Guild Wars 2

You could sacrifice a blast for ether renewal and still use LH.

And also have icebow as back up in case the bearbow decides he wants to get down and dirty with your hammer.

Purple Miku.7032:

I think on NA it’s a lot better to sell Arah than EU. I have some friends on NA servers that laugh at me because of how many problems I have had selling paths that they sell in a fraction of the amount of time I have to wait.

Hahaha okay I’ll look into it. I have no idea what the dungeon culture in EU is generally like.

Astral Projections.7320:

I’m kind of thinking that the new backpiece we are making now with the living story will become ascended, like the Spinal Blades one. If so that might be the easiest.

Yeah but that would probably be nomad’s stats, which are pretty terribad.

I hope they release an awesome planty looking melandru backpiece soon.

I’ll have to go look up some youtube videos of low man fractal runs. I only have a few friends that are really that into fractals, so I’d have to see if their interested.

I’ll also try to see if the arah selling community on NA has as low of prices as the ones you described. I doubt it’d be much different, but I suppose its worth looking into.

Purple Miku.7032:

nearlight.3064:

Purple Miku.7032:

There’s nothing that we can really do since it’s a free market. Oh well… off to selling FotM 50 runs it is ^^

Hahaha wow, I didn’t even know it was possible to solo fractals! I assume you just reroll if you get the swamp?

Duo them, it’s faster. I roll for underwater ruins.

Hmm I may have to try that. The only big downside is that I wouldn’t be able to repair armor if I kept wiping unless I duoed it. Do people actually buy them?

I’d go with the fractal one as thats basically just a time sink. But only make it if you enjoy fractals, since doing them in lower levels in pugs is pure pain.

Purple Miku.7032:

There’s nothing that we can really do since it’s a free market. Oh well… off to selling FotM 50 runs it is ^^

Hahaha wow, I didn’t even know it was possible to solo fractals! I assume you just reroll if you get the swamp?

Okay thanks again! I probably would do it on warrior, but I don’t have one, nor do I have free character slots to make one. And yeah that is kinda depressing that selling seems to have died. I basically wanted a way to make money in this game without boring myself to absolute tears, and I thought selling arah would do it, since that is fun, challenging, and engaging. What is the price that the new sellers are using compared to the ones that the old ones have used?

Anyway.. I guess I have to decide if this is worth the limited time I have to invest, or it I’m better off just pugging on my ranger/ele and doing fractals and faceroll dungeon runs.

Purple Miku.7032:

Purple Miku.7032:

Unfortunately phase 2 is about 90% RNG and 10% skill. It doesn’t take long to learn when you’re supposed to evade, but you have no control over the ‘random’ projectiles. Keep in mind each entity is only targeted twice, so the two projectiles that you evade while hit at the exact same times every time with the addition of X random projectiles that can either land in completely different locations to where you are, or directly on top of you. There is virtually no way that you can control this other than projectile blocks/invulnerability or evasions.

You shouldn’t ever be in endurance deficit really aside from phase 3. Sometimes really unfortunate RNG on phase 3 requires immediate access to dodge rolls/evasions. If you use FGS, you’ll find phase 3 a breeze and I suggest 66200 with energy sigil instead of renewing stamina. Reason being you want that extra damage modifier and if endurance is needed, can swap attunements. Since each skill with FGS will only count as one attack, you won’t really benefit too much from renewing stamina. If you aren’t using FGS, renewing stamina is a lot more useful and you should take that over energy sigil and you’ll have essentially perma-vigour.

The sigils I suggest depending on what you’re using:
D/F without FGS and 66002 traits:
-Dagger with 1x Superior Sigil of Strength (or Undead Slaying)
-Focus with 1x Superior Sigil of Battle (or Undead Slaying)

I think I recall Particlar saying Battle sigil helped him maintain ~20 stacks of might in a solo setting with Strength runes, not sure. Either way, Strength sigil is very good on an ele with Strength runes!

