(edited by Indoles.1467)
I’m in the midst of editing an ~11min video showcasing my zerg build and its effectiveness (mainly for my guild, but I don’t see why others can’t learn from it). I think I down a couple people in it in one shot and quite a few with two. In full glass cannon spec against another glass cannon, a ranger using maul can hit over 10,000 easily (not on upscales!). I’ve recorded myself hitting an 8.8k on another lv 80 and I’m not even fully geared, lacking about 150 power and ~15% crit damage. My build even has 2.8k armor and 18k health, nothing near a glass cannon. I wouldn’t recommend a glass cannon build as ranger can be built to have a good amount of survivability as well as damage, but I’m just saying it is possible to one shot glass elementalists, thieves, and guardians if you hit first. As for 15s with survivability? Easily.
I get a ton of loot with my build from the greatsword cleave and axe/axe skills. The build isn’t designed for solo play, but it can be altered to work moderately well like that.
(edited by Indoles.1467)
You can proc both spirits but as I said, it stacks according to boon rules. Protection from multiple sources stacks in duration. This is true of anything that gives protection. Two people’s spirits do not share an ICD if that’s what you’re asking. Two stone spirits do nt share ICD, but each one has an indiviual ICD. I hope that clears things up.
If that is true, you would still have to get out of range of the spirit you just proc’d from, wait until the buff wears off, and get within range of the other spirit within 10s to get the benefit right? Or do they both proc independently and one simply isn’t displayed in the UI.
The basilisk with the same F2 as the wild aggressive ones have. I was always so confused at why we didn’t have one.
Not that I know of (but I’ve honestly never tested it). From prior experience with the game, I’m under the assumption that a player can only receive one type a buff since every other buff works that way. In other words, if you are within the range of a spirit and receive its initial buff, then any other overlapping spirit buffs simply can’t be obtained as you already have that type of spirit buff from a specific spirit (you can’t obtain 2 frost spirit proc chance buffs at once).
However, maybe if you can move between spirits, you could manipulate the icd of each of them to proc effects twice as often for any spirit but the frost spirit. Obviously, that assumes the icd isn’t linked to your character, but linked to the spirit that gave you the buff, which I doubt is true.
It is totally random. Sometimes, I deselect a target, call my pet, hit F2 (say I want a wolf fear beside me while my allies and I run), and the pet turns back around to bite an opponent not only completely ignoring the command to perform the F2, but also not casting it where it was needed (or even casting it at all). Other times if you move ever so slightly before or after pressing the F2, the pet will cancel itself and the F2 will be placed on a 3-5s cd (can’t remember the exact number), so you must stand completely still and have no recent targets to guarantee the F2 activates when chosen. Pet’s like jaguar have the (near) instant cast F2 skills that can’t be easily cancelled by the above mentioned methods, but it does happen on occasion if you pay attention. Note I said near instant cast. It appears it isn’t instant cast as the jaguar always stops for a very brief period of time when the F2 is pressed, cancelling any attempts to attack as well.
Edit: Forgot to mention that hitting the F2 skill more than once in about half a second will lead to it being placed on the 3-5s cd if it didn’t activate in that period.
the insane amount of build variety we can implement
We have 2 viable builds (BM and trapper) and a dps build that only really works in wvw (and pve, but who plays gw2 for the pve). Not exactly my definition of build variety unless you don’t care about losing.
Spirits need a rework more than anything else I can think of in this game. They are so overly useless and weak, even when traited. The devs don’t seem to get that by taking spirits, the ranger throws all survivability out of the window for near worthless and random buffs that can be provided more consistently and directly by other professions. The only 3 spirits worth a kitten are frost (no icd is the only reason and even then you average a 7% dps increase which I don’t really think is worth it considering that is all it does), nature (group revive, aoe heal/regen are great. The cooldown and health capacity are terrible though), and sun (only really useful on condi builds, otherwise it is a weak inconsistent burn). Personally think they should be an embodiment of the ranger (think effects around the character like elementalist has), invulnerable, offer more defense/utility for the ranger (activating the active on stone spirit grants 5s of stability?), and provide a buff that guarantees an effect on hit every 10s instead of buffing players with a chance to proc and going on cd for 10s after a proc.
