Guild Wars 2

It’s a good trait to use while leveling in open-world pve, as that five seconds can allow your pet to quickly finish a foe and allow you to rally. Other than that, not worth the five points.

If you want to test it, I’m in game at the moment.

The effects of spirits do not stack with eachother, regardless of how many spirits are in the area, the effect the spirit applies to your character does not stack (in this case, the chance to trigger a 10% damage boost.) What I cannot say for certain is how the ICD that affects the other three non-elite spirits has if multiple ones are used.

For example, if there are two Sun Spirits, after Spirit A’s effect has triggered and you are on cooldown with Spirit A, can Spirit B apply its effect to your character and have it proc?

Well, first your weapon set is flawed. Short bow and Longbow only agree with eachother in a power-based, critical damage build. You’re not maximizing the conditions from your Short bow and the Longbow is just suffering because of investment into condition damage.

Admittedly, I am not an expert on Ranger in WvW. In Pve, however, you’re best to honestly pick one or the other, and focus on going the power route or going into conditions. Axe/Torch is a great secondary set to augment the condition build and Sword/Warhorn or Greatsword benefits the critical damage build. Your party will like you to focus on the power more than conditions, but run what you want to run. Consider taking 4x Superior Rune of the Mad King and 2x Rune of Lyssa in addition to a Rare Veggie Pizza to increase Short Bow bleed to 6s. Keep in mind during a condition build that having 13 stacks of bleeding with poison and burning makes 1 point of condition damage = 1 dps. Those are all easily obtainable in a condition-based build.

In all fairness, that while we shine as a condition-based build, it would be more prudent to run Power / Precision as it scales better and invest points into your pet to give it a stronger punch. This is, of course, my preferred method of playing. In the end, play what you feel is fun, but do your best to make it effective.

Well, let’s try to stir up a healthy conversation here.

As to the claim that I am “exaggerating” when I claim that pets sometimes don’t stand by our side when we stop but run forward as much kitten feet ahead of us into aoe or aggroing NPC mobs, here is proof. I have other screencaps like this. Considering we often have to stand on the edge of aoe circles to get range on our opponents a pet that runs even 5 feet ahead can be a severe nuisance, let alone the distance shown here.

I found that attachment to be rather silly that the pet got so far ahead of you. It’s never gotten that far away from me on its own, although apparently it can. But of course, the ai can only do so much for us before we have to use the skills and commands on our tool belt with pets.

If your pet decides to distance itself that far away from you, it is at enough range that your call back command will work. If you’re out of combat, you can stow it. If you’re in combat, you could swap it. If the swap is on cool down, you can heal it. The only problem I see with a wayward pet is you have to blow one of two cool-downs in combat or exercise common sense while out of combat and keep it stowed. The ai has also been updated as to not target pets or minions if the player is not in combat, making npc trash a moot point. Also an individual that targets your pet will not place you into combat immediately, allowing you to stow your pet if you notice in time. It is also necessary to keep in mind where the pet will spawn when swapped, trying to keep a clear line of attack to get into melee range, or swap adjacent to your target, and using the swap as a dodge for the pet when it is caught in a bad area. And let’s face it, if you’re in combat it won’t be beside you if you’re at 900’ range (unless spider / devour) and their movement is a lot easier to control, and if the melee pet is passive beside you, it’s already dead-weight.

While it can be annoying to control and a valid point that it should be fixed, nobody ever said house breaking pets was easy. And until the pet is updated, that’s just how it is, and getting used to doing that makes it a lot easier to manage the pet.

What more can be said of a video that actually claims the shortbow range reduction was positive? By apologizing for Anet’s incompetent handling of the ranger class you are in fact throwing us all under the bus. Are we supposed to be grateful for this?

It may not be perceived as positive for the short bow itself, however it can be seen in a positive light for creating diversity by getting players to drop it in lieu of other weapons. It also hasn’t reduced the effectiveness of the weapon in mid-range.

You have a lot of nerve attacking people here for their tone when most of your comments are ad hominems, and when the podcast you showed featured snide, condescending and hostile attacks against critics of the poorly-considered changes Anet made. So demanding people be “positive” when your own tone is so relentlessly negative is hypocrisy.

I thought our tone was cynical at best, not very negative but not entirely supportive. Maybe you have an opposing view point against the changes that was made by the population that over-reacted with strong negative views that became the vocal majority. Maybe you felt that even though some of them were QQ’ing, they were making valid criticisms that warranted consideration and shouldn’t have been uncouthly tossed aside so rashly? I’m just not sure what your point is there besides saying we’ve called the kettle black. Let’s not throw stones at each other, let’s try and have a healthy conversation debating the pro’s and con’s of changes, their effects, and how it affected the class both positively and negatively, and the current state of the game from the perspective of a Ranger.

This, of course, is just my opinion on those topics, and are probably unique to myself. At the end of the day it’s all about perception.

