Guild Wars 2

Any chest pieces that take the tail into account are already ahead of the others in my book. Also most shoulders just float and it looks horribad, in the majority of the cases it’s best to turn shoulder armour off.

Glorious armour from the PvP reward track is actually very slick and a bodysuit basically so there’s no tail clipping. Arah armour has very good tail treatment, some of the culturals as well. Crafted Rascal armour is worth noting – tier 4 crafted armour skin, mainly the chest and shoulders in this set, one of the rare shoulders that don’t float, but only when combined with the Rascal chest. Ascended leather isn’t too bad either (minus the helm).

Some armours, but not all, work well with Inquest shoulders, since they’re also among the rare non-floating skins. If you want, take a look at the gem store skins, there’s good ones to be found there as well.

Overall, I suggest opening the wardrobe in your bank and playing dress up til you find something you really like. Just make sure to rotate your character in the preview window to make sure there’s not too much clipping.

FrownyClown.8402:

your minions now become clones. when shattered they explode in a poisonous cloud. wait what?

When they explode, you explode with them!

They don’t stack, and neither does swiftness with any of them. If you have swiftness up permanently you will run 33% faster, sig or runes won’t be of much use then, if you have sig you don’t need the rune and vice versa.

Titus.2085:

Haha! This thread’s interesting!

I’ll put my two cents here:

I don’t give a kitten about what the other classes say about the Mesmer 2.0 or the Chronomancer! We NEED that buff because for two whole years, we have been the butt of every joke in every environment (PvP, WvW, PvE)! We needed the buffs and thank God for those. Now every mesmer can be releveant in every meta and we get more build choices and more build diversity that comes long with it. It’s beautiful!

Necromancers and rangers have been the butt of more jokes over the years, but mesmers weren’t very far behind I guess, and are more of a joke currently before these changes hit live (specially in WvW).

GW2 pvp isn’t an esport that’s for sure, and probably never will be, but the combat is nicer than most other MMO’s. But comparing that combat to a moba style is really not possible, it’s like saying football is better than skiing because they use a ball.

The new sword damage bonus on that trait is nice, but I agree about projectile defense still being too RNG, even at 50%. Making it a 100% during one of the 3 aa skill animations, or a bubble created by serpents strike/hornet, would be preferable. Revenant and dragon hunter are also getting a frontal shield that can move with them (a projectile shield in the case of rev, a full damage shield for guard). Adding that sort of shield to one of the sword skills is a possibility now, since the tech is obviously there.

That was a very honest sounding post by Lauren, I just hope she doesn’t get flak in the office because of it.

Zilean’s son or something

Slow on every third crit makes the already fairly strong, yet beginner level in terms of skill needed, GS power build too viable. That one needs an ICD.

The main reason I take nature spirit is for the possibility of a self res in SPvP (not so reliable since the patch where they can get CC-ed), and for some PuG dungeon runs where I expect at least one or two downed, and more conds than just healing spring can handle. The regen itself is nice but only an afterthought. Removing the res as per the OP suggestion would be a big deal.

ronpierce.2760:

Elorna.5329:

Minion utilities would probably inherit the necromancer minion AI, and that one truly is horrible, our pets are Einstein compared to that.

HoT apparently hired some new AI guys. Those issues will hopefully be a thing of the past. ESPECIALLY if (and why I want this so much) a class DOES get Minions, they would surely fix the glaring issues so they didn’t look bad during the expansion! It’s almost the perfect plan…

I like your optimism, hopefully it’s true, even if no new spec gets minion skills, this would be great for our necromancer friends.

Minion utilities would probably inherit the necromancer minion AI, and that one truly is horrible, our pets are Einstein compared to that.

Minions aren’t completely out of the picture. Would be the worst possible option ofc.

In GW1 I played all female characters because the armors looked better on them. I just continued that trend in GW2, even when playing charr/asura, where armors are pretty much the same regardless of gender. So by now it’s just a habit.

Another factor is GW games don’t have any RP story reasons that make playing the opposite gender harder than playing your own. In Bioware games I usually go for a male character first, to explore the romance/story options that I actually prefer (being a straight male irl), but even there I usually make a female char for a later playthrough just to see all/most of the content.

Andraus.3874:

I’m not a grammar kitten but really…. You’re points are lost in trying to translate what you are saying.

Definitely not a grammar kitten… But yes, trying to figure out what the OP wanted to say was way harder than necessary, and diminished the possible impact of the message.

