Guild Wars 2

blitzkrieg.2451:

warriorjrd.8695:

blitzkrieg.2451:

Why not just roll a celestial shout heal warrior? More hps, more support, much more aoe heal, more dps, more tank, res banner, more support overall.

You don’t play warrior very much do you? This build and any variation of it would absolutely demolish any shout heal warrior in spvp or wvw. This is not up for debate as I play both classes and both builds and laugh in the face of a warrior that challenges my BM regen ranger.

I play warrior quite a bit, and BM regen ranger is a selfish build. It’s meant only for 1on1s. I’m referring to team support which is what the OP was talking about. What team support do you provide as a BM regen ranger again? If you want to duel people, go to the dueling arena, BM has no place in tPvP anymore.

You realize that every shout is AOE regen and swiftness, not just on yourself. And with the kind of healing power a BM regen ranger would use, it would heal more per shout than a shout heal warrior, just not an instant heal. BM regen rangers are meant to bunker down and hold either far or home point. It’s supposed to be a 1v1 or 1v2 build.

I’m going to use some of your logic. Staff ele clearly has the most support, therefore shout heal warriors are useless and/or selfish builds.

blitzkrieg.2451:

Why not just roll a celestial shout heal warrior? More hps, more support, much more aoe heal, more dps, more tank, res banner, more support overall.

You don’t play warrior very much do you? This build and any variation of it would absolutely demolish any shout heal warrior in spvp or wvw. This is not up for debate as I play both classes and both builds and laugh in the face of a warrior that challenges my BM regen ranger.

I guess if you spent money on them, I was under the impression it was an spvp build because that’s what you linked =p. Dolyak runes are good, but for future reference I would say that the 6th slot (regen) isn’t worth the price simply because it doesn’t heal that much. With your perma regen and SoW you have enough regen as it is, and when I run my BM version of this build, conditions are it’s bane.

Even without soldier runes it’s still a really solid build, but maybe if you ever got the money consider swapping the runes to reach the max potential.

Nymph of Meliai.6739:

Facet.5914:

The truth is that this topic is far behind the times. Good guilds stopped ppting a long time ago. Present day, not only are they bored of ppt, they are bored of the pug farming and blobbing that constitutes 99% of an organized raid.

The only interesting thing to do in this game is GvG. The level of player support for such an unsupported game mode is a testament to how sophisticated the combat system and current meta really is. It’s a shame that neither this nor any other type of guild-centric activity was ever emphasized by Anet.

GvG is as boring as pvd… 9/10 times it comes down to how many warriors and guardians you have in your party.

The only fun thing in wvw is taking a garrison on a borderland that is defended or defending a garrison against an attack. And on ebg then it is taking an enemy keep or defending your keep. Towers, bay, SM, hills, camps… are merely stepping stones to the real battle. A good battle that lasts hours not minutes and involves everyone calling everyone to help and is even better if the third server joins in too… involves siege, guilds, zergs, blobs, solo roamers – everything the game has to offer…. wave after wave and you are absolutely shattered when it is finally all over. Does not matter if you are defending or attacking… it offers by far the best fights.

That is the only fun thing in the entire game and it has always been the number 1 most fun thing in the game… in the past the epic bay and hills battles were also great but they are not so much these days. Even the epic garrison and keep fights tend to only be once or twice a week.

I guess you haven’t played or watched many GvG’s…

I would swap signet of the hunt for signet of the wild and then use soldier runes instead of dolyak. That way you can handle conditions thrown at you, and still get the regen dolyak provided with SoW.

I use a build very similar to this in spvp, only instead of running 30 in wilderness survival I got into Beastmastery. I do love seeing my underestimated pet hit like a truck.

I would also like to point out that Desolation, not SFR, is ranked 1 EU. I don’t however see anybody saying that Desolation is the most skilled server out there, or that it has the best fighters, or that Deso pugs are the best trained. Surely however, if Deso is in first place, they all have to be the best fighters in the game, because let’s be honest here, coverage has nothing to do with PPT.

KICKER.3874:

I don’t know about the US bads you’re playing with OP but SFR got to nr.1 by having skilled pugs and by winning fights.

Get your facts straight before making useless threads on subjects you don’t know about.

I still don’t how people can confuse “skilled pugs” with superior coverage. Please, SFR gets wiped all the time. The only reason they win is because they can have 80 people online when the other servers have 10.

If you actually look into it a bit more the ranger was initially meant to be two separate classes, not this archer you still cling to. The beast master and the warden/ranger were the two different classes that were merged into one last minute, the result is the current ranger. You will find that regardless of the ranger’s description, rangers excel with melee weapons and conditions, compared to long range power.

I would presume that considering the two classes were merged last minute they also needed a description for the class, which was apparently also made last minute. I suppose you could say that we are unparalleled archers simply because we are the only class with access to both bows. However, as stated previously, we excel with melee and conditions more than ranged DPS, so overall the statement that rangers are indeed the best archers in the game is void, because we aren’t, and we don’t need to be.

