Guild Wars 2

So I guess druid is either loved, or hated by people…

I like the idea of a healer. I’ve played a healer many times before, and it’s nice. I don’t like the promise of a healer being “mandatory”, but I am willing to wait and see what the expansion is actually like because I have experienced over-hype before where developers/representatives of a game have told me “this game will be SO hard now, nothing you have now will be good enough, etc, etc…”.

There are people who are excited about druid. People who like to be healers, people who are glad that Rangers have a role that is actually desired, now.

But there are also people who dislike this reveal. Who have played Ranger for three years, and have enjoyed the mechanics that were there, as they were given. And if those people are disappointed, I have every sympathy for them.

It seems like a few of the “specializations”, missed the mark of being what one would call a class specialization, instead forcing a class into a particular role. But I will wait and see. Most of what I have heard from companies in regards to their expansions has been “all talk”, and I suspect that this game isn’t going to change too drastically with the expansion.

@ShadowKain

Then, please, elaborate how do you expect any company to meet expectations of every single player out there.
If you haven’t realized it yet, every other thread here contradicts the next one. Fulfill that, Sir.
If you believe they have the duty to listen to every single one of us and dance like we sing… Than you might probably realize that italic format will not make your thread any more serious or logical.

A gaming industry has one simple goal as any other. To make money.
The easiest way to achieve this is to create a vast variety of options from which players can fall in love with at least one of them. Plus, GW2 had a vision of user-friendly environment as a core mechanic.
Druid is exactly that mechanic that fills this purpose. It is an option people can fall in love with. They have absolutely no duty and you have clearly no right to demand any change about their product. Why? Because you agreed to their terms when buying the game.

I am one person in a sea of many, many others but simply because mine is only one perspective, does not invalidate it as a perspective worth being presented.

That’s true. But the same goes for my reply that your perspective is illogical.

Another thing is to avoid loosing your players in terms of being unfair. Like Ranger enthusiasts have been treated for a long time. Druid addressed most of our problems and brought us back where Rangers demanded for years.

And here I come to see that your biggest problem about the Druid is attack animations and visual effects. And you demand a complete rework about the specialization just because of this opinion.

You critique my offering a suggestion, but go on to insert your anecdotal, personal preference regarding a hypothetical as a reason for not implementing the suggestion. Sound familiar? Because it should.

It does sound familiar, indeed. I believed that was the language you use. Of course I use the same. It helps people communicate, you know.

This is the feedback thread:
http://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/professions/ranger/Druid-Healer-Confirmed-Feedback-merged

mrstealth.6701:

evilunderling.9265:

Daniel Handler.4816:

I am not referring to optimal. I am referring to viable. If it is not possible for full thief raids to complete the entire thing, then something has gone wrong…

That doesn’t imply that anything has gone wrong at all.

Raids are meant to be hard — the norm for hardcore raids in other games is that you need to be able to do something like 90% of your theoretically attainable DPS to beat the enrage timer. GW2 should be quite a bit more lenient than that (after all, we will never have genuinely better gear to bring along), but not by that much if they’re to remain credible.

Every time you drop a profession in favour of stacking another profession, balance demands that you’re significantly worse off for doing so. If these are credible raids and the game is balanced, you should not be able to do that eight times over.

It means that something is very wrong because being able to do that is the core philosophy of the game. Being able to complete any content with whatever party composition you have. You take who you have, and don’t have to wait around because you lack a healer/etc.

If you have to sit around for an hour and wait for a druid or other player that is setup/geared as a dedicated healer, then Anet has completely thrown their core design philosophy out the window.

For dedicated healing to fit into the game’s design, it would need to be an option, not a requirement. Taking one dedicated healer instead of having lesser healing/defense support spread over several other party members. I think it’s doable, but it will be a difficult and delicate balance to make sure both options are equally viable.

And then you realize that the ‘anti-trinity’ experiment is largely a failed one that led to the rise, and perpetuation, of the zerker meta. Moving away from generalists toward specialists isn’t a bad thing. It creates a need for specs that would otherwise never be seen, because they simply aren’t wanted or needed in the current environment.

