Guild Wars 2

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… On a somewhat more constructive note, where’s /joinsquad <playername>? Would allow private tags (as per suggestion) to be set to be visible to only squadmembers (and other commanders). Actually, with that around, there’d not really be a need for passcodes, I think (would be neat, yes, but not “needed”)

Tried with S/D, failed, went with D/D, 0/0/20/20/30 (or something similarly bunkerish, don’t quite remember). Use skills that CC, you don’t really have to beat the dog to every piece of meat unless you want the achievement. I even killed the owner first (accidentally) and then just permanently CCed/kited the souped-up dog until it died. Gear is a mix of celestial and berserker (with some PTV in there somewhere).

My issues with this fight were:
-The camera. Oh my God, the camera. Seriously, 2/3 of the fight was getting the camera under control, in the end. Did I mention the camera?
-The somewhat random Rifts (Orbs) – they can seriously screw you over if they form at just the wrong time, you don’t notice them, and get pulled. This is a bit too luck-based, but would be solved if the camera wasn’t such an issue
-Lag from outside events. Makes this harder than needed, and is certainly not intended difficulty.

Everything else, while being really cheap game design (how many 1HKOs? Oh, players want to dodge, let’s give them Weakness – on every autoattack), isn’t that much of an issue once you know about them. In the final run (number 70-ish, I think), I didn’t run out of dodges at all, that’s without vigor and endurance regen (on an ele). But the abovementioned issues made it oh-so-frustrating to do. ANet, whatever you do, don’t design boss encounters that screw our camera up again, please.

Yeah, I see something very wrong with your assessment of the situation. 6% more condition duration than previously isn’t even going to show up on the radar with most condition applications, except that one odd 10sec+ condition. Damaging conditions usually have durations of under 8 sec on each stack (in my experience). 6% of that is less than a condi dmg tick length, hence doesn’t help.

Get more condi cleansing, and if it’s a condi-specced necro, well, gg if you can’t avoid conditions (just like it’s gg if you can’t avoid the burst of another class).

I can attest to the strong cheesy smell of this build. It won’t kill anyone with a clue in WvW (that is, anyone who sees this and has the option to run), but it won’t be dying anytime soon either.

I have the same (though no quantifiable data, I’m afraid), normal SATA HDD. Settings didn’t change between pre- and post-patch, so that’s not the culprit here.

There is an NPC you can talk to to redo previous fights, have you checked that one already? It may be possible to manually go through the fights you missed out on like that, although I’m not sure it’ll work since that NPC only allows you to redo fights you already had, iirc. Still, might be a potential workaround?

Confirming this has happened to me and my guildies.

Personally, I prefer Lightning Reflexes as my on-demand stunbreak because of the extra dodge (combat mobility!) and vigor that you gain (even more dodges). It also happens to not rely on a pet being alive, which makes that choice more open (I’m currently trying out a panther, just for the “stealth myself and pet” effect =P). But I guess if this part works, it works.

Next, the heal. While what you say is true and HaO offers more of a burst heal, it has over a second casting time, giving anyone with an interrupt ample time to stop you, and 1/4 second more than TU. With regards to TU being less resilient to damage spikes – you’re not supposed to heal through them, you’re supposed to avoid them (and will, with anything that’s not a thief – for a thief you have your greatsword block and swoop). I personally prefer either TU or even the water field (when I’m running the “gain vigor on heal” trait – each pulse of the spring gives you vigor). But each heal can work (I know though that if I play as a thief and see a looong cast time on a heal, that heal isn’t going anywhere).

One more thing: for now, Remorseless is bugged, so consider switching it out until it gets fixed (it basically only applies the crit and vuln when you’re not in combat). Spotter or Piercing Arrows, depending on whether you’re roaming or in a zerg fight.

Rainbow Sprint.3215:

• Light Dash’s duration can be extended by holding down the button (Not sure if bug)

The fact that it continues consuming your endurance while doing it makes me think this is intended behavior.

