Guild Wars 2

For PvE you can give out tons of alacrity and quickness which comes out to more overall damage than another ele in addition to being able to do things like reflect/projectile destruction, condition removal, portal etc.

venusiano.8246:

Considering that the invulnerability from Blurred Frenzy was removed and Distortion only last for 1s, whilst the other professions have invulnerabilities for at least 3 or 4s, I think Distortion should have a duration of at least 2s (not asking to have the same as other classes. That would be too balanced).

With 3 clones out that would grant 8 seconds of distortion >.<

I think the devs said somewhere that this skill was already in a good place just like shelter so they decided not to change it.

Rich Fuel.7253:

alot of people complain that the shiny graphics of the the game and the explosives are preventing them to see what the boss is doing…… i had no problem what saw all
i dont understand even video of people doing the raids and saying they cant see i thing, i see everything in their screen, its them who are looking or waiting for/at the wrong thing

No, there really is too many shiny things all over the place. To the point you can’t even see the DIRECTION mossman is facing yet alone his animations. It just depends on your comp and what weapons for how hard it is. I frequently don’t even know the direction mossman is facing.

Trice.4598:

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Trice.4598:

Griffith.7238:

Jam Clock Eye.4329:

Griffith.7238:

So can we pause arguing with Mitch for like 2 sec and answer my question about buff distribution? =D

Haha sorry, I meant to answer this too but I was a little caught up. Buffs work by subgroups. Each subgroup gets priority with their members boons. So if subgroup 1 has 2 revs and 3 other people while subgroup 2 has 3 revs and 2 other people, that’ll stagger the boons amongst those 10 players. But if Subgroup 1 has all 5 revs, well that’s wasted boons seeing as they’re all in the same grouping. If a subgroup has JUST 2 revs, they’ll give the boons to each other, then whatever may spill over will spill over by whoever is closest. Similarly if there is everyone in the same subgroup, it’ll just priorty by whoever is closest.

Ah ok thanks for the info. I’m assuming you guys didn’t have access to these subgroups since they are presumably apart of the Squad system which you guys weren’t able to utilize for the VG kill?

Exactly, at some point during our kill, the tank ask for protection, so 2 revenant get closer to him with facet of chaos to make sure he gets the boon, which we wouldn’t need if we had squad boon priority. However since we were rotating a lot during the kill, everyone was getting might fury and swiftness maxed out without having to much problem.

I thought I remembered Anet saying somewhere boons preferred your sub squad first. Am I just misremembering or something? Or can’t you get sub squads in raids? If I am misremembering I would totally love for boons to prefer your sub squad.

EDI: kitten

Yes sub squad is prioritize, so you can make sure boons are shared the way you want. We didn’t have access to squad UI so we couldn’t make sub squad :P.

Yeah I saw that like 10 seconds after posting and I was like de*p.

Trice.4598:

Griffith.7238:

Jam Clock Eye.4329:

Griffith.7238:

So can we pause arguing with Mitch for like 2 sec and answer my question about buff distribution? =D

Haha sorry, I meant to answer this too but I was a little caught up. Buffs work by subgroups. Each subgroup gets priority with their members boons. So if subgroup 1 has 2 revs and 3 other people while subgroup 2 has 3 revs and 2 other people, that’ll stagger the boons amongst those 10 players. But if Subgroup 1 has all 5 revs, well that’s wasted boons seeing as they’re all in the same grouping. If a subgroup has JUST 2 revs, they’ll give the boons to each other, then whatever may spill over will spill over by whoever is closest. Similarly if there is everyone in the same subgroup, it’ll just priorty by whoever is closest.

Ah ok thanks for the info. I’m assuming you guys didn’t have access to these subgroups since they are presumably apart of the Squad system which you guys weren’t able to utilize for the VG kill?

Exactly, at some point during our kill, the tank ask for protection, so 2 revenant get closer to him with facet of chaos to make sure he gets the boon, which we wouldn’t need if we had squad boon priority. However since we were rotating a lot during the kill, everyone was getting might fury and swiftness maxed out without having to much problem.

I thought I remembered Anet saying somewhere boons preferred your sub squad first. Am I just misremembering or something? Or can’t you get sub squads in raids? If I am misremembering I would totally love for boons to prefer your sub squad.

EDI: kitten lol de*p is apparently a bad word?

Fay.2357:

It’s not that Chronomancer is overwhelmingly better than base Mesmer, it’s that base Mesmer just sucks.

It’s not that chronomancer is way better than base mesmer, it’s just that mesmer sucks and chrono is really good! Sry, couldn’t help it. And I wouldn’t say base mesmer sucks, tho it definitely isn’t ele tier. But with HoT, I feel like chrono is gonna put warriors buffing ability’s to shame while doing close to guard lvl support in PvE while being the last guy alive in the event of a wipe. I almost feel bad for guardian. Almost. Enjoy your dragonhunter guardians!

Distaste.4801:

Crystal Reid.2481:

It’s recommended, not required. The first Vale Guardian kill over the weekend had over 1:00 left to the enrage. Skill and builds are going to be the bigger factor in the success of your raid.

It’s a little disingenuous to say recommended when there is a hard enrage timer. Full ascended vs full exotics can easily makeup that minute or more. Lower armor means taking more damage and trying to survive rather than putting out full dps. Lower stats and weapon damage obviously means lower damage especially with multipliers. The icing on the cake is that with lower damage adds don’t die as fast and you take more damage, thus leading back to the trying to survive thing.

Let’s not forget that the first boss is a berserker/sinister fight, which is already a slap in the face considering that’s what the community has wanted gone for 2+ years. When the first to clear had to do almost full dps specs with everyone in ascended I don’t really see anything short of full dps specced exotic groups that are top tier players even having a chance. I truly hope that the other boss encounters feature more in-depth balancing as to require more than 1-2 tank/healer specs and the rest full dps to meet an artificial difficulty barrier. That will cause issues in itself though given the first boss is a dps check, so prepare for more outrage when people need to change spec mid-raid and have 3-4 ascended sets to support those specs.

