Guild Wars 2

Deamhan.9538:

Sebrent.3625:

Thanks, Tuluum.

Looking at the graph, I’m currently thinking about the following:

• If you take cleric’s gear you have ~1,300 Healing Power
• If you take all the sources of regen (including Dolyak and Pie), you heal ~614 health per second
• If you swap out the Dolyak for Runes of Melandru and the Pie for Lemongrass, you heal ~499 health per second (115 less health per second), but you are less “bothered” with stuns (-25%) and conditions (-65%).
• Melandru and Lemongrass is useless against pure direct damage while healing is good against both direct damage and condition damage.
• Melandru and Lemongrass is good against crowd control conditions while healing doesn’t help there.
• With ~499 hp per sec, a Ranger with 15k hp (roughly base hp) can full heal, in combat, in ~30 seconds without using their #6 heal.
• With ~614 hp per sec, a Ranger with 15k hp (roughly base hp) can full heal, in combat, in ~24.5 seconds without using their #6 heal.

---

Also, do please note that Cleric’s gear will do less direct damage than Soldier’s (which has more power and vitality) and Knight’s (which has precision and more toughness).

Apothecary will do direct and condition damage than Rabid (which has more precision and condition damage)

Without using heal skill?

Ok so if you can get that kind of regen without the heal skill, what could you get with using a fern hound’s F2 and healing spring with Nature’s Bounty? I can alternate between the two and have 100% regen boon uptime.

I believe that number factors in regen except swapping out the runes and pie for stuff that doesn’t offer direct healing. There are other sources of regen besides the 6 ability or pet commands.

If you put in the fern hound’s special, you’re likely decreasing your HP/sec because it uses the pet’s healing power and not yours which is higher. Since regen stacks in duration, a lower source of regen will fluctuate your incoming HP at times as it’ll provide healing on a first applied basis.

Curious, how much damage would a tanky Ranger do vs a tanky Warrior?

I’m sure a Warrior in Knights gear with high fury, might and perhaps a hammer could manage some good punishment while dipping into the defense line but I think a tanky Ranger can be built to sustain quite a lot more than a Warrior while dishing out more damage via a damaging pet…

But these are just my observations from playing both. It feels like the Ranger has a lot more tools to not die and going into beastmastery, the pet can still pump out 2-4k damage on its own. But I’m only running my Ranger through normal dungeons atm (not 80 yet) and it’s simply easier in every respect. Support the team? Plop down a healing spring. Remove conditions? Same thing. Anchor? Swap to a dog or a drake. Do more damage? Take a cat or a bird. Not die? I’ve got evades in my attacks, a quicker recharging shield stance, a longer lasting Endure Pain (x2 with traits) that recharge nearly as fast, and tricks and swaps to kite things around, keep out of danger or simply be able to accomplish things even when I have to back off to help others/myself. For a warrior, if you can’t just roll over it, you have no other option but to dodge better.

While Ranger can feel like a Warrior with more options and tricks, yeah you still won’t be as effective. All things considered, if Ranger could accomplish what a Warrior could if they manage pet right, that’d kind of undermine Warrior a lot. Take away a Warrior’s Greatsword and all they’re left with is an auto-attack axe and sub-par sustain. There’s very little wiggle room for error or exploration. A lot of the Warriors are hoping for better sustain options so they can anchor easier in PvE and sustain better in PvP but likely, I’d suspect they’d have to trade some of their offense for that. Same for Ranger, they’ve got lots of sustain and evade options which is their strength, try giving them near Warrior damage and I’d suspect one would have to trade some of that survival for it.

Sebrent.3625:

There are several invulnerability skills in-game that are on much lower cooldowns. Blurred Frenzy, while not 6 seconds and roots you in place, is 2 seconds of invuln, good damage, and is on a 10 sec (8 if traited) cooldown. That gives 25% invuln up-time alone on my Mesmer and can be paired with blocks, distortion shatter (more invuln), etc..

