Guild Wars 2

Huh? Druid was even an option this past BWE?
Oh. Morning caffeine finally kicked in.
I see what you did there.

Think it’s a troll post reminding them how bad base ranger is and still needs fixed.

uuuuuuhhhhmmmmm.
correct me if I’m wrong, but as far as I know, the druid wasn’t available during this BWE.
The official ranger reveal hasn’t been done yet. We only know its name and it will use a staff. Together with the engineer specialisation, we know nothing bout it.

for example compare this page ( https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dragonhunter ) with this page (https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Druid )

so unless I missed something big, the beta didnt give access to the druid and all you tested was normal rangers skills allready in the core game.

I find this to pretty much match up with my experiences over the weekend.

You do realise that you were just playing ranger normally and that druid specialisation hasn’t even been announced yet…

Sully.9453:

You do realise that you were just playing ranger normally and that druid specialisation hasn’t even been announced yet…

Yes they do, it is an obvious sarcastic post

Sully.9453:

You do realise that you were just playing ranger normally and that druid specialisation hasn’t even been announced yet…

Shhh…drink your tea/coffee. Read it again. It works.

Cause sarcasm will totally encourage anet to completely change the class to suit your needs.

I can imagine the guy who first read this post title from arenanet spitting all his coffee on the monitor in front of him.

I think its also a poke towards Anet for only potentially having 1 BWE to test Druid, which is not optimal considering the amount of tweaks other earlier Elite specs are needing and given.

Yes, the title is clickbait-y, although I openly acknowledge in the OP that I use Ranger and Druid interchangeably.

BUT, that does not void any of the sentiments of sincerity, and I would not have even made the thread if multiple people hadn’t found the feedback agreeable.

We’re essentially 6 weeks away from launch (assuming there is no reveal this week) and the game still lacks a Ranger and Engi official elite spec reveal. Each of those will take a week on their own, and another week will probably be the last BWE, so it seems that Ranger/Engi will only be getting a single round of public testing and feedback and very little comparative time to fix or change anything that needs to be changed before going live in October.

Why is that relevant? Because it means that our time to provide feedback and receive the necessary development to put the classes at a good place before HoT is extremely limited, and the problem extending beyond that is that a lot of the feedback provided here has existed since early development and the issues still persist 3 years later.

This is a short compilation of sincere and honest feedback about the class provided by multiple people. It isn’t meant to troll the devs or be sarcastic (again, maybe just a little clickbait-y); it’s meant to take the opportunity that rolling a beta ranger class and experiencing the game would take just like EVERY other class and providing feedback on things that are in dire need of changing to have a well fleshed out class and mechanic.

This is a constructive feedback process. People are welcome to add their own points, debate existing points, and suggest solutions or alterations. But do please remember that even though most people don’t recognize me outside of the ranger subforum, the point and purpose of the topic is to collect, organize, and provide a list of constructive feedback, and even if people think that I’ve taken a very tongue-in-cheek tone while doing so (though there is nothing tongue in cheek here, I’m deadly serious).

jcbroe.4329:

We’re essentially 6 weeks away from launch (assuming there is no reveal this week) and the game still lacks a Ranger and Engi official elite spec reveal. Each of those will take a week on their own, and another week will probably be the last BWE, so it seems that Ranger/Engi will only be getting a single round of public testing and feedback and very little comparative time to fix or change anything that needs to be changed before going live in October.

I’m sorry I missed the part where no more changes are allowed after HoT goes live. Besides, more BWE’s does not mean better mechanics or even less bugs. Dragonhunter has had the most beta availability and yet the still get “line of sight” errors on flat ground with no obstacles when the target is obviously within range.

Ranatoa.4869:

I’m sorry I missed the part where no more changes are allowed after HoT goes live. Besides, more BWE’s does not mean better mechanics or even less bugs. Dragonhunter has had the most beta availability and yet the still get “line of sight” errors on flat ground with no obstacles when the target is obviously within range.

