Guild Wars 2

In what gamemode?

Lb power ranger is probably the strongest build for PvP (still).

Fyi shout runes are broken:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/shout-build-1

So finished my ascended sinister the other day and gave this build a go around silverwastes.

The deeps is crazy, like insane. Especially for aoe. You are just face melting groups of husks in literally seconds with 10 stacks of burning.

It’s really quite boring though. And I think that is because you play in melee range without any melee weapons.

I think I would be prepared to sacrifice some DPS to play this with shortbow, just so I’m not standing still in fire fields.

Otherwise I’m switching back to melee zerker.

Poliator.7021:

Shadow Dragon Ad.2409:

Poliator.7021:

I wanted to drop a comment here, seeing all these “Solo being farmed” comments. Remember that although the current queue system isn’t by any means perfect, we are talking about Ranked play. They made the points system in a manner that, even losing you still get points/don’t lose any, which translates into rewards.

The issue is that at the higher levels you are losing pips and tiers (though not divisions) and the simple fact is, the higher ranked you are the more competitively minded you’re likely to be. Also the higher ranked you are the more likely you are to want to have a good match and actually fair competition (i.e. not a stomp) however you’re not going to get that because you might run into premades (something solo queue removes completely). This is further compounded because premades are more likely to be higher ranked in general and the higher ranked you are the more important communication becomes.

Essentially getting through the Legend division as a solo player will be a nightmare because you’re more likely to run into good premades and premades have even more of an inherent advantage at that level, imo at least.

I can’t disagree with that. It will indeed be hard to get into Legendary League, but as you said, you can’t drop out of it. I wonder how everything will end up being. I’d say it won’t be as rough as it sounds.

Let’s hope the community grows much larger (supposedly thanks to competition and rewards added via this League system) and that they stay, so ANet tries in the end to bring Solo Queue back! This is in the end great news right?

They said it will reset after a tournament. So you’re not stuck in that league for long.

Problem is eles blast finishers…

I like it how it is.

If you get focussed with DD or Condi’s you gonna die.

That is unless you have an invuln (for DD), or a full condi clear.

All classes have access to both of these…so wtf are you complaining about?

What is this QuickDraw taunt bunker you speak of? That could literally mean anything…

And “nerf condi aids spec”…l2p noob

Condi spec was nerfed on the 23rd and is still weaker than other condi spec classes.

Listen here, if you lose to a ranger YOU SUCK.

choovanski.5462:

¯\(?)/¯

scrubs? tbh, can’t say I’ve ever understood it either. damage is damage, idk why anyone thinks they should just be able to ignore it.

Yep, pretty much as this thread proves…

Yeh its kittenweak.

1% per boon would be awesome though.

Tragic Positive.9356:

I’d like to thank all of you who shared your opinions, insights and past experiences.

I think I finalized the build and it’s actually surprisingly really strong. I had no problems at all against any opponent, from mesmers, thieves, eles and guardians.

I added a little more flavor into it, so it’s as deadly as supportive. If it weren’t for you guyz, I wouldn’t have gotten into it, so
Thank you all, you are awesome!

I’ll be posting a new thread about it.

I was trying melee shouts and it was fine 1v1, is it keeping your allies alive though?

My recent experience is that either you don’t live long enough to provide any support, or you are not providing enough with all the damage out there. Your allies still go down regardless.

Same reason shoutbow is gone.

Cele seems to be the only useful support ATM because its providing offensive buffs, and it still has the best sustain.

I’m not sure group conditions clear needs to be a thing anymore.

Maybe rangers should be looking at warhorn/torch/drakes/QuickDraw for group support…

PvP doesn’t use stats from armor so you would literally be creating it for wvw.

Not worth it in my experience.

Better to go for a power mix in zerg, or full dire for roaming.

Some ppl just have to feel better than others.

It’s an interesting point, and you would be correct if direct damage was the only damage type in the game, but its not.

Conditions do damage over time, therefore you need a stat that can diminish over time like HP.

Wait till he sees the molten jetpack…

butch.8136:

Sube Dai.8496:

As a regular pvp’er and long time digital marketer I feel it is a terrible investment of time and money.

I also don’t feel that Anet has a good grasp on what is required to make an esport today.

I feel these should be the number one priorities above everything:

1. Working leaderboard
2. Automated tournaments
3. Some sort of f2p pvp version.

IMO number 3 is the single smartest thing riot ever did. And they’ve basically set the bar for anyone who wants to compete with them.