Just remember:

“With traps, nature spirits, and a stable of loyal pets at their command, rangers can adapt to any situation.”

Edit: Added a screen of the pet having similar issues to you, except stay even farther away.

Signet of the Hunt / Hilt Bash don’t stack with each other, it is annoying, it would be better to Hilt Bash, hit f2, and try to time the signet to get it on the second hit.

I’d ask them why they made a new grand master trait that isn’t worth the investment (Nature’s Voice.)

Thirteen seconds regen / swiftness that can only be maintained with a Shout Mastery traited “Guard” and 40 point investment vs. Healing Spring and Nature’s Bounty (33% increased regeneration duration) for only 10 points that allows a combo field for 15 seconds that pulses to remove conditions, adds regeneration, and direct healing through blast or leap finishers.

The only thing lost is swiftness, and if that’s such an important boon to your build Birds / Warhorn can keep it up quite well while alone, and in groups there are many, many ways to keep it going.

Name: Lunchbox October
Professions: Warrior, Mesmer, Thief, Ranger and Necromancer
Traited: Berserker (warrior), Phantasm & Reflection (mesmer), S/P DPS (thief), Beastmaster & Support / Signet DPS (ranger), Wells / DS Glass Cannon (necro)
Gear: Full exotics, some ascended
Experience: Finished all paths months ago but haven’t been back since, would like to get in the hang of it again.
Time: Evenings after 8 p.m. EST until 11 p.m. EST
Other: Not a speed clearer but not against skipping trash.

I’d like some sort of undead-themed pet. But, that’s just because it would be funny to watch a some skeletal beast devour a foe. Necromancers can’t have all the fun.

Or for the Python fans, a rabbit.

I don’t personally find trash mobs to be exceedingly difficult in most dungeon paths. Sure, if it is a groups first time doing the content then there are likely to be hiccups, but I don’t feel that dungeon content in terms of trash mobs have created an imbalance. Trash are victim to not having defiant stacks, and unless we’re lumping wandering champions into trash as well, makes it very easy to control through stuns, dazes, knock backs, knock downs. There are a lot of viable options for control on basic trash mobs, beyond the chill, cripple, fear, blindness, weakness and immobilize that can be inflicted upon a champion or higher mob. They can even be frozen with the ice bow.

Of course, some bosses and mobs are immune to these effects. Some parties favour high damage over crowd control and support. Some people might not understand the full depth of their profession and the available options it has. Some people get trapped in the mindset of there being only one way to play the profession sometimes. I think a willingness to adapt to the situation at hand overcomes most obstacles from enemies en route, and taking advantage of the strength you or other party members bring to the table to make the path go smoother.

I would prefer the dungeons be more polished The addition several wandering mobs that knock down and defeat people to stymy AC clears was a bad idea to me. I agree that they should make it something worth taking the time to kill. Vanquishing always provided a fun mode of game play in GW to revisit old content, would it be worthwhile to be able to “vanquish” a dungeon path for greater rewards?

Of course they would have to be balanced around being cleared this way, and might prove unworthy of the effort and resources.

Just my two cents.

Has anyone bothered to test if SotW prevents the pet from interacting with players to revive them with “Search and Rescue” with SotW active.?
Since the Signet of the Beastmaster’s trait prevents a player from reviving a fallen ally while under the effect SotW. Just curious.

Also a tip: Canines will attempt to leap/knockdown on their first attack but you can cancel this by hitting F1 again right as you see them start up the skill. They will wait out the short cooldown and try again

I love little npc magic tricks like this, thanks for sharing it!

this is the down side of the improved aggro table of npc towards thieves,
whenever the thief stealths the pet locks on the thief and stops attacking until revealed, even when there are alot of enemies nearby,
it seems like pets are forgetting that there are other enemies nearby to attack

Just trying to understand what you’re saying here, but when the pet is attacking a thief and the thief cloaks, does the pet respond to any of its commands (like attack, heel, active skill) or does it lock up?

I don’t really pvp with the ranger and mobs rarely cloak in pve, just curious if it meant more micro-managing of the pet.

Ah, sorry, think in my head faster than my hands type, main-hand sword*

If you’re going to use Torch … swap over to shortbow or use the Torch with an axe … lots of burning as you quickly launch your projectiles through the fire combo field.

But the main-hand Axe feels very unsatisfactory compared to other weapons, however I do see your point about the opportunity for more projectile finishers through its skills. Although then if feels like you’re throwing the build into a very niche role. And I’m not a fan of main-hand sword rooting me, it’s something that I wish didn’t happen. Although it’s very funny to use it as a way to traverse a crowd of trash, just target the guy in the back and spam it while your Ranger flails across the room.

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.

