Guild Wars 2

Sicarius.4639:

Tao.5096:

is it only me or Guardian’s Longbow is better than actual Ranger’s? xD

Cause for me it’s really like DH is actually what Ranger should be.

It does look cool and I was really surprised about one of the abilities that chunked down someone in ESL. (apologies for not know the exact name) True shot?

I guess that’s what something akin to Aimed Shot on WoW’s hunter would be like here. At 100% of your characters power (not divided between you and your pet like Ranger) makes for an impressive ability.

Exactly.

What I also mean is that skills on Ranger’s Longbow are somehow good – Stealth, Knockback.

But the whole damage sits on Rapid fire.

Despite DH LB being new, I kinda find it more Ranger like and with better utilization than what Ranger has.

Perhaps it’s about time Anet consider flipping skills on weapons to increase diversity and suit playstyles of people.

At this moment, if I want to play Archer – I’ll roll DH instead of Ranger – pet is meh for me, utilities aren’t that great either.

Not quit my Ranger, but having much more fun playing DH.

Its like a tanky spikey ranger without a pet, and some nice skillshot mechanics. The DH traits also synergise very nicely with the existing G traits/mechanics.

Currently Druid to me seems to be a broken/unreliable mechanic pasted on top of an already underperforming/unreliable mechanic (pets) – no synergy at all. It don’t want to use staff or TU in my build so I haven’t been able to switch to AF form once yet.

Gated play style (healbot) behind gated weapons (staff/TU). Bleh. So much disappointment.

Tao.5096:

is it only me or Guardian’s Longbow is better than actual Ranger’s? xD

Cause for me it’s really like DH is actually what Ranger should be.

Well, it will be.

They’re a heavy armour class with a longbow and no constantly dying, bad AI, pet.

Whereas, Ranger is only a medium armour class with a constantly dying, bad AI, pet.

They could level the playing field by making Rangers (passively) tougher and/or giving them better, more sustained, non-targeted stealth.

After all, if you think about WoW, Hunters there wear mail armour (i.e. somewhere between leather and plate), which they can choose to make more like plate with a talent, have camouflage (a weaker form of stealth, with 100% uptime) and have a good disengage (which is far more useful, when used defensively, than a knockback).

…and even then, with all that, they are (at best) mid-pack in PVP.

Without better defence, far better stealth and/or a good disengage, Rangers will never be on an even vaguely equal footing with other classes, in this game.

…and yet, what do they do to Rangers?

Nerf, nerf, nerf, paste an ill-fitting Druid spec/class on top, nerf, nerf…

They’re just coming across as totally clueless and/or horribly biased.

I love playing Druid Staff. I don’t see me play another class any time soon.

after much hope and rigorous testing in BWE3 it seems that we got the small buffs we requested in return for the whole mechanic of the spec to be gated, heavily nerfed and almost completely inaccessible in PvP.

I shelved my ranger after June 23rd specialization patch when they killed condition survival ranger, i had my hopes up for druid and BWE3 showed some promise.

I have now quit ranger for good. I guess they need a model profession for how not to build other professions, but I can now use my skills on something that actually contributes to my party and has more utility than ranger will in 50 balance patches- Revenant.

I heal, my Guardian shoots with Bow. We beat the best team in the game.
http://i.imgur.com/p3Lc8d5.jpg
#RangerRanging

Miaze.8631:

I heal, my Guardian shoots with Bow. We beat the best team in the game.
http://i.imgur.com/p3Lc8d5.jpg
#RangerRanging

Grats.

Oh cool Rom was playing Ranger too. That’s always nice to see.

As with many other posters in this thread, I’ll never quit my ranger. It’s my main and always will be. I’ve been tempted and I’ve tried switching in the past but it never holds. It’s just got that charm. Plus, now there’s all these new pets to find and it’s really fun exploring the jungle so far.

That said, I had little interest in druid at announcement and even less now. Might’ve gotten a bit excited closer to launch but hearing from what people say about it now I’m not really feeling all that bothered changing my build for something druid oriented.

i tried hard to stick to my ranger even did some hero points to unlock more of the druid traits but…its looking like tempest will be my main for awhile longer. till they give ranger/druid afew more tweeks its farewell bud its been a roller coaster of a year.

