Druid Healer Confirmed - Feedback [merged]
Seriously, now we are relegated to healing in dungeons, fractals, HoT, and i am sure it will be a forced thing in WvW as well. So much for hoping my ranger might be viable in the game as something more than " Heal, Heal, Heal".
I agree with you. ArenaNet has made a decision to give Rangers and Elite Spec that in order to maximize it’s value for team play has to be dedicated healer, but most rangers have little interest in being dedicated support. Meanwhile Eles and Guardians (many of both care a great deal about support) are left with the two Elite Specs that are meh.
Because the Druid forces such a significant play style change on the player it is really the outlier among elite specs. It is as if ArenaNet decided they needed to take one the Elite specs and hijack it for the purpose of dedicated healing and Ranger got the short straw (Guardian and Ele who’s player base naturally want this the most were left out of the drawing altogether).
None of the other elite specs force the player into a completely different tactical team role. So on that front the Druid sure seems to be an example of design meant to satisfy the developer and not the player base.
It’s as if ArenaNet is reminding the community “it’s out game, not yours… we aren’t going to give you want you want. We don’t care that you created a ranger because you enjoy play style x or that you created a Guardian because you enjoy play style Y… If you want to maximize your elite spec’s value to teams we are going to make you change your play style. We can’t give the Guardian this role because that’s what everyone expects us to do so instead we’re just going to make you change how you play the game or you can continue to stay a ranger and pretend Elite specs don’t exist.”
(edited by SamTheGuardian.2938)
Every character in the game has an effective self heal skill that would allow them to recover from damage that can’t completely avoid. As long as we all have strong self healing potential a dedicated healer will never be entirely MANDATORY and so the trinity will never be a hard rule.
However having someone who has a heavy healing build allows other players to focus entirely on DPS without worrying too much about their own health bars. In this way a healer can be very useful to a team but not mandatory to succeed.
The problem was that until now most of the game’s healing options were just far too weak to make any noticeable difference on the team’s health pools and were outright inferior to self healing. Now that healing specced characters can provide more healing to the group than pure self healing would provide they can actually find a role in a group, but that doesn’t mean the content will be impossible without a healer like in a trinity game.
Thanks to more eloquently saying what I’ve been trying to say too.
The fact that we might now have strong, significant healer-focused character doesn’t suddenly makes healing obligatory and required.
There is only 1 build for the entire elite spec. It has absolutely no synergy with anything the ranger has.
Name 1 Druid trait that goes great with a Ranger trait.
(edited by Nova Stiker.8396)
Well, since you’ve tested it out so extensively at this point, I’ll take your word for it.
Didn’t get a chance to give my feedback earlier, hopefully it doesn’t get buried.
Though I’m mostly going to be posting about changes I think would better for the class, I wanted to say I was blown away by it. I am crazy excited to play it.
Not sure if it’s too late or not, but I do think that being more plant based would be better than space based. Minor, cosmetic detail, but I think it fits much better. Glyph of the tides should be switched. Pushback is more defensive: it would be better suited for celestial form. The pull would be super useful for other aspects of the ranger too, like melee ranger or pet abilities. Tidal surge feels a little strange, being a channel that you can’t combo off of, since it’s channeled. I understand this is probably for balance purposes, but it feels strange not to be able to.
Other than that, love the synergy within the specialization. It’s wonderful, and my favorite thing about HoT.
Well, since you’ve tested it out so extensively at this point, I’ll take your word for it.
Well, what other builds do you have other than healing power spec, healer? It has almost no boons to utilize, almost no conditions and the damage is non-existent.
When your spec is almost all raw healing, what else is there possibly to build into?
so I watch a video on this finally and it seem like it be fun to try.
I know this probably a controversial opinion right now, but hear me out.
The Ranger has always been a very strange class. All the classes have been designed to be somewhat self-sufficient, but let’s just say whoever balances the Ranger saw the “wilderness survival” trait line and decided that the class should play like a paranoid survivalist who doesn’t trust anybody. The Ranger can do it all, but in order to be balanced it can’t do it all well. Every role the ranger can fill, another class can fill better. Want to play a ranged DPS ranger? Warrior, Dragonhunter, and Engineer do it better. Condition? Necromancer, Berserker, and Engineer have you beat. CC/Support? Chronomancer and Necomancer eclipse you.