Lauren responding with sarcasm to a sarcastic comment, how dare she?! On a separate note, necrid bolt in melee or not, the real problem with Lupicus has always been reflects making him trivial. On an even wider scale, that’s the problem with many if not all projectile reliant PvE fights, they either become hard (possibly too hard) without reflects, or a complete walk in the park with them.

sarasvatri.6871:

Thanks for the reply! Interesting. Axe OH, huh? I’ll play around with that today.

Elorna.5329:

Keep at it, get used to the sword autoattack and the windows it allows for dodging and that’s pretty much it.

I was thinking about this earlier today… Can I just take the AA off auto and hit it manually (assuming fingers of steel) to better be able to dodge at will? Does that even make sense?

That’s one way of doing it, but requires a lot of spamming, I just got used to the small windows of time after second and third part of the chain, you can weave in Serpent Strike during those. And if you can, always use serpent strike for dodging, cause that way you keep your endurance maxed out for the 10% damage bonus. On fights that require more dodging than serpent strike offers, getting a dagger offhand is actually better than dodging (Subject Alpha in CoE is the prime example of such a fight).

The meta dungeon build for ranger is sword/axe with longbow to just apply aoe cripple and fast vuln at the start of the fight (the cripple helps get the Predator’s Onslaught damage bonus). Axe is used as the preferred off-hand because of skill 4. It’s a very high damage skill, and can be used to pull mobs if needed. Another thing you should do before a fight is just drop a Bonfire (torch 5), swap to warhorn from your inventory, use skill 5 on that and swap an axe back from the inventory. That way you can get some pre-fight might stacking and still have the most useful offhand for the actual fight.

So overall, you’re on the right track for maximum PvE ranger efficiency. Keep at it, get used to the sword autoattack and the windows it allows for dodging and that’s pretty much it. Swap the pets when/if they’re about to die but that goes without saying. Another good thing that’s about to hit the PvE ranger build will be the upcoming specialization update, with multiple traits and skills commonly used in PvE getting a buff, or being placed in trait lines that make for stronger builds overall. So this is probably the time to be a PvE ranger if there ever was one.

Zenith.7301:

Elorna.5329:

I guess I’m one of those rare people that plays the ranger because it’s a pet class not in spite of it. I actually enjoy watching my pets’ position, health, etc.

There’s not much to watch about it when you are meleeing a boss or in a melee train of a zerg and your pet gets mowed down by casual cleave and there’s not much you can do about it since telling the pet to come back to you in melee changes nothing it’s still in cleaving range. You can use a ranged pet but ranged pet AI is awful, the pet constantly decides not to stick to its actual 900 range but prefers to path over close to mobs or stand closer in some lethal aoe circle.

That doesn’t mention the fact ranged pets don’t cleave, do significantly less damage than a jaguar or even drake, and their f2 skill is generally of limited utility (the spider’s root has a delay in activating as it’s queued to its next attack and and the devourer’s barrage is plain useless).

Trust me, I have my hall of monument pets, I really love pet classes in MMO’s when they are done right (WoW pets with aoe avoidance and stats shared with master, for example).

But in this game pets were done pretty badly.

Leo G.4501:

Zoid.2568:

I don’t know why the pet exist in PvE. Either buff it’s defense and synergy with the ranger by a lot or just make it a SPvP thing.

They did that already. Pets are, to me at least, dang near immoral except in extreme cases in fractals. Even if they do die or almost die, you can simply swap them for your other pet.

Sure, pets have their problems, their AI make them make annoying decisions/mistakes, but that’s far different from being “useless” or “not viable”.

I want to see a video of your immortal jaguars on fractal 50 mossman, archdiviner, or molten duo/mai trin.

You’re probably using drakes then, which is a DPS loss, and the drakes even die still to the aoe spam in molten duo so you’re probably resorting to bears in some instances and bear autoattacks do less damage than a single burning condition tick.

And that’s not even opening the whole can of worms that is large scale WvW.

I agree on the high level fractal note, but in most other dungeons the pet rarely, if ever, dies.

As far as WvW goes, I’d say that any ranger main looking to be a “serious” WvW player should find a guild focused on roaming groups. The pets are very helpful/borderline OP for that.

Zerging in general is just the opposite of fun imo, the pets dying there is just another aspect of the overall boring gameplay. I guess you could use the brown bear and wolf as AoE cleanse and emergency fear tools, keeping them on passive while you pew pew pirate ship around with the blob. But as I already mentioned no matter what you do and regardless of the profession you play, zerging just won’t be a ton of fun.

