Guild Wars 2

I’ve heard a lot lately only one or two druids in full minstrel are needed for squad. No more and that’s why druids are not wanted anymore in any squad.

For healing commanders are asking eles and in some degree revs, but not druids.

Druids can be a great healers, it is true because the 15 seconds cd between avatars they can’t heal the zerg consistently and that’s a problem where combat can last more than 15 seconds but can that be the only reason?

It’s incorrect to believe that pumping more heals is going to be better for a comp’s ‘sustain.’ As you said, with the 15s cooldown, druid is more burst heals.

Resistance, and/or auras(protection traited too) provided by your counter examples help the party more than the pure heals from a druid. Even a mesmer’s veil reduces potential damage by a lot. Some still use mesmer to heal/boon share too…

There are multiple reasons:
Main reason: Pet
- your pet will get multiple conditions on it and get epid. Major target for condi necros. Pet wont get cleansed because its lower on cleanseshare than people.
Minor reason 1: lack of cc, damage and stomp potential
Melee eles run 2 invulns to stomp/ress with, druid has none. Only proper cc druid has is with entangling roots that are useless in zerg fights. Melee eles have shocking auras, frost auras, immobs.
Minor reason 2: lack of boonshare and cleanse:
Druids only share 3 boons with allies, sure they can give 10% damage boost but thats not enough to make up for lack of cleanse/boons. Trooper runes are not enough cleanse.

There are just better options. Hammer rev is worth 5 longbow rangers. Ventari rev is worth 5 healing druids

What do you mean “anymore”?

Druids have never been desired in the zerg. If you want healing, bring a couple of tempests with ~1200 hp and have them cycle fields so that they got both the backline (big water), frontline (small water) and the push (water overload) covered. With that they should also have enough offensive power to switch to fire and do massive area denial on downed groups.

anduriell.6280:

I’ve heard a lot lately only one or two druids in full minstrel are needed for squad. No more and that’s why druids are not wanted anymore in any squad.

For healing commanders are asking eles and in some degree revs, but not druids.

Druids can be a great healers, it is true because the 15 seconds cd between avatars they can’t heal the zerg consistently and that’s a problem where combat can last more than 15 seconds but can that be the only reason?

Minstrel druids are fine, but you do not do much damage. A druid is a great healer, but if you carry the longbow, you are also an excellent spiker/siege killer. Without any power stat however, you will not be helpful outside of healing.

I suggest you run Power, Toughness, Vitality and Concentration (Wanderer?) armor with Assassins + sigil of accuracy longbow and Clerics or Celestial trinkets + backpack.

Yes your healing goes down, but your versatility goes way way up. Also, if you run shouts, dont forget to run Rune of the Trooper for that AOE condi cleanse. great help in this condi heavy meta

Threather.9354:

There are multiple reasons:
Main reason: Pet
- your pet will get multiple conditions on it and get epid. Major target for condi necros. Pet wont get cleansed because its lower on cleanseshare than people.
Minor reason 1: lack of cc, damage and stomp potential
Melee eles run 2 invulns to stomp/ress with, druid has none. Only proper cc druid has is with entangling roots that are useless in zerg fights. Melee eles have shocking auras, frost auras, immobs.
Minor reason 2: lack of boonshare and cleanse:
Druids only share 3 boons with allies, sure they can give 10% damage boost but thats not enough to make up for lack of cleanse/boons. Trooper runes are not enough cleanse.

There are just better options. Hammer rev is worth 5 longbow rangers. Ventari rev is worth 5 healing druids

Please do not try to compare the functionality of a revenant to a druid/ranger. Totally different roles.

A ranger/druid has way higher spike, way higher range. Lower sustain and support for sure. And while it might be a bug, LB5 is quite interesting in the way it delivers damage.

