Guild Wars 2

Holy smokes, I just realized my ranger is my only human female. Never heard “Bam!” before or now.

Well we got the cool idea of wyverns, and they’re even more useless than bears…

My vote for our next pet option is a rotting carcass of a pet. It as a permanent poison field, but it doesn’t move from the map start location.

ChavaStark.9147:

2 weeks, and I have 2 new 80s from playing wvw, and leveled with tomes, I say wvw is a good option if you like it.

Going that route is best used as a “I’m playing this level 80 character and just saving the tomes for when I feel like leveling another.” WvW levels don’t come fast and furious unless you’re K-training, and that’s a pretty unique case (like the other teams have given up for the week). I solo roam and have only earned 2 or 3 WvW levels in the past couple weeks, which is utterly beyond useless as far as leveling.

A better question is are there any PvP builds that don’t use staff.

MrAlice.2561:

Fluffball.8307:

you occasionally get level up tomes.

Is this earned randomly?

Thank you for the reply.

You get them at regular intervals from the reward tracks.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/WvW_Reward_Track

For example:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Kryta_Reward_Track

You can’t gain levels at all in WvW, but you occasionally get level up tomes. It’s not a great way to level.

If you plan to make more than 2 legendaries, you’ll need a second character with map completion. There are far better ways to make money though.

Yes, but you can’t just join some random PUG. Either find a learning group or find an organized group that knows you’re new. PUG raids are looking for people that already know their stuff.

Jewler is useless on any profession. Ascended jewelry from various sources is literally cheaper than crafting exotic jewelry.

Crafting is basically only useful if you want to main that armor class (thief, ranger, engi) for ascended, or if you just find it fun to make your own gear as you level. Otherwise you can get free gear from hearts, or just buy super cheap stuff off the trading post.

Also legendaries require certain crafting disciplines if you’re into that.

I’d say Arah might be better for condi. Any other dungeon is almost unquestionably better for power. The “boss” fights in things like CoF or CoE are over in less than 10 seconds even with a mediocre team.

Viper’s is more of a raids/high level fractals kind of thing. The longer the fight lasts, the better condi does and the worse power does. The shorter the fight lasts, the more useless condi is.

DH, ya, I’ll kick a DH’s booty all day every day. I’ve been saying for months, guardians REALLY got shafted with that elite spec. Been total garbage since day 1 and it got even worse with the update.

I can’t comment on warrior, I haven’t played PvP since the update. Unless something has drastically changed, we are competitive, ya. Would be weird to see a pure melee ranger vs pure melee warrior.

But anyway, we digress, carry on thread! :P

For solo, you’re not going to find an easier playstyle anywhere in the game than sitting at range in berserker armor with a LB and a pet tanking for you. So ya, that build is fine.

You’ll almost certainly customize your utilities and possibly traits to fit your playstyle. If you’re like me, sitting at range and doing nothing is not particularly exciting, so you may want something like signet of renewal to help you with poison in HoT as you go melee (just an example.)

Most of us that play a lot make regular adjustments to our builds based on the content, whether that be dungeons, a particular zone of open world, raids, etc. Just small tweaks can make a huge difference. But ya, that build is a good start.

Kokomi.7183:

every other melee oriented class is better than them at it whether you like it or not.

I don’t “like it or not”. It sounds like you are arguing because I disagree with you.

Ranger is not worse than other melee builds, in fact I would present we have potentially the best melee build in the game after a the clearly OP herald. Although even herald is not out of our league. (I’m talking WvW/Dueling here, because there isn’t a good reason to run double melee ranger in PvP. If there were, we could do well.)

1) Ranged DPS is not wanted in dungeons. You need to be within ~ 600 units of each other to share buffs, and you also want to do cleave damage from melee if applicable (it is for ranger).

2) Dungeon fights are very anti-condi. Dungeons are obsolete from waaaaaaay before the current power creep, so boss fights are over in mere seconds, if that. You want power rather than condi.

