Guild Wars 2

vitor.2586:

12 looks like a bug to me.

It’s not. Channeled skills like Rapid Fire follow a player when they stealth. Using warhorn #4, the birds also continue to attack a player once they stealth.

1) A skill to change? So many choices here, on every weapon and nearly every skill. I’m going to go with Lightning Reflexes. Add that it clears conditions (especially immobilize) and I’d be running it right now.
2) A skill to add? Add in an F button that allows us to use another pet skill instead of only relying on the F2.

Just got around to watching the PvP livestream from a couple days ago and something stood out to me. When discussing the engineer’s new heal, A.E.D., they stated that falling damage would still kill the engineer if A.E.D. is active. So there’s a difference between falling damage and combat damage. Now, if falling damage won’t trigger an engineer’s A.E.D., why must falling damage make my pet come out from stow?

jcbroe.4329:

All I have to say is: Rangers? ANet should have called our class Minion Masters or Spirit Masters, or AI Spammers -.-

I wonder whose idea it was to go “hmmm, there is a significant portion of the community complaining about the ranger spirit build, as well as the necro minion build, and just AI clutter in general, calling them petting zoos. Let’s make more skills that do more of the exact same thing.”

Unless the skill is an amazingly good heal skill, I doubt I’ll even unlock it.

+1. Nothing I’m excited about at all. Par for the course for gw2 rangers.

Welcome to the heartache that is playing a Ranger! :P

As for pets, drakes also make a nice melee option. I choose what pets I run based on how I’m playing. If I want them active and fighting, I’ll take certain pets. If I am just using the pet for its F2, I’ll most likely take different pets. You get to have two terrestrial pets and two marine pets at a time, but you can switch them up when out of combat. One of the many problems with pets is that they have their own unique abilities that you can’t control and some of these skills are finishers, knockdowns, etc. which would be nice for the player to have control over. So choose a pet based on its tankiness or attack, or its abilities, or a combination of those.

As far as weapons go, part of it is your play style and part of it is what your build is aimed to do. In this game melee beats ranged in every way imaginable. But bows and other ranged combat can still be somewhat viable, especially in the open world PvE. The 1h sword is quirky, to put it mildly, but if you can master it you will have a good time. The only other melee we have is the greatsword, which is more suited to defense. Offhand options are dagger for evades, axe for some pull/reflect and horn for damaga/utility. Try them all out and see what you like and build from there. Some rangers run both longbow and short bow and go all-out offense, some go melee and tank, and a lot have a healthy mix.

As far as keymapping, I’ve ran with the default for over a year now.

Black Box.9312:

Do you perhaps mean s/d? Because ranger cannot use dagger as a mainhand weapon.

He means DD as in direct damage.

Want to maximize your damage? Take scholar or ranger runes and run full zerker trinkets. Otherwise, I hear that running zerk trinkets is better than armor, and put survivability stats on armor. YMMV.

I’ll agree with what’s been said, that you can run zerker ranger in WvW but you really have to know what you’re doing. If you run zerker in the zerg, more than likely you’re just going to be a rally bot for the enemies because you’ll be the first to drop. If you’re not stuck on the SB, you can try LB especially with Eagle Eye and Piercing Arrows. I used to be in love with the crits but you just plain have to survive in WvW. Now I’m running either 30/0/20/20/0 or 30/0/30/10/0 with full PVT gear and GS/axe+horn.

Props... definitely not a cookie cutter build you’re running. Would have been fun to duel you this week!

@Xukavi: Got a chance to look at your build. For food, try running koi cakes (they’re cheap) and quality tuning crystals, those will get your condition damage over 1000 and up to 50% duration. I also swapped your armor for full dire and runes of speed - just wasn’t feeling the exuberance and imo the 25% speed boost is always welcome. If you’re looking for more vit at that point, I swapped out three of your jewels for azurite and still had 1086 condition damge.

How do you feel you fare against condition classes running only Empathic Bond for condition cleansing? I ask because I’m not sold on QZ - I try to like it, run it for a while, then drop it. You could throw SoR in its place.

