Guild Wars 2

Trial and error is your best friend, you have time for it. Part of end-game in GW2 is taking the time to find the right build for you, if you use someone else’s you’ll just get bored.

There’s no real right or wrong way to play the class unless you’re an elitist. In which case you’ll want a different set for each activity.

You guys might want to check out the GW2 FB page right now :P

• All pets need some form of defense, maybe they dodge when we dodge? (Some kind of special bond trait?). Or when we tell them to return, they enter stealth or have reduced damage until they return to their master.
• A ranged pet option that doesn’t make your skin crawl.
• An option to manually trigger traps; e.g; Hit button to drop trap, hit again to trigger.(Would allow you to create more combo fields from range)
• Some more medium armor than isn’t just trench-coats. I used to love trench-coats.
• A more forgiving range prerequisite on Longbow #1
• A legendary bow for men. (Ironically my favorite design so far is Eir’s)

Vox Hollow.2736:

Ogre Pet Whistle, maybe?

Pretty sure it will be this ^

I agree 100%, the in-game model is really really nice.

It would be nice to have another pet with a bit of aoe and I’ve definitely seen the Griffon doing some aoe looking attacks. Perhaps within the self managed skills. Then for the F2 an aoe buff would be of great benefit to us in the current game.

Also the axe makes your back slot items disappear during animation, then it reappears for a moment before you start the throw animation again.
Once you see it you can’t un-see it. I apologize in advance if you had not noticed it.

Well with the teased at ‘new unlockable skills and traits.’ coming this year, who knows what will happen.

I’m not sure it would not require a new pet, maybe just an upgrade of the pet of your choice?

Then for your Legendary pet, you can choose between different stat sets (like the soon to be Legendary weapons) ………..And skills Oooo

I would have to go with Norn when it comes to female, once you get past hearing your character’s voice. Norn has some great cultural armor and also cultural attachment to Rangers in general. Not to mention Ladies night with Eir is always a hoot.

Chopps.5047:

True. It’s just a fun idea I had after reading through warrior traits. Every ranger likes speed.

Haha I was messing with a Warrior again recently and thought how nice that trait would be on my Ranger too

I would really like this, or a Trait that made the passive effect of signets continue after activation

8/10 Good to see you showing your tattoo’s off but that blue/green dye on your armor is taking away from your look. I think a darker color (more like the underside of your wolf) would fit better and make the colors of your tattoo and weapons stand out better!

If you happen to be a power/crit build with ‘active signet effects you’ you can make it do some serious damage. It’s quite funny when you throw it out, massive crit, and you happen to hook them on the way back pulling them into you (more crits). During that moment you’ve switched to GS and drop a big maul crit on their knocked down face.

Atherakhia.4086:

Someone in another thread brought up an interesting idea. Attach boon removal to barrage. Since the skill is border line useless due to retaliation.

That would be awesome, as long as it was only an addition and they didn’t take something away at the same time lol

Play with what you feel most comfortable. If you choose sword+off make sure you turn auto-attack off.

Essarious Quw.8946:

Fuchsia with a dark black cherry/dusty rose combo on the bark tones.

Where are you in that screenshot :O

Sorry off-topic!
I chose not to glow, well I chose a very very feint green and turned it reasonably low. That way my eyes look extra glow’y at night _

AND a scale slider would be awesome too.

What they don’t want is for players to be instantly teleported into the dungeon and miss out on seeing all the great world design. (even though you can just waypoint everywhere which is almost contradicting to the previous statement.)

I still understand the choice for disliking WoW’s LFG system because it does terrible things, it’s great in a casual sense. But it is damaging to the server community.
-However another game under the publishing umbrella of NCsoft has a LFG system that works great and still gets you out into the world and that is Aion. It uses what sounds like the exact sort of interface that you described

I feel like I should mention that the FOV change helped fix a lot of scale issues in the world. But it wouldn’t hurt for some zones to be played with more literally

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

1.) great idea, I’d love to see much more of the animated concept art. What are the artists doing at the moment? Not much of this in the latest updates.

2.) Raise the hight of the clouds? I don’t get it. Isn’t it quite realistic at the moment? I never noticed a problem here

3.) absolutely agree, most events need more storytelling imho. Some of them have quite decent small stories to tell.

4.) can you elaborate? Not everyone has played Aion.

quite interesting read

1. Probably quite a lot, many of them will have moved onto other projects or even moved to another studio. Artists are somewhat temporary in the entertainment industry. But it would be great never the less!

