Guild Wars 2

RyuDragnier.9476:

Because Anet rarely buffs Rangers, and their “buffs” are usually lackluster and included with an unnecessary nerf elsewhere.

That’s beside the point, and somewhat similar to other classes as well. It’s no reason to not favour buffing aspects that are too weak and nerfing aspects that are too strong.

Choppy.4183:

Balthazzarr.1349:

This all really cracks me up. Ranger/Druid … About the most rejected class by zergs but at least good for roaming apparently and you want nerfs…

Why wouldn’t you favour buffs to improve their value in zergs while supporting specific nerfs that deal with the specific issue identified as a problem in small scale wvw?

Maybe because that isn’t what anyone that agrees with the OP in this thread WANTS. They don’t give a kitten about druid. They just want it easier to kill. Thats it end of story. You havn’t seen ANY offers on how to improve the base druid/ranger to counteract the nerfs there demanding.

Why the hell should the people that disagree with them be any more reasonable? This entire thread is simply a better thought out QQ thread.

If I had seen even a TENTH of the people here screaming for nerfs on the druid making suggestions on how to help the builds they are more than happy to tear apart I would probably have been making more posts into this thread myself and actually enjoyed the discussion.

But the people demanding these nerfs don’t know anything about druid. They don’t know how it works. They don’t know how badly most of there “reasonable requests” will hurt the entire kitten CLASS. And as I have said before they simply don’t care.

DPS druids for example are ALREADY shafted by even slightly skilled revs. Who are capable of negating every form of a druids defense in order to be able.

Dps druids as apposed to bunker druids are also vulnerable to dragonhunters. Relying heavily on signet of stone incased they get pinned and preemptive strength of the pack use to prepare stability to deal with being pinballed.

DPS Druids have zero use in zergs (that another class can’t do more reliably). Something thats been recognized since DAY ONE OF THE GAME.

The changes suggested here simply makes those problems WORSE.

And has the OP and those agreeing with him even acknowledged this more than simple lip service? No.

There can’t be a balanced discussion here because one side doesn’t even have a real interest in the subject. They want what they want and who cares how much they damage in the process to get it.

This has happened before. And usually what happens in the end is a build gets completely ANNIHILATED from existence or an entire class gets irreperably damaged by it and it takes arena net months if not a year to fix the damage.

MidoriMarch.8067:

I’m having a tough time taking your complaints seriously considering you claim to have played a “1000 hours on each profession” but claimed “7-8k Druid staff auto”… Put some toughness in your thief build and keep practicing…

Maybe you can pick up some tips from this thief player…

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xATnU4FR6fU

Go search Quickcry on twitch and u will see 8k auto attack staff channeling with full cele and dont post with ur low level pve knowledge here

btw i already dueled him few times when i was back in fc and been roaming since when Mugi / Yishis was around and do u even roam m8 or just another PPT blobber acting tough lol

So sad you think this weapon does 7-8 auto… It’s s channel skill, but you’d only know that if you were paying attention. So much for “playing each profession for 1000 hours”.

So quickcry, and a couple other druids, beat up your pixels and you’re upset, gotcha.

You deflect and are unwilling to learn. You are getting outplayed so you can either improve or complain, you decide.

Read… https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Solar_Beam

Choppy.4183:

Swagger.1459:

Maybe you can pick up some tips from this thief player…

That’s not particularly relevant to the subject being discussed.

The thief in the video you linked is highly skilled, pulling off crazy amounts of damage by squeezing every last drop out of what his class has to offer.

The issue raised by the OP (and most of the posters) has nothing to do with high level players, it’s what the class affords players with even low to mediocre skill in a particular aspect of the game.

DeceiverX.8361:

Any proposals on how to shave down the effectiveness of this build without affecting much else? Anyone asking for nerfs to the core of the druid or ranger must not be aware of how the class functions without this build, but this build is certainly an issue when it comes to raw effectiveness.

Like PU condi mesmer, D/D condi daredevil/ghost trapper, and the cele bunker, the sustain BM/NM Druid is OP at one thing, but is so strong in that aspect that it isn’t fun or even particularly fair to play against, and in many people’s eyes, not even fun to play because of it.

So what’s the cut to be for how to properly bring the build into line with the rest of the game’s small-scale performance without affecting other builds?

This sums up how I feel about it too. I don’t see a need to nerf the core of ranger/druid, and I actually like druid for the most part, especially in the hands of someone really skilled with it.

As an outsider, I’d proposed earlier in the thread that pet stats be tied to player gear choices to some degree. It makes sense to me, but I admit I’m not qualified to know if that’s actually an appropriate solution.

Alternative ideas (again, as an outsider), include increasing the cooldown on Celestial Form, tweaking Celestial shadow (removing superspeed, adding an ICD of 15s or more, etc), tweaking Ancestral Grace (increase the cd, decrease the speed or distance travelled, etc), reduce the heal output on Druid skills, or bring the smokescale/bristleback more inline with the other pets (though iirc they just buffed some of the other pets, so maybe Anet’s thinking the other pets are underpowered, not sure).

