Guild Wars 2

Thief isn’t really for constantly being with another player, they’re for flying as fast as possible around the map taking targets of opportunity and decapping.

I think a cele or rabid engi would make a better traveling buddy for a ranger. Rangers and engis both have a lot of CC, so you can cover each other. Engi is also pretty survivable, so you aren’t both complete glass.

Engis, especially condi, have a lot of blast finishers which can pair nicely with healing spring. And that also helps the engi weakness of lack of condi removal.

Red post on ranger forum for the first time since last September (a forums rules related post)! Somebody loves us! Can we have some porridge?

There are some professions that can swing wildly depending on build (bunker guard vs DPS guard, condi ranger vs LB ranger, shout war vs GS zerk war). Thief and mesmer are not in that category and never will be. There should be an extra rule discouraging thieves and mesmers from being on the same team.

It’s because you don’t understand everything (anything? after a few hours) that’s going on the game yet. Just play some more, particularly in PvE (it’s gentle). Like a LOOOT more so you understand what everything does.

For comparison, I’ve played over 3000 hours and still get wrecked by some players.

Sagramor.7395:

What I meant was that it doesn’t reflect in the manner that the Reflect mechanic does. It just deals damage back. Poor choice of words for the tooltip IMO.
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Reflect

Sure, I knew you knew what it meant. I had never read it the “wrong” way so I slightly surprised to finally recognize how it could be misinterpreted. In hindsight, it is poorly worded they’ve doubled up on a single definition.

This coming from a guy who consistently calls immob removals “stun breaks” and physical damage immunities “invulns”. I think I’m more of a “call it whatever the kitten” kind of guy.

You’re using a condi build right? Since that asuran skill causes confusion? That will still drop 85% of rangers. Most rangers run glassy LB which is almost, but not quite, hard-countered by condi rangers. s/t+a/d is absolutely merciless against power rangers who often refuse to take condi removal in pursuit of the crazy damage LB brings.

Regarding trappers, their utilities are severely limited, and as long as you understand that, I don’t think you’ll have much trouble. They either don’t have a stun break, don’t have condi removal, or their LB isn’t very effective (or 4th option, their traps are just there to stealth them, which I guess could be a nasty surprise). You can’t have everything at once as a ranger.

Edit: I just looked at the trapper video you responded to where he uses a LB based build and an axe based build. In both builds he demonstrates my points by not having stun breaker, and in the LB build his LB is very weak (no RtW, little power). Obviously he is devastating people, but it’s coming from the stealth. The shared anguish buys him enough time to kill via the stealth and condi burst.

If by trap build you mean the a/d type trap build, retal will do almost nothing to them since they don’t really attack you much. If you mean the SB or LB type it works a lot better since they’re constantly attacking. One of the biggest pet peeves about casting barrage on a zerg is that the retal will nearly kill you, especially since zergs are power-based. 1v1 retal isn’t that great since the damage is reduced in competitive.

Edit: Wait, are you coming at this from a ranger’s perspective, i.e. ranger vs ranger? We don’t get retal except on offhand axe IIRC (is there a pet or something that puts it up? Sometimes I notice it on myself when I’m taking camps and I swear I don’t have a source of it.) Something like guardians can poop it out left and right so you’re constantly taking small packets of damage from them, but rangers can’t really use it. A few seconds of retal is very little damage.

On the other hand, offhand axe ACTUALLY reflecting the LB burst will do colossal damage as well as 100% negate all projectile damage to yourself.

It does reflect the damage, it just doesn’t prevent any damage to the target. I guess I see how someone could get that confused. It’s a purely offensive boon. And ya, no condis get reflected.

Retal is based on your opponents power level, and reflects only non-seige power damage. The exact percentage differs between game modes I believe.

Edit: Wiki clarifies “In PvP and WvW, retaliation damage is reduced by 33%” of “198 + (0.075 * [retal sources] Power)”

So I didn’t realize it but it’s not necessarily your opponent, but whoever gave your opponent retal.

Nature’s Protection definitely triggers before the damage is done. It’s basically a “get out of backstab free” kind of trait.

The average every class uses berserker for PvE. If you were thinking ascended, I might hold off until the expansion comes out. Who knows what that will bring.