Will my idea ever be considered? Maybe. Could it be implemented? Some tweaking to ensure balance may be required, but I don’t really see it as very op to make these spirits unkillable and more useful since they are on a 60s cd. Will the every be implemented? Ha. Extremely doubtful. Making radical changes to game mechanics 8 months after release doesn’t seem very likely and this is something that requires a radical change to be even remotely useful. Spirits simply lack so much that I would honestly prefer a glass cannon ranger beside me than a spirit ranger because at least the glass cannon fellow can do something.
(edited by Indoles.1467)
All speculation, but now would be a terrible time to invest. A dev said somewhere that wvw ranks will now grant bonus chests that will reward ectos (possibly through rares). I honestly think it is their intention to lower the price of ectos to a level manageable so players can more easily acquire the best in slot gear (ascended amulets mainly since they cost 40 laurels +50 ectos and right now). I highly doubt more than 100 people have obtained them this way since that would be a significant amount of gold lost. I would say there target is about 10s per ecto since that would equate to 5g per accessory + 40 laurels.
I’ll come back for one final remark. I never disregarded the build, you guys read into what I said too much. I simply stated a build wasn’t available to critique (later found it after a response from the op that it was buried in the other thread (personally think it should have been edited in the top post)). If you seriously think you can safely use axe 5 in zvz, you obviously haven’t played any high level wvw (tier 3 and up). If you stand still for just a second within 1200 units of their zerg you will eat about 5 necro marks, 2 static fields, 5 confusion stacks, every condition available on long durations, and at least 5k direct damage == practically dead. If you are running full zerker, axe/axe would leave you incredibly open to attack if they ever get within melee range. Due to amount of gap closers in this game, I just don’t recommend the setup for full zerker as your only line of defense is either a weapon swap (leaving you open to range attacks for 10s) or a short chill and attempt to run.
Sigil of Fire goes well on everything. 5 second cooldown. If your crit is somewhere like 45% then you’ll see a lot of flames. The Area of Effect is quite large as well.
I find it more reliable than the popular alternative, Bloodlust.
Get two bows and use both!
But I agree with this. If you have above a 40% crit chance and high power (the damage from the blast stacks with power) the fire/air sigils are your best bet. Force is more for low crit builds (yet I wouldn’t ever use it on those builds). Energy is very strong on just about every build, so it is always a safe bet if you weapon swap constantly (and you should!). Know that you should always have a stacking sigil on a separate weapon as the stacks don’t go away until map swap, down, or d/c.
Two issues I see off the bat.
1. No where do I see a build, just weapons. This quickly leads me to believe it works as a moderately skilled player vs bads since any good player will show a build and be able to explain the synergy.
2. Axe 5 is terrible in zvz warfare at t3 and up as the way to win these fights is to keep up movement, stability, and heal stacks. (Making one useless skill on the offhand axe). Axe main hand isn’t bad, but I find a weapon evade practically mandatory on most ranger builds.
Well, none of it was ever documented. It just worked the way it should for a few days and then another patch changed it back. Does anyone else remember that or am I losing it?
You seem to be losing it as this never happened post release.
Note: While rangers kitten about the longbow attack being terribly slow, note that ALL autoattacks (or all that I’ve used) have a much slower actual cast time than listed in the tooltip. For instance, guardian scepter says 1/4s. So you should be able to output 4 orbs a second, but you can put out almost 2 in a second instead.
I use 30/0/30/10/0 right now for wvw zerging gs/sb or lb build. If you don’t want 30 in wilderness survival you must take signet of renewal. I use my pet for cc, the damage is just extra.
Ranger has worse traits.
So I WvW a lot.
T2, Fort Aspenwood, lots of roaming, sometimes zerging, occasional dueling.
I’m quite comfortable with my build now, feeling I have the perfect balance of survivability and direct damage. I’m very confident in 1v1’s, rarely losing to anyone be it thieves, mesmers, warriors, etc.
The one class I am struggling with however, is guardians. I can usually fight them to a stalemate, or I will lose due to pure exhaustion after evading and dodge rolling for 10 minutes solid.
I feel my build is very damage heavy so I am surprised that they are able to survive so easily.
