Gotejjeken.1267

That would be a grave mistake, ranger does not need a sustain spec, guys try to understand for people would be far too easy to come up with some broken kitten if a sustain build would be added to ranger....remember what happened with boonbeast and druid bunker before it, nothing good ever comes from having tank sustain builds Look at ele, massacrated by nerfs etc etc, this community hates tank/sustain/dmg builds and right now ranger balance hangs on a thread, any more sustain nerfs and the class will collapse in WvW also NO to tanks builds, ranger needs non-projectile AoE dmg burst with non absurd cast time , without much sustain because rangers who want to play frontline tanks can still give a go to soulbeast, tweaking the immobilize build is enough to get something working to have fun at least A melee AoE burst without sustain? That doesn't sound too fun as you get CC'd before you can pull it off...

No, you used to BUY them with Badges of Honor, of which players always had tons (changed in Spring 2016). Even when I was NOT actively playing WvW I had enough BoH to buy multiple GoB and even regretted not buying more back then. This was even easier when AP where added and the subsequent BoH rewards there too, effectively removing the necessity to WvW at all for GoB. The WvW legi armor was added far later than the GoB change (WvW legi armor was added in May 2017). Please do some basic wiki searches if you are unclear on the acutal changes made to this mode. I said I don't want changes UNTIL the developers have shown that they understand the mode. That is not the same as not wanting change. Yes, and the changes to having all stats select-able recently has made exotic gear and gearing even easier. If you want no gear, or nearly no gear dependence in WvW, make a strong argument for that instead of back dooring. I doubt you will find a great amount of acceptance in the current player base though, given the current players are attracted to the mode as is. As far as gating stats: WvW has had PvE stats from day one. I would love to have you explain how this was not intended. I don't care about your GW1 analogies. There was no WvW in GW1, and the Spvp mode here does not have gear, so for all intents and purposes, that's the mode you can play if you want a GW1 similar pvp experience. For the first point I meant badges of honor used to only come from killing players ( https://wiki.guildwars2.com/index.php?title=Badge_of_Honor&oldid=327793 ), and yes you had to buy gift of battle with that. Now badges of honor drop from literally everything and you can get gifts of battle through a reward track, thus 'easy mode'. Not really concerned with how many badges you had or how you got them, for all I know you zerged around in EB and were flooded with them with little effort. Second point, don't care when legendary armor was added--it isn't relevant to what I wrote. My point is legendary armor has no specific WvW attachment to it other than either buying gems => gold if you have money, or farming PvE until you get the gold and then running around with zergs and afk'ing for pips to get skirmish tickets. Third point, you're going to be waiting a long time as the mode has gotten worse every passing year since 2012; not sure if you were around back then, but if you weren't might want to wiki it =). Fourth point, players are attached to the mode now through Stockholm Syndrome, so not really concerned with how the overall community feels. Most of you weren't around to play GW1 which is why your last statement stands out. Guild Wars was always the 'anti-Wow', gear creep was never a thing, and still isn't. They put PvE gear into WvW to make it a more casual experience (which is why someone can gank people 3 on 1 with a stupid stat set and still feel like they're good), not because gear was intended to make or break the mode. People still hold on to the PvE gear in the mode because they want to feel like PvE is somehow hard and their gear matters, and also want to get kills without being good at the game or their profession. It's fine though, all you get get here on the forums is the usual hostility from 'WvW veterans' who probably weren't even around pre-HoT wanting to hold on to current systems that are very bad at bringing new people into the mode.

