Guild Wars 2

they designed it to be based around healing. The other classes that have support never really make a noticeable difference in combat with healing.

I know it looks like a lot of healing, and it is… but I do think it fits druid very well.

Mcrocha.3891:

I didn’t know that the sun and moon weren’t celestial bodies.

Really, you’re going to be that guy?

That’s just sad.

Zalavaaris.5329:

phys.7689:

Zalavaaris.5329:

Trinity isn’t bad and wow has some of the best raiding ever created. I welcome having a wow style raid with healers but with gw2 combat. It isnt the style of raids and the format that makes me dislike wow. It’s the aweful combat system compared to gw2.

Its not gw2 combat with unavoidable dmg.

You’re right, it’s an evolution to gw2 combat. Making unavoidable damage will break the all dps all the time mentality and provide a more healthy environment. Not having it would be bad for the game.

Yes because when we got the Tower of Nightmares with the unavoidable damage everyone required a healer with them.

I love the color pallet and the astral effects, I think they are amazing tbh.
Staff is already hybrid support and seems to do statisfying dmg
I do agree about the glyphs though, not because of the lack of build synergy, but because they seemed abit bland.. (they lacked “interesting” or just additional mechanics)

Zalavaaris.5329:

phys.7689:

Zalavaaris.5329:

Trinity isn’t bad and wow has some of the best raiding ever created. I welcome having a wow style raid with healers but with gw2 combat. It isnt the style of raids and the format that makes me dislike wow. It’s the aweful combat system compared to gw2.

Its not gw2 combat with unavoidable dmg.

You’re right, it’s an evolution to gw2 combat. Making unavoidable damage will break the all dps all the time mentality and provide a more healthy environment. Not having it would be bad for the game.

What replaces it will be stricter and more toxic than the zerker meta could have ever been.

Remember: group healing is NOT meant to be covered by one player. Group healing is supposed to work with multiple players. You have the passive area regen from elementalists (while attuned to water) and guardian’s virtues. You have the necro’s vampiric auras, warrior shout heals and condi cleanse, revenant Ventari specs and engie utilities. What is ideally supposed to happen is you get some combination of these classes to supplement and augment each other’s support abilities. Combine that with skilled play (like dodging and timely use of the self-heal skill) and you have all the healing you need. The Druid is looking like nothing more than a really strong support spec while still being able to dish out some damage. The key thing here will be synergy. THIS DOES NOT MAKE IT A DEDICATED HEALER. I’m pretty sure it’s meant for those situations where the small passive healing of the group just doesn’t quite cut it. Plus if you add in the strong damage mitigation that protection and frost auras provide, the small passive healing of the group can be plenty for an encounter. I remember when the game first came out a lot of the LFG requests for dungeons often included “need guardian for path X”, nowadays this isn’t the case because smart people know better than to have to rely on a specific profession for a specific role. I imagine raids will be the only place where a druid will be extremely useful, but still not required. As long as the raids do not require a specific number of support roles then it should all be fine.

‘Healers’ will still have the primary function of dps and not having ventari/druid doesn’t mean teams cannot heal up ridiculously fast through water field utilization.

This just gives the players who want it a new fun spec to play. It isn’t necessary.

Players always had a trinity more or less in their own respective professions. Damage while dodging/blocking/evading/invuln while using your #6 skill if you get low on health. Now there’s Druid who can help you with your kitten heal if you want or need. Big kittening deal, classes like Ele Engi Mesmer(atleast in my own experience) always had a rather huge capability in healing high amounts for themselves and others. Druid seems like it’ll be able to do better if those numbers don’t change. Big deal.

JoJo.8132:

This is an elite Ranger traitline (colloquially referred to as a “specialization”) that happens to be named “druid”. Even if “Druid” was a class in Guild Wars 2, how that class plays would be entirely dependent solely on the development of Guild Wars 2, not on other games.

Agreed. However you are basing your definition of a Druid on other games or lore since there is no basis for a Druid in this game. As such, the developers have the freedom to create new lore, which it seems they drew influence from our understanding of this world, is, the one the developers live in.

As for saying it is a ranger specialization, that was addressed in my post already

Regarding real-world lore, none of it is relevant, even in the slightest, when discussing Tyrian lore.