Elementalist invuln on Focus (Obsidian Flesh) is on a 50 sec cooldown and can be lowered with traits. Their Mist Form utility is on a 75 sec cooldown and can be traited to be a 60 sec cooldown, give regen and vigor, and remove a condition (and it’s already a stunbreaker).

Warrior’s Endure Pain is on a 90 sec cooldown.

As you can see, there is no real [good] reason for our signet of stone to be such a long cooldown, especially when it takes a 30 point grandmaster trait for it to affect the Ranger.

Meh, you can’t just compare cooldowns and such like that. The professions have other variables you’re completely ignoring so practically destroys your argument.

You bring up Mesmer blurred frenzy’s invulnerability. Now bring up Ranger evades.

See? Can’t just do that.

The invulnerability from elementalist focus involves using a defensive (read: not offensive) off-hand that they cannot swap while in battle (that part is important). Mist form doesn’t let you do anything (new) while you use it.

IMO, I like Ranger personal defensive skills 10x more than Warrior’s. But yeah, their offensive utilities seem underwhelming. I sort of wish Ranger’s offensive utilities were just super (more super) good but for their pets only.

broken thread >:(

Stormleaf.1769:

Looking good at the expense of handicapping yourself is always better than being OP and ugly!

But Drakehound isn’t ugly, it’s actually pretty cool looking in its own way.

Wolf is always pretty cool looking, but it’s also cliche. Moas are the new ‘coolness’ these days

garethh.3518:

Leo G.4501:

garethh.3518:

Am I missing something or are you just a dik?

People with money often have no regard for what it’s worth to other people and their budget. It may have nothing to do with wagging around the fact he has disposable gold but still sounds rather pretentious when others mention they’re still pulling together the gears to transition to WvW and doesn’t have gold to throw away for a simple internet argument.

There are, the vast majority of the time, over 200 empty SPvP servers, just so you know

Do you have to pay gold to use them?

garethh.3518:

Am I missing something or are you just a dik?

People with money often have no regard for what it’s worth to other people and their budget. It may have nothing to do with wagging around the fact he has disposable gold but still sounds rather pretentious when others mention they’re still pulling together the gears to transition to WvW and doesn’t have gold to throw away for a simple internet argument.

Whatever. I’m not arguing one way or the other, just bringing up the fact you’re throwing circumstances back and forth at each other while neither side is really accomplishing much except burning time.

But hey, he posted the build on a forum and that’s exactly what you get for it. I don’t really ever post my ‘builds’ on forums if only because they aren’t up for criticism as I’ll change it around as the need suits and as I learn. But you post a build online, expect to get it picked apart. Accept the criticism or delete the post, I guess :P

The man says he’s using it and having success with it and others say they’ve tried it and it works, so perhaps you’re just not seeing what they’re seeing?

You could roll up a variation of the build to try it for yourself…or I guess hound him day after day to post videos until you derail the thread so hard it has to be locked….

Enjoy

Those deer are deadly though. There was a thread somewhere about it. I have a feeling the deer sacrifice the cows and pigs to their deity and drink their blood for strength. Those cows and pigs are the only thing keeping them from sacrificing us!

They don’t have cloning technology? I figure, a shot of the clone-o-ray and they have huge access to (quickly perishable) supplies of food.

Then stop staring at her rack, her eyes are a little lower (just a teensy bit lower).

JakobGW.5730:

So, to recap:
1. PI forces enemies not only to cease attacking, but some enemies have to stop dodging as well;
2. There is no actual cast time or targeting necessary for the ability, so no interupts; and
3. Heals are effectively lessened by the ability, which when stacked with poison, basically null a small heal on a short cooldown.

1. You can still block or dodge PI if you see it coming (not too likely) as it’s not an unblockable attack and even the range of it isn’t too huge.

