Guild Wars 2

I played my ranger since the 1st time i launched the game,i am a big fan of longbows and archers in general but i was never more excited than i am now about the ranger.
The whole idea seems good and the play style is drastically change and the pets….THE NEW PETS ARE AWESOME.

Some people here on the forums have concerns about the rangers being forced into playing Druid to be accepted in parties.My answer to that is simple,you play with the wrong players.
I never had problems to be a ranger and to do whatever content i wanted even when the rangers were considered the worst class and nobody wanted rangers in their party.(That was a long time ago…)

Anet,you just switched my frustration (from waking up too early and not being able to enjoy 2 more precious hours of sleep before going to work) with excitement.

Thank you,Anet, for everything you’ve done!

The point is, the tagging rarely gets you more than bronze participation due to the decreased/negligible damage of such builds. This obviously needs to be re-considered to make it viable outside of raids.

Good luck with this thread. A vocal minority of people are spamming the boards with praise for druid trying to create a hugbox while unable to see that min maxing other classes support abilities in a group makes a spec line who can only stand in a corner spamming heals entirely useless.

Please change the staff holding animation from holding it like a two handed club to the normal caster staffs animation. That is all.

I guess I’ll repost what I said in Tragic’s thread:

I have mixed feelings. To be honest when I heard our spec was called “druid” I was kind of expecting it to be very heal oriented, so this did not surprise me at all. However, It’s kind of disappointing. No improved AoE, no strong dps support except for that one glyph with the 10% buff. Druid as it is would not be very useful in the current state of PVE. However, Anet seems to keep saying HoT is going to change things up. So I suppose we can’t really judge the druid until the actual expansion is out. It could be very interesting. I mean I used to be a feral/resto druid in WoW so having a role doing some healing support would be nice. It’s definitely worth trying. But it’s also something I wouldn’t want to do all the time. Sometimes I just like dps.

I am concerned with the total lack of synergy of the druid traitline with the rest of the core ranger. There are no damage modifiers or anything that would help buff damage much. Many of the other elite specs allow you to spec into the elite spec and still maintain some of your playstyle. For instance, you can still be a death shroud focused reaper if you want. Or you can still be a shatter based chronomancer or a phantasm based chrono. There are things in the elite spec lines that are still useful for those playstyles. That’s just not true of the ranger. If I want to be a sword/axe power ranger or a remorseless greatsword ranger or a sinister axe/torch ranger in pve there is literally nothing for me to really take in the druid traitline. I suppose I just won’t take druid at all if I want to be full dps. The problem with that is the core profession has many problems still.

It just feels like you would only ever take druid if you wanted to be heal support in pve. Or for pvp, the spec does seem like it might have some nice things for wvw and spvp.
However, Irenio did say that he was watching the forums and was aware of a lot of issues we’re having with base class.

Well that balance stream happened and there are still many issues with the core profession. I’m happy about the pets getting condi stats, that’s great. But it’s not quite enough. Hopefully he just ran out of time and there’s a lot more.

I like the concept and build options for the Druid. I do not like how much they seem to imply that the druid will be almost a requirement for HoT content. I really hope they take a step back and make sure that all players/classes are not being forced to play a certain way and that all classes have the ability to fill each role.

That being said I can’t wait to get hands on.

I’m going to reserve judgement until I can see exactly how much damage they can do. I like to play solo as well, and want to know if a druid can support a solo play style in a viable fashion.

In other MMOs, healers can solo stuff.. but it takes forever and a day to actually kill anything. I’m hoping druid isn’t like that. Heals, fine. Just as long as their dps is viable enough to solo as a druid.

The problem with druid is that it only does one thing and that 1 thing is not needed nor is it unique. I’ll copy these two posts I made in another thread to elaborate.

This is one of the main problems with the extreme tunnel vision of this spec. Why are you going to bring in a druid who is spamming out heals when your party will will include plenty of classes providing multiple kinds of support.
You could have a Guardian thorwing out some passive heals while applying aegis, blinds, reflects and condi cleanse and stab while doing decent damage, a Chrono who can spam MoP and shatters with the heal traits and their aoe heal well while also providing reflects, condi cleanse party wide cooldown reduction and quickness as well as a rev who can sit in ventari for when the healing is needed then swap to Shiro or Glint for better damage and other types of support.
Those 3 will provide more then enough group healing that a druid will be pointless and all 3 will be providing other things to the group as well.

