Guild Wars 2

Ranger never really flourishes in PvE. There’s never a reason to take it over a different class. (Obviously some will take offense to this, but hey!)

GS does work on guardians, however I find the hammer with blast finishers and perma AoE protection to be more useful in dungeons.

Condi damage on warrior isn’t very good. Stick with a direct damage zerker oriented build. (You don’t have to use GS, Axe/Mace is okay too, but GS does the most dps)

Mesmer I generally run Sword/Focus – Greatsword and I find myself doing melee most of the time. Signet of Inspiration and time warp are key abilities.

I abhor underwater fighting in this game.

Don’t like it whatsoever.

Guardian: AH Hammer/Staff
Warrior: Greatsword damage oriented
Mesmer: Shatter with might stacking boon/time warp
Thief: Damage oriented with blind support (Usually S/P-SB)
Engi: Throw grenades and hope your fingers last
Ele: D/D Support/Damage (30 water 30 arcane 10 air)
Necro: Conditions… I guess!
Ranger: Pfffhahahahaha

Will weapon skills ever see more variety, or are you (Anet) happy with the way they are currently, and have no plans on changing it?

By variety I mean optional skills. (2-3 options for skill #5, for example)

The only one that’s close is Engi rifle.

Ranger shortbow has multiple conditions- bleeding(stacking), poison, cripple

Warrior sword- has a bleed auto attack and a bleed adren burst (The damage itself is poor, but the ability to stack the bleed is there)

Thief Pistol does need help, but even that has a bleeding auto attack and bleeding stealth attack, giving itself some stacking power.

Underwater weapons… yeah probably, but most underwater weapons are absolutely terrible anyways.

GS is pretty ‘alone’ in that regard.

Not many other weapons have a random condition slapped in that doesn’t mesh with any of the other -actual- weapon skills.

It’d be like… longbow #3 giving poison… Just why?

Dojo.1867:

This is not true imo. Yes, it is the only condition damage skill in the set but it simply does both. The power scaling is decent right now. Consider the bleeds just a bonus that will add damage even with 0 condition gear because you know … there is a base cond dmg and if you get might stacks etc. it will even raise.

Having both damage types does not mean a weapon makes no sense. It just has a bit of hybrid flavor and I can see people that used sword+GS with traps and some condition gear to be very happy over more bleeds. It is a plain buff and even if it doesn’t help pure power builds that much (it still helps) it will allow for more build variety.

I always thought this game has to many weapon sets that either do only power or only condition damage. It is great to get more choices that have a bit of both.

A good example of doing ‘both’ is the necro staff. It lends itself to Condi, Power and hybrid builds.

If you want GS to be a ‘hybrid’ weapon, give it something else that is condition related.

1 Bleed skill does not a hybrid make.

Dojo-

That’d be true if rangers were better than most at putting down combo fields. (We do have some, this is true)

But other classes have far more fields and far more ways to exploit them and use them. While at the same time providing more utility and damage than the ranger.

Ranger needs to have reasons people should -want- to have them in the party. Obviously they should not be necessary, but nor should be they be the collective burden they are now.

Dojo.1867:

Neb.4170:

Dojo.1867:

Lert.6287:

Well, they will boost GS – weapon barely used by rangers and not even requested.
Pretty much for one (unneeded) boost comes 3-5 nerfs, so it’s pretty possible they will nerf something common claiming they just fixed bug.

What? It was requested by many including me. You say yourself it is barely used because it was overnerfed in the betas. Getting some love finally is what it deserves and it will be quite nice for some beastmaster builds and also for pve. The huge aoe swings and evades help there.

From what I saw they gonna buff Mauling Strike damage and work on some cooldowns which must mean 4 or 5 or both. If they allow for more blocks or interrupts this will either mean more survivability or more pet damage. Anyway I am very happy with GS getting some buffs. Was about time and I am atleast satisfied with the incoming Rnager changes due to that.

Neb.4170:

Maul will get more bleed damage… for a weapon that has absolutely zero condition support.

Seriously you people need to atleast aknowledge good changes. The GS changes ARE a good thing so we are atleast getting something. Don’t kittentalk if they give us something. And GS alwas had those bleed on Maul and while it sure is no cond DPS weapon this is still a plain buff. Also many people pair GS with SB.