2. It isn’t an instant cast skill. It has nearly a 1 second cast, if I remember correctly.

3. It’s not really making heals less effective, that’s just confusion causing damage on skill use. You can always cleanse it before you heal or just wait for it to expire.

But I think, personally, the kicker of PI is firstly, it only has a 30 second cooldown so you can pretty much use it every fight or multiple times when faced with more than one foe. Secondly, all it does is apply a condition and a boon, both which can be lengthened with boon and condition duration. It won’t make it super amazing (or moreso) but that can effectively improve the skill’s already decent up time. With just traits and food, you can improve the confusion to around 8 seconds or if you go the boon route, your retaliation 7-8seconds. Lastly, it’s already hard to see Asura animations so it’ll be hard to see this coming before it’s too late.

If it strikes your fancy, you can even share the retaliation with your pet and stick by it, giving the attacker a double dose of retaliation damage for that short window.

I might suggest some combo with a Hammer…because it actually works in regular PvE and it’s fun.

Daecollo.9578:

Sebrent.3625:

Daecollo.9578:

If your pet has a condition.

Would you mind at least stating why you think this?
Otherwise we might as well just ignore this and move along to more productive discussions.

Because when you switch pets, it cures there conditions.

Well what about mesmers? Why should they get to freely destroy and recreate their illusions while they have conditions? I’m curious why you decided to pick on Ranger but not Mesmer or maybe even Guardian. You’d think allowing pet swap to heal up your pet would be the least Ranger could get considering they are the class with pets that are the least disposable and therefore most vulnerable to conditions.

Wor Machien.9657:

Vick.6805:

Rather than removing the boulder trap, make it so that players cannot teleport past it, so that people actually have to learn how to do it, rather than relying on portal.

Really like this idea. Leave it in the game. Or make the boulders start rolling earlier before the Mesmer has a chance to get across far enough for a Blink. (I’m not hating on Mesmers, I have one myself)

It’s not hard to do at all. Practice and patience. Taught 3 CoF newbies to do it last night. Took a few minutes for them to understand everything and help pass it.

Brainstorming:
What if you changed the tunnel to have an ‘molten aura’ in which you die instantly from the heat? Before entering, you have to be transformed into a fire elemental to proceed without being harmed by the heat but the boulders can still kill you. Rather than transporting 3 flames to the end of the tunnel, you have to transport 3 elementals (yourselves) to the end and each stand on the pedestals to deactivate the flaming magic.

So…
-you can only survive in the tunnel while transformed and deactivating the transform while in the tunnel = instant death
-while transformed, you have no access to other skills
-nothing cheap, 3 people must reach the end to deactivate the trap

Sebrent.3625:

It is done because including those classes instead of ones that bring more to the table increases your chance of a “smooth run”. A “smooth run” is much more fun (and quicker) than a long, dragged out run where you are wiping.

Subjective.

A ‘smooth run’ can also be boring. It can be even more boring if all you’re really bringing is the same professions to do the same thing with the same weapons with the only variable being the player behind them so that you can then pick apart the player for the run not being as ‘smooth’ as you’d like.

Like I said before, I don’t care who you invite to your fractals or how you play, but the closer it is to sitting in the the same mesmer, guardian, etc template with the same skills and tactics, the less likely you’ll need to adjust to something different.

It’s subjective because I don’t enjoy doing things the same way all the time but maybe others do. That’s fine but the latter mentality has or will stagnate the content even when it doesn’t have to be.

Can’t your pet still die if they are swapped out with conditions?

Granted, maybe I was just two late, but the times I swapped out my pets in SE against the first boss in path 3, when they have the ton of bleeds on them, they still had HP before swapping but the cooldown on swap ended up being the long one.

jameskelly.6310:

At the end of the day, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the fact that the game mechanics allow a mesmer to portal his/her party through the boulders. It’s just something that a mesmer can uniquely contribute to a party running this dungeon. There’s things a guardian is contributing that a mesmer can not, same goes for all professions.

