Guild Wars 2

I hope ANET makes pets immune to the laser like Subject Alpha’s AoE.

It certainly would be a great reason to use Ranger in FoTM, and give them at least one niche that makes them unique (pet immune to certain boss attacks…)

Nearly 50% of the playerbase voted Evon Gnashblade though. It seems silly for a company to isolate such a large amount of players.

A “BAMPH!” gone horribly wrong…

(Question for the devs: Does “BAMPH!” still exist in GW2?)

For leveling crafter. Wait till ascended armor.

This threa dis so awesome. I’m following this! (Reminds me of Skritt Burglar)

By the way, you can fight in Tonic form using consumables like the Frost Gun, or (more fittingly) the Hylek Dart Gun.

Because someone on the design team thought we care about those stats, and that we would run FoTM more often to earn them.

Probably as an alternative to Temple armor stats and dungeons. Still quite silly though.

JPeters, I know you can’t reply, but if you’re reading this, I just want to say we’re rooting for you about the 1h sword fix!

As the OP, I declare this thread officially about Tarsius.3170’s picture! ;D

Tarsius.3170 and his 15charrs win teh thread.

Now we just have to hope Smite isn’t ever nerfed…

A part of me hopes Mr. E is Gnashblade, so that we could see him again in future chapters.

Thanks guys. Decided I will go for Meteorlogicus instead of Twilight on my Guardian!

Pretty sure Steam Creatures are Scarlet’s creations because they use the same technology as the Twisted Clockwork.

Everyone, panic!!!

So the Wand is stronger than Greatsword versus single targets?

How does he accomplish such high damage in the video then?

What has higher single-target DPS? Wand or Greatsword?

Some people tell me Wand is stronger because of Smite, then I see videos like this…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8W38rEAFY9U

I’m also trying to decide between Meteorlogicus and Twilight, and that decision rests on whichever weapon is better single-target DPS in Dungeons.

What do you think?

Aetherblade Medium clips. Stay away.

Dunno about Magitech.

No. We just need underflow servers.

Having servers in a PvE game was a really flawed design decision because it segregates players. Across all servers, you could have about 50 people inside Field of Ruins, but only see 3 ingame because of the many servers.

Good evening Chris. Great work you’re doing so far!

On behalf of the Ranger forum, we hope for future CDI a more focused discussion on class balance.

As we saw from the December 10th update thread, it strayed offtopic very easily, and spiralled into a mess of unconstructive complaints.

If in the future, we could ever have a more organized thread to discuss balance ideas for our favorite profession, we would appreciate it. Thanks!

- Kain Fracois and his fellow rangers.

Could actually be a fun minigame once the Scarlet arc is over. Maybe for a future Dragon Bash?

Anyone notice Braham is missing from the final instance?

Seriously, why is no one talking about this? This is HUGE, yet no one else noticed it?

For the most part, I actually like Dredge fractal. It begins with a cool switch puzzle requiring decent team co-ordination, which I actually like.

It’s just the bombs section that’s stupid… Augh.

The tank section is easy though. Just pull the boss, dodge when he raises his mace, then farm loot. Done.

Volcanus is definitely the coolest pseudo-legendary. I never regretted crafting mine, and it looks GREAT combined with Predator!

Seriously, go for it. You wont regret it!

The worst part is that the Thaumanova Fractal will involve Scarlet in some way. Think about it.

Steam Creatures belong to Scarlet. What enemies is the reactor known for? Steam creatures.

Thanks a lot, Ellen supporters!

What if more pets used instant-cast animations, such as Jaguar?

While I understand technical difficulties make adjusting the pet mechanic difficult to deal with, if any pet was done right, it is the Jaguar.

I hear nothing but praise for the Jaguar, even by non-Rangers! So perhaps we could model other pets after it?

I feel bad for the devs because GW2 event code must be extraordinarily complex.

I know after 1 year of playing that these events WERE functional perfectly every other time I played them, so something added only recently probably broke the code.

Imagine being the guy who has to check so many variables to make sure the Toxic Seedlings don’t break Orr? I bet it’s harder than it sounds!

Sounds good to me!

Is the giant Mossman a hint of boss revamps?

