Guild Wars 2

You can’t have opened the karka chest twice (unless you got mailed one I assume), I tried. It wouldn’t allow me to open it again. Also heard from guildies that alts weren’t able to get it either, so your friends are liars.

From what I did read, you seem to think that somebody with a little amount of time to spend on the game should be equally rewarded to those with a lot of time. That makes no sense at all. Why would those with a lot of time even play if they can get the same reward for much less effort? Yes, I get it, it was a one time event and some people are sad that they couldn’t attend, but whose fault is that? Mine? Anet’s? The karka chest was dropping all night, I know guildies that got it 9 hours later in overflows that failed to complete it. What I do not agree with is how anet handled chest drops. Giving hundreds of precursors in a one time event chest is a bad idea. Other exotics would have been acceptable and I know they wanted to allow more precursors into the game, but this wasn’t the way to handle it. I agree and enjoy one time events, but they shouldn’t have enormous impacts on the game’s economy like the karka chest did.

Dead.7385:

@Indoles – Chest loot isn’t effected by Magic find at all. Devs themselves have stated it.

Thanks for that, seriously. I still use it to pick up drops, especially from champs. Still, my point stands. I don’t equip mf gear in combat.

Saying that the time spent killing them is equal to the time spent skipping them is entirely bullkitten, especially in mf gear. Honestly, I have little respect for those who wear mf gear to dungeons (I bring a set but only equip it to pick up drops from chests or champs) exclusively because it already seems you have little respect for me and the rest of the group. Sure, killing the trash mobs for loot can be worth it, but the time spent vs reward just isn’t worth it for us that wear dps/def gear to dungeons to support the team.

I do well in my dps ranger. My build is designed to be counter dps and works great against anything except pure bunkers (where ranger proves to lack enough burst damage to kill). in which case I simply get help or leave. My build isn’t glass cannon and is traited 30/25/15/0/0 to maintain high dps while providing decent defense. I went in WvW just today and won a 1v3 (2 of them were 80’s and rangers, the 3rd was a >80 mesmer) quite easily. Those rangers were using the ever so common semi bunker trap build ranger I’ve seen too much lately though. No reliable condition application, they fail to realize this + entangle has to be the easiest elite to dodge or get out of.

Bad link for me btw.

I’m making general progression toward Sunrise (meaning I can change at any moment without any repercussions) and possibly Eternity thereafter. I am also waiting for these new legendary skins to see if I want a bow. The current bows have the ugliest skins imo and I would never get one.

Why don’t the spirits just give the buff every 10s on a 100% chance? That is still weak, but at least reliable. The trait can be changed to 50% more potent buffs or something (these buffs are 1 time or like 1s long anyway). Make spirits always follow the ranger as well without being traited. Let us rangers actually be useful support instead of average dps/bunker only.

Neither. Piercing arrows is a good way to draw more attention than you can handle, remorseless is pathetic in comparison to the usefulness of signet of the beastmaster when it comes to a dps ranger.

To clarify, I ran piercing arrows once before. Since rangers aren’t aoe based, it really seems to help very little. Sure, there are some circumstances where your target is behind a pet or another player, but that usually doesn’t last long or can be corrected very quickly. Not to mention striking an opponent is again a good way to draw their attention, so hitting two of them at once is a nice way to die since we have no strong aoe cc, conditions, damage, or survivability. As for remorseless, I find it a waste of a trait considering you get opening shot back after a few seconds of leaving combat. Considering you have to actually kill somebody to gain the effect back (and still be in combat to make use of it), the meager guaranteed crit and +5% damage debuff just isn’t worth it in comparison to having 6s of invulnerability while running a dps build.

Greatsword offers more defensive utility with higher burst. That’s about it. Sword auto attack roots you if you aren’t careful, 2 & 3 give a free evade. Greatsword auto attack gives free evade, 2 is dps, 3 is leap combo+gap closer+damage, 4 is free blocks for 3s or 1 block+knockback+damage, 5 is cc+pet damage.

I prefer greatsword, but if you are leveling, I would recommend the warhorn to help you get around (5 swiftness) faster. I get all the fury I need from RaO. Then again, I am PvP built, not PvE. The way I see it, if I don’t kill my opponent before RaO ends, I’m doing something wrong. The trick to greatsword is knowing when to use the skills to maximize damage and utility (evades/cc).