Now to actually address your other notes. First and foremost, the longbow isn’t low DPS if you trait right, and is only possibly beaten by warrior LB because warrior LB has access to damaging conditions which add to the over all damage. However talking about straight direct damage, ranger longbow wins that one. Shortbow on the other hand isn’t really meant for the big numbers. It’s more of a hybrid weapon, hence the reason it has access to the conditions and offers more utility than the LB.

You can take advantage of the SB’s speed by taking the Sharpened edges trait which gives you a 66% chance to bleed on crit. Even with moderate condition damage using that combined with poison volley and the bleeds built into the AA itself you can do some nice condi damage. I wouldn’t recommend trying to get ultra high numbers with the shortbow though, like I said it’s a hybrid weapon, not only power.

Now for the pets. Pets used to be borderline useless, but they have come a long way with recent patches. Always make sure you are using the right pet for the right job. Don’t try and get a bear to do some super combo and 1 shot your enemies. I wouldn’t suggest taking a cat to try and soak up some damage either. I would also suggest keeping an eye on your pet’s HP bar (it’s there for a reason) because if your pet dies the CD for swapping increases from 25 seconds to a minute. Ranger’s total damage is shared with the pet, so neglecting it to try and do things quicker, will only slow you down and hurt you more. Learn how to use the pet effectively and you can and will blow through things with ease.

If you came to GW2 looking for an archer, you’re out of luck. You CAN play an archer, but most melee builds will outshine you, that’s simply how the game has been designed. For all classes their melee builds can generally out DPS their ranged builds.

Zenos Osgorma.2936:

if thats the case its a bad ranger that does not notice or fails to check if the target/targets have the Retal boon.
its situational , normaly if i see a Nul field get thrown down by my guildies I let rip with that barrage.

Brb, checking the whole zerg for retal boon. Oh, kitten, I checked that guy twice now, gotta restart.

Kibazuka.1390:

gawker.8340:

Also, i’m referring to the game content where the majority of the GW2 community participates, WvW.

I think you got that one wrong already

Well it sure as hell isn’t spvp, even Anet seems to want that. And PvE numbers seem to dwindling.

Kilger.5490:

Rangers can bring something to a zerg.. Traps are great if traited; not the best 1-1 build with the lack of stun breaks but if youre careful you can contribute. Would be nice if they added a defensive component to trapping…

Only issue with traps is that conditions are very easily cleansed at the moment. Lemongrass poultry, melandru runes, soldier runes. Conditions aren’t so strong in zergs. Traps are however, great for tagging, and those few who don’t have condi cleanse or burned through theirs already will blow up.

the pet /15 chars

Eurantien.4632:

warriorjrd.8695:

Eurantien.4632:

Inscrutable.8347:

But yes, two builds are why Ranger dominated for so long

Glad you agree.

When someone invalidates your argument, edit what they say and make it seem like they are actually agreeing with you! Wow, why hadn’t I thought of that?

I wouldn’t say invalidated. Sure, ranger has decent protection and good weapon evade skills, but these skills do next to no damage (besides some poison) and it is quite easy to just face roll a ranger at the end of a dodge animation. But besides BM and spirit ranger there have been no viable builds (trapper was no longer viable once people learned to dodge roll). BM was heavily countered by dropping any cripple or chill on the pet and just running in circles. Spirits has been heavily countered by 25 might stacks, power creep, and by spirit nerfs.

All the other things that Inscrutable is accounting for that made rangers “good” are still around, and rangers aren’t good. Other classes don’t have these things (besides vigor) yet they are all better off than the ranger. The main reason why, is because their active skills are just more effective than ours.

Ranger: 17 skills.
Warrior: 16 skills
Thief: 16 skills
Mesmer: 19 skills
Necro: 24 skills
Guardian: 19 skills
Ele: 25 skills
Engi: 22-26

The only professions that have similar active skill count to ranger are mesmer, thief, war, guard. But they all have things that make their active skills far more efficient than the rangers. Mesmer: ports, invis, insane damage. Thief: mobility, ports, burst damage. Guardian: Sustain, team support, (not to mention only class able to face tank a warrior 1 v 1 on node and win). Warrior: mobility (perma swiftness), damage immunity, high damage scaling.

Then there are the other classes that just straight up bring WAY more, like an engi or an ele. For example, a ranger brings 3 traps. The engi brings bombs or nades and gets the same active effects of those 3 traps, while only bringing 1 utility slot (plus an extra free 2 active skills). Or a ranger brings healing spring of signet of renewal to condi clear, when an engi can use their heal to insta remove condis or an ele can either use cleansing wave + dodge roll or healing rain to remove the condis for the team while still maintaining an extra 5-9 skills more than the ranger.

I didn’t mention necro, because although they have more active skills than ranger, they aren’t very powerful largely in part, because of lack of mobility (I think least viable professions at the moment are ranger and necro).

Yet, none of these classes have “crazy evades” or the “best protection up time” but they are still way more viable simply because of the effectiveness of their active skills being so much better than the rangers.

So sure, you are entitled to your opinion that pets and spirit of nature weren’t what made ranger strong. But it clearly wasn’t anything else that made ranger strong, because if it was, rangers wouldn’t be having a problem now.

I can assure you trapper is still viable, I run it all the time and it works fine. Especially in spvp where you are already limited to what builds you can run, each class only has a select few builds they can effectively run. Ranger is no different. There are however countless more ranger builds for roaming in wvw in comparison to spvp.

