Guild Wars 2

The general design of nature/astral is what they were referring to, nothing in this game is in line with the exacts of those classes/beliefs they may have actually existed.

Astral/Celestial were actually very much a part of druidism, as well as nature and as you said holistic medicine/remedies.

I’m happy with what they have done but I was expecting a full support type class. Now that I said that I will contradict myself a bit, I do feel it was lazy, instead of tackling the pet AI issues and/or giving us the option to not use a pet and have a different mechanic option they just slapped this together.

I can understand why others will be upset, the Ranger is still a piece of garbage and if you don’t like being support and do want to play the Ranger you’re still garbage in comparison to others. I was really hoping for an aspect system similar to attunements for Ele.

For me it’s a good thing I enjoy playing support, for others I can see it being a slap in the face.

Johnny.1634:

Anet does it yet again, releases yet another pile of garbage specialization that can only be described as stupidly random. Honestly, whoever is designing all these needs to be fired.
How on earth does anything this specialization can do connect to our current ranger? It does ABSOLUTELY nothing for our pet…OUR MAIN PROFESSION MECHANIC, we turn into some freaking stupid shadow transformation, we’re given a bunch of utility skills that pretty much do nothing but turn us into some terribad elementalist, we’re given staff a weapon that does nothing but heal which has always been absolutely worthless in the game and nothing is going to change that. And on top of it, what the hell are with these HORRIBLE animations….uhg honestly, could you made a more horrible specilization? Guess we’ll see in the next expansion…

I was disappointed with pretty much every specialization you’ve release, yet I only really play ranger, and after today…yet another disappointment.
Been a major fan since Guild Wars 1, but ever since these expansion reveals, you’ve done nothing but disappoint.

I’ve completely lost faith in you guy.

That’s funny because every other profession is saying Druid is the best specialization out of them all. I wonder who’s right?

Of all the things to complain about this is probably the most subjective but the aesthetics for the druid, while looking nice, looked completely off imo. Druids in GW1 were nature spirits (literally used the same model as ranger spirits) and nature spirits in GW2 are in the Nature Magic line of the ranger traits.

I was really looking forward to the druid theme because I love nature mages, but I’m really sad all the particle effects look like bright whites or purple/black/blue. There are no leafy greens, browns, yellows, gold etc. There are no leafy particle effects like when summoning a spirit. It all feels visually wrong to me, like an astral mage and not actually a druid.

I get they have some kind of celestial lore and a balance theme, but it just doesn’t look like what I want out of a nature mage/druid in GW2.

If I’m not mistaken he mentioned on quite a few of the “healing only” skills that they would get some sort of extra component like damage or a condition. Even if all the solely healing skills just did a little bit of damage it’d be better.

Mavander.3208:

The question I have for Irenio is: What if I want to be a dps druid?

That’s a huge question. For three years, they have utterly failed to move the PvE meta beyond “maximize DPS”. If the expansion doesn’t, then I’m worried that Druid will be utterly worthless.

Druids actually were more known for their harmful medicines than their beneficial ones….. People weren’t flocking to the druids for miraculous healing but their enemies feared their harmful potions and poisons.

Relshdan.6854:

Aomine.5012:

Excellent utilities as to more and more and MORE healing and nothing else?

It got one cleanse, 1 projectile absorption, great, but there’s very limited offensive buffs or boons.. There’s not even that many defensive buffs or boons either..

Just healing, and occasionally some cleanse…

and group super speed….and group stealth…and a party-wide 10% dmg boost (38% uptime, if traited)….and group-wide 33% condi dmg reduction.

also, a ton of daze/immobs/cc’s…..will be a beast breaking defiance bars

its not great in terms of boon sharing or might stacking, but that’s what herald/ ele will bring.

can’t say how useful druid support will be beyond healing, but it certainly as more group support than just heals and condi cleanse

None traited Glyph has a 25% uptime (5 sec/ 20 CD), netting a 2.5% damage boost over 20 secs.

