Guild Wars 2

Bast Bow.2958:

Other concern.. They keep buffing everything. Signet of the Hunt now is 25%, then next update they’ll buff another profession to keep up with us rangers. Then another profession to keep up with that one… etc etc etc. Then in a year our signet of the hunt (just an example of a skill) will have 150%… Shouldn’t they tone down some instead of buffing others?

I wouldn’t freak out about one of our only buffs since launch. The Elementalist Signet of Air still remains at 10%, but they are already extremely maneuverable in combat. Furthermore, movement speed caps at 33% (sans charges/leaps).

In addition, no one is “catching up” to the Ranger. Quite the opposite, really; we’re catching up to everyone else! My advice to anyone who feels that Rangers are becoming “OP” is to roll another class and notice how much less you have to work to perform well.

Keep calm.

You’re drunk, Druzlla. Go home.

You lurk around these forums long enough that you shouldn’t have to ask this question. The majority of people don’t share your love of Ranger Spirits, which the Nature Magic tree caters to.

Rangers also don’t pop boons as frequently as other professions, so the minor traits are lackluster at best. While we can swap weapons for Frenzy and Swiftness, blow our Warhorn and gain Might through various means, each of these situations require different builds and are infrequent.

Were the primary focus of the Nature tree more appealing (i.e. if Spirits were more viable – and no, they’re not, stop your fanboy-ism) I’m sure people would be more inclined to try boon builds down this tree.

If you want to go full survival, I’d recommend using Sword/Dagger instead of Axe/Warhorn. The latter provides no means to continue “tanking,” but the former means you may want to turn off auto attack and spam 1.

Also, I’d recommend changing out QZ for either Lighting Reflexes or Protect Me. Likewise, swap in Shared Anguish and Shout Master (if you go Protect Me). This should up your survivability, especially in WvW.

Finally, regarding runes, Dwayna only procs from a healing skill (whatever your 6 ability is) not signets or utilities. For survivability, I would consider Toughness runes, such as Undead (condition/toughness/power) or Soldier (power/toughness/vitality).

Remember that Toughness is the counter to burst damage and Vitality is the counter to condition damage. Hope this helps!

Piercing arrows. Hits up to three targets with all your attacks (except 5). And since you’ll be bouncing between ranged and melee, you don’t need the extra distance on the Longbow. Its just more running for you.

Agreed with Victory. Greatsword is a wonderful “tank” weapon, but its damage is subpar to our Longbow… which is subpar to the Short Bow, or was. I believe people are still number-crunching the Longbow vs Short Bow numbers post-Dec 14th’s patch.

If anything, stick with a Longbow or a Short Bow for better damage over a Greatsword.

Also, incoming Druzlla “pro-Spirit/pro-Greatsword” post?

Its true, turning off the auto attack helps, but its clunky as hell and not nearly as smooth as it should be.

With that said, I use sword/dagger as often as I can. It makes for a great defensive, hard-hitting set when you’re backed into a corner by a thief, warrior or guardian. Its a table-turner and a wonder weapon – except not being able to dodge during a chain.

I also use the 2 ability to leap away and swap to my ranged weapon again, unless I feel I can safely return to melee and finish the fight.

I don’t believe your crit chance his high enough to warrant the use of the Sharpened Edges trait. Instead, I would suggest the 30% increase to pet crit damage, as melee pets got a little love this last patch. Signet of the Hunt would help both you and them in this regard as well.

I would also consider dropping Sharpening Stone in favor of SoH or, preferably, Lighting Reflex. This is a trade for more survivability over moderate damage in a non-condition build.

I’m going to be a bit bias and say that the mesmer would, but only because I had my faced ripped open last night by one in sPvP.

I consider myself a pretty good player, able to 3v1 most classes with my toughness/condition build. Then this mesmer came along and was capable of burning 75% of my health away in a matter of seconds (note: I was aware of the Confusion condition and stopped my actions until it cleared). I managed to get away from their Sword ability, Blurred Frenzy, a handful of times – which was the source of their insane burst – but whenever I got them down to 10% health, they pulled tricks and slipped away…only to return to nearly-full health.