Given that most of these are problems that have persisted for the Ranger for over three years now, I think it’s more than fair to be worried that once Druid goes live it’s going to be largely left as-is even if it needs work.

Besides, Druid is based on the Ranger class. Problems for the core class ARE problems for the elite spec, so it’s entirely valid to bring them up like this. Even if the specs are not revealed yet, ANet knows them and being reminded of some of the class problems may give them a chance to jump ahead on fixing something. There’s little point in waiting for the reveal to remind them of known problems, especially when they’re in balance and repair mode anyway.

jcbroe.4329:

Impressions:

Mechanic
I am aware that this is a beta, but is the mechanic even finished and will it be ready for launch by October 23rd? The cast times on the pet mechanic are much too long to justify some (most) of the skill effects. Also, the pathing and general responsiveness is horrendous. The mechanic seems almost like starter area AI (in the base game) was tacked on to a class at the last second and then changed to an ally at the very last second.
Hopefully though, because this was just a beta, either this is just a temporary mechanic, or there will be a ton of changes and iterations to the AI and skill responsiveness and effects of the mechanic.

Traits:
Quite a few of these traits are served the injustice of being tied to these unfinished feeling utilities (more on that later). Additionally, certain traits, like giving a random chance to destroy projectiles to sword or making axe’s chill AoE, are incredibly basic, beta level traits that need some serious up-tuning in order to ever justify their slots. Also, there seems to be a whole ton of damage modifiers missing, especially when compared to every other class, and the class itself doesn’t exactly stack boons on itself or anything either. That is definitely something that needs to be looked at before the live version of the game.

Utilities:
So, there are Survival utilities, Signets, maybe a spirit or two for exclusively PvE, and then just garbage utilities, pure garbage. Traps will never make ranger compete against something like engineer who just facerolls out the same sort of conditions at a higher rate and intensity than ranger can ever hope to, and Dhuumfire Reaper is a nightmare of a condition spec, along with mesmer and really anything else with heavy condition oriented combat. Spirits are immobile and for some reason have active PBAoE effects which makes them terrible by design, and the passives aren’t worth the slot the skills take up. Shouts…. Just wow.
Good thing all of these utilities are still in beta, because ANet, you definitely need this time to make these utilities worthwhile.

Weapons:

• Longbow-Good weapon, ANet, you managed to get one right for this BWE. Don’t change a thing.
• Greatsword-The autoattack chain is awful, but the rest of the weapon kit is pretty decent, although hilt bash only reaches about 200 of the 300 range it lists. Fix this bug before Druid goes live.
• Axe-What is this weapon trying to be? It has range but can’t do anything at range, it has no conditions on autoattack even though the damage of this weapon is clearly favoring conditions, and the secondary effect on the axe is only as reliable as the mechanic, so aka, not reliable.
• Sword-This is a great weapon, outside of the ridiculous autoattack chain animation binding you. Does this weapon even need this sort of treatment? It makes it very clunky and hard to use, even after you get used to it, because you have to use it either situationally or all in.
• Shortbow- Horrible weapon. Outside of the autoattack and 5, the rest of the skills are boring, don’t really work well or add much to the ability of the weapon to do anything (shortbow 4 and the bleeds are so weak, this is just a beta issue right?). Good thing this is still beta, because this weapon needs a total overhaul.
• Torch – another thing done right. Don’t touch this weapon.
• Dagger – the third thing done right so far. Leave it as is.

Overall, my beta impressions of the Druid were not pleasant (sorry that I keep using Ranger and Druid interchangeably). Everything was clunky and seemed fairly duct taped together, especially the mechanic, without any sort of design goal or effort to make the skills functional and effective.

Hopefully, these things improve for Druid by the next BWE or by expansion, because they are otherwise pretty awful and should never make it to a live game in their current condition.

This. Just this. +1

Honestly, the whole trait line has terrible synergy with the BearBow meta. If you want to stay competitive, Druid is not an option. Sad, really…

Palador.2170:

Ranatoa.4869:

I’m sorry I missed the part where no more changes are allowed after HoT goes live. Besides, more BWE’s does not mean better mechanics or even less bugs. Dragonhunter has had the most beta availability and yet the still get “line of sight” errors on flat ground with no obstacles when the target is obviously within range.