In no way does the addition of the Druid change anything. All the other classes already have viable heal specs. They all operate somewhat differently, and are better, and worse, in certain situations.

And why wouldn’t a full Thief raid be a thing? Venomshare is a viable, albeit unpopular, spec. The sustained healing it can provide is nothing to scoff at, neither is the party-wide damage boost.
If you meant to say you want a raid run to be viable with nothing but glass-cannon thieves, I’ll have to disagree. You should be able to run w/e profession you like, but you SHOULD have to use more than one shared spec. I do believe ANet has said that for raids, you need people to fill certain ROLES, not certain professions.

If i close my eyes i already see the “no druids” lfgs

Azzer.8137:

Also, a healing mantra mesmer can spam an almost 3000 heal every 3-4 second with no healing gear

Curious. How much does healing gear affect the healing mesmer build? Also, being able to nullify a portion of damage all the time aids in the support type build.

I remember that in Aion people would pay good money to get a cleric or chanter for their runs. I loved the healing profession so I am open for it.I am very curious how it will turn out in HOT

The philosophy has always been that given a set of people they can adapt their builds to accomodate the requirements of the encounter.

People seem to have interpreted this to mean “your chosen build works everywhere and no one should ask you to change.” Which is nonsense.

What it means is if a druid is a healer and then is removed from a group then the rest can switch things around to cover that gap.

I disagree completely OP.

I like the Design of the Elite Spec very much. It has an unique taste which keeps it distant from other classes that where also called Druid.

I also like that the Druid focusses on Nature instead of transforming to animals, as GW Druids didnt have that much of an special connection to the wildlife (over beiing part of nature).

I also do not agree that the Druid is heavenly focussed on astralmagic design. Only the 5 Skills of the new form have that, the Staff and the Utility-Skills are designed in a more “earth-way” of Nature. Even the Glyph of the Tides, as they are characteristical for the sea. The old druids most likely even didnt know that tides were created by the moon and they also saw water as something purifying so its not that far-fetched that they also included tides in their understanding of nature.

So I think the balance their is quite nice. You basically have an nature-worshipper who can ascend and have then an cosmical touch. Just like the GW1 Druids did. (Ok we dont know about the cosmic touch because the Druids werent that talkitive back then. But Cosmic also implies understanding of higher concepts – compare it to “Nearer to the Stars” from Cantha – which fits actual good in this context.

So basically I like the Elite Spec. Also the healing theme. It would be perfectly if they change the Healskills to a little bit more proactive way, but its a good start.

Sadly I dont see much Synergy with the rest of the Ranger – but maybe the big Balanceupdate will change that.

Coulter.2315:

The philosophy has always been that given a set of people they can adapt their builds to accomodate the requirements of the encounter.

People seem to have interpreted this to mean “your chosen build works everywhere and no one should ask you to change.” Which is nonsense.

What it means is if a druid is a healer and then is removed from a group then the rest can switch things around to cover that gap.

Except that’s not the case is it. Tell me which warrior specs can compensate for the sheer amount of heals the druid has or the necro or the mesmer. The druid alone has 5 healing on their staff nuff said

How many more times will I have to say this?

The pet is not the profession mechanic of the DRUID

drkmgic.9583:

Coulter.2315:

The philosophy has always been that given a set of people they can adapt their builds to accomodate the requirements of the encounter.

People seem to have interpreted this to mean “your chosen build works everywhere and no one should ask you to change.” Which is nonsense.

What it means is if a druid is a healer and then is removed from a group then the rest can switch things around to cover that gap.

Except that’s not the case isn’kitten Tell me which warrior specs can compensate for the sheer amount of heals the druid has or the necro or the mesmer. The druid alone has 5 healing on their staff nuff said

THE GROUP CAN PROVIDE IT. You think in such small ways. If I remove the druid that doesn’t mean it can be replaced by a warrior, it means you can shift the focus of a number of other players to cover the gap…

I’ll give an example so people can try to pitcture it.