The point is that those other classes (and ele and Engie) can throw out some heals while doing what they need to do that got them into the party in the first place. Lost of small heals even without healing power and everybodies self heal will add up and keep people alive, all druid provides is healing.
Compare it to the zerk meta, most build composistions don’t actually take the classes highest dps build, they swap out some damage for support that helps buff up the damage of the other classes. In the teams that do raids they will do the same with healing, swapping it out for support and damage to make the overall group work better.
All druid can provide is healing, its actually less complicated and thought out then the much maligned zerk meta.

Why bring a druid when the other classes will be working together to provide what it can do and much much more?

Combine that with other problems like how tagging/credit works, the state of base ranger, fairly poor glyphs and the fact we were told this is the game to come and play if you don’t want to be dependent on healers and it makes by far the worst elite spec.

Eponet.4829:

You’ve probably already realised it yourself, but, because of how much of a cost it is, I’ll mention it anyway just in case you haven’t.

You can now save the cost of the currently 50-300 gold per piece recipes by making a different set of ascended gear and then stat swapping it to zealot’s.

Thanks . Yeah, I was able to get about 12 of the 18 armor recipes before the prices went stratospheric. I’m missing the heavy armor coat recipe but coughed up for the stat swap at the Mystic Forge. I honestly don’t understand the recipe prices in that light.

I find it funny that the rest of the profs are freaking out about our spec and were just all like “Eww Healing”.

Zalani.9827:

I find it funny that the rest of the profs are freaking out about our spec and were just all like “Eww Healing”.

Speak for yourself, i’m beyond ecstatic that the focus of Druid is healing and support.

Durzlla.6295:

Zalani.9827:

I find it funny that the rest of the profs are freaking out about our spec and were just all like “Eww Healing”.

Speak for yourself, i’m beyond ecstatic that the focus of Druid is healing and support.

I never said I wasn’t.
This is prob my favorite out of the specs tbh.

lxghostxl.5097:

Basaltface.2786:

You guys are never happy with anything dont cha?… Man what would i give to have that much effort put into my spec…that comes from the same dev.

people wont be happy when their favorite class and play style as dps was changed to a full time healer. you should understand that not anyone will just accept garbage like this because majority of the people who chose this class is not to heal but to kick butts and feel like they are baddazz, now its a healer lol! what a joke!

To be honest, people chose The Ranger to play the ranged dps with a pet gameplay style. Elite Specializations came to change, and not enhance a playstyle. So of you want a ranged dps with a pet gameplay you’ll play a Ranger, if you want a ranged heavy healer with a pet you’ll play a Druid.

Please fix spirits . . . If your going to make them immobile at least make them strong. Nature spirit is an ELITE skill that is immobile and only has a 240 radius . . .

I don’t play ranger to BE A kittenING MONK

That’s literally the opposite of what I want to do!

Zalani.9827:

I find it funny that the rest of the profs are freaking out about our spec and were just all like “Eww Healing”.

Their fears come from this perspective: “How dare ranger can be useful!?”

They fail to recognize Druid provides no might, no fury, no quickness, no stability, no protection, no Aegis, boons that any other heal classes have good access to that actually makes a difference.

They’d soon realize this truth and shaft Druid away and pick on another Ele which do everything Druid can do (heal, CC), while doing even more damage and provide all the useful boons I listed above.

There is no grind in GW2.

Aomine.5012:

I picked ranger because it is a class in most MMO, tend to be the highest damage range class of the game.

You realise that not all MMOs are the same right?

Aomine.5012:

Do you really want to be “ranger”, or do you just want to be in the Meta?