I don’t understand the guard class very well but two things I do notice are that 1. they block a lot of my attacks, and 2. they heal often, and for a lot of hp.
A thief friend of mine spoke about boon stripping, but I know this is something rangers can’t do.
My question is, what are you supposed to do against well played guardians, if there is anything you can do?
Build is here:
You’re a power build, against a class with lots of Retal/Protection and probably Toughness.
Its going to be rough for you.
This is a true as it gets. Power built rangers can’t beat most guardians. Traps on the other hand, nearly guarantee a victory.
Guardians swiftness and lack gap closers (for the most part), so disengage and start over if you are in a tight spot. They really shouldn’t be able to do much to catch up if you turn around and swoop away unless they saved judge’s intervention for just that.
I have a hard time believing this. Not because he is a ranger and self proclaimed good but because I’ve tried solo roaming in DB (TC or FA) BL and at this level you either run into a ele (scout) which is impossible to catch (and kill) or a minimum of a 5 man party. Sure you will find a solo roamer once every 30 minutes, but that would be incredibly boring and I can totally see why you would be bored if this is how you play. Join the zerg!
What do we think about giving guardian the ability to “portal” allies? I feel like it only makes sense as the guardian is the in your face naturally tough and supportive profession.
I was thinking of reworking Merciful intervention since I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone use it and it has a decent base idea:
Merciful Intervention Meditation ¾s cast time 80s cooldown Teleport to the nearest ally with the lowest health and create a healing area around them.
To:
Merciful Intervention Meditation ¾s cast time 80s cooldown Create a portal entrance, teleport to the nearest ally, and create a portal exit and heal allies nearby.
Heals in a 240 radius around the exit and entrance gradually over 3s at a similar rate as sanctuary. Range is extended to 1500 units (more of a short range portal) and has a maximum capacity of 10 allies.
The issue I see is how these teleports work they don’t allow you to cross terrain you couldn’t normally walk over. So just how useful would this kind of portal be if it is more of a small teams shifter rather than a zerg mover? Another idea I was messing with was something with Judge’s Intervention where it would pull the closest 4 allies (within 300 units) and yourself to the target but that can be abused by trolls and bad players. In other words, it needs to be able to be accepted by both the caster and user and suffers from the same teleport mechanics.
Good point zenith. I forgot to mention the pet aspect. If I see you running a bear, kick. Although anything else is just about acceptable. I haven’t booted one yet (as they are so rare to find), but I would boot moa users as well as long as it isn’t the red moa. Red moa can actually do something. The longbow build using spirits make me facepalm so hard. “I’m condition damage.” Really? With a longbow? Really? I got a question for you. What is the shape of Italy?
Got a prototype build I’m testing that is pretty survivable while dealing fair damage with the GS. Kind of hard to test without going all out in the gear though since it is optimized for stats.
I don’t even have it quite near fully geared atm but my similar spec works well. The build is designed for large zerg wvw play though, so some traits and even skills could be changed for smaller play. For instance, we find stability in zvz classes to be a must, so SotW is entirely required for most of our rangers. Pets can be exchanged but the siamoth is used before an attack for the stealth approach or 10s buff, both of which make a great initiation. The siamoth can also be used as an escape if you get stealth (saved my kitten more than a few times already). Healing spring is another must for group play as well as entangle. The build requires some know-how in order to play well, but it has the mobility to dive in, burst, and get out (what it was designed to do).
Not sure if you want to sue both sword and greatsword in the same build, but if you are planning on that know that I highly discourage the double melee ranger (or double melee anything for that matter) as you can be fairly easily countered.
You can tell the build most people run by looking at their buffs, I only ask if their build matches my interpretation of something decent. If they are kicking you for being a ranger, try being more friendly when you enter and make yourself seem useful. Still, I have yet to get kicked, even for cof speed runs with pugs.
I feel like it is probably the build you are running. I have never been kicked from a dungeon or fractal. Honestly, I’ve kicked other rangers, more than any other profession simply by asking them a couple questions about their build and if they don’t pass, boot. If your reply is, “I really don’t know how this build works” or “I’m using spirits”, instant boot.
- Assuming you will want to keep the setup you have right now, change wilderness survival XI for Bark Skin XII it will save your life a million times more than condition removal from pet, damage mitigation 33% when you are low in health can really come in handy and give you those extra precious seconds to recover or retreat.
