Guild Wars 2

Obviously the ranger main mechanic is to make the enemies to fight multiple targets at all times as not only have thee pets but also roots\black holes\spirits that can be killed.

This seems to be the very design from the beginning: roots can be killed, spirits work like warrior banners with life pool, even once upon a time there was a elite that called more pets.

The difference with other classes should be: our companions should be permanent with a decent survivability and with significant effects that force enemies to have to strategically prioritize between companions and ranger, instead bashing straigth foward.

Anet shouldn’t be afraid to enforce that role mechanic, i think most play ranger because of the idea of the pet.
So i’d like to Anet to consider this options:

• Rework spirits to behave like small wisps circling around the ranger. The active skills could be to reposition the spirit to keep the wisp out of the aoe\sacrifice it (like the rev tablet) or to call it back.They can offer the passives,and the actual actives that sacrifice it when a something specific happens or die (water could trigger is the hp goes under 25%, nature when the ranger is downed..) some active effect is they are traited (fire could damage enemies pass thru, ice could apply freeze, storm swiftness in small aoe..).
• Bring skills that call for more pets\animals for short time.
• Pet when is passive try to defend the ranger blocking incoming projectiles.
• If an command option(not skill bar) to reposition the pet at the style of the shout guard! is brought back the pet could be the one to place the traps.
• Roots and effects with health bar so can be killed should enforce that mechanic. That means a enrooted target should use the keybind to target nearest to escape.

What do you think? Shouldn’t the ranger to have enforced the role of multiple sources of damage at the same time?

Gotejjeken.1267:

This topic is the reason Anet hates us.

hate who? i thought it was just lack of manpower or fear of breaking something when we talk about fixing the ranger and stuff.

Jim Hunter.6821:

I see people do that all the time. They troll around the enemy spawn constantly contesting their keep. They get big groups to chase them, wasting people’s time.
And in the auramancer’s case, if they do happen to find a 1v1 they almost always win, it just doesn’t happen quickly.

I can testify for that. Ele has water and earth and rotating between those two there is nothing can take down a bunker ele.
It is true air won’t be top Kek dps but still is going to do enough damage to melt any glass/bruiser build.

Coming here to defend ele is a bad joke, it is stablished ele is the best class in game because you can build for anything. If you are killed constantly in wvw should L2P

Druid on the other side can only build for healbot in zergs as there is no other build available. And not talking about "best"or “meta” but simply playable. You must go bunker or bunker.

Ranger can build for nothing as it lack any sustain and burst dps to be able to have an strategy to survive.

So baddies should get over the pet, having to fight against 1 and 1/4 and they come here to complain.

We need some rework in general to have more viable builds as ranger is kinda constant dps instead spike (no having one RF in LB for average 7K does not qualify as spike) but we lack all the tools to be able to play as the bruiser the class is now.

staff/sword-horn/torch; seraph/commander/wanderer with SM/BM/DR?
With trooper runes.

Maybe? I can’t tell because gw2 editor is still not up to date with the new stat.

Howeve to agree ranger would need some rework in the weapons/skills to make this work.

condi+precision, healing + concentration as minor.
seems perfect for a condi druid with SM+WS.

opinions about it?

Fluffball.8307:

Zenos Osgorma.2936:

Muddy terrain should blind those directly hit by muddy terrain before it touches the ground , your throwing mud at people expect to be blinded.

there after the area has a cripple effect and knockdown for superspeed users.

This is a good, realistic suggestion, although perhaps a second effect for swiftness users would make it less niche.

muddy terrain should be reworked to work like entangle : AoE immobilise + the usual effects.

Entangle and ancient seeds\black holes (from avatar, Did you know you can “kill” those too?) should be reworked to be stronger.

My suggestions would be:

• entangle\ancient seeds trap until roots are destroyed or pass the 5 seconds. We have the kindergarden fence from DH LB5 and it seems ok. This one is a weaker version as you can escape them just tagging the roots (with the hotkey to rag nearest there is no excuse). Otherwise nothing else will work. Also increase ancient roots ICD to 20 secs.
  The immobilise will be not affected by condition duration, it’s 5 seconds and that’s all.

• black holes from Avatar5 work similar to the kindergarden fence or the dragon mouth trap. If we complete the chain a black hole form where we were that pulls enemy players every second for 5 pulls ( 5 max affected players by the pulling at anytime).
  The effect radius is pretty small, the skill need to stay in place for more than 2 seconds to complete and is pbaoe, which means you have to stay in the middle of the enemy zerg to do that. I think because the crazy ammount of risk the player is taking the reward should be on the same level.
  They could keep being able to be killed same as conitinum split, so players can kill them if they find it suitable,

what do you think?

