Guild Wars 2

Agreed. I have a big condition cleanse on heal and two condition transfer skills. Also I was cautios not to “do” too much. Here the necro habbit of doing everything a bit annoyingly slow was helpfull, cuz the confusion triggered not that often. Also he ran very often from me, when I put fear on him, there I had enough time to consider what to do^^ I admit for other professions that might be harder.

I met today on my necromancer an engie massing Confusion on his targets and I challnged him for duels. He used condition duration and condition dmg food buffs, I used none. I am running myself a condition necromancer.

And I gave him back his confusion. He apperently didn’t expect that the first fight and died very quickly. The 2nd fight he was more cautios but I with almost no life lsot at the end of the fight. This was my 1st expereince with such a confusion build, I gues he used perplexity runes. It was quite simple to deal with him…

Jathres.7236:

Most roamers tend to enemy borderlands, so if you roam FoW and RoS Maps you will find more. Also never expect people to honor a duel, if you fight your tanky guardian and 5 people appear better run first and then redo the duel if they behave.

I did try that. But they kept following me many times with 5 or 6 ppl. The ironic part was, there was a guy from a guild called something with “fair duels” or smth like that.

When I say, Dzagonur has good Zergs, than I mean exceptionally good, at least considering discipline. I mean what happens when most FoW (not guild) Zergs follow a commander, but see 2 or 3 “vicitms”? Half of the Zerg runs after them. While the Zerg from Dzagonur I encountered mostly ignored me, even if I was in strinking range.

Still, I hope to see the other side of Dzagonur. I remember some skilled players from [BNF]. Hopefully I can test my skills against you guys in more a roamer setup.

So if you see a super overconfident Asura (either Mesmer, Necro or Ranger) without any food buffs and with the [AKP] tag, then this is most likely me

I am a a bit dissapointed by my countryman from the Dzagonur server. As far as my experience goes, they are good at Zerging. Very good, and they are many. But in small scale, or even 1v1 battle almost all Dzagonur I met, sry for putting it that way, suck.

I hope I will find some more challanging battles. But beeing ganked by 5 people, while I fight a super tanky guardian, and then see them jump on my corpse, is just frustrating and simply not very gentlemanly.

Why would it kill WvW? I read so many times that things will kill WvW… and see there, it’s still arround. LOL

I have now arround 200 of those Queen’s Gauntlet Entrance Tickets spread arround my characters. What do I do with it? I am not interested in that living world content and it dropes seemingly instead of a rare item from wooden chests… Basicly it lowers my chance of accumulating some money further…

In comparison the PvE Living World Community got a nice farm event not too long ago. I am seriously confused about this and get more and more annoyed by those tickets. I can’t even turn them in for cash somewhere…

You wouldn’t, unless you take your mask of and scare them away (just joking ofc^^). I can take on any number of opponents

The problem about thieves is not the stealth. In fact the stealth itself is quite good implemented in the game imho. However, the ability to heal up very quickly, even passivly through traits during stealth and that conected with condition remove every 3 seconds, via another trait and on heal and on teleport, makes thos D/P perma stealth theives very annoying. However, “annoying” is the correct describtion. It doesn’t make them OP.

I like stealth stomping. Cuz I am childish and a very very bad player. And stealth makes you immune to everything, as we all know, and stealth stomps can by no means be countered.

Stealth Stomp FTW!!! Muhahahaha

Yeah I remember months back, I just transferred from Stormbluff Isle to FoW, I saw a group of 3 Vabbi guardians. They were just impossible to kill and run over everything they saw. That were the times, when we battled in the wastelands of the low population servers and legends were born

Yes, the ammount of reward must be adjusted. And I repeat that only a successfull upgrade awards a reward. Hammering upgrades mindlessly through with completely wrong timing and order, so that it’s going to fail, just costs the player, who started that upgrade money. On the other hand, if an upgrade is started, the expection of a reward might bring more dolly excorters to support the upgrader. I actually think that whole thing could actually work.

I hope some reward for upgraders will be implemented one day, so I ask the community, what mechanisms you can think of, so that it can not be abused too much.