D/F with FGS and 66200 traits:
-Dagger with 1x Superior Sigil of Battle (or Undead Slaying)
-Focus with 1x Superior Sigil of Energy

---

I will add that if you truly want to make sure you’ll have access to endurance at all times, feel free to go energy sigil + renewing stamina. I do that in casual solos when I can’t be bothered to gamble with RNG.

I will also add that 66200 without energy sigil is indeed possible as well, but only with superb RNG and FGS.

The utilities I typically take are: Arcane shield (for the phase 1>2 transition grub), Lightning Flash, Signet of Fire

Hope this helps.

Hey thanks for you advice a lot! That basically sums up the vigor vs. energy debate.

Are there any other suggestions for the rest of the path besides lupi?

Yeah pve in this game is honestly a snoozefest to get money. WvW and PvP is where the fun is, and thats honestly what you make of it.

Wildstar looks decent for PvE, but I’m too cheap to ever play it and the classes don’t seem that interesting to me imo.

The next patch will probably give us a way to ascend it so we can live the full PHIW dream of FULL ascended NOMADS!!!!!!111!!!11!!1

Dolt.2731:

My two cents… yes it’s cheese. When you run any form of heavy AI based build you are relying on your opponent to make a mistake; while you are playing very passive.

Pu mesmers, for instance, will just stealth and let their ai do the majority of the work. MM necros/ turret engi’s just tank while you get widdled down.. Spirit rangers can literally auto attack and have some degree of success which is why they are generally the first one’s to have the cheese finger pointed at them.

Same goes for s/d thieves who just spam evades, even when it’s not necessary. They have so many at their disposal it’s hard to punish them for their mistakes. I love when this type of thief calls out someone for double dodging. There are other examples for other classes as well.

What makes the “non-cheese” so furious is that many of the people running these builds actually believe they are “out-playing” their opponents.

It is ironic in a game that was so heavily marketed on skill/ reaction has become watered down to the point where some specs you don’t really have to do much at all.

I’m still frustrated that I only have control over one of my pet’t abilities, it makes no sense to me. Having active abilities gives the game more dynamic, when you take away that…

/shrug

It irks me that you consider spirits to be an AI build. Sure they move around, and have health, and absorb AoE and make tab targetting difficult, but in no way do the spirits “do the majority of the work”, they don’t even attack for gods sake!

I do agree with you about the shortbow, and thats why I run axe dagger and sword torch instead. Although this in theory has more cheese potential with celestial and strength or hoelbrak runes when the axe becomes a psuedo mightstacking tool, in which you’d spam axe skills and use condition bomb skills on cooldown with 9-12 might up most of the time.

But still, don’t call spirits an AI build when the spirits just follow you and buff you and your friends. Its 100% different from what an MM necro or a phantasm memser does.

Raven.9603:

Great topic.

I’m not sure any of the classes really need to be dropped. I consider 3 classes “broken by design”, but any of those could be fixed by redesign.

Thief – Stealth implementation is worse in GW2 than in any MMO to date. Switch to a perma stealth “mode” with only a single in combat restealth. Hitpoints and evasive abilities adjusted upward accordingly.

Warrior – Currently achieves damage levels of the highest burst dps classes without sacrificing any survivability. This is really just a fault of the GW2’s “starting stats” nonsense which really upsets the whole game (everybody does basically the same damage, but we’re going to give some of you much more health and much more armor cause we’re clueless). Everyone should have the same starting health and armor. If GW2 wants to give some people more of one or both, it should cost them hard in damage. You cant have warriors running around hitting 3k armor targets for 8-10k plus eviscerates on very short cd while having 3k armor themselves and 24k hp. Meanwhile, barely anyone else reaches those damage levels with all but the glassiest builds and the classes that do happen to have 10k starting hp and light/medium armor. Compare firegrabs damage and cooldown to eviscerate, then compare the survivability of the classes using those skills.

