Guild Wars 2

My personal key bindings:
Q – Heal
W – Left
E – Forward
R – Right
T – Use / Activate
A – Util 1
S – Util 2
D – Dodge
F – Util 3
G – Ultimate
Z – F1
X – F2
C – F3
V – F4
` – Swap weapon

No back to force myself to be a better player.

This setup makes all the important stuffs near one another.

I remembered dying quite a lot as Guardian. But it’s probably also the only class that made me think I can probably handle 10 guys at the same time LOL

The thing about Guardian is to bring all the weapon types that you can wield and then use them well and consider using different weapons for different situations.

Also, the use of your utilities. Maybe it’s tempting to use only the power and toughness signets plus Retreat! But maybe you struggle a bit more with the dredges because they can’t be blinded so consider either using a more tanky weapon like the mace/shield & mace/focus and/or using the Wall of Reflection, Shield of the Avenger, Sword…

I just wrote this:

GS pros:
Not a projectile
Decent autoattack dmg at long range
Boon strip
“AoE” phantasm
Easier push to the wall for single target using #5

GS cons:
Less damage than swords
Less damage than scepter at less than 600 range in autoattack
Less single target damage phantasm compared to sword, focus and pistol phantasms

Just to give you some rough ideas when the GS is preferred/not preferred

What does it mean?

That means your optimal burst for long range is

Start with pistol phantasm
Switch to GS, phantasm, attack at max range
Swap back to scepter, pistol phantasm, stay in range for auto attack before you can swap back to GS
Swap back to GS, attack at max range
And so on until all your phantasms are all pistol phantasms and you’re at max range auto-attacking in GS

However, in certain scenarios where you are unlikely to be able to attack at max range (below 600 range) such as the Molten Duo fractal

Scepter/Focus + Scepter/Pistol if you need reflect
Scepter/Sword + Scepter/Pistol if you don’t

Remember that as phantasm build, the bulk of your DPS comes from your phantasm, and for single target damage, there is no contest between your pistol and your GS phantasm.

GS pros:
Not a projectile
Decent autoattack dmg at long range
Boon strip
“AoE” phantasm
Easier push to the wall for single target using #5

GS cons:
Less damage than swords
Less damage than scepter at less than 600 range in autoattack
Less single target damage phantasm compared to sword, focus and pistol phantasms

Just to give you some rough ideas when the GS is preferred/not preferred

Oh, besides, Mesmers… Are a bit tricky in terms of mobility. You can either go for Sup Rune of Traveler’s for perma 25%, focus 4 for occasional swiftness and blink. Or use Sup Rune of Air / Centaur for extra swiftness but requires you to constantly use your heals. If you didn’t like Guardian’s mobility, you probably won’t be too fond of Mesmer’s either.

For Ele, you can just simply activate Signet of Air, or use your swiftness staff combos (Earth 2, Air 5, Arcane Brilliance, Arcane Wave, Air 4, go back and forth between attunements to keep going back to air) and it’s more or less perma-swiftness.

Oh, right. Well, besides Tequatl, world bosses aren’t tough to begin with. I guess you have in mind something like the Scarlet Assault events.

Lava Font has a very low CD and it’s AoE. Staff #5 is huge, useful for tagging but not spammable. If these two aren’t enough, you can use Arcane Brilliance, Arcane Blast, Ice Bow 4 & 3, and the infamous FGS, LH auto-attack, LH 4…

Mesmer… Sword auto-cleave, sword #2, clone shatters, greatsword phantasm, chaos storm… So, I think we have a clear winner here.

Ele’s Staff #5 is pretty awesome for tagging.

You’re right in that Mesmers struggle a lil bit more for tagging.

I’m confused, though. It sounded to me you were talking about pve as in open world content and then pve as wvw. Which one do you mean?

For open world, Mesmers have clones as pets to tank so it’s very self reliant.

On the other hand, Ele can summon two earth elementals to tank.

