Guild Wars 2

Wispy.8679:

Durzlla.6295:

because regardless of what you guys say i’m not changing it, it WORKS.

Aka, no matter what anyone else says the build is amazing and works great. Constructive criticism or comments in general need not apply. Quite a lot of the people who have responded have been around the ranger class for a while now and offer good strong points but you dismiss them as dumb and naive. I’m all for trying out new builds and theorycrafting, but creating a build that can do with a lot of improvement and calling it good, when it really isn’t, shouldn’t be something to adamantly defend.

Just because a build can work in a certain situation doesn’t mean it is good, any class on any build can do that, the trick is trying to improve them to their best potential possible and frankly a ranger with low cc, low damage, low survivability and no condi removal is far from ideal.

Yes but contrary to popular belief, it -doesn’t- have low survivability, CC, or damage, it’s no bunker or GC, but it’s in a good middle ground, the defense however is more ACTIVE not PASSIVE, not to mention it has a large amount of single target CC as described above. 3-4 KDs, 1 KB, 2 single target cripples, 1 AoE cripple, AoE poison, and a really kittenty AoE blind (I’m only including it because there’s the off chance you actually use that abysmal skill).

Btw, I -love- how a lot of you are talking about how mandatory Stun Breakers are, yet the Trap Ranger build, which is probably the most common ranger build atm, has NO Stun Breaker and very poor defenses as well, because you know, vitality is only equivalent to toughness, but I guess just having a raw stat makes it bad survivability.

Oh yeah, Sharpening Stones can be activated mid action, you remember that rapid fire you decided not to dodge? Well it’s gonna bleed you for another 5 stacks because of your stupid.

Trait: Barkskin the effect triggers individually for pet and ranger an stacks ADDITIVELY with both protection and frost armor which can net up to a 73% damage reduction.

By individually I mean if pet has 25% or less health it gets Barkskin, if ranger has 25% or less he gets Barkskin, the other will not gain the effect until they reach the appropriate health %

jkctmc.8754:

Drop; “Sharpening Stone” and pick up a stunbreaker. If you’re using Torch, make sure every engagement starts with it in your hand, since Bonefire is a Fire Field. The second you shoot while in your own Fire Field, you will apply your Vulnerability, AND Burning right out of the gate, with a 20% chance to proc more burns with every shot.

This allows you to drop Sun Spirit, Bonefire, and go to town. A bonus to this is if someone gets into melee with you, they suffer from Bonefire, and Point Blank Shot also gives Burning 100% of the time.

To add icing on the cake, make sure one of your pets (preferrably the one you start the fight with) is one of the Pigs or Wolf. Thier knockdown is a MUST for Longbow builds.

Well seeing as how i use 2 wolves that’s a non issue, i normally lead with my hyena because you can get up to 3 of the kittens running around the battle field if the fight goes on long enough (normally doesn’t, but it is a possibility).

As for those swaps it’d change the builds goal quite a bit and at that point i’d just want to change the amulet and a lot of the majors as well.

Just because a build -looks- like it wont work on paper doesn’t mean it wont, just like a build that -looks- like it will work on paper doesn’t mean it will.

Either try the build out and see how good it actually is (it must be pretty good since i’ve seen 10 people now using it in Hotjoins… god i hate hotjoins… and another 3 using it in tourneys), or drop it, because regardless of what you guys say i’m not changing it, it WORKS.

Wispy.8679:

Durzlla.6295:

What i -can- do is stand at 1200 away and out DPS the person standing on the point and -then- take it, i assault/harass points.

This build is designed to fill the Ranged Harassment role, not the point capture and brawl in melee range like an idiot ontop of the clearly booby trapped point role.

This is very much one of those "I’ll believe it when I see it’ builds, on paper I just don’t see how it would work in a real fight against a competant opponent. No opponent is jsut going to sit politely on a point while you stand at range and pepper them down, with the amount of of gap closers, stability and glass thieves present in the current meta, very slowly harrassing someone down from range with only 2 damage conditions before they close in just doesn’t seem viable.

Seeing how the trap ranger example was already made I’ll try and provide a scenario to explain. Say you see a trap ranger on a point which they have traps on, you start to engage the trap ranger can just turn, sword #2, then turn and sword #2 again and suddenly he has closed the gap instantly and you are ‘brawling in melee range like an idiot’ already. Sure you can knockback with LB on a long cooldown, but that is not taking into account the immobolizes that trap rangers usually run on pet/trap/elite and with your only condi cleanse being your heal skill you can be overwhelmed very fast. I still have no idea how you would handle fighting a condi mesmer on this build other than by sitting on a heal spring which then just opens you up to shatter combos.

Honestly this class feels like it can only work when you have an ally tanking the damage/aggro of your opponents while you stay far away and slowly damage them with sharpening stone and 1 sec of burning every 10 seconds. If you wanted to do that role you’d have much better success with a necro or staff ele or even some beastmaster ranger specs.

I don’t use a healing spring for starters, and if the trap ranger jumps on me that means he’s a pretty bad player for leaving his point and i’ll yell in the voip for one of our roamers to come cap the defenseless point.

