Guild Wars 2

• Fixed a bug where aquatic ranger pets could sometimes get on land.
• Drake Pet: This pet will now activate its Tail Swipe skill on a regular basis, and the casting time of that skill has been reduced by 1.25 seconds.
• Entangle: This skill’s bleed effects now properly scale with condition damage and duration.
• Sharpening Stone: The number of uses on this skill’s effect will now decrease if an attack lands or if the attack is negated by Blind, Block, Evade, Obstructed, or Invulnerable.
• Opening Strikes: The number of uses on this skill’s effect will now decrease if an attack lands or if the attack is negated by Blind, Block, Evade, Obstructed, or Invulnerable.
• Pets: Skills no longer reset after swapping. (I read other rangers reported this, however I just tested it in Wv3 and it isn’t correct.)

Is it just me or did we get nerfed pretty hard? Opening Strike already decreased if you hit or it was blocked (unsure if it decreased from blind, invuln, or evade) and I am unsure of Sharpening Stone was the same way. Pet skills resetting hurts us all pretty badly. Drake pet can now tail swipe, but the fairly long cast time will mean high failure rates against players resulting in even less dps. Entangle now scales … so. Entangle is dreadfully worthless against players.

And no more land shark. Take away all the kitten fun will you?

Let’s put it this way, if they can’t balance the professions by about 6 months after release but announce an expansion in that time frame, hell no. However, If the next couple patches can even things out, fix exploits, and improve the overall experience, I may consider it. To me, it is more of a time game. How long am I willing to wait for them to fix what they have already provided? New games come out all the time, and if somebody else has their kitten together and the game gets raving reviews (of the same genre), I might just drop this altogether because I don’t have the time to play both.

I actually find this a viable farming zone for level 80’s. With current powerful blood and karka shell prices (26s and 7s50c respectively) I can make about 1g 38s every 30min. I average about 3 powerful blood and 8 karka shells in that time frame. Everything else you get is profit and it costs nothing to get to the island (less expenses). I leave after 30min due to the DR, but I have stayed for over an hour before and gotten 8 blood and ~30 karka shells. The DR kicked in very hard and I was basically forced to leave after finding only the occasional trophy after about 30 kills.

I’d say you can make 2g an hour pretty easily fighting young karka, so I’d call this a viable farming location.

AoE skills are a problem.

Kellnor.5428:

Trait Marksmen/Skirmishing/Wilderness Survival/Natural magic…. I run 20/30/10/10 and love it.

Honestly (as with any class) Ranger’s aren’t bad, players are bad. I’m not saying you’re a bad player in general, I’m just saying after 2 hours with it you aren’t a pro

Give it sometime. Rangers can be phenomenal once you learn how to work with it.

I don’t think he was asking for help on how to build a ranger, just more or less asking if what he sees is what he gets. Is ranger better than these 1s mights/bleeds? Short answer, of course, if you are willing to get good at using the functioning/useful mechanics. Does he still see crap trait/skills, yes. Many skills/traits the ranger can unlock are either altogether poor, or only useful for a certain build (and the ranger terribly lacks build diversity).

Sharpening edges grants 1 stack of bleeding per hit for 1s each. In other words, garbage. Another really bad trait is Beastmaster’s might (master) in the marksmanship traitline whichgrants 1 stack of might for 5s on signet activation. Our lowest signet has a 24 second cooldown (with 20% cooldown reduction).

I’m just going to stop here. Yes, our utility skills and traits are all generally bad. Yes, we lack reliable condition removal. Yes, our pet needs to die for us to live. Who knows why it is balanced this way. I just hope they get this all sorted out by the February patch (Wv3 patch).

Note: For PvE, this stuff doesn’t matter than much, but in PvP you can really tell the ranger isn’t on par with most other professions. This is why you will see the threads that say, “I just started ranger and you guys must suck because I’m level 20 and it is awesome! I can kill stuff above my level.” I can do that with any profession, ranger just makes it simpler because the pet will tank for you.

sheng.2890:

But in wvw if u use all berserker they can kill u easy but if u have vitality toughness power condition isn’t better? And can evade toughness and ‘take no damage’

They can only “kill u easy” if your build isn’t balanced around both damage and survivability and your reaction times are poor. Personally, as a ranger, direct damage is better since our conditions have very short lengths and our application methods are rather poor. Then again, direct damage becomes an even better option in groups because of the condition cap on things like bleed.

