Guild Wars 2

I like the look of the staff a lot and it just fits the necro theme so finding this has me excited. I look forward to giving this a go real soon

Thanks for posting the idea.

So then if I want to run a regen build I am better off sticking to cleric’s probably.

So condition stacking stacks condition duration too? And does this still affect my SB/GS way of things?

Chopps.5047:

Loxsus.3841:

Can someone please explain to me why Apothecary is better than cleric’s? It’s condition instead of power which I thought only affected our personal self since our pets don’t get our stats. So won’t it only affect our bleeds or poison?

I run GS/SB and I do stack some bleeds but is it THAT much better than cleric’s (especially for the price tag)? And pvp it seems hard with the SB to get the flanking to make the bleeds trigger enough leaving just SB 4 and GS 2 (maybe SB 2 with poison but if not aoe not sure how the damage is on a single target).

Thanks in advance for the education.

(Also in pve/dungeons it seems bleeds are usually in over supply anyway)

The only time I prefer conditions is when I fight high toughness low vitality enemies but keep in mind that apothecary regen is a beastmaster build so you will get most of your DPS from the pet. This is true with karka and true, mostly, in wvw since many run toughness to counter the zerk builds that have been prevalent since professions like warrior made them popular in dungeons. Speaking of dungeons, I run the existing ones mostly in clerics with rune of mercy. I become a PUG reviving beast in Arah.

So people run apothecary to bypass toughness over power which does more against vitality, am I right?

I do a regen bunkerish build as a BM as well with cleric’s and was wondering if I was missing out on a lot by not doing apothecary?

Currently doing 0/0/30/10/30 (used to do a 0/20/20/0/30 which had more damage and was fun but I seem to live easier as the former)

Can someone please explain to me why Apothecary is better than cleric’s? It’s condition instead of power which I thought only affected our personal self since our pets don’t get our stats. So won’t it only affect our bleeds or poison?

I run GS/SB and I do stack some bleeds but is it THAT much better than cleric’s (especially for the price tag)? And pvp it seems hard with the SB to get the flanking to make the bleeds trigger enough leaving just SB 4 and GS 2 (maybe SB 2 with poison but if not aoe not sure how the damage is on a single target).

Thanks in advance for the education.

(Also in pve/dungeons it seems bleeds are usually in over supply anyway)

Infernia.9847:

Wow after reading this thread I realized I had my Ranger traited all wrong. I see now that the battle only starts after we’re downed. Time to go re-trait for all the downed state perks and pet perks. Thx for the tip.

/sarcasm

My pets are finicky. I think it has to do with lag/skill lag in WvW. That’s the only time I can consistently see my pet just hanging around while I hit F2 or if downed #3 and nothing happens.

That would be awesome if that was the only time but my pet just snickers at me sometimes in sPVP when I’m downed on land (water works all the time even when the pet is downed himself).

Again, pretty sure it’s spite that keeps him from healing me as I shelfed him for PVE/Dungeon runs mostly in favor of Guardian.

Thorson.9218:

GS 3 also comes in really handy to catch those runners. :-)

Or to be a runner yourself when you happen over that hill and see a wave of red coming your way O_O

zTales.4392:

Love it. I run Shortbow/Greatsword in all modes of play (PvE, sPvP, and WvW [small groups & roaming]) and it works like a charm. GS is a very well-rounded weapon.

I haven’t tried using it in dungeons, though.

I user it in dungeons and it works very well. The evade on every third attack on auto attack is a blessing and the weapon itself is very heavy aoe which is nice.

I have to agree and completely think it’s appropriate to have the 20% reduction on skills in the toughness line. It FEELS like an all purpose weapon but helps to be very sturdy. Between block on 4 (always blocking if it’s ranged attacks for the whole duration) and the autoattack giving you evade on every 3rd swing, plus an interrupt on 5, I wouldn’t be without it.

After seeing somethings on my ranger, I can understand SOME issues people might have with the ranger’s down state but the big picture scenario is also important.

Before they fix anything to negatively affect the ranger’s down state, they need to fix the positive stuff.

1) When you call your pet to heal you (Lick wounds) it needs to work. It doesn’t always. Heck it feels like I’m flipping a coin if my pet will save me.
2) Pets need to use their F2 ability on command and not IF you woke up on the right side of the bed, crossed your pinky fingers up at the sky towards the sun, chant something in latin, and then hop six times on your left foot and 2 on your right towards your wardrobe. I switch to my wolf when people try and stop to use the howl of fear but he just sits there, whether I command him to attack or fear … (Maybe he actually just hates me and wants me to die?)