1. It is quite realistic, and works fine in area’s with good terrain scale. It could be cloud specifically, some area’s have a very low cloud layer, and it makes the sky look like you can almost touch it. For me some zones feel quite claustrophobic because of it. Some issues with visuals seem to be solving themselves with time I’ve noticed so maybe they’ll fix it in time.

1. You may have hit the nail on the head with two words there. Small stories. We don’t see a lot of it occuring in GW2 yet. We have one big story that we are a part of, but no real small side stories, they always feel like the are part of the main arch. Even though we have plenty of little books and interesting events and bits and bobs out in the world, they lack that ‘hook’ that comes from the dialogue cinematic’s. Wouldn’t it be great to have some open up before or after a big event chain?

1. How it works in Aion; there is a LFG window you can open up (Comparable to perhaps the SPvP match list you see when you want to join a random game.). People can post that they are looking for or creating a party/group for a particular instance or difficult task that might require a group, and other players can click to whisper or apply to join that party/group. You still need to communicate and travel to the dungeon/event but it just gives you cleaner format to find a group. It also has a feature which automatically sends out a global chat message informing the chat channel that you are looking and has the click’able apply for group button attached.

Onshidesigns.1069:

6. Over cluttered interface

This is an interesting subject, because you are very correct. It does break immersion to see such a broad interface. Even though it is artistic and matches the GW2 theme. It can be overbearing when you want to enjoy the scenery. And having the UI completely turned off can be a little daunting in combat.

But that isn’t the easiest thing to perfect.

This class design actually sounds pretty awesome, especially the one weapon with multiple stances.

I love this game, and there any many aspects of it that will be improved on over time. But there are a few things that are specifically related to immersion that I believe might be going unnoticed.

[Five Immersion Flaws]

1. Load screen between every zone can feel a little stale and isolating.
2. Lack of terrain/environment scale in many area’s, making the world feel smaller than it is.
3. Most events lack story and progression, you can easily wind up on repeat if you stay in a single zone too long.
4. It is very easy to ignore everyone around you in a sense. Even though you often help others, you rarely communicate in a meaningful way.
5. Personal story doesn’t feel so personal second time around.

[Five Possible Solutions]

1. Animate the load screen art, similar to the concept art cinematics except a single cycle. Making load screens more entertaining to watch.
2. Raise the height of the clouds and sky (claustrophobically low sometimes). Decrease player and npc size slightly.
3. Add more directional events, progressing the player from one end of the map to the other. Though this will could itself with time and an expansion.
4. This will somewhat solve itself with time as the community continues to build. An aiding solution would be to make it easier for players to group together for content e.g; LFG system similar to Aion.
5. Add some class specific story archs to make things more unique. e.g; @lvl15 Meet your class specific Friend/Mentor do something with them relating to the chosen class. @lvl30 Meet him again for continued training or a little class specific adventure. And so fourth.

Just idea’s really, I want this game to go far!

10/10 I can really see you’ve put some time into her, the eyes on that face normally scare me but she looks really nice + the hair piece you added balances things well

I was also impressed to see you in a custom armor set that didn’t involve trying to show as much skin as possible.

Here’s my Ranger; Wolfred Darkwater

If you can afford it Rune of the Mad King’s 6 bonus for elite skill use is like aoe Hunter’s Call, it looks awesome and does some tasty damage.

Trait wise it’s up to you really as it depends on your play style, at least 5 points in BM is a must though, that quickness is too good.

Do NOT spam your F2, as Taym says; he will use it once he finishes his current attack.

I can’t say I like this functionality much on the longer cast-time pets.

Great tips coming in everyone! Keep it up! Even if it’s a small tip drop it in!
I don’t really have anything new to add that hasn’t already been said.

Jellyfish, ain’t jelly.
Don’t let this pets stats fool you, the Jellyfish is a seriously strong defensive pet with good utility (mm blind spam) and the Blue Jellyfish specifically has a rather high damage AOE with it’s F2 ability.

I don’t know about you, but I’m jealous of this and I wish that’s what mine did.

Yep, I get it too, I think a fair amount of mid-end computers get the problem.
The cause, I’m not sure exactly, probably memory related.

I’m not sure if anyone pointed this out yet, but the tick-box is gone for town clothes head slot. You cannot turn on or off your head item.

D:

This is a great idea

You gave me an idea

Seeing as how this class has issues, and this thread is so full of unhelpful banter about broken bows and under-powered underpants. I thought we should have a thread where we just gave out tips on how we are overcoming our shortcomings, something for the new Rangers in town, it’s not all that bad.

