Guild Wars 2

hrmm, i wouldnt’ be surprised…. i heard they were intending on nerfing trap rangers (which im guessing BM/bunker types are in that umbrella), but the patch notes didnt seem that harsh. and over time i have noticed a number of changes that i did not see in the notes.

for instance, a stealth fix? it seems now when thieves come out of stealth, if i had previously set my pet to attack them before the stealth, they seem to automatically resume attacking them after this patch. which is nice.

i seemed to be tearing people up… but then again, there seemed to be a lot of noobs running around pvp

i like 30/30/30/30/5 with double dragons

odd i was toying with engineer the other day, and it seemed like they only had 2 as well.

that said, we do have 2 anti stun traits (shared anguish i think, and hide in plain sight). we also have access to a whole bunch of evades/extra endurance/ vigor to help us dodge those stuns to begin with.

we also have access to stability thru rampage as one or a traited signet of the wild. and we’re also on the back line a lot. so that to me seems like a lot of ways to deal with stun.

that, and lightning reflexes / SoR are two of our best utilities anyways, most of the time u can find a reason to take at least one.

if u spec pretty much all power/crit damage, as well as stacking x% damage, you do decent damage (can get ~1000 damage crits from SB, or a rapid fire channel from longbow in the 8000 range).

with quickness this can add up, but its more sustain (ie, you will take more time to burst someone down that other classes, so you need to carefully use positioning and evades to stay alive). when your pet does get a hit in, the damage jumps a bit. but even at max damage, a rangers dps falls below other classes (due to the pet), but without as much survivibility.

it can be done, and i toy with it a lot, but you are very squishy and its hard to stay alive versus good players/teams

hrmmm i think troll urungent should be a survival skill

so, at base level, firing ~2 times per second at a 3 second bleed, that maxxes out at 6-7 bleeds.

there are a number of ways to increase this. for starters, if u get 34% cond duration, those 3s bleeds become 4s bleeds. if u add a sigil of earth to your bow, u get another on crits. throw in quickness on pet swap / zephyr, and the number seems to max out in the 15-20 range during your best bursts if all are flanking. and with high condition damage at 80, these tick at over 100 per stack

so, in dabbling with other classes, it seems like many other classes have the ability to trait down the recharge times of both their healing / elite skills (maybe not all, but def some).

it also seems like these skills often scale, especially with power. (ie ele greatsword or the necro form do more damage if u have more power).

just feels sort of like ranger gets boned, since we cant trait down the recharges of either our heals or our elites, nor does entangle scale with condition damage, nor does the healing spirit scale with healing power. this seem fair? balanced? like fox news?

so as a rule of thumb, stats like power, vitality, and condition damage scale incredibly well, whereas stats like toughness, precision, healing, and crit damage scale pretty poorly. so the answer is always some mixture of both.

for instance, precision starts to scale a lot better if/when you’ve stacked a ton of power (2400+) and crit damage. however having crit damage without precision is useless, and either without power doesnt do much for straight dps (tho a crit/condition build can be made).

same thing for defensive stats. toughness scales fairly poorly, but the more you have the better healing and vitality scale

but, per an above posters point, its more about deciding what u want to be (tanky, damage, balanced, etc), and then stacking the stats needed for that vision, and the numbers basically take care of themselves.

kiwituatara.6053:

Still disappointed after the December 14, 2012 update The projectile buff applied to all classes; did not help rangers stay on par with other classes. “Obstructed” projectiles still occur when theyre not supposed to. Pets are still clumsy. Skills… a lot of them really should be redesigned. Viable build variety is still not very diverse.
Ranger update! PLEASE!

yeah. the update a month before did make the greatsword a lot better. and the dec 14 was a step in a right direction with slightly better bows, pets, and making a few lackluster traits more viable.

but i agree its still not there. even sped up, pets have a hard time hitting moving targets. if we spec for them, it makes a lot of our burst/cc feel random, since we have little or delayed control over it, and if we dont spec for them, they’re pretty weak.

seems to me like rangers have a lot of skills like this, ie: multiple versions of the same thing, in lesser forms. for instance:

fire trap and torch offhand.
quickness from pet swap or QZ.
SoS and protect me
various poisons…

point is. ranger has good skill compression in that they can have better versions of one thing if they invest in it, or lesser versions for cheap. signet of stone is superior in that no matter what, you get the 6 secs of protection.. but at the cost of 30 trait points and a long cooldown.

