Guild Wars 2

I play druid exclusively and i was wondering if we could get a dev to answer on this.

As it stands now (on Tarnished Coast at least) Rangers/Druids are being insulated, harassesed and even shamed in wvw and even in Teamspeak …. and i’m frankly getting sick of it. Not only druids, but some other classes as well such as necros/reapers and mesmers.

Not going to mention any names.. but here is whats happening. And trust me, I am not the only one thats seeing and hearing this. Personally, I choose to ignore these people, but it is becoming more widespead and i want to know what can be done besides ignoring/not following these people.

I log in… get into wvw and start checking for a tag. There will be a large group running in WvW and i get on TS and join squad.

I am a team player. I always try to be on tag if there is a large group running. I play backline glass very well… skirting the outside, dropping people at will… if the frontline needs heals.. i run in, drop water and use staff 3 to blast it or escape while dropping my staff 5 for protection and go back to sniping from the outer edge.

After a few minutes the commanders either start shaming druids or i hear the squad leaders start telling people running druids to roll another class or leave squad because Ranger/Druid is not part of the current meta. (even though we are winning, and the druids are keeping us up.. and none of them have died, etc)

It seems that not many people play elementalist now (still more than play druid however) and most of these play melee style so they dont really drop waters etc. Druids are the only healers usually.

I know that druids have a TON of helpful skills like area cripple with barrage, piercing arrows, water field and heals in druid form. Our heals also give an extra heal and blind for every target we heal (if traited) and we can also do some serious damage.

However… Most of the commanders seem to think that there is no place for Druids in wvw and they start screaming and harassing players to get on a class that matters like guardians, revenants or warriors.

Are druids part of the “Meta” ( i would defiantly think so) and btw.. exactly who gets to decided what the “Meta” is?

Sometimes i tag up and in my squads i let people play what they want, no matter what class they run as long as they play the class well and are having fun. This is what the game should be but because of the current state of the game, things like this are happening more often.

WvW is meant to be all inclusive i would think and i would like to know if there are any plans to include rangers/druids in the current “Meta”

I feel badly for my mesmer friends also because in groups they are reduced to gravity well/veil bots and very few people play those as well. You may see maybe one or two mesmers per raid, otherwise they too are getting yelled at and told to get on a class that matters.

Are there any plans in the works to buff/fix these problems that would make rangers/druids part of the current meta?

Thank you
True

Didn’t went through the whole wall of text, but I’m pretty sure this topic was already discussed in this thread.

trueanimus.4085:

As it stands now (on Tarnished Coast at least) Rangers/Druids are being insulated

The amount of asbestos in druids is too kitten high!

Come play with me on CD I play like you. Just play for friggin kitten fun.

Come to SOR and join me. I’ll take you and your fuzzy cuddly pet gladly. WE WILL BE GLORIOUS

It’s Medium Classes in general. Most zergs only want lights or heavies, mediums don’t have a place in the meta. Druids COULD have been useful, but their healing got nerfed, dropping their viability down the drain. Thieves have no AoE, so they’re out. Engineers…anything they can do somebody else can do better.

Dawdler.8521:

trueanimus.4085:

As it stands now (on Tarnished Coast at least) Rangers/Druids are being insulated

The amount of asbestos in druids is too kitten high!

made me lol

Zergs want players that have strong overlapping skills/traits particularly boon centered builds. If they don’t have those, they go into a fight at a disadvantage.

If you are on a non-q’d map it typically isn’t an issue. If you aren’t facing another q’d map, it typically isn’t an issue. However when on a q’d map against other q’d maps, commanders want the strongest possible zerg. Rangers, thieves, etc are sub-optimal.

The odd part is that Druids are currently very strong in the small scale meta so complaining about being less effective and generally unwelcome in certain zergs is kinda silly.

If people are allowed to play “how they want” then a commander is entirely within his right if he wants to be exclusive and not include rangers in his squad.

Straegen.2938:

Zergs want players that have strong overlapping skills/traits particularly boon centered builds. If they don’t have those, they go into a fight at a disadvantage.

If you are on a non-q’d map it typically isn’t an issue. If you aren’t facing another q’d map, it typically isn’t an issue. However when on a q’d map against other q’d maps, commanders want the strongest possible zerg. Rangers, thieves, etc are sub-optimal.

The odd part is that Druids are currently very strong in the small scale meta so complaining about being less effective and generally unwelcome in certain zergs is kinda silly.

Well it’s not fun if a class can’t play with others. It means you cannot play what you want. I’d hang up my Rev in a heartbeat if I could use my thief in a zerg and actually contribute.

Dawdler.8521:

trueanimus.4085:

As it stands now (on Tarnished Coast at least) Rangers/Druids are being insulated

The amount of asbestos in druids is too kitten high!

That’s what I was thinking too.

Though I gotta say this is a somewhat interesting counterpart to the TS thread, if people are really encouraging pubs to get on TS and then talk trash to them afterwards.