This is not for posting builds. This is where we share the things that we think everyone should know about. Anything really. You may think everyone knows, but new Rangers might not! My only request would be that you name your tip with a * bold *

I’ll start it off shall I? lol

Downed Pet Management
When you’re downed, you can still tell your pet to do things, if it is dead as well, you can switch pets while downed. For example, say you have a Wolf, it can have it fear everyone away while you try to bandage yourself or have a friend revive you. Using your pet wisely when downed can save your life.

Zephyr’s Speed
Now this is just a 5 point trait in the Beast Mastery tree, even if you are not using a BM Build, this is a must-have trait. 2 seconds of quickness might not sound like much, but when you use it wisely it can give you a hell of an advantage. Not to mention your pet will use its first ability much faster.

Drakes
You should definitely know this by now, Drakes have had their aoe ability polished and boy can it shine. This is a 2blast finisher that the Drake will attempt to use right off the bat, meaning you have an on-demand blast finisher that does some serious damage.

Ascended Quiver
If you can’t get a fractals group, but boy do you want that vial for your Quiver. Just set it to level one and jump on in. You can solo those initial elite harpies, you can solo those greedy grawl. The vial drops off of any mob loot dropping mob in the dungeon it’s all down to luck.

That’s actually all I can think of off the top of my head, what tips do you have for new Rangers?

They have a lot of mini-games planned. Mentioned activities: includes bar brawl, polymock and a shooting range.

If you look around the cities you will find hints of other mini-games they might want to put in. Moa Racing is the most obvious.

Scaling dungeons? I like that.

Chopps.5047:

That’s a lot to ask from devs…yet this would be really cool. This kind of idea, had it been worked on early enough, may have even been previously evaluated by ANET. Then again, maybe not…quite original. Very cool mechanic you have there.

I think there was some talk about giving rangers a staff. I was initially against this but after seeing Final Rest’s model, I would love to be able to weild staff.

Is there any way to find out if ANET has plans to add weapons before an expansion? Or is that the kind of thing that is expansion only?

It is a lot to ask for, my intention was just sharing an idea.
I strongly feel we will not see any weapons implemented prior to an expansion and I strongly feel it will not be this one lol. But it never hurts to share, who knows what else it sparks. With pets being such a strong part of the class in GW2 it would be nice to see more active interaction with them.

On the note of Final Rest, I’m not sure if you know or not but in GW1, the expansion Nightfall added a Scythe wielding class; Dervish. Whether we see old classes return I do not know.

How ever so far away it is, I think the first expansion will really give GW2 some juice.

With the no doubt incoming AI fixes for pets. (gotta have dreams)

Wouldn’t it be fun if we had a Beast Mastery weapon type?
-A whip sounds a little too harsh, they ain’t no slaves, I’m not sure what weapon it would be exactly, fist weapons or something.

But I imagine it would go like this. (Think Real Steel)

1 – Auto-combo chain, you do a series of attack gestures as your pet mimics your actions with several attacks.
2 – You make a spinning gesture, your pet does an aoe attack.
3 – You leap forward, your pet leaps at the target, knocking them down.
4 – You make a block gesture, your pet blocks the next attack, if successful your pet stuns the target.
5 – You roar and your pet roars with you, buffing nearby allies.

Just an idea, what do you think? What weapon/style would you look to see for the Ranger?

Have you ever noticed your small Charr looking gigantic compared to your tall Norn?

That’s because all races seem to have a default size in the character screen, I’m not 100% sure why, but I think it would be nice if they had the heights we chose for them during character creation.

Another great addition would be if we could see our weapons and back-slot item!

Just a suggestion!

Thanks ArenaNet!

I’m 50/50 with it as it’s a bit of a lucky dip most of the time, but after testing it again I was more impressed with the results than expected. Definitely would be interesting with a boon duration build as Chopps said.

I’m not sure, I don’t use the Moa much because of those exact thoughts.

I’ve seen it use it. BUT I don’t think it will use it to save you specifically.
For example if you’re almost dead and it’s fine, it’ll just peck away and not think twice about you. But when it is personally low on health, it uses it asap.
Not saying that’s how it is, but that’s how it feels like it is.

These are thoughts on an adjustment to the first ability, Long Range Shot;

-I’m really not sure how I feel about the distance changing damage thing, I get it, but the change is a tad bit extreme isn’t it? If anything what should change is the load/drawback speed, you fire faster at shorter distances and fire slower at longer.
-But to add, the arrow speed of this shot should be increased dramatically, it’s a Long Range Shot, you take the time to draw all the way back, that arrow should have some serious speed. The way it feels now is like it’s a semi-fast shot where you fire a paper plane at someone.