Honestly, ArenaNet needs to be working on a way for players to gear up with multiple ascended sets. If they are going to pull raids from other MMO’s then they need the infrastructure that leads up to it as well. In other MMO’s you do the dungeons/raids in a set order so you can gear up to meet that next challenge. In GW2 there is no way to really gear up for raids besides a huge grind(money or mats), hitting the RNG jackpot, or time gated stuff.

You’re just avoiding saying that ascended is required because you know it will cause outrage. What you need to be asking yourself is why would that be the case and how can ArenaNet as a whole solve that issue. It’s fine if you’re avoiding it now as long as you have a solution later, but if there is no solution the outrage is going to happen. Make ascended more accessible and there won’t be much outrage, but ignore the issue and force people into the current system and it’s not going to be pretty.

I like how your saying ascended is going to be needed and yet we haven’t seen anyone try a full raid ( cause obviously we don’t have access to that ) with just exotics. The worlds first kill of the first boss had over a minute left on the clock. Not to mention trinkets which are a large part of the extra stats are pretty easy to get.

Mesmer > all other classes. Chronomancer > mesmer > all other classes.

When you want to be less efficient in dungeons, fractals, raids, WvW, and PvP 99% of the time.

Without some form of a raid timer people will just go full defense and facerole it. And that hardly sounds like CGC.

Purple Miku.7032:

I want to buy executioner’s outfit too. I’m willing to pay 2k gems for it if I have to.

Pandabro.8743:

MFranco.9514:

For those of you complaning about the enrage timer, that is needed to keep the challenge of the raid. If you remove the enrage time you remove the dps requirement and you trivialize the content. If some of you can show a away of getting ride of the timer and somehow keep the challenge, because if you remove the timer after the game is released and after two wipes, people will just go to the easy mode and be all tank/healers… and then will complain that is very easy and as no challenge. Also as i said before triple trouble wurm without a timer is pretty easy

I think enrages are completely necessary.

Not having an enrage timer/mechanic promotes an even WORSE meta, which is just stack as much defense as possible and kill bosses in the slowest most uninteresting way possible.

This.

Obviously the damage is strong. But the question is, how strong? With the buffs he applied it did hit hard but with a ton of buffs. Either way, if they do nerf it, I hope its a WvW and PvP exclusive nerf.

Are you NA or EU? I can help you out in fractals if your NA.

marcowhat.9527:

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

The above build is definitely good if your team lacks might. If your team has might covered you could also try this: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQRAsc8dncfCtqh9fCmfCUrhlVjqcDGhAo+Yj2pFd6OjrD-TxRBABXt/o8oQ9Diq+DZKxy7kAAwTAwMlgBAOAGuwFuwBrv+6rv+6N8wDP8wDPGg8A-e

If you need more quickness/blocks you can take shield. If you don’t need reflects you can take Well of Calamity. If you want more team survivability you could take Well of Precognition. If your phantasms are dying in melee range you could take pistol. If you need more condition removal you can take Mantra of Resolve.

Pretty value Harmonious mantras with no mantra on

There’s nothing better to take and it does help when you take mantras which have situational uses such as for more condi removal, stability, heal mantra for more burst etc.

How do the new pets compare to the jaguar in terms of DPS in PvE? Has anyone done the math in the beta?

TaintedSilver.8463:

I know, but that phantasm still slows the enemy allowing the +30% crit, and allowing me to go zerker, + the alacrity it gives is nice Still, thats why i was wondering if any1 did the math behind it.

The DPS between zerkers and assassins is tiny. The DPS difference between the shield phantasm compared to pistol/focus phantasm is pretty big. But you can just get slow with TW and the one well.

TaintedSilver.8463:

Ofc, its for higher level PVE and i thought that mesmer will use sword/shield and sword offhand, instead of the s/f. Also, the shield phantasm slows the target, so thats why i thought its is reliable. But i see the point of Improved Alacrity too.

Shield is only good if you need more blocks or more quickness. The phantasm shield summons doesn’t do much damage at all compared to other phantasms.

This. I hate when I’m fighting mossman and I can’t even see what direction he is facing there is so many effects.

The above build is definitely good if your team lacks might. If your team has might covered you could also try this: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQRAsc8dncfCtqh9fCmfCUrhlVjqcDGhAo+Yj2pFd6OjrD-TxRBABXt/o8oQ9Diq+DZKxy7kAAwTAwMlgBAOAGuwFuwBrv+6rv+6N8wDP8wDPGg8A-e

If you need more quickness/blocks you can take shield. If you don’t need reflects you can take Well of Calamity. If you want more team survivability you could take Well of Precognition. If your phantasms are dying in melee range you could take pistol. If you need more condition removal you can take Mantra of Resolve.

The difference between zerk and assassins is pretty small/not existent except for reflect damage. I was gonna still go assassins simply because I don’t want to have to stat change on my ascendeds and because you can take Improved Alacrity in that trait line then. You could also probably go zerkers with the +30% crit chance too tho. I would like to see the math on this. If it’s too big of a difference I’ll just go zerkers tho.

Yeah, having seen the first boss it looks underwhelming. They hyped it up as super challenging and so far it seems not the case. They were saying the later bosses in the raid were harder. My question is how much?

A pretty good build. Here’s just a few changes I would make: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQRAsc8dncfCtqh9fCmfCUrhlVjqcDGhAo+Yj2pFd6OjrD-TxRBABXt/o8oQ9Diq+DZKxy7kAAwTAwMlgBAOAGuwFuwBrv+6rv+6N8wDP8wDPGg8A-e

Staff isn’t getting any better with HoT. You can swap in shield if you need more defence/quickness/stuns. You can take a pistol if your phantasms will stay alive longer that way. You can take well of precognition if your group needs more defense. If your talking about raids, we will just have to wait and see. I’m thinking something around this for raids: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQRAsc8encfCVoh9fC2fCUrhFVj68JeujgMAGhirOZn2qF-TxRBABXt/o8oQ9DacSAEV9HyUiBwTAwMlgBAOAGuwFuwBrv+6rv+6N8wDP8wDPGgqA-e

spoj.9672:

Iris does have a point. If people post a video then others will just copy the strats instead of working it out themselves. That said i dont think many will upload that fast even if they complete it on friday evening.