Ah, yes. Veterans. How many veterans still play? Most who remain look for fights by bandwagoning every 2 months, while many guilds have disbanded. "veterans". If by shaking up you mean -again- free stuff, then no. It us up to you to convince anet and your fellow wvw players as to WHY a change to the whole system will be beneficial, besides selfish reasons.One more thing: toxic elitists are a thing, but so are toxic casuals. And the latter are way more vocal. You...need reading comprehension. Ex: Where do you even get 'free stuff' from this? The point ascended provides clear benefits over exotic, no matter how you get the infusions. Unless you consider playing the game 'free stuff', in which everything is literally 'free stuff' and that's just asinine. So yeah, resistance to change is what kills the mode; you are proving it in this very topic. Resistance to having free legendary is what kills the mode. Riiiiight. I want stuff without having to work for them too, bud. too bad it wont happen.The benefit is small. Ascended trinkets are much more abundant and easy to get than exotic ones. As for the armors, nope, the difference is marginal.Dont fight people near guards in wvw, unless your build works better around multiple targets. That infusion advantage wont save you from their immob, blind, CC. Unless that, too, is a reading comprehension matter.You can ask for free leggy stuff in wvw by putting it under the "resistance to change" all you want. I want raid reward track, getting LI and raid armors from wvw. If you disagree, you are resistant to change, and you kill the mode. GIMME. No really, the rage is becoming kind of comical. First, who mentioned anything about reward track? The OP clearly states: "To eliminate the raw stat difference I would suggest WvW-only equipment with legendary stats, earned through WvW currency and only usable in WvW", nothing about a reward track. But, following your path, do you consider the Warclaw you get through the track 'free'? So literally one of the biggest impacts of the mode (because GL getting around without a Warclaw) is, shocker, 'free'. Why are you not raging that you should need 100g and10k skirmish tickets to get one? Continuing down the path, the gift of battle is now also 'free', and is something that is required in legendary armor. You used to have to work WAY harder to get even a single one--were you protesting that change too? Some of the things you mention are way way way up at the top of the complaint list as is, so I fail to see how you are making an argument using those examples. Yes, the Warclaw has a huge impact on the mode, and quite a few seasoned WvW players dislike it. The Gift of Battle change is mostly PvE player related. Not a single WvW player ever has had an issue acquiring one. Most WvW players keep around 10 - 20 in their bank at all times. The difference IS marginal from exotic to ascended on the most difficult gear pieces to get: armor. Ascended trinkets are far easier to come by than exotic, even if using only WvW reward track means to acquire the resources. Ascended weapons are likely the most difficult/expensive "should get" slot. Armor is by far the most expensive while least useful upgrade slot on top of which each WvW player gets 1 exotic stat select-able piece per week. The stat difference on armor is around 2.5% and absolutely negligible. Why resist a change? If it's not broken, don't fix it. The last thing we need now is even more messing with the game mode until the developers have shown they actually understand WvW. The recent changes to long-term prestige rewards in WvW have not inspired confidence that the developers even understand their current gearing progression in place. Also something being marginal does not mean it has no effect on a mode outside of character power. Even marginal increases which have no huge impact can feel rewarding. Best example is in fact ascended armor in either PvE or WvW. I still recall my very first set and how I acquired it and how long it took me, fully well knowing the minimal impact it actually had on my characters performance (and the hundreds of exotic sets which I still used after on all other characters). Depriving the game of mid- to long-term goals only to please players with attention spans of a Mayfly is not in the interest of this modes long-term survival.Firstly, the reason you have 10-20 gifts of battle is because over the past 8 years they've made them go from very difficult to get to very easy. You used to have to get them through killing players only, now they drop from everything. Thus making it a lot easier to get the current WvW legendary set of armor in the first place--all you have to do is farm pips for tickets and convert some gems to gold, there is no real WvW specific reward to any of it, as rank means nothing. Anyway, the mode is broken though, you said it yourself--you don't want anymore changes because the current state of the mode is bad. Basically, all I take from this topic is taking the gems to gold or farming gold out of it; you'd still have to earn the WvW legendary set through playing. Make it rank dependent like Mistforged Hero's Armor used to be (and still sorta is), that way you have to essentially stick with the mode longterm to get it, as even if you zerg to get your ranks you'd get bored before you get the set if you don't like WvW in the first place. It's just silly how hard it is to change your build in the first place. You have to buy a bunch of exotic sets and switch to them--when GW has never been about that. Going back to even GW1 it was all about cosmetics. Gating stats was never the original intention; and with them making WvW 10x easier over the past 8 years and WvW still dying, it clearly doesn't work.

