Guild Wars 2

I finished lvl my ele to 80 last night and was D/D all the way. I must say I found it very powerful in PVE. The guide by DaPhoenix is great (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Guide-Mastering-the-D-D-ele-12-20-12/first). You can chain together cross-attunment AoEs for some fearsome burst whilst stacking conditions and you have a load of stunbreaker utilities that will keep you alive.

I’d highly recommend full knight’s gear (and I mean every bit of equip, weapons and trinkets too) for D/D, staying alive to dish out the dmg is much more important with this class than trying to get the biggest crit numbers.

It was inevitable as my current goal is to have a fully geared out toon of each proffession. I just finished my ele focusing purely on D/D. Must say out of all the characters I’ve played so far being a magic ninja is the most challenging and rewarding so far. It’s just a shame that the AoE nerf is hanging over us like the sword of Damocles at the moment. Ah well, ill enjoy it whilst it lasts!

Necroing this thread so as to avoid posting a new one. I’ve also noticed this trait is next to useless, I don’t think I’ve ever seen it proc and going by how long this thread has been around the problem hasn’t been looked at.

Could an Anet staff member please confirm if this trait is indeed working as intended, and if not will it be fixed in the upcoming patch? Thanks!

I’d also like to add my disappointment to this. Fear not this night instrumental is arguably one of the best tracks in the game but you only give us the one with the vocal track. It’s far far cheesier with the vocals imo.

Go on Anet, be awesome and give us a download of Fear not this night instrumental!

Gawd, this is CM Story mode all over again, only this time with much much better money rewards. Way to go Anet!

I’m with you there. I’d love to WvW with the rest without having to buy a new rig to do it.

I’ve never been turned down or trash talked for playing my Ranger but undoubtedly with spirits being poor and the dps less than stellar they don’t bring as much to a group as other classes can.

Deified.7520:

The biggest problem may also be the simplicity of the skill design. You have boons and conditions and everything revolves around those. This leaves little room for creativity with skills imo.

You’re really onto something there. Where are hexes, deep wound, shutdown or meaningful interrupts? On the face of it gw2s fluid and dynamic combat looks like a great improvement, but it’s seriously lacking in depth compared to its predecessor.

And the poor necro, it’s a sorry comparison to how it used to be. No army of minions, devastating life steals and punishing hexes for you, just some broken AI and a few weak wells. And death shroud as a class mechanic? It’s a horrible mess, bring minion mastery back to the core of the class that’s what most people play a necro for.

Player and still loving it. Currently working on having a geared-up 80 of each class whilst playing the TP to stack cash for a legendary. Still plenty to keep me occupied despite the bugs etc.

hharry.1967:

Oh wait they are gonna nerf aoe, so clones gonna live longer, thieves will take less damage with the only ability that can currently damage them and their 100% stealth. Good going Anet, lets everyone roll thief/mesmer.

Mesmer shatters are AoE so they might actually see a nerf.

Levetty.1279:

But those are 3 of the worst classes in PvE.

What? I’d take any of them over a Ranger or Engi. Mesmers/eles offer great group buffs and sustained AoE dmg whilst Thieves do great single target dmg and can stealth rez saving your group from a wipe more reliably than any other class.

SquallofBalamb.8973:

Jandus.2834:

SquallofBalamb.8973:

My problem with the mesmers is that they seem to have no cooldown on creating new clones, as a ranger I excel in 1 on 1, but even when I take a clone down in seconds a new one is ready and I’m back to a full 4 “people”, you either get lucky enough to hit the original before your health gets too low or your done for, and running isn’t much of an option in WvW.

Try actually playing the class and the various weapon types they have access to and you’ll find that this is very far from the truth.

I did for a while, wasn’t for me, just with the weapon abils I did get though I was never alone, and I stopped about level 5. And It can’t be that far from the truth as whenever I run into them in WvW they always have at-least 2 clones out.

Its not that far from the truth tbh. If I want to spec for it I can put out clones every time I dodge and I get vigor on crit, put out a clone and stealth (40 sec cd), put out 2 clones (45 sec cd), teleport and make a clone (10 sec cd) and that’s not counting the phantasms, some of which have very short cds (weapon skill ones being 12-18 sec, util. ones a bit longer). And that’s just staff/gs, other weapons may be faster, not bothered to check for this post.

