My psychic knife. The focused totality of my psychic powers.
Hell yeah, Bryzy! I run Axe/Axe and Sword/Horn, too. Really fun with a berserker build.
I do think Axe needs a range bump and a few other minor tweaks, but I enjoy it.
My psychic knife. The focused totality of my psychic powers.
I have two 80s, a Thief and a Ranger. Both human. I somewhat regret not having the Thief be a sylvari, although I did make the Ranger a human because at the time it seemed a rarity to me. Not that I want to be unique, I mainly liked the idea of a young girl throwing her greatsword and axes around.
So now I want to make a sylvari, but preferably not redoing a Thief. Just going off of animations, I was considering a Warrior or a Necro, maybe a Guardian.
What do you experienced Sylvari recommend? Is there anything that fits in any of the Slyvari lore or personal story choices that stuck out?
My psychic knife. The focused totality of my psychic powers.
It works in combat. It also has a fairly short cooldown and a nifty effect, so if you don’t get time to swap it, it’s useful
My psychic knife. The focused totality of my psychic powers.
I only play a Thief and Ranger, so I support this.
More options are good. I felt like LOTRO had more customization due to the sheer amount of armor styles you could use.
My psychic knife. The focused totality of my psychic powers.
They should be used for a current HoM, with skin rewards.
Make it like the weapon tickets, where you can’t buy everything, but can still trick yourself out.
My psychic knife. The focused totality of my psychic powers.
Don’t forget axe projectile correction. It’s pretty nice.
My psychic knife. The focused totality of my psychic powers.
Tricks I wish I knew at launch:
My psychic knife. The focused totality of my psychic powers.
No. You need an axe/torch for condi but they are bad with power. Sword dagger are decent. Greatsword is good with power, bad with condis. Rangers also dont make great use of crit damage. I run celestial trinkets on my ele, cavalier backpiece all ascend. Then cleric weapons and knight armor. It works well because i use all the stats on it and the condi is just extra bonus.
TLDR. Rangers dont have 2 weapons sets that can take advantage of power/condi at the same time and crit damage is not that great.
Just quoting this because it caught my interest, anyone should chime in. I’m investing in Power builds right now on my Ranger. Sword and Dagger and Greatsword are my favorite, but do I have a ranged option since the rest seems Condi? Smart Longbow play seems to be it, yarr? I find the Longbow could as a quick swap tool, especially for Hunter’s Shot.
For the PVE and DubVeeDub scrub antics. Although if I can step into Hot Join with a Cleric Bunker and do okay, I would do so.
Condition gear is bad in PvE because direct damage is always superior. The condition cap is just another nail in the coffin but not the main culprit.
That’s how I’ve been…conditioned.
I love you
I love you, too. In a Beastmaster’s Bond, 25 stacks sort of intensity.
My psychic knife. The focused totality of my psychic powers.
(edited by PsionicDingo.2065)
Thanks for that, Proxy.
My psychic knife. The focused totality of my psychic powers.
Never really cared to show a backpiece as I didn’t have anything cool until the Southsun Flower. It turns out your backpiece disappears each axe throw animation.
I tested it with my toy bag and it still did it.
Bummer.
My psychic knife. The focused totality of my psychic powers.
I’m not chopps, but run rrr build in full apoth gear. He probably is refeRring to how the max 25 stacks on conditions get applied faster fRom other professions and you will see diminishing returns. But I’m solo wvw its op.
I value all input. I’m trying to learn more about the DR and stacks with conditions. I never paid it much mind (as I run direct damage on my Thief and Ranger), ankittenrying to learn so I can branch out.
Conditions aren’t terrible in PVE, but you don’t need more then 1 Condition user in your group if they can apply 25 stacks of bleeding instantly.
How exactly does that work? Burning isn’t stacks, it’s duration, right? Same as poison?
Condition gear is bad in PvE because direct damage is always superior. The condition cap is just another nail in the coffin but not the main culprit.
That’s how I’ve been…conditioned.
Dude, I don’t know everything. Feel free to chime in. There’s tons of really good rangers that browse these forums: Sebrent, Xsorsus, Durzlla, jubskie, dojo, kenshie, and on and on and on. Faux, gasmask, valroth, and on and on and on. You guys are all awesome IMHO.
