Guild Wars 2

I used to run something a little bit like yours (rpfohr), but I’m now using
this
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNBHhFakRlOWbZxkFqWDoHUrDgBeBaVEu7ik4tPZVV6B-TlSBABZpUiLlNnpE05nAwNq/Q0+D4pPYhDQgGnAAAOEAkCQQhVA-w
(i know strength would be better than pack, with appropriate sigils on weapon, but I don’t yet have that money available)

More damage, more active survivability options, ok control… (I do miss the on dodge and on-swap things some times, but well… can’t have it all )
When we go off against groups that have lots of CC, I’ll either swap back to PVT armor + melandru (with more offensive trinkets, though), or switch remorseless for signet of the beastmaster, then take signet of the wild as replacement for zephyr.

Sword is good to use with auto-attack off (and obviously with auto-targetting off too)…
I only turn auto-attack on when soloing trash mobs…

I guess it’s because on use of skills like LR, it might cleanse immob as an alteration, instead of doing it from the skill (eg, if I have immob, weakness and chill on, and use LR, it gets rid of the immob, then cleanse other alterations, while a cleanse at the beginning would possibily cleanse two of them, without leaving immob to be taken off by LR).

Plus, it seems consistent with most other cleanses (not all, but most cleanse at the end of the animation, instead of at the start)

Only use of full pvt is to learn positionning in zergs. Once you do, you can get rid of PvT items to go for more damage.

As others said, Full PvT is useless for roaming. it will not stop other classes from bursting you down, but you will not be able to.

Following is an OK build for someone starting – http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNBhODbkRlOWbZxkFqWD8HUrPg8NAatDuni/tsB-TlhFgAAKB30BcpZ4U9n59HwV+BA-w
the runes I’ve put are just an indication – Melandru, Force or orbs would also do, along with a few others, depending on your general survivability. With Force runes, better go for force sigils on weapons too.
If you feel like you lack stability, you can swap Quickening zephyr with signet of the wild, and swap Remorseless (Marksmanship XII) for Signet of the beastmaster (Marksmaship XI).

What’s great about this kind of build is the group play options (while a long bow build is more often personnal).
You add 150 precision (7% chance of crit) to up to 15 allies at the same time; you’re in range for healing spring, and can put a blast in it yourself, you’re in range for entangle also, and even if lasting only a second in zergs, roots keeps foes where melee can hit them, which allows to down them, thus help; muddy terrain is also a good control, though you want to put it under foe’s caster’s feet, not in melee. Well placed lightening reflexes is a life-saver – the “break out of jail” card – break stun, break immob and clear two alterations, topped with some vigor…

For pets, either bears, that you can direct through foes AoE’s taking some damage off your melee, or buffing pets or wolf (wolf kept on swap, for quick interrupt if needed).

Tragic Positive.9356:

I’m not sure – but it shows up automatically if you hit level 6 or so.

Might have changed with the update, but it is indeed linked with the level, and not just with having a pet…

Lace.9472:

SB and GS are my two favourite weapons. So I’m glad to read these comments, but if I join a PUG dungeon group with a short bow and LS will I be kicked? (assume I’m taking frost and the ferocity trait)

LS?
Problems with being essentially distant in dungeons is that lack of buff sharing.
In non-speed-run/zerk only group, should not be a problem. I personally usually run both a melee and a distant weapon in dungeon (pug runs – not speed clears), and select weapon according to how the rest of the group place themselves…
In pugs, I don’t often see the vulne stack pile up to 25, so I feel the GS is not a bad choice… but, again, this is not for speed runs. Avoid those groups, and you shouldn’t have problems…

As for SB vs LB, below 1000 range, given faster rate of fire of SB, they deal approximately the same base direct damage. Over 1000 range, without taking bleeding in consideration, LB is better.

Sons.5493:

I created my pve ranger some days ago, just run DnT ranger build and you should be fine, frost spirit and spotter are kitten OP for speed clears and any group that kicks you is just ignorant, now if u run LB don’t expect people to take you in their runs.

FYI level 35 rangers don’t have access to spotter…

@ OP
All said previously are good points.
Mainly just make your own LFG post for discovery of dungeons or find a guild that suits your needs…

I’d love a blast on maul, and agree that given other professions’ access to blasts, that it wouldn’t be an overkill to have one on maul with current CD…
But, given our acess to fields, I also reckon it needs some tradeoff.
The blast + vulne + damage and CD, plus our relatively easy access to fields might be somewhat high all put together (we can basically make two blasts in our waterfield, then lay more fields, would it be through traps or weapons, and keep blasting them – while war/gard/thief have fewer access to combo fields).

Quite some time ago (sometime last year) there were discussions about GS with a dev from the balance team. He felt GS wasn’t quite there yet and discussed putting the evade on swoop instead of AA, which many felt was a bad idea (I don’t remember if he discussed blast on maul, though I think it has been mentioned).

Because people take GWEN since it’s known…
Some guilds recruit rangers, (though more in EU than NA, apparently), but most are not imaginative enough to fit in a ranger…

Prysin, your desire to make rangers sound good is admirable.
I main one, brought all the other professions to 80, though they are not all geared.
I build for damages and survivability on my ranger. Half my stuff is pink.
Most of my alts - which are unstuffed - just dressed in found gear, hit harder than my ranger, and have more survivability options, while offering to the zerg what it wants.

What is important in a zerg - especially outnumbered - is damage / survivability / boons / CC.
A dead player deals no damage, no boons is less damage, no CC is less damage.
So it is natural that commanders would prefer to have a heavy than a ranger, when speaking damage/survivability.

What we bring is hard to see - because people don’t know what to look for. When I make a cell for my commader, he does not know the ranger dit it. Most of the time, when I give a water field - he does not know I did it. When I send my bear ahead to pop the zones, he does not know I did it. When 15 people get 150 precision, they don’t notice I did it. When I crit 3k and inflicts vulnerability, they do not know I help them hit harder.

