Sure. I meant try to sneak in, thus the comment about neuting it. Usually the home point holder moves to mid after they see no one is rushing and the enemy far point holder isn’t moving forward (which you are, just slowly). If you can hold their far neuted against the returning defender and 1 respawner, that’s a huge win for your team.
If someone is on the point you should be able to tell from the minimap and counting, and at least defend the route to your home.
With a bunker, you have to plop them in the spot where they’re most likely to be attacked. If no one ever comes to your home while you sit there, you’re in a heap of trouble.
I think he meant far is more likely to see action than close, especially if the other team knows there is a bunker there (at your home). It could cost your team the game if they just 4v5 the other points (and many PUGs will tell their members to not try for far at all in the beginning.)
I think I’d take close at start, and then move to far as soon as possible, even if to just neut it indefinitely. The other team tends to get a lot more aggressive about taking far, especially if 2 people respawn. That could lead to a 3 cap for your team if you’re stalling multiple players and can get some backup.
Anywho, looks like a fun build. I think I’ll give it a whirl.
If you search youtube you’ll find a video of some dude soloing lupi a few years ago on an axe build. It takes him like 20 minutes, so I’m not sure that’s the best idea, despite the big power creep. I think Brazil has a more recent video of him soloing lupi on a condi ranger??
I recommend s/d and GS. Use the GS for the block and maul and use the s/d for damage and the dagger evade. You can use 2 and 3 but getting the timing might be annoying unless you have a friend there to rez you as you practice (as you should or learning will take for-kitten-ever.)
IIRC there are a few videos on YT of rangers soloing P2, but I haven’t checked in many months. I know for a fact Brazil has some ranger videos using s/d, although I don’t think they are solo. I think Turtle Dragon who sometimes posts here may have put up a few videos of his guild soloing P2 on ranger. Edit: Now that I think about it, I think they used s/d and s/a to reflect lupi, on the old 64400 build.
That’s sort of the point though. Rangers poop out swiftness, fury, and regen and we always have. Many of the updated traits even acknowledged that (like giving warhorn regen so it has all 3.)
It really doesn’t matter how long or short the durations are for those boons, if we want them, we can have them.
It has 30 sec CD because the skill you guyz never used and probably never will use has the very same cooldown.
Blame warhorn, not the trait.
I think we can all get behind blaming warhorn. Such a bizarre weapon. It’s like making a really nice BLT sandwich and then putting orange juice all over it before serving.
My biggest problem with ranger now is definitely not the pet. As an (not meant to be real) example of how easy it would be to have everyone wanting a ranger in their PvE/PvP/WvW party, imagine if spotter increased the whole party’s damage by 30 percent? Boom, half of all ranger problems are solved. Now the ranger can spike targets, now we have a unique boon no one else can provide, now we have a reason to exist in team PvP fights, blah blah blah.
There are so many incredibly simple ways to fix ranger problems. Teleport to pet is functionally the same thing as the mesmer sword skill.
Disappointing, but not surprising. I think ranger morale is at an all time low now.
Mine is, but to be fair, first announced and last to be officially “revealed” kind of makes sense. Some other professions had it worse I think, like warriors that knew absolutely nothing until the reveal.
Nothing can kill a condi mesmer.
The only reason people play shatter instead of condi it’s cuz condi has huge ramp time and takes forever to deal damage, while shatter is 4,2,f1 and gg.
I die all the time on my dire cheese condi mesmer. It’s very strong, but it has weaknesses.
Human and sylvari feel like they are the size the skills were made for (if you get my meaning).
Ya, the norn, charr, and asura all disobey the Earth laws of physics when they move (on all professions really). Humans and slyvari look like gravity is a thing.
To answer your “subjective” questions, the ranger melee skills are totally bad kitten and the reason I mained the class (use to main thief 3 years ago.) You’ll know if you like them early on, because the “controversial” skill the is the 1 handed sword autoattack. Turn off the autoattack and hit the button each time you want to swing the sword. I’d level up to at least 10 or so using the sword so you don’t dismiss it immediately. You’re not going to like it right out of the gate.