Things that I can agree need to be fixed is underwater related. 3 guys were attacking me underwater in sPVP in my downed state. I had 19 stacks of bleed on me too. I still came back to life. Now maybe that has more to do with underwater damage being low but come on … I hope all rangers can agree this shouldn’t happen.

Also, I’ve noticed the whole “Kill the pet” thing doesn’t always work. I’ve had downed pets heal me anyway.

I’m fine with our down state being looked at IF they look at all of it. Otherwise, keep it as is because currently its balanced in the fact that “Half the time you’re amazing and the other half you’re terrible”

Bas.7406:

Daemon.4295:

And when do we get to see some footage?

Here is the playlist for the Bracket the Rangers were in!

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLu11h1Ww5XJThyddYU5kFIA44XhoDDYR3

Subscribed to the channel. I have to get in on these things O_O

How did the rangers do on Thursday?

Zenith.7301:

Robert Hrouda.1327:

We tried giving them reduced damage from AOE/attacks, and it opened up other problems – mainly that a team of 2 rangers could take on almost any boss in a dungeon by smart swapping of pets and letting the pet take aggro. It’s unfortunate, but we can’t just increase and decrease numbers until pets are perfect – we’ve tried really hard, but numbers are not going to fix pets without letting them break everything. We have to look deeper into mechanics, AI, player actions, and skills.
As much as they seem vestigial, the “attack” and “return” keybinds are really the only thing that can give the player any control, and they can be a bit unwieldy. I would recommend though that if you have never tried using those keybinds, try them out the next time you’re in a dungeon, your pet will thank you for it.
Also, I find that a ranged pet does better in dungeons. My typical pet setup for dungeons is Hyena (because having 2 knockdowns and another hyena is super good), and a Drake (almost any). I know this is contradictory to what I just said about ranged pets being good, but I use the keybinds a lot and that dramatically increases survivability when taking 2-3 hits is all you want the pet to do.
Spiders and devourers can be really good to bring because of the fact that they are ranged. Devourers have an escape from melee ability as well, and spiders have CC, which helps keep them alive while you reposition and pet-swap (or return) in a more favorable place. Tankier pets require more management, but once you get there and know how to use it (in combination with pet swap), you’ll find you’re not facing the death cooldown as often as before.
That and you can name your spiders “Cuddles” and your devourer “Citizen Snips” and get a good laugh out of people’s reactions.

Easy. Make mobs prioritize players over minions for aggro so that ranger’s can’t swap aggro.

Really, why do pets or minions need to hold aggro? Is there a particular reason? That’s the very reason pets and necro minions die to begin with and nobody is pleased. If pets were out of the aggro table and had 70% less damage from aoe, you’d see these builds become more plentiful.

Yes, you can call them to you, that only really works for ranged gameplay, since if you are melee the return command does nothing while you yourself may not need to get out of melee range.

What’s worse, you’re advocating retreating half of your damage (the pet is seriously half to 40% of the ranger’s damage, and even a larger proportion of his burst capacity) be constantly made inactive.

No other class needs to have its damage halved like that because they just switch to range if they need to wait for a heal and maintain full damaging capacity.

Even worse, the ranger has no cleaving because most pets do not do conal cleave damage like melee weapons, only the ranger himself who is half of the total damage. So half of his damage is already restricted to a single target whereas a warrior and guardian and mesmer can melee to full effect.

I actually pretty much agree with all of this. Even the solution is solid. If pets holding aggro is an issue, make them stop. Simple but good.

And this is why I ask instead of wasting gold on testing sometimes. Solid advice and it makes perfect sense to hear from another source instead of debating things in my head.

Thanks for being generally, all around helpful Kharel.

So I’ve got something similar to this going on. I’m currently running 0/0/10/30/30 build

I’m heavy cleric in all my slots to try and be a bit more support and healing instead of going soldier’s or knight’s. So far I like it a lot but I notice a bit of an issue with purging conditions. I can pick up pure of voice but I kind of like have Virtue of Resolve on all party members in heavy cleric gear as it heals for a decent amount. More team healing is fun

So my question is, instead of runes like monk or water in my armor, do you think its viable to pick up runes of soldiers instead to make shouts cleans? Or should I just suck it up and use Pure of Voice over group resolve? (In the bottom tree I chose the ability to make resolve’s passive stronger which makes me want it to be group wide even more)

Glad other people have mentioned this before as well. I still really like the ranger well enough but the extra headache of dealing with the pet dying all the time is a hassle. Maybe I’m just spoiled from other games that have pet classes I’ve played (WoW, Rift) but I went ranger for the nature aspect as I often lean. Plus … GS2 is a friggen BEAR … come on … that’s just cool

As the title says, would this be entirely game breaking if when WE dodged, the pet also got the evasion protection? Make them stop attacking too so it’s not unfair but it doesn’t sound terribly unbalanced to me (at least not from a PVE point of view. I only dabble in PVP for funsies so a more knowledgeable source can add to this either way).