I feel as though they made Druid back when they were intending on making a heal support heavy meta. Then they decided not to do that, so they were left with a whole spec based around something they no longer wanted.

hellsmonument.4852:

…I shelved my ranger after June 23rd specialization patch when they killed condition survival ranger…

Wat?

Condi Ranger is pretty good, its even better now after the 23/6 patch and it is likely even better again with Druid, even if you do not use the CAF at all. Although you could without much trouble since you’d be using TU. In fact, its probably one of the only decent builds working with it now.

Actually really enjoying my Druid…with staff/axe/torch I may be slower to kill things solo…but the only times I’ve died so far in the new maps are when my gliding endurance ran out and there wasn’t an updraft to save me.

Yea, I have no interest in being a druid, but I still like the Ranger base class. Ironically, I’ve now recognized that my Guardian is now a pretty good longbow/greatsword user… that can also heal/support allies…

Unfortunately, my main (Ranger) is my only character with world completion. As it stands, it’s my only character that has his elite spec fully unlocked. Some of my alts that I actually want to spec into elite have garbage hero points. Sigh.

GussJr.1643:

Actually really enjoying my Druid…with staff/axe/torch I may be slower to kill things solo…but the only times I’ve died so far in the new maps are when my gliding endurance ran out and there wasn’t an updraft to save me.

You can reglide once it’s stowed… it will regenerate endurance. Just tap space right before you land.

lol yea, took me a few times to figure that out.

Miaze.8631:

I heal, my Guardian shoots with Bow. We beat the best team in the game.
http://i.imgur.com/p3Lc8d5.jpg
#RangerRanging

Didn’t they just lose in the ESL the other day?

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

hellsmonument.4852:

…I shelved my ranger after June 23rd specialization patch when they killed condition survival ranger…

Wat?

Condi Ranger is pretty good, its even better now after the 23/6 patch and it is likely even better again with Druid, even if you do not use the CAF at all. Although you could without much trouble since you’d be using TU. In fact, its probably one of the only decent builds working with it now.

Not sure what game mode you’re referring to but for me it’s PvP specifically. making empathic bond and survival of the fittest impossible to combine made condition pressure a big problem after the patch, whereas it used to be one of the things we were good at. That, in addition to the reduction in base HP by ~2000, conditions stacking and everything hitting immensely harder than before made it very hard to sustain any sort of damage in team fights when targeted by more than one player. While other profs have teleports, stealth, elixirs, mobility skills and invulns on low cooldwns the condition survival ranger has no way to mitigate damage nearly as effectively as anything else and would have to turn around and run away to disengage. It could also not apply condition pressure as effectively as anything else (e.g. mesmer, guardian, engineer, necro) and was thus pushed out of PvP almost entirely.

This build now faces the same kind of problems except everything else is even stronger.

Namica.2951:

Let me start by saying I love my ranger to death. I love its skills, its utilities, its look, even the pets I kinda like even though I think we should have a no pet option.

But I would also like something new after so many months playing Ranger. Was hoping the changes in HoT would rekindle my joy for the class. Instead we get a staff which, imo, is a clunky weapon to use and, while effective, isn’t really fun. And we get glyphs, which ranks up with mantras as the worst skill type in game.

I really dont know what anet was thinking with Druid. But for me its garbage and simply doesn’t fit ranger. Glyphs are slow and clunky, and when I think ranger I don’t think “heal bot”. But apparently a-net does, so I’m now looking for another class to main.

Quit my ranger? Hell no, they are friggin beastly right now. I’ve never felt better about ranger than I do right now. Are you guys crazy?

Tigaseye.2047:

Tao.5096:

is it only me or Guardian’s Longbow is better than actual Ranger’s? xD

Cause for me it’s really like DH is actually what Ranger should be.

Well, it will be.

They’re a heavy armour class with a longbow and no constantly dying, bad AI, pet.

