Guild Wars 2

Belzebu.3912:

Really that you guys only knew it now?
In the update where missions got 71% HP buff, it was only in PvE. Not in WvW and PvP

LOL yup this is it… its not that they have less in wvw/spvp, its just that they didnt get buffed like in pve.

Doug.9628:

these boards make me wish this community wasn’t so terrible. this was a great patch

The patch works for me, my dps is going up significantly, but I sympathize with spirit rangers.

Theyre trying to make a grind to keep completionists playing. If it isnt this it would be something else, there is no escaping grind. I’m dedicated to one main now though.

Dont forget though, in mmos, over time they always make it more trivial to get top tier for new players entering, so in a year I’ll bet there will be many ways to get laurels.

I dont see where they mention water spirit though given what I understand I have to agree… it really only benefits the percentage of rangers that are spirit rangers for one thing, for another their toolbar is already loaded up. With the spirit nerfs, probably a lot less spirit rangers too.

Should be a signet like mesmers, no fuss no muss.

Ranger melee weapons dont benefit much compared to missile. Choosing a ranger melee weapon is like deciding to use a halibut or a trout to fight someone with a gun. You might do a bit more damage but its no where near what other classes get for melee dps, in my experience. That said I like great sword for the utility, defence, and a nice spike with #2. Even though 1h sword technically does more damage its never impressed me.

From a warrior no less… bravo!!! Bet if you killed him he would have hated you tho :P

No surprises in the patch notes it looks like. I’ve actually been using a build for the last month that takes advantage of it, gonna see how it works now…

Anet, add entangle removal at least, it nullifies this ability!!! (Cant dodge either while entangled so vigor no help…)

Sube Dai.8496:

Soilder.3607:

One year later and this trait is still garbage.

Its the best burst we have.

Unfortunately both these statements are true.

How serious do we want to take this really…

Thats the first question.

Or maybe its a game where we can have fun.

I like the 3 world set up since I reminisce of dark age of camelot. But I see your point and with revolving worlds its not like you’re stuck fighting a more powerful foe forever which is the real reason for this set up.

pho.9412:

not much change from 30/30/10/0/0 to 30/20/0/20/0

tested out that I don’t even need the extra vigor from traits if I am careful. though I will add sigil of energy to warhorn. that’s the only change.

I’ve been running that build for a while, pretty sturdy. Still not sure which trait I am going to stick in nature mastery, lots of options there now.

1. Take a build that has all the stuff you need to have whatever fun, or whatever you call winning, in wvw, whether it be movement, survival, dps, or whatever.
2. Then take it to spvp and try to do well with it.
3. Tweak it as much as you need to fight well there while keeping the core essentials intact.

Thats my recipe :p

I like traveller for wvw, free mobility means a lot. With sword/GS you can keep up with swiftness when you’re not gaining it from someone else.

Yep being under 25% is a big neon sign, saying pile on and kill me boys! Barkskin wont help much except in small skirmishes/1-1 maybe. However I see combining the new Enlargement with signet of the stone, so you can actually do a heal and then proceed to whoop some kitten .

Rym.1469:

Just be sure to not run Brown Bear or you will be kicked in no time. You can pick Murellow instead! It’s still a Bear. Just shaved a lil’bit! But shhhh… They shouldn’t know. If they ask, it’s Kodan’s child

I used to like brown bear for wvw anyway… aoe 2 conditions removal every 25 secs, doesnt take any time from you, whats not to like? Most pets insta die and what good is that?

What makes the best 1-1 build might well be crap for anything else. This discussion is very niche since most people don’t build strictly for 1-1 as its a small part of the game.

So they want vigor to be less accessible, what about stability? Still see a ton of it out there, to the detriment of many abilities.

Indoles.1467:

This. Rangers really shouldn’t lose to Necros if you know what you are doing. Sorry, but once you make them pop their heal and if you bring adequate condition removal you should be able to maintain more pressure than them and be able to bring them down. Just watch out for their condition bombs (what I mean is you don’t want to soak everything they have, play defensive at first but keep constant pressure) and then dump everything you have. They have trouble evading skills and entangle is quite effective against them, especially if you use it after their heal.

