Guild Wars 2

I like pets that grant fields. In a WvW zerg you are guaranteed to get some finishers and the field will never go to waste.

I like it. I run a “Harasser” ranger that is similar in concept but executed differently. I run short bow about 80 percent of the time, carry sword/torch offhand for the evades, burns and fire field. I trait for short bow cooldown since I use it so much. I use all survival skills on utility/elite and also use Troll Unguent.

One aspect of Charr society that is not brought up much in the lore is life expectancy. The average Charr may not live long enough to experience PTSD. It also seems (here in America) that PTSD is only brought up when soldiers come home and have to adjust to a non-combat life. The Charr society has a plan for these people (ranchers, farmers, loggers, maybe even a pension lol) that seems to help.

Fluffball.8307:

that baby stealing dingo.7216:

And please, don’t tell me to “play how I want” while simultaneously disparaging my style of play.

If you’re in a play how you want group, I have no problems what so ever with you using a longbow and having a full sentinels warrior up front tanking. Have at it, hoss.

On the other hand, anyone from the above group is completely incompatible with the meta. More and more I’m kicking bearbows on sight just because I know they are going to be responsible for the run not going smoothly. I only hate ranged PvE rangers because they make my play experience absolutely miserable. If you want to rag about the berserker melee mesmer being dead all the time in your holy trinity group, that’s totally legit as well. The two play styles are not compatible.

Fair enough Fluff, thanks for the spirited debate and glory to your warband.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

thomasgjkgwdn.4760:

Fluffball.8307:

Being at range is just forcing someone else to take or dodge your hits for you, and on top of that your’re forcing them to do it longer because you do bad damage. You’re making it harder for everyone else.

this notion is actually rather absurd when you think about it. it’s not like all attacks come packaged in fives!… some professions have great personal defenses, others not. some professions can throw group defense around, others not. it’s not automatically harder just because some of the party aren’t at close range.

If you’re standing at 1500 range with a longbow, the boss isn’t likely to be targeting you. That means other people are taking attacks that would otherwise have been directed at you.

Alternatively, if you’re standing at 1500 range with a longbow and everyone else is in melee and the boss goes for you, you’re rendering literally everything the rest of the party is doing meaningless by pulling the boss out of melee and AOE range. 99% of the time when a melee group wipes it is because someone moved out of melee range and the boss disengaged and ran out all of the CCs and started downing people.

This makes zero sense.

So when the ranged players draw aggro, the melee players suffer? First of all, any boss worth a fart is immune to CC, second of all, anything that draws aggro off the melee players is a good thing.

Scoobaniec.9561:

Rifle is useless in current state.

Signed
Retired charr from blood legion that crafted predator.

Your commentary is from the meta, I assume. Which means little to the other 90% of the players who are not playing meta.

Fluffball.8307:

Being at range is just forcing someone else to take or dodge your hits for you, and on top of that your’re forcing them to do it longer because you do bad damage. You’re making it harder for everyone else.

That’s really all that needs to be said. Play how you want, but don’t moan when you get kicked.

If you’re tired of dodging and taking hits, maybe you should play a ranged character. We’re not forcing you to do anything. With respect to the fight taking longer, I wasn’t aware that playing MMOs was an efficient use of time to being with. With respect to being kicked, I would not moan if you did. There are many others to play with. And please, don’t tell me to “play how I want” while simultaneously disparaging my style of play.

I honestly think that the new trait unlocks are Anet’s way to manage the economy (i.e., deal with inflation). My new necro was also surprised to find that the first trait he wanted to unlock was a dungeon some 5-10 levels higher than he was. It comes down to Anet wanting to control the economy, I think.

While I like the idea of questing to unlock traits, I am definitely not happy with how it has been implemented. Those of us who are not particularly good at making money are paying for the sins of those who are, which is kind of how the real world works

Since the beginning of time (think AD&D rules, my old friends), the trade off between ranged and melee has been clear: ranged characters enjoy more safety while melee characters enjoy more damage. What I don’t get is the idea that DPS is the only thing that matters, ergo ranged characters are always inferior to melee players. In every big battle I’ve played in this game there have been multiple “high DPS melee players” in a downed state throwing rocks. There were also lots of ranged characters who continued to safely rain down damage from a distance while the melee guys threw rocks and waited for someone to rez them. Play the way you like, and don’t disparage anyone else’s ideas because it is a game.