Belarorn.9062:

Axe is far better then Shortbow no matter what for a 900 range weapon

SB is usually pretty crappy, but if you’re soloing dungeons or open world bosses I think it comes out ahead because your pet/entangle allows you to take the back and get high or max bleeds. If I remember right, Brazil has a video of soloing P2 Arah with a SB condi build. SB does more direct damage as well, and I think it was a sinister build.

I’m not really in to the PvE scene at all anymore, so don’t take any of this as fact.

Since you clarified end-game PvE content*, mainhand axe is literally the worst possible weapon we have. You can however use it to solo dungeons on a condi build. I don’t think even that’s optimal over SB, but I’m not a dungeon solo expert.

*Edit: I guess end-game could involve zerging in the living story, where axe could be ok. Crap damage though, and literally anything will work in a zerg.

Another thing to add is there are tons of skills out there like this. It’s not just a sword thing and it’s not just a ranger thing. Any movement skill can be used for something.

On ranger we have the obvious spear 3, but also about-face harpoon 5. Sword 3 and dagger 4 can move you surprisingly far in the right circumstances, which can be used to LoS or get out of an AoE circle or melee range.

And on every class except necro (as far as I know) there is a perhaps non-obvious movement skill to be taken advantage of. Mesmers can about face staff 2 (can even change elevation with that one), eles about face dagger 5… Even the engi rifle 4 can be used to blow yourself out of entangle.

Edit: Oh, and I forgot the biggest movement skill of all, untargeted sword 1.

If you’re in to WvW you can combo that with hunter’s shot and then go in a different direction than expected. For example, run through the enemies rather than back to your tower, which effectively doubles the distance between you and them (assuming they take the logical path of chasing your invisible self back towards the tower.)

aspirine.6852:

I thought so too, and then I watched some of FrouFrou’s vids. And then I knew it’s not ranger, it’s me
And I still like to see Gladomer play his ranger and wreck people. Knowing I will never be as good as them, but that does not make the class bad

IMO, and not taking anything away from too obviously experienced players:

The biggest difference is that they’ve customized their gear and traits to their own liking. Full glass works for some situations and some playstyles. I prefer it myself. FrouFrou’s vids are usually guildies in a ~ 5 vs 5, where berserker becomes a massive liability. You can only survive for so long in an open field with 5 coordinated players targeting you.

The second thing they both do is know when to pull back for a few seconds. It really only takes single digit numbers of seconds to get yourself in a better position with better cooldowns (or in Frou’s case, dump the aggro on your buddy. )

Try those too things out and you’ll be well on your way to making your own videos.

Krait is nice. It’s pretty easy to get (+)100% bleed duration, and it helps your entangle as well. Undead is pretty good for competitive since AoE condi clears are so insanely prevalent, and I use the bleed on crit trait and sigil (if you’re going the rabid approach.) More bleeds of short duration rather than long-lasting krait bleeds that get cleared quickly.

Tragic Positive.9356:

If you want the highest burst on Ranger possible, I propose this build to try.
It still relies on the pet, so don’t expect any Ranked placement with that.

But it’s a lot of fun in normals.
Blows people up in seconds. All of them.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQRAnY8fnMqQrgWxC+rAXLI4QoafC/6IwKA+Vs+e3LWpEJ-TJhHwAPLDA4JA8Z/hAnEAA

Ya, was just trying to come up with ways for both the ranger and the pet to be a threat, but it’s semi-pointless with the axe + fortifying bond you get with a normal condi build.

I feel like there is something close but it probably could only work in WvW where I can customize the gear a little better. Maybe use something more similar to the dueling spec I and others use, with BM, GS + 1h sword and no condis. The whole idea started because I use cele amulet on my condi-survival build, and the axe hits hard enough to be a respectable contributor to the condis, but it doesn’t seem to be able to scale much further.

At least sword still gives might to the pet.

I was actually just about to try out a new BM build. This is completely untested, and I already have some thoughts on how to improve it, but this is what I’m going to try when I get a chance.