I’d say there’s just not enough unique situations like that though for the variety of classes. For this, I’d say try listing all the professions then note the situations across all paths where some mechanic favors the utility of that profession.

Solo.9027:

You guys overestimated the playerbase’s ability to play frogger.

Should be in SAB at the very least…

On a whim, I logged in and tried runes of Balthazar in the mists which says it applies burning to nearby foes when you heal. I tried it and it only procc’ed around me, not my wolf. I tried all 3 of the heals and none applied burning except around me, in or out of combat.

Didn’t get a chance to try any other runes but the only gear that applies burning, according to the wiki, are Balthazar, Flame Legion, Forge and Guardian runes or the consumable vegetable soup and bean chili. The wiki might not be complete but the only other things I could think that could cause an NPC to cause burning are perhaps some guardian buffs (I think there’s one that allows your allies to cause burning on hit) and sun spirit.

If you’re unsure if there was a spirit around or unaware of whatever buffs that wolf would have had then it was likely Sun Spirit. When buffed by sun spirit, a little yellow sun icon appears next to their buffs under their bar.

Avenge.1478:

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Sure revamping some bosses would be neat.

…but whats this about removing the boulders trap?

The fiery boulders after the acolyte slaying in CoF p1. I believe they think its only possible with a mesmer w/blink & portal, but its actually quite easy no matter the class.

Obviously, they should just make the tunnel longer and with a turn in it so you can’t run past them before they spawn as easily

Could it be a rune effect then?

jkctmc.8754:

This means balancing for stuff like high level fractals. That is the issue here.

Being balanced has little to do with it. Unwilling players are just not fun.

And the messed up thing is, it’s not even the so called ‘high level fractals’ that get farmed the most, it’s the mid level ones. That’s where the problem starts and likely trickles down (up?) into the higher level ones. I don’t have experience with 40+ fractals but I’m going to go out on a limb and guess the ratio of players there to ‘have a blast’ doesn’t increase with level. You’ll have the same ration of farmers/fun-seekers except there’s proportionately fewer players.

But that’s okay. I’m not expecting people to take any old player for their PuG in the high level fractals. I’d just prefer you not generalize all skilled players as being the same elitist min/max player you feel should be expected or that your flavor of fun has any more weight than others.

LadyLad.1389:

Leo G.4501:

Sebrent.3625:

Heck, I’m still waiting for him to do a high level fractal on his ranger … it’s not fun.

Are high level fractals fun in general?

And this is coming from someone that only has fun running dungeons all the time. I think it’s because, at some point, people are literally only farming and only worried about efficiency and I just want to hit stuff.

No one lets you just hit stuff anymore

Actually for skilled players the higher level Fractals are a blast. It’s just that when building groups, we will not take Rangers because they reduce the chance of success.

i.e. not fun. Once you start excluding professions just to succeed, you’re falling into routine, a strict routine you need to fall into just to get by. Repetition is only fun for so long which is why level 32 is as far as I got.

Sebrent.3625:

Heck, I’m still waiting for him to do a high level fractal on his ranger … it’s not fun.

Are high level fractals fun in general?

And this is coming from someone that only has fun running dungeons all the time. I think it’s because, at some point, people are literally only farming and only worried about efficiency and I just want to hit stuff.

No one lets you just hit stuff anymore

Easily, you overstate things

SwickHobo.5096:

nice job, very impressive, but boy o boy was that a boring watch. 1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1 dodge 1-1-1-1. You sir have the patience of a saint.

Mmm, I saw strategic weapon swapping (abusing that sigil of energy) and healing (abusing those Runes of the adventurer for endurance on heal?) as well as whatever those teleport skills were.

That’s more than just 1-1-1-1 dodge.

Heh I could tell that guardian was probably one of those bunker types and seeing a Ranger probably got them overconfident but yeah, dat PI

jkctmc.8754:

no Guardian should ever die to a Ranger.

