Guild Wars 2

So, in light of the Druid live stream, what are your thoughts on the Guardian and by extension the Dragonhunter?

It seems the Druid will fill a lot of roles (tank, heal, condi clear) the Guardian was originally intended to, and it seems like it will perform those roles better (and will a hell of a lot more polish). I’m curious to see what other Guardians feel this way.

Druid get’s Wyverns and Dinosaurs, if Dragon Hunter does not good against these I’m done with Guardian and will main Rev…

Druid = REAL backline support

Dragon Hunter was all but an illusion

Druid is insanely over powered and will be mandatory in all game modes, this goes against ANets goal of not sitting around waiting for that one player to log on in order for you to do content.

It will be heavily nerfed, or they might buff other classes healing capabilities to match it.

Also the upcoming profession changes segment better announce reworked shield and spirit weapons or i will riot.

I have shelved my guardian after Revenant elite and now druid has made sure he will never be used again lol.

Deth.4109:

I have shelved my guardian after Revenant elite and now druid has made sure he will never be used again lol.

Either they rework Dragon Hunter entirely or work very kitten the next elite spec, because it’s currently the worst one by far, I can’t see where it’s good outside of WvW zergs…

Amineo.8951:

Deth.4109:

I have shelved my guardian after Revenant elite and now druid has made sure he will never be used again lol.

Either they rework Dragon Hunter entirely or work very kitten the next elite spec, because it’s currently the worst one by far, I can’t see where it’s good outside of WvW zergs…

Yeah DH is an example of the elite spec system done wrong. Druid is probably the best example because it is a new way to play that really adds something to the core class rather than DH which takes away what makes guardians good.

Honestly, everything they were saying just tells me I’ll continue running Battle Presence and be loved for it more than ever.

Seems like guardians and druids switched roles, wherein Druids can support and we are now back line support, except we got the short end of the stick.

Haha final nail in DH coffin I said DH will be worst elite spec so far and I was right

You’ll come crawling back. Or at least over to stand next to the support Guard/DH.

well well, projectile protection, our lunch main course, are now shared. I don’t mind that, personally. But, look at Scrapper, Druid, and Rev, lol, even in my wildest fantasy could I ever see a group that posts " LF bow guardian , bring your traps!!!"

i think it just shows a lack of real cohesion in the dh. some of the other specs just seem like their traits and skills just meld together real well, but the dh is just a bunch of random things stuck together

You really should never be seeing classes called out specifically in an LFG.

“LF good reflect” maybe. But classes by name? Why?

What drives me crazy is Druid’s Celestial form.

That literally could of been a rework of the Guardian’s support tombs. I would of loved if Dragon Hunter offered that in addition with our virtues but sadly that is not the case.

Oh, I’m with you there. Guardians dropped their Heal-Tome and Ranger blatantly picked it up and ran off with it .

Im just sad how guardian looks after every elite spec was revealed. Dragohunter looks so chaotic (and not very suited for condi guard anyway)

Jaxom.7310:

i think it just shows a lack of real cohesion in the dh. some of the other specs just seem like their traits and skills just meld together real well, but the dh is just a bunch of random things stuck together

couldn’t have said it better myself.

Druid is guardian polished 3 years later. I mean the tether skill which allows you to do damage to your enemies is like an advanced version of retaliation, which guardians should have in their elite spec. The celestial form looks like a polished version of guardian tome of courage a long time ago. I could go on for days….

I main a ranger and play a guardian at times for dungeons and wvw. I’ll certainly try out the druid extensively and see what it can do, but there’s already something huge that it doesn’t do compared to my guardian: Stability. You can add Aegis and Protection too, but just stability itself means that for wvw zerging, given a choice, i’d rather have a guardian than a druid in my party right now.

Back in 2013 i was playing a cleric Guard in WvW Zerg situations, healed my zerg with healing tome… was impressed from all those green numbers around and so less dead allies. This guard died at the day, where we burned our might healing tome.
Seems my Guard has rised from the dead and come abck as a druid. but can the druid be as tanky as my clerik guard? need to learn a new proffession.

Why we can’t get our tomes back ? Oh wait… is it because they were OP by any chance ? Awww that is a real shame, really. Dang it why we get stripped out of every nice thing and when we are about to get some shinies it turns out to be not that amazing as we were told it would.

I guess it’s because we are bound to being “in a good spot” once again.