I do see all that I offer to the zerg, but I do not have the delusion to believe that rangers really have their place in zergs or GvG. Simply because If we get the mitigation tools to survive, we either lack damage or group support. If we build for damage, we either lack group support or damage mitigation. and so on. A war naturally has good damage and survivability, and building for more does not take off it’s group utility. A guard naturally has lots of group utility and survivability tools, which allows it to build for damage. A necro has lots of natural survivability, can build for more, all while doing great damage (as power necro) and great control of the ennemy (greater control options untraited than our traited ones). The ele? a _well played_ ele does not sit in fire... at base, they might not have much, but just with 20 points investment, they give might, swiftness, regen and protection to all their group every 10 seconds. They offer more vulne than we do, more damage mitigation for our group (blind/weakness/ice), and more low CD useful fields.

So, one on one class, comparison with ranger, from my gameplay experience, all classes having a balanced build that deals damage and ensures the player can last the fight, from a WvW zerg point of view :
War
- damage +
- sustain +
- control +/- (different)
- group utility
Gard
- damage +/- (depending on spec)
- sustain +
- Control +/- (depending on spec)
- group utility +
Necro
-damage +
- sustain +
- Control +
- Group utility +/-
Ele
- Damage +
- sustain +/-
- control +
- group utility +/-

Ranger’s problem in term of group play is the pet... Don’t get me wrong, I love the pet, but it does not mean I’m blind to the problems... Our base damage is lower because of the pet... many of our CC durations are lower because of the pet... many of our traits affect the pet only...
All that because of a pet that might add to what we do... while it spends most of WvW bus fights dead.
Ranger is great in small group play. I’s a great class to play in small groups. But get in a zerg or GvG, and the mere fact that the pet dies in seconds makes the class sub-par. Lock any class out of their mechanic or class defining abilities for 50 seconds every minutes, and any class would be sub-par. Would it be a War with no adrenalyn benefits, an Ele that can’t change attunements, a necro that can’t enter DS, a thief without either init or stealth...

I dislike Mega servers in PvE, I hate them in PvP (can’t test builds against the pnj’s anymore- people zerg them ), and I would more than hate it if it was put in WvW.

I could go on a NA server and play at prime time, but I chose a EU server to play when it’s quiet. I don’t mind playing outnumbered most of the time, as long as I can play different strategies.
The prime-time / night / day strategies are not the same. I find it’s very interesting, that those way of playing can be played on one server. Always playing the prime-time game would be useless.
Always playing on temporary maps created and maintained for as long as there are players on it would be another EoTM thing – running around capping things, and that’s it. no strategies of taking for tick, of upping to defend, of leading the foes to attack each others… Just a zergcapping fest.

If they ever change the way WvW works for anything remotely connected to mega servers, I think many would leave.
People who want to win braindead in a zerg go on stacked servers, those who want to outplay the opponent and fight nice fights go on servers accordingly, those who rather run small groups or small zergs can choose their servers accordingly…

Mega servers mean everyone in the same boat, everyone is the same, and there are no identity or individuality anymore… which is sad…

Now, for those putting forward three faction, bear in mind that people are still choosing their “faction” according to their chances of winning, it might be somewhat equal at the beginning, when all is new and shinny, but long term, the weight always shift towards a faction, a side, a server… Unless players are “forced” to play a side, and are changed sides according to the needs – which noone likes – there will be no “equality”.

Let it be as it is…

Luranni.9470:

That might make sense if there had been nerfs to survivability, but apparently the only nerfs were to direct damage so it doesn’t make much sense.

Some runes changed (I’m not gardian, so no idea what our guards run, might be boon ones :p), maybe they ran with something that made their crit damage help them survive, maybe the rune/sigils they used got changed in a way that offered them less sustain…

Might be the same kind of things for other people who found they were more squishy…

The last thing i remeber about ferocity was that “ferocity scales for a 10% less damage compared with critical damage”.
Before last patch i had +82% (= 232%) critical damage, right now i have 204% critical damage. So the difference is -28% critical damage (way more than “10% less damage”).
Now if you compare the overl damage 10% of 232 is 23.2 (so i would have 209% instead of 204%)

What Anet said was that it would be 10 less overall damage for a full zerk.
Unless your build had 100% crit chance, somewhat 30% less crit damage is not 30% less overall DPS…

So can you explain me how exactly ferocity works? And, how does critical damage scales with “ferocity”? (how many fecrocity points for +1% crit damage?)

15 ferocity = 1 % crit damage

Gardians in my guild felt they were squishier yesterday evening, the other classes didn’t find that much.
I thought it might have been linked with the build they ran (still ran the old build, instead of a newly optimized one).

I had my main over level 750 (maybe 770), and my 7 alts at somewhat level 40, and ended up with 1045 levels or so, so it looks all right.
Do not hesitate to contact support if you are under the impression things didn’t get properly added, but remember that WxP (and not ranks) were added, and that the first ranks are lower in WxP than ranks after 5, so try counting one rank for the 5 first ranks (so rank 10 would be = to 6 ranks, rank 50, = to 46 ranks and so on) before sending a ticket…

geist.3980:

how does this help wvw? your kills aren’t stopping the enemy and its not generating ppt. you need an entirely separate zone from wvw for gvg.

SniffyCube.6107:

snip
- not stacking certain servers just to get fights
snip

plus
- no weight on regular maps (line ups because of GvG, thinking a guild is there to play while it GvG, making GW2 GvG somewhat more of a game mode, so that they don’t take in places of WvWers…)
- GvG guilds are often the great fighters on their server. One good GvG guild can keep the other servers zergs busy, so that they leave our structures alone, allowing other groups to cap ennemy structure….