The mesmer has the upper-hand against most classes due to their tremendous burst, access to the best condition in PvP (Confusion), and the ability to swap positions with a clone to heal. While I feel a ranger has the ability to clear clones and phantasms quickly, I don’t feel they can clear them fast enough before the mesmer can unleash their burst damage and put the Ranger into a deficit.

(Final note: I was able to stay up with a lot of effort against this mesmer, but the moment another opponent came into the fight, the scales tipped violently and not in my favor.)

Such a troll, but I’ll bite. Lick Wounds can be interrupted if the pet takes any direct or AoE damage. Compared to the other profession’s downed abilities, its grossly UNDERpowered.

The sigil will only effect the 4 ability, so I would either consider 5% damage or 5% crit chance.

I run a Berserker/Knight build so I use Sigil of Accuracy.

For Condition builds, I recommend Sigil of Earth or Agony.

Projectile speed, Signet of the Wild and now this?!

Mind. Blown.

Nero.4706:

was doing fractals (one wif harpies). the movement speed juz feels too slow while in combat. this makes it hard to jump the platforms while harpies are pwnin me…

…because its still only 10% until the 14th.

The Lover and Wings of Dwayna: same textures, completely different models.

(BONUS: The Lover is the same model and texture as The Feathers of Dwayna)

Currently, this is assumed to be an extremely rare world drop.

garethh.3518:

The extra movement speed on your pet is nifty, but the main issue pets have (short of birds) is hitting moving targets…

Birds have the same issues, bro.

http://youtu.be/Qk5DiFJAtWQ

I’ve not understood how people believe that a faster moving pet will hit a moving target more frequently. They’ll still stop and attack while the target is moving out of range.

bri.2359:

@deepwinter

Yes, I know all about mob leash distances, but what you failed to understand is you need to stop at some point. Or do you just run from settlement to settlement doing nothing in between?

I don’t do PvP or WvW. I will write this again, I don’t do PvP or WvW!
So, I don’t give a toss what a Thief can or cannot do. You want to run like a Thief in WvW, then play a Thief. Problem solved!

Meanwhile the dev’s can work on fixing all the many ranger problems that actually need fixing! Sorry, but I see this SotH buff as something even more useless for PvE than the underwater weapons buff we got in the last update.

Did I mention WvW in my post at all?

Well then, allow me to retort: What “you fail to understand is” that the new Signet of the Hunt will function very similarly to another profession’s – specifically, the Thief’s Signet of Shadow. I have a thief alt, which I’ve only taken to WvW once and world PvE the rest of the time.

“What you fail to understand is” planning ahead, clearly. You can try to skip past many mobs, if you’re trying to get from Town A to Town B; you can run past mobs if you’re moving through a pack and can get to an open area; you can look ahead, see that there’s no safe place to drop aggro and choose to fight. There are a number of choices you can do and I find your lack of basic understanding disturbing.

Lastly, “what you fail to understand is” how to choose between fight or flight. Games are about choices, and if I chose to zip past a group of mobs or fight them, I can do them both with 25% movement speed. /micdrop

Negativity: Unlike other suggested patch note threads, I appreciate how well written yours were – they read like a real patch where many don’t.. I got a chuckle at some of them but agreed with some others. Thanks!’

Nicely done videos, Xsorus! I’m very impressed you use Sword – I even saw you had it on autoattack a few times.

Can’t wait to see more videos after the 12/14 patch!

bri.2359:

I agree with the OP

I have explored every PvE map in the game, and there is no situation where I needed a 25% speed buff outside of combat. All you will do is train more mobs onto other players or onto yourself!

Try doing a speed run through any of the Orrs maps and see how far you get. The only speed increase will be in how faster you die ..

Wait… what?

First, Durzlla’s test is accurate, and I never agree with Durzlla. For Thieves using Signet of Shadows, the 25% movement speed stacks with Swiftness and works both in and out of combat.

Second: training mobs faster? Frankly, I’m a little befuddled why you consider this an issue, or more importantly, how you even arrived at this grossly inaccurate assumption.

All mobs are leashed to a fixed distance. Once they move X number of feet away from where they initially aggroed, they will return to that initial location. The greater the distance you are between them and the faster you are at gaining that distance the safer you are from taking damage. In addition, it doesn’t matter if you encounter 5 mobs in a minute or 50 mobs, if you can put distance between you and them you’ll be safe.