Now, I know that most of you hoped for a spec that accentuates the ranged DPS aspect of the Ranger. Sure, Anet could have done that. However, one has to ask themselves what that would really bring to the table. DPS builds are a dime a dozen. It would have been by far the easiest out for Anet.
A dedicated support class on the other hand is truly unique. The closest thing we had before this was Ventari on the Revenant. Druid is the first class that has an exclusive emphasis on healing and support. This isn’t your standard “stand back and spam heal” MMO cleric either. I was immediately reminded of the Team Fortress 2 Medic when I saw the gameplay on the stream. It’s a dedicated healing class, but it’s one of the most fast-paced and chaotic in the game. You’re running around constantly, keeping your team healed while everybody on the enemy team prioritizes killing you. You win games. As Druid, you’ll be running all over the battle, healing constantly and protecting your team from projectiles and conditions while you build your ubercharge celestial avatar charge, then pop it to let your team push the objective.
In the span of a few hours, the Ranger has gone from being garbage to having a near-monopoly on the dedicated healer role, that the devs have said will be essential to high level fractals and raids. Rangers are desirable, coveted, and meta now. Even as a Mesmer main who is hyped like mad for Chronomancer, I envy you guys and I can’t fathom how you could see this as anything other than the best possible outcome.
Why take any other profession in the support role when I can just take a druid who can apparently support 20-30 people according to the live stream. Are there any other classes who can do this? I don’t understand why it went so over the top, doesn’t this defeat the idea of “balance” at all??
Of course the majority of classes are viable in the damage dealer role, whereas in the healer role, the druid seems to surpass all the rest.
http://strawpoll.me/3648686/r Queue for PvP from any map. Vote Here. Zojoel [ASAP Zerg]
(edited by Jelzouki.4128)
Well, since you’ve tested it out so extensively at this point, I’ll take your word for it.
Well, what other builds do you have other than healing power spec, healer? It has almost no boons to utilize, almost no conditions and the damage is non-existent.
When your spec is almost all raw healing, what else is there possible to build into?
When you spec druid, the rest of the ranger doesn’t stop existing. It’s one trait line. Try to think a little more dynamically about it.
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.
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Druid
Show me a single freaking word about solar\lunar magick! We’re NOT speaking about real existed druids, we’re in the game where own lore exists.
So yes, ArenaNET broke the lore.
Quote: "…the Druids actually shed their physical bodies to become one with nature. The Druids now exist as spirits, appearing similar to Oakhearts. " They shed they body not with cosmos\astral\sun\moon\celestial forms\etc but with NATURE.
Open any Members link there and you WON’T find (again) a single word about solar\lunar magick\celestial form.
Look it’s simple. Players complain having rangers in a party is selfish. Anet makes it so that having a ranger in party can benefit the group. It’ll be hard to call rangers selfish now. lol
the original Ranger was Strider(Aragorn) who was reknowned throughout Middle Earth as a great healer as well as warrior………………………………………..the basis of all fantasy sword/torch longbow wielding bad mofo that will bring you back from the dead with herbs and care of spirit
I know this but strider also meant a master of the area, from my understanding in the books it was kind of presented this way, so they are not limited to only what arogorn uses in combat. And just because the name is ranger there does not mean it was not under other names previously just saying.
I think it’s a bit premature to make a judgment when we haven’t even seen more than parts of one HoT zone, let alone the raid.
Nalhadia – Kaineng
Well, since you’ve tested it out so extensively at this point, I’ll take your word for it.
Well, what other builds do you have other than healing power spec, healer? It has almost no boons to utilize, almost no conditions and the damage is non-existent.
When your spec is almost all raw healing, what else is there possible to build into?
When you spec druid, the rest of the ranger doesn’t stop existing. It’s one trait line. Try to think a little more dynamically about it.
That’s exactly the issue.
What 2 traitlines goes good with Druid that turns it into something other than healer? As of right now, going power or condi will always be better without Druid.
(edited by Nova Stiker.8396)
To piggy-back off what ItIsFinished is saying:
Meanwhile, in the other profession subforums:
-The elementalists are claiming the Druid outperforms both the water and earth attunements.
