Guild Wars 2

What if the siege was automated but weaker. However if a player took manual control over it it returned to its normal strength? That way siege that was already in place (I.E. cannons/oil or a possible new defensive arrowcart upgrade) could fire there basic completely unupgraded shot at attackers in range. However a player could hop in if they have the skill and manual control it to greater effect. encourages players to stay in siege. but will help delay attacker swarms long enough for the small playerbase inside the keep (usualy theres 10-15 people running around in my experience) to call for help and set up player manned siege.

Gotta say Id think it would open up some interesting point defense builds. “builds that arnt bunkers i.e. Point defense is vulnerable to spike but instead are capable of KILLING there attackers fairly quickly.” A.T.M. point defense style play seems to be pretty dominated by A.I. builds or attrition builds. This could offer a more “in your face” offensive kinda defense. I can think of a few things id like to try this with.

As a Ranger who largely plays in PvP WvW I have to say I have enjoyed reading this. I have a very control focused play/build style that revolves around setting up and maneuvering an enemy. This is what I enjoy and largely why I play classes like the ranger in many games.

One of the biggest issues with PvE I have is how not only is control as a whole completely worthless. But due to that fact im actually told NOT TO EVEN PLAY THE GAME THAT WAY. Im sure those gathered here know but there is pretty much ONE ranger build and ONE play style thats…even TOLERATED in the vast majority of the groups in the game.

At first I thought this was just for rangers. So I made three other characters and lvld then to 80 in the hopes that maybe my play style would…atleast not be seen with absolute disgust in the PvE environment. Only to find that control builds on EVERY class are considered an actual detriment to a team. As in many groups would prefer to be running with four people than even have you inside it….Thats….disgusting.

And the worst part is I cant even blame the players themselves. Its not there fault. The PvE Group content of this game simply doesn’t need two aspects of its new “trinity” (Damage/Control/support) for the DAMAGE builds provide all three with such ease that anyone that doesn’t run them are in the eyes of the ones that do HARMFUL to the grp.

Thats just my 2 cents though. If the encounters and content of the game could be changed to actually make running a control or a support build desirable or even remotely worthwhile Id be all over the dungeons/events. But as it is know I only leave the mists for the sake of the living story.

Gotta say In my own opinion as someone that both plays for and against AI builds on a regular basis im kinda dissapointed at all the naysayers. Its pretty obvious many of them have NEVER played an “ai” build to realize how it actually plays.

Ai builds are really only strong at two things. Holding a point against a SINGLE player that rushes in without even considering whats about to happen to them. Or 1v1ing out in the middle of no where.

Ai builds are strong against single opponents due to there “saturation” style damage.
I.E. they kill by providing a continuous stream of damage that can be mitigated but not completely destroyed. Thats pretty much there only real strength.

Each individual AI build has its own strengths and weaknesses that once recognized make them EASY to kill…..and I mean pathetically easy.

A spirit rangers spirits DONT do damage with the exception of the air spirit which is fairly rarely seen in most pvp matches. And thats a once in a blue moon ability with a pretty tight cast range. EVERY OTHER DAMAGE SOURCE is going to be coming from the ranger itself. Which means blinds and ccs work wonders just as well as they do on any other ranger.

A MM Necro (in EITHER primary build but focusing on VMM) can have alot of sustain/control. but they only have one burst ability. (bone minions) And there sustain gets weaker the logner hte fight goes…wanna cut down a MM fight time in half? Range that blood fiend down. The necro is gonna drop pretty kitten fast if hes using it. If hes using consume conditions thats an easily interrupted heal and then hes screwed. other than that the necro will act as a control bot…trying to cc you so the minions will kill you for him cause he does kitten poor damage.

Turrets are strong right now yes. But again there easily countered. Nearly all the turrets have VERY low health. as in…4-5shot them low… the thumper turret is hte only real exception. The biggest hit is coming from the rocket turret/rifle/flame turret combo and all of those can be killed in less that 5 seconds…the whole group.

As for spirit weapon guards…..At the moment they DONT succeed at anything really cause there too easily countered by a conscious opponent. Meaning if you have half a brain and a little bit of caffeine you can negate them in moments. There all on longish cooldowns…They all have low health… They dont have condi immunity or damage resistance. And to make it even better? The build offers NO sustain to the guardian itself…meaning it can be bursted unlike most naturally tanky Point Defense AI builds.