Ranger – Bows and Pet. Bows, while useful, are inferior to non-iconic weapons on this class and in general have been inferior to warrior ranged weapons for the majority of GW2. Shortbow still only has 900 range and needs a redesign. Pets completely hold this class back because they are non viable in dungeons unless guard spamming a ranged pet into a corner and are completely non viable in a zergs. Pets need a “spirit mode”, where they follow the ranger as an undamagable ghost and provide a large species specific stat boost to the ranger. Likewise, existing spirits should just be auras, not some horrible retake on Warcraft Shaman totems.

Hey I agree with pretty much everything you said, especially in regards to warriors. Its kind of laughable how perfect they are for so much of the game.

And in regards to ranger, yeah the bows suck. Especailly shortbow, its just a pew pew weapon. And while longbow will be a bit better, I believe people will adapt to its changes and learn to counter it better. I greatly enjoy axes, swords and greatsword on the ranger instead of its arrow skills.

And archeage seems to have a much more broken stealth mechanic, or it did a few months ago anyway. You could have it up permanently out of combat and wreck someone if you got the drop on them, or just run away if someone got the drop on you.

Dry top is better if you don’t feel like exerting yourself, and much of its rewards come from getting lucky drops from chests and whatnot.

Dungeons will give you way more profit if you manage to be able to run them quickly. This means finding a good group or either friends or random people and using max damage builds and set ups depending on the dungeon and your class. Back when I did dungeon tours for my legendary, I did AC 1, 2, and 3, CoF 1 and 2, and SE 1 and 3 as a minimum. I added TA Up/Fwd if I had more time that day, and sometimes I did arah, hotw, or CoE, but bad pug experiences turned me off of those in some ways. I once had a spreadsheet to calculate the amount of gold a tour gave you (excluding champ bags and random drops) by adding in the statistical value of salvaging dungeon tokens.

Also, if you’re really hardcore, you can get the most dungeon profit per time spent by soloing (or duoing even) arah path 2 or 3, and then selling the paths, but it takes a lot of practice and time to be able to do that.

Hey so lately I’ve been posting lots of threads about soloing arah, and after much deliberation and rT solo video watching, I’ve decided that it’s be much more efficient to use ele instead of ranger necro or mesmer to solo arah. I plan to sell so it makes sense that I should be relatively efficient, but I don’t have a leveled warrior so there’s that.

So what are some tips you arah vets would recommend for this? When should I use staff and when should I use D/F or S/F? I’ll probably start with p3. Do I need full clerics to solo the orb? Should I wait to make ascended weapons before I attempt this? And would there be any difference between force/night and force/undead for arah? Force/undead just seems impractical if I do fractals or something.

Oh! And how necessary are energy sigils for lupi, is renewing stamina enough to give me all the dodges I’d need? Is it worth it to bring a super bunker set of gear and traits for the trash skips, even though they’re not too bad for p3.

Anyway thanks for the advice, I appreciate it greatly already

One of my pet peeves is people that critiscize me for bringing in other ideas or getting involved in other’s situations. Anyway as to actually answer your question theres shatter, PU-power, or Chaotic Interruption. depending on how much survivability you want as oopposed to how much burst or CC you want. And then you just need veil somewhere on the bar.

Chewablesleeptablet.3185:

nearlight.3064:

Chewablesleeptablet.3185:

if you actually run an organized guild zerg the ranger is viable right now. rangers are very powerful in gank teams against mesmers, thieves, necros, eles.

What do you find works best for gank on ranger? I’ve been thinking about it lately and to me it seems sword/axe with MoC or a rabid trapper build would work the best, although that build its up defensive utility slots a bit too much.

LB ranger, piercing arrows, with read the wind. sic’ em for stealthers, break stun utility and when the new buff comes around bring speed signet because activating will give a substantial burst shot. GS for escape and invuln from ranged pressure.

Gank teams don’t get focused and if you are trying to be a gank team and you are getting attacked you are doing it wrong and your positioning on the battlefield is really bad. You should not have to bring all defensive utility skills..

Wolf, and a bird, extra speed boost and the fear helps out alot.

