Guild Wars 2

gonna lose myself in xcom for a while until this mess is sorted. been playing so much, i think right now is a good time to take a breather =)

DE’s need some serious fixing. they do not scale.

cant really get myself to play WoW. graphics make me nauseous, and the combat mechanics are…none. pass.

ranger is mostly fine. spirits need to be reworked and SB nerf must be rolled back. i love my ranger too.

personally, very disappointed.

- no new modes
- no new maps
- no leaderboards
- no observer mode

in the foreseeable future. basically, everything that matters they likely havent even touched.

- paid tourneys – ok, needed
- custom arenas – MEH. this is a nice little feature but honestly no1 will care for it.

currently, the spvp scene is rotting and by the looks of things it will continue to deteriorate over the next few months.

imo the most important aspects in this order:
1. paid tournaments
2. observer mode
3. leaderboards
4. new pvp mode
5. everything else

currently, all of the DE’s in the game (assuming theyre not bugged) can essentially be facerolled for free XP. mobs have weak HP and next to no challenging abilities, the events dont scale for larger groups, and i have never failed a DE. was this the original intent for the game’s defining mechanic? or is everything just super bugged right now?

there has been zero information from ANet regarding the massive issue of DE’s bugging out since BWE 1, DE’s not scaling, and nothing on improving this extremely shallow experience. any little update would do.

confirmed that my SB feels extremely impotent. cant really stack bleeds properly, feels weird and ineffective.

no, it’s not good for every situation. as i said, it may be needed for condition heavy opponents, but when youre immobilized/focus fired, it cant help you much.

and there aren’t really any “single best skills” =P it all depends on the situation.

@metx
i like your build. but it’s so different from mine that i cant really discuss it much. i can just say that the immobilize + focus fire is the ranger’s greatest problem in tpvp. in your build, you have no way of dealing with this. SoS is so situational due to its long CD, and you simply wont have anything up your sleeve for the next time youre immobilized. the evasion tank will allow you to evade for a few seconds until the immobilize is up, and the low CD of Protect Me allows you to use it twice in a longer fight. im not sure you understand how evades work (they actually render you invulnerable); sword #2 is the worst of the 3. give it a shot!

@red
thanks. Heal as One is used for its very low CD and for dealing with spike damage, which TU cant. i may need more practice with it. i tested the spring, and it may be needed as secondary condition removal against condition heavy teams, but so far i found empathic bond to be sufficient. Lightning Reflexes for vigor more so than the actual dodge.

learning to micro my pet better is top priority. will be making more footage in the future.

I eat warriors for breakfast on my ranger. The warrior is my favorite prof to take down because I can evade everything you throw at me before bursting u down or melting u with conditions. The only op prof in PvP was a well players mesmer. And they just took care of it.

I play a beast master condition ranger in pve and moves just melt before my eyes.

Anyway, I digress. Jon u got a hot fix for us friend?

They watered down stats based progression and gave us virtually unlimited freedom with builds so we can play in our style. About time someone redefined the mmo. No one cares about RPGs. People just wanna have fun. Stats based progression can be fun in single player games.

My power SB ranger is shelved until this atrocity is fixed. Please hot fix anet.

You can’t evade on demand. Good luck timing your 3rd hit right when a warrior starts unleashing his 100b. Sword/dagger has 3 on demand evades which you can use during several back to back burst unloads.

Evasion tank is not evasion tank without sword/dagger. Jus sayin

There better be a hot fix by the time I finish work tomorrow this is sloppy anet.

Mekboss.5069:

Why do people think optimal rotations go away just because you only have 15 skills? All it does it make it easy to find optimal rotations, especially since several weapon skills are pure utility.

This. People who are too lazy to figure out Max DPS and survivability via combo fields really grind my gears. Gw2’s combat is one thing u can’t really criticize.

I don’t button mash. I combo myself on all my characters. Between combos, two weapon sets, and utilities, I’ve never been more engaged in pve before. It’s a preference thing.

Please don’t nerf the only viable ranger weapon! Bleed stacking with qz is essential and was fine in live. SB was very nicely balanced…why are u messing with stuff that aint broke?

Fix spirits and rework the GS if you need some ideas.

Protect me can be used every 48 seconds, which means sometimes even twice during an engagement. Not to be too dismissive but that basically ends the discussion for me. In addition, 15 in bm allows this to occur more often in addition to significantly increased DPS with more frequent pet swapping. Protect me works just fine if u have a good awareness of your pet and decent timing.

Appreciate the tips though. I find I actually have too much survivability. Mitigation may seem a little spotty at times but this is because im still fumbling with my keys. You can observe blatant lack of pet micro often. Any future tweaks would go into increasing DPS.

