Guild Wars 2

Did they really just throw the constructive thread into the toxic thread? Brilliant.

im thinking abut a zealots build but couldnt come up with a good one so far…but id like to make one some day lol

Iozeph.5617:

So are Druids going to be given the ability to blood sacrifice a party member, or a baby even, for a short duration boon during combat?

Say, a five-eight second channeled elite skill(after the fashion of the old guardian tomes) that summons an altar upon which any friendly player or NPC within range has a stone knife thrust into its chest by the Druid in order to create a field in the form of a slowly spreading pool of blood around them. Players standing in the pool receive the boon.

I’d be all for that -naysayers be kitten ed- you know… Seeing as we’re all so obsessed with verisimilitude here.

The whole human sacrifice thing was a fabrication by Caesar to garner support for his genocide in Gaul. Sorry to burst your bubble, but animal sacrifice is as close as you can get, and everyone did that.

gavyne.6847:

Hear the argument about people who rolled ranger not wanting to be a healer a lot. I’m sure most who rolled a necromancer never did so to be a melee class. But yet Reaper is a melee class and changes how a necro plays completely. Even more surprisingly, a lot of necros ended up liking it after a couple of beta weekends.

If you really don’t want to be a healer, then stick with the ranger. Just as there are necros not wanting to take on the Reaper, as they prefer to be ranged caster instead. But you should give it a try before tossing the idea out of the window. You may be surprised.

Key thing here is Druids provide you with options and a completely new playstyle. Be glad you are now among the few classes that actually got elite specs that provided all new gameplay options. Choices is a good thing. And early speculation puts Druids right into the meta in all 3 game modes. That imo, is huge.

All I’m saying is give it a try before saying no. I hated GS on the necro during BWE1, but by BWE2, I loved it. Just make sure you provide plenty of feedback during the next beta weekend so devs can make proper tweaks and adjustments. My ranger has been on the shelf since forever, but this Druid elite spec is going to get me to dust him off and likely make this my primary alt I play.

No you’re wrong.

Necro has always been asking for a physical damage hard-hitting GS-style of game-play.
Plus the point is not whether it’s physical/ melee or not, the point is the THEME is so GREAT.

A REAPER, swinging a scythe, transforming into a death god! Who doesn’t want that as a Necre? (Doesn’t matter it’s strong or not)

And again, let me repeat, so many Necro has been asking for GS and some hard-hitting raw damage type of play-style, but no rangers actually ask to be healer in the first place. Guardians asked this countless times.

Levetty.1279:

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’m confidently thinking 25 personal might stacks will easily be possible over a period of 5 seconds, quicker as the player gains practice with the rotation. For party wide might stacking? That’s still up in the air currently, but a Celestial Avatar in the thick of it could possibly do it under the right situation with a perfect rotation and build.

Like I said, it’s no warrior. And I need to experiment heavily with runes and check ICDs, cool downs and trait/skill interactions, none of which I have access to until next week.

But wouldn’t it be nice if there was an alternative to Phalanx Strength? If an elite specialization could both heal you AND pump you full of might? I’m cautiously optimistic I may be onto something.

This thread is even more confusing then it was before.

Eric.7813:

The druid has an amazing new mechanic. I feel that the celestial form fits very well with the theme of traditional/historical Celtic druids. this whole thing about turning into an animal is merely a WOW interpretation. A real druid was similar to a priest, even comparable to a east Asian monk. having a higher state of being is perfectly illustrated with the celestial theme

I am really HAPPY how the druid turned out. It is truely unique and probably one of the better representations of what a real druid would thematically be like.

All this shape shifting into an animal crap would have been very disappointing. Transforming into a higher being is awesome.

Exactly how much druid research have you done? This is not rude but a serious question. There are stories of them turning into animals that is not just a wow, they also believe in channeling different forms of nature in general like trees even or beyond just the earth, then there is even things like teleportation and many other reality bending legends they have.
http://druidsegg.reformed-druids.org/newslughnasadh10-16.htm
Just google it there is allot of info out there on this.

Dave Pare.2069:

1- it is very likely that druids will be almost necessary for the new Raids content, that’s almost certain.
5- Finally, as for PvP (that’s what I’m most interested in): there is a lot of potential here but not as you guys may think; I really don’t think full healers druid will ever be a thing simply because the druid as it has been presented to us would be a too easy target. As it is right now Druid has amazing heals but nothing else, that means absolutely no stability, no blocks, no invulns, 1 break stun on a 40 sec Cd only in avatar form and super low damage: this means that a coordinated group (2 people would be enough) could simply stunlock a druid to death even before he has the chance to start healing which is very bad; just imagine a cleric guardian, triple the healing output he has and take from him all the stability, invulns, blocks and stun brakers he has…he would die in about 3 seconds every team fight.
Hybrids builds on the other hand (something like settler or crusader or even celestial with both survivals and glyphs) would be very strong in my opinion, providing not only great team support via healing but also good sustain and amazing 1v1/2v2 potential.

