Guild Wars 2

Vert.5041:

Kreed.2768:

It’s amusing to see threads like these still pop up. Like Aomine said, the current ranger is a far cry from what it once was. There’s a reason we don’t see many, if any, rangers regularly in the top tier PvP teams. Longbow is not overpowered. Get over it and L2P.

Be kinder to this poor man. He has recently endured great pain in the form of a dry, no lube, bleeding anal tearing with the arrow of some AWESOME ranger.

No lube?! Mother of Melandru…

It’s amusing to see threads like these still pop up. Like Aomine said, the current ranger is a far cry from what it once was. There’s a reason we don’t see many, if any, rangers regularly in the top tier PvP teams. Longbow is not overpowered. Get over it and L2P.

Why the longbow? You longbow haters are all the same… ;~;

Seriously though, I hope the druid’s class mechanics will add something more than what we already have, do something more with those F1~4 skills. The pet as it is right now suffers from major flaws that keep it from being as good as the mechanics of other professions. These flaws are the poor pathing mechanics (which every NPC in the game suffers from), the poor AI, and the fact that it’s nearly impossible for a melee pet to hit an enemy player reliably due to having to stand still while casting their default attack. In all honesty, if they just fixed the pet, I’d be glad with just that.

As for the Druid’s role, I suspect the staff will work as a sort of aoe support and/or control weapon (and hopefully some good new utility, heal and elite skills to go with it), possibly giving us something the ranger doesn’t currently have: propper team support. This might be able to boost it to have a solid spot in the top tier of PvP, which now mainly filled with cele engies, eles, and warriors.

This wurm is getting it on!

I tried my hand at running WvW trapper a while back. It can be a tricky build to run as solo roamer. I would definately take frost trap with you for that quick disengage without stealth being immediately broken by accident.

I can’t really give any advice on the weaponry, since I ran shortbow with axe/dagger, instead of sword/torch. I like having a ranged weapon in such an open field mode, since I can keep DPS up when I need to pop a trap and get some space to breathe and heal.

But speaking of open field. Though it’s hard to do in WvW of how the maps are designed, traps can shine in tighter areas, where you know enemies have to pass through, making it easier to know where you should place traps when on the offensive.

sevenDEADLY.5281:

Wait, BRILLIANT! What about a long bow that could shoot other longbows? And each long bow would shoot other longbows. The possibilities are endless.

I am the bone of my longbow
Arrows are my body and rapid fire is my blood
I have created over a thousand longbows
Unknown to Death, Nor known to Life
Have withstood pain to create many longbows
Yet, those hands will never hold anything
So as I pray, unlimited longbow works.

It’s a tough match up for you because of how suspectable spirits are right now in rather heavy aoe meta we have going on right now. Perhaps you might want to try a different build.

Also, in what sort of situations are you encountering these engie troubles? Are you fighting them 1v1 while defending your homenode, for example? Or do you struggle against them in team fights? On the former, it’s obviously the aoe that’s forcing you off the point and killing your spirits. I haven’t played it a whole lot, but I tried running this for a couple of matches as home node defender. Everytime an engie came they could hardly dent me. The only thing you gotta watch out for is their cc, since you need the signet mainly for its passive health regen. You could swap out the elite for RaO, of course, but Entangle can set up a nice condi spike with split blade from your axe and and the burns from your torch.

The thing with confusion is that they’re not going to do much damage if you don’t use any skills, so keep track of all the conditions that are being applied to you and wait for that EB transfer. Sure, you might not be able to attack for a few seconds, but that’s still a better option than killing yourself.

They should introduce crossbows and allow rangers to dual wield those. The game has pistols and rifles, but no crossbows? What is this madness?! I want a rapid bolt firing, crossbow dual wielding power ranger nao, anet!

SobeSoul.6910:

xDudisx.5914:

ResJudicator.7916:

xDudisx.5914:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

xDudisx.5914:

Not every class can spam immunes dodges or blinds for 20s. I agree that lich form is too strong right now. Compared with all the other transformation skill like tornado, rampage, tomes, etc it is op. They should reduce the direct dmg of spamming 1 and make people use more the other 4 skills. The cooldown could also be reduced it spamming 1 was not so broken.