I don’t understand why this wasn’t implemented on release. Maybe give it 4 stages.

1. Block all.
2. Allow guild and friends.
3. Allow guild, friends, and group.
4. Allow everyone.

And if you are joining a dungeon run with it blocked, I will kick you if your profession isn’t needed. Elitist? Maybe. I don’t like wasting time or dieing, so why risk it with some guy that might be wearing mf and/or green gear? On this note, if you can’t afford rare gear, you seriously need to rethink how you are spending gold.

First of all, I can see the griefing already because simple human input can be performed by bots.

Anyway, I don’t res anyone anymore unless they ask for help.

Of course they want you to be “addicted” (they really just want you to play). The longer you play, the more money you pay (WoW) and in the sense of GW2, the more likely you are to spend money in the cash shop. So, I don’t mind them adding features somemay find pointless as long as the population doesn’t die out.

I would trash steady focus for 20% reduced cooldown on signets. I would drop SotW and pick up SoR since a dps ranger build terribly lacks on demand condition removal outside of healing spring.

I would place an air or bloodlust sigil on longbow since getting those stacks will be very easy. You can replace air with fire if you feel the need to spend 15x more for a small aoe and -10% damage. I place a fire sigil on greatsword for that extra aoe damage plus low internal cooldown. If I am up in somebodies face, that aoe works well against most professions (thieves guild, engi turrets, mesmer clones, ranger pet, necro pets, etc.).

I don’t like zepher on pet swap because it tends to make rangers utilize their pets improperly, but it is really good for quickness stomps (only reason I use it). If you are using it for burst, I don’t agree unless you are in a “safe” location where no threat will present itself for the next 20s.

Other than those things, the build seems well thought out. Also, I use SotH when defending walls (when traited it has 24s cd) for the bonus damage on first hit. My first hit usually hits 80s for 5k. SotW cooldown is just too long and is more of a bursty play than I like. I prefer to poke out, deal high spike damage, and burst to finish if I see an opening, but that could just be my playstyle.

Note: SotH active gives you the +50% damage on next attack buff for 16min 40s. Take advantage of that when in safe areas. Also, I find it hilarious when you hit somebody with the first shot for ~5k and they immediately roll backward, wasting endurance.

My build:
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fMIQJATRjIV91FWSWsWCg1DC7bwWhM5MOUxvgMWqiQSA;TwAg0CtoSykkIJbSukkJtsYQxxi3FA

What is your point? You simply state a bunch of opinions about the longbow and end. I could easily counter all of your points with my own and tell you why longbow is the ranger’s all around strongest weapon. Am I saying I don’t think it needs a buff? Nope. I think the other ranger weapons need even more buffs to be able to compete.

Not to mention, anet said that aoe nerfs will not blanket to all aoe. In other words, only certain aoe abilities are going to be nerfed, and I severely doubt a field that forces the ranger to cc themselves and can only hit 5 targets while providing no field is going to be nerfed.

I agree almost entirely. My one exception is the Moment of Clarity trait after recent buff. The +50% stun and daze duration works great in Wv3 where those kinds of things can make all the difference. It gives significantly more time after I interrupt (or fail to but still apply a daze) to dps my target. However, it seems to be only useful for a single type of build, so it does deserve to proc if your pets interrupts.

Everything else you mentioned seem like good changes that aren’t overpowered at a glance.

Sword #2 First used while facing the opposite direction you want to travel, then spin 180 and use it again.
Greatsword #3 Use in the direction you want to go.
Shortbow #3 Target a foe behind you, run away from them, cast and continue running with swiftness.
Lightning Reflexes breaks stuns and rolls backward. Positioning needs to be heavily considered because if used while fleeing, you can wind up in the middle of the enemy zerg.

Having issues with conditions? Wait for empathic bond to proc, drop healing spring, or make sure your pet is close and use Signet of Renewal and then follow that up with an escape mechanism.