I mean, I may suggest to people that we need a certain amount of class (and thus less, of some) however, it’s just really funny that when people succeed, they chalk it up to their own egos, but once failure strikes, they look for someone to blame. This I think goes beyond optimization. The fact that they’re somehow blaming people for bringing (necro/reaper) (??) is a symptom of bigger problems I would think.

I’m referring to pug groups only. This is especially true if it’s some guild trying to collect a map blob like debris in the wind. In these cases, I’m only interested in maximizing what people have to bring, even if it is not that much. Obviously if you bring something questionable to a guild raid without having discussed it beforehand, then it would be proper to demand class changes. You can kick people for playing rangers, not being asura, etc etc etc. It’s all good!

And I think it’s fine to not invite anyone you don’t want to either. You can kick people for playing rangers, not being asura, etc etc etc. It’s all good! I’m strictly referring to the trash talking that comes after you’ve told someone to listen to your kitten in TS.

First of all if you really like your druid/ranger and the tag dosent who cares find another tag or guild to run with if your that passionate about it. You may consider meeting them half way with your build or something in that neighborhood if you really desire to blend in. But consider the meta is kittenous flavor of the month club that only lets you down in the end when anet rebalances/nerfs popular classes.

Play what you like so long as your effective in what you and in you do and in your team performance your fine. If your on a high tier server you may choose to transfer to a lower tier or smaller server where the meta is not so obey or die. Just pick a path choose wisely and enjoy your game.

ArchonWing.9480:

Dawdler.8521:

trueanimus.4085:

As it stands now (on Tarnished Coast at least) Rangers/Druids are being insulated

The amount of asbestos in druids is too kitten high!

That’s what I was thinking too.

Though I gotta say this is a somewhat interesting counterpart to the TS thread, if people are really encouraging pubs to get on TS and then talk trash to them afterwards.

I mean, I may suggest to people that we need a certain amount of class (and thus less, of some) however, it’s just really funny that when people succeed, they chalk it up to their own egos, but once failure strikes, they look for someone to blame. This I think goes beyond optimization.

I’m referring to pug groups only. This is especially true if it’s some guild trying to collect a map blob like debris in the wind. In these cases, I’m only interested in maximizing what people have to bring, even if it is not that much. Obviously if you bring something questionable to a guild raid without having discussed it beforehand, then it would be proper to demand class changes.

Exactly what you said above, pugs get into TS then are whined at and commanders cry about nobody being on tag/TS or I don’t have a enough. I wonder why……you turn them off to TS completely or you as a leader.

Then they continue to blame the failure on players instead of their tactical approach. I watched a tag focus so hard on smc they let camps, towers, etc fall on our side fall left and right then he rages that everyone is trash or cliche noobs. The opposing commander realized this and just swiped our side, tactically knew what to do and our commander blames the server for getting out smarted or ignoring defenders/roamer warnings due to “the ego” of taking smc.

In addition and on the flip side, particular commanders show humility and will admit they made a mistake and those backseat drivers love to jump on those tags and rip on them publicly, hence a fairly new commander will be hesitant to tag up. Those are the ones I feel bad for because you can see they won’t to do well and lead but the toxicity is easier to join in unfortunately. Not sure why people can’t just whisper the commander “try this next time”. Nothing wrong with giving or taking advice.

Overall, each server has their issues but all up to the community to fix them.

Not to be condescending to the OP, but you must be kinda new. It’s been this way with rangers since release...not saying that it’s right/good but just saying.

Get a hammer rev. You will probably enjoy it more while zerging.

Few things:

There is more than one meta right now. Druids play a part in some.

TC has grown, but has a lot of toxic commanders, from what I hear. There must be a guild you can join that will be more welcome to you. I doubt they are giving reapers a hard time, though.

Druids are amazing support class with decent damage and great CCs, but they’re best utilized in zerg fights as frontline. As everyone has said over the last 4 years, the longbow is a fine weapon, but as far as overall dps, other classes do it better. If you’re pew pewing a single target from the sidelines, then, no, you’re not contributing as much as you could dps wise. Your pet is useless, so your classes “special” stuff can’t be utilized. A staff is best utilized at a 900 unit range minimum. Glyphs are awesome, but they have a short range, so you need to play on tag.

I’d suggest looking at your build, changing to a frontline druid and advertising yourself as such. They do medium dps with amazing support with 0 healing power. If you insist on playing druid, and still are getting crap from every commander on TC (statistically unlikely, but I don’t play on that server) then change servers.

RodOfDeath.5247:

ArchonWing.9480:

Dawdler.8521:

trueanimus.4085:

As it stands now (on Tarnished Coast at least) Rangers/Druids are being insulated

The amount of asbestos in druids is too kitten high!

That’s what I was thinking too.

Though I gotta say this is a somewhat interesting counterpart to the TS thread, if people are really encouraging pubs to get on TS and then talk trash to them afterwards.