-Engineers are muttering both about the Druid’s lockdown potential and also Irenio’s apparent favoritism. (I actually feel for them on this one and hope they get some support, I’ll readily admit Irenio seemed waaaaay more enthusiastic about the Druid than he did the Scrapper. Hopefully he gives our engineer brothers some love, god knows they need it just as much as rangers do.)
-The thieves have listed the Druid as their number 1 kill priority and may or may not be having a nervous breakdown.
-Nothing about the Druid in the warrior subforum, which isn’t exactly shocking as warriors and Druids are literal polar opposites. I’m a little surprised they haven’t put together a “how do we kill this thing” thread, though.
-Mesmers are eyeing the Druid warily but aren’t really concerned.
-Necromancers are muttering about the Druid’s “Life Shroud” and how it retains its utilities when the Death Shroud does not.
-Revenants are outright questioning Ventari’s relevance.
-And lastly, the poor guardians may or may not be having a profession-wide existential crisis. Their main Druid reaction thread is blatantly questioning the guardian’s continuing viability and there’s even a second one asking Irenio to redesign the Dragon Hunter. Granted, that second one may very well be a joke, but something tells me they might be serious.
From what I’ve seen and browsed, most, if not all of the other professions (at least the subset of players that post of the forums, which, granted, is a small amount) agree that the Druid is a top-tier elite specialization that could very well shake up the PvP and WvW scenes, and none of them are writing it off as worthless or a “pile of garbage”. I myself am 100% going to be pulling my ranger (my first character! squeeeee) off the shelf and experimenting heavily with the Druid and what it has to offer.
So yeah, it might be you.
I was really concerned at first that druid would end up being a pretty bad elite spec, but after the reveal I really like it even though I’m not much of a healer fan. Most of the complaints from other profession forums are 1-dimensional and do not take into consideration every factor that is needed for balance.
For example, a staff ele can do enormous damage while doing some healing and giving boons at the same time. They even have a little bit of CC that will hopefully become more useful in HoT content. Also, necromancer’s shroud has a second health bar and thus doesn’t need to have utilities accessible. While some would argue that celestial form’s healing is the equivalent to the 2nd life bar, I would ask them how I can deal damage equivalent to that of death shroud.
Fortunately, most of the posters were reasonable and quickly pointed these things out in the druid-related threads of other profession sub-forums. However, the guardian sub-forum seems to be somewhat of an exception.
Personally, I am really happy that you guys are finally getting something good after so many years and I hope that you enjoy it. Irenio should also keep up the good work with the ranger balance changes, because more will be needed for sure.
Oh I completely agree with you, don’t worry. My post was more of a humorous poke at the varying reactions of the other professions and how they were initially polar opposites of ranger reactions. A lot of rangers were eyeing the Druid like it might shank them in their sleep, and meanwhile everyone else is overreacting in the complete opposite direction. The guardian posts alone were out of this world.
I found it all pretty funny, truthfully.
Well, since you’ve tested it out so extensively at this point, I’ll take your word for it.
Well, what other builds do you have other than healing power spec, healer? It has almost no boons to utilize, almost no conditions and the damage is non-existent.
When your spec is almost all raw healing, what else is there possibly to build into?
To be fair, that’s one out of three specs.
You could spec into bastmastery for better pets, marksmanship and work longbow into your rotation, skirmishing for the every valued spotter buff and a potential celestial shortbow build.
Why not even combine the two using a zealot armor and weapons/celestial trinkets stat combination of longbow and staff with marksmanship/skirmishing/druid, utilizing quick draw to make use of both aspects.
It’s already been shown that quick draw allows for a powerful longbow rotation of rapid fire+barrage+rapid fire before switching back to the other weapon, which itself also benefits from quick draw, which would allow you to then use ancestral grace+astral wisp+ancestral grace
With both your weapons having long range, and your healing rotation giving access to rapid ancestral graces, you could dart into the melee line, heal them, then back out to heal the back line, then switch to longbow and fire off your offensive rotation again once barrage is off cooldown.
Alternatively, if you want to be more offensive and controlly and less heal oriented, use your quick draw to double cast vine surge to immobilise enemies, and, depending on how easy it is to hit with multiple impacts, it may deal noticable damage.
(edited by Eponet.4829)
Can I have your stuff?
No, seriously, complaining about something that you didn’t preorder and are supposedly never going to buy (you will!) is the lamest crap ever.