I don’t get it when people say rangers aren’t strong. If you were to say ranger has the most issues with it as a class, then you would be correct. But to say that as a result of the prior, this makes the class ineffective is wrong. Rangers can be just as strong as any other class, they just have to try harder. And that isn’t so much the ranger being weak, but the other classes being raceroll easy. The moment somebody brings up a warrior into the argument saying a warrior can do this therefore ranger isn’t good, I laugh. Warrior is one of the easiest classes to play with a very high reward base. It’s essentially the class for those who don’t want to put in the effort, that’s not to say there aren’t good warriors out there who’ve actually put the time into the class.

In spvp, as a ranger, if you want to go full damage DPS zerker glass etc, you have to sacrifice a lot of defence and utility slots. Other classes don’t have to do this. They can go damage oriented, whether power or condition, and still have plenty of defensive skills available to them. Again, this whole “ranger is weak” is more to do with ranger being more balanced, and other classes being easier to play and more unbalanced.

Eurantien.4632:

Inscrutable.8347:

But yes, two builds are why Ranger dominated for so long

Glad you agree.

When someone invalidates your argument, edit what they say and make it seem like they are actually agreeing with you! Wow, why hadn’t I thought of that?

So you admit to having 1500-1900 toughness and are still confused by the numbers? Buy some armour, it helps.

My god, some of the people arguing in favour or rangers in this thread have made me cringe. Make it sound as if rangers are gods or something.

NinjaEd.3946:

warriorjrd.8695:

DeceiverX.8361:

warriorjrd.8695:

DeceiverX.8361:

Simonoly.4352:

Crossfire is probably one of the best designed skills in the game because you can actively counter-play the condition application through positioning. It’s nowhere near as ridiculous as other condi auto-attack skills like Blood/Rendering/Putrid Curse.

And I thought people whining about backstab was bad (the same thing applies), but now people are complaining about the effectiveness of condi shortbow rangers?…

That said, I will give the OP that rangers are BORING. They play overly-passively and its ranged flavors are far too dependent on their auto-attacks than actually using their skills.

Only difference with backstab is you can’t see your oponent, making proper positioning much harder.

Not really. Stabs are pretty choreographed. You might not be able to physically see your opponent, but you for the most part can tell exactly when it’s coming so you can either dodge, aegis, flip backwards, cc nearby, or whatever it may be to prevent it from happening.

I didn’t say impossible, I said much harder. If you can see your opponent you know which way to face. When a thief goes stealth you know hes going for your back, but don’t know where to put your back. It’s much harder to counter back stab than ranger sb AA.

I just don’t want people getting the wrong idea is all. Your statement was true but just not the full truth. From experience I see these kind of things turn from “X is unbalanced” to “thief op” rather quick. Figure I’d put in some guard rails before it escalates.

Yeah I know some people could take that as me crying about thieves being OP, but what I was trying to say with that is that ranger sb AA is very easy to avoid, in comparison to other skills which require positioning.

DeceiverX.8361:

warriorjrd.8695:

DeceiverX.8361:

Simonoly.4352:

Crossfire is probably one of the best designed skills in the game because you can actively counter-play the condition application through positioning. It’s nowhere near as ridiculous as other condi auto-attack skills like Blood/Rendering/Putrid Curse.

And I thought people whining about backstab was bad (the same thing applies), but now people are complaining about the effectiveness of condi shortbow rangers?…

That said, I will give the OP that rangers are BORING. They play overly-passively and its ranged flavors are far too dependent on their auto-attacks than actually using their skills.

Only difference with backstab is you can’t see your oponent, making proper positioning much harder.

Not really. Stabs are pretty choreographed. You might not be able to physically see your opponent, but you for the most part can tell exactly when it’s coming so you can either dodge, aegis, flip backwards, cc nearby, or whatever it may be to prevent it from happening.

I didn’t say impossible, I said much harder. If you can see your opponent you know which way to face. When a thief goes stealth you know hes going for your back, but don’t know where to put your back. It’s much harder to counter back stab than ranger sb AA.

Positioning is key when you’re an ele. Eles are often targets to anything that likes to focus on squishy backlines. You need to keep moving constantly and don’t get too far from your zerg. Positioning is more important than gear, because if your positioning is bad, it won’t matter if you’re full zerk or PVT.

DeceiverX.8361:

Simonoly.4352:

Crossfire is probably one of the best designed skills in the game because you can actively counter-play the condition application through positioning. It’s nowhere near as ridiculous as other condi auto-attack skills like Blood/Rendering/Putrid Curse.

And I thought people whining about backstab was bad (the same thing applies), but now people are complaining about the effectiveness of condi shortbow rangers?…

That said, I will give the OP that rangers are BORING. They play overly-passively and its ranged flavors are far too dependent on their auto-attacks than actually using their skills.

Only difference with backstab is you can’t see your oponent, making proper positioning much harder.

The bleeds on shortbow AA don’t last for very long and as a result don’t allow for very high stacking, just high uptime. Like ghostwolf said, face towards them and they don’t bleed, which you should be doing in a fight anyways?