On one hand, it makes me happy that there’s (what appears to be) a really nice healer. On the other hand, I’m kind of fuming mad that rangers are the class that got this instead of guardians. On top of that, they basically ripped the first two skills on celestial avatar form from Tome of Courage (which I dearly loved). So I really have to give a big “**** you” to ANet. I’m tired of their bullkitten to be honest. :>

They even referenced a monk skill with Seed of Life. I might legit move over to a druid for good.

anking.6245:

So, in light of the Druid live stream, what are your thoughts on the Guardian and by extension the Dragonhunter?

Didn’t saw the stream, but this same question was posted with every specialization.

The thing is: outside the Chronomancer, and maybe the Daredevil, I didn’t saw too much awesomeness in the new specs, and anyway aside fro roaming and dueling (against non-Mesmers, due duelling -decent- Mesmers at the current Guardian state is a insta-defeat) I don’t have plans for my two Guardians at the moment. DH are weak but also are the spirit weapons and the signets, leaving meds, shouts and a consacration or two as the only usable skills for this class. Basically the same as three years ago, minus the proficiency once we had.

So far I would pic Revenant over any other class in terms of team gameplay (or maybe Med Guard for PvP); really don’t care if Druid will be now good at the things that Guardians used to be great, because anyway “tanking” and giving support in this game is a thing that i find pretty much boring.

So, call me when the Guardian shield becomes something playable. Until then I don’t care too much about the “well spoted Guardian”, as ANet likes to say.

Oh, “Live Vicariously”. More monk references, because obviously monks and rangers had so much in common.

I never was a big fan of tomes but I really find astonishing how designers couldn’t find a betterr way to improve and make them competitive than a complete rework into much more simpler skills …
and then it’s perfectly fine for some other profession to get an improved version of our old tome courage, with an arguably better skillset, without the insane CD, without the huge cast time just to get into the skillset, without locking out regular utilities … all of this as an additional mechanic on top of what the core class could already offer,
I’m OK with rangers getting some love, they absolutely deserved it, but all this celestial form thing looks ridiculous.

Fashion Mage.3712:

On one hand, it makes me happy that there’s (what appears to be) a really nice healer. On the other hand, I’m kind of fuming mad that rangers are the class that got this instead of guardians. On top of that, they basically ripped the first two skills on celestial avatar form from Tome of Courage (which I dearly loved). So I really have to give a big “**** you” to ANet. I’m tired of their bullkitten to be honest. :>

They even referenced a monk skill with Seed of Life. I might legit move over to a druid for good.

I’m with you here. As a Monk main in GW1, I chose to main a Guardian as the spiritual successor to the class, as well as the one who inherited most of the magical abilities lore-wise. The Druid specialization is… well, pretty much everything I wanted Guardian to be when the game launched. And now it goes to Rangers? I wasn’t really enthused by Dragonhunter, but I was okay with it being a different direction to take Guardians, because I didn’t have to (nor did I plan to) take that option. Or at least I thought I was okay with it, because after the Druid reveal, I honestly feel a little betrayed.

You still got THE quickness buff. Which will work great with +100% boon duration (with herald’s help)

Vargamonth.2047:

I never was a big fan of tomes but I really find astonishing how designers couldn’t find a betterr way to improve and make them competitive than a complete rework into much more simpler skills …
and then it’s perfectly fine for some other profession to get an improved version of our old tome courage, with an arguably better skillset, without the insane CD, without the huge cast time just to get into the skillset, without locking out regular utilities … all of this as an additional mechanic on top of what the core class could already offer,
I’m OK with rangers getting some love, they absolutely deserved it, but all this celestial form thing looks ridiculous.

I think i need to correct you on some points:

It’s our dev that was not able to improve Tomes, it’s our dev that is not able to improve Shield, and it’s also our dev that designed the worst espec, the Dragonhunter.

The other devs showed they were capable of making a Shield correctly(see Roy’s Revenant Shield), of making something similar to Tomes work(see Irenio’s Ranger Avatar) and give the espec some amazing synergy with their core profession(see Robert’s Chronomancer).

Turtle Dragon.9241:

Vargamonth.2047:

I never was a big fan of tomes but I really find astonishing how designers couldn’t find a betterr way to improve and make them competitive than a complete rework into much more simpler skills …
and then it’s perfectly fine for some other profession to get an improved version of our old tome courage, with an arguably better skillset, without the insane CD, without the huge cast time just to get into the skillset, without locking out regular utilities … all of this as an additional mechanic on top of what the core class could already offer,
I’m OK with rangers getting some love, they absolutely deserved it, but all this celestial form thing looks ridiculous.