Group of 10 people raiding, using a druid for a lot of healing. Druid doesn’t turn up one evening. Response from raid leader :

We’ll need higher Protection up time, Guards can you adjust for that.

Warrior can you grab a few Shouts for that Condi Phase.

Mesmer can you bring the Well Heal, Inspiration+Chrono for Quickness Mantra of Pain Heals to top us up at that damage intensive part.

The team can adjust to cover the gap.

dsslive.8473:

Harper.4173:

And what if you want to play a ranger but people will only take you if you’re a druid. What happens then?

Then dont join that group? just as people who don’t like zerker playstyle join other groups/make their own.

And have they done that or have they endlessly cried on the forums about it?

I’m fine with your answer – most PHIW players aren’t – because they feel that just because they’re playing the game they’re entitled to be taken along by other players.

The forums will be awash with the tears and cries of despair of the PHIWs.

Ojyh.9842:

xadine.7069:

Ok, I didn’t read everything but for what I understood, lots of players are unhappy with the druid design.

druid name
Personnaly I find it surprising but not wrong. In GW lore druids where connected to plants indeed. But the celestial lore always was very important in GW too. I agree a bit more “planty” would have been nice, but I really find the celestial form cool.
Ofc those who discover druids with wow are disapointed, but this is gw and this druid desing isn’t wrong when it comes to gw lore.
But I think another name would have better suit this spec indeed, but druid isn’t the only one in that situation^^.

Well you should have read a little bit more :p
I said (maybe others too) that there is no lore behind this. We don’t know if Druids have anything related to the stars or celestial objetcs, but we know they have a strong link with biological part of the nature. So why would you design a Druid spec almost entirely on the astral aspect ?
The original Druids were suspected to be worshipers of Melandru, and this goddes is all about nature in the sense of plants, animals, earth, seasons… All those things we find in the Ranger actually. Not stars and astrology.
The name itself is not a problem, I think everybody is fine with this one. It’s just that the character itself is not reflecting the image of what a Druid is in the lore of GW.

Until a dev comes here to specifically tell us that now the Druids have an important link with the stars, it will stay wrong to consider them this way.
And even if a dev does that, it will stay a bad choice to have supplanted the original lore by this, because it made a lot more sense for a Ranger and for the jungle.

But you can’t just say, without proper evidence, that the connection to stars, the sun and the moon with druids is wrong. What we know about the druids is that they felt a very strong connection to nature, and nature encompasses more than just the plant life and the animal life, it’s all of it. So to claim certain aspects of nature to not fit the concept of druid, without having an actual statement of “this is what aspects of nature the druids worshipped” (for a lack of better word) you cannot say that the sun, the moon and stars aren’t part of it. So far none of the lore excludes these. The lack of evidence doesn’t mean there is no connection. Nature is a very broad term and has many aspects. Without that clearcut “this is what the worshipped specifically” there is not “this is wrong” when it comes to the connection to the celestial objects.

No lore was shifted or changed to make this fit. The only thing it may have done is make lore clearer. Showing that they do find nature to include these aspects.

As to their connections to melandru, while yes there are rumors, none of the interactions with them have validated those rumors, it’s very much still a question whether or not they did follow melandru.

Final point, the druid isn’t “almost entirely” based on astral stuff, there’s a pretty 50/50 split between pure plant/animal stuff (staff skills regular glyphs) and the astral part (the celestial form and the changes to the glyphs- which are quite minimal as they’re just changed into aoe heals/condi removals)

Yeah, I disagree too. As others have said, it seems more a case of personal preference than reality.

