Guild Wars 2

The problem here is that Malafide assumes – as feminists would – that (only) women are discriminated against. She also confuses the terms sexist and sexual. A sexual portrayal of women isn’t sexist per se. Men, too, are portrayed in a sexually attractive manner in video games, but different entirely. She puts women in the victim role of this grand patriarchal desire for sexually attractive women in video games (and assumes that this is harmful), but ignores entirely that individuals of either gender have individual feelings towards the subject entirely. Some men really don’t like skimpy clothes on women, and neither do some women. On the other hand, there are both men and women who do like the latter. Women aren’t victimised if women agree to the way their characters are portrayed, and quite frankly, a proportional amount of women do.

In the same manner, “ME SMASH” characters are arguably sexist towards men, because those characters are never ever female. And though I personally take offence to this to some extent (the assumption that men are stupid and can only solve things in brutal combat), I realise that these characters are very much liked by others, and have their place in gaming universes. My only wish? That female characters, too, may be “ME SMASH” characters. In the very same way, it is also my desire that men, too, may be portrayed like a chunk of women in video games are portrayed; sexualised to some extent.

I’ve had this too with two rangers in my party.

YES YES YES on the penguin because Linux <3

Well, that’s basically the suggestion in this topic. The thread creator wants gear that shows skin. The wisest decision thereon would be to make armour that indeed shows skin, but takes a hint from past mistakes and make such gear without obvious sexual intent.

Just ignore him entirely, Malafide. Also, have you perhaps considered the possibility of armour that reveals skin without obvious sexual intent? Winged armour is horrid, the two ritualists I posted were awesome if you take away the slight schism with physics:
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/File:Ritualist_Kurzick_armor_m.jpg
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/File:Ritualist_Kurzick_armor_f.jpg

Mungrul.9358:

I regard anyone who behaves in such a manner as less than human.

To perpetuate and engender the continuation of this situation is comparable to supporting Apartheid as far as I’m concerned.

These two sentences don’t blend well together. You should mail these two sentences to yourself, and read them out loud ten years from now to realise just how moronic that sounds. So far, all you’ve been doing is stampeding into this topic throwing around ad hominem insults to everyone and their mother. That’s not the way a debate is kept healthy, and I feel guilty for ever engaging a debate with you.

Expect no more responses from me towards you.

edit: @Malafide You get an ounce of respect for that post.

Maybe, perhaps, that behaviour was caused by Anita’s inherent idiocy, rather than reigning misogyny?

Mungrul.9358:

The reason they attack you Malafide is that they realise there’s a growing voice of dissent in gaming that isn’t happy with the portrayal of women in the industry.
And that means the industry might some day soon grow up and stop appealing to the kitten fantasies of men. They’re afraid this stuff they get such a lizard-brain kick from will be taken away.

#1ReasonToBe made a large impact thankfully, as did the recent Street Fighter X Tekken Cross Assault scandal.
This is to say nothing of Anita Sarkeesian’s KickStarter appeal and how the inherently sexist nature of male gamers was thrown into the limelight thanks to the reprehensible behaviour of certain large segments of the community.

We’re getting there, slowly but surely, but MMOs are some of the worst offenders. They have been pandering to the male gaze for a long time now, to such an extent that the audience can’t recognise objectification for what it is.

If gamers want their hobby to be taken seriously, they need to encourage the industry to stop with the soft core porn and get respectable.

LOL.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJeX6F-Q63I

Get your facts straight. First, nobody is attacking Malafide. We’re merely pointing out just how flawed her viewpoint really is. As a matter of fact, I’ve purposely kept my gender hidden throughout this discussion as not to receive ad hominem arguments or let others’ perception of me change the way the written word is read.

@Malafide This is ridiculous. You criticise sexualised female armour, but welcome sexualised male armour gladly. It’s one or the other. You either want sexualised armour for both, or sexualised armour for neither. Not doing so merely reinforces just what double standard you hold.

Nonetheless, I’ve repeatedly asked you what you actually want. You come here moaning about supposed misrepresentation of women in video games to the extent that it becomes offensive, but offer no alternative of your own. I’ve offered my alternative, and that is to treat men and women exactly the same when it comes to armour, rather than upholding sexual dimorphism. Now it’s your turn, because I think everybody’s lost it with you by now.