3) What that means is you want i something close to this: http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Druid_-_S/A_LB_Power

4) Pet don’t have same stats as you so tiger vs lynx is independent of what you’re running. Lynx is a condi (hybrid, it does a LOT of power damage) pet, but you can run a condi pet as a power ranger.

Disclaimer: You can run anything you want in dungeons and still succeed and have fun. I’m talking about fast, effortless runs and with builds that PUGs will expect you to have. But in this era or power creep, it doesn’t really matter. Condi ranger in full ascended viper’s will obliterate dungeons, just to a lesser degree than full ascended berserker’s.

Kokomi.7183:

you don’t want to pull a Warrior, Reaper, DH or Scrapper to you, you are not going to beat these classes in melee range and Thief, Mesmer etc will just blink away and stealth the moment you pull them.

I disagree with this premise. It’s basically the same thinking as saying “well thieves can stealth, there is no point fighting because I can’t kill him.”

Picture this: You wolf KD into pet taunt into wolf fear into LB 4 into axe 4 into GoE into GoT into CA3 into CA5 into quick draw whatever, etc. Obviously a hypothetical situation, but this is how you beat thieves and mesmers and necros.

People have this misconception that necros are pure death in melee range, and that thieves and mesmers can’t be locked down. Thieves and mesmer can actually be locked down quite easily, you just have to intend to do it. You can’t randomly hit them with a lucky axe 4 and lock down a mesmer.

StickerHappy.8052:

Oh yea, FrouFrou, sounds like a love story between you two XD, does she still play?

No idea. I see her post from time to time but she’s not on my contact list or anything. Check with her not me! :P

StickerHappy.8052:

Osicat, I thought he was your guildie from JUDGE

That’s FrouFrou. She and I are old school double melee fans together back when s/d + GS was hip and edgy, but that’s where the connections end.

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

I highly doubt that the lesbian relationship here changed one single mind re RL acceptance.

Let’s also be sure not to confuse your good point about the stupidly named SJWs with the fact that anet did some decent writing with the lesbian relationship. They did not call attention to it; it just existed, like you wanted. Very tasteful IMO.

I thought the sylvari “same sex” relationships were beyond perfect, they didn’t even acknowledged that it was slightly unexpected. Absolutely perfect.

StickerHappy.8052:

Please do. Thanks Fluffy. Btw, does Osi still play?

No you have to look first haha. Go back to 3 years-ish ago and look for something like “zoo” or “summon” in the title. Honestly it’s not worth it. He took like pet whistles and ele summons and blah blah blah. The traits are not even remotely like what they are now. The value of the video is only in the concept and nostalgia.

https://www.youtube.com/user/WoodenPotatoes

Who is Osi?

StickerHappy.8052:

Tragic Positive.9356:

Dolyak (Greenz)
Mad King (Birds)
Pirate / Rock Dog (Zoo)
You also might be able to spawn the mist wolf yourself with Rune of the Pack (+WH +Clarion Bond) – not tested, just an idea crossing my mind.

Anyway you could make a zoo build for general pve map completion?

Wooden Potatoes (semi annoying semi interesting hardcore YTer) made a zoo build for ele like 3 years ago. It’s 100% viable and even effective. Just take a bunch of kitten and overwhelm the open world enemies. Probably good for when you’re drunk.

If you’re really interested and can’t find it yourself, I can probably find the video. It’s blatantly obvious though, just take every available summon and pet and etc.

Speaking of charr, I think a trans charr would be insanely interesting. They’d have to get a tail implant. I don’t mean that as a joke even, it’s just an interesting thought.

Also this thread is totes getting shut down if we bring Russia into the discussion. Russia… good grief.

Your question has been pretty thoroughly answered, but I’ll just add that it’s not entirely having the ability. You need to either consciously think about moving faster at every opportunity, or just be really experienced with it and do it subconsciously as many vets do.