Didn’t read the rest of what you said but this advice is terrible. Without empathetic bond he/she will have no condition removal which is a death sentence in any wvw and most solo play. Any form of a condition build will be a harder counter than you could imagine. My rule of thumb in any build, need at least one source of on demand condition removal, one stun breaker, and one source of periodic condition removal (mainly to keep away those incredibly long conditions and free you of chain cripple,chill, or immobilize). Bark skin also doesn’t work on conditions, another thing to point out.
A couple ways to go about this would be to have empathic bond and healing spring (healing spring is a must for every ranger in our guild as other professions can stack blast finishers on it to heal the zerg). You can also run signet of renewal and healing spring, but not just signet of renewal because the downtime on it is too long. Lastly, you could run empathetic bond and signet of renewal. Something to note that many people forget, the passive on signet of renewal is the only way to give our pets their own condition removal, without it they are ultimately doomed in most fights as it is just a matter of time since our condition removal (mostly) relies on the pet being alive.
Knockdown is hard cc. Soft cc refers to slows like chill and cripple and I would even say immobilize is soft because it doesn’t interrupt skills. Basically hard = interrupts, prevented by stability.
Oh and this was about the F2 because you cant really control the other skills. I thought that was obvious.
Soft and hard cc can be a matter of perception, differing between person.
My personal definition has guidelines to determine what defines soft cc and what defines hard cc.
Soft CC
- The status effect must modify the movement of the target in some fashion (covers all types of cc).
Hard CC
- The status effect must inhibit the target’s movement capabilities in at least one way other than through slowing movement speed (stun prevents dodge roll, fear forces a specific direction and prevents dodge roll, blowout forces a specific direction and prevents dodge roll, immobilize prevents dodge roll, etc).
As you can see, I don’t take into consideration the daze aspect of many of these skills as that would complicate things further. I simply consider soft cc the reduction of one’s movement speed without impeding any other capabilities. Immobilize doesn’t just reduce their movement speed to zero, it inhibits a characters ability to dodge, making it hard cc by definition to me. If we took into effect the dazing portion, we would be left with 3 types of cc, which can be defined in a similar matter, but I find that unnecessary.
On topic, I run wolf/drakehound for max cc to my target while I apply damage.
At least in DB, I have been watching the server grow for the past couple months, definitely not shrinking in any way.
The big ones only target crab carriers as well. Here’s how to get Crabtacular:
- Grab crab.
- Run from other players.
- Run towards big karka.
- Dodge big karka roll.
- Watch karka roll over everyone who was chasing you.
- Laugh.
I figured this out on my own. I won 8 matches in a row before I quit (got all the achievements except the one where you are the last man standing because somebody is always off to the side). A nice thing to follow up with or use when you have no other options.
- Throw crab at any for that lived (within 600-900 units to ensure it isn’t too close that other players will easily see it while being within range to quickly grab back).
- Run towards them where they fell and take it from them and continue running.
Just be careful not to get dazed after you throw it.
I don’t enjoy gambling. So I won’t be buying keys for my chests.
You need aoe to do well in outnumbered situations. The only builds that provides that for rangers are the trapper builds. A drake F2 doesn’t count since it is very unlikely to land and entire burst on one person, let alone 2 or 3. Try a trapper/bunker and you can actually win 1v2 with relative ease, even against good opponents if they make the mistake of getting too close to each other. If they play it smart (1 stays far away with ranged poking you while providing utility and the other pressures in your face) you won’t win unless you can down one fairly quick and pull off the stomp.
A bm build will only work if one of them is dumb enough to let your pet kill them quick, and if this happens they aren’t very good.
WvW seemed a little less laggy till the server suicided.
This except I didn’t notice any less lag. When the server dies, it still craps it’s hypothetical pants.
I would first like to point out that I have two 80s, a ranger and a guardian and am mostly making my comparison based on these two, but have looked through other profession skills (signets) and have come to a similar conclusion.