@Xukavi: Playing glass cannon ranger in WvW is just not advised 99.99% of the time. Whether you’re roaming or in the zerg, you’re going to want survivability and Sentinel gear is great but prohibitively expensive. When doing your theorycrafting, have an idea of what stats or traits you need for your play style and build from there. For example, I want fury uptime to make up for not having as much precision so I build around having at least 15 in Skirmishing (I take 20 for Quick Draw). Right now, running this build. For a power/crit build, I’d like that 2k power mark but I also have to factor in +damage traits, food and might stacks. I’ll play with the traits and utilities based on what I’m feeling that day, sometimes add a spirit or drop them altogether. I’ll try to check your build later when I’m not at work and give advice if I can.

As for Sentinel gear, IIRC you can buy the inscriptions from guild commendations and the inscriptions/recipes on the TP.

As for builds, I usually play around with numbers on a build editor when I get certain ideas in my head that may suit my play style. I’ll flesh it out then take it into WvW to see how it fares in roaming and group play. Lot of trial and error but that’s ultimately how you see what you like and what you don’t, and what works and what doesn’t.

Sreoom.3690:

I think part of my issue is I prefer running LB / Axe & Horn….these two weapon sets are not ideal when you get jumped by a thief while running to your group.

That is my exact problem when trying to duel thieves in WvW. I feel LB and A/H are great in a group setting, but definitely not for solo roaming. I’m just too stubborn to be bothered switching weapons out only to catch up to the group.

kittening brilliant.

Opening Strike definitely needs work. I think it should be condensed somewhat, maybe the Adept and Master traits can be rolled into one, in the Adept minor, and given something better than just a little vulnerability. Make Master minor the guaranteed crit. Move Remorseless into the Grandmaster minor slot. This opens up room in the MM traits that we all need so very much.

Longbow #1 finally gets the tiniest amount of love and we lose endurance regen for it. I’ll meet you in the middle, Anet... 33% endurance regen. Kthankxbye.

Old thread, I know, but after seeing the post about a ranger pve beginner guide and its discussion, I’m kinda stuck on this idea. This would in no way fix the class to where it needs to be, of course, but it’d be a small step towards making bow rangers useful in some group settings. If rangers are truly unparalleled archers, then our arrows should be projectile finishers most, if not all, of the time (excluding barrage). If need be, make it a minor trait somewhere in the marksmanship line.

Shinra, I like the weapon changes you’ve proposed and I agree that weapon skills need more synergy with our class mechanic. I would echo what Atherakhia said about Hunter’s Call not requiring line of sight and I’d even go so far as to say Barrage doesn’t need it either, if that could ever be implemented.

Now, having tackled weapons... what are your ideas as far as trait trees and active condition removal?

Highlight of my night in EBBL: the ebayer who partied me, joked about skill lag and wished us well. Maybe some of the bad blood has washed away finally... maybe.

My build is 30/20/20 with longbow and axe/horn. Knights/celestial gear with traveler runes and zerk/cavaliers trinkets. Healing spring, LR, QZ, SoR and RaO/Entangle (very seldom). Strong enough to handle zerg battles, effective enough to run in havoc squads but not so much a solo roamer.

You had me with your opening sentence! Not sure exactly how I feel about the collars, but the ideas you’ve come up with are definitely worth entertaining. I’m with you that our class mechanic should always be useful (instead of a burden) and these ideas go a long way to make that happen.

+1 for the good ideas, hope to see more of them!

Ariete.6509:

pve fight

I just summed up your entire argument. And I have made myself very clear that this class is in unbalanced in comparison to most other classes when it comes to WvW. The PvE content in this game, for the most part, is not challenging enough to warrant a revamp of anything in this class. I can beat my face against my keyboard and faceroll most PvE content. I play primarily WvW, which has forced my playstyle to evolve, so take your l2p argument somewhere else. You can’t come in here and tell me with a straight face that this class is balanced with the others in that arena. It simply isn’t and ranger repeatedly gets left behind when other classes get more utility or synergy or buffs or anything actually useful.

Malin.2490:

I will keep my ranger where he thrives, open world PVE. I will stick with my mesmer or guardian for dungeons or WWW. Business as usual in other words, this patch didn’t change a thing for me.

Sadly enough.