Whether the outspoken minority liked the gear or not isn’t relevant. I think the majority of people like the new gear (including myself). I’ve heard few complaints (and none from guild mates) about the new content. This game needed more difficult to obtain gear because it was essentially “over” once you hit level 80. There wasn’t even a gear treadmill to start with, and this type of game needs some sort of progression to keep players interested. Without progression, the game grows stale fast.

If they allowed this, these dungeon items should be account bound at the very least or else the market will be overfilled with these mats that aren’t supposed to be cheap.

xiv.7136:

I have better.

I give you: fat Liam Neeson

Bwah haha ha haha! It looks JUST like him! What was the crappy movie he was in recently. (Had to look up title) The Grey! Reminds me of The Grey.

My build destroys thieves. I use a longbow and greatsword. Condition thieves aren’t nearly as easy as glass cannon, but they are doable. Shortbow against thief is a bad idea. I’ve made a name for myself on my old server (just swapped) in WvW and in my guild. Everyone wants to know how I do well as ranger. The answer is simple, learn the other professions and create a balanced build that counters most of them. You can’t beat them all with one build, but you can shut down entire categories.

Also, you trapper rangers. Please stop. One trap at most, never 2 or 3. You need SoR more than you know in ranger’s current state to even be viable for PvP.

This should be posted in the bug section, but I started noticing this after the Maul damage buff. Maul does more damage than Swoop, but it isn’t supposed to according to the tooltip. Something should be fixed.

Something this game obviously needs, is as the title states, public testing. I don’t want to delve too deep into the subject as explaining why this game needs public testing will take a considerable amount of time and I feel that most of the players already know why we need public testing first hand. At least from my experience, it seems the testers are overloaded. By splitting the workload amongst the public, they can focus on other areas (such as one time events that Anet doesn’t want spoiled) while the normal player base works on smaller issues like chests that can be opened at every event completion (think Halloween) and reveal that flaw before it goes live.

How can it be handled? Simply put, I would copy some features from other mmo developers. Allow characters can be transferred (copied) to the PT server that are isolated from the normal game. These characters can then level up and do (new or old) content normally and have an easy way to report issues. What’s the incentive for the player? Well, there isn’t one. It’s just knowing that you are helping to make an already great game even better. Or we could talk Anet into giving our main account a free shirt that represents we have been public testers.

The Hunter, I can’t use Rifles on any of my characters though… So we shall see what becomes of it.

So I just wanted to post that I anticipated this entirely and therefore am only letdown slightly. The most shocking thing to me was the harpoon gun buffs (which honestly were needed since that weapon was utter trash). However, I am actually a bit excited, in case nobody else really noticed, greatsword got a couple buffs.

*Counterattack: The blocking portion of this skill can now be used while moving. Ranged attacks will not trigger the second half of the skill.
*Maul: This skill’s damage has been increased by 40%.

Both of those are quite potent buffs, especially counterattack not longer forcing you to swing if the target is far away. While I don’t want to thank anet for the patch because I was hoping for a little more, I am glad that my build was only improved and I’m sure other people feel the same. (I don’t use traps)

First and most obviously, GW2 makes money from initial sales assuming they exceeded what was needed to make profit. Second, and this is the main draw for F2P games (which GW2 isn’t technically), the cash shop makes a fairly significant amount of money. Between 3% and 11% of gamers will spend a significant amount of money of the cash shop monthly. These people are referred to as “whales” since they outspend the average gamer by a significant margin. It is estimated that the average gamer will spend about $20 on a cash shop throughout the life of game. Whales can spend anywhere from $100-thousands depending on the person. These whales make up for a fairy large ~75% of gamers that will pay nothing to play (like me) and I thank you for it, and I’m sure anet does as well.

Essentially, they are playing off the percentage of the populations impulsive tendencies to make money. Nothing wrong with this business model, and I support it (regardless if I pay or not). Just make sure you set a monthly budget on yourself if you know you are impulsive (like Halloween for instance where I heard people spending $200 on keys wasn’t uncommon) so that you don’t blow your monthly check on GW2.

I noticed this but I didn’t know if I was seeing things or if it was real. I was farming charged lodestones (by myself), and I would see what appeared to me as a player logging in, chopping a cypress tree, and then logging out. Odd. But then it became apparent this wasn’t the case because of the prevalence. So, these bots know how to go invisible and farm mats? You can tell much fewer of them kill mobs, but I saw at least 8 do this over the course of ~40 minutes on a single cypress tree, so they still much have an impact on the game’s economy. The problem I see now is how this new form of botting will get banned. Without players being able to report them, what will anet do to stop them? Obviously, this “hack/exploit”needs to be fixed first.

