Guild Wars 2

MagusShade.2358:

I think the biggest problem with conjured weapons is they have a timer AND charge limit. If i can only use a lightning hammer 25 times, why do those 25 times have to happen in the next minute? just the charge limitation is enough, especially since the cooldown for lightning hammer is only 60 seconds anyway, so if the timer runs out i just summon another one.

i think that’s the problem^ if it didn’t have a timer you could give everyone on your team a fiery greatsword – that would be a bit OP.

Helequin.2608:

If you were to take this idea over to direct damage, anyone think 0/15/30/25/0 would work well?

Gearing, sigils and things are preference of course. Cleric’s for full tankyness, PVT for a slightly more offtank and so on. Runes could be focused on increasing the utility of protection, regen or fury based on playstyle.

Now, we lose the quickness from BM (2 seconds of 200% damage every pet switch), but gain fury for us and the pet (25 in NM) on weapon swap. Even on a full PVT build, fury is pretty significant.

The pet loses stats (150), but gains a buff from Skirmishing (select based on pet). We also gain swiftness on weapon swap, helping the pet hit moving targets but still maintain the 5% damage boost from 25 in NM.

Weapons are again preference, although keeping to set which will allow for fluid weapons swaps.

Thoughts?

I think the pet will be too squishy without investment in BM – maybe builds can be competitive even without (if it’s dead) a pet, but i haven’t used any personally. Also i can’t live without quickness on pet swap in pvp now that i’ve had it XD Need dem stomps and revives!

if you test it i’d be interested in hearing your results though!

i’m the same, it is unhealthy – maybe limit yourself to x hours per day for everything play + forums etc, i know that’s what i should do. It’s just an issue of willpower XD

Vecuu.2018:

I don’t think it’s a matter of Condition doing better damage than Phsyical Ranger builds, but rather an issue that stems from the Ranger class’s relative lack of spammable condition removal. We only really have Healing Spring (long cooldown) and Emphatic Bond (uncontrollable).

I haven’t PvP’d on my Ranger in quite some time, and typically prefer for Troll Unguent over Healing Spring. All of these factors lead me to be fairly confident you’d whoop me, but if you still want to try, feel free to get a hold of me in game.

I feel your condition build will struggle against classes with extremely spammable condition removal such as Shout+Soldier’s gear Guardians/Warriors or Bunker Ele’s far more than my build does.

Rock paper scissors.

kwl kwl, i’ll try to msg you sometime ^. I can see why you’d think the build would struggle against builds with excellent condition removal, but that’s the beauty of a ranger condition build, you can always supplement it with some high direct damage bursts from pets.

ItIsFinished.9462:

I’m not in front of my computer at the moment, but I believe it was per tick…which is per second anyways.

Yeah i thought per tick was per second but someone was suggesting it ticks more than once per second so thought i’d ask. I’m pretty sure you can’t get the regeneration boon to tick for 350, at least not in spvp, maybe in wvw?

Nischana.2036:

Hey guys,

Thanks for the amazing input it really helps me to optimize my build.
As for the Sigil of Energy, i think it should be Buff duration runes + Energy and Rune of Undeath + leeching, cause the Sigil of energy is only good with buff duration 1 dodge that gives 3,5sek protection is amazing.
I think Vencuu has a point in power vs condition dmg.

Maybe we should make a summary against with classes power is good.
I try to start
Power Should be good against:
- Ele (has extrem Condition removal)
- Shout Warri (has good condition removal too)
- Any Glass Cannon like Mesmer and Thief

Condition DMG should be good against:
- Ranger
- Guardian

My main Point against condition dmg is the most “Bunker” speccs or semi bunker have extrem good condition removal and Ranger cant rly spamm conditions without krit…would love to have the position req gone on short bow.

Yeah the energy sigils and boon duration have nice synergy, since i’m sticking to runes of the undead i’ts probably better to also stick to leeching sigils.

The direct dmg bursts from pets are really what makes condition rangers uniquely powerful imo. And the position req on SB is why i don’t use it in duels – you’re almost always facing your opponent.

Vecuu.2018:

I too run 0/0/30/25/15 on my Ranger, although I opt for a physical variant with Greatsword, with PTV Armor, Dolyak Runes, and Knight’s Accessories.

3k Power, 3200 Armor, 21k hp, and a pet who attacks for 1400-1800 is nothing to laugh at, especially when I have a Chill, a Stun, a knockback, two knockdowns, an AoE fear, and an AoE root.

Properly timed CCs to interrupt heals are devastating.