I was thinking about a tweak in the claiming system. So that guilds have to use influence to claim a keep and only then this guild can upgrade it. That may also lead to guilds using guild money supply to spend for upgrades and maybe they can earn in time influence back from the fortification. So there are some incentives more to hold and keep a keep/tower. Hell you could even make ranks in your guild to allow certain ppl to start upgrades. I imagine then ppl, who can see that a keep is upgrading to escort dollies with the upgrader (who carries the event arround) and so they have the chance to earn influence. It would be still less rewarding than Zerging, but it would reward those, who are interested in holding and upgrading keeps. Those ppl are out there, and those need some kind of reward I think.

Tribio.8531:

And why is it that I as a ranger cannot gain any adrenaline?
Right, totally different profession..

Actually, each time my Wolf doesn’t howl, or howls at the completely wrong time, I am feeling some adrenaline rushing through my body… and it is building up each time until I defeat my keyboard. Expensive skills set, I can tell you.

not serious

Whatever, you can leave this thread now, for I’ll say the last time, it is actually about vabbi. I made a long post, so I grant you a long one too. Let’s move it to another thread or quit, for we are not helping the OP in anything, when we are continue to be off topic here. Mkay?

WTF, can u stop off topping already? We spend enough posts on that in a thread about Vabbi. Open a “I’m from WSR and FoW is bad”-thread, if you are so eager to get this massage out.

I find all professions equal. But they are best in different areas.

Playing atm as one of the “useless” Rangers, I stoped counting how many times I destroyed that one siege killing Ballista, that one Keep hitting Trebuchet and such with my Longbow.

I roam mostly and it feels great. I play Mesmer, Thief, Ranger and Necro and see their strenghts and weaknesses in different areas. I myself can’t pick the “best” profession for WvW, for the best play happens at synergy of skill, playstayle and build.

I thought about that. And I think it might go wrong like that in the beginning. But such an event could give players a better insight of the upgrades and what is needed. I predict, that after some time, when ppl stomped enough money in the upgrades, but never finish them, they will stop doing it, cuz the reward is given only on success.

And note that no money reward is intended for this. Only Karma, XP and WXP.

Maybe, to level things a bit, you can only be Upgrader for one Upgrade and one Keep. I know there are “risks” involved. Still I wanted to get that idea out, so maybe some1 could polish it better.

While upgrading a keep today, I thought of an idea, how to help those upgraders, who stomp their money in fortifications, while the Zerg roams arround the map and collects WXP and farms money.

The Idea was the following. When you start an upgrade, an event starts for you. An upgrade Event, that let you see all the upgrade progress and supply in the fortification you’re upgrading everywhere on the map. If the upgrade succeeds, you will get a event reward, that includes Karma, XP and WXP. So you will get supplemented for the money you spend.

The event can be even carried arround. Meaning that when you escort dollies, other players, who escord the dollies with you, will get rewarded too, if the event succeeds according to how many dollies they have escorted. Their reward will be but less than the one of the upgrader.

All of this can also go into a title, the architect, to make your dedication to upgrading keeps visible to others.

So cummunity. Now destroy my idea, but be gentle please^^

Maybe he was just better than all of you^^

Yeah, and during that happening two [AKP] where upgrading Hills (I was one of them) We then defended several atacks by that same Zerg. First they went desperatly underprepared to north gate, where we made them flee (2 ppl made them flee). Then they build Trebs north of hills, who we destroyed with morters (really?). Then they build Cata on north west wall, who we destroyed with morter (really really?). You should have attacked that morter more, instead of half of u following that ranger (me), who felt “by accident” from the wall. And then they came with 5 golems. Granted, here we needed our Zerg. But then we ran over that uncoordinated Zerg of WSR (about even numbers) and all the money we spend in Hills turned out to be a nice investment for FoW^^.

ArmageddonAsh, stop claiming FoW only Zergs and has no skilled players. We hold your scrubs Zerg with 2 ppl for hours. Then you Zerged up like crazy and still executed it awfully (the pre attack on canons was a good idea, but happened too early). The golems where left allone on the gate, they even pushed in. Apperently they didn’t realize what was happening, while half of your Zerg tried to fight in AC Arrow rain and the other half flew the scenery. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!

You, sir, have been served. Your argument holds now value after this evening any more.

EDIT:
I am sorry to have violated that thread so strongly. But that had to be said. We can go back to Vabbi now, who are the actualy thrad topic

We are well aware of the rally mechanic and the problems, that come with it. Some players in the community say downed state and rally should be removed completely. I disagree with that statement. However, I find it weird, when my foes rally on a random mob in the area, who I damaged too. I did this not to help him, I did this, cuz I use mainly AoE skills, who and simply can’t avoid hitting that mob… why then should my opponent, who still fell against me, rally on that mob?