Thats all it is really. Most ai builds are POINT DEFENSE builds..meaning they SHOULDNT be fun to fight on point. The whole idea behind the role is to make it as unfun for you to take it as possible. They are going to try and lock you down and kill you before you decide to run away and get help. These arnt bunkers…These are defensive forces DESIGNED to ruin a thieves/warriors/decap engis day. Just like those classes are designed to be able to screw over bunkers.

Hey there. Saw your post so I thought I would give you my perspective.

The reason I play necromancer is because I enjoy the feeling of completely crushing another persons strengths. That moment when you corrupt a guardians boons, Soak a warriors burst like its nothing, Cripple a thief as hes being devoured by undead servants, and even chilling a mesmer and isolating him from his precious clones.

I guess you could say the necromancer is the best for a semi-sadistic style of play. Where you just laugh as the people your fighting become weaker and weaker until they just fall over.

Thats why I do it atleasat.

Hey arcanis. Since you said it was a newb question I have to assume you have not hit level 80 yet.
So you know, The WvW armor vendor only sells pvt type equipment until you are lvl 80 I believe. it could be 60 but im pretty sure its 80. At that point however many different armor types will open up for you. Hope this helps

Have to say I am surprised someone saw my post in all of this. Thanks for the support Sevoha I can only hope others feel the same way hahaha.

Game Mode PVX (Primarily PVE)

Proposal Overview: At the moment archer style rangers are fairly well despised in almost all forms of group play that I have encountered. One of the primary reasons I have heard for this is the inability for the ranger to receive boons at mid/long range as well as the proportionately low damage of ranged weapons in general. I believe a set of pet based trait changes could go a long way to solving this.

Goal Of Proposal: Help close the gap in effectiveness between ranged and melee play styles.

Proposed Changes : Have Fortifying bond (The minor trait where any boon you receive is given in part to your pet) work both ways or have a sister trait in the Beast Mastery line that grants boons your pet receives to you. This would help negate some of the boon loss (affecting both survivability and damage) for long range play styles.

In addition to this another pair of “sister” traits in the skirmishing and marksmanship lines.

Marksmanship: Possible rework of eagle eye where whenever your pet lands a hit it inflicts a stacking (token) debuff on the target. This debuff (Exposed) causes your next attack to deal 10% more damage which consumes a token. Allowing your pet to “soften up” the target for you.

Skirmishing: Possible rework of existing trait (companions might) or a new trait added to the line. Whenever you deal damage to a target you inflict a stacking (token) debuff which causes your pets next attack to deal 10% more damage while consuming a token.

Both tokens should have separate symbols and names to enable to target (in the case of pvp) to identify which of the two is applying it.

Associated Risks: Possibility of needing to rework the actual damage/boon duration granted by the traits at a later date to account for shifts in other professions.

Counterplay: The elimination or crowd control of one part of the “Bond” to more easily facilitate the elimination of the other. However I believe that this is how a pet based class is MEANT to be fought.

1.) Ranger (Could use some rework and something it brings to the table for both PVE and PvP.)
2.) Engineer (Could use a bit of help in PVE. I rarely see an engineer here)
3.) Elementalist (I personally don’t own an elementalist character…however from everything I heard outside of conjured weapons abuse there lacking in definition in PVE)

I feel if they wanted to make the longbow closer to the real thing. Then maybe adding a (stagger) effect to it. Or giving it the ability to ignore 15-20% of toughness. It would encourage “blocking” the arrow with a shield or through guardian aegis and bubbles (which are a pretty heavy counter to longbow style characters).

DanSH.6143:

Yeah it’s silly that Long Range Shot exists. It’s obvious that the less the arrow travels the less energy had gone to waste.
Longbow could have just had 1500 range to begin with, and have the max dmg on all ranges. I doubt it would be OP.