Dovkan.3519:

anduriell.6280:

Dovkan.3519:

FrownyClown.8402:

For large scale wvw the main reason ranger isn’t that good is because half of its utility is tied to its pet. The only skills worth taking to benefit the team are shouts and if your pet is dead or in the wrong spot its useless.

Also staff ele is a better healer than a druid.

What makes you think half of ranger utility is tied to the pet? And what makes you think the only skills worth taking are shouts? Have you never used glyphs?

Glyphs are the most unrewarding mechanic in this game: such a short range, weak effects and for taking one condition cleanse with 2 seconds delay you’ll loose mobility or defenses. Not that seeds of life are that big of a heal or whatever, still don’t understand the nerf.

You should keep in mind we are talking about WvW here, no raiding.

I know we are talking about WvW. I main Druid in WvW and in GvG’s. If you think glyphs are unrewarding you’re not using them properly. Rejuvenation is a 10k+ burst heal, alignment another burst heal that removes conditions, empowerment a buff to damage or outgoing healing.. Tides/equality are both good and underused. Pet survivability isn’t as bad as you think either, especially if you take BM with bear/smokescale and swap accordingly. Losing pets isn’t that big of a deal either, it’s not like they’re being used for damage in ZVZ anyways.

Yeh you are right, if you go full healbot and don’t even pretend to be rewarded for playing. Either any single one of the players will ever realise you are healing them because of the clutter.
So the only satisfaction your are going to get is for only you see the green numbers.

Not that will keep every single commander kicking you out from the squad or put you in the group of trash to be expendable (Never wondered why you get always with the thiefs or other druids in your subgroup, instead having better compositions like with a guard or revenant for that so much needed stab?)

Justine.6351:

ThomasC.1056:

anduriell.6280:

So players keep saying toughness to reduce condition damage, i say that is an overkill for one stat. Toughness should work better to mitigate the power damage but conditions should be treated differently, so nobody should go for all bunker and still do crazy damage.

My opinion is to use the mostly useless stat that is healing power to reduce condition damage. 1% for each 100 points.

I also think Might should only increase power, no condition damage. I would give an special buff like GoTL mainly to the engies and in a lesser grade to necros to increase the condi damage so they can have more roles (specially the engi) in wvw.

So the condi damage doesn’t go out of the window with so many buffs everywhere.

Discuss.

It’s nice you put that topic forward. I had the very same idea half an hour before you ! !

So, I agree : healing power should reduce condi damage. Still, I won’t endorse negative condi damage.

Haha was wondering how audenreil actually had a reasonable idea and was impressed.

Healing power to combat condition dmg,
Change resistance to only grant immunity to conditions negative side effects.

dude, justi, seriously you should get a life. I guess nothing much exciting playing the hamrev? much revi nerf in spvp then? Useless with the druid? I still remember when Quickcry kicked your kitten pretty bad when he got tired of your pewpew (yeh i was watching the stream)

ThomasC i say you took my idea actually i posted the last December 2016
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/some-ideas-to-solve-some-problems/

Probably you read my idea then and now you remembered it as yours.
What do you think?

Dovkan.3519:

FrownyClown.8402:

For large scale wvw the main reason ranger isn’t that good is because half of its utility is tied to its pet. The only skills worth taking to benefit the team are shouts and if your pet is dead or in the wrong spot its useless.

Also staff ele is a better healer than a druid.

What makes you think half of ranger utility is tied to the pet? And what makes you think the only skills worth taking are shouts? Have you never used glyphs?

Glyphs are the most unrewarding mechanic in this game: such a short range, weak effects and for taking one condition cleanse with 2 seconds delay you’ll loose mobility or defenses. Not that seeds of life are that big of a heal or whatever, still don’t understand the nerf.

You should keep in mind we are talking about WvW here, no raiding.

So players keep saying toughness to reduce condition damage, i say that is an overkill for one stat. Toughness should work better to mitigate the power damage but conditions should be treated differently, so nobody should go for all bunker and still do crazy damage.

My opinion is to use the mostly useless stat that is healing power to reduce condition damage. 1% for each 100 points.

I also think Might should only increase power, no condition damage. I would give an special buff like GoTL mainly to the engies and in a lesser grade to necros to increase the condi damage so they can have more roles (specially the engi) in wvw.

So the condi damage doesn’t go out of the window with so many buffs everywhere.

Discuss.