I have no idea. But it created some frustrating situations for me many times. When some1 rallied on random mobs. And while I am almost dead, he stands up with half of his life. Basicly he was the weaker player, but now downs me, the mob is gone and I can not rally in return… who thought this kind of mechanic makes sense…

If players couldn’t rally on NPCs any more, I would be very glad.

I am mainly a roamer. And as far as my experience goes I have seen rarely a decent WSR being able to stand his ground against one or many. I may have just not seen them. Vabbi on the other hand has some decent players, who I respect. Maybe when WSR players get used to the setting, there will grow some decent roamers and some skilled teams. I just don’t see them now…

I kinda miss the old few against many days in FoW… well maybe next matchup we will be overzeregd finally and everything will go back to normal^^

Okay, I am from FoW (the moronic Zerg server… lol). When I see a Vabbi Zerg, they are mostly well organized and have soem decent players, who make up for the lack of numbers. Especially in smal scale fights and roaming you can expect to find a good challange by fighting vabbi players. That is at least my over all experience, and there are exceptions of course.

They often stack up a small but effective Zerg and run for completely unexpected targets. So it happens, that we sometimes suddenly lost our BL Garrison or SM.

I won’t comment on the rather absurd post about FoW server, for this thread is about Vabbi.

Lord Trejgon.2809:

hej really thief’s steal is F1 skill not F2…
same with warriors adrenaline burst, and probably some more…
so If we want comparing each otzer classes mechanics we should compare steal to…
“Atack my target!” erm.. that will not works

but seriously I see nothing wrong with rangers class mechanics skills – NOTHING. it just need a little skill to make full potential.

I laughed my kitten off here. Yeah our F1 is very weak compared to any other F1^^ Buff it ANet… lol, very nice post.

However, I disagree with nothing being wrong with F2. I play multiple professions and are allways shocked by not/slwo working of pet F2.

“Beastmaster Tree – Grandmaster Trait – “As long as your pet is alive, randomy hit opponents for X amount damage.”

This mentality has helped me to accept that F2 will not improve and that I should learn to fight without it.

Yep, that is how I handle it. But that trait has something else. Press F2 and sometimes ncie things happen to you with a variable chance of success^^

Conditions are not messed up, the food buffes are. Somehow ppl are convinced they need to use food buffes. Thinking about that, maybe only ppl are messed up. Still I mostly use none and ripp many ppl appart. I should start using magic find food to more effectivly farm all those scrubs^^

Food still messes things up. +40% condi duration for instance makes everyone believe they need a -40% condi duration food. In fact, you do not need it. If you avoid getting the conditions on you in the first place and start and have at least one effective condition cleanse, than you are fine with the right playstyle.

Necormancer for instance have almost no way to run from ya and rarely a stun breaker. Just utilize that. Although they have strong condition cleanse and transfer even, they are in CD at one point. Only a good necro manages their condi cleanse effectivly and therefor may win not because of conditions, but because of a synsergy with build and playstyle. Meaning he may be just that good.

The game was new, ppl didn’t know how to avoid all the Zerkers. Now they do and all teh Zerkers start crying. I’m getting slightly annoyed by this. If you have issues against a certain professions with a certain playstyle, ask them, what you can do to counter them, with what they have issues, you might be supriced how easy it can be sometimes.

Yeah. Such things happen in every MMO with patches and especially hotfixes. Take it to the support, there u have a chance of getting them back.

Of course we all will have a personal different list of skills. But I agree that under Water ranger is the strongest. You can not stomp an opponent under water and therefore the healing of #3 outshines everything else.

About Ele #2: I have an elementalist, but play him rarely and he is still at lvl 55 or smth. However, as far as my experience goes, you can CC an ele before he uses vapor form. But how CC someone, who evades all attacks. And still, it is a guaranteed stomp interrupt, no matter what, making me rank Ele in WvW still on top of the list.

That beeing sad I do not wish for an Ele vapor form nerf atm. The most pressing issue would be to bring engeneers (no I don’t have a engeneer in WvW, my engi is lvl 13 and I use her almost never^^) on an equal footing with the other professions. Even Necromancer downed skills are way stronger than engeneer, although I list both at the bottom of the list.