Seems to me that none of the above breaks the druid, but might mitigate some of the problem. To be clear, I’m not proposing that all of those be applied to the druid, only that there seems to be room to take a scalpel to this instead of a sledgehammer.

The op plays thief so maybe he/she can learn something and improve instead of complaining about Druids and their mythical “7-8k auto” and “warriors that run away and reset fights”… This thread is about personal gameplay issues, not any Druid design issues…

@ Those defending Druid; Swagger, Shadelang, RyuDragnier and others, what do you guys consider to be OP?

Giving examples, what are some things that you consider over tuned and in need of adjustments?

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

@ Those defending Druid; Swagger, Shadelang, RyuDragnier and others, what do you guys consider to be OP?

Giving examples, what are some things that you consider over tuned and in need of adjustments?

If youd like to discuss that in a relevant thread feel free to post one on the subject. But it has nothing to do with the OP and the discussion at hand except as an attempt at diverting the subject to something in your favor (its pretty obvious what your trying to do whether you see it as a bad thing or not).

If you want to make another thread of what druids percieve as being OP you can probably get dozens of responses from varying skill levels in the ranger forums if you post there. What youl probably find is that people think that whatever kills them is automatically OP. Becuase many people aren’t able to acknowledge that they might be less skilled than they think they are. Or because they aren’t willing to admit that they don’t know how the class/build there fighting works and there too embarrassed/prideful to actually try to watch what there opponent does and figure out HOW there skills work.

Pretty much exactly how MOST (not all but definitely the majority) of the posts in this thread sound.

Swagger.1459:

The op plays thief so maybe he/she can learn something and improve instead of complaining about Druids and their mythical “7-8k auto” and “warriors that run away and reset fights”… This thread is about personal gameplay issues, not any Druid design issues…

The 7-8k auto thing is definitely a… demonstration of some sort of lack of understanding, however the OP’s plight of thief vs the sustain druid is fairly valid.
Does that mean it’s OP? No, because that claim is only from one profession/build perspective. That said, the number of ways to deal with the sustain druid build is very much build-dependent and are vastly outnumbered to the number of matchups which favor the druid.

In the context of WvW, this is probably the most difficult matchup for any given thief. There isn’t much of a L2P argument here. I’ll be glad to likely either win or come close to beating any power-built ranger/druid. I don’t care how good they are; in a few fights, if I need to get my bearings, I’ll start tightening that gap massively. The sustain build, however, I have no answer for, unless they just absolutely suck. Depending on builds, and assuming the druid’s rotations are upheld properly, the existing sustain druid is actually mathematically impossible for some thief builds to kill. It doesn’t matter how well the thief plays; it’s literally impossible for the killing blow to be performed in many cases. At best, in these cases it turns into a stalling game where neither kills each other.

And that’s a definite problem. Two people running around infinitely sustaining isn’t fun.

The ranger/druid at its core needs changes. As it is, it does suffer from a lot of pointless or unnecessary dependencies, the pet mechanic punishes more aggressive/synergy-based play styles, the profession lacks certain stats as a result of dependencies or simply lacks accessibility, and is susceptible to a lot of enemy mitigation and control while having comparably few tools to do so itself. The druid’s push to raw healing exacerbates the fact that the tools aren’t designed well to enable good performance and diversity.

That still doesn’t justify the current sustain druid build dominating small-play WvW.
Just because it’s not good at other things doesn’t mean it deserves to be overpowered in something else. That’s the same justification that thieves were trying to give absolutely broken dynamics of their profession years ago (and some still do) because of their lack of purpose in large-scale combat, which also still holds. Things like Mug critting were and still would be overpowered, and justifying that because “well the class is only good at small scale so it’s not a problem” is a ridiculous and border-line pathetic excuse for trying to justify not improving the game – and likely the rest of the class in the future – for other people (although this unfortunately never happened to the thief since nobody at ANet plays it or seemingly likes it).

I’ll mention now that until HoT I was a thief/ranger dual main (I will admit I did lean more towards thief). I posted a lot of suggestions on the ranger CDI, and almost all of them except the proposals about changing the dynamics of the pet were implemented. The ranger CDI got us halfway to where the profession needed to be, but HoT broke the entire game’s pre-existing balance. Rangers weren’t free bags before then. If you think they were, you’re a fool. They were capable; not strong, but capable, just like the thief, but have some intrinsically poor concepts laying behind them which should be the target and basis for class changes. Those changes can’t be made without accepting the fact that some facets of the class – like what fuels the sustain roaming druid (in my opinion, boons and bark skin) – need to be re-looked at and in all likelihood, nerfed or replaced.

Saying the build isn’t OP – it is – isn’t going to get anyone anywhere. Denying its strength won’t help the ranger/druid in the areas it actually needs it, since ANet solely balances for either what’s used in the meta or PvE. This is why it’s not a problem with the druid itself – the kit has its fair share of disadvantages when it comes to looking at some builds in comparison to core ranger – but the sustain build is factually out of hand, and something does need to be done.