Hmm well as far as the nature of a longbows arrow goes I will have to disagree. Traditional use of a longbow in war was to pierce through the plate armor of cavalry. Primarily a defensive weapon they were almost impossible to fire while moving like you could with a shortbow. The mounted archers would use shortbows. But the archers on a wall would likely use longbows. Arrows from longbows were much heavier than there shortbow counterparts. And they actualy used gravity to gain power. A longbow fired at pointblank was actually less likely to pierce a knights armor compared to a longbow arrow at the end of its firing arc. Theres exceptions of course. Firing into strong wind would likely reduce the arrows effectiveness. But you see my point. Long range shot is actually following the idea of the longbow. However its weapon power was VASTLY inferior to the real thing. For logical reasons of course, but its maybe been taken a bit to far.

I appreciate it. Sorry if I phrased my reply poorly but thought id be straight up here.
Thank you for replying to my post. Having people aware that there might be an issue could help shed some light on whether its real or if im having some kind of latency issue I cant properly account for on my own.

Hmm. What im trying to say is that im watching the actual debuff on my target. I’ve tested this in pvp where i use Sic-Em at long range on a theif whos fighting another player and watch there debuff. I watch it go from four seconds to three to dissapearing as the thief enters stealth anyway. This isnt once in a blue moon this happens. But infact quite often.

Im familiar with the uses of the skill as i’ve been using it since before the reveal change to it. What I am trying to figure out is why the reveal seems to be unreliable for me.

Thats why I posted my concerns in the form of questions. To see if others are noticing the same issues or know more information about it.

When I started typing the rest of this response I had to take a minute to retype this.

Your reply came off as well…..exceedingly rude. Not sure if you meant it that way. But thought id tell ya that now. I had to reread what you said becuase the first time the attitude of the post made me want to ignore it out of hand.

I appreciate what your saying but it in no way addresses the issues im having. I wouldn’t make this post if i wasn’t SURE this was happening.

Hey there before I went to the bug forum I wanted to ask around.
So I took to taking Sic Em to Tpvp and WvW on request of some of my guildies in the hopes of nailing thieves before they instadown one of our people and blind stomp it before we can save them.

Sounds good right? However theres something ive noticed. The reveal of sic em which is slotted to last for four seconds in hte tooltip.

NEVER lasts more than one or two seconds AT MOST. Thieves usualy just ignore it. Do thieves have a method of actualy dropping our reveal?

If so then what was the point of the ability?

Is this a bug? Or does reveal suffer from diminishing returns?

And next on ‘Spot The Warrior’ >.<

Pretty sure the 25% was on training of the master. the damage trait? Nerf from 30% to 25%

I started using Speed runes for some reason. Now I can’t get enough of them >.<

Hi. Im posting this in response to alot of the replies I see on here. One of hte main nay says against change that ive seen has been people somehow believe that others want support and control builds to do as much damage as damage builds. Im here to say as a control style player who plays with other control style players that this isnt the case.
We DONT expect to do as much damage as someone in full zerker.
We DONT expect to suddenly be the new meta either.
What we want and expect is the ability to feel USEFULL. Which in the current stack and burn full zerker playstyle is NEVER going to happen.
I play a longbow ranger who utilizies aoe cripples and immobolize to control entire groups of enemies. However this is useless due to the fact that the current fight style does not infact involve movement of enemy mobs at all.
The idea behind my play style is to give opportunities to my allies to either back off and recover from damage or position themselves for maximum dps.
But seeing as how 99% of the time no one ever has to back off from damage or even rearrange themselves since there all stacked anyway most of the time I end up switching my traits around putting on a sword and MINDLESSLY dpsing. Because there is NO tangible risk in doing so.
>.< somehow this turned into half rant but hopefully SOME people will see where im coming from with this.

Good to know Im not the only one who wants the trait to be decently viable :P.
So much potential but its wasted in the current mechanic scheme.

For Search and rescue the issue is a little different.

My issue with this ability is that not only can it interfere with guard (thus canceling its effect in the same way that sic’em does) but that it chooses its target in a TIGHT radius around the ranger. Thus making sic’em useful only if the ranger is in melee with the grp. For shortbow/longbow/axe rangers that isnt always going to be the case.

The result is a member in melee downing. Me hitting search and rescue. The pet looking for downed players around ME…. and not even noticing the poor warrior bleeding out on the floor next to him.

I thank you for taking the time to read this.
And hope that you will reply letting us know atleast that you have seen it.

First id like to say thanks for all the work you have put into the December 10th patch coming up. However there are two issues I have seen that has not been addressed and they are ignored by most rangers except those that use heavy BM tree builds.