Kill Shot is easy to land in WvW in the big group fights, and can be specced to do a terrifying amount of damage. Just don’t try to solo roam with it. Rifle is also great in general PvE against tough champs/bosses (fractals/dungeons probably not, but that’s an entire different discussion). Long bow gets the nod, yes, but for most uses I don’t see a big difference between the two. Knockback on #5 is also nice because no ranged character can avoid melee at times, plus it cleaves. Rifle is a perfect fit for Charr players, given the lore and the look, which I also consider an advantage since Charr is what I play.

perko.8309:

What’s the attraction of the sword in a condi build? Axe/Torch/Dagger are all pretty obviously condi friendly, but sword doesn’t have as much to offer.

Torch 5+Sword 2 gives the party fire armor 100% of the time. I also like the evades, and there is poison on sword 3, not to mention free might on your pet (auto attack chain #3) which also boosts pet condition damage.

With my build I spend 80% of my time in shortbow, and just use sword/torch when I’m out of vigor and need a few seconds for my shortbow skills to recharge.

EDIT: The fire shield always procs on me, not sure if it is also granted to nearby party members.

^^Black Citadel yes.
I also like to attend Meatoberfest in the Diessa Plateau, Village of Butcher’s Block. With the new megaservers, there is no reason why this can’t become the premier place for Charr players to gather. From this village you can also easily run over to the Wayfarer Foothills to punch a Norn or check on The Frozen Maw.

Azreell.1568:

If you are looking for a ranged option or class in GW2 – you need to find a new game.

GW2 is a melee based game with ranged “options” .

Keep in mind those options are generally looked down upon and not very useful.

No. Ranged options are looked down upon only by a specific subset of the community, not “generally.”

Tragic Positive.9356:

Exactly what the topic says.

What Rangers offer that other classes don’t? Besides Spirits that are unreliable and Spotter?

What Rangers excel at? It’s not the Ranged damage, it’s not the melee damage, it’s not the burst damage nor DPS… Not the healing, neither support power.

Am I missing something?

What do you play? PvP, WvW, PvE, Fractals/Dungeons? Me and my friends have had plenty of success (and fun) playing rangers.

Both of the Belly warband:

Nomz Furnacebelly: Fat, food-loving Engineer with bomb kit

Vilius Leatherbelly: Skinny, larcenous Ranger with shortbow

Shaorune.2347:

pink charr mob lookin fabulous

OMW.

Gizmo.9178:

Weindrasi.3805:

Photobombed! -MESSAGE LENGTH HURP-

Photobombing in orr is out of control!

+1K

When I finally woke up, some joker had written “Vegetarian” on my forehead with a marker:

Tarreth.8914:

What role could have a warrior in the Iron Legion?

I am Blood Legion frontier, yet I wonder, how does a warrior serve in the Iron Legion, in our turning gear of progress?

His melee combat skills do not quite fit it, yet as a rifleman he is just perfect. Tho, it’s obvious, that cutting warrior’s posibilities just to rifle is bad.

How would a warrior serve there?

The thing to keep in mind is that every Charr is a warrior at the end of the day, owing to how their society is structured. So anyone from a thief to a mesmer could also be Iron Legion. It’s easier for me, from an RP standpoint, if my Iron Legion characters also craft something metal (ie, weaponsmith, huntsman, jeweller).

Raggzie.8721:

I like all your names :p 10/10 to everyones creativity!

I have two charrs: A Warrior and an Elementalist. The warrior is tall and fat, while the Elementalist is sleek!

The Warrior’s name is Charrcolate Chips. He is dark brown and looks like.. Charrcolate!
The Elementalist’s name is Prînce Charrming. He has blonde hair and blue eyes and is absolutely charrming… for a Charr.

I just love Charr pun names!

Sword of Damofleas?

Torvarren.6295:

MeanPi.6025:

Milled over this question for a few days mainly because I grew up with recurring minor carpal tunnel in the left wrist. I always fought though it even with a brace. In my 40s now. End result the carpal is gone now for about a decade but my left thumb has been permanatly numbed due to nerve damage, my left index and middle finger took 3 years returning from numb to normal. Turns all out that’s really annoying even though I’m right handed.

You, Torvarren, have 15x(ish) worse then what I had and I’m damaged for life. You can lose feeling and mobility in your entire left arm, and that would not be fun. I just have a useless thumb to watch out for and not everything attached to it.

Maybe look into Voice command software, see if that could work. If not read a book and rest, the ‘Otherworld’ series by Tad Williams is quite interesting.

I thank you much for your input. Nice to hear from someone that had something similar. It has taken 6 months to get my doctor to order tests for my hand. Refraining from arm use seems the best option at this time.
Again, thanks for your input.