You have to be kidding. Another broken thing for ranger? I’m going to go test this now. If this is true… I guess I’m glad i use lyssa runes in sPvP.

Ranger runes 6th slot should trigger an effect on pet death or pet f2 skill usage imo. Such as, (reveals all enemies within 1200 units of the pet and applies 5 stacks of vulnerability for 5s on 60s cooldown when F2 skill used.). This is a not a rant about me being afraid of thieves. I actually prefer fighting thieves over about any other progression atm because their consistently cookie cutter builds makes them very predictable and easy to counter.

Quick question, does companion’s might even work? When I used it about a month ago it only gave pets about 1/2 second of might, so it was rather worthless since you couldn’t get more than 1 stack on the pet at all times and couldn’t even guarantee the pet was able to attack while under the effects of might. If they buffed it to 5 seconds or something it would be much stronger.

All accurate points loki, but I think rangers should be given the option to remove pets. The main reason I think rangers don’t want to use their pet in the current state is because of their functionality, or lack of. Some quick examples being the pets inability to revive you 50% of the time when you hit “3” while downed (give me something else if I don’t have my pet out that work 100% of the time). Pet AI running past the enemy player and then backtracking toward them to never land a blow because the player is constantly changing directions (pets can hit moving targets fairly well, they simple cannot hit targets that change direction rapidly). Pets do almost nothing but die in most dungeons. I could keep going on, but you get the point.

If given the option, I’m sure some player will remove pets entirely from their build, but I think that pets should still be a crucial part of the ranger profession. I see it more as a “hotfix” than anything. I would forgo my pet for all dungeons because of how they are more of a detriment than anything else. In other words, I don’t want player to be rewarded for not using their pets, but I still want to see the option at least until pet reliability is improved.

I realize that was more of a talk about the quirks than anything, but I honestly feel like that is the rangers main complaint about having to use the pet at this point.

Completely agree with OP. This would be a splendid addition to legendary weapons. This would make me actually want to get one because I think most of the skins look downright atrocious.

Llywellyn.4635:

just another question

but what do you guys expect from this update/ranger buff?

I don’t know what everyone else is expecting, but I’m expecting a lot of broken skills being fixed and some slight tweaks to weapons. Nothing major. Some people want to see the world dominated by a ranger and his/her pet, but I don’t see that coming anytime soon. I doubt we will get buffed to the point of having a viable role in sPvP is what I’m actually saying.

I like to use Signet of the Wild and 5 on horn before pulling out my charrzooka with my berserker’s build. Each rocket can hit tanky players for over 2.5k, it obliterates crowds and players on walls. Now if only artillery barrage got some sort of buff…

Nov. 15th. I think this is when the next big update occurs.

The problem with ranger glass cannon builds is that we have no real escape mechanisms, cc and condition removal, and pets are rather weak. While I’m sure this build works decently (I tried a very similar build before I adapted it to what I have now), I know you hate fighting in small groups against thieves, warriors, guardians, and mesmers, especially 1v1 because they all counter this build. Thieves and warriors get in your face with gap closers and you can practically do nothing about it. Guardians out last you. Mesmers are similar to thieves but at ranged and constantly spam illusions. I found shortbow is much more effective than longbow at close ranger, but the lack of damage proves it fairly useless still (especially after the “nerf”).

My build is similar but migrated to LB/GS 30/25/15/0/0. Sure, I don’t deal as much damage, but I have 200 more defense, about 1k more health, gain protection on dodge, and am overall much tankier while still being a “glass cannon”. Jewelry: Ruby Orichalcum Amulet of the Berserker, 2x Ruby Orichalcum Ring of the Berserker, Emerald Orichalcum Earring of the Knight, Beryl Orichalcum Earring of the Valkyrie. I’m thinking making earrings berserker instead of ring for slightly more tankiness, but I don’t think it’s worth the cost.

Maybe it’s because I play Ranger a lot, but I can solo about any thief, warrior, and mesmer. Bunker guardians are a bit of a problem though. I solo’d (and won) 2 thieves today in wvw, 1 was using condition build (tough long fight), and the other glass cannon (very quick fight). To beat glass cannons, you need to roll when you think they will use steal, pull out GS, hit 4, then 3, 5, 111111111. If using a wolf hit f2 right after you block with 4 and they should go down because they won’t be able to stealth.

GS is a lot stronger than what some rangers what you to think, it just requires a smart player behind it (ranger in general requires a smart player in its current state to be effective).

