Guild Wars 2

Have only met a small handfull of Mesmers that understand their strengths and weaknesses without 100% of the time assuming they’re underpowered and need buffs and everyone is out to get them.

OP is not in that handfull.

While on my Ranger, I have been randomly applying about 1second’s worth of Burn with nothing around or on me (utility, trait, field or otherwise) and I can’t figure out the cause.

I understand that there are world benefits such as ones that grant you additional health, healing power, critical gathering node potential, etc. but I don’t see anywhere that states your world score or otherwise will cause you to apply Burning.

This has happened on various different occasions and to be absolutely certain that it was not shared from another player or some kind of outside source, I was attacking a sentry on the other side of the map (opposite side from anything we own) with my pet on passive and no foods and I was still applying Burning with every few hits.

Does anyone know the cause of this and if so, would you be able to direct me to a wiki link of some sort? This has actually happened in the past but I hadn’t written a thread about it. I’m just incredibly curious what the cause might be as it’s not listed anywhere under the world bonuses (that I can see) and I don’t think it has anything to do with gear, runes, food, player buffs, etc.

Also PS, this is only in EBG or the Borderlands and our servers score/PPT has been very high lately so I’m really leaning towards the idea that it’s some kind of world bonus.

In regard to those discussing the importance of it, TS absolutely has it’s merits and I think it’s silly to argue otherwise. It removes the complications of trying to type while playing and having your team try to read it and it allows you to make more detailed commands and more quickly.

That said, I think a sensible player can function perfectly well without it. Although they may not always know exactly where combo fields and CC’s will be wanted, if they’re educated enough they will have an idea. That, and as someone else has mentioned, not everyone can use TS for a multitude of reasons. It’s incredibly rude to look down your nose on people just because they dislike or are unable to use TS.

I’ve used it many times in the past but decided against continuing to do so as I dislike all the random chatter and hearing someone repeat the same word 90 times in under 3 seconds. It’s not enjoyable for me so I make sure to pay attention with my eyes instead of my ears. I’ve run with organized guilds many times and have done more than my part to contribute. A lot of the time in PUG groups, small havoc groups or even guild groups, I’m tighter to the commander than those on TS, even being one of the last ones alive and one of the first to push with the commander as well. Do I know exactly what the commander wants me to do at all times? No, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know if your commander isn’t moving you stack, if your commander drops appropriate siege you build, if your commander regroups during a fight you recover and buff, etc. etc. All you need to do is pay attention and understand how the flow of fights work. You don’t need TS, it just helps those that don’t know how to pay attention with their eyes. Which apparently a lot of people have issues with.

Also, though TS is more effective than chat commanding, I’m not arguing that, it’s on the commander’s shoulders if they want to exclude using one of the available methods of commanding just because they believe it’s inferior. There are many times when more players are not using TS than using it and refusing to communicate with your group via chat just because you believe they should be in TS is going to do nothing but make your life difficult.

I love your suggestion OP, however…

I feel like it would benefit condition Necromancers, who typically have poor Life Force generation, and that’s one of the few things you can count on when fighting a condi Necro. Is that they won’t be able to re-enter their Shroud over and over and over again.

With how OP condition Reaper currently is, I don’t think it’d be a good idea to give us even better ways to gain soul… I mean Life Force.

Tragic Positive.9356:

MT is not really a bad skill.

What I find the main reason why nobody takes it because … Nobody really needs it.

Exactly this.

It’s a decent skill but we have lots of access to immob (the highest in the game in fact) even without it. Since it has a clear cast time and not very much range, it’s kind of outclassed by things like Ancient Seeds, Spider pets or Drakehound and although also not great range, Entangle which is much more potent.

None of those things take up a slot where MT could be used but that’s plenty of immobilize without it and Quickening Zephyr or Lightning Reflexes are just a safer choice.

Either way, if you want to take it by all means. It’s a good condition clear, short cooldown, it does what it’s supposed to do. You just may see why most people would prefer to take something else the longer you play Ranger is all.

Last thing before I go though; I once made a for fun build based entirely on Immobilize and it was quite fun albeit very weak in certain situations. Nothing more hilarious than stacking something like 2minutes of immob on a Necro.

Justine.6351:

Yes they secretly contacted me while I was meditating lastnight. It’s fortunate I had on my foil hat with bunny antenae or I wouldn’t have gotten the insider knowledge that will make me the numeral uno bearbow.

Share with me your greatness oh foil one.

A lot of your community came to Darkhaven for some reason…

I’m just the scout/roamer/PUG that keeps up to date with the going’s on so don’t put any hate on me.

CD has lost a massive chunk of it’s population to transfers and people quitting the game all together. A lot of people have come to DH and as far as I know, others have moved places like Maguuma and SBI.

It sucks when servers fall apart, I’ve been on nearly a dozen servers and have witnessed more than my share of exodus’. Unfortunately, it’s the nature of things now and it likely won’t change until ANet steps in.

I doubt that it will help any but it’s made me sad to see the state of your server. When we first started being matched up a few months ago there were some really engaging battles. CD are one of those good servers that have a happy medium between PPT, fights, defending, roamers and guild groups. Now though there doesn’t seem to be much left and the 0 PPT that you guys were ticking the other night speaks volumes to that.

I won’t suggest that you leave your server if you care about it but know that by leaving it you’re not doing the wrong thing. Everyone deserves to have fun, it is just a game after all, so don’t punish yourself!

Hope to see you out there and sorry in advance for all the blobs…

Sincerely the [Ve] squirrel.

It’s a good thing that they scale so immensely. It means that it’s more effective to operate in small groups than to roll around in a singular all-consuming blob.

The same thing has been done in the new PvE maps. It’s better to do events with a smaller group of people otherwise you’re going to be facing a hordes of champion tier mobs and it becomes nearly unbeatable.