[/quote]

Druid, within the scope of Guild Wars has two possible meanings at present. First, there are the ancient “Druids” that transcended into spirit form. Their story is so vague and undefined that nothing can be said about them for certain. Unfortunately, fan-boy trolls love to bring them up as justification for the celestial mechanics that there is no escaping talking about them. These people cherry-pick pieces of speculative lore and then twist them to suit their own needs. If we’re even going to bring them up, we should either assume the speculation we know about them is true, or it is not true. To cherry pick is to be spinning an agenda and nothing more. My stance has always been to use all of ancient “druid” speculative lore if we’re even discussing them. I would prefer we ignored them altogether, since practically everything about them is vague, or outright stated at in-lore “speculation”.

The second possible meaning of “Druid” is the Ranger elite specialization. Regarding this we do have a great deal of lore to go on, and can begin to define this trait line that simply happens to be called “Druid” using things we know to be true about Rangers and their capabilities. The most important of these being that Rangers have never, at any point until suddenly, been associated with astral/celestial mechanics (when defining those terms using only Guild Wars lore) in any way, shape, or form.

wolfyrik.2017:

Mcrocha.3891:

I didn’t know that the sun and moon weren’t celestial bodies.

Really, you’re going to be that guy?

That’s just sad.

Best to just ignore and report the trolls at this point. Ad hominem, sarcasm and thread-derailing. This community really has become a cesspool.

Nobody here wished for shapeshifting like in WoW – of course that would be crap, too.

The problem is it has to fit GW1 druids or at least a new kind of druids which origins in the jungle, not celtic druids. And those can’t fit to historic celtic, because you can’t compare a tribe living in the dephts of the jungle culturally with people in france/england some time ago. They encounter vastly different phenomenons, difficulties, draw other conclusions from observations of the nature around them, have another lifestyle, livingconditions. Living in the jungle you’ll never see the moon or the stars or observe meaningful impacts of those to the enviroment you live in, so why would they suddenly worship those.

It made sense for warcraft druids, since the religion of nightelves evolved around Elune, the godess of moon, because they developed as race of nocturnal hunters, so the moon was their companion, their point of orientation, their guidance (something you simply not have given in a jungle, due to the layers) and the demigod teaching the druidism to them claims to be the son of this godess. Unless the devs pull out some similar wierd story which explains a sudden obsession with celestial bodies which have no impact to their day to day life (except the sun, of course), I can’t take it seriously.

It just seems they looked at Warcraft and mindlessly adapted the concept of balance druids because it looks nice – thanks god scratching the shapeshifting.. kind of.

Then you are using a definition for Druid that has no actual basis, so I guess you can say whatever you’d like. Go for it.

And you said yourself your definition of Druid is based on other fantasy Druids, which is fair, but clearly not what a net is solely using for their Druid. Again, this is the first true Druid in this world, so it can take whatever shape they’d like

This has to be here now. I won’t be able to see a Druid in game without hearing it playing in my head.

Ohhhhh, let me go get some popcorn before this thread get’s locked.

Seriously though, this thread is pretty toxic. While there may have been a few legitimate points for both sides of the argument, there are way too many fallacies and personal attacks for this to be any form of constructive criticism — and that goes on both sides with various parties being the offenders. Just because you point out a perceived ad-hominem doesn’t make your perception true; and pointing out fallacies in other’s arguments does not make your own points immune to them. Let’s try to keep it civil, yeah?

OP has a few legitimate concerns, but in the end this comes down to opinion, aka no one is wrong so stop raging at each other.

phys.7689:

Its not gw2 combat with unavoidable dmg.

I don’t think this follows.

If the unavoidable damage comes from targeted attacks, then you still have counterplay — make sure those attacks are targeted away from people who will be seriously hurt or killed by them. You can also use things like protection, slow, weakness, and the mesmer’s damage intercepts to make them more manageable. There’s nothing unreasonable here.

And if you look at the basic raid problem — which I’ll phrase as “Deal at least x damage per second for y seconds, while also dealing with the following mechanics: …”, needing to direct unavoidable damage at the people best equipped to deal with it and to patch people back up after unavoidable damage are just extra mechanics to use.

While no particular mechanics are essential in the design of a raid — and certainly not tanking or healing — each objective you have in a fight design is another opportunity for your objectives to come into conflict and ultimately make things more challenging and enjoyable.

