Guild Wars 2

Iruwen.3164:

It’s more like you’re totally disregaring what other classes can do. Regarding escaping from a fight for example, or catching up with an enemy that tries to escape.

I play both a Mesmer and other professions, I know the difference, and I still think the low amount of movement speed is fair. Mesmers I fight against kill me from range, or escape me by using a combination of skills, all the time.

Fuschia.6573:

Kasama.8941:

But the problem here is that everyone just wants an easier solution, while totally disregarding the negatives from the perspective of an opponent. The Mesmer already has an easy time escaping opponents with all it’s tricks, or hitting opponents safely from a distance with illusions. Having permanently improved run speed without any draw back, on top, would just be too much of a good thing.

Since, you know, a Thief with permanent MS increase isn’t already doing exactly what you’re describing here…

Mesmer really does need more roaming ability for WvW, most likely in the form of more reliable access to Swiftness. If you don’t understand why, try running around in WvW without either a traited Focus or sub-par Runes taken only for gaining Swiftness.

That would be a valid point, if that was the only difference between a Mesmer and Thief. Stealth is what makes the Thief powerful. Once you can see where the Thief is running to, it becomes a lot more easy to catch. They also have even less swiftness uptime then the Mesmer. Not to mention 4,277 less base health then the Mesmer, and next to zero boons.

Why would you not use the options you have available? You make it sound like it’s a huge controversy. All you do, is switch in the focus with a double click in your inventory, cast the Temporal Curtain, then switch it out again. If you use hot-keys, it might take you a total of 4 seconds. You can run with Signet of Inspiration out of combat, and as soon as you see an opponent, you switch it out (this will take you even less time then 4 seconds). In combat, you have a combination of clones, stealth, and/or teleportation skills to get away with. You can get 15% more movement speed with Compounding Celerity, while you have three illusions up. Or you can use Sigil of Speed, which stacks 10 seconds of swiftness each time you kill a foe (without any internal recharge time). All of this at an absolute minimal loss of effectiveness.

I kinda like the “clunky” system. It makes me feel like I’m involved in what I’m doing, and that what I pick has a consequence.

Before I would say the Mesmer’s elite skills, but they are balanced now. So I would say the Ranger has the most powerful elite skills. Entangle is amazing crowd control and good damage, Rampage As On is a great source of stability and swiftness, and you can rally yourself (and allies) by using Spirit of Nature. Each one of them has their uses for different situations, and they all make a noteworthy difference.

Iruwen.3164:

You’re simply repeating that over and over, and it doesn’t get more true or even reasonable because combat balancing and ooc runspeed still is completely unrelated.

PS: the word is “else”.

It’s only unrelated of your ‘out of combat’ run speed is lost, once you go into combat. Swiftness stays on you whether you go in or out of combat, so therefor it becomes one and the same.

But the problem here is that everyone just wants an easier solution, while totally disregarding the negatives from the perspective of an opponent. The Mesmer already has an easy time escaping opponents with all it’s tricks, or hitting opponents safely from a distance with illusions. Having permanently improved run speed without any draw back, on top, would just be too much of a good thing.

So far I have to say, that this is a bit of a boring match up. I actually had a lot more fun when we were losing in T4, compared being in the lead by almost twice as many points, in this match up. Hopefully next week will be better match ups for all.

Ethics.4519:

Kasama.8941:

Esplen.3940:

Kasama.8941:

Signet of Inspiration gives swiftness more often then you think. Sometimes it even stacks swiftness two times in a row.

Not very useful unless you have swiftness/boon duration. Trust me. If you have 100% boon duration, you can MAYBE get 100% uptime on swiftness, but even that’s not a guarantee.

If you think you’re going to get 100% swiftness duration, on top of clones, stealth, and teleportation, you’re kidding yourself.

I currently have 100% swiftness uptime, clones, stealth, and teleportation. You jelly bra?

You have 100% swiftness duration at the loss of something ells that’s significant, like changing your runes, which is fine.

