Guild Wars 2

I was testing the “flanking” on the Shortbow again last night (been over a year … figured I should).

My friend stood on the skull at graveyard and faced the mouth part of the skull.

I stood about 600 range from her. There is a bit of a “worn down path” that extends from that mouth. I noticed that if I wasn’t on that path, just toed off of it, I was “flanking” enough to get the shortbow bleed.

This seems like a an improvement compared to what I remember from last time I tested it. I was largely still in front of her when I was getting the bleeds. It evoked a “really?!” from her in TS :-p

If someone else would like to record this, please do.

If I stop being lazy and put some recording software on my computer, I’ll do it eventually.

Another thing I’m curious about is on-hit and on-crit sigils. I think I’ll be making a spreadsheet for those next to compare their usage with various Ranger weapons. Shortbow can be mean with traited on-crit bleed and on-crit bleed sigils (or other effects).

@Anduriell:
Actually, it’s not.

First, someone has to sit in the full duration of both of those … not likely.

Second, there are other abilities that do that amount of damage in that time or less (quite often less time).

You need to take another look at the DPS. Heck, Axe #5 does less DPS than all auto-attack [chains] except MH Axe when it only hits the target once.

Yes, Rapid Fire has a decently short cooldown. This is why you don’t rely on the same one counter to it every time. Thankfully, you have an abundance of counters to choose from and you rotate through them for each Rapid Fire … unless you’re a Thief … then you just use the same single OH Pistol ability every time.

If Rapid Fire was really as big of an issue as the vocal minority are claiming, we’d see it more in the Tournaments … but we dont. Why? Because it is very easily mitigated in several different ways. It isn’t nearly as powerful as it is being made out to be.

Tourny players don’t care if you say something “is cheese”. They want to win because winning is money and prestige. If Rapid Fire was as strong as you few are claiming, it would be leveraged more in the tournament scene.

What Rapid Fire is is a noob killer … just like confusion used to be as it killed people that just spammed buttons blindly (and then complained until it got nerfed into the ground). If you’re having trouble with Rapid Fire, you need to analyze yourself and your build.

As stated now by those of you arguing against Rapid Fire… there aren’t any viable builds that don’t have the defences … so that leaves the issue on the player’s plate. You’re the player.

Try making yourself better instead of trying to make other things worse so you can win. That’s the far more respectable way to win.

@jcbroe:
The Path of Scars damage is for a single hit. If it hits twice, it is double what is currently on the spreadsheet. If you mouse over the coefficient cell for that skill, you’ll see I left a note about this.

@Cufufalating:
Aye, if someone doesn’t take into account the fact that the non-AAs aren’t spammable (we’re not Thieves!), then it could be misleading. I, however, think people are aware enough that the non-AA abilities have cooldowns.

I’ll try to think of some useful column to add that incorporates cooldown and cast time … I believe I did something similar for my spreadsheet for Mesmer heals.

If someone could direct me to the numbers for after-cast times, I’d be happy to throw in some new columns incorporating that data.

@Coinhead:
Yes, this is the damage if Your_Power == Target_Armor.

• 1000 Power vs 1000 Armor = 1000 / 1000 = 1 … use numbers there
• 1000 Power vs 500 Armor = 1000 / 500 = 2 … multiply numbers there by 2
• 500 Power vs 1000 Armor = 500 / 1000 = 0.5 … multiply numbers there by 0.5

I thought about making graphs to illustrate the abilities with various amulets against each other, but then I thought about the fact that I’d have to pair each amulet, light/medium/armor, and various combinations of trait points allocated that give power or toughness. It’s doable but I don’t think it provides that much to warrant the effort.

@DelightArt:
That would be a nice alternative :-) It still has the rainbows.

@voteforwinners:
No, I’ve thought that we could be given a MH Dagger and that could be our new 1H ranged weapon. It just doesn’t fit in the context of this thread :-p

I just finished creating a spreadsheet with all the Ranger Weapon Skills in it … and looking at the DPS I can’t help but notice Path of Scars. Even if it just hits once instead of the twice that is more common (especially when your target is immob’d), its DPS is quite high. Maul is the next closest but much more telegraphed and restricted to melee range. In addition, Path of Scars does have a pull which can interrupt as well as mess with positioning.

When it comes to flanking with the shortbow, I did find that immobilize and fear were my friend. You only need to get about 60 degrees or so to the side of your target to count as flanking for the purposes of shortbow autos. Immobilize and Fear remove your opponent’s control over their facing … fear usually turning your opponent’s flank to you.

That would be a nice quality-of-life change, but, at the moment, the fact that it isn’t an evade should be something to be aware of. I don’t run my Thief in fractals, but, as I understand it, Shadowstep sooner or get hit.

