Guild Wars 2

voltaicbore.8012:

If you like the axe as a mainhand weapon and have issues rapidly pressing keys at a sustained pace, might I suggest trying condition ranger? If super duper top max dps is not your goal, condition builds are nice for stacking condis on the enemy, and then taking a slight breather as they tick away. With a power build, no key press = no dps.

Actually, this works the other way round.
Condition DPS is the complex one that has to keep track of all the cooldowns, especially the quick-draw proc, while power beats a lot from auto-attacks.

Hmmh, but if you had “damage” while roaming and stuff in mind, yes, that’s true. Condis are slow early but then ramp up if the fight lasts longer, which makes them look “less DPS” where mobs are low on HP.
For elaboration, Condis have better DPS on champions and veterans, but less DPS on everyday mobs.

Not sure how do they work for leveling. Never tried it, actually. Might be a nice and less dynamic alternative for the OP.

Meanma.5623:

…

I had a stroke some years ago and a number of TIA since then which effected my dexterity. I’m not the fastest peach in the patch and I click my skills so I’m not sure if there is any build that could be played well enough so that I wouldn’t be a hindrance to my team? Or should I stick to open world only?

(sorry for the long post but it might explain the situation)

Dungeon stories are usually the casual content, which means running anything is fine.
Other paths are usually being farmed, and there will be a lot of people being harsh towards you if you do not run the already mentioned “meta” builds. You’ll either have to adapt or stay away from those. They are not nice and might even be harmful to your health. But don’t worry, people still open up casual dungeon parties and there are some really nice and helpful guilds that do not care about meta.

The reason why A/A is not the best choice at lvl 80 is because mh Axe deals very little damage by itself and works only as a might stacking weapon. And once you get to level 80 and start doing party content – people will start expecting you to provide certain buffs, just like there will be classes that will provide 25 might for the party, making mh Axe redundant.

Having that self-might with A/A is fine for casual content where “selfish” works best. If you’ll get enough trait points, I’d recommend Nature Magic (NM) in combination with Beast Mastery for the A/A playstyle. You’ll be keeping your pet constantly mighted since NM copies the same boons you get to your pet. And don’t bother with Druid before lvl 80. It’s technically the support traitline (offensive and defensive) that everyone loves in a party, but doesn’t offer much for leveling.

Just keep in mind that there will be lvl 80 content where A/A is not really welcome. Mh Axe is our go-to condition weapon while Oh Axe is our go-to power weapon. Gluing them together wastes a lot of potential DPS and utility-wise that other people might view as slowing them down.

<phew>
I hope that explained everything that the discussion was about.
Taking your health condition into consideration – you should just experiment around what works for you. Ranger is one of the few classes without a complex DPS rotation. We do most by auto-attacking and watching 2-3 DPS abilities. Sword is a considerable mention, assuming you’re doing the most by simply watching the character auto-attack and waiting for the dodge.

Aomine.5012:

Snip

He came here asking.
… I gave him the correct answer.

He never specified where does he want to take those. I told him everything him could have asked and everything he could have had in mind.
On the other hand, why would you mislead him into thinking that people want him to play with A/A ? And where would he know about metabattle as a newcommer?

Instead of searching for kitten to poke, how about actually trying to help the guy who asked you to ?
Sugarcoating will only hurt newcomers. A/A is not a way to go. There are much more efficient ways of game-play. Or do you rather want to take a chance to see if he’s going to make 5 different threads about PvP,WvW,FotM,Dungeons and Raids when he gets there? And in case he won’t, you’ll let him suffer from blame, accusations and “bearbowism” just because you were too soft to tell him earlier?

No, Sir. I have always been here to say everything straightforward. If you think I’m mistaken, you’ll have to bring either proof or data. If he learns now, he won’t have to learn useless now and then the right way again as you suggest.

@OP
My former point stays. A/A won’t harm you yet but you should refrain from using it in party content. No one’s going to be happy about you using it.
http://metabattle.com/ is a good site to bounce and get ideas from.
And if you’ll be wanting some more ideas, UnitedChi and me created pretty complex and useful builds for all kinds of situations so I can look for them if you’ll want. You’ll need something different than A/A once you level up.

