Guild Wars 2

I agree with everything in your post.

IMO, this is probably the tankiest, most passive meta we’ve ever seen where most of the meta builds are rolling with over 4k stats from amulet+ might stacking.

I honestly probably preferred hambow era, where you’d at least see warrior duels ending quickly when someone got outplayed instead of the endless stalemate 1v1 between the cele tanks.

We’ve already discussed this, Kitt. Also I’m glad Arenanet isn’t Blizzard entertainment or else we’d have two World of Warcrafts and we’d all have to level up twice in the same game!

Neither Warrior or DPS guardian is that hard to play.

Warrior would be generally easier and more effective for a new player. It’s also more viable at high tiers. Medi-Guards generally beat Warriors in duels due to their numerous blocks and blinds but Warrior brings more in a team setting.

Who I generally don’t want to see:

1. Mesmers: Don’t stand on point, get wrecked by both condis and power burst from rangers/thieves. Half of them run absolutely useless builds.

2. Rangers: As a long time Ranger main, there are about 2 other North American Rangers I’d want to see on my team. Most of them are running no condi cleanse no, 1 stun break glass longbow rangers.

3. Glass Elementalists: Seriously, if you’re not mechanically good at the game, then don’t play S/F fresh air ele.

Who I want on my team:

1. Celestial Engineer: As many of these as I can get, thanks. Even if the person playing it has very little idea what they are doing, spamming nades and rifle attacks and crating 1v1s is still going to make them pretty effective.

2. Cele D/D Ele: Same principle as above.

3. Tanky Warriors like Hambow/Shoutbow: They hold points well, are decently mobile, and can win 1v1s against squishies.

Spirit Watch originally was on the tournament rotation for ranked but it was removed due to how imbalanced orb running ended up being perceived as.

A good way to possibly bring this map into the rotation would be to turn the orb into a bundle which replaces your weapon abilities and utilities with some presets (similar to what picking up a banner does). Also if it would normalize stats maybe at 2.5k defense and 20k health so that your team had to make a coordinated effort to help you along the way to capping the orb.

nxk.1932:

Hi Rangers!

What do you think about this build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQRAsf3YjMq0vavKOrQ0aABhaVA0OGS2Ww9RsEFxJrIasA-TJhHwAPLDA4JAE4kAAa/BA

is viable for tPvP group and ESL?
krait/traveler

First of all, since you aren’t taking Shortbow and you aren’t stacking Crit based proccing of bleeds, I’d probably prefer Nightmare/Undead/Balthazar or Forge/Traveler’s runes over Krait. Settler’s Amulet is decent on Spirits but I think I prefer Carrion or Celestial still.

Sube Dai is not correct when he says that Nature’s Voice replaces Spirits utility. In fact the Spirits active abilities are obviously very strong, and occur quite often when you take Nature’s Vengeance.

There is still debate as to what weapon set is really best with a Spirits build. Since your primary role is support and team fights I personally think that Shortbow withSword/Dagger or Sword/Torch is somewhat of a better weapon choice for keeping constant pressure on a target and proccing Spirits reliably. Shortbow is great at this. However, I understand some people find Shortbow boring, and Axe/Torch or Axe/Dagger is a strong weapon set, so its really up to you.

I like Geomancy/Energy since it maintains decent offense and gives you a ton of dodges when you come under focus fire.

I’d say that you would most likely get more value out of Shared Anguish as opposed to the 6 seconds of vigor every 30 seconds you heal from Vigorous Renewal. Otherwise, your build looks very good, and everything I’ve suggested is really just a matter of personal preference.

Err the obvious most similar build to Destruction Warlock in WoW is a Power based Necromancer build that builds up life force for life blast and uses Lich Form.

