Guild Wars 2

Nuka Cola.8520:

Xsorus.2507:

Sword/Warhorn for Power Based Builds

Sword/Dagger for Condition Based Builds

Sword/Torch much better for condi builds.

It depends if you can get a sufficiently high uptime on your burning overkilling the burn will not add sufficiently to your damage. Where this is the case adding 3 bleeds (usually 10s) is all damage. Plus the addition of another poison/dodge is useful. However with the sword CD trait it is possible with torch to have about 5/6th of the time in some kind of aura with the proper rotation.

Fix empathetic bond so all the ranger rerolls go back to where they came from, and I can run more interesting builds without auto-pilot.

daydream.2938:

4). Ranger, the ability to lay down several of the same traps over each other, doesnt feel like its working as intended and makes trebuchet ranger just a complete monster on map 3. PRetty much nobody can solo fight ftw at treb. Rangers aren’t op per se, so i wouldnt even care if they gave them a tiny buff when they adjusted this to compensate. But it makes bunker rangers/treb rangers a nightmare. Witness there ascension in the meta.

Just want to touch on this one for you. They are not double dropping trap, they place one (and the cooldown starts for the ability) when you trigger the traps they are then able to throw the traps again. So it may look like “double trap”, its using multiple cooldowns for it.

Sifu.6527:

Brett.4305:

While I was researching a new build, I checked the wiki to decide on a suitable
stun breaker. Every class has at least 4 (mesmer has 5.)
Rangers have two: Lightning Reflexes and Signet of Renewal.

I didn’t want Lightning Reflexes as i was building for sword/warhorn. (Sword 2 duplication.)
So why not Signet of Renewal ? (Pet is likely dead already.)

On two of my ranger builds, Lightning Reflexes does the trick. As I’m “in the rear with the
gear” stuns don’t bother much unless I’m stunned in a red circle.

Can anyone guess why we have so few(er) stun breaks ? Or am I understanding the dynamics of the class wrong?

B/c you have an awesome elite called rampage as one…

I am not sure if that was sarcasm or not, as many classes have 4 stun breaks and a higher uptime of stability coming from multiple abilities (meaning boon corruption and stealing affect it less). I would rather have RaO half duration and half CD.

jportell.2197:

Did noone here read the transcripts from the live stream with devs in short

“Mesmer portal is giving us problems looking at giving it to other classes”

I seriously hope this is not the plan. So instead of having to deal with one portal, people can run multiple classes that have access to a portal and rotate offnode easily. This is not the answer, Less access to free off node coverage is the answer not giving it to all classes this is a bad design decision. Things like keeping track of enemy numbers and locations should be rewarded and not “someone is contesting X” * 1 of 3 classes portals back * . I still think mobility needs to be cut back in order to allow for harsh penalties for misjudging the enemy numbers, or adding a bonus to misleading your enemy.

Ezmode.4279:

raptor.1064:

pretty sure pets gain none of your stats at all and that is one of the reasons they suck so much at max level stuff

I noticed my pet’s ability tooltips increase/decrease in value when swapping my gear around, both Power and Condition damage. Maybe it isn’t reflected on the stat values, but the tooltip seems to indicate that it is taken into account.

It is a bug, easiest way to test this is with shortbow 4 (pet bleeds for next few attacks) will not line up with what the tooltip displays for the bleed damage. You will also notice this bug when someone else links an ability to you it will display what that skill would do if the stats of your character were used not the one who linked it. I don’t believe that this will be fixed as they will have to modify the way every single person’s tooltip damage is done and most classes have errors still in the tooltips themselves.

mursie.3681:

Taym.8326:

Quite a few people in this thread have been completely outskilled by talented thieves, I think all we are missing is a screenshot of someone being killed by 17 hits of heartseeker. I honestly think the main problems with thief is that some of their strongest traits are tier 1 abilities, so they rarely have to choose between good traits. Something that should be looked at to at least make the class more balanced is to rework the trait for condition removal on stealth so that it does the ability after 3 seconds in stealth instead of once when you enter stealth and then again 3 seconds later. At least this way thieves will be forced to make decisions on if they should backstab as quickly as possible or wait and get the condi removal. (it would also make the trait to increase stealth time much stronger)

Taym, your comments do nothing but further cloud the reality of a thief. Please realize that the stealth condition removal trait is in the shadow arts (toughness) line. A GC thief that produces the screenshots above (which do not occur on a non-frenzied paper class) occur only due to being completely specced GLASS CANON with ZERO points in the shadow arts line. I had to respond to this because your entire argument is a contradiction. YOu note that thiefs don’t have to make choices because their traits are so easy to obtain…and then you highlight a trait that requires a tough choice to take… are you going to be GC to apply burst pressure… or shadow arts and something entirely different.

Nerf the thief backstab all you want. Go ahead, thieves in tpvp are already not a main composition priority and when you take away the ONLY thing they are currently brought to high end tpvp to do.. you will see no thieves. Seriously, let’s all just get it over with and play ele’s and guardians already.

I think you need some reading comprehension skills, the only place in which I refer to a “GC Thief” are my comments about how amazingly talented the players are to pull off those feats because of how completely unviable the build is. Secondly the comment I was trying to make was that quite a few of the thief tier 1 traits are too powerful allowing them to spec rather flexibly. I did not say “this trait is GC thief OP”, if I wanted to do that I could have just gone with mug but honestly how many times do we want to hash that one out.

Sidenote: 10 points into toughness means it cannot be glass cannon because it has 1k toughness instead of 916! And yes before you start going crazy, I am aware this talent is used mainly by attrition thieves.