See, that’s just thing. This was supposed to be a balance patch that, you know, balances things out. Except it didn’t – not for us. The following are direct quotes from commanders from the last couple of months in regard to party composition:
“rangers- I prefer no rangers”
“Rangers are useless imo, outclassed still”
“Rangers warhorn is incredible. Also… their improved range to knockback… omg”
“That roaming regen ranger… Not great in large group settings imo, but god kitten is it killer in duels.”

These are things that we’ve all known for the longest time – rangers are strong in a specific setting, and that setting is pretty much very small scale fights. And nothing has changed. No more group utility skills than the one nice water field and one nice blast finisher. Not one update in this patch has changed a single thing to make commanders want a ranger in their WvW group.

Atherakhia and mzt, +1 to both of your posts. Where is all the utility we heard so much about? Other classes got some, for sure. Shortening a cooldown on a still-usless pet F2 skill by 5 seconds? Ha. Giving a pet that no one uses a 1k AOE heal? Hey, thanks Anet! Like mzt said, we don’t have that trick up our sleeve to make us wanted. We’ve waited a year for that trick, that one thing that makes people say, “we need a ranger”. Anet has dangled carrots in front of us with patch after patch, and we keep biting. I’ll keep biting at that carrot and hope that one day I actually get a taste.

Xsorus.2507:

Rofl, Ok in case Anet ever actually reads this post.

Let me clear a few things up for you.

If you’re going to increase Pet HP, one of the area’s you want to increase it in, Is the bloody area with massive stacks of people AOEing, in otherwords..World vs World.

Also

Ranger Pets •Juvenile Jungle Stalker •Mighty Roar: Increased the might duration from 10 seconds to 15 seconds. Reduced the recharge from 30 seconds to 25 seconds.

The reason this ability isn’t used has little to do with the Recharge or Duration of the Ability, If you bothered to ask us before making these pitiful changes we’d be able to tell you what is wrong with it. The reason no one uses this ability is because the abilities cast time is bloody 3 seconds. So Not only do I have to stand near that bloody pet for 3 seconds, I got to waste way more potential DPS casting the ability then I gain from it.

•Juvenile Brown Bear •Shake It Off: This skill will now remove two conditions from nearby allies.

Again, While its an improvement, No one is going to slot this pet to remove 2 conditions on a 25 second cooldown, if it was 3 or 4 People might of slotted this pet and took the DPS loss.. otherwise no…Its not worth it.

•Juvenile Black Bear •Enfeebling Roar: Reduced the recharge from 45 seconds to 40 seconds.

This is not a buff, No one is going to slot the Black Bear because we already have far better ways to get Weakness. Dropping the cooldown by 5 seconds is not a buff, does not improve the utility of the pet, and is bloody sad you thought it was.

•Juvenile Blue Moa •Protecting Screech: Reduced the recharge from 40 seconds to 30 seconds.

Again, You didn’t improve the utility of this pet like you talked about, This is not an improvement, The reason these pets aren’t be used isn’t because the cooldown of the abilities, but because the Heal that these pet do is completely unreliable, which is why you would take them in the first place

•Juvenile Red Moa •Furious Screech: Reduced the recharge from 30 seconds to 25 seconds.

This will probably get used in a dungeon, It won’t be used anywhere else

•Juvenile Cave Spider •Weakening Venom: Increased the vulnerability from 1 stack for 5 seconds to 3 stacks for 10 seconds.

sadly, you probably think that the 3 stacks from 1 stack is a massive buff and that’s why this pet is now better, When in reality the only actual useful buff you did was increasing it from 5 seconds to 10 seconds to give us better Condition Cover

•Juvenile Fern Hound •Regenerate: This will now also heal nearby allies for 1000 base and up to 1350 when traited with Compassion Training.

Actual Buff I suppose, Till you realize it has a huge cast time, and is annoying to get off like most pet abilities

•Juvenile Hawk •Lacerating Slash: Hawk and Eagle now have separate cooldowns for this skill.

Now only if using Lacerating Slash was an actual DPS increase over the pet auto attacking

•Juvenile Lynx •Rending Pounce: This skill’s tooltip now displays the correct amount of bleeding applied.