Thanks for your response. I’ve mainly played necro so I’ve never truly been on gank before.

In the WvW thread some people were discussing the merits of rangers in GvGs for the future, and seemed to agree that longbow sniper is the best way to go, but in an actual GvG its essentially a one trick pony for one round, as your enemy gank squad would be able to counter it and lock it down when they know its coming. But in open field that problem wouldn’t exist. I’d just be worried about longbow range putting you too far away from your group, but without eagle eye thats not as much of an issue.

Oh and for defensive utilities I meant that I’d have to give them up if I ran traps, which I realize is a kittenty idea.

Honestly its not that cheesy. A lot of people say its a broken AI build, except the spirits don’t really attack… so those people are wrong.

I run it with axe/dagger and sword/torch, since shortbow is a snoozefest weapon and axe is getting buffed kinda soon. I usually run settlers over celestial, to min/max my tankiness, but celestial or rabid would probably be way better if you used traps instead of spirits due to the bleed on crit trait.

I can tell you that things like hambow godmode warrior and decap /dance turret engi are far cheesier than spirit ranger. Anyway, the meta is the meta for a reason, and theres a hiuge difference between useful and effective cheese, versus useless, selfish cheese. If that makes any sense.

redux.1502:

nearlight.3064:

redux.1502:

7. Ranger: I despise pet classes, and really just don’t like anything the Ranger has to offer besides mainland Sword. And even then, that weapon isn’t for everybody. I guess spirits are cool? Not very fun in group play (with little to offer in dungeons).

-Juxt

Not to troll, but I think its ironic that you hate ranger for being a pet class, but like mesmer… which is even worse of a pet class imo, although prettier and more graceful doing it?

And ranger offers plenty in dungeons. After the next patch it’ll have roughly 10% more DPS, and everyone loves a good frostspotter. Plus everyone always forgets about axe 5, which is a handy extra reflect in situations where 100% reflect uptime is needed.

But I don’t really classify clones/phantasms as pets for the Mesmer in this game. If you ever played WoW, I just think of them like Shadow Orbs for Shadow Priests. Charges that can be useful, but are mostly (by me) used to power up/activate certain key abilities.

I understand that logic. And lol I layed WoW until the free trial ran out when I was 12!

To me though, illusions are the only way a mesmer can really do damage or survive. Whereas the ranger is more self sufficient at doing damage and survivng without his pet, although, both phantasms and ranger pets are nullified for the most part by AoE spam I’m afraid

My experience with Solo Q makes me feel like only 20 people play it at a given time.

zapv.8051:

Zacchary.6183:

BrunoBRS.5178:

at least it’s not a trait that will kill you and is adept tier…

Wrong trait.

BTW OP would you like to trade?

I cant speak for the op but I’d gladly make that trade any day of the week. Stealth necro op.

I once ran infiltrator runes on necro in hotjoin once against a 4 warrior team. They QQed in map chat that I was hacking to stealth before they killed me each time.

Mesmers are veilbots in WvW. With portals a secondary job. Other than that they just help out gank squads. Large group support isn’t needed or viable outside of veil, but feel free to try mantra heal if your guild is okay with that.

If you want large group support, go staff ele, guardian, or shout warrior. Even ranger has water fields lol, even if everything else they do is lackluster. If you want large group damage, any of the GWEN classes will satisfy you.

Argon.1563:

The whole “Meta” philosophy is pitiful, and the “Meta” builds aren’t even that good, my own builds are more effective then this non-existant “Meta” people ramble on about.

Just play what you want, use what build you want. If you want to walk into a dungeon with Minion Master Life Siphon Condi Necro running Magi’s gear with Altruism runes, do it.

As for the actual question, D/D Necro is very survivable, so i’d say you could pair anything with it and still work. A lot of Necro’s utilities work well in PVE, so just pick whatever you enjoy. Ive seen people use all sorts of things in PVE and still work. Even if your Utilities are a bit iffy, your weapons are effective, balanced and survivable, so it doesn’t really matter.