Seems you are the one with the problem with “ranger” not me, you seem to think that ranger should only fit your idea of ranger, I on the other hand look at like this, they stated these specialisations were going to add new playstyles to classes, and druid certainly does that, ranger already has plenty of ranged DPS options, it doesn’t need yet more of the same.

zinkz.7045:

Aomine.5012:

I picked ranger because it is a class in most MMO, tend to be the highest damage range class of the game.

You realise that not all MMOs are the same right?

Yeah, this one didn’t used to force healers on to you.

Funny, she doesn’t look Druish.

I have to go back to work for a while, but later on tonight, I will make up a format for every part of Druid and start collating the thoughts about each aspect of it into the threads at the top of the page.

Monk Tank.5897:

Funny, she doesn’t look Druish.

Spaceballs.

I gotchu

Levetty.1279:

The problem with druid is that it only does one thing and that 1 thing is not needed nor is it unique. I’ll copy these two posts I made in another thread to elaborate.

This is one of the main problems with the extreme tunnel vision of this spec. Why are you going to bring in a druid who is spamming out heals when your party will will include plenty of classes providing multiple kinds of support.
You could have a Guardian thorwing out some passive heals while applying aegis, blinds, reflects and condi cleanse and stab while doing decent damage, a Chrono who can spam MoP and shatters with the heal traits and their aoe heal well while also providing reflects, condi cleanse party wide cooldown reduction and quickness as well as a rev who can sit in ventari for when the healing is needed then swap to Shiro or Glint for better damage and other types of support.
Those 3 will provide more then enough group healing that a druid will be pointless and all 3 will be providing other things to the group as well.

The point is that those other classes (and ele and Engie) can throw out some heals while doing what they need to do that got them into the party in the first place. Lost of small heals even without healing power and everybodies self heal will add up and keep people alive, all druid provides is healing.
Compare it to the zerk meta, most build composistions don’t actually take the classes highest dps build, they swap out some damage for support that helps buff up the damage of the other classes. In the teams that do raids they will do the same with healing, swapping it out for support and damage to make the overall group work better.
All druid can provide is healing, its actually less complicated and thought out then the much maligned zerk meta.

Why bring a druid when the other classes will be working together to provide what it can do and much much more?

Combine that with other problems like how tagging/credit works, the state of base ranger, fairly poor glyphs and the fact we were told this is the game to come and play if you don’t want to be dependent on healers and it makes by far the worst elite spec.

I’ll add some more info that people fail to see.

They fail to recognize Druid provides no might, no fury, no quickness, no stability, no protection, no Aegis, boons that any other heal classes have good access to that actually makes a difference.

They’d soon realize this truth and shaft Druid away and pick on another Ele which do everything Druid can do (heal, CC), while doing even more damage and provide all the useful boons I listed above. (Oh, they probably will bring another Mesmer too because it provides unique offensive buffs)

Keep up the delusion folks. Druid will probably be good only in PVP and WvW. (condition bulky druid probably)

Every character in the game has an effective self heal skill that would allow them to recover from damage that can’t completely avoid. As long as we all have strong self healing potential a dedicated healer will never be entirely MANDATORY and so the trinity will never be a hard rule.

However having someone who has a heavy healing build allows other players to focus entirely on DPS without worrying too much about their own health bars. In this way a healer can be very useful to a team but not mandatory to succeed.

The problem was that until now most of the game’s healing options were just far too weak to make any noticeable difference on the team’s health pools and were outright inferior to self healing. Now that healing specced characters can provide more healing to the group than pure self healing would provide they can actually find a role in a group, but that doesn’t mean the content will be impossible without a healer like in a trinity game.

Monk Tank.5897:

There is no grind in GW2.

correction there is no required grind only optional

Ok I am confused how are elite specs not part of the core class, its just a spec not a individual class guys regardless of what you think, can druid not switch to ranger weapons or something in the avatar form?

Ark Bladesteele.2943:

Can I have your stuff?

No, seriously, complaining about something that you didn’t preorder and are supposedly never going to buy (you will!) is the lamest crap ever.

To be fair so is posting in the forum your complaining about.

The Druid looks awesome. Freekin bearbows….

Hyper Cutter.9376:

I don’t play ranger to BE A kittenING MONK

That’s literally the opposite of what I want to do!