Whereas, Ranger is only a medium armour class with a constantly dying, bad AI, pet.

They could level the playing field by making Rangers (passively) tougher and/or giving them better, more sustained, non-targeted stealth.

After all, if you think about WoW, Hunters there wear mail armour (i.e. somewhere between leather and plate), which they can choose to make more like plate with a talent, have camouflage (a weaker form of stealth, with 100% uptime) and have a good disengage (which is far more useful, when used defensively, than a knockback).

…and even then, with all that, they are (at best) mid-pack in PVP.

Without better defence, far better stealth and/or a good disengage, Rangers will never be on an even vaguely equal footing with other classes, in this game.

…and yet, what do they do to Rangers?

Nerf, nerf, nerf, paste an ill-fitting Druid spec/class on top, nerf, nerf…

They’re just coming across as totally clueless and/or horribly biased.

Constantly dying pet?

I don’t get it … am I missing something?

Well, not now since the damage reduction…

But yeah, we aren’t crazy because we aren’t blinded by unconditional allegiance to the Ranger/Druid.

not quitting my ranger ever, i’ve got too much invested on this toon to make another my main. I’m still working on ways to make druid work for me so we’ll see if that gets any play.

I never expected Druid to be the dps machine ranger is but I wanted the healing to be as high as the dps is on ranger. they need to look at the healing power scaling better, that would also let us generate more AF and get into CF more often.

dasaybz.9524:

Constantly dying pet?

I don’t get it … am I missing something?

Bird type pets need like 3x auto attack to be disabled.

Personally I am still waiting on “vetran” character slot anet sold us with xpack to make a dragonhunter. More than likely going to replace ranger/druid with it or with reverant.

Eval.2371:

Personally I am still waiting on “vetran” character slot anet sold us with xpack to make a dragonhunter. More than likely going to replace ranger/druid with it or with reverant.

Contact support then.

What’s the problem?

Kinda sucks. I found a nice druid build over BWE3 that got completely trashed by all the changes. I’m a bit too demotivated to even touch PvP right now. At least PvE is still around and I’ll probably be messing around in the new maps as a ranger until someone fixes druid.

I don’t want to waste my time learning new mechanics if it’s just going to get hit with a nerf bat or big change anyways. What’s the point of trying to theorycraft a build, practicing on it, only to find out it’s destroyed in the next patch?

Not touching anything until it settles down.

Na, not quitting but… it feels realy meh in the moment.
Druid is useless now. ._.

To short avatar form.
Getting energy in other weapons as staff? 40Sec+ to get full of energy… >>
Rediculous… sorry. ><

Dont know why they changed it so hard. The scaling option was good… but this?
T_T

Miaze.8631:

I heal, my Guardian shoots with Bow. We beat the best team in the game.
http://i.imgur.com/p3Lc8d5.jpg
#RangerRanging

Ranger heals
Pally uses bow….

the kitten is wrong with this game???

Tao.5096:

Eval.2371:

Personally I am still waiting on “vetran” character slot anet sold us with xpack to make a dragonhunter. More than likely going to replace ranger/druid with it or with reverant.

Contact support then.

What’s the problem?

already did so.

Raven.9603:

not really an improvement for zerging,

THANK TO GOD you´re right

the entire zerker kitten down while skipping what you can and avoid what you cant skip was the worst thing that ever happened to gw2 anyways.

like in no other mmor (GW1 included) noone would accept that playstyle at all. neither do i. but the good thing is that the entire meta thing is pointless anyways as there is nothing you get from rushing through content (well maybe in other games with item spiral where you can get ahead early)
And thankfully i am in a guild that is not meta based and we do the exact same content you do, we prob die less, have more fun and we might need 1 minute longer for a dungeon but who cares to be honest

No, I’ve been using core Ranger in PvE and really enjoying it. I can completely control the encounters. LB/GS With jungle kitty, bristleback, with traited WHaO and Rampage as One. So strong now with new aiming and retarget.

Just stay off Druid for now and use core Ranger. Druid great in PvP but aggravating in PVE, it seems. I just don’t see the point in PvE. Maybe in Raids?

