Guild Wars 2

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Really? I roam successfully all the time on my necro. Yeah, sometimes I get caught by a zerg or havoc group, but just as often I’m soloing objectives or taking out potential dolyak threats.

^ You can roam just fine as a Necromancer, this guy gets it. Yes I strongly agree that if people come your way it’s either die or WP but if you know your limits it happens a lot less. I very much prefer to be solo because often times when people want to group up with me they go balls deep in fights they won’t win then get mad when I’m not helping. You have to know what you can and cannot survive and what’s the best path to take to avoid being spotted. Roaming isn’t about fighting it’s about being a pain in the neck for the offending servers. I’m not saying you should avoid fighting other players because it’s a huge part of what makes roaming exciting, I’m just saying if you have no mobility you should really take the time to decide whether it’s a good idea or not first. I had been roaming for a long time on Jade Quarry and recently transferred to Desolation, both of which are T1 servers and rarely have any periods of inactivity and I still have very little trouble. Honestly zergs almost never kill me, it’s 4 – 5 man groups that are the problem. I can deal with solos and occasionally duos just fine, it’s the havoc squads that will chase you across the map that are a pain.

Anyway on topic: I don’t think we need mobility we need sustain, and this patch is apparently addressing that. So we’ll see what becomes of us after the update. All I know is that as of right now, I can out tank people better on my Ranger than I can on my Necromancer so I see some problems in the way of “attrition” at the moment. I’ve always loved the idea of siphoning so I seriously hope they make it stronger. With how quick dagger attacks are you can get a fair bit of health return when using siphoning traits but it’s still not enough because of how close we have to be to our targets to even hit them. Dagger range is like non-existent.

This change is so bullcrap I’m rolling a Mesmer just so I can lol until it’s nerfed.

Torment is a very powerful condition. I’ve mained a Necromancer for nearly a year now and the majority of that time has been spent as a solo roaming condition Necro in WvW. With torment runes and sigil, even with only one way to apply torment, I could manage up to 6stacks of torment on people quite regularly, which did insane amounts of damage. Having torment on the AA with Mesmer, as well as on the #2 skill, and various other ways to access Torment from the looks of the changes, I could see Mesmer’s easily being able to apply up to 15+ stacks of it (assuming +duration foods are used).. And that condition alone, with no others on your target, could probably kill them within seconds. I’m fine with buffing Mesmers even though I absolutely hate fighting them, but this is a little too much.. It might not be very useful in other areas of the game having so much access to Torment, but in WvW it’s going to be extremely difficult to go up against.

So to close, Mesmer buffs: I think the majrotiy are well deserved. Torment on AA, no. No, no, no..

zen.6091:

and if you ever get a rage whisper solo roaming on a ranger, you’ve pretty much won WvW solo roaming.

*
(: All those poor souls who don’t know how to CC a trapper Ranger with no stunbreaks are so funny when they call me cheesy. GG, L2Stun/daze/fear/knockback/knockdown/launch

Commander assassin is always a fun role to play for Ranger. Go full glass, zerg surf backline and tab target until you find the enemy commander, then harass him/her until they die. I’ve actually been in groups of all glass Rangers more than a few times doing this where we all focus down the commander. Kill the tag and things usually crumble pretty quickly after that.

I reeealllyyy like the idea of scouts being able to use tags, mainly because I have tags on both of my characters and never get to use them :P. But I do also very much enjoy the reasoning behind it and the ideas you’ve given for other colours. As for cross-server uses for these new tags, I’ve noticed after being on a few different servers myself that culture actually changes depending on the server you’re from. For example, I spent most of my time on Jade Quarry, and on JQ they called tags “pins” (like a push pin that one might use on a war map), and although I was never on Stormbluff Isle, I had heard from someone that was on that server that they called out towers by their location not by their name, for example; north west tower under attack. It’s funny how little things like that change depending on the server you’re from, but I don’t think it’s a problem. If SFR want to use blue for offense and red for defense and Deso want to do the opposite, I can’t see it being a problem other than maybe confusing people who transfer. I personally really enjoy the “cultural” differences.. It gives each server it’s own identity. So for myself at least, I have no qualms with servers deciding what each tag means instead of everyone across all servers. But what ever does end up happening, it will be interesting to see what uses they have.

1) What do you like best about WvW? What keeps making you come back for more? What keeps you interested or keeps it fun?

I enjoy the mystery of what will happen. With dungeons and PvE, there are differences with each day but the differences aren’t always that significant. The dungeon clear might go a little bit faster, you might get a talkative player, that’s really about it for the most part. With WvW, especially if you enjoy roaming such as I do, you never know who you might run in to or what situation you might find yourself in. There have been a lot of strange encounters worthy of story-telling and lots of friends have been made even from the offending servers. PvE is great in it’s own respect but I don’t feel it’s as diverse as WvW. So even if there isn’t action every single day, I still enjoy spending my time in WvW because I never know what might happen.

2) What do you like least about WvW? What makes you frustrated about it or makes you want to stop WvW in favor of something else like PvE, PvP or even EotM? (I consider EotM play separate).

I’m big on defense. I enjoy scouting and roaming and I take WvW very seriously. I don’t expect everyone else to take it as seriously as I do but when people ignore my scout calls (which are always very specific so as to add the most viable information possible) I get pretty frustrated. I also get very frustrated when people just give up on defending things because we have fewer numbers. Yes, WvW is definitely in favor of the larger force, however that doesn’t mean it’s always going to win. If people actually tried and sieged a tower/keep until it’s siege capped, everyone man’s a siege unit and defends to the death, they might be surprised at what they can defeat. Overall, poor defense or just in general, lack there of, is probably what upsets me most. People put a lot of time and effort in to upgrading things, it would be nice to see that effort respected.