I’ve been through this, although my pain did not get as bad as your sounds. For what it’s worth, here’s what worked for me:

1. If you use a mouse at work, immediately switch hands. It took me a few weeks of getting used to it, now I’m pretty good with it (not gaming good, but work good).
2. Buy a wrist brace at your local drug store and wear it at work, around the house. This is not a forever thing, but I wore mine quite a bit for a few months.
3. No computer gaming at all for a period of time; basically until the pain has gone away and your wrist is healed. I continued gaming on my console (PS3) and that did not cause me pain. Only the mouse/keyboard caused me pain.

My carpal tunnel is cured and I went back to computer gaming a long time ago.

Again, I’m not doctor, this is just what worked for me. It’s been my experience that doctors don’t have much to offer when it comes to chronic pain like this; sometimes experimenting on your own is the only way to figure it out.

But yeah, in the short term at least you need to stop or see if 360/PS3 controllers are pain-free for you.

Good luck.

Zenguy.6421:

What do you recommend for PvE melee with a Ranger?

I’m levelling a Ranger (level 40 atm) and because I naturally tend to ranged characters (and ranged rather than melee games) it’s very tempting to just stick with bows. But I know this is missing out on a huge part of both the Ranger and GW2 in general. I’ve been trying the Ranger’s melee weapons but so far haven’t got a feel for them.

What are the different Ranger’s melee weapons best for?
And what sorts combinations work well with the different Ranger melee skills?

I have a friend who runs an 80 Ranger with greatsword and longbow. There is some surprisingly nice synergy between the two weapons that makes for a tanky, up close ranger. Longbow gives you stealth and knockback, while greatsword gives you free evades, gap closer, parry and daze. Anyway, I don’t have his complete build and I’m not a number cruncher but he has a blast with it and you can certainly spend most of your time in melee with it. He runs with burst damage birdies to keep his DPS up.

I’ve been running shortbow/sword+torch with all Devourers for pets. Always flank and take all Survival skills, including the elite. Traits are 0/4/6/0/4. The rest you can imagine. Tons of bleed and poison with stunbreaks and mobility. Great harassing build.

Edseo.7583:

I just started playing with my friend and created a ranger. It’s level 10 now, but lurking around the forums I seem to view a lot of displeasure about the Ranger class, particularly about it being poor in the end game.

Should I continue to play it or do I realize and re-roll? Advice from other rangers please?

Ranger is a solid class. Truth is everyone complains about their class, but most classes are strong. Pick your pet, pick your strategy, and pick your RP idea if you want one. Then Ranger on.

If you’re new to the game, my advice is to start a thief, and level it to 20 or so. Every class you play after thief will feel strong. Also, don’t take the forums too seriously. A lot of level 80 meta players that scorn everything that isn’t a level 80 meta posting here.

Skills that grant quickness normally come with a penalty, as if quickness were an uber-power that grants you god-like power. Certain traits that grant quickness without any penalty seem like they are worth it, but I have yet to find a utility skill that is worth it. Does anybody roll with a quickness skill?

I turn 40 this year and have been gaming since Pong. I think older players have a lot to contribute to MMOs and other multiplayer games; namely maturity and perspective. We are the “crafty left-handers” of gaming. I agree that GW2 is a great game and while I have complaints, they are minor. Gaming is a pastime now, not an oddity, and there are some great communities to be a part of. Game on sir.

Loosmaster.8263:

that baby stealing dingo.7216:

If I may restate my original post more succinctly: I can enter WvW at level 2, but see no good reason to do so.

Go with the meta and zerg in EoTM.

Loosmaster with all due respect, to heck with the meta and to heck with zergs. I expect a little bit more from GW2. However I will try EoTM.

Victory.2879:

Go EoTM and join the upscaled lvling karma train there. This is little to be gained from going on the main wvw maps as an upscaled- less loot, more deaths.

Thanks, I will try this next.

If I may restate my original post more succinctly: I can enter WvW at level 2, but see no good reason to do so.

