Guild Wars 2

Update: So, 3.5 hours later, I’m grabbing food, and apparently, unless I’m mistaken, this won’t be on VoD, which was planned because apparently something was bound to go horrible wrong (audio problems, Prysin forgetting to unmute himself so I am laughing like a maniac half the time).

THAT BEING SAID. Anybody who did see the stream, feedback? More action next time? The particular time we were streaming is a bad time for NA servers in my tier, and my gear is going to remain suboptimal until I finally get my legendary.

PvP, PvE, Dungeons? Are any of those preferable?

It is…. painful, I know lol

So, uhhhh, we are live, but no audio lol

The stream will still be on Prysin’s Channel, and I’m working out which game mode we’ll be playing at the moment with him.

Am I assuming the majority of you guys wanna see WvW?

Update: Stream should start in about 1.5 hours.

Well my gf who is away for research for the summer stole me away at the time we were supposed to start organizing the gameplay on skype.

BUT I AM TRYING TO GET THESE GUYS TO SET UP SO WE CAN STREAM RIGHT NOW.

I/we will let you know how that goes, and when we go live, I or Prysin will say it here.

atheria.2837:

Pandaelim.7819:

Who do you think they are? Could be because of their guides. Could be because of their builds setting a play style that persisted. Could be from just responding and helping other players. Anything really.

Who are the most influential players in shaping this class since launch and why? It’s the middle of the night and I thought it could be a neat discussion to wake up to :P

I think you should change your question to Most Influential Still Playing Ranger.

Honestly, this game needs far more Ranger mentors than ever before. Rangers can do a lot more than most believe.

Still have yet to find Nirvana for WvW solo – melt, melt, melt, even with condi clearing and as much UMPH I can figure out.

I mean, granted that I’m a WvW casual compared to some people, especially when it comes to roaming, but if I was running a survivable condi build, I would take a page out of Gladomers book (who I’ve hyped up a few times in this thread) and run full dire with x/x/6/6/x with Empathic Bond and SotF and Muddy Terrain, Lightning Reflexes, and Signet of Renewal. Personally I’d go with Traveler runes too, and run food if I was hardcore into running, like Veggie Pizza to counter lemongrass.

But that’s just about the heaviest condi survival and overall survival build I can think of. Particularly speccing into Nature Magic and Wilderness Survival is a combination of our highest survival based trait lines. BM gives healing power, but outside of that, doesn’t help with Survival much. I’d personally prefer the Vitality and Boon duration, and make up for any healing power I don’t have if I wanted some purely through gearing.

That’s just my playstyle though. BM is a very strong traitline if you like playing pets, so it all depends on how you want to spec.

For me personally, I change my build in PvP every few matches. Outside of PvP, I’ll be available in the twitch chat to let you guys know what I’m running. I’ll also post the gearing I run in WvW (be mindful that I don’t hardcore roam in WvW and run a longbow because I’m a casual) beforehand. I’d do it right now, but I’m pretty intoxicated.

Not to brag or anything, not everybody is “about that life” lol. But if this goes well and I ever start my own streaming, I will do drinking nights on weekends at the very least, guaranteed. Seems like a blast drunk streaming hahaha.

I actually didn’t try that hard to do it. I just summoned the elite spirit next to the sand, and activated troll unguent when I hit around the 9-10k health range. Completed the challenge with 2k health to spare.

Totally understand guys, and all joking aside, I really am sorry because I know that being in a viewers position that I would want to see gameplay too.

I’m procrastinating my way towards streaming and making youtube videos though, so once I finally get there, I’ll let you know where you can find videos.

It is, I use it on an almost daily basis. For whatever reason though, it doesn’t activate sometimes, like it just doesn’t register and attempt to activate. I attribute it to server lag.

Durz had Marvin Gaye playing in the background….. HE MADE ME LISTEN.

Viking Jorun.5413:

Casey.9687:

First of all, dueling means virtually nothing when it comes to class knowledge. Anyone can run a Condigen (00662) build and win every 1v1, however that build will never succeed in high tier tPvP, so please quit asking Jcbroe to duel you. It’s extremely childish and only shows that you either think that you’re skilled enough to run a dueling meta build (requires skill? Not much.), or you just think everyone here is stupid enough to think that you won’t just run the Condigen build or its variants.

jcbroe.4329:

Spirits aren’t meta. They haven’t been since March, and any tPvP build with spirits is often centered around Sun Spirit for the condition ranger’s personal use rather than team support. Most top rangers now are beginning to run power roaming builds and condition home point bunkers over spirits due to the nerfs that the Balance patch brought. I’d even go as far to say that they aren’t viable in tPvP anymore compared to other options. Is it still the easiest, least skillful spec to play? Absolutely. Does it provide the same team support and survivability that it used to? Not even close. Many top rangers, when running spirits, are only running a single spirit for their own benefit more than their teams. I’ve seen two variants: a condition roamer running Sun Spirit for the burning proc to increase their own DPS without the need to run Torch, and a power variant of the same build running Frost Spirit (and likely Spotter) to increase their own DPS. Spirits, in short, have fallen out of the meta.

I can only make the statement that it’s meta based on watching the ESL and Mistpedia NA weekly tournaments, and every single week I actually catalog whether teams are even running ranger, which teams, and what builds.

It’s hard to get a grasp on it with such few players playing ranger right now though, and such a limited amount actually playing on stream. I only call the build Meta because it’s the only build that has been visible during these tournaments lately, and I personally can only give so much insight.

Like, I know that you queue into TPvP (or is it just solo?) and I’m sure there are other players on the forum that stay much more silent that queue into a pretty high tier as well, or against the “top” teams, but as far as that goes, there are not enough high ranked PvP players sharing information like this with the forum.