In AC path 3, if you have one or two Eles, actually it’s a breeze and it’s quite easy to carry a non-80. But yeah, generally it’s the case.

Instead of joining LFG groups, try making your own group (all welcome, lvls x+, I’m lvl x, etc.)

Awesome each to their own. Just some ideas for non-mouse bindings.

My personal key bindings:

Q – Heal
W – Left
E – Forward
R – Right
T – Use / Activate
A – Util 1
S – Util 2
D – Dodge
F – Util 3
G – Ultimate
Z – F1
X – F2
C – F3
V – F4

` – Swap weapon

xsquared.1926:

I think it’s better to actually post pictures instead of saying what is going on.

Brilliant lol

AC P1
Bear aggroed the spider and activated the AoE attacks.
Party: Bear. Brilliant.
Ranger: What bear I’ve done this a million times lol
Me: You probably had to do this a million times

Yoh.8469:

Why does it feel like we’ve had this conversation before?
Is there any topic on the Ranger that hasn’t been done to death already?

Allie has pretty much stopped moderating it, big surprise there, and I think we’ve pretty much covered everything. Isn’t it about time we put this CDI to rest?

Agreed.

A second summary from her about the rest of the discussions should be sufficient for now.

HHR LostProphet.4801:

xallever.1874:

HHR LostProphet.4801:

The ele deals good damage but FGS is what makes him dominant. If he can’t use FGS, he will be slower than the warrior.

Not true because Lava Font is scarier than HB and Eles deal a massive damage still with LH.

You can’t have both. Either max. Staff damage or max. summoned weapon damage. And still, LH isn’t better than a warrior who can utilize his combo.

You do not use both. Even a Staff ele who’s there for the lava font (dmg + fire field), when the situation warrants for an ice bow, the not max damage of the ice bow #4 will still be much more damaging than a warrior’s full combo.

And still on the “not having both”, exactly: so the Staff max damage doesn’t even have to go for Ice Bow (but can also use Ice Bow when they need to) and already outdamages a warrior.

@Purple Miku:

The thief thinks hard for a long time. Then OH! We do have Hide in Shadow heal… Wait. How does that help you guys, though?

You can try out the Ele but it’s true that Ele truly shines only at level 80. Before you reach that point, you feel like the Ele’s potential is hampered by not fully specializing in one direction enough.

For instance, early on when you traited for more survivability, you could have an early access to Cantrips reduced CD, then receiving Regen when you activate a Cantrip, but only much later you can access the trait that gives you a condi cleanse when you Regen. And only later on you can trait for this AND attuning to water gives you Regen so you get condi cleanse by just changing to water and healing. Then, only later, you can trait for allowing you to dodge while in water attunement giving you access to another Regen. So for all the synergies listed here, you’ll be required to be at level 70 (!).

It doesn’t mean it’s not fun, though. When people don’t want to continue playing Ele it’s because they think the class is too squishy and doesn’t deal enough damage because Eles have the lowest stats.

What I liked about that is that each encounter felt like a slight challenge and an opportunity to learn each skill and manoeuvre by heart. Every failed encounter made me think that I just wasn’t optimal enough in my use of skills. Whereas if you fail an encounter as Mesmer, usually I think well that’s that, then. I don’t think I’ll give it another go as this encounter is clearly not meant for a solo encounter.

Some people suggest to always keep your gears up to date but I didn’t do that since you tend not to be on one level for a long time in GW2.

HHR LostProphet.4801:

The ele deals good damage but FGS is what makes him dominant. If he can’t use FGS, he will be slower than the warrior.

Not true because Lava Font is scarier than HB and Eles deal a massive damage still with LH.

Atherakhia.4086:

xallever.1874:

HHR LostProphet.4801:

xallever.1874:

But the overall DPS is improved by bringing a Ranger instead of a 2nd warrior. The Ranger doesn’t lack competitive damage when they carry a sword/horn.