Regarding magic use: Reaper got a hold for Ice magic, Chrono got Time magic, both of them sort of (tangentially) related to their vanilla Professions. Druid does seem to go a different route, but then again we already can use a Sun spirit and Call of the Wild depicts a giant Moon when cast. To me it seems they are pushing it into that celestial direction, broading the sense of Natural magic to include the stars which are also part of Nature. The moon, the sun, any celestial body IS a part of the natural world, which turns out to be anything but chaotic in nature, or we’d have the planets colliding into each other. Specially at the astronomical level, nature is anything but chaotic. And the mists (which depict a far more chaotic version/explanation for reality) belong to the Revy, so… not following you on that one either.

Astralporing.1957:

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

And this is a bad thing how exactly? …

Pretty much everyone asked for an actual challenging content.

To be precise, a small number of forum posters asked for it. For a large part of player community current content is already challenging enough, and many others do not care.

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

They gave classes much more focused roles in order to provide something that requires thinking and finally get rid of the braindead zerker meta.

No point in removing one meta, if it’s done through introducing another, even more strict meta.

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

Also, who said that raids will be easy enough to be completed by pugs? You might never see stuff like that on chat once people realise that they need a team/guild in order to actually complete a raid.

Because within guilds there will not be situations where a leader needs to roll a dice to see which of the guildmembers will be forced to play the healer (because all the players that liked playing healer role left 2 years ago). Yeah, right.

Let’s be honest, healers are a bottleneck in other games, because this is a role that is unappealing to a large majority of players. And most players that found it appealing left GW2 long ago.

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

Last but not least, I’d rather have groups looking for healers rather than Ice Bow providers.

Don’t worry, you won’t see any icebow in action after the next Tuesday. It won’t lessen the desirability of eles in groups in the tiniest.

First of all, anyone who thinks that the game is currently challenging, is brain-damaged., or came to GW2 after 5 years of hack n’ slash games played on easy mode.

Also, it seems you are stuck in 2007 MMO gaming. Cause nowdays, even in super small population MMOs, healers are everywhere, and very easy to find. Games offer various roles for 1 class depending on how you trait. It’s not like you can only heal 24/7 being a X class.

And, yes, Ice bow WILL affect ele desirability. Once HoT launches, elite specs become playable and zerker meta goes bye bye, how many eles would you want for a 5 man group? If any…

I disagree. the spec is well thought out with great animations

I am loving the Druid on paper. As mainly a healer in other MMO’s this finally gives me a chance to play 100% support!

I can’t wait to start looking at builds and armor combinations. Apothecary looks like it will be fine, although may consider Clerics.

Can’t wait to get my grubby little hands on it!

I have seen the footage of the Elite spec of the ranger, the druid
and I have mixed feelings about this.

From what I have seen this Elite spec seems really cool (I will like it for sure), however, it seems to fill a role of a heavy healer. Something that doesnt exist yet in that extend.

What I like about guildwars is that the holy trinity of tank dps and heal does not exist in here. It makes the game more fun in my opinion, due to a different approach in how to work together. However seeing the druid being heavy healer, makes me worry.

Are other classes gonna get a heal spec too in the future, when the second row of Elite specs for classes will be released?

With taunts in the game, someone building to be really tanky and healspecs, this looks like a possible holy trinity gonna happen in guildwars.
Truly tanking probably wont exist, so the holy trinity might not happen at all, but it isnt weird I think that the worries arise.

I would like to know yours and ArenaNet’s views on this all.

I just want to say thank you Irenio.
I love the Druid and can’t wait for BWE3! Best thing is you don’t need staff to be supporty, you’ll have that F5 form to burst heal allies always. The F5 is a good addition to any build.
All the traits look good too, especially Natural Stride (nice gw1 ref) and Ancient Seeds. Oh and those Wyverns <3. Electric Wyvern looks like it will replace Wolf as CC pet and it will be definitely cooler to play alongside a dragon than a dog :P

This is definitely the right direction you are taking the Ranger with the balance changes and Druid. I’ve even heard several of my anti-Ranger friends say they want to roll one

Harper.4173:

dsslive.8473:

Harper.4173:

And what if you want to play a ranger but people will only take you if you’re a druid. What happens then?

Then dont join that group? just as people who don’t like zerker playstyle join other groups/make their own.