Although yes, capturing major structures like keeps or SMC is incredibly difficult to do with a small group, it is by no means impossible. People just need to learn that there’s more to attacking and defending than; smash face here, ???, profit.

I have many, many, many times gotten through both outer and inner SMC by myself during prime time at which point I notify a small group to assist me at the lords room.

Did I get through outer and inner all in one go? No, most times it takes upwards of 2 hours of re-building catas and/or rams/trebs. But if you maintain pressure you drain supplies, divert attention and make them think it’s just that annoying roamer poking at SMC’s wounds again when it’s actually a group making an attempt on lord.

I remember this one time just a few weeks ago I kept rebuilding a cata at east SMC keeping the eastern wall down. I got attacked and had my cata destroyed something like 10+ times but I drained almost all of their supplies and managed to take down one wall and make two others extremely weak. By the time I had gone back to build my last cata, I was letting the map know that SMC was drained and at least 15 people were scouting around the weakened walls trying to drive me off. At that point, a guild group took the opportunity to open another wall on the south side and sneak in through the south gate as well.

SMC flipped in a matter of about 10minutes from them cataing the southern wall, to ramming the inner gate to taking the lord down all while I was being a pest on the other side of the castle. They wouldn’t have taken it had they gone in as a full blob because it would have taken 30+ minutes just to kill the lord and another 5 to get in to the lords room.

This is the kind of small group play lord scaling is promoting. Sure, it requires a lot of commitment at times but it’s a hell of a lot more fun than brute forcing everything with a gigantic blob causing lag everywhere and hacking at an NPC for 30minutes.

That’s just my two cents though… Unfortunately not many people seem to care for small group ops or solo roaming and being a total pest anymore. It’s just blob and mash buttons or party with 6 friends and insta-gib stragglers.

MSFone.3026:

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

Furajir.3815:

I’ve played my ranger as melee regen since inception, sw/torc and axe/dagger. But I’m experimenting with staff/lb. It just feels a tad out of place. I feel a ranger should be a master kiter, making use of traps, immobs, cripples etc.

Played properly, you can kite extremely well with Ranger even without longbow…

I used to play a full trapper, Sw/T A/D, then moved to Survival, Sw/D SB, then moved to what I’m at now Staff/Longbow. I’ve tried many other builds as well those were just the 3 I played the most of. And I can tell you from personal experience, if you’re not spammy and you actually know what you’re fighting/how to fight it, people should hardly get near you for more than a second with a few exceptions like Thief.

With my set up right now using Staff and Longbow, I can’t tell you how frustrating it must feel for some people to never be able to touch me. I used to hate longbow personally but I’ve come to like it recently just because it’s fun to constantly keep people on a leash. The only things that ever get close to me are Thieves, Ele’s and good Warriors. Otherwise I can keep everything at a comfortable range and if I can’t, I can quite easily slip away from them. With 16k health and 0 armor or blocks, I feel totally content being absolute glass because I know unless I’m careless, I should be able to start and finish the majority of my fights without ever going below 50% health.

This sounds pretty awesome. Since I’m very new to the class, would you mind posting a sample build for this kind of play?

This is my current build.

97% critical chance with Fury, a little over 300 healing power while in staff, 4 ways to access immobilize to maximize kiting potential and lowered cooldown on staff for higher mobility uptime with Ancestral Grace.

Since most times people won’t get close enough to touch me, I rarely have to worry about conditions. Druidic Clarity is great and all but honestly with 4 Survival utilities I have plenty of condition removal and if I get nuked I wasn’t playing properly anyway.

As I’d said, the only things that manage to get close to me the majority of the time are Thieves, Ele’s and decent Warriors. But Warrior’s are extremely easy to kite if they’re full melee, often not getting close even once and Thieves I can 100 – 0 if I manage to negate their Backstab opener with a Hunter’s Shot then Point Blank Shot → Quickening Zephyr → Rapid Fire.

It takes a bit of patience to learn when you’ll need to swap to staff to go on the defensive, kiting away and regaining health, but generally it’s an easy build and difficult for people to pin down.

Also PS, keep in mind this is a personalized build so if you’re wanting to use it you might want to change some things around. Like foods, sigils, utility, etc. I’ve just found this the most comfortable to use.

In my experience, and take this with a grain of salt because I’m certainly not a top tier Engi, condition Engineer doesn’t have enough duration to be a threat with most of it’s conditions.

Unless you’re really stacking up the burn duration effects like using Balthazar runes and Smoldering sigils, etc., the other condi’s just don’t last very long and you have poor sustained pressure unless you’re taking multiple kits in which case you’re going to be vulnerable to conditions yourself.

Engi has a lot of variety in condition application and with the right set up, can land a pretty nice condi burst as well. But again, the durations are quite short and it’s incredibly difficult to keep up sustained pressure after you’ve blown your burst. It’s a lot like a condition Thief where if you can survive that initial nuke, you just laugh at them and they either run away or die.

I’d say your best bet is working on a burn build if you want to go condition. Engi has some pretty high burn uptime so you can maintain pressure and set up a really solid burst as well by timing your Incendiary Powder’s with your weapon/toolbelt skills.

I just want that irritating aftercast removed and I’d be happy… Either that or add an evade in there somewhere.

Drives me insane how I need to wait a second after landing before I can start moving again or I just wind up stuck in place.

Loading.4503:

Nowadays, just any 2 people that knows how to play imo

This.

Any profession works if you’re both comfortable and skilled with what you’re using.

For context, I’ve won 1vX’s many times as a glass Longbow Ranger (and yes I’m sure the victims weren’t good but that doesn’t mean I’m bad either) as well as having won my share of 2vX with a variety of different friends.