Whatever your argument might be, you don’t have to use the new Signet of the Hunt; but, as for the rest of us, we don’t have to outrun the mobs, we just have to outrun you!

Just to be clear:
“You and your pet gain quickness, but cannot be healed during this time.”

When you use Quickening Zephyr the effect lasts for 4 seconds. During these 4 seconds, you receive no healing. Once the effect ends after 4 seconds, you can recieve heals as normal.

Link to Guildhead ability (note the two effects in the panel).

This was likely done to prevent near-instant cast Heal as One or other such effects. Working as intended.

I love 25% speed on my thief; I will die from pure enjoyment to have this on my Ranger!

Its only because you have no reason to beg for fixes and buffs. You’ve had your share of the love; time for the other professions to have their share, you greedy Warrior.

Its 4 seconds. Don’t use it if you need to heal sometime during those 4 seconds.

Mind. Blown. Please, please, please let 12/14 be the patch we’ve been praying for!!!

Agadar.4931:

DesertRose.2031:

Go to gw2guru and check the State of the Game video, Jonathan Sharp says the 12/14/2012 will bring a lot of balance updates. He also says it was a stupid move to have stated a date when the Ranger changes would be finished because shortly after a few programmer caught a flu which messed up their schedules.

Can’t find anything about that in the transcription.

I watched the video and around 31:00 Johnathan makes mention of the topics DesertRose states; however, he does not specifically make mention of the Ranger profession or respective forums. He simply alludes, makes reference and explains these incidents.

Asura have the best racial (Confusion combo field) for almost any class, and the Ranger is no different.

Sylvari is also good for an extra CC, an extra wolf pet or a 3-second invulnerability that also spawns up to 6 turrets. But really the Asura racial is the best by far.

ellayne.4082:

why: 2xperception on axe/horn.

is it really possible to get double-stacks??

One can only get a maximum of 25 stacks, but having two sigils on duel-wielded weapons allows the player to get to 25 stacks quicker.

So for each kill, Luffy get’s 2 stacks of precision boons – up to 25.

Dahkeus.8243:

I tried to look at the OP’s build, but the link goes to a blank Guildhead talent calculator page.

Hi Dahkeus. I’m sorry that you’re not able to view the build I linked in the original post. I’ve checked the link and found that it works on multiple computers. Try refreshing the page or clearing your browser’s cache.

I also took a look at your build and, with the axe/torch secondary, it doesn’t appear to be a “direct damage” build – rather, its appears to be a condition based one. The torch provides no significant direct damage and the Axe is one of our lowest DPS weapons. It’s been stated in another thread by (by you, as a matter of fact) that, despite the Axe’s ability to bounce between targets (even hitting one of two targets twice) it still under performs. In addition, its second and third abilities provide no significant direct damage.

Lightsbane.9012:

with sword/dagger theres maybe 3 seconds where i CANT dodge. it amazes me that people think you can’t.(turn off the autoattack and press 1.) with the +50% endurance gain and lightning reflexes combined with 3 dodges on weapons alone ….the only way you’ll believe for a fact it’s viable is to go into WvWvW and find your self in the middle of a zerg dodging almost everything.

Technically, with a Sword/Dagger combo, only two abilities (3 and 4) are true Evades (i.e. your hitbox is nullified for the duration). While using Hornet’s Sting/Monarch’s Leap or the Autoattack-Off trick your character’s hitbox remains and is still susceptible to damage from AoE, slash and projectile attacks.

It would be inadvisable to rush into a zerg with the intent to stay alive while using a Sword/Dagger combo.

bri.2359:

@OP

This is my PvE ranger.

The Build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQFATjEVR21VGWs2Bg1DC7bwWhMZPMkxHLwlF;TsAZUCvkQp+S5FFVGqEUZpyRlkKA

Yes the traditional 30/30/20 build. I’ve used this before, as stated in my original post, but swapped to my current build (also listed above) for the Toughness. The 30/30/20 build is extremely glass cannon and is not suited for my intentions.

To reiterate, I find that Toughness is a critical stat in the new Fractals dungeon. Many of the fractals are close quarters with lots of damage going out a considerable distance and plenty of movement required. I do not see a 1500 trait for our slowest and arguably one our lowest DPS weapons (the Longbow) as viable, much less to use as a primary weapon.

