Guild Wars 2

Ranger changes, prime example of how NOT to.

1. Two best condi cleansing traits again in same line on same tier. So which traitline cannot be ommited again? that’s right, Wildreness Survival. So hard to put Emphatic Bond as Beastmastery GM, cause you know…it’s pet based?

2. cripple on traps…woooooow. just wow. That is sooo gonna help with keeping ppl inside a trap. Except you know…dodge. Ingores movement speed decrease. And now so do the leaps. Not to mention spike and frost traps do the job better baseline. If you made it 1s immobilize or stun (doesn’t stack unlike immobi) you’d have something there.

5% extra condi and direct damage for dodge as shortbow grandmaster trait – You expect me to roll around in the dirt, wasting my precious dodge for something as lame as this? Shortbow is about flanking opponent and in 1v1 scenario that means lotsa immobilizes and cc not rolling around. Previous version (you move = 10% condi duration and extra damage) made much more sense. Making it apply if you flank opponent would be perfect.

It’s their fault for not punishing such players, which leads to pathology spreading.

Ok, as avid ranger pvper, and guy with strong downed gameplay (unlike the one before i fall) i feel competent to elaborate on trappers defense. That and i did my own research on stomping and preventing stomps, when i played my zombieneer build which is all about downed state and getting up from it.

Long story short:
Firstly throw out that garbage nerfed “spiketrap” and give this trait the real thing, even if with ICD. That will be a saving grace for 3 professions that can get away from the stomper when downed (ele, mesmer, thief).

Secondly, have the trait make all traps strip 2 boon from affected enemies on activation. That’s to help with those stability stomps. Trap won’t save your ally, but it will give you the opportunity to cc the stomper yourself.

So now:

If your ally is a “mover” then spike trap will slow down their pursuer in tracks giving you and them extra chances for revival.

If your ally is about to be stab-stomped, trap may strip stability off the stomper, letting you, or the downed ally use an interrupt.

If your ally is about to get stealth stomped – well if i’m correct traps can’t be fooled with stealth and will do damage to the stomper, reavealing his position with bleed tics and trap activation animation. You can try kill or aoe cc the stomper, now that trap found and immobilized them for you.

Let’s be honest – all that specialization, heart of maguuma guild halls etc stuff is a nice smokescreen.

But the fact remains – wheather x-pac will be worth it’s price or not a kitten penny, is dependant solely on one thing:

Wheather our cyclopic collegues from a-net will tell us that they couldn’t get sharks with lasers cause of bit of redtape! And no, ill tempered sea bass are not an option!

“Ok afk” – one guy on my team in a losing match. I already +1 the thread but bumping it so it stays around. We need that dishonoured, or other form of punishment for such quitters.

In some cases (warr, ranger) i feel the traitline condi cleanses are just too powerful, while there’s little going on in utility department.

Let’s remember that traitlines a.k.a. specializations as of late, will soon grant 9 access points to character changing traits. Utilities have 3 slots. Yet we all know few rangers care about signet of reneval, few warriors care about their condi cleansing one.

Because traits are far more powerful or dependable. Even if you cleanse everything, if it’s on 48s cooldown when traited it’s not fit for standalone use. While losing 3 condies every 10s or burst skill use is a viable and mandatory survival tool for condition warfare.

And that cripples builds.
Show me a viable warrior pvp build without cleansing ire, or ranger one without Empatic Bond or Survival of the Fittest. Well there may be a few but they’re fringe builds. 90% of population will not even dare consider going into pvp without them.

So i urge a-net to rethink their condi cleansing utilities. We only have 3 (+heal + elite) and slotting anything in there is always a hard choice. Unless it’s a condi cleanse skill, then it’s obvious we’ll pass, cause traits…

I already stated how to fix CI and i will again:

1. Make it cleanse conditions on burst use, not burst hit (because it kills diveristy with must have bow and hammer).

2. Make it consume adrenaline bars for each condition cleansed, up to two condies (first bar of adrenaline always goes for burst skill).

3. If burst skill hits, return half of adrenaline consumed by CI.

Now you have to choose – condi cleanse with CI, or stronger bursts without. And non bow and non hammer weapons aren’t now that disadvantaged in terms of burst.

