Guild Wars 2

im looking forward to the new WvW map, and the new modes (hopefully DM of some kind). current pvp is dead to me.

hey, ive been running a wellmancer for a long time in zerg busting and gvg’s. basically, you dont need all that tankiness. i suggest a valk/zerker build with 100% crit damage and minimum 40% crit chance. this allows you to dump 20k aoe damage in 5 seconds. u got about 24k HP. with deathshroud and plague, you really dont need more tank if youre with a solid group.

if you wanna play tanky in smaller engagements, id suggest dire terrormancing. it’s easy to get 2k condi damage.

HB is situational. really, it’s only appropriate for Cleric guards who can justify giving up Shelter or Signet for big group heals. HB + VoR + MI can heal 5 stacked people (including yourself) for over 10k in 3.5 seconds. think on that for a sec. add dodge roll, staff and shield heals and youre pushing close to 20k aoe heals in a matter of seconds, if your group is stacked well.

healbot support guards have always been viable, and if youre rolling with a bunch of good players who can actually make good use of the heals and boons, you’re making a huge difference.

i dont think HB is viable in any other type of build. i used it before the buff sometimes, but now it’s mandatory for support style of play imo. the thing ticks for 1400 since the buff if youre Cleric. 3x 1400 in a wide cone.

Nuage.5230:

Can I roll a guardian and have a “REAL” healer. By that I mean someone who can heal the group on his own accord. I don’t care what I have to do to heal, but can I heal nonetheless?

yep, guardian heals can be beastly. i run a cleric guard in dungeons and WvW to keep people up, and more importantly give them very long boons and reflects. most people dont know how to play a support guardian, but with 1500+ healing power, you can easily heal your group to full in seconds.

Perikittenor.1892:

For a class that is designed with terrible long range attacks Healing breeze is terrible, for if you are not standing at the front. You most likely don’t know what you or your commander is coordinating.

And since Healing breeze is not on yourself and on a additional allies around you, it will in most cases miss. Currently it is not in need of a “buff”, but it is in need of a mechanic change. Where it heal around you rather than infront of you.

you have no clue what youre talking about. organized groups are stacked pretty kitten tight. all you have to do is be in the fronline (which you should be anyway). aim at a clump of guildies and let it rip.

The cone has always been reliable for me. Since the buff, this thing heals others for like 4-5k with 1600 healing power.

Prysin.8542:

you need 2 waves of immob. first wave gets cleansed, second wave hits while all the cleanses are on CD…

If utilizing rangers, you need two groups totalling 8 rangers and 2 guardians in full PVT/Cleric BM Bunker setup with 70% condition duration.

Guardians are needed to spread stability to the rangers, as they cannot rely on their elite/signet. Preferably guardian should be in full clerics to provide maximum healing for the rangers to ensure they survive long enough to pull off the assault.
With some practice, and coordination, 10 players should be sufficient to root 50-60 players for up to 3 seconds. Which will be enough for the warrior hammer train to decimate the enemy.

Tanky immob Rangers and full cleric boon guards? That’s like all I play in wvw

Seriously immob Rangers make a big difference. People haven’t picked up on this at all yet but I’m pushing it with my builds and guides. Problem is, I’m always the only ranger doing this in the middle of 30-40 people so it’s not as effective. But after the zerg is wiped I’ll do a body count and there are always 3-4 downed on my mud or entangle fields =P imagine 3-4 rangers doing this at a time… Sadly 90% of rangers ride the shortbus

Properly specced Rangers have and had a niche spamming aoe immobilizes on zergs. This kinda stuff is OK for zvz with guard faceroll but not for smallscale

I wouldn’t mind some sort of aoe cc on the third spin. Whirl finishers are very underpowered so what JP suggested i wouldn’t be a fan of.