I feel like Rangers make some of the best defensive builds, because the damage that comes from our pets doesn’t diminish for us beefing up.

For those looking for something to read:

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

i used to run a direct dmg build, and had a lot of success, but dueled another, v.good ranger who doesn’t get a namecheck and he destroyed me. I think condition dmg for rangers trumps direct dmg, which is a shame because i loved the style of GS, and the interrupt is something is sorely miss with my current build, now i have to settle for poisoning before a heal, which is effective but leads to a longer battle of attrition.

Anyway i switched to a condition build and could hold my own against him, and that first switch eventually evolved into my current build. However this is just my opinion, i wasn’t running 0/0/30/25/15 with my direct damage build, so maybe that can hold it’s own. Furthermore, this was spvp so i don’t know if the extra stats shake things up a bit in wvw. It would be fascinating to pit your direct damage version against my condition version in a duel though if you’re up for it.

ItIsFinished.9462:

Your math is correct but I think the wiki may be wrong. I am getting around 350 health per second with 620 healing power…

Are you talking about the boon “regeneration” or all sources of healing? and do you mean per literal second that you measure or per tick?

Unfortunately i am sure about the sigil cooldowns. I like your thinking on the protection up-time with extra dodges, another good thing about that vs leeching sigils is leeching can miss whereas you always get the extra energy – i may have to try them again.

As for sigil of renewal + empathic bond. Empathic bond removes all conditions, not just one so there is no need to stack. Unless they can be staggered in some way? e.g:

all conditions removed (empathic bond)
5 seconds later: 1 condition removed (signet of renewal)
5 seconds later: all conditions removed (empathic bond)
5 seconds later: 1 condition removed (signet of renewal)
5 seconds later: all conditions removed (empathic bond)
etc etc.

This would be amazing if it could be done, i’m gonna do some testing for this, i wonder how the timer works – does it go from when you slot the skill? or enter combat? or first condition? etc etc. Does it reset when you log out? (probably).

If you are using a bird the 33% speed buff would be up quite often but not for the other pet you use (unless you’re using two birds) so i prefer hunt to that scenario. As for the swiftness on weapon swap – that would likely be 100% up-tine, but i’m loathe to part with the 5% damage boost from 25NM – especially since you get 5% boon duration and some vitality too, whereas +crit chance and +crit damage is meaningless in such a small amount, you just have to spend them to get the trait.

Yeah the vigor thing sucks, it works out even worse than half as good really if you have the +50% minor trait, using vigor only gives you +33% compared to the usual +100% endurance regen.

Both your builds seem strong, but i’d say that the condition one is better imo because direct dmg for rangers will always be so low compared to other classes. And of course +33% mov speed will result in higher pet dps than my build’s +25%, but will it increase by 5% or more? Because that is what my pet gets for 25 NM, plus the ranger gets it too for me whereas the player’s dps doesn’t bennefit much if at all from run speed.

Your build needs the swiftness of course because you’re not using the signet of the hunt, but i think renewal is fairly redundant unless it can be staggered, so a lot hinges on that testing really.

Basically your build has more dodge (from sigils), more protection (from more dodge, and from runes), mine has more damage (~10% more condition dmg from runes, and 475 flat dmg from sigil procs every 10 secs) and a little more healing (1000 per 10 secs from sigils). In terms of dueling, i never really have a problem surviving, it’s only tank vs tank where sometimes you need the extra dmg so i think i’ll stick to my set-up.

However, i will be looking into the signet of renewal stagger-testing, it could be epic.

Sweet, sweet data. Amazing post. I’ve been using Armourfish for a while, this confirms what i suspected – he is a beast, the only downside is he can’t chase ppl out of the water when you’re sitting comfortably capping a point.

Nischana.2036:

I like your Build, but i see a some small flaws in this Build even if you leave it as it is (i would go 0/0/30/20/20).
Here is what “must” be change to make this Build even better:
I would reccoment to pick “Sigil of Superior Energy” for each weapon. I think this is a must have and is far better then 5% more dmg.

For a Duell Build there is no need for Signet of Hunt , Signet of Renewal will perform better in a Duell.

Here is what i would change:
I would choose IV over VII in Wildness Survial, because near perma vigor would be awsome to be unbeatable.

And i would choose 2 wather 2 earth and 2 Monk Runes for the Armor.

Change the Specct to 0/0/30/20/20 and pick X in the BM tree with Black Raven and Owl.

Hey, some interesting suggestions. As for the sigil of superior energy, i agree they would me much better than sigils of force, but i can’t swap them out as they share a cooldown with sigils of leeching (my preferences for leeching are explored above).