I made a spreadsheet showing the Damage and DPS of the various Ranger Weapon Skills

• https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1tuDz1x50hIhREdfWni7Eim9MbG8cDRkIuuIsioXdruc/edit?usp=sharing

The spreadsheet uses:

• The Direct Damage equation from the wiki: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Damage
• Coefficients from the wiki pages for each Weapon Skill
• Ranger Weapon Strengths (Exotic and Ascended) from: http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/

Please let me know if you find any errors or have additional data you would like to see on the spreadsheet.

I have given only “View” access, so if you want to play with it, you’ll have to copy the values to your own spreadsheet.

Please see the wiki page for Counterattack

• https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Counterattack

There is information in the notes at the bottom of the page pertaining to this:

• It is possible to block multiple melee attacks if the ranger is slightly farther away than the range of the kick.

There is a world of difference between a Mesmer with/without their traits, so it does make a big difference being 80 with those traits and being sub-80 without those traits.

Leveling can still be done, but I can only imagine how aggravating it has to be to be locked into Adept traits for most of the leveling experience and not even have access to Grandmaster until 80. (I thankfully levelled both my Mesmers before those changes).

That being said, your best bet is to stick with the Power weapons to level up. Summon phantasm, do any burst (like Mirror Blade), swap weapon, summon phantasm, do any burst (like Mirror Blade), get good at judging when to Mind Wrack … repeat.

Maybe this can turn into something for the next April Fool’s Day :-)

Then we can have a Unicorn Memorabilia Box :-D

Here are the lyrics if you want to add another step to this:

• Sing softly to your opponent as you stomp them.
• http://www.elyrics.net/read/e/erasure-lyrics/always-lyrics.html

The reason Condi (Mtd Shatter) is behind Power (IP Shatter) has been stated several times in this thread … but then we get on tangents :-/

Currently, at the highest levels, the meta is filled with classes that have plenty of ways to remove conditions from their selves as well as from their teammates. The meta also heavily features a rune set that reduces condition duration by 20%. There is no rune in the meta that does anything close to this to direct damage.

Conditions also suffer when your team tries to do a quick hard-switch when focusing on a target as they simply don’t do burst like direct damage does.

Couple all this with the fact that we don’t see whole teams of condition builds because of the non-viability of condition builds running together and you have a full picture where the few condition builds on a team (1 to 2) have their damage largely mitigated by the abundance of clears, -20% condi duration runes, etc.).

Personally, I’m a fan of MtD in a condition build as it now allows me to apply condition damage with all of my shatters (confusion + torment on every one of them) as opposed to IP which still leaves me with only Mind Wrack unless I want to get off a good Diversion traited to damage on Daze. CoF and Distortion aren’t going to be providing any direct damage burst. MtD also means I don’t have to put myself in a possibly compromising position in the middle of the fight in order to benefit from IP when applying damage via shatters.

Sadly, the currently top-level meta just doesn’t cater to condition damage. Thankfully, there are plenty of formats where teams aren’t decked out with all this anti-condition garbage and in those formats MtD is a force to be reckoned with.

@glock:
Perhaps you are not familiar with Ranger spirits, but they operate very differently from Engineer turrets. They are more closely related to Warrior banners.

Ranger spirits do not auto-attack every X interval.
Ranger spirits provide a Y% chance to proc an effect dictated by which Spirit it is (+10% dmg, Swiftness, Protection, Burning, Healing) … and have an ICD on top of that proc chance because … reasons.

I agree that shouts also need some love. We didn’t even have a full set of utilities when the game was released and then they gave us shouts … which we don’t use because of how bad they are. I think spirits and shouts are both products of the rushed release and neither has received the attention required to bring them up to actual playable values.

It’s speculation because we don’t even know when the expansion is going to be released. It could very well be changed between when the video was released and when the expansion is released.

When making video: “Yes, we’ll keep Ranger pets for Druid”

Sometime between video and expansion release: "We’re going to remove pets from Rangers using the Druid specialization.

It is possible and there is nothing official saying anything about it.

So, while the video shows a Ranger with a Staff and a pet, it does not even show us what a Druid actually is and does. That Staff attack could possibly be used by a Ranger regardless of whether or not they were using the Druid Specialization.

Heck, we don’t even know exactly what specializations do for the classes.

While I disagree that a Thief needs stealth and that Sword+Dagger has been nerfed too much … you are capable of admitting that you were wrong about something …

… that makes you a better person/player than a majority of the playerbase for almost all (if not all) games :-) Seriously, good for you.