protect me has a shorter cooldown and no trait investment, but it rarely goes for the full 6 due to pet dying or needing to swap or whatever. in order to have it be as useful as SoS, you NEED a tanky pet (and probably a pet swap right before using it). it’s just how it was designed. otherwise, there are probably better things to take (like lightning reflexes perhaps)

Zenith.7301:

You are seriously listing an elite as your reason to be the best stomper/rezzer? You do realize that necros with signet of undeath exist, right? So, right there, you are not the best rezzer in game. For stomping, sorry, warrior and mesmer both have stability and quickness; the mesmer even has stealth. And if you want to touch on elites, Mesmer Time Warp makes mass stomping and rezzing a breeze.

Neither traps nor muddy terrain nor barrage compare to engineer aoe cc, let alone a hammer warrior. Knockdowns/stuns/knockbacks/daze>>>>>snare.

Burst? What are you smoking, you mean waiting for a raven f2, assuming your pet can stay on a target when you need it to land? I can’t believe you’re comparing ranger burst to thief, mesmer, or warrior burst. Or ranger condition damage to engineer and thief and necro condi damage.

It’s not just fine for the ranger to be OK while other classes are great. Classes don’t operate on a vacuum. Maybe we’re not broken in many aspects engineers are (they’re basically only good for cc bunkering and most of their skills are broken), but to say that we may be a bit better off than at least engineers is not something to boast.

They saddled this class with a pet, and released it knowing very well that it would take them 4-5 months to actually get it working above mediocre. How you can saddle a class with a main mechanic that is a handicap for such periods of time is crazy.

A pet that doesn’t scale at all — no food buff gains, no stat inheritance from your gear. If you want it to be decent, put 30 in BM or the pet is just bad. And the fact remains that regardless of your gear progress or access to boons, a third of your damage (the pet) is not scaling like a class whose entire damage/survival is entirely focused on themselves is scaling.

Scaling is a huge issue that has reared its ugly head in every MMO and needed to be addressed at some point to not disadvantage pet classes.

nah i wasnt even thinking of the elite, my argument that access to quickness on demand every 16s, as well as another 4s utility every 60/48, (which is great for both rezzing and stomping), as well as 2 ways to get stability (1 is elite, but it is a good elite with relevant stability uptime), as well as a few ways to tank damage. during an extended team fight, it means u usually have a cooldown up to get either done, whereas all the rezzes u mentioned are 1 and done long cooldown.

and by burst, yeah i do sorta mean wait until the raven does his thing lol. it happens, and theres ways to make it happen. while you’re waiting it out, rangers put out incredible pressure sustain thru either pow/crit or cond dam.

look i admit i experiment every day and have mained ranger since launch, and i still cant find many builds i feel i excel with. but i like the playstyle so i keep coming back to it. when i decided to main it, i decided i like how deep the pets system ended up (at first glance). i think it would have ended up better if they kept it as 2 separate classes (warden and marksman)

CRrabbit.1284:

If a certain class is over-played it means that class is overpowered which applies in a large number of population in Statistics meaning. It’s natural balanced. Vise versa.

im sorry, but that just isnt true. you can look at prelaunch polls about what profession people are going to play, before anyone had even played the game, and number breakdowns somewhat resemble how they are today (with warriors, guardians, eles near the top, engineers at the bottom). there are way too many factors other than pure power that that dictate such things (aesthetics, playstyle, ease of use, desire to use certain roles/abilities).

plus ive been seeing a lot more engies lately. i dont think its because they’ve suddenly become overpowered (theyve been nerfed IIRC), but simply that people are finally getting around to making engineer alts after trying out most of the other classes.

i too occasionally get annoyed about some aspect of the ranger and build viability, and will try out another class for a while, but i always come back cause i enjoy the playstyle. and they HAVE been slowly making life better

you can already make more balanced builds with the jewels available (since you can get 465 to a stat thru traits and runes, or close to +600 if you swap out the amulet jewel), allowing you to get the ~800 or so from the main stat in the amulet. you can tweak this around to get balanced mediocre stats everywhere.

that said, i do wish there was more variety. but there are some builds that are too powerful with certain stat combos sadly. the bad part is tho, whereas a cond/vit/toughness might be too powerful for a necro, id think it would be balanced a sweet option for say a ranger.