Signet of the hunt is very important in a duel as it significantly increases the pet’s dps against moving targets, and i have been known to pop it now and again for bird f2s to burst someone down and end the duel (risky though). Signet of renewal passive is redundant because i have empathic bond, and if you need the active to save you then you’re screwed anyway because it would be a one-time save, if they got you in a position where you needed it once, they could do it again, and with a 60 second CD on the active you won’t be able to use it the second time.

I actually used to run IV instead of VI in wilderness survival, but vigor doesn’t stack that well with the first minor trait (+50% endurance regen). You do see some improvement but nothing game-changing, you have to time it to notice. This is the same reason X in BM is a bit lackluster imo.

The 25 minor trait in NM is nice for the flat 5% dmg boost to myself and pet – according to the numbers linked to by jcroe, 5 points in BM will actually provide less of a boost to pet dmg (3-4%) and of course i benefit from the 5% dmg boost from 25 NM too.

As for maximising boon duration, it’s a nice idea – i tried it once on a group support build i made, but for this build, the extra condition damage from undead is crucial for you to be a credible threat, sometimes it’s still not enough and you have to switch to Rabid amulet vs certain bunkers.

I’m glad you like my build, and i hope you don’t think i’m just looking to shoot down your suggestions because a lot of your ideas have sound theory-crafting behind them, and are even what i used to run! However, my current incarnation has evolved through vigorous testing and i believe for the reasons stated above it is better for it. However i am still very much open to suggestions, and would never say that it’s truly optimal!

Hey Skrill! thanks for adding credence to my words! See people, i wasn’t making it up XD

different professions swing it differently, i play ranger, it looks fine

jkctmc.8754:

Wanderer.5471:

jkctmc.8754:

Wow, sPvP players are horrible. Not a single dodge, or defensive ability used. You could have shown that hitting dummies, or something.

<face meets palm>

what? just because the people in this video weren’t doing anything you’re gonna make blanket statements about all spvp players??

Why all the hate? did you get rolled in a hotjoin 10x in a row or something?

I never lost to any sPvP player on the few times I’ve tried it. In fact when I did do sPvP, I quit because of people harrassing me, saying I was hacking because I rolled them to easily.

When you’re used to fighting under siege, taking a lot more damage than you guys are used to in sPvP, you find sPvP rather simple, and boring.

We have siege equipment in spvp too, and we still have thieves lol and up to 8 players whaling on you at once, enough to drop you in under a second, how much more damage can you get? It becomes meaningless after a point, and that point is easily reached in sPvP.

Also you admit that you’ve only played it a few times, yet still feel qualified to make blanket statements about all sPvP players?

The fact that you’ve only played it a few times is why you found little skill by the way, you have a low rank so you’re matched up with other low rank players, and most won’t be WvW vets so have no pvp experience. These people are obviously not representative of all sPvP players.

Sansar.1302:

Almost only play tpvp now, and i realy like 0/0/15/25/30 with Clerics amulet and Dwayna Runes, spirit elite (if you trait it you can pull of res 95% of the time) 4 res and extra healing, using jaguar and moa bird as pets.

interesting, how do you handle condition removal though? i know spirit can wipe them every 30 seconds on-demand, but it’s only up for 1/4 of the time, and even that is significantly lower than every 10 seconds

i can definitely see the reason for this request, why not just have 2 types of frees so solo casual players and guilds can be satisfied

i disagree, think interrupts are probably the most powerful skills you can execute, they can be devastating

awe extender.1908:

If you happen to be a Norn ranger with condition dmg build, use “Call Owl”. I think it’s awesome.
You get 2.769 bleed damage (range 1200, cooldown 30 sec.). ps. I have 1200 in condition dmg.

Actually, this is kind of sad as well: racial skills are better than Ranger profession skills.

great tip just checked on a build editor, and if the numbers are correct you get slightly more dps with owl than sharpening stone, even if you take the 20% reduced cooldown on survival skills

jcbroe.4329:

However, what many people fail to realize is that, along with not gaining much DPS on the pet overall (it is only 300 points total to each of their attributes, is isn’t doing as much as people think. Reference: http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/79991-beastmastery-math-breakdown/)

Thanks for the info, I love seeing the actual figures, and often wish the game itself made this info readily available.
So in terms of damage, you get ~+12-14% pet damage for pets with 0/0/30/10/30 but plus 5% damage for you with 0/0/30/25/15. The trade-off is actually better than I thought, especially since my pets are only responsible for 30-40% of my total damage.

jcbroe.4329:

Another thing they don’t realize is that with 0/0/30/25/15 you gain +15% more boon duration and +1500 health. This actually works to directly increase survival better than the 0/0/30/10/30 version.