My advice when using Sword + Dagger is to largely ignore the fact that you have Cloak & Dagger for stealth. Sword + Dagger is all about evasion and dodges. Any time you actually stealth is just icing on your Evasion-filled cake.

Also, you will get hit. Smart players are aware of after-cast. As such, get hit by the weak stuff here and there, but make darn sure you don’t get hit by the burst. You have more than enough evasion+dodge to avoid all that burst.

Also don’t forget that you can abuse the heck out of Infiltrator’s Strike/Return to get on a target, do some damage, and then teleport back out of LOS of anything nasty.

Seeing as how I play a Ranger and a Mesmer more than anything else, I have a horse in this race … but I disagree with you about the AI as well. My Ranger pets especially already have a hard enough time keeping up with a Thief as they teleport around like nightcrawler. Mesmer Illusions can sometimes have the same issue … though many are ranged … shattering a Thief that then stealths before they get to him is aggravating though.

Good luck!

Currently, Lightning Reflex moves you in the direction that is 180 degrees from where you are facing.

You want it to roll in the direction you are currently moving…

To be moving in a direction, you need to be holding down one or more movement keys.

• How will this work when you are unable to move (e.g. immobilized/stunned)? Will it revert to just rolling backwards?

We’re playing on PCs, not game controllers with analog sticks. We have forward, backwards, left, and right and the 45 degree combinations between.

• To get rolling in any direction more fine-grained than that, you have to incorporate turning with the mouse … which is what you already have to do with the current incarnation of Lightning Reflexes.

If about-face is too slow for you, feel free to mouse turn yourself. About face is fast enough that Mesmers are able to use it with Phase Retreat for additional mobility and Phase Retreat doesn’t move you that far … if about-face is quick enough for Phase Retreat, then it’s quick enough for Lightning Reflexes.

Your suggestion could work fine, but I see the above issues and don’t really see any benefits except for those that are not satisfied with the same about-face that every other class uses for similar skills. As such, it seems like making this change would be a rather large waste of developer resources that could be much better allocated elsewhere (spirits, shouts, pet AI, etc.).

I have yet to see anyone else say “Rangers would be ‘fixed’ if Lightning Reflexes rolled in the direction I was moving”.

I’m somewhat confused by the fact that you aren’t bringing up how the rolls on MH Sword work if you Lightning Reflexes is such an issue.

I’m also confused that you previously mentioned that the Sword rolls farther than Lightning Reflexes when for it to do that you need to make quick use of the about-face hotkey. Otherwise it isn’t really gaining you any extra over Lightning Reflexes.

Feel free to have that attitude. I’ll continue having discussions about the points with or without you.

Note: I’m in a silly mood today, so I apologize :-p … sorta.

Steps:

• Play Mesmer and kill your enemy with butterflies (Shatter builds preferable for this)
• Stomp your enemy with the Rainbow Unicorn Finisher
• Link this in chat to your enemy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CC_Y4zOUdcI
• Feel like your life is complete.

Additional Options:

• Wield a Princess Wand Skin
• Wear Pink/Purple
• Dress “Like a Sir”

Future plans:

• Beg ArenaNet to give Mesmers access to shortbow
• Get The Dreamer
• Blow people’s minds with Butterflies and Unicorns.

Good advice, but most Mesmer’s aren’t running a Shatter build AND on-clone-death effects … because shattering clones kills them but doesn’t trigger on-clone-death effects … because … reasons.

Still pondering that one to this day (since release <_<)

rabidsmiles.5926:

Sebrent.3625:

The Dreamer + Thief = all you need in the world.

I like the way you think. Dreamer is partially why I love thief Sb so much

If I could main hand SB I would. I’d just like to spam my uniponies in every instance possible and forget that dagger/pistol/sword even exist.

I hear you. I get jealous when I see a Thief spamming bouncing unicorns.

I just hope that one day I can get a Shortbow on my Mesmer (2nd, 3rd, 4th expansion) … then I can truly emasculate anyone I kill with my Butterfly and Rainbow Unicorn tyranny! :-)

… topped off with the new Rainbow Unicorn finisher, of course

Coworker at lunch enlightened me … introduced me to this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CC_Y4zOUdcI

Now I just need to link that in chat to whomever I stomp and it will be perfect.

@Eurantien:
I don’t know, with SotF, I find myself taking Quickening Zephyr over Signet of Renewal since on top of the cleanse + stunbreak I’m also getting Fury and Quickness … and I likely have traited for 20% reduction on Survival Cooldowns so it is ready 12 seconds faster as well.

What you call “annoyance”, I call “more control over my ability” … and I’m a fan of putting more control in the players’ hands.

You want it to roll forward, others want it to roll backwards. Solution? Pick one and have players take a fraction of a second to orient their character to have it go in whatever direction they want.

