Guild Wars 2

They might be viable, if there’s only 3/4 of them unlike Thieves, even with Venom share being baseline, nobody wanted that in WvW.

Thieves are basically gank/stealth (with ICD) and blast finisher bots, there’s not much else going for them and then most things can one shot a thief anyway.

That tells you a lot about the meta in large scale fights; alot of long duration boons, and AOE, why you still see alot of pirate shipping.

The pro zerg Druid Kool-Aid is strong in this thread. Impressive to see this particular delusion in full effect.

I suppose a glyph Druid could out heal an Ele, but no way can they come close to the DPS, CC, boon, field generation and mobile artillery battery that an Ele is. Ele healing is almost a bonus given all the other tools they bring to a fight.

Druids have limited boon and boon sharing, their pets eat buffs and outside of the Druid trait line their other lines aren’t very group friendly. Even their CC management is pretty weak.

Nobody decides “meta”. Meta is simply a consensus on what is thought to be most effective across a large number of people. Druids are extremely powerful in small scale and don’t go thinking that small scale has little impact. In a perfect world where people cooperate and make use of fields, a single staff ele will out-heal a number of druids. Sadly this is not a perfect world so we have to make do.

From what I have seen, TC melee trains are either lacking backline damage and/or frontline melee. You can heal all day but will never win if you can’t pressure the opponent. As a result, commanders asking or telling druids to get on a different class is simply on-the-fly prioritising. The way they are treating you is more out of frustration. As far as necromancers go, nevrr heard any complaints about them except for when they aren’t doing their jobs.

TC needs more boonshare mesmers (not just mesmers in general) … coupled with some high output dmg dealers. There already plenty of guards and rev’s. Silly thing is most people don’t actually follow the meta too hard – even on meta builds. When guilds plan to raid, they try to take advantage of some of the optimal builds and professions. Hence why I’ll run on guard/rev or necro for guild runs. But love my war + necro for small scale. Try not to bring those to guild runs because … well … it’s not taking advantage of the optimal composition you can plan, build around and work with in team play/guild runs. i find the constant turnover of squad members makes this job to build around much more difficult for commanders who assume people are running one thing, when they may not be.

What’s important to you? Personal perfection, or group synergy? Sounds like you personally enjoy more of the small scale playstyle, but ‘want’ to help the commander and their zerg.

Also … noting you are one of the last to die is moot. I’d be impressed if your the last to die while outputting high dps… but I see alot of people who run around and play their survival while not laying down nearly enough output. Myself included when I’m on guard, in a commanders party… because I want to be sure the commander doesn’t go down and I provide the right boons at the right time.

I do see some amazing small scale builds that fit right into roles… because those players have honed there skills to be able to fill those roles. In fact, there’s a scrapper who I find lays out impressive frontline dmg and support while he just runs around tagging everyone. And he’s in one of your 3 guilds btw …

I find there is an abundance of support classes playing, with a tiny amount of actual dmg players. Everyone busy supporting everyone else …. no one killing the enemies.

To me this tells me to log on my necro … a I’d be hard pressed to find any commander that would turn away a necro with so little dmg output on the table atm. If they want proof, I’d be happy to pvp them… but lucky for Necro … they make up the N in GREN.

One thing I definitely agree on … is that I believe if a player ‘knows’ his profession and has a deep understanding of the traits, they can play far more optimal then throwing 3 lemmings into a meta build with little to no knowledge. I’ve seen plenty of decent small scale teams do very well against larger forces including a staff druid who I saw take out 3 opponents. My jaw hit the floor, and while I have never made a ranger in all gw2 history, I was tempted.

I feel bad for the druid/rangers… because there are some really good players but over the years i felt they always been the ones people hating on. They more optimal for pick teams and team play…

I don’t think TC’s problem is a lack of backline at the moment so much as it is in general a lack of competent players and players in general. The fact that I’ve been in groups of 3 or 4 pugs which have been more effective against groups of 20+ than our seemingly new/novice tags this week indicates something is definitely different/wrong, and NA prime pretty much every day the past week has been us with the outnumbered buff.

The irony with TC is everyone got raged at for not playing a guard because a few weeks ago we didn’t have enough. So a huge number of backline and periph players rerolled with the massive nerfs to ele and thief into guards, and now there are too many guards.

There’s absolutely merit in running prominent builds, simply because they typically are bandwagoned and define the meta for the very reason that either they are just objectively stronger classes or make an optimal group. That said, being a novice at a dominant profession in large-scale combat typically causes performance losses over just being excellent at something outside of the meta. I’m a horrible frontline guard or even tank player in general, but when I played thief before the nerfs, it was very uncommon for me to not to down 4 or 5 people as soon as the groups engaged, or at least force the backline into scattering and thus not doing damage.

The thing about playing something that isn’t in the meta is that it actually does demand better play, because if it isn’t in the meta, it is by definition countered by more things at an increased likelihood than it isn’t. When doing so, one needs to be mindful of why it isn’t in the meta, and then find ways to exploit weaknesses in his enemy while not hurting his own members to still make it so he has an impact in a given fight to warrant use.

The case of some extra stability and a few seconds of protection on my guard versus four of five downed backliners on my thief was a worthwhile trade for most people I ran with who had a basic understanding of what I was contributing. The occasional claims along the lines of “sometimes I do a lot of damage and down someone on my own” or “I seem to be contributing a lot from my perspective” aren’t good enough. To play well outside the confines of what’s considered optimal, you need to match those performance benchmarks or exceed them and understand why. If not doing so, you’re already a liability, regardless of how it may seem. That’s why rangers are often so heavily excluded; I’ll be honest and be forthcoming saying it’s very easy to kill things, particularly in PvE, with a longbow ranger (I have personally soloed meta events like Vinetooth on mine). Many new rangers to WvW think that they’re contributing a lot because every so often they dump a big RF into a frontliner and he goes down. The symptoms of “sometimes I do a lot of damage and contribute just fine” end up from their perspective invalidating the even more concerning aspect of the fact their damage is invisible when it’s being reflected back into their own groups. With all the particle effects and general cluster of skills happening in the frontline, it’s hard to pick out when or when not to use such abilities. Many often go alone the premise of “it seems fine so I’ll use it” rather than holding off on the principle of “I don’t know if it’s fine or that it will be fine to RF right now.” A reflect can be used at any time. Your commander’s invuln might be almost over and the enemy might go ham on reflects as soon as RF starts. There’s no knowing. And a player that doesn’t observe this is probably going to get his allies hurt.

Straegen.2938:

their pets eat buffs

no they don’t

and yep. Thing that could be easily solved with reverting the nerfs to lingering light(druid) so it can heal more consinstenly, revert the nerf to Seeds of life(druid) so we have a reason to use the glyphs and bring back Spirits Unbound trait and revert the nerfs to the spirits (ranger)

Those utilities\traits were designed as group support and when someone at anet decided to gutted them they completely destroyed the group builds for the ranger\druid.

Jim Hunter.6821:

Straegen.2938:

their pets eat buffs

no they don’t

Correction, not anymore. They used to count towards the 5 target limit for boons and heals, so as a Ranger your pet could have gotten something that was meant for somebody else, so it got frustrating. But since the fix to targeting to where it prioritizes players over NPCs/Minions, they no longer do this.