That’s a fairly cookie cutter ranger build. Pretty much the only viable ranger at this point. You lack a stun breaker and condition removal (other than that one trait), so if you go up against a condition build it will be a tough fight.

Work on getting lv 80 exotics. You can run dungeons a lot and essentially turn those tokens in for “free” 80 exotics. If you can make tons of gold, you can buy a full set of gear. If you are broke, I would recommend getting a full set of rare (yellow) gear first to help you do other things. I use the Superior Sigil of Ice on my longbow and the Superior Sigil of Battle on my Greatsword. If you aren’t working on legendaries, use karma to buy cooking supplies, recipes, and idk what else it is useful for. Hope that helps.

I call my spiders “Charles”, wolves “Jeffrey”, bears “Toby”, and raven “Poe” in PvE. In PvP I replace “Juvenile” with “Champion” or “Veteran”. From what I’ve seen, veteran gets the best response. Enemy players tend to attack it much less.

I would assume it is.

Can’t believe people are still discussing this… I’ve tested it and thought it was well known. All cats>birds when it comes to dps by a rather large margin. The cats attack faster and the ai is smarter (birds use their swiftness mid fight and become useless very often). As for F2 abilities, Raven>Eagle/Hawk on burst. Eagle/Hawk>Raven on dps. In PvP, if you can manage to keep your pet alive Eagle/Hawk>Raven. If you can’t manage to keep them alive Raven>Eagle/Hawk. So in conclusion, if you want highest dps, pick a cat. If you want highest burst, pick a raven or cat. If you want something that will provide great support in PvP, pick a wolf. Wolves have the fastest attack delay at .25 sec and therefore can keep constant attacks on a mobile opponent. Plus, wolves can knockdown and F2 for quite a lot of cc. Cats synergize well with bunker builds because you want to enemy to come to you, allowing your cat to maximize dps. Birds really don’t have a place in PvP because of their lack of reliable cc or damage.

Force gives you more dps because that +5% also stacks with your crit damage. Use fury buffs for crit chance. I agree with fish, Superior Sigil of Air is pretty strong. However, I use the Superior Sigil of Ice on my longbow. It’s more for PvP than PvE, but it helps in PvE as well. It really doesn’t matter all that much in PvE.

Your point is only valid if the pet lives long enough to apply a second or third attack. In PvP, this is rarely the case. Raven provides great burst damage and a blind. Birds are kinda bad anyway. Make a bunker build and pull out a cat if you want to be a decent ranger in PvP. However, in PvE, I agree with you. The raven will tank better for you than the eagle, so some may take it for that reason.

As a ranger who stumbled upon this thread through searching, LOL. Ranger has burst damage. I didn’t know and I have full exotic berserker gear. I call bullkitten. It had to be his friend. Can’t wait for ranger buffs around the corner. Hope you guys get some more too, you seem fairly weak in sPvP. Maybe I play against bads.

Lol, this is why I don’t put 30 points in skirmishing, the grandmaster traits are simply atrocious. Fear not, I think ranger is going to be reworked entirely. At least utility skills and weapon reworks are fairly well confirmed. I don’t know much about traits (but I really hope they are redone as well).

Honestly was a little kitten when I saw the patch notes and found NO ranger updates. After reading this I am a bit relieved. I hope it comes soon.

I use pets to provide additional cc to the target. Currently, only wolves, spiders, and devourers are good pets because of the cc or consistent damage they provide. Try chain cc with the wolf (when the wolf knocks your opponent down, fire the F2) and burst when you do this. It actually makes you feel like your pet is a valuable asset in pvp. Sadly, it only works in fights of 2v2 or smaller or else the wolf melts. All other pets are fairly useless.

Lol, I wonder if the OP is the same guy who called me a hacker a few days ago in sPvP because I went in stealth twice (a fairly long 1v1 battle in which we both were using defensive condition damage builds). I couldn’t stop laughing. That trait is pretty useful.

nldixon.8514:

Indoles.1467:

Oldgrimm.8521:

can they change rapid fire into a single attack, and not a channeling attack,

so we can use traited signet of the hunt better.

Signet of the Hunt doesn’t work (at least with crits) anyway. Here is a short video I made (and posted in the bug section) to prove it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5a4wYGBSfNY&feature=plcp

You should have tested in the Mists with a steady weapon, but you’re absolutely right. I just tested in the Mists with a steady longbow and there is no difference when using Signet of the Hunt in the damage.

Kind of bummer, hope this gets fixed.

Oh! I never realized what those steady weapons do. It all makes sense now. Thanks for the info, but I guess my video still proves my point. I did test it many more times than illustrated in the video to make sure I was right.