Still: clones are squishy as hell so AoE will rip them up, they stand still and are very easily distinguishable from a player who dodges and uses skills, whilst they are out im not shattering which is where mesmer’s serious dps comes from on many builds.

When I’m playing my Ranger I don;t have much of a problem with Mesmers. But then again, that’s because I also play one so I know what to look for. I suggest, like the other guy said, you go back to play Mesmer for a bit more. Know your enemy.

Because getting decent loot in this game is such a rare occurance it deserves the fanfare so to speak ^ ^

kineticdamage.6279:

I’m pretty astonished by the amount of knee-jerk reactions right here … and by the amount of people who mock the OP without having even read it entirely. [Snip]

I’m sorry but in their defense it was very unclear what you were getting at. I figured English wasn’t your mother-tongue but I don’t think others did because you have a very good vocabulary. Next time try to be a bit less florid and verbose and just focus on getting your point across as succinctly as possible. Also a TLDR should really summarise your main points which “please MMO industry, stop forgetting your nerds.” doesn’t do in any way shape or form.

As for the message however, I agree wholeheartedly. There needs to be more depth to the game in term’s of character variety/development. Hopefully the first quarter updates will unlock more potential across the classes with new viable builds and refined combat mechanics but we will really just have to wait and see.

I’d like a bit more clarity on what exactly constitutes AoE here. Sure we are all familiar with ele/necro/engi AoE but what about other classes. My warrior’s sword hits multiple targets, is that being nerfed? What about my mesmer’s shatters? My Ranger’s axe/pet skills too?

There are tons of skills that can hit multiple enemies and don’t have the AoE circles, what’s in line for a nerf here?

Add a cooldown to the perma-bell’s ringing ability. Problem solved!

Acaelus Thorne.3862:

@Rhaps. Oh no not the Causeway?

Oh yes! That’s it. Not a fan? I think it could be fun. I mean gw2 would obviously do it far better than DSIII which is utter trash from beginning to end.

Dungeon Siege III altho a horrible console rpg that completely destroyed the franchise did have an interesting take on fast travel. When you went into the portals you had to travel through weird alternate dimension made of swirly stuff, magical crystal etc. whilst the path came up to meet your feet in front of you. At one point in the game you even have to go in and fight a boss there.

You could do something similar in this game, making it the mists, and maybe even include a couple unique monsters/bosses/events that randomly crop up when you travel through. Would be far more engaging than just going through a portal straight to a loading screen then out the destination.

I really like the idea. I used to use a staff on my gw1 pure beastmastery build for the extra energy an so did R/N touch rangers. The weapon quite suits the class imo.

On a side not Obi kittenobi made me laugh. XD

Nowt wrong with nudity. I walk around my flat naked all the time. And if my neighbours are offended then they can stop peering in my windows.

They should include nudity when they bring out player housing.

Do tabletop Doom II, at least it will be a bit more unique in terms of setting.

But on topic, I think I would just make my own system for it. At least that way you can give it more of a Guild Wars flavour.

LaronX.8079:

Rhaps.8540:

If they managed to balance this..

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/List_of_mesmer_skills

…then I don’t think they will have any problems balancing the gw2 mesmer. It’s far far more simple by comparison.

In fact, coming from my gw1 mesmer I want more! Where are my hexes? Where are my spell stealing abilities? Where is my lethal shutdown? That said Gw2 mesmer is one of the few classes that even comes close to reaching the complexity of its gw counterpart.

Wait the manged to balance that? That is new to me . Last time I checked Panic was still OP as kitten XD

lol you got me there! Aww man I wish we had interrupts like that in this game. Mesmer interrupter used to be fun as hell to play in pvp. Other casters just used to run when they saw you coming.

If they managed to balance this..

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/List_of_mesmer_skills

…then I don’t think they will have any problems balancing the gw2 mesmer. It’s far far more simple by comparison.

In fact, coming from my gw1 mesmer I want more! Where are my hexes? Where are my spell stealing abilities? Where is my lethal shutdown? That said Gw2 mesmer is one of the few classes that even comes close to reaching the complexity of its gw counterpart.