This is way worse than Frost Spirit…

neurosis.6350:

You’re totally right, man!
ArenaNET just broke my heart with Druids. I’ve yelled “Nooooooo” through all Twitch druid presentation.
First of all, they broke my favorite part of this game – no tanks\healers
Second, I waited for this elite spec from the very beginning. I was so hyped when I saw it in the trailer. I thought that it will be a cool dps spec with staff… you know you pewpew with thorns, call for razor-leaf AoE tornado, roots, etc. I waited for spirit skills re-done (so the spirits would be like here: huge’n’awesome http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/9/9e/Sylvari_09_concept_art_%28The_Druid%29.jpg)
Third, I’m OK with healing\support but for the f@cks sake, why can’t we do some dps in dang Celestial form? That spell is worthless if you play alone then. (I play alone most of the time)
Fourth, I didn’t wait for solar\lunar magic for ranger.
They just created another World-Of-Warcraft-like druid. I’d say just exact copy. Boomkin form + Tree spells + some boomkin visuals = Druid in GW2. I don’t wanna play another WoW. This is not why I quit WoW.
Thanks god, that there’s no Eclipses…

I’m realy dissapointed, I don’t like the spec I’ve waited most of all

Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorn Dissapoint of the Year Edition

P.S. at least, mages got even worse spec. I must agree that they’re totally not Tempest-like (I hate RIFT but Tempest is great there).

ANET forgot that we chose Rangers because we love to solo and dps. I think all this worked is just a joke. who ever decided that rangers should be the clown of the party is offended us with this spec. the promise of no healer/tank is just a lie, ANET failed!

can’t disagree more.

quite excited to try this out. all those dazes + MoC+ancient seeds = sick lockdown/interrupt potential

Aomine.5012:

Relshdan.6854:

Aomine.5012:

Excellent utilities as to more and more and MORE healing and nothing else?

It got one cleanse, 1 projectile absorption, great, but there’s very limited offensive buffs or boons.. There’s not even that many defensive buffs or boons either..

Just healing, and occasionally some cleanse…

and group super speed….and group stealth…and a party-wide 10% dmg boost (38% uptime, if traited)….and group-wide 33% condi dmg reduction.

also, a ton of daze/immobs/cc’s…..will be a beast breaking defiance bars

its not great in terms of boon sharing or might stacking, but that’s what herald/ ele will bring.

can’t say how useful druid support will be beyond healing, but it certainly as more group support than just heals and condi cleanse

None traited Glyph has a 25% uptime (5 sec/ 20 CD), netting a 2.5% damage boost over 20 secs.

This is way worse than Frost Spirit…

so trait it, and take frost (or sun) spirit too.

Cristobal.8640:

I run double GS with valk, remorseless+quickdraw. GS Staff is going to be brutal, quickdraw on staff <3

And kittening dragons!

2400 range escape. immobs to setup mauls. take the smokescale pet, its f2 does 9k damage.

I’m excited for this personally, I like the more supporty/heal style.

Healer does exist in GW2, it is just few bother to use the Healer builds or just never bothered noticing the existance of healer builds.

A lot of focus was towards Zerker build by the Meta nut people so few people are aware that players can be healers in GW2 with the right build. Ele current is known to be a good healer profession thanks to their water attunement abilities used with the right gear set up.

Majority of the community current focus a lot on making DPS builds but there are Tank and Healer builds out there for players who wich to become a Tank user or Healer user.

Mavander.3208:

The question I have for Irenio is: What if I want to be a dps druid?

Remorseless Druid looks like it will be rather good. Druid gives a lot of dazes to proc Moment of Clarity and a lot of immobilizes to keep the enemy in place for a Maul. Condi druid is also looking promising with traps or just straight up bleeds.

Well, considering a “druid” is just a prancing, limp wristed gardener with a bag of fairy dust, you should have seen this coming.

Do you think it will be possible for druid to handle itself in 1v1 situation if need be? weather pvp or pve if you get separated or theirs no one around to help you will your damage be at all viable? I love the idea of druid but fear the idea of barely being able to protect yourself.

