Guild Wars 2

I like your analysis gman- I’m curious why you decided not to take frost spirit as default vs quickening zephyr?

They have confirmed that spirits are getting buffed, so that’s pretty good still.

That’s a very good point that RaO is becoming a shout, so it’ll work with the shout cd trait. Down to 96 seconds…

But without fortifying bond from nature magic, RaO is a bit weaker. Still worth using though.

I’d also suggest Wilderness Knowledge grandmaster in Wilderness Survival- Troll Unguent will only have 5 second downtime with the change to being a survival skill, as well as removing condis and giving fury. This will help with maintaining peak strength and scholar rune bonus. Like, that thing should be on autocast now.

That’s also a good point about swapping for poison application- with strider’s lowering sword cooldowns, you’ll be able to poison a lot more, but the extra poison doesn’t hurt, especially since poison is going to stack intensity vs duration it seems.

Not sure about Empathic bond though. Every ten seconds isn’t particularly reliable, and it’s usually easier to just slot in Signet of Renewal or Healing Spring if you know you’re going to be in a condi intense fight. Troll Unguent + WK will also remove a couple condis too on a longer cooldown sure, but Troll Unguent is also likely to outheal most damaging conditions.

The problem with your build is that the fury trigger on greatsword has a 10 second cooldown. Not only that, but you give up 2 +10% damage boosts for sword for a +25% on a long cooldown, and +5% damage on a weaker weapon.

So yeah, that 10 second cooldown on fury from greatsword is pretty limiting.
If you look at the considerations, I do outline this build, although we take sword and strider’s defense instead of Quick Draw. You end up with a really good burst, but you fall off in sustained damage.

It’s certainly viable though. There are just those issues coming from not really gaining that much from Remorselss due to fury cooldowns. And if you run Quick Draw, you fall off REALLY hard after your initial burst.

Yeah. I did some thinking after and realized that it’s certainly a very strong power Ranger PvP option with those traits. Sorry about that!

Sounds interesting. But!

Sword attack is on about a 1.5 second chain, with a little bit of post cast time, so when rampage is up, you get about 12.5% damage up- However, you give up predator’s onslaught, which is pretty much always a 10% increase, without the 2 minute cooldown. So you end up with a bit less than 2.5% over PO, but only when you have RaO active. Otherwise you’re down 10% damage, with small spikes here and there.

I don’t think it would be worth it. GS is also still much weaker than sword- it already did less damage, has a longer attack chain, and only gets a 5% compared to 10% buff in damage from traits. The Fury proc on GS also has an internal cooldown, so that’s not really reliable.

It definitely sounds like a fun build to try, and I don’t see it being unviable, but there are some tradeoffs. You get a large burst to start, and then fall off sustained until RaO comes back up. The 2 minute cooldown might be killer though.

That’s true, Zenith, but neither of those traits are tempting for PvE regardless, since in PvE, there’s more of a priority for offense as opposed to defense.

I agree with you guys about fortifying bond- Because of the boon effect cap of 5, fortifying bond is just so powerful.

However, with the damage from Survival and the quickness from Beastmastery, I’m pretty sure those will always be more beneficial than Nature Magic, since we no longer have to go in there for Spirit procs. Perhaps if you REALLY needed the 50% weakness uptime from Protective Ward, you could, but you do miss out on more than you gain now by going into nature magic.

Yeah, if they moved Primal Reflexes (Vigor on evade) to adept, that would work so much better- Nothing can compete with spotter for PvE, and none of the Adept Skirmishing traits are of any use in PvE either.

You’re really dependent on control from outside sources to help you and your pet stay alive if you go beastmastery, less so with surivival, since you have more sustain/protection, etc. And when the breakbar changes go through, that might be a problem.

Yeah, I think it’s a fair trade off for each way, until at least, the super pro theorycrafters point out that well, actually this one has x% more base damage because of math.

I don’t usually have trouble keeping my pet alive except in a few cases where it is impossible, but I also dislike constantly swapping off cooldown, ykno?

I think with Strider’s being part of the main build, and with Wilderness Survival’s buff to Troll Unguent, it’s going to be way easier to maintain scholar’s. You simply have more evades, dodges, and health. Troll Unguent goes down to 5 second downtime, sword dodge cooldown decreases, plus you get more vigor along with the 25% bonus end regen to maintain steady focus longer. WildPred might not end up being the highest DPS, but I really like that playstyle a lot- it’s basically current ranger.

Wondrouswall, they mentioned on stream that the cooldown from Windborne would affect the cooldown of bond- that’s why they made it the warhorn skill. For synergy!
The problem with dropping Skirmishing for Nature Magic is that you lose Spotter and 10% damage on sword for 6 seconds off fury upkeep, which other classes can do as well.