Remember that the ultimate point of any challenging piece of content is how it feels to attempt it and how it feels to beat it. Fun is everything, and potential ways to make things more fun shouldn’t just be left on the table because you talked a load of kitten about them in a video once.

wolfyrik.2017:

Serromus Jakta.3987:

wolfyrik.2017:

Mcrocha.3891:

Nature is directly influenced by the positions and alignments of celestial bodies, sorry to rain on your qq parade, but it does make sense. The celestial bodies give us things like the solstices and seasons, sunlight/moonlight, tides, etc. A lot of those things are represented with the Druid. The Druid has plenty of skills that are plant influenced and they are all nature oriented.

That’s just plain wrong on two accounts. Firstly the “celestial bodies” have precisely no effect on the Earth whatosever, only the sun and moon affect us.

Secondly, just because planets and stars are natural, doesn’t mean they are part of nature. That’s equivocation at best. The usual definition of nature, the one that’s being used to describe druid and the one that people mean when they describe nature religions in the real world, is the natural world of the Earth specifically. Wildlife; flora, fauna, weather patterns. This is the same definition being used for druid in GW2 since the fantasy druid is a romantic fiction based on real-world nature religions.

To say that the planets and stars fit in to theme is to say that engineers should be able to build cars to ride around Tyria. It’s equivocation. As I’ve said in a previous thread, if Druid has space-mage mode then elementalists should have Atomic bomb mode because uranium is an element.

Nature is universal, it is not only Earth related, nature is the representation of the physical universe, to say that nature is only earth related is just like saying that there is only life on earth on the universe. Druids had rituals concerning the sky and celestial bodies, ever heard of stonehenge? the druid you are speaking about is the conventional Post D&D druid which has nothing to do with the actual Druid in our history and even so, the druids that we come to know, the real ones we don’t know much either only vague details because the information about the druids are based on accounts of some reports writen by Julius Caesar when he started to conquer the northern isles and even so the romans back then tended to exaggerate a lot when conquering new regions and people.

You’re arguing a point I never made, go back and read this time please. You’re relying on the same equivocation I was challenging.

As for your sarcasm about stone henge, no one knows what it was for, to try to claim it as proof that druids were into stars in absurd in the extremes, which you know because you even brough it up

“the druid you are speaking about is the conventional Post D&D druid which has nothing to do with the actual Druid in our history and even so, the druids that we come to know, the real ones we don’t know much either only vague details because the information about the druids are based on accounts of some reports writen by Julius Caesar”

You completely contradicted yourself in roder to insult me and support your own equivocation over the word nature. I wouldn’t mind but I explained this already in the post you quoted.

The only druid we have any lore for and the only ones that matter here are the GW2 and fantasy versions of druids. The ones that use nature-magic which means, by definition, Flora, Fauna, weather, water and to some degree, spirits of those things. We even have ranger utilities which support this; Spirit of Nature, Spirit of frost, Spirit of Stone.

The only thing in the entirity of what we’ve seen so far that even remotely supports teh celestial nonsense is Spirit of Sun and that’s still a tree form which is channelling the heat of the sun. I’d argue that the ranger spirits alone disprove claims that celestial form is in anyway fitting for the established theme.

“You completely contradicted yourself in roder to insult me and support your own equivocation over the word nature. I wouldn’t mind but I explained this already in the post you quoted”

No one is insulting here, you are taking this too personal. What i’ve said that nature is universal, second the moon and the sun are celestial bodies (Not insulting, since you are the one thinking i’m out to get you or something, just relax)

“The only druid we have any lore for and the only ones that matter here are the GW2 and fantasy versions of druids. The ones that use nature-magic which means, by definition, Flora, Fauna, weather, water and to some degree, spirits of those things. We even have ranger utilities which support this; Spirit of Nature, Spirit of frost, Spirit of Stone.”

And how do you know that the ranger spirits are connected to the Gw1 druids? just because their models are similar doesn’t mean they are related. Second, Nature magic line has nothing to do with Flora at all, it is related to spirits and boons. The definition of nature magic in gw2 is different than the one you and many others may think, there is no single trait connected or that represents any connection to a plant or tree, i think even wilderness survival has much more of a connection to Flora than Nature Magic. The point is we don’t know what really nature magic is in gw2, we know it’s connected to spirits and water but nothing plant related.