Quite a few people in this thread have been completely outskilled by talented thieves, I think all we are missing is a screenshot of someone being killed by 17 hits of heartseeker. I honestly think the main problems with thief is that some of their strongest traits are tier 1 abilities, so they rarely have to choose between good traits. Something that should be looked at to at least make the class more balanced is to rework the trait for condition removal on stealth so that it does the ability after 3 seconds in stealth instead of once when you enter stealth and then again 3 seconds later. At least this way thieves will be forced to make decisions on if they should backstab as quickly as possible or wait and get the condi removal. (it would also make the trait to increase stealth time much stronger)

ryston.7640:

The problem is that they didnt deliver on all of the basics, and the gameplay isnt even all that fun. Plus, even if it were decent, they changed genres and didnt announce it. Gw2 will never be a deck builders strategy / team coordination game.

So basically anets lead developers are skritt kissers. (Good job to the environmental people though, the game is pretty… and the lore is interesting. Your gameplay is just uninteresting and your pvp is the worst of this.)

Actually I find the gameplay really fun, I also appreciate the amount of customization they have placed into the characters without making it like GW1 which I found uninteresting to play and spectate. Currently I wouldnt call GW2 a coordination game because burst is too high across the board, there are some small things for “team” but not to where it should be. The features will be there eventually and that is completely fine by me, nothing is released as a final product for MMO’s so why do we constantly expect it?

Bran.7425:

More of the issue of traits are how most effect the pet, but not the ranger and most of the ones that effect the ranger are weaker version of what other professions are given.

So if Anet wants to balance around the pet being up and active then they will have to re-balance how the pet interacts with the world. Better to make the ranger able to stand alone and have the pet be a mechanic that improves the ranger’s performance instead of the ranger being there to buff the pet.

Or how most of our survivability is tied in with sacrificing the pet (Protect me, Signet of Renewal, *Empathetic Bond) I would gladly take a reliable higher cooldown invuln similar to endure pain that does not play on the “Its a ranger so we have to put the pet somewhere in the ability”. The design of the class is too enamored with the pet, which is our class mechanic that should compliment the ranger’s strength not be a hinderance. Ranger is the only class that can have their class mechanic negatively impact their performance and should be re-evaluated, taking the pet survivability into account.

SAtaarcoeny.8476:

9. i just heard 1 team v 1 team will only be on 1 map? i hope that is not true. you need to put all 5 maps on a random or vote type thing.

1v1 Team will be implemented on one map (Temple of the silent storm) and will pretty much be a winner stays on type idea. It will also be implemented without a rating system, so it will not be balanced fights. The 1v1 team is also going to require tournament tickets to join. I have heard a few people talking about the 1v1 team thing VERY excitedly until they find out what map they will be stuck on. No one likes Temple’s mechanic and the verticality of the entire map will make certain classes in high demand.

The rating system will only be implemented in free tournaments witch is a huge mistake. The only way to properly make it work (especially on NA, due to lack of population) is to place it in the 1v1 team system where it will have a sufficiently large drawing pool to match people properly. I am not saying that the system can’t work in the tournament system, I am saying the amount of players currently playing will just break the system and you will have something similar to what happened on SWTOR with the implementation of their rating system (5 teams on one server did PvP and not every night, so it was usually one team at 2300~ and everyone else and >1000). Create the system for the people that play the game not for hopeful aspirations in the future. This is not field of dreams.

Durzlla.6295:

Um, it kinda hammers home the whole condition thing, what a lot of people don’t realize is that condition duration is A LOT stronger on conditions that don’t deal damage, AKA cripple, chill, vuln, blind, weakness, fear(we don’t really have much of that), and in some cases poison is better with condi duration than damage due to the whole it reduces healing thing.

And idk why having an adept lv trait that procs bleeding on crit -doesn’t- belong in the crit tree, you know, it kinda does damage REGARDLESS of if you have condi gear or not, and just because you put points in the crit tree doesn’t mean that you can’t wear condi gear, i know my condi build didn’t even have WS traits, and there’s always Rabid/Rampagers gear…

PS: Warhorn can easily be a condi weapon if you take Sharpened edges, you have a guaranteed 20% crit from Fury, and 35 condi damage from might, and then you have Hunters Call which hits like 16 times in the course of a 2 seconds or so, which even with mediocre crit can throw a ton of bleeding up really fast.

Actually one of the strongest things you can do for bleed stacking is increasing a low duration bleed (say a 3 second base crossfire to 4 seconds). It is also something that cannot be made up by adding condition damage. I agree that adding condition duration to non damage based conditions is great, but it affects damage conditions in the exact same way, and not LESS than condition damage. I am still confused as to why since duration does not mean anything would you want to swap the trap traits into marksmanship, do you think the traps synergize the best with power? No you are wanting it for the condition duration which is the exact same as my idea. However my idea would not affect the current main builds whereas yours would cause most traps rangers to change and gain useless minor traits for vulnerability which does not affect condis, and yay an auto crit. The largest issue with my idea is that non-trap condi rangers would have to rethink the build.

I never proposed moving the crit trait, I used it as more reasoning as why the skirmishing tree should be Critical % and Condition Duration (Marksmanship would be Power and Critical Dmg). In this way both lines are recieving benifiets matching their intended purpose. I also exclusively play PvP so its not something that can be just thrown on to gear, there are specific stats that you can take to tailor your armor to suit your exact needs.