This is a power/condition evasion tank build for the ranger. Below is footage of me learning the build over the course of few days. I make lots of mistakes, but it’s a forgiving build. I did a few tpvp matches and the build is definitely viable, but has a much higher skill cap for organized play.

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQNAV8YnIVUZZkFaBxaZAYzQwAbP4USM/HmtkdlC;TsAA1CtoQygkAJLSOkkItAZUw+AA

Part 1: http://youtu.be/s_EoFNCZ0Rg
Part 2: http://youtu.be/0b-uzFZXD-w

What this build is:

- twitchy and reactive; easy to play hard to master
- dependent on pet micro
- high sustain via endurance regen, vigor and damage avoidance
- high sustained damage with on-demand burst via quickness and pet micromanagement
- very disruptive against groups of opponents

Disadvantages::

- not bunker (you can’t reliably stay on point), but can easily be modified into a bunker build
- condition damage is not very high
- limited condition removal therefore can be slowly bled out by high sustain condition builds
- very high skillcap for organized pvp; every evasion and CD counts

I cannot emphasize enough the importance of pets in spvp. Pets are not just dots. Theyre your meatshields, burst and utility. I would not trade my 15 BM points for anything and I’ve considered adding more points in BM. However, wilderness survival is too good and Marksmanship reliably increases your dps.

I use high DPS pets simply because I don’t need the utility from canines, nor do i care for the low dps of spiders. Lynx has a leap which is amazing for closing distance, and along with the hawk, can help you stack bleeds very quickly. Swiftness from my bird occurs frequently and is invaluable. Empathic bond, while not 100% reliable, is hands down some of the best condition removal in the game.

Protect Me! is one of the best mitigation tools in the game. I hope that was demonstrated in the video so I won’t really argue about it. It’s vastly superior to the Signet of Stone, which should never be on your bar.

I feel like I’ve barely unlocked the potential of the build as I’ve only played it for about 3 days. Hope you guys enjoyed the vids, feel free to discuss the build.

Heraseth.9703:

throw your feedback guys

the guy who made that video is, simply put, an ignorant troll. he seems happy going back to WoW, so good for him. but unfortunately, hes also ignorant about everything GW2-related, stating blatant lies about the game, as if he didnt even attempt to play the game.

i’ll just comment on two misunderstandings.

1) “dungeons are not challenging” because unorganized groups are wiping. how does that make any sense? GW2’s explorable dungeons are skill-based and u have to be extremely organized with a deep knowledge of combo fields. someone who enjoys facerolling through WoW’s dungeons and raids is unlikely to enjoy GW2’s system.

2) the game’s population is actually holding out very very well. we have over 10 full servers at peak times, which is not much different from the game’s first week. Xfire hours have decreased because the powergamers who use it have devoured the content (or skipped it), and are now playing MoP, or less GW2. this speaks nothing of the game’s actual population. MoP is already trending downwards, but the only difference is that GW2 is at its beginning. once people burn through MoP, the hours will tank.

I have to say I am also concerned about bug resolution. It simply isn’t happening quickly enough, whatever the reason. Many De’s are borked and it kills immersion when I’m leveling. The worrying part as you mentioned is that they’re aware of the bug but they just can’t get it fixed even after multiple attempts. Seems like troublesome code or something.

I’m not a fan of the visual design either. The walking tree model is way overused.

i will also chime in and say that Protect Me is quite amazing, especially with traited shouts and 15 or more points in BM.

there are enough, if not too many, abilities in the game. given the game’s mechanics, builds take a long time to master.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

4. Swap pets constantly. If your swap is available, use it. It’s a 20 second cooldown, but swapping your pets in and out constantly brings different skills into play that aren’t in cooldown.

Robert, this makes master’s bond trait useless. it encourages us to keep one pet out as long as possible for the buff. im sure once you greatly improve pet survivability in dungeons, this inconsistency will go away.

Protect Me + traited pet swapping CD + traited shout CD + traited endurance/vigor + sword/dagger/SB = godmode. well, relatively. with 15 in beastmastery, my pets are somewhat dispensable in addition to significantly tougher. it is true that pets depend on cc to land damage somewhat, but they can land hits on a non-dodging non-swiftness’d target no problem. i’ll be posting my build and footage shortly.

the areas that require significant work are GS and spirits. i think rangers are just fine for tpvp otherwise.

and i agree, the sword is great. dare i say.. amazing.

gave you a like. nice build.

i had a spirit on my action bar for about 30 seconds. i summoned it, and almost instantly it got one-shotted by a random mob. spirits are now off my action bar until they are fixed.