Well the warrior will deal more damage than the ranger simply because the warrior can rotate between axe/mace and gs while the ranger has to sit on sword AA. The reason why a ranger is still better is because the 2 warriors would reach the might and vulnerability cap. The ranger offers a unique buff and spotter. This however oughtn’t hide the fact that the ranger has just one weapon with competitve damage which gets hindered by a clunky playstyle.

Because of Eles, a team of 3 Eles has no further use of anyone contributing to more might, fury and vuln (not even the warrior). Therefore the Warrior is there not so much for his raw DPS since he’ll be outshined by another Ele or a Thief, but for his unique banner buffs, just like the Ranger’s unique buffs.

The sword auto-attack is clunky, I agree, as many have pointed out in many pages ago and has been included in the summary by Allie (although there’s no word on what’ll happen since this isn’t a new issue that’s been brought up).

But I don’t think profession balance means that every profession must have the same DPS output. Guardian isn’t chosen because of that (their sword+focus is also mostly reliant on auto-attack). At least currently Rangers have a justifiable role for their spot in a dungeon run (anyone besides Ele = lower DPS = chosen for utility).

Note: I’m not saying that there isn’t any room for improvement. There certainly is, but perhaps some of the things that need to be improved elude us, as some of the things that don’t.

DPS is all that matters in PvE. The utility you provide, if it’s a net loss in DPS because you as a player don’t bring your fair share, is meaningless. This is the problem with the example you’re bringing. Does spotter and storm spirit compensate the group for the loss in DPS you, being a Ranger, bring to the group?

1/3rd the damage a Ele has, 1/2 that of a Thief… that’s a sizable margin to make up. Especially when spotter is of questionable use given perma fury. The Ranger is something like 5th place for overall group DPS I believe was the consensus?

Is providing 10% more damage to 4 other people ever going to compensate the group enough for bringing the Ranger along in the first place? I don’t know…

The DPS loss isn’t meaningless. A lot of encounters in an organised play doesn’t even necessarily require a full 5-man to end the dungeon faster (look at the world records for AC path 1 run, Sorrow’s Embrace path 1). The Mesmer’s portaling, the thieves stealthing and their mobility allows them to finish the dungeon faster due to a very marginal loss of DPS in big encounters (compensated by the Eles’ ice bows and FGS).

So in those big encounters, in fact, the Ranger will be expected to use both the ice bows and FGS and the DPS will increase, fight over faster not slower.

Erasius.3078:

Right, so both classes are usefull in their own way , good to know

I like dealing damage , but I don’t want to end up as an easy kill in pvp, so is an ele always a glass canon by default or are there ways to give them more survivability with different builds ? same goes for mesmer, you said that they are bit more tanky but does that mean I wont be doing much dps ? and will a balanced build between survivability and dps ruin their potential ?

and what about the weapons, I tried out the great sword with mesmer and sword/pistol secondary , and it works fine in low lvl PvE because they are all ranged attacks, but I also see a lot of video’s of mesmers using dual swords/sword focus and get real close. which is new to me since I’ve always seen “mage types” as classes who benefit from staying out of the fight and deal DPS from a distance.

Will it help if I create an elementalist aswell and test it out a bit , or do the classes change so much at lvl 80 that I can’t really compare them ?

Mesmers are tanky due to their damage mitigation for a quick 2.5 sec of burst damage AND evade of the sword #2 skill. Also if you use the Shatter build, a lot of times you can get an extra 4 sec invuln due to your f4 (possible to do in pve too but you generally don’t want to shatter anything there).

In terms of DPS, Mesmers aren’t at the bottom tier, but their sustained damage takes a while to build up IF it can be built up (like in TA fighting against the Wurm, if the fight takes too long, your phantasms are unlikely to survive). In battles where you can easily maintain 3 phantasms, you will have a very respectable damage.

In fact in pvp, eles usually only survive as bunker builds, not so much glass cannons. Unless you spec heavily into condi prevention and removal, you won’t be able to see much action as ele.

The weapons used in pve for dungeon runs will be different for lower levels due to the inaccessibility to certain traits and the setups are rather gear dependent. With shatter glasss cannon builds for open world like if you’re just travelling around Orr, the battles are over very quickly or you’re dead.