So Warhorn when paired with a condition utility can be used as a condition weapon, how profound. however this utility can be used to its full effect without that offhand. Warhorn used to be a very good offhand for conditions (before the earth sigil timer) where with high crit it could be used to stack an ungodly amount of bleeds. However since the change it has been underwhelming, the fury might and swiftness is “good” but it can be obtained through weapon swapping traits by just changing weapons (which is what you would have to do anyway to get these weapons out). The bleed on crit itself is not on every crit either, it is a % chance even further lessening its effect. For example Crippling talon tooltip dmg is 422 (in my current spec) with 6 second cripple and a 3 stack of bleeds lasting for 11 seconds, whereas the total tooltip damage for the bird call is 976. (using 50% crit and 100% chance to add a 1 second bleed on crit bleed tick for 109) Using these numbers you will get the 16 bird giving you a total of 2238.4 damage in a condition spec, whereas crippling talon from dagger would give you a total of 4242.3 damage. Just for the sake of fun lets say all 16 hits crit and apply a bleed stack, Bird damage would then skyrocket to a gigantic total of 3500.8 versus Crippling Talon’s 4465.6. The utility can be disregarded as it will add the da/mage regardless of weapon choice. You can even do a quick thing to check for comparison and just take the condi damage portions for a quick comparison (3 bleeds for 11 seconds… 33 bleed ticks, 16 atks 50% chance to bleed for 1 second is 8 bleeds). The best rebuttal you have is for the addition of might (35 condi damage and power), 35 condition damage is roughly equal to 5/3 extra dmg per bleed. Another thing which I did not factor in is the cooldown of both abilities which is Crippling Talon’s 18 second CD vs Hunters call 25 second CD.

Calc’s Used:
1.8 = crit damage multiplier
Hunters Call: 976*(1-Crit Chance) + 976*1.8*Crit Chance + Bleed Dmg*16*Crit Chance*Chance to Bleed on Crit
Crippling Talon: 422*(1-Crit Chance) + 422*Crit Chance*1.8 + 11*3*Bleed Dmg + Bleed Dmg*Crit Chance*Chance to Bleed on Crit

Udolpho.1209:

People have been using wood for material for a long time. Tables turned!

I am not sure if the “tables turned” part was supposed to be part of the joke, but if it was excellent job sir.

Durzlla.6295:

i personally think that ALL the trap traits should be moved to Marksman and ALL the signet traits should be moved to Skirmishing, that just makes more sense to me.

I am personally more of a fan of swapping marksmanships condition duration for skirmishings critical damage. This would allow there to be a point of having a crit to bleed skill in skirmishing. This would also allow condition spec’d rangers to have access to swiftness (Warhorn is a power weapon) and fury which is severly lacking. When you compare these minor traits to Opening strikes (5 stacks of vulnerability) for you and your pet and opening strikes are always criticals its obvious that Marksmanship is not the place for conditions. Swapping the sub stat bonus’ for Marksmaship and Skirmishing will also minimally impact most of the developed builds as power usually spec’s far into both Marksman and Skirmishing (20/25/20/0/5).

Not really the same complaint as you but…

I always thought it was wierd that since the sylvari have these glowing patches of skin everywhere that their racial armor would take this into effect and find ways to show it off. As I wear medium armor on my character I always thought it was strange that no armor set even attempts to show this (other than leather which looks less than satisfactory). It also bothers me that similarity between nightmare gear and sylvari cultural armor, It is pretty much sylvari racial armor for every race which is a disapointment. I am secretly hoping the entire set gets reworked though

I guess it just makes all that character customization on glow etc in vain because the only glowing patch I ever get to see is the hairstyle option glow and that is really sad because the character models look great, I just want armor to compliment it instead of cover it.

Well, you cannot really nerf the conditions themselves, so that leaves the duration and cooldown to nerf (lets face it they won’t nerf 83 dmg on the physical dmg omg!). Duration for the traps are instant (spike trap), 3 seconds (fire+poison) or 5 seconds (no dmg frost trap). Pretty much if anything does get nerfed for ours it will be the cooldown.

PvP only as I do not play anything else

Pet F2 Activation time should not be instant, but should be much more reasonable. Drakes should be looked at (the cone ones) will never hit in PvP as a near 3 second charge will cause even the worst of players to have moved out of position unintentionally. Perhaps what they need is F2 to bypass the queing system similar to how dodge’s work so there is no “pre-delay” before the ability.

Pet rez timer, should stay the same. I feel in its current state it punishes the ranger adequately for letting their pet die. However I feel the player should be able to rez their pet out of combat to speed things up a little (only the owner)

I disagree with your trait realignments as this would mean that any player using traps would no longer be able to take Empathetic Bond. I instead propose that the sub traits of Markmanship (Condition Duration) and Skirmishing (Critical Damage) be swapped in position to make skirmishing line a hybrid condi/crit line like it appears it was meant to be. This will also have minimal impact on existing builds both power and condi.

The Shortbow bleed mechanic is fine as it is, there is a 30 degree arc to the front of any mob or player that it will not trigger a bleed. What you propose is a major nerf to compotent condition shortbow players.

Sword auto attack ability number 2 (kick) stops the player from moving for no real reason.

Utilities:

Protect Me: Good in theory, however in practical PvP the pet will instantly die usually taking double damage from all attack due to splash mechanics (and he comes right beside you). It lasts one second longer than a warriors endure pain, but it is not reliable at all. I don’t mind the fact that using this ability stops the pet from attacking for the duration (-40% dps loss) but it also is designed to hurt the pet. There are too many negative effects associated with this ability.

Guard: Useless, pets cannot contest nodes… all this is is… cute.

Search and Rescue: Cannot determine target, it goes after the nearest dead person.

Sick Em: Underwhelming considering it relies on an AI

Spirits: Give short duration buff that does not cover the recharge of the ability. recharge of the ability takes place after the creature dies.

