Guild Wars 2

I don’t think they need anything complicated/requiring of a lot of work. Just make the buffs potentent enough to be desireable by a group, and either make spirits immune to damage and tethered to the Ranger so they move with him/her, or increase their range dramatically so they can be placed out of harm’s way yet still effective. I dont’ know why Anet can’t figure this out.

^^^Looking forward to seeing your build.

I’ve done some searching regarding Runes of the Soldier (Trooper) and can’t find any consensus that it works for all Ranger shouts over the effective range of the shout, or that it works at all for anyone other than the Ranger, for that matter.

Some people have said it works for all shouts except WHaO and SotP. Also, it’s been said allies have to be within range of Resounding Timbre (formerly Nature’s Voice) for it to remove a condition from them (shorter range than a shout). In other words, if they get Swiftness+Regen, they also get condi removal, yet that might not be working for WHaO and SotP, or it might not work at all.

Would be lovely if we could get a dev to say exactly how the Rune works for Rangers.

FrownyClown.8402:

The main problem is that the functionality of shouts is different than other classes. They really should make shouts affect allies in someway. that would put tank rangers in a really sweet spot. Here is my build.

Interesting. Do we have confirmation that Ranger Shouts + Soldier Runes do, or do not remove condis from allies? Reading the wiki rune description, possibly not, but I thought I had read that they would.

Wiki: “Shouts remove a condition from each affected ally.” Not sure if “affected” means affected by the shout, or a condition.

How about Hawk+Eagle with Wilting Strike instead of Natural Healing? Birds will be under constant stealth, prot, and regen, and they can keep near constant weakness on target if desired, as Wilting is on a 4 second CD and F2 on a 4.75 second CD. No party support from the pet, but more damage.

I have not tried it yet, but when I used to play WvW I ran a “Guard” spam Regen+Switfness build with Runes of Altruism. I’ve been thinking about trying something similar in PvP, but with Soldier runes. Between Guard and WHaO, that’s pretty frequent condi removal, and I think shouts have a really long range. Added bonus to local party condi clear will be the pet gets stealth, prot and condi clear, assuming the runes apply to the pet.

Dodges are too valuable to have blow them to save your pet from damage, IMO, and one dodge won’t save your pet from a WvW zerg. Others have proposed damage reductions based on a percentage, as well as Resistance or reduced condition duration/stacks, which I would be in favor of.

A python or boa constrictor with immob would be cool. The F2 animation would make the snake wrap around the target, and maybe bite it in the face

That’s a relatively safe place to store them, and sometimes it’s what you gotta do (build a ton) to retake a well-sieged/defended keep, even on your home BL.

There were reports from Rangers it wasn’t working at least for new/renamed shouts. I could see where the programming might just need to be updated for the list of shouts the rune checks to see if it needs to proc.

According to the wiki, the range for Fern’s howl is 600, while for IB it’s 360.

Dionosio.5168:

Pvp

This is a build i’m working on, shout-based, with good teamsupport and pretty tanky, even if with still a decent damage (all this is under a big imho). Any advice would be appreciated, especially about the sigils
I placed the double drake beacuse of the aoe on swap and the damage of the F2

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-JF-8k;0sE-u-a2JDV-0;9k7Z;1a_b;0257156236;4VoG7U;1ZF18ZF180q

Be advised that Runes of the Soldier’s condi removal was reported to not be working with shouts after the big update. I think someone posted somewhere that this applied to all shouts, including Warriors.

RaO duration nerf? —

I just came back to the game after being away almost a year to see what was new/improved. My build (mostly for WvW) was BM/Condi “Guard” spammer (Apoth + Settler’s gear). As I recall, RaO lasted about 22 seconds before the update, but now it’s 3-4 seconds for me, which is totally useless. I mostly used Entangle with my build, but there were times when RaO was preferred, but no longer.

Update seems quite disappointing for condi Rangers, other than a couple of cool features for pets F2s , from what I can tell so far.

Fluffball.8307:

slingblade.1437:

I tested it about an hour ago and it seemed to be working for me. I was in PVE.

I didn’t see anything in PvE. Were you getting heals from regen, food, or SotW maybe?

Actually, I was confusing Natural Healing with SotW. My mistake.

I tested it about an hour ago and it seemed to be working for me. I was in PVE.

