Guild Wars 2

It’s safe to say that Druid will not be the last/only healing elite spec. However, is there really any room for competition? It feels like Druids do it all, potent heals combined with a plethora of offensive support for the rest of the group, and some hard cc.

What niche would a future healer would need to utilise to be considered over a Druid? More raw healing alone when Celestial Avatar is a full party heal already would only matter if the ambient damage is significantly increased for the next raid.

I feel like we are at the start of a slippery slope in which more and more passive boosts will be included in elite specs to give them a place in endgame content.

I can imagine a spec that heals the group proportional to the amount of damage they deal out.

But, at least in pve, you’re right, there’s no competition. The druid buffs are just too valuable. That’s why ventari and healing ele have fallen out of favor, even though they can competently heal a group.

In fact it depends how they will expend the class in the future. For now Druid are preferred not for their heal (because an Ele has more constant healing and is less strict about positioning) but for their heal + damage buff.

I think there are 3 scenarios for the future:
-Every healing Espec will get Grace of the Land buff and there will be competition. (like other profession will have a spotter like buff, non cumulative)
-Next healing Espec will get a buff that tops to 20 % increased damage and Druid will be burried
-They scrap profession buff and then there will be comparison between healers and healer not healers and healers/buffers.

Option 2 would be the worst case but I admit I don’t like too much the amount of specific buffs right now because they are not removable (in PvP), they are difficult to track while playing and they clutter the interface.

Ranael.6423:

In fact it depends how they will expend the class in the future. For now Druid are preferred not for their heal (because an Ele has more constant healing and is less strict about positioning) but for their heal + damage buff..

Oh, I understand that, it’s not that druids are the best at healing, but they still get the job done so that groups don’t sacrifice anything for the dps boosts they get, which is the core of the problem.

RabbitUp.8294:

I feel like we are at the start of a slippery slope in which more and more passive boosts will be included in elite specs to give them a place in endgame content.

I wouldn’t say we’re at the start, more like HOT had us diving head first down that slip n slide.

This absolutely seems like a problem yeah. Same thing with chrono’s. Alacrity and Quickness are sooo important. Seems like you’ll need a chrono for every encounter for the rest of the game. Unless another class gets massive quickness but that seems odd.

They’ll have to nerf GoTL. The other ranger buffs are core and as long as they get a decent dps spec they can still bring spotter and the spirits with it (heck core condi ranger isn’t even that bad). But yeah… As long as GoTL is a thing I don’t see how other healing specs are ever going to be competitive.

Druid is a fantastic elite-spec for min-maxing purposes, but like every good elite-spec it also has some weaknesses. Future healing specs should aim to capitalise on those weaknesses in order to gain a spot against certain bosses.

• Druid healing is bursty, but they have very poor heal over time in comparison to existing Revenant or Ele healer builds. This does improve when using the elite spirit / traited water spirit but it’s still rather poor.

• Druid’s personal damage is extremely low, especially when using a staff to cover downtime in healing between celestial avatar availability. Any boss that encourages a team split will dimish the value of druid buffs and highlight their poor personal DPS.

• Druid’s can only heal one spot at once. Compared to revenant which can control the tablet to heal multiple locations simultaneously (Really cool to heal the green circles & melee group at VG for example). Both Ele / Rev healers also have extremely strong area healing over time with soothing mist / regen (+100% outgoing healing) which makes fights where players spread out (Matthias/KC etc) extremely easy to manage.

In summary, Druid’s are not the best healers. They are taken for their damage buffs in the pursuit of faster kill speeds against easy bosses. If bosses are made more difficult then we’d already see the emergence of stronger healers being meta.

Ranael.6423:

I think there are 3 scenarios for the future:
-Every healing Espec will get Grace of the Land buff and there will be competition. (like other profession will have a spotter like buff, non cumulative)
-Next healing Espec will get a buff that tops to 20 % increased damage and Druid will be burried
-They scrap profession buff and then there will be comparison between healers and healer not healers and healers/buffers.