I see that first point as a potential huge con since if you need a druid for a raid then there’s a balance issue and the rebirth of the holy trinity. Since it doesn’t do anything else, then hopefully you could take a guardian or rev or a different support character instead, but if healing is vital in the raids then druids are going to be an issue.

For PvP I see them being a nuisance, since they can cleanse all conditions when entering druid form and stealth too so there’s a lot of sustain there. If you spec into marksmanship with moment of clarity you can get a 6 second daze on the 3rd avatar skill and the 5th one is good enough on its own to control and damage. It being a totally dedicated healer though, I totally agree it won’t be super useful in PvP.

Unholy Pillager.3791:

Iozeph.5617:

So are Druids going to be given the ability to blood sacrifice a party member, or a baby even, for a short duration boon during combat?

Say, a five-eight second channeled elite skill(after the fashion of the old guardian tomes) that summons an altar upon which any friendly player or NPC within range has a stone knife thrust into its chest by the Druid in order to create a field in the form of a slowly spreading pool of blood around them. Players standing in the pool receive the boon.

I’d be all for that -naysayers be kitten ed- you know… Seeing as we’re all so obsessed with verisimilitude here.

The whole human sacrifice thing was a fabrication by Caesar to garner support for his genocide in Gaul. Sorry to burst your bubble, but animal sacrifice is as close as you can get, and everyone did that.

Yep, totally made up crap, druids for what records are left have no evidence of doing any kind of sacrifices. I Do not think they even had evidence of animal sacrifices, that was something adopted later into celtic paganism I believe.

phys.7689:

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

Seems like a pretty indiscriminate merge to me — they’ve bundled up the druid crunch thread, the druid lore thread, trinity threads that aren’t related to druids at all, and probably some zerker threads (which have nothing to do with druids or trinity) — so I don’t think you can really read too much into it.

phys.7689:

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.

Remember that the “zerk DPS meta” problem isn’t really about metas or DPS or zerker gear. It’s more to do with people not being seen to engage with fight mechanics, and, to a lesser extent, people actually not engaging with fight mechanics. Among other things. I can claim better understanding than the ‘zerkernerfers’, but not perfect understanding.

The strategy you propose there? You’re still engaging with the fight mechanic if you do that, and it would be very difficult for anyone to claim otherwise.

Zalani.9827:

This thread is even more confusing then it was before.

Yeah if the mods could stop merging all the threads that have very different discussions going on that would be great.

Guys I think they do this so they can more easily read the feedback really which shows they are trying.

Aomine.5012:

A REAPER, swinging a scythe, transforming into a death god! Who doesn’t want that as a Necre? (Doesn’t matter it’s strong or not)

Off topic but, since you asked, I actually do not!!! I wanted a lighter side of a “Life Force” wielder. Heck, instead of minion’s I was hoping for better formed spirits and apparitions? A Necro doesn’t, at all, has to have a theme of dark bloody gore. Reaper is just a slight slight variant of the same Necro.

Druid is a nice touch as I was hoping for an A/B variant of Light and Dark to the Professional themes.

Ryou.2398:

Guys I think they do this so they can more easily read the feedback really which shows they are trying.

If they wanted to more easily read the feedback they should have left Heim’s thread open since it had everything very clearly organized in the opening post with room to add more feedback. This thread is a garbled mess because there’s a dozen different conversations that got smashed together.

phys.7689:

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

More like, “Out of sight, out of mind.”

I am so confused right now…..How many different conversations are going on right now and how many were just stopped because of this mega thread merging crap?

Agree with Chrispy, so many threads merged in here that its so derailed that the japan bullet train is towing a steam powered locomotive in georgia while somehow being IN A WHOLE FRICKEN ’NOTHER WORLD!

The merge everything that has the word “druid” in it IS NOT WORKING… STAHP MERGING

Kailee.8790:

Agree with Chrispy, so many threads merged in here that its so derailed that the japan bullet train is towing a steam powered locomotive in georgia while somehow being IN A WHOLE FRICKEN ’NOTHER WORLD!

The merge everything that has the word “druid” in it IS NOT WORKING… STAHP MERGING

At least they’re no longer locking every thread that might have criticism in it…not that that isn’t a rather dim ‘bright side’ to look on.

MoonWhistle.3428:

Canines. You don’t have to waste F2 for cc, so it’s still there for Taunt when you need it.