And i didn’t say “Brawling in melee like an idiot” i said I wouldn’t brawl in melee ranger like an idiot ON A BOOBY TRAPPED POINT. IE ontop of double traps, which he would no longer have especially if he left the point to fight me, instantly making his build, and his damage significantly lower.

I have a sword and a torch, i can fight in melee range, i’m just not going to fight in melee unless i need to, and seeing as how he, another ranger who is actually weaker in melee than me, is going to fight in melee range, i’d toss him aside like a piece of trash and take the point with no issue especially seeing as how he has equally as bad condi removal as i do.

Also, i could do the same exact thing as him and put myself at long range should i so choose… but i wont.

A lot of people seem to think that standing on a point is a bad thing, no, that’s what a lot of builds are designed to do, and then when you get people that are ranged harassers like me or power staff necros, grenade engis etc. who stand far away and bombard the point until they either break off of it or die, their build becomes significantly weaker.

PS: I hear carrion armor no longer buffs your raw damage now? Or is there a reason a lot of rangers keep saying that i -only- have condi damage?

They’re additive for starters, and trap rangers are a non issue because i’m not some idiot whose going to stand on the point WITH A LONGBOW, i mean REALLY? Why are you even bringing the whole “You can’t stand on a point due to your survivability” thing when i’m using a longbow?

What i -can- do is stand at 1200 away and out DPS the person standing on the point and -then- take it, i assault/harass points.

This build is designed to fill the Ranged Harassment role, not the point capture and brawl in melee range like an idiot ontop of the clearly booby trapped point role.

Chopps.5047:

While were on this tooltip journey, I tested Concentration Training yesterday and saw no effect. Anyone confirm this?

I used to use Concentration training all the time and it gave the 50%, haven’t been using it recently.

Ping.5739:

Durzlla.6295:

Ping.5739:

Might be good for solo pve, but not dungeons.

Even with the health increase trait, spirits die in about 2 hits. You can place your spirit in certain spots if you dont have the movable spirit trait on, but you will lost too much damage.

Damage isn’t everything, and me being built to keep our GCs up longer and hitting harder tends to be better in instances then me going GC myself, that and I prefer that sort of play style.

@rest of the people,

I still really like the idea of spirits creating a combo field with their active, I think it’d be great if the active was also either ground targeted or target based instead of what it currently is…

I got a mesmer and a guardian in my group….. so my job is to maximize dps…

I do too, my guardian is a GC guardian and my Mesmer is a boon manipulator, IE guardian, thief, and ele are raining down hell on the mobs/players, the mes keeps the enemies boon less and is full of boons, and I boost everyone’s survivability and damage ankittenhe “Rez kitten”/tank.

@Sebrent,

Hey, Malicious Training gives 50% longer conditions applied by pet (at 80), Expertise Training (in wilderness survival) gives the 350 condi damage at 80.

Mixy.7358:

I noticed that the Poison trap doesn’t have a Poison combo field, the Fire trap has a Fire combo field, the Frost trap has a Frost field….why no Poison field?

Probably because its a bunch of vipers and not a poison cloud, not to mention we have plenty f poison fields (I think the most of any prof) to begin with..

That being said I wish our spirits still have a field effect like in beta when traited for natures vengeance…

Sun= fire, frost= frost, storm= air, stone = light (I know, it was weird), elite = water

PS: those spirit fields were WHAT THEY GAVE IN BWE2.

I don’t think either your nor proxy realize how much Defense this build actually has… It has an amazing amount of dodges, each one giving 33% less damage, it has a large amount of CC through the Hyenas and the Bow, and it can pump out a large amount of condition AND raw damage.

As I said in the Guide, I take the fern hound because I like the regen it provides, that and I just flat out don’t like the other wolf howls, they’re just meh IMO, I also said that the pets were more a form of preference and as long as your non Hyena pet was another canine or spider it’d be fine (I think I mentioned spider).

And this build was DESIGNED FOR TPVP, so I made sure it has survivability.

PS: a large health pool (which this build has) is a good raw defense for conditions, and keep in mind protection and Bark Skin STACK which makes you very deceptive in how “squishy” you are.

Ping.5739:

Might be good for solo pve, but not dungeons.

Even with the health increase trait, spirits die in about 2 hits. You can place your spirit in certain spots if you dont have the movable spirit trait on, but you will lost too much damage.

Damage isn’t everything, and me being built to keep our GCs up longer and hitting harder tends to be better in instances then me going GC myself, that and I prefer that sort of play style.

@rest of the people,

I still really like the idea of spirits creating a combo field with their active, I think it’d be great if the active was also either ground targeted or target based instead of what it currently is…

Sebrent.3625:

Thanks, Durzlla. I have updated it to reflect your findings. Please double-check that you think what I wrong is sufficient :-)

<edit>
I’m not sure about those ranges. I’ll try to test that tonight too or you (or anyone else) can send me video that clearly shows this and then I’ll add that part.
</edit>

I’m going to double check the pounce one tonight, i will not be able to double check the barrage one until a bit later in the week though (it requires actual players since there are no golems that it will work with).

Sebrent.3625:

Durzlla.6295:

I don’t know any other game where you can command your pet to take 33% less damage and stealth by default….

Not exactly a useful skill when you can simply swap your pet (shorter cooldown) when they are low on hitpoints … and in pvp where players will simply go for you since killing you kills your pet.