Last I checked, every class can walk indefinitely, which is all that’s necessary to avoid Lich Form attacks.

Other options include using Line of Sight, throwing up a reflect (2-3 reflected shots will down the Necro himself), boon strip and CCing the glowing pinata… It is very much counterable. Two of the methods are even usable regardless of your build.

From the current meta how many are running reflects? Mesmer a short duration one and who else? Walk away is not a really “counter” in conquest mode. How many have boon strips? only 3 out of 8 professions.

Of course power necros overall are not op but Lich form is broken. Too much rewarding for spamming 1. Imagine if elementalists had a skill like that as elite.

Fresh air ele wrecks lich form. Earth4 reflects the lich’s projectiles, air4 destroys them in an aoe, and earth5 destroys them if they hit you. Fresh air ele may not be in the meta at the top-top level, but it’s still viable in most games where you’re going to see a power necro.

Regarding some of the other posts — the lich can autoattack even if he’s not facing you, so running behind him and/or immobilizing him will do nothing. I can go lich form, start running away from you while hitting 1, and my attacks will fly backwards through my body and hit you.

I think if you’re far enough away from the lich, you can juke the attacks by shuffling left and right. I recall the juking only working at range, although I might be wrong about this.

Also, since you brought up mesmer, the easy counter for mesmers is to just moa the lich.

Fresh ele? When was the last time you saw one? Basically almost all the ele playerbase is celestial d/d or celestial staff. He can dodge moa, the mesmer has 1 shot. The lich has 20s of spamming 1.

Fresh air isn’t rare. Maybe on EU it is, but that’s because EU is more conservative and less experimental with builds.

It might be shifting a bit now in EU, after the influx of new players from the sale and the recent balance patch. I’ve seen all sorts of “non-meta” builds running around unranked the last two weeks. GS warriors, rifle warriors, fresh air eles (8/10 eles I saw the day after the patch ran this for some reason), shout regen rangers, p/d condi thieves and condi mesmers, to name a few. Naturally most aren’t being as effective, and some are just downright useless, as their meta build counterparts, but at least it’s a change of pace for a bit.

If you want a second ice cream cone, you’ll have to pay for it, just like you did for the first one.

This is what I dislike about Guild Wars 2: the people who keep harping on about how they want stuff from GW1. Things like, “Cantha, Cantha, Cantha! Monk, Monk, Monk!”

We don’t need the holy trinity, and all its flaws, back. If you want the zerker pve meta to change, a full support class is not the way to go. It would just create the same old problems, such as too few people playing it and thus disabling groups from doing content or twiddle their thumbs for an hour until they do manage to find one.

Adding a new profession for the existing races is less work than adding a new race. Just because you heard random Joe from down the street claim it’s more likely they’ll add a new race, rather than a profession, doesn’t mean he’s right.

Player housing? Meh…

Heroes? A Guild Wars 1 thing that worked in GW1 because it was a heavily instanced game. Guild Wars 2 is a persistant world, so it doesn’t need a mechanic like heroes to fill up your party, as there are plenty of other players to find and gather for content. If you like gearing up NPC’s, I’d suggest you go play a singleplayer RPG. The new Dragon Age is fun.

Templates I want too, but I can see how they might be hard to implement, with gear and whatnot. They’d have to figure out a system to automatically also swaps all your gear and such when switching builds and has to account for gear you sell, trash, or store, because just a swap in traits can be done just as fast manually right now, making it almost useless if it’s just that.

Don’t need new weapons if there are options among the existing types, still. Each class is getting a new weapon from the existing options. Isn’t that enough? Why the dire need for a completely new one?

Guild Wars 2 doesn’t need mounts. People need to stop trying to make it into WoW or any other generic MMO. Characters already have speed boosting options such as 25% movements speed traits and signets, as well as a buff called swiftness. Aesthetically they are annoying because they take up a lot of space, cluttering the scenery more than the tallest and fattest Charr of Norn ever could.