Mmmm, have you checked Xsorus’ video?

He soundly beats a Guardian in it among others (and 1vsX too).

They gonna nerf Pain Inverter now

kidbs.8920:

Most of the warrior attacks have a higher base damage. Also keep in mind that warriors tend to stack might and can easily stack vulnerability.

But that’s the thing about warriors, they’re all about the damage. They can stack might, fury and vulnerability pretty good (the best, in some cases). That’s sort of the root people complain about on warrior, they have all those good offensive boons (that quickly saturate in groups) but when it comes to stuff like vigor, protection, regen, stability and overall utility, they have to dip into specific builds/traits for it (if they can get it at all).

Warriors are about the offense and rely on others to fill in the defense and others are the opposite. I’m guessing Ranger is somewhere inbetween, able to get some defense but it’s usually isolated to their pet. Basically, Rangers are self sustaining but people don’t care about not needing others to cover for them.

Something I was always confused about with the beastmastery trait line is, why doesn’t condition damage improve? Or healing power?

But thanks for the maths. I’m not apt enough to do the math myself but I can easily comprehend it. It sort of brings up another point though in which pets benefit the most from the extra stats. I’ve always been of the opinion that precision is a rather shallow stat that loses much of its benefits after a certain crit chance is achieved. On low precision pets, the extra crit chance helps some but when the pet already has a good chance to crit and fury is being tossed around, having precision focused cats/birds feels a bit wasted…but I have no clue about the damage coefficients of their attacks and how they differ from other pets so the cats/birds might still blow other damage out of the water (cleave excluded).

Dogs feel well rounded and strongest with high beastmastery to me which make them feel damaging, tanky and reliable. Haven’t used much of the other pets so I’ve got little experience to base my feelings off of.

Sebrent.3625:

+10% damage once every 10 seconds gives you an overal increase of 1% … and that’s assuming that you proc it as soon as that 10 second cooldown is up. That’s pathetic.

I thought someone mentioned Frost Spirit’s buff not having an internal cooldown. No one tried proving that yet? But yeah, I think the internal cooldowns on the spirits need to be dropped.

Sebrent.3625:

• Glyph of Renewal – 165s (132s traited) cooldown, 4.25s cast, can full heal rez 1 or rez up to 3 allies

Just wanted to comment that water GoR doesn’t full heal an ally. It doesn’t do anything, actually. It’s suppose to (as it says) but it doesn’t, it just casts a big heal and sometimes it doesn’t even do that. It usually just brings someone up to half health when you rez. It’s only marginally better than fire GoR and air GoR has greater utility.

But just clearing that up. I think the other good thing about S&R that you’re not bringing up is:

• It takes part of your damage from you when used, but the other option on other professions is take 100% of your damage while rezzing unless you have pets.
• It can make your rez attempts faster by combining your pet and yourself.
• It works on dead allies were those other skills have zero effect.
• Works at variable range (wherever the pet is, within its range, not yours).

It’s not perfect or even outright better in certain respects but it has its uses that other similar utilities don’t.

LadyLad.1389:

You can not use old easy dungeons to prove a point. Please, learn the game, and show some videos of 62+ Fractals, and large WvW fights, where you’re pet managing enough to keep the pet alive, without making it useless.

Fractals are hardly ‘new’ anyway but until they add about 5 more dungeons to fractals, I’m not going to consider that a pressing majority of the content, much less only lvl 40+ fractals were so few people actually bother.

Frosti.4856:

Chokolata.1870:

You mean they hit every 3 attacks … lol

No i meant they hit one in 3 hits lol

I think he was implying the pet often only gets a chance to hit once for your every 3 hits so adding its damage to your per-hit damage you’d have to at least divide 1 pet hit by 3 since you hit 3 times in the span of its 1.