My goal: Convince developers to consider removing the stack loss on down for masters bond.
Second Goal: Convince developers to consider causing Search and rescues detection radius to center around the PET (as the tool tip describes it as) not the player and increase its range.

Reasoning is as follows

First is as the topic above says the Masters Bond trait. This trait adds stats to the pet for every successful kill by the player. On paper its a GREAT trait to have for heavy pet focused builds.

However this trait has flaws that may seem small but cause the trait to be one of the LEAST desired if not the least desired trait in the BM tree.

First is the reset on down. I understand slightly why this was made. I am okay with this ON ITS OWN. however coupled with the second flaw it is crippling.

The second flaw is Loss of stacks on pet swap or deactivation.

Pet swap as above im okay with on its own. It deepens the bond with the ranger to a specific pet that he/she decides to fight with. Rewarding there perseverance.

However if the reset on pet swap is to be implemented. I believe that the reset on pet down should be disposed of. Pets down…its part of the game. and when a pet downs one of the first things we do is pet swap. Thats TWO things that happen that this trait is designed to work against.

Coupled with bosses with either one shot mechanics that pets cant avoid (jade maw , crusher, and for anything not a bear the flame wave of the new twin boss fractal.) Its a pain enough as it is and were scrambling to rescue our pets from near certain and regular demise. Even a full pet shout ranger spamming guard and troll ungeant can only watch as his pet is crippled/chilled and then torn apart cause it can no longer be recalled to the rangers side without loss of masters bond stacks.

What i ask for is. Either remove the loss on down. OR remove the loss on swap/deactivation (possible method to make masters bond appear on the rangers buff bar instead of the pets? Yet still improve the pet stats) One would further support the bond between a ranger and his pet. The other would support the bond between the rangers TWO pets. A Bear tanks to group and collects stacks of masters bond. Then the eagle utilizes it rushing through and hitting high value targets.

Thought of some more potetionaly useful info.
Q: Lecrucian my pet cant hit the side of a barn door much less a moving mob.
A: Stop it from moving…..cripple is your friend and providable by i believe every weapon.
Q: Lecrucian this is all useless in pvp what should i do THEN?
A: I tend to think of players as champion mobs without agro tables….Makes them easier to fight when you realize there susceptable to all the same things bosses are.
Q: Lecrucian I keep getting killed by Herobrine.
A: your in minecraft.
Q: Lecrucain What do i do when a thief stealths? Fight it the same way you would a kittenroach. Overwhelming firepower over a large area….Scorched earth…you name it. And expect it to come up behind you.
Q: Lecrucian why is the girl from the ring following me?
A: Thats an asura…Apply excess arrows until it dies.

FAQ
Q: But rangers are kitten poor excuses of classes and should be kicked out of every group
A: My name is lecrucian in game. Lets do a 30 together.
Q: But melee is the only way to go and anyone not in melee should be kicked out of every group
A: Even if im not getting buffs directly I am getting buffs through my pet who is ALWAYS in range of boons. Through projectile finishers im suplementing what little gap of dps there is. My pet is giving support whether you know it or not. Try paying attention. Also by being outside of melee I get to see the whole arena. Meaning im responding to one of you downing outside of melee (ely mistform…thief shadowstep….memser clone jump) far faster than the people who can only see the boss and numbers.
P.S.: My name is lecrucian in game. Lets do a 30 together.
Q: Lecrucian…my pet is still dieing all over the place. What should I do?
A: Are you using a build that ignores your pet without adjusting your playstyle/pet choice? Are you accounting for what type of pets your using? Are you expecting glass cannon pets to survive indefinetly in melee? Maybe? Clearly you should be playing a warrior.
Q: Lecrucian. Your builds dont give me zerk warrior level dps?
A: Clearly you didnt read the intro.
Q: Lecrucian your obviously an idiot who has no idea what hes talking about
A: My name is lecrucian in game. Lets do a 30 together. So i can giggle as you die to fire while i dance through it and jump on your body.

All of the above is gathered from my personal experience in the game. I dont claim to be the best ranger in the game. I dont claim to have the best builds in the game. I DO claim to know what im doing. I DO claim to have been playing a ranger or ranger style characters since EQ1.

Part Two: Pet survival.