What is the issue? Well, from a design perspective, it seems that signets were created to be universal amongst professions while still having unique flares towards each individual profession. Most of these signets aid the profession in their core class mechanic. Ranger signets heavily affect the pet. Thieves have increased precision, mobility, and offense. Warriors get a mix of offense and defense. Necros inflict heavy conditions and generate life force. You get the point. What does guardian have? A defensive signet, a heal signet (that is very good), an immobilize, a knockdown, and a revive (that has a longer cast time than stomping and a ridiculous cooldown).
First thing I notice is that none of these tie into the profession’s virtues. Second, very few even aid in what the guardian is mainly seen doing, tanking/supporting. We have a single target immobilize on a decent cooldown and a single target low damage knockdown on a fairly long cooldown. Am I saying they are terrible? No, but they definitely lack a group presence. You would think guardians would have something like the mesmers signet of midnight. What I propose is some changes to see if more players will begin using these signets not only for group play but also because they will provide better synergy with their builds.
Current: Bane Signet – Passive: Improved power. Active: Knock down and damage your foe.
Change: Bane Signet – Passive: Improved power. Active: Blowout and damage a target and knockdown an area around you foe.
Blowout: 300
Knockdown Radius 180.
Improve damage 40%.
Current: Signet of Judgment – Passive: Reduces incoming damage. Active: Grant retaliation to nearby allies and weakness to nearby foes.
Change: Signet of Judgment – Passive: Reduces incoming damage and Virtue of Courage recharge rate. Active: Grant retaliation to nearby allies and weakness to nearby foes.
Virtue recharges 10% faster.
Current: Signet of Mercy – Passive: Improves healing. Active: Revive a nearby ally.
Change: Signet of Mercy – Passive: Improves healing and Virtue of Resolve recharge rate. Active: Revive a nearby ally.
Virtue recharges 10% faster.
Healing Power +180 at lv80.
Reduce cast time to 1.75s.
Reduce cooldown to 220s.
Current: Signet of Resolve – Passive: Cures a condition every ten seconds. Active: Heal yourself.
No change.
Current: Signet of Wrath – Passive: Grants you increased condition damage. Active: Immobilize your target.
Change: Signet of Wrath – Passive: Grants you increased condition damage and reduces Virtue of Justice recharge rate. Active: Immobilize your target.
Virtue recharges 10% faster.
While I’m talking about the guardian. I’ll delve into some trait compression since the devs did mention they want to do this across the board.
I’ll start with the Zeal tree and say that many traits can be compressed here to bring room for new, unique traits. There are just so many bad ones I don’t feel like picking it apart. The gs and scepter power traits can be combined like the sword and spear power traits in radiance for instance.
Now for Radiance, some very decent traits here. My main complaint is the grandmaster Perfect Inscriptions. I think it should provide a 50% buff on passive bonuses from signets (including my changes). 20% isn’t worth much even with the recent change from 90 to 180 bonus stats.
Valor. Meditation Mastery and Focused Mind should be combined into an adept trait since I feel that Focused Mind is near useless. Glacial heart needs a cd reduction to 30s.
Honor. Writ of Exhalation and Writ of Persistence should be combined into an adept trait. I want to say that Pure of Heart should see a base heal increase to about 1000 since guardians really don’t get aegis that much, especially since everything that provides it has a very long cooldown.
Virtues. Now that we are seeing a bit of boon hate, why not buff Power of the Virtuous to 3% damage per unique boon instead of a measly 1% (at least 2%). Otherwise, a very nice tree.
I know the guardian is in a good place right now in terms of profession balance, but that doesn’t mean there can’t be some improvements made where it is weak or doesn’t match up with game design. I know this thread is about guardians, but I do realize that other professions need very similar work (especially to traits) in the coming months. The purpose isn’t to make guardian op, just give it a more unique feel and overall improve build diversity and synergy.
Tried it and don’t like hammer for 2 big reasons.
1. Hammer has many slow heavy hitting skills (Mighty Blow). If they don’t crit often or plain out miss, you can find you lack decent damage output.
2. Blinds wreck the hammer so badly it will make you cry. I found the greatsword offers much more benefits due to weaker but quicker skills that allow for consistent crits. The only downside being retal, but after the pve nerf it isn’t really an issue.
3. (Personal Preference) Blowout should hit up to 3 targets like and other basic attack. That would really help the hammer out in terms of ZvZ.