Osicat.4139:

Well my suggestion for signet of inspiration is a buff to the mobility for the skill, but atm the randomness of the skill make it wery lackluster in terms of passive. Any randomness in a skill open for the devil of fate to kitten you over. You in a open world chase situation, I bet my pants on the fact I will be guven regeneration with 100% hp.

Thing is for a swiftness skill to be effective it cant be random, this is why we atm have Rune of air or Centaur for wvwvw. To give us a option for effective swiftness out of runes would open for new builds and mindcrafting. And we would need to give something up, decoy blink and portal is my core setup atm for roaming, witch one would be worth swiftnes?

Random boons to mabye get swiftness is like if our dodge was random, Sometimes a dodge would roll forward, backwards and sometimes it would give regeneration or do a hard attack. It would be horrible.

/Osicat

It never occurred to you that it might be random, to balance out everything ells the Mesmer can already do?

Ratty.5176:

It’s not really to do with outlets. No matter how many friends you have, or people you can chat too, there will be times where your mind starts playing tricks. You can’t phone up a friend at 2am at night. What you can do is go into a game and run around. It’s much harder for your mind to go into a spiral when you have to concentrate on skill rotation, avoiding attacks etc.

It’s not about just talking with people (although that is a big factor), it’s about getting help, to help yourself. A psychologist is also a doctor. But where a “normal” doctor takes care of physical health, a psychologist takes care of mental health. If you see someone with a broken arm, you get them to a hospital immediate, because they are obviously in pain. I am personally of the belief, that a psychological suffering should be treated in the same way.

As said, games are good for distractions. But if you want to feel better, you need to face the problems.

The point of entertainment is to make you feel relaxed, by taking your mind off things. So you shouldn’t feel embarrassed about using games as a distraction. However, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t face your problems.

You really need to talk to a psychologist, if you aren’t already. It’s obvious that you have a lot on your mind, that you don’t have an outlet on. I’m sorry that you have to be reminded of death so often. It takes a special kind of person to be able to live a normal life, and at the same time, be faced with such thoughts everyday. That’s also what makes doctors and nurses so amazing. But even doctors and nurses talk to each other, or a psychiatrist, about their thoughts. Because everyone needs some form of outlet. No one is perfect. And the only way to get better, is to talk to someone who can give you advice on how to help yourself, feel better. I know it sounds tedious, but it is nevertheless, the truth. Listen, we will all die some day. That’s just the way of life. But just because you have less time then others, it doesn’t mean you should feel like you don’t deserve to live as fully, as it is possible for you to.

Once you get an outlet on your thoughts, it will also help you stop taking everything to heart. You shouldn’t feel depressed about another player saying something that trivial about your gaming character. But when people are as emotionally vulnerable as you currently are, it is very difficult not to over-think things.

Iruwen.3164:

Kasama.8941:

Signet of Inspiration gives swiftness more often then you think. Sometimes it even stacks swiftness two times in a row.

I’ve actually been running several minutes without getting swiftness at all yesterday. And when I do, I sometimes get it in the worst moments, e.g. right before a jump.
I see the element of randomness (say chaos) that’s inherent to our class, but signet of inspiration is actually just stupid, among other things that should be less random.

I’m sorry, but I just don’t believe that. Sure it’s possible to go one minute, without the swiftness triggering. But several minutes? That has never happened to me. I usually get swiftness so often, that I have to be mindful of when I cast Temporal Curtain. So basically once every 30-50 seconds, and sometimes twice in a row.

Esplen.3940:

Kasama.8941:

Signet of Inspiration gives swiftness more often then you think. Sometimes it even stacks swiftness two times in a row.

Not very useful unless you have swiftness/boon duration. Trust me. If you have 100% boon duration, you can MAYBE get 100% uptime on swiftness, but even that’s not a guarantee.

If you think you’re going to get 100% swiftness duration, on top of clones, stealth, and teleportation, you’re kidding yourself.

It’s always a benefit that a commander can cast Veil, Portal, or Time Warp himself, instead of having to ask allies to do it.

Signet of Inspiration gives swiftness more often then you think. Sometimes it even stacks swiftness two times in a row.