Semi-zerkers/power builds used the fact that crit rate of trinkets were higher than that of armor, so they often have PTV armor with zerker trinkets, which indeed is a 30-40% loss in DPS, while full zerk it’s less of a loss.

to make it clear :

helm, in zerk has 32 precision, had 2% crit damage, and is now 32 ferocity, so 2% crit+2 points
zerk earring had 40 precision and 3% crit damage
40 ferocity is not quite 3% (lack 5 points)

Some pieces of armor do have less crit damage, but overall, it’s the same.
Crit damage from trinkets are way less after update, so the loss.

Though keep in mind that unless someone had 100% crit chance, it is nos a 30%decrese in damage, but in crit damage. non-crit hits still hit as kittene still has the same chance to deal crit damage, but the crit damage itself is lowered.

so assuming a 50% crit chance and a 80% crit damage before / 50% after (shown as 200%), it is a 15% decrease in dps, not a 30% (30% decrease on half the hits = 15% decrease overall)

Loxsus.3841:

No notes about them beefing up pets or anything at all to help them survive against heavy aoe whether it be WvW or PVE bosses.

The only “super awesome” pet change was the F2 ability and the pet not standing around upon summoning.

That’s really it. Did I miss it some where? I’ll be stoked if I did or if they revamped them some other way that’s not in the notes?

All pet things seem more responsive. I press F1, it attacks, instead of stupidly staying there, I press F2, it launches, I press F3, the pet comes back instead of staying in that AoE…
I still wish for a trigger to attack / attack new target / come back on F1 and aoe targetting on F3 for positionning, but I love being able to get the pet to do somewhat I want, when I want.
Big and welcomed change.

Been able to keep the pet alive in most 25 people’s bus encounters that our side won, which was impossible before.

I also have the impression that (at least the drakes) are less wandering around than they used to (stay closer to me), except in one or two occasions.
Still not making us great for teamplay, but it opens up some interesting possibilities.

Some servers can’t fill EBG, and some can fill all 4 maps…
Allowing another map to count for PPT would just make it so the difference between low WvW population servers and high WvW population servers is increased.

Plus, we all know the buffs from EoTM are not fair. When red was where green is, red won most of the matches. Now that green is there, green wins most of the matches…

Which means PPT from EoTM would favour green which is, most of the time, the server that has the most chances to win it’s MU, according to the way colors are assigned.

So, allowing EoTM to count in score, would just screw PPT even more than it is already…

They are listening to us a great deal, though things don’t always turn out as individually we would like it to…
For example, people asked
- a new map
- not more maps because of the ability of queued servers to fill more, thus have more disparity between server’s points
- take off map WP to stop blobs (just spawn WP available) (and people asked to get more WP in EoTM)
- something to do while waiting to get in WvW.

They made EOTM, a new map where a server’s population does not matters on server’s PPT, where people can wait, where WP are scarce, where no upgrades are needed, where a solo player can hide, where placement demands strategy and matters, and so on.
They made EoTM answering what players have been asking, and now people complain that it is cross server (while Anet intended for it to be server-specific, and changed it because of player’s demands), That WP are too far between, that it gives nothing to win or lose, and so on, complaining exactly about the answers fro devs to stated concerns…

People asked to have price for transfer scale on world level, they did so, and now people complain about them doing so.

People asked for something for roamers to do, where zergs would not be at advantage, the made the ruins, which, imho, answers that concern, and people complain that this is ghost town…

They did a lot of things for WvWers, in answer to feedback here.
But one person says something is black, 3 answer it’s white, then one makes a new post to say it’s white, and 3 answer saying it’s black…
Then someone comes in and state how it might be grey, but he’s shut down or ignored by everyone who try to shout higher for their idea to be heard…

I’d rather have them fix bugs in existing maps, instead of bringing more in new maps, though I like the map rotations idea.
EBG could sometimes swap with EoTM, and borderlines can have quaggans on some MU, and bloodlust on others… so that people who are bored can get some little changes (I personnaly am not… I like knowing where attacks might come from, and how to defend against them… and new maps would screw it up, until spots are discovered, and won’t be long before people start whining again for some changes, forgetting they just had some while claiming they didn’t get any since release…)

McWolfy.5924:

remove normal xp from wvw, add tome and scroll of knowledge vendor for badge. problem solved

And how should we get the skill points needed to craft superior siege?

HHR LostProphet.4801:

Jocksy.3415:

HHR LostProphet.4801:

snip

I will just give a short idea of what I think would be cool:
Axe 1: Melee AA, like warrior has.
snip

I find melee in current situation is a bad idea.
We only have 2 main hand weapon; one is ranged, the other melee.
Unless they’d bring in another one-hand weapon that would be ranged, I will never agree to make axe main hand a melee weapon.
I’d more see an ability for it to bounce on allies also, or weight the damage more on the first attack, or other solutions mentionned.

(+, imho, our weapons should be good by themselves, not a copy of other profession’s attacks)

That’s why I’ve suggested to move the current AA to axe 4. I can’t see any reason to use the current axe despite the reason Nike has shared.

please read
“Main hand”
I find we have to have one MAIN HAND ranged weapon
axe #4 is OFF HAND

so “because we need a main hand ranged option”, you propose melee main hand axe and ranged off hand?
I might not be good in English, so maybe I’m not understanding how your axe proposal helps ensure we have a main hand ranged option, but it does not make sense to me…

HHR LostProphet.4801:

snip

I will just give a short idea of what I think would be cool:
Axe 1: Melee AA, like warrior has.
snip

I find melee in current situation is a bad idea.
We only have 2 main hand weapon; one is ranged, the other melee.
Unless they’d bring in another one-hand weapon that would be ranged, I will never agree to make axe main hand a melee weapon.
I’d more see an ability for it to bounce on allies also, or weight the damage more on the first attack, or other solutions mentionned.