I used to be the same but i really got into birds recently, the low cd on F2 and pet swap make it sort of spammable.

I hate it, I don’t want to be a HEALER………

Ranger GW1, Ranger since and including beta GW2, now they come up with this rubbish.

Ryou.2398:

Unholy Pillager.3791:

Iozeph.5617:

So are Druids going to be given the ability to blood sacrifice a party member, or a baby even, for a short duration boon during combat?

Say, a five-eight second channeled elite skill(after the fashion of the old guardian tomes) that summons an altar upon which any friendly player or NPC within range has a stone knife thrust into its chest by the Druid in order to create a field in the form of a slowly spreading pool of blood around them. Players standing in the pool receive the boon.

I’d be all for that -naysayers be kitten ed- you know… Seeing as we’re all so obsessed with verisimilitude here.

The whole human sacrifice thing was a fabrication by Caesar to garner support for his genocide in Gaul. Sorry to burst your bubble, but animal sacrifice is as close as you can get, and everyone did that.

Yep, totally made up crap, druids for what records are left have no evidence of doing any kind of sacrifices. I Do not think they even had evidence of animal sacrifices, that was something adopted later into celtic paganism I believe.

Actually the jury is still out one way or the other. With Strabo and Caesar it could be argued their writings are of a political nature but we just don’t know for certain. Even now we have only an incomplete picture/record of the Roman era.

Then you have the Lindow man, and the Alveston burials, both of which could be taken as evidence of sacrifice, a punishment, or in the case of Alveston, even cannibalism. Still, those are incomplete pictures.

What it comes down to is whether or not you want to go with what surviving written histories or accounts there are from the time, or whether, as has been done off and on with the Vikings, you choose to rehabilitate the Celtic and Druidic cultures to fall in line with whatever positive bias you hold.

evilunderling.9265:

mrstealth.6701:

Healers have everything to do with what’s being discussed in this thread. If the Druid is a powerful enough healer that they are required to complete content, and cannot be viably subbed with other classes, then there is a major conflict with the game’s design philosophy.

Healers have nothing to do with the argument that I responded to, which was that ten thieves (or any other group comp using ten of the same profession) ‘must’ be able to complete a raid.

Healers are relevant, because one of the key concerns here is that lack of a healer is the very reason that the 10-thief party would fail. It certainly wouldn’t be because 10 thieves lack DPS. With the way GW2 is designed, trying to add in healers could very likely mean that the healing profession is the only single profession that might be truly required to complete content. Other professions do still bring valuable aspects to a party, but none of them are required in the way a primary healer would be. And if a druid healer isn’t required, it will simply never be used because it’s not designed to do anything else.

What I am saying is that every time you exclude a profession from your raid group in favour of a different profession, you should end up losing out on something that you’re really going to miss, and ultimately, that almost invariably has to mean that one way or another, you lose a nice, fat chunk of your practical raid DPS.

Why?

Because the typical raid encounter can be reduced to a pretty simple question:

“Can you successfully deal with these mechanics while maintaining an average of at least x DPS for y time?”

If you can answer ‘yes’ to that question, you win. If you can’t, you wipe and will have to try again.

Everything about any fight that follows this formula ultimately boils down to either increasing your raid’s DPS or avoiding the loss of DPS.

That’s never been how GW2 was designed or balance. For the most part, DPS is DPS and it doesn’t matter all that much what profession it’s coming from. The biggest differences in DPS between the professions are probably direct/condi damage versus reflected damage, and the professions’ varying ability to provide DPS buffs to others.

evilunderling.9265:

mrstealth.6701:

The entire design philosophy of GW2 is for the profession to be balanced with each other so that any party composition is possible. That a certain profession or mix of professions is not required. That 10 of the same profession can complete any content, even if it’s not likely to be the best/fastest/easiest. In fact, that was a specific thing Anet was showing off before launch. Being able to complete dungeons of 5 of the same profession.

Whether you agree with it or not, or whether if fits your idea of what profession balance is, that is the intended design of GW2. Or at least it has been for the last 3 years.

It’s never really been the intended design to that degree — what they’ve promised is that you shouldn’t have to wait around for a member of one specific profession, and all signs point to that continuing to be the case.

But that doesn’t mean that full groups of ten of the same profession can or should be viable in all conceivable PvE content. That’s taking the original idea to an extreme.

I do agree that it’s a bit extreme, but it’s also something Anet specifically mentioned that they intended to be doable.

mrstealth.6701:

evilunderling.9265:

mrstealth.6701:

Healers have everything to do with what’s being discussed in this thread. If the Druid is a powerful enough healer that they are required to complete content, and cannot be viably subbed with other classes, then there is a major conflict with the game’s design philosophy.