Quickening Zephyr: Is the only quickness ability that does not also break stun. but keeps similar attributes to the rest including same cooldown and a negative effect.

Sharpening Stone: Ticks are lost on each missed attack, and using either a splitblade or poison volley exhausts all the chargest but only places one bleed.

Signets: Should not have to have a 30 point trait in a power line to be useful.
wild: Pet stability is not useful
stone:Pet taking no damage is not useful
renewal:The best untraited signet, however this is dwarfed by empathetic bond so it is not very useful, it also has a very high chance to kill your pet.

Frost Trap: Does no damage and is a 5 second duration chill field on a 30(24) second cooldown. this usually only gets one tick (when spec’d a 2 second chill) on a player which is pretty much a waste of a utility slot. The only strength is when you can use a blast finish partner on it, however since rangers have no access to blast finishers it means you have to have someone hold your hand to use it properly. One leap only goes so far.

Fire Trap: Excellent trap low cooldown allows for many uses of fire shields with a leap finisher. Its low duration also keeps its waste in check.

Spike Trap: Cripple seems rather low duration, and its bonus to the trapping traits make the bleeding double its duration when it should double the amount of bleeds. Due to the amount of cleansing in game the bonus from trapping traits barely increases its effectiveness.

Viper’s Nest: Not up to par with spike and fire trap, not sure where they were going with this one as ranger has many sources of poison already. (poison volley ~ 10s – 9s CD, Serpent Strike ~7s – 15s CD, Stalker’s Strike ~10s – 10s CD)

Elites:
RaO:Decent ability, however due to the low amount of buffs a ranger has for itself it is easily stolen/corrupted. It is also a very obvious skill making countering it simple.
Entangle:Too many ways to escape an entangle, you can cleanse, use evades while in the roots, kill the roots, or any teleport. Not to mention that any knockbacks from allies remove people from this effect. It is also not easy to land on top of all of these drawbacks it is not where it should be in effectiveness.
Spirit of Nature:Spirit’s Rez is too obvious and pet does not have stability. the spirit also has a low HP pool.

These are my opinions only

Mithir.7460:

that doesnt make much sense. you lose quickness time by activating quickness mid skill but you dont gain quickness time if it runs out midskill.

It is just how the ability is handled, to maximize it you almost need to stop auto-attacking then tap quickness and an attack ability, however abilities with longer durations of quickness are less prone to this problem.

Acandis.3250:

It seems that when I try to quickness stop someone, the stomp doesn’t actually happen until ~1 second after the animation is over.

So if I want to qstomp someone successfully I have to sit still after the animation until I get text confirmation.

Not sure if this is a glitch or maybe I’m doing something wrong.

It is not “Really” bugged, the problem that most people have is when quickness runs out midway through the stomp and how it is handled. The most obvious of these is short duration quickness from the ranger to quickness stomp which just barely covers the full stomp time. This is similar to starting quickness midway through a skill which will not haste the second half of the ability causing you to lose part of your quickness. The problem is when the quickness runs out mid stomp the ability reverts to its normal timer, and has the miss aligned animation and stomp time.

TLDR: Your quickness is running out mid stomp.

For all of you claiming exploits look up the kit refinement trait. When swapping to grenade kit (with a CD) it throws a grenade barrage at your feet.

English, it is a horrible language. However if we are not talking about school, that I will change my answer to middle class as they spend so much time complaining about the upper class, when with a hard work and effort they can move themselves up to upper class. They also feel the need to spend crazily which also cements them into their middle class mediocrity. Most of the things that keep them in their positions are small daily purchases and additions such as coffee or smoking.

Xeph.4513:

Personally I think that this is a good change, I have always found weapon swapping outside of combat to be rather cheesy; it offered mobility to classes the otherwise didn’t have access to it, it also means that people will now start thinking about new builds or picking up different traits to deal with this change.
It will be a nice meta game shake up, one that has been long over due, I know that this change has upset a lot of people, but I find it rather refreshing. I believe that this is how it was intended to be from the start, and I do understand that certain classes will be hurt by this more than others, but than again it will be interesting to see how teams adapt to these changes.
I just want to say that no meta game stays the same, there always needs to be a shake up to keep things fresh and interesting, things get stagnant if they remain the same for too long.
Also if you don’t want people knowing what your strats are and what you are running, than streaming is a bad choice, I know that its sad but you can’t really have your cake and eat it.
All in all, I just wanted to say that I think this is a good change, and I always thought that this change would be coming earlier, but its good that its finally here.

I also agree with the change to lock things down, but moreso to a controlled degree. This can also make things such as “composition loss” happen when you jump into a game and that is never good for something trying to reach a level of compeition. In most competative games there is a flow to the game in which one team attempts to counter what the other team is doing. In LoL this is done by what items they create, and although I think weapon swapping + utility swapping between each fight was a little much I don’t think it should be entirely eliminated.

So I thought to myself, what would be a nicer alternative to still allow for some diversity when a game starts. And I think today I finally came to an answer that might be acceptable to both “extremes” of this argument. First off I believe trait + armor/amu swapping should stay locked the full game, however I believe the respawn area should allow the swapping of weapons and utilities to try and adjust your teams build after a death to fend off “whatever” suprise the enemy has done. This would also allow for commentators to read strategy changes in the match and perhaps make it much more interesting for the viewers. I also think that simply allowing for utility swaps only for the full match is unfair due to certain classes (engie) having their kits replace their main weapons allowing for a higher ability for adaptation than other classes. Anyway those are just my thoughts

Has anyone noticed that when you use an instant stun break (signet of renewal – ranger) the ability to dodge is still restricted until the stone animation disappears? I am still able to use abilities and move around but dodging does not appear to work. Would love to have someone from A-net inform me of this. Thanks!