Like I’ve said though, I can only organize information and promote discussions lol. And currently, on the only viewable outlet available to the general public for PvP, spirits are still being run as the meta build. Eurantien is actually the only person who doesn’t run spirits and sticks to his guns during the NA tournaments and doesn’t change how he plays (moved back to NA, played with Blacklisted).

Anyhow, yeah, I only have so much information at my disposal lol.

RoyalPredator.9163:

At part of mesmers, they do serious ranged spike damage.
Sunday morning in EOTM: Chased a mesmer who had ~75% HP and wanted to hide from the zergfight they lost, but when he realised he got trapped beside rocks and falling, he turned around and tried to brake out. It was like 12k HP loss in 2 sec for me.
If I weren’t at full health, it would be a one hit kill from range.
I’m lucky he didn’t spawned that GS spinner clone that usually makes ~8k dmg meanwhile I’m dodging it!!

12k Hp Loss… And I’m not a glasscannon…
When will we make that dmg with our “Rapid” Fire?
After these moments; Mesmer is the superior ranged DMG.

Do they sacrifice anything? Or anyone else?
Even Stealth has no rules apart from braking out of it on will.

Speaking specifically for mesmers, they sacrifice virtually all of their condition removal to do those kind of numbers, and really don’t have much to begin with either.

That being said, I’m not disagreeing with you, and if rangers are supposed to be the maximum single target ranged damage relative to mesmers being the runner up competitor, than I sincerely believe ANet has a lot of work to do, and not just on the longbows skillset, but on the fundamental idea that there is a huge efficiency disparity between trying to operate a pet at melee/skirmish range versus 1200/1500 range that needs significant addressing.

Just because you have an issue with a build doesn’t keep it from being a meta build. A meta build is, by definition, the most easy to operate and effective build in the current metagame.

Better yet though, I made an entire build thread for the PvP meta that includes trap variants as well.

Take any issues up with how passive things are with the developers, not me: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Let-s-Talk-PvP-Meta/

warriorjrd.8695:

Casey.9687:

Theres a difference in being a good forum hero and a good ranger, all these so called in “influential” rangers have nothing to show for all the talk they do on the forums. By all means any ranger who thinks hes good in this game come duel me and ill see if your build is up to standards of this game. Because the crap builds that these so called “influential” rangers such as JCbroe and Durzzla have spit out on the forums is next to useless. Till I see some action in tourneys like say the Tournament of Legends i advise all rangers to stop getting information on their class from this forum.

They do spvp/tpvp and that’s pretty much it, however there is much more to the game than spvp.

For the wvw area I would nominate Mistism, Prysin (while hes a bit rough around the edges and some of his ideas can be far fetched, he still knows ranger better than most and won’t hesitate to prove that), and ofc myself

I’m also interested in what the OP would define influential as. Would it be those who post most on the forums, those who know the class the best, or those who play the class the best? Each would have it’s own results, because there are plenty of people who post often, but don’t know what they’re talking about.

You, Prysin, I enjoy Gladomer’s Ranger streams when he roams, though he only really runs Axe/Dagger Sword/Torch EB and SotF roaming builds, but one of the more consistent ranger streamers that I’ve seen with a solid enough build for roaming.

Xsorus and Tanbin are both great duelists, and a good in-game guy I know that is less active on the forums than he used to be, Arrow Slanger (ItsFinished) runs the RRR coined build style with guard from Faux, in both PvP and in WvW I believe, and he is more than exceptional at the class, and could duke it out with any of the rest of the players I know of on ranger and other classes and hold his own at the very least, easy.

I wish more WvW guys would stream though. I get on twitch multiple times everyday trying to find ranger streamers, and if a ranger streamer is both consistent and I respect the way he plays, I would promoting him up and down these forums.

I have every class level 80 though, and I spend less time in WvW on my ranger, and I’m certainly no hardcore WvW player. I don’t even use food, I’m tier 4 and I only play in organized guild groups, and at that point I can get away with slightly off PvP builds depending on the role I play (like Shatter Mesmer for instance).

Casey.9687:

Theres a difference in being a good forum hero and a good ranger, all these so called in “influential” rangers have nothing to show for all the talk they do on the forums. By all means any ranger who thinks hes good in this game come duel me and ill see if your build is up to standards of this game. Because the crap builds that these so called “influential” rangers such as JCbroe and Durzzla have spit out on the forums is next to useless. Till I see some action in tourneys like say the Tournament of Legends i advise all rangers to stop getting information on their class from this forum.

So Settler’s Spirit builds and Celestial Spirit builds AREN’T meta builds right now for PvP? By all means, enlighten us then.

You can disagree all you want, because even I agree that I’m just another forum goer and I didn’t even put myself on my own list, I’m just a community member. But that gives you no entitlement to be rude or disrespectful just because I post a lot and people decide to have conversations with me.

Nothing is set in stone with anything I post. I theorycraft, I play the game the way I play, and I push the builds I come up with to their competitive limit in my hands versus other players, and then I post them with the hopes that somebody else has success with them or can take them to a level I’m incapable of.

I never ONCE said anything I said was certain. Even Chrispy will testify to the fact that almost nothing I say is definite, because I’d rather have a constructive conversation and weigh options than say that a particular way of playing or choice for playing is more definitive than another. I let Brazil and Turtledragon and Guanglai handle PvE, and most of the builds I post I take directly from NA and EU weekly tournaments and change either rune or sigil choices for my own playstyle, so you’re essentially insulting every single trait setup that people run at the highest tier of gameplay.

But that’s okay, I could just report you for harassing me on the forum instead of being constructive, since you’re in clear violation of the code of conduct. Instead, I’m choosing to respond to you to show you that I’m not moved by your anonymity empowered attitude enough to retaliate and argue with you, because I agree with you that everything on these forums should be viewed with a certain amount of skepticism.