“The only thing in the entirity of what we’ve seen so far that even remotely supports teh celestial nonsense is Spirit of Sun and that’s still a tree form which is channelling the heat of the sun. I’d argue that the ranger spirits alone disprove claims that celestial form is in anyway fitting for the established theme”

Like i said, spirits are not trees, i think it is Arenanet’s fault not to put distinctive looks to each of the spirits, making them look different instead of them being just palette versions of each other and making my final point and conclusion, you should just relax and try to play the druid before charging with swords and fire you don’t have to use staff and there is a lot of gameplay you can use mixing traits and making new builds, anyways i’m out for a break, good day

Mcrocha.3891:

The celestial bodies are the reason that we have things like solstices, equinoxes, seasons etc. Throughout human history the location and alignment of the stars has played a huge role in how we both view and experience nature. On a smaller scale think about how much the Earth changes with the location of the sun and moon in relation to the Earth.

In tyrian lore I’m not sure how it fits and in human lore, celestial bodies are not the first that come to mind when I hear “Druid”.

I don’t hate what they have done but, I have to agree it seems as if it was hastily done. Pets still haven’t been fixed, from the looks of it they didn’t even try and correct the biggest issue with Rangers. I’m lucky because I enjoy playing support/healing so the class suits me. For others that are not in my shoes I can completely empathize, the class, should they choose not to use the new elite is no better off than it was, its still broken and still sub par. Which brings me back to the class being hastily done, people had high hopes for not only the Druid but also the Ranger, I would be foolish to say Anet did anything other than dropping the ball yet again when it came to Ranger.

Here’s the best way to address everyone’s complaints….

Wait until the beta weekend so you can play it for yourself. We won’t really know how excellently or poorly designed it is until then.

Druid will be useful in pve because basically mobs should have an improved AI / more CC skills.

Glyphs are gonna be very useful for pvp > glyph of unity = screw mesmer/thief button

Wilderness Survival won’t be as necessary with Druidic Clarity even though we still need to know more details about the cooldown of the F5 and how fast druid can gather astral force..

don’t give a kitten about the GW1 druid lore or the semantics of defining what nature encompasses.

i see a lockdown/interrupt beast that rivals mesmer, that can work efffectively as a power or condi (or hybrid) spec……..synergizes w/ most traitlines (especially marksmanship and skirmishing)…and has celestial form as a panic button (super speed/stealth/condi dmg reduction and/or cleanse)

i don’t even care about the heals (although there are plenty of people who do).

i think its a well designed class in terms of new or improved roles/ playstyles.

that said……it made more sense to be the guardian’s elite.

wolfyrik.2017:

Mcrocha.3891:

I didn’t know that the sun and moon weren’t celestial bodies.

Really, you’re going to be that guy?

That’s just sad.

You tried to disprove my point by arguing that the celestial bodies don’t impact Earth, which is false because the sun and moon are celestial bodies and directly impact nature on Earth. So yes using facts does indeed make me that guy.

I agree with ShadowKain… I don’t know why HOT is making major twist on some of these themes. If they would have simply made druid a plant themed class, there would be no issue. The fact is they have a name for something, that doesn’t look familiar. I’m not saying that I don’t like their abilities, I just wouldn’t call them Druids. I do think these theme, despite the name, has a place with the ranger as an elite spec. They should call it something different, and save the name for the next expansion.

cos… so much synergy and so many possible builds, so much to think about, now my head hurts :P

Azure.8670:

The reason why this post is so ridiculous is because the druid is going to be mandatory for so many things.

Copying my post from somewhere else

Considering how focused Druid is on healing to the exclusion of everything else the only way it will be viable is if they force so much unavoidable damage on us in raids that a pure healer will be needed. If they don’t do this (and I’m sure we all hope they don’t because it throws out everything the combat system was based on) then the entire spec will be pointless.
Its just an amazingly poorly designed spec.

phys.7689:

There is no depth to guaranteed dmg and heals. When i play a trinity game i have no idea how much the healer is healing. I just avoid the avoidable attacks.

Mechanics can be simple without losing their effectiveness.