I can confirm the lack of a guaranteed crit while in combat for PvE and WvW – will have a go to test it with regards to being out of combat. Also, same goes for vulnerability applied by Opening Strikes when regained with stealth via Remorseless – as in, it doesn’t get applied.

Dawdler.8521:

snip

Thieves teleport is very special even though multiple classes also have teleports. Unlike the others, their teleports go through clear through objects and terrain, while for example Mesmer teleport will only cross level ground (if even that, a grass straw can stop you).

Why? Why doesnt Thieves mechanics work the same as the other classes? Or why doesnt the other classes have the same mechanics? Its the same basic skill – teleport. It teleports you. But its not the same.
snip

I wish what you are saying were true – unfortunately, I stopped counting the times that my Shadowsteps got me stuck on … tiny rocks, or sometimes even nothing worth writing home about. I assure you, Thief teleports (shadowsteps, actually) don’t go through objects – if such a thing happens, that is because there is a “valid” (whatever the game considers “valid” here …) path from the Thief to the target spot.

… More on topic: exploit. Walls and doors are there to be broken down, not teleported past (in this game). Report it as per above.

Strang.8170:

Sogradde.8016:

angry post

Your way of playing just happens to be absolutely boring, and lags the servers to hell…hence the complaints.

… So you’re saying that an unorganized militia should still try to match exactly the numbers of an organized guild group (and be slaughtered)?

Deal with it – it may be boring to be on the other side, but if it’s effective and within the game mechanics, then it’s valid. Lag isn’t out fault, that’s for Arenanet to resolve – either by imposing stricter map limits, or upgrading their codebase.

[promised follow-up post]
Ok, so what’s the rationale here: as with the Shortbow, which was arguably a good weapon (and still is, unless you want to chase down other people), the Longbow needs it’s autoattack to not feel lackluster. It should be the main source of damage, not a skill on a 10 sec cooldown (which is currently Rapid Fire). The other skills should give you utility. Some of it is already present in Point Blank Shot, but only some. The problem is, the Longbow needs tools to stay at range due to the nature of the autoattack. With this, the supplementing skills provide a good measure of very short CC. With the removal of Rapid Fire, I felt the Longbow lost it’s one and only “damage spike” skill. This is being reinstated on a longer cooldown with Keen Arrow, which adds a flat 50% chance to crit (short bleeding is there for good measure, but isn’t really needed). This makes it a reasonably chanced critical hit, which would synergize well with the new Remorseless (I felt the need to increase the chance for Remorseless to trigger on this one skill – more vulnerability is good if you pick this over increased Longbow range, right?).

And finally, Barrage. Ah yes. The thing is – the other skill(s) I can think of that apply AoE CC and/or AoE damage can hit more than 5 targets. Ele staff air field comes to mind, or meteor shower. The cripple on Barrage is so short that if you are in a situation where you want to be hitting a large group of foes (and this is mostly WvW only – maybe it needs a split with regards to the number of targets it can hit?), the cripples don’t last anywhere near long enough to matter on any particular target.

And here’s my idea – I do think the Longbow needs a-fixin’. Tone down as needed :-P

What are the problems with a Ranger’s longbow?
-bad power scaling (as with all weapons, because of the pet)
-lack of utility
-inability to stay at range
-general clunkiness (?)

Proposed solution:
a)Adjust traits in the Marksmanship line.
Major traits:
-Merge Signet Mastery with Beastmaster’s might. For a somewhat powerful trait, move to Master tier. This is mainly to allow more traits in this line that help the longbow.
-Move Spotter to Adept tier (Warriors have Empower Allies at adept, Guardians have Strength in Numbers at adept). This is at best an Adept-tier trait.
-This frees up one space at the Master tier, fill this by adjusting Remorseless to be a Master-tier trait (it’s not Grandmaster-worthy, it’s just too weak)
-Further change Remorseless to: Remorseless – you have a 33% chance of regaining Opening Strikes on critical hit. Cannot regain Opening Strikes from their own crit.
-New Grandmaster trait: Longbow Mastery – add 0.5, 1, 1.5 sec of cripple to the Longbow basic attack (>1000 -> 0.5 sec, 700-1000 -> 1.0 sec, <700 -> 1.5 sec). Further increase Longbow damage by 20%.