But I don’t agree that any of the builds I’ve posted recently are anywhere near the poor quality you claim them to be, and I read your post with as much skepticism as your read my posts. I see that you offer nothing but negativity, and are more than likely attempting to troll in that regard by dragging a poor response out of me instead of providing anything constructive to back your skepticism. And with that I say, shame on you for your poor, toxic post, when you could have actually made a very good point, called me out on some of my shortcomings, and provided a counter argument.

Because I’d really love to see it. I’m only one person, I have a set way of thinking, if somebody on these forums can actually surprise me with a build for rangers I haven’t seen or thought of, that actually works, then I will put their name with their build in my signature for giving me hope in an otherwise currently stagnate game.

I hope that you feel better getting that off your chest though. I sincerely hope you find what makes you happy in life, and I’m sorry that I couldn’t have been more helpful to you.

Fluffball.8307:

Substance E.4852:

The easy fellow Ranger kills in WvW are pretty sweet though.

I find that just plain weird. No other class in WvW do I consistently annihilate like I do to rangers. And I’m playing a ranger. ??? On a wide variety of builds, too, so I’m not just running pure cheese.

I know I’m not just an amazingly ridiculously better player than every one else, because other classes are often able to put up a fight. It’s like the skill level of rangers in WvW is roughly -27.

I make it my mission when I’m on my ranger to hunt down and kill every other ranger I come in contact with. I’m hoping that one of these days, instead of just crying that their bearbow doesn’t work or sit there baffled that their bear didn’t draw my aggro so they can shoot me, that they actually pay attention to what I’m doing and running so that they learn something from the experience.

Kibazuka.1390:

I wouldnt say most wvw rangers are necessarily bad players but the amount of outright really bad builds is concerningly high.

Go to PvP, and just spectate a few hotjoins. Oh, have 911 ready to be dialed on your phone, for when you facedesk yourself into a concussion.

ITheNormalPerson.9275:

jcbroe.4329:

As an archer I can’t do this though! (battle log):

“You hit Joe Jenks for 1,703 using Long Range Shot.”

suspicious… very suspicious..

Aragorn shot people with a bow too, and he was also a Ranger xD

As an archer I can’t do this though! (battle log):

It was very vague. I understand that it was done in order to keep themselves from “foot in mouth” syndrome, but if it was seriously as hype inducing as you would think a mention of a redesign/overhaul would be, there would be threads all over this subforum about it.

Cufufalating.8479:

@jcbroe

Oh you’re entirely right, like I said I didnt mean it in an at all bad way towards you or the other hosts. There just isnt a huge audience on the forums, or on YT, or on twitch, or anywhere for GW2 content which means theres really very hard for someone to influence the game or play in any real way.

It’s then not helped by the different play modes.. For example I will admit to having no clue who these “famous” PvP rangers people are talking about are.. because PvP combat is so far removed from WvW Roaming (which is all I do) I really couldn’t care less what PvP rangers are doing, or PvE ranger for that matter.

GW2 just isn’t like that.. It’s not like Dota (picked purely because its the other game I play regularly) where litterally millions of people watch the big tournaments and then go take the tactics, heros picks, item builds, etc they see used and try to use them in their games (with varying degrees of success). All of which brings me back to there being no influencial Rangers, IMO.

I totally understand, and that’s exactly what I mean hahaha. I’m not offended at all, everything I do I do on a volunteer basis because I simply enjoy being part of a community. I never figured I would ever have any influence, and I prefer organizing information and theorycrafting over being argumentative and making “listen to me” posts. In fact, I turned down being an SOAC podcaster the first 5 times I was asked and suggested other people (like Battosai and Eurantien) lol.

But the thing I’ve been thinking about is, notice how many people “came out of the woodwork” for the ranger CDI. There are no numbers on any of the mentioned outlets except MAYBE youtube that even suggest there are as many people receiving the information we organize as a community as the amount that appeared during the CDI. So I’ve just been generally curious if we need a new outlet or if part of the blame lies on ANet for not promoting its sub-communities enough like other games do, because “they don’t want to show any preference.”

For example, wouldn’t it be amazing if the GW2 reddit had a sidebar that showed off all of the live GW2 channels on twitch?

Also, not to be rude, even though I know it kind of is, but 99% of the videos on youtube of ranger gameplay are garbage, and that’s the games biggest outlet outside of the forums lol. The 1% that are okay/good are actually all forum goers anyhow, so they shouldn’t feel insulted, but I get on there for all the other videos and it’s just “dubset, bearbow, autoattack, barrage.” It’ll be like traps on a Survival of the Fittest build lol.

The day the ANet actually says anything to me directly or thanks me for any “contributions” I’ve made will be the day that I inflate my ego and consider myself more than just another forum member hahaha.

(I removed the name as to not direct insult at a specific person)

Cufufalating.8479:

I have to say I dont feel the ranger comunity has influencial players, certainly not in the same way other games or even other classes do.

Sure there are people who post here regularly, and many of them are regarded as good players, but honestly I think looking at the Arrow to the Knee podcasts really sums it up. The most recent podcast was hosted by 3 of the people most commonly mentioned names on the thread, and no even 200 people have watched it. This isnt meant in any way as a knock at them, I have listened to most of their podcasts and agree with many of their posts on the forums, but the fact that the top forum-going rangers podcasts cant even draw 200 views shows how little impact anyone here has on the game-wide ranger community.

So yeah. .we might have good rangers around, but none I would consider influencial.

I just want to say that in part, that’s the fault of how we podcasters handle the podcast (aka not having gameplay going in the background to provide something to watch) and the irregularity and inability to tell large portions of people when we’re going live. Like, we can make a forum post about it, but that doesn’t mean that many people will be available at that time or tune it at that time.

BUT, all of the SOAC podcasts, for the most part, average around 500 views on youtube, which is really only surpassed by people like MattVisual and WoodenPotatoes, aka, people that already had a good youtube following to begin with.