Which is why I asked above – from those who in all honesty are more versed in the intricacies of ranger builds (I only play power on anything) – what kinds of changes should be made to fix the problem at hand?

To be fair, thief vs bunker druid is a tough match up for the thief (it is not impossible but a lot of things have to go right in your way, especially the hit and run tactic that falls rolls many other builds, is weak vs druid). Bunker druid excels at 1v1 but is on the weaker end in big fights. Glassy druid builds, on the other hand, are generally part of the weaker builds.
However, overall the game is currently probably in the most balanced state since its release. Minor ele buff and minor rev nerfs would be justified but apart from that, balance is really good.

Erzian.5218:

Glassy druid builds, on the other hand, are generally part of the weaker builds.

Wait, what? Glassier druid builds are extremely powerful in the hands of a skilled player. To the point that I’ve pretty much resigned myself to accepting I have no counter for them as a vanilla warrior in small scale wvw (and I’m ok with that, I don’t think they should be nerfed).

Seriously, if you play druid and assumed going glassy is weak, you should have a second look at that. Staff/gs and staff/lb can be extremely effective if played right.

When you are roaming you need all the help you can get. And if your class can’t beat me it isn’t because I’m OP!

Choppy.4183:

Erzian.5218:

Glassy druid builds, on the other hand, are generally part of the weaker builds.

Wait, what? Glassier druid builds are extremely powerful in the hands of a skilled player. To the point that I’ve pretty much resigned myself to accepting I have no counter for them as a vanilla warrior in small scale wvw (and I’m ok with that, I don’t think they should be nerfed).

Seriously, if you play druid and assumed going glassy is weak, you should have a second look at that. Staff/gs and staff/lb can be extremely effective if played right.

No counter!? Equip a shield, run the defense traitline. You now have blocks, reflects, a kitten ton of sustain, and passive “save your kitten ” traits. And as a warrior you have plenty of gap closers and damage, you can pretty much brush up against a glass druid and ruin his day.

lmao this thread keeps getting dredged back up its embarrassing…

here lets throw some gas on the fire,
https://youtu.be/TfI1pFi3ftA

notice how hard I abused full celestial gear, celestial shadow, celestial avatar heals, 25stacks of perma might/quickness and that crazy 8k laser beam while fighting amazing opponents including other druids. Some of the players in this thread should be asking for more passive defensive buffs because that’s the only thing that will save them from a good player, and most of the time not even that.

Shadelang.3012:

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

@ Those defending Druid; Swagger, Shadelang, RyuDragnier and others, what do you guys consider to be OP?

Giving examples, what are some things that you consider over tuned and in need of adjustments?

If youd like to discuss that in a relevant thread feel free to post one on the subject. But it has nothing to do with the OP and the discussion at hand except as an attempt at diverting the subject to something in your favor (its pretty obvious what your trying to do whether you see it as a bad thing or not).

If you want to make another thread of what druids percieve as being OP you can probably get dozens of responses from varying skill levels in the ranger forums if you post there. What youl probably find is that people think that whatever kills them is automatically OP. Becuase many people aren’t able to acknowledge that they might be less skilled than they think they are. Or because they aren’t willing to admit that they don’t know how the class/build there fighting works and there too embarrassed/prideful to actually try to watch what there opponent does and figure out HOW there skills work.

Pretty much exactly how MOST (not all but definitely the majority) of the posts in this thread sound.

Yes, I wasn’t trying to be discreet about my intentions. My point is that I’m sure it would be difficult for you to describe something that you consider as being OP without Druid being able to match those standards. Just go ahead and think of something you think is over tuned and see how the meta Druid compares.

You can also read the comments on Metabattle here where many people say that you shouldn’t be losing any 1v1’s with this build.

As I’d stated much earlier in this thread and was completely ignored; I don’t think Druids should be gutted. They don’t have a place in zerging so they need to have a place in roaming. Every profession deserves to be represented somewhere and Druids excelling in small scale combat is perfectly okay. I just think that a few things should be adjusted so that they’re not next to impossible to kill in a 1v1/2. It’s absolutely okay that they’re strong but they’re a little too strong at the moment and I have a hard time believing anyone can disagree with that with a straight face.

Jim Hunter.6821:

No counter!? Equip a shield, run the defense traitline. You now have blocks, reflects, a kitten ton of sustain, and passive "save your kitten traits. And as a warrior you have plenty of gap closers and damage, you can pretty much brush up against a glass druid and ruin his day.

No, that doesn’t remotely cut it. Have you played the build before? It’s far stronger than you give it credit for.

Choppy.4183:

Jim Hunter.6821:

No counter!? Equip a shield, run the defense traitline. You now have blocks, reflects, a kitten ton of sustain, and passive "save your kitten traits. And as a warrior you have plenty of gap closers and damage, you can pretty much brush up against a glass druid and ruin his day.

Lol, no, that doesn’t remotely cut it. Have you played the build before? It’s far stronger than you give it credit for.

You said against a glassy druid. Do you know how much damage a warrior can inflict on a glassy druid?
Now if you are talking about fighting a bunker druid you need to run a comparable berserker build in which case the fight will end in a stale mate unless one of them screws up.