The biggest part of keeping your pet alive isnt pet choice. It isnt boss choice. It isnt conditons or healing or anything like that. Its assuming everyone in the group is rolling full zerker or a condi dmg variant.

The reason for this is twofold.

First. You should ALWAYS assume the people in your group are idiots. T
hat doesnt meen you should call them that. Just plan for it. Odds are one or more of them are gonna down.

Then your pet is that much higher on the boss threat table making it more likely hte boss is gonna wack it. This isnt an issue if your not bringing a glass cannon pet. But i know some of you do.

Second. Pet choice. HERES where we get into the whole bearbow/vs cats.
Know the boss fight.
Is the boss too dangerous to melee? (see crusher) then bring a spider or devourer.
Is the boss okay to melee but not for very long? Birds are your friends. there the ideal hit and run pets. They cant take a hit worth a kitten but MAN can they do some burst then gtfo. I like owl/hawk.
Does the boss have periods of evade/invuln? Condi pets are your besti’s here.
Is the boss a general amount of kitten all evil about to kill anything that even touches it? MAAAYBE you shouldn’t have brough that lynx. A canine/drake or an ursine are better here.

The above are just THREE possible setups using a LIMITED trait grouping.
They dont focus on blindly facerolling a boss.
They assume the fight is gonna go bad and bring methods to salvaging it.

The idea of this build is to either being a control/grp support specialist or sustainable damage setup with boss tanking capabilities. Or even both.
It provides decent damage and once you master it and the rangers inborn abilities/pet control you and your pet will survive just about anything while still killing kitten.

This is the build i use to solo the twin boss fight in hte new fractal instances when my group dies pathetically to avoidable dmg becuase they were too focused on numbers. Its caused me to see my grp members like necro minions. Usefull to have around. but nothing to worry about when they die. My pet ranks higher on my list of importance to the grp than they do.

Shouts NEED to be mastered in order to use this build well. Same with the longbow skill.

Sic’em is a closer. It gets the pet to the boss faster where it proceeds to tank it like a champ while guard/troll ungeant keeps it alive.
If i have an attack heading my way i cant get out of i pop protect me then swap pets imediatly after to prevent pet death.
Then sic’em again to get my second canine to the target.
A continuos roll of these abilities keeps most bosses fairly still (aside from there movement abilities..see lupicus).
It also keeps the boss generally facing one way which helps the few melee who are intelligent enough to stand BEHIND the giant guy with the sword while tehy do there rotations.

If damage isnt an issue (grp of 4 wars and a ranger or something like that) ill roll search and rescue cause guaranteed one of the wars is an idiot and downs to fire i dont want to step in.

Group needs heals? my fern hound gives them. Not alot but most groups dont NEED alot of healing (if there smart enough to NOT take the giant sword coming at them cause they stood infront of the boss).

Group is taking too much damage? Both pets cripple on howl givent intelligent melee the opportunity to back up and heal themselves. (guardians are the only ones who can safely heal in melee) Also the alpine wolves aoe chill combined with increased duration will help keep them alive if there stupid enough to stay in attack range.

My third and prefered build is a Ranger/Pet synergy shout build.
Applicable with either the Assassin’s or the Valk setup.
I always roll Longbow/GS with a 20/20/0/0/30 setup and a fernhound/alpine wolf.

My personal traitsetup here is: Either endurance dmg boost or increased pet condition duration and spotter for marksman.
Might on Crit followed by shorter bow cooldowns.

Now for bm theres alot of variety to choose from (depending on your own personal pet choice) I personally use the shorter shout cooldown, Shorter pet skill cooldown, and Pet natural healing traits.

My second build is Damage/decent grp boss fight setup.
Generally used in the 30/20/0/0/20 with assassin’s gear and AGAIN rocking either Longbow/GS or longbow/sword axe.
My trait setup is rocking the signet traits, Might on crit, shorter bow cooldowns, shower pet skill cooldown, shorter pet f2 cooldown.

Fern Hound Arctodus are my pets of choice. If you think you can do better give it a try and find out.

The idea is to SURVIVE <—- key word while dealing a continuous stream of decent sustainable damage.
If the grp needs help? ill swoop in drop the healing spring then GTFO. I am squishy and I have to play like that to survive.
Also the fern hound provides another source of regen. Hell if there arnt any conditions going out i can set healing spring at range then use combo finishers to give regen to allies in melee.

