Guild Wars 2

It absolutely does give an advantage, especially for engineers who have no cool down on swaps. For any other profession you have to think about whether you can risk putting 1 weapon set on a cool down timer, for engie you can switch your kit and go right back just to trigger the bonus.

I run power so I get the range, stealth, knockback on my bow, and then the block, daze and swoop on my sword. Not to mention the entangle and wolf fear. I find that the block and/or stealth is great for the initial burst and making them waste skills.

Aiuris.9861:

Correct me if I’m wrong, but when people were around asking if the underwater stacking sigil trick was ok or not, there was absolutely no response from devs. Now they try to fix it and didn’t even post on the update notes? How are we supposed to know the way it is meant to work and which sigils to buy?

I agree the original intent to the change was fair, but it was so poorly executed. I’m going to add to what ArmageddonAsh posted and say that eles and engies can’t change weapons (while ooc) at all if they want to use these sigils because even if the new weapon you are equipping also has the exact same sigil, you lose your stacks. Meanwhile, other classes are totally free to change up to 3 weapons while ooc without losing anything.

They do get advantages with the on swap sigils though. Even with the built in timer they are able to activate them more often because of the constant swapping. You take the bad with the good when you play engi.

akanibbles.6237:

are rangers now viable?

Didn’t you read?

Ranger Pets
- Ranger pet special (F2) skills are now significantly more responsive.

I mean, I know they say that in every update… but I’m sure that they really fixed pets this time.

In all seriousness I switched from roaming as an engi to roaming as a ranger a few weeks ago and it is flipping awesome. Rangers do just fine in small scale fights and let’s be honest, the biggest thing you need for a zerg is to just not be a rally bot and carry supply. I know there are zerg “tactics” but unfortunately numbers matter more than skill in zerg fights.

Those weapons are already equipped. Switching to underwater weapons is no different than doing your weapon swap on land, you aren’t unequipping anything.

irk.2047:

running a trap ranger with sword/dagger + short bow. It is very viable when I go into a 1v1.

Your posts mentions group fights and I would have to say… be something other than ranger… at least in my experience. Any group fight I always get bum rushed. People believe rangers are an easy rally so they rush them. Not that rangers are any easier a rally than an some of the other classes but because I always get nuked on sight, it ends up furthering people’s belief in it. It sucks being ranger for that very reason, but sometimes it is fine I guess for any teammates because they can easily come down on enemies to deal damage for people trying to double down me since they stick to me like a leach.

Are you kidding? That’s the best part of being a ranger. A few days ago I got to kill the same warrior outside of bay four times in a row because he couldn’t accept losing to a ranger. When I’m roaming with a small group I can lure people away from the safety of a camp, or their group because they want to kill me so bad.

Rangers are pretty close to mesmers and thieves when it comes to evading and escaping damage. If people are intent on focusing you just use it to your advantage.

Astral Projections.7320:

It’s not a bug, it’s intended.

It is now set up that if you switch to a weapon set that doesn’t have the sigil on it, you will lose your stack. When you go in the water you switch to underwater weapons. If one of them doesn’t have the sigil then the stack is lost.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sigil_of_Bloodlust
As a result of the April 2014 patch, the Sigil of Bloodlust — and presumably, other “stack on kill” Sigils — have been significantly degraded. If you are an Elementalist, all accumulated stacks are lost any time you change weapons, even if the new weapon has the Sigil of Bloodlust. If you carry dual weapons with Bloodlust Sigils, you no longer get two stacks for each kill. If you are a profession with weapon swap capability, you will retain your accumulated stacks only as long as one of your two weapons has the Sigil of Bloodlust.

Unless you work for anet quit stating your opinions as if they were facts. The wiki says nothing at all about whether you will lose them in underwater combat or not.

Still waiting for an official response.

Archon.6480:

… and my conditions don’t even get bumped in huge PvE zeg-fests (temple runs).

All these patches that are knocking verizon users out of the game and this still hasn’t been fixed? Can we at least get confirmation on if this is a bug or not!?

Or maybe quit patching until this gets sorted out. I’m used to GW2 being broken; at least let me be able to log on.