Pimsley.3681:

Rangers In General Seem…Friendlier and more helpful to other rangers…

Misery loves company

“The greatest revamped upgrade in the history of MMO weaponry!”
“Never lose a fight again.”

https://youtu.be/bxb46Bd5OoU

Go in with a thick skin, and be eager to learn. As Dal said, join voice comms and spend lot of time just listening. Realize that different people have different expectations and goals and that never will everybody be on the same page, but much can be accomplished and enjoyed when people do work together.

IMO 1-hour is too short a time, but the timer is indeed necessary for the reason Chaba stated above. Also, there’s a local siege cap as well as the map-wide one, so sometimes you have to let poorly placed siege time out so you can build properly placed siege.

If you plan on doing WvW, I actually suggest Norn, as the racial skills Become the Snow Leopard: Prowl > Dash are useful at times. For example, they make it very easy to get into a tower/keep that’s under attack at the gate, right through the enemy zerg. Combined with a longbow, you’ve got 8 seconds of stealth.

I don’t have a yes or no answer, but I will say that as I understand it, vulnerability seems like a powerful condition by it’s very nature because it applies to all incoming damage, be it from other players, siege, NPCs, maybe even falling, etc. If you apply bleeds, there’s a finite amount of damage your target will take from your bleeds, but with vuln., the amount of damage a target will take until dead is only limited by the number of sources of damage.

Runes of Altruism also work well with this kind of build.

Natronix.9827:

Not after that hostile “hello” he had on his thread on his “home server”

Yeah, there were some pretty harsh responses, which I don’t condone, but those people feel like a commitment was made in the past, then abandoned, mostly for gold. I’m pretty sure there was more to the story than that, but I can see where that would upset people.

I think there’s some language issues making polite discussion both in the past and now, more difficult. Who knows though, maybe there’s a way everyone can be happy, in the end. We’ll see.

I’ve run with Jay a couple of times when he’s been “pugmanding” and was really impressed with his commanding skills. Lots of clear, concise instructions and a good attitude. Additionally, I really appreciate that DE is going to prioritize defense of our home BL.

Thumbs up!

Do I understand correctly, that with only 60 supply and 4 mesmers a 40-man zerg can go from outside a fully fortified, fully sieged keep, to being on the lord in under a minute?

The predictions/calculations which indicated SBI could ultimately place higher in the final ranking by intentionally playing for 2nd in round 8 were done several days ago, before FA unexpectedly dropped a tier and changed the possible outcomes. So yes, at least before FA dropped a tier, SBI had a better chance at a higher final ranking by intentionally “losing” week 8 in order to draw an easier matchup in the final week, instead of an extremely tough one. At least that’s my recollection of what the number crunchers said. (I’m too lazy to do the math, and prefer to just play to win.)

Belzebu.3912:

Also in WvW Snow Leopard stealth can be fun sometimes to escape from a bad situation.

Also handy for getting into keeps/towers with a lot of attackers at the gate. (Stealth + 1600 unit Dash)

After a slow start in our current matchup due to a touch of “league fatigue,” SBI has shown its true colors once again and fought back. Night before last was one of the most uplifting, fun times I’ve had in WvW in quite awhile. Defending our BL with ferocity and taking out a fiercely defended enemy WP, dominating in EB and leading PPT for several hours when a lot of servers would have given up, has once again confirmed for me SBI can weather most any storm. We may get knocked down every once in awhile, but we always get back up, and back into the fight.

We’re still looking for like-minded guilds and individuals. If you value tenacity, personal responsibility, teamwork, and you don’t let the down times bring you down for long, SBI just might be the home you’ve been looking for.

(bonus image – our own private Oracle, Commander Bannok’s wise and beautiful grandmother, gives counsel to Fashionista Yuna, Priestess of Cthulhu, rightful heir to FAMEs riches)

Shortbow is too stronk, just like Bearbow!

Offair.2563:

Siege timers used to be 15min, now its 1 hour and to me its no biggy to spent 1 min to refresh all siege in 1 keep. If you have a couple of mindlikes no siege will despawn on your border.

I don’t recall them ever being any less than 30 minutes, and those timers didn’t actually work all the time. I know many times I saw siege last for 12+ hours that I’m certain was not being refreshed every 30 minutes. So, even if nobody remembered to refresh siege in a keep, at least some of it would still be around, in my experience.