No problem you are a Druid. Problem fixed

Healer? I just used the new traits to make an Engine of Bloody Demise out of this so called healer-spec.

I… am not disappointed.

xarallei.4279:

zinkz.7045:

xarallei.4279:

Particularly if you want to go dps in pve.

LOL, and there we have the truth, some people are QQing basically because they want to DPS in PvE which Druid is not going to help, so it doesn’t fit your personal playstyle in your specific bit of the game so it is “kitten”.

Way to ignore everything I said and take stuff out of context. Nowhere did I say it was “kitten.” In fact I said I look forward to trying it out. I already explained, MULTIPLE times that the big problem arises when you don’t want to be a healer in pve. Druid is great for support, but is unusable for pve dps because of the lack of synergy. Now if the core profession was in great shape, then this wouldn’t be a problem. That’s not the case. Ranger has issues. Now the balance patch stream is coming up, maybe it will address these problems, who knows.

Please stop being so rude, everyone is allowed to have an opinion on there view of a ranger, honestly I do not see the other classes with such a big change, personally I think this is a good thing but at the same time I can understand why people will not think it is appealing considering rangers in dnd are more inclined of not using staffs. But a variety of weapons however ranger also means versatility allot so it can make sense for a ranger to use all forms of weapons which includes a staff and since rangers are closer to druidism in guild wars it does actually make sense.

Anyways it is not constructive to insult anyone here so everyone just needs to stop and instead try to help others see how it might actually be fun for them and they did they if you watched the entire video they said they will be looking into balancing the ranger.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Harper.4173:

Kirschsahne.2081:

Shen Slayer.3058:

Zalladi.4652:

My concern with the healing though, is how would a Druid get credit for an event/kills/loot if they are solely focused on healing others?

This is especially crucial for WvW fights as an example – those on the Druid would receive significantly less credit for doing more work.

Yep….this is not going to work. Why would anybody want to be a healer when they can’t tag for loot. WTH was Anet smoking when they thought of this.

Don’t be dramatic here and insult A-Net.

People like me never played for loot. We actually played to enjoy a FANTASY game without any competition. This is called role play game for a reason.

If you wanna loot or rewards start a MMA or Football career.

You zerker kids have to get used to the fact now that there are stilld escent people out there who appreciate art and lore over any loot or violent zerking.

Enjoy being a part of raids as a cookie-cutter build. The introduction of roles doesn’t change the fact that there will be a meta – and with a meta you won’t be playing much of anything but what the meta dictates for that content.

I’m seriously sad that some classes will be reduced to their role and nothing else.
If Druid is going to be the strongest heal spec in the game – I look forward to seeing the people who asked for roles and trinity enjoy their rangers as anything but druid in raids. Which will probably never happen.

Yep. What’s really amazing is the crowing these people are doing about how now the zerker meta is over. We don’t even know if that will be true yet.

I guess when A-Net developer say in a presentation that zerker is bad for the game and they designed it so every zerker can put their build into the garbage bin, i think it’s legit.

Jonbon.5126:

Kakapo.5230:

I don’t like where this is going. Required healers means that forming groups will be harder, and more people will be excluded. Several classes have no viable group healing options, and this brings me back to the days when I played WoW, when pure DPS classes were stuck in one overpopulated niche no one wanted when forming groups.

Not to mention if you are a ranger people will cry and moan that your not a healer. I don’t understand why a ranger becomes a healer anyways. I mean seriously, did you roll a ranger to dps or heal?

You are not a ranger anymore you are a Druid.
If you turn it off and go back to Ranger you can play the DPS build.
I don’t see your problem

Shen Slayer.3058:

Shoe.5821:

Shen Slayer.3058:

Zalladi.4652:

My concern with the healing though, is how would a Druid get credit for an event/kills/loot if they are solely focused on healing others?

This is especially crucial for WvW fights as an example – those on the Druid would receive significantly less credit for doing more work.

Yep….this is not going to work. Why would anybody want to be a healer when they can’t tag for loot. WTH was Anet smoking when they thought of this.

druid won’t have a lot of problems tagging, except maybe when zerged by enemies. At least a couple of the staff abilities do attacking and healing at the same time, including the autoattack.