SlippyCheeze.5483:

Well, that is kinda the thing that’s gonna happen in the next xpac — not so much that druid goes away, but that ranger is extremely unlikely to get a second support-focused elite, so … you should have something else to play.

people keep talking about this like it is a thing.
next expac won’t happen for at least a year or two, ranger needs a fix right now. More even than any other class, as the healer bot druid is the only viable build and only for one aspect of the game.

In any case it won’t matter: you bring a full dps new spec but because you can’t have druid you will lack any actual sustain. So we are back to the pewpew that can’t stay alive long enough to have a chance to win.

ok guys the problem with condi spam is not only the ridiculous amount of damage one player can put on you, but also that damage keep ticking ignoring LoS.

So many times the condi spam build condi bomb you and because you can’t keep cleansing at the same speed they can apply them you simply die.

Some overtunned conditions like burning, confusion and torment do simply too much damage passively, and some classes has even passive procs of that condition.

Yep, some condition damages and why some classes get to apply such strong conditions continuously is something i don’t understand.

A better idea: allow the guild that put the tactics more filter to whom may activate them:

• only guild members like it is now.
• only an specific rank and above.

yep i agree. Main druid here, if i pop in the avatar (and i do that a lot) i miss all the rewards (bags OR loot from lords) if i can’t deal enough damage, thing that i don’t as druid doesn’t have enough spike.

I agree with the OP: a player directly healed (no regen) get an internal flag that attribute the damage he does with the next attack also to the last person that healed him.
This could be applied to any buff applied rangers spirits for example.

Lady Sapphirah.6234:

Dusty Moon.4382:

People don’t factor in their connections and the servers in between A.Net and themselves. I know for a fact there are US players on that server who have less lag then their EU counterparts but we in the US usually have faster connections. People need to check what is going on between the game servers and their PC before they blame A.Net. When I was having lag, I found a server in between, one of my ISP servers was dropping 50% of the packets. That needs to be looked at first.

A.Net has done a lot to lower lag in the game. BUT, they could do better.

Also this game is not multithreaded as it uses one core on a CPU and will hog that, so if that CPU core is at 100% usage, that will also cause lag.

I agree. Its easy to blame Anet.

I know ppl won’t believe this but mine is fine… only get some lag occasionally in very big fights like in SMC and I live in Australia which is apparently crap….. so yep I think its ur ISP, computer or something in between.

The same easy as blaming their ISPs and that’s getting old.
You are ignoring a simple fact: when all the lag, disconnects and kittens only happens when there is other zerg (and mostly condition based) around there is no logical explanation that can justify your argument.

Fortunately I’m a guy that professionally works with this things and i know the difference between a crappy wifi in a 90’s copper pair DSL to an cabled fiber optic.

i have a ping of 32 (optical fiber) and even then i get skill lag of up 3 seconds. Anet needs to upgrade their bottom tier servers and\or improve how the game handle communications with the players.

Obviously the actual system doesn’t work and it’s only getting worse because the aspects that aggravate them only are growing exponentially.

The lag spikes in this game (EU-Baruch) is something that is reaching the absurd.
It actually makes the experience in this game something impossible to enjoy, completely disgusting.

Anet should fix this lag spikes ASAP, which i can attribute it to the low servers quality (low processing power/resources) and how the game handle some mechanics. The need for example to calculate and send every single condition tick any player has is something i can’t understand from a architecture/development point (and i’m a developer myself).

Just saying, the absurd lag in this game might make and it will make leave this game as it is impossible to play as soon as 2 zergs clash if any of them go full condis.

Stealth is not a thief only mechanic, it is at best a mechanic and at its basics a unique buff however mesmer, engineer and ranger have all had stealth from the beginning of the game.

Actually ranged had camouflage the most useless stealth in this game. LB3 also applied camouflage.

it was later when the lb3 got upgraded to stealth.
In any case druid have only 2 self sources of stealth: LB3 and celestial shadow, each last for 3 seconds.

Thus making stealth not be able to stack in duration would fix most of the problems with stealth.

guys just i want to point out daze is a soft cc Druid does not apply stun or alike, the targets will keep running around and away.

Aiiiiinnnnsssss….

Druid would be amazing if the core role would be in a “ok” state. Not the case so druid simply exacerbate the problem.

Just for the shake of sanity and get it into your heads: Druid does not bring support, brings HEALING. Period.
One GM to increase dps for short time while you are doing acrobatics with the keyboard is not something to be proud of.