Lightning Reflexes already gives you Vigor, is a Stunbreak, and can be traited to remove conditions. It rolls farther than a single Sword #2, but less far than chaining them together. I don’t see the problem here. It’s already a great skill.

You make some good points, but I’m going to nitpick some things … I agree with several others.

apharma.3741:

Blasting fire fields is open to all to do if they have blast finishers. The D/D ele has only 3 blasts (4 if you count evasive arcana in earth) for 12 might.[/quote]
Shall we compare this to the number of blast finishers available to other classes? Mesmers in particular are strapped for blast finishers … not to mention we don’t drop fire fields so we can’t get Might. Our Chaos Armor from Ethereal fields got nerfed because … reasons.

apharma.3741:

Accounting for max uptime of those blasts and fire fields you can sustain 15 might however your combat will be severely affected. With str runes, str sigil etc yeah you can sit at 25. Other classes are just as capable in other ways, even Mesmer can get a decent level of might through traits depending on build and weapons.

Just watching the few pros playing Mesmer in tournaments, they get around 15 Might on their own and for not nearly the same up-time as the Elementalist. 25 – 15 = 10. 10 Might is a big difference.

Regarding protection and other boons, you mention (bold added by me) …

apharma.3741:

Elemental attunement is 5s base duration on boons, with 6 in arcana you get 6.5s and the CD on attune nets being 11.5s if I remember. Yes high uptime but remember they also have the lowest health and armour with no stealth and only 1 teleport which has a 10s longer CD than blink. Without that they would be as bad as mesmer there’s a reason why corrupt boon makes eles run.

Is that such a bad place to be?
Many of our problems are due to interactions with other mechanics … particularly our class mechanic with other mechanics. Elementalists wouldn’t have that issue. Also, in Mesmers’ current state, we have a few pros running Mesmer in tournaments. It’s not doubled up on almost every (if not every) pro team like Elementalist <_<

apharma.3741:

I really wouldn’t touch the amount of protection an ele can get in that spec as it is a bunker spec.

A bunker spec with damage comparable to non-glass damage specs and support rivaling various support specs.

apharma.3741:

But let’s be constructive.
Things I’d like to see is maybe an extra second on all these random boons, maybe 2s so they last a bit longer.

I assume you mean Mesmer boons. This could work, but for things like Illusionary Membrane I don’t think it’s sufficient.

apharma.3741:

I’d like to see either deceptive evasion changed or adding something like clones grant 3s vigor to nearby allies (or just the mesmer) on death.

Depending on the placement of this trait, I could see myself loving it.

apharma.3741:

I’d also like to see clones having the same boons as you when they’re generated or at least show them having the same boons/conditions so you can hide better.

Heck yes. When dueling with various people, every one of them just tabs through my clones till they get the guy with some boon/mantras/etc. on him. This is particularly annoying when they are a class with abilities that auto-turn them and leap them into my face (I’m looking at you Thieves!).

apharma.3741:

2 might on each clone/phantasm shattered instead of 1 with the trait.

Yes please.

apharma.3741:

Better blast finishers for mesmer, not a lot, but more than 1 hard to time blast.

Meh. Maybe. I’d prefer they un-nerf my Chaos Armor so leaping/blasting through my Ethereal fields does more for me. Otherwise we’re just blasting more in our Light/Ethereal fields for “meh” results. I actually prefer leaping through Light fields over blasting them.

apharma.3741:

An extra something to GS auto attack so clones serve a purpose like on other weapons. Perhaps a short duration cripple (0.5-1s) on the last hit.

Their attack speed allows them to inflict bleeds pretty well with a good crit chance on the build, but it wouldn’t hurt for them to have something nice.

apharma.3741:

I’d also like something done with how easy it is to cleave clones down, it’s so trivial for most classes even thief now dagger got a small cleave.

Aye :-(
This is why I love our on-clone-death traits. Sadly, I have to invest heavily in them which does admittedly leave gaps elsewhere.

I’ve often wondered if it would be so bad if our Mesmer clones were just invulnerable.

@vespers: That is a learned skill with Lightning Reflexes (and other abilities like it). You have to quickly orient yourself right before you use it, then re-orient and keep on going the direction you intended.

Those of us who also play Mesmer are pretty comfortable with it because Mesmer Staff Phase Retreat is (in my opinion) one of the hardest ones to benefit from this (have to be very quick). If you just run around for a bit practicing this, I’m sure you’ll get it.

There is also a hotkey you can set that will turn your character 180 degrees when you push it. This can be very helpful if wanting to run forward, roll forward, continue running forward as you:

• Running forward
• About face 180 degrees
• Lightning reflexes
• About face 180 degrees
• continue running

You know, I had completely forgotten about Preparations. I loved those in GW1.