On top of that I feel gs #1 needs a 20% damage boost. The weapon should have high cleave dps because it doesn’t do ANY aoe.

well lets be a little more creative here. stowing pet for extra damage is kinda dumb.

there needs to be an energy between ranger and pet. when pet dies, its spirit grants us a unique ability and extra damage. as the ranger does more damage himself, he fills up an energy bar that gradually brings the pet back to life.

for the record, the only dev that comes along and says “we like it, it’s gonna stay” is probably JP, because he calls the shots. this kind of attitude is holding the profession back, which is really sad.

im leaning more toward liking the SB than hating it. in fact i designed an entire build around it before the QZ and range nerfs, and it was quite effective.

i dont think the SB is boring, and here’s why:
- #3 is reactive, very fun skill to use, very rewarding
- #4 is a spammable cripple that is essential if you wanna kite
- flanking to maximize dps
- #5 is also very much about timing, also very fun to use

the SB is missing SOMETHING and in my opinion, it’s a better #2 skill and more interesting autoattack. the current ones are utter trash.

Chopchop.5629:

This is a coinicdence but your build is actually the build i was following only i can’t afford sentinel

Pvt with sentinel weapons and Azurite jewels is just fine.

you must be new here. there has been tons of “tips and tricks” threads, guides and countless good players who have pushed the prof to the max, or left it. no one is really protesting either, lots of us have stuck with the ranger.

after a year and a half, we’re at a point where one of the lead devs is admitting our prof mechanic falls short, but doesnt want to fix it now. if you want tips and tricks, you can watch some of my guides or someone else’s. ranger forums should be about how and why the prof need serious tweaks/reworks, at this point anyway.

LR needs to break immobilize (only).

regardless of rifle warriors etc., i think most of us can agree that many aspects of the ranger require major reworks.

What if this is better and more fun than the ppt game, and people don’t want to leave it?

while not the best SOLO roaming class, a valkyrie LB/GS ranger specced for Eagle Eye is a lot of fun to play as flanking kitey roamer. you can run away from just about everything, and nuke people for 3.5k autoattack from 1500+ range. you can spike other glass cannons very effectively. this build will even be buffed with the next patch.

frontliners are there to kill things mostly, not just to soak up the 5-target limit. warrior and guardians have spammable aoe nukes and dont rely on just cleave attacks to burst people down. so you would contribute a lot more by using a dps build and playing the periphery. as things stand right now, ranger is a waste of a frontline slot, i.e. it’s better to bring another guard or warrior, and is actually quite strong in the periphery. barrage, path of scars, spammable kb, spammable pull, MT, entangle, canines – all better applied from the flanks, which also allows you to give up survivability to basically double or triple your dps. tanky GS ranger hits like a wet noodle, whereas other PVT or sentinel frontliners hit quite hard.

this points more toward the utter uselessness of the GS as an offensive weapon, but i cant blame you for trying to make it work.

And what do you contribute with your gs frontline, that you can’t when playing periphery?

Ranger does not have enough to offer in the frontline so you’re better off playing as a tanky dps in the periphery, spamming cc’s, barrage and path of scars to pull people when their stab is down. I’ve secured countless kills for my team with well timed muddy terrain and pulls.

I tested the crap out of gs and frankly it doesn’t do anything too well due to slow maul animation, reliance on cleave, lack of aoe’s, and weak debuffs. It’s mostly just for running away.

Low hanging fruit strategy for over a year… When do we go after the higher fruits?

Check out my Sentinel guide (link in sig) and use the dps variant. It does aoe dps competitive with other profs and has tons of survivability.

Rhyse.8179:

With all the GS talk going on, I wanted to stop by an add my $.02

Ranger GS has the most diverse skill bar of any weapon in the game. It is, without a doubt, my favorite single weapon on any class. It may be a touch weak in some areas (dps), but it has some very attractive features:
-An AOE autoattack with a very wide angle (180 deg).
-An extremely long range leap on short cooldown.
-A block combined with a strong counter.
-A near-instant on demand interrupt.
itself.

Main reason gs sucks for anything other than running away or spiking single targets with a zerker setup is that it actually doesn’t do real aoe damage. Gs cleaves which hits only 3 targets in a short range. All other two handers in the game do aoe.

And pretty much what tyops said. Many aspects of the ranger just need a revamp and it’s time Devs started taking this issue seriously.