Durzlla.6295:

And the reason that healing power and condi dmg isn’t gained by just throwing points in is because you can take a trait to increase it by 350 for 10 pts.

By your logic:

• Guardian shouldn’t get +precision from Radiance since their 30 point trait gives them +15% crit chance (that’s +315 precision).
• Axe Warrior’s don’t need +crit_dmg from Arms because they have Axe Mastery
• Sword Warrior’s don’t need +crit_chance from Arms because they have Blademaster
• Trap Ranger’s don’t need +condition duration because they have Trap Potency
• Scepter Necro’s don’t need +condition duration because they have Lingering Curse

The point is, just because we have another way of increasing a stat doesn’t mean that the trait points intended to “Increase Pet Attributes” should not also increase those stats.

Durzlla.6295:

PS: we were hardly rushed, we were one of the first profs announced… The reason our Utilities were so late was because our pet AI was absolutely AWFUL in the beta.

One of the first to be started means nothing when we were the last to be finished utilities-wise. Some would argue that we’re still not quite finished due to a heavy reliance on pet AI and how bad that currently is (though thankfully not as bad as it was in beta).

I’m not saying i don’t -want- to see ALL our pets attributes increased by putting points in BM, hell i’d love that, it’d make it so you could actually have a condi pet for starters…

That being said, they likely -didn’t- do it because you gain 35pts worth of the stat for taking a 10pt talent in each of the respective trees making it so you don’t -need- to spend points in the BM tree if you want a pet to crit hard, or heal well, or provide boons/condis.

It provides more options in the end, however pets need to be a bit sturdier for any of those options to really make a huge difference because currently without points in BM your pet gets destroyed in PvE too easily (granted in tPvP they tend to be fine).

Our prof wasn’t -rushed- but we still have bugs, hell if any prof was -rushed- it probably would’ve been engi or necromancer. Or do you forget about the mountain of bugs that made them borderline unplayable when they were launched? We have buggy AI, but that’s about the only bug we have that affects gameplay.

And i repeat, our 3 utilities were the last ones in BECAUSE OUR PETS AI SUCKED IN BETA. They flat out could not handle the skills and caused them to become even buggier, they weren’t in the game because they were essentially useless and needed fixing, they said it several times in the Beta Forums while they were still up.

Or did you fail to notice that when our Pets AI started to actually work we got our last handful of utility skills?

PS: Guard is more useful in PvE/WvW than in PvP, but it can be useful in tPvP for an ambush. Also, Guard in PvE is more useful than swapping if your pet is face tanking a mob because when you swap all agro that was on your pet is gone where guard just wipes it for a short duration which could give you enough time to get off a heal before throwing him out of stealth and regaining agro almost instantly.

jubskie.3152:

Sebrent.3625:

• Utility: Sharpening Stone
  • Applies a bleed per hit, so 5 auto-attacks would apply it. Similarly, 5 hits from Ra*b*id Fire would apply it.
  • Functions uniquely with Longbow’s Barrage which hits in “waves”, so it can apply 5 bleeds to up to 5 targets by using [Sharpening Stone] -> [Barrage]

1. Typo on Rapid Fire
2. Can you confirm my testing with Barrage and SS? I’ve tried on the 3 lined up golems and only the mid golem got all 5 stacks, while the 2 side golems only got 4 stacks of bleed each

Tested Barrage with my friends and the first wave only applies w/e on hit effect to one target ALL OTHER WAVES APPLY ALL ON HIT EFFECTS TO ALL TARGETS HIT BY THE WAVE. I’ve tested this with Sigil of Doom, Thief Venoms, Sharpening Stones etc, only the first wave of attacks applies to one target…

In addition, it doesn’t use up your charges if you miss with barrage, it only uses up a charge if an enemy is actually hit by a wave of barrage.

@Seberent 1H Swords #2 and #3 chain attack (Kick and Pounce respectively) Can be used twice before reseting the chain. Each use of Pounce will apply a stack of might on your pet so you can leap away from your enemy, target them and leap back with the second pounce “charge” and give your pet 2 might.

In addition Kick does not give the amount of leap it says it does, it gives something closer to 200units, pounce however gives a distance greater than it say leaving it more around 500 (keep in mind neither of these numbers are exact, just estimates).

Pounce also gives a stack of might for each enemy hit, up to a cap of 3.

Sebrent.3625:

Leo G.4501:

Something I was always confused about with the beastmastery trait line is, why doesn’t condition damage improve? Or healing power?

I think of this as one of the many oversights in the Ranger class due to the class obviously being rushed. Heck, we didn’t even get our last 4 traits until almost live and one of them was a command that should’ve simply been part of the default pet controls; not a utility (I’m looking at you, Guard).

I don’t know any other game where you can command your pet to take 33% less damage and stealth by default….

And the reason that healing power and condi dmg isn’t gained by just throwing points in is because you can take a trait to increase it by 350 for 10 pts.

So if you are wanting a condi damage pet you just take the Expertise Training from WS, if you want your pet to heal better that’s Compassion Training in BM tree, longer Condis is in Marksman, higher crit dmg is in Skirm and higher boon duration is in NM.