So all your 5 weapon skills and all your utilitys just heal and do absolutely no damage ?

If the answer is no .. where is the problem ?

I could see getting credit for healing people at events being exploited.
Let me stand there with a guardian or an ele in water attunement while I leech.

Remember that at least you still have your other weapon besides the Staff, so you won’t be completely defenseless alone.

Druid provides oppotunity to create a proper DPS/healing build. While player may sacrifice some DPS it doesn’t mean they have to sacrifice all their DPS. There are plenty of stat combinations out there to keep a decent amount of DPS.

For example, aEle player can switch between their Water Attunement for healing while switching back to their other Attunement for their DPS.

One of the things I’m concerned about with the celestial theme is that it’s just not a ranger theme. Rangers are light green and their particle effects are already rooted in earthy colours.

Druids in Tyria are humans that were transformed by the goddess Melandru who is also earthy themed and the patron god of rangers. They take on the form of ranger spirits which are Nature Magic.

The aesthetic feels wrong to me, like a mesmer using green spell effects when their profession is so distinctly rooted in purple, or a necromancer using white and gold spell effects when their profession is so distinctly rooted in black and dark green with a bit of red. When a profession moves away from their established palette there should be a good reason for it and the history of druids in Tyria doesn’t lead me to think or astral whites and blues.

First, you can be druid without staff + you have another weapon in any case. The damage of the staff did not seem too bad, though it is obviously not top DPS.
So at the end it all boils down to what gear you use. If you want to use healing power, cleric is not amazing damage but still has power main stat. Settler/Apothecary has a some condi damage and condi scales fine even as the only offensive stat (although bad synergy with the staff).

Wrong section, post this stuff in Ranger’s sub. kthx

Dashingsteel.3410:

Druids actually were more known for their harmful medicines than their beneficial ones….. People weren’t flocking to the druids for miraculous healing but their enemies feared their harmful potions and poisons.

People weren’t flocking to them at all, they were widely considered Witches (Pagans). As for their Harmful potions, that is a myth, Druids were pacifists, they didn’t run around poisoning people, that was part of the “witch hunt” beliefs. They weren’t christian therefore they were witches who poisoned and killed small children and family pets while you slept.

Basically Druids were Pagans and even today Pagans are widely viewed as witch who worship the devil by those ignorant enough to believe it.

It looks awesome…it’s just a matter of taste…

The whole point of Elite Specializations is to go on a different route than the base job, OP.

Rangers are some of the best duelists in the game. I doubt changing one trait line and having a support weapon will completely invalidate your ability to defend yourself.

Especially now that pets have a condi damage stat. Your pet just became more lethal in a 1v1 scenario than ever before AND you got a huge number of new ways to heal it to make sure it won’t die.

Really ranger is the best profession to get a healing elite spec. Unlike any other profession out there we are NEVER alone and can always benefit from the ability to heal others.

Mono.7320:

Wrong section, post this stuff in Ranger’s sub. kthx

How is this the wrong section, this is about healing compensation…. not just ranger/druid. Sorry but your assumption is wrong here.

This is a valid concern, especially so for Rangers, but it affects all classes to some degree.

No they did not.

Your interpretation of what they promise is not the interpretation of everyone.

DevilLordLaser.8619:

The cycles of the moon and stars is a common theme in druidic or other natural systems of magic. Lunar/celestial effects show up all the time. C’mon, man. Chillax. Could be worse – they could’ve been shapeshifters. That would’ve been a real disaster.

A) We already have lore for druids and they are based on the living portion of nature like plants and animals.

B) Even if their aim was to make druid more celestial themed, a broader spectrum of nature than just the biology of a single world, they still totally botched that. Firstly because there are several items thrown in which are obviously hang-ons (vine grasp, healing seeds) from earlier renditions of a more traditional druid. As well as hang ons from the base class that make no sense with the cosmic druid theme, like the pet. Seriously why on earth would someone apparently concerned with and drawing from something so broad as THE COSMOS have an dinky little animal companion? And finally, because even the portions of the druid which do manage to have a cohesive cosmic theme, are distracting away from any serious nature theme more than adding to it. This theme they’ve created looks more based on some hookah puffing space-wizard you’d find airbrushed on to the side of some losers van than some great druidic being concerned with life on a universal scale.