We don’t need another tier of gear. The crowd reaction at the presentation should be an accurate indication of how many people would be looking forward to that (hint: pretty much nobody). Another tier of gear would just kitten people off, as it would make all their existing gear pretty much obsolete in comparison. It’s the same reason we’re not getting a level cap raise; it would kitten people off. If you want progression, start working on getting those new legendairy weapons or collecting the new armor set skins this expansion will add.

Mods are restricted right now because they don’t want people to use them to cheat in PvP. I don’t feel like the game is in dire need for mods. What sort of mods would be so great to add? I can play the game fine the way it is now, to be honest.

A new craft will only make the market for lower craft mats dip for a short while, as everyone levels it. It would be a band aid, not a permanent solution.

We’ll be getting more specializations in the future. Heart of Thorns is simply laying the groundwork for that. I’m as disappointed as anyone else that we’ll only get one for the expansion, but the promise of more of them in the future excites me.

BilboBaggins.5620:

dsslive.8473:

ye so lame that we get free content to keep us going in between expansions instead of waiting ~2 years without getting anything.

/sarcasm

Now take that same mentality and apply it to your favorite tv show. Why should a network give you the final season for free? It should go direct to DVD on a per episode basis for $20 a pop! Best way to milk your loyal fans.

A flawed analogy. Broadcasters make money off of the commercials that air in break times. That’s their main source of income. A show is “free” because it’s just a tool to help them generate (more) commercial money. The more viewers a show (or rather, the broadcaster) has, the more money they can ask if someone wants to air their commercial in the break(s) before, in the middle of, or after the show aired. So, say you want to air your commercial just before Game of Thrones comes on. You’ll be paying a lot more than if you would like it aired on the same channel in the morning, during the shows that generate way, way less viewers.

If we went by your analogy, anet should make the expansion free while placing in-game ads to generate money. I’ll tell ya, I’d rather pay 40~50 Euros than see ads for Mountain Dew and Doritos all over the game.

TL;DR: You can’t compare TV and Guild Wars 2, they work off of completely different strategies to generate income.

• What is the first thing that comes to mind when you’re about to face a Mesmer?

“Is he shatter? He’s probably shatter…”

• How do you feel about your odds of winning?

Against shatter? I’d say about 80% chance of me winning when I’m on power longbow. I generally have come to dislike condi specs in general nowadays, purely because they’ve boring for me to play. Also, the odds can chance depending on several factors, such as where we encounter each other, if one of us catches the other by surprise, 1v1 or team fight, etc.

• Strategies and tactics?

I generally try and stay out of reach, but won’t shy away when it gets down to fisty cuffs. The longbow provides amazing pressure, even with just the auto attack. Since the longbow can provide so much pressure on a squishie target such as mesmer, they are generally an easy match up, especially in team fights or if they lack cover for LoS.

I’ve not met a lot of lockdown mesmers, so I can’t really say anything on that, but condi mesmers are bumped down my list. If I stay out of their range in team fights they’re no threat. Condi mesmers, in my experience, offer too little damage/burst compared to shatter. Yes, they can be annoying, since most run with PU and generally have a lot of toughness thanks to the rabid amulet, but that also makes them less dangerous.

Like mentioned, Hunter’s Shot can just be used on clones to grand stealth, so when I see a mesmer disappear into stealth, I just do the same and wait for them to pop up again. Even if they can manage to get into melee range for that GS#2 shatter combo, it’s not hard to dodge it. If I’m out of dodge Signet of Stone will save me from the burst. Since I run tripple signet on my build (right now, at least), with the signet cooldown reduction trait, I can have 6 seconds of damage immunity from shatter mesmers every 64 seconds, which is pretty sweat.

One thing I do try to watch out for is the use of my stability signet and elite, since shatter mesmers can easily strip a boon like that.

• Which type of Ranger build do you feel best fights Mesmer?

Power longbow, for me, at least. Condi ranger works well too, of course, since the meta shatter mesmer is very limited on condi removal option, but I feel more comfortable just exploiting that low armor rating and hp pool with power.

• What Ranger skills (weapon or utility) are most important to have in this fight?