Ok, so what these should do is: compress traits needed to run signets (while retaining the basic flavour of having to go deep into Marksmanship for signets to affect you, too – those effects are pretty good, if only the Ranger weapons were good…) while also freeing up one space in the Grandmaster tier for a longbow specialization trait. I’ve been inspired for this from the Thief Trickery line, ironically, where there is a grandmaster trait that further reduces CD on the class mechanic by 20%. Well, the basic idea of that Grandmaster trait is to really specialize into something. So is this. I do not, for a second, doubt that the trait sounds really powerful – it is. That’s why it’s a Grandmaster one. I also do not for a second doubt that other weapons and other professions need a similar trait for their signature weapons. What those might be is not the point of this suggestion, though.

OK, so with regards to the problems with the Ranger longbow: what this does is improve the ability to stay at range without needing to use up precious utility slots. It also helps the power scaling of the Longbow, but only if you want to specialize in it.
This leaves the other 3 bullet points, which should be adressed by actual skill changes on the Longbow.

b) Change the longbow skills to allow more control over the range of the fight.
Here is my proposition for the skill changes:
1. Long Range Shot – decrease cast time by 0.15 sec. Coupled with the trait changes, this should allow the autoattack to feel sufficiently powerful.
2. Rapid Fire – obsolete skill, replace with Hunter’s Shot. Change Hunter’s Shot to “Hunter’s Shot – Fire an arrow to make your foe vulnerable and immobile for a short time (0.75 sec immobilize) Your pet gains swiftness.”. Adjust cooldown as appropriate for a slot 2 skill.
3. Point Blank Shot – move to slot 3. Change skill to: “Point Blank Shot – push back your foe. The closer they are, the more damage they take and the farther they’re pushed back” Maximum damage increase of 75% over autoattack, goes down in increments of 25%, same range requirements as currently. Adjust cooldown as appropriate for a slot 3 skill.
4. New skill – Keen Arrow. “Keen Arrow – you have a +50% chance of landing a critical hit. Remorseless has a 50% higher chance to trigger. Apply bleeding to your foe (2 stacks, 4 secs). 0.25 sec casting time, 0.35 sec aftercast, 18 sec cooldown.” As a spike skill, this needs a reasonably high damage coefficient – however, this should never be an instakill.
5. Barrage – remove the selfroot on cast. Adjust it to a slightly longer cripple duration. Allow this one skill to hit up to 10 targets. Fix the damage scaling (I seem to have read it got a nerf to damage in the last patch).
[see follow-up post for rest]

Follow-up post, because the last one got gobbled up by 5000-char-limit:

Ok, so what’s the rationale here: as with the Shortbow, which was arguably a good weapon (and still is, unless you want to chase down other people), the Longbow needs it’s autoattack to not feel lackluster. It should be the main source of damage, not a skill on a 10 sec cooldown (which is currently Rapid Fire). The other skills should give you utility. Some of it is already present in Point Blank Shot, but only some. The problem is, the Longbow needs tools to stay at range due to the nature of the autoattack. With this, the supplementing skills provide a good measure of very short CC. With the removal of Rapid Fire, I felt the Longbow lost it’s one and only “damage spike” skill. This is being reinstated on a longer cooldown with Keen Arrow, which adds a flat 50% chance to crit (short bleeding is there for good measure, but isn’t really needed). This makes it a reasonably chanced critical hit, which would synergize well with the new Remorseless (I felt the need to increase the chance for Remorseless to trigger on this one skill – more vulnerability is good if you pick this over increased Longbow range, right?).