I’m just mentioning it because I think we’ve hit an exposure wall. All we can really do is put out forum and reddit blasts saying when we’re going live and maybe spam a few in game chat channels. Ultimately though, for a better live audience, we would have to figure a way to get information on when we go live to our youtube viewers in order to actively increase the live audience. Outside of that, there isn’t much we can do. Even the longest time GW2 streamers peak at an average of 100 live viewers, with again, exceptions being MattVisual and his youtube audience.

I don’t even think there are 100 people that regularly post in the ranger community lol. GW2 just isn’t something people tend to tune in and watch on twitch unfortunately, and ANet doesn’t just let anybody break in and grow an audience (notice how Dulfy and MattVisual get first access information to share with people, and only certain people end up being okayed for shoutcasting mode for PvP, and that they don’t do that for just anybody that asks).

I respond in this way mainly because I, and others, would love to be able to figure out an avenue to get information to people as best as we possibly can outside of the forums.
For instance, would it help if I started recording and making videos and sharing with you guys? Should I get on reddit too? Is there a better way to get information to masses of the players than what we’ve been doing? I mean, the GW2 playerbase, if it truly is as expansive as ANet claims, is extremely sheltered from all 3rd party information sources outside of whatever appears on their login screen, and it’s something that people who aren’t MattVisual need to figure out how to work with/around.

Well, I appreciate some of you guys listing me!

I know not everybody gets along with Prysin guys, but his game knowledge and skill level is solid. We’re a community on an internet forum, so there is going to be clashes with each other and things we like and don’t like, and not everybody’s way of responding is appealing to every forum user, but that doesn’t mean we should discount any information they provide.

I mean, myself personally, I know I’m not perfect. I just volunteer some of my time to the forums and try to come to a consensus about how we can push the class to the limits of its current playability.

That being said, I’ve always been sort of a PvP “fanboy” so to speak, and there are a few rangers that really pushed the class up to the highest tier of competition and played it at the highest level that I’d like to mention.

Ryan; he’s still around on the forums, he actually posted recently on my “Let’s Talk PvP Meta” thread. Always a strong opinion with good reasoning and a solid PvP player.

Sol; Haven’t seen him in awhile, I think he moved on to a different game or got forum banned or something, but a top PvP guy through and through.

Eurantien; Still semi-active on the forums, still active in game, and as far as I know, has been playing ranger since launch and is one of the few rangers that has played just about every competitive build at a competitive level, and is the only person I know that makes Glass ranger competitive at a top tier level.

Battosai; I hope nobody feels insulted when I say that on top of being one of the best PvP rangers in the game, that this guy was beyond intelligent game knowledge wise. He had/has incredible foresight, and his ideas on how to tweak and run builds were always intricate and custom tailored to make advantages out of mechanics that at times were so subtle I didn’t even know they were things people actively thought about.

None of those descriptions should be indicative to any of the people on that list that they DON’T share any of the listed qualities, because they in fact all do. But I mean, these 4 guys, combined with a few others in game, basically shaped competitive ranger builds into what they are today.

I think that I will abstain from restating names that people have already stated because this thread shouldn’t become a “love fest” ego stroking thread.

Instead, I’m going to refer people to one of the better and more consistent ranger streamers on twitch. He doesn’t only play ranger, but his gameplay is pretty solid, especially compared to how few regular ranger streamers there are, and then the ones that actually are regular and what and how they are actually playing.

twitch.tv/gladomer

In general though, I think that every consistent contributor that is willing to adapt their opinions over time and have constructive conversations should be on a list of people to regard. That is what makes a community a community and not a toxic place, and from what I’ve seen from just glancing through, it may not always seem like it, but the ranger community has some of the most constructive players and contributors, and I think that in itself speaks to where we are now versus some of the darker places we as a community have been in the past.

So keep it up everybody

Viking Jorun.5413:

Maybe if I recorded more and wasn’t mic-shy :x

I think this is an issue accross most professions. Guardians have Tap Dat Mouse, who’s such a tool you can’t listen to him for more than 5 seconds; Engineers used to have Teldo who’s moved onto other games and are left with Wolfineer who’s good but doesn’t output videos on a frequent basis; Thieves once had Mugi and Caed who are both long gone — I think you get the point.

I’m positive that there are better players of every class who don’t have the will/means to record, so your best effort may be to find some decent players who main the class in-game and ask for help or spectate them during PvP.

Caed still streams on a very regular basis with his thief actually. twitch.tv/narcarsis live as I make this post.

Oak da Vite.9054:

Why do you use “Shared Anguish”?
In my opinion the cd is way too high for it to be usefull.
For me “Vigorous Renewal” is the better option as it allows you to dodge more often and also gives vigor to allies in combination with healing spring.

It’s a free stunbreaker for builds that don’t typically allow us to take stunbreakers. I mean, it’s essentially the argument of getting another dodge when you heal, or getting a free stunbreaker that you don’t have to use every 90s.

You should basically be able to predict that every new engagement you enter, Shared Anguish is going to come up and be able to be used though. It can allow you to secure rezs and stomps, and in general, is like taking any given build and adding one more stunbreak to the utility pool.

That, and on most of the builds (any of the ones with Primal Reflexes), I’m already getting 5s of Vigor basically on cooldown against every single class, combined with a ton of weapon evades and already more dodges than most other classes (Acrobatics Thieves and Engis are the only classes that even compete).

So I personally prefer the passive defense of absorbing a stun over an extra dodge, because theoretically, I can’t dodge everything, and CCs in the current meta for some builds mean almost instant death in most cases.

If the Vigor on Vigorous Renewal still pulsed with Healing Spring, or just gave outright 10 seconds of Vigor (sounds a little broken with heals other than Spring, but still) then I would have a different opinion.

That being said, it is just an opinion. I wouldn’t want to get caught against any of the other classes current meta builds without Shared Anguish though.