Hi OP.

Let’s put things in technical perspective. If you are running a zerg of let say, 40 and that zerg of 40 has 15 druids, you think any sane commanders will not tell them to swap? While druid has their own uses, too many of it will just simply make the zerg worthless. As for why technically it will make the zerg worthless, try looking at every single class and their skill sets. Also, you mentioned you are a team player but the way you complaining about commanders wanting to have the best compositions and also refusal to use any other classes don’t make you anything close to a team player.

ah the Ranger/Druid saga continues… Of all my classes, and I have them all, I still love my Ranger, now Druid, the most. Thanks to Jim and a couple of others I have tweaked it and it’s one nasty small to medium beast now. I’ve even had comments asking me how the h_ll did I survive when others died… and killed people. If I do ‘join’ a zerg it’s just tagging along and not joining the squad. I don’t need that to enjoy what I do. Get smokescale and bristleback and of course that nasty staff. The stats on the staff don’t appear to give you a lot of damage.. but when you hit someone with it.. it hurts.

Hey make a group of Rangers… we had like 6 Rangers/Druids running in a small group around DBL and took down this group of 12-15 3 times before they brought more people and “taught us a lesson”.. lol

I understand what the zergs want and need, and truly at the end of the day it’s not the Druid on the front line. Ya we can take out things from a distance, and power down this guy and that guy, but zergs want boon share, and the type of healing that comes from ele’s, guards, and even revs.

As some people have said, just play your style and enjoy it. If a zerg is ok with you in squad then power to ya… for me I only join a squad with my Ranger if the commander knows me… otherwise I mostly pewpew what I can and scout a lot for other map issues to report, and of course stragglers that need a quick shot in the… butt…

Balthazzarr.1349:

…I’ve even had comments asking me how the h_ll did I survive when others died…

it’s pretty simple to answer that. if you keep yourself to the deepmbackline using your pewpew lb at 1800 most probably you wont get hurt.
And because you are in the same block as necros and eles even the hunting thieves will choose other targets over you.

So that’s why you survive. That or you go with the tag plus ultra tank cheesy build that deal no damage. Either case your impact in the enemy zerg is minimal.

No big zerg, I’m not saying that. I’m not talking about a backline.. I’m talking about fighting right in the middle of a group of about 15 with a group of almost that much with me. I killed 3 people before they got me. No backline here, just in your face skirmish.

All kinds of explanations… hmmm.. nobody shot at me cause I was invisible the whole time? I dodge and weave like Ali?.. oh you say because they saw a Ranger they ignored me? Well that’s just awesome if it’s true and not very smart on their part since any class is very dangerous if you ignore it!

Or maybe I just fight with my class not too bad and put out a lot more damage than you think can be done. Either way the bottom line is, as I have even said above, it’s great for roaming and smaller groups… and I agree it’s not the best choice for supporting fellow drones in a zerg. Just a lot of fun, for me anyway.

As I don’t have HoT (and probably wont for quite awhile.) I actually switched back to my Ranger since I came back.

I’m using a off the wall double longbow zerker build. It’s sole purpose is to drop a arrow barrage every 9 seconds. It’s hard to gauge the actual effectiveness of DPS pressure, but I feel like I’m doing pretty good. Besides, even if I had HoT I doubt I would run Druid. DPS power ranger is what I play, not heal bot. That’s what ele’s are for.

Lorelei.3918:

I’m using a off the wall double longbow zerker build.

I did this a long time ago when QD was first implemented – although I was using RF more often as a periphery-bomb (there were a lot fewer reflects in the meta/game at the time). It’s a lot of fun to see all the numbers, though it has some pretty severe issues in terms of lacking damage and utility to the rest of the group. Though this is more group-specific.

I swear if I ever hear a ranger or druid complain…
Nearly every class scales rather badly in zergs, so what?
And the moment my class isn’t as useless as it is now against bunker druids I will personally dedicate my life to kill each and every druid I see.
I’m not sure what’s the most OP class right now, but I guess it’s druid. Berserker is pretty bad alone – 4 people to kill one druid, 6 people letting 2 berserker run free cause we’re unable to kill them. GG, anet, GG. (yes, I just rage quit wvw) (because of a druid).

And if I ever decide to become a commander I will kick each and every druid and ranger out of my squad. Because I can’t understand how people can have fun with these faceroll builds – “Oh i’m such a pro, killed them with my faceroll build!”.

Jana.6831:

I swear if I ever hear a ranger or druid complain…
Nearly every class scales rather badly in zergs, so what?
And the moment my class isn’t as useless as it is now against bunker druids I will personally dedicate my life to kill each and every druid I see.
I’m not sure what’s the most OP class right now, but I guess it’s druid. Berserker is pretty bad alone – 4 people to kill one druid, 6 people letting 2 berserker run free cause we’re unable to kill them. GG, anet, GG. (yes, I just rage quit wvw) (because of a druid).

And if I ever decide to become a commander I will kick each and every druid and ranger out of my squad. Because I can’t understand how people can have fun with these faceroll builds – “Oh i’m such a pro, killed them with my faceroll build!”.

oh you again with this song. Look, reroll a druid so you understand the class and stop writing things like 7k-8k staff auto.

back in topic as i said, ranger and druid had a very interesting choices of skills and traits that made the class a team player, focused in support. But the skills and class got gutted in some later on nerfs that left the class as a solo by myself kind of play.

Reverting those points would make the vanilla ranger morw wanted (mobile spirits) and allow the druid to have a build for groups\squads (lingering light and verdant etching)

the ranger\druid will still lack damage but i at least it would have an spot as group support.

The also pet needs to be traited for it’s survivavility thus doesn’t have access to evades and cleanses\stun breakers so it doesn’t die instantly at the sight of an enemy zerg.

anduriell.6280:

Jana.6831:

I swear if I ever hear a ranger or druid complain…
Nearly every class scales rather badly in zergs, so what?
And the moment my class isn’t as useless as it is now against bunker druids I will personally dedicate my life to kill each and every druid I see.
I’m not sure what’s the most OP class right now, but I guess it’s druid. Berserker is pretty bad alone – 4 people to kill one druid, 6 people letting 2 berserker run free cause we’re unable to kill them. GG, anet, GG. (yes, I just rage quit wvw) (because of a druid).

And if I ever decide to become a commander I will kick each and every druid and ranger out of my squad. Because I can’t understand how people can have fun with these faceroll builds – “Oh i’m such a pro, killed them with my faceroll build!”.

oh you again with this song. Look, reroll a druid so you understand the class and stop writing things like 7k-8k staff auto.

back in topic as i said, ranger and druid had a very interesting choices of skills and traits that made the class a team player, focused in support. But the skills and class got gutted in some later on nerfs that left the class as a solo by myself kind of play.

Reverting those points would make the vanilla ranger morw wanted (mobile spirits) and allow the druid to have a build for groups\squads (lingering light and verdant etching)

the ranger\druid will still lack damage but i at least it would have an spot as group support.

The also pet needs to be traited for it’s survivavility thus doesn’t have access to evades and cleanses\stun breakers so it doesn’t die instantly at the sight of an enemy zerg.

I would like to mention, at least in the other ranger thread which I am thinking of, Jana did not post the 7-8k auto claim. That was someone else. That said, the number typically hovers between 3 and 5k on the bunker build, depending on opponent.