I would suggest a gs/sw&f build that utilizes heavy blind spam while staying in your enemies face very well. I personally run gs/sc&f because I fin some ranged is essential in wvw and the immob is pretty awesome for setting up burst with the gs.
This never existed.
Rng is rng. Everyone will get their bad and good streaks, you just remember the bad ones more. I once combined 104 masterwork items into the forge (26 attempts) without getting a single rare. Currently on a streak of 14 failed attempts to upgrade. Then I remember a period where I got 3 upgrades in a row. Sometimes I farm and get a lodestone on second kill, other times I farmed for 10 hours on separate days and never got one. We all hate rng because it doesn’t reward effort equally and when you do get a reward, you don’t appreciate it (unless it is a precursor) because you feel like you deserved it.
I’m just glad I’m nowhere near 2000 hours. Maybe I’ll say the same thing then, but at this rate that will be more than another year.
I would say that they all require requires skill to master (in terms of pvp). The least skill intensive would be a bs thief I assume since you can insta-gib afkers and upscales no problem.
What this test says to me is to use dogs. Unless you are fighting a stationary target.
Found this out a long time ago. Canines provide the most consistent dps out of any pet on moving targets and have near linear results of change when their speed is modified. Felines and birds have high ranges which isn’t reliable enough for me.
I think I’m just going to stop testing the birds. The more I see them needlessly using Quickening Screech, the less I want to use them.
Does anyone have any pets they’d like me to try out?
Snow leopard is highly unused in favor of the lynx but I find it better (against players). Same leap but it applies an 8s chill which in turn helps it (and you) land more hits shortly afterwards.
I tried to tell rangers that birds are dreadfully worthless as dps pets a while back due to the quickening screech issue and their innate chance to miss being the highest giving them the highest range on the moving golem of about 20s (can’t remember exact result). I much prefer a precise (as in a pet that lands all the hits it can) pet over an unpredictable one.
A huge part of my builds is making the pet as reliable as possible so that I can perform the actions I desire at the right moments. This removes those variables like quickening screech when I want the pet to burst.
Quick note to all rangers, don’t use the jaguar F2 if you aren’t going to apply any cc to the target. I have fought so many rangers lately that think that because I can’t see his jaguar that I don’t know it is standing beside me. One spike or frost trap later and I know I don’t have to worry about it while I focus the ranger down with everything else.
(edited by Indoles.1467)
I used to run it on my dps build to keep my pet in the target’s face. It basically functions as permanent swiftness on your pet which increases leap distance on those skills significantly as well as increased dps due to less time spent catching up. A good trait for sure. I no longer run a physical damage dps build since condi builds can apply much more reliable damage with much more tankiness.
Thunderclap also does nothing if you use it without a target.
Incorrect, it dazes foes near your body if no target is selected.
Give them another 6 months, they don’t want to play whack a mole. (But these things need a serious rework to be anything near viable.)
It really doesn’t seem to work on thieves, but I guess they generally pop stability to stomp so that would explain it.
Thieves can’t pop stability and stomp that I know of.
Just checked, they only have dagger storm.
it really doesn’t. It even interupts invis stomping
No it doesn’t, cant interrupt OP stealth stomps.
If someone stands beside the stealthed person and you use downed 2 on him, they will both be dazed.
You don’t even need to do that (although that will place the aoe daze on your target), simply casting it on nothing will daze foes near you but deal no damage.
Know that a stomp takes ~2s. So when they stealth, wait almost 2s and hit 2. Watch as you don’t get stomped and they come out of stealth. It will buy you a couple more seconds for a miracle to happen or your pet to interrupt.
it really doesn’t. It even interupts invis stomping
No it doesn’t, cant interrupt OP stealth stomps.
Yes it can. You don’t need a target and it will daze all nearby targets.
Casual / hardcore has nothing to do with how much time you spend on the game, but how you use the time you do spend online.
Well, doesn’t spending more time on something influence the time you have to do certain things while online? In other words, the definitions aren’t set in stone and can be influenced by time.
In terms of how I see it, if you spend 2 hours a day on GW2 sitting in LA you may be a casual gw2 gamer, but are a hardcore gw2 player. There are many aspects of a game, and I may only play one day out of a week but when I do I spend it all in WvW or PvP and therefore consider myself a casual gw2 player but a hardcore pvp/wvw gamer.