This is more of a courtesy request to keep it unlisted until after the beta. I dont see whats wrong with that? Or am i completely insane?

I think the idea is, if you want to copy someone elses strats you can do that, or if you don’t then you can just not look at the videos. It’s a win win.

Zenith.7301:

Don’t bet on mesmer DPS ever being fixed. PvP supremacy at the expense of PvE is here to stay.

They didn’t bother fixing aoe/cleave gutting our illusions and by extension our performance. They didn’t fix shatters being a mechanic that gimps your sustained output, in fact tied a half way solution to a grandmaster instead (chronophantasma).

They gave a pitiful 10% to sword auto while Blurred Frenzy got no change and is just a crappier, immobile version of Unrelenting Assault, and even a weaker version of pistol whip.

The entirety of the class, the fact that no meaningful changes have been made to the garbage that is Cry of Frustration (and confusion for PvE, in fact), is based around considerations of damage against 12-20k hp targets is going to keep mesmer in the gutter of PvE.

Yeah I can agree with phantasms needing some way to stay alive longer in pve, but I don’t think sword really needs a buff. Chronomancer is just fine already. Buffing it to give it good damage also would just be a little over the top.

savacli.8172:

The same argument could be made of 10 Hammer Guards: Everyone run up to the boss, AA, and go to the kitchen to grab something to eat.

The implied difference in raid is that you’re challenged by both the bosses/mobs as well as the environment. So it won’t just be a matter of stack and slap, but different players will supposedly be running around completing different objectives while a few are hacking and slashing.

Yeah true didn’t think about them splitting the group up. That will also probably do it. But still they would have to at least split them up into 3 groups. And even then you might be able to perma evade. I mean chronomancer has a ridiculous amount of blocks, blur, and distortion effects. And then on top of that you have CS to use some blocks/evades more than once.

RSLongK.8961:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

RSLongK.8961:

How u came up with this composition without knowing the boss mechanics?

Are you saying bosses won’t need blocks, heals, quickness, might, prot, vuln, dodges, and faster skill recharges?

Unless the bosses turn us all into turtles with a pre-set skill bar then this is how you get maximum buff uptime, skill recharge, defense, healing, and damage.

I would its pretty solid if raids end up being just Dungeons/Fractals sized to 10. but, assuming the mechanics change, eg: extended fights + fast casts, how not to say, a reaper perma chill wont be needed?
edit: Frechfry gave a better example.

Just one thing to note, I thought chill doesn’t effect bosses with breakbars. I am not 100% sure on that but I think it doesn’t.

And yeah guys we have to see the raid to really determine a comp.

It really just depends how much defense you need and if there is a certain amount of time you have to kill the boss. If there isn’t a time limit you have a 10 chrono comp that can perma evade. If there is unavoidable attacks you can just grab some defense from say guardian perma protection, scale venom etc plus maybe druid. So I really expect there to be a time limit or something of the sort. If that’s the case then we just have to wait to see what balance of defense and offense we need to determine a comp.

EDIT: and even if it’s just a DPS dummy you will probably want either a engi or a ranger for vuln because eles won’t be able to cut it ( presuming the boss lasts decently long ). Ultimately I see a condi engi as a almost guaranteed for raids.

So I was trying to look at what comp might be used in raids when I came across what looks to be a problem. The problem is a 10 man chrono comp can perma evade. Now I ain’t going to start to panic, hopefully they already noticed this. There might be a time limit to the boss ( hopefully, that way we have to balance defense and offense ), there might be unavoidable attacks or something I’m just missing but just thought I would put this out there in case they didn’t. This is the build I was talking about: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQRAsc8encfC9fiVoB2fCUrhFVj68JGijgMAGhirOZn2qF-TxRBABXt/o8oQ9DacSAEV9HyUiBwTAwMlgBAOAGuwFuwBrv+6rv+6N8wDP8wDXKgqkZB-e

Behellagh.1468:

I loath those who are only willing to help others for coin. We are suppose to be aspiring heroes, not sell swords.

Doesn’t help their cause when more than a few bad apples take the money and “accidentally” kick the buyer or quit themselves. Oops.

Yeah I agree, I loath those people at the grocery store who make me PAY to get food. It’s ridiculous! And of course there will always be some jerks who kick you after you payed and not return the money. But I think those guys are few.

EDIT @ atherian: ’

1) People always try and sell this rubbish in open world. I use open world all the time, and I’d rather not have this nonsense plastered at the top whenever I look at it.

2) Dungeons are meant to be group content, stuff you actually work towards… Rewards lose all meaning if any fool with 5 gold can just come along and purchase them.

Why not just sell it for gold directly from the dungeon merchant? Because its almost the same thing. These rewards were meant to take effort, not to just be bought."

Those people who sell it under open world probably did it by accident. And as for dungeon selling destroying the value of the rewards, look at the pvp reward tracks.

@Eponet:

’

I dislike the fact that it’s a thing. Dungeon selling is the reason I refuse to PUG The Ruined City of Arah paths with anything less than two personal friends.

I once had a group of three people join and kick me right before the final boss, then list it on the LFG as a path sell."

Even if it wasn’t possible to sell dungeons you would still have jerks who kick you out to give it to friends.

@Silvatar:

“I am absolutely against dungeon selling though it is only fair to say that my opinion is heavily biased as a result of my last MMO which became so infested with “dungeon” selling that it nearly killed the game itself. The ripple effects on the community as a whole were devastating. I don’t see dungeon selling becoming nearly as problematic for GW2 as my previous MMO but anyone that says selling dungeons (or the equivalent) is “fine” has no idea what they are talking about ….or perhaps they just don’t care about the detrimental impact it has on fostering an active, engaged, knowledgeable, supportive, and experienced player base that will enjoy and continue playing the game.”

Would you mind explaining what’s so bad about it? What harm you think it does and why? You talk about the detrimental impact it has on fostering an active, engaged, knowledgeable, supportive, and experienced player base, and yet fail to explain why you think dungeon selling does that.

Avala.9675:

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Avala.9675:

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Avala.9675:

Yeah that is what i ment with the pvp problem and true its not that big of a deal.

