Guild Wars 2

Irenio , you get a big thumbs down from me. You totally did not listen to what Rangers have been complaining about for years.

I hope you burn your Thanksgiving turkey this year and its extra dry.

lordkrall.7241:

ArenaNet have never been anti-trinity. They have been anti-forced holy trinity, which is rather different.

Healers have been in the game since release. They have simply made them better latety.

We know that you love the holy trinity and want ArenaNet to put it into the game, but this is not a step towards that. It is simply them going forward with what they have been doing since release.

They said you wont be able to avoid all damage. That means you need a healer. They also said you will need tanks some how.
Its trinity
Unavoidable damage
Healers
Tanks
Thats Trinity

Aomine.5012:

HIGHEST DPS? SERIOUSLY!?

Ele and Thief do like 2 times more damage than ranger ever could be!

Engi does more damage than ranger with the right rotation

Warrior do very close damage to ranger, but with MUCH BETTER offensive utilities.

Ranger is only on the low end of dps role, what are you talking about!?

Well… I don’t know. If you are talking about the ZerkMeta LB+S/A ranger that is outperformed by Sinister Ranger by a mile than you might very likely be correct.

People should try to start living outside of meta. They constantly keep missing a lot of stuff. I sincerely have no idea how bringing 16% DPS for party hand in hand with 4500 bonus burning per target affected (means 22500 more damage every 8 seconds for 4+ membered parties) is inferior as a DPS role.

I think current cleric builds (Guardian, Elementalist, Revenant Ventari+Glint) are actually going to be just as useful as Druid. Remember that while Druid does great healing, it basically gives almost 0 boons and does very low damage compared to the other clerics (while it actually does huge CC). Guardian gives aegis, protection, reflects, regen, a lot of burning. Elementalist can do the world, plus give auras. Revenant gives perma protection and regen, or perma fury and might, also a very long projectile absorb and will do probably more damage and do stuff on demand since has no cd on Ventari skills. So yeah, I don’t really see Druid so OP, on PAPER at least. I’ll wait for the BW3 to test it out and compare it to other clerics. I’m sure thay don’t want Druid to be REQUIRED in raids.

What it sure does better then ANY other cleric is BURST heal. If it becomes something necessary in raids, I’m sure they’ll buff other clerics or nerf Druid.

And I agree, Ranger does a lot fo condi dps with traps and a pretty high ranged dps (condi or raw). But it requires very specific builds. You won’t be able to do that on Druid, never.
Elementalist, on the other hand, can heal as a Druid and still give auras, boons and do damage.
Guardian is similar to ele, and Revenant is basically Guardian with more raw healing and boons but no aegis.

Honestly I fail to see where Dragonhunters are going to be. They’re basically pet-less Rangers. Probably strong ranged condi dps, but I fail to see any unique role play.
As a main Guardian for 3 years, every other elite spec (and so class) seems WAY more interesting.

I wanted a shapeshift form, but the Celestial form is great. The staff though… that channeled AA looks awful.

staff reference

Solar Beam

• 1200 range instant-hit beam (like Mesmer Greatsword)

Great. Immune to reflect and projectile destroy which Longbow greatly suffers from. It also heals allies it hits, but I’d rather have it apply cripple or something. Druid has plenty of healing anyway.

Astral Wisp

• wisp heals allied in melee range to target

I guess it’s defense against melee where they close the gap and you get healed for it. Could be interesting. Otherwise underwhelming for a 1200 range weapon.

Ancestral Grace

• 1200 range ‘mist form’

Awesome! great alternative to Swoop. nice low cooldown. Was hoping for an instant teleport, but this looked great. Wondering if you can’t be damaged while in wisp form.

Vine Surge

• 1200 range line with 240 radius immobilize

I see this miss a lot. It has a cast time and the vines take a while to arrive, but otherwise a great skill with a low cooldown. Immobilize will help the pet land hits.

Sublime Conversion

• 5s ‘wall of reflection’ that makes the enemy projectiles that pass it heal allies

Looks great. Wall of Reflection is powerful and this might be as well. It also has a much lower cooldown.

Overall I like the look of the staff. I’d have to try it out first. It has a lot of healing. Maybe too much, but Solar Beam seemed to do a good amount of damage. As long as the auto-attack has a good punch, this weapon will be great. It’s a combination of Longbow and greatsword, so it could probably replace either in a build.

Thank you Ireno

Clearly there’s a reason that they called it a celestial transformation. You’re not meant to invest everything into healing, you’re meant to use celestial stats. Don’t think of yourself as a healer, think of yourself as a jack of all trades. Just ask the elementalists.

