GW2 – Rangering In HoT

I saw Bhagpuss mention an easy-mode “Bearbow” build in one of his recent posts, which made me wonder if I would have any better luck with my Ranger. By coincidence, Aywren was looking for feedback on the Ranger as well.

I had a lot of fun playing the Ranger leveling from 1 to 80, but that was back in the months after GW2 launch. Since then, my Ranger has largely been parked, as most of my GW2 characters are when they hit 80. (My most fun experience with Heart of Thorns was leveling a Revenent from 1 to 80.)

Anyway, at first I was going to give the level 80 Ranger a positive review after running around in Verdant Brink for an hour. I didn’t have to carefully avoid every mob I saw. I could handle single-mob encounters with ease. My pet (a tiger or lioness or something) held aggro a lot more than I remember him ever doing before. (In the beginning, I seem to recall the pet was more of a DPS buff and decoration with little actual functionality.) That freed me up to just sort of casually stand around raining arrows at the enemy.

But then I started wandering around in Auric Basin and I got streamrolled pretty thoroughly. Perhaps I was getting overconfident. Maybe there were no more single-mob encounters in Auric Basin. Maybe they nerfed Verdant Brink. Undoubtedly I don’t have an optimal build. Perhaps it’s a combination of all of those things. But I died a lot more and it was quite a bit less fun.

The bottom line is that Ranger wasn’t quite the easy-mode miracle cure I hoped for.

Aywren was also interested in feedback on the Druid, so I gave that a try as well. It was the first time I’ve ever played it.

Upon perusing the Druid abilities I deduced that it’s probably meant to be used in group situations as a healer. (Or “person who slightly increases healing in others” in the world of GW2.) Every ability has a healing or cleansing component, including the auto-attack damage ability, which looks like a laser beam shooting from the end of your staff.

Note: I have only just realized that you don’t have to use a Staff to be a Druid. I am definitely an expert at this game.

I was able to walk around in Verdant Brink solo without too much trouble, but I felt considerably weaker than I did with a bow. It was markedly more fun to play the Druid in events with other people around so you could watch more green numbers flying about.

(Actually most all classes and GW2 in general is more fun in group events.)

Unfortunately when I got to Auric Basin, my Druid pretty much died whenever a mob looked at me funny, so that wasn’t very fun.

Keep in mind I did not have the entire Druid skill line, and again, I don’t know much of anything about this game, so there is a 99.8% chance that I am playing the class wrong. Those are just some initial impressions.

As for Aywren’s questions:

• “Is Druid okay at soloing (especially HoT)? Will I do enough damage?” My initial impressions were not really, and not really, but your mileage may vary.
• “Best weapon combos?” I don’t know about best, but I was using the Staff and the Long Bow. I’ve pretty much used Long Bow for Ranger from launch all the way to today.
• “Is there an example of a build I should work towards? I’m terrible at making a build from the ground up.” I am also terrible at this, so I can’t really help. :) I don’t even like looking at that screen. I had Beastmastery, Marksmanship, and Druid equipped, so based on my terrible performance in Auric Basin you may want to avoid that combination.
• “Best armor/rune combos?” There are runes in GW2?? (Seriously, I know they exist but I’ve literally never done anything with those things. I wear whatever my armor has on it.) My Ranger wears “Assassin’s” armor (Power, Precision, Ferocity-whatever “ferocity” is).
• “Can I still use pets?” This at least I can answer: Yes.

After posting this, I’ll go look at the comments on her post to see how wrong I am with my answers. :)

Note: I am extremely wrong and readers should ignore all of my GW2 ramblings. Also you apparently need a master’s degree in GW2 meta studies to understand what experienced GW2 players are even talking about, much like EVE. They have developed their own language at this point.