However: The core class has so much potential

• Rework the spirits effects so they trigger more frecuently and arent lame and bring back the mobile spirits and paste it together with the druid and there you have it: a pretty solid support role for groups ( for any sized groups actually).
• Some minor changes in the traits so the ranger doesn’t have all the cleanses in one traitline and there you have it: more choice options to build more offensively.
• Small rework of some traits so the ranger doesn’t stuck in one traitline to keep the mobility and even better: now you can go for full dps.

Pets need a complete redesing so i won’t go there. But pets could be an amazing mechanic is Anet wouldn’t be so afraid to make ranger anything else than the full afk farmer bot (the actual casual players would go for something more rewarding like reaper, warrior or guardian)

• participation is apply cross maps
• commander tag will be seen over every other object so they don’t get covered
  
  Just those two improvements means so much for wvw gameplay.
  I just thought that in between so much salt when something good is done we should also celebrate

condi mesmer is broken because how confusion works and tthe passive confusion the mesmer applies on the top of many cother conditions, but mesmer is fine otherwise.

i like the idea i read in other thread of the siege to be neutral, anybody can use them.
You leave a cata, anybody that comes later can use it.

On the other hand anybody could damage any siege, even it’s own. Not that you will drop an AoE on top of you ofc… Unless the enemy is fighting on top of you to destroy such siege.

Son once you took the keep you should destroy all siege, or the enemy could use your own AC if they got inside.

What do you think? Discuss.

As i said it before and i repeat again, it should be pretty easy to improve the pets to the point that they could be wanted:

• cleanses, stunbreaks and evades that affect the ranger also affects the pets. That way you get the tools to save your pet if you sacrifice yoir own survival. The same for the boons: the boons the ranger gets should be copied(like thy work now with fortifing bond)
• pets should be left with 2 different autottacks from the 3 actually available, the most simple ones that do not require any AI to work and can be casted as soon as they are off CD with no impact in the player gameplay.
• players should have control over other 2 of the pet’s abilities, the most common design (although with some exceptions to give every pet a different flavor) one utility skill and one burst skill.
• Burst will be designed to overcome the lacks of the ranger, can be a decent dps AoE or a strong dps single target. This burst should have casting time and clear tells so targets may avoid them if they keep their eyes in the screen.
• Utility should be skills that bring support and\sustain: smokescale smoke field a perfect example. This skills don’t need to be new or especially designed: reuse of the other professions skills could be cool too. Pets that can cast reflecting bubbles, water fields, group stealth… would be a great addition and also increase exponientaly the variety of the ranger gameplay.
• Pets AI driven attacks should have reduced their dps to an average match for Staff solar beam in average (so glassy pets could do same damage as a glass canon solar beam). Pets should attack faster and have better habilities to hit and stick to their target.
• Pets should have also diferent mobility and speed attack between them to match different playstyles and give an uniqness flavor to each one of them. A player could preffer a pet that hit slower but does more damage(to wear off diamond skin alikes) or a pet that hit faster for less damage (to hit thieves). Some pets could move faster than any player others almost no move during combat (manly to reinforce thier role: a tank tortoise pet wich have all skills for suport\sustain PbAoE you may want it as static as possible)
• pet’s skills that are player controlled should increase their dps accordingly to their role. Some pets should be designed to complement the lack of single target burst at the style of warriors killshot. Anet shouldnt be afraid to test differents skills effects, they have many variable to balance it like the glassiness of the pet, CD, range…
• Pets should stay completely independent from ranger stats. Trait line BM should not increase their mobility or direct dps as this should not be needed. BM traitline should be focused in increase the gameplay by encouraging the synergy between the ranger and the pet as empathic bond (should be in bm with some tweaks), Companions might(great trait by the way that can’t get the shine it deserves) or Zephirs speed.
• Other players pointed out in this forum: the utility from the old shout guard should come back as baseline command available to any ranger. The utility that brings being able to leave your pet as advanced scout\ guard for a camp\ another entrance of the corridor is too good to be forgotten. it should be an state, like offensive\passive is so the ranger should be able to cast the F2 skills and the pet still carry on guarding the area. Also that command could allow the ranger to somehow be able to order the pet to follow a concrete path if he is good enough(to flank a zerg to get to the backline for example)
• casting the F2 should not make the pet switch targets if it has already a target. For that we already have the command Attack my target.

In resume: pets should lose thier actual vision of “average for any situation” and instead became to “very good for one job”. Ranger should not be the class for people that want an AFK class for farming, they already have minion master necro for that, or a class were your bear tank while you AA the boss, players have the warrior or guardian for that as well.