If the boss throws out targeted attacks faster than players can dodge them? You have to adjust how you play to deal with that. All of your options have tradeoffs associated with them — do you bring a healer? Do you co-ordinate everyone so that most players are at range and one player ‘tanks’, using VC and swapping tank whenever that player takes a hit? That’s depth. There’s counterplay, there are different styles of counterplay. You need to think about how you want to approach things.

Even “everyone in the raid loses a massive chunk out of their hitpoints” can still be effective. On its own, it’s pointless, but as one part of a larger whole, it can work extremely well.

The off-dps support builds I’m working on will allow the Druid to help with might stacking and boon duration, fwiw. Not as good as a warrior, obviously, but to say that the Druid will be able to only heal and do nothing else is pidgeon-holing yourself in a depressive 4×4 box in the dark. It’s like everyone is completely forgetting about the glyphs and the ranger’s utilities that already exist.

Have some creativity, guys.

Since everyone’s so up-in-arms about lore and what a druid should be… I’ll try and settle this by taking out-of-game definitions and in-game lore into account and explain why, logically, there is no need to force plant magic as the central part of what constitutes a “druid.”

Yes, since the inception of modern fantasy, the “druid” archetype has been associated with nature. Nowhere in its actual definition does it imply anything of the sort, though:

“DRUID: a member of a group of priests in an ancient British religion”
- Merriam-Webster Dictionary

So, ANet has to give a profession a name. One that’s magical, and still has pertinence to nature per the design of the Ranger core class. A magical being involved in nature? Well, modern fantasy dictates that’s kind of what Druids do. Okay, so we’re riding the modern fantasy train. That’s cool.

But even in other games like Dungeons and Dragons, which pretty much invented the druid on a mechanical level, the Druid class is very, very far removed from restrictions of just plants. High-level spells allow for the manipulation of time and space, planets, volcanoes, fire, and so on. Actually, a majority of the magic the Druid has access to are not plant-based, and the highlight of the class typically involves Beast Shape/animal transformations. So GW2 is playing around with the whole transformation option idea, but spinning it a bit differently rather than just straight-up animals. Either way, this still isn’t about plants. Plants being druid-exclusive is just as much of a spin-off idea in other media as the decisions made here for the druid not to be. There is no standard and there is no precursor that makes them unique to plant-life only.

Okay, but why not in GW2, either? Well look at the expansion and current lore for HoT.

It makes sense the druid isn’t controlling plant life considering the big-bad-dragon that’s invading Tyria has a pretty kitten ed-good grasp on controlling it, as he’s spawning sentient beings to do his will out of plant life and overpowered the sentience of an entire race of people he created to do his bidding against their will, basically.

So what you’re saying is, OP, that you would expect to be able to beat this guy on his turf using his magic that he has full control over? That’s a pretty big expectation to just be innately stronger than an elder dragon, especially since the PC/Hero everyone plays in the game really didn’t kill Zhaitan, for the heavy-lifting was done almost entirely by the Pact fleet ship.

As far as the italic font goes, great that it pleases you, but seriously, it’s annoying and difficult to read your posts and take the content seriously.

Holy trinity could and should be viable, maybe even the most effective strat for some encounters, but it should never be a sweeping optimal team composition like berserker/sinister is.

If we have it in the game, that’s awesome. It’s more options for pugs/friends/guilds to join and enjoy the game’s PvE how they see fit.

How it is now with how many i-frames we have, pure tanks/healers will never be optimal and in the top 1% tier of organized play will always favor how zerk/sinister meta is because it’s fast and they don’t’ need the defense/heals as much

What synergies are you seeing? I want some more build Ideas!

I’m sure there will be an ‘optimal’ raid party makeup for each raid wing. That doesn’t mean that it will be mandatory. I know one of my own characters can spread big stacks of regen to the party without sacrificing much to do it. I am quite sure that the ‘holy trinity’ is not being ‘forced down our throats’. Get creative, tweak your build instead of venting about the fact that full-zerker may not be meta all the time and everywhere as it has been for 3 straight years.

Olcon.9506:

The off-dps support builds I’m working on will allow the Druid to help with might stacking and boon duration, fwiw. Not as good as a warrior, obviously, but to say that the Druid will be able to only heal and do nothing else is pidgeon-holing yourself in a depressive 4×4 box in the dark. It’s like everyone is completely forgetting about the glyphs and the ranger’s utilities that already exist.