Given that most of these are problems that have persisted for the Ranger for over three years now, I think it’s more than fair to be worried that once Druid goes live it’s going to be largely left as-is even if it needs work.

Besides, Druid is based on the Ranger class. Problems for the core class ARE problems for the elite spec, so it’s entirely valid to bring them up like this. Even if the specs are not revealed yet, ANet knows them and being reminded of some of the class problems may give them a chance to jump ahead on fixing something. There’s little point in waiting for the reveal to remind them of known problems, especially when they’re in balance and repair mode anyway.

I was specifically addressing the “need” for more BWE’s and not any current issues with the class. If you noticed my point was that more BWE’s aren’t necessarily the solution.

People that don’t understand the point of this post need to lighten up.

1+, btw.

Ranatoa.4869:

I was specifically addressing the “need” for more BWE’s and not any current issues with the class. If you noticed my point was that more BWE’s aren’t necessarily the solution.

You are correct. I was distracted at the wrong time, and kind of lost the track of where I’d intended to go with that reply. You have my apologies for that.

Aside from everything else that’s happening in this post, I agree with OP. +1 from me

Palador.2170:

Ranatoa.4869:

I was specifically addressing the “need” for more BWE’s and not any current issues with the class. If you noticed my point was that more BWE’s aren’t necessarily the solution.

You are correct. I was distracted at the wrong time, and kind of lost the track of where I’d intended to go with that reply. You have my apologies for that.

Thanks, and I can agree, Rangers could use a lot more love from Arena Net than they’ve gotten. They pretty consistently have the smallest patch notes except maybe Guardian, but they are in an arguably “better place” than Rangers.

Can agree, great post OP! +1

Ranatoa.4869:

Palador.2170:

Ranatoa.4869:

I’m sorry I missed the part where no more changes are allowed after HoT goes live. Besides, more BWE’s does not mean better mechanics or even less bugs. Dragonhunter has had the most beta availability and yet the still get “line of sight” errors on flat ground with no obstacles when the target is obviously within range.

Given that most of these are problems that have persisted for the Ranger for over three years now, I think it’s more than fair to be worried that once Druid goes live it’s going to be largely left as-is even if it needs work.

Besides, Druid is based on the Ranger class. Problems for the core class ARE problems for the elite spec, so it’s entirely valid to bring them up like this. Even if the specs are not revealed yet, ANet knows them and being reminded of some of the class problems may give them a chance to jump ahead on fixing something. There’s little point in waiting for the reveal to remind them of known problems, especially when they’re in balance and repair mode anyway.

I was specifically addressing the “need” for more BWE’s and not any current issues with the class. If you noticed my point was that more BWE’s aren’t necessarily the solution.

You’re right, more BWEs aren’t the solution at this point (without more development time).

My own opinion is that ANet jumped the gun with the release date in October, and that I’d rather see a polished December release than a rushed October release.

Every class has core issues that need to be addressed before future development iterates on top of them. This thread was mainly made as sort of a “we will not stand idly by” sentiment where with how Druid was mentioned in passing in January and is now cutting it dangerously close to expac release for peoples comfort, a lot of us felt that with the mass feedback collection happening, it would only be fair to reiterate some of the concerns we have all had while we wait “biting our fingernails,” so to speak.

Also, sidenote: if you saw Arken’s video on the DH Longbow velocity, I was the person testing/highlighting it with him lol. I do quite a bit of my testing with him, and I sincerely hope that the mentioned 66% velocity increase actually fixes some of the buggy or unreliable features of the DH longbow.

Ranatoa.4869:

and yet the still get “line of sight” errors on flat ground with no obstacles when the target is obviously within range.

Welcome to projectiles in GW2. It also why we don’t have much hope from ‘changes are allowed after HoT goes live’. Betas are some of the few times where they actually listen and try to improve things.