Ranger should be class with the pet mechanic were the ranger must play with that mechanic and in exchange get greater rewards. Right now due to the lack of complete control pets are more or less like a loose end.

what changed is the amount of condition spam in this last patch. You see condition damage create a lot of traffic because it’s damage change with the might/boons the caster has at this moment.

That has to change. The damage done should be calculated at the moment of casting and not to change with any might the player may acquire.

Same for healing with the druid. The boon that gives more healing should not change the amount you heal with regen already applied.

That create a lot of server time wasted in math and a lot of spike traffic when you zergs begin to fight. Ever wonder why most disconnects happen when two zergs collide?

Just come on Anet, you can’t tell me you couldn’t see some mechanics in this game are simply broken…
The stealth, how easy is to condi spam, how the damage is handled in some comditions can be spammed, the damage from siege does to other players, the “tactics” like the aerial bombardment or the dragon banner, the amount of spamming total immunity this game has….

It is really difficult to make a balanced or “balanced imbalanced” game. It’s too easy to break something when all the pieces are stuck together without having in mind the global picture.

Just saying, it is not fun at all when you play a game mode where players fight against each other in a game balanced for pve.

Gaile Gray.6029:

There no apologist behavior going on here, just helpful advice on how you can work with your ISP to correct an issue with your connection..

And adding to that some more technical info about how ISPs works:
At this point for wahtever reason the node at dallas is being assigned to probably handle all the traffic coming that way and when is “full” balance to other nodes available, instead balancing the traffic properly.

Could be a problem with the node itself (they are more or less like computers running UNIX) and could be that got stuck in that loop or has some error at interface level and needed to be inspected.

In any case that is usually run by subsidiary companies, yes, other companies rent the nodes to the ISPs so probably the ISP doesn’t actually know what is going on with that node.

In this case the advise given here is right, If is always the same node and doesn’t have .ncsoft. somewhere probably is an external node rented by your ISP. In that case you should contact you ISP servicedesk and let them know what problem you have to let them route the traffic using other nodes. And probably also alert the company in charge of those problematic points.

It can happen only with Anet severs because other game can have the servers in another places thus you won’t be using the same nodes.

I think i heard somewhere SteelSeries and GuildWars 2 franchise are partners (or something like that) so when i saw this mice i thought the game would be compatible with gamesense (basically it makes the mice buzz when you setup some thresholds like low life or whatever).

But i can’t find any info about it. I know GW2 team has done some widgets for other peripheral like the gaming Keyboard Logitec G13 so i suppose there is a profile for the game sense.

Is it compatible with tactile alerts? Will be at any point?

Edit: When i say compatible with Gamesense i mean about getting other events than timer events, like for example Health threshold, specific condition or boon applied…

Gaile Gray.6029:

If you wish to make a shirt for private, personal (non-profit) use, please see our Content Terms of Use: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/legal/guild-wars-2-content-terms-of-use/

Hi! but in the terms of use is written:

You must include all copyright and other notices associated with the content

Should i put those notices in the back of my T-shirt?
Something like this?
I know it’s not the same but you get the idea

LughLongArm.5460:

anduriell.6280:

Jim Hunter.6821:

I’m not sure I understand the remorseless change, you want to add swiftness to it? For how long?…snip

My idea in the remorseless speed is to make the ranger to have another source of mobility. So the Fury itself gives the extra speed, not another boon.

Great change that doesn’t change anything at balance level, and open the ranger to have more build choices. Great synergy with WS traitline, and somehow freed the ranger from be forced into BM, warhorn or natural stride.

Ranger is good with walking speed between RT, warhorn,natural stride, SB 3, SOTH, runes with speed etc, etc… If anything, they need to make SOTH to be worth it, one of the reasons I suggested brutish seals to give 3 sec unblockble after signet activation(and ofc remove the 8 sec from SOTW, and make it instant cast-stun break instead).

Well you gave me the same options i told you: Resounding timbre, warhorn and natural stride. A little bit more variety to choose from so you can go another traitlines\runes that aren’t bunker type and keep the swiftness speed to a profession is all about continuous positioning won’t do any harm…

would it?

Kovu.7560:

Have you tried utilizing the options provided?

You’ll find that if you micromanage your pet to not attack someone while the enemy group is passing through they’ll survive longer, and that swapping pets automatically restores your pet’s health to full.

I’m not sure what you’re looking for here. Sometimes the pet will die. That’s life.

~ Kovu

You probably don’t play much wvw, were you have your pet in passive and still die from random AoE that is not even reaching you.