I spend 98% of my time in PvE content, but was getting itchy for something new so I decided to try WvW again.
After the latest changes to PvE (mostly good changes, thank you Anet), my toon is not really useful for anything in WvW until level 30 (or higher?). The first trait is now not unlocked until level 30, all the materials in WvW maps are waay too high for a low level character to harvest, purchasing things like blueprints, pots of oil etc. really dips into my cash/karma. Simply running into 2 angry animals by myself is a headache, much less 2 enemy players.
I’m the kind of player that starts a new character when I hit 80. I know that for some people, hitting 80 is just the beginning. But it seems like Anet could take a look at making WvW more inviting/rewarding for low level characters.

wolvenra.9617:

Flissy.4093:

Aidan Savage.2078:

The main reason people champ train in Weeniedale is not because it’s a starting area, not because it drops t6 resources, not because it drops 5s a champ bag, but because it’s fast. 4 champs in 10 minutes. It’s hard to beat that sort of speed and still be efficient.

SE Path 1, 5 champs in about 5 minutes. Over twice as effective as any train there is.

Not everyone wants to go through the hassle of finding a dungeon group.

Personally, I love the train.
I can jump on whenever I want for however long I want.
I can go afk whenever I need to without slowing anyone else down.
I can often find banners up at Boar…even if I’m off to do some exploring, I’ll stop by Boar first to grab some buffs.

The train is fine. Leave it alone.

I’m with Wolvenra on this. I can jump in for dailies or monthlies, which is about what I use it for. Banners are cool. Basically a bunch of random people are having fun playing the game; is this not the point? I’m not saying the game should be be full of trains, but surely one or two in the entire world do not ruin gameplay for everyone.

The real question(s) is: Why is this train so darn popular? What can Anet do to make the rest of the game this popular?

I have not crunched the numbers myself, but the consensus opinion seems to be that investing in healing power as a trait line is a joke. That’s the only thing I’d like to see addressed: if somebody really invests in healing power, make it worth their while some how.

I tried Teq once as part of pug, we failed miserably, and I’m happy to farm other bosses instead. Is the loot drop even that good?

Sartharina.3542:

7/10 Silly, follows convention, but exists outside of lore in its reference… and which is his Warband name? Smurf?

Mine is Ryder Sparklepuff, most fabulous Guardian in the Blood Legion! The Sparkle legion will stay strong and sparkle on in the face of total bogus and straight squareness!

Haha, I’d give “Ryder Sparkelpuff” a 7/10 because I like humorous names that use the Charr warband naming convention for last names. And surely only a Charr guardian could be fabulous (well, maybe a Sylvari could be fabulous too). At the risk of having my post incinerated by the moderators, however, it does sound like the stage name of an adult film star.

My Engineer is Nomz Furnacebelly, of the “Belly” warband. He is orange and fat, like my housecat.

The Charr believe in self-sacrifice for the greater good, which I find appealing. They are the ultimate team-players, as a race. Whereas the Norn seek personal glory, the Charr seek glory for their warband and their legion.

Their animations are great. Like the way they hold staves and of course the all-fours running.

They are also full of bluster, and have a sense of humor (unlike the cabbage elves, who are admittedly my second favorite race).

You can play a Charr, or you can be among the weak and hairless.

I’ll go try again, and verify my charges first.

Thanks – I wonder if I’m out of transmutation charges and that’s why I don’t see the option to re-apply the skin to my new armor.

So I unlocked the armorer for my guild, and purchased some guild light armor for my level 28 necro. Looks cool enough having my guild symbol on my back and chest. However do I need to buy another set of guild armor (at a full gold piece per) every time I want to apply this look to my armor? After “using” my first set of guild armor, there does not appear to be any new skin I can freely apply to other sets of armor.

In other words, is it not worth purchasing guild armor until you get the end game level 80 armor that you are going to keep for a long time?

Siphoned Power is awful as a Grandmaster trait. It’s a minor at best and even then I’d long for something else. I agree with the OP; the entire trait line is a head-scratcher.

I am glad that they finally reworked the Death Magic tree, however.

Krude.7495:

I love spectral grasp, it pulls off people attempting to rez (in PvP), and off points if capping. It’s chill is ALWAYS useful as well. Its great with the dagger immobilize and then Flesh Golem’s charge (or well of suffering) .

Spectral grasp is the only spectral move on my bar however, I just made this new build (theory crafted) and my win rate is like 75-80%. I’ve gone into 1v1’s that turned into 2v1’s and still won (if the timing is right).

I run d/f + a/d so it always pulls em into my range, and the chill is just great!

I agree that the chill is always useful, even if it does not always successfully pull the target. Once traited, the chill lasts a long, long time assuming no cleanse. In general it seems like there are not many pull skills in the game (thief Scorpion Wire/Get over here! is the only other one I am aware of) and while SG is kind of a funky skill, it can really catch people off guard.