Still, I think those would fall under “boons” as far as how they work (e.g. passively) and I do prefer that the game moves in a direction towards more and more active aspects and away from the more passive ones.

One thing I’d love is if Beastmastery gave my pets points in all the same stats that Celestial does. Last I checked, it currently it doesn’t give them Condition Damage nor Healing Power.

• The Healing Power would be nice when using Natural Healing and/or a pet that can heal (though, admittedly, I hardly every think about using a Moa or the Fern Hound)
• The Condition Damage would be nice when using any of the myriad of pets that inflict damaging conditions and/or when taking the Rending Attacks trait.

Aye, Fluffball. Use a shortbow and gain 3 seconds of quickness and some people think you’re using Rapid Fire ;-)

It doesn’t hurt that I <3 the Krytan skins so both my Longbow and Shortbow are Krytan so only differ in size … and a Norn shortbow is like every non-Norn/-Charr longbow :-p

I wish I recorded some of it as I had just finished killing a Mesmer when another Ranger jumped me while I was stomping. They initiated with Rapid Fire. I:

• Interrupted the Rapid Fire with Concussion Shot as I ran towards them.
• Poison Volley’d
• Krytan Immob Howl
• Point Blank Shot
• Entangle
• Swap Pet
• Rapid Fire (3 Might + Quickness from Pet Swap … Fury from Weapon Swap)
• Wolf Knockdown

<3 Ranger CC … and I still had Wolf’s fear :-)

I went to bed last night feeling that the SotF version was probably the strongest given that I had more condition removals, more stunbreakers, both more often, entangle more often, and some additional damage from Sharpening Stone.

@Malhavoc:
Well, dang. You’re right. (-1 pt for me being lazy and just using the tooltips):

• http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Damage
• Damage done = (Weapon strength) * Power * (skill-specific coefficient) / (target’s Armor)

Though to be completely accurate, we should take the average of the weapon’s minimum and maximum strength since each weapon is variable.

So let’s redo these numbers (that I previously screwed up) with the weapon strengths from sPvP (instead of the constant given in the tooltip).

Note: I’m at work right now, so I’m grabbing the weapon strengths from http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/. If there is a better source, please let me know.

Sword — Full AA Chain : 1,005.42 * Power / Armor
Longbow — Long Range Shot (1,000+) : 900 * Power / Armor
Longbow — Long Range Shot (500 – 1,000) : 800 * Power / Armor
Longbow — Long Range Shot (0 – 500) : 700 * Power / Armor
Greatsword — Full AA Chain : 716.06 * Power / Armor
Shortbow — Crossfire : 705.19 * Power / Armor
Axe — Ricochet: 476.25 * Power / Armor

If someone could direct me to where I could find the after-cast time for the various weapon skills 2 – 5 for each weapon, then I could calculate the actual DPS from using each such skill and we could compare what increases/decreases DPS … though I think we already intuitively understand that … just not by exactly how much.

@Malhavoc (again):
Thanks for catching that.

Follow-up:
So Greatsword (power weapon) scales up only (10.87 * Power / Armor) better than Shortbow and that requires landing all three attacks of the AA Chain in PvP.

This may very well explain why I’m still feeling better DPSing a player with Shortbow than with Greatsword as it is much easier (and safer) to get that Shortbow DPS on a target than it is to get the full Greatsword AA chain on them.

Played around with this tonight with great success every game (though all were PUG).

• http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQJATVjEqUzaLLmsQ1agAha5AEAMXgLw9+mDhdBbqA-TJRHwAEuEAAeCAx2f4YZAA

I also had success moving those 6 points to Beastmastery and relying on Signets instead of Survival skills. Quickness and the extra Vigor were nice. People don’t expect a canine to leap instantly on pet swap … Quickness ftw.

I’m growing attached to having piercing arrows. Having 20% reduced cooldown on all 8 of my non-auto weapon skills is excellent given that 3 of them give me a breather against most opponents (stealth, knockback, daze/stun). Factor in the cripple and you’re good.

I’m loving the lifesteal from Vampirism and Sigil of Leeching. Sigil of Doom is to keep my opponents’ sustain down and helps supplement the poison from the shortbow.

I’m going to play around some other days with replacing the Longbow with Axe+Dagger. Of the weapons, the shortbow felt the best to me and I didn’t have to worry about damage from enemies being closer to me. Might also try the Longbow+Shortbow with Berserker amulet like in that 2014 video that had been posted earlier in this thread.

