Will the ranger be a master of conditions?

[Beren Iluthiel]

Hello rangers,

I have a question for those lucky enough who played our beloved (until GW, at least) class: watching some video here and there, I had the impression that in GW2 combat conditions are very important (bleeding, poison, vulnerability and so on), maybe more than raw damage.
Is that true or am i terribly wrong?
And if I'm right, what's your impression about ranger capability of applying conditions/boon? Does it give a good contribution in group?
Thanks, and remember, don't break the NDA!


P.S.: sorry my terible english. Me are italian, me are ignorant. Me eat spaghetti and pizza.

[Alaris]

NDA doesn't stop us from talking about that.

Spaghetti and pizzas are great, thanks for being smart enough to put those ingredients together!

As for your actual question, hard to tell. I didn't get enough playtime with ranger to get a sense of how he works with conditions (I tested the pet AI more) and generally I didn't get a good sense of how important conditions were compared to raw damage. Conditions are utility too, and I don't know how blind compares with prots and heals either in terms of keeping your team alive.

Sorry, I hope others have an answer...

[Fluffball]

The videos I've seen so far, people seem to be favoring a sort of tank-n-spank with their pet. Knock backs and pins or whatever, gather enemies and drop a barrage AoE, etc.

That saaaaaaaaid, most of the videos we've seen so far are of people sucking. And the strategy outlined above sounds to me like it could be a product of familiarity rather than effectiveness.

[Alaris]

I played ranger in the beta, and I can attest that I didn't play well ;)

[Egg Shennn]

Well it's just a week away till more of us can suck at playing while we discover what works and what doesn't...

[Erring Ryft]

So, a couple betas in and I actually tried Ranger, and enjoyed myself quite a bit. I'm not sure if it's the master of conditions, but it certainly seems to have a good number of ways to apply them...in fact, aside from confusion, I think it has a way to apply every condition in the game (though some are indirect).

I think the short bow did the best as far as variety of conditions applied from weapon skills from what I saw, having bleed on the auto-attack, AoE poison, cripple, and daze with convenient ranges. Sword and dagger did pretty well for me too with lots of cripples and poison, although I noticed that Serpent's Strike states in the description that it applies poison but it actually applied cripple for me (or maybe kick did that; not really sure, but I only noticed poison from the dagger attacks).

Torch obviously gives us burning, and iirc the longbow has vulnerability. And hey, traps and spirits seem to cause a fair amount of conditions, too. Sure, let's call it a master. Builds up the ego for those awful times when your pet won't listen to you because you don't have enough badges.

[GaymerLyfe]

So, a couple betas in and I actually tried Ranger, and enjoyed myself quite a bit. I'm not sure if it's the master of conditions, but it certainly seems to have a good number of ways to apply them...in fact, aside from confusion, I think it has a way to apply every condition in the game (though some are indirect).

I think the short bow did the best as far as variety of conditions applied from weapon skills from what I saw, having bleed on the auto-attack, AoE poison, cripple, and daze with convenient ranges. Sword and dagger did pretty well for me too with lots of cripples and poison, although I noticed that Serpent's Strike states in the description that it applies poison but it actually applied cripple for me (or maybe kick did that; not really sure, but I only noticed poison from the dagger attacks).

Torch obviously gives us burning, and iirc the longbow has vulnerability. And hey, traps and spirits seem to cause a fair amount of conditions, too. Sure, let's call it a master. Builds up the ego for those awful times when your pet won't listen to you because you don't have enough badges.

Don't forget that pets offer up a lot of conditions not only with active skills but with passives and through traits too, The only one that i have seen come close to ranger for conditions is the Thief with it's venom skills. Seems like Anet took preparations from Ranger and gave them to Thieves. Don't worry Erring we will be able to get plenty of confusion on them since I am guessing you will roll a mesmer first, Crack Wound is back!

[nabbed]

Apparently engineers are better at conditions with pistols.

[shawn]

Well that settles it then, the game sucks. Back to pandaland!