A while back, I was with a Herald friend of mine while I was on my Engineer. My friend is extremely good with his Herald and is mostly solo and I’m often solo as well. We were watching some duels together but the people that were doing so had been major poor sports to the both of us earlier in the day. Siege burying us, emote spamming, the works. We decided to YOLO the duelers and just him and I managed to kill about 12 people. Of course there was a lot of kiting involved, we took refuge in my Sneak Gyro a few times and had to run around the Anzalias vista hill with them chasing us but we still won a 2v12 without resetting or going in to any structures, lol.

If you and your partner are skilled enough it doesn’t matter what profession you’re using, some are just more ideal for roaming than others.

And for those saying Necro… Yes, Necro is very strong but like Guard, it’s rough to roaming with. Unless your Necro is a really good sport, they’re not going to want to roam with you much if you’re always letting them take one for the team when you get outnumbered. I know how much I hate it… So if you’re with someone who has poor disengage, you better be prepared to die with them or help them to escape sometimes otherwise they’re just going to end up hating you.

Furajir.3815:

I’ve played my ranger as melee regen since inception, sw/torc and axe/dagger. But I’m experimenting with staff/lb. It just feels a tad out of place. I feel a ranger should be a master kiter, making use of traps, immobs, cripples etc.

Played properly, you can kite extremely well with Ranger even without longbow…

I used to play a full trapper, Sw/T A/D, then moved to Survival, Sw/D SB, then moved to what I’m at now Staff/Longbow. I’ve tried many other builds as well those were just the 3 I played the most of. And I can tell you from personal experience, if you’re not spammy and you actually know what you’re fighting/how to fight it, people should hardly get near you for more than a second with a few exceptions like Thief.

With my set up right now using Staff and Longbow, I can’t tell you how frustrating it must feel for some people to never be able to touch me. I used to hate longbow personally but I’ve come to like it recently just because it’s fun to constantly keep people on a leash. The only things that ever get close to me are Thieves, Ele’s and good Warriors. Otherwise I can keep everything at a comfortable range and if I can’t, I can quite easily slip away from them. With 16k health and 0 armor or blocks, I feel totally content being absolute glass because I know unless I’m careless, I should be able to start and finish the majority of my fights without ever going below 50% health.

I agree that Dragonhunter feels superior sometimes to be honest but for different reasons. They have a heap of blocks and health recovery, conditions do nothing to them and their bow has a lot more beefy damage than our dinky pew pew’s do. Still, I don’t think they’re better than us, just maybe in certain areas they’ve got an upper hand, mostly with all the block/reflect spam.

I’d like to see Friday 8pm EST personally.

But as long as it’s Friday and it’s not before 3pm EST or after 10pm EST I’d be happy. One being too early and the other being too late start gaming my heart out with drinks and warm blankets.

It’s the kind of environment PvP in any game breeds, unfortunately. Competitiveness can bring out the worst in good people and attracts the ones that get an ego boost out of their already inflated sense of self superiority.

By no means do I think it’s okay to say what they do… But if someone has had any kind of experience with sports or video game PvP in the past, they should know the kind of crowds it can have.

I’ve still got a screen of something extremely racist someone once said to me in PvP that actually shocked me with how ignorant it was. Racist remarks rarely upset me simply because anyone who thinks that way isn’t worth getting upset with in my mind. But every once in a blue moon someone says something so ignorant you’re just speechless.

Anyway it’s nice to see there are still some people with enough compassion to care about this kind of thing. Had I been there I’m sure I’d have given them a piece of my mind but I doubt I’d get anywhere worth while with it given the sounds of their maturity – or lack there of.

Ricky.4706:

i really think dividing wvw into races would work, because people do enjoy their characters and proud of how they customized them. So this approach simply redefines server pride and doesn’t completely eliminate it with a massive megaserver.. it would allow every one to be with whomever they want by being the same race or even compete as opposite races the next match up…. so not only does it fix balance and coverage issues, it works with game story, and creates opportunities for organized competitions. – plus it’s appealing to pvers who want to get serious about pvp.

and lets not forget the army of asurans – that alone is priceless!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jYANWR5XTM

While I like the idea… The first thing that comes to my mind is the not allowed to have fun people that would claim it promotes racism. You know the people… The ones that think it’s wrong not to have the option to make super fat and ugly characters because it’s “not realistic” meanwhile flight, stealth and a race of cat people is fine.

“Gw2 has a race specific game mode, that’s so discriminatory!”

I dunno about PvE or having the build condition based but a full Elixir build is something I do quite often in WvW.

I have 2 different builds I rotate between depending on what I’m doing and the Elixir build is great when I know I’ll be dealing with condi builds. So many cleanses I’m nearly immune to them.

Build here – My choice in gear stats is questionable, I know, but I like the versatility. For PvE, zerk or Marauder would likely be better. I only go full Celestial because I like to tinker with my builds a lot and because it keeps me at a nice happy medium between damage and defense.

Full Elixirs is quite fun but I find it best with Rifle simply because Pistols don’t apply enough pressure without kits to support them. Rifle hits hard as is, with might stacking from the Elixirs it’s only going to be better.

Rotating defensive skills coupled with stealthing are the only major issues I have with the class and a big part of why they’re my most hated match up. Nothing more frustrating than feeling like your opponent is either blocking, evading, reflecting, invulnerable or invisible 75% of the time you spend fighting them. It might not be the exact case, but that’s definitely how it feels.

Can’t say I think the class deserves any nerfs but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t wish they deserved some… They’re still as plentiful and trolly as ever in WvW.

EDIT: Also this just occurred to me; Mesmer is the class that hates to let you do anything, lol. That’s why a lot of people, myself especially, hate to fight them. They don’t like you to attack them with high access to Confusion. They don’t like you to move with easy access to Torment. They don’t like you to range them with high access to reflects. They don’t like you to physically hit them with some strong invulnerability skills. They don’t like you to try to attack them with insta-CC’s and they definitely don’t like you to be anything other than a defenseless Moa. What are you left with? Pray to Grenth they’re bad.

I’ve seen a couple all Asuran guild raids. Frigging adorable. It’s like a herd of angry rabbits.

