Guild Wars 2

I think it used to work that way and then they nerfed it. Same as with a lot of other class skills such a necros corrupt boons, wells, rangers empathic bond etc. probably decided it punished condi builds too much.

Besides the “I always have a ranger” their versatility is bar none the highest. I can play this class in so many different ways it feels like several classes. Also I like a challenge and ranger has that

Atherakhia.4086:

Because the Ranger doesn’t have evade spam on every weapon set?

This is the best answer. It’s the only evasive type skill on bow, so it would be nice if it weren’t countered by just about anything. It’s a very powerful ability mind you, so maybe this is the intent but it’s foiled so often (yes traps may be one issue but I’m sure procs such as flame burst are also culprits in removing it immediately), I stopped even using it for the most part, when I used longbow.

I haven’t used hunters shot in a while ( traded bow for mh axe) but I found quite often while zerging even if it worked it would often be instantly removed…. I assume either from some lag in server client damage tracking or a proc or a pet attack.

In my experience Hunters is very unreliable and had no problem letting it go.

Lolyta.4582:

Killsmith.8169:

I was hoping for sword improvements

Yeah, me too. I would have been thrilled if they had just eliminated the loss of player movement control in the lengthy Sword-1 attack sequence, which renders sword pretty much unusable in situations where red circles appear… you see them spawning on your location, you hit escape, dodge, run, jump, everything you can think of, but what does your player do? She stands there in the red circles, mindlessly finishing her interminable sword attack animation despite all the dodge/run/jump/escape controls being spammed… and then, of course, she dies.

Even more fun is when the target mob unexpectedly moves close to the edge of a platform and the silly Sword-1 attack movements make her follow the mob to the edge even though I didn’t move her, and then just fall off the edge of the platform when the unstoppable attack animation makes her circle around the mob… and there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it even though you see it coming- you just can’t make the game stop that attack until it’s kitten good and ready.

So yeah, Greatsword is the only viable Ranger melee weapon in dungeons, IMHO. Wish they had fixed sword, but oh well. Sword is still fun to use in open-world PvE.

Maybe an evade on the 3rd in the aa sequence ala greatsword would fix some of that…. Hmmmmmmm

I played longbow/ great sword for a long time, solid combo. My only complaint is longbow feels clunky if you need evasion if you get stuck with it, hunters shot is very hit or miss (more miss when you really need it).

Prysin.8542:

TyPin.9860:

Actually, no matter with what I play, the only thing that annoys me are Hambows. They are not necessarily overpowered. They simply are strong by design against everything. I met some very good hambows and some weaker ones. But I never met one, that I could run over, no matter if I go with necro, warrior myself, guardian or mesmer. Of all other professions I met players, who sucked. But hambow warriors seem to be strong by design or no hambow warrior I met sucked (latter I find unlikely, still possible).

From my experience they have virtually now weaknesses when it comes to the conquest game mode. Even if theoretically they have not that high of an armor and could, if played perfectly, outconditioned, in practice they are ridiculous.

Wanna destroy hambow?
Try running;
Trapper Ranger, BM condi bunker or glassbow Ranger
P/P Venom Thief (it just demolishes anything really)
Mediguard
S/F fresh air ele

Trapper ranger? Gonna hurt with no stun breaks… Jus’ sayin…!

I’m a big fan of axe/axe. Keep your distance and if you draw missile fire you have whirling axe. I put my bow away some time ago, but the buffs they’ve been talking about sound tempting for me to actually go back..! Longbow is getting a massive damage buff while axe doesn’t seem quite as good. Not bad mind you but not the same.

My understanding is that it’s since the sword can chain c
ripples to maintain permanent it’s only getting benefit in the calcs tho realistically you could definately time your best gs attacks ( maul) to receive the benefit either by the gs cripple#4 or something like hydromancy. It’s just easier on the sword since you basically do nothing different.

Fluffball.8307:

One advantage of axe offhand is that it’s relatively rare, so I think a lot of non-rangers aren’t aware of what it does. Not only might they not be aware that thing you just threw at them is coming back to CC them, the reflects… A few weeks ago I wound up 1v2ing two surprisingly good LB rangers. Long story short, they killed themselves. Especially if you pop it while on top of a ranged user, it almost disguises the skill as a melee attack (which it is.)

I see this even in PvE. There is just some sort of disconnect with players and reflects in this game. People know Wall of Reflection, but almost all other projectile reflects are 100% ignored.