Regarding beastmastery though, incoming mess!
Well, WS gives +10% as well as a bit less than 50% more uptime on scholar runes, depending on the encounter due to Bark Skin.

So quickness doesn’t outweigh WS so easily.

You’d also have to take Remorseless over PO I believe, so you lose that 10% in exchange for 25% bursts.

The next thing you have to look at is the potential rotation.

If you start with Greatsword, you Maul for 30% damage, then swap to sword, hit for 35% , swap pets, quickness hit for 35%, then warhorn, hit for 35%…. then hit for 24% until quickness runs out, weapon swap, where you Maul for 30%, and have to greatsword auto, maybe getting another 35% maul if you get lucky with RNG.

You also get more vulnerability from Remorseless, which I didn’t add in, since I’m assuming that vuln is being added by most members of the party.

And quickness damage doesn’t really stack directly with Remorseless damage since Remorseless damage is static and only activates under a condition- after a certain initial burst, it will fall off.

If you stay in greatsword, you lose out on damage from sword.

IF you take PO over Remorseless, and focus on quickness, you get about 22.5% overall with sword, plus pet stuff, except when you use greatsword, you deal 27.5% ish to a single target and 15% to others. Greatsword auto attack is nothing to write home about either so that’s kinda meh.
You’re also very dependent on your pet being alive, which can be a problem in longer fights.

BeastRem Ranger advantage would be initial burst over WildPred Ranger it seems, but WP ranger will likely win out on the sustained fights in dps with super Troll Unguents and Bark Skin maintaining Scholar and the +10%.

My main issue with BeastPred as opposed to BeastRem would be that it would be more difficult to get 100% uptime on PO because of greatsword- sure you’d have a good single target burst, but then you’d be stuck in sword doing less damage than WildPred… unless you add quickness in which case it’s about even… Peak Strength also affects the pet though, so that’s 10% more pet damage as well for wildpred… but the quickness affects the pet… but you have to swap the pet off cd which is downtime.

In my mind that’s really really close. like, 2% damage or so one way or the other. I’d rather just play the old style with WildPred, personally if it really is that close.

PS my math is REALLY REALLY BAD

BeastPred Sword: ~52.5%
scholar 10%
strider 10%
pred 10%
steady 10%
quick 12.5%

BeastRem Sword: ~42.5% + burst
quick 12.5%
scholar 10%
steady 10%
strider 10%
rem ?

WildPred Sword: ~50%
steady 10%
peak 10%
strider 10%
scholar 10%
pred 10%

So it looks like BeastPred barely wins overall- but BeastRem has a bigger initial burst, and WildPred is easier to sustain than BeastPred.

The problem with the GS fury trait is that it currently has a 10 second cooldown- however, beastmaster has a lot of other things like quickness and pet buffing that could give wilderness survival a run for its money.

With Remorseless and warhon, you have quite a few ways to apply fury, but in order to take advantage of Remorseless, the rotations would be insane. You’d basically be using Opening Strike just to buff your autoattacks. or Maul when you switch to greatsword. Perhaps if you switched to a fury generating rune instead of scholar that would help too.

You would really have to play around your opening strikes and try to make the most of them. You’d want them on Maul as much as possible, but if not on maul you’d want them on sword auto. And the quickness management from beastmastery would be nuts to add in as well.

And if you’re constantly swapping your pet on cooldown, even with all the buffs it’s getting, you’re going to lose some damage there.

You’d lose quite a bit of durability too though, although so far in PvE that hasn’t been an issue.

Also, If your pet dies, you’d lose out on damage from quickness and fury.

Yeah, I’d say Ranger (with the current specs) has 2 viable builds. Very interesting.

I don’t think we can swap out of Wilderness Survival- the 20% bonus as well as essentially 50% more uptime on scholare runes is way too valuable. If you did try for Beastmastery for pet traits, the math for the returns from that is a lot weirder and depends on the encounter, but I don’t think it’ll beat or come close to Wilderness.

They did mention Call of The Wild from the bond trait would be affected by that trait- but there’s nature magic doesn’t have THAT many nice traits. You could try Bountiful Hunter and Windborne Notes, and that would be about what, 5% on average and you’d be buffed for longer… Maybe for pug groups? But even then, it is REALLY hard to beat Wilderness Survival. :P

Yeah, the biggest thing we lose is sharing might with pets, although the damage buffs we get should make up for that- especially with the Onslaught +5% damage.

Check out my post for a rundown of how PvE ranger actually got a GIANT buff.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/PvE-Ranger-Specs/first#post5001831

tld;dr: PvE ranger is, despite how it may have looked on the stream, in a great spot with the changes

Specialization with respect to PvE ranger
70% spirit effect baseline
Longbow speed and range baseline
Spirit passive/actives buffed?
Troll unguent

*Marksmanship: *

Adept:
Signet of the Wild when under 25%
Cripple under 50%
Blast finisher/buff when pet swapping in combat- on a 30 second cd

For PvE, the last trait is decent. The 30 second cooldown is really long, considering how often pets are swapped though. The blast finisher is okay as well.