And about using dodge at the same time, well they could just make it last 1sec or something so you can just use the (F3:Return to me) first and when the stuff hits you just dodge your self.
Yes rangers do have dodges and block out side of endurance. But if the pet would dodge at the same time you do then your own weapon choices would be how to get evades outside of endurance so that you can actually keep that pet alive and that might limit some of the stuff you can do.
And i would gladly use my sword 3 evade on something if that thing would be a bit more userfriendly

In PvE, and especially raids, I’m saying it would be a little harder to press 2 buttons to save yourself and your pet than 1. And I think only dodges should give this blur type effect on the pet not say sword evades if I didn’t make that clear. The thing is, 99% of the time in PvE you want to dodge so do you want your pet to dodge. I don’t know about PvP, but I would imagine it would be hard to focus on both you and your pet and then press two buttons if your both going to get hit otherwise. That’s my only problem with giving the pet a separate skill to dodge with.

Yeah i get that its a bit harder to use if it would be 2 buttons instead of one.
yes 99% in pve atm you would like your pet to dodge at the same time you do, but since the raids are coming and whatnot if there happens to be stuff like huge hit comes to melee where you pet is and you use dodge to save your pet from it (assuming swap is on cd) and right after that comes something to range where you happen to be and you need to dodge that too, then comes a third strike for whole area or something and you are now out of endurance and both of you die (unless you use some weapon that has dodge/block).
So while it would be harder to use different buttons for you and your pet to dodge
it would not handicap ranger to choose only melee pets when you are in melee and ranged pets when you are in range assuming you run with something like longbow+staff (druid) ofc there are utilities allso and stuff like that but im pretty sure id rather have the pet die at that point than try to get utilities or weapons for the sole purpose of keeping it alive

The thing is with your example is why wouldn’t you want to dodge that first time anyhow so that you don’t die? And anyway, if you know your up against a particularly tough boss and your pet gets targeted by a single target skill you can just let the pet eat it rather than waist a dodge for it. But I think those cases would be few. I like your suggestion, but its just I’m afraid especially in raids it would be harder for the ranger than other classes because it has to press two buttons compared to one. Still, I would gladly take your idea over how it is currently haha.

Well yeah i would allso gladly take your idea over how it is currently
All we can do is hope i gues ^^

1 year later…. still hoping! 2 years later… must…be…soon. 3 years later….. screw it I’m rerolling! Haha.

Avala.9675:

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Avala.9675:

Yeah that is what i ment with the pvp problem and true its not that big of a deal.

And about using dodge at the same time, well they could just make it last 1sec or something so you can just use the (F3:Return to me) first and when the stuff hits you just dodge your self.
Yes rangers do have dodges and block out side of endurance. But if the pet would dodge at the same time you do then your own weapon choices would be how to get evades outside of endurance so that you can actually keep that pet alive and that might limit some of the stuff you can do.
And i would gladly use my sword 3 evade on something if that thing would be a bit more userfriendly

In PvE, and especially raids, I’m saying it would be a little harder to press 2 buttons to save yourself and your pet than 1. And I think only dodges should give this blur type effect on the pet not say sword evades if I didn’t make that clear. The thing is, 99% of the time in PvE you want to dodge so do you want your pet to dodge. I don’t know about PvP, but I would imagine it would be hard to focus on both you and your pet and then press two buttons if your both going to get hit otherwise. That’s my only problem with giving the pet a separate skill to dodge with.

Yeah i get that its a bit harder to use if it would be 2 buttons instead of one.
yes 99% in pve atm you would like your pet to dodge at the same time you do, but since the raids are coming and whatnot if there happens to be stuff like huge hit comes to melee where you pet is and you use dodge to save your pet from it (assuming swap is on cd) and right after that comes something to range where you happen to be and you need to dodge that too, then comes a third strike for whole area or something and you are now out of endurance and both of you die (unless you use some weapon that has dodge/block).
So while it would be harder to use different buttons for you and your pet to dodge
it would not handicap ranger to choose only melee pets when you are in melee and ranged pets when you are in range assuming you run with something like longbow+staff (druid) ofc there are utilities allso and stuff like that but im pretty sure id rather have the pet die at that point than try to get utilities or weapons for the sole purpose of keeping it alive

The thing is with your example is why wouldn’t you want to dodge that first time anyhow so that you don’t die? And anyway, if you know your up against a particularly tough boss and your pet gets targeted by a single target skill you can just let the pet eat it rather than waist a dodge for it. But I think those cases would be few. I like your suggestion, but its just I’m afraid especially in raids it would be harder for the ranger than other classes because it has to press two buttons compared to one. Still, I would gladly take your idea over how it is currently haha.

Avala.9675:

Yeah that is what i ment with the pvp problem and true its not that big of a deal.

And about using dodge at the same time, well they could just make it last 1sec or something so you can just use the (F3:Return to me) first and when the stuff hits you just dodge your self.
Yes rangers do have dodges and block out side of endurance. But if the pet would dodge at the same time you do then your own weapon choices would be how to get evades outside of endurance so that you can actually keep that pet alive and that might limit some of the stuff you can do.
And i would gladly use my sword 3 evade on something if that thing would be a bit more userfriendly

In PvE, and especially raids, I’m saying it would be a little harder to press 2 buttons to save yourself and your pet than 1 if the animation of the attack is quick. And I think only dodges should give this blur type effect on the pet not say sword evades if I didn’t make that clear. The thing is, 99% of the time in PvE when you want to dodge so do you want your pet to dodge. I don’t know about PvP, but I would imagine it would be hard to focus on both you and your pet and then press two buttons if your both going to get hit otherwise. That’s my only problem with giving the pet a separate skill to dodge with.

JSmooth.7654:

The New Build List is actually up to date.

I remember reading something somewhere about changes to the condition stacking. But, I can’t remember exactly what changed… or if the change has even happened yet. I’ve been out of the loop for a while too, lol.

Yeah, damaging conditions no longer have a cap as to how many you can apply and burn is now a stacking condition.