You forgot the 4th scenario – that the next heal spec will also get a new buff that will be equally important to the group, and cumulative with already existing ones. Might be another dps buff (cumulative with GotL), or something else completely (think what would have happened if chrono was a heal spec).

In many ways, that wouldn’t be a good option either.

Or change the number of affected targets for unique class buffs to 10.

Timers are so lenient, that you don’t need to run double druid either way, but can bring a 2nd healer or more dps. In my guild, we ran only 1 druid for some time (until the release of wing 2). If you want to optimize dps in your party, there will always be 1 best party setting unless 2 classes are exactly the same at which point one of them is redundant.

Astralporing.1957:

Ranael.6423:

I think there are 3 scenarios for the future:
-Every healing Espec will get Grace of the Land buff and there will be competition. (like other profession will have a spotter like buff, non cumulative)
-Next healing Espec will get a buff that tops to 20 % increased damage and Druid will be burried
-They scrap profession buff and then there will be comparison between healers and healer not healers and healers/buffers.

You forgot the 4th scenario – that the next heal spec will also get a new buff that will be equally important to the group, and cumulative with already existing ones. Might be another dps buff (cumulative with GotL), or something else completely (think what would have happened if chrono was a heal spec).

In many ways, that wouldn’t be a good option either.

I did not even wanted to think of this option to be honest. Support in this game is already close to be broken when combined to other things. Chrono is nice because it is a support bot but offers weak healing and pitiful DPS. But specs like PSEA which has good DPS and incredibly good support, Druid that heals very well and give good boost are not really balanced. Rev is particular because it offers strong support through facet of nature, but this one can be replaced by gear and the rest of his support is good but can be achieved by other specs.

Find it kind of odd that guardian wasn’t even brought up…

I’m still loving the fact that rangers/druids finally have a imporant role in these contents since HoT came out. Pre-HoT we rangers never got a spot and were frowned upon most of the time.

Bast Bow.2958:

I’m still loving the fact that rangers/druids finally have a imporant role in these contents since HoT came out. Pre-HoT we rangers never got a spot and were frowned upon most of the time.

That has more to do with the vast majority of rangers being bad bearbows than anything really. I know there was hate for them and necromancers for not bringing anything to the group, but a lot of the hate is because the class just invites bad players to play it.

Ok yes that may be so.

Whatever reason, I hated to be in that spot as a ranger, and am still really relieved that after 3 years the tides turned and we’re not being seen as a bad profession beforehand.

Azoqu.8917:

Bast Bow.2958:

I’m still loving the fact that rangers/druids finally have a imporant role in these contents since HoT came out. Pre-HoT we rangers never got a spot and were frowned upon most of the time.

That has more to do with the vast majority of rangers being bad bearbows than anything really. I know there was hate for them and necromancers for not bringing anything to the group, but a lot of the hate is because the class just invites bad players to play it.

Actually, no, at some time Rangers really were that bad. Their support depended on spirits, which usually happened to either be too far, or die on the spot, and were getting nerfed on constant basis for no reason whatsoever. Their dps was theoretically ok, but depended too much on pets, which also happened to die within seconds (or be bears, in which case you could forget about damage). Also, the dps depended on using sword, which had… issues.

It took a lot of time for Anet to even notice that there was a problem, and fixing it took even more (and it was still very much a work in progress when HoT arrived).

Yes, people likely were overreacting, especially in the last year before expac (after some things got somewhat fixed, and ranger managed to get a tentative foot in the door with dungeon groups thanks to Spotter), but it was based on some real concerns, and not merely on performance of some players.
And actually, bearbows were not as bad when pugging. They at least tended to die a lot less than bad example players of some other professions.

Well if we’re going back to the really olden times and ignoring the stains that were bearbows and the like for classes (yay Wammos!) here is the breakdown I remember:

4 warriors (sweet 100 blades DPS) + Mesmer = no other class need apply.