Here’s a link to the build which includes some tips and options: http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Necromancer_-_Standard_Power_Necro

Basically the build works around building up your Life Force and using it for a powerful single-target long-range damage ability called “Life Blast” which is similar to Chaos Bolt. It also has a powerful Elite ability which transforms your character into a Lich for 20 seconds where your power levels are even higher. The standard build takes two Wells in the utility slots which function well as high damage AoE.

It’s a relatively simple build for beginners, and I highly recommend it if you enjoyed Destro in WoW.

A huge Runescape-style dueling/staking arena in the Heart of the Mists where I can spend time while waiting for queues.

Yes, you can see it in the tooltip change as well when you equip SotF

My minimum ping when playing GW2 is something like 200ms. Half the time its closer to 300, and I’ve seen it go over 800 for extended periods. When I play WoW its like 40-50, so I don’t think it’s my internet.

This is technically the wrong forum to ask in I guess, but ping doesn’t really matter that much for other parts of the game.

That’s good to know, thanks. I had noticed that whatever class I was going on didn’t seem to have much of a difference on the matchmaking.

If I get a really high MMR team queueing in Ranked, does that also mean that the MMR I have there becomes my Unranked MMR?

This flow chart is pretty much correct. There’s a reason why Cheese Mode wins stacking double engi and why Abjured wins stacking double ele: both the classes are overpowered. Similar to how Cheese Mode and Apex used to win by stacking double warrior. I would say that instead of nerfing an amulet, it would be better to go after might stacking (ele) and also certain skills like maybe Drake’s Breath, Rifle 4 in those two specs.

I have this issue as well, and Anet still yet to respond.

I’m also Midwest, connecting through AT&T

Another hotfix, another night spent trying to download the newest patch with 0-20kb download speed and shutting off the launcher with task manager when it freezes… what is the problem? And why is no one responding about this issue on here when lots of people are having it?

mistsim.2748:

I tested this out for a bit today. I have to say the burn uptime from the spirit was disappointing…to me, definitely not worth it over, say, SoR. also not taking Nature’s Protection + Evasive Purity hurts quite a bit.

I do take Evasive Purity.

Thanks for the responses guys.

@mistsim, It’s true 25% movement speed doesnt equal high mobility, but it’s a hell of a lot faster than not having that buff. Overall I feel that 25% makes the mobility passable, and at least you don’t feel like you are crawling from node to node…

@Shanks, Overall I like your build, but I would really not consider taking Poison Master over either of the other two Wilderness Survival traits which are just too strong comparatively. Your version of the build probably is just as strong or stronger than mine is against sustain classes like Ele/Engi, but I feel like it could be focused down very easily with a well executed chain cc from thief/warrior/mesmer.

@Shadowfall, I like your build and I find that iteration of Survival Ranger extremely strong for dueling. The main problem I have with it is that bleed stacking is wiped too
easily by other meta classes in any fight larger than a 1v1. With stuff like warhorn shouts warrior and d/d ele out there, getting bleed stacks to stick is an increasingly rare phenomenon for me. It’s one of the reasons why I ended up taking Sun Spirit in my build, because I found that the extra burn really helps vs these celestial tanks with condi clear out the kitten.

@Sol, I actually am a big fan of Sigil of Ice in duels. It’s pretty amazing vs some classes, and especially if you are running a big damage pet like bird or cat (allows them to get to the target very well). However, I do like the fact that Sigil of Hydro is AoE and had a damage stat. A lot of the times on this build I’m in outnumbered situations and hydro allows me to affect both opponents at once. Signet of Stone is an “Oh kitten” button for when I come under heavy power burst or CC. I find its almost necessary for running Troll Unguent in a team queue environment where the burst will usually be coming from a thief or mesmer or power ranger jumping on me in the middle of a 1v1.

@Klonko, Overall I still think Empathic Bond gets more mileage in fights. Bark Skin is exceedingly strong in 1v1 vs power based classes, but 2 people are still going to kill you even with Bark Skin, and Bark Skin doesn’t make that much of a difference in team fights.

