Guild Wars 2

Yes it’s even worse now, but since they’re doing a complete overhaul, it shouldn’t stay that way.

Every traitline should have at least 1 Adept trait that would work well with all builds. A good example is the Marksmanship line. Beastmaster’s Bond is a good general purpose trait.

Skirmishing:

• condition build trait (Sharpened Edges)
• might below 50% health trait (Most Dangerous Game)
• revive trait (Trapper’s Defense)

There is only a good Adapt trait for condition builds. But even power builds will probably have to pick this.

Wilderness Survival:

• Falling damage trait (Soften the Fall)
• dagger/torch trait (Ambidexterity)
• pet condition damage trait (Expertise Training)

Nothing for people who aren’t focused on dagger/torch or pets. They’ll be forced to permanently use falling damage reduction.

I think it will be an AoE while it is travelling through the air. So a bit like Warrior’s Greatsword throw Blade Trail. Should be baseline either way since mainhand axe is kind of an AoE weapon.

The Beastly Warden trait (pet taunt on F2) has a 15s cooldown. The only pets which have such a low cooldown on their F2 skill are:

Arctodus, Raven, White Raven, Hawk and Eagle.

So the best pet for the job seems to be the Arctodus. However, considering the traitline comes with a 20% reduction on pet skills cooldown, the Arctodus F2 cooldown will be 12s. Which means the Arctodus isn’t very good for it, since you won’t know if the trait is off cooldown yet while the Arctodus is ready.

The next in line (that’s not a weak bird) is the Drakehound with a 20s cooldown (16s traited). His F2 ability causes Immobilize, which could both be awesome or very bad in combination with Beastly Warden.

Considering this, for the sake of Arctodus, I think the Beastly Warden cooldown should be 12s.

Wondrouswall.7169:

I must be the only one that thinks the “Winter’s Bite is an AOE” with Honed Axes should be baseline with the axe.

I think so too. It’s far too specific to a single skill on a single axe (mainhand) that it should just be made baseline. I don’t care for it either way, I’m just going to stick with Longbow, so I don’t think I’m biased on this.

Ok I just noticed something else. The trait Beastmaster’s Bond casts Warhorn 5 (Call of the Wild), not Signet of the Wild. So that doesn’t count as a signet and therefore has no synergy with Beastmaster’s Might.

You’re right, I hadn’t thought about it like that. Stacking Opening Strike could be OP. Still, that makes choosing those 3 traits together a bit useless, eventough they seem to have synergy on the surface.

I don’t think Ranger is underwhelming in WvW. But it’s a different playstyle (which may not work well in your group) and you’d need both Eagle Eye and Read the Wind to go with your longbow.

It’s basically the only thing Rangers excel at in WvW: long range single target damage. I’m more of a roamer / fire support player, so I enjoy it and I don’t think it’s underwhelming. Having the longest range in the game is pretty cool in itself. The damage isn’t bad either if you’re willing to give up most of your survivability for it.

So yes it might be underwhelming to you. It wouldn’t surprise me. The Ranger just really fits my prefered playstyle.

I was thinking 2 consecutive hits would both get Opening Strike, rather than 1 hit, so that wouldn’t be OP.

Looking at the new traits for Marksmanship: http://i.imgur.com/TVN0V2u.jpg

Beastmaster’s Bond -> Beastmaster’s Might -> Remorseless seems like they have good synergy, but not unless Opening Stike will stack.

Remorseless gains Opening Strike on Fury
Beastmaster’s Might gains Opening Strike on Signet
Call of the Wild (and Beastmaster’s Bond) is a Signet that also gives Fury

So Call of the Wild would trigger both traits and give Opening Strike twice, which would not be possible unless Opening Strike stacks.

Not my style. What I would change:
- rune of ranger
- troll unguent heal
- greatsword or sword/warhorn or sword/dagger
- sigil of bloodlust on melee weapon set
- sigil of air on longbow (instead of corruption) ( you can’t have 2 different stacking sigils!)
- All Berserker Accessories and Backpiece

That’s about it. I’m still running a different build, but they’re only small differences which mostly come down to personal preference. For example, I use Red Moa(Fury) and Brown Bear(condition removal).

I could log in today and The Grove loaded fine. Then I entered the Home Instance and got this same error again. Luckily I could get back into The Grove after 2 tries.

So I’m staying out of the Home Instance forever now.

update: got the error again trying to enter the fractals of the mists

update: it happened again trying to enter the mad king labyrinth

The reason it’s not going to be changed is because a dev said he likes it this way.

The only thing we can do is either not use it or learn to adept to it.

Same problem here. Got my main character stuck in the grove.

Main as in I don’t play any other characters, so the game is broken for me.

I keep having error code 5:11:3:159:101

Was playing WvW and went dc. Tried to log back in but as it was loading (the grove) i get this error. I already tried restarting the pc.