Absolutely. It’s one reason I’ve gravitated towards the Ranger over my Thief since Christmas. The community is helpful, generally open-minded, patient, and there’s just good general knowledge about the game that I can’t find anywhere else.
Well, that and so far the Ranger reminds me of my LOTR Warden, in a way. Coolest class I’ve ever played, even if WoW was my go to MMO until GW2 hit.
My psychic knife. The focused totality of my psychic powers.
Chopps, I value your input on Rangers. So before I get too hyped about Apothecary gear, could you explain where there “Condis Suck in PvE” theorycrafting comes from?
Probably a good investment for WvW anyway, yeah?
My psychic knife. The focused totality of my psychic powers.
How about Vuln attached to it?
A ranger crazily leaping through a field of fire to stab you in the face might make you feel vulnerable.
My psychic knife. The focused totality of my psychic powers.
Good call on the cripple and bleed. It is a strange weapon and I’d like to see more trait customization to help you decide how you want to push it.
It’s really one of my favorite things as far as flavor goes, because I think they’re just so cool looking in concept. It’s a weird mix of the old WoW Paladin Hammer of the Righteous and LOTR Warden, in a way.
My psychic knife. The focused totality of my psychic powers.
I prefer axes. You still get the range and conditions, but more utility from your offhand choice. And since you’re bunkering, Ricochet is more useful.
The way I do it, anyway.
My psychic knife. The focused totality of my psychic powers.
I really feel like Ranger needs some sort of pull utility ala Scorpion wire. It could come from Axe 4 or a pet, but I’d like more synergy with MH Sword. The constant cripple is close, but imagine Hornet’s Stinging out of someone’s attack, then yanking them to you to fight on your terms.
It’s really no more capability than the Thief has. I feel like the mobility is on par thanks to our weapons, but my thief can use her weapons and utilities to engage or escape. The ranger tends to have more disengages. Swoop goes both ways, but with our traps and pets, I feel like we’re lacking some control.
It doesn’t need to be perfectly matched, as clearly the ranger is meant to be an amalgam of every other class (hey, like Thief steals!).
My psychic knife. The focused totality of my psychic powers.
What would make it better in PvP?
Look at any effect or number in the skill.
Change it to be better.
TADA.
I agree. I’m just theorycrafting with you. What would you like to see? I’m thinking Path of Scars needs a knockdown or pull on return strike.
My psychic knife. The focused totality of my psychic powers.
I use the actives. I don’t run full BM. I tried to wean off of it, and found 15 suits my playstyle fine. If I could kick it to zero, I would (and am playing with how).
Signet of the Hunt’s active is fantastic, especially with the shorter CD. You can preload it, as the buff sits on your pet for 16 minutes. It has a short CD, so I can get it off several times per fight (I like to pull crazy pulls with little to no out of combat window). I like it all around for open world PvE. PvP it’s less enjoyable, and not needed at all in dungeons.
Signet of the Wild is great, too. The regen is nice and at 80 running half in Cleric’s gear, ticks heavily on my pet. I use the active when fights are going well.
Signet of Renewal is nice if you don’t run with/don’t want to burn Healing Spring and don’t have Empathic Bond. As Faux said, pop n’ swap and it’s beautiful.
Signet of Stone will be a lifesaver in every game mode. Six seconds of invincibility for your pet on active? Especially if you don’t run BM for faster swap cooldowns, this can buy you time in a bad situation. The added toughness is just gravy.
Try them out. They have more reasonable cooldowns now that are pretty quick with GW2s combat pacing.
My psychic knife. The focused totality of my psychic powers.
My first 80 at launch was a Thief, and I slowly built up a Ranger since November.
I agree with your assessment, but I still like my Ranger’s tools and playstyle. I feel like I have more options than my Thief as far as utilities and traitlines go.
Last SOTG they briefly mentioned merging and adjusting Thief traitlines, and that would be lovely.
My psychic knife. The focused totality of my psychic powers.
Maybe 30MM-30WS-10NM for Nature’s Prot?
Actually, I suppose this would shine with Sword/Dagger. My worry with Steady Focus is I like to dodge, which negates that trait’s boost, but with S/D…
My psychic knife. The focused totality of my psychic powers.
offhand axe is far from useless, or maybe i play a different game or something :|
Read the first line.