How else can you explain your need to say “that’s not what I meant”; the collective ignorance of the crowd, or your own lack of direction? If we’re to believe Wikipedia’s core principles, the crowd is smarter than the individual, and therefore you’re being unclear. Notice how I use sources, and you do not other than pictures here and there.

@Malafide Yes, it is sexist towards men for not being able to dress in the same way. And yes, it is a misrepresentation of the female sex. She is, however, not representative for the female sex at all. While such characters used to be more common, they are now in a minority. But you’re forgetting that such characters have their place in game universes, just as much as dumb “ME SMASH” male characters have a place in game universes. Except people don’t play the gender card when it concerns “ME SMASH” characters, but do play the gender card when it concerns oversexualised females.

And you’re forgetting that there is some merit to the empowerment through dressing. You yourself may not experience anything when you dress differently, but others may very much feel empowered. Just like Shakespeare means nothing to ample people, but a lot to some others.

That, and you’re doing what a lot of typical feminists do: Deciding what is good for other women. “I’m a feminist, I know what is right for women”. That’s ludicrous. This happened primarily to stay-at-home mums who were penalised by feminism for choosing to be caregivers, rather than ‘empowered women’, but also happens in many other instances, such as this one.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Wait a minute, are you saying that when women receive most of the skimpy outfits, its men that are being victimized? Because it sounds like that is what you are saying.

Yes. Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying. There are two sides to the coin: Women being portrayed as sexy, and men not being portrayed as such. Narrowminded people assume the either side of the coin is flawed (and feminists will always assume that the women’s side is disadvantageous). Rational people, however, will review both sides simultaneously in relation to one another. When people complain there’s “too much sexism against women” in video games, that means something is happening to female characters that doesn’t happen often to male characters in comparison. This in turn indicates that men are inherently considered unfit for whatever is happening to women, and may be considered unequal treatment. This is a lot of backwards engineering, I know, but trust me, I’m an engineer.

Am I saying that only men are being disadvantaged? No. I’m saying that men and women are equally disadvantaged by the same phenomenom, even if the phenomenom is only prominently visible on one side of the coin.

Also, you lost me when you said that the assassin’s armour is sexualised, and the gladiator armour isn’t. Don’t they both show exactly the same amount of skin in the very region you’re criticising? Again, you’re upholding a double standard here that penalises the gender you’re trying to support. But fret not, feminists do this all the time.

Also, you’re forgetting that stereotypes aren’t necessarily evil. Hipsters were pretty cool people before they became stereotypical for that matter. Imagine if you will that I’m a hipster at heart, and suddenly hipster becomes the stereotype. That means I am now penalised for being who I truly am at heart, because others join the hipster fad merely because it’s a wildcard. Now, I’m not a hipster, but the same goes for the stereotype you’re fighting against. If someone truly likes skimpy armour for whatever reason, then let them. Just because skimpy armour is currently a stereotype doesn’t mean that it’s evil per se. Moreover, you’re contradicting yourself heavily anyway. You’re fiercely against skimpy armour for it offends you, but you don’t want a ban as it were. What do you want?

And as the person above me pointed out, women are put in an extremely good light in GW2. Zojja, Caithe, Eir, Queen Jennah and Faolain are extremely good female characters in their own rights. And extra props to Faolain for being an evil female character. As a matter of fact, I recall an extremely masculine female character from the human story line, which was pretty interesting. That, and in the sylvari storyline, masculinity and femininity are all over the place regardless of gender, which is incredibly intriguing. Claiming that women are portrayed poorly in GW2 of all games is pretty foolish, I’m afraid to say, merely because some armour sets happen to match an existing stereotype. For that matter, GW2 is more sexist towards men for not having nearly enough effeminate armour sets whilst women do indeed get masculine armour sets. But I digress.

