Hey i've been playing this for a couple days now, questions (necro/ranger/engineer)

[Hunterpower]

So i've been jumping around these 3 proffessions, ranger at 15 engi at 8 necro at 6, and have some questions.
first, is longbow or shortbow better for a ranger? i like longbow better because it isn't just a machine gun bow, which looks silly xD
2nd, do necromancer pets get stronger at higher levels or are they always squishy? maybe it's just bonefiends because there is 2 of them.
3rd, engineer turrets useful at all? they're the main reason i'm interested in the class, along with rifles and explosives
any good way to make money or is it not important till later? i got about 70silver currently and having no money problems.
lastly, i bought this set of unique gear, i think that has runes of the hawk of the eagle etc in it, for my ranger and it's incredibly powerful, is this a unique set or can i make my own?

[Deleted]

I only know for sure to respond to the engineer question.
Yes, the turrets are very useful, they can save your character's life. They saved mine several times and still do. I think only the thumper turret or whatever it was called wasn't so good. Rest are good, especially the rocket one. They can also be annoying at times if you forget them somewhere though, but that's ok. They're in a way like shaman totems from WoW if you ever played a shaman, only they actually shoot and take aggro.

Money, at level 20 or 30 you get your first skill level book, it costs 1 gold. Then there's another later.
That said, unless you want to convert money to gems to get bigger bank, I found that while leveling, you don't really need that much money. I understood people like dyes, so selling them is a good way to make money, especially since you can get lucky and find the one and only true black which sells for a few gold.

Oh, and a comment, about longbow and shortbow, though I have no clue is one is better, play what you feel suits you best. It will benefit you more. For example, for engineers until some time ago the grenade kit was considered best. I didn't like it so much, I liked the flamethrower, and when I saw someone use the grande kit once I found I was right in using it because they kept throwing the grenades wrong and barely hitting anything. So I asked why do they use it and they said because someone told them it's the best kit... so the morale is use what you think works best, you'll see once you try it on mobs and such you'll start to see the difference between different weapons and how useful each is. For example, I don't really find rifles for engineers very good, they're more annoying then anything.

[Hunterpower]

Turrets ARE useful then? maybe i was just using them wrong then, i'll give my engi another try then

[grandpab]

I prefer shortbow on my ranger just because I feel like it does so much more damage. It doesn't really matter though, at least for lvling, use the longbow if that's what you like.

Necro pets aren't really meant to live forever, so you just kinda gotta get use to them dying. Although if you trait specifically for pets you can make them a bit stronger and they'll live longer too.

The turrets can be useful, but I didn't find them to be very convenient in a lot of cases. They aren't stationary and even if you pick them up the cd felt too long. They work pretty good if you're doing an event where you just sit and wait for waves of mobs, sometimes you just need to think a bit about where you place them to maximize their activity. Again, if you trait for turrets you'll see a definite improvement.

None of your characters are high enough to see much of a difference with traits, but you'll start to notice a difference once you start unlocking more traits.

[Deleted]

Turrets ARE useful then? maybe i was just using them wrong then, i'll give my engi another try then

It depends on what you want to do with your turrets, since they have several uses I found:
- use them as bait, as in, pluck them first before you shoot and they'll aggro the monsters, giving you some time in which you are not even attacked
- used as a dps increase, here you need to know how to put them right so they're not there when the monsters do a swipe or something, in general try to follow the triangle rule if you have 2 turrets for example as in, 2 turrets in 2 corners and you in third
- they're great if you're downed, since they can either kill a mob for you rallying you or they can aggro the mobs, giving you time to get back on feet
- the healing turret is good if you're in a "not so good" group since it can heal enough for people who aren't so good to not die, it gives them that boost they need. If the group really sucks, it won't make much of a difference though
- again, I found rocket turret to be best, I also use the machine gun one, though use it mostly because it's faster then the rest
- you can use turrets when you're guarding 2 ways on events or something, put turrets on one side and you sit on other, they'll eventually die, but they will keep that side controlled for a time.

[Fencers]

longbow or shortbow better for a ranger?

Shortbow is better.

3rd, engineer turrets useful at all? they're the main reason i'm interested in the class, along with rifles and explosives

Useful? Yes.

Powerful, not really.

any good way to make money or is it not important till later?