And have they done that or have they endlessly cried on the forums about it?

I’m fine with your answer – most PHIW players aren’t – because they feel that just because they’re playing the game they’re entitled to be taken along by other players.

The forums will be awash with the tears and cries of despair of the PHIWs.

People will cry about anything and everything, so why does that really matter? The tools are there , if people rahter cry about it then use those than that’s really their problem.

Shadow Phage.9084:

And then you realize that the ‘anti-trinity’ experiment is largely a failed one that led to the rise, and perpetuation, of the zerker meta. Moving away from generalists toward specialists isn’t a bad thing. It creates a need for specs that would otherwise never be seen, because they simply aren’t wanted or needed in the current environment.

In no way does the addition of the Druid change anything. All the other classes already have viable heal specs. They all operate somewhat differently, and are better, and worse, in certain situations.

I’m not against specialization and roles. I love playing dedicated heal/support, but I see trying to implement them into GW2 being difficult, if not an outright bad idea. The game was designed from the ground up to not have healers. Sure, there are builds that have some focus on healing, but not to the degree that the Druid is supposed to.

I think it’s very likely that Druids will either end up being required or unwanted. Unless existing content all gets retuned to fit them, they won’t really have a place. And that is not something I see happening. In pve, I don’t see the spec being used outside of raids. Open world content certainly can’t be designed to make their presence important, because the content would be too difficult if there weren’t enough/any of them at an event. And if the past three years have shown as anything, it’s that heal/support spec’d players would have trouble getting credit for those events. An overhaul of that system is something I’d love to see (it’s long overdue), but it’s another thing I just don’t see happening.

As much as I like the idea of getting more tailored roles, I just don’t see a primary healer working in this game’s content and mechanics. Too much would have to change in order to make it viable and balanced, without going against the core philosophy of it not being a hard requirement. Tuning new content to make better use of the existing heal/support roles seems like a much more realistic and obtainable goal. Make those builds more important instead of trying to add in something the game was designed to not have.

Yeah because a rehashed “dodge/endurance” mechanic is totally the same as the Thief’s “Steal and Initiative” mechanic. And the Function Gyro is totally the same as the Engineer’s Toolbelt mechanic.

You should be really happy that the Druid actually got a HUGE mechanic added to the class!

+1

And +9000 for the Icebow nerf and mic drop LIKE A BAWZ!

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

And, yes, Ice bow WILL affect ele desirability. Once HoT launches, elite specs become playable and zerker meta goes bye bye, how many eles would you want for a 5 man group? If any…

You are making it sound like currently the only reason to bring an Ele is for Frost Bow….

Just to address a few of the most common complaints that prove many of you don’t listen and are willing to just jump straight into assumptions and throw your toys out of the pram like children before listening to the facts.

1. “Waahh, Druid is pure healing but provides no other buffs to help the zerka meta!! We’re still not going to be wanted! It’s creating a healing meta!”

Irenio and Rubi specifically discussed at the end of the Druid reveal that HoT will be moving the game away from the zerker cancer-meta starting via its PvE and Raids content design. Full zerker parties as they are today will not survive in the new content without some kind of, at least semi-dedicated, heal/support profession. This is the role that a staff Druid will fill if they choose. Therefore, set-ups that just serve to buff the current zerker meta will be redundant.

As for the “healing meta” complaint… well that’s just mis-education pure and simple. Just because healing elements may be required in new group content, it does not mean that everyone is suddenly going to be a healer. We will still need 90% DPS-focussed team members to actually get us through the content, but they will now need that new, higher level of support the Druid can offer. You can’t have a party full of healing Druids in group content because nothing will get finished!

On an additional note, Irenio mentioned throughout the Druid reveal that many of the skills are still under review and might be beefed-out with additional capabilities, or have their current abilities diversified.

2. “Waahh, Druid does nothing to buff our core mechanic, the pet!”

