Guild Wars 2

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-J73Fk;1FFx-r2VEF-0;9V-0;1Z_b;0056147036;4Vw07U;1f;52C

Anyone have tips for this build? It’s centered around condi bursting and spamming of the pets F2 for blindness, weakness and taunt.

I love how the new traps work and I would like to work them into a condi build at some point but survival skills just have too much utility. I feel like I can get almost if not as much of a condi burst with QZ and sharpened edges as traps but I get a condi cleanse from the survival skills, a cool escape with QZ and it’s not nearly as position dependent.

Thoughts on this type of build vs traps? Runes and sigils? Condi burst vs power ala the shoutbow build?

I think spirit passives should remain the same, their range should increase significantly so they cant easily be cleaved if they are well placed and their health should stay the same or decrease. They should be instant cast also. The largest difference would be that all the actives are instant and centered around the ranger if the ranger is within range of the spirit. If not in range the active cannot be used. This makes spirits and the ranger extremely powerful in the ideal situation. Since the spirits are fragile, they will be important points of focus. Good placement may ensure they dont get easily cleaved bu random melee but well placed aoes or focus fire from opponents will still kill your spirits.

This ranger will be very powerful 1v1 if given time to set up a killzone. Roamers will have to down the earth spirit fast. The ranger will have to defend it. At the same time, it will be a pretty poor roaming 1v1 fighter since poor positioning of spirits will make them vulnerable.

aeneq.1760:

Lokki.1092:

Redfeather.6401:

aeneq.1760:

Sorry but no…

What you are describing is going back to the old tank/dps/heal/support roles and thats a step back.

Were they really?

Not really IMHO even tabletop, and story book fantasy use it. I’m pretty sure our modern military even has a tank/healer/dps system

Half the problems with PvE in this game stem from no one needing anyone else and everyone being 100% self sufficient in all arenas of PvE.

Think You misunderstood me, ANet has explicitly stated that the design of GW is not around whats called the holy trinity (tank/healer/dps). Now you can argue that such a clearly defined role division promotes strategy etc etc etc but the fact is that the whole community is split in this discussion and ANet has taken its side…

Therefore in the context of GW it would be a step back.

Also from my personal aspect the trinity is kinda silly, hey im an uberboss but ill stand here slamming my head against a wall while 40 other characters keep pinching me in the back

I have nothing against the current design, however stupid bosses promotes exploitation that in turn favors specific builds/strategies. Things like reflection that bosses ignore altho it takes 50% of their life etc etc.

And I have no idea where you get the notion that modern armies uses a trinity approach. Healer/Dps maybe could be argued for a small part of the military but thats debatable.

Nothing I said will bring back a tank and spank system. Notice, I suggested the aggro be RANDOM, but less spastic, meaning a boss has to stick on a guy for a period. It then becomes anyone’s responsibility to survive a sustained focus. It also gives a target for everyone else to support. This will add more skill as right now, support doesn’t require much skill, just spam aoe boons/cleanses. Brainless.

It’s pretty clear right now that damage rules in dungeons. Excluding a small number of paths and maybe higher level fractals, it’s all about killing fast.

This is in part due to the lack of tank/healer/dps roles. I think the original vision, or how it sounded before the game was released, was that everyone would be responsible for their own safety, and everyone would have the tools to do it. Currently, all damage parties rip through almost everything with ease and no one needs to be responsible for survivability when everyone can do enough damage.

A simple method to change this is to make aggro more predictable and reliable. Bosses should fixate on characters rather than being schizophrenic the way most bosses are now. Bosses should fixate on characters with some degree of randomness, and stay on them for a period of time before moving on to another character. This will put the support role in focus as situational awareness will let you put on a critical protection or heal.

This will also discourage everyone from being full zerk, as there will be serious risks. If the boss decides to go for you, you’ll likely not have enough dodges to deal with a sustained onslaught and your party won’t have the defensive support to keep you up. Currently, you just need to dodge key attacks and you’ll be fine.

Not every boss should be changed in this way, but a lot of the bosses that are essentially jokes at the moment may become challenging to zerker parties.

What is a good dungeon speed run build? I’ve been running shatter on my mesmer for other things. I’ve looked at 20/25/0/10/15 but it’s not screaming at me. What are alternative to lyssa runes?

I think most competitive games let you play with your friends and pugs. Are you talking about ladder tournaments, such as the PAX event? In those events, obviously you shouldn’t have any pugs. I’m pretty sure most RTS’s let you do 3v3’s or 4v4’s, ranked, with 1 friend and 1 or 2 pugs.

I have never gauged how many people join as duo’s, triples and four-mans but what makes you think it’s a SMALL minority? In most 5-man content it’s huge. I have duo-triple or 4-person que’d frequently.