The only "good" way is playing the AH. And gold generation is really the only drive of the game post level cap.

lastly, i bought this set of unique gear, i think that has runes of the hawk of the eagle etc in it, for my ranger and it's incredibly powerful, is this a unique set or can i make my own?

Set bonuses are provided by the runes in gear. For the most part it is modular.

Can buy, find or make your own runes that grant set bonuses to varying degrees. GW2 wiki is run by Anet and extremely robust. Should be integral to how you play the game.

So integral in fact is the wiki, that it is possible to type /wiki <subject> within the game's chat box and open the wiki article on that search term directly from GW2.

[summourn]

Hi, Hunterpower.

I can really only answer for the necro pets. My necro is level 80 and has always been minion specced. I actually get through most fights (unless it's vs a huge group or veteran/champion etc) without any dying (unless of course I choose to let them die for strategic reasons, like the bone minions.)

I find that using a staff and spamming skill #2 (which is an AoE heal) around where your minions are will keep them alive fairly well. I have a feeling you enjoy pet classes, as the three you mentioned all have some kind of pet mechanic involved. I'm the same myself. It's actually why I love my necro so much.

Anyway, though! Stats help as well. If you want to keep your pets alive, put a lot of points into the skill trees that will give them buffs (I think one of the necro ones grants 30% less damage to minions, or something) and stack up on some +healing gear. My current gear set up is mostly healing and condition damage.

I also have the trait that allows me to shorten the cooldown on staff skills which makes the AoE regen/heal all the more powerful. I can honestly keep the minions alive really well, and even if one goes down, the cooldown for it isn't terribly long and you've got several other minions still hammering away at mobs. Even with a lot of defensive/utility/healing power, I find I take down most mobs (especially huge groups of them) pretty quickly with a full plethora of minions and spamming the AoE staff skills.

Also, the more minion slots/skills you acquire, the much easier it gets. It was very difficult for me when I only had bone minions or just the shadow fiend, but once you get a whole army going (especially if you get the elite skill minion, which I may also add actually regains its health between battles) then it's a whole world of difference.

[Zephyr Storm]

Hello. Let me start off by saying that you have chosen to play three of the most broken classes in the game. With that said, let me answer your questions.

1. Shortbow is, hands down, the best ranged dps option for a ranger. You will want to use it the majority of the time, especially if you are doing sPvP or looking for the most dps. Longbow is ok, and is mainly meant for sieges in WvW or just when you need that extra range it provides (provided you picked up the trait for increased range). Add in the fact that shortbow needs condition damage to really shine and longbow needs power/crit to really shine, and you've got a not so good combo when trying to gear/rune your character. You can gear power/crit/condition dmg and be ok with both weapons, but you'll be super squishy as well.

2. Necro pets are EXTREMELY squishy at lower lvls. They do, however, get much better as you lvl up and invest in minion-specific traits such as the one that gives them 50% more health, the one that gives them 30% more damage, etc, etc. At lvl 80, a fully geared and traited necro that specializes in minions actually does decent. Only problem with the minions though is their AI is still pretty borked at times, and the fact that most bosses and AoE will 1 or 2 shot all your minions, leaving you with nothing. It's your call really.....there are other necro builds out there that are better than minions masters, but it's really all personal taste. Solo PvE, minion masters do pretty well.

3. Turrets can be useful yes. Are they really good and something you want to invest in heavily? Hell no. Turrets suffer from borked AI (much like the necro minions) and will sometimes not even work at all. I saw a engineer drop his turrets on a boss one time, and all the turrets turned and shot at the wall, completely ignoring the boss. Add in the fact that turrets are useless if the enemy moves out of their range, and you're looking at a pretty useless setup. Engineers in general are weak and broken atm, so I really wouldn't suggest playing one at all unless you just absolutely love the class.

And lastly, money is not necessarily important in this game unless you like to buy really expensive stuff. Everything you NEED in this game can be earned through dungeons/farming or crafted yourself. The only thing you really need money for is if you are going for a legendary (and even then, it's only for cosmetics and not stats). So depends on what you plan on doing. As far as making money successfully...pray to the RNG gods that you get lucky with drops or farm, farm, farm your heart out till you're sick of the game :P. You can also play the TP like some people suggest, although it's usually very boring and not nearly as lucrative as it use to be.