Notice how the enemies say they’re hallucinations? NOT illusions?

In the final cutscene of the tower, Scarlet blatantly says our friends are dead, and we have her to thank for it.

That begs the question, who exactly are we REALLY killing?

Hey, remember those Zenith weapons we got for achievements?

Any possibility to place Achievement-reward items from the living world inside our unlocked achievement awards tab?

I don’t understand why that wasn’t done in the first place, but development-wise, I can’t imagine it will be too hard, since achievements act like flags in the first place.

I feel the flaw with Living Story is its focus on completely new, seemingly out of place content (such as Atherblades), rather than a focus on existing lore.

Wirzard’s Tower, for example, would make a great Living Story chapter. Or something with Dragon Minions…

The GS Traits in Nature Magic should be moved to Skirmishing, since it focuses on dealing damage anyways.

Complaining about trailer music is a sign GW2 is successful.

Adding a little more variety to 1h Sword:
What if the #2 skill applied stealth when used? This would allow it to synergize with Remorseless, and allow the Ranger to play awesome mind games, where the enemy doesn’t know whether they’re safe or not when he stealths.

Hey JonPeter, I really appreciate your replies.

To increase efficiency of the Ranger in dungeons and FoTM, perhaps we could look at the GW1 Ritualist?

1. Spirit of Recovery
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Recovery

Perhaps modify one of the existing spirits to reduce condition duration on allies by 50%, so long as it is up? For its “Overcharge” ability (Engineer term), it instantly removes all conditions on nearby allies?

2. Spirit of Shelter
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Shelter

The GW2 equivalent of Protective Spirit. All allies affected by Spirit of Shelter have a 75% chance to reduce damage of their next hit by up to 10% of their maximum health. Effect recharge: 15.

3. Spirit of Quickening Zephyr.
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Quickening_Zephyr

The opposite of Chill, Quickening Zephyr reduces the weapons recharge of everyone affected. Very unique niche without becoming overpowered, great synergy with Warrior.

Furthermore, increase spirit range to 10 players instead of 5? With only 5, the spirit impacts itself, the player, its pet, and only two other players, rather than the whole party. That is obviously a problem, but increasing number of players affected would alleviate that in dungeons.

Vaxx.3178:

Teq, Butcher-end boss of Honor of the Waves P1, Fire Shaman, Fire Elemental (because pets, ranged or melee, don’t get out of the AoE), Temple of Lyssa last phase, Ashyn- Ascalon fractal boss, …..

Vaxx.3178:

Teq

Unfortunately Tequatl will kill more than pets. There is a specific spot you can lame him from the side (outside the zerg), but besides that, you might have to use a more bulky pet against Tequatl himself, such as Drakes. I don’t see the issue though, you’re bound to die if you melee Tequatl. The only thing keeping you alive are resurrections. However, when Tequatl uses his shockwave, I recommend using either “Guard!” or Signet of stone.

Defending turrets, on the other hand, shouldn’t face any issues with pets.

Vaxx.3178:

Butcher-end boss of Honor of the Waves P1

Question: Do YOU melee Butcher? Do you move outside his range when he does his spinning attack.

The simple solutions are to use ranged pets, or use Drake instead of Jaguar. Add me, and I’ll show you how it’s done.

Vaxx.3178:

Fire Shaman

Press f3 to move pets outside AoE. Press f4 when pet is low HP.

Vaxx.3178:

Fire Elemental

Zerg world bosses like this are sorta hard to judge, since the scale is weird.

Vaxx.3178:

Temple of Lyssa last phase,

What about it?

Vaxx.3178:

Ashyn- Ascalon fractal boss, …..

Use Devourer. Press F3 when he uses Meteor Shower.

Anything else?

An overhaul of Whirl finishers could potentially make the Greatsword an amazing weapon.

Proposal: What if Whirls pulsed their effects in an AoE, rather than shot bolts? With that, what if the Regen of Water Whirl-Finisher was changed to healing? That would sure go a long way buffing the GS attack in ways besides raw damage.

Ranger is in a bad state. Do not play it, as our only decent melee weapon (1h sword) is not beginner friendly either.