In PvP.Axe off hand needs something. Even full zerker the auto attack does more damage than the axe 5.
I’ve done over 50k with axe 5. Lupicus, traited signet of stone, reflected AoE. Also, the act of reflecting tends to pull aggro so you can use it to pull enemies off someone trying to heal.
That is PvE.
Gotta say which mode.In PvP it is debatably one of the worst ability in game.
In PvE it is workable.
What would make it better in PvP?
My psychic knife. The focused totality of my psychic powers.
Faster axes?! YES. I am so excited.
Time to reassess my loadout again. Might have to kick Greatsword aside. Sword/Axe and Axe/WH? Sword/WH and Axe/Axe?
Choices!
My psychic knife. The focused totality of my psychic powers.
If Chopps is giving advice, I’m down for a listen.
My psychic knife. The focused totality of my psychic powers.
The only thing I dislike about MM is the minor traits aren’t as flexible as every other tree. Opening Strike is sexy, but I find only pays off with Remorseless in most PvE. And that competes with the Signet trait.
On the other hand, that’s not that bad, because I just run Remorseless on trash and Signet on bosses. I’m just irked all minor traits involve opening strike and kind of go out the window on a single target or long fight without Remorseless. If I am wrong, I’d love to be.
And to go 30 deep when I like at least 20 in WS (the minors and Martial Mastery), Skirmishing (the minors and Quick Draw/Honed), and at least reaching for Nature’s Protection, sometimes things get stretched.
It’s good, and I really enjoy Signets and comboing it with spirits, but it’s up against some tough competition.
If they tweaked the minors, I would give it a serious look. As is, I find the minors in every other line more valuable, which hurts my investment in it for PVE.
In PvP I adore it because the name of the game is kill.
My psychic knife. The focused totality of my psychic powers.
Ranger is currently weak and the ANet does not want to pick it up
Troll? You realize ranger is about to be nerfed because of how powerful it is… right?
I did not. What nerfs now?
My psychic knife. The focused totality of my psychic powers.
We already have the one trait that stealth us. Some synergy would be nice.
I like the idea of the Jaguar stealthing us, too.
The Thief has a lot tied to stealth, including situational attacks. Perhaps we’d just get the guaranteed Crit like the Jaguar/Hidden Killer Triat.
My psychic knife. The focused totality of my psychic powers.
Man, I do love the Asura Warrior and Mesmer animations. Hammer Asura just felt so good.
I think I’l have to make an Asura Warrior AND Necro.
My psychic knife. The focused totality of my psychic powers.
Larcenous Strike has a nice window.
My psychic knife. The focused totality of my psychic powers.
Braham and Rox were leagues better than Trahearne. I felt like I was actively aiding people in a team-up, not doing the work so they could reap the glory and pretend they were all sensitive and burdened about every action they made me carry out.
I didn’t know Eir even had a son, that was neat. I want more of them and characters like them.
My psychic knife. The focused totality of my psychic powers.
Combat Healer because I bring those Healing Springs and drake blasts.
My psychic knife. The focused totality of my psychic powers.
I went Human Ranger because at the time I only ever saw Norn or Charr or Sylvari Rangers.
I’d have to Human Warrior is probably the most boring. Human Necro, too. I’ve rarely seen any Necro not human.
My psychic knife. The focused totality of my psychic powers.
Personally, I think Kudzus look great on humans.
As for why I picked it, I’ve always preferred Longbow to Shortbow since the start. I feel that it offers more, despite the lower DPS.
That and I was partied with someone with the Dreamer and it was really annoying hearing pony sounds over and over.
Aw, it does that? Lame. I get annoyed with my slingshot for that reason.
My psychic knife. The focused totality of my psychic powers.
I listened to the State of the Game from April last night, and I heard them admit that Thief traits and other traits across other classes needed combining and reworking, so I hope that’s in the pipeline this summer.
My psychic knife. The focused totality of my psychic powers.
I think that’s fair. I mainly use it as a free evade and then leap back in to get an aura, but more time would allow for some strategy. Not sure what, but I’d play with it.
My psychic knife. The focused totality of my psychic powers.
My buddy just rolled a Warrior solely to Berzerker Farm CoF to gear his Guardian. I had to pass on that invitation, because is that’s a way of focusing on my Ranger or Thief, it’s too much like work.