Hype may be real, but cold logic puts hype to bed without bedtime stories. It is clearly stated that they will even show how guild halls look at last day of E3. So…first two days we won’t get to see much of that. Just some talking, and knowing Colin….well i’m not hoping for much.

Rest of the time will probably be filled with stuff we already know since they’ll try to catch more broad audience, one that does not spy this forum frequently.

So move along, nothing major to see there save those guild halls, and even there i don’t expect news bigger then your weekly blog post + 1h show when there’s something meaningful on the two.

Any idea if it happens at all tommorow? And if so any idea what the show’s topic will be?

This had better not be “he’s name is druid, uses the staff, k, tnx, bye” type of announcement. Me and guildie are busting our kitten building up 2 man guild for our own guildhall, they better be kitten concrete about what we can do with those halls of ours:>

Had my rear handed to me. Well DUH, condi ranger with longbow.
Longbow that got carried over from my pve session.

And here’s where i blame a-net. Why do my pvp amulet, traits, skills etc ARE kept separate from PvE, while my weapon selection carries over from PvE instead of remembering my pvp weapon selection like with every other piece of gear?

It better have torment. And i mean serious torment, not some lol 2-3 stacks. I still can’t get over how the game’s #1 movement hampering profession, the cripple station, and immbilize maniac lacks any torment…

Oh and some boonstripping. And some area denial, we lack there too, and druid seems to fit that bill.

Pets need real base secondary stats, and not 0 + 350 if you trait.

Justine.6351:

?

You mean free condi dmg as is /= fair?

Even condi builds have basic attack dmg, 4% crit chance and +50% crit damage.

Which is 2% direct damage boost overall thanks to low crit chance.

Meanwhile bleeds, our main condi damage source start at 42.5 damage per tick right out of the box. That’s an amount equal to having 850 condi damage if bleeds started with 0 base damage and relied only on condi damage stat.

Math aside what i wanna say is that putting into a stat should have meanginful effects. And with condies having such high base damage there isn’t that much of reward for builds that go full condi vs builds that go hybrid, or low condi in exchange for other benefits.

I would say teleports can stay same (big cooldown) but shadowstepping needs a nerfbat.

Good change i say. Condi builds that didn’t put a single extra point in crit or ferocity don’t get like 30% crit chance with 30% extra damage on it for just being there.

I’m wondering how poison and burning will be changed duration wise, now that they stack. in intensity. For poison that heal reduction factor is a major thing in pvp, and so high poison uptime is often as important as stacking many stacks on other condies.

I for one am against the new change. reaching further when running faster or having your leap shorter while dragging your feet with cripple & friends felt natural and was part of the boon/condi game.

With leaps being movement speed independent, many professions will feel half immune to movement impeding, while others will feel much less rewarded with their speed buffs. After all that speed does not come for free, there’s always a price you had to pay for having that swiftness, or passive 25% movement speed.

Depending on profession this may be make or break, but i feel that player choices and skill (crippling at right time) are being flushed down the toilet, because now leaps are always same no matter what you did or had done to you.

While we’re there I’m not a happy camper with dodge roll being immune to movement speed changes either. An enemy runs to my point which i’m capping. I take proactive approach and cripple him, so i can buy precious few seconds on point. Well nvm, he dodge rolled in here, my chill/cripple couldn’t help here. yes i know immobilize would stop that, but point is the weaker condies (chill & criplle) should have some effect too.

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s…a flung bow and rifle? lethality over 9000!;)

Regarding fighting stealth with AoE: That tactic only partially may work as thief is not frozen solid when insisible. they still can see your AoE coming and dodge it. Shadow Refuge is one exception as is forces thief to stay inside visible aoe circle and then placing long lasting aoe on top of it, such as meteor storm or ranger barrage may work miracles. Outside of that case thief can fullly see and dodge the aoe. Well at least it’s a dodge bait..

Dragonhunter trap is a step in the right direction. I would also very much like to see ranger traps ignore stealth and trigger regardless of target visibility. Real life traps sure don’t care for camouflage as long as they’re stepped on.

@Nutshel – totally agreed. Especially about shadowsteps having a windup, unless it’s a utility.

@above
My beef is how thief as a profession, gets tons of get out of jail cards vs opponents who skillfully interrupt or ensnare them, as well as no punishment for their own bad performance when trying to land a stealthed attack.