Lol same is true on a Necro… trust me on my necro fighting a ranger is a battle very much slanted in my favor having played both sides of the fence.

The best advice Ive seen here is to run away, since a necro cant chase effectively. Kiting can work if the necro doesnt know good anti-kiting mark use. Get within 600 and your going to eat a LOT of damage at no benefit to yourself. Entangle is only useful if the necro has his heal, teleport and transfers on cooldown and honestly does take moderately more skill than the average necro has to easily sidestep.

edit: I say this about good necros, I notice playing on my ranger majority dont seem to have a clue how to play to the classes benefits, but a good one is a roaming black hole of destruction, get too close and you will be destroyed … :P

My Suggestion, for this signet only, make the passive effect remain even when the active is used. Would justify a weaker active and not punish you so much for using it.

Jackums.3496:

As a mesmer, I’d take a LB ranger over a SB one, any day. A LB ranger is one of the easiest targets in the game for a shatter mesmer. Very little weapon mobility. Terrible close-range DPS. Slow moving projectiles. Easy-to-interrupt AoE. Etc. The SB evade alone makes it a better suited weapon to counter the burst of mesmers and thieves.

Always glad I have a longbow vs mesmers when they try to get away. Hit rf just before they blink and wait for the downed mesmer to pop up. Otherwise they’d always get away.

Solandri.9640:

Again, all other things being equal the additional vulnerability will be available with both weapons, so the difference will be minor. LB benefits slightly more from vulnerability at long rage due to its 0.9 coefficient vs 0.77. 10% of that difference is 0.013, or 1.44% advantage for LB at long range.

There is first strike, but I actually meant the way +40% duration and quick draw cd reduction can keep those vulnerability stacks rolled over through the next rapidfire giving you an extra bump.

Solandri.9640:

Read my long post above where I cover vulnerability in depth.

You’ve made way too many assumptions that either are part of the game or assume the person playing is an automaton, ie. “autoattack interrupted at 50% by channel”… usually I dont think so, my instinct is to wait for the autoshot to go off and then hit my rapidfire. Also there are many traits to keep that vulnerability well between 10-20% in reality I dont have a problem doing this.

I’d rather give the person credit for making it work effectively, then assume all these mistakes. Keep it simple, anything else can be argued infinitum and I dont have the time.

Solandri.9640:

No, because except for world bosses, it’s unrealistic to think shortbow won’t apply any bleeds or poison. Even for a zerker build with food and fury (2200 power, 100% crit chance, 100% crit damage, 0 condition damage), a single bleed stack represents almost a 3% increase to SB DPS. So it’s

.75 vs .79 with one bleed stack
.75 vs .81 with two bleed stacks
.75 vs .84 with three bleed stacks
etc

Even with this build, food, and fury which completely favors longbow, shortbow with a full bleed stack slightly edges out longbow even at long range.

But if you include bleeding/poison you have to include vulnerability, which is +10% to +20% damage (depending spec pretty easy to double stack) on longbow, since its unrealistic that someone wont use rapid fire first. I was just keeping it simple since there are too many “what ifs” that both weapons can add.

Are we talking about duels or just picking out of a crowd and pewing till dead?

Tier 1 thieves, rangers, elementalists
Tier 2 warriors, guardians, engineers
Tier 3 mesmers, necros

Fighting 1-1 stunlock warriors are a pain and better hope your stun breaks are off cooldown. Thieves can be a wild card, if you are on cd they can dominate also.

Shirk.6421:

Kilger.5490:

Atherakhia.4086:

The number you see on Rapid Fire at the end is the total damage over the whole channel and not an individual hit. So 2k damage over a full channel isn’t all that much. Are you sure they aren’t using a heal skill?