I’d suggest you start PvPing on the class you’ve played the most (Guardian). I’d also suggest practicing moving while fighting on golems in the Heart of the Mists or on NPCs in PvE. Learn how be moving in any direction while pressing your skills and have dodge bound to something you can hit very quickly. An easy set of keybinds for utilities would be Q,E,R and C for your heal and X for your Elite skill. (It would be much better to start with learning these keybinds than clicking your skills.)

One build that you could start with is: http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Guardian_-_Meditation_DPS_Variant

This build had a lot of healing and decent condition removals. You can use greatsword, which you already know more about what it does than the other weapons and then scepter/focus doesn’t take long to learn.

@JCBroe It would also help if Opening Strike reset immediately upon combat reset instead of waiting like 10 seconds or whatever…

Also fixing shouts so that you could use pet commands during them would make Protect Me a very strong skill.

Or make opening strike convert might stacks to bleeding (trollface.jpg) lol

Celestial Rifle Engineer and Celestial D/D Elementalist.

If only we could have visible MMR like other games.

Hey Sol, this build is nice, almost the exact power build I run as well. Depending on the enemy comp I’ll sometimes swap out Renewal for Protect Me. I also use either Martial Mastery or Hide in Plain Sight instead of Vigorous renewal, because I find the Vigor uptime from that trait pretty lacking especially with Healing Spring. I like either Owl or Spider as my offensive pet. RaO vs Entangle is a tough one, but in general I find that while it is a bit lackluster compared to Krait rune/survival ranger, Entangle is still good for peeling out of tough situations or getting an immob on an engi right after their heal and forcing them to eat an entire Rapid Fire.

The build Eurantien posted works well, but it also gets farmed by thieves easier with no protection on dodge, and is also more vulnerable to engi/necro condi spam. I find the 3rd minor trait in Wilderness Survival helps a ton with the damage on 62600 as well. Protect Me would be a lot stronger if using pet commands during its duration wouldn’t cancel the effect (same goes for Sic Em -.-)

They’ll be gone in an hour. Settle the kitten down bruh.

Pros:

-High damage for PvE (good in dungeons, open world raiding)
-Really easy to do world completion, open world soloing with
-Good Duelist & roamer
-Weapons on the class are mostly in a good spot for PvP

Cons:

-The weakest class in large group fights (WvW battles) of over 10+ people
Wvw guilds who like large scale fighting will not want you to play Ranger.

I’d actually argue that d/d ele is technically as close as we have gotten to a viable full melee spec in quite some time.

Melee specs need to be balanced by having higher damage, more upfront healing/sustain, and generally a bit more team support. It’s hard to do this though with Guild Wars 2 system, because if you buff a melee set a lot, it will immediately also get paired with the other strongest ranged set (example: hambow).

I feel like warrior is the best example of a class which should be able to go full melee without losing much effectiveness. Longbow is an absolute staple on that class right now when it really shouldn’t be.

So, tonight I Ranked queued with some people and we were undefeated. We beat everyone we played by over 400 points except for another pug group with ostrich eggs/some other frequent ranked queuers and those games were close (but we also won).

So I checked my rating and I lost 4 points total and about 100 positions on the leaderboard. How did this end up happening? I don’t care about my leaderboard position right now, but I don’t think that going 100% win rate with absolute dominating wins should really every result in a rank loss.

no thanks

If anyone has any match up questions or other questions about how to play this build, feel free to message me in game. I also may add more to this thread later and turn it into a guide.

Hi guys, I’ve been experimenting with Survival of the Fittest condi variants in sPvP for a while now. This build is what I personally find to be the most well rounded condition based Ranger build which is capable of winning 1v1s as well as doing well in small skirmishes, while maintaining high mobility and decent survivability when focused.

SotF Condition

So, why is this build better?