also, i find it annoying that in most cases, you have to sacrifice toughness for vit, or vice versa, making it hard to be ‘balanced’ on the defensive side.

what id like to see is more of the +284 sort of amulets, but utilizing things like toughness and precision and cond damage. wouldnt be that unbalanced IMO, but would add a lot more hybrid/balanced builds IMO

yeah…. pretty much all i do is tpvp, and since i largely stopped spvping, my glory has crawled… ive met someone like 6-7 ranks higher than me with ~200 less games played

ravens prolly have the most burst. cats and other birds (owls, eagles) have real good sustain mixed with some condition damage

Zenith.7301:

Please address ranger-exclusive utility to a group or a group support area where the ranger excels in a way no other class does. Whate is the ranger’s version of portal, aoe stability, marks/corrupt boon, cc bunker, etc?

well for starters, rangers are prolly the best rezzers/stompers with all their access to on demand quickness/stability/invulnerability (and stealth on cc if traited)

they have access to an incredible amount of spammable AOE cc/area denial through traps/muddy terrain / entangle/barrage.

we offer a lot of pressure with a bit of burst potential, with a ton of customization over how we do damage (access to all the dps conditions thru you/your pet, can choose burst pets or buffing pets, etc). it makes us a lot more flexible with the shifting meta

healing spring is one of the rare water fields in game. (esp since eles dont staff much anymore)

hrmm, you can contribute to a middle fight with with your pet while guarding back point.

our bunker builds actually do some damage as well as cc if you go traps

lots of access to chill which is an underrate condition.

i’m not saying we;re perfect, but we have a niche… and u CAN spec offense (can easily get my SB autoattack to do upwards of 1200 per crits on squishy targets. that adds up quick with quickness and pet damage). it does lay down a ton of hurt, its just more sustain than bursty. and you just need to play more reactive to stay alive, using evades/position/snares

so healing spring is good for ranger bunkers, because in theory you are fighting in it the whole time, as well as have a whole bunch of other regenerations to ease the pain of the longish cooldown. plus speccing for vigor on heal, it gives you vigor EVERY TICK with healing spring.

that said, similar to what jason said, the best PURE bunker builds that can hold points (ie focussing on simply living, vs being tanky and doing condition damage) use a combination of regen and evades and high vigor uptime / endurance refills on weapon swap.

you usually want 30 WS (pets pull conditions, vigor on heal, and X), and the 10 point nature magic trait natures protection. then you spec for toughness and possibly healing. the regen signet helps here too.

i like sword/dagger and GS, but i suppose shortbow is decent there too (evade vs a 3s block/counter). the playstyle is to dodge constantly, and when you cant dodge, use your weapon evades/blocks. when those are on CD, switch weapons to refill your endurance, and repeat. all the while you have constant regen healing you, you are evading everything, and you have high toughness/protection for the hits you are taking.

ymmv, but i was able to hold of 3 bads for over 3 minutes on a point using this setup. but good people will eventually get their CC in which hurts the rotation a lot. most ‘bunker’ rangers are rabid amulet trap spammers though, that have decent toughness and good CC with traps

quickness is an integral part to many warrior and ranger builds… i’d argue engy too but im an engineer newb, and maybe thief?

and we all know time warp can change a fight.

i have no problem with it as a mechanic, those physical dps classes do need it to make certain load outs viable, and it is generally balanced (short duration, negative effects often).

the main/only annoyance i sorta have with it is quickness getting off a stomp before i can hit my interrupt (sometimes due to lag or slightly slow reaction). tho as a ranger i do abuse that a lot myself.

i’d be down for changing it to 50-75% quickness and extending the duration (which would slightly lower burst, but make more sustain / utility combos utilizing quickness)

i agree, having more finishers and fields would be a lot more fun and interesting. as it is, outside of healing spring, rangers have some of the worst fields and finishers in the game, having essentially no blast finishers (best kind) and only 1 whirl. fire fields is meh, ice is okay

Autumn.8043:

I wouldn’t say Ranger sucks in sPvP
http://i1137.photobucket.com/albums/n519/CourageousFlame/GW2/gw050_zps614b42c6.jpg

