Guild Wars 2

You don’t have to give up your offensive build for a defensive build 100%. You can keep your greatsword, but have your mace/focus standing by. I agree with Ynna on a lot of things. 30 Zeal won’t give you the best options as far as traits go. I went deep into Radiance & Valor and haven’t had to sacrifice any damage potential. Burning stacks duration so, while it deals more damage than a stack of bleed or poison could, it’s more a supplement in my opinion. I keep burning rolling, but find I do better damage not stacking +cond dmg. I run sword/torch (90% offensive) but my utilities are where I get my defense. I can maintain my main weapon attacks while using some very beneficial shouts. If all else fails I swap to mace/focus and I have so many blocks it’s not funny.

I’m making a warrior to replace my ranger. What race will make the slickest looking ranged sniper style warrior? Heavy armor is bulky so I’m guessing female is best.

As a sad owner of a former Ranger main, I am thinking about rolling a ranged warrior. But I’ve heard that warriors get boring. Is this true? Big damage numbers and lotsa hp is nice, but are they fun/exciting to play or just mindless-beat-on-stuff-machines?

Yea, I’ve been juggling this option around the last week. My ranger has been shelved for a while. I’m currently leveling a Guardian (completely different!) but might start a warrior just for a ranged class (weird). I’ve heard they get boring though. No pizazz…just straight damage numbers and lotsa hp. Which is strong, but is it fun/exciting?

There were only a couple Preparations I ever used in GW. Spirits on the other hand, were great and could really turn the tide if the enemy wasn’t paying attention. I miss having flavorful and useful spirits. And our shouts are pretty good…but they’re all pet based and that makes them less than other profession shouts.

As an altoholic, I’ve always loved GW because of the ability to have multiple toons and split my time amongst them and not worry about getting left behind. Now however, I’m worried that I’ve spent all my time goofing around with 3 toons at once that by the time I get 1 to 80 I’ll be left in the dust, forced to attain exotics from karma vendors by grinding dailies & DEs rather than enjoying dungeon runs.

The nice thing about the 1h sword is its fast attack speed, along with its #3 skill, can proc burning every 4th attack quite a few times over a short duration. Torch #4 is great because it deals a nice aoe burning that lasts a long time. Consider an offset with focus for added defense/utility without sacrificing your sword. The way I’m traited (0/30/0/10/30), focus giving me another blind works nice for survivability but also cuz each blind is also vulnerability. In PvE I never die because I’m constantly blinding, retaliation, burning, vulnerabilty…
Also, since the sword/torch wep set is 100% offensive, my utilities are 100% defensive. The balance is nice because in PvE I don’t need constant defensive spamming, just a “Hold The Line” or “Save Yourselves” occassionally.

ryan.5106:

The irony here is that the tool tip actually has two parts to it. The main part of the tool tip says all the stuff about knocking back enemies and absorbing projectiles. The second part of the tool tip, the box just above the main one, states that you can collapse the shield early for a large AoE heal. I learned about it by reading the tool tip. It still surprises me to this day just how few people seem to know about that feature… even though it clearly states it within the game itself.

One thing I’ve noticed is that since a certain patch (don’t remember which but I think around Halloween) the tooltips in the Hero tab don’t show the full chain of a skill anymore, just the 1st part. So if you’re examining your shield skills there before deciding which item to equip, and don’t then read the tooltip in your action bar, you’ll miss the 2nd part.

I’ve never cared about playing the strongest/weakest profession in a game. For me, it’s all about play-style. And I love the Ranger play-style…to a point. The lack of options and boring weapon & utility skills started to grate on me and so I’ve left my Ranger at 53, waiting for a much-needed overhaul of abilities to pick up again. I really want to play my Ranger, but for now, my Guard is much more exciting & dynamic.

Laughed so hard. And this won’t get deleted cuz they closed the thread in Ranger Forum posting this saying that it’s already here.

So the general concensus is that the reduction from all to 5 isn’t what’s bad, it’s the priority of buff assignment that is. If priority goes to self, then party, then allies (excluding clones, golems, hounds, spirit weapons, minions, pets, elementals, etc) then we’d be fine.

As for Greatswords: roll an Asura. their weapons are tiny and so your GS won’t look like Cloud’s behemoth but like a Norn’s toothpick.

Guardians have ranged weapons…kinda. Staff is technically ranged but 600 feels like melee. It’s a support weapon. Scepter is slow. Having said that, when at range I can be an incredible support ally, buffing, healing, mitigating, etc. Then jump into melee and be incredibly hard to kill, while still dishing out damage. I like it.