Signet of Stone to counter the burst if I get caught without dodges or immobilized (by sword #3 or the likes). Hunter’s Shot is also an amazing tool, for reasons already mentioned. The GS skills in general are quite useful. Long block, a daze/stun, and Maul can easily spike up to 6k when done right.

• How do you feel about Mesmer in general?

Generally I don’t feel they are as much a threat to me as thieves, but they are a priority target in team fights (if they are shatter), due to their boon stripping abilities and damage spikes.

Think you’re in the wrong class section, bro.

I don’t find turret engies that hard to fight on my power ranger. The first thing I do is burst down the rocket turret, which means their biggest source of DPS is gone. After that it’s a nice Barrage right onto the middle of the point, which not only applies pressure on the engie, but will likely also destroy whatever turret he has standing on it (usually thumper, though net and flame are sometimes used too). And now that two of his turrets are on a 50s cd, it’s time for the kill, which is quite easy, since he has no stunbreakers and no stability.

Trailers are by design made to make your product look awesome. That’s their whole purpose. Just look at movies. There’s plenty of movies out there that turned out to be absolutely terrible, but had great trailers that made it look like it was going to be the greatest movie ever.

It’s just how marketing works.

I made a second ranger, a sylvari, just last week in anticipation for this xpac, so I’ll be heading into the new content with her first. I will, of course, also be getting a new character slot for the revenant class.

Still throwing money at my screen, but anything is yet to happen (aside from the scratches).

It’s likely an engie. At this part of the trailer they’ve not shown any of the new weapon options for any classes yet. It’s building up tension for dramatic effect for the dragon that comes out of the shadows just a moment later. The actual “boom, new weapons” part happens later, when the trailer starts bombarding you with all the new features of the expansion one after the other. The first part is designed to build you up for that, the climax, and thus it is unlikely for them to throw rifle for thief in like that early in the trailer, before anything else. That would just feel… sloppy, from a film making perspective.

There’s also the fact that the other two character present in that scene aren’t carrying any new weapons for their classes (both either warrior and/or guardian) either, making it even more unlikely that the rifle carrying medium armor clad norn is a thief.

That’s not to say that rifle might not be a or the new weapon option for the thief, of course. I’m just saying people might be reading a little too much into this particular scene.

Levetty.1279:

If specialization change profession mechanics like I have seen some people say, I wonder if they will use this to implement that idea that some devs seemed to like of stowing pets to receive unique buffs

I’m not getting my hopes up. The staff wielding ranger in the trailer had an alpine wolf by his side who charged into battle as he fired off an entangling root with his staff. Rather than a permanent stow, I hope they’ll take the chance to improve many of the shortcomings the pets suffer from at the moment. Fix the problem, rather than remove it, basically.

Personally, I suspect that, in the most extreme case, they’ll do it like they did with crafting. Since the masteries are implied to be about long term progression, charging a fee for swapping that increases the more you’ve already progressed in said mastery you want to swap into would add both the option to swap, while also adding a bit of a consequence to swapping back and forth.

Though saying that, they could maintain the stance they’ve taken with traits a while ago, where they changed it so that you can swap anytime, anywhere (out of combat) for free.

But who knows, really? It’s all speculation at this point and we’ll be getting our answers in the coming weeks. We just gotta have patience. ;~;

There’s only one choice when I’m playing Power Ranger!

The first one might not work in practice. If it removes at the start of the cast, you could potentially exploit this with skills like Muddy Terrain, for example, by cancelling the cast halfway through, putting it on internal cooldown (5sec was it?) instead of the full cd, while still gaining the SotF perks. On top of that, it could potentially make conditions like blind useless against anyone running SotF.

Entangle needs fixing, I agree. It’s not just stealthed targets, though. Yesterday I’ve seen someone partially avoid it just by strafing. The roots spawned right next to them as they were strafing and they ended up only getting hit by the very first tic of the skill, thus suffering only one second of immobilize and one bleed stack. I’ve also noticed this can happen too if the target is on terrain that’s even only a little uneven.

Eurantien.4632:

Siroso.2769:

Eurantien.4632:

What you REALLY want is a support mesmer because it provides everything you need. But… people don’t play those.

