Gotejjeken.1267

Still would probably go with a condi burst untamed build like this: End of the video has some brief EBG stuff because as we discussed here it's hard to get good condi applications around bigger groups--kinda still have to target snipe / use untamed ambush skills for AoE dmg. For condi prefer it even over my roaming druid as staff doesn't do a great deal in a group setting outside of heal potential--use staff in roaming for its kiting ability but that's 1vX situations. Can see that in the video too when I get overconfident in bay and am met with being chased by a zerg 😂. Anyway, after messing around the past few days, think I vastly prefer just power melee untamed in bigger group settings---have a hammer build can get off some nasty dmg. Maybe will put some clips of it together one day...but I like it more as can be more direct because the melee weapon skills like hammer are AoE to begin with.

Man would I love to see a video of someone on Hammer/Sw+Wh Untamed wrecking condi zerkers. Outside of arena of course. Like, in an actual game. EDIT: I should clarify, a non-bronze/silver game. A known streamer would help.

Looking for Signet of the Hunt on the bar is hard. This is the actual issue. Dragon Maw does too much--it has area denial, applies slow, and gives the DH might when triggered. This isn't like Nature Binding or Entangle on ranger which can be blinded, dodged, blocked, etc. Aren't you on EU? Also don't care what a DH gives up to do this--the forum was up in arms with ranger burst builds and those had to give up literally every defense and condi clear to work. No copium for DH's. DH is also used in p1-2+ on NA... pc fixed we gaming 👀 - Twitch Sure looks like Naru was struggling there with 'no defenses' while 2v1 porting thru walls to lock ppl in traps and true shotting from 1500 to swing the game back in their favor.

Everyone is gold 2 and below---in NA at least. Like, the top 250 STARTS at 1400 (right now with the number of games req it actually is like 1360 lol); and it stands to reason there would be more than 250 people playing pvp...hopefully... They just need to take the area denial off dragon's maw. Then it's a bigger discussion around how stupidly effective ground (trap/mark/well/etc.) spam is now and go from there.

No seriously, questioning why is this still going? Longbow - Ranged Shortbow - Ranged MH Axe - Ranged Staff - Ranged Warhorn - 50% ranged Torch - 50% ranged OH Dagger - 50% ranged OH Axe - 50% ranged vs. GS - Melee (used to be able to throw it though!) Hammer - Melee MH Dagger - Melee* (Unleashed ambush is a teleport so can be ranged) Sword - Melee Maces - Melee Literally ranger is more ranged than melee. Didn't think I'd need to type all this out but here we are...

My brother in christ, 2023 does not count as 'back in the day' 😂.

There isn't even a red dev announcement in this forum 😂

Blowing a stunbreak to escape a trap that carries no hard CC...*starts whistling Toxic by B. Spears*

You would just have to use it in 5-man GvG or havoc setup. If you have a video wiping a boon spam comp like rL / SPACE / your server equivalent, then people would take it a lot more seriously. As 5-man extends up to larger zergs, just more boon share or boon corrupt sub-groups the higher you go.

This statement is just false though. Every one of ranger's ranged options have been meta at various points in the game--with the exception of shortbow; can't remember that one in recent memory, would probably have to go back to when it was 1200. Anyway, Sic' Em Soulbeast dominated ranger competitive for the last 4-5 years or so and MH axe was/is meta in endgame PvE after they buffed the damage on it. Staff of course yes is meta for healing comps as that's pretty much its whole deal. It still does surprising damage though if used on a power setup. What you should be asking is why they changed ranger from a burst profession to a bruiser one.

My only follow-up here is if you confidently state things like 'ranger is fine in sPvP'...you should know how the leaderboards work and how the Top 250 work, how AT's work--how the things they balance around works. Also, about websites, the GW2 ones do a decent job of keeping up with the meta. For sPvP, Metabattle for instance earlier in the year listed teleburst untamed when it had no animation (meta with Drake/Smokescale), then when that was nerfed, then sword was buffed, then burst SLB (meta with Boar/Smokescale) until it was nerfed, and now only LB/GS untamed is back under 'good' as ranger is firmly out of any known meta. Snowcrows is also super up to date with instanced PvE stuff.

Some of us already told OP that Druid is still generally playable at higher levels, but only if you are seriously good at ranger. This isn't even really a disputable point, just look at the December EU AT finals--had two rangers in it, both extremely good and the Druid won out because bunkering for ranger is more potent than power is at the moment. The Druid could just decap far all game, force the slb and others to come to them, and then if a mid fight happen use CA/glyphs/etc. to support as well.

Ranger is a pretty reactive class--the only opening 'rotation' we had was Sic Em' Soulbeast, but that's not really at thing anymore. For Untamed, and general play--I say learn to combo into stealth. If you use longbow, NEED to not waste hunter's shot, and also need to know where smokescale is at all times and when the field is up. Then learn where your sources of superspeed are (your heal, your elite, maybe traits if you take those) as you need to stay mobile even when there are far more mobile specs around you like DE. After all that, I'd learn the pet CC's and how to use those. I put this last as you really need to know ranger prior to using them effectively, as pets don't exactly cooperate--so you might have to spam a skill or recall it / give it the skill to get them to work. Even with Untamed it's more important to learn the pet unleashed skills and what those do rather than the CCs--but if you get to learning the CC's too then you'll be better than a lot of your opponents.