I’ve been in a number of dungeons where peoples pets refuse to stay stowed and cause unnecessary aggro. I’ve also seen people refuse Ranger players for Dungeon runs.
PvE Exploration Ranger is really good at, they aren’t bad at sPvP either. Wv3 & Dungeons is where Rangers need help.

lol i love when people use one screenshot from an spvp match zergfest as proof of class balance

Mrbig.8019:

typingofthedead.5614:

Mrbig.8019:

typingofthedead.5614:

i’ll agree to fixing channelling when u agree to let me automatically regain you as a target when you come out of stealth

i don’t want to turn this thread into a l2p thread.

learn how to deal with it, like i did, like every other decent player did.

the issue listed on the OP is by far more gamechanging than a feature ( target drop on stealth) working as intended.

working as intended? i cant mouse target you cause you havent rendered yet and wont for a few seconds (which really also is unacceptable and needs to be fixed). i cant tab target you cause theres a kittenton of rock dogs, turrets, minions, pets, clones, etc in the way.

i personally dont think you getting punished for stealthing while someone is channelling on you is any less fair than me getting punished for several seconds AFTER you “REAPPEAR” trying to find you, wait for you to render, quickly target you to get a CC off before you’re back on me, which can be a nightmare in a crowded battlefield.

simply put, because of this, even a 1 second stealth punishes the person attacking you for several seconds to suffer through graphical and UI annoyances. it would be like me having a skill that changed YOUR target to my tank friend 900m away right as you were about to unload on me, then you waste all of your initiative missing him

I may agree with you regarding the culling issue, but that’s about it.

I’m a thief, i can global ( from 100 to 0) and get global’d by another thief, and i’m experiencing the same issue you’re facin, yet i don’t whine on forums.

Should i talk about all the stuff which is hindering my gaming experience ?

Should i talk about mesmer temporal curtain putting me in revelead after shadow refuge even if i spent all those secs in stealth ? ( if you don’t stay for 4 secs in Shadow refuge, you get revelead as soon as you exit the AoE)

Should i talk about eles using magnetic grasp and traveling twice as they should, beacuse i used a teleport ?

Should i talk about all the time inf arrow fails to teleport me in z axis ?

Al those times, unless i’m very lucky, means DEATH for a squishy like me.

Yet i complain about bullrush, not those ones.

so i concede and definately agree, bugs need to be fixed. i think we both agree we’re fine with things as they’re intended, but everything right now isnt working as intended.

i dont doubt u suffer from the same issues as me, you just get the benefit from them as well :-P

P.S. thanks or giving me a lot of different ideas on how to troll thieves :P

Mrbig.8019:

typingofthedead.5614:

i’ll agree to fixing channelling when u agree to let me automatically regain you as a target when you come out of stealth

i don’t want to turn this thread into a l2p thread.

learn how to deal with it, like i did, like every other decent player did.

the issue listed on the OP is by far more gamechanging than a feature ( target drop on stealth) working as intended.

working as intended? i cant mouse target you cause you havent rendered yet and wont for a few seconds (which really also is unacceptable and needs to be fixed). i cant tab target you cause theres a kittenton of rock dogs, turrets, minions, pets, clones, etc in the way.

i personally dont think you getting punished for stealthing while someone is channelling on you is any less fair than me getting punished for several seconds AFTER you “REAPPEAR” trying to find you, wait for you to render, quickly target you to get a CC off before you’re back on me, which can be a nightmare in a crowded battlefield.

simply put, because of this, even a 1 second stealth punishes the person attacking you for several seconds to suffer through graphical and UI annoyances. it would be like me having a skill that changed YOUR target to my tank friend 900m away right as you were about to unload on me, then you waste all of your initiative missing him

i’ll agree to fixing channelling when u agree to let me automatically regain you as a target when you come out of stealth

so i wanna say that stealth as a mechanic how it’s designed for this game is balanced, but there are 2 ways its implementation is broken IMO that makes it frustrating, cheap, and OP.

first, which is mentioned a lot, is WTF does it take 2-3 secs for them to appear when coming out of stealth? that is unacceptable.

second, which i find to be MORE of an issue that doesnt get mentioned a lot is that it DROPS TARGET when stealthing. which might not sound that bad, and is probably intended, but heres how a lot of encounters go:

thief unloads on me (i can hear it). i immediately stun break / CC / attack, and get him down pretty low. he stealths. im also hurt from the initial burst. i frantically look around with a CC skill rdy, he finally appears (and slowly renders). so now im trying to target him to get my CC off before he unloads on me again, but i tab to a jagged horror, a rock dog, some turrets, a ranger pet, etc, before finally getting back to the thief and by then hes back on top of me and i missed my split second chance to CC him (or he simply gets away even with low health, cause i cant target him before he gets out of range).