The bunker druid is actually objectively overpowered in small scale, though.
But so is anything with tons of boon access. It’s not so much the druid itself but the boons access + sustain it has on top of the kit it has access to. Take any one of those away and it’s relatively fine. It’s essentially D/D celestial bunker ele except with ranged damage, no-investment damage via the pet, and some of the best mobility in the game.

I don’t think anyone really can argue giving the druid some mobility as a poor choice. The pet is a problem which extends from the design of the core ranger, and the druid is based on sustain and support.

So really, it’s just a matter of boons, and when you look into pretty much every dominant build that’s ever been dominant on this scale (outside of blatantly mathematically overpowered ones like shoutbow), they all have one thing in common which sets them over the tipping point: boons on an intrinsically sustain-heavy kit.

The thing is that the druid does not have the same weaknesses as these other designs. Prior boon-heavy builds mostly did not have major mobility capabilities, and thus, could get shut down by a thief or necromancer (which I’m not saying is good design; quite the contrary which is why I think boon-dependence is bad in concept). The druid, however, has quite tremendous mobility and range, making the hard-counters to boons less effective an in some respects, even hard-countered themselves.

The simple fact is, a druid simply isn’t needed in large scale public zerg fights as any potential roles it fulfills are performed better by other classes.

In large scale zerg fights, it’s all about the boons, CC and AoE damage. Any class incapable of providing these things on a substantial scale isn’t really part of the large scale “meta”. Thieves aren’t “meta”, engi/scrappers aren’t “meta” and druids aren’t “meta” all for similar reasons: because they’re competing for spots in a group when any potential roles they fulfill are simply performed better by other classes, or other classes offer more by way of versatility.

Is it possible to play a “backline druid” without being completely dead weight? Sure. But you’ll probably be inherently contributing less than other, meta classes around you. Highlighting this is not a slight on the player personally; it’s just the way the class works even when played to its absolute fullest capacity when compared with other things. The singles you pick off with a longbow are either going to get rezzed or their loss is going to be inconsequential to the outcome of a fight anyway whereas the elementalist next to you who just downed 5+ people with a single meteor shower is pulling a lot more weight. The water fields you provide can be provided by elementalists just as well. The barrage you use on downed enemy groups would be a lot more effective if it were a lava font, meteor shower or necro wells.

You say “WvW is meant to be all-inclusive” but that’s an opinion and not fact. Commanders run their squads the way they want to and not all commanders and guilds have the same mindset when playing the game mode and as a player it is important to recognize that. Some commanders play “for fun” and let people run whatever they want. That’s great and all and maybe they’ll even win some fights if they outnumber their opponents or are fighting similarly disorganized militia groups. As soon as they come up against a highly organized group though they’ll likely be punished for playing suboptimally. Other commanders/guilds are only having “fun” when they’re winning fights, on the other hand, and treat WvW as a competitive PvP game mode. They will prioritize winning fights at any cost and by ensuring people are running meta classes with solid builds which are in synergy with their party and the rest of the group more broadly.

You’ll often notice a lot of the hardcore fights players with the latter mindset rarely, if ever, follow the “play whatever you want for fun” commanders; myself included. The reason for this is often that we recognize our approaches are completely different and our mindsets are often incompatible. We’d not have fun following such a group and the group wouldn’t have fun if such players became vocal and criticized their approaches or composition. The same should be expected to be true if you’re a casual player and you’re attempting to follow a more hardcore group. If you’re not willing to deal with the personal criticism that often comes with the territory or being told to switch classes for the wider benefit of the group overall and removed from the squad, you should simply stay away and follow the “for fun” commanders or form your own group and run it the way you want. You have no inherent right or entitlement to be in our squad or to play with us if you’re not willing to conform to the group’s approach and playstyle and you shouldn’t expect the commander and/or group to change their mindset purely to accommodate you, just as we don’t expect other commanders to change their approaches to accommodate us either.

As an aside, I define “team player” as someone who is versatile and willing to play whatever class would benefit the group most in any given situation. My main is obviously elementalist, but you’ll sometimes see me play guardian, necro, revenant or whatever else is needed by the group at the time despite me often having a lot less personal fun performing those roles. Ranger/Druid is actually my preferred 2nd/off-main which I use in sPvP a lot but rarely bring to WvW because I recognize its limitations. This is playing for the team. People who are rigid and almost militant in their class choices are not team players and are usually very undesirable to have around for almost any group. If you truly wish to be a team player, consider the needs of the team first and foremost and be flexible in your class selection and what role you play so you can, for example, hop on a guardian occasionally when the group is crying out for them, rather than staying fixed into playing longbow zerk druid come hell or high water. Only then will you gain respect as a player among more hardcore groups. If that’s too much for you, just stay away from us and continue playing how you want elsewhere because you’re not going to change our approach to WvW which we’ve held for 4 years just as we’re seemingly not going to change yours.

With love!
- Tiff

@Tiffanny… Well said, and I agree. As much as I love my Ranger I put it on the shelf and bring out the Rev when it’s time for some zerg droning. Much more fun with that baby on the front line. Then again if I really really just want to run my Ranger I either do the roaming thing with a few others, or just run quietly on the backline of a zerg for some fun without joining the squad.

Despite Tiff being right that the Druid is just out classed in usability. Let’s discuss the type of player that goes to Druid/ranger. Most of them/you (Truefailure) tend to be the guys who can’t grasp proper movement for classes that have short range (necro @ 900) and so you had to go for something with 1500 range. With that amazing range however you manage to get even further out of position and then are even less useful. Ranger/Druid can be OK from time to time but is sub optimal. But most people end up being a sub optimal player like the “True….” I can’t be bothered to remember the rest of your name" who dies on inc and is just a liability to be resed by the people who understand how to move and be useful.

Nimbl.8957:

Let’s discuss the type of player that goes to Druid/ranger. Most of them/you (Truefailure) tend to be the guys who can’t grasp proper movement…

The irony is strong with this one.

DeceiverX.8361:

….

Actually the boon problem just happen to any heavy boon class in game. Herald, mesmer and guardian also suffer of this problem. But as many people in the forums already said would suffice to make the strongest boons (resistance, protection and quickness) to not stack in duration to fix this. The bunker druid has 3 sources of protection + runes: when dodge, pasive by the GM trait, shout protect me and runes of durability. All of them are very short in duration, 3 seconds, and have long CD (20 seconds). So by each the procs are balanced but when you can stack you may get almost permanent protection.

So nerfing the strongest boons in game to not stack should fix thus boon share meta, thus the bunker druid.

the bunker druid does neligible damage with the weapons, being the pet the only source of damage. But the problem with the pet is more complex than just nerf it, because the pet is the main mechanic of the ranger and is supposed to make up for a 30% of our total dps (in reality not true). If Anet decided to nerf the pet may as well get rid of them for good.
I give some ideas a while ago https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Some-ideas-about-the-Pets/

Other than that players must realice the ranger is the worst dps in game and has no real defensive skills. So if you do less damage than your enemy so you can not pressure him to retreat and your pet is a very unreliable source of damage you are always forced to go bunker.
And there is no other choice when druid is about.