On a side note, please allow up to jump into WvW or PvP from the character selection screen… I have no need to load any of the PvE world 99% of the time.

update:
I can log in with another character who is in Malchor’s Leap, but not with my character who is in the Grove. Again, I don’t even want to go to the Grove, I want to go to WvW.

Evasive Purity used to be a grandmaster trait and it used to remove 1 condition on dodge.

It was then nerfed to only remove blind and poison and it was then later moved to Master tier.

You can collect them all. There is no reason not to.

You should definitely get Wolf and Jaguar though.

Put the pet on passive mode since it’s the closest thing to not having a pet.

Some good passive pets would be:
Red Moa for Fury on F2
Wolf for Fear on F2
Brown Bear for condition removal on F2

Julie Yann.5379:

Holland.9351:

Julie Yann.5379:

Holland.9351:

Rune of the Mists
1) +25 Power
2) +10% Poison duration
3) +50 Power
4) +15% Poison duration
5) +100 Power
6) +20% Poison Duration;
10s poison, 10s immobilize on hit of a downed target. (30s cooldown)

So, is that you get immobilized if you get hit by downed target, or hit a downed target ,or you immobilize the target if you hit him while he is down? It’s a little unclear.

The downed target would get immobilized and poisoned. Immobilizing and poisoning yourself wouldn’t even make sense.

lol… that went woosh!!! but I don’t know if it’s over my head or yours. Just to clear things up. Immobilizing a downed target makes sense? think about it. I like the idea of the rune but that 6th bonus is really lolz.

1) Poison reduces manual revive speed.
2) Poison prevents some revive utility skills from fully reviving.
3) Immobilize prevents elementalists from running away with their first skill (in WvW they can even move safely inside buildings while downed or kill themself by jumping off a cliff to prevent a stomp).
4) If they get revived anyway, they might still be poisoned and/or immobilized. So they won’t be moving anywhere soon and the poison reduces their healing.

All in all, it’s basically a rune set to prevent someone you downed from being revived. Both poison and immobilize can be removed with condi clear, so it’s not too powerful.

Julie Yann.5379:

Holland.9351:

Rune of the Mists
1) +25 Power
2) +10% Poison duration
3) +50 Power
4) +15% Poison duration
5) +100 Power
6) +20% Poison Duration;
10s poison, 10s immobilize on hit of a downed target. (30s cooldown)

So, is that you get immobilized if you get hit by downed target, or hit a downed target ,or you immobilize the target if you hit him while he is down? It’s a little unclear.

The downed target would get immobilized and poisoned. Immobilizing and poisoning yourself wouldn’t even make sense.

Rune of the Mists
1) +25 Power
2) +10% Poison duration
3) +50 Power
4) +15% Poison duration
5) +100 Power
6) +20% Poison Duration;
10s poison, 10s immobilize on hit of a downed target. (30s cooldown)

Removing white sword would be absolutely terrible.

Also, it would allow for major griefing by pretending something is under attack while it’s not.

Rune of the Shadow
1) +25 Power
2) +35 Ferocity
3) +50 Power
4) +65 Ferocity
5) +100 Power
6) 25% Movement Speed

I also didn’t know they shared cooldown on those skills. I thought it was just similar F2 skills.

But I wouldn’t really know for sure since I’ve been running around with a Red Moa on passive for ages.

And in WvW a necro has plenty of targets, there is nothing I’m doing “terribly wrong”

WhiteRose.6934:

Then can I have Death Shroud piercing trait?

‘Cause it’s hella annoying fighting through 2-3 health bars in a fight while I’m melting to every condition in the game.

I agree with this. I rather face a few seconds of immunity over Death Shroud any day. I’m always happy when a necro forgets to activate it. Death Shroud is the karka of pvp. Surprise! Another health bar!

Full Berserker gear + Ranger runes.

Scholar runes are also good, but they lose 10% damage when you take damage. Ranger runes loses 7% damage if your pet dies.

Rune of the Pack can also be good, if you tend to get hit.

Rune of Speed / Rune of traveler allow you to go without Signet of the Hunt, but it’s at the cost of damage output.

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

It would be far too strong, when stacked with traveler runes, and SotH…

PS: I would love to see a pet running with RaO, agility training (the one OP sugested), SotH, and sic ’em.

Movement buffs don’t stack. Only the highest counts.

Greatsword is an easy-to-use utility/defensive/burst weapon. Swoop and Counterattack can be used in many different situations. Burst damage comes from Maul (and Counterattack).

Sword+Dagger is a hard-to-use single-target weapon. High single-target damage, 3 evades, 2 poisons and 2 cripples. Dagger also has some bleed on it, so it fits better in condi builds. It’s good at outlasting an opponent and has a higher skill ceiling, mainly due to it’s unusual auto-attack chain and Hornet Sting + Monarch’s Leap combo.