And finally, Barrage. Ah yes. The thing is – the other skill(s) I can think of that apply AoE CC and/or AoE damage can hit more than 5 targets. Ele staff air field comes to mind, or meteor shower. The cripple on Barrage is so short that if you are in a situation where you want to be hitting a large group of foes (and this is mostly WvW only – maybe it needs a split with regards to the number of targets it can hit?), the cripples don’t last anywhere near long enough to matter on any particular target.

I’ll throw this in here since it’s kinda fitting as a (partial) fix to the Ranger’s current issues. Also, I said I’d be back to this thread when I had thought about it some more.

So, here’s the Ranger Longbow fix suggestion:

What are the problems with a Ranger’s longbow?
-bad power scaling (as with all weapons, because of the pet)
-lack of utility
-inability to stay at range
-general clunkiness

Proposed solution:
a)Adjust traits in the Marksmanship line.
Major traits:
-Merge Signet Mastery with Beastmaster’s might. For a somewhat powerful trait, move to Master tier. This is mainly to allow more traits in this line that help the longbow.
-Move Spotter to Adept tier (Warriors have Empower Allies at adept, Guardians have Strength in Numbers at adept). This is at best an Adept-tier trait.
-This frees up one space at the Master tier, fill this by adjusting Remorseless to be a Master-tier trait (it’s not Grandmaster-worthy, it’s just too weak)
-Further change Remorseless to: Remorseless – you have a 33% chance of regaining Opening Strikes on critical hit. Cannot regain Opening Strikes from their own crit.
-New Grandmaster trait: Longbow Mastery – add 0.5, 1, 1.5 sec of cripple to the Longbow basic attack (>1000 -> 0.5 sec, 700-1000 -> 1.0 sec, <700 -> 1.5 sec). Further increase Longbow damage by 20%.

Ok, so what these should do is: compress traits needed to run signets (while retaining the basic flavour of having to go deep into Marksmanship for signets to affect you, too – those effects are pretty good, if only the Ranger weapons were good…) while also freeing up one space in the Grandmaster tier for a longbow specialization trait. I’ve been inspired for this from the Thief Trickery line, ironically, where there is a grandmaster trait that further reduces CD on the class mechanic by 20%. Well, the basic idea of that Grandmaster trait is to really specialize into something. So is this. I do not, for a second, doubt that the trait sounds really powerful – it is. That’s why it’s a Grandmaster one. I also do not for a second doubt that other weapons and other professions need a similar trait for their signature weapons. What those might be is not the point of this suggestion, though.

OK, so with regards to the problems with the Ranger longbow: what this does is improve the ability to stay at range without needing to use up precious utility slots. It also helps the power scaling of the Longbow, but only if you want to specialize in it.
This leaves the other 3 bullet points, which should be adressed by actual skill changes on the Longbow.

b) Change the longbow skills to allow more control over the range of the fight.
Here is my proposition for the skill changes:
1. Long Range Shot – decrease cast time by 0.15 sec. Coupled with the trait changes, this should allow the autoattack to feel sufficiently powerful.
2. Rapid Fire – obsolete skill, replace with Hunter’s Shot. Change Hunter’s Shot to “Hunter’s Shot – Fire an arrow to make your foe vulnerable and immobile for a short time (0.75 sec immobilize) Your pet gains swiftness.”. Adjust cooldown as appropriate for a slot 2 skill.
3. Point Blank Shot – move to slot 3. Change skill to: “Point Blank Shot – push back your foe. The closer they are, the more damage they take and the farther they’re pushed back” Maximum damage increase of 75% over autoattack, goes down in increments of 25%, same range requirements as currently. Adjust cooldown as appropriate for a slot 3 skill.
4. New skill – Keen Arrow. “Keen Arrow – you have a +50% chance of landing a critical hit. Remorseless has a 50% higher chance to trigger. Apply bleeding to your foe (2 stacks, 4 secs). 0.25 sec casting time, 0.35 sec aftercast, 18 sec cooldown.” As a spike skill, this needs a reasonably high damage coefficient – however, this should never be an instakill.
5. Barrage – remove the selfroot on cast. Adjust it to a slightly longer cripple duration. Allow this one skill to hit up to 10 targets. Fix the damage scaling (I seem to have read it got a nerf to damage in the last patch).
[cont in next post]

Ok, let’s avoid the rock-paper-scissors thing then. But stealth is not just invisibility, it’s also giving the thief the initiative in the fight (no, not the resource). And a lot of it, too, given the high uptime on stealth. To be fair, such a thing does need a counter, even if optional and not bound to one mechanic.