That 2v2 tourney you won (if I remember correctly) vs. Nos/Backpack when you played the support mesmer and condi survival ranger duo was brilliant!

As you seem to be talking WvW I would agree that guardian stats can be varied better in WvW to make them a fantastic duo partner for necro. I personally would either mix it then with total condi overload (engi, which also lets your team stealth, maybe condi ranger and potentially shout condi warrior, or perplexity interrupt for lulz), or something like thief, cele Ele, cele engi.

That’s all personal taste though!

Haha yeah, we thought it’d be fun to see what we could do. We didn’t realize we had dethroned the reigning champs until everyone was shocked those guys lost haha.

Support mesmer with condi survival ranger? That sounds interesting. Any place I could find a recording of that fight?

Holl.3109:

So trapper it is! Any basic trapper tips someone could give me?

I haven’t played trapper in a long while. I tried it for a few matches two weeks ago or so, but didn’t really like it… Though saying that, I’ve not really felt like playing condi on ranger in general for a while now. :P

Anyways, here’s my two cents:

Trapper is great at condi spiking, but has to give up at least two utility slots in return, meaning you have fewer defensive cooldowns compared to other builds, like Condi Survival. The heavy investment into Skirmishing for the sake of your traps also reflects that. You want to keep the focus off yourself as much as possible, because of that. You’ll likely do good in team fights on the nodes, as the traps can force people off or suffer massive damage. That’s probably going to be one of your main tasks: just apply constant pressure onto the point with your traps and Torch #5. If you rotate smartly, you can keep the point covered in a fire field for a good time. It’s probably still not going to touch Warrior’s LB firefield, but it’ll still work good enough. With the upcoming buff to the torch, it might increase effectiveness a bit, depending wether or not off-hand training will still increase the radius after the base recieves its buff.

The traps can be used well defensively if you’re being pressured by melee, but it’s a bit trickier with ranged opponents, since the throwing speed of the traps is rather sluggish.

If you’re assaulting a side node 1v1, a tactic I’ve seen work well against a defender is hit and run. Go in, spike, and get out if they’re not quite dead yet. Kite them a bit with shortbow, if possible, then go in again for another spike. Of course, this depends on what sort of class is defending the node. If your spike pressure was big enough to force them off the points, allowing you to decap, that would be even better, but don’t stay on point to fight 1vs1. You want to keep up that hit and run tactic, so if they come back, ease off the node again and prepare for another strike.

monepipi.5160:

Shortbow is not a power weapon. Its for condi bleed stacks and poison. And theres a legit PVP build for ranger, its called tanky/regen trap condi which is far superior than the longbow #2 spamming nonsense that gets owned by anyone whos remotely competent.

And where could one find this mythical tanky/regen trap condi build? I can’t imagine what a trapper build that can also supply heavy regen looks like, so I’m curious.

Tricare.2946:

Entangle doesn’t work on stealthed targets. So wait until they come out of stealth.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6tpq0Z3PtQ

Are you sure that’s still how it works? I’ve used it loads of times on stealthed targets and it applied just fine. The only issue was that the roots were, likely due to a bug, stealthed as well, and thus didn’t become visible until after roughly a second, becoming “revealed” by applying damage. Here is a video of me using Entangle on a mesmer back in October after he went into stealth. He got hit by it, despite being in stealth.

Only recently started playing my mesmer again, but she still looks nice.

There are some basic things I think you could improve on, for sure. Firstly, if you want to maximize your damage output, you’ll want to use Poison Volley on shortbow and Split Blade at when you’re as close as possible to your target. Because of their cone-shaped telegraphs, the only way to make all five hits land is at melee range. It’s one of those things you’ll want to learn when running shortbow and axe mainhand to get the most out of them.

Skills like Entangle are a good way to set that up. Entangle > Get close > Splitblade/Poison Volley > Swap weapons > Poison Volley/Splitblade

This can help you deliver a huge condi spike (primairily bleeds), especially when running things like Geomany and Doom sigils, as well as the Sharpened Edges trait.