They need to just get rid of Lunar New Year and bring back Dragon Bash instead

Ah, yes. Veterans. How many veterans still play? Most who remain look for fights by bandwagoning every 2 months, while many guilds have disbanded. "veterans". If by shaking up you mean -again- free stuff, then no. It us up to you to convince anet and your fellow wvw players as to WHY a change to the whole system will be beneficial, besides selfish reasons.One more thing: toxic elitists are a thing, but so are toxic casuals. And the latter are way more vocal. You...need reading comprehension. Ex: Where do you even get 'free stuff' from this? The point ascended provides clear benefits over exotic, no matter how you get the infusions. Unless you consider playing the game 'free stuff', in which everything is literally 'free stuff' and that's just asinine. So yeah, resistance to change is what kills the mode; you are proving it in this very topic. Resistance to having free legendary is what kills the mode. Riiiiight. I want stuff without having to work for them too, bud. too bad it wont happen.The benefit is small. Ascended trinkets are much more abundant and easy to get than exotic ones. As for the armors, nope, the difference is marginal.Dont fight people near guards in wvw, unless your build works better around multiple targets. That infusion advantage wont save you from their immob, blind, CC. Unless that, too, is a reading comprehension matter.You can ask for free leggy stuff in wvw by putting it under the "resistance to change" all you want. I want raid reward track, getting LI and raid armors from wvw. If you disagree, you are resistant to change, and you kill the mode. GIMME.No really, the rage is becoming kind of comical. First, who mentioned anything about reward track? The OP clearly states: "To eliminate the raw stat difference I would suggest WvW-only equipment with legendary stats, earned through WvW currency and only usable in WvW", nothing about a reward track. But, following your path, do you consider the Warclaw you get through the track 'free'? So literally one of the biggest impacts of the mode (because GL getting around without a Warclaw) is, shocker, 'free'. Why are you not raging that you should need 100g and10k skirmish tickets to get one? Continuing down the path, the gift of battle is now also 'free', and is something that is required in legendary armor. You used to have to work WAY harder to get even a single one--were you protesting that change too? Finally, if the difference is marginal, and ascended is so easy to get in the first place--why are you resisting so hard to an earnable set that would by your logic, not really do anything to the mode anyway?

Ah, yes. Veterans. How many veterans still play? Most who remain look for fights by bandwagoning every 2 months, while many guilds have disbanded. "veterans". If by shaking up you mean -again- free stuff, then no. It us up to you to convince anet and your fellow wvw players as to WHY a change to the whole system will be beneficial, besides selfish reasons.One more thing: toxic elitists are a thing, but so are toxic casuals. And the latter are way more vocal. You...need reading comprehension. Ex: Where do you even get 'free stuff' from this? The point ascended provides clear benefits over exotic, no matter how you get the infusions. Unless you consider playing the game 'free stuff', in which everything is literally 'free stuff' and that's just asinine. So yeah, resistance to change is what kills the mode; you are proving it in this very topic.

This thread exemplifies why WvW is fading out, mass resistance to change. We have 'there is really no stat difference, just run Exotics'--if that is the case, then why use PvE gear in WvW at all? If WvW is about skill, then no one should be resisting having a single set of earnable armor that's only usable in the mode. Then we get the defense of 'you can already get WvW legendary armor!' when that doesn't help matter in the least, as legendary armor is quite expensive, especially for accomplishing the same purpose having permanent stat-selectable armor would. Also when we're saying that there is no difference between Exotic and Ascended, apparently we've all forgotten about the infusions that reduce guard damage making fights around anything far more in favor of those who have them, as NPC guards are literally on every structure and camp in WvW. But, I don't know why I'm surprised at any of this when if you go into WvW any given night you'll see new players referred to as 'bags', so it's clear the veterans don't want anything shaking their world up or they'll threaten to leave the mode. And yes, I've been around WvW long enough to remember orbs.