Razor.9872:

It’s worth noting that being is Zealot gear allows for slightly easier AF generation, since your heals are slightly smaller (but not detrimentally so), you get more chances to charge your astral force within that 10-second window.

Just swapping a few jewels for Berserker instead of full magi here solves the problem. Still not a reasoning why would Zealot be a real advantage.

Aomine.5012:

Why do you expect a 5-day old gw2 new-comer to be competitive lolz..

Because he said he’s playing in white gear and one of his questions was if he’s playing the class wrong.

If he goes into fractals, raids or even dungeon speed runs like that – he’s going to be a burden which is the definition of playing the class wrong.
For having fun while leveling and exploring – nobody cares and it is fun indeed. Which means it’s perfectly fine even if he is playing the class wrong. Because no one gives a snap.

This game now offers content that won’t be beaten by power of friendship alone, anymore. Role-players belong to open world content. No one wants them in their group once grinding.

You will never get into competitive with that.
…
But if you are up for some random games and are not afraid of flames and loses … Why not? I made a hunter specifically to role-play Harley Quinn a few years ago. And yes, she has Axe/Axe and babies (hyena pets).
And I did almost every open world content and guild missions with her. No problems at all. Of course – I could have been 20 times more useful but Ranger is there for buffs, not DPS, so what gives…?

Entangle / Ancient seeds:
- Now apply the root every 0,75 seconds instead of every second (so people do not just walk out in case they decide to slot a talent or Equip a Rune … )

-Spirits: Having actives upon death / Cannot be interrupted / Actives are instant / Cannot be targeted or killed by damage / Provide actives on spawn, not on sacrifice / …

Anything actually.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

You can’t be 90% of time in CA given it’s 10s cooldown, no matter how fast you fill that bar. For that downtime zealot’s may be a pretty darn good choice.

Overrated.
When raids hit this game, someone actually calculated the difference of Cleric vs Zealot. Respeccing saved 3 seconds of an 8-minute long Vale Guardian fight on paper.

It’s the min-maxing stat that costs a pile of gold and doesn’t really help anyone in the big picture. It’s technically there for the prestige and elitism.

If you are asked to heal people – that means they are already bad enough and they are in no right to ask you to spend that much gold on equipment that only a min-maxer would require.

EDIT: it makes sense only if you can choose the stat for free (ascended box)

bloodpyrope summarized it quite nicely.

Before entering raids, make sure you’re comfortable with your class and “panic” situations. Raids will offer a lot of them.
Since you’ll be pugging mostly, I guess Magi sounds like the starting point. If you don’t have the gear, yet, don’t bother with Magi ascended armor – just get exotics. Jewellery and weapons have to be Ascended, tho.

Vicky.4563:

Rumor has it was leaked during last LAN. Bristleback and Smokescale getting hit.

If that’s true, it’s on the edge of virtual animal cruelty. It’s starting to feel like an abuse.

TheFantasticGuy.7206:

Without a Dev quoted saying that rumor is rumor and nothing more.

Kam.4092:

When is balance even supposed to be?

It’s not. They operate on cyclical imbalance. Look it up. Once you read over what that is the balancing they have done in GW2 all makes 100% sense.

Wait… Has Ranger been best for competitive, ever?
… Did I miss something ? Or did you mean the cycle of Ele/Warrior taking the best spot in circles ?

Lahmia.2193:

Staff is far better than longbow for tagging. You’re never routed, your auto attack hits 3 times in just over a second (3 targets) and unlike longbow, your foes don’t have to be in a line to hit them all with piercing. Also it’s better for moving (which you will be doing a lot of in the lab). And against guardian staff, it has double the range.

When mobs spawn and die in half a second after coming to the virtual world – having a weapon that cannot use sh!¤ without a target doesn’t do wonders. Staff is the best open world tagging weapon but that didn’t work for the event in my case.
Barrage on the spawn point stalls over any other utility (except for traps and melee cleave).

For tagging, I’d suggest LB with Lead the Wind + GS. (Don’t forget quick draw)
You’ll be faster than a guardian and you have traps to tag as well.

That’s my opinion, at least.

jcbroe.4329:

kdaddy.5431:

Ill end this, ranger/druid is the Apex atm. It beats rev because it lacks stability. It beats DH because you can send a pet in to destroy traps, it beats warrior because it has better sustain and it beats scrapper because is the exact same class without a pet.