Re: races, norn and charr have pretty cool sword animations I think mostly because they’re just bigger than other races and it’s fun to watch giants jump and spin around. There isn’t a ton of difference between them otherwise. I use a tiny human female and like how dexterous she looks using the sword.
The amulet restrictions do seem really harsh. I would have only banned settler. There are tons of builds that aren’t viable for a PvP match that work in duels.
My favorite by far is the asura female ‘entering combat’ line that goes “You’re dumb, you’ll die, and you’ll leave a dumb corpse” or something along those lines. So friggen adorable.
It makes no sense that a company would ignore its players and the issues with a class, since it literally takes money out of their pocket. There is no reason behind wanting a class to be sub-par to others.
And yet they have for years. I am almost certainly not going to buy HoT specifically because Anet has ignored rangers for year upon year upon year. Why would I pay for more of that? Everytime I log in I see “no rangers” in the LFG for PvP and PvE (no rangers in PvE, I didn’t even know this was a thing these days!) and guilds consistently post “we’re accepting all classes except ranger” in their WvW forums.
It does NOT make sense on anets part and I don’t understand why they keep doing it. With as much time as I’ve invested in this game I should be a solid lock on buying the expansion, and instead it’s a long shot that I buy it.
Still you will not need Signet of Renewal for condi removal, even on pug dungeons.
Under Skirmishing trait, Major Adept, there is 1 trait that is extremely valuable. Trapper’s Expertise. Yes, Healing Spring is a trap now. Your Healing Spring will be extremely OP, with virtually almost no downtime.
Often times I’ll get focused and need to use the heal for the heal, rather than group condi removal. Remember I’m talking LFG PUGs, so you need to both stay alive and keep the team alive, and can’t count on things like aegis.
At the very least I think we can agree enough thought has gone into this that you shouldn’t automatically kick someone running SoR. You kick imbeciles, not people that are trying to make the run as fast as possible.
In normal dungeons, there are no need for renewal and stone signet. So yep. Frost spirit is a must.
I didn’t meant SoR in place of FS, I meant SoR in PUG-survival situations in place of SotW or QZ.
I’ve seen too many PUGs get floored by that dredge boss and the CM bandit bleeds to trust PUGs to keep themselves alive. If we don’t have some obvious condi clear, I’ll take SoR.
LB power is your easiest time, watch for the reflect on evade thing and just run your booty off. Kill clones as much as possible. Shouldn’t be too bad.
Condi mesmer is the strongest general 1v1 spec in the entire game IMO, but power LB sort of counters it due to range and relatively high damage (i.e. clones die in 1 hit.)
Also disclaimer, I don’t play that much anymore but I’m not aware of anything having changed balance wise recently. I won’t be offended if this is out of date.
If I see a ranger using Signet of Stone or Renewal in PvE I call for a replacement straight away. And those are not rare.
I tend to run it for that dredge boss and I think it’s path 2 CM (sorry been over a year since I’ve run these regularly, run them like once every 3 months). In a PUG you can’t rely on condi clear and HS isn’t always enough for the party. You would kick me. Edit: I actually can’t think of a reason a ranger would run SoR other than for a specific reason. It doesn’t really have a passive effect in PvE.
Anywhos, I have effectively quit GW2 for the past few months because I only want to play ranger and Anet apparently doesn’t want me to play ranger. I got tired of being unwanted and/or subpar in. Every. Single. Game mode. Did something get updated that we are now top tier in PvE? Or is it that frost spotter is just pretty acceptable for PUGs? All I need is a single kitten game mode where I’m wanted….
Oh they moved this to the ranger forum. Just ignore this, fellow rangers. We already know all this stuff. I was throwing a temper tantrum in the general forum “for awareness”.
What’s ironic is that this kind of thread will be duly ignored by ANet , because of it’s unbecoming tone.
It’s not ironic. I’ve been playing ranger for several years now. There have been a lot of extremely well presented arguments by players at the extreme highest levels (including Eura, the only ranger to play on a WTS team who made a brief appearance in this thread) detailing very specific things that need changed. You can see the “0%” results we have today. Ya…………..