Since the adrenal health buff good warriors have had no problems fighting druids. In fact the bunker druid build is pretty much the only build a ranger has where they don’t have to seriously outplay a warrior to win (and even then it’s unlikely you can kill them without the warrior just breaking combat), since warriors have such easy access to stability, (when built right) they are all but immune to soft cc, they have plenty of gap closers, high up time of retal paired with high vit and toughness, and they have multiple stun breaks on stupid short cooldowns.

Justine.6351:

lmao this thread keeps getting dredged back up its embarrassing…

here lets throw some gas on the fire,
https://youtu.be/TfI1pFi3ftA

notice how hard I abused full celestial gear, celestial shadow, celestial avatar heals, 25stacks of perma might/quickness and that crazy 8k laser beam while fighting amazing opponents including other druids. Some of the players in this thread should be asking for more passive defensive buffs because that’s the only thing that will save them from a good player, and most of the time not even that.

Maybe you’re just really good at the game?

Jim Hunter.6821:

Choppy.4183:

Jim Hunter.6821:

No counter!? Equip a shield, run the defense traitline. You now have blocks, reflects, a kitten ton of sustain, and passive "save your kitten traits. And as a warrior you have plenty of gap closers and damage, you can pretty much brush up against a glass druid and ruin his day.

Lol, no, that doesn’t remotely cut it. Have you played the build before? It’s far stronger than you give it credit for.

You said against a glassy druid. Do you know how much damage a warrior can inflict on a glassy druid?
Now if you are talking about fighting a bunker druid you need to run a comparable berserker build in which case the fight will end in a stale mate unless one of them screws up.

Since the adrenal health buff good warriors have had no problems fighting druids. In fact the bunker druid build is pretty much the only build a ranger has where they don’t have to seriously outplay a warrior to win (and even then it’s unlikely you can kill them without the warrior just breaking combat), since warriors have such easy access to stability, (when built right) they are all but immune to soft cc, they have plenty of gap closers, high up time of retal paired with high vit and toughness, and they have multiple stun breaks on stupid short cooldowns.

He said base warrior, base warrior doesn’t have “multiple stunbreaks on short cool downs” or at least not ones you can list without most people bursting out laughing. They also don’t have high toughness, it’s higher than medium armour classes but it makes about a 5% difference as Choppy is saying zerk base warrior, I really wouldn’t make that a lynch pin of your argument.

The way to kill the base warrior is hilariously simple, deny burst skill and kite around, something the druid build excels at. Don’t forget base warrior needs to also build 3 bars of adrenaline to keep up the high adrenal healing unlike berserkers who spam it on cool down. Sad to say but core warrior is actually very balanced and losing to one as an elite spec is not something you should be doing.

RodOfDeath.5247:

Justine.6351:

lmao this thread keeps getting dredged back up its embarrassing…

here lets throw some gas on the fire,
https://youtu.be/TfI1pFi3ftA

notice how hard I abused full celestial gear, celestial shadow, celestial avatar heals, 25stacks of perma might/quickness and that crazy 8k laser beam while fighting amazing opponents including other druids. Some of the players in this thread should be asking for more passive defensive buffs because that’s the only thing that will save them from a good player, and most of the time not even that.

Maybe you’re just really good at the game?

I wish I was and could abuse all the things I listed. Then I wouldn’t need to run my zerker hammer rev to kill all the bunker trash every class seems to be playing to counter HoT dmg.

apharma.3741:

Jim Hunter.6821:

Choppy.4183:

Jim Hunter.6821:

No counter!? Equip a shield, run the defense traitline. You now have blocks, reflects, a kitten ton of sustain, and passive "save your kitten traits. And as a warrior you have plenty of gap closers and damage, you can pretty much brush up against a glass druid and ruin his day.

Lol, no, that doesn’t remotely cut it. Have you played the build before? It’s far stronger than you give it credit for.

You said against a glassy druid. Do you know how much damage a warrior can inflict on a glassy druid?
Now if you are talking about fighting a bunker druid you need to run a comparable berserker build in which case the fight will end in a stale mate unless one of them screws up.

Since the adrenal health buff good warriors have had no problems fighting druids. In fact the bunker druid build is pretty much the only build a ranger has where they don’t have to seriously outplay a warrior to win (and even then it’s unlikely you can kill them without the warrior just breaking combat), since warriors have such easy access to stability, (when built right) they are all but immune to soft cc, they have plenty of gap closers, high up time of retal paired with high vit and toughness, and they have multiple stun breaks on stupid short cooldowns.

He said base warrior, base warrior doesn’t have “multiple stunbreaks on short cool downs” or at least not ones you can list without most people bursting out laughing. They also don’t have high toughness, it’s higher than medium armour classes but it makes about a 5% difference as Choppy is saying zerk base warrior, I really wouldn’t make that a lynch pin of your argument.

The way to kill the base warrior is hilariously simple, deny burst skill and kite around, something the druid build excels at. Don’t forget base warrior needs to also build 3 bars of adrenaline to keep up the high adrenal healing unlike berserkers who spam it on cool down. Sad to say but core warrior is actually very balanced and losing to one as an elite spec is not something you should be doing.