Nevertheless, I appreciate your post, Bri.

Quarktastic.1027:

…but I find that the shortbow and longbow don’t play well together.

Quite the contrary.

Forgoing another argument over Ranger buffs, a Short Bow and Longbow work very well together, provided you don’t take the trait to increase the Longbow’s range out to 1500.

At the time of this post, I’m using a Berserker spec with a Short Bow main weapon and a Longbow secondary. (I prefer the use of the Short Bow as my primary weapon because I can maintain consistent DPS from any distance)

My usual rotation is to burn through my Short Bow’s abilities (2 and 3), pop cooldowns and switch to Longbow. While switching weapons I gain Fury and unleash Hunter’s Shot followed by Rapid Fire with Quickening Zephyr for a massive burst of damage. I’ll then usually fire a Barrage followed by a second Hunter’s Shot before swapping back to Short Bow. By the time the weapon swap cooldown is up, all my Longbow abilities will be off cooldown and I can begin the rotation again.

I never want to stay in Longbow for very long because its autoattack is lackluster; however, the range penalty on damage does not apply to Rapid Fire, Barrage or Hunter’s Shot.

By using Longbow as a secondary weapon the two bows work very well together and Piercing Arrows becomes a must for this combo.

I love the evasions of Sword (and Dagger) and Short Bow. They’re the reasons I rolled a Ranger over a Thief.

I’m not saying “Sword is fine” – I think its 1 ability is bugged to hell – but I love the feel of the weapon. While Short Bow isn’t fantastic, its a great weapon when I kite.

Why would I want to autoattack? Because I love my keyboard and my fingers enough not to mash 1 (which, by the way, isn’t fun – Jon Peters said so).

And the developers never said that sword 1 is “working as intended.” Quite the opposite, its been acknowledged as needing to be fixed for the very reasons stated here.

With that said, I’ve begun using Sword again, but only as a secondary weapon. When I’m backed into a corner, Sword provides me with the means to defend myself until I can weasel my way back out and switch back to a bow.

Do I think its the most effective weapon to use? No, of course not! That rooting is annoying as anything and completely absurd. Am I forcing a bug to work in my favor? No, I only switch to the Sword when its necessary and swap back as early as possible. Would I be better off using another weapon? Absolutely, but a huge chunk of my soul just wants to use the sword (much like how my soul just wants to play the Ranger, despite the troubles).

Turning off auto-attack isn’t a feature, its a flaw. Quit trying to act like in denial, leet bro gamers.

Sleepy has it right on the money.

Beryl has Power/Vitality/Crit%.
Ruby has Power/Precision/Crit%
Emerald has Power/Precision/Toughness
Chrysocola has Power/Vitality/Condition
Coral has Power/Precision/Condition
Sapphire has Power/Vitality/Healing
and Opal is your Power/Precision/Magic Find

Jewelery is the easiest thing to swap out for stat adjustments as they are often the easiest and cheapest things to acquire (as opposed to armor). They can also hold the highest stat gems (Exquisite) whereas armor and weapons cannot.

As a “burst build”, ranged damage Ranger myself (favoring Power, Precision and Crit%) I swap between Berserker (Ruby) and Knight (Emerald) jewelery. I’ve found having some Toughness goes a long way to making your life easier as a Ranger. Toughness is a hard counter to burst damage (but does not counter Condition damage). With all of our evades we shouldn’t be taking sustained hits, but a bit of Toughness can pull us through a tight pinch.

I strongly advocate Toughness as its made my life a whole lot easier in world PvE, dungeons and especially WvW. Try to keep your critical strike chance above 50% and your critical damage between 60-70% (I’m personally aiming for 72-75%). Toughness between 1500-1700 is great.

krojack.4920:

I won’t go without this if I’m doing PvE with my crit build. It’s very nice however can get you in trouble in places like the Cursed Shore. I’ve had arrows go though my target and hit a random mob behind that was minding it’s own business and pissed it off. I’ve pulled a lot of extra trash that wasn’t needed.

Keep in mind that it’s limited to 3 targets max/arrow.