The question also might be…does it do enough damage to get credit for loot. Dedicated healers generally don’t dish out a lot of damage.

I am not sure you play GW2 for the right reasons.
May i suggest a Casino ???

So they took a ranged based damage dealing class… And turned it into a healer? When people made a Ranger, I seriously doubt “I’m gonna be the best healer ever!” was the first thing on their minds. I mean, that’s not even the same theme anymore.

Kirschsahne.2081:

Jonbon.5126:

Kakapo.5230:

I don’t like where this is going. Required healers means that forming groups will be harder, and more people will be excluded. Several classes have no viable group healing options, and this brings me back to the days when I played WoW, when pure DPS classes were stuck in one overpopulated niche no one wanted when forming groups.

Not to mention if you are a ranger people will cry and moan that your not a healer. I don’t understand why a ranger becomes a healer anyways. I mean seriously, did you roll a ranger to dps or heal?

You are not a ranger anymore you are a Druid.
If you turn it off and go back to Ranger you can play the DPS build.
I don’t see your problem

Because when raids come out the demand will be for druid healers not ranger dps

The druid isn’t singular in it’s design. It’s not just by itself and that’s it.

You can (and certainly should) mix ranger base with it, the melee load outs in particular would mesh very well with it since staff for the druid is going to have impressive range.

Or, not at all. Who says you have to use staff with the druid?

You don’t have to over dedicate to the specialization. You’re thinking too linearly about it, as though you’ll be nothing but a healbot. You’ll still be expected to do some damage.

You’re not going to want to pretend you’re a monk from GW1, you can find plenty of useful utility in the druid line to mix with your ranger to bolster your offensive options.

Druid will indeed be a very strong healer like the elementalist or the guardian (maybe even better at this point).

But just like those classes, you’ll still have the battle at hand to deal with.

I have a hard time believing the meta will ever demand a full on healer at the expense of everything else, even in the new meta where berserkers won’t be as important.

The healer is going to be expected to bring some offense to the party, just like a water elementalist still has the fire, air, and earth line to contribute.

A ranger/druid can absolutely do that.

Rangers have excellent melee options, traps, and the utilities from both lines (base and elite) to support this kind of guerrilla warfare style of back and forth.

Druid is a perfect compliment to the ranger. If the ranger needs to be more support oriented (as a class that’s been referred to as selfish), druid is where it’s at.

That doesn’t take away from what the ranger can already do. As a ranger, I have no trouble getting credit for events or bags in WvW.

Druid doesn’t change that.

I feel like the Druid will only be REALLY needed in raids and probably WvW. Not so much in PvP, except in a coordinated group play, and definitely a no in open world PvE, especially solo.

I main ranger, and this is definitely not what I thought Druid would be like nor something I want to be, but I’m still crossing finger until BWE3 hit and we can see how useful the Druid is.

At least we got dinosaurs. Freaking DINOSAURS. I’m happy with just that.

Atharian.7092:

So they took a ranged based damage dealing class..

But… I love my primarily melee ranger.

lxghostxl.5097:

Just curious, long time ago when GW2 came out it had the promise of being able to play any game without having a healer. I loved GW2 just because of that. the challenge of trying to stay alive while running a dps build and having that good feeling of playing because although everyone are dps build they made it through just with their own wits and good timing on when to use a heal and other skills. now the game seems like it became a joke that people who chose a class because it suits their dps play style suddenly changed to a healer, tank ect. this druid skill made me realized how ANET did not care about their promise and player’s play style and just decided to mess with us with a twist that does not make our gaming experience the best experience in MMO world. what do you guys think? are you all ok with getting back to the same cycle as other MMO out there with the requirements of a healer? because to me this just sad and very bad move from ANET. If I wanted to play an MMO that has healers I would have moved to WOW or other new games out there. I was hoping that these new elite class are gonna provide buffs while staying on track with their main play style because buffs that you can get from another player is more better than having or forcing a dps type to become a healer, the guy who does not have a skill and only focus on healing his teammates following their needs while looking like an idiot in the battle field like a clown?