He said that its 10 hits at 600-2k per hit, not the total. Thats consistent with what I see. I doubt anyone can regen 1.2-4k a second so I dont know, something not right here.

Oh, is that so? ;D

Maybe 1.2k, thats actually not difficult for us with trolls unguent up but getting up to the midrange like 2.5k per sec which they would have to maintain, thats quite a feat. Mind you, add a few evades etc you can go a while but going strictly from what was said here, I dont see it.

Bri.8354:

Some math on the damage:

Shortbow without counting bleeds:
0.7692 damage coefficient/second

Long range shot currently:
1,000+ range: 0.9 damage coefficient/second
500-1,000 range: 0.65 damage coefficient/second
0-500 range: 0.5 damage coefficient/second

Long range shot after patch:
1,000+ range: 0.9 damage coefficient/second
500-1,000 range: 0.7475 damage coefficient/second
0-500 range: 0.6 damage coefficient/second

Then you have the bleeds and poison shortbow does and the vulnerability longbow does. Accounting for this, longbow does more damage at max range, while shortbow will do more damage at less than 1,000 range even after the patch.

Kind of splitting hairs between .75 and .77 coeff/sec damage dont you think? I’d say medium range is a tie. So Long bow wins at long range, tie medium, and short bow wins <500.

I like long bow, if its closer than 500 use point blank shot or pull out a sword.

And yep, vulnerability is VERY group friendly… Your pet likes it too!

Yes entangle only really seems good against noobies. Thank gawd for noobies!!!

However theres the odd time when mid fight and endurance is low, condition purges used, that it can win the fight. Also great against anyone that uses a lot of pets.

Our weapons are all such low damage coefficients (anet expecting pet to make up difference) its really a drop in the bucket as to which you use.

…except axe, axe is significantly worse unless you get bounce.

Atherakhia.4086:

The number you see on Rapid Fire at the end is the total damage over the whole channel and not an individual hit. So 2k damage over a full channel isn’t all that much. Are you sure they aren’t using a heal skill?

He said that its 10 hits at 600-2k per hit, not the total. Thats consistent with what I see. I doubt anyone can regen 1.2-4k a second so I dont know, something not right here.

Norjena.5172:

Kilger.5490:

To be honest, I dont find dps on sword to be that great anyway. Not sure what the coefficient comparison is like but seemed like my necro melts things way faster with just a dagger.

Dagger is the necros best singeltarget dps weapon. Rangersword needs a Cat too. If u´re cat is attacking and u with a swordranger dps will be higher then necros.

The Problem is the sword AA, GS is horrible in DPS and no good option.

If the sword can´t be fixed (or shouldn´t cause the AA is rly hard to kite) rangers need another Weapon to deal DPS.
At the moment it should be the greatsword.

Warriors Axe and Greatsword or guardian sword/greatsword (hammer a little bit lower but protection so it´s a good option too) are nearly balanced too….

Well I looked it up and most our autoattacks skills are tops .65 coeff, while necro are .7,.9,1.2, so I guess arenanet thinks pets make up at least third our damage.

Really … looking here

http://sentinelark.wordpress.com/2013/10/05/skill-coefficients-for-the-ranger/

assuming thats correct the difference between gs (.55 mainly) and sword (.6) is really a drop in the bucket compared to necro (.93 avg) damage, barely worth quibbling about. At least gs has some great bursts.

Its a bit unsatisfying after playing a necro as a main for a year and seeing stuff really melt..

To be honest, I dont find dps on sword to be that great anyway. Not sure what the coefficient comparison is like but seemed like my necro melts things way faster with just a dagger.

Chokolata.1870:

-lightning reflexes removes immobilize , cripple , chilled

YES! At least immobolize, it really defeats what that skill is about.

Heres an easy low hanging fruit type idea that would satisfy a lot of people here:

Add a trait that buffs us for ranger pet type out (like elementalist attunement or warrior stance), and while traited, the pet is just a passive spirit which no longer takes orders and just follows ranger around. Plays to the pet theme and lets people play “without pet”.