The blunt answer.

Hello JonPeters. Thank you very much for replying. (And this is an honest ‘thank you’ from the heart.)

Natural Vigor
Stuff about comparing it to a Grandmaster

Fair enough, actually. Having played both Engineer and Ranger, I do believe Ranger already has dodges on their 1h Sword, GS, and Shortbow, so it’s not like this is a big hit anyways. I’m not usually one to praise Ranger nerfs, but I guess it was necessary before buffing other things.

Spirits Unbound and Nature’s Voice
…you bring stone spirit, guard, and then still have a open third utility slot… truly good support ranger builds.

What’s this about Guard? Is Guard being changed too, into a team-support skill? You’re teasing something exciting…

Power Rangers
…they are lacking a few things as either additional tools for greatsword or as utilities. Signets are the somewhat obvious utility choice but their effect is too varied to run a strong full signet build here… hat signets need is a good trait that synergizes with bringing *a single signet, like Nature’s Voice does for shouts. …One idea we talked about for Greatsword would be to take the evade off of the 3rd attack of the auto-chain and put it on swoop. This would give you a second on-demand defensive skill and instead we put something less timing based (for example a whirl finisher) on that third attack to empower it.

“AAAAAHHH AFTER 10,000 YEARS I’M BUFFED! IT’S TIME TO CONQUER TYRIA!” Quick! We must recruit a team of Rangers with attitude!

Joking aside, I do believe the issue with signets are:
1) Recharge times
2) We must trait 30 to gain their effects.

There’s also the fact things like Signet of the Hunt are unreliable on a pet, with very little synergy, since the strongest pet attacks are mostly multi-hit moves. You might as well reverse the signets, traiting to give our pets bonuses, and giving ourselves bonuses by default.

As for a trait like Nature’s Voice, we already have that, and it’s quite bad considering the high recharge of Signets. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Beastmaster%27s_Might

Signet of the Wild would be the candidate if we bring only one signet, and with a bit lower recharge, would have amazing synergy with Greatsword though.

Speaking of the Greatsword, I do believe swapping the evade to Swoop, and buffing the GS autoattack, would be a much better idea. (Although Swoop has evade, it’s unreliable…) My concern is that a Whirl finisher with Greatsword is not enough, as Whirl Finishers in general are quite weak and unreliable. Obvious synergy are with Healing Spring, but as I said, it’s too unreliable.

My personal idea for Greatsword, but I’ve always thought the way it functioned is a hard-hitting weapon with large telegraph. Perhaps yet again, Maul should be buffed in some way, to allow the GS to perform more overall damage over time than 1h sword? The balance being 1h sword is much more reliable, and chases foes, while the Greatsword is slow, with a long telegraph.

Main-hand sword
I just want to clarify for good that main hand sword is currently working as intended.

While I’m a fan of 1h sword, it’s somewhat disappointing this function happens to be our only 1h option as well. (Should we even count 1h Axe? It’s so…. Useless…)

Speaking of which, any plans to modify the 1h Axe in PvE?

Problem with Ranger: While pet damage was somewhat balanced at release, the 50% nerf killed our core mechanic hard.

For guiding a stupid AI which cannot dodge, shouldn’t we be rewarded?

I propose we buff the Pet damage, rather than the Ranger’s.

Not sarcasm.

Seriously, how are your pets dying in PvE? With +75% HP? I just don’t see what you guys say are supposedly killing them, and I use Jaguar most of the time.

The only bosses which ever gave me trouble were Mossman, and Arch Diviner, but why would you use a melee pet on them in the first place?

I like it. It would actually be kinda cool for certain boss fights in dungeons too, requiring team co-ordination to stomp a boss.

However, this is bad for Open World mobs. Save it for tougher enemies.

To update my critique on Scarlet:
I agree with other posters who say on-screen Scarlet isn’t so bad (even if she’s bad as a “personal” nemesis), but it’s what she’s built up to be off-screen that makes her annoying.

Seriously, how did she co-ordinate the Molten Alliance? How does someone as insane as Scarlet, even have the charisma to unite dredge and flame legion?

Quite frankly, her actions do not match her personality.