One could make a case for certain ranger pets being able to track stealthed characters. One could make another case for the engineer goggles (the utility skill) to reveal stealthed characters. One could make a case for necros going into death shroud seeing stealthed characters. Etc. As it stands, stealth is the one combat mechanic that doesn’t have an ingame counter (short of full invulnerability – as in, full invulnerability doesn’t have a counter, not that full invulnerability is a counter to stealth). I’d be in favor of changing that – and I play a thief often enough to have utilized stealth more than I liked (sometimes).

On the first pass of reading, the OP(s) seem to nicely address the issues that Rangers have. However, I’ll need some more time to think this through and maybe add to it.

In the meantime, as far as pets go, I think the BM traitline suggestions I read in Taushullu’s post make a whole lot of sense and with some tweaks to other traits, could provide what (some) rangers may need – the potential for less reliance on their pet and more on their weapons (on the other hand, also the potential to really specialize in the pet).

In the famous words … “I’ll be back” (to this thread with some more ideas/feedback).

Here’s an idea to throw to the devs, maybe: since the pet nerf took out some (more) dps out of the ranger, maybe it should be possible to build for either more of an archer type character – or even melee (personal favorite) – (and weapon specialization skills would then update the damage coefficients to a competitive level) or for how the class was conceptualized, as in, build for the pet – in which case, it would make sense to have a minor trait in the beastmastery line make the pet’s stats scale with the ranger’s.

Oh, and: how about splitting PvE balance and PvP balance? Because as many people stated above, Rangers are … at the very least, much more difficult to play in dungeons and fractals (higher-end PvE content, basically). Incidentally, it would help here if we could choose to not bring a pet and instead specialize in our own weapons. (AKA, how it worked in GW1 – much better, imho).

Also, what was already said above: a statement of the form “We see Rangers as being the ______ type of class that can potentially bring ______, ______ or ______ to situations like ______, _______ or _______. Currently, we think Rangers are ______ in PvE, _______ in WvW and ______ in sPvP and we think they ______ in these game modes.” (With potential follow-up questions, ideally)

I would say thief as well. The learning curve pays off – but be prepared to die a lot while you’re still learning, as timing is crucial (much more so, I find, than with other professions). Also, a thief has such ridiculously good mobility that pretty much nothing can catch you if you’re not letting it catch (up to) you. Conversely, said mobility can be used to pursue an enemy if they’re trying to get away.

The engineer is … well, the engineer. This class has loads of problems on it’s own – not saying it can’t be fun to play and can’t be made to work in a WvW roaming situation. But it’s certainly much, much harder to pull off.

Edit: these are the Thief forums, of course there’ll be a bias present here ;p

Jathres.7236:

Maybe we suffered from the good weather! After all this is the first week with good sommerweather this year :p

I think the word “suffer” applies quite literally here … Waaaaaay too warm in some places.

Otherwise, this thread has been surprisingly short and lacking in … ahem, popcorn-worthy enjoyment :-P Good fights, on the few occasions that I’ve been able to play (well, except the AS monozerg).

I endorse this idea and/or service.
… But seriously, this should’ve been there from day 1. Defending static locations is just as much about spotting the enemy before they move on it as the actual defensive siege (which just doesn’t happen properly if it’s hard to spot an incoming due to limited LoS). I’m not sure the numbers are sufficient in some places, but that’s more a technical thing, anything is better than what is there currently.