Master
Signets grant might, next attack crits/5 vuln, recharge reduced 20%
Steady Focus
Moment of Clarity

Steady Focus is in this line, so we take that.

Grandmaster
Predator’s Onslaught
Refresh opening strike when you gain fury, OS deals 25% more damage
Attack Speed, Recharge Rate, piercing longbow

Predator’s Onslaught is still good.
New remorseless is… interesting. Good vulnerability stacking and the damage is nice. Needs math, but I believe unless you have a consistent outside fury source, it’s not as good as Onslaught.

Skirmishing
Adept
Bleed on Crit
stacking might under 50%
Create spike trap when reviving ally

None of these stand out. You’re going to be as close to full as possible to take advantage of scholar runes, so the stacking might doesn’t really have much use. Spike trap when reviving is pretty useless, since it’s a condi trap, and bleed is condi as well.

Suggestion would be something that gives fury to synergize with Remorseless.

Master
Gain vigor on evade
Spotter
Trap Trait.

Spotter! Yay.

Grandmaster
Quick Draw- 66% cooldown on weapon skill used after swap
Shortbow buff trait, 10% more damage when moving
Strider’s defense- 10% more sword damage, sword recharge

New Strider’s defense. Quick Draw might be tempting, but the sustained damage from sword beats it, especially if you’re running sword/axe/longbow. Camping longbow in melee range even after a double rapid fire isn’t good. There’s not much that sword/axe offers for quick draw either- double path of scars might seem good at first, but then you have to consider that it is also a CC- so it’s something you may want to save for the break bar. This is open to debate though. If you don’t use sword, quick draw is better.

Wilderness Survival
Bark skin as grandmaster baseline- take 50% less damage when above 90%
Adept
Fall Trait
Condi damage on torch/dagger, faster recharge
Pet condi up

Nothing stands out for power ranger- makes sense since this is the condi line.

Master
Oakheart salve- take 5% less damage while under regen, regen when condi’d
Peak Strength
Shared’ Anguish

Peak Strength is basically a bonus Scholar rune bonus. Very good to take.

Grandmaster
Emphatic bond
Wilderness Knowledge Survival stuff, condi clears.
Poison Master

Wilderness Knowledge would be the takeaway here- great synergy with troll unguent as a condi removal tool.

So what’s the build?
Wilderness Survival/Predator’s Onslaught (WildPred Ranger)
Marksmanship —-— 3/2/2
Gain a source of fury/might.
Skirmishing —-——— x/2/3
Gain +10% more sword damage, lose some pet damage.
Wilderness Survival x/2/2
Gain +10% damage , Condi clear/lower cd on Troll Unguent

Uses Sword/axe/longbow
Overall, despite my initial hesitation with some of the odd choices- (mostly the x traits in skirmishing/wilderness survival), PvE power Rangers do in fact come out pretty well on top with 2 new +10% damage bonuses, a tiny bit more team support, and some extra personal survivability. Looks good to me!

EDIT: Less obvious Beastmastery/Remorseless setup (BeastRem Ranger)
M 3/2/3
S x/2/3
B 1/2/2

Uses sword/horn/greatsword
Higher risk, and much harder to play, your focus would be to keep your pet alive and get as many opening strikes as possible. It may barely edge out the Wilderness Survival/Predator’s Onslaught build (WP Ranger), but that would really depend on the execution and situation. For example, if your pet dies, you lose out on damage for a long while. Dodging can mess up your rotation as well, but a very interesting build nonetheless.

EDIT 2: Beastmastery/Predator’s Onslaught BeastPred Ranger
M 3/2/2
S x/2/3
B 1/2/2

Uses sword/axe/greatsword

Plays like WP, except you swap your pet out all the time, and use greatsword instead of longbow. Very slightly higher dps with sword due to the quickness from Beastmastery, and a bit more pet dps, but you lose a lot of sustain, and if your pet dies, your dps drops hard.

Immobilizes that get cleansed much, much more easily with the buffs to other classes. Not to mention you’re stuck in the enemy’s face afterward.

Your rapid fire won’t be auto canceled as long as you move your camera to where your enemy is pointing at you.

Nope. All the enemy has to do is close distance and run through you. Which will be easy because you’re going to have to be in combat before you swap weapons. So unless you run double longbow…

It’s also competing with 10% damage traits.

Not to mention we have to give up a +10% damage trait to take this- not worth it.

Note that this isn’t as good as it sounds.

If you want to get the most out of double maul, you need to go into beastmastery for the greatsword trait and take two relatively useless pet traits.

If you want to double rapid fire you need to somehow be in combat already, but far enough away that your rapid fire can’t be ground closed and autocancelled.