But getting deep down to it when talking about support this really was it:
Elementalist = water fields and might stacking (once people learned how)
Necro = nothing
Mesmer = Timewarp + reflects
Ranger = bad spirits
Thief = stealth, but no one knew how to skip stuff so not needed
Engineer = tons of support but no one knew what they really did so ignored by most of the population
Warrior = top DPS (though probably not true, but most people though so. People still think 100 blades is per hit and not a total of all the hits. They didn’t have PS for the longest time)
Guardian = all the support

Then metas started to form and buff/nerfs happened. I’m glad that every class has a spot in the meta right now (except for Engineers somehow) but concerning the healer aspect, unless Grace of the Land is nerfed or a similar buff is added that doesn’t stack with GotL, all other healers need not apply. Elementalist healers heal for way more than a Druid but because of GotL they do not get chosen and since Guardian will probably get a tome healing specialization next expansion they will not be used either unless something is done.

One Misconception that needs to be pointed out…

Spike Healing =/= Constant Healing

Druid sucks at Constant Healing, both Ventari & Ele out shine druids for constant healing. Where Druids shine on the healing spectrum is the high spikes on healing.

Only talking about healing, the buffs and all of that has already been covered.

Wolfey.3407:

One Misconception that needs to be pointed out…

Spike Healing =/= Constant Healing

Druid sucks at Constant Healing, both Ventari & Ele out shine druids for constant healing. Where Druids shine on the healing spectrum is the high spikes on healing.

Only talking about healing, the buffs and all of that has already been covered.

Well considering there’s still no encounters where you need 2x magi druids to stay alive, they’re gonna have to make new raids a LOT more difficult to push the druid out of the meta and take something else. I personally doubt very much that they’re gonna do that.

RabbitUp.8294:

It’s safe to say that Druid will not be the last/only healing elite spec. However, is there really any room for competition? It feels like Druids do it all, potent heals combined with a plethora of offensive support for the rest of the group, and some hard cc.

What niche would a future healer would need to utilise to be considered over a Druid? More raw healing alone when Celestial Avatar is a full party heal already would only matter if the ambient damage is significantly increased for the next raid.

I feel like we are at the start of a slippery slope in which more and more passive boosts will be included in elite specs to give them a place in endgame content.

Ventari Rev is a good healer spec.

ArenaNet could go the route of nerfs and cut down healing values or at least base healing values. This would of course mostly kitten off everyone and might not even make people pick up different healers.

The way I feel about it, what makes a good healer on paper is having a class that you would already bring because of their powerful party wide (mostly offensive) class unique buffs play the healer. It is even better if said class does not sacrafice a huge amount of personal DPS to go that route or loses any of those offensive buffs when going healing spec. Either by having high healing numbers with offensive gear or if their personal DPS wasn’t too impressive to begin with even in DPS gear.
All of that combined with the much more frequent need of burst healing over consistant healing in raids makes druids a perfect choice.

Doesn’t mean that others can not do the job equally well of course. All of that fits Ventari Healers almost as much as it fits druids. We simply have not realized their full potential yet without people mastering them to the degree they have mastered the druid.

The reason why druid is better is as simple as that. We DON’T need that much heal, only if you are a fail group you need lots of heal. All you need is some burst healing , and not that much, when someone fails a mechanic.
So druid is more like an offensive buffer rather than a healer. I solo heal most times as zerker and iam perfectly fine…

Absurdo.8309:

I can imagine a spec that heals the group proportional to the amount of damage they deal out.

But, at least in pve, you’re right, there’s no competition. The druid buffs are just too valuable. That’s why ventari and healing ele have fallen out of favor, even though they can competently heal a group.

Give the Guardian “Litany of Wrath Usable On Others” with a sufficient radius, and there’s your sit and forget healing. The question is, would it be sufficient to outshine Druid without some additional DPS buff?

Disclaimer: I don’t raid, but would probably still use my Druid in PvE if her skills that provide GotL applied ZERO healing. The initial ‘elite healing support’ bar has been set pretty high.