Axe #5 is a great skill, it is always fun to watch another ranger throw arrow after arrow at you just to get it back, and even still do a point blank and get that too. Very easy to lose respect for others that play the class. One of my favorite things lately is to run up front in a stand off and turn on the axe 5 and see how many rangers I can almost kill. New patch should make it even more interesting.

Belzebu.3912:

AdziH.2360:

wonder if an axe/dagger may be of some use especially as it offers another cripple…

In roaming and small groups, sure, easy access to cripple and chill to trigger the new GM trait and an extra evade and poison is always good. but I personally prefer /axe over /dagger :P

Yep I’m an axe man myself. Only thing better than an axe is two axes! I find between winters bite and pos I don’t really long for another cripple.

I agree Keeping uptime on cripple/chill will be even more important with the trait, so I’m considering trading sigil of air for ice. It may not still be as much damage but chill is good in itself, so may be worthwhile .

Relshdan.6854:

river drake is the best PvE pet…period. add a cat for your swap pet, and you are good to go.
high survival stats…..predictable blast finisher….hard hitting range F2 that stacks might beautifully w/ RaO.

i’d say that makes drakes useful and not a hindrance like most pets. so not OP, but actually an effective addition to your ranger’s offence.

How is the blast finisher predicted? I’d like to synch up with my fields more…

I’ve been using axe for a while and it’s already decent vs zergs. I agree if you’re jumping ship just over this might update is a bit silly. If you didn’t like axe before I’m skeptical this will make much difference once the shiny newness wears off… But like I said it’s always been good against zergs so…

Ps. I mainly use axe since I run a chill build. It will def be interesting to see how the new +10 trait vs chill/ cripple pans out, and might buff can’t hurt if you stay in axe and just chain ricochet

Soilder.3607:

HHR LostProphet.4801:

jcbroe.4329:

Not that I’m not super hyped, I mean, obviously I am, I finally have motivation to finish my Kudzu now lol. But I just mean to remind people in general that it isn’t like it super-buffs the class. They are good and well deserved changes but there is an equal amount of counterplay involved against the new specs we can create and we aren’t getting buffed to the point where we’re going to be “god tier.”

They’ve addressed 1/4 of the problems we have. They’ve made Beastmaster stronger, the longbow stronger, the axe stronger for PvP (not in all regards tho) and GS stronger. Now we still have too much traits affecting only one weapon, a class mechanic that is still lack luster, the other weapons which also have flaws and entire traitlines which are flawed.

I really hated it when they added read the wind. It made way too much competition for longbow traits.

They should’ve just done a 20% increase in projectile speed for both longbow and shortbow (even though rtw doesn’t affect shortbow). It would’ve been better imo.

Five traits to choose from when going longbow? Come on.

Main hand axe certainly doesn’t have that problem :/

All these changes will spell the end for my trapper ranger, just too much good stuff to put on my bar!!!

:>

I’m curious about the axe buff, 3sec seems kind of short, could have fun looking putting together a might build with it tho. Regardless should be able to keep up 3 stacks fairly consistently…

Wtf these are insane… Dreaming?

How about including MH axe in with the range fun? Not a lot going for it either trait wise… Otherwise great points.

In Zerg wvw where big damage is king go axe, otherwise dagger. Both are very good.

I dislike the idea of a gun on a ranger, bow is more in tune with their theme of nature woodsman. Guns are pre-industrial and just give a whole different vibe. That said I do recall anet saying they would be expanding weapon usage.

Damage is poor unless you can bounce 2-3 times but if you are zerging the 3 shot richochet is almost a given, so thats fine. yes, it pretty much guarantees that most “on-crit” effects fire off when the cd is up, assuming you have a somewhat decent crit chance.

It has decent utility with the chill/weakness and a great up close cone attack that pierces to round it making it a really fun in large scale wvw.

Just wish there was a trait to increase range but after disliking axe for the longest time Ive actually grown fond of it.

Thieves may not be op but their design is total troll which understandably ticks off a lot of people.

ugh really the new food is all account bound? I was quite content giving my money to crafters for food, guess I’ll have to do it myself… so much for commerce!

I still havent seen any new food on the trade merchant… where do you get it?

OGDeadHead.8326:

The best way to deselect targets:
Bind a key to “Lock Autotarget” – never struggle with finding an empty space to click to clear your target ever again (also way better than ESC).

Awesome advice! I have been meaning to go through the target menu to try and figure out a way to clear target with a key press, thanks for this!