EDIT: I corrected some information in the OP, due to hints by Seigfried.5938 and Buddy.7563.

My Comparison of Downed skills
I thought I’ll make a comparative post about the downed skills of all professions and see, what you guys think of that. Don’t forget that’s no science here, only my impression from a WvW standpoint. I ordered from strongest to weakest. Double/tripple ranks are intentional. I couldn’t really deside here, for it often relies on the situation.

Rank 1: Elementalist

1. Discharge Lightning: Decent #1 skill.
2. Vapor Form: Unique transformation skill, that makes the ele evede attacks.
3. Grasping Earth: Decent dmg skill.
   —> conclusion: A strong and reliable downed skill set, especially if close to friendly fortification. #2 is a guarantued stomp interrupt and can be used to move to save location, if close enough. #3 is mostly less effective and in comparison a weak follow up.

Rank 1: Thief

1. A) Trail of Knives: Strong #1 skill.
2. B) Venomous Knife: Strong #1 stealth skill.
3. Shadow Escape: Teleport, location can be chosen.
4. Smoke Bomb: Stealth skill.
   —> conclusion: A strong and reliable downed skill set. #1 deals some good dmg and is usefully in close fights. #2 is an almost garantued interrupt that can only be countered by teleport. #3 is a guarantued interrupt and as follow up usefull to delay the stomp.

Rank 3: Mesmer

1. Mind Blast: Strong #1 skill.
2. Deception: Stealth and clones skill. Needs target.
3. Phantasmal Rogue: Summons a phantasmm, causing much dmg.
   —> conclusion: A good downed skill set, especially in small scale battles. #2 is an almost guarantued stomp interrupt but can be countered by stealth. #3 is a strong follow up in close fights.

Rank 4: Ranger

1. Throw Dirt: Decent #1 skill.
2. Thunderclap: AoE interrupt on target. Long Cast time.
3. Lick Wounds: Downed heal skill. Quick healing.
   —> conclusion: A good downed skill set especially in smal scale fights. #2 interrupt can but be countered by stability or stealth. If the ranger get’s to use #3, he can resurect himself very quickly, even if under attack. Especially strong in 1v1 fights and against npcs.

Rank 4: Warrior

1. Throw Rock: Decent #1 skill.
2. Hammer Toss: Single target interrupt. Long Cast time.
3. Vengeance: Strong, especially when traited.
   —> conclusion: Good downed skill in small scale fights. Interrupt can only target one player and can be easily countered by blind, stealth and stability. #3 is strong though and especially in smal scale fights can turn the tide of a battle.

rank 4: Guardian

1. Wrath: Decent #1 skill.
2. Wave of Light: Pushes up to 5 palyers away from you. Quick cast time.
3. Symbol of Judgment: Decent healing, dmg seams weak.
   —> conclusion: Decent downed skills in Zerg and small scale fights. Initial stomp can but be guarantued by several professions via stability or blind. #3 follow up is a nice healing, that can be helpfull in close fights.

Rank 7: Necromancer

1. Life Leech: Strong #1 skill.
2. Fear: Single target fear.
3. Fetid Ground: AoE skill with nice dmg.
   —> conclusion: A weak downed skill set. #2 can but be countered by stealth, stability and blind. #3 can be in close battles a usefull follow up.

rank 8: Engineer

1. Throw Junk: Nice #1 skill. I like it.
2. Grappling Line: Single target interrupt.
3. Booby Trap: Pushes up to 5 palyers away from you.
   —> conclusion: One of the weakest downed skill sets. Single target interrupt, that even pulls your foe, what I find unpractical. Can easily be coutnered by stability, stealth or blindness. #3 is another interrupt, that can be coutnered by stability or blind.

There is a big imballance in downed skills. First and most important is the stomp itnerrupt. Here the elementalist and thief have the upper hand, closely followed by Mesmer. Ele has a allways guaranteed stomp interrupt and a good chance to flee to safety. Thief and Mesmer have a close to allways guaranteed stomp interrupt with decent follow up skills.

All other professions can be finished very quickly. Some of them have, to balance things out, a strong #3 follow up. Warrior and Ranger are the strongest here imho. Ranger can heal himslef very quickly via pet and Warrior can stand up and run to tower, wher he could be rezed (so he doesn’t need to walk back from spawn) or even finish a downed player or kill a nps to rally (even untraited there is a rally chance). The warrior might be the strongest profession when it comes to a battle between 2 downed players. Also the guardian heal symbol is not to underestimate.