Well I have to say I am rather saddened by the response of most of these posts. When the ability properly works alongside the fact that pet abilities and swaps are usable when downed gives the ranger almost every single win in a close fight. The combo is usually done in this way, you use your downed 2, swap to dog (1/2 after stomp starts) and he uses his knockdown, after he gets up you start the channel of the fear. at this point the downed 2 ability has reset and in any close fight vs a glass cannon they will be down. The pet can then be used to revive yourself faster than any one class can dps you its around a 1k per tick (a tick is faster than a second, around 1/2 a second I would guess). In a 1v1 scenario this is quite strong. I am not advocating for a gigantic nerf to the ability something between what it was before the downed health change this patch and what it is now. I only say this because rez is a % based heal of your total, meaning HP stacking would gain you more HP/s. When the HP pool was increased this was already a buff to lick wounds adding an additional bonus to this may have increased its performance beyond the scope of what it should be.

I am also not saying the ability works everytime because it does not. Even after multiple patches, it still bugs out quite a few times. I am saying when the ability DOES work, it is operating waay to powerfully. Perhaps it can be modified in such a way that it does not scale with the HP of the ranger and that will allow for a more balanced feel of the ability.

With all of that said in a group fight it is not as strong as an elementalists or thief’s downed state, but in a non group setting it is very ridiculous. Every single class has weakness and strength in their downed abilities and I am not saying “remove pet healing” I am saying make it slightly lower as it is too high. If you don’t understand well, that is unfortuneate that you cannot comprehend the problem.

When it works right now it is much too powerful, you might want to tone it down a few notches. I believe this is due to the health increase and lick wound buff at the same time but the heal just feels “a bit” over the top. Also, I wish to know that if the pet is rez’d by the ability if it is supposed to revive you, just don’t want to report something if its working as intended. Thanks!

Cribbage.2056:

They added sigils to kits and nerfed Grenade damage by 30%. Find me a build where the sigil portion of the damage you are getting from kits is worth 30%.

For obvious reasons, the benchmark impact of sigils can be taken to be a 5% damage increase. That means that the portion of your damage coming from kits has been boosted by 5% (or equivalent cond/utility). How many viable tPvP specs use kits for a large amount of their damage?

Add in the HGH changes and you might want to say “WoW maybe I can play a jug build on my FT now.” To which I say, good luck – you’ll need it.

However, that is a discussion better left to the Engi forum.

also, there is no downside to using a “weapon swap sigils” whereas other classes need to weigh “is now an okay time to swap from melee to ranged”. on geomancy with any condi duration it gives you pretty much a perma uptime of 3 additional bleeds.

Dagins.5163:

How is this 4D environment?

I heard something about time time being a dimension.

Personally, I feel that if they decide to unlock utilities then the need to unlock weapons as well. My reasoning for this is due to elementalists, engineers, and thieves. All three of these classes have little to no issues with mobilities and are either weapon locked in combat, or have so few weapons to choose from that they will have access to high mobility without many changes.

Firstly touching on the elementalist, their class mechanic gives them far more skills that almost every other class available per weapon. This allows then to have an easy time with mobility and uptime with almost every set giving these buffs. A weapon lock has little to no effect on them, as it does not hinder them other than perhaps using staff speed to run between points but its not REALLY needed.

The engineer has the ability to have perma swiftness (and vigor) on bundle swaps, this is firstly REALLY good for mobility but then engie has further advantage if utilities are unlocked but weapons are not. Engies have no available mobility into their basic weapon design, so locking those changes nothing out of combat, however their utilities which replace their weapons can allow for a much better “adaptation” parameter than will be experienced by any other class.

Thief is the similar to the others but for a different reason. The initiative system does not promote the swapping of weapons so their second weapon is usually made for mobility or AoE, luckily this is the exact same weapon (shortbow). The weapon lock will not change mobility as thieves can spec for run speed on dodge roll so mobility remains extremely high.

Where does this leave the rest of us. Rangers have no out of combat access to swiftness without taking war horn (which was already a staple for power, and even though it wasn’t a condi weapon some condi players take it anyway), this will make more players use this weapon meaning less build diversity in rangers. The other two weapons for ranger which allow for larger mobility is greatsword and short sword, which are both mostly power based weapons. Power mobile, condition not?

Warriors greatsword, shortsword and war horn, Mesmers focus, necro warhorn, guardian staff and I am sure you get the picture. I am all for creating something which puts more of a stress on player skill and build flexibility, however only allowing utility swapping definately benifits the three mentioned classes in terms of mobility and adaptability. I just hope the developers do lock everything, or remove the weapon restrictions so we are all in the same boat so to speak.

SuperCrab.5836:

Ranger

Counterattack Kick: This skill now has the same melee arc as other melee attacks.
Dart: This skill is now a leap finisher.
Swirling Strike: This skill is now a whirl finisher.
Shouts will now apply a buff to the ranger’s pet, to make the skills more visible.
Sick ’Em: Decreased the duration to 10 seconds. Increased the damage and move speed from 25% to 40%.
Search & Rescue: Increased the revive rate for this ability.
Search & Rescue: Increased pet movement speed to 25% while under the effects of this shout.
Lick Wounds: Revive rate has been increased.
Signet of the Hunt: Increased the passive movement from 10% to 25%.
Splinter Shot: This skill is no longer able to fire at enemies behind the player.
Compassion Training: Increased the heal amount from 300 to now scale as high as 350 at max level.
Nature’s Protection: Now triggers at 10% damage instead of 20%.
Expertise Training" Increased the amount of condition damage from 100 to now scale as high as 350 at max level.
Moment of Clarity: Now also increases daze and stun duration by 50%.
Beastmaster’s Bond: Now triggers at 50% instead of 25%.
Increased the velocity of arrows fired from Short Bow and Longbow skills by 30%.
Icy Screech: The White Moa activated ability now applies three seconds of chill, which the tooltip now correctly reflects.
Opening Strikes: These now work at any range.
Updated Sun Spirit’s skill fact to include the burning proc duration.
Updated Stone Spirit’s skill fact to include the protection proc duration.
Updated Storm Spirit’s skill fact to include the swiftness proc duration.
Ranger melee pets now have improved melee attacks so they can hit moving targets more easily.