So yeah, as nice as it sounds on paper, it’s not actually that great.

Rangers currently have very lackluster Grandmaster Major traits (and major traits in general) outside of the Marksmanship line in terms of DPS, Support, and Control.

Do you have a plan for addressing this compared to other professions who have multiple Grandmaster Major traits that are not only build defining but spread across multiple lines?

PS build is 0/5/0/6/3, DPS build is 6/5/0/0/3
Smash those together and you get 6/6/0/6/0 with full dps AND phalanx strength.
S/F LH + dps Staff gets 6/6/0/6/0 as well, taking the 10% bonus damage from water.
engis, who normally use 6/6/x/x/x can trait into tools or alchemy, which provide large buffs.
Thieves as well get a lot more sustain and damage from more initiative from their last line.

Rangers… Rangers just finish the same three lines they’ve been taking this whole time.

We already take the trait in nature magic- I mis-typed and that should be “Minor Master” not major- the one where boons on you get shared with your pet. That’s already taken. Nothing else in Nature Magic is worth taking for offense or support.

All I’m saying is that with this change, Rangers should probably get a bigger look at because given their current setup they will require quite a lot of effort to stay relevant.

It’s true that we don’t know what the new specialization will bring- it could be really cool.

I’m all for waiting and seeing- but why not voice my concerns now rather than later when things are already fully out of development, and changes will have to go through bureaucracy in order to apply? Considering the mess ups recently with Frost Spirit getting bugged and pet guard getting bugged, is it not worth it to consider that ranger might need some extra love?

Like, look at the Ranger Grandmaster traits- out of all of them, only the ones in Marksmanship are useful at all in PvE- and in Marksmanship, Read the Wind is situational, and Remorseless is completely outclassed by Predator’s Onslaught.

The others are all trivial or do not support the team or provide much control.

Like, say, my trap daze/stun example- wouldn’t that be cool for PvP? It would fit the idea of a hunter, and if you used those trap runes that stealth you, you’d be a force to reckon with.

Or how about a trait that spreads boons to allies when a pet uses an F2 skill? That would be so cool, and very beastmaster/nature magic-y.

Or a trait that spreads a few boons when a ranger uses a shout or signet?

Or a trait that allows rangers to pass signet passives or actives to teammates?

Or a trait that allows rangers to do bonus damage when swapping from melee weapons to ranged and vice versa?

I can do this all day.

Or a trait that increases the power or health of spirits?

Or a trait that increases the duration of cripples/immobilizes?

Or a trait that applies regen to allies on evade?

Or a trait that lets you do a small amount of bonus damage or vulnerability after an evade?

Or a trait that gives you a bonus chance to apply vulnerability with longbow attacks?

I’m sure these have downsides, but they’re just ideas. Ideas to be taken, thrown around, dropped, and passed, and changed.

That’s not true, Sebrent. Eles have multiple builds depending on whether they want to stack might or what weapons they’re using. Thieves can trait for more stealth or sustain along with dps.

Warriors can go full dps or support the team with tons of might.

Engis have a whole mess of stuff.

Rangers just have Spotter and Frost Spirit- which are both part of the meta build.
Have you looked at all the ranger traits? There’s nothing that opens up anything unique.

Like, given the current traits, regardless of reasonable combinations, it boils down to whether you want 10% damage from flanking or being over 90% health.

Rangers only have one role, one option, in PvE.
It does not open build diversity. Have you looked at the traits for rangers?
Other than Predator’s Instinct or Read the Wind, they are essentially useless for team support or CC, or DPS. They’re pretty much either trivial (50% more damage for one attack after an interrupt) or passively defensive.

I’m not complaining- I’m providing criticism and I’ve offered suggestions. I was of the opinion that Ranger was in a fine spot- but this change up means that ranger may fall behind. I’ve provided specific examples- you’re just generalizing and broadly speculating.

What doors though? Even if you remove the stats, the remaining traits are lackluster- the major trait in nature magic is better than any of the grandmaster traits in skirmishing, for example.

The biggest thing outside of those lines for dps ranger is the 10% over 90% HP in Survival. But none of those traits in that line offer much for PvE rangers.

There are SO many options for PvE and PvP rangers that they haven’t come up with. What about a grandmaster trait that makes traps blind or stun enemies? What about a grandmaster trait that makes signets more powerful overall?

Ranger has so few offensively build defining traits that there aren’t any doors opened up.

Also unless pets become more controllable, any pet buffs are essentially void.

be “penalized” for investing points into Nature Magic or Wilderness Survival when running a Berzerker meta. This could open up some more options for increasing our melee damage. The same for our beastmastery.

We already aren’t- The ranger PvE build 6/5/0/3/0 is the only PvE berserker meta build for a reason- no other trait lines provide anything offensive or team supportive. It’s not like warrior where they invest 6 points to get phalanx strength and lose out on damage because of that.