The problem with the status quo is that men and women who don’t fit the picture feel out of place, and that’s a shame. Does this mean, however, that there is no place for the stereotypical strong men and attractive women? I wouldn’t dare claim that. There must, however, be more space for men and women who don’t fit into those boxes. And I believe ANet did an awesome job with sylvari on this. My male sylvari looks quite frail and effeminate (not using the terms interchangeably; don’t harass me for assuming that frail equals effeminate), while female sylvari can look amazingly imposing (Heavy Twilight Arbor armour, per example). And yes, male sylvari can look incredibly imposing, and female sylvari can look as attractive as you’d like them to be. Which, quite frankly, is fantastic. It’s a win for everybody.

But you hold on to a weird belief that women are the only ones severely victimised. But here’s some common logic: Equality is somewhere in the middle. If women have too much skimpy armour, that means they have more skimpy armour in relation to men. Which points out that men are penalised by not having such armour. So women need more proper armour, and men need more skimpy armour to even out the balance and achieve equality. To merely focus on women and ignore men entirely is a blind and foolish thing to do.

Notwithstanding, this game has a severe lack of skimpy armour. While light armour users have a fair amount of choice, medium armour users have next to no choice at all. And if skimpy armour caters to their preferences, I see no reason not to let them. And to calm your wrath; skimpy armour on women doesn’t reinforce sexism in video games. So long as women are presented with awesome covering armour, too, there should be no problem. For, truly, video games present an exaggeration of an ideal picture in individual expression (source: Extra Credits & Jane McGonigal), which in and of itself is an appreciable form of art. It becomes a problem, however, when the ideal picture doesn’t match the player’s. In which case, alternatives must be created. And fortunately, GW2 has been quite able to provide on these alternatives, though I’d like to see more.

Verily, being against “bikini model” armour as you state it is denying others of their exaggeration of personal expression. Truthfully, so long as everybody gets their own slice of exaggerated personal expression, all should be well.

@Malafide I’ll prove you wrong on not being able to debate decently without bullet points. Also, I still want your opinion on the gladiator and assassin armour.

First things first: You say there’s inherent sexism in the portrayal of women in video games. That’s quite a bold statement, I dare say, especially when there’s no physical evidence to back up that claim. As a matter of fact, I put some minor research into the topic a few months back, and was left with a feeling of “meh”. Granted, the primary source of information was the infamous FeministFrequency on Youtube with her “Women VS Tropes in Video Games” series. If you’re in for a watch, watch her damsel in distress video and a response video, both of which I’ll link right here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6p5AZp7r_Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJeX6F-Q63I

So there’s this concept that the video game industry is inherently sexist towards women, and you take that viewpoint without giving me any evidence or statements to support that viewpoint. This leaves me with only little to argue, but I’ll give it a go. I think it is safe to say that, in video games, women have more sexually appealing armour and looks than men do in general. The question is whether this is sexist and/or degrading. If you want my opinion on this, it’s going to be a tad complicated. Some games perform better than others, and the complexity of the subject is mind-dazzling. Overall? I think the way women are portrayed in video games is acceptable, but not ideal. And that’s a very moderate opinion to have, truly.

But the problem is the feminist assumption that in case of sexism, women always get the short end of the stick. Like I’ve said before, I’m a gender egalitarian, and assume both genders have it equally bad until proven otherwise. But clearly, male characters don’t walk around with a gigantic sex appeal? That’s debatable, actually. Most male characters are muscular, and per today’s standards, being muscular as a man is a major sex appeal. But muscles clearly don’t make up quite enough for the amount of sex appeal female characters tend to have to endure.

So, with GirlWritesWhat as source for this one, men make up sex appeal differently entirely. While women’s sex appeal is judged on the basis of their physical appearance, men’s sex appeal is largely judged on the basis of their status and abilities. A man in a suit is not attractive because suits are divine to look at, not at all. A man in a suit is attractive because suits indicate wealth. Similarly, muscular men aren’t attractive because muscles are awesome, but because muscles indicate strength, and strength enhances the man’s abilities. Video games know this, and portray men as apt or wealthy as possible, with lesser regard for physical appearance. Therefore, men in video games aren’t completely clad because it protects them better, but because it’s more imposing and gives the illusion of better performance.

Norn men don’t look very attractive if we dress them down into their undies, apart from perhaps their bulks of muscles. What makes norn men attractive is their incredible aptness. Norn men appear unshakable in combat, and like an opponent to fear. They don’t simply “look” attractive, they are attractive through the manner in which they appear to act.