As for jump-traveling these are the basic motions:
(first you probably want to clear target)

1 – mouse rotate 180 – think about your destination not necessarily right in the direction you were moving, since your jump is much faster than running.
2 – hit #2 – keep walking backward while animation running, it will keep your camera etc aligned and a few steps cant hurt
3 run – when you land run forward for 1-2 seconds, again this will ensure you are aligned properly. At this point you either want to sure your target is cleared or you will jump back!
4- hit #2 to jump again

All becomes automatic with a little practice and you will have perfect jumps every time!

Had to dig a little but found my post with the testing I did a while back on sword jumps relative to just swiftness and swoop:

Ran route from speed buffer at shelter rock to wolf lodge waypoint and back, using same waypoints, using ability when up (and viable), min 3 times each, speed buff itself kept time .. results:

Swiftness only 2:09 avg
Hornet/monach 2:01 avg
Swoop 1:55 avg

So yea.. dont write off sword jumps, it gets you an extra 6-7% speed. May not be as good as swoops extra 11% but I find it very noticeable and useful for catching up to people just running swiftness. If you have a laggy system it will eat any gains however.

With a power based trapper build the +lifesteal is far better than the +condition damage they had stuck on the former +duration food..! Definately no-brainer to switch to this for me..!

Always been this way, mostly tests done to show the -40% food wasnt overpowered. Modifiers cancel eachother out. Probably not common knowledge though.

Holland.9351:

Warrior and Elementalist can easily become immune to chill, cripple and immobilize in WvW, so beware of that.

Not “immune”, the condition duration modifiers are additive, so they subtract their reduction directly, then it gets calculated. If you have 100% duration modifier they will still eat full duration in spite of all their reductions. Aim for at least 80%.

I run a dps chill ranger atm, and it works great. I agree about just moving to full traps, good synergy there already. I had used chill type runes before but travellers is nicer since it frees up your bar for traps.

So many things… firstly you need around 100% condition duration to deal with warriors, they will laugh at you otherwise. Trap potency is a trait you should aim for, you’ll get upwards of 20sec aoe chill on the trap. At this point I wouldnt worry about your pets chill but wtever. Mainhand axe has a really nice chill, I use it instead of short bow. Are we talking wvw or pvp? Because for wvw axe/axe is very cool, but you’ll need more evasion in pvp like axe/dagger.

I dont bother fighting them anymore, just avoid or burst them enough to put them on the defensive and move along. I know they wont bother sticking around if they are going to lose and most of them are skilled enough now to be aware of their own breaking point, so whats the point?

Ive raised a second ranger to 80 recently, and barely touched a bow… just for some damage comparisons really.

Running as a power/trap ranger, the power part a bit unique but working out really well in wvw. I just dont aim for condition damage so much as duration. I’m even using main hand axe which I was sure I would never do. Every ricochet is a crap-shoot but sometimes the numbers are pleasantly high if all the multipliers line up.

Otherwise agree with you on sword, its very mobile. I miss hunters shot on LB but thats about it.

I find I play as a skirmisher, not quite in there with the melees (not quite tanky enough) but just on the fringe laying down damage and cc. The problem with trap ranger is it takes up your utility slots so you really need to rely on passive defense a lot more.

Kormona.7156:

As a ranger player i can look at http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Stability and necros got 3 sources to get stability.
Ranger got 2 and 1 of them have to be traitet for it to work, and i don’t run a power ranger so i don’t trait or use signets.

So let me reprashe it: Please give the rangers that uses survival skills or spirits a way to access stability without rao

And i don’t agree that we got the best down state tbh, if someone got stability you can’t counter that on down state since fear/ interrupt don’t work at all so you will die.
I don’t say it’s the worst downstate but i can’t agree that it’s the best.

Lol dont bring necros in to support your argument. You have to look at the durations and the sacrifices they make to get them. The well of power stability is basically just there so they can cast the spell, then its gone. Foot in the grave is useable for a few seconds of stab but they give up a huge 50% crit chance and its grandmaster; I actually used this as there are no other real sources of stability and sometimes its clinch to pop it. And the elites means giving up all regular abilities including heals to transform and get the stability (which can be ripped leaving you with no heals and no stability).

Rangers have one of the best elites in RAO, it is nice duration so you dont have to wait right up to the moment you need it and synergizes nice with the fury buff to ensure you get maximum use of it. Using the signet is a bit of pain with the cast time, I’d like them to lower it or make it instant. The lost time casting effectively reduces your dps to the point where the damage buff has a hard time compensating.