As far as 1 minute to refresh a keep, that sounds like a poorly sieged Keep, with a WP. Straegen has pointed out above the realities of life for many/most of those who care enough to see that siege is refreshed in all important assets.

[quote=4006367;Offair.2563:]

Phlogus.2371:

8.) Siege decays rapidly.
It decays slower now and there is a tool to manage the refreshing of siege if you are conscientious enough to use it.

What is this tool you speak of? I saw someone else mention what sounded like an interactive tool to help keep track of siege timers, but I have not found one yet.

Defense does work, but it also takes WORK.

I still want a chimpanzee that throws its poop and eats peoples faces and privates, just like in real life.

Regarding linking siege timers to a mastery line, that would mean you will inevitably have siege with 1-hour timers sitting right next to siege with 2, 3 or 4-hour timers, which still means you need make the rounds every 30-45 minutes. Every piece of siege needs the same timer so that when you refresh a tower or keep, you know it’s ALL taken care of for a set period of time, and that time needs to be 2-3 hours. No need to come up with a complex solution to a simple problem.

Ninjapotpie.6973:

I would say make it so you spend WvW points to extend timer. Make it like the plus 5 supply. 300 points would make siege last say 6 hours even.

I take it you mean the person who built the siege would have their mastery points apply to the siege’s decay timer, which I would not like at all, sorry.

In my experience, the people who are best/most reliable at building and refreshing defensive siege are the ones with the least amount of WXP points to spend simply because they spend a good chunk of their time doing things there is little or no reward for. WXP rewards zerging above all else, and those who zerg the most, on average, know the least about siege placement and care the least to build it or keep it refreshed.

The obvious solution or attempt at a solution would indeed be for Anet to just extend the friggin timers to 2 or 3 hours already. One-hour despawn timers create a ridiculously burdensome chore that inevitably gets pawned off onto that small minority of conscientious players.

Furthermore, a one-hour timer is actually a 30-45 minute timer because if you don’t start moving to refresh when you have 15-30 minutes left, there will be times when you get tied up in other pressing matters (or actually fighting and having fun) which you’ll either have to abandon, or let critical siege somewhere despawn. The current timers have pretty much created a slave-class who spend too much of their time doing things out of a sense of duty, instead of the pursuit of fun, and one day most every last one of them will get fed up with it. Anet needs to show some awareness that these people are paying customers, too, and not just a bunch of donkeys, happy top pull that plow, day after day.

It’s true. Ranger pets are two strong. They have Godly AE (Aretafishal Entellagance) which makes it impossible to avoid all the hurty things.

VEX is a welcome sight on SBI BL. They don’t mind playing on the home field, doing stuff for the good of the server, and communicating their movements over map chat, which is incredibly helpful to those of us not in theirTS and makes us much more efficient overall. Thumbs up.

I think on SBI what makes us good is the resiliency of our community. We’re certainly not perfect nor immune to the ebb and flow that goes with never-ending competition, but we have a lot of good, hard working players who don’t panic and don’t give up when the going gets tough, as evidenced by our weathering of the last so-called mass exodus. We shrugged it off and kept on fighting, bypassing the expected plummet in our ranking and holding firm.

I don’t have a specific build to recommend, but will suggest that with the vitality stats on the armor, and Melandru runes, you should look at using consumables that reduce condi duration as well. With a large health pool and conditions falling off relatively quickly, you might be able to get away without as much condi removal as Rangers normally have to include in their traits/utilities. Honestly though, I’d never try to build around an armor set based on it’s appearance. I’d rather be alive, and getting kills, and capping stuff while looking only so-so, than dead/ineffective, but looking great ;-)

Build (including ideal armor stats) > Looks, IMO

Andrew Clear.1750:

Come on SBI…represent your commanders.

I have my favorites, but I don’t really wanna sing the praises of some while ignoring others. Fact is, I appreciate the vast majority of the SBI commanders.

NINJAWARRIOR.2376:

And some server use 1000 acs on a keep so golems die fast because of acs also.

A siege-capped gate (5 pieces of siege in a 1000-unit radius) is much easier to counter than even 5 smartly used Omegas, unless you have a blob big enough to go engage and destroy them outside the gate.

Golems need no buffs whatsoever. If anything they need nerfs or limits to the number allowed at one location.