This is completely understandable, most of the Ranger’s utilities are selfish, either affecting only us or our pets (and in the case of on-use untraited signets, only our pets). Considering most classes are capable of the same abilities the Ranger has, it makes sense to use what you feel gives your team the best chance to complete the objective at hand.

pets are very unreliable in hitting

Their animations make them easy to avoid, however Rangers have access to a lot of cripples and immobilize to make the job easier. Or you can take a dps loss and run a ranged pet.

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.

Couldn’t have said it better myself, you don’t have to spend hours crunching numbers to have fun. To put it in a simplified context, I don’t need to use a Frog Suit to beat Super Mario 3, but it’s a lot of fun hopping over Bowser with one.

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.

This is why I haven’t bothered getting past level 20 of fractals on any of my characters, same boring dungeon with people who got snobbier as I went along. I much prefer hopping around between the the 25 other dungeon paths with friends and guildies.
To end a long post I doubt many people will read through, what is your trait build for a glass-cannon? To me the term glass-cannon emphasizes the greatest risk for the greatest gains, and whether you like to think of it this way or not, that comes from our pets, especially when you consider how fragile the cat / bird pets are untraited, the following information provided by another kind person in another post is very handy.

Many people simply say “put 30 points in Beastmastery to make your pet stronger” … this shows that those 30 points gives your pet:
+14.1% damage
+14.28% crit chance
+3,000 health
+14.1% damage mitigation

Would be nice if it added in Healing Power / Condition Damage as well, but then it might be too useful.

The burning is lackluster if there is anyone else in the group reliably applying burning to the target.

The torch off-hand is better than the spirit, hands down. But that also means you’re stuck using a main-hand without dagger for evasion and cripple or war horn for fury / swiftness. So it comes down to choosing a poor spirit or a poor weapon setup. I’m not saying the torch is a bad weapon, I just have trouble finding the balance and synergy with my other traits. But through the use of Throw Torch, Bonfire and trusting people to recognize it and use combo finishers creates a more reliable application of burning without wasting your utility slot on a spirit. And if you’ve traited to reduce off-hand cool downs or increase your condition durations it becomes much, much easier. It’s pretty sad that this utility skill can be beaten through skilled play and proper cool down management just by yourself. Of course, in a five-man dungeon party, why would you rely only on yourself to cause burning? Especially if a Guardian is around to help, or an Ele. Even Mesmer’s have a chance to inflict it with the staff.

Mesmers are similar to Guardians in this respect with Feedback, traited Focus, etc..

Mesmers are, in my humble opinion, the best class in the game – or at least the one I enjoy playing most. The ability to block and reflect projectiles consistently and in a large area makes them better than a Ranger in terms of broad support, mostly because when you compare the two classes they work in similar ways:

i) We can both remove conditions from allies with pulsing fields. Mesmers pulse every second but the field has a shorter duration and slightly longer cool-down but doesn’t use the healing slot, it also provides confusion on enemies and chaos armor to allies that use finishers. Compared to Healing Spring which only pulses every 3 seconds. Null Field is also ground-targeted allowing it to be placed without movement (making it less effective for people that enjoy the not-so-necessary 1500 range). If using the focus, Mesmers can create a light combo field to remove more conditions (and it is on a much, much shorter cool down). Rangers have access to an on-use signet that doesn’t actually do much unless your party just got hit by Epidemic, and even then, why bother? It’ll happen again in 15 seconds.

ii) We both apply passive regeneration to allies who can stand in / position themselves around us. Mesmers have to trait for illusions and phantasms to provide a pulsing regen around them. Rangers should trait into Nature Magic to make their regeneration applied last 33% longer or use Dwayna’s runes to make the regeneration provided by Healing Spring last its cool down. Both seem to fall short, but the Inspiration tree has a lot of benefits that you don’t gain through Nature Magic. Mesmers can reduce the cool down of glamour skills, reduce the cool down of focus skills and allow them to reflect projectiles, add in an extra 15% damage from phantasms (which, correct me if I am wrong, affects the base damage of reflected projectiles from iWarden). When I look at Nature Magic, it just seems to fit in all the rejected traits from Beast Mastery and Wilderness Survival while pigeon-holing every spirit trait, having horrible 5/15/25 breakpoints, and features, well, unnecessarily selfish traits. Nature’s Protection is good but in a bad tree. Rejuvenation is great but not worth the 5 points when you have on-use healing that can be more effective. Fortifying Bond is absolutely worthless unless you like watching your pet gain a fraction of the duration of the boons your receive. Fortifying Bond should be better, a lot better, considering the cap on the number of allies that can be affected by skills and how the targeting system favors players over pets and npcs, your pet is likely to never get those nice party boons (unless you play at an ineffective 1500 range).

And I say playing at 1500 range is ineffective because you have a second weapon-set, traits that benefit you for swapping weapons, the Longbow skills are pretty bad, sure we like Rapid Fire, but the rest of the bar isn’t anything to brag about and the terrible auto-attack does nothing to help it. To put it bluntly, if you’re able to flank the target effectively with the Short bow, you will match or beat the Longbow damage overall damage. You have access to better skills in fights that require movement and control. You have access to a stun, sure the cool down sucks and defiant stacks get in the way, but Piercing Arrows on trash gives you to opportunity to make it count. This, of course, is merely my opinion and the reasons I don’t use the Longbow, especially now that Greatsword is slightly better and provides as much defensive options in melee range as main-hand sword.