My personal no.1 issue with pistol whip is the self-rooting. A close no.2 is the delay between the stun and the swordswings (it feels almost as long as the stun itself, err…). Damage as such, is less of a concern, than applying it.

Ahh, patch day best day

Hmm, ANet, your EU matchups seem to be based entirely on ranking right now – it’s either a bug in your matching system, or something didn’t make it somewhere. Either way, the official post at the top of the forum seems … uhh, how shall I put it – off the mark a bit.

Oh well, better luck next week I suppose

Personal suggestion on how the skill could conceivably be changed to work at least semi-fluidly: soft cap of 1200 game units, hard cap 1800 game units. With the soft cap being as it is now (although I’d love for it to return to the original functionality, and I think it wouldn’t be (as) ‘game-breaking’ as it was before any changes), and the hard cap meaning that if you moved more than 1800 game units from the original location, the skill would reset to Infiltrator’s Strike (I think this would at least reduce the disorientation possibilities). Thoughts?

Vynt.5218:

Jimmy JimBob.2801:

Meh even if we are being focused the fights are still good.

Of course you are being focused. Everyone knows how volatile your community is.

Minor nitpick: it’s not the community that’s volatile, it’s the general wvw population (big difference) – the community is a big reason for why there’s still fighting going on when most people are demoralized. But: bring on the focus! :-P

Otherwise, looking forward to this week, haven’t had the chance to log into wvw properly yet.

Just thought I’d throw this in, as food for thought.

There’s focusing on an objective, if it makes strategic sense to hold it. That is what appears to be going on with the AS Hills keep. And then there’s focusing on an opponent, for either strategic or personal reasons. As far as I’m concerned, the former is fair play while the latter, if it spills over onto the forums as … uhh, for lack of a better word, “propaganda”, is something that leaves a sour taste (that needs to be washed away with popcorn :P).

As far as this matchup goes, I’m enjoying it more than the previous one. Why? The lack of 40+ blobs, for starters (or maybe I was just “lucky” enough to avoid them). The possibility for a small group of 2-5 people to run around on their own and actually matter. However, I felt really bad on reset (even though GH borders were being pushed a fair bit while I was there) and I am trying to avoid bigger group combat (before anyone reads into this anything they like, let’s define it as 20+ vs 20+ for the sake of this post) for the duration of this matchup.

I sincerely hope that despite the imbalances present, everyone is somehow able to enjoy (parts of) this matchup.

Disclaimer: the above post represents strictly my opinion, not the one of my guild or server.

Not sure about crashes, I have suffered two myself …

As for the “zerg cap” as you call it – the only thing that I’m aware of that changed with the patch is the amount of people being reported to your client. It now gets the information about all of them. You can adjust the display quality settings to try and reduce visual lag you might be getting. The skill lag (coupled with server latency) was always there and has something to do with the n-squared-problem.

I have noticed the Runes that give -1 sec cooldown on weapon swap not working with the warrior minor trait that reduces weapon swap time by 5 sec. Cooldown on weapon swapping is 5 sec, expected 4. Will test some more and update this post with more details tomorrow or so.

Neandramathal.9536

You do know that that is real, right?

Yes, I’m fully aware that this is real. Upon rereading my original post, I can see how it may come across differently. I meant it in the way of “those things, they’re already ingame, and they count as something you’d prefer to not have added to the game?” (with “you” being the second reply to this thread, my apologies for not quoting correctly before).

On a different note: it’s fun to just think about the ideas in this thread.

With regards to “let’s keep […] rocket launchers and biochemical warfare outta here” – the Charrzooka (and many an engineer skill), as well as the trebuchet cow munitions, would like to have a word with you.

Personally, I think adding such items would be really interesting, as long as they’re kept to the game lore and nothing fancy beyond that.

It’s an annoying tactic for sure, but something I think I’ve seen used myself … If I remember correctly, those trebs can be hit by elementalist AoE (meteor shower) – at least those in the picture by Tuks. Feel free to try it out and correct me if I’m wrong.