SoftLight.2175:

Raven.9603:

not really an improvement for zerging,

THANK TO GOD you´re right

the entire zerker kitten down while skipping what you can and avoid what you cant skip was the worst thing that ever happened to gw2 anyways.

like in no other mmor (GW1 included) noone would accept that playstyle at all. neither do i. but the good thing is that the entire meta thing is pointless anyways as there is nothing you get from rushing through content (well maybe in other games with item spiral where you can get ahead early)
And thankfully i am in a guild that is not meta based and we do the exact same content you do, we prob die less, have more fun and we might need 1 minute longer for a dungeon but who cares to be honest

I said “zerging.” as in, when in wvw, people form large zergs and stomp everyone with a smaller group than their own.

not “zerk” the meta pve stat.

My Ranger was 1st into HoT and I sat him in favor of my Ele.

I didn’t give-up my ranger at all.

All I give-up is Druid. Lame AF Regen and Avatar, lame utility, lame staff. (Staff 3 is bugged and stuck you in combat. Staff 2 still suck. Damage still low. The whole weapon is still boring. Guardian/ Ele/ Revenant staff is much MUCH better)

I’d keep using my “ranger” though, as if the elite spec does not exist.

I haven’t quit my ranger, i have quit GW2 partly because of that.
Heals are the exact opposite of what the ranger community wants for years now.
Another reason i quit, is, because the current state of dungeons, which coincidentally also turned out to head towards the exact opposite of what dungeon runners wanted.

If A-Net wants no one to PvE, why not just remove any PvE content entirely and make GW2 a moba instead.

I am seriously thinking about quitting the game. I am so angry. My crap geared water attuned ele heals better than my geared out druid. As either a druid or ranger I do crap damage and crap heals but a dragon hunter guardian can burn me for up to 6500 points a tick? Are you kidding me? Why are we getting so nerfed and slapped around when other classes are heads and shoulders above this class? The only flack I get while being a druid is “Druid you suck! Heal more! I can’t believe you let me die!”

I love my ranger. Even with all the crap we have been handed by ANET. But I think HOT is my breaking point. We are still sub par damage dealers and now we are sub par healers.

Honestly at this this point the only thing that keeps me here is my husband, because he still plays. But he is getting pretty fed up too. And the fact that there isn’t another game. Woe to Anet when a better game comes out. And to be honest. Between my husband and I, we spend more than $15 each a month on the gem store. Too bad ANet. You’ve kicked my class around for far too long.

Raven.9603:

I said “zerging.” as in, when in wvw, people form large zergs and stomp everyone with a smaller group than their own.

not “zerk” the meta pve stat.

Agreed.

BG has virtually no one on right now with all the xpac stuff going on so this might change, but right now Druid just feels clunky and pointless.

The class was great during the beta. Lingering Light let us fill the AF bar effortlessly and being able to carry over the bar meant you would be at the ready if you got jumped on.

Now, none of this happens.

I can’t heal at the start of a fight anymore and when they nerfed the kitten out of LL into the kittenty spvp trait is it now, it takes much longer to fill the bar making on demand heals no longer a thing.

Druid is worthless if you are getting one pushed and worthless if the fight is going well.

The only situation where it seemed to help was long duration fights that started to go badly. The problem is that the new Borderlands are so punishing to people who try to run back to a fight that people are just retreating the second things start to dip. Standing and fighting isn’t worth it anymore and, consequently, the heals needed to do so aren’t called for anymore.

Also, pets are still garbage in zerg fights because of reasons.

Well not quitting as it’s my main and only character who can unlock half of the Elite Spec at the moment.

But the funny thing is, I find myself not using one single thing from Druid now. I tried to equip a staff and get into Celestial Form at first but it just added nothing to my open world PVE experience.

With no doubt the new HoT maps are more difficult. Well but if my ranger can’t defeat an enemy with his old abilities, the new Druid ones won’t give him a better chance either.

Still soldiering with my ranger for now. I don’t really want to play my other characters much. Ranger is what I have fun with, despite our issues.