How many of these topics must we have? If you really need to travel long distances, you just equip the focus and Signet of Inspiration. That will give you plenty of swiftness. You don’t need to switch playstyle, just switch one weapon and one skill.

The greatsword has some good AoE, so it shouldn’t be bad.

I don’t believe Restorative Mantra works with healing power, but it will still heal for 2,600 health, on top of the two times 2,904 health you’ll get from Mantra of Recovery. I use the same set up on my Mesmer as well, with the condition removal, and it is extremely powerful. Especially because you can heal while casting another skill, or even while you’re reviving.

I don’t think you need Illusionists Celerity by the way, when you already have 20% recharge reduction from Greatsword Training. I would put those five trait points into Confusing Combatants instead, for the confusion, which is very good against an enemy zerg. Or into Metaphysical Rejuvenation for the 10 seconds of regeneration, which will make your healing power more valuable.

AoE and high damage output. The more foes you hit, the higher amount of bags you can get. And the higher damage you deal, the higher chance you have of getting a bag. It’s as simple as that.

I agree that tagging towers and keeps should take more, then just damaging it for a couple of seconds. Like a gate or wall being damaged for 5% within three minutes, or when siege is used.

As for stealth, ArenaNet just needs to tone it down. For instance, by removing all stealth triggers from weapon sets, and put some boons in instead.

Maybe get something like soldier armor, cleric trinkets, berserker weapons, emerald jewels, and Runes of Altruism. Then go 20 trait points into Inspiration, and get the extra heal for Mantra of Recovery. That will give you a nice mixture of bunker and dps:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNAR8dl4zKqHWTmGaNJipC92JFQnzRSRplalUMbXIA-jkBBYLCyZPFRjtIsIas6FYKVER1+DFRrWKgLWAA-w

Faux Sheaux.6179:

We have different definitions of roaming :P I generally don’t lump in scouting with roaming since I view it more as a solo activity rather than working in coordination with a larger group (unless, of course, working in coordination means facerolling solos/duos and taking camps).

For scouting, yes thief is definitely better. But I’ll just say that we’ll have to agree to disagree with the roaming portion.

Scouting doesn’t have to be connected to a group. Scouting simply means relaying information in the chat, about enemy zerg locations and the state of camps/towers/keeps you run past. It’s as simple as that.

This topic needs more Charr! There’s too many weak humans here..

Faux Sheaux.6179:

Thief isn’t as efficient at solo’ing camps. Ranger also players better in 1vX situations against people who are really good and know what they are doing. There are builds in almost any profession that can kill a great thief when used by a good player. There are very few great builds that can kill a good ranger unless used by great players.

I feel there’s a huge skill gap though between being an awesome thief roamer and being an awesome ranger roamer. For a vast majority of players, thief would definitely be a better roamer which is why so many people say so.

Btw, I play thief/ranger/warrior/mesmer, so it’s not like I’m just saying “hurr ranger” because I’m biased. Out of all the roaming classes (it should be obvious that I like roaming), ranger is still my favorite to take out there when not in a trolling mood.

Oh yeah, the Ranger is actually very good at taking camps solo, thanks to all the crowd control, and partly the pet also. But when it comes to pure roaming, nothing beats the Thief, in my opinion. I’m talking about things like scouting, checking on towers and keeps, killing dolyaks, or just basically flaking foes. The Thief just has superior movement, and also stealth, to get past areas unharmed.

Furajir.3815:

Kasama.8941:

The Thief is a far better roamer then the Ranger. Rangers are excellent at crowd control and defending walls with longbow. That’s about it. It really comes down to how much you love the profession.

Anytime anyone says anything like this, I just assume they have never equipped another weapon but a bow and sat behind a wall spamming LB5, To which my assumptions based off comments like this normally ring true.

I’m just being honest.

I play an axe/axe-greatsword Ranger, and I love to play aggressively. So in this case you were wrong.

Iruwen.3164:

Interesting argument. So let’s remove range indicators for all skills and enjoy the learning curve.