Prysin.8542:

Threather.9354:

There are multiple reasons:
Main reason: Pet
- your pet will get multiple conditions on it and get epid. Major target for condi necros. Pet wont get cleansed because its lower on cleanseshare than people.
Minor reason 1: lack of cc, damage and stomp potential
Melee eles run 2 invulns to stomp/ress with, druid has none. Only proper cc druid has is with entangling roots that are useless in zerg fights. Melee eles have shocking auras, frost auras, immobs.
Minor reason 2: lack of boonshare and cleanse:
Druids only share 3 boons with allies, sure they can give 10% damage boost but thats not enough to make up for lack of cleanse/boons. Trooper runes are not enough cleanse.

There are just better options. Hammer rev is worth 5 longbow rangers. Ventari rev is worth 5 healing druids

Please do not try to compare the functionality of a revenant to a druid/ranger. Totally different roles.

A ranger/druid has way higher spike, way higher range. Lower sustain and support for sure. And while it might be a bug, LB5 is quite interesting in the way it delivers damage.

Hammer Revenant does better damage than a ranger or druid anytime. Better overall damage and better spike (ask victims from the Coalescence of Ruin).

Druid unfortunately also has lower sustain and support. And lb#5 if it would do much better damage would be interesting, right now is only an excuse to cast ancient seeds on more than one target.

Either case Druid should not be a DPS machine, would be enough for the spec to bring other interesting thing like CC and support options at the level of Support build from revenant or Ele.

The DPS aspect should belong to the core class.

If you’re playing healing druid then you’re competing with ele for the same job. In most cases ele is more effective because the healing is more consistent and ele pumps out auras.

You can try to plead your case to the random pug pins or guild leaders or whatever but I think most of them are going to tell you the same thing: play ele.

Rev DPS builds dish out massive boon share making the other players in their group hit significantly harder. Thus the total group DPS with a Druid will never consistently equal a Herald in that same group. The sustain from a Druid isn’t particularly better than a Rev either.

Large scale play isn’t about big spike but about chosing builds that strike a group balance between sustain and damage. Revs and Eles are anchors able to dish out solid DPS and add significant sustain to an entire group.

Like all medium armor builds, Druids are too much of a compromise centered around self. Not enough field spam, not enough AoE and not enough group buffs.

Imagine if they buffed ranger/druid so it was better in zergs. But then imagine that the buffs transfer over to roaming and ganking as well. Sure they would be more viable for large groups, but then they would be insanely OP elsewhere. They’re already the most OP spec IMO. The professions design simply doesn’t allow it to be good in zergs while not being OP elsewhere. Same thing goes for thieves. If they would get the sustain to survive massive fights with a zerg, then that sustain transfers over to roaming and ganking, and we all know how already nearly impossible it is to kill a good thief.

Zintrothen.1056:

They’re already the most OP spec IMO.

Wha?????

That is a bold claim on a class that isn’t particularly good in a zerg, not great in skirmish, kinda meh roaming and gets routinely destroyed in duels.

Straegen.2938:

Zintrothen.1056:

They’re already the most OP spec IMO.

Wha?????

That is a bold claim on a class that isn’t particularly good in a zerg, not great in skirmish, kinda meh roaming and gets routinely destroyed in duels.

That only happens on the server you play.

Prysin.8542:

Straegen.2938:

Zintrothen.1056:

They’re already the most OP spec IMO.

Wha?????

That is a bold claim on a class that isn’t particularly good in a zerg, not great in skirmish, kinda meh roaming and gets routinely destroyed in duels.

That only happens on the server you play.

You mean that only happens in all the servers except the one where you play?

Because the commanders in my server are nice enough to remind all the druids to relroll something useful like a rev or an ele.

anduriell.6280:

Prysin.8542:

Straegen.2938:

Zintrothen.1056:

They’re already the most OP spec IMO.

Wha?????

That is a bold claim on a class that isn’t particularly good in a zerg, not great in skirmish, kinda meh roaming and gets routinely destroyed in duels.

That only happens on the server you play.

You mean that only happens in all the servers except the one where you play?

Because the commanders in my server are nice enough to remind all the druids to relroll something useful like a rev or an ele.

That is because most commanders are jerks by nature (as is most leaders. You dont become a leader by being "just nice). And because skilled rangers/druids is hard to find.