PS: never turn your back on a sb ranger, sb is twice as strong when attacking from behind.

Prysin.8542:

Pelopidas.2140:

so having pierce on arrows=ranger aoe ? Trap rangers have more aoe than that. The only good thing is that you can have 1500 range. Also a wall of reflect will negate everything except skill #5. Despite that I recognize it’s is fun to hit some targets with 2-3k in the enemy zerg:)
To enjoy aoe play engi nades or necro staff/wells

and a wall of reflect is only really effective against burst skills, like killshot. Because it does not really matter if you reflect a rangers AA because of this VERY peculiar function of reflected damage (only recently noticed this).

Reflected damage cannot crit if the player performing the reflect does not have high crit chance.
Now, most guards and mesmers run PVT with some zerker or knights mixed in… meaning they achieve the usual ~30% crit chance, so that they can hit reasonably reliably, yet on a reflect, that isnt enough to make it really hurt (tried and tested against p/d thieves using axe offhand while in Cavaliers + knights gear)…

Regardless of how much damage you do to yourself, with a reflect up you can’t damage THEM. So this is why AOE> multi target projectiles, AOE can’t be reflected.

Piercing arrows isn’t AOE, it’s just a multi target hit. AOE is something like traps or barrage, neither of which do good damage ( not talking about condi with traps). Although that being said I guess it’s not really a rangers role to have tons of AOE, that’s what an ele is for =p. Piercing arrows is definitely nice, just don’t confuse AOE with a multi target attack.

I transferred today after reset and it initially said I was locked out so I logged off for a bit, came back on in a different character and tried again and got in.

Play to a rangers strengths. Rangers are good at roaming and conditions are the most effective way to do that. BM or trapper builds are both good builds. If you want to be a front line type of soldier running in the big blobs, then ranger may not be your best bet. It is doable and can be effective, but is generally much harder to do than another class.

MiLkZz.4789:

Reached 75k health on a warrior (no joke, got screenshots), so ye there is no cap. I think the first stack for uplevels gives them all the benefits just because they are upscaled.

Ps.: I used pretty much everything to reach 75k health, not viable build.

I wanna see that screenshot, the highest I can get on a build site is 55k on a warrior.

Prysin.8542:

kiwituatara.6053:

Durzlla.6295:

kiwituatara.6053:

Durzlla.6295:

Just a heads up…. We do outperform other professions on ranged damage, by quite a bit…. 2.5k LB autos against heavy golems in sPvP + w/e damage my pet will do (varies on what I bring) so if I go ALL OUT damage with pet that’ll probably be like 5k or so total just from autoing without popping a thing…

^This is the problem with some ranger weapons (sword, shortbow, longbow). As soon as we do something else besides autoattack, our DPS drops.

Sure you might slide in a few extra things but you’ll still be autoattacking for highest DPS.

Pop signets? Autoattack
Pop spirits? Autoattack
Swap pets? Autoattack
F2? Autoattack

Besides running GS, or condition axe/dagger/torch/sword setup, autoattack is the way to go for rangers if you want to kill anything. I’m not saying rangers are weak, but the way the class works…

To answer your question (@Tragic Positive):
What are rangers for? Autoattacking.
What do ranger excel at? Autoattacking.

It’s because we’re “Kings of Sustain” we deal all our damage over time instead up all frontloaded/backloaded like most other damage specs. And for LB rapid fire isn’t a DPS loss due to the vuln so long as they’re either 1) not at max range, or 2) you’re capable of staying at max range after using the rapid fire (IE they’re not closing the gap on you as you’re using it).

Also, our 3-5 skills are normally to give us more utility, normally in a defensive fashion to help us stay alive and whittle you down. That’s why every single one are defensive, we either have an evade, a cripple, a block, or an interrupt.

There’s nothing wrong with Autoing being our best damage when we need to utilize our other abilities in order to allow us to keep autoing.

I’d love it if Anet gives us some sort of aoe autoattack like guardians staff q_q

but they did, its called GS AA. Don’t believe it? believe it!!

GS AA is nice, but a cleave is nothing like a 600 range 5 man attack.

NeXeD.3042:

Honestly I haven’t developed an ego in guild wars 2 yet and probably wont, most of my experience comes from Ultima Online pvp and maybe ping makes more of a difference there so you may be right. And I don’t know much about the EP guild either or the EU guilds. All I’m saying is making a blanket statement about all of NA with the sample sizes we currently have is crazy. If EU guilds come here and still dominate than I would be dead wrong and if it’s already happened then please excuse my ignorance.

All that is relevant has been bolded.

NeXeD.3042:

Your an extremely special snowflake aren’t you.

I’m merely pointing out how insane the eu ego has to be to just automatically assume they are better at a video game “just because”

I am not claiming to be good, I’m not. I am not claiming to be angry, I’m not. I just enjoy pointing out hilariously stupid beliefs. Keep swinging that hammer big boy =)

How is it EU having a large ego when I state a fact? EP came from NA as the NA kings and lost to atleast 3 of EU’s top guilds, I’m sorry but that’s a fact. Im not mindlessly chest thumping, I’m stating facts. If they hurt your feelings, I really don’t care. Use that anger of yours to go do something productive rather than get fed up over the internet and try and correct people’s grammar.