Are you saying that the top 20% of the playerbase appear in those tournaments. Maybe you’re talking about the top 2-3%?
Would you feel more comfortable asking the hundreds of competitive players in the dungeon forums about this? Let’s count the guilds that run rangers for competition? DnT? SC? KING?
This conversation is over. You’ve never heard of what I’m talking about in any of the 3 formats.
I’d say you’re making up numbers, because you don’t know the top 20% and can’t prove it’s 20%. And I still maintain there are professions that have as much right to complain that aren’t being played as often as ranger. Why is that less meaningful?
Oh joyousness, I can actually prove it. That’s what this all about. There are regular PvE and PvP tournaments officially held by Arena Net. Do you want me to pull the ranger numbers for the past 12 months? Cuz you will be severely disappointed.
Agreed. Fluffball is only looking for like-minded individuals. Not a discussion.
How would you contribute an answer to the fact that rangers aren’t used in the top 20% of any given game mode? Keep in mind the original question of “Is this a newbie class that vets are expected to move on from?”
High end WvW? lol. What exactly is that? Bigger zerg?
That’s not really how high end WvW works, no. No it’s not. This topic is NOT about ranger popularity and it’s not for people who don’t know the basics. If you can’t answer who won the most recent WTS, if you don’t know who DnT or HOPE is, this topic isn’t for you. Sorta repeating myself here.
Ranger was used in a WTS. It’s viable, but there just isn’t any reason to play on a team atm.
By whom? Oh wait you.
Eura is the officially highest ranked ranger we’ve ever had. I’m here to tell ya’ll it doesn’t work for PvE speed runs and it doesnt get asked to participate in high end WvW.
You could always form your own team, fill a slot with a ranger and give the class a purposeful role on your team, and maybe be competitive with said team? I don’t know how people start that crap up so that’s all on you but it’s possible, right?
It has been tried, at a VERY high level by VERY high skilled players, and it failed.
Okay, so highly competitive teams don’t use rangers. That is a very small fraction of the player base. Which is probably why they don’t seem to, at least openly, care about ranger representation in what we can loosely call an “e-sport”.
You could always form your own team, fill a slot with a ranger and give the class a purposeful role on your team, and maybe be competitive with said team? I don’t know how people start that crap up so that’s all on you but it’s possible, right?
So you do agree you think anet view ranger as a newbie class and doesn’t consider it viable for the top 20% or so of player competition?
Just a reminder:
If you want to talk about rangers use in the WTS, or their use in DnT speed runs, or in HOPE’s zerg busting, this topic is for you. If you are concerned that ranger is a fun class to kill the shadow behemoth with, this topic is not for you.
… one of these useless discussions, again … if you dont like playing ranger class – out of whatever reasons, dont do it, just play some other class you like more. But please let others play their favorite classes as well. What irks me about these tiring “Ranger discussions” is that a group with explicit minority interests is considtently complaining to Anet about a class they are not even playing. On the other hand, there are thousands of players out there who love playing their ranger.
I probably have several thousand more hours on ranger than you do. That’s what makes this topic relevant. My main is irrelevant in every single competitive mode.
Again because you and lot of others don’t get it:
RANGER IS FUN. IT IS VIABLE AND USED AT A ROUGHLY 0% RATE IN ALL HIGH LEVEL COMPETITIVE GAME MODES.
Opening question was: “Does Anet view this a newbie class?” meaning are they unwilling to make it competitive.
Given the fact the the ranger is one of the most popular professions I’m not really sure how this matters. That is to say, at least four professions, probably five, are less popular than the ranger.
Did you read the OP? I think Anet views ranger as a newbie class. It has been overwhelmingly and unobjectively rejected by the competitive community in every single game mode. Only in open world PvE does it flourish.
Consider that ranger is represented at 0% or close to 0% in the top competitive teams for PvP and PvE, and is unwelcome in WvW guilds to the point that “no rangers accepted” is a common statement seen on guild sites.