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQRBHRxG2IjKNsWxi/KctGwPoW2ABAzJ4BefGb73eyP62D-TJhIwAAeCAfPJAf2fQYZAA

Edit: Er, just tried this on the golems and wasn’t getting the numbers I’d hoped for. Even with 25 stacks of might and SotW active, axe doesn’t crank out enough damage. The bird hits like a truck, but I was hoping for more than that.

It might be more viable in an actually team fight scenario, because the numbers were low but there were an awful lot of them. Meh.

If you mean for WvW, I always take SotH with melee. Alternatively you could take a bird and just use SotH out of combat. Raven is a pretty decent pet.

Travelers doesn’t affect your pet so it’s not ideal, but an option.

phokus.8934:

It’s not so much that I hate turret engineers, it’s I hate the attitude that players have with it. I’ve never seen so much crap talk from them when they kill people. Every class has it, sure, but I see it more from turret engineers.

I love how everyone would destroy me if I honorably dueled them in a match instead of “5v1ing” them. My block list is gigantic.

Elitist.8701:

Obviously ranger is slightly harder to play and is more vulnerable, but I still hate it nonetheless.

SLIGHTLY harder to play than turret engi? A berserker build with little or no condi removal is SLIGHTLY harder to play than turret engi?

So you’re posting on the forums, you’re a decent rating, you can wreck face with the best of them. Then daily _ comes up, a class you don’t know how to play. You want to learn. Your 13th game out on ele you go up against phantaram because the game has no idea how to realize you don’t even know what your skills do. Go to PvE to complete your daily.

Can SB even keep 25 stacks up? I don’t play it enough to know. I can’t imagine there are many builds out there that can maintain 25 stacks. Off the top of my head, staff mesmer, scepter necro, sword war, and SB ranger are the only ones even close.(?)

For dungeons, I would make an educated guess you don’t get enough out of condis unless you have like 50 bleed stacks, which means 2 or 3 condi players, which is not as good as five berserker.

I suspect the majority of rangers playing now came on board with the LB/signet buffs, so are understandably terrible. There aren’t a ton of us who have been playing since launch because rangers have had some rough patches in the past (and are arguably still in one.)

1. Templates
2. Get rid of turret engis
3. Another non-gimmick conquest map

That pig skull fear lasts for like 12 seconds or something ridiculous when you buff it.

This is something that has been brought up by a LOT of people for a LONG time. It’s very curious that they seem to want to increase the amount of clicking and junk despite this. Seems like it would be a very easy fix, just stop doing it.

I don’t know if it makes me a bad player, an unaware player, or just impatient, but I can’t use SotW most of the time because the activation time is so long. Seems like if you’re going to have a short duration stability, you’d want it a little more on-demand. I’d rather just dodge…

Sure, any of them that don’t require group mechanics to pass. You need to know the path really well and be a well geared level 80.

I’m not sure where you are in the game; if this is your first character, the answer is pretty much a hard “no”, and they’re meant to be done by five players.

RoRo.8270:

I’ve started playing a condition ranger with shortbow/axe/dagger. I can beat pretty much every class except warriors and decent eles. I stand 0 chance against a warrior good or not. The problems I’m having is cleansing ire+berserker stance makes it impossible to keep a decent amount of bleeds which is where the majority of my damage comes from. Then there is healing signet which outheals any other form of damage I do and yes I try keep poison on them as much as possible. Any advice?

I run a celestial amulet and poison master. The autoattack damage is nothing to be scoffed at. In team fights, even the lowly axe will hit 3 times for just shy of 1k… that’s some pretty significant damage! This is especially useful on SB with its fast attack.

Combined with the sheer spamminess of poison master, cripple, and bleed on crit (I usually run both the trait and the sigil, and you might consider agony as well) you can overwhelm the condi clear of just about anyone. Warriors can’t heal, so just make sure the poison master keeps their signet ineffective and they’ll drop eventually.

You probably won’t be able to finish them before someone else arrives to the fight, but you won’t die either. Warriors usually have very little pressure.

hyjaxxx.1584:

Well,in small group skirmish I use lightning drake for burst and on command blast finishers using guard. For smaller fights I use wolf and spider. The wolf fears away the stomps if I go down and the spider applies poison and ranged immobs. I tend not to worry about the damage too much as the utility is paramount imho

Oh absolutely, me too. But the great thing is even your control pet will be hitting for thousands of damage.