Tiffany.8576:

T….

wvw isnt all about damage, that only work with pugs. if the ranger could get the pet mechanica actually to work, and give back the support traits and skills and the Druid their group oriented skills and traits the Druid and the vanilla ranger could have a place in a zerg.

Druid is almost there with lunar impact and rejuvenating tides but it needs a bit more, Druid more in line of the heal and cleanses for the group and ranger in terms of group buffs.
I don’t think a plain dps increase would help the class to be wanted. Give the rangers the domain over the spirits and the druid over the life. Lingering light was so good in the betas….

anduriell.6280:

…
Other than that players must realice the ranger is the worst dps in game and has no real defensive skills. So if you do less damage than your enemy so you can not pressure him to retreat and your pet is a very unreliable source of damage you are always forced to go bunker.
…

I can’t tell if this is sarcasm or not.

The bunker build does plenty of damage; capped 25 might literally gets it around 3/4 of where a full berserker build would be when not running so much boon sharing. It’s not uncommon to take an RF for 7-9k from the bunker build. That’s a ton of damage from something built almost entirely defensively.

DPS means nothing in WvW, and ranger’s DPS isn’t the lowest, either – it’s got quite the lead on mesmer IIRC. Any mesmer will tell you that. The ranger has fairly decent access to burst damage despite its low AA performance across its weapon, and the staff’s AA is nothing to sneeze at – each cycle does more damage than the longbow, albeit a slightly lower DPS (but again, it doesn’t matter in PvP environments).

Prot + well-scaling Regen +Bark Skin + Heals + Stealth + Mobility + range and then very solid damage coming from the HoT pets pretty much mixes into a combination which cannot be bursted, cannot be sustained against, cannot be kited or reset, and cannot go all-in on. The boons come too fast for most removal capabilities, particularly since in order to strip boons, it requires stripping both the pet and the druid itself; realistically, only well of corrupting might be able to get a few boons, and that’s still pretty shaky.

The problem with this as well is that it pretty much creates an environment where the ranger and druid are going to stay weak in order to keep this build in line. Boon access across all classes should be substantially dropped – it’s not a problem exclusively with the druid, either – but having boons account for holes in the profession creates less build diversity by creating false choices; 25 might is pretty much always going to be better than any other trait line when it comes to damage. If bundled with defensive capabilities, it ends up being a very obvious choice. The contemplation of making the sacrifice to damage or defense at the gain of the opposite should always be necessary on every profession.

Honest John.4673:

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.

Right on.
That sentence should be /endthread.

JDjitsu.7895:

Honest John.4673:

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.

Right on.
That sentence should be /endthread.

That sentence is correct. However it does not end the thread. This thread is also about what it would take to make Rangers more desirable in WvW content.

Nimbl.8957:

Despite Tiff being right that the Druid is just out classed in usability. Let’s discuss the type of player that goes to Druid/ranger. Most of them/you (Truefailure) tend to be the guys who can’t grasp proper movement for classes that have short range (necro @ 900) and so you had to go for something with 1500 range.

lol… oh yes that describes EVERYONE that plays Ranger. No I simply like Ranger, always have, other games call them Hunter and so on. Nothing to do with not playing other classes. My other favorite class actually IS my Necro. Have a lot of fun with it and so on. But as the OP says, Ranger/Druid isn’t part of the Current Meta and could actually use some improvements to make it viable in a zerg. In the meantime we will pewpew where we can in small groups etc. and not because we can’t figure out other classes… really it’s just because it’s fun to play. If you can’t grasp that thought it’s ok though, I still respect the input you give that IS constructive.. when I find it.

DeceiverX.8361:

The bunker build does plenty of damage; capped 25 might literally gets it around 3/4 of where a full berserker build would be when not running so much boon sharing. It’s not uncommon to take an RF for 7-9k from the bunker build. That’s a ton of damage from something built almost entirely defensively.

DPS means nothing in WvW, and ranger’s DPS isn’t the lowest, either – it’s got quite the lead on mesmer IIRC. Any mesmer will tell you that. The ranger has fairly decent access to burst damage despite its low AA performance across its weapon, and the staff’s AA is nothing to sneeze at – each cycle does more damage than the longbow, albeit a slightly lower DPS (but again, it doesn’t matter in PvP environments).

Prot + well-scaling Regen +Bark Skin + Heals + Stealth + Mobility + range and then very solid damage coming from the HoT pets pretty much mixes into a combination which cannot be bursted, cannot be sustained against, cannot be kited or reset, and cannot go all-in on. The boons come too fast for most removal capabilities, particularly since in order to strip boons, it requires stripping both the pet and the druid itself; realistically, only well of corrupting might be able to get a few boons, and that’s still pretty shaky.

The problem with this as well is that it pretty much creates an environment where the ranger and druid are going to stay weak in order to keep this build in line. Boon access across all classes should be substantially dropped – it’s not a problem exclusively with the druid, either – but having boons account for holes in the profession creates less build diversity by creating false choices; 25 might is pretty much always going to be better than any other trait line when it comes to damage. If bundled with defensive capabilities, it ends up being a very obvious choice. The contemplation of making the sacrifice to damage or defense at the gain of the opposite should always be necessary on every profession.

No. Even before the boonshare meta and before the druid nerf, they were at best a niche class to use as a healer. Fact is, they don’t do much AoE damage and they don’t provide much in the way of party support that can outclass what other classes already bring (while at the same time those other classes bringing more AoE damage). Use your druid for small scale roaming where it dominates. Don’t bring it into the zerg where it’s useless.

What people sometimes fail to remember about WvW is that it depends strongly on teamwork and group synergy. If you want to bring whatever class you like, and run whatever build, that’s perfectly fine, you are free to bring a level 2 toon with no gear if you wanted.

But keep in mind in order to maximize the force you have, there are certain builds, and professions that simply work better then others. This is not something made up by players, this is just how the professions are designed. The reason GWEN classes (and now Revenants) have dominated the meta for WvW in regards to zerg fights for so long is simply because it works the best, there is tremendous group synergy in those professions in terms of damage, sustainability, and support.

Rangers are not useless, they can do many things in WvW. They are good for pick teams, can scout, are great for roaming, and can use pets to eat up aoes, and now with druids they can bring a lot of support for groups that they could not in the past. That being said, all that can be outdone by other classes. Micromanaging a pet in zerg fights leaves people distracted, not to mention pets being pretty much useless in zergs. Ranger damage in zergs is no where near as good as revs, necros, or eles which can provide sustainable damage. Ranger healing can be outdone by an aurashare Ele which can be used in a frontline comp, that can also dish out damage and support like auras, and water fields. Pretty much any class can roam better then rangers, mesmers and thieves are much better at scouting, roaming, and ganking.

So again, its not that rangers are useless or that you shouldn’t play it if that’s what you like, just have to understand when it comes to wvw rangers are subpar, its not bias its just how the professions are designed. If a commander is trying to form a squad and has 20 rangers with them, well they might get a little understandably annoyed.

Ranger not a part of current wvw meta? What wvw meta were we ever part of?!

Reverence.6915:

DeceiverX.8361:

The bunker build does plenty of damage; capped 25 might literally gets it around 3/4 of where a full berserker build would be when not running so much boon sharing. It’s not uncommon to take an RF for 7-9k from the bunker build. That’s a ton of damage from something built almost entirely defensively.