Archon.6480:

Fluffball.8307:

One simple change to start increasing viable builds would be making the person with the highest condi damage actually get to do the damage. Doesn’t matter how boss your condi damage is, you aren’t the one doing it, it’s the berserker guardian.

There would still need to be other changes to make condis viable, but that would be an amazing start.

So we agree then! A carrion melle ranger with 1900+ in condition with this amazing “change” would be viable! I knew I could bring you to my side of thinking!!!

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Effect_stacking

I know it works because I run it from time to time. It can melt anything. Really.

I guess you missed this Currently no information on how stacks are dropped when extras occur. in the wiki.

For arguments sake lets say that conditions always work the way you think they do. What happens when someone comes in with slightly higher condition damage than you? You are now contributing next to nothing to the run because of your insistence to use conditions.

Do what you like when running with guildies and friends but don’t try to convince other people that it’s a good idea.

I’d much rather welding a bow increased the speed of your backpedaling. I’m constantly chasing people down to finish them off with the longbow, I don’t want to end up knocking them further away. Also one of the biggest complaints about rangers are the dummies that use their knock back arrow at the wrong time screwing up their teams hits, how horrible would it be to have no control over that.

It happened to me in my first week of playing my ranger in WvW. People are so used to rangers being free bags that we must be cheating when we win. Just laugh at him and take it as a compliment.

None of these fixes have worked for me. I’ll try again in a few days. Sort your kitten out anet.

Verizon fios in Virginia, same problem

Easterbunny.6170:

Just put a stacking sigil on both your underwater and land weapon and this will not happen to you.

Sure it’s only 10 gold per character, no big deal, especially since I spend 99% of my game time in WvW which is just one big gold sink.

Sigmoid.7082:

Trap ranger when I played it could kill the NPCs before entangle ended so under 20s. My power ranger current camp flip strategy is los ,entangle, flame trap (with the 15 or more might stacks i can get still ticks around 650 ) , call my birds, drake swipe with 25 might and signet,lightning breath, swap, holy bash, second drake swipe and posion breath then just auto down. At best its quick and we’ll under a minute.

On topic. You did a good job at hitting some points but others are wildly wrong or are too generic

I limit myself by not switching my pets for camps as often anymore because I hate having to rename them every time. Plus it will probably take longer now because of the bug making people lose their bloodlust/corruption stacks by entering and exiting the water. I’ll sure be glad when they finish beta testing this game.

LuXx.9354:

I just want an answer for that. Can you write it in patch notes, if it’s intended.

I’m waiting for a lot of fix, but, here I’m a roamer, I do often underwater fights in ruins, and don’t want to buy another bloodlust sigil, if it’s a bug.

SO, Is it intended, or it’s a bug ?

In one of the other threads on the same topic someone said he has a bloodlust sigil on his land and underwater weapon and he is still losing stacks by entering and exiting the water.

Forzani.2584:

Jim Hunter.6821:

kiwituatara.6053:

Jim Hunter.6821:

The moving golem runs in a pretty easy to follow path, it’s not constantly dodging, strafing, and repositioning itself the way a player does.

Thats like saying, I could trait for CCs and traps so my pet can hit the target (hence swiftness from birds is not needed). Its better to find out potential DPS imo. Stationary and moving golems are perfect for this. Also, if its PvE, your targets not going to be moving a lot.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Agility-Training-Better-than-it-seems/first
^This is the link Sigmoid is referring to I think. But its way outdated.

I almost never PvE. My main concern is how effective a pet is against other roamers in WvW where they are constantly shedding conditions like cripple, chill, stun, and are dodging, evading, stealthing, and teleporting around.

I like the felines for flipping a camp, they do great damage against the stationary npc’s and they let me stack might. But for roamers I go with wolf and raven. Wolf for control, raven for dps.

I don’t think a Ranger can flip a camp any faster than when he is a condi/trap build with Drakes.

That’s possible. How fast do you flip them? I know my condition engi and necro can flip a camp faster than my power ranger but I needed a break from the passive play. My power ranger can still flip a camp in under a minute and he can move around the map faster.

Sigmoid.7082:

I don’t think pet tracking has been changed much so the data should still hold. In any case I do use cats and birds depending on who I am fighting. Suppose its all pve so it doesn’t matter much.

