Guild Wars 2

Archon.6480:

my conditions don’t even get bumped in huge PvE zeg-fests

not sure what you mean here – how would you test it?

TurtleDragon.3108:

Giving might to your allies is support, and strength runes make you better at doing that.

ohh, duration-wise, check. now i get what you meant.

Fluffball.8307:

all classes (which are running berserker) are putting out a ton of condis accidentally.

it’s hard to imagine how to fix the situation. there really ought to be a prority system in place, or some sort of refreshing trick.

TurtleDragon.3108:

1. Compared to other warrior builds

ah, makes sense now.
btw. i’m guessing the comparison doesn’t take phalanx strength group (potential) benefits into account…

2. Not sure what you’re asking here. But the other reason to run strength runes is because the modifier is easier to maintain.

it’s just that you wrote “support”, and i couldn’t see how strength runes figured into that.

3. decrease the gap while making melee still better

i’m afraid i don’t see the logic in this at all. buff everything, but ranged just a wee bit more? could you elaborate on your ideas here?

we’re getting totally off track here, but still, i like the discussion and feel like we should keep it up, regardless of the location

TurtleDragon.3108:

<1> Phalanx strength is the most recent example of this, you do garbage DPS but you buff your party by a gigantic amount.
<2> Strength runes are not max dps,but people run them anyways for support, etc.
<3> I also feel that melee DPS needs to be far more rewarding than ranged DPS

1: garbage compared to who?
2: support, in a phalanx build, or?
3: how do you figure? i mean, this whole thread has majorly been about ranged being behind melee. you want to increase that distance? why?

Fluffball.8307:

One simple change to start increasing viable builds would be making the person with the highest condi damage actually get to do the damage. Doesn’t matter how boss your condi damage is, you aren’t the one doing it, it’s the berserker guardian.

are you referring to burn stacks only?
i totally agree that condition stacking should be different. actually, stacking in general – like, i stopped running might-on-crit on my guardian because i realized i was potentially removing long-duration stacks and replacing them with low-duration ones. silly…

Solandri.9640:

Hmm, that’s not how it worked in the pen and paper RPGs I played. Most of our combat happened in cramped dungeons. The tanks, by virtue of being in front, physically prevented monsters from being able to tag the squishies in the back row (you can’t just run through other beings like you can in GW2). In open combat, if a monster targeted a squishy, a tank would “protect” the squishy by engaging the monster. The squishy would then keep moving around to kite it through the tank. If the monster continued chasing the squishy, it would just be giving free attacks of opportunity to the tank.

Melee against casters was thus mostly negated, and most fights boiled down to which side’s casters could burn down/disable the other side’s casters quickest. The rock-paper-scissors effect of the trinity worked. Without the melee tanks to protect them, the casters were quickly cut to mincemeat by opposing melee, before they could get too many nukes off.

but this is indeed something else. there’s no background programming telling the enemies to only hit whatever has the highest threat (that’s how aggro works, after all) – it’s in the hands of the DM instead.

the “tank” moniker still applies, of course.

Fluffball.8307:

thomasgjkgwdn.4760:

dps tests with carrion vs. berserker

players have reviewed and checked the math and actual application in a real life scenarios

yeah, it wasn’t intended for my benefit. just seems like there’re still people who need to know.

maybe… just maybe… we should get TurtleDragon to upload some dps tests with carrion vs. berserker on the various weapons? traited and all (pets too), i’d say. like, just to really hit the point home (or not – my inclanation is the former, though)

i mean… what else are we gonna do with our time? (and by “we” i mean TurtleDragon)

this is terribly off-topic, but…

Solandri.9640:

In AD&D and other games with the holy trinity (tank, nuker, healer), the way it broke down was that ranged characters did substantially more DPS than melee characters. But they were squishy and in order to deliver that DPS, they needed melee to tank for them. Melee’s job wasn’t to deliver damage, it was to absorb it so range could deliver damage.

there never was a “trinity” in the mmo sense of the word in (tabletop) roleplaying. reason being, the DM controls the monsters, not an AI routine, and certainly not a threat list. aggro is a computer thing, and the trinity mechanic to latch onto that is too (actually, i don’t know if maybe the trinity idea came first, and AI was designed to accomodate it… let’s just say it’s a joint thing then).

just a sort of game history remark, i guess.