To be fair so is posting in the forum your complaining about.
What? That doesn’t make any sense? I’m not complaining about any forum you jerk, I’m personally very excited for Druid and I think it’s great that we’re finally seeing some relevancy in the competitive space.
NSP’s resident crazy-eyed sylvari
Well, since you’ve tested it out so extensively at this point, I’ll take your word for it.
Well, what other builds do you have other than healing power spec, healer? It has almost no boons to utilize, almost no conditions and the damage is non-existent.
When your spec is almost all raw healing, what else is there possible to build into?
When you spec druid, the rest of the ranger doesn’t stop existing. It’s one trait line. Try to think a little more dynamically about it.
That’s exactly the issue.
What 2 traitlines goes good with Druid that turns it into something other than healer?
You mean do as much damage as you can with two traitlines while providing some possibly much needed healing in raids?
Sounds good to me.
Do you mean you have one single trait line that you can’t use to squeeze every single drop of DPS out of it.
I’m not seeing the issue here.
Op, you don’t find it rude to accuse someone of lying? Have you ever considered you have a bias that imposed a certain viewpoint of the game’s situation and balance? And would it be a bad thing to take in the perspectives of other players in regards to balance, previous, current and future?
Jack of all trades classes always existed in mmorpgs, usually they can fill any hole in a group on the spot and thats what made then liked in groups but they would also offer a few unique buffs as well, anyways I do agree with you, but every mmo has a self sufficient class that does not need to rely on others.
There is only 1 build for the entire elite spec.
When did you get to test the Druid?
Why take any other profession in the support role when I can just take a druid who can apparently support 20-30 people according to the live stream. Are there any other classes who can do this? I don’t understand why it went so over the top, doesn’t this defeat the idea of “balance” at all??
Of course the majority of classes are viable in the damage dealer role, whereas in the healer role, the druid seems to surpass all the rest.
Nice that you got to test the Druid before it even was released in game.
I will miss the free-for-all active combat nature of the game.
I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.
Why take any other profession in the support role when I can just take a druid who can apparently support 20-30 people according to the live stream. Are there any other classes who can do this? I don’t understand why it went so over the top, doesn’t this defeat the idea of “balance” at all??
Of course the majority of classes are viable in the damage dealer role, whereas in the healer role, the druid seems to surpass all the rest.
Nice that you got to test the Druid before it even was released in game.
I didn’t, I’m taking the word of an arena net developer. Lose the sass.
http://strawpoll.me/3648686/r Queue for PvP from any map. Vote Here. Zojoel [ASAP Zerg]
Well, since you’ve tested it out so extensively at this point, I’ll take your word for it.
Well, what other builds do you have other than healing power spec, healer? It has almost no boons to utilize, almost no conditions and the damage is non-existent.
When your spec is almost all raw healing, what else is there possible to build into?
When you spec druid, the rest of the ranger doesn’t stop existing. It’s one trait line. Try to think a little more dynamically about it.
That’s exactly the issue.
What 2 traitlines goes good with Druid that turns it into something other than healer?
What trait lines are you using now VS one for the elite spec and access to the utilities? Based on that and what you want to do, build with it and make something useful.
As of right now, going power or condi will always be better without Druid.
You’re wrong. Because again, going into the druid line doesn’t make the rest of your ranger stop working.
Healer is the obvious option, but several of the druid glyphs offer excellent offensive utility and hey, lets say you don’t like staves. Don’t use one. That’s an option.
Keep a traditional ranger load out in favor of a more DPS approach.
You’ll still have access to the celestial form for, say, condi cleanse with the new trait. Pop it on and off.
Use your head.
Everyone’s complaining about the healing focus of Druid, and I’m just here wondering why the hell they have a celestial form and what the hell that has to do with the druid theme?
Please make invigorating bond atleast 450 radius
Healing Power on Pets
Champion Illusionist Champion Hunter Champion Phantom Champion Magus
I have been reading a lot of the feedback on the druid reveal and it seems to be severely divided between people who are loving it and those who are crestfallen as it is not what they were dead set on. Let’s take a look at what this situation is.