This is very true! I’ve been duelling with an Engi who uses a hundred nades burst setup – we tested it, and his burst does 15k damage if I take the full hit, so with 15k base ranger health that’s the difference between a 1-shot and a chance to recover, if the whole thing lands.

OGDeadHead.8326:

Some things to consider when comparing these two builds:

• How does the Bountiful Hunter trait compare to Nature’s Wrath trait for damage?
• How much survivability/added damage can Fortifying Bond bring to your pet?
• How big of an impact does loosing out on the second major BM trait bring?
• 1500 more health vs 150 more healing power? 1500 more health = a bigger buffer, but loosing out on regen from the signet + lower heals/regeneration
• Survivability/damage of pets?

Thanks for the response, I definitely take these factors into account, some (1, 4 + 5b) are explored above, as for the rest:

1. I believe bountiful hunter is superior to nature’s wrath for my build as I’m condition-based, so power is less important.

2. Fortifying bond doesn’t add much damage to pet unless you’re running RaO in which case it doubles it’s might, and that is actually really good. In terms of survivability, your pet, like you will have permanent regeneration from fortifying bond, 229 per second, compared to 125 of natural healing. However your pet will still have some regen (229) with 0/0/30/10/30 if it’s in the radius of healing spring, but it doesn’t compare with permanent regen really.

3. Depends on which pets you use, I tend not to use 2 of the same kind with the exception of canines and I find the cripple on activate trait to be lacklustre or even a disadvantage in some situations with wolf fear.

5. As for the overall survivability of pets, I’d say it is slightly worse overall – they have better health regen, but less toughness/hp, but they also get 33% damage reduction for double the time whenever you dodge. While tehy can die now and again in some duel match-ups if they’re focussed (intentionally or accidentally) it’s very, very rare and usually the enemy comes off worse because of it.

Since writing this, I’ve read through the other responses, and others have answered this better than me, but hey it’s written now, and this was my thought process/opinions ^.

Jazenn.7526:

A question, how do the leeching sigils work out for you? I know a few people that use them, are they a big help? Have you tried energy, or do you find yourself with plenty of dodges? Because that is usually what I go for.

I really like these sigils, i basically see it as ~ 100 health per second regen. One thing i often forget to factor in, but should really be mindful of is their 10 second cooldown vs 8 second cooldown on weapon swap, so it may be advisable to wait the extra 2 seconds before swapping, rather than swapping as soon as it’s available – so you get it procing every 10 seconds rather than every 16.

I have tried energy, i love them, you can never have too much energy XD but i prefer sigils of leeching, don’t know which is actually be better – would likely depend heavily on what class you’re up against, more dodges vs burst builds, but leeching is great vs other bunkers which i find to be the tougher opponents anyway, because it’s flat damage (475 i think) no matter their toughness, and an extra, decent source of healing to me which matters more since i have pretty-much maximum toughness, so the 1k health will take longer to whittle back down off me.

Thanks for the positive feedback all, as well as the food for thought. I would love to have the 0/0/30/10/30 and the 0/0/30/25/15 builds pitted against each other in duels somehow – if each player has a few duels with each set-up, then player skill should get cancelled out somewhat as a variable.

no because if you have more trait points, builds become less meaningful – i.e. you don’t have to decide between x and y powerful traits, you can probably just get them both – so it creates less variety

edit: unless they added two new trait lines for each profession which you could only invest in past level 80, so everyone’s base builds would stay the same, as you can’t put more points into existing trees, but there would be new traits to choose from so it would actually create more variety. All level 80+ gear must not have statistical increases though. That’s clearly important for the community

Thanks for the info jcbroe! v.interesting. I can definitely see the thinking behind moving from 0/0/30/25/15 to 0/0/30/10/30 – i.e. getting more damage output from pets, and could certainly believe that’s how the build evolved. Interesting to have the history, haven’t been active on forums etc until recently.

Personally I like the (permanent from perma-regen) +5% damage i get from NM tree, i think it’s almost as good as the extra pet dmg you’d get from + 15 in BM since pets don’t actually land that many hits vs skilled opponents. Factor in the improved survivability and that’s why i prefer 30/25/15.

And you’re right, i absolutely use it as an evasion bunker build, the reason i have sword on one set and dagger on the other is so i always have a weapon evade no matter which set i’m in.