Who rolled a Ranger to be a healer? How is this even remotely a Ranger Archetype?

Stupid. I don’t care how “useful” it may be. I cannot believe people are happy with this pathetic bone tossed to the Ranger class.

i dont see the point of the druid. you dont need this heal to old pve/wvw/pvp. the cc is a mediocare stuff. not bad, but you must to go melee what is deadly for a ranged guy

Xard.8069:

Irenio , you get a big thumbs down from me. You totally did not listen to what Rangers have been complaining about for years.

I hope you burn your Thanksgiving turkey this year and its extra dry.

Wait for the class balance stream later before you get your torch and pitchfork ready. Also this is not the thread to post complaints in.

Xard.8069:

Irenio , you get a big thumbs down from me. You totally did not listen to what Rangers have been complaining about for years.

I hope you burn your Thanksgiving turkey this year and its extra dry.

Make sure you drink alot of water to compensate for all the salt :P

probably the best elite spec I have seen, it took the top spot on my list.

phys.7689:

lordkrall.7241:

ArenaNet have never been anti-trinity. They have been anti-forced holy trinity, which is rather different.

Healers have been in the game since release. They have simply made them better latety.

We know that you love the holy trinity and want ArenaNet to put it into the game, but this is not a step towards that. It is simply them going forward with what they have been doing since release.

They said you wont be able to avoid all damage. That means you need a healer. They also said you will need tanks some how.
Its trinity
Unavoidable damage
Healers
Tanks
Thats Trinity

That doesn’t mean you need a healer, for all we know, the old celestial PvP meta could be invading PvE.

It could be that someone that feels like playing a fully invested healer would allow other people to just go full offense with their trait choices, but in the absence of that, they might have to pick up slightly more survivability (Cavalier stats, celestial stats, more defensive utilities, etc.)

Unless the unavoidable damage is incredibly extreme, my guardian should be more than capable of sustaining through it with monk’s focus, virtue of resolve, a meditation heal/utility set with and the healing elite.

The times I have specced into a meditation build, unless I die to an instant kill, which a healer wouldn’t help with anyway, I’m not going to die. Litanny of wrath+smiter’s boon clears a condition and heals almost my entire health pool on a 24 second cooldown, my elite signet heals about a 10th of it every 10 seconds, virtue of resolve provides more passive regeneration, and each meditation represents another fifth of my health on fairly short cooldowns.

Warriors could drop discipline in favour of defense for more survivability. Cleansing ire gets rid of conditions ridiculously quickly, and between the 2nd minor trait and healing signet, their regeneration is not insignificant.

Since there’s no taunt to make an enemy constantly attack you, there is no trinity.

Druid has LOTS of water. Water fields galore. Cleanses all the salt in the world.

Lots of that healing will still likely scale very poorly with healing power except for larger heals on larger cds. AH on a guardian for example scales with healing power by 1%.

DPS gear, still heal nearly as much as a a full cleric without tanking your deeps. Assuming you even want this much healing.

According to Dulfy these are without any stats so the skills may end up doing respectable damage in the live environment.

FLiP.7680:

I wanted a shapeshift form

So… Norn racial skills? Druids in GW lore are NOT shapeshifters. It would have been a great mistakes.
Norn warriors are shapeshifters, almost all of them if you have read the books.

Odin of Ark.4860:

Since there’s no taunt to make an enemy constantly attack you, there is no trinity.

Also the Healers are doing more than just Heal, they can also do Damage buff Allies or control the Enemies.
Something that is impossible in a Holy Trinity Setting

nagymbear.5280:

Wuselknusel.4082:

I am not talking about the Druid, I am talking about the Ranger in general. Irenio said that the Ranger needs niches. I am responding to this with the statement that we don’t need niches but a properly working profession mechanic and not more.

Well for a very long time rangers were asking what the class should be according to Anet. Last this was mentioned by Anet they talked about ranger being the best ranged damage dealer in the game. If you think of PvP there is also almost no role ranger can play (at least that’s the impression I get from PvPers). So yeah we need niches. The hard content probably will put players into niches anyways if it is required to bring certain functionality into raids (i.e. hevy heals, heavy cc, ranged condition damage dealer….).

No, we don’t need niches. We need working mechanics. It comes to no surprise that the Ranger is never seen in high PvP games when spirits, shouts and the profession mechanic, the pets, are not up to par compared to the other mechanics. Fix those shortcomings, then think about if you still need to give the Ranger a niche.

Its more DPS, support(buffs), and control. Thats the trinity in GW2 IMO.