I still prefer Human above all else, though. Human is the beautiful race and therefore the best race. Excluding all copy-paste anime wannabe’s of course.

Also, I’d like to see more all X race raids more often to be honest. All Norn, Charr, Human or Sylvari would be fun to see. I haven’t seen a 100% dedicated Norn raid but I have seen a few that were close and it’s kinda silly because they’re all so huge, lol. Makes you feel smaller than usual if you’re Human, Asura or Sylvari.

Lol, the handfull of times I’ve discussed my keybinds with people they’re so confused how I manage to make it work, but…

I play on a laptop with a touchpad (the one just below the keyboard, what ever they’re actually called) and I have some motor skill problems from childhood which makes my left hand extremely weak. I can use it just fine, but it lacks a lot of precision.

Anyway, due to using a laptop and having a weak left hand, I have it set up so that 80% of my keys are on the far right of the keyboard, mostly on the calculator.

Looks like the image attached below, same keyboard as well:

Green = Weapon switch
Ctrl = dodge
Shift = jump
Arrow keys = movement
0 = heal
Decimal = elite
Purple keys = weapon skills
Pink keys = utility skills

All F1 – 5 keys are the same, “/” and “.” are swim up and down. The only issue I have is that the F keys are too far away from the mousepad which means depending on the situation, I might need to stop moving entirely to press one… Which really sucks since I mostly do WvW. Fortunately, it’s not a problem a lot of the time other than when I fat-finger F5 and 6 (screenshot)… That’s the worst, lol.

Pre-Gw2, I was always a skirmish/assassin/sniper/traveler/wanderer lover. Every game I’ve ever played I’ve gone for the ranged classes and always enjoy them the most. Not because I’m afraid to be in harms way but because I enjoy planning my shots and observing my opponents.

Gw2 was the first game I found I loved something more than Ranger, which was Necromancer – that aside, I still love the survival specialist. My hours between the two are extremely close and I favor them pretty kitten evenly.

Lately I’ve been playing Dragon’s Dogma ranger and I’ve been thinking about things I’d love to see for the Gw2 Ranger. DD has so many great combat options that I feel could transfer quite well to Gw2 and just a few I really enjoy are:

“Dazzle Blast”, tosses fire-work type explosives on the ground to stun enemies.
“Tenfold Flurry”, fires ten arrows in a single shot. Much like Rapid Fire but not channeled. Just grab a heap of arrows from the quiver and blast them all at once.
“Comet Shot”, an intense, long ranged shot that hits like a 50 calibur bullet.

Would love a new utility skill where I could toss mini explosives for a 2second stun and mid-ranged damage.
A trait that augments bows in such a way that auto attacks can be charged for a longer range, higher damage attack and the #2 attacks become shotguns which instead of firing a fan like shortbow or a channel like longbow, fire a heap of arrows at once to knockback and deal high damage.

Not that these things would ever come to Gw2 but just felt like sharing to strike up conversation.

Anyone else always been a Ranger lover even outside Gw2? Anyone find other skills or mechanics from other games they wish could be seen in Gw2?

PS. If you haven’t played; Dragon’s Dogma is an amazing game, albeit slow at the start. Hands down my favorite combat mechanics of any game, superbly well done classes and creatures and a touching story. Check it out if you’re ever looking for something new (:

As a WvW veteran, albeit not since beta, I’d just like to say a few things before I part ways with the game.

First, I’ll probably be on sometimes for dailys.
Second, I don’t plan to drop this and never come back. I will very likely revisit in the future to see how things have changed.
And third, I’m not angrily storming out the door with a spite for the game and a grudge against the company.

Gw2 has been a huge part of my life for over 2 years now. As someone who has severe social anxiety and a few other disabilities, some being physical and some being mental, it has really helped my lack of a social life even if not in the absolute most positive way. Most of the community has been great and I’ve made some intimate friends, 98% of them being through WvW.

I stuck with WvW through the good and the bad, mostly the bad and I don’t regret a thing. I hope it sees a more positive future because as of now, it’s simply too much of a mess to fully enjoy anymore. The only thing that has kept me around even this long is the wonderful community that I’m always eager to chat with when I sign back in.

I’m not looking for sympathy and I’m definitely not going to give you all my things. I just want to say my goodbyes because even if I don’t know you, I may have met you roaming at some point or another and even if neither of those… I’m sure I would love to have gotten to know you!

See you when ever <3

End Game stats from my two main girls attached below ~

Blue Hare.8612:

Next patch:

“Entering combat with a stowed pet no longer act as a pet swap”
“Rune of the trapper (6) now makes pet and payer both invisible but the traps will be visible to enemies”

problem solved

To be honest, I didn’t think it was intended in the first place.

Maybe it is I don’t know, but it seemed weird to me that you could get on swap effects from stowing to me.

Also note that Clarion Bond is a blast finisher so a lot of the time, it’s not a good idea to open combat with that anyway. You should save it for blasting fields during a fight rather than when entering it although there might be the odd time it is better to open with.

Scouting is an important role and common action even for those not dedicated to the job. When valuable information is learned by an individual, properly relaying it to your teammates can make a huge impact on the flow of the map. The following guide will help you to understand key points in your duty and how to be as effective as possible.

Being Detailed
A proper scout will always give as much information as possible when communicating with their teammates. To determine what is important and what is irrelevant, consider the following:

• Is a guild involved?

• Is there a gate(s) or wall(s) being attacked?

• If yes to the previous question, what is it’s percentage?

• Roughly how many enemies can you spot? Exact numbers aren’t necessary but an error margin of 10 should be your absolute maximum with 5 being ideal. (15 – 20, 5 – 10, 20+/20 – 30)

• If nothing is being attacked, what direction are the enemies heading/where are they gathered?

• Are two of the offending servers in a fight?

