Guild Wars 2

I’m not far into this beta so please don’t take my comments as final. These are comments as I’m experiencing things so far.

Getting to the “Test”:
One issue I really have is the beta design itself. If you want us to test out these classes let us load our beta characters into Maguuma rather than story mode. It’s a good 45 minutes to get to actually testing anything we haven’t already tested.

Armor, Stats, & Mastery:
I’m not sure I understand the mastery system. Why am I, a DPS class until now, suddenly being moved over into a healer role? I don’t mind the Druid on its own. The issue I have is that stats come from our armor.
My armor is berserker gear and typically Ascended Berserker gear. This is becoming a thorny sort of issue for me. Ascended Armor is a real chore to get. I mean, I could easily build two legendaries in the time it takes me to make one set of Ascended Armor. Why is a DPS class suddenly being slammed over into a support role?
I love healing. Don’t misunderstand me. Healing has been my first choice in any MMO. My confusion is armor stats for my classes vs. my mastery. In most MMOs there’s no take-backs as far as choosing your functionality. Is that the direction we’re moving into with Guild Wars 2? Am I either going to be a DPS Ranger or Druid (healer)?

This question continues on for most of the other classes that are seeing a major shift in their functionalities. I’m not sure it will impact other classes quite so heavily, but it might be good to make some sort of clarification about this.

For now I’m going to treat the Druid as a completely separate class from the Ranger as Armor Stats seem to make this the case.

If anyone’s already got this sorted out in their head and can clear up my ignorance on this please feel free to explain!

The druid doesn’t really change up much how the original ranger plays, it can add some nice things but over all it isn’t vital to the ranger experience. Now if you want to heavy druid healer type then doesn’t play nice with the ranger core.

IMO, it’s not worth switching armor. Some tests with cleric armor proved you only get about +100 health per heal skill over full ‘zerk. Heal power is still not a very useful stat to have, so unless something major changes, I won’t worry about it. If something does change, you can always collect legendary armors to switch stats per situation.

You know, I agree with you 100%. However the more I test out druid the more I realize the druid is really NOT a dedicated healer. It looks more to me like the skills on staff are yes, supportive but just as supportive as any other class. It’s like running a GS/staff mesmer for example. Thats what druid is really starting to feel like for me. They gave the rangers the one thing they were lacking, all around support. That’s why we were left out of parties. Right? People hate our selfish skills. The only thing for the druid is the celestial avatar however runs on high healing and it gives you an option to run full healing power if you want.

Something else I’d also like ot mention. I’ve also been testing out tempest. Water ele/tempest in particular. I’ve noticed massive amount of easy healing, healing auras and protecting. If I wanted to be a dedicated healer I’d pick the ele class.

Tl;dr
It feels way more fluid and right to main healing on the tempest.
It feels way more right to use druid’s staff as a supportive weap thats gives you cc, buffs, and suistainability when needed.

Only problem with what I’m saying is this could just be my play style and how I see it personally. Thought I’d share this anyway.

fuyuko.3705:

You know, I agree with you 100%. However the more I test out druid the more I realize the druid is really NOT a dedicated healer. It looks more to me like the skills on staff are yes, supportive but just as supportive as any other class. It’s like running a GS/staff mesmer for example. Thats what druid is really starting to feel like for me. They gave the rangers the one thing they were lacking, all around support. That’s why we were left out of parties. Right? People hate our selfish skills. The only thing for the druid is the celestial avatar however runs on high healing and it gives you an option to run full healing power if you want.

Something else I’d also like ot mention. I’ve also been testing out tempest. Water ele/tempest in particular. I’ve noticed massive amount of easy healing, healing auras and protecting. If I wanted to be a dedicated healer I’d pick the ele class.

Tl;dr
It feels way more fluid and right to main healing on the tempest.
It feels way more right to use druid’s staff as a supportive weap thats gives you cc, buffs, and suistainability when needed.

Only problem with what I’m saying is this could just be my play style and how I see it personally. Thought I’d share this anyway.

Um, rangers aren’t left out of parties for support LOL they are left out because there are alot of bad rangers that don’t know when to put there pets on passive and they pull mobs AND they use longbow skill 4 and they end up pushing the enemies away from the aoes everyone puts down. -.-