Tiggers.3890:

Hey all,

I used to play GW2 previously (thieves/necros/guards mostly) and stopped just after fractals became a thing, mostly due to real life issues (but also due to the rather toxic pugs and “viable speed run builds/classes”… not into that nonsense). Anyway, new expansion so I bought a new account, fresh start!

I never leveled a ranger before, I know very little of the class at the moment, so I was looking for some end game builds and some general tips on what abilities to try/combo as I grind to 80! I’ll be almost exclusively doing PvE stuff (eventually work my way into dungeons and fractals), maybe dabble into WvW just for fun every now and again.

Thanks all in advance.

If you fancy a read you can check up on the guide linked below. If your just wanting a general build then you can try this: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNAsXRjMqQFL2qCeqAXLG+Dq91XgA4rgf4o59Nf3gMW6kZVA-TxRBwAP3f4qyvbq/gSfQ+TBAgnAgZlgAA-e

If you want you can swap in longbow but it will lose you some DPS. In general melee>ranged but being in melee is more dangerous so it does take some time to get used to melee. http://dulfy.net/2014/07/05/gw2-ranger-pve-class-guide-by-lorek-and-cell/

EDIT: if you prefer a video you can check out this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ljux9o5FGM

Avala.9675:

Well that same family F4 skill sharing is not a bad idea. It might bring some customization to the table but then again it might have some small problems in pvp.
Then again its from the same family so there aint that many skills to choose from and most of them do the same stuff with different flavor.

I have seen a lot of posts regarding pet dodge at the same time ranger does wich is not a bad idea.
however personally i would put it on F3 (Return to me) and give it lets say 6sec cd.
That way you put a bit more micro stuff on the pet(ranger) and you dont have to sacrifice your own precious dodge rolls to save your melee punchbag(pet) from 1 shot stuff

Yeah, I was thinking of endurance or something for the pet, but the problem is if your both want to dodge now you have to hit both f3 and whatever you have keybinded for your dodge which is annoying. And in PvE most of the time you want your pet to dodge you want to dodge also. Not to mention ranger has a evade on sword 3 and a block on GS so it’s OK to sacrifice a dodge for your pet.

EDIT: What problems would this cause in PvP? It just means that the enemy doesn’t automatically know what your f4 is once seeing the pet. But even then most times the fear on wolf is taken and whatnot so you can basically assume they have it. And they can still dodge the animation. If nothing else this is a slight slight buff to a under powered class in pvp

Hello all, I’ve been looking at some ranger buffs recently and been keeping a eye on the class. New pet being able to lay down a smoke field, vulnerability on storm spirit, June 23rd patch etc. However, I feel one thing still holds back the ranger class a lot. The pet, it just eats up damage like a boss until it just falls over dead in PvE. Since the ranger pet is a good amount of the rangers DPS, when it dies, so does the rangers already not so impressive DPS.

So my suggestion is, why not have the pet evade when you dodge? Now there are 2 potential problems to this. The first is making a dodge animation for all the pets would definitely take some time and potentially look clunky. The second is, you might want to dodge yourself but have your pet still DPS away. My solution to these two problems would be to have a type of mesmer blur effect instead of an actual dodge for the pet. That way you don’t need to create new animations and your pet can still happily DPS away while you dodge.

My second suggestion is definitely a lot smaller, but still nice in my opinion. One thing that is a seller point for ranger is having some pretty cool looking pets. The problem arises when you want to take say a Snow Leopard when a Jaguar is more effective. So why not make it so all pets of the same family have a pool of f2s to choose from? To unlock a f2 you still have to go unlock the corresponding pet, but from then on all the other pets of the same family can use the ability in its f2 slot if you so desire.

So what are your opinions on these suggestions? Good? Terrible? Both?

EDIT: realized it’s F2 I was talking about not F4 lol

Jerus.4350:

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Xyonon.3987:

Guys it’s never been about PS. It’s about EA (Empowered Allies). It’s +150 power aka +5% dmg for the whole pt.

What I mean is that I doubt that the damage increase of a warrior not going for EA compared to a warrior that traits EA isn’t higher than a party wide 5% dmg increase.

So even if anyone else can grant 25 stacks might, it would be useless since war goes into EA and therefore PS anyway.

As I understand it, the issue isn’t having PS per se, but about doing what it takes to get the 25 might stacks with it, which means taking an inferior dps rotation/weaponset in favor of stacking might with Greatsword.

Actually pure GS last I remember did higher DPS than GS axe mace. It’s just a GS axe mace build provides more vuln. But the thing is for warrior to provide 25 might he needs strength runes and might food. Still think either way warrior will go EA and thus PS, even if he isn’t the guy providing the might.

Also, does anyone know how much vuln revenant keeps up?

That was before the last warrior GS nerf as far as I know. Now I’d imagine the rotation would be better (at least with fast hands, but I’d imagine without as well). Don’t forget we now use burst skills so eviscerate is a nice burst to add in on the axe side against single targets.

Either way, I’ve seen it said a couple times now that the DPS difference between PS war and “DPS” war isn’t very much. I’d imagine if we had Revs around we’d just drop the strength runes on the warrior, maybe change food, and call it a day for alterations to warrior. Rev can keep the boon duration going but no need for might really.

I don’t think mesmers will be wanting to focus anything on might, if you give some out, that’s great, but nothing should need to be sacrificed for it as it should easily be maintained already. If I had to guess groups would look something like Rev, Mes, War, Ele, Engi and all of those have plenty of access to group might (ele more prestacking as staff is king).

Small note, as a main Engi, Alacrity and Quickness is going to screw me up SO much >.<

OK, yeah was wondering if something changed with the spec patch or sometime around there that changed it. And yeah warrior will definitely go for EA so it will still grab PS. It’s just with revenant it won’t need strength runes/ potentially might food. Also I didn’t think about it, thief DPS will go down a lot now compared to other classes. Alacrity won’t effect thief’s DPS and quickness isn’t as good on thief as some other classes. And yeah if engineer is hard to do a good rotation with now imagine learning a whole new rotation with alacrity. RIP engi grenade auto attack. Just swapping between kits/weapons like crazy.