3) What tier are you in?

T1 because as I’ve mentioned I take WvW very seriously and I enjoy being around people who feel similarly. I was previously on Jade Quarry but transferred to Desolation just last night for personal reasons. We’ll see how things go on this new server, so far the people here are very nice!

4) Have you switched servers for WvW? Why?[/quote]

Hah, as I said in the answer above, yes, I have transferred servers. This is only my third time however. I started playing the game on Dragonbrand and that’s where I learned everything about the game basically. When I started to really get in to WvW, I transferred to a higher tier and had been in JQ for quite a long time. I’m not sure how long exactly but I’d say 8 months give or take. Most of my time with the game, basically. And in Desolation, as it stands I haven’t even been here 24 hours!

Mayama.1854:

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

I find that Necromancer is one of those professions that was designed more with PvP in mind. I’m sure all of the professions were made to have viability in both PvE and PvP, but I feel like certain ones were made to be stronger in one or the other. The changes don’t sound that exciting as of yet, but as someone who spends most of their time in WvW, I like what I’m seeing thus far.
It’s unfortunate we’re so horrible in PvE but I’m thankful that we’re at least very devastating in WvW/PvP. And if the changes are anything like I imagine, we’re only going to get meaner. So while I’m not exactly thrilled it appears we still won’t be very viable in dungeons, I am still happy we could potentially become even stronger in WvW/PvP.

Necromancer is not strong in PvP, how many necros do you see in good teams? Necros lack support, can easily be focused and killed because of the lack of defensive skills. Even the defs openly said in that post that necros lack defense. Class has no real burst compared to other professions so zerker is underperforming. Pointcapping isnt that great because our only way to push people out can be cleansed. Tanking? Engineers, Guardians and Warriors can do it better.

The only place that necromancer have in a player versus player enviroment is mindlessly spam marks and wells into an enemy zerg in WvW and roaming as terrormancer.

I disagree.

I find that Necromancer is one of those professions that was designed more with PvP in mind. I’m sure all of the professions were made to have viability in both PvE and PvP, but I feel like certain ones were made to be stronger in one or the other. The changes don’t sound that exciting as of yet, but as someone who spends most of their time in WvW, I like what I’m seeing thus far.
It’s unfortunate we’re so horrible in PvE but I’m thankful that we’re at least very devastating in WvW/PvP. And if the changes are anything like I imagine, we’re only going to get meaner. So while I’m not exactly thrilled it appears we still won’t be very viable in dungeons, I am still happy we could potentially become even stronger in WvW/PvP.

Thank you for all the answers, I understand what needs to be done now. I’ve selected the answer that broke down what I needed to know best for anyone whom has the same question in the future, so they can reference this thread.

Off to get my title!

I’m a bit confused about this title and I would very much appreciate a simple explanation.
Currently I have soulbound 80 unique pieces of cultural armor. I decided I would go the rest of the way to get The Emperor title, so I made another character just so I could go out and buy a few sets of cultural before deleting the character. I bought a full set of Charr light T1 armor but my The Emperor achievement didn’t progress. I have never bought this armor before, so I’m wondering, do I have to be the appropriate level for the armor before it counts towards the title? For example, I was level 2 and I had bought T1 level 30 armor (which I couldn’t wear), would I have to be level 30 before it counted?

Dear ArenaNet:

I’m writing this thread in the hopes that someone with the power to change things will read, however unlikely it might be.

I have been playing WvW/Guild Wars 2 for nearly a year now and in that time little has changed. Account bound WXP and minor QoL changes have been about all we have seen. I, and I’m certain the community, don’t expect changes every few weeks, months, or even every year. What we expect is attention to detail. We expect our developers to understand the game and the community they’re raising. And if anyone is listening at all, they should be aware that defense is a very difficult, time consuming, often 1 – 10 man job that goes un-thanked and unheard. If a tower is properly sieged, a very small group of people can defend it from a much, much larger zerg. However, there are a variety of profession specific skills that make defense much more difficult than it needs to be.
I’m about to get very in depth with logic here, so bear with me.
Offense needs to have a counter to defense. I hope that is something everyone can agree with. It is completely fair that defensive siege can be destroyed. What is unfair is the ease at which it can be destroyed. There is very little effort involved in de-siegeing a tower that has taken hours to siege. There are simply not enough places to place siege where it is safely out of harms way. Now, again I understand that offense needs a counter to defense, if siege was untouchable, 5 people could hold a tower indefinitely. However, that is not the case, and as it currently stands 90% of siege within any given tower can be destroyed in less than 60seconds. This makes defending a very difficult job and in many cases it is simply not doable. Now, you are introducing something that can deactivate siege all together? I feel that this is in very poor taste. I understand that this new addition was most likely designed so that it could be used both defensively and offensively, so as not to favor one side or the other, but a neutral stance isn’t always the best route to take. Zergs are plentiful and this will only encourage it more, which will degenerate the game in to something so one dimensional that many people will lose interest in a short period of time.
I would prefer not to write this with too strong of a personal opinion, as I believe most of what I’ve said here our WvW community can agree with. But for a moment, I’d like to state IMO that: It is far more fun to spend upwards of an hour trying to capture a tower/keep than it is golem rushing it and flipping it in 30seconds. I very, very much enjoy when our zerg is attempting to take something, but that something is so well defended that it takes an hour before it flips. That is a true siege of war. It rarely happens, but when it does it’s extremely fun. With this new trick/trap, what ever… I doubt if we’ll ever see this again. So please reconsider and assign someone if you must, to pay attention to the goings on in WvW. It is a very dedicated part of your community and I feel that we are not as unimportant as you make us feel. I am not an entitled brat whom is constantly complaining about changes and additions, I feel that ANet does a great job with this game, but there are certain aspects that are being horribly neglected.