Ranatoa.4869:

I’m sorry I missed the part where no more changes are allowed after HoT goes live. Besides, more BWE’s does not mean better mechanics or even less bugs. Dragonhunter has had the most beta availability and yet the still get “line of sight” errors on flat ground with no obstacles when the target is obviously within range.

That is precisely the problem.
DH still have issues and they had more development time to fix them, our fear is that Druid and Forge will be released on live HoT with several bugs and during that time we’ll be competing with the other fixed/polished elites on live server, that is a time we’ll never be able to get back, while in beta nothing will be stored anyway.

Sorry for not quoting (addressing the last three posts as a group) but some excellent points made all around. I hope for ranger’s sake that they get some attention out of this.

Addressing jcbroe’s side note, I did see his video. It’s unfortunate that the changes didn’t make it into this BWE, but I do hope it helps.

A good feedback but I can’t agree on everything and you forgot Warhorn (I’m sure you have something to say about WH#4 ).
Maybe one day they will understand that the ranger need some work in the core mechanic area so that it become something helpfull instead of this thing that drag the ranger down atm.

That pretty much covered my experience as well. +1

i like rangers trait that lets them be permanently invisible to devs.

Dadnir.5038:

A good feedback but I can’t agree on everything and you forgot Warhorn (I’m sure you have something to say about WH#4 ).
Maybe one day they will understand that the ranger need some work in the core mechanic area so that it become something helpfull instead of this thing that drag the ranger down atm.

I think the fact that I forgot warhorn is pretty telling in itself of what I would have to say about warhorn lol.

Adding it now though, thanks

jcbroe.4329:

Dadnir.5038:

A good feedback but I can’t agree on everything and you forgot Warhorn (I’m sure you have something to say about WH#4 ).
Maybe one day they will understand that the ranger need some work in the core mechanic area so that it become something helpfull instead of this thing that drag the ranger down atm.

I think the fact that I forgot warhorn is pretty telling in itself of what I would have to say about warhorn lol.

Adding it now though, thanks

Well, in that case, you didn’t specifically mention off-hand axe either.

slow claps
GGWP
can i haz forge inpressionz too plz? :-D

Lazze.9870:

jcbroe.4329:

Dadnir.5038:

A good feedback but I can’t agree on everything and you forgot Warhorn (I’m sure you have something to say about WH#4 ).
Maybe one day they will understand that the ranger need some work in the core mechanic area so that it become something helpfull instead of this thing that drag the ranger down atm.

I think the fact that I forgot warhorn is pretty telling in itself of what I would have to say about warhorn lol.

Adding it now though, thanks

Well, in that case, you didn’t specifically mention off-hand axe either.

I noticed that and fixed that too hahaha.

Sarcasm totally works when you try to talk with Anet. Look at the state of WvW…it worked like a charm! xD

illenos.5134:

Sarcasm totally works when you try to talk with Anet. Look at the state of WvW…it worked like a charm! xD

Who’s really being sarcastic though? This is a serious thread with serious feedback

I certainly don’t think the state of ranger/druid is a laughing matter or something to poke fun at when approaching (and cutting it close) the first major expansion of the game, and I recognize a lot of people here that would agree with that sentiment.

jcbroe.4329:

Impressions:

Mechanic
I am aware that this is a beta, but is the mechanic even finished and will it be ready for launch by October 23rd? The cast times on the pet mechanic are much too long to justify some (most) of the skill effects. Also, the pathing and general responsiveness is horrendous. The mechanic seems almost like starter area AI (in the base game) was tacked on to a class at the last second and then changed to an ally at the very last second.
Hopefully though, because this was just a beta, either this is just a temporary mechanic, or there will be a ton of changes and iterations to the AI and skill responsiveness and effects of the mechanic.

Traits:
Quite a few of these traits are served the injustice of being tied to these unfinished feeling utilities (more on that later). Additionally, certain traits, like giving a random chance to destroy projectiles to sword or making axe’s chill AoE, are incredibly basic, beta level traits that need some serious up-tuning in order to ever justify their slots. Also, there seems to be a whole ton of damage modifiers missing, especially when compared to every other class, and the class itself doesn’t exactly stack boons on itself or anything either. That is definitely something that needs to be looked at before the live version of the game.