Great…

+1 and as always, Xsorus is spot on. If Anet reads any post today, that should be it. But I bet they won’t because they’re all giving each other “good games” from yet another awesome balance patch that took months to screw up.

I love this matchup. Best reset night in recent memory. Epic fights every freakin night. No horrible blobs all over every single map. Can we play against you guys forever?

I started out leveling by using shortbow and longbow exclusively and didn’t mind it one bit. Then I found out all the goodness of the greatsword and axe/horn and changed my style of play. Find some skills that suit your play - Quickening Zephyr skill is really fun on bows, especially leveling in PvE. You can pretty much get away with any gear you want to use early on, but I liked full zerk for that pew pew factor. (Of course, getting into higher level content and WvW changes that mentality.) For pets, I’ll echo what was said above - drakes and moas are great, and I also really like wolves for their knockdown attack.

Interesting idea. I think if it were cleaned up a little bit, it could be really promising.

SynfulChaot.3169:

Sword/Dagger, Longbow, and occasionally the GS are the weapons du jour for rangers in late-game PVE.

Logged in from work just so I could +1 this post. Nice vocabulary!

To add to the thread, I really don’t change my build from wvw to pve to dungeons. I honestly don’t care to, and it really doesn’t seem to hinder anything too much. Might swap a utility here or there but it stays relatively the same. I like the assassin stat combo (I use Soros’ LB) but zerker is really the way to go for pve and most dungeons.

Definitely pick gear/traits/skills that mesh with your style of play. I’ve run longbow and axe/horn in a sort of chill build for a while now and enjoy it. If you prefer direct damage over condition, stay with LB and back it up with GS or sword/whatever. If you’re playing in wvw, you’ll need stun breaks and condition clears for sure, and maybe a trap/muddy terrain for a little CC.

My newest source of fun in wvw (since bloodlust was added) has been the combo of LB#3, QZ and spike on a downed enemy, especially if it’s a thief.

@jcbroe: I understand what you’re asking loud and clear and hopefully a dev comes along with an answer. It really does baffle me that if we are intended to always have our pets (as Anet has pretty much shoved that idea down our throats from launch) then why even implement a stow feature? It further baffles me that if there is a stow feature in place, why is it not more useful? Make it a hotkey, make it so when I take 14 damage from falling it stays stowed like I wanted, etc. I can see some very minor benefits, like if I’m roaming and get surprised my pet pops out of nowhere with might or aoe vigor... but that’s it. Really, it’s just cosmetic - as is much of this game, I suppose - but why have a feature like that for only a cosmetic purpose? Seems like a lot of trouble to go to.

As to the trait descriptions, aren’t those supposed to be cleaned up in an upcoming patch?

Ellen Kiel, so she can rig everything on the battlefield.

I reached that same point with my build, where I knew I had to sacrifice some damage to stay alive - after all, some damage is better than no damage.

As to your questions:
1. I was originally over 100% crit damage and have settled for a minimum of 80% with my longbow. Crit chance was originally way over 50% base but I figure I have easy access to fury with weapon swap and warhorn, so I’ve settled for 40% base crit chance (60% with fury). I feel anything between 70-99% crit chance is kinda pointless but that’s just a personal take on it. Crit damage is kinda the same with different numbers.
2. I play mostly wvw and do use applied fortitude to compensate for my lack of base vitality. I feel you want a decent balance of toughness and vitality but I lean more toward toughness (minimum 2800 armor). I’d rather negate as much direct damage as I can while relying on condition cleanses (I know, wrong class for that...) to get rid of conditions that eat at my HP.

It’s not a very min/maxed, theorycrafted way of looking at it but I hope it helps you get going in the right direction.

Gizmo.9178:

a rock

Might be more DPS than what we have now…

Tequatl.

SynfulChaot.3169:

Of those races, Norn seem to have much more an affinity for nature and the natural world than Humans and Asura.

This, if you’re wanting something from a lore or RP perspective. Otherwise, Asura have some nice racial utility skills that certain ranger builds might really enjoy.

Norn personal story is pretty cool but my first toon was a Sylvari (Ranger as well) and I’ve gravitated toward Sylvari ever since. As was stated before, Sylvari awaken from their dreams and can kinda do anything in the world. Norn are more attuned to nature and the hunt. Norn Rangers work especially well because some Ranger skill animations have animals in them and Norn have skills that transform them into animals.