It’s a pretty simple thing…

PS: we were hardly rushed, we were one of the first profs announced… The reason our Utilities were so late was because our pet AI was absolutely AWFUL in the beta.

jubskie.3152:

So I’ve been testing out Sharpening Stone and barrage in the mists earlier and I came across some weird results.

Each “wave” of barrage actually carries the bleed on hit from Sharpening Stone except for the first one. The first bleed attack only hits one person.

I tried it 3 times on the 3 stationary golems (light, med, heavy in a line), and the middle golem had 5 stacks of bleed, while the 2 side golems only had 4 stacks each.

I also found that Sharpened Edges has no cooldown at all. I was able to stack 3 bleeds on a front facing golem with a shortbow + QZ at 90% critical chance.

EDIT: ^ that means you can potentially cause bleeding on anyone and everyone hit by Barrage provided it crits.

Yup! Only thing is I use Carrion Armor so my build doesn’t become kitten vs a condi resistant target, however if I were to use rabid or rampagers I’d totally be taking Sharpened Edges and Sigil of Earth (I think that’s it) and possibly Krait Runes to just overwhelm them with bleeds.

jcbroe.4329:

Maybe (unfortunately I can’t test this right now, so sorry it’s just a hypothesis) the sigil of fire procs on your pet and you at the same time?
What I mean is, have your pet attack a target, then you attack a different target, and then watch to see if it procs on the pet at the same time it procs for you.

I’m not exactly sure how the people who tested it went about doing it, but my theory on this stems from the idea that the sigil of fire is still an extension of the weapon, so the weapon itself would still have to be in active use to create the proc. But that doesn’t mean that when it is in use, the pet can’t proc it when you do (or however they could have coded it to work in this manner, I would test it myself if I could).

If this isn’t resolved tomorrow I’ll have it tested myself around 8pm EST.

I tested this as well, I also tried it with piercing arrows, barrage, axes, dagger, sword, torch, GS, spear, harpoon gun, literally every way I could think of and nothing, it -only- procs on one target and -only- procs from you because your pet doesn’t have sigils.

Ok so i went into the mists to test this with a cat and bird (highest crit) as well as my fern hound, and i didn’t get a single proc off of sigil of the fire over the course of 15 minutes of my pet auto attacking golems.

There is NO way it was the pet, it must’ve been the ranger or another player if you were seeing the flame blast effect. If you were simply burning it was the spirit.

If you don’t want to turn off your auto attack turn off Melee Collision or w/e that is so you can leap THROUGH your target(s) to avoid stuff, that’s what my friend does when he’s feeling lazy anyway.

That or just learn to use your 2 evades/when to dodge.

Those who say the weapon shouldn’t be designed aroun having auto attack off are just silly, auto attack is NEVER better than no auto attack because of the existence of retaliation and confusion.

If it were a sun spirit there’d be no animation behind the burning it’d just go, “oh look you’re now on fire!” Instead of Sigil of Flames explosion of fire.

If these are proccing off of pets now I may just start using these! Only reason I wasn’t was due to my abysmal crit chance….

Edit: Also, if it were a spirit you’d see the gold/yellow Sun Spirit buff where his boons and condis are, so I doubt it was a spirit.

The real question is, were we buffed? Or is this a bug? If we were buffed this could open up A LOT of possible builds…

Chokolata.1870:

Meh birds are there to provide some DPS and vigor on swap , and to spam their f2 . Most of the dps comes from short bow auto attack with a lot of critical chance causing sigil of fire procs.

In essence is a glass cannon-ish simple build

Ah ok, so your birds are there more to keep you going (albeit while dealing damage) than to be a main source of DPS?

I prefer Melandru Runes over Lyssa runes, but that’s just me!!

My only concern is wont empathetic bond hurt your damage/utility a lot due to using birds? Last I checked they weren’t the greatest in the survivability department PRIOR to being your condi sponge…

Other than that it looks pretty solid, I may test it out in tPvP, looking to switch it up a little again!

Kain Francois.4328:

Ranger with a hammer in GW1 was funny. Their role was to stunlock foes while your pet delivered the beatdown.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9Bg0KvpO_s

As for “Staff” Rangers (better known as “Trapper” Rangers) their role was to go place a bunch of traps somewhere and hide in a place you can lure stupid people. Commonly used for PvE farming, also used in PvP to OHKO stupid people.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13GR-lVX-2w

Staff was also a VERY common weapon for using a BM build where you’d take say, enraged lunge and 6 shouts (7 if you didn’t take a rez) and just bark orders at your pet to ascend them into what was essentially god hood while you were super squishy but super mobile and just ran away whenever danger reared its head.

HotHit.6783:

haxi.9038:

Actually what matters most is the skill of the player. That being said, most people who actively use ranger are noobs cos anyone with half a brain would have re-rolled another class long ago.

There is no alternative, the Ranger’s playstyle is unique. Enjoying playing the game less just to please PUGs is ridiculous.

Well most the people that QQ about rangers being bad are hot join heroes…. Or worse…. Zerglings shivers

You know what was like throwing salt in the wounds? The fact that Ranger Nente is a bunny thumper…. Stupid Nente….

Omg yes!! Give me back my Bunny Thumper!! I was absolutely baffled by the absolute lack of hammer for ranger, I mean, c’mon!! That was one of -the- ranger weapons in GW1 (along with bows and staffs), yet we can’t use it? So dumb….