I prefer Greatsword and that mostly for Swoop in WvW. Swoop is rarely off cooldown, especially outside of combat.

Agility Training
You and your pet move faster while you have an active pet.

• Movement speed increase: 25%
  (hidden effect: pet gets 30% movement speed increase)

This would help with:

• build diversity: Signet of the Hunt not a required utility (or a sub-optimal rune)
• counterplay: Another trait that depends on a living pet (love it or hate it)
• improves skirmishing traitline with less pet-only traits.

As a longbow Ranger I have no problems facing a longbow Ranger. In fact, Ranger is still my favorite target by far. So to me, Ranger is still the weakest class to face.

I’m surprised Ranger isn’t everyone’s favorite target. They’re a bit more deadly now, with more sustained damage, but the initial burst damage isn’t even new. Rangers have always had access to quickness. In fact, Rapid Fire burst damage is less than Rapid Fire + quickness before the update.

Using Rapid Fire + quickness after the update is just silly. Yes, it’s even more burst than before the update, but it’s entirely negated by a 1s evade/invulnerable/block or obstructed. It also costs you a utility slot or a grandmaster trait (in beastmastery) or a sigil with luck. And for what? to reduce casttime by 1 second?

I’m not going to help you figure out what counters a longbow Ranger.

Shouldn’t you get Hide in Plain Sight and a Siamoth pet?

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Sigil_of_Incapacitation

I’ll definitely give it a try on a longbow. I might even replace Sigil of Fire for it if it works well. 2s cripple every 5 seconds seems pretty big. Sigil of Ice is only 2s every 10s, which wasn’t really worth it (eventhough it didn’t require a crit).

Also, it will be useful if you use Predator’s Onslaught.

Could even pair it with Predator’s Instinct (13s cripple below 50% health).

But in WvW there are many people with -50% condition duration food and Warriors, Elementalists and Engineers have a trait that reduces it another 33%:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dogged_March
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Geomancer%27s_Freedom
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Leg_Mods

I think when stealth runs out there should be a 2s revealed debuff. So either you stay in stealth by stacking durations or you come out of it for at least 2s, giving others the time to target and hit before the target drops again.

Also, I think stealth should stack on top of revealed. So if you stealth while revealed, the stealth will happen right after the revealed is removed.

It’s been one of the great changes of last patch, but it’s been a bit overshadowed. In fact, I haven’t even tried it out yet, but I know it’s great. It basically makes the pet immune to CC.

I’m using Scholar, but Ranger runes are probably better.

Scholar loses its benefit from a tiny bit of damage, even from retaliation.

As someone who runs a glass cannon longbow Ranger in WvW since forever, this build is horrible. No Read the Wind, really? No Quick Draw, really? Spotter, really? Pets, really? Sigil of Accuracy and Force, really? No survivability utility, really? no condition removal at all, really? Heal as One, really? (this one is forgivable)

At least you are full ascended berserker with ranger runes and bloodlust sigil, but good luck staying on 25 stacks with literally 0 survivability and condition removal. Also, good luck hitting targets without Read the Wind.

Don’t forget Signet of Stone has passive 150 toughness and the active also protects the pet and keeps the pet active.
Protect Me is only a stun breaker and makes the pet inactive and takes health from the pet (which means it often won’t reach it’s full duration).

I think moving stability to Protect Me would actually make it more comparable with Signet of Stone. I don’t think anyone currenly picks Protect Me over Signet of Stone.

And by taking stability away from Signet of the Wild, it will cause Rapid Fire to either do less damage (they picked another utility), or be interruptible (they picked Signet of the Wild).

On top of all this, we could use a utility/elite with stability that’s not locked away behind a 1s cast time.

Another solution would be to lower the damage from Signet of the Wild, but also make it instant-cast.

I think the 8s stability from Signet of the Wild should be moved to Protect Me

Protect Me could use some love and is already a stun breaker, so the stability makes more sense on it.
Also, Protect Me is instant cast, while Signet of the Wind (and Rampage as One) have a 1s cast time, which means that a counter to CC (stability) can currently be countered by CC.

This would make Signet of the Wild a pure damage signet, with health regen if you don’t use it. It would retain its 1s casttime.

Longbow is possibly the most trait-able weapon in the game. Not only that, it’s also one of the most expensive weapons to trait.

Longbow traits:

• Master in Marksmanship (Piercing Arrows or Eagle Eye)
• Grandmaster in Marksmanship (Remorseless or Read the Wind or Predator’s Onslaught)
• Master in Skirmishing (Quick Draw)

That’s 50 trait points just to grab 3 longbow traits. And even then you can’t have them all.
Getting a Grandmaster trait in another line is out of the question, unless you give up some of the longbow traits.