That leaves us with necromancer and engeneer. Necromancer, due to #1 life drain and #2 fear (that can be traited to deal dmg) is still accaptable, for it fears your enemy away from you and can even bring him down. However, the engeneer has it very bad, once downed. #2 and #3 are 2 very unreliable interrupts and leave the engeneer mostly finished more often, then the other professions once he is downed.

I was there buddy(s). I used to hate Mesmer downed skills. Then I played other professions and I learned to apreciate it. Yes, you can not fool any1 with that skill. But it s an almost garanteed stomp interreupt (granted you have a target on wich you can use the skill). If one could use the skill #2 even without target, then it would be close to perfect (bugs excluded).

Number 2 is a delay skill in every profession. Thief teleport and ele Mist form are nice, but Ele mistform is the only garantued stomp interupt/delay, that you can use in every thinkable scenario. Every other #2 skill can be circumvented with stealth, blind, stability or teleport/steal.

So if you think about a balanced fix for that one, you’d have first to give every profession either a garantued “interrupt”, or an “interrupt” with one flaw, how to circumvent it (I think I prefer option 2). And you would have to make it possible for any profession to have a decent follow up #3. So let’s be honest, there are way worse #2s and #3s out there than ours.

• My condition Necromancer
  click me
  It’s propably very popular. There are a few alterations of this build out there. The food is optional. Most of the time I’m not using it.

• My Hybrid Mesmer
  click me
  Technically not a pure condition dmg build. It relies but heavily on condition caused by illusions. Stacks up to 12-15 bleeds very quickly. Don’t know, if you want to consider it for your analysis. Do with it, what you wish.

I think it is only a matter of time, until players will go less for condition. It will be the point in time, where others learned to counter it. I played a condi necro before the big balance patch. And I roflestomped almost everybody in WvW back then. Then the big balance update came and torment + Dhuumfire made condition builds on necro over the top powerfull.

Still, that all can be coutnered. Ppl didn’t know back then how to do it, and they still don’t know. Runse and food is one part of it. The build is another and how you play is propably the best way to counter. You have to adapt to the meta. And that’s what I have done since release of GW2 (and my mesmer still uses the same gear, except for making it ascended).

There are trait lines for each profesion, that allow better condition remove. I adepted my Mesmer (what is my main) to those and saw no issue with condition builds any more, even against the “OP” necro. My thief has no issues as well (due to condi remove in stealth every 3 seconds, way overpowered imho+condi remove on heal and condi remove via teleport) and my necromancer has no issues either (but that is no suprice). The only one troubled by that is my ranger, where you have to spec 30 trait points to get a half decent condition remove, if ur pet is allive.

Maybe we should look at the defense against conditons. There are professions, that have insane condition remove and others, who have almost none. But partly it is indeed a L2P issue. And that comes from a guy, who atm playes mostly ranger, with propably the worst condition remove mechanics in the game atm.

McWolfy.5924:

the f2 is the last problem we have i think

Strongly disagree. It is one of the core problems of rangers. Take it froma guy playing many other professions, that Pet F2 is horrible. To make it comparable. When I shatter my illusions as mesmer (what could be closes to the F2 pet skill) my illusions run imidiatly to it’s target and shatter. I can even summon new illusions during that porcess and the ones, supposed to shatter, will still do so. I had once 9 illusions arround me, where 2 triplets of them were running to their target to shatter.

Now we compare F2 pet skills to that. You have only one pet (that is fine). The F2 triggers unreliably. If it triggers, the respecting animation is super slow. One has to be super lucky or has to inticipate pet AND enemy movement to pull it off effectivly. Why can’t it be, that the pet stops everything when u press F2. If it is a boon or smth, it trigger imidiatly. If it is a condition or attack, it attacks right away, meaning it runs to the target and does, what it’s supposed to do. Also the animation should be faster. Any decent half brained player can see the wolf howling and dodge it accordingly (I know it, I have fought rangers for months and months, without being troubled by them). Even when the pet is still executing F2, I want to be able to switch pet without the first pet canceling that ability.

Ranger Pet mechanics are a joke compared to other profession unique F1 to F4 mechanics and need a drastic improvement in manner of speed and reliability.