Healers have nothing to do with the argument that I responded to, which was that ten thieves (or any other group comp using ten of the same profession) ‘must’ be able to complete a raid.

Healers are relevant, because one of the key concerns here is that lack of a healer is the very reason that the 10-thief party would fail. It certainly wouldn’t be because 10 thieves lack DPS. With the way GW2 is designed, trying to add in healers could very likely mean that the healing profession is the only single profession that might be truly required to complete content. Other professions do still bring valuable aspects to a party, but none of them are required in the way a primary healer would be. And if a druid healer isn’t required, it will simply never be used because it’s not designed to do anything else.

What I am saying is that every time you exclude a profession from your raid group in favour of a different profession, you should end up losing out on something that you’re really going to miss, and ultimately, that almost invariably has to mean that one way or another, you lose a nice, fat chunk of your practical raid DPS.

Why?

Because the typical raid encounter can be reduced to a pretty simple question:

“Can you successfully deal with these mechanics while maintaining an average of at least x DPS for y time?”

If you can answer ‘yes’ to that question, you win. If you can’t, you wipe and will have to try again.

Everything about any fight that follows this formula ultimately boils down to either increasing your raid’s DPS or avoiding the loss of DPS.

That’s never been how GW2 was designed or balance. For the most part, DPS is DPS and it doesn’t matter all that much what profession it’s coming from. The biggest differences in DPS between the professions are probably direct/condi damage versus reflected damage, and the professions’ varying ability to provide DPS buffs to others.

evilunderling.9265:

mrstealth.6701:

The entire design philosophy of GW2 is for the profession to be balanced with each other so that any party composition is possible. That a certain profession or mix of professions is not required. That 10 of the same profession can complete any content, even if it’s not likely to be the best/fastest/easiest. In fact, that was a specific thing Anet was showing off before launch. Being able to complete dungeons of 5 of the same profession.

Whether you agree with it or not, or whether if fits your idea of what profession balance is, that is the intended design of GW2. Or at least it has been for the last 3 years.

It’s never really been the intended design to that degree — what they’ve promised is that you shouldn’t have to wait around for a member of one specific profession, and all signs point to that continuing to be the case.

But that doesn’t mean that full groups of ten of the same profession can or should be viable in all conceivable PvE content. That’s taking the original idea to an extreme.

I do agree that it’s a bit extreme, but it’s also something Anet specifically mentioned that they intended to be doable.

Not true.

We don’t know about HoT yet, but for 3 years, all the contents are base on dps, and the difficulty are base on some key defensive skills activation time (aegis/ stability), and all the offensive buffs stacking (25 might, fury, quickness, 25 vulnerable).

The good team makes the fight ends in a very short period of time, thus making all the contents trivial. It is never about healing, and is never required.

HoT may be different, but we are yet to see any of those, so you really can’t judge on things you haven’t see at all.

But for now, other than the raid that healers may potentially be needed, they’re no content in this game that requires a dedicated healer who doesn’t has anything other than healing. (no offensive and defensive buffs)

Iozeph.5617:

Ryou.2398:

Unholy Pillager.3791:

Iozeph.5617:

So are Druids going to be given the ability to blood sacrifice a party member, or a baby even, for a short duration boon during combat?

Say, a five-eight second channeled elite skill(after the fashion of the old guardian tomes) that summons an altar upon which any friendly player or NPC within range has a stone knife thrust into its chest by the Druid in order to create a field in the form of a slowly spreading pool of blood around them. Players standing in the pool receive the boon.

I’d be all for that -naysayers be kitten ed- you know… Seeing as we’re all so obsessed with verisimilitude here.

The whole human sacrifice thing was a fabrication by Caesar to garner support for his genocide in Gaul. Sorry to burst your bubble, but animal sacrifice is as close as you can get, and everyone did that.

Yep, totally made up crap, druids for what records are left have no evidence of doing any kind of sacrifices. I Do not think they even had evidence of animal sacrifices, that was something adopted later into celtic paganism I believe.

Actually the jury is still out one way or the other. With Strabo and Caesar it could be argued their writings are of a political nature but we just don’t know for certain. Even now we have only an incomplete picture/record of the Roman era.

Then you have the Lindow man, and the Alveston burials, both of which could be taken as evidence of sacrifice, a punishment, or in the case of Alveston, even cannibalism. Still, those are incomplete pictures.

What it comes down to is whether or not you want to go with what surviving written histories or accounts there are from the time, or whether, as has been done off and on with the Vikings, you choose to rehabilitate the Celtic and Druidic cultures to fall in line with whatever positive bias you hold.