TurtleDragon.3108:

:)

yeah, we all know alpha… (incidentally, alpha can be done with at least some people going ranged, as long as you spread out and keep moving… but that’s besides the point of specific ranged mechanics.)

actually, i’ve never gotten around to testing it, but does the queen spider spew more if someone moves away? it seems that’s what’s going on, but i never got to experience what actually happens when fight parameters change a lot…

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

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.

consider the aoe capabilities (typically) of those attacks, then adjust your statement in accordance.
also, no one is saying you need to be at max range (let alone with a longbow).

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

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.

once again, hyperbole. some bosses are even stationary, rendering your claim moot (in so far as the remaining “1%” cannot possibly account for all other wipe situations).

TurtleDragon.3108:

There are a few bosses in the game that do not use a certain attack if everyone is in melee range.

sure, and there are some who have much better damage opportunity if everyone stays in their face. it’s a whole spectrum of behavior, innit

well… assuming all enemies are melee, or can be LOS’d…

and yeah the elixir gun is fun! i just found it less useful in dungeons.

Anierna.6918:

Fear Me!
4x Fiery Rush

presuming a certain party composition, methinks.

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.

ranged weapons “suck” in as much as they’re not outperforming melee. but why should they? we often talk about risk/reward in these situations, and trade-offs for less risk. someone not able to stay up all the time in melee might as well try ranged (of course, numerous things factor into not being able to stay up, from profession and personal skill to group composition and combat situation). i see melee types die plenty of times, even in otherwise fast dps groups. ranged die too, obviously, but it’s often easier to manage the “alive” part from range. plenty of caveats in all of this, i know, but still… why the rhetoric must be so extreme is beyond me.

EDIT: i was actually replying to TurtleDragon, but i see that baby stealing dingo using similar notions.

yeah, all mine were 80 before that patch hit, so i haven’t had to deal with levelling. i just remember stuff from when i ran around back then. grenades (if only it wasn’t for that carpal tunnel syndrome inducing useage!) almost seem safer to me, due to the added distance, but bombs put you uncomfortably close to enemies, no?

people have got to start reading in detail.

no one has been saying that ranged will be better, always, period in this thread.

i’ve been trying to explain that lots of people are exaggerating the inferiority of ranged (ranger).

add to that, the tendency to think everything in the setting of optimally configured speed runs.

seriously, read – and stop thinking in extremes.

i’m not proponing any kind of ranged ranger dps superiority. i’ve got all professions (all berserker) and i feel the differences quite clearly, having experimented a lot. but i’m not willing to stoop to the level of extremist rhetorics in describing the various options available to players in this game.

Bawi.9541:

A stopwatch will tell you why there are no up-to-date builds for the FT :P

are the only viable builds necessarily the ones with highest dps? i mean, surely there are other considerations than damage.

TurtleDragon.3108:

I get that you want to make it not sound as bad, but you can mathematically prove the degree of inferriority. For example, under the same conditions, axe is about half as much DPS as sword on single target.

I’ll spare you the math, but it can get pretty extreme, in the range of 20-80% DPS less because the associated playstyles do not let them try to optimize DPS. Generally they’ll be playing with less than 9 might, use no food and potions, etc., non meta builds, not understand the combo field system etc. Even if they did play it perfectly, it’s still inferior by a fair margin.

i wouldn’t personally be using axe on single target, so that point seems moot to me. unless it was a quick swap to fire off warhorn, of course.

who’s this “they” you refer to? we can’t boil down the discussion to “bad players”.

TurtleDragon.3108:

Ranging is safer, but the more experienced players will only do so if absolutely necessary. I was also hoping you could name specific examples of ranged fights.

note that i’m running PUGs. i don’t have a guild for optimal party configuration. i do happen upon great parties now and then, and can certainly tell the difference, but any risk you’re willing to take depends on the capabilites of the other players (as a ranger, i mean – it’s a general point too, but it means something specific in this case).

i’m sure you remember some of those cases where melee was a hazard, back when things weren’t optimal for you. maybe you don’t. but we can’t expect everyone to land in the same circumstances – which is why we need to take the less than optimal into account when “dictating” the setup of players.

i think it’s what you call diplomacy? there’s a learning curve, after all…

also, frost bow + fiery greatsword.

you’ll hear people yelling for those soon enough.