What fights are you in that are lasting less than a minute, outside of either running a lone person over or dueling? Also, are longer fights really a good idea? The 'long fights' I see are typically an organized guild group vs PUGs--the PUGs can't kill the guild group and the guild group either is bad and can't kill the PUGs either (stalemate) or farms them for 10-15 minutes (north camp). Where is there skill in this? Open field fights are pretty dead due to the warclaw and passive buffs when fighting near a structure that one of the sides controls.

Or...just stay away from zergs? I myself find zerg play boring, so I stay out of EB and will only respond to calls on keeps and things if I can play around the zerg itself.

Found it from game release notes on May 8th, 2018: late release. ** Gray.6029Gaile Gray.6029May 8, 2018Late Notes: May 8, 2018 05/08/2018—May 8 Release Notes Profession Skills Ranger Barrage: Fixed a bug that prevented this skill from being targeted in certain areas blocked by line of sight.Fanged Iboga—Consuming Bite: Fixed a bug that prevented this skill from increasing its damage based on the number of conditions on the target.Canine—Crippling Leap (Soulbeast): Fixed a bug in which the displayed range of this skill was lower than intended.Canine—Brutal Charge (Soulbeast): Fixed a bug in which the displayed range of this skill was higher than intended.** So good, it's intended this way. Which thematically makes sense, barrage is shooting a bunch of arrows up in the air and them falling back down--why would you ever need LOS for that? Meteor shower and other spells are targeted at an area, so of course the caster would need to be able to see that area for the spell to hit.

Since when is ranger single target? My sweet longbow hits multiple enemy with every skill shot. It’s a simple specialization selection. If you count lining enemies up in a line AoE, then...ok

You do realize that's fundamentally broken and impossible to balance? How would you exploit it? If we're talking about not having a weapon swap cooldown, then, on swap sigils mostly. You'd do hornet sting, could swap and say get 3 condis cleared, then immediately swap back for another 3. There are also traits that would get broken pretty bad, like getting fury / swiftness on swap, would get a lot out of those with little downside. If you like that kind of play though, look into Quick Draw. It does very similar to what you want but only on skills used and not the swap itself. Weapon swap sigils of the same type share CDs even if they are on different weapons. From the wiki: "A character can always equip two sigils at a time (either one sigil each on a main-hand and off-hand weapon, or two sigils on a two-handed weapon). In general, the two sigils will both provide their effects independently as long as the base sigil is different. The exceptions to this are the attribute increasing stacking sigils: only one stack effect can be active at a time. Additionally, sigils with the same base sigil will share cooldowns between weapon sets. ExamplesA warrior is wielding a greatsword with both a Superior Sigil of Air (chance to deal additional damage to target on critical hit) and a Superior Sigil of Earth (chance to inflict Bleeding on critical hit) attached to it. Both sigils will roll their chance to activate on every attack the warrior makes, and each sigil will run its own cooldown timer after it activates.A thief is wielding a main-hand dagger with a Minor Sigil of Agony (+10% Bleeding duration) and an off-hand pistol with a Major Sigil of Agony (+15% Bleeding duration). Only the major sigil's effect will apply, giving the thief +15% bleeding duration.A warrior with Fast Hands is wielding a greatsword and axe/mace, with Superior Sigil of Battle in both weapon sets. He can swap weapons every 5 seconds, but the sigils will trigger only every 9 seconds, since they share cooldown.A mesmer is wielding a scepter with a Minor Sigil of Bloodlust (gain a stack of +Power for every kill) and a focus with a Major Sigil of Perception (gain a stack of +Precision for every kill). The main-hand's stacking sigil will take precedence, and the mesmer will only gain stacks of Bloodlust." Relevant part bolded. Also the traits you are worrying about have built in 9s CDs so they wouldn't even be the problem you think they would be. Even so, you can still have say Cleansing and Energy, both on-swap but different base. That's three conditions cleared and half your stamina back. You are also now tying cooldown reduction as a result of using a weapon skill, which as far as I'm aware does not currently exist as a mechanic. Double that up with aforementioned Quick Draw trait and you could have instant back to back weapon swap + sigil procs + cooldown of the next skill you use... So no, it wouldn't balanced. I made no statement on balance other than to point out your misinformation on certain CDs that you were making your own conclusions off of. Also if quickdraw would break it, then the solution would be for it to replace quickdraw would it not, or to be from a trait within the same tier?I was referring to the initial post I quoted with the balance comment rather than yours. You could add it to Quick Draw but I don't think it would be balanced because of the potential to get too many benefits from sigil procs among other things. I wouldn't want it to replace Quick Draw either because that hurts all the other builds using it for the sake of one weapon. I think you are better off keeping it within the weapon itself like my original reply about inverting the #2 skill or making it charge based.