If you hadn’t noticed I tend to use the names for the base profession and the elite specs interchangeably. If you read closely you would have noticed this line, “Now if you are talking about fighting a bunker druid you need to run a comparable berserker build”.

Complaining that a vanilla glass build has to fight an uphill battle against a HoT bunker build has no place in this discussion. That isn’t a druid problem, that’s a HoT power creep problem.

Jim Hunter.6821:

If you hadn’t noticed I tend to use the names for the base profession and the elite specs interchangeably. If you read closely you would have noticed this line, “Now if you are talking about fighting a bunker druid you need to run a comparable berserker build”.

Complaining that a vanilla glass build has to fight an uphill battle against a HoT bunker build has no place in this discussion. That isn’t a druid problem, that’s a HoT power creep problem.

I only brought up the dps druid because someone who apparently plays a druid thought bunker was the only viable option.

apharma’s right though. The lb/staff dps druid simply has to use its superior access to stealth (plus hard/soft cc, blind, and mobility) to keep the base warrior at a distance. Celestial Shadow alone, for example, has a lower cooldown, and lasts as long as, shield stance.

This prevents landing the burst (and Adrenal Health) unless the warrior uses it on the pet, which they should do but carries its own issues. Even then though, it doesn’t matter because the warrior will spend so much time in transit the dps won’t be comparable. A competent druid will win that match every time.

The gs/staff version is probably more lethal, but it requires a higher level of skill than the bow version. Hits like a truck and is fun to play against. I suppose that’s a big reason why I’m totally fine being hard countered by a dps druid.

The bunker build the OP is talking about isn’t like that. It’s a total bore to play against, doesn’t require any skill to be useful, and soaks up a disproportionate amount of resources to put down. My success ratio against these sorts of druids is actually much higher than against the dps druids, though that’s more because practically only skilled players appear to be running the dps version.

That’s my issue with it, and it sounds like a lot of people running a lot of different builds on different classes feel the same. All the classes should be balanced against risk:reward as much as possible, and the bunker druid seems skewed in that regard. It happens to every class now and again.

I am not talking about 7~8k auto is OP

I am talking about the permanent solo 25 might stacks with full bunker stat is OP which allows u to hit hard while tank hard with no sacrifice, just like d/d cele ele back in the days but druid can access more kittens than old d/d ele does.

I am talking about the druids that has access to all sort of kittens like mobility healing tankiness damage condi clears kiting range access to boons without any sacrifices and less efforts to play to compete with roamers that spent thousands of hours.

as i said none of other professions can access all above.

If they are good with something they always lack of something thats how it is. But druids arent, and all those bad druid mains telling others to l2p while they are playing easy mode with no efforts

You’re complaining about Bunker Druid…in WvW, where they can and will be ganked/jumped by multiple people. WvW is balanced around a ton of people. Bunkers die easily due to how many people can attack them at the same time. Spvp is balanced around small group, and ANet will adjust them if it’s required for that mode (since they NEVER balance things only for spvp, it hits the entire game like a blanket). Otherwise they most likely will not touch the class.

RyuDragnier.9476:

You’re complaining about Bunker Druid…in WvW, where they can and will be ganked/jumped by multiple people. WvW is balanced around a ton of people. Bunkers die easily due to how many people can attack them at the same time. Spvp is balanced around small group, and ANet will adjust them if it’s required for that mode (since they NEVER balance things only for spvp, it hits the entire game like a blanket). Otherwise they most likely will not touch the class.

Yeah… Except that the druid can also disengage and go out of combat from groups at will.

If you had said Necro I would maybe have cried a little with you. But to come up with this excuse for a druid? Hahahaha…

Do you know the normal setup for zergs nowadays? A frontline full of classes with CC and chasing moves, a backline full of classes that can remove or corrupt boons. NO Druid is escaping, they’ll be locked down like everything else that crosses the group’s path.

RyuDragnier.9476:

Do you know the normal setup for zergs nowadays? A frontline full of classes with CC and chasing moves, a backline full of classes that can remove or corrupt boons. NO Druid is escaping, they’ll be locked down like everything else that crosses the group’s path.

So… you’re saying bunker druid is fine as is because a zerg can take one out? You might want to think this one through. o_O

Choppy.4183:

RyuDragnier.9476:

Do you know the normal setup for zergs nowadays? A frontline full of classes with CC and chasing moves, a backline full of classes that can remove or corrupt boons. NO Druid is escaping, they’ll be locked down like everything else that crosses the group’s path.

So… you’re saying bunker druid is fine as is because a zerg can take one out? You might want to think this one through. o_O

lol loving this thread so far

It’s mostly just a bad combination of insane heal, projectile hate, invuln, range, mobility, stealth, evades, damage reduction, boon uptime + pet etc etc. It’s a bit of a bore but I’ve run it a some too.

If nothing else it’s just funny countering almost every cheese build in the game that doesn’t run away.