So women are judged solely on physical looks, and men are judged solely on their wealth and aptness. Video games know both of these things, and make women’s bodies sexy and visible, and buff men’s bodies beyond realism, paired with gear that makes them look powerful. Both suffer from sexism in that regard.

But feminist theory will have you believe that women have it worse, because inversely, men always have it better in their patriarchy. Weeeell, that’s not exactly true, but true to some extent. Because feminism has taught us that the way men are presented [in video games] is better, we as society value and appreciate aptness and wealth more. And on a practical level, that makes sense entirely. Surely, someone who is wealthy and can get things done is more beneficial to society than someone who merely looks good.

But the problem is this: The standards of men set in video games are ridiculously high. The expectations of the average male character in video games are simply crushing and unrealistic. Men do, indeed, suffer from sexism in this regard. A man IRL simply can’t be half as buff as the average video game character, let alone half as apt. Now is the time for a good quote: “Men’s weakness is their facade of strength; women’s strength is their facade of weakness.” ~Warren Farrell

Men can’t be half as strong as their ‘facade’ shows them to be, and women are in fact much stronger than the weaknesses they’re portrayed with. Except feminism tells us that being portrayed as weak isn’t beneficial, while in fact it’s a major feat over men.

@Malafide Before you continue, stop using bullets. Debates don’t work that way, and I refuse to further respond if you’re going to use that tactic. Two to three bullets are permissible, but quoting every paragraph is madness.

My honest opinion? I really like both armour sets. Problems arise, however, when we review the female gladiator and male assassin sets. Both of these sets cover much more than the former examples. (Hey, guess what, a female armour set covers much more than a male armour set in this instance, gasp)

Truly, I’d love a more egalitarian approach to armours. If an armour is skimpy for men, it should be approximately equally skimpy for women. If an armour is skimpy for women, it should be approximately equally skimpy for men. The dimorphism in Winged armour is a good example of how it shouldn’t be done. Instead, the ritualist armour from GW1 is an incredibly good example:

Male: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/File:Ritualist_Kurzick_armor_m.jpg
Female: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/File:Ritualist_Kurzick_armor_f.jpg

Dare tell me that the male armour is appropriate whilst the female armour isn’t. Actually, I already know your answer. “The female armour is inappropriate because the top piece wouldn’t keep in place. It defies all laws of physics.” Well, sure. I guess there’s some merit to that. So I have a different suggestion. Let’s remove the top piece and turn them into shoulder pieces, just like the male variant. Equality, no? There’s a thought experiment for you to chew on; whether it’s acceptable for a woman to walk around topless much like a man. My opinion? Yeah, I think it should be acceptable. Why not, after all? But we’re a long way from achieving such equality, and putting topless women in video games isn’t yet very acceptable in modern society.

I also know another argument you’re going to throw at me: “Inefficient armour shouldn’t be in games! You can move very well in functional armour!” Let’s tackle that. I’m not sure if you’ve ever played GW1, but if you did, you would know that GW1 was a game of cosmetics. Rather than gathering stats-based armour, you’d strive for the most cosmetically appealing armour. GW2 isn’t very different in that regard. The entire GW series never intended to be all about functional armour, it intended to be about armour that looks amazing. “But, surely, functional armour can look amazing as well?” Sure. Functional armour can look divine. But so can non-functional armour in a different manner entirely. And because GW has always been about cosmetics, ANet will try to make awesome armour first of all, and whether or not it’s functional is merely a second thought. If you don’t like that, and I hate to say this, you’ve run into a core concept of the game that you don’t like and won’t change. That’s all right, though. I really dislike some core things about the game, too. But they don’t keep me up at night.

Summarily, we just need more gear. And I wouldn’t at all mind revealing gear, so long as the male and female counterparts get the same treatment. Besides, running a sylvari ranger, I wouldn’t mind seeing more of my character’s awesome skin textures. This is, after all, a fantasy game. And if you don’t like revealing gear? Well, ArenaNet has already provided you with heaps of non-revealing gear, and they will continue to produce more sets that show only little skin.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Leo G.4501:

Men have pecs (although I’m sure some players might enjoy making less muscled/husky males). As for being sexist and a double standard, it is to you because you’re not seeing the other side of the coin.