NeXeD.3042:

Cheesin and whining must be why they are so good at video games.

Yeah, that chair is definitely hurting your butt.

NeXeD.3042:

Oh I see we are supposed to just accept EU players are better for fact without questioning connections they just must all be better just because they are from EU thanks for clearing that up, I wish I had been born in France where the tanks have reverse lights then I could be good at gw2.

French tanks have rear lights? Oh boy, did you come up with that all by yourself? I forgot there was tanks in wvw, must be a new addition i’ve missed recently. By the way, you should invest in a new chair because your butt seems a bit sore.

Idk why everybody is still arguing, I though I summed it up quite nicely. =p

Antares.5234:

I would think it would have something to do with supposed higher pings for NA players playing in EU giving them disadvantage. On the other hand I know quite a few NA players playing on the EU GvG scene without any problems.

I live in Canada and have played on EU since beta, ping isn’t an issue if you have a good internet connection. I know people that live in the UK that get way worse connection and higher ping than I do, the biggest factor is how good your internet is.

Facet.5914:

warriorjrd.8695:

Realist.5812:

This thread:

NA Players:
“Here’s some guilds I think are alright. (Insert list).”
“Nah, that guilds pretty average, they have a lot of room for improvement.

EU Players:
“NA sucks, EU better.”
“Even EU PvE guilds are better than all of NA combined.”
“Even though we’ve never versed or seen any NA guilds in action, ALL EU KICK YO BUTT ALL DAY BRAH.”
“EU players stomp NA all day even though we’ve never fought any of them.”

I was expecting NA to be the idiotic trash talkers. and EU to be the mature ones.

I guess EU WvW is boring and stale at the moment, only reason for the dumb outbursts.

You know, considering your name, id have thought you would have grasped that concept rather quickly. When EP came over they were like 4th or 5th in EU, and i’m willing to bet that’s gone down since then.

They willingly put themselves at a disadvantage to gvg EU. You could be at least a little bit gracious in victory.

EP is a great guild, don’t try and interpret my words. The only reason they would have gone down, is not due to them dropping in skill, but other EU guilds rising. Also please explain this “disadvantage” they gave themselves when they came to GvG EU. It doesn’t seem like a thing a GvG guild would do.

Realist.5812:

This thread:

NA Players:
“Here’s some guilds I think are alright. (Insert list).”
“Nah, that guilds pretty average, they have a lot of room for improvement.

EU Players:
“NA sucks, EU better.”
“Even EU PvE guilds are better than all of NA combined.”
“Even though we’ve never versed or seen any NA guilds in action, ALL EU KICK YO BUTT ALL DAY BRAH.”
“EU players stomp NA all day even though we’ve never fought any of them.”

I was expecting NA to be the idiotic trash talkers. and EU to be the mature ones.

I guess EU WvW is boring and stale at the moment, only reason for the dumb outbursts.

You know, considering your name, id have thought you would have grasped that concept rather quickly. When EP came over they were like 4th or 5th in EU, and i’m willing to bet that’s gone down since then.

Prysin.8542:

Fluffball.8307:

Durzlla.6295:

How does us using LB from 1500 range make you take more damage?

Think duoing Lupi, just because it’s a really simple example. His kicks will 1-hit anyone. If both players are up there, they both have an opportunity to get kicked. If either one messes up there is a chance the kick is directed at the player that didn’t mess up and no one is downed. If the player that messes up gets downed, the other is there to quickly rez him.

If 1 player is melee and 1 ranged, the melee player gets all the kicks. He can never mess up because not only will he for sure eat the kick, the ranged character also can’t quickly rez him.

Dear forum user.

Dungeons was never intended to be solo’d, it was intended to be a 5 man group effort.

If you fail to do it with two people, then the dungeon difficulty itself is working as intended.

Sincerely yours, a actual player.

Wait you mean I cant solo the dungeon in 5 minutes using OP bear bow ranger? WAT!? I quit, I reroll tetris, this game sux.

Sad Tas.2509:

doesn’t matter. competitive gvg is ded, there is no one left to fight in NA and I’m sure sacrx has mentioned the same in several of his eu gvg casts in chemso’s stream

GvG isn’t what it used to be, but its still far from dead.

SFShinigami.2015:

I respectfully disagree. The ability to use the world around you is far more difficult than a gvg.

Yes and no, it does require skill to be effective in open world wvw, but it’s almost a different skill than a gvg. In wvw there are too many uncontrolled variables to deem a fight there even or fair. But if you want to see how well a guild is at just straight up fighting, then gvg is how you judge it. WvW fights require a different strategy.

Prysin.8542:

warriorjrd.8695:

Prysin.8542:

melee wise, we are fine at speed. We should have a speed while wielding bows added to one of our existing traits.

Entangle could be changed to a “thorn wall”. You enter and wines grasp ahold of you for 2 seconds. No AOE limit, but the “duration” of the people running into the wall is fixed. Wines HP are buffed a little, so that you can nuke them down with a 100b or something, but generally, you would be stuck for 2 sec. I would argue that a “line” immob, working like other line skills (line of warding, spectral wall).