C) Ignoring ALL existing lore on druids. If druids were so cosmically minded, wouldn’t they be on the dragon’s side? The dragons are a force of nature as old as creation, the cycle they create by devouring the world is as natural a part of the nature of cosmos as floods and droughts and birth and death are a part of the nature of any natural environment.

If they want to give druids a theme unique to GW2, fine, could be great, druids don’t have to be biology themed (as stated earlier, so long as you ignore all existing lore on them, which let’s be honest, ANet has done before). But if they’re going to do that, actually do it, pick a theme and stick with and don’t half- kitten it so you can shoehorn thematically unfitting content from previous renditions of the specialization and the base class to save on work time.

EDIT: And yes, as some people have pointed out, if you want to get particular Druids were originally primitive scholars and medicine men from the british isles more worshipful of death than nature. In fact the majority of the things we now associate with necromancy are actually taken from the practitions of pagan druidism, while necromancy was just a word for a seance of the dead. So its not like druids transforming in to animals and controlling plants is a hard and fast rule like Warriors using weapons or Mages practicing magic, as the most common theme for them (nature) isn’t even based in their real world practices.

I think it looks amazing! Perfect. Its a caster. I feel like druids are suppose to be.

Kodama.6453:

I think the opposite direction. Druid is one of the best designed elite specs this far. Especially the animations you are complaining about. A healing blossom, I totally love it. They couldn’t have made it any better.

I like some of the animations I just wished they where a little flashier and bigger but I do not have an issue with the spec.

Dradiin.8935:

Mono.7320:

Wrong section, post this stuff in Ranger’s sub. kthx

How is this the wrong section, this is about healing compensation…. not just ranger/druid. Sorry but your assumption is wrong here.

This is a valid concern, especially so for Rangers, but it affects all classes to some degree.

I meant wrong Forum Subsection if you got it wrong.

The fact that you have a one spec focused on Healing doesn’t suddenly means that healing will be obligatory.

Leodon.1564:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Natural Mender - Seems like the buff is too short and too small to be able to really maintain it with it being 10 stacks. If it were me, I would adjust it to be 4% and 5 stacks. I’d have to know the exact mechanics though, it may stack up each time an ally is healed by Regeneration, in which case, it is totally fine as is.

As you mentioned, its much too soon to be asking for a buff to this without seeing how it actually plays out.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Cultivated Synergy - I think this is a little un-inspired and pretty weak. Since there are no traits that deal with boons or apply boons, change this to something to do with Regeneration, since we already have miles of it, it would be a good synergy. “Whenever you apply Regeneration, nearby allies gain 2s of Resistance. Regeneration heals for 25% more.” Or something that works in with what Ranger already has.

I disagree with your Regeneration suggestion and the idea that it is free for us. You have to either spec for it, use a valuable utility slot, use warhorn, or some combination of all three. There are no ways to get Regeneration just from speccing Druid/Glyphs so adding a Regen trait makes no sense.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Celestial Shadow - Could also grant the same effects on entering Celestial Avatar, making you much slipperier in PvP for support.

Assuming Celestial Avatar is on a 10 second cooldown, having party wide stealth/resistance upon both entry and exit of the elite form screams OP to me. It might better to change the trait so that stealth/resistance is given upon entering Celestial Avatar instead of upon exiting it but we won’t know without actually playing with the trait.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Celestial skills
Needs a damage component on all of its skills for PvE. Good opportunity to add some boons to the Druid, such as Resistance and Regeneration for the modified Cultivated Synergy.

Druid seems to be shaping up as THE healer for HoT (with plenty of sustain and burst healing) and you want to give it more healing in the form of Regen? The focus of Druid is raw healing and I’d prefer to leave boons to the other classes or else we will be stepping on too many toes.