Rangers only have the one build that doesn’t sacrifice anything outside of mediocre traits and some longbow bonuses. If anything, Rangers will lose out because of the loss of Ferocity from Skirmishing.

The net benefit or loss for rangers all depends on how traits get merged.

For example, in marksmanship, there’s way too much in that tree right now.
Even if we end up getting something cool like remorseless being built in passive and replaced with something that increases the active/passive effects of signets, that would be ridiculous to take, since you miss out on the big damage buffs.

There should be a pretty huge shuffle to allow rangers that same feeling of other classes- of actually specializing- rather than being stuck having to take the better of two great traits in one spec while struggling to decide between 3 mediocre traits in the other specs.

The big issue with ranger is that our build viability for PvE is extremely limited- we don’t have the issue that say, warriors have where they have the option to go phalanx strength vs full dps.

At most, we have longbow only or mixed dps traits- both of which currently use the same trait line.

As a result, we don’t gain much damage or team support-wise from this unless there are some really radical merges and movements- or druid spec turns out to be 100% take.

I could see the meta shifting to Wilderness Survival for peak strength, but then what happens to the Ferocity from Skirmishing? That’s a LOT of ferocity that if lost or depleted, will be very detrimental to Ranger’s state in the game- especially considering all the obvious toys that other professions will be getting.

As a result, I’m cautiously optimistic. There’s a really big potential here for a good rework of ranger traits- big changes are needed for all lines for specializations to be effective.

When the minor traits in Skirmishing are worth more than major traits elsewhere, something needs to be heavily redone.

Suggestions include more offensive team support and more personal damage buffs spread across multiple trait lines. Pet traits are ridiculously weak due to the inconsistency of pets- these should be heavily merged. Traps see no use in PvE- They’re basically bonus weapon skills except that they provide no major effect other than damage, soft cc, and condis- all of which are outclassed by other utilities in PvE, especially considering the trait investment needed to get them barely effective.

I’d like to see Marksmanship focus on Bow traits, Skirmishing focus on Melee traits, Wilderness Survival on survival skills (like, why are Martial Mastery and Off-Hand training in there?) signets, and traps- Nature Magic on Spirits and Shouts- perhaps much more condensed, and more spirit buffs i.e. a grandmaster trait that increases the effectiveness of the spirit passives for example. And Beastmastery would take all the pet stuff, heavily condensed where each trait would cover a broad spectrum of effects depending on the pet used.

EDIT: Rangers just have so many things that aren’t properly supported- We have Pets, Signets, Shouts, Traps, Survival skills, Spirits, and Weapons. It’s extremely cluttered, and finding a useful place for everything will be difficult.

EDIT 2: Another option would be to merge signet and weapon traits- not just in the same line, but actually together. Like, Sword gets 20% coodown reduction, AND when you use a signet you and your pet get might. Something like that.

In all game modes, you can now see enemy and object name tags through terrain.

This makes some strategies in PvP and WvW no longer possible, and confuses PvE targets.

Another name for this would be permanent wallhacks.

Additionally, the “Master of Arah” achievement is being updated to only require completion of story mode paths.

Is that supposed to be “explorable mode paths” instead of “story mode paths”?

Because downed skills count as the player using the same weapon as what they have when they are alive, being revived does not break the channel.

This causes many issues- especially when the weapon skills are player displacements.

For example, an engineer using rifle tries to bandage themselves with downed skill 4. If they are picked up during this time, their rifle 4 skill, Overcharged Shot, is already partly channeled, and instantly blows them backwards.

Similarly, the ranger downed skill 2 is an interrupt- but when using sword main hand, being picked up in the middle of channeling it throws you back instantly with your evade.

Things to note- I do not believe that this is a case of spamming downed skills and accidentally casting weapon skills when picked up. Normally Hornet Sting has the ridiculously long cast time of half a second. Under the influences of this bug, Ranger just gets picked up and tossed backwards near instantly.

This seems most related to the fact that if you equip two of the same weapon type and cast a channeled skill, you can freely swap those weapons without breaking the channel. For instance equipping two longbows, and using rapid fire or barrage and using the weapon swap hotkey to swap.

It is deposited in your bank. This happens with any use item when used in the bank interface.

This has been around since launch.

EDIT: Your Mystic Kit is in the bottom left corner of your second bank tab.

Since the 16th patch, Ranger pets no longer avoid combat when they are set to avoid combat until the first target dies.

Steps to dupicate:
put pet on avoid combat.
enter combat.
pet will enter combat as well.

This is not good, as it will aggro things out of stealth if you get hit by a stray AoE.

I don’t see what your aversion is to posting this over in the Fractals and Dungeon subforum. They’ve got a Forum Specialist assigned to that specific forum and if enough data was collected to give ANet a hey, there’s a bug in the RNG system under X conditions, that the forum specialist could pass that on in one of their reports to ANet.