Women like options. Currently, they have options. They can wear ‘dresses’, they can wear very revealing things, and they can wear full coverage.

Can my male wear a suit?

Can my male wear a loincloth?

You’re the blind one because you think options are degrading to women but reverse the double standard that in the process of giving female avatars more options, males are stifled for options.

You do realize that that is what double standard means, right? Men can’t wear a loincloth, women get to run around in armor showing their underwear. That is exactly the double standard I was talking about. A double standard applies to both genders across the board. Its just more bothersome from the female side, due the inherit sexualization of the outfits.

Let’s do this. You’ve been spamming this discussion for far too long, and it’s about time someone hops in to end your reign of feminism.

Before I start, here’s a tiny thing you need to know about me: I’m not a feminist. I’m a gender egalitarian to the likes of CAFE. Whilst feminism is the equality of women in relation to men with the assumption that men have it better, and not the other way around, gender egalitarianism is equality on both sides of the coin with the assumption that neither have it better, or a rational and balanced assessment of whether one side actually indeed has it better. And quite funnily, you actually mention here that women have it worse.

Now let’s do this. You are upholding a double standard yourself, with faint knowledge of what a double standard actually is. You’ve been criticising the suggestion heavily, for you feel that skimpy armour objectifies women. You call Winged armour offensive, and I may agree with you on that to some degree, but in contrast to yourself, I don’t criticise the armour because I realise that others may very much enjoy it. That’s awesome for them, and quite honestly doesn’t affect me.

In the same breath, you say there’s a supposed double standard because men don’t get sexy armour. This is utter abuse of the concept of ‘double standard’. It’s not a double standard, it’s sexist. A double standard has to do with moral principles, and the dimorphism in armour has nothing to do with morals at its core. The double standard you’re upholding yourself, though, is claiming that you’re in favour of skimpy armour for men, while furiously against skimpy armour for women.

In short, you very much like Tarzan, but a female version of Tarzan would be unforgivable. Where is the logic in that? Can you honestly believe this? Truly, I’ve been baffled reading through your posts, and your double standard is rendering me speechless. I have no single witty way of explaining how very shallowminded your viewpoint is. “Sexism is only sexism if it negatively affects women” is what I’m getting at, and it’s disgusting.

Let’s review two armour sets:
Male: http://argos-soft.net/GW2ArmorGallery/img/gladi_2_0_10_0_t.jpg
Female: http://argos-soft.net/GW2ArmorGallery/img/cultmadi_2_1_10_0_t.jpg

I honestly can’t see how anyone could possibly tell me that the male version of this armour is inappropriate., even though it’s showing boob. How so? It’s somehow acceptable in society for men to be topless. Which, hey, is awesome for men who do indeed like to walk around topless. It looks rugged, and totally like something an actual gladiator could have worn in Ancient Rome. Then we have the female armour set, which reveals approximately the same amount of skin and less boob. Guess what? This armour is sexually objectifying. It puts women in a bad light, and should be unacceptable because it’s an inefficient piece of gear to wear in battle. Moreover, it’s extremely sexually provoking.

That is a double standard, and you’re upholding it yourself.

As Tuomir said, this isn’t just an issue for females. One might argue that trenchcoats look better on males than they do on females (which I’ll disagree on, but each to their own), but males are currently limited entirely to trenchcoats, while females have some degree of minor variation that shows skin (inb4 this topic turns into the skimpy armour topic). Both have it extremely bad, though. I wouldn’t mind more medium armour variation at all. Medium professions need to be provided some gear that aren’t trenchcoats, and that’s pretty much all. Maybe some light chain armour, or gear akin to GW1’s assassins and rangers. The degree of ‘femininity’ mentioned in the thread I honestly couldn’t care about, so long as there’s variation in that degree.

Here’s a suggestion that will probably be ignored, but here goes nothing.

I came across this video yesterday, and put some thought to using the sword as a ranger: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbNuv4T8J1I (to summarise, it shows the advantages of using the sword without having a target selected. It allows you to jump all over the place.)