Sorry if I’m coming off a bit harsh but Druid is arguably the strongest elite spec to come out for HoT and I can’t believe we are already discussing ways to make it even stronger without sacrificing somewhere else.

It’s just suggestions and ideas mate.

I just think that 1k healing on healing skill use is boring as anything, it could be far
better than that.

If the Druid is a healer spec and Regen heals, I see no reason why you can’t have some on it, since anyone specing for healing will want to take advantage of Rangers abundance of Regeneration. You only need it on the heal skill and some on the staff to make a regen trait viable and it would synergise massively with all our other sources.

Celestial Shadow is Stealth and Super Speed, not Resistance.

Imagine this – Staff #4 to immob target, swap to greatsword, maul for big damage. Then use your smokescale to taunt with the mist field (which is hilarious by the way) to set up for a quick-draw maul. Since you’re hitting them while they’re under a CC effect, that one Grandmaster trait procs and he’s suddenly got another 5 seconds of immob and five stacks of bleeding, and is being chewed up by the Smokescale.

I’d say we’ll be able to DPS just fine. It’s just that Druid gives us a LOT of sustain.

I think it looks great. The only thing that hate is how the druid was holding the staff with two hands like if it were a hammer or a greatsword.

I actually saw it. Not sure if it will work though.

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.

Some of my thoughts/concerns after looking over all these delicious Druid tooltips. Not much as the more I read over Druid it looked more and more solid.

Traits

Celestial Being
Astral Force per Damage might be slightly low. I understand it gets better against more enemies, but I feel a small bump could make this less punishing in case one is not focused on frequently dispersing heals. Possibly, bump it to ½% per Damage.

Live Vicariously
I would like to see this also affect the pet, so when you heal an ally, the pet is also healed, and vice-versa, so when your pet heals you or an ally, you and your pet are healed as well. Give the pet a little more involvement when being a Druid and act as a bonus for keeping them alive and using pets that heal or provide some synergy with Invigorating Bond.

Celestial Shadow
I would like to see this trait split into two parts. Grant Stealth upon entering Celestial Avatar Form and applying Super Speed upon leaving. That way you can stealth allies, heal them up while hidden, and when you leave the form, everyone gains Super Speed to either retreat, re-enter combat, or re-position faster. Also, a bump in Stealth and Super Speed duration to 3s would be nice as 2s seems rather short.

Celestial Avatar Form Skills

Natural Convergence
It seemed as though this skill cannot be used while moving. If so, could that be changed?

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.

We haven’t seen a raid yet. We know very little. Two encounter types have been spoken of (that I’ve seen/heard). One where 1-2 players hold a boss’s attention while the rest do something else, and another where one person stands in melee absorbing hits while the rest stand back and apply condi. We also know bosses (all of them?) will enrage if not killed fast enough. In other words, parties will need to maximize damage by whatever means are necessary.

What’s most likely is 10 carrying full glass (direct and condi both), with 2-3 players also carrying bulky and/or heal gear. Enrage timers guarantee that people doing raids will want to kill as fast as possible, which means best gear and best spec. We’ll probably also see a requirement for full Ascended if the numbers are tight enough.

People forget what raiding was like in old WoW, before LFR. LFR opened up group content to more builds and play-styles by making raids easier. GW2 raids are supposed to be harder.

#preachingtochoir

Johnny.1634:

Anet does it yet again, releases yet another pile of garbage specialization that can only be described as stupidly random. Honestly, whoever is designing all these needs to be fired.
How on earth does anything this specialization can do connect to our current ranger? It does ABSOLUTELY nothing for our pet…OUR MAIN PROFESSION MECHANIC, we turn into some freaking stupid shadow transformation, we’re given a bunch of utility skills that pretty much do nothing but turn us into some terribad elementalist, we’re given staff a weapon that does nothing but heal which has always been absolutely worthless in the game and nothing is going to change that. And on top of it, what the hell are with these HORRIBLE animations….uhg honestly, could you made a more horrible specilization? Guess we’ll see in the next expansion…

I was disappointed with pretty much every specialization you’ve release, yet I only really play ranger, and after today…yet another disappointment.
Been a major fan since Guild Wars 1, but ever since these expansion reveals, you’ve done nothing but disappoint.