The meta does exist, and while you can use anything you want for anything other than a speed clear, why wouldn’t you do everything you can to make the dungeon go as fast or smoothly as possible? And lets not forget that some higher end dungeon content are basically DPS checks (Dwayna I’m looking at you). To me, running anything inefficient, regalrdless of class is selfish and inconsiderate to other people. I would never bring a ranger to a dungeon without spotter and traited frost spirit, because its a significant DPS-wide buff for the whole party, and frankly I wouldn’t have a good enough reason not to use it.

If you have a build that outperforms a meta build in terms of damage or group utility I’d be glad to see it. Maybe you’ll make a new meta.

Anyway, the OP is not concerned with dungeons at this time. In the open world anything you want works, but keep in mind if you do start running dungeons later on, that won’t always be the case depending on what groups you join.

If you want the titles, pets, or weapon skills go for it.

And GW1 has a really awesome/better story with more to do than GW2 in some ways.

Ummmm Anet should make it easier for me to earn more T6 danishes and scones, so I can make more legendary wedding cakes? All the ingredients are getting too expensive!

Do you know whats really a joke of a GM trait?

The mesmer’s disrupter’s sustainment in Inspiration.

Vayne.8563:

nearlight.3064:

Both are rather blah for dungeons. But no one will complain if you use their meta zerker builds that you should research.

For necro I recommend dagger/warhorn for exploration but OH dagger works too. And use wells, spite signet and max DPS gear and traits.

Mesmer needs runes to fix their speed.
And in dungeons you run around like a headless chicken while fractal bosses kill your only dps source with aoe. But have fun!

The only thing I say to that is the necros are, for some people, less accepted in dungeons. Mesmers at least have decent reflect, which people seem to like. And sometimes portals can be useful too.

If you look at what people have said in other threads, the only profession there’s really no place for in the current dungeon meta is necro. Now I’m not saying I agree with this, or that it’s right. I’m saying that’s what some people are saying.

I’m well aware of what people say. While mesmers are accepted readily by most dungeon groups, most mesmers running the meta build hate it for its impracticality, which leads to so much greatsword abuse. I mean reflects are great and all, but they’re only really needed in arah, fractals, and a few other situations in the easier dungeons, and rangers, guardians, engis, and eles all get smaller amounts of reflects.

I’m just speaking from experience, that mesmer isn’t fun for me to play in PvE, but to each his own.

hihey.1075:

Wall of Text

Okay thanks for clarifying. All of my extremely limited GvG experience is as a necro, so I’m not too knowlegdable about gank.

Would you still say a guild could run rangers for less structured open field fights without gimping the guild? Granted, its not what this thread is about, but still I think a ranger could work there if only for fun. Sigh/ anet sucks at class balance.. but I guess engis aren’t much better off in this environment.

Straegen.2938:

I think there is a disconnect here… GvG I assume implies both organized (XvX) and open field GvG. A ranger MAY work in open field fighting but I find it difficult to accept any serious organized GvG bringing a Ranger pre or post patch to the party.

Even in open field GvG, the Ranger just doesn’t bring the fire power AND escape that other outside fighters bring. It simply isn’t as effective as virtually every other class in a GvG setting. Most players know this and simply accept it. Maybe post patch when some of the weapons are beefed up but it doesn’t look like it to me.

The patch will make it better as open field periph due to more might uptime and more entangles. Will that be good enough to make a difference? I hope so, but I’m not holding my breath on it :/

Both are rather blah for dungeons. But no one will complain if you use their meta zerker builds that you should research.

For necro I recommend dagger/warhorn for exploration but OH dagger works too. And use wells, spite signet and max DPS gear and traits.

Mesmer needs runes to fix their speed.
And in dungeons you run around like a headless chicken while fractal bosses kill your only dps source with aoe. But have fun!

Lol yeah that’s true.