(+, imho, our weapons should be good by themselves, not a copy of other profession’s attacks)

Liewec.2896:

as the title says,
when trying to play as ranger there are just too many traits that seem like they should be combined.
Longbow for example: (these are all from the Marksmanship tree)
Eagle Eye : Increases longbow range. Longbow damage is increased (5%).
Piercing Arrows: All arrow attacks pierce targets.
(april 15th) Read the winds: Your arrows move twice as fast.
and also in the tree is Steady Focus: Damage is increased when endurance is full. (10%)
which is pretty much always going to be something you pick.
and Spotter: Increases precision of nearby allies. which is demanded by most groups in pve/wvw.

so why can we not condense some of these down?
also why do we need to trait for piercing arrows atall?
why can our arrows not pierce by default like an engineer with a rifle?

you could even go so far as to suggest that Eagle Eye, Read the Wind and Piercing Arrows should all be combined into a single grand master trait.

Expert’s Dexterity:
Range Increase 300
Damage Increase 5%
Your arrows pierce and move twice as fast.

before anyone says that it would be too powerful, compare it to engineers “grenadier” trait which effectively increases their damage by 33% and increases range by 300.

and ask if it would be fair to force the engi to trait for one extra grenade and a range increase as 2 separate traits.

Building is about making choices. one might prefer range and velocity in some instance, peircing and range in others, and so on. All proffessions have to make choices either in one trait line, or across many.
Arguably we have to make choices between somewhat meaningless traits on their own, and one not worth it without another (eg: velocity in not worth much below 1200 range, most sidestepping happening over 1 00 range).
But it is still, and always, about making the best choices for the gameplay/situation, and not about being ready for everything…
And as stated by Xaylin “Grenadier is mandatory when running Grenades and your new trait would be, too.”
From genera observations, a trait that gives a great increase by traits often brings some decrease of the untraited weapon… weaker traits often brings better untraited weapon.

Coarr.3286:

what about removing the 1% condition duration and add a “increase range with bows by 10” if you trait 30 points into marksmanship your range will be increased by 300 for both bows

my 2cent

and what about people putting points in marks without playing bows? and where would you put condi duration? (somewhat power build with + condi duration for immobilizes helps our pet hit, or helps to keep foes at bay for some time)
and since condi duration needs to be at least a 50%, hopefully 100%, and there isn’t much ways to add it to a build in order to reach the duration… (40 with food – that also gives condi damage, which is unneeded in power build, 10 with some stones, 30 from traitline and 20 if wielding two one-hand weapon, plus some runes that can help, though once again, with side stats that are not all that useful…)

I’d better see some consolidation by way of all ranged weapon have or all two handed weapons or else along those lines (eg: why can’t SB range be increased?) than consolidation that makes a trait mandatory in a given build…

Prysin.8542:

Jocksy.3415:

We’ve been making lots of tests with rangers, in my guild.
All builds we could come with, existing or creative, were tested.

And you found only one role? Sniper? Clearly, you did not look hard enough. Try go for a melee tank, or perhaps a healer setup. There is many ways to build a ranger, even with power gear, all you need to know is how to play the class and what traits to take.

No, sniper is among the ones that doesn’t work. (guess I didn’t espress myself clearly)
Most play mid-cc/mid-support (HS/entangle/muddy terrain), either with LB+GS or GS+A/WH. (Ele and guards bring more heal (regen) than us without speccing much into it). (With almost perma protect and escape on GS, 20k vita and 28k toughness, holds pretty well in melee)
Only one apply achieved to play a somewhat sniper role (in plain/open fights, not on walls or tight spots), but that build is particularly hard to pull in guild (while in pugs it’s pretty easy), and is usually more a selfish build…

I try to place muddy terrain in the tail of ennemy bus (where there is less condi cleanse than in the head), creating a cell for our CaC to hit. (Not much use in pugs, because most pug commanders will take off existing cells instead of creating them. I usually then go trapper for fire field at impact point – because we lack ele’s in pugs at my times of play and it’s an half decent build for roaming when I get off the bus to take camps or solo towers)…

imho, We don’t need more PvE in WvW (which is what quests are).

And basing rewards on an ennemy attacking would mean only the south towers would get scouts, and some players might decide to not call before door is hit for defense reward…

Structure scouts can be rewarded for what they do in the game and can be recorded by the game (eg: siege refresh).
Upgrade scout can be rewarded for helping dolyacks (bring back rewards, and investigate bot reports).

Mobile scout? I don’t know. They get their own, with camps/sentries/duels…

We’ve been making lots of tests with rangers, in my guild.
All builds we could come with, existing or creative, were tested.
The “sniper ranger”, that is, one running around the main bus to take down ranged ennemies and low-health runaways was found to be amongst the less viable.
Why?
Because of the fast pace of the fights, we do not have the tools to survive.
Saying pew-pew from distance for massive damage looks nice on paper, but the reason why thieves and DD ele can harass foe’s casters is because they have plenty of tools to pull it off. Thief has stealth, and if fight is half good, foe’s casters are not going to be in their side’s AoE, so thief is never really in danger. Dagger/dagger ele (most common harasser’s build for ele) have teleports that allow them to come hide in the bus if they are focussed (but most D/D ele in our guild are running with melee, unless GvG).

I’ll first state the premises on which we work. DPS over extended period of time is what we seek. There are no excuses to dying in the first 30 seconds of a fight, and a death in the first minute is frowned on. Better go get some toughness and vit until you know how to place yourself – a dead player deals no damage, brings no support, is a dead weight.
That said, only one of the rangers that applied as Sniper lasted over the minute. And I believe it’s because he wasn’t all-in sniper build (spent more than half the fights within 600 units of the melee ball, when not directly in it).
we have great range, but fights are so fast moving that we very fast are no more in max range.
Staying at 1200 unit behind our bus ensures we are staying out of melee range, but we have no tool to join our melee if they push through.