Actually there is quite a bit of evidence out there on this, just like how almost all native americans where viewed as savages there is allot of mis info on them as well as other cultures out there because of historic figures.
http://druidnetwork.org/what-is-druidry/beliefs-and-definitions/articles/sacrifice/druids-and-human-sacrifice/
And this is not from another source.
Sacrifice" means “to make Sacred”, it does not mean “to kill”.

“Druids” were, and are, members of a Caste system in the Celtic Culture, and, while they are educated in a great variety of skills, including Ritual, they are not just Priests, but Doctors, Judges, and Teachers.

The Romans killed many, many people in their thousand year rule-some as burnt offerings to their Gods, some burnt just for fun. Celtic Culture has existed at least since 3000 bc. and still exists, and, while we are not afraid of War and Battle, we value Life, and the Gifts of Nature.

Aomine.5012:

mrstealth.6701:

evilunderling.9265:

mrstealth.6701:

Healers have everything to do with what’s being discussed in this thread. If the Druid is a powerful enough healer that they are required to complete content, and cannot be viably subbed with other classes, then there is a major conflict with the game’s design philosophy.

Healers have nothing to do with the argument that I responded to, which was that ten thieves (or any other group comp using ten of the same profession) ‘must’ be able to complete a raid.

Healers are relevant, because one of the key concerns here is that lack of a healer is the very reason that the 10-thief party would fail. It certainly wouldn’t be because 10 thieves lack DPS. With the way GW2 is designed, trying to add in healers could very likely mean that the healing profession is the only single profession that might be truly required to complete content. Other professions do still bring valuable aspects to a party, but none of them are required in the way a primary healer would be. And if a druid healer isn’t required, it will simply never be used because it’s not designed to do anything else.

What I am saying is that every time you exclude a profession from your raid group in favour of a different profession, you should end up losing out on something that you’re really going to miss, and ultimately, that almost invariably has to mean that one way or another, you lose a nice, fat chunk of your practical raid DPS.

Why?

Because the typical raid encounter can be reduced to a pretty simple question:

“Can you successfully deal with these mechanics while maintaining an average of at least x DPS for y time?”

If you can answer ‘yes’ to that question, you win. If you can’t, you wipe and will have to try again.

Everything about any fight that follows this formula ultimately boils down to either increasing your raid’s DPS or avoiding the loss of DPS.

That’s never been how GW2 was designed or balance. For the most part, DPS is DPS and it doesn’t matter all that much what profession it’s coming from. The biggest differences in DPS between the professions are probably direct/condi damage versus reflected damage, and the professions’ varying ability to provide DPS buffs to others.

evilunderling.9265:

mrstealth.6701:

The entire design philosophy of GW2 is for the profession to be balanced with each other so that any party composition is possible. That a certain profession or mix of professions is not required. That 10 of the same profession can complete any content, even if it’s not likely to be the best/fastest/easiest. In fact, that was a specific thing Anet was showing off before launch. Being able to complete dungeons of 5 of the same profession.

Whether you agree with it or not, or whether if fits your idea of what profession balance is, that is the intended design of GW2. Or at least it has been for the last 3 years.

It’s never really been the intended design to that degree — what they’ve promised is that you shouldn’t have to wait around for a member of one specific profession, and all signs point to that continuing to be the case.

But that doesn’t mean that full groups of ten of the same profession can or should be viable in all conceivable PvE content. That’s taking the original idea to an extreme.

I do agree that it’s a bit extreme, but it’s also something Anet specifically mentioned that they intended to be doable.

Not true.

We don’t know about HoT yet, but for 3 years, all the contents are base on dps, and the difficulty are base on some key defensive skills activation time (aegis/ stability), and all the offensive buffs stacking (25 might, fury, quickness, 25 vulnerable).

The good team makes the fight ends in a very short period of time, thus making all the contents trivial. It is never about healing, and is never required.

HoT may be different, but we are yet to see any of those, so you really can’t judge on things you haven’t see at all.

But for now, other than the raid that healers may potentially be needed, they’re no content in this game that requires a dedicated healer who doesn’t has anything other than healing. (no offensive and defensive buffs)

That was about HoT and Druids, not the rest of the game’s content. It’s a given that the Druid will be pretty much useless/redundant in all existing content. because all of it was designed to be completed while relying on self-healing and limited support.

Looking at the Druid I see a spec that is likely to be required for one aspect of the game (raids), going against the core design of the game, while being useless/unwanted in the rest of pve. The only other place I see Druid shining is in wvw, where it could potentially be extremely overpowered (which looks probable from what has been said).