The pet system is very bad designed, the leash (distance the pet takes from you) is too great so is even annoying to use some skills because the pet is never were is supposed to, even when is on passive, and most of the times too short when you want it to attack something (the message “your pet is too far from your target” should be gone and the pet should attack it, if i can target it my pet should be able to reach it)

The lack of cleanses, stun breaks and evades makes the pets perfect targets for epidemic and makes the pets die pretty quickly.

So although i like the pet idea Anet must do a good job to not alienate the players and it is not lik that right now.

Justine.6351:

Lmao at people defending sotw/trait in its current form.

I don’t know what its like in spvp but I can only imagine the Hunters Shot + SotP + SotW + PBS + RF + CB/Zephyr’s Speed Smokescale opener just rolling everyone in wvw small scale. Makes me want to run power LB again.

And children, what you see in there is a combo that takes 10 seconds and 7 different skills to complete and the enemy will not do anything meanwhile, not like a thief or a warrior can’t finish anything just with arc divider\backstab and autos in less time.

I don’t know you Justine, but if a stay staring to a chono doing nothing i guarantee you i’ll die in les than 3 seconds… Or if you are in bad luck and a perma-invi thief catch you in his traps you will last less than 5.

Jim Hunter.6821:

I’m not sure I understand the remorseless change, you want to add swiftness to it? For how long?…snip

My idea in the remorseless speed is to make the ranger to have another source of mobility. So the Fury itself gives the extra speed, not another boon.

Great change that doesn’t change anything at balance level, and open the ranger to have more build choices. Great synergy with WS traitline, and somehow freed the ranger from be forced into BM, warhorn or natural stride.

Changes to traits i don’t think were discussed:

Remorseless: When ranger or the pet is affected by Fury movement speed is increased to 33%. Fury duration increased 20%

Predator’s Onslaught: When ranger hit a disabled or movement-impaired foe gain +5% damage for 8 seconds. This can be stacked up to 3 times.

Predator’s Instinct: Apply Cripple of 2 seconds every 5 seconds.

Strider’s Defense: 50% chance to reflect projectiles (no ICD passive) while using a sword. Skills that evade cleanse Immobilise.

Light on your feet: +10% condition duration and damage while moving.

Most Dangerous Game: While under 50% health:
- Might application on interval.
- Swiftness application on interval.
- Fury application on interval.
- Quickness application on crit.

Discuss.

Varyla.1592:

Since I used before Spirit of nature and sometimes Signet of nature, I benefited a lot of a +560 healing power. And my team too with the spirit. But everyone seems to say that spirit are wrong choices (even if few said why), that is why I changed.

But then, you are right. Without spirit of nature, +560 healing power is useless. Do you think I shoudl change survival for druid in order to keep a bit of healing for support ?

I tried today druid. It is not that bad, but I don’t like staff. What trait would you chose ? I feel few are really interesting. Maybe I do not know how to use them well.

Druid is not only about sustain, it also bring a lot of mobility into the ranger (that strangely it lacks).
Staff is a very horrible weapon combat wise, here some people keep saying that is not but again and time will tell, it is.

But Staff has its spotlights: Ancient Grace is one of them. So Druid when uses the staff is for its mobility and AF generation. Damage wise is bad but it’s a filler while your skills go off CD. The mobility with the other weapons is clunky at best, having really bad experiences with them.

Problem is now you need healing power to work with druid (around 700 healing is the sweet spot) but the stat combinations are really junk using the healing stat. Without healing power the avatar and staff really really really suck.

Now for WvW i go with BM/WS/DR . You miss the share boon thing which actually hinds your damage by a lot, but you can use the WS skills to cleanse 2 conditions and you have better access to LR, that is the only skill for ranger that cleanse Immob (to avoid being pinned down). With the RNG thingy when cleanses if you get 4 conditions on you even if they not damaging you will need the avatar to cleanse immob and sometimes is on CD. LR is not a good skill however, more than once i went off a cliff because you don’t have any control over the skill but is the only choice you actually have (sadly like everything about the ranger).

Kaizoku.1298:

Krispera.5087:

Just tested, it makes unblockable.

Wow ! Hope it’s intended ANet, it’s a good buff !

Makes it overpowered it isn’t good buff, I go through blocks, reflections, and projectile destructions.. I was basically unstoppable having the trait AND the skill. Also makes it harder for anyone to kite you since the skill gives you movement speed and increases your damage output

Actually i think you are wrong and a little bit sore i guess?

You are talking about 8 seconds unblockable every 60 seconds. AND the increased power damage just make the ranger’s weapons reach an average damage output, it is not like you are going to see 4K LB autos to a 3K armor, like hammer revenant. Even with the trait is like another 8 seconds every 60 when the life goes under 50%, and this is not stackable (like the trait endure pain should be, and it was before anet decided to dumb the warrior down).