And our virtues & utilities are much more dynamic than Warrior’s. Rather than (really good) passive buffs like Warrior banners & signets, Guard brings shouts, consecrations, control, & signets too. They’re more fun to use.

I’ve actually been having the same war with myself as the OP. My Ranger was my main, but I’ve felt bored with lackluster & unimaginative playstyle/skills and the constant lack of attention to our known issues. I rolled a Necro. That was good for a bit. But, eh…got bored cuz i wanted to go back to my Ranger. Then I rolled a Guardian. it’s cool, but has no effective ranged options, but the group-play is really fun so I’m making him my new main. For now…if they fix Ranger I’ll go back but until then I think I’m sticking with my Guard. My 3rd main lol. I don’t have a main…I have a profession I focus on until they fix the others.

As I’ve been juggling between leveling my Ranger & my Guardian, I’d dedicate 100% to my Ranger if some major fixes came:

1. Increase pet speed so that melee attacks canhit moving targets
2. Make spirits invulnerable/non-targetable, buff their abilities, reduce CD or let them move with us w/o trait.
3. Increase LB arrow speed, buff its damage at close range.
4. Fix SB + QZ bug
5. Make our utilities a bit more interesting (subjective, I know)
6. Signets and Shouts are weak…fix that so we’re on par with other professions.
7. Fix Sword root problem with #1 attack chain
8. LB skills are boring & both bows are most effective spamming #1…that needs to be fixed. Make LBs sniper-esque weapons. Make SBs more dynamic than spamming #1 and running flanking circles.
9. Make pet F2 ability instant.
10. Re-order/condense/expand traits for a more logical syngery with weapons/builds/etc

While I love my Ranger, I’ve gotten so bored. The utilities are either lackluster or 1-dimensional and using combat is reduced to pet-tanking & #1 spamming. A lot of what needs to be done imo is to make the play-style more interesting/dynamic. Assuming our pets can be fixed, our damage is fine.

I’ll be honest. I’m lvl 30 and didn’t have many problems with the Karka or Drakes. Up leveled to 80 but i’m wearing greens and blues and barely traited. But it’s not about mitigating with armor, it’s about avoiding damage with blocks and blinds and dodges. If I made a mistake I got hosed, obviously. But if I kept my def skills up and whacked away I could easily beat em down. You can’t rely on your toughness alone.

I was able to take part in the final event. Took almost 3 hours and it was a miracle my vid card didn’t cook itself because there were endless spawns. Nice chest at the end though.

I was uber confused with the weekend quests/scavenger hunt. Got a few steps in, but one NPC was apparently bugged and there were endless in-game mails that had a lot of words but said very little. Just pointed me somewhere without an explanation.

2 things:

- free trial
- patch notes upsetting players who’ve decided to reroll

JonPeters.5630:

There are >500 skills in this game, 480 traits, and 2 designers working on this.

I am so confused by this statement. I understand the necessity of teams to address specific issues like events, skill/trait balancing, bot battling, PvP, bug fixing, etc. But every team is still a part of Anet. And Anet’s goal is for this game to be the best MMO out there. What I can’t figure out is why the allocation of personnel is so poor. Why are the multitude of bugs and broken skills and unbalanced professions not a top priority? When it becomes crunch time at my job, often times people will be pulled from their normal resonsibilities to help out where it’s needed. Is this not done at Anet? 2 people are the entire staff of profession balancing? Shouldn’t there be a team of people working on fixing bugged skills and broken mechanics, rather than 2 people whose responsibilities have become the cruz of all complaints on this forum? Can’t people be pulled from other teams to help out? You hired a team to battle the bot plague. Don’t you think it’s time to hire a few more people to fill the ranks of your profession-fixing team?

I’m not a developer. I don’t know what it takes to run a company or code a massive video game. But I do know that weekend events don’t mean a whole lot to people who can’t even get their skills working right. What fun is event participation if your involvement is hampered by pets that can’t hit anything that’s moving, or bows being dodged at whim, or minions aggroing the world, or traits not working like they should?

I’m not trying to be a hard kitten I’m just trying to understand how this is not the top priority. I guess you could argue that I’m assuming it’s not the top priority. But a 15 minute scan of the profession forums will tell you that there are certainly things that need to be fixed. And some posts have been responded to by developers (ranger forum), promising changes/fixes in the next patch cuz they just didn’t have time last patch. Well, the next patch is here and those fixes are not. None of them.