I think i need to correct you on some points:

It’s our dev that was not able to improve Tomes, it’s our dev that is not able to improve Shield, and it’s also our dev that designed the worst espec, the Dragonhunter.

The other devs showed they were capable of making a Shield correctly(see Roy’s Revenant Shield), of making something similar to Tomes work(see Irenio’s Ranger Avatar) and give the espec some amazing synergy with their core profession(see Robert’s Chronomancer).

cmon our dev is the best, he is giving ideas to all others how to improve things. And dont forget in cd reduction what we got, cd reduction ftw [/sarcasmoff]

Entrea Sumatae.7830:

I’m with you here. As a Monk main in GW1, I chose to main a Guardian as the spiritual successor to the class, as well as the one who inherited most of the magical abilities lore-wise. The Druid specialization is… well, pretty much everything I wanted Guardian to be when the game launched. And now it goes to Rangers? I wasn’t really enthused by Dragonhunter, but I was okay with it being a different direction to take Guardians, because I didn’t have to (nor did I plan to) take that option. Or at least I thought I was okay with it, because after the Druid reveal, I honestly feel a little betrayed.

This, exactly this. I was really excited for the guardian’s elite spec before it got revealed because I was hoping for something like monks or the druid. Then DH got revealed, and I was pretty unhappy but I was like “Hey, at least I still have tomes. At least I can kind of be a monk for 20-30 seconds every 3 minutes”. Then those got removed too (followed by half virtue range). At that point I went from “extreme excitement” to “seething rage”, I probably would’ve quit the game for good if it wasn’t for my friends. Now 80% of Tome of Courage is basically being given to rangers followed by a nice healing staff and a full set of healing utilities? “Betrayed” is a perfect way to describe my feelings on this.

I’m still confused why there are classes receiving movement traits when they’re already mobile…this makes zero sense to me.

Prepare for the Karl/Anet white knights to inundate this thread at any moment proclaiming how excited they are with the DH, and how we are all wrong and crying over nothing…

Sauncho.8076:

Prepare for the Karl/Anet white knights to inundate this thread at any moment proclaiming how excited they are with the DH, and how we are all wrong and crying over nothing…

Oh cmon, you know what’s coming, more cd reductions and buffing attacks by 5% xD
I expect cd reduction of traps by 10% to be “viable” xD

Ragnarox.9601:

Sauncho.8076:

Prepare for the Karl/Anet white knights to inundate this thread at any moment proclaiming how excited they are with the DH, and how we are all wrong and crying over nothing…

Oh cmon, you know what’s coming, more cd reductions and buffing attacks by 5% xD

I literally lol….

Mostly a Ranger here. If I could give you Celestial Avatar (its yours thematically) I would in a heart beat.

Guardians signed up to be guardians. Rangers signed up to be rangers. Now look at us

Raven.9603:

Mostly a Ranger here. If I could give you Celestial Avatar (its yours thematically) I would in a heart beat.

Guardians signed up to be guardians. Rangers signed up to be rangers. Now look at us

Exactly what I thought, because obviously guardians would like playing ranger-wannabes while rangers love playing guardian-wannabes. ANet’s typical inscrutable logic.

I think Druids will be great for keeping large groups alive, I don’t see them at the front of an attack of commanding, first off no stab, some of the new skills actually causes damage to others and yourself. Lower toughness, no plate, no reflect. Some of the best skills have a long cast time. I think they will be great for powerful range heals and switch to bow for some pew pew. There’s some GTFO spells so you can jump into the zerg and get out again. Do a quick condition removal and escape. Druids won’t be tanks tho, this isn’t a Feral Druid from WOW so don’t panic lol Pus it hasn’t even been beta tested it could be horrible! The flying dragon that casts AOE fire and immune when in the air is pretty sweet for sure.

Nike.2631:

Oh, I’m with you there. Guardians dropped their Heal-Tome and Ranger blatantly picked it up and ran off with it .

We sold our Tome to the Ranger for a bow and some traps.

Raven.9603:

Mostly a Ranger here. If I could give you Celestial Avatar (its yours thematically) I would in a heart beat.