Anyway, Daemon is right. I’d rather find people who just want to play. While I enjoy speed runs (or used to, when I was a tank in WoW), I play GW2 for less grind.
My psychic knife. The focused totality of my psychic powers.
I’ve leveled up a warrior, an elementalist, and a thief. All builds are glass cannon-esqe; the warrior & ele emphasize crit damage while the thief is more power & condition damage.
I love playing the thief & warrior, but I find the ele frustrating, I guess just too hard. Mobs kill me while I’m trying to cycle thru air/fire/earth, etc.
If the ele feels too squishy (and it’s me, I know that some people kick butt with this profession), think the ranger would be too hard for me?
(I’ve submitted a nearly identical post to the necro list; it will be interesting to compare the answers.)
I love my Thief because of the mobility. After playing a Ranger, I really don’t enjoy any other class except that and the Thief.
While the Ranger needs some retuning, I feel every class does, and in light of the ever changing nature of MMO and class balance, I say roll with a Ranger if the concept of the class appeals to you. The melee weapons are great fun, and the pet is decent as long as you get used to swapping them and changing your stable. I’m fully aware that a Berzerker build doesn’t hit as hard as a Warrior in PvE, but I also know from the Warrior forums that they think our grass is greener in some parts of the lawn.
You will not be squishy, but pet maintenance can be as intensive as element changing, in my play style.
My psychic knife. The focused totality of my psychic powers.
The axe offhand would be useful if it worked like the chieftain (that brings the enemy to you on the way back). And you should be able to move while doing number 5.
I love this idea. Such a great synergy with our Main Hands – Sword to keep them close to you, and to aid the Axe bleed shotgunning and general ricochets.
Heck, synergizes with Axe 5. Knocked to you and into you Whirl.
My psychic knife. The focused totality of my psychic powers.
I did an MF run with a Necro and Warrior the other night. It went like this:
“Stuck on me.”
“Stuck on me.”
“Listen to me. Stuck on me.”
“Are you new? Stuck on me.”I fell in line because I’m used to players like that, and want no drama, but the other Ranger and Guardian did things their way. Eventually the Guardian quit before the boss, even though we were doing well. It just wasn’t FUN because it was so controlled. Then during the bosses, doing the “stack inside” exploit, it wasn’t letting me stack inside – I was actually walled out. It’s happened to me before trying that, it simply will not let me in. So I had to do it the intended way, and I just got yelled at for a bit until we won.
Go into your options menu, and turn off “melee attack assist.” It will remove all collision between you and enemies, allowing you to run through them.
I do. Still wouldn’t. : / Not every time. Only happened to me thrice of…many runs.
My psychic knife. The focused totality of my psychic powers.
You guus are funny thinking buffs and debuffs and nefing HP by 50% is going to bring in more classes. Mesmer is already the best boon remover and all 3 classes have condi removals for the grp.
Quite true. Warriors themselves are self-sustaining.
It’s like I’ve always heard in game design: given the choice between optimal and fun, players will tunnel optimal.
My psychic knife. The focused totality of my psychic powers.
I have an 80 Thief and Ranger. I regret not making the Ranger an Asura.
I’m now torn between an Asuran Warrior, Necro, or…something.
Opine. Animations and armor are a huge consideration.
My psychic knife. The focused totality of my psychic powers.
I did an MF run with a Necro and Warrior the other night. It went like this:
“Stuck on me.”
“Stuck on me.”
“Listen to me. Stuck on me.”
“Are you new? Stuck on me.”
I fell in line because I’m used to players like that, and want no drama, but the other Ranger and Guardian did things their way. Eventually the Guardian quit before the boss, even though we were doing well. It just wasn’t FUN because it was so controlled. Then during the bosses, doing the “stack inside” exploit, it wasn’t letting me stack inside – I was actually walled out. It’s happened to me before trying that, it simply will not let me in. So I had to do it the intended way, and I just got yelled at for a bit until we won.
My psychic knife. The focused totality of my psychic powers.
I think boons/condis are the way to make things interesting. It would open up various classes for blinds/cleanses/control without making any specific class mandatory.
These things can be done in explore, but it often feels chaotic and random, not like a planned part of the strategy.
My psychic knife. The focused totality of my psychic powers.
Dungeon mobs should be more about buffs/debuffs, not large HP pools.