First of all, Anet isn’t forcing you to do anything, if you wanna keep playing dps ranger you go crazy with it, elite specializations are optional.
Second, being a healer takes quite some skill, specially on a game that relies so much on positioning like GW2.
Third, between Tempest, Berserker, Reaper and, to a degree, Chronomancer we have enough dps specializations.
Fourth and last, there are loads of people who like playing healer, and there are so many dps and buffing options, don’t you think it’s only fair that healers get a little love?

All in all, I’m happy with the Druid presentation and am looking forward to testing it, I just wish there was less wisp and stars and more plant-oriented spells, as it seems the only plant spell in the Druid’s repertoire is the vine thingy. I was hoping the Druid, or at least one of the elite specs, would get conjure spells, but I suppose glyphs make sense.

lxghostxl.5097:

because to me this just sad and very bad move from ANET.

Jepp… you nailed it. For you it’s a bad move.
Everyone else on that planet loves it

Oh come on. So the druid has a skill set where attacks heal allies. We’ve already seen a similar thing with Staff Eles, not to mention Water combo effects.

the original Ranger was Strider(Aragorn) who was reknowned throughout Middle Earth as a great healer as well as warrior………………………………………..the basis of all fantasy sword/torch longbow wielding bad mofo that will bring you back from the dead with herbs and care of spirit

Kirschsahne.2081:

Shen Slayer.3058:

Kirschsahne.2081:

Shen Slayer.3058:

Zalladi.4652:

My concern with the healing though, is how would a Druid get credit for an event/kills/loot if they are solely focused on healing others?

This is especially crucial for WvW fights as an example – those on the Druid would receive significantly less credit for doing more work.

Yep….this is not going to work. Why would anybody want to be a healer when they can’t tag for loot. WTH was Anet smoking when they thought of this.

Don’t be dramatic here and insult A-Net.

People like me never played for loot. We actually played to enjoy a FANTASY game without any competition. This is called role play game for a reason.

If you wanna loot or rewards start a MMA or Football career.

You zerker kids have to get used to the fact now that there are stilld escent people out there who appreciate art and lore over any loot or violent zerking

Then give me all your loot.

I am good with that i already have everything available from Legendaries to ascended

Screenshot of wardrobe or it dident happen.

Olcon.9506:

To piggy-back off what ItIsFinished is saying:

Meanwhile, in the other profession subforums:

-The elementalists are claiming the Druid outperforms both the water and earth attunements.

-Engineers are muttering both about the Druid’s lockdown potential and also Irenio’s apparent favoritism. (I actually feel for them on this one and hope they get some support, I’ll readily admit Irenio seemed waaaaay more enthusiastic about the Druid than he did the Scrapper. Hopefully he gives our engineer brothers some love, god knows they need it just as much as rangers do.)

-The thieves have listed the Druid as their number 1 kill priority and may or may not be having a nervous breakdown.

-Nothing about the Druid in the warrior subforum, which isn’t exactly shocking as warriors and Druids are literal polar opposites. I’m a little surprised they haven’t put together a “how do we kill this thing” thread, though.

-Mesmers are eyeing the Druid warily but aren’t really concerned.

-Necromancers are muttering about the Druid’s “Life Shroud” and how it retains its utilities when the Death Shroud does not.

-Revenants are outright questioning Ventari’s relevance.

-And lastly, the poor guardians may or may not be having a profession-wide existential crisis. Their main Druid reaction thread is blatantly questioning the guardian’s continuing viability and there’s even a second one asking Irenio to redesign the Dragon Hunter. Granted, that second one may very well be a joke, but something tells me they might be serious.

From what I’ve seen and browsed, most, if not all of the other professions (at least the subset of players that post of the forums, which, granted, is a small amount) agree that the Druid is a top-tier elite specialization that could very well shake up the PvP and WvW scenes, and none of them are writing it off as worthless or a “pile of garbage”. I myself am 100% going to be pulling my ranger (my first character! squeeeee) off the shelf and experimenting heavily with the Druid and what it has to offer.

So yeah, it might be you.