I’ve gotten into trouble with it as well, but still believe its one of our “must have” traits! I often find myself looking for ways to line up a good chain with the short bow and longbow.

Just imagine: Short Bow 2 on a swarm of mobs. The five arrows pierce up to 3 targets each. Pure goodness.

Birds are no different than the other pets when it comes to moving targets. There’s even a video demonstrating it here:

Thank you both for your insightful and valid points.

I generally find myself safely away from harms way as a double bow ranger in PvE. When and if I do need to dodge its never long before I have a full Endurance bar.

Despite the fact I do not prioritize condition damage, I’ll never turn my nose up to free damage, in this case Bleeds. 10% flanking from the trait also applies to my direct damage.

My logic for using the Signet of Stone is for the 35 extra Toughness and to keep my pet alive during clutch moments where I can’t get them out or swap them safely. I suppose its a carry-over from running with Beastmaster but I find the other choices lackluster.

Lastly, the sylvari racial Entangle has a 900 foot range. I’d prefer to maximize myself by staying at 1200 feet but I have considered swapping that in (just glad it works on moving targets now).

Again, thank you for the constructive feedback!

First, I want to state that I’m among the many who believe the Ranger profession is in need of serious improvement. I recognize that the class is subpar in Ranged damage compared to Warriors, Mesmers and even Thieves. However, unless absolutely necessary (or until name changes are allowed) I’d prefer to stick to my Ranger.

With that said, I’ve been working on a Longbow/Short bow build and I wanted some feedback.

The Build (Guildhead):
http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mVom0c0zMmvaGMmvaGMGpp9MzRMaos08khT707khs

The Armor:
Berserker stats (Power/Precision/Crit%) w/ Ruby Orbs

The Jewelry:
Knight stats (Power/Precision/Toughness)

The Weapons:
(Primary) Short Bow – Knight stats (Power/Precision/Toughness) w/ Superior Sigil of Accuracy
(Secondary) Longbow – Berserker stats (Power/Precision/Crit%) w/ Superior Sigil of Battle

The Gameplay:
Because of the slow attack and low damage per second of the Longbow, I’ve opted to utilize it as a secondary weapon – namely for its knockback, AoE and Rapid Fire. I’ve opted to take the Short Bow as my primary weapon because of its versatility and consistent damage at any range.

My theory is that the condition aspects of the Short Bow are secondary to its frequent and quick critical strikes (averaging between 900-1000+ damage). The Longbow is utilized as a swap while the Short Bow’s abilities are on cooldown and used for a massive burst or utility (knockback, AoE) then switching back to Short Bow.

I’ve originally played with full Berserker and a 30/30/10 but, after three rounds in the Fractal of the Mists, found I was in dire need of some defensive stats – namely Toughness.

If you can provide any feedback to the build, sigils/runes/orbs or stats, then please post below. Thank you!

Akisame.9508:

I think after this last patch, the ranger forum has gone unmoderated (is that even a word?). I know I left one upset post at JP which still has not been deleted which is weird. I think they have given up on us ranger’s completely.

Oh no, they’ve been moderated quite heavily, actually. Part of the TOS, however, is that we can’t talk about being banned, suspended or infracted.

Yesterday, I was suspended due to “an accumulation of points” and was promised a reason in a private message. I had one infraction in the past month, one where my reply stating that the “Hitler Reacts to the Nov. 15th Patch Notes” video was the best Hitler Reacts video of all time was deleted, along with many others, for lack of content. I submitted an appeal, citing that I had only 1 infraction and did not receive a PM concerning the nature of my suspension.

I did not hear back from the forum department, but I’m posting now. Either the suspension was not for very long or was quietly lifted.

I full-heartedly believe in Turtle’s post. These forums are heavily policed above and beyond what other MMO companies do for their forums. One can’t even say mild curses without it being censored into kittens.

I have little doubt in my mind that this post will be moderated and deleted, despite the fact that it is not flaming nor lacking content related to the original topic. I’m disappointed that I cannot disagree without punishment and it severely hinders my enjoyment of Guild Wars 2 as a whole.

I agree with the counter points and laugh at the OP’s post and those that agree with him!

This is a product. ArenaNet is a company. In the end the sum is about money and time – not about respect and personal feelings. Companies earn respect when they meet deadlines and provide quality service; they do not earn respect because they made a cute product that’s fun to play with.

