Gotejjeken.1267

Spirits should follow you, but not like before where they walked (although that's my favorite visual in the game). With today's game it'd make more sense if they were wisps around you like Staff #2. Then, they pulse boons around the ranger instead of some random area you set them in, and also should just pulse 4s of alacrity by default every 15-20s. Color code them so the enemy knows what spirits you are using, and not only do you have a cool looking theme'd idea, but you also have mobile spirits that can't die and have useful pulsing of alacrity. EDIT: Since the spirits pulse alacrity no matter what now, could always rework the NM GM so that if you take it, you can have more than one spirit active at a time. Otherwise, you'd have to choose one to use (on a 20s CD or whatever it is now).

I've also noticed some weird lag with thief stealth lately. Typically, I've seen them either steal and then go into it or do the black powder thing--but literally have seen instant stealth all over the place without seemingly doing anything special to get access to it.

Yeah, the ones I posted are all 'positional' in nature, being flying spectres or anets own tower exploits that are left unchecked (NWT on DBL, or SET on Alpine with DD Staff / etc. into it). Also have vids of teleporting necros and berserker while in downstate. The damage ones are hard to prove--closest I have is a vid of a harbinger that seemed to stop taking damage after a while, but haven't done anything with it as could be lag and I ended up just leaving them anyway. There's also rampant botting that is really hard to prove unless you lead them on chases and get the pathing inconsistencies on vid. I think the largest issue here is the vast majority of the playerbase does not seem to have access to quality recording, which is really weird to me since we've been in the streaming age for nearly a decade now.

There has never been a time where condi wasn't effective in some form or another, so we can't really say 'it wasn't like this before'. On the flip side... I don't think this is factually true. Your oppressive condi roamers are mesmers and harbingers, both of which you can counter with projectile denial. Since I play it a lot, I'd put condi druid up there too, but this can be countered with good CC if you don't play extremely carefully.

You can prefer different builds, but to say that Perilous Gift is much better for sustain than Celebeast, is just misleading. Firstly, Perilous Gift (like everything Untamed) is based around competitive--you are supposed to use it at as low of HP as possible to get the maximum benefit--this is the opposite of LI. Secondly, by not even ever unmerging you have more stats on Celebeast with BM than you ever will on Untamed. Meaning you have better sustain on a LI build, because again, to get sustain on Untamed you actually have to do things. I made a topic a while back about Soulbeast being more complex than Untamed now with swap back--I still think this is the case, but only at the high skill side of things. I absolutely think that Soulbeast still is the easiest to play at the low skill floor because of all the damage bonuses you can get for no effort.

Better off with celebeast and just use LB to tag things while perma merged. You'll do more damage and have more access to self-sustain then you ever will on Untamed. Also, holy contradiction: If you insist on randomly having a 'heal on X' type trait then celebeast with: Predator's Cunning - Guild Wars 2 Wiki (GW2W) Is what you will use. Then instead of LB just run SB with piercing arrows and you can pew pew your way to victory. Will never even need to swap weapons either!

Nah, NA, but just not pure primetime--usually play from 11PM EST onward. Also stick in T3/4, sometimes 2 and rarely ever 1 so most likely my experience will vary from a T1 server / primetime experience. Still think balancing around 50 man blobs really only caters to EBG though, as other BLs just don't carry the weight of a SMC fight.

Since I didn't see a dedicated topic, going to make one as its very annoying. Assuming because of the auto-attack implementation that now you have to literally spam F2 skills if you want them to work. It doesn't always happen, but it happens enough to make usage a nightmare in any scenario that counts.

Maybe most bad Druid roamers, but we shouldn't focus on those. Yes. EDIT: Although ''no" to increasing the CD of avatar, nerfing the condi cleanse potential of the form is already enough.

I still think we agree at some level; the simple analogy here is as I mentioned, chess. It has a simple framework for how pieces move, and complexity is inserted mostly through openers but other ways as well. The openers in chess are analogues to what most people would use as skill rotations in GW2, the difference here is it is not a 1 to 1 translation, as GW2 would be more akin to 3D chess. It's not just the skills themselves that add complexity, but the terrain, node rotation mechanics, etc.

EDIT: I may have misunderstood your 'mounting' as for WvW when you could have been talking about PvE. As I have seen zero use cases in WvW for casting the teleport for the spirit when your group is entering an objective--they don't go nearly far enough for that to be viable. If you are for instance outside a keep, mount, enter the keep, set up siege, etc. your spirit will well be off CD by then.

Probably should go champion that on the engineer forum then. Not that I care too much about Mechanist--essentially, I provided you the simple example of shift signet as one skill that does too much. Fervent Force on the other hand actually fits the 'purity of purpose' mantra because it does exactly one thing, lower the CD of all skills when you CC something. If it also gave you stability or removed condis or something else, then it would be violating PoP. Complaining about FF is like complaining about AED because AED has very little tell, and if popped at the right time can be an instant second wind for an engineer even if you see it, as it's not always possible to stop the engineer from taking lethal damage (i.e. very powerful in sPvP where you can't control the entire teams damage). By your logic AED doesn't fit PoP because its powerful in certain scenarios, just like FF.