From what we have seen with the staff and glyphs of this new specialization its packing a ton of healing. This is opening up a new path for rangers to take, as it currently stands with what rangers can do now based on our “metas” you can go high burst with LB/ SA, GS High condi with SB/AT with traps, or even go tanky with GS/SA and signets. There are a few other scattered builds that are super effective as certain things but we have no real strong spot when it comes to group support. The druid is the new answer to that, a specialization that brings a strict support role to the ranger. It seems that theres a massive number of people who are very upset about the route this specialization is takin ranger. I’ll even admit I’m somewhat disappointed that the specialization and staff are nearly entirely devoted to healing. I was hoping for some traits and attacks based around manipulating plants and vines, which there is 1 of each, but its not something that seems like it will synergize well with the existing longbow and other specializations at this stage. However I think this spec will go well with nature magic and beast mastery which don’t get nearly as much attention as marksmanship, skirmishing and wilderness survival.
When it comes to PvP I can see a lot of ways ranger is gonna be a support powerhouse with healing, condi removal and some good CC which in this area of the game could actually synergize well with existing weapons and specializations.
For those of you who don’t understand how druid fits in with ranger, it follows on lore regarding who druids were in guild wars 1 lore. Ancient krytans to ventured into the jungle to become one with nature, eventually achieving this and became transcendant spirits of nature. So the whole celestial avatar thing actually does fit in with it…
Now that I’ve gone over the new speciallization let’s take a look at the stuff revealed about ranger NOT related to druid that we should be EQUALLY concerned AND excited for. New PETS and BALANCE changes for the EXISTING specializations AND pets. Yes they are addressing our current specs inequality and our pets severely damaged artificial intelligence. How far will they go concerning making our pets viable, who knows? Let us pray to Melandru -.-; Now for the new Pets.
Mother kittening wyverns… WYVERNS for those of you who saw that, don’t tell me you didn’t get eroused by that pet flying up into the sky and spraying napalm all over the battlefield. For those of you who didn’t, go to youtube and watch it NOW. This means we will be getting pets that can supply a firefield, as well at a lightning field with the lightning wyvern. The new misthound which if you played the first open beta you might remember fighting some of those annoying pieces of kitten. Some sort of needle shooting porcupine things, and a whole host of other creatures and dinosaurs not yet revealed… MOTHER kittenING DINOSAUR PETS.
Now that I’ve given my brief overview of what I saw and got out of the ranger reveal, what would you guys like to contribute, and please be intellectual about your opinions and really bring something good to the conversation.
Why take anything else? Because raw healing on a fully committed Mantra Mesmer is insane and a fully committed Guardian healer is mixing decent HoTs with mass Aegis, blinds, and reflects.
Druid pushes raw numbers. Like a boss (though I’m still not convinced I can’t out green them on a Mesmer). A commited Ele is also no slouch at healing and brings 3 other on-demand modes to the table. Devs have already come on to say that 40 heals/400(!!) attacks to charge celestial form makes it more of a burst heal option and I’m seeing a lot of defensive layering is MISSING from the Druid. The absence of stability is going to be keenly felt.
“You keep saying ‘its unfair.’
I wonder what your basis for comparison is…”
- Jareth, King of Goblins.
I wonder what your basis for comparison is…”
- Jareth, King of Goblins.
I think I’m more waiting till beta till I make any final judgements of the Druid.
But I do love the new pets.
Jadis Narnia-Sylvari Ranger of [EDGE]
Dragonbrand
Dragonbrand
Gotta love the ranger community.
Well, since you’ve tested it out so extensively at this point, I’ll take your word for it.
Well, what other builds do you have other than healing power spec, healer? It has almost no boons to utilize, almost no conditions and the damage is non-existent.
When your spec is almost all raw healing, what else is there possible to build into?
When you spec druid, the rest of the ranger doesn’t stop existing. It’s one trait line. Try to think a little more dynamically about it.
That’s exactly the issue.
What 2 traitlines goes good with Druid that turns it into something other than healer?
You mean do as much damage as you can with two traitlines while providing some possibly much needed healing in raids?
Sounds good to me.
Do you mean you have one single trait line that you can’t use to squeeze every single drop of DPS out of it.
I’m not seeing the issue here.
The issue is plain as day, it has absolutely no synergy with anything else the ranger has.
-Tempest is really good with auras, works great with fire, air and water.
-Chronomancer is shatterspike 2.0, which is a problem but still it has synergy.
-Dragonhunter has great synergy with Virtues, Valor and Zeal.