Peter Buch.8071:

Currently I can’t recommend you the elementalist. I am just and only playing the elementalist because I want to play mages in pretty much every game – that’s just my style. But it isn’t really funny anymore.

The elementalist does suck in PvE, and that is actually an understatement. He isn’t useful anythere and gets outclassed by everything. PvE needs to be completly rebalanced, the content isn’t balanced at all, the classes aren’t balanced at all, traits, weapons, skills, boons and conditions need a complete overhaul. The class design of the elementalist has some extremly weak points that need to be revamped.

Unfortunatly ArenaNet does only care about PvP, so probably he will be even more nerfed to become completly useless. Because in PvP he was once very strong and is still useful, as he is very versatile having more or less 4 weapons.

For WvW I will always prefer Guardian > Elementalist, just because of the AoE cap. Strong protection is more important than some AoE.

In WvW, it completely depends on what you have on hand. They’re both essential in a good mini-zerg, and they’re needed in multiples in large zergs. I think they’re both in the top 3 needed classes with mesmers. Guardian support is also aoe capped. aoe cleanses are capped, all field finishers are capped. I’m not sure about sanctuary and line of warding. Ele also provides needed support.

Ele’s don’t SUCK in pve either. You can do pve with anything. Guardians and maybe thieves in rare occasions are the only professions you EVER need and that’s only for high level FOTM. Mesmers are great for QoL but ele’s are not worse than the other professions in most situations. For speed clears you have lots of fire fields and blast, though less damage than most other classes in full zerker. Also even your most zerker builds provide good heal support with water fields or aoe healing. For more difficult dungeons you provide good support, and the best healing. Only guardians outclass your support.

Obviously, you’ll never be able to use it in PvP. You probably can’t use it in WvW either. This is insignificant in dungeon runs as Mesmers bring way more than just a portal. Also who knows how many people will be allowed to go through. It may just be the one.

TheMightyAltroll.3485:

They can’t even balance what they already have, and they want to add more to it.

There will never be perfect balance. That’s not an excuse not to add new features. For all we know, if implemented well, this may not hurt balance anymore than any of the large balance patches.

Balance in both PVP and PVE is the best it has been for a long time.

Valkyriez.6578:

Partials aren’t an issue. Either go solo or find 4 others.

What makes you say it’s not an issue? Because it is.

Good point about the solo-Q syncing. There NEEDS to be a dishonorable penalty of some sort before this comes out. I see this not fixing any of the issues with 5v4’s, possibly making it worse, without that feature.

I am all for a solo-Q feature, but so many things need to happen before this can be done. LFG tool is the most obvious one. You can use GW2 lfg I suppose. Going to the mists is not a good option as that is limited only to your server, most servers do not have a huge number of people hanging around the mists looking for a team to join.

Make solo-Q more meaningful and rewarding. Right now the biggest reason people ask for solo-Q is because it’s hugely unfair to play against a pre-made as a bunch of pugs. This may relieve that frustration a bit but that will wear thin quickly as conquest is a terrible mode for a no-voice chat situation. 2 solutions: new game modes that are easier to play without communication, OR, in game voice comms. First option is better since not everyone plays with a mic or likes to talk.

What will happen to partial teams? It looks like they will not be allowed to play together? If you have a team of 4 and soloQ is separate, you’ll never get a 5th.

This a huge problem. This feature should only come out when an LFG tool exists.

Also, conquest is not the best game mode for 5 people who can only communicate via chat. Please, PLEASE work on other game modes that would be good for solo. Incorporate some of the people working on the mini games into pvp.

Sure players that pay for arenas can do what they want. I’m just saying there’s a pocket of demand out there for dueling arenas when that should be provided entirely by heart of the mists. You shouldn’t have to go in a game just to duel.

Also dueling is great for testing builds, even if it’s NOT a dueling build. It’s also great practice against certain classes.

I think longterm, this wont help. You only need so many dueling arenas. Custom arenas should be like servers in tf2 or cs. Its a place to play and socialize. People have favorites. The farthe we move away from the quiet, non-communicating hotjoin with the same rotation, the more fun spvp will be and more players will buy custom arenas.

To add to this, there needs to be at least two more game modes for casual spvp play to draw people in.

This dueling issue is getting absurd. Half of the custom arenas exist as dueling servers. Its completely holding back what custom arenas can and should become.

Allow dueling in a specific area of hotm. Sidelines spectators can watch but no passive buffs can apply to duelers.

Allow people to join hot joins from the pvp menu. Make filters better. Right now they are not the most intuitive.

Also, allow custom arenas to change the points needed to win to allow for much longer games.

