Kovu.7560

The evolution of this post was amazing <3 Thanks, I was pretty caught off guard with that surprise announcement. Didn't think it was real, at first.I'm really looking forward to seeing what you guys have in store once this goes live. =p ~ Kovu

I'm confused. You can literally take a break to make a sandwich and still return in time to walk away from an incoming engi mortar shell. It has to be one of the slowest projectiles in the game. Now instant-drop-from-stealth AoE meme nades on the other hand... (Not that its any worse than the cheese rangers, thieves and shatter mesmers pull.) ~ Kovu

You can activate Sic 'Em and unmerge, the damage buff will remain on you (and they'll still be revealed). However, despite the tooltip, the soulbeast doesn't actually gain that 40% extra movement from Sic 'Em. Soulbeast/pet buff interactions are weird sometimes. ~ Kovu edit- I was mistaken, the movement boost is granted but is usually not noticed as with swiftness your in-combat movement speed is capped anyway. A bit misleading.

Cut down (or flat out remove) all of those multiplicative bonuses the Beastmastery and Soulbeast traitlines give to a soulbeast and buff core ranger damage. Core ranger damage is sufficiently pathetic that anything shy of bruiser-based builds is subpar in today's roaming meta. As for Soulbeasts that press sic 'em & rapid fire... their rotation is literally the most predictable thing in the game, making even rifle deadeye look high-skill. Druids are annoying with the roots but don't actually kill anything on their own -- unless you have literally 0 cleanses and they're allowed to ramp up those bleeds. IMO that spec needs a rework involving the reduction of immobilize applications, but whenever I bring it up Druid mains (all three of them) cry. Also, since we're comparing lengths, 8k hours on ranger here. o/ ~ Kovu

You shut your boar mouth. =D ~ Kovu

Whoa now, that's expecting a lot of the devs' time and investment into adjusting and updating the coding for this gamemode. They have a living story to work on. ~ Kovu

Honestly I'm more interested in the poor fellow only managing 225 damage on a rapid fire... they clearly need some assistance with their build. ~ Kovu

Yes. ~ Kovu

Nobody above wood league dies to ranger pets. Cut back on Druid's immobilization cheese and replace it with some relevant damage or actual team support options (that aren't heavily outclassed by other professions). Marks and traps should trigger on the roots, roots should have near 0 health and ancient seeds should flat out not exist (and be replaced by aforementioned team support or offensive supporting options). Alternatively, remove the roots of entangle (the elite) entirely and replace it with a visual effect of rooting with a single instance of 2s of unblockable (but still dodgeable) immobilize.Druid is a meme at this point, and not even a funny one. There is an immobilize-spamming elementalist build that could probably be looked at, too, but someone with more experience on the profession can touch on that. ~ Kovu

Well, when you have a base profession with some of the worst power coefficients in the game being propped up by an obscene number of traits, utilities & elite additives designed to multiply that otherwise mediocre core damage, this is the sort of thing you're left with. Rangers should have higher damage out of the box rather than those traits and shouldn't be forced into combos such as sic 'em/one wolf pack/rapid fire to contribute burst potential offensively. If you're not going to passively try and boost your damage, you might as well run condi. As for this thread, you can dodge, interrupt, teleport away, los, reflect/block most of those shots and stealth up so they can't follow up -- and while rapid fire will be back up in a few seconds, sic 'em & one wolf pack won't be. You're comparing a trait to an elite skill. Meanwhile thieves can literally 1-3 shot rangers (and anyone else) that run that glassy. OP just lost initiative, or got ganked by a +1. ~ Kovu

Satire aside, even that isn't a defense for deadeyes as they have an ability with an ammo count that can peel revealed (and also restealth). At least daredevil and core thieves are forced to blow more of their cooldowns if revealed is applied, or be punished. Deadeyes -- not so much. Between 1,200 range, shadow meld and high reset/reposition potential through stealth on demand via dodges on top of all of the core thief stuff, its easily the least punishable thief spec that still hits as hard as the melee counterparts. Plus it's the easiest thief spec to play. Deadeye is a game of whack-a-mole that most melee specs are unlikely to win. It's also likely the best +1 spec in the game, for what that's worth. ~ Kovu