Wolfaen.9461:

I have leveled my ranger to 60 and I actually enjoy him a lot, but after coming to these forums and reading about the ranger in WvW and having the negative dmg % for having a pet that will always be dead has got me questioning the ranger as the best option for me.

Don’t use the forum to get an impression of anything. Most of the ppl in the forum write here, when they are concerned about smth, don’t like smth and such. Therefore you will get a more negative image of any profession here in the forum. The ones cry, their dps is too low, the others say stealth is too weak and others will say they have no viable mobility skills.

For example first time I visited the necromancer forum, after my necro hit 80, I was shocked, how bad the necromancer community thought of the necro (befor the big balance patch). I but had (also before the big balance patch) awesome experiances with her and up until today my necro is the only of my characters, where I engage up to 5 ppl and see it quite possible to defeat them (and not only troll them).

Ranger is quite fun for me too and almost all concerns about ranger are exadurated imho. Only response time of skills, like Sword evades or Pet skills is a issue I agree on, as well as the pet dying in big Zerg fights. But as a roamer that usually doesn’t concern you.

tl,dr: Try it out urself. The best way to measure how much one will enjoy a profession is to roll that profession and try it out urself. If u had fun so far, don’t stop others from continuing to have fun

I remember feedback and thieves suiciding with dagger storm in it :P

Ever turned arround chasing a foe, hit sword #2 face him back and hit #2 again? It’s like mesmer Phase retreat: Used the right way you can go anywhere with it^^

My impression:
Don’t believe the “XYZ is useless”-people. I remember back, when all said Phantasm Mesmer is underpowered and they adviced to go Shatter. I went Phantasms instead and had very very very good experiences back then with Phantasm Mesmer.

I agree on F2 pet skill. It works, but the timing is super unpredictable. And sometimes it doesn’t work at all.#

But if you now would buff my weapon dmg. I would feel slightly overpowered.

As a player, who plays all of those professions (but my main is Mesmer), I may give you some comparative impression from each professions standpoint. But don’t take my word for it. It is only my opinion. More down you’ll see a more detailed description, how I come to my conclusions (kind of).

In short

• Range: Ranger 1st, Mesmer 2nd, Thief 3rd
• Mobility without much effort: Thief 1st, Ranger 2nd, Mesmer 3rd
• Mobility with effort: Mesmer and Thief 1st, Ranger 3rd
• Good DPS: That is a tie
• Survivability: Thief 1st, Mesmer 2nd, Ranger 3rd
• Specs roaming/Zerging: That is a tie too
• One solid gear set for different builds: no idea^^

Range
That wins the Ranger with no doubt. Longbow can be traited with 20 points in marksmanship to 1500 ranger with all 5 attacks on it. Next comes Mesmer with 1200 range on Greatsword and Staff, but Staff works best at middle range. Thief is limited to 900 range maximum.

mobility
Hm… that is a not easy. All can be mobile, but it requires some times speccing it accordingly. Both Ranger and Thief can equip a signet that gives them +25% speed. All 3 professions have some kind of leap or teleport skills. It all depends on the build. Thief can via Shortbow #5 teleport travel in hight better than the other 2 professions. By default mesmer would be the one with the least mobility. However, many mesmer like to equip Rune of the Centaur that gives you on heal a 12 second Swiftness. Together with Focus and/or prolonged boon time you can sustain the Swiftness boon indefenetly. Also mesmer Blink (a teleport) can be traited to reduced CD and longer distance (1200). It all but limits your build, because you rely on those skills and/or equipments.

good DPS
On the scrubs level I’d say full Zerker Backstab thief. But you don’t wanna be stuck on scrubs level. You can achiev with all professions fairly high DPS in condition and direct dmg builds, although many say that going Zerker with Ranger is bad on the higher levels. I can’t support that statement personally. Over all, all professions have good DPS.

survivability
Thief wins that. Stealth allows you to survive really long, if you know how to utilize it. Especially if you are ready to not go full glass cannon and trait 30 points in stealth with the right traits, you can survive a whole Zerg with thief. Mesmer comes next here, cuz Mesmer also got stealth and Portal and Blink. Also with Mesmer you can equip 2-3 stun breakers as utilities without sacraficing in other areas, cuz most Mesemr utilities are defensive. Also #2 on staff works as a back teleport that can be used when stunned. However, good players might sill catch you in stealth by “guessing” right. Ranger has a more direct approach. With stun breaker skills and mobility through Leaps on Greatsword or Sword. Also a 3 second invisibility on Longbow.