I’d like to be wrong here, and see the Druid as just a viable option to take a more DPS-focused party that lacks other defense/support roles. But I see it being more likely that the Druid will be too powerful a healer for the rest of the party to make up for in its absence, without sacrificing too much DPS for support.

I really like the concept of the Druid, but I’m a bit worried about 2 things:
- Too much healing? I mean, it’s awesome to be able to heal that much, but I would feel a bit more safe if there was a bit less healing and a bit more damage. Nothing strong or meta, but except for raids where this healing would be required it’s hard to need all of that, especially in celestial form where we have 4 healing spells and few offensive utilities. I know that we will not stay in CF for long time, but I would still feel more safe if part of the healing would be converted in some kind of buff/damage.
- Events. As they work now, healing doesn’t count as partecipating in events. And that could be a problem as we will need to think about doing enough damage before thinking about supporting the other players.

Nothing to say instead about the staff, I love it.

mrstealth.6701:

That was about HoT and Druids, not the rest of the game’s content. It’s a given that the Druid will be pretty much useless/redundant in all existing content. because all of it was designed to be completed while relying on self-healing and limited support.

Looking at the Druid I see a spec that is likely to be required for one aspect of the game (raids), going against the core design of the game, while being useless/unwanted in the rest of pve. The only other place I see Druid shining is in wvw, where it could potentially be extremely overpowered (which looks probable from what has been said).

I’d like to be wrong here, and see the Druid as just a viable option to take a more DPS-focused party that lacks other defense/support roles. But I see it being more likely that the Druid will be too powerful a healer for the rest of the party to make up for in its absence, without sacrificing too much DPS for support.

Um, isn’t that how current specs work now? There are specs that are not optimal thus do not get played in PvE but are more useful and wanted in WvW or sPvP. I mean, do you suggest taking a trapper Ranger to dungeons or world bosses? Do you take bunker/celestial ele into Fractals?

Sarrs.4831:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

They’re really not.

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

It really isn’t. All of the other specializations offer a wider variety of tools that synergize with different build types. The druid doesn’t. The druid is the most uninspired and mono-tone specialization to be released. Repeating the equivocation fallacy of “specialization” over and over again doesn’t change this fact.

From the start of the game, Anet’s vision was to replace the MMO Holy Trinity (hard trinity – tank, dps, healer) with their own “Soft Trinity” DPS, Support, Tank. With Support includes both offensive (crowd control, snare, debilitating conditions, etc.) and defensive (heal, block, reflect, etc.)

Professions/Classes are not locked into a certain role but rather you can customize your build to perform certain roles better than others.
While this trinity somewhat exists in PvP and WvW (GvG fight with frontline and backline formations), in PvE it totally fell short as current PvE contents are badly designed to favor DPS DPS DPS.

So Anet is trying hard to address this in the upcoming expansion to restore “the balance”. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

Purecura.1795:

From the start of the game, Anet’s vision was to replace the MMO Holy Trinity (hard trinity – tank, dps, healer) with their own “Soft Trinity” DPS, Support, Tank. With Support includes both offensive (crowd control, snare, debilitating conditions, etc.) and defensive (heal, block, reflect, etc.)

Professions/Classes are not locked into a certain role but rather you can customize your build to perform certain roles better than others.
While this trinity somewhat exists in PvP and WvW (GvG fight with frontline and backline formations), in PvE it totally fell short as current PvE contents are badly designed to favor DPS DPS DPS.

So Anet is trying hard to address this in the upcoming expansion to restore “the balance”. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

Just an FYI,

Another poster in a different thread just completely plagiarized your post. He took it in its entirety posting it as his own. Truly a low act worthy of ridicule and shame. Sorry you had to be on the receiving end of this sort of morally bankrupt act. You might want to reach out to a moderator. Here is the post:

keenlam.4753:

DevilsVice.5801:

Did Anet forget when they launched GW2 that one of their primary claims to fame was removing the “MMO Holy Trinity” of Tank, DPS, Healer?

Or did that concept go out the window somewhere and I missed it?

This is a common misconception. From the start of the game, Anet’s vision was to replace the MMO Holy Trinity (hard trinity – tank, dps, healer) with their own “Soft Trinity” DPS, Support, Tank. With Support includes both offensive (crowd control, snare, debilitating conditions, etc.) and defensive (heal, block, reflect, etc.)

Professions/Classes are not locked into a certain role but rather you can customize your build to perform certain roles better than others.

While this trinity somewhat exists in PvP and WvW (GvG fight with frontline and backline formations), in PvE it totally fell short as current PvE contents are badly designed to favor DPS DPS DPS.