To close, thank you for the wonderfulness that is WvW. I have spent hours upon hours enjoying every form of activity one could participate in in WvW. But one can only enjoy themselves so much when their favorite game mode is slowly degenerating in to 100% offensive zergs. So please pay attention to the little guy, and the community will thank you immeasurably.

Sincerely; dead on the wall from AOE’s…

saratoga.4872:

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

If this can take out my defensive siege that I spend hours placing, I’m not ever going to defend again. That is all I have to say about that.

Yeah that is precisely my concern…..

I have been playing this game for very close to a year now, and from almost the very start I’ve been a dedicated scout/roamer. I enjoy relaying info to our server and commanders, I enjoy siegeing towers and escorting yaks, in general I enjoy doing the thankless jobs because I feel like I’m making an impact. It has never really bothered me that I spend a lot of money doing it like it does so many other scouts. I feel like I scout because I want to and I don’t at all mind having to spend my cash doing so. But I have never liked how difficult it is to place wall siege thanks to AOE’s. In some towers, there simply aren’t enough locations to place siege where it won’t get destroyed in an instant, and of all the things that could discourage me this is the one that upsets me most… Now ANet is releasing something that can disable my siege all together? Yeah, no… I’ll spend the entire day siegeing and refreshing a tower if I know there’s a chance I/my server can defend it… But now that siege can just be SHUT OFF… kitten this I’m joining the EOTM train and retiring, this is the last straw.

If this can take out my defensive siege that I spend hours placing, I’m not ever going to defend again. That is all I have to say about that.

Toughness. Everything inflicts physical damage, not everything inflicts condition damage. For example, Necromancer scepter skill #1 will inflict bleed, as well as physical damage. All (or at least the vast majority) skills that inflict condition damage also inflict physical damage, and even if that damage is low, it’s still there. I say toughness is almost always better than vitality.

Lily.1935:

Hitman.5829:

Enough said,
Death Shroud = adrenaline

If warriors cannot carry their adrenaline to the next battle, then necros should not be able to carry their 100% full Death Shroud to the next battle. Their life force should decay as soon as they exit combat PERIOD.

Warriors also build adrenaline in a couple attacks while necromancers take half a fight to build it up IF they are dedicated to it. Also, the core of the warrior’s defenses are not completely dependent on Adrenaline.

This. Also, I would literally never play my Necromancer again if changes like this went through. Very few things in this game get me steamed, but even the thought of this kittenes me off so much I’m restraining myself from spewing a paragraph long rant on how you should go die in a hole for even suggesting it.

A variety of reasons.

I’m a defensive player. I prefer to be at range or out of harms way while in combat.
I enjoy skirmishing in WvW which is something the Ranger excels at.
I enjoy the uniqueness of pets as our profession specific mechanic (despite their unreliability).
I’m a big fan of experimenting with builds and I enjoy the versatility the Ranger has.
I also very much love the hidden depths the Ranger has. It can appear easy to use, but there are a lot more layers to it that actually give the profession a very high skill cap.

Overall, I have the most fun as a Ranger. I’ve played every profession extensively and have not enjoyed myself nearly as much on any of the others as I do on my Ranger (the Necromancer is a close second mind you). I’m not sure if it’s the pet, the feel of our weapons, the versatility or what it is exactly that makes me love it so much, but I swear by this profession and I don’t see that changing any time soon.

With 1k hours logged, I am working on my first legendary, 1k+ skill points accumulated, Champion Hunter title, a commander tag, all ascended weapons/accessories, extra bag slots, world completion, and I have experimented and theory crafted every build imaginable, I’m pretty sure I’ve put a lot of time and love in to my Ranger.

EOTM is just like any other aspect of the game… People will do what they want. Let them do it. If they want to KTrain, let them. If they want to defend, let them. There’s really no need to force opinions on each other. You can defend a structure without the help of a zerg because most KTrains are full of uplevels. You can join a KTrain and easily capture most structures because of sheer numbers. Win win. I don’t understand why people are so hell bent on making EOTM one thing or the other, it can be both and still work just fine… The points don’t amount to anything so I don’t get why it matters if people don’t defend, and I don’t get why it matters if people do defend. Just play the flippin’ game, people are always going to kitten and moan, it’s not your job to stop that.

MrContrary.1264:

The asura have an imbalanced outlook on risk vs. reward that acts as cultural self sabotage. They’re techno-magical geniuses, but they have a child’s appreciation for danger. If they hatched a plan to enslave the other races they’d just botch it and likely create some new sort of ‘slavemaster golem’ that the other races would have to clean up.

I agree with this. Asura are very technologically advanced but there is a difference between knowledge and wisdom. They’re a lot like children when it comes to making wise decisions and thus leads to a lot of mishaps with their inventions.
I do however feel that they have already somewhat taken over the world as the reside in just about every corner of Tyria with a lab and a krewe. But if they were ever to actually commit to taking it over I feel no matter how good they are at planning and mathematics, they would end up ruining their own plans somehow. If any race were to take over I believe it would be the Charr, simply because they have been militarized from birth and are capable of both simple and complex assaults on their enemies or even allies if the situation calls for it. They may not be geniuses like the Asura, but they are far from stupid and much more capable of an offensive attack.

Rym.1469:

Kiting means that you do pressure damage during your movement.