And I absolutely believe that the cats would outshine the birds in PvE, they are very different game modes. Plus I find the raven’s blind to be extremely useful when fighting.

kiwituatara.6053:

Jim Hunter.6821:

The moving golem runs in a pretty easy to follow path, it’s not constantly dodging, strafing, and repositioning itself the way a player does.

Thats like saying, I could trait for CCs and traps so my pet can hit the target (hence swiftness from birds is not needed). Its better to find out potential DPS imo. Stationary and moving golems are perfect for this. Also, if its PvE, your targets not going to be moving a lot.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Agility-Training-Better-than-it-seems/first
^This is the link Sigmoid is referring to I think. But its way outdated.

I almost never PvE. My main concern is how effective a pet is against other roamers in WvW where they are constantly shedding conditions like cripple, chill, stun, and are dodging, evading, stealthing, and teleporting around.

I like the felines for flipping a camp, they do great damage against the stationary npc’s and they let me stack might. But for roamers I go with wolf and raven. Wolf for control, raven for dps.

The moving golem runs in a pretty easy to follow path, it’s not constantly dodging, strafing, and repositioning itself the way a player does.

Yeah this is making roaming in WvW a real pain. It would be nice to hear some feedback on this since there is multiple threads about this problem.

In my experience birds hit more often against other players. Cats have to position themselves to attack but birds have a greater attack range and stick to the players like glue. I’m betting initially the cats do more damage but in a prolonged fight on a moving target the birds end up doing more.

I use signet of renewal and healing spring. Healing spring is great if you can lock your opponent down in it and melee them while they are trying to put conditions on you. If you have to use signet of renewal pay attention to where your pet is, it’s usually a good idea to swap pets right before you activate it to make sure they are in range.

The change was if you unequip the weapon you lose your stacks, to prevent people from getting full stacks and swapping a sword for another sword with different sigils.

There is absolutely no difference between doing a regular weapon swap and going into the water. You have all of those weapons equipped.

I would like one that works properly and uses it’s f2 ability as soon as I command it.

Thankfully it’s happening in PvE as well so it should be fixed rather than ignored

Marndeis.7815:

I think it should be something automatic with the pet (unless / until they fix the delay in pet commands). If you get ANY kind of lag, your directions for your pet are so behind that recall/swap don’t work.

I also don’t like that the pet dodges when you do…. I don’t range a lot with my ranger but a LOT of people do and if a Ranger is attacking from a distance with bow, they need to dodge a lot differently than a melee pet.

That’s why it should just evade, or be immune when you dodge without interrupting its actions. The 30% chance to dodge on its own should interrupt its actions though, but not to the point where it moves it away from its target, it takes long enough for the pet to get the target the first time.

TurtleDragon.3108:

Jim Hunter.6821:

I don’t like this set up, I would much prefer damage, support and control to be the best way to beat content, but ignoring the reality of how dungeons work isn’t helping anyone

Well, you still support and control with berserker builds. I think people just expect to CC-train bosses for the entire fight or have 1 person gear or trait for CC at the expense of their damage. You just have those responsibilities divided equally among the 5 members of your party. Eg. Ranger support is buffing the party’s damage output with condition removal and regen as bonuses and can swap to GS or LB for CC.

That’s the problem. There is no reason to run anything but zerk because the useful boons in dungeons don’t need you to spec heavily into anything else. What good does healing do when the bosses have big, highly telegraphed, 1 shot kill moves? DoT damage is ineffective because of the way conditions work in the game. You can’t even spec into control. So the only reason to run anything but a max dps build is because a player wants to be selfish. (With the exception of guild groups screwing around for fun)

The real problem with carrion in pve is that everyone deals condition damage without intending to and the condition cap is maxed out with low tick bleeds. Unless they change the way conditions work in pve instances direct damage will always be superior.

Also blinds, blocks, dodges are far superior to tanky armor. Building tanky just makes the fight take longer leading to an increased chance of wiping.

I don’t like this set up, I would much prefer damage, support and control to be the best way to beat content, but ignoring the reality of how dungeons work isn’t helping anyone.