Personally, i’d prefer them to do 5 things;
1 – move Sic’em and Guard to F1 and F3 respectively. Add a 15 seconds ICD to the effect from the former shouts, while the pet command effect will be possible to use at any moment (kinda similar to how trait effects linked to skills [invigorating bond etc] ICD’s work).
2 – add 2 new shouts; 1 gives AOE stability and heals for a tiny amount (personal suggestion; 4 sec stab and 700 HP heal with a 35(28) seconds CD).
1 gives boon corruption, turning 2 boons into cripple and weakness (personal suggestion; 6 seconds cripple, 6 seconds weakness. 25(20) seconds CD)
3 – Pet F2 effect overhaul. Most F2’s need a complete overhaul of the effects themselves, the rest needs a serious reduction in casting time and CD
4 – Give pets a dynamic boost to toughness and vitality depending on enemies nearby:
Personal suggestions;
10 enemies – +15% Toughness and vitality
20 enemies – +30% toughness and vitality
30 enemies – +45% toughness and vitality
40 enemies – +60% toughness and vitality
50 enemies – +75% toughness and vitality
60 enemies – +90% toughness and vitality

5 – Make Healing Spring add +5 seconds to all active boons (except regeneration) to players within the field. (making it the best waterfield in game without any doubt EVER)

That healing spring idea is pretty cool, but the pet scaling thing could be done a bit differently. Instead of boosting their stats, I would say just make them take 70% less damage from AOE attacks on all game modes. Because pets don’t have a dodge function unless you slot guard or time F3 right (which stops your pet from attacking thus lowering you dps) they usually get hit by lots of AOE. Lets hope Anet sees some of these ideas though, merging sick em and guard with the F skills would make BM builds a lot more fun.

if you give it “resistance” to AOE, then first they have to define AOE as AOE damage. That means giving a new damage and resistance value to every NPC, every player, every destructible object and every event.
It also means that the pet would utterly destroy any classes that relies on AOE in 1v1 settings. Necromancers, Elementalists, trap rangers, hambow warriors.
the pet would just laugh at these, even without points in BM, they would barely do any damage to the pet at all.

This is why raising their stats dynamically is the better options in terms of balance. Because it would favor BM and non BM equally. While any form of resistance would either have to be “flat” or “increasing with BM points”. both of which causes issues with zerg builds.

True, in 1v1s it may become too powerful, i’m just wondering if the HP/toughness increase would be enough to handle the full on AOE spam a blob can produce. It’s a good suggestion though, there’s no question pets need some kind of buff when it comes to zergs, but not only defensively. It’d be nice if we had a pet that had an F2 that maybe dropped some kind of high damaging AOE attack. Right now we have spiders and murrellow that use AOE, but the damage from those is minimal, they’re more for conditions.

I saw a suggestion a long time ago of giving rangers a gorilla pet that had some CC. It’s F2 would be something like allowing the ranger to give the gorilla an AOE target and it leaped there for a knockdown/stun or damage. The increased survivability of pets is a good step, but I feel we need a pet that has some AOE damage capability.

SFShinigami.2015:

warriorjrd.8695:

Merlin Dyfed Avalon.5046:

The only guild i have seen running around that still keeps their numbers around 15 and is capable of crushing 30+ is RES on GH.
Heck even Vii is running 30 man blobs nowadays as are all the guilds mentioned in this post.

Im not sure you know what a blob is, or much about guild play for that matter. Besides it’s irrelevant how many they run with on the battlefield because you never judge a guild by wvw, you look at how they GvG.

So what you’re trying to say is that you should judge a guild by how they respond to a battle they know they’re about to have, and that how they respond to terrain, being jumped, how they jump others, is no measure? Thats like judging a basketball team based strictly on their free throw %.

No, that’s a terrible comparison to what I said. A GvG is balanced, it’s even playing field with no terrain advantages. Skill is what wins you a GvG, there are many other factors involved with regular wvw. I’ve watched guilds wipe other guilds in wvw, then lose to them in a gvg where it was balanced. Obviously how they play in wvw is taken into account, but you don’t only look at that, GvG holds more weight to a guilds skill than clashing in open field.

All around kitten whooping … if you know what to do.

Merlin Dyfed Avalon.5046:

The only guild i have seen running around that still keeps their numbers around 15 and is capable of crushing 30+ is RES on GH.
Heck even Vii is running 30 man blobs nowadays as are all the guilds mentioned in this post.

Im not sure you know what a blob is, or much about guild play for that matter. Besides it’s irrelevant how many they run with on the battlefield because you never judge a guild by wvw, you look at how they GvG.

Prysin.8542:

melee wise, we are fine at speed. We should have a speed while wielding bows added to one of our existing traits.

Entangle could be changed to a “thorn wall”. You enter and wines grasp ahold of you for 2 seconds. No AOE limit, but the “duration” of the people running into the wall is fixed. Wines HP are buffed a little, so that you can nuke them down with a 100b or something, but generally, you would be stuck for 2 sec. I would argue that a “line” immob, working like other line skills (line of warding, spectral wall).