specs roaming/zerging
That is complicated. Trapper condition ranger is fairly good in 1v1, roaming and Zerging. Also Longbow with 1500 range is a good advantage. Thief with Shortbow can use constand blast finishers, what is very improtant in Zerg fights and Mesmer has glamour skills that are quite powerfull. Over all I can not see the advantage of one profession over the others here. They fill but different tasks in a Zerg.

one solid gear set for different builds
Hm… no I think no profession has an advantage here. That depends also on your own creativity.

Who cares? I had fun. Who said I want to compete on pro PvP tournament level?
And btw don’t underestimate the ability of our tier’s players. You might be suprised. We are few, that doesn’t mean we’re all scrubs.

I turned off auto attack, so I can run away from zergs better in WvW^^. Deselct target and jump werever u want. So I tunred it off for #2. And here is my problem with the delay. I mostly fight with Longbow. When I but are in too much trouble and my Lightning reflexes are in CD, then I need to get away with #2. So I switch and use it. But here my ranger is stuck for (it feels like) an eternety in the prejump animation, making it easy to get hit by a quick stun.

However, when fighting 1v1 it happens often that, when I use sword, I am stuck in #1 animation. I see that Guardina rais his hammer. I know he is going to smash me down, so I try to evade with #2 (again, if lightning reflexes is not availabe) and it takes too much time, so I am hit and smashed into the ground. And mostly, that ground tastes horrible.

However, I had with my guild some tornement matches in PvP. My first time with ranger^^. But it was awesome (sam build I use in WvW, glass cannon berserker rampager mix). But again, sometimes it would take ages for my wolf to fear the opponent from the spot… that is really annoying…

I have now played for some days with ranger. While I still enjoy it and have learned to utilize some of the skills better, I have one issue with the profession. And that issue is responsiveness.

Especially Sword #2 (the first in the chain) takes ages till it reacts. So one has to preemtivly use it, in expectence of an attack. If u start using the skill, when u see the enemy anaimation of the atack u want to avoid, it is simply to late to do it. That lack of responsiveness is increased by the Sword #1 root, as mentioned in other threads already. Timed dodges are very hard and u have to spam the dodge button if wanna get out of the rooting of #1 and dodge.

As pets I use the wolf for fear and the bear for condition remove. Those two skills, while they are very awesome, take also a very long time to trigger. Making it hard to utilize those skill on time.

I feel that the ranger could be even more fun to play and more competetive, if the response time on those skills would be improved, so that fighting feels more fluent. As it is now, you have to know your opponent (as a multy profession player, I actually know often, what to expect from other professions) and preemtivly try to avoid attacks. With no other profession I played this kind of opponent behaviour prediction is needed to play effectivly. If you predict right, you still can compete very well, but if u guessed wrong it results in a wasted evade and you soon are a corpse to lay in the grass^^

So Long,
Go Lly out

I like that idea very much.

I play ranger in WvW. And I like it. Especially in small groups my ranger shows his strengths, where the others are engaged in close combat and I hit everything from afar with my longbow. If they see me, I either use sword/warhorh to fight them up close, or I use #2 leaps in sword to get away from them and then shoot them again with longbow. That works suprisingly good. Until now I could hold my ground against any foe in 1v1 (and many use food buffs, while I don’t).

And in a Zerg Longbow rangers are the sniper of the Zerg. Hitting Trebs, where no1 else can hit them, picking of the weaker memebers in enemy Zerg and stuff like that. Playing Ranger feels a lot more tactical than playing thief, mesmer or necro (my other lvl 80 toons). This is what I enjoy about Ranger.

I see so many bad rangers in WvW, but there are some, who can play them very good. Say what you will, I enjoy it very much. And seeing today a 5 man team of the enemy server with rangers only contradicts the message of the OP anyway.

I have another idea of a “middle way”. We leave the WvW ranks soulbbound. But we add a Spirits vs Soul option (I came up with the names quickly, so don’t take them too seriously).