Free and Paid tournaments now have a new build-locking feature. When the countdown timer completes, players will no longer be able to change weapons, armor, skills, or traits until the match is over. This will prevent players from abusing build-swapping between fights.

Lick wounds: didn’t need a buff it just needed to work, so if it actually works this may be too powerful with the downed state HP increase in sPvP.

Nature’s Protection: Dropping it down to 10% makes this skill actually look viable to take. This is a rather huge change that will also help with the missing protection that the ranger suffers from.

Expertise Training: kittenage bleeds from a lynx, still horrible.

Moment of Clarity: added stun/daze duration for our greatsword (1 sec daze/stun 30 sec cd) and our shortbow (1 sec daze/stun 25 sec cd). to be rather blunt this entire trait should be removed and/or reimagined, rangers have an insufficient amount of stuns/dazes/interupts to take advantage of this trait.

Increased Veloctiy: Haven’t noticed that much of a difference because I have not had to time to play much with it yet, but any speed increase is amazing. Maybe I won’t have to fire my stun to interupt their heals before they cast it so it might stop it!

Ranger pet attacks: It seems much better, some pets still seem to track a specific “side” of the enemy which is quite bad, but when crippled it seems like all the pets now hit 90% of the time which is a big bonus.

Build Lock: Largest nerf to rangers in this patch, it hits rangers in the mobility. Condition rangers could in the past run with warhorn in the backpack to gain movement speed out of combat as well as using sword and greatsword leaps to make it between a point fairly quick. As rangers do not have access to swiftness outside of combat without a warhorn this is a HUGE nerf. I do agree that armor, traits, and utilities should be locked but weapons should not have been among them. Personally I use a short sword so it wont be as bad for me, but this pretty much puts condi rangers with the same mobility as necro with less survivability. The largest issue I see is that non-greatsword warriors and rangers had their roaming capabilities severely nerfed whereas thieves (who were already much faster) remained untouched. I believe the developers should monitor this situation VERY closely with an option to re-appeal weapon swapping in the future.

The ranger class combines its own innate abilities with the skills of their pets. We’ve balanced the class around the idea that you always have a pet with you to aid in any fight. The fact that the ranger can have multiple pets allows them to combine their pets in ways that most impact the current fight. We want the Ranger to have some of the evasion enjoyed by the Thief, as well as the mobility other classes employ. The class is able to deal physical or condition damage, and it can do this in melee or at range.

Send your pet out, have it turn around because the target is charging you then use the ability. Also kite infront of it so it does not have to move, it takes a lot of work to get used to but once you do it is really satisfying. The other trick to get it to use its ability almost instantly is to call it to return-then attack-then f2 in rapid succession and it will cancel any move it is trying to do. I do agree the charge up times are a little crazy but the river drakes attack is far to powerful to be instant, there are some weak abilities (such as fire, frost, and that new drake) which are just horrible in PvP as it has a large charge up and tiny cone.

OGDeadHead.8326:

Taym.8326:

I don’t understand the people expressing negative thoughts about keen edge. Other than the splitblade bug this ability will apply 5 bleeds for 6 seconds each (+condi duration) which at a base level is 1500 damage, which is not bad at all. For a condition spec’d player this damage would increase to 4280 damage over 8 seconds. Although it may not be a strong ability for a straight power build it is a strong ability for the condi lines.

It’s a decent trait in it’s current form, but since the trait belongs in the pool of abilities that you have no real control over, that’s the reason for my suggested buff. How does it compare to steady focus in your opinion?

In steady focus’ current form there is no reason to take it (for tpvp) as you will never have full endurance for more than a few seconds at the start of a fight. Whereas for the bleeds that is at least the promise of damage in either a power or condi build, the 10% damage also does not affect conditions meaning its only viable for power builds. From a power point of view I would say that both skills are not that attractive. Like I have said keen’s edge is nearly a 5k bump in damage for condition, if you add something like quickness to that it should belong in the thief tree for how OP it is. We should also remember that these abilities are in the first slot and should not be hugely powerful.

I don’t understand the people expressing negative thoughts about keen edge. Other than the splitblade bug this ability will apply 5 bleeds for 6 seconds each (+condi duration) which at a base level is 1500 damage, which is not bad at all. For a condition spec’d player this damage would increase to 4280 damage over 8 seconds. Although it may not be a strong ability for a straight power build it is a strong ability for the condi lines.

bri.2359:

I have a base crit chance of 43% and this goes up to over 50% with a full stack of precision from my longbow and axe sigils of accuracy.

I consider my crit chance too low to use any sigil that has a 30% chance of triggering off a crit, and if it does trigger, then there is the 5 sec cooldown.

So, I assume all the players using these sigils are running power/precision builds with full berserker amour, weapons and accessories to have a decent chance of the sigil triggering during a fight.

I am curious to know often these sigils trigger for players not running such a build.