Sword does absolutely no pressure during retreating.

Stop assuming that Kiting=Disengage.

THANK YOU.

I want to see swordsmen (: A heavy profession that specializes in dual wielding weapons like axe/axe, sword/sword, mace/mace, dagger/dagger, pistol/pistol, torch/torch, of course able to mix and match as well, but traits would heavily benefit using the same weapons in both main and offhand. Basically a heavy profession better suited for skirmishes and duels instead of large scale combat, but still operates similarly to the heavies we know and love.

As for new race, I want so badly to be able to play those freaky deep sea people with the batwings. I forget what they’re called but they’re so amazing.

https://dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/uploads/forum_attachment/file/45155/tumblr_mejnw0TfBa1rtdsh3o1_1280.jpg

This thing, there’s a race of them if I recall and I want to be able to play them O,O

Heal As One: Heal yourself and your pet, for a time, you and your pet will exchange health bars.

To clarify:
Heal, and after healing, if your pet takes damage, you will instead take that damage, if you take damage, your pet will instead take that damage. Say for 8 seconds, someone is attacking you after you heal, but it is doing no damage to you, it is doing damage to your pet instead. So if an enemy or opponent want to kill you, they will need to focus your pet instead. This could be very powerful, but it could also be easily exploited if people learned to recognize it. And I think it would add interesting counter play.

But as for using a heal similar to Withdraw, I don’t think it would be OP but I think it would be nice to go for more original ideas. We are already quite similar to Thieves honestly, I would rather we stay our own profession.

Mobility, control and awareness are your three most important tools. Although you can manage without mobility, only a seasoned roamer should be able solo travel without being able to disengage.

Watch the map constantly, bind a key so that you can look behind yourself, try to avoid taking obvious paths when going to camps, sentry’s, towers, etc.

Do NOT chase someone when you are in THEIR territory, it’s best only to engage if you absolutely need to. If you have some form of control, which is very important to have when roaming, you should immobilize, stun, cripple, daze, chill, launch, fear, etc. your opponent(s) when they try to escape. Despite what some might think, roaming is not all about 1v1’s, it is an aspect of roaming but not the purpose of it, so when you see other solos, it’s best not to go balls deep immediately upon seeing a red name. Learn your limitations and you’ll die a lot less.

Your objectives are: Kill dolyaks, flip supply/ merc camps, tap keeps/towers, assassinate zerglings, scout enemy positions and relay their actions to your commander and if you’re ballsy enough, stand near enemy zergs to make them lose numbers chasing you down.

Solo roaming, especially in T1 where I am, is a perilous hobby. You will die many times regardless of your skill, sometimes you get blindsided, sometimes you get greedy, sometimes you simply stop paying attention for a few seconds, dying will happen so don’t be discouraged when it does. Solo roaming is a respectable job that can be very helpful for your server if done properly, don’t let gank squads and zerg stomps upset you and you’ll do just fine!

Good luck and remember to use every buff at your disposal, food stacks, guard stacks, everyone does it so should you!

I have always hated Protect Me and any other trait/skill that harms my pet. It’s terrible synergy and I wish they had put more thought into it when designing it. The pet is our core mechanic and yet we have tools to cripple ourselves with? Personally, I try to keep myself alive as hard as I try to keep my pet alive, anything that’s going to hurt my pet isn’t worth it IMO.
The stunbreak is certainly a great aspect to Protect Me but again, I don’t think it’s a good idea to actively cripple yourself.

Shortbow is far better than Longbow imho. Longbow has some good utility and synergizes better with a power build, but Shortbow has plenty of great utility as well if you know how to use it properly. Poison is important to pressure your opponents with to reduce the effectiveness of their healing/regeneration and Poison Volley allows you to do this. There is an evade, a daze which is fantastic for interrupting, cripple to keep your opponent at range, a high rate of fire, good DPS if power spec, amazing condition DPS if condition spec’d, I see no reason for it to be underrated.

Empathetic Bond, Signet Of Renewal and Healing Spring are all good for managing conditions and I suggest taking all of them. If we’re speaking from a WvW perspective, condition builds are very abundant and people who know how to use their profession will probably have an advantage over you. What I suggest doing is using Healing Spring early in the fight. Often times it’s best to use your heal right around 80% health, sometimes even 85 – 90% if you’re against a condition heavy build. This should mean that by the time you need to use your heal again, it will just be coming off of it’s cooldown. Save using Signet Of Renewal for bursts, if someone stacks a whole ton of conditions on you in a very short period of time, they likely won’t be able to stack such a variety of them again for a little while, so save your signet for cleansing those nasty bursts, and use your heal for cleansing the basic conditions. Remember to also roll through your Healing Spring as it’s a long lasting water field and will keep cleansing you until it dissipates.

Also; no build or profession can do well against every other build/profession. There will be certain people that are extremely difficult if not impossible for you to defeat. It doesn’t mean you or your profession of choice are bad, it just means you know what to avoid. Personally, I refuse to fight perplexity thieves/mesmers on my trapper Ranger. I don’t know why, but I seem to take way more damage from confusion with traps than I do with power. It’s like traps reflect back at you twice as hard or something.. So as soon as I get some confusion stacks I’ll usually high tail it out of there.