Constructive feedback? Here’s my 2cents:

Quite frankly, I don’t like living world, and I think it is an overhyped, marketing design failure by ArenaNet. The reality is the quiet majority of players don’t care whether or not the world feels “living”. And even if they did, it would be a failure at that.

Temporary content means players cannot go at their pace, excluding us weekend warriors. Furthermore, we’re forced to complete dailies in order to receive the meta-achievement award, and this forces us to log in 5 days or so of dailies in Halloween, just to complete the storyline. Although there is a silent majority of players who do not like this, where are the minority of players who do like it? Does ArenaNet actually think time-gated content feels “living”? Just… From a game-design perspective, what is even the logic behind it?

Then there’s the issue with the word “living” as a whole. I feel like my actions have no impact on the world, because the storyline progresses whether or not I defeat the villain. It also creates a disconnect from the player’s immersion in the story, because we have to wait weeks for events that should be connected like chapters. There’s also the problem that players who don’t constantly follow the story will be lost, and lose out on the story experience that make it feel complete.

And did I mention how awful of a personal nemesis Scarlet is? I’ll just say it blunt and simple: There’s nothing ‘personal’ about Scarlet. In fact, she doesn’t give a crap about the player whatsoever.

There’s also the fact she’s built up to be some powerful antagonist, who somehow co-ordinated armies, but we never actually see how she mediated the Molten Alliance, Toxic Alliance, or Aetherblades….

Speaking of which, why the heck do we have Molten and Atherblade prisoners, if none of them tell us any information? You’re telling me the Ash Legion wouldn’t interrogate a dredge for information?

I could go on and on about the disconnect of logic in this Living Storyline. If I could summarize as a whole what makes it feel so awkward though, it’s the time-gate storytelling without the ability to start from the beginning.

Galtrix.7369:

Kain Francois.4328:

$60, for the game itself. I have proudly not used a single dollar to buy gems, and I don’t intend ever to do so.

I’ve paid my money for this game, stop telling me to “support it”, defending crappy RNG practices and overpriced goods.

I’m not criticizing GW2 itself, this game is AWESOME! But the monetization….

Unless anything has changed since they introduced Black Lion Ticket Scraps, they are one of the most unethical business practices I’ve ever seen in the gemstore. Their drop rate are so low, the intention isn’t to give us a fair chance, but rather their sheer existence is to trap people into opening more chests, pressuring them to gamble even more with hopes of collecting 10 scraps.

And then they actually expect some people to collect 7 Black Lion Tickets? For a single weapon skin? Really? How much does that equate in USD? Seriously, I’m asking the question. Someone calculate how much USD on average it costs to collect 7 tickets, then tell me if you’re willing to spend that much money.

Look, the GW2 playerbase could spend their money on whatever they want, but I don’t intend to do so because the monetization is absolutely horrendous. Even if we could play the game without this gemstore crud, it’s still like taking a dump on someone’s birthday cake. Sure, they could try to eat the pieces of the cake without feces on it, but who would want to eat such a thing?

Placing an ugly person next to a nice person doesn’t make the nice person look better by contrast. It just makes both of them look ugly.

I really wish the monetization would stop killing GW2’s reputation.

I’m pretty sure placing a hot person next to an ugly person does not make them both ugly. The hot person is still going to be hot.

Actually, you are who you associate with. Plus I’m pretty sure you would smell the stinky odor from the ugly person.

$60, for the game itself. I have proudly not used a single dollar to buy gems, and I don’t intend ever to do so.

I’ve paid my money for this game, stop telling me to “support it”, defending crappy RNG practices and overpriced goods.

I’m not criticizing GW2 itself, this game is AWESOME! But the monetization….

Unless anything has changed since they introduced Black Lion Ticket Scraps, they are one of the most unethical business practices I’ve ever seen in the gemstore. Their drop rate are so low, the intention isn’t to give us a fair chance, but rather their sheer existence is to trap people into opening more chests, pressuring them to gamble even more with hopes of collecting 10 scraps.

And then they actually expect some people to collect 7 Black Lion Tickets? For a single weapon skin? Really? How much does that equate in USD? Seriously, I’m asking the question. Someone calculate how much USD on average it costs to collect 7 tickets, then tell me if you’re willing to spend that much money.