DPS means nothing in WvW, and ranger’s DPS isn’t the lowest, either – it’s got quite the lead on mesmer IIRC. Any mesmer will tell you that. The ranger has fairly decent access to burst damage despite its low AA performance across its weapon, and the staff’s AA is nothing to sneeze at – each cycle does more damage than the longbow, albeit a slightly lower DPS (but again, it doesn’t matter in PvP environments).

Prot + well-scaling Regen +Bark Skin + Heals + Stealth + Mobility + range and then very solid damage coming from the HoT pets pretty much mixes into a combination which cannot be bursted, cannot be sustained against, cannot be kited or reset, and cannot go all-in on. The boons come too fast for most removal capabilities, particularly since in order to strip boons, it requires stripping both the pet and the druid itself; realistically, only well of corrupting might be able to get a few boons, and that’s still pretty shaky.

The problem with this as well is that it pretty much creates an environment where the ranger and druid are going to stay weak in order to keep this build in line. Boon access across all classes should be substantially dropped – it’s not a problem exclusively with the druid, either – but having boons account for holes in the profession creates less build diversity by creating false choices; 25 might is pretty much always going to be better than any other trait line when it comes to damage. If bundled with defensive capabilities, it ends up being a very obvious choice. The contemplation of making the sacrifice to damage or defense at the gain of the opposite should always be necessary on every profession.

No. Even before the boonshare meta and before the druid nerf, they were at best a niche class to use as a healer. Fact is, they don’t do much AoE damage and they don’t provide much in the way of party support that can outclass what other classes already bring (while at the same time those other classes bringing more AoE damage). Use your druid for small scale roaming where it dominates. Don’t bring it into the zerg where it’s useless.

Which is literally what I said and what I stated before as to why the druid doesn’t have a place in blobs.

Never have boon builds been dominant in large-scale, because only a few really important boons even are impactful; the rest is dependent on skill coefficients and raw durability in order to overcome the hurdles of dealing and receiving mass damage and corruption efforts. The ranger has one of these in a troll build (Nomad’s frontline GS tank), but its coefficients aside from its intermittent burst (even on more power-heavy buids) are low enough to not warrant play in ZvZ.

These kinds of boon sustain builds are what shine in small-scale and sPvP, which is also what I said.

And is further why I said the boons need to go; ranger is in a position due to the druid where it can’t see much of an increase in performance of its kit because if it got the coefficients or better support to have a spot in the zerg, its already-dominant roaming performance and low barrier of entry would make it even stronger than it is in small-scale.

TL;DR: Nerf boon access, buff ranger/druid mechanics in isolation.

Tiffany.8576:

With love!
- Tiff

Playing a backline druid is no where near dead weight. Sometimes i watch the frontline of the zerg enguage and never down a single player. Given… if they do this maybe twenty times you might get a down once in a while, but most commanders dont have the momentum to push through and actually kill someone. This is where the backline, mainly rangers and high dps classes come in.

Dropping to the side, rangers can be very effective in killing anyone in mid or backline and even sometimes downing 4-5 frontliners as you push through. Just because ranger doesn’t drop boons that get immediately stripped away in the first push, doesn’t make them any less effective. Actually.. druid are far more effective than any class at getting downs and finishing off downs in a zerg on zerg push, if they are following through and doing what they should be doing, which is killing anything that is low and nailing the downs so they they dont get a rez.

Boons are great.. stabo is great.. but really.. how long to they last in “todays meta” seriously. You push in (and ive seen this numerous times) and your boots get corrupted by any necro worth his salt and everyone starts dropping and yelling for waters… By this time.. the zerg has pushed through you like tin foil and has killed most of your clothies.. elems etc and the saving grace is the few druids that i see you running that jump in, drop waters and staff five and heal the zerg while blocking damage.

Btw.. all classes have an AOE limit of 5 targets.. just like druid does. Yes your meteors may hit for 5k a tick on targets.. but ranger/druid arrows having piercing which also hits 5 targets every shot.. and sometimes i do around 15k-45k per rapid fire. I have rapid fired into a zerg and watched 5 people drop immediatly.. something i doubt you have ever done on your elem.

And as for your static field… they can see the rings and usually walking or roll right through that, stripping no stab while barrage hits a larger area (unless your traited for large spells) and strips stab not once on impact.. but every pulse with cripple which is why i drop it on the push most of the times or to cover downs so that anyone coming in to rez gets stab stripped and is an easy target.

And i can see where people swapping classes is great and i encourage people to do that if they can but unlike many, i dont have time to the cash to learn new classes the way i have learned ranger. Do i have other classes? Yes.. i have one of every class besides thief (cant stand the energy playstyle) yet i choose to play ranger/druid because i am very good at it and when played right i think it brings more than just another meat shield or water bot.

For any commander to kick or threaten a Druid who is doing seriously high dps and healing the team is beyond me. When you have 50+ people on you all playing what they like and actually doing well, I would personally think that you would encourage people to play high dps classes that can actually kill or finish the downs you make, if you actually make any on inc.

Having a full zerg of fontline will get you no where. You will eventually be killed by condi unless you have enough dps to counter the bombs they drop, and those are usually dropped right on top of the commander and the frontline. Watching melee train around for twenty minutes in a circle and eventually lose because they have no dps at all is not my thing and is really what is wrong with people on TC. Yes you need a strong frontline to protect mid and clothies,, but you need mid and clothies to actually win the battle.

Most importantly people need to realize that this game is intended to be fun. Dont let someone force you to play a class you do not like. You paid for the game, play what you want as long as you are good at it. Too many times i have seen people swap to frontline from a class they play very well, only to get smashed and yelled at by commanders for not knowing how to play the class or just making simple mistakes that are common because they do not know the class as well as people who play it more.

If you want a more effective group (and i think you have seen this in the last few weeks as i have played with you and others as well) allow people to play what they want and what they are good at. I would much rather see people playing classes they know well than 30 people running around dying because they get boon stripped and dont have the sustain to counter bombs on the first push.

cafard.8953:

Ranger not a part of current wvw meta? What wvw meta were we ever part of?!

Aye, i admit this.. Druid was the saving grace for rangers IMO. I also admit that until i came back a little over a year ago (was gone about a year due to health and pc issues) that i hated ranger.

Before.. rangers were so bad that i refused to even play them. Yes i had one, but bow and short bow or bow and sword were pretty bad.

IMHO druids are in a really good place right now but there are still many people that play them badly which is why people tend to down them in wvw.

They are amazing is played correctly however (as stated in my post above) and more people need to actually play them on TC.

I think the thing that used to kill ranger class for me was the shortbow build and the “thump thump thump” when you would shoot. It was literally so boring it would put me to sleep.

Now with piercing arrows and improved healing and (*yes i will say it) the few boons and procs we bring to allies nearby in longbow, staff and celestial form, druids make a really needed dps/heals/group addition to the group, no matter what people say.

X T D.6458:

What people sometimes fail to remember about WvW is that it depends strongly on teamwork and group synergy. If you want to bring whatever class you like, and run whatever build, that’s perfectly fine, you are free to bring a level 2 toon with no gear if you wanted.