For example, rangers with the skill Lightning Reflexes often do an about face and then hit the skill, which will move you forward rather than the normal backwards. That’s something that takes some practice, but if you want the speed, it’s there. (If you do it badly it will actually slow your character down.)

Every single profession has these weird little movement speed quirks like I just described. You can either take the easy route and just rely on swiftness, or you get into the habit of eking out every little bit of speed. That is critical in PvP and WvW.

If I can consistently land axe 4 before the update, you better friggen be able to land it after the update. Learn to use your pets, people.

You can use LB/staff in addition to Rizo’s suggestion. And regen from shouts also ticks up AF. Edit: Regen from any of your sources, I mean shouts are an easy way to get a lot of regen out.

Oops, ya I guess I meant fractals. I’ve been running dungeons a bit again and I really don’t even care WTH people are using anymore because everything dies so fast to elite specs.

Tragic Positive.9356:

Assuming our highest DPS set uses hybrid weapons – it’s not that bad of an option.

Axe/torch + shortbow? Is SB back to being a thing in dungeon running since the buffs?

WvW and PvE save their builds now, so you don’t need to worry about swapping unless you want to change armor. You already know the PvE build; spotter, frost spirit, possibly sun spirit, and blah blah blah.

WvW, if you want to use zerker, I would take skirmishing (quick draw), BM (shout trait and taunt trait, GS trait if you want that over staff), and druid for self-sustain or small group sustain. Yes even with no healing power it has excellent utility. Just look at the traits and they will be obvious, you really can’t go wrong with druid if you’re at all familiar with the game. Edit: I mean this literally, there are NO bad druid traits. Pick the ones you like/need.

S/A or S/D for offensive and defense, respectively. MH axe isn’t really a power weapon, it’s condi or hybrid.

I misread the title as “Suggestion: Water Spirit Twerk” and got excited about the skill for the first time in years.

Game forums have an interesting life span. You can be incredibly interested in a game, but already know “everything” about it and thus have nothing to discuss on forums. For example I love playing Civ4, but there really isn’t much to talk about at this point, 11 years after it came out.

Serious question: What’s the difference between “super serious” and “for fun” runes? Don’t you just pick one that matches your build? Is for fun picking one that doesn’t accomplish your goals, like self-imposed penalties?

Substance E.4852:

So the idea is to discuss a set of hypothetical nerfs to a class after the entire game roster has already gone through a significant set of earlier hypothetical nerfs?

What exactly was the goal here?

Ya this thread is just asking for trouble. Trolls and devs that don’t play ranger don’t need to be reading this. When the devs release a full list of nerfs to all 9 elite specs (never going to happen), we can talk.

Orr is pretty much the only place in core Tyria that teaches you to remove conditions. Try taking a condition removal on a reasonable cooldown and I think you’ll find fights a good bit easier.

Tragic Positive.9356:

I was mostly speaking overall.

That’s exactly I no longer use it. It’s very good at everything, but not the best at anything. I prefer to use 2 specialized pets that are better at what they do. That way when I swap to a pet, I’m getting the most out of the reason I swapped to that pet.

Tragic Positive.9356:

SmokeScale is the best PvP pet you can get.

Smokescale is in the highest tier along with bristleback, wolf, drake, spider, and arguably raven. You can’t directly compare those pets because they do different things.

There have been a few regulars that advocate for that trait. They tend to get told ’it’s not viable’ and then stop posting ideas.

I’ll have to give it a whirl. I feel the SB is in the same boat; it’s ‘common knowledge’ it isn’t viable, but I think that’s just because a lot of us don’t like the playstyle. I don’t think it’s unusable by any means, and it was even the metabattle ranger build right up till HoT release.

bearshaman.3421:

Whether a weapon is hybrid or not has nothing to do with how you use it. A knife doesn’t cease being sharp because you decided to cut your bread with the back side of it. If the weapon has a mix of good power and condi options in its set of skills, it’s a hybrid weapon. Period. You can use it for a pure power or condi build, but the fact that you can use it for both only proves what I said.