Back to OP. I find your idea practically valid, but wouldn’t it make an already boring weapon even duller? Not really for it. I would just use SotH before firing 1 or 4 for some heavy damage if that skill was even remotely valid (the cd is too long to make it worthwhile).

Oldgrimm.8521:

can they change rapid fire into a single attack, and not a channeling attack,

so we can use traited signet of the hunt better.

Signet of the Hunt doesn’t work (at least with crits) anyway. Here is a short video I made (and posted in the bug section) to prove it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5a4wYGBSfNY&feature=plcp

Aurum.8793:

So since this game first started I’ve wanted to play a greatsword Ranger, in dungeons. So, of course, I tried it. Buuuuuuut it didn’t go all that well. So I just went to my number 2 choice, which was a spirit based, healing and buffing Ranger. That has actually worked very well for me, but I would love to try the greatsword again.

Are there any viable greatsword builds at this time, or should I just reroll to another class with a greatsword?

You can try my GS build.
http://www.gw2build.com/builds/power-precision-ranger-ranger-pvp-power-precision-3817.html
I use it for sPvP because I enjoy the GS playstyle. I find it fairly effective. If you use it mainly for PvE, you can swap SoR for anything you like really. Just remember when using GS, proper time of the 4&5 abilities makes a world of difference.

So far, this is my latest build and it has worked quite well in sPvP (haven’t tested in much in WvWvW). Quite effective at weakening the target before they are able to reach you, then swapping to GS to finish them.

I really like to use the GS on my ranger, really fits my playstyle.
http://www.gw2build.com/builds/power-precision-ranger-ranger-pvp-power-precision-3817.html

I use the Superior Sigil of Ice the in longbow and Superior Sigil of Battle in the GS.

Does it matter? Any decent player won’t let you entangle them for more than 2 seconds. I guess for PvE it can help, but it doesn’t even work in dungeons, so…

Not saying I disagree with your point, it should scale (assuming it doesn’t, never tested that myself).

I got a video where you can clearly and oddly see that using SotH actually lowers your damage (on critical) slightly instead of increasing it. I think SotH works if you don’t crit, but I don’t have any proof. I’ll look more into it, but I really hope this is solved (even though I don’t use it) because it is just one of the many broken features of the Ranger profession. Plus, if this doesn’t work, I wonder if the trait “Moment of Clarity” even works. It essentially does the same thing. Problem is, it is much harder to test.

You cannot deny that fact that rangers are weak in comparison to other professions against EQUALLY SKILLED OPPONENTS. The problem is, you supports play WvWvW in a gorup of 10 and crush a group of 6 and say “Ranger longbow OP LOL!”, when in fact the enemy had no endurance left to dodge your swift shot or move out of your barrage. Go in sPvP and try your same build on a few different servers (to get a goo d mix of players) and then tell me how you feel. You will notice thieves eating you alive, mesmers confusing you to death, guardians lighting you ablaze, warriors 100 kadafi your rectum, etc. These are exaggerations, obviously. 100 blades combo is so predictable and easy to dodge that I would honestly never expect anyone to die from it, but that isn’t the point. Our weapons combined with pets simply fail to bring anything useful to the table against our unique opponents. We have almost no aoe attacks, burst damage (QZ+anything only works if you can immobilize your opponent long enough for them to not be able to evade) or hard cc (Muddy terrain, spike trap, and entangle (I’ve never seen a good player sit in entangle more than 2 seconds)). The only remotely useful thing that could possibly make up for our faults are pets. If traited jungle spider brings about 6 seconds of immobilize to the fight, in theory. Since these are ranged attacks, they can be reflected or evaded quite easily. Rarely does my spider land the immobilize when I need it to, which leads me to another point, we have to rely on our pets for the majority of our hard cc, which ultimately falls upon the ai to decide our fates. Half of the time I hit F2 and the pet refuses to use it but instead attacks the enemy, meaning that 2.5 second fear is completely useless until the ai decides it wants to use it. While I do agree that most of our weapons need a buff in some ways (longbow need more close range damage and conditions, gs needs slightly more damage, axe&sb*sword are fine, dagger’s 4 needs a rework) our biggest problem is that the pets fail to function properly against players.

TLDR: By forcing rangers to rely on pets for practically any chance against other professions, we are ultimately reliant on the ai built in, and therefore inherently at a disadvantage. Pets need to be sped up (not saying attack while moving, but maybe 20% faster move speed than the player automatically and some resistance to aoe and certain forms of cc.