So Anet is trying hard to address this in the upcoming expansion to restore “the balance”. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

Seem like all druid traits is more toward support rather than offensive so I guess druid cannot be offensive healer
Noooo Dps for Druid only support =(

Ashen.2907:

poster in a different thread just completely plagiarized your post. He took it in its entirety posting it as his own. Truly a low act worthy of ridicule and shame. Sorry you had to be on the receiving end of this sort of morally bankrupt act. You might want to reach out to a moderator. Here is the post:

But… didn’t that other guy post first?

Why would anyone that wanted to roll a ranger ever want any of this junk?

Why does ANet HATE rangers?

Sandpit.3467:

Why would anyone that wanted to roll a ranger ever want any of this junk?

Why wouldn’t they? It’s something they couldn’t do before, and it should be fun to use.

Sandpit.3467:

Why does ANet HATE rangers?

Given that there are equally reasonable arguments in the wild to the effect that ANet hates warriors, guardians, mesmers, elementalists, necromancers, thieves, revenants, engineers, chocolate, fun, balance, and America, the obvious answer is that they don’t hate you, you just don’t like what they’re doing.

evilunderling.9265:

Sandpit.3467:

Why would anyone that wanted to roll a ranger ever want any of this junk?

Why wouldn’t they? It’s something they couldn’t do before, and it should be fun to use.

Sandpit.3467:

Why does ANet HATE rangers?

Given that there are equally reasonable arguments in the wild to the effect that ANet hates warriors, guardians, mesmers, elementalists, necromancers, thieves, revenants, engineers, chocolate, fun, balance, and America, the obvious answer is that they don’t hate you, you just don’t like what they’re doing.

Let’s not mention the golden child(elementalist) in a negative sentence.

I’m excited and happy with what I see with the druid along with hoping the berserker meta dies. Stoked!

My only complaint is the astral form. It falls a little into the colors of guardians. Would have preferred a nature avatar?

Loxsus.3841:

I’m excited and happy with what I see with the druid along with hoping the berserker meta dies. Stoked!

My only complaint is the astral form. It falls a little into the colors of guardians. Would have preferred a nature avatar?

ya the astral form looks very slapped together , it needs to have somthing more than a Stealth effect with stars around it , atleast have its own weapon to go with the form like the reapers scythe ect and agree with the " More nature-ish avatar"

Is this trash thread already 1600 comments?? Who in it’s right state of mind would read all this mash up?

Sandpit.3467:

Why would anyone that wanted to roll a ranger ever want any of this junk?

Why does ANet HATE rangers?

I think they love us right now and as a ranger day one (got my 3 year anniversary stuff) I’m stoked. Don’t speak for everyone.

Cheers, Gaile. Have a safe flight. o/

Sadly, the Druid isn’t going to be bringing me back to my Ranger. I’ll continue to play on my Ele, Thief, Guard, Warrior, and Engie. There’s no reason for me to bring a Druid over an ele in current content, and as soon as the Community has learned the new content, it’ll be shunned there too. Even in the Fractal 50s I pug we blast a water field when we need heals then we all go back to DPS… Why would I want to sacrifice any DPS when I don’t have to? There’s still no good reason to bring a Ranger-Druid into high level fractals (and I doubt we ever will unless Anet FORCES roles onto us like the Holy Trinity games do) . There won’t be even after the ice bow nerf. I’d still rather take an 3rd ele, Chronomancer, 2nd thief, or engie-Scrapper over a Ranger-Druid. And I’m finally being able to watch the the Druid reveal now as I haven’t been able to.

Druid Staff – Cool if you want to be a Healer. No reason to take it over my longbow for offense. My other weapon set is usually sword+axe, so I’m not going staff/LB… because that’s just dumb for dungeons/fractals. The staff simply can’t be buffed to the point that I would actually use it because then it wouldn’t be a Healer weapon like it is now. And the animation for the auto-attack is effing terrible. I thought it was a mesmer with a spine deformation when I saw it. Fix that. Now.

Druid in my Group – For me to take a Druid in my group it needs more offensive support, not healing. More offensive boons like might, Hell, even group stability. Something. It needs decent DPS. What I’m seeing in the video right now isn’t good, and even with zerker stats I doubt it’s going to be good, so again, why would I take it when the point of the encounters is to bring down health bars? The utilities are bad for groups. There’s nothing there but healing. Again, why would I take that when blasting water fields does the same thing? Why? If I see a Druid in my party = Insta-Kick. Or a Ranger running a wyvern that has a knockback…