Pets hit for like 2500 in team fights, it’s very nice.

Celestial longbow trapper can pretty easily kill 2 thieves. Berserker LB as well (depending on thief skill level of course.)

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Rune_of_the_Trapper

It’s still extremely strong for trolling* or dueling, and decent for general roaming. Berserker LB rangers are the most popular build right now thanks to a few buffs.

Also I really hope you weren’t behind the wheel when you were making forum posts. :O

*There is a ranger on YB that sets up camp at the sentry right outside red keep and just baits people in to attacking him. Between the regen and water escape route, I’ve never seen him die. Accomplishes very little, but whatever is fun…

I’ve actually been playing the dual sword build, but it’s just as brainless as shoutbow (all stances instead of all shouts.) I’ll probably just concentrate on overall PvP basics, I think that will really help with the other professions.

It breaks the channel if you’re holding down the mouse-look and your target moves out of the cone of fire (i.e. moving behind you.) You either need to manually track your target or stop holding down the mouse. Preferably the former because the latter means you’re not moving.

That’s an interesting take, Silv. Maybe I’ll just use these 150 wins as an opportunity to get better at watching people since I don’t have anything else to concentrate on.

The game matches you up against people of your own skill level, so you’re playing against complete noobs. I recommend taking it in to a dueling server so you can see for yourself why against better players the build can’t work. You won’t last 3 seconds against even the worst player on a dueling server.

And ditto, hopefully you aren’t offended by that. You just need to add several layers of defense, you literally have zero at the moment.

Rangers blow guardians out of the kitten water in terms of WvW-style mobility. It’s not even close. But you are right, lack of teles is pretty brutal for PvP. It’s only us, warriors and engis that lack them, and obviously engi and warrior are renown for their team support to make up for it.

It would be easy to give us a tele that isn’t overpowered for LB rangers: just put it on a long cooldown. That one tele would be huge.

I strongly suspect druids will get a tele that is nature magic themed, perhaps along the lines of the necro wurm swap.

By the way, sounds like you should use RaO as your elite when playing LB ranger.

I’m going through all the professions and getting champ in them. I thought I might give warrior a go but it’s boring me to tears (probably not helping that my last champ was genius where I got to actually… do thing… with buttons.) Literally every single build on metabattle uses nothing but stances or shouts. All I do is stack might with longbow, swap and burst, swap and stack swap and burst swap and stack swap and burst. I don’t even get to heal, I do nothing but swap weapons and ignore all 9 other players and use about 4 buttons.

Am I being over dramatic or is warrior really that simple?

You don’t lose half you life unless you are also glassy. You what isn’t any fun? The old meta of 15 bunkers per team and no damage or risk anywhere.

There is no reason to be running celestial on a LB/GS build unless you’re using traps and those stealth runes. I’d use berserker as your base and just mix in some things like cavaliers and zealots. The condi damage is 100% wasted since you literally cause 0 damaging conditions. That’s a lot of wasted stats.

That’s for WvW, for PvE just learn the fights better and use zerkers. Maybe have some exotic tankier gear for places you really struggle like the dredge or whatever. It’s been like a year or more since I’ve run fractals so I’m not up to date on it all.

Edit: I do see you’re running sharpened edge but it’s just not worth it to give up that immense amount of stats for a stray bleed or two.

Black Scoutsman.5830:

Because I find that when I play it, many people have trouble countering it. Just because you and I can counter it doesn’t mean its not too strong for the majority of the playerbase

Ranger is already one of if not the weakest PvP class. It’s in a okish spot right now and any nerfs will obliterate the profession.

Bran.7425:

Perhaps Honed Axe could be reworked to a 5% damage increase to ax skill (just main hand if it is too much) and add an additional bounce to Ricochet.

That would make axe a complete beast. It would be really fun to have a use for it other than splitblade.

Black Scoutsman.5830:

I suppose the inevitable l2p post had to come eventually even though I clearly stated I know how to play it and counter it..

Why make an entire thread about things so easily countered? I don’t have any problems with the things you brought up, and apparently you don’t either, so this discussion is a waste of time.