Again … I can see that Ranger once again doesn’t get the amount of changes he would need but THANK YOU ARENANET FOR THE GREATSWORD CHANGES!

I would rather the weapon skills made sense, rather then just receive bandaid damage increases of 5%.

But that’s just me.

Wait you think GS skills make no sense? I agree on the throw sword part of 4 (and even that might be decent if it was a good damage burst) but beside that GS has an awesome skillset with tons of utility. All it ever lacked was damage.

Maul does not make sense. That was the whole point of my post.

It is a bleeding attack in a weapon that has zero condition support.

From my pov, the ranger really lacks group support. This is one of the reasons I really dislike taking mine into dungeons.

Getting a blast finisher would improve this greatly.

Dojo.1867:

Lert.6287:

Well, they will boost GS – weapon barely used by rangers and not even requested.
Pretty much for one (unneeded) boost comes 3-5 nerfs, so it’s pretty possible they will nerf something common claiming they just fixed bug.

What? It was requested by many including me. You say yourself it is barely used because it was overnerfed in the betas. Getting some love finally is what it deserves and it will be quite nice for some beastmaster builds and also for pve. The huge aoe swings and evades help there.

From what I saw they gonna buff Mauling Strike damage and work on some cooldowns which must mean 4 or 5 or both. If they allow for more blocks or interrupts this will either mean more survivability or more pet damage. Anyway I am very happy with GS getting some buffs. Was about time and I am atleast satisfied with the incoming Rnager changes due to that.

Neb.4170:

Maul will get more bleed damage… for a weapon that has absolutely zero condition support.

Seriously you people need to atleast aknowledge good changes. The GS changes ARE a good thing so we are atleast getting something. Don’t kittentalk if they give us something. And GS alwas had those bleed on Maul and while it sure is no cond DPS weapon this is still a plain buff. Also many people pair GS with SB.

Again … I can see that Ranger once again doesn’t get the amount of changes he would need but THANK YOU ARENANET FOR THE GREATSWORD CHANGES!

I would rather the weapon skills made sense, rather then just receive bandaid damage increases of 5%.

But that’s just me.

Maul will get more bleed damage… for a weapon that has absolutely zero condition support.

Maul- Blast finisher?

It has a good animation for it, with the bear stomp and all. It would basically be like the Guardian’s mighty blow.

I think this would help -a lot- for the utility of the weapon, without spiking it’s damage much.

Thoughts?

Rengaru.4730:

It makes me especially sad that Warrior banners, which are innately better than spirits (unkillable, better buffs, mobile), are getting buffed.

I did a facepalm at that bit. Banners are pretty kitten good compared to Spirits.

Yet they get buffed?

Anet has been a part of NCSoft since 2002.

Aka before GW1 even came out. If you were a ‘die hard gw fan’ you were a die hard NCSoft game fan.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ArenaNet

Warrior for most popular.

Engi for least.

For the tons of spider hatchlings there are two good options.

1. Reflection wall. The spiders are all ranged attackers and will kill themselves very quickly if reflected.

(Note, reflection only works on the spider hatchlings, not the Queen.)
2. LoS behind the wall in the back of the room. This will cause all the spiders to come there and group up, letting you AoE them down easily.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

pulsecodesgnl.3470:

Inquiry for you then (regarding Rangers in dungeons). My first level 80 was a Ranger and I loved the skills and gameplay, A LOT. At first I had a mix between damage and survivability and thought I was doing fine damage-wise; I mean, I survived, I was constantly doing damage, had a intuitive and on-demand rotation that kept max damage up, and contributed to the party in a lot of ways in lieu of support as well, or so I thought.

I began to question how I compared to other players to improve my playstyle and found that my damage was incredibly paltry, that other players (not even spec’d for damage) could down mobs and do more damage in general. So I conversed with a guildie on his damage Ranger spec, came up with my own to maximize damage output and noticed the difference in DPS quite obviously yet I was still far behind other classes and non-DPS builds.

Now this same guildie (who has spent 1500 hours on this main Ranger of his and played every facet of the game) came to the same consensus a long time ago. The fact that Rangers simply do less damage in a damage spec than pretty much any other class (maybe Condition Necro if you argue bleedcaps).