Tip: If you use traps, drops a spike or chill trap before fleeing.
Tip: Make sure you have cripple/chill/immobilize removed before you cast lightning reflexes or any ranger escape mechanism for that matter since they reduce distance traveled.
Tip: Shortbow #3 can be used on foe behind you, so simply target them before casting, no need to back pedal when cast.

What I do? If under heavy conditions, I hit Signet o Renewal, then #4 on greatsword, process to walk for a couple seconds, and then #3 on greatsword to escape (very high success rate on fleeing). If you use longbow/shortbow you need to use utility skills like lightning reflexes for effective means to escape (Huge reason why I don’t use lb/sb).

Ranger underwater #3 lick wounds. Currently revives the ranger even if dead. Aquaman anyone?
Above water, lick wounds is a joke of a downed skill because it doesn’t work if you are inclined what so ever.

While I didn’t read the entire thing (or most of it), I think I understand what you are looking for and when I thought about it, I entirely agree. Some ideas I got after some thinking (that you may have already stated, I didn’t read everything)

Each spirit has its own unique aura around the ranger so other players can easily see which spirits they have active without the problem of overlap. Sun spirit adds a fire effect around the ranger’s hands. Stone spirit levitates stones around the ranger’s legs. Storm spirit creates a small cloud above the ranger’s head that occasionally strikes lightning (inside itself). Frost spirit engulfs the ranger’s torso in a blue mist. The elite spirit remains an oakheart thing and it should automatically follow the player (no trait required). A trait idea I just thought of would be to reduce spirit cooldowns by 20% and reduce internal cooldown on effects by 20% (from 10s to 8s). Another trait idea, active effects can be used twice before the spirit “dies”.

The active effect can be issued manually and many traits would need to be reworked, but I still think this would be a very positive improvement for support/spirit rangers. Personally, if something like this gets implemented, I would … idk, be happier with anet. Not saying I’m not happy, but the snail pace patching while competing products are near release (TES:O may be huge competition) has me worried.

Considering barrage is a channeled self cc, I doubt there will be much change to it.

I am curious to see about this single target damage buff. We may see much more buffs than nerfs if this happens.

First, ranger players aren’t any worse than players of other professions, it just seems that way because bad players will stand out more with things like pet choices and weapon choice. While ranger can be built for condition damage, it has poor applications and durations resulting in weaker damage overall when compared to other professions.

Second, as ranger that does fractals, I say no rangers as well. Why? One ranger is enough. You never need two rangers when that slot could be a mesmer (which is practically required), guardian, necro, ele, etc. The only profession I dislike more in my dungeons are thieves because of their stubbornness of wanting to go only melee against the bosses resulting in constant downs and deaths (thankfully, most thieves bring a shortbow now). Do I think I am better than most other rangers? Most definitely. I am built to handle almost any situation I come across with pet choices that synergize with my build. Before you rage, how many times have you looked at a fellow ranger in a party and said, “Really, you bring a juvenile _ and are using a _ against this boss?!” What I am saying is, rangers are unreliable and being unreliable by nature raises question about how effective you may be. Why bother with a possibly useless teammate when you an grab other professions that do everything the ranger can do, but better.

Against? A player? The running heavy golem? Monsters? Static golems? In every case different pets are the fastest killer (highest dps). Snow leopard kills the running heavy golem in the mists faster than any other pet. However, an 8s chill isn’t very reliable against players (high chance of being cured). Raven kills the running heavy golem the slowest out of any bird.

Hands down 1. Wolf
Easy second 2. Jaguar
Tough third 3. Drakehound
Last: Any bear. Sure they can tank, but they deal 0 damage.

• Masters Bond
I like the way the current system is, but would like to see it not reset when you enter water and exit water (swimming on the surface, where you have no pet).

• When pet is in Avoid Combat and you press F2, the pet will first run to the target and attack. It doesn’t do the F2 where it was standing (out of combat).
NONONONONO. When in passive mode, I want it to activate on the spot!

• Long range pets should have same attack range as longbow!
They would miss more than they already do unless thy got a huge projectile speed buff.