My reason for using this pet choice is that the Fern hound provides decent constant dps and grp healing while the arctodus is for the inevitable time when the boss starts throwing out high dmg aoes and the pet/melee dps goes down. Bears can survive ANYTHING as long as your smart and not in jade maw. I can keep that pet up indefinetly until my fern hound is back up. ALthough as long as im paying attention the fern hound should NEVER die. This is just for those kitten all situations where theres nothing you can do about it but whine.

First is the control setup. Mostly used in the 30/20/0/0/20 although it is VERY viable with the 20/20/0/0/30 setup.
Throwing on the rampager gear and traps. I switch my traits to bleed on crit and placeable traps as well as longer pet conditions and cripple on canine howl. Ill usualy also throw in spotter/piercing shots.
My goal is to use the high precision and condi damage to make best use of my traited longbow abilities while assisting my team with add management/destruction.
This isnt the build I use for bosses unless im certain ill probably be soloing it.
I generaly use a Fern hound/Carrion Devourer pet setup.
The greatest part of this build is the ability to help out endangered teammates as long as there intelligent enough to see that there in trouble.

Part one: Purpose of rangers.

Our purpose in a group is to bring options.

For example. My build in the game is usualy either 20/20/0/0/30 or 30/20/0/0/20

I did NOT design these builds around maximizing dps…or tankiness… or anything like that. Its based around the premise that in the end when my group full of zerkers dies im going to be killing the boss. I generally use a longbow and either GS or sword axe.

For these build im given several options. I can choose Signets/Traps/Shouts. Will they be maxed out to there fullest potential? Thats up to me while im playing. I carry around three sets of gear. Rampager/Assassins/Valkyrie. Each gear set gives me options for different playstyles.

It should be noted before reading this that I only made this post to address a bit of the complaining I find both in game and in the forums. This is NOT a post for minimizing and maxing your dps.

This forum will expand if people are interested enough for me to spend my time building on it.

For the last several months I have seen nothing but complaining about how rigged the game is against rangers. I here talk about how the pet dies instantly. How our weapons are pathetic. How melee is the only way to go.

In my experience the people that say these things are the people who expected the jack of all trades class to be some super powerful dps class or super tanky etc.. etc.. etc..

Rangers aren’t designed to be the top of the dps boards. Its possible but not likely. We are not designed to survive crushing blows from bosses.

What we CAN do. Is give options.

Hey :P Saw the bost and thought i should respond. Right now rangers are in a good place in fractals. Specialy BM (condi,crit or power build doesn’t matter).
Hell bearbow is AWESOME for the twin boss fight. I cant tell you how many times my group dies but my arctodus/fernhound combo tanks the zerker while i run away from the fire and shoot from long range until phase change. For me this usually happens 3/5 runs.
The trick though is not to think in just the normal dps thought pattern but as an offtank/control specialist as well (seeing as how we have the only thing truly capable of long term tanking in the game atm).
Rangers excell in control/wide area/high movement fights. But if your too worried bout cooldowns and might/fury stacks your not gonna be able to really excell in the ranger niche unless you go into one of the full melee builds (much more reactive. Its faster paced with less longterm planning involved)
My ranger in fractals (atm personal lvl 37) can survive almost any fight even when the rest of the group has died to various causes. Its just the whole fight smarter not harder thing.

To the SBI Warrior in EB who attempted and failed to take the NW supply camp WITH FRIENDS BACKING YOU UP from my Necromancer. the one that was life draining all 4 of you harder than you were hitting me? TY FOR THE EXOTIC. Shame your blob had to show up and ruin it right after i got the loot off of you u.u

McWolfy.5924:

i dont like the whole pet system. i hope they will remove pet from class mechanism and give us it back as an utility skill.

Please….god….just…dont talk. Delete pets? Realy? kitten that. You know what….even if it DOES make hte numbers for rangers better. I would stop player. I play a ranger BECAUSE I WANT a pet that isnt just some summonable i plan on blowing up anyway…god man just roll a war.

Behellagh.1468:

WHITE SPACE … please. Makes wall of text a bit more attractive to read.

