NerfHerder

It should be a tier 1 utility.

A bunch of classes (ranger, thief, ele and necro) already have a skill with this exact same effect so the main point is to just bring this functionality to the remaining 4 classes, without having to worry about PvP consequences. Hence making it into a racial skill.
The skill should be available to all races, preferably with the exact same active effect. The only question is the tool belt skill for the engineer.
The skill should grant a 25% IMS for you and all your controlled allies: minions, pets, spirit weapons, ...

Hey everyone, here are some of the guides I wrote for the Secrets of Southsun patch that you may find helpful

• Southsun Sample collection/Volunteer Fieldwork guide
  
• Southsun achievements guide(aka how to get the tentacle backpiece)
  
• Sclerite weapon skins gallery
  
• Mini Faren and Kasmeer

Enjoy!

I will add more guides laters on

Your awesome Dulfy <3
And those weapons are seriously creepy (except the sword, i want that =D)

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Dragon Festival 2.0? Alright, now you have my attention.

Well it was an alright update if you were looking for an excuse to mess around in Southsun. There's definitely more stuff they added in here than what F&F had in it's first couple of months. Might be worth karma farming Southsun because the events there spawn pretty frequently and you get a free MF or GF boost. Nothing worth really getting excited about but hey, Southsun isn't a dead zone anyone! There's actually stuff to do now..... even if it's essentially the same 5 types of events copypasted a few times around the zone .

What I want to know is what will Canach's Lair and the Karka queen involve. They're hinted at in the achievements but will they involve events, a dungeon... maybe a meta-chain similiar to the temple events. We can only hope.

Just curious what people think,i loved doing this in Path of Exile with unique items,give examples of weapon skills,then utilities(heal and elite included),i'l go first.
(please state reason)

Most overrated weapon skill(s):

Staff air elementalist - Lighting surge - Huge casting time,crap damage,and an almost nonexistent aoe blind area,it very rarely blinds anything but the main target.

Greatsword Warrior - Hundred blades - "OMG i just did 2 million damage,my warrior is so uber stronk!"No,you just did a bit more than autoattack,and rooted yourself for 3 and a half seconds.I'm not sure why some skills have cumulative damage indicators,it just makes the skill feel cheesy


Most underrated weapon skill(s):

Scepter fire ele - Phoenix - Most classes don't have a single skill that just removes all conditions,eles have one that does high damage if cast properly,blast finishes,removes conditions and grants vigor,all this in one skill!?

Warhorn Ranger - Call of the wild - Almost double the duration of fury given by "For great Justice!",might and swiftness?And why is no one using it in PvE?

Torch Mesmer - The Prestige - Stealth for 3 secs(just like decoy),damage,AoE blind,AoE burning,blast finisher



Most overrated utility skill(s):

Elite Mesmer - Mass invis - Utter crap,other classes can get the same or better invis duration by simply blasting fields,etc.


Most underrated utility skill(s):

Heal Elementalist - Ether renewal -This skill was so crap in CB that people erased it from memory.In reaction,anet kept buffing it,and since no one seemed to notice,it became the most broken skill for PvE.Removes EIGHT conditions if used for the full duration,and has a ridiculous 11 s recharge time after it has finished.You can still cast instant skills while channeling it,you can move away from combat.

Utility Engineer - Throw Mine - I know it's a gadget and gadgets suck,but...a knockback that you can use at range with a 360° radius?It's also a blast finisher,can be laid down to set up a fight and detonated at the right time,and has a very small cd(18s)

I play a necro. Do I REALLY need to say anything else?

Shortbow is the submachine gun of this game. Lots of fun and with plenty of precision, tons of crit.

Ranger does really well in PvP, WvW and open world leveling and world completion.

The skill set and the pets work well everywhere except dungeons, where the class brings the least to the table.

The latest 'improvements' were a drop in the bucket of what is needed to get them to the point that when you zone into a dungeon pug you hear 'Yes! a Ranger! instead of "oh no, not a Ranger."

Outside of dungeons, rangers are super viable and fun.  In dungeons, not so much.

El Duderino, on 05 May 2013 - 07:45 PM, said:

This game STILL has potential. GW1 wasn't the norm, but it wasn't striving to be different, it was a niche design, that happen to have some success.

I'll agree the implementation could be much better, but to say it's "downright awful" is ignoring that the game is still functional and it's poor implementation has not halted the game. I'm not trying to make excuses here, but it could be a lot worse. All we can do is hope they can improve along the way.

"The game we deserved and they promised us" Sounds like entitlement and they never made "promises" to anyone. To hold them in contempt for this is rather petulant. If it truly bothers you that bad that a product did not live up to what was advertised then move on. No one in their right mind would watch a movie they hate over and over, then bitch and moan about why it didn't live up to movie trailers. Look if you wanna remind us that GW2 hasn't lived up to what you expected, fine...but don't say you deserved or was promised a better game. That's on you if you don't like the game. ArenaNet simply can not make everyone happy.

Lastly as average as you deem GW2, it's still the most relevant MMO on the market, which indeed was/is a good business decision. Without relevancy, there would be no funds coming in from the gem shop. So as much as I was disappointed with lack of things they advertised, I completely understand the financial need to release the game in state it was. It's about having perspective, not everything is about satisfying the gamer, there are a lot factors that many critics like yourself refuse to acknowledge. They are a business.