Portal is a teleportation skill, range is all it does. But most importantly, it has an extremely long range, compared to other teleportation skills. Therefor it’s a fair drawback. The only other skill that can compare is Shadow Pursuit, and that’s a trap, meaning you need a target for the teleportation to work.

juno.1840:

Kasama.8941:

“The distance between two portals is restricted to radar range, approximately 5000 units.” http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Portal_Entre

Giving a range indicator on Portal removes the only learning curve there is to the skill, and makes it too easy to use at max range. It’s already a really powerful skill as it is.

Except that the radar has a “zoom” feature and can be “reshaped” to an arbitrary rectangle. There is no radar circle like the GW1 compass.

So how can you tell your compass/radar is sized for 5000 units?

In addition, the “entre” portal is not visible on the compass/radar so it’s not easy to measure using that method (even if you could tell 5000 units accurately).

“Zoomed in, the range of the compass is 2500 units, representing 63 meters/208 feet.” http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Compass#Compass

You learn by doing. That’s the fun part.

“The distance between two portals is restricted to radar range, approximately 5000 units.” http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Portal_Entre

Giving a range indicator on Portal removes the only learning curve there is to the skill, and makes it too easy to use at max range. It’s already a really powerful skill as it is.

The Thief is a far better roamer then the Ranger. Rangers are excellent at crowd control and defending walls with longbow. That’s about it. It really comes down to how much you love the profession.

This is pretty much the build I’m running as well right now, in terms of stats. But I play 20/20/20/10/0, use Frost Trap instead of Signet of the Wild, and use the River Drake as my main pet.

I’m not sure why people would think it’s a PvE build, only? I play an offensive Guardian myself in WvW, and it’s extremely powerful, to the point of almost being overpowered. I’m surprised to see you don’t use torch as off hand, though, as it deals a ton of damage. Also, using “Save Yourselves!” before you attack, just to get one stack of might and fury, is a bit of a waste. It works a lot better as a “last resort” skill. I would also suggest you use Tome of Wrath, as it will give you some much needed AoE damage, for when you’re defending walls or attack a zerg. Tome of Wrath can also be very good to take down a single player, if you’ve used both your teleportation skills, and can’t catch up.

I feel like I should say that rank really doesn’t have a lot of value in WvW, as you get rank for a lot of other things then defeating players. So it’s not a good indicator as to how skilled a player is.

In case you don’t know, you can actually teleport 1,800 range, by using Flashing Blade and Judge’s Intervention right after each other.

AlphaK.9486:

Offhand Training doesn’t seem to increase the hit range of WD as indicated, but I haven’t tried to see if the reflect range is increased.

I don’t believe Off-Hand Training ever increased the range of Whirling Defense. Only Crippling Talon, Path of Scars, Throw Torch, Hunter’s Call, and now the reflected projectiles of Whirling Defense.

matenji.3809:

Can someone rephrase this? “Now strikes targets at a similar range to all other melee skills.”

I can’t figure out if this is a nerf or a buff, either.

Elvahaduken.3609:

I solo roam in wvw, the movement speed is a must, i cant just swap on a wim of getting attacked by a thief in stealth, locust is a must have for movement.
If i was to solo duel alone then sure i’ll swap it out, but im not gonna roam with no movement speed

Activate auto-run, switch to your staff, place your fingers on “5” and “H”, press “H” to open your hero panel, double click your warhorn, press “5” to trigger Locust Swarm, double click your staff in your hero panel, press “H” to close your hero panel, ???, profit! With a bit of map awareness, you can also safely switch out a utility skill.

You don’t have nearly enough burst damage to take a Thief down, before he bursts you down. Stealth Thieves don’t like conditions or AoE, but you don’t have any condition damage at all. So basically, your build isn’t made to take down a Thief. You could try to take Spectral Wall, for increasing your damage reduction, while decreasing the Thief’s defense. And use Signet of Spite to surprise him with a big splash of conditions, which will also make stacking your chill and immobilize easier. A smart Thief will just wait it out though, but it’s worth a try.