My only advice is to stick with Charr (the other races are weak and hairless), try utility skills from every type (there are plenty of skill points to be had if you travel between the different starting areas), and unlock every weapon skill to see which ones you like.
And glory to your warband.

I started a spectral mancer and the success rate on SG feels like maybe 60 percent. When I say “success” I mean it pulls the target all the way to you and they drop at your feet like a sack of soft wood logs. Other times it just knocks them down, or drags them a random distance toward me. This is in standard PvE. Anyone else used this as one of their main utility skills? How about using it in WvW and PvP? One idea I had for WvW was to lay down all staff marks on my location, then lay Spectral Wall on top of that, and see if I could drag a player to me so they hit everything (I’ll be traited with Terror as well, so SW will damage).

Death Scythe.9738:

I really want show my respect for players who still playing thieves on this games after so many nerfs. I almost delete my level 80 thief and then one of my friends told me that i should give him a chance. I did and I love it but is insane is like play the game in super hard mode out there, the actual meta is really tough for thieves , and after CritD damage got nerf is even worse, maybe i just started to play thief and I have poorly level of experience. When I started to play GW2 thieves was the premium class to play pvp, everybody complained about how OP thieves was, now people treat thieves like free kills. This is ridiculous. Respect for you guys , keep pushing

+1. After running necros, warriors and engineers for a year, I decided to roll up a thief. Thief = Hard Mode and I respect thief mains. Good news is playing my regular classes feels a lot easier by comparison.

Same problem here: Had no access to the BLTP for over a week, then spent an afternoon trying to fix it with their suggested work-around, finally got it work intermittently for a few days, now back to the spinning golden wheel of doom. The fact that this problem has been allowed to go on for so long for us Mac users kind of validates my decision to never spend a single dollar of real money at their gem store.

To OP: If you are burnt out on front line necros, try standing back with a staff. If you go 20/0/20/0/20 you will have a fully traited staff O’mancer with 10 trait points left over (sorry for the old numbers, I’m still adjusting to the new trait system). Huge unblockable marks that bleed, chill, poison, send conditions, and you will be granting 100% uptime regen on the front line fighters with staff 2. Going with signet mastery and all signets give you good support ability (Signet of undeath, Plague signet) and you will also be laying down quality AoE damage. It’s a lot of fun, if not the most powerful build. Keep in mind the Greater Marks trait also buffs your Lich marks.

Einlanzer.1627:

I

The set is flat-out garbage at the baseline, and becomes only barely mediocre when traited for Ricochet. It’s unreal to me that they’ve gone 1.5 years without giving Vital Shot a buff it very obviously needs.

Truth. It doesn’t help that most of the Thief’s utility skills appear to be garbage, but I don’t want to get terribly off-topic. I’ll just say that, as a player who mostly runs necros and engineers, I will never, ever complain again about my main classes again after playing PP thief. I started a PP/no stealth thief looking for a fun challenge, and instead encountered “GW2 Not Worth It Legendary Difficulty.”

I recently started a P/P non-stealth thief and have leveled to only 20 so far. This is easily the worst build I’ve ever played on any class. Borderline unplayable. Running with two signets and potion/food buffs and the damage output is still pathetic. Takes two rounds of unload to kill one trash enemy at my level, and then I’m nearly out of initiative. Pretty clear that not one person at Anet has ever played a P/P thief for even 5 minutes.

What: Tripwire trap
Why: If you accidentally walk into it, it knocks you down! Then I have to kill the thief while laying on my back.
Suggestion: Make it so I can carefully step over tripwire like in movies, and not have to go around it.

Thanks all, I think I get it now

Gwalchgwn.1659:

Blackpowder: Put a blinding field on your position and shoot a projectile finisher to the enemy.

Blinding field stays for 4 sec while the projectile finisher will hit 1 target at max 900 range who will be blinded. I don’t really get the question? The projectile finisher on it’s own won’t be blinding but since the skill is automatically combo’d with the blinding field it does blind. So you have a blind on your position for 4 sec and a blinding projectile that hits an opponent on distance + do damage.

I thought the smoke field+projectile finisher created an AoE blindness centered on your character. This is exactly what the skill itself does before any combos, hence my confusion. What you tell me is that the smoke field+projectile finisher does not lay down blind at my location but instead blinds whoever my target is, up to 900 units away. If true, that answers my question. I guess I was confused as to what a smoke field+projectile finisher actually did.

Of course, if the enemy that you are firing upon is already at close range, then the combo does still seem redundant because the AoE blindness from the skill itself will get him anyway.