Jon Peters promised “significant changes” to the Ranger profession. Now I don’t ever recall him saying it was specifically November 15th, but he did state “mid November.” In light of the Thanksgiving holiday coming up this week, I doubt there won’t be a significant update anywhere in the vicinity of “mid November.” In addition, Jon has been very quite as of late, stating only that “longbow and sword are in a good place.” Based on these observations, the November 15th content patch was the “significant changes” patch Jon was referring to.

As we all know, those changes were not “significant” at all; in fact, they were a huge disappointment. As this is the second major strike against ArenaNet developers since the Shortbow incident (third if you wish to count Beta Weekend 3) this has rightfully upset a major portion of the Ranger community.

So while I respect your opinion to respect the developers of Guild Wars 2, I do not agree with it and find the lack of quality service disturbing.

I’m on a Mac Pro (the tower) with an ATI Radeon HD 5770 and I’ve Bootcamped my machine. There is a significant difference in performance between each version of the game. On OSX, my game barely surpasses 36 FPS (down to 21 during most encounters). On Windows 7, my frame rate is consistent upwards of 50 FPS. This is most likely due to the Cider wrap Guild Wars 2’s Mac client uses to convert DirectX graphics to OpenGL.

21k hit from a single blow with minimal conditions vs. my highest 12k hit – the last tick of a Rapid Fire with 25 stacks of Vulnerability.

Yeah, Ranger DPS is in the pits and our pets are a sorry excuse to make up for it. Even combined (pending the target isn’t moving) our damage cannot equal that of other professions. We have to jump through hoops while they barely have to twitch their little finger.

Its certainly feeling that way. With empty promises and bugs stretching beyond just our profession, it feels like ArenaNet is taking its players for a short ride.

I came to this game because I saw all the press before launch. I was really impressed by the (apparent) outreach of the developers to their players. I did not participate in the open beta weekends, but if I did, I may have reconsidered buying this game.

I rolled a ranger because it looked fun. I chose it over a Thief, who’s playstyle seemed very “spammy.” Around level 30 I noticed something felt off. At level 40 I noticed a variety of issues. I thought it was just me, but then I came to these forums and immediately noticed that I wasn’t alone!

Since coming here, I’ve become more and more disheartened by the state of the game, especially the state of the Ranger. I know it could be better, I can see its potential, but the code and developers work against me. I have been a very unhappy player for over a month, and I hope ArenaNet knows that. I hope they know that a lot of us are very unhappy.

Thank you for your post, Synical.

I notice significant framerate improvement between OSX and Bootcamped Windows. I play at relatively high graphics settings (“High” shader is harsh on the eyes). On the Mac side, I get around 30 FPS (Medium graphics, of course).On the Bootcamp side, I get near 50. This has had a significant impact on my gameplay during dungeons.

I hope the Mac client receives vast improvements. Currently, I cannot even play on the Mac side due to the client not launching.

Healing Power is atrocious and stacks terribly. Stay away from it – far away from it!

I’m with the OP on this. I don’t have the time nor the desire to roll a new 80 and I’m heavily committed on my Ranger with rare dyes, exotics, cultural tier 3, etc. I’d really want to see improvements – specifically to our damage and weapon dynamics – and not stupid aquatic buffs!

@Sol, oh, look, another axe+warhorn/shortbow ranger. I hope you can admit that the only reason you’re using that combo is not because they’re OP but because they’re the only viable weapon options. (I swear to God, Druzlla’s going to come in here and brag about his great, big, horse-length Greatsword and his two Spirts and how we’re all playing the class wrong.)

Ah, I did miss your post on gearing, xPraks. Likely because I was on Guildhead looking up things for my post.

Nevertheless, an excellent video. I hope to see more from you in the future.

It looks like he’s wearing “Knight” gear (power/precision/toughness), judging by the amount of damage he can take, the sub-20k healthpool and the amount of crits he has. As far as runes, perhaps Runes of the Undead (toughness/condition damage), but that’s just speculation. I can’t say for sigils.

I loved this “Hitler Reacts” video! So true on every point! I hope the devs have watch this and got a kitten clue.

Guildhead link please?