(make them stop)

dungeonwise, i settled on this after having tried various things. just remember to flame blast/detonate all the time.

i’m inclined to say rifle is best for (open world) levelling, simply due to the (single target) control inherent in it. but if you don’t mind dodging around a lot, flamethrower has fair enough aoe (and obviously, you’ll still have rifle sitting for control situations).

snicker i just run ruby orbs…

TurtleDragon.3108:

Ranged dps is generally inferrior DPS wise to melee in most cases, and will generally be out of range of buffs so it’s even worse in practice.

we can most certainly agree that it is generally “inferior” – however, the degree of inferiority is exactly what i’ve been speaking about/against here. some people make it sound like melee is 100% and ranged is 0%. that’s a silly attitude. as long as people are using their skills properly (gear and traits too, obv.), there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with being ranged. it’s “a bit less dps” most of the time, but then again, it’s safer most of the time too, so there’s a clear benefit – see below – and it’s not like it’s impossible to stay in boon range even if you’re not melee.

TurtleDragon.3108:

Could you name what trash and boss fights in dungeons/fractals that where “range is preferred/advised”

anytime you’ve got either pbaoe or in general huge melee hits, distance is (can be, given all the circumstances) good. not all players/professions have the capacity for keeping up dodges/blocks, let alone sufficient damage mitigation, let alone the fortune of being in some sort of optimal party configuration.

bottom line remains: too many extremes in the (loud part of the) gw2 discourse. we need more moderation/nuance.

Fluffball.8307:

thomasgjkgwdn.4760:

TurtleDragon.3108:

If you can’t melee every encounter in this game, then that is a problem with either the player, your strategy or your team composition.

please, we don’t need this kind of hyperbole. it’s simply not fruitful to the discourse.

It isn’t hyperbole, so it is fruitful to the discussion. Using ranged in dungeons makes them unbearably long. Add in carrion gear? Arah P4 would take you what, 6 hours?

Don’t confuse successful dungeon runs for thinking ranged carrion gear is successful. Those berserker warriors and guardians were probably what was successful.

please pay attention to the details of the conversations. i never proponed carrion.

and no, not every encounter lends itself well to melee. there are several bosses (even trash here and there) where range is preferred/advised.

the emphasis (bolded part) in that statement of yours is a clear example of exactly the kind of hyperbole we don’t need. such blanket statements are pretty much useless, and only serve to mislead people seeking information about the game.

TurtleDragon.3108:

If you can’t melee every encounter in this game, then that is a problem with either the player, your strategy or your team composition.

please, we don’t need this kind of hyperbole. it’s simply not fruitful to the discourse.

Bambula.3649:

axe dmg higher or better than sword ?

you clearly haven’t been paying attention to the details of the thread…

TurtleDragon.3108:

I took the time to test it for fun.

awesome =) empirical video!

what i don’t get is why your damage seems to be noteably slower than mine. are you going untraited?

OP wrote something, someone commented. it’s rather typical for a forum, innit ;-D

but yeah it’s a good idea to chuck away at a test golem every once in a while, just to revisit the circumstances.

TurtleDragon.3108:

Enlighten me, define “a bit less” and tell me what has changed recently to make ranged weapons competitive with melee weapons in dungeons and fractals.

we’re not talking about change here. we’re also not saying “competitive” (in the sense of 1:1 or something like that). you’re the one bringing those notions to the table, not me.

i’m saying ranged is not as detrimental to group performance as extremists like to tout. and sometimes, it really is better to be at range. melee dps is not always the preferred option.

nothing novel in that

piercing arrows is fine… spotter is overrated, though, but it’s true that it’s one of the few immediate group benefits the ranger can slot.

and i’m still not seeing how a bit less dps warrants this dramatic devaluation. have you tested melee vs. ranged dps lately?

TurtleDragon.3108:

It’s not a bit less dps and also significantly worse when you consider multi target scenarios

axe hits 3 (in some cases further away than melee could do).

there’s also piercing arrows.

consider these traits… your capacity for vulnerability will be greater.

if you don’t fancy melee, you can totally use bows, or even axe. you’ll have a bit less dps, but you won’t have as much trouble with avoiding damage. just remember to use what you got, don’t just sit back. and look for traits that enhance your preferred style.

OP, it truly is better to learn to be snappy on dodges and condition removal. don’t rely on toughness/vitality.

BlazingBeast.3104:

the inability of the class(so i ’ve heard) to aoe and be weak compaired to other classes is a bit of a turn off!

you’ve got sword and greatsword for melee cleave.

you’ve got barrage on longbow for an infrequent ranged aoe.

you’ve got axe for autoattack ranged three-hit cleave/aoe.

you’ve got piercing arrows trait (needs proper angle of fire, of course).

you’ve got drakes for pet cleave and F2 skill use aoe (sort of like axe autoattack, but more hits, albeit infrequent).

all in all, i don’t think “bad aoe” is a valid point for rangers, really.

my pve perspective:

ranger: easy way to 80.

engineer: more group options for dungeons.

couldn’t find anything browsing through the posts, so…

was in a run yesterday, went for the shortcut as usual, but it seemed like there was an invisible barrier that stopped me from getting up to the top leaf. anyone else experience this? of course, we just went the usual way (and found some enemies bugged into a wall at one point too).

i must say, i like it – the shortcut always felt kinda annoying – but at the same time, i’d appreciate stuff like this being in the patch notes.