Personally, i’d prefer them to do 5 things;
1 – move Sic’em and Guard to F1 and F3 respectively. Add a 15 seconds ICD to the effect from the former shouts, while the pet command effect will be possible to use at any moment (kinda similar to how trait effects linked to skills [invigorating bond etc] ICD’s work).
2 – add 2 new shouts; 1 gives AOE stability and heals for a tiny amount (personal suggestion; 4 sec stab and 700 HP heal with a 35(28) seconds CD).
1 gives boon corruption, turning 2 boons into cripple and weakness (personal suggestion; 6 seconds cripple, 6 seconds weakness. 25(20) seconds CD)
3 – Pet F2 effect overhaul. Most F2’s need a complete overhaul of the effects themselves, the rest needs a serious reduction in casting time and CD
4 – Give pets a dynamic boost to toughness and vitality depending on enemies nearby:
Personal suggestions;
10 enemies – +15% Toughness and vitality
20 enemies – +30% toughness and vitality
30 enemies – +45% toughness and vitality
40 enemies – +60% toughness and vitality
50 enemies – +75% toughness and vitality
60 enemies – +90% toughness and vitality

5 – Make Healing Spring add +5 seconds to all active boons (except regeneration) to players within the field. (making it the best waterfield in game without any doubt EVER)

That healing spring idea is pretty cool, but the pet scaling thing could be done a bit differently. Instead of boosting their stats, I would say just make them take 70% less damage from AOE attacks on all game modes. Because pets don’t have a dodge function unless you slot guard or time F3 right (which stops your pet from attacking thus lowering you dps) they usually get hit by lots of AOE. Lets hope Anet sees some of these ideas though, merging sick em and guard with the F skills would make BM builds a lot more fun.

Rangers have a role in wvw, we can roam and cause havoc behind enemy lines. If you want a more defined role in zerging then you may have to wait a while or get very comfortable with the class. Pets and countless AOE rings generally don’t mix well and due to a lack heavy AOE, zergs are not ranger’s forté. However like I said, we can roam, snipe, harass just as good and usually better than other classes.

If you want to get in front of a zerg and swing your greatsword, sure, but thats not where we’re meant to be. Trait for max damage bonus, grab a longbow, take a few steps back and snipe a squishy backliner, that’s more a ranger’s role for zerging.
Keep in mind though WvW =/= Zerging, there’s much more to it than that.

GSSBlunaspike.4153:

warriorjrd.8695:

Narkodx.1472:

Prysin.8542:

Narkodx.1472:

Shirk.6421:

In all honesty and despite the fact that I love roaming with my ranger:

It’s all fun until you run into another player who plays a dueling build. like a mesmer, warrior, necro, thief, ele or engi. Even if you’re as good as the other person, the class WILL make the difference. Go into the dueling area and fight some people using dueling builds there. Have fun – or not.

THIS sadly is the truth. Once you face top tier players on META roaming builds you will lose. Ranger does not have the damage in a condition/sustain build to defeat a perplexity engi/thief/necro. (Perplex not even necessary just makes it more OP) Power builds have no chance against those type of builds either; Power builds also have weakness against high burst classes like warr/thief. They have better mitigation skills. In the end though you should run with a ranger if you enjoy it. I sure do. But you must know the limitations of the class.

Any meta build can be beaten with any ranger build. Skill is all that matters. Also lol at perplex thief, their annoying, but not that difficult to beat. Its a L2P issue.

Oh and, the only real threat to rangers is glas thieves and condi engies. Luckily, there aint too many of those two around.

Too bad you’re not on NA. I see you post here often and would enjoy a duel. You’re probably better ranger than me. Given all that, I am quite confident I have dueled better rangers than you. They can not beat my meta warr/engi/necro/thief builds. Oh well. Must be a L2P thing.

By “meta” you must be referring to the borderline OP builds like PU mesmer, or D/P theif. If you run a cheese build it invalidates any sort of competition.

Pfft, because you can’t beat something it’s a cheese build that takes no skill? Part of playing any profession is playing it to the level that builds aren’t as important.

That said I’ve gotten a few kills lately because rangers would volley into a full reflect. Is it not common knowledge that sword off hand block doesn’t end on ranged attack? I’ve never seen so many bow rangers, and I have to admit I love it from a bag perspective.

Are you trying to tell me PU mesmer and D/P theif takes skill? I’ve killed both of those builds plenty of times btw, so I can beat it. It doesn’t change the fact it’s a cheese build that requires a minimal amount of skill to be effective.

Narkodx.1472:

Prysin.8542:

Narkodx.1472:

Shirk.6421:

In all honesty and despite the fact that I love roaming with my ranger:

It’s all fun until you run into another player who plays a dueling build. like a mesmer, warrior, necro, thief, ele or engi. Even if you’re as good as the other person, the class WILL make the difference. Go into the dueling area and fight some people using dueling builds there. Have fun – or not.

THIS sadly is the truth. Once you face top tier players on META roaming builds you will lose. Ranger does not have the damage in a condition/sustain build to defeat a perplexity engi/thief/necro. (Perplex not even necessary just makes it more OP) Power builds have no chance against those type of builds either; Power builds also have weakness against high burst classes like warr/thief. They have better mitigation skills. In the end though you should run with a ranger if you enjoy it. I sure do. But you must know the limitations of the class.