The sword/focus only truly shines when traited. Before I got to lvl 80, I mitigated the damage mostly using Feedback and Chaos Storm (ideally you use this on you, your phantasm and the enemy, but it’s more important to use this to buff yourself and your phantasm than to damage them).

When traited, sword/focus allows you to be in a melee encounter w enemies that only attacks with reflectable attacks as you can easily set up a perma reflect (start w focus phantasm, swap, summon sword phantasm, use sword #2 after first reflect is over, feedback, use sword sword #4 to block one attack, swap, use focus #5 again after CD, if not #4 for more short reflect before, etc.).

Similarly, the damage mitigation if you’re using a PU scepter/torch build in WvW is insane. Invuln, blocks, invis, invis, invis, invis, etc.

This is what I like about Mesmers. While thieves have to choose between blinding or burst attacks w less damage mitigation, Mesmers in dungeons usually are doing damage while avoiding them (even if your full concentration is on surviving, your phantasms, if they’re up, will still do decent damage for you).

Personally, I love the concept of Mesmer as the master of manipulation (control). It’s one of the tankiest professions out there. Ele is on the other spectrum, being the ultimate glass cannon.

When exploring / leveling in open world, I enjoyed both but I kinda had a more fun time using Ele because the skill cap is higher (D/D requires you to be reallly mobile).

PvP currently ele is at the bottom tier but will be getting a really nice set of confirmed improvements soon. Mesmer is also at an awkward position because at the end of the day, their roles might’ve been better replaced by thieves.

WvW Mesmers can be nice roamers, supporters and it’s potentially the best class for 1v1 encounter.

WvW Ele can be quite a decent roamer too and find a really nice role as either the scary AoE chokers or the healbots, cc-ers, etc.

Basically, both have sweet spots in WvW.

In dungeon, the current meta has a high demand for Ele because of its highest DPS. Mesmers still have a great spot too for portal, brief stealths, reflects, condition/boon management. Whether you’ll be pugging or going for organized group, you’ll find a spot.

HHR LostProphet.4801:

xallever.1874:

But the overall DPS is improved by bringing a Ranger instead of a 2nd warrior. The Ranger doesn’t lack competitive damage when they carry a sword/horn.

Well the warrior will deal more damage than the ranger simply because the warrior can rotate between axe/mace and gs while the ranger has to sit on sword AA. The reason why a ranger is still better is because the 2 warriors would reach the might and vulnerability cap. The ranger offers a unique buff and spotter. This however oughtn’t hide the fact that the ranger has just one weapon with competitve damage which gets hindered by a clunky playstyle.

Because of Eles, a team of 3 Eles has no further use of anyone contributing to more might, fury and vuln (not even the warrior). Therefore the Warrior is there not so much for his raw DPS since he’ll be outshined by another Ele or a Thief, but for his unique banner buffs, just like the Ranger’s unique buffs.

The sword auto-attack is clunky, I agree, as many have pointed out in many pages ago and has been included in the summary by Allie (although there’s no word on what’ll happen since this isn’t a new issue that’s been brought up).

But I don’t think profession balance means that every profession must have the same DPS output. Guardian isn’t chosen because of that (their sword+focus is also mostly reliant on auto-attack). At least currently Rangers have a justifiable role for their spot in a dungeon run (anyone besides Ele = lower DPS = chosen for utility).

Note: I’m not saying that there isn’t any room for improvement. There certainly is, but perhaps some of the things that need to be improved elude us, as some of the things that don’t.

Personally, what I like about the Mantra build is that it trains you to let go of Blink. Of course this has nothing to do with the builds themselves.

Before using the mantra build, I used to run the 10/20/0/25/15 build. I slowly learned about the encounters where blink isn’t necessary and used to just run more signets.

AC P1
The troll spawned and followed us all the way to the room with burrows. Ha!