You do realize that's fundamentally broken and impossible to balance? How would you exploit it? If we're talking about not having a weapon swap cooldown, then, on swap sigils mostly. You'd do hornet sting, could swap and say get 3 condis cleared, then immediately swap back for another 3. There are also traits that would get broken pretty bad, like getting fury / swiftness on swap, would get a lot out of those with little downside. If you like that kind of play though, look into Quick Draw. It does very similar to what you want but only on skills used and not the swap itself. Weapon swap sigils of the same type share CDs even if they are on different weapons. From the wiki: "A character can always equip two sigils at a time (either one sigil each on a main-hand and off-hand weapon, or two sigils on a two-handed weapon). In general, the two sigils will both provide their effects independently as long as the base sigil is different. The exceptions to this are the attribute increasing stacking sigils: only one stack effect can be active at a time. Additionally, sigils with the same base sigil will share cooldowns between weapon sets. ExamplesA warrior is wielding a greatsword with both a Superior Sigil of Air (chance to deal additional damage to target on critical hit) and a Superior Sigil of Earth (chance to inflict Bleeding on critical hit) attached to it. Both sigils will roll their chance to activate on every attack the warrior makes, and each sigil will run its own cooldown timer after it activates.A thief is wielding a main-hand dagger with a Minor Sigil of Agony (+10% Bleeding duration) and an off-hand pistol with a Major Sigil of Agony (+15% Bleeding duration). Only the major sigil's effect will apply, giving the thief +15% bleeding duration.A warrior with Fast Hands is wielding a greatsword and axe/mace, with Superior Sigil of Battle in both weapon sets. He can swap weapons every 5 seconds, but the sigils will trigger only every 9 seconds, since they share cooldown.A mesmer is wielding a scepter with a Minor Sigil of Bloodlust (gain a stack of +Power for every kill) and a focus with a Major Sigil of Perception (gain a stack of +Precision for every kill). The main-hand's stacking sigil will take precedence, and the mesmer will only gain stacks of Bloodlust." Relevant part bolded. Also the traits you are worrying about have built in 9s CDs so they wouldn't even be the problem you think they would be.Even so, you can still have say Cleansing and Energy, both on-swap but different base. That's three conditions cleared and half your stamina back. You are also now tying cooldown reduction as a result of using a weapon skill, which as far as I'm aware does not currently exist as a mechanic. Double that up with aforementioned Quick Draw trait and you could have instant back to back weapon swap + sigil procs + cooldown of the next skill you use... So no, it wouldn't balanced.

With how many things that Anet adds/changes based on player feedback in this game, I find it doubtful that not one of them had anything to do with WvW. Well if changes mean class nerfs then yeah some of them have come because of WvW as Anet has history of tying WvW and PvE balance together for whatever reason. But the mode itself? Can't think of anything since they added EoTM and changed structures from pay to upgrade to hold to upgrade. There is a reason there hasn't been a WvW tournament since 2014. Also, there are a ton of bots running around unchecked, hackers, and still have many, many OG terrain exploits and issues like obstructed in camps and walls being finnicky. So a vast majority of the time they don't even bugfix WvW let alone upgrade it or add new things.

You do realize that's fundamentally broken and impossible to balance? How would you exploit it?If we're talking about not having a weapon swap cooldown, then, on swap sigils mostly. You'd do hornet sting, could swap and say get 3 condis cleared, then immediately swap back for another 3. There are also traits that would get broken pretty bad, like getting fury / swiftness on swap, would get a lot out of those with little downside. If you like that kind of play though, look into Quick Draw. It does very similar to what you want but only on skills used and not the swap itself.