I know I’m not very clear, because I see how fights go in my head, but I can’t put it in words for lack of english knowledge.
Experiments indicated caster’s survivability is higher if they usually gravitate within 600 of melee. (not with melee), which should allow rangers to survive. But LB don’t have the self mobility tools that allow us to keep our melee between us and the ennemy, thus we switch to melee weapon (usually GS) to catch up (#3) and reposition to have melee between us and them.

what makes the sniper role I mention so much different from how a staff elementalist is currently played? Right now, as far as I can tell, a staff ele has a similar role in the zerg but is more “swiss army knife” in the sense that they can still support with boon sharing options and a larger range of available CC, which is also AoE.
(imho sniper hits out of the ball, staff elem chasing randoms is wasting what he should put as DPS on ennemy ball where our melee is focusing, thus reducing the chances to bring ennemy down in a quick burst)

Bouncing on I tried to play some, the green servers were almost always dominating often with 75% or more of the map. I think it’s because green servers have more people in general.
When red was where green is now, it used to be red winning most (though not all), and at that time, green was where blue is now, and green was, more often than not, the looser.
I used to believe the buff seemed balanced, but I’m more and more inclined to believe they need rework…

And EoTM is what people make of it. if karma training clock-wise, it’s gonna be that. I’ve had a blast with one commander, we had fights, we defended, we took structures, it was great. Every time I see him in EoTM, I go there, cause I know we’re gonna have so much fun.

this map is what you get when bring only wvw guilds to Beta-test it
Any guild could have been chosen, it was not limited to WvW guilds, but if only WvW guilds did apply, not Anet’s fault…

I wouldn’t say it’s because of guild, I’d say it’s because Anet listened to players by allowing servers mix-up, and there is no real point in winning. Not a bad thing in itself, but when rewards for capping is bigger than rewards for winning, and you play with strangers, it is to be expected.

Now if capping chests were taken off and rewards would be given according to color placement and time played, that would make it more likely to see people play it, imho.
(for example
Place- 15 min – 30 min – 45 min – 1 hour – 1h15 – 1h30
1……….10……….20………..30………..45………….55………..65
2………..8………..18………..28…………43…………53………..63
3………..6………..16………..26…………41…………51………..61

Rewards would be handed to players at the end of the match, no matter if they are still in match, or even connected.
(Would need a measure against hoppers… maybe just consider the map on which they spend the most time.)

azizul.8469:

i understand if they refuse to implement this.

when you do spvp, you make no progression in pve exp directly. therefore they rewarded pvp player with glory that you can use to purchase Tome of Knowledge (ToK).

when people play WvW, they at the same time get progression in pve exp whenever they cap objectives. therefore ANET reckon there is no need to double reward the players progression by making ToK available through BoH vendor.

And what about the tome gotten during scarlet in lion’s arch?
Zerging for one hour gave players one level, then loots allowed to buy a level (meaning every 50 minutes in LA was worth one level).

The fact it is possible to level-up shouldn’t mean badges for levels are a bad idea.

Uplevels are bad for the team. Their DPS is low, their survivability too. An organised 15 men group would wipe a 40 men uplevels zerg without breaking a sweat.

We ask for better way to level-up without being a liability for our team and without having to play game modes we don’t like.

I don’t think it is unreasonable.

Oidmetala.8426:

longsword:

skill1: increased attack speed
skill2: still maul, but without bear animation and a bit faster, huge damage and blast
skill3: new skill: step sideward (dodge) and attack with decent dmg + cripple
lower cooldown, maybe if press again throw your sword and chill
skill4: block like now arrows and melee, if block melee it knocks the enemy down with a faster animation then yet and decent dmg. if you press the skill twice then you do the skill swoop like it is now in the game but with cripple if it hits in front. if it hits behind it knocks the enemy.
skill5: step sideward (dodge) and daze, so its like the old skill but with dodge. but it needs more range to use it effective when you whant interrupt enemeys

about skill2: still maul, but without bear animation and a bit faster, huge damage and blast
balance-wise it’s never going to happen.
If they reduce animation on it, they’s also reduce damage.
Big damage attacks cannot have no tell. and given in some build, it can one-shot ennemies, no animations is a big no.
bit reduced damages (so that the Gs OS build deals 20k maul instead of 30k), somewhat lesser tell and transfer damages to #1 might work, but I don’t ever see them giving powerful attacks with no tell and a blast all in one…
(and i like the animation – big bear and roar – fitting, imho).

Overall, I don’t either find our weapons that crappy, though having some more group utility on them would be great.

I’d like for us to be able to never be rooted (especially axe #5, though LB would be nice too), for maul build to be a little bit toned down with increased AA and somewhat smaller tell, but these are details.

I wouldn’t mind traits to give us that possibility (eg, might be X chance on critical to grant fury to allies and yourself when wielding a melee wepon, or x chance on hit to grant protection to allies near target, or when you dodge, you, your pet and allies in range get protection – in short, less “your pet gets” only, and more “your pet and allies” or “you and allies”). That would allow us to build for teamplay, if we so wish, without the need to change a weapon for support.

But if shouts would have integrated team support, with still the possibility of the traited shout build, and traps toned up a little bit, while it might mean toning traits down somewhat, and so on, that could help to not have the feeling we have to build one way or the other to make things useful.

Durzlla.6295:

It’s very apparent who the god awful rangers are when they’re shown a very solid build that has a metric kitten ton of survivability (for both the ranger and the pet) and damage yet they think it’s a kitten build…

If you won’t accept our help, there is no helping you, please just leave so we can get back to a real discussion.

And as Chrispy said there are a few working power builds out there, most of them don’t go very far into Skirmishing, and when they do it’s to boost the pet because that’s generally more useful than a few % more DPS for the ranger itself. Buff the pet, and you’ll do as much DPS as thieves and warriors (given the right pet)

EDIT: fixed for clarity.

it’s an ok at best build.
It lacks focus, as stated elsewhere, it’s a PvX build…
It might work all right in few occasion, but my focus was clearly WvW.
What does one do in WvW with 15k health and 2k toughness? Can’t go any near melee, so HS is useless for the group, might as well take a personal heal. Spotter? well, good for me, maybe, but once again, not for the group (600 radius is too small to give much distance benefits). So fragile you’d better stay on the wall to pew-pew, which mean the pet is not anywhere near the other bus.
And pet condition damage? Waouh! so useful to inflict conditions in bus fights!