I mean, I may suggest to people that we need a certain amount of class (and thus less, of some) however, it’s just really funny that when people succeed, they chalk it up to their own egos, but once failure strikes, they look for someone to blame. This I think goes beyond optimization.

I’m referring to pug groups only. This is especially true if it’s some guild trying to collect a map blob like debris in the wind. In these cases, I’m only interested in maximizing what people have to bring, even if it is not that much. Obviously if you bring something questionable to a guild raid without having discussed it beforehand, then it would be proper to demand class changes.

Exactly what you said above, pugs get into TS then are whined at and commanders cry about nobody being on tag/TS or I don’t have a enough. I wonder why……you turn them off to TS completely or you as a leader.

Then they continue to blame the failure on players instead of their tactical approach. I watched a tag focus so hard on smc they let camps, towers, etc fall on our side fall left and right then he rages that everyone is trash or cliche noobs. The opposing commander realized this and just swiped our side, tactically knew what to do and our commander blames the server for getting out smarted or ignoring defenders/roamer warnings due to “the ego” of taking smc.

In addition and on the flip side, particular commanders show humility and will admit they made a mistake and those backseat drivers love to jump on those tags and rip on them publicly, hence a fairly new commander will be hesitant to tag up. Those are the ones I feel bad for because you can see they won’t to do well and lead but the toxicity is easier to join in unfortunately. Not sure why people can’t just whisper the commander “try this next time”. Nothing wrong with giving or taking advice.

Overall, each server has their issues but all up to the community to fix them.

Definitely agree it’s symptomatic of other problems! There’s definitely a lot of issues of play so when OP states the problem that he/she is getting bashed because of class, it does seem like it’s just an environment that wasn’t exactly promoting the best kind of performance anyways.

And ego is definitely a thing. Sometimes people will get stuck chasing white whales, so to speak. And the backseat commanders that drive off potential commanders don’t help matters as people collide on whatever tags are left.

So there’s definitely trouble on both ends from what I’ve seen from where you have people that think that putting a tag on one’s head and everyone will be perfect puppets leading to great montage videos and you have people that expect the tags to lead them to victory without putting any work themselves.

And again, it’s definitely up to one’s choice. Ultimately, people just have to realize there’s huge variation in the public pool and it’s sort of like those pug dungeon runs where people always complain about getting lousy pugs when they don’t state requirements., but you wonder, did they specify anything beforehand? And if they’re so elite, then they should have gotten enough like minded people to run their own groups. It’s a bit harder in WvW because there are queues and so many maps, but tbe same concept is there— if you want to quality control and be selective, well be selective!

It’s just best to be proactive. For example, spamming into map chat, the channel name and comms address, while specifying desired classes is much better than raging after a wipe and saying there’s too many or enough enough of a class. Sure, people can’t read, but then the fault is on them, and it’s fine to show them the door.

You wear Medium armor thus you are not suppose to be able to enjoy the full extent of the game on a competitive level.

The sad part is if they checked their ego’s for a second and made 1 thread on here asking what we think could make all the classes viable and sought after they would get a plethora of valid suggestion to work with.

Use that skill named rapid fire. That is good skill.

Junkpile.7439:

Use that skill named rapid fire. That is good skill.

Until someone throws up a reflect…

It’s not going to ever be useful in a blob unless the pet is removed and the class gets either meaningful melee damage or utility and a ton of invulns.

But that’s basically just warrior/guardian.

You could maybe justify its purpose running Nomad’s staff/GS or a staff as primary ranged damage. If you play using a longbow, you need to force yourself out of the blob and either way into the sidelines or simply not attack for the first moments of the fight. Reflects are everywhere, and a glass longbow ranger firing haphazardly into the enemy’s frontline and reflecting the shots into your own frontline is likely going to get an ally killed. That’s why people don’t want rangers in large-scale; too many of them play poorly for the blob and up being a strict liability. In an organized group, they can have have some pretty great benefits (big water field + cleanses, poke for pre-engage, substantial AoE damage on barrage, anti-backline damage output, long ranged interrupts/knockbacks for eles, etc.). However, if not heavily-organized and trained to play in this matter, however, you’re in all seriousness likely to end up killing your own allies.

On the converse, bunker Druid is currently the absolute best roaming build in WvW and by a very large margin. It has almost zero counters and can counter almost everything else.

The only thing I could see being used in ZvZ warfare as a Druid would be the traps. That’s AoE right there that could possibly take down a lot of enemies or at least slow them down. But weapon side…outside of Greatsword and MAYBE Staff, most of their weapons wouldn’t do much. And the pet would just be a burden. :/

Hexalot.8194:

Junkpile.7439:

Use that skill named rapid fire. That is good skill.