Oh hey, it's FA old farm team. How nostalgic!Welcome back to the fold, IoJ. Hope you've been playing nice with SoS. o/ ~ Kovu

~ Kovu

Really? We literally dodged one patch. It had to happen eventually. In the view of most players, elementalists still have more builds that are viable in large scale gameplay despite the shout nerf. (Heck, ranger shouts aren't even classified as shouts anymore.) When tempest is nerfed down to druid-levels of irrelevancy, we can have a chat. These days druids are just immob-bots, something that doesn't really stick in the scrapper-heavy meta. Unless you're talking about roaming, in which case yes rangers have some stupid builds -- but so do most professions. This patch didn't really touch that. ~ Kovu edit - While not technically untrue, saying stuff like rangers were buffed by proxy of not being nerfed is cynical and misleading. All of the stuff this patch addressed won't make rangers (noticeably) better at small skirmishes, nor worse at contributing more to a zerg.

It's amusing watching my character hobble along while under the effects of both cripple and superspeed.That said, outside of certain engineer specs, I don't think this is an issue -- most only get personal superspeed for 2~5s on a 30-40s cooldown through either traits or utility slots. A lot of defensive power creep in all areas of the game comes from how much things tend to snowball due to AoE stacking. Superspeed, boon generation, area reflection, area healing and cleansing -- a lot of this stuff would solve itself if we reduced the number of allies affected by the vast majority of AoE skills in the game. Not sure cutting down on that would be the right call though, a big part of the strategy in this game is derived from how the professions synergize with each other. It's difficult to find a happy balance. Perhaps halve the duration of superspeed engineers grant to their allies, kind of like how ranger stances only affect allies for a fraction of the duration they're personally affected. ~ Kovu

I wish the daily wvw rewards potion was sellable. We'd make a killing off of folks like these.OP, just run with your server's zerg and bring a class that has decent AoE access. This actually requires fewer brain cells than most pve metas. Or do what the above posters suggest, tag NPCs at camps near your spawn and spend 90% of time your time watching Netflix whilst waiting for the progress bar on your gift of battle reward track to complete. This game mode is substantially more welcoming to newcomers than fractals, spvp and (especially) raids. ~ Kovu edit- basic gliding only costs 3 wxp levels, easily attained. Mounts aren't even hard required because of the speed buff that's granted to players close to other players who are mounted.

Retal also works. Only 23% of rangers know how to cancel a channeled ability. Fact check that. But the good ones don't open with that combo. It's supposed to be the grand finale! The coup de grace! The knockout blow! If executed correctly, after you've forced their stun breaks it'll make maul and rapid fire look like a tickle. Axe 4 -is- kind of hard to connect with, though. Best results require the ranger to eat their hyena first. ... Though now that you've brought it up I think instead of calling out "pulling" or "spinning" in comms, I'll be yelling "wacky waving inflatable flailing arms man, three down on me!" I think the channel, even quickened is long enough for that mouthful. ~ Kovu

I encourage all of the people who are saying longbow/greatsword ranger to give axe/axe a try. Pulling someone, rooting them and then spinning on them for a large chunk of damage is so satisfying. You can still keep either the greatsword for block, mobility and maul, or longbow for the stealth and range depending on your playstyle. Axe 3 is also a good chunk of damage. Ranger has some of the strongest 1v1 potential in the game. That said, mesmer and thief are right there with ranger and will still be better options for running away/resetting if staying alive is your priority. Very little in this game can speak to numerous stealths and teleports. Warrior is still a pretty solid choice, though you better land your stuns. They can chunk for a lot of damage and keep up with anyone without a teleport. Condi rev is also viable, as are scrapper/holo builds. Heck, I see some burn elementalists out there putting in work, and core necros can build to be nigh unkillable for a time. I'd say overall your best picks are thief, mesmer, ranger, engi and warrior. Really, it all comes down to preference. Maybe hop into pvp and see which professions you enjoy playing the most? I base my play on that more than what's the most powerful during any given meta. ~ Kovu