Walhalla.5473:

Odin of Ark.4860:

Since there’s no taunt to make an enemy constantly attack you, there is no trinity.

Also the Healers are doing more than just Heal, they can also do Damage buff Allies or control the Enemies.
Something that is impossible in a Holy Trinity Setting

Many trinity games have the support role buff and heal

Most people missout on the absolutely best aspect about this. You get to reroll (or even make another) set of ascended armor. Good times!

/sarcasm

I will also add my disappointment with some others here… it certainly does seem like we have been given the heal role, and that will be the de facto standard if we want a spot in raids or even WvW. Others have said it already, but I don’t really enjoy being pigeonholed into a role. I am grateful we received ‘a’ role, now, but why can’t we provide really competitive ranged DPS and still have some valuable utility support? How is that asking too much?

This also seems a bit contradictory regarding elite specs generally, where the vernacular seems a bit inappropriate — elite does not equate better, according to Anet, just a different, transformative playstyle and option (unless I was reading the dev feedback incorrectly). People wanting to stick with the regular specs should be able to, and still be viable.

Let’s see what the skill rebalancing preview brings… I am hoping for something good, for us long suffering ranger mains.

I honestly couldn’t be happier. Druid gave me everything I wanted it to. People who don’t want support/healing on ranger can play base ranger, they’re getting updates too according to the stream so there will be improvements there. Nobody is forcing anyone to play druid if they don’t want to

Walhalla.5473:

Odin of Ark.4860:

Since there’s no taunt to make an enemy constantly attack you, there is no trinity.

Also the Healers are doing more than just Heal, they can also do Damage buff Allies or control the Enemies.
Something that is impossible in a Holy Trinity Setting

huh?
Those are all still trinity roles, and can be done in the trinity.

Rift is a trinity game. Tanks can tank with 2hander, and healers can DPS to heal. No idea where you been. Thats still a trinity.

Thus began the end of what was once a glorious game.

Cyninja.2954:

Most people missout on the absolutely best aspect about this. You get to reroll (or even make another) set of ascended armor. Good times!

/sarcasm

Finally there will be some use for all this healers chests I drop in fractals.

Odin of Ark.4860:

Since there’s no taunt to make an enemy constantly attack you, there is no trinity.

They already said you will need tanks for raids. So by some means the tank will get most damage, or theyd be useless.
Whether they alter agro, enemy behavior or add fight specific mechanics for certain players to take more dmg, the result is the same.

They basically slapped the trinity on gw2

Eponet.4829:

I hope you’re willing to invest in zealot’s gear, or apothecary’s for condition damage variants.

I’ve been piecing together a set of Keepers since it became available. Great set of stats and getting better in light of the Druid commentary.

ShaolinX.8673:

I will also add my disappointment with some others here… it certainly does seem like we have been given the heal role, and that will be the de facto standard if we want a spot in raids or even WvW. Others have said it already, but I don’t really enjoy being pigeonholed into a role. I am grateful we received ‘a’ role, now, but why can’t we provide really competitive ranged DPS and still have some valuable utility support? How is that asking too much?

This also seems a bit contradictory regarding elite specs generally, where the vernacular seems a bit inappropriate — elite does not equate better, according to Anet, just a different, transformative playstyle and option (unless I was reading the dev feedback incorrectly). People wanting to stick with the regular specs should be able to, and still be viable.

Let’s see what the skill rebalancing preview brings… I am hoping for something good, for us long suffering ranger mains.

This….

I know a lot of rangers are happy they now have a great role and will be in demand for some game modes…. but its been dragged into “play this role, or continue to suck”

Outside of a healing druid – ranger will remain medicore/below average

rapthorne.7345:

I’m glad we will finally have a dedicated healer. As much as I enjoy GW2, the trinity is something I’ve sorely missed, and is almost essential in providing meaningful group content

Oh so we’re back to… “group ready to go… looking for healer”… are we ?

Eponet.4829:

Clearly there’s a reason that they called it a celestial transformation. You’re not meant to invest everything into healing, you’re meant to use celestial stats. Don’t think of yourself as a healer, think of yourself as a jack of all trades. Just ask the elementalists.

The entire staff and nearly all the traits are meant as active defensive support.

Krall is right. Anet’s goal was never to have classes that could only do X, no more Monks only healing or Warriors only DPS’ing.

3 years of kittenty healing power scaling and no need for dedicated defensive support builds has made people think Anet never wanted these kinds of play styles which was never the case. If it were, thing like the Guardian Mace would have never passed muster.