You can still use zerker for Melee ranger in pve, and you should, you just have to learn how to cancel the sword auto chain to dodge lol.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

Well i tend to do the unthinkable….like:

1. having axe/axe set and sword/wh set! Can you belive it? you can have both!
2. Not running frost/spotter. My build has nothing to do with nature magic so frost is out. Better lay down some traps. As for spotter when possible i use it, but sometimes i do pull out that bow and trait it with piercing arrows for ensured hit in a zerg, and the spotter gets to sit on a bench.

The moral of this topic is: don’t blindly follow meta-sheep, understand why meta is meta but also how all those other weapons, skills and traits can produce amazing results in certain situations:) like axes in ac:)

Just in DUNGEONS use frostspotter. In other areas, like the zergs you mentioned, other things are possible.

hihey.1075:

Having played lots of GvGs, I believe that there could be a spot for a ranger in a GvG team – more specifically in a focus party (or gank squad, as you people call it).
But that would be viable only for 1 round. You can swap out one thief/mesmer/dd ele, and take a LB+GS Ranger, full zerk, with Sic Em, RaO, Quickening Zephyr and SoS. Condi Removal food.
He just has to target an enemy thief, cast Rapid Fire+Quickening Zephyr, get him downed, shout his allies that the enemy is down, Sic Em, and have a thief stomp him.
It’s high risk, high reward. But you must swap it out the following round, because if the enemy expects a zerk ranger on the enemy team, they will just kill him before he does anything. RaO will be ripped by a thief and he will get trained so hard that you dont even need to waste banners on him.

And forget talking about useless stuff like torch, axe, Maul, dagger, TRAPS… geez…

I understand what you’re saying. Maul won’t be useuless in the next patch, and I merely brought up traps to discuss their viability in a gank setting, more as a tool for CC than actual burst. It would be helpful if you can justify why you think those things that you listed are bad. I do agree with you that zerker longbow ranger is merely a one trick pony, so we’d be better off discussing ranger choices that aren’t a one trick pony.

tetrodoxin.2134:

Interesting topic.

Redesign: Mesmer & Ranger, make them more like their GW1 counterparts.

Drop: Engineer
Add: Ritualist

No hate against Engineers, I just don’t like the style and Ritualists basically do the same thing. Item spells (urns) as replacement for engineer kits, Spirit summoning as replacement for turrets. On top of that, there’d be weapon spells for group support!

edit: Heh, someone already said that. +1 to your post, nearlight! xD

I miss GW1 so much. Every class I like in Gw2 was twice as good in that game.

redux.1502:

7. Ranger: I despise pet classes, and really just don’t like anything the Ranger has to offer besides mainland Sword. And even then, that weapon isn’t for everybody. I guess spirits are cool? Not very fun in group play (with little to offer in dungeons).

-Juxt

Not to troll, but I think its ironic that you hate ranger for being a pet class, but like mesmer… which is even worse of a pet class imo, although prettier and more graceful doing it?

And ranger offers plenty in dungeons. After the next patch it’ll have roughly 10% more DPS, and everyone loves a good frostspotter. Plus everyone always forgets about axe 5, which is a handy extra reflect in situations where 100% reflect uptime is needed.

Chewablesleeptablet.3185:

if you actually run an organized guild zerg the ranger is viable right now. rangers are very powerful in gank teams against mesmers, thieves, necros, eles.

What do you find works best for gank on ranger? I’ve been thinking about it lately and to me it seems sword/axe with MoC or a rabid trapper build would work the best, although that build its up defensive utility slots a bit too much.

NeXeD.3042:

I just think it’s a mistake to ever put points in a lone for stats > traits.

Yeah I agree with this full-heartedly. I see tons of people complain that complain about stuff like dhuumfire being in spite or (for ranger) martial mastery and offhand training being in wilderness survival ( a condition damage line). Trait lines have their own themes that the traits follow, and the stats are merely a bonus attached to that.

As long as you run frostspotter I don’t care THAT much, even though I’d probably just use sword.

Not running frostspotter just means you’re either uneducated or a kitten.

