Guild Wars 2

No one is saying the build is useless and won’t work; obviously it will. It does have some pretty glaring problems though.

Kilger.5490:

Obviously talking out your kitten but read this

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2964/in-1776-why-didnt-soldiers-use-bows-and-arrows-instead-of-muskets

Skip to the last 3 paragraphs for the summary of real history instead of your made up stuff.

Having used both bows and rifles, they both took roughly the same amount of time to get reasonably good at; maybe half an hour. Obviously they are modern weapons, but my dad uses archaic versions and does just fine.

At any rate, we use the weapons in very remote wilderness, like say, a ranger would.

Popping entangle in a team fight can change the tide. If you wait till halfway through a team fight, the bulk of the AoE has gone off, people are low on endurance perhaps, cleanses have been popped, people are in survival mode, and then you put roots all over the cap point that can keep re-ensnaring people. I’d estimate it takes people ~2 seconds to get out of it, which is a surprisingly big deal. It’s also great on people that are low and life and get downed as it will continue attacking them. A further minor benefit is it clutters up the targeting process.

I personally prefer RaO or the spirit (even if you’re not a spirit ranger that is a good elite!) in PvP, but Entangle is equally as strong if you use them all appropriately. If you use it on a single mesmer to start the 1v1, then yes, it’s beyond worthless.

Even in 100% berserker gear you generally won’t get 1-shotted in the standard dungeon runs. If there is an area where you will get 1-shotted, your armor is irrelevant anyway.

This addresses so many problems I have with spirits. I would prefer they are unkillable and are just used more often with short durations. That would both help differentiate them from phantasms as well as clear up the AI clutter.

+1, nice ideas.

I don’t have an opinion on this, but I find it funny anyone would be embarrassed by their DPS. It’s not like you personally are causing the DPS, as though if it were low you would be a scrawny little nerd.

DeathPanel.8362:

Fractals are supposed to be mini dungeons. Dredge is longer than most explorables. Not to mention the mechanics of it is just tedious and annoying. It’s not a l2p issue, it’s more of a matter of fun vs not fun.

I can’t complain if people think it’s too long (I disagree), but I see complaints about it being too difficult. The buttons are a prime example; most PUGs think it’s completely impossible to stand on a button unless you are a bunker guardian. That is a L2P issue.

It also increases the length of time for an extremely easy section because no one has any idea how to change their utilities out and the party wipes. If people play well (buttons on first try, don’t constantly party wipe on bombs), it’s really not that long and you are well compensated with drops. You’ll get over a gold in metal and miner’s bags alone.

The really funny part is how long people used to take to try to edge the party along any of the “jumping puzzle” type shortcuts, with people falling to their deaths or not making jumps, when it would have taken mere seconds just to stand on the buttons.

Straegen.2938:

Wonder if they will share the same Trading Post… inflation is going to be crazy if they do.

I’ve always gotten the impression that the Chinese version is an entirely different client, like that they may have items or features we won’t have and so on (remember that much ado about nothing over the “premium membership” or whatever they were experimenting with for China?)

It was also be kind of brutal on all the new players with zero gold if it was the same TP. Their precusors are going to be selling for an unobtainable 7 gold while ours will sell for 1700.

spoj.9672:

Fluffball.8307:

EVERY class has ways to do this without retraiting.

Not true. One class cant even do it with retraiting. That doesnt mean they cant survive though.

Presumably you’re talking about necro. They do have a lot of ways to mitigate the damage. Fear, weakness, largest health pool, minions causing attacks to point away from the necro, etc. That’s what I meant by every class has a way to survive, not specifically invulnerability.

I don’t understand why you’re constantly on the ranger forum posting about how much you hate them. It gets really old.

The weapon skills are so friggen cool. If anet did anything right with GW2, it’s making the ranger weapon skills friggen cool. Most of the other professions have boring weapon skills.

I do like dagger eles and melee thieves for the same reason (although I miss back in beta when death blossom was still used by anyone ever.)

I randomly hopped on a guardian in PvP today and absolutely SUCKED because I forgot there was such a thing as dodging in the game. So used to the movement on ranger and to a lesser extent ele and thief.

I was screwing around waiting for a vet to respawn for the daily, and I noticed that if you turn this trait on, activate your signets, and then change your trait to something else, the signets active effect will stay on you.

It’s not much, but there is also no to not have the active of Signet of the Hunt on you when you’re roaming in WvW (it lasts something like 17 minutes.) Your first attack will hit for an unexpected amount of damage, and there is really no downside.