Have some creativity, guys.

Unless it can provide 25 party wide might by itself it isn’t needed to help with might stacking.

I am a solo Sylvari ranger, sometimes duo with my significant other..

If its true you cant really PUG raids, then what the hell is the point in ever playing a single class that became dedicated to benefiting large groups only?

In other words, I am feeling punished additionally for not joining up with guilds I have no interest with. I play this game for me and my other, nobody else

Mcrocha.3891:

wolfyrik.2017:

Mcrocha.3891:

I didn’t know that the sun and moon weren’t celestial bodies.

Really, you’re going to be that guy?

That’s just sad.

You tried to disprove my point by arguing that the celestial bodies don’t impact Earth, which is false because the sun and moon are celestial bodies and directly impact nature on Earth. So yes using facts does indeed make me that guy.

And you know that you were referencing celestial bodies with a much broader brush, where I was pinning down a specific definition. You knew very well that I was dismissing the broader strokes that include the stars and planets, which feature in the design of the Avatar form. You’re not arguing facts, you’re being obtuse in order to attack me rather than my argument, because your position is weak.
The definition of nature-magic, as used by Anet in the past, the Ranger class in the game now, the ranger class of GW1 and fantasy games in general, does not include summing laser beams or other planets circling around space-men. It involves, plants weather, animals, water and spirits. Trying to claim that other planets are nature therefor nature-magic, is equivocation over the definition.

I say again, if planets = nature therfor nature magic, then cars = engineering therfor engi should be able to build a car. Uranium is an element therfor Ele should get Atom Bomb.

when people can sustain themselves through the current mechanics there’s no need for support. once they change the mechanics and people can’t sustain themselves through the current mechanics, they will need support. raids are harder than current instanced pve content so we are led to believe. so druid, tempest, herald, and a few other support type builds should be blended in to provide a diverse experience where people are challenged to fight through the mechanics!

YAY ! Let’s do stuff because it looks cool, not because it makes sense !
Why not put some flames and bright light effects on the Reaper ? I’m pretty sure it will look super cool too !

Pffff…

Spam the Jesus Beam!

I would rather have the skill called animal form instead and you transform into a giant bear healing people with roars

Hasn’t every class been able to sustain themselves in some way from the beginning seeing as that was the whole concept Anet gave us in their manifesto? They’ve changed direction now, so they’re coming up with contrived ways to push us somewhere else. Unavoidable damage for instance, gone are the days or using skill to mitigate damage, here we are with take it and like it, but don’t worry the Ranger isn’t the only one with a pet, everyone has one now the Druid / healbot.

Well 2/3 are right for sure. The third is debatable.

evilunderling.9265:

phys.7689:

There is no depth to guaranteed dmg and heals. When i play a trinity game i have no idea how much the healer is healing. I just avoid the avoidable attacks.

Mechanics can be simple without losing their effectiveness.

If the boss throws out targeted attacks faster than players can dodge them? You have to adjust how you play to deal with that. All of your options have tradeoffs associated with them — do you bring a healer? Do you co-ordinate everyone so that most players are at range and one player ‘tanks’, using VC and swapping tank whenever that player takes a hit? That’s depth. There’s counterplay, there are different styles of counterplay. You need to think about how you want to approach things.

Even “everyone in the raid loses a massive chunk out of their hitpoints” can still be effective. On its own, it’s pointless, but as one part of a larger whole, it can work extremely well.

For their goals it has to be more than that. Because you could still succeed with skilled zerkers using rnged attacks and kiting. Which would be faster than having two players with low dps.

Im not saying you cant design interesting mechanics with any system. Im saying that what makes gw2 battle system unique was it was primarily about proactive and reactive play rather than guaranteed dmg guaranteed heals and max stat mathematics.

They could have made some really interesting gw2 mechanic based fights, instead they are inserting a half rass trinity style. When i want trinity style play i to games designed from the ground up to support it.

This game had its unique combat going for it, its combat with guaranteed dmg is not that unique

Sicarius.4639:

Hasn’t every class been able to sustain themselves in some way from the beginning seeing as that was the whole concept Anet gave us in their manifesto? They’ve changed direction now, so they’re coming up with contrived ways to push us somewhere else. Unavoidable damage for instance, gone are the days or using skill to mitigate damage, here we are with take it and like it, but don’t worry the Ranger isn’t the only one with a pet, everyone has one now the Druid / healbot.