Number 3 works when there’s a decent competitive infrastructure (in your post that would be 1 & 2).
Without 1 & 2, number 3 would fail. The numbers would grow but the turnover would be big.

That’s why they are #1 and #2

But f2p is the innovation that has made it hard for every one else.

Carighan.6758:

One issue with trying to promote it as an esport is that they’re 3 years too late.

When GW2 had just come out, then yes, it was the time to push it as an esport. If wanted. But now? 3 years later? Once people have left and the game has gone stale and everything? Biiiiiiiiit late to think about that. Cater to the existent players, make the ones who got the game invest time again and spend more time in the cash shop by providing storyline and some PvP (ideally in WvW form, but that’s my personal take), and meanwhile work on Guild Wars – Team Battles (or something like that), sPvP as a separate game on a newer engine with hyper-specialized classes.

I disagree…I think they have barely scratched the surface of the potential PvP (and f2p) crowd. Lol gets 32m viewers after all…

As a regular pvp’er and long time digital marketer I feel it is a terrible investment of time and money.

I also don’t feel that Anet has a good grasp on what is required to make an esport today.

I feel these should be the number one priorities above everything:

1. Working leaderboard
2. Automated tournaments
3. Some sort of f2p pvp version.

IMO number 3 is the single smartest thing riot ever did. And they’ve basically set the bar for anyone who wants to compete with them.

System works perfectly. Plz don’t change.

LOL very good.

/15

Some groups would not like it. It does substantially less damage than sword. Like 17%

Nike.2631:

30 days. It take 30 days to charge up enough quartz for a full set of exotic armor, that then gets promoted to ascended status (with more time-gated mats you can be working on simultaneously) making it account bound and you never have to make another piece in that weight class ever again in the multi-year life of the game.

I think people have had maybe a little too much instant gratification. A whole month to achieve a terminal goal in an MMO is NOTHING.

Yeh its really not that long. Is the op a millennial by any chance?

You should carry a stack of quartz at all times and charge whenever you come across a hero challenge.

Compared to warrior or guard ranger gs is very low damage.

I finally did the ls achievements and it wasn’t that bad.

You don’t have to do seeds of truth and that is the worst one.

Mainhand axe on ranger is not melee. Its a 900 range hybrid/conditions weapon.

Melee is gs and sword/x.

Hardly anyone runs it because it is quite low damage. GS burst is weak/expensive, and sword has none.

Lordrosicky.5813:

Its too late now. There is a finite number of pvpers who got this game. They will be so put off now that they won’t ever come back. Its like opening a restaurant and giving everyone food poisoning. Those people will not return to that restaurant even if it gets everything it needs to offer a good eating experience.

The same is true with gw2 pvp. Its too late. Way too late. They are better off pushing down the same casual orientated direction with good pve rewards in pvp.

Anet aren’t stupid. They know what they are doing and the game as a whole is a big success. So fair enough to them. If you don’t like it them just leave.

I don’t think they know what they’re doing at all. They waste several hundred grand on “world tournaments” that get less viewers than a gvg…

That money could easily go towards a working leaderboard instead. They would also need a f2p version if they were serious about esports.

Its made a pretty big difference.

I’ve just been trolling Hot Join with a double melee regen cleric and I have hawks critting for 2×1500, while I soak up almost everything.

It might even be a legitimate point holder!

Welcome to real life.

sephiroth.4217:

The point system is great tbh…

Don’t know about this top player being the worst player attitude though… I’ll try to explain.

Top player could have been the biggest asset to your team, why? Well you get points for everything, literally everything.
He could have rezzed people 5+ times tuning the tides for 5+ fights, he gets the rez points + defence + cap points ontop of skirmishing points all the while running around like a headless chicken decapping as much as they could or capping as much as they could… —-—— That would be considered, in my eyes, a very valuable ally…

BUT…….. That doesn’t mean he was the most useful person on your team, you could have a bunker sit on home all game defending 1v2 and holding point limiting enemy players to 3 for the rest of the map, he might only end up with a measly 20 points end game, but he also provided the team a lot more opportunities to secure the winbeing able to fight with greater numbers on point. (which you wanna hope your team mates can win 4v3)

I wouldn’t take “Hello team” as signification that the player is bad either, more often than not I will say positive or friendly things from the start to ensure the team remains friendly and pumped up for the game, sorta like League of Legends and positive attitudes will help players play better instead of doubting themselves and getting worse with every mistake… It is after all just a game

This

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Photinous.4628:

Do we have an idea where condi ranger now sits compared to other classes? Is ele still #1 in DPS?