The proc on crit abilities actually tend to work quite well, I have around a 22% crit normal and on weapon swap (fury traited) it pops to 42% (which is still lower than your crit rating) and they proc fairly often. But yes running air/fire would usually be for a power/prec build. 30% proc change with 43% chance to crit yields a 12.9% chance to proc the ability which is still great.

Higher ROF weapons with high crit chance actually suffers as they could possibly string more hits together, but say using a shortbow with a mid level crit rating gives a really fast attack speed witch increases it chances to proc dramatically. Just looking at it rationally the shortbow attacks at least twice every second just under 10 attacks is where “theoretically” it should proc by. This means that every 5 seconds you can expect another proc with a shortbow. Increase this number when using the longbow, however rapid fire and a few others increase the fire speed. Its really up to you to decide if that is a decent proc rate or not.

Daemon.4295:

Superior sigil of agony, always. +10% bleed duration is great on sb.

Depends on the build, shortbow has only the crossfire bleed (3 second base, usually 4s on any build normally) in order to make it a 5 second bleed and make any difference you need to run 25 into marksmanship and grab 2 krait, 2 affliction at least. Otherwise it is just a waste, crippling shot does not bleed using your statistics although the tooltip changes with it its based on pet stats and pet condition damage.

But anyway, if the OP could post what build he is running I could make a few suggestions based on that. But some really safe sigils are rage (quickness proc on crit), Battle (3 stacks of might for 20 seconds on weapon swap) or sigil of earth (60% chance to proc bleed for 5s w/ a 5s internal CD) [minigripe: this CD punishes fast attacking classes more than slow condi classes ex-neco vs ranger]. If you play more aggresive condition (meaning close up to enemies and constant weapon swap) geomancy is a good pick as well. Energy is also a good pick if you want to be a little bit safer but like being in the thick of things swapping weapons rather regularily.

Prepare to join my trait fixing ideas in the suggestion forums that I posted yesterday TT. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Condition-Trap-Ranger-Trait-suggestions/first#post985162
Minor Trait tweaks:
Master – that means every 16 (traited) or 20 seconds we apply a passive 10 stack of vulnerability that lasts for around 10 seconds itself. at least 50% uptime on a 10% bonus damage that self applies is much to powerful and belongs in a 5 point thief ability.

Major trait tweaks:
Eagle Eye – they are reworking projectile speed, wait for it.
Steady Focus – should be when endurance is not full or at least “when above 50%” as in PvP 100% endurance is never a possibility.
Keen’s Edge – would be too powerful, keep it as is
Signet of the beastmaster – Much too strong, also this would trigger off the first pet swap so using this would delay pet swapping and double signet use in a short period of time (like 12 seconds of damage immunity and double use of stability).

I really think signets should have been originally designed to affect the player by default without going 30 points into marksmanship and taking a grandmaster trait. No other class has 3 of their utilities have no effect on the player like this (as well as many shouts not aiding the player as well).

Miniside rant: A classes specific ability should be a suppliment to the class, not something that parasitically weakens the player, it should also not be something that can significantly strengthen a weaker player. Due to how many traits are thrown into a rangers class trees (in beastmastery and every other tree) rangers miss out on many other options for strengthening their character. I also think that the pet should scale with stats from the player as a nerf will become imminent when you can build tank with high dps pets. This also falls in line with pets complimenting the playstyle of the ranger.

I would also like to know how chill affects a thief as it does not have a recharge rate. Does it affect initiative recharge or are the simply immune to chill’s second effect?

I have hit a brick wall on the diversity for trap rangers, and the main cause of this has been the traits themselves. These opinions are for the PvP side of the game as that is where I spend most of my time. The problems that trap rangers have (only trait ones not the teleporting trap problem) are mainly with the distribution of bonus stats in the trait lines, as well as how trap potency is laid out.

Firstly, The trait line issue that affect build diversity for trap rangers is the fact that the trap line is contained in a line that only rewards power style builds. There are traps that do well not going condition (such as frost trap, which only really benifits form condi duration, or poison in which the damage is minor but the heal debuff is what is important), and due to this it should only be something that is minorly changed. I think the least “horrible” change would be to trade the position of the marksmanships condition duration with the Skirmishing critical damage, this would allow more options for condition (attrition style players) to become more “tankish” or “condition” heavy. Currently the 30 locked down points in skirmishing would lead to either diminishing condi damage in favor of more condi duration or vice versa while closing off nature magic or further than 5 ventures into beastmastery.

The second issue which always hit me sourly was trap potency, the trap cooldown is not the part I feel bad about, it is conditions caused by traps that last twice as long. I would have prefered this to double the conditions on the traps as this would make spike trap much more effective (6 bleeds for 7 seconds better than 3 bleeds for 14 b/c of condition cleansing) It would not diminish the trap when used out of a trap build, but would make the ability much stronger than a non-traited trap. This will also not affect the duration of the other traps/abilities due to the way in which they stack in duration.

Anyway I would like to hear what fellow rangers think (condition or power) of these ideas. I would like to hear about power’s thoughts on how the first change idea would affect their builds. I would also like to hear if you think I am an idiot and if I should feel bad.

HappinessFactory.4910:

I’m not looking to tryout but So you’ll have to forgive me but… Ranger?

I’d love to know your reasons for wanting to run ranger if you’re serious sataar

He’s trying to make another team that he can farm in paids, easiest way is to make a bad team comp (jk)

Edenwolf.6328:

What exactly does opening strikes do, I’ve always wondered.

5 stacks of vulnerability for 5 seoncds, but its usually augmented further by the top tree condition duration and by anything else a ranger takes (usually 6-7 seconds). The pet also applies opening strikes at 15 marksman giving the ranger 10 stacks of vuln to give to an enemy at the start of a fight.