I’ve run it with condi too as it’s just hilarious how much you can do even with staff via traits and sigils. Power version seem to be better though.

The problem I see with druids, specifically the shout trooper roamer, is that without boons they fall over like twigs.

Once they get their boons rolling, they can’t be stopped without outnumbering them, even sometimes then the people fighting the druid need good communication to bring him down.

Correct me if Im wrong, but wasnt Ele experiencing this type of thing a while back, where their boon stacking made them absurd?

Invictorum.7643:

Correct me if Im wrong, but wasnt Ele experiencing this type of thing a while back, where their boon stacking made them absurd?

That would be the celestial d/d ele of old and there is a whole page in this thread about this comparison.

Glass druid is simply a bad revenant/daredevil/chronomancer/scrapper. There is no reason to play one except your love for the class, because there are plenty of better buildsavailable. Arguing that it beats a core class (or other bad builds for that matter) is silly, because the requirement for a build to be good, is being able to compete with multiple of best builds, not being favored vs a single good build or many bad builds.
E.g. Core ranger wins 100:0 vs core necro, but core necro is still a much better build over all, because it doesn’t get completely annihilated by the other 8 of 9 classes.

Nonetheless, druid is one of the best roamers in WvW, but it also one of the most unpopular choices for large scale fights. It is actually similar to thief and mesmer in that regard. Both of which have advantages and disadvantages compared to druid). Rev is also a great class for both bigger fights and 1v1, but it has a bad thief and an even worse chrono match up, which makes it a bad choice for roaming (+it has a higher entry level than the three others as it has no stealth). I am not sure where scapper is after the nerfs but it is probably pretty strong as well.

Erzian.5218:

Glass druid is simply a bad revenant/daredevil/chronomancer/scrapper. There is no reason to play one except your love for the class, because there are plenty of better buildsavailable. Arguing that it beats a core class (or other bad builds for that matter) is silly, because the requirement for a build to be good, is being able to compete with multiple of best builds, not being favored vs a single good build or many bad builds.
E.g. Core ranger wins 100:0 vs core necro, but core necro is still a much better build over all, because it doesn’t get completely annihilated by the other 8 of 9 classes.

You think my argument is that it’s good because it beats core warrior?

I’ve actually spoken to the people I fought, they know their class well, and they’ve had remarkable success with it against all classes. You can find videos on YouTube showing how well they can perform, and the builds themselves look very solid

Have you actually played one? If so, what defeated you?

Choppy.4183:

RyuDragnier.9476:

Do you know the normal setup for zergs nowadays? A frontline full of classes with CC and chasing moves, a backline full of classes that can remove or corrupt boons. NO Druid is escaping, they’ll be locked down like everything else that crosses the group’s path.

So… you’re saying bunker druid is fine as is because a zerg can take one out? You might want to think this one through. o_O

What I’m saying is that WvW should not be balanced around small scale. That’s sPvP’s territory. Though what Invictorum said hits the nail on the head too, just corrupt/strip their boons, and they’re dead in the water. Before you can say not everybody can do that, there’s the Superior Sigil of Nullification (60% chance on crit to strip a boon) and the Superior Sigil of Absorption (steal a boon when interrupting).

Choppy.4183:

Erzian.5218:

Glass druid is simply a bad revenant/daredevil/chronomancer/scrapper. There is no reason to play one except your love for the class, because there are plenty of better buildsavailable. Arguing that it beats a core class (or other bad builds for that matter) is silly, because the requirement for a build to be good, is being able to compete with multiple of best builds, not being favored vs a single good build or many bad builds.
E.g. Core ranger wins 100:0 vs core necro, but core necro is still a much better build over all, because it doesn’t get completely annihilated by the other 8 of 9 classes.

You think my argument is that it’s good because it beats core warrior?

I’ve actually spoken to the people I fought, they know their class well, and they’ve had remarkable success with it against all classes. You can find videos on YouTube showing how well they can perform, and the builds themselves look very solid

Have you actually played one? If so, what defeated you?

Yeah glass druid and even ranger can be tons of fun. They still feel tanky as hell to me for some reason and you can destroy people almost before they realize you’re there. Get a lot of salt for sniping people though.

RyuDragnier.9476:

What I’m saying is that WvW should not be balanced around small scale. That’s sPvP’s territory. Though what Invictorum said hits the nail on the head too, just corrupt/strip their boons, and they’re dead in the water. Before you can say not everybody can do that, there’s the Superior Sigil of Nullification (60% chance on crit to strip a boon) and the Superior Sigil of Absorption (steal a boon when interrupting).

Where did you get this notion that wvw shouldn’t get balanced at the small scale? Do you think the PU nerf, or the history of nerfs to thieves, was due to their massively OP contribution to zerg vs zerg combat?

Besides, that’s no sort of argument. And, seriously, a 60% chance to strip one boon every 10s? Lol… why would you even post if that’s all you’ve got?

Yeah slow as hell boon corrupt class gets kited easily. Stripping boons in slow mo not going to help either. Pet will just stock them up every 16 secs anyway.