Heart of the mists doesnt feel as empty as it did a few months ago but it doesnt seem to be growing much either. At launch, pvp was big as it seemed to be a piece of the game that would receive a lot of love.

Some major changes need to be made for pvp to be a booming community again.

Tournaments: they are not tournaments at the moment, they are matches. One day the tickets should come back so that tournaments with meaningful rewards and multiple teams can exist again. This probably can only happen after the playerbase recovers a little.

Quality of life: Scrap npcs. Games should be joinable from menus. Builds should be saved as templates. The join game interface should be simpler. Games with full player slots and only spectator slots should be clearly indicated. Standard servers need varied map rotations, including permanent map servers. Make pick up and play easier.

Meaningful rewards: currently rewards are essentially rng or forged. Rewards should be meaningful and goal oriented as they are in pve. For instance, each map on the tourny rotation should provide a unique set of items on top pf the random stuff. Rewards like money make sense as well.

Game modes: i know assault is being tested but given the amount of mini games coming out for pve, there should be mich more crossover for pvp. Pvp needs to get more experimental with more temporary Content like the minigames. You had a moba type thing in halloween. Pvp hotjoin can do with less conquest and more experimental game modes.

Dueling area in the mists: its kind of sad that custom arenas are needed for dueling. The mists should provide this area. This will free up custom arenas for things that are more fun or unique.

More custom arena options: allow custom killstreak messages, some options to change the look of npcs and other ways of giving custom arenas more individuality as hotjoin and social hubs. In games like counterstrike, most players would have a favorite server that would have its own small community. Currently, they are mostly dueling areas or scrimmage locations. Perhaps there could also be some incentive on top of this for custom arenas to see more traffic. A couple of extension tokens perhaps.

Update raid on capricorn: underwater was a big prelaunch focus but the game is not balanced in this aspect. The water must play a smaller role. The point at the very least, should be moved above water.

The obvious ones that anet is clearly working on is soloques and an lfg tool.

I dont think deathmatch has to be an empty arena with 2 teams.

There are dozens of ways deathmatch or non-conquest modes may work.

Assasinate rotating targets. Ffa game mode. Target gets on a guy, everyone has to kill this target. No respawn, game restarts when target dies or everyone dies. Has to allow for hiding, and stealth must be rebalanced in this mode.

2v2v2 with some form of secondary objective.

I would just like to see more variety and a deathmatch or no respawn mechanic mightmake some fun games

I dont understand how the master minor in water can be worth giving up fresh air. You get double the fury essentially, instant damage that can be procced when you’re stunned plus more frequent access to the very reliable burst of air 2 and 3. Not to mention taking 10 percent extrs damage in air with the master minor arcane trait means you get essentially flat 10 percent damage on any attunement with the constant air cycle.

I am struggling with the build bosted by the op with divinity runes, valk/zerk combinations, and whether to do 20 water 20 arcana, 10 water 30 arcana or 10 earth 30 arcana. I hadnt thought of signet of earth. I usually ran mist form for stomping and resing, arcane shield and blast.

Aridia.3042:

AlphaK.9486:

Aridia.3042:

AlphaK.9486:

Aridia.3042:

AlphaK.9486:

Aridia.3042:

It’s a bad deal to exchange RF for a ranger killshot which will inevitably be a self roots. If Anet didn’t give Warriors the ability to move with killshot, the ranger version is guarantee to be a root.

I think your making a broad assumption in saying that a charge move is guaranteed to be a root. If Anet does that, the longbow pretty much turns into War Rifle 2.0 and would be pretty much be guaranteed to not to see any competitive use. Besides, Rangers being “Unparalleled Archers” would finally mean something if we could use a mini killshot while moving.

RF is nice for tracking thieves but it’s too predictable and easy to interrupt. I would rather see a control skill take its place to help us keep the distance.

Anyways, if tracking thieves is your concern, who says that a charge move couldn’t do that. I believe kill shot tracks and I can’t see why our longbow version wouldn’t.

I’m making a very reasonable assumption based on game history and from a game balance stand point. This class doesn’t even have equivalent traits as the warrior. I’m still waiting for a Ranger Crack Shot trait…

Killshot is a root. And warrior is anet’s baby. Even in the Christmas event, the scout killshot was a root and that’s just a mini game that no one really cares about balance.

So you want the equivalent of that which doesn’t root you for real pvp? It’s grossly overpowered. It will not happen, ever. And as I’ve said, asking for a killshot in lieu of RF is silliness. No one who’s used a LB extensively will make that recommendation. There are far better ways to boost the LB damage without gutting one of its best features.

