Guild Wars 2

I agree. It’s good to know what conditions/boons your pet have so you can make the decision as to whether or not to swap pets.

This should be in the game.

As a Guild Leader, there aren’t many ways to provide people with information. I can either:

-Expect people to read the Guild Message at the top of the Guild Window
-Send a letter in-game to each individual Guild Member one at a time
-Use a third party communication system

I ask for two things:

1) The Guild Message of the day to pop up in a person’s chatbox upon logging in. This existed in Guild Wars 1, and I feel is a great way for Guild Admin to let people know what’s going on.

2) Allow Guild Admin to send out a “Mass Letter” to Guild Members. This is particularly important in a game which allows players to join four guilds at any given time. This way, you can connect with people who aren’t actively Representing your guild.

Without a basic and easy to send/receive Guild Notices to Members, communication falls apart, and, ultimately, so may the Guild.

I actually found the GW1 Ranger to be kind of limiting in playstyle. I played a W/R that used Axe/Shield with a Heal as One build.

That’s probably why I enjoy my Greatsword Survival Ranger so much in GW2. Fighting up close and personal with your pet is way more engaging than shouting, “Go my minion! Tank that boss with your face! Pewpewpew!”

If you can stay at above 90% health, Scholar is the best.

If you can’t stay above 90% health, but can keep your pet alive for most of a fight, Ranger is better.

If you’re lazy and can’t be bothered to stay above 90% health or keep your pet alive, use one of the other two. Ogre is probably better for overall damage, but Divinity is really good overall.

Wolves are really my favorite for most content. They’re pretty durable, do decent damage, and tend to have impressive f2 skills.

Bears are nice in Explorables. I take a Brown Bear for the team condition removal and a Polar Bear for the AoE chill.

At the end of the day, a bear might be able to take 3-4 boss hits instead of 1-2 compared to the weaker pets. Compare that to how many hits a lot of players can take, and it’s quite impressive, considering, with two bears, we can have them take ~6-8 hits every 20 seconds. That saves lives.

Make sure you take a Brown Bear, and remember to use his f2: he takes conditions from your entire team. It’s great for dungeon play.

I am super happy they fixed the Entangle bug.

A great elite just got better.

I read over that word.

That being said, you’ll find yourself in one of a couple situations:

1) The cripple is good enough that my first reaction stands
2) The cripple is so weak that it might as well not exist
3) The percent chance turns the weapon into an RNG-fest, which can be frustrating for either party involved.

Personally, my biggest beef with the Longbow is it’s lack of flair. People say bad things about the Ranger Greatsword, but they rarely say it’s vanilla. The Longbow is vanilla. There’s no sense of it being used by a Ranger. You could take the current Longbow skills and put them on the Warrior Longbow and it would fit him fine.

I think a spammable cripple on a weapon that can have 1500 range is potentially toxic for any and all PvP purposes.

We’ve had a large number of recruits in the past few days!

I just wanted to welcome everyone to the family.

For dungeons I always take a Brown Bear (team condition removal), but I’m toying around with my second pet (it’s usually a Polar Bear for the AoE chill). Moas are looking pretty attractive at the moment, but they are definitely more frail than Bears.

I doubt my right bar is what you would expect.

A basic outline of what I use:

-Troll Unget
-Spike Trap
-Lightning Reflexes
-Zepher
-Entangle

If you’re interested in more specific information about my build, you can read a write up I did here:

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/66729-how-to-be-a-great-greatsword-ranger/

I typically have 15. For the first two Minor Traits.

Getting Quickness on pet swap is great, and doing it 20% more frequently is just delicious. Plus it makes my pets feel like they’re not soggy noodles.

So I was running AC Explorable yesterday with some guildies. We were doing Colossus Rumblus (third path) for the AC Achievement, myself and one guildy were the only one who had done the path before. It is, in my opinion, the most difficult of the three paths.

A bit of info for those who haven’t fought Colossus Rumblus. He’s basically the Howler King (first path boss), only his conal AoE scream is his 180degree front arc, rather than just a 30-45degree cone. His scream does more damage, and will down most players if you get hit by it. When he burrows, he’ll chase your squishiest, lowest health party member and cause an AoE knockback doing pretty high damage, and, to top it off, he makes the ceiling cave in, creating numerous AoEs that can be pretty hard to dodge if the RNG decides it wants to toss 3-5 at you. He normally chains them via: Rockfall, Burrow, Scream with ~10second delay between each of them, giving you very little breathing time.