Anet is reluctant to talk about anything before they are 100% comfortable with its development and that it won’t be changed.

And also to avoid economic kitten shows whenever they announce new things. I’m looking at you picture of night cycle meteorlogicus that caused storm to rise 400 gold in price in the span of 2 hours.

Ezeriel.9574:

Drop Necros

…the class was never finished, pet AI is still broken, and will likely always be broken; it’s been two years!!! ….the flesh golem’s animations were never finished, it de-spawns if you step in a puddle.

…conditions are a train wreck. Besides the stacking caps, necros are a bad condition class. They’re just not anywhere near as powerful as the other classes, likely because of pets, but since pets don’t work, the class just feels weak.

Deathshroud is a failed mechanic (stolen from wow, and it was a failed mechanic there too) added at the last minute in the GW2’s development (I think I read it was added in the last month before release)…

…a condition class with a class mechanic that has nothing to do with conditions. …and it’s not like the class, with no escapes, can go glass canon/DS, so what is the point of it? why does it exist?

Add Warlock

Theme: crystal balls filled with unholy spirits

Class mechanic: Dark Attunements

Similar to an ele, you attune to fire to add fire damage to your normal attacks, poison for poison damage, bleeding for bleeds, and then one for leeching health with attacks.

man, that sounds sweet…

If you ever play necro in organized WvW or GvG, you’d see that it offers SO much more than pets or conditions. And don’t copy world of wasting your moneycraft plz.

I think ranger is perfectly viable as a periphery gank in more casual WvW, and it will be so even more so after the next patch. For gank I think sword/axe with moment of clarity and then either longbow or Greatsword in the offset (probably GS). For legit GvGs, I don’t know to be honest. My guild probably wouldn’t let me bring ranger in a GvG as I’m on backup necro typically anyway, but apparently they tried it in the past before I joined the guild, and it didn’t work out for some reason, but I’m not sure why.

After the patch I see Axe/warhorn (or OH axe) and GS with hoelbrak runes and traited for CD reduction and cleanising on 3 survival skills as being the best set for an all purpose semi-midline/semi-frontline build in WvW. I think longbow does have potential with the changes, but I’m reluctant to use it since I view being far away from my group as a disadvantage (can’t recover, or peel out defensively as well, and enemy gank could pick you off unless you’re with your gank, in which case melee burst would be preferred).

Traited entangle and muddy terrain will help a lot with bombs, and lightning reflexes should be used to cleanse immobolize as its the most lethal condition in WvW. I like signet of stone or signet of the wild as the other util, since their actives will be much more useful after the patch. For traits, I’m not sure how necessary empathatic bond is, but I’d probably take either x/x/6/4/0 or x/x/4/6/0, with hoelbrak runes and a tanky valk/knights mix set up. I’m torn between spending the last 4 points in marksman for spotter (team support??) or for ferocious axe (my build needs more crit damage..).

For gank with sword axe, I’d probably take 4/6/4/0/0 to get moment of clarity and offhand training and spotter (to buff the squad). With longbow I’d probably go 6/6/2/0/0 for read the wind, MoC, and entangle CD reduction. Utilites would be lightning reflexes, signet of the wild, and probably sic em to help lock down mesmers and enemy thieves MUCH better (although other classes are proably getting revealed, so we don’t know hoe useful that would be)

Personally, I think we should get out of the longbow sniper mentality, and look at everything else a ranger has to offer. Oh, and maybe condition trap builds could be useful on gank? I have little knowledge of them, but I think its worth discussing.

WvW is a sandbox, and is literally what you make of it.

I personally don’t roam much, since I can get that kind of satisfaction from spvp. I would if I could record youtube videos without slowing my FPS to poop levels (I have a mac:( )

I’m part of a fight oriented WvW guild on a T2 server. We go around looking for other groups to fight, more so than we look for points to capture. Its a lot of fun, and we also are getting into GvG, which is a slightly more structured form of fights.