I think using the words “mini killshot” was bad on my part, I mean simply a semi powerful charge shot that can be used while moving. In any case, acting like their would be no way to balance that with movement is silly and RF isn’t as good as you say it is. The way I see it, this is Anet’s chance to branch out and make the LB unique. If you want to keep it the current way because it’s familiar to you, then good for you.

I simply want the LB to be fun and I see RF as kind of a SB cd copout by Anet so why don’t we agree to disagree.

BTW, I’m very aware of Anet’s history but if I posted based on that, I would never post anything based on some of the crap they pulled.

Hmmm let’s see, SOS + spider F2 stun + moving killshot = overpowered.

I’d like to see some balance please. If I want to play I class where i can face mash the keyboard and win, I’d roll a thief.

Wow, I even went out of my way to say my idea is not a killshot but please keep telling me my idea is OP without any hard number data to back it up.

….I can crit with LB1 for 4.5 to 6k without SotW/SotH stacks.

Pray tell, how would your charge shot work if you don’t pump the numbers up to the realm of a killshot?

Some numbers coming from you would help a lot.

Why would it have to be adjusted based on your auto-attack? It doesn’t have to do X amount of damage more than the auto-attack damage at peak conditions. I already disagree with the damage bonus/penalty based on distance, so I think that should be normalized but putting that aside, what if it did 6-7k in wvw under the best of conditions? I guess that matches your LR shot in the best of conditions, except you can at least do it at closer range. So if you’re staying at max range in a zerg, you don’t have to touch that ability. You do so much dps with LR shot anyway apparently.

ilr.9675:

Paprikaspice.8462:

That’s a good point. I forgot about that, but I think stow pet should provide this functionality rather than a utility. I don’t think I should need a utility to make a pet stay.

Well if we’re going down that road… then F3 needs to be the New GO—>TO function first an foremost on the first press, while pushing it Twice could just be its old “heel” function…

Go To is very very important, especially in dungeons or anytime you want to melee a 1-hitting Boss yourself for real DPS, without your pet getting too close to it. (IE: use a decent debuffing or DPS’ing ranged pet instead)

rpfohr.7048:

The skill is being used to spam natures voice which is a design flaw. NV should be activated through a variety of shouts with a shout build if you want to use it.

Why is this a problem FOR YOU?

Do you have difficulty doing it properly while still having your pet keep up and remain responsive? It’s only a real problem when you need to hold aggro off a weaker NPC (like Hodgins) and the pets constant recloaking resets their aggros…

My main issue with the retarget mechanic is in pvp. I guess in most pve encounters it’s not a big deal to have to retarget, though it still feels broken. Also, even before NV the cooldown and high uptime on prot for guard seemed to make it spam friendly. It’s even more so now.

ilr.9675:

EvilZombie.6801:

agree with sick’ em BUT not GUARD !!!!

guard with range pets = turrets ! ensuring my pet won’t DIE in boss fight where i place them at a safe spot and ALLOW my pet to shoot at them

To add to this…. it’s also a good way to make them stay put when running through dungeons traps and what have you. … much better at keeping the pet “safe from it’s lousy AI” than “Stow Pet”.

Is Stow pet even intended for combat?? I’m beginning to think it was more intended to be an RP’er type emote thing for people sitting around in coffee clatches in L.A. or something. In which case it could have just been a /slash command instead :p

That’s a good point. I forgot about that, but I think stow pet should provide this functionality rather than a utility. I don’t think I should need a utility to make a pet stay.

Ranged alternatives: lb and axe. Neither of these match sb in key areas.

Reliability: sb reliably bleeds on flank which will happen at close range. It also fires fast constantly providing good sustained dmg. Axe bleed is a shotgun skill with a slow cast (much slower than sb 2). Its telegraphed and easy to evade. Offhand skills have long cds. Lb has a poor auto. Rapid fire has good burst but it is easily evaded due to the cooldown, which sb does not have.

Control: sb has cripple, not quite as good as either axe and offhand or lb in slows. It is middle of the road for interrupts, worse than lb but better than axe/axe. It provided poison on demand that is easy to land. The poison makes it at least on par with either weapon in this regard.

Firing fast also procs stuff more.

Aridia.3042:

… if you want charge shot to replace rapid fire, you’ve obviously never used LB before.

This sounds a lot like that suggestion to let pets dodge when the ranger dodges, which was really a nerf when you think about it.

Consolidate LB3’s vulnerability with LB2 and put charge shot on LB3 instead. It’s pointless to separate them. In fact I have a macro that’ll do LB3 before LB2 because of how fast LB3 fires. Leave my rapid fire alone; I like to keep hunting thieves with it, thanks.

rapid fire being the primary damage skill is what makes longbow painfully boring and predictable. It tracks stealth, I guess that’s nice. You can definitely replace the channel mechanic for primary damage with a charge mechanic. It’s just a matter of balance as far as damage is concerned. Sure consolidating the vuln and rapid fire would be fine but rapid fire should not be the primary dmg skill.