As for my comment: me and Straegen has a long history, i mained ranger for YEARS, i still play it. I still know how to build a ranger/druid to be useful, but i do not overestimate the rangers capabilities in my own hands. Now, not many has my experience with the class. I dont need to look at a guide to know which combinations/chains to use. Its not hard.

The main fallacy regarding rangers is their “role”. They dont really fit a single role, unless you go for commander DPS spike, in which they are far superior to any class due to their range and piercing.

The benefit of the ranger/druid, is never their ability to “match” a class, its the ability to do ALL the roles nearly as good, at once. People forget that. It’s not great to have many rangers, 4-5 skilled ones in a 80 man zerg is plenty for what they do. But having none, well, for the past 3 weeks ive mained guardian. I like it, but we have NO rangers/druids with any drop of skill, and it is showing. we lack the burst heal despite water fields and guard/revenant heals. We lack the atrocious focus fire on cannons, or the spike condi cleanse.

The benefit of a ranger/druid is not the ability to do X, its the ability to do X Y Z in order to let other classes save their skills for when you truly need them. And unless you intentionally build a ele or guard or warrior or revenant to do THAT task alone, they wont do it as good.

And i dare you to find a way to do this role, as effectively, as rangers does it, without wasting much needed sustain or support abilities in other classes.

Perhaps revenant can do some of it, i am not familiar enough with the class, but none of the other classes can.

I play an ele as a support healer. I can hit some pretty nice consistent numbers on healing and the auras and boons I give to the team are an added plus. That being said I can see where burst healing could come in handy depending on the situation.

Prysin.8542:

That is because most commanders are jerks by nature (as is most leaders. You dont become a leader by being "just nice). And because skilled rangers/druids is hard to find.

As for my comment: me and Straegen has a long history, i mained ranger for YEARS, i still play it. I still know how to build a ranger/druid to be useful, but i do not overestimate the rangers capabilities in my own hands. Now, not many has my experience with the class. I dont need to look at a guide to know which combinations/chains to use. Its not hard.

The main fallacy regarding rangers is their “role”. They dont really fit a single role, unless you go for commander DPS spike, in which they are far superior to any class due to their range and piercing.

The benefit of the ranger/druid, is never their ability to “match” a class, its the ability to do ALL the roles nearly as good, at once. People forget that. It’s not great to have many rangers, 4-5 skilled ones in a 80 man zerg is plenty for what they do. But having none, well, for the past 3 weeks ive mained guardian. I like it, but we have NO rangers/druids with any drop of skill, and it is showing. we lack the burst heal despite water fields and guard/revenant heals. We lack the atrocious focus fire on cannons, or the spike condi cleanse.

The benefit of a ranger/druid is not the ability to do X, its the ability to do X Y Z in order to let other classes save their skills for when you truly need them. And unless you intentionally build a ele or guard or warrior or revenant to do THAT task alone, they wont do it as good.

And i dare you to find a way to do this role, as effectively, as rangers does it, without wasting much needed sustain or support abilities in other classes.

Perhaps revenant can do some of it, i am not familiar enough with the class, but none of the other classes can.

I agree with you in this point: ranger was the class designed as middle ground between the DPS oriented Thief and the more tankier oriented Engie.

All the skills and traits are designed with that in mind sadly they have been from the beggining or after certain amount of nerfs became completely oposite to usable.

For example an spirit ranger could have an spot in the zerg as off-support sadly the nerf on the spirits and their obsolete mechanics and effects make them underpowered and avoided from gameplay.

For druid happens the same: A weird mechanic gated after absurd requirements like the energy bar make the druid much less efficient than a full support oriented class should be. Nerfs to different skills and traits make the class not to be desired over much better suited classes in game, better equip to work with groups.

So yep, although the class is supposed to be off-support / off-DPS they failed miserably like they did with the legendary armor.

I have a friend who is so good at druid he can troll zergs with it and kill people in the middle of the zergs so it really depends on the skill of the druid.