All the time, one different professions using many different skills that aren’t from the same skill type (i.e. swapping a Survival skill with a Signet on my Ranger and still having the skill I changed be on cooldown.)

I’ve been suffering the same lag as many of you. Live in Canada, playing Seafarer’s Rest. Been playing the Support Ticket game the past few days, and while they have been polite and helpful, it is very frustrating that my ticket isn’t staying with one specific support representative. Instead of building a rapport with a single person to work through the issue, I’ve been bounced around five times between three different people, with only one of them actually seeming to care about the issue I am having and suggesting different ways to alleviate the latency error. He even simplified his verbose and articulate post with a Star Trek analogy (like too much air in a balloon!). The other guys were just useless, saying that the error was on my ISP’s side and not Anets, while my original ticket said clearly that I had contacted my ISP and they could do nothing about the packet loss between my connection and Anet. So, essentially, I am stuck in limbo with neither side able to improve the connection, and proxy services don’t alleviate the lag enough to make a difference. For you folks experiencing 1-2s skill lag, I know it sucks, but kitten I envy you. I’ve been caught in 30-90s moments where the gameplay freezes, except my party chat and guild chat work fine. So much so that I can receive private messages while my client is unable to process the data from NPCs and players fighting.

It’s not a perfomance issue, I know the difference between my FPS stuttering and pinball rubberbanding.

Discussion tab speculates 50% proc chance.

Not blaming him, but sometimes it’s just better for a person from Anet to keep quiet about the beneficial aspects of this patch when the rest of it seemed to hinder its effectiveness.

Robert has done his part. Be kind to him! He is responsible for dungeons, not balancing professions. He just happens to be a ranger.

I do appreciate his candor in discussing some topics of Rangers with us, but unfortunately his only contribution to this thread was reminding us that AR is actually applied, even if the tool tip doesn’t show it. As it currently stands, the folks at Anet that are responsible for profession balance neglect the Ranger. I’m not saying we need to be buffed into some sort of amazing, game-breaking profession, but I would appreciate the ability to compete with other players in the game without being pigeon-holed into cookie-cutter builds.

As it exists right now, Rangers are very poor utility classes. It doesn’t mean we can’t provide something for the party, but it always feels like the lesser of available options. Now this is mostly my opinion, but I’ll do my best to support it with facts.

Spirt of Frost vs Banner of Discipline

On paper, an across the board 10% increase to base damage sounds great. If it could be maintained and proc effectively, well then it would be a must-have on any Ranger build. Unfortunately, it has a health bar, is either stationary or follows the Ranger directly and requires very careful movement to make it effective, and at best, can only trigger 50% of the time.

The banner has no health, a smaller area of effect weighed against greater benefit throughout its duration (170 precision, 15% critical damage) and can be moved at will. It also belongs to a profession that needs no investment into the traits to increase the effectiveness of the skill. It is also on a profession that can produce incredible amounts of burst damage.

Now, mathematically, on paper Frost beats Banner. But because spirits have health, Banner will always outlast Frost, does not have an internal cool down of 10 seconds (I’ve heard it’s bugged and doesn’t have the ICD, but cannot confirm nor deny). And while Banner’s effect only affects players for 95 seconds of its 120 second cool down, it will proc off of every critical hit. It also increases its own effectiveness by adding in an extra 8%~ critical chance, giving it anywhere from 5%-8% overall damage increase (if you’re under fury, which all warrior are.)

Now this is just one example, there a more (mostly with the spirits because, hey, they’re lackluster at best and terrible at their worst.)

@Quickening Zephyr

It’s an across the board nerf to quickness, sure, but it’s also a huge loss to our overall dps, regardless if you run a burst or condition based build because of the need for Rangers to rely on the increased activation time to keep up with other classes. It’s a huge loss to our overall capability to revive downed allies in tough spots – many times in the past I could gamble and get my party members up with a well-timed pet swap, and now this has certainly made it difficult and require a higher skill cap to time effectively.

@Greatsword

Too little, too late. Would’ve saved us all a headache if it wasn’t changed between beta weekends and launch.

@Felines fixed

Not a buff, but a fix masquerading as one.

@Pet ressing

Still doesn’t work properly in all situations. Can’t give specific details about the failures of it, but Brown Bears don’t work all the time. Bad news bears, I guess.

Overall, well, you ever hear about when they would bury a person in a cemetery, some cases they would leave a bell attached to a string inside the coffin, so in the even of a person accidentally being buried alive they could ring in the hopes of some person hearing it?