Me and the Druid – I don’t play healers. Never have. Never will. So, yeah, I’m extremely disappointed even though I expected this hot mess. What I didn’t expect was the extreme lack of offensive options.
GLYPH of EMPOWERMENT: That glyph of empowerment is just… crap. No reason to take that BS. 5s of 10% damage? LOL. Maybe if it was 15s. Not worth slotting over Frost Spirit for Fractals/Dungeons, which is the only thing I do these days. Maybe if it has a 75% up time I could see taking it over QZ or FS, but not in it’s current state. In the current state it’s laughable.
GLYPH OF REJUVENATION: Needs water field. That’s the only thing to make me take it over TU. Radius needs to be 600.
GLYPH OF ALIGNMENT: WEAK WEAK WEAK. Again, why would I slot this over QZ or even Sic’ Em? WHY WOULD I DO THAT IRENIO WHEN THE POINT IS TO KILL THINGS? Radius needs to be 600 and ground targetable.
GLYPH of EQUALITY: WEAK WEAK WEAK. Not enough utility here for me to take it. Period. Why not add some offensive boons to this one as well? In it’s current state it’ll never see my bar even in the beta. It’s just bad. If boons are added some radius increase is needed.
GLYPH OF THE TIDES: STOP WITH THE KNOCKBACKS! We’re hated enough for that. Knockdown would’ve been fine. Terrible knockbacks. Incredibly unwanted in PVE.
CELESTIAL TRANSFORM GLYPHS: Nope. Again, we don’t need that much healing once the content is learned. Worthless. Just need to blast a water field. That’s it. Boom. Healing done. So, no reason to run those.

Druid Traits -
1) Minors – Expected.
2) Adept – Only one I’d take is Primal Echoes… but then again, I’m not going to use staff so that’s useless… so I guess flip a coin and take one of the other two because they’re equally worthless for my playstyle.
3) Master – Natural Stride is the obvious winner here since the other two are worthless to my playstyle.
4) GM – Ancient Seeds is what I’d take because it just sucks less than the other two.
There’s no damage modifiers or group offensive buffs so… There’s nothing I’m really interested in on the Druid trait line. It’s just a Healer line… which again, is not my playstyle.

CELESTIAL TRANSFORM – This is just worthless to me. There’s almost no damage and nothing in here that buffs party. And no, Natural Converg isn’t worth it. Maybe if there was good damage in the transformation it’d be worth taking, but there’s not… So, yeah. Worthless to me.

NEW PETS –
1) Wyvern – WHY THE KNOCKBACK? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? STOP STOP STOP STOP STOP WITH THE KNOCKBACKS!! Because of that I will instantly kick if possible if I see a Ranger or Druid with that pet, just like I do now when they bring in a bear, or just leave the group if it doesn’t happen. Oh, and they’re single target.. which would be ok if they hit like the cats, but they don’t. Did I mention cast times? HORRIBLE in that video I saw on dulfy. Just bad. For that much cast time they need to cleave.
2) Smokescale – Looks good.
3) Bristleback – Meh. Ranged is never good nor is condi since you can’t run Sinister stats on your pets.
4) Tiger – Probably good like the other cats

Side Note:
Irenio’s definition of “decent damage” and mine are drastically different and makes me sad. I have no love for Irenio. ZERO. He obviously hates my style of play. How do I know? THAT SMUG LOOK. And just confirms that I’m not going to be coming back to the Ranger as long as he is in charge of it, sadly.

Final Notes:
1) I’m glad those that wanted to play Healers finally get there chance. I’m sad that my Ranger’s first Elite Spec was sacrificed for that cause.
2) I zerker’d just fine in HoT. The only thing that just gave me problems was the smokescales… and I only had to add in a little bit of vigor to solve that problem.
3) Zerker Meta isn’t going anywhere. Once people learn the content, just like before, the least amount of healing will be taken. There’s no way around except for constantly changing the content so that we have to relearn it. So, unless they are going to go that route Zerker Meta (or rather, High DPS Meta) will stay. And going by Anet’s past history once content is in place, it’s not going to change unless there’s an exploit.
4) The Ranger is now pigeonholed into one role: Healer for new content. There’s absolutely no other reason to bring a Ranger because on average, they’re bad. It’s rare to find a good Ranger in high level fractals.
5) Yeah, you can play anyway you want on the Druid like Irenio said, as long as you want to play a Healer. GG.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Hi,

I’m sitting at the San Francisco airport right next to a Irenio. We’re just flying back to Seattle from TwitchCon. I apologize that a moderator merged this thread. That is not what we want. As soon as I get home I will try to undo the merging but it’s going to take some time.

I am very sorry this happened and apologize to you guys here on the forums and to Irenio because I know he wants to read what you have to say. We’ll get it tidied so that he can read your feedback. Thanks for understanding.

Thank you so much Gaile! its great to hear you are willing to help on this problem, have a safe flight!