Took your advice. I have not posted in a long time so not really used to it anymore. Also fixed some grammar errors (but by no means all of them.) Will continue to edit as I find them

Khisanth.2948:

You say this has been tested but I don’t see anything describing the testing methodology.

The testing methodology for this is mostly just raw gameplay as well as controlled experiments in nearly every dungeon with a few of my guildies. I also play a ranger as a main so ive also been able to do tests with my pet as a second threat table. Ive located a few mobs who dont follow the above rules (Lupicus for example who seems to select a player to chase in phase 2 until that player downs or another player creates a MASSIVE threat lead on him. Its also seems that he does not generate threat towards pets and minions as ive never seen him direct anything but his random target auto attack (that green bolt) at them. Which is why im doing more testing on every boss i can make a run for.

Feel free to leave a reply on what you think. possible information that im missing or that im flat out wrong. Trolls once identified will be ignored. Constructive Criticism from an open mind will be accepted and is encouraged.

Note that the above numbers are by no means exact. And only take into account the agro of “actions”. One of the things im testing is simple agro generation due to being in the area of the mob in general. As in your just standing there and everyone else is dpsing in ranged and the boss still decides to wack you out of spite.

Now ive heard alot of people complain about getting threat and beign chased around the field. Even ranged dpsers. Now. does this mean that those ranged dps are better at killing hte boss or mob than melee people? Not necessarily. Here we need to think about a few base facts. Melee dps is often hit and run. Go in unleash hell then dodge the attack coming for your face and rinse and repeat. And if you get damaged too much leave melee ranged to the other guys and heal yourself. (Which is why i like tankier melee classes that DONT HAVE TO LEAVE MELEE and let the boss chase people around) Then back in. Meanwhile the ranged dps has been attacking at usualy a steady rate this entire time. There by now masters of strafe fighting. Which means there threat ISNT collapsing like the melee dpsers are. Even after the boss starts chasing htem around there usualy not paying attention enough to STOP ATTACKING. they just keep shooting “facepalm” and then wonder why the boss has pinned him against the rocks. Behold the dangers of tunnel vision “sigh”.
Now this page isnt complete as there are things im still testing. However id be willing to bet (and have) my characters life on what ive said here. Ill update this as time passess and i finish my testing.
Summary
Mob agro generation (per action) (1n point of dmg or healign creating on point of threat at 1x standard)
Melee range…. 1.5x threat (1.5 points of threat per point of dmg or healing)
Melee range with high toughness and/or vitality 2.0x -2.5x threat (i shouldnt have to repeat it past this point -.-)
Ranged. 1.0x threat (Ranger specced into longbow combat firing at extreme range. Should be doing around the same dmg in full zerker as a war in partial knights with extra survivability….more or less situationaly.)
Ranged with high vitality toughness etc…(vampiric minion mancer in full soldiers) 1.5x threat.
Controls
Soft CCs (cripple. chill etc..) 1.0-2.0x hate Hard ccs (fear stun daze etc…) 2.0x-3.0x (USEFUL FOR DROPPING AGRO HOWEVER….
Combo Finishers. 2.0x agro to both the maker and the user.

So here we have the BASIC mechanics.

Now we get into the god awful annoying kitten no one wants to hear about but seems to be the truth.

Third. Controls. The LEAST used play style in the game from what i can see. The trapper ranger who uses the traps to control not dmg. The necromancer who fear chains for the sake of saving players. The thief who waylays and the mesmer who distracts. This is the build with the least immediately noticeable results. Are you in a grp without a guardian and people still are not taking alot of dmg? You probably have someone “controlling” the mobs. Find them and thank them. Cause CCs do multiple things. First. they make it easier to get away from damage.

And second. They can help REDUCE your agro with a specific mob if your melee. Say your a zerk war who decided to be kitten and charge a boss before the grp was ready. Well the boss just turned and hit you for 70% of your health….now you run….RUN LITTLE WAR RUN… but you cant o.o boss natural run speed is faster than you. Then you notice the boss is crippled! YOU CAN GET AWAY yaaaaay (kitten ). But not only does the boss not just chase you around everywhere IT LEAVES YOU and goes after one of the other players….why?