In dungeons, I know some people are just better than me at keeping their pets alive. If I’m running bear, its a bit easier with recalling and stuff. But fights like the giant spider on Up/Up in TA Explorable, I might have a cat or dog out and recall only to have them run through 3 groupings of red circles and get 1 shotted.

Situations like this, I think it would be nice if when you dodged, your pet joined you in this “dodge” and gained the evasion benefit like we do. This could also lead to a different kind of pet management if you see they might get hit by something but you’re safe to roll FOR them.

Just a thought.

And don’t you DARE stop moving. This is huge. As a ranger, I can tell in spvp when someone knows how to deal with one as they won’t stop moving. My pet will still get a hit off every once in awhile and yes it WILL hurt but you’re doing a good job to mitigate the damage by staying mobile as pets are pretty terrible, despite all their speed boosts, in landing a hit on a moving target.

I’d say kill the pet but this is hard to do sometimes reliably without other people to help. Still, if they’re running cats or dogs, they are somewhat squishy pets even with all their healing.

So yeah, stay mobile and keep stealth spamming (not saying this in a bad way) because it keeps them off of you.

Also keep in mind if they’re using dogs, they’re going to try and knock you down. So if you see them charging back, they’re about to leap so don’t be in range. If they’re using cats, this is a very high bleed damage/raw damage so staying on the move is key here. If you’re fighting a ranger and don’t see a pet, MOVE! Its likely their jaguar in their 6 second stealth which guarantees crits on every hit AND stays stealth the entire time.

Most of this is redundant so tl;dr – Don’t stop moving.

All my males use Male 1

Are you healed twice when using writ of the merciful with AH? As in does each instance heal you?

Also, is writ of persistance worth taking over two handed mastery for GS and staff when dealing with these symbols or do you get more mileage for quicker reuse on the symbols?

A lot of good advice all over. Thanks for the headsup. As I said, I had assumed for awhile you had to get one to have the other but maybe not. I do worry about missing the EM pass might stacking. Switching to staff 4 is good for that but you’re also not doing damage when you’re doing that. DECISIONS!

So it is a decent loss in healing by skipping EM then or not too bad? Or is EM overhealing often?

Or, if you run GS with staff/scept+focus (pve wise mind you mostly. Maybe pvp eventually) do you suffer much by not picking up the ability to recharge 20% faster?

I guess that makes me curious between EM and Two handed mastery.

And I also just read your Boonway guide and might give that a go as well as curiosity gets to me (though I’m mostly knight and berserker gear now)

I’ve only been back to the guardian for a few weeks after a hiatus from the game and I always just assumed you HAD to take Empowering Might with AH. Now, I still LIKE doing so but sometimes I like to experiment with other builds and consider dropping that line to 20 points and would like to keep the ability to reduce 2 handed weapons by 20% which means dropping EM.

I’ve seen other people post similar builds and I guess I’m somewhat confused as to WHAT people get some much healing with without EM? Vigor is on a 5sec internal cooldown with similar issues with shouts and virtues on cooldowns.

So where does most of the healing come from with EH?

I use two handed sword and staff/scepter+focus (switches but usually staff)

I’ve been playing awhile now and though my initial plan was to go longbow for the traditional ranger feel … I can’t help but feel after playing with the shortbow that there is just no reason to do this outside of the nice barrage aoe the longbow gets.

The shortbow might due less damage but it fires at least two arrows to the longbow’s one so it catches up with base damage already. Add in the fact that longbow’s rapid fire barely shoots faster then the shortbow’s regular fire rate about about the same damage and its a bit disheartening. This isn’t even taking into account that the longbow has to be at max range just to even start coming close to the shortbow.

And this is all WITHOUT the fact that if you’re flanking, the shortbow bleeds the target so you’re just lapping the longbow after a point. I would love to just use the shortbow and be happy with it but it looks like a friggen toy as tiny as it is.

Did anyone else find this to be true too?