It works like that. At a given WvW rank you get a reward box where you can choose between two rewards:

• Spirits achievment token
• Soul achievment token

Both are connected with unique skins (I like having new skins).
Now the Spirits achievment token allows you now to unlock a unique trait line for one of your alts (meaning it can be used by any character but the one who got the token), while the Soul achievment token allows you to unlock a unique trait line for the character, who earned that token.
You still have to put WvW points in that unique trait lines to utilize them of course.

Additionally through the two different skin options, you can show off your over all WvW rank in a way, because you can have either multiple Spirit skins (as an “alt”-aholic) or multiple Soul Skins (as a player who plays only a few or one profession in WvW). Or a combination of them. Maybe you could also have a Soul and a Spirits title, that you could show of.

EDIT: This reward tokes could be chosen at, let’s say, each 50 WvW ranks or so.

EDIT2: The Spirits trait lines could also include some XP reward bonuses (for quicker alt leveling^^), while the Soul trait line could include some magic bonus or smth. One would have to figure it out, so that it doesn’t get one sided and one kind of trait line should not be stronger than the other, but should give you the posibility for some unique gameplay.

-1

nope ranger is fine. My pets are fine. I speak but only from WvW perspective.

I run a mixture of berserker and rampager gear. By using Longbow and Warhorn you have two chanaled skill, that deal much dmg. With the right traits you can even stack much bleeding. Of course you have to look out for mesmer feedbakc or other reflection skill (guardian) using Longbow #2.

But generally with glass cannon berseker (and I guess that is true for any other profession too) you have to know, what the other professions can do to avoid their attacks. You will allways eat much dmg with glass cannon builds. Meaning you need dodges at the right time and, if you have, other utilities, that you can use to defend. Sword #2 and #3 also are evades or GS #1 has an evade in auto attack chain.

Over all, if you are new, I can only say: keep at it. Keep trying and experiment with your build. It is not necessery to change armor, although some will tell you that zerker is not good for ranger. From my experience zerker is fine. Use high frequent attacks, to increase the chance to trigger critical dmg. Also skills to stack up vulnerability are helpfull in order to increase dmg.

Hey my fellow rangers,

I have now finally leveled my ranger to lvl 80. I must say, I enjoy it very much. I even enjoyed leveling my ranger in WvW (thouhg I used shortcut by crafting 4 crafting professions^^). I use mainly longbow and if the enemy gets close I use sword/warhorn or sword/dagger. I am geared berserker with ascended rampager trinkets.

Over all I must say I love it. I feel so mobile in combat due to sword #2. Also the extended range on Longbow is just over the top for assaulting ppl or defending towers and stuff. I kinda feel like the ancient samurai, for they where archers mainly and used a sword (much like the later invented Katana) to defend themselfes. And that’s what I do and it is amazing.

Before I hit 80 I feared that ranger would be bad, because I met not many rangers before, who I deemed any danger to me and I heared ppl complaining about how bad ranger is in WvW. Now speaking from the perspektive of a player, who played 3 different other professions in WvW, I must say that those worries did not come true.

Ranger in WvW is one of the most fun I ever had. I don’t know for sure yet, how competetive the ranger is in the spectrum of skills needed in WvW, but for sure I can say, that I find it the most fun profession to play atm.

So cheers my hunting brothers^^

I like the idea of getting more WXP from higher WvW ranked players. In return slapping npcs and doors with Zerg should be less rewardeing. Now: Make it so

Yeah WSR seems to have no numbers any more. And if they have numbers, half of them are upleveled. Also WvW coverage on FoW seems have improved very strongly. There are moments when I don’t believe how many ppl we got and I allways start laughing, when I am ahead of a zerg and attack smth, and the the zerg comes and just roles over my foe in seconds.

And we are green now, I don’t like to be green, I wanna be blue again. Allways confused when checking which tower belongs to us and which doesn’t^^

Ur sarcastic analogy is flawed in so many ways:

• I can transfer many items I get with one character to another.
• World completion title can be selected with any character, no matter if lvl2 or lvl 80.
• Leveling characters until 80 is achievable with multiple characters relativly easily. Compared to that leveling WXP is simply painfull if u run several characters in WvW.

While I admire your unconstructive and utterly misplaced sarcasm, it serves no purpose in a discussion.

Maybe the idea behind WXP was it to be cahracter progression. But if your not 24/7 Zerging it feels like character stagnation. The whole progressing of WvW ranks and their abilities is not thought through well enough for me to accept it as character progression.