You said that viper or sinister were hybrid, and made no mention of axe. Axe is clearly hybrid, but a viper ranger using axe in PvE is pure condi.

Totally useless semantics, but whatever.

Tragic Positive.9356:

I’m actually fairly satisfied with it’s current functionality. The velocity is much better than it used to be and I can predict it’s target area now.

Samsies, axe offhand is quickly becoming one of my favorite weapons.

bearshaman.3421:

Guys, any build that uses Viper, Sinister, Rampager, Carrion, Celestial, and a couple others is a Hybrid build, because you traited for high Power and Condition Damage. If you only need condi, use Dire (and some other ones that don’t have power as a stat).

The reason viper and sinister are used in PvE is because defense is a wasted stat. Even if the power only increases your damage 1%, it’s better than having extra defense that is 100% wasted. You can almost argue the extra power is wasted on many professions condi builds, but it’s better than defense. And obviously viper gets you the critical 100% condi duration, the power is even less relevant there.

You can add as much power as you want to a torch, it’s not a hybrid weapon. Axe isn’t hybrid if you’re not using the autoattack in PvE. It’s hybrid when you use the autoattack in PvP and have power. Nearly all of your damage comes from condis = condi build.

Substance E.4852:

Considering two to three of our weapons have pretty much all their damage on the auto, it’s not hard to see why people think this way.

Ya that’s a fun trip down memory lane. Ranger used to be heavily weight towards autos. SB was the required PvP weapon, sword was PvE, LB was “useless” and RF was a DPS loss compared to auto.

GS had an even lower auto than it does now with a 3-target maul, axe did literally nothing… those were the days.

Justine.6351:

Comparing simply aa,

The staff aa is “strong” in its attrition. Its impossible to blind or weave a beam attack that’s ticing over 2x a second and pierces.

Longbow aa you can blind and weave most of its dmg short of the ranger just standing still and letting their character auto-face. Not to mention the level of projectile hate ingame atm.

So which aa is better?
-Longbow aa @ >1200-2000 range.
-Staff aa @ 0-<1200 range.

But in truth the better aa is the one that comes with what you need on said weapon set.
-dmg/stealth/cc/aoe cc
-heals/mobility/projectile hate

Which aa is better is irrelevant.

throw hands in air THIS

Why the hell is anyone uses the autoattack on those weapons for anything other than filler. You use the weapon for the WEAPON, not autoattack. Get off GW2 if you’re using staff auto as your attack of choice.

Why is modern culture so complainy?

Potent Poison made more sense (ignoring our condi removal) when rangers were among the best at poison application. Poison was insanely powerful to the point many PvP builds used a doom sigil just to get access to it. Since the condi change, no one cares about small stacks of poison application every now and then.

That trait is a relic, basically.

Huh?

One of the single lowest damage weapons in the entire game =/= “a ton of damage”.

You let me know when you kill someone on staff auto. It’s quite literally impossible if the person isn’t AFK.

I don’t see much value in looking only at the autoattack though. No one uses only the autoattack. It’s nice to know if you’re being useless while eating a sandwhich that staff auto might be better, but… who cares in a realistic scenario where you’re barely using the AA at all.

If someone can create a level 80 build that loses to a level 15 enemy while doing absolutely positively nothing but autoattacking, I would be impressed.

Stand in front of level 15 wolf, autoattack, go watch Game of Thrones. If you lose the fight, you win the challenge.

What’s especially hysterical is this guy is talking about core Tyria maps. Er, ya. Level 80 maps are a joke in core Tyria and this guy can’t handle Wayfarer Foothills.

I hate it when people cry troll to anyone with a dissenting opinion, but I think that’s what this is.

Lb has far better realistic damage though. The AA on both weapons does basically nothing. LB can put out actual damage when it counts.

OP, you’ve got quite the reputation for complaining.