I think the Hammer should pay homage to the original build, make it a spike build! Which looks exactly what you did which makes me happy!!

I -was- gonna say put a HUGE CD on needling hot if used outside of the 50% health or lower window, but you already did that (20s for a weapon skill is LONG).

As for brambles I think that either 1) the roots need to be nearly one shot able or 2) it’s a nornal immob with a lot of bleed on it.

PS: I prefer the Bestial Pounce over Never Rampage Alone, more synergy for all pets.

AlexRD.7914:

Jeez guys its not an interrupt, OP is not kitten I tried this too, you can test it on dummy NPCs, when you get downed, your pet will disregard EVERYTHING you tell him to for 2 seconds. Sometimes the wolf won’t fear because he decided to walk.

I’ll repeat, the wolf is the only pet I have this issue on, my Hyenas remain loyal when I get downed, by wolf just goes, “Lawlz get up noob!”

I’ve also found my black Moa, fern hound, spiders, lash tail devourer and Beary Bearington all remain loyal while downed.

Just my wolf an drake hound decide they’re too cool to listen now that their masters on the floor, but even then it’s not 100%.

PS: I HAVE NOT TESTED ALL PET JUST THE ONES LISTED!

Zenith.7301:

Durzlla.6295:

Zenith.7301:

Durzlla.6295:

Zenith.7301:

Durzlla.6295:

Neb.4170:

Chopps.5047:

You ever use combo fields to help your group blast heal, stack might, or proc weakness on your foe? Devourers make great dungeon pets since you can proc an abundance of might with it’s dual attack and RaO. Have you tried that? You can even try fortifying bond to get even more might on the pet. What about muerellow? Everyone like applying weakness to a boss. Muddy terrain, spike trap, and frost trap turn out to be great choices for skipping trash and/or chilling a boss. Do you make use of these? How much do you let your pet tank the boss as opposed to calling it back? Heck, I’ve been playing since beta weekend and I still wouldn’t consider myself someone who’s mastered all the details of ranger. At one point I thought I had it all figured out. But then I realized there was more options, more things to study, and more things to test.

You’d sacrifice much more damage by using the Devourer Vs. Cat or Bird than a few more might stacks RaO would give you.

And yeah, using snares isn’t exactly some masterful strategy that should have taken you very long to figure out.

And you lose out on a lot of pet uptime + control from using a cat/bird over a wolf, see how this stuff works?

How? Wolf pounce is telegraphed so blatantly and the pet even holds a moment to lunge at his target. Same for howl.

Yes they are, because you know sooooooooo many DUNGEON NPCs will notice those telegraphs and go “whelp better dodge roll!”

Oh wait….

Dungeon bosses have defiance, and non-boss mobs were hardly needing a single target knockdown….

Do you actually do dungeons? Most trash mobs are skipped and people head straight for bosses.

The one “dungeon” type where you actually need to kill silver/veteran mobs to proceed, fractals, your pet’s dead anyways the moment it goes in.

Defiance only has so many charges, it’s normally 3 or 5, which doesn’t stay around very long when you have 2 Hyenas , or a wolf, etc etc.

And just because you don’t -need- to kill it doesn’t mean people don’t, there are some people (myself and my guild included) that much prefer to kill everything in the dungeon and stand atop a mound of bloody corpses at the end instead of skip everything, because you know… we do dungeons for fun, the reason they were designed?

Right, trash is sooooo much fun. Sorry if some of us would skip to the actual fun — the bosses.

And bosses in fractals are not close to 5 defiance, btw. It’s more than that, and the thing about defiance is that somebody with actual control over their CC will probably land their stun/daze before your pet wolf decides to leap after being switched in.

Well that’s nice? I’m hardly much of a PvE player, i’ve said this time and time again, i do PvE for fun and don’t have much issue with it, the highest fractal i’ve done was lv 14 and my pet only died because i’m not used to the visual cues on their agony skills…

Manekk.6981:

Durzlla.6295:

Manekk.6981:

Durzlla.6295:

Manekk.6981:

No it’s 100% not that it’s on CD he just doesn’t do it when downed and it’s only in spvp.

Another thing that has me wondering is the downed interupt ability it’s now also failed me dozens upon dozens of times the past couple of days and I have looked carefully if they had stability wich I can be certain they didn’t in most cases, sure I could have missed it a few times but hardly every single time I’m wondering if there are other abilities that could prevent the interupt, any you know?

It’s almost as if I’m lagging on just specific abilities and not on anything else as stupid as that sounds.

I don’t know worth asking about I reckon…

Well i was playing around with my wolf last night (1am USA Central time), and was getting the fear off with no issues.

Are you sure you’re not double tapping F2? That tends to interrupt the fears cast for some stupid reason…

As for the downed interrupt there’s more than just stability that makes them not affected by it, i know Distortion will, mist form, etc etc.

Yeah I figured as much on the interupt, the wolf fear though is annoying the heck out of me I have single tapped, double tapped to maniacally spammed it and he just does not do it for atleast several days now, very annoying.

Huh… did you recently swap him? Like is he actually in the process of attacking the enemy? Or is he doing one of those common (unfortunately and stupidly) “You don’t have enough badges to control me!!” moments and just stands there staring into the distance.