Iceflame.5024:

Kasama.8941:

Ravezaar.4951:

as he says its based on Minions Dmg and only 2 Minions do decent dmg when “alive” Flesh Golem & Flesh Wurm and the HP Siphon from Wells are to poor.

It makes a lot more sense to get Plague as a bunker, because gives you stability for the full duration, quadruples your toughness, and triples your vitality. Which makes it ideal to use when Death Shroud isn’t available. Then go 25 trait points into Death Magic instead, for the increased toughness and power from Deadly Strength.

My experience with plague form is very sad a lot of times in sPVP. Enter plague form(lose all of your utility and weapon abilities)->precious stability gets corrupted or stolen->become a strange tanky cloud that has a ton of conditions on it and slowly gets killed while getting slowed, CCed, etc.

Plague is good in clumped up point fights when you have people to support you, otherwise leech or golem is better.

Plague can deal constant weakness or blind to your foes, on top of the increased toughness and vitality. It is the best way to increase your survivability, outside of using Death Shroud.

Lich Form only doubles your vitality, and the Flesh Golem couldn’t hit a wall if it was trapped in a tower.

The general problem with pistol/pistol is that the skills are too expensive to work well together. Using two Unload won’t deal nearly as much damage as a Backstab, yet it will use most of your initiative. This means you don’t have access to Black Powder, your only real defense skill in the weapon set, or Head Shot, which is great for interrupting a heal skill. But Unload is the weapon sets only valuable damage output.

What makes dagger/x builds so good, is that they can rely on Backstab/auto-attack for the majority of damage, and that stealth provides both offensive and defensive capabilities. And what makes sword/dagger builds so good, is that Flanking Strike only costs 3 initiative, while still dealing over 750 base damage. Compared to Unload that deals little over 800 base damage, while having a cost of 6 initiative.

Pistol/pistol needs both a damage increase, and overall initiative balance. It can also be discussed how useful Body Shot is to the weapon set. I think something like weakness, stability, or cripple would be a lot more valuable then vulnerability.

dagrdagaz.4913:

PvE -> Elementalist.

Still dont get, or want to get, the current stupid Attunement swapping mechanism.
Oh, and Ele also seems to have worst combo of low health and low armor.

Look at it this way: Fire=power/burn, Water=healing/chill, Air=critical hits/speed, and Earth=toughness/bleeding. Putting each attunement in these categories makes them a lot more manageable. Fire is great for AoE damage, Air is for single target damage, Earth is great for extra durability, and Water when you’re low on health.

The Elementalist gains a ton of survivability from boons alone, not to mention reliable healing from water attunement skills.

Kolly.9872:

Kasama.8941:

I like your dolyak idea, but the AoE limit and siege I think works fine. The fact that siege weapons are rather vulnerable, means that placement becomes an important factor. It’s a part of what separates an experience player from a new player, in WvW, as siege placement takes knowledge. This also gives some much needed dynamic to siege wars, as you get punished for placing siege in a bad place.

I see it in a different manner!
The fact that siege weapon are rather vulnerable reduces their tactical importance.
I prefer to have few siege weapons around the map but that can realy be feared once they are up.
At the moment destroying a treb is “just another treb down”… and few seconds later you will see 2 more treb up in the same place.
What about if for buildling only 1 treb you would need not only to take 1 camp but to defend it also for 30 minutes? Same goes for golems…
but once you manage to build one, you finally have a powerfull weapon to use against your enemies..

Of course nightcapping would be an issue.. but it’s an issue already. There is no difference from the way it is at the moment, when one server can cap all the map during the night a full upgrade all buildings.

We are here to discuss how to improve tactics in WvW, and personally I have seen a lot of good guild and awsome commanders with different tactics.. but still stacking 50+ men on the commasder tag and moving like a big blob is a worth it tactic, and that shouldn’t be the case.