I’m going to add to this thread this trait setup. It works and it’s nothing new, but I don’t personally think people were gearing it correctly or running it with the right weapons (aka, it’s a weapon swap build to take advantage of weapon swapping bonuses).

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQRAnY8fiMqEwQoafCBbJwMAa3C2UB-TJhHwACOJAh2fAwTAwYZAA

I either switch a little bit around and run BM: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQRAnY8fjMq0vaBLWsQ0agDhqdJ8rjAzAYdfWsLbBbqA-TJhHwACOJAh2fAwTAwYZAA

Or I run with a trait setup that I posted awhile back that never really gained much popularity, with spirits now: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQRAnY8fjMq0savK+rQ0aAMhq9A0pBAvk17G8BFspC-TJhHwACOJAh2fAwTAwYZAA

Of course, it could just be turned into 0/4/6/4/0, and in that case you would take Sharpened Edges. I would have a hard time figuring out whether the 2% increase in crit chance and 3% increase in crit damage combined with an RNG chance to bleed beats out the damage of 5% more damage output from you and your pet with a boon from Bountiful Hunter.

I would assume the bountiful hunter one is the higher damage output built though. Still, that’s only an assumption. Will post more later.

As a ranger I just summoned the elite spirit with 5 in NM to get regen and at about 50% health, I used Troll Unguent to counteract the health loss. Got it with 2k hp to spare.

JoshuaRAWR.4653:

Prysin.8542:

Anet have stated that they are indeed working on a “fix” for the sword AA, but they have not told us any proximate time of implementation, not even a soon™. so don’t hold your breath.

Source?

It was mentioned during the Ranger CDI. I wish I could dig it up for you. Jon Peters had also mentioned that he would tinker with the sword before that, but whatever tinkering he claimed he did he stated afterwards that it didn’t make it into the patch and that it would be looked into further down the line.

OGDeadHead.8326:

jcbroe.4329:

Actually, the entire sword animation would have to be changed so that the autoattack doesn’t act as leaps anymore, which is the reason you can’t interrupt them with a dodge (leaps are the only skill you can’t interrupt with a dodge, presumably because you aren’t grounded).

This would require a skill team, balance team, and art/animation team to “fix” a skill that is arguably 50/50 love-hate as far as the community expresses.

I find that odd, VERY odd actually, since a weapon swap will break the chain instantly (also the case for GS#3, for example). Implement the same for dodge, without the weapon swap ofc, voila – done!

Don’t do things needlessly complicated; settle with a simpler solution when there exists one.

And how you do imagine that the code for weapon swapping (or stowing) is anything like the code written for dodging?

One deals with interchanging active objects while the other is a movement based action that is dictated by in game physics. They use two entirely different mechanisms.

It isn’t impossible, but it isn’t just a situation of copying and pasting either. If anything it would mean that the autoattack speed would have to get slowed down to allow for a delay period in between attacks so that a “cancel action” function gets sent to the server in order to cancel animations and allow people to dodge in between the attack chain.

Actually, the entire sword animation would have to be changed so that the autoattack doesn’t act as leaps anymore, which is the reason you can’t interrupt them with a dodge (leaps are the only skill you can’t interrupt with a dodge, presumably because you aren’t grounded).

This would require a skill team, balance team, and art/animation team to “fix” a skill that is arguably 50/50 love-hate as far as the community expresses.

Understandable that the weapon has a learning curve and even then can still be frustrating, particularly on the new map today, but even then, it takes a lot more work to make what most people think is a “simple” change than what people give the process credit for.

Durzlla.6295:

Despite wanting to do the tutorial videos, I’d rather not have them replace the actual podcast, but be something else that we do alongside it.

I was hoping that we would probably record it, make edits etc to make it more useful overall.

And I have all the programs and such that are needed (granted none of them are SUPER fancy lol) so Jcbroe won’t need to struggle to figure out new things.

Hey, that doesn’t mean I don’t want to lol. But definitely the tutorials to go alongside the podcast. Though if Bas ever gets a custom arena, we could do a few things during the podcast in real time like the Guardian guys do. Of course, that would also mean face cams, or picture placeholders.

Idk, all up for discussion. I would personally love to make ranger videos as an individual outside of SOAC for everybody though, and stream. If nobody responds to this, I’ll ask a few of my streamer friends what they use and whether or not they think my graphics settings are too aweful for youtube/streams hahaha.

Reading through some of these posts, while I understand the mindset behind “play how you want,” you guys would have REALLY hated GW1 “hardcore” content which almost always forced you to play with a specific build and specific classes.

The fact that ANet designed dungeons with enough ease that damage>tactics is most cases in GW2 already shows how less exclusionary that planned the game to be. But if you are in a group, and people are asking you to play a certain way, it’s a double edged sword. Yes, you don’t want to sacrifice your playstyle, BUT you are playing with other people who are specifically requesting you to play in a way that helps the group. So, they are keeping you in the group with the expectation that you will run a build that best helps the group and use a weaponset the helps output the most damage towards a target.

In that situation, you can’t fault the group either for expecting that since you’re in a group, that you should be running a group oriented build and playing in a way that is most beneficial for the group.

Now, this is much different than just doing a forum blast saying “everybody should be playing this way,” because there are just as many people in game that are casual or apathetic enough that they don’t care what you run, they just want to group up and do some dungeons.

Point being, if you are grouping up with people, a key to being successful is figuring out whether your just build pugging and going in, or whether people would prefer you to switch your build to something more group oriented, seeing as how it’s 5 man content and there is no reason why one person going “I play how I want” should have to ruin the experience of 4 other people who only asked you to run 2 specific traits, 1 utility, and 1 weaponset that would contribute more to the group and its success than whatever they feel you are currently doing.

So, tl;dr, party with like minded people.