I have played longbow, and I hate it. Hence why I think it should be changed.

I gather that the intention is to make LB more viable in a skirmish situation as it is too predicatable right now. I think it is one of the most boring weapons in the game with no interesting mechanics, up there with the warrior’s rifle (they are kind of the same weapon).

Electro.4173:

Agree 100% with Sic’Em. Skill is completely horrible as it is right now. Too easily overwritten by random things, forces you to forgo control of your pet completely for 10 seconds if you don’t want to lose the buff… just terrible. It doesn’t help that pet damage was nerfed either, since it means the 40% boost just isn’t as substancial as it used to be just by virtue of pet damage not being as high.

Disagree with Guard. I love Guard exactly how it is. Very long-lasting Protection on a short cooldown alone makes it a useful skill, and stealth has various uses like positioning your pets before battle or allowing an F2 uninterrupted. And of course having your pet attack on its own has uses in situations where you actually need to defend a point (like during defense events). The only change I’d like to see implemented with regards to Guard is to not have F2 attacks cancel it.

The positioning does not apply to what you say about guard. What if guard just buffed the pet with stealth and prot? Same use, much more streamlined. Your pet takes your target if you want it to, or takes any target you give it. You would not need to do interrupt the pet when using it. This shout is still clearly designed to be spammed and right now it just makes it so you have to retarget which feels to me like a broken mechanic. Either the shout should not be spammed, or the non-buff part of it should be more than extremely situational.

Jon mentioned in SOTG that the LB may be getting a consolidation/new skill, so here are my ideas on why the longbow is not appealing and how to change that.

New skill: Charged shot. Much burstier skill. Can be charged to different levels with an over-charge mechanic. This will alleviate the reliance on rapid fire. It also has some interesting play in that you can sacrifice damage by undercharging but surprise your opponent, or overcharge it, taking some sort of penalty (health maybe) and surprise the opponent that way as well. It will be a telegraphed skill, but it can’t be quite as easily evaded as rapid fire. You can still LoS when the charge starts but at least the ranger has more options at that point.

Remove either rapid fire or auto-attack: both of these attacks have elements that don’t make sense with the general concept of a longbow. You don’t fire a longbow rapidly so this element does not make sense. When using this skill, it’s an incredibly long channel and yet it’s the primary source of damage. It’s too easily avoided and a bit boring to use.

The auto-attack: this should either be changed to remove the effect of range on damage, or removed altogether in place of a charged shot mechanic. There is no reason to encourage being at maxed range for a ranger. The reward is minimal especially since one of the most important longbow skills does not have max range. There is already an inherent risk/reward with being at long range. This may not be as big a deal in pve, but it’s huge in pvp. You’re control is mid range, so the design feels a bit schizophrenic as one skill pulls you to mid range while another pulls you to long range. If that’s intended, then the range buff needs a huge adjustment as it is just not worth it right now.

Serraphin Storm.2369:

Guard is fine the way it is. Adding more time to the recharge leaves your pet unprotcted longer. Right now your pet is without protection for 5 seconds and really only 1 with protection on dodge if you need it.

While the are some bosses that will still kill your pet in one shot even with protection they usually have a very noticable tell. That give you time to react. It amazes me how some ranger can keep thier pets up 90% of the time with now points in Bm and other ranger keep thier pets dead 90% of the time.

I dont think pets need to shadow step to the location they get a movment boost. But I do believe these skill need to stack.

There’s still no point to the ground targeting function of guard, it’s pretty useless. Someone else mentioned positioning, but that can be done with f3. It also should not interrupt attacks since it seems to be meant to be spammed rather than situationally used. It’s a huge protection buff for the pet and its CD is 12 seconds traited.

How do drakes provide weakness and birds regen? At least, not the birds you use, I can’t remember if there’s a bird that provides regen.

These shouts make very little sense and don’t function intuitively.

Sick’em: This shout gets over-ridden by activated pet abilities, which doesn’t make sense. It used to also get overridden by signet of the hunt, not sure if that’s been fixed. I don’t know if this applies, but sick’em should just be a buff. It should not go away on target switch, though maybe the damage bonus should only apply to one target.

Guard: this is on such a short cooldown that it’s really used for the perma prot on the pet and now, the regen/swiftness on the ranger. The area bit has essentially no functionality (other than the most specific of instances). Why not just remove the ground targeting and make it a pet buff? Or, alternatively, include some sort of bonus in a slightly larger area. Also, I don’t think the pet should drop target. Guard is one of the most popular shouts that makes use of the new regen/swiftness trait. It seems kind of like a ridiculous mechanic to spam that shout and interrupt the pet’s attack, then just retarget.

hharry.1967:

Team death match or other game modes with LESS people(2 or 3). Please.