Can’t argue with that as I often can’t tell how fast my pet hits compared to me…but then I use a Longbow to increase my pet’s damage which shoots pretty slow.

Rhaps.8540:

You guys however seem happy to bury your heads in the sand and mock anyone who disagrees.

I’m not burying my head anywhere and I’m right along side the community seeking to adjust and improve the ranger, but the way you chose to do it, I’ve seen time and time again across other games and I can see live right now if I go visit another profession forum.

You attempt to inflate the capabilities of another profession to make your chosen one seem less capable while dismissing other integral variables that impact and limit those other professions. If those professions are too powerful, take it up with those professions but it’s hardly strengthening your point to have rangers fixed by pointing out what another profession does but not making note of how they do it and what they give up to do so.. Rangers have their own set of variables that completely sidestep points you highlight as ‘unfair’ so you make it like comparing apples and grapefruit.

Zenith.7301:

The ele rez utility has a significantly longer cast time, while IoL is instant. And when you play 40+ lv fractals where the grawl shaman landing an arrow on a downed player means death, then no wasting time to go rez or the offchance that an add will be killed is a stupid risk to take.

You keep bringing up that one fight. Wherelse is this supposed superiority? I think you’re just ignoring that it’s the most situational rez there is and rez skills are situational utilities in general. If anyone’s trolling, it’s you, grasping at straws, pointing to one fight (that I agreed on) that it might help. In group play, you have to be careful as it can waste the effort of others’ better rez skills and even then, you have to coordinate to make sure its efforts aren’t wasted by focusing a target down within the time limit or scurrying off somewhere safe to properly rez. It’s a skill better served as a slot for one of mesmers many other great (better) utilities.

Zenith.7301:

Leo G.4501:

Zenith.7301:

Not correct on Illusion of Life. You go back to downed when it ends if you don’t kill something — it doesn’t defeat you.

Illusion of Life counts as another down. If you get 3 downs, you die. You can’t really see how many times someone has gone down unless you simply remember. So not only will it interrupt other rez attempts, if it fails, it either puts them one step closer to instant death or it kills them.

P.S. A berserker geared mesmer can still go into Inspiration for support and do more damage than a full glass cannon ranger or guardian. Just go 10/30/0/30/10 and you’ll do great damage with great support.

Likely story, is all I’ll say (check your idioms, fwiw)

If you seriously can’t keep track of how many times a bar has gone red in some obvious UI, the problem is you.

Who the hell cares about rez attempts on the grawl shaman fractal when illusion of life means a guaranteed rez since they’ll kill elementals. Illusion of Life is also part of the meta in spvp and wvw.

It’s not a bad skill, get over it.

IoL is decent in the Grawl Shaman fight if only to reposition if you go down in a bad spot. But outside of that, having multiple people try to get back up against trash, they could have just as easily used their downed skills to kill the same target to rally properly. In fights were there is no trash readily available, this situational utility is even worse despite rez utilities being situational in the first place.

People can go down and rally in an instant. It’s happened to me, it’s happened to you and being able to ‘keep up with obvious UI’ isn’t always possible since you can’t differentiate when someone is on the brink of death and instant rallies or they simpl used a heal.

And still, you didn’t say kitten about if it fails (which it can) and how that could put your next down at instant death. Face it. If you’re trying to use Illusion of Life to rez anyone, it’s only as a last resort when you yourself can’t get over there and rez them properly. You don’t use it if my elementalist can simply swap to earth and rez multiple allies guaranteed, or a well placed battle standard or hell, even a pet swooping in to get someone up. Using IoL sabotages any of those attempts without a guarantee of success.

Lastly, this isn’t about PvP or WvW. Keep up with the discussion, please.

Well if you’re critting for 1750 and your cat/bird is critting for 1400, then you’re actually doing more damage than the warrior critting at 2500.

Zenith.7301:

Not correct on Illusion of Life. You go back to downed when it ends if you don’t kill something — it doesn’t defeat you.