Bambula.3649:

mistsim.2748:

Ralk.7106:

mistsim.2748:

Regardless it’s our strongest weapon currently in spvp and wvw.

Longbow is certainly not our strongest weapon in sPvP.

it is. people just havent picked up on it yet.

never ever in spvp..never

;)

In wvw, the usual. Melandru, lemongrass and high vitality. I rarely find it necessary to equip the bear, SoR and EB, but if you do, you will laugh off conditions.

For zerg stomping u guys seriously need to run OH axe. Path of scars does too much aoe dps to be ignored. Sword/axe/lb will give you the most damage and utility.

Gs is more of a small skirmish weapon as it’s mostly defensive. Unlike guards and warriors, gs Rangers do terrible damage and only have access to cleave. No pbaoe attacks. Properly specced lb/oh axe does competitive aoe damage while also dishing out tons of cc.

Then u gotta think about what ranger does different from other profs and spec accordingly.

i think these new game modes will revitalize spvp. sounds very fun. anything but control points please!!

Evade on swoop is a fantastic idea but it’s small beans… Our core mechanic is broken and half of our utilities are too situational

JonPeters.5630:

Summoned creature AI is a different can of worms that we aren’t opening for the same reason. Pets that delay F2 use isn’t some wait script we put into their skills it has to do with core AI behavior shared by all pets and creatures and how they decide tasks. Rewriting that has the risks of breaking millions of unknown things so we have up until now band aided the solution. It is something that needs addressing but won’t be addressed until we can kitten how and when we will test it.

Are you guys considering making f2’s instant? It would help immensely until you figure out the ai. Reason: f2 skills have two cast timers currently. The first is the pet walking over to the target. This is what players need to react to. Why do we need a second cast timer?

I know this may be a nightmare for you guys but you have to understand that our CORE mechanic is unreliable and frequently ineffective at best. Useless outside of pve at worst

Problem is the Devs are amateurs. This is not an insult I just I don’t think they’ve ever done this stuff before. Which is why they’re getting better at balancing and cranking out new features. Sadly, most of us are onto other games due to snail’s pace progress.

Man that would be awesome. And whacky!

No vision and no courage to revamp some aspects of this prof. Devs haven’t a clue about what the real issues are. For example, spirits and Shouts don’t need tweaks. They need a redesign. Pets need to be responsive. These are the priorities. None of the proposed changes will help the ranger. Not sure who’s responsible for lack of meaningful changes, maybe JP? But it’s really got the ranger community down with the exception of a few fanboys.

Jroh I’m also waiting for a reason to log back in after 2 months of absence. Maybe next year

PTR is absolutely essential for any serious pvp game. lack of it is the reason this game is in shambles.

i do two things. i either go very tanky with sentinel gear to spam immobilizes/cc, or i go for dps with Lb and OH axe. path of scars is by far our best AOE ability, and it’s on a very short CD. main thing is u wanna go for a power build. condi damage is more appropriate for smaller engagements. check out my sentinel guide if you like to zerg stomp.

Ralk.7106:

mistsim.2748:

Regardless it’s our strongest weapon currently in spvp and wvw.

Longbow is certainly not our strongest weapon in sPvP.

it is. people just havent picked up on it yet.

JonPeters.5630:

Main-hand sword
I just want to clarify for good that main hand sword is currently working as intended. All movement skills cannot be interrupted by dodging and this is currently intentional. It has a very specific play style, and I would like it to remain.

Jon, im one of those who enjoys MH sword as is, for the most part. i do think however that it needs more utility. currently, the #1 chain is used for some nasty dps and to lock someone down. i like how it feels, and it IS actually possible to hop between targets. the suggestion id like to make is to give us Torment on Hornet’s Sting, or some kind of powerful buff on Monarch’s Leap. currently, sword #2 is JUST an evade/gap closer.

regarding power rangers, as someone already explained, we dont have enough burst even with full zerker. if we’re keeping damage the same, power rangers need more sustain.

It was basically viable since the buff last patch. Its dps after the next buff will be sufficient. Problem is I don’t think it has enough utility. Regardless it’s our strongest weapon currently in spvp and wvw.