Simply put, the pet is not the core mechanic of the Druid. Astral Avatar form is. The Druid design is at no obligation to improve the pet mechanic, though they have added some amazing new pets in the process with some interesting new capabilities. The pet improvement concern is to be discussed for Rangers.

3. “Waahh, I don’t want to be a healer!”

Then don’t. Taking the Druid traitline does not force you into being a dedicated healer. Read people’s new build and theory-crafting threads – the Druid traitline opens up entirely new sustain and dynamic potential for existing builds, and also creates niches for new builds that improve upon existing ones – the trapper for example. You also do not have to wield a staff to be a Druid.

4. “Waahh it’s not nature-themed!”

It couldn’t be more nature-themed. Celestial (i.e. of planetary bodies – of which the Earth itself is one remember), heavens, spirits, influence on nature of the earth – it’s all interlinked thematically. It brings a brilliant, unique flavour to a nature-themed profession and it looks good too.

One valid complaint:

“What about event credit?”

This is something that will need looking into. As it stands, the loot from events is poorly distributed even without dedicated healers running around the place. Everyone is too focussed on tagging enough enemies, particularly champs, to get as much of the loot as possible. It entirely detracts from the fun of the game. The loot should all be collated in one large chest in one area at the end of each event. That way the event can be spread over larger areas and a huge zerg won’t have to run around tagging everything together. People might actually form tactics…

maddoctor.2738:

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

And, yes, Ice bow WILL affect ele desirability. Once HoT launches, elite specs become playable and zerker meta goes bye bye, how many eles would you want for a 5 man group? If any…

You are making it sound like currently the only reason to bring an Ele is for Frost Bow….

Key word: Currently.

Relation: Zerker meta.

…

Yep, about time they stop making angry threads about it.

Coulter.2315:

drkmgic.9583:

Coulter.2315:

The philosophy has always been that given a set of people they can adapt their builds to accomodate the requirements of the encounter.

People seem to have interpreted this to mean “your chosen build works everywhere and no one should ask you to change.” Which is nonsense.

What it means is if a druid is a healer and then is removed from a group then the rest can switch things around to cover that gap.

Except that’s not the case isn’kitten Tell me which warrior specs can compensate for the sheer amount of heals the druid has or the necro or the mesmer. The druid alone has 5 healing on their staff nuff said

THE GROUP CAN PROVIDE IT. You think in such small ways. If I remove the druid that doesn’t mean it can be replaced by a warrior, it means you can shift the focus of a number of other players to cover the gap…

I’ll give an example so people can try to pitcture it.

Group of 10 people raiding, using a druid for a lot of healing. Druid doesn’t turn up one evening. Response from raid leader :

We’ll need higher Protection up time, Guards can you adjust for that.

Warrior can you grab a few Shouts for that Condi Phase.

Mesmer can you bring the Well Heal, Inspiration+Chrono for Quickness Mantra of Pain Heals to top us up at that damage intensive part.

The team can adjust to cover the gap.

Right now we don’t know if that will be viable or not. It depends on just how powerful of a healer the Druid really is, and how much the content is tuned with that in mind. If a Druid can equal 2-3 other support focused players, then it seems quite possible that a group could have a lot of difficulty finding an alternative. Especially if the party is not already heavy in classes that have access to such builds.

The summary of the Druid reveal on dulfy.net certainly gives the impression that they are quite powerful healers, and that a few non-heal-spec’d players taking a bit of support won’t stack up.

Bringing heavy healing to GW2, unlike anything you have seen before. Strong support, very powerful in upcoming raids and WvW. Can sustain a zerg train of 20-30 players in WvW.

Wow what a childish thread title. I told you if you want hugbox go to tumblr with the otehr childish people.

Also the ‘zerker cancer-meta’ is more thought out indepth and uses more of the games mechanics then stnd in the corner and spam heals. Ignore it all you want but other classes are going to bring group heals and more support, unique buffs or damage.

… For transformations!