You need an editor, badly. In short, one great way to lose your entire audience is to write soliloquies like that OP. I mean, just say you want GW2 balance to be like chess and be done with it. Sure, that has issues as even chess is a pretty much 'solved' game at the GM level, but it at least lends to your 'simple into complex' stance without the entire 10k word diatribe.

I fail to see how that is a better complaint when mounting to destroy them is useful for repositioning them (i.e., outside then inside of a keep or tower). Healing them you can really only reliably do on a druid, but having to babysit your spirits makes you 100% less useful to the actual people you should be supporting. So yes, spirits are awful everywhere outside of instanced PvE. You may be able to work them into one of your builds though, considering most of those are about as off meta as a mountain trail 🙃.

Have enough CD reduction in terms of quick draw and fervent force--ferocious symbiosis is fine in current state as you'll always have max stats (i.e. +15% dmg and 25% speed) if you are playing correctly. If more CD reduction is added, it should be at weapon specific level, like gs maul or staff 3 into an ally. If changing Ferocious Symbiosis, then I'd rather it work like mini Strength of the Pack and add might as you attack. Even if its 2 stacks of might for a max of 10, and then just move the movement speed to the actual unleash (i.e. if you unleashed get 25%, if pet unleashed it gets 25%).

You really going to come in this sub as an engi main talking about 'purity of purpose' 😂. Considering the 'do it all' boon spam puke engis have, you cannot be having a serious discussion right now. I mean we can start with this if you really want to go down the 'fervent force flies in the face of the design doc' discussion: Shift Signet - Guild Wars 2 Wiki (GW2W) Otherwise, it'd be wise to admit that FF is only good in instanced PvE rotations to get DPS up; it's bad in literally every other scenario. The same goes for alac on spirits--good in instanced PvE, bad everywhere else as they die too fast for the meager passives you get.

They just need to up sword damage, and swap hornet sting and monarch leap so your engage is on 3 skill; that way it matches every other melee weapon (gs and dagger). They need to rework poison entirely though, as too many ranger weapons focus on it and it's a terrible condition in terms of damage. In addition, there's too much cleanse and it's hard to reapply / stack (unlike bleed). I really don't like hybrid weapons anyway, at least in the way they've implemented them. They've tried the hybrid power/poison/bleed thing with dagger, axe, and sword and it just doesn't work. Just leads to cele builds everywhere, or going full power and just ignoring the condition aspect.

Had to check the calendar to make sure it wasn't April. In general though, pew pew'ing into a zerg isn't as useful as you may think it is. Any damage you do with barrage, or orb spam, or whatever is going to get healed pretty quick. Melee only if you want to try to be of any use. Unfortunately, that also means you need to get 'scarily close'.

Until they rework the weapon skills, then yes that's exactly why. Not sure how this is hard to understand in the slightest--literally look at Path of Scars for another example of a skill that drastically needs an update because of the mobility spam of today's game. Regardless, to imply WD is weak or unusable even in rooted state is facetious at best.

Just don't forget to carry a household appliance in with you when you complete your purchase.

Tbf, Arcing Slice is 150 radius to WD's 180, and WD reflects projectiles to make up for its damage in comparison to AS. In addition, WD is a whirl finisher (i.e., can be used to spread AoE blind and the like). Whirling Defense also used to give retaliation, which has to be taken into consideration since they haven't reworked any weapon skills, so the motive behind the root of WD must take retaliation into account even though it's no longer a thing.

Guessing the logic here is tomes and kits are actual 'weapon swaps' in intent. Shroud, Forge, and Avatar are form swaps (same with merge and unleashing); they give you a separate set of skills but you aren't physically swapping anything out.

Thieves should be virtually zero threat to a ranger unless you build super glass for some type of one-shot sic' em build. As all theives outside of deadeye have to get close to you to do damage, so easy to CC them into big damage of your own (or make them run), and DE's have the same problem as LB rangers in that one projectile defense mechanism is all you need to get rid of them.

Not sure it's really ignorant per say. Most rangers are indeed terrible longbow users, regardless of game mode.

It doesn't, at least not to him. He's a primary sPvP dev which is a set 2v2 / 3v3 / 5v5 format, no matter what. So WvW is a 'blob vs blob' format when it comes to balance, because they aren't about to fight two fires at once and try to balance the smallscale (which lends itself to PvP balance) and large (which lends itself to PvE balance). This is the fundamental issue with WvW balancing, because the big blob battles only really happen on EBG, and rarely other places unless someone decides to attack a T3 garrison. In my time of playing, I'd wager I've seen 70-80% of all fights outside EBG be 30 players or less (total). You will typically get your cloud of say 10-15 and your defenders of say 5-20 and fight around a structure that isn't garrison. Roaming itself is almost entirely non-existent--at least the 'lone roamer goes to t2/t3 north camp' type. You will at the least get a duo and often just a small, organized squad of 5 no one can take out because you need another organized squad of 5 and that doesn't happen. So the tldr; if they really want to fix WvW they need to balance around the 20-30 cloud battles that happen over all BLs, but instead will focus on the super blob battles of EBG because that's the easiest target and also the place with literally the most active people at once. EDIT: As for purpose to the topic, this is why Harbinger remains untouched in WvW. It's a small scale nightmare and loses most if not all effectiveness at large because it's ranged. As previously mentioned, small scale / havoc /roaming doesn't exist in the balance philosophy for WvW, so Harbinger is left alone.