Once I was roaming through Ogre camp while our side was blue. I poked my head out the other end of the camp and thought I might take a shot at flipping Pang until I saw a minion master Necro headed towards me. I pulled back in to the camp and found myself a good position out of sight of the tower to avoid being spotted by more people. He came in guns blazing but it wasn’t him that was the threat at this point, it was the ogre’s that kept aggroing. By the time he downed me, it was me versus him, 3 minions and 4 ogres. He /laughed at me, I shook my head, respawned and went back to finish what I had started. When I got there, the camp was nearly neutralized so it only took killing a few more ogres. I did so and just as I finished the same Necro showed up again. This time things went a little differently however and he kept trying to reset the fight by running back towards the tower every time he got low health. I was also on a Necro and I wasn’t using Spectral Walk so I couldn’t catch up with him and also didn’t want to because I didn’t want to risk being seen by more people. Finally I ended up downing him after he reset the fight about 3 times, but of course, immediately upon being downed he alt +F4’d.

Classic example of someone who isn’t willing to taste their own medicine.. So if you’re going to be a di*k don’t expect people not to be a di*k back to you if you get your karma. It’s just going to hurt that much more when you get what you deserve.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Aviator_Sunglasses

I want to see these back in the gem store ASAP.

Full glass I once pegged a Thief for 21k Maul. Again full glass I also killed an Elementalist with a 24k Rapid Fire while I was standing on the walls of a tower and every arrow hit.

.. Even with those numbers, not worth it to run full glass IMO. This is speaking from a WvW perspective and I have long since moved on to a trapper build, to which I still use to this day.
Also note that those numbers were pre-ferocity changes.

An idea:

Speak to the sentry after you have captured it. If you have supplies on you, you can order a sentry upgrade. This upgrade will cost 10 supplies and there will be a total of two upgrades. The first increases the sentry’s level to 82. The second, also requiring 10 supplies will increase the sentry’s aggro/leash radius. Each upgrade takes 2minutes and lasts until the sentry is captured. Holding an upgraded sentry awards no additional points but will be significantly more difficult for solos or even duo’s to take, but still an easy flip for groups/zergs.

I think these changes would add a little more dynamics to sentry’s and would make it more difficult for roamers to slip by them without being chased down.

I’ve heard people calling /laugh a strategy because it aggravates your opponents and encourages them to make stupid decisions. While I can see how this might work, I also think it’s only an excuse that’s trying to justify being a do**hebag.

Most times if someone laughs, does some other emote or jumps on your corpse, it’s for one of the following reasons:

1. Because they are plain and simple, a jacka**.
2. They feel threatened by you and are trying to assert their dominance (I have had this happen many times in PvP as well. I focus someone down and ignore everyone else, they feel threatened and if they defeat me at any point during the match they’ll taunt me. Even though it was nothing personal from my end.)
3. It literally has no meaning. Sometimes, people will emote out of the randomness of the situation with no other real purpose behind it. Sometimes I will /cheer or /cower if I have an unexpected victory for example. Not because I’m taunting them but just because I am literally surprised.

It’s best not to let yourself be frustrated by it, even if you’re short tempered like myself. The likelyhood of them getting their karma for being a jerk is very high anyway. I can’t tell you how many times someone has emoted at me and immediately afterwards been killed either while I’m downed, dead or in some cases I haven’t even engaged them. I remember one time there was this perplexity thief that was whispering me and trying to convince me to duel them but I refused because I didn’t want to satisfy them with an easy victory. They /laughed a bunch in the distance until our zerg came up and rolled him from behind within about 60seconds of his first whisper.

You can also do what I do, though I don’t really recommend it. Because I spend a lot of time roaming, I take mental notes on characters, guild tags, ranks and professions so that I know how to react to them in the future. If someone taunts me, I will rarely taunt them back if I defeat them in the future, but I will happily let people know of their behavior so that they might be taunted by multiple others (: I may not know their ingame names, but I will be certain they don’t die happily if they want to be a jerk to me.

I both enjoy and believe the idea that they darken very easily. Since they are highly resistant to cold weather and wear little to no clothing even in below freezing temperatures, I imagine anything even remotely warm would be difficult for them to withstand. Which would probably then lead to a greater likely-hood in them developing darker skin in a more average climate.

It is unintended design. The game prioritizes ressing players over all else. Which means even if you’re trying to res someone against a gate that could be repaired for example, you will go straight to ressing without being forced to repair the gate.

I’m similar to you but with the Ranger. I’ve been playing it for so long and have theory crafted so many different builds everything seems viable.

I don’t think that everyone is crying “nerf Thief” however. I think that the forums are full of those people, but in the actual game there are a lot less people who think thieves need a change or a nerf. The losers cry the loudest kind of thing.

What ever happens though, stick with it. I can’t say that Thieves will get some sort of amazing overhaul, but I stuck it out with my Ranger even with all of it’s glaring weaknesses and all the bad mouthing that goes towards the profession and now we’re getting some amazing buffs. As a Ranger main, I don’t know how it feels to be hated because people think everything you do is OP and that your entire profession needs to be redone… But I do know how it feels to be hated and to have endless false accusations made towards a profession I know inside and out. I would say, stand up for what you believe in, but don’t assert it with aggression. Or, in other words, don’t try to convince people they’re wrong because your opinion is as valid as theirs. Instead, give tips on how to defeat a thief, answer any questions they might have asked and sprinkle some facts on top of their QQ salad.

Currently I am only level 10, but I have got to say it has truly been a “welcome to the dark side.” I hadn’t envisioned myself enjoying the profession so much, but I really, really am. So planning ahead, I have a few questions I’d like if someone could answer;

WvW small scale havoc and solo roaming

1. I’m a big fan of condition builds. Both my Ranger and Necromancer are very condition heavy and I would like to do the same for my Thief. What would a good gear combination be? Dire/Rabid, Apothecary/Rabid or Rampagers/Rabid?