I will always dream of a utility/elite that gives us a proper aimed shot or ignite arrows but those are just dreams.

Nuka Cola.8520:

Reganov.3569:

Mix it with Quickening Zephyr + 1H Sword and you burst a Thief before it bursts you. Or at least make it run away like a girl.

But yeah, you take falling damage and condition damage, good to have healing spring.

Or stealth away, wait 8sec and kill you easily by spamming immobilize+burst from stealth.

Stealth away and run away like a girl look the same in my head. If he’s going to take 8 seconds I’ll probably be gone… or
I’ll switch to longbow as soon as he stealth, drop volley, keep point blank ready for a knockback and hit Signet of the Wild for Stability whilst dropping healing spring near his return to help keep conditions down. Pet swap to wolf for fear too.

You sound like you think I’m saying Thieves are better than Rangers, I was just making fun is all.

Mix it with Quickening Zephyr + 1H Sword and you burst a Thief before it bursts you. Or at least make it run away like a girl.

But yeah, you take falling damage and condition damage, good to have healing spring.

I think Anet are worried if they make our pets too tank, we will just solo the whole game.

I think they need to just give us Ignite Arrows utility or something along those lines. It would help in group fights across the board in PvE and WvW

Here’s my 2 cents.

http://www.gw2db.com/skills/calc/ranger#2|3|1242|463|333|4253|5799|30|1798|1280|2342|5|0|0|0|20|kitten2394|0|0|0|0|0|15|1801|0|0|19|15|0|28032|28032|53493|53493|53493|53493|53493|25790|21080|0|0|0|0|

I’ve always loved Signet of the Beastmaster Trait, it gives you an amazing o-@$%! button with Signet of Stone (6 sec immune) and means you can gain damage and stability from Signet of the Wild, leaving your elite skill slot open for Entangle if you so desired.
Healing Spring is a must have in my opinion, instant heal with condition removal.
Dagger off-hand is a must with sword, it gives you an extra short cooldown evade and helps you stay on your target. (four+ on-demand evades)
Also once you learn how strong pet swapping is with some BM traits, you’ll never want to go back.

That 5 point in skirmishing can go anywhere, I just really like having an on-demand swiftness.

You could drop out Quickening Zephyr for something else too, many people don’t like it so much these days but I think it has good synergy with the traited Signet of Stone.

Also instead of Greatsword I would suggest axe+horn or shortbow

Xsorus.2507:

Forzani.2584:

Hey X, keep the videos coming. Couple of questions. Do you own a human toon ? If so have you ever used Prayer to Lyssa ? If so, how do you find it vs PI ? I have been using it the past couple of weeks. A buff…sometimes 2 every 12 seconds has been very nice. Aegis and Retaliation are two of the most common. Anywhere from 5-10 seconds. (also adds a condition on the enemy if in a fight)

i’ve not really looked at it, what does it do exactly?

How long are the buffs and conditions? Because that ability could actually be very good.

Pray to Lyssa, granting a random boon to yourself and a random condition to target enemy.
12 second cooldown
3/4 cast
buff lasts 5 seconds by default, not 100% sure on the condition
1,200 range
Look like a girl using it

Scotty doesn’t know

Chopps.5047:

Reganov.3569:

What if they made spirits a companion/pet species, functioning purely as a buffer that follows you around.They do not deal damage but they do not take damage either.

A spirit is supposed to be almost like a banner on steroids. It should be WAY better because it’s killable. I mean, to remove the fact that it can die would completely change the direction of the intended mechanic. I don’t think that’s the direction most people want to go.

Fair point.

What if they made spirits a companion/pet species, functioning purely as a buffer that follows you around.They do not deal damage but they do not take damage either.

If keeping the Guild Wars tradition, would it be likely that new skills will become available in future expansions?

If so what do you want to see?

I personally would LIKE to see two new elite skills for the Ranger;

Guided Arrow; You carefully aim with aid from the spirits of the wild. This guided arrow will always hit its target. (ranged weapon not required, you pull out some kind of tree spirit bow for the animation)
-Held down to aim, single target style sniper shot. Cannot be dodged, blocked or parried.

(if heaven forbid the pet AI still isn’t fixed)
Beast Within; You join spirits with your companion, taking on the form of a beast.
-new melee based skill set, all pet damage is stacked onto your own while combined

How about you?