Xyonon.3987:

Has always been like this. The only reason may be at the FGS times when every single boss has been pulled into a corner, there the warrior could use his whirl aswell. But axe has always been superior to gs.

I’m talking post FGS.

Xyonon.3987:

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Xyonon.3987:

Guys it’s never been about PS. It’s about EA (Empowered Allies). It’s +150 power aka +5% dmg for the whole pt.

What I mean is that I doubt that the damage increase of a warrior not going for EA compared to a warrior that traits EA isn’t higher than a party wide 5% dmg increase.

So even if anyone else can grant 25 stacks might, it would be useless since war goes into EA and therefore PS anyway.

As I understand it, the issue isn’t having PS per se, but about doing what it takes to get the 25 might stacks with it, which means taking an inferior dps rotation/weaponset in favor of stacking might with Greatsword.

Actually pure GS last I remember did higher DPS than GS axe mace. It’s just a GS axe mace build provides more vuln. But the thing is for warrior to provide 25 might he needs strength runes and might food. Still think either way warrior will go EA and thus PS, even if he isn’t the guy providing the might.

This is what I meant. So it’s useless to even try to help the war with might. Aslong as EA is there, the warrior will be forced into that traitline.

About axe vs GS – there are traits for both weapons wich should be considered. However without any traits, the normal axe aa deals as much dps as a permanent 100b. This already marks it the better dps weapon, especially single target with F1.

However there is the hardcore playstyle with the axe when you cancel your auto attack at your 2nd chain, right at the beginning, so you skip to the 3rd chain right away wich deals huge damage. It’s a bit harder to play but it’s not like warriors have to focus on anything else in combat on axe than spamming high dps skills from 1-5. With this method your axe auto attack becomes about 20% stronger in theory, with human skills rather 10% … :P

I wouldn’t say it’s automatically useless to help the warrior with might. Because for him to give out 25 might he needs might food and strength runes. That being said the warrior will always go PS even if he doesn’t have those.

" However without any traits, the normal axe aa deals as much dps as a permanent 100b. This already marks it the better dps weapon, especially single target with F1."

Maybe something changed in the June 23rd patch but at least before that I remember Nike talking about pure GS build doing more damage than axe mace and the only reason you wanted to use axe mace was for vuln.

Fay.2357:

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Xyonon.3987:

Guys it’s never been about PS. It’s about EA (Empowered Allies). It’s +150 power aka +5% dmg for the whole pt.

What I mean is that I doubt that the damage increase of a warrior not going for EA compared to a warrior that traits EA isn’t higher than a party wide 5% dmg increase.

So even if anyone else can grant 25 stacks might, it would be useless since war goes into EA and therefore PS anyway.

As I understand it, the issue isn’t having PS per se, but about doing what it takes to get the 25 might stacks with it, which means taking an inferior dps rotation/weaponset in favor of stacking might with Greatsword.

Actually pure GS last I remember did higher DPS than GS axe mace. It’s just a GS axe mace build provides more vuln. But the thing is for warrior to provide 25 might he needs strength runes and might food. Still think either way warrior will go EA and thus PS, even if he isn’t the guy providing the might.

Also, does anyone know how much vuln revenant keeps up?

If you pop the might facet, you can instantly spike 20 stacks in a big cleave, but that’s probably not worth it.

Other than that, you’ve got a 25% chance to apply 4s of vuln on hit.

I meant like how much on average? Also the first two hits on sword apply vuln. I just wasn’t sure how much this was on average.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Xyonon.3987:

Guys it’s never been about PS. It’s about EA (Empowered Allies). It’s +150 power aka +5% dmg for the whole pt.

What I mean is that I doubt that the damage increase of a warrior not going for EA compared to a warrior that traits EA isn’t higher than a party wide 5% dmg increase.

So even if anyone else can grant 25 stacks might, it would be useless since war goes into EA and therefore PS anyway.

As I understand it, the issue isn’t having PS per se, but about doing what it takes to get the 25 might stacks with it, which means taking an inferior dps rotation/weaponset in favor of stacking might with Greatsword.

Actually pure GS last I remember did higher DPS than GS axe mace. It’s just a GS axe mace build provides more vuln. But the thing is for warrior to provide 25 might he needs strength runes and might food. Still think either way warrior will go EA and thus PS, even if he isn’t the guy providing the might.

Also, does anyone know how much vuln revenant keeps up?

For dungeons I think it’s pretty safe to say chronomancer will take over guardians place ( sry guardians, it was just a matter of time till the cooler class become better in dungeons : P ). Guardian is still nice in fractals for the blocks. But you might be able to swap the thief out for chronomancer maybe. Or over revenant if revenant is taken. Definitely think there will be a slot in fractals for chronomancer. As for raids, it’s hard to tell. We don’t know what raids are like. We do have Well of Precognition and Inspiring Distortion combined with Signet of Midnight, so maybe. Chronomancer is like a guardian ( reflects, condi removal, well of precognition + signet of midnight with inspiring distortion if needed ) combined with a warrior ( alacrity + quickness offensive party buffs ) and a tiny bit of thief ( some stealth, good defiance striping with shield 5 if needed ) + portal.

Fay.2357:

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

EDIT @ Fay: Can you keep up both facet of nature and the might to? Or is that too much energy cost?

Facet of nature is 2 pips, might is 2 pips. Your passive upkeep is 5 pips, leaving you 1 pip to play around with. You can either put this into the swiftness facet to get more boons to proc the might, use it for unrelenting assault, or drain your energy by 1 pip if you want to pulse fury with the other facet.

When I played it, I wasn’t actually using the facet of nature upkeep, but was popping it off cooldown for the boon burst it provided of various stuff (3 might, fury, swiftness, regen, prot). I was also swapping between herald and shiro, though I’d pop into shiro just to activate impossible odds and autoattack until my energy was drained, then back to glint to get the boon upkeep again.

