) stay the same.

Pet is a fern hound and a brown bear, the bear just eats up everything and doesn’t give a kitten, so many times him tanking as I rezzed the idiots in zerker who died again has made us not wipe.

I’m curious: what level fractals do you run and how long are your runs?

Bad players are bad players. A bad player in tanky armor will die almost as much as a bad player in zerker armor in high level fractals, given that most things that kill you will do so very quickly.

I’m at like 25 atm, slowly working on getting AR, reason I even started them was a friend of mine said his group of regulars only has one zerker and it takes em 40min (they’re at 50) so I figured hell why not.

I get downed very few times in fractals, and normally when I do it’s from lack of AR or me keeping someone from going to defeated/thinking I can Rez em fast enough.

And while your stood back using your “bearbow” tell me, why do you think these “idiots in zerkers” are downed in the first place?

Hint: dungeon/fractals are best for a group of 5, not 4.

Um, i use a Fernhound most of the time and only swap to the bear when the Fernhound is getting low, or we need the condi removal, also i go in and out of melee ranged, and if we’ve got an ele I tend to be in melee a lot more than normally because i can constantly be blasting fire fields for might for my allies via warhorn and sometimes just swapping the bear out to a drake etc.

And the reason they tend to get downed in the first place is normally they don’t pay attention and they end up eating some AoE, or they’re too stupid to put the Tears of Dwayna in on time and end up dying to the toxic because they’ve got no health/no way to heal through it and end up dying before they get their heads out of their kitten and put the crystals back in and i end up being the only one standing… There’s also the occasional mindset of “That ranger is able to sit there and rez while eating all that bad kitten i should be able to!” and they die because they’re not geared to do so but i am.

@Bambula: I’m not gonna lie, i’m in no way, shape or form trying to “optimize” my fractal runs, the only reason i use clerics is because that’s what i built for my WvW build and i just cram that into PvE situations because i have no room to store a second set of armor. I mean if there was an ARMOR LOCKER HINT HINT ANET in PvE i probably would just throw on Zerker (more likely to be Rampager tbh) gear, slap some Mercy Runes on it with some Sigils of Water and go with a Crit based pet build or something of the sort (Aka 20/20/0/0/30).

Veron.8645:

Durzlla.6295:

I run full clerics with a 0/0/20/20/30 build or something like that and I’ve been having little issue, I run a sword/horn and a longbow (primarily the bow) with Mercy Ruhes, LR, HS, SotH, Stone Spirit and Elite Spirit, my utilities get changed up every now and then but the general theme behind the build (tanky supporter) stay the same.

Pet is a fern hound and a brown bear, the bear just eats up everything and doesn’t give a kitten, so many times him tanking as I rezzed the idiots in zerker who died again has made us not wipe.

I’m curious: what level fractals do you run and how long are your runs?

Bad players are bad players. A bad player in tanky armor will die almost as much as a bad player in zerker armor in high level fractals, given that most things that kill you will do so very quickly.

I’m at like 25 atm, slowly working on getting AR, reason I even started them was a friend of mine said his group of regulars only has one zerker and it takes em 40min (they’re at 50) so I figured hell why not.

I get downed very few times in fractals, and normally when I do it’s from lack of AR or me keeping someone from going to defeated/thinking I can Rez em fast enough.

Neoheart.2750:

The different animations you suggested would cause different “cast times” and therefor technically be a nerf to certain pets etc.

Its a nice idea don’t get me wrong but in terms of both the gamers and developers priorities this would be very low, if considered at all.

Don’t mean to shoot your idea down but that’s how improvements/fixes vs polish/aesthetic’s tend to work.

lets be honest, the pet isn’t doing kitten for the first 5 seconds of them being summoned anyway… this would hardly change a thing.

Anthony.7219:

Started writing down my build and I realized I’m a power ranger. That’s so lame, I might change my class

No, just embrace it like i did!

kiwituatara.6053:

Durzlla.6295:

What exactly is a PU Mesmer? I figure it’s prismatic understanding based but idk much else about it.

As of now, there is no counter against PU mesmers if you play ranger. You will lose 100% of the time. I’ve been experimenting around just to make sure if I’ve missed any potential counters for it on a ranger.