I don’t have time to manage such a thread or the data that comes from it if it kicks off (unlikely, since it takes a group of 9 people to even test it).

Nor should not pinpointing the cause be a deterrent from posting bugs. Sure, it helps majorly. It makes things much easier for everyone involved in the process of fixing the bug. But expecting a perfect bug report for something so complex to be reported at all is silly. I’ve narrowed it down as much as I reasonably can.

I saw this mostly as a curiosity, and I posted it. If you want to follow up on it, please, be my guest. I personally don’t have the time to do so.

Actually, a low number of cases should prevent a bug report from getting resources deployed. I would want my QA team working on high-priority, wide-scope issues primarily.

And that’s fine. I’ve already mentioned that this isn’t a very common issue and that I don’t expect it to have resources assigned to it. I just want it recorded in case it is an issue where it’s someone who worked on the code can go “OH crap, that thing!”

And I’ve also mentioned that I’ve experienced this 4 times, all 4 times which support my hypothesis. So no, I don’t literally only have data for two trials.

I didn’t just see this happen and randomly guess at a cause. I didn’t say “Oh, what a coincidence, I bet it’s a bug.” I experienced this multiple times in the same conditions, to the point where I predicted my drop on the 4th time it happened. Cynically predicted, and hoped that it wouldn’t be true, but predicted nonetheless.

I just wanted the issue to be recorded- that’s all.

For example, by choosing a particular starting fractal, you limit the options of the ones that might follow it. That would affect the fractal order recurring, but not necessarily the final award.

I did have that in my calculations. Assumed swamp start, and only added a roll for bloomhunger vs mossman.

You aren’t generating enough data to even begin to pinpoint where the glitch occurs. Not to mention 2 runs isn’t enough data to say that your experience is such an outlier it means that something’s wrong.

As much as I would LOVE to have a job where I can bugfix and test things for GW2, that’s not my job.

Nor should a low number of cases prevent a report from being taken seriously and recorded.

Could you imagine if a duplication glitch got that treatment?
“Uh, hi, I accidentally duplicated a stack of ectos while doing x”
“Did you try y 100 times?”
“No, I did x a couple times, but then I got scared and stopped.”
“Well, that’s not useful, try y 100 times and z 100 times, and then report it.”

I encountered this issue while doing something specific. I reported this issue.

Not to mention 2 runs isn’t enough data to say that your experience is such an outlier it means that something’s wrong.

A 1 in 1000000000000000000000000 chance occurring is not just an outlier.

An outlier is when I get 5 Fractal Tridents before getting a Fractal Pistol. An outlier is only getting ascended rings or nothing for 3 weeks of Fractal 50.

That’s RNG.

A 1 in 10^24th is not. That’s as many seconds as 14 million times over the current population of the earth will live.

That’s a once in 14 million generation achievement.

So yes, that is significant enough to say “something is up here”

Yes, highly unlikely, but still possible and doing it twice a row is still possible. One major outlier, but still possible. And at that point, it’s open to more testing.

“possible”, the amount of times you’d need to flip a coin 1000 times is at least 10^77 times more than the number of seconds the average human lives for.

I’d imagine the glitch, if it happens the way you theorize, would happen if 5 people all had the same shards in their last run. Which would happen if a group did two runs back to back. So they may already have more trials for you to add to your collection. And may be willing to test the theory.

Which shows me you didn’t read or understand my hypothesis at all. I’m not describing a commonly practiced situation. It’s very unique, and not likely to occur in most cases.

A group of 5 would not be able to contribute to my hypothesis, since you need 9 people.

I don’t know what causes it. It could have something to do with one player’s rolls carrying over and not being refreshed in some data structure or the database when other players start fresh. There’s lots of ways to approach and tackle bugs- bugs which can be very weird. Games aren’t real life. You can’t generalize bug cases without first acknowledging specifics.

For example, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxgEXDnXD6M by doing a series of seemingly arbitrary frame perfect tricks, a computer can reprogram Super Mario World.

You can’t say, oh, well if it works from doing these tricks, you could do them on any level or with different items and obtain the same result.

And 2 trials successful (even though I mention that this has happened at least 4 times) is already a probability of 1 in 10^24- it would be more probable for me to spontaneously combust.

But I can flip an actual balanced coin 1000 times and have it land on heads every time.

Sure, 1 time out of a number with way too many zeros.

I don’t expect it to be looked into, but I provided my report, a means that I believe will duplicate the scenario, and can start off more research should that be proven true by people other than me. I shouldn’t have to conduct a research study in order for an issue to be taken seriously.

If I flip a coin 5 times and it lands on heads 5 times, then you’re saying because it happened more than once that the coin isn’t balanced. But that’s not enough trials to say that it’s not just pure chance. Streaks can happen. Probability is only true on the LONG run. Not in the short run. You’re still well within the realm of the short run.