They are simply moving toward making party member roles more specialized which is a good thing in a game where stats are fluid and builds can be changed in a matter of minutes.

So yes. Lurvs the druid stuff. I’m already one of those that aren’t that unhappy while playing ranger despite the sometime pitfalls, and I just feel happier now.

There’s room for changes in other places than druid so excited to hear more about stuff.

TheRandomGuy.7246:

Cyninja.2954:

Most people missout on the absolutely best aspect about this. You get to reroll (or even make another) set of ascended armor. Good times!

/sarcasm

Finally there will be some use for all this healers chests I drop in fractals.

There we go. Remember the old saying:“When Arenanet gives you lemons… throw them away and buy apple juice.”

Substance E.4852:

According to Dulfy these are without any stats so the skills may end up doing respectable damage in the live environment.

If that’s the case then Astral Whip would do 60% more damage than maul. So that’s nice

If they would make Astral Grace do AE damage to enemies and heal allies that would be great as well. Even if it’s non-critical and does 1470 damage or something.

At least this way you’ve given the staff a role for non-healing builds.

Yes! A healer! Now I know what specialisation to get first.

Draknar.5748:

What are you talking about? I honestly have no idea.

A boomkin is a combination between an owl and a bear.

Time to craft an ascended healing gear I guess…

TheRandomGuy.7246:

Cyninja.2954:

Most people missout on the absolutely best aspect about this. You get to reroll (or even make another) set of ascended armor. Good times!

/sarcasm

Finally there will be some use for all this healers chests I drop in fractals.

In case you didn’t know, you can swap the stats on ascended gear relatively cheaply nowdays.

Dradiin.8935:

I respect that you can find your niche in the way you play, my hope for druid was that i would be set on par with the rest of the classes and there new elite specs, but we have been thrown to the wolves, and we will not get in the higher level Fractal groups 40+ unless we are healbots.

But my ranger already gets in groups for 40+ Fractals and Druid spec isn’t even out yet. So you’re saying that after HoT, I will no longer be able to get into those same groups? How can that be?

Amethyst Lure.5624:

So yes. Lurvs the druid stuff. I’m already one of those that aren’t that unhappy while playing ranger despite the sometime pitfalls, and I just feel happier now.

There’s room for changes in other places than druid so excited to hear more about stuff.

I think I’ll be a fake druid who doesn’t use staff and still use full zerker, but just use the trait-line for decent survival, and grab that Glyph that increases damage, and keep on pewing pewing lol..

Screw the staff!

I’m wondering if all the people complaining even watched the same stream I did. For YEARS all this subforum has complained about is “we’re not in the meta”, “we don’t have a place”, “people don’t want us because we’re a selfish class”, “the devs don’t listen to us”, “we’re bogged down by our pets” etc. etc. ad infinium.

The Druid gives the Ranger legitimate group support across multiple game modes and is frankly probably the best elite specialization they’ve revealed. They truly did save the best for last. You don’t even need to take the staff, you can spec into Druid for the celestial mode (WHICH IS A BRAND SPANKING NEW CLASS MECHANIC NOT BOGGED DOWN BY YOUR PET HELLO IS ANYONE THERE?) and give yourself crazy amounts of healing that’s affected by your traits WHILE you continue to carry two weapon sets and two other trait lines to help those weapon sets or your pet.

???

What are you guys even complaining about? I see this and I see my ranger taking his longbow, axe/torch, sword/dagger whatever into a dungeon, laying down dps (which Irenio said does fill the celestial bar so you’re not locked into healbot btw) , and then seeing “oh kitten that thief over there is getting pretty low on hp lemme just HEAL HIM BACK TO FULL HEALTH real quick!”, switch over to your God of Healing™ class mechanic and then make him good as new. Then you switch out of your celestial mode after topping off everyone else in the group because why the hell not, and go back to being a ranger and outputting a not-insubstantial amount of dps, which is further complimented by your new smokescale literally teleporting around the battlefield, during which it can’t be affected by AoE.

And then, to top it all off, the developer that designed this legitimately overpowered specialization outright declares the death of the berserker meta at the hands of the Druid, announces that he’s been reading and taking note of the ranger forum’s criticisms for probably the last year (!!!!), and says he can’t wait to put down a red thread and interact with you guys, and that further details about the future of the base ranger class will be discussed later on during the balance segment of the presentation.

And all you guys do is say kitten like

Atherakhia.4086:

What this change did was effectively removed Rangers from the game.

We asked to be in the meta…

What they gave us
“Come with us, sit in the corner over there, do your healing healing crap and we will let you know when you can leave. Oh and face the corner, and wear this dunce cap”

lordkrall.7241:

They have never had a no trinity philosophy.