Asuran cultural greatsword the Peacemaker looks really good with mesmer imo. Obviously it’s what I use It has purple glowing bits, purple lightning flashes and even leaves a faint trail of effects when you move about. It looks more like a caster weapon than an actual melee weapon with the floating parts etc and it’s perfectly symetrical so looks good when it’s spinning about. All that and it only costs Karma, what’s not to like?

http://dulfy.net/2012/11/07/gw2-greatsword-skin-gallery/#42

Incidently I also use the peacemaker staff skin for the same reasons.

Hapticated.1657:

Thanks Rhaps!

The idea was to make it a bit more personalised from the usual how to videos, as a lot of the videos on our channel are us talking and playing together, but I totally understand that’s not for everyone! Thanks for the input.

I’m glad you didn’t take my criticism as an insult. Again the interactive map is really handy, and as far as I know your video is the only one that has all the information handily gathered together in one video per zone rather than dozens of seperate ones. So on the useablity scale it rates very high. But yeah, the voiceover is more suited to the ‘lets play’ type videos I think.

Keep up the good work.

Really nicely laid out with the clickable map etc. and a worthwhile project I think.

But if im brutally honest I found the rambling voiceover pretty annoying especially with comments like “what’s that made out of?” “poo” “teee hee hee”. People won’t be looking up the video to listen to that kinda stuff, they just want plain directions.

Removing the voiceover altogether or redoing it with a simple description of how to get to the points would be a great improvement imo.

Nayru.3947:

Stevefin.7251:

Because Guild wars, was named after a major event that had happened many many years before the first one, That too did not have GvG, until faction wars expansion

Where are you getting all this wrong information from?

Prophecies had GvG and (faction wars?) Factions was a campaign not an expansion.

GW2 won’t have GvG because there isn’t enough skill diversity. (Or healers.)

Not sure if trolling or not. Like the other guy posted

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/The_Guild_Wars

Yes Prophecies had GVG.. GVG =/= The Guild Wars. The Guild Wars are the events outlined in that wiki article and where the game gets its name from. If you read the article you will clearly see that the events occured before the events of Prophecies. Do you get it yet?

I’m all for GvG in gw2, and im confident that it will return at some point.

StevesDad.8213:

The class, to me, looked kinda like a Bowazon in Diablo 1 before the short bow 40ms nerf. I have no idea why that happened or if anything was buffed to change things but the bottom line is I really, really want to play this ranged class as… Ranged.

With a bow. doesn’t matter what kind. And do just as well as other ranged classes or god forbid a war with a rifle. You’d think that would be possible.

If you really really want to play it ranged. Then play it ranged, it is totally possible. It works just fine. I use sb/axe+warhorn most of the time with the occasional sword, greatsword and longbow for variety and im shooting up the fractals, pvping, dungeon delving etc without any issues whatsoever.

To be honest if you need this much convincing about the class I doubt how much you really want to play it. I’d have rolled one and be out there happily pew pewing hours ago rather than waiting to hear what other people think.

Try it out and make up your own mind. Or sit here and let some people ruin the class for you in your head before you’ve even experienced firsthand what it’s about. Upto you.

Oh and ps. I also have a warrior, who has a rifle for ranged. Trust me when I say it’s entirely different and that different does not equal straight up better. Despite what others say. But hey, like I said, try it yourself and come to your own conclusions.

The only time I agree that pets are useless is higher lvl fractals due to them not currently getting Agony resistance from gear.

Otherwise pets are fine in dungeons, and I do a lot of them. I run jaguar/devourer, have F1 and F3 mapped to the side buttons of my mouse and use them frequently. I move my pets out of AoE. I use the stealth on the jaguar to drop aggro when needed. I use the shared boons trait to heal my pet effectively from range and stack boons. I occasionally use stone signet to tank & heal through dmg spikes. These are just a few things involved in effective pet micro.

The uptime on my pets is great, simple as. But sure, if you have 0 BM, take 2 mellee pets and never touch anything but the occasional F2 then your pets are going to suck in dungeons. But here’s the thing, it isn’t the pet’s fault.

Cole Winters.2764:

More and more fights I am participating in at high level play require me to keep my pet on passive. In fights where positioning is important….or when there are additional “adds” around it is too dangerous to have the pet running around. In other instances…like climbing the tower of the “Catastrophe” fractal, my pet is useless to help me against the harpies, unless I get on the same platform as one of them…That’s 30% of my damage output “admiring the view” for half the fractal.