Carrion vs Rabid vs Celestial

Carrion = 25k starting health when approaching a fight coupled with multiple sources of condi clear makes you almost immune to conditions. Shortbow 3 + Dagger 4 + your regular dodges + Lightning Reflexes is enough to dodge all big hitting power based attacks in a 1v1 engagement.

Rabid: Low initial health and higher toughness is better against some specs, but ultimately relies also more heavily on bleed stacking, which is cleansed very easily by eles and shout warriors. Thieves will dodge your heavy bleed stacking moves (weapon swap, Split blade). Mesmers will kite them. Overall Rabid is a decent choice, but not as good as Carrion for the majority of matchups.

Celestial: Low condition damage, slightly better toughness and marginally better healing power. Overall neither shortbow or axe scales that well with power/crit. This amulet is definitely decent/almost strong on Ranger, but Carrion has more overall damage and the sustain isn’t different enough to be worth running Celestial without Might stacking.

Why Sun Spirit?

First of all, the typical SotF Ranger builds I’m seeing are either a/d s/t or a/d sb. The melee variant is a very effective 1v1 node assaulter, but it lacks focus in team fights. The a/d sb variant relies almost entirely on bleed stacking in skirmishes, which is cleared too easily, and you ultimately end up with very little damage.
Sun Spirit attempts to fix the problem of the a/d sb build by giving it an additional burn, which makes it far stronger vs squishies in a skirmish, and also giving it an extra high damage condition in 1v1s.

Usage of Sun Spirit

Given the fact that I’m not running Healing Spring, my Sun Spirit dies very quickly if I’m being attacked with AoE attacks (think d/d ele or grenades). Therefore, I intentionally do not take Spirits Unbound, and take Evasive Purity (great trait when paired with Troll Unguent). Spirits passive effects have a range of 1,000 so in any engagement I find a place to put my Sun Spirit which is off node, and preferably out of line of sight. This means that it will not die unless the enemy specifically seeks it out and focuses it down.

Traveler’s Runes

Unlike Spirit Ranger, which can stack over 30 seconds of swiftness with Storm Spirit + Tail Wind, Survival Ranger can either choose Traveler’s Runes or Tail Wind. Tail Wind is a decent trait, but as a node defender and duelist, I need to be able to move quickly between points. Traveler’s Runes also allow me to go into Marksmanship, which is a stronger traitline for condition ranger.

Why Marksmanship is good

The first marksmanship trait is decent in skirmishes and cover condi when entering 1v1s. It also proccs Transmute on Engineers so that you can immediately hit them with a more valuable condition. Keen Edge gives you another Survival Skill which can be used to burst with Splitblade if you are paying attention to your opponents health. It also by default gives you more condi clear and fury with SotF.

Owl vs Dog vs Spider

Given that part of the role of this spec is 1v1 oriented, I consider Owl to possibly be the strongest 1v1 pet Ranger has access to. The chill is very strong vs Eles and Engies and allows the owl to land additional attacks as well. Owl is also extremely strong vs both D/P and S/D thieves. The attacks are unpredictable and hard to dodge, and the fast double strike of the Owl means it still does damage if the Thief is standing in Blinding Powder.

Sigh, threads like this… ._.

I agree, mesmers have been terrorizing total noobs for far too long. Perhaps make them do 80% less damage to players who have played for under 100 hours.

Regardless of whether the new leaderboard is fair or not, I’d rather see people playing lots of games because of the leaderboard, than not playing so they can boost their rating by the weird decay system.

Top teams will continue to show they are top teams, and I’m sure the system can be changed so that the amount of games played becomes less of a factor if it becomes problematic. For example, if “Lexicety” stays as #1 rank with 46% win ratio. lol

Justin ODell.9517:

Addendum:
Yes number of games also matters. We want the players that play more to be higher on the ladder than similarly skilled players who play less. We also want less skilled players to have a chance as well.

IMO, this is absolutely correct. Even if the leaderboard isn’t perfect, having a leaderboard that encourages people to play more, rather than less (like the previous one did) is pretty essential to growing the community.