• If yes to the previous question, try to determine which is gaining the upper hand. (Server X is fighting server Y, Server Y appears to be winning)

Frequent Updates
Don’t just leave your teammates hanging after you’ve given them info. Try to communicate real time events so that your commander and roamers are aware of map activity. Just remember not to go overboard, you don’t want to become spammy!

A good example with the previous points in mind would be:
“5 – 10 server X attacking Durios. Gate 50%.”
Time passes
“Durios gate 30%”
Time passes
“Durios gate going down, 5 – 10 server X in”

Similar real time info can be applied to a variety of different situations. Another example might be if two offending servers are in a fight. Updating /map (or teamspeak) with the events can be a great help, especially to any organized guilds on your map.

Example:
“Server X and server Y fighting by south SMC.”
Time passes
“Server X looks to be winning. Server Y moving south east.”

Siege And Defense Jockey
Scouting can be more than just relaying information to your teammates. If you’re really dedicated to the job, building and maintaining siege is another great thing to practice.

• Consider the common areas of a structure that will be attacked and with what kind of siege (eg. is this wall a favorite spot for the enemy to lay catapults or trebuchets?)

• Remember that walls are easy to bombard with AOE’s. Place defensive siege as far out of reach from harm as you can without making it unusable.

• Siege decays after 1 hour. Remember to revisit your siege to refresh it before the timer runs out, or to ask your teammates to refresh when they can.

• Try not avoid siege capping a structure! Building too much siege within one area can cause a limit to be reached which will prevent further siege from being placed. It’s good to have room for additional siege in case of an unexpected emergency!

• Try to keep supplies in a tower above 100 unless it’s about to be breached. An empty tower is a dead tower!

Here are a variety of examples with the previous information in mind
I will be using my own server as the example server to reduce the chances of salty responses.

“DH at south inner SMC, mostly [SotD] and a few PUGs. Gate 50%”
Time passes
“South inner SMC at 30%, [SotD] left and moved north, PUGs still ramming.”

“DH cataing Langor. 3 catas, wall 20%.”

“DH moving along south SMC towards the south west side. A lot of [LXG] with them.”

All of these are important things to remember when scouting but don’t hesitate to get creative either! Different things can also be necessary for your teammates to know in different situations. How to evaluate what might be important and what might not is by considering what could potentially ruin your current plans!

Example
You are travelling with a small group attempting to capture SMC. Knowing that you will be faced with 2 sets of gates, you should also know that supplies will be highly important amongst your small group. As you run to a nearby tower or camp to resupply, consider shouting how many supplies are remaining in the depot: “20/100 in QL” so that your teammates spend less time going to an empty depot and can instead move to a full one.

I hope all of this helps with anyone who enjoys scouting, has newly discovered a love for it or even just those that are unsure about how to communicate info with their servermates!
Being social, friendly and most of all efficient are signs of a great scout. It’s hard work and often unrewarding but it can make a huge difference. Remember to thank your scouts and to learn a bit of the trade yourself just in case you’re ever in a scouts position!

Happy hunting (:

Indure.5410:

Not all DH’s are exactly the same so the amount of condi clear can vary dramatically, but in general you are most likely going to go against Smite Condition and Wings of Resolve (traited); while also often facing Contemplation of Purity and Hunter’s Fortification.

Smite Condition is a low cooldown (16s) utility and removes 2 conditions. There is nothing you can do to stop this. You can try to bait a DH to use it early with CC, since it is the best way to clear CC.

Wings of Resolved (traited) removes 3 conditions, and its animation looks like an angel jumping. I don’t think you can stop the cleanse, but you really want to stop the rest of the ability because it heals for 4k and will go on full cooldown even if the skill fails.

Contemplation of Purity, is similar to Smite in that it is instant cast, but it converts all conditions to corresponding boons. You really can’t stop this as well, but if you have boon corruption you will want to use it directly after CoP. Just be careful because chill gets converted to 2s of resistance.

The Dragon Hunter’s Grandmaster trait is a draw between Hunter’s Fortification (removes a condition every time you block an attack) and Light Heavy (knock back with bow). So if you don’t get knocked back by a bow assume Hunter’s Fortification. Which means don’t attack them when they are using shelter, focus 5, or Shield of Courage because you are just helping a guardian out.

The most common heal in pvp currently is Purification (trap heal). It heals for a lot if your opponent sets off the trap. So if a guardian is low on health do not get close to them because they will try to trap heal.

Best advice I can give you against a guardian is CC, especially near the end of the fight. Guardians have a hard time fitting much stability in their builds and can be easy to lock down once they have used Shield of Courage.

Appreciate the tips.

To be honest, it sounds more like I should avoid a 1v1 with them than anything. Although there are generally tons of boons to corrupt, the amount of cleanses/blocks tend to make the corrupts mostly irrelevant. That, and if I’m not really careful about when I corrupt, I’ll die pretty quickly anyway because most times they just lay down way too much damage. Conditions are too slow and easy for them to cleanse and their damage is too high.

Not claiming in any way OP, just sounds to me like it’s a bit of a losing match unless I’m either lucky or top of my game. If I were running Reaper it might be a different story but it’s just personal preference that I stay core Necro.

Will have to remember to interrupt Wings Of Resolve any time I can, though.

Speaking in terms of WvW, coming from a core condition Necromancer (not Reaper), how do I properly pressure a Dragonhunter?

It seems like no matter how many conditions I try to apply, they fall off like nothing. And if they’re having trouble cleansing, they just block with either Shelter or that skill I’m uncertain the name of that blocks all incoming attacks from the front/sides.

What should I look out for? (skills, utilities, etc.)
What should I try to bait/how should I do it? (eg. spam scepter AA’s before going for a major burst)
As a Dragonhunter, what do you hate the most? (conditions, CC’s, reflects, etc?)
What is your hardest match up? (build, profession, etc.)