Any meta build can be beaten with any ranger build. Skill is all that matters. Also lol at perplex thief, their annoying, but not that difficult to beat. Its a L2P issue.

Oh and, the only real threat to rangers is glas thieves and condi engies. Luckily, there aint too many of those two around.

Too bad you’re not on NA. I see you post here often and would enjoy a duel. You’re probably better ranger than me. Given all that, I am quite confident I have dueled better rangers than you. They can not beat my meta warr/engi/necro/thief builds. Oh well. Must be a L2P thing.

By “meta” you must be referring to the borderline OP builds like PU mesmer, or D/P theif. If you run a cheese build it invalidates any sort of competition.

FinalPatriot.8034:

@ Warriorjrd,

Thanks for the comments. I agree that a Warrior can be pretty easy at times which is why I was really impressed when a Ranger completely made me look stupid the other day.

What kind of build(s) would you recommend for roaming? I have heard that the SB + whatever is fairly effective. Right now, my Ranger is only level 54 so I don’t have much of a clue.

BM bunker builds are very effective 1v1, always have been, a Dire/rabid trapper build would also be very effective.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQRAsY3fjEq0ua3KmrQ1aAAhaVA0uGa2wmdD0BfQJjqB-TliAwAXUCm4IAU4EAA4gAIT/wy9HOq+DnHAgDzfQV+RKgFVWB-w

That’s a solid trapper build to start off with. I like poison master for some extra oomph to your attacks, but bark skin and empathic bond are both solid traits to take as well.
With that you want to make sure your enemy is immobolized before you start bombing with traps, otherwise you lose a lot of damage as they can avoid the traps. Krytan hound with malicous training is very fun to use, I always start that before my bombs and use spike trap first to make sure they stand still. Also be sure to use axe as often as you can because with axe 2 on such a short CD you can stack some major bleeds with that.

Yes rangers are extremely viable for roaming, if played right are one of the best classes for roaming. People say rangers are bad in wvw for two main reasons.

1. In zergs rangers aren’t the best. No denying it, it’s not our forté mainly because pets don’t go well with tons of aoe.
2. The majority of rangers I see and people fight just aren’t good. Ranger takes a lot of skill and dedication to be effective, and I can only imagine somebody coming from a warrior who has an easy time who tries out a ranger and has to actually put the effort in to be effective, and simply can’t make the transition. Those are the easy bags people talk about, and they do make up the majority of rangers in wvw.

That being said in roaming rangers can be lethal. What it really comes down to is player skill though. I have killed every single class in wvw thousands of times, on a ranger. I have also been killed by every single class in wvw while roaming. If a skillful player gets behind any class and plays it effectively, it will be the most dangerous thing on the battlefield.

Think fast, play smart, and out think your enemies and roaming is no problem with the right build. I once won a 4v1 on my ranger. Given these people clearly didn’t know how to play the game properly, but with the right build and experience on your class/build and other builds, it really isn’t that hard.

People say rangers are bad yet more than once we ran the show in spvp with various metas that people cried OP on. Ranger has it’s weaknesses but also it’s strengths, and if you capitalize on the strengths people will have a hard time beating you.

HHR LostProphet.4801:

Prysin.8542:

@HHR
Yes i know how the class is intended to be played, so does durrzla, jcbroe, chopps, terravos, aefa, forzani, euranthien, battosai, warriorjrd and many more. We all have different playstyle.

That and, there is a metric ton of stuff nobody surpasses the ranger at, no matter how hard they try or spec for it.

What you did is taking just one element of the ranger and improving it until it works.
You buff pet until it works, you buff your spirits until they work, you buff your conditioncleansing until it works properly or you buff the longbow until it works. You can’t take an element of the ranger and simply use it because it’s too bad initially.
Other classes however boost not just one aspect but multiple. A warrior can also get high regen, high condition cleansing and is still able to kill things.

And what is the ranger better in than any other class? In kiting? Hell, no other class has to kite. They simply kill their oponent. While we have to draw circles over and over again until our enemy finally dies to the few conditions we can stack on them without sacrificing our survivability.

Don’t underestimate a ranger roaming. If you’re talking large scale wvw then ranger is a stretch, but small scale rangers can be lethal. Sure you could say a theif is better at roaming than a ranger, but I could deny that by stating how many thieves i’ve killed. You could say mesmer is better at roaming, or any class for that matter. However the fact still stands I’ve killed every class thousands of times in wvw on a ranger, that it ultimately comes down to player skill. Sure you could say that roaming is EASIER on a thief/mesmer/engi, but you can’t say they’re more effective.

Player skill>Class

Prysin.8542:

Now tell me, how many people on this forum, or even in this game, can you say have mastered the ranger class to the point where they are no longer hindered by the class mechanics and quirky functions.

Unfortunately very few, but when somebody does master it, it’s a scary sight. The thing is ranger is one of those classes where you often NEED to master it in order to be effective. A casual will have a much harder time on a ranger than somebody who invests the time. I personally like that challenge and I get the feeling you do to, it’s just some people seem to want a class that you can hop into and play with nothing setting them back.