[philefluxx]

Im currently playing a Necro, up to 35 now and I have to say its the best damn class in the game for me. I really couldn't even get into this game until I took my necro to 15+ and now I just love it. (ya I know, eating crow over here)

Ive done a lot of reading and listened to a lot of people and the one thing I can say for sure, the necro class is NOT for everyone. But let me give you a few tips on what Ive been doing and I can solo champs/SP's at my level with little trouble.

But this is not a build for pets, its a condition build that does really well. But my pets are part of the process.

Also learn to use DeathShroud as second health bar. If your getting low F1, if you want to soak some damage F1, its very important to this class no matter what spec you go with.

Gear Stats: Mainly Condition Damage, then some Vitality and Power is good too but dont take over Condition Damage

Weapon's: Staff and ScepterMH/DaggerOH
Traits: Start with 10 in Curse, then go 10 in Spite, then 10 Bloodmagic, put the rest in Curses and Spite 10 at a time so its 30/30/10 in the end. Take VI in Spite, II in Curses and I in Bloodmagic. I havent opened anything else up yet so Im not sure where to go past those adept traits.

I started off by using BoneFiend and BoneMinions, Signet of the Locust, then swapped out Boneminions for Shadow Fiend, then swapped for Blood is Power removed ShadowFiend and added Signet of Spite. I pretty much try and use anything that can apply conditions after that.

- Ok so here is the trick with pets, your staff ability that does the AoE DoT, its #2, also applies regeneration to allies, this includes pets. So think of this ability as not only a damage dealer but a healing ability too (party members will love you for it). It also has the fastest CD of all your Staff abilities so you can use this many times while engaging groups of enemies to keep the heals coming in.

- Once your down to using 1 minion, its bonefiend all the way. Your really just looking for help with healing and they actually do a pretty decent job tanking

- Your #1 Staff ability is sort of a AoE in that it will strike through enemies, eventually when you get higher up you will be able apply DoTs when it crits. But when you have a group of enemies circle the group using this ability and they eventually start to line up and all take damage from it

- Think of the Staff abilities as AoE traps, that is basically how they work

- Staff abilities are key for groups and heals, you'll want to concentrate on Scepter/Dagger for single targets as you can stack conditions faster with that combo's #1 weapon skill

- The staff ability #3 and #4 can stack and do a combo applying an extra DoT on top of the slow and reduced Armor conditions, its a great opener and allows you to place the DoT/Heal trap more accurately instead of using it as a opener when no one has taken damage

Here is my rotations for single and group packs:

Group: Staff skill #3 and #4 on top of each other, skill #2 a little closer so that the mobs run into it, let #1 spam while your circling until you can lay down #2 again then spam #1 and circle until you can lay #2 again if the mobs are still alive but they usually dont live past a second DoT/Heal trap.

Single: Same as above but once you lay down the DoT/Heal trap (Staff ability #2) swap to your Mace/Dagger, hit the ground with #5 to apply a armor debuff and a DoT and then hit #4 to blind them. Now you have a choice, you can hit #2 to slow them down and apply another DoT or you can hit them with #3 which will do more damage the more conditions present. It really depends on how fast you are, just remember that #3 isnt worth all that much if you only have a couple conditions present. You can then spam the #1 Scepter ability which continues to stack a DoT. When your minions or yourself start to get low on health switch back to the staff and lay down the DoT/Heal trap and spam a few #1's until you can switch back and repeat the process.

Sorry about giving you numbers and not names, I dont know all the names but they cannot be changed so #'s should point you in the right direction. Im sure Im unclear on a few things so please let me know if you have any questions.

[Vellerana]

I myself had a really rocky start with my Necro but, by keeping up on my gear (not wearing 10 levels too low) and getting as much condition damage into my build and gear as I could, I find it's a really fun class and I can be a monster with PvP and PvE. I haven't specced into pets on her but I have seen some pretty tough pets out there.

Ranger: I also prefer a longbow. When I PvP I like to switch between short and long to add lots of bleeds and you get a lot of use with knock backs and jump backs as well.Rapid fire on the longbow can be really punishing on your foe no matter the environment you are in at the time. So basically, don't feel bad about using a longbow, play it the way you like, even if it's just a cosmetic choice.