It is nice to be able to swap weapons and your positioning not have to change.
It is also nice to have so many ways to interrupt your opponent’s OODA-loop.
It is far less obvious to your opponents when you’ve swapped weapons when both your weapon sets are bows.

Try it out. Move some traits around as you’d like.

Aye Bran, which is part of my beef with why Mesmer is the one that got the higher ICD. We already have less access to Vigor and passive endurance regeneration. Elementalist has access to both in spades … not to mention the already previously mentioned abundance of other defensive boons.

Your explanation has practically nothing to do with Shortbow and more to do with players that pick ranged weapons and stay on the periphery of fights.

I fail to see how that explains “how shortbow is a crutch”. In fact, you mention that “people will ignore SB rangers for a reason … the condition damage is not optimal”. That could very well be a counterpoint to your claim that “the shortbow is a crutch”.

I’m horribly confused here by your posts.

What do you think a weapon being “a crutch” means? Generally most of us think of a weapon being “a crutch” as a weapon with a low skill floor but high effectiveness. Going beyond just weapons, the Engineer turret build is “a crutch” build used in sPvP.

As far as Axe/Sword + Torch/Dagger … I prefer to pair Axe with Torch so I can get projectile finishers through that field (prefer that over leaping through it). It also allows me to dance around that bonfire while kiting my opponent. That leaves me with Sword+Dagger for when I need to be defensive for a bit but it has plenty of poison to keep my opponent from recovering too quickly while I’m being defensive.

It’s my preference when running Solider’s stats (see: gear with vitality) to take Barkskin if I’m investing 6 points in Wilderness Survival. The reason for this can be see from your health in the build you linked.

You have 22,152 health. When you at 25% of that (5,538) all direct damage done to you is halved. So, as far as direct damage is concerned, that 5,538 just became 11,076.

Back in the day, whenever I was zerg busting, I’d put on Soldier’s stats with Melandru Runes and eat Lemongrass Poultry so I had reduced condition duration as well. I was very good at being wherever our Havoc group needed me … and being on my feet … even when pressured :-)

I’d drop Offhand Training since it’s not that great (in my opinion) when you only have 1 off-hand weapon; even more so when that off-hand weapon is the horn.

When I compared the DPS, I compared non-flanking Shortbow Crossfire against just the full AA chain of Greatsword.

• https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Shortbow-2/first#post4977569

… realized I forget to include MH axe in the comparison <_< … /facepalm.

Despite not including Maul in there, I’m still leaning towards shortbow because how often does a good player let you land a Maul on them? I try to spec to beat the good players. The others just fall down anyways.

I’m not seeing from that what qualifies it as “a condition weapon” instead of “a hybrid weapon” or “a power weapon that can apply some conditions”.

I think you just went full “spiral” on there (instead of “circle”). My preference was Shortbow over Greatsword in a power build due to the fact that Shortbow scales better with Power than Greatsword does. That’s why my current thinking is still on dual bows (Longbow + Shortbow).

Other than that, I’ve been mulling over Axe+Dagger/Bow (not sure short or long). That’d be more for kiting in 1v1s and/or roaming though.

You may have just not found the class that truly fits you yet.

Despite all my aggravations with Mesmer and Ranger … when I play them, they fit like a glove.

If ArenaNet ever shows them the love the deserve so that their skill ceiling isn’t hindering their players … man I’ll be a happy camper :-)

I just want to feel unhindered by my class the way Elementalists, Thieves, etc. feel. Right now, that’s not the case. There’s “try harder” and “try harder, but it’s not going to do anything beyond this point”. I’m not a fan of the latter :-(

You forgot the Engineer’s in the same boat as the Elementalist.

Engineer — Leg Mods — Master Major trait — 33% reduction Cripple/Chill/Immobilize

• https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Leg_Mods

Elementalist — Geomancer’s Freedom — Master Major Trait — 33% reduction Cripple/Chill/Immobilize

• https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Geomancer%27s_Freedom

Warrior — Dogged March — Adept Major Trait — 33% reduction Cripple/Chill/Immobilize and gain Regeneration when any of them are applied to you

• http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dogged_March

This is another good one that probably deserves its own thread … why exactly is it an Adept instead of Master and does more … not like Adrenal Health and Healing Signet aren’t already giving a solid HoT even without healing power.

Related to this is also the fact that this trait is given to classes that already have an immense amount of mobility. Why can’t us slower classes without easy access to perma-swiftness and weapon skills that let us leap across the map get something like this?

@Bran:
Please explain how you are able to state as a fact that “Shortbow is a condition weapon”. Its ability to apply conditions are quite lackluster compared to other condition weapons in the game. On the other hand, it has a better power coefficient than several of those condition weapons.