On to the story:

Well, that 10seconds of breathing time I mentioned? I had been calling out which his next attack would be and giving a vague countdown in Vent, only to have him decide, “Nah, this time I won’t let them have some breathing room.” Immediately after burrowing onto my guildy who had done it before, causing him to go down, he decided it would be a good idea to scream while our party was heading to Rally our friend. The end result was all five of us on our backs.

The guildy who had done it before, tanked a couple of hits from the boss, granting us a second or two, only to go into the defeated state, and, having fought the boss before, tried to Graveyard rush back to prevent a full wipe (as Colossus was <50% hp).

While he took those two hits, Lick Wounds came up on my down bar, and my bear rushed back to rally me. Once Rallied, I popped a quick heal, rushed to my nearest ally, and, during the Rockthrow attack, changed pets, commanded my Bear to rush in, and used the Quickness from 5 points in the Beastmastery tree to Speed-Rally my ally.

My Bear began to take a beating from Rumblus.

Dodging to another ally, I popped Quickening Zephr and speed rallied him as well.

The three of us quickly were able to rally our fourth before Rumblus’s Burrow attack came off cooldown.

The end Result? Four of us were at full hp before the defeated player had even gotten halfway back to the fight.

Lessons to take away from this:

-Being able to rally yourself with your pet is HUGE. It lets your allies focus on other things during a fight if you go down in the right spot (I made sure I was the farthest from the boss when I went down, as, thanks to my more defensive stats, I was the last to drop)

-Pets are other targets for enemies to attack. Nobody can take very many hits from bosses. It’s usually 2-3 and you drop. Pets can take that many hits, effectively increasing your party size by one.

-Quickness is incredible for Speed Rallying. I’m always watching the health of my team and trying to be as close to people taking hits as possible. We can speed Rally through situations that would often cause both players to be defeated, such as AoEs.

We have plenty Explorable Utility. It’s just utilized differently.

I recommend getting at least a little bit of survivability. I’m a fan of Knight’s Armor.

Get a fifth person. Even if he’s a terrible PUG you’ll do better as a party.

Just a quick reminder: even though you can only do it once ever 24 hours, Server Transfers are still free, so if you think Jaded would be a good match for you feel free to contact us, even if you’re not currently on Darkhaven.

We like to keep friends together as well, so if you like the sound of Jaded, tell your friends about us, and join us as a group!

Well, here’s what I’m using:

Greatsword/Axe Warhorn
Wilderness Survival, Nature Magic, Beastmastery
0/0/30/25/15

http://gw2.luna-atra.fr/skills_tool/?lang=en&code=3670007b1r1s15gsae00upf43444cg3glgr

Armor: Knights
Accessories: Valkyrie
Weapons: Valkyrie

Pros:
-High durability
-With Quickness the Greatsword’s auto-attack is almost invulnerability due to evasion
-High CC
-Provides long lasting Warhorn Buffs thanks to Nature Magic
-Points in Beastmastery turn your Pet into a threat, as well as providing Quickness, and an increase in Per Survivability and Quickness uptime due to Pet-swap cooldown decrease.

Cons:
-Mediocre damage

Pet Choices:
-PvE Solo- Anything goes, usually at least one Canine
-PvE Dungeons- Dual Bears (specifically Brown for condition removal)
-PvP- Dual Canines

I use the same build in SPvP, except I switch out the Axe/Warhorn for the Shortbow for the additional CC.

Dungeon Playstyle:
-Speed Rally downed players with Quickness (super important since you’re going to be one of the least likely players to drop)
-Tank/CC Foes
-Utilize Bears appropriately to distract bosses via
-Provide Warhorn Buffs and remove conditions via Brown Bear
-Pop Entangle when your team is about to be overrun

SPvP Playstyle:
You have two main functions:
-Provide additional CC via Daze to ruin an enemy’s chance at healing. This takes practice.
-Backfield objective disruption. You’re tanky. Use that fact to your advantage!

General tips:
-Use Lightning Reflexes if you get stunned. Seems like a no-brainer, but you should be the one in control of the fight due to your evasion, durability, and CC. Being on your back goes against that.
-Dodge roll frequently for protection. Don’t forget to give your pet protection as well.
-Don’t back out if your health is low. Barkskin will save you, or you would have died anyway.

Note: I’m still experimenting with Runes, but Emerald Orbs are a cheap and efficient way to Rune your armor (they’re also what I’m currently using).

There isn’t an efficient way to stack both Toughness and Vitality. You can get Power/Toughness/Vitality gear from:

-WvW
-Karma vendors in Orr for 42k each piece
-Honor of the Waves and Sorrow’s Embrace Explorable merchant

None of those ways are quick, so if you’re looking for a cheap set of gear to keep you durable without completely kittening yourself, I’m currently using:

Knight’s Armor with Emerald Orbs
Beryl Accessories of the Valkyrie

Gives you a nice balance of Power, Precision, Toughness, Vitality, and Critical Damage.

but I am working slowly towards Power/Toughness/Vitality gear with Carrion Accessories. The thing is the Power/Toughness/Vitality exotic gear takes so long to farm up.

Greatsword/Axe Warhorn
Wilderness Survival, Nature Magic, Beastmastery
0/0/30/25/15

http://gw2.luna-atra.fr/skills_tool/?lang=en&code=3670007b1r1s15gsae00upf43444cg3glgr

Armor: Knights
Accessories: Valkyrie
Weapons: Valkyrie

Pros:
-High durability
-With Quickness the Greatsword’s auto-attack is almost invulnerability due to evasion
-High CC
-Provides long lasting Warhorn Buffs thanks to Nature Magic
-Points in Beastmastery turn your Pet into a threat, as well as providing Quickness, and an increase in Per Survivability and Quickness uptime due to Pet-swap cooldown decrease.

Cons:
-Mediocre damage

Pet Choices:
-PvE Solo- Anything goes, usually at least one Canine
-PvE Dungeons- Dual Bears (specifically Brown for condition removal)
-PvP- Dual Canines

I use the same build in SPvP, except I switch out the Axe/Warhorn for the Shortbow for the additional CC.

Dungeon Playstyle:
-Speed Rally downed players with Quickness (super important since you’re going to be one of the least likely players to drop)
-Tank/CC Foes
-Utilize Bears appropriately to distract bosses
-Provide Warhorn Buffs and remove conditions via Brown Bear
-Pop Entangle when your team is about to be overrun

SPvP Playstyle:
You have two main functions:
-Provide additional CC via Daze to ruin an enemy’s chance at healing. This takes practice.
-Backfield objective disruption. You’re tanky. Use that fact to your advantage!

General tips:
-Use Lightning Reflexes if you get stunned. Seems like a no-brainer, but you should be the one in control of the fight due to your evasion, durability, and CC. Being on your back goes against that.
-Dodge roll frequently for protection. Don’t forget to give your pet protection as well.
-Don’t back out if your health is low. Barkskin will save you, or you would have died anyway.

NOTE: This post is simply an initial set up for my Greatsword build. If you’re interested to how I’m currently set up, check out:

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/66729-how-to-be-a-great-greatsword-ranger/

I agree with dixon, and would like to emphasize the importance of Beastmastery traits on pet survivability. I only use 15 Beastmastery, but notice a substantial difference when compared to having 0 Beastmastery. Remember: Beastmastery will also boost your pet’s damage output, so you’re increasing your damage two-fold: once by making your pet hit harder, and secondly by keeping your pet alive to do damage.

Birds are also one of the most frail pets we have access to. I, too, went on a ‘bird-stint’ where I insisted on using birds who died too often for my tastes while leveling. My solution? Use one bird and a second, beefier pet. Usually my Fern Mastiff.

In terms of raw offensive stats, Rampager gear will always outperform Carrion gear.

But you don’t lose that much offensive prowess by putting some defensive stats on your armor. Personally, I’d take another 480hp over ~2% crit chance.

The true question comes into play with what you gain and lose from an entire set being changed over. Personally, I feel that defensive stats in large quantities outweigh offensive stats, but that a lot of variables in play.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mystic_forge/Mystic_Weapons

The forge has 4 slots, you simply fill the four slots with the four items listed under the weapon of your choice, making sure each item is of the right quantity.

Press the button and profit!

Glad you’re enjoying it!

I’d probably like it myself if the 1h sword didn’t lock me in place.

I wouldn’t worry too much about Quaggans: they’re just cute.

If you can’t get in touch with us via PMs, feel free to send us in-game mail.

Frankly, I don’t care about not having the ability to duel. Would I like it? Sure, why not. I’ll take extra features.

What bothers me about the lack of dueling, is how people fill up SPvP rooms and declare them 1v1 rooms, forcing me to either wait 10 minutes for the match to end or to quit the room myself.

It’s not an uncommon occurrence, and when I just want to play a quick SPvP match, I don’t enjoy getting thrown into a match in which I’ll get flamed for trying to play Conquest the way it was meant to be played.

I’m glad to have you join us, Aero.

We have a couple of capped Warrior’s who are pretty knowledgeable if you have any questions.

It says Protecting Screech grants protection for 12.5 seconds, while the buff (appears to) only last 2.5 seconds.

Why do people dislike it?

I ran it tonight with four guildies. None of us had done TA Explorable before at all, and most of us have only done a couple of other Explorable modes previously.

Took us about an hour and forty-five minutes with only a couple wipes.

Is Forward>Up and Up>Up really that much easier? If so, what makes them easier?

I get the buff and the action speed, I just don’t always get the visual ‘blurred’ effect.

I build fairly differently than most Rangers with 30 Wilderness Survival, 25 Nature Magic, and 15 Beast Mastery. Then when you add in all of my Knight’s armor and Valkyrie Weapons/Accessories, I’m rather durable with my Greatsword.

I enjoy doing the Eternal Battlegrounds jumping puzzle.
You know how there’s often 1 or 2 Asuran Thieves sitting at the top of the Pit room waiting to kill people? I’m the savior of those people.

Thieves are bursty. If you’re not equally bursty, then you need to be durable. Due to the initiative system, they will out-burst just about any class. Gotta wear them out, whether it’s due to inherit beefiness, evasion skills, or kiting.

You say ‘only warhorn’ like it’s a bad thing.

The warhorn is a great item, and it provides more than just a speed boost.

A couple of really good secondaries to the Shortbow are:

-Longbow, because of how the traits overlap
-Axe/Warhorn, because it has better AoE damage, buffs you, and can summon BIRDS
-Sword/Warhorn, because it has strong melee damage, solid evasion, and see above for BIRDS
-Axe/Torn, because see above for AoE damage, and can drop a Fire Field for combos, which is great for a condition build
-Greatsword, because it’s a greatsword

At the moment the only two real weapons I don’t care for are Dagger and offhand Axe (and the 1h Sword is kinda glitchy, but the damage is still great for PvE).

If I had to pick a set for you, I’d narrow it down to either the Longbow or the Axe/Torch as your secondary. Mostly due to how most Rangers are all, “Ermagerd, I love maxing Marskmen and Skirmishing Traitlines!”

Just play around with all of the sets. There will naturally be sets that appeal to your playstyle more than others.

Double Dogs.

Keep them on passive during Zergs. When you manage to find a single enemy separated, manually f1 your Dog/Wolf to attack them. The pet will use a knock down rather quickly after being sent in. At this point, f4 to your other dog, and manually f1 him in.

Bam. You just knocked down the enemy twice, and probably killed him.

Actually, a boomerang pull-in on the return flight would be quite reasonable. Axes are ranged weapons, but they benefit from being in close quarters, such as the shotgun effect of Splitblade or the splash AoE when you reflect projectiles with Whirling Defense.

That would be quite an elegant solution to making offhand Axe appealing.

Take 5 points into Precision and then swap weapons while in combat.

Thanks a bunch!

So our cultural weapons are pretty cool in that the blades are only showed when you draw the weapon, but I dislike the “bright blue” look of the Carrion set. I’m trying to find a good picture of the Warden Greatsword’s blade, to no avail.

Anybody care to help a flower out?

I have 15 Points in BM and will usually take two Bears into dungeons vs my normal two Dogs. Alternating between the Bears and F3ing them back towards me, I can keep them up practically forever.

Jaded[Jade] is recruiting active, friendly, and mature members! We are a family-style guild looking to form long-term friendships through PvE and PvP. We have a forum and a vent.

Things you can expect from joining Jaded:

-friendly Guildies
-dungeon parties
-light PvP, both WvW and Structured
-an abnormal love for Quaggans

Some of our Guild Boosts include:
-10% Magic Find boost at all times
-5% Experience boost at all times
-15% Karma Boost on Saturdays for your Jugs of Karma
-Guild Stash, Treasure Trove, and Deep Cave all unlocked

Jaded is mostly comprised of members between the ages of 18 and 81.
We are most active during North American evenings.

Take a gander over at our forums over at:
http://jaded.boards.net/

If we sound like the right home for you, you can either mention it here, introduce yourself at our forums, contact some of us in-game through whispers or the mail system, or combine several of these options.

Guild Co-Leaders:
- Vecuu Raine
- Raelin Flameseeker
- Shira Nolar

Officers:
-Duh General
-Bllades
-Rosette Wildthorn
-Takiya Delyll

We look forward to meeting you all!