Don’t delude others into thinking that the only problem with the ranger is the fact that the “bow” can be boring.

Sure the ranger has problems but those aren’t it. The only time ever had to keep my pet on passive is during Jormag due to the pets not attacking properly. Even then, when they are passive I switch to moas/fernhound/stalker for AoE buffs so at least they are doing something. Reading that it seems like you never use ranged pets. They don’t run off pulling aggro and obviously work really well for sections such as climbing the tower as they don’t need to be next to the harpies to attack.

My medium armour character is a small female human ranger. I also dislike the trenchcoats but thought that the full tier 3 cultural set made you look like a thief/assasin.
So I decided to mix things up a bit. I went for tier 3 chest/legs, tier 2 (the most archer-like set) shoulders/gloves/mask and due to clipping issues withe the tier 3 and the tier 2 boots, AC dungeons boots. I think the end result has a definate archer feel without being swathed in a huge coat.

Some more affordable options would indeed have been nice though!

I played healer in a lot of other mmos including the first gw so I do understand. That said I respect that gw2 is not doing things this way and I accept it because it offers a much more unique experience.

So whenever I miss playing a healer I play one of the dozens of other great mmos that have a trinity/healing. Problem solved!

It’s a pretty purile name but far from offensive by my own standards. But you have to admit, if you called someone your chosen name then you would either be joking with them or insulting them. Seeing as a name has no context to differenciate between the two then it’s an insult. Any insulting name is offensive by their standards and not tolerated.

You really should have seen it coming.

Chase.8415:

On the contrary, because there was no LFG tool I have seen people openly admit they’ve never done the content before without having fear of being kicked.

On top of that, I also have cross server friends and people in the guild that I continually do endgame content with. If there was a LFG tool, I’d feel quite alone because anyone could simply “queue” in town all day and progress further and leave others behind.

But I just made 3 friends from different servers! I was looking for a group for anything, just bored and its offpeak time in EU, so I had a browse of gw2lfg. Met up with a group looking initially to do fractals, but when none of us could get into overflow we went and did 3 different exp runs in 3 different dungeons. Each one a new experience for some of us and a great laugh at the same time.

So to say a LFG tool only equals non-communication in the community/groups and people being scared to do content for fear of being kicked (and honestly I’ve never been kicked for telling a group I’ve not done the content before, quite the opposite) is focusing purely on the worst case scenario. Also an LFG tool doesn’t stop you from group with people you already know and come the next patch fractals will be open to all lvls, so no being left behind.

Fact of the matter is, wether Anet wants it or not, the LFG tool exists now and unless they want to fracture their community between newcomers and people in-the-know then they should implement their own system.

That or officially endorse the gw2lfg site, point newcomers to it and give the guy some cash. I’d be happy with that too.

Tank and spank? There are barely any bosses you can ‘tank’ in this game. Unless by tank you mean, kite & dodge? And still seeing as you cant keep aggro that won’t ‘tank’ them for long either.

As Ursan and others already pointed out there are plenty of bosses that offer a challenge and different mechanics to deal with. You like the Jade Maw? Then go play CoF and SE story mode, both of their final bosses have mechanics related to the environment and can’t be attacked directly by normal means. On top of that there are the numerous bosses that can 1-shot you, trap you, stunlock you, poison you etc etc. scattered through the dungeons/fractals.

I think you need to spend a bit more time in the dungeons to actually get an idea of what Anet put in before declaring it all high-hp boring trash.

laurajanehamilton.5897:

I started playing mmos just a few years ago, and have mostly only played a few. I don’t have a lifetime of mmo experience or even gaming experience – before I started mmos I had rarely played video games at all. Never owned a console. So this is from someone who doesn’t really have all that elite history or whatever.