I went to the Heart of the Mists, disabled autotargetting and autoattack, and started to practise on the golems. The result? Horrid. While the sword allowed me to move around quite funnily, I couldn’t land any repeated hits unless I had the golem selected. So, I thought, let’s bind a key to “select nearest target”. This worked well, considering I could now actually hit the golem repeatedly, but I quickly found out that there was no easy way to deselect the target and go back to using the sword’s mobility.

There are currently two ways:
- Press escape. This has the disadvantage of stopping your current attack and basically messing everything up. That, and it’d have to be pressed twice.
- Click on empty space on the screen. This worked a little better, but it’s not really optimal. Finding an empty space can sometimes be a challenge, and then there’s the chance of misclicking.

So I looked around in the settings again and found the “Lock autotarget” function. Which worked all right at first, but something about having to keep a key pressed to keep a target selected didn’t sync well with me. But I liked the idea, so I logically went to look for a hotkey that does the same, but toggles instead. I found no such hotkey.

So this is where my suggestion kicks in. Provide a hotkey that selects an autotarget on press, and deselects it the next time you press. And if not that, provide a hotkey other than escape that simply deselects your target.

Graphics cards don’t mean a lot in Guild Wars 2. It’s all about the processor.

I secretly hope that another Jade Wind strikes Cantha, and the Luxons and Kurzicks are turned into amazing races respectively.

And Tengu.

If you didn’t like auto-attacking with a thief, I’m not sure if you’ll like the ranger. The ranger is primarily an auto-attack bot when it comes to ranged attacks. Which I personally don’t mind, but it might be something to take into account.

Except the golems are kind of gone before you can kick them out, MRA.

It gets more complicated, though. The stacks of bleeding you apply last longer than a single second. Crossfire applies a 4.75 second bleed that accounts for 487 damage. Sigil of Superior Earth applies an 8 second bleed that accounts for 808 damage. And Sharpened Edges applies an 1.5 second bleed that accounts for 150 damage. So 487*4+808*2+150*2=3864 damage over the entire duration of all bleeds applied during one second of Quickening Zephyr. 3864+980=4844 is the total amount of damage over time you’ve guaranteed yourself during one second of Quickening Zephyr. 4844*4=19376 is the amount of damage you can expect to have predicted throughout the duration (4 seconds) of Quickening Zephyr. Probably a little less, but still. Take half that damage, and that’s the damage you guarantee during 4 seconds of normal fire.

The damage is mostly over time, however, and doesn’t always look spectacular. On the upside, you’re not dependent on high damage output from single attacks. You can miss a few arrows, and it won’t much affect your damage output. Whereas if a thief missed a few backstabs, his damage output will have suffered terribly. Therefore, rather than relentlessly killing your opponent, it will more feel like you’re wearing them down significantly until they falter.

For armour and accessories, you’ll need condition damage, precision and toughness. Toughness mixes in really well, because it’ll give you survivability to outlast the enemy’s damage while you keep stacking bleeds on them. The runes I’ve chosen on the site maximise condition damage and condition duration, which is pretty much what your build is all about.

You technically don’t need a second weapon set. For the sake of having one, I picked the axe and torch. For fun damage, I simply plant a field of fire at the enemy’s feet, cast splitblade, and toss the torch for some more burns. But you could pick any other weapon set.

The signet and elite skill are optional, too. I’ve taken the signet for condition removal, because low vitality means I would die if I found anyone else with a condition build. And while the signet isn’t perfect, it tends to do the job. The elite skill is my favourite when I’m losing. It easily gets you out of nasty situations, or turns the tides in your favour in equal battles.

I don’t care much for pets. While I’ve done and loved beastmaster builds in the past, they’re not so relevant in this build. I’ve chosen pets that do condition damage (devourers, sometimes spiders), and that don’t die quickly (devourers have toughness, spiders have vitality).

As for the other four skills on the shortbow; I’m confident you know how to use them. The strength of this build lies in auto-attack (though I often use poison volley so soon as it recharges), but the other skills tend to give you some kiting abilities, which you’ll need to survive.

In summary:

Pros:
Massive condition damage.
Decent survivability and kiting.
Incentive for burst condition damage.
Deadly if teamed up with a glass cannon.
The elite skill allows you to change the battle in a whim.