Look, the GW2 playerbase could spend their money on whatever they want, but I don’t intend to do so because the monetization is absolutely horrendous. Even if we could play the game without this gemstore crud, it’s still like taking a dump on someone’s birthday cake. Sure, they could try to eat the pieces of the cake without feces on it, but who would want to eat such a thing?

Placing an ugly person next to a nice person doesn’t make the nice person look better by contrast. It just makes both of them look ugly.

I really wish the monetization would stop killing GW2’s reputation.

Seems like a great step in the right direction, especially the longbow change, but how exactly does this address core problems?

Ranger continues to lack a unique support niche in dungeons (outclassed by everyone else), and our damage is inferior to other classes such as Warrior. Plus our pet damage is horrible, even with 300 Beastmastery and max Might.

Nature Magic IX – Two Handed Training. Added the following functionality to this trait. Greatsword and Spear attacks have a chance to grant Fury on hit. 50% chance. 3s Fury. 10s cooldown.

Great change, a step in the right direction in theory. Problem is that it’s a TIER 2 Nature Magic trait, so anyone looking to do damage with Greatsword and actually make use of the fury, miss out on +200 Power, +200 Precision, or +20% critical damage from other, more better lines.

Beastmastery VI – Mighty Swap. The might from this trait is now applied to you and your pet.

[/quote]
This one is actually pretty cool, I gotta admit. I’ll be using this a ton!

Skirmishing XII – Moment of Clarity. Stun Duration increased from 50% to 100%.

Perhaps the buff we’ve all been waiting for? Imagine how much havoc a Ranger could cause with this thing!

Boar rock: 2s daze = 4s daze
Boar bone: 2/3s stun = 4s stun
Boar skull: (with 30% condi duration) = 8s fear (on a 120 sec CD?)
Shortbow: Concussion Shot = 2s Stun+Piercing
Hilt Bash: Hilt Bash = 2s Stun
Asura: technobabble= 3s daze = 6s daze.

In addition, downed state: Thunderclap = 2s Stun

Marksmanship VI – Beastmaster’s Bond. Decreased the cooldown from 90s to 60s.

I’m hoping you keep it recharging on pet swap, because this trait is not good enough to recharge more than 15s.

Nature Magic X – Enlargement. This trait now uses Signet of the Wild to trigger. This reduces the cooldown to 60 seconds and allow it to interact with the Signet of the Beastmaster and Signet Mastery traits.

Too unreliable, but a step in the right direction. I would suggest making a more reliable way to trigger it, or increasing pet HP threshold. In its current state however, it’s too unreliable.

Overall though, although many of the changes are good in theory, most fail to fix the core issues with Ranger (pulling their own weight compared to other professions.)

Or a better idea: Outline of the target, visible through all particle effects.

Battle axes, Whips, and Polearms.

Mention of Moas:
1. Blue Moa, if traited properly, can give 6s of protection every 24s. Meaning it’s up 1/4 of the time. (That might seem alright at first, but again outclassed by guardian…)

2. Swapping moas on recharge allows them to spam Harmonic Cry on swap (3.3k heal, 240 range), as it resets skill recharge.

Besides those two, what other support do we have?

Once again, I try to give Ranger another chance, and I encounter the same Ranger woes continuing to haunt me.

What can I do others can’t do better in FoTM and dungeons?

It seems as if Engineer is better for DPS + Ranged damage. Bombs for melee, Grenades and rifle for ranged, with tons of tricks up its sleeve.

Ranger? The only use I’ve found so far is Sword+Warhorn versus subject alpha. Which deals moderately good DPS with a 20/20/0/0/30 spec (lots of quickness), but I still find myself being outdone in terms of support and burst.

Help me out here. I really want to do use my Ranger in PvE, but what can I do others can’t do better?

An option to disable aqua breathers. They look silly on Charr, like a muzzle.

At least, better underwater helmet options than breathers… Augh, I hate how they look soooo much! Why do I need a breather to breath underwater, in a game with magic?

Know what? Just remove them from the game.