Guardians signed up to be guardians. Rangers signed up to be rangers. Now look at us

The problem is that the Ranger playstyle is still not viable, so Rangers are basically getting a more refined version of the only thing Guardian players had going for them while most Guardian players will just ignore the wasted potential we’re being given.

It is a little funny how Rangers and Guardians have done a complete swap with their elite specializations. It’s just I would love to have the Druid on my Guardian but I don’t think I would like to have the Dragonhunter on my Ranger.

It all goes back to the conceptual stage of the Dragonhunter. The name was a big red flag, but it went deeper than that. It embraced the idea of going thematically sideways with the elite specializations, while all the other elite specializations went forwards by building on the core of their professions.

The Druid takes the Nature Magic traitline and enhances it in every way, you pretty much transform into one of their Spirits.
The Reaper builds on the Necromancer’s Soul Reaping traitline.
The Daredevil builds on the Thief’s Acrobatics traitline.
The Scrapper builds on the Engineer’s Inventions traitline.
The Tempest builds on the Elementalist’s Arcane traitline giving a new approach to attunements.
The Berserker builds on the Warrior’s Strength traitline.
The Chronomancer builds on the Chaos trailine and the wells are an extension of Glamour skills.

The Dragonhunter models itself after the Ranger while throwing in little hints of the Guardian by keeping the Virtues and throwing in Guardian specific conditions and boons in with traps and traits. However if you look at a core traitline, there is no clear link with them to the Dragonhunter.

Zeal, Radiance, Valor, Honor and Virtues represents the Guardian, and for the Dragonhunter to be representative of another Profession is conceptually flawed when you take into account the other elite specializations. If all the elite specializations took on the same approach as the Dragonhunter, then it would be a different situation. Then the Dragonhunter would be rather vindicated but at the moment it sticks out as an abnormality.

And this is one of the few elite specializations that had the benefit of all Beta testing events.

Dragonhunter meshes with Zeal. Longbow = Greatsword, Cripple = Burning, Traps = Symbols. Dragonhunter also synergizes with multiple other lines, like the aforementioned Zeal, Honor, and Virtues. Radiance and Valor maybe too, but the other three are more distinct. Then again, many people talk about Medi Longbow, so there’s that.

Dragonhunter will have a role. The game as we know it won’t exist after Oct 23. Plus, there are definite balance changes and new expansions to wait for. Change is always on the horizon, whether the changes are good or not.

In GW1 there were two kinds of monks, heal monks and protection monks. In GW2 with Aegis, protection, regeneration and other forms of active mitigation we have always been considered the Prot monks of the game. Would I like to have gotten the druid spec for Guardian? For sure. However we are still viable.

Anyone with MMO experience will tell you that just healing is a bad idea, bars go up and down quicker and there is less margin for error. A mixture of protection and healing is the best. The Druid spec reveal doesn’t affect our viability, they are competing with Elementalists while our competition is the Revenant.

Afyael.1740:

In GW1 there were two kinds of monks, heal monks and protection monks. In GW2 with Aegis, protection, regeneration and other forms of active mitigation we have always been considered the Prot monks of the game. Would I like to have gotten the druid spec for Guardian? For sure. However we are still viable.

Anyone with MMO experience will tell you that just healing is a bad idea, bars go up and down quicker and there is less margin for error. A mixture of protection and healing is the best. The Druid spec reveal doesn’t affect our viability, they are competing with Elementalists while our competition is the Revenant.

Thats is fine and you have a point. But why is it nothing for us has changed?

What I mean is, yes we will still be viable but only in the same way we have for the last 3 years with no mechanic change. Hell we can’t even utilize our new elite traits or weapon to maintain viablility. Yet we are comparing our current viable spec to a new profession/elite spec? Wasn’t this supposed to be an expansion?

That is where the problem lies. We gained nothing new to work with really.

You could say Dragonhunter has some synergy with Zeal but it is not a conceptual extension of that traitline. The Dragonhunter is a sideways progression of the Guardian to the Ranger’s traitlines of Marksmanship and Skirmishing. It then tried to turn it into something of a Guardian by throwing in random elements from across the Guardian’s traitlines but the central concept is still borrowed from the Ranger. Which would be fine if all elite specializations were treated like dual-professions, but that’s not the case.