Bad thieves that do not realize or cannot properly use that, do not “balance” the general problem with this profession. They just cover it up.

I said in “days” not “months” use the quote function, or don’t try to cite me by hand.

Also i will bark back the part about basilisk being unblockable by stability then – my bad here. So they did fix it.

That still doesn’t take away from rest of thief inbalances:
withdraw with 0 cast time, evade and breaking movement impariment. Yeah i can poison thief, he’ll go into stealth and poison gone. 2 points into shadow arts is all it takes. I don’t have spammable poison every time i fail to land it too.

no reaveal on block or miss when stealthed – speaking of spammable… If a thief failed to land an attack in such extremely favourable situation, then regardless if it was thief’s blooper, or opponents great job at seeing the unseeable, a big reward for the defender and hard punishement for the thief are in order. It’s enough how spammable stealth is, it should carry a risk vs it’s reward

And how are things looking right now? Nothing happening to the thief, backstab is FREE, heck he even might get a condi cleanse and faster ini regen while spamming his backstab till it lands, or just running off after failed 1st attempt.

near impervious to interrupts and chilling by design – there’s no skill here at all. Simply everything initiative based is near immune to it, and if that’s not enough there’s always them insta-casts, which thief has plenty. Good luck with skilled countering or trying to impose more cooldown on something that has none!

How’s that steal working for you? anyone ever countered that by means other then sheer luck?

And if there are no capture points? Some degree of balance is stealth preventing capture point contribution, or in plain english – you can’t hold/cap when invisible. So when fighting with a thief on a point i win the point because he stealths too much. But what about stronghold that’s coming along?

Thieves are squi…oh oops! Nvm! Resilience of shadows! Coming to thief near you with core specialization update as shadow arts minor. You pick shadowarts, you’re no longer the squish vs direct damage when you stealth.

Thief is broken from top to bottom. The only two “balanced” things about thief is that it majority of them are bad, and that points can’t be captured when stealthed.
But that’s like saying that german shepard tank is balanced vs Fiat Punto, because the road is narrow and the tank has to watch the curves…

Well that’s still something. Beats fanart & dev profile week. Guess we’ll see more tommorow.

nuff said. /15 chars.

Hey WhiteCrow – if you want a good non meta build, depending on what profession you play i may have something for you if you’re interested.

Nope did not get owned by a thief, sorry conspiracy theory thieves. Only thief to own me in recent days was a really really good sword/dagger one and even then after 3rd encouter he had some major hard time with my ranger. On to the subject:

Ok, a-net, you got some explaning to do.
A while ago you said yourself you want to move away from hard counter gameplay into soft counter style, so player skill has bigger say in result of pvp encounters then their build.

And for most part you’re keeping true to your word – quickness and berserker stance becoming boons which can be stripped or corrupted, elite specs filling gaps base professsions had etc.

….except thieves.

Shadowstepping. Stealth not removed when blocked or evaded, , phletora of instant casts including a heal skill that breaks movement inpairment and has massive evade, initiative unaffected by chilling or interrupt induced skill cooldown.

So where exactly is the room for “skilled counter gameplay” against a thief who knows his stuff in pvp? Cause so far all i see is the “hold the point and survive for as long as possible”.

Will everyone please stop treating stronghold like some big adddition? Seriously the “new game mode” is one spvp map. ONE.
In no way can that be considered “expansion worthy” when sitting right next to new WvW borderlands (new content equally big to old one), or Heart of Maguuma.

In spvp we have like….7 maps? Add 3 maps at least, and then we can talk about spvp getting an expansion. Right now we’re getting crumbs.

It’s a relic of the past still living and breathing. Rangers had quite a few nice upgrades since launch of gw2 that made them a good, viable choice. We may not be guards in dungeons, but we’re nowhere near the necro station atm.

The proper zerk nerf is called “good mob A.I.”

I can already see all those story mode dungeons. Revenant goes into snaff legend – zojja goes:
“If you change your legend i will burn every cell in your body only to revive you and conduct further experiments on you. Oh and where is my mists essence link solidifier when you need it?!”

The best you can do is soak up their delicious tears delivered to you on the silver platter!

Oh and go ahead and 1v1 and beat them – cherry on top of the cake!