For me, the sword is just not my cup of tea. But if it’s yours and you like the melee playstyle, go for it. GS is also pretty nice with a lot of options on it. As for offhand, I’d be lost without the warhorn for the speed, fury and blast finisher. Personal preference, though.

I really would like to see more pet interactions on our weapon skills. At least make me feel like the pet has a role somehow...

And yes, Hunter’s Call has got to inflict something like confusion, torment, blind, vulnerability, anything.

I like the idea of the pets, I do. I enjoyed chasing all of them down throughout the world and seeing their different skills and traits. But the pets just haven’t helped me in any possible situation I can think of. Make the pets more viable (and that doesn’t mean throwing them some extra health) or don’t force us to use them.

+1

idevourwater.3149:

im mainly looking to use it for a zerker build,

but the trade off is kinda big, since i have no use for the condi duration and the boon duration part of it…

hoping next patch, they come up with tweaked and more useful utilities ..

You should have use for condition duration being a zerker build. Assuming you put 30 in MM, there’s 30% condition duration right there. Plus another 10% from Traveler runes. This helps you extend things like vulnerability, chill, etc. Conditions aren’t always about damage.

ItIsFinished.9462:

Here’s how I see it:

Method 1 ~ Possibly Direction Anet is taking on stealth
A utility that applies ‘revealed’ to an enemy before they stealth:
Anet is introducing a method to allow Rangers(so far) the ability to apply ‘Revealed’. This makes it so thieves don’t have to sneak up on an enemy. All they have to do is stealth themselves, then the enemy is open to their burst. Other players are always on edge, especially if they see a thief go stealth right before an interaction/fight. This allows the thief to simply play in ‘easy mode’ per say.

Method 2 ~ My proposed Direction of stealth
A Passive Detection type of Trait:
This would immediately require a thief to check the buff bar of its opponent(if hes deciding to gank a player) right before engaging. If the selected player has the detection type of skill active(shown by a boon of some sort), then the thief now has to position himself/herself in such a way as to surprise the enemy. Which is what a traditional thief is supposed to do. Plus it makes it so a Ranger can do what a ‘Ranger/Scout’ is supposed to do, scout there surroundings…

It all comes down to how Anet want to implement a counter to stealth. I prefer method two personally.

I can’t help but think that Method 2 would garner cries of “OP!!!” from every direction possible. I play primarily in WvW and can only imagine the QQ when I detect the other zerg right after they run through their veils, or an opposing havoc squad having been mass invis or shadow refuged. But the way you describe Method 2 makes me think that is EXACTLY how both thieves and rangers SHOULD be played.

Bri.8354:

The best part about the axe is probably Winter’s Bite. The 4 seconds of chill and 10 seconds of weakness on a 10 second cool-down is great. However even this is somewhat conditional, requiring an alive pet to apply the weakness.

But if you manage to be in circumstances where you can effectively use its skills, with there being multiple enemies close to each-other for Ricochet, able to safely touch the enemy every 6 seconds for Split-blade, and your pet alive for Winter’s bite, then it can be a decent weapon.

I run a chill build and mainhand axe mostly thanks to Winter’s Bite. Such a short cooldown! Would I love to see the changes mentioned here? You betcha.

Chopps.5047:

Guardian and necro and warrior and thief are so OP in wvw that it really, really bothers me. I’m starting to enter “burnfall mode”. Someone talk me off the ledge, please.

Chopps, don’t do it! Think of the children! Really, though, as one of the players who reads way more than he posts, I appreciate the rangers who post well-thought-out critiques of the game, builds, etc. It may be a year into the game but rangers are going to find our place… I just know it. Now come down before you hurt yourself.