I think it’s time we stopped trying and accepted the fact no one is coming to rescue us. I do enjoy playing a Ranger, but I certainly don’t feel encouraged to play one after these patch notes.

I’ve gotten horrendous lag in many different places. I have tried many different fixes, all working to some degree, but they eventually fall apart. I’ve tried playing on EU and NA servers and I still receive the same lag. I have contacted my ISP, given them trace data, and they’ve told me it’s not on their end.

I, like many others, are seeking more information from Arena Net and, like may others, have not heard a single world. Time to toss the game into the garbage bin until this can be figure out.

Well, my two cents, not like they matter much.
First char was the Ranger, love him as much now as I did then. I feel like the class rewards me for putting in the effort to make it effective instead of my other level 80 toons which have less of a skill curve (greatsword warrior comes to mind). I loved it for what I could do, but like most people have said – other classes can do that better, and usually dps better. When dps matters in my guild groups, I don’t bring the Ranger. When I know it’s not an issue and I can play a more supportive cc role, then I enjoy playing the profession.

Yea, it’s weak, but I like it. It’s like saying the only way to play Doom is with the BFG – I like to chainsaw my demons sometimes.

I’m a big fan of using ranged pets and keeping my foe crippled, immobilized or stunned while we destroy them from a range.

Something tells me Robert’s brown bear would be called Gentle Ben
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqWNhDohn6Q

There are so many small problems that are contributing to the big picture that I’ve sadly lost hope in the class. As it is, the only reason I use my ranger is to hunt roaming gangs of bots, report them, and then run alongside them until they get banned, it’s fun to time it, like watching paint dry. I’ve just stopped defending the class, I may enjoy it but it is far from being at its potential, and this notion of damage > survivability: thieves do more damage, have more tricks and don’t lose dps from a dead pet.

Hopefully the aforementioned non-existent updates will come one day.

Just upgrade your jewels from shards to crystals, and if necessary, crystals to orbs.

I’m very, very annoyed while pugging when people say “invite” in a whisper, but you don’t have the ability to right click on their name and invite to party. I can right-click and join their party (assuming they are in one to join) but this feature is notably absent.

This becomes an even greater problem when people use irregular characters in their names.

Fix it, should have been there on launch, You had five years and couldn’t get party invites correct.

Regardless of my pet, my CHARACTER will attack said target as well

If this is such a problem to your gameplay and style, switch off auto-targetting in your options (this is helpful for many other reasons on the ranger as well). This will allow you to use skills without your pet rushing off to attack things, and will allow you to use your greatsword leap skill as an escape / dodge method.

I just want to be able to toggle off those stupid Commander symbols other people wear. Yeah, great, in WvW it helps, in a five-man dungeon you’re just being a dick.

So, why not allow pets to be “evading” at the same time the player dodges?

This makes an incredible amount of sense. Been thinking it from day one.

In instances where you fight underwater but are able to get out of the water, or on land near water, it can be very useful to plant them in a safe spot with your alternate skill bar and then return to the action. Does it really help? No, but it doesn’t hurt either.

Scootabuser.4915

I don’t play hunters

I can tell you don’t play Rangers. I can also make the presumption that you don’t understand how the class works, beyond the argument that it is inferior to your Thief because you can kite something as well, or better, than a Ranger. That’s your opinion, and that’s fine. But I know my Ranger can take a punch, my Thief can’t. In this not-so-perfect world with lag, distractions, and interruptions, the inevitable conclusion is that you’re going to get hit. People will go down. Decisions have to be made. Risks are taken.

As for your DPS remarks, Rangers are a sustained, attrition-based class. We have no burst capability beyond Rapid Fire.
Our true power lies in conditions, I don’t know any other class that can maintain burning, poison and over 15 stacks bleeding on foes.
Let’s do the math here, using gear and traits that stack condition damage, a superior sigil to push it above 1500 condition damage, and using condition duration boosts. Weapons are Shortbow, Axe & Torch.

• 84 + (1500*0.1) = 234 dps from poison
• 328 + (1500*.25) = 703 dps from burning
• 42.5 + (1500*.04) = 117.5 dps per stack of bleeding, or 1762.5 at 15 stacks

Grand total: 2699.5 dps*
Total with 25 stacks of Might: 3662 dps**

*this does not include damage from attack skills, pets, traits or utility skills or benefit of Might.
**Might calculated at level 80

Since Throw Torch can only hit one foe and Bonfire unreliable to maintain it, the use of Split Axe and Poison Volley, Crossfire and the trait Piercing Arrows causes the loss of constant burning. Using Quickshot and Crippling Shot with Flame Trap can give you some aoe burning, but not reliably, reducing your area damage. Besides your main target, you are only likely to maintain 10-12 stacks of bleeding. This is due to a number of factors, mostly because your pet does not attack multiple foes and the bonus effect from Crippling Shot will only apply three stacks to one target.