Utilities:
So, there are Survival utilities, Signets, maybe a spirit or two for exclusively PvE, and then just garbage utilities, pure garbage. Traps will never make ranger compete against something like engineer who just facerolls out the same sort of conditions at a higher rate and intensity than ranger can ever hope to, and Dhuumfire Reaper is a nightmare of a condition spec, along with mesmer and really anything else with heavy condition oriented combat. Spirits are immobile and for some reason have active PBAoE effects which makes them terrible by design, and the passives aren’t worth the slot the skills take up. Shouts…. Just wow.
Good thing all of these utilities are still in beta, because ANet, you definitely need this time to make these utilities worthwhile.

Weapons:

• Longbow-Good weapon, ANet, you managed to get one right for this BWE. Don’t change a thing.
• Greatsword-The autoattack chain is awful, but the rest of the weapon kit is pretty decent, although hilt bash only reaches about 200 of the 300 range it lists. Fix this bug before Druid goes live.
• Axe-What is this weapon trying to be? It has range but can’t do anything at range, it has no conditions on autoattack even though the damage of this weapon is clearly favoring conditions, and the secondary effect on the axe is only as reliable as the mechanic, so aka, not reliable.
• Sword-This is a great weapon, outside of the ridiculous autoattack chain animation binding you. Does this weapon even need this sort of treatment? It makes it very clunky and hard to use, even after you get used to it, because you have to use it either situationally or all in.
• Shortbow- Horrible weapon. Outside of the autoattack and 5, the rest of the skills are boring, don’t really work well or add much to the ability of the weapon to do anything (shortbow 4 and the bleeds are so weak, this is just a beta issue right?). Good thing this is still beta, because this weapon needs a total overhaul.
• Torch – another thing done right. Don’t touch this weapon.
• Dagger – the third thing done right so far. Leave it as is.
• Warhorn – Warhorn 5 skill is strong, though its effects don’t justify its cooldown. Warhorn 4 is extremely subpar. Single target, long-ish cooldown, poor damage, no additional effects. Since this is beta, the numbers or something on this skill is getting tweaked right? It could at least be AoE (like mad king rune effect 6) and dodgeable to compensate (delayed animation to where the birds meet, dodging the first hit negates the whole attack).
• Offhand Axe – Axe 4 is perfectly fine, although it bugs out on terrain WAY too often, halving its potential or worse, since the pull effect is usually the part that fails on the second half of the skill. Axe 5 is one of the longest channels if not the longest channel in the game, and is plagued by rooting you during the whole cast, dealing lackluster damage, and only being functional as a reflect, which compared to all of the commonly used reflect skills, make it a poor choice to ever even activate since you root yourself and lose the ability to do any other action during that time period.

Overall, my beta impressions of the Druid were not pleasant (sorry that I keep using Ranger and Druid interchangeably). Everything was clunky and seemed fairly duct taped together, especially the mechanic, without any sort of design goal or effort to make the skills functional and effective.

Hopefully, these things improve for Druid by the next BWE or by expansion, because they are otherwise pretty awful and should never make it to a live game in their current condition.

I gave you a +1, just for the guts to do this. I feel your pain as I’m also waiting for my Engi’s reveal.

jcbroe.4329:

Impressions:

Mechanic
I am aware that this is a beta, but is the mechanic even finished and will it be ready for launch by October 23rd? The cast times on the pet mechanic are much too long to justify some (most) of the skill effects. Also, the pathing and general responsiveness is horrendous. The mechanic seems almost like starter area AI (in the base game) was tacked on to a class at the last second and then changed to an ally at the very last second.
Hopefully though, because this was just a beta, either this is just a temporary mechanic, or there will be a ton of changes and iterations to the AI and skill responsiveness and effects of the mechanic.