Phantasm builds (with either mantra or reflect spec or both) are better for PvE than shatter builds, because shatter builds have really good burst, but nothing in between that burst. The same could be said for scepter ele that doesn’t use conjures.

Phantasm builds are far from perfect though, they have a long ramp up time to achieve optimal DPS, and encounters with the boss’s cleave or AoE can kill them before they get off a second attack. The reflects are very useful, but a guardian or ranger even can do that.. you just have to chain reflects with your party when you need them.

I saw a lupi solo video where one guy kited the hell out of lupi using axes and it took like 20 minutes. GS attempts give 9-10 minutes it seems.

I think its probably fine in a laid back pug. I once pugged AC with a random ranger that had both frostfang and howler on, which was pretty sick… but he didn’t know what frostspotter was because he didn’t use that, and he somehow had two legendaries with only 2K AP.

I really hope to make frostfang next. My internship is ending this week, so the next two weeks after that are going to be gold farming, WvW, solo Q and GRE practicing all day lol, except on weekends when I’m popular.

Add: Ritualist and Dervish

Delete: Engineer

Redesign: Mesmer

Most of the GW1 Ritualist mechanics live on the form of the engineer. Spirits – turrets and ashes-kits, stuff like that. But I personally don’t like the flavor that engineers have. Dervish should be added because they were kittening awesome. That’s basically it.

Mesmer’s should be changed to their GW1 version before they became a bugged, purple, pet class. Also I’d keep the ranger in, but maybe split them into a ranger and a beastmaster. The beastmaster gets the stupid pet and all the crappy bows and the ranger keeps spirits, swords, axes, everything else, can also use staff as a psuedo melee/support weapon with AoE in WvW and gets a new AoE DPS nature ritual mechanic to replace the pet!!!! ZUMA that would be perfect!!!!11111!!!!!1!

Does anyone know if it’s possible to solo the orb from arah p3 on ranger? Possibly by changing protect me and troll unugent?

I want to try soloing on ranger but if I can only do p2, I don’t want to sleep through arah story again and waste my time. YouTube has failed me with too many ranger resources for arah. Mostly just p2 runs and 10 minute lupi solos.

Hmmm about death shiver I see your logic. It would make a lot sense if every necro ran it but my guild seems to run more offensive specs on well necros lol

Axelwarrior.9084:

nearlight.3064:

Axelwarrior.9084:

spoj.9672:

Why? Because the truth hurts? Grow up lol.

Because it’s fun?

Theres a difference between having harmless fun and hurting other people around you.

I doubt you think about ethics much.

Oh no, you questioned my ethics? I must be a terrible person for playing a game the way I want.
Tell you what; If I actually do it, I’ll announce that I’m using a condition build in the map chat and I bet that more than one person harasses me for it, making the “elitist” side unethical.

I don’t care if you use a condition spec on tequaltl. I just care that you’d go out of your way to scale up the event is the issue. In my anecdote that person used his build as an excuse to join our defense team. But that is no excuse, if you want to be on defense regardless of what build you play, you come early enough to get a spot like everyone else.

So I’m questioning your ethics because you purposely wanted to scale up an event to troll other people, not because you like builds inefficient for the situation at hand..

Edit: oh wait you said nothing about wanting to scale events up on purpose. My bad! Feel free to play what you want for world bosses, just conform to the organization of the event and don’t use your build as an excuse to not do the job you were assigned.

Pelopidas.2140:

I doubt you’d appreciate it if you came along to a group, and got whispered to leave….
Dont be racist people

What are you? Some carebear unicorn whisper? It’s a tequaltl for god sake, an event that requires organization. If everyone did their own thing the event would fail. I have tough enough skin to know that being told to leave is nothing at all personal. It’s the way the event works for God’s sake. If champs spawn and our group can’t handle them then the turrets are in danger of wiping.

Axelwarrior.9084:

spoj.9672:

Why? Because the truth hurts? Grow up lol.

Because it’s fun?

Theres a difference between having harmless fun and hurting other people around you.

I doubt you think about ethics much.