Misconception, chill does not reduce dps at all. They can cast all abilities at normal speed, and auto attacks are unchanged. While under the effects of chill, their cooldowns recharge 66% slower. 3 second chill = 2 seconds longer cooldown.

And yes, spike trap immobilizes for 1 second (unmodifiable) on first pulse only, regardless of traits or skills.

Fate.8673:

Pray your teammates will do something? Are we talking tPvP here? If your teammates don’t take advantage of AoE lockdown that YOU provide, is that the fault of the ranger class or the fault of your team?

What does the guardian have compared to us in AoE LOCKDOWN, not AoE pushback.

My pet never dies in tPvP. Swap is always up before it dies from AoE. If it is being focused then thats GOOD for me as well. Your post is full of genealizations such as “moderately low damage.” and exaggeration like “pet hits once then dies”

Sure maybe don’t take all 3. Entangle+ Frost trap? Throw some axes watch them bounce? Throw in some AoE Fear/Immobilize? Time and again this is effective in Team vs. Team combat over a major point.

What I find the most funny is how guardians deal “considerable” damage while we deal “moderately low” damage, when I’ve found the reverse is true of our respective support specs.

There’s a lot of negative bias and perception in your post, and “Grass is greener” syndrome. And hell, maybe I’m blinded by my own positive thinking? Who knows.

I just know I’m definitely having fun with my class and not abandoning it.

You can’t call soft cc “lockdown”, it just doesn’t work that way. They can evade or use condition removal if they feel like they need to. Also, the only ranged aoe hard cc we have is Muddy Terrain and Spike Trap (if traited). I never once stated I dislike playing as my ranger, you read my post with a predisposition of negativity.

You know, I would much rather see your build or builds. I’ve played hundreds of sPvP and tPvP matches on my ranger. So if you don’t mind, post it. And since I know you won’t, thanks for nothing pal. Next.

While I agree with some of what you say, you can’t possibly expect people to run Muddy terrain, spike trap, and ice trap. That is the worst utility skill set up I’ve ever read. I wouldn’t even consider this viable for PvE, better yet PvP. Sure traps create tiny (or if traited slightly larger) combo fields with decent cc, but the downsides are too great to even consider using them. A build like this has no condition removal, stun breaker, damage or condition damage. Sure you can apply about 5 seconds of soft cc, then what? Pray your teammates will do something? Or, a guardian can lock somebody down and proceed to tank, provide heals and buff to allies, and even deal considerable damage. We have our pet that hits one time and dies, then ourselves which have a few evades and moderately low damage. I agree with the spirit of nature being fairly powerful, but honestly it should automatically follow players around without having to be traited. It just seems like making it stationary was an afterthought to give the ranger profession more “depth”.

Healing Spring just doesn’t heal enough imo to make it valid for PvP. The 30 second cooldown + forced stationary gamplay (to regen and remove conditions you need to stand inside it making you an easy target) result in it being a poor healing skill in general. I find that Healing as One is the only valid healing skill due to its short 20s cooldown and nice 6.5k burst heal. However, this may be because it ties more into my gameplay style of being very mobile.

For PvE it is totally viable. For WvW, it is viable. Just don’t use it in sPvP. You hit too low and don’t have enough cc to even 1v1 somebody.

I have managed to wreak havoc with it in WvW simply because in the mass chaos of a fight, I can pop my utility skills, leap in and hit 2-3k (currently have 96% crit damage) crits 77% of the time of every swing (and with QZ+SoS you will swing a lot and not have to worry about your health) dealing pretty devastating aoe damage to usually 2-4 targets before I back off and work on finishing them with my group. As for solo fighting, I find that GS glass cannon build actually does well against thieves because of the aoe swings, block, daze(& possible stun), and evasion on third auto attack. The main issues being able to lockdown your opponent long enough to apply your burst damage, correct usage of SoS, and which elite to choose. For these questions, I would recommend using entangle about halfway through the fight (after the enemy uses a bit of endurance and stun breaker) to get maximum effectiveness. People saying GS is terrible need to work on proper usage of the skills. Simply spamming your abilities yields poor results. Proper timing of the block (or GS throw) can deal devastating damage) and a wolf or jungle spider will give you additional cc.

I’d rather see them merge all those into a single trait and leave them the same. In other words, if you are using a cat, it causes bleeding crits. If you use a spider, it can immobilize (can’t remember is that is even correct, just an example). However, I agree with the concept, something needs to be done about more than just the Beastmaster traitline.