All of the above I’d say but more times than not it’s when he is newly summoned and atleast outside of spvp he will then instantly use the fear if I command him to but he refuses to do it in spvp I can recall everything from running away into the distance to just standing there like an idiot.

Anyways just wondered if it was just me or someone else had this problem too, I’ll keep playing perhaps I can figure it out, it’s not like wolf is the only option either I just really like him for this in particular.

Aaaaaaaaaaaah there’s your problem, canines ( i haven’t had the issue with ANY OTHER PET) when swapped in sPvP will often times just stand there and be like, “Oh what? You need something? Let me just ponder the meaning of life first…”

RyuDragnier.9476:

haxi.9038:

Yea i mean the main thing about pets having trouble hitting moving targets is that they are rooted while attacking, not sure if allowing them to attack while moving will cause everyone to scream “OP” though.

I’d probably only give that to certain pet types…like the birds, the felines, and the canines. Those it would make the most sense to attack while moving.

I agree with this, maybe boars as well though, i know bears swat at people with their paw (or at least beary bearington does), and that’d be hard to do while running at 33% speed xD.

Drakes -might- be able to get away with it too, but i think for balance purposes it’d probably be best to make drakes rooted for most their stuff due to them being mobile AoE machines.

Zenith.7301:

Durzlla.6295:

Zenith.7301:

Durzlla.6295:

Neb.4170:

Chopps.5047:

You ever use combo fields to help your group blast heal, stack might, or proc weakness on your foe? Devourers make great dungeon pets since you can proc an abundance of might with it’s dual attack and RaO. Have you tried that? You can even try fortifying bond to get even more might on the pet. What about muerellow? Everyone like applying weakness to a boss. Muddy terrain, spike trap, and frost trap turn out to be great choices for skipping trash and/or chilling a boss. Do you make use of these? How much do you let your pet tank the boss as opposed to calling it back? Heck, I’ve been playing since beta weekend and I still wouldn’t consider myself someone who’s mastered all the details of ranger. At one point I thought I had it all figured out. But then I realized there was more options, more things to study, and more things to test.

You’d sacrifice much more damage by using the Devourer Vs. Cat or Bird than a few more might stacks RaO would give you.

And yeah, using snares isn’t exactly some masterful strategy that should have taken you very long to figure out.

And you lose out on a lot of pet uptime + control from using a cat/bird over a wolf, see how this stuff works?

How? Wolf pounce is telegraphed so blatantly and the pet even holds a moment to lunge at his target. Same for howl.

Yes they are, because you know sooooooooo many DUNGEON NPCs will notice those telegraphs and go “whelp better dodge roll!”

Oh wait….

Dungeon bosses have defiance, and non-boss mobs were hardly needing a single target knockdown….

Do you actually do dungeons? Most trash mobs are skipped and people head straight for bosses.

The one “dungeon” type where you actually need to kill silver/veteran mobs to proceed, fractals, your pet’s dead anyways the moment it goes in.

Defiance only has so many charges, it’s normally 3 or 5, which doesn’t stay around very long when you have 2 Hyenas , or a wolf, etc etc.

And just because you don’t -need- to kill it doesn’t mean people don’t, there are some people (myself and my guild included) that much prefer to kill everything in the dungeon and stand atop a mound of bloody corpses at the end instead of skip everything, because you know… we do dungeons for fun, the reason they were designed?

haxi.9038:

Durzlla.6295:

haxi.9038:

Neb.4170:

Chopps.5047:

Adding haxi to blocked list…where I keep trolls in their place.

‘Anyone who doesn’t like my pet class is a troll’

You sure put him in his place???

Hey just ignore him. Its enough as long as you know that you are not trolling. Guess the troll he is talking about is himself.

Well this might be partly my fault cos my posts turned out to be a little offensive while I was trying to word them in such a way that they would be interesting to read. Sorry if I offended some of you good mannered rangers out there!

I actually found them pretty funny and was about to make a post that used every single one of the things you said “inb4!” on, but i decided against it because it’d likely get me another infraction or something stupid like that…

No you misunderstood! Ping.5739 came up with the inb4 stuff, not me. Hell, I even had to google inb4 cos I didn’t even know what it meant. A few interesting answers came to my mind and just thought I would share with you all.

Oh i know, you used some of them in one of your posts though.

haxi.9038:

Durzlla.6295:

Chopps.5047:

Durzlla.6295:

Chopps.5047:

Chokolata.1870:

I do use Muddy terrain , I said that it would be nice if the pet landed some hits WITHOUT me burning crowd control skills non-stop

First, I should mention that it’s a wilderness survival skill that grants cripple and immobilize, neither of which are crowd control. Also, muddy terrain has a ton of uptime so you don’t need to constantly cast it. Are you sure you’ve tried that?

Regarding the other part of your post, do you feel improvements to pet AI would upset the pvp balance? Because most people would try to cripple or chill in your situation. Don’t like using axe or dagger offhand? What about greatsword swoop to pet swap to hilt bash? You’ll get some hits in there I bet.

All of those -do- work and are quite nice combos for guaranteeing pet hits, however I’m with Chak on this one.

Our pets need to hit more than they do, it wouldn’t be OP since we’re balanced around our pets hitting the target.