When a build is posted in answer to someone’s stated problems, and the build answers none of these concerns, the build is sub-optimal, imho.
It might be solid in itself, pretty easy to come with solid build, but I’m still waiting for these “oh I’m such a good player that I keep my pet alife all the time” super secrets on keeping it alife “in all situations”.

FYI
15k health and 2k toughness, with one 6 seconds immutity per 60 sec (that might as well kill the pet, if it lasts half the duration), a 25% endurance regen, and the little GS and LB survivability options is not a build “that has a metric kitten ton of survivability (for both the ranger and the pet)”…
This one has a lot of survivability for the ranger.
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vMAQNBhOD7kRFqF0WWwjFoaBBxSxe2fTBnMPTB/LkrAqA-zEzAYLAMXkJIwkFISDQOPiZvhsWGLiGruGT5mI1bgVxokCAmlRA-w
Pet is depending on situation. When we are less than the ennemy, or on walls, I slot bear to soak up AoE damage and/or get added control (the only true option, imho, when I know there is no chance for me to save the pet, is to at least use it to it’s maximum) when equal numbers or in plains, either drakes or spiders. Sometimes dogs, for their F ability, but too unreliable, often, when we’d need it, it dies before the F2 fires…

So that build offers :
Ennemy control, allies heal (+1 blast per 30 seconds, + 50% uptime group fury, might and swiftness) and spotter, correct damages, good survivability
(i know the crit chance / crit damage ratio is not optimal, as is the excess 10% in condi duration and the 270 condi damage that is of no use), it’s the build that proved to be the most useful in my guild setup for WvW…

Chrispy.5641:

snip

I ask for pet survival possibility in all content; you show me a sub-par, imho non-optimal in any content build.

You might find it’s all right to not be able to take part in all content with any profession, I don’t.
I believe all professions should be able to take part in any and all part of the game, given they build for it…

I think we’ll have to agree to disagree here…

(And, btw, it’s not because someone didn’t post much on the forum that they don’t have an opinion… build mine in-game way before I came on the officilal forum, and spend some time reading it before I started writing in it… Resorting to the “short post history” argument is, imho, a proof you don’t have one true argument to make)

jcbroe.4329:

Rangers aren’t the only class that has to trait to make their mechanic useful.

Thieves get a pretty much useless item on steal for about half of the profession that does no damage without traiting. Arguably, thieves require 40 trait points (10/x/x/x/30) to make steal even remotely worthwhile.

Warriors with no burst mastery are barely ever going to be able to use their mechanic, and because Warriors best cleansing comes in the form of cleansing Ire, every single viable Warrior build at top level competitive play runs (x/x/20/x/30) at the bare minimum.

Also, engineers toolbelt mechanic is fairly lacking on most of the options you gain from the slot skills, traited or not. Traited creates 1 build, static discharge, but even then, 50%+ of engineer toolbelt skills really aren’t all that “meaningful.”

So yes, ANet built certain classes in the game with the intent that you have to invest trait points into the mechanic to actually make that mechanic useful in combat.

Thiefs and warriors are not loosing anything much if they have no access to their class mechanics. And there is no way for anyone to stop them from using it for 60 seconds, wether or not they specced for it… Not really the best examples…

Necro? Well, they do have to use DS for damage and survival, but it is working all right without traits, traits just makes it more useful.

(Not gonna talk of gardians – never been able to wrap my head around their gameplay…)

Engineers and elems and mesmers do have to use either their class mechanic or their class focus (class mecanic = F1-F4, class focus=what makes it different).
Engineer can play without F1-F4 without loosing much (as you stated, it’s not meaningful), but a non-kit engineer looses much.
Elems gain lots of class-related abilities from traits. Arguably, traits makes them better, not merely functionnal.
Mesmer – Can hardly forego it’s mechanic; with an offensive build, they need to use their class mecanic and focus for defense, while with a defensive build, they need it to deal effective damage. They also have the same problems as we do relating to AI reliant damage and pathing issues. BUT they have the possibility, either through weapons or traits, to generate their class focus fast. Which makes up for the fact that their mechanic rely on AI.

We have nothing to make up for the fact that we have to rely on our pet.
as someone put it, “we start at a disadvantage” and shouldn’t have to trait in order to hope to not lose our profession mecanic.

Chrispy.5641:

Jocksy.3415:

Pet got scaled up in PvE, which makes them almost no-brainer in most content, but still don’t save them from one-shot mechanisms, and if we have the trait, they gain protection at the beginning of our dodge-roll, which still makes them long-standing in most content (where I didn’t have problem keeping them alive to begin with), but still don’t make a meaningful difference for the encounters where I couldn’t keep it alive…

Your point is? All pets, minions, etc. got an Hp buff in PvE only content. WvW is not PvE. Buffing pet health by 70% there would not solve a single problem, especially in smaller group/solo fights.

Also, your pet has 2061 toughness, about as much armor as you would have in a full zerker set up, however, if you ever bother to take the effort to use beastmastery (and master’s bond), that same pet would have 2,561 toughness. Its also not that hard to give it perma protection, making it extremely hard to kill.

Its actually not that hard for me to build up a pet and have even cats and birds standing up to those fabled 1 shot boss mechanics. Your pet IS GOING TO DIE if you don’t bother to invest in it though, which is mostly the point.

NEXT!