Well there are inquest in the area, and the area is reminiscent of where inquest have done experiments, given the effects of the confused and misplaced creatures. That being said, I wasn’t able to figure out any lore indicating what exactly was supposed to be happening in the area (I’m not a “lore hound” though).

However, if there is any indication of this being an area that ties into GW2 LW2, it would imply that at least a portion of Tangle Root from GW1 will be present on the next map(s), which also houses Maguuma Stades, and in GW1 also exits to Dry Top.

I mention Maguuma Stades because an infamous Mursaat Rally happened there (google it), so in totality, there is a whole lot of GW1 references that can be made with a lot of the areas being opened up. Ultimately, being able to place the dragons resurrection point will be key in figuring out which pieces of maps we’ll see.

Still, speculation aside, we’ll be better off waiting to see what happens in about 8 hours or so from this post (at the very least).

See you on patch day everybody!

I honestly don’t have a key bound for turnaround. I just manually do it with my mouse every time. However, I have my right click speed sensitivity adjusted to the point where I can do it almost instantly. I actually end up accidentally turning my camera faster than my character turns to look and activating it too soon if I’m screwing around.

I do also run offhand dagger with Offhand Training though, so sometimes I’ll buffer turning around and leaping back with Dagger 4, that way there is only a few frames that I can actually get caught by an attack. Not saying it’s impossible by any means, but I start the dagger 4 animation, turn the camera during it so I can evade backwards, and then to the spin. It seems like a good safety first method, though it’s understandable that not everybody is running dagger.

Otaking.4675:

What about vulnerability stacking? Ranger is really good at this through LB esp if paired with sigil. Are there other classes that can do it better?

25% = 25% of everyone and every pet’s bonus damage. I don’t think that’s insignificant.

People would argue that Defiance weakens Vulnerability stacking, though I don’t personally discount it.

nagymbear.5280:

As much as I can understand your viewes on some forum commenters on the ranger forums, I think you guys could help other rangers become better with some nice tutorial vids. A few good videos can go a long way. I understand that its usually on the player to have the drive to become better. Even though its not what you guys set out to do, some video tutorials would be great help to the community I feel. I understand that its exponentionally more work compared to the current podcast, but since you don’t have much to discuss (and I think Season 2 launch will only add 1-2 more instanced content where you can discuss how much pets suck) this might be something helpful. Even if its 5-10 min vids every two/four weeks, it would be something.

Durz and I have actually discussed and agreed on the desire to do tutorial videos. I would actually stream if I was confident in doing so, but my graphics settings are pretty horrendous, and I’m not sure how good my live commentary skills would be having never done so before.

Even then though, it’s been a very long time since I did any sort of video capturing. I wouldn’t honestly know of a free capture program, and for streaming I would have to learn how to actually use the OBS I downloaded lol.

Still, I think it’s an incredible suggestion and a great idea. If it’s what people want to see, I will do my absolute best, real life permitting, to make it happen.

So I’m the one who right the guide that he linked, but I read through your post and I think that before that, there is going to be a learning phase to go through.

Ranger is very different from the classes that you mentioned. The weaponsets outside of greatsword don’t offer much burst. The damage is centric around a consistent output, so the first idea you want to go for is getting a feel for which weapons do what.

I can help you there:
Longbow: Ranged Direct Damage
Shortbow: Ranged Condition Damage and utility
Mainhand Axe: Hybrid Weapon, lots of damage from bleed stacks on Axe 2 though
Sword: Direct Damage, also used as a defensive, utility, and mobility set. Can work on any stat setup, just not necessarily as a damage tool
Greatsword: Direct Damage, only weapon with a true direct damage burst skill
Offhand Dagger: Condition and Utility. Best evade skill rangers have access too, commonly paired with mainhand sword or axe.
Offhand Axe: Direct Damage, hard to hit burst skill that’s unreliable but strong if successful
Torch: Condition damage
Warhorn: Utility

Play around with the weapons in game first, get a sense of how they work and what they do. I can give advice, but ultimately it only reflects my playstyle. Mainhand Axe, for instance, while it suggests is a 900 range weapon, as actually more effective as a “footsie” weapon, dancing in and out of melee range to make the most out of Axe 2, and is commonly paired with Dagger to have an evade on the weapon set and give the set a little more soft CC control.

Sword is a learning curve weapon. Turn of the autoattack (hold shift and right click), and then manually tap for execution. Each tap adds an attack to the attack que, and you cannot interrupt the animation for the 2nd and 3rd chain in the autoattack chain, BUT, using it at the appropriate time will “stick” you to a target and cripple them. So try to only queue up as many attacks as you can get in, even if you are only manually queuing one at a time, so that you will be able to dodge after the animation and not get locked into the 2→3 animation.

It’s something you don’t just pick up, you definitely need to work with it until you get comfortable with it.

Celestial Builds in PvP are also for people who are comfortable with their own ability to survive to the degree that they can run with an arguably lower toughness level than every single ranger meta build has ever used. Settler’s on Condition builds is the better starting option, but you will suffer a little against condition builds without the vitality buffer provided by a spirit build.

Spirits might seem a kitteneesy, but no more cheesy than half of the other things in the game right now (they are literally just traits that other classes get, like engineers), but they are good team support and your team will notice the support they get in some way.

BM builds though, you need to know your pets, understand the AI attack priorities and pathing, the pets that work well together and do damage, and the function of F2 skills, among other more subtle things that have an even higher learning curve. Birds are one of your best bets for a burst damage pet, and cats do consistent decent to high damage, but if you don’t operate your pet correctly, they will be dead often, so fair warning.

There are a lot of helpful people on the ranger forums though, so you came to the right place

Not everybody (hardly anybody compared to the games population actually) reads the forums though, and we can’t just mass spread the information. Reddit is the best outlet, and a lot of us forum goers don’t use the Reddit (I know I don’t), and even then, we aren’t even scratching the surface of the playerbase.