Now, of they upped both ours and our pets damage and sorta said “your pets only supposed to have ~ 30% uptime on a mob, but you deal 120% the damage other profs can do while pets up on it…” Then I would have NO issues with my pet hardly landing things, because when he lands something it’ll freaking hurt.

Yeah this gets into a deeper discussion, Durz, I mean, yeah, it’s a problem. I was just trying to get him solutions. I think the issue of pets landing hits is a complex one such that any simple analysis or simple AI fix wouldn’t be enough. The point I always try to make is that, if you really want to play ranger, you can make it work. It will get better, I know it.

They -have- been working on fixing the pet AI for a while (not surprised, seems like it’d be complicated), I’m pretty sure once that’s fixed it’ll be glorious. I mean even in BWE2 when they fixed some of the most minor pet bugs ever did rangers just freaking shoot up in usefulness xD.

Well I know of some mobs that can hit moving players without a problem. Guess the main thing is that melee pets are rooted to the ground when they are using their attack. (Something like seige golems in wvw. Can you hit players with your auto attack? No. Pets have a similar problem just that the time they stay rooted is much shorter.)

Only a few mobs can hit things while moving, and those mobs attacks actually throw them towards their enemy usually (IE centaurs), or it’s a ranged skill.

Manekk.6981:

Durzlla.6295:

Manekk.6981:

No it’s 100% not that it’s on CD he just doesn’t do it when downed and it’s only in spvp.

Another thing that has me wondering is the downed interupt ability it’s now also failed me dozens upon dozens of times the past couple of days and I have looked carefully if they had stability wich I can be certain they didn’t in most cases, sure I could have missed it a few times but hardly every single time I’m wondering if there are other abilities that could prevent the interupt, any you know?

It’s almost as if I’m lagging on just specific abilities and not on anything else as stupid as that sounds.

I don’t know worth asking about I reckon…

Well i was playing around with my wolf last night (1am USA Central time), and was getting the fear off with no issues.

Are you sure you’re not double tapping F2? That tends to interrupt the fears cast for some stupid reason…

As for the downed interrupt there’s more than just stability that makes them not affected by it, i know Distortion will, mist form, etc etc.

Yeah I figured as much on the interupt, the wolf fear though is annoying the heck out of me I have single tapped, double tapped to maniacally spammed it and he just does not do it for atleast several days now, very annoying.

Huh… did you recently swap him? Like is he actually in the process of attacking the enemy? Or is he doing one of those common (unfortunately and stupidly) “You don’t have enough badges to control me!!” moments and just stands there staring into the distance.

I love the ideas!!

I still miss Anets original idea where we got to customize our pets skills, each one had a pool of i think 7 family attacks and 3 species attacks? (i feel like i have those mixed up but i’m pretty sure i don’t).

RyuDragnier.9476:

I prefer listening to their complaints Chopps…because then I can laugh hysterically while destroying some of the so-called ‘better classes’ in WvW.

But RYU!! Rangers can’t kill thieves like ever!! Everyone knows rangers are only steam rolling thieves now because of that one buff we never actually got!!

haxi.9038:

Neb.4170:

Chopps.5047:

Adding haxi to blocked list…where I keep trolls in their place.

‘Anyone who doesn’t like my pet class is a troll’

You sure put him in his place???

Hey just ignore him. Its enough as long as you know that you are not trolling. Guess the troll he is talking about is himself.

Well this might be partly my fault cos my posts turned out to be a little offensive while I was trying to word them in such a way that they would be interesting to read. Sorry if I offended some of you good mannered rangers out there!

I actually found them pretty funny and was about to make a post that used every single one of the things you said “inb4!” on, but i decided against it because it’d likely get me another infraction or something stupid like that…

Manekk.6981:

No it’s 100% not that it’s on CD he just doesn’t do it when downed and it’s only in spvp.

Another thing that has me wondering is the downed interupt ability it’s now also failed me dozens upon dozens of times the past couple of days and I have looked carefully if they had stability wich I can be certain they didn’t in most cases, sure I could have missed it a few times but hardly every single time I’m wondering if there are other abilities that could prevent the interupt, any you know?

It’s almost as if I’m lagging on just specific abilities and not on anything else as stupid as that sounds.

I don’t know worth asking about I reckon…

Well i was playing around with my wolf last night (1am USA Central time), and was getting the fear off with no issues.

Are you sure you’re not double tapping F2? That tends to interrupt the fears cast for some stupid reason…

As for the downed interrupt there’s more than just stability that makes them not affected by it, i know Distortion will, mist form, etc etc.

Indoles.1467:

I got it to work fine. Just remember pet cooldowns are retained after swaps. In other words, you may have casted it earlier than 45s ago and therefore it is on cd when u swap to it.

This, you could also take the Commanding Voice, trait in the BM tree and have the CD on F2s reduced by 10%, it’s not much granted…. But it’s certainly made the difference in a few fights I’ve been in!!

Chopps.5047:

Durzlla.6295:

Chopps.5047:

Chokolata.1870:

I do use Muddy terrain , I said that it would be nice if the pet landed some hits WITHOUT me burning crowd control skills non-stop

First, I should mention that it’s a wilderness survival skill that grants cripple and immobilize, neither of which are crowd control. Also, muddy terrain has a ton of uptime so you don’t need to constantly cast it. Are you sure you’ve tried that?