Therefor, this reduces your, for a lack of better term, cleave condition damage to between 1700-2200 dps before might, depending on combo finishers.

Keep in mind these stats do not include your base weapon damage and ignore armor.

MaRko.3165

To conclude, we are not universally hated or useless. If you feel that way play another class.

Jay.3284:

2. While surviving in a dungeon is important, you can’t efficiently bring that to the team. Granting vigor to allies with Healing Spring is good on paper, but it is not effective in the real world. It requires allies to stand in a certain spot for a certain time to get the full affects of it. Leaving them stationary in an area for a prolonged period of time to get a 15 second vigor if they absolutely don’t get attack. (And if they don’t get attacked and managed to get the full 15 second vigor, they didn’t need it in the first place). I’m better off with a Guardian/Warrior/Necro/Ele/Engi for surviving those extended periods of time

5. Healing Spring again; read point 2. and replace vigor with regeneration. Also Ranger’s don’t have their OWN blast finisher’s to fully utilize their own healing spring. I’m better off with an Ele/Engi for condition removers/regeneration/water fields

Something i said before, but applies to this.

Seems to me this is a problem that is affected by your placement of the field. It’s not a fire-and-forget. Let’s break it down:

• Regeneration
  This is the true benefit of the skill, vigor is only gravy. You’ve limited its benefits to forcing allies to stand in it to get the effects from it, which is simply not true. To gain regeneration directly from the skill, allies are only required to stand in it during bursts, which occurs upon activation and every three seconds for 15 seconds. This allows players to move out of the field without being penalized if they can re-enter it before the next pulse. It also allows projectiles to apply regeneration for allies outside of it when they hit a target through it. What this means is placing it between your ranged party members and the target may be less effective than standing in the combo field but does not force them to remain in to receive benefits. The regeneration also uses a high co-efficient from your healing power, making the regeneration granted from the skill capable of exceeding the burst heal from it’s use, and when traited or runed, well exceed the duration of its cool down.

• Vigor
  This effect is present when traited and only affects characters that are required to dodge, making it highly desirable for melee roles, while being less effective for ranged. An ally needing vigor is never going to be a reason to use this skill, likewise, vigor isn’t a counter-argument to it. Considering the size of the field, it is safe to dodge to one side, and back again, without leaving its boundaries, while keeping vigor and regeneration.

• Blast Finishers
  This is the only real drawback to it is that Rangers lack an on-use blast finisher, however our drakes do have one, and relying on your party for these isn’t difficult or cumbersome, many classes have access to them. However several pets use leap combos, granting your pet extra healing if necessary as well as yourself (Sword and Greatsword both have leaps you are able to use twice during one Healing Spring). These are selfish heals, but very helpful.

To sum it up:

• Ranged classes don’t require vigor as often and can trigger projectile finishers
• Melee classes benefit from vigor and regeneration
• The Ranger has skills that benefit from being close to their target and move away while allowing them to also receive the benefit of projectile finishers (Shortbow and main-hand Axe)
• Melee encounters support dropping it directly on foes
• Ranged encounters encourage stacking to receive benefits

The real question one should ask is:

What is the most effective way to use the skill?

In most encounters the best option is to use it adjacent to your foe. This is because you will always provide a combo field for ranged allies, provide regeneration and vigor for melee allies, and will significantly increase the lifespan of your pet.

During ranged encounters or stationary encounters, having the group stack around it is also very effective. To put it in perspective, during phase 1 of Lupi you can hit the duration cap for regeneration. This passive healing can be very effective during phase 2 to recover from his powerful single target shots if you are unable to avoid them. Anyone that has played Castlevania is instantly reminded of those Medusa heads and how kitten annoying they are.

The issue of it being effective is based upon player skill and recognizing the need to stand in the combo field, much like Time Warp from a Mesmer.

Prism.5649:

All in all, weapon activation time is an extremely minor aspect of what makes a weapon balanced or not. Ranger Longbow for example is better than Shortbow with the right gear, traits, and situation, even though it has what you amusingly believe to be a “broken” fire rate.

This is true, it does have its place. But let’s compare the two anyways.

The real problem is that it is placed into a niche role on the ranger, most weapon sets are based around conditions in one way or another, with the exception of the Greatsword or the off-hand War Horn, however the Shortbow benefits from being closer to your target for Poison Volley, includes skills to improve kiting and dodging with Quick Shot and Crippling Shot. To me this makes it a more effective weapon in a dungeon than the Longbow.

Of course, in the right situation, traited with Piercing Arrows and high critical damage, Rapid Fire can be excellent burst damage. The only problem is it leaves you with a poor auto-attack skill for the duration of your weapon swap cooldown. Barrage and Point Blank Shot really don’t make up for it, and inevitably I used this time re-apply my utility skills that are not on cooldown before swapping back to my other, usually stronger (all dependent on stats of course), weapon set.