its hard to mouse target when im frantically mouse looking around for him and moving (and he takes a while to appear), and in many fights even a 1S stealth PUNISHES the attacker for 3-5 seconds while fumbling around simply trying to retarget again.

i guess the argument would be that if it kept target, it would be too easy to tell who the real mesmer is. but despite that, its an utterly broken and cheap handicap that….

tl:dr? IF U HAD SOMEONE TARGETTED AND THEY STEALTH IT SHOULD RETARGET THEM UPON UNSTEALTH (if you havent chosen a different target)

eh i like it in theory, but the 10s cooldown is way too long to make it worth it IMO. depending on your crit, that’s functionally 1 random boon without priority every 12-15 seconds (i have no idea if it procs even if they have no boons and resets the cooldown either).

its not that its useless, it’s just that there are far too many sigils that are simply more useful (air, fire, earth, bloodlust/corruption, force, blood, strength, energy, etc)

Kreamciqul.4617:

Yeah I was sucked into believing the “OMG CLASSES HAVE UNLIMITED CHOICES YOU CAN BE EFFECTIVE WITH ANYTHING” although it may be true for some classes.. It isn’t the case with rangers. It seems like rangers do not have many options and have to take one of the very limited paths in order to do “their part”

From playing as much as I did, rangers just get flat out boring. Plain, same thing over and over again. Especially if you pick short bow. 11111111111 lol.

I appreciate everyone’s replies and is condition build for a ranger really good? It would seem to be fairly easily countered with condition removal. Maybe not. Thanks again for the replies.

so one place rangers shine is their access to all 3 dps conditions at once, thru both weapons and traps. for instance you can stack poison and fire damage from traps while spamming bleeds on shortbow (+earth sigil). plus the traps keep ticking and reapplying the conditions, so even with removal you can still maintain good uptime on all 3 (which is actually a lot of damage with all 3 when speccing condition, esp if the bleed stacks get high).

plus it’s pretty easy to gear for condition damage and still stack tanky stats as well

im pretty sure each arrow hits and can crit or not crit individually, and that total you see is a cumulation of all the arrows that have hit in that one channel

Breakin.2409:

Azunai.5974:

Hahahaha.

This thread made me laugh and face palm at the same time.

Just please stop trying to cry about elementalists while promoting yourselves as skilled players who definitely did EVERYTHING to counter elementalists. How about, if you guys are so skilled at thieves, warriors, or what have you, then why don’t you go make an elementalist and attempt the same thing, plus EVERYTHING you guys mentioned: OP burst, OP tankiness, OP CC, OP mobility, because that’s TOTALLY an accurate description of the profession, despite not being an elementalist. Go. I’ll be waiting.

By the way. Ether Renewal is a channel. Learn to interrupt it, please.

I did, quite a while ago.

Also, what kind of kitten uses Ether Renewal when he doesn’t have stability, Mist Form or knows that his opponent CC is on cd?
To be honest, I don’t even have to use it most of the time. All the regeneration and healing from water, combined with proper dodges are enough to survive in a 2v1, let alone 1v1, that’s why I’m in a dilemma about whether I should just use the glyph.

on my ele, i find it more useful when doing dps and/or aura share builds, where the passive condition removal isnt great. but most d/d eles have at least 2 (on water attunement, / water 5), so the condition removal aspect usually isnt necessary, and when traited for CD i like glyph better for its burst heal and protection.

the CD on ether renewal does rule though

rangers can do good damage in either a glassy setup (with either bow, or gs or sword/x), or a condition setup (with traps, sb, main hand sword).

i mostly pvp tho. from what i understand pets have a tough time living vs boss AOEs and need to be microd / use a range pet

keep in mind, all D/D damage is more or less AoE, and as such it does less damage than a similarly ranged single target attack would. that said, in a balanced setup (or as mentioned a half dps option like valks), usually traited / utilitied defensively, u can output enough damage and have enough survivibility to effectively 1v1…

but if you go full bunker, youll never kill anything, and if u go full glass, youll prolly die before your burst can kill them (since as said, its aoe, so falls just short on single targets i find)

ether renewal is a balanced skill. powerful when it all goes off, but sometimes it doesnt heal fast enough or gets interrupted and u die.