Sandra Martino.3870:

The patch notes for necromancers are an insult to anyone playing one.

The notes for guardians makes me want to continue on my alt..

^ this. I was so hoping I could pick my Necro or Ranger up again. Sadly, I guess my Guard will replace my Ranger as my new main. Time to power level.

Well considering the most recent patch seems to have ignored all terrestrial issues and just buffed everyone’s underwater combat abilities…you should be ok.

Ugh.

Long and short of my feelings:

- my Ranger will be shelved until Anet learns to fix any of the problems everybody is talking about.
- my Necro is getting better, but ultimately isn’t there yet. the biggest problems weren’t addressed.
- my Guardian didn’t see much this patch, but it’s still the most viable option.
- should prob roll a Warrior, since it’s clear they’re Anet’s favorite child. all they saw were buffs.
- Anet focused on underwater combat improvement this patch for most professions. Pitiful.

JonPeters.5630:

I see a lot of talk about ranger weapons, but I don’t think that is the real problem. I think sword and longbow are both good weapons, which is why the changes take longer. The problems are deeper, in pets ability to hit moving targets, trait lines with not enough viable choices and skills that are often too specialized to really compliment the weapon builds. These aren’t things we can change overnight. The change to Greatsword block was in fact a very difficult change, but we made it because we knew it was the right thing to do.

The fact that the playerbase is unimpressed with the unimaginative bow skills may not be your most immediate concern, you can’t discount it as a viable argument. After all, we as players are the voices you want to give creedence to. Professions need to be not only viable & effective, but fun to play.

JonPeters.5630:

There are >500 skills in this game, 480 traits, and 2 designers working on this.

Wait, you only have 2 people on your staff working on skill & trait balancing and bugs? That’s….kinda ridiculous. Can you pull a few people from your Special Events team and put them on something that we really need dealt with? Like making our skills, traits, and utilities fun, effective, and not broken???

I’m….kinda….speechless…..

Spirit buff…Maul, ok….but…..

No pet fixes? No bow fixes? No signet or shout improvements?
The devs said our utilities were weak…and they still are. But hey, at least underwater we’re better. Amiright???!?!!!

I laugh so hard whenever people talk about a new game dying, 3 months after launch. Especially one with a loyal fanbase like this one has. GW was played for years for the fun of it, not because we’d get some endgame gear. Sure, FOW and Tombs had chests and monster drops that were nice, but we went there to beat wholesale kitten and /flex, not to attain another badge. So the fact that you do get loot in GW2 is a bonus imo. Too many people are so focused on “no end game” that they miss what there actually is to do.

At 80, you can literally do everything this game offers. Go explore, do some fun DEs in Metrica or Caledon, level crafting for access to armor skins, get 100% exploration, do your personal story, conquer WvW, conquer PvP, get a few exotic sets, work on your monthly achievement, try another profession, farm ore/wood for gold…there’s so much to do that is fun that I’m jealous I’m not at 80 yet. You’re too worried about the “what’s in it for me?” to see the “man, this is fun” aspect of the game. Join a guild, make some friends, try dungeon team builds, and stop whining already.

The game’s not dying. The game has its flaws, as every new MMO does. And despite our groaning about a potential gear grind (there’s something for you to look forward to), we’ll have 2 Events and a major content update within 3 months of launch. Pretty good imo.

We got to Mad King’s Realm via portals. So there’s that option.
And we’re starting in Lion’s Arch….a huge port city. Can probably charter a ship.

My carrion devourer is Lenny. He just looks like one.

Look, I honestly love having my pet. I think the fact that we have to manage them to keep them alive, heal them, swap them is what balances their strength. We had to keep them alive in GW1 and didn’t complain. Not to mention that when they die, they’re not dead. Just on a 60sec cooldown. As opposed to a thief’s F1 skill or Guard’s virtues?….which have cooldowns after use.

What needs to be done isn’t an overhaul of the pet system. It’s simply fixing the bugs:
- Fix the bug that won’t let our melee pets attack on the move
- Fix the bug that delays the F2 cast
- Fix the bug that has pets running 20 ft ahead of us
- Fix the bug that makes pets unreliable when we are downed.
- Fix the bug that removes pet names upon changing them (cosmetic, but annoying)

These fixes would make our pets more responsive and powerful, the way they were meant to be. Honestly, I think our pets are the strongest profession-specific mechanics in the game, if working properly. They give a ton of varied utility and add a heap of damage. Not to mention they (potentially) keep fighting after we’re downed or can rez us. That’s sick. I don’t want to micromanage my pet, but I do want it to respond to the commands I have at my disposal correctly.