They should follow suit with signet of beastmaster to open up more specs (drop it to master level)

^^^

Interesting idea with stances, but I think any change would have to fit into the framework of the pet system. They arent going to change that much code for us, its not worth it for them.

Maybe a trait that buffs you when switching to a specific pet type would accomplish some of that, you’d tailor the buff (stance) by selecting certain pet type (dog/bird/etc), kind of like elementalists get buff by what attunement they switch to. They have something in there where the pet gets buffed by f2, why not you?

I’d like them to build in piercing and take the trait out of marksmanship. There are too many things in that line for longbow and some are just better than others, making the slightly less useful ones redundant.

They create the class first, then apply a name, this is where your confusion lies. This class is the obligatory pet class for gw2. It could have been called beastmaster or warden but they went with Ranger.

I know ranger can mean many different things, its not mandatory to make it a range or a pet class. However in this game it is. Every class in gw2 has a class mechanic, and ours is the pet. Therefore it is not going away.

Dont get hung up on the name.

The theme of the class is about pets. Its our unique mechanic, like it or not.

Killsmith.8169:

You’re right, Ranger has nothing to do with using ranged weapons. Just out of curiosity, what percentage of ranger weapons are ranged? (Hint: It’s high.)

Check engineer, its higher. Besides the point, rangers place in fantasy lore dates back to tolkien, which are more like a forest ranger than anything to do with range weapons. I dont really care that much, but the argument that the name alone implies anything about bow mastery annoys me. :P

Rifle shouldnt be a non-viable weapon for warriors since they can equip it, and they should be able to win fights with it. I dont buy that we should automatically win at range. But that killshot is pretty powerful, I definately would like to have a skill like that

Everything but axe. Axe is sad sad

Love every other weapon, tho havent really used dagger much, they all seem to have a place.

You’re aware stun warriors are getting a nerf on Dec 10th? The problem exists on both sides of the equation.

Yep I was thinking the same OP… often when I am trying to somehow make that martial mastery work in a build.

Quick fix imo would be to just switch it with two handed mastery, since its a lot less important to a 2h build its better for someone branching out. Martial mastery is really a core skill for using a 2H sword.

Conversely, while playing my necro, I’d never met a ranger I couldnt just bulldoze without effort. There are probably some builds that work better than others.

lordhelmos.7623:

What are you all using to fight necros and mesmers?

I find that against these two, and perplexity engineers there is not much we can do but run.

Against necros lots of knockdowns work wonders. Use a dog, preferably wolf. Dont play the conditions game with them, they’ll throw it back on you. Save a knockdown for the aoe lifeforce drain channel.

Against mesmers, sick your pet on the real one (its not fooled by illusions), keep killing the illusions so the damage doesnt become too much. Lots of aoe helps.

In spvp I find healing spring is a must. Also sigil of renewel for when thats down.

In wvw I keep a brown bear around (shake it off every 20sec – 2 conditions) since pets are a bit of a joke there, and sigil of renewal (1 every 10 sec) or prayer to kormir (human utility – 3 cond every 40 sec).

Yep love it in spvp, its one of our most versatile weapons. I really feel much less powerful when I use anything else.

I think charr is the closest thing to an Orc this game has though you can make some pretty savage looking norns too… mess around with the character generator for a bit is my advice.

Arpheus.6918:

@Kilger
Did you really use swiftness or only the 25% signet? The 25% signet would make a difference since then the monarch combo might be faster.

I used swiftness from the Norn city boon giver. I’m fairly certain its full 33% swiftness since even with 25% speed it increased my speed.

I’m thinking it comes down to technique. You’ll need to use it on a regular basis to get it smooth.

However like you say it isnt that much farther ahead only 8 seconds over 2 minutes but it makes a difference. Swoop only gained 14 seconds over 2 minutes and its noticeable, in the same test. Swoop goes further but has longer cooldown, its also much easier to use.

edit: if you’re on Jade Quarry I’d be willing to demonstrate…