Yes.
My psychic knife. The focused totality of my psychic powers.
I understand the mentality and theory. It’s the natural evolution of no trinity. Before you wanted the best tank to control the crowd so the healer could be as efficient as possible with the tank and DPS who destroyed things quickly. Take the healer and tank out?
It makes sense you’d want everyone to bring full damage to burn everything down. And Warriors and their Mesmer are really self-sufficient and effective about it. They cause steady, solid damage, and buff each other to do more of it. If Mesmers didn’t bring Time Warp and Reflect, you wouldn’t even need them in this school of thought.
Guardian utility? Ranger or Thief support? Ele utilities? Why? Don’t get it. Don’t die. Simple. That’s why the best groups run full Zerker – you don’t get hit. And if you don’t get hit, you don’t need survival stats, let alone Healing Spring or Aegis. It’s just wasted potential.
I believe the problem goes beyond just players, though. Outside of the forums, I rarely run across these players, and I don’t mind that they play like that on their end. I’m content to not be as “efficient” because I’m here to play with friends and I like my Thief and Ranger best.
That said, the problem stems into the dungeon design philosophy. I understand Robert wants them to be difficult and cooperative, but from his comments about how he plays his own content (he’s a ranger, he posts on the ranger forums) show he’s also not one of these min/max speed runners. So even things he feels are fine for rangers or any other class or fight mechanic still doesn’t jive with the people who run as efficiently as possible, because he’s also the kind of player they’d kick or look down on.
Does the 4W1M template break the dungeon design? I have to think it does, because theyr’e still not playing by his rules.
My psychic knife. The focused totality of my psychic powers.
In most games the trash is less an ordeal, not everyone has to be a speed runner regardless of preference. So if the current design was intentional, wouldn’t it actually be better just to give access to the boss WPs by default? Because as a speed runner, I don’t think anyone actually enjoys running past mobs they’ll never fight.
Hmm. . .Yes and no. I wouldn’t be opposed to a dungeon with extremely few mobs between you and the boss being unskippable. That’s pretty much what we have with the beginning of CoF P1, and I don’t think I’ve heard anyone complain about the first encounter, it’s just a thing that’s there that you have to kill. Very little reward, but it’s easy and over fast (barring those freak runs where 2+ people decide to get downed for no reason).
Compare that to, say, Arah P3’s beginning. I get downed more often against the Risen Mages in the first pull (stupid AoE spam) than I do to the boss Crusher (strafe2win /yawn). But, then, right after that boring boss encounter comes a skip sequence. It’s getting to the point where I’m less likely to die to the run, but it requires paying more attention than the boss does, because I actually have to dodge in order to survive. So, I’d say that in some places, the skip sequences are actually more challenging than the bosses on either end (and this is ignoring that the second boss in P3 can be afk-fought).
There is also the matter of where you draw the line in an MMO, like the CM mountain climbing skip. I’d say that goes a little too far beyond speed running into a loot bandwagon.
That I’ll agree is purely an exploit, and is a better example (to me, anyway) of your earlier point about real world tactics not always being valid/“right” for a video game.
Not to bring it back to WoW, but hey, it’s the only game I really put my heart into dungeons on. Your examples remind of the way their dungeons matured: they were originally large, trash populated ordeals. And some were fun, but time consuming. They began getting shorter, more strategic pulls than just filler, and interesting fight mechanics. Some even became glorified set pieces, but were satisfying.
MF from the GW2 launch dungeons reminds me of that streamlining and honing in on how to make dungeons fun and worthwhile without that min/max elitist gating.
I hope future content takes notes.
My psychic knife. The focused totality of my psychic powers.
I picked up Clerics just to play with some builds, but when it comes exotic time, should I err on zerker, knights, and valk in some capacity (or pure zerk if I’m really *overconfident?).
I’m not really up on how stats work and scale, and I find Ranger weapons tricky because they all have conditions on them in some way.
I’m not looking to be a WvW god or glass cannon murderer, I just prefer GS and Sword or Axe with an offhand, and want an armor that would give me enough flex to play around with the trait lines.
*edit ’cause filter
My psychic knife. The focused totality of my psychic powers.