Because threat in GW2 seems to follow what ive been calling a “Fluid Agro Chart” meaning that it follows the behavior of liquid in that as you pour more and more dmg or heals into the meter it piles up until you hit your average. where you are putting it in at the same speed its draining out. And when you ran away from that boss not hitting it with your heaviest hitting melee attacks. Your agro drained until it was below another player.
Now you have couple choices. Switch to a ranged weapon and deal with less damage cause you decided to go full squish in a melee like an idiot. (herpakitten ) OOOOOOR you can run back in and control your damage. As you play the fight youl get a mental (map) of when your about to pass your threat threshold and get whomped.
Now the reason there isn’t more control in the game is that control abilities usually don’t do as much direct damage as players like. Lets face it spike trap doesn’t hit that kitten its own o.O. And wall spells usually don’t do damage AT ALL (sides a few ely ones) without some form of combo. Which leads until our next part of the threat tables. Id say threat from controls leads anywhere from (1.0x (cripple) to 2.5x (hard ccs…stuns and fears…and kittening moa form (shudder)).

Four. Combos. mobs….HATE….combos….like with a passion. They hate BEING comboed. They hate when players get HEALED by combos. And they hate both parts of the combosthe makers AND the finishers (seem) ‘Again all I have written is from my own experience in this game.’ to gain more threat than the players around them. but its not usualy noticed because combo fields usualy dont last long.
In my mental map ive listed combo’s as being about 2.0x hate. Potentially devastating if your already pushing the top player on the agro charts…but its short term enough you often wont have a problem. (Just remember if your dps racing someone)

Threat tables in GW2

Everything I have written here is from my own experience. It is information that I have tested repeatedly in both controlled situations and through everything from normal pve to lvl 40 fractals.

Im writting this mostly due to an issue ive seen in many grps where people are dieing left and right to stupid things. Like the boss turning around and the wacking a full zerker with his hammahodeath.

At the moment there doesnt seem to be anything that readily tells us how much threat we have. So im writing this as a way for people to understand threat in gw2 and how to manage it. So maybe we dont all have to stack in a corner cause some idiots are to lazy to dodge or tone down there dps ^.^.

First. Proximity. NEARLY every mob and boss in gw2 has this one simple fact. He will wack the things closest to him and fire aoes at the things furthest from him. (or her but ill say him to keep it simple for myself). This is something almost every ranged dps in the game has already understood. I BELIEVE (from testing in many grps) that this is done by having the closest 2 or three players in vicinity generate 1.5x more “hate” than those at extreme ranges. What does this mean for melee characters? It means there going to be hit….a lot…

See most people will have realized that melee weapons and builds USUALLY do more damage than ranged weapons or builds…a great sword war will prob do more straight up damage than a war with a longbow or rifle.

Why is this? its because melee dps was designed to assume that the player would be wearing a few tanky pieces (knights,soldiers etc…) to counteract the damage received. That way they would be able to take the hits without having to run away every .5 seconds to regen.
What does this have to do with agro? Everything. Proximity is vital in controlling a boss. If there are no melee players in the area. The boss will go around spamming his high powered aoes all over the place.

Many bosses even seem to have reduced cooldowns on there abilities if there ARNT melee characters involved. So we need wars and guardians and rangers and everything else that can do melee combat. And we need them to LIVE and not leave melee range.

Second. “Toughness and vitality” We have all heard that these stats influence our threat. Infact it makes sense. From what i can tell having the most toughness and vitality in the bosses effective range will cause it to go after that player. "Effective range being the highest person in melee range. Or if there isnt anyone in melee range going after that person in the distance. A player in melee range who also has the highest toughness/vitality will probably generate twice as much hate as players in ranged. So 2x with that. above the normal 1.5x for melee players. (remember melee players usualy deal more dmg than ranged atm. Its that reward for taking a risky play style)

So what do we have so far?

Mob agro generation (per action) (1n point of dmg or healign creating on point of threat at 1x standard)

Melee range…. 1.5x threat (1.5 points of threat per point of dmg or healing)
Melee range with high toughness and/or vitality 2.0x threat (i shouldnt have to repeat it past this point -.-)

Ranged. 1.0x threat (Ranger specced into longbow combat firing at extreme range. Should be doing around the same dmg in full zerker as a war in partial knights with extra survivability….more or less situationaly.)

Ranged with high vitality toughness etc…(vampiric minion mancer in full soldiers) 1.5x threat.