Until someone throws up a reflect…

Unless your target is another druid, then you’ve just fully healed them (staff #5)

@OP: It takes a little more work, but it is entirely possible to follow a zerg without being part of the squad or in TS. Commanders will try and get around this by linking waypoints in squad chat, but unless they change borderlands/EB, it’s pretty easy to just wait a couple seconds to see where they went, and if you’re backline anyway, it doesn’t matter if you are running to catch up.

As for “the meta”, Druid may not be part of the zerg meta, but I see primarily Daredevils and Druids when it comes to roaming. Both are a challenge if played right.

Changing servers is an option, but it’s expensive, and can be difficult socially, so I wouldn’t suggest it. That being said it sounds like the commanders you have on your server are full of themselves and simply not decent people. You might look for a roaming guild and try roaming. 1v1 and 1v2 are not the most fun, but if you’re with a group of 5 or 6, you can actually get quite a lot done.

Overall, don’t drop your Druid because of some fool commander. Focus on following a zerg from the outside, use your longbow to pick off stragglers or flank the fights, etc. Good way to learn roaming too, because sometimes the stragglers fight back.

Nomad full tank Druid with some shouts and GS makes a good “troll” frontliner and something I’ve seen a few commanders do, since it’s very tanky. Lots of sustain, front-line/commander-deployable water field + cleanse, backline protection via Guard, an invuln via SoS, and the evade on GS auto + GS 3, and the block on GS4 makes it very difficult to take down while providing quite a bit of utility. It does, however, bring no damage.

I’ll never understand why some people get personally offended when their favorite profession is disliked by others.

The medium professions don’t contribute enough to be an asset to zergs. That’s the black and white of it. Some commander’s will refuse to allow certain professions in to their squads. Though yes, it is some what rude, it’s also understandable, and in most cases not personal. They want their zerg to be effective and certain professions do not fall in to the effective category.

When I play Ranger in WvW and I decide I feel like zerging, I understand that I’m contributing very little and that I probably won’t get a squad invite. I don’t need validation to know that I’m doing my part to help, even if that part is negligible.

The medium professions; Ranger, Thief, Engineer as well as one light, Mesmer, all have their place in small scale/roaming. Though you can roam with any profession if you’re skilled enough, many of the others are a lot more punishing because they’re not as effective at 1v1/X. Ranger/Druid doesn’t need to be meta in zergs, it’s meta in roaming. If you like to zerg and you like to play Ranger, you’re going to have to accept that a lot of commanders won’t want anything to do with you and there’s nothing wrong with that. Have fun and suck it up.

RyuDragnier.9476:

The only thing I could see being used in ZvZ warfare as a Druid would be the traps. That’s AoE right there that could possibly take down a lot of enemies or at least slow them down. But weapon side…outside of Greatsword and MAYBE Staff, most of their weapons wouldn’t do much. And the pet would just be a burden. :/

Ranger is good as a picker. The way I use mine while in zergs is scanning for low health/downed targets to focus fire. I ensure all downed players reach dead unless they rally and I don’t let anyone stray from their zergs. As soon as they separate from the group and make themselves stand out, I pressure them until they’re dead or out of range.

That, or I follow behind the enemy zerg while our own zerg is in front. I pick off the backline with some friends and manipulate the stragglers by forcing them to burn through cooldowns.

Neither of these things are contributing as much as a meta profession palm mashing their keys but it does help in it’s own way.

Step #1. Buy a tag.
Step #2. Tag up.
Step #3. Run however you see fit.

I see a lot of complaints here from players about the current metas or class discrimination from Commanders. Bottom line, if you follow a tag is their rules. Don’t like the rules? Follow another tag or tag up yourself.

Just some of our coms. They cry nonstop about pugs and then get trucked 25v70 because pugs are somewhere else…sick of their whining.

To be fair, we do have some solid commanders who are great at winning outnumbered fights and can use a backline properly. We also have a few that are fine in even fights but will push 30v60 with like 8 melee and then cry nonstop when the backline can’t even bomb properly (melee “train” is useless)

The druid thing just depends on numbers in squad and what we’re facing. If the other side is organized, there will be reflect walls everywhere. Ele can do dmg, cc and water fields…all better than druid. With so much reflect, Druid dmg is better off in pick squad. Same with thief.

I can wreck face on scrapper in melee but guardians are still better at it. Scrapper is nice for stealthing the tag a lot vs pin sniping (mag lol)

There’s no way to win though unless you’re good on guard/ele/necro/rev and can switch into a build that they consider useful. If you’re terrible at guard and switch you will probably still get raged at.