COF P1
Conversation between me (as Ele) and a Ranger

Me: I’ll gate, ok?
Ranger: I think I’ll gate. You’re an Ele.
Me: That’s the point.
Ranger: Ele can gate?
Me: Give me 3 secs.

Fast forward to post-gating:

Ranger: Holy fk! That’s awesome!

It’s a valid point to bring a warrior instead of a ranger in some situations (such as not having a warrior yet).

But the overall DPS is improved by bringing a Ranger instead of a 2nd warrior. The Ranger doesn’t lack competitive damage when they carry a sword/horn.

If the Ranger is on FGS, the Ranger also doesn’t even have to worry about his sword auto-attack being rooted.

The max possible DPS for initial burst is a team consisting of 3 Eles, 1 Ranger and 1 Warrior. The DPS isn’t better if it had been 3 Eles and 2 Warriors.

If you don’t want to contribute in the DPS department, you don’t want to contribute in the reflect department, what honestly do you care about the party besides them carrying you through the dungeon using any build that you want?

If you’re gonna advocate something sub-par, you might as well advocate everything.

We don’t.

10/30/0/20/10
0/30/0/25/15
10/20/0/25/15

But none of them is Shatter in dungeon.

There’s not enough sustaining DPS in a Shatter build.

Plus you need to dodge to create more clones to be shattered. That is far from ideal while you’re fighting against the wall.

medohgeuh.4650:

Why would that only be useful in PvP? There’s way more crap on the screen in PvE and WvW than an sPvP match.

I hope you’re really not advocating the Shatter build in dungeons.

Aidenwolf.5964:

Nike.2631:

snip

Some seriously good ideas here Nike. But one in particular deserves further attention and should be moved to the top of the ranger to do list (right below permastow).

Shouts remove stealth from nearby players. It’s an AOE reveal and I love that.

I agree. I don’t really care that Rangers ought to help in the anti-stealth department (if ANet has an idea of giving them better roles, go ahead) but this is one utility that I think can be given to Rangers and it makes sense too.

I don’t even care whether it’s through the shout build or any other builds.

Allie Murdock.8152:

Permastow is not impossible. I never meant to give that impression, so I apologize if I did. However, as far as priorities go for the Ranger, it is not high on the list. Why? Because it would require an entire re-balance of Ranger, but if we re-balanced, then the players that do play with the pet would be OP. See the dilemma there?

I wish you could elaborate on this a little bit more. For instance, which context? Dungeon? Open-world? WvW? PvP?

People who play without pets and end up in the 70% damage cap in the open-world content are deservedly punished since using their pets is an option that they decided to forgo. This is like an Elementalist complaining that they’re struggling because they can’t effectively play their class without having to change attunement.

It’s true that the gameplay of other professions feel like an archetypical warrior especially when the fights happen in a lot of stack-mode in a dungeon setting.

I understand that many people who play non-warriors perhaps expect a little bit more flavour in the way it’s being done in dungeons.

But seeing that dungeon isn’t the only content in this game, you’ll find that being non-warriors is very apparent in say WvW. I would say the diversity is felt more during smaller group encounters like 5-10 people.

However, I’d also like to say that the burden of proof lies on you for whoever advocates the presence of more than a warrior in a dungeon group for an efficient run.

The only justification for this is probably the low skill cap of being warriors so it’s safer for people with average skills to be warriors instead of anything else.

Jocksy.3415:

" allow for perma-stow, I don’t care about damage or else, I just don’t want the pet in my way in some occasion"
This would be easier to implement, but would totally screw balance.
And if they did go with that “easy” solution, it sure won’t be long before people come complaining on the forum that they can stow their pet, but want their damage when stowing the pet…

No easy way out, here…

How does it screw balance?

I understand that there is this 70:30 thing going on, but I imagine ANet’s defense would be that once you’re able to stow your pet, it might be a way to sustain your pet better, in such a way that you could more reliably sustain yourself for max damage (pet not dying).

Look, this forum isn’t lacking in terms of guides.