I don’t play mesmer so I can’t cover everything. But the most generic PU mesmer is the blackwater PU mesmer build (http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNArfWnUEVUbYNy0wWbEx0jgD5AOSKKtXrkiZ7CB). A short explanation to the build is that it has a lot of clones and conditions. The mesmer is able to gain lots of random boons coupled with a 100% uptime of either aegis, regeneration, or protection. They are also able to invis when they’re low on hp and their signet of ether rivals warriors healing signet. This is probably the most OP build/class in gw2 right now.

Better explained here: http://qq.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1tr7pa/lets_talk_about_the_pu_mesmer/

The counter to that build is pretty simple, weakness and AoE, most of their clone generation is from dodging and they’re putting ALL of their eggs in on basket. I’ve ran that build back before it was cool (it’s just a suicide bomber build with survivability) only difference is the passive sig over ether feast.

Just apply poison and weakness (a Murrellow alone can do both if you utilize leaps and blasts) the build kittening sucks at condi removal, like all mesmers, so abuse the crap out of that and they’re gonna die easy.

Any trap build should do wonders against it especially since they tend to run an axe.

What exactly is a PU Mesmer? I figure it’s prismatic understanding based but idk much else about it.

I run full clerics with a 0/0/20/20/30 build or something like that and I’ve been having little issue, I run a sword/horn and a longbow (primarily the bow) with Mercy Ruhes, LR, HS, SotH, Stone Spirit and Elite Spirit, my utilities get changed up every now and then but the general theme behind the build (tanky supporter) stay the same.

Pet is a fern hound and a brown bear, the bear just eats up everything and doesn’t give a kitten, so many times him tanking as I rezzed the idiots in zerker who died again has made us not wipe.

I did not know signet of stone did that… and how often do your pets end up dying from “Protect Me!” i’ve always kinda stayed away from it unless i had tanky pets because i always felt like they’d blow up too fast.

@Nike idk if I’d say that’s a problem with the class, and I know that I’ve had my pet tank for me and the group quite a lot in fractals and dungeons (brown bear OP) but that’s more for a specific reason, hardly rely on it, normally use my fern hound…

I have a feeling it may just be the group of players ranger attracts, but hell, I could be totally wrong with that, it’s just my opinion.

@Anthony, 2 questions, 1) what pets do you use? I’m very curious since you have protect me and that destroys most pets. And 2) what do you do about fights wher RaO is on CD? Because it’ll happen quite a bit I’d imagine.

Bambula.3649:

but any viable ranger build got the condi remove..
and your cd for the burst you got is to high and the pressure to low

He’s got a condi removal, all I ever run is Healing Spring or Sig of Reneal and I’ve done fine in PvP, learn what to dodge and you’re good to go.

@OP is there a reason you’re essentially going full glassy without going all the way? Also, I’d consider dropping Moment of Clarity in favor of Enlargement since you are a signet build and all, and it would give you a bit more health, share your boons with your pet, give you longer lasting boons, and give you a second sig of the wild.

PS: why entangle?

My friend has dragged me into a lot of dungeons and not once have I ever been kicked or people even opted to kick me, and we normally pug 3 people at a time. Then again I tend to not give a kitten about DPS or speed runs and make it very well known that we are skipping and exploiting NOTHING.

That being said I know I’ve kicked a lot of rangers out of my groups and cringe almost anytime I get another ranger (that I don’t know) in my group because of how bad it seems 85% of them are…. Again I don’t care about damage, or how fast we clear, or what they use, but when they don’t help the group, ignore important mechanics, don’t follow with the strategy etc. I’m not gonna out up with em, and I doubt any of the more elitist people out there would either.

It’s not a problem with the profession, it’s a problem with the majority of players on the profession.

The best way to describe how the ranger community uses pets is by trying to smash the square peg through the circle hole, they don’t want to learn the AI and utilize it to their advantage, they want the AI to bend to their will.

Jzaku.9765:

An option to use the old Beta announcer lines would be nice too.

HOLD ON TO YOUR POINTS, SEIZE THEIRS. DO I HAVE TO DRAW YOU A PICTURE?!

YOU COULDN’T KEEP THE KEEP!

YOU HAVE THE KEEP, NOW KEEP IT!!

Gotta say though I’d love an announcer pack, I’d buy a scarlet one if they did it, or a Kudu one!! Preferably Kudu one!

I’d say both Mesmer and rangers 1) should be bumped up to medium and rangers 2) should be medium/high because when you notice what your pets doing and react to that it can make you perform significantly better than a ranger who barely watches their pet.

I’d also say thieves 1) should be very low (they really don’t do MUCH in the APM category but my god do they have the highest requirement in the battlefield/position awareness).