That being said and moving onto the dungeon part, once you get to a point in this game where you have accomplished most everything as far as the main content goes you aim for the vanity (e.g. skins) which are accomplished by repeating content (farming dungeon tokens). Grouping up with people as a Ranger is a risky process, not just because of how the group will tolerate you, but because the composition of a group may require that someone with more skill help carry them to a degree, and that simply cannot be done with a Ranger. Every Ranger build I have experimented with has a ‘better’-version in some other class/build. Rangers were promised attention months ago, and as a result received buffs to their Underwater skills.

As a player of a Ranger in dungeons, do you not agree with this assessment? If not, is there something that we are doing wrong as players that make Rangers more viable? Is this concern still being looked into by the designers? And as a fellow Ranger player, do you ever speak on our behalf?

Rangers have their highs and lows like every other class. They have really good DPS, but they have to work at it a bit more than other classes like warrior or mesmer. It’s possible just not as easy.
As for ranger balance, we have frequent meetings about balance where we discuss that sort of stuff – I go to those meetings on behalf of dungeon content and to lend my experience with ranger knowledge.

I personally accept the tradeoff of damage for survivability (Can’t do damage if you’re dead). I tend to run a condition build using shortbow and sword\dagger, and focus on being supportive and holding aggro while keeping a steady output of DPS through conditions. Rangers have an incredible amount of evasion and damage mitigation if you are very focused and know when to use your skills and heals (prot on dodge roll, vigor on heals) means you can keep prot for when you mess up, and always have evasions ready. There are some very successful dungeon builds, but most of them aren’t DPS focused.
We’re working on ideas for making pets better in dungeons. There’s a list of reasons we can’t just tweak a number and call it good (it wouldn’t actually solve the problem), but it is something we are aware of and working on.
One of the things you have to think about, is how the game is played. If we buff rangers just for dungeons, than they are too strong for the open world. Considering I can solo most content in the open world by letting my pet tank, I feel ranger is very powerful outside of dungeons. We can’t have rangers that change based on PvP, open world, and dungeons because that gets too confusing for players and puts us on a slippery slope. Whatever we do to the ranger, it has to happen in both the open world and dungeons, so it requires more than just number tweaks. You see a lot of bots as rangers for that very reason – they are really strong open world classes, and buffing them for the sake of dungeons doesn’t work out to being a good fix.

Wow this is getting long. I should go to the class balance forums some time, lol. Sorry for the text wall!

I wish Ranger DPS was good.

Every time I bring mine into a dungeon, all I can think if how much more effective I’d be on my Guardian, Mesmer or Warrior.

Deified.7520:

That right there is one of two things. Random thing developers put in as a signature, or it could be from Elona. There is a small chance of it being of Zhaishen orgin but highly unlikely

See the zhaishen order went under with Orr rising, so many have thought about where they could have gone. Some say Lions arc, others say they are now the npcs around and inside the WvW stuff.

There are two Zaishen Trainers in LA.

Simple question, why is this not a bad memory from the past at this point?

Is this ever going to be changed? Has there been any updates on it?

Seems like culling just gets worse and worse. It’s so bad at this point, moving your camera around slightly makes people appear and reappear like crazy.

Horribly vague patch notes as always.

The class needs a retooling that will probably never happen.

Even when I play the ‘good’ necro builds, I feel like I could be adding so much more to the group if I was on my other characters.

It’s a bad feeling.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Neb.4170:

The ‘Expansions worth of content’ thing should be in your post. These last 2 patches sure haven’t felt like any expansion I’ve ever bought.

No idea who gave the go ahead to say that gem of a lie.

Hmmm.

- Lost Shores, Southsun Cove
- Fractals of the Mists
- Flame and Frost
- Daily revamp
- Guild Missions

Yes, I’ve had expansions with about this much content in them in previous games. And usually paid $20 for them, come to think of it.

Lost shore and Fractals were December. Not January/February.

Flame and Frost amounts to nothing so far. There is very, very little to actually do.
Daily revamp is nice, but small change.
Guild missions, yep, I will give you that one.

An expansion this does not make.

The ‘Expansions worth of content’ thing should be in your post. These last 2 patches sure haven’t felt like any expansion I’ve ever bought.