….all of those classes on an equal skill level should be able to stalemate Druid at the bare minimum. Rev, DH, and warrior all have the tools to get the kill actually.

Playing poorly against a Druid doesn’t make Druids apex.

^
If something makes druid superior to these honorable mentions, it’s mobility. Not fighting potential.

HeadCrowned.6834:

Hmm that could be optional yes, but then the spike trap probably needs to be altered as well. Most hard CC-options we have are already power-damage oriented (glyphs, longbow, GS, axe offhand) so removing the CC from the spike trap (condi oriented) would be a shame I think.

Trap-oriented play-style is mostly WvW related, yes?
Giving Spike Trap a brief daze to keep Ancient Seeds proc, and reducing CC accordingly (from 45 to 30?) could do, what do you think ?

I mean, it’s not like you’ll go for condi trapper build in PvP theses days. That’s a suicide. And this way, power builds have only 1 option for utility trap, and that’s … bingo – a condi trap.
So by having Frost Trap as a hardcore utility dedicated trap that both condi and power builds can use would definitely be worth the nerf to Spike Trap in my opinion. And spike trap could still be used for condi bombing with the daze.
(I would be willing to go that far as to suggest even more of a nerf to spike trap – to change knockdown for 2-3 second root that would keep you in traps – being it a massive QoL improvement for Trapper builds)

Fluffball.8307:

Durzlla.6295:

Just curious, since Druid generally hurts offensive builds more than it helps.

As long as you have the regen to power CA, things like stealth, superspeed, full condi clears, and even ancient seeds can really supercharge a full offense build.

Druid is usually a straight upgrade to any ranger build IMO, although I see where you’re coming from. There is a slight gray zone on the offensive side of things.

Troll Unguent goes a massive way up for sustain, as well. Every tick counts towards trait procs, in case someone plays mostly solo.
Which mean they get 60% CAF from that single skill alone.

HeadCrowned.6834:

Increase damage modifier by 100% on Frost trap, and add Weakness of 6 seconds as well.

I always thought Frost Trap was supposed to be the one with knockdown, tho.

@Jerus
I never ever had a situation where I’d get into a group/squad and actually payed attention to which field my random blast I use into rotation will affect.

It’s just that you asked why I thought Power has easier and faster time getting into CAF and so I did.
Our opinion on viability and use of both is shared.

Jerus.4350:

1 stack of GoTL every 20s is 2% * 8s/20s=.8%, So assuming you get everyone in the group into that seed, you lose .8% damage, where is this massive loss coming from?

Aren’t you supposed to take Sharpened Edges instead of Trapper’s Expertise? That’s where the massive drop comes from.
If you do not take trapper’s expertise – you’ll get CAF in time only once every 30 seconds. Which is far less than Power builds that can trait into trapper’s expertise without any huge DPS loss and keep 100% AoE regen uptime – gaining access to CAF on every CD.

(Water field vs. Light field blasts can also count towards dps loss, since AoE retal helps even if by a small margin)

Kam.4092:

How does Power build Astral Force faster? Playing Condition I usually fill Astra Force before the CD is up.

Allows you to use Staff if needed, and even without it LB goes faster thanks to double Rapid fire and Barrage.
Also, going for traited Healing Spring for perma AoE regen (which is the reason why CAF builds before CD) results in a massive DPS loss in condi while Power doesn’t even have to blink an eye.

I’m not really sure what was your way of building CAF up but the “meta” doesn’t offer this comfort. If you’re playing Condi, you are maximizing damage – which includes Glyph of Rejuvenation. And there is no other access to perma AoE regen for condi.

I just remembered …

For GS users – turning back on the 3rd auto-attack “missing” it will open up 2 windows of Evade since it will be recast right after without resetting the chain.

Justine.6351:

High Skill cap is when you are abusing obnoxious overtuned stuff to wrekt noobs in wvw,
OP is when your op build gets wrekt by competent players in wvw.

At least that is the personal definition of most people playing the game.

Haha, yea, this sounds so correct.

Fluffball.8307:

Hmm, so are rangers really that much easier to play than other professions?