[Deleted]

3. Turrets can be useful yes. Are they really good and something you want to invest in heavily? Hell no. Turrets suffer from borked AI (much like the necro minions) and will sometimes not even work at all. I saw a engineer drop his turrets on a boss one time, and all the turrets turned and shot at the wall, completely ignoring the boss. Add in the fact that turrets are useless if the enemy moves out of their range, and you're looking at a pretty useless setup. Engineers in general are weak and broken atm, so I really wouldn't suggest playing one at all unless you just absolutely love the class.

To expand on this, as I do play an engineer:
-turrets don't seem to have an order of attack, they will pick stuff at random, kind of like mobs, to attack. This means that even if you drop them on a boss, if there's something else around, they might attack that.
-turrets can see through walls or something. in some areas, when an enemy turret dies or something it actually just goes underground, in others there's lasers or somerhing in the walls that are counted as enemies. The turrets can and will attack those if they're bored. The best example is if you go at the jumping puzzle with lava in Caledorn Forest and before the last fight, you put turrets up, they will attack the celling. But if you look closely, they attack an area from where fire is thrown at you during your jumps, so there is something there... just something they shouldn't be attacking since it's useless to do so.
-engineers kind of are weak right now, in general you should play with a kit, grenade, flamethrower or if you're really good at kiting bombs. The general weapons for them they can use (one handed pistols, rifle and shield) aren't so amazing. Rifle is kind of weak, shield doesn't really work properly and isn't very attractive, so that leaves pistol/pistol... and kits do more damage and are more useful in certain situations. For example, with the kits I mentioned you can kill several units at once, but you also have some skills to get them away or slow them down. With pistols, for example with the second ability many of those shots are sometimes missed, the third ability sometimes hits enemies you don't want it to and the fourth one you need to be in the face of the mob, even closer then with the flamethrower.

[Deleted]

I like using both Longbow and Shortbow in PvP on my Ranger. I'm just not a fan of melee combat in this game, feels way too clunky. Rapid fire with longbow, along with the slow/knockback are pretty useful in terms of keeping the enemy at bay and burst dps (quickening zephyr with rapid fire). You can also use the shortbow for the quick,consistent damage, the leap back, the slow as well. This is coming from someone who is heavily biased for range weapons though.

[Hockeyhacker]

So i've been jumping around these 3 proffessions, ranger at 15 engi at 8 necro at 6, and have some questions.
first, is longbow or shortbow better for a ranger? i like longbow better because it isn't just a machine gun bow, which looks silly xD
2nd, do necromancer pets get stronger at higher levels or are they always squishy? maybe it's just bonefiends because there is 2 of them.
3rd, engineer turrets useful at all? they're the main reason i'm interested in the class, along with rifles and explosives
any good way to make money or is it not important till later? i got about 70silver currently and having no money problems.
lastly, i bought this set of unique gear, i think that has runes of the hawk of the eagle etc in it, for my ranger and it's incredibly powerful, is this a unique set or can i make my own?

1st question, its situational, they both have their different uses, me personally I like keeping a Greatsword as my main weapon and swapping between a longbow or shortbow depending on what I am doing for my secondary weapon, but that is very subjective, I just like the feel of the great sword on my ranger much more then other weapons.

2nd question, they get a tiny bit better but not by much because this game is designed around you avoiding damage, while as Necro and Ranger pets do not act in this way like a human player would so they are not designed to last long (though Ranger pets you can keep alive much better if your using your healing skill when your pet needs health rather then waiting for your health to drop, which works well for the most part but does put you in the risk of not having a heal when you need it.

and question the 3rd, when used properly they are fine, though generally they are only useful if your using your F1-F4 secondary effects for the turrets and not just the base effect, but with that said many people (obviously not all but many) find the Engineer to be one of the least fun classes to play due to the fact that unless its played perfectly its on the side of the weakest classes and requires your 7-9 skills to have any ability to have the equivalent of weapon swapping as far as utility goes and so though can have more utility then classes with the ability to swap between two weapons does it at the cost of a utility skill since the utility skill basically just acts as a weapon swap which all but the engineer and elementalists have (but the elementalists have 4 different elements, "stances" if you will, which give the same effect as weapon swapping but don't take up a utility skill slot to do)


Either way questions 1 and 3 are both subjective and depend on what you like and how you play, but I would definitely suggest playing multiple classes up to at least 20ish before deciding which class you want to go to the end with because the way the classes feel in what is basically tutorial zones and the way they feel mid and end zones does change a lot, so just because you like class x the best for the 1-15 levels, you may find you hate it the most for the 35-80 range.