For those of you at higher levels, will I ever be able to get gear that pairs my condition damage with something other than precision?
Yes.
I haven’t heard one way or the other whether condition damage can crit (I assume not, and I don’t recall seeing any critting DoT ticks), but the Condition gear I get is consistently paired up with it.
It can’t. There are a lot of on-crit condition application talents and runes though, so there’s more synergy there than is immediately apparent.
I also highly recommend not wholly relying on conditions for your damage output, particularly bleeds.
Whats even more odd, is that sometimes it stacks 3-4 bleeds on the target with the first hit instead of vulnerability.
That’s awesome.
If we can get that upgraded to burning I’ll endorse this bug completely.
Barrage.
Then have a cigarette.
Then collect your loot.
Eagle is a big offender here for me. I like to imagine I am shouting at him and he’s ignoring me.
Axe/Warhorn is pretty much everyone’s 2nd weapon.
You get to summon BIRDS, man.
BIRDS.
Vitality gives you more health correct? What about toughness?
Reduces physical damage.
Make no mistake, there’s no turning yourself into a tank through passive stats, but the extra damage in melee is there to offset the extra investment you need to make into survivability stats if you don’t fancy setting a record for repair bills.
I like getting in melee range as a ranger simply because I can. :P
Toughness/Vitality, or prepare to eat a lot of dirt. Melee range is for the brave.
At the very least pressing F2 should queue the skill to fire off once the current animation is finished. It’s plainly buggy the way it is now.
Against trash? Yes. I have 20 points in BM, and they perform very well against trash. They may require a pet swap on some of the uglier mobs, which is unfortunate where MB is concerned, but they do a fairly yeoman job of keeping things occupied.
On bosses? No, they get murdered pretty quick. If you find your pet is getting ROFLstomped against a nasty boss, consider using a pocket Moa for the duration of the fight.
I really hate the change. Let US decide if/when to revive our pets. We don’t need you to decide for us.
Would you like the game to stop making other sensible decisions for you as well?
Right now it automatically decides you want to attack hostile mobs. Would you prefer an option to hail them as well? Perhaps attempt to trade with them?
Yeah it’s a thin field. Traps are good. Survival is good.
That is all.
I would use the brown bear over the polar bear (for the condition removal), but whether or not the ability will actually activate when I press the button is completely up in the air. Sometimes, I have to mash it a half dozen times before it’ll activate, and then my pet will take his sweetkitten time using it, so the condition’s already gone by the time it goes off. So I just forego that altogether and use the polar bear.
This is true for almost every F2 ability. The only one I ever seem to be able to fire off with anything resembling reliability is the Shark’s, and that’s likely just confirmation bias. They keep saying they fixed the delay, but it often takes a half dozen hammers of F2 to get it queuing up.
Keep in mind, this is just coming from my point of view, but I am little disappointed with the Rangers update, particular, not being able to resurrect your animals during battle. Does this not kind of diminish the Rangers defense? From what I’ve seen playing with my girlfriend who’s the Ranger class (I am a warrior), but before hand, we’d always be striving to revive her pet when it died, as it would pull more agro then myself away from us, while we go all out on let’s say Champion monsters.
In my personal view, this was a stupid decision on your part ArenaNet, making the only way to revive a Pet out of combat, and or switching to another pet, which could just as easily die within another 10 seconds. So, what’s up with this update? I see this not as a good thing, rather just a poor decision on your part, to make Rangers feel let’s say… “Less useful” while in a group, or just playing solo, as the Pet is what takes the damage, or most of it, while soloing as well.
Again, this is just my personal opinion about the update. Do any other Rangers out there, feel that this was a fair, and just update?
Stopping to rez a pet during combat was always the height of pointless endeavors. It takes FOREVER, by which time the pet swap is already available again if you’ve somehow managed to burn through both pets on the same encounter.
It was a sensible update. The way it was before had some Rangers believing dropping everything to rez their pet instead of just swapping out was somehow a good idea.
Been asking after this since BWE1. If they have a priority list, I think it’s near the bottom.
Preferred pets, and why
General PvE/Damage, Eagle. Extremely high damage, fair amount of personality with the vocalizations. Nice fast F2 skill as well.
Tougher PvE/Tanking, Brown Bear. Classic Bear robustness along with nice defensive F2 ability.
Water PvE/Damage, Shark. High single target damage. Charming model.
Tougher Water PvE/Tanking, Jellyfish. Slightly more robust than the Shark, absolutely murderous F2 skill, albeit on a long timer.
Preferred weapons, and why
Main – Longbow. Unlike many people, I do not have an issue maintaining range with the possible exception of frenzied Risen, and even those can usually be managed with knock-back and spike trap. Flanking is a PITA for all the same reasons range is meant to be, and I don’t enjoy having 50% of my DPS eaten by the bleed cap on champions. Barrage is the quintessential DE farming skill.
Alternate – Axe/Warhorn. Good utility off the horn, and the Axe 2/3 skills are great for those times you are forced into tight melee.
Preferred stats, and why
The obvious power and precision. Longbow feels a little limp until these go fairly high, at which point it hits quite hard, quite consistently. Toughness and Vitality as a secondary consideration so you don’t dissolve when damaged. Critical damage where extra points can be spared.
Current skills:
Sharpening Stone – Just for a little extra damage on thicker mobs. Not really spectacular without condition damage, but every little bit helps.
Spike Trap – Tried traps out for giggles, found them actually quite useful. The pet gets less and less effective at peeling for you at higher levels, so a little bit of extra cripple goes a long way.
Signet of the Wild – Had the toughness signet as well, but 40 toughness for a utility slot is just a waste of time. The regen is alright, but nothing to write home about, and unlikely to make any real difference in a pitched fight. I may swap this out for another trap.
For WvWvW, Lightning Reflexes really should be in there, and Muddy Terrain is a consideration as well.
SPvP I would lean towards shortbow or just straight up melee, as maintaining any kind of range is fairly futile. I’d also trend towards higher toughness and vitality at the cost of some damage.
Spec is currently 20/30/0/0/20, although the jury is out on the extra 10 points in precision until I decide whether or not I want to stick with traps. I might move them into toughness and pick up the survival cooldown reduction instead.