What makes my case stand out is that it is a literal 1 in a million chance, that has happened to me multiple times.

Let’s say my # of fractals is 540. Let’s say of those, half are 37, and half are 50 (not even close). So that’s 270 trials. In less than 270 trials, I rolled 4 1 in a million chances. That’s not within the realm of physical probability.

You haven’t even made sure that your bug is just limited to levels 37 and 50. What if it’s the 31-40 tier and the 50? What if it’s two fractals that aren’t on the same tier? So a level 9 and then a level 23 will have the same anomaly.

Does it only occur if a specific set of Fractals happen during the first one done of the day? Or does it duplicate all runs?

That’s another issue with the too low number of runs. You’ve left too many variables on the table as a cause as well as how widespread the problem is.

That’s why I started with a narrow hypothesis. If it works for that, then you can add more variables and experiment. As I’ve mentioned before, even setting it up to try this is difficult as it requires 8 other participants, and quite a lot of time.

The key to bug diagnosis is getting it duplicatable. If you can find a way to duplicate it, then you can start adding or taking variables to see when it works or doesn’t, which lets you narrow down where the bug is.

EDIT: with the changes to daylight savings time I will not likely be able to test this, as my normal fractal 50 group goes 30 minutes after dailies roll over.

You’ll notice I left the 3rd one out of my calculation.

I’ll test it when I can, but the opportunity for me to test it is so rare that I can’t really predict when I next try it. Hence why I’m posting my hypothesis from my personal experience on the forums where there may be more people who may have the opportunity to test it.

I did say that this has happened at least three times before- consecutive Fractals being ridiculously similar.

There’s also the same exact mob set in Molten, which is at least 25% on top of that.

So yes, it is enough to say that there is something weird with the rng.

50% from Bloomhunger/Mossman
20% to get Molten
25% (at most) to get the same exact mob set
33% to get Molten boss
2% to get same ring reward.

That’s 1 in 6000, which, I’ll admit, is within the realm of possibility for happening once.

If we take the amount of pristine relics I have, 564, subtract say, 20, for daily bonus relics, what are the chances in 544 rolls of getting a 1/6000 chance at least 4 times?

Probability isn’t my strong suit so lemme know if I’m doing this wrong.

Chance of getting this particular roll+reward = 1/6000.

Therefore, the chance of getting it twice in a row is (1/6000)^2.

Which is like, something *10^-8

I’m SURE I’ve gotten duplicate Fractal rolls already before, multiple times. I understand that. That’s not a problem. That’s just RNG. But when it happens consecutively multiple times, then there’s something to maybe examine and see if there is something going on.

You guys don’t understand. I have a hypothesis on how to duplicate this that merely needs testing. If it causes this, then it’s a bug. If it doesn’t then it’s really really weird rng.

Believe me I’ve run my fair share of fractals as well. Judging by how often reward rng gets messed with unintentionally and intentionally, especially since after Fractured, I would not be surprised if there were some really obscure logic error that caused this.

Instead of being dismissive, maybe try out my hypothesis.

Like, take 2 apple trees. I’m saying this apple tree always has apples with worms. You guys are saying, oh, you must be unlucky, I’ve eaten thousands and thousands of apples from this other tree and I don’t get a lot of worms. And I’m saying go and eat an apple from the other tree.

Twice in a row. Yknow. On the same day. Consecutively. That’s two 1/50 chances (rounded way down), in a row. That’s rolling 1d50 twice and getting the same outcome. And that’s just for the rewards, much less the Fractal encounters.

It’s happened at least 4 times that I remember. The first time, it was a coincidence. The second time, it was interesting. The third time, it was weird. The fourth time, there’s something going on.

This is like someone who doesn’t do guild missions much getting the SAME precursor from the SAME guild missions rolls 2 weeks in a row. It’s like a lightning strike. Except it’s happened four times.

I don’t run 37s often BECAUSE I am afraid of this EXACT PHENOMENON happening.

Like, to put that into perspective, I’ve encountered a 1/2500 chance (minimum- that’s just for the same infused ring, much less the same fractal rolls or uninfused ring repeat) often enough that it has deterred me from running multiple fractals a day.

The fact that if I run with the same person for 37 and 50 and it doesn’t happen doesn’t mean that it isn’t consistent at all.

The observation I’ve made is that it happens when one person runs with two fresh groups (groups that have not done ANY fractal content at all that day)- that one person gets the same Fractal roll twice.

It’s very hard to test what I think duplicates it, since it involves 2 completely different Fractal groups. Group 1: has not run any fractal yet that day, and runs a 37. Group 2: consists of one member from Group 1, and the rest having not run any yet.