Basically, even if playing a lot boosts your leaderboard rating more than it should, its still way better than having people not play for the sole purpose of boosting their rating with the way decay used to work.

Elementalist = Water Polo
Warriors = Bowling
Thief = Ping Pong
Necro = Curling
Ranger = Lacrosse
Engineer = Miniature Golf
Guardian = Sumo Wrestling
Mesmer = Figure Skating

I want a giant Runescape style dueling/staking arena in the north part of the mists. That’ll keep those PvErs away.

Coulter.2315:

Guys calm down, NA did not beat EU, 5 people beat 5 other people. The entire NA had next to no input as did the EU. You’re sounding like these idiots who watch football and think they are part of the team.

^The truth.

Be glad they did it in the middle and not at the beginning of the game, making it impossible for you to get any score at all, and having to wait the full 15 minutes. That’s what happened to me

I just had a 3 warrior 2 ranger team

NA’s comp isn’t really that cheesy. Its just rather boring to watch, and it would probably be even stronger if Noscoc was still on the team instead of one Engi.

That said, yes, a large part of the reason why Abjured won is because Ele, and to some degree Engi, are both overtuned right now. However, I also didn’t see TCG truly bring their A game, and Helseth/Sizer didn’t seem coordinated very well.

Congrats to NA for finally taking a big win vs EU. Abjured is obviously a really good team, but TCG put up a hell of a fight with a pretty outdated comp.

Tiburon.8634:

Same here, started with yesterday’s bug fix patch, and the patch within the last hour as well.

Yep, same here. Are you on AT&T internet btw? It seemed to be a trend with the first hotfix patch which started this for people.

My download for this latest hotfix is going at about 10kb/s. I have 20mb download speed. I had this problem the other day where my download speed was extremely slow, and froze the launcher about 10 times with connection error.

Right now I’m stuck at 527kb with 0kb download speed. Last time it finally got fast enough to download the whole patch, like 50kb and took about 20 minutes. This is not a problem with my internet. It’s a problem with some Arenanet server that I’m downloading from. I’ve already tried disabling firewalls and such, and it does not fix this.

no longer having this problem

I saw a team 4 cap home tonight backpack. 2 capping is clearly more advanced. Then I ran into them to see what they would do, instant time warp/plague form on me so I ran away. lol

Just downloaded whatever the latest patch was, and I still cannot queue.

Actually most new players I see use horrible builds. Some semi-new players copy and paste meta builds.

The biggest thing I notice about new players, in general, is that they dont dodge obvious skills and tend to overrotate. For example, if their home is being attacked by 1 player, all the new players will run to home point, leaving mid undefended. Meaning that they are constantly losing nodes. Also mechanically new players tend to be horrible, they stand in one place, constantly backpedal, don’t know how to escape from fights, etc.

^ Can we keep this thread on topic, about people’s queues not working, and not about what happens in queues?

Nothing happens for me still

Yes, I realize that automated hotjoin surfing is indeed necessary for you hotjoin heroes to find matches to turn into automatic blowouts by autobalance manipulation.

However, the large majority of the community doesn’t care and will probably now move to unranked queue.

Also:

Practice isn’t there to facilitate a good game. it’s there for you to get the lay of the map and maybe practice some rotations/ try new builds.

Ques are like less then 1 minute right now, why not enjoy a 5v5 game from start to finish instead?

At least before you complain, let MMR in the new queues stabilize, and wait until they add dishonor back to the game before complaining about 4v5s or queue decliners.

Overall, I think that the new unranked queue and map vote system are great additions to the game. I still can’t queue on my main account due to some weird bug, but on my alt I had a few close games in unranked queue, as well as a few blowouts. It’s too early to pass judgment on the matchmaking system yet.

The new ready up before you are put into a game will prevent the large majority of afk 4v5s as well.