Cons:
1v1, while possible, is a gamble.
You can only truly pick off one target at a time. Hitting others with piercing arrows is only convenient.
You go down pretty easily if you’re deliberately targeted by multiple opponents.
Enemies with condition removal can be annoying, but you tend to refill them with stacks of bleeding in three seconds.

Hello everybody. I’ve been refining my ranger over the past few weeks, and I think I’ve nailed a pretty awesome playstyle. It’s pretty easy to alter, as I’ve found swapping traits and utility skills is incredibly easy with the ranger without ruining an entire build. So here goes:

http://tinyurl.com/b9b4g7p
( http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQNAV3fjIVZ2RW+Vo2CglCBDspgTJZKMkxvAvgEmtpjB;TsAAzCpo8xAjAGbROfkFtqYUx2CA )

The build revolves around putting stacks of bleeding on the enemy, much like any other shortbow build. Previously, I had put all trait points in marksmanship and wilderness survival to maximise condition damage and duration, but that turned out not to be the best way to go. The stack counter would go up to 7 continuously without using utility skills, and even that was hard to maintain.

The new variant uses critical hits to dramatically increase the average amount of bleeding stacks on the enemy. Rather than 7, I now continuously get around 12~14 bleeding stacks if I stay behind the enemy. Keep in mind, however, that this is a build for picking off single targets. It won’t do much against a group.

So how is it done? I put 20 points in marksmanship to get some condition duration and piercing arrows. Piercing arrows are an amazing trait that allow you to hit anything in a straight line. In PvE, this can be amazing. In sPvP, it tends to come in handy during assaults on capture points. Getting sharpening stone at 75% health isn’t so bad either, as it’ll further increase your condition damage.

Another 20 points are put in skirmishing. You’ll need this for precision primarily, and the adept trait “sharpened edges”. Namely, every time you land a critical hit, you land bleeding on that target. At this stage, the trait isn’t optimal. I believe it’s a 1-second bleed, but here’s hoping to a buff from ANet. It synergises well with the Sigil of Superior Earth, though, that gives you a 60% chance to bleed (5 seconds, 8 seconds because condition duration is increased) upon crit. I don’t care much for the master trait “quick draw”, but it’s a pretty handy thing to have.

More importantly, 20 points are also put in wilderness survival. You’ll get 50% extra endurance regeneration that’ll give you awesome kiting capabilities, 20% recharge time off survival skills (super handy, as we’ll be relying on three such skills), and you gain protection for two seconds when you dodge. The master trait, again, isn’t so spectacular. It stealths you when you’re stunned, launched, dazed, knocked down, etc., which can be a life saver. It’s the best pick in my opinion, though.

We put 5 points in beast mastery, this to get quickness for two seconds every time you swap your pet. Consider it a “quickening zephyr” that recharges every 20 seconds.

This leaves us with five points. I’ve put them in nature magic to get some passive regeneration and survivability, but you could technically put them anywhere. Nature magic just seemed the best pick.

For healing skill, I picked “heal as one”. You are free to pick any other skill, however. The next two utility skills are vital, however. Sharpening Stone allows you to put five extra bleeds accounting for 5k total damage over 10 seconds. Use Sharpening Stone whenever you’re sure the next five shots will hit. You can also use it out of combat, to let the recharge kick in before the fight.

Quickening Zephyr makes you a dangerous machine gun that spams stacks of bleeding. With just Quickening Zephyr, you averagely plant 20 stacks of bleeding on the enemy in 4 seconds, assuming you’re behind the enemy. Doing some minor calculations that don’t have any mathematical credibility leads me to the following conclusion: With Quickening Zephyr, you fire approximately four arrows in a single second. With approximately 50% critical chance (actually 45%), two of those arrows will crit. Non-crit arrows averagely do 180 damage, crit ones 310. So added up, in a second, you do 980 raw damage. During this second, you apply (for the sake of argument) 8 stacks of bleeding. Four from Crossfire, two from Sharpened Edges and two from Sigil of Superior Earth. One stack of bleeding is good for 100 (101 actually) damage. So during that second, you’ve guaranteed 980+800=1780 damage that very second.