My spreadsheets have Sinister Engineer as highest theoretical DPS provided you have a perfect rotation (which you don’t), then Zerker Staff Elementalist as #2 given optimal buffs. Sinister Ranger is #3 with the added bonus of their damage being a lot more consistent and less dependent on situational buffs.

Very interesting. So is that solo or in a group with all buffs?

kdaddy.5431:

you could just run a non zerker build. Even though you list your stats, you didnt mention if there defensive skills or offensive. Like full bunker builds are incredible hard to kill.

I’ve not seen anything that can survive 2v1 for long.

You said:

jewishjoyride.4693:

With the new trait spreads Ranger has access to a couple very strong builds that dish out decent damage, hold up to focus fire, and bring utility that is useful for the team. The best part is we are no longer putting all of our eggs in the LB basket.

I disagreed with that statement.

SkiTz.4590:

rchu.8945:

Karkus.6079:

yup, ive just decided to quit AGAIN. kittenm it. I thought this game could temporarily quench the non-freeking-MOBA PvP thirst…it just made me mad.

burst someone down in 0.8 secs or die

“fun”

Because cele meta with builds that can survive 1 vs 3 dishing out decent damage and fight that takes forever is more skilled and “fun”, right?

Those burst you down in 2 sec builds take WAY more skill than playing pathetic, good for nothing bunker build that just stays alive , enough to annoy someone else, but never even kill someone because bunker builds are the most boring builds.

Get out of here if you want a meta where it takes a half hour of dancing and rolling around to finally down someone. If you can’t handle the burst, its your fault. Learn and adapt. Its a L2P issue.

People aren’t leaving gw2 pvp because of a burst heavy meta.
They are leaving gw2 in general because its stale and boring. get a clue.

How could bursting in 2 seconds possibly take more skill than watching the enemy, baiting dodges, and using your skills intelligently?

I think the scrubs are just excited because they can suddenly kill people.

I’m not convinced that Anet knew it would be this bad.

Otherwise why bother with all those new defensive traits which are in-effect useless?

And that is scary!

jewishjoyride.4693:

Ranger is currently only out classed by Mesmer and Ele. That makes us at least as good as the rest, and more than likely better in a few cases.

With the new trait spreads Ranger has access to a couple very strong builds that dish out decent damage, hold up to focus fire, and bring utility that is useful for the team. The best part is we are no longer putting all of our eggs in the LB basket. My damage and utility are spread out across enough weapon skills, pet skills, utilities that my next useful ability is always coming off cooldown. I catch so many people by surprise when they think they’ve finished the fight with me, only to turn around stun them, and drop them to the ground.

Rampage offers great cc and damage in a team fight, as does hammer. It’s all essentially melee though. Ranger can interrupt a res on the other side of the fight at the same time they are supporting their allies near them.

While camping LB can certainly be classified as bad play, it is a very effective weapon set. 1500 range is very valuable. A ranger can be off point and be part of the fight on point. Or the ranger can be on point and be part of a fight off point. LB opens up a lot of decap opportunities for ranger. Pew Pew off point to force some dodges and maybe a couple utilities. Close the gap and then knock them off point. use your pet to lock the down. The same principles apply for point defense. Being able to hit the opponent running up to the point from 1500 range is a decent advantage for any ranger defending. Often I’m able to catch the other player with a taunt as well, keeping them off me for longer and dealing more damage to them.

I think the biggest thing holding ranger back at the moment isn’t the actual mechanics of the class. Sure we have a lot of bugs that need fixing. And yes our weapon skills could use a few tweaks. But right now the biggest reason you see so many bad rangers is because there are so many bad rangers. If you want to become a better Engie, Warrior, Mesmer etc… there are plenty of players creating content and producing guides. Either on youtube, or twitch you can find examples of what really really good play on that class looks like. Ranger??? Not so much. Most of the content you’ll find are videos of rangers rapid firing afk’s who wait in line to get dropped. I can only speak to my personal experience here but I’ve become a much better ranger by watching players like helseth or yishis.

I disagree. LB ranger is the only build remotely close to being useful in a team.

Will these ever be available via laurel vendor?

Just want to know before I bother doing the achievements, as they seem quite time consuming…

In the old meta, even though condi ranger had way more survivability than LB ranger, there was too much condi cleanse for condi survival to be effective.

In the new meta trap ranger seems to do pretty good damage, but it is just as glassy as LB so the benefit (which was survivability) seems to be lost.