The thing is, players that learn the game solo in a controlled environment against the casual content presented throughout the entire game are never going to run into anything throughout their entire time playing that is so challenging that it requires them to seek an additional resource.

The only thing these players have is the people they end up having to group with in some situations, at which point they don’t understand why their playstyle is ineffective/less effective than another one if they see a redbar moving and they themselves aren’t dying.

The fact at this point is that most players are either going to be too casual to care to switch up their playstyle because it works for them (not saying casual is a bad thing, just pointing out the obvious), or they are going to feel attacked and/or embarrassed because people are telling them how they are playing is bad and wrong and ineffective, and even if done in the nicest way possible, putting somebody on the spot like that can cause them to “turtle” and just ignore you, regress into their shell, and completely and totally refuse to try any new playstyle outside of their current comfort zone.

I know a lot of us here are veterans and because of that and our current level of understanding of the game, we sometimes lose our patience, or don’t feel obligated to participate in any “hand holding” for players that aren’t dealing with the games learning curves well, but that doesn’t mean that those players don’t need their hands to be held.

I think the best thing is to just let “bearbow” be more of a lighthearted, satirical joke than an outright insult, so that we can at least try to keep the toxicity we present to people as a community lower than 9000.

BrotherBelial.3094:

jcbroe.4329:

Just curious, but has this always been here? It’s directly west of the Shattered Henge skillpoint. It has a bunch of crazed creatures that are out of their environment like the Fire Elemental Reactor (not trying to type out Therma etc etc right now).

Regardless of whether it has or hasn’t, is there any current story/lore explaining exactly what the light is in regards to? It appears to be coming from the GW1 Tangle Root map.

Anyhow, yeah, don’t know if this is useful at all or not, just noticed it today while doing map completion in the area for the first time.

Not wanting to sound like a kitten or anything. Could it be the sun?

Here’s a different angle, and it doesn’t appear to be the sun, at all. It has a lightning effect, and the same effect is also present on the ground.

Just curious, but has this always been here? It’s directly west of the Shattered Henge skillpoint. It has a bunch of crazed creatures that are out of their environment like the Fire Elemental Reactor (not trying to type out Therma etc etc right now).

Regardless of whether it has or hasn’t, is there any current story/lore explaining exactly what the light is in regards to? It appears to be coming from the GW1 Tangle Root map.

Anyhow, yeah, don’t know if this is useful at all or not, just noticed it today while doing map completion in the area for the first time.

scerevisiae.1972:

No stun-break.

Shared Anguish. And what warriorjrd said.

Ryan.9387:

Yeah it is intentional. I can get perma regen with that trait and healspring.

Oh I definitely get that, and having experienced and played all of the current “meta” builds for classes, I can totally see how useful it is to gain the regen instead of a little range and a few seconds shorter cooldowns that you get with Offhand.

Offhand is amazing, but Oakheart arguably lets you survive better.

I just wanted to clarify for people reading this, in case they take a look and go “why isn’t he running Offhand Training, you ALWAYS run Offhand Training, it’s better.”

Ryan.9387:

jcbroe.4329:

Ryan.9387:

You can pretty quickly tell how an engie fight is going to turn out. Sometimes you will just have to drop point and leave if you dont want to die. (Turret engie with reflects and crate)

Have you tried any of the builds here at all by the way? I’d be interested in your opinion on them, since I’m pretty certain you’ve played at a higher tier of play than I have in this game. I’d be interested in knowing how you think any of these builds would hold up, especially the chill based ones, since they are a previously untested concept by everybody except Kanscout, who ran Axe/Dagger Sword/Torch Grenth Runes long before April 15.

From my own experience, I’ve found chill builds to be strong except against thieves, who aren’t hurt much by it. Other classes were really easy to shut down by timing my chills after their condi cleanse or heals. It’s very effective against “bruiser” type builds, like d/d ele or most eniges. I don’t run it though because I would rather end up stalemating eles than losing to thieves.

The builds you posted are good, and the “core” is pretty much spot on. When I spec for teamfights I bring something a lot like your shortbow spirits or s/t a/d chill builds.

Right now I run a build you have not posted:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQRAsY3PjMq2sivKEtGAToaPALbA8cUTVnbwHcwvaP-TJhHwAPLDM4JA8a/BAnEAA

My role with my team is representative of this build. I play homepoint/farpoint with the expectation to never lose 1v1 to anyone even without my elite and to survive 1v2s long enough to allow support to arrive. The core is built for extremely high sustain and high condi burst. The empty utility is SoR or SotW depending upon the other team.

Awesome! Definitely appreciate the insight. It’s actually bad that I haven’t played a Settler’s build in so long I kind of forgot about them lol.

I actually do have a question for you, the build link shows you taking Oakheart Salve over Offhand Training. Is that intentional? I totally understand the reasoning behind it if so personally, but there are going to be people who don’t understand the decision at all haha.

Anyhow, thanks for the contribution to the thread!

Oh, should I assume that you would consider Settler’s over Celestial a better choice for some of the spirit builds I posted?

Hello everybody!

I wanted to give a quick update on what’s been going on with the Arrow to the Knee podcasts. Recently, there has been less of them, and the ones that have happened are spontaneous at times. While this is partially due to real life, I would like to express that Durz and I have been stretched a little thin lately just trying to figure out what to discuss.

So, with that being said, we are postponing AttK until after the Living Story content starts July 1st (we are aiming for July 4th weekend for the next podcast, fingers crossed).

However, this is your opportunity to tell us what you would like us to talk about! Share you thoughts about how we’ve been doing so far, and let us know if there is anything you would like the podcast to cover! If you aren’t comfortable with forum posting about it, you can always inbox us on the forums, or message us in game.