• The ranger must have the opportunity to change the inactive pet DURING a battle.
I like the current system. Bring pets that compliment your build.

Moa, especially with a since it is 1500 range. Fern Hound F2 is decent and controllable, but is a regeneration and moa is an instant 3.25k that should always hit you assuming you are withing range to attack.

23.5% drop rate here with over 5.1k kills and 1.2k badges. I have done all the WvW jps 5 times (3 eb, 2 borderlands). I say the drop rate is pretty decent. If you can’t kill people, do jps. I’m not a thief either, I main a ranger.

Personally, My list of classes from strongest to weakest (a mix of PvE(dungeons)/WvW/PvP): Elementalist>Mesmer>Guardian>Thief>Necro>Ranger>Engineer>Warrior

Obviously, this is my opinion, so you don’t have to tell me this. Why do I think warrior is at the bottom and ele is at the top? Ele is an insane bunker/support at this point in the gam, mist form when down is incredibly strong, and has strong aoe. Warrior can’t melee dps bosses, easily kited, most attacks are easy to see coming, weak aoe, weak downed state.

Note: I was going to place engineer at the bottom, but I have noticed they they can rez themselves in sPvP before you can get a stomp in which put them barely ahead of warrior in my book (although I can almost always down them again and defeat them unless they have help).

As you can see, I don’t think ranger is the worst profession, but obviously not the best either. You need to practice and pick a playstyle that may not be fun for you to be effective. We currently lack build diversity because spirits are widely accepted as worthless, any of our decent utility skills have insanely long cooldowns, and pets aren’t very reliable.

Lasss.8169:

Kincaidia, I can see now, that my above written text can make me seem like an unskilled QQ’er, but I can assure that I am not doing it wrong.
If I am to say it myself I’m a very good PvP’er as a thief and I can easily take down a group of 5 if I play my cards right and take my time.
However, this is in my honest opinion a weakness to stealth that does not seem intentionally made by Arena Net, giving the fact that this bug/weakness sort of contradicts the meaning of stealth, and therefor I want to make them aware of the bug/my opinion of the contradiction.

I do agree with your comparison of my complaint to the Lamborghini issue though. It was funny too.
But one has to ask: if the windshield on your new Lamborghini is broken, or does not work intentionally, wouldn’t you like to see it fixed?

So you can take down a group of 5, no problem? This sounds like more of an issue than channeled skills tracking through stealth. A little advice, next time a ranger casts rapid fire and you go into stealth, you can still evade instead of soak the entire channel. It isn’t that difficult to manage.

The forum represents the outspoken minority of gw2 players. Those people tend to be more negative because the people who are happy have almost no reason to post in the forums.

I’ve done a lot of research on the differences of the birds, and in terms of dps on moving targets (more PvP related) highest to lowest is as follows: Eagle/Hawk>Owl>Raven. Eagle/Hawk have slightly more dps with low precision, owl has fairly high precision with slightly less dps, raven has low precision and low dps.

By precision I mean the range between faster kill and slowest kill. You can believe what I’m saying or not, idc, but I have tested this extensively where the pets have no buffs (0 in BM).

Bug: Spike Trap traited with Trapper’s Expertise only pulses once, contrary to what the skill description currently states.

Been known for some time, posted on the wiki.

Snow leopard chill is 8s, Owl is 6s. Not exactly small. I think you mean the stalker grants might, and yes, it isn’t worth it. Ranged pets are pitiful. They deal some of the worst damage and miss often, so I agree with that. Should tell everyone to pick a porcine over a bear any day. Porcine deal significantly more damage, have a 3s knockdown (that usually missed) and some decent utility. Also, you consider the pig most useful than siamoth? I would flip your list of porcine upside down in terms of usefulness in PvP. CC and utility are much more useful than a heal/condition item.

I was 4/20 with the 1 recipe so I changed and went 20/50 with the 10 recipe leaving me at 12/35 ~1/3. They should make mystic clovers pseudo random distribution if they aren’t already. Where the initial chance at getting a clover is somewhere around 15%, but after each failed attempt that number increases by a constant up until 100% after say 7 attempts. This effectively eliminates luck while still maintaining a 33% chance to receive a mystic clover overall. Sure you won’t have those lucky guys that had a 50% chance, but you won’t have people that have terrible 1/5-1/10 ratios either.