2. As I’ve stated I very much enjoy condition builds. And from the looks of the skills, I’m also liking how Venom’s look. Would a Venom heavy user be viable for a condition build? Or should I be using something else?

3. I’m currently using Pistol/Dagger and Sword/Dagger. I would like to use P/D as my main weapon set, but I am uncertain about my secondary set. Is S/D a good choice or should I go with something else like Shortbow or Dagger/Dagger?

4. What is my hardest counter when solo roaming? As in; what profession specific builds should I try to avoid? I know Necromancers are difficult for most Thieves to handle, but I’ve mained one for a very long time and am relatively confident I’ll be able to deal with them.

5. With Shadow Strike and Skale Venom I would have access to a good deal of Torment. With lots of condition duration, which I certainly plan to have, I imagine this would be a very useful condition to have in such abundance. Would it be overkill to use a sigil of torment? Or should I go with something else to add more variety in my conditions, which will also make them more difficult to cleanse.

6. Skelk Venom does not seem to be a popular heal among Thieves, however, as I am very interested in Venom’s, is it an okay heal? Or should I avoid it completely?

7. And lastly, a strange question though it might be; what is the best way to flip a supply camp as a condition Thief? I have no trouble doing so on my Necromancer and Ranger, which I solo roam on frequently. But they are both very well equipped to do so and I’m uncertain of how a Thief would stand up to a full camp since they seem to be very focused on single-target damage. I was thinking going in with Dagger Storm?

Bear in mind I’m only level 10 at the moment and have a lot to learn. I haven’t even looked at traits yet so I apologize for any newbish questions. I would just like to be as prepared as possible for when I reach 80 so I can roam and troll immediately upon reaching it (: <

DeceiverX.8361:

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

Rangers, Engineers and Elementalists have, IMO, the highest skill caps. The thing with Rangers however, is that people treat their pets like meat shields and nothing else. It would be like if an Elementalist never used any of their F skills and just did #1 with staff all day. Sure, you’ll do damage, but there’s so much more to explore that you’re being ignorant about because a few weapon skills do decent damage and you’re too lazy to figure out what else the profession has to offer (none of this directed at OP btw.)

So, remember not to neglect your pet. It’s not just there to soak up damage, use it actively and learn to keep it alive. Play with the different weapon sets and utilities and you’ll find what’s most comfortable for you. People can think that Rangers are bads all they want, there’s a hidden skill cap with them that if understood, will make the player a massive threat to any who challenge it.

This is about zerging, though. And as I mentioned above, rangers bring literally nothing to zergs that another class can’t do better.

Ah, true, my bad.
I would definitely agree that they don’t have much to offer in terms of zerg-play, but as someone has mentioned before me, mass immobilization is something we have access to via Entangle, Spike Trap (if traited) and Muddy Terrain. Conditions are shed pretty quickly in large scale fights but I can tell you from experience that a well timed immobilize, even if unintentional on the casters part, can really ruin your day. Rangers have their part in ZvZ even if it’s the most minor part of all the professions. Full glass Rangers are also great for assassinating enemy commanders. I’ve been in groups of all Rangers more than a few times where we locate and harass the enemy commander with Long Range Shot and Rapid Fire. Of course we’re squishy as hell, but bring that commander down and the enemy zerg falls to pieces.

Sors Immani.8429:

While I do think that necromancers would have a certain “smell” about them, I don’t think it would be one exceptionally rank or vile.

I’d like to think it’d be one between fresh blood from a slaughter and stale air from an ancient tomb with a deep mustiness akin to a funeral parlor— that impending sense of doom as opposed to a knee-jerk fear of dying.

Now that I think of it, wouldn’t every profession have it’s own “scent”?

Elementalist- bonfires and ozone (think lightning storm) with a seaspray salinity & arboreal mustiness.

Warrior- bloodshed, sweat, and freshly forged steel

Thief- smoky, musty, and mysterious. Think dragon’s blood mixed with patchouli

Ranger- arboreal woodsy-ness, mountain fresh air, and tanned leather

Mesmer- sharp ozone and strong perfumes

Guardian- freshly forged steel, amber, and sandalwood.

Engineer- sulphur, sweat, and gear oil (think an automotive showroom)

And with this, I’m patenting a new cologne line of “eau-du-Tyria” :P

[Edit]
I realize that all the races would probably have their own unique “scent” too, particularly Charr, Asura, and Sylvari. I could imagine Charr getting pretty rank from time to time. Asura would probably have a ‘lithium’ smell about them (like the inside of a RadioShack), and Sylvari would definitely have a floral/earthy scent.

As far as humans and norn, it’d be more situational than uniform in my opinion

Good god those scent descriptions are vivid. I can almost smell it when I read it, good job :P.
I think my Ranger would smell lovely if that’s the case. Like the outdoors with a faint aroma of cool sweat.

I really love the idea of profession-specific zones and would strongly support that idea if it were implemented.

As for your question, I think it would depend on how personal individual Necromancers got with their corpses. Not all of them would smell horribly although I can imagine some of them might. As per the lore I’ve created for one of my own Necromancers, she regularly bathes in blood and feasts on human flesh to maintain her youth (similar to the historical figure Elizabeth Bathory). I can’t imagine she would smell too great after a day of lathering herself in blood.

Zietlogik.6208:

Caedmon.6798:

Zietlogik.6208:

If ranks were actually difficult or worthwhile to try to obtain…then sure.

I see that EotM minimap and…its basically free loot for filling a bar, for running around capping things which gives more free loot, while zerging mobs that give free loot….in a zone build for free clockwise free loot…

Wait a second….

I want better gameplay, not more effing handouts, this is laughable to complain about really.