I love this game – but I’m starting to feel suckered. In the beginning I was really happy, it seemed like there was no grind in this game and a ton of different things to do. I came to this game to escape grind and money-grabbing. Now I find I’m forced to farm, and farming has become extremely grindsome. I can’t do more than cover waypoint costs anymore. I can’t afford to do all those things that there are to do. Which is why I’ve started playing the trading post, but neither that nor farming are how I want to play. I just want to play, for fun, and make enough gold to cover my expenses and get a neat new thing once in a while. Now, if I try to just play for fun, I lose all my money and end up having to tediously run everywhere, while saying goodbye to any better equipment (can’t get it or the mats to make it from drops anymore). I’m starting to just not feel much like playing anymore. I’ve been in the habit of playing for hours every day, but now I just kind of leave the TP up and do something else while occasionally checking it. It’s fun to help friends out with leveling or story quests sometimes, but I need waypoint money for that. I’d like to craft gifts for friends too, but at the current rate it will be months at least before we can gather the mats from the drop rates we’re seeing now. Getting the ectoplasms for crafting exotics takes an unbelievably long time. Not one of us is even thinking of legendaries, and we are not casual players. Despite having played since beta (guess we missed those exploit opportunities or something), our goals are more like someday having ten gold, leveling up a craft to four hundred… So much grind for these. It’s not fun. Honestly when I have the cash I don’t mind buying gems. Rather, I didn’t mind, when I was enjoying myself and buying gems felt like a lazy shortcut on my part and supporting the game I liked… Not like I had to buy gems just to be able to play. I’m disappointed.

Still, I’m holding out for now, hoping this is temporary. I don’t know a lot about games from a developer’s standpoint and am willing to wait for people who know what they’re doing to figure things out. I just want to add my experience here.

I’m sorry to hear your gameply experience is like that although the whole thing puzzles me immensely. Mainly due to my experience almost being totally opposite.

I’ve never found myself to be so short of money I couldnt afford a waypoint. I’ve only done mob farming for a week to get some tier 3 for my main. I don’t flip profits on the trading house, I do however sell all items on the TP that will give me more profit than vendoring them and I loot everything.

My main activities are levelling alts up to 80, a process that seems to net me about 5-10g in profit once complete, and running dungeons. I’ve never come out of a dungeon in the negative due to repair costs and if im lucky, normally doing a 10 or lower FoTM, will often come out upto 5g in profit after selling up. Some runs where I’ve been lucky enough to get rare cores and multiple exotics I’ve made significantly more. Incidently I never run dungeons in MF gear. In fact my MF suit has been gathering dust since the aforementioned week of intensive farming.

Basically I’ve been playing for fun. Doing the whole exploring, levelling, dungeon delving with friends thing etc. Only a wee bit of grind for a couple armour pieces. And at the end of it all my bank balance keeps climbing. The only time it goes down to the 1g region is when I get a new toon to 80 and I need to spend a bunch on exotic gear. But as soon as I continue my usual gameplay the money rolls back in.

Now, I’m just wondering, what is it you or I are doing differently to each other that’s resulting in such different results? I don’t craft at all so I guess I’m not sinking money into that. Or maybe you arent so festidious as I am about selling every little thing for slightly more moeny on the TP? I’m genuinely curious as to what is making the difference here as otherwise we seem to be playing in a similar way.

Keiran.1896:

tanksferaskin.6487:

I use the LFG website, it is very helpfull, and you can join cross server. Why not make all the cities cross server then? Lion’s arch has so much to explore and look at without the LFM messages for fractals.

I did use the LFG website… I ended up with a team with 2 EU people (including me) and 3 US people. And then we noticed we can’t play together, because the 2 big servers are separated.

I had to recruit in Lion Arch to finally get a team.

Thats not an issue with the LFG website. It is clearly split into EU and US listings. Either the people who listed the group or the peole who joined were using the wrong part of the site.

I’m a great proponent of gw2lfg.com. It’s allowed me to do far more dungeon/fractal runs than ever before. I’d certainly be getting a lot more bored, and playing less, if it werent for them essentially filling in the massive blank Anet left when they decided against a cross realm lfg tool.

Strikerjolt.5910:

You really sound like you need to get over yourself, or need to stop lying. Because even some of my best top players on my guild refuse to do AC (which is the level 30 dungeon) with a full party at level 80 gear. I honestly call bullcrap that you could do AC story mode with a 3 man, and if you can. I would ask for a video, or gtfo.

In fact I just asked several of my guild mates, and they say you’re full a crap about running a 3 man AC group at level 30, and beating it.
So please stop trying to talk up a big game, and trying to be a bad kitten

Also. “viewed ranged as pointless kiting rather than a tactical alternative”
Range is pointless kitting, and there’s nothing “Tactical” about it.
Range is easy mode because the amount of effort you need to put into a range-based class is no were as much as you need to put into a melee/up-close type style. It even like this in the beta, and several people on youtube, and myself even stated that using Range requires less effort than using melee.