One of the things that make Druids iconic is the ability to turn into animals, I had really been expecting something similar to…

F5: Shapeshift into a copy of your pet

Don’t get me wrong, I loved what’s been revealed so far, but if Druid elite doesn’t transform into animals.. It doesn’t seem likely any will!

Tragic Positive.9356:

Then, please, elaborate how do you expect any company to meet expectations of every single player out there.

I don’t. If you re-read what I have written, you’ll also find I never claimed to.

Tragic Positive.9356:

If you haven’t realized it yet, every other thread here contradicts the next one. Fulfill that, Sir.
If you believe they have the duty to listen to every single one of us and dance like we sing… Than you might probably realize that italic format will not make your thread any more serious or logical.

I use italic font because I aesthetically prefer it, not to satisfy or influence your, or anyone else’s expectations. As for logic, you are two comments in and already we’ve hit ad hominem attacks via the insinuation that something as innocuous as italicized font was somehow being used to make up for some personal deficiency on my part.

Tragic Positive.9356:

A gaming industry has one simple goal as any other. To make money.
The easiest way to achieve this is to create a vast variety of options from which players can fall in love with at least one of them. Plus, GW2 had a vision of user-friendly environment as a core mechanic.

To borrow your own phrasing for a moment; You might not realize, but companies that do not satisfy their customers, do not make money. The two are linked, not seperate. Yet again you bring up logic, and base entire statements on fallacious reasoning (in this case, either-or again).

Tragic Positive.9356:

Druid is exactly that mechanic that fills this purpose. It is an option people can fall in love with. They have absolutely no duty and you have clearly no right to demand any change about their product. Why? Because you agreed to their terms when buying the game.

First, you are neither a spokesperson for their company, nor in any position to dictate what their terms do and do not mean. Second, you cannot simply say “…no right to demand any change…” in an attempt to misconstrue criticism and suggestions as demands to better suit your fallacious strawman tactics. Feedback/criticism is not a demand.

Tragic Positive.9356:

I am one person in a sea of many, many others but simply because mine is only one perspective, does not invalidate it as a perspective worth being presented.

That’s true. But the same goes for my reply that your perspective is illogical.

No it does not. You are making a claim, and attempting to use the phrasing “does not invalidate” to mean “therefore makes valid” for your own benefit. Your constant attempts to claim “logical deduction” and “your perspective is illogical” in situations that – at no point – ever called for them, whilst basing your statements on fallacious reasoning comes off as nothing more than someone trying far too hard to sound more intellectual than they are.

Well, this will be fun, unless other professions get boosts to outgoing healing Rangers are going to be shouted at for not camping staff during HoT raids.

I hope this isn’t an indicator that every time an expansion comes out we’ll need an entire new set of gear/build specific for that expansion. Right now it looks like I need a set of casual gear, core meta gear, and now HoT meta gear in my inventory.

Maybe I can save some space by ditching my casual gear and just go all meta, all the time.

How is avatar like death shroud ? It doesn’t protect us, it’s a timer.

They said they will adress the core profession mechanics issue in the balance update ¬.¬

Also, It is something ADDED to the class, they didn’t get rid of the pet, they added the kitten out of our class mechanic !

It’s an “arrow to the knee” of many rangers… which is the only thing rangers have ever gotten after launch in an mmo. If you made a ranger, you’re a glutton for punishment, so you might as well suck up a crappy Elite, it was destiny.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

I will miss the free-for-all active combat nature of the game.

How can you miss something that isn’t gone…?

Bryzy.2719:

I disagree completely OP.

Fair enough. I’m glad you’re enjoying the presentation of it so far, and appreciate you being polite and to the point.

What in the heck did I just read

Substance E.4852:

Anet isn’t going to make an entire specialization nothing but “Healing with a side of Healing” if it wasn’t going to be useful to the point that it’s wanted.

Oh, it can’t?

I take you aren’t familiar with all trait lines in the game. This isn’t the first trait line focused on Healing.

