Guild Wars 2

Shorbow regular attack speed is effectively rapid fire speed. The damage adds up quickly and shortbow also provides respectable cc/survivability. Longbow is much better against a group just with barrage, but against a single target shortbow will win outright.

You also get much more mileage out of shortbow with quickness.

Try running a tank/CC ranger.

0/20/30/0/20

GS and dual axe (dungeon) or axe/warhorn (WvW)

Alternatively, sword/dagger or warhorn and axe/torch damage ranger or spirits ranger are also useful depending on the situation. Ranger is equally as powerful in dungeons as in regular PvE, and all professions can contribute in WvW. It just depends on the situation.

a family of pets that you can use.

In WvW/sPvP? I’m not sure. I run dual canine in WvW. I would hope not (I’m assuming they won’t even see the item).

I would agree that signet currently feel lackluster. I think shouts are situationally useful, and very powerful in specific instances. Those would require more play-around to form a concrete opinion.

Marksman+skirmish should provide good damage on the ranger himself. Some commitment into beastmastery is good if you want to utilize pet damage output (fairly high by default). For buffs go mainly with Moas. Debuffs are spread all over the place.

Ranger is still one of the best PvE classes so Orr is going to be no exception.

Anyone can pick up the item. You can also just leave the item there till needed.

All you can do is try to pull the stonetouch, take them out, then AoE the rest. They are really the only threat, and Fyonna doesn’t really do anything note-worthy.

When everone did it back in BWEs, no one knew anything, and catacombs was significantly harder back then.

You do not need someone with prior knowledge. You need a dedicated group that isn’t afraid to get ran over and willing to experiment and improve.

When the group I ran with started TA 2 weeks ago with no prior knowledge, we didn’t know if we could effectively farm this dungeon after the first couple of runs. Now we clear it 30-40 minutes, route pending.

Also, do forward>forward. Highly recommended.

I’m kidding. Get completion and never touch that route again.

It looks like ebonhawk, but the coloring is weird. I’m not sure.

Shortbow attack speed is just too much for longbow to overcome (shortbow regular attack is basically rapid fire on longbow). In addition, longbow requires range to have maximum effectiveness. Unfortunately, if you want raw damage, shortbow is going to win 90% of the situation. However, barrage and skill 3 are very powerful tools, and makes longbow a very good weapons when you are in a group (dungeons, large DE, WvW).

I want to say charr cultural T2. Not 100% sure, but I’m banking on it being charr weaponry.

The spit is first a projectile, then turns into ground AoE. The hitbox of the projectile portion is large and last awhile.

Make sure you are fighting in melee against the worms. Be good about clearing blossoms and stay in melee to trigger their ground slam attack instead of spits. The concept here is simple but the execution takes some getting use to. Once you are used to it it becomes clockwork just like everything else.

Comparatively, CoF route is far too easy. I think there are certain parts of the run that is just designed incorrectly; Namely, magg escort through lava is super easy, and so is the boss fight (since boss doesn’t do damage, just CC).

I’ve cleared all of AC, CM, TA, and HoW so far. I would say CM is the easiest (we did a decent amount of some routes with just 4), then AC, then HoW, then TA. I would hope the difficulty of Explorable is more inline with TA. This is because while TA requires a lot of coordination and execution, once you get it down it is still only 30-40 min to clear Forward>Up and Up routes (screw Forward>Forward, do not want). Likewise, all 3 AC explorable can be cleared in roughly 30 minutes, with Howling King being the one for repeated speed runs. Having sufficient difficulty, and still be doable in 30-40 by a well-organized group is a medium I hope can be reached.

On the other hand, HoW just needs all bosses to have less HP. The quickest one in that dungeon is path 1, and that one is still low ending at 40 minutes. That one is the fastest because you are not forced to fight underwater. Bosses in there are too tanky and offer no real challenge. Less HP and different mechanics would need to be introduced in my opinion.

Overall, I like AC and TA (minus TA Forward>Forward), and I think using that as a template would be ideal. AC would be the low end on difficulty, with TA Forward>Up being pretty ideal for mid-high end difficulty.

TJL