Druids are an outright liability in this current meta. Just saying

I don’t usually kick rangers and druids from squad unless we’re running big numbers (at which point I can afford to), but I still try urge people to switch classes to a meta GREN class.

trueanimus.4085:

snip

I am a team player. I always try to be on tag if there is a large group running. Snip

If you were truly a team player you wouldn’t be selfish and only want to play the one class you like, just like any other sport or game sacrifices are made, true team players understand this.

trueanimus.4085:

After a few minutes the commanders either start shaming druids or i hear the squad leaders start telling people running druids to roll another class or leave squad Snip

It is their squad, they have the right to include or not include whomever they see fit. Just because you are winning and not dying does not mean the squad doesn’t have room for improvement/efficiency.

trueanimus.4085:

It seems that not many people play elementalist now (still more than play druid however) Snip

This is completely unfounded and redundant, there is plenty of Ele’s but even if there was a lack that doesn’t mean that role should be replaces by Druid.

trueanimus.4085:

I know that druids have a TON of helpful skills like area cripple with barrage, piercing arrows, water field and heals in druid form.Snip.

Their heals are sub par, their fields clunky, their arrows usually do more damage to themselves than the enemy if you are fighting anyone remotely competent, basically and Ele can still out preform any druid any day of the week in a large setting.

trueanimus.4085:

However… Most of the commanders seem to think that there is no place for Druids in wvw and they start screaming and harassing players to get on a class that matters like guardians, revenants or warriors.

This is incorrect, most commanders realize there are better classes to bring more efficiency to large group play, Druids definitely have a place in smaller scale stuff. Of course they are telling you to play a different class, unlike you, they are looking at the big picture not just want is individually fun, team player you say?

trueanimus.4085:

Are druids part of the “Meta” ( i would defiantly think so) and btw.. exactly who gets to decided what the “Meta” is?

They are not part of the meta no matter how much you want it to be, the meta is not decided by anyone person, just do a google search on meta.

trueanimus.4085:

Sometimes i tag up and in my squads i let people play what they want, no matter what class they run as long as they play the class well and are having fun. Snip

This is good, it’s your squad and there are a lot of people out there like yourself who either do not understand a meta or refuse to acknowledge it. Fun is subjective, what you enjoy is not what someone else enjoys.

trueanimus.4085:

WvW is meant to be all inclusive i would think and i would like to know if there are any plans to include rangers/druids in the current “Meta”

It is all inclusive, squads however are not, Ranger/Druids make great scout and once again, they do really well in smaller skirmish type fights. Rangers/Druids are not included in the meta because of their design and Anets failure to address it, they won’t be part of the meta until Anet starts listening to players.

trueanimus.4085:

I feel badly for my mesmer friends also because in groups they are reduced to gravity well/veil bots and very few people play those as well. Snip.

This has always been the case for Mesmers, It’s unfortunate but to a degree all classes are in the same position, each one a setup or two that is most efficient for the team and that is what they should be running.

trueanimus.4085:

Are there any plans in the works to buff/fix these problems that would make rangers/druids part of the current meta?

I hope so, I think you would be hard pressed to find a player in GW2 that wouldn’t like to be able to play truly whatever class they liked and still be efficient enough that it doesn’t drag down the large group play. HoT was a step in the right direction for medium classes but they did miss the mark.

Thank you
True

[/quote]

I main druid in a hardcore WvW guild (size 15-25 per raid) on FSP. The statement that Druid is somewhat unplayable or does not bring as much to a zerg as other classes is simply false, even in an open raid with 50+. Although I won’t share my build, my general advice is to not play or understand it as a ranged class and forget all that stuff one would associate with a “ranger”. People in this thread have already hinted in the right direction.

That being said:
1. Almost all rangers/druids I usually encounter in a zerg (not including roaming) are absolutely worthless, bad players with bad builds, so just speaking from experience – if I had the choice between a random guardian/warrior/necro/mesmer/tempest and a random ranger, I would always choose the former. Metabattle also plays a role here – the aforementioned classes have very efficient and easily accessible builds available which are effective even if the player skill is quite poor. Not the case for Druid.

2. Their tag, their rules. Yes, I know it sucks to be excluded due to prejudice and I also know that most public commanders are unaware of the potential a druid brings to the frontline, but “play how you want” does not mean “ordain how other ppl have to play”. If they dont want to play with a druid, however stupid the reason for that, it is their decision.

3. Picking off stragglers with pew pew was a quite effective thing to do back in the old meta where focus parties were still a thing. At the moment, not so much.

4. As I said, Druid has amazing potential, but it is way harder to implement. It requires people to stay focused on tag, multiple Druids dont scale as well as i.e. multiple guardians or necros and they most of the time need additional stab from guards. It puts more restraints on party building and more responsibility on party members to do their job well. 3 uncoordinated Guardians + X is way safer than 2 uncoordinated Guards + 1 Druid + X.

My final advise: Get a guild and dont rely on people to change just because you want them to.

Nuzt.7894:

trueanimus.4085:

I know that druids have a TON of helpful skills like area cripple with barrage, piercing arrows, water field and heals in druid form.Snip.

Their heals are sub par, their fields clunky, their arrows usually do more damage to themselves than the enemy if you are fighting anyone remotely competent, basically and Ele can still out preform any druid any day of the week in a large setting.