EDIT: and then, after submitting my post, i found this, hidden in another thread:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Dungeon-nerf/3936589

so yeah, flower shortcut is fixed. okay!

block them all, report them. that’s really all there is to do.

…it would be pretty neat if there was a way to subscribe to a block-list of confirmed spammers!

i’ve written about bot behavior in here before, but just to sum up:

-the ones i reported here were all warriors.
-they’re doing some sort of teleport exploit that allows them to jump around between certain spots.
-they do a jump and turn now and then, presumably to mimic player activity.
-they’re all on at the same time, all in the same place, all doing the same things.

i’m very careful not to report “false positives”.

this is only in frostgorge, though. been a while since i spent enough time in another zone to spot “botting grounds”.

it’s not at all a criticism of megaservers, quite the contrary: i’d love for these automatons to be kicked off, so there’s less work getting actual players placed together (less pieces of the puzzle, so to speak).

i just hung out up in frostgorge, adding a fresh batch of bots to my blocked list (for purposes of monitoring which of them i have reported already). since yesterday, i’ve added ~50 to that list. i’m sure there are more – there certainly are more of them now than before the feature patch (i had a break for maybe a couple of months). i can tell it’s the same code still, since their behaviorial patterns are identical.

but all these bots are stealing player slots, yes? it seems to disturb the cleverness of the dynamic megaservers, is what i’m thinking…

this is just to say, i do hope something’s being done. “freeloaders” messing with our fun, that ain’t good.

TurtleDragon.3108:

Pet management is mostly just pressing F3 or F4 at the right time. In a speed run environment, fights don’t last long enough for them to die.

yeah those buttons. the “dodge” buttons, hehe.

i’ve been going back and forth between pet types for a while, but drakes just seem better off… lots of bosses have too heavy attacks for the cats to work properly (even in efficiency runs).

TurtleDragon.3108:

Pet survivability is rarely an issue.

Arashiookami.2896:

As for PvE I agree that pet survivability is rarely an issue (at least in my case), but I’ve seen many many many rangers with poor pet management

curious: when is it an issue, and what “management” do you use when the boss is able to nuke your pet?

such hyperbole…

underwater combat is an option. no need to take it away.

Ariete.6509:

What about PVE? Dungeons and fractals?

it gets a tad annoying having to position yourself to max the number of people you share with, especially if they’re moving around all over the place. and there’s a pretty big gap of time inbetween uses where you’re not really doing anything.

contrary to what i expected, it’s actually half-decent survivable, but since you’re relying on those other people to help with condition cleansing, you’re in a fickle spot if they aren’t delivering that.

but it’s nice when you see your venoms work on all of the team… i wish the cooldowns were lower and the sharing area was larger… and that there was a venom that somehow removed conditions.

feel free to try and fit all these requirements into an LFG advertise… beyond that, there’s no enforcing this, nor is there any need for such strictness.

digiowl.9620:

thomasgjkgwdn.4760:

i’m running full earth/water traits on my elementalist […] the damage is still noticeable – especially by the AI! […]

Likely because those 300 from the earth line makes you just a but more rugged than a balls to the wall zerker warrior. And in their almighty wisdom, ANet made (relative to the group) high toughness a red flag for mobs…

high dps seems a flag too. i got more attention before. odd thing, having to choose between the two – from the fire into the frying pan and all that.

i’m running full earth/water traits on my elementalist, with full berserker gear. it’s definitely better than the various iterations of full fire i used to do. high damage becomes less appealing when you’re often just a oneshot/instagib waiting to happen, requiring your team to spend a lot of time reviving you, or fighting on without you… mind you, the damage is still noticeable – especially by the AI! or like, i don’t know what it is, but the enemies seem to focus me a little too much still… it’s kinda annoying.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

The leveling is fake as levels do not mean a thing because of downscaling or upscaling, you got that right.
It only excludes you from later zones.

traits?…

Gizmo.9178:

I did orr solo with my ranger. Let the pet tank mobs while you grab skill points. Very easy

as far as i can tell, ranger is the easiest for soloing whatever.

Darkobra.6439:

I can’t think of a single instance of this game requiring any form of skill.

do you do dungeons with pugs?