Agreed. I know the dev’s have mentioned that the game may not be optimized for other game modes, and it sounds like some sort of “assault” gametype is in the works, but I think team death match would be great for casual, or solo ranking. The maps have to be right for it and I think it definitely should emphasize the search-and-destroy aspect, the way it works in an FPS. there should be camp areas like corridors, hiding spaces, etc.

Puandro.3245:

1) Pure Axe cant keep up with the GS Axe mix, im not sure if pure GS beats Axe but it doesnt matter since GS Axe mix is superior.
2) 30/0/0/10/30 is superior to 30/25/0/0/15. This is assuming equal amount of might. If your group cant give a constant 22-25 Might then run 30/25/0/0/15.

So since in CoF you should be might capped 30/0/0/10/30 is the build to go.
What if you are pugging. 30/25/0/0/15 is an option to do self max dps if your group mates arent the best (this is prob what i would run outside of CoF in pugs). 30/0/0/10/30 is overall better for the grp since you give then 150 power so if you think your groupmates can play well enough to make use of the 150 power go for it.

The power doesn’t stack either, so you could make the same argument its group utility

jul.7602:

LameFox.6349:

jul.7602:

Same as before….

30/25/0/0/15
20/25/0/10/15 (empower allies)

If you want to push your DPS even further
30/25/0/10/5
desperate power.

You spend enough time <50% life to warrant trading away 10% crit damage for that?

If you know how to play desperate warrior than you should easily get <50% life before any boss fight begins. +20% raw damage is far better than 10% crit damage.

30/25/0/0/15 has been mathematically proven to be the highest effective power and until it gets nerfed, it will still be highest damage build.

When and how as this proven?

I’m looking to get into the necro for SPvP.

30/30/10/0/0

Dhuumfire, lingering curses and dark armor with undead runes. Plague signet, spectral armor, corrupt boon and elite minion.

Any suggestions on amulets and other traits?

Faux Sheaux.6179:

Paprikaspice.8462:

I believe it’s every 60 seconds, not 30. And the condition for this occurring is that you have to cross the 50% health barrier? I would say that’s not something that’s reliable.

Not reliable? That’s when you need it the most.

You’re right though. I goofed with the timing.

Well if it worked where it proc’d if it was off CD and you were under 50% health, then that would be true, but it actually procs when you cross the 50% barrier based on how it is worded.

Faux Sheaux.6179:

I chose the traits and everything as they are because I feel they allow the most survivability that way lol.

The healing power is a big deal in the way I build my ranger. I’d rather have it than fury and might. That’s where the strength behind the rangers people are calling nerfs for comes from. The ability to do good damage while outlasting the other player(s) because, inevitably, anyone with half decent dodging skills will win a massive majority of their fights, even when outnumbered.

Granted, your version will have better damage, but at a pretty big cost. It has no condition removal, no stun breakers, mediocre healing, unfocused protection, and focuses too much on buffing the unreliable pet rather than keeping yourself alive and well. You’ll probably win most 1v1s, but if you run into anything else, you’re going to have a way tougher time than if you were running a more defensive variant.

I especially want to specify the importance of “focused protection”. I don’t know what else to call it since it’s not really something a lot of people think about, but protect on a dodge roll isn’t going to do you a lot of good if you’re timing your dodges correctly. It puts you out of range of a burst, and you have plenty of active evade/block opportunities on popular weapons to keep you from immediately getting hammered. No, the protection you need is when you’re in a tough spot, and this is the protect offered by the runes. In fact, you get 15s of it with a 30s cooldown. That’s some amazing uptime on a boon that makes a huge difference that activates exactly when you need it, not on dodge rolls where you’re safe from bursts of damage for the next couple seconds a majority of the time. You still get those dodge roll protections, but you don’t need to be reliant on them. This is what makes Runes of the Forge such an amazing rune for bunkers with high boon duration. You are a kittening tank when it matters most.

When it all comes down to it, you do plenty of damage already. I did more than enough damage with RRR to spike players relatively quickly, and this one should do even more. I just don’t see the point in focusing so much more in something that will already do the job for you if the trade off is dying so much easier.

People get into the mindset “I need moar DPS!” and miss out on some of the other very conductive mechanics in the game. The ranger can be a master of defense, and luckily we aren’t stuck with a boring and static bunker like the guardian.

[edit] In fact, I want to emphasize focused protection so much, I’m putting it on the top of my list.