I personally think it would give siege weapons too big of a role. The game should be about the players, not the siege weapons. If two more trebs are build for the one that was destroyed, it pushes the opposing server to take action and chase the foes away/capture the tower. Golems already have a lot of survivability, but not so much that it doesn’t require them to be defended by allies. It’s also arguably a lot more fun to fight and support a siege weapon, then it is to build one for 30 min.

Blobs need to be balanced by giving smaller groups a bigger impact on the battlefield. However, blobs will always be there, because ArenaNet wants to create the felling of an “epic battle” (even though the combat system isn’t build for it).

It’s a bit ridiculous how many critical hits you got, not to mention the damage on them, considering you only have an 11% base critical chance and 15% critical damage. Some great gameplay, though.

Ravezaar.4951:

as he says its based on Minions Dmg and only 2 Minions do decent dmg when “alive” Flesh Golem & Flesh Wurm and the HP Siphon from Wells are to poor.

It makes a lot more sense to get Plague as a bunker, because gives you stability for the full duration, quadruples your toughness, and triples your vitality. Which makes it ideal to use when Death Shroud isn’t available. Then go 25 trait points into Death Magic instead, for the increased toughness and power from Deadly Strength.

“When do you feel you are doing something really important, determinant, for your server?”

• Giving advice to and helping players in chat
• Scouting and relaying information in chat
• Using my AoE stealth as a Thief to stealth dolyaks or golems
• Using Portal as Mesmer to move golems or teleport allies up on walls
• Using wards as a Guardian to control zerg movement
• Using a treb to take down a wall or support allies from a distance
• Placing down siege in a good spot
• Running supply to repair gates/walls
• Pushing groups of players back by playing aggressively
• Running with, and supporting, commanders who are good
• Ignoring; commanders who shows no interests in wanting to improve, who won’t listen to advice from other players, and who thinks that chat communication is unimportant

I like your dolyak idea, but the AoE limit and siege I think works fine. The fact that siege weapons are rather vulnerable, means that placement becomes an important factor. It’s a part of what separates an experience player from a new player, in WvW, as siege placement takes knowledge. This also gives some much needed dynamic to siege wars, as you get punished for placing siege in a bad place.

Give them some time. Shoutcasts for Guild Wars 2 is still rather new.

It’s really hard to say, as it depends on what game mode you play, and what build you play. The profession I’ve found the hardest to level up is the Thief. And the profession that I’ve had the most trouble finding a viable build for in sPvP is the Necromancer.

From a profession design perspective, I would say the Thief is the hardest to play, with initiative, low health, and next to no boons.

I play this build: http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAV6alYmKOHfS6E9JFy2jeqC5JuCOl/Byq/QUB-jkyAYMBZiCAhBiIAn/KiGblsIasaGMtpgs6Mp+jioVLDg5GA-w

The build could have overall better damage, by increasing power instead of critical chance, but I love the fact that I can get 100% critical chance with it. The general idea is to stack conditions (and critical hits) with Cluster Bomb and Choking Gas, then switch to pistol/pistol to apply pressure. I use pistol/pistol as more of a utility weapon set, in that I either burst down my opponent with Unload, interrupt a possible heal with Head Shot, or protect myself with Black Powder. Body Shot is great against high defense foes, if you have allies around you to apply damage.

Stealth is not needed as much, as most think, but without it, your damage output is noticeably lower. This is partly because the base damage of the Thief is a little too low. But the Thief can go into stealth in a lot of ways. For instance, in my build, I have four sources of stealth (Steal, Blinding Power, Descent of Shadows, and Last Refuge), which isn’t apparent at first glance.

I find that Blinding Powder works a lot better, since you already have superior movement as a Thief. You can get far away on just Blinding Powder and Infiltrator’s Strike alone. And unlike Shadow Refuge, Blinding Powder also works great as an offensive skill. I really only use Shadow Refuge to stealth dolyaks and golems.

The Ranger is not the best burst damage profession, but you can get some burst out of them, if you really want.