So. Please. Stop trying to talk up a big game, and trying to be a big bad kitten

Look at the attached screenshot. That’s us finishing off the last boss. It wasn’t an easy run, but despite what your baddie guildmates say, entirely possible. The 30 thief and the 51 ranger are both 1 week into the game and we get together on voice chat to help each other out. I give them plenty of advice and they are doing really well. Probably becuase they listen, don’t blame the game and don’t give up easily. This was their first ever dungeon run.

The tactical aspect of range is knowing when to use it. Ie. understanding that it allows melee to keep up sustained dps whilst they fall back for regen/CDs and grasping the fact that kiting is the closest you will get to tanking in a dungeon.

I just told you the facts. If you cant handle that and have to call everyone liars etc then fine. But don’t expect the game to change because you’re struggling.

Strikerjolt.5910:

Rofl. Then you’re a good player, or flat out lying, because even some of my best guild mates have problems in their personal stories being a little too hard.

Be an Elementalist during the priory mission where you have to go into a cave, and defeat a boss with a greatsword. Then tell me that’s not hard. Hell I even went to help my guild mate during this quest, and even two on one was hard, and we kept dying.

So no I am not raging at all. I say it’s hard, because it is.

Thief on claw island, and you didn’t have any problems?
I would like to say. Proof, gtfo.
The only way I see a Thief soloing claw island if she/he was kiting with a short bow, and that’s it.
So then I ask. Wasn’t this game built around the idea that all builds were viable, and useable in all cases?

Hard really is relative, you find it hard, a lot of us don’t. I actually found the personal story to be too easy if anything. I’ve never needed any help with the story missions, other than the final one obviously, although there are a couple which presented a challenge but nothing I found imbalanced.

As for the rate of lvling, again no problems. I make sure not to skip too many mobs, use food buffs for increased xp gain, do my story missions and upgrade my equip every 5 lvls (all of it) with stuff from the trading post. Incidently anyone can afford to do this if they sell salvagables/bags/mats etc on the trading post before vendoring the rest. I don’t seed new characters with anything from my other 80s until they hit 80 themselves, there really is no need.

I think there must be something in your playstyle that is hindering your progress. I’ve recently been helping a friend lvl up his first toon and I will say he was bloody awful to start with. Never dodged, kept forgetting to upgrade his equip, vendored everything losing tons of cash, ignored his utility skills, viewed ranged as pointless kiting rather than a tactical alternative, never switched weapons depending on the situation, the list goes on! That said after some friendly advice and a bit of practice he got to the stage where he was able to 3 man his first ever dungeon run the day he hit 30.

My advice; don’t blame the game but up your own game. Also stop quitting on your characters so kitten early. There is a learning curve, ride it.

I’m amazed that anyone can complain about the amount of content we’ve received so far since launch. There is just no pleasing some people I guess.

MarzAttakz.9608:

/signed – candy for the babies, while the adults starve

What? Adults aren’t allowed to enjoy holidays? You’re more of an adult if you only like the top end content of your online video game? You have a confusing definition of what constitutes an adult.

Seafarer’s Rest EU here and I have to say the low lvl areas have been the busiest I’ve seen them since launch. Been lvling up alts recently and I’ve found groups in every zone.

Daddy.5986:

I recently stopped playing since I got nothing else to do in game (I’ll keep my eye on forums and stuff to see what will expansion/patches bring but I don’t think I’ll log on for a while), anyway back on topic: How do you feel about rangers and their bow skills?

I agree, they aren’t very exciting. Warrior bow skills are far more fun and more how I’d like to see ranger longbow. But then again I mix it up with axe, different pets, sword etc. quite a lot to keep it fresh.

On a side point I really hope you have an 80 of each profession. If not you have a lot more to do and a lot more fun to be had. I love my ranger but I’ve also got my warr, mesmer and necro to keep me entertained when I get bored. Don’t just play on one toon, or you’re missing out on 7/8ths of the gameplay content.

Dee Jay.2460:

Of course as a ranged DPS this is nothing you need to worry about. Just continue watching TV while avoiding red circles and you’re set.