Illusion of Life counts as another down. If you get 3 downs, you die. You can’t really see how many times someone has gone down unless you simply remember. So not only will it interrupt other rez attempts, if it fails, it either puts them one step closer to instant death or it kills them.

P.S. A berserker geared mesmer can still go into Inspiration for support and do more damage than a full glass cannon ranger or guardian. Just go 10/30/0/30/10 and you’ll do great damage with great support.

Likely story, is all I’ll say (check your idioms, fwiw)

I’m just going to go out on a limb and guess you haven’t explored support Rangers well enough.

Those offensive boons ‘splatter’ all over are kitten when having more allies in range make them worse. As for having direct damage and condition aspects with your control, this is nothing new or unique. A warrior can do this. An elementalist can do this. A ranger can do this. I don’t understand why you figure, just because it does direct damage with conditions suddenly means it’s support…not by itself…not by a long shot.

In my perspective, people look too much at what things don’t do and not enough at what they can do. It builds false expectations and perpetuates unjust stigmas. But then none of this really matters, talking about support and whatever…no one needs or wants it anyway so it’s rather moot…had people yell at me in groups, telling me I don’t know how to play my mesmer because I don’t shatter. No duh, because it’s a support mesmer! You give people boons with them and give them retaliation and they’ll soak up hits and shave a bit of HP off enemies!

But hoo, the kill rate is low so it’s nub lolz…am I right?

Rhaps.8540:

What? There’s nothing wrong with the list. It’s a list of skills that mesmers have that offer support to a group, not a discussion about how effective they are.

And I’m just saying most of those aren’t very good at supporting the group. Like winds of chaos. That’s hardly support at all. Granting a fire field for your team really knocks that out and Ranger can do that.

Anyway, im glad you still agree with what im saying in the end. Makes me wonder why you felt the need to try and pick apart the list in the first place.

Namely to highlight that a mesmer doesn’t offer all that much support alone. Signet of Inspiration recharges pretty long, there’s not always projectiles to worry about, time warp is on a huge cooldown and illusions don’t have all that much base HP…BUT a mesmer outfitted to support can do so pretty well. Most professions are like that, they only provide marginal support unless geared and traited for it and mesmer is one of those. But bring a beserker shatter mesmer to a group, I’m not seeing that being a huge supporter and I’d even go on a limb and say a support Ranger will out-support one, contrary to popular belief.

I also think it’s a cool concept although which button would take the place of this (targeted) skill? I’m guessing the pet swap button F4 will just be turned into a targeted skill?

Although I feel it’s a tad much of a change. I could definitely see a kind of ‘entry’ type of effect being fun and cool but the pros and cons added feel very convoluted. You might be able to just tone down the DE a tad and be able to just tack on a few of those pros without all the other extras.

Another concept I’ve been toying around in my head is a kind of ‘tag team’ concept where, when traited, give the swaps different effects. Some examples:

Base swap (must be in active mode)
-Swapping from a non-canine pet to a canine pet results in the dog moving right into a leaping knockdown if you have an enemy targeted.
-Birds will always appear right on your target.
-Swapping out an ursine for a non-ursine will grant them opening strike when eventually swapped back in.

Base swap (must be in passive mode)
-Spiders leave a web and Devourers leave a crater where they stand when swapped out. Web immobilizes and crater cripples.
-With two cats, the first remains on the field and invulnerable for a short time (1 second and can still attack) when initiating a swap.

Then each trait line can have an extra effect for swapping, like Wilderness line transferring a boon from foe to team when you swap and Nature Magic creating an element field under the pet (water, ice, lightning or fire) when swapped (each unique field having an internal cooldown so can’t keep swapping in water fields) and this would depend on the pet swapped (depending on their environment/skills would determine which fields they create).

Not a very good list, Rhaps.