That being said, the right or ideal situation rarely presents itself for us to effectively position ourselves to make the burst damage from the Longbow more effective than the downside of using its auto-attack. To me, this is the ideal situation:

• Foes lined up in a nice, solid row, preferably from back or side to gain 10% damage from flanking (Longbows do benefit from having high Skirmishing), to make it really effective, more than four foes would be ideal but it is very unlikely.
• Quickness (from pet swapping or Quickening Zephyr)
• Fury, which can be gained from weapon swapping with points in Skirmishing
• Vulnerability, conveniently applied with Hunter’s Shot to all foes before Rapid Fire.

Keep in mind the real damage is not from hitting a single target, but hitting as many foes as you can.

The weapon grants us access to two combo-finishing projectiles, excluding the 20% chance auto-attack and Rapid Fire (which is likely to grant one, maybe two, as well). Compared to the Shortbow it falls short, as you are likely to get at least one finished from Poison Volley and two more from Quick Shot and Crippling Shot, in addition to a faster auto-attack to increase the likelihood of more projectile finishers.

What does this mean?

The Shortbow is more effective at finishing combos than the Longbow, capable of better movement through a built-in dodge and swiftness skill, a more reliable cripple that can be used while kiting (Barrage is amazing versus groups but stopping to channel it really limits the distance you can gain while kiting), this makes it a better all-around weapon to have and use. Yes, it lacks a knock-back but has a daze and / or stun.

Does the Longbow have its role in our arsenal?

Absolutely.
Some classes can get away without having their full set of weapons to choose from, I find myself constantly changing my two sets as much as I swap utility skills when I know that certain foes, mechanics, or objectives benefit from the capabilities they have.

Of course, that’s just me, I enjoy running a condition Ranger over other builds, not that they are more or less effective, just feels capable of performing well against a single target and multiple ones.

TL;DR

Prism.5649:

As I said above every weapon has a situation that it was designed for, but to me the Longbow’s ideal situation seems far too specific with not enough leeway to make it a balanced weapon.

And that is why it falls short outside of its moment in the sun.

“I second Dante’s argument that no other class has a trait system so incredibly messed up as the ranger’s.”

That made me chuckle, as it is our traits at least work, maybe misplaced, but they function. Necro’s have nine broken traits. Although I do agree that the trait system needs tweaks for our class.

I’ve seen it happen several times, and usually it is a thief to blame. There is a 5-point trait bonus that releases blinding power, which will cloak everyone, and probably reset him. Made for a very frustrating phase 1 until we discovered that.

Stand behind the NPC and let her take it. Stand with a ranger’s pet between you and him. Dodge before he fist-pumps before the smash to avoid it.

We’ve got so many other problems with out class, most notably the weak damage of main-hand axe, that a major overall of pet controls would be more of a problem than a solution. As it stands, pets require a degree of skill and familiarity to operate successfully, separating good Rangers from the rest of the flock. Can you be effective without your pet? Absolutely. They just make us better.

Did not see your post, must have added it while I was typing.

Very good point – it becomes a little more convoluted and confusing and requires knowledge of the fight and cues from the boss to be effective, and even then sometimes you’re stuck with a dead pet – which is a major drawback because our cool downs to protect the pet are very, very long and ineffective over the course of an encounter

To make an easy example, we’ll use the end boss from Citadel of Flame path three.
He’s not very difficult, but produces an unavoidable AoE attack that will kill your pet, or at the very least knock him off the platform. My preferred pet here is ranged, I like to disengage him from combat and keep him as far from the boss as possible, then re-engage the pet. When the boss does his AoE attack that sends a ring from the centre of the platform to the edges, performing a quick evade and then swapping pets. This is not ideal for all AoE bosses, but it is my basic technique.

To sum it up:

i) Have ranged pet attacking from maximum range. Move away from your pet.
ii) If able to avoid the attack, call pet towards you. This saves a cool down.
iii) If not, dodge away to safe spot and then swap pets, disengage pet from combat.
iv) Re-position pet at maximum range, or re-position self and swap again.

Encounters that do heavy aoe, like Lupi, make this tactic harder to use, but especially in Arah because of how erratic his AoE attacks are, I find your pet to be more of a liability during the entire encounter, and with the removal of the waypoint resurrection, using those two seconds of quickness from a swap can be used to help quickly res a fallen ally or used in conjunction with “Search and Rescue” to resurrect a dead ally with a dead pet negating any Boss aggro. Again, these are situational, but as it stands pets lack a dodge mechanic and take full damage from AoE, making any encounter that has it harder to keep your pet alive without sacrificing trait points and your own dps to keep them alive.

During any encounter with Subject Alpha, beyond path 1, will ALWAYS kill your pet. There is no way to save it, you will eventually burn through your cool downs. Likewise goes with mechanic fights, your pet will either be unable to help you attack the objects, (like the end boss of CoF path 2), or be unable to be effective due to group tactic, (like end boss of TA up & Dredge Transport in SE path 3). At the end of the day, pets are only truly effective in straight fights without multiple phases or mechanics. They excel versus trash but fall short versus the boss.