I love how you totally ignore the first part of the massage : “I did try to micro-manage pets in WvW zergs (shouts/BM build, with the infamous bears that should be able to hold with defy pain and other mechanism). In open fights, it was not too bad, but in any towers/keep fights, there was nothing to be done.
I know some people state they have no difficulty keeping their pet in WvW zergs, but I never saw a video of it. Most just use their pet special ability and wait the 60 seconds penalty to call the new pet if they need it…”

Bring forward all stats you want, the mere fact the pet is not dodging and is stupidly staying in AOE, even when I spam F3 while out of them makes it not survivable…
Still waiting on a video of the wonderful build and gameplay that keeps pet alive in all content/gameplay? Noone that states pet is good will send me one… maybe because thay can’t?

So, “my point is” that in content where the pet can’t be kept alife, we should get something out of their death. If someone would kill my pet I’d be pretty angry, and it sounds logical that ranger might get in a furious state when their pet is down for the downtime duration.

In other posts, I also stated that it would be nice for pet’s health/toughness to scale to foes around (like mobs scale in PvE), so that it has a chance in zergs, without being overpowered in other content.

If ranger’s damage was not reliant on the pet, I’d have not much problems with it dying too easily. But since our base damage is lowered because of the pet, since our ascended and our food only affect 70 % of what we can bring, since pet take none of it… I don’t think it’s unreasonable to want something that can be used in all settings.

Side note:
Vitality raised in PvP WvW would, imho, make the pet too strong. I’m not much of a PvP player, but unless the pet is focussed, it does hardly die withing 20 seconds… And if the pet is focussed, it should die.

Utility of bear in zerg is not only their F2 (and arctodus ice is pretty potent).
I love to send them ahead of the zerg to pop traps and marks and whatnot.
They take off the DPS my melee would be taking otherwise, and they are equipped to live through it.

Given pet’s skills are unreliable (as of now), I’m not much relying on dog’s family utilities (they often die before the skill fires, or the fight moved when they finally do.

I though bout moa for pre-fight buff, but they need to be in combat for the duration increase to work, so I just dropped it.

So depending on what my group needs of the day are, I run with distant pets (consistent damage and less prone to dying) and/or bears.

(Edit: For the one who stated we are problematic because we need other classes utilities to carry us, I’d say it’s the same for all classes. Necro often have to come in melee, and most opti guild won’t take the stability trait. So they rely on gard. Same for Ele, they need the stab, especially when going through tight spaces. On the other hand, War and gard alone wouldn’t hold. They need, amongst others, the water fields to get their health up. Rangers can fit into this synergy, but most people are just blindly discarding them as useless without even really looking at what they can bring…)

The animation is the counter to the high damage and the vulne it applies.
I never found it cumbersome, given all powerful attacks need a tell…

And ranger’s theme is nature… so kind of fitting to have animal animations…

Learning more about playing and using skills appropriately by soloing pack of mobs (Elite and vets, champs that spawn mobs, packs of undeads, trying to solo dungeons) than by karma-training, so unless the point is to bring it up as fast as possible, I’d advise soloing content (not with a bearbow build, though… with both mainstreams and home made builds).

I wasn’t always nice, but I greatly appreciated your (too-short) involvement with us.
Hopes the roads you take bring you to destination!
GL&HF

Tonszo.9654:

I find it really hard to WvW because thieves also 2 shot me (well not 2 shot). It find it hard to have sustained damage and I feel my damage is lackluster and can easily be avoided. Also my mobility is low which makes it really hard for me to escape when enemy is running at me. Any tips on how to WvW as ranger?

If you talk about thives, I guess you are roaming in WvW?
Heal/shout build (with 30 in NM) or condi/trapper build (30 in skirmish) are ususally pretty good. I personally find trapper to be easier against thieves (Lay AoE and just avoid attacks, attacking when you have the chance VS try to run after the thief, trace it)

But main point about fighting thief is to know their builds / timings.
When I’m not sure, I’m always trying to nit turn my back to where I think it should be. I use GS #4 when I expect an attack (the blocking will turn you in the thief’s direction). I lay my traps at my feet while they are invisible.
So the fight goes like, thief attacks, I get hit bad, I set pet in attack mode, I heal, set traps at my feet, turn in awckward directions, GS#4 when I feel timing for an attack comes (which tell me which side thif is on) gs #3 when it appears, then 5+2 (with torment sigil on GS). swtch, WH #4 (birds damage thief in stealth, if the chanel was started before it enters stealth put traps where thief likely is… most of the time they run away at that point.

Didn’t fight thief as heal build, but sometimes I use Sick’em when sweeping a keep, or I slot it when I expect to meet a thief. The revealed buff might help you land your damage, and it goes well with the heal build.

Protect me can also be worth taking, since it’ll negate their damages without needing further traits…

If you play with LB, #2 tracks thief in stealth, if the channel began before the thief entered stealth.

We just need to get something from their death for the duration of the swap timer… or have their health and toughness scale with the content (eg: AoE heavy boss or the presence of ennemy zerg(as in PvE scaling).

I did try to micro-manage pets in WvW zergs (shouts/BM build, with the infamous bears that should be able to hold with defy pain and other mechanism). In open fights, it was not too bad, but in any towers/keep fights, there was nothing to be done.

I know some people state they have no difficulty keeping their pet in WvW zergs, but I never saw a video of it. Most just use their pet special ability and wait the 60 seconds penalty to call the new pet if they need it…

Pet got scaled up in PvE, which makes them almost no-brainer in most content, but still don’t save them from one-shot mechanisms, and if we have the trait, they gain protection at the beginning of our dodge-roll, which still makes them long-standing in most content (where I didn’t have problem keeping them alive to begin with), but still don’t make a meaningful difference for the encounters where I couldn’t keep it alive…

Chuck Zitto.2367:

Should be pretty easy to figure out dude without any spreadsheets or anything. Here I will break it down for you. To do good raw damage you need power precision and crit dmg/ferocity. You also need defensive stats like vit and toughness to survive more than a few seconds. So thats 5 total stats you need but you could probably get away with 4 no vit on a warrior. Only 3 stats come on gear.