Devs, I think the whole community agrees on changing dhuum.

Leave the bleeds alone and give us a trait similar to dhuum that will be another source of torment. Dhuum was over the top and nonsensical thematically. Nobody wanted it. And now you’re messing with all these abilities instead of changing just one trait.

I think the biggest vigor culprits are actually guardians. Vigorous precision needs a serious nerf. Permanent vigor on the guard is ridiculous

None of these changes deal with the core problems of the prof. Pet f2 still has cast time and is unresponsive meaning we can’t use our pets reactively. Not to mention they’re fodder.

Spirits other than frost and son are mostly useless outside of spvp. Spirits need a complete rework.

Shouts no one uses. And overall utility on ranger weapons is questionable at best. Ranger remains the worst support prof in the game by far.

I like that lb dps keeps increasing but it still lacks utility. I like that I may be able to walk my frost and son while not compromising builds too much. Right now I’m thinking hs, frost, something for survivability, MT and Son for utilities. Lb/gs

Overall I don’t like the direction of ranger improvements or lack thereof but I’ll take the buffs if they’re free

Chopps.5047:

I use muddy terrain whenever I want the function of a traited spike trap without the investment in skirmishing for the grandmaster. It’s the poor man’s potent spike trap. Like Lukyromero said, it is indeed a survival skill. For just 10 in wilderness survival you can get wilderness knowledge, which should reduce the recharge time by 5 seconds.

it’s much better than a trap because it can be cast at 900 range, as opposed to 600 which is basically melee and therefore suicide.

submitted app =)

here, has a bump. anything other than what we have now would be better. my ideas:

1. pets need to be more like utility toolboxes. they need to do less autoattack damage, but need to be more responsive and potentially contribute more to burst damage. f2’s need to be instant and we need another active to manage, like the drake’s tailswipe.

2. spirits need to be invulnerable wisps that imbue the ranger’s weapons with elements. wisp actives would use up the wisp to create a large field depending on the theme (spring, summer, autumn, winter).

3. shouts need to matter

4. SB needs to give the ranger a lot more mobility and evasion, like a skirmishing weapon. autoattack needs to do less damage, but the other skills need to contribute to burst damage

5. EVADE REVAMP: spamming evades to survive sounds cool, but is a horrible mechanic because every time you evade, youre not doing anything offensive. each evade on every weapon needs a MEANINGFUL offensive effect (not something silly like single target poison or cripple). for example, sword #2 should inflict torment. GS #1 needs to be revamped in a way that the evade is on-demand

6. add more aoe’s. rangers have the worst aoe’s in the game. we need more access to aoe damage with our weapons.

Edo Tensei.8254:

PvP:

1. its too late
2. i will play battlefield 4
3. bye bye

basically this. ive been playing dota2 and EVE to satisfy my pvp needs. sadly Chris, it is very much “too late”. players are just burned out. i reinstalled the game to check out the patch, and nothing is changing man. everything is the same, and i just cant get myself to log back in. oh by the way, i bought GW2 for the pvp.

more specifically and on a serious note, this is what you guys need:

1. WvW and GvG integration to give veteran guilds a purpose. this should be your core focus for all pvp. WvW requires much more resources and you guys need to be pumping out new maps and scenarios. the BL revamp had amazing map design, but horrible implementation that effectively killed the BL’s. WvW could have exploded your game if you actually paid attention to it. GvG’s were up and coming, and people loved WvW. just needed more content. instead, you went the other way.

2. professions and balance: right now, you have 1/8th of your playerbase unsatisfied (assuming equal distribution across profs). make it your priority to redesign the RANGER and make it a functional, interesting profession.

(extra: pets and utilities have gone unaddressed since release. little things, but absolutely nothing to fundamentally change the prof for the better. i hope with the new upcoming skills, you guys will have more vision and allow yourselves to be more liberal and creative. small example off the top of my head: why not give the ranger the ability to send his hawk out to reveal part of the minimap? upon returning he gives you some might and swiftness or something. why not make the longbow viable so that we feel like actual marksmen? why arent spirits invulnerable wisps that actually imbue our weapons with elements and can be used to create various fields?)