Recently, there’s another thread asking a similar question. Perhaps you could look into that: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/2014-Mesmer-Final-PVE-Build-HELP/first#post3748709

misterdevious.6482:

xallever.1874:

More Flavourful Ranger
Since you guys have been talking about making Ranger more flavoured, suddenly I thought about the idea of having the Ranger’s skills change according to the pet a bit like how the Elementalist’s skill changes when in a different attunement.

Creating a ton of new skills won’t happen. Even one new skill per pet family per weaponset would probably be too much (but it would be very cool.) A simpler way would be to allow the pet to influence our next attack.

Just throwing it out there ^^

I just think, as you said, it’d be cool if we could have something like that. It’s not like I would kill for that to happen.

Lilith Ajit.6173:

:3 thief and ranger

What armors are those? ^^

AsteriskCGY.5931:

Darn, I don’t have enough swords for this build. And I haven’t really carried alt weapons for a while now.

You might already realise this, but a Sword/Focus + Sword/Sword build only requires you to have two swords, not three.

More Flavourful Ranger
Since you guys have been talking about making Ranger more flavoured, suddenly I thought about the idea of having the Ranger’s skills change according to the pet a bit like how the Elementalist’s skill changes when in a different attunement.

Auto-Attack: Boring?
Anyway, when I played the Hunter in WoW, if I remember correctly, the Hunter ended up getting a high DPS due to a skill that hastes the auto-attack.

The part that didn’t make “auto-attacking” for the Hunter boring was to do with positioning, with making sure that you were in the right place at the right time to be able to land those simple auto-attack hits. A bit like if you were a backstab thief in this game. Or if you’re playing Mesmer and using the Portal to your advantage.

I guess if the game is set-up in such a way that it could be as rewarding as that, then auto-attacking wouldn’t be that “boring”.

Boring Auto-Attack Everywhere Else
Maybe Anet had made me a little desensitized to a “fun” gameplay since for instance, the Guardian builds for dungeon in PvE that involve the hammer and the Sword+Focus also mostly revolve around auto-attack. Are the Guardians in this community quite vocal about this too? =/

Besides, if you’re playing Sword/Pistol thief in dungeons, you also mostly only spam the #3 skill. It’s so close to being a spammy profession too. It’s only more varied in gameplay during trash runs in timing your mobility and stealth. And during ranged, it’s the same spam #3 skill in Pistol/Pistol.

Due to the fact that a “boring” gameplay is so prevalent throughout the game in other professions, I guess I never thought of asking the Ranger to go beyond that point.

kylwilson.9137:

Inspired by the Mesmers of old, namely;

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Gallery_of_female_mesmer_Tyrian_armor

What’re you wearing? Looks quite cool

There are some situations like in SE p1 where you can change the trait for lower cd on pistols without paying to retrait.

In this situation, for max DPS, you might want to go for Sw/P + Sw/Sw. The reason for this is the iDuelist could die too often from the AoE.

So if your pistol phantasm survives longer more reliably, you’d end up with more DPS.

Yup. Mesmers don’t need a lot of combo management like the Elementalist. Especially phantasm builds.

Anyway, if not, as someone else said, continue with your Ranger. Just remember that you’ll be expected to run melee (sword) for dungeon, and it’s not the easiest to pick up.

In an organised dungeon run, Engineers have no place (there’s no more need for an engineer if you already have 2-3 Eles). But Engineers can still run dungeons (still viable). Note that even though you’ll be ranging, throwing grenades, you’ll be expected to be in the melee range for most part. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a Ranger, Engineer, Elementalist, etc.

It’s true that Elementalist isn’t the easiest class to play. If you’re interested, the Ele thread can help with you how to improve your leveling experience, making it more durable if you’re struggling (bunker Ele line: you can either use Staff or D/D).

The Elementalist baseline damage isn’t great because Elementalist already has the highest DPS potential in the game due to all the might stacks and Fiery Greatsword. Using Scepter/Dagger, you can easily get a stack of 18 Might before the fight even starts.