Rhapsedy.1569:

But I think HOT is my breaking point. We are still sub par damage dealers and now we are sub par healers.

Quoted for truth and sadly very similar to how I feel about the current situation with Druids. Sad part is that I don’t see it being improved either even after promises.

Namica.2951:

Let me start by saying I love my ranger to death. I love its skills, its utilities, its look, even the pets I kinda like even though I think we should have a no pet option.

But I would also like something new after so many months playing Ranger. Was hoping the changes in HoT would rekindle my joy for the class. Instead we get a staff which, imo, is a clunky weapon to use and, while effective, isn’t really fun. And we get glyphs, which ranks up with mantras as the worst skill type in game.

I really dont know what anet was thinking with Druid. But for me its garbage and simply doesn’t fit ranger. Glyphs are slow and clunky, and when I think ranger I don’t think “heal bot”. But apparently a-net does, so I’m now looking for another class to main.

Honestly, completely disagree. I love the glyphs and it’s such a refreshing change and I’m beyond thrilled to have some utility skills that are useful and can be slotted in a wide variety of builds. +10% party damage? AOE knockback? AOE daze? AOE condition bomb that cripples/poisons/weakness? A 1/2 second induction heal that’s really useful? Not to mention some really solid group condition cleansing, crazy awesome healing, surprisingly good ranged dps with staff, great new pets….I could seriously go on all day.

Of all the new specs, Druid is easily my favorite and I feel the best all around. I feel like it adds more to the profession than any other elite spec does for their respective profession. The build opportunities, whether you are using Staff/Celestial or not, have opened up tremendously for us.

So no, I’m definitely not quitting ranger.

drgast.1469:

Namica.2951:

Let me start by saying I love my ranger to death. I love its skills, its utilities, its look, even the pets I kinda like even though I think we should have a no pet option.

But I would also like something new after so many months playing Ranger. Was hoping the changes in HoT would rekindle my joy for the class. Instead we get a staff which, imo, is a clunky weapon to use and, while effective, isn’t really fun. And we get glyphs, which ranks up with mantras as the worst skill type in game.

I really dont know what anet was thinking with Druid. But for me its garbage and simply doesn’t fit ranger. Glyphs are slow and clunky, and when I think ranger I don’t think “heal bot”. But apparently a-net does, so I’m now looking for another class to main.

Honestly, completely disagree. I love the glyphs and it’s such a refreshing change and I’m beyond thrilled to have some utility skills that are useful and can be slotted in a wide variety of builds. +10% party damage? AOE knockback? AOE daze? AOE condition bomb that cripples/poisons/weakness? A 1/2 second induction heal that’s really useful? Not to mention some really solid group condition cleansing, crazy awesome healing, surprisingly good ranged dps with staff, great new pets….I could seriously go on all day.

Of all the new specs, Druid is easily my favorite and I feel the best all around. I feel like it adds more to the profession than any other elite spec does for their respective profession. The build opportunities, whether you are using Staff/Celestial or not, have opened up tremendously for us.

So no, I’m definitely not quitting ranger.

You really should try other classes then..

AOE KB/ daze/ small conditions is nothing new.

Engi has the AOE LAUNCH (a superior KB+KD) on their gadget, yet no-one really use them because there’re far better things to bring than this.

AOE small conditions? Mesmer and Necro do much more than this through their wells, with HIGH DAMAGE, HIGH UTILITY, and also GROUND TARGET.

Daze? Try Mesmer’s Mantra of distraction, a daze that can use 2~3 times in a roll and range 1200.

10% damage boost? Nope, on average this is 3% damage boost if you consider the CD.
6 sec 20 CD = 3% overall damage buff in 20 secs.

You overestimate Druid’s utilities. They’re uninteresting and subpar.
Even the animation is extremely boring compare to something like Chronomancer, Dragon Hunter, and Herald.
They seem like those last minute ideas come out of nowhere that doesn’t really fit the class like, at all.

Nope I love my Druid, yes it is different. But come on guys give them alittle time to get things adjusted. I made my Ranger and leveled him up just for HoT. Not about to stop playing him as my main. The Rev is nice though.