With all the block and reflection spam that is in game already the ranger with 5 out 7 weapons being projectile needs more unblockable application. However i could agree
maybe an unblockable RF with all the damage modifiers could one shot the squishy classes, thing i see wrong in all professions in the game.

What about increment the amount of unblockables applicactions (by skills or traits) but those affects only melee weapons? The longest ones (like SoW) could have that limitation while others, shorter ones without damage modifier, could affect projectile as well.

For example: The trait Brutish Seals could apply 4 seconds unblockable upon signet activation while SoW would apply 8 seconds unblockable only to not projectile attacks (like staff, GS or sword)

So ranger can be sure it can land the burst when is needed and all the classes that can spam blocks have to be more careful when to use them instead spamming when off CD.

i found the other day the only problem with necro sustain is the lack of life force generation that is limited to attacks.

the other day i fought against a necro as a druid and because ths dude generated so much life force(and also very skilled) we won that time.

i think necro sustain could be addressed if the necro by baseline generate life force when damaged(by direct damage and less by condi application) so he can have more access to the death shroud.

That would not change how the class plays and would give more access to the special mechanic.

opinions?

he is amazing player, you can see for it’s rotations and awareness of the map.
However that condi chrono bunker setup made my eyes bleed…

i don’t understand the percentile mambo jumbo but i agree with the op. The druid with 7k solar beams is too stronk. And the homing missiles coming from the hedgehog thingy are too stronk too. And the blueish thingy has to be accesible only once during the game, the ranger needs to have no access to heals because it has 2 health bars countimg with the pet.

Spartacus.3192:

My guildie plays core Ranger with crazy amount of unblockable attacks and he takes down DHs from range all the time. Gets whispers of “what the heck did you hit me with???”

that’s funny as the ranger itself doesn"t have any unblockable attacks… The pet does but we all know how anybody can avoid the pet just strafing. Well except for the bug with the signet.

Justine.6351:

anduriell.6280:

Justine.6351:

The vid demonstrates why longbow/staff is meta for roaming.

Dump fire sigil for something/anything else.

Oh…No wonder why no dmg. No might stack sharing on yourself or pet.

yeh that the problem with WS instead BM.

you have two variants of the same build: Ws with durability or BM with tropper.

LB\staff is being used because of the pewpew from 1800 and requires low skill floor. But with all the projectile hate you get rekt as soon as you meet a competent player.

As soon as anduriell meets a competent player.

I don’t play with LB, find it boring the pewpew thing… But i i see many druids around with Lb/Staff and they play with it far from good, and i think because once you get close is very difficult for them to use the LB, and they usually go tanky thus don’t do real damage with the RF.

Usually i kill’em all.. I don’t know why i can’t stand the pewpew that only know to kite from afar (pver?).
It is not like i don’t get caught sometimes between a thief or a DH and the druid but i can get them downed fairly easy.
Just to make you happy i’d tell you my bane is still the condi chrono and the ghost thief, those ones are the ones i don’t know how to play against (manly because of the condi spam and the rng factor with our cleanses, more than once i used all my skill bar (5 cleanses) and still couldn’t get rid of the immobilise).

Nimrud.5642:

Hi,

so is the vanilla power ranger build better for roaming than power druid ? I’d really like some hard hitting pew-pew build for roaming because my current build is getting boring. thx

yeh, no.
Only build that actually gives you a chance not to get killed is this one and WS variant.
If only all classes would have better choice to have more viable builds than just the one would be perfect.

Justine.6351:

The vid demonstrates why longbow/staff is meta for roaming.

Dump fire sigil for something/anything else.

Oh…No wonder why no dmg. No might stack sharing on yourself or pet.

yeh that the problem with WS instead BM.

you have two variants of the same build: Ws with durability or BM with tropper.

LB\staff is being used because of the pewpew from 1800 and requires low skill floor. But with all the projectile hate you get rekt as soon as you meet a competent player.

Justine.6351:

Jim Hunter.6821:

They just need to bring back the flag system from GW1 so you can actually control your pet.
-This would keep it from revealing (allow you to misdirect opponents) your location when you stealth
-Sort out a ton of PvE issues
-Allow you to move/keep them out of AoE
-Allow you to place them far enough away that they aren’t a free target for things like C&D, cleansing ire, etc. when fighting certain classes

Made this vid longtime ago,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyTRm2tYS8c

yeh i agree to bring back the skill guard but this time as a command for the pet.