@ glock – some interesting ideas, unfortunately i only play spvp not WvW so my options are more limitted, but that apothecary set sounds like a good idea, especially since other bunker condition builds are the biggest threat, so you won’t lose much from the lower toughness.

hey guys, love the fact u think my build is weird. Yeah no build is unstoppable, but it’s not really one build, like i said, i make changes according to situation but core stays the same (even so it’s just a title lol).

@ Durzlla: i assure you 20% off cd on stunbreaker/vigor is totally worth it. It also works on entangle btw.

Lmao @ the two saying “most people” and even “anyone” (XD) can kill me. Please, please be on EU servers! Almost no-one can beat me with this build. I suggest you put your money where your mouth is, message me in-game and i’ll make a believer out of you.

Open your minds people, just ‘cos no-one’s thought of it yet doesn’t mean it’s not viable!

guys rangers can take down thieves, if anyone wants to bring a thief to eu server pvp and try me, i will give you a masterclass in how to do it…

Sebrent.3625:

If they know their stealth build, they are likely traited to (1) Remove conditions while stealthed (2) Heal while stealthed (3) Regenerate initiative faster while stealthed.

Because of (1), I’m not sure I believe the “use condition damage” advice.

this is somewhat true, though it only removes 1 every 3 seconds, so if you’re applying multiple conditions they can still die before they’re all cleansed.

Additional tips: longbow 5 is nice AoE and LB2 can follow them if they stealth after you’ve initiated it – good for direct damage and you can throw down some aoe after it ends as you’ll probably have a sense of where they are from where you’re pointing.

Greatsword! forgot this weapon, love it against thieves – standard attack like a wild man after they stealth! as it does good aoe you’ll probably catch them a few times, it has a daze/stun which will prevent them stealthing for an extra second, and if they’re on you with daggers hit 4 to send them flying, and follow up with a 3 leap to get on them whilst they’re down. I wouldn’t hit 4 preemptively as they’ll just avoid attacking you if they’re smart.

I play ranger, mostly do duels these days, so thought i’d add my list based on 1v1 strength vs rangers XD

1. Other Rangers
2. Mesmer
3. Thief
4. Ele
5. Engineer
6. Guardian
7. Warrior
8. Necromancer

But on-topic, for actual overall game-effectiveness in tournaments etc:

1. Ele
2. Guardian
3. Mesmer
4. Ranger
5. Thief
6. Engineer
7. Warrior
8. Necro

use AOE’s and immobilizes – torch 5 if traited can be a decent AOE with nice damage. muddy terrain is good, as is entangle. if you’re running with sword get the fire leap combo as it will burn them if they attack you.

knockdowns – run hyena for 2 knockdowns, and raven for burst! it will be glorious

I thought I’d share this build for all to see, as I’ve already shared with many ppl in game.
I designed this build for 1v1s but it’s still v.strong in group battles

This is the build:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQRAnY8fjEVB2VWKWo2Bi2DOZeM9PkePjR5/MWpEZVA;T4Ag2Croay0koJbTumkNtCZEyJkdBvQmFA

^ This is the all-around version, the one you can use for hotjoins or tournies etc. However if you’re dueling specific opponents you can tailor it a bit:

1.Against thieves and elementalists, use entangle, against burst warriors or other cc-heavy classes, RaO is great as they can’t stun you. (against thieves with thieves guild ultimate, you might wanna wait until they use it to pop entangle, thief buddies will actually break-out pretty quick but it does some dmg, and if you can lay down torch 5 on them too, then they will die)

2.Wilderness survival: xi for enemies who deal condition dmg, xii for direct damage.

3. amulet – you will win 90% of matches with shaman, if you get into an endless fight where neither can win, switch to Rabid amulet, and you will be able to win (though so will they if they out-play you).

4. Pets: interchangeable, you can run jag + raven for high burst, good for thieves and eles, wolf, hyena for chain cc is also good in some situations, especially if you’re using RaO, as pets are you’re only form of hard cc in that case. Or a mix of cc + dmg.

Sorry I don’t have footage of it in action, my laptop can’t handle free screencap software and the game at the same time.

This isn’t an auto-win button build, I’d imagine no such build exists, many fights I’ve had are close, but I do win 95% of matches with this, though I am about as familiar with it as you can be, so don’t expect the same results without practice. As I say to all who ask me, I hope you have fun with this build!

i thought i was lagging a lot today, quit a few matches over it. i never usually lag! it may be this…

This is a fascinating point about how in starcraft you see the decisions that lead to the end result, whereas here the build process is hidden.

I used to watch sc2 replays when i played, but sometimes when i hadn’t played for months. I even saw people post on the videos that they never played starcraft 2 but like watching it!!!