But keep in mind in order to maximize the force you have, there are certain builds, and professions that simply work better then others. This is not something made up by players, this is just how the professions are designed. The reason GWEN classes (and now Revenants) have dominated the meta for WvW in regards to zerg fights for so long is simply because it works the best, there is tremendous group synergy in those professions in terms of damage, sustainability, and support.

Rangers are not useless, they can do many things in WvW. They are good for pick teams, can scout, are great for roaming, and can use pets to eat up aoes, and now with druids they can bring a lot of support for groups that they could not in the past. That being said, all that can be outdone by other classes. Micromanaging a pet in zerg fights leaves people distracted, not to mention pets being pretty much useless in zergs. Ranger damage in zergs is no where near as good as revs, necros, or eles which can provide sustainable damage. Ranger healing can be outdone by an aurashare Ele which can be used in a frontline comp, that can also dish out damage and support like auras, and water fields. Pretty much any class can roam better then rangers, mesmers and thieves are much better at scouting, roaming, and ganking.

So again, its not that rangers are useless or that you shouldn’t play it if that’s what you like, just have to understand when it comes to wvw rangers are subpar, its not bias its just how the professions are designed. If a commander is trying to form a squad and has 20 rangers with them, well they might get a little understandably annoyed.

Totally forgot about the times i send my pet into clear all the marks, rings, red traps etc… maybe ill just run my range pet all the time and let the melee run though that so it eats all their stabo. =) thanks for reminding me lol

As far as their damage in zergs being no where near other classes.. i disagree.

My rapid fire is a few short cooldown, does GREAT damage and hits 5 targets. I can do it about once every 10 seconds or so.. while elem for example hit for maybe 5k a shot on fireball and everything else they have marks the ground so people with any brains just walk around it.

Revs are ok.. but they usually run frontline so they are up there getting stripped and bombed on by necros etc… their dps is good but no where near ranger from the ones i have faced. Yes they are a little tougher by build, but a full glass ranger can melt a rev and his friend in a hearbeat if he isnt on stack.

As far as healing, i tend to think of ranger healing as this.. if our elems drop all their waters and they other teams still bombing, thats when i jump in.. heal and get out. I am there to support the tag and frontline when needed while bombing them with full dps when im not. I have actually healed zergs with no elems and done rather well and im also there on the siege healing under arrowcart fire when the elems are too afraid to even get close to within range because of all the heat coming down.

Druids need more love. It’s not just a faceroll class … maybe in pvp.. dunno i haven’t done that in a while.. but it definitely takes some work to play it well in wvw and i think i do pretty good.

Reverence.6915:

DeceiverX.8361:

The bunker build does plenty of damage; capped 25 might literally gets it around 3/4 of where a full berserker build would be when not running so much boon sharing. It’s not uncommon to take an RF for 7-9k from the bunker build. That’s a ton of damage from something built almost entirely defensively.

DPS means nothing in WvW, and ranger’s DPS isn’t the lowest, either – it’s got quite the lead on mesmer IIRC. Any mesmer will tell you that. The ranger has fairly decent access to burst damage despite its low AA performance across its weapon, and the staff’s AA is nothing to sneeze at – each cycle does more damage than the longbow, albeit a slightly lower DPS (but again, it doesn’t matter in PvP environments).

Prot + well-scaling Regen +Bark Skin + Heals + Stealth + Mobility + range and then very solid damage coming from the HoT pets pretty much mixes into a combination which cannot be bursted, cannot be sustained against, cannot be kited or reset, and cannot go all-in on. The boons come too fast for most removal capabilities, particularly since in order to strip boons, it requires stripping both the pet and the druid itself; realistically, only well of corrupting might be able to get a few boons, and that’s still pretty shaky.

The problem with this as well is that it pretty much creates an environment where the ranger and druid are going to stay weak in order to keep this build in line. Boon access across all classes should be substantially dropped – it’s not a problem exclusively with the druid, either – but having boons account for holes in the profession creates less build diversity by creating false choices; 25 might is pretty much always going to be better than any other trait line when it comes to damage. If bundled with defensive capabilities, it ends up being a very obvious choice. The contemplation of making the sacrifice to damage or defense at the gain of the opposite should always be necessary on every profession.

No. Even before the boonshare meta and before the druid nerf, they were at best a niche class to use as a healer. Fact is, they don’t do much AoE damage and they don’t provide much in the way of party support that can outclass what other classes already bring (while at the same time those other classes bringing more AoE damage). Use your druid for small scale roaming where it dominates. Don’t bring it into the zerg where it’s useless.

Before HOT.. totally agree with you but many people dont realize what HoT did for rangers/druids.

Piercing arrows is the biggest update besides the staff heals for ranger class.

Being able to now hit 5 targets just like everyone else was a real game changer and our heals (if played correctly) can save a push.

A ton of people dont realize that every shot, even knockback now hits 5 targets and this is where people call druids/rangers single target classes. This simply isnt true anymore.

Yes there are a few condi rangers still (single target roamers that just eat you with sustain and condi) but this is not what im talking about in this post.

I play full dps/heals Druid.. not frontline tank.. not condi bomb heal wall.

Yes i admit, i dont bring those big boons like guardian that last 2 seconds to a group.. but i do bring things like crit on hit, heal on hit, blind on hit, condi clears, bleeds and more to people around me (not just in my party).

Any heal by me, be it water field, staff heal, flower wall staff 5 etc… all add a heal for you the next hit, increased crit damage as well as a target blind and i can reapply those every 3 secs.. (i think its every 2 maybe.. have to look later)

People also say we dont have the aoe needed.. as metor shower etc only effects 5 targets.. again.. i disagree. Im not even going to mention lava font because both you and i know people just walk around that. I point you again to piercing arrows and the short cooldown on rapid fire. Five targets, full dps, very short cooldown.. far shorter than any other aoe in game.

trueanimus.4085:

blah, blah,blah, wall of text

Dude please just stop… your posts are so full of misinformation it’s embarrassing.
If you want to play back line pew pew then give a hammer rev a try. CoR is rapid fire on half the cooldown, it’s not a series of projectiles so it’s not completely negated by any competent zerg the same way rapid fire is.
To top it all off rev’s have a bunch of passive damage modifiers that will boost your damage, they have roiling mists which will let you build tankier and still maintain 100% crit chance, and they are passively crapping out a bunch of useful boons including might to help out everyone around them.

This is coming from someone that has mained his ranger for years, when people say there are better options for zerging it has nothing to do with an irrational hatred of rangers, it’s simply the truth. This doesn’t mean you can’t make them work and have fun with them, it just means if you are serious about group comp there are better options.

That being said… no pug zerg should turn away anyone willing to help, that’s just a sure fire way to kitten over your server and lose bodies.

Jim Hunter.6821:

trueanimus.4085:

blah, blah,blah, wall of text

Dude please just stop… your posts are so full of misinformation it’s embarrassing.
If you want to play back line pew pew then give a hammer rev a try. CoR is rapid fire on half the cooldown, it’s not a series of projectiles so it’s not completely negated by any competent zerg the same way rapid fire is.
To top it all off rev’s have a bunch of passive damage modifiers that will boost your damage, they have roiling mists which will let you build tankier and still maintain 100% crit chance, and they are passively crapping out a bunch of useful boons including might to help out everyone around them.