I’ve completely lost faith in you guy.

Agreed with the staff part.

For Ele’s staff, they can do very decent healing while keeping up HUGE AOE damage, good group support, and good CC too all in one package!

Our staff will get some healing and some utility, like half of what Ele got, and we get no damage using staff. (Ele’s staff is not only their best healing weapon, but also their highest damage weapon too lol)

Kumion.7580:

They said they’d originally planned to reveal it before Scrapper. (Remember the pause in reveals? Yeah, then.) They said it wasn’t quite done in time, so they revealed it last. Something had to be last.

Yea but considering it was the very first spec announced back when the expansion was announced its very weird

TBH the day they announced Druid many months ago it was pretty common knowledge that it would be a support focused spec. It’s really not a surprise at all.

Bryzy.2719:

Johnny.1634:

Anet does it yet again, releases yet another pile of garbage specialization that can only be described as stupidly random. Honestly, whoever is designing all these needs to be fired.

Basically everyone else disagrees with you there.

Johnny.1634:

How on earth does anything this specialization can do connect to our current ranger?

This is the DRUID not the Ranger. The two are different professions.

Johnny.1634:

It does ABSOLUTELY nothing for our pet…OUR MAIN PROFESSION MECHANIC,

This is the DRUID not the Ranger. The pet is NOT the profession mechanic of the Druid.

Johnny.1634:

we turn into some freaking stupid shadow transformation, we’re given a bunch of utility skills that pretty much do nothing but turn us into some terribad elementalist, we’re given staff a weapon that does nothing but heal which has always been absolutely worthless in the game and nothing is going to change that. And on top of it, what the hell are with these HORRIBLE animations….uhg honestly, could you made a more horrible specilization? Guess we’ll see in the next expansion…

I was disappointed with pretty much every specialization you’ve release, yet I only really play ranger, and after today…yet another disappointment.
Been a major fan since Guild Wars 1, but ever since these expansion reveals, you’ve done nothing but disappoint.

I’ve completely lost faith in you guy.

Again, basically everyone else disagrees with you.

Summary: You only see what you WANT to see and ignore everything else…

Summary 2: People who play ranger actually don’t want to be ranger…
(I thought most classes want to keep their profession theme, but seems like ranger group is an exception…)

Sigh…

Many hard healing abilities have a “damage enemies” part to them, so you’ll end up tagging enemies passively. And the ones that don’t hurt enemies have cd, so you can use that time to throw an aoe at the enemy

Little do you all know their real plan is to have us tank with a bear or drake and heal it while the rest of you do damage and whatever else needs to be done.

i think besides the skill that was shown already in the first hot trailer all the druid skills look really cheap and bad to be honest – ESPECIALLY the transformation…that looks like what they planned didnt work so they had to quickly throw something together…

we do have awesome animal transformations already in place but this is just bad…

Pockets.3201:

Little do you all know their real plan is to have us tank with a bear or drake and heal it while the rest of you do damage and whatever else needs to be done.

Or tank with two bears. Pet swap = Full heal

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…

I dont know, looking at the scrapper it fits into the engi and the existing stuff wonderfully….looking at the druid it feels like a completly new class instead of an elite and like one that doesnt fit into the existing game mechanics at all…

AND – yes, the animations are REALLY bad…the skills which the roots that was shown in the first trails looks good…pretty much everything else looks horrible – especially the transformation (is that a joke?)…. we have wonderful norn shapeshifting animations and than you come with that cheap kitten transformation? GW2 has always been the game with some of the best animations in the mmo space – but this?

The class really feels to me that what they wanted to make didnt work so they had to scrap something together very hastely…shame