Ps. Don’t go saying you play a lot of pvp when you’re a mere deer rank. I’m dragon rank (via ranked and unranked only) but i would not say i play a lot since i play for 2-3 months, while some play since the beginning.

Poison hardcounters a warrior. Just be sure you can apply it often.

There are times, and they are not that rare, that you don’t want the pet to be near you. You want it right next to your feet no questions asked.

So my request is simple. Make F3 (“return to me”) pet command do exactly that when pressed 2nd time in a row. One press = stick around me, 2 presses = heel at my feet.

^ nerfs, nerfs.

I’ve been just checking traitline/specialization changes in store for ranger, including grandmaste…yyyy….what again?

With the new way of “whole traitline or none” just what are these…“grandmaster” traits?
No matter how i look at it what i got are 3 sets of 3 traits each that let me choose only one trait per set. There’s absolutely no difference wheather the grandmaster set would be in adept tier and vice-versa, because from get-go i get whole line and there is no sacrifice at all associated with going balls to the wall all the way to grandmaster tier.

Before & now it makes much more sense – i choose how deep i got into the line and going all the way to grandmaster tier costs me ability to access other lines more deeply. That is what grandmaster tiers are about. In this new trait setup i see nothing thta would justify the old order of traits. Might as well call them “set1, set2, set3” since technically that’s what they are…

Yeah, my build is gonna get broken hard by the changes, unless they let us choose parts of lines like now and not whole or nothing…

Ah i did forget the changes – so used to current trait setup. Though the one that makes me happy is beastly warden. that’s the threat/cc i needed.

It’s not that deadly becuase opponent is well aware and watching themselves, while pet is promptly ignored.

I’m not saying pets should have such abilities baseline, more like grandmaster tier even, but if one wishes for it, pets should have such a mechanic. I’m thinking 4s weakness on 10s icd grandmaster beastmaster trait, when pet’s aa hits opponent from the side.

That bird solution doesn’t work too well. Just test a bird on immobile golem and then the running one and see how often an attack connets. It ain’t pretty…

As for Hunter’s tactits on pet – if it’s not already happening, it should, but in no way is this a solution to the problem mentioned. Ranger can stun you (movement locked), bleed you like crazy, and on top of that do 10% more raw damage if you don’t watch your back. Pet needs something much more threatening then mere 10% on it’s already not impressive damage to put psychological pressure on opponent and be a considerable threat when not kept in check.

One of the aspects of ranger i enjoy most is how his gameplay rewards good positioning, and especially flanking an oponent. Dazes turning to stuns, 100% bleed chance on shortbow aa, or extra damage.

These opportunities give incentive to play tactically and constantly think how to immobilize your opponent or otherwise bait and trap him into showing his back.

However the problem with the whole setup here, is that in PvE your pet is #1 method to get aggro of you and get yourself an easy flank, while in pvp that’s simply not the case. The pet is promptly kited/ignored, with opponents full focus on not letting you flank him.

I believe that pets just like ranger should meaningful benefits for flanking an opponent, ones that will make him face a difficult decision – do i ignore the pet, or do i ignore the ranger and focus on pet?
For example a weakness application with small icd if pet flanks an opponent, or a cc effect if pets F2 skill lands when opponent’s back or side is to them.

Another issue is pets being lame at catching moving targets, unless it’s a spider or devourer. I think pets should have ability to attack when moving, without any losses to how aften the attack is performed (just send your pet after running golem in hearts of the mists dps grounds to understand what i mean).

Unless the target moves faster then the pet he should get attacked just as often as if he was standing.

To compensate for their greatly increased combat efficiency, their base dps could be nerfed, getting a boost however whenever their target is under movement crippling effects (to reflect easier catching of immobile, or slow prey). The change would not apply to range pets ofc.

The point of the change is to allow pets to land all those on hit effects, such as cat’s vulnerability on base attack or bleeding on regular attack when traited.

Give your feedback on the two ideas:)

Most base #6 heals. A medic character has tons of other healing sources, some of them passive and strong with healing gear. And worst of all some of them on aa, which renders interrupts void and null. For example engi healspolsion on mortar kit, or revenant staff aa.

mace – because real life thugs of old did use small blunt weapons for knocking ppl out.

If healer role is to become a viable and desired role in spvp as a-net is rumored to plan, then i strongly suggest that all stronger party heals become “skillshots” that can and should be prone to enemy intervention, while all safe passive party heals receive proper nerf bat.

