Guild Wars 2

It’s never bothered me, and if it did, turning off the sound would solve the problem in less than a second. I just don’t see the need for developer time to be spent on it.

I held off buying it for a long time, but then realized going to stupid TGIFridays for dinner with the mrs. would cost me twice as much as buying the expansion, which I will enjoy for presumably years.

I thought it was still available for custom arenas. I wouldn’t mind say 2 more DM maps and a separate queue for that. The 3 games modes are not really compatible with each other because of builds.

I got them all on the first try. Are you in tanky gear? You might not be doing enough damage to get credit for killing her.

I have one hell of a time selecting the thing. Just mad clicking every where. But I don’t really mind other than that, I think people pretty much have it down at this point.

Dolt.2731:

Dolt.2731:

And druid counters DH quite well in my exp.

Good for you! So let’s not keep pummeling the druid. Has taken a lot of nerf bats to the face in it’s brief existence despite being far from as dominating as other specs/ classes go.

Did you just get in an argument with yourself?

Wouldn’t QZ be better replaced by sun spirit (perhaps relevant in raids)?

In PvE, everyone’s on the same “world” now, it’s called a megaserver. Crystal Desert is your WvW world.

You can try the LFG if you want to do meta events, world bosses, hero challenges, farming, etc. People tend to stack maps.

Doesn’t anet tend to reuse the body frames? Like tengu and charr have the same frame IIRC. I imagine karka, destroyer crabs, and chak all share the same frame.

You already did them, didn’t you?

That sounds like a ton of fun. Not that I’m volunteering, there are far better PvPers on here than me, and I don’t have a mic.

Though I get the feeling the end result will not be based on class but who has the better PvPers. Except for thieves, they’re going to get mutilated.

Steeldragon.7308:

What are you whining about? I’m downloading the 64 bit client now and I got over 26,000 files to go!

You don’t need to download the game dude, just put the exe in your GW2 folder.

Linken.6345:

Then dont do them mate

It’s so simple it might just be genius.

For what it’s worth, which is absolutely nothing at all, I loved the rabbit, egg, and maze missions.

Don’t you have an external speaker dial? My speakers sit on my desk with a volume knob on them.

Sure, here’s a flower for you.

@}-,-`-

I haven’t seen a lot of people using CA offensively, I like that you were.

There was a post on reddit about some guys who just starting playing GW2 finishing it.

Why have I never heard of the Boston Boys? Is that a forced rename?

Fluffball.8307:

Ranger is extremely easy in the open world, especially if you have LB on swap. I have only found 1 hero challenge that wasn’t easily solo-able by just brain-dead plinking away with a LB while hiding behind a cat, and that’s only because the cave was too small to maneuver. I probably could have gotten it with some practice, but whatever, someone came along.

Ya that’s what this was about.

It also gives you a clear view to see mechanics that can be awkward to see due to the camera in melee. Which means you can almost instantly learn tells and then apply them in melee the next time.

I can convince you to play druid in WvW, raids, or PvP. But for open world solo play, a group support character obviously isn’t going to be in his element. That said, it works just fine if you want to use it. The traits are not wasted on me, and if nothing else it’s an extra personal heal. Or even a heal for your pet, which I have used it for against things like champ teragriffs or chak. The ease of soloing champs with a LB goes away if you get your pet killed.

HoT is obviously more difficult than core Tyria, I just don’t see ranger as being a profession that’s affected by it much. For a zerker d/d ele? I imagine that’s rough if you’re not very good with it . But a newbie bearbow can waltz through HoT without really noticing what all the fuss is about.

If you find an out of the way spot where people don’t like to play you’ll get like 2000 bonus experience, so killing mobs can be a good way to level masteries. I also find it very relaxing and enjoyable, as well as profitable depending on where you are. Find some little cubby hole in Orr and have at it, Kessex Hills is too well-traveled.

Well… then don’t run druid. I’m not trying to convince you to, I want to practice the skills for raids or PvP and it’s fun to have new toys.

The whole “I saw this” “no I saw this” is boring. We’re having a different experience, but neither of us have any metrics.

Scrimschaw.5784:

You may find it hard to believe, but you ARE in a very small minority if you are having no trouble with the new content

I do find it hard to believe because you are assuming your statement is true. Other than the whining posts in the HoT forum — which is par for the course on these forums no matter what the topic — neither one of us have much evidence of how well people are doing. I find other players soloing events all the time, and I’m not seeing the floor littered with bodies. I’ve stumbled across quite a few people soloing champs.

It may be that inexperienced players have been driven from the new content and now only competent players remain, or people simply adapted. Who knows. I definitely don’t find the new open world content harder than say, high level fractals or even some dungeon paths so I did not adapt to anything other than learning the new AI attacks.

And you’re sort of right, druid isn’t adding much to my build, but it’s not taking away much either. I want to practice with the new skills and the traits and utilities can be very useful. The movement boost is amazing for open world and the healing even in full zerk is enough for escort missions that can fail, like that cannon thing in TD. I have more than enough damage to complete everything, so: “why not?”

It’s not a very good PvE pet. I mean run whatever you want, but it’s always been a PvP-focused pet with low damage and very high utility. Cats blow it out of the water for PvE.

That’s pretty sweet. I like the hammer a lot as well. There aren’t many good hammer skins.

Got a PM about how to solo champs and events in HoT, so I figured I’d share my answer. This is not a new build, but it may be helpful to others.

“I use a jungle stalker, traited WHaO, clarion bond and zephyr’s speed, which means you can get 22 stacks of might on both you and your pet and reasonable quickness length without even using strength of the pack. That makes your damage go WAY up. Just keep spamming WHaO whenever your pet has might on it, you can maintain quite high stacks through the fight, and it keeps your 2 cats alive by swapping every 16 seconds or so (don’t swap if one has a lot of might and isn’t low on health of course.)