According to these fine folks testing and hard work a ranger outperforms warrior in straight up damage (no buffs) when pet is included. Here’s the link
Notice I never said Ranger > Warrior, rather, I am simply stating a fact (in before 100 people tell me about banners and FGJ). Also, interestingly, warrior axe appears to have higher DPS than 100b because 100b is channeled and has a long activation time. Does anyone mind fact checking that because I can’t find it in the link.
I am not trying to fight, I just want to get the facts out there. Happy hunting!
Axe is better than 100b as far as I’ve ever read and experienced. It’s faster and I believe cleaves wider.
That said, I prefer my Ranger or Thief. The argument I’ve heard about whatever Ranger/Thief/Ele/Whoever can bring in heals or utilities is simply:
The Warrior Buffs are damage focused. Ranger only brings superior Fury uptime, but it pales in comparison to everything Warriors can bring. Same for any other class. And healing or support (I love Shadow Refuge, Smoke Screen, and Necro wells!)? You shouldn’t need them, because you’re in full zerker not getting hit. If you wear Knights, if you need heals or revives, then you’re not maximizing what a warrior can do, so you’re useless. Dodge, don’t die, problem solved and no support needed.
These aren’t my beliefs, it’s what I pulled from some threads the other day. I can agree with the theory, sadly.
I suppose that’s the downside of no Trinity. If you don’t need a tank or healer, then why not bring hard and fast damage? And if one class can do hard and fast self-buffing damage over other classes, why would you need them if all you’re concerned with is How Much Damage Can I Push?
My psychic knife. The focused totality of my psychic powers.
well im looking to drop enemies with speed
You’re leveling and want to drop enemies with speed?
Sword/Torch and Axe/Whatever You Want or Greatsword. Take Flame Trap, Signet of the Hunt, and whatever you like. I enjoy Spike Trap or Quickening Zephyr.
Use your GS Swoop or your Axe and it’s ricochets to grab a pack of mobs. Drop Flame Trap. If Axe, use 3 so you Chill one and your pet applies weakness (this is just gravy). Axe 2 or GS2. Hit Signet of the Hunt to boost your pet’s next hit, the CD is so short you won’t miss it.
Swap to S/T. Torch 5 as soon as Flame Trap is done. Swing with your sword auto attack. Dodge and Serpent Strike (evade roll) as needed.
Mob AI is stupid for the most part, and everyone will stand in your Flame Trap, which really hurts. And it has a short CD. Your sword cripples to keep them in it, and your GS or Axe gives you some multihitting action. You don’t even truly need the sword/torch if you just want to corral mobs with Spike and Flame Trap and Maul/swing away. Your GS attack evades 33% of the time.
This is how I leveled, just pulling giant stupid packs and burning and slashing them to 80.
My psychic knife. The focused totality of my psychic powers.
I don’t understand why this is so difficult to convey, for all the hate ‘tank and spank’ gets, it only makes sense that utilizing something else totally devoid of skill to basically initiate a tank and spank should be equally frowned upon, especially when many of the instances seem to be designed with that in mind. It’s like a big exercise in validation for everyone who wants to put themselves above the ‘casual’ gamer. They go through one extra step of pulling them mobs around a corner, rather than running in and fighting them. I don’t think that one extra step is worthy of being called strategy in any relevant sense.
I’m curious if you played Warcraft during Burning Crusade and after. If so, how did you feel about the AoE tanking that became prevalent?
In the original WoW, you marked targets as priority and various CC. Warriors were the main go to tanks and they would use rifles to LOS pull around corners. In BC, Paladins became popular as it was discovered you could use their mechanics to just pull groups en masse and outlast them. I leveled solo like that. In Lich King this tactic became even more popular and viable with all the tank classes – I leveled a Warrior and Druid solely in dungeons just because it was fun.
Come Cataclysm, same deal outside of raids – LOS, group ’em up, burn ’em down. Sure, it helps to have a priority of burning (and GW2 has that if someone is playing target caller), but it was still pretty mindless and not that strategic once you learned the dungeons.
MF really reminded me of those days more than any other dungeon in GW2. You can’t skip trash, but you can still stack and massacre. I think it provides a nice balance between what I knew in other MMOs (WoW and CoX mainly) and GW2 Explorables – you still function as a team, you can’t really skip and exploit, but stacking and LOS are still strategic choices if you want to make things easier.
My psychic knife. The focused totality of my psychic powers.