If any of this information is new to you, you’ve missed any of the podcasts, or you’d like to see them again, check out the SOAC youtube channel and find the Arrow to the Knee broadcasts, or enjoy any of the other casts from the many people who make up SOAC gaming (the Into the Mists podcast is on MMORPG and is a general game information podcast).

Link: http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaQ4iNYAQ-wtDLkL70OuS3Q

Get yourself updated, and thank you for the support! Let’s show everybody what happens when we push ourselves to the limits and go from “psh, just another bearbow” to “oh snap, Ranger Danger!”

Holland.9351:

bearbow is WvW zerg meta.

There I said it.

It’s not welcome anywhere else though.

I would argue it’s not even welcome there, 99.9% of bearbow rangers in WvW are rallybots. My guild group and I go after other rangers (yes, they let me run ranger) when we are zerg busting just because we know we’re going to steamroll over the ranger while they sit there just rapid firing and autoattacking and trying to fire off a barrage.

As a ranger, I make it my job to hunt down and kill other rangers in WvW. I have only ever been pleasantly surprised by one or two, and out of the population of active players in the game that are playing ranger, its a very sad (albeit anecdotal) statistic.

I want as many bearbows on the enemies side as can possibly fit on the map when we’re WvWing, and the day that somebody proves that concept wrong is the day that ANet has finally overbuffed rangers to be the autoattack sniper faceroll class that so many people want it to be (aka a warrior with the longest range weapon in the game).

Not that I would complain, but I’m a bit different balance wise. I think ANet has let power creep run rampant which has created faceroll classes (warrior, necro) or annoying, hard to kill (thief), swiss army knife builds (elementalist, engi) that plague the game for the classes that are either balanced (Guardian, maybe a hair or two off), or in need of improvement (ranger, mesmer). I would prefer to see nerfs before buffs, so I can actually figure out if ANet has some sort of baseline for balance established and if I can perceive what it is versus where we are in order to figure out exactly what we need and what the final balanced version of the class should look like by their standards.

Ryan.9387:

You can pretty quickly tell how an engie fight is going to turn out. Sometimes you will just have to drop point and leave if you dont want to die. (Turret engie with reflects and crate)

Have you tried any of the builds here at all by the way? I’d be interested in your opinion on them, since I’m pretty certain you’ve played at a higher tier of play than I have in this game. I’d be interested in knowing how you think any of these builds would hold up, especially the chill based ones, since they are a previously untested concept by everybody except Kanscout, who ran Axe/Dagger Sword/Torch Grenth Runes long before April 15.

izzuedotcom.2498:

jcbroe.4329:

As far as the damage goes, you absolutely most run, at least in PvP, Axe/Dagger and Sword/Torch with and be fairly comfortable at dueling with that playstyle.

The builds I run for chill builds are:

BM: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQRAnY8fjMq0vaBLWsQ0agDhqdJ8rjArA4dxusXdBPqA-TJhHwACOJAh2fAwTAwYZAA

Hi! I’d just like to let you know I’ve been using your chill BM Build for the past day with amazing results Both 1v1 and in a team setting (although I only play hotjoins atm) I’ve had great success and often end up top player on the team. Will definitely try out your other variations soon. Thanks!

No problem! I’m glad you enjoy it

I don’t want to take all of the credit, I actually took the idea from Kanscout. He played on the team with Super that won the first PAX tournament, and would even back then run with the old, not buffed grenth runes with Axe/Dagger Sword/Torch Spirits.

All I did was take that idea, translate it onto our other condi builds, and I’ve been running grenth runes with Axe since PAX. But when they buffed them April 15th, it made the chill output so crazy strong since we can also run Hydromancy runes with other swap runes, that a lightbulb went off in my head going “we’re going to be an even more amazing class at soft CC now, and nobody is going to chill more than us.”

But no, I’m glad people are enjoying it! I hope it gets more popular, because it’s an amazing build, and I found out first hand that it can be very frustrating to play against hahaha.

@Thread;

If anybody is feeling like trying the shortbow version out, I think I’m sticking with this:

BM: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNAV8fjMq0vaBLWsQ0aAAhaZAUAtnhmNGeOtZbBrOA-TZxFwAJuIAo2f4wRAAwDAoZZAA

Spirits: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNAV8fjMq0savK+rQ0aAAhaZAUAtnhmNGcuEPRBrOA-TZxFwAJuIAo2f4wRAAwDAoZZAA

Archon.6480:

jcbroe.4329:

Archon.6480:

Nice post. You might want to add the forge rune build. When running xx6xx, you will have a very powerful trait called Companion’s Defense which pairs nicely with forge runes and energy sigils.

I would, BUT, again, addressing this at the highest tier of competition where a S/D thief is standard right now, the moment that thief becomes aware of the runeset you are running and the effect you are going for, they are going to take your protection every opportunity they gets, especially the long duration protection you get from the 6 bonus.
…
Really though, this is a good contribution, and it does put things into perspective that even if I discuss things at the highest tier of competition, that isn’t where all players play at (most don’t), so even though the thread is basically discussing what people should aspire to play to be as competitive as possible, it doesn’t mean that where most people currently sit, their aren’t other options.

Thanks for reply! Yeah, I mostly play mid level solo queue or pickup tpvp (rarely) so I’ve never run into problems with boon stealing. I’ll keep an eye on those pesky thieves. I am looking forward to trying some of these celestial builds. Decap Engineers seem to be largest problem for this build.

Forge runes should be used with carrion, actually. I used to run apothecary at lower levels but soon realized the protection gave enough defense, so more damage output increased the effectiveness.

Yeah, engineers are a nightmare for just about every non-necro class right now lol. A key thing to remember is that the only condi cleanse they have is their heal. So if you can keep the pressure on them in between their heals without taking too much of it yourself, you’ll be good. Engineers can be very spammy with their cooldowns so low though, so it really is a hard matchup with the amount of pressure they can output.