OK, didn’t know how fast your energy replenished. Sounds cool. So if revenant did handle the might he wouldn’t need strength runes if he replaced the thief. But even if he replaced the ele he wouldn’t need strength runes. Warrior will still go for EA, so he might as well grab PS too. He won’t use strength runes or might food, but he will still pump out enough might for revenant not to need to go strength runes if he replaces the ele. That’s all I was wondering.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Ok well, I looked back some and couldn’t find anything so I’ll just say this one more time. You will already have 30+ seconds of alacrity with only shattering when it’s a DPS increase. The only thing shattering off cd does is provide more alacrity for you. 30+ seconds of alacrity for you is already enough during the fight. Caps for emphasis. THE ONLY TIME MORE ALACRITY IS USEFUL IS IF CS WOULDN’T BE OFF CD FOR THE NEXT FIGHT BUT WITH SHATTERING OFF CD THAT WOULD CHANGE. But to even know this you would need to play with the same 4 people all the time. And I’d imagine these cases will not be the norm. If anyone has actually replied to this I’d love to here the reply, but I read all the posts people reply so I really don’t think its slipped past me over 4 times.

All those times that we pointed out that you need alacrity to reset your own skills for the next fight. Since this has been said many, many times now, and YOU’VE RESPONDED AT LEAST ONCE to those, it’s clear either
1. YOU JUST LIED about reading the rest of the thread, or
2. YOU JUST LIED about not having seen an answer about why you’d need more alacrity, because you’ve responded to such an answer already, earlier in the conversation.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

“Sanderinoa replied to you (perhaps unwisely)”

How was it unwise? We had a perfectly normal conversation. Nothing bad about it at all.

See the above lies.
You are toxic in conversation, not just because you get rude (who doesn’t, at times?), but because you don’t read what people write, you make broad assertions without evidence (and refuse to attempt to provide such), you go further to insist that your assertions are conclusive even after being called on lack of evidence, you dispute facts that have evidence while having no backing to your own position, your arguments often make no kitten sense, and you occasionally lie about your role in the conversation. All of the above is obstructive to constructive conversation in a forum setting.

These are the reasons I ceased to engage with you, and the reasons I would recommend that Sanderinoa do the same.

“All those times that we pointed out that you need alacrity to reset your own skills for the next fight. Since this has been said many, many times now, and YOU’VE RESPONDED AT LEAST ONCE to those, it’s clear either
1. YOU JUST LIED about reading the rest of the thread, or
2. YOU JUST LIED about not having seen an answer about why you’d need more alacrity, because you’ve responded to such an answer already, earlier in the conversation.”

All of your skills should be off cd for the next fight except CS which I addressed in my post. And like I said those times with the CS are highly likely to be rare. So no, I didn’t lie, I did respond to it, you just didn’t respond to what I had responded and instead accused me of not responding.

“See the above lies.
You are toxic in conversation, not just because you get rude (who doesn’t, at times?), but because you don’t read what people write, you make broad assertions without evidence, you dispute facts that have evidence while having no backing to your own position, your arguments often make no kitten sense, and you occasionally lie about your role in the conversation. All of the above is obstructive to constructive conversation in a forum setting.

These are the reasons I ceased to engage with you, and the reasons I would recommend that Sanderinoa do the same."

You have been just as rude in this thread. I think we have both missed some stuff in each others posts. That’s hardly toxic tho. As for my broad assertions without evidence, your the one that needed evidence as to why you thought 1 scepter 1 sword was better than 2 swords, or why staff was good or other stuff. And by evidence I mean math. I was just trying to show without math why it looked strongly to me that you were wrong. What evidence has been provided in this thread that I have argued against? As for my arguments making no kitten sense, which ones are you talking about and why don’t they make sense to you? And what do you mean by lying about my role in the thread? I would say my role in this thread has been to try and show why I would make some changes to the build the OP used.

EDIT @ Fay: Can you keep up both facet of nature and the might too? Or is that too much energy cost?

Fay.2357:

Kitta.3657:

Fay.2357:

Greatsword is still sorta meh. It doesn’t have as high dps a phantasm as staff, doesn’t have the ability to summon illusions at 1200 range, and still is very weak up close.

Wait a second, GS has ability to summon illusions at 1200 range 0-0 I don’t know exactly what I’m missing, because I’d be surprised you wouldn’t be aware… But it completely does. Mirror blade is 1200 range and summons a clone on the target. Illusionary Berserker spawns a phantasm on 1200 range. 2/5 spawns illusions at 1200 range.

Are you trying to talk about staff being capable of summoning an illusion without a target? If so then #3 on staff still requires a target so you’re not really more advantageous than GS for that. I just mean this can’t be considered an arguing point against GS. Everything else you say is right though.

S/Sh S/P or S/S still sounds overall better for most encounters and compositions than Staff to me.

I should have been more clear. Staff will summon illusions that remain at 1200 range, out of reach of nasty boss stuff. Greatsword summons them on target, which is unhealthy for illusions, particularly at the beginning of a fight.

Re: Herald 15 might upkeep

I achieved this with Hoelbrak runes actually, as strength runes didn’t come with the package.

OK, ty. How much without hoelbrak? If eles can provide 12 might revenant might be able to go scholar if he decides to go the might rought.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

@Alpha
But why do you actually need that alacrity?

Having answered you on this at least 4 times myself in this thread, in addition to the times Pyro ALSO answered this question, and
Having already said I’m not gonna engage with you anymore, only noticing this because Sanderinoa replied to you (perhaps unwisely),
I’ll suggest you actually read the rest of the kitten thread for this answer.

Ok well, I looked back some and couldn’t find anything so I’ll just say this one more time. You will already have 30+ seconds of alacrity with only shattering when it’s a DPS increase. The only thing shattering off cd does is provide more alacrity for you. 30+ seconds of alacrity for you is already enough during the fight. Caps for emphasis. THE ONLY TIME MORE ALACRITY IS USEFUL IS IF CS WOULDN’T BE OFF CD FOR THE NEXT FIGHT BUT WITH SHATTERING OFF CD THAT WOULD CHANGE. But to even know this you would need to play with the same 4 people all the time. And I’d imagine these cases will not be the norm. If anyone has actually replied to this I’d love to here the reply, but I read all the posts people reply so I really don’t think its slipped past me over 4 times. If your not willing to say it again, could you at least link me to where you did say something about this? I mean if your willing to say as much as you have in your comment, you can at least link me where you replied to this I hope?