Longbow is just not good for anything ells then hitting targets at long range. When it comes to ranged direct damage, axe/axe is superior. This is mostly because the longbows auto-attack has too slow of an attack rate. But also because you burn out the longbow skills very fast, meaning you rely on the auto-attack a lot. When attacking a target you always go auto-attack (to remove potential aegis, and make sure your foe isn’t blocking or invulnerable), follow up with Hunter’s Shot, Rapid Fire, and then you’re already back to your painfully slow auto-attack again. Point Blank Shot is extremely situational. I only use it to push foes off edges, which admittedly is a ton of fun, but that’s all the skill is really good for. Barrage is nice against a zerg, but because it makes you stationary, and is easy to dodge, you will never use it anywhere ells.

The greatsword is a great utility weapon, with some great burst potential, but it suffers from the same problem as the longbow, in that the auto-attack has too slow of an attack rate. So once you’ve used your other greatsword weapon skills, you’ll want to swap it out. But opposite to longbow, you won’t burn out the greatsword skills as fast. Maul is great for burst, Swoop is a great escape, chase, and travel skill, Counter attack is a block with a knockdown (great against Backstab Thieves), Crippling Throw is also a great burst that stacks nicely with Maul, and Hilt bash gives you a reliable interrupt. It’s also worth mentioning that the greatswords auto-attack has an evade on the third hit, which is great.

When it comes to burst pets, I’ve found the River Drakes’ F2 skill to be superior, as it deals the most reliable burst damage. Some like the Salamander Drake more, but it only has a 250 range on its F2 skill, compared to the 600 range on the River Drakes F2 skill. The Snow Leopard has the best chance of hitting foes with the F2 skill, but if you don’t need the snare, the Jaguar is the way to go.

The fastest way I’ve found that the Ranger can kill foes, with direct damage, is by using Entangle+Whirling Defense+Lightning Breath. It’s a lot of fun to use.

ProxyDamage.9826:

I honestly can’t agree with “We don’t have great condition removal, so best to not take anything at all!” approach.

Yes, rangers have limited condition removal, but limited isn’t the same as none at all. Signet of Renewal isn’t fantastic but it’s something, and Healing Spring will usually guarantee at least 2 conditions removed. Just having the ability to quickly cleanse a condition or two is extremely important.

Also don’t forget HS is a water field, which means free regen and extra healing if you have a leap/blast finisher.

Signet of Renewal is a waste of a utility slot, which is also why so many Rangers use Lightning Reflexes as a stun breaker. As said, the passive will not always trigger when you need it to, and a 60 second recharge is way to long for it to be reliable.

Healing Spring is a good skill, yes, but the recharge time is a bit too long, considering the initial healing amount is 7,260 health (with the regeneration). To get more out of it, you have to stand in the field for 3+ seconds, or use a leap finisher. Compare it to Troll Unguent which heals you for 8,560 health, and has a 25 second recharge time. Or ‘Heal as One’ that heals you for 6,520 health, with only a 20 seconds recharge time. These two healing skills will heal you for 6,024 or 5,040 more health a minute, compared to Healing Springs initial healing. So if you have a build that can’t afford to be stationary, then Healing Spring won’t be that good. It’s also worth mentioning that you can be knocked out of Healing Springs combo field, and that the regeneration can be removed, which greatly reduces the healing you’ll get out of it. So while the condition removal is good, the healing part of Healing Spring means that it’s not always the best choice.

It’s not all bad, though. The Ranger does have some good interrupt prevention in ‘Shared Anquish’ and ‘Hide in Plain Sight’ next to our three stun breakers; Lightning Reflexes, Quickening Zephyr, and Signet of Renewal. The Ranger also partly makes up for having bad condition removal, by having access to a few regeneration sources, and having a lot of ways to increase endurance.

Something to keep in mind when considering direct damage; dodging, aegis, weakness, blind, and CC are a lot more effective against direct damage, because none of these affect condition damage that’s already applied.

Einlanzer.1627:

Kasama.8941:

Molch.2078:

Kasama.8941:

And is arguably the best damage support profession.

How?

I was referring to PvP here. In sPvP the Thief is the best damage support, simply because you can reach a destination faster then any other profession. In WvW the Thief can easily take out stranglers in a zerg, without being in danger of getting focused damaged, and apply a lot of pressure using a shortbow, thanks to initiative.