Secondly, you’ll want to stay moving at all times when in combat. It was particularly during the second video that I noticed that you were randomly stopping and remaining stationairy for a second or two for no obvious reason, as if you were looking for something or at something else. Positioning and movement is key in a game like GW2, so you’ll always want to be on the move — unless you’re trying to purposely lure out a certain move, like a Steal from a thief that you then quickly evade with a dodge, block, or evade skill.

Edit: said “sore sure” instead of “for sure” lol wut.

The weapon with the sigil needs to remain equipped if you want to keep your stacks. I’ve tried swapping the weapon with the sigil out for another with the same sigil while having a few stacks, but the stacks vanish still.

The UI changed to make it easier and more compact for UI to change builds fo SPvP. Instead of having to get everything from the vendors and apply them, you now click the various slots (runes, sigils, amulet) in the new PvP tab and it’s automatically applied for when you head into SPvP.

Spirit ranger is probably one of the weaker builds for the class right, mainly because the meta is pretty with AoE, causing spirits to die easily, even with direct focus on them from the enemy.

The burst power ranger you talk about is likely the Read the Wind Power Ranger, which is indeed pretty glassy.

If you want something a bit more tanky, you’ll likely have to go with a condi build. The Condition Survival build is currently considered the meta build for that. It lacks the condi aoe that Engineers and Necromancers can bring on their condi meta specs, but is an excellent bleed stacker due to shortbow auto attack and the second skill on the mainhand axe, which, when combo’ed well, can easily lead a 20+ stacks of bleeding, delivering a pretty powerfull condi spike to your enemy. It also has a lot of condition cleansing options, but lacks any sort of mobility when traveling between points (unless you like wasting Lightning Reflexes).

There’s also the S/T + A/D condition build, which is pretty similar to Condi Survival, but runs Sword/Torch instead of the shortbow.

I’ve also seen people link like a bunker-ish build that uses the Guard utility for perma regen, but I’ve never played it myself.

Got myself a new beserker armor set with the scholar runes and gave this version of the LB ranger a go. It’s really good and does even more damage then the version I ran before. I also like that you use axe offhand. It’s actually working better than I thought possible. Thanks for creating this build.

No love for rangers, as usual. Forever a bearbow. :’(

There’s already a phantasm with a shield. It’s called the Phantasmal Defender and it’s a utility skill. As for avoiding spike… I’d say using Distortion is the most common method. There’s also sword #2, but Distortion can be used even when stunned or otherwise CC’ed, so it’s pretty awesome.

Another weakness of the condi survival meta build is that it’s really slow to get around the map with, since it has no access swiftness, no perma 25% signet or runes, and carries no weapons with movement abilities, such as sword and greatsword.

If you’re running a power build, the first thing I’d do is ditch the shortbow for a melee weapon. My personal choice is GS, because Maul hits like a truck and its other abilities are quite useful.

Traps in a power setup aren’t really of any use, since they’re condi based. If you’d like to go full condi they’re an option, but I can’t see them doing you any favors in a power build when there’s better options like signets or LR.

In Temple it’s best to abuse the high points. Middle is amazing for LB ranger, since you can rain death from above in team fights at max range and force enemies to flee off the point. Many opt to hide behind one of the two pillars to heal themselves up or wait for that heal to get off cooldown.

Forest is a kittene for LB ranger. It’s probably the hardest map for the build. Sometimes I don’t even bother standing on the elevated parts in the mid point, since it makes me easy to spot, so I just use positioning and #3 stealth on LB to avoid the enemy. On the plus side, you can pew pew the NPC bosses to death fast and easy with skills like RF and chaining wolf/dog/spider CC’s.

Khylo is a map where you’re weaker on side points and strong in the middle. I usually start off on treb to shoot open the sides of the tower to allow me more easily shoot fish in a barrel when I go there with my trusty LB. If an enemy comes I quickly move to the edge while they’re still down below, use PBS, and unleash a RF on them. If they’re more tanky enemies, like warriors, I usually just abandon the treb. Let them waste their time destroying it. In the meantime you can move mid or wherever the team fight is. On the sidenodes it’s a bit harder to fight, since there’s fewer elevations to stand on and they’re not as high, but you can do alright there in teamfights. One of my usual strategies is to rely heavily on the stealth arrow to make them lose target and reposition myself.