What percentage of the playerbase do you really think cares aobut numerical and mechanical facts. I’m guessing it’s a much smaller percentage than you think it is.
Look at the post subject again. If all you want is fun, perhaps ranger is for you. If you want to be a top competitor in PvP, WvW or PvE, ranger is not for you.
Ranger is fun, I have several thousand hours logged on one. This is not the point.
EDIT: For background, this was originally me throwing a temper tantrum in the general forum “for ranger awareness” so to speak, and was moved to the ranger forum after a while. It doesn’t make as much sense here.
Anet devs, do you consider ranger to be the newbie class, that gets people through content without really trying, but has a very hard, low cap?
Consider that ranger is represented at 0% or close to 0% in the top competitive teams for PvP and PvE, and is unwelcome in WvW guilds to the point that “no rangers accepted” is a common statement seen on guild sites.
Can we assume you intend for the profession to be “intro to GW2”? Should serious players move on after a while?
There is nothing at all wrong with using a bow and a bear if that’s what you enjoy playing. If anyone has a problem, then it’s ‘their’ problem, and they probably were not worth playing with anyway.
It’s a social and team game. At least everywhere other than open world (and even then it’s a team game more often than not.)
It’s like joining a 5 man dance squad and then purposely becoming morbidly obese. You have to consider how your behavior forces other people’s results. Even if they decide to stay on your dance squad because they value your friendship over success, you’ve eliminated their chance at success, which they might have wanted.
I would also argue there is nothing “fun” about a bear over any other pet, and rather it’s less fun because the bear doesn’t have any special attacks.
I would guess if you considered yourself a melee ranger and only used the SB for when your opponent kites out of range, it might be valid. Does SB compete with LB over the course of 8 seconds?
Without trying it, I suspect RF would do a lot more damage, but maybe the SB skills can contribute something worthwhile. Both weapons have an interrupt, one has an evade while the other has stealth. Both have a cripple that is applicable to melee fighting. The poison from SB is pretty short and probably can’t compete with a sigil of doom.
I think LB is the better pairing with a melee weapon, but I don’t think SB would be a total disaster. I can’t remember trying to roam with a berserker shortbow. It’s literally the only weapon I don’t have an ascended version of because I don’t particularly like it.
We’re definitely not the most mobile (especially in PvP where teles blow us completely out of the water.)
At some point who is more mobile becomes slightly irrelevant though, because most ranger builds can string together enough skills to get out of combat, which is really what movement speed is about (or getting IN combat I guess, if you’re trying to slow someone down.)
Almost dead in a zerg fight? Use your several movement or stealth skills all in a row to heal to full and then dive back in. Or run from a 1v1 when the WvW blob comes for you, and port out.
And as any ranger roamer will be able to tell you, we can’t keep up with the theif we’re roaming with, but we’re close enough behind that it doesn’t matter. He starts the camp like 20 seconds ahead of us.
Honestly, ATM thieves are very underwhelming. Since the trait changes, I havnt lost 1v1 vs a thief, even sruvived 1vs2 thives(which was the ultimate combo for fast killing) so I realy think they needed the power creep. For old builds you can look at the DD as better acrobatics, which will bring back the goold old S/D play. For new builds we’ll have to see.
I have not been playing much lately because I’m annoyed at GW2, but unless something has changed, thieves are required for a PvP team to be competitive. It’s literally the only profession you can’t do without.
“We feel rangers can dodge too much, so even though their 50% endurance regen trait didn’t stack with vigor and thieves’ Feline Grace was far better, we’re gona nerf it down to 25% hurr durr spvp whine.”
“Oh, wait, but all those dodges need to go somewhere, why not give them to the top tier class already flooded with teleports and avoidance anyways. Here thieves, have some of the dodging we took from rangers lolololol”
Ow! I wanted to contradict you as I’m conditioned to swat at route ranger-bashers, but that one actually made sense. Give me one second though, I haven’t watched the daredevil video yet so I haven’t got a chance to analyze its weaknesses.
Edit: I actually can’t think of a reason a ranger would run SoR other than for a specific reason. It doesn’t really have a passive effect in PvE.