We need some game mechanics to abuse.

Well, it’s actually the other way round.
Rangers have to play without any mechanics at all against people who do have the mechanics and can still abuse them.

If that is not called proficiency or high skill-cap, than I don’t know what is.

I had a lot of uses with the mentioned cancel on sword #2.

Actually, all the nice things we had were nerfed or taken. I remember the GS#3 + Staff #3 when you could use it in air.
Then one of the tricks I constantly kept using was on Guard – well known. When you used it and swapped pets immediately – the debuff that harmed the pet from the damage mitigated went with him and the new pet stayed unharmed while providing the full 100% benefit of the shout.

And I remember some people not using this advantage, but… Letting loose of your camera-lock while executing attacks (mostly on LB) will always keep track of the target so they can’t get behind your back.

Dunno, we don’t really have a mechanically complex ability set. All of those things are niche tricks that people usually know about.

Lynnie.7213:

I may be called elitist, but please, condition for T4’s. Even after the recent change, everytime i pug with a power or mixed group we usually fail or struggle a lot in some parts. Idk if its just my bad luck with players that aren’t that experienced.
But when i get on a condition only group … kitten ! I seems like i am doing old days CoF P1s.

But this applies only if you are playing with premades or friends.
When I was playing T4’s – we usually kept wiping because players had no idea how to stay alive. For baddy-groups – power might still be better to keep them alive.
The so-called training wheels.

For every experienced group – power is completely redundant and there’s no reason to pick it whatsoever. That was, however, not my experience with pugs in T4.

Condi brings a bit of umph in terms of DPS.
Power (zerk) in terms of utility (CAF more often = more CC / more GotL) and versatility (ranged / mobile fights…)

Ghotistyx.6942:

Tragic Positive.9356:

DPS drop vs 1H Sword is roughly 15% which makes no difference since Ranger DPS sucks regardless. You are there for buffs, not personal DPS.
(It is worth mentioning that the more damage you deal – the less damage all of you take and more time all of you save. So yes, GS is viable but S/A would end up being more viable in like 75% situations)

Isn’t the DPS difference even less because of Sword’s animation change? I remember hearing it dropped Sword’s dps by a somewhat significant amount which would bringthe two weapons even closer.

It was roughly 17% before. But just as sword has been stealth-nerfed, off-hand axe has been buffed. I can’t say the exact numbers but I think the difference is still somewhere insignificant considering that 15% of jack kitten is still jack kitten.

At the end of the day, GS is more mobile which makes speed runs a tiny pinch faster. The weapon is perfectly viable.

+1
This needs attention.

Ranys.4028:

Would be really nice to have it without cast time, so we can cast it during our auto-attack.

You haven’t been around for long, have you? <chuckle>

But on a serious note – thanks for sharing.
We already have such an enormous amount of bugs that show how little aney cares that I’m surprised you actually found this one and considered it worth mentioning.

Every single one counts.

TheFantasticGuy.7206:

Say what? Who uses Druids/Rangers for speed runs these days? Why would you bring the 2nd lowest DPS for speed runs? Casual runs, sure… Bitter much?

Because personal DPS never mattered. Ever.
And Druid is meta for DPS. Has been ever since HoT.

@OP
GreatSword is a comfortable and satisfying weapon. It has spike-y damage, has better cleave than sword (that might occasionally result in better DPS than S/A) and has better mobility. It also allows you to mitigate more damage than sword. It also provides some Vuln uptime.

So if you are about to roam / play casually – GS is a nice weapon to take.
If you are about to join a group saying “We are toxic and want only the World’s Elite for CoF story” then you’d better hide it. Not because it is bad. But because people consider it bad. DPS drop vs 1H Sword is roughly 15% which makes no difference since Ranger DPS sucks regardless. You are there for buffs, not personal DPS.
(It is worth mentioning that the more damage you deal – the less damage all of you take and more time all of you save. So yes, GS is viable but S/A would end up being more viable in like 75% situations)

Substance E.4852:

Tragic Positive.9356:

I’ll wait if they improve the pets and ranger-pet synergy and then consider it.

I wouldn’t hold your breath.