Also, buff pet shouts.

Ninjah.6298:

Torch. Bonfire > All.

^ this

I too shelved my Ranger and have been playing a Necro and Guardian since. But I find myself combing thru the Ranger forums more and more the closer we get to patch day. Here’s hoping we see some awesome changes!!

I’m actually a little confused why Anet feels they need to have so many 1-time events at all. A single 1-time event on a weekend day would make sense, but I think this thing is going to have like 3 1-time events. Just seems silly. They already have WvW (a perpetual battle), so why not a perpetual siege over the course of the day (or hours), rather than once?

I’d assume you’d keep your title since you earned it before the update, but you’ll have to get those new points to get true 100% shown on the character select screen. It’s not much more to get, not like a Cantha expansion.

If the date of completion isn’t a big deal, then try this: Each day complete 1 zone. Just 1. Then continue playing as you normally would (dungeons, PvP, Orr farming, whatever). Next day, pick another zone, 100% it, then move on. Rinse repeat reward without the monotonous burnout.

The other piece of advice I have was mentioned before but defintitely bears repeating. Check in on WvW maps often. Some parts of the map may be under enemy control for a week or 2. Be patient, cap what you can, come back later when your server controls it. And waypoints are free there so it should be fairly quick. Run naked there if you just want to cap & avoid fighting. If you get caught by the zerg better to save on repair bills.

Main Characters: Orwynn Lightgrave, Ailyn Bramblethorn, Seras Soulreaper
Current Server: Yak’s Bend
Interested Activities: PvE, Dungeons
Active: Play mostly weeknights after 10pm and weekends at all hours.
Additional Comments: proud alt-oholic so no 80’s yet. Lotsa questing, leveling, exploring, and whatever else is fun, sociable, and gets me XP. Always looking for friends to play with in-game so pm me anytime.

Things like rabbits count toward Kill Variety, but not total Kill Count. The variety is sometimes a pain. Run quests all day long in Orr and you’ll be stuck at 1 cuz everything is classified as Undead/Risen. If you look at your Slayer tab, they list various enemy types and how many of each you’ve killed. Those are probably also the major breakdowns for Kill Variety types.

I’m currently leveling a Guardian and have actually been doing the things the above players have mentioned: 15 Radiance, 5 Virtues to start. My main weapon set is sword/torch because I love the fast attack speed and constant burns. Weapons & traits for attack, gear & utilities for defense. So I’m spreading blind, vulnerability, and burning and then staying alive by gearing with +vit and using shouts & signets to protect & regen. Been working like a dream. And mace/focus is a great bunker set, letting me block, blind, & regen like crazy if things go bad.

Progression means requiring strategy, new skills being implemented, new weapons even, new cosmetic gear, and more challenging content that doesn’t include bigger numbers.

Pandemic.3516:

the only reason is because people kitten about wanting new content then want to kitten even more when its released because its not “exactly what they want”.

if we didn’t have a power creep when new content was released people would fly through it in a day or two and complain when there is nothing to do again, a power creep gives the dev atleast a few weeks even months before the excessive whining starts on the forums.

No, it’s not about what getting “exactly what they want” it’s about being given exactly what was promised, which is no gear treadmill. A power creep is not necessary. GW1 did it for years and thru new expacs still didn’t raise the level or gear cap for a long time. New content can be made challenging without having to raise gear numbers.

And power creep shouldn’t be implemented just to give the developers a month to stave off whining. There should be real reasons for any big decisions. And this is a big one.

I will say that I’m sick of people complaining about no end-game cuz they did it already. In GW1 we were all very happy to run FOW & UW & Tombs over and over and over. Because it was challenging and not every part was doable right away or without strategy. This game doesn’t require enough strategy just yet, but I’m confident.

“I wish they would add a grind-based condition like Agony that requires higher tier gear. "

Healing Spring and Brown Bear F2 and the signet.

MeGaZlo.9516:

Seras.5702:

Firstly, the Ranger is a great class. In PvE it’s a monster that can down monsters well above its level. And pets lend a level of tanking & utility that some classes dream of.

BUT…its bow mechanics are boring, auto-attack being the best damage skill. LB is really slow and lacks the punch you’d expect from such a slow wep. Pets are buggy in that they can’t attack while moving and their F2 responsiveness is slow. Greatsword used to be, well…great. Now it’s like swinging a tree branch. Spirits are incredibly lackluster and our signets are the weakest in the game.