To do high condi damage you only need condi dmg. Condi duration helps some but its not 100% needed. So with 1 Stat you have all the damage you need or 2 if you really want duration as well. This leaves you 1 or 2 more stats to stack with your gear/runes to help you survive.

To do high condi damage you only need condi dmg and precision, and condi duration…
which would be same as power, precision, crit damage, if there was condi duration stuff… but there’s not much of it, so hard to get in basic build… (giver on weapon is the only one that has it (condition duration/precision/vitality)

min condition duration one needs is 50%, so that a 2 sec condi lasts 3 ticks (50% does not help ticking condition that lasts 1 second).
So, one can get 30 condi duration from traits, then needs to take 2 weapons on each switch to get another 20 (one-handed weapon still give 10%, not 20).
50% can be gotten through food to get the needed 100%.

So, please, stop spreading flase informations… Dire is the equivalent of soldier, no stat set is available to be the equivalent of berserkers…

jihm.2315:

Cogbyrn.7283:

jihm.2315:

so we all must agree that the difference should be closer from what it is now
i hope devs understand it aswell

I love when people summarize everyone at once with an opinion not everyone shares.

Go ahead and take me out of your “all” who agree the difference should be closer.

you play warrior and necro that have the highest hp lol
necro is medicore with low armor and high hp
and warrior is overall the best class in the game

I main a ranger, I’m in the process of levelling all classes to 80.
I don’t believe health levels should be changed. Just some nerfs/boosts reverted (in the case of Ele and War).

Ele should be high risk, high damage, like thieves are.
War should have some more risks brought in.

I’m not saying all professions are in a great spot right now, but at least they have things working. Their risk/reward/effective HP/effective attacks ratios seem ok.

Now it would indeed be easier to balance things out if base stats between professions were closer, but all professions would then be pretty much the same, or they would be pretty close in gameplay. (eg, can’t up gard and thief health without taking off most of their defensive abilities, and can’t down the others without adding to their defense)

Guesting in WvW?
Really?
How do you prevent spying and griefing?
Right now, it does costs something to grief or spie, taking the price off is going to hurt WvW…

And we already have some ideas of numbers in WvW.
I know My server is outnumbered 22hrs a day and we have a very small window to make points. I know approximately how much they are at what time in the servers we face.
Do we really need more numbers?
We already have an idea, with ratings, of which servers need the more people.
It’s easy to look at available graphics to have an idea of the times at which a server needs coverage….

(also, in PvP, players keep choosing the winning team… so not sure how it would help)

I’d say mercenery bane is the most useless.

Side note:
I used to think it was Supply Capacity, until someone pointed to me how OP and troublesome it would be if it was more accessible. 5 players can empty a camp with it. make it 7 in a bus (no +5 from guild). how does one feed its bus? and how OP would be a bus taking over a keep? 25 players would walk around with 500 supplies, which is 10 superior rams.

It might not be an awesome UP to take, in itself, but having people in the bus with it can make the difference between Winning and loosing.
(If I attack a keep, and we are not many, and our siege has been taken off, I can send a group of 5 who has the supply capacity to get some, and still have enough people to defend the position we gained, while if noone has it, the most I’d get from my team of 5 is 75 (vs 100).)
All in all, might not be much for you, but what it allows is huge, thus the very high price.

The zerker equivalent of condi would be condi damage/precision/condi duration.
Since no such sets exist, the comparison between condis and direct damage should be done with dire/soldier or apothecary/cleric or rampager/assassin

If those sets deal more damage over the same duration in one of the two build, then one can say direct damage or condi damage is overpowered.
Until someone does the math with equivalent sets (including equivalent runes), I’m gonna say my feeling is that they are pretty balanced.

Some people here try to compare strawberries and lemon, some stating strawberries sre best cause they are sweet and some countering with you can’t make lemonade with strawberries…

Can’t you guys compare strawberries and blueberries for a change? If someone can send me equivalent builds (direct and condi on one class) by MP, I’ll be happy to make the math…
Only rule would be to not put anything in the build that is not aimed at damage (eg.:straight condi removal or vigor, or damage negation abilities such as berserker stance or endure pain) since I will only calculate damage output over a given duration (maybe five minutes)
Some things such as Well of corruption would be hard to calculate, but if builds sent have them, I’ll do my best to calculate it fairly.

Rym.1469:

When most of you speak about Condi, I feel that Power necros can be even more dangerous.

It’s a false that they’re so easy to kite. Most of the roamers will use multiple sources of movement imparing effects such as Chill, Long Cripple, mostly 2 sources of immobilize. Good Power necro should also take Spectral Grasp.

Keep in mind that most of roamers running Power Necro solo are better, more experienced Necros in general, who grown bored of condi and they will know how to duel (not talking about wellmamcers rolling with blobs).
1v1 with Power Necro if you go for strict hit exchange, you lose. When you might think you’re doing excellent burst, many will just pop Spectral armor, regaining ~3400 effective Shroud health every second if not more.

Best bet in general would be to be highly-evasive and enter the fight with a lot of CC. Your pet is very likely to die during Life Transfer and gives further LF generation when Locust Swarm / Spectrals are up. After CC from the wolf if done, you might want to swap to Spider.

If any of you want to practice 1v1 with Power necro on WvW (Desolation matchup) or in tpvp, feel free to PM.

Just bouncing on: It’s a false that they’re so easy to kite. Most of the roamers will use multiple sources of movement imparing effects such as Chill, Long Cripple, mostly 2 sources of immobilize.
Between Lightening reflex, SB#3, and dodges, I usually do pretty well (in 1v1, when I can concentrate on the necro’s tell).
I might not have gotten against any good power necro, though, but most necros I encountered 1v1 were power.

But note with the patch of april 15 some small things might change in the builds. (mostly with the rune/sigil changes)

thefantasticg.3984:

If you are good on a Ranger you’d be great on a Guardian, and if you’re good on the Ranger then you’ll be amazing on a Warrior.

Never could be good on something that I don’t enjoy playing.