This is coming from someone that has mained his ranger for years, when people say there are better options for zerging it has nothing to do with an irrational hatred of rangers, it’s simply the truth. This doesn’t mean you can’t make them work and have fun with them, it just means if you are serious about group comp there are better options.

That being said… no pug zerg should turn away anyone willing to help, that’s just a sure fire way to kitten over your server and lose bodies.

How is anything i have pointed out misinformation? Im not saying that they are better or worse that rev.. im just saying that we can do just as well as rev and have more to offer in the way of heals and actual sustainability.

I was replying to peoples posts that druids/rangers are single target no dps insta kills.. which is just not the case anymore. They are viable dps, heals and support and can do it all from ranged while not on the frontline soaking up your precious boons as you get 1 pushed as frontline.

And yes.. TC is suffering because a few commanders have been notorious for turning away rangers, necros and others. That will change soon hopefully as the offending guilds leave (one already has).

As i said above.. Druids are not the single target class they used to be and people need to stop hanging onto the “meta” from years gone by. (all frontline hammer train with necro wells)

Druids (and every class for that matter) has a place in a zerg… the commanders are the ones i think need to learn how to play and utilize those classes and actually win fights.

Do you know how easily druids can drop necros or any mid or cloth class in wvw? If not.. you might want to try it and see for yourself the kind of dps and heals we can do before you follow the status quo and just bandwagon on the hammer train.

Then again.. i grant you, you may have fun playing frontline.. many do and i respect that.. however all i am asking is that people dont harass the classes that are actually supporting them with heals and stripping stab.

Im sure that you would agree that a push into an enemy zerg is better if it lasts 3 mins for example and we actually win when compared to a 20 min battle with no dps or sustainable heals and we lose. Watching some of these commanders demand fontline on all classes and then watching them run in circles for 20 mins or more and still lose because the other team has more dps and dots just gets old after a while.

Ranger doesn’t deal the same or even more (aoe) dmg than other backline classes – this is simply a fact, a matter of given numbers, stating otherwise is nothing but misinformation. In addition, most of a longbow ranger’s dmg can be completely nullified by projectile destruction/reflection, which is quite common in zerg fights. In the worst case you are killing your own allies.
It is exactly how Jim Hunter said – you can have fun with a ranger in zerg fighs and pick of some targets with a dps build or provide decent healing with a support build – but other classes are better for large scale fights, especially when it comes to dps roles.

Druids are one of the top roaming classes though, so saying, ranger isn’t meta in WvW is not entirely true.

trueanimus.4085:

How is anything i have pointed out misinformation?

Okay first off, piercing arrows wasn’t added with HoT, rangers have had that for a long time. Rangers dps is garbage, it’s the 2nd worst in the game. I know people like to argue that this doesn’t matter in a PvP setting and they would usually be correct but it does matter in a zerg setting because your high damage skills are useless against competent groups and your pets are dead after the first push (also ruining all the traits and self buffs that are tied into the pets).

Running longbow in a zerg is actually in a much worse place than it was pre hot because of all the projectile hate that was added to the game. A coordinated group will negate 100% of your projectiles. This is why people ask for necro’s, rev’s, ele’s, for damage.

trueanimus.4085:

I point you again to piercing arrows and the short cooldown on rapid fire. Five targets, full dps, very short cooldown.. far shorter than any other aoe in game.

^Can you seriously say with a straight face that this isn’t misinformation?

trueanimus.4085:

Tiffany.8576:

With love!
- Tiff

Playing a backline druid is no where near dead weight. Sometimes i watch the frontline of the zerg enguage and never down a single player. Given… if they do this maybe twenty times you might get a down once in a while, but most commanders dont have the momentum to push through and actually kill someone. This is where the backline, mainly rangers and high dps classes come in.

Dropping to the side, rangers can be very effective in killing anyone in mid or backline and even sometimes downing 4-5 frontliners as you push through. Just because ranger doesn’t drop boons that get immediately stripped away in the first push, doesn’t make them any less effective.

Those are not valid points to support any argument. It comes across as pouring out of tears and nothing more.

While I find rangers useful for what they are supposed to do… you don’t make a zerg based on a pin sniping core. On top of that, far too many times, I see rangers not contributing nearly enough, yes it’s the back lines primary job to dish out dmg and finish downs. It’s the front lines job to break heads of large groups (preferably producing downs). Good players do this. Bad players do not. You say most commanders like your in t8, but guess what bad players exist on many servers. So do good players. it comes down to players paying attention and owning their roles, and being accountable for making sure they produce (whatever there job is). Meta’s are built of large group play… the defacto in past was that ranged dps … ele’s and necro’s take the cake because they spam AoE continuously. Rangers may be able to hit 5 people with piercing arrows which would be great for single file pressure. But dropping many AoE’s within a vacinity can produce more output to localize dmg output.

Think about how groups move when they engage eachother. They try to break lines through enemies groups to divide and conquer, they move from the ‘callout’ to the area you want to lay heavy dmg to force the enemy to scatter, where they can regroup /reset and push back. They want to create safe areas for there teams survivability while laying pressure to move the opponents force in a manner they don’t want to go in.

This is why other professions can do this better than the ranger/druid. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not one of those guys who hates on rangers at all. I think they are very useful in a good players hands for many reasons already listed. Personally though … that playstyle heavily favours pick teams versus zerg v zerg. If you have 25% of your group on rangers… and you are losing constantly on engages. It’s not just the rangers fault, but the people that are responsible for laying out the dmg altogether because the group is under-performing or not applying enough pressure. Typically rangers get singled out because of the nature of the arguement at hand.

To prove the validity of rangers and druids being in the meta, you would then have to prove how they excel over the other dmg dealers of the meta (GREN). Basically tell how Rangers are superior to either Ele or Necro … and provide reasons which prove the ranger excels at areas they provide to the group. If you have some nice healing plus the ability to lay heavy AoE… maybe try pick on the ele role and see what kinda comparison you can come up with.

Hell change the meta, and provide the supporting reasons why ‘new meta’ can beat old meta. I’ll give you a relative yet unusable example… in gw1 GvG scene the meta heavily favoured 2 monks, 1 E/Mo, 2 Wars, 1 Crip shot Ranger flag runner, and 2 ‘x’ either DMG, or boonstrip characters of choice. Most guilds ran with this … until out came the 8 man ranger spike team which could split squad 4 / 4 and down players easily in a time spike build. This changed the meta, and soon out came the Air Spike 8 Ele group (or 7 and a boonbot), then came the 8 IWAY Warriors… with each iteration of the meta, came a new iteration where the others could defeat the old meta because they excelled at something better. Find the ability to articulate that and theory craft, and put it to work in a real engage. You could be surprised with the results, but don’t be disheartened when things don’t work out, back to the drawing board.

This place likely is filled with theorycrafters, I’d bet most guild leaders who build comp all do it. Find a place for rangers in a new meta. That’s real power.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rapid_Fire

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Coalescence_of_Ruin

for the comparison as to what puck’s referring to

People need to remember that damage is not just about numbers, there are many factors involved that contribute to a skill being useful in a given situation. You have to consider these factors, line of sight, terrain, target selection requirement, facing target requirement, area of effect, combo fields, etc.