Every class can ranged dps. The game is clearly balanced around this fact.

Eladriel.7295:

I really don’t care unless you step on my toes and start being bossy..

This sums it up for me as well. Pay them no attention otherwise.

Hasek.6807:

I’d personally boot a 5 sig warrior from my group hands down.)

I personally boot people out my group that kitten at other group members about their builds before they’ve even seen them play. Sure 5 sig can be terrible in the hands of a terrible player but I’ve seen plenty of excellent ones too. It’s a lazy build for sure but I’ve never failed a dungeon or fractal because of one.

Things don’t get magically better at 80, no. If you don’t like Ranger lvling up then you won’t suddenly like it once you hit 80. Then again you can give your toon all the top end gear at 80 but that wont change the numbers massively and has nearly no effect on the gameplay.

Sounds like this class isn’t for you, roll another one.

Only thing even remotely worthwhile in the DD pack is the elite, and it’s still pretty underwhelming. Who cares about a hat that is probably town-clothes only and will likely do what most headgear does and replace your hair so your toon looks like a cancer patient.

atheria.2837:

I am frustrated that my bows (either) or my rifle (only gun???) are worthless, and I mean worthless in spvp.

Rangers can’t use Rifles. Do you mean the speargun?

Insightful, new, helpful, constructive… I’d use none of these words to describe this thread.

Does Fortifying Bond in the NM tree work?

“Any boon you get is shared with your pet. " in case you forgot.

This has been talked about a fair bit although as a beastmaster ranger who has done all the dungeon content with pets I can safely say that pets do work in dungeons, it’s just not as easy as people think. For reference this is the build I run for most dungeons and pve. The skills listed there get mixed up a lot, they are the pure dps ones, but I often put in a signet if the pets are in for a rough fight.

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQRBMRdG2JSF9VWFkkFsWII6CYPOkiQ0TR6Vv/goS5JloqVA;TsAA1CtoKyUkoIbRuikFtEZIyGEA

(you may have to copy-paste this link to get it to work on these forums)

First off, if you want to use pets other than the high HP bears or ranged pets then you are going to have to invest something into your beastmaster trait line. The dps pets are just too squishy without it. Felines and birds will likely get one-shotted too often to be useful if you are taking them into dungeons with 0 BM points. If I run a build with 0BM then I almost always have my pets on passive and choose pets with good defensive/buffing skills like the fernhound, wolf, moas etc.

Secondly pets require a bit of micro management to be truly effective, especially for high dps. I have attack and retreat mapped to the side buttons on my mouse. I’m constantly checking the position of my pet during battles and keeping an eye on their health bar too. Knowing when to pull them back from danger (incl. the dreaded AoE) or switch from melee to ranged is critical to keeping them alive. Juggling between your two pets before they die is encouraged by the game mechanics so switch as often as possible.

Thirdly picking the right survivability skills for your pets is important. Signet of Stone grants your pet temporary invulnerability and alllows your heals to catch up with dmg which is great when dealing with big dmg spikes. Healing skills like trolls ungent that heal your pet wherever they are are are far more useful to you than healing spring unless you have fortifying bond (share boons with pets) trait from the NM tree.

Lastly picking the right pet for the fight makes all the difference. Trying to send a melee pet up against a hard hitting melee boss will only end in a dead pet whilst a devourer with their ranged attacks and evasive burrowing will do a great job. You have a lot of options within the pet roster. Melee-dps, ranged-dps, melee-aoe, ranged-aoe, high hp, buffing, control, conditions… it’s all there, if you are serious about using pets make taming them all a top priority. The pets themselves can do a lot to help their own survivability, and yours. For instance the jaguar can stealth and drop all aggro whilst dishing out huge crits, the raven can blind a foe shutting them down for a time, the wolf can AoE fear mobs stopping you both from being overwhelmed, the drake hound can AoE root countering mobs that chase own and KD etc etc. There is a perfect pet for every encounter.

As for your other questions. Yes, you can run petless in GW1 but I would personally never do it in GW2. In GW2 pets can only help a ranger, even with 0BM they are still a mobile buffing/healing/control station that will take aggro off your back. Running without one wouldn’t benefit my marksman builds at all

Anyway that turned out longer than I’d intended, hope it helps!