I believe it’s every 60 seconds, not 30. And the condition for this occurring is that you have to cross the 50% health barrier? I would say that’s not something that’s reliable.

What’s with the shout grandmaster trait in nature magic…especially when shouts have so little utility (other than protect me). Sick ’em has so many conditions for it to even function, guard is pretty useless, and now search and rescue is the worst teammate res skill (it was always bad in pvp).

Honestly, I think builds will change a bit, but spirits were not buffed enough. Everyone will still be running BM, and BM will probably still be a great 1v1 build.

If death match will ever be done, I think there will need to be interesting maps for it. The current conquest maps don’t serve deathmatch that well.

One of the coolest things about deathmatch modes is the surprise factor. Some deathmatch maps with tight corners, corridors or hiding/camping places would be great. In an arena style match, it’s pretty cool when the last man on one team and evade 3 players for a period by using the map. We’d see totally different build compositions, maybe more leaning towards burst and that’s fine with me.

I just leveled a necromancer to 80 and I’m looking to get into WvW with this char after being trounced by a few zergs that ran many necros. I would like this character to be proficient in 10 person groups and 20+ zergs first and foremost. I will never roam alone but may run around with a 5 man group at times.

I am leaning towards 20/20/10/20/0. I’m not sure if the spiteful marks is worth 20 in spite though.

I’m also not sure how I should approach gear and a second weapon set behind staff. I’ve seen some builds that go with knights but how does rabid compare for a well/marks build?

Any help would be appreciated!

After playing some BM ranger, I find my pet still doesn’t do a huge percent of my damage in many cases. My pets hit hard, definitely out dpsing me by a good amount against stationary targets. Against moving targets, their dps is cut by something like 70%, which shifts the balance a lot. In general, I still do a fair amount more than my pet in most cases, though my pet provides most of my burst (it’s pretty pathetic burst by most standards, but awesome for the amount of survivability I have). If pet damage comes down 10% for BM builds, I wouldn’t mind. It should not come down globally though.

Lately I’ve noticed that the philosophy in fixing many issues in this game has been to use a bandaid. In fractals, the ledge in the ice level was a point of exploit. Instead of fixing that, they just made lethal stuff drop on the ledge. In the cliffside fractal, instead of fixing the bug with the final boss, they just changed a minor property of one of his skills, and he is still exploitable after all these months.

I’ve seen this happen in PvP also and it needs to stop. Raid on capricorn has a key underwater component. Underwater combat is unpopular, so instead of fixing the map, it’s just off of tournament rotations. Ques were too long for 8 team tournies when 2 teams were created, so 8 team tournies were just eliminated.

Revisions:
Raid on capricorn needs to be completely changed, or deleted. Underwater cannot be a big component on this map. Instead, why not make use of the ship? Put the capture point on the ship. Put harpoon guns on the ship that can hit anything in the water. Remove all formations in the water where people can use to LoS. The team that controls the ship will then control the water. The water will be a shortcut to the two points, providing extra value for controlling the ship.

There are probably many other ways to change this map where underwater combat, which is not balanced and specifically destroys certain builds does not have to be a huge component of the gameplay.

QoL
Traits should be more easily refunded. I should be able to subtract 5 points from a trait line.

Builds should be savable.

Gear/runes should not have to be bought. I should be able to pick them from a dropdown menu.

Public servers need to be better. Variations in map rotations, goofy servers (for instance, a server where all players entering will have an afro of a different color).

Rewards:
This has been talked about in other threads. It does need a total overhaul, not a little bandaid like adding a laurel to the pvp daily. I think something like the black lion limited edition stuff would be a good idea. They should cost a lot of glory, of course.

Variety:
We are in desperate need of new maps and new modes. Even if the new maps/modes are not super polished, they need to be there. Consider adding “event” maps. PvE events occur every month or two and this has been working. Why not follow this model for PvP? Every month or two, release a new limited edition map or game mode that is fun. If it’s a smashing success, consider bringing it back for good.

Overall:
PvP is still the least popular aspect of the game. This is why the game is now stuck with 2 team matches only; not enough people play. All of these things need to be addressed before you will get enough players to do any kind of big game sponsored tournies with shoutcasting and such.

With minor changes, entering PvP can be streamlined. How much easier would getting into it be if you could save builds and not run around looking for vendors?

With some more major changes, such as game mode variety, map revisions, and rewards changes, more players will actually stick with PvP as their main time sink.

The simple answer to this is to have a variety of public servers as well as custom arenas. Public servers need to have duel functions.

JonPeters.5630:

As we have stated many times we have tried many modes and there is a reason we ended up where we did. This is not to say we will not introduce new modes at some point, however a few notes on death match.