There’s 2 “while reviving” traits for ranger, while all other professions got their various revive traits rolled into one. This might open up a spot for hide in plain sight. Other options include just adding it to the falling trait or (and this one is most logical), roll it into Shared Anguish.

I guess I’m one of those rare people that plays the ranger because it’s a pet class not in spite of it. I actually enjoy watching my pets’ position, health, etc.

Zenith.7301:

My real problem is losing boon sharing with the pet. It should be baseline not tied to nature magic. That trait is essential for extending aegis and protection so you can run double jaguars on fractals and make their upkeep in melee much better.

This is also the only concern I have with the new build. Keeping up high might stacks on the pet probably won’t be an issue due to might on crit/might on swap/quickness on swap being in the same line now, but pets will pretty much never have fury, protection or aegis without fortifying bond.

There’s the possibility of going into nature magic instead of beastmastery, but losing out on the swap quickness and might on crit is a pretty big deal (or alternatively losing out on peak strength from survival). Bountiful hunter would be a permanent 4-6% damage boost for you and the pet, which might help mitigate things, but does having fury/prot/aegis on the pet really warrant losing out on the new beastmastery goodness?

Overall having fortifying bond as baseline or as the first minor in beastmastery would’ve made more sense in general.

The whole fury pulsing every 3 seconds thing might get removed because of this trait now, and the only “pulser” being stability, with fury/swiftness having a set duration. It seems they want us to actively work for each remorseless reset, and RaO would just undermine that. Or alternatively add an ICD for the trait.

There’s this cave with bears and bearcubs in Queensdale. I kill all of them whenever I run past that area.

I think the OP was under the impression that the wiki was hosted by some other party.

I miss some of the features of GW1 in GW2, like the interrupt/protection/body blocking combat mechanics, or skill templates, etc. I don’t actually miss the game itself, since it’s still installed on my computer and I play it from time to time.

The wiki is hosted by Anet (altho the content itself is player-made) and the TP is basically just a site you access from in-game, so yes.

Rentapest.6503:

Finally fixed this long-overdue bug.

And completely ignored the “F2” pet skill bug! >.<

Ranger pets STILL attack when you use their ability, even when Passive. So again, you have to micro-manage the pet.

Personally, I never send my pet in to fight because they are absolutely USELESS and die instantly. It’s there to buff me with Might (Junglestalker) and heal me (Fern Hound) that’s all! I do not want my pet dying, it needs to remain at my side.

I am fed up of using it’s “F2” skill to gain a boon, and then having to spam “F3” over and over to recall it back to me so it doesn’t die instantly!

Why wasn’t this fixed?

Also, why can we still not hide pets in combat?

What you describe isn’t a bug imo, most F2 are damage abilities, it makes sense that the pet would continue auto attacking and using its other skills after it executes F2. The way you seem to want it would be the pet just executing the F2 regardless if it’s a damage or buffing ability and then returning to you. For most of the damage abilities (and those are the majority) that’s just a waste of pets’ and your time. If it’s already in range to use an F2 on a target it might as well continue attacking it.

I feel bad for people that actually payed for the story. It’s driving me nuts and I got it just for logging on during the weeks it was active.

According to the patch notes this was fixed today. Still updating the game, anyone can confirm?

EDIT:
Yep it’s fixed

Sina.9208:

Elorna.5329:

I just send in a bug report for this every day, hoping to get it fixed by being annoying and possibly getting one of the QA people (or whoever reads those bug reports) bored enough to pass it on to the proper person for a fix.

Honestly these days I have 3 daily activities – the actual daily, harvesting the home instance and reporting this bug.

I’m not sure if that’s a good plan. They blacklist you for spamming & then you won’t ever achieve anything with your future bug reports. I myself send one report, weekly :P

At this point I don’t care about future bugs.

I just send in a bug report for this every day, hoping to get it fixed by being annoying and possibly getting one of the QA people (or whoever reads those bug reports) bored enough to pass it on to the proper person for a fix.

Honestly these days I have 3 daily activities – the actual daily, harvesting the home instance and reporting this bug.

For general PvE lots of AoE is always useful. Cause of that, I go with axe/horn and sword/axe combined with the river and marsh drakes. QZ’d whirling defense and the 2 drakes’ f2 skills make short work of most mobs.