No. We have tested this a lot within my guild using dps meters. If played correctly, the Ele’s healing does not even come remotely close to what Druids can achieve. I am talking ~1,2mio healing Druid vs ~350k Ele in a 6min fight ~20v20. This however requires the group to stay tight and focused, which is often not the case in a public setting. You are absolutely right about the arrows though. I would also agree that you would still rather have 3 eles instead of 3 druids but 1-2eles + 1-2 druids > 3 eles, definitely.

Amenaza.8346:

Nuzt.7894:

trueanimus.4085:

I know that druids have a TON of helpful skills like area cripple with barrage, piercing arrows, water field and heals in druid form.Snip.

Their heals are sub par, their fields clunky, their arrows usually do more damage to themselves than the enemy if you are fighting anyone remotely competent, basically and Ele can still out preform any druid any day of the week in a large setting.

No. We have tested this a lot within my guild using dps meters. If played correctly, the Ele’s healing does not even come remotely close to what Druids can achieve. I am talking ~1,2mio healing Druid vs ~350k Ele in a 6min fight ~20v20. This however requires the group to stay tight and focused, which is often not the case in a public setting. You are absolutely right about the arrows though. I would also agree that you would still rather have 3 eles instead of 3 druids but 1-2eles + 1-2 druids > 3 eles, definitely.

Eles have better water fields. Water fields are just stupid easy for a hammer train to blast. Catch is ele can pull this off while doing stupid amounts of aoe dmg and cc.

Druid does some things well but suffers in ways similar to engi. Heavy/light classes can do more and better for the roles needed in large scale.

Amenaza.8346:

I main druid in a hardcore WvW guild (size 15-25 per raid) on FSP. The statement that Druid is somewhat unplayable or does not bring as much to a zerg as other classes is simply false, even in an open raid with 50+. Although I won’t share my build, my general advice is to not play or understand it as a ranged class and forget all that stuff one would associate with a “ranger”. People in this thread have already hinted in the right direction.

That being said:
1. Almost all rangers/druids I usually encounter in a zerg (not including roaming) are absolutely worthless, bad players with bad builds, so just speaking from experience – if I had the choice between a random guardian/warrior/necro/mesmer/tempest and a random ranger, I would always choose the former. Metabattle also plays a role here – the aforementioned classes have very efficient and easily accessible builds available which are effective even if the player skill is quite poor. Not the case for Druid.

2. Their tag, their rules. Yes, I know it sucks to be excluded due to prejudice and I also know that most public commanders are unaware of the potential a druid brings to the frontline, but “play how you want” does not mean “ordain how other ppl have to play”. If they dont want to play with a druid, however stupid the reason for that, it is their decision.

3. Picking off stragglers with pew pew was a quite effective thing to do back in the old meta where focus parties were still a thing. At the moment, not so much.

4. As I said, Druid has amazing potential, but it is way harder to implement. It requires people to stay focused on tag, multiple Druids dont scale as well as i.e. multiple guardians or necros and they most of the time need additional stab from guards. It puts more restraints on party building and more responsibility on party members to do their job well. 3 uncoordinated Guardians + X is way safer than 2 uncoordinated Guards + 1 Druid + X.

My final advise: Get a guild and dont rely on people to change just because you want them to.

If you were going to berate everyone as “doing it wrong” but then not share “the secret correct way” of doing it, you wasted you time writing that wall of text.

As they said, it the build in terms of general direction was hinted at above. Even the style and purpose of the character were hinted at in their post.

Cough

As a general aside, though, at least the druid isn’t thief. That’s literally worthless in organized ZvZ at the moment since focus groups are pretty useless from the sheer amount of defense and CC going around.

Nuzt.7894:

I hope so, I think you would be hard pressed to find a player in GW2 that wouldn’t like to be able to play truly whatever class they liked and still be efficient enough that it doesn’t drag down the large group play. HoT was a step in the right direction for medium classes but they did miss the mark.

By design alone, I sincerely, sincerely disagree. Literally everything about HoT was a step backwards in everything pertaining to WvW gameplay.

Substance E.4852:

If you were going to berate everyone as “doing it wrong” but then not share “the secret correct way” of doing it, you wasted you time writing that wall of text.

Hint: It doesn’t involve longbow.

Reh.5986:

Amenaza.8346:

Nuzt.7894:

trueanimus.4085:

I know that druids have a TON of helpful skills like area cripple with barrage, piercing arrows, water field and heals in druid form.Snip.

Their heals are sub par, their fields clunky, their arrows usually do more damage to themselves than the enemy if you are fighting anyone remotely competent, basically and Ele can still out preform any druid any day of the week in a large setting.

No. We have tested this a lot within my guild using dps meters. If played correctly, the Ele’s healing does not even come remotely close to what Druids can achieve. I am talking ~1,2mio healing Druid vs ~350k Ele in a 6min fight ~20v20. This however requires the group to stay tight and focused, which is often not the case in a public setting. You are absolutely right about the arrows though. I would also agree that you would still rather have 3 eles instead of 3 druids but 1-2eles + 1-2 druids > 3 eles, definitely.