This scenario is difficult to control for, and is not likely to happen when pugging- hence why most players who either run 37/50 with the same group, or pug one or the other, don’t encounter this.

I can try to collect more data, but it will take a long time, since I do not actively try to do 37s daily as a result of this- nor is the group that I do 37 with around often.

So let me try to clear this up- There are not a lot of points on my 37-50 in one daily line. On that line, a disproportionate amount (To the point where it is predictable) land on or near the same spot. And you guys are saying “Well, if your sample size is large enough, anything can happen.” My sample size isn’t large.

To repeat my hypothesis:
Persons A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I have not run any Fractals yet today, not even setting foot in Fractals.
Person A runs a Fractal 37 with persons B,C,D,E, and receives reward X
Person A then runs a Fractal 50 with persons F,G,H,I, and receives an eerily similar Fractal roll, and receives reward X again.

If you can find 9 people to disprove my hypothesis, please do. Like I’ve said before, I don’t run 37s enough to gather more data in a timely manner.

“Also if you think about it…how could this happen when there are 4 other people that are likely to have different shards in their previous lower level fractal, then they all come together for a 50 which means it’s impossible for everyone to have the same shards as the previous lower level run..”

I run a 50 with guildies. They do not run Fractals before the 50- some do wurm and teq raids, others do dailies and such.

The fact that once I saw molten weapon facility, I sarcastically said “Oh, I wonder if we’ll get Grawl shaman and then a Vine of the Pale Tree”, shows that this does in fact, happen often enough to not just be RNG.

Perhaps if one of them had also run a fractal earlier it would have made things better?

EDIT 2:

my hypothesis:
It is assumed that swamp is rolled for for both fractals.

Persons A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I have not run any Fractals yet today, not even setting foot in Fractals.
Person A runs a Fractal 37 with persons B,C,D,E, and receives reward X
Person A then runs a Fractal 50 with persons F,G,H,I, and receives an eerily similar Fractal roll, and receives reward X again.

If anyone has the opportunity to test this independently and corroborate or disprove, please do!!!

I ran a 37 today, and got
Swamp (Bloomhunger)
Molten Weapon Facility (Tar Elementals, Red Oozes, Spiders, Earth Eles, Blue Oozes)
Grawl Shaman
Molten Boss
Reward: Vine of the Pale Tree (Infused)

I then ran a 50 later (with different people), and got
Swamp (Bloomhunger)
Molten Weapon Facility (Tar Elementals, Red Oozes, Spiders, Earth Eles, Blue Oozes)
Aetherblade(The ONLY difference)
Molten Boss
Reward: Vine of the Pale Tree (Infused)

Thing is, this is not the first or even second time something like this has happened- suspiciously similar fractal rolls, with the exact same reward. The probability of this happening even once is miniscule- multiple times, much much less.

There’s something going on in Fractals. Has anyone else experienced this happening, or should I go buy a lottery ticket?

EDIT: I should mention that I don’t run a 37 before my 50 often- but when I do, I am afraid of this phenomenon occurring, it’s happened that much. One time I remember in particular, I got two of the same uninfused ring after the exact same fractal rolls.

All of the siege weapons in the Ascalon City fractal are immune to single target ranged attacks, even at point blank range.

To duplicate:

1. Roll Ascalon City Fractal
2. Equip a single target ranged weapon, such as ranger longbow (engi pistol, ele fire staff can still hit because those are aoe)
3. Try to attack a siege weapon
4. Be obstructed at all ranges

Yes, it would be great to get an update on this! Thank you!

Bumping this- such a freaky animation bug. Like something out of the exorcist.

That is SO creepy! Happens for me as well.

It’s not even checking under. With Ranger sword auto attack, the disembodied feet are just in your face.

Yeah, I understand that. The cut off is extremely short though:
http://i.imgur.com/2vYZTRS.jpg

Like, yowza.

Beware if you’re a ranger and you use sword- it just ends up being disembodied feet flying around. Very disconcerting, and I would not have bought it had I know about that.

A good way to do this with a zerg is to stack on it and just have everyone spamming heal skills.

Not sure what aspect of it makes it work- the stacking or the heal skills, since the life drain skill has absolutely no recognizable tell other than “Oh, my HP is dropping insanely fast, guess I’m getting life drained.”

Either way, with the stack & heal method, it goes down fairly easily.

I suggest having the gem to gold conversion rate be consistent across all multiples.

From the screenshot in the first post, 9 gems = 1 gold, however, 1831 gems = 250 gold.

1831 / 250 ~ 7.32 gems per gold, or about 25% lower cost in gems for converting in bulk.

This is very confusing, as without any indications, one would expect the conversion rate to be consistent despite how many gems you convert at a time.

Moreover, this discrepancy in gem::gold ratio does not exist on the gem side (400/75 ~ 5.3 vs 2000/378 ~ 5.3), further confusing things.