Just trying to figure out how to properly deal with DH’s as they’ve been giving me a lot of trouble lately. Trappers are generally easy but if the DH is decently skilled I start to have a much harder time primarily due to cleanses and the huge amounts of recovery options they have.

I’ve put something together and have found the build I’m comfortable with. Although it’s still full glass, it has great kiting potential and sustain via staff/CA. Pets provide good CC and staff is good for staying out of reach. QZ + Rapid Fire is an awesome burst and with Fury I have 97% critical chance.

I’ve been having great fun with this. Earlier last night a few people were attacking a tower and they split up. I killed all 5 of them by myself, 2 of them at once.

Seems I just needed to find that happy medium balance (: Thanks for the help!

I’ve tried using this skill and I don’t really get it, lol.

Is it basically a fancy on demand version of Retaliation? It doesn’t seem to reflect very much damage back to the source as far as I can tell.

Kaizoku.1298:

“it can do between 7 and 15k if you let the full thing hit you.”

It hits twice. And I don’t know about PvP, I haven’t done any of it since HoT dropped. But in WvW with mostly Berserker gear and some Marauders mixed in, Strength runes and Force sigil, I’d regularly hit 7 – 10k on players with Electro-whirl. And that means both hits not just the first hit.

Pride.1734:

Ranger VS Engi – Certainly its a pretty balanced matchup and heavily in your favour if you run condis.

Ranger VS Scrapper – You probably have very little chance with a a power build.

Druid VS Scrapper – IF you master your class you have an extremely favourable matchup no matter your build.

Accurate. I’d also like to add, Scrapper is difficult for pretty much any build to deal with. It has a lot of everything so it’s not just Ranger that has a hard time with it.

Save Point Blank Shot for when they try to drop Healing Turret. If you have Beast Mastery slotted, be sure to pop a Taunt on them when they finish their Rocket Charge leap (hammer #3) or right after they cast Thunderclap as 90% of the time they’ll follow up with Rocket Charge. If you’re full melee, keep the Poison pressure on them, space out your applications so you can keep it on them as often as possible. DO NOT tank Electro-whirl ever (the yellowish sphere from hammer they encircle themselves with), it can do between 7 and 15k if you let the full thing hit you. And immediately kill Sneak Gyro when they pop it. The faster it dies the faster they come out of stealth and most times the Gyro won’t be right on top of the Engi anyway.

Fluffball.8307:

but back in the day when movement speed affected leaps, the mobility was nearly unstoppable.

How I miss those days…

Not a fan of OP builds but… I had some of the greatest fun in Gw2 with the stealth trapper build before swiftness/super speed nerfs on mobility.

Outrunning full 50+ person blobs was a daily activity for me and it was glorious. Still heartbroken to this day about the change ):

As long as you’re running with a zerg, a full zerk pew pew Ranger would be fine.

Minimal effort. Basically 1 spamming, 2’s on downed people or when you see someone that’s low trying to kite away. Try to stay near the backline so you don’t have to worry too much about dodging and as you should always be doing anyway – keep a close eye on your commander so you don’t get caught out of line.

You’ll be easy to kill sure but in a zerg you should be fine… I run a sniping build on my Ranger a lot and as long as I’m paying attention to the flow of the fight I don’t die very often and all I really have to do is pew pew. Can’t think of anything more minimal effort than that.

Yep.

I used to prefer attrition builds pre-HoT, although my Necro still is. But since HoT released, I’ve gone full glass on my remaining characters.

Sure I get blown up in 1v1’s sometimes but I can do the very same to my opponent if I play my cards right. What’s the point in building defensively though when toughness means nothing and your vitality needs to be minimum 20k to not get one shot by at least 2 – 3 skills per profession.

Most times I don’t much care if I die quick. It’s those times where something 1 shots me from way out of left field like a random Vault, Gunflame, Coalescence Of Ruin or True Shot to name a few, that I just groan and restrain myself from putting my knuckles through the screen. It just feels cheap and it’s horribly frustrating.

I had asked in a thread today about a new build to use for my Ranger and I tried out a Celestial set. It’s not bad… Enjoyable in 1v1’s, okay for roaming. But I still get my health chopped in half by a lot of different things even with 24k health. And thus I’m going to be swapping back to full glass again when I relog later, lol.

I’m happy we got a form of Skale… But I’ve always really wanted a Skelk Lurker

I just imagine the F2 being something like, “shadow step to your foe for 3 critical attacks.” It’d be handy for when your target tries to run away and you can just send your pet straight to them. Or even just to keep your pet on top of them. + It’d be amphibious so another under water pet \o/

Other options I’d love to have would be:

Minotaur
F2 ability is a change and launch.
Stats something like Canines. High power, mid range health/toughness.

Ornery Crab
F2 ability is an 8second invulnerability.
Amphibious pet
Stats similar to Drakes. High power/toughness/health, slow attacks.

Wasp
F2 ability is an assault type attack that hits multiple times.
Stats like Birds, high precision, mid range power, low health/toughness

Pocket Raptors
F2 ability is a summon. More Raptors join for a short duration similar to the Hyena.
Stats similar to Spiders. Mid range power/precision, low toughness, high health.
Note the “s” in Raptors, say it’s always a pack of 3 that share the same stats/health pool and 3 more are summoned with the F2.

Beetle ( HoT type Beetles )
F2 ability is a knockdown + 5stacks of Vulnerability.
Stats similar to Bears (high health/toughness, low offensive stats) but with abilities heavily focused on CC. Knockdowns, Launches and Stuns. Maybe Cripple on it’s auto attack.

Crapgame.6519:

-snip-

Hm…

See, I have my Ranger in full ascended Berserker right now and my Engineer in full ascended Celestial, accessories included… I could just swap them if need be.

I was thinking about going Celestial Ranger at one point in time but wasn’t sure it’d be worth it.