Compare it to Mesmer greatsword:

• baseline Read the Wind (it instant-hits)
• immune to projectile reflect/block/destroy

Compare it to Warrior Rifle:

• baseline Read the Wind (it almost instant-hits)
• Adept trait to make it piercing + lower cooldown (10 points investment instead of 40)

If a Ranger compeltely builds for Longbow, he’s making huge investments at the cost of everything else in his build, including his 2nd weaponset. Rapid Fire is literally the only thing you have to worry about from such a build.

As someone who plays such a Ranger, I’ve taken out many opposing Rangers who were trying to burst me with Rapid Fire. if I can deal with it on my glasscannon Ranger, then so should everyone.

I’d rather take a rollback to the old version than a change like you suggested. With a rollback I could slot Quickening Zephyr again and at least keep my burst. That’s right, the burst isn’t even new, it’s just more frequent and less of an investment.

1. every WvW map starts at a 10 player cap.
2. if 2 servers are within 10 players of the cap on the map, the cap is increased, (up till the current max cap).
3. nobody is kicked if the cap drops, but no new people are allowed on the map until their server is below the cap.

Examples:

• Server A fields 48 people.
• Server B fields 40 people.
• Server C fields 0 people.
  The cap is 50.

• Server A fields 75 people.
• Server B fields 85 people.
• Server C fields 95 people.
  The cap is 95.

• Server A fields 10 people.
• Server B fields 2 people.
• Server C fields 0 people.
  The cap is 12.

On Eternal battlegrounds:
cap = population of 2nd highest server on map +10 ( with a minimum of 10 and a maximum being the current max)

On Borderlands:
cap = population of home server on map +10 ( with a minimum of 10 and a maximum being the current max)

Why 10 minimum?
To counterbalance nightcapping. You can nightcap, but only with a 10 player advantage.

Why different for home border?
So both enemy servers won’t raise eachother’s cap and nightcap a home border with 100 people.

Read the Wind is a grandmaster trait investment to allow the longbow to hit moving targets reliably.

Without Read the Wind, the longbow can miss up to 100% of its shots if the target is strafing. The target wouldn’t even have to use its evade, block, dodge, blind, aegis, projectile block or projectile reflect. Almost any movement would avoid many hits from the longbow, even if they’re not trying to avoid it.

It’s also spending a trait slot which could be used for great traits like: Eagle Eye, Piercing Arrows, Spotter, Remorseless and Predator’s Onslaught.

Read the Wind is the best thing to happen to the Longbow for the PvP/WvW environment. It has single-handedly revived the weapon 6 months before any Rapid Fire buff came along.

Avoiding a longbow without Read the Wind doesn’t require any skill.

Right-click their name and select “Block”.

If a trap triggers, the stealth is removed (and revealed applied). Only Frosttrap doesn’t, since it doesn’t do damage.

If possible, it might be good to disable the whole skill until it can be fixed.

I’m pretty sure warriorjrd.8695 is joking…

No.

I’d be much less likely to play if these monstrosities were on my screen all the time.

Bark Skin
Enlargement

Considering Enlargement doesn’t require Signet of the Beastmaster anymore, both these traits will trigger at 25% health:

• 50% damage reduction
• 8s stability
• 25% bonus damage (8s)

Before it wasn’t possible to get these traits paired (since Signet of the Beastmaster cost 6(30) trait points). Now you have 4(20) trait points to spare.
Survival of the Fittest is 2(10) trait points away for condi removal.
Signet Mastery is 2(10) trait points away for Signet of Renewal condi removal.

For extra survivability at low health:
Superior Rune of Infiltration

• 4s stealth at 20% health

Superior Rune of the Earth

• 5s reflect at 20% health (Magnetic Aura)

For extra damage at low health:
Superior Rune of Orr

• 5s quickness at 20% health

Ranger warhorn 5 could use 10 targets as well.

It often fails giving swiftness to a WvW supply Dolyak because it runs out of targets.
It’ll give swiftness like this for example:

1. Ranger
2. Ranger’s Pet
3. guard 1
4. guard 2
5. ally 1
   no swiftness for you this time dolyak.

Khalic.3561:

Holland.9351:

Also, Sic ’Em requires a target, but (currently) Signet of the Hunt doesn’t. You don’t want to waste the revealed because the thief dropped your target a split second before you use it.

It would need to be changed to single target. Whether it should remain the 2000 range that the effect had on or drop to 1200 I’m not sure. Maybe somewhere in the middle? 1500 range so that it works with LB? I do think that it would need to remain instant though.

The 2000 range is fine. It’s the same as the leash range of the pet. Also remember, it’s impossible to use Sic ‘Em if the target is already in stealth and thief’s Steal can be a 1500 range instant gap closer.