You shouldn’t have to trait for it, they should just make it happen. 30% chance to dodge on its own, pet evades 100% of the time whenever the player dodges.

Also replace opening strike with the gw1 skill strike as one, which teleported your pet to the opponent. Make it happen Anet.

Fluffball.8307:

Forzani.2584:

Put a few hours into the Ranger today after not having played him for a few weeks …been playing Warrior. Crazy culture shock. Played a semi-glass LB. You need to be on your toes at all times. It feels like the Ranger goes from full HPs to almost none in a flash. I guess having lower hps…toughness, and not having 1600 hp regen every 3 seconds is quite noticeable

I really try to avoid playing my warrior and guardian, since I mostly play ranger (and in the past mostly played thief.) Heavy to medium just messes up your game play so bad. Warriors are good for eating sammiches while you play though.

I think you just hit the nail on the head. Warriors are so used to just face tanking everything that the majority of them are very easy to outplay. I’m used to playing an engi that has crap for stun breaks, so I am used to watching their movements and knowing when to dodge, stealth, knockback, blind , etc. in order to avoid being locked down by them.

While I can’t melt people with conditions the way I could on my engi, I have found rangers to be far more forgiving with all the useful stunbreaks and evades they offer.

Roll a warrior with pirate runes. Leave my longbow alone. The only skill I would maybe change would be barrage for the gw1 skill strike as one.. Would make the pets a lot more useful. They would actually start attacking immediately instead of taking ten minutes to position themselves.

Why don’t you just roll a warrior?

Tzhify.2418:

newly edited build on the 1st post. take a look and let me know your opinion!

I don’t understand why you’re wasting traits on bleeding when you only have 100 condition damage. If you are going for power I’d drop some of the knight trinkets/weapons for zerker because right now you won’t be doing enough damage. Plus all that toughness won’t save you from your lack of condition removal. If you are going to build tanky then change your weapons and go with a condition damage build. Also if this is for WvW you will definitely want a speed buff.

CRrabbit.1284:

If you want real roaming experience, go thief, there are no other classes even close to 1/2 of what a thief can do in roaming. All good roamers in every server are ALL thief. It’s a pity but truth.
If you want reliably counter a roaming thief (well there is never a way you can kill the good ones but you can still troll them), go for condition engi, that’s the only choice and hope.
Yes , roaming build is viable for ranger, but remember, it’s just for fun. You just can’t take it serious. You have to over play/ over geared your opponent like at least 200%.

A equal skilled thief can still troll you easily even with all blue gears.

Sorry but this is incorrect. Thieves are good for trolling people and killing roamers which is something I can easily do as a ranger or any other class. What they aren’t good at is speeding up yaks or flipping camps, which is a big part of roaming.

I kill the majority of thieves I run up against because I have the sense to ignore the ones that don’t go down quickly. If you run into one that keeps resetting the fight on you just waypoint and flip another camp. Stealth spammers aren’t worth the time or effort for 1 bag.

I love how people equate higher tiers with better skill. The only thing being in a higher tier means is you have more numbers, which also means less small scale fighting.

There is no reason you should ever get locked down by a hammer war in a 1v1 fight. The only time they are dangerous is when you’ve blown your cool downs fighting other people or if you made the poor decision of fighting them in a tight spot where you can’t kite and evade without falling off a cliff. Even then you can usually stealth, position yourself and knock them off the cliff.

RoyalPredator.9163:

Wasting a 3s worthless stealth on a whole weapon skill is just ridiculous.
Stealth with minimum of 5s has to be moved for additional effect on Point Blank Shot.
That is the only logical skill where we could really use Stealth on…

That is a terrible idea. Having stealth and point blank shot separate is exactly what makes the stun lock warriors so easy to kill. I would love for the stealth to be longer but not at the expense of raising the cool down. I can’t tell you how many times stealth has saved me.

The only real problem with it is what the op was complaining about, sometimes the skill doesn’t work, or it gets obstructed by a random blade of grass. They need to change it so you can stealth without hitting a target.

Bump for AR. If you are looking for some kitten good roaming action this is the place to be.

I keep up Perma swiftness on me and my pet so it’s hard to say, but when I use the great sword swoop my pet seems to speed up to stay along side of me. Even if your pet does get caught by a ridge or something it will teleport to you if you get to far away.