When a ranger can break animation to dodge when using a 1h sword, it may be worth considering as viable.  Until then, it just makes sense to use something else for any difficult content.

Soki, on 30 April 2013 - 04:10 AM, said:

If you're going accuse a person of being a valiant defender of sub-par product, then at least acknowledge that you might be a negative-nancy about a decent product. It's all subjective and pointing fingers at each other isn't even a debate. There are three facts here, 1. ArenaNet has made changes post release. 2. ArenaNet has been consistent in their updates in regards to how often. 3. ArenaNet  will continue to make changes (updates) in future.

Whether these changes are good or not is purely subjective. I for one have liked most of the updates, only few things I didn't care for, but not enough to warrant a "make or break" mentality about it. Quite frankly I think it's rather premature to be suggesting it's a "make or break" update when we haven't seen it yet. Furthermore it will be months before some changes are out of beta.

If you want to trait for survivability but aren't using the perma-vigor combo for 2x invulnerability, you're doing it wrong. Put those invention points into 30 firearms and 10 elixir and you can pick up swift on crit + vigor on swift combo.

30 Tools is also the kind of place you might use medkit. That will give you the reset from tools 15 as well as some swiftness, and static discharge will proc (at close range) whenever you bandage too. Although I know some people might still prefer the group support from turret.

It seems stupid that pretty much every title you see is either from
a) GW1 HoM
b ) World Completion
c) Special Events (lost shores, halloween, etc)
d) Dungeon Master

90% of the people I see with a title active are using those titles.  There just isn't enough variety.  Heck, even stuff like the PvP titles which do exist, people don't wear.

I'd have to agree with that myself. Having a leap on the autoattack chain is cute, but in my experience it hinders more than it helps (when you're on part three of a chain and part two cripples, you're not likely to be out of range), and it's one of the reasons I generally don't use sword on a ranger (using greatsword instead, or simply relying on closer-range weapons like axe or shortbow).

Going through other comments raised in this thread:

Dependance on pets is a bit of an issue, but not as big a one as a lot of people make out. However, there are a few things to keep in mind. First is that you do have to control them, or at the very least watch for times when you should swap them out - pet control is part of ranger play, and I think that assumption is part of the reason why rangers have been made simpler to play compared to other professions such as elementalists and engineers. You also need to adjust your pets for the situation, though - I'd advise carrying at least one ranged or tank pet at any time to cover while more vulnerable pets are 'on break', and for boss fights you really want both to be in one of these categories, depending on where the boss in question is most dangerous.

The delay or outright nonactivation of F2 skills is definitely something that needs to be fixed, though.

Longbow I think is underrated. Yes, the autoattack is pretty sucky - but if not interrupted Rapid Fire will be what you're doing half the time, and where the shortbow's other skills are generally doing token damage while being used for the utility effect (poison, cripple, leap-back, daze), the 3-5 skills on the longbow are all adding to your damage. Thus, this looks to me to be a distinction between styles - a shortbow is intended to be primarily relying on the 1 skill, while the longbow is intended to regard the 1 skill as something to use while other skills are on recharge.

When it comes to combos - if you build for it, rangers can generate fire, frost and water fields, and some pets can also generate fields such as poison and water. Most of these are through optional choices rather than being 'built-in' to a weapon like, say, the elementalist - but (unfortunately) it's not like traps are facing a lot of competition for utility slots, and this makes rangers one of the best professions for self-comboes around, since it avoids ArenaNet's stated aversion to putting fields and finishers on the same weapon. A drake pet can even pull off blast combos, although since you can't control it directly, this is more something that will happen occasionally should you provide the right circumstances than something you can pull off on demand.

Perm Shadow Form, on 07 April 2013 - 01:53 PM, said:

You do get access to all your weapon skills very early on and a lot of skills are no-brainers, so it does feel as if you know the profession quite well by the time you're level 20-30. But can you really say you've completely mastered the profession though? Even after 600 hours of playing my mesmer I still find new build tweaks and min-maxing I can do in high end dungeons, either to push out max DPS or to fulfill a better support role. There's definitely quite a bit of depth to the overall system which is not always apparent (though it probably does differ per profession).

I have to agree with Ellirae that there's a lot of "amg it's too easy" complaints which is an extremely black-or-white view of reality for the sake of emphasizing a point. But when a point needs emphasis then maybe it's a little weak on it's own? I'm guessing most of the people who think GW2 is too easy haven't played WoW - leveling there is really just keyboard mashing. That's one of the reasons I quit and am currently enjoying GW2 much more.

I would agree that there's a lull from 30-80 in that you can get by with mediocre play, you still need to dodge and heal though. Another option is to challenge oneself by going about killing more or difficult mobs. Then again that takes more time so better to take the easiest path. And then complain that it's too easy

I quite enjoy the combat system, though not perfect, but tons better than WoW's. I agree that blocking and maybe parrying would make a great addition for more active play. Also would be nice to swap utility skills when you swap weapons, that might add some more depth to a build as well. Maybe some more active threat control and tweaking of the skill queue to make it easier to cancel skills.