Traits:
Quite a few of these traits are served the injustice of being tied to these unfinished feeling utilities (more on that later). Additionally, certain traits, like giving a random chance to destroy projectiles to sword or making axe’s chill AoE, are incredibly basic, beta level traits that need some serious up-tuning in order to ever justify their slots. Also, there seems to be a whole ton of damage modifiers missing, especially when compared to every other class, and the class itself doesn’t exactly stack boons on itself or anything either. That is definitely something that needs to be looked at before the live version of the game.

Utilities:
So, there are Survival utilities, Signets, maybe a spirit or two for exclusively PvE, and then just garbage utilities, pure garbage. Traps will never make ranger compete against something like engineer who just facerolls out the same sort of conditions at a higher rate and intensity than ranger can ever hope to, and Dhuumfire Reaper is a nightmare of a condition spec, along with mesmer and really anything else with heavy condition oriented combat. Spirits are immobile and for some reason have active PBAoE effects which makes them terrible by design, and the passives aren’t worth the slot the skills take up. Shouts…. Just wow.
Good thing all of these utilities are still in beta, because ANet, you definitely need this time to make these utilities worthwhile.

Weapons:

• Longbow-Good weapon, ANet, you managed to get one right for this BWE. Don’t change a thing.
• Greatsword-The autoattack chain is awful, but the rest of the weapon kit is pretty decent, although hilt bash only reaches about 200 of the 300 range it lists. Fix this bug before Druid goes live.
• Axe-What is this weapon trying to be? It has range but can’t do anything at range, it has no conditions on autoattack even though the damage of this weapon is clearly favoring conditions, and the secondary effect on the axe is only as reliable as the mechanic, so aka, not reliable.
• Sword-This is a great weapon, outside of the ridiculous autoattack chain animation binding you. Does this weapon even need this sort of treatment? It makes it very clunky and hard to use, even after you get used to it, because you have to use it either situationally or all in.
• Shortbow- Horrible weapon. Outside of the autoattack and 5, the rest of the skills are boring, don’t really work well or add much to the ability of the weapon to do anything (shortbow 4 and the bleeds are so weak, this is just a beta issue right?). Good thing this is still beta, because this weapon needs a total overhaul.
• Torch – another thing done right. Don’t touch this weapon.
• Dagger – the third thing done right so far. Leave it as is.
• Warhorn – Warhorn 5 skill is strong, though its effects don’t justify its cooldown. Warhorn 4 is extremely subpar. Single target, long-ish cooldown, poor damage, no additional effects. Since this is beta, the numbers or something on this skill is getting tweaked right? It could at least be AoE (like mad king rune effect 6) and dodgeable to compensate (delayed animation to where the birds meet, dodging the first hit negates the whole attack).
• Offhand Axe – Axe 4 is perfectly fine, although it bugs out on terrain WAY too often, halving its potential or worse, since the pull effect is usually the part that fails on the second half of the skill. Axe 5 is one of the longest channels if not the longest channel in the game, and is plagued by rooting you during the whole cast, dealing lackluster damage, and only being functional as a reflect, which compared to all of the commonly used reflect skills, make it a poor choice to ever even activate since you root yourself and lose the ability to do any other action during that time period.

Overall, my beta impressions of the Druid were not pleasant (sorry that I keep using Ranger and Druid interchangeably). Everything was clunky and seemed fairly duct taped together, especially the mechanic, without any sort of design goal or effort to make the skills functional and effective.

Hopefully, these things improve for Druid by the next BWE or by expansion, because they are otherwise pretty awful and should never make it to a live game in their current condition.

This perfectly concludes my BWE experience with Druid.
+1

+1 to everything in the OP.

As the worst all-round profession in the game, it’s sad that the Ranger elite faces joint-least amount of available testing time before HoT release.

It’s GW2 release all over again. Testing will be done, HoT will go live with lots of Ranger (Druid) feedback waiting to be attended to, and it will be partially addressed incredibly slowly over the next couple of years until the next elite spec, then entirely pushed to one side.

+1

+1 Someone should wake up and face the REAL issues regarding rangers

+1