Zulth.4708:

… come on guys give them alittle time to get things adjusted …

If you don’t tell them it needs to be adjusted, it will remain this bad.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Zulth.4708:

… come on guys give them alittle time to get things adjusted …

If you don’t tell them it needs to be adjusted, it will remain this bad.

last out of beta with the least amount of testing should be seen to first , the rest of the classes can just wait for a change. xd

I didn’t quit my ranger, but I gave up on the druid. There seems to be so little that complements the core ranger stuff.

Especially if you compare it to what the other classes got (Reaper or Chrono for example).

ps: talking PvE only here

Mesmer and Ranger are my mains. Currently Chronomancer just brings too much good things to the game. I have high hopes for Druid to work as a good supporting character as well. But I am still looking forward to the opportunity to actually trying it. Being a healer who cannot heal is very frustrating and disheartening.

Druid itself brings too little support to the team at the moment. Of course there are always Natural Mender and Grace of the Land to consider as well. At the moment they are still too far to be unlocked yet.

Druid is going through some terrible emotional roller coaster ride at the moment. Hope it will end soon.

Zulth.4708:

Nope I love my Druid, yes it is different. But come on guys give them alittle time to get things adjusted. I made my Ranger and leveled him up just for HoT. Not about to stop playing him as my main. The Rev is nice though.

This is why so many people kicked up a fuss about one BWE, unfortunately it looks like they weren’t done making it. Hence why we were moved from our original slot reveal.

I love playing Druid Staff. I gave up my longbow for it and that’s saying a lot. Staff deals very consistent and sustained damage because it can not be reflected/destroyed and hits instantly. It might seem a bit boring to only use auto-attack, but you are constantly re-positioning yourself to line up more targets in the beam, both foes and allies.

I do play it with full ascended Berserker stats however That’s what I used to squeeze every last bit of damage out of the Longbow and now I do the same for the Staff. It does maybe a bit less damage, but it’s just very reliable and sustained.

The only thing lacking is that the auto-attack doesn’t fire a beam unless it has a target. Which is kind of sad, especially with the addition of the action cam.

Not giving up on my ranger, have spent 3.5k hours on the class and it is natural as breathing to me. However, I’ve given up on the Druid, the most illogical elite that they came up with. There are too many problems to fix, there are threads elsewhere. But, I’m doubtful Anet will change them.

Methal.9045:

Miaze.8631:

I heal, my Guardian shoots with Bow. We beat the best team in the game.
http://i.imgur.com/p3Lc8d5.jpg
#RangerRanging

Ranger heals
Pally uses bow….

the kitten is wrong with this game???

Apparently, they’re trying so hard to be original (and not WoW), that they don’t care if the game seems like Bizarro World.

I’m pro the idea of Ranger healing, actually, but it should have been in a Ranger-ish kind of way; with healing arrows, or something.

As for Guardian having a longbow – you’re absolutely right, that just seems utterly bizarre and makes Ranger more-or-less redundant.

So, it should only have happened (IF it happened, at all) after Ranger had been improved and all its issues resolved.

Otherwise, it’s just a further kick in the teeth, frankly.

Zulth.4708:

Nope I love my Druid, yes it is different. But come on guys give them alittle time to get things adjusted. I made my Ranger and leveled him up just for HoT.

Yes, I can tell you’re new around here.

You still have that charming thing…..now, what do they call it, again?

Ah yes, “hope”, that’s it… xD

Welcome to Ranger, where hope comes to die.

Pockets.3201:

Still soldiering with my ranger for now. I don’t really want to play my other characters much. Ranger is what I have fun with, despite our issues.

It IS a fun class and that is, precisely, why Anet are so short-sighted in treating it so woefully.

I get that it may well be because they enjoy playing their own game, on other classes and so, want it to be all their own way…

However, if they are only making this game, at this point, primarily for their own entertainment, then they shouldn’t be a publicly traded company, with shareholders.

As, they are not even trying to maximise other people’s enjoyment (and therefore, their own profit).