And i mean proper skillshots, not dropping healing gems on the floor that walking over takes 0.5-1s for a player, and the next set of them is coming with next staff aa.

Ah my bad, my bad
I forgot there is absorpion and reflection. But that matters little in this instance. What matters is that with ventari specced reve you got 1 man mobile, projectile denial for a group of ppl, with very small downtime and ability to move with the group.

It’s ok to have mobile projectile denial, it’s ok to have it in a form of zone which protects party.
It’s NOT ok to have it just cost energy, meaning fast recharge, and it’s not ok that only revenant gets such option, while everyone else is for major part stuck with far inferior solutions.

If you think that’s not OP then here’s a challenge for you:
Think of stronghold and escorting doorbreakers to enemy gate. Now you find me a profession that will do equally good at the job (i won’t even ask for better) as jalis+ventari specced revenant.

Revenant is indeed going overboard – just look at the mobile reflection dome with tablet. Only instances of mobile reflection on vanilla professions are either self only reflections (mesmer, warrior) or that short reflection on huge cooldown Dragon Hunter gets for his virtue of courage.
And good old reve just has to cough up energy for it, which is a far cheaper resource then a significant cooldown others get.

We’ll see how it goes, but as it is now we’re indeed facing quite the op’ness here.

Traps pulse damage, which is good for on crit/hit traits & sigils. like the bleed on crit trait. however with only 3 pulses per trap it does kinda…medium for that purpose. Then again they all only pluse 3 times.

maybe a trait that extends their pulse duration by 1s at cost of doing no direct damage would be nice.

it works just as well with 20 mins zerks too, just be sure to have your pet heel and have the other four “pets” facetank it:>

I would say go longbow. sword does require lot of attention and it’s rooting auto attack will serve your hand some hard times (pressing dodge/evade skill like mad to no avail until root is over).

With longbow you pick your fights and have far greater control, and less stress both on nerves and your hand.

So i’m running longbow + gs in AC and even a bear. Well guess what? Doing just fine, better even. Here are but few perks my dreaded “no spotter no sword” build holds:

Before spider queen with eagle eye traited I can shoot all 4 gargoyle heads from the snipe spot, given i move a bit to outside the column (literally standing in air). But it works. Needless to say i feel the boss when doing so.

Solo queen? easy. Only problem is the flood of her hatchlings, but once that’s done it’s easy as pie.

Luring & figthing gravelins in the booby trapped path after spider? Ez mode. Just gotta trait piercing arrows to ensure my shots go through to the breeder before it turns into a zergfest.

Kholer can be soloed with bear, as long as you don’t die the first time, being forced to fight him with 4 adds the next. But i do admit i’m not that good to solo him yet.

Path 1 & 3 burrows? Again, eagle eye + piercing arrows = poetry. Forget running, nobility doesn’t run, just takes few steps to advantegous position. Just place yourself in a good spot and you got all the burrows you need to shoot in walking distance’s range.

Gravelings giving you trouble? Fear the kittens with boar’s skullfear, or wolf howl or runes of the sunless set when using entangle. Or send your bear to get aggro, stealth yourself with hunter’s shot to ensure only bear is their target, then run past like nothing happened.
You don’t run from gravelings, they run from you. Or are dismissed as bear fodder.

Path 2 getting to last room? Why take the right path and be running from bunch of gravelings like “a kitty”, when you can take the left path where your opponents will be oozes. Much less persistant and easier to kill then the gravelings. Just run past them and use gs #4 to block any stray immobilizing projectiles.

I know standing in 3 poddles of red aoe death from ghosteater is what a real man does, but sometimes i feel like betraying my team and taking a nice stroll out of it while discharging rapid fire into ghost eater. I know, i’m a backstabber:/

Similar story for collossus rumblus and his melee/mid range knockdowns/knockbacks.
I do suggest runn….i mean relocating yourself to more advantegous position when warmaster grats casts his defensive bubble.

Because nobility doesn’t run, nobility snipes from their chosen position eventually relocating themselves to a better one, at their desired(running) speed;)

80% chance next reveal will the druid. They’re most likely going with profession official page order, mixing in revenant every 3 professions, which is why this week we had him and not the druid. Thieves are in for similar “surprise”.