If it was a conceptual extension of the Zeal traitline, then it would take inspiration from Symbols or Spirit Weapons. But at the moment the only trap that resembles somewhat a symbol is Fragments of Faith since it harms enemies and helps allies, the others have more in common with the traps from the Skirmishing traitline.

The problem is that there is no clear link to a Guardian traitline, like the clear links between the other elite specializations and a core specialization of their profession.

I can see a slight thematic link between the new active virtues and that of the Spirit Weapon. In that the virtue’s active ability acts kinda like a Spirit Weapon’s command ability. I just wish they had a stronger link. Like maybe create a forth virtue and have each virtue link to a specific spirit weapon. So the passive of Shield of Courage would also activate around the spirit weapon Shield of the Avenger, or the passive of Spear of Justice would activate around the spirit weapon Bow of Truth. Then have two other virtues connected to Hammer of Wisdom and Sword of Justice.

It would be like how the Druid’s traited abilities emanate from their pets, just instead the virtues would emanate from the spirit weapons. Not to mention that if you summon a Spirit Weapon but also have a Virtue on a cooldown, then you won’t lose your passive Virtue effect because it is still generating from the Spirit Weapon, then you’d have a way of using Virtues without worrying about losing your passive when it is on cooldown. Plus if a virtue is emanating from a Spirit Weapon, then you are expanding upon the AoE of your virtues. You could then have a Dragonhunter build that utilises on Spirit Weapons and Virtues, instead of just Traps.

Then it would help to change the behaviour of the traps to act more like Guardian Symbols and less like Ranger traps, so at least they each gave a benefit for allies.

Then upon doing something like those two changes, you’d have a clear conceptual extension of the Zeal traitline. And the similarities with Marksmanship and Skirmishing would disappear.

lilz shorty.1879:

Thats is fine and you have a point. But why is it nothing for us has changed?

What I mean is, yes we will still be viable but only in the same way we have for the last 3 years with no mechanic change. Hell we can’t even utilize our new elite traits or weapon to maintain viablility. Yet we are comparing our current viable spec to a new profession/elite spec? Wasn’t this supposed to be an expansion?

That is where the problem lies. We gained nothing new to work with really.

Comparing Dragonhunter with Druid is apples and oranges though; they don’t serve the same purpose. Druids are probably better healers than we are (and we can still do that fairly well), while we’re much better at long range trap mindgames. Dragonhunter certainly has a niche, and I think it’s just harder to see than others’. Once HoT drops no doubt things will become more clear.

Mordeus.1234:

snips

Traps are symbols that trade direct ally support for more detrimental effects on the enemy. You’ve got vuln, reveal, cripple, daze, the proposition of dealing with traited aegis, warding, slow, ect. And you’re right about virtues and spirit weapons, I forgot to mention. That being said, these new mechanics should be unique. There’s no reason to make nigh clones of currently existing skills and effects (looking at you Rage skills). In their current conceptual implementation, both traps and the new virtues synergize with a lot of the base class. Longbow too for different reasons. I’ve currently crafted at least 7 builds on my own I’d be willing to experiment with, let alone plenty of other people developing their own builds with various amounts of Dragonhunter used.

All that being said, we still haven’t had the opportunity to really dig deep into the spec. Once we do that we’ll be able to discern better.

This announcement of druid makes me feel extremely infuriated and offended as a player who main Guard since beta. Enough said.

If you guys are offended by Druid, shouldn’t you also be angry at all the Staff Eles out there? Because those guys have and still can do better heals than the current Guardian. And Tempest will also be able to make that even better.

Some of you are too busy comparing your class to other classes when the reality is, there are classes that already exist that do what you’re complaining about better than us anyway and yet, Guardians are still in every meta.

But yea, keep on complaining. I’m sure someone will buff something at some point.

If you choose Guardian because you think you’ll do more healing than class A B C… .. Then you misunderstood what the Guardian is.

We prevent X amount of damage while, as a bonus, also aiding in damage output.
We’ll still grab that sword and enter battle by your side… better yet… we’ll be front line!!!

We Are Not not going to put a bandaid on you and say that things are going to be better – The Druid

- If people are looking for a Healer Class, Druid is your calling.

- If people are looking for a class that’ll offer “support” while also deal damage, Guardian or Dragonhunter is your calling. It isn’t hard to wrap your head around – Guardian isn’t the ‘Kings of Support!’ class.

I have no issues with another profession offering more heal than I do. However, I DO have issues with a class mitigating more damages then me!