If you want the next e-spec to be pet focused, I'm going to go out on a limb and say you haven't been here long. Ranger's have been getting wrecked in terms of pet viability since at least late 2012-early 2013. Even in PvE we had dev's back in the day saying that pets could solo entire Dungeons and nerfing them there as well. That's my biggest question though, where do pets fit if they aren't going to be focused upon and we already have SB? For Druid/core they are super handicaps in competitive play if you don't take BM (i.e. are a condi-Druid). You can't even make pets short-term use things / invulnerable and/or only provide buffs--in other words just have them replace spirits--as dev's also thought THOSE were too OP and removed their ability to move. We all know it though, Ranger needs a sustain spec. Need something to help large scale, but I myself don't ever see that happening as it not only violates Anet's unwritten 'lore rules', it would open the door for thieves to also get a sustain spec. If that happens, well the two professions just keep one-upping each other for eternity...

Yeah, let's not act as if Ranger is useful in zerg play, because it isn't. Well, frontline useful--you can still hang around the fringes and take people out that way or repair stuff and field incoming stragglers. But that's not really zerg play, it's being near a zerg--being in the middle of one a Ranger is entirely useless as every weapon we have is single target outside of axe, staff, gs, and one skill on LB. We also have next to zero sharing ability; SB stances are about as good as it gets and they're outclassed by literally everything. So at most you are going to be the receiver of boons which you can't do too much with as usually SB runs glassy to actually do damage. So if you aren't careful you will be a rallybot.

Going to guess you main thief? As can counter those: Stealthing for map travel is not fair, as you are literally invisibleStealthing for build use can turn unfair very quickly as reveal options are limited and gimmicky at bestStealth travel doesn't have enough tradeoffs, and the fact you have build choice puts you above a lot of other classes already who are stuck at only one buildMy solution would be to reduce/remove the passive marking, and make active reveal way more prevalent. No one would want this as it means thieves couldn't leave spawn as every class would be able to reveal you at any time, on demand. To a point you can already do this with traps, but those aren't very effective in a fight unless you already outnumber--so my 'active reveal' would come in the form of more utility skills being able to reveal.

Camps are literally the worst with this, because if the terrain is even slightly uneven you're in for a bad time. So, every camp aside from like N and NEC on Alpine. The wall thing is also beyond stupid. Can't hit with anything except barrage up there, when should be able to hit with normal arrows from LB (or even SB really). Then you see other classes with AoE nukes just taking all the siege out--it's wonderfully deflating. I do think it is an engine bug that they either lack time to fix or can't fix; either that or it's just janky terrain (mostly in alpine) and they don't want to commit resources to reshaping / fixing it. I know for a fact pet pathing is an 'unfixable problem' as they based our pet's off PvE enemies...and yeah. The best we got there was the SB elite spec, great. What's even more aggravating is BM helps with the pathing a lot, but not all builds can fit it in, and someone over in Anet land still thinks pets are OP so they won't build that in naturally. Which is why I will always laugh at the 'trade off' thing; for any spec that isn't SB the pet is a liability with literally no tradeoff for having to manage it. But somehow, the SB needed the tradeoff of being locked to one pet BECAUSE it can bypass the pet being a liability via merging. Yeah that...that makes perfect sense, doesn't it?

For those who think WvW isn't toxic, clearly you have Team chat off... As far as general play goes, the only thing that gets me are players who clearly lack skill, travel in groups, manage to score the kill via assist, and still stand on you. It's one thing if you take someone out and are somewhat competent, even if you 2v1 them or something. But always the person that is just objectively terrible that's going to be an a-hat. Also, I loathe duels in WvW--it makes things too confusing. I see players fighting, and jump in--get yelled at that I interrupted a duel. If I see players fighting and ride by--I get yelled at for not helping my server out. The worst is, trying to determine what to do and getting ganked in the process; as it's pretty hard to type 'duel?' and wait for a response while in multi-enemy territory (because everyone duels to the south for some reason).