They have had a no holy trinity or forced trinity philosophy.

And the fact that you can mention basically every class as giving healing, would very much suggest that it is still true.

If you look at the list 4/9 classes give sufficient healing to be a healer.
This is the holy trinity.

The number of options to play healer is less the half of the total classes, yet they design content that requires a dedicated healer. It is a forced trinity.

All classes should be able to damage on the level of an elementalist.

All classes should be able to heal on the level of an elementalist/druid/guardian.

All classes should be able to tank on the level of a warrior/guard.

It becomes a forced trinity when content cannot be completed without using certain classes.

All dungeons can be done with a party of 5 thieves.

Can the same be said for 10 thieves in a raid?

And if its about making raids super difficult content, then make it so 10 thieves with extremely well gear + tactics + builds can complete it.

Their Philosophy changed. They couldnt figure out how to build a raid without a trinity so they added a trinity

Olcon.9506:

I’m wondering if all the people complaining even watched the same stream I did. For YEARS all this subforum has complained about is “we’re not in the meta”, “we don’t have a place”, “people don’t want us because we’re a selfish class”, “the devs don’t listen to us”, “we’re bogged down by our pets” etc. etc. ad infinium.

The Druid gives the Ranger legitimate group support across multiple game modes and is frankly probably the best elite specialization they’ve revealed. They truly did save the best for last. You don’t even need to take the staff, you can spec into Druid for the celestial mode (WHICH IS A BRAND SPANKING NEW CLASS MECHANIC NOT BOGGED DOWN BY YOUR PET HELLO IS ANYONE THERE?) and give yourself crazy amounts of healing that’s affected by your traits WHILE you continue to carry two weapon sets and two other trait lines to help those weapon sets or your pet.

???

What are you guys even complaining about? I see this and I see my ranger taking his longbow, axe/torch, sword/dagger whatever into a dungeon, laying down dps (which Irenio said does fill the celestial bar so you’re not locked into healbot btw) , and then seeing “oh kitten that thief over there is getting pretty low on hp lemme just HEAL HIM BACK TO FULL HEALTH real quick!”, switch over to your God of Healing™ class mechanic and then make him good as new. Then you switch out of your celestial mode after topping off everyone else in the group because why the hell not, and go back to being a ranger and outputting a not-insubstantial amount of dps, which is further complimented by your new smokescale literally teleporting around the battlefield, during which it can’t be affected by AoE.

And then, to top it all off, the developer that designed this legitimately overpowered specialization outright declares the death of the berserker meta at the hands of the Druid, announces that he’s been reading and taking note of the ranger forum’s criticisms for probably the last year (!!!!), and says he can’t wait to put down a red thread and interact with you guys, and that further details about the future of the base ranger class will be discussed later on during the balance segment of the presentation.

And all you guys do is say kitten like

Atherakhia.4086:

What this change did was effectively removed Rangers from the game.

I answered your ‘why’ question in my post…

Trinity roles are highly polarized. Everyone wants to be a DPS class, but few want to tank or heal. You can’t take a game that for 3 years has told players they can do everything and then shove the ’you’re a primary healer now, suck it up’ card down their throat.

That’s the complaint I, and I’m sure others have.

Olcon.9506:

I’m wondering if all the people complaining even watched the same stream I did. For YEARS all this subforum has complained about is “we’re not in the meta”, “we don’t have a place”, “people don’t want us because we’re a selfish class”, “the devs don’t listen to us”, “we’re bogged down by our pets” etc. etc. ad infinium.

The Druid gives the Ranger legitimate group support across multiple game modes and is frankly probably the best elite specialization they’ve revealed. They truly did save the best for last. You don’t even need to take the staff, you can spec into Druid for the celestial mode (WHICH IS A BRAND SPANKING NEW CLASS MECHANIC NOT BOGGED DOWN BY YOUR PET HELLO IS ANYONE THERE?) and give yourself crazy amounts of healing that’s affected by your traits WHILE you continue to carry two weapon sets and two other trait lines to help those weapon sets or your pet.

???

Are you serious?

Olcon.9506:

What are you guys even complaining about? I see this and I see my ranger taking his longbow, axe/torch, sword/dagger whatever into a dungeon, laying down dps

Ok, gotcha. You aren’t.

Olcon.9506:

And then, to top it all off, the developer that designed this legitimately overpowered specialization outright declares the death of the berserker meta at the hands of the Druid

Ok, now you really start making fun of yourself.

I agree with Atherakhia.