I was really concerned at first that druid would end up being a pretty bad elite spec, but after the reveal I really like it even though I’m not much of a healer fan. Most of the complaints from other profession forums are 1-dimensional and do not take into consideration every factor that is needed for balance.

For example, a staff ele can do enormous damage while doing some healing and giving boons at the same time. They even have a little bit of CC that will hopefully become more useful in HoT content. Also, necromancer’s shroud has a second health bar and thus doesn’t need to have utilities accessible. While some would argue that celestial form’s healing is the equivalent to the 2nd life bar, I would ask them how I can deal damage equivalent to that of death shroud.

Fortunately, most of the posters were reasonable and quickly pointed these things out in the druid-related threads of other profession sub-forums. However, the guardian sub-forum seems to be somewhat of an exception.

Personally, I am really happy that you guys are finally getting something good after so many years and I hope that you enjoy it. Irenio should also keep up the good work with the ranger balance changes, because more will be needed for sure.

Nike.2631:

Because Stonehenge has nothing to do with observing celestial bodies…
No, wait. It does.

So much this. OMG.

Nemesis.6938:

I am not sure about the druid…i dont think it is “bad” regarding efficiency, i rather think it it is “bad” regarding the whole class focus and mechanics because

1) healing, some more healing, a bit healing on top of that followed by more healing – okay we get it…could have put a few more things in there

2) Since the druid is so heavily focused on healing, this means it is either not necessary and useless in pve or EVERY group will have to have a druid…going away from zerker meta to “you have to have a druid” meta which…

3) brings us to point 3 – making the guardian or other heal classes incredibly pale and useless in comparison – congratz u made a class useful at the cost of another

4) I dont see any synergies with the pet… if this is still a pet class and you want it to have and use a pet and BUILD SYNERGIES IN

5) Moreover, i dont see a lot of synergies with existing traitlines…

This is very similar to my concerns. At first and second glance, the druid looks to be a bit of a heal bot. The new weapon skills and mechanics are for healing. The traits are for healing. The glyphs… not as much. But still, I question the efficiency of the design of the class. I imagine you could take away half of these heals, double the strength of the remaining half, and then add a lot more stuff.

Mitch.4781:

kiwituatara.6053:

Yea the Druid was nothing I had hoped for, but its not bad. Rangers still not gonna be picked up for dungeon/fractals, but I think we’ll see it used more often in WvW and PvP and maybe Raids depending how its designed

I have never EVER not been booted from a dungeon or fractal for being a ranger. I think this urban myth should just die already

Same. I PUG all the time as a necro, and a friend of mine as a ranger, and never once has anyone booted or requested a change from either of us based on it. I’m not saying it never has or never will happen, but with the way everyone exaggerates you’d think rangers and necros would only be able to run dungeons if they were pitied by guildies.

Go ahead and complain about your profession being miles behind everyone else—That’s totally valid, and no one’s stopping you. But god I wish people would stop making up bogus stories about how everyone in a pvp match reported them because they joined as a ranger. Just doesn’t help.

We haven’t gotten into the story of HOT yet. Why are there complaints of elite specs not fitting the lore, if we haven’t seen it yet. There’s lore for the Rev, so I’m sure there is lore for the specs.

Overall Im pretty happy with the way druid turned out. I kinda wish we could merge with our pets or even mount ‘em, but the astral form is kinda neat. I’ve certainly never been a healer before, so that’ll add some interesting twists I feel for me personally. I really like the pets though. Really awesome job with those and you better not be lying about there being more than you revealed :P.

I feel like a kid playing Pokemon again – Gotta catch ‘em all! The complaint I have for the pets however is that they seem a little bit too small (especially the bristle back and wyverns), but that’s also my preference. I don’t know it just seems weird to have a bristleback and the shadowscale and wyvern being so tiny :P.

I have to admit however that I am concerned for druid in a PvE sense. Will we feel as powerful or even capable in PvE whether we’re in a group or going solo? That’s a question that streams through my mind quite often. I think my greatest concern is the druid’s ability to sustain damage and/or dish it out since it is a healing support specialization.