Best build? Looks like a typical glass ranger, you have 1 stun break that is also your only condition removal, and it has a 60 second cool down. You would die if a strong breeze hits you. Bump up that toughness and add some runes to your armor.

samanosuke asakura.6240:

zerker lol are you srs zerker in wvw?
then this build is a sniper build.
your gs used for running because noway you are gone survive with zerker in melle fight.
even popping stone and blocking that 9 sec your condi removal next to none.
‘but healing and renewal’ sucks healing every 30 sec renewal every 10 sec if you pop it even less.aka condi removal next to none. you survive i will believe that you won’t survive near the melee you won’t survive getting ganked by a thief while there is zerg fight going on. in a 1 vs1 sure thief would get scared.

While I agree that full zerk bearbow is not a good way to go, maybe this build is meant for roaming. Learn to give constructive criticism instead of telling him his build sucks.

@OP If you’re running with a zerg drop the bear for something like the jungle stalker or wolf, and a little toughness will go a long way. Might want to look at something like steady focus in place of predator’s instinct.

If you are roaming there is quite a bit I would change. Honestly signet of the beastmaster isn’t worth the trait slot for 6 seconds of immunity every 80 seconds. If you’re zerging piercing arrows would be way better and if you are roaming read the wind would be better.

how much life gets stolen with the dragon rolls?

Seisyll.5914:

Am I the only one? Right now to use F2 I have to click the button 4-5 times and still wait few seconds

I guess having it work 50% of the time = fix for anet. I mean, it is better than the 10% of the time it worked before. What would really be nice will be when the pet actually keeps attacking the target you assign it to rather than switching, or randomly quitting the fight on its own.

geogyf.5087:

doesnt spotter give damage increase to the party too?
so its hands down the best trait

Did you even read the opening post or just the thread title?

What would stop all the bandwagoners from switching characters when they see a certain race was dominating that week?

I tried to equip a spider to help down players on the wall but their range is crap. You usually have to find the right angle, or stand on a specific bump to hit things with a bow and unfortunately the pets aren’t smart enough for that.

And giving pets the ability to climb wouldn’t be situational, it would fix a lot of their problems since the terrain in this game is full of ledges. Pets need work, having the f2 ability only screw up 50% of the time instead of all the time doesn’t mean they are done fixing them.

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

Troll.4237:

Tuomir.1830:

Jim Hunter.6821:

Tuomir.1830:

Yeah, it might be cool… but a hell to balance.

Why? Ele’s can do aoe damage to people and siege on walls that are out of sight, our pets would be doing single target damage. Pets are also supposed to make up something like 30% of our damage, I’d argue that it would make up for the damage handicap of having a pet.

Pet A can fly. Pet B can not. So, how much worse stats do you put on pet A to make their total value equal?

I’d rather keep my bird as it is, thank you.

Very few people even use birds so such an attribute would give alot more people a reason to take a bird over a bear or wolf.

I actually love using birds. I go Wolf and Raven personally and although yes they’re extremely squishy, it feels like birds are much more accurate with their targets. Like instead of attacking, missing, pausing, repositioning, attacking like most pets do when someone moves out of their hitbox, birds attack, reposition, attack. Not to mention most people seem to forget they’re there.

That’s been my experience too. Everyone keeps saying cats are better but my bird seems to hit at least twice as often.

law.9410:

Sorry for being vague, I’ve tested it on golems because I use sword and can maintain cripple pretty constantly (I should people test though). I brought it up because some pets need a niche and this idea sounds interesting.

Oh okay that makes sense. I tried running cats but birds just seemed to stick to the players a lot better and land their hits more often. Plus I like the blind attack.

Tuomir.1830:

It’s not as simple as you might think, they’d practically have to rewrite the whole pathing… Combine that to the fact it would upset the current balance of the pets, I don’t see this happening in this game.

They should rewrite it, along with a ton of other things in this game. And there isn’t any balance to pets at the moment anyway. When is the last time you saw someone running around with a white moa? Some pets are clearly superior to others. Having pets not spend 20 minutes running around every bump in the road isn’t going to change that.