These are the primary complaints. Anet knows them and we’re all hoping to see big improvements on the 15th. Rangers are still fun to play and probably the easiest in PvE. Enjoy what you got and maybe they’ll get even better soon.

Pfff… all can do this. S(!)PvE – do not forget to specify. In the dungeons ranger just worst class of all. I do not go to the dungeon by ranger, just out of respect to other players, knowing that the rangers – the loss of the slot.
And it is unpleasant.
Yes, it is good in spve. But not the best. Classes such as Warrior, Mesmer, cond Necromancer, and especially Guardian feel much better. For example Guardian can simultaneously kill many times more mobs than the ranger, 20-50% faster and spend less HP at same time.
Necromancer can kill a surprising number of mobs at once, that the rangers will only cry quietly in a corner, drooling.

utility that some classes dream of? Dude, are you kidding? Half of the ranger’s utility absolute rubbish, to which even sorry to spend skill points. The most useless utility of all classes. More than half do not needed at all.

About other problems do not want to even mention.

Your reading skills aren’t quite up to snuff, so let me clarify. PvE means Player vs Environment…there is no sPvE…you’re thinking of sPvP.

I said pets lend utility that other classes would love, not that our utilities are great. Our utilities are generally rubbish (I even mentioned spirits & signets being awful). But our pets are versatile and we can have 2 at a time. That’s nice.

I typed 2 sentences pro-Ranger and then a paragraph explaining its problems. Yet you seemed to have missed that. I never said Ranger was better than Necro or Guardian either, let alone that they’re “the best” so I’m confused why you felt the need to throw that in there.

Kashien.6278:

Drekor.5217:

I went Sylvari, I regret every moment of it.

This ^^^^^^^

Haha, glad im not the only one.

I re-rolled. Couldn’t stand my Sylvari Guardian.

(the following is all PvE) I find my Ranger to be the easiest for survivability. So much evasion built into skills and traits. Not to mention 2 pets to tank for you. And while my Guradian can heal thru a lot, not getting hit in the first place > healing after. I’ve never tried MM Necro and until I hear of minion AI improvements, I won’t. But I find my survivability quite high being a conditionmancer and spreading slows & blinds non-stop.

Kyouhei.2341:

Trollface Posted his Sets and the Screenshot in the OP are what we try to find out.

I mean the armor skins. What skins are they cuz they look great.

As long as players don’t start excluding other that don’t have Ascended gear from normal dungeon runs, I’m ok with this. I hate when I see people spamming things like “require full Ascended for fast AC run only.” That’s when gear progression breaks game mechanics and the overall feel Anet is aiming for. If Ascended gear is only necessary for the dungeons where that gear drops, ok. If it’s something else we have to pour all of our gold & time into just to feed the Mystic Forge, i’m gonna be very sad indeed.

Is AH + Staff’s Empower basically a full heal even from 1hp? Seems like it’s an amazing synergy, especially since you get healed with each stack (12) and there’s a heal at the end of casting.

What armor are Trollface & the OP wearing?? They are great!

Having your pet execute the command at your target offer more control. Like Sotaudi said, there aren’t micro-managing tools to contrl your pet, so this would allow you to indirectly control where healing howls or fears or condition removal occur. It’d be nice if we deselected a target then the pet would execute the F2 skill where it is. Unfortunately, this means we have to stop attacking. it also would mean that your pet won’t use an attacking F2 skill on its current target but instead the player’s

Kincaidia.3192:

Does anyone else find it really frustrating that they’re going to be releasing a major rebalancing in the same day as releasing new, short-duration content? I have limited play time, but once the balance changes are out, I want to test the everloving crap out of them. But I don’t think I’ll be able to at the risk of missing the content.

Is this planned? Is the new content an intentional distraction?

(Look over there, a badger with a gun, do you see it?)

What can the rationalization can they have for this timing?

The event content is always very sociable & easy. So you can take part in the 1-time event and it really won’t matter what fixes they made, you’ll be able to take full part. Then, head to the Mists to run your tests or evaluate the play while say…exploring the new zone. You can do both at once. It’s your choice if you want to spend an event weekend theorycrafting. Personally, I like it all rolled into one. I don’t want to have to wait for 2 weeks for my Ranger fixes.

Also, is that an Eddie Izzard reference???

LOL They lull you in with those last few cuz they’re actually things we want…oooh roaming spirits….lick wounds & pet names….and LB is what?…wait, 600 axe range?….Signet of the…Entan….wth???

Nice friends.

Wolverine
T-Rex
Fox
Raptor
Grub
Zojja