LordByron.8369:

COntrary to fluffball believeing if you try to just reflect Attacks you will die in 3 seconds to melee Attacks+daze guardians btw can reflect + cc saving a couple seconds.

Your grammar is bad enough I can’t figure out you’re trying to say, but I never made any mention of reflecting attacks. You should know how to render yourself invulnerable to the dredge attacks for a fairly lengthy time, whether that’s stealth, blocks, invulnerabilities, etc. EVERY class has ways to do this without retraiting.

PvPers have cause for complaint, but rangers are so called “god tier” in tPvP. The only cause for complaint is that we have other builds that are pretty good instead of unstoppable.

Weak dungeon ranger has been put to rest like 9 months ago by Brazil. We do need variety and perhaps some more visible buffs.

WvW, it just depends on what the devs expect. Right now LB rangers are strong “thieves” in zergs if you play spectacularly, and there are TONS of viable roaming builds.

I get that they’re making money off me since I’m selling them runes 50 copper cheaper than than buyer, but WHY does anyone actually want these in large numbers? These runes are going to be effective for about 3 minutes until you move from level 65 or whatever to level 80, and people farm that entire distance.

If I had a char still that level I would use no runes at all.

Thanks for this. It is appalling how the devs put one instance of knowing how your class works in a dungeons system of 19 fractals and people just lose their cat.

I’ve said before, if you can’t list like 12 seconds or so of immunity to dredge attacks, you have no idea how to play your own class.

The dredge fractal takes too long because too many people are horrifically incompetent.

I never kick people from daily dungeons runs because they’re so easy and everyone deserves to play, and everyone starts somewhere. I just expect people with less than about 9k AP to suck and keep any eye on them if they need some direction of where to stand (although I really try not to offer advice unless they ask, or are an utter failure; that can be annoying.)

I don’t understand how you could possibly play your character to a level of decent understanding and not have at least several thousand AP.

Edit: Also keep in mind the more APs someone has the more likely they are to have done tPvP, where you have to understand all the nuances of your class.

I think a lot of those can almost mathematically affect everyone the same. For example upping the damage bonus from 5% to 7% for certain traits across all professions. Even if that is a little off (a backstab thief will get more out of that than a power necro), the difference is going to be small enough it doesn’t break anything.

But the devs are certainly not infallible. Dhuumfire comes to mind. :-O

Xaylin.1860:

I’m a bit perplexed when reading this thread. Regardless of how the CDI thread is supervised and how much you dis/agree with suggestions people make I do not understand the attitude of sitting it out and judging other peoples suggestions while some of you don’t even participate in the CDI yourself.

Don’t get me wrong, the Ranger thread is awesome. But why does that justify not participating in the CDI thread? If you actually care you should be willing to make the effort and make proposals. What is the point of expressing your opinion here and not in the CDI thread?

I do not main Ranger and I therefore might not be the most qualified person to make proposals for this class. I’m sure quite a few people disagree with ideas I have. Still, I do care enough about my Ranger to contribute proposals and discuss ideas from my point of view. How do you guys expect a satisfying result if you don’t even try to make a difference?

There is a phenomena called the Dunning–Kruger effect, where people who don’t know anything about something don’t know that they don’t know anything. For example if you have no idea what human anatomy is like, you may feel fully qualified to perform surgery on someone because you have no idea that you might kill the person (which is hysterically what the first surgeons did, it’s pretty gruesome history that I totally recommend reading about!) A modern surgeon is going to realize he can’t possibly know everything about surgery and will enlist the aid of specialists.

If others here feel the same way I do, we’re not posting because we’re not qualified. It’s not so much that I refuse to post in the thread, I just wish the devs would refuse to listen to the people in that thread. The community can suggest problems with rangers, but most of us just don’t understand the behind the scenes balancing enough to suggest solutions. That’s why the CDI thread is a big pile of garbage suggestions. The devs are getting paid a lot of money to balance video game classes for a living because enough people think they’re good at it enough to manage hundreds of millions of dollars worth of fan money. I get paid to do something else entirely.

One of the only good posts in the CDI thread is a guy who simply lists what is BAD about rangers and doesn’t offer solutions.

I have a hell of a lot of faith in how the devs balance professions. They have an actual system and don’t just do things based on whims or community perceptions. They understand that not everything is directly comparable, that there need to be risks vs rewards, etc. The community patently does NOT understand this. You get people comparing things directly rather than the professions as a whole. You can’t compare one utility to another because each profession is far more complicated than a single skill.