I think one way this could be fixed with GW2 is first of all REPLAYS they are the bread and butter of an e-sport you can’t commentate on one if it doesn’t exist. The replays need to contain the build information of all the players, then before the match, the commentator can spend 10 seconds on each of the 5 players of each team. They will make broad analyses based on their builds e.g:

- strong in melee
-weak to conditions
-no stun breaker

then do the same for the team as a whole. It won’t matter whether their predictions are 100% correct, sometimes if it plays out differently e.g. a build actually does well vs burst when they said they’d be weak etc, what matters is the spectator gets some sort of expectations beforehand, they get some sense of why thing played out the way they did – even if the commentator is changing their analysis halfway through.

Post-game analysis would also be great, utilising footage from the match, maybe name an MVP each time etc – I would love to watch this, can’t believe Anet haven’t added replays yet…

i have that on, but character models are visible at a much greater distance, so you won’t see names of players on windmill if standing in clocktowr on khylo, but you will see the outline of a big norn standing there!

hey sounds like a good idea for a series, i suggest mining the “little tips and tricks” thread for ideas.

For now i’d like to add something to the above tip: 1. you use hornet skill attack, hit lightning reflexes, and you still have time to about-face and use hornet skill leap for even more ridiculous distance, and you’ll be evading for a lot of it, the ultimate escape. If you switch to GS 3 leap, your enemy will need binoculars to see you…

Anyway the most interesting addendum i believe is that this leap can actually travel further through air than great sword swoop – and i’m talking just the leap portion. This is because GS 3 has two parts to the leap, and the first is shorter. Basically press 2 on sword, go to a ledge and leap off. You will go much, much further than a regular jump, and significantly further than GS 3 – I haven’t done any jumping puzzles since learning this, but there’s bound to be a use for it!

(Though it will be hard to set-up as you need to initiate the primary backroll first of course)

i doubt it, i ran it for a while with 25 in bm and it died in a few swipes, was fun having it + hyena ally though

not my tip, saw it in another thread – can’t find it so no credit for the author XD

sick ‘em – don’t press f2 or apparently f1 etc after using it, as it will cancel the active effect of the ability.

extra tip: this means the jaguar is the only pet you can use the active + sic em with at the same time as you can stealth first then activate it.

i play a norn character and was gonna post this in the norn thread but thought some char and maybe even others would be interested (not you asurans glares).

Ok so as you all know, Norn are big, so here it is, if you wanna go inognito and are standing in place – /sleep… That’s the tip.

2 benefits:

1. If you’re on a point in hotjoins especially, if the enemy hasn’t been keeping an eye on the caps they may not know if it’s your team or their own capping the point just by looking across to it, so they may leave you alone.

2. More for organised teams (See something for everyone): whilst they may know it must be an enemy player over there, it’s much harder for them to see you to click on you and find out if it’s a class/build they can attack or not, so you have hesitation + mistakes i.e. a delicious free kill walking right up to your hard-countering goodness

Downside – you kinda spam the chat with xxx is going to sleep all the time.

Show me some love!

nice idea, though it does remind me there are other aspects to the game XD

would probs help if you told ppl what server you’re on ^

Dirgimzib.1028:

“GString” part aside, it seems alright. Obviously, “Eir” isn’t the most original first name, and “Ona” sounds more Asuran. The whole gimmick is humorous, and I only really got it just now after I analyzed the name. XD 7/10

Blaer Vorsdottir – Female Rogue

^ very Norn, i’ve seen a something-dottir Norn before, can’t remember if it was an npc or player but it fits well, as does Blaer. Blaer seems like it could be male or female so you lose half a point ‘cos i can’t tell what you are if i just see your name in chat – 9.5/10

Bjorn Hograkk – Male Ranger

Bjorn = Bear (cliche, but traditional), Hograkk = “Aggressive” in ancient Jotun – his ancestor became know to them as such

Some people say you need to learn to time the dodge between certain stages of the attack. This is silly, this assumes you simply want to dodge at some point for the funzies. The whole point of dodge is that it has to be ready to execute at any moment to dodge an incoming attack which could very well come when you’re rooted!

If you’re not using it on auot-atk this helps with the dodge issues, but doesn’t fix them, as if you manually press attack and then need to dodge, you’re still rooted – it just won’t happen multiple times in a row.

v.nice video, my pc can’t run fraps at all without my game lagging to crap so i can sympathise with the quality issues, but v.nice footage none-the-less.

i agree with arekai that i always prefer commentary to music, but the annotations are a nice touch, a mini-commentary in their own right.

i find more and more ppl playing rangers in pvp these days, ~30% use sword. I had to lol @ sword+torch being “so last month” – different weapons work in different situations and with different builds it just so happens i was using dual axes last month!

see this is why GW2 needs replays^

ensoriki.5789:

It gives a bonus to crit damage? Well that explains a lot.
So when is my Lynx going to be on par -_-.