For one, winds of chaos, siren’s call, such bouncing skills don’t give vigor, might, fury and swiftness. They give vigor, might, fury OR swiftness. They are random boons that may or may not last very long and boons/conditions from illusions aren’t affected by your duration %. So extra boons from them often are very short lived along with being random.

Illusion of Life is likely the worst revive skill as it can thwart other attempts to revive in progress and can fail to do anything but put your ally in an instant dead state. Phantasmal Disenchanter is abysmal and slow. If it ever removes any of your conditions, those conditions have likely taken their toll regardless. Null field does’t quite cure all conditions, it cures conditions per pulse so you have to stay in the field while it works.

…but yeah, a Mesmer can certainly support well. With its toolbag of CC and phenomenal traits, you can passively give allies regeneration via phantasms, you can heal people around you from casting mantras, you can remove boons and Phantasmal Defender can cut damage by 50% of those hit within its range. I’d even say mesmer, when specc’ed for it are probably the 2nd or 3rd best support there is.

Oy, you guys seem only interested in flaming people. But without sugar coating my criticism, no, none of those 5 players really did all that well. Maybe the Guardian was alright (don’t know much about guardian play) but none of their performances were anything but mediocre so picking on the poster just because its from the perspective of a Ranger, and attempting to mask the lack of performance solely on the Ranger just side steps the point that they all aren’t super great.

The main point I’d agree with is the use of utilities. You didn’t really take advantage of your elite skill and your use of spirits sort of irritated me throughout. Why put your spirits in a spot where only you get the effects? That happened quite a few times and feel a bit wasted. You had sig of the hunt there but hardly used any kind of mobility so why not just use it to give your pet a boost? It’s only a 30 sec cooldown so it’d be recharged fast enough after each fight…or better yet, why not use Search and Rescue? Instead of letting your other teammates worry about the dead, make use of that pet!

And like mentioned, if you have a guardian or warrior (the more the merrier) in your group, charge into melee every now and then. Share some of that attention and feast on those extra boons.

But I don’t really know the ins and outs of rangers or your build…but you have survival training skill and sword/GS cooldown traits but never use them (much). Not sure if the extra damage for being 90% health does so much to stick to the back but it didn’t seem necessary for calling back your pet as most of the time he was up.

Not talking down or anything, just my observations. I’m not super great at the game either but I get by. As for why no healing spring, I tend to rather keep my pet alive than put down fields no one will use often. Definitely use it in CM or Arah as the condition removal helps a ton, but for me, my pet is my main source of damage and I have to keep it alive and the spring doesn’t do that very well.

Um, it’s a minor trait. Who cares?

As a minor trait, it’s not horrible although it’s not really relevant to a long fight which is good. If it were better, then you might as well remove it from traits and just add it as a secondary type of effect like steal and initiative is for thief and adrenaline and burst is for warrior.

Two rares! Suck on that, kittens!

Great gameplay although I’d probably have suggested at least a second track for your video.

HotHit.6783:

A large, imposing weapon is likely to be more effective against a large portion of those targets than arrows. It’s also a lot easier to make a slab of metal with a handle than it is the ammo needed to hunt those things with a bow.

Oh, I agree, it’s definitely practical to use a big hammer or sword for hurting things but it seems about as practical as a gun even if it’d need ammo and maintenance, for a ranger that is. I can see the concept working, it just doesn’t seem quite natural to me.

Their list of prey also includes, but is not limited to; sharks, giants, zombified eyeballs, treants, wurms, Trahearne, ettins, ogres, fingers, ice brood sharks, branded ogres, risen chickens, Dredge machinations, Flame Legion effigies and Bun-nados.

Wait, one of those in that list is weird.

WhiteAndMilky.2514:

For those curious -> max out-of-combat swiftness is 33%, in-combat is 25%

Learn something every day.

So Swiftness will have 33% speed out of combat but get capped at 25% in combat…so does the passive 25% from signet get lowered in combat or is it basically swiftness-in-combat?