I'm not sure I've ever died to a condition soulbeast.Condi druid, sure. Condi core, maybe. Power soulbeast... certainly. Anywho, core ranger doesn't bring enough group support for any augments granted by soulbeast to be better than the core support guardian provides in (potential) conjunction with firebrand. But that's okay, they do a lot of other things. Squads are already rolling guardians and scrappers, there isn't a whole lot more room for more support. Roll with immobs, power and dual axe (with hyena poll). You'll do fine. Or meme it up with Druid and lock chunks of the enemy group down for literally ever. Mmm, thrive on those salty whispers. ~ Kovu

Guild Wars: Double Dash

Yep. That's literally our update for the quarter. A sideways nerf to banner utility. They didn't even touch the banners themselves.Back to the grind, fellows. See you next update when ambient creatures near capturable objectives have their health reduced by 33%. ;p ~ Kovu

~ Kovu

exactly. Us poor WVWers are forced to do map completion to get our legendaries and that takes waaaaay longer than what OP is forced to do. To speak nothing of the HoT/PoF legendaries... those are a chore. Anet wants you to play their whole game to earn your shiny stick, the wvw portion is probably the easiest. ~ Kovu

Who wants a golem massage?I know I do. Anywho, if folks were concerned about pets soaking up damage, clone spamming mesmers, necro petting zoos and rangers would be the meta. I'm fairly convinced they're not. While I haven't tested it in a while, I'm fairly certain AoE damage prioritizes players over their pets? ~ Kovu

This sentiment sounds nice, however, from my experience people that are actually new, as you describe, I would say 90% don't want to try WvW and then 90% of those that would want to try WvW with a new ftp lowbie toon are, likely, going to have a poor experience or hopefully not try WvW with said unequipped toon and just buy the game. No I think this is a poor argument in reality. What I mean is, I understand your point and respect the premise, however,I find it unrealistic. I find it much more realistic to consider that most Serious FTP players are just trying out the game. They wana see basics and get a feel which is all ftp should provide. Granted, on the one hand its very nice that ftp get access to wvw, pvp, etc. In practice, many that play those modes with ftp cause problems like the OP mentions. Meaning, they are often trolls in wvw, throw alts in ranked, people just trolling the game in general, trolling map chat, etc, etc. All the kitten that drives people away from the game. Much of which is best done w FTP, at present. That seems like an obvious issue. Also more legit ftp that would be interested in buying the game at some point (the ones who actually matter IMO) would likely be content to try pve, non-ranked, etc. If the game was changed to cut off ftp from these few things. I do think it would be very beneficial. It would cut out a large source of shenanigans. What Im saying is I see very little reason for FTP to need to try WvW directly or ranked pvp for that matter to know if they like the game enough to buy it. I mean u can get it half price which is like $15 for pof +hot. Seriously, I think the game would be healthier overall if FTP had a few restrictions beyond no free daily 2g and full TP. You have a very pessimistic view of the newer players of the community (which I completely disagree with), fail to recognize that many of those players choose to remain on their free accounts rather than upgrading to full accounts and still enjoy the game as much as any of us, and by pointing out the low cost of the game you strengthen any argument people make that trolling isn't caused exclusively by folks in free accounts. Rather, dedicated trolls will spend the money on the game (and as pointed out above are often alt accounts paid or otherwise of existing players on different servers) to accomplish their mission. Those kinds of players are clearly try hard and won't be stopped by a tiny investment. Considering how much this game offers with only an initial cost and no subscription I will always be in favour of granting more to the folks who throw a bit of money at purchasing the game in full, but "mah tactics" is a sorry argument for cutting away a potentially great influx of newer players into the gamemode. ~ Kovu