I’m not. I’m still here because I like the Ranger community and the brainstorming I can experience with you guyz. Not because I like the game.
If they improve pets, it might kick me off to start thinking about playing again. It’s not like that’s what I’m waiting for.

Rap Tiger.1257:

It is also good even this topic again, I bought the expansion because of pets Wyverns hoping to be more efficient in the attacks than they are now …. hope ArenaNet improve them … because the basic attacks and the second attack they are slow and weak and the third attack as f2 needs to be improved as well.

I’m not doing this, again.
Fool me once – shame on them. Fool me twice, shame on me.

I’ll wait if they improve the pets and ranger-pet synergy and then consider it. I’m definitely not falling for the very same wyvern fiasco again.

Evidently, a lot.
I’ve come to see that lots of people are interested in paper-numbers.

Gotejjeken.1267:

…

All this applies to the old MH sword. Super fast 3 chain attacks until you needed to stop, then you stop and dodge.

Which might still be a nice 0,6 second delay. That is far more than plain crucial in a PvP game. And yet, we are still talking about needing to stop.
Which is ridiculous. How come other classes do not have to? They hit harder, they are reliable and provide nice stuff. So it seems I have to repeat that the only problem is that we hit like a wet noodle and their stealth-nerf in aftercasts didn’t help. The change of the mechanics was needed and we asked for it. Full stop.

Going in circles is not going to drag the discussion anywhere.

Gotejjeken.1267:

That’s the point, AA is not beneficial at all outside if pve due to the amount of counter conditions thrown around. Like, when I say skill I don’t mean pve.

That said for other modes what we have now is a vastly inferior weapon to what we had before. All in the name of AA prevented dodging when good players weren’t using it to begin with.

So yes, I’d like my dps and tracking back as I know when to stop attacking.

By your logic, auto-attack shouldn’t ever be implemented into the game and can be removed completely for PvP – because “good” players weren’t using it (ever? you can’t be serious).

If you ask me – it’s easier even for good players to turn auto-attack off when Confusion bombed momentarily rather than annihilate your keyboard by pressing it every time you want to pressure anyone (which should be often, btw).

The very standard idea about auto-attack being pointless (/not effective enough to be set on auto-cast) as the only class (if I’m wrong here I’m sorry, but I really don’t know about any other classes with this problem) was a bad design.
And that only proves their change was needed – but they broke X other things such as DPS itself by doing so.

The problem is that they gave us something that should have been made ever since the start. And they were brave enough to stealth-nerf us while at that.

Justine.6351:

Did you start playing again?

I was thinking of it but I always prevented myself from doing so.
I keep a constant track of what’s going on in-game but as I could see – nothing really changed in Ranger’s favor. Therefore – I only keep myself present on forums to paste my opinions or help to newcomers as I always did.

Did I miss anything except for a new expansion announcement ?

Henry.5713:

Astral Force is generated through healing (1.5% of the bar per intance) and direct damage (0.75% of your bar per hit). Condition damage and pet damage as well as potential healing done to those at full health don’t work.

A quick succession of AoE hits like Whirling Defense is a good way to generate Astral Force quickly.

Fixt.

A quick succession of hits can be Rapid Fire as well, and you’ll end up with less than 8% after using it, which is still extremely low.

The best way to fill CAF is AoE regen via Haling Spring / Resounding Timbre / whichever other means you have.
If you don’t have those – resorting to AoE attacks like barrage and Whirling Defense is pretty much the way to go.

Shadelang.3012:

Tragic Positive.9356:

Lalainnia.3598:

Sic em is perfectly fine I have no idea why anyone would want to even change it let alone nerf it……

It’s lackluster.
Not really fine but has it’s uses in recreative role-play days.

Having the 10 sec reveal and 25 sec CD would be …
… Dunno.
People (thieves mainly) would rage, Rangers would rage for having their beloved ability changed (they did so even with Guard rework), everyone would rage and no one would use it anyway.

Nice idea, but no for me. Not worth.

Lackluster? This skill is one of the best shouts and largely what enabled me to hit legendary in season one on BASE ranger.

Its effect is really strong ever since it was fixed to no longer cancel. I don’t see any need to rework this at all.