It does seem in some areas that our skill ceiling is keeping us down. You can only do so much as a ranger no matter what your skill level … and it can feel suboptimal :-/

@Treeoflife
Torch can be redundant if there is already plenty of burning. Depends on spec, teammates, etc..

Sword has its own issues such as 2/3 of its abilities being defensive and 2/3 of its AA locking you down so your opponent knows they can land whatever they want during those animations. There are also advantages to being at range with a weapon … especially against particular (mostly melee) opponents.

I fail to see how “Shortbow is a crutch”. Please elaborate if you’re going to make such a statement.

The cripple on shortbow is actually quite short. I can kite you a heck of a lot easier with Axe + Dagger given that I can rotate the Chill from Axe and the Cripple from Dagger. It also is more forgiving of errors as it is two separate slows instead of a single one.

I half agree with you about the cleave. If people just run into it, yes, it’s their fault. However, there are plenty of pulls in this game that organized groups make very good use of. They work really well with other CC to allow said cleaves to be fully leveraged.

Please turn off your caps lock and take your meds :-p

@Elendur
The conditions meme made me lol :-)

Is there any other condition weapon in the game that has a condition on how it applies conditions? I can’t think of one off the top of my head.

Heck, the only other positioning dependent attacks I can think of are Thief stealth attacks with MH Dagger and MH Sword.

Thankfully, our longbow and shortbow have decent interrupts, so we still retain some of that capability from GW1 :-)

Spirits … meh … they, like our shouts … are “le suck”.

@The V:
You’re going to have to elaborate on how requiring flanking makes shortbow more of a “skillful” weapon? Flanking my opponent is undone by them simply turning their character. Any opponent that isn’t afk should be facing me the whole time unless there are others in the fight.

If it’s the case that the fight involves multiple people, I fail to see how it takes skill from me for my opponent to be facing someone other than me. The only part of that I have control over is positioning so that when they are facing someone else, they aren’t facing me.

I completely disagree with you about the Longbow not being a “skillful” weapon. A good Ranger knows when and how to make use of their Hunter’s Shot, Point Blank Shot, and Barrage. They also don’t simply press Rapid Fire every time it’s off cooldown. There is a rather large gap at the higher levels of play between a “good” longbow Ranger and a “bad” longbow Ranger.

The Dreamer + Thief = all you need in the world.

Aye, Dave. That highlights why I’m effected less by stealth on my Engineer than I am on my Mesmer/Ranger (build dependent, of course)

You make a good point, Advent. I think its inline with what I was saying about Thieves.

I would be perfectly fine with the traits in question if the Mesmer’s trait had its ICD reduced to 5s like the Elementalist. If that’s still an issue given how the Elementalist trait is a Major Adept instead of a Minor Adept … give it something else to be “a little extra oomph”.

Good lord, Zenith. You should get some sort of cake to help you eat your feelings :-p

Jerus, I’d recommend getting away from the meta mentality for Ranger … it pigeonholes it into mediocrity. I was running a Beastmaster build in fractals last night (4/4/0/0/6) with Longbow/Axe+Horn and two cat pets. Our Warrior PUG who has now run 36+ diff fractals with us twice now told me in chat last night that I was one of the best Rangers he’d seen.

Now, I think he’s probably not seen that many or others are dropping the ball, but it did highlight to me that you can do very well in dungeon/fractals without following “the meta”. We were flying through those fractals too (not literally … that’d be an exploit … you know what I mean)

@Zenith:
I think you just pointed out why it likely bother me so much … they nerfed it on Mesmer and Ranger. My babies :-(

I can understand the hate for evasion Thieves, but I’ve had this discussion with Thieves several times. What else do they have for defense besides Stealth and Evasion? Just blind. That’s not really sufficient.

It irks me when I see this on Elementalist because they have Evasion on some weapons, lots of Protection and Regeneration, several heals, several cleanses, awesome mobility … I’m hard-pressed to feel they need this. Heck, I love it when I dabble on my Elementalist, but it isn’t really necessary.

@serenke:

• So that would be GWEN in WvW?
• In sPvP that’d roughly be Elementalist (again), Engineer, Thief, and Guard/Warrior (again with these two)
• In PvE record runs, that’d be Elementalist (good in all game modes), Guard/Warrior (good in all game modes), Thief (everywhere but WvW zergs), and Mesmer (yay, 1 out of 3 … sometimes in sPvP though … just constantly looking out for the enemy Thief)

So you’re saying that ArenaNet would be happier if they just dropped Necromancers and Rangers? :-p I hope not … though less code is always easier.

@Heimskarl:
Perhaps I’m holding onto GW1, but I simply want our spirits to provide a non-proc effect and either not die or have good enough range that I can safely park them beforehand with some good planning.