3. general gameplay: slow down your game by 30%. increase cooldowns but allow each ability make a significant difference on the field. buff all bad elites and have them change the battlefield in significant ways. like dota2. this will eliminate spam and make this game more strategic and easier to watch. ADD MORE SKILLSHOTS =)

REGARDING THE DEVS:

while a lot of us find the devs polite, endearing, and awesome guys, there is a serious lack of experience here. not all professions are played and well understood by the devs (like the ranger). there is absolutely no vision for this game’s pvp. everything is just….a knee-jerk reaction and amateur. from lack of vision to poor implementation to lack of QA and PTR. i feel like we’re all like guinea pigs in this big experiment.

look at the big picture please. while some things have been ironed out (UI, traits, horrible bugs), nothing has fundamentally changed since last winter: people continue to lose interest in WvW and spvp, at least veterans. maybe youre getting tons of new players, but if the turnover is high eventually this will be bad for business when you run out of new players. GW2’s spvp and WvW at least have POOR RETENTION.

Sensotix.4106:

have been playing with and against the best pvp players in this game

bro, theyre gone. the best pvp’ers in this game havent done spvp since last winter. there was a huge exodus around that time when everyone started realizing that the pvp devs lack experience. the others went into WvW.

Riba.8061:

Hi!

I´m a new to gw2 and played I have currently leveled my ranger to 42 but thinking about rerolling, all the other classes have almost the same abilites as us but better.
I love the ranger mecanics and i really enjoy playing him but his just to weak compared to all the others classes I´ve tried.
Now to the question, What class should i choose what is the most fun to play besides the ranger?
Can´t decide..

Thanks

yes, ranger cant really be compared to other profs when looking at utility, damage and survivability. not in pvp anyway. as someone with over 1500 hours on the ranger, and a few other 80’s, i encourage you to play other stuff otherwise you’ll end up bitter and complaining all the time on the forums =P

most of the top rangers in this game have either quit, are in the process of getting burned out, or have moved on to other professions.

unfortunately, there’s nothing that really feels like the longbow in this game. you can pew pew with rifle and mesmer gs, but it’s just not the same feeling. so i cant recommend anything really.

pet f2’s absolutely need to be insta-cast. why? because the “cast time” is actually equivalent to the pet wobbling over to the target. if it takes it 3 seconds to reach the target, this is the bloody cast time. why do we need to have a SECOND cast time?

intimidating howl + muddy terrain + entangle combo should be a lot more effective, greatly punishing those without condi removal, or forcing defensive CD’s.

what are you experiences with immob stacking? has Entangle changed in any way?

the promised support buffs for the ranger did not occur. or rather, they were pathetic. wvw is all about support. if you want to 1v1, just go to spvp. Sic em has absolutely no purpose in WvW because larger engagements do not revolve around 1v1’ing thieves/mesmers. no good wvw ranger will be using this crap outside of trolling as you said.

JonathanSharp.7094:

Hey Felivear, thanks for the post!

We knew for a while that Warriors were stronger than the meta seemed to indicate at one point, and we knew a fix for the sigil was coming.

Sometimes it just takes a while ( IN ANY GAME ) for people to try all builds, all combinations of strategies, all options, etc.

That’s why we want to see what today’s improvements do to the game, especially to support meta. I ran into a VERY strong staff Elementalist earlier on live, and was excited to see it when I did.

It normally takes a few days/weeks for builds to assimilate new changes into their kitten nals.

Due to that, we’ll be watching the meta to see where it goes and then make more changes in future updates.

The Sigil of Paralyzation was making Warriors (who used it to great effect) very strong, so went ahead and fixed it with this update. We have plans to rework all sigils/runes, but that Sigil, we felt, was so important that we had to fix it now, before we did a large balance pass on the sigils/runes.

We have to make sure we aren’t making you guys download new clients all the time for fixes. We knew the sigil of paralyzation was strong, but we also knew our fix was coming in today’s update.

Hope this makes sense and thanks for the post!

stop buffing hammer/shout warriors and buff other things.