Except the topic is about PvE.

It seems like many thief defenders are primarily PvP players – there’s no question that Thieves are solid in PvP. Many of their important tools that work well in PvP barely do anything in PvE (like Smoke Bomb) and create a lot of headache in conjunction with their poor attrition.

Damage support is not really worth talking about in a PvE perspective. You stand still and hit a mob, it doesn’t take a lot. Warriors are overrated in dungeons.

Again, the only downed skills that are worth talking about in PvE, is the Rangers and Warriors, because they are the only two professions that can rally on their own. All other professions will mostly die in downed state against mobs.

Use it up close. Swoop>Maul>Crippling Throw, deals a lot of damage. Or if you are in melee range already go Crippling Throw>Swoop>Maul.

Eurantien.4632:

Does nobody use conditions in wvw? A lot of builds I see have no condi removal.

A lot of players use condition removal in WvW. The problem is that the Rangers condition removal is really bad:

• Signet of Renewal, is too unreliable with 10 seconds in between removing one condition, and having a 60 second recharge time.
• Healing Spring, works nicely in PvE, where you can stay in the same spot for quite some time. But in PvP, you are constantly moving around, trying to avoid AoE fields and dodge incoming damage, so all you really get is one condition removed and 7260 healing. Which would be nice, if it wasn’t because of the 30 seconds recharge time.
• Next to these two skills, you have the brown bear that can remove one condition every 25 second. But it’s a horrible pet outside of dungeons, as you always need more damage as a Ranger.
• Spirit of Nature, can remove conditions with it’s active ability. But summoning the spirit takes 1,5 seconds, and activation the ability also takes around 1 second. You’ll be dead before you can activate it. And the Rangers other two elite skills are also far better.
• And finally, when it comes to traits the Ranger only has two ways to remove conditions, which both are grandmaster traits. Empathic Bond is basically just an improved Signet of Renewal, and Evasive Purity only removes blind and poison.

So overall, it’s not really worth taking condition removal as a Ranger, in PvP. You’re better of just going with Bowl of Lemongrass Poultry Soup (-40% condition duration), and try your best to escape foes with evade skills.

SupahSpankeh.8452:

Sort of tempted to agree that it’s a bit OP.

Disclaimer: I’m a conditionmancer, and I’d like to see both this and Special Pizza cut to 20%. Pizza is such a no-brainer for me in PvE and PvP.

This is pretty much why it was added, I believe. Rare Veggie Pizza is a given, so it needed a counter. Nerfing Rare Veggie Pizza would have made a lot of players angry, so naturally, it makes more sense to add a new type of food to make more players happy. Food for everyone, yay!

lol you’re completely exaggerating here. Have you played a Thief? I will gladly be the first to admit that stealth, for the Thief, needs a solid nerf. But beyond that, the Thief is really not that good, at all.

The Thief has the lowest base health, along with medium armor. Next to no boon effects (this makes a huge difference). One viable AoE weapon. Weak condition damage options. Traps and Venom skills are a waste of utility slots. And no way to support allies outside of AoE stealth and reviving. The reason why you see so many Backstab Thieves, is not only because it can down a player fast, it’s also because it’s about the only viable build the Thief has. Before everyone realized how powerful Backstab is, the Thief was the least played profession in the game.

Daecollo.9578:

RoyHarmon.5398:

Why?

Why do you want a nerf?

I don’t think I understand this at all. In what way would it be better?

Its to powerful atm. Lemongrass + Runes + Traits = Immune to some conditions, food should not be that powerful.

You have to consider all that things you’d have to give up, in order to do this. Making Lemongrass Poultry Soup is also really expensive compared to other foods, as lemongrass is very rare. And there are a lot more ways to increase condition duration, then there are ways to decrease it.

This is really a profession issue, as some professions have next to no condition removal at all, while other professions has an almost endless amount of condition removal.

I picked sylvari because I wanted to make camouflage Thief.