Regarding the other part of your post, do you feel improvements to pet AI would upset the pvp balance? Because most people would try to cripple or chill in your situation. Don’t like using axe or dagger offhand? What about greatsword swoop to pet swap to hilt bash? You’ll get some hits in there I bet.

All of those -do- work and are quite nice combos for guaranteeing pet hits, however I’m with Chak on this one.

Our pets need to hit more than they do, it wouldn’t be OP since we’re balanced around our pets hitting the target.

Now, of they upped both ours and our pets damage and sorta said “your pets only supposed to have ~ 30% uptime on a mob, but you deal 120% the damage other profs can do while pets up on it…” Then I would have NO issues with my pet hardly landing things, because when he lands something it’ll freaking hurt.

Yeah this gets into a deeper discussion, Durz, I mean, yeah, it’s a problem. I was just trying to get him solutions. I think the issue of pets landing hits is a complex one such that any simple analysis or simple AI fix wouldn’t be enough. The point I always try to make is that, if you really want to play ranger, you can make it work. It will get better, I know it.

They -have- been working on fixing the pet AI for a while (not surprised, seems like it’d be complicated), I’m pretty sure once that’s fixed it’ll be glorious. I mean even in BWE2 when they fixed some of the most minor pet bugs ever did rangers just freaking shoot up in usefulness xD.

Swiftwynd.1685:

On crit is a terrible mechanic for a utility skill activation, as not all builds rely on critical hits. A smaller chance but simply on-hit would be preferable so that they have universal benefit.

You beat me to it lol

Chopps.5047:

Chokolata.1870:

I do use Muddy terrain , I said that it would be nice if the pet landed some hits WITHOUT me burning crowd control skills non-stop

First, I should mention that it’s a wilderness survival skill that grants cripple and immobilize, neither of which are crowd control. Also, muddy terrain has a ton of uptime so you don’t need to constantly cast it. Are you sure you’ve tried that?

Regarding the other part of your post, do you feel improvements to pet AI would upset the pvp balance? Because most people would try to cripple or chill in your situation. Don’t like using axe or dagger offhand? What about greatsword swoop to pet swap to hilt bash? You’ll get some hits in there I bet.

All of those -do- work and are quite nice combos for guaranteeing pet hits, however I’m with Chak on this one.

Our pets need to hit more than they do, it wouldn’t be OP since we’re balanced around our pets hitting the target.

Now, of they upped both ours and our pets damage and sorta said “your pets only supposed to have ~ 30% uptime on a mob, but you deal 120% the damage other profs can do while pets up on it…” Then I would have NO issues with my pet hardly landing things, because when he lands something it’ll freaking hurt.

I think next week would probably get more people because a few hours seems too short notice for this sort of thing xD

Mako.1942:

So I get both in and out o combat speed but only feels like it’s out o combat?

Sry it’s early here

Exactly! And it’s cool I totally understand xD

Mako.1942:

Durzlla.6295:

Mako.1942:

Doesn’t sig of the hunt reduce to normal speed once engaged? I run with it in every build but it feels like it’s only a non combative 25%?

I did not know that about the longbow #3

Nope you just get a 25% increase to the noncombat speed which puts you A LOT faster than combat speed.

IE: you just run a hell of a lot faster out of combat, but still maintain the 25% in combat.

I’m confused

Lets say out of combat you run 50% faster, you add in the sig of the hunt and you’re now running 75% faster, so you’re booking it. But once combat kicks in you drop down to a meesily 25% faster so it seems like you’re not getting a boost anymore.

Mako.1942:

Doesn’t sig of the hunt reduce to normal speed once engaged? I run with it in every build but it feels like it’s only a non combative 25%?

I did not know that about the longbow #3

Nope you just get a 25% increase to the noncombat speed which puts you A LOT faster than combat speed.

IE: you just run a hell of a lot faster out of combat, but still maintain the 25% in combat.

Psssscht use just a longbow, your pet gets perma swiftness from LB #3

jcbroe.4329:

For the people that PvP, hows the damage in this build? Not that it is built to be damage oriented, but is it the type of build that supports and holds points, or does it have the potential to be similar to the current meta bunker ranger? (0/0/30/10/30 etc etc etc)

The build i used (not the -same- as above it used knights armor for starters..) was VERY good at 1v1s and essentially the enemy had 1 shot to get their burst off, otherwise they weren’t going to get it off again before they went down.

Not to mention it shreds guardians because their heal would have a 66% longer CD, which is already long to begin with…

jubskie.3152:

Durzlla.6295:

@jub, actually sigil of ice will still proc, sigils of the same type IE weapon swap, on crit, stack per kill, are the sigils that don’t play nice with the SAME TYPE of sigil.

Really? o_O So the wiki is wrong then?

All sigils share a cooldown; while it is active, no other sigil with a cooldown can trigger. – from the wiki

nope, the only sigils that share a CD are sigils of the same type, IE all weapon swap sigils share a CD all on crit proc effect sigils share a CD etc.

EDIT: It’s also wrong about the gaining and dropping of a bundle thing… because it -does- activate it when you do that so long as you’re in combat…