Here’s my take on the chill build, which I’ve been having fun with in PvE and WvW. I set it up a little different, went 30/20/20 to get the most out of all condition duration and retain some toughness. This is the first time I’ve tried Remorseless but that guaranteed crit is nice to try to proc the Ice sigil more. (Plus with fury, I have decent crit chance.) LB gives stealth for Remorseless and PBS gives knockdown; axe has its own chill on decent cooldown; horn to blast the trap once it’s set off for frost aura on top of fury/might/swiftness - winning combo if you ask me. Drake and wolf helping bring in more sources of chill, but I could see myself switching one to a spider down the road... I am rocking the Traveler runes and I will never look back - they are fantastic! Would swap RaO for Entangle if I am getting stability from the group (which I rarely ever count on getting).

Please let me know what you think!
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMUQNBjODbkoqyOvyvC1OQseAo+8nmiJZemCD5oD2NzB-j0DBocRGVEAbJZ0FCaEIJO5LQJQLjtMsIasqao6aYKXBR7CSFD2aWZ1gWQWKAYmAA-w

If we have to have the buff, we might as well have something like this.

Sounds like it would be an interesting twist on WvW once fleshed out. This would make SM pivotal... take it and hold it, and you get an all access pass to a fort of your choosing every so often. You could incorporate this somewhere in the upgrade queue, that way you have to actually invest something into SM and not just take it.

No. The map doesn’t feel or look right with this junk in the middle. I could care less about the buffs, I just want a more organic feel to the map again.

Zenguy.6421:

ANet have a history of balancing things a bit, but not of backing out changes they’ve introduced. Their track record is one of persisting with changes until they either make them work or people give up complaining about them.

I know, I know – which is an entirely different discussion in itself. If they want to keep these control points in WvW, then fine, whatever. They should make them balanced and feel like they belong instead of just throwing them in the middle of the map because there was a big ol’ lake there before. There’s a way to achieve both form and function, and this wasn’kitten

Dsybok.1405:

I haven’t been able to log in yet, but can you no longer jump off the vista at Garrison that overlooks the lake?

Didn’t have a chance to try that today before going to work. Can someone chime in on this please?

I know I’m not alone in saying this but with the latest patch the borderlands just don’t feel organic anymore. I remember first stepping into WvW many months ago, making my way around the borderlands and the eternal battlegrounds and feeling like they were natural extensions of the PvE environment. I grew fond of the borderlands – the fort on the bay, the rising hills across the large lake, the sort of marsh land to the south, the snow-covered rocky hills to the north. It all felt natural – like it was a real environment.

With the Bloodlust in the Borderlands patch the middle of the map now seems forced, out of place, almost like someone just slapped it in there. The bay now opens up to… ruins with a little stream? Instead of towering over a majestic lake, the garrison now looks down into the same ruins. The hills used to gently descend into a lake, as one could naturally expect, but not any more. It doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t flow well. It doesn’t feel natural at all.

Here’s what I am suggesting: bring back the lake, with or without quaggans and krait. It doesn’t have to be as big as it was but it needs to be there. Spread out the control points across the map instead of cramming them all into the center of the map. I believe two of the points should be in the northern half of the map, between the Citadel and the skritt/centaurs somewhere – or even integrate them in with those NPCs somehow. One of the points should still be in the middle of the map around where the Temple of Storms used to be. The last two would be on the southern half of the map so invaders would be able to control easily. Ideally, the two southern points would be between the keeps and southern towers on the edge of the lake.

Placing the points in areas like these works out for all three servers. The home server has easier access to its northern two points from the Citadel and invaders have to work to get them. If invaders have a waypointed keep on the map they will have an easier time getting to those points, which in turn will make the home server want to get rid of that waypoint that much more. There will still be effort given to the center of the map by all three servers, as all three servers will have roughly equal access to it.

Instead of forcing the PvP feel onto the WvW (and by extension, PvE) environment, let’s integrate it into the environment and make things flow in a more natural manner. The tactics and strategies will evolve without the cluster in the middle of the map. This isn’t a conversation about the Bloodlust buffs – as that is an entirely different topic I don’t want to address here. This is a conversation about the flow and feel of the map, which has definitely suffered with this patch but it can be salvaged. The question is: how?

I understood what you meant, and "traits" may not have been the right word to use. (I’m at work and was typing up a quick response.) As I said, though, I think it’s a very interesting and different, but VERY viable option to make pets more useful. Involving the pet with specific weapon attacks just adds to the theorycrafting side of things. Devs, you better be reading this one!