I think the game wanted to encourage both ends of play, through teamwork as well as self sustain.

Honestly I think druid looks amazing. I think the designer really out did himself. When I think druid I think a spell caster that uses the power of nature. The moon and the stars are so much a part of that and I think it fits perfectly. Not only did they make the druid look absolutely stunning they gave ranger a niche. Haveing strong team support in addition to whatever else the ranger is trying to do makes ranger useful for the first time ever in team play. Maby the ranger is never going to be the master of everything and if that is what your looking for go re-roll an ele but at least now it has place.

I love everything about the druid. I am used to druids being healers in games so it made perfect sense to me. I really look forward to playing it.

Since this was moved to druid forum, but is actually about required healing, i guess this proves anet sees druids as being required healers.

So yeah required healers the new way to play the game

There is absolutely no need to worry about the “Holy Trinity” in GW2. Every class is basically able to sustain themselves. This is a skill based MMO. You are rewarded through skill and teamwork. I imagine there will be teams that complete PvE content without any dedicated healers or Druid Rangers. WvW will still need long-range back line support LB Power Rangers. Druid will simply add more group support for those who want to contribute more. Nothing has changed. Only more has been added.

Eponet.4829:

I still don’t support forcing specialised roles.

But nobody is being forced to do anything.
Whenever someone starts a debate with me regarding what gear/spec/weapon/pet I should have on any of my characters I thank them kindly and reply that I’m currently playing how I feel suits me best.
Sometimes other players can be quite rude and aggressive but they can’t force me to do anything I don’t want to do with my characters or my time.

The largest concern seems to be that player that do not conform to meta will be booted out of content. In any mmo I’ve played, since ye olde blocky EverQuest 1, this have never happened to me. I just find people who think, like I do, that the effort of clearing the content is the fun part. The loot is a very nice bonus but the reward is the actual cooperation and success of the group.

And judging by the concerns on these forums I see a lot of people that seem to feel the same. So I don’t worry about it. =)

wolfyrik.2017:

Mcrocha.3891:

wolfyrik.2017:

Mcrocha.3891:

I didn’t know that the sun and moon weren’t celestial bodies.

Really, you’re going to be that guy?

That’s just sad.

You tried to disprove my point by arguing that the celestial bodies don’t impact Earth, which is false because the sun and moon are celestial bodies and directly impact nature on Earth. So yes using facts does indeed make me that guy.

And you know that you were referencing celestial bodies with a much broader brush, where I was pinning down a specific definition. You knew very well that I was dismissing the broader strokes that include the stars and planets, which feature in the design of the Avatar form. You’re not arguing facts, you’re being obtuse in order to attack me rather than my argument, because your position is weak.
The definition of nature-magic, as used by Anet in the past, the Ranger class in the game now, the ranger class of GW1 and fantasy games in general, does not include summing laser beams or other planets circling around space-men. It involves, plants weather, animals, water and spirits. Trying to claim that other planets are nature therefor nature-magic, is equivocation over the definition.

I say again, if planets = nature therfor nature magic, then cars = engineering therfor engi should be able to build a car. Uranium is an element therfor Ele should get Atom Bomb.

Ok bud, in no way was I using celestial bodies as a broad term, you just incorrectly inferred that I was. Congratulations. It’s funny you mention engineers should be able to build a car, because wvw is about to get a “charr car”. But anyway, take it for what you will but look at the skills and stuff on Druid:
Solar beam
Lunar impact
Cosmic ray
Tidal wave
Glyph of the tides
Glyph of alignment
Seed of life
Natural convergence
Etc
It is very easy to see A-net’s vision for the lore behind the Druid and it is based on a character that channels the power of the celestial bodies to wield control over nature. Good day.

This whole whinge-fest just shows that some people fear any change that disrupts their comfortable little meta. If you’ve been sitting back spamming 1 for 3 years on the zerker build you copied from the internet, this must be very hard for you. But, I promise, with just a little thinking and practice you might just learn to play a new build. Who knows?… you might even end up enjoying it.

I have a feeling that it will become a very very very long thread.