1) You can obviously have it without a healer.
2) Even games people consider to be DM have tons of secondary objectives (Quake 3, counter strike, Starcraft, etc.)
3) Objective based games tend to be both more total noob friendly AND more esport observer friendly as players/watchers can go/look at where the action will likely be.

Deathmatch without other objectives lacks things like a reason to engage, a way to break stalemates, and a tie breaker. It also creates much wider blowouts when someone on your team doesn’t know what they are doing (does this ever happen to you that you get a clueless teammate? Heh)

Hopefully that clears up some of our reasoning for future discussions.

Jon

You listed a bunch of esport deathmatch based games, granted with secondary objectives that are considered noob playable, if not noob friendly. This is no justification for keeping conquest for this long. Youve already dabbled with plenty of secondary objectives; theres no reason why you cant have a deathmatch, no respawn mode with secondary objectives.

Deathmatch modes with secondary objectives lack all of the flaws you stated. It really is time for new modes.

This guild is awesome! PvX all the way

Psybunny.8906:

You have your things mixed up, the unbeatable ranger doesn’t run away in 1v1 and doesn’t heal up and come back like ele does. It stays put and out sustains you with evades and massive regen and perma prot while it’s pet takes huge chunks out of you. It’s a bunker BM spec and it is the strongest duelist/pointholder spec in the game atm.
After all that I must say, no they are not OP, they lack teamfight and mobility, no burst and they can’t carry fights in xvx as an engy can do. It’s a really strong spec, but nothing over the top imo and quite easily focused down with a team.

I’ve only dabbled with bunker ranger builds before, and they are indeed good duelists, but how can they possibly be the best point holder spec? Limited knockbacks, poor condition removal, terrible stun breaks for point holding (LR will send you right off, QZ means you can’t heal for 5 seconds, totally not what you want in a stunbreak).

Melee pets are easily kited. The bunker build doesn’t do too much damage either so the lack of kill speed is a huge disadvantage relative to say, ele’s, also great duelists.

Flax.4980:

I always have at least 5 points in virtues. The extra might + regen + protection for the whole team is sweet. Going 10 into virtues is definitely useful for fractals since you’ll be using wall of reflect a lot. My main issue is that reflects are situational and there isn’t really a good substitute major trait for consecrations (unless you use spirit weapons, which I rarely do).

I’d either go 0/5/30/30/5, 0/0/30/30/10 or 0/15/30/20/5. Spamming justice is incredibly fun and can be very powerful sometimes (blind spam on worms in grawl fractal boss for example). That said there are also plenty of bosses where you can’t get kills to activate renewed justice and I love pure of voice too much to not put 30 into honor at the moment.

I never understand why renewed justice procs on some enemies but not others. I have never gotten it to proc on worms

Rangers generally have an advantage over thieves in small scale fights, especially if you play the popular trap build. Spike trap makes it harder for them to get behind you when they do blinding powder. You can spam traps on the shadow refuge area. Shared agony really messes up their opening combo. Rangers are not easy targets for thieves.

I think 1 more competitive mode would be great, but more importantly, there needs to be much more for casual players. ESports games tend to have a healthy mix of both, and right now, the competitive side of Guild Wars 2 is there and needs refinement, but the casual side is nearly non-existent.

The first step is changing up the servers and map rotations. Custom arenas will help, but public servers should not all have the same map rotations. What if some servers only rotated some maps? And some where 24/7?

More game modes, even if they’re not “polished” would be great. 2v2v2, some sort of zombie thing (was in the halloween event), some form of survival/hunt mode where a majority of players have to focus on killing a minority.

Different maps. All the maps so far are some variation of point capture. They tend to be open and expansive to different degrees. Maps for deathmatch/arena modes can have weird properties. Low visibility for instance, or a network of corridors ripe for ganking.

Nyhmz.3672:

Ashanor.5319:

I agree with this and have been saying it for months. The lack of game types is what has caused me to get annoyed and takes breaks from this game so often. We really need some ctf. Arena style combat would be nice as well, but I would be fine with them starting with a good ctf map and working on arena combat later.

For the guy who said they need only one game type, you are completely wrong. Sit on the point combat gets old, and it has been old for a while. Why do you think the pvp population has been steadily declining?

LoL/StarCraft/World of Tanks all have only one competitive mode, that doesn’t stop them from being popular now does it.

You can have various match sizes in those games.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJAoYhMmibwR5gjDAkHn4CLiCPUeMTO2A;ToAA1CsoqxUjoGbNuak1MEZCB

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJAoYhMmibwR5gjDAkHm4SJiCWUeMTO2A;ToAA0CnoUyokQJrSOlkKNEZCB

I have used both of these builds. I just don’t feel like I have the same survivability or damage output as some of the other ele’s I play.

Any tips?