Choppy.4183:

Where did you get this notion that wvw shouldn’t get balanced at the small scale? Do you think the PU nerf, or the history of nerfs to thieves, was due to their massively OP contribution to zerg vs zerg combat?

Where did you get the notion that nerfs to thief were anything to do with small scale WvW, thief got nerfs because for pretty much the entire game pre-HoT they were meta in PvP.

The reality is they pretty much don’t balance for small scale WvW at all, they barely make any balance changes based on large scale WvW either, the class balance in WvW has been terrible whatever scale the whole game, they spent 3 years basically balancing around PvP, they now balance around PvE raids also, WvW large or small scale is pretty much neither here nor there when it comes to balancing.

Swagger.1459:

Simonoly.4352:

I wouldn’t be surprised if Ancestral Grace gets a nerf to its range or a CD increase. I suppose they could give it the RTL treatment and have its cooldown halved from 30 seconds if you proc the heal on a friendly target. It does feel overloaded and disruptive to the flow of combat for me to be able to have access to this so often.

The other thing I find quite abusive on my Druid is Celestial Shadow. By the time I’m done with my CA rotation I’ve pretty much reset a fight for myself anyway with a full heal, but to also get stealth and superspeed is a tad overkill especially applied to my party too. I think a reduction in the stealth duration and superspeed duration would be fair.

Edit- So you want Ranger going back to being free lunch so players don’t need to get better or put in the effort…

Shaves to a couple of things will certainly not make Druid a “free lunch”. CA is incredible for 1v1s, 1vXs, zergs, GvG and everything in between. Druid is not going anywhere.

Choppy.4183:

Wait, what? Glassier druid builds are extremely powerful in the hands of a skilled player. To the point that I’ve pretty much resigned myself to accepting I have no counter for them as a vanilla warrior in small scale wvw (and I’m ok with that, I don’t think they should be nerfed).

Seriously, if you play druid and assumed going glassy is weak, you should have a second look at that. Staff/gs and staff/lb can be extremely effective if played right.

This. Pure Bunker Druid is a beginner face roll build that is pure effective cheese (what most of us fight). However, good players take those same bunker capabilities and wrap it in a power crit quickness build. They don’t bunker nearly as well but plenty for a good player. They can do very heavy spike with quickness (20k ish to medium armor in a few seconds). Get close and they just stealth/distance. Tough fight, lead enemies to a fight spot near water where they are basically unkillable.

zinkz.7045:

Choppy.4183:

Where did you get this notion that wvw shouldn’t get balanced at the small scale? Do you think the PU nerf, or the history of nerfs to thieves, was due to their massively OP contribution to zerg vs zerg combat?

Where did you get the notion that nerfs to thief were anything to do with small scale WvW, thief got nerfs because for pretty much the entire game pre-HoT they were meta in PvP.

The reality is they pretty much don’t balance for small scale WvW at all, they barely make any balance changes based on large scale WvW, the class balance in WvW has been terrible whatever scale the whole game, they spent 3 years basically balancing around PvP, they now balance around PvE raids also, WvW large or small scale is pretty much neither here nor there when it comes to balancing.

This. If I recall, PU memser got nerfed because of sPvP, as did thief, as did ranger, as has almost anything ingame. Only recently have nerfed been dished out due to anything else, and that was raids.

Rotteny.8743:

Invictorum.7643:

Correct me if Im wrong, but wasnt Ele experiencing this type of thing a while back, where their boon stacking made them absurd?

That would be the celestial d/d ele of old and there is a whole page in this thread about this comparison.

Or any boon-heavy build, really. Boons themselves if stacked excessively are massively overpowered, and get more overpowered the more raw stat points you have in gear, which increases more with HoT amulets and celestial gear.

Like ele, though, the druid/ranger’s core kit is weak. This puts an unnecessary dependency on boons to function, which shouldn’t be there, and thus makes anything not building into the OP sustain build totally fair and reasonable, but over-synergy with it becomes totally ridiculous.

Straegen.2938:

Choppy.4183:

Wait, what? Glassier druid builds are extremely powerful in the hands of a skilled player. To the point that I’ve pretty much resigned myself to accepting I have no counter for them as a vanilla warrior in small scale wvw (and I’m ok with that, I don’t think they should be nerfed).

Seriously, if you play druid and assumed going glassy is weak, you should have a second look at that. Staff/gs and staff/lb can be extremely effective if played right.

This. Pure Bunker Druid is a beginner face roll build that is pure effective cheese (what most of us fight). However, good players take those same bunker capabilities and wrap it in a power crit quickness build. They don’t bunker nearly as well but plenty for a good player. They can do very heavy spike with quickness (20k ish to medium armor in a few seconds). Get close and they just stealth/distance. Tough fight, lead enemies to a fight spot near water where they are basically unkillable.

I’ve never massively struggled against a power-built ranger or druid on a class I’ve been up to snuff playing. This includes glass cannon D/D thief and power reaper. I’ve been taken by surprise and sniped, and that’s fine, because not paying attention is my fault and I’m running glass. But any actual fight versus power and I’ve had no issues.