Well, since pretty much all other shouts got nerfed…
… The thing is that pets still suck at hitting moving targets. Increased movement speed doesn’t offer a solution to it. It has a long cooldown and is extremely easy to counter, doesn’t work well with pet swap (so you can’t have 25 mighted pet AND have quickness on him from BM Zephyr) and I could think of some others.

The ability is very situational, and pretty much lackluster. Yes, I’m sorry, but the fact that you are a good player doesn’t mean the ability is perfect.

I don’t remember it being a thing.
Not even once.

It was a thing for WvW. Nowhere else.
If anyone said it was – he was probably horrible. I hope I didn’t offend anyone specifically.

Spirit of Nature takes whole 5 seconds to execute as a resurrecting ability.

Glyph of Unity … Is a stat stick you have to press. It will never make a difference. Literally.

Use the one you think might help more. I usually went with the Spirit. My raid party wasn’t all that great and sometimes I had my lucky moment preventing a wipe.

Lalainnia.3598:

Sic em is perfectly fine I have no idea why anyone would want to even change it let alone nerf it……

It’s lackluster.
Not really fine but has it’s uses in recreative role-play days.

Having the 10 sec reveal and 25 sec CD would be …
… Dunno.
People (thieves mainly) would rage, Rangers would rage for having their beloved ability changed (they did so even with Guard rework), everyone would rage and no one would use it anyway.

Nice idea, but no for me. Not worth.

Gotejjeken.1267:

Yeah, I love they removed my chasedown ability because the flood of people who can’t figure out how to disable AA.

A design that forces you to disable a baseline feature on auto-attack such as auto-use is a bad design.

Plus it delayed your dodge rolls – which is a huge issue for both PvP and PvE. It was bad designed. It was also a bad idea to remove something that at least a certain group of people liked (especially mains) but even some of the ranger mains asked for this change.

Long story short: They corrected the bad design in a bad way.

A positive bug?
…
How much time do we give it, guyz? A week for hotfix?

This is not a problem of the spirits.

It’s a problem of the Pet buff sharing mechanic that has been pointed out a long time ago.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Change-Required-Pet-Buff-scale/

UmbraNoctis.1907:

They don’t have to be bad players to get killed by this build. Sometimes it is just a matter of not being familiar with this kind of playstyle and not expecting the burst. If it would be more common, players would lern how to counter it – and pretty much all meta builds should have the tools to deal with this build.

Pretty much this.

The skilled already know how to counter “druids” – which is countering bristleback and smokescale while keeping their pressure but using CC only when the druid enters CAF.

This build doesn’t play around CAF – and provides burst in a completely different way than any “powerful” druid build. That simple fact makes the playstyle superior in terms of moment of surprise. By the time the enemy figures out where does the damage come from and how to counter it – the match is usually long over.

Starbreaker.6507:

Having never done high-end fractals or raiding what makes condi better than power-based play?

It has better DPS and is considered meta – which means you won’t have problems getting into “MetaZerk” arrogant groups.

Power-based play is more support and utility oriented (for break-bars, sustain, mobility, vuln uptime, GotL distribution). You could compare it to training-wheels that make the content much easier (can make runs much faster with the inexperienced) but slows you down if your party already knows their stuff.

I heavily enjoy your work and videos. It’s exactly something I missed.
It’s enjoyable to watch, it’s educative and it’s dynamic. People don’t fall asleep after 7 minutes of healing in circles.

I’ll definitely look forward to your next video.

Lynnie.7213:

True. I think he should play whatever he enjoys the most. Both builds will support your party just fine.

Exactly.
If OP finds a stable raiding group (what he should) he’ll be asked to play a specific role that we don’t know about.

For pugging, playing Viper and saying those who die suck is a safe way to go. It might attract wipes but that’s the “almighty voice of meta”.

Lynnie.7213:

^ that!
Except if you are planning on doing T4 fractals. It just take so much longer with power builds. So much loooooongeeeer. For pugs, at least.

But then again, it takes so much longer because 4 other people are power, too.
Ranger’s job is to support only. Both in offense and defense.

Let’s say your heals will allow the pug to stay in combat twice as often. That’s a very exaggerated but theoretical 50% damage increase that would make your pug much faster than 5K personal DPS.
Again – completely useless for experienced runs but a life-changer for pugs.