My suggestion is to try Mesmer. Leveling could be quite slow initially, but once you can put 20 points in Domination, things would really pick up from there.

Mesmers aren’t expected to range in dungeons too. But in WvW, the Mesmers usually are involved in quite a bit of range combat.

While guard is mostly not oriented for ranged combat, the DPS of Scepter is actually rather decent.

Anyhow, Mesmers are highly survivable using GS/Staff combo. It’s not fast, but it’s hard to die as a Mesmer.

Thieves have pistol and shortbow for ranged option. Shortbow is the best weapon to use for leveling because of its mobility, multiple target auto-attack, etc.

What do you currently not like about all the professions you’ve tried so far?

Just as disclaimers, at the end-game content (dungeon), the only professions who are considered okay for ranged DPS are Elementalist staff and grenade Engineers.

I’m just saying in case you’ll be one of those people who receive one of the innumerable dungeon traumas for ranging as the game’s contents are presently not really designed to encourage range encounters except in very few circumstances.

OP wishes to play however he wants more than wanting to not be a dead weight in a dungeon.

If someone here does the math for you on paper the difference between Staff+GS and Sw/Fc + Sw/Sw you’ll be astonished by how abysmal it is.

If you can’t afford to buy the lvl 80 exotic gears, look for close to lvl 80 exotic gears (lvl 78), the stat differences aren’t that much.

An ELE in a full PVT both in gear and trinkets using the meta build (LH / Fresh Air / Staff) contributes more than a Mesmer in full berserker’s or full carrion in Staff+GS.

In this regard, rightly playing using the Sword+Focus & Sword+Sword/Pistol is more important than min/maxing, to be honest.

Wintel.4873:

Odin.1354:

Dekeyz on youtube. She will tell you how to roll an ele

She usually rolls with LH builds which I would never recommend for a new player, and especially not WvW. LH is extremely group-dependent to function properly.

Staff can do solid DPS regardless of the situation and lets you focus on the fight due to simple rotations.

I don’t think she suggests LH build for WvW.

Anyway, there’s nothing wrong with LH build for new players. In fact, it’s one of the easiest playstyles for open world. The only downside is it doesn’t encourage new players to get used to the Ele’s mechanic.

maxinion.8396:

There’s many optimals out there. There’s a range of 4-5 “optimal” ele builds, depending on play style preference and the content (s/f + LH with or without persisting flames, staff, d/f, etc.). There’s many choices of guardian build (gs+s/f, or hammer). There’s many choices of mesmer build (various combinations which maximize reflect damage, or pure DPS).

There’s quite a bit of flexibility in the meta for all classes. The gear is almost always just zerker (sometimes assassin’s) but you do have choices.

I think those are viable builds instead of optimals. An optimal build (or choice?) depends on the team composition. There will always be a max DPS build for a situation and the optimal choice would be to use that build in that situation (reflect vs non reflect).

It’s nice to see a variety of builds with minimum DPS loss, but I don’t see anything wrong with one build having the most DPS than all the others.

The scale of the problem you see in LFG PUG isn’t about Ele making the choice between D/F Fresh Air or Sc/X LH or Fire staff. The scale is between a warrior meleeing properly and one that uses a rifle instead.

No, it’s not the point. I’m just thinking that this could be a nice counterplay as in: stealth and then the counter would be anti-stealth. And to counter that, the thieves also have still a lot more to the table: mobility like dodge heal, etc.

And a Mesmer who faces a Ranger then might rework the strategy around this new ability by timing the stealth differently (perhaps using it to force the Hunter to use the reveal skill unwisely, etc.)

Plus, the Ranger currently doesn’t have any solid roles anywhere. Perhaps, the least the Ranger could do is to be some sort of the anti-meta roamers or could help a little bit in a small group or zerg by nullyfing the Mesmer’s mass invis / vail / decoy (and the Mesmer still could counter play this by using Blink, Staff #2/GS #5).

Zeqasa Saitou.4256:

They kind of are already….