-Berserker has great synergy with nearly any weapon and nearly all traitlines.
-Reaper works great with Soul Reaping, Death Magic and Spite.
The point is, depending on your other traits depends on the effectiveness of the elite spec.
Druid is just sort of there for healing, because it’s so healing focused instead of support focused, it really misses it’s mark with so many traits. Traits that benefit from boons or boon sharing is pointless for Druids, making Nature Magic fall flat.
Stating “oh, well, it is there for extra healing!” well so is Water Magic and that isn’t an elite spec. Even then, Water Magic can also benefit from Fire and Arcana.
(edited by Nova Stiker.8396)
Well I really can’t say about the lore itself. What I can is tell you that nature is a lot more than plant life and animal life. Would you say that is fair to say that Spring and all the seasons would fit as an aspect of Druid? Life and overgrowth? Even plants and animals?
I’d say so. Without the sun’s energy life wouldn’t be possible (no plants, no animals). The seasons are measured in moon cycles (used to be at least). A druid that is one with nature being able to understand it on a higher level than the mundane leaf, or tree, sounds fitting tome. That’s me though!
Why take any other profession in the support role when I can just take a druid who can apparently support 20-30 people according to the live stream. Are there any other classes who can do this? I don’t understand why it went so over the top, doesn’t this defeat the idea of “balance” at all??
Of course the majority of classes are viable in the damage dealer role, whereas in the healer role, the druid seems to surpass all the rest.
Nice that you got to test the Druid before it even was released in game.
I didn’t, I’m taking the word of an arena net developer. Lose the sass.
And why don’t you stop making wild speculations and wait for the beta before you diss the druid.
Why do people think that you need to spec defensively to play druid. Why not kitten to the wallz damage with marauder.
I mean, If you payed attention to the staff auto attack in the stream you would have noticed that it actually does quite a lot of damage and is probably non reflectable, like the Mesmer GS auto.
The spec will also give us innate condition removal and sustain which has great base values thus making it very usable even with DPS stats.
For example:
You play a LB/Staff or GS/Staff marauder with WS, BM/NM and Druid.
Standard WS utilities TU, QZ, LR, SoS and Entangle. But for the Druid line you take Druidic clarity trait, Celestial shadow and Ancient seeds.
So you have the standard ranger setup with a twist. Oh you got condi bombed and/or brought down to low HPs. Go into celestial spirit mode, condi cleanse, cast the water bubble, blast it with the 3 skill and go out of it while gaining stealth and super speed to relocate. Seems good to me.
Celestial mode is a very good tool towards more combos and more play. And people outright dismiss it because they do not want to be healers. You do not have to be a bunker, you just got some innate sustain!!!
It looked like staff 3 only moves you across the ground like ride the lighting or mist form. That is the perfect skill to become a teleport, which is something rangers have desperately needed in PvP. It also seems odd that the weapon doesn’t offer any real condi pressure, you’d think the vines would poison or bleed. It would also be nice to finally have a weapon that reliably applied a condition on its auto attack.
Glyphs are completely underwhelming. Most aren’t even close to being worth the risk of getting in melee range. Consider adding outgoings boons to them, have them steal boons from enemies, make them ground targeted, give them a larger radius, effects that last longer, or pretty much anything.
As it stands the only thing I can see worth taking is the trait line for the condi dump and the crazy sustain. The staff and glyphs look unfinished.
Jim Hunter when my other account isn’t suspended
Well, since you’ve tested it out so extensively at this point, I’ll take your word for it.
Well, what other builds do you have other than healing power spec, healer? It has almost no boons to utilize, almost no conditions and the damage is non-existent.
When your spec is almost all raw healing, what else is there possible to build into?
When you spec druid, the rest of the ranger doesn’t stop existing. It’s one trait line. Try to think a little more dynamically about it.
That’s exactly the issue.
What 2 traitlines goes good with Druid that turns it into something other than healer?
You mean do as much damage as you can with two traitlines while providing some possibly much needed healing in raids?
Sounds good to me.
Do you mean you have one single trait line that you can’t use to squeeze every single drop of DPS out of it.
I’m not seeing the issue here.
You didn’t actually answer her/his question.