DeadlySynz.3471:

Im fine with it as long as they remove the arrowcart’s poison arrows and replace them with a siege busting arrows (250% extra damage to all forms of siege)

I’m a siege builder/defender and even I think this would be too op. Maybe if it only applied to golems it would be fair, but not to rams/catas, too.

Golems don’t need any buffs, as they are already too powerful, particularly Omegas.

In addition to the server you’re on (huge factor), the map you play on, the time of day you play, and even area of the map can make a big difference for success as a roamer/seeker of small fights. I’m in NA Silver and lots of times our home BL is mostly small fights, other than during reset and evenings. I rarely zerg, as I’m mostly into defensive preparation, supply management, and keeping the home BL under control.

Again, speaking from the NA Silver perspective, the farther south you go on your home BL, the more likely you are to run into multiple enemies, though I believe it’s pretty common for people who want 1v1s to go to the windmill south of the southernmost supply camp. You’re generally less likely to get run over by a zerg on the northern half of your own BL, but you’ll also probably see more thieves solo roaming than anything else up there, in my experience. You’ll probably also see more roamers on the NE area of the map, compared to the NW area, since the NW area offers little cover.

You can also try enemy BLs, especially the BL of the weakest enemy in the matchup (if that’s not your server). If you already see some camps and a tower or two on the map your server’s color, then you can either try to run with whoever is there, or work an opposite area of the map. If the existing group triggers swords on a camp or tower, you can then attack a different camp in hopes of both taking the camp and also pulling anyone who didn’t respond to defend the other camp your direction (if you are looking for fights). Be advised that you’d better be able to take the camp quickly, or you’ll be dealing with both the camp NPC’s and enemies at the same time.

As far as defending goes, yeah, it’s often tough, but some structures are easier to defend than others, and when they are upgraded, well supplied, and have had someone who know’s what they are doing siege them up they can be very difficult to take, even by much greater numbers. Give me 30 minutes in a fully upgraded Garrison with 1700 supply and I can make that thing almost impossible to take by all but the most determined of zergs, as long as I have people manning the siege and hitting the right targets/areas at the right times. Of course, a large force attacking a small force holed up in a keep always has the advantage, but a lot of times they don’t have the knowledge or determination to progress through their options. They’ll usually try one or two things then leave, at least for awhile, either due to lack of supply, or acceptance of failure.

Prysin.8542:

i found sigil of ice + sigil of frailty to be very nice in conjunction with a shortbow… especially if running BM bunker as it helps and “increases” pet damage.

This is exactly what I’m doing. I’m running the “Guard” spam build, so my cats (Snow Leopard + Lynx) are stealthed most of the time. My theory is that Frailty is not only BM friendly, but also group friendly, since it improves damage (via Vulnerability) from all sources. I might try Snow Leopard + Owl for another chill but the cats really seem to be hitting/sticking to targets and responding when I press F2, which some pets still don’t seem to do well. The birds drive me crazy the way they still fiddle-fart around so much between attacks, even when I press F2, and they don’t re-apply vulnerability as often as the cats do, but I need to test more with them, because I know when they do hit, it’s hard.

I’d recently been thinking along the same lines – that we should be able to put pets into a mode where they don’t take damage, and they don’t deal damage, or to choose some pets that only radiate boons, and some that radiate CCs.

I like the OH axe and the pull, but not the fact that you have to stand still while using Whirling Defense. Might be nice with a Sigil of Frailty for stacking Vulnerability, though.

Kill Momma.6127:

For the Points per Tick idea, why not make keeps start off giving low number of points and the longer you control it the more points it accumulates. That would prevent the LETS CAP EVERYTHING AND THEN LEAVE IT TO DIE! I started enjoying playing defense on my side of the map instead of zerging….

This is an interesting idea.

Logged in on 4/17 to find 3 dailies complete which I didn’t think I should have, but also I should have had 2 or 3 monthlies complete, but now only have 1.

Rangers are also reporting their pets no longer holding aggro, which leads me to suspect the possibility of a toughness bug.

Might be a good idea to check your pet’s toughness in the pet panel when you notice unusual squishiness/lack of aggro and report here any unusual numbers.

^^^^ Just a shot in the dark, but don’t PVE creatures tend to focus on enemies based at least in part on toughness? Maybe pets’ toughness is now bugged in some scenarios, which might explain both them not holding aggro, and being more squishy.