Eles have better water fields. Water fields are just stupid easy for a hammer train to blast. Catch is ele can pull this off while doing stupid amounts of aoe dmg and cc.

Druid does some things well but suffers in ways similar to engi. Heavy/light classes can do more and better for the roles needed in large scale.

We made our tests, no amount of theorycrafting is going to change the empiric numbers.
Still, better water fields? Have you even read CAF 4? A field that has way better healing on its own, can be deployed twice within short succession and moves with the train? Sure, the Ele thing is superior when ppl are swarming around like chicken, but when the train stays compact, there is no way the ele fields outheal the druid.

In the end, I dont really care if I convince anyone here, we will probably never meet in the same squad. It works for my guild and me, thats what matters. I was giving genuine advice to the OP and wanted to correct a bit of information i know to be wrong.

Substance E.4852:

If you were going to berate everyone as “doing it wrong” but then not share “the secret correct way” of doing it, you wasted you time writing that wall of text.

Find me a serious WvW guild that shares all their builds to the public. Its also not the “one true way” but a concept that works for us and firmly integrates our druids in our zerg. Even if I did share it, there would be some aspects that make no sense in a vaccuum and rely on the party composition we designed.
Yes, the wall of text might have been unnecessary and can be summarized as “yes, druid can have a good place in the meta but you have to work way harder for it and i dont blame pub coms who dont want to put up with that”, which is my message for the OP. However, I’d rather give you my reasoning which you can easily skip, than some half baked answer with no actual weight.

Amenaza.8346:

No. We have tested this a lot within my guild using dps meters. If played correctly, the Ele’s healing does not even come remotely close to what Druids can achieve. I am talking ~1,2mio healing Druid vs ~350k Ele in a 6min fight ~20v20. This however requires the group to stay tight and focused, which is often not the case in a public setting. You are absolutely right about the arrows though. I would also agree that you would still rather have 3 eles instead of 3 druids but 1-2eles + 1-2 druids > 3 eles, definitely.

How do you count that? For a healbot tempest Soothing Mists alone would reach your 1m healing over 6min and thats only the passive heal.

Rangers never was the part of the meta. I changed after a year

trueanimus.4085:

Not only druids, but some other classes as well such as necros/reapers

LMFAO WAT

pls

This post is hilarious. Literally dying here.

Just go full nomads, durability runes, staff+sword/warhorn/something; Take druid, nature magic, skirmishing and stick with the melee train.
Can also take marksmanship for more stability but the passive signet proc often bugs with avatar so that you end up stuck in the avatar model which is really annoying.
You will still have the problem that half of your traits are bad because you pet is never alive.

I am a WvW noob but I have played my druid on my server and not heard a single complaint. My server is curb stomping the other two at the moment (Yak’s Bend). From what I see the domination has a lot less to do with what classes are being played and more to do with the leadership knowing how to win. These guys are kitten good and seem able to work with any group.
Although I’m sure they are happier to see some more zerg friendly classes I’ve yet to hear a single complaint on class choices in map chat or ts.

TheMountain.6204:

I am a WvW noob but I have played my druid on my server and not heard a single complaint. My server is curb stomping the other two at the moment (Yak’s Bend). From what I see the domination has a lot less to do with what classes are being played and more to do with the leadership knowing how to win. These guys are kitten good and seem able to work with any group.
Although I’m sure they are happier to see some more zerg friendly classes I’ve yet to hear a single complaint on class choices in map chat or ts.

Trust me, you’ll start to hear it the minute your server starts losing.

I wish anet had kept the search and rescue druid shout at 1200, instead of nerfing it to 600(?). That ability alone made a druid or 2 invaluable to a zerg.

Spurnshadow.3678:

Few things:

There is more than one meta right now. Druids play a part in some.

TC has grown, but has a lot of toxic commanders, from what I hear. There must be a guild you can join that will be more welcome to you. I doubt they are giving reapers a hard time, though.

Druids are amazing support class with decent damage and great CCs, but they’re best utilized in zerg fights as frontline. As everyone has said over the last 4 years, the longbow is a fine weapon, but as far as overall dps, other classes do it better. If you’re pew pewing a single target from the sidelines, then, no, you’re not contributing as much as you could dps wise. Your pet is useless, so your classes “special” stuff can’t be utilized. A staff is best utilized at a 900 unit range minimum. Glyphs are awesome, but they have a short range, so you need to play on tag.

I’d suggest looking at your build, changing to a frontline druid and advertising yourself as such. They do medium dps with amazing support with 0 healing power. If you insist on playing druid, and still are getting crap from every commander on TC (statistically unlikely, but I don’t play on that server) then change servers.