In some cases where your own survival can be maintained by active evasion, using your heal just because your pet needs it is always good. If you’re in an area where you can spare the utility slot, Signet of the Wild heals your pet for a higher co-efficient than it heals yourself, giving pets excellent passive regeneration when combined with a well-placed Healing Spring or 15 points in Nature Magic to grant them three seconds of regeneration every time you gain regeneration. Of course these affect trait and build setup, but can be effective if balanced appropriately, and gives access to a 33% increase to regeneration trait, increasing it to four seconds, and being effective party support as well.

To make a long post short: pet swapping doesn’t guarantee it, since the pet never spawns directly on top of the ranger. If it could, it would be a safe way to avoid the AoE, but since it spawns about 400 units away from you to the left-hand-side most of the time, it helps to try and make sure that area is clear. I know, it’s a pain in the kitten And sometimes, just to be a dick, they spawn on the opposite side.

Interesting build, will have to try it.

To add to your Search and Rescue point, during aoe-heavy fights, like Lupi in Arah where people are likely to go down, you can use it to send a dead pet to res a dead person without aggro on anything. Also, when traited or runed (Dwayna’s are nice) Healing Spring will lay down a lot of regeneration, well beyond it’s cooldown, allowing you to swap the fern hound for another pet, if desired.

Well, let’s debunk a couple of those problems.

1) Pathing.

Two easy solutions, ranged pets or adjacent swapping. This either limits your DPS by using pets that put more into tough / vit than power / precision, or puts you directly into the battle instead of being a safe distance. However, if you’re running Axe / Torch or Shortbow, you have skills that benefit from being in this range, from time to time, and using this strategy can be effective, while using Quickshot or Lightning Reflexes to escape. Again, a devour or spider would be the easiest solution while taking a DPS loss.

2) The GUI, HUD, and additional generic cop compliment Brian.
It’s not that great, I’ll be honest. Not being able to change my pet while it is stowed annoys me. This is an area where third-party support would benefit more than in-house.

3) Casting / response times.
I look at my pet’s attack animation before selecting it’s active skill, which significantly reduces the amount of time it takes for ones that require channeling times. An easy way to avoid this is using instant-cast effects that do not interrupt your pets attack animation (because this is the cause of the delay) or using pets with fast attack animations (like kitties) or pets with static attack animations (like devours).

Now this things ARE annoying, but to increase the effectiveness of skills with cast animations, that two seconds of quickness from putting five points into Beast Mastery helps immensely. Those three-second cast times are a breeze and rarely miss for me.

At the end of the day, being an effective Ranger is about managing your pet, because a good chunk of our direct damage comes from them as well as some nice conditions / support. A really good pet is the Jaguar, it’s stealth ability can be very useful, although it is a glass-cannon pet and requires good reflexes on swapping and healing.

As far as I am concerned, the Ranger is the superior attrition class, capable of surviving an encounter while maintaining poison, burning, and between 15-20 stacks of bleeding, when stacking condition duration food / trait bonuses. And having Epidemic from a Necro only helps.

I know it’s not the most efficient manner to do what you want, but it is there. The mousewheel might work for some, but I like having it as my zoom in / out control, considering the difficulty with camera angles being obstructed by foreground objects.

GS DPS isn’t great, but it does have a built in evade on the auto-attack, and is viable as a tank / support weapon. Giving it a blast finisher would allow a ranger to get off five combo finishers from their Healing Spring, add in a couple of kitties for their leap finishing f2 skills and that’s another two, creating a lot of direct healing in addition to the powerful regeneration it can produce, which creates a conundrum and imbalance. As it stands a support ranger using the great sword is powerful, when coordinated with the rest of your party Healing Spring is ridiculously powerful.

So, yes, it is a very weak weapon to use in a DPS build, but if anything instead of adding a blast finisher to the weapon, change the leap finisher of Swoop to become a blast finisher. This would give the Ranger a controlled blast while not increasing the number of combos the weapon is capable of creating.

If you use the recall button it works perfectly fine, sure you have to hit each time your change targets (piercing arrows / bouncing axes / cleave attacks do not cause it to reset). While it may be convenient to bind it, the control in the game already exists with the f3 command.

Good day,

The pet skill Protecting Screech does not seem to be operating as the game text lists. It says it provides 10 seconds of the boon Protection, however it only applies 5 seconds. Is this a skill bug or a skill text error?

Thanks,
Have a good one.

Good day everyone, hope you’ve had a fun Halloween.

I’m very curious why the word “Sega” is censored in the game. For amusement I run the game with “Maximum” setting enabled. Things like “Kes—-” pop up instead of Kessex and other pointless things. Anyways, today I stumbled upon the inability to send the word Sega out; just because I compared the long load times to the Sega CD.

One of those strange, odd things in life.