You clearly don’t understand the issue at hand,which is completing a task that takes Months to complete ( Talking WvW,not the pve champtrain thats called Eotm ) and his reward for doing this was 2 greens.When completing such tasks the reward should be of more significance and not based on RNG random drops you can find anywhere else.Every other Mmo out there understands this,Anet on the other hand does not and keeps handing out rewards,simple or hard based on RNG,and you might end up getting nothing but greens.You might end up getting a better reward for something that takes 30m to complete opposed to what the OP described..a thing that takes months to complete and end up with..a green,which is simply wrong.

You clearly didn’t understand what I said then. Getting X rank is not a task, it is something that progresses naturally by completing other smaller tasks. These smaller tasks provide loot, and after completing several of these tasks (did I mention they give loot?) you get extra loot because a little bar filled.

People complaining about this, cannot possibly know how to weigh reward to effort, they value their time far more than they value their capabilities, that is the fundamental flaw with the reward system.

If Ranks had some challenge, or feat of skill involved…like I said in my post, sure, the rewards should be better….but its extra loot on top of loot you get for completing things that add to that blue bar….that is it.

The way I see it is that if they want to reward us at all, it should be something of value, or not reward us with anything. It’s like giving your kid a toy every time he/she spends time doing something productive, but that toy is the same useless boring toy every day that they cannot enjoy or even give away if they wanted to. Why reward the kid if the reward feels more like an insult than appreciation?

Still, I very much agree that rank up chests are little more than filling up a bar and getting loot for doing nothing. I just think that if they’re going to reward us, it should be worth our time to obtain the reward.

I got my first and only ascended chest at rank 999. Prior to and afterwards I have gotten maybe 2 or 3 exotics and a bunch of rares. I’m now rank 1,151 Silver Colonel, which is approaching Gold rank, and still get greens and blues. I know how you feel :P.

It would be really nice if upon reaching certain bench marks we could display our ranks as a title similar to how you can display certain achievements as titles. And I definitely wouldn’t object to set rewards at specific ranks like maybe a guaranteed exotic every 100 – 200 ranks or something and a guaranteed ascended chest at rank 1,000.

I don’t play WvW for loot, rewards or gold but it’s hard to deny the disappointment one must feel when reaching very high ranks only to be rewarded with garbage.

EDIT:
And for the record, since I see a lot of people siting EOTM here, the only time I go to Edge is to level alts. Which has happened a total of once. I gained a lot of ranks in 78 levels, but that’s really about all the time I’ve spent there.. I’m only a high rank because from the time I started playing GW2 until now, I really haven’t done much else.

7/10 because it’s cute, but I prefer traditionally named Asura personally :P.

My second Necromancer is named Jiukki (U-KEY).
When I name my characters, I choose their names based on their personalities and what the definitions of their names are. Since this name is completely made up and I have no idea whether or not Asura even care to give their names meanings, I decided to give it one anyway. Jiukki: A bountiful intellect and deceptive personality. Beauty matched only by apathy.

Really, you need more tells for Dhuumfire? When it was passively applied prior to it’s transfer to Death Shroud I could understand, but now that you need to enter Death Shroud to apply it… If they’re a condition Necro, it should be a big enough tell that they’re going to try to slap some burning on you when they go all black and smokey looking. It’s not like Life Blast is even a very fast projectile.

And as for Rangers, maybe it’s just me but I could honestly swear that Shared Anguish only works half the time. Yes it has an ICD but I seem to get CC’d at times when the trait should clearly have prevented that.

As for the suggestions you’ve made as a whole, I vote no. This game is designed for casuals and is so easy to play as is it’s almost painful sometimes. The fact that there are even tournaments is like entering your kid in to a T-ball tournament. The only difference between regular T-ball and a tournament is that you get a shiney trophy. Everyone participating is just as mediocre as the next person. So I don’t think we need any more ways of making this game easier. But that’s just my two cents.

zen.6091:

Necro

Necros are the kings of sustain, and full boat of punishing skills and traits, but also have zero mobility. Once in combat it’s a cage match usually, you are dying, the other player is dying, or they are running away…but you’re not running away.

Ranger

I say ranger in the sense of a good player playing a ranger and roaming with it. I don’t even know what to say. The condi regen shout build can be tough to take down in battles of attrition, and that’s about it usually. Glassy power rangers can be very annoying and dangerous, but they have almost no personal defense, and are always the first to be targeted in small groups.

I also agree with this post although there are a few things we think differently about, but regardless I very much agree. And as someone who spends most of their time roaming on either a Necromancer or a Ranger, I can say that no matter what you’re roaming with P/D perplex Thieves are a waste of time and if you think you can win, think again. There’s cheese and then there’s the whole dairy family.
And as for cage-match Necro’s (: That is the exact reason I enjoy roaming with mine. Because I enjoy fighting to the end. You never know what can happen within that last 10% of your health, sometimes the whole fight can turn around and often times it does. But the runners will never know that.

Jeknar.6184:

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

Also, despite what people say, Warriors are terrible roamers. They have great mobility, high DPS, etc. etc. but in all my time roaming I haven’t come across more than a handfull of Warriors that were actually good at what they were doing. 95% of them will just run when they get to 50% health and it’s not hard to put them in that position. So sure they have a lot of great utility and are very capable roamers, but any profession is a good roamer in the right hands. Warrior is not an ideal roamer unless you’re good with it. Otherwise, I’d say don’t bother.

“any profession is a good roamer in the right hands”

“Warriors are terrible roamers.”

Contradiction?