I’m curious to know too. What trait lines do you see being the best options for a hybrid build? Personally, the staff seems so integral to their playstyle that I have trouble envisioning a build that doesn’t utilise quick draw.
Why take any other profession in the support role when I can just take a druid who can apparently support 20-30 people according to the live stream. Are there any other classes who can do this? I don’t understand why it went so over the top, doesn’t this defeat the idea of “balance” at all??
Of course the majority of classes are viable in the damage dealer role, whereas in the healer role, the druid seems to surpass all the rest.
Nice that you got to test the Druid before it even was released in game.
I didn’t, I’m taking the word of an arena net developer. Lose the sass.
And why don’t you stop making wild speculations and wait for the beta before you diss the druid.
It’s not a wild speculation it is a logical extrapolation from their own description of the specialisations abilities. Granted Anet’s hype and reality have a tendency to diverge but it is all we have to go on so far.
Some of the glyphs look like they could be blast finishers. Would be cool if they were.
Speaking of glyphs, I feel they become much better with the trait. Considering most of them are low CD, having an AOE heal and condi cleanse seems good.
Wont know until its tested but I am hoping that any weapon swap traits proc when you enter/leave Celestial Avatar.
Could be insane to have Quickdraw proc with Lunar Surge (CA3) or Natural Convergence (CA5).
They do if they are off CD.
The lore doesn’t super bother me, except that I think the OP is right that they went way to close to a guardian thematically. I think its a horrible design for a spec though because…wow…so many heals going off it’s a little ridiculous to keep track of them all. And there class mechanic wasn’t so much adjusted and made more exciting than it was just supplemented by a completely new and independent class mechanic. I guess they just couldn’t think of anything else to do with pets. It’s one final disappointment in a long string of HoT disappointments.
Not at all. Druid and the new pets clearly took a great deal of work to put together, likely far more than any of the other specializations. Thus it would make sense that it would be last. Also I really doubt they are worried about such a dedicated healer scaring people off. In fact if anything it would probably bring more people in from other MMOs than it scares off.
I actually like the Spec…. wouldn’t call it druid though. It seems that, despite the new utility skills, if you wanted to make the druid you had in mind, you would have to pick some racial skills. This would be easy for Norn, Humans, and Sylvari… you might not be as powerful, but you would fit the theme you had in mind.
Breaking the meta away from zerker, is such a game changer, I’ll believe it when I see it. As is this spec only really does one thing, heal like crazy. I seriously doubt this will be remarkably popular come the beta weekend, when ranger need 3 mins to kill something the other classes drop in 30 secs. Conceptually a support roll is fine, but this is pigeon holing. There isn’t wiggle room or really any decent synergy. This may play great with the raids, but I’m fairly sure many in the player base will want nothing at all to do with this.
I don’t like it. It feels like there is not synergy with the other trait lines.
The new druid skills offer zero damage output. Go full healing bot = good group sustain but zero damage output thus dragging the fights longer. HoT has no new dungeons and the existing ones can still be done fast and smooth without a healer so i see no point in dragging along a druid in fractals / dungeons.
I feel Druid will only be needed to raid contents, since in the rest of the open world content is pretty much unnecessary to have one.
This is not how i imagined my beloved ranger to be. When i rolled ranger as main when i started GW2 i was intrigued by the the whole hunter / trapper aspect using pets as companions. I felt Guardian / Elementalist were best suited for the “healing” part of the game. I would be more than happy if they just fixed the pets AI and offered some minor changes to fix the so many problems of the class, not being forced to be a healing bot.
I guess people who really wanted a dedicated healing class are pretty exited about it, and i get the feeling the people celebrating in this forum have never played ranger before. They just saw “OMG DRUID HEALER SO COOL” and just flood the forums, but for me the whole hunter theme is gone now.
I guess the whole events thing need to be revamp now for people that opt to go full healing bots…. else they’ll stack in seeing bronze for the rest of their lives.
tl;dr Dissapointed by the Druid line.
Yea the Druid was nothing I had hoped for, but its not bad. Rangers still not gonna be picked up for dungeon/fractals, but I think we’ll see it used more often in WvW and PvP and maybe Raids depending how its designed
I have never EVER not been booted from a dungeon or fractal for being a ranger. I think this urban myth should just die already
I’m not saying that rangers will get booted from dungeons/fractals. Rangers are just… not as desirable as other classes?