At the very least, I want our spirits to not be worse than the utilities that provide similar functionality. As they are:

• Frost Spirit provides similar functionality to Warrior banners … but it provides less of a boost, provides it as a proc, and it can be killed while banners are invulnerable.
• The burning could be compared to Thief Venom (sort of) … but it can be killed and its a proc while the poison is a sure thing with limited charges (as you pointed out). It does benefit from lasting longer … but with a 10s ICD and 60s duration, you’re talking about a maximum of 6 procs.
• All of our spirits have a 35% chance to proc before traits … this is pathetic … especially when you factor in their limited range and ICDs
• All of our spirits are even worse at surviving without that very same trait that is required to make their proc chance “not suck”.

If you want to test the hp of spirits sometime, just look me up in game sometime after 7:30pm Central and I’ll probably be free and jump in to some empty arena with you.

Preaching to the choir on that one, bud :-)

I’ve been playing around a bit more with Beasmastery builds that have a solid amount of cripple/chill/immobilize; focusing on the fact that our pets’ DPS increases dramatically against slow/immobile targets.

Was thinking back and that was actually the logic behind trying to create chill builds … that and it was easier to whittle someone down when their skills were recharging slower too :-p

@jcbroe: I like the direction you’re going in, I just wanted to make sure we weren’t trying to turn the Shortbow into how a Condition Engineer works (bursts of condition application). One of the things I truly enjoyed going from my Mesmer to my Ranger was that my Mesmer was all about landing bursts while my Ranger was all about avoiding bursts while I wore them down. It was a nice change of pace.

I do think that at the very least Shortbow #4 (Crippling Shot) should apply more than 1 bleed. That is pathetic. Sure, it makes your pets next three attacks inflict bleeding, but our pets have pathetic condition damage … even if you take the major trait to improve it it simply is not enough.

@Gotejjeken:
The mobility on Swoop is nice; no doubt there. I’m just not very happy with the fact that our “hybrid” Shortbow scales better with power than our “power” Greatsword.

@Crapgame:
The shortbow is about auto-attacking a person to death while keeping up poison on them with #2. Abilities 3, 4, and 5 are all about not getting hit with their burst and mitigating any other key abilities (such as heals).

This used to work better when the Shortbow wasn’t nerfed as it hit faster and had a longer range which gave you more room to maneuver when kiting.

It’s not nearly as good now due to those nerfs, but it is still viable. Just be careful against anyone running retaliation and/or confusion as they can make you hate your shortbow quite quickly.

@Heimskarl:
That sounds awfully similar to the crap we deal with as Mesmers with mantras. I’m not sure how I feel about it … though it can’t be worse than the current incarnation :-/

I think I’d prefer an improvement not resemble something that myself and most of the Mesmer community already dislike.

If you’re complaining about a Ranger sitting up on a point, then you need to learn to:

• Not dance in front of them
• Proper positioning (this is a thing)
• Spatial awareness

People mention Warrior volley because you have a straight up beatstick (Warrior) with a 1,200 range Rifle that works very similarly to Ranger’s Rapid Fire.

You can say whatever you want about Sword+Dagger Thief evasion with regards to the comment about “you’re not supposed to be able to avoid all damage” … but:

• Snarky comments about Thieves still bring nothing to the discussion about Ranger Rapid Fire … except that you’ve shown another build that has little issue with Rapid Fire
• Sword+Dagger Thieves do take damage … just not your burst damage (if they’re good).

As previously stated, we have yet to be shown even one viable build that doesn’t have ample tools for dealing with Rapid Fire.

Many of us are tired of the lack of facts coming from the other end of this discussion.

I’m leaning more and more away from the Greatsword ever since I looked at DPS between a non-flanking Shortbow Crossfire and Greatsword’s auto-attack chain and noticed that from 70 Power and up that the Shortbow Crossfire does more damage. Between that, Maul being a huge telegraph that is easily avoided, and Shortbow having range and a bleed if flanking … I’m wanting to investigate replacing Greatsword with Shortbow (or something else).

Sure, we can discuss how 2-5 on Greatsword are nice, but we aren’t Warriors with Fast Hands. We’re “stuck” in whatever weapon set for a minimum of 10 seconds.

I’d love that Heimskarl

• Faster pet … can land hits better against moving opponents (something that shouldn’t have been an issue)
• More pet customization … more options is good
• Boon removal … heck yes … down with the boon-stacking meta! :-)

@TheFantasticGman:
Which previous nerfs?
Attack Speed?
Range back to 1,200?
Both?

If they removed those, I’d be very happy with my shortbow again.