Edge of the mist is too large and unwieldy, I really dont enjoy it that much. Its a maze literally.

Something simple like one keep to take in the middle of the map with a few towers scattered around would be much more enjoyable.

Overpowered is like an apple to an orange at making apple juice. But should the orange care when it can make orange juice? What about a rock who makes no juice at all? But it can make an apple or an orange into juice! What was I talking about, Im thirsty now? :p Oh yea, if we’re scoring for apple juice than the apple is overpowered, but if we are scoring for juice in general then they all have something to offer.

Jumping with #2 just takes practice to get smooth. I find the mouse much preferable to the 180 button, since that often doesnt work for me. Once you get muscle memory with mouse its second nature to rotate 180 (or where-ever), jump, start running in the direction again, then jump again. I find it best to run a bit in between to make sure you do your second jump in the right direction as a habit, never goes wrong this way.

Sword#3 is great in pve, puts you right behind the target… but yea in pvp it is too complex a movement and often does not work right at all. I’d suggest anet change this to a teleport ala shadowstep if i had a chance. Or just make it a charge type movement.

Thats nothing; with >3000 armor I’ve been hit by 8k C&D followed by 12k Backstab… barely a “how do ya do”!

Happens once in a blue moon so I havent been too upset. Must be full glass and stacks, very painful to play im sure because I dont see anything near those numbers very often. Annoying when it does I know.

Interesting idea… cant help you though. I’m guessing there may be some that are difficult to get to at low levels but I might be wrong.

If you’re feeling particularly nice you might want to take it on yourself to make up a guide.

blitzkrieg.2451:

what about warriors with mobile strikes + dogged march + -40% condi food + melandru runes?

Since conditions plus/minus are additive, their 96% condition removal is countered by good condition bonus. With 80% condition bonus, that means they only get 16% removal. They basically still eat the normal condition durations, so stacking it on hard still works.

I tried it a bit… didnt enjoy it, so my personal opinion is no.

It seemed to be an endless parade of thieves stealthing and warriors spinning away if you were winning.

Best answer I can think of is.. use everything. Toss chills around like you cant get enough of them. Sigil of ice, runes, hydromancy, pets, fully traited frost trap w/ blast finishers (horn & lizard, particularly frost lizard) & leap finishers & swirl on axe #5, axe #2. While they get cleansed, 2 more are heading their way!

Thought conditions did get a tick in immediately… but maybe its the direct damage part.

Klonko.8341:

what are the traits for the duration?

Its.. skimishing XI (trap potency), doubles your traps conditions durations.

For the 100% condition theres many ways you could do it. I have been messing around with Svanir runes for fun, but there are several runes to get 30% chill. Then rare veggie pizza for 40% more. Power gives me another 10% (could get 30% here) and +20% sigil.

Voila 4 sec chill per pulse on frost trap.

^^^

Is this the reason all the thieves seem to bee-line my ranger? :p

Not on a LB build but I use it with a horn (you mentioned frost armor? why not invite friends!) and sword (leap for frost armor also). Its the cornerstone of my present build with x2 duration from trait and 100% chill duration, it can keep a lot of people on ice hehe.

Eurantien.4632:

Kilger.5490:

Trappers can get good aoe damage. However they take up your utility bar which is where all the stun breaks go also, making you vulnerable to all kinds of kitten.

Why take up 3 utility slots when you can run an engi and either use bombs or nades and get the same effects with 2 extra skills while only taking up 1 utility slot?

Yea I know, but to be fair traps are bit different. With eng they take up your actions, but with ranger they are a side show. They happen automatically by pulsing once laid and you can continue with what ever weapon you prefer.

Ive played an eng and the dynamic is quite a bit different, I’m not sure I would want a “trap kit” taking over my weapon skill selection bar. I’d just like to see more packed in the traps like a stun break (since they havent seen fit to spread those to trapper skills when they redistributed those last year…why not??!?). Basically you are limited to 2 traps if you want something like LR.

Rangers can bring something to a zerg.. Traps are great if traited; not the best 1-1 build with the lack of stun breaks but if youre careful you can contribute. Would be nice if they added a defensive component to trapping…

The irony is all the survivors are rangers there, because they are standing back using their bows.

Range is a pretty good defense.

Trappers can get good aoe damage. However they take up your utility bar which is where all the stun breaks go also, making you vulnerable to all kinds of kitten.

I miss dark age of camelot where pets basically ignored stealth. I mean it makes sense for your dog to basically be able to sniff out anyone nearby!