I am in 3 of the top guilds on TC and they have no problem with me or my playstyle. I do sometimes get yelled at to change classes, but then its only by maybe two of the commanders in one specific guild, and only then because we are losing when outnumbered.

As far as running frontline, i tried it and didnt like it. I run full glass and honestly (not tooting my own horn here)…. im usually one of the last if not the last person to go down.. most of the time.

The problem is as i said, with those “toxic” commanders on TC that make it impossible to play because of their constant ranting about medium and light armor classes.

And to the person that said “i doubt they didnt want necros” or whatever.. yeah.. these commanders are not even allowing most necros to run with them usually. I have a few necro friends that got kicked the same day i did, and again several times the following weeks.

They want only Guards, Warriors, and staff elem. They have even threatened to kick people from TS when they asked why they were kicked from Squad after joining. The thing that bothers me is that they are so concerned with the “Meta” when that what they are actually running would seem to me like the old “Hammer and anvil” meta from years back… full melee train GVG style stuff.. but.. then again thats just me i guess.

I reported all that happened to the guild leaders and TS leaders and nothing happened, it only got worse because they chose to defend them saying that “it’s their raid, they can do what they want.”

If someone is running an open raid on and open map with open join, shouldn’t that mean that all classes are invited… yet when people join they get kicked, told to reroll or uninstall. And it didnt stop there… i have been constantly harassed in the past few weeks (as well as many others) by members of these guilds in open chat and in private tells.

Maybe its just the few toxic commanders we have… but i would like to know if there will be any fixes to make these classes viable. It seems that this has gone on for years.

As i said before.. i wont mention any names, i just want to know if there are any plans to buff medium and light armor classes so we wont get this kind of harassment in wvw gameplay.

Someone said also.. " The OP must be new to WvW" On that i say no. I have been playing wvw since day 1. But I am only rank 2700+ because i left for a while.

Before.. I played staff elem only and was a water bot for my previous guild… which as you know, got you almost no rank before the changes a few months back. (didnt get credit for any of the kills like you do now)

I took a year and a half off from the game because of personal health issues and the loss of a PC, but i have been back for a little over a year now.

McWolfy.5924:

Rangers never was the part of the meta. I changed after a year

I agree there to a point. I refused to play Ranger back in vanilla because it was just boring. The sword leap was especially troubling because for faster targeting i left auto target on and when I would leap to escape… BOOM.. right back in the middle of the zerg.

With druid however that all changed… i rolled ranger when i came back (anticipating the changes they had coming for HoT) and i can say i love mine.

I can stand under at least 3 arrow carts full fire and heal my squad with waters and celestial skills and keep them up. I can block incoming snipes to the commander with staff 5 and run in, drop water for them to blast and then escape if needed, and i am full glass.

My heals (even small ones from my staff through the squad, give every member i heal another 600 point heal when they attack and also blinds the target (if you kite right, thats a lot of heals and blinds going off)

The damage from my longbow with rapid fire can down 5 clothies at range and cripple on barrage is great for slowing a push, stripping stab or even just slowing the runners down as they escape.

My water field also clears conditions every pulse and i have 2.. Staff 5 and well spring. Both are blastable but only spring clears condies. My weapon swap (because of the sigil i run) also heals, and my staff 3 does about 3k heal on completion to all around me.

Pets are good also as i run guard.. i know they die fast but with guard, if i send in my wyvern… he gets to you and does a aoe knockdown plus with guard popped.. every time he gets hit i get might…. so in a zerg when i know hes going to die.. i send him in to pop wells, marks etc.. get 25 stacks of might in like.. a second sometimes and i hit like a truck.. all while skirting the outside and usually never taking damage.

I use the bristleback for ranged dps since he always stays at range and his skill does almost as much damage as my base longbow rapid fire, without the bonuses, and leaves a bleed on the target. He also has good armor and takes a while to kill.

Ranger downed skills are also nice.. i can usually get myself up as well with pet heal if i last long enough to get it off. Swap to staff and get away as soon as im up.

I could go on.. but you see my point. I know the class.. know how to play, yet people say they are not viable.

Maybe it is just the few toxic commanders.. as the groups i usually run with seem to love the heals and the fact that im verbal on TS when doing them.. the damage i do alone (even without the heals) seems to make the class very strong.

Not all commanders, or servers are this way. I even at times will Tag up on my front line druid build. KoR on IOJ Hosts Ranger/Druid Zerg nights that I have had the honor to tag up for as well.

TLDR come to IOJ we do ranger zergs!

why you dont go roaming instead of following zerg? Druid is one of best classes in small scale now

davidiven.9408:

why you dont go roaming instead of following zerg? Druid is one of best classes in small scale now

Because he wants to play the game Anet intended us too. In a skillless kittening blob that ktrains kitten and takes WvW super cereal.

kitten on the meta, Druids are amazing mid liner combat units and they can heal quite effectively with their glyphs, if you have the healing seed thing traited.