That skill had a lot of uses but not as an utility skill simply because we can’t spare even 1 slot for that. But that utility is a must for a pet class as we should have complete control over were we want our pet to stay.

LughLongArm.5460:

I think it’s kinda obvious this is not an “accidental bug”, it’s a.net cheap version of a PTR server. They probably got a lot of feedback that ranger’s need tools to counter the massive amount blocks and reflects in the game. So we got some soft unblock tools with WH and CB. They’r considering some more direct tools. Trying to give them feedback on this idea I say great, but not like this. SOTW should be same effect only instant cast+stun break, this like make this skill and the enlargement trait much viable and it will make sense. the Unblockable part should go to brutish seals (3 sec unblockable after signet activation). SOR could be 50 sec CD and the proximity limitation to pet/ranger thing should not to applied to the ranger himself. Combibe first and seconds minor of the MM traitline, and make the last minor to regain opening strike on stealth(maybe 10 sec CD, idk). All these changes are well deserved and will fix most of(not all) the issues with MM trait line.

Ranger probably won’t get any instacast that gives you stability. I don’t remember were but i think some dev said that is supposed to have that weakness, vulnerable to hard CC. That’s why all our sources of stability are in the range of >60 secs CD.

i don’t think having 1 sec cast in all our stabilities and healing skills is an overlook but a conscious design.
And it would make sense if the core ranger would have the mobility that a class about positioning and environment awareness requires.

it is not the case and i understand your point however.

Staff for any situation is simply a joke, rangers use it simply to fill the AF, 1200 leap that got seriously nerfed (nerf the healing ok but why the cd also!!!), and notjing else.
The damage is a joke compared to any other weapon, and rangers weapons are the worst in game right now, and the healing is really a pathetic thing. 100 healing per attack… yeh…

Staff like many things with the ranger is simple minded, is designed to heal. So like many things needs to have a good desing and stop with the kitten about qqing in pvp, They will have to adpat, after all we have DH, Warriors and tempest that can hold point forever because you csn not damage them.

Jim Hunter.6821:

Who wants to start taking bets on whether or not this gets “fixed” before the range bug on hilt bash?

i’m sure they will fix it even before the actual season ends…

• This is so utterly kittening depressing.. just today i had a fight againt an ele holding position and i kittening could not take his hp nder 50%… He just stood there, no attacking, no moving, no dodges, just with the utility skills and earth and water he just could outstand my burst and overheal my damage: no SotW and sword + quickness could do enough damage and i was doing 3k to tower lords by attack!!!
  And when he swaped to air the damage was like What tf, 2k crits with the thunder thingy just after he stuned you….

This game is a kittening joke…

you should learn to play thief before dropping this here. Really.

Thief has an absurd amount of active defensiveness ( perma-stealth, almost unlimited evades and teleports around the map at will plus blocks with the DD) plus the highest single target burst in game,

If any Thief should be looked upon as his actual status because is ridiculously rewarding for just spaming dagger\sword. This is class is not the 1 used in pvp right now(only the 3 after dh and ele) simply because DH and Ele are easier to use for their many passives.

If Anet make those classes to have a higher skill floor to be good with we should see pvp plaged with thieves.

Prophet.1584:

since the changes to AF generation why run Dolyak or SoTW? running a shoutbow build and appling regen to yourself and your pet or other players should also generate AF in the same way? or am i wrong?

I messed around with SoTW last night and it was fun paired with the WH and a few burst traits/skills. my cats where critting for 7-10k on players often and smokescale burst was a serious deterrent. After a bit they would just stop coming to my point or come in threes to kill me.

maybe you are running WS instead shouts(most likely). Or like to run an even more bunkerish build (regen + SotW = almost a pasive warrior signet with 700 healing power).

Also is a secondary source of stabily in case you desperately need it (because SotP is on CD). 8 seconds unblockable only for the ranger (does it work on the pet?) + the extra damage with a 60 seconds CD i see it ok, the enemies could learn to deal with it (we grow larger so it’s very easy to spot) and i don’t see broken perse, not as much as passive immunity for 12 seconds from warriors, engies and guardians).

I don’t know but with this inmunitites\block spam ranger needed something else than the wh5

Eleazar.9478:

jcboe nailed it

yep, jcboe has my +1.

that’s why it seemed so useful although i couldn’t put the finger on what was it… I like the design i pretty cool, 60 seconds CD for 8 seconds stab and +25% damage is not that cool.

i mostly use it as replacement of runes of the doylak, as always for AF.

Well i’ll enjoy for as long as it last.