NikeEU.7690:

Sube Dai.8496:

Until we see the math of sinister mainhand axe/torch vs sword/torch I’m not sure its correct.

Surprisingly, they are equal. Like within 150 DPS of each other.

Second surprising fact: for any fight lasting over 10 seconds, Sun Spirit is better than QZ even for berserker ranger.

Third (un)suprising fact, Guang’s build is good, but suboptimal. There are higher DPS Runes and Sigils to use. Stay tuned.

See I knew someone would do it for me. I love you dnt guys

Looks like ill have to do those annoying living world achievements too

HotHit.6783:

Sube Dai.8496:

Having a hard time believing that mainhand axe, with nothing on swap, is our highest dps.

In a condi build axe just has to compete with sword and 5 bleeds does a lot more damage than 2 poisons. GS and longbow only make it worse and poison Volley no matter how boosted is trumped by splitblade. The melee projectile weapon with slow animations having the highest damage output isn’t so ridiculous, it’s countered by every defensive mechanic in the game (reflects, interrupts, stealth, condi cleanse, boon removal, moving away…).

This is a pve discussion so I fail to see how that matters.

Also splitblade is only good against a single target, and at point blank range. Sword has cleave.

Neko.9021:

A demonstration of the spec’s capabilities from Guang’s youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkXOyaE9AgA

5 of the bleeds are coming from Entangle, and 4 from the cat.

Until we see the math of sinister mainhand axe/torch vs sword/torch I’m not sure its correct.

SlayerSixx.5763:

On what planet is rapid fire better than w.e a good warrior can put out on his own? Like, lets not talk about rampage for a second. Practically every warrior GS ability can do 5k+ on a crit, while being incredibly mobile when doing it and god forbid they bait your stunbreaks and lock you down with a bulls charge + 100b. When properly done, GS/Hammer is insanity on wheels. Now, that still isn’t stopping warrior from getting rekt by all of the stealthlords and immortal eles, but even without rampage warrior is still a more reliable class than ranger. WITH a properly timed rampage (just got a lil mass invis, or an engi tossed elixir s, or some shadow refuge, or people are focus firing your friendly bunker guardian) lives get rekt. People talk about how easy it is to avoid rampage and you’re right, it is. Thing is though, you can’t kill em in direct combat like you can with some specs vs lich, so that means a cool 20s of points in the warrior’s team’s favoyr.

As far as I’m concerned, I’d rather have a warrior fighting on my team than a ranger.

I have to agree and I main ranger.

I settled on full traps / rabid / shortbow when trying to do conditions burst. Kills quicker than trying to get ppl to stay in burn fields.

But now I’m trying celestial regen again.

ShadowStep.3640:

They could buff rangers right now if they
-gave us back ground targeting for traps
-made spirits follow us again
-gave spirits more hp

Taking them back to where they were, which was still crap.

Traps need more utility like the kd on spike trap. Most likely stability due to the lack of stunbreak.

And spirits need useful buffs in meaningful amounts.

Aegis, resistance, stability, and more might.

Having a hard time believing that mainhand axe, with nothing on swap, is our highest dps.

The lack of a leaderboard is a pretty effing big problem.

Probably too much quickness given that we have 3 other sources as well.

Chokolata.1870:

Well, quite honestly I would start off with a tweak to CotW itself.

I would reduce the boon duration from 15s to 10s but reduce the CD from 30s to 20s. This would place it on the same timer as untraited pet swap. When you trait both, then you will have a 16s CD which matches the 16s CD on CotW.

After that I would tweak the no4 on the warhorn. How? simple:
-reduce casting time
-transfers 2 conditions from yourself to your target when you hit an enemy with it. God knows that ranger needs more non traited condition removal

Then how would you tweak Windborne notes themselves? Simple:
-Call of the Wild now applies 4 extra might + the regeneration for 10s
-Hunters call also removes 2 boons from the target on hit. We need boon removal too haha
-CD reduced by 20%

There, I made warhorn good

Who wants a useful warhorn though? Most boring weapon in the game.

Well, after focus.

Certainly feels like there is less ppl.

Having watched them neglect my previous game mode to death (wvw) I am a little worried…

Its a team game folks, team game.

Unless you’re entire team is running full conditions builds. In which case you are really, really doing it wrong.

You killed someone with something, so its too strong?

Yep crap trait, crap weapon. Quickness sounds good.

Maybe another reveal on hunters call as well?