Looking at a 29 inch LED while lounging in a leather chair and eating Doritos is too hard for your body? Suck it up, buttercup.

SkiTz.4590:

No good ranger uses LB in roaming wvw or Spvp, in PvE they are pathetic as well

There have been tons of threads on how to properly use a LB against other players. Just because you’re pathetic with it, don’t lump all of the rest of us in.

This is what I’m scared of, people who have no idea how to use the skills we’ve already been given yelling for changes to skills that are really well balanced. If they want to buff anything on the LB, I’m fine with that, but I hope they don’t listen to people who play ele and think that 3 and 4 are bad skills.

mistsim.2748:

Fluffball.8307:

The Spiral King.2483:

Fluffball.8307:

Oh god, I fear for our class just glancing over these “complete overhauls” people are suggesting without having a thorough understand of a ranger. Must have faith in devs, must have faith in devs, must have faith in devs.

A lot of them do seem really, really bad. Hopefully Durzlla/jcbroe/Chrispy/whoever else will pitch in.

People are making suggestions on what they think is a cool class instead of how to improve a lovable already created class. Like “I think GW2 should have a wicked awesome ninja sniper so lets turn SB 1 in to a 5 second stealth channel insta-kill shot.” When what we need are intelligent tweaks, like the fact that warbanners are patently better than spirits.

ANet has failed to deliver a cohesive, fun and viable profession. see this for what it is: at worst, a PR stunt; at best, we’re doing their job for them.

the ranger is only played by players who are new to the game, or those who stubbornly cling to the “idea” of the ranger. a recent poll taken on reddit revealed that the ranger had the lowest satisfaction rate among players compared to all other profs. and the vote initiated by Allie revealed that most people wanted more DEV TIME for the ranger, in comparison to all other profs. more dev time, not more bug fixes or balancing!

we are beyond “intelligent tweaks”. we have received those for a year and a half, which has amounted to nothing but breaking BM builds and reviving the brainless petting zoo in spvp only.

some of the prof needs to be overhauled because it is so far behind other professions in every aspect of the game. for example, the pet mechanic needs to be completely overhauled or taken out. other profs’ mechanics (DS, adrenaline, attunement swapping, etc.) make them viable. the pet, in addition to a number of useless utilities and a few bad weapons, make the ranger non-viable. think on that.

those who dont mind the ranger as it currently is have not played other professions at a high enough level (if at all). these individuals play the game with a veil over their eyes and write nonsense on the forums. ranger lacks utility, damage, survivability in comparison. everything the ranger does other profs can do much, much better and easier.

you need to send a message to the devs that we can no longer just dance around the big issues, like pet AI, a dozen useless utilities, bad weapons, no viable power builds and the such. little tweaks here and there have gotten us absolutely nowhere since the game’s release. the ranger remains in a rough shape. the devs need to take larger strides to fix what’s broken.

If rangers are that badly broken why do I kill people in wvw or carry the bulk of the party in dungeon PUGs? CLEARLY rangers are not that far off the meta when we are so competitive. Can we stand a buff so that bad rangers can compete with all the horrible warrriors? Yes, I think so. In fact I voted for us. Do I think even ele is THAT broken? Nope. Anyone can kill anyone else 1v1 pvp. Can a well played ele make the game in a tPvP game? Yes. Can a well played ranger make the difference in an Arah run? Yes. So there is SOME sort of playing field.

mistsim.2748:

the ranger is a wrong class for just about anyone, with the exception of a few fanatics and a drove of new players. this profession is banned by all top WvW guilds. sooner or later you will realize that everything the ranger can do, others can do much better and much easier.

if you want to wvw, yes you have rolled the wrong profession because no matter how much skill you gain, no matter what build you play, you will be outplayed by players dedicated to other professions.

Wait, what?? That’s what the new CDI is about. Go post your suggestions….

Sreoom.3690:

Fluffball.8307:

solrik.6028:

Elite “Signet of the Hunter”
Passive: Gain Camouflage after 3 seconds of not taking damage and not moving
Active: Endless endurance for 4 seconds and recharge all (weapon?) skills (balance?)
Cooldown can be 80 to max 100 seconds.

I can’t see anyone using this to do anything but troll in WvW. You wouldn’t even necessarily need to rez a dead mesmer — although they could put parties of thieves to shame — you could just hide 5 rangers in a keep.

I think being masers of blending in your surroundings should be a part of a ranger’s skill set…hiding in a keep using camouflage…now that would be awesome :-)

Well, it is a cool ranger idea, but it would make WvW absolutely miserable. I for one am in favor of nerfing perma stealth thief/mesmer parties. Mesmers laying dead in keeps for 45 minutes is not a fun game mechanic.

No one has made any argument at all for UTC other than “um, other people use it”. Use a sundial, it will be exactly as arbitrary. Server time is implemented and very easy to understand. NOTHING can be simpler than server time because it just… exists… on a 24 hour standard earth rotation none the less. Call them “picas per afterlong” if “server hours” make you that upset.

I never kick anyone from daily dungeons runs because it’s simply not worth the effort. On the rare occasion someone is just AWFUL, it’s not really going to affect that ~10 minutes run time.

A well played ranger brings FAR more to the group than a badly played anything else. Get a zerker warrior laying on the floor all run and nobody is glad they took that guy.

The Spiral King.2483:

Fluffball.8307:

Oh god, I fear for our class just glancing over these “complete overhauls” people are suggesting without having a thorough understand of a ranger. Must have faith in devs, must have faith in devs, must have faith in devs.

A lot of them do seem really, really bad. Hopefully Durzlla/jcbroe/Chrispy/whoever else will pitch in.

People are making suggestions on what they think is a cool class instead of how to improve a lovable already created class. Like “I think GW2 should have a wicked awesome ninja sniper so lets turn SB 1 in to a 5 second stealth channel insta-kill shot.” When what we need are intelligent tweaks, like the fact that warbanners are patently better than spirits.

Oh god, I fear for our class just glancing over these “complete overhauls” people are suggesting without having a thorough understand of a ranger. Must have faith in devs, must have faith in devs, must have faith in devs.

solrik.6028:

Elite “Signet of the Hunter”
Passive: Gain Camouflage after 3 seconds of not taking damage and not moving
Active: Endless endurance for 4 seconds and recharge all (weapon?) skills (balance?)
Cooldown can be 80 to max 100 seconds.

I can’t see anyone using this to do anything but troll in WvW. You wouldn’t even necessarily need to rez a dead mesmer — although they could put parties of thieves to shame — you could just hide 5 rangers in a keep.

The stupid thing is if you’re a good necro you’re going to contribute five times as much to the party as a bad warrior.

But it gets stupider, since the times of the most commonly run dungeons are all 15 minutes or less. Oh no, that good necro cost us 19 seconds on our total time, and that warrior dying constantly cost us 3 minutes.

I never kick anyone when I host, it just does not matter for single runs. If I wanted to farm tokens for a legendary (which is dumb since you’ll get them just casually doing your daily runs) I might care about forming the perfect team.

We do have a trait that applies camouflage already. I know you’re talking about a slightly different application, just thought it weird you didn’t acknowledge it at all.

The passive of the spirits is triggered by normal attacks. (I’m not sure what “special” skills are?) All of them except the Frost Spirit have a cool down of a few seconds where no attacks will trigger the passive. The Frost Spirit has no cool down at all.

Most people don’t like Water Spirit.

I’m not a huge fan of Storm Spirit. I would maybe take Lightning Reflexes, Signet of Renewal, or Stone Spirit. I assume this build is for a small roaming group? A bird is a potential replacement for getting some more swiftness out there, and birds are decent pets. Maybe owl/wolf. And on that note, for a small group I think warhorn will be more useful than dagger.

Not only are rangers first in line for a planned overhaul/buff, but they are also not NEARLY as kittenome on the forums will make it out to be. You are NOT going to get kicked from a party for running a ranger unless you just don’t know how to play at all. My high achievement points may offer me some stereotype protection, but I never, ever get kicked.

PvP wise, rangers are very strong and hopefully the upcoming changes will give us more build options as well.

If you know the ins and outs of PvP, you’ll be fine with a LB in WvW and it can be extremely effective. Definitely more effective than in PvP where you often can’t take full advantage of the range/LoS. You’ll want a sword on swap for mobility and when people get in to melee with you.

Adaephon covered dungeons. A ranged swap is ok, but you’ll want to be in melee most of the time.

I see no advantages over just using server time.

Dungeons and fractals are the only part of the game.

Oh man, drakehounds! I can’t wait to actually land that howl!

Ha, that’s actually going to take some getting used to. I’m so used to the delay on the wolf howl.

Prysin.8542:

https://dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/uploads/forum_attachment/file/135953/gw137.jpg

That picture is 3 weeks old… That is Durzlla, the guy who hosts the ranger podcast, so yeah, you can burst pretty hard with maul.

Madre de dios.

When the living story allows him to finally cleanse Orr and it gets asura gates and merchants and crafting stations, you’ll all love him.

I’m just disappointed you can’t shove the bank gold in to your pockets. A wealthy mercantile city is ripe for the plundering. ONLY THE STRONG SURVIVE!

Would be only fitting since it’s a bunch of pirate loot anyway.

I’m in the “no idea what I’m supposed to do” camp as well. I logged in for the first time in the middle of a battle. It told me to rescue citizens so I looked for some sort of event marker or other indicator, scouted around my area, and neither produced any results. I did find an escort event after a while, and since events have always been – 100% of the time in the past – the indication of where the action is, I did the escort event and got some achievements. It took me quite a few trips in to LA to even SEE a citizen since wandering off on your own is dangerous and offers zero rewards and zero achievements.

Of course after reading the forums I now get the point, but this seems like a very unclear event. The game HIGHLY encourages you to not save citizens.

By the way, what is this great reward at 1500 citizens?

Regen ranger allows you to make mistake after mistake after mistake. The better WvW roaming option is the berserker ranger; with TU + cons it allows a hearty amount of sustain plus it allows you to kill before you make a mistake. It’s unforgiving but it’s the undoubtedly the better ROAMING option in the end unless you’re going in for duels. Get in, get out, get the objective clear and move on to the next. If you can’t it’s WAY more efficient to die and respawn, not spend 17 minutes dueling someone.

Speed is the key to WvW.

mistsim.2748:

10 sec righteous indignation upon swap… each pet attack should cleave and small KB for 5-10 seconds.

Aaaand welcome to making all other classes completely obsolete.

“WvW guild recruiting, nightly guild raids, ONLY RANGERS.”

I can just see someone’s level 2 ele they keep at the trading post spawning in to a mob of level 81 elite shadowblades next time they log in.

In my opinion, the best use of a longbow is with a lot of power and crit damage.

There are basically two schools of though for roaming. The condi bunker guys that mostly want to duel or take on 2 or 3 guys just for fun, and the crit damage longbow/melee guys that want to quickly solo objectives and ambush and kill players in seconds.

Your build will work because just about anything will if you play well, but I think you have a “worst of both worlds” scenario.

Atherakhia.4086:

God help us if this is the best power build this class has to offer.

I’ve run a pure power build in sPvP and just outlast people to death. It’s not the greatest thing ever, but I can definitely see how this build contributes to a team or simply outlasts someone. Especially in a WvW team the ranger in melee will be a hot target.

Unfortunately that’s what power is for most classes. Just slowly grind people because crit damage is risky. Many WvW warriors do peanuts for damage.

Looks solid, thanks.

Many of us on these forums roam very successfully with a longbow, just telling you now.

Take one (or two of them: s/d) of the melee weapons as your swap and take Lightning Reflexes. Those are basically required.

Take Troll Unguent. If you take the 100 vitality + health per second food and combine it with regen and SotW, you actually get very good sustain despite being a berserker.

Take CC pets, namely wolf, drakehound and jungle spider.

I like muddy terrain, and a signet based on what you need.

Traits are normal power traits, but be sure you go for things like Primal Reflexes, Nature’s Protection etc., and not things like Strength of Spirit. Take boons that will keep you alive and not more damage usually. You’ll have WAY more damage than anyone you come across since they’re all running tank builds. The exception are thieves and mesmers of course, but they’re usually so glassy you can already kill them in a single Rapid Fire.

Make extensive use of longbow skills 3 and 4, and basically never use 5. Use 2 to track their stealth and don’t get hung up on landing the whole thing if you use it as an “autoattack”. Better to be elusive.

Also, don’t take a berserker in to PvP, but do play some PvP with a 1h sword (edit, or GS I guess if that’s your preferred weapon.) so you get used to not getting hit. It’s good practice. You’ll wind up being better than most WvW roamers and will surprise the hell out of them when you kill them with a power build. You’ll have a good 10 seconds or so before they actually start playing well because they expect you to be kitten, and hopefully by then they’re dead.

Edit: Also expect to disengage if you mess up. If you miss the evade you needed against a necro and he’s in your face, stealth or sword 2>LR out of there and reset. He can’t really follow you so you can “reroll” until you beat him despite necros being a hard counter to berserker rangers.

While I like the idea, double damage on a LB opening shot would be insane for an autoattack. That would hit harder than a Kill Shot, and could easily one-hit kill most players when people started building around that. I could see people hitting for 20k. Couple that with Remorseless and you’d have a slaughter machine going 1 v 15. :-D