A ranger in a zerg will likely use a longbow, the skills require target selection and facing the target in order for the skills to go work properly, which can put the ranger at a great disadvantage when an enemy gets up close. A necromancer on the other hand with a staff can free cast marks and wells because there are no target requirements, they are also aoe and some have combo effects.

These are important things to consider when evaluating how useful a profession or build is for wvw, because of the constant movement and positioning for better terrain advantage. It’s a war of strategy not just mindless blobbing and skill spamming.

…And staff necro has worse damage than any ranger build. Almost all of the potential damage on staff necromancer comes from the AA chain, which is worse than ranger’s by miles and suffers from the targeting issue (although this can be negated on both classes via action camera). Everything about staff except skill 4 is pretty horrible in terms of dealing damage to enemies. Staff is useful in ZvZ only because of Soul Marks allowing for transfers and damage through blocks and giving the necro substantial lf gain from range/safety.

Wells and epidemic are what make necromancers useful in ZvZ. If we played in a game with no boons, they’d be below the thief and ranger for use in ZvZ.

See what I would do is just tag up and offer an option to follow a commander. People will naturally gravitate to the guy who is inclusive and encourages all forms of team play.

And then buddy with his “rules” will wonder where his blob went.

If you can’t join em, beat em.

A lot of people on here are saying stuff like “Play whatever you want, as long as you’re good at it.”

I say kitten that. Do whatever you want, play whatever you want, do stuff you enjoy even if you’re hella bad. Just play as well as you can, and if people kitten, ignore them, shut off TS, follow tags and groups without squadding up if you don’t feel like it, don’t give a crap about whether there’s a queue and you’re less skilled/less interested in the meta/less geared/less leveled/less whatever bullkitten anyone else cares about. If a zerg fails it isn’t because one person is bad, and if a bunch of people are bad, so what? It’s a game. It’s your game. Have fun.

Play within your own tolerance levels, not anyone else’s, and if their fun is that dependent on your behavior, they’re the ones with the priorities out of line. You paid for the thing either in real dollars or time spent, and you don’t owe anyone anything other than an honest effort when you choose to play.

DeceiverX.8361:

…And staff necro has worse damage than any ranger build. Almost all of the potential damage on staff necromancer comes from the AA chain, which is worse than ranger’s by miles and suffers from the targeting issue (although this can be negated on both classes via action camera). Everything about staff except skill 4 is pretty horrible in terms of dealing damage to enemies. Staff is useful in ZvZ only because of Soul Marks allowing for transfers and damage through blocks and giving the necro substantial lf gain from range/safety.

Wells and epidemic are what make necromancers useful in ZvZ. If we played in a game with no boons, they’d be below the thief and ranger for use in ZvZ.

If you’re using staff for damage as a necro, you are doing it so so wrong, though by all means continue.

Staff is there for 1. life force regeneration and 2. chill + fear marks. The main source of damage from a necro is on their wells and with their shroud mechanics for AoE and their axe for more targeted damage. A necro’s Axe 2 skill outdamages a ranger’s LB 2 skill by quite a lot in a zerg fight. Even in a 1v1 fight, I’d give it to the necro simply because a ranger/druid’s play style is so kitten binary and easy to read.

lolol… ok this is a funny one.. I’ve mained Ranger/Druid for ages… got a good build… but… lately I’m using my Necro. I see this post that basically says don’t use staff?

So this druid comes up to me 1v1 from behind, takes me half down, me and my staff with signets… and… Druid is OP? really? this guy must really suck then ’cause even half way down he was under my foot shortly while his pet tried to kiss my butt.

I took him 1/4 down with staff, another 1/2 with shroud, then switched back for fun and hit 2 3 4 staff then stomp… was not much of a fight really.

Like I said, he’s either that bad, or Druid isn’t as bad as all that… and I play one… but so far mine hasn’t fallen that fast to a Necro… so far.. :P

WARNING: Long post for OP but read it

This is a symptom of more “population capped” during blob time servers for sure.

I’ll try my best to explain why the commander is screaming at you to get off that Druid and get a Warr/Rev/Guard (or Ele/Necro) on. It’s simple really. The massive zerg blobs work far better the more heavy (and general AoE bomb, Staff Eles and Well Necros) classes there are. It’s that simple. WvW is not rocket science. It’s meant to be fun, I get it – but this is not the game that most WvW commander’s trying to zerg care about.

Mesmers are given a pass (only due to boon share and veil) to a degree. That pass will end if their boon share gets nerfed except for maybe except ~2 in an entire blob zerg. Chronos are better than that but perception is more important than reality.

Druids/Engineers/Thieves (all medium classes) all typically do not have the ability to have the requisite tankiness/stability/condition removal plus CC/DPS necessary for general blob WvW play. There are exception builds to all these classes but they are not as effective as the main ‘focus’ of bomb play. Don’t forget the projectile hate is rampant in current play so Druids are basically stuck with Staff spam too.

Here’s the thing, I run a Scrapper build and never get called out. You know why, I’ve earned it…it might have something to do with being Platinum rank too (which immediately gets you some credit) and then have a strong build for zerg (survive with solid stability (self) uptime/group condition removal and group stealth to save the tag plus two invulnerability windows. Do I have immediate resentment to new commanders? Sure but they would rather have WvW experience who knows what to do/where to go/sticks on the tag over another ‘perceived’ clown running an off meta build in the backline anyday.

Here’s how it happens. Your zerg blob wipes. The tactics for a zerg blob to succeed is basically secured by two things, blob class composition and numbers. If the numbers are equal because every server in matchup is in queue, the only other reason for loss of blob on blob fights is really your class composition (and commander/positioning but the latter more than makes up for that). Most commanders are running Guardians (for a very good reason) and you need to create your build aka ‘meta’ around that, especially for PUG’n.

Finally, pets suck – don’t kid yourself. And healing utility is a nice to have at best. You know what’s better though? Dead enemies.

Basically what I said early on in my anecdote about playing a thief in blobs.

If you do it really well, anything is acceptable to certain commanders. But that requires you not to screw up.

Spamming longbow on a ranger/druid makes it very easy to screw up from projectile hate alone. And quite honestly, most rangers just AA and RF into reflects and kill their allies. When your teammates are killing each other, there’s a good reason to be upset.

If you’re playing power longbow, you’re not contributing as much as you could be, particularly compared to staff. That’s a fact. Either you’re reflecting shots into your allies, or you’re simply not doing damage while waiting for reflects to go down. That said, hating on the ranger/druid itself universally is a rather poor thing to do if people instead play it other ways in a more conducive manner to the force.

trueanimus.4085:

Now with piercing arrows and improved healing and (*yes i will say it) the few boons and procs we bring to allies nearby in longbow, staff and celestial form, druids make a really needed dps/heals/group addition to the group, no matter what people say.

Frankly, with the amount of projectile hate in the game, LB is close to unusable in zerg fights. The staff may lack the punch, but at least it doesn’t get reflected into piercing 5 of your allies (or converted to heals by an opposing team druid). Sure, we’re not useless, but imho it’s fair to say that many classes bring more to the table. I love my ranger and play it most of the time because I enjoy it, but I still contribute more on a GWEN alt, even with precious little experience. They’re just flat out better at that type of fights.

We’re still pretty good roamers, but then, we’ve always been.