Actually placing carries merit though--you can play your placements and end up in say mid plat 1, but at the end of season (120-150 games) may end up in g2 or lower. Just holding onto a ranking by not playing is same as decay dodging and alt'ing; it isn't really a good comparison of skill. I have 150 games played myself this season and hovering at ~1390 only playing Druid--but that doesn't mean Druid is good. It just means I'm good at the particular Druid build I play. Considering the casual uses metabattle and even at higher levels (meaning people like Boyce used some variant of it) this build was meta before the smokescale KD nerf: Untamed - LB/GS Untamed Marksman - MetaBattle Guild Wars 2 Builds Only Druid doesn't take Smokescale because Celestial Shadow exists. Anyway, if we want to latch on to anything, then for my money Druid probably is the best of the ranger specs right now--anyone who learns it can play it in probably g1-g2 (provided you can learn to regularly stall nodes) and the support version did appear in EU's AT for the winning team. Can also use it in group WvW, endgame instanced content, to be immortal in the open world / any t1 fractal that doesn't require multiple people and all dungeons. But, for a lot of that it requires an investment into learning pretty much every mechanic in the game, and that doesn't scream 'good' to me. Not by GW2 standards where you can just go to mesmer or engi if you like complexity and perform a lot better, or go to necro / guard if you don't like complexity and perform a lot better. Ranger is kind of stuck with Warrior in the 'we don't know what the hell to do with you' bucket, BUT we don't have a bladesworn or condizerker type spec anymore after 10 or so nerfs in the past few years.

Raid staging area exists for you to beat up on a golem in an instanced environment. Also, if you want challenges go solo fractals, dungeons, etc--open world isn't a challenge in the least lol.

😂 I tell you; your takes are so fire--one day you gotta get something to record with to show the world.

Scrapper and Holo are both really strong atm

Had to fiddle a bit with it, but made a bunny thumper: https://imgur.com/a/BGBfbJm Technically could use the invisible boots with this look as well--I just still haven't had the courage to bind them 🙃. Anyway, guess the point of this is--please more armor in next Wizard Refresh, I like it better than the weapons with a close second being the infusion.

Seems you may be incapable of reasoning past your own class? I can do that too...we should leave auras alone and give ranger magnetic aura because I believe it's the only one missing now. Can put it on brown or black bear for most lulz. There's been many examples past tempest in this thread already as to why a range cap on aura would be good--but we just keep circling back....

Which is funny because it's about 5 years younger than TF2 (which Overwatch is also essentially based off of)--so they could have taken the champions thing and made it into actual roles instead of eventually coming up with whatever stronghold is supposed to be lol. But...nope!

Who said nerf tempest...and why are we even comparing a single ranger sniping a tempest who should be in the middle of (and providing magnetic aura to) a group anyway? If you do happen to get downed, just mistform into the nearest structure like a good ele....

Rangers also have easy access to both Frost and Chaos auras now. Frost in particular is also easily shareable, with no investment other than the pet to stop eating glue for 3 seconds. So, this line of reasoning really doesn't work--as I can now easily snipe you with LB 2 AND have frost aura up. Chaos would take a bit more setup, but as untamed it's also pretty easy to have that up and snipe you. What really to look at here is chill and blind, among the strongest conditions in the game right now and also FAR more easily accessible than ever.

This is the reason they leave it alone, as you aren't wrong. Look at necro--has Reaper/Harb that are both super mobile now...and necro was the SLOW class. Ranger - Can argue any of the three can be roamers--with Druid as the 'support spec' having one of the best disengages if used right War - Can pretty much roam on all three Thief - Obviously can roam on every spec Mesmer - Virt and Mirage are both super capable roamers Engi - Scrapper/Holo Ele - Weaver, Cata, Tempest...even Core can roam Etc. Anyway, they messed up when they made Willbender because it hardlines guard to zerg / group play where they are top at. It's Purity of Purpose leftovers; things like JI and such should be nerfed ONLY in the context of willbender, but they are core skills. A big problem. They knew this too when they removed trapper runes which where used as memes by thieves and somewhat by rangers, were used heavily by DH as both offensive and an escape tool. But they still removed those, buffed WB a few times, and left the other guard specs as 'group only'. No one wins that way.

They do though. Pro Bowl teams are/would be essentially static (or close enough to it) if the same players get selected each year. NBA All Star game is the same way. Or think of it like Space Jam. The game itself is the 'world restructuring' part as the teams might as well be nameless (and do have generic names like Monstars); and then, the team is an alliance of players (there individual, here guilds). This is important, as the players come from both human realm and toon land, so it is a grouping of two discreet sets not a 'mega' set. Anyway, with Space Jam, MJ eventually leaves and Lebron joins, but the toons still are allied. Just like in GW2, you don't have to break up an alliance, but very likely elements will be swapped in and out as guilds die/form.

Since they have long blown up 'roles' (Purity of Purpose) with 'everyone can do everything', wouldn't be able to do a straight role selector--as for instance, how do you choose say core guard, support druid, support tempest, scourge, or specter as 'support'? Was thinking class selector, so you could only have one per team, but unsure if population supports that. Then lock down the class switching, so you have to basically choose a role within the class you Q'd as. Race conditions could be taken care of by either volunteer opt out within a timer (with maybe some bonus for the person who yields), or after higher ELO wins. But, class selector even would be hard as not everyone has one of each. Would be different if it was like Overwatch where they are canned chars, but here you use your own. They'd almost have to create canned chars like TF2/Overwatch and then implement class selection--each canned char would have all specs available, and you could customize loadout. But, that's an entirely new game I think 😂.