^ there’s a reason the picture on the skill is of a jaguar

I don’t run this skill but i didn’t realise that hitting f2 (or even f1??) would end it! Someone should add that to the “little ranger tips” thread…

i was thinking this today, i usually do well in small group fights, so i thought i could keep a point neutral in hotjoin vs 3 players for a couple of minutes before dying, tying them up there gaining no points. (i was using a pretty bunker-ish setup). But 2/3 of the players where using chain ccs so i got my heal off once, but couldn’t evade most of the time, certainly not all the big spikes that you usually watch for.

But then i thought that this is only really an issue in group fights vs smaller groups right? so i think i’m ok with it, as it makes bunkers less powerful -in other words, 3v1 i think players of equal skill should be able to kill even a bunker in under a minute (~).

Thanks Eclipse, credit where credit’s due ^ yeah mesmers are perhaps the most hurt by spectators of all the classes, though i’ve even seen the odd ranger pet running wild!

I agree about the hard-counter builds etc making the outcome depend on luck if players are chosen at random. I’m leaning towards letting players choose for king of the hill too.

For skirmish i think it’s less of an issue because if you tailor a build too strongly for one situation, then you’re gonna win 1 or 2 out of 5, but because you have to fight everyone on the other team and chances are you’re leaving yourself weak to certain builds by gearing towards crushing others, so i think being too niche in this scenario won’t yield positive win/loss ratios out of the 5 duels each player has (unless you get lucky with the other team’s comp).

Back to King of the Hill; I think locking traits and skills will help to minimize hard-countering somewhat, but you can still build strong counters to general styles of course. But as you suggested, i think it could add a level of strategic depth – e.g. teams may want to diversify their builds so they have different “cards” to play e.g. bunker, burst, anti-bunker etc, and choosing your “deck” beforehand could be an interesting aspect of the game, and we could see metas come and go with that.

But of course, no-one wants the duels themselves to be a forgone-conclusion, perhaps the meta will actually shift into ppl playing more balanced builds rather than full bunker etc? – after all, if a player can win with his skill and build vs two distinct styles e.g. bunkers and bursts with just enough dmg to defeat the former, and just enough survivabilty to outlast the latter, then they’d be a great asset to any team.

Random Addendum: i think every after ~ 3 minutes of dueling, if both players ever go above 75% health at the same time, it should be called a draw – there’s nothing fun about watching a bunker ele duke it out with a bunker guardian XD

I’m glad you’re liking my ideas, i hope Anet does see our suggestions, i know they read the forums so we can always hope!

i play a ranger, don’t know much about this game mode (is it playable yet?) but from what i’ve read, ranger may be op :/

- swiftness doesn’t work, so SoW (+25% movement speed) will be amazing
- we have 2x 6 second invulnerabilities – 12 seconds total
- a ~25 second stability
- big leap on GS, decent evade + leap on 1h sword

or do some of these things not work?

Daemon.4295:

Seras.5702:

Po-Po-Po-Po-Porcine Power

Give the Porcine pets a try when fighting in melee range. Their foraged items are amazing if you can deal with the clunky mechanic. Since you & your pet will be fighting side by side (and porcine are pretty hearty) their F2 item will pop up next to you, easy to pick up. Study the items each Porcine forages, and use them according to your build. Can also really benefit teammates in dungeons, so long as they know what Foraged items are/do.

Pig – heals, invulnerability
Siamoth – conditions, ethereal field
Warthog – blind, stealth, boons
Boar – control, ethereal field

Warning: I don’t PvP, but I’ve heard that an enemy player can pick up Foraged items (who came up with that idea??). Use wisely if in PvP.