When I say “good roamer” I mean you don’t need to be all that good to be effective. In most aspects of the game, Warrior requires very little effort to be effective. As a roamer however, you need to actually know how to use a Warrior to be effective, which most people don’t know how to do since all they’ve ever learned to do is smash stuff with their hammer and things die.

Rangers, Engineers and Elementalists have, IMO, the highest skill caps. The thing with Rangers however, is that people treat their pets like meat shields and nothing else. It would be like if an Elementalist never used any of their F skills and just did #1 with staff all day. Sure, you’ll do damage, but there’s so much more to explore that you’re being ignorant about because a few weapon skills do decent damage and you’re too lazy to figure out what else the profession has to offer (none of this directed at OP btw.)

So, remember not to neglect your pet. It’s not just there to soak up damage, use it actively and learn to keep it alive. Play with the different weapon sets and utilities and you’ll find what’s most comfortable for you. People can think that Rangers are bads all they want, there’s a hidden skill cap with them that if understood, will make the player a massive threat to any who challenge it.

IMHO, Ranger, Mesmer and Thief are all tied for first place for being the best roamers. If we’re speaking strictly flipping camps, capturing sentry’s, killing yaks, tapping structures (no PvP), I would say Ranger is best only because, in my experience, it can flip camps much faster and pet is great for holding aggro while you tap keeps/towers, etc.
I’m also kind of bias towards the Ranger since it’s one of my two main characters, but don’t underestimate it. The Ranger is incredible at 1v1 and functions hundreds of times better solo than it does in a group. If you want to be able to escape, Mesmer and Thief are better options. If you want to be able to melt people and camps (assuming you’re a skilled Ranger), I would say Ranger. If you want a good balance of escape, power in fights, good at flipping camps, etc. I would say it’s a tie between Thief and Ranger. Mesmer only really stands to be a good duelist IMO. They can flip camps and do all the things a Thief or a Ranger can do, but they seem to have more trouble with NPC’s than other players.

Also, despite what people say, Warriors are terrible roamers. They have great mobility, high DPS, etc. etc. but in all my time roaming I haven’t come across more than a handfull of Warriors that were actually good at what they were doing. 95% of them will just run when they get to 50% health and it’s not hard to put them in that position. So sure they have a lot of great utility and are very capable roamers, but any profession is a good roamer in the right hands. Warrior is not an ideal roamer unless you’re good with it. Otherwise, I’d say don’t bother.

9/10
I appreciate the originality and like that a part of the name relates to plants, which mine does not.

My second Ranger is named Lumina Wild. The name has no real meaning behind it other than flowing nicely. I’d have preferred to give her a singular name without a surname, but I couldn’t come up with anything that wasn’t already taken. Still, I’m satisfied with what I settled on.

ArchonWing.9480:

Take your time and kill the scouts because their blinds will ruin you, then if you’re in trouble, run off and grab a breather. The scouts will chase you far; the others won’t. As long as you take out the scouts, nothing else is a problem.

If you still have trouble, just use a range weapon to take out the scouts.

As a side note, you may want to go for more dps, since this is basically pve and you are alone. If you’re going in a really tanky spec, it’s possible that you’re just taking too long to take the guards out so they either respawn too fast or other players can come and stop you. That’s not fun or efficient by any means.

^
This is also important. If you’re stacking the guards yes, you will be taking damage, but if you kill them quickly enough it won’t be enough damage to harm you. Tanky spec’s aren’t good for soloing camps, the guards need to be killed quickly before either they respawn or someone responds.

On my Ranger, I literally run in to the very middle of the camp, drop all of my traps at once and spam axe #1. I drop a heal even if I don’t need it too badly, use wolf fear when some of the NPC’s start getting low and it all usually takes only about 20 – 30 seconds from start to finish, not including capturing the camp after the guards are killed.

On my Necromancer, I stack them. I drop a Well Of Suffering, hop in to Plague, by the time Plague runs out at least a few of them are dead, I hop in to Death Shroud to use Life Transfer and by then only the guild claming vet is left which is easy enough to finish off. This takes about 30 – 40 seconds because I’m a condition build. With a power build, I would probably be able to capture it more quickly than I can on my Ranger.

There are two ways.

Bring a ranged weapon such as a bow or a rifle. From maximum range, shoot one of the scouts. Often times, the entire camp will aggro, sometimes they won’t. If the entire camp aggros, run a little ways until the melee guards and the guild claiming vet stop chasing you. The scouts, because they’re ranged attackers, will continue firing at you for a little bit longer before they reset. Hurry back before they reset to DPS them down. The ranged attackers now dispatched should make the rest of the camp easier to take.
If the camp is upgraded, it will be considerably more difficult. Honestly, I wouldn’t suggest trying to capture an upgraded camp solo unless you’re skilled, the guards will hit much harder.

Another way is to pull the entire camp in to a corner. All camps have a spot that will obstruct the ranged attackers. When their attacks are obstructed (you’ve gone behind a wall and all the melee guards are now attacking you) the scouts will follow as well and will group tightly with the melee attackers. You should now have all of the guards clumped together for easy distribution of DPS. Dodge every so often to reduce damage, I recommend NOT using Healing Signet because scouts apply poison which will reduce your healing effectiveness and bring some invulnerability’s.

Also, if there are yaks at the camp, they can almost always be pulled without aggroing the camp. The don’t deal much damage, but it is a good idea to kill the yaks BEFORE pulling the entire camp in to a corner if you plan to do so. If they knock you down or even obstruct your view it can be fatal, so it’s best not to pull the whole camp AND yaks, even if they deal very little damage.

I just made my first today. A Ranger and her name is Lumina Wild (: