Guild Wars 2

Well we’re both just making numbers up at this point. Stomping isn’t always the best choice.

9/10 the people screaming about “get the stomp” just don’t want to die and aren’t looking at the big picture. Sometimes going for a stomp will lose you the fight.

leman.7682:

There comes this moment in every exchange of words when one side decides to pull out of using arguments as the main tool of the conversation and starts picking on technicalities and attacking other people instead of their position. That’s what you just did, while conviniently skipping my whole message.

Wait what? How did I attack you? I only even quote you once and made no reference at all to you other that saying I doubt you care about me typing out my expertise. If you genuinely want me to teach you advertising basics I suppose I can, but no one wants to see that post.

I’m not attacking nor have I ever attacked you. I vehemently disagree with everything you’ve written in this thread, but I don’t care one way or the other about you as a person.

That’s actually extremely mild compared to some of the people I’ve reported. I honestly think some of the worst PvP experiences come from people on hard drugs, not joking.

Leman with the super passive aggressive post. Or was it just plain aggressive? This thread is totes getting shut down because people are furious with how anet advertises (???).

I know you mentioned solo rather than team support, but yesterday I ran a dungeon with a healing druid and although no one ever went down it was pretty much the worst experience of my life. It was just sooooo slow. Be prepared for that, since ranger have very low damage to begin with. Going tanky means you’re not going to kill anything.

Omg, the idea of listening to MMO music on vinyl is amazing. Handlebar mustache required (even for the ladies.)

That was a somewhat common strategy for temple like 4 years ago. All 3 points are so close there it barely matters where you go. It’s also pretty easy to spawn camp there.

I meant the root. Many ranger mains preferred the old mechanics. Myself included. But don’t start another kitten argument over how we’re all wrong, it’s over.

leman.7682:

I’m pretty amazed with the marketing-for-living guy who said PL is cheap marketing. You are assuming that info about PL reaches potential clients – it doesn’t. It only reaches a handful of dedicated players who like to torture themselves with the weekly streams of well-known quality (or lack thereof). GW2 PvP is complete niche and the money isn’t marketing because it does not create any additional demand.

By that logic, all of Coke’s advertising billions is wasted money because everyone already drinks Coke if they’ve heard of pop. Because I am a marketing-for-a-living-guy I know that’s not necessarily the goal. Anet is targeting a multitude of different types of players and for various reasons. I can explain advertising basics to you if you want, but I doubt you care.

I don’t know if Anet is going to continue pro league or if it’s meeting their goals because I don’t have their data, but I could kitten well sell the success of it to my boss. And as someone pointed out this thread has over 2500 views.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Pistol_Whip

I didn’t tell the whole story, I don’t take NM but skirmishing instead. I see how my post is confusing without knowing that. I could take PM and still have the same amount of condi removal I do now.

Hmm, you’d probably want skirmishing for a condi druid, but then you’d have to drop BM for WS to get PM. Well whatever, you could make it all work, especially with natural stride and some other regen. /digress

Ya, PM sucks right now. It was made when rangers had some of the best poison application, and now it’s just not enough after the condi change. We have poison uptime, not poison stacking. And poison uptime sucks.

Aguri.2896:

Not hard to figure out.

Well something about winning the olympics and such, but no, it is hard to figure out. You came to a forum dedicated to the game that only people who play it a lot would come to and ask us if you should play it. Makes no sense to me. None of it. I would recommend absolutely not installing it though, since I can’t imagine whatever you disliked about it to begin with has changed.

Kiba.9743:

I’m probably one of the few who liked the sword the way it was.

Not few, many (most?) ranger mains preferred the old animation. The new animation is clearly better for ranger newbies, which are a massively bigger demographic, though. Spilled milk and all, though…

My response wasn’t salty either, I really don’t understand why you’d uninstall and not just play it yourself.

People read electronic communications in whatever mood they’re in at the moment. If you’re in a salty mood, you’ll read responses as salty.

jesse.3680:

what do you mean by ‘power-based defense’?

Power (and/or precision) as a stat and then some toughness and/or vitality and/or healing power.

If you use LB and take some defensive utilities you really shouldn’t need defensive gear though.

Lynx or any other cat is a good substitute for euthy’s tiger suggestion. Generally you want to avoid bears because they do bad damage.

Most people try to go almost entirely power or almost entirely condi, which really boosts your damage and lets you pick matching runes and equipment. Superior runes of the ranger are what you’re looking for, or runes of the eagle for a cheap version. For armor, try to get berserker’s as a main stat, and supplement it with some power-based defense if you just can’t stay alive. Use karma, dungeon tokens, WvW badges, crafting, TP, I think guilds offer some armor? PvP reward tracks do… you don’t need to go all gold on the TP basically.

Edit: My lazy-mode PvE skills are signet of stone, signet of renewal, and either lightning reflexes or the druid damage glyph. You’ll want signet of the hunt if you don’t have the druid speed buff trait though.

Edit 2: This is pretty close to what your typical open world power druid will play, as a reference:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJATRnUqA1silsA+rActgFDBjJAsuaAPbhYQODerOWLrlMlwA-TxBFABAcFAuSJYhq/kmuAkU+JwjAAo9HAA-e

I don’t understand why people uninstall. Memory is practically free, I couldn’t possibly download more software than my HD can hold before comcast called their gestapo on me.

Tragic Positive.9356:

@Fluffball
Without a proper way to fight Confusion, Burning, Torment and Bleeding – it’s more than just difficult to rely on shouts.
Glyph cleanse make you stationary that usually results in more damage taken than avoided.
If you take 4 shouts and 1 traited glyph, that’s 5 condi cleansed for using every single utility you have, heal included (I never use shouts for condi cleanse. I use them at strategic situations – so having cleanse on it is a bonus, not a feature to rely on). For 5 conditions cleansed by blowing all 5 of the utilities.
That’s even less conditions cleansed than using Lyssa runes (you can cleanse the roulette 1 condi more frequently, tho).

I think you’re looking at the pieces of my condi clear and not the full picture.

I don’t think it works for me because I’m a vet, I think it’s a legit condi clear setup. If a new ranger posted that build I would tell them they have way more than enough condi clear. And there are a few other ways to clear condis I’m not using, like you mentioned lyssa, or purity sigils, bears, HS, spirit bla blah blah. If someone wants to take PM they can definitely make it happen.

The only thing PM blocks is EB and WK, and next to no one uses those anyway. I’m already taking more condi clear than most do and I have room for PM if I wanted it.

The biggest factor is this:

HeadCrowned.6834:

Poison master isn’t viable, as the damage increase of only 25% for a GM trait is not worth it. Hidden Barbs is much better in comparison.

PM is obsolete since the condi change.

Tragic Positive.9356:

No one’s really gonna use poison master in PvP if he isn’t brain-dead or doesn’t care about winning, at all.
In this season with so much conditions flying around and with our condi cleanse being at 0K instead of being OK – poison master is not viable.

I definitely disagree with it not being viable, but I’m not sure it would be optimal either.

The reason I know it’s viable in any division is because I use trooper runes, SoR, DC, generosity sigil, and either 1 glyph or NS for my condi cleanses in both last season and this. That’s a lot of condi removal and leaves more than enough room for poison master.

But WK is tough to compete with, especially in condi builds. PM might compete if they changed our condi builds, the changes would have to be looked at. Poison on autoattack would be awfully tempting.

Sismis.5390:

Serious this forum is a joke every person looks like has some emotional stress and comes shoots all over forum.

Like you? Nice temper tantrum because I answered a question. Calm down, good lord.

Because it encourages people to play ranked on builds they don’t know. Same with those stupid profession achievements.

That’s not a very appealing offer. Do you have a webazine? Are you a PvP official tournament player or PvE speed clear guild leader? Do you have a portfolio of interviews? Sell yourself man. Everyone would love to talk to anet about rangers, but your post has zero appeal to anyone, and you come across hostile and arrogant. For the sake of the ranger community, make a better offer!

Serious.7083:

Rangers are still very strong in PvE but weak in solo WvW/PvP.

What? No. Rangers are one of — if not the best — 1v1 classes in the game and have been for 4 years. It was in group combat that ranger slows down, but druid helped with that.

You’re doing it right. You get either experience or straight up level-ups (from PvP and WvW) from doing literally everything. Just enjoy.

Ananeos.4587:

http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Mesmer_-_PU_Condi_Roamer

I (inexplicably since I don’t know anything about mesmer) came up with the chronomancer version of that build for PvP, after failing (really, really badly) at the more meta builds.

I take healing and elite well, decoy, blink, and portal. Generosity and earth on scepter, generosity and torment on staff, rabid amulet.

It seems to be doing ok, but are there any totally obvious improvements for PvP? Or is this just a bad idea in general? I’m never going to be a good PvP mesmer but it’s one of the more interesting alts for getting the profession achievements done.

Am I wasting time and should learn the meta build, or can this work past sapphire where I was forced to start the season?

displacedTitan.6897:

True story right here, you can tell who has worked for a corporate and who hasn’t if they think 200k is expensive for advertising and marketing.

Even a simple 4 page info brochure costs us $10k or more, and that’s just the printing of it. Anet would need to pay web programmers, creative directors, project managers, production managers, etc. They may have those currently on staff with lots of downtime, but that seems unlikely (and costing wasted money.)

There is a reason advertising agencies are known for a) massive salaries b) extravagant parties with lots of drugs and booze, and c) working 90+ hour weeks.

I work in marketing for a living. A few years ago I put together an online advertising campaign that cost over 2 million dollars in ad space that the overwhelming majority of viewers ignored (any click through is a good result and the clients spend ludicrous amounts of money, so the company deemed it a good result.)

Pro league is cheap advertising. Really, really, really cheap.

Post what server you’re on and someone from these forums will probably help you in-game where it’s easier to see what to do.

WvW is also a sandbox mode. PvP achieves complexity by being heavily regulated, WvW lets you do anything. If you want to make a group stealth thief and run in a party with 4 rifle berserkers using all 3 types of consumables and full ascended glass gear, and 1 hit kill entire groups coming out of spawn, that’s fair game.

They’re just different game modes, PvP basically has a damage cap anf through a huge variety of sources you can get way more damage in WvW. You just need to plan for it. Even if ascended gear was removed you’d still have people spiking you for fatal amounts.

I am pretty much the worst JP player in all of GW2, and I did it after about 10 tries. If I can do it anyone can.

Lots of places, the number will be different for every build. But the general concept is damage over time takes… time. Think about bonfire vs maul. Bonfire is the more damaging skill but it takes longer to see that. Maul could be “0 cast time” if you start before you arrive at the target.

I would either check the dungeon/raid/fractal forum or just ask the guys there for more info. Those tend to be the math folks since PvE has 1 “right” answer and PvP is a lot more complicated.

I think this is a problem with the foundations of GW2. Anyone can be reasonably effective in PvP, just point your reaper in the right direction and you’ll probably kill something. But to become more than just effective, to be good, you have to understand a ludicrous amount of information. There are how many traits and utilities and weapon skills and profession mechanics? Thousands? And everything is all going off at the same time if a blinding flash of graphics. And you need to understand more than the effects, but when people are likely to use abilities and why. (“He just swapped weapons and used a profession mechanic, he must have just used his condi clear, could I can put a condi bomb on him? But the ele next to him has stabilty and a group condi cleanse ready.”)

To make sense of PvP is sort of insane. So most people are just mildly effective (“I feel like using my condi bomb, let’s see what happens.”) and don’t really understand everything that is going on.

Mightybird.6034:

Rotate them between w/ mains so I don’t drop too much.

Ha, that actually didn’t occur to me to do like 5 games on main, 1 on alt, 5 main etc. The number of alt games needed are so low so I was like “surely I can win 1 game.” And then get furious and keep trying and trying to win just 1 game.

Hopefully I can dig myself out of this hole with my main. If not, kitten it.

Burn.5401:

What’s the point of this thread? You played classes you never played before and you lost a lot of games because of that.

The point is that it was a question, as was pretty clearly stated in the title! I was asking what other people’s experiences were. The point of the thread has turned into a warning for others though.

If I’d started out in amber I don’t think this would have been a problem. Maybe I just need to wait for the bad players to make it to sapphire.

Going after that stupid backpiece took me from a 80% or whatever win ratio last season to now being about 5 and 30 in my games over the weekend. Totally ridiculous. I assume I can never play ranked again because I messed up the matchmaking so badly (?).

Purity is a good generosity substitute when you don’t have crit chance.

GS + staff is outstanding for open world because of the mobility. For dungeons I’d definitely take sword because GS and staff are both low damage. For mid level fractals GS staff might be reasonable as support? I don’t run fractals anymore.

I assume you mean WvW? Hard to go wrong with on crit sigils like blood, air, fire, and generosity. I’d probably take generosity and blood in your case. It sounds like your crit chance might not be too high though?

I like bloodlust on one weapon because it’s pretty easy to get max stacks in WvW.

Staff does moderate power damage because it attacks so quickly and triggers sigils, GS + staff is a PvP/WvW build. (I mean it’s still sort of crap, but it does all right. It’s a utility weapon.)

Before HoT, I often roamed WvW with s/d + GS. And s/a + GS is a reasonable dungeon running build. Open with swoop and maul, then swap to sword.

Kalarchis.8635:

Do you not make and gear alts? I could have hit 500 Jeweler twice over with all the exotic trinkets I’ve made.

I have enough ascended rings and accessories to gear my alts twice over. Actually a lot more than twice, I could gear up about 30 characters in full ascended accessories. Rings drop like candy in fractals and chests, and laurels and badges have little use other than gearing up.

I think I read somewhere that the breakpoint for when condi beats power is if the fight lasts 30 seconds or more. That’s probably not the right number, but the general idea is sound.

Ryou.2398:

Long ago I tried ranger but just could not stand the longbow style

Have you tried melee ranger? It’s the best thing about the class for me, and is meta or at least viable in all 3 game modes. Sword + GS, or staff + GS.

I used it to craft some platinum ingots the other day for my Astralaria.

I’ve plummeted so far in the rankings I’m losing nearly 100% of my matches to emerald players. Is this really not going to affect me when I go back to my main, I won’t be on idiot teams?

Edit: This is no longer a “am I making a mistake” thread, this is a “I made a huge mistake thread”. I’m at like 1-15 in my last few games. I should have done the profession achievements before I progressed to a high rank.

This is worse than faming PvE, I am never doing ranked again after I get these wins.

Berserker LB, hide behind pet, win.

You’re right it’s a PitA.

It’s not held on every version of the map though, so check LFG. Or make one that says “looking for Dwayna event map” or something.

What I did was park a character there and then just log in every now and then to see if it was going on.

It’s not a beginning of the fight type of skill, that you’re right will get you melted. But after everyone blows their wad, we have enough AF to turn on the AoE damage. 3-5-3 on rezzes, stomps, people healing, etc.

CA5 is the cat’s pajamas, what are you even talking about wolfy? It does pretty much everything you could want a skill to do, damage, hard CC, soft CC, AoE, stab…

Archon.6480:

Rev is broken OP, so that should go faster than thief…

This is what annoys me most about seasons. I’ll probably go for revenant and warrior, just like every other player out there. Seasons encourage people to play stupid builds like last season’s reaper and condi mesmer, and then you wound up with 8 reapers in a single match. Rather than legendary/unranked where you play what you enjoy and have 7 different builds in a single match.

/offtopic