I don’t like Boar pets because you never know what you’re gonna get and can’t strategize, unlike with all the other pet F2s. For example when a thief steals, he knows exactly what skill he’s picking up so he can use that to his advantage better. I think it would be great if the piggy F2 items depended on terrain type.

yeah i agree, -or having it cyce through the items in sequence would be a lot easier to implement/plan around

great data +1, would love to see similar results against the wandering golem :P

from the pic it looks like a 120 second cooldown as it’s 2/3 of the way through at 40 seconds remaining

edit: could this have happened if you just left water and popped signet of stone in the first skill position on your water skillbar??

many of these answers seem pve orientated, for pvp i find condition dmg is on par with other classes (i think?), whereas direct damage is extremely low as it seems they nerfed it to take into account pet dmg.

nerva.7940:

it’s closer to 70-80 HPS. so for every 2 ticks of SoW, u get a tick of NH. on its own, NH is irrelevant. but additive to SoW, 200HPS is a serious amount that can keep you up forever if you have Bark Skin and protection up.

test it nerva, but for me i get 3 ticks of SoW (121 with current HP) for every 1 of natural healing, so it goes:

121, 121, 121+133, 121, 121, 121+133 etc etc

Ok so we’ve all seen threads asking for some sort of dedicated duelling mode. Now I feel I’ve had a decent amount of duelling experience in the last few weeks so I thought I’d set out some of the specific features that I believe would be necessary and/or desirable to implement in the hopes that if/when Anet does implement duelling, it will be as glorious as we imagine.

I am proposing 3 types of duelling modes:

Firstly: There could be casual duels – sort of like hotjoins where people can initiate and accept/decline duels at will, multiple duels could be going on at a time.

Important features:

1. Only duellers can be targeted and damaged not spectators. – can’t tell you the number of times i’ve watched engi vs X duels and had a net turret waste it’s skill on a spectator.
2 spectators and duellers cannot buff or heal each other etc.
3.Similarly, duellers cannot see (and hence be distracted by) spectators, or other duelling pairs.
4 Casual duelling mode has access to all the gear npcs available in the mists

Secondly and Thirdly

Two competitive duelling modes.

I’d like to preface this with a point made by The Eclipse in a previous thread: “one does not acquire much glory by dueling, especially without capping/finishing”. For me this is one of the main problems right now: there’s currently no character progression when dueling.

source: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/The-Dueling-Effect-Dueling-Servers/first#post1434856

In fact, it hurts the dueller. When i first started dueling i had an amazing win/loss ratio, but it drops every night i spend duelling because it’s 50/50 who wins – usually depends on which randomly joined players rush to cap points and which rush to interrupt duels.

So there needs to be glory for both competitive and casual duels, but only stat-tracking for competitive, so if people want to test thing with their buddies, they aren’t going to be gimping their scores. Stats for competitive duels are separate to current stats; duels won, not matches etc

Ok, on to the two competitive duel modes:

1. Skirmish – 5 player teams, every player fights every other player 1 at a time, team with the most wins wins. If it’s a draw, the two players from each team with the most victories go up against each other to decide it (or perhaps each team chooses someone to represent them for the final battle – can’t see the other team’s chosen champion until locked-in).

2. King of the Hill each team has 5 players, and 1 from each team is randomly selected (or chosen by team?) to go head-to-head. The winner stays on, and the losing team must choose another fighter to duel him – first team to run out of duellers loses.

Important features:

1. all skills, traits etc are locked for tournament and last man standing
2. each mode will be part of a larger tournament so winning teams progress to fight other winning teams like current conquest mode.
3 delicious titles! Glory is nice, but If you single-handedly beat all 5 opposing players in king of the hill mode you should get to show off!

Hope you enjoyed reading – if this was implemented I would adore this game even more than I already do, If anyone else has ideas for features they think should be implemented or different duel modes etc I’d love to hear them.

just tested compassion training ups it from 133 – 177 per tick which seems to be around every 3 seconds

in my testing in the past natural healing is unaffected by healing power and ticks once, healing 133 in the time it takes for SoW to tick 3 times. So i assume it’s ~44 health per second – just slightly better than dolyak runes, and nt terribly impressive if you ask me. It was also unaffected by compassion training in my tests, but it may have been because of the bugs mentioned above that i didn’t know about at the time, i may redo the test..

edit: compassion training does change it 133 up to 177 per tick

this is a problem on the pvp map with the water – (assault on the capricorn?) if you jump down into a battle your pet will not be there. If you wanna do the math on that its: Ranger – pet = dead ranger.

I tend to just pet swap immediately after landing. A better solution would be press stow pet before jumping down, but you can’t do this if you’re in combat.

i used this once, it looked retty cool after getting 26 charge and everything i was very excited, but it was gone after 1 battle, whereas all my teamates still had their 250+ power or whatever. I think the fix it needs is that if it is summoned it stays until killed.

-also, for some reason you can’t stack both – i think you should be able to, so long as you have it so that 1 kill = charges for one or the other, not both.

p.s. i didn’t notice the damage or hp etc of it when alive and there’s nothing on the wiki