“Sanderinoa replied to you (perhaps unwisely)”

How was it unwise? We had a perfectly normal conversation. Nothing bad about it at all.

Sanderinoa.8065:

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

@Sanderinoa

“I don’t know THAT much about revenants, but someone mentioned earlier that their might upkeep is around 16 stacks, which only leaves about 9 to be filled. This is extremely easy to fill in as you only need 3 blasts, and eles have one on their heal anyways.”

Yeah I didn’t think about the might from ele blasting plus not needing the utility IB so you can take another blast finisher if you need. That being said for this revenant might does that assume strength runes?

“Im aware of scepter’s faster rate in melee but the aftercast on the 3rd skill still makes it slower. I’d say scepter 3 allows the weapon to match sword until the foe count goes up from 1 to anything more, you seemed to have RE’d something similar so that’s fine.”

But what about the clone summon/10% AA boost to sword?

As for the strength runes, I havent played revenant and am just using the data provided earlier in the thread claiming 16 stacks.

Secondly, the clone summon is an issue on scepter still as long as you keep up 3 illusions, Im aware many here plan on playing with a ton of shatters so it won’t matter too much.
In my playstyle however, I dont think it’ll be beneficial, as you’ll likely blow up one of your duelists with it. Whether you can consistently keep up 3 phantasms in the first place is questionable though.
The 10% extra damage only emphasizes my point, it’ll keep sword above scepter as I already implied in that post, maybe I shouldve made it more clear.

Yeah OK, was just curious about that revenant thing.

And OK, I thought you were saying vs 1 target is was better to go with 1 scepter and I was wondering why. That would explain it.

Fay.2357:

Sanderinoa.8065:

Ok Im really late to the party, I read up until some stuff with scepter on page two and then lost track.
What’s the current discussion point?

Personally I was planning on running domi-duel-chrono with sword/pistol-sword/shield.
I am aware that weapons like scepter and staff are going to get some more viablity but depending on the amount of time invested in a fight, as well as the amount of targets you have, these will all get their own time to shine.
I dont usually talk on the forum here because I simply don’t have a lot of time, but as I need to update the dulfy guide in october I think Im sort of obligated to now

Long story short:

General concept is a build that neglects personal dps in favor of party dps. You keep close to permanent alacrity and quickness on your entire party. The way you do this is with traited wells, shield, and time warp primarily. By cycling wells and possibly shield phantasms, you can have ~35-40 seconds of alacrity in a 45 second cycle time. By cycling wells, shield 5, and time warp, you can have 35-40 seconds of quickness in that same 45 second cycle time.

Doing this requires some boon duration. If you happen to have a herald in the party, you can rely on their 50% aura and not worry about it personally. If you don’t, you’re going to need to run chaos for upkeep on boons and the boon duration boost of chaotic persistence.

Edit: Will elaborate some more.

When I ran it, I used sw/shield + staff. Staff allowed me to get 2 illusions up at 1200 range, followed by a third from iLeap to immediately begin a full cSplit combo at the very start of a fight safely. It also augmented my boon upkeep, which allowed for more boon duration.

In situations where I needed some reflects, I’d swap out well of calamity in favor of feedback.

Ultimately in a proper team, you’ll have a herald and therefor won’t need chaos or staff for the boon upkeep on chaotic persistence. This allows you to go for a more normal offhand like focus for reflects or sw/pistol for damage. It also allows you to either pick up inspiration if you need reflects, or domination/dueling if you want to try and do some more damage.

Re Scepter: While it does gain on dps compared to sword when you apply permanent alacrity, it doesn’t gain enough to out-dps it in most situations, particularly when you factor in the 10% damage boost sword is getting.

Re Staff: It definitely doesn’t have the dps of sword, particularly in a power build. That being said, chaos storm is a pretty solid damage skill, along with being the only source of team aegis that a mesmer can provide. With the staff trait and permanent alacrity, the cooldown on it is going to be around 13-15 seconds cooldown, which is quite low. It also allows you to summon those 2 illusions at 1200 range, which really improves the reliability of the opening combo.

“In situations where I needed some reflects, I’d swap out well of calamity in favor of feedback.

Ultimately in a proper team, you’ll have a herald and therefor won’t need chaos or staff for the boon upkeep on chaotic persistence. This allows you to go for a more normal offhand like focus for reflects or sw/pistol for damage. It also allows you to either pick up inspiration if you need reflects, or domination/dueling if you want to try and do some more damage.

Re Scepter: While it does gain on dps compared to sword when you apply permanent alacrity, it doesn’t gain enough to out-dps it in most situations, particularly when you factor in the 10% damage boost sword is getting."

Yeah, basically this. This was mostly what I was trying to say in the thread.

@Sanderinoa

“I don’t know THAT much about revenants, but someone mentioned earlier that their might upkeep is around 16 stacks, which only leaves about 9 to be filled. This is extremely easy to fill in as you only need 3 blasts, and eles have one on their heal anyways.”

Yeah I didn’t think about the might from ele blasting plus not needing the utility IB so you can take another blast finisher if you need. That being said for this revenant might does that assume strength runes?

“Im aware of scepter’s faster rate in melee but the aftercast on the 3rd skill still makes it slower. I’d say scepter 3 allows the weapon to match sword until the foe count goes up from 1 to anything more, you seemed to have RE’d something similar so that’s fine.”

But what about the clone summon/10% AA boost to sword?

@Bacon ( yum )

Yeah, I can agree.

@Alpha

“As far as phantasm rotations go, I’d suggest (one if the points I made early in the thread) that focusing on getting a full 3-phant roster isn’t going to work out well, as you need to shatter a lot to be getting the alacrity you need, which interferes with the periodic waits that you need to sustain 3.”

But why do you actually need that alacrity?

@anyone like MONKEYS?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!

Also, with this whole chaos thing, how much might can it give out exactly? And how much with strength runes? And would it be a DPS increase to use strength runes compared to scholars if you run chaos? Just wondering if I should replace my runes for swiftness to runes of strength for when I pug or not. I presume so because in pugs it’s harder to maintain scholar.