I've been around forever and have noticed that more ascended rings have dropped for me than in the past. I salvage them for mats, but they do drop. If you want actual selection I'd say save up skirmish tickets (for weapons/armor) and/or laurels (trinkets), fastest way I've found.

I'm not sure if any of these fully answers the question though. We have people like north camp because it's easy mode to defend, and people like north camp because of some unwritten rules in days past. The only real true purpose is the north towers, and those only matter if the enemy cares about trebbing garrison, which I don't see too often (usually they go water gate). Roamers have even more of an impact on north camp then as you don't have to take the camp, just hit the yaks--as they have to go way farther from north camp to garrison then from e/w camps. In fact e/w camps both supply two keeps to north camps one keep. Truly winning would be defending your south camps. Then you spawn camp the enemy / hinder them from roaming in the first place, get the e/w keeps upgraded far faster and not have to worry about north camp at all because no one can get out of the south. If wp's are an issue, both e/w keeps can have those if they would actually get upgraded in the first place. What's really baffling is n camp can be T3 and garri / north towers all T3 and people will still defend n camp over anything to the south. I think that, and wvw in general, has more to do with players concerned with skill and not wanting to be downed over any tactical reasoning.

The sensible thing would be to put skill 2 back but invert like it is now (so monarch leap => hornet sting) and put serpent's strike back on skill 3. That way you have a primary leap for engage / disengage and then an on demand evade in skill 3. Then still have hornet sting recharge monarch's leap if it hits , so you could potentially jump in => out => out for more distance. If that's not possible, then just make it three charges, same effect. Sword would still need a pretty major damage boost and some other utility (boon transfer, or possibly like 1 stack of stability on hornet sting) to be useful in competitive modes. The other problem is the offhands are so bad for today's game, S/D no longer is all that useful for kiting when you have GS or Staff being able to kite and be far more defensive (GS barrier / staff 4/5). Warhorn lost its place when they changed shouts to commands, axe is clunky and has a root problem, and torch...I don't think torch has been used since 2012/2013.

Whatever person or system that thought up this ET/DH link is on something for sure. Both servers are dead, but guessing ET must be slightly less dead than DH to be the host. I'm assuming this is an automated gaffe, as DH was a host server and 'very high' and ET was a link to BG so of course would also be 'very high'. Now ET will transfer to CD and DH will stop playing for 2 months...

Absolutely no. Druid is the worst of ranger specs. Being either useless or hardcarried by a broken mechanic, that requires counterbuilding with little to no way to actually outplay even trash druids without reliable way to get out of the roots, shouldn't be model for anything. I'd rather fight soulbeasts or thieves all day long (even tho both can be quite cancerous in their own ways). Have you actually played it? I can tell you a decent boon beast is far, far worse than a druid any day. You outplay 'trash' druids by having stab uptime, literally any CC skill, or outranging them, all of which are pretty easy to do. I've played one of the builds that you would hate for many hours and can tell you it's only really effective in group settings (non-zerg). Complaints about rooting are very similar to the complaints about thieves bursting from stealth, both require counterplay. Druid roots have major counterplay as unless you are +1'ing, almost all classes have ways to instantly break out of the roots or never be rooted to begin with. Roots aren't even druid specific, it's one trait on a 10 second ICD lol. SB can actually do immob better being selfish, can have sustain all day, only lacking in condi removal unless you run runes of cleansing. Anyway, Thieves on the other hand are built so that counterplay will 'kill the class' (see above responses). That's just bad design all the way around, as you either have an unkillable +1ing machine and 'have to deal with it' or you 'break the entire class beyond repair'. Outplay druid by bringing stab up time & out range it lol only a few classes have enough stab up time to keep up with druids root access, lastly u say out range it yet druid can out range most classes so..... Just so you know, stab is useless against immobilize. If you need a further explanation, immob is a CONDITION. Here, hope this helps! https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Stabilityhttps://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Immobile So, you actually need another boon to render IMMOBILISE useless, it is called RESISTANCE https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Resistance Hope that helped!Was talking about ancient seeds which is primary way to get into immob being useless if you can't get CC'd in the first place (i.e. stab uptime). But thanks for the articles.