It isn’t hard, people are still learning how to manage their pets. Honestly, this is a huge factor is separating the good rangers from the bad ones. People tell me I should use drakes in wvw because canines get blown up. If my pet dies, it is my fault (most of the time, sometimes the pet gets a mind of its own) and I much prefer the team utility provided by a 5 man fear or immobilize than some chain lightning or crappy cone based attack.
Edit: And this isn’t a BM build at all.
I can tell you why I don’t use them. While some of them could seem beneficial to a team of 5, the individual bonuses they provide are downright terrible. Assuming you run stone, sun, and frost spirits, you give yourself a chance to burn on hit, a >10% damage increase, and a chance to gain protection on hit. I know rangers other skills aren’t amazing, but you are trading stun breakers, condi removal (something the ranger terribly lacks, especially without a pet), escape mechanisms, and cc for this lack luster team presence. If anyone decides they want you dead, you are pretty much at their mercy (not saying you will lose every fight, but a skilled player will prove difficult). Then you have to look at their team bonuses. A low duration random protection. A moderate duration burn (only good on condi builds). A percent damage increase (no icd). The only ones I would ever consider bringing anywhere are frost spirit and sun spirit (I use sun spirit on my trap ranger for underwater combat, untraited of course). Then you have to consider the bonuses up time as it is impossible to proc them every 10s (or in frost spirits case, do you want 35% chance or 70% per attack) and this essentially forces your build 30 deep into a traitline that again provides almost no defense or offense for you.
tl;dr: A good ranger is an alive ranger.
Total damage for the entire team? Sure. Total damage for yourself ONLY? Yes. Total damage for other individuals in your group? Oh hell no. It just invites a type of in game bullying that is neither welcome here nor needed here.
I play trinity games regularly, and consistently play a tank or healer. I refuse to play DPS. With that said, if ANYONE in my group wastes my and the group’s time by kittening and whining about someone’s DPS, I boot them. Simple as that. I have the patience of Buddha when it comes to running with other people, but I will judge you by your own standards. If a player thinks that someone’s DPS being 5% lower than their own is slowing down the run so much that it needs to be addressed, then I will address the fact that their kittenty personality is slowing down the run.
tl;dr- my vote is- for yourself, sure. For others? No.
I actually really like this answer and agree entirely. Been told I can’t speed run cof because I was a zerker ranger. Later ran cof with 2 guildies and 2 randoms and we cleared it in 9min (don’t think we had a warrior or mesmer). Goes to show the stigma behind top dps isn’t very accurate.
I would still love a dps meter to see how much damage I can output (one the separates condi damage from physical damage would be amazing).
The Drakes’ damage numbers (non-F2 skills) are: 122, 240, and 647. The second and third damage numbers have 20 and 30 second cooldowns, respectively. The Canine damage numbers are 122, 247, and 248.
Tail swipe does marginally more damage than the canines knockdown ~25%, the listed figures are incorrect. Just wanted to point out that drake tooltips are very wrong.
Good questions! These are the kind of threads I like to see, not those whining about lb and confusion. I still use canines exclusively. The main reason being they are part of my PvP/WvW build and that I use PvE to practice with them (pet swapping and F2 usage mainly). I will continue to use them in WvW and PvP for the aoe fear/immobilize but I may actually swap to drakes for dungeons and PvE since landing their F2 will be much easier and quicker and they longer heal their opponents with chomp. Even in large ZvZ fights, pet management is key, and I have no problem keeping my canines alive.
Personally think the skill should be remade. It should give the pet 15 seconds where the pet will search within 2000 units for a downed ally and if it finds one in that time frame it will go rez them. If it manages to rez somebody before the 15s is up, it will continue searching and if somebody else is down nearby it will go rez them.
It’s true, I feel that one day spirits will be able to live up to the task of allowing us to actually support allies (or even ourselves), but we will have to wait. Main things I bring are some nice aoe cc and condi damage. Profession lacks heals entirely (outside of a 4min cd elite and even that isn’t a burst heal) and is pretty poor at applying boons to anyone (including ourselves).