Major Domo.9250:

Absurdo.8309:

I can imagine a spec that heals the group proportional to the amount of damage they deal out.

But, at least in pve, you’re right, there’s no competition. The druid buffs are just too valuable. That’s why ventari and healing ele have fallen out of favor, even though they can competently heal a group.

Give the Guardian “Litany of Wrath Usable On Others” with a sufficient radius, and there’s your sit and forget healing. The question is, would it be sufficient to outshine Druid without some additional DPS buff?

Disclaimer: I don’t raid, but would probably still use my Druid in PvE if her skills that provide GotL applied ZERO healing. The initial ‘elite healing support’ bar has been set pretty high.

Considering GoTL is enough of a buff to stack 2 druids in a group it’s doubtful any other healer could outshine it. Maybe if the next ranger spec is enough of a DPS spec to take it as DPS but I fear you’d just stack more rangers next to the druids the way things are now.

Honestly the only way I see them less used is by either nerfing GoTL or giving the new healer spec a similar buff so you’d want 1 of each in your comp. Not sure if I like either idea tho.

Currently Druid is now the gW2 version of GW1 monk and if you pug raid and you’re not waiting on a chronotank, you’re waiting on a druid. I think they could have at LEAST 2 more healing Elite Specs. The two classes that come to mind to me are Necro with a Witchdoctor elite spec that uses Torch for heals or even Dual Torches. The Other is Theif with a new Bard Spec that could use focus. Would love to see the net widen and not restrict us to Druid.

I think proper guardian build can compete and frankly out heal druid. One of the chars I play in ranked pvp is supp dragon hunter. This week I managed twice to get to 600k healing

Weerus.3701:

I think proper guardian build can compete and frankly out heal druid. One of the chars I play in ranked pvp is supp dragon hunter. This week I managed twice to get to 600k healing

Out healing the druid is not the problem, it never has been since both Elementalist and Guardian can both out heal. The problem comes in the form of GotL just like everyone else has been talking about. Each healer honestly just needs a version of GotL that does not stack with each other.

Mitch.4781:

Currently Druid is now the gW2 version of GW1 monk and if you pug raid and you’re not waiting on a chronotank, you’re waiting on a druid. I think they could have at LEAST 2 more healing Elite Specs. The two classes that come to mind to me are Necro with a Witchdoctor elite spec that uses Torch for heals or even Dual Torches. The Other is Theif with a new Bard Spec that could use focus. Would love to see the net widen and not restrict us to Druid.

If that Thief idea comes to pass, it will be hilarious considering my Thief uses Merciless weapons…

I’ll whip everyone back into shape whether they like it or not!

Razor.9872:

Mitch.4781:

Currently Druid is now the gW2 version of GW1 monk and if you pug raid and you’re not waiting on a chronotank, you’re waiting on a druid. I think they could have at LEAST 2 more healing Elite Specs. The two classes that come to mind to me are Necro with a Witchdoctor elite spec that uses Torch for heals or even Dual Torches. The Other is Theif with a new Bard Spec that could use focus. Would love to see the net widen and not restrict us to Druid.

If that Thief idea comes to pass, it will be hilarious considering my Thief uses Merciless weapons…

I’ll whip everyone back into shape whether they like it or not!

Hah. Well it would be nice to give thief a different role. They are great on single target dps but outside of occasional stealth, they lack versatility. People even prefer mesmers now for doing escort.

Grace of the land, spotter, frost/sun spirt, and glyph of empowerment are why druid will be guaranteed spots in raids for a very long time. One would imagine that taking a healing oriented build over dps focused one would boost suitability at the expense of some potential dps but with druid this isn’t the case. Druid buffs allow the group to have the best of both worlds with no downside. Druid can simultaneously provide adequate healing for a group while boosting their damage so much that replacing them with a more dps focused build would be a net dps loss. Ultimately druid is brokenly op for raids in how much support they provide both offensively and defensively.

we will see if there will be any healing class in next DLC,maybe they will find other way for rest of the classes.