that said, im not sure what all the QQ is about. as a ranger i eat D/D eles alive. a few movement impairing skills or stuns/dazes and they go down pretty quick, usually before they can even get to me

Indoles.1467:

It isn’t as good as it seems because rangers don’t have very many possible interrupts in the first place. We have GS 5, that already grants an attack of opportunity to our pet (They don’t stack). GS 4 which works as an interrupt quite well, but only if an enemy procs it. We have LB 4 which only interrupts if timed correctly. Our last on land interrupt is SB 5. SB does terrible direct damage so the buff isn’t going to be very effective. Oddly, the best weapon for this trait is greatsword and that already gives the pet an attack of opportunity so it is somewhat wasted. GS 4 is the only really powerful skill with this trait because it almost always causes an interrupt followed by a very powerful strike. So one question remains. Is it worth traiting 30 points in the skirmishing traitline for one skill?

i seem to get it right after my doggie knocks them down and interrupts them as well. so not confirmed, but i believe its when you or your pet interrupts

i more or less agree with the OP. every time im guarding an uncontested point or waiting for the point to cap, im usually very bored. i like the combat, and i like winning, so thats why i stick with it. but i feel like the point control, and various map gimmicks like the trebuchet, are annoying things i have to deal with between combat. and also agree that the mode promotes limited builds and the strategies get pretty stale (cap our point, and usually mid point. if win, hold, if lose, try for their side point, etc). the team that establishes control rarely loses it, which makes the matches somewhat anticlimactic (id say 75+% of tpvp matches are 100+ pt blowouts one way or another)

id be fine with it if it were 1 of many types of modes, a la TOR. but as it is, it isnt a very fun mode that gets in the way of their design philosophies (ie, play whatever you want for whatever class you want).

yes. you probably want to focus on toughness and condition damage, possibly in a 0/0/30/10/30 setup

if you’re trying to be a ranger that can face tank a ton of damage (toughness, regen, invulns), then protect me is valuable (esp with a tanky pet). but as stated earlier, more often than not it ends up with a dead pet (bad for your bottom line), and well before you realized the 6 seconds of protection.

IMO, for most ranger builds, its better to avoid damage than to mitigate it, both thru positioning and evades, and as such, the evade / stun break / gap creator combo is generally the stronger option..,.

but keep in mind it will likely take you off the node. if you’re trying to be a node holder. some combo of SoS and protect me, maybe GS/LB, and lotsa toughness/healing would be hard to take down

so i remember reading an interview where in the initial design they had marksman and warden, but they merged them into 1 class being ranger.

that said, they seem to have captured a lot of the essense of the ranger in this game (ease of stacking multiple dps conditions, traps, interrupts on bows, etc). but due to the nature of the game, these things dont feel as good/powerful as they did in the original (ie, interrupts arent as important/punishing. focussing on conditions typically means you cant focus on power as well, forcing you to choose. ). and because of the forced pet, your individual archer dps is pretty low.

but i still think they captured the essense/skill set of the ranger pretty well. and i feel like they have a number of viable build options (from beastmaster to condition master to support. and with the recent arrow speed tweaks, im finding even power rangers are pretty good, thats what i currently run).

i feel with the tweaks theyve made in the past 1-2 months have helped make them work better with the vision (arrows hit better, pets more reliable…). but you do need to embrace the pet, and built in evades, and focus your build… but i think rangers are very viable, and fun. even tho i try other classes, i just like the feel of my ranger the best and keep coming back to it

Chrisp.6924:

I completely support this post. He axe kicks me all the time. I can’t avoid it if I get hit with the axe. Although most the times Natural think’s he is 1v5’ing, I’m actually there invisible shooting them in perma-non-breaking stealth. I SUPPORT THIS! NERF CHIEFTAN!
-Love Tekliosi <3

so what, hes slightly harder. if you evade the axe coming for you, it never comes back for you. and if u miss that one, u can still evade it coming back, which gives you 2 chances to avoid the combo. and if you avoid that, hes easy peasy. kiting / ranged / immobilizes help. as a ranger i can easily solo either of them with full health at the end. but i also practice in the mists

i would be happy if it didnt take 2-3 seconds for me to see someone coming out of stealth (hears noises. watches half health drop. looks around, looks around, oh there the thief is thats hitting me)

edit: as well as it dropping target. esp if theres a lot of clones/pets/whatever on the screen. it turns a 1s stealth into 3-4 secs of not getting hit because of it

possante.8310:

typingofthedead.5614:

Jon, on a related note, can u or anyone say if the chilled effect slows thief initiative regen?

pretty sure not , 60% slow regen on thief initiative will make them useless.

i mean, i think thats more fair then them being largely immune to a condition just because of the nature of their class mechanic

Jon, on a related note, can u or anyone say if the chilled effect slows thief initiative regen?

ahh, i took a month long break from ranger to master ele between the lackluster nov 14th patch and the surprisingly good dec 14th patch. i could have sworn before tho that piercing arrows only continued to your target and then stopping once it hit your target. but seems like now in the mists if i target the golem closest to me, the arrows continue through to the ones behind it

so noticed some little things that seem to be working better with ranger that i didn’t see in the patch notes anywheres.

do arrows pierce properly now? it used to be if you targetted a person behind someone in front of you it would pierce through them. now it seems like the arrows continue on their path regardless and hit anything in their way.

also, it seems like opening strike now gives 5 stacks of vulnerability, versus just 1.

anyone else notice these? am i crazy?

Raven.9603:

pause everything. someone recommended the 1 second duration crit bleed trait for tourney level pvp.

hey in a crit condition build, thats 33-50% more damage per crit. plus you need to get to 5-8 stacks of bleed to start competing with power build damage. but im a power ranger mostly these days, just giving some constructive criticism

eh, id say its a fairly average build played averagely. its clearly a cutup of your best moments.

not sure why u say power ranger as well when u clearly have <= 1400 power. its not super survivable since most of the time 1 person is getting u very low, 2 would tear through you. its a good 1v1 build. but it prolly doesnt bunker well enough or dish out enough dps for tourney level play.

might wanna consider working in a trap / sigil of earth / 10 pt crit bleed trait / quickness to up the dps some

traps are great. fire/poison adds a lot of aoe dps in a condition build, and spike/chill are great for kiting/cc in a power/crit build. i usually work 1 trap into a lot of my builds.

i agree spirits are meh, but im also more of a dps guy than support. and most shouts are pretty meh.

i find the rest of the utilities (signets, survival) to be effective options, even if they lack some wow or fun factor (mostly make your normal attacks more effective). all 4 signets have their place (Stone and the regen one if traited provide invuln and stability/extra dps respectively, the 25% move speed one is always useful even if only for the passive, and the stun break/condition dump one is effective if boring)

so imo thats ~65% utilities that are useful, with spirits and half the shouts lacking for me

I dunno. it’s for your pet too, and pets can hit pretty hard. ive been running a power/crit sb/gs build (both with dazes), and it is nice to see that next sb autohit go for ~1500. i started using it when they added to 50% daze/stun duration to it, helps me play more like a gw1 ranger

skittlebob.4850:

Hey guys, I have a few questions about pet damage and traits affecting pets. First, the traits that give 30% more critical damage to pets and the trait that gives pets 30% more speed, do these actually work?

Finally, I’ve seen videos of ranger pets critting for 4k, but I cant seem to get that amount even with 30 BM and using a bird. How do you maximize pet damage?

the traits definately work. u can see on golems in the mists. one of them walks around, so u can see how your pet is able to keep up with him with it on or off. and the 30% one works as well, u can test with the jaguar (all his hits from stealth are crits)

KansasFF.9410:

Do we know that chill doesn’t affect initiative regen? It very well might, I have never thought to check.

if it doesnt, it ought to. since initiative is essentially the thieves version of a recharge

ah that clears a lot of my questions up, thanks to everyone that responded.

it does seem that initiative should be affected by chill as well, otherwise thieves do have a sort of unfair lil immunity to it.

also, does anyone know if it affects internal cooldowns of traits or runes/sigils at all. i personally think it should affect those as well as initiative, but wouldnt be surprised if neither is the case

yeah it can be annoying, but u have to pay attention to the group screen. if someone drops, the leader can resubmit to get a new player… however if you are not the leader, it might be worth it to drop and requeue yrself when this happens