I run longbow and sword/warhorn.

The 2 on longbow will hit units even after they go invisible. same with the warhorn’s 4. If you’re skilled enough at weapon swapping, you can preform both before your opponent disappears. This works well against the low-health thieves, but isn’t as great against condition bunker mesmers.

I’m thinking more along the line of revealing those who stealth instead of being able to hit those who are still stealthed.

Tree.3916:

To the person who pm’d me, I can’t say your account name for fear of infraction. I am being punished so I cannot respond to your pm, therefore I have to respond publicly.

“I’m new to calling out to meta mentors. I’m interested to learn how to run the paths I haven’t run for the quick dailies.
I’m quite interested with all COE paths, the easier Arah paths and TA Up.
But I don’t mind learning unpopular paths like the ones from CM.
What’s next? I have no clue lol
"

My next questions to you are,
What class(s) do you play/main?
Do you have exotic berserker gear?
Do you have ascended berserker trinkets?
Do you have multiple exotic or higher weapons?
Do those weapons have stacking sigils/sigil of night/sigil of force?
Do you use the standard dps meta traits for your characters?

Sorry I can’t do this in the PM and I hope you see my response. I’m not ignoring you… just dealing with a draconian forum…

Hey, thanks.

My main is a Mesmer, but I play these classes too: Guardian, Elementalist, Thief. All of them are equipped with Berserker’s gear. My Mesmer has Sup Rune of Air for the mobility I hope that’s okay.

I don’t have ascended trinkets, but I have them all on exotic Berserker’s.

Yes, my weapons are all exotic berserker’s. Sigil of BL for stacking, otherwise Force / Accuracy. I haven’t used the Sigil of the Night yet.

Yes. Standard DPS meta. Phantasm Mes. Currently, Hammer/GS on Guard, but can easily do the GS/Sw+Focus one. Either D/F Fresh Air or Sc/x LH for my Ele. Haven’t tried to use Staff Ele because I’ve been mostly pugging. The standard S/P + D/D thief.

Yay or nay? Why?

Might help to stop people whining about PU Mesmers and thieves, but that’s not the point.

I just think that this could be a valid role in WvW. Anyone familiar with WoW remembers that Hunter was like the Rogue’s counter-class.

Besides, in the WvW situation, where it’s not a 1v1 duel, I think counter classes are fine. Kinda like rocks, papers & scissors.

Allie Murdock.8152:

I’m not saying this isn’t possible, but I want you to understand exactly what that suggestion means. It would mean completely rebalancing the Ranger.

The Ranger is designed to have a pet. If the pet was taken away or didn’t do damage, then it wouldn’t be a Ranger anymore. Does that make sense?

The only reason Rangers lose damage is because the AI is not currently what it ought to be. That doesn’t necessarily mean that we should completely redesign the Ranger and get rid of the pet.

Think of it this way: You’re building a house and a 2×4 breaks while you’re trying to screw it in to something. Do you scrap the house and completely rebuild it because that one piece broke, or do you grab a new 2×4 and use that instead? Which do you think would be more efficient?

What I’ve been seeing a lot of is that you guys don’t necessarily dislike pets. What you dislike is how they act and how they are controlled. It seems to me that these are feelings that have been built up over time, and have culminated into “pets have to go” because you guys haven’t seen the improvements that should be made to pets to make them desirable. I certainly don’t blame you for getting to this point, but I do want to know the core of the problem before we start talking about rebalancing an entire class.

I don’t understand why ‘integral’ has to be interpreted in a way that the pet is ever present. Mesmers’ clones are integral to their gameplay without them being there all the time.

Supposing the permastow can be done in combat with CD when you want to summon it back to prevent abuse, how will this necessarily mean that Rangers will no longer be a pet class?

In addition, the Shatter burst from Mesmers hit much more reliably and it’s AoE. Let’s not compare AoE vs single damage as it’s not apple to apple.

But perhaps the reliability of it has something to do with the fact that it is AoE (cough cleave for pet cough).