ANet, fix spirits. please and thank you.

after Bonfire, casting Whirling Defense on top of it. i only get a single burning bolt at the end of the sequence going to a totally random target. so in short: just one burning bolt at the end of the sequence. i hope this isnt intended

help Tromgi’gark and Wenski get their crate back home

when you revive these morons, the just run around the camp attacking npc’s, and never leave the camp. i reported this bugged DE 3 weeks ago. unacceptable. this zone is a freaking mess. im done with it. hopefully others will continue reporting the broken DE’s here.

Help UNIT find and destroy inquest; destroy holding cell and free Wistt.

on arrival, UNIT is killing randomly spawning inquest, Wistt is standing still outside of destroyed cell and not moving. progress bar is empty. Wistt and UNIT do not leave the room, cannot initiate by talking to them.

of the lower zones, Brisban Wildlands is the most broken. ive run into 5-6 broken DE’s here. i cant stress how much this breaks immersion while leveling. fixing DE’s should be #1 PVE priority. currently, higher levels have no reason to come back to the empty lowbie zones. rewards are bad and much of content is still bugged.

Emissary Bleepdoop gets stuck underwater, just outside of the village. cannot proceed to escort him to kodan camp.

Mazrik.2891:

Is Inner Fire bugged/broken? When I set myself on fire with Zealot’s Flame I don’t get the fury buff. Which I figured was part of the builds damage output?

Anyone else notice this?

Zealot flame only sets targets on fire. This is intended.

This build is not viable for wvw. Scepter/torch/staff is decent for cleansing and support, but u can’t actually do any damage with fire in larger engagements. If you’re close enough to set people on fire, you will quickly die. Also cleansing flame is the one consecration that I skip because people are too spread out in wvw.

If you don’t like pets then use them as shields to absorb conditions and take damage. If you don’t wanna press 2 extra keys (attack and pet ability) then just play the longbow warrior.

Op is thinking of warlock. Anet did a great job portraying a necromancer.

Anet isn’t paranoid. This is why economy in gw2 matters and is useless in wow. Everyone needs to settle for less so we can all have a more enjoyable experience. Hope anet sticks to its current philosophy. People will adapt eventually. Those who like the game will stay regardless

Agemnon.4608:

nerva.7940:

so youre trying to apply something you learned in your undergrad philosophy class? great. but if you ever study eastern philosophy and phenomenology, you’ll realize how much of a moron Nietzche was. he had a very narrow understanding of the world, and knew nothing about how nature works. in fact, he was against nature.

Disagreeing with someone doesn’t make them a moron. You also have to consider the context in which he lived too. His ideas were his own, and being an Atheist in his day wasn’t like today when it’s socially acceptable. Everyone wants to be number one, but by nature only one can be number one. Due to inherent limitations and gifts respectively, in addition to hard work, people are sorted into their place by both nature and their own merits. If you lack talent then you cannot be the best in a chosen field, as that belongs to someone who is not only extraordinarily gifted, but also works hard to exceed those who are equally gifted.

Nietzche was the nihilistic emo cry baby of the philosophy circle. it’s not that i disagree with what he philosophized. he simply interpreted the world through the wrong lens.

i think gw2 will be huge in 6 months…should be about the time of the new expansion.

so youre trying to apply something you learned in your undergrad philosophy class? great. but if you ever study eastern philosophy and phenomenology, you’ll realize how much of a moron Nietzche was. he had a very narrow understanding of the world, and knew nothing about how nature works. in fact, he was against nature.

Geemo.6018:

Let’s see if you will be so boastful in 6 months from now. Gw2 shouldn’t even be classified as an mmo. Gw2 is more like a horrible single player console game. It will just take about 6 months for the rest of you to figure it out…

lol, nice troll bud. GW2 is gonna get huge. just wait till the first xpac/content patch. theyre just working out the kinks now. it’s way bigger than any other MMO was on relase

we’re also down to just one medium pop server =)

op, sounds like youre having a great time actually. glad u like the game.

DR’s – working as intended. gj ANet (serious).

awesome thanks Lauren. im glad you guys are taking the clipping issues seriously.

love underwater combat. it’s amazing.

There is no endgame. My main is 53, and I have a lvl 20 and 31 alts. Rank 20 spvp. I wvw occasionally. I have 215 hours logged and I feel Ive barely scratched the game. End game is really what you make it in this game. If you make grinding your endgame then that’s your own approach, one that this game wasn’t really built for. Open your mind and go explore.

thanks for the response Jon. you guys really dont need to feel apologetic in any way. you gave us open world pvp. it’s what people wanted.

players need not to be babies. how do you think EVE players feel after investing hours of their time into building bases and taking territory, just to get invaded over night and get it all blown up? grow some, and stay up all night defending or capping smaller objectives if you care. WvW is kinda hardcore in that sense. if it’s too much for you, spvp is that away ->

i use sword/dagger/SB with great effectiveness. anyone else try the LB evasion tank build? unless youve tried that build or something similar, you cant really complain about LB.