Oh, and you might consider running something other than Traveler runes. Right now I’m using Pack runes myself for both more damage and team support (might, fury, swiftness uptime of 50% every 20 seconds). I know perma 25% running speed is nice, but I’d rather use the signet for that, if I had to, than waste all my runes just for that.

Can’t you just say what you need help with? I’m sure there’s plenty around here that could offer an inkling about whatever you’re dealing with.

ozmaniandevil.6805:

So is the power LB ranger a good PvP build now too? Is that a GS/LB combo? I think I’m just a bit worried that if I try to go full zerker, being new, I’ll get my butt handed to me, which is why I was thinking some kind of condi/highly defensible build might be a better starting point.

I believe GS is the most comonly used secondairy weaponset for that build, yes. The power longbow ranger is one of those builds that’s tricky to play. It’s good vs bad players and you can pew pew people hard (especially other zerker amu users) in team fights from long range — preferably from an elevation or other spot where you’re hard to reach. It’s squishy like any other glass build, though it has the longest range in the game. The downside is that it doesn’t have teleports or multiple on demand stealths like mesmer or thief, so disengaging when you’re being targetted can be tricky.

I don’t run either of the versions you’ll find on metabattle though. I’ve tried them both and dislike them both for different reasons, so I’m running my own version instead, which is closer to the full glass version than it is with SotF.

You could try Trapper Ranger. It’s fun to play, though it has its weaknesses and shortcomings. I haven’t played it in a while, since the tears the power longbow build can provide me are too sweet, but I when I played it I liked to lay out traps smart on points, on chokepoints where most enemies come through.

The hate’s been real for longer, but for different reasons. Now it’s mostly because, for a while after LB recieved its buffs, a lot of people rolled to Ranger as flavor of the month class, playing the glassy read the wind build without really knowing how to play the glass itself. The build provided easy ranged burst vs other noobs who, instead of adapting to this new meta build and learning how to counter it, took the forums, whining for nerfs instead.

Before that I believe it was because ranger was just weaker compared to other classes in a lot of areas for a long time, making them an unfavorable class to bring for “hardcore” groups. I don’t recall when that stopped being a thing (or if it even ever stopped), but it’s hard to shake a rep like that.

I’ve been looking to try WvW with the D/D ele roamer build myself, but can’t be bothered to lvl my crafting just for the armor set. So, I’ve been findling around in gw2skills’ builder a bit and think I’ve gotten about as close as possible in stats without needing any celestial armor. You will, however, require a celestial amulet and two rings to balance it out.

Stats with celestial armor

Stats without celestial armor

As mentioned by others, the power longbow ranger is a build that relies more heavily on a propper team than other builds, due to its squishiness. This doesn’t really make it a very good build to soloq with in higher brackets.

Personally, when I roll the build, I prefer to go 6/5/3/0/0 glass, since I’ve played it for a while and can say that I can handle it well with my current level of skill and knowledge of rotations, other classes, and positioning. Note that I only roll it in pre-made these days though.

One thing I’ve found through observation and testing is that, if you’re going full glass, it is better to take Assassin’s amu with ranger runes, instead of Zerker amu. Zerker gives you more power, but I’ve found it crits too few times on average for it to matter. With Assassin’s my crit chance is high enough for roughly 8/10 hits to crit on average and that crits hit for more due to the extra ferocity. The downside is 3k less health, but you’re glass already, so it’s not gonna matter a whole lot when compared to the DPS increase you get in return.

Since I switched to Assassin’s, I’ve found my DPS improved greatly, since nearly every hit is a crit, and crits on squishies are easily 3+k, even with a regular #1 hit, whereas with Zerker it’s closer to 4 or 5 out of 10 hits (depending on the RNG at that time), and non-crits only hit for 800 something damage, which is laughable compared to that of a crit. Swapping amulets has made a huge difference for me.