No idea who gave the go ahead to say that gem of a lie.

Why not make the events harder, rather than just nerfing the loot cause it’s too easy?

You’d just be changing the daily to 9/9. No one would do 5/9.

We don’t need more daily nonsense, this game was supposed to avoid stuff like that.

I’m finding as I play, for most of my characters I absolutely hate their choices of elite skills. They are usually unwieldy and really do not provide much of a benefit. I find myself wishing I instead had a choice to just slap in a 4th utility slot.

For example, the necro elites:
Flesh golem = Basically a long cooldown knockdown, he dies shortly after. Mildly useful for destroying objects.

Plague form = 20 seconds of blind can be helpful in clutch moments, but the other skills are pretty bad and do very little damage. Not to mention you lose your heals, your utility skills, the ability to res others, lose your pets, etc. etc.

Lich Form = Power based form that doesn’t mesh very well, in my opinion. Highly offensive skill that makes you a giant target with no escape skills and no heal. Same issues as plague, no utility, no heal, no ressing, lose your pets, etc.

I have to say, the ‘transformation’ elites are almost all entirely unused on my characters that have them. Guardian, ele, warrior, necro and I may be forgetting another one. The only one I ever use is Plague to spam blind… which amounts to hitting the 2 button and doing no damage.

Are you happy with these kinds of skills? Do you find yourself using them often?

As much as I want it to happen, I’ve pretty much given up on it.

And yes, I cringe every time I invite a pug Necro/Ranger/Engi to our group. I’m not to the point where I will kick them outright, as I hate doing that… but I can’t say I don’t want to.

Inb4 dps doesn’t matter.

I wish I played whatever game Kiba is playing.

; ;

I used to complain about only getting blues from Dragon chests.

Now the chests don’t even spawn for me, even though I get gold credit.

Most unrewarding game ever.

Yes.

15characters

More of a bandaid fix for you, but I suggest guesting onto a more populated server.

May help.

Personally, no, I am not happy at all with GW2 pvp. I think removing healing pigeon holed the Devs into a certain type of PVP environment and I find that I don’t like it at all.

But my opinion =/= the world’s opinion.

It’s sad that on a lot of classes, I’d much rather have a 4th utility slot than the crappy elites I have.

The helm from Sorrows Embrace would kinda work.

Again, only kinda.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/thumb/c/c2/Human_male_PvP_Dredge_armor_%28heavy%29.jpg/452px-Human_male_PvP_Dredge_armor_%28heavy%29.jpg

This game needs more skin.

GW1 style.

Get ready for lots of ‘STOP HAVING FUN’ replies.

Enjoy your adventure.

It’s okay. Not terrible, not amazing, but okay.

It’s always been buggy for me too.

Nuka Cola.8520:

i’ve done all monthlies since launch but won’t be doing this one at all. **** finding 30 puzzles… no playing gw2 to alt/tab youtube every 5 minutes.

Just log in and log out 30 times by the pirate jumping puzzle.

Ranger, Necro and Engineer all need serious work. Not just number balancing, but real changes. Way too many weapons are dysfunctional. Trait lines are messes. Riddled with bugs etc. etc. etc.

Mesmer, Ele and Thief need number balancing, up and down here and there, but they are generally workable. Don’t need any HUGE revisions.

Guardian and Warrior are generally fine, though some changes can also be made, they need it the least.

Horses have never existed in the GW world.

They use Dolyaks for everything.

If they knew it was going to be a limitation they should have told us about it at launch. As it is, now players who were banking on playing cross region are entirely screwed. Had they told us maybe some players would have then chosen to stay on a single region server.

Thanks for not telling us about the EU/NA restriction until now.

That was classy.

Zooming in to first person would be nice too.

Taking scenery screenshots in this game is entirely pointless.

With any luck they’ll make it even worse and it will be 5-10% chance of being ascended piece of random gear.

90% chance of grey loot.

You now realize Guild Wars has centaurs but has no horses.

Strange eh?

Probably was meant to be faction currency for the armor and weapons.

But at the moment the factions are largely useless and have little to no impact on anything.

A ‘good’ story is conveyed in a ‘good’ way.

GW2’s story is anything but.