I may be wrong, but most other professions probably don’t need to invest points in their crit chance/crit damage traitline to take advantage of something that is condition based. Rangers aren’t like most professions, rangers are difficult for the sake of it.

However, I almost agree with you, but wouldn’t the purpose of setting a trap on a downed enemy be for someone who risks reviving them having it burst in their face? That makes more sense to me.

I used to use Heal as One a lot, but as a zerker build condition removal became my biggest detriment and SoR wasn’t cutting it. I don’t usually even need to heal, I mainly use it for conditions. In PvE, take Heal as One or Troll Unguent unless you are in a party.

I use LB/GS on my zerker build with wolf/jaguar pets at lv 80 mainly for WvW. At lv 20, a shortbow is nicer due to having more control and conditions for extra damage while providing moderate damage.

Note: Never pick a bear for a zerker build (in PvP/WvW). Bears are terrible.

I enjoy LB/GS signet ranger. It is a pretty strong duelist while also being fairly defensive with only 2200 armor.

There seems to be some kind of issue with the arrow hitting other particles or something because I notice this “Obstructed” mostly occur when the enemy is under heavy fire. I can be standing completely skill firing at oil and only hit 8/10 times because I get these random obstructions. The only other issue I can think of is that the arrows have some sort of randomness in their trajectory resulting in very slight misses that appear to be hits to us.

kash.9213:

Thieves don’t like being controlled, even the good ones which there are very few, my thief main sure doesn’t. Keep them controlled while your pet has lunch and sit on Q zephyr or another burst for last hit before they can reset the fight then swap pet if you have 5 bm and stomp. Go for that quickness stomp if you can, even if they don’t trait for downed damage, that knife throw can turn any low health into a revive.

If the thief keeps hitting and running off for a reset, let them go rest up while you rest up, they want you to slowly kill yourself on them while they go in and out of stealth chasing them like any good zergling should do. I guarantee they’re going to rage on the inside if they come back at you and you’re rested and ready to roll with a smile with fully refreshed cool downs. They want to lure you, so deny them that and just go about your business while they slowly, or quickly, kill themselves on you.

This is SO true. Knowing when and when not to chase an enemy is a huge part of surviving in WvW. When they come back after a difficult fight to see you just standing there not backing away, many thieves (other professions included) change their mind about continuing to fight you and will start targeting other players instead if any are nearby.

I don’t know if I was never observant enough before, but just recently (past couple days) I noticed my pet (only tested with wolf) has started “jumping” off cliffs when I do and taking fall damage (I know it happens in WvW borderland maps, unsure about any others). It was actually so extreme at one point that my pet “died”.

Another interesting thing I noticed is that my pet (jaguar this time) died in CoF boulder lights area to the point where it fell over and had to be revived (again, never noticed this before). Instead I swapped it and when I swapped back to it later it was laying on the ground with 3/4 health, took a few seconds to stand and begin working.

This is not the way I want to see pets moving toward. I would prefer aoe mitigation (at least in dungeons), agony resist, no fall damage, less missing, invulnerability on dungeon traps, etc. I also noticed the “land shark” thing much more frequently as of the past few days, having it occur on me 3 times and also on others in my guild several times (WvW only as well). So my question is, has anyone else ever seen these things?

jkctmc.8754:

Eurantien.4632:

Longbow rapid fire channels through their invisibility. Barrage is good too.

lol… Maybe if a Thief doesn’t dodge.

Most thieves don’t dodge while in stealth because they assume they are safe enough. However, part of the reason I use rapid fire while they stealth isn’t only to damage them, but more of a way to track them and keep them in front of me.