Okay now we just need one with your pet chasing and your bow at the same time. We also need one with them strafing back and forth while your pet attacks as well.

It has done this pretty much since release, the traps themselves do not teleport unless you take the trait though. Once I actually had this work in my favor when I was knocked off middle node and someone ran over my traps at side node and placed the trap right o nthe middle, was quite hilarious. But yes, this bug, or a variant of it has been in the game for over 2 months https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Ranger-Bug-List/page/3#post240719 .

The original incarnation would allow the first tick to hit before teleporting but 3 of the traps have been changed since then to teleport without hitting, whereas the spike trap remained the same. Also if you do not take the throw trap trait the traps do not teleport at all, so thats just how it is I suppose.

RyuDragnier.9476:

I didn’t even know of this supposed bug. Hell, I never saw it in action.

It was posted in the ranger bug list quite some time ago, you could have played with it if you wanted to.

nldixon.8514:

Durzlla.6295:

blud.8174:

Arrys.7145:

Taym.8326:

racta.4250:

HOLD ON!!!!!

They actually stealth fixed “Opening Strikes”

It works at all ranges now AND works with all long bow abilities.

Thats actually a really really nice fix for longbow. Starting a fight with 20% vulnerability on people, I’ve been blowing them up!

Check for more stealth fixes imo

The lizard pets now properly apply it too, that is an unexpected change. It also no longer disappears on missed hits, so you are promised a 10 stack of vulnerability. Thats fairly huge.

Does the quick math. 10% endurance full, + 10% FLanking, +10% thief armor runes also flanking, 20% penetration + 5% weapon damage, (10% spirit 35% of time) = 165% damage potential to open a fight pre crit? 145% not flanking 135% reliably…..

OMG……….

Can someone explain this to me? Opening strike gives 5 stacks of vulnerability, each stack is 1% so that’s 5%, right? I’m not following the bonuses listed here…

You AND the pet put up 5 stacks, then there’s hunters shot which is 20% total, plus all of his other bonuses plus his force signet and then if you got 25+ points in marks its a guaranteed crit for you and pet on opening… Lets just say I have a strong feeling rangers are gonna have some OP as hell burst builds coming in soon…

How? It didn’t work as a burst ability before, it’s still not going to work now. The only change was that Opening Strike actually works past 600 units now (or was it 900 units?). It’s still working exactly as it did before, it just works at longer range.

It sounds good, it’s just (still) not that great of a solo ability.

Now, in a group situation it’s pretty nice. Increasing damage from everyone by 20% nearly instantly is pretty huge. The only real flaw is that if there is anybody else also building for vulnerability, you’re both rendered slightly less effective, since it only stacks to 25.

There was one more change to opening strikes, it procs off the first hit, not the first attack. Meaning it can no longer be obstructed etc, and the pets now also have the same buff. So that is for sure going to land at some point which is a large bonus to damage.

racta.4250:

HOLD ON!!!!!

They actually stealth fixed “Opening Strikes”

It works at all ranges now AND works with all long bow abilities.

Thats actually a really really nice fix for longbow. Starting a fight with 20% vulnerability on people, I’ve been blowing them up!

Check for more stealth fixes imo

The lizard pets now properly apply it too, that is an unexpected change. It also no longer disappears on missed hits, so you are promised a 10 stack of vulnerability. Thats fairly huge.

This was a huge bug, per trap utility you could place two traps of the same traps (out of combat) by just swapping out the tier 2 trapper trait. It needed to be fixed and was in since the beggining of the game. Although not many people used it, or tried to exploit it.

I don’t see why there is any reason to be upset, we were not told to expect december 3rd patch notes to contain anything for class balance nor for ranger. Calm down and put down the torch and pitchfork.

Quarktastic.1027:

I’ve been using traited traps for a long time. and I have never once encountered this issue.

Edit: Spike trap also doesn’t have a timer. I’ve dropped a spike trap in Lion’s Arch only to have it still be there 10 minutes later.

The issue is way more apparent in sPvP when you can leave your traps somewhere to slow an enemy down. In PvE you normally run mobs into your traps and in WvW there are so many people around your trap may as well be a grenade. If you play in one of those two game modes primarily that is probably why you have no experienced it.

Evan Lesh.3295:

I want to hop in and say that while this bug is proving near impossible to reproduce on our machines, we hope our fixes going out today will finally take care of it.

I’m sure community volinteers that experience this bug rather often wouldn’t mind volinteering some time to test the patch since it appears that it could be latency dependant. The only time I seem to get it is when I am experiencing lag from downloads or that specific time of the day that the game lags everyday, so low latency might make it impossible to in house test.

Its a nice bug that props up in the last map quite a bit. What seems to work is after you find that you have the “network issue” stop clicking go now, just leave it up. When the countdown ends it will port you inside, if you keep on clicking go now you will be locked out for the entire game. Also if you get booted from the game you will be unable to get back into it as well. As for the tournament rewards not showing up, they only appear on a map change. So after the full tournament is over a character swap or map change should give you the chest.

Swap the pipe and the door, annnnd done. However there are more issues with infiltrators arrow than simply jumping past the door, vertical travel in unintended places etc give them the ability to disengage really simply with their already slippery arsenal. It is also the shortest cooldown teleport in the game due to the initiative system, perhaps if the vertical travel issues and teleporting through walls cannot be fixed then perhaps the initiative cost should be re-evaluated.

Jumper.9482:

Not sure if serious. We have 5v5 hotjoin but it is vastly unpopular compared to 8v8.

it might be due to the higher amount of glory available from 8v8’s shrug