I’m also in 100% ascended gear with power infusions, that makes a huge difference (especially the weapons), but I’m sure you can pull it off with exotics as well.

Finally definitely take at least 1 stun breaker or invuln for if you mess up kiting something. A lot of champs will chain you, so if you get CCd, their next attack might kill you.

Oh, if you’re comfortable with sword, warhorn can help your might stacking as well. GS can get you easy fury and is easier to use though. I’ve been using both depending on mood. I have bloodlust on my sword to further bump my damage."

Scrimschaw.5784:

If you’re having an easy time sustaining yourself while soloing events and exploring in in HoT maps in Zerker or Viper stats, you are among a very small minority. If you’re implying there is no opportunity for solo play in the new maps, I would argue otherwise. As a solo dungeoneer and fractal player, I can assure you that there are challenging solo options in PvE, even if you choose not to take them.

There is also the issue of CAF generation being strongly influenced by Staff use, especially in solo play. This is why I mentioned using staff. If you can’t generate enough CAF to enter Avatar form, there is no point in using the Druid trait line at all for solo play.

I am in full zerk gear and not having any trouble, but I really don’t think I’m in the minority. Ranger is extremely easy in the open world, especially if you have LB on swap. I have only found 1 hero challenge that wasn’t easily solo-able by just brain-dead plinking away with a LB while hiding behind a cat, and that’s only because the cave was too small to maneuver. I probably could have gotten it with some practice, but whatever, someone came along.

I power CA via WHaO. It’s very rare I need it, so building it once every 45 seconds or so it fine.

Scrimschaw.5784:

Solo Druid is quite weak at the moment, especially with the nerf to Lingering Light, poor staff damage, and inconsistent CAF generation. By themselves, Druids do not have good damage or self-sustain. You can use base Ranger traits/utilities (Wilderness Survival, Nature Magic, etc.) to help with the sustain, but this means you lose more damaging trait lines and your DPS is even lower.

I’m confused. You don’t need any sustain at all for open world (which is the only place in PvE you’d be solo obviously.) There also isn’t any reason you have to use staff on druid.

You can run a normal viper or zerker ranger with utility on druid, like the 33% move speed.

My pet died in PvE today and I was flabbergasted.

Players, especially groups of them, put out way more damage than AI enemies. The raid boss in the beta had something like 22 million health, and players have 13k-ish. A WvW zerg puts out ludicrous amounts of damage.

Black Box.9312:

The shadowleapers hit for an insane amount of damage when coming out of stealth. I don’t mind this too much; it’s annoying, but as long as you pay attention you can definitely avoid it. What I really, really, REALLY don’t like is the passive chance that ranged attacks will automatically miss them. There is absolutely no reason for this. Please get rid of it.

Is it passive? I haven’t been missing attacks on them except when they do their evade moves. It must be extremely low if it’s just straight up passive.

Of course it’s viable. Don’t you see thousands of rangers and druids every day?

Should be totally fine for open world PvE but zerker is going to do more damage. I don’t think you need that amount of condi removal. Poison master would be better if you’re using sinister, or use skirmishing instead, which is just great for PvE.

I think I’d drop the spirit for SotH. The spirit is going to get left behind a lot, and you’re very slow the way you have it.

Unrelenting Assault will probably get nerfed as well.

morrolan.9608:

Self selected polls are never statistically significant.

It’s the only option we have. All polls are self select on the internet. The people who weren’t able to self select for it probably don’t care or play at a level that matters for pet controls. The people who care about ranger enough to check out the forums overwhelmingly wanted it the way it is now.

It’s absolutely ridiculous people care where other players get experience from. If someone wants to grind mobs for 12 hours straight, that doesn’t affect you at all.

Why do we have to be Eura fan boys if we agree with him? The pet is objectively better now, in every way you could want it to be. Better DPS and better utility.

I’ve literally never been on a map that was attempting the meta that didn’t finish with plenty of time to spare. Not once.

DrJingles.6257:

Do you think 300ish people represent the entire population of pvp rangers? That’s an honest question.

It’s definitely statistically significant, and it was so overwhelmingly lopsided that it really says a lot. Anet got this one right.

LegallyBinding.4937:

BOOO, terrible change Anet. You killed a great pet by giving into forum warriors that DO NOT represent the vast majority of players in this game.

Based on Heimskarl’s poll of a few hundred, people overwhelmingly wanted the smoke field on F2. Where are you getting your data from?

It was definitely never a leap finisher.

Really happy about this. I wasn’t expecting it to get fixed for months.

OMG they actually fixed it! Yay!

If I remember right the engi DPS rotation is like 46 steps.

Condi ranger will probably be acceptable in raids. It has very high damage.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Which sucks. I used to get asked all the time after RA matches what I was running, I used to run some pretty weird stuff. R/Me Echo Debilitating Shot with Seeking Arrows was one that comes to mind and it was pretty devastating against the spell casters, especially Monks.

No really unique builds in GW2, unfortunately, it has been dumbed down so people cannot make useless builds, pretty much. GW1 was the thinking man’s MMO, imo.

Ya I have a big gripe with the new trait system. Oh well, life goes on.

I keep repeating myself but don’t spend money IMO until we learn what is needed from raid druids. 900 gold on ascended clerics gears is going to look real stupid if zerker druids are meta.

No one has a secret build, I promise you. There are 9 druid traits… 9.

No one is a unique flower that has found something no one else has. :P

Fellfoot.8156:

stuff

Ok, sounds interesting, I will check it out.

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