I honestly have no issue against thieves, but that comes with experience. One very important thing I do is spam my auto target nearest enemy to target them when they aren’t in stealth and not rendered. If you are against a p/p thief, roll ~2.5s after they stealth to dodge unload (almost a guarantee they will use this first). As soon as a thief breaks stealth, try and cripple/chill to get some strikes in and then go for your daze/stun to keep them from going in stealth. If they come toward you with dagger storm, don’t shoot projectiles at them and focus on your positioning for when they are done or burst them with a melee weapon (often find them extremely easy to burst with the greatsword) since dagger storm doesn’t do more damage the closer you are. I could keep going, with other possibilities/situations, but what I guess I’m trying to say is that this all comes from experience. Play a thief, learn a bit about them, get on WvW and get 5k kills and you realize they aren’t as difficult as they may have seemed.

I’ve made over a 1000 badges in my time on GW2 (and I know some people have made many more) and I can tell you that it seems that doing more damage to an opponent (near or above your level) in either the downed or up state is what gives you badges. However, there are times when simply tagging somebody gets you 2 badges. Fighting green arrows gives you garbage loot and usually no badges.

Obviously this isn’t thought to be very balanced. With attack of opportunity and opening strike I can already hit 5k on squishy 80’s, 3k on bunkers, #2 would do at least 10k-6k which is kitten insane especially since you have 2 kill shots in 1 weapon. However, it appears this bow would be downright atrocious at close range against opponents with interrupts/stuns/dazes.

Why don’t we have a basilisk with an F2 like that stuns like the ones you can fight? I hate drakes because they are almost useless in PvP and never cast any skills, but if they got the issues worked out on them they might actually be viable.

This actually makes sense. Maybe a 2s reveal on impact and additional 1s reveal per pulse? Or at least allow our pets to attack stealthed enemies.

Wait about .5s before you hit F2, problem solved. If you hit it early they won’t target anything and usually miss. I don’t know what this 3s delay is you talk about. Hit F2 once, try that. If you hit it twice, it cancels casting. Sometimes if you move the pet auto cancels casting for unknown reasons.

I think ranger runes were (and very well may still be) bugged so that if your pet was on cooldown you do not get the bonus damage. If this is still true, they are terrible.

Unless they get this game into a more balanced state and with different PvP gamemodes within the next couple months, I don’t see this game ever getting into the e-sport scene and I honestly think they shouldn’t waste the resources to try and make it one. The amount of work they still have ahead of them seems to be manageable in a reasonable amount of time, but their snail-pace patching methods won’t bring back people who left or alleviate the issues before GW2 falls out of the spotlight. In all seriousness, TES:O comes this year and while to many of you that doesn’t matter, it is a game that would easily overshadow GW2 if it does things right.

Garo.5304:

Thanks for the laugh

I’m sure they do research and find that reducing the price by a certain amount (25% in this case) will increase sales by a much larger margin, making them significantly more money over a smaller period of time. That is the bottom line. Sure prices aren’t as low as you would expect, but that isn’t what matters to them.

It really depends on the situation. If I’m with pugs in fotm or a dungeon, I bring HaO because it heals for drastically more than HS. I guess TU would be even more beneficial, but I prefer a burst heal. If running with guildies, I bring HS to help support the group. In W3 it really depends on where I am. Defending a tower? HaO. Ganking dolyaks? HS. Roaming? Depends on party composition, but usually healing spring for the condition removal.

If you are in the front lines, HS is better for the condition removal and long 15s water field for allies to combo. If you are in the back with a 1500 range longbow, HaO is usually better. Just know that the cooldown on HS is much longer than HaO, so if you run into trouble, be ready to back off because you won’t be able to heal for a bit.

It isn’t as good as it seems because rangers don’t have very many possible interrupts in the first place. We have GS 5, that already grants an attack of opportunity to our pet (They don’t stack). GS 4 which works as an interrupt quite well, but only if an enemy procs it. We have LB 4 which only interrupts if timed correctly. Our last on land interrupt is SB 5. SB does terrible direct damage so the buff isn’t going to be very effective. Oddly, the best weapon for this trait is greatsword and that already gives the pet an attack of opportunity so it is somewhat wasted. GS 4 is the only really powerful skill with this trait because it almost always causes an interrupt followed by a very powerful strike. So one question remains. Is it worth traiting 30 points in the skirmishing traitline for one skill?

I’m pretty sure every lv 80 ranger knows we are very limited in build diversity. You kind of just state the obvious here.