ThyShadowPaladin.9521:

How in the world do ranger’s surpass warriors and guardians in DPS? Burst probably, with signet. But other than that, they have horribly low dps and that signet wont recharge anytime soon.

They’ve surpassed guardians for a long time so I’ll ignore that. Warriors got surpassed by the RF buff. You start with barrage and RF then close to sword auto attack with path of scars on recharge.

Edit: I wonder if they actually outdamage warriors before the RF buff? Most people used WH instead of offhand axe. I suspect that’s the case.

DarkSyze.8627:

So let me put description of ranger article here so other can see how “almost worthless” ranger is with 1500 range.

The Power Ranger,

Over 60% crit chance
AOE Cripple (Barrage/Muddy Terrain)
Near total condition immunity (thanks to Survival Skills)
Fear (Wolf)
Knockdown (Wolf)
Long range Knockback (Point Blank Shot)
x3 Immobilize, two of which are AOE (Entangle/Muddy Terrain/Spider)
Stealth from Longbow and exceptional for escaping: Hunters Shot > Greatsword > Swoop)
Immunity for 6 seconds (Signet of Stone)
Immunity for 3 seconds (Counter attack)
Long duration daze (Hilt Bash)
Long duration cripple (Counter attack throw)
1500 attacking range
Auto attacks that consistently hit for over 1500 from 1500 range
Enormous spike damage from Rapid Fire, on a cooldown of only 10 seconds
High mobility when using Swoop + Rune of the Pack
An Elite on a 48 second cooldown (Entangle)

Example: if mesmer and thief had 1500 range, it would be same “worthless”? Please tell that in mesmer forum and thief forum.

Here is some Ranger upgrade patch note:

“Read the Wind:
This trait now grants a 10% attack speed increase while wielding a longbow.
Signet of the Beastmaster:
This trait has been replaced by Predator’s Onslaught.* *All effects from that trait have been rolled into the baseline signet abilities.
Predator’s Onslaught:
Rangers deal 10% bonus damage to enemies suffering from inhibiting conditions (cripple, chill, immobilize). Pets deal 5% bonus damage to these enemies as well.
Strider’s Defense:
Increased the chance to block projectiles while executing melee attacks from 15% to 20%.
Rending Attacks:
This trait now affects all pets.
Intimidation Training:
This trait now affects all pet abilities that deal direct damage. This effect can only occur once per ability.
Stability Training:
Fixed a bug that caused this trait to never activate. This trait now affects all pets.
Sic ’Em:
Increased the duration of revealed from 4 seconds to 6 seconds.
Long Range Shot:
Increased damage at the 0-500 range by 17%. Increased damage at the 500-1000 range by 7%.
Rapid Fire:
Decreased casting time from 5 seconds to 2.5 seconds.
Barrage:
Reduced cast time by 0.6 seconds.
Power Stab:
Increased damage of this skill by 10%.
Maul:
Increased the range of this skill from 150 to 220. Increased the number of targets from 3 to 5.
Swoop:
The ranger now evades during the attack portion of the skill.
Counterattack:
Reduced the aftercast of the kick portion of this skill by 0.7 seconds.
Hilt Bash:
Increased stun and daze durations to 1.5 seconds.
Entangle:
Reduced recharge of this skill from 150 seconds to 60 seconds. Decreased the active duration of the roots from 20 seconds to 5.
Ricochet:
This skill now grants 3 seconds of might on hit.
Path of Scars:
Increased projectile velocity by 25%.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/updates/Game-Update-Notes-September-9-2014

I heard from my friend’s cousin that a ranger could win 4v1 and not even lose.

unlucky.9285:

i still have yet to see someone “melt” a cele rifle engie as a condi necro… it still takes too long and team mates will always show up in time thanks to shield the abundance of cc and the low cd of healing turret aswell as the elixir.

You have never played engi. And elixr S and shield don’t stop condis.

No condi clear and no CC clear = dead player. I literally don’t know what else you want from us. If you can’t kill a player that can’t stun break then I can’t help you.

Justine.6351:

Carrion devourer f2 underwater skill:

Regenerate, reduced duration from 15sec to 10sec.

Bran.7425:

without ruining the profession?

Can’t read, bruh?