All the others I think are about right.

warriorjrd.8695:

Durzlla.6295:

I’ll post up a slew of builds in about 10 minutes when I get to my computer, although as a note none of them are “meta” (aka kitten proof) so keep that in mind!!

@warriorjrd, your build looks more like a mix of a bunker and a home point defender (aka kill them 1v1) build, why settlers amulet with a SB + Sword/Dagger? Why not take rabid or carrion? Both would be quite a bit more effective! That or simply dropping the sword (or preferably SB and also picking up a torch) and using an axe instead would make the settlers amulet air stronger.

Just my 2 cents.

I use settlers because of the healing power and toughness. It’s a bm bunker build so 1v1 are usually easy but I can tank out 2v1 and sometimes 3v1 until help arrives as well. I use sword/dagger for the evades to increase survival and the poison, and then SB for a ranged weapon that can inflict condi too.

I do like axe/torch as a weapon set, especially for condi builds, but I didn’t want to lose too much range and I liked the defensive skills SB brings.

What I thought when I made this is that the pet does the majority of the damage then I do conditions on the side.

Ah that makes sense actually, and the SB and the Axe have the same range now i believe so that shouldn’t be too much of a factor, granted the SB has the cripple and the leap back.

Vampiric Hunter:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQNAT8YjEVV2NWCWo2Bi1D9Eo+0UoJO9Uke2fxSPJB-TsAg0CnIcS5kzJjTSnsONwYhxmAA

This is a roaming build that does a ton of sustained damage and gets all of its survivability from life steal and dodges, it has been a very effective build so far but i’d say it’s absolutely a very difficult build to play. it’s a Roamer build so the goal of the build is to be wherever your team needs you most at the time and to take the enemy natural whenever you can.

You absolutely want to take advantage of your superior range with the build whenever possible (no need fighting on a point when they’ll be dead if they stay on it instead of coming to get you).

Wither Bunker:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQRBHRxG2JSFZBnXhfFsWGIWKAUeaP0k5P/TRsYfKzaLrJB-TwAA1CtIWStkbJzSSosQNAZByWhpCA

This bunker build was, as my friends put it so delicately “Forged in the pits of hell you came from.” the whole point of the build is to constantly swap your weapons and pets and utilized your combo fields to apply an absolutely soul crushing amount of weakness, chill, and poison and leave your opponents absolutely dreading the idea of even trying to take your point.

Will you ever actually kill people? No, probably not, because if they had any sense in their head they would flee to the hills before you actually killed them. This build isn’t SUPER hard to play, and since all the condis are AoE it provides a lot in team fights too.

kitten the Meta:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQNAV3YjEVV2NW2Vs2BilCBFo2DNxpz/Uke2nyHiwaSA-TsAAyCsIYSxkjJDTSmsMNAZ5xOAA

This one is my favorite, it’s a roamer that uses a split of condi and normal damage and has a surprising amount of tankyness too because thanks celestial gear! Its goal is to be a roamer like the vampiric hunter however unlike that build, this one is a bit easier to play and has an absolute insane amount of condi burst by immobing them with muddy terrain, then running up dropping flame trap, swapping to axe and smashing them in the face with split blade and crippling talon, with some chill and weakness thrown in just to make them panic.

You don’t -need- to land muddy terrain to make it work, it just really helps, you can even drop it for something else if you really want to, i just like having it for the AoE immob and cripple making it easy to slip away and/or kite them through it.

You still need to be using your dodges intelligently to stay up for a large amount of time (as most my builds tend to do apparently) but i’ve gone through several team fights infuriating my enemies by staying at ~500 health after they burst me long enough for my heal to come back up, so it can absolutely be in the fray for a long time.

For the build most of the burst comes from swapping to the axe, so you wanna use the shortbow for sustained damage and then swap over to axe (preferably in melee range) for either the kill or to make them regret getting close to you, and then swap back to the SB to continue the ranged pew pew.

I’ll post up a slew of builds in about 10 minutes when I get to my computer, although as a note none of them are “meta” (aka kitten proof) so keep that in mind!!

@warriorjrd, your build looks more like a mix of a bunker and a home point defender (aka kill them 1v1) build, why settlers amulet with a SB + Sword/Dagger? Why not take rabid or carrion? Both would be quite a bit more effective! That or simply dropping the sword (or preferably SB and also picking up a torch) and using an axe instead would make the settlers amulet air stronger.

Just my 2 cents.