As is, more defense is just absolutely necessary for my Ranger because we simply don’t possess the means to escape that Thief focus fire unless we’ve got some defensive stats, lol. Be it extra health, toughness, healing power, just something that will cushion the blow so… Maybe Celestial would be a decent choice.

How does this look for a Celestial set up to you?

Have just made it as I’d find it comfortable but let me know if you think there’s anything I could change. (P.S. I <3 Ranger 1h sword so don’t worry about suggesting to change that :P)

Could someone better at crafting builds than me, edit this build so that it’s viable for roaming/skirmishing in WvW? (Please don’t direct me to Metabattle btw)

What’s already on it are items/traits/utilities I’d like to keep. But I need more toughness/health, or something that will allow me to survive longer in a fight.

Currently I’m 100% Berserker with Scholar runes. I only use my Ranger to zerg right now, sniping squishies. I used to do a lot of solo roaming with my Ranger but back then, I was a condition trapper build. I’d like to try a power Druid now but to be 100% honest I’m not certain where to start in terms of a decent build. I’ve been kind of lost as of what to do with her lately so I’ve just been running full glass and pew pewing in groups.

NOTE: I’ve played plenty of Ranger, not a newbie. Just unsure of how to build right now and would love if someone could give some input. Do I need more toughness, health, would defensive runes be good or what’s a good idea? Thieves pretty much 2 shot me and same with Dragonhunters. It doesn’t matter how well I play, being full zerk is just way too risky when roaming so I need to change this build.

Crimson Shi.5047:

No it’s not mostly chill….wtf … lol chill damage is just icing on the cake. Also why wouldn’t he run terror since fear also adds chill duration, if you corrupt their stab that’s a free 1.2 tick right there.

Because Stability is more valuable than Fear/Terror. Therefore the only real access Reaper has to Fear is via corrupting or Staff #5. It’s not worth it to take Terror as a Reaper.

And yes it is definitely mostly Chill. The uptime is absolutely ridiculous. You can keep Chill on someone like 80% of the time and all that time it’s doing damage. Deathly Chill is extremely good and although I very much love the concept of it and was super excited for it when it was announced… I still think it needs to be nerfed even more. It’s just way too brain dead and every time I fight a condition Reaper I realize how mindless it is.

Speaking in terms of WvW, I’ve already done this.

I tried running without Deathly Chill both in zergs and while roaming and it makes a significant difference although it is also absolutely effective without it as well.

Necro has access to such a wide variety of conditions and the ability to maintain a high level of them on their foes. Reaper however, it is slightly more difficult due to the lack of conditions in Shroud. Chill makes up a significant amount of the damage because it’s so easy to re-apply you pretty much do it just by existing near an enemy. So for lack of Bleeds, Torment and Terror – Chill replaces those three that standard Death Shroud has access to. Without it, you’re not crippled but a) you have to put in noticeably more effort to maintain pressure on your foes and b) most of the other conditions your foes will have on them will be non-damaging such as Cripple, Vulnerability, Weakness, Blindness and now Chill once again.

Deathly Chill pretty much makes it so that all you need to do is spam Shroud AA or Scepter AA and win. Using it 100% brain dead. If they reduced the access Reaper had to Chill, it wouldn’t be so bad but if they reduced the access Reaper has to Chill… It would also ruin the theme and synergy between other traits. The only other reasonable thing to do is to further nerf Deathly Chill damage and I hope that they do.

I’ve said this in the past and I still feel the same; the reward items from the rank up chests should be removed completely.

First, I would love better rewards in WvW as would many others. However as a few have mentioned, it could very potentially become an issue with leechers/farmers entering WvW just to gain rewards. So a low income would still be necessary in an effort to avoid having WvW become a place where farmers feel inclined to go.

Second, a lot of people, myself included, also don’t much care about rewards at all. We play simply because we enjoy WvW not because we’re interested in good loot/gold. Still, we should be able to earn a profit while doing WvW considering it is an expensive hobby to maintain. Siege, although you can now purchase it with Proof Of Heroics, is very expensive. Consumables and other items as well which all are so expensive you simply cannot maintain it with the income from WvW alone.

And lastly, back to my first point, I don’t think rank up chests should have rewards at all. You should be notified that you’ve ranked up and that should be that. OR they should only be a chest when item(s) of value at Rare or greater quality are within.

As it currently is, it’s insulting to always get such crappy loot. Don’t get me wrong, not trying to sound entitled or something. But it’s much in the same way you might reward a kid for a job well done, even if that job doesn’t require any real effort (ranking up isn’t exactly an achievement). Take rewarding a kid for doing a 5minute walk for example. Except instead of something they’d enjoy like icecream or a few dollars, you give them a dinner plate and a shoelace. Sure it’s something… But they’re just going to be upset because the items aren’t of any real value and they were told (being told in this case is the dancing rank up chest) they’d get a treat. It’s better to get nothing because what we get is just a disappointment.

So IMO, either rank ups have their rewards removed all together or they only reward items when they’re at a Rare or greater quality. As is, it’s just a downer/extra chore to open them.

Korgov.7645:

It’s too easy to kill enemies just spamming ranged skills.

You can also leech points throwing some AoE on top of 2 enemy forces fighting. You could even use siege to do this and hit 50 players at once.

If PPK was Points-Per-Finisher, the 3rd party could not leech from afar.

It would also require some tactical decision whether to risk a stomp and gain points or to ensure a kill with no risk.

Kinda think this is reading too much in to it…

It can happen sure… But it’s not happening on such a frequent basis that it’s changing the tides of matches.

PPK is fine. PvE heroes just don’t like that some groups are actively hunting them even though most of those groups could care less whether they’re contributing to the score or not. They just want to fight.

PPK is wonderful. WvW veterans like myself are terribly bored of PPT because it’s unrewarding and not exciting. Fights are something new every time they happen because there are always different people, builds, guilds and geography involved.