Close and even overall matches where each player wins and loses some? Absolutely. A guildmember of mine is an excellent ranger/druid, and I hover around 50% with him, a little more some days, a little less others.
But not in the history of the game in WvW have I struggled and continuously lost against a power/crit ranger or druid.

A good player on the bunker build, like Quickcry, I have no answer to except matching cheese designed to counter it, which shouldn’t be the only answer.

Lmao you should’ve know the second you created this thread that all the druid users would come out the woodwork to troll you and talk down to you cuz they’re afraid of getting nerfed and once again not having the feeling of skill.

Yes Druids are very versatile, able to do many things well, but not all at the same time. Just like the other professions. A point that many ignore.

this thread actually made me giggle a little bit .. thanks for the laugh this morning.. i needed it

Jim Hunter.6821:

apharma.3741:

Jim Hunter.6821:

Choppy.4183:

Jim Hunter.6821:

No counter!? Equip a shield, run the defense traitline. You now have blocks, reflects, a kitten ton of sustain, and passive "save your kitten traits. And as a warrior you have plenty of gap closers and damage, you can pretty much brush up against a glass druid and ruin his day.

Lol, no, that doesn’t remotely cut it. Have you played the build before? It’s far stronger than you give it credit for.

You said against a glassy druid. Do you know how much damage a warrior can inflict on a glassy druid?
Now if you are talking about fighting a bunker druid you need to run a comparable berserker build in which case the fight will end in a stale mate unless one of them screws up.

Since the adrenal health buff good warriors have had no problems fighting druids. In fact the bunker druid build is pretty much the only build a ranger has where they don’t have to seriously outplay a warrior to win (and even then it’s unlikely you can kill them without the warrior just breaking combat), since warriors have such easy access to stability, (when built right) they are all but immune to soft cc, they have plenty of gap closers, high up time of retal paired with high vit and toughness, and they have multiple stun breaks on stupid short cooldowns.

He said base warrior, base warrior doesn’t have “multiple stunbreaks on short cool downs” or at least not ones you can list without most people bursting out laughing. They also don’t have high toughness, it’s higher than medium armour classes but it makes about a 5% difference as Choppy is saying zerk base warrior, I really wouldn’t make that a lynch pin of your argument.

The way to kill the base warrior is hilariously simple, deny burst skill and kite around, something the druid build excels at. Don’t forget base warrior needs to also build 3 bars of adrenaline to keep up the high adrenal healing unlike berserkers who spam it on cool down. Sad to say but core warrior is actually very balanced and losing to one as an elite spec is not something you should be doing.

If you hadn’t noticed I tend to use the names for the base profession and the elite specs interchangeably. If you read closely you would have noticed this line, “Now if you are talking about fighting a bunker druid you need to run a comparable berserker build”.

Complaining that a vanilla glass build has to fight an uphill battle against a HoT bunker build has no place in this discussion. That isn’t a druid problem, that’s a HoT power creep problem.

Choppy brought up his base warrior, you continued on that line of argument with the rhetoric about multiple low cool down stun breaks, toughness etc. Half of what you described is not on base warrior, whether you call the elite spec a warrior or not is irrelevant as we are not talking about the elite spec at all.

As for the last part about vanilla vs HoT bunker, we were talking vanilla zerk warrior vs zerk druid not bunker druid. So I don’t see why you bothered typing that last part as it has nothing to do with what was being talked about by either Choppy or my follow up response.

Jim Hunter.6821:

Now if you are talking about fighting a bunker druid you need to run a comparable berserker build in which case the fight will end in a stale mate unless one of them screws up.

Though this earlier comment has me puzzled considering what you just said.

I have the feeling this whole thread is just one big QQ about Quickcry the streaming cele druid.

Yesterday a druid picked me up with its mind powers and shook me like a dog.

Xtinct.7031:

I have the feeling this whole thread is just one big QQ about Quickcry the streaming cele druid.

That’s funny, I killed that guy earlier today when he was repeatedly tapping Mag keep and he sent me a qq whisper. Best part is I was drunk at the time and playing sloppy as hell.

Bro? what part of the world you in? Not judging man, but you were drunk in the morning/afternoon?

Reh.5986:

Yesterday a druid picked me up with its mind powers and shook me like a dog.

Sith Druids?

I don’t understand how you are getting 7-8 k damage from a druid staff. With a weapon power at the highest (1166 dam) .Using solar beam which is the most likely weapon skill to be set auto has a skill-specific coefficient of 0.36 (taking in account of the bug) and even with full zerker I have never seen a power go above 3400 and thats with food buffs and blood lust sigil at max 25 and 25 stacks might. And the target with 1800 armor gives you around 793 damage.Now lets add crit damage.The base is 150%. With full zerker that would normally get you around 250%so lets add up. 793 + 250%=2776 roughly against 1800 armor.
Now if your getting hit for 7-8 k damage from a druid staff you need to put some armor on.And even with any of the newer 4 stat armor sets you will not get 250% crtit damage or the power.
7-8 k damage? I doubt it.

It’s not just WvW, there are a lot of complaints on the PvP forums as well about Druids.