That being said, I believe the condition survival ranger meta build pretty much hard counters LB ranger completely and generally is the better choice if you want to soloq. It’s the build I struggle the most against when playing power LB, perhaps even more so than s/d thief or a strong shatter mesmer. It’s really consistant with its bleed stacking, so even SotF LB rangers can’t last long against them, since the bleed stacks cleansed are just as easily reapplied. I play the build too and rip every power ranger I come across to pieces or at least send them running for the hills.

epoc.7941:

Yup theives have gotten consistently nerfed and it’s really bc players just gripe about how strong they are…theives are strong I do think so, but it’s not the class that makes the player it’s te player that makes the class…they were op then they were fine then they just kept it pouring on. The lastest thing has kittened me off the most about blinding powder not blinding every second…like if ur dumb enough to stand in it u deserve to be blinded…wtf why make it easier for stupid players? I wouldn’t stand inside a lavafont that’d hurt.

You probably mean Black Powder. And it was nerfed, as far as I recall, mainly because of two reasons. Firstly, it made any and all interrupt downstate skills (Warrior #2, Ranger #2, etc.) completely useless. It’s still hard to get a hit now, but at least there’s a chance now that they can get a hit off. And before you start about stability and whatnot, skills that supply that buff are usually on a long-ish cooldown, while Black Powder in theory has none.

The second reason was because it allowed thieves to just solo all sorts of bosses and other mobs that are supposed to present a bit of a challenge without any trouble. Just use Black Powder once every 4 or 5 seconds and spam auto attack until it’s dead.

Black Powder is still plenty strong and retains the uses it had before. It’s just not a complete crutch anymore.

It’s been a while since I’ve had this bug, but from what I recall this has happened for me on several occasions due to one thing…

The camera. Yes, the camera.

Now, what I like to do if I’m getting the buff and am alone down there is, while channel cast is running, turn around the camera with right mouse button, or at least I think it was the right one, and look behind myself to see if nobody’s approaching. That’s when the cast bugs out and the buff is not claimed, despite the whole cast going through without interruption. Since I figured this out I’ve only been using the other mouse button to turn the camera while attempting to claim the buff and I can’t recall it bugging out on me again ever since.

Here’s one for ranger:

Signet of Cesar Millan
Passive: You become the pack leader, causing your pet’s AI to improve significantly, removing pathing issues and the requirement for non-ranged pets to stand still while performing their basic attack.
Active: “Shhht!”
Cooldown: Siesta

Sandrox.9524:

sorry,there is a diffrences betwin having a 5 seconds channel skill to 1 sec channel skill(lol).You may dodge it when you see it coming,but when the ranger is not in your LOS you pretty much screwed.Rangers abusing RF with quickness just liek thieves abused backstabs with the assassins signet in launch,bot backstab and the signet nerfed hard,I dont see why RF and the quickness thingy shouldnt be nerfed.

PS->I dont even mention that rangers can RF from stealth..

RF is already on a 2,5 sec channel. Who would waste a slot for QZ just to fire one 1,25 sec RF off every 48/60 seconds?

Narkodx.1472:

LOL

People want to report each other for actually PvPing instead of rank farming – gotta love the casualness of gw2 pvp

Oh, believe me, it’s not just GW2 where this sort of thing happens. I’ve played several different MMO’s where I’ve seen people complain about getting killed in (open world) PvP… on a PvP server. Of course, when you suggest that they just re-roll to a PvE server, they act like you just insulted their mother or something. xD

vincecontix.1264:

Kreed.2768:

My only real wish is that they fix Hunter’s Shot. I’ve had many times in PvP where I’d get the stealth, then pretty much immediately get broken out of it again without reason I can identify.

Maybe fire or lighting sigil caused get reveal or you auto attacked? Do you have a on swap sigil that does damage like hydromancy or geomancy?

No, just fire and air. I guess those might be causing it. Will have to test it out on some golems.

I never run spirits myself, but I suppose you could do it if you run Carrion amu?

My only real wish is that they fix Hunter’s Shot. I’ve had many times in PvP where I’d get the stealth, then pretty much immediately get broken out of it again without reason I can identify.