The new players have far more things catering to their needs than the veterans and WvW almost strictly consists of people who love the game mode so dearly that they’re still hanging on to it. If you’re a new player, you’re in our territory which means either fight and have fun or get hunted while you attempt to ktrain until you rage quit.

Spawn camping is frustrating with that much I’ll agree but there are plenty of ways to counter it. Like not running straight in to their arms is a good start. Otherwise, roamers have always been a thing and now they have more of a purpose. I just wish as a solo roamer that being solo was more viable but I can’t complain with the abundance of fights. At least I don’t have to look for action anymore.

Thieves don’t need buffs… I see the satire here and despite the OP not being serious, sh/e is right. The power creep since HoT has been horrible. Other classes need to be tuned down and brought to the Thief’s level otherwise things will continue to be buffed over and over and over and over until we have our heal skills dealing 20k damage on cast.

Some things are moderately balanced right now but most of the elite specs are still far too OP. I’d much, much rather see things tuned down before anything is tuned up.

Bumping for visibility. Needs fix ASAP.

I’m happy. A bigger nerf would have been better.

With how much access Reaper has to Chill, there’s no effort behind keeping it on your target almost 100% of the time. It’s not like you need to juggle skills properly to do it. Pretty much anything you touch them with inflicts it and with enough condition damage it hurt a lot. Maybe not as much as Burn but the uptime with Chill more than makes up for the damage difference.

Probably the only time I’ve ever been happy with a Necro nerf. It’s terribly annoying to fight.

Full Elixirs.

I do run it sometimes because I enjoy having access to so much condition cleanse and boon uptime… But just throwing Elixirs at my feet all day is pretty boring. The primary reason I enjoy Engi so much in the first place is all the kit swapping. I sometimes run four kits when I know it’s safe enough to play a little reckless (speaking in terms of WvW since it’s all I ever do) and I get so giddy I’m like a kid on Christmas eve, lol. I wish I were talented enough to run four kits viably but unfortunately I need that Elixir S way too often to go all four kits the majority of the time. So I usually stick to 2 or 3.

Really bad in WvW.

I was giving it a bit of leeway since my computer always has poor FPS but I’ve been able to notice changes in the past and I noticed this straight away.

It’s extremely bad when you already have low FPS to begin with. It’s like there’s a hitch my frames that’s not quite an FPS loss but a quarter second delay or something that’s giving me a headache to look at. I’m probably going to try to avoid playing too much until this is fixed because it’s physically painful to play at the moment.

And to be clear, I’m not losing FPS. It’s the same crappy FPS I’ve always gotten (blaming my computer not the game) but with a very subtle hitch almost between the frames.

Lathus.3658:

I like the gear set, I get that you are going for max condition damage/survival.

However, your middle spec is treated for critical hits, but you specced your gear out of crits. You aren’t getting the full benefit by having such a low crit chance.

Is this a roaming spec? Or a group spec?

I’m not sure what you mean by critical hits. Curses benefits from critical chance and I have very low Precision, yes, but without Curses I don’t have Plague Sending and Master Of Corruption, two of the staples of this build :P. So I kind of need Curses even if I don’t have much precision but I see what you’re saying if that’s what you’re asking.

And yes it’s a roaming spec. As I’d said my last comment, it’s very, very strong in 1v1/2’s but does horribly in uncoordinated groups. If you’re with a group that’s doing a lot of cleanses and knows how to focus targets, it might do better. But I haven’t tried it with a confident group yet. I mostly kill myself in PUGs so I’ve stopped using it in random zergs.

Reknarok.7582:

do you have a video of gameplay? interested to see it in action

Unfortunately I don’t. My computer has a hard time supporting the game just by itself ):

What I can tell you from a bit more experience with it though (at the time of posting it had only been using it less than 24 hours) is that you can potentially drop 6 conditions on someone with a single attack. Like I said, the burst is phenomenal.

I was fighting a Herald the other night (as mentioned in the PS of the OP) who was in Glint stance which meant he had 3 boons on him almost constantly. I waited for him to expend his dodges trying to avoid my scepter AA’s and went for the big burst and… Well let’s just say in under 3 seconds he ate every condition in the game with the exception of Slow and he pretty much exploded.

The 1v1/2 potential is definitely there. It is a monster when you land those transfers due to how much each of them will tick for and how many are applied at once which makes it really hard to get all of them off. It’s really easy to keep a minimum of 4 conditions on someone at all times with this build.

The weakness though, it scales terribly with numbers… I want to use this build more because I’m really liking it but it is really, really bad in uncoordinated groups or against more than a few enemies. You end up killing yourself way too often so I tend to save this set up for when WvW is kind of quiet and I can reliably finish 1v1’s without getting interrupted. Otherwise I run something different because when I get ganked it may as well be 4v0 instead of 3v1 since I’m killing myself about as quickly as the gankers are killing me.

Reducing the cooldown of all the wells would be good enough for me, personally.

Well Of Suffering and Well Of Corruption to 30, Well Of Darkness to 25, Well Of Power to 40 and maybe increasing that on cast Stability to 2 or 3 seconds instead of 1. I’d be happy with that and I think it would make them all stronger while not making any of them OP.

EDIT: Hm, just had an interesting idea for WoD. Might be fun to do something like, “haunt your foes with your Life Force, shrouding them in a blinding aura that causes their missed attacks to grant you Life Force.”

Gives them the same visual effect as having Death Shroud, the smokey black aura, and when ever they miss an attack you gain some Life Force?

Infusion.7149:

I and a few other people in my guild have been soloing/ small man roaming since HoT launch so I don’t see the point?

One of them runs a condi build and never kills barricades.

Catas were reduced in supply already

You can treb air keep inner/outer from safe spots

You can cata fire keep outer from safe spots

You can 2 man air keep & fire keep , solo earth keep and all towers

To make life easier for the people who have a hard time winning a 1v1 let alone killing an NPC.