Arahzor.1832:

“Raids, are where all the great things about the Guild Wars 2 combat system comes together. Weapon swap, dodge rolling, player positioning, skill combos and our fluid system of control, support and damage.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veJMHxgUGxM

I thank you for this quote Arahzor. It helps my point in the very long post I submitted.
Confessor Elite Specialization
^My full opinion is on this post^, overall I labored for under a month, a 20-30 period of September; to create a true Elite Spec that adapts and changes the base profession but adds completely new mechanics to the game-play and something that could be playable for many months and is rewarding to master the Confessor.
I know it would be very hard to program and balance.

-If ArenaNet has the guts to take advantage of the system to the full and get Developers that know the combat mechanics by heart; amazing game-play can be achieved.

New ground in classes can be explored and their system as it is now wont be for nothing! I still want to save this game and enjoy playing with this community. But if these fatal flaws continue they wont be getting out of that shallow grave, first they need something to fight for. Again…"

Levetty.1279:

Also the ‘zerker cancer-meta’ is more thought out indepth and uses more of the games mechanics then stnd in the corner and spam heals.

Oh, so stand in the corner and spam damage?

Vayne.8563:

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

Trinity requires three defined roles. I don’t see anyone actually tanking here. I don’t see any way to hold aggro. If you can’t hold aggro then it’s not a trinity. And that’s assuming that you must have a healer, which isn’t necessarily even proven yet.

Actually you can hold agro, via control, or even more simply by being the highest toughness closest to the enemy. People have already proven this and done it and posted videos.

The point of Elite Specialziations, since the beginning, was to make something different from the base class.

Elite Specialization were never supposed to “fix” a class problems. Otherwise they would become an obligatory trait line / obligatory weapon. They are supposed to be just an option, and one that changes how you play the class.

Therodin.2970:

Well if the mobs in the raid drop loot i think the question of whether or not healing gets you that loot is a good one.

After LS2 story/defense mobs and that last Modrem Invasion event, I’m just going to assume ANet is trying to shift rewards to participation instead of how hard you can tag stuff.

Of course, this also means they’re going to continue ignoring the problem with Kill Effects not triggering on mobs that don’t drop loot.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

They’re really not.

So you think the system called “specializations” is not a system designed around specializing your character.

Idk what to say other than that. Sorry, you’re just plain wrong; the Druid toolkit has a pretty meaty range of control skills, so saying that druids are pure heals is ridiculous on its face. It has tools which can really help an offensive playstyle, like Druidic Clarity and Glyph of Empowerment, so when power rangers use one or even two survival lines and go pure Marksmanship it’s potentially a big boon to swap from Wilderness Survival to Druid.

They thought that nobody want a ranger in his team. Then they thought back to guild wars 1.
What do you need to get fast a party? Right, you must be a monk (non-smiting!!!).
Now the monk is called druid and his smite-skills are called “ranger-core-class”

Finally we get a team and we’re allowed to backline, but just with staff in your hand.

Next feature will be an autokick for weapon-switching-rangers -.-

Ok ok my statement is harsh, but i liked to play ranger/monk in gw 1 with healing breeze as healskill. But this elite spec is overacting healing. Maybe the problem is, that there is nearly no damage in this spec and just a few synergies with the ranger core-classes (longbow, trapper, beatmaster, spirit spamer, melee, …)

Bryzy.2719:

Levetty.1279:

Also the ‘zerker cancer-meta’ is more thought out indepth and uses more of the games mechanics then stnd in the corner and spam heals.

Oh, so stand in the corner and spam damage?

Sure if you don’t know how pve works go do that.

^ That is true for CERTAIN enemies. The agro system is different based on which foe you are facing.

Pets should have all their skills (autoattack and the 2 other automated skills) allowed to be set to auto-use or don’t use at all outside combat. (personally I’d give people the option to also manually use all their pet skills in combat).
This would prevent:
—Birds using their swiftness skill when they have 40 secs of swiftness on them already instead of attacking.
—pets randomly messing up combo fields with thier own
—random knockdowns on wolves are no fun for anyone
—random blast finishers on drake(never in combo fields), etc